Jocasta’s Still With Her
Michael
Jocasta opens the door to her home. The help is currently in the parlor, scurrying about, helping to set up place settings for the luncheon, and as Jo looks down at her gloved hands holding her house keys, she has a momentary sense of dissociative panic. This is not my body. This is not my body! Whose arms, whose legs are these? But lo, they are hers.
The mirror mounted over the marble side table in the foyer reveals Jocasta to herself. She is elderly. Still looking healthy and bright-eyed, dressed impeccably (and she supposes stylishly? the fabrics of her clothes all feel organic, lots of cashmere and silk), and reasonably physically fit... but her face is not the one she wears at 33. And Jocasta can, despite herself, feel the weight of four decades or more on her muscles, her bones, see the years' impact on her olive skin. If the face in the mirror wasn't proof, the giant flat television in the parlor, tuned to what looks like an all-news channel, certainly is. As is the weird black small-notepad-sized object in her left hand, which has replaced her sketchbook. Instinctively, she knows to press her thumb against a sensor at the bottom and as she does, the black mirror lights up, illuminating her eyes like the golden flash down in Mount Shasta did all those years ago. This is what comes up on that miraculous computer screen first:
Leonard
Jocasta gazes in bewilderment at the little screen. Okay. So. You're a...politician? A political fixer? A fund-raiser? Jesus. She scans the names. Pelosi? Harris? Who on Earth? And Feinstein...that can't be that woman from the Board of Supervisors who ran for mayor a while back. Surely she's not still in office after forty years.
She looks around to see if anything else can clue her in to what's happening, desperately craving a cigarette.
...Mom?!?
Michael
Jocasta very gingerly makes her way from the foyer to the rather fussily-decorated dining room and parlor. Lots of plants, lots of Berkeley memorabilia, some photos on the mantelpiece, which Jocasta gravitates towards. It's definitely Dianne Feinstein, fucking hell. Jocasta thinks as she sees no evidence of family or friends, just stiffly-posed banquet dinner shots with a rare few Democratic politicians she recognizes (is that that cornpone Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter? Jocasta wonders at a photo of her middle-aged self with the toothy-grinned... ex-President??? Jesus) but many more that she does not.
The housekeepers, caterers, and chefs that have taken over Jocasta's frankly embarrassingly well-appointed kitchen and dining room are keeping her updated on the progress of the luncheon and there's honestly now nothing left for Jocasta to do, she knows innately, than wait for the guests to start arriving. She opens up another square on her touchscreen to check on the RSVPs (how do I know how to work this thing??) and sees she's set for 100% attendance. All this for these lovely wealthy wives and entrepreneurs to write out five-figure checks to an untraceable political action committee that will swing into action in the next four days to help Her defeat her Opponent. Weird how she can't quite figure out who exactly is running for President here in the future. Even though it's four years off, Jo can't help but think of her time in David Wolf's GRAIL TABLE simulation. I ended up just like them in the end, Jo thinks.
The guests begin to arrive around quarter to noon, all of them of a type with Jocasta—most about 10 years younger, but all of that Certain Class of San Francisco lady who's seen it all, who married (or invested) well, and who ended up with prized pieces of real estate or assets to cushion them from the last 15 years of ups and downs in the Bay Area. Then, a little after noon, after all the listed guests have arrived, after the caterers have finished handing out the appetizers and hors d'oeuvres, Jo's doorbell rings. Hmm, that's funny, Jo thinks. Not expecting anyone else.
Leonard
Jocasta tries to get herself into a kind of presentation mode. Whether this is 'real' or not, it's the real you're stuck with right now, she thinks. You've been stuck in worse.
She tries to look around quickly for a picture of the candidate — not that she thinks it would mean anything to her, she just wants to be able to think on her feet. It's all right, she tells herself. You've been here before. You used to be a Young Republican!
With a wry smile, she walks to the door. You can do this. Keep focused. This is a test. You were a good student. Keep all three eyes open. Charley is at the end of this. She opens it up.
Michael
Jocasta opens the door and at it are a pair of young-ish people; both white, maybe in their mid-20s, but by the looks of the Ladies Who Lunch who've already arrived, everyone looks so... so young here in the future, it's hard to tell; maybe they're older. The boy (man?) is a beanpole, he's got a couple of snaggle teeth and an unruly shock of wheat-blond hair but he's dressed nicely and even a little conservatively, in a blue blazer and chinos. The girl is shorter, chubbier, with the blackest, thickest nest of hair Jocasta's ever seen. But she's also dressed conservative: cardigan, skirt, flat black shoes.
