1.7 Far from the Tree, Part 1

"We can title the episode Doppelbanger."

When last we met...

After a narrow escape from the Killing Fields, the river that served as our group's road to freedom turns dangerous as Geoffrey, B, and Maya are separated from the rest of the party while the rushing water steers them straight into Scylla and Charybdis...

Welcome to Paradise

A woman in blue-and-yellow steampunk gear hustles through a jungle of elephant ears, sidesteps a quicksand pit, teeters across stones in a stream, emerges onto a beach. In front of her is a slice of paradise – women in bikinis frolicking on the sand, a lifeguard in swim trunks and a jetpack zooming over the water ensuring their safety. A perfect barrel wave heads for the shore, and a Jason Momoa look-alike drops in, riding it expertly toward the sand.

The woman taps her foot impatiently, waiting. The wave veers, like it might be controlled by the rider instead of vice versa, and the man glides to land right in front of her. She smiles and leans in.

"Maui, my hero. Everyone's hero."

He preens. "Hero of the city! Yes!"

"I need your help."

He leans in, grinning. "Anything for my girlfriend."

She winces. "I told you we don't need labels. With you, I just need lube."

He smiles bigger. "Because I'm so...."

She redirects him. "Lover... the seagulls have gotten out again. Could you maybe grab them before Raz, uh, realizes? Or, more likely, before they drown and I lose my job?"

"Anything for my... friendly acquaintance with an amazing benefits package. Hmmm, shall we?" He starts to back her towards the woods.

She points behind him. "My idiot charges?"

Maui spins, his luscious hair fanning out behind him. "Great! Maui will save the day!"

"Thank you. Maui. Maui, you're awesome. Forest trip later."

With a whoop, Maui runs for the waves and swims out, out to a dome made of... glass? Energy? Mist? Beyond the shelter of the dome, 7 bodies sink into the dark waters from somewhere above...

Between Scylla and Charybdis

MC: "You either die, or you don't."

Thrashing about in the water, the helpless group careens into a bend of the river bracketed by Scylla – a six armed mechanized scoop that pulls anything out of the river and dumps it into a compactor – and Charybdis, a swirling whirlpool of trash. The group is spun about, grabbed by robotic arms and pummeled by debris. Somewhere in the melee Maeve starts drowning, and as Cillian lunges for her, one of the collars he still has on his belt activates, snaking its way up his arm...

Arrival in the Sunken City

As they plummet through the water, the people who are awake and aware feel their power dissipate for just a moment before it returns, seemingly amplified. They are hauled out of the water and up to the shore by a combination of a jawbone on a rope, a hand on an arm or a leg, or lifeguards carefully carrying the unconscious bodies up to the sand. Overhead, they can see a large dome made from an indeterminate substance, which clearly shows the deep, dark ocean beyond.

Cillian: "Be careful, Wren! You don't want to get attached to this thing. Why is it attaching to me? It didn't attach to me earlier."
GalleryMaeve: "Damn it, we were going to keep him in bubble wrap and he was going to be okay...."

The injured are stabilized by their rescuers as a young woman in yellow and blue steampunk-looking attire approaches the battered crew, frowning in exasperation at John and Sergei. Cillian washes up, completely entangled in the golden torcs that were on his belt, wrist and ankles bound in haphazard fashion. Wren inspects them and pulling a small tool out of the pack she always has with her, she manages to cut them off. The pieces stop their energetic buzz, and seem inert; but Cillian refuses to touch them again.

Kevin opens his eyes where he lies on the beach, and finds himself face-to-face with a tuatara. It licks his forehead. And then it bites his ear. It blinks. Kevin blinks back. And then the tuatara opens its third eye... and a familiar voice sounds in Kevin's head.

Mariah (dragging John up by his ear): "Is this your fault this time?"
John: "I don't even know where I am, lady."

The steampunk woman starts berating John and Sergei for "escaping to the main dome again," telling them that "their dad is going to murder them" and that now she has to "hide the surface people to avoid an investigation by the Elders." They are totally baffled, and when they ask her who the heck she is, she reminds them that she's Mariah. Assholes. And the only way she gets the job she really wants – working with Daedalus – is to mind "you and your dumbass brothers." Plural.

Wait... what??

She has both Sergei and John by the ear and starts frog-marching them off towards the edge of the jungle, warning them they need to move now before "Raz catches them."

John: "Wait, who is father? What?"
Maeve: "Oh God, wait, John, did you say you're a father? I hit my head harder than I thought."
John: "If I am, I don't know about it. Well, except for the—I'm paying the child support."
Maeve: "When did this happen? I mean, because based on some of those looks we've gotten at events, that wouldn't surprise me."
John: "'05 was a long tour."

