Sophie Tells Jo a Story

Michael

Okay, so this is happening around 7 pm or so on Wednesday night; after Archie has taken Charley to dinner at the Ransom family home, after Marshall has had his match of wits with Detective Atwood, and after presumably Sophie woke up Roger with a call to come to Livermore bright and early Thursday morning. As Jocasta unlocks the office door and walks into the URIEL office, she sees most of the lights off (in the common area and Archie's office) but the fluorescents in the library are still blazing. Sophie is in there, at the microfiche machine, scanning what look like newspaper files. She takes a break, turns around, and sees Jocasta through the glass. She gives a little wave.

"Hell of a day," Sophie says, stretching her neck muscles. "First Charley arrives, then Marshall calls me from the Mission saying he wants me to assemble a file on a bunch of hitchhiker murders in Sonoma County. To say I am on edge would be an understatement. And you," Sophie says to Jo, "you've got some evidence of retrocreation and Irruption in West Oakland, I take it?"

Leonard

Jocasta, fairly bedraggled, hauls herself over to her reading spot in the common area. She considers asking how Sophie knows this, since she hasn't phoned it in yet, but chalks it up to her half-formed notion that Sophie is her handler and her general paranoia that SANDMAN (or someone) is always monitoring her.

"Hell of a day, indeed. Yeah, it's a kusarikku, I think, and it's already here," she replies, spreading out her photostats, notes, and drawings. "I was in a bad state — the vibes are absolutely thick out there, and I haven't even, uh, taken my meds yet — but it was echoing in my head like a bell. I'm not completely clear on what's happening, but there's something in the air, something's already pushed through and is conditioning people to be ready for it. The concert might be a prelude to a bloodbath. Whatever it is, it's not good."

Michael

Sophie sighs. "On some level I'm relieved we have this much information to tackle the problem. That was excellent work on your part," Sophie says, looking at Jocasta's notes. "Both the field work and this research. I hope you'll be comfortable presenting it tomorrow morning. I'll certainly give you a hand with getting it ready."

"We've got to move as a unit from here on out, until Saturday. Conventional means of stopping the Irruption might be exhausted at this point. We're going to need a full-spectrum approach: memetic and esmological support, HUMINT on the ground, technical assistance for certain, and with only two days until the concert, which I still very much believe will be the trigger event, we don't have a lot of time to lose."

Leonard

"Agreed. We'll also need to handle the record release somehow. I'd hoped this would be a lot easier to contain, but it's looking like we may have a pretty heavy lift, in addition to limiting our own exposure. I'm happy I could help with getting us to this point, and I'm not sure how much I can do from here on out, but of course, whatever it is, I'll give it my all." She sighs and lights a Slim. "I didn't expect to see you here so late, but you always seem to be burning the midnight oil. I hope, especially since I feel like I was a little … sharp with you earlier about Charley, that this isn't overstepping my bounds, but … how do you do it? How do you cope with this stuff, all day, every day? I'm … I'm trying to fit in at URIEL, but it sometimes takes a lot of work to process everything after a mission. But here you are, every day, every night, just throwing yourself into it."

Michael

Sophie fairly stares unblinking at Jo from behind her thick lenses. "Oh, Jocasta," she laughs. "This, all this?" She points at the books, the magazines, the boxes upon boxes of microfilm, the computer terminals, even your notes and sketches and Xeroxes. "This is a haven, a sanctuary. Compared to my life before URIEL? I feel like I'm in retirement, pottering about in my garden."

"You saw me in Pittsburg. The Project doesn't want me in the field because I'm no good in the field anymore. And that's fine," she says, sighing. She's been doing a lot of sighing today. "As far as Charley goes, well … let me tell you a story. And in an effort to make it as memetically effective as possible, we'll make it a fairy tale, yes? One of humanity's most resilient formats of memetic resistance to the Red Kings, the fairy tale."

"Once upon a time there was an innocent little girl born in a very bad place. Her kingdom was in the thrall of an evil dictator, and the little girl's mother was thrown in a prison, where she gave birth to the little girl and then died. All of the little girl's tribe were imprisoned too, so the baby was protected as best they could … until the evil kingdom was conquered and vanquished. But the little girl was now an orphan. Her father died in the first purges, so did all her mother and father's people. She went to an orphanage in a very quaint neighboring country and lived the first couple of years of her life there. Eventually, a very nice couple of her tribe adopted the little girl. They lived in one of the good countries who helped conquer the evil kingdom, and the little girl moved there with her new parents.

"She was a quiet girl, and as she grew, she grew … bookish. But the worlds within books … those were her succor. They were the safest place she could imagine. Schools too, but books … those couldn't lie to you. Or at least when they did lie, you could argue with them, dispute their points, scribble whatever notes you wanted in the margins. Whatever you liked. They fired her imagination, and they gave the young girl a home. She never felt at home, even with the loving couple who adopted her."

