8/9
Played: June 28, 2023.
Wednesday. October 17, 1973. Morning. URIEL reassembles in Huntsville. Archie reveals what he’s been up to — taking Frank Stanton’s job, meeting with Beth Cole, being abducted by the Comte de St. Germain via UFO — but holds back that he offered SANDMAN the Hobo Language in exchange for assuming control of North American memetics. Roger and Charley explain what went down in Pascagoula, including their invocation of Maître Kalfu (who’s showing up more and more lately).
Roger: So that’s all well and good, but we need a second opinion. Which is to say, we need somebody else who can speak this language and talk to them [referring to the Native dead in and around Pascagoula].
Charley: Like who?
Roger: I don't know. But we have SANDMAN resources, right?
Charley: Oh, right.
Roger: And there may be other resources that know how to speak pure … whatever it is.
Charley: Sure.
Roger: I mean, for all we know they’re speaking the language of the angels and that’s how Kalfu knows it and that’s —
Charley: Is this a dead language?
Roger: They certainly killed everyone who spoke it.
Jocasta discloses that she “met” Pat Price in West Virginia, and “put him on the case,” but is skeptical about how efficacious he’ll be since the “clock is ticking on his existence.”
Marshall then arrives late and takes a seat. He asks about the status of the remaining subduction zones. Archie reports that there are four left: Point Nine in Cairo, Illinois; Points Seven and Eight in Ohio (outside Columbus and Dayton); and a “stray” zone, Point Three, in northeastern Georgia, where there have been no reports of UFO sightings or abductions. All four zones have weakened significantly in the wake of the team’s successful op in West Virginia, but SANDMAN surveillance continues to report disturbing electromagnetic signatures in those areas.
Roger suggests that there may be a correlation between some of the things they’ve been witnessing, specifically, between the glowing orbs and the spirits of the dead, and between the UFOs and kulullû (or the Comte de St. Germain, perhaps). Sightings of the two phenomena do seem to coincide. Archie asks what that tells us.
Roger: Not sure. Just trying to figure out ways to go. It sounds like it’s all craft, which means it’s all possibly kulullû. Which means there’s also a need for memetic resources at every one of those spots because what we've heard is, the more they think about it being UFOs, the more the Enemy is going to then take on that form and manipulate. And we didn't get the sêdu, did we?
Marshall asks what sêdu Roger’s referring to. Roger explains a bit more about the dream-memory that Calvin told him about under hypnosis in Pascagoula. Marshall agrees that’s troubling. Archie makes a note to designate Calvin for ongoing discrete surveillance. Fortunately, the memeticist assigned to Pascagoula has managed to get some of the spotlight off Calvin, who has gone off the radar following Roger’s interview.
The team brings in Kendrick Mead to report on the state of ALLOCHTHON’s memetic operations. They’ve flooded the zone along the Gulf Coast with disinformation and propaganda aimed at discrediting reported UFO sightings. They’ve also facilitated pulling the mainstream media out of the area, relegating any news coverage to strictly local outlets with fewer resources and lower readership numbers. Archie’s patriotic memes remain in place in Ohio.
The team decides to dispatch Roger, Charley, Mitch, and Jocasta to Georgia while Marshall and Archie remain in Huntsville to oversee matters there. Before breaking up, Jocasta says:
Jocasta: The only thing that I think that is worth bearing mind as we move forward is — and whoever else was in West Virginia with me can confirm or deny that they feel the same way — is that the way that the satellite station manifested itself showed that there was not only a very close type of purpose between what the Continuity Working Group was doing and the Enemy was doing, but that the walls between the two were very thin. That thing jumped back and forth between being an Enemy outpost and a SANDMAN outpost very quickly. And I don't know how well the teams that went in after us to scrub it up were able to salvage it — if anything — but I have a very strong suspicion that the altered glyph that was there was meant to promote the kind of obsession that we have seen amongst a lot of the UFO believers in this whole experience. I think that destroying that base — because it was obviously sick, it was boosting the signal of whatever or whoever was in control of it at the time, which has been us, right? If we say “us” as in SANDMAN, right? I think that destroying it has significantly weakened things. So I think whatever purchase that it had in all these areas is very weak now, but that we should look for something like that in Georgia. Like, we should look for some repercussion of that because that seems like the common through-line for all these places, other than the UFOs.
