Panther Meadow
Michael
Dave pulls into the lot at the Panther Meadow trailhead at around 5:30 am, just as the sun's light is beginning to peek into the valleys of the southern side of Mount Shasta. Marshall looks out the window of the Caddy to the lot, a mix of civilian cars, park ranger vehicles, the two unmarked yet very secure URIEL vans that Roger and Jo drove, and conspicuously a pair of beaten-up vans with their side doors wide open, a pair of large, stiff-looking, scowling men moving camping equipment into them and onto their roofs. A dozen people in a mix of white robes, camping civvies, and sleeping clothes are hastily making their way from the woods, haphazardly carrying camping gear, scurrying under the glare of a curly-haired woman in her 30s. Marshall doesn't know what the heck is going on here, but these people look like they're getting off the mountain in a hurry. None of the members of URIEL are anywhere to be seen.
Brant
“David, stay near me. Have your weapon ready.” Marshall exits the Caddy and limps over to the URIEL vans with his cane. He peers through the side windows to see if there’s anything to see. Assuming there is not, he turns on his smile and the NLP and walks over to the group of white robed people. “Hello? Hello! Sorry to bother you, I’m looking for some colleagues of mine.”
Michael
The woman with the short frizzy hair looks to Marshall's eye to be sleep-deprived, insistent, maybe even inwardly frazzled and yet putting on an air of calm command, an eye of reliability in the storm of her followers working hard to strike camp (Marshall's esmological and psychological skill is able to peg her as a leader right away). It's harried mom energy, pretty much. "Oh, good morning. Blessings of the mountain to you," says Elizabeth Clare Prophet (Brant, you can decide if it seems reasonable that Marshall would know her by sight; I could easily go either way on this). "Colleagues? We are all just packing up to leave right now but perhaps we've seen them... whom are you looking for?"
She treats Marshall with a tacit distance multiplied by her urgency in getting out of here, but is polite enough. At this moment, Marshall detects none of the NLP that the rest of the team has witnessed her habitually lay on her followers and audiences over the weekend.
Brant
(I doubt Marshall knows who she is; there's too many of these groups to keep track of in 1973, unless they're in the news a lot.)
Michael
(Nah, I think Jo's Occultism-18 justified it. What's probably more interesting is that Elizabeth doesn't seem to either recognize or care who Marshall is. )
(But, as I said, she is distracted.)
Brant
"Ah, yes — well, a small group. They were camping? One of them was a Black man, military bearing? He was probably accompanied by a young girl? Those are their vans." He points at the URIEL vans. "Have you seen them?"
Michael
Elizabeth closes her eyes for a moment (Body Language-17) at the mention of a Black man, military bearing, but then said, "Oh of course! Yes, a delightful group; I met the girl, and her mother and father. They shared our campfire on Friday night and seemed to be... interested seekers as well." For the first time, Elizabeth really takes in Marshall's wardrobe and looks deep into his eyes. "I'm sorry, I am terribly rude. In my haste to... I am Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the Summit Lighthouse, Malibu, California." She extends her hand for a handshake. "Our group was on the mountain this weekend for a spiritual retreat." Marshall can get the inklings of her getting her speech patterns into an NLP rhythm right now, using eye contact (poorly, she's obviously not able to deliver up to her usual standards due to sleep deprivation and trauma), so Marshall can tell she has some trained NLP ability. She has not slipped any source code into the conversation but she has raw ability. "But we have been... asked by our spiritual patrons to leave the mountain and seek enlightenment elsewhere now. It was a strong, unequivocal message received at dawn and thus we are trying to respect... the Mountain's wishes. Hence our haste."
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 8
Michael
(Elizabeth is in obvious conscious denial, as conveyed through her body language, that she has met any Black man on the mountain this weekend, but Marshall can tell that deep in her subconscious that somehow, she remembers such an encounter. Curious.)
Brant
Marshall takes her hand with both of his own. "Well, I certainly do not wish to impede your journey, Ms. Prophet. Can you tell me where my colleagues are now? When was the last time you saw them?"
Michael
"Oh, on Saturday morning. We spoke with the girl and... oh yes, a Black man, hmm, somewhat military bearing, now that you mention it." Elizabeth breaks a sweat; her NLP breaks down and she returns to a normal, conversational tone of voice. "They were going on a hike, I believe to the summit. We... we prayed together."
Brant
Marshall looks around at the group one more time, then back at Prophet. "I won't keep you, then. Hopefully they will return soon. Namaste, Ms. Prophet. I hope you find what you seek." He'll head back over to his Cadillac. Once he's out of earshot of the Summit Lighthouse people, he'll say to David: "Do you think there are any helicopter services around here? Tour outifts? Or maybe the ... park rangers? I mean they must have something, right? For emergencies?"
