Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
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Hammer slipped past two steel doors. The prominent magnetic card reader and the “airlock” between the exterior and interior chambers demonstrated the scientists’ desire to secure the interior chamber. However, both doors stood wide open.
Inside, stainless steel plates lined the large room. Six-foot tall metal and glass containment vessels lined the walls, while at least twice as many three-foot tall vessels marched in long rows down the center. The vessels all resembled incubators for premature newborns, except for their varying size.
Flashing lights lined the bases of many of the vessels, apparently displaying interior temperature, humidity, and more obscure data. The glass fronts of many vessels were fogged by humidity, but despite the translucency, it seemed that some of the largest containers may contain people. About half of the vessels, both large and small, were smashed open, dark, and empty. The floor near these vessels was slick with clear, gelatin-like smears.
Hammer tapped on the glass of one of the nearest small vessel. It jerked suddenly from the struggles of a tertiary cnidocyte trying to get out. Tentacles probed the glass looking for a way to get at Hammer.
Besides the incubator vessels, a small countertop in the room’s center held several sealed liquid nitrogen vats. Each vat was labeled “PRIMARY SOURCE.”
Hammer rolled the vat to the doorway. Jim-Bean nearly tripped over it.
"What's that?"
"Liquid nitrogen," said Hammer. "Thought we could use it."
Jim-Bean stuck a few blocks of C-4 to it. "Maybe to stop those tentacle things."
"The tertiary cnidocytes?"
Jim-Bean shook his head. "Bigger. And angrier."
"That'd be the secondary cnidocytes." Hammer gazed ruefully on the larger smashed containers. "What about the security team?"
More explosions echoed from further down the hallway. "What security team?" asked Jim-Bean with a straight face.
Glass smashed behind them. The familiar squeaking whine joined the roar of the klaxons and WTHQ.
Jim-Bean and Hammer left the large vat where it was. The secondary cnidocyte in the hall reached the vat just as the one in the containment chamber exited. The agents got a good look at them and wished they hadn't.
Their skin was the color of a submerged corpse. Three clawed legs stumped along in an awkward gait, supporting a headless torso. At its center was a wet anus/mouth, which puckered obscenely and was the source of the mewling. Tentacles fanned out behind it, containing a boiling mass of what might have been red worms but were probably intestines.
Jim-Bean pressed the remote detonator.
The vat exploded, tossing the things backward and filling the air with white mist. The mewling turned to shrieking, but only for a moment. Then it became a different sound all together.
"Are they…cooing?" asked Hammer.
The hallway was covered with a white phlegm-like substance. The secondary cnidocytes used their tentacles to grab great globs of it and shove it into their red orifices at the center of their bodies.
"What was in that vat?" asked Jim-Bean.
"I don't know," said Hammer. "But whatever it is…I think they're eating it."
The agents kicked open iron doors stenciled with the words “Power Plant.”
Inside, an ominous cylindrical metal device was mounted on iron clamps in the center of the chamber. The vaguely bullet-shaped apparatus sprouted a jumble of wires that snake into a hole in the floor.
Hammer looked at it curiously. "Weird. It's not running."
Jim-Bean frowned. "That's because it's not a power plant." He pointed to a curious-looking chamber at the center. "This is a firebomb."
"Is it armed?" asked Hammer.
Jim-Bean shook his head. "Not yet."
They backed out of the room and entered another across the hall.
Comfortable chairs were gathered around a central island on which several personal computers are situated, quietly displaying innocuous screensavers. One wall held a wide window of glass allowing a view of another large chamber beyond. A bank of television monitors covered another wall.
Jim-Bean tapped some of the keys. "Password protected."
"I wish Guppy was here," muttered Hammer.
Jim-Bean sat at one of the workstations and cracked his knuckles. "Who needs Guppy when we can just have the owners tell us?"
He concentrated…
Dr. Finley tapped some keys and moved the mouse to click on a folder labeled PROJECT MOTHMAN. It was uploaded from a shared server titled MAINFRAME.
Jim-Bean took note as he typed the password. "Alhazred." He also noticed that on the table was an emergency shutdown procedure with the word spelled backwards to initiate the firebomb.
Back in the present, Jim-Bean tapped the password.
The television monitors turned on.
"What did you just do?" asked Hammer.
"I don't…I'm not sure," said Jim-Bean, turning to face the monitors.
There was a soft mechanical clicking coming from the server room next door. A low whine began. The fluorescent fixtures in the other room turned on.
The cameras showed a large, empty room--the center of which was overlain by a tarpaulin—encircled at the edges of the room by a locked chain-link fence. In the center of the chamber, embedded in the concrete, was a large flat obsidian block, barely higher than the surrounding floor, irregular and featureless. Spaced around the chamber at about the fifteen-foot level were four circular steel plates about a foot in diameter each.
As the pitch of the generator heightened, the lights dimmed slightly, their hue pinkening. The air thickened.
"I don't like this…" said Jim-Bean.
"Can you stop it?"
Jim-Bean tapped a few keys. The tinny rasp of WTHQ finally shut off. Jim-Bean smiled at Hammer.
Hammer sighed at Jim-Bean.
"I know the password to blow the place up, if that's what you're asking."
The chain-hung light fixtures in the large room swung toward the center of the cylindrical chamber, straining against their light chains to illuminate the center of the floor. Intense vibrations rattled shelves and loose objects: a great cloud of darkness seeps into the large chamber on the camera.
WHAM! The door they had come through shuddered. It was met by familiar squealing.
"I think the babies want their momma."
Hammer set his jaw. "Engage the self-destruct mechanism. Now."
WHAM! The door on the opposite side of the room nearly splintered from the impact. Bleach-white tentacles squeezed through the cracks.
Hammer blasted the window with both pistols.
"What'd you do that for?" shouted Jim-Bean over the roar of the vibrations.
"Giving the babies a clear path!" He opened the door to the server room. "Get inside!"
They closed the door and hid in the cool darkness of the server room.
Judging from the crunches and cracks they heard, the secondary cnidocytes had battered the doors down seconds later. Their mewling was unbearable.
The server room wasn't dark for long. EM displays—ball lightning, electrostatic charges, strangely-colored auras--nickered and eddied across the room. There were no surges in the electrical supply, but strange odors and howling noises assailed the agents.
"Are they gone yet?" asked Jim-Bean.
"I can't tell!" shouted Hammer, straining to listen. "I'm not sure if they're in the main chamber."
Jim-Bean put his fingers to his forehead. "I'll take a look."
"No wait!" was all Hammer got out before Jim-Bean got a front row seat to a mind-blasting display.
Dawn Biozyme: Part 8 – The Summoning of Shub-Niggurath
Jim-Bean was witness to the source of all miscreation and abomination.
For at the center of the room was a gray mass that quobbed and quivered, and swelled perpetually; and from it, in manifold fission, were spawned the anatomies that crept away on every side through the chamber. The shivering little blobs known as tertiary cnidocytes formed spontaneously from the goo while larger, pulpy white forms crawled across the heaving mother-thing's mass, searching for sustenance.
