Stoney Revealed
Rob
Tuesday. July 31, 1973. Archie heads back over to the URIEL office. He gets Stoney, still in his case, from his office, then goes down to Charley's lab, knocks on the door. "Hey, pumpkin. Do you have a moment? I was hoping you, and I, and Marshall could talk about some things. Over in the — you know." He gestures in the direction of the Rooster House, does a quick flap of his arms like a chicken. Awkwardly, I guess, since he's holding the case.
Mel
Charley turns from the blinking computer screen to give Archie a smile. “Sure, Dad! What’s that for?”
Rob
"Oh, this?" He regards the case. "It's … well, it's a new puppet I wanted to introduce you to. Though I suppose you've met him already, in a way. But that was just me pretending."
"Do you remember the parts we all played in that make-believe game at the St. Francis? You were the dolphin ambassador, and I was the fellow from Andrew Krane's books. Sebastian Stone. He seemed like somebody who might come in handy, so I, I guess I sewed him up a puppet body."
Mel
“Oh, WOW!! Can you make me one? Like my dolphin, we could call him Ambassador Dolph!”
Rob
"Say, that's a swell idea! Maybe we could make it together. A dolphin puppet shouldn't be too hard. Grey foam rubber, a wire frame to hold the shape … " Arriving at the Rooster House resets his train of thought. "Anyway, I wanted Marshall to meet Stoney too. He's a bit of a shady customer, but one of the good guys, I think. Ha ha, Stoney, I mean! I'm not sure what Marshall will think about talking to a puppet, but you, Marshall, and Stoney have got to be the three cleverest people I know. So I thought we could, maybe, all put our heads together. Shall we go in?"
Mel
Charley starts to turn the door knob of the Rooster House and adds a last thought before entering. “Okay, but pretty sure Marshall will not like Stoney.”
Brant
Marshall is examining some of the playing cards on the wall when they enter.
Just for the hell of it, here's his fit.
Mel
Oh my god! I love, love, love it!
Brant
(Marshall can give Charley some fashion tips when she gets older.)
Rob
Archie follows Charley in, closes the door. "Thanks for sticking around, Marshall. I asked Charley to join us, I hope that's okay."
He sits down, sets the puppet case in front of him, drums his fingers on it. "So! You know that I still keep the Ransom Gang around. The old puppets from my TV days. I like to take them out now and then, keep up my ventriloquism. Sometimes I even use them to bounce ideas off. They help me get me out of my own head, I guess, see things from a different point of view."
"After that game we cooked up at the St. Francis — what did Genevieve call it, a psycho drama? — I couldn't stop thinking about the part I'd played, the magical-spymaster from Andy's novels. So I stitched this fellow together so I could talk to him." He opens the case. It's Stoney, as described previously: bird-like, Skeksis-like, Mike Mignola's version of Sam the Eagle meets Uncle Deadly. "I think of him as Stoney, but he likes to be addressed as Sebastian Stone."
Brant
Marshall resumes his seat and crosses a leg. “When you, ah, talk to the puppets — do you have any sense of discontinuity? Meaning, like, do you feel yourself talking to yourself, like people do in their heads, or do you feel disconnected from the … puppet?”
Rob
Archie frowns, like the question doesn't make sense. "Well, I mean, of course I'm talking to myself … But not in my head, yes. No. Disconnected! Sure."
"Anyway! The thing is, Stoney here has been giving me some real insight into the group we've been calling OZYMANDIAS. Because, you know, he's tangled with the real OZYMANDIAS. Well, not real. I mean, to him, they're real. In Krane's books." He takes Stoney out of the case and puts him on his hand, opens and closes Stoney's beak a few times. "Hello, Sebastian. I have some friends with me I'd like you to meet."
(Now that Marshall mentions dissociation, Mike, do you want to play Stoney here? Or did you want me to? I could do it, but you'll have to feed me some intel; I want to get my money's worth from that sweet +3 to Intelligence Analysis and Memetics. Either way; as I say I don't have any plans for where this ought to go.)
Michael
(I was thinking that you, who've really nailed Stoney's affect and voice, could do the interpersonal interaction stuff and as we start getting into tradecraft and/or "magic" rolls that Stoney helps with, I can do the infodumps in his voice — which would necessarily sound a lot more like the Stone of Krane's books in his authorial voice. )
In other words, it's going to be far more effective to hear Stoney's overall affect come out of Archie's/Rob's ventriloquized mouth than mine
Brant
One thing to put out there to give you both time to think about it, I do intend to make some kind of roll to figure out what’s going on with these puppets. Not from a classic psychological perspective — like Marshall has Occultism, Esoteric Medicine, two religious / philosophical skills, etc. He wants to try to figure out if there’s something else going on besides the obvious explanation which would be either MID or DID or like, Roger’s automated personae subroutines. Maybe I’ll fail the roll but I wanted to give you both a head’s up on that so you can ponder.
Michael
That's cool. We've said before that Archie has shown off the puppets in a casual, isn't-that-neat dorky kind of way in the past but I think given the fact that Marshall's never been around a puppet interaction that has, hah, like real security and URIEL/SANDMAN implications, I may have you roll once Marshall has witnessed the Archie-Stoney vibe a little bit. I'll have a think about appropriate rolls but we'll likely start with Psychology so Marshall knows what to eliminate and go from there when the time is right.
Brant
Yeah I figure no rolls until this unfolds a bit. Because Marshall’s operating thesis up till now has been “normal” psych thinking — he’s projecting complicated feelings and traumas into discrete “personalities” but in a high functioning way. But we’re Thinking Differently now! So Marshall wants to Think Differently about it.
Rob
Stoney seems to peer around the room, moving his head in sudden, birdlike movements. He ignores Marshall and Charley at first, focusing on the protective aspects of the Rooster House: the chicken wire, the playing cards, the graveyard dirt. Archie speaks without moving his lips in Stoney's rasping voice. "This is your houngan's work? Serviceable. Tell him there are spirits he could just bind for protection. He needn't always be the supplicant, you know, entreating the likes of them on bended knee."
Stoney fixes his eyes on Archie. "And so? Who are we hiding from, Archibald?"
"We're not hiding, Sebastian. It's countersurveillance."
