Mid-West Campaign
Session Ninety-Four

Wednesday, 5 September 2001 [continued]

In the evening McPike, Smith and Steiger return to the lodge triumphantly with the corpse of a bear attached to the top of their car. Malkin is utterly bewildered at the amount of time they have been gone, and how little they have achieved. He has even made an inexpert model of the Great Wall of China in the grounds of the guest house.

Malkin reports that in the rest of the team's absencemore guests have turned up at the guest house. A "Mr and Mrs Smith" checked in on Tuesday. Malkin suspects this is a pseudonym, and it is infact a husband and his mistress. This morning a party of twelve checked in. They are apparently the Bear Hunters Association of New England.

McPike suspects Brain Bugs. They have to know if the Joneses are infected. That night the agents search the house, and Smith puts up his own hidden cameras throughout the corridors. Meanwhile on the TV is the news report of the tragic accident that claimed the lives of fourteen philanthropic millionaire members of the fifth Bison Lodge. McPike discreetly ignores it.

Thursday, 6 September 2001

The team telephones Artemis to ask for a spectrum analyser and surveillance van. Fit (Demon?) Harlow reports that Artemis is currently in Europe, but says that he will sign off for any equipment the agents need as he can PP for Artemis. Actually, that gives him several interesting ideas.

The plan for this evening is to check out the two parts of the guest house that were not investigated the previous day: the the kitchen and the cellar. Smith and Malkin head for the office armed with various bugging device. Their intention is to pick the lock on the key safe to give them access to the rest of the building. Unfortunately, Malkin has rather overstated his skills as a burglar and they can't even get into the office. Smith tries raising the latch on the outside window with his credit card, but only succeeds in posting his credit card into the office.

After much huffing and puffing, Malkin eventually manages to pick his way into the office and retrieve the card. Unfortunately, he is utterly unable to pick the lock on the key safe, so they have no easy means of accessing the rest of the house, so they bug the office instead. They go outside again and try to get access to the cellar. Again Malkin can't pick the lock. The pair give up and go to bed.

Friday, 7 September 2001

In the morning McPike receives a telephone call from Lois Ellington. It seems she got fed up of waiting for the inept agents to contact her, and decided to take the initiative. She arranges to have a secluded talk with McPike in the grounds of the guest house.

Lois Ellington is a short and sever woman. She quizzes McPike about the gas explosion at the local ski lodge. Ugly Joe tries to lie his way out of a tight spot, but Lois sees through him immediately. McPike tries to change the subject, reporting that the Joneses appear to check out. Ellington cannot believe that. She has reliable evidence that the Joneses are at the centre of a web of espionage. Then McPike sees a car draw up and the Ukrainian ambassador get out. He excuses himself and returns to the guest house.

Malkin is watching the cameras that Smith installed throughout the guest house via a laptop in his bedroom. He witnesses a man in his fifties and two others in their thirties (one man and one woman) exit an important looking car and enter reception. He tries to turn up the volume to hear what is going on and accidentally launches Freecell. He is quickly compelled to play a game.

McPike arrives in reception in time to hear the new arrivals speaking with Amy Jones. A "Mr Korenko" has booked rooms seven, nine and ten. McPike returns to the bedroom, gets the computer working and searches for the name Korenko on the internet. This man is apparently the Ukrainian naval attache to the UN. The situation screams brain bugs. McPike subdues the urge to head to the kitchen and turn on all the gas rings.

Meanwhile, Oliver Smith gets a call from Fit Harlow. The surveillance van they requested has arrived in Concorde. Elise drives Smith to pick it up. They discover a van with "Fresh Bakery Inc." written down the side. Insid,e the van doubles as a surveillance vehicle and production wagon for the Dark Files. In addition to all the high tech spying gizmos are a number of foam rubber suits that wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Scooby Doo.

