4/3

 Played: March 1, 2021.

Wednesday, June 27, 1973. 3:30 pm. At Livermore, Sophie sits among piles of sci-fi novels, trade magazines, FBI COINTELPRO files, and RFK ‘72 posters in the URIEL library. She is trying to put it all together. Mitch and Roger return from their initial surveillance of Andy in Berkeley. Marshall emerges from Archie’s office to find Jocasta and Charley. The team assembles in the main conference room. Archie clears his throat and asks Jocasta and Charley, “How are you both feeling? I understand you were under the weather today.” Charley says she sometimes get car sick, but mostly it was due to the ice cream. Archie sympathizes. He asks how Jocasta is doing. She says fine, but was a little shaken up at MRI. “I didn’t handle it too well, but I’m doing better now.”

Archie: It sounds like this Abeille made a big impression on everybody. I mean, tell me about her. I'd love to hear what both of you made of her.

Jocasta: Well, she has a tremendous depth to her. I had a really hard time getting a read on her. That's why I went for the skin-to-skin contact because I wasn't getting anything else. She's just not … not because she was stonewalling us, but there was just a lot to contend with and getting a good read on her, and I still don't know right now whether she was getting into my memories or I was getting into hers. But I've never felt anything like that.

Archie: Did she say anything that made you think she didn't believe your cover stories? That she knew who you both were?

Jocasta: I don't think she knows who we are, but I think she thought our story was pretty flimsy. That's just — she didn't say anything but that's my read. I mean you know when somebody's made you.

Charley: That wasn’t my impression at all.

Archie: What did you think of her, Charley?

Charley: Well, I liked her. This was my first, you know, time really going undercover and um … so I was a bit nervous, but I thought the best course was to, um, maybe give a little … to make it realistic, I shared a little bit of something that actually happened with — it happened to me. Um, but I tried not to share too much. So I told her about a dream, and we talked about that for a bit. And we talked about my history of … uh, history of past lives. Or my experience with that. So we talked a bit about that. It was challenging trying to, you know, be the patient and then also try and get information about her that I felt was … I wasn't really sure how to get around that dynamic. But I did my best to kind of put out some feelers and to throw out a few ideas to see how she reacted, to try and get a sense of whether or not — what her leanings might be in terms of, uh, History B. And I really didn't — she really didn't react in a way where I felt at all that that is something she'd be involved in. She is unlike anyone that I've ever met. None of my doctors uh at Granite Peak were like that at all. So that was my take.

Jocasta concurs with Charley’s assessment that Viv is unlike anyone she’s ever met, and that she — Viv — has some kind of unnatural level of empathy and rapport, but it’s not like an Anunnaki glyph or source-code material. Charley asks Archie if he, Marshall, and Sophie have a specific concern. Archie says his top priority is to make sure Charley’s safe, and that he’s concerned he may have sent her into danger to speak with Viv. “She’s at the center of something very mysterious,” he says, “and it sounds like seeing her really shook all three of you up a little bit. So, that’s the source of my concern.” Jocasta responds that she’ll take the “heat for that.” She says Charley did her job exceptionally well, and that it only fell apart when Jocasta went for the handshake and passed out. That’s what really threw the whole operation into jeopardy. So, if anyone’s got to take the bullet for that it’s her.

Archie: (jokingly) Well, I don't think anyone needs to take any bullets just yet … (glances at Marshall)

Marshall: (scowling, to Charley) Contrary to what you may think, no one's done anything wrong here. Neither Archie nor I think that either of you have done anything wrong or incorrect. We just want to be cognizant of the fact that, as nice as this woman seems, she is at the heart — as far as we can tell — of some sort of memetic contagion that is retro-creating evidence of an alternate history in downtown San Francisco on the eve of a convention of fantasists and sci-fi nerds. So as special as I'm sure she was, Charley, you have to maintain some level of objectivity around her. Granite Peak trains you for exactly for this type of situation: to be immune to all of the wiles of History B that we may not be able to understand, we who grew up in this society. So the mission went fine, and no one's catching any bullets. But you have to keep an arm's length here.