And madly, insanely, a beast with no such discernible anatomy possessed teats, and the mewling white wormy beasts set their puckered mouths upon them and sucked.
Mechanical hoses snaked forth from hidden chambers and probed the seething mass. Finding a teat, they began pumping the white, stringy fluid that dripped from them, filling a set of ten-gallon carboys at the far end of the chamber.
The thing occasionally faded slightly, in coordination with changes in the pitch of the field generator.
Jim-Bean recoiled, back, back, back into his own insignificant body. Back with the knowledge that in some way, he was part of this thing and she him, that this perversity way his mother, was everyone's mother, and that the benefits of her milk pumped through his veins.
Back in his own mind, Jim-Bean found himself screaming. His nose leaked blood. Jim-Bean curled up into a ball and tried to contain his form lest it melt away and crawl down into the chamber to sup at the All-Mother's teats and slurp from her…
BLAM! Pain slashed through Jim-Bean's thoughts, dragging his disembodied spirit back into his skull, hard. Blood leaked from a bullet hole in his forearm.
Jim-Bean wiped the blood from his nose. "What the hell?"
"I had to snap you out of it!" Hammer shrugged. "We've got to get out of here!"
A humming resonance assaulted their ears. A virulent orange light began to leak in everywhere in the building, almost like a seeping, glowing liquid. Smoke curled from machinery. The machinery that contained the seeping monstrosity began to fail.
Hammer yanked a hard drive out of one of the servers. "This should help. Let's go."
As they fled through the server room, a countdown clicked on the computer screens. They had just five minutes to go.
They ran down the hall back the way they came, jumping over corpses and the spattered remains of cnidocytes. All the remaining living cnidocytes had crawled their way to their mother's welcoming bosom.
Hammer reached a stairwell labeled EXIT. He tried the door. It was locked.
He fired his pistol into the lock mechanism and tried again. Nothing.
"Damn it! This place is locked down tight."
Behind them, there was the sound of steel girders snapping. Parts of the roof were collapsing as the thing burst free of its confines.
"Stand back," said Jim-Bean. He wiped his nose again – the nosebleed hadn't stopped – and tried to marshal his mental energy for one last push.
With a roar he shoved his palms forward at the door. The door blasted open from his telekinetic shove, tearing upwards as if it had been sucked through the air by a tornado.
Upstairs, a fire alarm rang. Hammer and Jim-Bean fled the building, flanked by accounts, lawyers, and Dawn Biozyme staff.
A safe distance away, they turned to watch.
A portion of the outer warehouse wall collapsed, crumpled to a heap of concrete and corrugated steel by an incidental blow from the Outer God. Tentacles and hooves and mouths and worse surged upward out of the wall just as the firebomb went off. The explosions tore across Dawn Biozyme with ruthless efficiency, each explosive rigged to blow a critical foundation. As the flames and smoke billowed outwards, tentacles probed hungrily for purchase…
And then it all sucked in upon itself. The flames, the smoke, and the Thing – gone in an instant. The suction was so strong that it ruffled the hair of onlookers.
Jim-Bean wiped more blood from his nose. The nosebleed had finally stopped.
"Next time," chastised Hammer, "never, EVER use your powers around an Outer God."
"Mission accomplished," Hammer reported to Sprague. "We have taken down Dawn Biozyme."
"I heard," said Sprague over the cistron. "Using the files we found on the hard drive, we initiated a full-blown federal investigation."
"Great—" began Hammer.
"But one of MegaCosmo's board members, 58-year-old David Melton, was found dead of his own hand. His suicide note confessed guilt in the funding and covert manipulation of Dawn Biozyme, and records accompanying the note contained information implicating Melton and Matthew Lewis in a plot to fleece millions from Dawn Biozyme, Tiger Transit, and MegaCosmos. The state of California is prosecuting Lewis now."
"So we didn't eff up, huh?" said Jim-Bean, fishing for a compliment.
"If you define not f*&king up as letting the head researcher go in a witness protection program deal that you had no authority to implement, yes, you did a great job," snarled Sprague. "But first things first. I'm sending you information on the Finley's experimental farm he was using to grow Fumo Loco, the predecessor to Coca Loco. Find out what you can, remove the evidence, and make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Finley's still out there; we've had his mansion cased for days but he hasn't returned. If he's at the farm, bring him in."
"Can't we just use the JERICHO jets to just scour the place clean…?" began Jim-Bean, but Sprague had already cut him off.
This story hour is a combination of the scenario from “A Night on Owlshead Mountain” from Arc Dream's Delta Green: Eyes Only by Dennis Detwiller, At Your Door, and The Killing Jar by Bruce Cordell for the Dark*Matter campaign. You can read more about Delta Green at Delta Green. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!
Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero/Gunslinger) played by George Webster
Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero/Telepath) played by Jeremy Ortiz (Jeremy Robert Ortiz)
At Your Door gets a lot of flak for being goofy, but Landscrapes is singled out as being superior. The irony is that the agents, upon arriving at the farm at night, refused to enter because "that's when all the bad things happen." Of course, that wasn't the case at all.
I combined this scenario with the Tiger Transit's background, which provided a perfect backdrop for "showing, not telling" the dark history of Dawn Biozyme and Fumo Loco. The last part of this scenario is from The Killing Jar, which takes place in a series of winding cavern passages and ultimately a Mothman base.
Both the Landscrapes and Killing Jar scenarios provide a great setting for conflict but little guidance on how to create narrative tension. In the case of Landscrapes, I created a scene, triggering the intoxicating scent of Fumo Loco with the Gelid-Creature's attack. The Killing Jar, on the other hand, had a series of dangerous environments without an accompanying stress point like an attack. So Agent Balance and friends showed up at the worst time.
Still, the Fumo Loco incident played out more effectively than the underground scene. And the ending? The ending worked out far better than I could have hoped.
Defining Moment: Brain Jar + Elder Sign = a showdown the agents will never forget.
If you want a rationale
It isn't very hard to see
Stop and think it over, pal
The guy sure looks like plant food to me.
--Feed Me by Lee Wilkof
It was a hundred and thirty miles to the hamlet of Delilah, a devolutionary journey from freeway to highway to road, from city to suburb to crossroad. The town was small and ugly, in a plain and boring way.
When they arrived, a convenience store, a service station, a post office and a tavern were open. An assortment of pickups and old autos were parked in front of the drinking establishment, where locals came to down a few at the end of the day.
Hammer and Jim-Bean opened the door to the tavern.
Inside, older men and women sipped their drinks and listened to Elvis croon in crackling tones from the dusty jukebox: the dead man's songs brought back memories of when they were younger and the world was bigger.
"We're looking for a room," said Hammer.
The bartender/hosteller looked them up and down.
"Two rooms," said Jim-Bean forcefully.
With a nod and a smile, the bartender rang them up. A credit card was exchanged for a key.
"Been a bad year all round really," muttered one of the locals, sipping his beer at the bar. "There's the sudden drought, and there was that bad frost in the Spring; some farmers might be seeing their last summer. There's no predicting the weather these days. And then there's the whole thing with Tagget."