Marshall here is betraying his deep, deep unfamiliarity with nature.
Michael
Dave says, "Sure, of course. We could tune into National Park Service and local LE radio in the car too, see if there's any reports out there on the mountain right now. You want to get in contact or just listen in?"
As Dave and Marshall talk, the Summit Lighthouse group finishes their hasty packing and peels out of the parking lot.
Brant
Marshall slaps Dave's shoulder. "This is why I keep you around, man. Can you tune us in? Let's hold off on contacting anyone just yet — see if my friends make their way down in the next hour or so. But I would like to keep my ears to the ground — mountain, sky, whatever — you know."
Michael
"No problem." Dave goes to the front seat of the Caddy and switches on the police band radio. After about 15 minutes he comes out of the front seat while Marshall is smoking a nervy cigarette on the parking lot concrete. "Boss, reports of explosions on the mountain around quarter to five in the morning. The NPS and Sheriff are both clueless and a little nervous; there was no scheduled demolition anywhere within miles this weekend. So it sounds like the rangers on duty are out on the mountain early this morning to check it out. Couple of civilians on the CB were making jokes about UFOs and 'localized weather anomalies.' Nothing else of note, just a lot of miscellaneous chatter."
Brant
Marshall puts out the cigarette and goes to the trunk of the car. Popping it open, he grabs a locked black suitcase, opens it, and pulls out a heavy duty looking walkee-talkee. He fidgets with the nobs for a moment. “Field team, this is HQ. If you can hear me, please report. Over.”
Michael
About 15 minutes out from Panther Meadow, Team Downhill's walkie squawks to life.
Leonard
"Field team, uh, Field Team Two reporting, HQ. What's your 10-20?" She'll also give as good an estimation of where we three are while being intentionally vague over the walkie in case anyone's listening.
Brant
"Ah! Hello. We're at — " Marshall looks around quickly until Dave mouths "Panther Meadow" to him, " — we're at Panther Meadow. Hearing chatter about explosions this AM. Do you have everyone accounted for? Over."
Leonard
"Roger and Charley are with me, HQ. We haven't made contact with Field Team One since yesterday, though. They're on this frequency, so hopefully they can chime in. May have some intel on your explosions — we're heading your way, stay put." She thinks for a minute and adds: "Everything five by five, HQ? We weren't expecting you."
Brant
"Yes, all clear here — I just had a dream, is all. Field Team, uh, One, please report. Over."
Michael
(For the record let's assume top-level SANDMAN scramblers and frequencies on these walkies)
Jeff
"We're okay, we're heading down now. Sorry we're still a few hours out."
"Over."
Brant
"Roger that. Over and out." With that, Marshall will go lay down in the backseat of the Caddy and wait for everyone to arrive.
Michael
Okay, Team Downhill emerges from the woods about 45 minutes after the Summit Lighthouse has departed, at around 7:30 am. Roger, Charley, and Jo—all looking fairly bedraggled and carrying ditty bags full of guns and ammo, backpacks, etc.—hit the parking lot and see Marshall's '72 Caddy parked discreetly far from the two URIEL vans. Team Downhill notices that the Summit Lighthouse's vans are also gone.
"Boss. They're here." Dave says to Marshall meditating in the back seat.
Leonard
Jocasta peers into the back of the Caddy. “Good morning, sunshine!”, she says breezily. “Got a cigarette? All this fresh mountain air is killing me.”
Brant
Marshall gets out of the car and pats himself down. "No, no, sorry — I never seem to have any on me. Dave?" He gestures for Dave to give Jo a cigarette. Once he spots Roger, he says "excuse me" to Jo and walks hurriedly over to him. With seemingly genuine affection and relief he says: "Still alive, Roger! Still alive. Did it really happen? Was it just a dream?"
Bill
Roger goes up to Marshall, and before he can react, catches him in a manly bear hug! After the requisite three back pats, he lets go, saying “You son-of-a-bitch — you saved us. You saved us all.”
“It wasn’t just a dream.”
“Oh! Is Mrs. Prophet gone? Aiy there’s some debriefing to do there.”
