John Hays

Summary:

To Protect and Defend

page 1 of 6123456next »

John Hays

Falthon 19 Sep 2010 09:35

Senator John C. Hays (I-Texas)

From the Senator's biography as given on his website:

John Hays was born on March 18th, 1959, in Austin, Texas. He is a direct descendant of John Coffee Hays, who is his namesake as well as his ancestor. He graduated from West Point in 1981 and entered the Infantry.

Hays was a brigadier general and deputy division commander during Desert Storm. When the division commander was killed by a sniper almost at the beginning of the war, he took over and commanded his division throughout the conflict. He retired in 1998 as a four-star general and was elected Governor of Texas in the same year. He was elected to the Senate in 2002.

He is the founder of the Independent Party, which is currently known primarily in Texas but is gaining popularity in other states.

Last edited on 19 Sep 2010 09:46 by Falthon Show more

Minor Detour

Falthon 19 Sep 2010 09:49

It had been quite some time, so I was a bit surprised when the call came. A pager with my name and an address in Chicago simply appeared on the floor next to me. Naturally, my first thought was that it was a bomb, so I had my electronics expert examine it. Once he determined it was safe, my travel specialist had my plane prepared, and we flew to Chicago without delay.

The address turned out to be a street corner next to a coffee shop. I was the first one there. My caterers had not yet arrived, so I took over the coffee shop and made refreshments available free to the public.

Over the next hour, three High Rollers trickled in. They weren't difficult to spot. I greeted each one as he arrived, offered refreshments, and discreetly questioned them as to their capabilities. First to arrive was a lean martial artist who introduced himself as Dean Thomas. I would shortly learn that his real name was Zane Traxis. He was followed by an archaeologist and occultist named Joseph Finch, and then by a sniper named William Whisper. Traxis declined a drink, so I obtained his DNA later after giving him a lift on my plane.

Soon a stunningly beautiful woman arrived on the street corner and began selling bus tickets. This was unusual enough that it was probably related to the mission, so we went outside and purchased four of the six available platinum tickets. The other two were purchased by two bystanders, Atticus Anderson and Jack Snow. Anderson was carrying an AK-47 and was clearly a High Roller, albeit obviously inexperienced. He claimed to be a mercenary, but I was dubious. Snow was not an obvious High Roller, so I assumed he was a new recruit.

DNA tests later revealed that Finch, Anderson, and Snow were using their real names. I was surprised that someone as experienced as Finch would do so. Odd.

The bus was driven by another stunningly beautiful woman. Perhaps this was a trademark of this particular Harbinger.

I made a point of sitting next to Snow, who was carrying an odd black box and nothing else. Before I could do more than begin to feel him out, the driver interrupted with the mission details (disguised as typical tour-guide patter). We were to find the current location of the source. We were not to create a distortion or lose our tickets, which were good for twelve hours.

Suddenly the light streaming through the windows became blinding, and the bus accelerated sharply and began to break up. Seats and chunks of metal broke off and flew towards the back. I was able to avoid being hit, but some of the others were less fortunate.

Abruptly the bus crashed with a bone-snapping impact and a shriek of tearing metal. A glaring orange light permeated the scene, and people began screaming. Snow's box went flying, but I managed to grab it, and we rushed off the bus, shouting to the crowd to get off immediately.

Once outside, we dove for cover. The bus melted down in a searingly bright but almost silent explosion. Looking around, I realized that only the High Rollers had gotten off. Something to do with the platinum tickets we had purchased? Or something else?

There was no time to think about it now. A crowd was gathering, though they seemed more interested in loot than survivors. We hurried away. Once we were out of sight, we ducked into an alley to get our bearings.

Things were obviously not right. This was not the Chicago we had left. The buildings were wrong, the cars were wrong, the dress of the people on the street was wrong. Moreover, a local paper claimed the date was July 23rd, 1936. We had either traveled back in time or slipped into an alternate dimension. I devoutly hoped for the latter.

Snow immediately laid claim to newbie status by trying to steal an overcoat from an apparently passed-out hobo, who promptly woke up and mauled him with a broken bottle. As soon as the bottle struck him, his clothes began to glow orange, and then vanished. Several other hobos in the alley began to stir. I tried to help him subdue the bottle-wielding maniac, but neither of us were skilled in unarmed combat, and the hobo was in a drunken rage.

Suddenly Whisper raised his rifle and fired into the air. Evidently he didn't realize that the whole point of ducking into an alley had been to avoid attention. I shook my head in disgust. Both trigger-happy and foolish; he wouldn't survive long.

As soon as he fired, his rifle began to glow orange, and within seconds it was gone. We took advantage of the distraction to beat a hasty retreat.

After we regrouped, Finch proposed a theory. He believed we had indeed traveled back in time. Whenever we used something which hadn't existed existed in 1936, we created a paradox. To resolve the paradox, the item disintegrated.

I grimaced. My previous experience with time travel had been decidedly unpleasant. I was already certain this one would be just as bad. Best to get it done and get back as quickly as possible.

We discussed what we might be expected to do here before we could return. Finch, who was something of a historian as well as an archaeologist, remembered that at about this time, there had been a series of deadly animal attacks in Chicago, and a local inventor with an odd reputation had died under strange circumstances. We learned from a newspaper that there had been a number of “Devil-Dog” attacks, primarily targeting street children on the South Side. We decided to head for that area and question the local urchins.

Whisper apparently felt the need to solidify his reputation as a fool. He attempted to pickpocket a passerby to obtain local currency, and landed in a fistfight. We walked off and left him.

By the time we reached the South Side, Whisper had caught up with us, bearing gunshot wounds. Definitely not going to survive.

After I sold a small gem to a fence and questioned him about the attacks, we headed for Tower Town, the rich neighborhood where the most recent incident had taken place. At the Dill Pickle Club we learned of an oddball local inventor named Percival Lazarus Hardy. The last attack took place just outside his residence. Pay dirt.

In Hardy's residence we found the corpse of one Jeremiah Laish, who from Hardy's notes had hired the inventor to develop some sort of preservation technology. We also found thirteen preservation chambers, small modules just large enough to hold a single person; one of them was occupied. After searching the building and reconstructing the scene, we concluded that Hardy had survived the fight and sealed himself in one of the preservation chambers to avoid dying from his wounds. When we began to open the chamber, the air around us began to glow, and we quickly desisted. Clearly, Hardy was meant to awaken in the future.

