Another Day at the “Office”

Michael

Another day at the "office" for Mitch.

After breakfast, the Point 10 rear echelon team returns to the area of Point 10, but this time, instead of heading to the epicenter of the subduction zone, the fleet of cars heads up a dirt road into the hills, towards the three graveyards that had their 100-year-old dead snatched overnight. Before even setting foot on the first of the three graveyards (White Cemetery), I'd like Mitch to give me a Detect (History B) roll.

Jeff

>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 4

>> DETECT … CRITICAL FAILURE

"Hold on." Deep breath.

>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 2

>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 0

>> ANALYZE … CRITICAL SUCCESS

Michael

It does take Mitch a second attempt to get a feeling for this part of the zone. The first thing that Mitch detects is that the effect and power of the subduction zone is stronger, and the zone is covering more area, than it did yesterday. Namely, it's shifted northward to include the area around these cemeteries. On the road up to White Cemetery, Mitch starts to feel out the qualities of the zone; he gleans much more than he could yesterday. First of all, before he even gets a chance to set his actual eyes on the robbed graves, Mitch is able to see more clearly how History B is manifesting here. Mitch feels that what They stole from the graves (and it definitely was some kind of Irruptor, either an animal-headed being or beings or one of their inscrutable machines, that robbed these graves, Mitch can sense) is much more metaphysical than physical. They didn't steal the dead looking for genetic material, or bodies to possess with êkimmu, or to reclaim the land physically by evicting the dead from their graves. The Kings came here for souls. How that squares with Mitch's personal metaphysics of death, soulcraft, or anything else is not for me to say (just as they did with Charley, though, Houdini and his engineered half-alive state might come to Mitch's mind). More importantly, the Enemy succeeded. Mitch's Detect does not allow him to see human psychic, belief, or soul residue but it sure as hell allows him to sense the movement and settling in of History B energy and Mitch can tell History B has settled into the ontosphere in the space that the memory of and human emotions over these dead used to occupy. It's subtle stuff, and minuscule in the larger fabric of belief over this area, but measurable. When Mitch and the team first get to White Cemetery, it looks like it was ill-maintained even before this grave robbery from Beyond occurred. White Cemetery is quite literally for the Whites: a single family of settlers. Sure, there are a couple of other last names sprinkled among the dozen or so markers—cousins or maybe relatives-by-marriage—but the big memorials are all marked to various Whites from the 1840s to the 1920s.

Jeff

Who's with Mitch? If he starts thinking out loud, who is he talking to?

Michael

Dr. Davids and Maj. Wofford are still part of the "braintrust" of the Point 10 team; they've been sticking as close to Mitch as they can when Mitch isn't off on his solo excursions.

Jeff

"The thing about the Enemy is, the Enemy isn't real. I mean, there's not a mirror-world you could step into or they could step out of, in which the demons sit around a big table and plot out their schemes. Instead stuff just happens, and it sort of...falls into place as if it had been planned by somebody. You can go a long way, working with the idea that the Enemy is out there advancing an agenda via rationally-arrived-at means, but fundamentally, that's not the case. The Enemy just does stuff, and it's reality that warps to make what the Enemy does make sense, not the Enemy's so-called 'plans' warping reality. Why did the Enemy manifest here and make this a place where...a place that used to be a burial ground of normal people, right, but now it's a burial ground for people who were in their secret hearts agents of the Enemy. They've been recruited, turned. Easier to convert the dead than the living, I guess, but easier for whom? See, that's the question without an answer. Proxy baptism, that's what happened here. Why? No reason. Literally no reason. After the fact, maybe a post hoc justification. Maybe these vicarious baptisms are what will have started a chain reaction that culminates in demons walking. They haven't, they won't, but maybe they will have done.

"Drives you crazy if you let it."

Mitch continues before either Davids or Wofford can respond. "Anyway, yeah, the zone's expanded. Irruptor spoor here, now. I haven't been able to sense a locus or heart, a central place that emits the toxic radiation. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Well, not exist... I mean, I'm not getting anything on how to affect or stop this, is what I'm saying. I kind of hoped that getting rid of those cultists would kill whatever momentum the Enemy had here, push it to recede, but instead it grew and found (not found) these graveyards. Dunno what it'll do tomorrow. Still, we're here. May as well poke around a little, maybe we'll find a clue."

He briefly chuckles, in the way bad novelists call "low and mordant."

Michael

Davids nods approvingly at Mitch's estimation of the situation and scribbles a few notes in a notepad. Woffords, meanwhile, is trying to control a surge of red rage that is nevertheless evident to Mitch in his aura. "Makes you sick, them violating Christian graves like this," Wofford says with real sincerity. "I understand that maybe that's the response they're after, but still. This is a terrible offense." Wofford turns to Davids, "Do we have any psis who could have an attempt at finding where the bodies were taken? These people deserve to be returned to their final resting places." Davids responds tentatively, "I'm... not sure if we'd have much success on that front, Major. If Agent Hort here is correct, the bodies may return once the subduction zone is closed. Or the grave dirt might but the bodies might not. Fact is, we may go check the records and there'll be no sign of the White clan ever lived around here. Or the Loyds or Jareds for that matter, and we just happen to remember them all because we had been in the zone yesterday. The names are still here on the graves," Davids says, "but who knows how much longer. We need eyes, real human eyes, on all three graveyards; even if They decide to wreak havoc elsewhere, I want to know if there's a pattern of uncreation here."

"And further evidence here, yes," Davids turns to Mitch. "I'll have forensics teams take a closer look at the scene." Davids gets on the walkie to the vehicles parked down the hill. "Of course if there's anything you think we should have a closer look at it, by all means, Agent," he says to Mitch. Wofford meanwhile feels a little superfluous, and says he'll check in on the ghillie-suited commandos who are maintaining the perimeter around all three cemeteries.

Jeff

Mitch looks sympathetic at Wofford's reaction, and nods in support of Davids's theorizing.

In re Davids's unspoken question, he's torn. On the one hand, he could try to burn a Serendipity use, or two, to stumble across something helpful to determining how to shut down the subduction. On the other, reliance on that kind of blind Find-a-Clue power activation is what led to the unsatisfactory end of Mission Seven, more or less.

On the third hand, there's other channels of intelligence at work, the other three teams. Whatever he found might be redundant in the face of what they find and report.

