Mid-West Campaign
Session Seventy-Five

Thursday, 7 June 2001

Jane telephones Michael Levin to appraise him of the current situation. It is a long and drawn out conversation, punctuated by many pregnant pauses and Todd violently tapping on his watch, as the alleged couple seem to have forgotten how to talk to one another. Eventually, Michael says that he will come to Wichita in July to see Jane (it's the next time he can take leave). Jane won't be able to go anywhere because of Danni.

Talk then turns to work. Levin says that he has been extremely busy recently. The trial of the airborne neuro-toxin in Newark (case NW988) had be abandoned when the brain bugs took too much of an interest in what was going on. Apparently, a brain bug frigate moved out from behind the dark side of the moon. The trails were inconclusive, the gas was only 70% fatal to the bugs, drove 15% mad and left the rest untouched.

Jane tells Michael what the team has discovered in the past few days. She says that they know the mole is Georgeson and that Artemis is going to arrange a meeting with both Levin and DeMontu. Levin says that DeMontu doesn't really know what is happening on the ground. He also says that national policy prevents him from working with NTOPFOR. After the call Jane, Clint, Benedict and Todd head to the airport.

Meanwhile in Washington, Artemis is busy choosing the sort of expensive furniture that will grace his subterranean hideaway. He has grand plans for the place involving expensive mahogany tables and copious cigars. However, he is interrupted from this important task by Agent Green who has arrived in Wichita with the requested bomb disposal robot. As Jane and the others are only just leaving LA, Black orders Ecks and Campbell-Robson to take delivery. They are in the Blue Pussycat Club with Chuck who actually turned up for work for seven minutes this morning. Artemis orders the pair back to HQ.

Artemis now schemes how he can meet with Huntingdon-Price in his secret lair without provoking suspicion. In the end he simply phones Huntingdon-Price's attaché, Gareth Hume, and arranges to go and see the commodore rather than bringing him to Washington. As Black's luck would have it, Huntingdon-Price is currently on HMS Ark Royal, anchored in the Bahamas. He immediately heads for the Caribbean.

At Los Angeles airport, PCP is discovered on Benedict and he arrested by airport security. The rest of the team do not notice until they are in the air. They eventually contact Jane who vouches for Ben and says the PCP was evidence that was improperly labelled. The airport agent (Rodgers) makes an official complaint against Benedict and Jane to Artemis Black. Disgusted with his treatment (and several cavity probes) Benedict hires a car and drives to Wichita.

After a terrible flight in which Todd spent the entire time asleep and drooling on Jane's shoulder, the agents touch down in Wichita. Jane promises Danni she'll be home by 6pm and sends Todd to buy her pregnant sister some ice cream. Jane and Clint head to the Wichita HQ. Jane asks Bruce Campbell-Robson to arrange for the repair of the three supercomputers and to also order another two. She takes great pleasure in saying that everything should be charged to Artemis Black.

Jane, Clint and Ecks then unpack the bomb disposal robot. Both Stone and Ecks are highly skilled in manipulating the robot and begin the process of stripping the car and the boot. Pieces of the skeleton (that is assumed to be Peter Ellis Dean) are removed and rather precariously bagged. It is very time consuming. Then Jane realises she is two hours late for Danni and has to hurry home. Stone, Ecks and Bruce continue work until 2:00am by which time they have stripped the boot of the car and packed all the various body parts as well as forty years of swamp sludge. They leave the bones down in the lab for Jane to look at tomorrow.

Back at home, Jane discovers Todd has been locked out of the house and that Danni is throwing an incredible hormone-induced strop. She has thrown all of Jane's clothes onto her bed and is emptying Jane's make-up case (a very small case). She is panicking about the baby and says that she wants it out of her now. Jane tries to reassure her sister, but isn't particularly successful. Danni mocks Jane's 'relationship' with Michel Levin as something that wouldn't be out of place in high school.

