The Mod Squad Talks
Michael
Jocasta sees Moore on the move out of her rearview.
Leonard
If Mitch is in range and aware enough of Jocasta to see ASL, I'll sign "SHOULD WE STOP HIM?" quickly. If not, I'll just let him go and pull up alongside Mitch and signal him to get in.
Michael
Not sure if Mitch is following Moore or taking the hint. But Mitch does see Jocasta signal from down the street in ASL.
Jeff
Mitch just shrugs, like, his understanding of the situation is that if they to abduct Moore they probably don't want to do it in broad daylight and he doesn't even want to abduct Moore particularly … he goes ahead and gets in Jo's car.
"Did Archie send you to collect me, or what?"
Leonard
"Honestly? I don't know what's going on. I've been casing Dominoe all day and I haven't even talked to Archie. Marshall called me and told me to collect you and Roger and drop you both back at Livermore, then head back here. You know Marshall, he didn't give me much information."
Jeff
"Yeah, well. I met this old guy and when Archie heard about he wanted to grab him and torture him to death and I said I didn't think that was necessary and he seems to think that's evidence I've been brainwashed by the Red King, that I don't wanna see an old man get put through that."
Leonard
"Hmm," Jocasta says, trying to play it cool. "Torturing an old man to death seems a little out of character for Archie, but then, getting rooked by the bad guys seems a little out of character for you. Let's just look for Roger and we can figure out our next move, yeah? Any idea where he is?"
Michael
Bill needs to tell me how long he figures Roger will take to calm down inside the Ace of Spades; there is a chance he could pop out, serendipitously, while Jo and Mitch are talking. If he doesn't, I would imagine both of you know the Chevelle is parked at the social club two blocks away.
By the way, I've decided that the Bucket of Blood, the other memetically-named bar in this neighborhood, is a Raiders-themed bar.
Jeff
(I’d argue that seeing an irate Moore come out of that bar, there’s a solid chance Mitch and/or Jo would guess he’s inside.)
Either way, Mitch isn’t quite ready to table the matter at hand. “Archie’s fine with Charley’s situation. His moral compass might not be all his sweater-vests and bow ties suggest. He’s the kind of square that got us into war in Indochina, after all. You weren’t there in the ambulance with Frank Senior and Archie, I was.”
Michael
(I’d argue that seeing an irate Moore come out of that bar, there’s a solid chance Mitch and/or Jo would guess he’s inside.)
Roger and Mitch sort of inadvertently enacted a classic tradecraft move: one operative provokes the subject emotionally and while he's distracted the other does a "brush."
Bill
Yes, Roger is ready to wrap up in the bar, and walk a little sluggishly to his car.
Michael
Hey, look who it is.
Leonard
"Look, Mitch," Jocasta sighs. "Cards on the table? I'm exhausted, nervy, and a little paranoid right now. I've been camped out under an overpass for hours, and it smells like a bus toilet under there. I believe you, man, please know that — I know I wasn't there with the old man, and you were, and I hope you know I don't always take Archie at his word. I'm still not sure what to think about the whole Charley situation. What I do know is, I've seen glimpses of what this shit Keiner cooked up can do, and I don't want to see it done to all the people around here. And whatever else we know or don't know about Archie, we know he cares about our mission. Let's just get Roger and head back. On the way, you tell me what you know, and if he — or Marshall — are out of line, you can count on me to have your back. But for shit's sake, let's get out of this neighborhood for a little bit before I lose it. The air here is thick with bad vibes."
(This is about 80% sincere, 10% genuine frustration, and about 10% her not wanting to bother doing a psych read on Mitch for the sake of satisfying her own paranoia. But she really does think that we've all been exposed to a lot of heavy shit and need some time to clear our heads.)
"Why don't you two follow me there, Roger? I'll try to ease off the gas so you can keep up," she says with a wink.
Bill
“Yeah, maybe better if I’ve got a co-pilot. Kinda been a really uh, busy morning. You?”
