Participants:
| Scene Title | Exchanged |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Elliot and Richard review classified information. |
| Date | July 7, 2021 |
“Interesting,” Elliot says. Wright hums in agreement. He’s fairly certain either he or Castle, and likely both, would be shot for this breach of information security. Almost nobody is named, but Elliot recognizes a great deal of them.
“Ugh,” Wright complains again, “Shootenanny lady.” Elliot hums in agreement; Agent Sommerfield isn’t his favorite, but he’ll probably get over it.
“Can’t feel any edges,” he says as he remembers everything the agent has shared with him. He’s used to only remembering parts of things, editing memories in realtime in order to avoid sharing sensitive information with prospect hosts. The memories of conversations in Gates’s mind palace feel whole, and are remembered with a clarity that teases at the edges of something that Elliot can’t concentrate on right now.
“Should get Richard to look,” Wright suggests.
Elliot hums in agreement. “Need to train him anyway,” he says.
“Viscosity?” Wright asks.
Elliot shrugs. “Paperweight.”
New Chicago
There are places in the city where Richard could stay, certainly, but he doesn’t trust anyone in this city as far as he can throw them and so he’s been spending a lot of time around where the Convoy’s been parked.
Right now, he’s sitting in the back of the Wildcat, legs hanging down, eating a sandwich. What sort of meat is in it, and what he traded for it, are probably both questions best not asked – but he seems to be pretty content with the results, chewing slowly to savor it as he perches there with legs hanging down off the back of the vehicle. Sunglasses rest on his face, but behind them his eyes are constantly moving, drifting over the other vehicles, people.
On the lookout for danger.
The stress of the morning led Elliot to not have an appetite, but his stomach remembers food when he sees the sandwich. He'll need to find himself some lunch when he gets back into the city. He checks the door in his mind that leads to Squeaks, assuring himself it's closed tight.
He comes to a stop in front of Richard, greeting him with an up nod of recognition before getting down to the matter at hand. “So, after our conversation last night,” he says, skipping right past the fact that they met the local Elliot this morning, “I figured it would be worth checking in with Castle before reporting anything back. They can't rat me out until we're home anyway, figured it was worth a shot. Turns out they're worried about information being withheld or altered, and linked in to give me access to some cross-string OEI meetings that you might find interesting.”
“I could relay it all,” he says, looking around for potential listeners, “but I'm not great at doing all the voices, so direct sharing would probably be more useful. Assuming you're comfortable with that.”
“Why not? Been in enough mindscapes and dreams and other mental bullshit before, what’s one more?” A twitch of Richard’s lips tug up a bit at one corner of his lips, “Now that I don’t have my passenger anymore– brain should be safe to touch, assuming Charles didn’t leave any other weird telepathic triggers lurking around in there.”
He’s had a strange life, let’s be honest.
A bite of the sandwich, he chews, swallows, and then up-nods to the other man, “I might notice something you missed, too. Two pairs of eyes, et cetera.”
Elliot makes a complicated series of facial expressions. “Assuming Charles,” he reviews, “didn’t leave any other weird telepathic triggers.” He clears his throat.
“I can’t help but point out that weird telepathic triggers in the vicinity of the Palace could be really fucking bad.” Clearly he is suddenly calling into question the feasibility of this entire idea.
“And here I thought this was safe, Elliot,” Richard observes with a smirk, both eyebrows raising a little, “I doubt it’s anything to worry about, though. Charles’s old messages in me and my siblings’ brains have mostly been messages, not commands. The man was terrifyingly powerful for a telepath, left semi-autonomous little copies of himself here and there to explain certain things. He was in and out of me and Kaylee’s brains since we were babies, doing what he thought best.”
“But it’s not like I was ever alone with Rupert Carmichael or anything. My brain should be clear of land mines by now, aside from, you know, all the trauma.”
“Damn,” Elliot says, scratching at an eyebrow as he considers his next move. “I totally get why people are in general hesitant to link into the network. Telepaths are a fucking menace. Preserving the agency of others is incredibly important to me, and compulsions are…” he shudders. Among the worst things you can do to a person.
He takes a moment, stepping back a bit. His eyes flicker back and forth as he reassures himself that all the Relevant locks are in place, that his behaviors for preventing slip-ups are close at mind. He runs through the meditation that keeps clear divisions between the here and now and delving fully into the Palace.
“Okay,” he says after a moment. “Okay. I doubt anything I do could stop a powerful telepath regardless of the amount of work I’ve put into using Relevant fragments of thought processes as guards against intrusion, but. Okay.” He focuses mostly on the fact that he’s about to have to let Richard touch him, and that takes another moment to try to convince himself that nothing bad will happen. That Richard isn’t going to try to hurt him.
He extends his hands, palms down. “Place your hands on top of mine,” he explains, though Richard has seen the process before. “I’m trying to streamline this process to avoid any accidental unpleasant sharing of memories. I have to review the memories I’m going to ask for in order to find where they are in your mind, otherwise I can’t place the link. If something gets uncomfortable for you, at all, just pull your hands away and the nascent link breaks.”
