9/5

Played: April 18, 2024.

MIKE

Alright gentlemen. All the stuff that happened over Friday and Saturday the 19th and 20th [of April, 1974], we've had dribs and drabs of intelligence coming into HQ in LA and I mean we thought it would be a good idea to just kind of get everyone back together. And if Jocasta needs to call into this meeting or if she decides she doesn't want to that's entirely up to her. And obviously Marshall is still up in San Francisco so he'd be calling in anyway but Jo is still undercover. I guess she's reachable at the bookshop because that's where Elsie Martinez is. So if we want to try to bring Roger and Mitch physically into the office in Tarzana we can call everybody else. Is this going to be a continuation of what we were doing? Is Sophie gonna be there or is this going to be a club only?

BRANT

Yeah this is an all hands meeting. We're getting – everyone's there in some form, either physically in San Francisco or they're being remoted in by conference call or whatever. Everyone’s there. Because I think –

LEONARD

If Jo can get away with plausible cover she will attend but she –I mean there may not be time for her to travel back to San Francisco. 

BRANT

Marshall understands she's fully in the field so you know he would expect that she will contact them through the best means available to her – she could come in on the phone –

ROB and LEONARD

She could come into the LA office. 

MIKE

Yeah. So it's later in the afternoon on Saturday. We've had time to process all the stuff that's come in. 

BRANT

So I think we all know the situation at this point in terms of short-term problems and long-term problems. The – oh, Mitch, you have your hand raised.

JEFF

Oh, yeah. I would really appreciate a recap because I feel like this has sprawled in a lot of different directions in a way that previous missions haven't quite and I'm having a little bit of a hard time wrapping my head around everything. 

BRANT

Right. I am too.

BILL

I would also appreciate a recap, from somebody – I also missed the beginning and I think another recap would help.

BRANT

Right, OK. That’s what I’m here for.

LEONARD

The way Marshall wrote up the situation I think is pretty helpful.

BRANT

Right. So there is a bigger problem going on right now involving the revelation that there was an ontoclysm of some scope and power in 1906. The same time as the 1906 earthquake. 

ROB

Well it both happened and ended in 1906, it happened that the original Bohemians, meaning the poets, created Bohemia. Lived there for some time – 20 years or something. But History B got in and then … anyway – the timeline snapped back to 1906, leaving the original poets like London and Bierce sort of bereft and a splinter group among them, or others who remembered and understood, set themselves up in power and they became the Bohemian Club. The Bohemian Club we have now, the Bohemian Club who runs things. And among other things – I don't know if this is on the table for everyone but Archie now sort of has the backstory that one of the other things that this post-1906, this Bohemian Club did, is create SANDMAN. So that's the sort of origin of SANDMAN. In fact, and I know we shouldn't get into philosophy and ontology before we've even done the recap but arguably that's the first ontoclysm and that's where History b gets in the first time and then the 535 ontoclysm is retrocreated. So the answer to the question, where did History B come from, ould be 1906.

BRANT

That is why you got this job Arch. That was the perfect summation of the bigger problem. Like, that is exactly the bigger problem. I want to table all of that for a second. There is a medium sized problem. The medium sized problem is that something has happened vis-a-vis the big problem that has created what I'm going to call the immediate problem of the Hearst-SLA crisis. So there is also something – something is also happening with the pieces from the biggest problem – suddenly Bierce appearing at Mount Shasta for no reason that we can yet identify, the fire at the Bohemian Club, the fact that Randolph Hearst somehow taught the Language to the Bohemians. So there's something happening there I think that is the widest problem in the sense that it’s the most sprawling. We now the backdrop and we can see the pieces and they're all kind of coinciding with each other but we don't know to what end, we don't know what happened a few days ago with the fire and the robbery and all of that. Something happened but we don't know what. 

I want to table that because I think what we have to figure out right now is what to do about Hearst and the SLA. Because we can't do anything about the medium or the biggest problem with the current informational landscape that we have. This is a media-frenzy situation. It is going to eventually get so much national attention in this specific area that it's going to be untenable for us to protect them or keep this swept up and it's going to make all of our jobs way harder in a really bad way. So we need to settle things down and that means we need to figure out a way to solve that problem and this is what I think we need to figure out at this meeting, which, as I said to some of you the last time we were here but not all of you were here – how do we extract the Hearst girl safely for us and in a way that the public's desire for a resolution is satisfied. If she did indeed shoot two people, America – the media – will want some kind of resolution of that, some kind of like justice. So how do we keep her alive for ourselves while resolving that for the public? What do we do with DeFreeze, who is being remotely controlled by some unknown force? What do we do with the rest of the SLA?

LEONARD

I think that we need to find out certain things. We need to find out what – we know with a certain degree of certainty what their plans are and they're pretty rinky dink standard Moaist leftist white revolutionary bullshit. I think the main questions are: what are her plans, because I think she's the one who's thinking along the lines of triggering some kind of ontoclysm event, and it's still very unclear where her motivations lie, what powers are struggling within her at the moment. But she's certainly thinking along those lines. 

ROB

Don't we think – I mean wouldn't a good working hypothesis be that she, under the influence of “A Wine of Wizardry” by George Sterling – I think the safest bet is that she is trying to reproduce the original ontoclysm, re-creating Bohemia. 

LEONARD

Maybe I'm wrong on this Archie, I could be – I'm the first to admit that my thoughts have not been especially clear lately – but don't we believe that the poem itself, or that some of the ideas that the Bohemians had were themselves imprinted? 

ROB

Yes, yes! Absolutely. From the beginning, right. So in other words she is looking to reproduce – to make the same mistake that they made again or likely to make the same mistake that they made again to reopen the –

LEONARD

Right. So I’m going to reiterate, however much resistance this is going to encounter, that she is something special. That there is something about her that is different than people we have dealt with before. I don't really know how to handle her. I know she's in a very flux state at the moment. Her trust will be very easily lost. But maybe we zero her out. We find a way to fake her death that'll satisfy people and then we have time to figure out what she's really about whereas DeFreeze, I think, the main thing I think – they're the two keys here. And DeFreeze I think the main thing with him is just to figure out who put his brain chip in and why and we can play a lot rougher with him. We got to take him to the Bern, we’ll figure out what we got to do to do it. Whereas I think that's too much of a risk to do with her.

ROB

But I don't understand why we can't bring them all in and when I say in I don't mean, kick down the doors and go with guns blazing and burn down the – I mean, yes, why can't we get DeFreeze into the the Barn and Hearst into the Mission? Why is it better to let them roam around? This is what I thought back when they were in San Francisco. Why is it better to let them roam free?

LEONARD

Oh I definitely want to keep them under control.

BILL

You definitely want to keep them under control. But –

LEONARD

I don't know I'm kind of blue skying here but make it look like –

BRANT

Roger, go ahead.

BILL

Yeah sorry to interrupt, but the thing is, we need to draw out DeFreeze’s controllers, whoever they are, and if he is locked up, if he vanishes, we won't find that out. So there is a potential there now. If it's not worth the risk, it's not worth the risk. But we need to figure out what the risk is here because with what Mitch is telling me, I'm freaking out that they're going to start another riot. But, if we don't know exactly who's sending out radio signals, what their plans are, what they're going to do with these people, what they thought the SLA stuff was going to be – that group, I mean, we know what the Enemy wants so we'll fight them however we have to. This other group, who may be people – they might be CWG, like they might be OZY remnants. We gotta sort of figure out who they are because what if there is another piece of SANDMAN that's gone rogue.

ROB

And then so just to circle back to something that Marshall said, the concern about Hearst as a focus of media attention and the memetic – the sort of storyline of how we get her out. I think that as long as she is alive and intact and not too damaged, we can come up with memes and stories that are satisfying. And in fact there's a real opportunity there. The story of how the Hearst daughter, you know, became a radical and then found some kind of synthesis between the radicalism of the young people and the things that are still good about the Establishment is actually a story that people would love and we could – that could have whatever effect we wanted. But if Hearst is dead or her mind is gone or something like that …

LEONARD

So what if – I think it's important to buy time at this point, right? Like we can't make all this happen tomorrow.

BRANT

Can I ask you a question, Jocasta?

LEONARD

Yes.

