The DuPlessis burglary and the alleged Master — the Office's cartridge-inventory picture

pivotal · death before 30 Apr YDAU (its own dating clashes — see Dating notes); the inventory aired 30 Apr - 1 May YDAU

• When: M. DuPlessis dies in the botched burglary sometime before the 30 April YDAU interface (treated there as recent; the A.F.R. page dates the death itself); the Master/copies inventory and the antidote question are aired across the desert night
• What: The intelligence war's physical hinge, as the Office understands it. M. DuPlessis — the Resistance coordinator doubled into the Office's own top floor via Luria (event 4) — has "abruptly... passed away from life. Under circumstances of almost ridiculous suspicion": "An inept burglary and grippe indeed" (Marathe's dry gloss, 031). From that burglary the A.F.R. is alleged to have obtained, or to be seeking, the samizdat's Master — the copyable original. The Office's inventory picture: "Nobody has this mysterious Master, but we've all got Read-Only's — all the anti-O.N.A.N. cells have at least one Read-Only, we're pretty sure" (098); O.U.S. itself holds "more than one" (Marathe: "Confiscated from razzles of Berkeley, Boston" — vs scene 107's vaulted Tempe/New Iberia copies; see Dating notes). Steeply also floats the war's other rumored object: whether the "anti"-Entertainment the auteur "supposedly made to counter the lethality" even exists, or is an A.F.R./F.L.Q. game — "the promise of the anti-Entertainment as a chip for concessions. As some kind of remedy or antidote" (038; Marathe: "no evidence except craziness of rumors"; Joelle's November denial is event 20's). Whether the A.F.R. ever recovers a Master stays alleged and open — the quarry the rest of the thread chases. See the AFR thread (event 5) (the death itself), events 10-11 (the A.F.R.'s two-track Master hunt); Joelle's timeline (event 34).