Roger’s Barbiturate Dreams
Michael
The medicated haze that Roger drifts off into, a few hours post physical and psychic trauma, is not a wholly untroubled one. At some point about an hour or so in, Roger, laid out on an Army cot in the main room in the Barn, enters REM sleep. And at that point, Roger's subconscious investigates his inner landscape, for the first time since Roger was very little, devoid of the protection of the laughing, taunting, wise presences of the lwa.
Roger is standing outside what looks like a chicken or a barbecue shack in the South. The restaurant is evidently closed as Roger leans on its brick edifice for support after finding himself here. The dream is very realistic, he can feel the humidity in the air, the scratchy brick of the barbecue joint through the back of his light rayon shirt, the smell of diesel fuel and fryer grease nearby, and underneath it all the mossy smell of nearby subtropical trees, swampland, along with the merest whiff of jasmine, magnolia, bougainvillea, honeysuckle. Roger looks at himself in the glass of the darkened restaurant and sees himself at more or less his present age 28: this isn't a dream of the far future or the past.
It's hot. Swamp-hot. A persistent soupy haze covers the far horizon, but nearby he can see shotgun shacks, crumbling squat one-story concrete New Deal buildings, and, off to his left limned in the sickly silvery light of what Roger now knows is an early morning sun, what looks like some fairly large petrochemical tanks. Louisiana, Roger thinks to himself. Or coastal Texas or elsewhere on the Gulf Coast but why would I be there. Something has left me where my people came from. Again Roger calls to the loa, again he feels their chilly absence. The payphone mounted on the side of the shrimp shack rings.
>> 3d6 … 9
Bill
Roger’s no Dreamer, but his recent experience at Shasta did teach him a thing or two about the power of messages in dreams. He’ll jump to answer the ringing phone. He thinks immediately, “hope it’s Marshall” then feels a little weird that he didn’t think to hope for Papa Legba.
Michael
"R … Roger. Thank goodness." It's Archie, his voice distorted on the line: long distance. He also sounds uncharacteristically nervous: voice cracking, a slight stammer. "I was hoping you'd be there. Have there been any sightings where you are?"
Bill
“Arch, good to hear from you. Dios, from anyone. I’m — I’m really feeling alone here. And I haven’t seen anything. Why am I here, boss man?”
Michael
"You're … " Archie clears his throat, swallows. "You're experiencing time distortions as well? Oh no. It's further along than Hilary feared."
"UFO sightings, Roger. The saucers, the robots. What we're down here chasing." A pregnant pause. "Which Roger am I talking to?"
Bill
Roger shakes his head. “That’s a good question, remind me to ask you the same. I think that I’m your man what got shot three times in the chest and lived. I… I think I lived. Live. Wait, robots?”
Michael
A sigh of recognition from the other end of the phone. "Okay. We … we can work with this. Roger. It is vitally important that if you encounter an eyewitness or find direct, first-hand evidence of a saucer, or of one of the floating probes with the telescopic limbs, that you contact me here in Huntsville, all right? You call me directly. Don't talk to anyone else in URIEL or SANDMAN, understand? This is a security issue. I'll give you the number again. It's … "
Roger's dream-attention fades from the phone call just as Archie is reading off his terribly-important private phone number in Alabama, because Roger can now smell in the dream, more powerful than the gas or the fried shrimp or the Louisiana greenery, a strong whiff of gunpowder. The calling card of Monsieur le Maître. No, not le Comte. The young Master of the Crossroads.
And there he stands, in the early morning light, down the road where the big gas tanks start, at the crossing of two state Louisiana routes. A young Black man of 15 or 16 years, in a red and black suit covered in dust from the road. He beckons to Roger. Come on over, mon frère, he seems to say. Come and see. As Roger peers more closely at Kalfu, he sees he wears Roger's adolescent face.
Bill
Wiping the sweat off his brow, he walks cautiously to the crossroad. The first rush of relief, not to have been forsaken, is replaced with a tingle of fear, enough to cool his skin and raise goose pimples despite the liquid air of the Gulf. He gives the younger version of himself a formal bow. “mon Seigneur, regarde ton serviteur. I am grateful for your presence.” Roger lowers his eyes, looking at the long shadows of the early day sun, checking if he has one, and if the teen does not.
Michael
"Reverence ain't gonna save you, mon frère," the young Devil says, coolly smirking and cocking an eye at Roger as he regards his shadow: Roger's is there; the charming young Adversary's is not. "It's appreciated, don't get me wrong, but it's not what's gonna bring us back. It's not me, or Papa Pedro or Bondjamesbond who's got the beef with you."
