Viv and Marshall Escalate
Michael
It seems to me that Viv will be adjusting to her part-time residency at the Mission sometime during the final two weeks of September. Marshall and Terence didn't really rub shoulders at all during the events of late June, of course, so Marshall would be going off of Viv's and Jo's descriptions of the work and research this young ethnobotanist has been doing. So Viv will be open to brokering an introduction to Marshall, but with one word of warning before the three get together at the Mission.
Genevieve says, "Marshall, you can take or leave this advice, whatever you please. I realize you'll be able to deduce all this within moments of meeting him, but please... just indulge me. Terence is a very sensitive soul. The experiences he's had solo, with his brother, with others: they've given him a... cosmic perspective far beyond what one might expect from his 26 years. He's not just another grubby grad student drug dealer from Berkeley looking to make some money. For him, drug-dealing, if you want to call it that, is a mystical calling."
"More importantly, the linkages of fate between him and some of the members of URIEL... they're solid, bound far more strongly and tightly to us than the other folks who were in the hotel playing the game that night, and I've gotten to re-observe most of those folks again, at WorldCon in Toronto. That's one of the big reasons I'm brokering this introduction. If he can help you and help URIEL, as an outside advisor, what have you... then I want you and URIEL to give him some protection. Because it feels like fate has plans for him-and-us regardless of what you or I might do individually."
Brant
Marshall laughs. "And what are you afraid I'll do to this very sensitive boy, Genevieve?"
Michael
Viv smiles despite herself and her obvious protectiveness of Terence. "I don't know what... your type gets up to with very sensitive boys behind closed doors, Marshall." A meaningful pause, and the slightest smirk before she becomes serious again.
"Ah well, who am I telling the big bad CIA man how to manage his assets, right? You're the expert. I'm just saying watch out, because with Terence you might just end up with some competition in the guru business before too long."
Brant
Marshall cocks an eyebrow. “Is that a … threat, Genevieve?”
Michael
"Not at all, just an observation. Unlike many of the charlatans out there right now, Terence is—or might end up becoming—the real deal. And I'm introducing him to you because I think he, and his meditations and explorations on the healing powers of his mushrooms and vines—can help you personally. You know, I haven't forgotten about the other side of our agreement for my being on staff here at the Mission, Marshall, from when you invited me and Charles and the kids up here this summer. You and I need to begin our therapeutic relationship soon. You have an appointment with me that we've put off for too long, and now that I'm back from the tour, we should probably fold that into our working relationship."
Brant
“Ah, but that ‘deal’ hinged on two things. That you would help with Charley and that you could be trusted, as a member of the club. But you haven’t helped with Charley — indeed, the girl flinched from you at the Mountain — and you’re not in the club. Anymore. That’s what Mitch says. Regardless, if this Terence kid is as gifted and rife with potential as you say, all the better that I take him under my wing. Before someone else gets their hooks into him.”
Michael
Genevieve looks at Marshall with a steely gaze. "Firstly, I regret that I had so many entanglements at MRI and with the book that I couldn't be here at a crucial time. That's on me, and I accept that that gap may have harmed my relationship with Charley. In all sincerity, I will work to heal that relationship with Charley and if it's not possible... well, then, yes, maybe we will need to alter our existing agreements. But part of the... new me that I am trying to forge right now is learning to accept that I have duties and responsibilities. That's not something I've adhered to much in my life until recently, but for some... higher reason, I feel like demonstrating that ability to be grounded and present and duty-ful is vital to my life path from here on out. But some duties are more important than others, and running away to my tour was stupid. I realize that now. It did it because... well, I was still hurting and confused from what happened to me. But URIEL is more important, the work is more important, and Charley is more important."
"On that note: 'the Club.' I'm pretty sure I know and understand what Mitch is sensing. It happened to me, after all. And I know it happened on a plane that neither you nor I can fully sense or understand... but that Mitch can. And if he chooses to interpret that to the end that I am now your enemy or not to be fully trusted... again, I can't do anything about that assumption. All I can do is offer myself up. I don't want to engage in therapy with you for any ulterior reason or motive. I want to do it to help you become the person I know you can become."
"Because you're a hero, you know that? You have the trappings, the origins, the baggage... the manner of a villain, but inside you, beating in your heart and in your higher self that I can't see except as it sends ripples into our world... you really care. You care about this world not falling into the hands of the Enemy. You care about this world that you love. You care deeply about standing witness, which I can very much relate to. And you really do care about URIEL. You love them all, in your way. You trust URIEL because you trust Mitch because he's in the Club... and this all becomes some kind of circular paradox. But ultimately you trust him, and the rest of your friends, because of love. At this level of existence or a higher one. And what I'd like is for you to accept that love and trust back, in whatever form, in whomever it might come from." "At the same time, I am not going to sit here and beg to be of help to you. If you and URIEL don't need me, do your brainwashing and send me back to my life. We'll be quits."
"But there's one thing my fate sight has told me since it awakened in me in that dream the night after the St. Francis. You can't win the game without my help. My ego may be fractured and healing all crooked right now, but that much I still know, and believe. Some power put me in your way at that convention because it wanted me here with you, to the end. Trusted and accepted." Viv looks like she wants to say more here, but remains quiet for a few moments and then concludes talking of young Terence.
"And the mushrooms and the Monad and the powers of fate already have their hooks in Terence, Marshall. There's not much you can do to stop that. If you were to take him under your wing, he'd probably change you more profoundly than you could ever do to him." Viv laughs.
