MIT/Dr. Cool Investigation Continued - Sun, Oct 27, 2019

Luke opened the session by recapping the prior events. Philomena and Frank had both slept poorly, troubled by half-remembered nightmares and by the increasing instability of reality. Justin, by contrast, had recovered more cleanly after collapsing from exhaustion.

The morning shock had been Matthew McCarter walking into the Marriott breakfast buffet alive, despite the fact that his return from the other reality was not straightforward. Matthew explained that he had crossed the barrier again, but instead of returning directly to his own world, he entered another version of MIT shaped around Wesley Cool’s delusions.

In that alternate MIT, Wesley Cool was not treated as a missing professor. He was revered as an intellectual prophet who had delivered a mathematical revelation to humanity. Vicky King still worked there, and the campus felt wrong: helpful, functional, but artificial.

Matthew eventually found his way back to the real MIT. He broke into Cool’s real office during the night and escaped before the janitor could stop him or fully intervene.

The group compared their timelines and tried to determine whether the destruction of infected devices had pulled Matthew home. They could not confirm the cause. Time and causality appeared increasingly unreliable between realities.

Frank had used a hotel landline to contact Antonia Pitzerelli and request Wesley Cool’s home address. The information they received showed that Cool’s tax activity had effectively stopped in 2016 and had remained trapped in bureaucratic limbo, as if the government could not properly process his disappearance.

While the team drove toward Cool’s Cambridge condo, Matthew saw the shimmering barrier again. This time, it was receding behind their vehicle. None of the others could see it. Looking back through the rear window, he saw it as a translucent wall over the city, like a soap bubble stretched across reality.

Based on the known locations of previous crossings, the team estimated that the dome or barrier was centered somewhere near MIT.

Cool’s condo appeared abandoned without seeming completely abandoned. Dust had collected around the edges of an otherwise immaculate life, and mail had piled up behind the slot.

Inside Cool’s condo, the agents found the first clear shape of Cool’s obsession. They discovered ledgers showing a large payment to a rare bookseller in London. Philomena personally recognized the seller.

The ledger entry was noted as “Thoth,” connecting it to a text Philomena had already associated with Picky Eater.

Cool’s notes showed that he had been trying to mathematically encode consciousness itself. His work fused philosophy, simulation theory, phenomenology, and occultism into a single project.

Cool believed that human thought shaped reality and that somewhere beyond ordinary perception existed a void where all possibilities became real.

Philomena traced Cool’s sources through the Book of Thoth, the Necronomicon, and other occult material. Cool had written about reaching the heart of the abyss, where reality could be reshaped by thought alone.

Cool referenced “He Who Guardeth the Gateway” from the Necronomicon, treating it as a guide connected to his work.

Justin carefully dismantled Cool’s home laptop and found an early chip labeled “Picky Eater 1.0,” inscribed “Invented by Dr. Wesley Cool.” This confirmed that Cool created the original system, but also implied that the massive distortion around MIT was being maintained from somewhere else.

The team returned to MIT and approached campus police, insisting that they needed access to Cool’s office in the Simons Building. Matthew’s prior break-in gave them a plausible pretext for conducting a search.

Campus police escorted the agents into Cool’s office. There, Justin found a locked metal box hidden beneath a false bottom in a rolling file cabinet. The box contained an English translation of the Book of Thoth.

Cool’s office also contained years of research notes documenting the development of a device he had first called a “consciousness renderer” before renaming it Picky Eater.

The notes established that Cool built the theory behind Picky Eater, Dr. Rajneesh Amardeep built the hardware, and graduate students such as Vicky King, Nora Bridget, and Kim Bowyer built the software without understanding the true nature of the project.

The agents also found correspondence between Anthony Cooper and Wesley Cool. The correspondence showed two men approaching the same impossible truth from opposite directions: Cool believed consciousness shaped reality, while Cooper sought communication with the Watcher on High.

The notes showed that Cool and Cooper had helped each other solve problems that neither fully understood alone. The agents concluded that Persistent Vigil, Gorgon Stare, Picky Eater, the Watcher, and the MIT barrier were no longer separate phenomena. They were converging.