Jeff
"Yeah? I had lunch with an irruptor who didn't used to exist, elderly bum. I phone it in and now Archie thinks I'm brainwashed because I don't want to see him get tortured to death. Then I tried to send the old guy away and he, I dunno, maybe he jumped into traffic, and then I cocked up catching your guy when I bumped into him outside the bar. So, I'm feeling pretty shitty, man. What's your situation?"
Bill
“My guy? Oh … Moore. Yeah, well, I didn’t do so good a job with him myself. And he’s gonna die. Bad. Really bad. I shit you not, man, they are all gonna die. The whole city. I saw it happen. And I fucked it up.”
“Sorry, man. Maybe your old guy got away.”
“Wait, did you say irruptor?”
Jeff
" … we should wait until Jo's with us for me to explain the whole thing, but … Yeah, that's what I said."
"Wait, the whole city?"
Bill
“Yeah, you’re right — a lot to say. The riot, man … it just spreads. Like they’re one body, one swarm.” Roger nearly loses Jo’s car, and goes silent trying to speed up to her.
Roger and I’d guess Mitch too weren’t too joyous coming up to the place, so it may be on Jo to provide initial banter.
Leonard
Jocasta will stake out a quiet table in the back, waving hello to Mama Maria in the kitchen. She'll make a few notes about her time in Oakland until the boys show up, and when they do, she'll invite them to sit and tell them to order whatever they like. "I think we probably need to discuss a few things," she says. "Livermore knows we're on the way back, but they don't know when we're going to get there. Let's keep it that way."
Bill
Roger grimaces, “I didn’t call in yet. I don’t know exactly what to say.”
Jeff
"Start by telling Jo what you told me," Mitch says. "And maybe unpack it a little? Your problem sounds more immediate and severe than mine."
Bill
“I approached Moore, and … ” Roger is lost for words. He has kept the wraps on this particular loa of his for a long, long time. “My observations of him and his people lead me to believe he might be just a dupe. And that he might be turned off this course. His neighborhood loves him too much, and he them, to do … what’s going to happen.” Roger visibly shutters. “So I went direct and I approached him. But I wasn’t alone. I called on an orisha to aid me.”
“Moore is a dupe. But not entirely to the German. There’s someone, something else influencing his music, and he can’t see it. He was hard to convince to turn away from it.”
“So this loa, He can See things. True things, of the future.” Roger is awkwardly omitting things and looking guilty doing it. “The loa looked forward to Moore’s future, and we Saw it. What happens at the concert.”
“Moore doesn’t play live on Saturday, that’s the weird thing. He has his DJ, or sound engineer, put on the record. They play it, and they unveil that terrible art. That banner … ”
Jeff
Mitch wants to check both their auras — I don't know a reason not to go ahead and roll, so, Roger first, while he's talking.
>>>> ACTIVATE … CRITICAL FAILURE
Spending FP.
>>>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS
>>>> DETECT … SUCCESS
>>>> ANALYZE … FAILURE
Another FP.
>>>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS
(It cost him another FP but, managed.)
(Then Jo)
>>>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS
>>>> DETECT … SUCCESS
>>>> ANALYZE … FAILURE
(Wait, crap, does a crit fail on the activation roll lock the power out? I bet it does. Never mind.)
(Ok, no, I checked, it's okay)
>>>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS
(Anyway, eventual success on both)
Michael
Wow, okay. Both auras look nominal. No taint, emotions … turbulent, let's say. Physical health on both your teammates looks fine.
Jeff
"Sorry, sorry, zoned out for a second there. The banner, you mean this tapestry we've heard about. You've seen it spark a riot that spreads?"
(I've just ran back and checked it because I coulda sworn Zeb told me, not in so many words, that the concert was gonna conjure forth an ugallu specifically, but there is no trace of that in the record so I must have interpolated it.)
Michael
(Yeah, I think so.)
Bill
“Yes … and no, that wasn’t all. The big one, the Kusarikku, stepped out of the tapestry. It killed Moore … ” Roger looks pained. “ … then the crowd, under its sway, it moved as one, like a flock of starlings, and it … ripped its way through the police, through everything … ”
Roger is short of breath. “I should never have seen it. We tried to warn Moore, but he, we, He … Moore is running towards it, like a martyr. He still thinks it is maybe the movement he wants. We couldn’t get him to see.”