On the fourth hand, fuck sitting around and doing nothing, looking and remarking and not taking action. Mitch could try to burn a Serendipity use or two to stumble across something specific, like... he doesn't know what. An ossuary created by the irruption event, full of wicked spirits and ready to be torched? That might work and it might turn around and bite him in the ass.

The other two cemeteries are just a mile, two miles away. Maybe he should examine them both before he makes a decision.

Jeff

"I'm going to walk a bit," he says to Wofford and Davids. "Here and other sites. They're up the road a ways, right?"

Michael

Wofford says, "Site 10-Beta, Loyd Cemetery, is three-quarters of a mile northeast, right up Stephens Creek Road. 10-Gamma, Jared Cemetery, another half-mile east of that, but across forest. You could probably survey both of them and be back here in an hour and a half, two hours. Are you good to go alone? The surveillance teams should be able to keep eyes on you most of the way; I can let them know you're headed their way." From the aerial shots, Mitch can tell the other two cemeteries are similar to White: a group of a dozen or so graves. Loyd is visible from the road; Jared in forested terrain like White.

Jeff

"Sure, sure."

Michael

A nice October walk along a creekbed road and in a forest, then. The walk to Loyd is uneventful and given the road's soft shoulder, nice and quick and easy. Mitch passes by a couple of Sandmen keeping watch on the cemetery in a civilian vehicle, giving off enough cop vibes to keep any curious passers-by from hanging around. The History B energy at Loyd is substantially the same as it was at White—a newly-risen History B force occupying the place of the dead formerly interred here—and the physical evidence too is identical: empty graves, no piled-up dirt, missing bodies/skeletons, an assortment of death dates from around 1850 to the early 20th century, all in an overgrown, untended cemetery. Mitch can do some more checking around Loyd with Detect (History B) with the hope of getting a better analysis roll before moving on to Jared, or we can just have him hop the creek and head east into the woods.

Jeff

All the one head, it seems unlikely that he'll get better information that he did with the critical success

On the other hand, there's no reason not to

>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 4

>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 2

>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS by 9

Finally a couple of consecutive good rolls for Mitch on this mission

Michael

The vibes that Loyd Cemetery gives off to Mitch's senses are very similar if not identical to what he sensed back at White: missing dead, with History B trying to fill the hole they've left behind. But now that he's mobile, Mitch senses a subtle... incline in the History B energy, in the direction of Jared Cemetery to the east. By the flavor of the vibes it's feeling to Mitch like there may be a live active Irruption somewhere in the forest around Jared. At the very least this source of History B feels... distinct from the background radiation of the zone, a sharper pucker in the warp of reality than the broadly unsettled subduction. One might have expected or hoped that the SANDMAN instruments measuring the electromagnetic disturbances would have seen something like that before Mitch did, but maybe they're not as finely-tuned as Mitch's senses are.

Jeff

Well, let's look and see.

Michael

Mitch follows his "nose" out of Loyd and into the woods surrounding Point 10-Gamma. About 100 yards into the forest, Mitch notices the History B energy intensifying greatly in a peak before subsiding. He stops, and looks up at the sun through the leaves of the forest canopy. The sunlight dazzles him, and Mitch has a feeling of vertigo pass over him. When Mitch re-opens his eyes, he sees an orb floating in the forest about 60 feet in front of him. The orb is maybe a little smaller than a regulation basketball. Its surface is a burnished gold; its surface reflects the sunlight in a way that suggests a reddish tinge to the metal. It also glows with a soft red-orange light of its own with no visible source to the illumination; it sheds light at all points on its surface. It floats four feet above the forest floor with no visible means of support. It radiates intense History B energy. A couple of seconds after Mitch sees it, it bobs away from Mitch at a rate of speed roughly equivalent to a small child running through the woods. Mitch realizes he made that comparison to a child because when the orb bobs away, Mitch also hears the faintest sound of children's laughter on the breeze from the orb's direction. But it's children's laughter as heard through some kind of sonic distortion; the pitch and echo both sound all wrong. Will-21 first, please.

Jeff

>> CRITICAL FAILURE

Ouch

Michael

Mitch follows.

After hopping over a few fallen trees and avoiding a particularly soft fecund, mushroom-strewn area that Mitch guesses is being fed by a fallen deer, Mitch finds himself at the Jared Cemetery. The orb that Mitch followed here is joined by a swarm of about two dozen other orbs. Some of them are open, cracked along their equator and opening like a mouth. Red dots of light float into the air from the open graves and fly, freewheeling and playful, into the open orbs. The children's laughter sound is louder here, but sounds less like laughter and more like that time Mitch picked up the phone when Charley was using it to transmit computer data. A jagged, tinkling sound fills Mitch's ears. The orbs that are full of red light, after they careen and whirl and gambol about, calm themselves, floating like dandelion seeds into the sun. Mitch follows them one by one as they disappear. Every time Mitch looks at the sun it throws off more complicated, lozenge-like patterns into his eyes. At one point, when the sun is eating the orbs, the sun looks like it grows a pair of wings. The scene gets increasingly distorted in Mitch's vision; the trees' limbs grow longer, twisting into impossible shapes, reaching down to touch him. Some of the giggling orbs float near Mitch's head before departing; he feels uncomfortably like someone he doesn't know is asking him to hold their newborn baby. Mitch refuses the invitation to cradle the orb, the sunlight dazzling him further. Mitch slumps against a firm grey-barked birch tree, face first, almost hugging the tree for support. Support. ...Ort! Hort!" A voice is yelling. The sun is almost down behind Mitch; long late-afternoon shadows are thrown into the Jared Cemetery. Men in ghillie suits are descending on Mitch from the forest; he hears the sound of Dr. Davids yelling his name from behind him. On the tree in front of him, Mitch instinctively knows there is a powerful glyph. A glance at his watch tells Mitch 5 hours have passed.

Jeff

Am I blocking others' view of this glyph?

Michael

Yes. Anyone approaching from behind Mitch would just see Mitch's torso in the way.

Jeff

"There's a damn glyph on the tree trunk! It's a birch tree, which is weird this far south."

1

Michael — 02/25/2023 7:04 PM

(It's hilly around here! But there's druid aspects to my choice, I confess)

Dr. Davids holds off the commandos and says, "All right Hort, just hang on, we've got a medic if you need one, we'll wrap something around that glyph." Davids is right near Mitch now and has his overcoat ready to drape over the glyph until we can figure out what to do about it.

Jeff

All right, then. Mitch gets up, carefully.