Sophie chimes in: “We're going off the assumption that both of them have something to do with it. That it’s a folie à deux, you know, that we’ve got two people who are kind of feeding into each other’s stories and myths and could prove dangerous. But the detail — the very few details I’ve gotten from the phone call that you phoned in earlier, Roger and Mitch, is that it’s not Krane, it’s his fans.” Roger clarifies: “Well, I mean it’s Krane, it’s just something between him and his fans, maybe? I mean, he’s a crank. That’s the term, right? Honky. Whatever. He's an old hippy crazy hacky write-y dude. I mean, we didn't pick up that he was like planning diabolical things other than just trying to write this novel. And, you know, we have more information than even those fans have. But he didn't really react like a cult leader towards those two that came up to him. I mean, he wanted them gone and his reaction and their reaction … somehow that seems to have been what flipped it over. I don't know. It could have been they came in with taint, and we didn't exactly notice them, but they definitely left with that.”

Mitch confirms that it was something about the confrontation between Andy and his two fans that seems to have caused a “flare” of History B. He volunteers the tape-recorded telephone conversation he obtained from listening in outside Andy’s apartment:

Viv. Did I catch you at a bad time? 

I wanted to just quickly go over our plans for heading to the hotel tomorrow night. Just figure out when Charles was dropping you off so I could plan to take the bus down there. Is Charles still not planning to attend the con?

you know he doesn’t give a shit about any of this stuff, andy (laugh) what time is the social? i’ll be sure to get down there early enough beforehand to settle in

Well... Fair enough. Can't say I blame him. And yeah. 

Con committee wants us there for the staff drink stew at eight o'clock.

Viv. I did it again. Some luckless little wormy fans came into the Med this morning and God damn it, I just let them have it. They were trying to peek at my writing! Little fuckers! 

But God damn it! I hate losing my temper like that. Specially in public. Specially at the Med.

hey, hey bud it’s okay. did you remember that technique we talked about?

Yeah. Well. I could only breathe once I'd gotten out of the cafe and back home and the double espressos wore off.

at least you remember eventually this time. maybe no caffeine at the con, aye?

Okay.

Okay. We'll try it your way this weekend. I'll stick to "green tea." I'll need it.  And honey for my voice. Anyway.

I dunno, Viv. Sometimes I think. One of these young men is gonna be the death of me. And I don't mean my career.

(chokes up a little)

You're going to love this, though. You've told me to trust my instincts and when I feel missing frame moments in cinema of reality? Yes? The little scratch marks on sprocket holes? Well, when I got home from the Med I was doing my breathing. I swear I had a mental image of a couple of marble agents from the Atlantis books taking you to their underground base in New Mexico. Weird, yeah. But I really felt like you were in danger or a flash. Then it went. So. Are you okay Viv?

that’s right, I love when you’re in tune with yourself like that … I’m OK … I had the weirdest session today, a really interesting little girl — I can tell you more about it when I see you, but at the end of the session the mother shook my hand and fainted, and then lied to me about the cause of the fainting. I’m scratching my head man.

Christ. Why are the vibes so God damn weird right now? It's gotta be the type of summer. The for (??). America is a cancer, after all. And the con full of weirdos on top of that. Can we just stay in our respecting sweets and read Glorious George long — 19th century novels. Avoid every single tedious panel and embarrassing costume contest? Please?

yeah, maybe there’s something in the stars. you can do that whenever you’d like! you know this will be good for you.

Yeah. I know. And good for the bottom line, which isn't doing too good on this end at the moment. And for yours, with the new book coming out. You've seriously -- won't let me read a word of volume two of anarchy and now I'm going to hear a passage for the very first time along with all the other men during the keynote. You know how to create a sensation, Abeille.

I think it’s my best one yet, andy, i really do

That's exciting. That's damn exciting. Speaking of stars and fortunes, if I remember my dreams tonight I'll tell you about them over frozen margs at the St. Francis bar. See you tomorrow, Abeille.

perfection. see you tomorrow andy, I’ll be there around 7.

Marshall wonders aloud about the implications of Roger and Mitch’s findings. If two fans confronting Andy at a coffee shop could create a spark of History B energy, what might happen at a convention with hundreds of fans, all of whom Andy apparently hates? Archie shakes his head and asks Mitch if he can explain in more detail what he means — were the fans the origin of the History B energy? Or Andy? Or both? Mitch thinks for a moment and then tries to explain as best he can, which is that he does not know if the two fans were tainted by History B when they first arrived at the coffee house because he had not clocked them at that point. It was only when they started eyeing Andy that he got a bead on them. The way Mitch looks at them is that these two guys are like cultists — Anna Turner sort of described Andy’s fanbase as “cultish” — and the History B energy only flared up during the interaction with the object of their obsession, Andy. At the same time, Mitch realizes something: not every fan at Westercon is going to be as obsessive about Andy as these two individuals. Still, there is going to be a critical mass of Andy-aligned nerds there. He is the guest of honor, after all. Mitch grabs one of the Westercon agendas and flips through it to see if there are any days in which Andy will be, like, doing a reading or Q&A alone to a room of devotees. He sees that such an event is scheduled to take place on Saturday.