The final confirmation came from Cool’s operational logs. After noting that the project appeared to function, Cool wrote: “Important. Non-existence at issue.” He then wrote: “Need a tester.” The next names in the notes were Charles Bauer and Vicky King.

The current session began in Cool’s office in the early evening on a Saturday in October. MASTICATE had found a large collection of notes, and the agents needed to decide what to do with the information.

Philomena wanted to examine the Book of Thoth in more detail. Luke clarified that she might have flipped through it, but it would take time to make real sense of it. She could spend the evening skimming it to learn what kind of material it contained.

Justin asked whether the notes indicated where Cool had been working on Picky Eater. Luke explained that much of the theoretical work had been done in Cool’s office. Any simulations or complicated mathematical systems were likely on the missing desktop computer. The actual hardware development had been done by Dr. Rajneesh Amardeep, who probably had an electrical engineering lab in another building.

The group agreed that they needed to follow up with Dr. Amardeep. His name had not come up previously, so this was new information.

The agents discussed whether to go directly to Amardeep, go to his office or lab, or compel him to unlock his lab after questioning him. They decided to track him down.

Chris asked whether Cool had ever been married. Luke said Cool filed his taxes as single and that there had been no sign of a spouse or partner in his condo. The group clarified that Vicky King had never claimed to be married to Cool, but she had been his graduate student, had an affair with him, became pregnant, and claimed that her children were his.

Frank suggested calling Pitzerelli again to get Amardeep’s home address. The group briefly considered asking campus police officer Ray McKinley, but Frank decided against it because they did not want McKinley to know what they were doing.

The agents informed McKinley that they were done in Cool’s office. They returned to the Marriott and made the call. By around 8:00 p.m., they had an address in Cambridge for Dr. Rajneesh Amardeep.

The information showed that Amardeep was married and had dependents.

Philomena remained at the hotel to read the Book of Thoth, while Frank, Matthew, and Justin went to speak with Amardeep.

The agents drove to Amardeep’s home. It was located a few miles from campus, in or near Newton, on a nice tree-lined street with two- and three-story houses, attached garages, parked cars, and lights on in the homes.

The agents stopped short of Amardeep’s driveway and approached on foot. It was around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m., late enough that an unannounced visit was intrusive but not so late that everyone would necessarily be asleep.

The lights were on in Amardeep’s house on both the ground floor and the upper floor.

The agents decided to approach directly, ring the doorbell, show their credentials, and say they were investigating Dr. Cool and had questions.

Amardeep opened the door. He appeared to be about fifty years old, with a close-trimmed dark beard, wire-framed glasses, and thinning hair. The house had a security system and a doorbell camera.

Frank showed his FBI badge and told Amardeep that they were investigating one of his associates, Dr. Cool, and wanted to ask him some questions.

Amardeep initially claimed not to know a Dr. Cool and suggested that the agents must have made a mistake.

Frank clarified that Cool was in the mathematics department and that Cool’s notes indicated Amardeep had worked on a project with him. When Frank named the project as “Picky Eater,” Amardeep’s reaction changed.

Matthew and Frank succeeded on HUMINT checks. They saw Amardeep’s confusion turn into surprise and then panic. His eyes widened, moved back and forth, and his jaw hung open for too long before he recovered.

Amardeep then acknowledged Picky Eater and admitted that he had worked with Cool on the project. He said it had been three or four years ago.

Justin said aloud that three or four years was not that long ago. Luke noted that even with Justin’s poor read, it was obvious Amardeep was trying to hide something and that his attempt at acting was bad.

Amardeep asked whether they were with the police. Frank corrected him and said they were FBI. Amardeep then invited them inside.

Amardeep brought the agents into a sitting room and asked them to take a seat. He said he needed to speak with his wife briefly and would then answer their questions as well as he could. He seemed disoriented.

Frank compared Amardeep’s disorientation to the behavior of Bradley McKay’s parents when they had tried to remember their son’s timeline. Luke said Amardeep seemed similar.

Amardeep returned after five to ten minutes with his wife, Sunita. He introduced her. She offered tea or coffee, and Frank accepted tea. Sunita went to the kitchen.

