Sort of. The gum works either as an aspect you'd tag to prepare the spell (making up the difference between your Lore and the spell's difficulty) or as one you'd tag when casting it (to make sure you don't botch a Discipline roll), but not both without using a fate point on it. Since right now you've got enough to pull off a 12 shift spell (5 Lore+1 divination specialization+6 for all your Sight aspects), and more importantly since your Discipline rolls are all good enough, let's just say that you tagged the Minty-Fresh aspect when preparing the spell, which would boost you up to 14 shifts total. Your Discipline rolls are all good enough to cover two shifts per exchange, so we can go with that for now.
Leo gradually pours power into the spell construct, careful not to let it waver or spill. As the very last ebb of energy fills the circle, time itself seems to slow to a crawl. Motes of dust hang in the air, unnaturally still, and a single heartbeat reverberates through Leo's body like the aftershocks of a distant earthquake. Then, abruptly, everything reverses, cascading backwards at incredible speed until the platform is filled with chattering people.
The crowd is enormous, but for whatever reason no one else is coming down the stairs to the platform. All seems entirely normal as they start pouring into a fresh subway car, but as they continue to board, it becomes increasingly apparent that this is subtly
wrong. For one, there's no shoving or pushing. At all. Everyone is calmly drifting toward the train and boarding it, talking casually to their companions as they wait their turn, but never having to force their way through the crowd. The platform grows emptier and emptier, and another strange fact becomes apparent: Every single person is getting onto the train. Far more than the cars normally hold; as you watch, one woman placidly lies down and scrunches into a ball under one of the seats, joined shortly by two more people.
A tin of sardines, the phrase goes. It's entirely appropriate; there's virtually no space in the cars which isn't occupied by three tightly-packed people.
One by one they squeeze in until there's only one man left on the platform: A short, pudgy fellow with a worn tweed jacket and suspenders, reading the newspaper on a bench nearby. He seems utterly disinterested in the goings-on, peering at the paper through a set of reading glasses balanced precariously on his long nose and chewing at a piece of gum. As the train closes on an impossible mass of travelers and lurches out of sight down the tunnel, he sighs tiredly, sets his paper aside, and stands, ambling over to the stairway. Two pale, severe looking men dressed in pristine mechanic's outfits pass him on the way up, and a flash of white betrays something changing hands. The pudgy man leaves the subway, stepping around a maintenance sign, while the pale men walk down to the edge of the platform, drop down to the rails, and walk leisurely after the departed train, taking care not to step on the electrified rail.
The platform remains empty for quite some time, and gradually you feel time speeding up again, until a mental
snap that carries the force of a sonic boom heralds the return of your senses to the mundane world.
Your two aspects: The Mechanics That Weren't and Suspense Wears Suspenders.
Let's resume play.