BRANT

Sorry to cut you off. So your read of the girl – do you think the SLA or whatever the SLA is purporting to do is necessary for her? Because if she is sort of an agent, if she's not actually fully the victim here but she has has some power, she has something we want, which is her, but and the information she has – could we – could you approach her directly and negotiate with her for an extraction and be like, I have people who can protect you better than these people?

LEONARD

That's what I've been doing. I've been trying to stay within character as somebody who is ideologically on their side while still implying to her there are pieces on the chessboard much bigger than the ones she's dealing with and I think she's receptive to that message but as far as her motivations and intentions … that's why I think we need time because I don't know what they are yet. And maybe more importantly, she is like – my sense is that she is the one, to at least a certain degree, in charge of the situation right. But her moves are much grander so might it be possible. And if we agree – and maybe we don't agree here – that the rest of the SLA are kind of clowns, that besides her and DeFreeze, they're the critical mission people, can we maybe generate a story that DeFreeze – like we pull him out, we take him somewhere, I can start the process of negotiating with her with whatever information you want me to give her. You know this can be a team effort – I'm not trying to … I feel like I've been a little possessive of her and I don't think that's the right approach now. But maybe we pull her aside and feel her out in terms of what she's trying to do and then we just bank DeFreeze somewhere and figure out what's going on with him. That gives us time to find out who his handlers are without them knowing he's taken out of the game. The others take the fall; we feed them to the feds or whoever and I don't think – especially Roger, because you've already I think you can confirm what I suspect already, which is that DeFreeze is a natural snitch, and as a result I don't think the rest of them would be shocked to find out that maybe he pulled a side operation and he “disappeared” with Patricia and really we –

BILL

But the rest of the SLA will turn on him pretty quickly, right?

LEONARD

That gives the press something to talk about right away: we caught a bunch of these people and now there's a big man hunt for these two which we can bring to a memetic closure whenever we've gotten what we need out of them. 

BILL

I don't know I just – is DeFreeze some kind of trigger on a gun waiting to go off? That's the only thing that concerns me. It's like he has these connections in LA:  we know the Enemy loves blood, right? We also know that the law-and-order types who may have put him into this position set him up to be, keep calm until they trigger him. I mean that kind of Manchurian candidate thing sounds like bad news.

JEFF

Oh yeah, I'm not saying anything contrary to that. I saw the implant give him a … like a biofeedback, calm him down, and it has a receptive antenna which implies that the Bohemians or whoever could flip a switch and have him suddenly freak out, right? So maybe what we need to do is put him in a position where him suddenly freaking out does not cause the SLA to go down with him. Just isolate and discredit him among his people. 

BILL

And that it’s not Compton or East LA or any other neighborhood where he might have contacts or people, you know, yeah. 

JEFF

Just make sure he doesn't have any followers. 

ROB

Well, but if we do what Jocasta had just suggested, that we get ahold of him and Hearst, right, and then he can wait in the Barn.

BRANT

Let's put a pin in this before we get down too many side paths. My one concern is that if the Hearst girl is sort of playing a bigger game here that we don't understand. If she is an agent and not a piece then to what degree will she go willingly? Versus the need for other methods – but anyway. We can certainly arrange for the downfall of the SLA and the story that DeFreeze and Hearst are on the run. And we have them for and then we will have them presumably – under this plan – somewhere. Hearst at the Mission, DeFeeze at the Barn, while we cook up some story that can wrap up the media problem here. 

So let's talk logistics and now we can get back into – now I think we can get into the question of how are we going to do this? How are we going to do this and ensure that the Hearst girl doesn't die in a hail of bullets? That she’s not spotted by some reporter down there? How are we going to do it? We have all the resources of the world at our disposal so how are we going to do it? 

ROB

Well Jocasta what do you think it would take for her to come willingly? Like does she want to meet Bierce? Does she want to be reunited with him at Shasta or in San Francisco? What would you have to tell her to say, look this is who we are, come with us? 

LEONARD

Yeah, she – so I think it's much more likely, and again this is just guesswork, that there's competing interest here. I think we might want to work on the idea that the SLA are operatives of our enemies, however we define that – whether it's the Red Kings or whether it's some splinter faction of our group or the intelligence community or something. Whereas she's more of a catspaw for the old Bohemians who – for whatever reason – are surging back into our History. Now, she’s – this is why I think it’s important to buy some time – is that she is being influenced by both of those groups. She's not … she doesn't think that DeFreeze and the rest of them are fools. She's integrating their ideas into her plans but I don't know what her level of sincerity is on either level, you know? 

BRANT

So how do we buy time then? 

ROB

So if it's too hard to know which one she's going to break to, why – 

LEONARD

If we say, look, we are in contact with Bierce, which I've already told her – that –

BRANT

I have an idea, hold on – 

LEONARD

– if we tip our hands enough to say, we work with an organization that can make these things happen, she'll bite. I feel certain. Now, I don't know how she'll react once they all get together because we don't really want that to happen either, right? It’ll at least draw her away, maybe.

ROB

I'm sort of floating that as an alternative to non-lethal but forceful measures –  like why don't we just put a sack on our head?

LEONARD

No, I don’t think we should do that either.

ROB

OK, so why not?

LEONARD

Well, together, she and the SLA people are definitely planning to spill some blood. Like that is their plan and we have to stop that. I think she can be persuaded to get away from them for a little while for us to work on her. I don't think – DeFreeze will smell a rat instantly so that's why I'm saying maybe we black bag him, maybe we work on her separately, in a more direct and honest way. 

BILL

And then, yes, feel her out to see if she'll separate from the SLA.

LEONARD

Or at least give us equal time.

BRANT

So, you know, Genevieve, what do you – and thinking about this from your family systems background and, I presume at this point you've read all of our psych profiles and background dossiers on the Hearst girl and her upbringing and everything – what do you think her state of mind is? What do you think would be a compelling way to get someone like her to come with us willingly so that we can quietly deal with these other issues or deal with these other issues later?

MIKE

Well, Jocasta is the key isn't she? She's the only persona that Patricia has encountered that has treated her with dignity and respect and I would suspect that's inclusive of her entire lifespan. For her to turn on her fiance the way she did, in the media, to call him a fool and to basically humiliate him in front of the global media audience, I mean … I've listened to the tapes, however stilted her diction was, there was authenticity in those statements that she made. She doesn't like her father. She has been subjected to a series of traumas by Cinque and by possibly the rest of the male members of the SLA. Jocasta, as a woman, has an ability to connect with her as a woman with a virtually identical background to her. But with also the advantage of age of being able to act as a mentor as well. She obviously has other ego scaffoldings right now. If this poem is impregnated with memetics – both Bohemian and History B memetics – then she is laboring under a lot of different influences. I agree with whoever it was that said that the SLA is probably the least of her worries and if she’s given the opportunity she probably will take revenge on them. She is in a good position to be recruited, but it has to be Jocasta.

BRANT

OK, so – and Jocasta, are you saying that you don’t think that we should go to her immediately or are you saying that we shouldn’t do that right now, we should instead wait it out a little bit or –

LEONARD

No, I think we can but I don't think we – I don't think we lay it out. I don't think we lay the whole story out right away. I think maybe I approach her and kind of dangle the offer of: I can get you, we can get you into conference with the rest of the Bohemians, however they're currently constituted, that we guard it we make sure there's security there in case something goes wrong, but we let her do that and see how she reacts and then if it's positive and it steers it in a way that we think we can control, then we can maybe start the process of actually letting her know what the situation is. And I mean the fact that we have learned something profound about how the Bohemians are responsible for who we are right now means that we can use that in talking to her, saying: you have taught us something about ourselves, we can do the same for you. I just think we have to have it all in a row because we don't want to just plop her down and say, here’s the way things are, be on our side. We need to kind of find out what is motivating her and use that. But I don't think we need to wait that long on it. We can do that quickly as long as we're ready to dispose of – she's gonna ask where DeFreeze is, she's going to ask what's going on with the rest of them, because – for ill or good – she still thinks they're part of her plan.

ROB

Do you think she would come to Shasta? Because it's not easy – I'm not certain we can move Bierce. But Shasta is the kind of place where we could actually have that summit and have control of her and hide her.

BRANT

Right, we could hide her there.

LEONARD

And I think she probably knows that Shasta is a powerful place.

BILL

Is that enough to get her to separate from the SLA on her own so that you could approach her and say, look, I have this other option, will you come with me and see where that goes? Because it would be nice if she got herself separated while we were black bagging DeFreeze, rather than having to black bag and explain and then maybe she figures it out and is angry with us.