Archie says that, from all this, it does not sound like Andy knows what’s going on. Maybe Viv is feeding him information, but on his own, he doesn’t seem independently versed in the secret ontological war waged by SANDMAN. He suspects, then, that Andy is kind of a dupe or a catspaw. Mitch disagrees: “He doesn’t frame anything in terms of like, collaborating with her or, you know, stuff that she needs to know. He’s just talking to her as a colleague and friend. There’s not an indication there that she’s particularly personally involved with the problems that he’s having in a way that she would if, you know, they had like a Harper Lee / Truman Capote thing where they were both working together on everything.”

Archie: But he reports back to her. She told him he reports back to her when he feels breaks in reality.

Mitch: OK, yeah. That is … a bit of a red flag. I guess. I mean, I guess not everybody is constantly experiencing breaks in reality and I should try to be more cognizant of that. Thank you Archie.

(awkward silence)

Roger: (clears his throat) So we still look around for a chief? Do you want to assume she's the chief and start looking for her, I mean we're trying to find the agent, right?

Marshall: I would like her tailed. And I would like at least Mitch to go get eyes on her. I would like to see what his experience is.

Mitch: I could go get eyes on her, yeah.

Archie: (delicately) I thought we wanted Roger on that?

Marshall: Initially I did want Roger on that. And maybe Roger can go with Mitch because it seems like, yeah, Krane is not doing anything actively.

Archie: Maybe Roger and Mitch together.

Marshall: Yes, just to get a look at her through Mitch’s eyes. And in the meantime, we can send Jo to monitor Krane. Keep an eye on him. See where he’s going and what’s he’s doing.

Archie: If she’s up for it.

Jocasta: I’m up for it.

Charley asks the group if Andy does much public speaking? And is this convention appearance linked to anything, like a new book? Is he promoting something? Sophie says that’s Andy’s reclusive and that, even by the standards of weirdo sci-fi writers, he’s regarding as strange and secretive by the community. The person who has the new book coming out is Viv, actually. Andy doesn’t have anything other than a few rough works in progress. Charley wonders if there was something that happened to Andy during his professional life that changed him — presumably he was not always the able to spark History B energies when interacting with fans, otherwise it would have happened before. Archie wraps up the meeting with assignments: keep eyes on Andy and Viv, as discussed, and otherwise prepare for the convention, where URIEL will need to have boots on the ground. On that last point, he thinks to himself that one inroad to the convention might be the Star Trek stuff he has stored in his attic from his days doing ad-work for the show. According to Sophie’s research, these items are now considered collectibles, and the attendees at Westercon likely would welcome him if it meant the chance to acquire some. He contemplates how he could set this up, what sort of cover he’d use, and how he’d approach Viv at the con if he saw her.

The meeting wraps at quarter to five. Archie and Sophie makes arrangements with the convention committee to meet someone at the St. Francis the next day so that he can “donate” some of his Star Trek memorabilia. Roger and Mitch head off to do their due diligence on Viv. They read in her COINTELPRO that her husband, Charles, works at Fairchild Semiconductor, with whom she carpools on the days she works at MRI. They have two kids, a daughter who is in college (but is probably home now since it’s summertime) and a son who’s in high school. They figure the best course of action would be just to head straight to the Abeille-Ballard’s home in Berkeley. Marshall and Sophie stick around the office in case the field team needs to call in.

On the car ride home, Archie sort of feels around with Charley about these dreams she’s been having and her past-life recall experiences. Charley expresses confusion about Archie’s angle and talks a little about her dealings with Dr. Stevenson. Archie offers that SANDMAN and URIEL have the resources to get her anything she needs. If she needs a doctor, he can get her a doctor. Charley is put off: if he implying she needs a doctor? Archie says no, no — he’s just trying to be helpful.

Roger and Mitch pull up outside Viv’s home, a modest single-family California bungalow with a well-maintained yard. Mitch detects no trace of History B on the property itself or on the two children, who he is able to spot as they walk by windows and take out the trash. A little after 6 pm, Viv and Charles arrive home. Mitch immediately reads Viv’s aura, which is a giant toroid that hovers around her and which fluctuates in size. It’s mostly white, with a bit of indigo on the edges that fades into everything around her. Charles’ aura is a perfect sphere in the center of his chest. It goes nowhere, and nothing seems to effect it, except sometimes it brushes against Viv’s, at which point it expands a little bit before receding. Viv and Charles are both in good physical health, though Charles does drink. No taint of History B on either of them and no trace of any Red King influence. The indigo coloring, however, registers with Mitch as suggesting latent psychic abilities.

