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!
Jim-Bean put the phone down. "That should get them away from the door."
Hammer zip-tied Lillian's wrists. "Stay here."
Caprice looked out the window and swore. "That reporter's coming back here with a camera."
"I thought you shorted out their cameras!" Hammer shouted at Archive over his cell phone.
"Just their transmitting equipment." Archive was walking quickly to intercept her. "I'll take care of this."
"You, sir!" shouted Nina. The camera crew turned to focus on Archive. "Are you affiliated with this—"
He held up one hand, palm open. There was a symbol scrawled on it.
Nina turned and fled, stumbling in her high heels. The cameraman dropped his camera. The boom mic operator just dropped the boom. He struggled for a second as it unplugged from its power source on his backpack, and then he too fled. Archive kneeled down and ejected the tape from the camera.
Archive sauntered into the lobby with a big smile on his face. He handed the tape to Hammer.
Hammer didn't have time to congratulate Archive on his ability to strike fear into GNN reporters. "Stay here, watch the door, make sure the secretary doesn't do anything stupid."
Archive nodded and took a seat.
Hammer, Caprice, and Jim-Bean were doing a silent count to bust in the door when tear gas billowed around the door frame.
Jim-Bean shook his head and put on his gas mask.
"How did you know there was another raid going on?" asked Caprice.
"He's psychic," said Hammer.
"Actually," said Jim-Bean through his gas mask. "I was bluffing." Hammer kicked open the door and let Jim-Bean go first.
Two thugs were on the floor, eyes tearing. Guppy was slumped over a desk. A female agent in full riot gear had a pistol pointed at the back of Grant's head.
"Larry?" asked Jim-Bean. "What are you doing here?"
"Warner's orders," said Larry, his voice muffled by his gas mask. He turned to point his pistol at Hammer. "This is our collar."
"Guppy’s our team member," said Hammer, stepping out from behind Jim-Bean to train his Glocks on Larry. "We'll take it from here."
Keeping his pistol trained on Hammer, Larry called into his walkie-talkie. "Bill! Bill get in here!"
Bill didn't respond.
Caprice added his pistol to the mix of weapons pointed at the two agents. "You're outnumbered. Why don't you just take these two thugs here and call it a day? Little fish are better than no fish."
Bill shook his head. "These are rubber bullets, but they'll still hurt. Now I'm going to take Guppy—"
Bill swore as his pistol was shot out of his hand. "Damn it!"
"You were saying?" asked Hammer.
Bill clutched his weapon hand. "Fine, fine. But officially you got here before we did."
Hammer smirked. "Sure."
Jim-Bean grabbed Guppy by the leg and dragged him out of the room. Caprice zip-tied Grant's wrists behind his back. Then Hammer roughly shoved Grant along behind Jim-Bean and Guppy.
They passed Agent Bill, who was frozen with his pistol aimed at some invisible foe.
Hammer knew it had to be Archive's doing. "What did you do to him?"
Archive shrugged. "I stopped him."
Jim-Bean and Hammer marched Guppy and Grant to their car. Caprice shoved Lillian in the direction of Morgana, who stopped her advance to deal with the new collar.
That left Caprice alone with Bill.
Caprice smiled wickedly at Bill. "Bill! Old buddy, old pal! Remember me?"
Bill's eyes widened in alarm. He couldn't move at all, but their last encounter hadn't gone well.
Caprice stepped up to Bill so they were face to face. "Tell Warner Sprague's team says hello."
Then he yanked Bill's pants down to his ankles and ran out to join the other agents.
Hammer turned around to face Guppy and Grant. They had transferred to a van that Jim-Bean drove to Peterboro, which gave them more room to conduct the interrogation as they drove Guppy to undisclosed location.
"So now that we've got some alone time together, why don't you tell me what you two were doing?"
Grant shrugged his shoulders. "What do I know? I seen Hank last week; haven't seen him in forever since I used to beat him up for his lunch money. Next thing I know Hanky here is talking about aliens and conspiracies…"
Hammer frowned and looked at Guppy. "That's how we got into this mess, remember?"
Guppy shook his head. "You don't understand! I've seen it. They're already here!" He leaned forward to whisper. "Grant is a Protomatter Steward!"
"That's not too hard to confirm," said Hammer. "Jimmy?"
Jim-Bean stepped over to Grant. "Hold still."
He put one hand on Grant's shoulder and concentrated for a second. "Nope. A sleaze ball, but that's it."
"It's true!" protested Guppy. "I saw a file!"
"What kind of file?" asked Hammer.
"On Grant! It proves that he's part of the Conspiracy. They're controlling us all, manipulating you even now!" He peered at Grant. "They can change shape. They can be anybody!"
Jim-Bean leaned back. "You know, he's got a point."
"I think he's snapped," said Caprice from the passenger's seat. Archive was driving. "Guppy's a danger to himself and others. He should probably be committed."
"You're not really helping," muttered Hammer. He turned back to Guppy. "Do you have any evidence of this?"
"Ask Rachel!" shouted Guppy. "She can tell you—"
"Guppy, Rachel's dead," said Jim-Bean.
Guppy blinked. "What?"
"She's dead. That's why we came to pick you up. Her charred corpse was found in your apartment."
"But…" Guppy recovered. "I spoke to her a few days ago…"
"She'd been dead for weeks," said Hammer. "You mentioned a file. Where did you get this file?"
"From Freddy Butts. He gave it to me."
Hammer and Jim-Bean exchanged glances. "Who?"
"Freddy," said Guppy. "He leads the Bringers of Sacred Light. They have a fort. He makes soap, but he’s actually making explosives. I was there!"
"Where Guppy?" Hammer said urgently. "We need an address."
All their cistrons beeped. "Wow," said Caprice. "Sprague's getting pissed. We better drop him off."
"Keeping driving," snapped Hammer. "I want to investigate this myself before we just hand Guppy over." He turned back to Guppy. "The address?"
"There's a card in my pocket," said Guppy.
Jim-Bean fished the card out and looked at it. "Just a phone number to a soap company."
"That's a start, we can trace it." Hammer flicked the card over to Caprice. "Hot Pants?"
"On it." Caprice rolled out a keyboard and plugged it into his cistron.
Hammer called the number. It rang and a recorded message answered him. He hung up.
"Got it," said Caprice. "It's registered to one…Hank Gupta." He turned back around. "Man you really are nuts."
"What?" shouted Guppy in disbelief. "I'm being framed! You have to believe me!"
"We tried Guppy," said Hammer. "I'm sorry, but we have to drop you off."
Grant cleared his throat. "I don't mean to interrupt, but being that this appears to be way above my pay grade, you mind dropping me off?"
"Stop the van," said Hammer ominously.
Archive pulled over. Jim-Bean threw open the side door to the van. Then they tossed Grant out of it.
Grant rolled to the ground, sputtering in the dust. "For government agents, you guys are really rough!"
"Who says we're government?" asked Hammer. Then he slammed the door shut and the van roared off.
Located at the end of a cul-de-sac on the edge of the mostly suburban incorporated village of Bountin, Dinosaur Lodge sat on nine acres of land covered in standing copses of trees and bushes, surrounded by a twelve-foot stone fence.
"This place looks familiar," said Archive.
They drove all the way down to Maryland from New York, non-stop. Guppy had given up on trying to convince his former teammates that they were wrong and had lapsed into a depressed state, numbly staring at the far side of the van.
They stopped at the front gate. "We're dropping off Hank Gupta at the request of Major Sprague," said Hammer.
The guard looked at his clipboard. "Yep, okay. Welcome to Dinosaur Lodge." He waved the van on. "Go on through."
Archive parked the van in the visitor lot and they walked into the facility. The walls were oak-paneled and the rooms well furnished. The place was more like a vacation lodge than the housing facility of a research center, which the broad verandas and sunlit rooms emphasized.
Impossible to ignore, just within the main entry, was a gigantic mounted skeleton of an allosaur, poised menacingly toward the visitor. A housekeeper cleaned and polished the cool brown bones.
"Wow." Jim-Bean stared up at the allosaur skeleton. "That thing is totally going to come to life and eat us."
An attractive thirty-something woman greeted them. "Hi!" she chirped. "I'm Angela Smith." She shook Jim-Bean's hand, smiling warmly at him. "Welcome to Dinosaur Lodge! Please fill out these papers, Mr. Gupta, and we'll get you processed."
Hammer grabbed the pen from Angela. "I'll do it for him. Gupta is not to be released from his restraints."
While Hammer filled out and signed a number of standard forms and waivers, a slender, professional-looking woman arrived followed by a large bald man.