Brant
Marshall puts his hands on Roger's shoulders and squeezes. "Ha! Christ, that is incredible! I couldn't ... when I woke up I wasn't sure if it was real, or a memory but — but it was real! It was real!" Marshall is quite animated. Then: "Ah, yes, Ms. Prophet. She and her group just left a little while ago. She seemed unsettled, confused. Said she prayed with you guys and that the Mountain — or her spiritual patrons, or something — that it told her to go elsewhere. I suspect you folks did some work on her?" He looks around at the bedraggled, sweaty group and pushes some of his hair out of his face. "So — what happened? Did you ... did you meet the Comte? What's inside the Mountain? What did Mitch see?"
The last set of questions is addressed to the group; whoever wants to jump in.
Bill
"First things, first: we just blew up a big part of the mountain to stop anyone from getting into... well, an induction zone, I guess? Something worse, maybe. We'll describe it in good time, but I'm guessing the rangers and a whole bunch of gawkers are needing wrangling."
"Plus we gotta wait for the summit party to make their way down, and debriefing twice — well, it's gonna be hard enough the first time."
Brant
"Of course, of course — getting ahead of myself. We stopped for donuts on the way up, do you guys want some?" He gestures for Dave to fetch the donuts out of the car.
Bill
"Jesus Christ, yes! Please tell me you have coffee. Jesus Mary and Joseph, I'm tired. ¡Muy cansado!" Roger drops his pack on the ground. "And Jo's gotta be coming down by now."
"Donuts, coffee, helping us escape from a terrible dreamscape? You're batting a thousand today, man."
Leonard
When Jocasta's mouth isn't full of coffee and donuts, she'll give a brief report: going into the cave, the lights and the way they sent us into alternate realities, how we got free of that, meeting the Comte ("Marshall, I really, really hate that guy"), what he told us (specifically about the timeline and the nature of the control room) and how he disappeared after being attacked, the control room and what we saw there, and blasting the door to make sure nobody else can get in until we post some surveillance. She'll leave the technical stuff to Charley and the spiritual stuff to Roger, giving them most of the credit ("I wasn't of much use, I'm afraid") and downplaying the trauma she's suppressing over her vision of 2016. She'll answer any specific questions, and then offer to go off looking for the rest of the team if needed. "The future sucks, Doc," she concludes. "But you probably knew that already."
Bill
(Narrator: Jo was not in fact coming down….)
Leonard
(Ha ha, oh she sure is)
Brant
Marshall nods along, his hands in a prayer gesture in front of his mouth. "What about that woman, Prophet? Was it 'prophet' or 'profit,' f-i-t? I assume the former, given her whole," he waves a hand in the air, "thing. She was using NLP, you know. Not source-code but, you know. I thought about using the call sign with her but she seemed sort of, ah, loopy."
"Said she was from Malibu," he mutters this last part to himself, "the vibes were never quite right there."
Leonard
[If Jocasta already knows something about ECP from her research into California cult rags, or just from an Occultism roll, she'll tell Marshall anything she can recall about her. Otherwise, she'll set up a camp chair, light a cigarette, and just try to stay awake.]
Bill
Roger has to tell the sorry tale. “Look, she caught me out at the end of the longest day of my life. I just went right for her weak spot, anything to get her and her cult crew as far from this mountain as I could. “ Roger will describe his instructions to her in the hypnotism as precisely as he can. “I had to mix some truths, some vision I’d seen. I hope to God that didn’t relay some thing I shouldn’t have. But I’ll settle for her heading to Malibu instead of digging up that place and doing who knows what for le. Comte…”
“And if he doesn’t clean her brain back up and reset his tool, I left a back door in there for a future handler. Hopefully someone who knows the tricks of the trade better.” Roger looks up from the camp stool he’s squatting on right at Marshall.
Brant
Marshall winks and starts pacing a bit. “Director Stone said he sent a team into Mount Shasta and they didn’t make it out. Query whether the maze got them — but either way that means we are a step ahead of him and MARPA. We have better intel than he does. It also means that we can diverge from Krane’s narrative — we’re not bound by the same determinism, at least.”
Michael
Over the next couple of hours at the Panther Meadow parking lot, ordinary civilian early-rising campers—a few families, a couple of groups of young people—make their way to their vehicles, slinging camp bags onto roof racks and making their way off the campsite. And at around 9:30 am, four very tired-looking hikers make their way into camp. Archie, Genevieve, Mitch, and Mary-Lynn emerge from the trail and see not only their two URIEL vans but Marshall's Cadillac, with Marshall, Roger, Charley, Jocasta, and Dave present. The Summit Lighthouse's vehicles are gone.
Brant
“Ah, there they are.” Marshall waves the four of them over to the Cadillac. “I brought donuts!” he shouts.