LEONARD

I think she will go there voluntarily if we tell her that's the way she can make contact with the rest of the Bohemians. I wouldn't put it in the terms of separating from the SLA but this is something she wants right now – is to meet with them. And that'll give us – go ahead –

BRANT

I have this idea that Roger might have a role to play in this recruitment process because my read of her psychology white liberal guilt etc., there's a natural sympathy towards a Black man. And also she seems to be having some sort of a spiritual – and she's channeling something. And we have a channeler.

LEONARD

Fancy is not a – I don’t know if Fancy is a loa, but Fancy is a persona. 

BRANT

Right. So, I wonder … because what I'm trying to orchestrate, what I'm trying to the pieces I'm trying to move into place here, are how quickly can we execute an operation where she is extracted, DeFreeze is contained, and then the police are tipped off and the rest of the SLA is rounded up? What needs to happen for all for that to happen? What resources do we need to bring to bear?

BILL

I have something of a groove with the man. He had suppositions based on the persona I gave him that I've got connections that I might have like a group of people he needs to meet. I've impressed him enough that I think I might be able to draw him off to a meeting with the big powers – you know, Black Panther groups, or the remnants of the group that aren’t – haven’t been co opted that kind of thing to basically play him to draw him out, at which point you could get him alone and take him. I mean, he clearly doesn’t have any problem like writing off the rest of the SLA and going off on his own. So I might be able to entice them out. I don't know how that would lay later with Patricia because if I'm suddenly going to switch roles and become like a guide for her, to understand what's going on, and to possibly reach out and understand this entity within her, that would be a little bit hard. If I was the man who ripped this other guy away, orchestrated –

BRANT

Yeah. Understood.

BILL 

If he decides to march off on his own with me and then I come back and say he vanished or he took off on his own or something like that, we could play it that way. But I just need have some kind of …

BRANT

I think this is one of those contradictions you're going to have to bear because I think it is almost certain that she will need you sooner rather than later. I think also you're enticing to her in the sense that you are another thing we can offer her. Like, see what powers we wield. We have this person, we can bring you to Bierce, we can protect, we have all these resources. 

So, Mitch: you can destroy things with your mind. Can we get you down to LA?

MIKE

He’s in LA right now.

BRANT

Oh, great! Great. 

LEONARD

OK, so I also think Mitch has a big role to play just in terms of kind of preparing the setting at Shasta, telling DeFreeze maybe what we're planning and honestly attuning Hearst to the fungible nature of reality.

BRANT

Once again a situation where you wish you had more than one Queen, because it's so valuable. You're gonna need a black ops team down there I assume? Right? Or do you feel like – (sees nodding) – right, OK, black ops team.

LEONARD

I don't think the rest of the SLA is that dangerous but if we want to separate DeFreeze because we think he might be able to be triggered into something really dangerous then I think maybe after we get them separated, I think that would probably be necessary anyway, I think we can have a team ready in case he bucks – but the rest of them we can just make a phone call and have the FBI sweep them up.

BRANT

Right, OK. I wanted to make sure that you guys are supported because DeFreeze is potentially dangerous. I just want to make sure that we're not walking into – sorry Roger – I don't want to walk into another Bernadette situation. So I want to make sure that you guys have the resources that you need to safely deal with him, which is kind of why I want Mitch down there. Because if shit goes south we always have the Mitch switch that we can pull.

BILL

I don’t want to get shot either, but  handling this guy is going to take a pretty careful edge because he is hyper-paranoid. I mean – and not too badly trained that he can't spot something coming. And again, we have this mysterious radio signal, his handlers who may be monitoring any of this.

LEONARD

And not to get super paranoid but I just feel like they're out there and they might decide to trigger him – speaking of paranoid – just to clear this loose end away: do you get the sense that that sniper incident or whatever it was when you were traveling down there was just a coincidence?

BILL

No. But I mean do any of us believe in coincidence anymore? I mean, no, but the thing is the signal went off and then next you know, the whole neighborhood is under sniper fire. That is not right. I don't – again I don't know who they were aiming at because I don't know who they are.

MIKE

Marshall just interviewed Colston Westbrook and he said that there were a number of these guys up at Vacaville. Like there could be other people implanted just like DeFreeze. 

BILL

So, again, who are those people? And if we can it still be useful to try and use him to to draw them out but ultimately if it's going to be too dangerous or your Queen is too valuable to put to risk then fine, sure take him out.

BRANT

I don't think he's that dangerous. I just feel like he's kind of like a rabid animal and it could go south quickly but like in a public way. But, OK, so what can we do? Like what should happen next? I really feel like the Hearst girl is one of the keystones to this and that we're not going to fully be able to figure out the medium problem, let alone the big problem, until we get access to the information she possesses. So unless anyone feels differently I think that we should get her now, and then deal with the rest of them later. So what can we do now?

BILL

I can draw off DeFreeze so he's just not in that complex. We'll have a much better chance of getting her out.

LEONARD

Roger, I think maybe the way to go is we give ourselves another day, maybe two, to just keep them in place and make them comfortable with us being around, build up that trust –

BILL

Gather a little more information, yeah.

LEONARD

I go to her first and put our cards on the table about going up to Shasta. I don't necessarily try to divide her loyalty, I just say, I can let you see what you need to see if you'll come with me and leave them behind for the moment. So if she agrees, we extract her up to Shasta. Meanwhile you work on DeFreeze and whether you can convince him to get into a position where we can put the thumb on him or whether you just think we need to brute force it or whether there's some third option might be possible.

BILL

If we wait a day and he decides to go out I could try and go with him wherever he goes.

ROB

But it makes sense if those two – if you both make your plays at the same time or very close to the same time and we have extraction teams kind of ready for both, I mean with DeFreeze it's not like the play has to be that elaborate. What we need to do is get him away from the rest of the SLA, just get him down the block or something like that. But if you both make your plays around the same time, because if it goes badly, we don't want one to poison the well of the other.

BILL

I mean I would say don't approach her until DeFreeze is out, right? I think that's the better timing because if he's around and you're trying to talk to him he could interrupt in any way shape or form and screw that up.

BRANT

OK, so Marshall's going to have Merrick commission a black ops team to send down to LA with the instructions that they are to just follow Roger's orders – Roger and Jocasta’s – they're at their disposable. They want to use them, great; if they don't want to use them, whatever, but they have them there in case they need muscle for things. So yeah we'll play this out for another like 24 to 36 hours. Maybe Archie and I can work on some media related stuff to maybe take the temperature down memetically while this is going on. 

So maybe now we should talk about – and we have David up at Shasta keeping an eye on things, we can bring her up there, we can bring DeFreeze to the Barn and I can interrogate him – so then let's talk about the medium-term problem. What the fuck is happening? Like what happened? Do we have any thoughts on other avenues we should be pursuing in the meantime? Should we drop a bomb on the Bohemian Club and say it was a gas man explosion? Like what are people thinking?

JEFF

I think it's premature to drop a bomb for a couple of different reasons. Speaking as the bomb, I don't think we want to drop the bomb quite yet for a couple of different reasons, one of which is kind of meta, which as Mitch's player character I feel like I can I can pull a little bit and say that apparently the game is supposed to continue on through to the end of the ‘70s and if we blow up the bad guys now, then what are we going to have for Missions 10, 11. 

BRANT

Marshall is like on the edge of his seat.

JEFF

He isn't gonna phrase it like that okay. I mean I don't think that he has that level of awareness, he's just like, I don't think he has that level of understanding, but he does have kind of an intuitive sense of where we are in the arc and so that seems like a bad idea for that reason. But then also if the Bohemians Club are as as much the spiders at the center of the web as they might be if they’re Control or Control answers to them –

BRANT

It didn't even occur to me that they might be Control. Holy shit.

BILL

I mean the two seem to like to have multiple players so maybe.

