Participants:
| Scene Title | The Lense-Thirring Effect |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Wright enlists help to break into an OEI laptop. |
| Date | July 15, 2021 |
It would take a computer sixty-three thousand years to crack a 12-character password with alphanumerics and special characters.
HnJ@3233VIM!
Even for someone as gifted as Michelle Cardinal, that time is not decreased.
@Fix!3084are
“Let me try.”
N@tUnusu4L
Some people are just luckier than others.
Department of the Exterior
Agent Gates’ Office
Washington, KC
July 15th
7:16pm
“I’m in.” Rianna Cardinal says with a crooked smile, stepping out of Agent Gates’ chair to leave the seat open for her other two partners-in-crime in the room.
The sun hasn’t quite set outside, summer dusk extending across the KC skyline, casting long shadows in the small and undecorated office. Michelle Cardinal looks momentarily confused as she examines the old wedding band on her hand, rolling it around her finger. She blinks a look up to Wright Tracy, standing behind the now empty desk chair in front of Gates’ laptop, then her daughter.
“How did you—”
“Lucky.” Ria says with a click of her tongue, interrupting her mother. “I heard him listening to some old songs in here one day. Figured it might be the one he had on repeat.” She just figured it. “Your uh,” Ria gallantly gestures from Wright to the chair, “chariot awaits.”
The wallpaper on Gates’ laptop is a plain powder blue background with the Department of the Exterior logo in the middle. There’s no open files on the desktop, just network folders titled SESA and OEI.
“He hasn’t been here for a couple days,” Chel admits of Gates, “and most everyone’s gone home. So, I don’t think we need to rush.” It’s odd that he left his laptop here, but Michelle either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
Wright is, if they're honest with themself, uncomfortable being near Rianna. It's not just that the woman is apparently parasitically infested by a dislocated psychic entity of some kind that Eve inexplicably refers to as her aunt, though that is fairly discomforting. Mostly it's just that she's a reminder that they actually plummeted into a spacetime anomaly and died a while ago, only to not have done that after all. It's a lot to absorb, and the woman is likely responsible for the admittedly better outcome. They don't show it in their body language at all, but only because they're one of the best liars they know thanks to Elliot having been so good at it when he was a person.
They clear their throat, pulling the chair further back and stepping down into it in a way that still keeps them clear of the two women in the room. They don't feel like gauging the womens’ safety, but would still rather not be touched. “He was listening to this song the day I met him,” they laugh, ignoring the fact that it wasn't a great day and that Gates didn't lose teeth because they took Bennett’s wallet out of Tom's mouth. “I should have guessed it.” They wonder how many passwords may have been tried before not having been successful and summarily untried.
“You think he has Full Tilt pinball on this thing?” they wonder, tapping Elliot's knowledge of computer espionage and looking for activity snooping software before trying anything else.
“He seems like a Ski Free sorta’ guy.” Chel opines with a crooked smile.
Wright suspects a few processes are network monitoring programs running in the background, but terminating them only lasts so long before they reinitialize. This may be an opportunity, but it won’t be a risk-free one. Given Wright’s familiarity with general security processes, provided they don’t fail to authenticate themselves with passwords or download gigabytes of files it shouldn’t raise any alarms. Too many systems to monitor to spot casually unusual activity.
“What’re you looking for?” Ria asks, leaning back against the wall. “I figure something you don’t want The Man knowing about since you didn’t ask him yourself.”
Wright chuckles. “Probably more of a Runescape guy, honestly.”
“I’m just going to mess up his social media algorithms so he sees nothing but videos of people doing the Carinosa,” they lie, but in an obviously fun way. “And then learn everything that is currently secretly known about temporal mechanics.”
They ignore folders on the desktop for now, taking a quick peek at the file directory for any standouts. “You know,” they continue, “just in case, hypothetically speaking, people got stuck in an alternate timeline or something and having a general knowledge of how to manipulate the fabric of spacetime would come in handy. Elliot says, ‘Hi,’ by the way.” He doesn't, but this is the kind of lie they tell all the time. It makes it seem like there's another person who would like to feel included and, more importantly, implies that there is another person at all.
“Good to hear everyone on the other side is still in one piece,” Chel says with an off-handed detachment. The kind Wright recognizes. The if I think about it I will never recover from the anxiety of thinking about it kind of detachment. Big brain, big brain problems.
“Yeah we’re kind of experts on all that nonsense,” Ria says with a crooked smile, half-sitting on the corner of Gates’ desk, crossing her arms in mirror of her mother’s posture. “Last time it took me nearly splitting every atom in my body and a doomsday machine built in another timeline and bootstrapped into a worse one by—” She cuts herself off, noticing a downward look in Chel’s eyes.
“Mortimer.” Chel says his name with the weight of the dead. It’s clearly a touchy subject.
“What’re you looking for, specifically?” Ria changes the topic, redirecting it to Wright. “Methods? People? I know SESA dismantled the original Looking Glass at the Sunspot observatory. I gotta imagine the parts got swept up by these spooks.” She gestures around herself.
“As for people, I’ve only known one person with the ability to travel time without technology, and that was Walter Trafford. He burned out his ability accidentally crossing into my timeline.” Chel realizes how insane that is, as the only Walter Trafford alive today is a child. “He’d been one of the people who came from the future to… stop a version of my son. Or—that’s the way Elisabeth told the story. I only knew Walter for a short time.”
“And you’re,” Ria interjects, motioning to Wright, “the only person I know who can talk across the gap without technology.”
