Thursday, 16 November 2000 (continued)
Jane has been in Wichita for many hours. In the evening she telephones
her sister Danielle. The long talk with Agatha Cooper has convinced
Jane that she hasn't been spending enough time with the people she
cares about. Jane asks Danielle what she's planning on doing for
Thanksgiving (hoping that they can spend it together). Danielle
is planning on spending the day with their parents. Jane doesn't
feel that she can go home. Danielle tells Jane that she really wants
her there. Danielle is going through some "difficult times"
with her husband Greg. She thinks he is having an affair. Jane finds
this very difficult to believe, not because Greg is a saint but
because Danielle is so vivacious and outgoing that its a wonder
Greg would look anywhere else. Greg is not spending Thanksgiving
with Danielle, but she'd like Jane there for support as she has
to tell their father about the troubles. Jane relents and agrees
to go home for Thanksgiving.
Friday, 17 November 2000
Back in Wichita, Jane finds out
how "smart" Levin wants her to be and why. She discovers
that Levin will meet her at her hotel and that they will go to a
meeting of the United Nations Development Fund where President Clinton
will speak on the application of GM crops to improve farming techniques.
Jane phones her sister, and Danielle promises to take Jane shopping
in New York to find an appropriate dress.
Jane chases the archival information from Temple, Round Rock and
Eagle Pass on 16 and 17 year olds and mothers who fit the description
of Joe's victims. As soon as she has this information she passes
it on to the genealogist Chris Walcott. She also asks Walcott to
find out all he can about Carol Hunter. Carol shares the same grandfather
as Artemis. She is much a link to the Joker as Artemis is. Jane
makes it clear that the Apache Joe case takes priority.
Jane begins to research information on the following leads outstanding
from various cases of the past: the composer Nikolai Rosakov, the
powers of Tic-Tac Loos, the cult of Alfred Bucktail Jesse, the Columbian
drug-lord Ramirez and the well-being of the children Chuck Renford
and Milo Prentice.
Saturday, 18 November 2000
In Wichita, while looking through
the family tree provided by Chris Walcott, Jane notices that her
brother Edward is married and has a child. This is news that has
been concealed from her family.
Information on Chuck Renford and Milo Prentice comes back to Jane
quickly. Chuck is in a sanatorium and is currently being allowed
visits by his grandparents. He seems to be slowly coming to terms
with the situation. His mother (Lois) is not dealing as well. She
is still seeing a therapist and has not asked to be reunited with
her son. Milo is in the Idaho State Orphanage. He is very confused
and very lonely.
Sunday, 19 November 2000
Jane discovers that Ramirez is the top target on the DEA, and the
DEA are working with the Columbian government to bring him down.
No-one knows where Ramirez is, or even his first name. He is known
to fund terrorist forces against the Columbian government and he
commands at least three autonomous drugs cartels. The DEA have cracked
down on one, and another suffered a small set back at the hands
of evidence response in Pasadena but it hasn't compromised his operation.
People who demand face-to-face meetings with Ramirez wind up dead
(even other drugs lords). The man has his own militia which is equipped
with military hardware. If Jane wants to know any more she will
have to contact the DEA directly.
Monday, 20 November 2000
Jane telephones Whiteroad who puts her onto a source who knows
more about Alfred Bucktail Jesse. His tribe extends from Texas to
Northern Mexico where most of his followers are recruited. His group
are mostly into the destruction of public property and other facilities,
but they have killed. Jane pulls a casefile from Corpus Christi,
Texas (local police file 510732). Two sheriffs from Corpus investigated
signs of a break-in at a NASA facility and disturbed Jesse's group.
In the ensuing fire-fight both officers were killed. Jesse later
claimed responsibility. He is thought to currently be in somewhere
in northern Mexico.
Tuesday, 21 November 2000
Jane examines the casefile of Tic-Tac Loos. He was called Tic-Tac
because he was a white man. Tic-Tac has one surviving relative -
his mother (aged 62) currently resides at the Gentle Pines Rest
Home in Birmingham, Alabama. His friends are either in prison or
wanted and at large. Jane makes a list of names in the hope that
one of them might be able to shed some light on how Tic-Tac did
what he did.
Before flying out to New York Jane gets a call from Chris Walcott.
