Charley rushes Jo out of the office to the main corridor of the basement. "Hurry, go all the way down the hallway until you reach the end, turn right, and you'll find my lab. I'll meet you there!! Hurry, Jo!" As soon as Jocasta is on her way. Charley removes the face of a large ventilation vent and quickly crawls through the heating/cooling duct. It's large enough for her to travel through and conveniently offers her a shortcut to her lab....
Charley moves the sister ventilation register to the side and slips into the room. "HOUDINI! CODE RED!" The lights immediately turn on, and
Computer terminals wake up with chirps and pings, and through their speakers, a man's voice can be heard, "Exciting! Now, what exactly is the emergency? We have prepared for several events, little magician and can therefore respond in several different ways deepening on the desired outcome such as. Charley interrupts, "I need immediate ears in Dad's office!" The voice with disappointment, "Ah, too easy. But as you say. Connecting... Connecting and audio in one, two, three."
Okay, cool. So the computer system that Charley has been working on since returning from the UK has grown since the last time (if ever?) Jo was in Charley's lab. (It's okay if Jo's not really been deep inside the lab yet.) Attached to the main computer terminal (a green monochrome monitor and keyboard is an acoustic modem and a very conspicuous cassette player (with some very evident add-ons including... a mini-laser?) which is now whirring to life.
Data flashes on the monitor, including what Jo can see seems to be the same words that the computer speaker spoke at the outset of the scene. And at the moment Jo sort of leans in to read those words, the speaker crackles to life. Charley's gaze is fixed on the computer monitor, her hands touching the keyboard and concentration absolute as Jo begins to hear Archie's and Marshall's voices from what is presumably Archie's office coming out of that speaker.
ARCHIE: "I don't like it either. Like I said on the phone, Sophie and I went through Abeille's books today, and whatever's going on between her and Krane, we think she's the brains of the operation. Krane's stuff, with the rocket-planes and the secret agents, it's--"
ARCHIE, cont'd: "--its just the spoonful of sugar to make the real medicine go down. Abeille's stuff is, well, first off, it's just weird. Why does everything have to be so weird nowadays? It's not History B, it's not memetically loaded, not so far as we can tell, but it's chock full of sex, psychedelics, group consciousness... all the things the opposition uses to make, ah, re-enslavement look attractive."
Jocasta stumbles around Charley's lab, perplexed and a little out of it still. "Charley, what on Earth? Are you all right?" Having only been in this room briefly before, she's momentarily taken aback by the array of sophisticated technology, none of which she understands. "Is that...Archie?"
(luckily, there's a pregnant pause here, but soon Marshall's voice comes from the speaker, a little quieter than Archie's)
MARSHALL: "Sophie. What do you know about Stevenson?”
SOPHIE (even quieter with occasional indecipherable/too-quiet-to-hear portions): "Well, when we got Charley's dossier back in April I did some research on him [silence]. He's been clued-in with SANDMAN since '66, since that book came out [silence] the generation being born in the postwar period were showing more and more signs of reincarnation or past-life awareness, and SANDMAN wanted to find out why. There's no consensus at Granite Peak or Duncorne as to why. Some say it's the Bomb..." With this there's what sounds like a laugh from Sophie, then a lengthy silence. Probably the phone on Archie's desk is too far from where Sophie is in the office.
SOPHIE, cont'd: "But mostly Dr. Stevenson is an earnest researcher who wants to help these kids. In that sense, it doesn't surprise me that Abeille reads his work." Sophie pauses. "But I agree with Mr. Ransom. Her general awareness of the esoteric and the supernatural seems high. Whether that means she's compromised... I don't know. We have awareness and we're not. Her politics are definitely suspect but, I mean, who in this whole scene isn't?" Sophie's voice picks up in volume a little bit at the end there.
Charley, just nods at Jo. And is listening intently. Also, she is making a mental note that the i/o tap needs to be improved.
Jocasta gives Charley a look. She whispers conspiratorially: "Are you...did you bug Archie's office?" She pulls a face of mild disapproval, but more the 'oh you naughty girl' variety than genuine scolding. And then hushes to hear what's being said.
ARCHIE again, moderate volume: "Just between the three of us: Frank Stanton said something - back in March, after you came back from Granite Peak, Marshall - about, well, security leaks. In SANDMAN. But a mole would stay hidden! Handing Jocasta this book, Krane making us out to be the Men from UNCLE -- it's all too cute by half. Maybe Abeille is trying to reach out to us. Letting us know she knows. Trying to open up a direct line of communication."