"Hrrrrrk. If you say so."
"Sebastian, this is my colleague, Dr. Marshall Redgrave, and this is my, well, my daughter and also my colleague, Charley. Marshall, Charley, this is Director Stone."
Michael
(maybe Brant can give me that Psychology-21 roll now and I can deliver some info to tide you over until the next beat)
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 5
(oof, that sucks)
(Marshall clearly on his back heel from how weird this whole thing is.)
(Oh but it's still a success, I keep forgetting 16 can be a success. A shitty success but whatever.)
Jeff
(The MoS is like 5! That's pretty okay!)
Michael
A success, but barely not a crit fail.
Marshall watches Archie's eyes very carefully as the conversation ping-pongs back and forth between Archie and Stoney, like they've been bickering colleagues their entire "lives." Throughout the brief introductory prelude to this conversation, Archie's eyes remain alert and focused and conscious while he throws his voice — quite well, Marshall notes — to embody Stoney. There's no disassociation here; Archie doesn't "go away" when Stoney is "alive" and talking. And the affect, Stoney's syntax, even his aura of feeling being superior and put out by this intrusion: they're all fundamentally Archie, Marshall can tell with deeper analysis. Stoney consists of a cluster of emotions, approaches, feelings, and opinions that Archie does not give voice to. On the purely psychological level, Stoney (and Marshall is guessing the other puppets) is a pressure valve for things Archie's superego can't express.
And yet. Marshall can't help but feel that Stoney is somehow more than just that. Because all the personality elements that scream "repressed Archie" in this puppet are supported by a larger ego structure, one imposed somehow from outside Archie. Krane's books, the ontological trauma of midnight on the St. Francis roof, the actual act of sewing and constructing this puppet, even … Marshall would wager at this point all of it has some "juice" behind it. What kind, well, that will require more interaction with Stoney to figure out. (And of course a second roll once I see how Marshall interacts with Stoney.)
Mel
With the introduction completed Charley blurts out, “Why did you make him a bird?”
Rob
"Gosh, I'm not sure," says Archie. "I guess it just seemed right. I started with the felt from—"
"BRRRAKK!" Stoney interrupts with an angry squawk. "This is neither my first form nor my last, child." He sticks his beak in Charley's face, stares at her with beady glass eyes. "Httt. Your mother was a bird, wasn't she? Before the hounds got her."
Mel
(Ah, I need a fright check so pretty sure Charley needs one too.)
Michael
Sounds good. Pass the Fright check on a 13 or less on a 3d6.
I will look up the other stuff Charley will need to roll, one sec.
Mel
>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
No fright, no retreat into past lives.
Mel
Startled, “ahh” is all Charley can muster.
Brant
Marshall interjects. “Yes, hello Director … Stone. It’s nice to meet you. Archie doesn’t usually, uh, let his staff talk with his — his friends? The Ransom Gang, I think?”
Rob
Stoney swivels to regard Marshall. He peers at his face a second, then, slowly, tilts his buzzard beak down to take in Marshall's whole outfit: the bare chest and scarf, the kimono, the purple pants, all the way down to his boots and back up again. Then he turns to look back at Archie, still slowly, tilting his head and scrunching his mouth in a (quite Muppet-y) way that reads as something like, will you get a load of this guy?
(Mind you, Stoney's wearing wizard robes and an Uncle Sam hat.)
Archie jumps in to redirect. "So, Sebastian! I was just telling Charley and Marshall about, ah, Operation URIZEN, and your battle with the OZYMANDIAS faction inside MARPA. We've got an OZYMANDIAS of our own, as you know. Highly placed, just like yours, and ready to tear everything down to keep themselves in power. Madness! We were hoping for your insight. On how to beat them."
Brant
Marshall adjusts his kimono, somewhat indignantly. He leans in a bit.
Michael
(So here's what I was thinking: posing this question to Stoney feels like an opportunity for Archie to make an Intelligence Analysis-21 roll and also an opportunity for Marshall to make an Expert Skill (Memetics)-19 roll (giving him a bonus for Empathy) and for Charley to give me a Hidden Lore (Spirit Lore)-14 roll. And then tomorrow morning I can do an info drop in Stoney's voice and also tell Marshall and Charley what they sense off him.)
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 10
Rob
>> SUCCESS by 8
Mel
>> SUCCESS by 3
Michael
Stoney looks at Archie sincerely; instead of the piercing, looming, hypnotic gaze of a bird of prey, Stoney's now a curious seed-eater, cocking his head at his "partner."
"How to 'beat' a conspiracy in your own house, eh? Well, Dr. Redgrave and Miss Helix, first of all, you should know that Archibald, whatever his flaws and fatal weaknesses as an espiocrat—and they are many—is at least, urgh, 'competent' as a counterintelligence man. He went right to the source: the personnel files. Unglamorous work, but necessary. If URIZEN were meant to act as Watchers for OZYMANDIAS—and couldn't you have given them your own name from your own timeline, Archibald, hmmmmm?—if you were OZYMANDIAS you would need your own watcher on-site here, eh? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?, after all." Marshall notices that Stoney's Latin pronunciation is impeccable, even considering Archie's ventriloquism.
"So you all have a lacuna in your memories: a man now missing from the entirety of last year, 1972. Very well. This is where we can begin. But the act of watching the watchmen would not have started then, of course. Someone in this operation has always been a mole. In fact, I would wager with the neutralization of OZYMANDIAS's surveillance dead drop and young missy's shamanic ajna stone," Stoney here refers to Charley's chip, "and the addition of this temenos to your arsenal to keep out scrying, your operation may be free of prying eyes for the first time since Archibald came here five years ago. That is an immediate and incalculable advantage. Now you control the flow of information. Of course once they find out they've been duped and young Miss Helix's implant is not providing data, they'll need to take action to remedy that. But one problem at a time, eh? SQUAWK!"