JEFF

Maybe, maybe not, I don't know because I feel like there's a very real way to look at history and say that it has all been set up to ultimately to benefit these rich old white guys and everything in the world is bent towards making things better for them and therefore if we do something as pedestrian as blowing up their headquarters, all that's going to do is attract their attention and annoy them. They'll have the real headquarters over on the other side of the mansion where the actual party is going on and from there they will wreak their vengeance on us. Like the warning that Mitch got at the baseball field, they could have killed me right then if they had wanted t0o. If they thought that that was in their interest. Instead they feel like me not being killed is in their interest and if they decide that they were wrong about that, then they could just sniper any of us at any time. It's kind of the opposite of the Enemy, right? The enemy is spontaneous, is incapable of making plans but spontaneously generates having planned. And conversely these guys if they are like, if they have the set of characteristics that I’m projecting onto them right now, these guys are nothing but plans – plans and contingencies layered on each other going back to who knows how far who knows how far down –

MIKE

Well, 1906 at least.

JEFF

At least 1906. But Mitch a little while ago was talking about how maybe Plato's Republic was written specifically to provide moral justification for their actions and I'm not making a joke when I –

MIKE

Sophie isn't either! 

ROB

As I read the your question in the chat, what you were asking was, you know, maybe Plato's Republic was written to provide justification and maybe it was retroactively written after 1906 to provide this justification.

JEFF

I mean a smart man told me that history isn't real, that it's not a thing that you can go back and look at because there's just the now. Now is all there is. 

LEONARD

At the very least, the fact that they send somebody to threaten you like that I mean, that's basic tradecraft right? Real threats don't speak, you know. If there someone who's genuinely threatening you that you want off the board, you just take them off the board. You don't tell them, hey, you better back off. That's them trying to convince you to do it yourself. What exactly did he say at the baseball field?

ROB

While Mitch is recalling his memory was I just gonna say about that the idea that the Bohemians are Control is interesting because basically what Mike was just saying about them, they seem to have made the decision that they want us alive. I mean if the Bohemians created SANDMAN to to guard against History B, it's analogous to the decision that Control made after we moved against OZYMANDIAS – they decided OK, these guys are the new SANDMAN. That they're still – whatever our problems with them might be they're still useful as History B fighters.

BRANT

So is it basically the case – I just want to make sure I'm catching up with you – that the Bohemians were the last cycle’s version of the Continuity Working Group and they built an ontological bunker? And we are that bunker? Like this – our History – is that their bunker?

ROB

You could read it that way. I think that in the Wheat testimony, he suggested that the Bohemian Club took control of the world and then chose, having taken control of the world, chose to dream into being a police force that could hold History B at bay for them while they got on with the important business of ruling the world and the police force being … right, us. 

BILL

But then it comes undone, we get into the history we're in, creates SANDMAN, Control likes to keep multiple threads up, all for fighting – supposedly – History B, right? The trick is that, like, does Control have a problem with a secret cabal of people ruling the world if they're keeping away History B? And also, they have us trying other, different levers. It seems like they want to have their cake and eat it too and try every avenue they can, otherwise they wouldn't have let the OZZYS go as far as they did.

BRANT

Right. Like they seem to have no ideology other than their own protection, and you know there is – it is theorized that one way to keep History B (air quotes) “at bay” is by just having an endless cycle of plans, nothing to really hold onto. But what happened a couple days ago? Like something happened, you know? Like what was it? Bierce showed up, there was a fire at the Club, like what are we missing? DeFreeze is activated? 

BILL

I thought Patricia was the spark. And the coincidences.

ROB

I thought what Marshall was suggesting earlier is that what happened a few days ago is like the bucket and spade started to appear around Oakland. That’s what I'm concerned about, is these coincidences that happened a few days ago are retro-creations from Patricia successfully pulling off whatever it is she wants to do in the future, in the near future.

BILL

Great.

MIKE

Andrew will raise his hand and just ask Archie, who’s down the table from him: “So does that mean, if we stop Patricia Hearst, those two people who got shot at Hibernia Bank will have not been shot and killed? Does it mean that there will never have been a fire at the Bohemian Club? 

BRANT

Right, how far back does it go?

ROB

How far back does it go? It's hard to say. Sometimes the causation smooths back out again but sometimes things are left behind, right? Carl Wheat only found out about  the Bohemians because he studied old maps and they hadn't all been erased. 

BILL

So the dead people at the bank are reality shards? I mean is that what we're saying?

ROB

Maybe things maybe things just change slightly so that it's not Patricia killed them.

MIKE

Or they get shot and not killed. They don't die.

BRANT

I really think I would propose in a sort of meta sense – I don't I don't know what Mike has plans for, but I  think we've discussed enough that the next thing to do is to get Patricia. In terms of like, let's end this meeting and go effing get them.

BILL

Right – I still think there's two more things to do. I mean we need 24 hours to get a little more information, right? One piece of information is just to check in and make sure that this isn't part of the spirits’ play. I want to – in a safe place – try and reach out and see if there is something else going on bigger in the the spirit world. Because now that you've said it's like she has … spirits in her, you know, possibly even like a loa, that to me sounds like either they're making a play or they're involved or they're trying to do their own job. And I don't want to get mixed up with that in case that's going on too. I mean we got so many players here, hopefully they're off the field. So I just want to clear that.

ROB

I think that's a good idea. We can use the 24 hours while you two are gathering information of course to get our black ops teams in place, to get ready for everything. I also just one more moving part: the old woman. The artist. We get her out when we get Hearst out. Does it make it easier to get her out if she comes with Hearst? The implication was that Elsie was necessary for whatever Patricia had planned down here in LA.

MIKE

Yeah, yeah. We have her. She’s at Jocasta’s shop right now. Anyone in LA could go talk to her tonight. 

LEONARD

I think the whole play with Hearst doesn't work if she's not involved, but I also don't think she would be that hard to convince.

ROB

No, I just want to keep her safe, that's all. So if you bring her when you bring Hearst –

BILL

And we're pretty sure she's not some kind of secret queen or something? 

ROB

Oh well she's tied to the original Bohemians. She's like one of the Ascended Ones. So she absolutely could have a role to play. 

BILL

But a role as a Pawn or a role as a Queen? That's my big question. 

BRANT

From the intel we have, it sounds like a Pawn. But I think let's get a black ops team down there. I want a 24/7 discreet guard on the house that the old woman is in. Like eyes on her at all times but in a discreet way – you're not, it's not house arrest, but make sure that she's protected. We get like some spec ops down there, like six spec ops people down there for Roger and Jocasta – a few of the ops people will have to be Black – we will … Mitch can do what he thinks is most useful, I think is probably the best way to deploy the Queen, is to just sort of pull the curtain aside and let them go at it. And I guess that’s it?

MIKE 

So Mitch, did you want to confab with Andy a little bit over the Oracle? Or just use him as a sort of jumping off point. 

JEFF

I hadn't considered looping Andy into that but if you think that's a good idea we can definitely do it that way.

MIKE 

I have made the Oracle rolls already when you requested it. I would love to have some tarot cards in mind just for flavor but the nature of your question is, is Andy's supposition about the factors that are leading towards being undoable – yeah, I mean, do you want, what kind of a spread do you want to do? Because I could probably off the top of my head, I could do a quick one card spread, but if you need more dimensions to the information, that's fine. 

JEFF

It can be just about one card.

MIKE

One, right.

JEFF

I feel like Mitch, 99 times out of 100 does the four card thing but it's fine. Give me one.

MIKE 

So Andrew looks at the Two of Pentacles and says –

JEFF

Well he's a happy little guy. I mean he's dancing around, he's got a nice hat.

MIKE

Andy kind of rubs his head. “Obviously I'm still getting my head around a lot of this the the things that you do and especially the the motions and imaginations of the Enemy but is there any reason why – and again, I wasn't inside the hotel when everything went down last year obviously – I haven't been around a lot of this personally. I could understand what was happening – but should it be this easy for histories to flip back and forth? I mean that's what this card is kind of asking me?

And Viv speaks up from the San Francisco speaker: “What card is it? What card is it?”

Andy goes: “Two of Penatcles.” 

Viv: “Ah, so it’s a Mobius strip, right?”

Andy: “Yeah, he’s like a juggler.”

Viv: “Well, is it, Mitch? Is it that easy for the histories to switch back and forth? What do you need to do to make an ontoclysm happen? 

JEFF

I'm really starting to think that it may be a lot easier than the story of the incredible one-off unrepeatable event in 535 AD from which all mysteries flow. That doctrine would indicate that it's like, it's an almost impossible thing, it happened once and we can't imagine how because it's so miraculous.

MIKE

Sophie says: “Very Plato's Republic, isn't it?”