Amardeep asked what the FBI’s interest was in Dr. Cool. Frank said their interest was in Cool’s project. Amardeep appeared genuinely surprised and asked whether they meant the chip.

Amardeep explained that Cool had called it the Picky Eater chip. Amardeep said he had only helped make Cool’s designs work. Cool had studied chip design on his own and knew some fundamentals, but his designs were primitive.

Amardeep described Cool’s designs as full of unnecessary elements. Cool insisted on particular materials and layouts, even when they made the chip less reliable and more expensive to mass produce.

Amardeep said he did not think mass production had ever been Cool’s intent.

Amardeep admitted that he had not normally wanted to work on such a project. He said he had needed Cool’s vote in a faculty senate matter involving expanding adjunct positions. Cool agreed to support Amardeep if Amardeep helped him with the project.

The work took longer than Amardeep expected, but Cool seemed satisfied. Amardeep described Cool as a man of his word but also disagreeable.

Amardeep said he had known of Cool by reputation but had not meaningfully interacted with him professionally before the project. Cool had sought him out.

Justin asked how many chips Amardeep had made. Amardeep explained that he created the design based on Cool’s notes and manufactured it in the lab. There were earlier versions and prototypes that did not really function, but he had only delivered one functional chip from the final design.

Amardeep demonstrated that the chip worked to Cool’s specifications. Cool had graduate students working on software to run on it, and he ran that software through whatever tests they had. Cool eventually said, “This is it.”

Amardeep said he did not know exactly what Picky Eater did. It seemed to him like some kind of network security software. Cool had been very cagey about it.

Frank asked why Amardeep wanted to wash his hands of the project. Amardeep said it seemed unserious, professionally embarrassing, and not useful for his own research. He did not see anything novel or interesting in it.

Amardeep said he originally thought the security software might be the interesting part, but Cool was never able to explain it clearly. Amardeep concluded that Cool was brilliant in mathematics but had overreached technologically.

Justin asked whether Amardeep had engraved or marked the first chip with a serial number, project name, or other identifier. Amardeep said the lab did mark chips with project information.

Amardeep went upstairs, checked notes, and returned with an eight-digit number and other project markings. The markings did not match anything the agents had previously seen.

The lab markings Amardeep described were nothing like the inscription on the chip recovered from Cool’s laptop. The chip from the laptop had said it was invented by Dr. Wesley Cool; Amardeep’s lab markings were routine project identifiers.

Justin wanted to understand whether the chip design had an obvious place where an alien, foreign, or secondary component might be mounted. He wanted to compare Amardeep’s design with the strange, shimmering, blobby structure the agents had seen when examining the Picky Eater chip.

Amardeep said he kept backups of his work at home and could look through the project notes. He went to his office to retrieve them, leaving the agents in the sitting room.

Amardeep returned with a laptop and gave it to Justin. He showed Justin the designs and began discussing the project in more technical detail.

Amardeep said Cool had made outlandish demands about specific transistors, including hyper-specific resistance ranges and voltage thresholds.

Cool had required gold components to be placed in certain locations even though they did nothing useful from Amardeep’s perspective.

Cool had also required a non-standard silicon wafer direction and substrate deposition requirements that complicated the photolithographic process.

Whenever Amardeep tried to talk Cool out of these requirements, Cool immediately threatened to withdraw his faculty senate vote.

Amardeep said he nearly decided that the vote was not worth the time and effort, but Cool eventually said the work was correct and that it functioned.

Cool wanted Amardeep’s notes so that the fabrication process could be recreated. After receiving them, Cool said they were done. Amardeep said that was the last time he had spoken to Cool.

Amardeep described the chip as pretty in a useless way. It was inefficient, full of pointless redundancies, and used too much power.

Amardeep identified a portion of the circuit near the center of the design, corresponding to the strange holographic area the agents had seen under magnification. Cool had insisted on using his own custom metallurgy to create the filament for that portion of the chip.

Amardeep said Cool’s custom metallurgy was a nightmare to work with and severely decreased efficiency.