"On the larger level, the question now becomes, how do you conduct a purge that gets rid of foreign elements in your organization when you have but middling organizational power and privilege, as you two do?" Stoney says, indicating Archie and Marshall's respective Ranks. "You can't go straight to the top, of course. That would give the game away right away, they must have a man or men on your MARPA's Council. You can't take a poll or interview every high-level official to quiz them on their loyalties. What you need is your own Watcher, a man on the inside at your timeline's version of Dulce Base, yes? And the plan has already been hatched, I gather. You have the world's foremost escape artist—my timeline had Houdini of course but he was never one of MARPA's number—as a digital spirit. A literal deus ex machina, eh child? What a genius idea to tantalize him with eyes and ears and motility as you did, and then trap him back inside a silicon oubliette. He'll now do your bidding out of pure existential horror. Now this girl," Stoney points his beak at Charley, "is a summoner and binder of spirits worthy of MARPA!" Stoney's cruel taunt at Charley earlier seems to have been almost like a hazing, an initiation meant to break her down so Stoney could build her back up. A classic personnel management tactic of Stone's in the books. Personnel management, emotional abuse, magickal initiation: same difference.
"But yes. A conspiracy this vast would need to make their plans in a distributed, decentralized way. These... accelerationists believe in the power of the future, of technology, of the computer, hmm? It makes sense to me that that is where they would do all their planning, keep their records. And only one of you understands that world: Charley here. In an effort to spy upon you and field test Miss Helix's potential via URIZEN as a 'laboratory,' OZYMANDIAS has sowed the seeds of its own destruction!" Stoney cackles a bit, throwing his little puppet head in the air and opening his mouth wide with each cascade of self-satisfied laughter.
Marshall: The way Archie is speaking through the puppet during this long monologue (Marshall vaguely remembers in his very quick look through Krane's Atlantis trilogy that Stone was prone to multi-page explicatory monologues, the last resort of worldbuilding for a hack scifi author) seems linguistically half-Archie, half-Stone. If anything is "split" or disassociated it's not Archie/Stoney's personalities, it's their memetics. Stone was somehow... born from a cross between Archie's personality, in all its complexity and buried trauma, and Krane's writing. And more importantly Stoney was born, like Agent 00, in a locus, the crucible of the St. Francis, under the influence of two very powerful History B-energy fueled effects: 1) the reality temblor which evoked not just straightahead History B but the universe of Krane's books, a universe created by one of the Illuminated, and 2) the roleplaying scenario with its immensely potent Eleventh Level Power memeplex devised by Archie. Stoney, on some level, is memetically real. He's a living meme. Whether this is different from Archie's other puppets, Marshall can't say because he hasn't interviewed them yet.
Charley: Charley was sort of stunned by what Dad said about her mother. But was it really Dad saying it? Charley knows deep down that the puppets aren't like the loa, given all the Voudon lore she's been reading lately. Dad doesn't "go away" like Roger does when Papa Legba is riding him. So what is Stoney? Is he part of Dad? Charley noted that Stoney kept very conspicuously saying the word and using the term "timeline," like Stoney is actually a visitor from Andrew Krane's world, from the universe Krane created using his imagination. Didn't Carl and Rich think they could actually travel there, with the cyclotron and Krane's brain to guide them? Didn't they bring across a MARPA ikoter, too? Is Stoney actually inhabiting Dad's little puppet from a different universe? "This is neither my first form nor my last, child." If Sebastian Stone is one of the most powerful magicians in the MARPA universe, couldn't he use their kind of magick to project himself into our world? Maybe Dad and Krane and Dad's game didn't create Stoney, maybe Dad's memetics and Krane's … Illuminated-ness made a pinhole in reality, in causality, like a low-powered version of Carl and Rich's particle beam, that let something from Outside our timeline in.
Rob
Archie is pleased, gives Marshall and Charley a 'see, didn't I tell you?' kind of look. "That's swell, Sebastian. Crackerjack stuff!"
"I have two thoughts I want to run by you. First: what you say about the personnel files. If the watchers were who I believe they must have been, well, you can see the pattern. Each time one left, they sent a new one. When they stop getting intel from that microchip they put into Charley, they'll want another mole here. Maybe they'll try to repair the device. But … what if one of us appeared to throw in with them? Volunteered themselves as a watcher." Archie's eyes flick over to Marshall. "They'd be suspicious, of course, but it wouldn't be totally implausible."
Brant
Marshall seems to snap out of something when Archie speaks. “Sorry, I was just thinking … ” He pauses again like he’s doing math in his head. “So if Krane is special, and he created the world of MARPA … and Mitch is special and he almost created another — that’s it, isn’t it? That’s it! When Mitch said he was special! Him and Krane, and Zeb! Maybe the others! That’s what makes them special! They can literally create worlds! They are the minds that project the universe! And Stoney — Director Stone — he’s from that world — actually from that world! Something happened at the St. Francis and you … Archie, you leashed him, or something. Or gave him a, a body or whatever this is.” He gestures at the puppet. “When Mitch said he was special, and we were special, URIEL that is, I didn’t get it at first — he said I was conflating different types of special people. And I was. There’s us, we are special, but then there’s them, the Mitches and Kranes and whomever. People who can create — travel! — between histories!”
Mel
After taking in Marshall’s theory Charley says, “Fascinating.” in her best Spock. Then looking more intently at Director Stone says, “So, Mitch had the right idea? So, then we could create a new universe!? One free from the Red Kings that we can shift to?”
Michael
"And are you not afraid, little girl," says Stoney to Charley, "that if you created a new universe, that your Kings wouldn't merely follow you there? And then create yet another one when that one doesn't work out — or 'shift' to another one, as you say — and bring Them with you there? After all, you carry Them around in here, don't you?" Archie leans over to Charley and points Stoney's wing at Charley's forehead. "Every single one of you is tainted. Corrupted. I can understand not wanting to live in this universe, Agent, believe me. But the answer isn't just going around becoming a demiurge every time you cock up something in your own backyard."
"I mean," Stoney says, ruffling his feathers proudly, "If you're thinking of coming next door and squatting with us, you can forget it. We have our own problems, and the last thing we need is ancient alien gods with a Sumer fetish shitting up our world along with the Atlanteans and our OZYMANDIAS."
Now Charley can give me a Physics (Parachronics)-14 roll.
Brant
Marshall stands up. "This is incredible. Archie, do you understand what this means? We should get Mitch in here."
Mel
>> CRITICAL SUCCESS
(A 4, that’s a crit is it not?)
Michael
Indeed it is.