His journal indicated that Hardy had been contracted to build a “Great Machine”, but was not close to doing so. It also indicated that some sort of severed head had been shipped out of Chicago in a smaller version of the preservation chambers. Finch believed it was the “source” the Harbinger wanted tracked, and I trusted his instincts. We needed to find it.

We found the address of a warehouse owned by Laish and decided to pay it a visit. As soon as we left the building, however, we were attacked by several mutated animals: something like a panther, a mutated flying cat with wings and tentacles, and a giant mutated bull. We quickly dispatched them and continued to the warehouse.

Opening the door to the warehouse, we saw a dimly lit interior, crowded with boxes and cages. Traxis immediately reported that there were a dozen small mutants lurking in ambush, and provided the location of each. Impressive.

Finch then established his credentials as an occultist by summoning four strange quadrupeds he called Lesser Desh. They didn't really look like lizards, but I chose to think of them that way anyway. Sometimes you have to hold on to the familiar. (They actually looked more like large silvery tadpoles … but that isn't right, either. No matter.)

The mutants were scattered throughout the warehouse. Two of them could fly and were perched on the catwalk. I sent Traxis up to deal with the flyers and had the Desh sweep right while the rest of us moved left. Traxis needed only a few seconds and shortly rejoined us.

My plan had been for the Desh to bunch the mutants and fix them in place. We would then attack from behind. The lizards bunched them, all right, but instead of engaging, they herded them towards us. We ended up engaging their front while the Desh attacked their rear. Clever bastards.

Still, it worked well enough. The Desh flushed them into a killing field, and we killed them. Whisper went down, but otherwise they hardly touched us. When the lizards hit them, they collapsed.

Searching the warehouse, we found papers revealing that a thief named Ben Carmichael had worked for Laish. We made contact with the fence who had bought the gem and learned that Carmichael had died four months ago. A judicious application of cash to Carmichael's boss turned up the information that the head had been shipped to one Stanford Etheridge at a Beijing research facility.

We decided it was time to return to the future. Finch set the timers, and we sealed ourselves into the preservation chambers. When we woke up, we found ourselves scattered around the world. Evidently the chambers had been moved to various and sundry locations by a number of collectors. Our long sleep had healed any injuries we had suffered, including Traxis's blindness. He was shocked and dismayed at his new sight; it seemed that his abilities were based on his blindness, and with sight he was just a normal man. Unfortunate.

Traxis, Finch, and I reunited at the research facility in Beijing, and learned that it was in fact an insane asylum. Evidently a friend of Traxis named Aaron Adams had been imprisoned there some months ago and had shot his way out. Security had improved since then.

I persuaded the director of the asylum to help us locate an American cultural artifact believed to be at this location. Unfortunately, it wasn't there. Stanford Etheridge, a founding board member of the institution, had owned the head, but his heirs had sold it to a company called Manticore Laboratories, in Montreal.

We traveled to Montreal and verified the location of the Manticore facility. Our research indicated that the head was still at this location, so we used the rather unusual pen inside the black box to report our success to the Harbinger. The box vanished.

The mission accomplished, I went to round up our missing compatriots. My staff reported that Snow's chamber had been traced to Cairo, and Anderson's to the Vatican. Retrieving Anderson was simple enough, though it required some delicate negotiations. Snow, however, had awakened in the midst of a Mythos-related cult, which planned to invite their god to use his body as a host. He did not survive the experience. Fortunately, the cult didn't, either. A fair trade, all in all.

Downtime: Loose Ends

Falthon 20 Sep 2010 05:38

As always after a Game, it was a busy month. Arranging the return of Snow's body to his family required a bit of delicacy, since he had died during cult activities that were still under investigation. Nothing was left of Whisper's body, unfortunately, but I arranged for his next-of-kin to be notified, and for payments to Whisper's and Snow's families to ensure any dependents were provided for.

As soon as I got back in the States, I made a short trip to Chicago, where I gave a certain feisty old lady and her friends a guided tour of the city – all expenses paid, of course. I spent the day touring with them and talking with the voters, and paid a few visits to members of the local political establishment. Illinois has 21 electoral votes, and about 65% of the population of Illinois lives in the Chicago metro area.

That done, I sent invitations to one Abigail Archer and her husband, Atticus Anderson. When they arrived, I gave them a personal tour of the capital. It was obvious that Archer was the decision-maker of the family, so I focused most of my attention on her. She was charmed and flattered. I anticipate little difficulty managing her.

My regular duties were pressing for attention, so I spared some time to catch up on paperwork. While doing so, I received a visit from a Department of Defense official who obliquely suggested that it might be prudent to avoid bothering Manticore Laboratories. I responded that my business with Manticore was done.

I was quite pleased by the visit. I had thought Manticore was just one more run-of-the-mill conspiracy, little different from all the others, but the fact that a DOD bureaucrat was willing to stick his neck out to essentially tell Congress to stay out of his bailiwick let me know that Manticore was rather more unusual than that, and had at least one sponsor in the Department of Defense. It's always good to see as many of your opponents' cards as possible.

A few days later, I arranged to meet with one of my regular contacts who should be able to fill me in on Manticore. Best to know everything about it; its ownership, alliances, goals, methods, and connections to the U.S., Canadian, and British governments – and to PISCES, if any. Since I knew that at least one of the High Rollers on the last mission was tied in with PISCES, a connection of that nature was possible.

The remaining loose ends could be largely handled by my staff. We had already successfully traced a number of the preservation chambers; now I needed to trace the rest, and to obtain as many of them as possible. Best to also begin collecting the possessions of Percival Hardy, and to learn the locations or ownership of those I could not obtain. Of course, his inventions have been popular with a select crowd for some time, and some of those collectors are quite wealthy, so I didn't expect to be able to obtain all of them.

It occurred to me that one of those collectors might well be Hardy himself. His reported death in 1936 was false; the corpse of Jeremiah Laish had been reported as his, and he had slept through the intervening decades in a preservation chamber. I would have to see what I could learn of that chamber's location, and of his activities since. I also set my staff to research Jeremiah Laish, Stanford Etheridge, Ben Carmichael, and the mob boss known as Sebastian. Anything I could learn about them might prove useful. I should probably compare notes with Joseph Finch as well; I wouldn't be surprised if he had already obtained some of this information. So much to do, and so little time … I returned to work with renewed energy. Nothing gave meaning to life like political intrigue.