Bill
Roger looks his younger self up and down. “Damn, I was a cocky shit at that age. Grandmere, Maman, wisest or dumbest, no people in this goddamned world could tell me nothing.” Roger smirks back: “You really know how to put a man in his place. My lord.” He blows out his held breath all at once. “OK then. Master, so I can own my offense, will you tell me? Was that the hour my death? You have that sight. Have I cheated the Guede?”
Michael
"You got a lot more 'hours of your death' in store, mon doux garçon. Yeah, that was one of them back there at the, uh, crossroads," a wry, fatalistic, gunsmoke-redolent chuckle follows.
"That's why the Baron was able to see you again. Lucky for you you got that healer man, eh? But how'd he get your scent in the first place? Well, you slipped into your final death back on that mountain, in the halls of gold. You think the Baron is gonna forget something like that? You trespassed on his domain — accident or not — and you played en son cemetière before your appointed time. That's a dare to the Guede, a spit in the face. Now he is hungry."
"I bet you don't remember what you and the Baron talked about when you tripped into your way into your own dead-time, do you?"
Bill
The humid southern morning might as well be a midnight in February in Alaska when Roger hears his own young voice say “hungry.” Like someone walked over his grave — no, make that dug up his grave and sewed his lips shut. He gives a long shudder. “I can only say that I’m mortal, Master. There’s nothing like death to make us forget things. But perhaps you were listening in? My mind, my body: c’est la maison, si loin d'être parfait Would you tell me that tale?”
Michael
"Surely I will speak of what the Baron told you. But for a price, of course."
"There is a bad joujou coming your way; I cannot tell a lie." Le Diable loses his playful mien and becomes deadly serious. "It comes as slow doom, as the Man taking everything you and your cercle have built for yourselves and for the world and making it into their own, their own nightmare. For a bunch of chrétiens, they surely are excited for Armageddon to come." He laughs, but bitterly, with no joy.
"When you wake, the Baron will have laid a curse upon you, the curse you already sense; not being able to entreat with Papa Legba and feel your connection to the web of lwa. But this curse is also a blessing, for you. Without the Baron’s — and Mitch's — intervention, I see another doom, one you have now avoided: you would have come closer to death, would have been taken to an Army hospital where the Man would have ripped me and Papa and the Agent from your mind and soul, in the name of "healing" you. The white man would have done terrible things with this knowledge, as you suspect they are already doing. Experimenting on you and your cercle."
"But if we are merely blocked in your mind and you are not in a coma recovering from the gunshots, you will have the advantage. They will send your old friend from l'Indochine instead to 'help' you, to try and heal your mind and soul. You have already sent one agent into enemy territory, yes? Le magicien? What if you sent … another? Just in case the ghost magician cannot fulfill his task, hmm? Let Ambrose meet the Agent. I guarantee Baron Samedi will allow this … and what's more, this is the price you will need to pay, to both have us back and for me to reveal this secret knowledge of your talk with the Baron. You will need to be wily, be able to lie, to fool him and the doctors, without my help and eloquence." Kalfu blows on his nails like a slick dapper motherfucker; Was I ever that young and cocky? Roger asks himself as he sees this expression on his own teenage face.
"Keep the lwa sacred. Give these men of SANDMAN the profane creation, the creation of that dream zone within the convention hotel, and let them see their dreams of a white secret agent reflected back at them. But still, no matter what happens, the Agent will remain on your side. He will infiltrate, as is his nature, on behalf of your cercle." "For you see, mon doux enfant, the Baron wants you bad, for what you did, for how you have defied him and escaped his realm."
"But he wants these white men on the cemetery slab with an even greater hunger."
Bill
Roger considers this for a while. All these narrow paths, what a life he has led. But it is Life, not Death, so what else choice is there? “Blessings on the Baron for this offer. I will strike this deal with you, and him, Master.”
Michael
"So it is spoken, so shall it be." Teenage-Roger Kalfu gives slightly-future dream-Roger a Judas kiss. "Now … what are you waiting for, the bossman said go find some flying saucers! I wonder why … " says Young Kalfu as he trots away.
When Roger turns around, he sees a giant saucer hovering over this tiny Louisiana town. And Archie and his puppets ascending into the light-filled maw on its underside. Roger wakes up in a cold sweat in the passenger seat of Mitch's car, on his way back to his apartment in the City. Mitch is driving. Roger is … semi-lucid.
