MIT Reality Delamination Incident - Sun, Oct 27, 2019

The session opened with a recap of the prior events involving MASTICATE’s investigation into the circuitry behind Picky Eater.

• Kuhl’s notes had led the team to Dr. Rajneesh Amardeep, an MIT electrical engineering professor who had helped fabricate the original Picky Eater chip years earlier.
• Frank, Matthew, and Justin found Amardeep at home.
• At first, the name Wesley Kuhl meant nothing to Amardeep, but the phrase “Picky Eater” caused the memories to return.
• Amardeep admitted that he had built one working chip for Kuhl in exchange for a faculty senate vote.
• He had thought the project was embarrassing, primitive, inefficient, and outside his proper field.
• The design used pointless gold, strange materials, impossible tolerances, and useless redundancies.
• Despite being bad engineering by ordinary standards, Kuhl’s design worked.
• Justin reviewed Amardeep’s files and found the same strange core design the team had seen under magnification: a point where silicon and wiring stopped behaving like circuitry and became symbolic.
• Amardeep copied the files, deleted his local copies, and promised to purge the lab later.
• That appeared to be containment, but it did not last.

Philomena had studied the Book of Thoth at the hotel and clarified part of the occult significance of the chip.

• The symbol embedded in Picky Eater was not decorative.
• It was a divination rune meant to see beyond the world and into others through the dreams of gods.
• Kuhl had not invented Picky Eater through mathematics alone.
• He had translated ritual into hardware.

On the road back from Amardeep’s home, Matthew and Justin saw the shimmering barrier again.

• Frank did not see it.
• A young man stood beyond the barrier and stared at them.
• The young man then threw himself under a passing car.
• Frank recovered the man’s ID, identifying him as Devon Ayers, an acolyte of the Hushfathers.

The team returned to the Amardeep home with increasing concern and discovered that Picky Eater was still spreading.

• It was on Dr. Amardeep’s laptop.
• It was on his phone.
• It was on the devices belonging to his family.
• The contamination was still loose.

While the others dealt with contaminated electronics, Philomena received a knock at her hotel room door.

• The visitor was Dr. Evelyn Vale.
• Vale should not have known Philomena was in Cambridge.
• Vale asked about Turkey, the Book of Eibon, and signs.
• Philomena went downstairs to meet her.

Philomena met Dr. Evelyn Vale in the hotel bar.

• Vale had seated herself at the bar and ordered wine.
• The hotel bar was still open, though it was late and near closing.
• Vale apologized for coming directly to Philomena’s room.
• She explained that she did not know when Philomena would be leaving town and did not have a phone number for her.
• Philomena asked what wine Vale was drinking and accepted a glass when Vale offered.

Philomena steered the conversation toward the Book of Eibon and ancient mathematics.

• Vale said she wanted to know about Philomena’s order.
• Philomena asked whether the Book of Thoth contained ancient mathematics.
• Vale said the Book of Eibon focused heavily on what she would call spiritual ritual formed as mathematics and represented as mathematics.
• Vale admitted that she was not a mathematician and that the precise details were beyond her.
• Vale said the excavation site in Turkey had carvings with some of the same geometrical shapes.
• Vale believed the Turkish site might have been used for the rituals described in the Book of Eibon.
• She also suggested it might have been where those rituals were constructed.

Philomena questioned Vale about how she had encountered the Book of Eibon.

• Vale said she had accessed it through the university library at MIT.
• Philomena found this startling.
• Vale clarified that it was kept in MIT’s special collections.
• Vale did not have the physical book with her.
• She did have portions of it in digital form.
• She also said she had portions memorized.

Vale described the Turkish archaeological site.

• It was discovered beneath an Ottoman bathhouse.
• A sealed chamber underneath the bathhouse appeared to be much older than the structure above it.
• The chamber contained carved panels depicting nested astronomical diagrams.
• The excavation began because the room was old, sealed, and contained unusual material.

Philomena made an Occult check and achieved a critical success.