Side Game: Warehouse 14

Falthon 21 Nov 2010 04:39

I located six preservation chambers. One was in the possession of the Vatican, which was unwilling to sell. One was apparently destroyed when the Egyptian government leveled the headquarters of the cult that killed Snow. One simply vanished. One had been purchased by a cadaverously thin African in a impeccable suit, almost seven feet tall. One was in the possession of a wealthy collector by the name of Hotori Akaiso, a Japanese CEO with a knack for collecting antique devices.

And one was in an abandoned warehouse in Nevada.

I would contact Akaiso later. The Nevada warehouse was the first priority. I had my staff research it while I made preparations for the trip.

The warehouse was on several thousand acres that had once been owned by an oil tycoon. His holdings had been tied up in court since his death nearly fifty years ago, and the building seemed to have been forgotten.

I traveled there in an SUV with six men. There was no way to know how many crates I would need to bring away, so I had a tractor-trailer follow a few minutes behind us.

The warehouse was huge, easily four times the size I expected, and I expected something massive. My explosives and electronics experts found no traps or security measures of any sort. There wasn't even a fence.

We entered the warehouse and followed Finch's trail in the dust. Soon we came across a vending machine that was somehow functioning without electricity, and was ejecting what appeared to be an endless supply of cans labeled Nozz-A-La. A brown sticky liquid was leaking from some of them. We cautiously bypassed and continued.

Pay dirt. We found not one but three preservation chambers. Now all we had to do was load them up and leave.

Load them up.

We hadn't brought a forklift.

I could have kicked myself. All three were far too large for us to carry unassisted. We noticed four small boxes whose contents seemed to have been activated, however, so I decided to bring those back to the trucks, looking for a forklift on the way.

We didn't find a forklift, but we found something else.

A strange jellyfish-like creature drifted up through the floor and attacked. A guardian of some sort? We ripped it to shreds in a hail of gunfire.

We began moving a bit faster. Another jellyfish drifted out of the shelving right next to me. I jerked back barely in time, slipped, and fell, dropping the box I carried. It struck hard and broke open with the sound of shattering machinery. The device which spilled out looked like a hodgepodge of spare parts assembled without rhyme or reason, with twin tuning forks perched on top. It had obviously been functioning, and just as obviously wasn't anymore; the lights died and the faint drone, like the hum of a power transformer, went out.

The jellyfish seized one of my men in its tentacles, tearing his side open before we could kill it. He could still walk, but only barely, so our progress slowed considerably.

And that was unfortunate. We began to see more and more of the strange, almost translucent creatures. Some vaguely resembled jellyfish; others resembled nothing I could describe. We proceeded cautiously, hurrying as best we could when none were in sight, pausing if one floated across the aisle.

Finally we emerged from the warehouse, only to stop in shock. Everything was … different.

The trucks were still parked in front, but the world around them had gone crazy.

The sunlight had a strange blue tinge. The air seemed inexplicably thick, almost like gelatin, and movement through it met perceptible resistance.

And there were things swimming through it.

Jellyfish-like things, yes, but also an indescribable array of others. It was a surreal, otherworldly scene; and obviously deadly, as here and there predators pounced on prey, bringing sudden and impressively violent death.

We froze, looking around carefully. Moving through that scene would be foolhardy. Back into the warehouse? A quick glance revealed a cluster of jellyfish swimming across the front of the building. Take cover around the corner? But these things moved through walls as if they didn't exist; clearly, cover would provide nothing but a false sense of security.

And then, between one blink of the eye and the next, the creatures vanished. The blue tinge to the light: gone. The strange, thick quality of the air: gone. Everything seemed perfectly normal.

For a moment we stood stock still, watching and listening. It was as well that we did. My research specialist, holding an open box in his arms, suddenly looked down at it, frowning.

“Senator?” he said hesitantly. “I'm not sure, but I think this device is running some sort of process that's winding down. And … whatever the process is, I think it's almost complete.”

A bomb of some sort? Perhaps, or perhaps not; but if it was, it was unlikely any of us would survive the detonation.

“Put the devices down,” I snapped. “Then get in the vehicles. Quickly!”

They obeyed instantly, setting the boxes on the ground and running to the SUV. I set down the box holding the shattered machine, whatever it had been, and ran to join them, signaling the tractor-trailer to move out.

Seconds later, we pulled out of the lot, the tractor-trailer just behind us. Scant moments later, we felt what seemed almost like a shockwave, but with no physical sensation. We kept going.

An hour later, we turned around and came back.

The warehouse was gone. Where it had rested was a spherical hole in the ground, perfectly smooth. There was no sign of the alien devices. It wasn't hard to determine that the device that had been counting down had been at the center of the sphere.

The preservation chambers, the rows and rows of alien artifacts, even the four we had managed to bring out through the jellyfish and bizarre otherworldly effects: Gone.

The Judas Flock

Falthon 21 Nov 2010 07:42

I was giving a speech to a group of Texas voters when Abu Kareem finally made his move.

Perhaps it was a subtle sound that tipped me off, or a reflected glint of light. Perhaps it was just that sixth sense that combat veterans develop after a time. Whatever the cause, I suddenly felt the hair standing up on the back of my neck. Instantly I dove for cover. I felt a bullet pass just over my head as I hit the floor. Instants later, my two bodyguards piled on top of me.

My rifle was behind the podium. I had my pistol, but I judged the sniper to be at least 100 feet away. I briefly considered breaking cover to reach my rifle, but I didn't have a clear target, so I remained still and began scrutinizing the auditorium. Though I could see local security opening fire on a balcony across the hall, I couldn't tell if they were firing blind.

The next bullet thudded into the bodyguard lying directly over me. I felt his blood drip onto my cheek. That gave me the vector I needed: The sniper was right … there. I squirmed out from under the still body, sprinted for my rifle, tripped, and fell on my face just as a round whipped past my ear. I managed to grab the stock as I fell, and scrabbled around on hands and knees to open fire. My remaining bodyguard was faster; he had already located the target and started shooting. Seconds later, the sniper stopped firing.

Once local security finally stopped spraying the balcony, we found the sniper's body. I felt a surge of exultation when I saw his face: Abu Kareem. Dead at last!

The wounded bodyguard survived, and may make a full recovery, though that's not yet certain. There were no other serious injuries, fortunately. I was on my way to the hospital to check on him when a pager appeared on the seat next to me. It was identical to the one which had appeared before the last Game, and displayed an address in Baltimore. I immediately departed for Baltimore, leaving my assistant to follow up on the bodyguard and the pager to be examined by my experts.

