Cheval
Michael
September 2 - September 7, 1973. For the first week of September, Claire, Ambrose, and Roger work together at the VA in San Francisco. Claire's therapy delves primarily into Roger's history with the loa, and into both sides of his family and the ritual and traditions that fed into Roger's becoming a cheval. Claire's approach, while aware and respectful of the mystical side, does seem to Roger like what a Granite Peak case worker would do: dotting i's and crossing t's and filling out psych and parapsych questionnaires, pro forma. Roger also does some combat stress group therapy with the vets at the hospital; in these sessions, Claire defers to Roger on quite a few occasions, giving him almost a therapeutic role in bringing the vets out of their defensive shells. Less as a professional colleague, Roger realizes, and more as an expression of a cheval's role as shaman, healer, and liminal figure; Claire is implicitly testing Roger's ability to lead and heal other warriors. Claire also gives Roger all the remaining medicals, including the polygraph and other readings for baseline to be compared to when Roger begins being ridden by Agent 00. Neither Claire nor Ambrose have asked him to give the Agent control, and Roger waits patiently for that phase of this evaluation process.
It's with Ambrose that Roger has the kind of metaphysical conversations that get at the roots of the mystical side of the experience of being a cheval. Ambrose stumbles over his terms more than once — the ontological difference between mainline Catholic saints and syncretic loa proves a persistent point of friction — but on the mystical side Ambrose is well-read, and not just from the Christian tradition, although he does approvingly cite Hildegard, Julian of Norwich, Bernard of Clairvaux's exegetic symbolic visions, and more modern phenomena like the Fátima apparitions.
Friday, September 7, 1973. Early morning. Ambrose: "So of course we'll be flying out to the Peak tomorrow morning." Ambrose says without any preface or lead-in. "We can't do the initial training in a non-secure facility like this one. We've got to get under cover of the Cathedral," Ambrose's personal metonym for both SANDMAN and Granite Peak.
Bill
Roger gives a curt military nod. “Sure. One request: I’d like to get in one last session with the vets I’ve been working with. A little farewell session. They get too few goodbyes in their lives.”
Michael
Ambrose gives Roger a solemn nod. "Of course. Of course, do what you need to do with them, with Dr. Claire, grab your gear and confirm your transfer with the VA folks and I'll be waiting for you at hospital administration. I can have us on a military flight to Dugway tonight."
I can zoom ahead to Roger going to Granite Peak tonight if you're okay with it! I wasn't sure if there was something you wanted to do before leaving San Fran.
Bill
(Nope. Was just showing Roger’s reaction to Claire’s leadership training, all positive.)
Michael
The Friday night flight to the Peak is uneventful, but Roger senses that Ambrose is slightly unsettled, nervous even. Upon arrival at Dugway, the wind whipping down from the north, for the first time in a while — since being up at elevation at Shasta, maybe — Roger feels a chill. Roger and Ambrose are taken by jeep to one of the many Dugway Proving Ground outbuilding-bivouacs for non-clued-in visitors to this active chemical and biological weapons testing ground.
"We get started in the morning. If you feel like you need to Rench the ability to teach or communication, you can do it after reveille at 0500 when we descend into the mountain. We meet with the chevals at 10-hundred down in the mountain." Ambrose is workmanlike, the softness of his theological side is gone and he is all business under the eye of the Cathedral. Roger can't help but feel some bad juju from the idea that there are other "chevals" down there right now, waiting for his instruction.
(If Roger wants to Rench up to 4 points of Teaching or even something more esoteric to instruct this classroom of chevals before heading down to the mountain, that's all you.)
Ambrose and Roger are admitted into Granite Peak and before descending deeper into the mountain, make their way to an obscure annex off the main floors of the Granite Peak facility. Roger has a very odd feeling of double déjà vu: a feeling he's not only been here before—maybe in training, but also more recently... maybe in a dream. It's only when he gets in the elevator that the realization hits Roger.
When Roger occupied his past self during his time in the Golden Halls of Mount Shasta, he "came to" in this very elevator.
That's confirmed when Roger gets down to the former creche level of the Indigo Children and find it swarming with work crews, in those very same technician overalls he was wearing when he infiltrated down here in 1971/last month. They're toting out cathode-ray tube screens, computer terminals, medical equipment out of many of the rooms. Roger sees one of the men using Army-issue gray paint to erase the "L" and "M" from the creches of, presumably, INIDGO agents Lima and Mike. The feeling of dislocation, temporal and spatial, is profound. Will-15, please.