Artemis Black arrives in the Bahamas at 6:00pm local time and has a leisurely meal in an outrageously expensive hotel at the expense of the American tax payer. In the evening he contemplates his new book Alien Schmalien: Debunking the Alien Myth. He thinks it is hilarious that someone who has definitive proof of the existence of extraterrestrials will pen the definitive work discrediting all eye witnesses. He intends to expound his cutting-edge new theory that anyone who claims to have seen or been abducted by an alien weren't properly breast-fed as children.

Friday, 8 June 2001

First thing in the morning, Artemis is met in the foyer of his hotel by royal naval officer and take to the Ark Royal, where he meets Hume and then Commodore Nigel Huntingdon-Price in a secure room deep within the ship.

Meanwhile, the west coast agents and Stone (who bunked at the Wichita HQ last night) awaken with breakfast in mind. However, faced with only Artemis Black Health-Quorn Bacon and Artemis Brand Pop Tarts they decide an extravagant shopping expedition is order. They roar out just as Jane arrives for work.

Jane goes down to the medical pay and spends many happy hours assembling the skeleton. She seems to be able to manipulate the remains with no ill effects - that is until she completes the skeleton. As soon as all the bones are back together she is attacked by a wave of apathy to the whole proceedings. Reasoning that her sister is far more important than her job, she returns home and spends the rest of the day watching Montel Williams with Danni and Bobby the dog.

Meanwhile Artemis begins his interview with the commodore. He is extremely candid with Huntingdon-Price and begins with telling him everything about Georgeson, Schult and the great intergalactic wars between the Signai, Shaggai, K'tai and the Sil. Huntingdon-Price is surprised by this candour and very excited at the thought of getting his hands on one of the other downed lifepods. The one in Luxor should be particularly easy to gain access to if he has the location. Huntingdon-Price obviously wants the high technology that can be found there, but Artemis counsels against doing anything to annoy Georgeson. They may be able to negotiate for the tech.

Black says that he is being candid because of the incredible dangers faced by the world. He raises the idea of getting a member of NTOPFOR attached to each of the evidence response teams as an observer to cement a relationship between the teams. Huntingdon-Price thinks this would be very easy to accomplish. Artemis says that he also wants energy weapons as he knows NTOPFOR have access to these. NTOPFOR have reverse-engineered energy weapons about the size of rifles with brief-case sized power packs. They also have pistol sized weapons (these being the originally seized alien tech). He says that each evidence response team could be issued with two such weapons, and that the NTOP observer would be responsible for them. He adds that all such weapons affect multi-dimensional creatures such as ghosts (which is why they could affect Nathan Harlow).

The commodore says that NTOP contracts out the creation of the creation of these weapons to Dynamicorp. Recently one of their particle accelerators was stolen from Broken Bow. This is case BRB012 (a case the mid-west team is yet to open).

Huntingdon-Price says that one of the goals of NTOPFOR is to curtail the activities of multi-dimensional beings. He doesn't trust them - not even Raphael, although he knows the "Archangel" is not involved in the game. Huntingdon-Price has very little truck for magic and such like.

Then Artemis asks if Huntingdon-Price knows anything about the activities of Vitrano and Lavin and suddenly everything comes together. The answer is: yes. Vitrano and Lavin worked for NTOPFOR (although they did not know it). They were ex-KGB agents who now operate as mercenaries. NTOPFOR employed them, through a broker in Nigeria, to work in the USA. They are "deniable assets".

Vitrano and Lavin (the codename "Gold" refers to both of them) were charged with infiltrating the United States and finding out about the super soldiers that were being created by MK-Ultra. The commodore was worried that such blatant use of alien tech (doppelganger in this case) would draw the attention of the brain bugs.

The pair and their team sustained the Apache Joe killings (both by paying the serial killer and by making sure he wasn't caught) in order to draw out MK Ultra. However, this never happened. The word was eventually given for them to pull out when the mid-west team's case files and notes (mostly written by Jane) found their way into MK Ultra's hands. Once MK Ultra knew what Vitrano and Lavin were doing, they were forced to abandon their operation. This is what happened on 12 December 2000.

Artemis glosses over his own involvement with MK Ultra, and denies any knowledge of the assassination of Veronica Cunningham.