By the time I reached the address, several High Rollers had gathered in front of the building. As usual, they were an odd lot: a botanist who called himself Matthew Jackson; a painter who introduced herself as Melanie Delaceur; a highly reflective fellow named Paragon Marshal; and a cyborg by the name of Leon Bundy.

It was an abandoned night club, long since closed on prostitution charges, the management thrown in prison. The front door was locked, but the back wasn't. After being hassled by a hobo who wanted cigarettes, we entered and quickly investigated the building. An electronic message board with a scrolling display proclaimed, “I want the necklace. Use the box.” We found nothing else of note except a box, essentially identical to that from the last Game, containing a 3-inch-long rod with two holes drilled in it and a metallic circle that passed through the holes. When we held the device by the metallic circle, the rod swiveled to point in a fixed direction – hopefully at the necklace. It promptly moved to point at the men's room, from which a golden white light suddenly emanated.

The message was clear. We walked through the door.

We found ourselves in an African village; we had just stepped out of a hut. A quick check of our GPS showed that we were in northern Niger, in north-central Africa, at the southern outskirts of the Sahara.

Panicked screams suggested that all was not well. The sight of a lizard-dog-boar creature attacking a young boy confirmed this. We shot it down and were gratified to see that it was affected by normal bullets. Quickly searching the village, we found and killed two more of the things.

Bundy proved himself a strong and hardy fighter as well as a crack shot. I mentioned that I had a recent opening for the position of bodyguard, and was able to interest him in the job. The arrangement worked well for both of us.

Most of the survivors did not speak Swahili or any other language we understood, but one boy, who called himself Micah, spoke French. We learned from him that the shaman of a rival tribe was summoning monsters to attack his village. All of the adults had been killed; only about thirty children survived. He gave us directions to the shaman's village, and we confirmed that the locater was pointing in the same general direction. Perhaps the shaman had the necklace. If so, we could obtain it while eliminating the cultists.

The enemy village was about two days' travel by foot. I made arrangements for supplies and protection for the children, which would arrive in about twelve hours. We headed out.

We hadn't even made a mile when the children began screaming again. We hastened back to find two more lizard-creatures attacking them.

It was obvious that the shaman wasn't going to let up. I favored double-timing to his village, thus forcing him to concentrate on us, but the others wanted to bring the children with us. I was very unhappy with this plan; we would be strung out on the march, perfect targets for ambush after ambush in the rough terrain, with no way of protecting the children supposedly traveling with us for safety. There was no time for an extended debate, however, so we gathered what food, water, and clothing was available and began marching through the desert.

We were only attacked twice, which alerted me that something was wrong. Surprisingly few of the children died on the journey, which should have alerted me that they themselves were the anomaly.

That night, we stopped to rest at a ravine. I wanted to push on through the night, but the children wouldn't have survived a forced march, so I had to give up that idea.

The first attack occurred within an hour after we made camp. Two lizard-creatures attacked three children who had been hiding in the caves near the ravine. We finished them quickly and learned that the children were brothers who had fled the village several days ago. Doubtless others had fled as well, but there was no escape from the lizard-things; they seemed able to track the villagers through supernatural means. Micah claimed the shaman had cursed them, and could always find anyone he cursed.

Early the next day, we reached an oasis. I had arranged for the relief plane to meet us there, and we were glad to see it waiting. The area was too quiet, however, with nothing in sight, and no sounds at all. Even the insects were silent. Bundy opened the plane's rear door and barely dodged a shot. A monster leaped out and attacked him. We brought it down in a hail of bullets, then stared at it in dismay. The creature was similar to, but not the same as, the lizard-things, and we realized that one of the flight crew had somehow been turned into a monster.

As we were contemplating this development, the children began screaming. They had gone down to drink at the oasis, only to be attacked by a lizard-creature which erupted from the water. We cut it down, and on investigation discovered the bodies of the other two crew members in the oasis.

We decided to fly as much of the remaining distance as we could. The engine didn't seem to want to start, however, and when we inspected it, we saw that it had turned into black goo. We started walking.

The shaman seemed to have exhausted his resources; we arrived at his village without further incident. We found and quickly killed several more lizard-things, then located the shaman in the central hut, surrounded by the corpses of his family. He had sacrificed them to feed his summoning spells. There was no one else left alive in the village.

The locater pointed directly at the shaman, who was wearing several necklaces. He did not try to resist when we took them, and the locater quickly identified the correct one. Mission accomplished.

Now all we had to do was get out alive.

In the middle of nowhere, in enemy territory, with a demon-summoning shaman and twenty-three children … . It was obvious that the other shoe was about to drop. I shouldn't have been surprised when it did.

I was. I suppose I didn't expect this particular shoe.

The children turned into monsters. They set fire to the hut.

Nice.

The shaman had no fight left in him, no resistance. He answered questions freely. It seemed he had summoned a demon which soon got out of control. It couldn't stay long, but it did something that caused the victims of the shaman's curse to gradually turn into monsters. The shaman had cursed the entire opposing village, and quickly realized that if they all turned into monsters, he and his tribe were dead meat. He summoned what beasties he could to finish them.

It wasn't enough.

If the monsters had been willing to kill the shaman and his tribe and then leave, I might have let them do it. Justice is justice. They weren't going to leave it at that, though; they wanted to kill us and everyone else. Pretty standard “kill everyone” variety monsters.

Micah, unsurprisingly, was the leader. He could throw fire, and he seemed to be trying to rip out our souls, or take them over, or something. We had to take him down.

As if we hadn't had enough surprises, we discovered that Jackson, the botanist, was a multi-tentacled plant monster. Why not? It was no crazier than anything else that had happened that day, and it was oddly appropriate. He had some sort of illusion that failed under stress.

Bundy, Jackson, and Paragon ripped open the back wall. The monster-kids, not wanting to seem ungrateful, made use of the new door by pouring through to kill us. Paragon, not wanting to seem too sensible, ran out the front door into the horde of monsters waiting there.

Bundy, Jackson, and I chopped up the monsters in the hut while the artist dragged the shaman (who was surprisingly still alive) out of the way. The sounds and screams from out front suggested that Paragon was being sliced and diced, but we had no time to worry about him. Micah popped briefly into view and I tried for a shot at him, but couldn't draw a bead before he ducked back out of sight. Bundy took a shot and missed.

