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Oct. 6th, 2005 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyfirestarterThe installation maintained by the Tet Corporation in Taos, New Mexico, was once a sprawling ranch used for little more than executive retreats. It's now something else. Just how else is not immediately apparent to the naked eye.
The main building is a converted ranch house, big and sprawling, painted pale grey. Referred to as "the House" or "Main," it houses the installation's main offices and the living quarters of the first four local Talents. Two of them are a young married couple; one is a mentally disabled man in his forties; and one, the installation's Head, is a woman from a world just barely distinguishable from this one.
Main faces onto the winding road that leads to town. There are gates across the road where it intersects the single fence -- made of wood, not wire -- that runs around the entire installation. There are surveillance cameras, but no visible guards.
To one side of Main is a low building containing mostly offices; to the other is a weathered barn, the oldest building on the installation. It currently houses six horses and five cows, all that remains of the original ranch's herds, kept about for appearances (and, in a small way, for therapy). Less formally, it's also home to a thriving population of mice, kept just barely in check by a handful of professional barn cats.
Behind Main are the grounds, also referred to as "the campus": a broad stretch of level land nestled in a valley, punctuated by smoothly paved paths, flowerbeds, low shrubbery, and a few spreading trees. The surrounding mountains provide a picturesque backdrop ... and, at a pinch, a layer of natural defense.
The low cluster of red-roofed buildings at one end of the campus holds the handful of classrooms, the library, the gym, the pool, and the refectory; the many-storied brick building at the other end holds the dormitory. (It is a purely staff joke -- and one that recent staff member Ted Brautigan has never found amusing -- to refer to them, respectively, as "the Rose" and "the Tower.") At the base of the dormitory are the small but well-stocked and well-staffed medical offices, the installation's newest addition.
Beyond the classrooms is the assembly hall: high-ceilinged, many-windowed, skylighted, and familiar. We have seen this building before, from the inside; it was our first glimpse of Taos, seen through the shimmer of a portal that led here from five hundred years and several worlds away.
And strolling from the assembly hall towards the dormitory on this particular autumn afternoon is Charlie McGee, Head of the Taos Installation, casual in jeans and a green cotton blouse, taking a turn about the grounds.
The main building is a converted ranch house, big and sprawling, painted pale grey. Referred to as "the House" or "Main," it houses the installation's main offices and the living quarters of the first four local Talents. Two of them are a young married couple; one is a mentally disabled man in his forties; and one, the installation's Head, is a woman from a world just barely distinguishable from this one.
Main faces onto the winding road that leads to town. There are gates across the road where it intersects the single fence -- made of wood, not wire -- that runs around the entire installation. There are surveillance cameras, but no visible guards.
To one side of Main is a low building containing mostly offices; to the other is a weathered barn, the oldest building on the installation. It currently houses six horses and five cows, all that remains of the original ranch's herds, kept about for appearances (and, in a small way, for therapy). Less formally, it's also home to a thriving population of mice, kept just barely in check by a handful of professional barn cats.
Behind Main are the grounds, also referred to as "the campus": a broad stretch of level land nestled in a valley, punctuated by smoothly paved paths, flowerbeds, low shrubbery, and a few spreading trees. The surrounding mountains provide a picturesque backdrop ... and, at a pinch, a layer of natural defense.
The low cluster of red-roofed buildings at one end of the campus holds the handful of classrooms, the library, the gym, the pool, and the refectory; the many-storied brick building at the other end holds the dormitory. (It is a purely staff joke -- and one that recent staff member Ted Brautigan has never found amusing -- to refer to them, respectively, as "the Rose" and "the Tower.") At the base of the dormitory are the small but well-stocked and well-staffed medical offices, the installation's newest addition.
Beyond the classrooms is the assembly hall: high-ceilinged, many-windowed, skylighted, and familiar. We have seen this building before, from the inside; it was our first glimpse of Taos, seen through the shimmer of a portal that led here from five hundred years and several worlds away.
And strolling from the assembly hall towards the dormitory on this particular autumn afternoon is Charlie McGee, Head of the Taos Installation, casual in jeans and a green cotton blouse, taking a turn about the grounds.
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Date: 2005-10-07 03:27 am (UTC)Avi lies on his stomach next to her, chin propped on folded hands, watching.
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Date: 2005-10-07 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-07 03:35 am (UTC)She doesn't look up.
Beth is less defensive, these days. But there's still a faint edge of it.
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Date: 2005-10-07 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-07 04:06 am (UTC)Zillah, on her hands and knees, peers out from behind a nearby hedge.
"Tennyson," she offers by way of explanation.
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Date: 2005-10-07 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-07 04:21 am (UTC)"It's a garden?"
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Date: 2005-10-09 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 03:21 am (UTC)"You've seen her."
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Date: 2005-10-09 05:15 pm (UTC)"Yes."
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Date: 2005-10-09 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 05:37 pm (UTC)"She -- you went there," she says. "Went through."
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Date: 2005-10-11 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 06:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 06:25 am (UTC)"All shall be well."
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Date: 2005-10-11 07:11 am (UTC)Even her limited senses can feel the
(River Tam)
goodmind starting to pulse outward from the
(she's okay tell them she's okay)
children around her,
(River Tam safe found not lost)
powerful enough that it seems she should be able to look around and see the air ripple with it.
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Date: 2005-10-11 07:29 am (UTC)"Message in a bottle," Stefan murmurs. "Telling tales inside their heads."
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Date: 2005-10-11 08:43 pm (UTC)She stares intently up at Charlie. "Did you see the rose?"
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Date: 2005-10-11 08:45 pm (UTC)"The rose?"
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Date: 2005-10-12 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 02:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 02:25 am (UTC)Not elation, or not just elation. Fear; residual fear long buried.
"There were -- they came for her. The Graduates, and -- and arbitrary blackness gallops in -- insufficient data. Insufficient. She doesn't know."
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Date: 2005-10-12 02:27 am (UTC)Beth scowls at the ground. "It's a euphemism," she informs her arrangement of stones, with vast scorn. "Think it doesn't hurt if you change its name."
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Date: 2005-10-12 02:44 am (UTC)Zillah leans into her, and nods again, silently.
"In the meantime -- you all know already, River asked me to tell you all that she's safe, and she's well. I'm sure she'd like to know the same about you. If any of you want to send more personal messages, you can give them to me. Sealed, if they're private."
It's not necessary to call an assembly to make sure everybody hears; the word's already spreading, mind to mind, faster than she could do it herself. Even just touching the edges of it, Charlie's exhilarated -- and a little frightened.
The good-mind isn't a constant thing, here. And every time it happens, she's simultaneously wistful and relieved that it doesn't last.