Mid-West Campaign
Session Eighty-Nine

Sunday, 12 August 2001

Suddenly, brain bug emerge from everywhere and attack McPike and Stone. One hits McPike and begins to sink into his head. Stone dodges one, but not two and the alien entity begins to sink into his brain. Grabbing his handgun, Stone brings the awesome elephant-stopping power of the weapon to bear and shoots himself in the head. The brain bug is killed, but so is Clint Stone. Then Stone explodes.

You see, Clint Stone is not really Stone at all. He is the last of the fire spirits that possessed the form of Elijah Stone on Kahoolawe. In death he returns to his original form. McPike hits the deck as a fireball races down the corridor. It burns the brain bug off his face, kills all the other bugs and kills Sheryl Pines.

In the aftermath of the conflagration a flashing blue-light goes off, swiftly followed by the sound of a klaxon. McPike stomps toward the exit, calling for Stone. He sees Stone's twisted armour and realises that his companion was killed in the explosion. He doesn't realise that Stone was the source of the explosion. Racing outside McPike attempts to get a signal on his phone, and moves further and further away from the smoking craft as he continues to try.

This is just as well. The near-by airbase had noticed something was blocking communications and sent several missiles to deal with the problem. The pinnace craft is destroyed in the ensuing blast that hurtles McPike several handed feet and is almost completely buried in sand - only his head and right arm are free. He is completely unable to free himself.

Fortunately, McPike's right arm is holding his mobile phone and he quickly calls Malkin. He then phones Artemis, who uses his contacts (and Eisenstein's contacts) to pull the biggest and fastest cover-up of his life. The whole area is written off as radioactive and a NEST team (who are really UK Ultra) arrive to quarantine the area and help themselves to the alien tech.

A helicopter carrying agents Malkin and Steiger combs the desert looking for McPike. Eventually they find him: badly burned, trapped in hot sand and going slightly mad. As the agents rescue him, McPike relays what happened. The come to realise what happened to Clint Stone, and that he wasn't human. McPike and Steiger return to hospital. Malkin is left on site, but there is no immediate sign of the accelerator. It was probably destroyed.

Sunday, 26 August 2001

Two weeks after the events in Nebraska, agents McPike and Steiger have been discharged from hospital. The accelerator was recovered (mostly intact) beneath the wreckage of the spaceship. The craft's thick hull designed to protect it against re-entry shielded it from the missile-blast. The accelerator has since been returned to the Radiological Institute.

There has been no sign of Professor Alton or Maria. The agents believe that he is dead, or was possibly on the ship when it exploded. McPike files a cover story that he and Stone found the accelerator in the desert being transported by heavy helicopter. Their helicopter was destroyed killing the pilot and Stone. The enemy's attempts to block McPike's phoning for help alerted the near-by airbase. McPike offers no explanation as to how the accelerator was stolen. He says that it was stolen by agents of a foreign power (possibly Ukrainian). Sheryl Pines - a woman of Eastern Block origin - was involved. She died at the scene.

Monday, 27 August 2001

Agents McPike, Steiger and Malkin return to their work ploughing through the back-log of mid-west cases. They are joined by a new agent, Oliver Smith. He is a towering, rugby-player of man and so profoundly ugly he could be McPike's son. Smith carries a large number of knives about his person. McPike asks Smith whether he believes in the supernatural (he doesn't). "Please don't think we're mad," says Pike as he requisitions Smith a bigger gun and orders hollow-point, silver and jade ammunition for it. Smith wonders how he can get a transfer.

The agents decide to look at case BRTS002. Ironically, this was the case Elise opened last November, before she died. There were three cars parked next to one another in a multi-story carpark connected to a mall in Brightstar, Arkansas. From left to right they were:

Ford people carrier, owned by Rachel Tiernay who is still waiting on her insurance claim. Tiernay worked in a boutique in the mall.

FBI-modified sedan attached to the counter-terrorism unit. There were unspecified documents in the sedan.