Most of the interesting things being said get quietly squirreled away by Wright. They already know about Walter, he could be important in the future. Again, apparently.
“That's just because of how awesome I am,” Wright responds seriously. They cant their head for a moment, wondering. Weirder things have been true. “I wonder if it's because we were both born during massive geomagnetic storms? Mine was cooler, people could apparently see the aurora in Texas, but—and don't tell Elliot I said this because he'll feel superior and he really shouldn't—his was an X20 whereas mine was a mere X15. I don't seriously expect that to be true but I feel like we deserve something cool out of it.”
“Anyway,” they soldier on to the part that's actually interesting, “Elliot wants to know how and why the way that time travel works has been changed. Seems important to have a better understanding of the new ruleset before trying to unfuck future events.” They finally tab into the desktop folder marked OEI.
The OEI folder opens into a small directory, it doesn’t seem like some kind of massive archive of their work. In fact, it seems personally organized by Gates. All it contains is more subfolders:
EA-181-C
SA-137-A
TD-037-H
TD-043-A
TD-044-C
UA-116-A
UE-001-A
“Changed?” Chel straightens, brow raised. The question is a challenge: present your evidence. Ria glances between the two and crosses her legs at her ankles, beginning to chew on a piece of gum that Wright isn’t sure she had a moment ago.
“That's his theory,” Wright says distractedly as they puzzle over the inscrutable labeling convention.
“From what we've been able to learn in the last few months of exposure to all this bullshit,” they continue, briefly considering throwing Other Richard under the bus but holding off for now, “somebody may have fucked time right through the pants. Now, instead of temporal divergence once the threshold of event elasticity is passed, we have events being altered in a way that appears acausal when viewed the old fashioned way. We seem to have moved to recursive instead of divergent.” The explanation presents no evidence, they realize, but they're already drawn to what's in folder UE-001-A.
“Recursive?” Chel’s repetition is a barely-audible whisper. “The laws of physics don’t just—” But she has to stop herself. “They don’t just change overnight.” Is instead said almost like a question to herself. She takes a step away, brow furrowed, and Ria silently tracks the change in Chel’s temperament with a wary look.
On the computer, UE-001-A opens to a mostly redacted file.
| UE-001-A | |
|---|---|
 |
Unknown Entity | File# 001 | Status: Active [redacted] Assigned Agent: [redacted] Supervising Agent: [redacted] Case Status: Active |
The file name suddenly makes sense. UE: “Unknown Entity.” There’s only a few things that could refer to. None of them good.
“So U stands for ‘unknown’ at least,” Wright mutters, “wonder about the A on the other one. Actor? Activity?” They don't figure that the Deputy Director will give them access, and leave the folder for now.
“Yeah, so,” they say to probably make things worse, “I'm in a unique position where, if somebody were to make changes to past events that refactor the present and future, I would be able to Borrow Elliot's memories of the original events, because he and the others remember the original iteration. Actually he remembers both, they only remember the original, I only remember the new. This has already happened once, and I'd say I'd be really mad about the removal of agency except that I no longer have died with most of the rest of you when the sonic fence failed and the anomaly expanded and consumed the rig.” Knowing about Glory and her direct assertion that this is the way of things now stays in their pocket.
They click into UA-116-A to test their theory on the letter U. “Grateful, really, to no longer have fallen into a hole in spacetime or whatever the fuck the Nothing is.” They don't look at Ria, but they sure are testing her. She's the reason they only said most of the rest.
Ria’s silence is deafening on this moment. She is leaned up against the nearby wall, arms crossed, watching Wright work at the computer. Chel, however, is much more talkative.
“I spoke to Elisabeth not long before you came here…” Chel lowers her voice, tones conspiratorial. “Raytech has a listening post in Kansas, one that—in the past—just happened to pick up anomalous radio transmissions from my home timeline during the Overlays.” But this isn’t the revelation. “It picked up a new one this month, from… as far as we can tell, an unknown timeline.”
At the same time that Chel is saying this, Wright’s discovery of UA-116-A disproves her theory.
| UA-116-A | |
|---|---|
|
Unclassified Anomaly | File# 116 | Status: Active Merchandise, advertising, and material placements for "SLUSHO!" brand icy drinks appearing throughout continental United States. Brand is not registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Offices, physical point of sale locations do not always appear to exist. Assigned Agent: HALL Supervising Agent: GATES Case Status: Active |
SLUSH-O?
As Wright skims the case file, Chel continues speaking. “It was a broadcast from 1997, live, according to the person Raytech keeps on to monitor the radio station. The message was from a Juliet Luis, but not the one I know of. She was broadcasting from a SETI installation in a place called Raffil Township in Utah, but no such city exists in this timeline or mine.”
Now Ria’s attention is piqued. Meanwhile, Wright’s eyes are assailed by madness in text.
On May 15th 2019 Agent Gates entered the OEI Central Office with a slushy ice drink. Blue in coloration, sea salt flavored. The container was red and white striped with several cartoon figures depicted on its surface and the branding "SLUSHO!" across the side, with slogan, "You Can't Drink Just Six." Gates left the cup on his desk and it disappeared an hour later. Assuming it had been thrown away, Gates disregarded the incident. However, on review of security footage it was determined that the cup ceased to exist when not being directly observed.
“According to the Raytech employee who intercepted the call, the broadcast began with Kansas’ Dust in the Wind on a loop for days before it was noticed.”