“Then,” he continues, “when you’re ready, remember something pleasant, peaceful, and not too personal. Something with a lot of detail helps, especially sense memories.”
“He’s dead, as far as I know, although that only means so much these days,” Richard says a bit ruefully, as though that was a helpful statement. Just because they don’t have a current record of a telepath surviving beyond their death doesn’t mean that it can’t happen, after all.
One last bite of the sandwich, and then he sets it down beside him, looking at the other man’s hands - steadying himself as well, reassuring himself that this isn’t going to go terribly, that he isn’t going to be on a game show in a few moments - and he reaches out, slowly resting his hands over Elliot’s own.
“Alright, pleasant, peaceful, not too personal,” he murmurs, “Got it.”
He closes his eyes, drawing in a breath. The library rooftop. A cool breeze, bearing the crisp scent of autumn. The weight of a watering can in his hand, the trickling whisper of water into the soil of the potted trees that were scattered about. Simple, sensory, peaceful. Generally pleasant.
With Richard’s memory comes a slowly dawning feeling of someone else remembering with him. Not someone standing behind him in the room, just someone else sitting on the couch. Elliot feels it like a fuzz at first, but pays attention to every detail as they become clearer to him. He loops a tether around the memory, marking the place.
“Is this,” he says slowly, as though with great concentration, “the roof of Raytech? Not a… big brutalism guy, but… plants are nice. No, library, I see.”
“With one hand, pick up your sandwich and take a bite,” he says next.
“Yeah,” Richard murmurs, trying to keep focus on the memory, “The New York Library. We used it as a headquarters at the beginning, when the feds were after us.” He tries to remember the view; the crumbling ruins of the city all about him, the nuclear desolation of Manhattan.
Outside of the radioactive zone it had been quiet. Peaceful.
At the instruction, he lifts one hand from Elliot’s, reaching over to grope for his sandwich. Bread. There. He picks it up, brings it over to take a bite of it as instructed, chewing slowly as bread, cheese, meat and mayo come together in a mix of flavors.
Elliot seems stunned, though the reason why is unusual. “Somebody made,” he says in quiet astonishment, “mayonnaise? You’ve been… holding out on me.” He tastes the sandwich clearly, and Richard once again gains the clear but detached understanding that someone else can feel the food mushing around in his mouth. “This is weird, I get it.”
Elliot starts feeling other sensations. Clothing, the breeze from a second angle, and then: “Holy shit.” He sees the night through Richard’s eyes. He’s benefitted from Squeaks’s echolocation, used Donna’s vision to see Pete’s smug asshole-mouth from over a mile away, but this is astonishing in its own right. Contrast inverted is entirely new to him. “Can’t get lost in it,” he mutters.
He begins threading links through the sensory components of Richard’s mind, and the tether becomes stronger.
”Oh. Right, I probably should’ve warned you about that,” Richard replies, breathing out a bit of a chuckle, “Welcome to my chiaroscuro world, it’s certainly something. Missed it when my ability was gone for years, honestly, the colors most people see just don’t hit right with me anymore.”
“And hey, mayo’s not that hard to make if you know how. Admittedly, I stole it,” he admits, taking another bite of the sandwich. It’s almost done, he might as well finish it off.
Elliot chuckles after a bit of a delay. “Oh,” he says, “I know. In a minute you’ll be able to know as much about cooking as I do.” Everything seems right, and he sinches the tethers. A blossom of awareness appears in Richard’s head. There’s something like a door in his mind, along with the ability to perceive that it’s currently closed. Any sense of Elliot viewing his memories or sensations evaporates.
“Aaaand done,” Elliot says, returning his hands to the safety of his pockets. He gives Richard a moment to probe the door in his mind with the telepathic sense that comes with the link. “How are we feeling about this so far? If you ever don’t want to be linked, that’s enough to make it stop. It might break on its own until you’re familiar with it, so we should stay close if I need to make little corrections.”
”…huh.” It’s a verbal exhalation more than an actual word with meaning, as Richard probes at this new sense as one might a missing tooth with one’s tongue, his brow furrowing slightly, “Well, that’s an interesting– sensation. Not the strangest I’ve ever felt, mind you.”
He’s experienced a lot of strange things in his life.
“If you can make me an expert at cooking, though, I think Liz may kiss you.”
“They keep trying to get one another kissed,” Wright points out in jest. Elliot smirks at the joke that’s still closed off from Richard.
“I’ll keep that in mind, though I should be safe here,” he chuckles. “I’m going to open a memory link to show you what I’m talking about though.” Richard feels what was once closed to him open, though not entirely; Elliot doesn’t want to overwhelm him.
