Chapter 14: The Archives
The UCLA Special Collections building didn’t look like a place where reality could change.
It looked like every other mid-century academic library—clean lines, dull concrete, windows that barely admitted sunlight. But inside, beneath the hum of fluorescents and the hush of overdue research papers, Chris and Tristan sat hunched over a long wooden table with latex gloves and a shared sense of disbelief.
They weren’t students. They weren’t scholars.
But they had a story.
And stories, it turned out, could open doors.
Tristan had called in a favor from a professor who’d written a book on Quincy Jones—the architect of Sunnylands. Within a day, they’d been granted supervised access to several dusty folders labeled:
A. QUINCY JONES / PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE / 1963–1971
And buried within the neat, typewritten exchanges about HVAC systems and water features, they found it:
A letter from Walter Annenberg to Jones, dated April 4, 1964.
The paper smelled like an old envelope and ego.
The contents were simple:
“Quince—
As we finalize the Inwood Room, I ask only this: ensure symmetry is imperfect. One shelf should be ever so slightly out of tune with the others. As discussed, this will preserve resonance, and help support transformational dialogue.
I’ve enclosed a waveform sketch from the NASA boys—use it to inform the proportions, if not the details. This is not decorative. It is functional.
– Walter”
Chris exhaled. “This is interesting, but what does it mean?” He looked up, scanned around the library, and in that moment he happened to make eye contact with a researcher passing by.
“Excuse me.” The researcher stopped.
“Is there anyone on staff right now who is an expert on the A. Quincy Jones archives?”
The researcher thought for a moment, then answered, “Yes, I think so, let me double check and get back to you.”
After a few minutes, a more senior-looking researcher approached the table where Chris and Tristan were pouring over the archives. “Hello, how can I help?” he said.
“Ah yes, I was just curious as to this correspondence between Quincy Jones and Walter Annenberg.”
The senior researcher glanced down, then laughed quietly. “Yes, I thought the same. When people think of the design of Sunnylands, they only think of the correspondence between Quincy and Leonore. She was more… specific. Walter’s correspondence was more… esoteric. I think that’s the only reason those archives never made it into the common discourse about Sunnylands.”
“Thank you,” Chris said. He smiled and blinked slowly, conveying his satisfaction with that response.
The senior researcher was content, and walked away.
Tristan just smiled. “He wasn’t just eccentric.”
“He was building a transmission chamber, and under cover from the highest levels of government,” Chris said.
—————
They left the archives and drove in silence down the highway toward Pasadena.
Chris gripped the wheel a little tighter than necessary. The city rushed past in wide concrete strokes—strip malls, stucco motels, long stretches of sun-bleached freeway that seemed to repeat in a loop.
Tristan stared out the window, hair blowing slightly, one hand tapping out rhythm patterns against his knee.
They didn’t speak again until they reached the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
—————
At JPL, they posed as independent documentary researchers looking for declassified materials related to the Golden Record and Voyager I.
It wasn’t even a lie.
At the front desk, they were directed to the public records room. What wasn’t digitized lived here—microfilm reels, internal memos, equipment photos, engineering diagrams yellowed with age.
They sifted for hours.
And then, at exactly 3:11 p.m., Chris found it.
A scan of a hand-written note in the margin of a 1977 mission readiness checklist:
“Dr. S. insists waveform collar still optional.
Re: transmission signal path theory – ask W. A. to clarify math.
Tape recorder logs? Cross-ref with entanglement thread. Push back on DOD classification.”
He looked at Tristan and tapped on the initials “W.A.” He turned the page.
“Water Annenberg,” Chris said.
Tristan nodded. He grabbed the folder that held the material Chris found. On the cover was a red stamp that read:
“Declassified and approved for release on 09-06-2002 by NASA.”
“Walter died around this time in 2002.” Tristan said.
“Keep looking. I still don’t know where this all leads.”
Chris flipped through a binder labeled “Voyager I – Legacy Acoustic Experiments.” His eyes narrowed.
“Tristan. Look at this.”
Tristan leaned in.
The page is dated 1976:
“Project Note – Acoustic Frequency Experiments
Objective: Test the possibility of consciousness resonance via sound waveforms. Collaboration approved under civilian science outreach program.”
Chris mutters, “There it is.”
Tristan kept reading aloud:
‘Yantra Resonance Calibration: Utilizing golden ratio-based acoustic forms for potential waveform stability. Preliminary tests showed localized anomalous feedback.’
He looked up at Chris. “Walter wasn’t just building a mirror. He was trying to communicate.”
Chris exhaled slowly, eyes scanning the rest of the page. There’s a faded diagram—an architectural floor plan overlaid with concentric circles and frequency notations.
“It’s the Inwood Room,” Chris said quietly. “The mirror, the room proportions… and sound.”