The young man pipes up first, "Oh, er, excuse me, Ms. Menos, my name is Peter and this is my girlfriend Betsy? I just was wondering, we saw that you were having a fundraiser, and we've been working on the campaign up in Marin? And we were in town and thought we'd drop by and see if you needed any help?" Peter digs into his pocket and pulls out a lanyard with a plastic ID attached with the "I'm With Her" logo on it and his name, Peter Lang. No photo on the ID though.
While all this is happening, Betsy is gawking at the interior of Jocasta's house, letting out an occasional gasp of awe. "Wow."
Leonard
"Peter, Betsy, you're welcome to come in. We can use all the help we can get," she smiles, "and any friend of Hers is a friend of mine."
She gives a perfunctory hand-shake, deciding against testing the persistence of her powers in this older body and mind. But she does turn on the charm, doing quick psych reads of them in case she needs to brace someone for information later.
Michael
How about Empathy?
It's made for first impressions.
Leonard
She'll give it a try, but she won't push it too hard. She also wants to remember the ID for later; did she see a date or anything else specific on it?
Michael
No expiration date either. Kind of funny, Jocasta's future knowledge seems to indicate.
I'll roll IQ for you.
As Jocasta looks both of these fine young idealists in their eyes, she has to stop short from looking and acting shocked. It's the most disorienting element of this entire weird experience so far.
Neither of these kids has souls.
They are completely empty—kind of like that zombie, Rich, that got created by being flung out of the St. Francis after the temblor—but they can act reasonably close to human, approximating social skills and graces. But after looking deep into their souls, Jocasta finds them utterly missing one.
I need Jo to give me a Fast-Talk-14 roll please, just to cover her behavior after discovering this.
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS by 5
Michael
Betsy wanders into the dining room where the Ladies Who Lunch are munching on neo-fusion hors d'oeuvres and does a little more gawking, this time at the wealth of these Bay Area liberal elites. "Gosh," Peter says, "it's just so inspiring to see all of you using all your resources to help Her get elected. Inspiring," he repeats as he looks at Old Jo.
Leonard
"Mmm, inspiring, yes," Jo says, not looking him in the eye as she suspects a possible NLP/hypnotism attempt. "Peter, I hate to ask, I'm sure you're too important for such things, but you know where I could really use some help is in the kitchen. If you and Betsy could join me for just a moment, it would be such a great help."
If they agree to be bustled into the kitchen, she'll quickly signal for one of the security men, if there are any around. If they don't, or there isn't any security, she'll just put them near some of the more important donors and watch them for a moment as she takes her place at the head of the table and gets ready to address the ladies.
Michael
Oh heavens no, you don't have any security.
Why would you need security? It's not like anyone could ever hate a candidate so much that there'd be legions of people waiting to take a shot at her and/or her proxies, right?
Leonard
Fuck, she thinks. I bet this old fraud doesn't even have any acid around. She might have a gun, though. All right, if that's the way it is, she'll just have them hover somewhere where they can chit-chat with the rich donors, and will watch and listen. She'll also get ready to make a few remarks.
Michael
Heh, this is lovely. Okay, feel free. Betsy and Pete look awkward standing next to these rich San Francisco ladies but they are eager and attentive to whatever Ms. Menos from Twitter is about to say.
Leonard
The body is a muscle controlled by the mind, she says, mantra-like, inside. The mind is a muscle controlled by the soul. This is nothing you haven't done before, she thinks.
Turning on a rich, toothy smile under what she thinks is probably too much lip gloss, just like she did with the old charity dinners back when she was a real person, she says "Ladies. Thank you so much for joining me today. I won't waste your time on explaining why we're here, or keep you away from this lovely luncheon that we have before us. But I do want to ask you all something."
She pauses, remembering her intel training. "People want to talk," Cap used to say. "They're dying to talk. If you're in a situation where you don't know the rules, just ask people. They'll tell you nine times out of ten."