Originally 23 individuals from the electoral roll in Eagle Pass
(5), Round Rock (6) and Temple (12) met the criteria as one of Apache
Joe's victims. In addition to this the number of 16/17 year olds
who also met the criteria were four in Eagle Pass, two in Round
Rock and one in Temple. Walcott was able to take away twelve names
because they had already had children (two in Eagle Pass, six in
Round Rock and four in Temple). These results did factor in the
regiment. Jane applies this information, giving the following possibilities
for the next victims of Apache Joe:
Eagle Pass (four possible victims: Maria Holmes, Liane Holmes,
Suzie Vincent, Rebecca Deeson), Round Rock (two possible victims:
Laura and Leena Dale), Temple (five possible victims: Melanie Deeson,
Hannah Webber, Lydia Holmes, Hazel Abner, Rowen Abner).
Jane wishes they could get the results down by more than that, but
it look as though they will have to work with what they've got.
Walcott continues to work on a family tree for Carol Hunter. In
the evening Jane flies to New York and meets her sister. They spend
the evening talking, and Jane tells Danielle about the death of
Kirsty Faber.
Wednesday, 22 November 2000
In the morning Jane and Danielle go shopping in New York for an
outfit for this meeting with Levin. Jane isn't a good shopper, but
Danielle can shop for her country. They purchase an elegant and
expensive dress in velvet and silk. Jane wouldn't normally buy such
a thing, but Danielle insists. Later in the day the pair head over
to Augusta in Maine. Danielle has phoned ahead and 'warned' them
that Jane is coming. Jane's mother is pleased to see her. Jane's
father has already gone to bed by the time they arrive, postponing
the reunion until tomorrow.
Thursday, 23 November 2000
Thanksgiving
The reunion with Jane's father doesn't go well. The fact that
Jane is on crutches only proves to him that she never should have
got into this FBI lark in the first place. He spends all day picking
at her and there is a blazing row. Danielle tries to calm things
down by dropping her own bombshell. She is pregnant and the baby
isn't Greg's. The father goes ballistic. In the middle of a heated
argument, Jane's elder brother Edward turns up to surprise the family
as he won't be around at Christmas. Jane and Edward have always
got on really well and she is thrilled to see him. Edward immediately
calms the situation and by the evening everyone is talking is forced
polite tones. After dinner Jane approaches Edward during his evening
smoke. She asks her brother about her marriage. Edward is embarrassed
that she has found out in this way, and tells Jane about his wife
and daughter. He asks her to keep quiet about it.
Friday, 24 November 2000
Edward has to go in the morning. After he has left Jane and Danielle
waste no time in leaving Augusta and returning to New York. Jane
and Danielle spend the day talking. Danielle won't reveal who the
father is, saying that it isn't important. Greg wasn't really having
an affair, she just said that over the phone. Greg found out about
the baby, freaked and left home two weeks ago. No one has seen him
or heard of him. Danielle asks if Jane can use her contacts to help
track him down. Jane agrees to help.
Saturday, 25 November 2000
Jane flies back to Wichita and back to work. She begins to sort
through all the information she has managed to gather on the composer
Nikolai Rosakov. Rosakov was born on 7 May 1865 in Kiev. He attended
a Catholic seminary which was rather odd for Russia at that time.
He left Russia for Rome and studied with decadent Italian nobles
who seduced him away from the church. Rosakov had a great talent
with composition - especially with the piano and the harpsichord.
He wrote one famous symphony in his lifetime. Rosakov was later
employed by the Khedive (the military ruler of Cairo, who was also
the Turkish viceroy) to write another piece of work. It is a page
from this second symphony that was discovered in the lab of Jenson
Gilgoolie. Rosakov worked on this second symphony in Prague, but
died of madness before it was finished. If Jane wants to know any
more she will need to contact an expert in the field. She has the
name Allan Millbanks, a conductor at the music school in New York
City. She will telephone him after the weekend to make an appointment.
Monday, 27 November 2000
Jane heads to Washington for her meeting with Michael Levin. She
has a hair crisis in the morning and summons an emergency beautician.
By the end of the process Jane can barely recognise herself in the
mirror. Levin meets her in a limousine dressed in a dinner suit
and accompanied by a man-mountain called Monty, who is evidently
his body-guard. He gives Jane a fabulous necklace of a diamond with
a lily upon it. In the limo the pair talk briefly. Levin explains
that this evening, after all the formal speeches they will be able
to talk more discreetly.