Marshall nods and says that’s a good point. If they — the Red Kings or the CWG — were using a satellite dish to broadcast a particular signal to the other zones, then the other zones might be home to something resembling a receiver dish. He claps his hands together and says it seems like they’ve talked enough, and that the field team should go to Georgia. Mitch raises his hand. He has two points. First, he suggests they contact Pat about getting a read on Point Three in Georgia. Marshall says he’ll handle that. Second, he wonders who, if anyone, at SANDMAN is the leading expert on pre-Columbian American Indian civilizations. None of URIEL has the answer to that question. The only SANDMAN affiliate about whom they’ve heard anything with regards to pre-Columbian studies is RAVEN. And what about Dr. Hilary Postel? Bring him? No, Archie decides. His strengths would, Archie suggests, be better used managing the archaeological team at Huntsville.
The meeting breaks up. Marshall submits his request to SCANATE. At around 10:30 AM CST, the telex machine prints out Pat’s hastily-arranged report on Point Three in Georgia. Pat says he observed “a kind of flat hilltop,” not a mound, nothing resembling the sort of Native earthworks URIEL’s encountered to date. Atop the hill were a set of rectangular standing stones rising length-wise out of the ground. It was night time and “two men with large rucksacks on their back” hiked up the hill. When they reached the base of the standing stones, they took off their rucksacks and withdraw a large amount of explosives. He felt there was a lot of “intense emotion” around the site, especially the standing stones, and that two men had come to demolish them — to blow them up. Pat says he noticed words carved into the stones. While the men assembled their explosives, he reviewed these engravings. Most of what he read he couldn’t make heads or tails of; the words were written in languages he doesn’t know, but which looked familiar. On one side, however, were a series of “commandments” written in English. They read:
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the Earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.
Marshall shares Pat’s findings with the team, all of whom are puzzled. Nothing resembling Pat’s vision exists at Point Three currently.
Archie: So, how do you prevent standing stones from being built in the future? Maybe we build a … shopping mall here, or something like that. Obviously, if some future kook or OZYMANDIAS is going to put up there version of Stonehenge, then we could wait around for decades and then blow it up. But if we want to change history, just raise property values so that nobody’s putting goofy standing stone out there.
Roger: Well, you’d need to get at least some infrastructure out there before you can do that.
Mitch says there’s no point debating this issue until they get eyes on the site, so the field team finishes packing their kits and shuttles off to Georgia by private military plane. About an hour later, they land at Athens-Ben Epps Airport. From there, a small caravan of unmarked government vehicles transport the field team and their equipment to Point Three: a rural, isolated site north of Athens, a few minutes’ drive from the interstate. The area is occupied by several marble and granite quarries, but otherwise there is almost no industry and few residences. Aside from a small creek or two, there are no bodies of water nearby and nothing akin to the satellite facility Marshall, Mitch, and Jocasta encountered in West Virginia. The whole zone’s empty, in other words, even when viewed from Mitch’s unique perspective.
The field team splits up and looks for clues. Eventually, Mitch finds himself near the center of the zone: the crest of a small hill. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. The vibe is off — which is unsurprising — but the “flavor” is more opportunistic than anything. There’s a lot of potentiality at this site. Mitch supposes the following: in West Virginia, They took advantage of OZYMANDIAS’ poking and prodding. They also probably know that this site is, in the future, going to be a place of significant ontological instability. But why are They attracted to OZYMANDIAS operations other than the fact that OZYMANDIAS is dumb and creates all these subduction zones as a way to test out of their dumb theories about ontological mineshafts for surviving another Ontoclysm? Well, because there’s a lot of similarities between the two meme-plexes. OZYMANDIAS wants to rule over a rump of humanity using computers; the Red Kings want to rule humanity through a primitive hive mind mediated by psionics. The close alignment of these ideologies makes OZYMANDIAS’ projects ripe targets for Anunnaki intrusion.
In light of Mitch’s observations, the field team calls into Huntsville to speak with Archie and Marshall. A short discussion ensues. It’s unclear whether there’s anything URIEL can do at this time. If the standing stones were a future project of the Continuity Working Group, then perhaps the events of the past week have already ensuring the future project doesn’t come to pass. Maybe Pat’s vision was an echo of an alternate future that is even now fading from probability. Or maybe more needs to be done — but if so, what? Jocasta, conceding she has “doesn’t have the language of memes,” wonders if SANDMAN should establish a hazard perimeter around the site, have some government agency (like Nixon’s brand-new EPA) declare it off limits, erect a fence, put up a bunch of signs about how there is no honor at this place, etc. Roger points out that doing so might actually draw more attention to the location: a “toxic spill” might prompt a cleanup effort, for example. Marshall suggests building a suburban development, the embodiment of the American Dream, so that there’d never be an occasion for an insane terrorist bombing because the area would just be another bland stretch of iconic middle class homes. Ultimately, management — Archie and Marshall — declares this a problem for another day. They tell the field team to get to Newark, Ohio. Point Three will remain under surveillance for the indefinite future. The field team hits the road back to the airport.