When we had cleared the visible targets, we went out the front of the hut, which was burning nicely. Paragon was surprisingly still alive, though badly wounded and still engaged with a couple of hostiles. One broke away to attack Bundy, who quickly finished it. Paragon finished the other, and then went over to the edge of the cliff for some reason while the rest of us went hunting for Micah. Somehow he managed to fall off, and while scrambling to get back up, released seven beautiful, glowing golden butterflies.

Yes, butterflies.

Shortly after we arrived, Jackson had taken me aside to explain the butterfly issue, so I wasn't surprised. Both Paragon and Melanie were infested, but Melanie was apparently better at controlling it. Now Paragon had released seven of the things … and naturally enough, they headed straight for me. I turned and ran.

I was well aware that there were about a dozen monsters somewhere in the village. They weren't in sight, which meant they were out of sight. Presumably waiting in ambush. I had no doubt they would target me if they could. The butterflies, though probably dumb beasts, were likely to drive me right into their sights. But there was no help for it; I would have to avoid both as best I could.

I ran straight into the ambush.

The monsters came boiling out of the first hut I passed. Jackson intercepted two, but the other two jumped on me.

The first stabbed at my left leg. I managed to twist aside, but not quite far enough; its claws ripped open my thigh, exposing the bone. Fortunately it missed the artery or I would have bled to death on the spot. The second paused briefly to see which way I would wriggle and then stabbed me neatly through the side.

I felt its arm, mutated into a single spear-like claw, emerge from my back and punch its way out of my shirt and jacket. Somehow I managed to jerk myself spasmodically backwards while pushing the creature away with the last of my strength. It stumbled back, off-balance, and inadvertently withdrew its arm from my side. I tried to scrabble backwards, but I couldn't seem to move; I felt like a gutted fish.

As if from a great distance, I heard gunshots from the back of the hut. I didn't know it at the time, but Bundy had knocked a hole in the back wall and fired through it, killing Micah and other two monsters inside.

Finally I managed to crawl away from the fight and stagger to my feet. The butterflies were still headed my way. Balling up my jacket, I held it on the wound on my thigh and stumbled away. I knew I couldn't keep it up long, but fortunately I didn't have to; Jackson picked up one of the monsters and used it like a broom to sweep up several of the butterflies, which vanished when it touched them. The remainder landed on my shoulder and disappeared.

The sensation was like nothing I had ever experienced. I was overwhelmed by an incredible ecstasy, an unbelievable joy that made my problems seem trivial. That would have told me it was of supernatural origin even if I hadn't already known. I tried to shake off the feeling, but that did no good, so instead I focused on ignoring it.

By the time I staggered back to the others, the fight was over. There were no living monsters left in the village. Four of them had escaped, however, so we set out in pursuit.

It took hours, none of them pleasant, with every step jarring my wounds. At times I had to lean on Bundy to avoid passing out. Finally, however, we managed to track them down and finish them. Then we waited for the medical evacuation flight to arrive. Paragon, Melanie, Bundy, and I flew back to the States, while Jackson stayed behind to oversee a final, more thorough search for any remaining threat. One or two of the creatures could have slipped away from the shaman's village, and any number could have slipped away from Micah's village before we arrived.

Loose ends are not acceptable. I've always known it, and the Games have only reinforced that knowledge. Loose ends will get you killed.

And now it was time to tie up another loose end, the biggest of all.

Manticore.

Preparations: Manticore

Falthon 22 Nov 2010 09:35

Manticore Laboratories was a small but well-funded bioengineering firm based in Montreal. They had only one building, which made their facilities easier to defend, but also left them vulnerable to destruction from a single assault. The CEO and majority shareholder was a multimillionaire named Randy McCormic, who held absolute control over the company and ran it with an iron fist.

We knew from a previous Game that the severed head once in the possession of Percival Hardy was now in the possession of Manticore. It was obvious from that Game that the Harbinger would be sending us against them. We had tried a soft probe and failed completely; we couldn't even get past the receptionist. The only remaining option was a hard approach. A covert raid was impossible; they would of course recognize me, and undoubtedly we would leave blood behind. Any overt attack that left Manticore intact would earn us a new and formidable enemy. Therefore, we had to destroy it.

This Harbinger had shown herself to be a collector. It was quite likely that she would require us to retrieve the severed head. Therefore, our objectives were to seize the building, find the head, capture McCormic, ensure no Manticore personnel escaped – and, critically, to obtain proof of crimes serious enough to bring about the dissolution of the company and the execution of the key personnel.

We would have to destroy Manticore by military assault. There was no other solution.

And we would have to do it quickly. Obtaining proof of wrongdoing shouldn't be difficult if we moved fast enough; our research made it clear that they were up to their necks in monster-making and other illegal activities. If we gave them time, however, they might be able to destroy the evidence – or the head.

I purchased a small Canadian mercenary company which held contracts with the government and began intensive training for the raid. As it turned out, we had more preparation time than I had expected, and were able to train extensively for a wide variety of scenarios.

While my mercenaries trained, I used the time to cultivate contacts with the Canadian government, bring the FBI into the picture, and arrange a joint U.S.-Canadian investigation into certain suspicious disappearances, including one of the spouse of a U.S. citizen. Canadian intelligence had been looking into Manticore and was willing to provide qualified support. If we succeeded, they would back us up and verify that the assault was a government operation. If we failed to obtain clear and convincing proof, they would hang us out to dry.

The Manticore building had about 100 floors. Manticore itself occupied the top fifteen floors; the rest were held by shell corporations and a few unrelated businesses. The top seven levels comprised the high-security area, and were the only ones that concerned us. My mercenaries could handle the lower levels on their own. I would lead an assault force to take the top seven levels.

We expected stiff opposition. Our research indicated that Manticore had something over 50 security personnel, crack troops rotated out bi-monthly to ensure they kept their edge. Add to this an unknown number of monsters and Super Soldiers, and multiple gauntlets of lethal traps.

The windows of the high-security zone were of a resin originally designed for public aquariums that hold massive amounts of water. They were at least twelve inches thick and extremely strong. The roof was almost bare, holding only a helicopter landing pad and an elevator.

An elevator. No stairs.

Using the elevator was out of the question, of course; it was obviously a trap. We would blow a hole in the roof and rappel down, with a folding staircase to be lowered afterwards to allow a quick retreat. The lead assault team would consist of the High Rollers and several commandos. A small force would hold the roof, and a small support team would follow us, evacuating wounded and lowering a folding staircase each time we blasted a hole to descend a level.