Charley ponders Stoney's theory, that the Kings are an idea humanity carries with them and that They are not simply sitting, waiting in some uncreated History B, parallel to ours, waiting for a moment to re-create themselves.
But this is a basic fundamental question URIEL has had, since Mitch met Zeb! Are there many worlds, or just one? Stoney seems to be saying that we could either change or shift from one universe to the next: after all, that's what Carl and Rich believed about History-Krane and they did manage to bring back an artifact from there. And every time there's a subduction or a temblor, things like reality shards and Irruptors can get kicked up into History A, and entities and even people (all hail Emperor Norton), apparently, can be retrocreated. But does that mean we could leave this world behind completely and create a whole new one?
Well, on one level, that's what the Ontoclysm was, but all the stuff that existed before the Ontoclysm happened? That all disappeared on that day in 535 AD but still exists as potentiality. Like, if the Kings managed to get enough people to believe in Them, all the skyscrapers and highways and lives of History A would vanish in an instant and become potentiality themselves. So if we "shifted" to History-Krane, would it simply appear that way to us? Or would simply everybody we know and love cease to exist (or, perhaps more accurately, be replaced by analogues who lived through the rising of Atlantis in '68 and RFK becoming President in '69)? This is all basic many-worlds/quantum stuff, Charley realizes. But Charley is beginning to believe that whatever "bleed" might happen between universes or realities or timelines because of incidental waveform collapses, there's Only One Earth. And it's what we make it.
As Charley ponders this, Stoney turns to Archie and says in his most sepulchral, sinister voice, "Oh, Mr. Ransom understands, Doctor. He understands all. Too. Well." Archie's puppet hand bends the edges of Stoney's mouth into a foul, mocking grin as he simply smiles and stares at Archie.
(Mel, Charley's crit will have more and further repercussions as we proceed in this vein of discussion, so just keep that in mind and remind me of it if during future quantum/ontological discussions it might be applicable. )
Brant
As Charley ponders this, Stoney turns to Archie and says in his most sepulchral, sinister voice, "Oh, Mr. Ransom understands, Doctor. He understands all. Too. Well."
Marshall picks up that there's an implication here, but he is heading toward the Rooster House door. OOC, consider that my "turn" and I'll wait for you-Rob-Mel-Jeff to figure out how you want to proceed.
Leonard
Just as Marshall reaches for the doorknob, the door to the Rooster House swings open from the opposite direction. Jocasta is on the other end, and is momentarily rattled by Marshall's appearance; she lets out a whispered, involuntary "Shit!" before recovering.
"Marshall, Archie, Charley," she says, adding, questioningly, "Bird? Uh, I'm glad you're all here. I know I'm probably interrupting but I just now picked up on something that I don't think can wait."
Rob
Archie's relieved by the interruption. "Come in, Jocasta!" He doesn't introduce Stoney or explain anything; he half puts the puppet down but still has his hand in him, so Stoney's still "awake" in that sense. "What is it?"
Leonard
"Well, I was checking out that half-written glyph on the bookshelf that Mitch uncovered. I figured I'd had good luck with Sophie's pin before, so I tried a psychometric read," she explains. "It came through in spades. A memory of hers, clear as if it was etched in glass. From just over a month ago. She was trying to piece together what was happening after — after GRAIL-TABLE and everything, and she had … I can only call it a memory trigger."
Jocasta pauses, wondering how to present this. "She remembered something, but not really. She … recovered something that had been suppressed. Something about another member of URIEL, who had been here up until some time last year. She couldn't see him, and so neither could I. But he was here, and he was real." She puts some steel in her voice. "And right before he left, he lined you all up, like rats at the start of a maze. And he brought out an … an artifact, an object of power. Something more than just a normal reality shard. It was the breastplate of a Judean high priest. Something extremely potent. And he used that to wipe himself— his name, his appearance, his nature, and all the time spent here with URIEL — from your memories."
Brant
"So the puppet — sorry, Director Stone — was right. They do always have a custodian in place." Marshall looks at his Rolex. "Shit. Mitch is still here, right?" Marshall walks briskly — as briskly as he can — to a nearby phone and dials the URIEL offices.
Michael
I was thinking we have a phone outside the Rooster House, maybe a Livermore Labs internal courtesy phone or something like that.
Leonard
"I wish I could tell you more about this guy. I picked up some fleeting sensations, or memories, of Sophie's; it was definitely a man, older, military background. Reactionary way of speaking, informal, dismissive. A believer, in...something. Heavyset. Bad cologne," she winces. "But there's two things I want to be very clear about, other than the obvious implication that they've got us on a short, tight leash. First, this was the moment that Sophie started to put things together. Whatever path she went on -- and whatever path she set us on -- it crystallized for her on that day. And second, that breastplate...it wasn't some little scrap that fell out of History B. It wasn't a normal reality shard. It had incredible power, a real one-of-a-kind occult artifact. And that means either (a) this conspiracy goes all the way up the chain, because SANDMAN isn't going to let something that potent out of their control; (b) whoever the guy was and whatever faction he represents is canny enough to possess something so powerful but keep SANDMAN from knowing about its use or even its existence; or (c) the control over such artifacts at SANDMAN is lax beyond belief. I seriously doubt it's the latter."
Rob
"My goodness. You saw … and Sophie remembered … this Sixth Man, directly altering our minds. Or … maybe removing himself from this timeline? This is a lot to take in," Archie says. "Does any of that ring any bells with you, Stoney?" (Forgetting himself and calling him that.)
Michael
Stoney’s Occultism-14:
>> SUCCESS by 3
Stoney gets a good look at Jocasta. A good, long look. "Oh. The Atlantean princess. You look much different in mufti." If Stoney could be leering, as a puppet with no mechanics to move his eyelids, he would be.
"So you're talking about the holy garment of the high priests of the Kohanim? The jewel-encrusted breastplate? The Urim and Thummim? Most scholars believed that the translation of the Urim and Thummim, the "lights and perfections," means that it was meant to signify an artifact of immense divinatory power, to shed light and God's perfect vision on the blessed High Priests of the Hebrews. But some translators, myself included, believe the lights glinting off the dozen holy gems of the Twelve Tribes were meant to dazzle and stupefy, to give the viewer a glimpse of the holy glory of God."
