5/6
Played: November 16, 2021.
Monday, July 23, 1973. Livermore. URIEL convenes for its “all hands” Monday morning meeting. Mitch brings donuts. Jocasta brings a newspaper. On the conference room table are several long tubes containing the architectural and engineering plans for the building where Project SCANATE operates. There is a lot to discuss, so Archie proposes starting small and working outward. First: where are we with Patrick Price? Mitch rehashes a bit what Roger told the office team the week before, clarifying a few things and noting that Price is the real deal. Archie asks Mitch if he thinks Price is someone they should bring on board, given his potential. Roger says it’s important to first figure out whose side Price is on. For instance, is he already a CIA asset? Or did he get his powers from History B in a way URIEL has not yet figured out? Marshall asks Mitch if he thinks we are at the point where we need to cultivate him, or perhaps bring him to the attention of Granite Peak. Mitch says, at this point, he’s met a bunch of psychics, and Price is possibly the most “powerful” — powerful in finger quotes — he has encountered. He says he thinks it is worth exploring the CIA’s involvement in SCANATE, especially the figure known as “Mr. Green,” to learn more before proceeding with any specific actions vis-à-vis Price.
Next: the incipient irruptor at SRI. Archie asks Mitch what he makes of it. Mitch says:
So, I don't know. It's weird. And here's the weird thing. I could understand kind of the idea that there's this computer land that's waiting to spring into existence. This thing that's gonna happen where we're all walking around with computer hats all the time or whatever. And that's something that's coming and that it's an outgrowth of existing technology and things that are being made right now around here. What I don't see is how that connects to the electrical system at SRI. The power supply. The fluorescent lights. Because if it was just in the phone lines — and that's what I thought it was at first, like, it was just in the phone lines — that would make a kind of sense, right? Because the computer hats are all going to be jacked into the Ma Bell, right? Or something? But if it’s power lines … then I don’t know how that relates to … I don’t see how it could be the one and the other thing.
Mitch asks if there was a third set of wiring in the SCANATE building, besides power and telephones, because he cannot understand how an irruptor would “jump” from one set of wires to another. Roger and Charley unfurl the various blueprints on the table and give them a look-over. Answering Mitch’s question, Roger finds that there are tons and tons of telephone connections inside the building (and SRI generally). Presumably, these are all necessary for hooking up the computers at SRI with ARPANET. Charley and Roger also notice that the power grid at SRI was recently upgraded, likely in order to address the campus’ increased computational power demands. As for a third set of wires — yes, there is. Charley and Roger discern a network of wires that is confined to the offices of a a particular program called the Augmentation Research Center, or ARC. These wires form an “internal network,” or “intranet,” among the ARC’s various computer terminals, so that users can communicate with one another remotely, using the computer, while still working in the same physical space. This, Charley explains, enables ARC’s computers to communicate and exchange information much more quickly with one another, because they do not need to send signals out over the vast, distributed system of ARPANET first. The existence of the ARC center’s internal network tracks with Mitch’s observation from earlier that there are two “epicenters” of History B activity on the SRI campus.
Archie asks what Roger and Charley would need to investigate ARC and ARC’s computer network. Charley explains she could “hack” her way into that network through ARPANET, because any computer that is connected to any other computer using ARPANET is remotely reachable. Roger asks if they’re going to have to do some “wet work,” or whatever, that is, sabotaging or destroying ARC’s facilities or equipment. Archie says it is too soon for that. They need more information. Archie wonders if it’s possible to steer conversation with Price towards his real estate investments, but Mitch says that would be tricky.
Marshall asks why the team doesn’t just black-bag Price, bring him to the Mission, ask him questions directly. Roger points out that Price can see the future and Marshall deflates a bit. “Right. How do you abduct a man who knows he’s going to be abducted.” Archie also points out that this would burn their connection to SRI and possibly blow Mitch’s cover. Archie thinks the best course of action is to simply keep an eye on him, hopefully cultivate him like the team cultivated Andy and Viv. Marshall says he was just throwing out ideas; if they have a problem at SRI and Price is the solution, maybe it’s best to just go at Price directly. Mitch thinks this is a bad idea. The whole transition, he says, of Price the Potential Asset to Price the Actual Asset will go a lot smoother if there’s no intermediary Price-the-Brainwashing-Victim phase. Marshall laughs and says he thinks Mitch has overestimated how many assets SANDMAN has working for it on a “voluntary” basis. Mitch says he still doesn’t think the need is there yet.