Jim-Bean pivoted on his heel. "What about Tagget?"
The man peered quizzically at Jim-Bean. "Pardon?"
"Sorry," Jim-Bean flashed him a smile, then addressed the bartender. "His next drink's on me."
The older, weathered man returned the smile. "Frank Tagget's boy, Steven, still isn't back after running away. That makes seven times he's pulled the stunt now."
"So he disappears a lot?" asked Hammer, his curiosity piqued.
"Frank isn't too worried, even though it's been a few months: he reckons Steve'll be back when he’s broke and hungry. You'd think a lad of sixteen would know better. He took Greg Yardleigh's dog with him. Greg reckons Frank owes him a dog."
Jim-Bean and Hammer exchanged glances. "That's one dog and a kid missing." Hammer frowned.
"All the more reason not to visit the creepy farm at night," muttered Jim-Bean.
The route to the farm was much easier to follow by day. The pavement turned to gravel in parts, and the road took the agents far from other farms.
Further down the road was the turnoff to the Finley farm, recognizable by a galvanized mailbox with RR#3, 237 painted on it. A graveled road led to the farm, sprawled across a narrow valley.
A long driveway led up to a gate and the farmyard. In the distant fields a solitary scarecrow stood sentinel. Around the yard were a farmhouse, barn, woodpile, equipment shed, chicken coop, garage, and a few small sheds. Out to the left of the yard was a greenhouse and attached to a wooden frame building, the laboratory. A fence surrounded the farm buildings and yard; to the outside of the perimeter fence was a fifteen-foot-wide band of scorched earth. Through a second gate a track led uphill from the farm to the forest which crowned the ridge beyond.
The agents stopped the car at the band of earth. Hammer got out to inspect it.
Next to the trees on the outskirts of the fields was a five-yards-broad band of earth that had been laid bare, burned, and flattened.
Hammer stuck one finger and the dirt and tasted it. "Lyme…some other defoliants. This patch of earth was chemically stripped."
"Finley trying to keep the woods out?" asked Jim-Bean, looking around at the scraggly oaks and junipers that led up to soaring sugar pines.
"Or keep something in." Hammer checked that both pistols were loaded. "Look at the gate."
The gate was off its hinges, lying by the side of the road, broken and bent. Glass twinkled around it in the dust.
"Someone rammed right through it on his way out," said Hammer.
The agents made their way into the yard. Wild swerve marks across the ground showed the starting point of the automobile's flight.
The buildings were shut and silent, darkened windows mute to what was seen through them. The yard contained a chicken coop, barn, equipment shed, and farmhouse. Other buildings facing onto the yard included an empty garage.
"You see that?" Jim-Bean pointed. There was an unusual shade of red in a fallow field uphill from the farm.
As the agents walked toward the forest, they came to the crimson splash, a tiny plant, bright-red like Fall maple, no more than a little shoot; it was growing out of the rib-cage of a decaying field mouse.
Hammer kneeled down to inspect the plant. "It has no roots in the earth; looks like flesh and innards are its sole nutrients."
That was just the start of it.
Hammer stood up to look around. They were on a lip of ground that sloped down a short way before rising again.
There were similar splashes of red everywhere. Some were shoots, some bushes, some were saplings, and there were even a couple of small blood-red trees where the swale deepened into a draw.
Each and every red plant sprung from the remains of an animal—mice, birds, rats, chickens, roosters, foxes, rabbits and pigs.
"Creepy." Jim-Bean held his cistron up and took a picture. SINNER flashed through all possible matches and found one: it was the strain of bizarre plant they had seen in Hellbend. "We've seen this before."
"But what's it doing out here?" asked Hammer.
"Maybe it walked," said Jim-Bean.
"Or it was transplanted. I don't recall it growing out of corpses."
Jim-Bean nodded. "Yeah, that's new. A Dawn Biozyme improvement?"
Hammer started walking towards the farmhouse. "Let's hope that's the only improvement."
The farmhouse was unlocked. Inside, all seemed orderly. There were two bedrooms (one unfurnished), kitchen, living room, bathroom, and a utility room with big concrete tubs. Here and there items and utensils were knocked over, or left on a bench. Other than the odd moss that grew in the sinks, over old food and between the sheets of the bed, there wasn't much to see. Finley had obviously not returned to the farm in months.
The agents headed back outside.
Out in the fields stood a relatively new building, about five years old--a greenhouse. Through the glass walls could be seen a riot of vegetation. Adjoining the greenhouse was a newish wooden frame extension, the lab.
Hammer tried the door. "Locked." He smashed the glass door with his elbow and reached in to unlock the door.
The insides sprang out as a mass of billowing greenery--the first impression was of something bursting out. However, the fronds simply bounced and waved, and it was apparent that they outgrew the walls.
Tobacco plants grew where they had no business growing. They towered at twelve feet in height, with stalks as thick as four inches and veins bulging like a bodybuilder. The nicotine in the air among the vibrant plants was palpable. There was a tantalizing flavor that was extremely aromatic.
What the smell was, Hammer could quite pin down.
Hammer stood in the open doorway, taking in the scent, as the tobacco plants known as Fumo Loco waved in a wind that wasn't there.
Deep within the dense foliage, something rustled.
"Hammer?" asked Jim-Bean. "What's up?"
Hammer didn't move. At times he thought the smell of Fumo Loco tasted like flowers or some kind of fruit. Or even the scent of a lover.
Whatever was in the brush was moving fast now, charging towards them with purpose.
Jim-Bean shoved Hammer out of the way just as a red dog lurched out of the foliage, teeth snapping inches from Hammer's face.
Jim-Bean fired several bullets into the hound. But then he realized it was no hound.
It was covered in the same red plants that were growing out of the corpses of so many other animals. Its eyes were replaced by red shoots that undulated of their own accord. Tendrils of the plant were wrapped around the joints of the dead dog, like a creeper vine gone mad. When the bullets from Jim-Bean's Glock punched through it, they just kicked up more curious red spores.
The hound moved unnaturally, like a poor animatronic attraction at a theme park. It reared back on its hind legs for another attack at Hammer. He stood still, dazed, seemingly unaware of the hound's pending assault.
Jim-Bean reached out one hand just as the plant-dog lunged. It hung, telekinetically caught it in mid-air.
The hound struggled a foot from Hammer. Hammer didn't react.
"What the hell are you, huh?" asked Jim-Bean, turning it this way and that with his open hand.
Red goo dripped down its legs into the weeds below. It looked as if the plant-dog had peed itself. But that wasn't possible, was it?
The creepers binding the corpse together turned gray in seconds. The head of the dog fell off, plopping to the ground.
Jim-Bean released his telekinetic grip on the thing.
The rest of the body collapsed in a puff of red spores as it hit the ground. All that was visible was a glittering dog tag, "IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO GREG YARDLEIGH."
Hammer blinked, coughing. "What…?" He looked down. "What the hell is that?"
"A very bad dog," said Jim-Bean. "That red plant does more than just eat dead bodies, it animates them. What happened to you there?"
