3/3 - UK

Played: December 20, 2020.

Saturday, May 26, 1973. Evening. URIEL and GRAIL TABLE arrive at Brougham Castle for their final insertion into the ORACLE simulation. Charley assumes her command position in the Controller seat; Roger and David assume their personas as Joshua and the Boss.

Joshua comes to in the back of a richly appointed gasoline limo: this thing must cost a fortune in social credits. And from behind the tinted windows of the luxury car, Joshua, sitting alone in the back seat, his holographic RNC identity badge hanging on a lanyard around his neck, looks outside to what San Francisco has become in the past four months. Half the screens are smashed, an unthinkable act of social disorder just a few months ago. But ever since the food rationing, as cascading grain failures have destroyed the commodities future markets and made meat and imported grains hard to find in a global city like San Francisco, the idea of the cops and private corporate security pursuing mere vandals seems like wasted effort. Supermarkets are empty, either from shortages in the better neighborhoods and looting in the poorer ones. The real money, Joshua's heard tell from some of the security staff working the RNC this week, is in private farm militias being formed by some of the West's richest... and indeed many of the most powerful Soviet and Chinese apparatchiks. The Chinese-led co-prosperity sphere never recovered from the first wave of rice and grain blights. Spasms of famine-related violence between member nations soon broke out into all-out civil war.

Roger mentally accesses what Joshua's been up to the past few months; idly “flirting” with the terrorists who sent him the glyph, but mostly laying off, thanks to Roger's programming when he last inhabited Joshua. Joshua checks his phone; a message direct from the Boss! The Boss calls Joshua up on the limo videoscreen.

“Joshua,” the Boss says with an exaggerated nod (and with an incongruous British accent). “I’ve been on with my contacts in federal law enforcement. They’re saying that they have a credible threat of a media hijacking at the convention tonight. Even with this, all they've done is boost both physical and telecommunications security. The Republicans don’t want to cancel or rethink the broadcast. What do you think? This might be the thing we’re looking for, so to speak. Your old friends.” The Boss says that what Joshua needs to do is walk the convention floor, get into the satellite broadcast areas, and look for anyone from his radical days that he recognizes, then ... well, take them out. “We can’t depend on any of the computer elements here to be able to put up resistance to in-simulation memetics or glyphs or other Red King ploys. It's up to us. And Charley.”

With that David/the Boss has a little moment of what looks like nausea ... he's losing his connection with the sim by having mentioned stuff outside the sim, but he's holding on for now. “Contact me directly if you need anything. I'll be in my office/communications center.”

From her command seat as Controller, Charley is able to determine that the electronic mails sent to Joshua within the ORACLE simulation originated from the University of California, Berkeley, campus. Within the simulation itself, Joshua arrives at the RNC. After wandering the floor for a time, he receives a call from David-as-the-Boss on his mobile telephone device. “Joshua,” he says, “I think we have identified who they are. I think that they are old classmates of yours. Or, at least, college aged friends of yours.” The Boss explains that they traced the e-mail that Joshua received several months back and gives Joshua a description of five people with whom Joshua is familiar. The Boss sends photographs and personal information about the five suspects to Joshua’s mobile device. They call themselves the Children of Guy Debord. They are a minor media terrorist cell comprised of dissolute grad students who engage in acts of culture jamming and media hijacking.

Joshua uses his credentials to get deeper into the convention center space, arriving eventually at the control booth. Simultaneously, Charley detects that ORACLE’s narrative subroutine has shifted: it is now moving the antagonists into play. She manages to triangulate their approximate coordinates and relays that information to David-the-Boss, who in turn relays it to Roger-as-Joshua. (This intermediary system ensures that Roger is not kicked out of the simulation due to verisimilitude failure; as the “boots the ground,” it is more important that Joshua remain in the simulation than the Boss). With this information, Joshua realizes: the terrorists are going to hijack the RNC media signal at its source, using the satellite transmission tower on the roof of the convention center. Joshua races upstairs and finds his erstwhile allies attaching a module to the base of the transmission tower.

There are, indeed, five of them. The leader of the cell — a female grad student in linguistics — asks Joshua what he is doing there. Joshua responds, “Hey, am I late to the party?” The leader asks him if he wants to “do the honors.” Joshua takes them up on the offer. Outside the simulation again, Charley rapidly parses the data being generated by ORACLE and deduces that the box in question is a receiver for another glyph, one that it will automatically “run” once it receives the appropriate transmission. Charley modifies the program to neuter the box; inside the simulation, Joshua rips the transmission box off the satellite base and tosses it over the side of the roof. Outraged, two of the media terrorists tackle Joshua.

In the real world, Catherine asks Charley if they should now shut down the simulation. Charley says no, that they should hold off for now, and that everything is fine. Catherine seems dubious, but Archie interjects, insisting that Charley is reliable and that they need to let Roger and Charley see things through. Jocasta stands off to one side, observing the GRAIL TABLE team for suspicious activity. Meanwhile, the data transmission to the now-defunct box inside the simulation has apparently begun. Charley is too occupied as Controller to analyze the transmission itself, or calculate its origins, so Elias and Sophie scramble to do so.