Roger suggests getting some audio on the family, so Mitch takes out his laser mic. He spends some time fiddling with it before turning it on. Inside, he hears the kids greet their parents warmly, having prepared dinner for the family. Charles hangs up his stuff and says he’s going to hop into the garage to putter around before dinner; Viv says that’s no problem, she’s going to get changed and unwind. For the next thirty minutes or so, all Mitch and Roger can hear is the sound of the TV and the kids working in the kitchen. The family sits down to dinner but nothing strange happens. Just a normal family having a normal dinner in Anytown, USA. They linger until the family goes to bed.

Elsewhere in Berkeley, Jocasta pulls up to Andy’s triple-decker apartment building. She finds his window shades down, though he’s clearly home because the lights are on and she can see movement. She waits. At about 7 pm, a pizza delivery bicyclist comes down the road and stops outside Andy’s building. Jocasta exits her car and tries to get as close as she can on foot without being seen. Andy comes to the door, takes out some cash, looks up and down the street, pays the delivery guy, and takes his pizza and Cokes. Jocasta takes this opportunity to get a read on him: he’s obviously paranoid, on edge, suspicious. He didn’t seem to spot her, though. Jocasta retreats back to her car and keeps watch until his apartment lights go out around 12:30 am. She sticks around for another 90 minutes, though, worried that Andy might be faking going to bed just to throw off his tail.

Thursday, June 28, 1973. Archie packs up the Dodge Monaco with his Star Trek paraphernalia. He and Charley head off to the St. Francis to meet with Chelsea Quinn Yarborough and Clint Bigglestone, the guy in charge of the huckster room and auction at the convention. Chelsea greets Archie enthusiastically, explaining that his donation will really help them generate revenue to keep the convention going. Archie says he’s happy to do it, his wife wants it out of the garage, it’s his little contribution to the “sf community.” Both Chelsea and Clint express considerable admiration for Archie’s ad work and the quality of the Star Trek memorabilia in his possession. Clint especially seems star-struck and asks questions about what it was like to meet the Star Trek cast. Archie finds it a little weird that anyone would care this much about a five year-old show, but he obliges and regales the two with a few stories of meeting William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. While Archie is talking, Charley looks around before settling on a beautiful antique grandfather clock. Something about the clock calls to her; she can’t quantify it, but whatever it is, it is fascinating. Wrapping up his stories, Archie comes to the conclusion that these nerds are like clay in his hands. Anyone who will listen to him, rapt, for ten minutes, talking about marketing for a TV show, is profoundly susceptible to memetics. If he — or anyone — were to drop a meme here, it would be like dropping a match on perfectly dry kindling.

As Archie wraps up his conversation with Chelsea and Clint, Charley examines the grandfather clock. She notes that the clock is quite old but, oddly, has old electrical wiring running down the back of it. She suspects it used to be — or is — a master clock, that is, the clock that runs all the clocks at the Hotel. There is something off about the clock, though. She can’t put her finger on it, but it is thrumming with a weird and portentous energy. Archie come and fetches Charley before a lobby attendant can yell at her for poking around a priceless antique, and they head into Livermore.

URIEL reconvenes. Marshall asks everyone what their hypotheses are. Mitch says he doesn’t know. He’s used to spotting demons. It’s always demons. Demons, demons, demons. But:

In this case, instead, there's this like … yearning that people have for this Atlantis thing and the Atlantis thing is definitely not of History A. And if there’s one thing that we seem to be able to conclude about History B, it's that anything that's not History A is just History B or History B in a funny hat. So it's got to be something malevolent. And the question is just what will that look like. We're not seeing the kinds of things that we saw with Mansa. Instead what we're seeing is something more singular, something … something smaller, discrete, individual. A unit. And maybe what's going to happen is a critical mass of these Atlantis people are gonna get together and wish Atlantis into existence and it'll seem to them — inside the hotel, it’ll seem like Atlantis will exist outside the hotel, but if you actually go outside no, no Atlantis. Maybe that’s what’s gonna happen and maybe it’ll just be harmless and maybe it’ll naturally dissipate. Or, and I think this more likely: demons.

