Nomadic:Sessions:20180407

It's around sundown. The group discusses the situation. Veritas is bad, Collective is bad, Threepoint is meh. Marcus: "Pit Veritas versus Collective and let them destroy each other."

Vincente asks Carmella, "Do you feel a pull?" "Very faint, moving on Main Street toward the highway." Vincente tells Valerie to locate that car. Rick will send up a camera drone.

Marcus checks over the Navigator -- it's clean -- and gets into the driver's seat. Vincente claims shotgun. Valerie reports sighting their quarry, two large sedans and a large SUV. Approaching a gas station, Marcus notes what appears to be one of Collin Media's cars; the man filling the tank is wearing a shoulder holster.

The caravan turns south and Valerie reads off the license plate of the rearmost sedan. They're on the road leading to the airport, but as Valerie comments, "They haven't finished their business here." Vincente calls Lori Griffith. "Lori, are you trying to escape?" "No." "You're not gonna leave me?" "I'm not ready for a divorce, honey." "Tell me what you're doing with the souls?" "No." "Want to tell me where you are?" "Not really." "Are you walking?" "I'm not crippled yet." "If I don't get some cooperation I'm going to become upset, and I will turn to Agent 13 [Marcus], and he turns to Agent 11 [Valerie], and vehicles blow up." (Vincente is conveying the idea that we are a much larger group than Griffith knows about.) "That was inconveniencing." "I had to give Agent 11 something to do." "It was precise. The vehicle is mostly intact. ... Where are you?" "Heading east on Main Street." "We might run into each other." "You're not between towns?" "... Hold, please, I have another call." Vincente hangs up.

Valerie turns onto the road leading to the airport, and passes Wade Miller and Maya Cobb about to turn south. Valerie turns around and watches them. Vincente calls Wade, who tells him, "We're heading down to Bishop. We were checking flights at the airport, activity from Veritas' private jets." Vincente: "So you're being followed." Marcus tells Valerie that the Collin Media caravan did not turn at the airport.

Wade: "I sped up and the vehicle behind me is keeping pace." "There are three men coming to kill you... I am nominally on your side. We didn't mean to save you, but we like Maya." Sedan3 behind Wade guns it and pulls into the passing lane beside him.

Marcus pulls up behind sedan2 (rearmost) and flips on his high beams. There are three men in the car. Marcus performs a perfect PIT maneuver and sedan2 spins off the road, rolling completely over once. Valerie, who had passed the caravan, flips the hypercycle around and runs up and over sedan3's hood, damaging the engine and causing the driver to crap his pants.

Marcus is making a beeline for the SUV. Vincente: "Shoot out the tires?" Marcus: "You do it, you're just sitting there." With three shots Vincente shreds another tire.

Valerie flips the cycle around again. Sedan4 brakes hard and flips on its high beams. The SUV, despite the shredded tire, makes a controlled veer to the right. Marcus accelerates to catch sedan1, calling to Vincente, "Keep shooting!" Vincente puts two shots into the SUV's left rear tire.

Valerie, behind and to the left of sedan4, sees it accelerate. The SUV strikes something and rolls over onto its passenger side. Marcus pulls behind sedan1 and taps its bumper; sedan1 spins out. Valerie rolls up and over sedan4, shattering its windshield.

All the vehicles come to a stop. Marcus grabs his gun and heads for one of the sedans, while Vincente heads for the SUV. A man is trying to crawl out of the driver's window of the SUV. Vincente fires into the SUV and the man raises both hands. Marcus sees two people moving inside the sedan, their seat belts off; he shoots and disables the engine. Valerie flips the cycle around, sees a man pulling a gun; she fast-draws and fires and the man slumps.

Marcus' targets place their hands on the dashboard; Marcus motions to them to roll down the window. "Are any of you guys in charge?" One man answers, "He's in the SUV." "Thanks!" replies Marcus, shooting both men as well as the unconscious man in the back seat. Walking toward Vincente, Marcus radios, "The leader's in the SUV."