Mariah's blistering tirade is interrupted by a hulking black shape hurtling from the trees. A terrifying, nightmarish stallion, its mane and tail ending in wisps of smoke, its eyes glowing red, gallops down the beach riding the air above the surface. Everyone scrambles to get out of the way. It comes to a stop just short of the group, rears, and then .... pushes its nose into London's (very bruised) ribs as though it's looking for a treat.

London balks. "You are fucking kidding me."

The horse drops its shoulder in invitation and London, badly injured, sighs as he grabs on to the horse and painfully pulls himself to standing. Then the horse insists that he get on. Kevin looks at the horse, and looks back at the lizard, and keeps talking to the tuatara.

Sergei: "There is an explanation for all of this. I do not have it."

On the long walk through the jungle, Sergei and John realize that according to this woman, they are brothers, two of many. While they wrestle with this new revelation, London chats Mariah up and gets a little more information as a real (and really attractive) stranger to the Sunken City. The guys are the children of Rasputin, or "Raz" for short. At least, he's their "genetic donor." There's apparently one "original," whatever that means. Mariah explains that educational opportunities for women are rare down here, and she has a job taking care of all the "failures" among the brothers as a way to get to her final goal of the job she really wants. She says there are four of them under her care before she realizes she's talking too much, reassures London that they re a "peaceful, peaceful, wonderful society" and offers London the flask she's been steadily drinking from instead. There's a brief moment where Mariah has to yank John and Sergei out of the quicksand, which has apparently happened many times before.

City Streets

Finally clear of the jungle, the group emerges into a gleaming, magnificent steampunk metropolis. Slow moving crystal golems work tirelessly to fix the tracks of an elevated train that whizzes through the city. Above, there's no sky; there's more of the gigantic dome, through which sea life can be seen swimming past. Brick buildings with brass exposed piping, children who float past on hoverboards that look like Victorian-era sleds, it's a wonder.

And as they keep walking, the city starts to change. It gets chillier, and in the distance onion domes dominate the horizon. Snow dusts the ground. The buildings around them transition to a steampunk Russia.

Sergei: "It feels like home."
Mariah: "It should. Oh my God. YOU'RE FROM HERE."
Sergei: "No, I am from Russia... I was physicist."

London tries to recall what he knows about Rasputin, kicking it around with Wren and Kevin, but basically all they come up with is: bussin' hair and beard, spiritual advisor to the Romanovs, did a lot of sinning since you have to do that to be able to seek forgiveness, which is what makes you truly holy. He also survived being poisoned multiple times and was shot by nobles who feared he'd end the Empire. Nicholas II was overthrown the year after his death. Also, Anastasia.

GalleryKevin: "According to Indigo Girls, he lived until 1917."

Meanwhile, Mariah keeps telling John and Sergei that she saw them at breakfast this morning and she doesn't understand why they're so confused about this. She calls them "Pyat" and "Shest" – Five and Six. As she drags them along, she shares that exiting a dome into the water will kill you, and that there are glassed-in roads between the domes which is how people are supposed to travel.

Sergei repeatedly tries to explain that he's got a wealth of PhDs and works for Helix Corporation – a name Mariah recognizes, though she's shocked that he's ever heard of them. But nothing he says seems to get through to the woman. She remains firmly convinced that he has the IQ of a houseplant.

And with that... they arrive.

Arrival at the House of Rasputin

The group approaches a glorious palace of truly Tsarist proportions, but Mariah takes them all in through a servant's entrance on the side. At the door, London parts ways with the horse, leaving him with the stableboy to stay at a special facility for intelligent quadrupeds. (The horse was clearly offended by the question of his intelligence, which was an answer by itself.) Nobody is sure what he eats, and they're not sure they want to know, but the stables are prepared for Púca guests and someone on staff speaks Demonic, so it should all turn out fine.

Mariah takes the rest of them into the family wing of the house, which is a never ending corridor of identical doors. She is determined to deposit her charges where they are supposed to be. The group is uneasy about leaving Sergei and John here alone without backup, so Maeve – and Cillian – awkwardly announce they're staying here as John's... very personal entourage.

Mariah then takes the rest of the group to the library, to wait while rooms are prepared.

The Library

Wren: "I get the sense they're not gonna let us out of here."
London: "That is entirely possible."

London, Wren, and Kevin find themselves in a sumptuous, gorgeous library. The books go on and on, and are primarily in Russian. There are seating areas for idle reading, and desks for serious study. When the group hungrily tells Mariah that they'd love some food, a feast shortly appears, and they tuck in while trying to figure out what they can learn from books in a language none of them speaks.