"Hello. I'm Dr. Marina Ivanovna. This is Farley Danzer, one of our orderlies." She looked Hammer and his team over. "I've been instructed to assign you to security. So you'll be working in conjunction with the team here to secure the facilities." Ivanonva paused as she caught sight of Archive. "You're not on my list."
"He's a consultant," said Hammer quickly.
"He's not authorized," said Ivanovna curtly. "So he'll have to stay in our guest facilities. Sorry."
Archive shrugged. "No problem."
Angela handed each of the agents security badges. Archive received a badge that read VISITOR in big bold letters.
"Angela, please show mister…"
"Fontaine."
"…Fontaine to the guest house. The rest of you, follow me please."
Archive left with Angela, who shot a smile over her shoulder at Jim-Bean before departing. Then they followed Ivanovna into the facility.
"Dinosaur Lodge is a dream research and sleep facility," said Ivanovna. "The first floor contains general access rooms, the kitchen and dining room, and offices. The second, third, and fourth floors are devoted to the staffers’ rooms. You'll be staying there as well."
There were guards armed with sub-machineguns at every intersection. They wore black, unidentified patches.
"The real work goes on in the Dreamweb." Ivanovna led them out of the Lodge and towards another building.
"Dreamweb?" asked Caprice.
"The Krogen Institute studies and monitors dreams, primarily through the use of an amazing technological innovation called the Dreamweb, a device simple in concept and awesomely complex in construction and operation," explained Ivanovna as they walked. "The Dreamweb monitors minute electrical impulses and chemical changes in the brain of a sleeper, translating them into bits of data decipherable by a computer. This data becomes a video image transmitted to one or more recording sites. By inducing minor chemical changes in a sleeper’s bloodstream and applying electrical stimuli, dreams can be slightly altered, though the precise nature of the induced changes is still unpredictable."
"And you think this can help Gup—I mean Hank?" asked Jim-Bean.
"Yes. We've had some major successes with some other patients like him. Mr. Brendel is a similar case, a programmer who suffered some extreme mental stress. Dr. Perov has made great progress with him by examining his subliminal consciousness. Here we are."
The Dreamweb was contained in a circular, glass-in chamber at the center of the lab building. In the middle of the chamber was a plush examination couch that promoted deep relaxation. Dozens of electrodes were taped to key points on the subject’s head and body. Wires from the electrodes extended to banks of sockets mounted on the curved wall, giving the chamber a rather spidery look when in operation.
"Now I know why they call it the Dreamweb," said Caprice.
Around the outside of the web chamber were banks of consoles displaying the input from the monitoring electrodes.
Each of the five monitoring stations, as well as the two observation areas, were equipped with viewing screens on which dreams were displayed. They ranged from flying to a person standing naked in front of an audience to reunions with relatives.
"From here," said Ivanovna, "researchers can track incoming data while simultaneously observing the dreamer through windows. Let's get started shall we?"
Dr. Ivanovna led Guppy into the Dreamweb proper. When all the other agents started to crowd in, she turned.
"Gentlemen, I appreciate that you're all eager to keep Mr. Gupta safe but I must insist that only one of you be in the room. It's clear he's stressed and your presence isn't going to help."
"I'll stay," said Jim-Bean.
"Thank you."
The other agents left the room.
"Okay, Mr. Gupta. Please change and we'll get started."
"I'm handcuffed," said Guppy.
Ivanovna sighed. "I think we can let Mr. Gupta free now, don't you?"
Jim-Bean shrugged. "Sure, fine." He took a knife to the zip tie and cut it.
Guppy walked around behind a dividing curtain. He came back out in a hospital smock. Ivanovna led him over to the couch.
"There are eleven leads that connect to various parts of your body. I'm going to tape them to you. They're a little cold, so I apologize in advance."
Guppy nodded mechanically as Ivanovna attached the sensors.
"So, Hank. Can I call you Hank?"
"Sure," said Guppy.
"So Hank. Tell me a little about yourself."
Ivanovna asked Guppy personal information, including his name and address, his chief complaint, the history of his current psychiatric problem, previous psychiatric problems, family psychiatric history, medical problems, and family background.
Guppy patiently explained it all. "My chief problem is that nobody believes the aliens are already here. They've taken over." His glassy eyes struggled to focus on Ivanovna. "You don't believe me either, do you?"
"I do not agree with that thinking, but I understand your belief system," said Ivanovna. "That doesn't lessen that what you're experiencing is extremely frightening and real to YOU. That's what matters."
Guppy seemed to take comfort in that response.
"Now I'm going to ask you some questions about your current state of mind," said Ivanovna. "Answer from zero to five, with zero being not at all, one just a little, two somewhat, three moderately, four quite a lot, and five all the time. Okay?"
"Okay."
"I feel that others control what I think and feel," began Ivanovna.
"Five."
"I hear or see things that others do not hear or see."
"Five."
"I feel it is very difficult for me to express myself in words that others can understand."
"Three."
"I feel I share absolutely nothing in common with others, including my friends and family."
"Three."
"I believe in more than one thing about reality and the world around me that nobody else seems to believe in."
"FIVE!" said Guppy emphatically.
"I talk to another person or people inside my head that nobody else can hear."
A voice spoke in Guppy's head.
LIE, GUPPY.
Guppy paused. He looked at Ivanovna. She hadn't heard the voice.
A voice that nobody else could hear had just told him to lie about hearing a voice nobody else could hear. Guppy broke out into a cold sweat.
He looked at Jim-Bean. Jim-Bean just smiled at him. It had sounded like Jim-Bean. But Jim-Bean's lips hadn't moved.
"Mr. Gupta?"
"Zero," said Guppy. He answered the remaining five questions with an answer of "zero."
"Interesting." Ivanovna leaned forward and asked, "So, Hank. What can you tell us about Majestic-12?"
Guppy blinked. "What?" He looked at Jim-Bean, looked up at the banks of windows above him, and then back at the camera. "I don't know what you mean …"
"Well, that's odd," Ivanovna's demeanor turned cold. "Because your co-workers tell us that you mutter about Majestic-12 constantly. You say things like 'I didn't want to kill him. Majestic-12 told me to.' or 'When is Majestic-12 going to call?' or 'If Majestic-12 had sent me backup, that thing wouldn't have eaten Oakley's brain".
Ivanovna followed up on these revelations with questions about stress, dreams, hearing voices, talking to god, magical powers, occult conspiracies, and so on. It was obvious Ivanovna thought that Guppy had become schizophrenic, and had invented an elaborate conspiracy theory and a supernatural authority figure which justified taking the law into his own hands.
"I'm not here to get you, Mr. Gupta. I'm here to help you realize you have a problem. If you agree to therapy, including drug therapy, mandatory counseling, and treatment here at Dinosaur Lodge, we will excuse you from work with fully pay due to work-related stress until a subsequent assessment determines that you are fit for active duty. Your psychological evaluation will also be cited in your defense in an inquiry or trial should Mr. Grant press charges."
Guppy sighed, beaten. "Fine."
"Good." Ivanovna's demeanor changed instantly back to the warm, concerned psychotherapist. "I'm going to arrange a complete blood count, electrolytes, thyroid function tests, urine toxicology screen, and urinalysis as well as an EEG, CT scan, and PET scan. But given the circumstances, I think it's safe to say that you are either developing or have a psychotic illness.”
She got up, and Danzer led Guppy out of the room.
"There was some audio glitch," said Hammer, greeting Ivanovna just outside the Dreamweb. "It cut out while you were in there." He frowned at Jim-Bean. "What happened?"
Dr. Ivanovna shrugged. "The Dreamweb uses an extraordinary amount of power; we have surges occasionally."
"What's the diagnosis, doc?" asked Caprice.
When Guppy was out of earshot, Ivanovna replied. "Mr. Gupta's suffering from psychotic symptoms that significantly impair functioning and that involve disturbances in feeling, thinking, and behavior. The disorder is chronic and usually has a prodromal phase, an active phase, and a residual phase. Fortunately he's in the residual phase at this point."
"English please," said Hammer.
"Schizophrenia," Dr. Ivanovna said simply. "Paranoid schizophrenia."
The first night spent at Dinosaur Lodge was Guppy's acclimation night. No real study or observation was attempted. The idea was that the patient should relax, become used to his surroundings, and be able to have a normal night's sleep the following night.
Jim-Bean stood outside of Guppy's room, yawning. It was going to be a long night.
His date with Angela had gone well, but not so well that Jim-Bean was at her place rather than standing in a cold hallway. As long as things kept going the way they were going, Jim-Bean hoped he would have an excuse to change shifts with Caprice.
Bored, Jim-Bean pulled out a file from the wall bin near Guppy's room and read it.