Vincente motions the SUV driver to get face-down on the ground, then steps on his back and casts Flash inside the SUV. He hears something scraping on the grass on the other side of the SUV. The interior of the SUV is messed up and the two people inside are unconscious or dead. Vincente wonders how the fourth person got out. "Marcus, cover him; someone's on the other side." Marcus: "No problem, just one second." He had noticed sedan4, its lights off, trying to creep away; he aims and fires through its engine block. Sedan4 splutters to a stop about 100 yards away; three doors open and three men scramble out and hide behind the doors.

Vincente, indicating the SUV driver, says to Marcus, "Make sure he doesn't move." Marcus: "How much do you want him to move?" Valerie shoots sedan3's driver dead; there's no one else in that car.

Vincente levitates above the SUV. The man squatting beside it looks up at him and Vincente shoots him three times. He sees the man start bleeding and his face contort with pain, but the man stands up with a 9mm pistol in one hand and a packet in the other which he throws beneath Vincente. Vincente recognizes the packet as being like the one Diane Addison had had; he dives forward as the packet bursts, creating a no-mana zone. Vincente tackles the man to the ground (outside the no-mana zone) and says, "Hi, I'm Agent 12." He puts his gun to the man's head; foolishly the man tries to slap the gun away, and Vincente puts three bullets through the man's head.

Marcus fires at one of the sedan4 guys, who drops out of sight. Valerie speeds toward sedan4. Vincente teleports three yards behind sedan4. Marcus aims at another guy who is aiming at Valerie.

Marcus fires and that guy drops out of sight. Valerie 'hops' the cycle onto sedan4, slamming the driver's door into the guy hiding behind it. "Dayum," says the guy behind the passenger door. Vincente says, "I agree," and shoots the man three times in the back.

Marcus gets the SUV guy to turn over and tries to decide whether he looks important. He doesn't seem to be a leader type. Marcus sticks the muzzle of his gun in the guy's mouth, then yanks out a fake tooth. "Congratulations," he says, then zipties the man.

Vincente collects the pistol clips from sedan4; some of the bullets are marked with runes. Valerie flips up her visor and asks, "Wanna ride?" Vincente "hugs his snuggle bunny" and says, "Let's go."

Wade Miller has approached the scene, and Vincente tells Rick, "Engage him." Valerie and Vincente push the disabled vehicles off the road, Vincente collecting the pistol clips. They pick up bodies from the pavement and place them inside the vehicles. Marcus pulls two unconscious men out of the SUV, pulls their fake teeth, and zipties them. A search of the SUV leads Marcus to label them a "takedown squad"; he finds ten tiki torches, an interrogation kit, several shotguns, a laptop, and spy equipment. He IDs the dead mage as Milo Monteroi.

Marcus addresses the one conscious man from the SUV, "I got bad news -- we killed Milo." Vincente adds, "Milo's stupid. I had a gun to his head and he tried to get away." Marcus: "We only have room for one of you." Thoroughly cowed, the man gives his name, Frederick Huntington. Vincente: "Where's Lori?" FH: "Mammoth Lake." Marcus: "Can you take us to her?" FH: "Yes." Vincente: "Where in Mammoth Lake is she?" FH: "The Red Roof Motel." FH and the other two are loaded into the Navigator, and by 8:45pm we are headed back to Mammoth Lake.

Vincente phones Lori, who answers, "Yeah, 'Johnson'." "Do you know a Frederick Huntington?" "Yes." "Would he know your location?" Griffith doesn't respond, and Vincente continues, "You're on Plan C, which was Milo, right?" He rattles off details from Monteroi's ID. At this Griffith curses angrily and at length, ending with, "The devil must be riding on your shoulder!" "I think you've mislabeled those parties. By the way, I figured out Diane's device; that's nasty. I fell out of the sky on top of Milo. Caught me by surprise..." Aside to FH, Vincente says, "Fred, Lori says you don't know where she is, so I'm going to shoot you with whatever was in Milo's gun. Lori, do you want me to shoot Fred?" "...No." FH looks surprised at this, and Vincente nods at him, "You did your work."

