Mitch Visits Anna

So when Mitch calls Anna up to catch up, shoot the breeze, ask if they can chat soon, she's like "Swing by the station tonight, I'm on the boards all night. And bring a pizza. And some beer, but you and the FCC didn't hear that."

He can do that.

I'm going to assume at least a couple of quiet 1-on-1 conversations occurred between Mitch and Anna at the Stanley to justify her coming on as a Contact; I figure maybe talking music, or radio, or even the Odd and Unusual happened among the sturm und drang of the weekend. So Mitch has a good sense of her: awkward, a little nerdy, passionate about the art she loves and working for Pacifica especially, Mitch figures she has to be tuned into the whole "sf thing" in the Bay Area.

Yeah, makes sense, I would assume their relationship is not based solely on surviving the subduction. So Mitch will have an approximate sense of when Turner’s shift starts (does ‘late night’ mean 11p-7a or does it mean 9p-5a so the morning shift change doesn’t happen during drive-time?) and he shows up with the requested pizza and a six-pack.

Yeah, she'd say show up around 8, 8:30, as all the programming is pre-recorded before Larry goes on. She'll need to work a little more beginning at 11 considering Larry is in the studio live.

"Hey, come on in," Anna says pivoting in her producer's chair and gesturing to a spare seat covered in radio carts, "just move those carts anywhere, this place is a pigsty, I know." Anna sits across from Mitch and sets up a little tray table for the pizza and brews. "So. You look better than you did last month when I last saw you. You were a little green around the gills after our seance!"

Mitch has to pause and think about that for a second before responding. “Yeah. Yeah, well. That happened.” He moves the carts to the floor next to the chair and sits down. “Good to hear I look better. I was thinking about getting a haircut. But then I thought, maybe not.”

Anna smiles, "So to what do I owe this Tuesday night visit to the wilds of Berkeley?"

"Well, I could claim I was just curious about what kind of chairs y'all use," Mitch says, gesturing vaguely around. "But actually I was wondering if you were somebody to... are you going to Westercon? It's this weekend, it turns out."

Anna's face lights up. "Oh, Matthew. I honestly never pegged you for a fan!"

"Don [her boyfriend] and I were thinking about going but not sure if we wanted to commit to six whole days."

"Or five. I think it's five days. The Fourth has me all messed up."

Mitch is surprised. "It's six days?" he says over her last line. "Shit, I should have read the program more carefully. But, see, I'm already learning. I've never been in that scene, I'm curious. Atlantis and stuff."

"Ah, so you've never read Andrew H. Krane."

I'll go ahead and read her aura, I can't think of a reason not to and I guess there's a nonzero chance I'll have to guess at whether she's lying about something over the course of this conversation.

"I never heard of him until, jeez, this morning, I guess. I was down by Union Square, saw some activity, got curious."

Also, dang it, I remember during the game going from thinking 'I can consult her but I'm not positive what information I'm trying to get from her' to 'aha, this is a topic I can probe her about specifically' and now I can't remember what the specific topic was.

Okay. Pretty important information right up top: Anna's aura is the same trademark indigo color as Charley's.

Now, it's not nearly as powerful. It doesn't have the same glow behind it, the same hall-of-mirrors effect as Charley's many, many past lives. But there is something ineffable in Anna's aura, something touched, something very mildly psychic.

Now, aside from that, she radiates joy and creativity and competence. This is a lady in charge of her own life and her own desires and interests. On the outside, yes, she's frumpy, not conforming to societal expectations of a woman of her age and position. But on the inside, it's clear she has tremendous confidence in herself. It's not always something that appears on the outside, but this is a person who believes in themselves.

So, out of Mitch's league even if she was single.

"The guy I talked to made it sound like the Atlantis stuff was, I dunno, controversial?"

"Oh, you mean the series? I mean, that's the thing about Krane... he bridges both sides of SF now. He was around in the square '50s writing about very strong silent men in big phallic chrome rocketships, but then he wrote Arrest and a bunch of near-future books about how the mass media are kind of evil and the nascent hippies on college campuses started loving him. Present company included. And then he goes and writes the Atlantis Risen books and pisses both groups of fans off!" She laughs. "He's kind of like that. Truculent, you might say. Particular. Comes off an ass in interviews but is still somehow really compelling."