The rest of the mercenary company would set up a cordon just out of sight behind the first line of buildings. No one would get in or out, by ground or by air. There would be no escapees; our net would catch everyone associated with Manticore.

When we were done, Manticore would cease to exist.

Head Game

Falthon 26 Nov 2010 10:47

Preparations were complete. I had gathered the team: Finch, Jackson, Bundy, Paragon, and Frogard. The troops were ready to move. My Canadian contact had made arrangements to seize ownership of the building under an anti-cultist law, placing it in my name as trustee. This wouldn't hold up if we didn't find evidence, but I was betting everything on finding evidence anyway. And holding ownership of the building would be a significant benefit, particularly since we weren't in the United States.

Everything was ready. All we needed was the go-ahead.

So the pager's appearance wasn't a surprise. Its directive to get the head wasn't a surprise either. The address was. It wasn't the address of Manticore Laboratories; it was the address of a restaurant on the other side of Montreal.

All right. We would check out the restaurant and then launch the assault. I ordered the last-minute arrangements carried out and advised the colonel to be ready to go as soon as I returned.

At the restaurant we were met by an extremely nervous scientist type. He wasn't able to tell us much about Manticore or the opposition we could expect to face, but he had blueprints of all seven floors. We were elated. The box was expected; this Harbinger seemed to like boxes. We questioned him briefly and then headed back. On the way, we discovered what appeared to be a perfume bottle inside the box. Odd.

When we arrived, I confirmed with my Canadian contact that I now held ownership of the Manticore building and with the colonel that everything was ready. I gave the order and we went in. Our helicopter landed without incident; evidently our hackers had succeeded in neutralizing their external sensors, at least for a few minutes. We disembarked.

I knew instantly that something was wrong. I didn't own the building. Someone had either double-crossed us or seriously screwed up. I felt like I had been punched in the gut.

We had to go in anyway; there was no choice. The communications and heavy-weapons men set up on the roof while two of the engineers prepared to make an entrance and the other seized control of the elevator. We weren't going to be using it, but I didn't want anyone else using it, either.

Fortunately, our engineers were more competent than our lawyers. The explosion went off perfectly. The six commandos opened up, dropping the security personnel before they knew what was happening, and then rappelled down into the room. We quickly followed while the team on the roof lowered the folding stairs into place to enable a fast retreat.

The hole had been blown into the security command post and the first check point, demolishing the door between the two. We now had control of both. The checkpoint guarded the elevator from the 107th floor to the 106th. (Each elevator descended only a single floor, with the next elevator being in the opposite corner. It would have been inconvenient if we had planned to use them.) The command post controlled the automated defenses on this floor.

We quickly locked down the elevator and verified that it was empty, then moved into the security corridor, which, as expected, was filled with traps. Fortunately, we were at the end of the gauntlet instead of the beginning, and were able to turn it off. We made it through without incident.

Behind us, we left an engineer in control of the command post and a team on the roof consisting of two communications specialists, four heavy-weapons specialists, two commandos, and two doctors. The supplies remained on the roof with them.

We approached the next checkpoint. Two commandos and two engineers were in front, followed by Jackson, Bundy, and myself. Finch, Paragon, Frogard, and the doctor were next, with the remaining four commandos bringing up the rear.

We charged into the checkpoint, only to find no one there … but two gun ports opening fire. The commandos took the brunt of the attack while the engineers dove forward, gaining cover next to the gun ports where they couldn't be hit. Bundy laid down fire to distract them while the engineers prepared shaped charges. In seconds we were through.

There was no time to lose, so two commandos moved up from the rear, and Bundy, Jackson, and I headed down the corridor with them to the last checkpoint. The others cleared the cafeteria and several other rooms of security personnel, and made sure that everyone we had taken down stayed down. They had tranquilizer guns for this purpose. We were using rubber bullets, of course; we were here to capture, not kill. Naturally, the guards we faced were not showing us the same courtesy.

The final checkpoint had roughly the same arrangement as the last, but with more firepower. Again, we laid down covering fire while the engineers blasted through the wall. Then we filled the room beyond with stun grenades.

And then we were through. The northern end of the floor was occupied by a large visitors' lounge, currently empty. It was directly above McCormic's office and laboratory.

The 107th floor was now secure, so part of the team from the roof moved down to the visitors' lounge. They would maintain the communications link to the roof and thence to the battalion. The engineers blasted a hole in the floor, and we rappelled down.

McCormic was sitting at his desk, watching us calmly. He opened his mouth. No doubt he had prepared a monologue for just this occasion, but we didn't have time for it; we put him down in a hail of rubber bullets.

McCormic was secured. One of our major objectives was accomplished.

The south, east, and west walls were black. The north wall was glass, a foot-thick window with a panoramic view. We were just starting to look over the room itself when we realized the blackness was sliding down the walls, across the floor, across the ceiling. Towards us.

“They look like Nightgaunts,” muttered Finch. “But … smaller.”

Whatever a Nightgaunt was, it was obviously bad news. These things were tiny, only an inch or two long, but they were vicious, and there were swarms of them. We retreated toward the folding stairs, only to realize that the creatures were crawling across the ceiling towards the hole. They were about to cut us off.

Suddenly Frogard started spraying perfume. She had the perfume bottle the Harbinger had provided. “McCormic smells like the perfume,” she gasped. “He must be wearing it.”

It was a chance. We sprayed the perfume on all of us … barely in time. The tiny Nightgaunts hesitated, stopped, milled about in confusion.

Just as we started to look around for the head, the door swung open. I had to admire their timing; I couldn't have done it better myself. Pin them down, distract them, then hit them hard.

They hit us hard. There were five of them, either nonhuman or wearing some sort of alien armor. Super Soldiers? It must be. We had known we would run into them at some point.

They were carrying assault rifles. They swung them around to point directly at me, and opened fire.

Time seemed to slow, as it does at moments like this. I seemed to be moving through molasses. I tried to dive out of the way, but the bullets pushed through the molasses faster than I did. I watched their progress as I began my dive. I felt them strike as I finished it.

Darkness.

Downtime: Recuperation

Falthon 10 Jan 2011 09:06

I awoke in the hospital, hurting all over. Again. I immediately reviewed the after-action report. It seemed the raid had been nearly a complete success. Finch had taken over when I went down, as called for in the contingency planning, and concluded the matter fairly thoroughly. Finch and my aides had done a good job of tying up loose ends in the aftermath, destroying dangerous materials such as the remaining monsters, the Super Soldier armor, and the like.