• Based on her expertise, Philomena was certain she would have heard of Vale’s site if it existed as described.
• Vale claimed to have been working on it for several years and to have published preliminary material.
• Philomena knew this should not have escaped her notice.
• Philomena also knew that if the Book of Eibon were in MIT Special Collections, she would have known that.
• Vale’s statements did not fit the world Philomena knew.

Philomena checked her surroundings for obvious signs that she might be in the wrong reality.

• There was a television in the bar with the volume off.
• Nothing on the television was obviously wrong or supernatural.
• It appeared to show ordinary late-night television.
• There was no obvious public confirmation that the world itself was openly unnatural.

Philomena continued interviewing Vale.

• Over roughly an hour, Philomena drew out more information.
• Vale spoke as though occultism was foundational not only to her work, but to her entire field.
• Vale’s academic worldview assumed that history was filled with secret powers and unseen forces.
• Vale believed that understanding the present required understanding this secret occult past.
• This was not the academic world Philomena came from, unless Vale was simply a crackpot.

Philomena asked Vale again about her university affiliation.

• Vale said she was at MIT, in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
• The stated department name did not align with Philomena’s understanding of MIT.
• Vale’s academic context continued to feel wrong to Philomena.

Vale’s goal became clear.

• She wanted Philomena to consult on figures, shapes, and their meanings.
• Vale wanted to correlate material from the Book of Eibon with the Turkish archaeological site.
• She wanted Philomena’s expert insight into how the shapes and rituals were related.

Philomena chose not to continue the meeting that night.

• She offered to meet Vale the next morning.
• Vale eagerly accepted.
• Vale said she arrived at her office around 8:30 a.m.
• She said her office was on the third floor in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences building.
• Vale then departed.

After Vale left, Philomena ordered another bottle of wine to be sent to her room.

• She checked the money but found nothing overtly altered or bizarre about it.
• She returned to her room.
• She also looked outside for anything obviously wrong, such as strange stars or a visible rent in the sky.
• The sky looked as she remembered it.
• There was no obvious visible sign of reality being altered.

Philomena locked herself in her hotel room.

• She locked the door and secured the chain.
• She prepared to sleep rather than wander around alone.
• She judged roaming around in the current circumstances to be dangerous.
• The Handler called for a Helplessness SAN roll.
• Philomena succeeded.
• She kept herself composed, helped by the wine.

The focus shifted back to Frank at the scene where Devon Ayers had thrown himself under a car.

• First responders arrived.
• The young man was dead.
• Since Frank had taken the man’s ID, the responders treated the dead man as a John Doe.
• The police on scene considered it an apparent suicide by a man who had thrown himself under a car.
• They found it strange and gruesome, but not impossible.
• Frank did not flash a badge or identify himself as FBI.
• He gave an eyewitness statement.
• He provided his cell phone number when asked, although the phone did not work.
• A detective spoke to him briefly.
• Frank remained at the scene until Justin and Matthew returned.

Justin and Matthew left Dr. Amardeep’s home carrying contaminated electronics from the Amardeep family.

• Their plan was not to destroy the devices on the side of the freeway.
• They intended to find a quiet residential street, line up the electronics, run them over with the car, and then dispose of the pieces in a scrapyard.
• They found a quiet side street and crushed the electronics with the vehicle.

The shimmering barrier was still present when Justin and Matthew returned.

• Frank walked out to the location where he believed the shimmering barrier was, because he knew the others likely would not come through to him if it remained visible.
• Justin and Matthew could still see the barrier exactly where it had been.
• The team discussed what to do about the barrier and the spreading Picky Eater contamination.
• Justin concluded that the contagion was broken loose and that they could not find every infected Picky Eater chip.
• He believed they had to go through the barrier.

The team implemented a rope protocol to test passage through the barrier.

• They discussed the risk of people disappearing or falling out of vehicles when crossing realities.
• They chose to walk through as a group rather than drive through initially.
• Each person held or was attached to a rope with identifying markers.
• Frank positioned himself in the middle.
• The team joked about the inadequacy of the name “rope protocol,” but proceeded.