Leaving Malkin with specific instructions not to touch any buttons on the laptop, McPike returns to Ellington. Why is she so sure the Joneses are guilty? Ellington says that she has photographic evidence - pictures of Alice Jones making an exchange with one of Korenko's aids in a woodland. Jones is also much better off than she should be.

McPike accepts Ellington's judgment on this case. But what about the real reason the party are here in the first place? What about case BRTS002? Ellington says that the information destroyed related to a potential terrorist attack - an imminent threat to national security. She says that there are rumours about the evidence response team. The things they have accomplished… Ellington is under the impression that the team has "special talents"; that it is a spook squad. She hints that she knows the team deals with supernatural cases.

The bottom line is that an attack on the United States could happen any day now. Corruption is rife in the FBI with many representatives of secret organisations in positions of power (she even suspects Artemis Black). During the secret meeting with CTU someone destroyed the evidence - Ellington suspects there is FBI collusion. Ellington doesn't know what was in the documents that were destroyed, but she wants to find out. She has a pile of ash that used to be the documents that she gives to McPike. She wonders if the team has any resources that she doesn't that could be used to reveal what they once said.

McPike says that he'll see what he can do, and then contacts Artemis Black who by now has returned from Europe. Black approves the use of Hudson. He is also becoming increasingly suspicious of Harlow's use of his expense account. The team leaves the guest house to meet with Hudson in the nearby town of Manchester.

After the reading, Hudson has dire news that seems to be support Malkin's ridiculous time-travel theory. "You must destroy these documents," she says. "The laws that will follow will help the cause. You've already done it so make sure it still happens!" Hudson then looks at photos of Alice Jones and the Ukrainian. Hudson looks long and hard at the photograph of Alice: "The woman in this picture is dead," she says.

Meanwhile events at the guest house are picking up pace, all witnessed by Oliver Smith through his surveillance cameras. The unnamed Ukrainian man approaches Alice and begins to argue with her. Alice's arms suddenly extends by four feet and impales the man. A brain bug pops out of the man's head. A beam of energy shoots from Alice destroying the brain bug, while her extended arm begins to consume the dead human. Very soon nothing (not even a speck of blood) remains.

Amy pops her head around the door to check that everything is okay. She doesn't look particularly surprised by any of this, simply nodding at her mother. Alice returns to the office, and reverts to what is her true form - a strange chitinous monster that most closely ressembles Benedict's old armour, although it is sleeker. In this form, she picks up a floor tile and retreves a glowing cylindrical rod which she proceeds to chatter into, in a strange dialect. Once this is done, she returns to her "Alice Jones" form. In the van, Smith is left in a catatonic state.

McPike returns from meeting with Hudson and heads into the van, discovering Oliver Smith drooling on the floor. Whatever could have happened? "I wonder if it could have been something on the tape?" thinks McPike and plays back the whole sorry incident, his eyes widening in growing terror.

Several hours later, Elise is wondernig why neither McPike or Smith are answering their phones. She heads into the van and finds Smith blubbing in a corner, and McPike unconscious. It looks as though the senior agent drugged himself to avoid mental trauma. After slapping Oliver Smith non-stop for twenty-three minutes, the agent comes to his senses and reports what he saw. Elise phones Black.

Artemis Black is intigued that the agents have finally crossed paths with the K'tai, and urges them to make first contact. Although, he suggests they make copies of all the evidence and sent it off to all the other cold case teams before proceeding.

By the time Elise has doen this both McPike and Smith have returned to their senses (although both are quite sore where Elise pummelled them). McPike is determined that Kurt Wallace and his team must not know what is happening. It seems clear that Alice is dead and that a K'tai is impersonating her. Presumably the K'tai are only here to disrupt brain bug activity. The other Ukrainians must be possessed, and are therefore in danger.

McPike proposes that they confront Alice and come completely clean about everything. Perhaps try and recruit them into an alliance against the impending brain bug fleet. Then they need to get the hell out of Dodge. They have a date with some time travel and they don't want to be late!

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