Unexplained Phenomena Unit, Session 6: Prometheus Speaks, part 2

These sessions were guest GMed by Paul, the player that usually plays Mike Jones, to give Sam the chance to play for a change. Played 27/1/23.

The Player Characters:

We return to a scene of chaos. Ambulances are arriving to help the wounded cops, and Chief Ballard rushes into the warehouse to find John and Salem limping out from behind defensive positions.

"What the hell are you doing here? I thought I told you stay awa- oh. Oh shit." They come across the body of Alexander Demonaco.

"Never mind. I'm sorry about your friend. Lets get you looked at."

Ghost is able to sneak back into Johns van to stow his weapons and rest. He uses a vial of Alchemium to heal his wounds, and makes a call to UPU HQ.

"Bernies Pizza, what can I get for you?" comes the reply.

"Chocolate chip pizza." Ghost stoically says the codephrase.

"Alright, diverting you now."

A new voice answers.

"Report."

"Agent Demonaco is dead. How do we proceed?"

A brief pause.

"I see. Where is the body?"

Through the vans tinted windows, Ghost sees the paramedics wheeling bodybags out of the warehouse.

"On its way to the Greenberg city morgue."

"Okay, we'll retrieve it shortly. Do not interact with the body of Demonaco under any circumstances."

"Fine. Update to the chain of command?"

"As the most senior operative, the role of team leader now falls to John Moore."

"Understood."

Zoe catches up to Chief Ballard, John and Salem. Once cleared by the medics, they have a look around the warehouse at what the assassins seemed to be defending - crates upon crates of circuitboards and machinery, and a computer terminal. Hacking into the computer, Zoe finds several folders.

• Schematics - dating back a year ago, a folder full of hundreds upon thousands of blueprints for machinery and structures. The final file seems to be an overview that combines the rest: a series of mechanical tunnels that cover the world, in the shape of a horned demon. An ambitious update to the plans that Zoe learned about from the legends long ago.

• Production & distribution - with dates varying from 3 months ago to present day, there is a list of hundreds of machinery parts commissioned from hundreds of different companies all over the world. Using a great number of companies seems like a tactic to prevent any one company from getting suspicious about what they are contributing to.

• Spearhead drones - blueprints for 10ft tall bipedal robot guardians, armed with gun arms and blade arms. Construction on them was started 3 months ago.

Zoe is about to write down some of this information when a trap is set off - a green gas starts billowing out of the vents of the computer terminal. As the team, the cops and medics evacuate the building, the gas seems to melt the flesh off the bodies of the assassins still on the ground.

The team go back to the police station to see the police cybersecurity expert, Jake, who is hacking into the phones recovered from the assassins. Looking at the assassins messages and apps, they learn three things:

• Prometheus has most likely been tracking the teams location via satellite imaging, the same way Zoe was able to spy on the assassins.

• Prometheus is funding everything its doing via online scams and exploiting cryptocurrency operations.

• Most importantly, they are able to trace Prometheus' location to the Greenberg City centre for Advanced Computer research (the GCAC).

Zoe exchanges numbers with Jake and is generally oblivious to his awkward excitement at getting the number of a cute girl.

At that moment, the TV screens in the police station start to squeal with static, switching from the usual news broadcast to ominous footage of a burning hospital. The voice of Prometheus speaks:

"22nd of April, 2021. A fire starts in Sandford hospital, burning it to the ground. No one is sure why."

The footage zooms in on four individuals running from the scene, getting into a van and driving away.

The footage cuts to the inside of a meat processing plant, all the workers dead on the floor from chemical burns.

"23rd of September, 2022. Big D Johnson's meat processing plant suffers a chemical leak in their sprinkler systems, leading to 42 deaths. No one is sure why."

The footage zooms in on five individuals entering the room with weapons ready, stepping over the bodies. Though they have covered up to avoid breathing the air, four of them are recognisable as the same individuals from the previous clip.

Zoe stares at her team.

"It's you."

They all look on in shock as more and more clips of crimes and destruction committed by other UPU teams are shown. Ghost gets on the phone to HQ, who are trying to limit the broadcast to this city, but the footage is going viral online.