The storefront that Gates purchased the drink at, purportedly located in Phoenix Heights, a bodega on the corner of Dumont and Ashford, was not present when field agents were dispatched to the location. According to Safe Zone records, the bodega at that address had not been reopened since the conclusion of the civil war.
Pulling out her phone, Chel receipts from a transcript. “Then Juliet’s voice came on, mid-thought.” Ria tilts her chin up, listening intently. “The gravitational impact is an electrical field that drags spacetime called Frame Dragging.” She lowers her voice again. “But if time can be revisited then it's never really passed, has it? If love is a collision between time and space… can love exist beyond the moment? Can the space not exist? Forever?”
A further review of historic SLUSHO! records shows no concrete internet presence outside of the United States, in spite of the corporation's apparent Japanese origin. Further confounding research are multiple eye-witnesses both within and outside of the OEI claiming to have sees SLUSHO! advertising or point-of-sale machines at some point within the last ten years. However, no written record of these experiences could be found.
“This is Doctor Juliette Luis, SETI Institute, UCLA Berkley. Sending a message into the stars.” Chel says, and Ria slowly approaches with one brow raised.
“That it?” Ria asks, and Chel shakes her head.
“The Raytech employee attempted a call-back per protocol Richard put in place.” Chel says with the gravity that interdimensional games of telephone deserve. Meanwhile, the OEI case file continues to spiral into extradimensional nonsense.
Agent Hall recalled seeing a SLUSHO! advertisement on television, and through coordination with Agent Gates and a contractor technopath we were able to transcribe Hall's recollection of the televised advertisement circa 2009 onto a physical media. The quality is poor due to the aforementioned means of replication, but it is a chronologically legitimate recollection.
“Nester Conroy, the Raytech employee, identified himself and his location. Juliette returned and inquired about the specific date and year.” Chel explains, starting to pace. “On confirmation of the year, Juliette exclaimed that it worked and claimed she was broadcasting from the year 1997.”
Over the past two years the OEI has cited 2 additional SLUSHO! appearances within the Safe Zone, outlined below:
March 20, 2020: A crumpled SLUSHO! cup was spotted by Agent Bright beside a dumpster in Jackson Heights. It was brought in for observation and remains detained under observation. Analysis of the cup has not revealed any anomalous properties. A material sample cut from the cup persisted through chemical analysis but once research team ceased observing the sample it ceased to be present.
“It was July 7th in both timelines.” Chel adds, as if that was of specific curiosity to her. “Juliette then inquired as to how we stopped the asteroid. After a back-and-forth, Nester was able to confirm that the asteroid 4581-Asclepius was bound to collide with Earth on January 12th, 2019 with 100% likelihood… except…” Chel spreads her hands. “In my timeline and this one, Asclepius was a near-miss in 1989 and isn’t due back in this next of the universe until the 2050’s.”
April 3, 2021: An out-of-order SLUSHO! dispenser was found at Bodega de la Vega in Phoenix Heights. Neither the clerk working that night nor the store owner has any recollection of precisely when they came to own the machine, but both recalled that it "has probably always been there." The dispenser and its contents were seized and brought to the central office. Chemical analysis of the dispenser and contents again show no anomalous readings, though both flavors (Sea Salt Crash and Berry Bad Day) were universally described as "strange" tasting. The machine is currently still operational under supervised circumstances in the 21st floor Verne lab.
Ria wrinkles her nose. “How the fuck is that possible? How is there a fucking timeline divergence between the 60s and whenever the hell the Vanguard tried to doomsday virus the world? I’ve seen your flowchart, everything lines up between those points.”
There is currently no agreed-upon explanation for these events or why SLUSHO! specifically manifests in such a manner.
“I don’t know.” Chel admits with a shake of her head. “But Juliette Luis was never a student at UC Berkley in my timeline or this one, and the place she was broadcasting out of—Raffil Township—doesn’t exist.”
Wright doesn't have to worry about missing the important bits of Chel’s telling of the weirdness; they have two brains to think with. Ceding cognition from one of their brains to the other—what they call ‘overclocking’ to make it sound less plerosymbiotic than it actually is—isn't as efficient as it could be but it's better than what anybody else they know can manage. But something else is percolating in the background. They can't help but dig into the implications of a non-existent shaved ice sugar drink. It feels like dream logic in the way that Relevance does, yet it's happening outside of the Aquifer.
Gates had set the drink down on his desk, that's relevant to this. It might not be the same office or the same desk, but this is Gates’s Desk. “So,” they begin, running through a quick list of interesting things that Chel just said while performing a quick Internet search about an asteroid, “We have a non-existent town in the past broadcasting about an anachronistic, snake-on-a-stick-themed asteroid which missed us…”
The drink is non-existent as well as the town, and a whole non-existent town has a lot of mass Relevantly speaking, and they keep that part of the idea close. “A couple weeks after the solar storm I was born during,” they mutter. “Huh, maybe I am magic. My birth-storm is looking even more awesome.” They chuckle in a jokingly cruel way, as though this is something they actually bicker over. As though they have different opinions. It helps deflect from the fact that their daughter is alive in the 2050’s, in the last bastion of humanity.
Perception of the drink is clearly involved, and they're looking right at a picture of one. Elliot guesses what they're looking for in that brain’s sense memory and tastes a slushy for them, with a bit too much salt. “I'd love to compare your timeline flowchart to Elliot's,” they say. “If he gets someone to actually work with him on it he might stop being annoying. But he does have a knack for this shit.”