Back to Lori. Vincente asks, "Do you have another plan? Are you going to tell me what's going on? Why are you after Wade and Maya?" "We might use them as leverage against you." Marcus interjects, "She must be as dumb as Milo!" Vincente: "We left your people thirty miles outside Mammoth Lake. Their cars aren't driveable. We're going to give you Frederick back." FH speaks up, "Let my two companions come with me. We've been a squad for a while." Vincente: "You know she's going to kill you." FH: "No, she'll treat me fair." Vincente to Lori: "We're headed for the Red Roof Motel. Be there soon. Are you running out of people?" Griffith: "That was painful. ... You should be careful; the devil makes weird deals. I'd advise you to take them captive and interrogate or kill them." Vincente: "I'm going to talk to Agent Johnson. Bye."

Marcus: "You're really pissing her off." Vincente: "You'll have to kill Frederick and friends." Marcus: "I thought you weren't going to kill them." Vincente: "I said I wouldn't. Fred, what do you know that would make you worth our while?" FH: "I'm not high enough in the organization to do you any good." Vincente: "I am offering you a quick clean death. They will torture and interrogate you." FH tries to argue for letting him go. Marcus points out: "If I don't let you go, you won't try to kill me again." Vincente: "You could just shoot him in both hands." FH offers: "You could break my legs, too. I wouldn't recover before this operation is over."

Marcus pulls over the Navigator. Marcus pistol-whips FH, knocking him out, then shoots all three captives in the head. He and Vincente drag the bodies into some shrubbery.

We stop at a coffee shop and converse with Wade (Maya says very little). Vincente: "Wade, have you found out what they're doing with the souls?" Wade: "We've found out some things. I'd notified my Threepoint contact regarding Mammoth Lake, Bodie, and Bridgeport, and that something is going on -- ghosts, mages deployed -- and that Empowerment Collective is here also. I expect Threepoint will send a team. I told them we had unknown allies and suggested we offer an alliance." Maya is not yet an official Threepoint operative, so Wade is the only one in the Mammoth Lake area. Vincente: "Did I tell you we met two Collective mages more powerful than me, though not as smart? Their names are Elma Allan and Pierre Barlow." Wade: "I had observers on Elma in Los Angeles." Vincente: "Maybe they're dead. By the way, you're welcome -- they sent eleven people to bag-and-tag you. They had a torture kit. Lori Griffith thought she could use you as leverage against us; we had fun with Maya the first night, but that was all." Wade admits: "I got instructions to disengage, so we were headed to Bishop. My Threepoint team is supposed to arrive tomorrow. I don't know when I picked up those Veritas tails."

Vincente calls Information and gets the number for the Red Roof Motel, then calls and asks for Lori Griffith. "One moment, please," responds the desk clerk. The phone rings several times, then the desk clerk comes back on the line. "I'm sorry, sir, there's no answer." "Tell her Agent Johnson came by."

Vincente phones Griffith. "Evenin'. You're not answering your phone. Would you come to the door?" "Oh, sure. Room 204." "Not ready to give up?" "There's still a lot of track to run. ... Scott is present in Mammoth Lake, with me in all the ways that are important. ... I can't see you out the window." "I can see the inn." "Would you tell me your real name?" "Vincente." "And your last name?" "I'm afraid that would get you killed." "I'm deeply concerned." "You can see the old brown Buick, so why can't you see me?" "Come on up." "I have the bullets from Milo's gun." "It takes days to make each bullet!" She rattles off a Los Angeles address and says Vincente can ship the bullets there, since he offered to give them back. Vincente: "Talk to you later."

Wade says that Lori Griffith took a delivery of crates from the airport and picked up thirteen people, including Lynwood White. Another twelve people arrived at 6pm with a man named Cyrus Barry in charge.