"We all know what they say," Jocasta begins, figuring they've always said this about politics and probably haven't stopped anytime soon. "They say we're out of touch. That we don't listen. That we're not tuned in to what people really want. We all know what they say. But I can assure you: we are listening." A dramatic pause. "What would you all say are the biggest issues facing us today?" she finally asks, quietly, and waits to be told.
Michael
The ladies who lunch are shy. Diffident. They didn't expect to be put on the spot like this. But Betsy raises her hand.
Leonard
"Yes! Betsy — everyone, this is Betsy, one of our young volunteers from out in Marin. Who better to start us off than someone who represents the future of this party?"
Michael
"Thank you, Ms. Menos. Well, if you are curious as to what 'we young people' are concerned about, it's probably the fact that your candidate is the head of a secret pedophilic elite who suck the adrenochrome out of children's bodies to feast on at their Satanic necrophiliac child-rape orgies."
And at that, Betsy smiles a toothsome, unwholesome grin, and while looking at Jocasta, pulls a combat knife out of her cardigan, grabs a donor roughly by the shoulder, and with preternatural quickness and strength, nearly decapitates poor Laura Andrews, a real estate heiress. A torrent of blood sprays across the canapés as Betsy tosses her body onto the table, all while she grins maniacally at Jocasta. Peter reaches into Betsy's handbag, again, visibly preternaturally quickly simultaneous with this, pulls out a giant fucking handgun, and begins targeting (and shooting) donors and catering staff with deadly precision.
Jo's Combat Reflexes mean that she does not freeze here, and she can act in the round subsequent. But Betsy and Peter clearly possess superhuman traits. Also, I think we need a Fright Check, 13 or less to pass. Thank goodness you meditated before this!
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS by 0
Michael
Whew. Jo don't freeze.
Leonard
No security. No gun. No knives worth a shit. Charade is over. You should have known but you didn't. People are dying and even if it's a dream they have life. This body is old but you still steer it. Only one thing to do now.
Peter has a gun so he has to go first. Jocasta will lunge at him and as soon as she's close enough, she'll deliver as powerful a karate punch right to his heart as she can.
Michael
(I gotta blow off the dust from my GURPS combat vacuum tubes, Leonard, so I'll work on getting you a die roll soon.)
Leonard
[She's gonna try to do a Pressure Point attack if this blow lands, so I think it would be Karate at -2 then a contest between the PP skill and the target's HT. But I'm not sure how long it would take to get there, if there's any penalties for age, etc.]
Michael
[Would I give you penalties for age in this situation, Leonard? Come on. I'm not a monster.]
So in the moment it takes Jocasta to close the yard or so gap between her and Peter, Betsy stabs another donor through the eye and Peter, completely ignoring Jocasta's approach, shoots one of the ladies at the other end of the room, blowing off her head in a fine mist of blood and brains. Again, their speed and reflexes are such that Jocasta is petrified of what her attack might do; at the very least her own reflexes seem to be equivalent to her 33-year-old self's. (You're spot-on on that Pressure Point attack: Karate-12 and Peter gets Dodge as an active defense.)
Leonard
>>>> FAILURE by 3
Uggggggggggh
Michael
Peter effortlessly shrugs off the attack, dodging out of the way while taking aim at more fleeing civilians. "Betsy?" he says over the screams of fleeing staff and hip futuristic dowagers, "Take care of Ms. Menos, please."
"My pleasure," she says through a giggle, grabbing a zip tie from her inside sweater pocket and trying to grapple Jocasta.
>>>> SUCCESS by 10
Jo can try to block, parry, or dodge.
Leonard
She'll try for a dodge, and will do a counter-attack as soon as Betsy is close enough.
>>>> 3d6 = 9
pheeeeeeeew
Michael
Oh you rolled a 9. You Dodged! Damn. Betsy's really upset by that.
Leonard
She can take her upset and bake a cake with it, it's heart punch time
Michael
Counter-attack heart punch on Betsy, then?
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS by 4
ooh hoo hoo, so then I think that's a hit but also a contest between Jo's Pressure Points (16) and Betsy's HT
MutantsMichael
Yes it is. Do I also get a chance to Dodge?
Leonard
I think she can Block or Parry but not Dodge, lemme check
Sorry, that's wrong, she can Dodge or Parry but not Block
Unless her last attack was all-out
which it doesn't seem like it was
Michael
>>>> SUCCESS by 2
Nope, it was not.