At the Washington Memorial Jane has her weapon checked by security
and is introduced to President Bill Clinton, the first lady, the
Secretary-General of the United Nations and various other important
people. Although Clinton is a charismatic speaker, the rest of the
day creeps along at an increasingly dull pace. Eventually Jane has
Levin on his own and is able to ask him the questions she has been
burning with for several weeks.
Levin is part of an organisation that has been in existence for
12 years, although he has been involved in it for 15 years (he never
explains this). He has a boss and his boss has a boss, who are also
complicit in Levin's activities but he is not prepared to tell Jane
who they are. Levin is not connected with Eisenstein. The pair are
not working together. Levin is purely concerned with working against
the brain bugs whereas Eisenstein's goal seems to be to put agents
in the path of any supernatural menace. As a result the work of
Levin and Eisenstein has a mutually beneficial common ground, but
they have never worked directly together. Jane gets the impression
that Levin knows a lot more about Eisenstein than Eisenstein knows
about Levin.
Levin did not give Eisenstein the anti-brain bug pills he distributed
to the evidence response team on 3 November. Eisenstein believes
he procured these pills without Levin being aware of it. Levin confirms
Eisenstein's fears that there is a mole in evidence response. Levin
knows who it is, but won't tell Jane because he is using that mole
to get information himself. This does not necessarily mean he put
the mole in evidence response, simply that he is using it.
Levin says that the brain bugs are called the Signai. They are
an extraterrestrial race who travel in space ships. The first reported
encounter was in 1942, when a marine task force in the South Pacific
came across them. Some other countries are aware of their existence,
but the United States doesn't openly work with any allies against
the Signai. Levin says (rather ominously) that entire countries
have been compromised by the Signai.
As to what the Signai are after, Levin cannot say for sure. They
treat humanity as little more than a resource to be plundered. They
see humanity as a means to another end, not the end in and of itself.
Unless the human race proves itself to be a threat to them it is
likely they would not openly attack the world - although they are
quite capable of doing so. That is why the Signai interfered in
the manner they did with Levin's plans in Idaho and with Gilgoolie.
It was a "shot across the bows" of the Department of Agriculture
- a warning that they should not interfere.
Levin therefore has to be extremely circumspect. His job is made
more difficult by the fact that the bugs have a hive mind - they
have an amazing ability to anticipate and aid one another. Fortunately,
the Signai are not an organised force. The race is divided into
two or more castes including drones and scientists. There is a civil
war going on between two or more factions in the race. It is probable
that the bugs evidence response encountered in Idaho were of a splinter
group.
Gilgoolie was working on a way to kill the brain bugs when he was
infected. The grain that was developed is not immediately fatal
to the bugs, but kills them over a period of time - like arsenic.
The reason Gilgoolie was still able to function is that the brain
bugs are (on the whole) nocturnal. They sleep during the day, so
infected victims can act pretty much normally during that time.
This also explains why the Prentice family did not immediately attack
agents Harlow and Munroe. Levin categorically states that Gilgoolie's
fears for McConnell Airforce base are groundless - especially since
the Department of Agriculture started sending them bread.
In the final analysis Levin considers evidence response a useful
tool. If their investigations blunder into brain bug related activity,
it takes some of the pressure off his organisation. He isn't prepared
to work with them any more closely because he feels that might compromise
his position. However, he is prepared to help as much as he is willing
all able. He remains but a phone call away. At the end of the evening
Levin insists that Jane keeps the necklace. She is so taken back
by his generosity that she accepts.
Tuesday, 28 November 2000
The hands are identified as belonging to the escaped paedophiles
and therefore Case DVL017
is considered closed. Black, Blackthorne, Steiger and Wells are
already back in Wichita by the time Jane returns. Blackthorne has
gone back to hospital with his ulcer and Wendell Wells is looking
for a flat in town to rent. Artemis appraises a disbelieving Jane
of what happened in North Dakota, while Jane fills the others in
on her own findings. She will take steps to have one of the cells
reinforced so that it is capable of holding a werewolf.
The agents get a call from Eisenstein directing them to Hawaii,
and a new case (reference 0016-GCF).
Eisenstein received a report from Elijah Stone - apparently something
is not "quite right" with a local Cahuna (Hawaiian witch-doctor),
and Stone has asked for help. Eisenstein cannot send the western
evidence response team and so he is sending this team. Agents Black,
Steiger and Wells leave Wichita for Hawaii.