Vincente phone Griffith. "Can I speak to Cyrus?" "Cyrus is busy."

The group has another conversation about what Veritas and Collective might be doing.

Vincente studies Carmella again. "Something has strengthened her. I think she's feeding off our dimensional energy." Carmella: "There's a different light around you all. Yours (Vincente) is more sparkly. With that man (Wade), I sense something waiting to break out that can't. On the other hand, she (Maya) is like everybody else. The tiki torches attract me. They feel 'right' and 'normal'."

Marcus asks Wade for photos of Lori, Scott, and Cyrus. Lori is 5'7", 37 years old, brown hair, light blue eyes. Vincente phones Lori. "You're pretty." "We're going down the rabbit hole and pulling it in after us." "You have to finish by the full moon, right?" "Keep talking, I find this very entertaining. I'm going somewhere to set something up. We know you drive a Navigator." "We're going to find more of your people."

Valerie: "Maybe Lori is from 'somewhere else,' too."

Carmella is sent to check room 204. "No one there, just explosives, detonators, and a camera." Valerie slips out into the darkness and looks around. She picks up a sloppily placed video camera and carries it with her while she goes to room 204 and blows open the lock.

Vincente points out a man in a car with a laptop. Marcus: "Shall we exchange insurance information?" He bumps the Navigator into the car's rear end. The man jerks his head around; recognizing Marcus and Vincente moving toward him, his face goes very pale and he stammers, "Go ahead and kill me!" But Vincente persuades him to talk. His name is Hector Dyer. "Lori was taking a bunch to Bishop. She told me where to meet." Marcus: "How pissed off was she?" HD: "Very." Marcus: "Sorry, Hector. You've been helpful." Carmella, who Valerie had sent over there to "see the ghost," excitedly asks Vincente, "Want me to try to stop it?" Vincente: "Sure." As soon as Marcus pulls the trigger, HD's ghost emerges, begins to take humanoid form, but is immediately pulled northward. Carmella grabs hold of it but it drags her a good fifteen feet. Vincente: "Let go, Carmella." Instantly the ghost zips away.

Somehow Lori Griffith knew Wade and Maya were headed to Bishop. Vincente:" You might have someone on your team who's not on your team." (Valerie had suggested earlier that they had a mole.)

We decide to go north. Wade volunteers to stay with us. Vincente: "You weren't in your room, but thanks for the explosives."

Vincente calls Griffith. "Hector said you'd be in Bishop." LG: "Of course I'm not in Bishop." Vincente: "Guess I'll have to find out. ... You've saved so much in employee costs, now you're under budget." LG: "You're bad for my bottom line." In a sudden about-face, Griffith continues, "I've grown to like your voice. The time is come for a face-to-face. Tell me when and where and I will come." Vincente: "How about the Mountain Peak in Bridgeport in :45?" LG: "It'll take me at least an hour. Let's say midnight."

Vincente (as Agent Smith) calls Elma Allan. "You wanna go to a bar? I'm having drinks with someone you consider the devil. No funny business, though. The other party will come with more people, so don't come 'under-dressed'. I'm trying to broker a deal -- come on down, the price is right!" EA: "Do they know I'm coming." Vincente: "No."

By 11pm we arrive at the Mountain Peak. Vincente goes to the bar and arranges for a private room, a big table, and a liquor setup. Marcus sets up cameras and so on, and chats up the staff (and throws a little money around).

Teddy Buckley, the "D&D kid" (who died of cancer at age 20), wanders up; he says he had been pulled into a tiki torch but he "bounced out." Carmella tries to explain, "We exist in a space apart from the living, and that area has more energy to it, which enhances our strength and perceptions to differing degrees. The more energy we have, the less likely we are to fall in."

Vincente notes that the mana level for "spiritual matters" is -2. He casts Seek Gate and there are none within ten miles, which would include the ghost town of Bodie.

The time is 11:30pm.