5/8
Played: January 28, 2022.
Friday, July 27, 1973. Marshall, Roger, Mitch, Jocasta, and Henry “Andrija” Puharich arrive at Archie’s house in Pacific Heights around 9:30 p.m. They park the Rolls Royce in the basement garage and then join Archie in his den. Andrija introduces himself, extending a hand, and says: “Dr. Redgrave here tells me that you’re the esmologist.” Archie shakes Andrija’s hand, introduces himself using only his first name — “Please, call me Archie” — and then asks how dinner was. Andrija says it was “wonderful” and recounts how he accepted a ride (ostensibly back to his hotel in San Jose) with Marshall and his people, only to realize once they were on the road that everyone in the car was SANDMAN. Andrija asks Marshall to tell Archie what Marshall told him about Uri Geller causing some kind of an irruption at SRI.
Marshall: Well, Archie knows this but the — there is a subduction zone. There’s something ontologically happening at SRI. And all our leads point directly at Geller. Our taisher’s observations have led us directly to him and his effect on whatever is happening at SRI is rooted, somehow, in the combination of him, SCANATE, other programs — but he’s at the center of it, somehow. So on the ride to Victor’s I just had a conversation with him and yanked out his wiring so that he — oh, because I forgot to mention, he's an innate NLP user and that's how he does —
Andrija: Yes, he is.
Marshall: — that’s how he does his (air quotes) “magic,” so anyway, he was — ripped all that out, so now he can't do his little spoon bendy tricks. And then, you know, we stumbled into this. But maybe now since Geller can't do his whatever it is he does, we don't have to worry about the subduction zone that seems to be forming at SRI.
Andrija: I just want to take a step back here. One of the reasons why I wanted to meet whoever your —
Andrija cuts himself off as he catches a glimpse of Charley peeking her head around the corner. He looks at her, then at Archie, and says, “Oh, I’m sorry,” before a lightbulb goes off over his head. Mitch observes Andrija’s aura flush with excitement. Genuine excitement, not the fake excitement Andrija feigned at various points during the dinner at Victor’s. He’s curious and intrigued.
Archie: You can speak freely in front of Agent Helix.
Andrija: Of course. Of course. Yes, well … right, so what is the precise confluence? Apart from Uri, let’s leave him aside for now. It’s SCANATE and what other programs at SRI?
Archie: It’s ARC and the work that’s being done at SRI generally. It’s very — it’s all very murky, as it so often is when you’re dealing with potentialities and future possibilities — and possible retrocreation. It’s not so much that anything has happened as our projections are that something could happen. It is a site of potentiality.
Andrija: Right, right. You said something about it being in the wires, Dr. Redgrave? You said something about it being in the building? So wouldn't that point to ARC as the source of this thing?
Marshall: I don’t think there is a single source. I think it is a confluence —
Andrija: Which one of you three is the taisher, anyway? I need to kind of know —
Marshall: Well, I don’t know if you’re cleared for that. Taishers are rare and I’m not sure we want to be tossing out names.
Andrija: Fair enough.
Archie: Dr. Puharich, is it OK if I speak with my people just for one moment?
Andrija: Do what you have to do. I’m at your service. I mean, we are all on the same side here.
Archie leads the adult members of URIEL into the garage, leaving Charley behind in the den, alone with Andrija. In the garage, Archie turns first to Marshall:
Archie: OK. What are you looking for with this fellow, Marshall? Do you trust him?
Michael: "So … " Puharich says in a low, sort of sleepy voice, "Are you enjoying your assignment here, Agent?"
Mel: Agent Helix responds to Puharich with caution and formality. "I've integrated well here Doctor … however, enjoyment is not the goal."
Michael: "Oh, of course, of course," Puharich says in response. There's an awkward silence for about ten seconds and then Puharich looks at Charley with an expression of … pained empathy on his face. His voice cracks as he says this next bit. "I'm quite familiar with the Indigo Project and its predecessor programs in SANDMAN. While they're exceeding beyond our wildest dreams in creating useful SANDMAN agents and assets, ones who can successfully control and develop their powers and effectively resist the Kings, I believe that these programs may have attempted a rigid, one-size-fits-all approach when what SANDMAN needs is something far more … adaptive. So I've been planning a school of my own. A more bespoke approach, one that uses a more … holistic approach to inoculation against the Kings, rather than the intensity and isolation of both the Secret Schools and Indigo." Puharich has no problem speaking to Charley like she's an adult, she notices.
Mel: The Doctor's admission to the faults of the Project causes a stir of unwanted emotions in Charley. But she remains restrained and says flatly, "Interesting."