And yes, she does dodge. And she's still trying to slap a grapple on Jo. Peter's body count is now 2.
>>>> SUCCESS by 9
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS by 0
Fuck
Michael
Betsy's got Jocasta in a grapple now, and is now going for the arm lock that will allow her to ziptie Jo. "You don't have to worry, you know... we're not going to kill you. We have questions for you." And Betsy licks the side of Jocasta's neck.
Jocasta can try to break free before that, though. ST vs. ST.
Leonard
Okay. Okay. Last ditch time. Jocasta's gonna try one thing, and if it fails, she'll try another. First, she's gonna use kliel to do a kapadol attack on Betsy. Now, please correct me if I'm wrong about any of the combat details, but:
This would give me +4 on the attack, but only to succeed
it doesn't increase the critical range. So the effective skill will be 18, but the crit range is still 3 or 4.
Betsy gets +2 to her defense, but she can't use Dodge without letting Jocasta go, and she can't use Block. So her only option is a Parry.
If the attack succeeds, Jo gets freed of any Anunnaki influence or NLP that might be on her at the moment, and +2 to any try to mentally influence her this round.
If the Big Headache fails, she'll do the ST contest, and she'll basically keep fighting as long as she's physically able. They'll have to knock her out or kill her.
Michael
Kapadol would work great as she's licking Jocasta, just focus all your energy backwards and try to knock craniums. Go for it!
All the details sound correct.
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS by 10
Michael
I can't parry unless I let you go with both arms, and she won't. So how does damage work from this?
Leonard
Lemme check
It's Thrust-1 crushing
So 1d6-1
>>>> 1d6-1 = 1
Bleah
Michael
"Oooh, now that actually hurt! I guess they trained you well after all, how old are you, eighty or something?" More gunshots from elsewhere in the house.
Time for zipties. You get one chance at a ST vs. ST to break free before Betsy's attempt.
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS by 1
Sigh
Michael
>>>> SUCCESS by 8
Okay, so you can use any Active Defense on this Arm Lock attempt. I roll Judo-22.
>>>> SUCCESS by 12
Leonard
Judo (Parry).
>>>> SUCCESS by 8
Michael
Jocasta is tenaciously struggling, putting her arms in the way of Betsy's attempt to get the ziptie on in a graceful display of defensive Judo. But Betsy does not tire, and still has Jo held in a grapple. Try to break free? Do another attack attempt?
Leonard
Yeah. If her arms aren't free to attack because of the grapple, she'll try another karate attack, kicking at Betsy's leg and again going for a pressure point attack if it by some remote chance succeeds. She won't stop fighting. She figures if these people have no souls there's no point in trying any kind of psi against them, but they have bodies, and as long as Jo is able, she'll try to break those bodies.
(If she does manage to break free of Betsy, though, she's gonna go for discretion as the better part of valor and jump out the nearest window rather than keep fighting these two monsters without help or weapons!)
>>>> SUCCESS by 4
Again, Betsy can't block, and and can only Dodge or Parry if she lets me go.
Michael
She's gonna take the damage and hang onto you.
Leonard
Okay
So that's
>>>> 1d6+1 = 5
5 damage, plus now a contest between Jo's Pressure Points and Betsy's HT
>>>> 3d6+1 = 12
Michael
On a normal human, that would have at least gone some way to shattering a tibia. She does shout in pain, "You fucking Satanist BITCH, I should choke you out for that!"
"No!" Over the gunshots elsewhere in the house, a lull over which Peter screams. "Don't you fucking dare do that, Betsy!"
>>>> SUCCESS by 5
Leonard
Not sure how the Quick Contests work, is it MoS vs. MoS if both succeed? That'd be a win for her
Michael
It goes by margin of success, yeah.
I succeeded by 5.
Leonard
Nertz
Michael
One more round of combat with Betsy, but Peter's coming back to the dining room/abbatoir, Jo can hear his stride coming through the living room.
One more attempt at an Arm Lock.
>>>> SUCCESS by 8
Leonard
Jo's just gonna keep fighting until she can make a dash or make them knock her out or kill her, even more so know that she's positive they want her alive.
>>>> FAILURE by 1
Gah
Michael
The zipties are on just as Peter comes back into the dining room. "I don't need to hit you with this, do I?" he says, holding up his chunky .45.