Sports utility vehicle (SUV) attached to the security division. It was on loan to a VIP. There were materials in the car beyond agents' security clearance. Artemis has subsequently checked and revealed these items have no bearing on the case.

At 11:45pm on Monday, 21 August 2000 a group of four masked individuals threw an alcohol-based explosive at the sedan. The fire splashed the other two cars (which were bigger than the sedan and on either side of it). The sedan was bullet proof and the fire did no real damage. However, it burned through the rubber seals and destroyed the contents of the boot, which included some unidentified documents. The agents believe that destruction of these documents was the reason for the attack.

The original investigation was stymied. No-one from the counter-terrorism unit or the security division wanted to talk. Faced with stonewalling, the investigating agents passed it to evidence response. The agents pull out the surveillance tapes of the day and begin to watch. The tapes they have run continuously from 6am on Monday, 21 August to 6am on Tuesday, 22 August 2000.

The agents watch the four perpetrators arrive at the cars at 11:45pm (after the mall shut). They entered through the stairwell on the multi-storey carpark and did not come in through the mall. All four individuals are masked (wearing balaclavas) and dressed in unidentifiably bland Wal-Mart clothing. It occurs to Malkin, and shortly after to Steiger, that these four look very familiar indeed: there is a grumpy short man, and athletic woman, a very tall well-built man and a slight man.

"It's us!" exclaims Malkin. Elise immediately agree and the two become instantly (and rather inexplicably) convinced that the group time travels to the past and sets the sedan on fire. Why? The documents must have been on incredible importance to evidence response - something they didn't want to get out.

Smith is completely perplexed and McPike is despairing. Time travel should never be their first theory. Never. Ever. But Malkin is completely convinced, and resistant to any alternative theories. "The question is, why did we do it?" he says infuriatingly.

McPike says that it can't be them because he would never have gone along with it. Malkin points him to the surveillance tape where the short grump man (presumably McPike) argues with the athletic woman (presumably Elise) before throwing the Molotov. It seems that he had to be convinced by the severity of the matter.

No. No. No. McPike struggles bravely against this crazy theory. He says that it cannot be a coincidence that CTU and the security division were having a rendezvous in this carpark. He suggests that they look at the facts and try to come to a conclusion. A mutinous Malkin and Elise agree to look at the rest of the tape.

Rachel Tierney arrives for work at 7:00am on Monday, 21 August 2000. The SUV belonging to security division arrives at 5:00pm and parks one space away from Tierney. At 6:45pm the CTU sedan arrives. It is going slowly. It might be looking for the SUV, or might just be hunting for a free space in the busy car park.

Three agents get of the security division SUV, two men and one woman. Two men get out of the CTU sedan. From the build of these individuals it is unlikely that these agents torched their own cars ("Of course not, we did it!" exclaims Malkin). Using footage from cameras inside the mall, the agents track the process of all five agents. The three from security division have a coffee and then head to the cinema. The two from CTU head straight for the cinema. All five were in the cinema at the same time. They could easily have been exchanging information. There is no sign of the agents leaving, but they could have exited the cinema from numerous other doors directly to the outside.

The agents roll on the tapes past 11:45am. The fire brigade arrived at midnight and began to put out the fire. The agents know from other records connected with the case, that the fire brigade contacted the owners of the cars at 2:00am. McPike wonders why Tierney didn't come back to collect her car after work. He theorises that she went out for a drink in the evening and was too tipsy to drive home. If she has a reasonable excuse, then McPike is not suspicious of her at all.

Malkin and Elise maintain that none of this theorising proves that they didn't time travel. Obviously CTU and the security division was working on something together and they decided that they have to destroy the evidence. McPike says that there isn't a time door anymore, that it was destroyed in the attack on the west coast HQ. To prove his point he telephones Alan Cummings. Unfortunately for him, Cummings reveals that the door survived the explosion and was sent to Wichita into Todd O'Connell's keeping.