Michael: "In any event, if you were interested in an electronic correspondence after I leave San Francisco to chat about the possibilities — if your team also approves of course — I would welcome the opportunity to have you as a consultant. You could even come out to visit my estate in Westchester County, New York with your team. My preliminary plans right now would include an initial class of about a dozen students, already in full command and awareness of their powers, who are looking to surpass their existing limits and, in the process, gain resistance to the blandishments of the Kings." With this Andrija pauses again, and then says, "They could use an experienced peer to help them."
Mel: As Puharich makes his overture, Charley idly imagines she has Uncle Mitch's power of fire and incinerates the good Doctor. When he finishes, she smiles and says, "Certainly, Doctor, I'll consult with my team and get back to you."
Marshall: No I don’t fucking trust him. I mean — I do not, I do not trust the dude. The thing is, Arch, that everything that Mitch has seen points at this man. And when we met him at SRI, there was something in the air. His being there charged in the room somehow. It just — the vibes were way off. So, you know, in the exercise of my discretion, I did what I thought would be most efficacious which was — I believe, I still believe that the thing that is causing this potentiality at SRI is something to do with Geller being an innate NLP user and, you know, a con man and a charming guy. Like something about his whole thing. So I took out the thing that made him special. And I don't know what Henry in the other room — he asked for an esmologist. I think he's trying to figure out — it seems to me like he's trying to figure out a way to keep the confluence in place at SRI, to keep the potentiality there. Because I don't — he could be pissed at me for ruining his asset but if he is SANDMAN, he should be like, “Oh, yeah, OK, good job, you eliminated this thing that is creating an unstable” — I’m going on and on.
Archie: No, no, that all makes sense. I mean, this is what they get if they sort of — this left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing sort of thing. We shouldn’t ever have been put in this situation. It’s embarrassing. (He turns to Mitch). So you laid eyes on Geller for the first time, finally. Do you think this is true? Did you get History B from him? Is he the problem?
Mitch: No, it’s — I didn’t get History B from him. I think that he’s the problem in the sense that he's the particular piece of the puzzle. I don't think it's anything special about him. I mean, he’s — just visualizing him now fills me with bile, I can't really explain that — but I don't think that he is the linchpin or the keystone of the arch. He's just the … what's the word? Catalyst! Catalyst to something, is how I am interpreting this. It's weird is what it is. He's bad. He's a bad man.
Roger: But the stuff that Charley and I were playing with, a lot of this has to do with like networking and contagion and it's really clear that like Uri Geller is kind of a Typhoid Mary. So if the wires and broadcast and all this stuff is there, and he has all that natural charisma ability that causes whatever — you know, we don’t need a cult leader in there spreading to his followers. Now the other question here is: has he been cultivated deliberately to be this kind of agent?
Marshall: (to Archie) I think the best way to deal with this is — I think we are more in the right than he is. Like if we just look at this as rank politics, this is just like an interdepartmental fuck up with two aggrieved parties. We don't owe him anything. He doesn't owe us anything. I don't trust the motherfucker. His whole thing … he’s weird. So, I just think we need to get him out of here. Like, we need to get him out of here, stop him from sniffing around. He’s jiving with Charley in some weird way I don’t dig. So I think you actually need to like — you need to pull your rank or something, man. You’ve got to figure out a way to just be like, “Alright, well, file your complaint form number blah blah blah and we’ll arbitrate it next month” or whatever.
Archie nods along as he muses over his options. One thing he’s curious about is where Andrija sits in the SANDMAN pecking order. Who does he report to, if anyone? Can he just ask who his superior is? At the same time, Andrija asked for an esmologist. Why? Can Archie suss out, esmologically, what Andrija is up to with Geller? Is there a compromise solution that would enable Andrija to keep running his assets while mitigating the threat at SRI? Archie is also confused about Mitch’s hostility toward Geller. He trusts Mitch, and he trusts Mitch’s intuitions, but objectively he does not know what it is that is wrong with Geller. Jocasta pipes up:
Jocasta: Puharich is not attached to — he’s a nomad, right? He’s not attached to a particular SANDMAN operation. And that may have made him sloppy. Because there's no way, just as a professional in the intelligence community, that he would develop this nuclear payload-level asset in our backyard and not tell us about it. So in my opinion, that makes his judgment a little questionable, whether or not he's on the level. And we better be sure what's in the payload he's about to deploy because he's — you know, we better really trust that he knows what he's doing. And being sloppy and unprofessional like that makes me think he doesn't.
Marshall: I one-hundred percent agree with that assessment.
Jocasta also reveals what she learned from her psychometry reading of Andrija during the ride in the Rolls. With this information, Archie suspects that Andrija must be highly placed within SANDMAN and likely reports to several different sections at Granite Peak. Definitely memetics, given the work he’s been doing with Geller. But perhaps also the materiel and technologies division. Archie briefly contemplates calling Dr. Stanton on his secure line to see what he knows, or is able to confirm about Andrija, but pushes that thought aside. The team returns to the den. There they find Andrija and Charley sitting across one another in silence.