"Of course, you magic underwear types," Stoney says to Archie, "have a different opinion on the Urim and Thummim, don't you Archibald?"
Leonard
"That's right," she says, a combination of curiosity and uncertainty keeping her eyes focused on the puppet. "The jewels of the hoshem, one of the great holy objects of the Great Temple. Divination and obfuscation all at once, a set of prisms through which man could see, diffused enough not to drive him mad, the face of the Almighty. Long since lost," Jocasta says, showing off her own occult bona fides. "And it wouldn't matter anyway, because Moses ben-Maimon said the thing stopped working when the high priests lost faith in God. Looks like he was wrong about that...or that faith in one thing is as good as faith in another, hmm?"
Michael
"Beauty and smarts," Stoney says. "You're very naughty to have been hiding her away from me, Archibald."
Rob
"Er … " Archie looks embarrassed. "Yes, well, you're right, in Mormon tradition, the Urim and Thummim were magic stones I think, or maybe spectacles, that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon. The Church nowadays tries to downplay the idea of Smith as a folk magician, but my grandfather was full of stories about Smith's dowsing and stone-gazing and the like." Jocasta's arrival (not so much Jo as just the addition of one more person) has suddenly made Archie self-conscious about talking to Stoney. He unceremoniously stops, and Stoney becomes inert, feathers and foam.
(but feel free to have him pop up again if you want, Mike)
Brant
After telling Mitch to come join him at the Rooster House, Marshall returns and shuts the door. He seems disappointed to see the puppet isn’t active. He takes a seat and starts talking rapidly, as he often does when he’s processing a lot of information. “OK — we have a couple things to think through here. First, in my mind, is this thing with Mitch and the, uh, people like Mitch. Surely Mitch knows he has this ability, right? What with that incident on the roof of the St. Francis. Or he just suspects it, at least. I mean, call me crazy, but I feel like we need to examine this phenomenon more. It opens up a whole universe — haha, no pun intended — of possibilities. Oh, and does the organization know about these, ah … special people? Do they know what Mitch can do? I suspect not. If they did they’d never let us have him, right?”
Rob
"I'm not sure I follow. What ability are we talking about? What is it you think Mitchell can do?" (Happy to bring Stoney back in if needed.)
Brant
"He can access other worlds … or maybe he can create them. Other histories, man! He's not bound by all this. Māyā. Prakriti." He gestures around the room. "Not fully. Not like us. People like Mitch — and Krane, I guess, that would explain why he could see what was happening on the roof, but I couldn't — people like Mitch can access those other histories. And! And with the right tools — like your memetics — they can manifest things from other histories here, in our history. The Will of the World, able to reach through the illusion. That means we don't need to fight this war using only the tools of the Red Kings and this, whatever, this conspiracy. We have other options."
Leonard
"Respectfully, Marshall, that might be putting the cart before the horse. Not that we shouldn't absolutely investigate it, but right now, we don't know the vaguest contours of what Mitch can do," Jocasta says. "That's why I was so determined to stop him at the St. Francis. If he really can...alter reality? Create new timelines? See, we don't really even know what we're talking about. And whatever it is, does it mean he can just manifest another history? If so, how do we know it won't be worse than ours? Or if he can just … I guess, shift us into a different universe, does this one persist, and if so, aren't we abandoning everyone in it? That sounds a lot like what OZYMANDIAS thinks: this world is doomed, so let's just carve out a chunk of reality that works for a small handful of us."
She thinks about it for a few seconds, seemingly unconvinced of her own argument but not sure what to do about it. "Anyway," she adds, "Mitch got his brain wiped by that … that sixth man just like the rest of you did, which suggests at the very least that we should take care of that problem before taking on the issue of Mitch Hort, Creator of Worlds. Even if they don't know he can do that — and even if he can — they've got us under wraps, confused, and on a very tight rein. If they get even a whiff of this, we're really in trouble."
She sighs. "Or, maybe not. I'm getting the very familiar sensation of flailing around in quicksand."
Brant
“That’s rich coming from a woman who, last I checked, was using SANDMAN grade psychotropics to travel through time,” Marshall snaps. “We don’t have a cart or a horse right now, Menos. We’re in completely unknown territory. Hell, what we’re engaging in right now is potentially the highest treason. If we’re going to survive we need to use all our available resources and we need to use them unconventionally. I’m not talking about having Mitch create another world for us, or whatever. I’m talking about changing the rules of the game. Using whatever it is that he can do — and Krane, and the others, whoever they are — to help us bypass the, like, the conventions that we’ve been operating under up until now.”
Leonard
Jocasta looks like she's about to reply, but, rebuked, decides against it. "You're the boss," she says, lighting a cigarette and sinking into quiet contemplation.
Rob
Though lying limp across Archie's lap, Stoney starts chuckling.
"Hhhk hhk hhhkkh." He lifts himself up again, cracks his long neck and says, "Ye-e-es, Doctor Redgrave. Yes. Now you are 'thinking differently.' Now you are thinking like a Magus. I was beginning to despair of the initiates in this timeline. What a waste, to walk right up to the Threshold, and then use the Great Mysteries to … what? Sell breakfast cereal? Seduce starlets? When you could create worlds?" He holds up a wing, as if to whisper an aside to Marshall, though everyone can hear: "Or do you even bother to fuck them, once you've got them on the hook?"
"But I only needed to be patient. Nobody can resist the temptation to manifest their Will, to correct the universe, for long. Not you, doctor. Not your Illuminated Taisher. Not even poor sad Archibald here." Stoney then turns back to Jocasta, puts his wing tips together like steepled fingers. "Now. My lovely Atlantean. Tell me more about this artifact of inestimable power."
Leonard
Jocasta shoots Archie a look, not saying anything but raising her eyebrows in an access of helplessness: what am I supposed to do, here?
Rob
(Archie's mortified by all this and he's going to stuff Stoney back in his case immediately, unless anybody — Jo, Charley, Marshall, suddenly arriving Mitch — has anything they want to say to the buzzard before he does.)