I began reviewing those loose ends to see what still needed to be done. Finch's destruction of prohibited materials had been quite thorough; he seemed to have missed nothing. Most of the Manticore security personnel had surrendered for a conditional amnesty. They could not be charged with conspiracy, cult activities, or other general offenses, only with specific offenses that they had committed as individuals. I was not entirely pleased with this, but I was willing to accept it. Still, I was careful to follow up in the coming weeks to make sure that those who had committed individual offenses were fully punished for them, executed in most cases – particularly the leadership, who obviously knew what was going on. Many of the lower-level employees, protected by the amnesty, testified against the higher-ups, providing more than sufficient evidence (though in truth we had enough already). I pushed the prosecutors to investigate vigorously and prosecute all crimes, pointing out some of the less obvious offenses. Anyone who detained an individual against their will was guilty of kidnapping. Anyone who helped cover up a crime was guilty as well. Scientists who helped make monsters were certainly guilty. Those who secured illegal genetic material were guilty. And so on.

McCormic himself was convicted and vanished into the maw of Canadian Intelligence. Knowing the agency involved, I was confident they would drain him dry and then terminate him.

I purchased Oakly, Caval, and Bishop, sequestered all potential evidence, and had my attorneys search the records carefully. It didn't take long to convict Oakly and Caval, but Bishop appeared to be unconnected to the shady aspects of the firm. Appeared to be. I transferred him to an innocuous position where he will be carefully monitored. The firm itself was dissolved, its employees transferred and scattered across the continent, to minimize contact between them and thus any chances of a reemergence.

The seizure of the building on cult charges had not gone through, and my investigators quickly determined the reason. The magistrate handling the case had been bought off by McCormic. He must have thought Manticore would retain its political influence, and its ability to protect him. It was his last mistake. I had him arrested, tried, and executed. Nothing infuriates me more than corruption in public office.

Various stakeholders were disgruntled by Manticore's sudden destruction, so I spent some time smoothing ruffled feathers. I met with Colonel Strayer and his Canadian counterpart, convincing them that Manticore had been deceiving them and actually had no promising technology to offer (certainly true, considering the drawbacks of their Super Soldier armor). The termination of the program saved them from throwing good money after bad. Manticore's investors were provided enough evidence to make them realize that if the company had not been dissolved, it would have come messily crashing down and created tremendous legal liability for them. The raid prevented that from happening.

My researchers looked into anyone with Manticore connections who wasn't on site (contractors, suppliers, and whatever else) and followed up on significant players and those who might try to resurrect Manticore's projects. I wasn't concerned about small fry, but I didn't want anyone picking up the pieces or continuing Manticore's work.

Credit for the raid, of course, went to the FBI and their Canadian counterparts. They had been investigating Manticore for some time (at my prompting, to be sure). This was a joint U.S./Canadian federal law enforcement raid, and a shining light of cross-border cooperation to end a mutual threat. I didn't mind letting it be known that I had assisted, but I was careful to avoid taking any of the credit they were due.

The building itself had to be demolished. It was far too contaminated with biohazards to be cleaned or refurbished. It took some time to convince the relevant authorities that this was the only prudent course of action, but eventually they came around.

The disappearances of six Manticore employees were finally resolved. Mathew Marx was eaten by a monster that got loose. At least one of the six was a would-be whistleblower who was silenced. I made sure survivors were compensated, though of course nothing could replace their loved ones.

And finally, we had two varieties of contamination to deal with. Finch had already taken care of one. He also resolved the other, though that took a few weeks. Once I was fully recovered, I traveled to his lab for treatment.

The treatment, it turned out, was electrocution. I wasn't enthusiastic about it, but there was no alternative. I sat down in the chair, relaxed, and felt massive quantities of electricity surging through my body.

Darkness.

I awoke in the hospital, hurting all over. Again.

This was getting old.

It turned out I had had a heart attack and come within a hair's breadth of dying. The expert medical team Finch had on hand managed to resuscitate me at the last possible moment.

Prison Break

Falthon 10 Jan 2011 09:07

I was at home catching up on paperwork when I received a call from the Governor of Texas. He had planned to attend the execution of the serial killer Joseph McBain to express solidarity with the families of the victims, but urgent business would prevent him from doing so. He asked me to attend in his place. Of course I accepted.

I had just arrived at the San Guerrero Prison with my bodyguard Bundy when two cars pulled up. One was the botanist, Jackson, or whatever he was calling himself at the moment. The other was a newbie by the name of Eli Gompertz, an actuary. This was starting to look like a Game. If so, it would be difficult to keep him alive.

Jackson had been giving nothing but the address. Gompertz had been given a medical bag and the mission objective, but getting the latter out of him was like pulling teeth. After a cross-examination, we finally got him to tell us what we were supposed to do. Our objective was to take McBain alive and obtain his voice.

The medical bag contained strange-looking medical tools and a black box, somewhat similar to those we had been provided on a number of previous missions. Jackson fiddled with it and found that though it didn't seem to open, a needle could be extended from the side and retracted.

There was a great deal of commotion on the prison grounds. We were met by a guard named Billy, who told us McBain had escaped. That wasn't a surprise, but the manner of the escape was unusual: He had killed a guard and opened a dimensional portal in the execution chamber where he was being readied for execution. Papers left in his cell, and symbols scrawled in blood on the walls, indicated that the killing was in fact an occult sacrifice.

The warden was in a panic. After I calmed him down, he provided details and background. Thirty years ago, a prisoner about to be executed had been taken by something which emerged from a dimensional portal identical to that through which McBain had fled. Guards had been sent in pursuit, but only one came back, bringing shiny chrome clockwork springs of some sort.

On that occasion, the portal had remained open for only four hours. The new portal was already shrinking slowly, so it seemed likely it would close in about the same time.

The warden was desperate to recapture McBain, but his guards were refusing to go through the portal. I assured him we would handle it. He was surprised, but offered to send one man with us, a mercenary named Michael Anders who was looking for work. We asked for rubber bullets and restraints, which he supplied.

When we stepped through the portal, we found ourselves in a long hallway whose floor was composed of steel plates. There were occasional doors, most of which revealed strange otherdimensional vistas or occult phenomena. Such as the tentacles that almost dragged Bundy down a bottomless shaft. We didn't try to see what might be attached to them; we just slammed the door and ran.

After a time we heard a soft whine approaching. Several objects that looked like miniature chrome footballs shot down the hallway, attempting to impale us. We dodged them or shot them down, but more appeared.

