Trail Car
Michael
Before we sort of slip into the "present" of the game, and I realize Jeff you're going to more or less be on vacation for the next few weeks, I did want to fill in what Mitch would have seen and heard as far as conversation between Willie Wolfe and the driver (who, yes, I really do need to flesh out, but stats-wise we'll consider him a standard Commando from the MD book with some shadings of leaning toward "social" skills using Renshaw, etc.) if Mitch had used the Audio technique/extra Fatigue points to get Clairaudience as well as Clairvoyance. As with the other vans, the two people in the back seat are sleeping; Mitch's Aura Sight and analysis through Clairvoyance can clearly see that both Angela and Camilla have been dosed with a downer, and on second look at Wolfe, so has he, but he's conscious, if a bit loopy.
This enables our driver to press Wolfe using Psychology, Interrogation, Rapier Wit, and his Eidetic Memory to gather intel about the current state of play in the SLA without Wolfe being any the wiser. (The theme here that both Cinque and Wolfe are anxious to unburden themselves to strangers should seem odd, but if the entire SLA got dosed with Seconal before this drive at the hands of Tania/Fancy/Patricia, this near-confessional mode would make sense.)
"Everyone took out their frustrations on Tania when we first captured her. The girls spit on her, the guys... needless to say she was scared. Cinque molded her into a true revolutionary. Tania feels it all the more deeply, the revolution, because she realizes what a dupe for her class she's been her whole life, man. All it took was a few weeks in the closet." Wolfe gulps here, as our driver presses gently on what that means for the other teams in the other vans, especially the one Jo's driving. Mitch can see in Wolfe's aura a sickly shade of envy combined with shame, as if talking chauvinistically about Patricia as a torture victim and piece of meat is making him realize his own complicity in her torture and also in a flash Mitch can tell that Wolfe has real, protective feelings for Patricia, despite his being vocally 100% behind Cinque's plan to brainwash and reprogram her.
"Well, Tania's Cinque's favorite now; he doesn't even look at Fahizah anymore."
[More sickly-green envy in the aura.]
"He's paired Tania off with Teko and Yolanda, and Teko is now second-in-command of the SLA, so it seems to me like after Tania 'made her bones' at the bank robbery, the Field Marshal is convinced of her sincerity to the cause. Cinque fathered her, but now it's her turn to fly out of the nest and bring revolution to the world. There are big things in store for her." At this final set of sentences, Mitch sees in Wolfe's aura a sense of pride in Patricia but also a tiny tingle of aura activation of what seems like a minor psychic power, as if talking about Tania's plans had activated in Wolfe something memetic or otherwise that lives on in Wolfe's mind, out of range of Patricia. This might be the first real confirmation (among anyone but Jo) that Patricia has developed, with the help perhaps of the Sterling poem (or maybe even Cinque's torture/programming?), some kind of active psychic powers that are letting her rapidly gain the trust of the SLA.
Van 2's Sandman driver, a white Project commando with undercover experience named Christopher Hogan, picks up on this emphasis Wolfe is placing on Patricia's importance and tries to press a little bit as Mitch remote views/listens in from the tail van. "Do you know how much of a psychological impact—a daughter of the ruling class robbing a bank—is going to have on the American public?" Wolfe garrulously offers. "This is my role in the Army, man; bringing people together. Colston called me a 'connector' and man, this revolution was hatched right there at the hospital in Vacaville. Comrade Tania is our best possible agitprop to scare the bourgeoisie and rally the youth."
Hogan, who's maybe a decade older than Wolfe, stays cool, noncommittal, trying to convey his connections with militant unions, Old Left stalwarts, and countless underground leftist militias with some political jive. "What about the masses, though. The workers. How do you plan to move them?"
Wolfe: "The multi-racial working class is going to rally to us once we get to Los Angeles, Cinque says. There are plans... plans to get off the back foot and work with the heirs to the Panthers, the real radical brothers out on the streets, now that the Party is trying to get elected in Oakland and Compton. Get the gangs to lay down their arms and come together. We'll get the Chicano gangs in East LA. Workers down on the docks in San Pedro. Sucker some liberal Hollywood folks into bankrolling us. And then make a big strike on the power structure, hit the pigs where it hurts."