Jeff
"'Whenever Poochie is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, where's Poochie?'" Mitch says as he stumbles in and sinks into a chair conveniently placed next to the door. "What's that from, Top Cat? Was there a Poochie on Top Cat?" Mitch starts when he sees Archie and Stoney. "Whoa! What am I seeing here? Is this what we're talking about this time?"
Brant
“Mitch!” Marshall stands as he enters. When he sees Archie going to put Stoney away he puts up his hands. “No no no — Mitch needs to see this too. Maybe Director Stone has some advice for Mitch, magic man to magic man? About what we were just talking about.” Marshall turns to Mitch. “We’ve had a bit of a revelation about what it is you and … the other special ones like you can do. With other histories. Like what you did at the St. Francis. And how Stoney got here.”
Jeff
"Okay … ?"
Brant
“Just roll with me on this. You’ll see.”
Rob
Archie's in the process of pulling the puppet off his hand, throwing it back in the case. "I'm so sorry, everyone. I thought I could keep him in line." When Marshall stops him, he's conflicted, but he picks Stoney back up, speaks sternly to him. "Sebastian. You are a guest here. My guest. You will speak to my colleagues, my family, with respect. You know I can put you right back in the box at any time."
Jeff
Aura sight on Archie — I'm pretty sure I know what the results will be but it still seems prudent.
>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 8
>> DETECT … FAILURE by 1
>> ANALYZE … CRITICAL SUCCESS
Dang
That woulda been nice
>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 7
>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 8
>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS by 2
1 FP later, success all around
Michael
Mitch looks at the puppet first — you know, juuuust to be sure. No secondary aura there; it's just Archie's hand under all the felt and foam. He then takes a peek at Archie's aura; nothing too spiritually unusual there — no foreign parasites, no alien hangers-on in the manner of the êkimmu — but boy, when Mitch does his physiological scan, Archie's brain sure is firing in a weird way right now as the puppet prepares to speak. Mitch isn't a doctor and usually his physical scans are for the big stuff, kind of like a layman looking at an X-ray or one of those new-fangled magnetic scans like Mitch had at SRI: disease, implants, organs in the wrong places, that sort of thing. So the fact that Mitch is able to see that the neural activity of Archie's brain feels … off is kind of interesting. Mitch wonders at some point if he should get acquainted with basic physiology to use his aura sight a bit better.
When it comes to emotions, Archie's aura is flickering, like a radio caught between two stations where you can hear the bleed of audio from both, between two completely distinct sets of emotions: kindly, level-headed, aw-shucks team leader Archie and the, yes, louche libertine magician who is Stoney. And Stoney is looking at Mitch, much as he did at Marshall, with a sense of... superiority combined with wariness. Like a bird of prey assessing a competitor. The emotions Archie channels through the puppet are primarily those of naked hunger or more accurately lust: for power, for knowledge, for pleasure, for victory. But all those emotions are, ultimately, Archie's.
Jeff
"Sebastian. Right."
Detect History B, just for laughs
>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 9
>> DETECT … SUCCESS by 9
>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS by 4
Michael
Both Archie and Director Stone are mercifully free of History B taint. I would imagine this close to the secure reality shard storage warehouse, though, there'd be a faint foreboding bleed-through of History B energy from over there. The Rooster House may keep out EM and RV surveillance but it doesn't shield y'all from History B.
I do need to consider how Detect (History B) looks at permanent Corruption; after all, Stoney himself is a 2-point mega-Quirk that came from Archie transforming 50 points of Corruption to 2 points of Disads. But I don't think these permanent psychological effects left behind from Corruption have actual History B taint to them. They're more like the damage left behind by a big storm: the busted pilings and broken sea wall don't actively set off doppler radar just because they were caused by a Nor'easter.
(Also, not sure how/if Aura Sight would make sense of Archie and Charley's Special Rapport, but I'm sure if it does, Mitch would have noticed it by now.)
Jeff
"Right," Mitch repeats. He eyes Stoney in the discomfited manner of a man roped into some else's ventriloquism act.
"Why'd y'all want me for this? This is Roger's whole deal."
Brant
"No, no it's not. At least I don't think it is. This puppet, he's a complex sentient meme derived from the universe of Krane's books. When Roger taps into his automated personae subroutines, he's tapping into Jungian archetypes derived from the primal collective unconscious. But that's not this puppet — sorry, that's not what this is. 'Stoney' is not from our history. He's from another history — another reality. A reality that Krane either created or was able to perceive due to his 'special' abilities. The same abilities you have, Mitch. The ability to bridge the ontological divide." Marshall looks around. "I feel like you all think I'm crazy."
Marshall looks at the puppet. "Director Stone, back me on this."
Rob
Stoney preens his feathers. "Htt. Not exactly. My harem of taishers created this reality. I instructed them to imagine a timeline untainted by Atlantean influence, a 'History-Beta,' if you will. You are familiar with eroto-comatose lucidity, Doctor? They are sleeping the Sleep of Siloam, dreaming this world into existence as we speak. SQWAWK! But your intuition of the underlying principles is correct."
Brant
Marshall gives Mitch a look like, "See?????"
Jeff
" … I don't think that's right." Mitch looks pretty unsure actually.
Brant
Marshall dives in, addressing Stoney directly, almost like Archie isn't there. "Director Stone. We're sending some of our team to Mount Shasta, perhaps even this week. Mitch is going with the girl," he gestures at Charley, "and Jocasta here. Knowing what you know about our situation here, and Mitch's abilities, how can we leverage this trip to our advantage? Is there something at the Mountain we can use?"
Michael
(Rob, feel free to flavor this up with some Stoney chat if you want before the roll, but this is definitely an Occultism-14 roll.)
Rob
(Can Stoney give Archie Corruption to increase his effective skill? I guess it's not a skill covered by that rule)
Michael
I was just gonna say, it's not on the list, but give me a second because I think the idea is cool.
Actually, I'm going to say it's covered under Intelligence Analysis because of the way Stoney would see the mention of Shasta, but with a penalty because History-A and History-Krane are so different. So let's say Intelligence Analysis-16 (a minus 5 to cover the difference between worlds) which Stoney can boost with Corruption to his heart's content.
Rob
(Cool. I was halfway to coming up with a justification for why it would make sense to let Archie spend Corruption here, but there's no real reason to boost higher than 16 is there? The chance of a crit success doesn't keep going up?)