He directs some of his indexed skills toward Richard’s attention. “Imagine pulling this feeling toward you in your mind,” he explains, “and you’ll be able to rival some old Manhattan chefs. Tala, specifically, who had an eidetic memory and taught me how to cook back in the Ark. Most of those memories are missing, but the interest stayed and I kept learning on my own.”
“At least they let you have hobbies there,” Richard muttered in dark humor, shoulders tensing a bit; not because of the subject or what’s happening, but some deep-down wariness that something is inevitably going to go wrong with this that he can’t quite suppress completely.
Nothing’s going wrong yet, but it’s happened so many times.
His brow furrows tightly as he focuses on that feeling, reaching out to try and pull it towards him. No, not with your hand, Richard, put that back down. Your mind. There you go.
Wright helps overclock the ability to make it a bit easier, taking on the effort of Richard’s reach. Suddenly, he knows everything Elliot knows about cooking. The information seems divided between scarcity and plenty, different eras of his study. Along with it comes a stunningly complex understanding of flavors and how they interact, how they change when combined or heated. If Richard thinks about it, he can practically taste foods he’s never even heard of and knows what he’d have to do to make them.
“People usually don’t like being reminded of food here,” Elliot realizes, “but this one makes a great demonstration.”
”Whoa.” Richard does his best Keanu Reeves as that information rushes into his mind, and he brings a hand up, fingers pushing under his shades to rub against his eyes. “That’s… wow. I’ve borrowed senses and memories before but this is just– information. Does this– does this work with muscle memory too?”
“No, unfortunately,” Elliot admits. “Otherwise I’d be as good at breach and clear as Wright and she’d also be great at sneaking. Anything that’s basically data can be shared, either bit by bit like memories or all lumped together like these skills. Which take a little while to index together.”
“Sensory sharing is obviously a huge part of this,” he says. Wright stops overclocking and Richard suddenly forgets how to cook as soon as he stops maintaining the little effort it takes to do so. “Want to see what Wright’s up to?”
Wright lunges for a napkin to remove the coating of cheetos clumped to her fingertips, working the rest out of her mouth with her tongue. “Timing,” she complains, “Jesus.”
“Oh, man,” Richard’s head tilts back, gazing up at the sky without seeing anything, “Now I want cheetos. I forgot how horribly perfect fake cheese flavor was. Uh. Hi, Wright?” He pauses. “Can she hear me?”
“You’re streaming her and she’s streaming me,” Elliot explains.
Wright pulls up her phone’s camera to show Richard her face, and he feels the peace sign she makes into it in greeting. “Long time no see,” she says. “Actually I see you all the time, I’m so bored here.” She looks around the room, a conference room that’s slowly being converted into her personal suite. The table is pushed up against the window, shutters drawn. Chairs are scattered to the corners, pilfered exercise equipment lines one wall. Stacks of movies and books litter the area. A red light shows above the door to show that she’s in session.
“Basically if you want her to think you’re looking at her, look at me,” Elliot continues.
“Are we watching a movie?” Wright asks, but the emotions coming from her signal it as a joke through the deadpan.
Richard turns his attention - and his gaze to Elliot, feeling that brief wavering unsteadiness at seeing two things at once, even though one feels more like he’s remembering it in real-time. “Been awhile since my senses were split between two places,” he admits, quirking a faint smile, “If I hadn’t been through as much as I was I’d be having a way harder time with this, I think. Mmn. I’m gonna assume you’re super under surveillance so I won’t ask anything too sensitive. How are things there?”
“Oh, yeah,” Wright says, “I’m under surveillance as fuck, Kenneth.” The venom of her words is clearly feigned and directed outside the room. She actually gets along with Kenneth pretty well.
She spins her chair a bit violently to demonstrate that their equilibrioception isn’t very jarring between here and there. At least, it wasn’t for her and Elliot when he was on a boat and she was covered in Gates’s blood. “Everything is pretty stable here,” she says as she scuffs her feet against the carpet to stop. “You want me to call anyone before you two get into it?”
“I– no,” Richard shakes his head, thinking better of his first impulse “Best to maintain radio silence, if everything’s going well over there. I mean, tell my wife and kids hi, I’m alive.” A bit wry, humor to cover up pain, and he draws in a breath, “Good to have a connection home, at least.”
“Can do,” Wright says. Her sensory feed vanishes as Elliot closes that down to get the focus back on the reason they’re here.
“Okay,” Elliot says, eyes darting around as he recalls the memories he took from Castle. “This is going to be the same, pull where I direct you in order to remember this with me. It’s going to be kind of weird, as it’s Castle’s first-person perspective of a dreamscape Gates built for communication between Home and Bright while the Bad Triangle was active.”
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Geographic Region Redacted
October 30th
3:17 pm Eastern Time
The television screen flickers and flashes and the lights in the room go dark, leaving that single square of illumination the only thing that can be seen. Each time the screen changes colors, a different voice emerges from the television.
“We have almost everybody. But it’s enough of a quorum.” Comes the voice of Marcus Raith. “Let’s start with the home office. Each of you give a status update on your current assignments.”