Bill
Roger quietly watches Mitch, until he’s somewhat more sure this isn’t also a dream. “Hey, man,” he croaks, his voice still dry and rough from being out. “Wow this shit gets messed up. But, uh, yeah— thank you, man. As fucked up as this world, this History is, damn it is good to be alive and free.”
Jeff
"Oh, hey, you're up. Marshall gave me some more pills for you, if you want 'em... You feeling better? You don't sound great. Get you home, get you a good night's sleep, let me know if, okay?"
"Oh, and hey, if you have a message from, uh, anybody, now's the time to pass it along. Venus in conjunction or something."
Michael
(oh jeez are you really going to get me to look up what the stars looked like on this night in 1973, Jeff)
(hah, Venus is in conjunction with Pluto in fact)
that Jupiter-Moon-Venus trine is something else, near perfect equilateral triangle there
Jeff
Mitch watches the moon while he drives. "It's a nice night. Peaceful."
Bill
"Yeah. Quiet like the grave." With his head as messed up as it is, that last bit came out with the wrong tone, but he seems to have tried to make it light. "Yeah. Yeah. OK, right, messages. You're observant as always, man. While I was out, I got a bunch of messages. But, it kinda seems like there was security parameters around them, you get me? Need to know.
"But I will tell you this, 'cause the Club needs to know. I can't talk to the loa right now. I'm cut off. You did me a solid there, man, a righteous solid. But cheating death, for me, man... it's literal. Death got cheated, and Death was already pissed off at me: some earlier shit I apparently pulled in the Mountain that I shouldn't have.
"There's a price I gotta pay. And it has to do with Them, you know? Seems like They got plans for me and the loa, and now the loa want me fucking with those plans. So, yeah. I'm not quite whole, you know? I'm gonna need some time out. But from the messages I got, seems like while I gotta be out doing an Op for the saints, it'll be an Op for the Club, too.
"Yeah, home. Let me grab some stuff. But then, I think I'd like a ride to the VA." Roger then gets some paper and a pen from somewhere, glove compartment, wherever, and starts writing things down, so he can get it straight in his head while he's still fucked up. He's trying to be careful, but given Mitch's observation abilities, he'll catch glimpses of words like "Louisiana" and "UFOs??"
Jeff
Mitch's VW Beetle has a cardboard glove box
Absolutely there's a pad and paper in there
"VA, sure," Mitch says. He knows Roger's address. "We're probably almost to your place by now. I'll pass along that you're taking care of business... is that a note for Archie?"
Bill
"Uh, shit. You always know, right? Well, still, I gotta play to the rules I got. You can break the rules, but I gotta keep to my covenants. These are notes just for me, OK? But yeah, tell Archie I need to speak to him. And ask him to call up GP, and see if they can get my old handler Ambrose to come help."
"And that's talk to Archie privately. Really really privately."
Jeff
Mitch nods. "Is there time for that? Sorry if that's presumptuous. You say I always know, but man, I don't know exactly what constraints you're working under."
Bill
"Well, I guess I can tell you the rules. Archie contacted me, and made it damn clear he's my only handler for this info. Not even you man, or the rest of the Club. And it could be Archie from now, or from a future, you get me? But either way, it's Archie. And he's the one that gets this message from me, or doesn't. Operational parameters, man."
Jeff
"Okay. Okay. I'll let him know."
Bill
Roger is trained enough to take the piece of paper off the pad and the one below it, even under the influence. But he was probably baring down hard enough trying to concentrate that the pad has evidence of partial words like "Huntsville", "telescopic limbs" (because he misspelled it and then corrected it by writing over it harder), and words written with underlines like "floating", "robots", and "UFOs??" But he will not have written of the UFO sighting he saw, with Archie and the Gang getting taken up.
(And we'll see if we get time for Roger to debrief with Archie before his Higher Self retreats for a bit. Talk about being cut off from the spirits.)
Jeff
I have two unused levels of Serendipity just sitting here, alongside a desire to enable Roger and Archie meeting within the Rooster House.
Michael
So what are we talking, a late-night meeting at the Rooster House after Arch gets the medical supplies couriered to Sonoma, and then after that, Roger checks himself into the Presidio? I'm down.
Easy to say that this conversation happened early in the drive from the Barn and Mitch and Roger can turn around, head back to Livermore, wait for Archie to finish any Patron rolls. I'd say it'd only cost one use of Mitch's Serendipity for M7I4.
Rob
(I don't know how much Archie will have to offer besides bewildered stammering, especially if Roger brings up UFOs - but I am available for a scene, if Bill is and has time.)