Guppy's blood work was totally normal. An EEG showed an epileptic wave of force during the times Guppy claimed he experienced a vision. A CT scan indicated an increased ventricular size in the brain, which was an associated finding with schizophrenia. A positron emission tomography (PET) scan measured and map out metabolism and chemical distribution in the brain. Guppy's CAT scan on indicated cortical hyprofrontality and high activity in the left temporal lobe. Both were associated findings in people with schizophrenic illness. Neuropsychological tests (including the Thematic Appreciation Test and Rorschach test) turned up bizarre responses.
In short, as much as Jim-Bean wanted to believe Guppy, he was starting to think Dr. Ivanovna was right. But after what they had all experienced, after what Jim-Bean actually WAS – who was he to say what was real or unreal?
The lights flickered. When Jim-Bean looked up, a man stood in front of him, eyes half-lidded. His nametag read: BRENDEL.
"Hey!" said Jim-Bean. "Hey, what are you doing?
In his late thirties, Brendel looked like a stereotypical pudgy computer programmer.
Brendel tried the door to Guppy's room.
"What the – stop that!"
Brendel ignored him.
A broad-shouldered, well proportioned man ran down the hallway, a clipboard under his arm. "Don't touch him!" he shouted. "Don't touch him!"
"Get him away from the door," said Jim-Bean, hand on the holster of his pistol. "Or I will."
The man's nametag read: DR. PEROV.
Perov deposited his clipboard in the empty slot near Guppy's door so he could use both hands to grab Brendel by the arm. "Don't disturb him or you could inflict severe psychological damage!"
"That's not all I'm going to inflict—"
Perov sneered at him. "I expected nothing less from you people." Brendel let go of the door. "Let's go Sam, back to bed with you."
"You were monitoring him? How'd you lose track of him? I thought you guys had monitors everywhere?'
"I was having trouble getting proper readings with my equipment," said Perov. Brendel slowly started making his way back the way he came. Perov followed behind him.
Jim-Bean reached into the bin and pulled out the clipboard. It was Brendel's psychological profile.
Sam Brendel had been arrested the month before for the brutal murder of his wife. Brendel claimed that he had no memory of it--he just woke up and found her stabbed, bludgeoned, and dead. Dr. Perov' analysis was that Sam was the victim of an extreme sleep disorder known as severe parasomnia.
There was another note. It was from Warner, with inquiries weekly about his progress.
Jim-Bean smirked. "So Warner's got a crazy agent in here too."
Angela sighed dramatically. "Oh goody, another note from the Director."
Jim-Bean leaned over her desk to take a look. He'd been spending a lot of time at her desk. "What's that?'
"Director Krogen is complaining about the large electricity bill," she said, holding up a memo. "He even left a nasty note on the employee bulletin board in the lounge."
"What do you think that's all about?"
"Oh who knows with this place," said Angela. "It's probably the furnaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
Angela screamed as she was enveloped by a huge pair of jaws that appeared out of nowhere. She disappeared into the phantom maw.
Jim-Bean ran. The teeth faded out, in hot pursuit. They flickered in and out of existence. The jaws could be anywhere. They were everywhere. The teeth would swallow him whole like some kind of demented Pac-Man game.
“Jim-Bean!” shouted Hammer’s voice, far off in the distance. “Wake up!”
Jim-Bean snapped his eyes open. He was standing in his boxer shorts in front of Guppy’s room. Hammer stood in front of him, Glocks out but lowered.
Jim-Bean looked around. “Was I…sleepwalking?”
The lights dimmed for a second.
“Yep,” said Hammer. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Had a strange dream.”
“Not surprised. This place is pretty creepy.” He nodded towards the ceiling as the lights flickered again. “Lights have been flickering all night.”
Jim-Bean cocked his head. “Hear that?”
Hammer listened too. “Yeah. Some kind of buzzing.”
“A machine,” said Jim-Bean. “Has to be loud for us to hear it here.”
“Yeah,” said Hammer, trying not to look at Jim-Bean. “So…maybe you should go back to bed.”
Jim-Bean checked the time on his cistron. “Nah, it’s my shift anyway.” He rubbed his forehead. “Let me get changed and I’ll come back.”
Hammer nodded. “I’ll get some coffee.”
Jim-Bean turned to go and then paused. “You staying up?”
“I’m not going to sleep until morning,” said Hammer. “Just in case.”
Caprice fiddled with the lock to Valentine Krogen’s office. He had placed a repeating image of the hallway on the monitors. The place was far more secure than a simple facility. And yet he had gotten in relatively easily. There was something familiar about it.
Jim-Bean had found out from Angela that there was a receipt from a Burton Fielding. Angela didn’t know what the receipt was for or who made the purchase, but she needed to find out for her accounts. Caprice suspected that the director knew.
Caprice popped the lock. The room was peculiar. Several statuettes were scattered about the suite, octopoid in nature and carved of green-veined soapstone. A painting above the mantel depicted a horrendous circle of half-human entities baying at the moon. A brass plaque gave the title and painter: “Ghouls Baying,” by R. U. Pickman. There were piles and piles of periodicals on psychiatry and technology, none of them read.
Caprice made his way over the computer at Krogen’s desk. He hooked up his cistron to it and started hacking.
Security was tight. But it wasn’t insurmountable, complicated by the fact that Caprice was an inside man: he knew how Majestic-12’s systems worked and he knew how to circumvent them. Data from 1966 onward was contained in the computer and text files. He searched for Fielding.
Burton Fielding was an electrical engineer who had worked for some important firms in their research divisions. He was thought of as a crackpot, an alcoholic, and a ne'er-do-well. Caprice also found a record of Fielding’s education. He had taken several university-level courses and advanced study. Fielding’s imagination wavered for several years, then began to gnaw on and race through specific courses, while dropping others and simply failing to attend many more. He had attended six universities, but had no degrees whatsoever.
Caprice found a highly-technical, trail-blazing monograph on advanced dream research by Fielding. It was difficult reading, even for Caprice, but he had an appreciation for the man’s intellect. Fielding was clearly the inventor of the Dreamweb. It was possible, Fielding explained, through the use of a Crystal Matrix Artificial Intelligence. It was the kind of crystal used by the Greys, the kind Caprice and his team had worked hard to prevent Centurion Computer Systems from using, and the kind that powered SINNER and Blacknet.
There was also something else: work on a three-dimensional dream imager, which could be used to monitor a subject’s sleeping visions. Its development easily rivaled the Dreamweb itself in sophistication. The file ended abruptly.
“What happened to you, Fielding?” Caprice asked himself.
He pulled up a map of the facility. There was reference to a Datamaster computer that handled the Dreamweb, but no actual location. It was only notable because it was missing; the amount of computer power necessary to run the Dreamweb was awesome in scope, and it required a huge cooling facility to keep it running. The computer was secreted somewhere on the acres of property of Dinosaur Lodge. But where?
On a whim, he searched for information on Guppy. And he got more than he bargained for.
There were medical reports, summaries of “treatments,” and even around-the-clock transcription of subjects’ speech during the course of the experiments. There were files on more than fifteen thousand test subjects, as well as several hundred summaries of stress simulations, such as “Subject informed of parent’s violent death” and “Simulated schizophrenic degeneration,” each rated from 1.0 to 10.10 in .1 increments. The highest was 10.10—“Alien Invasion Scenario 4.” Each file described in great detail how to conduct each simulation, all created using Dreamweb technology. And all of it watched over by Warner’s Delta team.
The Dreamweb could be used to control a subject’s dreams as well as record them. Dr. Ivanovna had done so several times while charting the reactions of violent patients. Such control made the Dreamweb perfect for interrogations or torture.
And yet there were no files on Guppy. There were conflicting orders between Sprague and Warner. Sprague didn’t want Guppy to go to Dinosaur Lodge, but Warner got his way. As usual, they were chess pieces in a larger political battle between the two men. Sprague’s team may have beaten Warner’s team to the punch by picking Guppy up first, but ultimately Warner had gotten his way. All files about Guppy were forwarded to the Puerto Rico facility and required MAJIC-level clearance. Caprice checked the other agents. Oddly, they all abruptly started after 1995.
He typed in Jim-Bean’s codename and it returned:
Quote:
STRESS SIMULATION 8.5, “Subject is buried alive.”
He typed in Archive’s name:
Quote:
STRESS SIMULATION 7.0 “Simulated amputation.”
He tried Blade:
Quote:
STRESS SIMULATION “2.5. Subject informed of nuclear terrorist attack on Washington, D.C.”
His throat tightening, Caprice typed his own codename.
It returned
Quote:
STRESS SIMULATION 6.9, “Subject immersed in vermin.”