The screen turns purple as a smooth man’s voice chimes in. “Wellfare checks went well, almost everyone is reporting in. We have a couple of outliers, but within expectations. Good work, everyone.”
“We’re still getting a broader understanding of what Praxis Heavy Industries was up to, but our information recovery is doing as well as can be expected in light of the burndown in Shanghai. We think we know who is responsible, but we’re not going to pursue it.”
“Which Reed is it?”
“Local.”
A few voices join in, murmuring. “He’s getting bolder. No sign of— ”
“Not a blip.”
“Ok, thank you. Moving on.”
“Fuck,” Richard mutters, rubbing at his face, “They know about Reed– and Malice. Inevitable I guess. At least they’re keeping clear of him– ask Liz to check in on Reed, please, when she can do so away from monitoring. I did too much to keep that kid safe, not letting these jackasses get a hold of him now.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Elliot says.
“Interestingly enough,” Agent Bright says, “a couple of the subjects were present at the site of Anomaly 200908-B. It’s probably to be expected, given the givens, you know, but it does complicate matters as far as finding patterns related to the other Anomaly. It’s a bit of a headache, to be honest.”
After a low chuckle, another voice replies, “They definitely are not the type to take their situation lying down. Inquisitive, if I had to describe them as a group. There are a couple of exceptions, but it doesn’t surprise me that they are out there looking into things.”
“Hardly regular Joes, though, are they?” Agent Reeves asks. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they solve it all by the end of the month, with the resources and talents they have working on it. But regarding Anomaly 200908-B, the area is still a bit… well. You tell them.”
“Still getting feedback, even though it looks like it’s back to normal. Something’s out of joint.”
“I’m not convinced that our wellness check assignments were relative to our primary objectives. The temporal anomaly seems more likely to be a side effect than this— abnormality.” Agent Sommerfield pipes in.
Almost immediately on Sommerfield’s heels, Agent Castle says, ”It’s still worth looking into. There could still be something about it tied into what we’re investigating. Even you guys haven’t figured out where that plane came from yet.” After a moment, they add with a slight change of tone, “Can’t you do something about this place? So dreary, man. We could get some mood music or something?”
“It’s brutalist.” Gates responds dryly. “It’s intended to not distract.”
“Moving on,” Raith insists. “I agree that the individuals involved in the Event are likely not at fault. But right now we’re looking at a dearth of real options here to explain what happened. These are by-and-large the same people who toppled a government, so if they set their minds to it maybe they’ll point us in a direction we hadn’t considered yet.”
“Are you suggesting we work with them on this?” Gates asks.
“No. Not yet, anyway. I’m not ruling out the possibility, but that raises liability questions that could put a spotlight on our operation we don’t want.”
“Agreed.”
“Alright, remote office,” Raith directs. “Let’s do a status update.”
“Presently,” a woman with a strong, firm voice chimes in over the communication, “we’re following up on the growing spatial anomaly in the Natazhat region. We had an incident four days ago where agents weren’t wearing their protective gear properly and a ruptured seal caused an intrusion, we lost everyone.”
“Christ.”
“The anomaly is currently tracking a 4 on the Clarke scale. Our researchers have started to complain about a hum. We rotated out the research team and no new reports yet, so we believe it’s exposure related. We’re performing further analysis and moved base camp back a mile.”
“Christ. Is that fucking– Sarisa,” Richard shakes his head, “Shouldn’t be surprised, in any timeline she’s got her arm up to her shoulder in the ass of government intel. I should’ve left a monitoring station up near Natazhat, I’m not surprised that what he did ca–”
The next voice has him dropping dead silent for a moment.
A different woman’s voice slides in afterward, smoother and gentler. Her words are more carefully chosen but carry with them a hint of smirking optimism. “Individual studies conducted by our partners have shown a growing number of manifestations since the spatial rift that opened over Detroit. We’ve estimated an increase of twelve percent worldwide with a further 1% increase in poly-evolved ability expression.”
“Hokuto,” Richard identifies, his voice carefully flat.
“The dreamwalker you were telling me about,” Elliot says. If he remembers correctly, she’s dead, so this is likely the Hokuto of the Remote Office. Either that or Gates pulled a dislocated cognitive fossil of a dead woman into the mindscape.
“To further clarify,” a younger woman adds, “while we can’t be sure that 100% of these manifestations were generated by the Detroit incident, we believe that a large enough number are that it’s—”
“Statistically unlikely.” Edward Ray says with a faint quaver to his voice. “By all measures this was a calculated maneuver. Whether it’s the full extent of the Entity’s ability or a trial run… we can’t be sure.”
“People are scared, but with the unilateral authority the President has given us, the psychometrics and cognitive phenomenon department is working around the clock to gather more intelligence.”
“We’re tracking at least ten thousand different conscious minds right now that we believe have actionable data on the Entity,” Hokuto says. “With any luck we’ll be able to provide clearer data by year’s end.”