"We'll, okay. First, I feel dumb for following a fairy light into a graveyard, in retrospect I shoulda known better. Second, why'd it take so long to find me? Did you guys pass by here without seeing me, either because the Enemy hid me so well or because I wasn't here? Or did my general air of quiet confidence and jaded experience lead you to assume that I knew what I was doing and you didn't start looking until just now, because I've missed lunch?"

Michael

Dr. Davids swallows, says, "Wofford estimated you'd be back in an hour and a half. Five minutes past that he sent out the search parties. We got the helicopters up in the air too. If you were standing here in front of that glyph for the past three-plus hours, it would make sense because in all the time we were searching, no one on the ground or in the air could find this graveyard." Fright Check, Rule of 14.

Jeff

>> SUCCESS by 8

Michael

"Agent H... Mitch. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to quarantine yourself so you can be flown back to Huntsville for analysis of possible prolonged Anunnaki contact."

Dr. Cronk — 02/25/2023 7:18 PM

"Goddamn it. Great. That's great."

MutantsMichael — 02/25/2023 7:22 PM

"Mitch." Dr. Davids looks right in Mitch's eyes, putting his hands on his shoulders if Mitch allows him. "I'm going to need to be quarantined linguistically too. I knew that was my fate, coming in here to find you once the cemetery reappeared. I've read your file. You're too important to this mission to be sidelined indefinitely. I made Major Woffords aware, before I left for this extraction, that we'd need an airlift out of here and be sent straight into isolation so the countermemetics boys can check us out and clear us for field work. With all alacrity. If we have Irruption happening here, extreme measures on the area are likely to follow. So it's vitally important that I know if you know: was this a full Irruption, or just a glyph?"

Jeff

At least he'll be able to watch TV. Maude tonight is the second half of a two-parter...

"There's been some kind of irruptor on site. I don't think my encounter with, uh, will-o'-wisps was, uh, I don't think that was a hallucination brought on by a glyph. I think it had an existence outside my perception."

Did Maude get a facelift like she said?

Michael

"All right. Let's get you home, soldier." Dr. Davids pats Mitch on the back.

Jeff

"The kind of extreme unction you're talking about, I always worry if the cure is...not worse than the disease, but another symptom of the disease. Playing into the Enemy's hands by reacting like we do, like they'd be able to predict we'd do." Mitch would like some water. "But I don't know that there's a viable alternative."

Michael

"That sort of decision, on intensity of the unction, will need to be cleared with the esmologists and Control. They'll feed the factors into the computers and make the right call, don't you worry."

Jeff

"Sure, sure. Above my pay grade."

Michael

"Wofford and the boys were worried sick about you, you'd think they were looking for a lost puppy." Dr. Davids tries to lighten the mood as he and Mitch walk to the heli extraction point.

Jeff

"Hey, man, what's a TV show you never miss? Columbo? You seem like a Columbo guy."

Michael

"I like Hawaii Five-O. Nice scenery, Jack Lord's a solid lead. Why do you ask?"

Jeff

"No reason. I'd say you can tell a lot about a guy from knowing his favorite show but I don't actually think it reveals hidden depths of personality. I'm still mad they cancelled Bridget Loves Bernie. Meredith Baxter, you know?"

Michael

Dr. Davids ducks down as the helicopter comes in for a landing. "You're on that California team with Ransom, aren't you?" Davids shouts over the 'copter blades, smiling, realizing maybe that's why this young taisher is quizzing him on TV.

Jeff

"Yeah!" Mitch shouts over the din. "Archie Ransom! I call him Archie!"

Michael

The two men hop on the helicopter back to Huntsville.

Back at Huntsville, Mitch and Davids are met by noise-canceling-headphone wearing SANDMAN technicians who separate them and usher both men to a series of outbuildings a ways away from the giant hangar with the Big Board that's acting as ALLOCHTHON headquarters/the ALLOCHTHON bivouac building. The technician unlocks the door to one of these small outbuildings. Inside, picture one of those indoor you-store-it complexes—hallways lined with individual secure units. It's a brig—an isolation unit—with padded white walls and steel doors with no windows or peepholes on them. Looks like there's a dozen rooms here, and presumably a dozen more in the two other dedicated isolation units. It's clear to Mitch that SANDMAN has prepared for the possibility of mass memetic infection on this mission. The isolation room that Mitch is ushered into is all-white: a white cot, a bathroom unit including cubicle shower, towels, and toiletries (all packaging blank and white), a fridge and a kitchen sink (no hot plate or stovetop), a white chest of drawers (inside are a series of white shirts, socks, pants, and underwear, all apparently in Mitch's size) and a single table at the dead center of the room. The table has a computer terminal on it: a keyboard with an amber monochrome monitor. No decorations on the walls, and the fridge contains an assortment of rations, a combination of C-rat-type packages and some of what Mitch thinks is real-deal NASA astronaut food. No words on any of the packages, only symbols (meat, fruit, ice cream, etc). There's enough food in here for one person for about two weeks, Mitch estimates. Also probably enough clean clothes for that long too. On the monitor screen is the following: HELLO AGENT HORT. I AM A COMPUTER PROGRAM DESIGNED TO DIAGNOSE MEMETIC INFECTION AMONG QUARANTINED SANDMAN PERSONNEL. I WILL ASK YOU SOME QUESTIONS AND YOUR HONEST FORTHRIGHT RESPONSES WILL HELP US DIAGNOSE ANY MEMETIC INFECTION AND, IF NECESSARY, DETERMINE A COURSE OF COUNTERMEMETIC PROGRAMMING TO CURE IT. WHEN YOU ARE READY I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU.

Jeff

What time is it?

Michael

Let's see, the glyph wore off around 4 pm, figure an hour to chopper home and get through the rigamarole at Huntsville, figure Mitch is in his isolation unit by around 5:30 pm Tuesday.

Jeff

OKAY, Mitch types.

GIVE ME A MINUTE TO USE THE BATHROOM & DRINK SOME WARTER

WATER

Mitch doesn't wait for a response before heading to the head, but if a response appears close to immediately he'll stop to read it

Michael

I WILL PATIENTLY AWAIT YOUR RETURN.

And that was pretty close to instant.

Jeff

I assume there's a glass or cup in the kitchenette or bathroom? Mitch uses the restroom, drinks some tap water unless there's some in a pitcher in the fridge.

If he has to cup his hands under the sink to drink, he'll complain to somebody about that.