Ah yes, Caprice remembered the fire ants well.
Caprice was typing in Hammer’s name when an alert dinged on his cistron. A sniffer was on to him. Time to go. He shut off the computer.
Once he had placed everything back where he’d found it and left Krogen’s office, Caprice opened a secure channel over their cistrons. “Guys, I think I know why this place is familiar.”
“Why?” asked Hammer.
“Because we’ve been here before. This is PROJECT OUTLOOK.”
The lights flickered. When Sam turned the corner, Caprice was ready.
“Dr. Perov,” called Caprice over the comm. “Brendel’s sleepwalking again.”
Static. He wasn’t getting any reception. Great.
Caprice was curious. What did Brendel want with Guppy? He decided to find out.
Brendel made his way over the door. He tried the lock. It didn’t open.
WHAM! He slammed his shoulder into it. WHAM!
Another slam and the door splintered off its hinges. The strength Brendel had was incredible.
Guppy was awake, sitting bolt upright in bed, staring at Brendel fearfully. “What is—“
That was all he got out. Brendel closed the distance between them and, grabbing Guppy by his hospital gown, hurled him into the wall.
Caprice drew his pistol. “Okay, that’s enough of---“
Brendel slammed into him, grabbing for his pistol.
“Backup!” shouted Caprice into his headset. “I need backup!”
Brendel grabbed Caprice around his throat. He coughed and wheezed, trying to focus, but the man’s grip was incredibly strong. The edges of his vision faded…
Brendel fell to the ground, jerking from the sparking taser in Hammer’s hand.
“Out of my way!” shouted Perov. He shoved past Hammer into the room. “What did you do to him?”
“He was attacking another patient,” said Hammer. “You’re lucky he’s not dead.”
“No thanks to you!” snapped Perov. He dragged Brendel to his feet, who was blinking away. “Come on, Sam.”
Caprice checked on Guppy. “Guppy’s hurt but alive.”
“He’s not my patient,” said Perov over his shoulder. Then he half-dragged Sam out of the room.
Hammer called after Perov. “Strap him down doctor. Or next time Brendel will get more than a shock.”
Jim-Bean straightened his tie. This was his third date with Angela. Hopefully he would have an excuse to switch his shift.
He knocked on the door to Angela’s apartment. No answer.
Jim-Bean called Angela’s cell phone. She didn’t pick up.
Jim-Bean checked his cistron. Nine p.m. He was on time, for once. Something was wrong.
“Angela?” he shouted through the door. “You in there?”
No answer.
Jim-Bean kicked open the door, snapping the chain.
The room was quiet. Angela’s tabby meowed hungrily at him.
Jim-Bean drew his Glock. Yep, something was definitely wrong.
He went from room to room, stopping at her bedroom.
Jim-Bean had plans to visit her bedroom. But not like this.
Her bedroom was empty, but there were signs of a struggle, including shredded and bloody sheets. There was a strange, sticky substance as well.
Jim-Bean remembered his dream. A giant maw, opening wide…
He ran back to his car and gunned the engine. “Guys!” he shouted over his cistron. “Guys?”
Static. He knew what that meant. The power surge again.
Jim-Bean drove through the checkpoint, but no guards greeted him. The facility was wide open, unprotected.
He parked the car and sprinted to Guppy’s facility. This time the power had simply gone out. Emergency lights illuminated the hallways with a hellish glow.
Gunfire echoed throughout the darkened hallway. Hammer stood, Glocks out, over the bleeding form of Brendel.
“What happened?” asked Jim-Bean.
“I told the Doc I’d shoot Brendel if this happened again.” Hammer squinted past Jim-Bean. “Perov should have been running down here by now. Something’s seriously wrong. I can’t raise Caprice and Guppy’s room is empty.”
“The gate was open and there aren’t any guards outside,” said Jim-Bean. “Angela’s missing. I think something ate her.”
Hammer lifted up one sleeve. “You mean the kind of thing that might leave a bite mark like this?” There was a strange mark on his bicep that looked almost as if he’d been bitten by a shark.
Screams echoed throughout the entire facility, first in the distance, then closer. Jim-Bean drew his Glock.
“We have to find Guppy.”
“Agreed,” said Hammer. “Let’s—“
Hammer just started firing. Floating down the corridor was a floating bag of putrescence, like a jellyfish mixed with human organs, dangling shark-like jaws. It shimmered in and out of existence.
Jim-Bean remembered the thing. He had seen something like it before when he and Hammer had had been trapped inside Daoloth.
They both emptied their pistols into it, but the thing kept coming. One tentacle darted off into the wall, only to come out the other side near Jim-Bean’s head. He fell backwards, pulling the trigger on his Glock until it clicked. Empty. Hammer fumbled to reload his own pistols.
The mouth yawned wide…
And then the creature howled in pain. The crack of a pistol tore through the creature’s roars. It shimmered away.
Archive was at the other end of the hallway, holstering his Elder Sign-inscribed pistol.
“I am so going to get you reinstated,” said Hammer.
The carillon was a thirty-foot circular tower of stone blocks. It housed an elevator, the normal access to the Institute’s emergency power and, Caprice suspected, the Datamaster computer. When the power went out and he wasn’t able to raise Jim-Bean or Hammer, Caprice decided to strike out on his own and track the source of the loud buzzing that could sometimes be heard accompanying the power outages.
It led him to the tower. When Dinosaur Lodge was a vacation attraction, the tower held a carillon, a number of differently-toned musical bells.
Judging by the amount of security on the doors, it was a carillon no longer. Caprice spent several minutes disabling the alarm on the door. Then he popped the lock.
Within the base of the tower was an elevator leading down and stairs leading to the elevator mechanisms above. By the doors stood a narrow length of pipe topped by a palm-sized disk perforated by a keyhole. An elevator call plate.
Caprice used his cistron to hack the elevator call plate. It dinged and opened for him. He took it down to the basement.
He faced an entrance with a keypad. He could see a computer room beyond an antechamber blocked by sliding glass doors.
On the floor before the doors was a black pad. Caprice recognized the room: it was a sterilization chamber. The tacky pad used a harmless electric current to remove dust particles from the clothing of anyone entering the sterile room.
Caprice hooked up his cistron to the keypad and went to work. A minute later the doors whisked open.
“Easy as pie,” said Caprice. He stepped onto the pad…
Electricity tore through his body, jolting him spastically. His only saving grace was that he had already opened the doors. He was blasted into the sterilization chamber.
His body smoking, Caprice tried to clear his head. He looked over his shoulder just as the doors whisked closed. A red klaxon whirled above him.
A sign flashed over and over: STERILIZATION IN PROGRESS.
Caprice shook his head. The tacky pad was supposed to be harmless too. He caught a glimpse of a security camera in one corner of the room focusing on him. The Datamaster was defending itself.
Fans whirred to life. This was normally to prevent outside air from contaminating the filtered, temperature-controlled atmosphere of the computer room. But they kept on whirring, sucking the air out of the room.
Caprice stumbled over to the keypad and hooked up his cistron. He had only a few seconds before he ran out of air.
He typed furiously, running several hacking programs of his own design. The only way to get to the Datamaster quickly was a brute force attack, pinging it from multiple nodes. Except that Caprice didn’t have that luxury from within the limited access of the carillon tower. He was more like a mosquito to a giant, poking at it feebly.
The world turned gray. Caprice was starting to black out.
The Datamaster’s firewall had been compromised. Intentionally, it seemed. Someone had shut down its defenses. Someone on the inside.
Caprice’s vision faded. All he could see was the cistron’s display. He felt light-headed…
Another program was running, this one separate from the Dreamweb. It was Fielding’s Dream Imager!
Caprice changed tactics and ordered his programs to mimic the Imager. Sure enough, it had full administrative rights. He just had to pretend he was the Dream Imager. Caprice clicked a button and promptly blacked out…
He awoke, gasping. The door was open and cool air brushed his face.
How long had he been out? Caprice ran into the computer room. The Datamaster itself covered three walls of the room, with a single terminal. Two metal consoles on either side of the doorway contained hundreds of discs. A security camera swiveled menacingly in each of the room’s four corners.
Caprice tapped into the security cameras and communications system. What he saw was complete chaos.
There was a flash of something over the nearby lake. It might have been a person, floating in mid-air, sweeping a beam of light like a lighthouse across the Dinosaur Lodge grounds. Fires were raging.
“Dr. Perov?”
Caprice flipped through the cameras. He found Dr. Perov’s horribly mutilated body in the computer lab. The corpse appeared to be covered in horrible bites, with large chunks of him missing.
“Dr. Ivanovna?”
