The Suits Talk Personnel
Rob
What Archie can do before everyone gets back is talk to Marshall about the Mitch situation. I don't know if we need to play it out word for word but while Marshall is lying on the couch and we're spitballing the tapestry heist like George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Ocean's 11, Archie will also try to feel Marshall out about the Mitch situation. Is he wrong to be worried about memetic contamination? Mitch literally opened with "I just talked to an Irruptor!" and then he kept repeating again and again what a nice, harmless guy he was, like he'd been programmed to do so. Archie wants to know if Marshall agrees with him that this is a danger, and if he will help him to help Mitch when he gets back. Could Marshall put Mitch under hypnosis, figure out that way if he's been infected? Is that doable in a way that won't hurt Mitch? Archie's expertise is putting memes out there for the masses. The one on one stuff is Marshall's wheelhouse.
FINALLY Archie is delighted and impressed by Charley's work. Solid state funk punk phone-phreaking! I don't know whether she's trying to impress Archie or me in real life but either way it's working, he makes a big fuss over her and how clever and indispensable she is.
Michael
Quick answers: 1) Would love an Archie-Roger scene re: the Moore Meme after the Big Confab, 2) Yes, Archie has it spot-on, the best way to identify and isolate any meme that might be in Mitch's brain is Hypnotism, and I think Marshall's the best URIEL team member by far at that, and 3) Awesome! I think that'll be a great scene.
Brant
Rewinding time a bit, Marshall can respond to the Mitch thing a bit more once they hang up the phone with Jocasta. “It’s certainly cause for concern. Our whole understanding in this area is spotty — so few people just, y’know, chat with an Irruptor and then live to tell about it. So that’s tricky. Compounding the problem is Mitch himself. He will not allow me to examine him. I suspect, could be wrong. Unless ordered, perhaps? But that is also fraught.”
“Often in these situations — you have a mole, or suspected mole, that is, maybe just a soft target, suspicious because he goes home alone every night, no girlfriend, whatever — the best course is not to tip your hand but to just, y’know, watch them. Don’t let them know you’re watching them, preferably. Which, haha, cat out of the bag for us with Mitch, I guess. But that’d be my recommendation: that we keep him under surveillance.”
“The final problem here is that I am the person best equipped to both watch Mitch and determine whether he is uhhh infected. But Mitch does not like me, and so will be wary of me. I won’t be able to do much with his guard up, even just observationally. Plus he could always, y’know, incinerate me with his mind. So if we are to watch him, I would need to think of a way to do that through someone he trusts. Does he trust anyone that we know of?”
Rob
"Well, I'd like to think we all trust one another, but I suppose I don't know anymore. I believe Mitchell trusts Roger, and he and Jocasta seem to have hit it off … But I don't relish the idea of setting our team to spy on one another. Certainly not before the Moore operation has been resolved."
"Maybe we can come at this another way. If we could locate the individual Mitch spoke to, could you hypnotize him? I doubt he's truly an Irruptor, whatever that means exactly. It's quite possible he's just a carrier, infected with memes of History B. Maybe we could cure him, without involving Granite Peak."
Brant
"I wouldn't rely on Roger for this purpose — Jocasta, perhaps. Her clinical paranoia and latent OCD would make her an excellent monitor. Perhaps even unwittingly … " Marshall trails off for a moment there, like he's had an idea and needs to ruminate on it.
"Anyway, it is not a matter of whether I can do what you're asking. I'm sure I can. The problem is permission. Our only lead on this Irruptor is Mitch. Mitch will not lead us to him if he suspects we are going to … uh torture him to death, as he put it." Marshall chuckles.
"But I want to double back on something you just said. 'Cure him without involving Granite Peak.' What do you mean by that?"
Rob
"Well, just that under standard protocols, an agent of History B has to be remanded to Granite Peak. Or, you know, otherwise neutralized. But if the individual Mitch spoke to is truly an unwitting carrier, maybe he doesn't have to go all the way to Utah. Maybe he could be, ah, reconditioned or decontaminated here." (Zeb is a lower priority for Archie than Moore and Mansa, but if you, Brant/Marshall, like the idea Mike floated, of the Mission being a "more humane" place to rehabilitate History B dupes, that could start unfolding here.)
Michael
Thanks, Rob! Since Brant went to the trouble of creating a Thomas Jerome Newton/Ozymandias TV Brainwashing Room at The Mission, I want to use it, dammit!)
Leaving open the moral question, of course, if this sort of "healing" is any better but hey, if the imperative is No More Dead Frank Seniors …
Actually, the more I examine this little tossed-off setting book of Ken's, the more complex it is. Honestly, Cthulhu/Delta Green never gives you an opportunity to try to excise the part of the brain that makes a cultist go out and cult.
Brant
(I'm in no rush to use the CCRME! So don't feel pressed about that solely for my purposes.)
Michael
(No, but it adheres to the Law of Cool in RPGs so that means I want to use it.)
Brant
"Hmm." Marshall nods. "It is something to consider. Anyway, there are too many unknowns right now. Mitch, Zeb, getting to Zeb, whether Mitch is going to walk in here and light you on fire with his mind because he's furious at you for accusing him of being an unwitting History B agent." Marshall laughs again. "We should see what the team — Mitch, in particular — looks like when they get in. Then we can discuss next steps. Perhaps over dinner."
(Lest is need be made any clearer, Marshall is afraid of Mitch and is pretty convinced Mitch is just going to kill them all at some point in a fit of uncontrolled pyromantic rage.)