Frank crossed the barrier with the others and failed a SAN roll.

• Frank lost 1 SAN.
• As the three walked down the sidewalk through the barrier, Frank heard the rope jangle as both ends dropped slack.
• Justin and Matthew vanished from either side of him.
• The rope remained real, but the people attached to it were gone.
• This caused Frank to hit a breaking point.
• Justin and Matthew also lost 1 SAN.

Justin and Matthew experienced passage into another reality.

• They felt disorientation and a falling, vertiginous sensation.
• They caught themselves.
• The street was different.
• It was still a residential side street, but the background hum of highway traffic was gone.
• In its place, there was an illuminated elevated train line.
• Their vehicle was no longer present.
• Matthew recognized this as the same world he had visited before.
• It was night, around 10 p.m. or later.
• Matthew noted that when he had visited before, it had been much later, around 2:30 a.m., so he believed they might be safe for the moment.

Matthew told Justin that he had been in this world before.

• Justin connected this reality to Dr. Kuhl and the possibility that Kuhl might be found here.
• Matthew was uncertain but suggested going back to Kuhl’s office at MIT.
• The two decided to investigate this version of MIT and learn about Picky Eater, the first chip, and Dr. Kuhl’s whereabouts.

Justin and Matthew spent time gathering information in the Picky Eater reality.

• Information about Picky Eater was easy to find.
• In that reality, Picky Eater was invented by Dr. Wesley Kuhl.
• Picky Eater had become an unequivocal source of truth.
• A person could ask a Picky Eater device any question and receive an infallibly true answer.
• This had reshaped society.
• Argument and misunderstanding had largely fallen away because everyone now had access to objective truth.

Justin used a terminal to ask about Dr. Kuhl’s current location.

• He specified that he wanted Dr. Kuhl’s location at the exact current date and time, not historical information.
• Picky Eater did not provide a geolocation.
• Instead, it produced information similar to a news story.
• The response said that after perfecting Picky Eater and reshaping society into something more rational, effective, and efficient, Kuhl had moved on to his next project.
• Kuhl claimed the new invention would make Picky Eater look like a child’s toy.
• The project was called the Xanatheraphone.
• The article described the project as something only Kuhl’s singular mind could understand and complete.
• Kuhl had secluded himself until the work was complete.
• The project appeared to be developed at Kuhl’s lab at MIT.

Justin asked Matthew what happened the last time Matthew was in this reality.

• Matthew said he had gone to the university and straight to Dr. Kuhl’s office.
• He had spoken to Kuhl’s secretary.
• The secretary had directed him to Vicky King.
• Then Matthew had been sent back to their world.
• Justin decided that they should retrace Matthew’s steps and go to Vicky King.

Time began skipping for Justin and Matthew.

• They suddenly found themselves at a falafel restaurant.
• Justin was taking a bite of falafel.
• Matthew had an ice-cold Coke in his hand.
• They were still in mid-conversation.
• They remembered leaving the library and doing other things, but the details were unclear.
• It was now the middle of the afternoon.
• They were unsure whether one day or two days had passed.
• Justin failed a SAN roll.
• Matthew succeeded on his SAN roll.
• Justin remarked that the situation did not seem right.
• Justin asked Matthew how Philomena had gotten back to their timeline.
• Matthew said he did not know.
• Matthew said he had walked to the Marriott lobby after meeting Vicky King and had then returned to their world, but he had not teleported across locations while doing something else.
• Justin concluded they needed to retrace Matthew’s steps and go to Vicky King.

Frank remained alone at the original barrier site after Justin and Matthew disappeared.

• He remembered Justin and Matthew being with him, but his mind also supplied a plausible false explanation for why he was dragging a rope with bells on it.
• The false explanation did not fully hold together.
• Frank saw the rope markers for Justin and Matthew on either side.
• He remembered walking into the barrier with them and then their absence.
• Frank gathered the rope and returned to the car.
• He drove back to the hotel to find Philomena.

Frank arrived at the hotel late at night.