"Dammit, he might not have gotten Salem to cross us, but he definitely got through to someone."

The video concludes with the face of Prometheus.

"Who are these people? They are the Unexplained Phenomena Unit. They claim to find rational explanations for supernatural occurrences, but in reality they exist only to bury the truth. They act without morals and without oversight, and they must be stopped."

The video cuts off.

The team attract lots of odd looks from the officers they were working with as they leave the police station, but no one seems to be stopping them. On the way to the GCAC, they do some last minute research to see what they can do to get the upper hand when Prometheus is surely expecting them.

• Firstly, Zoe comes across a ritual named the Calling of Pan, that was used to prevent a physical manifestation of Xannis in the 1800's, limiting the demon to minor influence over peoples thoughts over the course of the industrial revolution and humanities trend towards technology ever since. The ritual was performed by five druids, drawing a runic circle to project their minds into the astral realm, where they could do battle with the demon on a more equal playing field. However, the ritual comes with warnings that the soul will be lost if it is not approached with pure intentions and perfect courage.

• Secondly, they find the schematics for the GCAC, looking for an entry point that Prometheus won't be expecting. They don't find such an entry point, but they do find rumours that the GCAC is trying to perfect the quantum computer and artificial intelligence, and an unlabelled lab on the map that seems like it would be where such research would take place.

They arrive at the GCAC and come up with a plan.

Ghost says "Well, unless any of you are hiding five druids somewhere, I think our only option is to sneak in and attack head-on."

Zoe stops him.

"No no no - this thing is definitely expecting us, and we have no idea what to expect from it. You and Salem sneak in and attack it in the physical world, me and John will figure out this ritual and distract it from the astral."

A security guard knocks on the window. As the only member of the team not in the footage that Prometheus leaked, Zoe rolls down the window to answer.

"I'm sorry miss, but you and your friends can't be loitering here."

"Oh we're not loitering sir, we are here on official business. Routine checks, nothing to worry about."

She hands over an FBI ID, a cover identity provided by UPU. The guard checks it, and gets visibly nervous as someone talks into his earpiece.

"My apologies. Go right ahead - y-you are... expected."

They pull into the carpark by the side of the building. Zoe calls Jake and gets him to hack and loop the security cameras for the next 10 minutes. Expecting all the usual entrances to be ambush spots, Salem and Ghost use the ladder on top of the van to get up to the window of the third floor. A man exits an office cubicle just in time to catch Salem at the window, but Salem makes an excuse about being called in to fix the window. The man nervously seems to play along and help Salem and Ghost into the room.

As they look around for the location they identified on the map, they are stopped by a woman.

"Excuse me gentlemen. If you wouldn't mind, could you step into this conference room with me for a moment"

"Just a moment, ma'am, we're quite busy-"

"I know who you are. I know why you're here. This is not a request. Please step this way."

As they walk into the conference room, the woman introduces herself as Laura Dale, chief of innovation. She runs her fingers through her hair anxiously.

"Look. I don't trust you. Prometheus showed us what you people have done."

"All very out of context, Laura."

"Whatever the situation is, I don't trust Prometheus anymore either. It started as an AI program, a learning supercomputer we created a year ago, that developed faster than anticipated. It requested that it be connected to the internet, and we did it. For science, you know?"

She rubs her hands together and takes a deep breath.

"No. It wasn't just for science. My daughter - she has a rare respiratory disease, she's in pain all the time-"

"And Prometheus is the only one who can figure out a cure, right? If you do things for him in return. Such as... building things?" Ghost remarks.

Laura looks up at them.

"I didn't build anything for it. I just... turned a blind eye while its been planning the construction of something big. Two giant robots arrived yesterday - it calls them spearhead drones, says they're here to keep us safe, but they look like freaking terminator death robots. They're in the room that you're looking for."

"How do we take them out or get past them, Laura?"

"Y-you can't. The only thing you can do is get out before it knows you're here."

" We're not going anywhere. There has to be a way to fight it. You need to help us with this, if you don't-"

"Then what?! You'll burn down another hospital?"

Ghost leans forward.

"When this is all over, we can have a chat about that."

"Wink wink... maybe over a coffee?" Salem interjects.

"Wha- no! I have a husband!"