Leonard
"Go fuck yourself."
Michael
"How many did you get, Petey?" Betsy says with a giggle. "Four pedo filth down, a couple of kitchen staff too." Peter says coolly. "Bring her in the living room, put her on the couch. And shut off that liberal CNN garbage on the TV and put on Fox News."
"The rest of the cattle got away." Peter says. "We probably only have about 15 minutes until the pedos' police get here."
Leonard
"Yeah, better take me to your boss quick, apes. Don't want to get yelled at."
Michael
"Boss?" Peter says. "Couldn't be easier. That's what we're hoping to do here today, bring you into the fold. We're going to talk a little bit first, though... about your life and how you sold out Our Father." Jo can sense the capital letters there.
Leonard
"I'm not talking to you, dickless. Put an egg in your shoe."
Jocasta is going to try...not just to meditate, but also do some old Army Intel stuff about resisting torture. Sink down deep in herself. She's going to try to take herself away from here, consciously, and only be present if they force it with torture or something else (although she'll get the resist bonus for at least two more rounds...).
This body is not your body, it is just a body. Your mind is not your mind, it is part of the universal mind. This pain is not your pain, it is just a moment in time your spirit is passing through. They did not make you and they cannot unmake you.
In her mind, she pictures that constellation she once saw in the night sky over the sea, that fede ring with seven jewels in its crown. She sees the faces of URIEL set in that crown, and tries to envision herself in the right place among them.
They are your fate. If they are still here, there is still hope. The drug is not what lets you open the door: it is just one key, but there are others. There is more than one way to open a door.
And she will try, as hard as she can given that she has never done anything like this before, to show herself at this moment to any or all of the jewels who can see her, as she was able to show herself to Pat Price, across space and time.
Michael
In the future, a bright ping! comes through on Jocasta's little handheld computer, which was laid tantalizingly out of reach from her by Betsy on the arm of the couch with its screen up so she could see all the alerts coming from her loyal Twitter followers and the eventual news alerts for this mass slaughter at Jocasta Menos's house (future-Jo seems like the kind of psycho who'd leave all her news alerts on blast). The phone number on the message (hey, they still have phone numbers! Jocasta thinks in the midst of all this psychotic homicidal madness) is from a 916 number, which Jo knows (at least back home in good old 1973) is Sacramento and much of the northeastern corner of California. In fact, it's that famous "555-1234" that URIEL uses as a drop number, only in the Shasta area code. The "text" "message" itself is just three symbols:
🗻 💫 ⁉️
"Your pedo friends checking in on you, huh?" Betsy says.
"Ms. Menos," Peter says, sitting opposite Jocasta on a fine $10,000 white couch, getting blood and brains all over it, sighing, "this doesn't have to go badly. I know you've seen a lot of violence today, but we just need to know a few things. And Betsy and I both know you've seen—and committed—acts far more violent and bloody than what you did see today."
"You killed a bunch of little kids in Namibia!" Betsy says brightly, scooting over to Jocasta and putting her hand seductively on her thigh. "You would've made such a good soldier if you'd just kept at—"
"Betsy, SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH." Peter uses The Voice and Betsy purses her mouth shut tight, scoots back away from the zip-tied Jocasta.
"Anyway," Peter says, "you sold out our Father, like I said. And I want to know how you knew how and why to do it. So think back. Can you do that for me? Back to the '70s when you worked for URIEL. You remember that, don't you? Think back to the time when you went rogue. You met with him then, didn't you? Tell me what happened, tell me how you knew it was him, and maybe Betsy and I will feast with you."
"Feast! Feast! The ritual of Chöd!" Betsy says, licking some of the donor she killed's blood off her fingertips sensuously.
Peter is trying to use Hypnotism on Jo, and he's good. He does it effortlessly, just as Betsy and Peter are effortlessly-powerful warriors. Every element of his physical and mental expression is smooth, untroubled by human concerns of morality, sin, and ego. Perfect untrammeled spiritual Flow, turned sour and evil. But oddly the Voice, Peter's hypnotism doesn't catch its hooks on Jocasta's consciousness. Maybe something to do with the fact Jocasta's consciousness is a "walk-in" right now. Psychology-14 please.