Bill
Given his use of the Renshaw “amenity” will be reported, Roger will Rench the Traching skill as promoted.
>> SUCCESS by 4
“Have all the INDIGO children been given assignments in the field, like Charlie?” he’ll ask Ambrose.
Michael
Roger tamps down the sense of dislocation. Ambrose looks at Roger solemnly. "Roger... hang on. Let's find somewhere more private." He ushers Roger into the room that used to be the Indigo infirmary, "the lollipop room," as 5-year-old Charley called it. It's empty of its school-nurse trappings now, just some dropcloths, stepladders, and paint cans. Ambrose does what looks like a quick bug sweep (optically anyway).
"I'm going to be the one to tell you this, Roger, because ultimately I trust you." He looks broken, sad, ashamed. "I implicitly trust that your heart is in the right place and that you'll always do the right thing. We know that you were here back in August '71. A year and a half before Agent Helix became your teammate. We don't know how you got access—back then these hallways were secured with an early form of electronic ID, swipe cards, and there's no way you could've gotten hold of one—but we have eyewits that caught you here and can place you down here the day of a very suspicious fire." Ambrose clears his throat. "Now. We know you were here at Granite Peak for training that week... but now we can't find records of what training it was, anywhere in the SANDMAN records or computers. This particular set of circumstances hints very very strongly at... well, it hints at the Enemy trying to engineer a retrocreation. Here, in the center of our power."
Ambrose holds up his hand. "It's all right, I know that's not true, our taishers have been through this place and all over you and Helix with a fine-tooth comb." Huh? Roger thinks to himself in a panic. "The Indigos aren't tainted, you and Helix aren't tainted, and the loa aren't tainted. But if you're wondering why we're having the initial instruction sessions here, in the former Indigo creche, that's why. To help... well, I told the SANDMAN Council, face-to-face when they personally approved this instructional session, that it didn't matter if they maybe didn't believe in exorcism, because I do. This space has been penetrated, if infinitesimally, by the Enemy. We need to cleanse it. And I believe the loa, as constructs of post-Ontoclysm humanity's higher faith, are just the entities to help perform that exorcism. Shore up the humanity of this place, give Them less purchase on it. The old idea of the genius loci, Roger. It's real; subductions and temblors remind us of that every time they pop up. As the kids might say... it's all vibes. Always has been. Vade retro satana." Ambrose bites his lip. "But you didn't hear any of this from me. Savvy?"
Hidden Lore (Project SANDMAN Legends)-14.
Bill
>> SUCCESS by 7
Michael
Roger's not sure if Ambrose is bullshitting about seeing the SANDMAN Council face-to-face. But if he's not, and he's able to pull strings to put the training right where he wants it for esoteric reasons like this... then both Ambrose and the cheval program are a much bigger deal to SANDMAN than anyone might imagine.
Also, if the Council believed this space was really tainted, they would have just blown it up, caved it in. So they don't. And thus, that means most likely they're indulging Ambrose... but that in itself tells you a lot about the latitude he has in the Project.
Bill
“Ambrose, my friend— I am thankful for the trust you give me. I truly am. And bringing the saints to a place, sanctifying it with their presence, their approval; these are good things. But I tell you: God creates… and retro-creates.” Roger looks intently into Ambrose’s eyes, and says, in a confessional whisper: “I tell you, I dreamed that I was here that day; if I was actually, as you confirm for me now, then it was a miracle— not of the Enemy, but of the Lord of hosts.” He crosses himself here. “I don’t understand the twists and turns of fate; I’ve always just gone where God guides. We should ask ourselves: what was happening here that God acted to stop? Or start?”
Michael
Ambrose holds back his tears, because his face crumples at what Roger has said. He takes a moment, collects himself. "I've never liked this," he gestures weakly to the four walls surrounding him, indicating more generally the Indigo program. "It tears at my heart that we'd do this. To kids. This is what the commies do! Indoctrination, brainwashing... I mean, in the Lord's name, Roger, if we can't trust people—real human beings—to resist Their temptations, if we've given up on free will and surrendered so baldly that the 'wave of the future' is just plugging people into machines to program them to resist the Red Kings... then...." He chokes up.
"Then we're as bad as They are."