Andrija: So what’s the first step here? Do we want to take a look at what you've discovered already as far as what's on campus at SRI? I can —
Archie: Well —
Andrija: You have to understand, we're only here for a couple of days to, you know, touch base with people in the Bay Area. Including SRI, before we go down to Los Angeles for the Carson show.
Archie: Right. That’s right. The Carson show. No, I — I appreciate that, Henry. Can I call you Henry?
Andrija: Please.
Archie: I appreciate that and, you know, it’s a bit of — it seems like a bit of a cock up, us stepping on each other’s toes like this. I appreciate your help in clearing this up. So, I’m assuming you report to memetics at Granite Peak?
Andrija: Well, I mean, I have a direct supervisor but I'm not clear to give you that information. But I will tell you that I — over the past 20 years of my being a Sandman, I have worked both for the memetics — as you’ve probably heard from Dr. Redgrave, I’m working Uri and the sort of, you know, the occult and paranormal community. But I also — I also do work in materiel sciences and technology at the Peak. So, I have a couple of teams that I report my field work back to there.
Archie: Well, maybe you could fill us in — or fill me in, maybe you've already talked about this in the car — you know, to the extent that you're cleared to — just on what … we don't want to mess up your asset, but to fill us in on what you're trying to accomplish with Geller. I mean, memetically.
Andrija: Yeah, well, I mean, as Dr. Redgrave —
Archie: The Carson show, that’s a big megaphone.
Andrija: It is. It is. I mean, I’ve got clearance for it but OK — yeah. What Uri is, is basically the culmination of a lot of work, a lot of training, and a lot of luck. Why do I want somebody who is so clearly a fame-seeking, attention-seeking spotlight hog, like Uri, to be someone who can do these phenomenal feats of — whether you call it neurolinguistic programming or sleight of hand or whatever combination of things you want to call it? Because basically the best way to distribute any kind of memetic message is to accompany it with something that people are going to remember. And of course Houdini knew this —
Charley betrays no outward sign of emotion at the mention of Houdini’s name, but Archie can sense from his special connection with her that something has clicked in her mind. A recognition. A connection. She’s realizing something.
Archie: But Houdini was — his public persona, he was a committed rationalist. A debunker. A skeptic. It seems like Geller is just, you know, you're muddying the waters, if anything.
Andrija: Well, times have changed, Archie. And we know that the future is going to belong to whoever can channel the more, let's say primitive, atavistic urges of humans to believe strongly in one set of beliefs or another. What does Uri Geller do? He turns it into a spectacle. He turns it into something that becomes a show. These powers of telekinesis and psychokinesis and being able to see beyond — they become just a performance. We use the language of paranormal research and spiritual seeking in all of the information sphere around Uri to just basically get the public thinking that this is all an act in a show. He can be good at it. He can be bad at it. (Chuckling) Sometimes, when he's stuck and his NLP isn't working he uses the excuse that the vibrations aren't right. This mix of truth and lies of real abilities and fake abilities — this constant uncertainty will keep the audience, that population out there that wants to believe ever so slightly off balance. I admit it's a very, very subtle play but you also have to realize that Uri, he's definitely not agent material. But he's got some ability, as your Dr. Redgrave has discovered and apparently tied off in his brain.
Archie: Well, I gotta say I think we always do better when we play a little more straight with people. But I understand what you're saying.
Roger, meanwhile, has been doing his best impression of wallpaper during this whole exchange. But something Andrija said keeps nagging at him. The thing about Houdini, and how “times have changed.” It reminds him of some of the gossip and conversations he’s picked up over the years — the overheard discussions among “upper management” and “the brass,” who either don’t notice the quiet young Black man standing in the room or assume he’s too stupid to understand what they’re talking about.
When Andrija says that times have changed, Roger thinks, he must be referring to all the stuff that URIEL is concerned with in the Bay Area. All this woo-woo New Age shit that Marshall and Jocasta and Viv are going on about. Belief in the paranormal, the spiritual, the unexplained. And, of course, Houdini was a dedicated rationalist near the end of his career. But he also went back and forth between giving rationalist explanations for things and hinting that there’s something else beyond all this. The old Houdini posters Roger found in the UK flash in his mind: they convey this implicit message that, yes, you’re never going to know how I do this, and isn’t that something? The mystery is part of what keeps you coming back. This is all part of a long-standing pattern, Roger concludes, of SANDMAN using memetics to make sure nobody really believes anything because they don’t know what is real and what is an act. To maintain, or create, a sort of societal-wide psychological “fog of war.” That way, people don’t get sucked up into worshipping the Red Kings. The whole thing rubs Roger the wrong way: keeping things a mystery so that people don't bond with the Red Kings is fine, but people not knowing what to do with the powers they have doesn't really seem like a great idea.