Inside the simulation, Roger-as-Joshua grapples successfully with his attackers, aided by Charley, who uses her technical know-how to seize control of one of the attackers, whom she uses as a puppet to combat the other terrorists. With the Children of Guy Debord dealt with, Roger-as-Joshua blows up the transmission tower entirely using a packet of C4 provided to him by Charley-as-Controller. He then heads back into the convention center, shouting for everyone to hear that a group of terrorists have destroyed the transmission tower.

Back in the ORACLE command center, Elias and Sophie complete their analysis and the team rolls out a local ordinance map. Elias runs the 30 degree line from the Castle to the source of the transmission … and finds that it heads directly to Long Meg and Her Daughters. Sophie gasps that Long Meg must be a resonator of incredible power. Roger, David, and Charley emerge from the simulation. GRAIL TABLE and the UK team debate what to do with ORACLE before heading to Long Meg. Eventually, it is decided that they will disconnect ORACLE, secure its databanks, and ship it to Granite Peak. With that decided, Archie asks if they should head to Long Meg. David asks what should they do once they get there, noting that they will defer to URIEL given that URIEL is a field team and GRAIL TABLE is not.

Archie suggests that there are likely human agents — or another “human” agent like Zeb — at work here. Archie posits off-handedly that one such agent may be Clodagh. Catherine asks what leads Archie to believe that. Archie explains that, in URIEL’s experience, the type of people who tend to fall into service with the Red Kings typically believe they are furthering some “primitive, atavistic” belief structure. David asks if this means they should send out two teams: one to Dufton, and one to Long Meg. Archie asks Jocasta what she thinks, and Jocasta explains that she only believed Clodagh was eccentric and strange, but not necessarily dangerous. Still, she agrees that it is necessary to send a team to Long Meg to contain or conceal whatever is happening there and another team to Dufton get eyes on Clodagh — her instincts say to her that the old washer woman knows something.

After more discussion, the team moves into action. Charley identifies the central component without which GRAIL TABLE will not able to operate ORACLE, which Roger surreptitiously detaches and pockets. Jocasta and Archie drive to Dufton, where Archie catches sight of Clodagh leaving the bungalow where Archie’s family is staying. She carries two sacks of laundry. Jocasta and Archie approach and ask if they can speak with her for a moment, and she agrees, leading them to the central Dufton admin building where she unloads the laundry into two large tubs. Jocasta asks if Clodagh knows anything unusual about the area, in particular around Long Meg. Clodagh asks Jocasta what she means, and Jocasta elaborates: “anything beyond the human pale, anything not human.” Clodagh laughs: “so ghoulies and ghosties, then?” Archie presses further, and Clodagh tells of the beautiful man in the river:

Oh, my heart goes a flutter just thinking about how beautiful he was. I was … I was a lass of 13 and he, well, one day from out of the muck and the mire of the river, just stood up. And he looked at me with these deep, deep blue eyes and swept me off my feet, he did.

Archie and Jocasta suddenly hear the sound of canvas ripping, and from out the bag on her back emerges a small claw.

Back at Brougham Castle, Roger prepares to accompany a detachment of Ministry guards to Long Meg to investigate when Charley gets a sudden empathic flash that something terrible is happening to Archie in Dufton. She exclaims to Roger that they need to get to Dufton immediately, that something is wrong, and they need to leave now. Roger commandeers a car, Charley and Sophie hop inside, and they race off to the village.

In Clodagh’s basement, Jocasta watches in horror as a kulullû climbs out of the torn sack. She freezes, locked in panic and guilt. The thing that reveals itself is rubbery, with a bald, fish-like head. It focuses its hypnotic gaze upon Jocasta. Archie thinks fast: he grabs an empty sack and tosses it over the kulullû’s head. In so doing, Archie observes that the kulullû’s claws are bloodied, and that it seemed to have been attached, physically, to Clodagh’s back. As it struggles to escape the sack, Clodagh collapses to the ground in a heap. And it speaks, in a squeaky, heavily accented northern English voice: “BOW BEFORE ME.” Archie immediately recognizes that the creature is attempting to use neurolinguistic programming on them, but thanks to their SANDMAN training, neither Archie nor Jocasta are affected.

Recognizing Jocasta’s state, Archie snaps into his old military training and barks, “Get yourself together, soldier!” at Jocasta, who pulls to. Archie and Jocasta then launch into beating the kulullû, pummeling it with heavy objects and stomping it into the ground. Its attempts to compel Jocasta and Archie with further neurolinguistic programming fail, and after a moment, the thing lies dead on the ground, its skull cracked open, green ichor pooling around its body. Clodagh lies unconscious, breathing weakly.