Michael

Oh yeah, there are glasses, plates, utensils in a cabinet in the mini-kitchen area. Plates are white plastic, utensils plastic (dull butterknife-style knives), drinking cups also white plastic.

Jeff

OKAY IM BACK

Michael

EXCELLENT. PLEASE TELL ME, IN AS MUCH DETAIL AS YOU CAN CURRENTLY RECALL, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU TODAY IN THE SUBDUCTION ZONE AT POINT 10. (We can take this as read but if there are details Mitch will lean into/leave out, of course let me know.)

Jeff

Before he starts: CAN I GET A PORTABLE TV IN HERE BECAUSE IN AN HOUR THERE IS AN EPISODE OF MAUDE I WANT TO SEE

I ASSUME SINCE ITLL ONLY RECEIVE ITS NOT GONNA BREAK PROTOCOLL

PROTOCOL

Michael

It takes a little while for the program to process this request. Instead of near-instantly, it takes 10 seconds or so for it to respond to Mitch's Important Maude Query. I AM SORRY, AGENT HORT. IN AN EFFORT TO CUT DOWN ON MEMETIC CROSS-CONTAMINATION AND MUTATION, RECEIPT OF OUTSIDE LINGUISTIC INFORMATION IS REDUCED TO AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE IN THESE ISOLATION UNITS. ONCE YOU ARE CLEARED FOR RELEASE, YOU MAY LEAVE THE UNIT AND RETURN TO YOUR DORMITORY. A VIDEOTAPE OF THIS EPISODE OF "MAUDE" CAN BE PROCURED FOR YOU FROM THE COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM.

Jeff

DANG

There's not much chance he'll be cleared in time to see it live, Mitch knows. Access to a videotape afterwards is hardly ideal, but at least they'll make an effort to accommodate him. Probably.

Mitch launches into a summary of his experience. He does not describe the failed Will roll as an event; he frames his choice to follow the orb as a moment of poor judgement rather than a malign outside influence. He also describes the sounds only vaguely, as "static," unless asked for clarification.

Michael

Almost immediately after this, Mitch sees the following appear one after the other; the first line immediately, the second line about 20 seconds later. PROCESSING... PROCESSING

Then, another minute later: HOW DID THESE ORBS MAKE YOU *FEEL*, EMOTIONALLY?

Jeff

ANNOYED

THE ENEMY'S STUFF BASICALLY ALWAYS IRKS ME

THEY ALWAYS ACT LIKE THEY KNOW ME

Mitch types I DONT, then pauses for several seconds, deletes that, and waits for the response.

Michael

Ten second after Mitch deletes his abortive "I DONT," the following comes through: DO YOU BELIEVE THE ENEMY HAS SOME SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE OR CONTROL OVER YOUR NATURE, YOUR PSYCHIC POWERS, AND/OR YOUR ORIGINS?

Jeff

Mitch opened up to URIEL about the Comte and everything the Comte told him, a while back now, so he assumes Marshall or Archie reported some version of it to Granite Peak.

AGENTS OF THE ENEMY HAVE CLAIMED THAT BUT THE ENEMY DOESNT REALLY KNOW OR CONTROL ANYTHING BECAUSE THEY ARENT REAL SO ITS HARD TO GIVE A STRAIGHT ANSWER TO THAT

Michael

DO YOU APPROVE OR DISAPPROVE OF HOW DEEPLY AND THOROUGHLY THE PROJECT RESEARCHES HISTORY B AND THE ANUNNAKI? PLEASE BE EXPANSIVE IN YOUR ANSWER IF YOU WISH.

Jeff

FRANKLY I THINK THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY TO THE ENEMY AND THE STUDY OF THE ENEMY BUT AT THE SAME TIME I RECOGNIZE THAT THE THREAT IS REAL EVEN IF THE ENEMY IS NOT

TO MY MIND THERE IS A REAL DANGER OF OVERFITTING THE DATA

WHILE THIS IS NOT MY AREA OF EXPERTISE I NEVERTHELESS POSSESS AN INTUITIVE GRASP OF THE ENEMYS ACTIVITIES & I THINK THIS PROVIDES SOM VALIDATION TO MY ARGUMENT

I HAVE NEVER OBTAINED A SATISFACTORY ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF WHY EVERY UNREAL INTRUSION INTO THIS WORLD INEVITABLY CYCLES BACK TO BABYLONIAN MYTHOLOGY & THE THEORY OF THE ONTOCLYSM FAILS TO EXPLAIN VAST SWATHES OF HISTORY AND PREHISTORY

I AM THINKING OF HAWAII AS AN EXAMPLE BECAUSE I READ A BOOK ABOUT IT ONCE BUT I THINK THE OBJECTION REMAINS VALID IN REFERENCE TO AUSTRALLIA & SOUTH AMERICA & EVERYWHERE ELSE NOT CAPTURED BY THE CHRISTIAN-WESTERN-ROMAN-COLONIAL PROJECT BEFORE THE ONTOCLYSM

SO I THINK THE REAL REASON THAT IT ALWAYS BENDS BACK TO THE ENEMY WE KNOW IS BECAUSE WE LOOK FOR AND EXPECT THE ENEMY WE KNOW & OUR EXPECTATIONS SHAPE PERCEPTION & PERCEPTION SHAPES REALITY

BUT

MAYBE I AM MISUNDERSTANDING THE QUESTION & THE TOPIC IM SUPPOSED TO ADRESS IS WHETHER I THINK THE IDEAS & TOOLS OF THE ENEMY ARE TOO DANGEROUS FOR US TO STUDY

IN WHICH CASE

I DONT REALLY HAVE AN OPINION I FEEL LIKE IM SHIELDED FROM THE WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOMES ON ACCOUNT OF MY WEIRD RELATIONSHIP WHERE THE ENEMY ACTS LIKE THEY KNOW ME

DOES THAT NSWER YOUR QUESTION OR SHOULD I BABBLE MORE

I CAN BABBLE ABOUT THIS FOR HOURS IF YOU WANT ME TO

PROBABLY NOT HOURS

Michael

A pause of about 10 seconds after "PROBABLY NOT HOURS."

GIVEN YOUR LAST ANSWER, THIS QUESTION MAY END IN A SIMILARLY UNSOLVABLE PARADOX AS YOUR OBSERVATION ABOUT "PERCEPTION SHAPING REALITY." BUT REGARDLESS: DO YOU BELIEVE YOU ACTUALLY SAW THESE ORBS AND THAT THEY PHYSICALLY EXISTED IN OUR WORLD OR THAT EVERYTHING YOU SAW AND EXPERIENCED TODAY WAS MERELY A RESULT OF YOUR VIEWING THE GLYPH?