Brant
“You talk a lot for someone whose job is ostensibly to listen, you know that? If some ‘power’ put you in our way because it wanted you here — and all evidence suggests that power was the Red Kings, who engineered your very birth, you and Krane's — all the more reason for me not to ‘trust’ and ‘love’ you. Why should I do what some unknown power wants? Because it will make them happy? Because it’s part of their fun? That is no reason for me to do anything. And now you come to me with threats and implications and profound statements about some grad student’s grand fate, destined to possibly eclipse me, suggesting that I am somehow a problem? That I need therapy —f with you, of all people. It seems,” Marshall gathers up his robes, “a bit suspicious. I can’t sense what Mitch senses; I can’t even sense what you sense, if you can sense anything at all and aren't just bullshitting us. For us normal people, Genevieve, love and trust must be earned. And you haven’t earned anything. With me. Or us. Don’t you sense it, at URIEL? How no one trusts you? You want love and trust, Genevieve? Earn it.” He turns to leave. “Tell Terence our meeting is cancelled. If his dharma does not lie with me, fine. Perhaps you will be able to save him when the bulls come knocking.”
Michael
Genevieve nods and gets up to leave, but before she does, one last word. "We all triggered the first Ontoclysm, you know. You, and me, and the rest of the 'Club,' in our past lives. Charley sees it clearly. We're bound together by fate. Sounds like something out of a stupid fantasy novel," she laughs. "But it's true. It's the only thing I'm sure of."
"I'll be there if you need to call on me." Genevieve leaves.
Michael
After Genevieve leaves, Marshall spends some time meditating. Then a call comes on the office phone. "Dr. Redgrave? It's Sunshine. Dave told me that the visitors in the gardens... they're saying the gardener has had a fall. He needs medical attention. It sounds urgent."
Brant
Quick timeline question: is this occurring while Mitch is at Mount Shasta?
Michael
Given the wondrous vagaries of synchronicity and the Illuminated, yes, this is happening at the exact same time as Mitch being at Mount Shasta.
Brant
Marshall thanks Sunshine and will walk hurriedly out to the gardens to look for Zeb / the scene.
Michael
There's a small, concerned crowd of Mission attendees standing at a respectful distance while Dave is giving first aid. It's clear from what both Dave is doing—CPR—that Zeb has suffered some sort of cardiac event.
(Dave is a trained medic!)
Brant
Marshall will get beside Dave and start working up a diagnosis; he'll ask someone to tell him what happened, what they saw, etc. Take a pulse, check his pupils, gauge whether maybe he could resuscitate him with an adrenaline shot, etc.
Jeff
There's a sudden smell in the air, something herbal. It's hard to pin down more specifically than 'probably not pot.' Cardamom? Basil? Sage, maybe. Maybe dill.
Brant
Marshall pays that no mind. They're way out in the middle of the country; weird nature-y smells waft by all the time.
Michael
Physician-16, please.
Brant
>> SUCCESS by 3
Michael
After taking his vitals, it looks like Zeb has had a mild, maybe a moderate, heart attack.
As Marshall attempts to puzzle out what set of fast-acting drugs he can use to stabilize Zeb, the heartbeat through the stethoscope grows more stable, stronger, more regular. The fibrillation ceases, and Zeb's respiration and heartrate come down to normal resting elderly male levels. Without Marshall having done anything. Marshall can tell immediately that this is medically very very improbable. Zeb opens his eyes slowly and looks up at Marshall and Dave. "What... what's going on?" Zeb clearly wants to try to stand up under his own power, like, immediately. Dave looks with concern at Marshall.
Brant
Marshall will help Zeb up and then gently pat him on the back. "You collapsed. Seems to have been a, um, minor cardiovascular event. Dave here is going to take you to a doctor I know in town. We should probably consider some alpha blockers for you." Marshall smiles reassuringly. He'll give Dave the name of a PCP he knows and have him drive Zeb there. Then he'll manage the crowd, get everyone back to what they were doing, etc.
(I'm just taking it as written that Marshall knows a PCP in Sonoma somewhere, not to the level of a Contact or Ally, just someone he's familiar with.)
Michael
I don't think that Marshall would see anything necessarily supernatural in what just happened. I can tell you that in being helped to the car, to Marshall's eyes Zeb looks beatific; his manner and expression are not that of a man who's just been told he had a mild cardiac event. He seems to be muttering complacently to Dave as Dave escorts the Oldtimer by the arm to one of the Mission's less flashy vehicles. In a couple of hours, when Dave returns from town, he flags Marshall down. "In the car, the old man. He was telling me a little of what he saw when he was out. It sounds..." and Dave here clears his throat. "It sounds like he had some kind of... experience." Marshall considers Dave's own liminal near-death trauma from Vietnam that they chatted about back in August. "He said, 'I saw it as I woke up. The time of wandering is over. The Tribe of Dan has finally come home.'" Dave nods to himself, satisfied he got the wording 100% correct, and that he's allowing himself to be open to the Weird after that chat. "It seemed like something I should pass along to you."
Brant
Marshall nods and smiles in the way of the guru: like he understands (even though he has no idea what that means). He thanks Dave, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it. “You saved his life, David Anthony Rocco. Kritajna, om varadaya namah.” Then he puts his hands together and gives Dave a little half-bow before walking away.