Archie asks if perhaps the best way to find out what Price knows or where his allegiances lie is to have Jocasta contact him as she did before, i.e., using her psychometry. Jocasta looks up from newspapers and says she doesn’t think it wise to do that again, at least right now. Marshall asks if Jocasta thinks it wouldn’t effective this time. Jocasta says it’s a “very difficult path.” The better path is to lean on the Mitch relationship, because the two have struck up a bit of a rapport. Of course, if worse comes to worse, Jocasta still has Price’s badge and can possibly use that to “reach” him.
Turning back to the ARC program, Marshall asks if having Charley “hack” her way into their computer network risks unleashing the irruptor that Mitch observed in the wiring at SRI. Could the irruptor escape if Charley isn’t careful? Charley, munching on her third donut, says, “It may already be out.” Marshall blinks: “Awesome. Great. OK.” Charley explains that the other day, she received a request to chat on her computer terminal. Whoever it was who was sending the message was incredibly skilled to have reached her without permitting her to back-trace their coordinates. At first she just thought whoever was sending the message was playing with her, but now she thinks it may have been the irruptor that Mitch found at SRI. After some more questioning, Mitch concludes that the entity is likely still at SRI, being formed within the nest of wires there, but that it has managed to figure out a way to communicate with the outside world. This indicates that the irruptor has become a least somewhat sentient. Charley shares the messages she received with the team, including its bizarre “logoff” message: LO.
Roger takes this opportunity to tell the team about the experiment he/Joshua and Charley ran using ORACLE. He explains how he and Charley foresaw a future dominated by computers, all computers being networked together across the globe, and that the “seed” of this vast network has been planted at both SRI and Granite Peak. In other words, ORACLE predicts that the future holds a world of networked computers and that this future has its origins at SRI — or, barring SRI, at Granite Peak. Mitch asks if ORACLE is at all biased: a computer telling us that computers will one day rule the world? Charley dismissively scoffs “no” and Roger chuckles. Maybe, he says, but he trusts Charley’s skills and this is what she was able to determine. As Roger is talking, Archie muses to himself about the memetic potential inherent in an international computer network. Conceivably such a thing would be even more potent than radio and television. This could, of course, be either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how it was used.
He snaps out of it when Jocasta pipes up.
I don't want to rehash the whole, should we tell SANDMAN brass about the chip in Charley’s head argument again, but if SANDMAN and SRI are both developing this kind of technology and if SANDMAN sometimes works with the CIA and SRI sometimes works with the CIA, we have to ask ourselves whether whatever is going on there is happening under SANDMAN brass's approval. Shouldn't we just ask them, hey, is this something we should keep investigating or is this something you've planned and we should just leave it alone?