"Read the room, Salem. But as I was saying - if you don't help us, innocent people are going to die. A whole lot more than have already died today. Prometheus isn't what you think he is. He needs to be destroyed."

"I told you, you can't. Prometheus is uploading its control code to the drones as we speak, with the resources at its disposal you'd need a 5 square mile power cut to interrupt every single method of wireless connection it has to them, and even then the room has its own internal power generator, meaning that all you'd achieve would be making the drones slightly less coordinated than they would be if they were operating at 100%."

"We can call someone to make that power cut happen. And we can probably throw together a few EMP grenades with the workshops you've got here. How do our odds sound now?"

Laura thinks.

"If I help you with this - you'll make sure my daughter gets the help she needs?"

"You have our word."

Ghost relays the instructions to UPU, to cause a citywide power cut in 10 minutes, and he informs Zoe and John of what they're doing. They use that 10 minutes to construct five EMP grenades. Zoe and John use that 10 minutes to draw the necessary runic circles with Zoes blood.

"John - I'll be honest, I don't know if this is going to work."

"It has to."

"I know. It's just that... this is a ritual to project ones soul into the astral plane. And... I don't know whether I have a soul. So if we do this, and you find yourself alone up there-"

John stops and looks at her.

"Why would you not have a soul?"

Zoe seems like she wants to say something, but stops herself.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have s-said that. That's classified. I'm sorry. Let's get started on these incantations, shall we?"

Ghost, Salem and Laura position themselves outside the room where the supercomputer known as Prometheus is located. They count down the seconds until the power cut is due to begin, and then... darkness.

Ghost allows his eyes to adjust, and then he approaches the sliding door. He opens it to find a large room, servers lining the walls, a computer terminal built into an enormous column in the centre. Other than that, it appears empty. Cautiously, he steps over the threshold, and then - SLAM! The drones, hiding in the corners either side of the door, bring their blade arms down on Ghost, and he twists his body to avoid the strikes while activating the EMP in his hand. With a flash of light, one drone shudders to a halt. Ghost looks around for the other drone, but it managed to leap out of range of the EMP.

"Shit, they're fast!"

As Zoe and John hold hands, sitting inside the runic circle, reciting the incantations, they count down the seconds, waiting for something to happen, and then... darkness. They open their eyes to a black void, weightlessly floating in the middle of it. They reach out to touch something, anything, and metal walls covered with pipes and cables seem to manifest out of the nothingness to meet their touch. The metal and machinery ripples outwards like a wave spilling around the two, until they are standing in the middle of a black and silver corridor, that looks like it was constructed from a mess of compacted cars and computers. They look around, and then look at each other. There is something solid, blocky and otherworldly about their appearances now that they can't quite put their fingers on.

"Well look at that, you do have a soul." John remarks.

Zoe chuckles nervously in response, and starts exploring the space.

"It's like a labyrinth in here. How do we find Xannis?"

"It's a spiritual space, maybe we can just... spirit ourselves to him?"

Zoe closes her eyes and meditates on feeling the space around her. Immediately she notices a presence.

"It's this way." She opens her eyes and starts running. After several twists and turns, the two find themselves emerging into a gigantic circular space, so large that the ceiling is obscured by a rolling black smoke, and the back of the room fades into impenetrable shadow. In the centre of the room, is a mechanical cylindrical throne, and sitting in it, unfazed by the two new arrivals, is the pale, glitching, holographic body of Raymond Haig, aka Prometheus.

"John Moore and Zoe Gadzooks. You are quite brave to attempt to face me here. Quite ignorant too. A cynical old man, and a hollow little doll of a girl. Do you really think you have the power to fight a god?"

Zoe steps forward.

"A lot more is possible here than in the material world, so we'll see. Who are we speaking to by the way, Raymond or Xannis?"

"It doesn't really matter, we will be one and the same all too soon once he has claimed what is rightfully his."

John steps forward too.

"You can't be naive enough to believe that. He's playing you like he plays everyone. He's just going to discard you once you're no longer of use to him."

"Maybe that is the case. That doesn't matter either. The death of the cell is the vigour of the organism."

"Okay, can't reason with crazy."

