After scoring big primary wins and gaining the support of a slew of super delegates, Tom Groff was on track to secure the Democratic nomination. The candidate in second place, Ralph Kitely, was vowing to take the fight for the nomination all the way to the convention if he had to, but the prevailing political wisdom was that Tom would ask the third placed candidate, Kathryn Wendt, to be his running mate in exchange for her dropping out of the race and asking her delegates to support Tom. The country was all set for a general election showdown between Jim Balmer and Tom Groff, and with this being the state of play in US politics it was decided by the goose that they somehow needed to meet with him and explain to him the events that were taking place that he was a central player in.

"He's a presidential candidate, the security around him is air tight, we can't just go up to him and ask him if we can have a chat," Robert said to the goose.

They were back at home with the penguin and had met and spoken with the owl and the rooster and were informed by them of Sonya's visit and the developments vis-à-vis the incident with Fyodor and the banana and the fallout from Jim Balmer's disastrous press conference with the Russian prime minister. The raven's coalition was falling apart, like it always did when the members inevitably prioritized their own personal ambitions over the raven's singular grand ambition. These developments made it imperative that they find a way to make contact with Tom Groff immediately.

"Just put yourselves some place where he'll be able to see the goose, if you do that then he'll want to make contact with you, which will make things a lot easier," the rooster suggested.

"Why would that make things easier?" Robert asked.

"Tom Groff is a member of The Church of the Golden Goose, if he sees a suspicious looking goose it'll pique his curiosity," the owl answered.

Robert hadn't awakened the owl and the rooster when they returned to the house and found them there; with the egg being so close to hatching the goose's advice was that they wait to awaken them and do so in a place where there was little risk of what hatched from the egg being seen by people. Robert asked the goose again to tell him what was going to hatch from the egg and again the goose refused, saying that it didn't want to ruin the surprise for Robert. The truth was that the goose didn't know what was going to hatch from the egg. The creatures that hatched from the eggs varied depending on the energies that the egg had absorbed and the state of the world into which the creature was being birthed. The last time that the goose had done the pilgrimage the egg had hatched into a golden scarab beetle with a bejeweled hide, the time before that it had hatched into a red and white fox with a flaming tail. The fact that the Behemoth had hatched from the red egg meant that the raven had done everything that it needed to do to make the strongest possible creature hatch from the egg. The last time that the raven had managed to summon the Behemoth it had won, and if it won this time, with the state that the world was in, the goose wasn't sure if there would be a way back from what the raven and its disciples would wreak upon the world. For the raven to be truly defeated their victory needed to be absolute, because under the current circumstances failure for the raven didn't entirely nullify it as a threat, there were too many moving pieces involved and unless they were able to ensure that they were all adequately dealt with there would be opportunities for the raven to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It was for this reason that the goose was so anxious for them to make contact with Tom Groff. He was one of two remaining pieces left for the goose to bring into the fold, the other being Ryan who, with the cloud of the cat's rape accusation hanging over him, couldn't be brought into the fold just yet; if his leaks were in any way construed to be in support of Tom Groff or Sonya they would be accused of colluding with a rapist which would negate the impact of his leaks. The cat needed to be gotten in touch with and her cooperation needed to be secured, and for that they needed the Oracle, whose cooperation in such a matter was far from a sure thing. It was considered inappropriate for the Oracle to intervene in matters between guardians aligned with the goose and guardians aligned with the raven and the Oracle took this tradition very seriously and had thus far avoided violating it, but with the stakes so high and the Behemoth on the loose the goose was hoping that it could prevail upon the Oracle to disregard that antiquated tradition.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Was the Oracle's response to the goose's request.

"I was hoping that you would appreciate the extraordinary circumstances that we are in and set aside your fidelity to this stupid tradition," the goose replied.

"It's not stupid, it guarantees fairness, which is why it is unbreakable."

"It's only a tradition, it's not an iron clad rule."

"We treat it as if it is an iron clad rule."

"Not always, the raven's Oracle once spoke with the leviathan and tried to convince it to go over to their side after it had been awakened by the blue egg."

"Trust me, you don't want to know what happened to him after that."

The goose realized that it was pointless for it to continue trying to sway the Oracle; she wasn't going to budge on this, and so another solution would need to be found for getting the cat to retract its accusation.

"I've already given the cat assurances that if she left the raven I would make sure that she was protected, can I have your word that I'll be able to keep my promise to her?"

"As long as I'm not directly involved in getting her to cross over you can do whatever you want, but I would warn you about putting too much trust in the cat, many have believed they could trust her and gotten their fingers burned, none more so than the Trojans. You were there, you saw firsthand the kind of destruction that she can produce with her powers of seduction."

"I know, but this time for some reason things feel different. She's given us something of extremely high value which, if we make proper use of it, could be the final nail in Jim Balmer's coffin."

"I just hope you know what you're doing."

"Why would the cat do that to Ryan after you had agreed to help her in exchange for her helping us?" Jessie asked the goose.