There was no response. Caprice flipped through the log until he found her in one of the rooms where other patients were sleeping, all of them hooked up to IVs.
The warning monitors were blaring as all of the sleeping patients thrashed and gasped. Caprice confirmed the warning code; they were all having massive heart attacks. The alarm was supposed to alert the doctors on call, but nobody was responding. Dr. Ivanovna walked past them as if in a trance, injecting each IV with a long needle.
“Dr. Ivanovna,” Caprice shouted through the intercom, “Stop!”
Ivanovna, needle in hand, plunged it into her own eye. She screamed as the chemical she had used to murder her helpless patients was pumped directly into her brain. Then her suffering was over too.
“Hammer?” shouted Caprice into the intercom, everywhere at once. “Jim-Bean?”
The other agents ran towards the Dreamweb facility.
“I saw the guards open the gate and let in a bunch of armed survivalist-types,” shouted Archive. “That’s when I came looking for you guys.”
“There’s some kind of interference,” shouted Hammer. “I can’t use cell phones or cistrons.”
Jim-Bean pointed at a blazing white pillar of light over Holly Lake. “You think that might be the reason?”
“Don’t look at it!” shouted Archive.
The bays of guard dogs echoed in the darkness ahead of them.
Hammer and Jim-Bean let loose, cutting down the dogs before they could close.
Automatic weapons fire sparked back at them in the darkness. The three agents took cover in the woods.
“Whoever they are, this was an inside job,” said Hammer. “There’s no way they could have gotten past the defenses so easily.”
“Guppy must be in the Dreamweb!” shouted Jim-Bean.
The beam flared and a long column of light swept towards them.
“Get down!” shouted Archive.
They flattened to the ground and the beam flashed overhead, sweeping the Dreamweb facility.
A series of horrible wails and shrieks rose up from the Dreamweb. There was some sporadic gunfire. Out in the Dinosaur Lodge proper, there was more screaming.
“Go, go, go!” ordered Hammer. They crouched over to the entrance.
The survivalists were all dead. Some had clawed their eyes out. Others had shot themselves or each other.
“What the hell happened?” asked Jim-Bean, stepping over a dead body.
“I don’t plan to find out,” said Hammer.
Klaxons sounded. Security curtains slowly descended all around them. The Dreamweb was locking down.
They made their way past dead and moaning bodies to the Dreamweb monitoring room. The normally transparent glass was covered by metal shutters. The monitors showed only static.
One man was slumped over the keyboard. Jim-Bean yanked him back by his hair.
The man’s head lolled, drool and blood dripping from his chin. His eyes were moist sockets of blood. Blood dripped down the man’s crushed fists, and Jim-Bean knew what he held there.
“The first rule of the Bringers of Sacred Light…” the eyeless man gasped, “is there are no Bringers of Sacred Light.”
“Where’s Guppy?” shouted Jim-Bean.
“The Light of Sacred Truth,” said the man. “The veil of earthly illusion is rent…I saw the ultimate dimension…monstrous horrific shapes, saw touches, saw tastes…saw all.” He expired on the spot.
“Now we know Guppy wasn’t crazy,” said Archive, pointing at the man’s nametag. It read: BUTTS.
“We have to get inside there.” Hammer pointed at the Dreamweb dome. “If Guppy’s the source of this, there’s only one way to stop it.”
“I’ll take a look,” said Jim-Bean. He concentrated…
Quote:
Jim-Bean was walking through an alley, hurrying home. Looking across the street, he saw “El Caballo,” the Belize expedition van. What was it doing here?
By the side of the van Jim-Bean saw a pair of boots … his boots, still caked with mud, and suddenly he knew something was WRONG.
Looking up, a bat-winged shape passed against the stars, and Jim-Bean screamed as he realized that it was ALL WRONG! The hearing … the smugglers … there was something wrong about it … he couldn’t remember … then he realized he wouldn’t remember … the mind playing tricks … IT WAS ALL LIES!
Jim-Bean staggered into an alley, head reeling, when out stepped Kyle Woodson, spattered with blood, a huge hunk of his head missing.
“It’s all there…” he said in a gurgling, buzzing voice … an inhuman voice. “It’s all at El Cacao. You must go—“
Then his head exploded in a shower of gore and an alien Grey in a blood red surgeon’s gown leaped from the shadows. It raised a scalpel and lunged.
Jim-Bean fell backwards in confusion. Where was he? What the hell was going on?
The Grey moved supernaturally fast. It slashed once, twice, and Jim-Bean was forced to jump backwards each time. He finally hit the cold hard stone of the wall. He was at the end of the alley.
The Grey raised its knife, only to suddenly explode from a shotgun blast.
Guppy was standing there, shotgun still smoking.
“Where are we Guppy?”
Guppy, dressed in his usual clothes, looked around. “I think…I think we’re in my head.”
Caprice called for Jim-Bean and Hammer over the intercom.
Hammer ran over to the intercom button. Jim-Bean was comatose. “Hot Pants? Where are you?”
“I’m in the Datamaster computer room.”
“Open the Dreamweb up! Guppy’s trapped inside and Jim-Bean is comatose!”
There was silence as Caprice tried it. “No luck. There’s an emergency security protocol in effect. I can undo it, but it will take time.”
“We don’t have much time…” said Archive. “That light is going to spread, and if it hits Bountin…”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Caprice. “There’s a door to your left.”
Hammer looked around. A sign on one door read: DREAMWEB CLEAN ROOM. Beneath it was a smaller sign: DO NOT ENTER.
The door clicked and something heavy moved within it. “I just unlocked it. There should be steps on the other side. Go downstairs.”
Hammer and Archive ran down the steps. At the bottom of the steps, directly beneath the Dreamweb itself, was a primitive but efficient laboratory set up around a weird device attached to numerous controls and monitoring instruments. The device consisted of a ten-foot in diameter circular platform with a hard, transparent surface, beneath which was visible a precise arrangement of glass lenses. A duplicate of the platform was suspended from the ceiling, and it was connected to the four chairs by finger-thick fiber optic cables. A bright light pulsed between the two platforms, illuminating the room with flickering shadows.
Around the platform and attached to it by curving plastic struts were four smooth-edged chairs with domed helmets, a bit like a salon dryer chair. The inner surfaces of the domes were also transparent and revealed more glass lenses within.
“The guy who developed the Dreamweb didn’t trust it completely,” said Caprice over the comm. “Fielding developed this Dream Imager as a failsafe. It will plug you into the Dreamweb directly.”
“Plug us in?” asked Hammer in disbelief. “Then what are we supposed to do?”
“Close the gate,” said Archive grimly. “Guppy has opened a portal to another dimension.”
“We’re not trained to do this.” Hammer strapped himself into the chair and Archive did the same. “Hot Pants, can you influence the Dreamweb from there?”
“I think so. What did you have in mind?”
Hammer closed his eyes as the machines whirred to life. “Guns,” he said. “Lots of guns.”
Quote:
They flashed through a tunnel of light. Then they were on the other side and…
They were in a cave, littered with bodies missing the tops of their heads.
“BE CALM. BE SILENT,” said a voice; a horrible whispering, buzzing voice. There was a shining metal cylinder sitting on the floor, connected by wires to a strange machine.
Guppy and Jim-Bean were there, in civilian clothes, unarmed.
The cavern wall rippled open and something entered. They couldn’t look directly at it, but it scurried towards them, pincers outstretched…
“Hot Pants!” shouted Hammer.
Glocks appeared in all their hands. The soldier caste Mi-go, the big kind with four claws, scrabbled towards Guppy.
Hammer fired. The bullets were real enough, tearing through the thing’s fibrous carapace. Jim-Bean and Archive joined in. Then Guppy. Finally, it lay unmoving.
Caprice’s voice echoed all around them. “You’re almost in the Datamaster’s Crystal Matrix. You just defeated the second firewall.”
“Guppy,” said Archive urgently. “I think you infected the Datamaster computer and it’s projecting your nightmares onto reality.”
“I don’t…” Guppy looked around. “I don’t think this is a nightmare. I think this is a…memory.”
“It’s tearing the veil between the two worlds,” said Archive urgently. “You’ve got to stop—“
He was cut off as they faded into another dreamscape.
They awakened on a large table, eight feet square and made out of a dull, gray plastic. A huge cluster of tendrils, arms, and tubes sprouted out of the ceiling directly over the table.
They were all there, only younger: Guppy, Caprice, Archive, Blade, Jim-Bean, and Hammer.
The left-hand wall of the chamber consisted of some kind of cabinet with a transparent door. Inside, eight more bodies floated without visible support. Four were female and four were male. Tubes had been inserted for nutrients and waste, and their lungs and hearts seemed to be working normally. The skin color was normal. Their eyes were uniformly closed, as if dreaming. A grey-orange tube from the back of each head extended that led to the back of the cabinet and disappeared through a wall. A faint pink seam crossed each forehead.