In Huntsville, Marshall heads to the cafeteria for coffee after first putting in a call with Donna at the Peak for more information about some of the leads he’s mined from the ALLOCHTHON files. There, he spots Katherine Delmonde — Mystic Kate — getting an early lunch. He siddles up to her. They exchange greetings, shake hands, and take a seat in an unoccupied booth far from any potential eavesdroppers. They make polite conversation before Marshall asks what they’ve had Kate doing the past week.
Kate: Well, let's see. I've not been of much use. My skills are a little rusty, you know. I've been in official retirement for nearly two years now. It's been interesting to watch the proliferation of saucer belief around these abductions. To me that seems to be the key. And I did consult with Kendrick on the white paper that came out last week. I know that it's not a very large step from astrology nuts to UFO nuts so I was more than happy to consult with him on that. Now, if you're asking me how I feel about how the mission has gone, generally speaking, well, Marshall — I'm no dummy. I know something has happened behind the scenes and it's good to see Archibald in charge and it does seem like. since that change in leadership, the subductions have quieted down considerably. So what I'm curious about is how this whole thing got started. Because it has the feeling to me of — at least the first week or so — of some kind of op gone wrong.
Marshall: Is that what you thinking happened? Do you think this was an op gone wrong?
Kate: I'm not going to sit here and and profess complete ignorance because I've been with the Project a long time, Marshall. I've seen a lot of people come and go and I've … well, my time out in California, I wasn't just giving reports to Archibald and to the team. I was there consulting for Control.
Marshall can tell that’s a lie.
Kate: They had me feeding information about the Bay Area’s various mystical groups and factions and the investigations we did. Control thought you were important for some reason. They thought we were important.
Marshall: Did you liaise directly with Control?
Kate: Well, it was through a cut-out, obviously.
Marshall can tell this is also a lie; she never interacted with someone who she thought worked for Control. Nonetheless, he listens intently as Kate unfurls a story about dealing with an emissary of Control similar to Archie’s interaction with Beth.
Marshall: I mean, I have to know who it was. The jig is up, Kate.
Kate: Well, he was an awful little striver. The most unctuous man you’ve ever met. Are you awre of Andrija Puharich?
Marshall rolls his eyes and sighs.
Kate: He’s high up in the Project, Marshall. I hate to be the one to inform you. And I know, since my reports, he’s spent a lot more time in the Bay Area as opposed to New York, Mexico, Israel — everywhere else he’s been known to frequent.
Marshall: How did he first approach you?
Kate: Well, it was at a conference in ‘67. I think that’s when I first met him. He gave me the sign and we realized we were both Sandmen. He told me a little bit about what he and his research group were doing. Again, I got the feeling from him that they were very — very held tight to Control.
Marshall detects that this much is true. He can also detect that Kate is not immune to blandishments and flattery, which were likely some of the tools Puharich used to recruit her.
Kate: He said we were going to have an American society where 50 percent of people had psionic potential. I mean, these kinds of things were exciting to me, Marshall. I’m not meant to get caught up in the memetics of the New Age but I mean, what he was saying was that we would have such a defense against the Kings that we wouldn’t need SANDMAN anymore. That sounded good to me.
Marshall: You don’t have to defend your motives to me, Kate. I understand completely.
Kate: So I’m guessing this faction was in charge of this operation to begin with?
Marshall: “Faction” is a strong word.
Kate: I know there are factions at Granite Peak.
Marshall: I mean, are they factions or are they schools of thought? Regardless, it only becomes a problem when people get too secretive. Regardless, Control has conducted an audit of Puharich’s research group and this particular operation and have found them wanting in terms of return on investment. So there’s new leadership now and future funding for Puharich’s group is subject to review, I guess you could say.
Kate: Will I be allowed to go back into retirement after this? Or am I going to be Shanghaied back to —
Marshall: Do you want to be in retirement? Was your retirement voluntary?
Kate: I stopped giving them information in ‘71. Late ‘71. They said they were going to swap me out with somebody else. I did it because I didn’t like what I was having to do anymore. It went from just giving my own viewer reports to … they were asking me — well, they wanted to know if you were collecting reality shards. And I said to myself, why would they ask that? We’ve never given a report with reality shards in it. We never encountered any.
