Protagonists#

• Short, Lance - Agent Myra - Foreign Service Officer (John)
• Tucker, Jamal - Agent Sentinel - U.S. Secret Service - Personal Protective Detail Division (Panagiotis)
• Veronica Mare - Agent Artemis - Professor of Anthropology (Tasos)
• Bennet, Wendy - Agent Locke - Criminal Intelligence Analyst / Assistant Professor of Criminology (Konstantina)
• Coniglio, Heath - Agent Blacktail - FBI Intelligence Case Officer (Istvan)

What in the World happened to Agent Artemis? - Wednesday, October 23rd, 2019#

Agent Artemis describes to the other agents what happened to her in the alternative universe / timeline:

• She tumbled down a gravel road, after the car she was riding vanished.
• Found herself standing in front of a trailer park. A sign read “Frosty Pines”.
• One of the trailers had a mailbox with the name Wallace stenciled on it.
• Entering the house, she found a white man, in his thirties, dressed in a formless white jumpsuit. Asked for identification, he gestured to the barcode tattooed on the back of his neck.
• The man started talking about whether she was one of the “Patriots” and telling her that he is a “Reformed White”.
• The door was kicked in man a man she recognized as Robert Wallace, but more mature and muscular.
• General Wallace said, “This safe house is blown! I can’t believe the Baptists sent you here. A Jade Helm team is already gonna be on the way.”
• He pointed to the occupant and ordered her to “Shoot this race traitor now and come with me if you want to live.”
• Looking outside the window, she saw an SUV arriving and a fireteam of men in black jeans and shirts, black berets and bandana masks, and what can only be described as sci-fi power armor.
• General Wallace angrily mutters, “ANTIFA Super-Soldiers. Those bastards.”
• He grabbed the occupant from behind and was about to shoot him
• Artemis, Wallace and the occupant saw their surroundings suddenly change into a small, cramped and dirty trailer.

Leaving Bangor Behind#

Agent Myra convinces Officer Kim Bowman to keep everything that has happened to herself. She promised to claim that she hadn’t seen them after driving them to the trailer park.

Myra discovers a USB flash drive with a label attached to it. It has “WAKE UP COZ!” written on it.

Agent Sentinel coordinates Working Group Masticate to destroy all evidence of their activities, cover their tracks, and burn down the trailer, as well as the dead bodies of Cordell Wallace and the Barcode Man.

They let Agents Locke and Blacktail know that they are driving to New York, with General Wallace.

Powell in Custody#

Agents Locke and Blacktail, along with Audra Powell, are taken to New York’s FBI HQs.

Talking to Powell makes it clear that she is completely gone, her mind destroyed by seeing her life’s victorious crusade against the unnatural reversed into the hellish present.

The Agents brief Pitzerelli on the incident events at Kerber Wilson and Associates.

Regarding Powell, he lets them know that any fingerprint or DNA evidence matching existing records will be dismissed as filing errors. She will spend the rest of her days in a mental institution.

Interrogating Agent Taylor#

Agent Blacktail visit Agent Taylor at the hospital. The latter Taylor informs that NARNIA was investigating a recent mass shooting that the media dubbed the “Friday Night Massacre.”

It happened eight days before Bradley McKay’s sorority shooting.

Two men, Cavdet Onur and Seyfettin Vedat, fired into the crowd at a high school football game in Oleander, Pennsylvania, killing 23 and wounding 12.

They carried ID cards written in Arabic that purported them to be citizens of the Global Caliphate of the Peace of God, a nonexistent nation. The cards say they were issued on dates that convert from the Islamic calendar to 2119 and 2121 A.D.

The killers used weapons of no known make or model: suppressed rifles apparently derived from Kalashnikov designs but chambered for 5.40×40 mm cartridges seen nowhere else.

Their phones were made by a no-known manufacturer. Cached data reveal online debates where Onur and Vedat argue for the need for ongoing jihad to maintain the purity of their faith. They sometimes shared imaginative tales of battling blindly murderous American or Russian nonbelievers.

Picky Eater was installed on both phones. Powell cross-referenced the app’s name to the Charles Bower case and is out pursuing any connection. The app’s specifications are identical to those found on every device.

Interrogating General Wallace#

Working Group Masticate gathers at a secluded area and interrogate General Wallace’s:

• Talks after he discovers that President Trump is still in office.
• He thinks of himself as a heroic time traveler destined to prevent “The Fall.”
• He wants to assassinate the entire Democratic party “before it’s too late”.
• He doesn’t know much about where PICKY EATER came from. He got his copy off a flashdrive gifted by his cousin, Vicky King.
• He has no contact with the woman and assumes she was rounded up by the “IRS sweeps.”
• He says PICKY EATER is a vital tool of “the Resistance.” It protects against government surveillance and helps find “true” news sources that supply Patriots with “intel.”
• He recalls first sharing the protocol with an old online friend, Bradley
• McKay though that was many years ago.
• General Wallace has made sure PICKY EATER is installed on all devices used by “his soldiers.”

The Agents decide to hand him over to Pitzerelli.

Further Infections#

Agent Blacktail receives a phone call from his brother Brad. He finds out the app is installed on his dumb phone. Agent Sentinel destroys it by crushing it with his foot.

Vicky King’s Residence - Thursday, October 24th, 2019#

Working Group Masticate investigates Vicky King:

• Records show Vicki King worked as tech support for Pennsylvania State from 2017 to 2018.
• She currently has no records of employment.
• Before working IT for that campus, she was a mathematics graduate student at MIT.
• She left without a degree in 2016.
• Her advisor was Dr. Wesley Cool.
• She gave birth to two girls in early 2017, twins Eryn and Shelia. They have no father listed on their birth records.

Then drives to Kick Springs on the outskirts of State College, Pennsylvania to meet her:

Agents Myra and Locke in one vehicle. Neither of them possesses any electronic devices.

Agents Artemis, Blacktail, and Sentinel in Blacktail’s Pontiac. Sentinel still clinging to his smartphone, while Artemis carrying Pitzerelli’s burner phone.

Agents Artemis, Blacktail and Sentinel#

A sun-faded foreclosure sign has been stabbed into the overgrown grass in front of King’s two-story Cottage-style house. A car covered in old leaves and a layer of pollen remains in the driveway.

The mail slot in the front door is jammed with soggy junk mail. A private fence around the small backyard is locked.

Agents Locke and Myra#

Plywood has been nailed across the windows and doors of King’s two-story Victorian house. There’s no car in the driveway. A laminated notice stapled to the boards claims the property has been “excommunicated for failure to facilitate Right of Harvest.” The order proclaims, “enforced social death for Vicki King and any co-habitants, until such time as The Fruit is returned for rightful custodial conscription to lawful authorities.” The letterhead comes from an organization called “National Child and Family Services,” a federal office that does not exist.

A privacy fence around the small backyard is locked.