• The lobby was quiet.
• Most things had closed.
• Frank went to Philomena’s room and knocked.
• Philomena was halfway through the bottle of wine and had settled into bed.
• She checked through the peephole and saw Frank.
• She opened the door and invited him in.
• She poured him wine.

Frank asked Philomena whether the other two had come back.

• Philomena suffered a SAN effect and lost 1 SAN as her brain struggled with contradictory memories.
• She hit a breaking point.
• She remembered the others being present and being sent away at the same time.
• Her mind also supplied a false explanation that they had gone to Harvard for some reason, which she recognized as untrue.
• She understood the cognitive dissonance as part of the reality disturbance.
• She told Frank that, as of that moment, it was only the two of them.

Frank and Philomena compared what each had experienced.

• Philomena told Frank that an MIT professor had come to her room knowing she was there.
• She described the discussion about the Turkish archaeological site and the Book of Eibon.
• She said the Book of Eibon should not be in an MIT library, but apparently was in this reality.
• She said Vale belonged to a department that should not exist.
• Frank told Philomena that he had seen an acolyte of the Hushfathers dive under a car to kill himself.
• Frank said they were “not in Kansas anymore.”

Frank recalled the meeting with Dr. Amardeep.

• He remembered the team’s theory that touching Amardeep’s computer may have triggered Picky Eater again.
• He told Philomena that the infection seemed to spread through touch.
• Frank said he did not know where they were anymore.
• He noted that this reality did not seem like the one Matthew had described.

Philomena described her assessment of the current reality.

• She said that, for all intents and purposes, it seemed like their regular world.
• The main difference was that she appeared to be better known in specific circles than she expected.
• She clarified that Philomena was already known in certain occult or academic circles, but Vale being able to track her to her hotel was still strange.
• Philomena believed Vale did not appear to have ill intent.
• She suspected she might be more famous in this reality.
• She had not explored further because she did not want to touch electronics, ask too many questions, or appear to have had a psychotic break.

Frank considered whether the reality they were in reflected desires or personal affinities.

• He noted that if the Hushfathers had real acolytes and a real religion, that might be something Justin would want.
• He noted that the academic occult knowledge might be something Philomena would want.
• Frank said he had not noticed anything personally altered around himself.
• He did not know what Matthew might want.
• Philomena said she was meeting Vale the next morning and intended to use that as a regular pretense to reach MIT and learn more.
• Frank suggested trying to determine whether anyone in this world knew Kuhl.
• Philomena said she could ask Vale the next day.
• They decided there was little more to do that night and finished the wine.

Justin and Matthew reached MIT in the Picky Eater reality.

• They were in the math building.
• Unlike Matthew’s previous visit, there were students and people around.
• The people seemed inert until Justin and Matthew came into view, at which point they began bustling around and acting as though going about their lives.
• Justin compared this to an artificial or staged reality.
• They went toward the offices Matthew had previously visited.

Justin asked Matthew to retrace exactly what he had done last time.

• Matthew remembered how to get to Vicky King.
• They entered the offices of Pre-Revelatory Mathematics.
• The room was nearly empty.
• Vicky King sat behind an otherwise empty desk.
• Vicky greeted them warmly and strangely.
• She welcomed them to the Office of Pre-Revelatory Mathematics.
• She said they did not get many visitors there anymore and asked how she could help.
• She was unsettling and clearly not the Vicky King they had known before.
• She did not recognize Matthew from his earlier visit.

Matthew asked about Dr. Kuhl and how he had reached his current state.

• Vicky suggested taking them to the museum.
• Justin asked whether Dr. Kuhl was around.
• Vicky laughed too much at the question.
• She said the building primarily held a museum commemorating Dr. Kuhl’s great works and the first wave of revelation he brought humanity.
• She said Kuhl’s real work happened in the Hightower.

Justin was not interested in a museum tour unless it was necessary to reproduce Matthew’s prior return to reality.