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS by 6
Michael
It is all those concerns being removed from their neurology and morality that has made these two into perfect soulless killing machines. Someone's done a number on these kids—brainwashing, exotic training, memetics, some kind of neurolinguistic reprogramming—to make them this way. It's literally heightened their potential to the point where nothing is a barrier to them; the limitations of being merely human have been removed and left... this.
Leonard
Someone really pulled out the stops on these two, Jocasta thinks through the discomfort, confusion, and fear. She feels a brief shudder of terror at the thought of the blank void that came up when she tried to read them empathically.
Steeling her body and trying to regulate her breathing, she tries to bifurcate her mind. You can't talk your way out of this, Jo, she says. Not with them. Someone killed their souls and turned them into weapons. You might as well argue with a hand grenade. She swallows hard and tries to let all the tension and tightness leave her body. For them, then, the stone wall, even if they hurt you.And for you: remember that time is not static. They have put you in this moment, but there are other moments, and you are part of them.*
"I can't help you, Peter," she says quietly but firmly. Inside, she visualizes her younger self, on its knees in that dazzling golden hallway. Mitch and Archie and Viv are above. Charley and Roger are below, close to her in the glittering hell. (And...Marshall? Is he just present because he is one of the stars in our crown, or...is he somehow closer?) To that younger self, she becomes the voice inside that pushed her to go on every time things seemed helpless and hopeless. Get up, she says. It's all you have to do. Get up.
Michael
Esoteric Medicine.
>>>> SUCCESS by 4
Peter looks at Jocasta's wizened eyes carefully but without any warmth or human connection. It's more like she's an amoeba under his microscope.
"You're... you're trying to send your consciousness away. I don't know why you'd do that," Peter ruminates out loud. "I don't want to torture you or kill you. Don't you understand? Our Father missed his chance to make you one of us, way back in the first generation. You were always worthy."
"Where is your consciousness going, then? Have you bifurcated your awareness? Do you have hidey-holes in your mind? We could find them, you know. Given enough time." But Jo can tell Peter is now sweating the clock. "It doesn't matter to me you've gotten mixed up with this cabal of Satanists. We know they're trying to bring about Armageddon. We just want to survive it. Our little tribe. Impervious to either side's mind control."
Betsy says, "We need to hurry! They told us it'd be easier than this!"
Peter says levelly to Betsy, "You're showing fear. You're losing control. Get your shit together. Now. Or I'll kill you and eat you myself... love."
"You're 76 years old by all our accounts, Jocasta. You don't have much longer on this planet. But what if I told you eternal youth is yours, should you join us in the ritual of Chöd? We don't age the same way you people do. We can tell our cells' telomeres to stop fraying. Just tell us. We've lost the liturgy of our Father, we're too many generations removed now. We know the secrets of the elite cabal in power, we know the secrets of the alien gods. We reject both. And we know you rejected both, too, back in the '70s. But somehow you ended up back here. A slave to her kind," as he nods to the screen behind Jocasta's head to the woman Candidate who's making a speech in a campaign photo-op right now. Jo can't focus on her voice, but the Candidate sounds... very tired. "We can free you."
The Golden Halls are so far away. Forty-three years is such a long time, Jo realizes.
Leonard
"No one lives forever," Jocasta says, trying to catch Betsy's eye. "Not even you. Time makes fools of us all." She'll try actively to meditate.
Michael
Meditation-15.
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS by 5
Michael
Inside her head, Jocasta finds peace from this brutal past 10 minutes or so. Betsy and Peter's voices fade into the background as she yearns to leave all this suffering and blood and fear behind. Jo feels like that "text" "message" was some sort of message from her present, but she can't get to her phone. Why did the mountain send her here, to witness this specific series of horrors? How was Jo involved with... whomever created these monsters? Maybe the reason Jo is here specifically is to find out who created them... and make sure their "Father" can't do this.
Leonard
Is Betsy still in physical contact with Jocasta in any way? Is there skin-to-skin contact?
Michael
No. Peter really warned her off of Jo there, he used the Voice.
As Jocasta exists in a state of meditative bliss, a loud crash reverberates through the house. "Oh goody, the police!" Betsy says. But it's not the police. Into the living room strides a middle-aged woman with blonde hair carrying a massive 1970s-era SANDMAN rifle ikoter... with more than a few after-market extras. She pulls the trigger twice in quick succession.