Michael
Well at the very least our man Archie can make a Patron (Project SANDMAN)-15 roll for the requested medical supplies for the Mission from Travis Air Force Base.
And after hanging up the phone quite Serendipitously Mitch and Roger can come into the URIEL offices.
Rob
(All right, let's find out how much Archie's stock at SANDMAN has dropped since the Sting...)
>> SUCCESS by 5
Michael
Marshall, you should have your requested supplies, at SANDMAN's TL 7+1 (that means cutting-edge antibiotics, IV fluids, etc. and generally-speaking +4 equipment bonuses) by around 11 pm.
Bill
(Roger is fine being driven around all kinds of places; he's still mentally checked out. His house then Livermore then the Presidio seems kinda out of the way, but if Mitch gets him to Archie, he'll duly report in.)
(Are there showers at Livermore? Roger would like to, you know, change out of his blood soaked shirt before he sees the boss, and now he has a bag of stuff from his place.)
Michael
(Yeah, I would say that our restrooms in the Building 451 basement have lockers and a couple of showers.)
Bill
So, yeah, after a shower and change, it just so happens Mitch and Roger find Archie as he's hanging up the phone. Roger has held off on taking another "red" for the duration. "Hey, boss, field team reporting in. Can we take a walk-and-talk?"
Jeff
Mitch understands that 'we' to not include him, so just nods and steps back.
Rob
Archie's making a deliberate effort not to stare at both Roger and Mitch like they're, I dunno, two-headed calves. And while he is succeeding at this effort, he's not quite succeeding at making it seem effortless.
"Of course, Roger!" He jumps up from his desk, definitely more solicitous than he would normally be. "You're okay to... walk? You don't need to rest? I mean, if you wanted to call it a night, nobody could blame you, ha ha." He's not really meeting Mitch's eyes at all just yet.
Jeff
Mitch takes no offense.
Bill
On the walk over to the Rooster House, in the open, Roger is mostly business, reporting out on his condition, the block he has with the loa. He reports it in his usual sitrep style, minimal mystic references. It seems to Archie like Roger is performing for listeners, yes, but also using the soldierly style to cope, "one foot in front of the other." Roger makes his official request for a leave of absence, and for Archie to request his old handler for treatment.
When they get to the Rooster House, Roger visibly flinches. He seems to be looking at one of the decorations he put up, a little gravestone. He makes a little bow and mumbles something in Creole. "Let's take one last look at the poker hut, hey?"
Once inside, Roger still seems a little distracted, his eyes flickering to one of the cards he put up on the walls. He allows an awkward pause into the conversation, like he's waiting for some cue.
Rob
When Roger tells him about the loa, Archie looks him in the eyes, takes in that what's happened to Roger tonight is more spiritual than physical or even psychological. Archie exhales, stops with the solicitous fretting, is earnest and calm.
To the LOA request: "Yes. Don't give it a thought. Take as long as you need." And: "O'Connor? If that's what you want, of course. Consider it done."
As they step into the Rooster Hut, Archie's also expectant. When Roger pauses, he thinks it's for him to speak. "What is it, Roger? Whatever it is, you can tell me."
Bill
Roger breathes in deep, and involuntarily touches his chest. He shakes his head. "Archie. You've always been pretty groovy for an old honky. I don't know if I've told you that enough. I don't know I've told anyone what they really need to know." Tears well up in his eyes, but he keeps it together. "This shit is so hard, and I almost died. I really felt it, I almost died. I got saved by a miracle."
"This fight, it's really war, with... casualties. I knew I could be one, thought I was ready. All that time in 'Nam. But man, my number was up. And the loa, they knew it. Le Baron was there, Arch, waiting for me. But I got another chance."
"And I gotta pay for it. Arch, the loa have seen a future, where the Ozzies get their hands on the loa, and use them. Where they make soldiers, like me. But where they treat these saints and spirits like tools, constructs, enslave them. Some of our greatest allies in this war, and those motherfuckers want to just make them another gun." The tears are gone, and Roger is seething.
"The loa won't have it. And they see, in this spirit you found, the Agent, a way to trick their way in and destroy this program from the inside. The Agent is the perfect bait, their ideal superspy tool. But the Ozzies don't see what you've seen, that these aren't figments of a single person's brain. They live in us, and outside us. The Agent will be a perfect Double Agent."
"The loa demand this of me, to send this cuckoo into the nest. I will be doing it, if I have to go rogue. But, I'm hoping, since you know the spirits, you'll give me your blessing."