Huntingdon-Price is unrepentant about using Vitrano and Lavin. He says that people in his position are forced to make difficult decisions for the greater good. It is the nature of their work. Artemis Black agrees with him wholeheartedly and sees no reason why this should be a barrier to their alliance. He determines to keep the truth of this matter secret from Jane at all costs, and tells Commodore that Jane is still hunting for Vitrano and Lavin. Black asks if they are currently in Uruguay?

Huntingdon-Price says that they were in Uruguay. He says that they are trying to track down a serious security leak. Another agent code-named "White": someone Artemis Black knows better as Elaine Ross. This opens up the whole matter of what happened in Caspar, Wyoming during case CS1473-IND. Huntingdon-Price is also quite illuminating in this regard:

The problem the agents have had in the past in working out what was going on is their belief that there was only one faction of Ukrainian commandos in the area. In fact there were two. One group were true Ukrainians from the brain-bug dominated Ukrainian military - they are the ones who captured Alan Hamblin III and forced him to translocate their attack helicopter from the Ukraine to Wyoming. They were the ones after the uranium. The second group were Russians (not Ukrainians, although they spoke the same language). They were more deniable assets in the employ of NTOPFOR. They were there to raid the Mary Estate for information; and they are the ones the evidence response agents fought.

There is a suspicion that Elaine Ross has a brain bug in her head. This is one of the reasons Vitrano and Lavin were sent to hunt her down. However, she has managed to stay ahead of them for six months.

The pair now break for a lunch in Artemis's honour. He sits in the officer's mess and regales them with fictitious tales of his adventures. He talks about his new book and signs copies of Victim Schmictim that he happens to have brought with him. The old ham.

Meanwhile in Wichita: Stone, Ecks and Campbell-Robson arrive back at base to find Jane missing. A short time later they receive a call from Todd who is rather alarmed at Jane's behaviour and lack of interest in her job. Ecks takes the view that at least they know that the apathy-effect is caused by the skeleton and only when the skeleton is assembled. They can now perform their forensic investigation of the rest of the car. They invite Todd over to help them: it won't take long, then they're going to play computer games.

Back in the Bahamas, Artemis Black and Commodore Huntingdon-Price reconvene. The commodore says that the evidence response team would be the lynchpin of any alliance against the Shaggai (and other menaces). Artemis asks what plans NTOPFOR have to combat the brain bug fleet when it arrives. Huntingdon-Price is less than optimistic about the planet's chances. He wants to put orbital weapons up, he is having Dynamicorp build a launch vehicle and deep-space probe to come some intelligence, but he can't do anything while there is a Shaggai frigate hiding behind the moon.

Artemis says that evidence response can get rid of that frigate! If they can get the exact coordinates of the frigate from Georgeson, and if NTOPFOR can supply him with a nuclear device then he can get Todd to use Hamblin's time door to teleport the bomb onto the ship. No more ship.

Huntingdon-Price is very excited by this. It should definitely be done, and would certainly seal any alliance with NTOPFOR. Artemis thinks that it would also convince Georgeson of his team's trustworthiness. However, in addition to destroying the vessel Huntingdon-Price thinks that this is an ideal opportunity to get their hands on some Shaggai technology. Send the bomb, but also send a team on to the ship to steal as much as possible before the bomb goes off. Artemis steeples his fingers and smiles deeply, he knows just the people for the job.

Within five minutes the whole matter has gone from a hypothetical discussion to a solid plan, and Huntington-Price has ordered Hume to send a nuclear bomb to Wichita. Then the pair discuss other matters.

Artemis asks about Valerie Hudson, but Huntingdon-Price doesn't have much knowledge about her. Regarding why Hudson thinks there is something odd about Bruce Campbell-Robson, the commodore can only say that there are a couple of years missing from Bruce's background.