Hogan nods and mutters, "Right on," as Mitch peers at Wolfe's aura with his clairvoyance, seeing clearly that Wolfe is talking a big game but is ultimately telling Hogan what he thinks Hogan wants to hear. None of these big plans to bring together the Black and Mexican gangs of LA under the SLA's banner is real; it's Wolfe justifying the move to LA to himself. Fact is, the streak of sickly yellow fear in Wolfe's aura shows he's scared by the suddenness of the move, the uncertainty of who's most important to the SLA right now, Cinque or Tania, and the lack of a definite plan.
(Jeff, unless you have any further input or remote viewing-related intel gathering to do on the actual ride to LA, I can zip forward to Van 2 arriving in Compton and if you want Mitch to do another remote view into the safehouse—Patricia and Bill and Emily will have arrived first—at 8:30 am before reporting into HQ, Mitch will be more or less well-rested by that point and able to utilize your full pool of Fatigue Points again.)
Jeff
Hmm, I could come up with a justification for Mitch to plumb the depths right here/now but it'd be a stretch, may as well skip ahead
Michael
All righty, when you get a chance, give me a new set of Clairvoyance-13, Audio-12, Detect (History B) (activate 14/perceive 15/interpret 14), and Aura Sight (interpret 14) rolls for peeping into the safehouse and I'll narrate what Mitch sees while parked with his driver at a Jack-in-the-Box parking lot over in Lynwood, about 2 miles from the Compton safehouse.
Jeff
Clairvoyance.
>> SUCCESS by 6
Audio.
>> SUCCESS by 1
Detect History-B.
>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS by 8
>> PERCEIVE … SUCCESS by 4
>> INTERPRET … SUCCESS by 6
Aura Sight.
>> SUCCESS by 3
I think that's noncritical successes all around
Michael
Man, the Jack-in-the-Box ain't even open and Mitch has been up for most of the night and he's still nailing these rolls
I'll get you a complete rundown on the six out of nine SLA members in the safehouse (Patricia, Bill, Emily, Willie, Angela, Camilla) this evening.
Jeff
Why only six of nine? I thought everyone was regrouped at the safe house?
Michael
Well, Roger's van with Cinque, Patricia S., and Nancy is delayed due to that trouble in Bakersfield and will be arriving at around 9 am. When Mitch settles into his surveillance, he would likely expect to see Cinque et al. already there, but they are not.
Jeff
There's a Patricia and a Patricia S.?
Michael
Yes, Patricia "Tania" Hearst and Patricia "Mizmoon" Soltysik.
First things first: Mitch notes from auras that all five of the SLA members who are not Patricia are working off the last of a chemical depressant; they're still logy, slow to react, and, in the case of the women who weigh a lot less than Willie Wolfe and Bill Harris, are still acting a little bit loopy. None of them, in the time Mitch eavesdrops on them, seem to mention, notice, or talk about this fact.
The auras of the five non-Hearst SLA members all seem normal otherwise, though, at least at first glance. Emotionally, all five are still inclined to keep a close eye on Patricia; a slight wavery streak of olive-green suspicion persists, especially in the three women comrades currently in the safehouse. On the surface, verbal interactions on this Saturday morning between the six SLA members as they wait for Cinque, Nancy, and Patricia S. to arrive are perfunctory and stilted, with the disposition of the packages from the vans to be handled, there is a lot of work to do. Mitch can see the SLA inspect rifles, pistols, ammunition, and what looks like a healthy number of hand grenades before they are packed away under a crawlspace in the living room.
(Probably also a good time to mention that Mitch's Clairvoyance gives him the ability to see where the SANDMAN mics and video cameras are: one of each in each of the two bedrooms, living room, and kitchen. The bathroom is un-mic'd and cam'd. There's also a cam and mic pointed at the large backyard/alley.)
