Mitch Tours Silicon Valley
Jeff
Okay.
So there's six sites, right?
Do we need to determine the order Mitch hits them? I know you posted some directions but it was in a format my browser didn't recognize
Assuming the order is set, okay.
>>>> FAILURE
Great way to start.
I love it.
Michael
Oh yeah, I picked the easiest order as you were coming down from Livermore. I'll post a link to the layer here.
Jeff
Mitch takes a breath and spends 1FP and tries again.
>>>> ACTIVATE = SUCCESS
>>>> PERCEIVE = SUCCESS
>>>> ANALYZE = FAILURE
Woo!
Was there a non-null result on the Perceive check?
Michael
Sites A through F.
Jeff
If not then I will discard the failed analysis roll as meaningless.
Michael
So at site A in North San Jose there's no discernible taint of History B. But Mitch does note it's like a block or two north of Mary-Lynn's Hilton.
Jeff
Hmm.
Michael
Just an odd coincidence I guess.
Jeff
Doesn't seem actionable. Moving on to Site B.
Michael
Okay, site B is the infamous Christmas tree lot in Mountain View.
Fire when ready.
>>>> ACTIVATE = SUCCESS
Yeah! Now this is a guy who knows how to activate a psychic power!
>>>> PERCEIVE = SUCCESS
Just under the wire.
Before I roll analysis, is there anything to analyze?
Also, I should know this, but can I cadge a bonus for taking extra time and making weird gestures on Detect the way I can on Aura Sight?
Michael
One sec, just looking something up.
There is no History B taint here. Can you give me an IQ roll?
Dr. Cronk used /roll
>>>> IQ = SUCCESS
Success by 1.
Michael
Okay. Site B also offers no taint but as Mitch drives around the area in the daytime, he gets a very heavy set of vibes. Nothing he can put his finger on as far as his actual psi powers go, and given the fact that Roger's already canvassed these largely empty streets it probably isn't, like, some kind of weird surveillance (other than the cops that offer to patrol Price's lot area on weekends he's in Tahoe). But something... something about this whole set of vacant lots and undeveloped land is making Mitch go, "hmm." If Mitch didn't know any better, he'd say his Illuminated Man vision is telling him that this site is at the center of a huge conspiracy:
(that excerpt ends with the word "question." btw)
Mitch got nothing like this at Site A.
Jeff
Well, hell.
File that one away for now, I guess.
On to site C!
>>>> ACTIVATE = SUCCESS
Success by 0 is still success.
>>>> PERCEIVE = SUCCESS
Michael
Another IQ roll if you please.
>>>> IQ = SUCCESS
Jeff
Success by 3.
Michael
Indeed it is. This is the site waaaaay out on the point by the water in Menlo Park. Nice view, honestly. Pretty good and valuable-seeming real estate but considering the docklands and toxic waters all around, not really a place you'd want to stick around too long. No History B taint again but GOD the vibes here are, if possible, even worse and more portentous than Site B. It's just a sense of a... presence. Not unlike the one at SRI at the SCANATE offices in terms of either past presence or potentiality (and not in terms of History B, of course). Mitch feels like if he had some juice in terms of being able to see into either past or future, it might reveal something. Damn this stupid non-four-dimensional vision.
Jeff
Hmm.
I feel on the verge of figuring something out.
Site D!
>>>> ACTIVATE = SUCCESS
>>>> PERCEIVE = FAILURE
MutantsMichael — 11/05/2021
Huh, on the way to Site D Mitch passes right by the McDonald's he met Mary-Lynn. Weird.
Jeff
Dang it.
Mitch, you can get laid on your own time, right now we need you focused!
Spending 1 FP and trying again.
>>>> ACTIVATE = SUCCESS
Michael
(All this sitting and driving probably means you got back the first FP by this point.)
>>>> PERCEIVE = SUCCESS
Jeff
Yeah, Mitch is just chilling in this little VW bug he definitely has owned for a while now,.
Michael
Okay. Site D. Site D is Stanford Research Park, which is an office park started by Stanford in the immediate postwar years, now full of computer and microprocessor companies. The exact site Roger identified was the Hewlett Packard headquarters and upon scanning and letting his Illuminated senses (such as they are) have a look at it, it doesn't give Mitch the same awful vibes as Sites B and C ... but its proximity to Stanford U. and its inclusion of Xerox PARC, another of the more closed-off secure research facilities in the Valley, is noteworthy.
Jeff
Huh, if I was going to pick a site to be a center of hidden power this would be a better candidate than site C.
Michael
Indeed!
Jeff
Well, on to site E I suppose
>>>> ACTIVATE = SUCCESS
>>>> PERCEIVE = SUCCESS
Michael
Site E is a looooong trip down 280 East along the spine of Silicon Valley. Mitch gets off in Cupertino and right off the Interstate he chances upon Site E, in a mixed residential, light commercial, and light industrial neighborhood. No History B taint, and his Illuminated senses don't give him any bad vibes. Just a sort of generic suburban right-off-the-highway mix of strip malls, tucked-away tract housing, and some small office parks with technology companies.
Site F for final.