“Stability?”
“That’s… trickier.” A man says with hesitance in his voice. “Sentiment is up 20 points since last year, but that’s largely been thanks to an aggressive media campaign targeting at-risk communities where Humanis First had its largest recruitment drives during the last administration.”
“Since the Detroit incident we’ve been tracking nine different groups whose philosophy is espoused to be ‘human centric’ in a way that is consistent with Humanis First’s rhetoric. Incidents outside of the US are significantly higher, but foreign sentiment to the US’ significant presence of powered individuals in the armed forces are raising comparisons to nuclear proliferation. Pakistan is…”
“The CIA is continuing to keep us abreast of foreign threats including Mazdak,” Sarisa says.
“Right.” He replies with a clearing of his throat. “Since the Detroit incident we’ve seen a significant increase in Mazdak activity overseas. But domestically, we believe that they may have coordinated a significant number of resources inside the US. The Rochester tip was just the start, we fear. Without the Monroe connection we’re running a slower race.”
“I think my direct reports will be able to speak more eloquently to the Mazdak situation.” He adds, offering up a segue.
“…Matt? Fuck, I haven’t heard Parkman’s voice since…” Since he died are the words Richard tries to say, but he can’t, so he just closes his eyes and focuses on the memory replaying in his thoughts.
Elliot lets the sadness pass over him, it isn’t his.
"Thanks, Deputy-Director. On our end, for our citizens who aren't paying attention to Mazdak's movements overseas, domestically they seem like a rational answer to the bigotry of Humanis First and its spin-off groups," chimes in a smooth male voice. "So we're dealing with a lot of the same problems you are, in that respect."
If the last voice brought a flicker of grief and frustration, this one is surprise. “Aman? Christ, did they blackmail him? Our iteration couldn’t make a decision between one button to press,” Richard observes, bemused at the realization.
"Sort of." Emily cuts in, speaking quietly but decisively. "In dealing with this problem, we're also working with stable infrastructure, not to mention more progressive policies when it comes to the use of abilities in relation to our citizens. I wouldn't be so quick to compare. Hate and fear might be universal, but the circumstances that drive them aren't the same."
Less smooth than before, Aman recovers. "Erm… right." A beat passes to collect himself before resuming. "At any rate, the good news is with a lot of the recruitment and grooming happening on online forums, some of this stuff isn't blindsiding us. It starts innocuous enough, beginning with how those like Humanis First should be stood up against… eventually leading into things like 'the institutions that allow HF to still exist also need to be torn down, too,' with— frankly zero respect for the effort involved driving them into the ground."
Emily's voice eases in again, slightly softer than before. Perhaps self-conscious for how sharply she'd spoken previously. "What my teammate means to say is we're making progress on identifying markers for potential Mazdak interactions and are working on setting monitoring programs into place when those triggers are met. There was a kidnapping of a public official in Michigan recently that we were able to avert entirely thanks to those efforts and cross-departmental cooperation on our end. In the meantime, it still means we're reactionary."
"With hope, we'll be able to start tracing activity back to the source soon. Until then, we're still operating without an idea of just how many radicalizers there are operating stateside."
”We still have a lot to contend with where offshoots of Humanis First are concerned, unfortunately, as well as Mazdak,” Agent Sommerfield says as if with some experience with that sort of thing. “There was an attack at a pro-Expressive rally on the twenty-third, dozens were killed and many more injured. Thankfully, we were able to mitigate some of the damage."
“Luckily we had agents on site or it would have been worse.” Agent Reeves’ voice softens as it adds in an aside, “Well done, you.
“Careful, you’ll inflate his ego,” Agent Castle says to the praise before going silent again, allowing the others to continue their conversation.
"That's… terrible to hear," the Aman from the remote office acknowledges back. "But at least some of it was able to be mitigated. That can't be understated. Any tragedy made even slightly less should be treated like the win it is." After a beat, like a moment of silence, he asks, "Were you able to get an ID on the perpetrators of the attack? So we can do cross-checks on our side, if they weren't already on our radar."
“IWe did get the identity of one from a civilian at the site,” Agent Sommerfield confirms. “Zachary Becker, known member of Pure Earth, a Humanis First offshoot, and one of the most wanted criminals still at large. We’re hoping that the law enforcement are able to get some leads from the explosives used. It’s obviously not among our primary objectives, but they have attacked us before.”
"Becker… I'll make a note. Thank you."
“Becker? Becker, Becker… I know that name,” Richard’s brow furrows, “Why do I know that name?”
Elliot offers up a short memory of a photograph of Becker at a Wolfhound meeting following the catastrophic fuck-up that was Eve’s rave. In the memory his arm is in pain from having been broken in an explosion the man is likely responsible for.
“I think that’s Claire’s ex,” Richard muses. Small world.