• Justin asked Matthew what happened next during his prior visit.
• Matthew said that was where his story ended.
• Vicky said it did not have to end there.
• She described the museum as devoted to artifacts of the pre-revelatory world.
• She said humanity needed to maintain knowledge of its history, even though it had moved far beyond that history.
• She said they now knew they lived in one world among an infinite number.
• She described “the sweep of the endless” as being before them.

Justin learned the year in the Picky Eater reality.

• It was 2032.
• Justin asked how to gain entrance to the Hightower.
• Vicky said an appointment was needed.
• She said she maintained Dr. Kuhl’s schedule but that he was not taking visitors because he was engrossed in his work.
• She offered to take a note and schedule them when he became available.

Justin tried to convince Vicky to give him access as a programmer or potential assistant.

• He suggested that even if he could not directly help Kuhl’s research, Kuhl might need someone to move things, file things, or assist with electronic filing.
• Vicky said she handled some of that.
• She said Dr. Kuhl had perfectly optimized his working space.
• She explained that access was carefully controlled because his work was crucial to the next phase of human evolution.
• Justin described himself as an excellent programmer.
• He said that, given enough time, and if Kuhl did not exist, he might perhaps have come up with Picky Eater.
• Vicky clearly did not accept this as plausible.
• She said Dr. Kuhl’s work had moved beyond software and computing hardware into an entirely new level.
• Vicky said Justin could go to the tower and request an audience.
• She said Kuhl did sometimes speak to the crowd.

Justin asked to be put on Kuhl’s calendar.

• Vicky opened a book from her desk and wrote something down.
• The appointment she created was roughly three years in the future.

The focus shifted back to Frank and Philomena the next morning.

• Philomena intended to keep her appointment with Dr. Vale, though she planned not to arrive as early as 8:30.
• Frank and Philomena went to breakfast first and attempted to behave normally.
• They looked for clues in the news, newspapers, or television.
• The news appeared to be ordinary CNN and ordinary television coverage.

Frank and Philomena made Alertness checks while at breakfast.

• Both succeeded.
• Philomena noticed first that a man elsewhere in the restaurant was watching their table.
• The man had coffee and an untouched muffin.
• He had a short buzzed haircut and wore a dark jacket.
• He was trying to be subtle, but Philomena caught him glancing toward them repeatedly.
• Frank noticed Philomena notice something and then saw the man himself.
• Frank judged the man to be a military type, possibly police but more likely military.
• The man was in his mid-30s and fit.

Frank approached the watcher.

• He got up with his coffee and sat at the man’s table.
• He asked whether the man was not hungry.
• The man looked down at the muffin and slid it across the table to Frank.
• Frank asked whether he could help him.
• The man glanced around to see whether anyone was listening.
• He said Frank’s handler had told him where to find them.
• He said it was not protocol, but that things were out of hand.
• He said he had been told Frank had a team in town.
• He offered to explain more somewhere private.

Frank moved the conversation to an empty, closed restaurant area of the hotel.

• The area was roped off but easy to enter.
• Frank watched the man for aggression or signs he might make a move.
• Frank made a HUMINT check and failed.
• The man remained hard to read.

At the same time, Justin shifted realities again.

• Justin and Matthew rolled SAN.
• Justin failed.
• Frank failed his SAN roll as well.
• Frank was sitting with the unknown military man in a private booth when Justin appeared there.
• Justin was suddenly in the booth, though he had also somehow been there the whole time.
• Justin remembered both being at breakfast with Frank and sleeping in the hotel, while also knowing those things had not happened in the same way.
• He felt as though two parallel Justins had overlapped.
• The man across the table did not react to Justin’s impossible appearance.
• Justin told Frank that they had to solve the situation quickly.
• He described dimension hopping or phasing between versions of himself in different realities.

The watcher identified himself and explained his mission.