Bill
“I’ve asked myself so many times since ‘Nam, are we becoming monsters?” Roger lets that fear rise up in him, choke him up a little, to bring himself in sympathy with Ambrose. “I think we do become monsters, if we cut ourselves off from the saints, from God— or are cut off. I think what we will do here, connecting more of us to them, directly— it’s the way to turn back from the abyss.”
Michael
The steel comes back into Ambrose's eyes, as if he's more certain now than ever that his plan is correct and proper. "You know, a lot of people on the Council and high up in the Project, they don't trust anything that smacks of religion. They will give you a lot of malarkey about the 'god module' in human brains that was put there, engineered by the Anunnaki, to make us vulnerable to belief in gods, and make us pliant slaves." Ambrose goes a little pale after realizing he used that word in front of Roger. "But I don't buy it. All affairs, all events, all history, the entire tapestry of time may pre-exist in the Mind of God, but as Augustine said, 'We do by our free will whatsoever we know and feel to be done by us only because we will it.' We're not mindless toys to be played with by God, or the Kings, whatever special perspective on time they might possess... or bestow upon us," he says, acknowledging Roger's prophetic "dream." "We do have a choice."
"Sadly," he says, looking around the former infirmary, "the people with the final choices in this organization outrank me."
Bill
Roger shrugs, collegially. "The brass is the brass, and we do right with them when we can, and sometimes around them when we can't. ayi, don't quote me on that!" He smiles, then his face gets wistful, and he looks around. "I think some of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has to do with the ability to identify true gifts. Choice is one of those great gifts. Giving, and being given the freedom to choose, even fail, and giving/being given forgiveness when you do; we know these are good. Taking away the freedom to choose, even to prevent failure; it is an easier road, but you and I know all about the paths to perdition." Roger trails off. "Look, Lord knows I'm no bookworm, so I can't say it as good as the Church Fathers. You'll have to help, there. I just hope all us folk with the right of it stay in touch and get it done."
Michael
"Roger, I'm no expert, just an Irishman who disappointed his sainted mother by going into the Army and not going to seminary," Ambrose says with an uncertain laugh. "We'll get there together. What do you say we introduce some hungry trainees to their first real-life saint of spies?"
Bill
Roger pats Ambrose on the back, "You and me, brother. Let's go do this." As he walks to the meeting, he starts the work. "I hope you aren't too uncultured an Irishman. I'm gonna need somebody to hold up one end of a conversation with Double Zero on art an' all that fancypants shit, 'scuse my French, jive..."
Michael
Ambrose nods in agreement to be the Agent's interlocutor. "That works perfectly. One last thing. We've got the trainees in there but we've also got some technicians. Don't worry, they're not going to interfere, they're just there to monitor everything neurolinguistically and... energetically. You won't even notice 'em. And if the Agent has a problem with them, well, we'll just work that attitude into this introductory scenario."
Bill
That curt, military nod again. "We'll see. He's a pretty cool customer, so I think it'll be fine. But maybe you should warn the eggheads— 'specially the language-nerds— the puns are awful."
Michael
When Ambrose and Roger walk into the cheval training room, located in the INDIGO ward's former cafeteria/social gathering space, where the Children were "rewarded" with treats, face-to-face time with each other (but not so much they'd form a hive mind and wreak revenge on their captors, ha ha), and visits with real animals. The grade-school-style modular tables are folded up and pushed against a whiteboard wall, and some adult-sized folding chairs have been hastily brought in. There's a lectern at the front of the room as well.
Sitting in the folding chairs are a half-dozen, bright-eyed young men, two in Army greens, four are in civvies. All of them are white and to Roger's eye look under 30 years of age. Their haircuts are conservative, just short of military-issue; no wild hippie types here. Their collective posture shows if not military backgrounds then intelligence ones. A couple have pencils and notepads. But they do not stand at attention when Ambrose and Roger walk in.
At the back of the room are the promised "technicians," a team of four Granite Peak lab-coat types (in fact, two of them are wearing honest-to-god lab coats) with a small bank of computers on a rolling platform which is attached to a strange object. The object is a crudely-welded-together sheet metal box, a little bigger than a breadbox. It has a nozzle or tube attached to the front which is aimed squarely at the front of the room. In a flash, one could easily mistake it for an old-timey movie or video camera. Two wires come out of it, both connecting it to the computer bank. Roger sees no power supply for the metal box, but the computers are plugged into the wall voltage and running.