After a pause, a man’s voice, baritone and strikingly similar to Agent Bright’s, speaks. “Currently looking for human anomalies who might be potential causes or effects of those incidents, which you can imagine is, you know, a giant headache. Not that I’m complaining.”
“You’re absolutely complaining,” retorts the same voice.
“And you weren’t?”
“Gentlemen, please. We do recognize and appreciate both of your sacrifices for the cause. Back to you, remote office,” Agent Reeves says.
“Right. Apologies. You should go.”
“Oh. Right,” Nova begins, and the shuffle of some papers can be heard. “The anomaly in Detroit and the subsequent wave that caused the influx of new manifestations happened in all timelines I’m privy to,” she says.
A page turns, and she continues, referring to notes, it seems, more out of nervousness than necessity. “As far as the Antarctica anomaly, I can’t access if that occurred in the other timelines or not; it may be localized. I’m working on trying to find out, but resources aren’t what they are here in the other timelines. I’ll give a status update the second I find out more.”
“Speaking of the Antarctica anomaly,” A new voice pipes in, female, young, polite and kind sounding. “My team finished the analysis of the Antediluvian lily— as we’ve been calling it— that grew within the Antarctica forest of both our worlds at least. From what we can tell, it’s an evolved version of the common lily— ”
“Assholes stole my research site,” Richard mutters.
“So wait, by evolved did you mean like, chimp to human evolved or are you dealing with powered flowers over there? Cause I don’t think we were able to keep any of ours alive long enough to test that thoroughly,” Agent Castle suddenly interrupts, from one side of the exchange to the other. Cause well, terminology.
“Sorry, you’re right, I should have said it’s a mutation— now I see why you started using Expressive over there.” There’s a definite apology in her voice before she continues with the explanation.
“The oxygen levels of our Earth, and presumably yours as well, are too rich for it to survive normally. However, we were able to transplant samples to the enriched gardens in Midtown and they are able to thrive there, thanks to the evolved— sorry, excuse me, Expressive circumstances of its cleansing.”
“Thank you, remote office,” Raith states. “I think this brings us to the more pressing topic at hand. Agent Gates, bring us up to speed on your research.”
After a pause, Agent Gates says in a clear and concerned voice, “We’ve made… a little progress.”
“According to estimates from NOAA, solar activity is on the decline right now, but the sunspot located at S14W54 has continued to grow. We’ve sent over statistical data for the remote office to compare,” Gates adds.
“It’s an identical match,” Edward says. “The sunspot is in precisely the same region, but I can’t estimate the likelihood of it being the same across all timelines. We’re looking for a way to corroborate, but right now we can only assume there’s no Goldilocks Zone.”
Nova speaks up. “I’ll try to corroborate with one of my contacts. Just a moment.”
“One day I’ll get used to that. Today is not that day,” adds the Agent Bright with a headache.
A smooth voice from earlier chimes in, “I’ve nearly completed my review of Praxis Heavy Industries’ archival data that wasn’t destroyed in the cyberattack. Based on that information and my conversations with apprehended personnel, we don’t think Praxis was aware of the EM field situation.”
“What’s our go-forward plan?” The Hokuto from the remote-office wonders. “Do we have… a timetable?”
“No,” Gates says. “But NOAA says that we could be looking at a total collapse of cohesive magnetosphere protection in the next fifteen years. Maybe less if this isn’t a natural phenomenon and there’s another spike.”
“There’s a chance that each of the anomalies we’re tracking have a deleterious impact on the Earth’s magnetic field,” Edward says. “This might be the Entity’s end goal, but there’s no way to be sure.”
“What are we getting at here, exactly?” Matt asks. “The last time we talked about this it was trying to avoid a second — what was it — Carrington Event?”
“The situation has escalated with the sunspot’s growth,” Gates says with a tension in his voice. “Worst case scenario, the planet’s electromagnetic field gets any lower and that sunspot flares…”
“What’re we talking about here?” Matt asks.
“It’s a HELE,” Raith confirms. “Human Extinction-Level Event.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“And to think, everyone was worried about Global Warming.” quips Agent Castle, earning an immediate smack from one of the others, followed by an ow.
"At the end of the day, it's an Evolved that might be driving this," Emily cuts in, sounding particularly driven. It was the end of the world being discussed, after all. "Are there mitigation measures we can put into place to slow the deterioration of the EM field? Anything we could do to help restore it through use of abilities?"
After a brief moment of hesitation, she ventures, "Could slowing that down not be worth drawing its attention potentially if we pissed it off by doing so?"
“We’re considering potential ability-related mitigating factors, but we’re talking about a whole planet. The scope is… unprecedented is an understatement. We’re hoping to find a technological solution, but if something presents itself — maybe.” Then, after a sigh Raith adds, “We’re also considering continuity of species options. If it comes to that.”
“It is an entire planet. We might be able to mitigate with some Expressives capable of manipulating the ionosphere or similar, but even then, it would require multiple Expressives working together most likely, probably with assistance of some kind and— I’m not sure how well that could be organized.” Agent Sommerfield says, quietly, pondering, trying to think of ways to handle this situation.