ROB

This stretches into sort of dorm room bull session talk again, but isn't there something funny about the coincidence that the people who run the world are right here in the city we live in? As are the people who created the globe-spanning organization that we work for? It turns out that it's history all – well, not the city that we’re now, the city that Marshall is in – that there's a certain tight narrative focus memeticaly to that? But it seems a little … another coincidence. I thought we were fighting a globe spanning battle that spans history.

MIKE

Viv say, “Don't you know that the future is being built every day in California, Archie?”

ROB

But why San Francisco is a memetically important question.

LEONARD

There is a lot of old magic here. 

BRANT

But there's a lot of old magic in other places too. I mean it's not like San Francisco invented the concept of Bohemia. 

BILL

But it does sit on a fault line.

BRANT

Yes, it is on a fault line. It is the edge of the world. Like, beyond this is ocean.

JEFF

It has one of the best natural harbors on the planet and I think this came up in the context of, if you imagine like – you know a gigantic pile of alternate Earths, 50 – dozens, dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens, what is the one thing that they're all going to have in common is? There's going to be a population center in San Francisco because of that harbor. It's unique on Earth in that sense. 

LEONARD

It's literally named after the Spanish, fantastic invented kingdom of wealth and plenty. Like that's how it started for the whole West. 

MIKE

Andrew says: “People got drawn out here by tales of gold and wealth and people from all over the world came.”

LEONARD

The fact that – I mean this is obviously going way off into the world of metaphysics – but if we assume that this is literally like the terminal point of the West, right? It's where every expansionist impulse in humanity – the East to the West – pushed out here. It was the final frontier right. There's nowhere to go from here. Just in pure capitalist terms, it's the last of the – there's still big markets – but there's no new big market centers anymore, right? This is the end of the world and whether we read that as geographical or mystical or political, or in light of what’s happening in ways that we have seen our ourselves, economically like everybody who saw an end to the way that things were happening and the beginning of a new way of doing things has been pushing towards California for a century and a half.

BILL

Or maybe it’s just that this is where Shasta is.

MIKE

Anyway, what Mitch gets out of the card is sort of orthogonal to Andy's question about how easy this thing is to do. Because again, if you go by sort of the standard interpretation, this isn't necessarily somebody who's weighing two options. This is somebody who is switching back and forth between them. There's implied motion here. And what it tells you about what you were inquiring about Patricia's possible reality quake reverberating backwards is that – I mean, I can give you a clear answer because you actually did get a crit on the Sense roll, got a very good success on the IQ roll – which is that there are lots of ways. 

JEFF

What I  see here is a happy little guy dancing. He's having fun. He's got two very important, big coins – not just one! He's got two, which is one more than he needs. And what's he gonna do with the other one? Maybe he'll give it to somebody. Doesn't matter right now. He's just celebrating the fact that he has it. Everything's coming up Millhouse for this guy. He's got a nice little gray place to stand that is somehow not getting flooded by that ocean. He's clearly in a celebratory mode. 

MIKE

I mean he's also got a red hat but I don't want to bring that up again because the last time that happened …

JEFF

He's got a red hat. It's a different red hat. It's a different, way more chich than the other red hat.

BRANT

I wonder to what degree you Mitch are identifying with the juggler versus what's being juggled.

ROB

Right, the world-changing coins.

MIKE

Well, the last person we identified as “red hat” was illuminated as well so … alright, poor Zeb. I was also thinking about Zeb when you were talking about the alternate Earths all having a nice harbor at San Francisco because it was clear that in his Earth, there was a big settlement in Oakland as well. So if we still buy that story … OK.

So the plan is, as you say, to get as much preparedness in and around the sensitive spots. There’s teh SLA house, Jo’s shop, we can get those in place, watch carefully, live surveillance from the SLA safe house over the next 24 hours. Jocasta obviously has a way to contact Patricia that is invulnerable to all possible eavesdropping save telepathic because she's got the ability to connect with her psychically and telepathically. So if we need to get her out – I mean there is the concern that she is still probationary in a lot of ways and can't just traipse out of the house, but she's also got abilities herself that could help cloud the minds of the SLA. So I think that in order for you guys to do the next 24 hours, let me give you a little bit of the information that's come out of the safe house since everybody's come down.

So they're talking freely, they don't have any suspicion that there are bugs all over the house. And again we've got like a surveillance team there relaying to both San Francisco and Los Angeles regularly what's being talked about. So Cinque’s plan tonight is that – and he mentioned this while Mitch was still kind of remote viewing when he first got back to the safe house or first got to the safe house – and the plan is that Cinque and Willie Wolf are going to go out tonight and Cinque has made contact with – not necessarily directly – but with Black Panther descended groups, with their successors insofar as the criminal gangs in South Central LA. And this is the first year that you have a binary spy-versus-spy, red-versus-blue, Bloods-versus-Crips thing happening in LA. Now Roger has not lived down here in quite a while, he's been traveling back and forth since he joined up in San Francisco. So he's – his streetwise may be a tiny bit out of date. But the anthropology of all this is basically that, yes, when the Panthers got squashed in ‘68, ‘69 here in LA, in Chicago, all across the country – obviously in Oakland and San Francisco too – they started to get into mainstream politics down here the  the rupture was more – and again there were a lot of splinter groups as well – but the rupture was more substantial. A lot of the young active Brothers got incarcerated, some of them went to Vacaville, but the ones that were left found that the best way to keep this idea of Black pride and power going was to basically fall back into the sort of organized crime mode that existed in the past as their model. Of course gang history is long, going all the way back to the ‘30s and ‘40s in LA. These two gangs are now basically at each other's throats all the time. And what Cinque is hearing is Willie Wolf – what you are all hearing Cinque say to Willie Wolf in these surveillance tapes and the surveillance transcripts is that Cinque thinks he is the one who can bring together the Bloods and the Crips. Who have literally just kicked off this war. He thinks that he can convince the Brothers that they can take action together and it's going to be substantial action.

So Roger’s suspicion that he was going to try to do some kind of race war stuff down here, he's used these white kids to get him out of prison, to get him safe and sound, to give him a little bit of operational room. The problem is on the cover of every underground paper in April of ‘74, people are asking if DeFreeze is an actual revolutionary or an agent of the US government and so Willie Wolf is not saying anything back to him except, “Yeah let's do it. Let's get the brothers activated.” 

But it's going to be a tall order not just because these two new gangs are at each other's throats all the time. It's going to be a tall order because he's gonna walk into the lion's den. 

BILL

However delusional he is, the people who want to trigger him going there, it’s also an opportunity. They could escalate the war. They could create riots. Now we're going to have a full gang war and then spark riots. So he could be fully on mission in his mind and be setting up disaster.

MIKE

And the question we have to ask is how much of this is his idea, right? Because we don't know. So that's the news out of the house as far as eavesdropping. There hasn't been any other big  plan type since they came into the house this morning. That's the big plan and Patricia's been pretty quiet. So we get that information around 5:30 pm on Saturday, late afternoon. So he's intending to go out tonight. And Willie is going to be his driver.

BILL

I mean I don't know. It could just be an early foray. I mean he's going to be away, though, I mean it's an opportunity that we were looking for … we just didn't quite get enough information. But it sounds like something to insert ourselves into. I'll check in with Marshall who's going through this and just say, “Should I try to go in?”

BRANT

In all likelihood he could be going out just to reach out, they'll laugh him off, he'll come back, but we don't know – you're right – we don't know. We have to move Hearst and take action with DeFreeze roughly at the same time and we don't know – we haven't yet made the next approach to Hearst. So I think it's probably best for you to go in some capacity to keep an eye on the situation and otherwise not get involved but just familiarize yourself with the situation. Because we can't do anything until we've heard back from Jocasta about whether the Hearst girl is willing to come with us.

MIKE

So that gets me thinking about what Jocasta’s move is going to be tonight. Now like I said if Elsie is staying – if we've set up a cot for her at the bookshop, if we think that's the best place for her to be, that's fine. When you guys kidnapped her, she was kind of in a fugue but she immediately was able to identify Patty, not as George but kind of as having a “George aura” to her. And Jocasta as having “Jack aura.” So I mean, Jocasta kind of like checking in on her and and seeing what her mental state is like? She's confused. But I think she will probably be curious enough to ask you some questions. Is anybody who is down in LA right now, does anybody want to go and speak with her? Talk with her? Or do we want to keep Jo as her only real contact among the URIEL folks?