Then Tristan tapped something at the bottom:
“See: Civilian Science Outreach Program—Consciousness Visualization Artifacts.”
Chris frowned. “That’s vague.”
Tristan pulled out his phone and typed quickly. He muttered under his breath, scrolling. Then stopped.
He held the phone out to Chris:
“LACMA’s new Geffen Galleries. Opening exhibit—today.”
Chris read the headline:
Auditory Yantras: The Sound of Consciousness in Contemporary Art
Sponsored in part by the Annenberg Foundation
Chris ran a hand through his hair. “Of course. Annenberg’s still funding it, even now.”
Tristan scrolled deeper into the exhibit page, voice getting quieter:
“They’ve got sound maps, mandala structures, and prints from Nepalese artists exploring auditory yantra traditions.”
Chris leaned back in his chair, staring at the acoustic diagram in front of him.
“He was building a tuning fork. Architecture, geometry, and sound,” Chris said.
Tristan: “The Inwood Room’s just one node in a bigger system.”
Chris nodded slowly. “And we need to activate it.”
He closed the binder, both of them standing now.
Tristan pocketed his phone. “LACMA?”
Chris: “LACMA.”
They left the archive room in silence, both knowing what they’re carrying now is no longer just theory. It’s a living pattern, unfolding in real time.
—————
As they exited JPL, Chris’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number. One line:
“He’s coming for you.”
Chris stopped walking. Tristan leaned in. “Who is it?”
Chris showed him the screen. “I don’t know.”
Tristan’s face tightened. “Who sent you to Sunnylands in the first place, Chris? Who are we dealing with?”
“I can’t tell you. I signed an agreement…,” his voice trailed off. Chris’s mind was racing.
They both looked at the phone as if it might explode.
“Is your phone being tracked?” Tristan asked.
Chris exhaled, nodding. He thought back to Sam at the mansion. “Probably.”
Tristan held out his hand. “Give it.”
Without waiting, he turned the phone off, then paused. Suddenly he slammed the phone down on the concrete, sending small bits of metal flying. Tristan picked up the phone and threw it at the storm drain. The phone clattered against metal before disappearing.
Chris didn’t argue. He just watched it vanish.
Tristan said, “From now on, we go dark.”
—————
The new Geffen Galleries building stretched like a low black wave against the Los Angeles skyline. Smooth concrete walls absorbed the last light of day, turning the building into a silent monolith surrounded by glass and shadow.
Chris and Tristan stood at the main entrance. A small white banner read:
Auditory Yantras: The Sound of Consciousness in Contemporary Art.
Inside, the air was cool and still. Not silent—quiet in a deliberate way, like walking into a recording studio or a temple.
Chris’s gaze moved across the exhibit titles:
Sound Maps. Quantum Mandalas. Harmonic Blueprints.
They moved slowly together past printed diagrams and projected sound waves vibrating across sculptural forms.
At the center of the first gallery, Chris stopped in front of a woodblock print: concentric mandalas overlaying faint architectural sketches.
Chris’s voice was low: “The same geometry Walter used. The same proportions. He didn’t invent it—he applied it.”
He stepped closer.
His eyes traced the details until they landed on something faint in the lower corner:
A black circular stamp:
BODHISATTVA – Kathmandu
Tristan leaned in beside him. “Oh my god.”
Chris gave him a sharp glance. “What?”
“Bodhisattva. It’s someone who is on the path to awakening.”
He stepped even closer, seeing his own reflection faintly layered over the print in the glass.
“Atman,” Chris whispered.
Tristan stood there watching him. Then, “Do you know Atman?”
Chris turned away slowly, following the curve of the gallery circulation path.
That’s when he saw her.
A woman—young, maybe early twenties—sitting cross-legged in the middle of the gallery’s open floor.
Not on a mat. No ceremony.
Just her, in the middle of a vast, glass-walled space, facing out toward the city.
Her posture was so still it made her seem part of the building.
Chris stopped. His whole body stilled with her.
Tristan stepped up beside him.
Without looking away, Tristan said:
“That’s not unusual here.”
Chris: “Meditating?”
Tristan: “When a space feels like this? Yeah.”
Chris’s voice softened. “Feels like what?”
Tristan: “Like it’s humming.”
Chris blinked slowly.
“The building isn’t just architecture,” Tristan added. “It’s part of the energy. You feel it?”
Chris didn’t answer. He was already looking inward. His hands opened slightly, unconsciously mimicking the mudra position.
“I think I get it now,” Chris said.
Tristan raised an eyebrow. “Get what?”
“We need to go back to Sunnylands.”
He paused, watching the woman’s stillness as LA flickered around her like a separate world.
“Can you sneak me into Sunnylands? The house?”
“I think so.”