>>>> ACTIVATE = SUCCESS
>>>> PERCEIVE = SUCCESS
>>>> IQ = SUCCESS
Jeff
Success by 2
Michael
Site F is the aforementioned apple orchard that is soon being turned into suburban housing to meet the demand of the workforce for the rapidly-growing computer industry in the Valley. No History B taint but the vibes here are heavy much like Sites B and C, maybe a little less portentous than both of them. And now that Mitch has had three separate place-field auras to analyze with his Illuminated sense of secrets and conspiracies, he can compare them a little bit to the others and, if he were going by Roger's theory that these sites are going to be important years from now and that Price has pegged six locations in Silicon Valley that will be valuable to snatch up, it's interesting that the currently least developed of the three—Mountain View, Menlo Park by the water, and the apple orchard in Cupertino, are going to be the centers of some huge webs of conspiracy. See, there's already stuff on sites A, D, and E: office parks and intentionally-planned economic development areas for Silicon Valley's present-day kings: the chip-makers. Stanford U. and the cities of San Jose and Cupertino engineered these little clusters of business parks and venture capital to be the wave of the future back in the '50s and '60s, right? We had the brains from the universities, the money fresh from the Pentagon, the electrical engineers working together in garages and ad hoc labs, and the postwar bounty in developments in computer technology that meant so-called "Silicon Valley" would be the exciting center of a brand-new industry, so our cities and universities should create a brand-new way of working and living for America's victory lap after WWII. Mitch can understand all that on a very basic, historical materialist level. But Mitch (specifically thanks to his Illuminated senses) is sure that whatever is going to go on Sites B, C, and F is going to be part of an industry that is much larger, much weirder, much more global in its reach and much, much more conspiratorial than merely making chips or circuit boards for corporations or the U.S. military.
So while Mitch didn't get any evidence of History B here, he has apparently nailed three of the sites as being different/differently important than the other three. (I know I mentioned at least one site in San Francisco proper during Roger's breeze through the Price satchel but I'm going to retcon/say that Roger didn't quite remember where the asterisk precisely was because it's not immediately important to the narrative I'm crafting here re: Silicon Valley and I don't want to send you all on any wild goose chases. It may come back at some point but only as an object of marginal interest.)
Jeff
I should be able to find this info myself but it is probably at your fingertips, where is Site F relative to Livermore and SRI? I'll want to either call this in or visit Archie's office and make a report real quick.
Michael
Livermore is nearly an hour away; this is definitely a payphone call.
Jeff
Phoning it in, then. Who answers the phone when Sophie is incommunicado? Charley?
Michael
I hadn't thought about it! If Charley's caller ID shows a payphone in Cupertino I would imagine someone in the office would know to pick it up given Mitch just left to survey the sites, two of which are in Cupertino.
We can connect you direct to Archie.
Jeff
Charley, Roger, Jo, Archie, whoever's there in the middle of the day. "Hello?"
Michael
(Yeah, I like it being a "first to the phone" scenario based on who's online right now to take it. )
Leonard
LOL, well, Jocasta is around writing her dumb research memo ...
(But she also has no idea where Mitch is or what he's doing)
Michael
Well, a payphone call is coming through from Cupertino. I figure she can put 2 and 2 together.
Leonard
"Livermore Four-Five-One," Jocasta answers.
Jeff
"Hey, Jo? It's Mitch. I'm down in Cupertino, you got a second?"
Leonard
"Sure, Mitch, what's going on?"
Jeff
"I just finished driving around and checking out the six sites that...the guy bought. I wanted to give my thoughts after looking at them in person. You got the list, A through F, right? Archie has it."
Leonard
"Not in front of me, but I know from Roger what you're talking about generally. Go ahead."
Jeff
"I can split them into two groups. On Archie's list there's A, D, and E. And then there's B, C, and F. None of them have a Red King taint at all, that I can sense, first off. Zilch. But B and C and F, they've got something else. It's not a History-B thing, it's a... a way-the-world-is-put-together thing. I don't wanna bore you with a detailed description of my supernatural senses but I think I got four separate ones, and this is the weird one I don't understand as well. Those three sites, they're... either they were part of some kind of something a really long time ago, like a trade network or cult headquarters or some weird industry, or, and this is probably what it is, they're going to be part of something like that, something that isn't around yet but will be. Like, those are the sites of the first three Mind-Control Chewing Gum factories on the West Coast, or something. Something big at the societal level. Whatever comes after computers. Roger was theorizing about that, I think he's right... Anyway, nothing Red King. That's the big new take-home. Got me?" (edited)
Leonard
"Got you. You want me to look into the history of the place, do any other kind of research? I have time. Also, you need any help out there? You safe?"
Jeff
"I think I'm okay. Looking into the history ... I dunno, maybe? C is the worst one. And by worst, I mean, worst. Just ... ominous. Maybe you should go out there and hike around a little. Maybe not, I dunno, don't want to waste your time... I'm thinking out loud. Uh, I feel safe, there doesn't seem to be anything bearing down on me. I gotta go into SRI this afternoon and get oriented, though. Headed over there now."
Leonard
"Okay. Be careful out there. See you soon."