Jeff

I THINK THEY PHYSICALLY EXISTED BUT ONLY LIKE 80 OR 90 PERCENT I ADMIT THERE IS SOME UNCERTAINTY TO MY BELIEF

I THINK I ENCOUNTERED THE ORBS THEN AFTER THAT SAW THE GLYPH OR DIDNT SEE THE GLYPH EVEN JUST WAS DEPOSITED NEXT TO IT AFTER ABDUCTION EVENT

BUT I DONT KNOW

WE COULD GET INTO A WHOLE THING ABOUT WHAT IS REAL AND WHAT ISNT BUT USING THE BASIC COMMONLAW GARDEN SCHOOL DEFINITIONS I AM REAL AND THE ENEMY IS NOT SO THATS TWO FIXED POINTS ON A SPECTRUM

Michael

DO YOU PLAN TO HAVE CHILDREN?

Jeff

DONT PLAN ON IT NO

Michael

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER?

Jeff

DIED BEFORE I WAS BORN

Michael

THANK YOU. THIS CONCLUDES YOUR MEMETIC DIAGNOSIS. PLEASE WAIT FOR A DECISION TO BE MADE ON POSSIBLE COUNTERMEMETIC TREATMENT OR RELEASE. A TONE WILL SOUND WHEN A DECISION HAS BEEN MADE. UNTIL THEN, FEEL FREE TO REST.

Jeff

IS THIS A MINUTES THING OR AN HOURS THING OR A DAYS THING CAN YOU TELL ME

Michael

No response.

Jeff

Okay, I have something: once he's eaten and drank, assuming his quarantine hasn't been lifted, Mitch will meditate on whether he should try to conceal more from the non-URIEL parts of SANDMAN, or less. The downsides to getting caught in a semi-lie or evasion of truth seem considerable, given Mitch's status as a Security Clearance Zero potentially-compromised asset.

>> SUCCESS by 6

(Just quietly meditating on his current situation, sealed in his cell, incapable of affecting the world beyond)

Michael

Mitch lets his mind play over the possibilities in being more or less open with non-URIEL SANDMAN; he's not got much else to do, after all. Mitch plays the scenarios out. If OZYMANDIAS is in charge of this op, and Mitch shares information freely with SANDMAN, it conveys he doesn't have anything to hide and is unaware of OZYMANDIAS. But can Mitch see a scenario where OZYMANDIAS would benefit by having more information about, say, a subduction zone in Tennessee where a weird metempsychosis tableau was played out for Mitch? What are OZYMANDIAS after here, or what might they be after? What might their objectives be alongside ALLOCHTHON? (I'm not going to answer any of these rhetorical questions per se but these are the kinds of things Mitch thinks after letting his mind play over the possibilities.)

Jeff

Well, it goes back to what Mitch sees as the fundamental incoherence of OZYMANDIAS's agenda: to loot the Earth at the expense of its capacity to resist the Enemy will only lead to the Enemy's conquest of history, or so orthodox SANDMAN doctrine would teach. While Mitch could imagine the OZYMANDIAS leadership imagining they could forge some kind of detente with the Enemy, if they do they're only deluding themselves. If the Enemy came in force, there would be no requests for surrender or parley, no option of kissing Morgan's booted toes. The Enemy would simply destroy them all, erase the history in which they had achieved all their little treasures and harems. Perhaps OZYMANDIAS is comprised of those lowlifes who imagine they're letting suckers like...well, like everyone in URIEL... Letting us do the fighting while they do the looting. But that's a dangerous game; display too little loyalty, display goals too far afield of fighting the Enemy, and whatever parts of SANDMAN aren't already OZYMANDIAS would crush them, take them for unwitting agents of the Enemy.

OZYMANDIAS's agenda makes the most sense framed as a desire to replace SANDMAN entirely, to steal its science and repurpose it, while leaving little to nothing left of the original organization. The Others inhabiting the DHARMA cabins.

They wouldn't be willling to trust that non-OZYMANDIAS SANDMAN wouldn't turn the ikoters on them, if they left SANDMAN with ikoters to use.

Michael

If the Enemy came in force, there would be no requests for surrender or parley, no option of kissing Morgan's booted toes. The Enemy would simply destroy them all, erase the history in which they had achieved all their little treasures and harems. Mitch thinks for a minute. Funny how all twelve of these little pockets of History B are so stable. Just hanging out bold-as-you-please in the midst of victorious History A, mostly in low-populated areas. Imagine how useful maintaining subduction zones indefinitely would be if the roles were reversed. Mitch thinks about the vision of the transhumanist accelerationists' future Jo received when she touched Puharich: little self-sufficient corporate fiefdoms in the midst of a great wilderness, staffed by a sizeable contingent of talented, self-actualized Aquarian espers to bolster their protection. Is it much of a life? No, but neither is the idea of living down a mineshaft for 500 years after nuclear war. But at least you're alive and free.

"We have met the Irruptors, and they are Us."

Jeff

Hmm. Mitch had envisioned those "fiefdoms" as existing the way they did, in that vision of the sick future, out of greed. That it represented a world where the Enemy was no longer a concern, and the rulers of humanity simply kept their slaves in small pens for fear of losing control over them. But if the "wilderness" were in fact the Enemy's world, and the slave-pens bubbles inside that...that's a scenario that hangs together. It would require a level of arrogance Mitch finds staggering, to think you could set all that up for yourself, on purpose and with malice aforethought. But then, this is a group whose magazine-idol mascot is Uri Geller...

Michael

There's no clock in the isolation chamber, but Mitch estimates (whether he's been dozing or not is up to you) it's been about eight or nine hours (which would make it around 2 am) when a repeated, soft tone fills the room. Mitch sees some text scroll across the computer screen, and an audible "click" from the isolation room's only door.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND COOPERATION, AGENT HORT. YOU HAVE BEEN DECLARED FREE OF ENEMY MEMETIC INFECTION. YOUR ROOM IN THE OPERATION ALLOCHTHON DORMITORY IS AVAILABLE AND YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED 30 HOURS OF REST AND RECUPERATION TIME. PLEASE LIMIT YOUR R&R TO REDSTONE ARSENAL/THE GREATER HUNTSVILLE AREA IN CASE THE PROJECT NEEDS TO CONTACT YOU IN AN EMERGENCY. PLEASE REPORT FOR A NEW POSTING THURSDAY MORNING 11 OCT 0800 HOURS AT ALLOCHTHON HQ. THE DORMITORY COMMISSARY IS OPEN IF YOU WISH TO OBTAIN HOT REFRESHMENT.