LEONARD

Unless there's a really overwhelming reason to introduce a stranger to the situation, I think Jocasta would want to handle it alone. She'll certainly answer whatever questions, I mean, if you want to play that out, but she'll kind of basically – her job tonight is to say, things are happening, we're in motion, you're going to be able to speak to Jack and to Ambrose soon. But otherwise she's going to say, let me know what you need to be comfortable here. Wait here. I have to go meet with Patty and I'll keep in touch.

MIKE 

OK, I think that we're still pretty much good under your original reaction, which was Excellent

or something like that. But I think she will have some questions for you and I think that primarily she is trying to – the two of you coming to get her has definitely awakened some memories in her. Much like Ambrose up at Shasta, she can't precisely recall what happened in that first iteration of 1906 to 1926. She doesn't have that direct connection or obviously we haven't looked at her aura or anything like that or delved deep into what kind of power she might have. The fact that she recognized the two of you, the fact that Jack and George were part of cabal that created Bohemia, that sounds like a good enough explanation for it but what she'll say is that: 

“When I woke up and saw the two of you standing over my bed, I knew who the other girl was. I mean she's been in all the papers but I mean do you,” and Elsie closes her eyes and says, “you don't wake up from troubled sleep and see the face of one of the most infamous people in the world and not think that something and someone has been sent here just for you. And then I looked a little deeper and I was able to see what the two of you are and when you mentioned Ambrose,” and her voice kind of cracks, “I miss my Marty and I mean, we were estranged for a very long time before his death but I wonder why he's not here in some form or another.”

LEONARD

Well that I can't say. Jocasta is going to turn on her Empathy as much as possible to just try and win her trust but just in the service of not lying, to put a contact at ease she's going to say:

“I don't know. That I can't say. A lot of what's happening is something that we are learning at the same time you are. But I do know that the people I represent, the people that I work with, have made amazing things happen in that regard. I myself, you can probably tell, am as in touch with the spirit world as I am capable of being. So I don't want to make you any promises but I can tell you that we can try and find out and if there's any way for us to contact him, we will do our best to make it happen. I think that's in all of our best interests.”

MIKE

“You don't have a way to just to speak with those who have departed? I always dreamed it was possible but needless to say, my rationality ended up winning out in the end.” And she closes her eyes. “If what I'm vaguely remembering is true and isn't just a dream, it isn't just something I saw looking deeply into a glass of wine of an evening, but if I remember what I think happened, I think there is a reason why Patricia Hearst of the Symbionese Liberation Army is who George picked, is that I just remember there being a lot of blood. You can't just build Paradise,” and she wipes her eyes, “you can't just build Paradise by wishing really hard. People have to die.”

LEONARD

Well there's a there's a lot of reasons we believe that. I don't know that it's not true but –

MIKE

I was a lass of 14 when the earthquake happened. My father knew plenty of people who died in the crush and there wasn't a day that went by in my life that I wondered what a world with those people in it would be like. But the same is true in reverse.” Now she's getting into History B and shedding blood territory that we've been over again and again, constantly, and she's theorizing about sort of, when a person dies and their life ends, they can no longer at least physically affect the world the way they could when they were alive. Sure, their memory can inspire people. Their legacy that they left behind can do many, many things – can move mountains – but with the end of their life they are no longer actively able to do the things that would allow them to change the world. To change history. And I feel like if George found her through – I mean Jack was always the revolutionary or at least that's the thing, he wasn't really the revolutionary was he? And she of sort of chuckles conspiratorially with Jocasta, knowing that Jocasta knows Jack front and back now.

LEONARD

How does Jack respond to that?

MIKE

Well he's probably not happy about it. But he's also – this is also the memeplex of all of the things that he wrote which extolled physical action and taking a hammer to the heads of the bosses. But he never did any of those things. He had all these approximations of the life of a revolutionary who was able to change the world with a swing of a hammer or the end of a gun but he never did. At least not in this world. And the thing is, is that in the stories that Jocasta now has in her head, through her Spirit Empathy, the idea is that these issues of class and revolution in his works always do get worked out to the – almost inevitably – to the bloodiest end possible. So he agrees with Elsie in what she's saying about revolutions don't come by wishing really hard. But obviously he's taking it a little personally as well.

LEONARD

“I don't have an easy answer for you Elsie, but I have every reason to believe that there are ways to make things happen that we are only now learning about that. The dead are maybe not as far away as we think they are and that if you're right, and the only way to really change things for the best is to feed into that old, old, old belief that the only thing that waters the soil is blood, I just think that there's something very powerful trying to make us believe that.

MIKE

“Well that may be true.”

LEONARD

“And we owe it to ourselves to keep looking for it.” 

MIKE

“I've been no revolutionary in my life. I've enjoyed the privileges that I have been given to a great degree. But if that girl is under George's influence, I'd be very, very curious to hear what she's telling him.”

LEONARD

“So would I.”

MIKE

“Now Ambrose is a different story. Ambrose never believed in anything and that made him quite different from … well, I mean, he believed in premonition. He believed in playing tricks on people. He liked hoaxes. He liked lying. All good writers are liars, obviously, he very, very much took to that role. Sometimes you can kill more people with a lie than you can with a bullet.”

LEONARD

“Well, Elsie, do you trust me enough to see this through for a while longer?”

MIKE

“I do. Not just because I want to know if Marty is happy where he is. I would like to hope that the deities and powers that he gave his trust to – the old powers of blood from Old Mexico – took him into their embrace when he passed. But more than that and more than wanting to know about Marty, I want to know what I've forgotten. Very, very badly. Because I can only see it very dimly and I wish I could see it all.”

LEONARD

“Well,  I think that's what we all want to do and I think that if we can get as many of you back in the same place as possible, that's our best way of finding out. But can I ask you, what is it about Patricia specifically that you think is so important? Or about what George thinks of her? Why was she his pick?”

MIKE

“I do think that whatever happened in those years that I've forgotten in that world I've forgotten, I believe Bill Hearst was a big part of it. Obviously as his blood and kin, that would mean a lot to George. I  George was not a great poet, Jocasta. I would say he was probably pretty mediocre. But Bill made him a star. Or, at least, everybody was talking about him. So I think we need to acknowledge the fact that he might see some of Bill in her. That's more than a guess but less than the certainty.”

LEONARD

“Well there are certain qualities that run through that bloodline and I am not a fool enough to think she doesn't possess some of it. But the degree to which that blood is exerting itself, that's what we have to find out.”

MIKE

“Be careful.” 

It seems to me that on the ride down in the original abduction, Patricia came off a little bit more unhinged than Jocasta, so we have multiple kidnappings and abduction things going on here. It seems like Elsie has taken to Jocasta. I've read Elsie's oral history; she didn't think much of Jack London but it seems clear that she is as far as solid heads on their shoulders go. It's a coin flip between George and Jack but I think she thinks Jocasta has got more on the ball than Patty does.

I do want to do a scene with Andy and Archie real quick. Andy: “Did you read the treatment I did?”

ROB

“I did.”

MIKE

“Did I go too far?”

ROB

“Well, I’m not sure it’s gonna pack them into the theaters.”

MIKE

“Yeah, but you can make sure it does, right? I mean all it really needs is a good advertising campaign, a couple of good TV commercials. It'll get the young intellectuals into the theaters won't it?”

ROB

“Yeah, the young intellectuals aren't really the –”

MIKE

“I wouldn’t bring this up ordinarily because I know there's a lot going on but this feels like when I sent you with all my skullduggery, I was totally blocked on Atlantis Risen and then I got that scene with Stone and the poor archaeologist who got killed in his office just came to me in a flash. This came to me this morning while you were on the phone with everybody working out all this stuff. It just came to me in a rush and I just – I just want to make sure you knew that.”

ROB

So this, you feel came to you from the same place? The same route that other inspiration has struck you from before? What do you think this story meant to London? How do you think it relates to what we've been talking about here?