Patricia's aura is unique. First off, before getting any deeper into her presence and powers: Mitch can tell she is not a fellow Illuminated. But there is much to analyze in her aura. There seems to be an active suite of psychic powers being used by her right now; if Mitch had to bet purely from the colors and quality of her aura, he'd guess she is pushing her will, putting out emotional and perceptual suggestions to her little hive of worker bees. These projective empathic abilities seem to come as second nature to Patricia; Mitch doesn't sense, say, her Fatigue being actively drained as she does this, as it tires Mitch sometimes to push his powers. She's also not using neurolinguistics to do this; it's a pure projection of will, ESP turned outward to subtly tug and pull at her comrades' emotions and perceptions. It's not a high-powered suite of abilities, but it is low-level and constant.
Having gotten some minor intel from Jo's infiltration op and befriending of Patricia, Mitch did expect some level of bi- or trifurcation in Patricia's aura, like what Mitch is able to sense when a loa is riding Roger or the flickering emotional state when Archie is talking to his puppets. But he sees very little in the way of active fracturing of Patricia's psyche in her aura per se.
But there is an infection here. A very clear pair of memetic infections. The very fact that Mitch can perceive them through a combination of his aura sight and Detect (History B) abilities is noteworthy enough. Fact is, a memetic infection has to be actually supplanting the active will of its carrier to be visible in an aura like this, and Mitch can see that here. Both of them. At some point in SANDMAN training, Mitch heard tell of the arradin, pidgin Sumerian for "slave corpse," who is a human being so hollowed out by a meme that their personality begins to disappear. If the progress of the meme is not arrested, the victim becomes nothing more than an ultra-contagious carrier of the meme, spreading it to as many people as possible. And Patricia Hearst is currently carrying two distinct ultra-infectious memetic passengers. The only way Mitch can tell the two of them apart as distinct is thanks to his Detect ability. One of them—the less prominent one in Patricia's aura—is pure History B/Anunnaki memetics.
Jeff
I want to spend time and, I guess, my Oracle ability, to analyze the ripples of this Anunnaki corruption. Not so much what it is, though that's relevant too, as where is it from? How did it get into her? Are either of these "ultra-contagious" infections spreading to her comrades in the SLA, and if not, why not? Or if so, is Mitch blind to that infection because it's too integrated into their personalities? Enough that they seem "normal" despite this History-B taint that should logically be there?
This feels like one of those times -- there have been several, in the last calendar year, for ol' Mitch -- when he's missing a vital piece of the puzzle and isn't smart enough to figure it out except in retrospect.
Michael
Which oracular technique would you like to use?
Jeff
I need something I can use while remote viewing. If there's a TV on in the safe house serendipitously turned to a dead channel, Mitch could watch the snow. Alternatively my initial impulse was that there must be some noise in the auras, like clouds in your coffee.
Michael
Oooh, I like it. I'm gonna sleep on it but I have some ideas. Basically just looking for stochastic input to interpret in a closed house, both of those ideas are really good.
Lava lamp gazing into the SLA's auras is WAY too good not to use. Will give it some thought.
Jeff
Lava lamp gazing, exactly
I need something I can use while remote viewing. If there's a TV on in the safe house serendipitously turned to a dead channel, Mitch could watch the snow. Alternatively my initial impulse was that there must be some noise in the auras, like clouds in your coffee.
Michael
[Oracle rolls made secretly.]
Turning his attention away from a close scrutinizing of Patricia Hearst's aura, Mitch allows his remote aura-seeing eye to graze among the five other human auras on offer as well. There's no set analysis he's seeking, or a deep dive into the mental and physical health of the SLA; it's purely looking for patterns in the shifting thickness and viscosity of their flaring aura energies, like seeking shapes in spilled tea on a saucer. Given that the drugged members of the SLA finally seem to be waking up to some extent, these auras really do resemble a lava lamp: specifically that first 10 or 15 minutes when it's still heating up.
When two members of the group speak to each other, Mitch sees there is the typical surface-level aura intertwining that happens with people who have been around each other for a long time; Mitch has seen this before in family members interacting with each other, Sandman teammates, classmates at his school, etc. Patricia Hearst, however, does seem to stand alone. Oh, there is some level of residual connection between her and Willie Wolfe, but for the most part, the bubbling colors of the five other SLA members present here don't seem to mix with hers. Mitch wouldn't go so far as to interpret this solely in an oracular fashion—on some level this phenomenon is merely reflecting the social reality of Patricia being their former prisoner, now someone who is secretly psychically manipulating them—but Mitch's oracular instincts are telling him that in some real way, Patricia's fate will diverge radically from the rest of her revolutionary cell, and sooner (in the next few days to a week) rather than later.