The existence of the many brothers of John and Sergei fresh in their minds, Wren and London set about trying to find a genealogy. Wren eventually finds a labeled family-tree, ornately decorated, on the wall. Going all the way back to the beginning, they read ordinary, single names, all in Russian. Then, a few generations in, the pattern changes.

Rasputin (Mark)  ——  Ekaterina (Catherine)
                │
           Adin (Ivan)

London, meanwhile, finds a map of the Sunken City when he goes digging for information on the political landscape of the city, attempting to understand their assessment of their position relative to the rest of the world. This dome is not the main one – down in the Southwest corner of the map.

Respite

London, Wren, and Kevin are shown to their rooms. London immediately checks his for surveillance equipment, finding an audio bug in the lamp beside the bed. He tosses it out the window, but doesn't bother looking any further; if they really want video, they are welcome to it.

Wren similarly studies the furnishings in her room. What she finds is interesting; while the aesthetic is pre-soviet, the tech is decidedly modern. Artfully antique feeling, but decidedly convenient. She fiddles with the radio in her room, which seems to pick up stations all the way from the surface world. She cracks the case, and discovers a panel of reddish metal she's never seen. Removing it, the radio still functions; but the range is drastically limited. She pockets the metal for later study.

Family Wing

John and Sergei – and Maeve and Cillian – find themselves in a nicely appointed, if impersonal, room for two. If the four of them already felt crowded it's compounded by... another man, identical to Sergei and John, who sits on the bed. He grins at them. "Oh hey, Pyat."

Maeve asks him who he is and what he does, and the answer is immediate.

"Girls. There's lots of cushions everywhere. You should come with me."

The blunt proposition earns an angry objection from Cillian, followed by menacing backup from John. The stranger looks to John and says, "what, is she yours?" which prompts Maeve to grab both John and Cillian by their shirtfronts, saucily excuse them from the present company, and retreat into the bathroom, motioning Sergei along with them.

MC: "Okay, so you've got the twins and Cillian in a bathroom."
Maeve: "I do."
John: "You know, there are way worse ways to spend an evening."

She turns on the taps to create a semblance of privacy, letting the third John/Sergei-like entity think... exactly what he wants to think. Cillian stations himself against the door, arms crossed. Maeve quickly checks to see if there's any window, door, or hidden passage that gets out of this bathroom; there isn't. While it's the one place they can talk, they aren't sure what to do next. But they know they have to get rid of not-John/Sergei. If they can get him out of the picture, they can explore the hallway freely. He is clearly not super intelligent.

Sergei: "He is box of rocks, I think is phrase."

John steps out of the bathroom and makes an odd request: food. Specifically, tacos. He attempts to explain to his very dumb brother what makes a taco, and after repeatedly declining offers of being escorted to the dining hall, he manages to get his brother to go off in search of a taco with tortillas made from flowers.

Sergei: "I have this terrible feeling that if we're here overnight, we both turn into idiot."
Maeve: "I have so many terrible feelings, I'm not really sure where to start right now."

The brother dispatched, John shakes out any nerves, faking a confidence he doesn't entirely feel as he leads the other three out into the hallway.

John: "That's right. I can walk around like I belong."
Maeve: "Absolutely, and you should. We'll just float along in your wake, like we're your Playboy bunnies."

They go down a floor first — finding a corridor that is even more opulent, a grand foyer, and no guest rooms. Looping back they go past their own floor up to third, finding the guest suites belonging to their friends. Since the four of them are long past subtlety at this point, they just start calling out for everyone.

Regroup

Wren, freshly showered and wearing a robe, opens her door to determine the source of the noise. That open door apparently serves as an invitation, because everyone piles in. John and Sergei take a cue from their own room, turning on every faucet and opening the windows to the chilly night air for cover noise. Kevin is fetched from two doors down... and brings the tuatara.

John and Sergei share what they've learned. The brothers are numbered, not named. They met one of the real "failures" under Mariah's charge. And she still thinks she last saw the pair of them this morning, when we all know that they've been topside for five years at minimum. So someone is wrong somewhere, or there's a time misalignment between the Sunken City and the surface.

Cillian: "This has been the weirdest day of my life."
Maeve: "Um... we are only getting started."

They all awkwardly peer at Cillian, who endures it as gracefully as possible; the fact that the torcs from the barn enclave suddenly started responding to him is no small matter. Maeve's eyes trace the lines of his face, trying to figure out what's different. He definitely has an otherworldly glow he's never had before, and she's checked several times before. Around his arms are spirals of ivy and greenery, connected to a glowing green core, which at once is present but... muted. Blocked. Locked up? It reads like... a puzzle box. Something that can be unlocked under the right circumstances or with the right code.

MC: "Your Rifts feel good here. Uncomfortably good here."

Even those who have lived with their powers for a while have an extra intensity to their auras. Their Rifts are stronger here. More potent. And potentially more problematic.