Hammer frowned. "I had a…a vision, I think. There's something beyond the plants in that greenhouse. A hole. It goes very deep. I heard a buzzing…"
Jim-Bean nodded. "The alien dogs. Or Mothmen. Whatever they are, they're trying to tell us something. We need to go in there."
Hammer rubbed his forehead, trying to clear the cobwebs. "Right." He looked around, checking his surroundings a second time. "I know I was out of it for a little while but…wasn't there a scarecrow over there?"
Jim-Bean didn't even bother to check. He knew why it was missing.
"Work shed," Jim-Bean telepathically beamed to Hammer without moving his lips.
The equipment shed was cluttered and dirty, filled with agricultural tools and implements. A gasoline-powered electrical generator supplied emergency power to the house.
"Weed killer," said Jim-Bean, pointing at one of the many containers in the work shed.
A humanoid form silhouetted the entryway to the shed. But it was not a human being – not anymore. What was once the corpse of a youth was now a mess of living red creepers that sprouted from his rotting body, his guts, his mouth, and his eyes.
Jim-Bean fired a spray of bullets into the dead kid's plant-inhabited corpse. It reached upwards, tendrils stretching and gripping, and then it was gone.
"What the hell was that?" asked Hammer.
"Steven Tagget, I'm guessing," said Jim-Bean. "I don't think we're going to find Finley here."
The roof thunked as the Tagget-thing clambered around on the shed.
Hammer pointed both pistols at the ceiling.
"No, Hammer, wait—"
Hammer sprayed the ceiling with gunfire.
The thin shed roof, already straining under the weight of a body, collapsed. Hammer and Jim-Bean fell backwards under the debris.
The Tagget-thing rose up out of the wreckage, its expressionless red visage awful in the beam of sunlight from above. It turned and grabbed two sickles off a nearby rack.
Hammer rolled to his feet outside of the shed. "It can use tools?"
Jim-Bean, trapped on the other side with Tagget blocking the doorway, danced backwards as two sickle swipes narrowly missed his face.
Spotting an opening, Jim-Bean shoved his Glock up against the things torso and emptied the chamber.
The Tagget-thing stumbled backwards a few feet, the barrage powerful enough to blow a hole in its ribcage. Jerking itself forward again on numb legs, it relentlessly advanced on Jim-Bean.
The Tagget-thing's head exploded in a cloud of red spores. It fell face forward in front of Jim-Bean. Behind it, several yards away, Hammer lowered his rifle.
"Did you see that?" shouted Jim-Bean.
"What?"
"Goo. Red goo." Jim-Bean craned his neck to look, spotted the fast-moving blob and pointed. "There! It's coming your way."
Hammer lowered his rifle and drew his pistols. By the time Hammer's weapons were at the ready, a mound of dirt and twitching grass burrowed a path right between his legs and blazed a trail into a copse of trees behind him.
He spun at the sound of cracking wood, prepared to dodge aside should a tree fall on him. But then the sun was blotted out by the shadow of something huge.
Hammer looked up in awe. "You've got to be kidding me."
"What?" Jim-Bean shouted back, reloading his pistol.
Hammer didn't bother to explain. He reholstered his pistols and cocked the rifle slung over his shoulder without losing his stride.
Behind him, an oak tree stumped along relentlessly.
"Is that…?" asked Jim-Bean.
"Yes!" Hammer spun, took aim, and fired.
A burst of wood splintered out of the trunk. Some leaves fell. But it was about as effective as shooting a tree might be – which is to say, not effective all.
"I need a can of gasoline!"
Jim-Bean handed Hammer the gasoline can, dumbfounded.
Then Hammer was off again as a mighty tree limb smashed in front of the shed. He ducked under one of its branches and ran in the opposite direction.
Jim-Bean couldn't tell how the thing saw, but he knew it had changed targets to focus on him.
Two limbs drew back to swat at the shed.
Jim-Bean had a tactic he used in only the direst of situations. He connected all the blocks of C4 to detonators by a wireless link to his cistron. They were normally snugly hidden in his satchel. But in times like this, with a two-story oak attacking the building he was in, bullets clearly wouldn't do.
So he threw it.
The bag caught in the tree's limbs. It paused in its attack, perhaps to observe the satchel, perhaps in surprise at the seemingly ineffective attack.
Jim-Bean stumbled backwards over debris to the back of the shed. Then he pressed the detonator.
The explosion was so powerful that it knocked Hammer down, yards away, and blew out all the glass in the greenhouse.
The tree burst into flames, stopping in its tracks. What was left of the work shed disintegrated in a flaming pile of wreckage.
"Jimmy?" Hammer shouted into his cistron. "Jim?"
No response.
Hammer caught sight of a streaking red line moving along the ground. He sprayed wildly with his Glock, missing it.
It darted back into the copse of trees. And another oak, this one larger than the first, painfully tore up its roots.
Hammer, jaw set, knew what he had to do.
"Come on!" shouted Hammer, setting the gas can next to him. "Come on you son of a bitch!"
The tree awkwardly, slowly, stumped towards him. It would have been comical under different circumstances.
Hammer backed up, rifle at the ready. The tree strode within yards of the gas can.
"Come on," whispered Hammer. "Just a little closer…"
The tree stopped. It waved one huge limb, curling branches around it in the chastising gesture of a human finger, as if to say, "Nah ah ah!"
Hammer swore. It was smarter than he thought.
Dropping his rifle, he changed tactics. He charged towards the gas can.
The tree was slow to react. Hammer's new tactic was unexpected.
It swung towards him in a mighty arc. Leaves slapped Hammer's head and back, but it was a glancing blow.
Gathering the gas can up in one hand, Hammer threw it up into the tree's limbs.
The tree was torn between trying to disentangle itself from the gas can and swinging at Hammer. It took a swipe at him instead.
Too late, Hammer was already out of range. Hammer drew both of his pistols. He was better shot with his Glocks in any case.
The tree loomed over him. Hammer took careful aim with one of the Glocks and fired.
The shot was a million to one. Igniting a gas can with a bullet was no easy task. Hammer had to hit it just right – strike the metal, the gas, and at the same create a spark.
He hit it just right. The gas can exploded, engulfing the tree in flames.
The tree immediately froze, burning. Hammer watched, squinting, for any signs of movement along the ground.
The red glob darted out from the burning roots. Hammer was ready.
He fired a single shot. That was all it took. But it was a perfectly aimed shot.
The red glob, propelling itself along the ground at high speed towards the copse of trees, exploded in a pile of spattered ichor.
Hammer lowered his pistol with a sigh of relief.
His cistron crackled. Hammer looked over at the pile that was once the work shed. Some of the wreckage shifted as a bloody hand clawed its way out.
",,,explosion was bigger than I expected," grunted Jim-Bean.
Past the Fumo Loco were workbenches and shelves, covered with plants—except that they had grown far out of their own pots, reaching down to the floor and rooting in the earth there, mingling with each other in unholy biological matrimony. Looking closer, the actual species were weird—crossbreeds, bulbs of unnatural shape and flowers of unholy hue.