Then, having just tasted the Strange Tasting slushy via Elliot and feeling distracted enough by their own ramble to not overthink it, they let their body grasp for the Non-Existent drink from out of line of sight on Gates’s Desk for another sip. Nobody in the report died from drinking one so, worst-case scenario, it looks a little weird when it doesn't work.
And it feels right. Like it should work. All of the ideas in the Wright-Elliot synchronous sense experience say it should. In theory. But when Wright reaches for a cup that isn’t there, it’s a hypothesis disproved. It does, momentarily, look strange. But given the topics at hand and how natural the gesture was, neither Chel nor Ria seem to think anything odd of it.
Reaching into her pocket, Chel withdraws a purple dry erase marker and idly twirls it between her fingers. There’s no whiteboard in here, so the reflexive gesture will have to wait to satisfy what’s on her mind.
“The solar storm, though?” Ria upnods to her mother, then looks over to Wright. “That’s important. The high-energy particles excite the magnetosphere, and depending on the intensity of the storm it could create enough vibrational disturbances to allow electromagnetic cross-over from parallel strings.”
There’s a proud smile on Chel’s face at Ria’s grasp of the topic. “You took the words out of my mouth,” rings with parental delight. “Now, let’s see if the pieces line up.” Chel switches marker for phone and taps a few quick queries into a search. Her eyes track side to side, quickly parsing some data.
“It was an X15.” Chel says with a firm nod. “Your birth-storm,” she adds with a glance to Wright. “The solar storm in 2011 that coincided with the first Overlays was only an X6.5.” She continues, pacing back and forth beside the desk. “Now, we have two points of data on the Asclepius celestial body. A near-miss in 1989 preceded by a solar storm, and this… alleged impact that was supposed to happen but…” She furrows her brows at her phone. “Nothing. No solar flare activity. And so far I’ve been told solar activity is unified across the timeline superstrings.”
Ria purses her lips and eyes Gates’ computer, then looks back to Chel. “So, does it mean the solar storms aren’t important?”
“I’m not sure.” Chel murmurs, pacing once more. “I think—” She pauses, glancing at Ria, then Wright. “No. No jumping to conclusions. I think we need more information. Is there anything else useful on Gates’ computer?”
Wright is only momentarily disappointed to not get a free Slusho; the odds were infinitesimal. They could try the next time they’re in the Palace, but it isn’t the same and regardless they really don’t like being there more than they have to. It’s a terrible place.
They focus on the matter at hand, noting that Elliot is adding most of what’s being said to The House in Tulsa. “Maybe a temporal gravitational anomaly went into that Julliette’s timeline in the distant past and threw off the orbit of the asteroid,” they wonder, clicking back out of the current folder. “If the Entity has been in our world for thousands of years, there’s plenty of timeline to fuck up. Hell, depending on when the snake-rock was discovered by astronomers, a Nothing anomaly in space after the nineteen-sixties could have thrown off the timeline of ours.”
“I’m going to be real mad if I’m an electromagnetic cross-over from parallel strings baby,” they note. “I’m an orphan, so technically anything is possible.” TD might stand for Temporal Distortion, and that seems useful if they’re guessing correctly. They try out TD-037-H.
Chel remains quiet as Wright opens the next file. Both and and Ria lean in, squinting at what is revealed.
| TD-037-H | |
|---|---|
|
Temporal Displacement | File# 037 | Status: Historic Archival footage provided by OEI Director. Purports to show temporally distorted Erica Kravid (POI 037). Cause of temporal distortion unknown. Believed to be CIA Special Investigations project. POI 037 believed to be deceased. Case Status: Suspended and Archived pending new information. |
TD stands for Temporal Displacement, which is not quite the same thing as Wright suspected, but equally relevant and interesting. The attached video begins to play automatically as Wright scrolls to the case brief.
According to information passed down by Privileged Sources the CIA Special Activities Division maintained a black site located at the site of the now abandoned Mecklenburg Juvenile Detention Center in Richmond, Virginia from 1970 to 1977. This site was utilized in cooperation with the Office of Special Investigations to examine and verify reported Special activity.
Case TD-037-H involves POI 037 displaced from an unknown time or timeline. Only one VHS recording of POI 037 has survived to present day and provides little actionable information to followup. POI 037 appears physically and mentally unwell, source of ailment unknown. POI demonstrates one or potentially multiple SLC-E abilities. Origin unknown.
Other POIs pictured in TD-037-H RELATED FILE are unknown. Case is suspended and archived pending new information.
The video is long, captivating, and horrifying. Archival footage from security cameras and interview footage collected—what feels like hastily—on a single VHS tape. The subject is, astonishingly, Erica Kravid. But none of what everyone in the room is seeing lines up with either the Bright Timeline’s Kravid, or the Prime one. Neither had ever been to the 1970s. Neither had been Expressive.
When the video shows Erica’s death in captivity, Michelle slowly steps back and covers her mouth with her hand. There’s evident fear in her eyes, fear that this was never disclosed to anyone on the Looking Glass team, fear of what might come of even knowing this information. Ria, however, only leans in further. When the final interview footage comes up, Ria leans back and shakes her head, watching her mother’s expression more than Wright’s.
“What the fuck,” is all Michelle can say.
“This bitch,” Wright grumbles early on, only to slowly feel bad about it as Erica Kravid is subjected to mad science and dies. One of her oversaw Project 0, which they have strong feelings about due to their time in the Ark before Wright was symbiozed. That one is dead too, and the one that’s working with the OEI didn’t do any of that so they have little grounds for getting revenge.