Wren gives the metal she removed from her radio over to Sergei, who examines it. Improvising with the tools he has at hand, he concludes that the closest topside equivalent to this would be... solidified Mist. That theory is supported by Wren's observation that the metal seemed to amplify the radio's attunement to stations beyond the Sunken City.

Sergei takes all this one step further, realizing that his tuning fork, the calibration device, that has been tracking a signal that matches his own register? It must be tracking John. Because they are identical in every way. In fact they are... clones. Real clones. After all, the idea that you can have identical sextuplets or more is preposterous. They had to be reproduced genetically, not biologically. And it aligns with Mariah's mutterings on their hike to the city.

Wren: "So we're in like fucking Atlantis or some shit?"
John: "Some shit, yeah."

London shares the details of the map from the Library. As they examine it they talk through what's happened to date, and their run in with Scylla and Charybdis. Maeve can't help noticing how well Cillian knows his Greek myths, and he lets slip that he dropped out of college. Maeve just smiles.

Maeve: "These are the things you're not supposed to tell me, remember? In the spirit of competition, I feel I should warn you when you reveal something you didn't intend to reveal."

So what happens next? The group decides the only logical play is to get everyone rested and healed up, approach John and Sergei's parents, get all the answers they can, and then run like hell.

And with that, there's a knock on the door.

Catherine

There's another knock at Wren's door... but everyone they know is already accounted for. Wren opens the door to find an elegant, imposing woman in a perfectly tailored suit in her doorway.

Catherine: "You think I'm giving you a test?"
John: "I do."
Catherine: "Well, why do you think this is a test, darling? What am I to you that I would give you a test?"

She pleasantly welcomes her guests and asks if they are comfortable before focusing her attention on John. She peppers John and Sergei with questions, in both Russian and English, across a variety of subjects.

Recalling the genealogy to mind, London realizes that this is Catherine – and that John is Ivan. She confirms and formally introduces herself as John's mother.

Like most everyone here in the Sunken City, Kevin notes that Catherine has a Rift.

Somebody who is full of life and power and energy and proud of where she's gotten despite being a woman. Tired of being a wife. And someone who assumes that she has the right to do what she thinks is best. Very, very, very Russian.

London focuses on figuring out her angle. The thing she wants more than any other is to run this city – The Sunken City in its entirety, not just this small corner of it. She loves her sons, but what she really wants has nothing to do with them.

When asked about John and Sergei, Catherine fills in some details. John is her biological son. The others are clones, created in a lab based on him. Mariah had them confused with Pyat and Shest who are two of her charges; while the successful "experiments" have names, the less successful ones have numbers. Sergei is their most successful result.

Catherine: "It took a while to get to you. To get to someone with your level of brilliance and capability. The experiments, they did not... they did not all turn out so well."

As for John's father, Rasputin, she acknowledges that her lover is not very smart, but he's good at entertaining and managing the masses. She also has no idea why John and Sergei don't remember this place, their home, at all. And she'd very much like to understand why John has been gone for five years.

Desperate to get back to the surface, John tells Catherine about the enslaved people in the Apples & Oranges Enclave. Catherine acknowledges him, but her take isn't to immediately address it.

Catherine: "That is a terrible thing. If you stayed on here, you would be safe from that."
John: "We don't want to be saved from that. We want to stop it."

Catherine: "But you are not there. You are here, home with me, where you belong, Ivan. We can rule together. … And once we have built something strong enough, maybe we can do this thing that you are wanting to do and protect those above. There is much in this Sunken City that is happening that needs to be stopped, that needs to be fixed. One step at a time."

Catherine reassures them all, several times, that of course they are welcome to leave The Sunken City. How never comes up in conversation.

The Quote Napkin 🍷🥂

For whatever reason, the table was ON this evening. I couldn't just leave these out. They are in no particular order, and unattributed, mostly.

"You just needed slutty little glasses and a good haircut. Like, right, that kind of physicist." — On casting a movie physicist

"Red! The blood of angry men!" — On the wine selection

"In the immortal words of Candide, I have no strong objection to champagne."

"But we're in City of Mist, where the legend is everything." — Jackie

"It could be worse. He could be seven, and then we'd be in six-seven hell."

"It's not the size of the pitch fork. It's how you tune it. And let me tell you, between twins, it really doesn't matter."

"If you were to be in a bathroom with three of us at the same time, shouldn't you be the one screaming?" / "Most people don't need to hear that." / "You don't read the same books I do."

"Maeve gets to live that life apparently every episode." / "No, that's not what's going on here."

"Now Scott's gonna love reading this. Look what you missed, bro." — on Helmcamp missing the doppelbanger discourse