"Men," Ambrose says, immediately grabbing the lectern and speaking to the young bright-eyed fighter-pilot types. "This is Agent Martin, who you've been told so much about in briefings. His recent discovery of a new persona subroutine will, I believe, help this unit develop abilities far beyond its initial explorations in this area. Today we're just going to cover the initial decision trees of the RED NEEDLE subroutine and maybe get a chance to see it in action," Ambrose says, gesturing generally in Roger's direction. "Agent Martin? The floor is yours. Tell the boys—or hell, show 'em—exactly who and what this Agent of ours is all about."
Ambrose also gestures to the nerds at the back of the room and Roger sees them flip a switch on their control panel. The box's nozzle emits a faint green glow.
Bill
(Any chance any SANDMAN knowledge skill can help ID that thing a bit more? Just in case it's a lie detector...)
Michael
Yeah, give it a try with the proviso that I am likely gonna levy a bit of an invisible penalty due to its weird nature
Bill
>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
I mean, on one level Roger has no idea what this thing is. Like, none. He's more sure what it's not from his skill set. It's not an ikoter or ikoter-derived technology, it doesn't have any elements that indicates it's a recording device (at least at Roger's Tech Level). It doesn't have a visible power supply! I mean, unless it's drawing power from the computer bank but that seems absurd engineering-wise. It's either a complete lie, a psyop, a green gel light mounted with its own battery meant to give Roger a jolt and make him sweat, or something inside that weirdly thrown-together-looking box has its own power supply and is actually supplying data to the computer banks. What Roger wouldn't do to have Mitch or Charley here to give it a once-over...
...which makes Roger wonder if they'd wheel an actual reality shard in here to... do something to him while he gives life to Agent 00. This is where most of the Project's shards reside, of course, right here at the Peak, according to, heh, "SANDMAN legends." Seems excessive. But you have to wonder.
At the very least, Roger's Spirit Empathy seems to indicate there are no, like, trapped spirits or thoughtforms or the like inside the box, nor does Roger sense that the box is a spirit trap meant to somehow snare the Agent.
Bill
Roger adopts a rigid military posture, hands behind his back, and silently fixes each with an assessing stare. Despite the hand-off from Ambrose, he pushes the boundaries of polite quiet to get their attention, old school sergeant-style. He starts suddenly, barking exactly like a drill sergeant: “I have never seen such a sorry bunch of uptight squares in my life!” He looks right at the two military types and orders, “At ease!” Then he relaxes his posture, drops right back to his calmer street voice, and jives “Be cool, people. Chill out! If y’all can’t get groovy, this ain’t never gonna work.”
He rolls his head on his neck, and from side to side, and shakes out his arms. “I want all y’all to stand up, and shake it out. Get loose. You won’t be doing nobody no favors all tense and worried about expectations.” He turns around; “Sorry, you folks keep uptight, no offense meant.” He turns back. “No, seriously. Get up out of yo seats.”
Michael
This is like a combo of Intimidation, Streetwise, and Teaching. I'll roll Streetwise to aid your Teaching-14 roll.
>> SUCCESS by 7
Michael
Roger can roll Teaching-15.
Bill
>> SUCCESS by 1
Michael
There's a good amount of upright reluctance, but Roger manages to get the pupils out of their seats, with a majority of them gamely trying to shake the military stiffness out of their necks and limbs. Ambrose smiles approvingly from the dais; the technicians' machine starts spitting out a roll of tape and the green light from the box starts getting vaguely shifty and misty, like the lighting effects that would accompany clouds of vapor or smoke whirling around inside a laser beam. Roger is looking straight at it as the would-be chevals get into a more relaxed receptive position to witness Roger's metamorphosis.
Bill
Roger continues to play up the street-talk while assessing how loose these honkies can get. He'll have them sit back down, get one or two of them show how they hypnotize themselves, making cracks about needing metronomes 'cause they got no rhythm. He'll beat out a traditional drum rhythm on a desk top to school them in the real possibilities. In sum, he'll firmly establish his street character in their minds, before sitting down and "showin' y'all how it is done", all to build contrast with the coming personality shift.
"Now, this Agent Double-Zero? He's more your style. Y'all know him already; I bet you can call him to mind easy. I bet you've already probably pretended to be him, once or twice. Well, something like him. But I want you to notice what he looks like in this room. Not just how he sounds, how he looks in my body. I want you to pay attention to what he knows that you and I do not. And I want to you grasp, if you have the ability to dig it, that this isn't just some crazy Black jive-talker tripping that you're seeing. I'm introducing you to a person, real as you and I think we are. And I'm here to tell you, no more pretending— you can be this person, and he be you. Now you watch how it is done."