"Yeah, that sounds like what the guy was saying. You ever met him? Krane, I mean. Not the guy at the hotel bar whose name I've already forgotten. Started with a J."

"No, but, I mean, you see him around. If you go to any coffee shop within 5 blocks of the university, he's in there, writing longhand. Sometimes fans bother him; usually he returns with a pretty icy stare that peremptorily shuts down any fawning."

"Sure, sure." Mitch stares off into space for a second. "So maybe I'll see you at Westercon? What's the, uh, what's the deal with it? Like I said, I don't know the scene. Is there, like, a war going on between the Star Trek people and the Lord of the Rings people?"

Anna laughs. "Not so much anymore. The war's really the same war as anywhere these days: progressive vs. conservative. And while those lines can break down according to science fiction vs. fantasy, it's more complicated than that these days. Basically anybody who writes a Vietnam parable pisses off the Heinlein nuts, while on the other side, anyone who still worships imperialistic propaganda like Star Trek gets it from the younger more psychedelic crowd. Sure, I will watch a Star Trek rerun when it's on the TV, but that also doesn't mean I swallow what it's secretly saying about America hook line and sinker, though." Anna pauses for a second. "Have you seen The Prisoner? That's honestly more my speed."

"Hey, yeah!" Mitch brightens. "I didn't think it was sci-fi, though. Like, there aren't any spaceships."

"Man, I must sound like a real fucking dunderhead."

Anna gives Mitch a theatrical eyebrow raise. "You can be a fan of anything, really. The con will show you that. And no, you don't sound like a dunderhead at all! Fandom has many mansions."

"Man, I remember the last episode, where he's trying to talk and they keep cutting him off and not answering his questions but at the same time they're calling him 'sir,' and it's...." Mitch shakes his head. "Ugh."

"Feels familiar, doesn't it?"

Mitch gives her the side-eye.

"I guess some experiences are universal," he says slowly.

Anna was giving Mitch a purposeful stare at the same time. "When sf is sublime, it... exactly."

"I think you'll like the people you meet at the con, Matthew. If Don and I see you there we'll introduce you to some folks."

Mitch nods.

"So, uh, coming back to the Atlantis thing. Is there, like, an Atlantis club? Atlantis Rising guys? Krane lovers, or haters, or love-to-haters?"

"Not formally, as far as I know. But I could give you a good précis of a typical Krane fan, circa June 1973. He's in his mid-20s, has pretensions of literary knowledge but mostly reads trash and comics and watches TV, looks for secret meanings in everything, flirts with the occult and esoteric—mostly a grim kind of pro forma Hermeticism or, God forbid, O.T.O. or Church of Satan type stuff. Drug of choice is speed which makes him extremely unfashionable but that's what their idol did in the early '60s, cheap drugstore bennies. Opinionated, sexually incompetent, with a penchant for idol worship."

"The Krane haters-who-used-to-be-lovers are basically this but 10 years older and are into military history instead of the occult."

Mitch's face purses involuntarily with disgust at the mention of the OTO and the Church of Satan.

"Assholes. You're describing assholes."

"I mean... yeah." More of her husky laughter. "I mean, sure they're not all like that... I mean, hell, I like those three mid-'60s novels of Krane's. But anyone who's really into him? Probably has a screw loose."

"Anybody who, like, makes being a fan of a particular specific thing a big part of who they are..." Mitch shrugs. "I like Room 222 all right but I don't build my whole personality around it. I just think Karen Valentine is cute."

"And believe me, there are things I like better than novels and TV shows. Things that offer a little more opportunity for active engagement in the process. Like video art. Or music. I mean, not to get all McLuhan here but we all know that hot media are far more rewarding than cool ones. That's why I love radio. Most 'fans' aren't as well-rounded, it's true. Monomania is rampant."

So what Anna is vividly describing is not a cult per se. But it is arguably the beginnings of one. Probably the only thing that's preventing Krane's fanbase from becoming a full-fledged cult is reluctance on Krane's own part to play that role. But who knows what would happen if that were to change?

Copying his behavior and hobbies and moods. Becoming obsessed with one or two key memes, as it were. This is kind of setting things up for some super-strong belief energy.