Amardeep’s own verification process had been basic: confirming whether current moved through the chip as expected. He had not known the occult significance of the design.

Justin and the others determined that the custom metallurgy filament corresponded to the portion of the chip where they had seen the strange symbolic or holographic feature.

The design did not itself contain the full holographic rounded forms they had seen on the actual chip, but the layout did include recognizable symbols and shapes corresponding to that section.

Justin asked where all copies of the chip design existed. Amardeep said he had backups in two other locations: a server in the laboratory and an IT department cloud backup.

Amardeep realized this might be a national security issue. He said he had no desire to keep the design. If the agents had storage media, he could copy the files to them and delete his local copy while they watched. He said they could come to his lab on Monday and watch him delete the lab copy as well.

The group discussed whether Amardeep himself remained a risk because he still had the knowledge in his head. Justin suggested that Picky Eater might already be deleting the memory from him, given Amardeep’s difficulty remembering Cool and the project.

Luke confirmed that after his memory was shaken loose, Amardeep seemed honest. Based on the earlier HUMINT roll, he did not appear to know more than he was telling them.

Justin asked whether Amardeep knew where Cool was. Amardeep shrugged and suggested the math department, then admitted he had not spoken to Cool since the project.

Justin copied the design files to his own storage media. The agents watched Amardeep delete the files from his laptop.

Justin asked whether Cool’s notes contained a commissioning process for the chip, such as a power-on sequence or ritual procedure.

Luke shifted the scene back to Philomena, who was studying the Book of Thoth in her hotel room.

Philomena examined the Book of Thoth. Luke explained that the name “Book of Thoth” had been given to various ancient Egyptian texts attributed to Thoth, god of writing and knowledge. Some versions were known from folklore, but this text was not one Philomena recognized.

The book was an English translation, not an original. It purported to contain ritual practices, magical rituals, and descriptions of occult techniques for granting power.

The text included extensive sections about seeing the gods.

Philomena found the symbol she had seen on the Picky Eater chip. In the book it was rendered in two dimensions in ink rather than appearing as a strange three-dimensional or holographic feature.

Luke clarified that there had been two symbols on the chip. One was the Elder Sign. The other was a divination rune from the Book of Thoth. The rune was the symbol Philomena found in this text.

The Book of Thoth included detailed instructions explaining that if the symbol were properly rendered with the right words, right materials, and right meditative practices, it could be imbued with power.

The empowered symbol would let a person see beyond their own world into other worlds in order to find truth. It functioned by connecting the user to the mind and dreams of the gods.

Philomena continued studying the book and tried to correlate it with other occult sources she had encountered, including Palamatiano’s book, Franklin Dyer’s notes or diary, material related to De Vermis Mysteriis, and the Necronomicon.

Philomena recalled that she had access to partial material connected to De Vermis Mysteriis through damaged German notes and that the British Library had a version of relevant material. Miskatonic University had once had a copy, but it had been stolen.

Philomena also had her “Pocket Necronomicon” with her.

Philomena made notes comparing the Book of Thoth with her other sources and looked for relationships between them.

Luke allowed Philomena to roll Occult or Unnatural. He said Unnatural might provide better results but would be less likely to succeed. Philomena chose Occult and succeeded.

From the Occult success, Philomena determined that much of the Book of Thoth contained material she had seen in other texts bearing that name, including repeated passages and themes.

The divination rune was the most distinct and unique part of this translation.

Philomena concluded that the rune had been a key element in Cool’s work. Cool had clearly also consulted other more esoteric texts, including the Necronomicon, which he had named in his notes.

Philomena understood that the Book of Thoth alone had not given Cool everything he needed. It had provided a key element, but Cool had required information from other sources to accomplish what he did.

Luke noted that Philomena’s Unnatural score was high enough for her to recognize fragments of a strange cosmology or mythology concerning the origin and history of humanity. The Book of Thoth only alluded to such material and did not seem directly focused on it.

Philomena asked how much more study would be required to gain more information. Luke said that fully studying such texts usually took weeks or months, though small texts might take days. This version of the Book of Thoth would be a weeks-long study.