Archie also turns over in his mind what Andrija has told him. The sort of latitude Andrija describes having, and the scope of the work he’s doing, confirms his suspicion that Andrija is ranks extremely highly within the organization. Perhaps only a step below Control — the mysterious planning committee that oversees all SANDMAN operations in the US, UK, and Canada. In a strange bit of serendipity (cough), Archie’s Telex machine kicks into life as he ponders the implications of this. The Telex is from Granite Peak and confirms Andrija’s credentials, Archie having submitted a request shortly after Marshall called, while awaiting the arrival of the team at his home. Andrija resumes speaking:
Andrija: If I had known that you all were active here in the Bay Area I would have tread more lightly. But the last time we were here there was nobody — the guy with SCANATE was Kit Green, that CIA agent, and you know, he obviously wasn’t clued in. I didn’t come here expecting to see anybody but him today and so when we saw Dr. Redgrave it was — it was a big surprise for all of us.
Archie: No, that's understandable. It is what it is. It's one of these things — you know, sometimes I think we keep too many secrets for our own good, haha. But this question — and it always is murky when you're talking about future potentialities — but how it is that your asset, why he resonates with these other unrelated investigations that we've been involved in.
Andrija: Well, I mean at this point I would like — I said I want to be at your service here and give you as much information as I can so …
Archie grabs a notepad and starts sketching out some back-of-envelope esmological equations as Andrija continues talking:
Andrija: Alright. So in order for me to be able to answer that set of questions as fully as you're looking for — to be able to put together some kind of … to add something new to your esmological equations, I really … OK, so: you’ve got SCANATE as where this entity is hanging around, or the potentiality is strongest. It's in the wires, electrical phone communications, and that brings in ARC and Doug Engelbart and that whole side of things. From what I've been led to believe — so what I'm curious about is where else you've noticed that's contributing to this because obviously Uri matches up. I mean, Uri is the reason why SCANATE got started, right? He came here, he showed off some of his abilities, he inspired Hal and Russ last winter in ‘72. They were able to get funding from Edgar Mitchell, a couple of other cutouts of, you know, the Agency. And basically we were able to get them some funding. I mean, that's what Uri’s here to do. He's here to bring on this kind of interest so we can, again, monitor and control it. So we get Kit Green to kind of watch over the program after it gets CIA funding. But Uri's not going to stay here forever! He's not going to be sitting here taking tests all day.
Marshall: But people know — people in SANDMAN know we are here. URIEL is here. So if you are running an experiment just to kind of see what's going to happen and, you know, to help you better control the ontological landscape, why wouldn't anyone run that by us? Why wouldn’t any of us get a memo saying, like, hey by the way, you’re going to notice some strange ontological activity in your literal backyard, don’t mind it, we’re just sorting — we’re just trying something out. We didn’t get any of that from the chain of command.
Andrija: Well that brings me to my question that I had about something you said in the car, which was that it was your librarian who had found Uri's presence at Stanford suspicious in the first place. So this is not your whole team, the six of you. There's a seventh member who's not here?
Marshall falls silent for a beat and just stares at Andrija. He seems to have realized something. Then:
Marshall: I mean we followed the lead, Henry. I mean, if you're implying that we have — I don't even know what you would be implying —
Andrija: I’m not implying anything. I just wanted to know, if you weren't given any kind of heads up from Granite Peak that there was — that I had done a little bit of work over at SRI after it had first happened, how did your librarian? Is she an esmologist?
Marshall: But the thing is, Henry, that we didn't need information that you specifically were coming here with Uri Geller. We discerned that there was History B tainted activity occurring at SRI and so we investigated that. But if you are running a genuine operation intended to experiment in this area, presumably someone at SANDMAN would have told us that. They would have said, you're going to notice something weird going on, if you do pay it no mind. It's under — we have it under cover. So it's not a matter of us noticing something, it's the fact of no one telling us you might notice something, don't worry about it.
Andrija: I mean, that sounds like something you're going to need to take up with operations at Granite Peak. That is — that is a lapse. I mean, I can’t deny that. But again, Uri was here last year for a week. We didn’t stick around very long. Which is why I’m still very curious as to why Uri is at the center of all this.