Michael
(I suppose not if you're not concerned about Measure of Success, but opening with a single point of Corruption does open to the door to spending Corruption to get a crit after the roll.)
Rob
(Aha. Well, let's spend 1 pt Corruption then.)
Michael
Okay, so Intel Analysis-17.
Rob
>> SUCCESS by 6
(And 4 pts would make that a crit?)
Michael
Success by 6. Spend 5 more Corruption to get a 6 and a crit.
So spending 6 total Corruption on that roll, excellent.
Rob
5, right. Yeah, go for it. What does Stoney care?
I mean, he's a manifestation of Archie's Corruption, it's to his benefit.
Michael
Marshall dives in, addressing Stoney directly, almost like Archie isn't there. "Director Stone. We're sending some of our team to Mount Shasta, perhaps even this week. Mitch is going with the girl," he gestures at Charley, "and Jocasta here. Knowing what you know about our situation here, and Mitch's abilities, how can we leverage this trip to our advantage? Is there something at the Mountain we can use?"
Stoney squawks and sputters suddenly, coughing and cawing for a few seconds. "Mount Shasta? You mean to travel to that … pit of vipers? You'll have to excuse me, Doctor, but where I come from, that thing is a pustule, a blight on the smooth untroubled brow of Fair Queen Califerne."
"Long before the re-emergence of Atlantis on January 30, 1968, the mountain was the method by which … They spread their, eurgh, ‘good news’ to the unwitting and imbecilic among the occult seekers of California and America. Whether it was the spiritually-aware members of the Klamath peoples and their contact with the chthonic god Llao, or Frederick Spencer Oliver — that dime-store hack — and his dangerous text about his dalliances with Atlantean princesses below the mountain, or those pathetic Rosicrucians, or the prospectors who went into the mountain and were enchanted by the hive mind's orichalcum trinkets, or … well, Guy and Edna Ballard were mostly good loyal Americans, but they were still inevitably seduced by the blandishments of a pre-risen Atlantis! The less said about Richard Shaver, the better. The poor bastard was trying to warn us all with his strange tales of dero and telaug mind-control rays, and the cost to his sanity was incalculable."
"Before the Rising, then, the Atlanteans could not make themselves known in our streets or on our seas, you see. Nothing so prosaic as the "cultural missions" they left like spoor in the midst of our cities after '68. Something in the alignment of their island-dimension's crystal matrix left them out of phase with our reality for four thousand years before the stars were right in '68. But still, they had redoubts, beachheads in our reality … and primary among them was Mount Shasta."
"MARPA historians plumbed the depths of Shasta lore in early '69, right when Bobby took office and we started fighting back in earnest. All those stories had to mean something, and when the sorcerous green and purple rays were raining down on us thanks to Atlantean vailxi and vimana, we felt like we needed something desperately to fight back. They— we—sent a crack squad of highly-trained Vietnam veterans into the mountain in August '69; if they couldn't find some artifacts of, feh, "Lemuria" for the skunkworks boys to reverse-engineer, maybe there'd be a trace of some way to beat them, fling them back to their reality and sink their island for good. This was the first mission I ever planned for MARPA. I even timed the mission for the Dog Days of summer, at the rising of Sirius, August 8th, long holy to the Egyptians and the Dogon people, thinking that a Great Working was afoot." At this point, Stoney stops talking suddenly, "stares" into the middle distance, and "shudders."
(Anyone who wants to give me a Current Affairs (Pop Culture) roll right now, including Archie, can. If you don't have the skill, it defaults to IQ minus 4 or Research minus 4.)
Brant
Marshall doesn't have that skill and in any event, his mind is too far elsewhere, combing through the Rig-Veda and Upanishads, trying to collate all this new data and re-arrange his thinking, to make such a roll.
(That's the Good Shit, though.)
Jeff
Shasta Lore is … 13? I think?
>> SUCCESS by 6
Michael
14, actually, so success by 6
Jeff, that'll bring a slightly different internal mental infodump for Mitch so I'll wait to see who does Pop Culture before proceeding with dual infodumps.
Rob
Pop Culture-18.
>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
Current Affairs (Popular Culture): The dog days of summer, August 8-9, 1969: the very night a certain merry little flag-draped home invasion happened in our universe:
Mitch's Hidden Lore (Shasta Lore): Well, as weird as it is to admit, that puppet knows what he's talking about. All those folks he namedropped were mystics, charlatans, and scifi authors who found some kind of contact with the Other Side (however you define it) on Mount Shasta in History A over the decades. In Krane's books, the mountain was a honeypot meant to get credulous esoteric suckers to spread the meme of Atlantis out there in the world and pave the way for their Rising. If this is yet another parallel between our world and the Atlantis Rising universe, like MARPA/SANDMAN, then it would follow that the mountain in our world is very similar: a place where History B tries to entice ordinary (if slightly sad) occultists to … well, Mitch is still not sure what the Kings' agenda with the Shasta seekers is, whether it's just memetics and indoctrination as Stoney just said (Mitch vaguely remembers ol' Vera shouting something at him in Sumerian back in February) or something more profound and existential than mere honeypotting. But there's two important pieces of information Stoney hasn't divulged yet. One, just exactly how, physically and metaphysically, did Shasta remain a redoubt for Atlantis when History-Krane's reality wouldn't admit Atlantis to the "real" world until the island rose from the vasty deep. And second … Stoney hasn't yet said what happened to his elite MARPA strike team inside the mountain.
Jeff
Mitch mulls all this over and circles back. "Beachheads? Like Atlantis had an invasion cooking the whole they they were, uh, not-existing?"
Michael
"Correctly surmised, o taisher. The sinking of Atlantis was always said to be a lesson in hubris, of reaching too far too fast. While Helena and her pupils believed that Atlantis and the ancient root races were real, that the Ascended Masters had been guiding humanity back towards 'enlightenment' for age upon age, their successors later in the 20th century more and more asserted that Atlantis was merely a metaphor, that it represented the collective desire in mankind's subconscious to be subjugated, to exist as part of a single hive mind intelligence, and in doing so, to gain the kind of magickal and psychic power that the Atlanteans cultivated. Curiously, each party ended up being right."