"Jesus." The screen remains a shade of green for a while longer as Aman tries to come up with something else, something remotely positive, and makes it as far as taking in a breath before the idea escapes him, ending in a sigh. "So," he says instead. "Should we expect aggressive retasking in the near future??"
Agent Castle speaks up again, much more serious this time, “How many timelines are being affected by this?”
Suddenly, Nova pipes up again, her words a little slower now, like she’s just waking up. “My contact in Post-Flood isn’t able to corroborate at the moment, unfortunately, but she should be back at her base of operations in a couple of days. The others, I’ll check in on later today and ask them to find a way to investigate it. They may have to travel a bit to get somewhere they can access the right tools — if they’re not busy with their own projects..”
After a pause, she adds, “Obviously I’ll tell them this takes precedence over… well, pretty much everything else.” Human Extinction Events go to the top of the to-do list, no matter what other projects one has.
“The sooner, the better.” the slow, low-timbred voice of one man adds. “How does the plan differ if it’s every timeline, versus just ours — yours and ours? Do we consider moving to one of the less populated timelines if it’s safe there? And is there a threat of it following?”
“Do you know what a headache that would be for me?”
“Do you know what a headache that would be for me?”
The twin baritone voices of Agent Bright speak in stereo and unison. Agent Reeves laughs, then adds in her crisp tones, “Better than dying, boys.”
”I was more concerned that the other worlds don’t have groups like this to defend them,” It would very much seem that Agent Castle’s joking tones of a moment ago have taken on a more serious stance.
“If we figure out a solution, once we know, maybe we can help them,” Nova replies to the prankster’s worry.
"Yeah," Aman echoes in a distracted undertone. "We've got a hard enough time looking out for two universes, the potentially countless others only get to cut in line if they're… well, key to saving the rest."
"All things considered, these exchanges are remarkable on their own. Assuming we could feasibly take shelter, as a population, in some less-inhabited— less impacted world…" Emily abruptly cuts herself off once she catches her own shift in tone, the way her emotions lead her. She takes more care in her phrasing as she continues, "Even managing to transplant a small 'arkfull' of people— for a lack of a better term— may carry with it risks we can only begin to guess at."
"Don't suppose there happens to be a deep space version of an ark anyone has just lying around that we could use. Surely that'd run less risk."
"I'm sure the other office would love to still have that option available to them," comes Emily’s patient, yet flat turnaround to the smart remark. "Not that it'd help us very much."
"Mm… right." Aman concedes uncomfortably. "The uh… Dawn, right?"
“For some of us, those people in other dimensions aren’t just theoretical, and I will do what I can to help those I have contact with, to find the people who can help them in their realities. There are human lives at stake in those timelines too, whether they’re ‘key’ or not.” Less tentative than before, Nova’s voice is sharp this time. “We’re talking extinction-level events, not rides at Disneyland. Please.”
Well-aware that at this point he's batting a thousand, Aman is swift to address the point. "Of course," he apologizes, professional tone resumed. "I didn't mean to make light of any of this."
“It’s fine.” Nova doesn’t sound fine. “Sorry. Carry on.”
”Arks are a terrible plan anyway, even as a backup. They don’t work.” Agent Castle says, before continuing. “We need to save everyone that we can. Stop the extinction-level events all together, if possible.”
“Rescue isn’t an option,” Raith states. “Look at what it took during the Crossing for a few dozen people and we still don’t know how much damage those events caused. We can’t take those risks.”
“We don't have any answers right now, but you needed to be made aware. For now we have to focus on what we can impact and what intelligence we can gather, and tackling our other priorities. We’ll reconvene in a month’s time to discuss further developments.”
The television in the concrete room turns off.
“Bullshit, Castle. Worked fine here, until Warren fucked up. But, wait, how was he… doing that,” asks Richard as the memory ends, glancing over to Elliott with a furrowed brow, “Streaming conversation between timelines on a television? What the hell sort of ability is that?”
Elliot explains by sharing a memory.
“I’ve developed, over time, a sort of command center. A little personal space where I can review the contained thoughts and ideas on an impersonal medium.” Gates smiles at his own cleverness. “A television.” He looks over to Wright for a moment, then back to the tail lights ahead. “I also have a means of outbound communication. I told Elliot a while back that I picked up dream manipulation, which allows me to link unconscious minds together until people wake. I can use this like, red emergency phone in my office to talk to people who are asleep if they know to dial in to it.”
Gates looks over at Wright, troubled, weighing further truths. He can’t keep lying to her. Avoiding the truth of it all. “Other people come and go all the time,” he says, pulling off a band-aid. “I act as a communications hub for the entirety of the OEI through my dream-manipulation power. I pull sleeping minds into my mind-palace and we have remote conferences. Back when the Looking Glass in Virginia was functional, we’d open it a microscopic amount and it would allow me to draw in sleeping minds from across the divide, to communicate with our other branches.”