Jeff

Did they take away Mitch's wristwatch? If so he'll want it back. Maybe it's waiting for him in his dorm room.

Michael

Hmm, I hadn't thought about the "did they strip Mitch of all text-bearing materials" but I would say yeah, in between leaving the copter and entering the isolation suite they probably just asked him remove his wristwatch via ASL. Maybe the watch is in a cubby outside the isolation room door.

Brant

(Where's the Norton Coin?)

Jeff

Ooh, good question.

It had been in Mitch's pocket, wrapped in a few rubber bands

Brant

(Sorry, not trying to throw a wrench in things.)

Jeff

It wasn't the only coin in his pocket of course but it was as the only one with rubber bands.

Michael

(Well, the Norton Coin's sort of raison d'etre is to build bridges between people. At the same time, the evac and isolation teams were concerned about History B contamination and the coin vibes as a minor significant reality shard and is expressly "able to be stolen." My feeling is that the Coin wants to stay with Mitch and would effect whatever it could to do that, so why don't we see if Mitch could have kept it under wraps with some combination of the coin's abilities. Like, if Mitch were to say back to the isolation personnel asking him via ASL "What do you have on you" before going into the cell, "Just my keys, a watch, and some pocket change," we could do Fast-Talk-17 helped by the Coin to keep it unobtrusive.)

Brant

(Ugh, sorry Jeff.)

Michael

(I do not think it is narratively appropriate for the price of Mitch's failed Will roll against a glyph to result in our losing a reality shard for good/being interrogated by the heavy hitters for being part of the Emperor Norton fan club. Mitch would have known anything could happen to him or the Coin while being this close to the belly of the beast and would have had a contingency plan for it. Plus there's always Serendipity if all else fails.)

Jeff

Maybe protocol is, he empties his pockets and it all goes into a little plastic box and it doesn't get looked at until after they've determined whether he's infected? Which, they decided he wasn't so they didn't look more closely at the pocket change?

Regardless

>> SUCCESS by 7

Michael

Yeah, the coin gives you +2 and Charisma another +1

The coin hides itself well and is reunited with Agent Hort.

Jeff

In theory he could try to activate the coin's Presence to boost those modifiers still further

I should remember to do that more often, I bought those advantages to get bonuses on reaction rolls I ought to be trying to trigger them more.

ANYWAY Mitch will take the suggestion of getting a hot sandwich and he's got his fingers crossed he'll find a tape and tape player in his room hooked. up to a portable TV...

Michael

On the ground floor of the ALLOCHTHON dorm building they've set up a staff commissary with big coffee urns, some hot dishes in trays with Sterno burning away underneath, some wrapped sandwiches, some more astronaut-style NASA treats for novelty. No civilian staffer here serving up the food; this is serve-yourself at 2 am. Sitting at one of the cafeteria style tables is an older man, perhaps in his early 60s, tall, a bit skinny, ruddy of complexion, with short white hair, wearing a shirt and tie with an identification lanyard around his neck, a Styrofoam coffee cup in front of him and a newspaper in his hands. It's the first aura Mitch has seen since he was isolated and it's a fatigued aura, but also one full of genuine intellectual inquisitiveness: his brain is going a mile a minute. When Mitch's footfalls make the older man aware of his presence, he looks up at Mitch and his aura goes from fatigue/inquisitiveness to a warm glow of relief, welcome, and surprise. The man gives Mitch a polite little nod of recognition. An Aura Sight (Analysis)-15 roll would do nicely here.

Jeff

>> SUCCESS by 6

Michael

This man has cancer of the kidneys. It is untreated and fairly advanced. Also, his welcome-relieved-surprise at seeing Mitch enter the commissary is tinged with something like... admiration, and maybe even pride and love.

Jeff

Mitch returns the polite nod, gets himself a couple of foil-wrapped hot sandwiches and coffee, and sits down across from the gent. "How's it going, man?"

Maybe he should activate the coin! Should he activate the coin? He'll activate the coin, or try to.

>> FAILURE by 2

Oh well. He fails to activate the coin.

Michael

"Well, I can't sleep, for one." He has a Northern European accent... Danish? German? Probably German. "Damn insomnia, my secretary gave me this, er, 'herbal tea' to take vit me here but, you know, it does nossing, really. Please, join me if you like?" His SANDMAN credentials are hidden but Mitch can see an older, Redstone Arsenal ID hanging from his lanyard and as the old man gestures to the seat across from him, Mitch can see the name, number, and picture on it clearly.

Jeff

Mitch's Uncontrollable fires and he tries to cook the guy on 15+.

>> SUCCESS by 4

Michael

(I wasn't sure if he'd be quite famous enough to know by face but he used to run this joint so he's probably wearing his old ID with pride)

Jeff

"Tell me. You're a chuchgoing man. Does human nature bend inevitably towards fascism?"

Michael

Wernher von Braun takes off his glasses and looks at Mitch with grave seriousness; his aura goes white, his eyes go glassy. "Inevitably? No. Without much care and much tending of our collective baser instincts? Yes. It is easy for churchmen, for... scientists to do evil things in the name of their God, or their pride... but how do you explain men of God or science doing miraculous things, things that heal bodies and souls in the name of the same? It must then not be God or knowledge itself that makes men good or evil. It must be something else, at the nexus of individual and mass action." The man who put Americans on the Moon sips his tea. "I believe in God, have believed in God, but I only saw how God can make good men, moral men, once I came to this country."

Jeff

"Why Babylon, do you think?" Mitch asks abruptly, exactly as though von Braun's response had mentioned, indeed centered on, Babylon. "I mean, why should it always arc back to that? Theosophy and Thule and Atlantis all a smokescreen for Them, and not the other way around, or everyone circling around something Aztec, or superheroes?"

Mitch figures he's not likely to get a chance to ask these questions of Frank Stanton or any of the other SANDMAN higher-ups whose names he doesn't know, but the "Father of Space Travel" might have some insight.