"So the girl was bright and went off to an academy where her bookishness was recognized by the circle of knights who'd liberated her tribe from bondage. Those knights said, 'You're bright, you're dedicated, you know deeply and profoundly the evil that men do. Why not join us? Join our gleaming circle of chivalry. Use your skills, your knowledge, your talent with languages — the girl had been recognized as a … strange sort of savant with languages as a very young child — and help us fight evil, all across the world.' And the girl did that. But she didn't know that the charnel house she grew up in … was only a pale reflection of the real evil out there. Because there weren't just evil men in the world, she soon discovered in her service. There were actual demons."

"Those demons hurt her. And after they'd hurt her she was never the same. And she realized that there was truly no safe place, no refuge, no hiding place beneath a rock or even in a book. It was hard to realize that. It was also hard to realize that often, in order to defeat those demons, the girl's idealized knights had to do some terrible, awful things. And with that? She became a coward. She ran away. She asked the knights if she could lay down her sword and shield and return to her library. And that's where she is today, in a lonely tower, knowing she is a pusillanimous scared little girl who has shamed the memory of her brave, courageous mother. The end." Sophie walks to Mitch's desk and takes out the rest of his small bottle of Wild Turkey and drinks it down to the dregs.

"Anyway," she says wiping her lips. "I can't be scared of Charley. I can't be angry at SANDMAN for doing what they did to her. I want to, but I can't."

Leonard

After a respectful pause, Jo lets out a long, straight stream of smoke, and says, quietly, "Jesus."

"That's, uh, a hell of a fairy tale. Not the happy ending I was expecting, if I'm honest," she says with a cynical half-laugh. "I wish I'd known it when I signed on. I … ugh. I might have, treated you differently, I guess. Maybe you don't want that."

Michael

"Jocasta, it's all right. I know I'm not the easiest person to work with." She gestures for one of Jo's Slims. "But Charley arriving today … brought up a lot of memories. So maybe I should learn to be not so fucking standoffish."

Leonard

Jo smiles warmly and offers her a cigarette. She digs into her bag, and while fetching her lighter, places a small orange pill bottle on the desk in front of her. "This is my escape. It's a little embarrassing. I never went through what … what that girl went through, and I still need it to push away the bad shit that gathers around my head. Makes me a little ashamed. But those brave knights … all the ones who came to me, who told me I was special somehow, who told me I was needed and put me on the paths that brought me here … they all let me down in the end. They disappointed or disappeared. They died," she says, trailing off a bit.

Michael

"I feel awfully about drinking all of Mitch's … fucking abominable whisky, because if we had any left I'd pour half for you and we could have a toast to all those disappointing knights who've lied to us." The Librarian smiles.

Leonard

Jocasta laughs. "I'll drink to that anytime. Maybe Archie has something in his. Whole milk, probably. Or sarsaparilla."

Michael

Sophie laughs despite herself. "The pills, then. What do you have there?"

Leonard

Jo cocks an eyebrow. "Well, the pills … I think you issued me those. Too late at night for that. The tabs are, uh, well, you've seen my file. May not be the best thing for you if we wanna get any work done in the morning. But these …. " She shakes out a few doses of MDMA. "This'll keep some good feelings going. They'll get us through, anyway."

Michael

"Files are one thing but I don't know what you get up to when you're not at home." She ponders taking the MDMA, but ultimately declines. "No, I really shouldn't. I need to be fresh-faced tomorrow and the bloody whisky was bad enough."

Almost feels like Sophie might be scared she's shared too much now.

Leonard

"Fair enough," Jo replies, putting one of the MDMA caps under her tongue and leaning back on the couch, "I know all about those demons now, and maybe I've found some people who won't just go away. I'm not sure what it all means, and I still worry that the little evils we do to keep the big ones at bay are hurting people who have been hurt enough already. But, not to get too sisterhood-is-powerful with you, but … go easy on that little girl. There's one in a million people who can stand the shit we see out there in the field. Sometimes I think I'm not up to it. If your mother could see you, and if she knew the work you put into fighting what we're fighting, I think shame would be the last fucking thing she'd feel about you."

Michael

Stiff upper lip, that Sophie, at least when it comes to the personal stuff. "Thank you," she says. Not neutrally, but clearly holding back some real emotion.

"I hate to be the one to tell you, but Charley went with Archie to meet his family."

(There was a pretty long pause there between Sophie saying "Thank you" and that.)

"Please don't be cross with Mr. Ransom," Sophie says. "He is trying his best. And I've known him a bit longer, and I can tell you, his heart bleeds for children. He really cares."

Leonard

This is all still too raw to deal with. "Phew," Jo says. "Well, that's a crisis for later. I'm all tapped out today. I have a huge amount of respect for Archie, I really do. I think he's doing this for the best of reasons. But, well, aren't we all?"

Michael

"Indeed." Sophie looks around. "Another hour or two of getting affairs ready for tomorrow morning and then I'm going to try to get some sleep, and I suggest you do as well."

Leonard

"Yeah, that's my plan. Let's go over this as much as we need to and then me and this couch are gonna get married." She starts gathering together some stuff she copied from microfiche and then pauses. "Wait, did you say hitchhiker murders?"