Roger will take his time (Extra Time) on setting up his vever, his space, his ritual actions. He won't explain as he does, he just lets them watch. And between spoken entreaties code-switched into the Agent's style, he'll make unspoken ones, to the Agent. It's showtime, agent. You and me gotta roll-up this network, under a watching eye. You help me bring in these fine fellows out of the cold, and you'll have partners to share a pint at the pub with for years to come.
Michael
That's beautiful. Autohypnosis with maximum Extra Time and the situational bonuses you've described would be an Autohypnosis-23.
Bill
>> SUCCESS by 13
Michael
Agent 00 sees the classroom laid out before him. These bloody Yanks, he thinks to himself, as the faintest hint of a smile passes over his lips. Ambrose takes a tentative approach, around the lectern. "Agent?" he says, peering at "Roger."
The technicians manning the steel box/computer banks continue to monitor their readings, but the Agent does not notice any difference in the light coming out of the nozzle nor any change in the body language of the Q Branch types at the back of the room.
"Agent, I know the... trainees here at SANDMAN HQ are eager to hear from you, our first... exchange program Agent in quite some time." Ambrose, not having heard the voice of the Agent yet, is tentative, trying to make sure Agent 00 is comfortable (not knowing Roger succeeded by 13 on his Autohypnosis roll).
"Perhaps they'd better hear it from the horse's mouth and not mine, eh?" Knowing how the CIA liaison always takes second fiddle to the Agent in the films, Ambrose wisely decides to step back and leave the "stage" to his counterpart from, heh, "across the pond."
Bill
"No, dear fellow, my pleasure, really. Good to maintain the Special Relationship and all that," he returns, in a flawless RP accent. The Agent adjusts Roger's jacket and sleeve cuffs, subtly, looking comfortable in the clothing whatever it may be. His hands adjust at the collar, giving the impression there should be a tie there. However dressed, he's doing Roger's look better than Roger did. "Pleasure to meet all you chaps; sure you're all fine fellows. But, more to the point, " and he turns to Ambrose, "what's the mission here? I'm happy to give instruction on what constitutes a proper cocktail, but that's better done at a bar, don't you think? I'd wager I could give a tip or two on the ladies, as well, but that also requires a different milieu. And de-briefing." He cocks an eyebrow and smiles.
"If you just want to see me run through my paces, well, then, count some out."
He turns, walks to a side of the room, then perfectly heel-to-toe, straightest posture, strides out a few paces, with a mock-serious look on his face. "There, that takes care of our formal testing requirements; any schoolmaster would be proud. Now, who's for something a little more interesting?" With a bit of sleight-of-hand, he brings forth a deck of cards. "Gentlemen, what's your game? Trust that I am familiar with all your colonial cowboy cousin varieties."
He then turns, before any objection could even form in their mouths, and proceeds to demonstrate his Fast-talk abilities on Ambrose and the lab coats, rattling off an argument at them that running a poker game for dollar stakes would be the finest way to show the kind of soft power the Agent specializes in. Even if it doesn't take, his delivery will be as suave and desirable as he can execute it, because the real point is to charm nearly everyone in the room. He'll set them all at ease, however it takes, because that's the point: he can do it.
Michael
A couple of the trainees try to surreptitiously reach for their dutiful little notebooks while Agent 00 is marking his paces and doing his spiel; Ambrose tells them with sign language and gesture to knock it off and just pay attention. When the Agent requests of Ambrose and the lab coats that the trainees sit down around the poker table with him, a remarkable thing happens. Ambrose goes to the side of the room, picks up a phone extension and mutters a few words into the receiver. A little over two minutes later, a few more lab-coated technicians come in from the rear doors of the cafeteria, wheeling in a large round table under a dropcloth. When they take the table off the dolly and remove the cloth, it's revealed to be a fully-supplied, casino-grade poker table, with an equal number of chips placed at the eight players' marks.
Ambrose looks at the Agent sheepishly, and plays the dutiful sidekick. "Seems you have a bit of a reputation with the brass already, old boy."
Bill
The Agent only appears pleased. “Yes, with this many Boy Scouts about, I should have expected you’d be prepared. This will be quite handy “ — at which he fans the cards in his hand into a hand.
With the game set, the Agent then proceeds to run them through a full round of the table. Using the game, he evaluates each potential cheval, looking for the most kindred spirit.