• The man said he did not know Picky Eater could do what Justin had just done.
• He assumed they were likely on the same operation from different angles.
• He said part of him could not believe he was sitting with Frank Booth.
• He had heard of Frank and treated him with significant reverence.
• He identified himself as Captain Nathan Havel.
• He said something was contained in the physics building sub-basement.
• Havel had taken a team in quietly the previous night.
• Half of his team had been vaporized.
• He escaped and regrouped with two shooters remaining.
• He needed someone who knew how to navigate this kind of situation.
• He had called for backup and been told that MASTICATE, Frank Booth’s team, was already on scene.
• He expected Frank to point them in the right direction.

Havel described the thing in the physics building.

• He said a quantum physics experiment seemed to have opened a rift.
• A lab had contacted some kind of intelligence.
• The intelligence might be from another dimension or from beyond the stars.
• It had been teaching the people running the lab things they should not know.
• The Program had noticed and planned to burn it out.
• Havel’s mission was to deal with the threat in the physics building sub-basement.

Justin compared Havel’s information with the Hightower from the Picky Eater reality.

• The Hightower in the Picky Eater reality was at the center of campus, at the cross-section of Massachusetts Avenue and Vassar Street.
• In that reality, the center of campus had been reconstructed around a large garden plaza and an immense white tower with reflective windows.
• Frank, Justin, and Havel were at the Marriott on the east end of campus.
• The Hightower was visible from much of campus in the Picky Eater reality.

Frank told Captain Havel to lay low.

• Frank said they could not go back into the physics building until night.
• He told Havel they had to continue working their own part of the problem.
• He instructed Havel to meet them back at the hotel at 7 p.m. to make a plan.
• Havel accepted and used military language.
• Frank told him to lay off the military talk to blend in better.
• Havel treated Frank’s advice with great respect.
• Havel left quietly through the back.

Justin then disappeared from Frank’s reality again.

• The focus returned to Justin and Matthew outside the Hightower in the Picky Eater reality.
• A crowd was assembled around the tower.
• They were not doing much.
• Justin had just returned from his contact with Frank.
• He told Matthew he was reality shifting and that the situation was becoming unstable.
• Justin wanted to infiltrate the Hightower by shifting locations between realities.
• He was concerned that if he shifted back to the original reality while high inside the Hightower, he could fall from the sky because the tower would not exist there.
• He wanted Frank or the Program to arrange a large stunt fall bag or similar protection at Massachusetts Avenue and Vassar Street.

Justin deliberately attempted to shift back to Frank’s reality to pass the message.

• He focused on Frank and the Justin who was with Frank.
• The attempt cost him 1 SAN and 1d4 Willpower.
• He lost 4 Willpower.
• The effort was exhausting.
• He appeared at the table with Frank and Philomena.
• Justin told them that shifting back took a lot and that he might not be able to do it often.
• He asked them to arrange a large drop bag or stunt cushion at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Vassar Street.
• He explained that he planned to go to the corresponding intersection and try to transition into the Hightower.
• He needed them to prevent him from falling to his death if he snapped back to their reality in midair.
• Frank said he would do what he could.
• Justin said that if Frank had people he trusted to handle that task, Frank could still infiltrate the physics building.
• Justin then left quickly to get to the center of campus.

Justin acquired a bicycle in the Picky Eater reality.

• He thought that he needed a bicycle.
• A person rode up, threw himself off a bicycle, and left it in front of Justin.
• The person looked directly at Justin, then looked around wildly.
• The person’s face contorted; his eyes rolled and he snapped his jaws.
• The person looked toward Massachusetts Avenue, where a bus was coming.
• Justin acknowledged the person’s apparent sacrifice and took the bicycle.
• As Justin rode away, he heard a bus horn, screeching brakes, and a wet impact.

Reality around Justin became more violent as he rode toward the Hightower.

• While he pedaled hard up the street, people on the third and fourth floors of buildings began diving out of windows in synchronization.
• About half a dozen people fell and struck the pavement.
• Justin was adapted to violence and continued riding past.
• He reached the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Vassar Street.
• Cars honked as he rode into the center of the intersection.
• Then he was inside the Hightower.

Matthew continued with Vicky King in the Picky Eater reality.