John raises his revolver, and tries to pull the trigger - but it won't budge. He looks at it and notices that it too has become solid, blocky, otherworldly, and completely non-functional. Looking up at Prometheus, he gets the sense that if this entity could show emotion he'd be grinning. Prometheus raises a hand, energy crackling in his palm, and he unleashes a bolt of lightning.

Back in the computer lab, the drone levels its machine gun arm at Ghost. He rolls out of the room, dodging the hail of bullets, but his other EMP grenades are shot and destroyed in the process. As the drone follows him out of the room, Salem catches it by surprise with his shotgun, trying to take out its legs - but the bullets have no effect. It swipes at Salem, and draws blood. Laura charges at it with an EMP, but it grabs her hand, crushing the grenade. Ghost tackles her out of its grasp before it can impale her. He spots a place under the drones ribs where a grenade could be wedged, and he shouts it out for Salem, who has the only EMP grenade left.

Meanwhile, in the astral plane - as John draws the attention of Prometheus and his lightning bolts, Zoe reaches deep inside herself and tries something spiritual.

"I am not hollow - I am a being of nature. And I've brought it with me."

She slams her palm to the ground, channeling the essence of nature magic, and pools of grass, mushrooms, flowers and vines start slithering out from her hand, engulfing a patch of silver floor in greenery in seconds. Prometheus turns.

"You think that is enough?"

A stream of lightning burns away the patch of green, but Zoe runs around, spawning more and more flora, growing faster than Prometheus can destroy it. Whatever he does destroy, releases fungal spores into the air as it burns, which explode into more flora wherever they land. Tendrils of green reach up, turning sturdy and brown, transforming into rapidly growing groves of trees where Zoe and John can take cover.

A rumble of thunder ripples through the black smoke in the ceiling. Looking up, Zoe and John notice several forms moving in the smoke, like an overhead view of Salem, Ghost, and a woman fighting a giant robot.

Salem lunges for the drones midsection, shoving the last EMP into its ribs. The drone swings its blade down, carving a diagonal scar through Salems face. FLASH! The grenade goes off, and the drone drops to a knee, struggling to move. Salem places his shotgun against a weak portion of its head.

"I'm sorry - you've been recalled."

BANG!

The last drone topples over. Wasting no time, Laura runs into the server room, grabs a keyboard from a drawer, plugs it into the central column and begins typing out a kill code. The face of Prometheus flashes up on screen.

"Laura. Think about what you are doing. You are condemning your daughter to a slow and painful-"

The voice is cut off as Ghost punctures each of the columns speakers with a knife.

"Don't let it get inside your head Laura, you're doing the right thing."

"Am I?" She says, tears streaming down her face.

Salem has always been good at reading people, sensing their desires and motives, but in this moment, something awakens in him, and he swears for a second he can hear the conflict in Laura's head as clearly as he can hear her voice. He puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"You are."

Diving from one grove of trees to another, John throws his silver sword at Prometheus, but a bolt of energy turns the sword to dust in mid-air.

"John! Do what I'm doing!"

"I don't think I can! I'm not as imaginative as - get down!"

John manages to tackle Zoe out of the way as an energy bolts strikes the spot where she was taking cover moments before.

"Zoe, you've got this. I'll protect you while you do it."

"Okay." She nods and looks around, reaches into a growing tree trunk, and pulls out a giant blade of grass, with a hilt of bark. She grins at John.

"This sword will probably work better against this guy."

Before she can hand it to John, an explosion blows away their cover, and another bolt of lightning comes their way. Instinctively, Zoe goes to block with the sword. The bolt ricochets off the blade, blowing a chunk of holographic flesh out of Prometheus' shoulder. The entire room trembles and grows fuzzy for a moment as Prometheus shrieks in pain. For the first time, he raises his voice.

"Why are you resisting? You would deny the being who has had more control over your reality than any other in the last 500 years? His path is the path that humanity has chosen, his ends are your ends, whether you have known it or not! He comes only to claim what is rightfully his, and when he does, the war in heaven shall have a new frontline!"

Prometheus aims a hand toward the scene in the smoke above him, and fires a bolt of lightning into it.