Roger says that’s why he thinks it best to just leave Mitch where he is at SRI, since he’ll be well-placed there to get eyes on any potential spooks who show up. Archie says this whole conversation is reminding him of something he wanted to bring up:
I was doing a kind of an asynchronous focus group last week. I wasn't really focused on SRI … I was trying to answer kind of a larger scale question about all the activity we've been seeing and talking to, well, to a number of, uh, characters and I did speak with Andrew Krane. Now you all remember that that Krane’s Atlantis books contained a, you know, a surprising amount of information that sounded an awful lot like he was talking about SANDMAN. And we wondered where that was coming from. It seems he just kind of intuited it in some weird way. But Andrew was telling me about the fourth book in the Atlantis series and that’s just, you know, this is just … this is just a novel, an unfinished novel. It was something he was working on before he ever met us. Before the con. If you remember, Roger caught a glimpse of his little notebook and it said, “Atlantis wins.” So, in this book, the MARPA agency has these … well, they’re esmologists, I mean, he gives them silly names, he calls them wizards or something like that. But they have this kind of fortune, future-telling magic, and basically, they do some kind of a magical GRAIL TABLE. They look forward 50 years in the future and they see that, in every way they run the future, Atlantis wins. That America falls apart, the free world falls apart, and people end up begging to be ruled by the Atlanteans. This faction within MARPA decides, you know, that they can’t win no matter what they do. So — and this is the part that seems a little kooky to me — the wizards in MARPA decide not to fix the decay of American society but to accelerate it. Make it come faster. To basically bring about the collapse of the free world, shatter everything faster and then rebuild some kind of Spartan warrior America that’s better able to withstand the Atlantean threat. It’s a bit Dr. Strangelove, I would imagine that if you asked Andrew that would probably be in the back of his mind …
Marshall interrupts and asks if Archie is suggesting that there’s a faction within SANDMAN, or perhaps SANDMAN itself, that is operating as an accelerationist cabal to bring about the collapse of History A so that they can rebuild it to be more resistant to History B. Archie says he’s just talking about a novel, but a novel written by a writer who has a strange ability to grasp the reality of SANDMAN and the ontological war with the Red Kings. Marshall flips out, saying that this whole thing has unraveled so quickly — it started with a memo from the Librarian about purported psychics at SRI and now Archie is suggesting that it is connected in some way to a conspiracy within SANDMAN that is seeking to destroy History A. Archie again says he’s just talking about a book but Marshall’s on a kick now, yelling that Archie may be right but you can’t just say those things out loud. Archie says that they can’t ignore the ties between Charley’s chip and SRI, and now SRI with this interconnected computer network and History B. “There could be factions within SANDMAN that don’t have our best interests at heart.”
Marshall stands up, shouting:
What am I supposed to do with what you just told me? I have to report you now! Like this has — not only does what you've told us have nothing to do with what we're currently oriented towards as far as I can tell but you're talking about — like, this is rank disloyalty. I mean I know — I know what you're saying about, like, “I'm just talking about Andrew Krane's books,” but you're not — you're talking about open betrayal.
Archie interrupts, asking Marshall if it would not be a greater loyalty to root out such a faction as the one he is describing, if it exists. Marshall gets even more worked up:
God damn the six of you! This is not your job. URIEL’s job is not to look back up the chain of command be like, “What is SANDMAN doing?” Our job is to focus on the fucking psychics and the History B phenomenon at SRI. If you think that we are working for the American equivalent of the Nazis or the KGB or something else, you can keep that shit in your head — and you're supposed to keep it in your head! But the more you talk about it in front of me the less I can do to protect all of you. And also, now I have to report you, Archie. You could have fucking been Frank Stanton if you had just shut up! Like, there are people at SANDMAN who have big plans for you and with this sort of talk, I mean, you’re gonna find yourself in Project THROWAWAY.
Marshall takes a deep breath and sits down again. “I just don’t understand what this has to do with SRI. I don’t understand.” Jocasta asks Marshall why they can’t just ask SANDMAN brass about this situation and whether it’s something they should keep pursuing. Marshall asks what that has to do with Archie’s comments about there being a treasonous cabal with SANDMAN. Jocasta says, smirking, “No one’s talking about that. We’re just asking.” Marshall again flips out, screaming: “I was in the jungle inventing, ‘So, guys, hypothetically if so-and-so didn’t make it back … ’ Don’t fucking pitch that at me! I understand the game!” Roger interrupts, telling Marshall that he was in the jungle with him and that in this situation they’re allowed to strategize about who may be responsible for what’s going on at SRI:
You keep asking what's the problem. The problem is SRI is heading into a giant irruption that could take out the world through all this computer shit, right? You don't want that. So we have got to figure out who we are trying to stop here and if they have allies. If it's just the irrupter sneaking along and tapping people that's one thing. If it’s some fucking CIA operative who's gone rogue, if it's the KGB pretending to be the CIA going rogue, we have to find out who that is. If it's fucking SANDMAN rogue people we would have to find them out too. If it is SANDMAN, there are other people we report this to. I mean, like, they have internal affairs, you know what I mean? But let’s not go there. Let’s just really pray is some CIA guy.