• He tried to learn from her and understand where Dr. Kuhl had gone.
• Vicky gave him the museum tour.
• The tour described the arc of humanity from fire to Picky Eater and then toward what would come next.
• Vicky explained that there were many worlds, infinite realities, and infinite versions of each person.
• The museum had a machine where a person could see some alternate versions of themselves.
• Matthew chose not to look at it.
• He said he was not interesting and was more interested in Dr. Kuhl.

Vicky praised Dr. Kuhl extensively.

• She described him as a brilliant mathematician and unparalleled philosopher.
• She said he was the first to marry mathematics and philosophy so thoroughly that he pierced the veil between realities and found the underlying truth.
• She said his work was not complete.
• There were more fundamental truths still to be discovered.
• She believed Kuhl would lead humanity to that light.
• Matthew could see that she could not praise Kuhl enough.

Matthew made a HUMINT check while speaking to Vicky and others.

• He succeeded.
• He concluded that there was not much substance inside the people in this reality.
• They seemed like thin reflections.
• They represented only the thinnest understanding of people.

Matthew tried to persuade Vicky to help him reach Kuhl.

• He said he needed to get to Dr. Kuhl.
• He said Kuhl was incredible and no one had done anything like him.
• He suggested he might be able to reach Kuhl.
• He said it would be incredible if they could get Kuhl back.
• Vicky only replied that Matthew was already in the appointment book.

Matthew realized he could return to the tower if he wanted.

• He remembered Justin had told him about the plan to shift into the Hightower.
• Justin was already inside the tower.
• Justin looked out a window from roughly halfway up the tower.
• He saw Matthew below in the crowd.
• Justin used a reflected glint of light to draw Matthew’s attention.
• Matthew saw Justin inside the Hightower, waving him to come up.

Matthew assessed the tower security.

• He failed a Military Science check.
• There were armed guards around the tower.
• The crowd formed a perimeter away from the tower doors.
• Matthew remembered Justin’s plan involved shifting from one reality to another to bypass the entrance.

Matthew attempted to shift back to their world to retrieve weapons.

• The shift cost him 1 SAN and 1d4 Willpower.
• He lost 3 Willpower, leaving him very low.
• In their original reality, Matthew was in the back seat of the SUV.
• His lightning rifle was in a bag in the vehicle.
• The grenade launcher and other equipment were also in the SUV.
• Matthew grabbed the bag containing the heavy weapons.

Matthew suffered a SAN effect and remembered more of his true mission.

• He succeeded on a SAN roll but still lost 1 SAN.
• He remembered with great clarity something critical that he had forgotten.
• There was a hole in reality at MIT.
• He had been told under no circumstances to let the MASTICATE team go to MIT.
• His head had been filled with the thoughts and assumptions of another Matthew.
• He had believed he needed to join the team and help their mission.
• In truth, he had originally been supposed to stop them from coming to MIT.
• That mission was now impossible because they were already there.
• He concluded that helping them might be his only way through.
• He also remembered that MIT had been deeply compromised.
• When too many Picky Eater-infected people crossed into MIT with trans-dimensional baggage, including him, it upset the entire situation.
• He understood that MITs across realities might now be overlapping or collapsing into one another.

Matthew tried to enter the Hightower with the weapons.

• He attempted to push through the shifting force while carrying the bag.
• He failed an Athletics check badly.
• He was too exhausted to maintain control.
• He snapped back to the Picky Eater reality outside the Hightower.
• He had the bag with the lightning rifle and grenade launcher.

Matthew attacked the guards outside the Hightower.

• He took cover behind a carved stone planter with a groomed tree.
• He placed the lightning rifle beside him for quick access.
• He loaded the grenade launcher.
• He fired at the guards.
• Matthew rolled Heavy Weapons and succeeded.
• The grenade arced over the crowd and struck behind the guards.
• The explosion killed the three guards without blowing up anyone in the crowd.
• The crowd screamed and scattered.
• The entrance to the Hightower was clear.
• Matthew put the grenade launcher back in his bag, grabbed the lightning rifle, and headed toward the tower.

Meanwhile, Frank and Philomena considered what to do in their reality.