MARSHALL: "Yes, I had the same thought. The whole thing feels," a pause, "like we've noticed the floor is wet and we suspect a leak, but can't see where it's coming from."
SOPHIE, faint: "I will say, that my reading of Abeille's works show that there's definitely a... compulsive readability to her novels, but no mastery of Anunnaki source code and no Powered memetics. Certainly no glyphs hiding in the cover art, Mansa-style. But, as you and Mr. Ransom well know, some un-clued-in people do manage to understand the basics of memetics and neurolinguistic programming without knowledge of all the... 'hidden lore' of History B. If she is reaching out, she's clumsy about it. But that seems to be her M.O.: deadly earnestness. I managed to find a few interviews and she is just... warmth and sweetness and light all the time. [substantial pause] "She loves nature." [another substantial pause]
That pause goes on and all Charley and Jo can hear is faint whispers, Sophie talking. Charley tries to bump the volume, and concentrates extra hard, but she can't get any of it to resolve. Jo, give me an IQ roll.
Jocasta perks up a bit and looks around. Gently but with some urgency, she puts her hand on Charley's shoulder and says "Charley, I think something's wrong. I don't really understand technology like you do but I feel very strongly we should get out of this room. Do you trust me? Will you do that with me?"
"No! Jo. It’s fine here." Charley is annoyed by the suggestion.
"Please be quiet."
Sophie's voice finally resolves.
SOPHIE: "Yes. That's why it's probably best to check records and internal surveillance to see if there's anything there before reaching out personally. I jumped the gun a little bit." Jo and Charley hear a crinkling sound, like crinkly plastic, and then the flick of a lighter and a drag.
MARSHALL: "Have you heard from the boys in the field? Do you know their ETA? We need to plan next steps with this fucking convention or whatever... and now that Viv has ID'd me, Charley, and Jocasta, I don't think it wise to have us within eye-shot of her at the hotel."
Jocasta is going to take off her glove and touch the cassette player.
"No! Stop!"
The energy in the room returns to normal. The speaker fizzles out to silence.
(Charley receives 2 Corruption.)
Charley stops what she is doing. She doesn't want the tape harmed. She inspects the tape.
Charley's just sort of standing there silent with the audiocassette in her hands, Jo.
"Sorry Jo. You can head upstairs. I'll be up in a bit." She slips her headphones on.
"Are you sure you're all right? I have a very bad feeling."
"I'm fine. I just thought I damaged the tape. But I didn't."
"All right," Jocasta says. "I'll go if you want me to. But I want you to be very careful, Charley. Promise me you'll be careful. I'll be right outside if you need me." She slowly backs out of the room, and runs off into the bathroom to take half a tab of MDMA.
After about five minutes, Jo hears the heavy door to Charley's lab open and shut out in the hallway.
"Jo?"
"Yes, Charley? Are you all right?"
"I'm sorry."
"No need to be sorry, honey. You didn't do anything wrong. We've both had a very stressful day." She pauses for a moment and looks over at Archie's office. "Do you want to talk about anything?"
"I just wanted to hear. I don't know why they shut us out?" Charley looks exhausted.
"Jo. They are going to check to see if you're infected. And I don't know what they are going to do with me. I stopped listening."
"This mission has been very difficult, Charley," Jo responds. "I think they're just worried about us. The work we do can be so dangerous. I promise you that Archie cares about you and would never do anything to hurt you, and I promise I will try my best to make sure nothing happens to you. You look so tired, and I am too -- I haven't really felt right today. Let's find a couch and get a little nap, what do you think?"
Charley gives a small smile to that. (One of the best ideas of the day)
There's the couch in the URIEL offices, but there might be bad vibes there. :slight_smile:
come on Mike
Hah, what? :slight_smile:
The girls just want a nap without bad vibes
Hah, all right. That's fair. I can say somewhere down here in the depths of the basement of Building 451 there's one of those orange naugahyde-panelled modernist benches that you'd see in office buildings in the '70s. Not totally comfortable but the advantage is they're wide and slightly padded and there's plenty of room for Charley at one end and Jocasta at the other.
Jocasta rolls up her delightful lime blazer and gives it to Charley as a pillow.
And the two of them, in the dim, flickering fluorescent lights of the basement of Building 451 of Lawrence Livermore Labs, catch a quick nap in the midst of this intense, draining day.