The lab had obviously not been used for some time. All tools were removed, although some glass containers filled with seeds and samples remained. There was a door on the far side of the room.
Jim-Bean tilted his head. "Do you hear that?"
"No," said Hammer, trying to keep his eyes on every plant at once. "What are you hearing?"
"Singing." Jim-Bean leaned down to a patch of pink flowers. "Yep, singing."
"The flowers are singing to you?" asked Hammer, skeptical.
"Need I remind you that we were just attacked by a tree?"
Hammer ignored him. "What's that?" He pointed at something on the floor beneath a large, broad leaf.
Jim-Bean bent down to inspect Hammer's find. Among the plants was a leather-bound book. Wiry vines had grown around and into the book, and the cover was spoiled. Pulling out a utility knife from his belt, Jim-Bean cut the vines loose.
The book was riddled with six-inch long caterpillars, bloated yellow-green monsters.
"Yaaah!" shouted Jim-Bean. He shook the loathsome insects off of him.
"What is it?" asked Hammer.
"A book. Totally ruined. "Jim-Bean pulled out a sliver of paper that was unchewed, on which a few typeset words could be discerned. "Something about keeping the 'thing' in. Looks like that red blob is related to the other blobs and tentacles and crap we've been dealing with."
Hammer tried the door.
The large space beyond the door was mostly open. Metallic nets hung on a wall immediately above several large lockers. A long bench was cluttered with bits of rock, small bones, and broken arrowheads. A loading dock was built into the rear wall, in which the metallic sliding doors of an elevator were visible. Arrowheads, fragments of clay pottery, and bones lay on the countertop, along with several small brushes, a microscope, and microscopy supplies.
"Looks like they were doing more in here than just farming," said Hammer.
Jim-Bean rifled through the lockers. They contained spelunking equipment, including ten full sets of helmets and helmet lights, kneepads, long pants and over-the-ankle boots (with deeply treaded soles), gloves, harnesses and associated climbing gear (including nylon rope, a plethora of carabiners, and friction plates) and wet suits.
"This could come in handy." Hammer reached into the very back and bottom of one of the lockers and pulled out a box of dynamite.
On the other end of the room was an elevator, its doors open.
"May as well put on the wet suits," said Jim-Bean.
"That's a—"
Jim-Bean put up one hand before Hammer could say anything. "I know, I know, you don't swim, but—"
Hammer was already shrugging on one of the wetsuits. "I was going to say it's a good idea. If we're going down deep, it could get very cold and wet down there."
Jim-Bean dressed in a wet suit as well. They both stepped into the elevator.
It contained just two buttons. One button was labeled “Surface” the other labeled “Pellucidar.”
Hammer pressed "Pellucidar" and the elevator shaft plunged four hundred and fifty feet into the earth below.
When the agents stepped out of the elevator, they entered a cavern containing five small wooden stands cluttered with camp gear and arrowheads. Small crickets chirped in the corners.
Jim-Bean inspected the camp gear. It included a Coleman stove and twenty cans of soup.
"Somebody likes Campbell's Steak 'n Potato Soup," he said.
The stands contained several small arrowheads collected from the cave.
The agents switched their visor lights on and threaded their way through the northern tunnel.
It narrowed amongst flowstone, stalagmites, and columns. There were a few cigarette butts on the floor, accompanying spiders and gnats.
They continued on, passed white to gold flowerlike structures that seemed to ooze and curl from the wall, ceiling, and floor much like icing from a cake decorator’s nozzle. There were also thin-walled naturally formed hollow tubes about an inch in diameter. They splashed through pools of water, where eyeless crayfish and springfish wiggled about in its depths.
Finally, they came to a wall of matte-black substance that blocked the northeast tunnel. Two six-foot tall mushrooms flanked the fifteen-foot wide wall.
"Whoa," said Jim-Bean, eyeing the mushrooms. "Those are some BIG mushrooms."
The mushrooms had bright red caps with sickly yellow spots and a pale milky stalk of a body. They had an eye-like pattern on the stalks with the same sickly yellow color that adorned the cap.
Hammer played his visor light over the wall. "I saw this wall in my vision. It doesn't look like stone to me."
"In your vision, you heard buzzing?"
"Yeah," replied Hammer
"Then the shaman mask might help." Jim-Bean dug it out. "Good thing I left it in the trunk."
"Good thing it wasn't in your satchel," muttered Hammer.
While he was rifling through his satchel to pull out the mask, Jim-Bean's elbow brushed the curious black wall. That was all it took.
The mushrooms unfurled, two stubby arms separating seamlessly out from the main stalk. Legs separated at the base.
"Yaaah!" shouted Jim-Bean, stumbling backwards.
Hammer was ready. He pumped several bullets right between the eyes of the nearest mushroom.
The bullets tore through it, shearing the top-heavy cap right off of it. Arms flailed as the headless thing collapsed, spewing green spores in the air.
Jim-Bean choked, gasping and wheezing as he struggled for air. The spores coated his mouth and tongue. He stumbled out of the passage and back the way they had come, puking as he went.
Hammer took careful aim at the second animate mushroom and fired. The difficulty of the shot was compounded by the explosion of spores; he didn't want to hit the main body lest he too be overcome. Instead, he aimed for the arms and legs.
But the mushroom was undeterred. It stumped after him, heedless of the gunshot wounds to its limbs.
Hammer froze as his heel felt the sudden loss of purchase. He glanced over his shoulder to see a wide, dark pit beneath him.
The mushroom reached for him.
Hammer grabbed hold of it and spun, shoving off of it with a kick. Hammer was no small man, but the huge mushroom had to weigh several hundred pounds.
It windmilled at the edge of the pit. Hammer fired both Glocks at its base for good measure.
The mushroom fell, fell, fell into the darkness, disappearing without a sound. A puff of green spores sprouted up once it hit bottom a full second later.
Hammer called into his comm. "Jim-Bean? Come back."
A fit of coughing answered him. "Yeah, I'm here."
"Good, get back to that wall and see what you can do. I'm going to…"
He trailed off as several laser sights appeared on his chest.
Jim-Bean was once again at the wall, wearing the bizarre mask. He looked like some kind of alien insect hybrid, not unlike the alien dogs, or Mothmen, they had met in the past. Humming filled the air.
Hammer dashed back into the chamber.
"What'z up?" asked Jim-Bean. With the mask on his speech was garbled.
Gunfire answered Jim-Bean's question. Hammer returned fire. "Work on getting that wall opened!"
The enemy agents were all dressed in black body armor with laser sights on their pistols and nightvision goggles. Hammer suspected they were yet another clean-up crew, sent by Dawn Biozyme to keep them from discovering whatever secrets lay beyond the wall.
There was a flash and a WOOSH as a bullet arced around one of the stalactites at Hammer, narrowly missing his head.
"What the hell waz that?" asked Jim-Bean, reflexively ducking from the small explosion.
"I don't know." Hammer shut his visor lamp off and snapped a glow stick. He kept it out of sight, but close enough that he could still see right a few feet around him.