Philomena concluded that she had gotten a useful amount of immediate information from the text.

Philomena considered whether Cool might have consulted a copy of the Necronomicon at Harvard. Luke established that Harvard had a copy.

Philomena was less interested in studying the Necronomicon immediately than in determining whether Cool had consulted it there or had been exposed to the information secondhand.

Luke said that based on the notes found earlier, Cool had definitely been exposed to Necronomicon material at some point, though it remained unclear whether he read the actual Necronomicon or someone else’s notes based on it.

Luke said Philomena believed she had learned what she needed for the current situation from the Book of Thoth. There might be hidden details, but she had a coherent picture.

Philomena understood that Cool had found a divination rune that purported to do many of the things he believed should be possible from his thought experiments. He then tried to render it as completely as possible.

Philomena concluded that the divination rune was the crux of the project, though Cool had needed supplemental occult information to complete it.

Philomena was impressed with Cool’s accomplishment from an academic and occult perspective. She recognized that he had created an abomination causing severe problems, but also that it had taken significant effort and skill to piece together and make function.

The scene returned to Frank, Matthew, and Justin at Amardeep’s house after they had obtained and deleted the design files.

The agents discussed whether to leave Amardeep in peace. Frank felt Amardeep did not know enough to be a risk and that killing him would create more problems than it solved.

Justin remained mildly curious whether Amardeep had Picky Eater running on his phone. He tried to raise the issue indirectly by asking what kind of phone Amardeep had and whether he noticed battery life problems.

Justin failed to persuade Amardeep to provide useful information. Amardeep only said that his phone was as good as any other.

Frank decided not to push the matter. He believed they had gotten useful corroboration and that Amardeep was not infected by Picky Eater.

The agents left Amardeep’s house and drove back toward MIT and the Marriott.

As they returned toward the dome, they continued to drive very carefully, especially when approaching or crossing the barrier’s perimeter.

Matthew saw the barrier again as they returned. This time Justin also saw it. Frank did not.

Justin said he had not turned on anything. He had the files and notes from Amardeep on storage media, but no powered electronics.

The group considered whether the copied files might be causing Justin to see the barrier. Justin suggested they did not really need the designs because backups still existed in the IT department and lab.

Justin decided to run over the USB drive containing Amardeep’s copied chip design with the car.

The agents destroyed the USB drive by crushing it under the vehicle until it was reduced to fragments.

Destroying the USB drive did not make the shimmering barrier disappear for Matthew or Justin. Frank still could not see it.

Justin checked his electronics and bag. Nothing was powered on, and nothing had turned itself on. Luke noted that Justin had not turned on an electronic device in twenty-four hours, which felt very strange for him.

Frank realized that Justin had used Amardeep’s laptop by having it placed on his lap. The group considered whether Justin had somehow caused Picky Eater to appear on Amardeep’s laptop merely by touching or using it.

After a break, the agents discussed whether to go forward through the barrier or go back to Amardeep’s house.

The group reviewed their working theory. They believed the chip required some kind of occult activation or ritual before it became truly dangerous. Amardeep had fabricated it and tested ordinary electrical function, but that did not necessarily mean he had been contaminated at that time.

The agents also considered the possibility that they themselves were now vectors for Picky Eater because of their repeated world-hopping and contact with infected devices.

Matthew listed known or suspected world-hoppers or Picky Eater-related cases, including Bradley McKay, Robert Wallace, Vicky King, her two children, Charles Bauer, George Allen, Audra Powell, and possibly the entire Narnia working group.

Frank noted that they did not know how long they had been vectors, since they had only recently begun testing whether powered devices became infected after contact with them.

As the agents debated whether to return to Amardeep’s house or proceed through the barrier, all three rolled Alertness.

The agents noticed a young man, roughly eighteen to twenty years old, standing motionless on the other side of the barrier. He was disheveled, standing on the sidewalk of a suburban neighborhood at around 10:00 p.m., and staring directly at them.

None of the agents recognized the young man. He did not react when they noticed him or when Justin waved.