Roger leans over to Jocasta and whispers: “See, this is the problem with mixing up zone defense with man-on-man defense, right? Because then we have the zone, we got it under control, and then here comes this man-on-man thing — that stuff doesn't play. These guys gotta get a better coach.” Jocasta cracks a smile and says: “They’re not sharing the playbook.” All the while, Archie scribbles furiously on his notepad, nodding along to what Andrija and Marshall are saying and doing rapid calculations in his head. For a moment he contemplates going upstairs to grab Enki, but decides now probably wouldn’t be the most politic time to whip out a puppet. But as he wraps up his computations and projections, something dawns on Archie:
Puharich is lying. It’s not Uri himself, personally, who is going to act like the catalyst for all of this sort of — for whatever his intent is. Puharich is at the center of these three elements of psychic research, futurology, and the Internet. But not just him.
As Archie kind of senses the dynamics of all of these different populations, all of these different trends, he still sees them very, very strongly shooting off into the future. But they are being shepherded somehow. Uri is not the shepherd. He is just one facet of an overall strategy that Archie can only see the very, very edges of. Just a slight contour here, a little bit of change in populations’ belief there. But basically, if you were going to choose somebody at this point in history to embody what Willis Harman talked about — the fully actualized man who's pursuing exactly what he wants to pursue, who is being exactly who he wants to be, who is using his powers to make himself rich and famous — it would be Uri Geller. All he is is a blueprint for some archetype that's going to come later and be something that a lot of people become. Assholes, basically. As Mitch once said long ago about Andrew Krane fans: you’re describing assholes. The thing that Archie can tell is that there are probably other Puharichs out there doing exactly what he's doing. Right now. In different areas and different places.
Now, to what end? Again the problem is the esmology will tell you where the trends are headed, what direction they're headed in, but what's the goal? You still don't know. You still don't have a good sense of why this is happening.
In other words, Archie concludes, Uri is not the linchpin of Andrija’s plans — he’s an example of a future model, a model that Andrija is working to build. At the same time, Archie realizes that, given Andrija’s position, this must be what SANDMAN wants. Andrija hasn’t “gone rogue.” He’s fulfilling a sanctioned mandate. “Who is the rogue faction now?” Archie thinks to himself, while also wondering how well-versed Andrija is in esmology. He reckons “not that well versed,” given Andrija’s questions about whether URIEL has an esmologist. Perhaps Andrija does not know enough about esmology to have known that Archie would figure all this out. Or perhaps he just underestimated what URIEL knew. Or Archie’s capabilities. Anyway, Archie says none of this to the group in front of Andrija. He adopts a poker face, though Marshall, with his ability to read peoples’ body language, and Charley, with her special connection to Archie, is able to piece together that something is amiss. Archie scratches his head.
Archie: I think we're just — we've been working at different scales of reference right —
Andrija: Yes!
Archie: — and maybe we've been really focused on this one campus in our city and so —
Andrija: There's honestly so much more at stake. I mean, I’m just a toiler in the vineyard. There are plenty of other folks who came out of that class in the 1950s at Fort Dietrich who are out there doing their own things well outside the spheres of something as crazy as ufology and, you know, channeling and all these other things. There’s people working in labs right now to make sure that we don't fall under the spell of the Kings again. There are people working all over the world and, you know, again some of them don't even know what they're doing, but they're helping the effort. They're helping SANDMAN. The esmologists at the Peak — I know you're a field you're, essentially a field esmologist — but they know what’s coming. They know what the future holds and they want us to be as well prepared for that as possible.
Archie: Well, once again, I think maybe this is just case of wires getting crossed and I don't see that — you know, with apologies (he looks at the URIEL team) — I don’t think that Uri’s going to lead to any big irruptions any time soon.
Andrija: That’s good to hear.
Archie lays on the apologies a bit thicker, saying that this looks like it was his team’s fault, that he hopes URIEL hasn’t wrecked things with his asset, and that he’ll direct his people to back off. But Marshall and Charley can immediately tell that this is a ruse and that Archie is attempting to signal to the team that Andrija is a bad dude, not to be trusted. Picking up the cue, Marshall snaps on his most genuine smile and reaches out with both hands to apologize to Andrija for the damage he caused. “This is,” he says, “this is why I just do what I do because you esmologists, you know, you’re really able to see the bigger picture and I just didn’t see it. It’s just a real case of tunnel vision. I’m really, truly sorry.” Andrija seems to accept the apology and says that if URIEL detects the subduction zone at SRI is going to be a problem in the future, to “get on the horn” to Granite Peak:
And we’ll get some extra resources out here. If this confluence of psychics and this, you know, networking program at SRI are going to be causing some kind of confluence — I mean, we could certainly get Doug Engelbart a job in the private sector if we need to. Like, scuttle ARCNET and take one of these elements out of the equation. That’s not a problem. But I think SCANATE is going to be an important asset if you’re going to be running it, Doc. Going forward, I think you should keep that team intact. Like I said in the car, it would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Marshall says he “absolutely” agrees and that they’ll just monitor the goings-on at SRI for further ontological instability. With that, Marshall offers to take Andrija back to his hotel in the Rolls, but Andrija declines, saying he’ll just grab a cab. “No offense,” he smirks. “None taken,” Marshall smirks back. With Roger staring daggers at Andrija, he and Marshall exchange a bit of industry-talk about how to best go about repairing the damage done to Uri, with Andrija explaining:
Andrija: You know, it's funny that I got a chance to talk to Agent Helix while you all were undoubtedly talking about me in the other room, because Uri comes from one of the very early programs that was run in Israel as a sort of trial run for the secret schools that were a big part of psychic recruitment in the ‘50s in the States. Not that he was exhibiting any kind of psychic ability back then but I mean, honestly, as far as things like technology security and memetics are concerned, Israel's kind of our laboratory. If it appears here in the States it probably appeared in some form in Israel eight or ten years prior. So, he's been watched for a long, long time by Israeli intelligence and cultivated to a great degree. I just don’t want to see that go to waste.