Michael
Jocasta can give me a Hidden Lore (History B) roll.
Bill
“He’s OK dying for this. But he still doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Jeff
"Kusarikku," Mitch repeats. "The burning one."
"Shit. I … shit. And he thinks, Moore thinks, it's a metaphorical cop-killing riot of fire and murder that'll turn Oakland into one big funeral pyre for the bad guys, when in fact it's just a straight-up monster that'll straight-up kill all the people. Shit."
"Like, I can imagine bringing some heavy ammo in and being more or less ready for it, but that's a game we lose just by deciding to play it."
"Shit."
Bill
“That tapestry. It can’t be there. It was a doorway — I saw it open. Moore can start all the race wars he wants as long as he doesn’t have that damned thing open behind him.”
Michael
Leonard, I definitely have something Jocasta can interject at this point. If you're around and want to give me that Hidden Lore roll, awesome. Just so Jeff and Bill know.
Leonard
>>>> SUCCESS
(yeah, was just gonna jump in — made the roll by 3.)
Michael
Okay, so the idea of the kusarikku coming out of the tapestry in Roger's vision kind of bothers Jocasta. She just spent yesterday driving around being sure that the retrocreation had already happened; sure, maybe it was triggered by the concert, but as that excerpt from the Madness Dossier book says, Irruptors don't just walk out of friezes (or Surrealist album covers). But maybe the tapestry isn't a gateway. Maybe instead it's an entreaty for the bull-man to finally show himself. You all know that Irruptors respond to certain things: strong mass belief, blood (in the form of human sacrifice), the use of glyphs or other forms of History B sacred geometry or architecture. Our scenario right now has three of those elements: a tapestry (lousy with glyphs), an individual (in the form of Moore/Mansa) with lots of belief behind him, and the possibility of blood being shed (in the form of maybe some form of hypnotism turning the crowd violent). If one of these elements is removed, hey great, there's less of a chance of the kusarikku heeding the call, the summoning. Two of them are gone? Even better. All three, though... that's the only way to interrupt the retrocreation.
(Leonard, hope that wasn't too technical an explanation for Jocasta. I think she would sort of make that connection, though, after yesterday's "trip" through Oakland.)
(She was also at Altamont when they dug up the History B agriculture machine)
(Which has a similar origin: belief, blood … and glyphs)
Leonard
"Roger," she says after taking that all in, "I think you saw the right future with the wrong pathway. This thing, this kusarrikku, it's … Christ. I hardly can wrap my head around this enough to explain it to myself, let alone correct your instincts, but that thing isn't waiting to come out. It's not in History B somewhere hoping someone opens the door. It's here, and it's been here, and now it's just looking for something that wants it to manifest. That's Moore, yeah, whatever his motivations, and I want to talk more about that, but it's also the music, and it's also the tapestry, and it's all of that together that's going to make that bloodbath your loa saw really happen."
Jeff
"Christ, I … I don't know why I didn't get this before, you laid it all out this morning. When the Oldtimer talked about him, it was about him revealing himself as having been present, which, yeah. The Oldtimer didn't even mention the tapestry, he was convinced Moore's music was going to do it. Maybe a little self-aggrandizement there, since he might have taught Moore when he was a boy … Christ."
Leonard
"Right. We can deal with each part of it, one by one, but it's like … a puzzle. Each part is important. The tapestry has gotta go, for sure, and I say we get our hands on it this very night if we can. But if we think that piece is the only one that matters, we're going to miss something at a very high cost," she responds. "I think it's not a coincidence that Moore's playing the record instead of performing himself. He's not in control of this, I don't think — hell, I know he resisted turning twice before, but maybe the third time's the charm, and if he's as close to believing what you know as you said … shit, I dunno. Maybe it's worth a try. But my point is, I've seen your loas at work. I don't doubt their power. Whatever happens to Moore, whatever we do, this massacre will be the future he saw if we let all three of those puzzle pieces touch each other."
Bill
“Who is this Oldtimer? He taught Moore that music? I was trying to find the someone else … Is that your old man?”