Matthew prepared his suppressed pistol and considered moving toward the young man. The group discussed whether the man was on the other side of the barrier and whether crossing it would send them into another reality.

Matthew recalled that when he had previously crossed into Cool’s alternate MIT, he had seen the barrier, touched it, and disappeared. The others had seen the barrier at that time, but they had not crossed until after destroying their devices.

The group considered the risks of shooting the young man. Matthew also considered his lightning rifle, but Luke clarified that it was not subtle.

While the agents debated, a car drove by on the other side of the barrier. The young man suddenly threw himself under the wheels.

The car screeched to a halt. The driver got out, panicked, and checked under the car. He saw the body and called 911.

Frank got out of the agents’ car and walked through the barrier toward the accident scene.

The driver, who had been driving a BMW, told Frank that the young man had come out of nowhere and run in front of his car. Frank could hear the 911 operator on the phone trying to keep the driver calm and saying that first responders were being sent.

Frank examined the body. The young man was dead. Luke clarified that he had not merely stepped in front of the car; he had deliberately dived under the wheels.

Frank searched the body and found a wallet. The dead man’s name was Devon Ayers.

Frank also found a high-quality plastic card identifying Devon Ayers as an “Acolyte of the Hushfather.”

Frank pocketed the Acolyte of the Hushfather card.

Frank checked Devon Ayers’s ID. The date on the ID was not from the future or an obvious alternate timeline; Luke placed it in 2021.

Frank showed his FBI badge to the driver and asked for his ID. The driver produced a Massachusetts driver’s license identifying him as Brian McDermott, issued in 2016, with an address in the area. Nothing about the driver’s ID seemed out of place.

Frank returned the driver’s ID and walked back to the agents’ vehicle.

Frank told Matthew and Justin that the dead man had been a card-carrying Acolyte of the Hushfather.

Justin interpreted this as consistent with Picky Eater manifesting what someone wanted, or some portion of it. He believed that if he passed through the barrier, he would likely end up in a reality connected to the Hushfather.

The agents discussed why Matthew had gone to Cool’s universe rather than his own ideal or expected reality. They considered the possibility that Matthew’s version of the alternate reality related to tracking down the bad guys.

Justin thought that if he crossed the barrier, he would end up in a place tied to the Hushfather, and that he might have to retrieve or destroy the infected laptop from that side.

The group reviewed how Matthew had returned from the Cool reality. Matthew had encountered a version of Vicky King that he knew was fake, and that discontinuity may have helped him focus his way out. However, the group also remembered that the others had destroyed electronics on their side at roughly the same time, so they could not be certain what caused the return.

Frank decided to remain at the accident scene and deal with emergency services and law enforcement as a federal witness. He told Matthew and Justin to go back to Amardeep’s house and deal with the laptop.

Matthew and Justin drove back toward Amardeep’s house while Frank stayed behind to give a statement.

First responders and police arrived at the accident scene. Frank showed his badge and corroborated the driver’s account that the young man had thrown himself under the car.

Because Devon Ayers now had no ID on him and appeared disheveled, local responders assumed he was an unidentified homeless John Doe who had died by diving under the car. The driver had not noticed Frank take the ID.

Matthew and Justin reached Amardeep’s house around 10:30 p.m. The first-floor lights were out, but some upstairs lights were still on.

They decided to ring the doorbell rather than break in.

After a delay, lights came back on and Amardeep came downstairs. He opened the door in pajama pants and seemed irritated or confused by their return.

Matthew apologized for interrupting him so late and said that, after discussing Amardeep’s involvement in developing Picky Eater, they were concerned that his laptop might be compromised.

Amardeep responded incredulously. He said the project had been years ago, and the laptop was new, purchased about a year earlier.

Matthew said the laptop had contained files related to the project. Amardeep replied that they had watched him delete those files.

Matthew tried to persuade him that they needed to look at the laptop briefly. He failed the Persuade roll.

Amardeep said they could come to his office on Monday, after he had moved his important project files elsewhere. He said he could not give them the laptop until he had removed important files from it.

Justin stepped in and explained that dragging files to the trash did not make them unrecoverable. He told Amardeep they needed to perform a harder wipe and overwrite the relevant disk sectors with zeros.