The right wall was covered in tubes and strange machines, some of which were studded with lights. All of the machinery looked as much as it had been grown as it was made. All of it was of the same dull gray finish.
Another object like a desk extruded out of the back wall. On the ledge of it sat several curious devices and cylinders.
Two sets of cables connected a shiny new cylinder to one device.
Guppy sat bolt upright. The others were waking slowly. He looked closer at one of the females.
It was Rachel. Younger Rachel. Rachel from the past, back when they were dating, back when Guppy was lovesick over her and foolish enough to go on a dangerous expedition.
But the others. What were they doing here?
Archive, Jim-Bean, and Hammer sat up.
“Uh, if this is a memory, what are we doing here?” asked Jim-Bean.
“I don’t know,” said Hammer. “But I don’t remember this.”
“Me neither,” said Archive.
“I was in a boarding school for the psychically gifted in Britain.” Jim-Bean looked down at his hands. “Wasn’t I?”
Guppy was staring at Rachel. It was Rachel as he remembered her, before she cut her hair, still in the flower of youth. Gone were the lines of worry and sadness. She still had some weight on her, before her drug addiction turned her into a scarecrow.
The eye flicked open. “Hank,” her voice echoed in Guppy’s mind. “Hank, all I want to do is tell you the truth. That’s all I’ve been doing this whole time.”
“Rachel…” said Guppy. “Rachel, it’s all a lie. All this time you were dead. And I killed you.”
Rachel was fully awake now. She shook her head, still speaking to him from the nutrient bath. “No. No, the real Rachel was already dead. Freddy’s men killed her. She was trying to have you committed. She didn’t believe you. I took this form so you would listen…”
“To what?” Guppy looked around. “So much suffering, for what?”
“I am showing the others the realms beyond the first twenty five dimensions. You are my Chosen, you will serve me as my priest.”
Guppy shook his head violently. “No. No!”
Rachel’s gaze turned murderous. “I have given you a blessing, and yet you would still refuse me?”
Guppy pointed at Rachel. “I want you out of my head. Now.”
“Fool,” snarled Rachel, her form twisting and morphing. “You are in MY HEAD.”
Rachel’s head shrunk into her torso, eyes popped out along the length of her abdomen, and two massive arms exploded out of her sides, ending in powerful pincers. Dozens more tiny limbs sprouted along the length of her body. Her lower torso ended in a serpentine tail with a vicious stinger.
“What the hell is that?” asked Jim-Bean.
“I think that’s the Datamaster,” said Archive. “Whatever thing that’s been in Guppy’s head has infected the Crystal Matrix AI that runs the Dreamweb.”
“Hot Pants!” shouted Hammer, helpless. “We could use those weapons we talked about.”
There was no answer. The thing burst from its confines and slithered towards them.
YOUR FRIEND CANNOT HELP YOU NOW.
“No,” said Guppy. “But maybe I can.”
Guppy concentrated and Glocks flashed into everyone’s hands.
They wasted no time. Everyone pointed their weapons at the thing and fired.
Bullets ricocheted off its hide. It swept equipment aside with its huge claws as it advanced.
Guppy, Archive, and Jim-Bean kept firing. In the dream realm, they never ran out of bullets.
Hammer was in front. He ducked a sweep of its claws and then shrieked as a piercing pain tore through his back.
The thing’s stinger protruded out Hammer’s torso. He disappeared into his own nightmares and memories with a flash.
“It’s time,” said the warden, accompanied by three corrections officers.
Hammer was too disoriented to stand up. Where the hell was he?
The officers helped Hammer to his feet and he began walking to the death chamber.
It was a small gray room with cinder-block walls and a large wooden chair in the center of the room. One wall featured a large plate-glass window, and Hammer could see three rows of folding chairs behind it, where some men and women in suits were scribbling notes or just watching.
Hammer was placed in the chair and his forearms, ankles, waist, chest, and head were tightly secured. A well-worn leather mask was placed over his face, leaving only his nose exposed. Then two electrodes were placed upon his body. The first was attached to a metal receptacle that was encased in a leather shell and rested on top of his head. The second was attached to his hairless right calf.
A sponge was dipped in water and placed on top of Hammer’s head, underneath the leather cap. He was now alone in the room; the guards and executioner had left. It was eerily quiet.
This was a dream. It was just a dream. He was in his own nightmare.
No, he was remembering. That’s right, he was remembering his stress test! This was OUTLOOK. This was his initiation. This was the Datamaster digging into its files and forcing Hammer to relive his worst nightmare.
It isn’t real. IT ISN’T REAL. IT! IS! NOT—
Hammer was back on the table in the chamber with lobster-like thing. Archive and Jim-Bean were gone. Only Guppy remained. The thing loomed over him.
Hammer raised his pistol, only to discover he had no pistol. He was back to square one, as if he had just joined the dream.
“This isn’t real!” shouted Guppy. “This isn’t the truth! It’s all a lie!”
The creature and the dreamscape tore apart, shattering into a million pieces.
Hammer blinked awake inside the Dream Imager. Archive was just getting up.
They ran upstairs. Jim-Bean was there, opening the door to the Dreamweb. Guppy groggily disconnected himself from the myriad of wires entwining him.
“It is over?” asked Guppy.
“Yeah,” Caprice’s voice clicked over the intercom. “The light over the lake stopped. Everybody else is dead. I think it’s safe to raise the curtains.” The metal curtains covering the windows slowly winched upwards.
They escorted Guppy outwards. The entire facility was eerily silent. Piling into Jim-Bean’s car, they drove past the gate.
Jim-Bean’s cistron beeped. “Good news,” said Jim-Bean over his shoulder to Guppy. “You were telling the truth. SINNER triangulated the coordinates of the cell phone calls and we found a facility. It was deserted, but it was just like you said – traces of bomb-making material was on site…”
“He’s out,” said Hammer. “Let him be.”
Guppy was asleep, snoring with his mouth open.
“So Sprague tries to cover up Guppy’s breakdown. Warner finds out and has him assigned to his top secret OUTLOOK facility,” said Jim-Bean. “Guppy’s stuck in the middle of a tug of war. Fortunately for Sprague…well this happened. Warner takes another hit.”
“I’m still not sure if Guppy is crazy or not,” said Archive. “But whatever was in his head infected the Datamaster, which in turn infected the entire staff. We’re lucky we didn’t see experience whatever it was sharing with everyone else to make them go insane.”
“I think we did,” said Jim-Bean. “In a sense. We saw Guppy’s memories.”
Hammer shrugged. “Through Guppy’s biased perspective. We don’t know what’s real or what isn’t. Speaking of which…what happened to your accent?”
Jim-Bean blinked. He hadn’t realized he was talking without it. “I’m trained to speak in a variety of accents, you know.” He didn’t use his British accent then either.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Caprice. “If Butts was making bombs, what was he doing with them?”
He got his answer as a terrific explosion engulfed the battered remains of Dinosaur Lodge, igniting the landscape behind them.
This story hour is a combination of “Fractal Gods” by Steve Hatherley from The Stars Are Right and “Angular Dreams” by Angus Boylan from The Last Province #1. You can read more about Delta Green at Delta Green. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!
Of all the scenarios we’ve played, this is probably the one I tinkered with the most. I took the elements involving Tiger Transit, Coca Loco, and the Tcho-Tcho from Delta Green: Countdown, mixed it with the previously alien-technology swiping of Centurion Computer Systems and Walter Morrow, threw in the Hound of Tindalos-summoning fractal virus, the virtual hangout of Lord Vapor from d20 Cyberscape, the Tick-Tock Man, Terrors from Beyond, a certain geeky damsel in distress…and by the end of it ended up with something that looks a lot like Tron.
The vibe I was trying to go for at the very beginning of the scenario was the same effect as The Ring: the idea that every television (or in this case, cistron) could be a gateway to another world.
Unfortunately, the scenario also looked a lot like the scenario just before it: trapped in another dimension? Check. Can a hacker modify what the agents inside experience? Check. Guppy the central role? Check. In terms of game mechanics, there’s not necessarily that much of a difference between a dream world and a virtual world. I didn’t realize the similarities until we were playing the scenarios back-to-back.
That said, this scenario was an opportunity for Guppy to show off his utility, prove he can still be a team player, and reconnect him with yet another ex-girlfriend. It will serve as a springboard to The Wild Hunt and At Your Door.