The other main oracular prediction Mitch gets hold of looking among these six SLA members' auras is one, ironically, of an uncertain destiny. Mitch can see two paths the other members of the SLA could end up on. The bubbles and colors in their auras seem to indicate people whose basic idealism is still intact, even amongst all the psychic and psychological turbulence they've experienced in the past few months. But that idealism been channeled in such a way as to force them into two possible fates—death or prison—that Mitch doesn't have to stretch his perceptual feelers too much to sense accurately. Mitch wonders if the doom he sees on Kahjoh, Gelina, Gabi, Teko, and Yolanda is escapable in some way. If they get themselves free of the central conflict that dogs them here in the SLA, they could make something of themselves and their lives. But it's a narrow path, with fire on one side and a life behind bars on the other.
Just as Mitch's internal monologue is speaking the words "central conflict," Roger's van appears in Mitch's remote eye and pulls into the alleyway behind the house. Roger helps with a couple of bags and daps up Cinque, giving him the Black Power salute, then pulls out of the alley and drives off leaving Cinque, Nancy Ling Perry, and Patricia Soltysik to join their comrades in the safehouse.
As Cinque's aura comes closer to the safehouse back door, Mitch can see the other SLA members auras react by turning sluggish and dimming, even before Cinque opens the door. Cinque's energy is also intertwined with the SLA members', but not in the sense of "we're all in this together, death or victory." Mitch can't help but think of the family members' aura metaphor he was considering, and the meme-concept of "just wait till your father gets home."
Cinque's aura is a mess. Unlike Patty, Mitch can see a distinct psychological fracturing in Cinque's mind. Cinque is also dogged by foreign memetics; again dissimilar to Patty, it's only a single meme and it's not History B-tainted, but it is doing a similar thing as Patty's two memetic passengers: it is a distinct conceptual entity, eating Cinque's will from the inside.
Also tremendously obvious thanks to Aura Sight is the chip and radio antenna in Cinque's brain. Given how much time Mitch spent gazing at Charley's chip, he's got some knowledge through past experience (and his basic anatomical knowledge) to know it's in a different spot in Cinque's brain from Charley's chip. Whereas Charley's chip was placed in the midbrain at the thalamus, in order to tap into her sensory apparatus, this chip and antenna is connected to Cinque's limbic system through the amygdala; two fine wires connect it to the medial lobes, giving it a direct connection to Cinque's fight/flight/freeze/fawn and instinctual behavioral impulses, as well as to autonomic functions (heartbeat, respiration, etc.)
Jeff
Hmm
This is interesting but seems extremely tangential to the specific topic Mitch was trying to suss out (the source, and to a lesser extent the nature, of the Anunnaki taint), which, should I interpret that as the question being fundamentally along incorrect lines? Or was the secret oracle roll failed?
I need a little bit of clarification
Michael
Sure, I should have been a little more obvious with respect to your concerns about Miss Hearst's specific History B taint spreading to the other SLA members: firstly, it has not, but given the heavy "death or prison" vibes on the SLA's collective fate, it wouldn't surprise Mitch if, on the "death" side of the oracular equation, the SLA rank and file were in some small way destined to be fuel for whatever form of irruption the Anunnaki meme in Patricia's head might intend to trigger.
As for where the History B taint in Patricia is from, it seems to have been born, at least in part, from her relationship with the other members of the SLA, in the crucible of her difficult, traumatic initiation into the SLA. (The other part, Mitch figures, is the Red memetic taint in "A Wine of Wizardry" that he was chatting about with Archie, Viv, and Sophie on Thursday.)
Patricia's fate will diverge radically from the rest of her revolutionary cell, and sooner (in the next few days to a week) rather than later.
Mitch realizes this could be a vision of a timeline in which we take Patty in giving her safe harbor and put the SLA in jail, or one in which Patty triggers some kind of Enemy apotheosis thanks to the SLA being killed.