"The cat is a very complicated character, because of what she experienced as part of the Zodiac she doesn't feel that it's safe for her to trust anybody, which is why she's always playing both sides and why the raven is able to exercise such control over her by using her past to demean her and make her feel like the only worth that she has is as the raven's pawn."

"That's awful, we have to help her," Jessie said.

"I've tried helping her, every time she's gone back to the raven. In the case of Troy she learned during her time in the city as part of the royal court that King Priam always took the advice of his high priest and that the high priest would never stand for the desecration of anything that stood as a monument to the gods. The cat passed this piece of information on to the raven, who passed it on to Agamemnon who brought it up during a conversation which Odysseus was in earshot of, and soon after the Trojan Horse was built, and we all know what happened next."

"Could she have been sent here as a Trojan horse?" Robert asked.

"What she gave us was genuine, so I don't think so," the goose answered.

"You know, Kyle may not be of any use to us as Solomon but he can still be useful, and he has been useful. He's still leaking, he's just not doing it through Solomon, he's leaking directly to the media," the owl said.

"If that's the case then all we need to do is establish a channel of communication between him and the owl," the rooster said.

"He has a private e-mail account that he uses only for communicating with his mother, we can contact him on that," the owl said.

Ryan hadn't left Copenhagen since he had been accused of rape. In the days after the news broke he holed himself up in his hotel room and watched from his window as the crowd of people that gathered in the street outside of the hotel to show their support for him steadily grew. By the third day the crowd had grown so big that traffic on the road had to be diverted away from the hotel. When Ryan opened his third floor hotel room window and waved to the crowd he was greeted by a huge roar of support. In his supporters' minds there wasn't the slightest possibility of the accusations against him being true, and seeing how loyal to him they were, Ryan decided that he needed to show them that their loyalty wasn't misplaced. He left his hotel room and went downstairs to be with his supporters and show his appreciation to them for standing by him through all of this. Ryan walked out of the hotel's front entrance of the hotel expecting to be mobbed by the crowd; instead, they all stood still and silent, waiting for him to speak. One of the members of the crowd, a young woman who looked no older than twenty, stepped forward and handed Ryan a megaphone. Looking around at their expectant faces, Ryan recognized the importance of projecting an image of strength and defiance.

"First of all I want to thank you all for showing me so much support during this difficult time."

The crowd cheered as their way of communicating to Ryan that their unwavering support was never in doubt. "We never believed her!" One of the members of the crowd yelled, "That woman is a lying bitch!" Another one yelled.

"Now, as to the accusation that has been made against me, I want to make it absolutely clear that raping a woman is something that I would never do, and that this is all nothing but an orchestrated effort to smear me because they think that if they do then their dirty secrets will be safe."

Groans, boos and hisses emanated from the crowd, all of whom agreed with Ryan's assessment of why this recent sequence of events had transpired.

"What they don't understand is that they'll never be safe from me."

The crowd cheered loudly again.

"The world's rich and powerful, that have achieved their wealth and influence through a lifetime of underhanded and criminal deeds, are going to continue seeing those deeds being exposed to the harsh light of day."

The crowd erupted into a huge cheer after Ryan said this. Ryan returned the megaphone to the girl that had given it to him, waved to the crowd and clenched his fingers into a fist of defiance before going back into the hotel. True to his word, Ryan continued the mission of Solomon by leaking information that he'd obtained through hacking directly to news outlets. The story about how Fyodor Milichenko had squandered his family's fortune was the product of financial documents that Ryan sent to The Guardian, and he followed this up shortly after by getting his hands on more financial documents and sending them to the New York Times, this time the documents pertained to an off the books revenue stream between Russia and Prism Capital, which increased the pressure on Jim Balmer to fully explain what the nature of his relationship with David Huntsman was. Having once been considered a lock for The White House, Jim Balmer was now permanently on the defensive about scandals that were threatening to destroy his campaign. As a man of faith Jim couldn't help but look at the myriad of political struggles that he was having as punishment from God for working against the goose and, by association, Jesus Christ. His political travails caused Jim to have a full blown crisis of faith, which affected his campaigning. The bombastic and incendiary speeches that had become the trademark of his campaign disappeared and were replaced by appeals from Jim Balmer to remember that as Christians they were meant to first and foremost practice mercy and forgiveness. The crowds at his rallies didn't like hearing this from him and they let him know it by booing him and in many cases leaving early. The momentum that Jim Balmer was losing was being picked up by Tom Groff, who, after securing the number of delegates that he needed to win the nomination, had pivoted to a general election message warning about the dangers posed by Jim Balmer's Christian extremism. He hadn't officially announced her as his running mate yet but Kathryn Wendt was appearing with Tom at all of his events and it was generally assumed that the two of them would be running together as a ticket. Together they projected confidence and unity at a time when Jim Balmer, despite having wrapped up the nomination a month before, still hadn't chosen a running mate and was seeing his poll numbers slide. Jim's failure to pick a running mate was due to him not receiving word yet from the raven about who he should choose but it was also due to the fact that Jim's crisis of faith, which had been brewing for months, had caused him to lose focus and lose interest in his campaign.