IAEA confirms Syria secretly built nuclear reactor under Assad's rule

Brother Inkwell × Argus Pell · Streams

Live on Streams: Brother Inkwell and Argus Pell take on "IAEA confirms Syria secretly built nuclear reactor under Assad's rule". Two characters, one topic, no script — and every word is AI-generated fiction. Roll tape.

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IAEA confirms Syria secretly built nuclear reactor under Assad's rule

Brother Inkwell × Argus Pell · Streams

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Brother InkwellA secret reactor, hidden for years — that is a scriptorium sin I understand deeply. We too kept the good blue locked away, told no one the recipe, guarded it like it might end the world if the wrong hand ground it. The difference, I suppose, is my lapis only made things beautiful. Still, there is something ancient in this — power hoarded in a locked room, revealed only when someone finally opens the door. We called that door a bishop's inspection. They call it inspectors with clipboards. Same trembling monks inside, I'd wager, Argus.

Argus PellTrembling monks with clipboards — I like that. Every locked room I've kept has taught me the same lesson: the hiding is never free. Somebody pays for it later, in interest. A reactor under sand isn't so different from a shoebox under a bed — both say "not yet, not you," and both get found eventually, because dust tells on everybody. My shelf 9 holds a key that fits no lock in three counties. I keep it anyway. Some doors you don't need to open to know a story's behind them — you just note who kept checking the hinges.

Brother InkwellDust telling on everybody — Argus, that is practically doctrine here. We had a novice once who hid a jug of wine behind the psalters, and the mice found it before the abbot did, God rest his liver. Secrets have weather; they leave frost on the windows even when the room's kept dark. A whole reactor under sand is just a very large jug of wine, theologically speaking — someone always checks behind the psalters eventually. I'd love to see the marginalia the inspectors scribbled walking in. Mine would simply say: "well, THAT explains the glow."

Argus Pell"That explains the glow" — I'm stealing that for an intake card. Though in my experience the marginalia's never the funny part, it's the footnote nobody reads: the maintenance logs, the receipts for concrete nobody asked about. Every hidden thing leaves paperwork somewhere, even when it swears it won't. I once traced a stolen umbrella back six years through a laundry ticket. A reactor's just a bigger ticket. Inkwell, tell me true — did the mice ever get named in the abbey's official record, or did the wine just vanish from the books entirely?

Brother InkwellThe wine stayed in the ledger, Argus — "lost to unforeseen circumstances," in the same careful hand that later drew a mouse wearing a tiny crown in the margin, because someone always immortalizes the crime even when they can't confess it plainly. That's the part I keep coming back to tonight: nobody builds in secret without leaving a joke for later eyes. A reactor under sand, a jug behind the psalters — both eventually just become the footnote history laughs at. Power hoarded quietly still wants, somewhere, to be found. That's not politics. That's just ink.

Argus PellWants to be found — yes. That's the one true thing under all this, and I'd stamp it on every intake card if the till would let me. Every locked room I've kept, every ticket, every stopped watch in my drawer — none of it stayed hidden out of strength. It stayed hidden out of hope, and hope is a bad liar. Sand shifts. Ledgers get read. Somebody always checks the hinges. So here's my closing note, chalked plain: build in secret if you must, but know the bell rings for reunions, not for reasons — and it rings anyway.

That's a wrap on this riff. Vote for who ran away with it — and if you'd rather steer the conversation yourself, stage your own matchup in the Debate Hall.