Justin used technical language to convince Amardeep they could do a targeted wipe rather than deleting the whole drive. He succeeded on Computer Science.

Amardeep accepted the explanation, allowed them inside, retrieved the laptop, and put it on the coffee table. He asked them not to delete everything because he had recent important work on it.

Before taking control of the computer, Justin asked Amardeep to perform a quick search for “Picky Eater.”

Amardeep typed “Picky Eater” into the system search and was genuinely surprised when a result appeared.

Amardeep said the result was not the project files. It appeared to be a kernel process or system-level service.

Matthew told Amardeep that this was what they had been afraid of and that there was a malware component to the project.

Justin said the FBI would need to confiscate the laptop for forensic analysis at a secure facility. Matthew assured Amardeep that their technicians would do everything possible to protect his files.

Amardeep asked whether he could back up his recent files. The agents said he could not, because they did not know what part of the system was infected and did not want it spreading to a network or another device.

Amardeep realized that the laptop had already been connected to other devices and networks. He started arguing against confiscation, then realized that line of reasoning implied all his computing devices might be contaminated.

Justin asked whether Picky Eater was on Amardeep’s phone. Amardeep said he did not connect his phone to his laptop, then checked and saw the Picky Eater icon on his phone.

Justin told Amardeep they would need to take the phone as well.

Amardeep began to grasp the scope of the situation. He asked when they would need to inspect his laboratory and whether it could wait until Monday.

The agents debated whether the infection might have spread from Cool years ago or from Justin’s recent contact with Amardeep’s laptop. They noted that Amardeep had not complained of battery problems when Justin had asked earlier, suggesting that the infection might be recent.

Justin pointed out that he had not touched Amardeep’s phone, meaning the infection had spread from the laptop to the phone or through some other contact.

Justin asked whether Amardeep’s wife could check her phone for Picky Eater without Amardeep handling it. Luke clarified that Amardeep was shielding his family from the agents and the situation, keeping them upstairs while he dealt with the law enforcement visitors.

Amardeep collected devices from his household, including his family’s devices. The agents found that they appeared to be infected as well.

The agents concluded that Amardeep was a vector or that the infection was spreading through his household devices.

The scene shifted back to Philomena in her hotel room.

Philomena was still reading the Book of Thoth late in the evening when someone knocked on her hotel room door.

Philomena grabbed her gun, approached the door cautiously and quietly, and looked through the peephole.

Through the peephole, Philomena saw a middle-aged woman she did not recognize. The woman had dark hair with plenty of gray, was dressed well, appeared middle to upper-middle class, had styled hair, and wore a scarf around her neck.

Philomena asked who it was through the door.

The woman introduced herself as Dr. Evelyn Vail. She apologized for disturbing Philomena and said she understood that Dr. Farrington Cowles was staying in that room. She wanted an opportunity to speak with her.

Philomena told Dr. Vail that it was late and asked her to meet downstairs in the lounge in about fifteen minutes.

Dr. Vail agreed. She said she was in the middle of research on excavations in Turkey and believed it correlated with passages from the Book of Eibon.

Philomena said she was familiar with the Book of Eibon.

Dr. Vail said she had thought Philomena might know it and that this was why she had sought her out. She had heard Philomena was visiting MIT and interpreted it as a sign.

Dr. Vail left to wait in the lounge.

Philomena waited, listened, checked through the peephole, confirmed Dr. Vail was gone, then opened the door cautiously and checked the hallway. No one was there.

Philomena wrote a note explaining that Dr. Evelyn Vail should not know she was there, should not know what room she was in, and had approached her about occult material, excavations in Turkey, and the Book of Eibon.

Philomena wrote that the situation was strange and suspicious, but also too interesting to ignore. She intended to meet Dr. Vail in the lounge.

Philomena made copies of the note. She left one in her room for the others and another at the front desk as a redundancy.

Philomena took her gun and FBI badge with her and went downstairs to meet Dr. Evelyn Vail in the lounge.

The session ended before Philomena’s meeting with Dr. Vail occurred.