In the green radiance of the glow stick, the masked Jim-Bean looked even more bizarre. He kept probing the wall, and as he did so the mask resonated. It was almost as if it were trying to find the right pitch to harmonize with the wall's vibrations…
The comms of the pursuing clean-up team were magnified in the tunnels. "This is Agent Balance. Targets sighted. All teams converge on my point."
Another gyrojet bullet shrieked around the corner, punching through a stalactite.
Hammer fired blindly in the darkness. "Jimmy, if you're going to do something, do it now!"
Jim-Bean was about to say something when the mask found the perfect pitch. The humming reverberated throughout the cavern.
The wall faded away like mist. Jim-Bean suddenly had an awful feeling.
"Hold on!"
Hammer grabbed hold of a stalagmite just as a violent rush of wind screamed from the orifice.
Shrieks echoed further down the corridor as the enemy agents were blasted backwards, hurled into the pit.
Pressing his advantage, Hammer found the prone Agent Balance and put a bullet in his head before the man could get up. The other agents had fallen into the pit or fled.
He came back to Jim-Bean, staring in wonder at the opening before them. "It's massive."
The cave wind was created by temperature differences between the outer and inner passageways, causing a chimney effect. The incredible blast of wind indicated that the area sealed off behind the barrier was unbelievably huge—perhaps several thousand miles of cave passages.
The cavern opened up above and below and to each side. Hundreds of the tiny, fire-like lights provided dim illumination. The light revealed a dome at least ninety feet above, and a canyon below it running approximately three-hundred feet to the northwest, before a bend hid the rest of its extent from view. The sound of a river gurgled up from the canyon floor below at least two hundred and fifty feet away. The opposite side of the canyon was the source of the light, as it twinkled in sparkling profusion from the windows of a majestic cliff dwelling.
The place was large enough to have its own atmosphere. It smelled odd, and strange clicking and buzzing sounds reached their ears.
"What is this place?" asked Hammer.
"I don't think it'z on Earth," responded Jim-Bean.
Up ahead was a pentagon-shaped building made of similar black obsidian. A pentagon-shaped door lensed open before Jim-Bean as he approached.
Inside, the floor was smooth, black obsidian rock. Strange fungus growths were everywhere. They moved to the next room through another pentagon door.
It opened to a similarly sized room emitting loud buzzing and clicking noises like a swarm of wasps. Inside were tiny, winged lobsters, clambering around eating spores from massive toadstools and other fungal growths that filled the chamber, while little black worm larva crawled everywhere else. An organic, transparent membrane stopped the creatures from escaping.
"That iz their young," said Jim-Bean matter-of-factly.
"You're starting to creep me out with that mask," said Hammer.
Metal shelves on the walls held various cylinders, some occupied, others empty. Strange appendages that looked like speakers were also on the shelves. One cylinder had recently been opened and left unfinished.
"We already know what's in those." Hammer swallowed hard. He'd seen a man's brain sucked out through his face. That image would stay with him for the rest of his life. He refused to look inside.
They moved on to the next room. It contained strange alien tables created in human shape. Next to the beds were translucent egg shaped vessels with pipes pumping liquid into them from valves in the ceiling. Inside each vessel were human organs and body parts such as lungs, hearts, eyes, leg muscles and intestines, kept alive and functioning by the strange fluids.
"I remember thiz place," said Jim-Bean, his voice evincing a hint of nostalgia.
"That's not…yours, is it?" asked Hammer.
Jim-Bean didn't answer. Maybe he didn't want to know. He walked to the next room.
It was bare except for the back wall covered in strange runes.
The runes on the wall glowed. A large, pinkish, fungoid, crustacean-like entity stepped out of it.
It was the size of a man with a convoluted ellipsoid composed of pyramided, fleshy rings and covered in antennae where a head would normally be. Its crustacean-like body bore numerous sets of paired appendages. It also possessed a pair of membranous bat-like wings. Alien dog. Mi-Go. Mothman. Whatever it was, Jim-bean stood before it unafraid.
It spoke in an artificial, clipped and emotionless voice. “What iz your purpoze/intention here?”
"We came to ztop the experimentz of Dr. Finley," replied Jim-Bean.
“How long/duration/time haz elapzed/pazzed zzince you entered the firzt/primary chamber?”
"Not more than a few minutes," replied Hammer.
The Mothman ignored him.
Jim-Bean responded with a high-pitched buzz. The Mothman seemed to understand.
Another creature, this one smaller than the first, stepped out of the black portal bearing two objects. It deposited a brain case and an eight-pound metal star before them. The grey-green five-pointed star was sculpted with a closed eye in the center.
The first Mothman pointed to the case. “A mind in a four-fold loop model, projecting conzciouznezz into zix planez pazt the terminuz. The mind iz a link and can focuz abztract energiez into a point. It iz a box for a focuz.”
One claw tapped on the cylinder. It began to pulse slowly at first. The Mothman turned, holding the cylinder, and the pulsing increased with a rhythmic beeping.
"So that's a brain case," said Hammer. "I'm not sure what that has to do with--
The Mothman's claw pointed at the star. “A point in a zeventeen-dimenzional focuz which diztributez energy equally at five pointz in four dimenzionz. It iz a device to move power from a focuz towardz elzewhere. It iz not a ztar.”
"The Elder Sign." Hammer sighed. He wished Archive was with them.
The second Mothman tapped the wall and the glowing portal pulsed. It pointed with one claw.
Jim-Bean seemed to understand. Heedless of the danger, he stepped through.
Not wanting to be left alone with the alien crustaceans, Hammer followed him.
The portal emptied into an overgrown clearing. At the center was an old, creaky log cabin, a collapsed outbuilding, and a well.
Jim-Bean's mask was gone. He looked around, blinking in the setting sun.
"I recognize this," said Hammer. "This was Waban's place."
The sound of many flies buzzing through the air caused Hammer to unholster his Glocks. Jim-Bean held the braincase in one hand and the Elder Sign in the other.
Pointing the braincase towards to Waban's house, it began to pulse.
Jim-Bean led the way, climbing the rough steps up to Waban’s house. There were a large number of flies around the screen door, accompanied by a revolting stench.
The screen door was black with flies crawling over the torn mesh. Hammer kicked it open.
A scene of grisly proportions greeted them.
"Jesus," whispered Hammer.
The floor, ceiling, and every wall in the room were covered in blood and viscera. Jellied internal organs stuck to walls; ropey intestines dangled from the ceiling, suspended from glistening strands of gooey mucous; dried blood lay thick on the floor and had left hand-width paths down the walls. Everywhere, bits and pieces of human organs could be seen, gummed to walls and furniture. And over it all buzzed millions of fat flies, their plump white young wriggling out of the rotting organs.
Lying in the center of the mess was a lumpy, brownish pile, covered in split, blackened blisters.
Hammer inspected it. A human face, fingers, an elbow—enough to identify the corpse.
"It's Waban," he said mournfully.
"Oh no." Jim-Bean had promised to keep the old Indian safe. He struggled to keep from vomiting.
Waban had been reduced to a spongy sack of wrinkled flesh, his bones jutting randomly beneath his skin.