“Well damn,” they say. “That was unnerving.” They wonder if Michelle’s horror is based on information they don’t have, but they don’t pry. Sometimes watching something awful is a good enough reason to feel awful about it.
Temporal displacements are interesting though, and they click back out and into the other one.
This file seems as unusual and anomalous as the last, but for wholly different reasons.
| TD-044-C | |
|---|---|
|
Temporal Displacement | File# 044 | Status: Closed Temporal Displacement in New Jersey Pine Barrens. Location displayed anomalous spatiotemporal distortions. Multiple POI civilian investigation led to temporal displacement event. SESA involved, file transferred to OEI and classified BLACK under anomalous securities act, rev 4, sec 21. Assigned Agent: CASTLE Supervising Agent: D. Bright Case Status: Closed |
A case set in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, multiple people involved. Identities are obscured behind POI numerals, making it slightly harder to know who is involved, other than the agents assigned.
On September 8, 2020 a spatiotemporal anomaly estimated to be one quarter mile in size was discovered in the New Jersey Pine Barrens 2 miles west of Forked River Mountain. The anomaly appeared as a displaced area of forest in different condition to the surrounding environment. Anomaly 044 attracted the attention of local civilian POIs (see TD-044-C Supplemental File) who passed through the anomaly and became trapped in what is estimated to be the late 1800s (1760-1770) based on details of first-hand reports. News of the anomaly had also made it to SESA and due to a clerical error were not forwarded to the OEI until days after its discovery, leading to 4 SESA agents (Thomas Cooper, Corbyn Ayers, Nicole Miller, and Robyn Roux) to enter the same temporal displacement.
Robyn was present for this. That’s a fortunate discovery, given that she’s never far from Elliot on their away mission.
Displaced POIs were able to navigate out of the affected area within 24 hours but made contact with local Dutch residents, identities unconfirmed. We have thus far been unable to confirm any identities. Due to the proposed date of this temporal displacement the events POIs experienced is presumed to be within the Root timeline (pending further known divergences).
Local-Time expressives were encountered by POIs, precise details of abilities unclear.
It is unknown if any Local-Time inhabitants of the anomaly were able to also make it out to present time. The anomaly collapsed in on itself shortly after the POIs return, preventing further investigation. See EA-181-C for related information.
“That sounds like an overlay but…” Michelle shakes her head, “it’s too stable. Coming and going? And this was last year?” She exhales a sharp sigh, motioning to the bottom of the file. “What’s the related information about?”
An EA classification?
Wright, who is not a roll, takes a second to guess what EA stands for. Event? External? Extradimensional? They put their figurative money on the last one and click through.
“Going to have to ask Robyn about this one,” they say. “Not that it’s at all what I was hoping for when I suggested this ill advised snooping, but.”
“When has anything ever gone to plan?” Ria says half-joking, but it elicits a huff of earnest laughter from Chel.
| EA-181-C | |
|---|---|
|
Electromagnetic Anomaly | File# 181 | Status: Closed Anomaly of unknown classification [Blackball]. Manifested August 30, 2019 in New Jersey Pine Barrens at site of former Jungle Habitat Amusement Park. Anomaly closed by POI 012 and 013 on September 11, 2019. Assigned Agent: R. Mustang Supervising Agent: K. Voss Case Status: Closed |
And it turns out the E was Electromagnetic.
“Son of a bitch.”
This file is, proximity-wise, strongly related to Wright’s current experiences. The “Blackball” being the insane electromagnetic anomaly contained in the offshore Janus facility that both did and did not end their entire existence. But this is another one, located in the Pine Barrens, not far from the thin-spot between points in time.
On August 30th 2019 and unknown inciting event believed to be connected to UE-001-A created an explosion equivalent of a 2 kiloton nuclear explosion at the site of the former Jungle Habitat Amusement Park in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The explosion is believed to be SLC-E in nature as the environment was desiccated in a one mile radius around the blast site with no known surviving life. A black sphere roughly 10 feet across remained at the blast epicenter.
Chel and Ria both read in intense silence over Wright’s shoulder.
Initial investigation of the anomaly revealed unstable spatiotemporal effects on the surrounding environment out to at least 100 feet. The anomaly consumed all electrical energy within this radius and caused randomly inhospitable atmospheric events as listed below.
[*] Spontaneous vacuum
[*] Oxygen transmutation to chlorine gas
[*] Oxygen transmutation to carbon dioxide.These environmental events lasted anywhere between 1 and 4 minutes. During the first event OEI Agent Tom Stevens died from unprotected exposure to a total vacuum. His death was classified BLACK and is to remain sealed.
Additional anomalies include vivid audio-visual hallucinations. Hallucinations typically manifest as people and occur after prolonged, direct observation of anomaly.
It was observed that preceding an event the electromagnetic radiation around anomaly would rapidly increase. To provide early warning for on-site agents, a series of special containment procedures were put in place including the deployment of EM-Reactive badges that change color based on local EM radiation levels.On September 7, POI 003 was brought out to the site by Deputy-Director Voss for consultation. Per conversation with POI 003 Voss revisited the site with POI 001 and 002 on September 8. During this time both POIs were brought into close proximity with the anomaly. Strange interaction between POI 001's ability and the anomaly resulted in its total collapse over the course of 3 minutes, destroying the observation site. No agent loss of life was reported.