The group lands Artemis gets very drunk while waiting for a connecting
flight to Big Island. He telephones Blackthorne's hospital with
lots of unhelpful suggestions for his superior's treatment. The
group arrive on the Big Island later in the day and arrange to meet
Stone the following morning.
Wednesday, 29 November 2000
Stone greets the agents the next morning and is told of Harlow's
demise. All seems normal at first, but it soon becomes apparent
that something very odd is going on with Stone. He turns corners
or enters doors and disappears, only to reappear a second later
from somewhere else. This is more than lightning speed. At one point
all three agents are having three conversations with three Stones
in three different places. Stone doesn't acknowledge that anything
odd is going on.
The Stones explain that after he finished his holiday in Tahiti
he got a brief secondment to Hawaii to spend some time with his
friend, Earl Jameson, who is an agent on the island. He was sent
to check out a "civil rights group" on an uninhabited
island, only to find that the group were little more than squatters
defacing the island of Kahoolawe (which is a local nature reserve).
Stone and colleagues, Special Agents Kithgoe and Roberts, removed
the squatters and Stone personally confronted a local Cahuna lived
there at the foot of a dormant volcano. The cahuna wouldn't leave,
so Stone forcibly removed him to Maui, where he currently resides
with his son and daughter.
Based on the multiple Stones and general weirdness going on, Artemis
believes that Stone has been cursed by the cahuna for some reason.
The agents travel to the island in a helicopter called the Rapunzel
flown by Vietnam veteran PJ Dukes. He has violent flashbacks to
the 'Nam on the way to the island and Wendell has to take the controls
to prevent a crash.
On the island Wendell is bitten by a water snake and dies. Two
minutes later he wakes up as right as rain. The agents then proceed
into the remains of a shanty town where the squatters used to live.
Stone leads them beyond the town to hut where the cahuna lives.
There is evidence of a large fire outside the hunt, and some sort
of summoning marked out in the ash. The circle has been scuffed
and broken - probably by Stone on his last visit. Footprints lead
from the shack up the volcano.
Artemis proposes going up the volcano to investigate. Stone vehemently
disagrees and becomes suspiciously vehement in his belief that they
should not climb the volcano. "Nothing but trouble will come
of this," he says. Wendell goes up alone and enters a cave
that leads into the volcano. Rivers of magma run beneath him. There
are a thousand tiny points of light dancing above the flames. One
point of light breaks off and attacks Wendell. It is a globe of
flame. Wendell throws some water over it, but does not destroy the
creature, that burns him and he falls down close to death.
Eventually Artemis and Elise follow Wendell. Stone will not accompany
them. They find his body in the cave. Elise uses her canteen to
destroy the globe of fire that turns into a skeletal bat, falls
to the ground and smashes. Wendell is revived, but he doesn't seem
to be able to heal the burns like other wounds.
The agents are about to make good their escape when Elise looks
over the ledge to catch a glimpse of the things that attacked Wendell.
Two more motes of light rush into attack. Wendell uses a fire extinguisher
on his utility belt (that he previously forgot about) to destroy
one but the second burns Elise very badly. They have no defence
and no more water, so Wendell fires his gun into the ceiling, hoping
to start a cave-in and seal the fire creatures in. His plan works
too well. Elise cannot escape in time and she is crushed to death
under tons of rubble.
Wendell is taken to hospital in Honolulu while Artemis gets on
the phone. Werewolf or not he wants Wendell committed and taken
off their team.
Thursday, 30 November 2000
In the early hours of the morning, an increasingly insane Wendell
steals a doctor's coat and escapes from hospital. Still badly wounded
he hails a cab and heads to the airport. He has no money from the
taxi, and tells the driver to phone Artemis Black for payment. Hearing
where Wendell is, Artemis rushes to the airport in time to see Wendell
stealing PJ Dukes's helicopter. Foolishly, Artemis grabs hold the
skid as the helicopter takes off and climbs inside.
Wendell refuses to turn back. He has convinced himself that the
fire creatures (not himself) were responsible for Elise's death.
He plans to fly the helicopter into the volcano and use the wind
created by the rotors to "put them out". However, Wendelll
cannot navigate and cannot find the island. The helicopter runs
out of fuel and ditches in the sea. Miraculously they both survive.
They are rescued by the coastguard two hours later. During the
intervening time Wendelll is repeatedly attacked by sharks that
eat off all his burns, allowing him to regenerate fully. Wendelll
is arrested by Black and sent back to hospital.
Mid-West Campaign Index
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