Hammer dispassionately inspected the corpse. Waban’s jaw was broken in at least two places, and a jagged rupture was on what was once the man’s back.
"From the condition of the scene and the body, Waban's organs were squeezed out, at the same time, and with a tremendous amount of force. But this is odd…"
Jim-Bean looked away. "What?"
"His brain is missing."
Jim-Bean looked at the pulsing braincase. "Oh God…" He dropped it. It clattered to the ground, pulsing softly, its pace quicker now.
An eerie silence blanketed the surrounding forest. Birds and insects were still. Even the wind seemed to wait.
Then a moist smell, like freshly turned earth, became noticeable.
"Waban's brain case…it's not a detector," shouted Jim-Bean, stabbing a finger at the case. "It's a LURE!"
Suddenly, a great cracking noise shattered the silence, followed by a terrifying vision: separating itself from the surrounding evergreens, a tentacle beast bore down on them, tendrils waving, pus-dripping mouths champing. The hideous offspring of Shub-Niggurath screeched and howled. It was the creature that had escaped from Dawn Biozyme, that had killed off the Black Flag team. And now it was coming for Hammer.
Hammer ran. He plunged straight through the open doorway and, leaping over the wreckage, hit the ground running. Behind him, the thing smashed through the cabin, heedless of the obstacle in its path. Jim-Bean never made it out.
Hammer kept running. He could out run it, he was sure, if it weren't for the damn trees. He just had to find some flat ground.
But there was none. The trees were everywhere.
Hammer looked over his shoulder. The thing was right on his heels, tentacles waving towards him, probing, tearing trees out of its path or just smashing right through them with its cloven hooves.
Stars exploded as Hammer ran headlong into a trunk. He fell backwards, bouncing off of the solid oak, stunned.
Tentacles snaked towards him, hungry mouths sucking in anticipation.
Hammer caught sight of the box of dynamite. He'd dropped it as he ran, and now it was partially underneath the tentacle-thing's feet. He took aim and fired.
There was a massive explosion as dynamite blew chunks of tree, some whistling past Hammer's ear.
The champing noises turned to squeals of rage. Even at point-blank range, a full case of dynamite exploding had no effect. In fact, the thing's bulk had protected Hammer from the brunt of the blast.
Then a bright green beam sparkled from a figure atop the wreckage of Waban's home.
"Shoot it!" Jim-Bean held aloft the metal Elder Sign in one hand. "I can't keep this up forever!"
It had taken what little psychic reserves Jim-Bean had left to heal his wounds. He was left a bloody, broken mess when the cabin collapsed. Jim-Bean had to pick and choose what parts of his body to heal, and that meant two legs and one arm. Inch-long splinters still stuck out of his left arm. Several ribs were broken. It would have to do.
The monstrosity roared as the green ray penetrated it bumpy mass, encompassing the thing in a glittering radiance. Hammer rose to his feet and squeezed off a shot.
The bullet punched through and out the other side of the thing, spurting brown ichor. Mouths screamed. Tentacles waved in frustration, torn between ripping Hammer apart and pursuing Jim-Bean's offending beam.
Making its decision, it roared a charge towards Jim-Bean.
"Oh crap!" Jim-Bean dove off the wreckage, backpedalling as best as he could through the forest. Instinctively, he knew that the only way they could hurt the thing was when it was within view of the Elder Sign's blazing gaze.
As he focused on the Elder Sign, the metal eye at the center opened a bit more, the beam a little wider. But it was still not enough.
Hammer pumped more bullets into it. Some of them just thunked into the billowing mass to no effect.
If Jim-Bean was going to stop this thing, the Elder Sign's eye would have to bring its full gaze to bear on the thing. But that meant siphoning all of his psychic energy. If the thing caught him, Jim-Bean would never recover from his wounds.
But he was going to die either way. Jim-Bean stopped running and, using even his broken arm, brought both hands together to focus on the Elder Sign.
The monstrosity was so close that the ground rumbled. The stench of earth and wood was overpowering.
Energy flowed out of Jim-Bean. It felt as if a straw was sucking his veins through his skin. He pumped everything he had into the Elder Sign until his vision swam with green spots.
The tentacle thing came up short. It was sparkling brightly now, fully enveloped by the green beam that hummed from the Elder Sign's eye.
Hammer released two bursts from his Glocks, peppering the beast's legs. One blew out at the knee, and it lost its balance. It was enough to slow it down.
Hammer reloaded.
Tentacles whipped at Hammer as the beast flailed blindly away at him. He rolled and came up firing again, this time blowing a tentacle clean off.
More screams. The tentacle-thing struggled to its feet.
Hammer reloaded again, dancing back as a tentacle snapped near his face. But it was smarter than Hammer had given it credit for.
Another tentacle snaked through the ground, blasting upwards out of the dirt, just as it had surprised the BLACK FLAG team. It snapped around Hammer's ankle and lifted him up in the air.
A nearby tentacle would probed forward, preparing to rip him in twain, but Hammer fired another burst and blew it in half.
The thing dangled him over its mouths. Sucking maws welcomed him, devoid of teeth but terrible in their infant-like need to slurp him whole.
He reloaded as the horrible orifice rushed at his head…
Jim-Bean watched the scene play out in horror. It was difficult to see what was happening with the green radiance. He was starting to lose consciousness.
When it was done with Hammer it would feast on him. For all he knew, it didn’t really need to eat, slurping on him for an eternity.
With a shuddering roar, the thing exploded in a spray of brown ichor as Hammer's two pistols tore through its defenses, shooting through one mouth and out another. The gunfire ripped it and two.
The damage done, the thing's tentacles curled in on itself like a dying insect, pathetic in its mewling agony. Ichor puddled out of mouths and tentacles twitched their last. Hammer rolled over and over, thrown, covered in the brown substance that was the tree-thing's blood.
Then the screaming stopped too.
The eye on the Elder Sign rasped shut. Jim-Bean fell to his knees. The metal Sign fell from his numb hands.
"Did we get it?" asked Jim-Bean weakly.
Hammer limped over to him. He put one ichor-covered hand on Jim-Bean's shoulder.
This story hour is a combination of the scenario from At Your Door, "No Pain, No Gain," by Barbara Manui, Chris Adams, and L.N. Isinwyll, Dinner With Susan by Kelvin Green, and Goddess by Dr. Michael C. LaBossiere. You can read more about Delta Green at Delta Green. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!
Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero/Gunslinger) played by George Webster
Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero/Telepath) played by Jeremy Ortiz (Jeremy Robert Ortiz)
Joseph “Archive” Fontaine (Dedicated Hero/Acolyte) played by Joe Lalumia
Up to this point, we've established that Dawn Biozyme has been dabbling with "Mother's Milk," that it comes from Shub-Niggurath, and that several of the spawn of said Great Old One have gotten loose. The team barely, just barely, defeated a fully grown Dark Young. Now it's time to up the stakes.
It all starts with Noelle Rand's disappearance, a photographer for Full Wilderness' Ecotopian magazine.