POI 001 and 002 spontaneously appeared at the former site of the anomaly on September 14, unharmed and seemingly not experiencing any passage of time. Both POIs reported a shared extreme hallucination of repressed or psychically erased past experiences from early childhood. Description of hallucination is classified BLACK.
» EM radiation levels returned to normal. Site remained quarantined for public safety until January 29, 2021 when the Ohio River Fire swept through the area forcing a full withdrawal of OEI operations.
Wright is easily able to pull up their shared memory pertaining to this anomaly.
“This facility is known as Site 2,” Hall explains as she follows along behind Gates, talking to the new arrivals. “Named as such because this is the second known touch-point for the entity known as Uluru where a weak-point between material planes exists. Last year, the Entity tore open a hole in the fabric of the universe at this site after an altercation with your sister,” Hall says to Richard, “Eve Mas, Luther Bellamy, and others.”
Down the metal stairs, the group following Gates sees completely normal oil rig workers in the distance. The entire facility appears to be precisely what it shows on the surface, but it’s obvious that is only skin deep.
“Site 1 once existed in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, but was closed thanks to the efforts of Mateo Ruiz. That’s how we learned about the nature of these anomalies.” Hall explains, and Gates pauses at the start of a catwalk, looking back at Richard.
“You saw Site 1 for yourself. We’ve improved our containment precautions since then.” Gates says before stepping out onto the catwalk over the churning sea hundreds of feet below, leading the group across a length of the rig.
“A fold in spacetime.” Chel murmurs, recalling her own experiences with Gates talking about what the black sphere is. “Areas closest to the anomaly experience time dilation.” Her eyes dart to the side, brows furrowed. “Frame dragging.”
The Lense-Thirring Effect.
“This can’t be a coincidence.” Chel says with a shake of her head, leaning away from the laptop to pace again. “The broadcast, Juliette mentioning Lense-Thirring. But—these anomalies only started appearing recently.” But she isn’t so sure about her answer, there’s an unspoken question upticking the end of her sentence.
Wright, for compulsive reasons, can’t help but internally count down from Site 2 to Site 1 to Site 0. They were just trying not to think about their time/Elliot’s time there. It unsettles them in a way they can’t entirely take seriously. The OEI wouldn’t have named the black site in an unfinished portion of the Ark. They visibly shudder, try play it off as a random chill.
The uptalk at the end of Chel’s sentence makes them feel a bit better; it reminds them to continue to pretend to be Wright. “There would be no way to know unless there’s suddenly a report about one having been found in the past because the appearance of one caused the events to be refactored all the way forward,” they say with only a touch of Wright’s uptalk but plenty of the ramble. “Even in that scenario, we’d all remember the report always having been here and wouldn’t be having this conversation until Elliot pointed out the difference with his iteration composite memories.”
They’re not sure they’re being helpful by saying this, but it is a major part of the conversation they want to have in this ill-advised snooping. “How familiar are you with Juliette’s ability?” they ostensibly ask Chel. “My recent familiarization was filtered through Eve Mas so I’m really not sure how much of what she says I can believe.”
“Honestly, less than I’d like to have been.” Chel says with lingering grief in her tone. “Edward knew her best, and even he never really understood what it was she did. Something about altering perceptions? It felt like some kind of observer effect, like what we saw wasn’t always what was true? When the Arcology went into lockdown she’d use it to go unnoticed by security. Sometimes we wouldn’t even realize she was in the room until suddenly, she was.”
Ria furrows her brows and looks distant, thoughtful. There’s something else about her expression, difficult to read, but not the grimace of a bad liar. It’s like she doesn’t even realize they’re talking about her in the moment. “Whatever it was, she was able to bridge the gap between here and our home timeline, resonate with herself on this side. We might never know.”
Determined to commit to doing these out of order now, Wright opens folder SA-137-A. “Solar Anomaly?” They’re actually pretty confident about this one.
| SA-137-A | |
|---|---|
|
Spatial Anomaly | File# 137 | Status: Active Spatial anomalies located in Los-Alamos, New Mexico resulting in multiple vehicular accidents on route 501. Area currently under investigative quarantine. Assigned Agent: M. Harris Supervising Agent: GATES Case Status: Active |
Spatial anomaly. Thankfully, Wright is not a habitual gambler.
“God damn it.”
And of all the cases available without network authentication, this one is the strangest. The attached video shows vehicles crashing head-on with invisible obstructions. Multiple roads and intersections in New Mexico, all viewed from dash cameras or traffic surveillance cameras.
On October 21 2020 a spatial anomaly formed at the intersection of W Road at Omega Road intersection. The anomaly is a physical bounded space roughly cubical in shape 25 feet on a side. The anomaly manifested in the middle of the street some time between 1:00pm and 1:15 pm local time. A civilian coming off W Road onto Omega Road impacted the anomaly in an automobile, sustaining critical injuries. The civilian believes they were involved in a hit and run and are unaware of the anomaly due to post-accident shock.
The anomaly resists all physical force. Analysis through fluid shrouding revealed the structure to be in the shape of a small residential building with no discernable means of entrance. There is little surface detail in the anomaly, preventing analysis of door or window placement. It is described to feel "smooth and firm yet somewhat permeable, like hard rubber." Attempts to physical move or damage the anomaly have not been successful.
Chel is baffled, squinting at the laptop text. Somehow this is the one that really bewilders her, not the whole SLUSH-O thing. “This could be… something like an overlay? Maybe—some kind of transient mass from differently-aligned streets?”