Artemis is also keen to find out what NTOPFOR knows about Eisenstein. Once more Huntingdon-Price has all the facts. Lieutenant Colonel Angus Jack Eisenstein, joined the United States Airforce in 1937. There was an incident at Gila Mountain. Something happened to him that froze his age. He later joined the FBI and was close friends with Hoover. He had acquired an interest in the supernatural after what happened to him and so, when he gained more authority, he formed the evidence response teams. Richard Justice Williams is another Gila Mountain veteran, and is equally long lived. As far as Eisenstein's death is concerned, Huntingdon-Price doesn't suspect foul play. He just thinks that whatever affect that was sustaining Eisenstein simply wore off. Chronologically, he was more than one hundred years old. This theory fits the facts: Black knows Eisenstein died of multiple organ failure.

The interview is finally at an end. Artemis tanks Huntingdon-Price for his candour and support and then returns to Wichita. By this time, Stone and the west-coasters finished their forensic archaeology on the car.

Saturday, 9 June 2001

Artemis Black arrives at the Wichita HQ at about 2:00am. He breaks up the computer-game party that is currently going on and is apprised of the situation. This whole skeleton business has the stink of voodoo about it. Artemis determines to telephone Dominic Rocaan in the morning.

Dominic is less than thrilled to receive a call from Artemis over his breakfast, but he listens to the acting-director's account of body. The nature of the skeleton reminds Dominic of mid-west case BR056. Both this body and the body of Tic-Tac Loos displayed strange powers. He suspects that the magic could have been placed on the corpse because the spirit of Peter Ellis Dean did not die with the body. Dominic conjectures that the spirit of Dean possessed someone else forty years ago.

Dominic also says that taking the skeleton apart made the spirit lose its form - it would have evacuated whatever body it was currently possessing. Whether this is the same body Dean possessed forty years ago, or a different one is unknown. Dominic is not sure what happened to the spirit when the skeleton was reassembled by Jane. It might reappear in the skeleton, it might return to the scene of its death, or may return to its original possessed host. He expresses concern that Jane might be possessed, but after hearing the agents' accounts he seems satisfied this is not the case.

Artemis orders Dominic to Wichita to attempt to commune with Peter Ellis Dean's spirit. It is possible they could clear up much of the case by so doing. Particularly if the spirit fingers its murderers. Dominic isn't very keen to do this but he complies. He warns that disassembling the skeleton again will only annoy the spirit further. Artemis takes this under advisement and disassembles it anyway. Photographs of the skull are sent away to check dental records, but it could take up to five days for results.

Artemis received a telephone call from Gareth Hume. The nuclear bomb is ready and is on its way to Wichita. My, that was quick work.

Meanwhile, Benedict Oaxaca has drive from California to Arizona. It is here that he is stopped by the local police and arrested for being black. He is thrown in the local pokey and denied his phone call. His "obviously" stolen FBI badge and credentials are taken from him.

Shortly before Dominic arrives, DHL delivers the nuclear device to the Wichita HQ. Bradley Ecks immediately realises what it is and nearly has a heart attack. Bruce thinks that it's about time and wonders when the west coast team will get their own bomb. Dominic and Jack Burchill then turn up. Dominic calmly sits down on the device before Bradley points out that it is two-hundred and fifty megaton nuclear bomb. Numerous photos are taken for the Wall of Weird.

Artemis feels as though he needs to explain its presence here, and goes over the plan with the assembled agents. The only decision that needs to be taken is what team to send through the door. After a little discussion Artemis believes that the team should be small so it can explore the ship without being seen. Todd should remain on this side of the door to close it again.

The team for Operation: Certain Death should be: Jane Munroe (for her medical skills and experience against the Bugs), Benedict Oaxaca (whose special powers should enable him to resist possession), Bradley Ecks (for his scientific expertise and demolition skills), Clint Stone (for his firepower and demolition skills) and Bruce Campbell-Robson (for his computer expertise and demolition skills). Naturally, Artemis looks forward to breaking this to Jane and Ben.

None of this can be accomplished until the door arrives from the west coast, so Dominic proposes getting on with the communing. He will commune with Peter Ellis Dean's remains in the back of one of the team's 4×4. Performing the ritual in a building already swarming with spirits would not be a good idea.

Mid-West Campaign Index | Previous Session | Next Session