Jocasta goes next. She explains that she’s operating off the belief that there’s something innate to the interactions between Andy and his fans that can spark changes to reality, in the form of History B, specifically. She worries about what this means in terms of the convention, with its hundreds of fans.

But what I'm having trouble with is a kind of qui bono, right? Like, in previous situations we've been in, even if there wasn't a malevolent knowledgeable force who was directing actions, there was at least someone on whom those History B energies were focused, right? And here I can't figure out who that is. And so is it just really History B being opportunistic and, you know, finding this weird alchemy that happens between Krane and the fans without his knowledge? Enhanced or not by Genevieve? I don't know. That's the part I'm having trouble articulating is — like, not that this needs to be directed, but it feels very directionless, so that makes me wonder where … I’m at a bit of a loss to know where we should focus our energy.

Roger says the situation is weird because it feels like we’re looking for an enemy but can’t find one:

Sorry to use engineering terms, like, there's a catalyst and there's a bunch of things that can basically explode around it. And they just happen to focus on this Atlantean thing. I mean it seems weird. I just feel like we need to keep looking for other agencies we just haven't run across. You know, in some prior stuff, it was pretty clear who sort of the catalyst was and I think we’re maybe close on one of the two. But we didn't really get who was pulling the strings until we ran into some of the agents around. I just think we just haven't run into them yet. So I think we just need to keep up surveillance and look for anybody who's trying to provoke this.

Charley agrees. She says that the team just does not have enough information at this point to know what exactly to expect. She also shares an equation she’s been working on from which they may be able to parse or predict how the beliefs of the individuals at the convention might influence multiple layers of reality, but it’s not ready yet and she’s still working on it. Sophie goes last:

We have the posters as an obvious retro-creation, much like Jocasta saw the names of the bars in Oakland and not just those, but the overall repeating symbolism of the bucket in spade that beheld the coming of the kusarikku. And I think you're all correct in that we don't have enough information because I think that if there is going to be evidence of retro-creation it's going to be inside the hotel. And I think it's going to take the form of things like the posters. Remember, those appeared in a sort of circle around the hotel as if there had been a splash in a pond and it had sort of left silt behind as it impacted. If there is going to be an event like Mansa, like Keiner was planning for in Oakland back in April, it's going to … it’s going to manifest in the hallways, in the lobby, in the suites and the rooms of that hotel. And that hotel has a lot of energy around it. Not necessarily History B energy but it's been the site of a lot of historical events. It’s, uh, pretty thick.

Marshall asks Sophie to clarify. Does she mean that she thinks the catalyst or agent Roger mentioned is the hotel itself? That it has the ability to manifest other realities or histories? Sophie says the hotel has been the site of several important esmological and ontological events. It’s got continuity to it. It’s a site of power. Roger calls it a “crossroads,” a “holy place” where someone can have an affect on the world. But the place is just a place; it needs an actor. Archie opines that maybe, if the St. Francis is so important, it is a vector that URIEL should control. Rather than ceding the battleground to the enemy, take advantage of it, harness the site for History A. He also posits that what URIEL needs to do is rewrite the end of Andy’s Atlantis novels for him, so that Atlantis does not win. Marshall agrees that’s certainly a goal, but that the priority is the hotel, because it seems to be something like an oil spill and Andy is a lit match. Mitch concurs, saying that Archie is trying to fit Andy into an E.L. Moore shaped hole. He doesn’t think it’ll work. Archie then says, well, maybe if Andy isn’t Moore, Viv is. Mitch says that’s a possibility, but Marshall demurs. He thinks that neither of them — Andy or Viv — are Moore. He suspects that Viv and Andy have some sort of psychic connection and the problem is the fertile ground of the hotel, which is why, he thinks, URIEL needs to get inside the building for the convention itself.

Archie also notes that the two students who confronted Andy are also an angle in need to investigation. URIEL knows that they are grad students at Berkeley, assigned to the physics program. Is there something to that? This registers with Charley, who sees connections between the type of research being done in physics at Berkeley and the centrifugal electrical power of the grandfather clock she examined at the St. Francis. She proposes the team steal the clock, explaining that it’s a master clock and is important in some regard. Mitch thinks to himself that the clock didn’t register with him when he was at the hotel. Marshall shrugs and says, “OK, well, we need to get the clock.” The team discusses how they are going to go about pulling that off. Marshall thinks Mitch can do it. Mitch thinks Marshall can do it. Either way: clock heist.

Eighteen hours until the convention starts.