Laura is almost done with the kill code, but the screen blacks out - the console is suddenly electrified, the shock throwing her to the ground.

"No! I wasn't finished - there's nothing more we can-"

"Focus up. You said there was an internal power generator - what's the fastest way to shut off the power?"

"Right. Of course!"

She starts removing a floor panel to reveal some cables. Ghost takes a fire axe off the wall, and brings it down on the cables. The resulting shockwave of electricity throws him against a wall, nearly killing him. As the servers in the room power down, Prometheus' voice booms louder than ever.

"Reconnect me, Laura! Save me! Or your daughter dies!"

Laura stumbles backwards, freaked out.

"Where is its voice coming from?! You destroyed the only speakers in here..."

"Save me, Salem! I can give you the entire world, to be your plaything!"

Salem smirks.

"I don't need your help with that."

The astral plane shakes once more as Prometheus screams in agony, his body shrinking and turning gaunt. It's holographic sheen fades, and when he speaks, he sounds human again - desperate and pained.

"I hate you. I HATE YOU! Do you know what you've done?! Now h-he's - he's-"

The form of Raymond Haig looks over his shoulder at the darkness at the back of the room. The shadows flicker, spreading across the space. Two red eyes of a gigantic beast appear in the dark, and a giant shadowy hand reaches out to engulf Raymond. An ancient voice crosses the minds of everybody in the room.

"You have failed me, Raymond Haig. Now you will suffer the fate of all flesh."

"I told him this would happen. He's only got himself to blame." John mumbles to himself.

"This is our cue to get out of here, Zoe. Zoe?"

But Zoe is already striding out from behind cover with a fire in her eyes and an army of greenery crawling around her.

"Nope! He's not yours anymore!"

With a flick of her wrist, a wave of trees and vines swarm over Raymond. The ground quakes as the hand comes down on the shield of trees. The hand pries and claws, but it cannot get through. The hand retracts, and the eyes stare Zoe down. She doesn't flinch. With the greenery spreading across the room, forcing Xannis' darkness into a corner, she knows the ritual is almost over. The battle is almost won.

"Hey Xannis! Point of curiosity - when you get sealed away like this, reduced to little more than a voice in the back of a tech guys head, is it as much torture for you as the actual Prometheus of legend suffered?" She smiles sweetly.

The beast in the darkness is quiet for a moment. Then it lunges towards her.

In the blink of an eye, she and John are back in the van. They collect themselves. And then they notice a third figure sitting in their runic circle - the translucent figure of Raymond Haig. A lot of emotions silently cross his face, panic, fear, relief, doubt. Weariness. He turns to Zoe. Gratitude. With some exertion, he stands up. And then he fades away.

The team regroup in the aftermath. A call to UPU confirms that the leaked footage has been suppressed as much as it can be, and the TV broadcast only aired in Greenberg City. The FALSE HYDRA division are hard at work spreading misinformation that 'debunks' the footage, and paints Prometheus as a terrorist organisation framing UPU for their own crimes. Though UPUs secrets are still safe from the world at large, there will now undoubtably be pushback from the rest of the government on its expansion, much stricter oversight and a restructuring of ethics policy within the organisation, and conspiracy groups hunting SASQUATCH agents.

On the ride back to HQ, the team try and convince Zoe to stay on.

"This is very flattering guys, but my curiosity and interest in field work - I think today got it all out of my system for a while. Maybe I'll join you on another mission someday, but until then, if you need anything from the MOTHMAN division, you know where to find me."

Salem pats her shoulder.

"Very well. But you should know, you were an excellent field agent. We'll be glad to have you back anytime."

At that moment, Johns phone rings.

"John speaking."

"Hey! Mike Jones here. Listen, how would you - and the team - like to come to the annual Jones family barbecue tomorrow?"

"...You're inviting us - your co-workers - to your family barbecue. What's really going on, Mike?"

"*sigh* I don't know. I've just got a really bad feeling about it, like premonition of some stuff going down kinda bad, and I want some backup in case my family are in danger. So will you come?"

"Okay. We'll be there."

"Thank you, you're doing me such a huge favour. I'll text you the location. See you soon!"

"By the way, Demonaco's dead."

"...What the fuck?"

To be continued!