Additional, similar anomalies appeared within the same geographic area as outlined below, all discovered due to vehicular accidents, one of which resulted in a fatality. Additional anomalies have different dimensions but appear to be analogous with local environment. Dashboard and security camera footage of all anomalous events have been secured and classified GRAY.
[*] 11-11-20: Route 501 at E. Jemez
[*] 11-15-20: Diamond Drive at intersection of Sandia and Orange
[*] 11-27-20: Trinity Drive at 20th Street
[*] 12-22-20: Dp Road at Trinity Drive
[*] 1-17-21: Canyon Road at 15th StreetAll anomalous locations have been quarantined under the guise of low-importance roadwork and electrical line maintenance. Given the state of public works in the country it is advised that we could maintain this cover for 2 or more years if necessary.
» No additional spatial anomalies have manifested in the region since 1-17-21.
“So the world is falling apart,” Wright says, flavoring their existential dread with flippancy. It's interesting that Juliette’s ability in Flood is apparently wildly different from what it is here. Ria’s confusion is interesting, though they don't call attention to it. Does she not know she has, or is, a parasite? The Juliette entity might technically not be a parasite, but they don't know enough about the effects on its hosts to make that determination. Zero was a parasite until its unique interaction with Elliot made it function as an obligate mutualistic xenosymbiont, after all.
“I'm more worried about the invisible objects coming from perpendicular space,” they note. “Which is probably not what it's actually called, had to assign names to shit without formal education in the topics, but. Like, space that is perpendicular to everywhere and everywhen. The scaffold beside reality that allows for telepathic transmission, as a brain is only meat and electricity. There needs to be a type of space that allows for the existence of dislocated consciousness operating outside the bounds of its home base electric meatball.”
They continue rambling, mostly to stay in character. Nobody has agreed with them on this before, but they've seen the Aquifer. “The kind of space that allows for complex mnemonic structures like mindscapes, dreamscapes, or Founded manifestations like the conduit Graveyard,” they elaborate. “If that space got too close to physical space due to all of the rips and anomalies, it could theoretically manifest in ways that mimic physical forces if it were Relevant to the manifesting idea. Like the Slusho cup. That's my hunch, anyway. The cup’s interaction with perception feels Relevant.”
They realize that they already accessed the remaining folder via the link in another one, and back into the SESA folder for a quick peek.
The SESA folder contains heavily-redacted copies of SESA cases tangentially pertaining to OEI cases. There’s some overlap of agents visible, Voss at the top of the list as covertly OEI but also serving in his role in SESA. Another names comes up regularly: Rasheed Mustang. Classified as a spatio-temporal manipulator. Rasheed’s file isn’t locked, unlike Voss’, allowing Wright to continue to drill down into it.
There’s unredacted reports in here, about the Crossing in Sunspot New Mexico, about the emergence of UE-001-A through the Looking Glass. But there’s another case file that’s something Wright had never heard about.
| TD-043-A | |
|---|---|
|
Temporal Displacement | File# 043 | Status: Active Open case-file on failed Looking Glass attempt atop Site-0 in MEZ. Experiment failed to produce desired results. Anomalous, unknown machines successfully intruded on local space. Closest machine to Site-0 destroyed. Assigned Agent: R. Mustang Supervising Agent: GATES Case Status: Active |
There’s not a lot of detail here, it looks like a case brief or summary meant to serve as a meeting itinerary item. Gates wasn’t assigned to it, this was Agent Mustang and Agent Hall. The event takes place on December 18th, 2018, and involves Mateo Ruiz and Lynette Ruiz. Agent Bluthner from SESA was also present, along with Richard and his brother Warren.
The summary talks about a failed attempt to open the Looking Glass atop something called “Site 0” ostensibly located somewhere in the Manhattan Exclusion Zone. And how the attempt failed to produce “desired results” but instead allowed for “an unknown machine” to emerge through the Looking Glass, which was violently aggressive and summarily destroyed.
No description of the machine is given, but the reason for the itinerary item appears to be to discuss “sightings of additional extra-dimensional machine(s) in and around the New Jersey Pine Barrens.”
Backing up through the files, Wright is able to confirm that Agent Mustang is listed as missing in action following the investigation in New Mexico regarding the spatial anomalies.
“Richard never talked about this…” Chel says quietly, glancing to Ria with concern. “I remember the failed attempt on our side. Elisabeth was in my timeline, we were trying to attune our Looking Glass to Richard’s, but we were missing information about harmonic frequencies. Then—” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “It was bad all around.”
Wright wonders if they should have started with SESA. They could dig into every file if time was on their side, but time seems to have been pretty generous up to this point and it can't possibly last. They wonder if Kenneth is still buying the red light above the conference room door.
No mention anywhere of anything like Refactoring. The only people who really understand what's happening to time won't be able to tell them anything about it for thirty years unless they can implement the Cat Boxes. Asking Chel involves her in the secret messaging experiment, and they're not sure if they're ready to bring it up. They haven't reported anything about Glory and Gateway yet, considering the potential alterations to be worth serious consideration. But, if anybody could invent the device, it's probably her. Do they want to mention it in front of Ria/Juliette?
They drum an irregular rhythm against the desktop with three fingers on their right hand and two on the left. They agree to wait, silently maneuvering back to the Sunspot files. If nothing else, knowing about the event in which the Entity arrived and Ria didn't/also arrived is worth inspection.