(Mel, can you give me two Electronics Operation (Psychotronics)-15 rolls please?)
Mel
>>>> SUCCESS by 4
>>>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
Wow.
Brant
(Weird)
Mel
(Double 11s)
Michael
In quick succession Betsy and then Peter are hit with good old-fashioned linguistic white noise (and extra sonic effects put together down in Johann Xanten's studio in Los Angeles to get past Peter and Betsy's many chödpa resistances). Charley gets over to the couch, takes out a combat knife a lot like Betsy's and carefully cuts Jocasta's hands free of the ziptie.
Mel
(Oh it’s the same exactly!)
Michael
(Roger is nowhere to be seen.)
Betsy and Peter are both dazed.
Mel
All grown-up (super bad-ass) Charley offers Ms. Menos a hand. And says with a smile, "Time to wake up Jocasta".
Leonard
"Ch...Charley? Is that you?" Jocasta is stunned, but it's really no stranger than anything else that's happening. "We should...we should go. We have so much to talk about."
Mel
"What about them?"
"You need to win the game, Jo."
"To wake up. You need to win."
Leonard
"Charley, they're...they're so strong. And I'm so lost in this body, and..."
Jocasta pauses. They're strong, and she's terrified what will happen if she even tries to glance into their minds. But Charley crossed space, time, and consciousness to come find her. She needs to be stronger.
She grabs the .45 from Peter and hands it to Charley. "If this one moves, put a bullet in its brain. Don't think twice. They're dead inside." And with that, she touches her bare hand to Peter's forehead, like she's checking for a fever, and summoning every reserve she can to compensate for the lack of a drug, she tries to probe his mind for an answer to the question: "Why me? Who am I to you?"
Michael
Okay, so this is Mind Probe-15? I don't think you'll need LSD considering, er, you're already tripping on a light-triggered temporal lobe seizure right now.
Leonard
It's a quick contest between my IQ and his Will, so I'm not optimistic, but as I said, it's all I got.
Unless he has a note in his pocket that says MASTER PLAN — DO NOT SHARE
>>>> SUCCESS by 5
Michael
Well, he is dazed and will have a penalty.
Mel
"Do you need my help, Jo?" Charley places her hand on Jo's shoulder.
Leonard
"You've already helped more than I can ever tell you, honey," Jo responds. "Just...think good thoughts, and be ready to put these two down. They'll massacre the cops."
Michael
"Why me? Who am I to you?"
Peter's mind is a sere wasteland. All his memories of his life—childhood, adolescence, young adulthood—before joining... whatever this cult might be are blasted out of his mind. All that fills his consciousness and subconsciousness now are memes. Memes of how corrupt the ruling class is, scenarios of politicians behind the scenes plotting the demise of the common run of mankind, all while feasting on them, raping children, drinking the blood of babies. All these images and ideas were fed to him via the computer, where they multiplied and cross-bred and cross-referenced into each other. And then one day he joined a group on the Dark Web (Jo has no idea what that is) saying that some people were fighting back at what the corrupt elites and the Anunnaki each had in store for humanity. And that, if Peter really wanted to take the fight to both of them, he'd come to one of their in-person meetings, to see if he had what it takes to join their army.
It was there that he met Betsy, and on that weekend retreat in coastal California, a dozen or so of them met the third generation of His followers. Their leader was gone now; he'd been lost in the battle against the elites back in the 1990s. But he'd left a legacy, a liturgy, a holy book, and most importantly, his Ritual.
In the ritual of Chöd, the students offer themselves up as a tantric feast. The thighbone trumpet is played; the human-skin drum is beaten, the five ritual knives mark the five points of the mandala. Bodies are twisted, gouged, forced into hellish, unfathomable depravity. And the ritual is then intoned by the leader. And in the aftermath, the strong fall upon the weak and the strong emerge from the feast, reborn.
The face that Betsy and Peter swore allegiance to at the end of the ritual was a tattered blowup of a 1970s studio photo of Lt. Col. Anthony Barnes Reinhardt, the former head of the Natural Guard and Jocasta's trusted mentor while she was there.
Jocasta's home, the dead bodies, the dazed forms of Betsy and Peter all disappear and Jocasta awakes with a start in the Golden Halls of Mount Shasta. Fright Check, pass on an 11 or less, Jocasta.
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS by 0
Michael
Whew!