Marshall: Oh no, I mean, Agent Helix is getting the very best education here. I mean, she’s taken a real shine to magic. She loves her magicians.
Andrija: Well, we’re going to need people like that just as much as we’re gonna need computer programmers in the future. Isn’t that right, honey?
Charley just smiles and says nothing. As Andrija puts his hand on the doorknob to leave, Marshall says, “Oh — wait, we’ll have one of the field team take you to a cab stand. They’re a bit hard to find and it’s late and we don’t want you getting lost.” He snaps his fingers and points at Jocasta, who says she’d be happy to drive him to a cab stand herself. The two leave and everyone else in Archie’s den exhales.
As Andrija gets into the Rolls, she pops a tab of acid under her tongue. They drive in silence for a few blocks before pulling over to a cab stand. Jocasta makes a pretense of assisting Andrija out of the car, a feint that enables her to touch his hand. As she does, she asks aloud — or does she? did she say that out loud? is she saying this out loud right now? — “What does the future look like to you?” Then, aided by the oncoming effects of the acid, her mind wooshes through the cap of Andrija’s crown chakra and she sees a glimpse of two futures.
The first is a vision of the end of the world: the Anunnaki back in full force, alien gods ruling our planet, worshipped by the starved, bedraggled, diseased Americans. The landscape is a wasteland and there is suffering everywhere. This is not some war-torn Third World nation somewhere. This is America. America at the end, with the Red Kings seducing what remains of the American people to their side.
Jocasta blinks and finds herself standing in a second future — a techno-feudal society comprised of small settlements surrounded by huge walls and covered by soring geodesic domes. Everything is plastered in corporate logos, neon signs, brands brands brands everywhere. The land all around is vacant, few people in sight. Whatever happened, it killed nearly everyone and those who remained survive thanks to the benevolent technocratic rule of the Corporations and the Men in the Bastions. She blinks and the vision is gone. Standing before her is Andrija, smiling, who says: “Oh, Ms. Reinertson. The future just looks brighter and brighter every day. Thank you for an incredibly edifying night.” He turns and walks to a waiting cab.
Jocasta drives back to Archie’s and reconvenes with everyone in the den. She composes herself as best she can and explains what happened: that she took acid and tried to establish hand-to-hand contact, but pushed it in this new way where she felt she could literally inhabit Andrija’s brain, merge their egos to a degree where she could solicit pure information, an unalloyed impression of his true intentions. Then she reveals what she saw: how Andrija sincerely believes that humanity is doomed to this nightmare of the Red Kings, which he dreads and loathes, and which can only be avoided through building a sort of grim techno-utopia ruled by people like Andrija.
Jocasta: As much as he despises the Red Kings taking over, he just as sincerely believes in that particular vision of the future. And whatever else he’s doing, we have to consider that he’s putting as much of the latter belief into the memes he’s putting out there as he is the former. He’s not discouraging one belief and trying to avoid one potentiality. He’s pushing toward another.
Roger: If I get what you’re saying, it’s not just History B. There’s also Future B. And then maybe Future A, as his SANDMAN wants to go, is not really History A. So now we gotta worry about futures? I vote for Future X.
Archie: Puharich, he — he wasn’t playing straight with us. Geller is both more and less than what he said. Geller is not just chaff just to confuse people about psychic powers. But neither is he the linchpin of anything. He's more like a — he's more like an example. They want to make a world of Gellers. (He looks at Mitch.)
Mitch: I can’t imagine anything worse.
Charley: He didn’t ask me one question about the INDIGO Program. It’s like he knew it all.
Archie: I was interested in that, yes. He has got to be high up to be operating with this level of autonomy. 20 years? (He looks at Marshall). We have to assume that he is acting with the approval and authorization of the organization.