Futures made of virtual insanity
now always seem to be governed by this love we have
for useless, twisting, of our new technology
Oh now there is no sound, for we all live underground
--Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai
It was night. A storm was beginning outside, but the agents were fortunately in a warm place.
Jim-Bean handed Guppy his cistron and Beretta. "Welcome back."
Guppy squinted at Jim-Bean. "Thanks, I think." He was still getting accustomed to life as an agent. They were at the apartment rented in New York City as their temporary base of operations. Guppy scanned his thumbprint. It read: ON PROBATION.
“I’m sure it’s temporary,” said Jim-Bean.
Archive smirked. “Just like my ‘Friendly’ status that Hammer applied for, right?”
There was an awkward silence when Hammer walked into the kitchen. Hammer was somewhat responsible for putting Guppy on mental health leave.
"How you feeling, Guppy?" asked Archive warily.
"You mean the visions?" Guppy said with a slight smile. " I feel much better actually. Better than I have in years. The migraines and the nightmares stopped."
"Maybe the Dreamweb really did help," said Jim-Bean.
More uncomfortable silence.
Hammer's cistron rang. He jumped at it.
“Hello? This is Walter Morrow! I was told to contact you if I saw anything suspicious and I think something really strange is going on."
Morrow had been released through use of the COCKTAIL, a chemical concoction that caused memory loss. As a Grey plant, Majestic-12 was using Morrow as a sort of catch-and-release program. To do anything more drastic might jeopardize the Accord and let the Greys know that Majestic was on to their meddling in the private sector.
“There’s a project I was working on before the--the incident with the PlayPal: PROJECT RELISH. It was taking place in one of the basement labs of our military hardware development center, but I’ve been denied access for security reasons. James Morton and Lisa Patterson, my colleagues, have become increasingly hostile and almost threatening. Several employees were electrocuted in what they’re calling an industrial accident. Yet,” Morrow sounded very tense, “the bodies were savaged, not burned, and the room it happened in contained nothing more than a few computers. You’ve got to help me!”
"Calm down," said Hammer. "Tell me where you—"
“I overheard Lisa saying it was, 'Mh’ithrha’s will,' in reference to the accident. What the—“ The phone went dead.
The storm grew worse. The lights flickered and the echoes of thunder grew louder.
"Since when does Morrow call us?" asked Jim-Bean.
Before Hammer could answer, his cistron rang again. He picked it up.
There was a long pause followed by a series of fast beeps and clicks, like an incoming fax only faster. When it stopped, all the lights went out. The apartment fell silent and dark, save for the glow of their cistrons.
"I don't like this," said Hammer.
His cistron displayed a series of jagged fractal-like images in a hypnotizing, nauseating, series of purple and blood-colored tints. Jim-Bean stumbled around in the dark.
"You okay?" asked Guppy.
"Just feeling a little…" gasped Jim-Bean. "Weak."
"It's draining his psychic energy," said Archive urgently. "Shut it off."
The fractals on the cistron suddenly changed, taking on a more tortured, angular look. The spiral effect became less and less distinct until it appeared to be a long, writhing tunnel. Odd text, possibly Arabic or Greek, sped across the screen, appearing and vanishing far too quickly to be read.
"Shut WHAT off?" asked Hammer. "I'm not even sure what's going on!"
"It's casting a spell!" shouted Archive. "Shut it off!"
Hammer placed the cistron on the kitchen counter and backed away from it, drawing his Glocks.
Something shot from the back of the screen to the front where it crouched, staring outwards, lashing at the glass, distorting the screen as it howls through the speaker. It had a lean, painfully thin canine form, its skin a coruscating sea of cyan and violet, reflecting the room on its shifting eyes and flanks, all sealed and coated with a dripping blue ichor.
Archive picked up the cistron to smash it, but a bolt of light shot from the screen into the corner of the room. In a flash, a dog-like thing was in the apartment.
Bluish pus coated the long, lean hound. The flowing, dripping integument gives the hound a half-formed appearance. Before Archive could complete the throw, it lunged at him.
Archive was knocked over as the blue, dripping hound pinned him. His companions all fired at it.
The guns sparked in the darkness. The bullets fired into the thing and through it, moving in slow-motion like a bullet-time effect out of the Matrix, punching out the other side without inflicting any damage.
A spiral, fang-tipped tongue punched a perfect hole in Archive's arm. He managed to shove the thing off of him.
The hound turned to face Jim-Bean, who backed out of the room, still firing.
Then Hammer was in its path. Trained in dealing with attack dogs, Hammer let it bite the back of his forearm and took a careful shot aimed between its eyes with his free hand. But the hound's tongue tore a seeping blue hole through his forearm and nearly reached his face.
Hammer fell back, helpless to do anything but keep the thing's tongue from punching a hole through his head.
Another pistol sparked, and this time it shivered and disappeared in a blue haze. It was Archive's pistol that did the trick.
The lights flickered back on.
"What WAS that?" asked Hammer, rubbing the blue hole in his forearm. It was painless. He could see right through to the other side.
"A Hound of Tindalos," said Archive. "They're predators. They generally only notice humans if they cross the boundaries of time and space."
The other agents looked at Hammer. He had already sent a message to himself from the future.
"Guppy, can you—"
"Already on it," said Guppy with a smile. "I triangulated the call. He's in Partridgeville, Massachusetts."
Hammer patted Guppy on the shoulder. "It's good to have you back. Let's go."
The sleepy old colonial town of Partridgeville was small and decaying, and had a New England air about it. There was a village green, narrow winding streets, clapboard cottages, and a white-steeple Congregational church. Out from the center of town, the streets broadened and straighten, and the yards were deep and shady. Out even further were housing developments and a shabby industrial area.
From the outside, Morrow’s house looked perfectly normal. It was a small, two-storied, country house with what appeared to be an attic, and was made from stone with a thatched roof. A van was parked outside. There was no sign of movement about the place, and all of the curtains were drawn closed, except in the attic where it looked as if the small gable windows had been painted over. The garden was well-trimmed, with several small rose-beds and a tall hedge enclosing it from outside observers.
“Phone line’s been cut,” said Hammer, pointing at where the wires would normally connect to the house.
They made their way inside, pistols out. Guppy disabled the alarm system and then unlocked the door.
Inside, the house was well-made, with thick stone walls and new wooden floorboards. All of the rooms combined to create the image of someone who was intensely house-proud, but at the same time loved old worn and used furniture. There were numerous antiques about, many of a simple, pine design. All of the floors were carpeted, and all the rooms were based around a central chimney which had fires in each of the three main ground floor rooms.
The entire house was curved. All the interior walls, windows, and furniture were formed without angles. It gave the normally rustic house a retro space-age look. The filling material was not part of the house proper, a sort of filler foam that clashed with the otherwise attractive home.
Archive looked around. “This is…this is very strange.”
“Spread out,” said Hammer. “Jim-Bean, Archive, see what you can find. Guppy, you’re with me.”
Jim-Bean called into the comm. link from downstairs. “Just a bunch of PlayPals networked together in the basement.”
“Playpals,” said Hammer. “The same kind Tucker was trying to find at WeeBee Toys.”
“The Navi chip,” said Guppy. “The same kind of chip that ran the Dreamweb. The Crystal Matrix AI created by the Greys…”
The study was a mess, in contrast to the rest of the house, with files scattered all around the twin desks, coffee spilled across reams of computer paper, and a chair pushed over onto its side.
“Someone’s been in his study,” said Hammer. “It looks as if someone was either searching for something or was surprised and subdued after a brief struggle.”
The main desk was dominated by a PlayPal 611. The vast majority of books in the book cases were scientific journals, computer manuals, with the occasional out of date local paper or copy of MUFON. On the desks themselves are much the same thing, as well as a large number of fact files on CCS products such as all their new hardware lists, peripherals, and the like.
“Jackpot,” said Hammer.
There was a stamped package addressed to Morrow, posted four days before the night of the storm. Hammer tore it open. It contained a DVD and a note. Hammer read it to the team.
“Looks like a warning from Wang-Li Gi, Morrow’s coworker, talking about a conversation with some sort of alien intelligence.”
“Warning about what?” asked Guppy.
“An experiment that CCS was conducting without Morrow’s knowledge: PROJECT RELISH.”
Guppy pulled out a portable DVD reader and plugged it into his cistron. Then he pushed the disc into the player and hit play.
There was a crackle and hiss of a tape as it started, then dropped into the sounds of people moving about a room. In the distance, a humming could be heard, along with several muffled voices talking in whispers.
“The system is on-line and running, doctor,” said a woman with a French accent. “We should have fully tapped the subjects in less than thirty seconds.”
An old man’s soft voice responded, “How are they holding up?”
“I think that’s Lisa Patterson.” Guppy scanned the note. “The man is James Morton.”
