The Institute Page #6

She just kept running.

And I thought she went home,

and I was, like, hiding and

whispering, "Eva, Eva. "

She didn't answer.

I was there forever, but then I

just figured she went home.

So, eventually, I went home,

too.

Did anything else happen on

your way home?

Did you see anyone?

Anything unusual?

No.

So, the obvious question was,

"What happened to her, and why

is she the point at which these

two organizations kind of

conflict or meet?"

Her father, Blair Lucien, as it

turns out, was a kind of, I

don't know,

scientist/mysticist/inventor.

And he had created this thing

called the Algorithm, which he

thought was going to be a very

powerful way of helping humanity

ascend to the next level.

And Blair Lucien's a real

person, and he had a real house,

in West Berkeley, in the '70s

and '80s.

And I did a little snooping

about his property records and

just about the construction of

the house and the neighborhood.

And it turns out this particular

house has a basement, a real

underground basement, which you

don't really find in the Bay

Area hardly at all.

Here I was, spending a lot of

time, trying to figure out who

Blair Lucien was, what's the

meaning of his special basement?

How do you interpret the fact

that the algorithm is clearly

with the Jejune Institute and

there's an artifact that makes

it work that is somewhere else?

That artifact being the crystal

oscillator.

By this point, I was really at a

place where I couldn't tell

where the game ended and

reality began.

I'm not proud of it, but I broke

into a family's house, went into

their basement.

And in their basement, as it

turned out, there was this door

that kind of led off somewhere.

And I didn't pick the lock.

I actually just kind of smashed

the door down.

And behind it was this tunnel.

There was a drop-off, and then

there was a tunnel full of

water.

And I went down there, and I

started following it.

I didn't really have a

flashlight.

I just used my cellphone light.

And I ended up getting lost.

I have a kind of sea of memories

and sounds and darkness that was

relieved by the players who

found me, to be honest.

I was asked to participate in

a rescue of Kelvin Williams.

He had gone missing for a long

time, and his website, his blog,

was taken over by the

Elsewhere Public Works Agency.

"Your mission is to find and

retrieve Kelvin Williams and,

if possible, recover the crystal

oscillator.

If Kelvin Williams has it in his

possession already, he'll know

what to do with it.

But, primarily, you need to

help him get out of the

underground.

You're here, and you need to get

over here and then find the

creek bed and follow it

downstream into the subterranean

labyrinth.

Be forewarned... sh*t gets weird

down there.

Go through the second open

portal to your right.

If you hit 850, you've gone too

far. "

Down here.

So, that's a map of

underground.

Yeah.

Holy f***.

That was terrifying, yeah.

We were asked to go down into

these storm drains under the

streets of Berkeley to rescue

Kelvin.

And it was very early in the

springtime.

There was still quite a bit of

winter runoff in the pipes.

In order to get to the tunnels,

you had to go along this park,

go down into this river.

So, we were this deep in water.

Soaked all the way through right

from the beginning.

And then, when we got to the

tunnels, there was water rushing

past us.

So, several times during the

course of the afternoon, we had

to hold onto the sides of the

tunnel to keep from sliding down

into the water, to the runoff.

And it's these old brick tunnels

at some point.

So, there was weird sounds being

piped in from all these side

tunnels and strange

notations written in chalk on

all the walls.

And a lot of them said, like,

"Look behind you. "

So, we were constantly... I

think I was even bringing up the

rear most of the time.

So, I was constantly looking

behind me and trying not to slip

and trying not to hit my head,

because the tunnel was 5 foot

something or other.

So, I was crouched down the

whole time, incredibly

comfortable of hearing the

sounds of hooting of the Jejune

goons.

So, I imagined those black-clad

creatures coming up and just

grabbing me from behind the

whole time.

So, it was a game.

It's part of a game, but at that

time, at that moment, it really

didn't feel like a game anymore.

It was genuinely scary, yeah.

Holy sh*t.

That tunnel wasn't very fun.

Hi.

Hi.

How did... how did you find this

place?

The hollows had sent us.

Where did this tunnel come

from?

I came from the other way.

And there's a chamber and...

Get me out of here.

Somewhere back there...

Hidden?

...the tunnels go the other

way, and it was in a chamber.

Want to see it?

Yeah.

Hey.

Maybe we should wait till we

get out.

I don't know...

Whoa.

...what to make of it, but

that's it.

That's what they said.

It's in a crystal.

And without this, the

algorithm's useless.

I guess.

All right.

Let's form a little bodyguard

party around him and the

crystal.

Everyone understands what

somewhere is.

If I say "San Francisco," most

people know what I'm referring

to.

Or, at least, they think they

do.

They have an idea of here and an

idea of there.

In other words, "here" is the

place we are, and "there" is the

place we are not.

Elsewhere is a kind of magical

between.

A human being, someone like Eva,

with the right understanding,

can take the seed within them

and become a doorway to

Elsewhere.

I suspected that Eva's deep

capacities to use this seed to

transform our reality in ways

that we were unprepared for was

the reason why she was pursued

and also the reason why she

disappeared.

It was my suspicion that

somebody became aware of this

girl's capacity to introduce

unexpected novelty into

situations that seemed otherwise

frozen.

And I feel they were intent on

co-opting these abilities for

the sake of corporate, military,

or cultlike goals.

And thus, she had to arrange to

put herself in a position where

she would be inaccessible to

people who she would be

otherwise unable to evade and

that she remains, I think, in a

suspension, a kind of suspended

place, a place of suspended

time, identity, and location, a

place which we use the term

"elsewhere" to refer to.

So, as for... even before it

started,

I was really excited for it

because it actually took

place in Oakland

instead of

San Francisco, and I live in

Oakland.

And it's kind of like home turf

for me.

And when I found out it was at

the Chapel of the Chimes, I was

even more excited, because it's

this beautiful... it's like a

mausoleum.

It houses, you know,

probably like thousands and

thousands of people's ashes.

But all the urns are books.

So, you walk in, and it's like

trees and plants inside.

There's, like, little corridors

and little alcoves, and they

each have different names, like,

"Chapel of Spirituality. "

They all have these really

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