“And I forgot something. I got the timing wrong there, first telling. I remember now — the crowd moved to the music first. It struck out and killed first … then the bull thing appeared. “
Jeff
"Yeah? Blood for blood, blood and fire?"
"The Oldtimer … retrocreation, right? The bull's here and it's warping the world around itself, making the timeline into a timeline where there's a bull here."
Michael
(Bill, I did use a little poetic license in my PM of your vision to you, saying "And then the Kusarikku arrives" at the end of the second graf, but you interpreted correctly, the crowd moved like a hive mind to smash the cops first, then the Kusarikku fully appeared)
(again, of course, IT IS ALREADY HERE)
Jeff
"The Oldtimer is part of that. Like, there isn't a literal Other Side, where weird angel-demons are doing the same work we are, backwards and in heels, and sending agents here, but if there was, then … No, that's not explaining it right. I don't know the theory. I think half the theories are wrong, anyway … The Oldtimer wasn't real, until he was, until the timeline was ready to have an Oldtimer in it. He was there when Moore was a kid, he taught him hymns to the bull, gave him the seed of inspiration to develop. Now he's a broke down old man whose part in the work was done eighteen years ago, just a bum in the park. Like one of your bucket-and-spade symbols, but a breathing, living, guitar-playing man."
Bill
“So an enemy agent, but too late to stop. Damage done, he doesn’t matter. The rest does.”
Leonard
"Imagine the meticulous effort they must be putting into this. Picking away at a handful of souls over two decades, slowly steering the ship with the most microscopic turns, placing an idea here, a little notion here, all pointing towards bringing that thing out. It's incredible. All that work aimed at a massacre. I think the best way to save that old man is to keep him from … becoming what they want him to be."
Bill
“Great. I am not going to be able to sleep tonight until we have that tapestry.”
Jeff
Mitch is shaking his head, because he thinks that Jo is fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the timeline the same way that Sophie did, but he doesn't have the vocabulary, wit, patience, or time to explain what exactly he thinks is wrong or why. "Pretty much, yeah."
Michael
(different paranoias for different folks)
Jeff
(They're like Bill and Ted, explaining how after they've won they'll go back in time and set themselves up for victory.)
Bill
(Exactly what I thought. But then I’m Bill.)
“So, what do we tell Dad?”
Leonard
"Oof, I hadn't thought that far ahead," Jo says, looking nonplussed at her Super Burrito. "First, how are you feeling about Archie trying to … uh … deprogram you? I think we all think you're fine, and we'll have your back if he wants to force the issue."
Jeff
"I've been … deprogrammed … enough for one lifetime," Mitch says.
"When I told Archie and Sophie about the Oldtimer, Archie couldn't wait to round him up and send him off to Granite Peak for vivisection. When I said I didn't like that, that he was just an old man, Archie accused me of, I don't even know what. Reminded me of Frank Senior. That never sat well with me, you know? There was … I've avoided bringing certain people to SANDMAN's attention because I don't want to see them assassinated or abducted and tortured, because I don't believe there's anything useful to be gained, nothing that will help with saving the world anyhow, and I don't trust the higher-ups with it. Starting with Archie and Marshall and ending with Tricky Dick the goddamn criminal. I tried to explain that to Archie and he seemed to think it was evidence I've been brainwashed, like, only memetic programming by the Red King could possibly cause me to question his judgement."
Bill
“Well, there’s things I haven’t and won’t tell the higher ups either. But I learned in the Army not to tell them about what they‘d only freak out about. They hate a hold out, but they don’t really care if there’s results.”
“There’s no way we’re letting you get sent off for ‘treatment’, man. And I don’t think they can — not with this thing just waiting on the other side of time or whatever.”
Leonard
"We're with you, Mitch," Jocasta echoes. "This has been hard for me, because … well, Roger knows. We served together before, and we've, well, talked it over, how we feel about serving together now. But there's still a lot of things they ask that I won't give. I'm still not happy about Charley, that poor fucking kid. And Frank's old man, and your Zeb … I still think the best way to keep him away from the guys with the pliers and batteries is to give them no reason to know who he is. He might not even know himself, and if we do our jobs right, no one else will either. But what we can't do is let him remember. Because no matter how much we don't wanna hurt him, the kusarrikku, it only wants to hurt. It'll erase him like he never was and that's just the start."