As he’s saying this, Roger thinks back to some of the gossip and legends he’s heard about the shadowy figures who populate SANDMAN’s internal affairs bureau. Tales of rogue SANDMAN agents are many, but are spoken about in only the most hushed tones — operatives who have bargained with the Red Kings, or gone over to History B, parlaying what they know for material powers and promises of high position should the Anunnaki prevail. Such individuals are purged from SANDMAN’s internal records and nearly all trace of them wiped out memetically. Still, there is a need to monitor for such treachery, and that responsibility falls to people like Marshall: commissars who are placed within teams of appreciable size (like URIEL) and who watch and report on their colleagues’ activities. Some of them do so in secret, never revealing their true role. Some, like Marshall, have the good graces to tell their team members about their role.
A tense silence falls across the room. Charley reaches for another donut. Archie clears his throat and says, “My feeling is that we don’t have anything to hide. Marshall, you should report whatever you think you need to report. I got into this because I wanted to help people and you know, I think that’s what Frank wants too. So, I don’t think we have to attach it to Sophie necessarily, but I think we, you know, we should just report it in a routine way that we’re looking into this stuff which is absolutely in our bailiwick, absolutely in our wheelhouse, to check into psychic research just down the road. And if it’s just somebody’s pet project at Granite Peak, if we’re stepping on toes by looking into this, they’re gonna let us know one way or the other.” Marshall nods. Jocasta agrees, explaining that they certainly have every right to look into Price, and into SRI now that they certainly know there is History B activity occurring there. So even if URIEL assumes the worst and that SANDMAN, or a faction within SANDMAN, is involved with SRI to some sinister degree, the team is within its organizational remit to follow those leads and dig deeper. Archie nods along and then says that the only thing that they should probably leave out of their report is the existence of ORACLE, which is technically unauthorized.
At that, Marshall chuckles darkly: “The irony of the analogy you drew with the Andrew Krane novel is that the person enacting the future-seeing ritual in this comparison is you guys using the ORACLE program. So maybe in some grim horrible future all of you will betray the organization and create some horrible accelerationist faction. I don’t know. But my question is: how are we going to stop this irruption at SRI? Because our actual job is to do that. And I don’t know enough about electrical engineering or any of this … like, can we just turn the power off?”
Archie says, yes, correct, that is what we should focus on. He reiterates that they will have Charley “crack” in ARC’s computer system. He also proposes having Mitch watch over Charley’s shoulder while this is happening to see if they can make further contact with this “LO” character. Mitch, in the meantime, will stay in place at SRI, try to develop more details and learn who the players are. Marshall again asks why they can’t just shut the power off at SRI, and Mitch and Archie explain how that won’t work: when they turn the power back on, the circumstances that created the irruption in the first place will return, and so too will the irruptor. Alternately, the irruptor may just translocate to the next “critical mass” of causality — whatever the SRI equivalent in, you know, Italy is, or wherever. Roger also points out that SCANATE’s computers are hooked up to ARPANET, and ARPANET was designed to survive nuclear assault, so just turning the power off likely won’t eliminate the threat. Roger notes that the other question they need an answer to is whether there is “some guy” at SRI who is precipitating all of this — incubating the irruption within SRI’s electrical grid for some grand purpose down the road.
Mitch chimes in. He says the thing that worries him is the 50-year time scale because one of the things History B does is retro-creation. So, maybe right now there’s nobody who is using the potential computer network being developed by either SRI or Granite Peak to bring about an ontoclysm, but in 1995, suddenly there will be a guy who has been working towards that goal for the last 20 years. So “that guy” Roger is talking about might be untouchable because he might be in the future. But Roger points out that, if we’re looking at Zeb situation, Zeb was stoppable. If someone had known about him 50 years ago, when he first arrived from History B to influence E.L. Moore, they could have stopped him, and that would have stopped the whole causal chain of events that led to the Mansa concert. Mitch points out that the very term “retro” means it has already happened, but Roger won’t go there: if a retro-creation can’t be stopped, they couldn’t have stopped Zeb. But they did.