Michael

Dr. von Braun takes on the strange questions of this young Sandman in stride. Indeed, his aura and his verbal excitement seem to engage with this question from the outset and only get more intense. "Okay. These are good questions. Let us do a thought experiment, yes? Let us say you are a space alien. Your race has conquered many of the piddling things we mere humans would consider miracles—interstellar, perhaps even intergalactic space travel; genetic engineering, even to the point of being able to engineer psychic powers; the manipulation of thought and energy to the point you can tamper with the fabric of space and time itself. Let us also assume that the Fermi Paradox is somewhat true; you are familiar with this idea? Fermi asked, 'If life is common in the universe, where is everybody?' The space aliens, they are lonely. Maybe they are lonely for companionship, maybe they have a drive to conquer; maybe, even, in what passes for their alien advanced psychology, these two concepts are one and the same."

"So using your advanced knowledge and cerebral engineering you search the galaxy for other intelligent life. And look; your telescopes or scout craft or psychics find this blue-green orb, and you let it spin beneath you for 24 hours like a globe in a classroom, ja? And this moment you are looking down on the planet—we will call this date and time 4004 BC, it has a nice ring to it, yes?—you see a half-dozen locations where the dimly intelligent native species is starting to form complex social matrices. You look at the mountains of South America, the Yellow River valley, the Indus valley, the Nile... eh, they are getting there but not quite at the perfect moment to make first contact. But ah, that fertile land between the rivers, those little beings have begun to make strides in the big ways, yes? Agriculture, cities, the misty beginnings of priesthood and most importantly: written language. Their brains can accept you now. You and your alien friends realize this neatly-wrapped little laboratory, Mesopotamia, is the perfect place to make contact with these humans."

"So you begin at first and you kidnap a few of them from the hills: a shepherd here, a craftsman there, maybe a fertile woman or two or three. You interrogate them with your psychic powers and you divine their early struggling attempts at belief and religion, inflicted on them by their canny rulers who have managed to reach blindly in the dark at the concepts of advanced social engineering. The gods these king-priests invented, they take on the forms of fearful animals, to keep the peasants in line, yes? Scorpions and snakes, lions and bulls: familiar forms to everyone in this society, but dangerous animals you stay away from, lest you get killed or injured. So you take some eggs from the fertile young girls and you make genetic chimeras, real flesh and blood gods through which these brutally superstitious humans can be ruled over and loved. You give them a technological boost here and there; the aquatic ones give them 'forgotten knowledge from beneath the seas.' The kings and priests, they owe their secret rulers. And in time, you take more of them in for genetic experimentation, finding the talented psychics for your own purposes, because perhaps this species' brains has something unique about it you can add to your own genetic profile. All the while, generation after generation speak and write languages poisoned with your codes, making them more reliable, more unconscious slaves to you. Slowly but surely all this leaks out, linguistically and culturally, out of your little laboratory and across the planet. Lo, you have conquered a world without firing a shot."

Jeff

Mitch stews on this for a bit. He unwraps a grilled cheese sandwich with ham that is about forty percent butter, a lump of grease to soothe the late-night urges, and takes a couple of bites. It is remarkably tasty. "Okay, man. That makes sense. I mean, it's a plausible story of the secret origin of the Enemy. You told it well. If the Enemy were extant, it might be human history. But the Enemy isn't extant. They're not here. They're not real. "There's a lot of other stories that aren't real. Some of them are pretty compelling, some of them claim to be secret true history. I think Lord of the Rings is supposed to be set in, like, super-ancient antediluvian Europe, maybe. Or Theosophy, like I said before, and the Shaver Mystery, speaking of Mount Shasta... "That's going down a big dumb rabbit hole, though, so, my question is, why is your story—that story, the story where all those millennia ago the Enemy came down from heaven and poisoned our minds with impure tongues and corrupt knowledge…why is that story the one that fights to exist, and not the story of how the Easter Bunny's best friend Santa Claus gives children toys once a year? What gives that story its primacy? Because if it's something fundamentally broken inside all of us, the original sin built into our brains' language structures then our fight is by definition never-ending, and if it isn't...well, I'm at a loss. Because I don't think the fight is unwinnable. I don't think that we can only play an infinite game, and we can't lose even once because if the Enemy gets on the board then it's over for us, and we don't have a victory condition, just a loss condition to avoid.

"I believe that. But I can't convince myself it makes sense to believe that."

Michael

Again, avuncular pride and warmth boil over in Wernher's aura; the tension and defensiveness at Mitch's initial fascism question are gone. "You think very differently from the rest of them, don't you?"

Jeff

"That's what they tell me, sometimes."

Michael

"So, here I ask you to get back to first principles once more. Are you talking about memetics, mass belief, the psychic power of the collective human unconscious to change the fabric of reality? Or are you talking about something more like the Everett-Wheeler-Graham model, that for every single particle interaction there is a new worldline created but we as observers only can exist in one at a time? I confess I am not an expert in either but I would like to know which ontology I am being asked to follow here."

Jeff

Mitch has to think about that one. He finishes his sandwich, reveling in its implausible crispness.

"I guess I have to be talking about the former, because I'm pretty committed to the unreality of the Enemy. There isn't a parallel world or Narnia or other dimension where the Enemy's rule never ended, and the inhabitants of that world peeking greedily in to lust for all we have here. Instead there's all these ideas for worlds. A world where the Empire never ended. A world where a messianic visionary refounded America, with more airships. A world where Mitch Hort has a sandwich with Wernher von Braun. Stories, all of them, like your thought experiment."

Michael

"All right. You remember in my narrative, how it was important for the Kings to wait for us to develop written language? Not essential, but admittedly very important. This potential for complex linguistics they identified, bolstered, and empowered in early Sumerian society. This is because of the power it gives them... and the power it gives humanity! It is seductive, it absolutely makes us more like them." Mitch notices immediately that Wernher doesn't capitalize the t in "them."

"If you have ever been the victim of a salesman making you buy something you don't need, or if you've ever charmed a girl into your bed, you've seen the power of it. You say it yourself: you call these ontologies 'stories,' that connotes a storyteller, and that storyteller must use language, a language that can be recorded, for the story to be 'told' again and again to the point where it becomes reality."