There’s a lot of we have no fucking idea what happened in the Sunspot file. Mention of a parallel terrorist attack by a paramilitary group called the Four Horsemen at the same time, indications that membership includes believed-to-be-dead former members of the Vanguard, which in today’s light feels like extradimensional potential.
SESA had a shit-show on their hands inside the facility, the report includes some post-script notations by a presumable-OEI agent. All of it is damning.
The Looking Glass equipment began to overheat and emit a high-pitched noise. Mr. Ruiz’s portal collapsed at the same time, releasing lashes of what looked like red lightning in multiple directions. Mr. and Mrs. Ruiz were struck by bolts and disintegrated into multi-colored light. The energy then began to coalesce into a humanoid shape before moving with speed and intent toward Eve Mas.
The energy flooded Ms. Mas and, for a moment, she held her form. Then as her eyes shed a yellow light, she exploded into a cloud of red-colored plasma. In this form, Ms.Mas/The Entity emitted some form of concussive blasts that caused seemingly random damage to living creatures struck. Doctor Michael Lincoln and his research assistant Julia Fane were instantly incinerated by the blast, rendered to fine ash and bone fragments. Whereas Professor Oliver Milton simply, and distressingly, exploded as if from extreme internal pressure.
Ms.Mas/The Entity were unaffected by external stimuli (gunfire, et al) except for a focused, high-frequency sonic attack emitted by a Raytech Banshee wielded by Richard Ray. The sonic effect caused Ms.Mas/The Entity to violently react, forming a conical energized explosion that passed without harm through those present. The Entity was nowhere to be found after this occurrence.
[small](Footnote): Still trying to piece together how Mas survived. Based on reports from OEI assets at the Geopoint facility, we believe the Entity jumped hosts to an unknown young caucasian woman as she appeared briefly in the facility on 12/26/19 at 5:03 am. The same young woman appeared within the Yamagato Building on 1/10/20 at 7:14 pm and was involved in an assault on employee Leroy Jackson (pending medical file attachment). Current status unknown.[/small]
“I think I hear suspicious footsteps.” Ria says with a wrinkle of her nose, eyeing the door to the office. She boosts herself off the desk and strides over to the door, tilting her head up against it. She glances back at Chel, shaking her head.
Chel sighs, glancing from Ria to Wright. “I don’t think we’re going to find much more here. But I do think we’ve found enough to warrant a follow-up with Elisabeth. I’ve got some questions I want to ask you about your theories on… let’s call it phase-dimensional consciousness networks that might be relevant.”
“Hard to have that chat if you’re arrested for The Treason.” Ria stage-whispers from the door. “Hard soles, fussy walk, closing in.”
Wright quickly closes all open instances and logs out. They slap the monitor’s power button as they stand from the chair, tucking it in at the same angle it was when they first moved it. They look over everything to assure themself that everything matches the scan they made before touching anything. This spycraft came from Elliot, but the distinction barely matters anymore.
“How do we handle this?” they ask. Normally they're the one getting people out of these situations, and with an automatic rifle. “You're the one with the plan and you're the one with the departmental employee badge,” they say to Chel and Ria respectively.
“If you want to talk about the Aquifer it'll need to be somewhere without listeners,” they add.
Chel gives the subtlest of squints at that, nearly asks something, and hesitates. There’s a moment where she’s tied up in thoughts, having hoped Wright would have a miracle fast-talk solution for this. But when she looks at Ria by the door, there’s a moment where
Some Time Later
Wright’s Suite
Washington KC
8:08 pm
Outside, the city is a glittering field of lights on a matte black canvas. From the kitchenette window of Wright’s government-appointed suite, they sees their reflection muted in the glass. The suite’s lights are dimmed, and the shitty instant coffee maker has just finished running, leaving the suite full of the scent of caffeinated mediocrity.
For just a moment everything feels fine and normal, except it absolutely isn’t. Wright feels the natural flow of events. They’ve been here, making a pot of the only coffee on hand to help think about everything they’d learned today, make plans to circle back with Elisabeth. But the instant Wright is thinking there’s a disconnect, like a record that skipped a track. Like a cell phone briefly dropping off the network and popping back on again.
There is a 17 minute gap where Wright was not reachable. But the moment that inconsistency is experienced, the half of Wright that is in the Flood Timeline immediately experiences a profound sense of deja-vu. No, Wright was not missing, there’s a whole series of perfectly normal experiences that led them to this location. But it’s retroactively applied from Wright’s end. Just like the events at the Janus rig.
One moment Wright was in the conference room, and the next, here. Reality itself simply rewritten like a convenient escape. The actual moment of leaving that office is hazy. They got out, but recalling how is like trying to remember a dream. Slippery, ephemeral. Because it isn’t there.
Effect without cause.
“What the fuck?” they say, trying to remember when they parked Katie. They were hyperventilating, weren't they? Hart was calling for help. Wright was unreachable until they always had been. Elliot latches onto the parts of those concepts that anchor them until they're able to review the experience dispassionately.
“I'm okay,” they assure Hart.
Wright clenches their jaw, their fists. Their hearts hammer until they begin to slow down. They clear their throat, snap their fingers once, twice, three times. They concentrate intensely on the sensations of their memories being actively wallpapered over. Both of them check for a nosebleed, but find none. This version of the refactoring of their personal history has an entirely different feel to it. They feel their other mind placing their separate and combined experiences in the Coffee Mate in the House in Tulsa.
They're going to have to talk to Ria about consent in ability use.
It isn't going to be fun.