Charley suggests that maybe URIEL should run with Pat Price, since, if we’re talking retro-creation, he’s the only one the team knows of who can, apparently, see backward and forward in time. Seems useful. Marshall sighs. He says, sure, yes, maybe they should bring Price on board, just vet him and get him up to speed. But:
There's like this crazy symmetry between what we're doing right now and this theory that was bandied about at the Company back towards the end of the last decade, about like how you how you manage a mass democracy of individuals. And like, can you manage a mass democracy of individuals? Is it even possible? And there were these theories bandied about about like, you can exercise perfect social control just by showing everyone themselves. Like if you just give everyone a mirror, they'll just stare at the mirror all the time and then won't they be really manageable — like you won't have to worry about what they're doing because they'll just be staring at the mirror. And I kind of feel like we're in that situation right now, where we all are looking at all of these — we're looking at the past and the future and at these actors who are more powerful than us and ourselves and the organization and we're just going around and around and around and doing nothing.
As Marshall concludes this thought, Mitch’s sixth sense pings. Something Marshall just said was very important. Marshall suggests that this is perhaps the whole point of the computer network being developed at SRI, which would make sense, since of the directors of SRI is Willis Harman, the man who invented the term “human potential movement” and who first posited this theory of mass control. He goes on:
But that's still just a mirror because even my observation — and this realization — is a mirror because we have not yet come up with a single piece of actionable information in this entire meeting besides sending our child soldier into a computer. Like it's all just more and more information reinforcing our thought patterns and sending us off in different directions. We're being perfectly managed right now. It's kind of beautiful in a way.
Mitch suggest black bagging this Harman guy, and Marshall says that won’t be necessary, he’s just a college professor, he can invite him over for cocktails. Mitch says, OK, so should we black bag Price? Because we gotta black bag someone. Marshall says no, no we don’t need to black bag anybody, but what are we doing? What is something that URIEL can do about this? Mitch says he is getting the strong sense that the team needs to do something, so maybe rolling up Price is the way to go, just pull the band aid off now. He remarks that he knows how URIEL likes to avoid making decisions until the last possible moment but look how that’s worked out. Roger interrupts: “we’ve had one meeting, for God’s sake spycraft takes a little bit of time.” Mitch pushes back, “This meeting has gone on for 90 minutes, man, come on!” Marshall also starts laughing: “It is kind of, I mean, now it’s all I can see! Like, Roger … even Roger saying spycraft takes some time, maybe we need to do more digging and find more information. Like, of course! We need to find more information, just gather all the information around us!” Roger growls, “I said a name! You’re just kicking apart any action item I come up with, so you’re part of the problem! Who is Mr. Green? Who is the CIA handler?” Marshall laughs again, “OK, so let’s black bag him!”
Archie tells everyone to calm down:
I feel there are different levels of human interaction before black bagging. An hour ago I floated, I asked Mitch if he could maybe ask Price about his real estate and he was like, well, that’ll be a hard conversation to have, and then so I said maybe you (pointing at Jocasta) could do it and she said, well, it’d be really awkward and Marshall — to his credit! — said I can black bag them. But I want to return, I think that you, you know, you’re creative and impressive individuals! I like to think that you can get information out of people in different ways. So maybe we need some … we need to find out about Price. And I don’t want it to be all on Mitch, though. How can help Mitch find out about Green?
Roger asks Marshall if he can make Green report to him. Marshall stammers that he doesn’t know — he has no idea who Green is, Green might outrank him. But he says he can work on finding out who Green is, and go from there. Mitch says he can just go to SRI and talk to Price. He has that ability, after all. Marshall quips, “You are the magic man, after all.” The rest of the team organizes their action items. Before the meeting adjourns, Marshall tells everyone to really probe their brains to be sure that there aren’t any upcoming deadlines or events that the team needs to worry about. He notes how the St. Francis mission went awry because URIEL had missed a couple things and then ran out of time. Everyone is sure they can’t think of anything that might be like that? Everyone says no. Roger points out that the real failing at the St. Francis was not identifying all the players — precisely what they are trying to do here with SRI. After a little bit of coaching from Roger and Archie on how best to go about bringing up the topic of real estate, Mitch heads off to SRI and the meeting breaks up.
Archie goes back to his office and does some preliminary research on Harman. He finds that Harman is a man already thinking about the question of how best to manage large groups of people, in a healthy and secure way. Harman posits that the best way to do that is through individualism, people pursuing their own best interests — sort of what Marshall had been talking about earlier. Jocasta knocks on the door after a few minutes and proposes assisting Archie with Harman, touting her psychological training and intelligence background. Archie readily agrees. From around the corner, Marshall notes that the two have a weird vibe.