That connection is Cynthia Dexter, and she will be one of the many casualties as the agents run and gun their way through this scenario. But first, we start with the Mother of Pus, replacing the flabby monstrosity in Dinner with Susan. She's more disgusting than difficult, and it set the tone for just how gruesome the worshippers of Shub-Niggurath can get. This scenario was flesh-crawlingly gross, especially when Archive gets infected…
Next is a series of ambushes between cultists of Cynthia Dexter's Sisterhood of New Potential. We also get to see Fiona Lin-Wei back in action.
Finally is the scenario we've all been dreading: No Pain, No gain. The one with the horny giantess, talking dog, "Jennikins" and a railroad ambush. I played it straight – I used d20 rules for an explosion and cave-in and gave the agents a decent chance to escape. But they didn't.
So you know what happens next. In my defense, the only thing I changed was Willie. I changed him from Clifford the Big Red Dog to Rover from the Prisoner. This whole scenario turned very, very strange, but at no point did the players feel it was comical or out of sync with the rest of the conspiracy narrative. In fact, much to my surprise, they enjoyed it very much.
Young man, I was once in your shoes.
I said, I was down and out with the blues.
I felt no man cared if I were alive.
I felt the whole world was so jive...
--YMCA by Village People
A news feed flashed across the agents' cistrons. Nina Juarez appeared in a smart-looking suit and skirt with a serious expression that conveyed the grave importance of her subject.
"This is Nina Juarez with a special report. Tonight, we're investigating Dawn Biozyme. You may recall that Dawn Biozyme, a subsidiary of MegaCosmos, is currently under investigation by the government on a variety of federal and state charges. After the charges were filed, one of MegaCosmos' board members, 58-year-old David Melton, was found dead of his own hand. His suicide note confessed guilt in the funding and covert manipulation of Dawn Biozyme, and records accompanying the note contained information implicating Melton and CEO Matthew Lewis in a plot to fleece millions from Dawn Biozyme, Tiger Transit, and MegaCosmos. The state of California is prosecuting Lewis now. We caught up with Lewis at his luxurious townhouse."
Lewis, looking haggard and worried, shoved a palm at the camera. "No comment!"
The screen returned to Juarez. "There's more to this story than just corruption. Dawn Biozyme was established in the late 1980s to market new strains of genetically engineered agricultural products. Its founder, majority stockholder and CEO Matthew Lewis, is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and eldest son of a family long connected to Washington politics. By 1994 Dawn Biozyme was in dour financial straits. That's when GNN learned that Lewis met Cynthia Dexter."
A picture of a woman in her forties appeared to the left of Juarez's talking head. She wore her brown hair long with a natural cut that showed off the hair's thickness without looking like it was the product of an expensive salon. Her face was long, her lips full, and her piercing eyes a dark green, fading to brown. It looked like a glamour shot.
"Our sources have learned that Cynthia Dexter was a "Big Sister" for a new age self-actualization and self-realization group called the Sisterhood of New Potential. As a Big Sister, it was her job to recruit new members into the group and help guide them on their journey of development and liberation as they learn to unlock hidden strengths and full potential."
"GNN has discovered that the Sisterhood of New Potential actually has its roots in the True Love Study Group, founded in 1965. They operated as a commune on a large forested plot on the heart of California's northern Sierra Mountains. In 1977, three of the Group's leaders—Joshua Freese, Chester Marsh, and Richard Waugh—were indicted for first-degree murder. They were all judged not guilty by reason of insanity. Freese is still in a mental institution, Marsh was released but later convinced for rape, and Waugh died under mysterious circumstances. After these incidents the Group disbanded…until recently. Fourteen members of the former Group formed the Sisterhood of New Potential in 1989. The Sisterhood relocated the commune to a Wilderness Retreat Center, the whereabouts of which are currently unknown."
"Did the illegal operations funded by MegaCosmos take root in the cult activities of Dexter and Lewis? What precisely was going on in the basements of Dawn Biozyme's labs? When we return, we take a look at possible theories…"
Hammer's feed was interrupted by a call. He picked it up.
A woman's voice answered. "Agent Hammer?"
Hammer blinked . He recognized her voice. "Fiona?"
"Listen, I just saw the news report about the Sisterhood of New Potential. Are you working on that case?"
"Yes, why?"
"I think I have some information you'll want to hear about. Can you visit me at the Ecotopian offices?"
SAMSON, CA -- Agents Archive, Hammer, and Jim-Bean sat at the desks of the Ecotopian. The staff eyed them warily, but the hostile atmosphere of the office had changed since they last visited.
The office was staffed mostly by young people working phones, but there were also people writing reports and analyzing soil and water samples. There were posters up everywhere announcing the Festival of the Earth that was happening next weekend.
"Noelle Rand was our photographer. She quit the Ecotopian's staff and Full Wilderness completely a few weeks ago," said Fiona in her Scottish accent, incongruent with her Asian appearance. She was half-Chinese. "That's when I got the email."
She handed a print out of the email to Hammer. He scanned its contents. "So she left to join a women's environmental group…"
"The Sisterhood of New Potential," said Fiona. "Which is why I called you. She was suffering odd lapses in her memory and strange attacks of extreme fear. She disappeared shortly after I received that email."
"Why us?" asked Jim-Bean curiously. "I didn't think you were particularly fond of…our operation."
Fiona frowned. "The Sisterhood of New Potential has been recruiting several women from here," she said. "I had a fight with Cynthia Dexter about it."
"You spoke with her face to face?" asked Archive, curiosity piqued.
Fiona nodded. "She's either a religious nut, a scam artist, or both. She was always talking about her great goddess."
"We'll check it out," said Hammer. "And maybe afterwards I can brief you over dinner."
Fiona cocked her head, eyeing Hammer. "Maybe. Let's see what you find first." She handed Hammer an address. "This is Noelle's address. The police haven't paid much attention to the case, but I bet you can find out more."
"We have our methods," said Hammer cryptically. He tucked the note into a pocket and turned to go,
"Agent Hammer?"
Hammer spun on his heel, a little too quickly. "Yes?" he asked hopefully.
She pointed a finger at the printed email, still in Hammer's hand. "Don't forget to recycle that printout," she said with a sly smile.
Hammer stuffed it in a recycling bin.
As they walked out of the offices, Jim-Bean sidled up to Hammer. "You really think you have a chance with her?"
"I don't know." Hammer stalked towards their rental car, all business.
"You know, in my visions of you and her…the things I've seen…" Jim-Bean said carefully, "there's no guarantee that they come true."
"We have proof." Hammer jabbed a thumb in Archive's direction, who wore the tattooed, dried skin from a future Fiona as a ward against beings from beyond.
"We also had a dollar bill with Hitler on it," said Archive. "So we already changed the future."
"Maybe I'd just like to talk with someone besides you two," said Hammer tersely.
Jim-Bean patted Hammer on the back. "Don't feel so bad. I haven't taken a dump in months – I'm a veritable chick magnet."
Just before they entered the rental car, the earth move beneath them--only a small earthquake, but the jolt was stiff enough locally. There was a low rumbling vibration that approached and passed, and all was normal once again. There wasn't a crack formed or window broken.
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At Your Door 
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