• Frank told Philomena about the thing in the physics building basement and Captain Havel’s report.
• Frank said that in this reality, his personal alteration appeared to be that he was regarded as the greatest Delta Green agent ever.
• Philomena asked why the Program would not simply blow up the physics building if it was so dangerous.
• Frank answered that the operation still appeared to be secret in this reality, so they did not want to draw attention.
• Frank said that in Matthew’s alternate reality, that might be exactly what they would do.
• Frank said whatever was in the basement was not real, and that none of this was real.
• When Philomena asked whether that meant the alternate Matthew was not real, Frank said that Matthew McCarter was dead in his book.
• Frank said Justin appeared to be in Kuhl’s world and was able to move himself between realities, which he regarded as a bad sign.

Frank tried to arrange a safety measure for Justin.

• He decided to call Pitzerelli from the lobby phone.
• When Pitzerelli picked up, there was an unusual silence.
• Frank opened by saying that Frank Booth was the greatest agent in the world.
• Pitzerelli became concerned and asked whether everything was okay.
• Frank asked whether she had recently spoken to a captain.
• She said no.
• She was worried and asked whether they needed to pull Frank out.
• Frank said he did not know what “out” meant anymore.
• Pitzerelli reframed the question and asked whether Frank could still complete the operation.
• Frank said he was still breathing and did not know whether she could get him out even if she tried.
• He asked about the odds of arranging a blocked-off intersection in the middle of MIT that day.

Frank briefly tried to use the altered reality logic to create a movie production at MIT.

• He concentrated hard on there being an action movie filming at MIT with a big finale scene at the relevant intersection.
• Nothing obvious happened from this effort.
• Pitzerelli instead suggested a more practical approach.
• She reminded Frank of a prior event in Duluth where a bomb scare had been used to clear people.
• Frank accepted this as workable.

Frank also warned Pitzerelli about Vicky King.

• He asked whether Pitzerelli had met Vicky King.
• Pitzerelli did not know the name at first.
• Frank clarified that Vicky was connected to Bridget, Nora, and the partner now working for them.
• Pitzerelli remembered her.
• Frank said they were involved and had created it.
• Pitzerelli asked whether letting Vicky go had caused the problem and whether containing her would fix it.
• Frank said no; he did not think Vicky and the others were the masterminds.
• He said they were only doing the work.
• He recommended that Vicky be contained and questioned.
• Pitzerelli said she would pass that message along.

Frank and Philomena headed toward the center of campus.

• As they moved toward the disturbance, they heard police sirens.
• Ambulances and first responders were heading toward the center of campus.
• Along Vassar Street, there were bodies on the sidewalks from people who had jumped out of buildings.
• Police and responders were beginning to rope off parts of the area.
• A person had been hit by a bus.
• The route toward the center of campus was marked by dead bodies.
• Frank and Philomena were adapted to violence, but the carnage was still unpleasant and disturbing.
• Frank remarked that he did not think the dead people were their problem and kept moving.
• Philomena looked on with obvious distaste.

Frank and Philomena reached the blocked-off area near the center of campus.

• Police were blocking the eastern side of Vassar Street.
• Massachusetts Avenue traffic was still moving through the center of campus.
• A bicycle lay in the middle of the intersection.
• Drivers were swerving around it, creating a dangerous situation.
• The bike appeared to be the one Justin had used when shifting into the Hightower.

The session ended with reality continuing to delaminate around MASTICATE.

• Justin was inside the Hightower in the Picky Eater reality.
• Matthew had cleared the Hightower entrance with a grenade launcher and was moving in with the lightning rifle.
• Frank and Philomena were approaching the corresponding location in their own reality amid bodies, sirens, and police response.
• Captain Havel and his remaining shooters were set to meet Frank later for the planned physics building operation.
• Pitzerelli had been warned about Vicky King and asked to consider containment and questioning.
• Multiple members of MASTICATE had suffered SAN loss and breaking points during the session.
• The group ended with the situation unresolved and the realities increasingly unstable.