He takes a moment to cut across two lanes of traffic and take the offramp that will get them on the route to the airport and out of this traffic jam. “To that end,” Gates says after a long silence falls between them, “I’m going to open up a link to my hotline, if you need it. If there’s an emergency. It’s a psychic permissions thing, right now I only use it to contact Raith but… I guess since we have something of a shared wall,” again with the apartment complex references, “if you give a knock on your side, I can call. For emergencies.”
“Only if we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty,” Wright says, “Understood.”
The memory is thoroughly saturated with physical discomfort and mental distress, but Richard already knows about some of the horrors so he moves past it. There’s also a choppy quality to the memory, like it’s missing content between statements. “I’ve used it and it works,” he adds.
“Huh. Good to know, if we need to reach him,” Richard’s brow eases a bit, although he maintains a slight and thoughtful frown, “There’s a lot of potential here, isn’t there? For networking abilities, and the like– we’ve been experimenting with some of that, but your ability could work a lot better than the hardware-based solutions we’ve had to come up with.”
“But, wait. They were doing what with the Looking Glass?” His eyes widen a little, “Christ.”
“Abilities can't be merged through network use,” Elliot says, “unfortunately. At least not in the physical world. In the Aquifer you have a lot more wiggle room because of the way Relevance works. Even then I'm pretty sure it's not your familiarity with the ability than the ability itself. But abilities can't be shared or combined otherwise. Unless you're Gates, then you can do whatever the fuck you want. He'd be terrifying in a mindscape if he understood Relevance, but in his words he ‘runs on vibes.’”
“Pity, we’ll have to keep down the same lines of research,” Richard shakes his head, “But– Jesus. They were just opening micro-wormholes for communication? These fucking people can’t be trusted with Looking Glass technology, mom was right.”
“Yeah, that's probably true,” Elliot says.
“So,” he begins, blowing warmth into his hands, “A major takeaway from this is that the memory doesn’t feel edited. If there is any failure to follow through on Mazdak information, it doesn’t appear to be redacted from people’s memories or anything that sinister. It could be entirely bureaucratic.”
“Which,” he admits with a shrug of his hands, “is obviously still suboptimal.”
“Bureaucracy is the best weapon in the world against an institution,” Richard admits, rubbing a hand on the side of his neck, “Trust me, the government uses it against me often enough. And it’s very, very hard to fight. It’s easy to make a roadblock somewhere and just make getting around it insurmountable - and invisible at the same time.”
“Admittedly, it’s possible Edward was trying to manipulate me in some way, God knows it wouldn’t be the first time. But I still think something’s rotten in the land of Denmark.”
“Might add up to nothing,” Elliot says, “might be worth asking Edward for more detail. If he's manipulating you though… It's not great trying to dig oneself out of an information pit. There are so many variables here.”
“The thing you have to understand about Edward is… he’ll do anything for his family,” says Richard with a slow shake of his head, “Even if it means damning the world for it. So you always need to… look at everything he does through that lens. Even the one we have with us. Although I think the only ‘family’ ours has left is Des.”
Elliot nods, thinking about how he had a family for a few years, even if it was actually only ever Wright's. He came on this suicide mission either way, because Ames needs to live. Ames does live. “That definitely has the potential to become problematic,” he says regretfully. And is incredibly selfish, he doesn't add. At least his attempt to save Wright’s family involves saving the world rather than damning it.
“Maybe I could get a read on him by linking to Nova before another conversation,” he ponders. “I have a knack for it. Never got through to home Nova when I tried to overclock the local, but. Maybe I can still stream across timelines that way.”
“I can’t complain too much about it. It kept my family alive all these years, even at the worst of it,” admits Richard with a slight shrug of one shoulder, “All it cost me was my agency. Small price to pay, I’d say.”
“Anyway. Interesting information, at the very least. Makes me hate bureaucracy even more, since if they’d talked to us earlier– well.”
Elliot doesn't voice his disagreement over the acceptance of loss of agency even though preserving the agency of others is incredibly important to him. Richard's burdens aren't his, and family is by all accounts a messy business.
“I suppose we'll have to wait for more intel either way,” he says, eyes losing focus for a moment as he checks in on Wright. “Jesus Christ, you got hot pot delivered?” His stomach growls audibly.
“I did,” Wright says as she finishes washing cheese dust from beneath her fingernails.
“If you want to practice using the network more,” Elliot adds as his eyes return to Richard, “there's hot flavor water and movies on the menu.”
Richard’s probably not as accepting of that fact as he said, but his burdens are his - not to put on Elliot. Then there’s a chuckle about the hot pot, and he quips, “Tell her you’ve got a craving for mayo, apparently, from your reaction to the sandwich.”
“Movies, eh? You got any Bogart on the menu? I’m a sucker for a good detective story.”