Finally we opened a door to find a new hallway, seemingly identical to the first, stretching into the distance. We followed it and came to a steel door. Beyond was a scene straight out of Hell.

Meat hooks hung from the ceiling of a vast chamber, with buffalo-like creatures impaled on them. Massive yet elusive humanoids, which we called butchers, flitted through the shadows. We moved carefully through the meat hooks, looking for a way out. We fought and killed one butcher – surprisingly difficult to take down – before we finally found an exit.

A second steel door opened onto scaffolding, a huge unfinished building of some sort. We looked out onto a darkened city, eerie and strangely silent.

With little time to waste, we began descending the scaffolding. We hadn't made much progress when we were attacked by a dozen gargoyles. Fortunately, they fled once we had killed half their number.

With a few minor mishaps, we reached a more-complete section which provided egress to the neighboring building, possibly a condominium. We entered and began looking for stairs. The condominium was in ruins, inhabited by filthy and desperate squatters. We picked up the pace.

Suddenly a horde of feral children burst from the rooms to either side. Jackson and Bundy charged ahead, getting clear before the mob closed, but Anders, Gompertz, and I weren't so lucky. Gompertz and Anders were crippled, and I was almost pulled down and ripped apart. Fortunately for us, Jackson and Bundy came back and managed to hold off the children long enough for us to escape. Jackson pulled me free in the nick of time.

Finally we reached the ground. After wending our way through narrow alleyways, we reached a courtyard where five figures waited for us: McBain with four wolves that heeled him like guard dogs.

They were almost too much for us. The wolves were blindingly fast, but next to McBain they seemed to be standing still. The serial killer crippled Bundy with two swift blows. Only Jackson's swift intervention saved the cyborg from being torn limb from limb.

Fast as they were, we took down the wolves quickly enough, but McBain absorbed an incredible amount of punishment. It didn't help that we had to use rubber bullets, since we had to take him alive. Finally, finally, he went down. By that time, Jackson was the only one of us who could do more than hobble.

Using the black box, Jackson quickly extracted a strange object from McBain's throat. That was evidently what the Harbinger wanted. We couldn't carry McBain with us, so we killed him. Then we hurried, at a fast hobble, through a door which we hoped would lead us home. It did, though we were attacked by ghosts en route.

True Colors

Falthon 14 Feb 2011 10:11

I had fallen behind during my visit to Fort Monmouth, so I was deep in paperwork when the letter arrived by special courier. After security reported it to be clean, I took it in my office and opened it. It appeared to be an invitation to a Game, and directed me to place my hand on the page if I accepted. When I did, I was suddenly elsewhere.

I was lying on what seemed to be an examination table in a small room with a single door, wearing a white body-stocking. I immediately got off the table and walked out the door. Outside were Finch, Luther, Osby, and Anders. It was a relief to see Anders; he had been missing for some time, and I had feared he was dead. Though he wasn't far from it; he was badly injured, malnourished, and on the edge of collapse. Osby treated him as best she could with no supplies.

We were standing in a large room with two exits, one through a blue door and one through a red door. Each of us was wearing a body-stocking and a name tag. Mine said, “Green: Extremely Contagious”; Finch's read, “Grey: Fucking Crazy”; Luther's, “Pink: Willing Victim”; Osby's, “Red: Serial Killer”; and Anders's, “Purple: Corrupt Politician”.

We soon learned that when we touched each other, or any color not our own, we became “painted”, with colors slowly creeping up our bodies. Presumably anyone who became fully painted would be disqualified. Evidently we were in some sort of game show. Or, from the ambiance, perhaps a cross between a game show and a laboratory experiment. The tables on which we had awakened were reminiscent of alien abduction stories, perhaps intentionally so.

The style didn't seem familiar. A new Harbinger, then. From the name tags, it was obvious that we were at odds. And somehow I knew that I had to touch each of the others or be disqualified. I briefly considered bringing it up and trying to find a way to cooperate, but quickly dismissed the idea. Judging by the name tags, some of the contestants, such as Osby, very likely had conflicting objectives, but others, such as Luther, probably didn't. Cooperating would grant a win to those without conflicting objectives, but guarantee a loss for those with them. We would just have to see how this played out.

I shook hands with Osby and clapped Anders on the shoulder before they read my name tag. When I asked Luther and Finch to let me touch them, Luther agreed, but Finch declined. I made sure I was next to him as we left the room and tried to bump against him, but he ducked aside.

The door led to a corridor. As we walked down it, a bucket of red paint dropped out of the ceiling. I knocked Finch out of the way. My shove caused the colors to creep up higher on his body-stocking, but reduced the amount of paint that splattered him; probably an even trade, though he might not see it that way. Still, I had fulfilled my personal objective and now just had to make it through the maze.

That proved difficult, however. Finch summoned Desh to deal with some glowing globes that suddenly appeared. Abruptly bright red Desh were everywhere; I tried to dodge to the side, but one of them knocked me into another, causing the colors to creep up past my waist.

The next room was a river of blue paint, with swinging ropes hanging above it. We passed that without incident with the help of Finch's Desh, only to find ourselves faced with a fifty-foot long, one-foot wide bridge across a stretch of multicolored sand. Massive fans waited to blow us off the bridge, presumably to be painted by the sand.

Finch and Luther crossed first. Frogard was sucked into a pit in the sand. I started across next, only to be immediately blown off the bridge. A pit opened beneath me, and the light vanished.

In seconds, light returned. I was lying in a box facing two buttons. A voice began speaking; the voice of the sponsoring Harbinger, I suspected.

A riddle. Which button to push? The first part of the riddle made a statement that might or might not be true. The second part instructed me to push the button that the first part indicated was the wrong one. A counter ticked down the time; if I did not choose, I would be incinerated. I had twenty seconds.

I didn't need twenty seconds. The riddle essentially asked if I trusted the Harbinger, or thought he (she? it?) was lying. I didn't need to think about that one. Trust a Harbinger? Who would be so insane? Of course the Harbinger was lying. I chose accordingly and pushed.

I found myself back where I had come from. Either I had pushed the wrong button, or it hadn't mattered; perhaps the Harbinger was only gathering more data, and I was disqualified either way. No way to know. I picked up the phone and ordered a new search for Anders. If he survived, he should be reappearing soon; he would be in urgent need of medical attention with no way to pay for it. Then I went back to my desk. Time to get back to work.

Last edited on 14 Feb 2011 10:16 by Falthon Show more

page 1 of 6123456next »