Rob
(lotta tears over Frank Senior from the guy who burned Frank Junior alive with his mind, I'm just saying)
Jeff
(Mitch has had the sad man emoji re: Frank Senior once but has had to explain it to people four or five times is the thing)
Leonard
So what's our direction here? Jo was sent to collect you two and bring you back to HQ, then hang loose in Oaktown for a late-night burgle job on Dominoe to get the tapestry. But she's willing to fudge that mission. It may be too early to hit Dominoe — a daylight raid would probably attract too much attention — but we could hang out until it gets dark, then go back; it'll throw some scares into the brass but as Roger says, they won't quail much if we get results. Also, it might help Archie see the foolishness of trying to deprogram Mitch if Mitch returns with the tapestry*. Alternately, we can just head back to Livermore, let Mitch and Archie do their dance (backing Mitch up as required), and then two or all of us can come back to Oakland. I think we're agreed that tapestry can't be allowed to stay out of our control, though.
* Unless Mitch really is corrupt and Mike is about to pull a huge switcheroo where we try to get the tapestry, Mitch really does turn out to be compromised and tries to fuck us at the worst possible moment, and then Archie gets to give us a lecture about trusting the people who know best. Probably not a strong possibility but it is silently burbling in Jo's mind, because she's paranoid, that's right, her, not me, definitely it's Jocasta and not me who's paranoid
Bill
Honestly, we're probably going to have to go back to face the music so we can gear up properly. That 24/7 people-on-site thing makes the tapestry grab need all the advantages our Patron can give us.
Michael
(Yeah, if Jocasta wanted to go into some in-character detail about the layout of Dominoe, it might help make that decision.)
Leonard
Yeah, I agree with Roger, but I think Mitch should have the final say.
As far as the property goes, she'll pull out her small sketchbook and make a rough map. "Exposure should be pretty minimal; it's an industrial area, no cops or fire stations too nearby, and easy access to the freeway if we need to make a quick getaway. Single-story building, and they do a minimum of pressing, so the floor layout shouldn't be super-complex either, but if we can get a floor plan from the city or anything, that would help. Reception area in front, with an electric entrance buzzer. A few windows on the front and sides, doors on the front and rear, and a loading dock in the back, all barred or shuttered with good steel. CCTV at the front and at the dock, and almost certainly at least one and maybe two guards monitoring the cameras and controlling access. It's the latter that makes me think we'll have to use a little muscle. Best bet in terms of entrance might be the fire exit, on the side closest to the parking lot. Once we're in, I'm guessing the tapestry is probably kept in a safe or under some sort of lock and key as well, but probably not guarded unless they're more clued in to what's really happening than we think." (I'll leave it at that unless Jocasta noticed if there was any realistic way in via the roof, which she might have spotted, or underneath through a sewage tunnel or something similar, which we'd probably only know if we saw the blueprints.)
Bill
"Biggest question is, is there a safe? I'm guessing not — the tapestry even rolled up is huge. They usually have records; I doubt they installed a huge bank vault for those (unless this happens to be an old bank building.) But that'd be the biggest need for speciality tools."
Michael
The floor plans are a good plan. Archie has San Francisco City Hall contacts but he could likely have one of them make a request from Oakland city planning … if his roll goes well. Roger is right; even folded up/disassembled a 30 x 10 tapestry is going to be bulky and sizable. Broken down to 12 5 x 5 panels would be quite large.
(I'll leave it at that unless Jocasta noticed if there was any realistic way in via the roof, which she might have spotted, or underneath through a sewage tunnel or something similar, which we'd probably only know if we saw the blueprints.)
Yeah, there was at least one vent on the flat roof of the building but any access looked pretty tight.
Jeff
Yes. We'll need to return to Livermore to get ready, and there's no point in delaying that any further. Mitch feels reassured by Roger and Jo's support, and anyway he was defaulting to making his way back there if he hadn't run into them.