(And gives play to his addiction at the same time, of course.)
With the game set, the Agent then proceeds to run them through a full round of the table. Using the game, he evaluates each potential cheval, looking for the most kindred spirit.
Michael
Okay, we're going to do this this way. I can justify the Agent effectively "aiding Roger" here with an aid roll of Gambling-15. The few rounds of poker allow Roger to get a sense of the mettle of each of the men at the table (Ambrose has been dealt in, by the way), how well they're each able to compartmentalize their senses and willpower, calculating odds while examining each of their fellow players' tells and such... and then the result of that Gambling roll will aid Roger/the Agent's Spirit Empathy-13 roll to see which of the trainees is the most kindred to the Agent himself.
Bill
>> SUCCESS by 1
Michael
Nice, that puts Spirit Empathy at 14 itself.
Bill
>> FAILURE by 3
Hmmm.
Further testing, I guess, unless they’re all useless.
Michael
Pondering here. There may be another venue by which to suss out suitability. I think the way to read this is that Roger's Autohypnosis roll was so successful that Roger was deeply submerged in the Agent's body and mind; as a result, it's hard for Agent 00 to communicate back and forth with Roger subconsciously. So his normal Spirit Empathy is subdued to the point of being inoperable. It seems the Agent will have to use his own skills on this mission.
Oh, shit, Leadership, of course.
Bill
(To the whorehouse! I kid)
Michael
Why don't you try a Leadership-14 roll, the +1 from the Gambling and the -1 from the failed Spirit Empathy will cancel each other out.
Bill
>> SUCCESS by 6
(It does make much more sense the loa should be doing the evaluation of his rides than the current one. Which gives me an idea.)
Michael
It's the CIA agent who's introduced himself as "Rick" who seems to be the best poker player, best bullshitter, and best carouser amongst all these men in the first dozen or so hands—after the first go-round once around the table, the Granite Peak technicians do bring in, yes, a mini-bar, a bartender in a vest and bowtie, and a cocktail waitress to deliver the drinks (admittedly not all under a tablecloth for the dramatic reveal)—giving the Agent a chance to show off his flirtation chops and how to properly order a cocktail. Physically Rick is one of the less attractive, less jut-chinned of the half-dozen young trainees, which makes his potential as an avatar of the Agent all the more attractive in some ways: if he learns to channel him, he'll get subtly more attractive and suave.
Bill
The Agent takes this in with no little delight. After a bit of fun with them (and the waitress) and a good drink or two, at the next deal, the Agent stands up. “Gentleman, a pleasure. But not quite enough of a challenge. But bear with me, I have an idea to up the stakes.” He makes a show of pointing at each, and counting them off, numbering each. Having started so Rick would come up seventh, he stops on him. “You. Stay here. The rest of you, take five.” He will shush them out of the room (leaving Ambrose and the lab techs; he knows they’d throw up a fuss.) Once it’s a little more private, he’ll put his hand on Rick’s shoulder, say “Be seeing you” making the OK sign over his eye as he does. Then he will pull back from Roger, leaving a clear command in the form of an image. It’s a memory from Roger’s childhood of a raucous Voudon ceremony, at its peak, with many ridden at once. Now make this my party. I’m not usually one to be known to play with himself, but let this be my milieu.
Michael
Honestly given the narration you've given it, this should probably be Religious Ritual (Voudon) aided by your pre-existing Autohypnosis roll, so Religious Ritual (Voudon)-14. Extra time applicable if you like. (Also, I have a podcast recording to do this afternoon so I will be away from game for a few hours soon.)
Bill
>> SUCCESS by 8
Martinis all around!
Michael
The libation meant to mark a first communion, of sorts.
The boys at the scanner start to mutter amongst themselves as the needle on their little computer bank throws up big amplitudes on the printout; the green glow from the scanner remains misty and inchoate, with no change evident. But it's clear the boffins are pleased with the readings. Ambrose tips his glasses down his nose, examining Rick, whose sweaty-palmed grip on his poker chips grows more relaxed, more deft. He proceeds to let one of the chips dance across his knuckles then puts it back on the pile. "So then," he says with a suddenly cultured, basso profundo Mid-Atlantic accent, gesturing to the flop frozen on the table, mid-bet. "I suppose now we're both all-in, yes?"
Bill
“Yes, the pot’s right. Not too rich for my blood, as they say.”
“What say we get the rest of them back in here and another round?”
Michael
"My poker face is on, sport. Let's."