“At present, just as expected,” said Patterson. “Heartbeat down, along with blood pressure, and reduced brain activity, just as in the previous trials. The tapping method seems to create a form of tiredness that can’t be explained by the presence of fatigue poisons. It…wait. The PlayPal is up and ready. At your command, doctor.”
“On my count?” asked Morton. “What will see this time, eh? ‘The glory of Him who moves all things soe’er impenetrates the universe, and bright the splendor burns, more here and lesser there. Within that heav’n which most receives his light was I, and saw such thing as man nor knows, nor skills to tell, returning from that height.’”
“I’m sorry, sir?” asked Patterson. “I didn’t catch the reference.”
“Never mind Lisa,” said Morton. “Just do it now.”
“Yep, that’s Lisa Patterson,” confirmed Guppy.
There was a series of rapid clicks and an increasing hum, like enraged mechanical bees, until suddenly a vast roar broke the cacophony, along with the creak and groan of metal under stress. From far off, someone gasped, and a dreadful hissing was audible, broken by the noise of something lashing back and forth. After a moment of this, a mechanical voice spoke.
“WHO ARE YOU THAT YOU SHOULD DARE TO SUMMON ONE SUCH AS US THROUGH THE ANGLES?”
“Forgive me, Lord, if I have caused affront, but I had wished to speak to you as seeker to boon granter,” said Morton.
“BOON GRANTER?” said the mechanical voice. “YOUR SPEECH IS AS MUCH AN AFFRONT TO US AS YOUR THREE-SHAPED FORMS. WE SHALL TEAR AND REND WHAT REMAINS…VIRGINAL WITHIN YOU, LITTLE SHADOW.”
“God, that face, it’s like –“ began Patterson.
“GOD?” asked the voice. “YOU SPEAK OF OUR MASTER? OR DO YOU TALK OF WHAT YOU GROUNDLINGS HAVE MADE IN YOUR TEMPLES AND OFFERED PRAYERS TO? THE CREATOR WAS MADE IN YOUR IMAGE?! SUCH ARROGANCE! TO THINK YOU TIME-BOUND CREATURES ARE THE SUM OF ALL! YOU ARE NOT. YOU ARE THE SCUM ON THE SURFACE OF THE DARKNESS, THE (pause) FUNGI WHICH NEEDS TO BE SCRAPED CLEAN BEFORE THE POOL IS CLEAN AGAIN.”
“So you have a master?” asked Morton. “One who lies at the heart of the angles?”
“OUR MASTER IS NOT FOR ONE SUCH AS YOU TO HEAR OF. NOW RELEASE ME!”
The sound of metal being stressed increased and more roaring was audible.
“HOW CAN YOU CONTAIN US? HOW DARE YOU? NONE OF YOUR SORCERERS HAVE DONE SO!”
“Man must not rashly scorn science, eh?” asked Morton, bemused. “Simply choose and read with care to find true power, which lies in the grapes surrounded by thorns. Well, I have plucked the grapes, and they lie within my hand, as do you. Now, we do not bind one such as you without a gift. They lie there, enthralled at your presence. Their…virginal limbs, as you put it, are yours, in return for answers.”
There was a strange noise, like mechanical laughter. “THEN OFFER THEM TO USE AND WE SHALL SPEAK FURTHER, OF TIN’DALSOS, YOUR LIVES, AND OTHER BLOODY THINGS.”
The tape ended.
“Whoever Wang-Li was,” Guppy held up an employee data sheet. “He’s dead now.”
The data sheet contained a complete listing of all twenty-three CCS employees, from the janitor to James Morton. Three names, Wang-Li Gi, Edwin Walker, and Alexander Holcroft were scored out, with the words DECEASED written by them. Eight of the names were starred with an asterisk stating, “Access to military room granted. Why?” It was accompanied by a set of security passes all stamped with a digitized picture of Walter and all bearing the CCS logo.
“We found Morrow,” said Jim-Bean. “You’d better take a look at this.”
Hammer and Guppy came upon a swinging body, hung from the stairs. It was Morrow.
He was naked, with a full beard and shoulder length hair, both gray. His long fingernails hadn’t been cut in weeks.
“We found this note taped to his chest.” Jim-Bean handed Hammer a note. “It’s addressed to somebody named Melissa.”
“The answer might be in the wall safe we found in his bedroom.” Archive came out of Morrow’s bedroom. “But we can’t open it.”
Hammer nodded at Guppy.
“On it!” chirped Guppy. He disappeared into the bedroom.
Hammer scanned the note. “Blackened cities, twisted shells of buildings. Tortured souls penned for the spheres to feed on from between the planes. What does: Chu htn llo han zob kzad mean?”
“That’s a Tindalosian chant!” began Archive but it was too late.
Hammer saw hideous visions of an alien universe and a swirling mass of iridescent spheres. He blinked, stunned by the sight.
“What did you see?” asked Archive frantically. “What did you see?”
“Another place. Old…it’s hard to describe.”
“But it wasn’t an ocean, right?” asked Archive.
Hammer shook his head.
Archive relaxed a little. “Good. If you had a vision back far enough in time, the Hounds of Tindalos can track you back to here. Don’t…” Archive put one hand on Hammer’s shoulder. “Don’t read out chants in the future, okay?” He was sweating.
“Yeah,” said Hammer, shaken. “Sure. Let’s see what we’ve got in Morrow’s bedroom.”
This large bedroom had a picture on one wall of Morrow. A much younger Morrow stood in front of a plane with the words, “Air America,” scrawled on one side of it. A second picture showed Morrow, a bit older, with four young dark-skinned Asian boys. A third picture was actually a magazine cover: CENTURION COMPUTER SYSTEMS ACQUIRES TIGER TRANSIT.
Jim-Bean sniffed the air. “You smell that?”
Archive took a deep breath. “Rotting meat,” he said quietly.
“Guppy, Jim-Bean, you two work on that wall safe. Archive, you’re with me. Let’s go find out what’s in the attic.”
As Hammer opened the door, his nostrils were assaulted by the smell of rotting meat and the faint buzzing of flies.
“Got the safe open,” said Guppy over the comm. There’s a diary.”
“What’s it say?” asked Hammer. “We’re entering the attic now.”
“Someone named Cho Chu-tsao introduced Morrow to Blink,” said Guppy. “He made her his personal assistant. Then he signed proxy votes of Tiger Transit over to Matthew Lewis, making him Chairman of the Board and CEO. Sounds like he was addicted to the stuff.”
The attic was entered via a very steep staircase that led from the upper landing. Hammer and Archive ascended the stairs. The smell became progressively stronger and stronger until they stepped out onto a confined area, a room piled up to the sloping rafters with sheet-covered crates.
“Something went wrong,” continued Guppy. “Morrow took something new from the tcho-tchos, a more pure version of Blink. His mind went back, far back. Then he says something followed him to the present.”
Archive nodded. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
After exploring for a few minutes, they found a clear space and in its center, a sheet covered in odd scorched holes that seemed to form some sort of circle.
“It was Cho who had the house remodeled to remove all angles,” said Guppy. “Morrow hung on to his majority stock and if he died, Cho wouldn’t get any – he still had his ex-wife, Melissa, in his will. He wanted to transfer majority stock to somebody named Sang, but didn’t think it was safe. It looks like Morrow killed himself to screw everybody, and called us in the hopes that we would follow the trail back to CCS’s new headquarters.”
“Sang’s one of his four foster children,” said Jim-Bean. “He’s the one missing an arm in the one of the pictures on Morrow’s wall.”
Hammer knelt down to take a closer look. “The blood spatter pattern looks as if it were splashed over a figure lying on the sheet.”
Next to the mark was a long, bloodied knife with a curving wooden grip. Above it hung a large sheet, tied up to contain something, which dangled from the ceiling. Its bottom half was covered with blood.
“He asked Morton to look into controlling the thing that pursued him, on the side. He says the other tcho-tchos were visiting frequently and there were odd smells coming from upstairs…”
Just then the bag, soaked with blood, burst. Writhing maggots and reddish-brown organs spattered to the ground.
“Sacrifices,” said Archive, holding his nose. “They were trying to placate the Hound.”
“And instead it got sent to us using some virus program?” asked Hammer. “We’d better report this to Sprague…” he attempted to connect to Blacknet but his cistron was unresponsive.
“SINNER locked down Blacknet,” said Guppy. “Standard procedure for a security breach.”
“What can get through Blacknet’s defenses?” asked Hammer in bewilderment.
“Magic,” said Archive.
“Guys,” reported Jim-Bean urgently. “You’d better get down here. We’ve got company.”
Linear Mode
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