Michael
Viv smiles broadly and scurries over to the Caddy. "Dr. Red, I presume! What on earth did we do to deserve overnight donut delivery?" Viv picks out a glazed and takes a pour of coffee out of the Thermos.
Brant
“I had a dream. Or a memory, maybe. Roger was there — anyway, I arrive everywhere fashionably late. We’ve been waiting for you four to debrief. What happened? Did you meet the, ah, the Comte? What happened inside the Mountain?”
Rob
Archie immediately goes to Charley, hugs her. "How are you, sweetheart? You're OK?" Vastly relieved to see she is. Takes in the rest of the group. "How is everyone?"
Michael
"We tried to maintain constant contact with the Downhill team as best we could with Mitch's... er, newly-trained abilities and my feeling out of interpersonal connections. But honestly we've been as anxious to find out what happened inside the mountain as you," Viv says. "We did meet the Comte on the summit. Briefly, and almost immediately after you all met him down inside the mountain. It sounded like he didn't like what you three did to him," Viv says with a smile.
Brant
Marshall is keeping a surreptitious side-eye on Mitch.
Leonard
Jocasta, half on the nod, rolls her eyes at the notion of the Comte being irritated with them.
Jeff
"Ugh, sorry we're late. My fault." Mitch shrugs apologetically, like he's aware people have been waiting on him. "We tried to help y'all, but maybe it didn't matter — y'all did just fine, with or without our contributions. I saw my evil not-a-twin, did we mention that already...? Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. We went up to the summit and I meditated and saw my evil not-a-twin, up to no good in LA. We called out the Comte and he whined a bit, then left. Afterwards, this morning, I tried to find...well, it didn't work, too much too fast last night. But Charley can tell you about her."
Brant
“So the Comte is alive? He … escaped? I guess we shouldn’t be surprised — he seems puissant. What was your, uh, twin doing in LA?”
Jeff
"He had his harem burn down a mansion in the canyon somewhere. And he has a motorcycle."
Brant
Marshall makes this face.
Leonard
Jocasta stirs in the camp chair. "So do we need to head down to LA and handle it, Mitch? Don't worry about it, I'll drive." She then immediately falls asleep.
Brant
“She’ll be fine, I’m sure.”
Mel
Charley, Charley, Charley … Charley isn’t great right now but the donut has helped. After, Mitch’s prompting she says to Archie, “Mitch and I were dreaming together and we found my mom. She. She doesn’t seem to know where she is. And her brain has been damaged.”
Michael
Genevieve turns to Charley upon hearing this. She looks down at Charley and simply offers her hand to hold if she wants it, saying nothing.
Mel
Charley just moves closer to Archie taking his hand instead.
Brant
Marshall makes a mental note of Charley's reaction to Viv. "Fascinating," he says, sort of to himself. "This place and dreams, that is. Certain verses in the Upanishads say that when we dream, our souls leave our bodies and travel to other places, other realms. The great dreamers can go even to chaturiya, a sort of … supernal reality. But presumably she is alive, somewhere, then."
Mel
Charley nods at Marshall.
Brant
"So we have Mitch's not-twin in Los Angeles. Charley's birth mother alive but," he glances at Charley, "ah, not ... well and ... lost, somewhere. The Comte on the loose and presumably, let's say not on friendly terms with us. Perhaps openly hostile. Were you able to find out what the Comte wanted with you, Mitch? With us? Why he or his masters care so much about this double of yours? Why lure us all here?"
Jeff
Mitch is like, ugh.
"Comte is a jackass advancing the jackass agenda. When we met him he was whining about how ungrateful we were for the opportunity he'd given us to wish OZYMANDIAS out of existence, supposedly out of sheer magnanimity of spirit that led him to wish to advance our agenda at the expense of the Enemy's. Then he whined a bit about my evil twin and how I have to go kill him, even though it's totally foreordained that I'm going to go kill him so why bother telling me, fuck, the guy is just invested in the idea of being a trickster spirit and playing that role, is what it boils down to I increasingly think.
"Like maybe once upon a time I could have believed that his plan was to ingratiate himself with us, get us to trust him by spooling out line for us, and only once we were well-snagged give it the tug and hang us. But he's got to know by now that no version of that plan is going to work."
Brant
Marshall nods. "It would make sense that they would try to leverage us into eliminating OZYMANDIAS — whatever we may think of that cabal it is clearly an impediment to their designs, so they have an interest in its disposal, even if it means helping us. But the ... twin thing is fucked up, yeah. Unless the Comte or his handlers don't want you to kill him, so they are using your natural antipathy and defiant tendencies against you by telling you to kill him ... but that sort of thinking can spiral out of control."