Marshall: Did they ever ask about Mitch?
Kate: I thought Mitch was one of them.
Marshall: Why would you think that?
Kate: Well, usually in a situation like this they would have someone to keep an eye on me. And he always seemed like — basically, he came in so suddenly and so strange. He hardly knew where he came from himself. He seemed like a man who just had his mind wiped, Marshall. I mean, you remember.
Marshall: Hm. Yes.
Kate: And we’d never had a taisher before. It all seemed too cute for words, if you get my meaning.
Marshall: Hm. Interesting. Well, I mean, what would you like to have happen? We’ll see what we can do.
Kate: Retirement was fine and dandy. But if you have plans from here on out that involve … let’s say correcting the direction that Project has been going in over the past few years, especially when it comes to this sort of thing, I mean, you said your philosophies differ from Puharich’s project. Or whatever. I mean, can you give me a précis of what you’re planning to do? Are you planning to release memetics to get people to stop believing in the supernatural? Is it that drastic of a course correction or —
Marshall: That’s an interesting question. Socrates said something about how he was the wisest man in the world because he knew he knew nothing and I think that’s going to be sort of an operating philosophy going forward. We’re not going to really hold a lot of strong assumptions or beliefs. We’ll just kind of, you know, stop worrying about it so much.
Kate: Start from zero?
Marshall: Oh, I don’t know, you’d have to talk to Archie about that sort of thing. Well, anyway, your request is noted.
Kate: If I can be of any help, please let me know.
Marshall can tell Kate’s being sincere in her offer. They again shake hands and split up, Marshall returning to the secure room where they keep the ALLOCHTHON files.
Early evening. The field team touches down in Columbus, Ohio. From there they report to the Hotel Warden in Newark, where SANDMAN set up its regional HQ for ALLOCHTHON. The team bears with them a carte blanche signed by Archie but are surprised to find everyone at the command center huddled around a television set, which is tuned to the CBS nightly news. On the screen are a dozen or so Middle Eastern sheiks sitting around a table. Walter Cronkite narrates: today, OPEC decided to turn off the spigot. The consortium of Middle Eastern oil-producing nations have decided to cut off oil exports to the West by 5 percent every month in order to force a settlement the Yom Kippur War. As soon as the segment concludes, the memeticists and esmologists assigned to this site start talking feverishly about the implications of this move. A few even start sketching out calculations and equations on notepads. Nobody’s keeping track of UFO sightings; nobody is really doing any ALLOCHTHON-related work.
Roger clears his throat and flags down someone. He introduces himself and the team and requests transport to Point Seven. It’s a short drive but by the time they arrive it is full dark out. The field team finds the site much like Archie and Marshall did: quiet, empty, isolated, acres of farmland bordered by stands of trees. The four walk the grounds a little. After about 10 minutes, Mitch stops short. Looking down, he sees a large triangle drawn into the dirt — the same triangle drawn by Marshall in his abortive attempt to resolve the subduction zone using acid, meditation, vibrations, and Archie. He whistles for the rest of the group who quickly join him. Jocasta removes a glove, crouches down, and touches the triangle. Immediately she enters a psychometric trance.
Before her stands … herself. She’s wearing the same clothes she was wearing in Cairo eight days ago, when she communed with Underwater Panther and then delivered a message to Marshall, Archie, and Morris. As she stares at herself, confused, something dawns on her: she is Underwater Panther. She gave herself advice eight days ago, but her “vision” at that time took the form of this complex meme, the Underwater Panther. She realizes she and Underwater Panther are inextricably interwoven now that she is carrying out Underwater Panther’s desire to destroy OZYMANDIAS and kill Reinhardt. And there’s more: Underwater Panther, Jocasta concludes as she stares wordlessly at herself-from-the-past, represents people who go too far. Those who delve too deep. Who break taboos. Who go where they're not supposed to. He drowns he unwitting and those who are selfish and he's got copper in him. Copper! Copper like the Indians worked; copper like they used for tools and weapons. It’s the same copper that OZYMANDIAS wants to run across the length and breadth of the United States to connect their little enclaves. And why? To see if they could bring a powerful meme with them in the event of another Ontoclysm. A primal, chthonic meme that is not controlled by the Anunnaki, and which could aid them in surviving a future where the Red Kings win.
Jocasta snaps out of it. After getting her bearings again, she explains what she learned and saw to Roger, Mitch, and Charley. With surprisingly little discussion or fanfare, the four decide it is time to commune, again, with Underwater Panther.