MIKE

Every prison movie is a gnostic parable, right? I mean every noir ‘30s and ‘40s flick you've ever seen with the shadow of the bars coming over some poor innocent who's been locked away, I mean, it's more about existence isn't it? It's more about the tracks that we all run on. Whether it's being marched to and from our cell every day or going to work and buying a coffee and sitting at our desk for eight hours. That’s what makes it so universal. Now London, as I said in the treatment, he used the Star-Rover to just recycle a bunch of stuff. He had written some period pieces but there's more to it there. I really feel like I've been going back through all of London's other other works and just some of them are so redolent with meaning. Maybe I'm just seeing this in everything now but they're redolent with reality war stuff. The last one he wrote about that big red sphere in the jungle of a Pacific island and the islanders are worshiping it but it's an alien sphere and all of these stories, man versus nature, it just seems to me that, again, he was trying to say things. The changes I've made for the modern audience – because again the cultural signifiers, the memes in the original novel are just completely outdated, they're not going to speak to anybody right now – you can't make this a period piece. It's got to be contemporary and I just could see the brainwashing labs of Project SANDMAN in my head. Back when I was writing Atlantis Risen, I would have thought it was the brainwashing labs of MARPA. But this time it was this prisoner resisting against the institution and the interrogator, the confessor, they represent,” and he kind of looks around, “at all of this, all of you people, and what you've done to keep people from thinking differently –” and of course the answer to that question is yes, Brant, he has done some speed. He's got access to Modafinil now, he’s not looking back, he's not getting the bathtub tar from the Hell's Angels anymore he's got lab shit from France.

ROB

What I don't understand in your treatment is how does the prisoner free himself? The end, the prisoner’s institution’s walls simply melt away. 

MIKE

They’re un-created!

ROB

They’re uncreated. He collapses history to a point and shows us the ability in ourselves to free ourselves collectively. But does he have to be nude?

MIKE

“YES! He has to be nude, Arch! I’m telling you, it's about stripping away everything! And what I didn't put it in the treatment – because I thought it would sound a little too crazy and I don't want to make it explicit because it wouldn't have the same impact if it were explicit.” You know this from memetics 101, he's just going off the simple thing of people love to ferret out little secret messages in the media. 

“The implication, Arch, is that going back to his past lives, he was able to change stuff and change it so the prison never existed. Change it so America never existed! Now what do you think of that?”

ROB

“Well, I don't think we need to go that far, no. But this is good stuff, Andy.”

MIKE

“I’m only putting it out there, Arch. This doesn’t even have to be the final movie. I don’t care about the movie. I really do think this means something.” Man, getting into character for Andy is wrenching.

BRANT

He's an interesting dude from Marshall's perspective because it's like Marshall knows that he's sort of oracular in special in a way, but he also is just like such a dork. He's just so hyped up all the time.

ROB

Yeah, especially because as Marshall, I mean everybody's impressed with Mitch, but Marshall is like the number one in the Mitch fan club and then he's always just contemptuous of Andy. Obviously Archie is interested in sort of exploring this in terms of what it means as a revelation I think. I'm just amused by the idea of Archie looking at this and wondering like, “How am I going to make a movie out of this?” But that's Robert Redford's problem.

MIKE

“This is what the kids are watching these days, Archie. Didn't you go see the Holy Mountain?”

ROB

“I told you I saw the Planet of the Apes picture.”

MIKE

“We gotta get we gotta get some reels in here. You've got to get caught up on what's actually – I know we're the same age, I just feel like I'm in a little better touch with what the kids are doing these days. That's just me. I mentioned The Exorcist in there – we can't have another Exorcist, Arch. It's going to make people fear their kids.”

BRANT

I mean if you want to write a story, write a good ending to the Hearst story. Like, what the hell do we do with that?

ROB

As long as we have a good ending that's okay, but yes, this plan of ours to have Hearst go on the run with DeFreeze is pretty memetically powerful. That'll sell some newspapers for good and ill. The white girl and the Black guy on the lamb? 

MIKE

Andy will say, “Nobody cares about the other seven members of the SLA. I mean let's be honest, they're not interesting. It's like with the Manson family, right? You want to have maybe one or two of the girls who are especially memorable but the rest of them just kind of fade out of your mind, don't they? It's the same thing here … because you guys did the Manson family, right?”

ROB 

“I mean that's not – it’s not completely outrageous in suggesting that. I'll let Marshall field that question.”

BRANT

“Some wires got crossed.”

MIKE

So are we going to let DeFreeze go and try his big Blood-and-Crip summit thing tonight and kind of surveil him while he's doing that? Is  that the plan?

BRANT

Yes. Because that's Roger's thing. Before that, though, on that note, just in terms of setting it up like since we don't quite know what the meet is going to result and it could get violent, especially given that DeFreeze is not fully in his own head, I think that we should send Roger along to surveil the situation but I also am wondering if we want to have Jocasta in place to extract Hearst possibly forcibly in case the DeFreeze situation goes real far south – it turns violent, there’s a shootout, cops get involved, etc. Because at that point we need to get her out really fast. So do you think that's a good idea? Should we have Jocasta in place in case things go south?

LEONARD

She'll be with Hearst anyway. It would be ideal if we had time to build up some more trust but if we think that DeFreeze is about to trigger some kind of mass violent event tonight and that we don't have time to wait it out, then we have to go for it.

MIKE

There's a very easy way to find out and that is for Archie to do some esmology right now because this does have to do with mass groups.

ROB

Yeah, is this the explosive tipping point right now or 24 hours from now? 

MIKE

OK, and I think this is going to require Archie to do a little bit of quick research on Black politics in LA and kind of like lay all that out and he's got a few hours so he's got time to do it. I mean to be fair I think Roger should probably be right there with him just for catch up – perfect, the two of you can work on that together. In fact, if you want to aid him with Streetwise, Roger, why not.

BILL
<succeeds on Streetwise>

ROB

<succeeds on Esmology>

MIKE

OK, so Archie and Roger put together – sort of Roger brings in the intel from the streets, Archie takes a look at the bigger picture in LA, what's been going on out on the streets, and Archie is able to bring together two threads that will be colliding in LA in the next six days and that is obviously if Cinque succeeds in putting these two groups together, there the time it's going to take for them to hammer out all their differences, it's not going to happen overnight. Arch, you can tell that, from the way Roger described, what started these two gangs off and the fact that they're really brawling over money and territory and not ideology makes things a little bit different than they would have been if we were talking about the Panthers. This is stuff Archie has steeped in since you know since Charlie died back in ‘65. A big part of his own backstory he's been dealing with it for almost a decade and so when he kind of puts together the big social forces are right now, he takes a look – and again like the Corruption here is kind of like giving him the ability to see beyond a little bit, he sees that there's going to be a big crowd of people in Los Angeles downtown a week from today for an impeach Nixon rally. It's happening here in and in Washington D.C., Chicago. Now would Black gang members give a shit about impeach Nixon? No, not really. This is being put together by liberal and leftish groups, all under the umbrella of like the committee to impeach the president, basically, but if you've got four, five, six or 10,000 people marching on downtown LA you have the opportunity for some shit to go down. Archie feels like the confluence of what's happening, it's not 100% sure that he's going to try and use this gathering for something but right now it's the biggest lever on offer in LA specifically.

ROB

And you said it's like six days away?

MIKE

Yeah it's on April 27.

ROB

OK, so obviously he tells everyone all this and to the immediate question maybe that means that tonight is not the night that this is set up for.

MIKE

Obviously like the other stuff happening in LA is that there's more media here than there is anywhere else. And so if something were to happen, it's not like they're going to be carrying this march live, but the media are going to be there and if something happens they're gonna go live to it. So it's a perfect place for it to happen if you want to influence a lot of minds all at once.

ROB 

I think we want both of them out of there before six days from that. 

MIKE

Keeping an eye on Cinque tonight, he’s not bugged personally so it – we're not going to be able to listen in on what he's saying when he goes to meet up with these members of the Bloods and the Crips, but we want to keep an eye on him. We want to make sure he doesn't go off the reservation completely. You tell me.

BILL

The timeline is a little longer. This goes and falls into our original plan of 24 hours of hanging out with them being cool and thinking that you know they get more trusting of us. Even if we don't pull the plug and we have some time I mean, if we don't get Pat Price on it, it would still be worth it for Roger to go and just hang out and even if you can't listen in on everything to at least just be there, establish himself as part of the posse, that works. 

BRANT

We want eyes on all the parts at all times. So that means Roger’s assigned to DeFreeze. Jo is assigned to Hearst. Don't leave them alone. 