(Sorry for being way too subtle with my oracular hints, it's been a while and I need to remember Mitch's Oracle often ends up being an iterative conversation in the intepretation section)
Maybe a good way to put this would be that (perhaps!) Patty Hearst would not have ended up a locus of History B potentiality by reading the tainted memetics of "A Wine of Wizardry" alone. Nor would she have ended up a locus of History B potentiality having been locked in a closet and browbeaten by Cinque et al. alone. But put into a situation where both of those triggers worked together, into an active revolutionary cell where her dreams of a new world could find some scrabbling towards material realization? That is a confluence of factors that could come together to give Patty enough resonance and juice to make a big History B happening happen.
Jeff
Okay gotcha
Michael
Cinque's arrival at the SLA safehouse warrants effusive "mission accomplished" type sentiments from all the comrades; Cinque briefly explains how Van 1 got into a "tight spot" in Bakersfield but that brother that Jocasta hooked us up with showed real cool under pressure. Cinque's aura is still erratic; he's putting on a show of sangfroid for his comrades but underneath it all Mitch can tell he's quite shaken. Mitch can also sense the chip in Cinque's head is now processing something; bioelectric current is activating the chip. There's no signal being received, processed, or broadcast through the radio antenna; whatever processing might be happening on the chip is entirely internal at this moment.
Patty Hearst goes over to Cinque and embraces him, kissing him on the lips in front of the entire SLA.
"Didn't I tell you she was good?" Cinque responds, "Right on. We're gonna wait till dark and then I'm gonna head over to talk to the brothers on Piru Street. That's where we start recruiting for the revolution. The Army stays inside during the day!" Cinque switches suddenly to a commanding tone; the chip in Cinque's head is still going. "We operate under cover of darkness, that means you get your sleep in now, comrades. Food needs putting away," Cinque says to the women on the couch (everyone but Nancy and Patty), "so get on that before you get your sack time. Kahjoh, Teko," Cinque says to the other men, "we gotta talk strategy. I'm going to explain the revolutionary potential of the South LA Negro working class to y'all, so pay attention." Cinque takes Willie and Bill into one of the bedrooms, leaving the SLA's six women in the living room and kitchen to take care of the house. Patty silently seethes on the couch, along with Nancy; both their auras have becoming icy blue cold.
Mitch's driver, a Sandman named Arn Matthews, who has been quiet every time Mitch has needed to concentrate on his remote viewing, takes a call on the radio from HQ in Tarzana. Hogan and Roger have both just called in to Archie to report they've delivered their respective packages, and word went out from Tarzana on the radio to all remaining field units (which at this point is basically Mitch). "Should I sit tight here, sir, or head back to HQ?" Mitch can barely hear through the clairvoyant concentration required to watch the safehouse.
Jeff
I want to take a minute to study Cinque and his chip and how his chip is affecting his aura -- is it making alterations to Cinque's emotional state that Mitch can perceive as the chip's doing, or is it just ticking while Cinque does/feels/thinks and the link (if any) between Cinque's state and the chip is opaque?
>> SUCCESS by 4
Michael
Mitch spends a little while longer watching Cinque and his aura. As Cinque slips into the bedroom with Willie and Bill and begins talking strategy for bringing South Central LA's warring gangs under the SLA banner, Cinque's demeanor and aura continue to become more integrated and less fractured, the emotions on display more controlled, confident, clinical. Boring down into Cinque's limbic system with his aura sight, Mitch can see that the chip is indeed modulating Cinque's impulse control and stress responses, both neurological and endocrine. Stress hormones are fading away and the forebrain actively taking back over from Cinque's amygdala.
The theory that Mitch is now working off of is that chip's onboard logic seems to have been programmed to pull Cinque back from emotional and stress dysregulation when necessary. And once Cinque has been calm and ordered for a few minutes, talking up plans to broker a truce between the gangs in Compton and Watts, the chip ceases its electrical activity.
What Mitch isn't certain of at this point is what role the antenna plays. What its presence would seem to suggest is that the chip's programming could be supplemented, overridden, or otherwise changed remotely.