Mitch heads off to SRI and, weirdly, does not hit a single red light the entire time. This enables him to arrive at the campus early, around noon, so he decides to go get lunch in the cafeteria. He walks in and finds Price sitting at a table with a man in his late 30s, early 40s — a classic nerdy type of engineer or researcher with a high hairline and blondish hair. Price waves Mitch over and says, “MJ, this is Doug Engelbart. He works down in the computer center here. He’s an interesting guy. He’s trying to tell me (chuckle) about what kind of real estate to invest in in the Valley.” Doug says Price did ask him about it, and then introduces himself. They shake heads but Doug goes right back to Price, pressing how there’s so much money to be made in the Valley now, with all these major businesses moving to the area. Price gives MJ a wink and nods aloud. They talk some more, and Mitch gets the sense that Price is just playing with Doug. Doug heads out. Price turns to Mitch and says: “They’re really, really strange down there. I don’t think the light gets in down in that lab.”
Price asks Mitch where he lives, by the way? Mitch says, “Oh, oh, uh, you know, one of those streets.” Price laughs and says, “Oh like one of those pieces of property Doug was telling me about to buy before a computer company moves in across the street. You know, if he knew what I know about … ” Mitch cuts him off. “What do you know, Pat? What do you know? You’re clearly like begging me — Edenvale! Edenvale, that’s where I live, had to think about it a second — you’re clearly eager to tell me, come on.”
Pat: OK, maybe … maybe a little, but you —
Mitch: You look like a cat that swallowed a canary.
Pat: Mitch, I’m 55 years old, all right —
Mitch: Good for you.
Pat: I’m not going to be on this Earth much longer, but I have a wife —
Mitch: I mean, who knows? I’m sorry — I’m sorry, I should be letting you talk. I’m being a dick. Sorry.
Pat: Oh no, you're not being a dick. I want my wife to have something after I’m gone. I just don’t want her to be without the level of comfort she’s accustomed to. So I've been thinking about doing some investment in some real estate in the Valley, you know. And I’m not gonna lie I’ve tried to kind of take a look you know at a few spots with, you know, the whammy and just kind of see what might be happening. I’ve told you I can’t exactly pin down, you know, I can only see what’s the most important time in its history, right? I don’t know where it’s going to send me, so I went around. And one of the things I saw when I was down by Mountain View, where I mentioned to Doug, I just have a trailer down there. It's a nice one but whatever. I grabbed a lot that was basically being used for like Christmas tree sales because it's all vacant lots down there, there by the water. And when I saw this huge set of buildings that were going to be on this site — I don't know how far in the future it is, I mean it looked there's a lot of glass, so whatever era this is from they just love putting tons and tons of panes of glass on these buildings, so it could be 10 years from now. it could be 100 years from now, I don't know, didn’t see any cars, so I don’t know whether, again, I can't judge how far in the future it is — but I saw a big building there. So I bought it. The lots. I bought that lot, I bought the lots adjoining it. It looked important.
Price says he could help hook Mitch up and Mitch confirms, “finding a lot that will some day have a huge office building on it?” Price says yeah, that’s it, basically. He offers to take Mitch driving around the Valley sometime to see if anything “hits” — kind of like metal detecting or dowsing. Mitch says sure, that sounds great, let’s do it. “Anyway,” Price said, “Doug was telling me about how he’s got this friend here, this friend at Xerox, he’s got a friend of Hewlett-Packard, and it's just like, you know, fine. I mean, you know he has connections. He knows everybody in the Valley. He's putting together the computer that's going to run all these offices in 20 years.” Mitch asks: “Colossus?” Price laughs: “Oh, you mean like the movie?” Mitch says yeah. The conversation then turns to the testing program at SCANATE, before Price reveals that the Israeli — Uri Geller — is coming into the office this week. Price confides to Mitch that he thinks Uri is a fraud, but that the research boys love him, so just keep your mouth shut. Mitch thinks to himself how disappointing it is that Price is using his powers for something as banal as a real estate scheme.