MIKE

OK, that sounds great. What is Mitch gonna do on Saturday night? Just so I kind of know where he's at. I mean does he have any plans? Does he want to have his sort of suite of powers positioned somewhere at the SLA safe house or where Roger’s going to be? What’s Mitch’s disposition at this point?

JEFF

Given the way things are looking to unfold I don't have a real plan of action in mind. I do have a couple of uses of Serendipity that I haven't triggered, so maybe what I want to do is just be where the action is, wherever that turns out to be.

MIKE

It just so happens that we're going to have like vans at both locations, as we've talked about, to have rapid response in case anything goes down – just so happens the guy who would be on the the laser mic in Roger’s contingent came down with the flu and he's just not able to work at all. So if Mitch wants to kind of like his old school, “I'm the surveillance guy” of this team, pop on the headset and the laser mic to listen into what's happening at the social club where the Bloods and Crips are having their summit. 

So the idea that Jocasta is just gonna go over to the safe house and hang out basically? Just like hang out with Patty, hang out with the SLA? Talk theory? Talk politics?

LEONARD

Yeah if there's no pressing need – and she would define that as Marshall, Archie, or Roger saying we need to do something different now, we need to rush the timeline – she’s just gonna spend the next day or two ingratiating herself with Patty, gathering whatever intel she can secondhand from the rest of the SLA people, just building trust and probably continuing to try and draw Patty into the idea that there’s something bigger happening and that we're in touch with the old Bohemians.

MIKE

OK, so the good thing is that like, again, it just helps deepen your cover as you know somebody who can be trusted around here so that when the day comes we gotta get her out of there it won't be a surprise. 

So as you kind of like go in and hang out in the decrepit Compton safe house of the SLA, it's kind of like 10:30, 11 pm, but hanging around bullshitting the on the surface all the members of the army seem enthusiastic about Cinque’s strategy here, which is to try and bring the underclass of LA into a revolutionary posture. But as the discussions of politics and praxis continue, the rest of the SLA kind of fades out. Like they did that time that Jocasta was hanging out in the safe house and things kind of like got bigger and wider and Jocasta this time can feel sort of like what Patty is doing to the rest of the SLA, which is basically feeding them a mental illusion and she's vouchsafing Jocasta out of that. So the two of you can speak freely amongst each other and Jocasta can give me a Hidden Lore History-B roll.

LEONARD

<succeeds>

MIKE

OK, nice. So Jocasta at this point does think that there's a neurolinguistic aspect to this that she's been able to do it. It does feel like it's got some source code in it. But she's got amazing control of who it can affect and I think basically what that comes from is the intimacy that she's built up with the other members of the SLA. She knows basically how to bring them into – like she's actually drugged them, right? She drugged them last night for the trip so she definitely has like the ability to control everything that's being done and said.

So as they kind of recede into the background and and and kind of slip into an illusionary sort of version of their conversation, she speaks freely with Jo. “What do you think about Cinque’s plan? Be honest.”

LEONARD

“I think he thinks he has a lot more influence in this community than he does.”

MIKE

“That is true. But it's a huge huge understatement. His plans and mine will not be converging over the next few days. You said you can get Ambrose down here?”

LEONARD

“Well, possibly. But what if I told you I could take you to him and that one way or another some of the rest of the the old gang could be there as well? What if I told you I could take you to a place power?”

MIKE

“Well we are in a place of power. We're in Los Angeles.”

LEONARD

“I'm talking about a different kind of power, Patricia.” 

MIKE

“Well this is the only kind of power that matters. I mean what we're going to do, we're going to need to be on television.”

LEONARD

“I understand that but when you're ready to be on television you're not doing improv. You have to have your script down to a tee.” 

MIKE

“I know what needs to be done. I mean, I need Ambrose and I need Elsie and I need you. I need you most of all. But this is the place. This is the powerful spot. Why do you think I kept nudging s you to come down here? It wasn’t for race war, it was for TV, dummy.”

LEONARD

“I know. I'm not saying we stay there. I'm asking if you trust me enough to go there.”

MIKE

“How are you going to get – well, I mean, the thing is, if I go, it's just going to make things more difficult here. It'd be great if there was a way you could have a version of me stay here and I can go with you to pick up Ambrose. I'm not really able to do that to them yet but if there was a way you could do that so that we don't have to – because I kind of do still need them as well because, well, I mean they they're they're part of me too.”

And this is like, you don’t have Detect Lies, but you have Empathy give me an Empathy roll now and we’ll see what comes with the psychology.

LEONARD

<succeeds>

MIKE

She's not lying. They mean something to her. But Jocasta still thinks that Patty still thinks that she needs someone to help her to get into the news studios or where there could be a satellite transmission or something along those lines. She's still thinking in terms of, “We're going to need to like make an impact.” Like there's going to be some dramatic, value in having the SLA commandeer a national network signal. “But maybe that doesn't need to be part of it.” 

LEONARD

“No, I think it does but again, I am in touch with people who are in the media and who can provide you with that amplifying signal.”

MIKE

“Jocasta, I trust you. I would go to the ends of the Earth with you. But the SLA have to come with me the last mile of the race. We can leave them behind after I do what I need to do but they need to be part of the end.”

LEONARD

“They'll be here. But what's your timeline? When does this have to happen?”

MIKE

“I think what Cinque was planning had something to do with the March next week. I was thinking, yeah, like a week from now. Saturday. That's plenty of time.”

LEONARD

“You're not going far but we're broadcasting on a level you can't imagine.”

MIKE

Give me an occultism role and then I gotta go to Roger and Mitch because we we need to end.

LEONARD

<succeeds>

MIKE

OK, yeah, that combined with the Empathy, alright. “If you can get me to this place of power in a way that I will not be noticed being gone I will happily come with you. Have it be the middle of the night.”

LEONARD

“We’ll make arrangements.”

MIKE

OK, at the social club where Cinque is meeting with the Blood and the Crips, now Willie Wolf stays outside in the car. If Roger’s made contact, Cinque will take him in. It'll give him a little bit of cred, a little bit of bonafides now. Down the street, Mitch and a couple of the SANDMAN commandos are listening in and watching what's happening. Mitch has a laser mic out. He's able to hear exactly what's happening.

Cinque sits down, introduces Roger however he wants to be introduced, if at all, and says: “The brothers in San Francisco, the Black Muslims, they got us down here. What we’re here to do now is to stop this silly pointless war over drugs, money, prostitution, petty crime. There's bigger things that can happen. It's all about all of us working together.”

Now as this starts to happen, Mitch listening in from the van starts to hear intense radio interference. I mean he's using the laser mic so it's not using RF frequencies but the interference is actually coming through the board in the van. It sounds like there's kind of like data signal being transmitted right now. This is the kind of thing that you were aware could and might happen.

JEFF

Do I have a way to alert Roger?

MIKE 

I would say it's probably too obvious for there to be like an earpiece but he could have like a panic button strapped to him that could give him a warning that something’s up. I think that makes the most sense unless there is some other way you can communicate with him.

BILL

My pager could go off.

BRANT

It could be a honk signal, like honk three times? If they’re parked nearby?

MIKE

As Roger goes to the pay phone in the social club to just kind of like check in, he kind of watches Cinque’s body language from across the room. You can still hear him but not like every word he's saying. His body language changes. He starts speaking with a lot more confidence, a lot more flare in fact. Roger give me a Hidden Lore History-B roll. 

BILL

<fails>

MIKE

Not quite. OK, well, Roger calls Mitch in the van.

BILL

“What’s up?”

JEFF

They’re activating Cinque. I think. I picked up the signal.

BILL

“That’s weird. He hasn't gone ballistic. He's gone smooth. Smooth as a Colt .45! Can you trace the signal? I'm gonna just go back and monitor.”

JEFF

Can we locate the signal?

MIKE

I mean Mitch can give me an Electronic Surveillance roll, see how that goes. I mean if it's switching from the laser mic to a regular old electromagnetic one, yeah, that's triangulate. It'll take a while. I think that we can put Mitch and the surveillance van in pursuit of whoever this might be and leave off there. But what I will tell you: what Roger sees is a completely different Cinque when he gets back from his quick phone call. He has the brothers laughing. They're like starting to see what he's trying to say. It just seems like if there is a transmission coming in, it's giving him the ability to be as you say smooth in a way that he is not able to do usually.