"Our communist friends might call this phenomenon a dialectical synthesis; the physicists at Dulce Base would classify it perhaps as a... quantum superposition. The paradox: the Ascended Masters are real, and at the same time they are expressions of the human collective unconscious. Belief shapes reality. Reality influences belief. When belief was sparse on the ground around the mountain, Shasta was nothing more than an inspiring peak with some ancient Indian myths around it. But then books like Oliver's started being published. Magical legends grew. Cults formed. And by 1968... well, we all know what happened. An irruption. A bursting-forth. The physical manifestation of millennia of narratives, literally invading our shores. Moreover, upon their return, the Atlanteans did offer human believers in Atlantis real power, real magick, true enlightenment, which solidified belief in them further. This difficulty made the war on the home front what it was for the first few years for us at MARPA: a hard, brutal, constant hearts-and-minds slog against Atlantean subversion."
"But I'm not telling you and Archibald anything you don't already know. You have a whole science based on mass belief in this timeline. One which we've only been scrabbling impotently towards in ours."
Stoney seems to welcome the conversational detour from the failed mission to Shasta in August '69.
"Something about the mountain itself allowed it to be a beachhead. Something physical or paraphysical in its makeup, perhaps: veins of gold and orichalcum branching throughout it allowed it to be a tuning fork for the physically/psychically submerged continent. We're still not sure."
Jeff
Mitch shoots Archie a skeptical glance. "What did you find out, then?"
Michael
"Those men who entered the mountain in 1969, they came back … changed. Not physically; when they were retrieved on the third day after their entering the mountain, they had all their gear and looked none the worse for wear. But not a one of them remembered their former lives outside the mountain. None retained their combat or commando or survival skills, at least to the level they'd once possessed them. Some told of completely different tales of their lives, as if all the important moments of their lifespans led them along a different path of causality. And a few men of the squad … well, they came back as Atlanteans. Full of the life experiences of a member of that race, wielding all the island's powers and secrets."
"One or two of these Atlantean agents couldn't resist interrogation upon debriefing and were found out and immediately liquidated, but a few others managed to slip by obfuscating their true identities and allegiances. None of these men from Operation MORIA were to be allowed back out into the world after this operation, of course, but the Atlantean body-snatchers used their magicks to … bust out of the deepest cells at Dulce Base. Vanished into the New Mexico desert. We assume they now are high-ranking officials in Atlantean intelligence."
(Anyone who has read Krane's second Atlantis book will remember this being tossed off as a plot element after the pulse jet pilot protagonist crash-lands behind enemy lines on Atlantis: high-ranking MARPA commandos who went over to the other side, but in the book was none of this detail as to why they went over.)
Jeff
"Bleah." Mitch wonders: is this what Andy would say happened, if Mitch asked, this implicit soul-destruction? Andy seemed increasingly of the mind that the Atlanteans were the white hats, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything in the morally bankrupt world of SANDMAN and MARPA and the Enemy. Or is this, maybe, Archie's ingrained anticommunist streak expressing itself subconsciously? "So you just left Shasta there? Did you rope it off, put up No Trespassing By Order Of Bobby Kennedy signs?"
Michael
"It was occupied territory for a good long while; you have to remember while you live in a timeline free of Atlantean subversion and occupation, free to eat and drink at Alfred's or enjoy an ice cream down at the Embarcadero free of Atlantean propaganda, we had to deal with occupation and a hot guerilla war in Northern California for most of the President's first term. Since we've retaken most of the area, it's been, as you say, off-limits to the spiritually-curious and other lookie-loos by order of MARPA. SQUAWK!"
Brant
“Well, it sounds like we may also want to dispatch Roger with the rest of the team on this ‘camping trip’ — not that I doubt your considerable martial abilities Jocasta, but if there are any analogs between Krane’s universe and our own, it might be better to over prepare for resistance.”
Leonard
"I'll never say no to having Roger along. If Shasta is as fraught as it sounds, we should have all hands available."
Brant
After a beat, Marshall lights a cigarette and says. “Alright, where are we at? Archie has conjured a sentient meme complex from another history. That meme complex advised me — well, me and Archie and Charley — that URIEL has always had a ‘watcher’. Stoney — he said we’d always had a watcher but right now we don’t because They still think we’re being recorded by Charley. That’s when Jocasta came in and told us that she had psychometrically discerned that there was a Sixth Man at URIEL and that he used an artifact of incredible power to wipe all our minds.”
“Jocasta knows a fair bit about the artifact. She and puppet — sorry, Director Stone — went off about it for a while. Clearly it is something worth doing more research on. If only so we know what we are dealing with. As for Mount Shasta, we seem to be sending some of you on a real … trip. One that might require considerable firepower.”
Deep drags and exhale. “Thoughts? Opinions? Initiatives? Concerns? I know this isn’t a formal ‘Monday morning’ meeting but let’s hit what we got.”
Leonard
"I realize there's … a lot to process at the moment, so I may have lost the thread here," Jocasta says wearily. "But, do we have an endgame for going to Shasta? Is there something we're specifically trying to accomplish there, or are we just opening up the channels and seeing what we can see?"
Brant
“I don’t want to speak for anyone — I’m not going — but I think it is to open up some channels. Right now there is a sort of … lull in things. We should make use of that time before some new emergency arises that requires our full attention.” A beat. “We also need to figure out what we’re going to do when They realize Charley is … compromised.”
Leonard
"That reminds me. Not to throw another iron in the fire, but until we find out the extent to which SANDMAN is compromised, we should consider having a safe house — someplace that can't be tied to any of us. And a drop where we can leave evidence of what we've learned, in case, well, anything happens to us. We might not be able to trust Granite Peak as a repository anymore."
Michael
“I don’t want to speak for anyone — I’m not going — but I think it is to open up some channels. Right now there is a sort of … lull in things. We should make use of that time before some new emergency arises that requires our full attention.” A beat. “We also need to figure out what we’re going to do when They realize Charley is … compromised.”
I'll remind everyone that I recall saying that the chip had space for about six months of sensory input from Charley, she came to URIEL in late March, so they should be expecting to be alerted and pick up the hard drive inside the Ransoms' front door in September sometime.