Rob
Archie snorts at being called groovy, but agrees about the miracle: "It was a kind of miracle, Roger. Has to have been! And I thank God you're here talking to me right now."
When Roger lays out his plan, he gets it. "You're not talking about going undercover yourself. The Agent can go … on his own, somehow. Like Charley's Houdini."
He thinks for a moment. "Do you trust him for this? The Agent? How exposed are you if the other side … gets hold of him, or turns him? Whatever that would mean."
Bill
"Yes, the Agent will go, on his own. But also, I will likely have to go, for a bit, to show him to them after Ambrose reports, and to let them "copy" him. Teach the other chevals the ways to summon him, his vever, his favorite gifts. But after I leave, it will be the Agent staring out their eyes, and, welcomed in, making his moves with their hands. Houdini will be in their systems, but the Agent in their agents."
"As for us trusting him, well, we have worked out a bond. That's one of his names, oui?" Roger does not wink, or smile, but he gives his head a small tilt to the side, towards Archie. "Look. You know him, you helped call him from the Other Side. His character is what it is: and character is destiny, especially with the saints. He is the Destroyer of the Hidden Cabal, no? There is a spectre haunting SANDMAN: he cannot help but find its hidden base, ferret out its secrets, and blow it up. You, C, just need to send him on his mission. He's listening now."
Rob
"Saints, bonds, spectre … " Archie throws up his hands: "Uncle!"
He puts a hand on Roger's arm, speaks earnestly. "It's a good plan, Roger. I just hope it doesn't take too much out of you. You've given so much already. I imagine we're all going to give up parts of ourselves before this is done."
"Right, how does this go?" He gets into character, adopts an officious tone, something halfway between Stoney and Bernard Lee: "Ozymandias, Agent. You know it? Bad business. 'Look upon my works, ye mighty and despair.' You'll be going in undercover. Naturally, this office must disavow all knowledge, etcetera. Agent Martin will brief you, get you to the target, but once you've made contact, you're on your own."
Bill
Roger stiffens, smiles, and brings his right hand to his eye in an OK sign. “Be ‘C’ing you.” Then he relaxes, in some ways more relaxed in any time since Archie first saw him tonight.
"Gracias. But... now that he's on his way, there's one more thing, boss — for your ears only." Roger then relates the first half of his dream, before Kalfu, describing the place as close as he can and trying to get Archie's phone call word-for-word. "You said 'time distortions', Archie, and if I learned anything in Shasta, it's that time-travel isn't all giant shifts from A to B. Sometimes, in dreams, we can slip just little jumps over, not all from one world to another. You ask Charley. On the off chance that this was that, or even a true vision from the loa, take it seriously. Well, as much as you can take this weird shit seriously before you crack. You told me to tell only you about this sighting, and I have. Not even Mitch when he got asking around it in that eerie way he has. It may mean something."
Rob
Archie takes in the story. "Hilary … Hilary Postel? And flying saucers? Well, I'll be. The old man did say I'd see them again." He looks quizzical. "I don't know just what to make of that, but thank you. Message delivered. Okay, then. You take good care of yourself, Roger. Can we get Mitch drive you home?"
Bill
“Well, okay, glad to have it delivered, I guess. Not gonna worry about that Huntsville number, then.”
“Madre de dios, Archie, I am so tired. I really need that ride. I am alive though. I am that. Good night, boss man. And best of it. Vaya con dios”
Michael
Do Mitch and Archie want to have a quick chat before driving back to SF, while Roger falls back asleep in the passenger side (of his best friend's ride)?
Jeff
Ok so Mitch drives Roger from the barn to his apartment, then from his apartment to Livermore, then from Livermore back to his apartment. Then Mitch heads back to the barn. Is Archie coming with?
Michael
I was picturing Archie, after maybe awkwardly speaking with Mitch, staying at Livermore for an hour or so to tie up loose ends, maybe take a few notes on memetic cover stories for Beale Farms to start working through tomorrow, then head home on his own. But obviously that's all Rob’s call.
Rob
I'm not sure we need a full scene, but Archie will, when handing Roger off to Mitch, look seriously into Mitch's eyes, as he did with Roger. "How about you, Mitchell? How are you holding up?" Superficially asking if he's okay to drive, but really asking how he is doing with everything that's happened tonight.
Jeff
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine. Not how I expected things to go, but … " Mitch shrugs. "Moving forward."
Michael
So Roger is dropped off and Archie heads home around midnight. Just want to put a button on this scene/thread.