Given the size of the thing I'm having a hard time imagining a plan that doesn't boil down to incapacitating whatever security is on site and laboriously hauling the thing out through the loading dock. Doesn't seem to be much room for some kind of cool Mission Impossible thing where in the morning they throw open their tapestry storage cabinet and it's mysteriously vanished, replaced by a rolled up Jimi Hendrix poster.
If we were willing to just burn the building down in a way that would look like arson, of course, we can do that easily.
Leonard
Sure — there's also the possibility, if we don't wanna needlessly destroy property and put people out of work, of pulling some strings to get the place raided or shut down for "faulty wiring" by a paid-off city inspector, then just popping in and lifting the tapestry while the place is shut down, but then we have to seriously worry about time.
Bill
Let's call Arson plan F — too much collateral damage. But if we have to, we have to.
And yeah, I think we can forget ghosting. Duly noting Watergate, robbery? What would people want to steal from this place that they would also take the tapestry?
Jeff
Sorry if this was laid out someplace I missed but what's around the Dominoe building? It doesn't happen to be next to a U-Store-It with tapestry-sized lockers, does it?
Bill
If we get stuck for ideas, maybe we ask the suits? I mean, after we've thought about it some more?
Michael
(What's around the Dominoe building: It's on Seventh as well … all this stuff we've been doing is within an 8-10 block line along Seventh. So on one side? The Nimitz Expressway and the BART line. The underpass where Jo was surveilling from were right nearby. But mostly it's a lot of vacated industrial properties. Further west along Seventh is the big postal distribution center.)
Bill
There's one thing that comes to mind: if Keiner just lost some valuable art property, maybe he wants an inspection just in case, and deputizes us?
It's the Grinch Excuse. Santa needs his gifts back to fix them.
Jeff
Getting the building evacuated through pulling bureaucratic strings is an idea that hadn't occurred to me, that's a good idea in general. My mental model for this kind of thing is like, Leverage or the A-Team, where they don't have governmental-type resources.
Leonard
Yeah, if we're gonna go back to Livermore, might as well go. I don't know what Archie is planning in terms of a meme to sully Moore's reputation, nor am I super comfortable with that approach given that we all feel he's not History-B-tainted himself, but depending on what it is, and if we go for a straight heist, we might want to stage the break-in to make it look like Moore himself was responsible. Might be a lot of angles: an insurance scam, a contract dispute with the label, etc.
Michael
It does occur to Jo that a meme to sully Moore would have the effect of handling one of the legs of our Tripod of Anunnaki Summoning, i.e., the "belief in Moore/Mansa" one.
Bill
Yeah, plus I don't think you should assume La Imperial is entirely secure for discussing thing kind of thing. I can tell they're mostly bilingual and faking they don't know English.
Michael
You guys can speak in Danbe laugh
Bill
Like that's not weird.
Michael
Just the Mod Squad hanging out, eating chimichangas, speaking in an obscure New Guinea dialect, not MiB shit at ALL
Leonard
Alas, La Imperial is Hayward's only Mexican-Danbe fusion restaurant
Jeff
I'm sure we could stage it to look like a KKK type hit. Spray paint WHITE POWER on the walls, that sort of thing. Less likely to reflect poorly on Moore, if we wanted to avoid that. We're already minimizing harm in that direction inasmuch as nobody has raised the possibility of murdering him, which would presumably cripple the bull's emergence. Mitch likes Moore, likes the idea of Moore, and if I recall correctly Mitch never examined Keiner's aura because his chance to do so came during the period of the mission where Mitch was dragging his feet and trying not to participate.
Bill
Yeah, but the neighborhood also needs to not riot. I'm not sure Beloved Record Store Attacked by KKK would prevent that.
Jeff
My gut instinct is that given that the Red King's plan to spark riot is heavy-duty mind control, it'll take more than a single hate crime to get that going.
But you may be right.
Anyway Jo's right, we should get back to Livermore.
Bill
"Let me grab some churros for the road, then let's go!"
Michael
Gonna put your ETA back at Livermore at around 3, 3:30 pm.
T-minus 45 hours until the noontime beginning of the block party on Saturday.