The room starts getting hot. Unusually hot. The AC kicks on. Marshall loosens his collar and shoots Mitch a look.
Mitch: I don’t like the situation. I don’t know how much more clearly I can convey that. I don’t like the situation.
Marshall: Well, you know, making is 108 degrees in here is not helping with the situation. We’re all processing in different ways. Anyway, I mean, I’ll be the first to say it: we have an accelerationist faction within SANDMAN. And they’re like, they’re like our bosses. Now we’re on their goddamn radar because I had to go abduct a magician in a Rolls Royce! Maybe this new way of thinking — I don’t know. This is a royal fuckup on my part.
Marshall’s comment about being on SANDMAN’s radar links up a connection in Archie’s mind. He hears the voice of Stoney whispering in his ears: “You fools! You’ve been doing their work all along!” Archie repeats this line to the group, omitting the “you fools,” but goes one step further: all these comments about URIEL being the dumping ground for weirdos, all these things about URIEL being where SANDMAN sends experimental stuff, the fact that this team of oddballs and misfits is buried deep in the roiling cauldron of high weirdness that is the Bay Area — URIEL is an experiment. They’re doing future prediction by observing URIEL. Or they were, back when they had a functional chip inside Charley’s brain, hooked up to her visual cortex and recording everything they did. Marshall feels the onset of a panic attack and immediately fishes into his jacket for his coke. He takes a huge bump and then collapses onto Archie’s couch.
Charley: So they’re the ones who put the chip in my head?
Jocasta: Archie, do you remember we had a conversation once about … that maybe we’re not doing experiments on Charley, but she was doing them on us?
Archie: (looks at Charley, and nods).
Charley: What did Sophie know?
Marshall: I mean, Sophie must have detected this before —
Charley: — and she couldn’t say anything because it was too big.
Marshall: Right. And I interpreted what she was doing as treachery. But in fact, she was just —
Charley: What if they get her?
Marshall: Well, they haven’t gotten her yet. And there’s nothing we can do to save her.
Charley: But we don’t know where she is! We don’t know what THROWAWAY is. We don’t know — did they do something to my mom?
Marshall: I don’t know.
Archie gently probes Marshall’s take on all this, given his prior reactions to suggestions that SANDMAN might not always be on the up-and-up. Marshall sighs:
Marshall: Well, it's like, you know how Mitch had this talk with me about how we're all in the same team or club or whatever? I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking and I've been doing a lot of meditating and — a while back, we had this conversation and someone said something along those lines, I said I'm gonna go meditate on it — I left and I did meditate on it. It wasn’t just a euphemism. And I'm thinking maybe that I'm seeing through … like, like maybe I've beaten this level of the game? And now I'm at the next level of the game? The game behind the game. Am I making sense?
Roger: (trying desperately not to comment as he watches a white man wake up to the fact that he’s working for the Man).
Archie: I’m not sure I followed all that, Marshall, but I do like to think that we are all on the same team. But I don't want to make that decision for anybody. I feel like we might be on the threshold of something. And we don't like what Puharich and the people he represents are doing — well, I couldn’t choose for each of you what to do about that. So I want all of you to think about that.
After a moment of silence, Marshall says that they need to get Houdini — the Houdini on the hard drive — into Granite Peak somehow. Going back to an earlier plan proposed by Archie, he says that they could bring the hard drive to the Peak and say they found it by accident, and then use that to get Houdini as their eyes and ears on the inside. “Houdini would have to take that deal, right? He’s trapped on a chip. What better — you know, this is an opportunity.” Charley agrees, saying softly that it would be another opportunity for Houdini to break in and escape from somewhere. “His ego wouldn’t let him say no and the fact that this Uri guy is making a twisted version of Houdini, I mean … it’s not right! I know I’ve been through it with him but this is the worst!” The team briefly debates how best to enact this plan, whether to hand it over with a fake explanation, put it back in the lintel over Archie’s door, or destroy it and offer to simply give SANDMAN the information they managed to extract. After a little back and forth, Roger says:
Roger: But I think the bigger question here is, if we don’t like the brass, are we tearing down the system or are we changing the system?
Marshall: Well, I mean, we need more information first! That’s why I want to get eyes on them because like conceivably it’s not all of SANDMAN from the top down. It could just be a branch of SANDMAN or something …
Jocasta: Even if it's like — it could be the case that it's just Puharich. It could be the case, as Archie intuited, that he’s one of many such independents with the same agenda. It could be just that and that the standard brass, the mainstream brass, don't know anything about that, really. They don't have any eyes on it.
Roger: So I have two votes for changing the system. And I’m thinking, just looking at Mitch, that he would like to tear it down. Any other votes?
