Paris by the Sea

Nicole Taylor

To: Levi
From: Nicole
Re: Island and ItX comms

Levi,

Attached is the letter to be sent to ItX to give context to the island’s status. It refers in passing to our reason for our deployment there, so it’ll need approval regarding disclosure of classified materials from Antwerp. I’ve kept the reference vague; I doubt Friend Roomba cares about the swords, though.

The DIMH crisis team is standing down tomorrow, handing over their remaining duties to the NWO team and ItX’s own handlers. Provisional power to the lab has been restored, although of course only at minimal levels. Although I hear Nicholas is in charge, so you probably know the details already.

To: 0x00000000.1@itx.tu

From: Nicole.Taylor@Antwerp.tu

Subject: Preliminary Report

Dear Friend,

We’ve discussed the status of Paris Nouveaux briefly before and attached are the relevant formal status report detailing the current status. The formal debriefing reports will take a while, however, and I felt it appropriate to timely inform Iteration X about our mission there. As such, following is a brief initial detailing of our findings.

This recounting is not intended to be taken as guaranteed to be fully accurate and should be replaced by the formal report obtained after psychotemporal verification.

Our team was deployed to the island off the coast of Japan following intelligence that it housed a base belonging to a rogue Technocratic agent that targeted our construct. Additionally, contact to the base was lost a few years prior, including all Iterator personnel present. After traveling to the area by otherwise mundane means, we would have to find our own way onto the island itself.

The base was expected to be depleted of core personnel, but details on remaining forces was unavailable. We brought the three of us, plus two NWO operatives, a conveyance specialist, plus a strike team.

Arriving on the mainland, we visited a known asset present in the area. She provided us with sets of “appropriate” clothing for our mission, resembling late 19th century fashion. We were not provided with information on how this intelligence was acquired.

Requisitioning transport was complicated by the lack of available boats in the harbor, but we did find a suitable captain. Although he turned out to be affiliated with a local crime gang (we believe he intended to harvest our organs), a combination of a show of force plus cold currency gave him ample reasons to cooperate.

The island was surrounded in mist, which we quickly found ourselves in as well. While preparing scans of the area, however, we quickly found out that any enlightened procedures – even relatively mundane ones - were running into statistical inevitability. Expecting a local anthropic zone hostile to proper procedures, we deployed standard protocols, keeping further procedures to a minimum for now.

Emerging from the mists, we found ourselves in a river in a city. We were quickly spotted by a local on the banks, urging us to come ashore – apparently, people had been lost in the fog on the river lately. After looking around and (covertly) asking the local, we found out we were, or appeared to be, in Paris, circa 1895.

Picking up a local newspaper proved mostly fruitless as to what was going on. The paper contained only local gossip and trivial news. Meanwhile, Salisbury set to work to produce (mostly) era-appropriate weaponry in the case we needed to defend ourselves.

We appeared to be close to the Montmartre, which Patricia deemed a good place to start. Part of the reason was a theatre, prominently advertised around the city as to draw attention. First, however, we went to a local café to take stock of our situation. Patricia determined through examining the populace that none seemed openly hostile or suspicious of us, meaning that the population at large, at least, did not seem to work for our opponents.

Salisbury decided to contact an extradimensional entity known to frequent the area for more information. Through her, we learned that several artefacts stolen from our vaults were present in the city. She noted that one was “through a tunnel”, while once again urging us to visit the theatre. Meanwhile, Patricia sampled the local wares, while I noticed strange behaviors from a nearby plant (we later learned they were bio-engineered to feed on absinthe).

Before doing so, Patricia insisted we visit the Eiffel Tower, to check out if the NWO was as present as in the “real” Paris. While going there, I set to analyse the skyline through slightly antiquated procedures (as to meld into the local anthropic zone) to analyse our current time and place. As expected, I found ourselves to be just off of the coast of Japan, in the current timeline, confirming that this was some sort of duplicate, rather than something akin to an Everett Volume.

That also meant that the Eiffel Tower was devoid of any Technocratic presence. After ascending, however, we did find an oddity – a facsimile of a round table with straw figures of ourselves plus our construct’s leader – and one of the stolen devices hovering above it.

Salisbury quickly analyzed the area but found no traps or other threats. (Except for a paradox-aligned extradimensional entity later found to be unaffiliated with the locals. He appeared to be unimpressed by Salisbury’s efforts to advance the local anthropic zone to the current timetable.) We safeguarded the artifacts (and took the puppets).

Finally heading to the theatre, we analyzed the area to see if we could spot any oddities. We spotted two “tunnels” – side-corridors heading to the backstage area, that seemed to match the (apparently mostly figurative) description given earlier. Agents White and Green staged a distraction, allowing the three of us to go in, with the rest staying near the entrance as backup.

Going in, we spotted one room that stood out, and decided to investigate. In it, we found one of the actresses changing, upset at our entrance. Nevertheless, a quick visual inspection showed there to be a secret compartment underneath the room. Patricia set forth to convince the woman for us to stay, while Salisbury went out into the corridor to hopefully keep her more at ease.

Unfortunately, the woman was not easily convinced, and soon summoned guards to assist. Salisbury decided to un-crate one of the weapons he made – a minigun. He shot off a “warning shot” – instantly killing one of the guards and chasing the remaining ones off.

Now in a hurry, we opened the secret compartment – leading into yet another tunnel. We quickly found ourselves in a lab, however – abandoned, clearly technocratic in make, although showing subtle sign of corruption by entropic EDE’s.

With the full backing of Enlightened Procedures restored, Patricia quickly calmed the woman with a mind trick, while I set out to map the laboratory. This is the lab we found (detailed in the attachments) – intact with a running computer and powered by earlier mentioned Entropic EDE’s.

Salisbury, joining us, started to analyze the computer records. From the data retrieved, it seemed that the local area was changed into a copy of nineteenth-century Paris. The objective was to see if they could artificially produce the very local anthropic zone that we encountered. Apart from some key personnel – who since abandoned the base as we eradicated their power base around the world – the inhabitants were mind-altered by procedures to believe this new history, out of contact with the outside world.

After establishing that the laboratory was not actively influencing the city – apart from providing it with food and other necessities – we proceeded to eliminate the remaining EEDE’s to safeguard the lab. After re-establishing contact with the outside world, we contacted relevant parties (including yourself) to arrange future support for the city.

A quick mental analysis seems to indicate that the residents should be reintegrated into proper reality at a delicate pace, as to not further damage their psyche more than already done by the earlier procedures by the renegades. Still, the experts agree that most should be able to be fully reintegrated.

As stated before, the full report, incorporating the other agent’s mission should be coming once it is done. I hope this information along with the analytical data will allow you to handle the required processes on your end.

As a final personal note, I wish to extend my deepest sympathies and regret as to the fate of Cipher Stevens in the final stages of the mission to his colleagues and family.

Yours truly,

Nicole Taylor

LEVI: Hey Salisbury, I didn’t expect you to “advance the proper timetable” enough for a paradox entity to show up. Good showing, I guess.

SALISBURY: Huh, what? Oh no, he was just pissed off that I was burning away my paradox.

LEVI: … Wait, what? You can do that?

WRINKLE: No he can’t.