On the road to Dufton, ominous dark clouds swirl and gather in the sky. The utter weirdness of the scene distracts Roger momentarily; he does not see, until the very last second, what appears to be a woman clad in ancient Roman garb walking along the hedgerow. Roger swerves, but unsuccessfully, and crashes into a nearby stone wall. Both he and Charley are injured, and the car is ruined. As they emerge from the damaged vehicle, Charley realizes that the Roman woman was one of the witches she saw in her vision at Long Meg — one of the long-dead servants of the Anunnaki, apparently walking the earth here in Cumbria. Roger and Charley drag a near-catatonic Sophie out of the car as she mutters, in Latin: “Please don’t let her get me please don’t let her get me please don’t let her get me.”

In Dufton, Archie realizes the situation is critical: they are basically in an ontological subduction zone. He also knows, on an instinctual level, that Charley is in trouble. Jocasta scrambles to assist Clodagh, quickly determining that she is now quadriplegic in the absence of her kulullû master, who had attached itself at the base of her neck. Archie and Jocasta then race upstairs to the sound of a nuclear alarm claxon blaring. They spot two soldiers racing by, who shout that they must get to the fallout shelter. Archie dashes off to find his family; Jocasta looks for the person with the lowest rank, flashes her credentials, and demands a service weapon. At the bungalow, Archie discovers his family unconscious, but is unable to figure out why.

At the site of the accident, Roger and Charley attempt to calm Sophie down when a cawing draws their eyes upward again. An absolutely massive flock of crows, or ravens, come sweeping down on the fields all around them, attacking crops, attacking animals, attacking anything they can find with a pulse. Roger looks around and spots a small cottage nearby. He tells Charley to tell Sophie, in Latin, that they need to get into the house; he slings Sophie’s arm over his shoulder and the team moves as fast as they can in that direction. They get indoors just as the birds start pummeling the walls, the roof, and the shutters. Roger piles furniture against the door.

Charley realizes what they now face: the Anunnaki had a long plan in the works with GRAIL TABLE, and with URIEL having thwarted them, they have unleashed their power onto the land and its people in bloody vengeance. Charley tells Roger that they have to get to Long Meg — a reality quake is taking place.

Archie runs out of the bungalow and find Jocasta, who now has a rifle, and explains the situation with the subduction zone, his family, and his sense that Charley is in dangerous. Jocasta offers to check the Ransoms using her limited first aid training and then proposes that they find someone with command authority to authorize bombing or otherwise using ordinance to destroy Long Meg. Archie agrees, and Jocasta checks the family. She finds that each has a tiny pinprick on their body; she tells Archie that they have been injected with something to knock them unconscious. They are not in any life-threatening danger, however. After a little more consideration, Archie and Jocasta realize that they have likely been dosed by Clodagh’s kulullû’s poison.

Archie scrambles to get ahold of a commanding SANDMAN officer. When he does, he explains the situation, and the executive officer gives him a radio and tells him that, if they are really dealing with a subduction zone, to call it in and the Royal Air Force will launch a bomber squadron to Long Meg. The officer also tells him that they believe the nuclear claxon is a false alarm, perhaps triggered through sabotage. With a good deal of guilt, Archie decides it is best to leave his family asleep in the bungalow, knowing that the team’s success will result in “none of this happening,” and his family none the wiser.

Jocasta and Archie drive up the road to Brougham, where they find the crashed vehicle and then the small cottage. The team reassembles. Roger and Charley are banged up, but OK. Sophie is in shambles: pale, terrified, babbling about how this is the work of Morgan le Fey. She questions whether there is anything they can do to stop these events, faced as they are with a subduction zone perhaps 15 miles wide in diameter and a possible sēdu irruption. Everyone piles into the working vehicle and make off for the Castle. As they enter the courtyard, they find the bloodied and disembowelled bodies of David, Catherine, and Elias. Charley freaks at the sight, but gathers herself stoically.

From there, the team is transported in a military jeep to Long Meg, which they find surrounded by an Army cordon. The officer in charge explains that there’s apparently a circle of women gathered inside the stone circle. They sent scouts to investigate, but the scouts returned speaking a language no one recognized, so they have refrained from getting any closer. The team evaluates their options. Archie and Jocasta know that the subduction zone is causing the physical manifestation of historical events inside the circle. Archie calculates that, whatever happens next, they will need to deploy powerful memetics in the region to quell the idea that some horrible pagan god sleeps restlessly beneath the earth.

Jocasta instructs the commanding lieutenant to have his men prepare to launch grenades and mortars at the stone circle, focusing as best they can on Long Meg. The artillerymen line up their shots, and four mortars bombard Long Meg, destroying it utterly. As that happens, the witches fade away, though the overall sense around the stone circle remains that of an active subduction zone. Still, the risk of active retrocreation seems to have passed. With the destruction of Long Meg, the immediate danger is over.