Mitch: You know that Uri Geller is a bad man. You know this. You don't need me to convince you. You already know it. Jo, you know it.
Jocasta: I know it. But …
Mitch: We have a responsibility Jo.
Jocasta: Well, I don’t like the guy.
Marshall: Well, even if we wanted to tear down SANDMAN — arguably the only thing standing between the Histories — even if we wanted to tear down SANDMAN, we need more information first, because the seven of us can’t dismantle the conspiracy at the heart of the world.
Roger: I mean, agree man. What information you’re gonna go look for depends on whether you want to destroy or —
Marshall: Literally at this point I would take any information at all. Like, is he, as Jocasta said, just this guy who’s really high ranking? Or is it all of Control? And how closely are we being watched? For a while we thought — according to a conversation Archie had with Frank Stanton — there was a mole in the ranks of SANDMAN. I just don’t —
Jocasta: We need to know what the system is before we decide whether to reform it or burn it down or even how to burn it down.
Marshall: Or even how we burn it down. Like, how would we burn down an organization like SANDMAN?
Roger: What I’m definitely hearing, for now, is don’t burn it down, because you don’t need information to burn something down. The question is do you want us — that’s all. That's all I wanted to know. Because, you know, it's something that everybody in my position has to make a choice. And I made the choice long go to work with the Man. But I don’t necessarily want to keep the Man up there forever. So the rest of you can make what your choice is since Archie, you just asked, right? But I’m hoping that it’s not, keep these kind of bad men up there at the top. And if they're out there about to do something bad, just like we would take out something for the Red Kings, I think we have to take out these people for … Future B.
Jocasta: Yeah, the question is, how much — whoever it is we’re perceiving as our immediate problem how important do we think that the continued existence of Uri Geller is to them? And how great do we estimate their power is if they decide to push back on something happening to him?
Archie: He’s not that important. I know that he rubs you all the wrong way. But I don’t think he’s that important. I think that if we moved against him, all that would do is alert Puharich and set him against us.
Roger: I think the man’s already against us. Just so you know. That ship has sailed.
Marshall: I know but that’s —
Jocasta: Just let him go on Carson?
Marshall: Well, sure, I mean, let him go on Carson. I mean, they can’t fix him in 48 hours. So Geller will just embarrass himself on Carson or whatever. They’ll reconstitute him at the Peak … I mean, it’s just not a good situation, gang. I mean, if the suggestion from the other side of the room — and I don’t think there is another side of the room, although I’m kind of getting the vibe that maybe there is another side of the room, but I’m not clear why it’s the “other side” — the suggestion is to kill Geller, I don’t — I legitimately cannot think of a way of doing that that does not immediately come back at us in a way that … I mean, if Puharich is as connected as Archie thinks, he’ll just send a bunch of me’s to come arrest us or, you know, black bag us in the middle of the night. I don’t think it can be done, to be honest. I think we can try to beat them at their own game. Maybe like … I don’t know, disrupt the memetics? Or change the narrative? I mean, we’re the ones who are here.
Archie: “The ill road has already been laid.” (Turning to Mitch). I actually agree. We can’t kill Geller. He doesn’t matter. We have to let him go. If we’re worried about SRI, Puharich’s suggestion … we can scuttle ARCNET, we can take Engelbart out. Maybe that shuffles the cards a little bit. But I think that what we were detecting there, the reason we were chasing our own tales, is that we were detecting our own influence and detecting what SANDMAN — wasn’t that sort of what Charley and Roger’s calculations said? That SANDMAN is part of this?
Roger: If it wasn’t SRI, it was going to be something else. Because apparently now we know that SRI is a piece of it.
Charley: So do you think they killed GRAIL TABLE?
Marshall: Maybe? I mean, maybe. And if they killed GRAIL TABLE, they can kill us. So the thing about being in a club —
Charley: Because David wanted to fix the future, not let it happen. That you could stop all the stuff in the tanks.
Marshall: Yes, and it's what Andrew Krane saw in his book or whatever, which set me off last time — that in the Krane books there was this cabal of American magicians who wanted to build a horrible Spartan future. I mean it's all — it is all connected. But I was — what I was going to say is that part of all of us being in this club, this club that Mitch described to me, is that we're all in it. Together. And we can't be going off and doing things that might jeopardize every other member of the club or the club itself, Mitch.
Mitch: We're going to regret this. I regret it already. But we're all going to regret this. It may be that whatever we chose to do today, we would end up regretting it, but I regret this already. Also, I need to tell you guys about … (the longest pause) … I need to tell you guys about Ol’ Vera, Bigfoot Pete and the … Count of Shasta. I was hoping I could avoid having to tell you guys about it but clearly, no.