"The problem with the human brain, at least according to the neurophysicians in the Project, is that it's a terrible complex little machine. So much packed into such a small place, and each one unique physiologically! A does not necessarily lead to B inside there." He pokes at the center of his forehead. "We make leaps of intuition, little voices in our head tell us what to do... quantum effects in the brain, maybe. I don't believe our alien friends have that capability. Like computers, they go from A to B. Remember from my story, they came here hungry for companionship and ended up staying out of a... sort of envy and possessiveness over our capabilities. And that, vague as it may be, my friend Mitch Hort, is why I think the Ontoclysm was able to happen. We think differently than them. I don't think they have storytellers... just programmers."

Jeff

The second sandwich is, if anything, heavier and warmer and more succulent than the first. Mitch offers von Braun half. Mitch chews meditatively. "Sure, man. I mean, yeah, that makes sense and I don't think I've ever heard it phrased like that before. I've met some of them, the Enemy's demons, and they don't quite talk and emote right, it's like they're actors trying to improv in a role that's been only vaguely and briefly described."

It's darker now, and quieter. Somewhere nearby there was a television on; it's been turned off. There had been somebody else puttering around with a coffee urn when Mitch got his cup, he would swear to it, but now there's just him and Wernher von Braun (member, Nazi party, 1937-1945).

"So, I hear you," Mitch says, "you're using present tense to talk about the Enemy. And that brings us back to my question, my problem. "In this timeline, this history that has you and me and this sandwich in it, there isn't an Enemy. They don't exist. Never did. Or, I mean, wait. Wait. if the Enemy was ever here they didn't stick around. They're gone now, after leaving some traces in Proto-Indo-European and certain ruins in the Middle East. They must have been here," Mitch muses, realizing something for the first time. "Because of their influence on language. But they're not here now. That's the difference between this timeline and the one the Ontoclysm destroyed; there was some event that made them stop being here, not that made them never have existed. Shit, that's it! These thought patterns that we have, that fucking Roscoe claimed was proof of our natural servitude…" Mitch gestures to his brain. "It's bothered me, because, if the Enemy isn't real, how could there be traces of the Enemy's influence? So the Enemy can't be totally imaginary, but then what makes the Enemy special…and the Enemy claims it's…who cares what the Enemy claims, but the Enemy's wrong.

"No, no, no. Listen. We say—I've been told this, by some smart-ass guys—we say that history changed in AD 535, right? And part of that is, there's a timeline that we're in and an alternate timeline it's possible to imagine, in which everything is different. Except that not everything is different! The…the dinosaurs got wiped out the same. Plate tectonics went the same way. Humans or protohumans were living the same way, in the same places, up to the point where the Enemy arrived.

"What if…what if the point of divergence between History-A and History-B wasn't the arrival of the Enemy? What if it was something that happened after, something that in History-A ended the bastards, and which they would have endured in History-B?"

Mitch is breathless now, excited. He really thinks he's figured something out.

Michael

Dr. von Braun smiles, his aura golden and triumphant. "And so... what is the further implication of this?"

Jeff

Mitch leans back. "God, I don't know. No, I do. It means there's a way to hurt them, to take the fight to them. Because we're not fighting shadows and ideas and hypothetical what-if-there-was-a-demons. The reason we still have all these traces, the reason the glyphs work on us, it isn't because the disease is inside us, it's because the Enemy did stuff to us, back when they existed. Which they did. In the past. It's all mounds this week, right? All this History-B bullshit is like the mounds. Leftovers."

Michael

"Talking to you, sometimes, my young friend... it is like consulting an oracle of old. I understand maybe half of what you say... but yes. If you accept that we always won in History A, then what are Irruptions and subductions? It is them trying to get us to dream them back into existence. Arranging for the complex chain of historical events that will pull enough belief together to make them manifest, subtly moving their pieces into proper place, what this suggests... is that wherever they were sent when History A banished them—when we always banished them, as you say—this place was somewhere outside of how we perceive time."

Jeff

"But more than that, if they existed and then they didn't, in this timeline, then there was an event that made them stop existing. Made them leave. And it wasn't the Ontoclysm: I'm talking about the event that the Ontoclysm inserted into the timeline. In 535 something happened that made something else retroactively had-happened in...I don't know when, 2000 BC, 1500 BC... And if we learned what it was that happened back then...maybe that'd be useful."

Michael

"It sounds like you're perhaps talking about time travel. Or at least sending information back in time."

Jeff

Mitch sits up. "No, I was talking about replicating the event on a smaller scale to shut down subduction zones and clamp down on History-B energies. But please, tell me more about this time travel concept."

Michael

"All right. Let us say your timeline is correct." von Braun takes his nearly empty cup of tea, swigs it, and flips the cup upside down. "Ziggurat. 2000 BC." von Braun digs a nickel out of his pocket, puts it Jefferson-side up on the table. "Ontoclysm, 535 AD." He then puts his Redstone Arsenal ID on the table. "Us. 1973 AD." Pointing at Jefferson, he says, "This person or persons have been free of the Anunnaki their whole lives. They know nothing of servitude to the Kings. These people here," he gestures around the base of the styrofoam ziggurat, "still labor under the lash of the Red Kings. How does Mr. Jefferson here," pointing to the Ontoclysm, "know that he must do something to help his forebears from 2500 years ago banish the demons who rule over them?"

Jeff

Mitch considers. "But was it Mr. Jefferson..." He flips the nickel over. "Or the slaves at Monticello? They flipped the coins and won their freedom, our freedom. That's how I was told the story originally, that the Ontoclysm was triggered by people who aren't us, were never us, could never be reached by us." He sighs. "But if the..." He stops himself from saying C. "If the situation says that's it a time travel thing we're going to have to do, well, so be it."

Mitch stands. "But that's a problem for another day. I'm supposed to be resting, and it's almost three, and another one of these sandwiches would be a bridge too far. It was nice talking to you, boss."

Mitch does not initiate a handshake with Wernher con Braun but will accept one if offered.

Michael

Wernher von Braun nods. "Yes, I... I find myself sleepy once more, which has been a difficult thing lately. Thank you, young man." Again, that protective, respectful, proud aura flare, as he stands up and offers his hand. "It's been good to meet you."

Jeff

(Did von Braun accept the offered half of Mitch's second improbably delicious and crisp and hot and buttery-but-not-soggy grilled cheese with ham sandwich, or did Mitch eat all of both of them himself in a display of magical reality-shaping prowess?)

Michael

(At the moment the half-sandwich was sort-of-proffered von Braun was rapt, still insomniac, and dyspeptic from the herbal tea his secretary gave him so I would say it either went begging or Mitch did indeed channel powers from beyond this mortal ken to house two grilled cheeses at 2 am)