McPike is still not convinced. The agents take two cars to Brightstar. Elise is less than happy to be sharing her car with Malkin who still freaks her out slightly. En route, McPike telephones Artemis to see if he can get an ID on any of agents on the CCTV. Artemis can tell them that the SUV was signed out to Lois Ellington, but he cannot get any further names.

The agents park at the mall in the exact spaces where the firebombing too place one year ago. Elise and Malkin start to look for any clues or signs that the agents may have left for themselves during their time travel jaunt. McPike tells them to stop it, stop it now.

The agents head into the mall. McPike stops at a book store to buy a copy of the recently published Alien Schmalien. After a tragic pantomime involving Malkin's inability to read the floor plan, they find the boutique where Rachel Tierney worked. It is a lingerie boutique. As McPike and Smith wait awkwardly to speak to Rachel (she is in a fitting room with a client), Malkin wanders off to finger some of the soft ladies' under-things. McPike tells him to stop being seedy. "I may wish to make a purchase," Malkin states.

Rachel is surprised to see the FBI after so long, and is understandably annoyed that the investigation has taken a year to get started. She says that the shop closed at 9pm, and she went for a drink with colleagues Maria and Cassie. She didn't think she was safe to drive home, so she left her car and go a taxi. She was awoken by a call from the fire brigade at about 2am telling her what had happened. When pressed, she says that she had recently broken up with boyfriend, Joseph Perry. He didn't take it very well, but she didn't think he would be capable of torching her car.

Despite Malkin's evidence unprofessionalism, and hints about time travel, McPike is satisfied that Tierney is not involved in anything untoward. Pausing only to allow Malkin to purchase a couple of basques and collection of thongs (not an image anyone wants to conjure with), the agents depart.

He contacts Gustav Lishmann in Littlerock and discovers that the original two agents who worked the case were special agents Bruce Cobb and Elvis Schmichael. The agents head over to Littlerock for an interview. Cobb is short and fat, Schmichael is tall and fat. They cannot tell the agents much (except the point out that the masked figures on the tape look surprisingly like the evidence response agents). Schmichael says they were completely stonewalled into their investigation. They tried to talk to Leitmann, but received no response.

McPike phones Leitmann but gets his secretary. Leitmann is on assignment and will return McPike's call when he returns (that could be months). The agents check into a local motel to consider their options. Over dinner, McPike reveals that the continual moaning from Malkin and Elise has borne fruit. He says that they need to find out what security division and CTU were up to. Neither are talking, so why don't they go back in time and follow them? Of course, if circumstances are such that while the agents are in the past they happen to firebomb that car, then so be it.

They could go to Artemis, but McPike doesn't think that he'll agree. Elise says that it's much easier to ask forgiveness than permission, and of course Malkin thinks it's a wonderful idea. Oliver Smith is rather swept along by the moment. However, only Todd O'Connell can work the time door. If Artemis doesn't give him a direct order, then there's only one person who could convince Todd to use it on their behalf. They determine to return to Wichita and speak to Jane Munroe.

Tuesday, 28 August 2001

The agents arrive on Jane's doorstep early in the morning. Todd is also present at the house, and Danni is still not coping with the baby. Taking the conversation out to veranda, Jane listens to what McPike and the others have to say. Todd is shocked that they even know he has the time door. He doesn't want to do it. The agents begin to lean on Todd. Elise asks him whether he will respond to a physical threat.

This is a bit too much for Jane. She doesn't know McPike very well, and only knew Elise for a little while before her death. She doesn't know Smith or Malkin at all - and the way Malkin is sniffing around the nappy bin, she doesn't want to know him. No is threatening Todd on her watch.

The arguments begin. This is just the sort of wild, deranged sort of plan that Jane is normally all for. In fact, it sounds like one of her plans. However, she is two months into an enforced sabbatical caused by acting without thinking. She doesn't want to get into any more trouble.

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