Convergence

[Silver Priest]

"Did you now? Who knew they were so reasonable. I'm glad y'all didn't do anything too foolish." To Vanessa's indictment of them betraying their country, he looks briefly annoyed, but he covers for it by pushing Sonja towards them.

"Take her, then. Believe it or not I don't want to kill anyone I don't need to, especially not a pretty lil' thing like her. Have fun dealing with her."

Sonja wastes no time running towards the agents.

"Now get out of here. Be Seeing You." He gives another grin, his gold teeth shining in the sun.

All three of them have heard the phrase before. Emails from Delta Green always ended with it.

OOC:   What now? You guys planning to walk away or did you want to do something else.

[HoneyDog]

"Let's get out of here then" Nik says to the others. "l don't think there's much more we can do right now".

Still covering the enemy agents, he indicates for Sonja to join them.

"Why don't you leave first?" he tells the leader. "We don't want to get shot in the back."

[Mr. Handy]

"You can drive," says Vanessa to Jose.

[Silver Priest]

"I appreciate the offer, but we have business here. Guess you folks will just have to trust my generous nature." He offers Nik a shark-like grin.

Anyone who wants can make a Humint roll.

Success,He seems to be telling the truth, he's going to let you go. Whether he's unwilling to hurt you or simply uninterested, he appears unwilling to press the matter. but he's acting casual. If any of you turn hostile you suspect he'd react very quickly and with deadly intent.

Fumble only,He's lying. He's going to shoot you in the back as soon as your back is turned.

[HoneyDog]

HUMINT,73: [url=https://orokos.com/roll/777312]HUMINT[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]25[/b]

Not wanting the others to get hurt, Nik doesn’t press the point any further, and backs up to the car.

”Get in Sonja” he says, and climbs in the rear of the car.

OOC:   Shouldn’t Nik be dead soon?

[Silver Priest]

OOC:   Remember you guys came in two cars,so I imagine you will split the difference and send some in both.

Nik backs off, half expecting a bullet, but it never comes.

Sonja looks at him with wide eyes as he gets in the car. "Did you find Allen? We can't just leave-- we have to get him back! And what about those men, who do they work for?" She continues to barrage Nik with questions like any good reporter, but is interrupted by the sound of his cell phone ringing.

If he answers,[color=#004000]"Agent Siilasvuo. It's good to speak with you again-- though I do wish it had been under better circumstances[/color]." [b]Nik[/b] recognizes the accented cultured voice of [b]Stephen Alzis[/b]. Warned away from doing business with him by Delta Green, the agent had nonetheless made a deal with him in exchange for him telling the team the location of kids a terrorist organization had kidnapped. They managed to save the kids, and in return [b]Nik[/b] had had to deliver a book to a bookstore somewhere in NYC, after which [b]Alzis[/b] considered their deal done. But that he was calling now was probably not a coincidence, and his next words confirm it. "[color=#004000]While I would love to continue this small talk, I regret to inform you that you will very shortly be dead. Please don't ask how I know; my ways are unable to be comprehended by most of your kind. Regardless, you've proven a valuable asset to me so far, and they take some work to cultivate. So I've an offer for you. In exchange for a favor sometime in the future, I will save your life. But please respond quickly; your death spasms will start within 30 or so seconds,and conversation after that will become a good deal more difficult[/color]." The choice was [b]Nik's[/b]. Would he accept the offer, refuse it, or try to learn more information about it, bearing in mind that every second here counted? [ooc]You should probably reply outside of spoiler boxes, given Sonja and anyone in the car would hear your side of the conversation. Also if you've forgotten Stephen, Nik's specific interaction with him shows up in the last page of See No Evil.[/ooc]

[HoneyDog]

Nik listens, hesitates for a moment, and speaks.

”There’s another you need to help too, who was caught up in this. Jane Allen. If you can’t help her, or won’t, forget it”.

[Mr. Handy]

"Sonja, you ride shotgun," says Vanessa, getting in the back with Nik. "There's still time to get to the hospital if we hurry. I'm sorry, I asked about Allen, but we were too late. He was already gone. I'll explain things to you once we're on our way."

OOC,HUMINT roll (56% skill) about the Majestic agent: [dice]0[/dice]

[Anatomist]

José will get back the wheel of one of the cars waiting to be told what to do

[Silver Priest]

OOC:   So I assume Jose's going on his own, the other car has Sonja, Vanessa, and Nik in it? If so, Jose sees none of the following, though he probably hears the agents reactions to it.

Nik,There comes a soft chuckle from the other end. [color=#004000]"Even my powers are not quite universal, shall we say. But I suppose that can be arranged, in exchange for future cooperation. It is done.Unfortunately, you will suffer some growing pains, I am sorry to say-- there's nothing to be done about that. "I'll be in touch when I need you to repay that debt[/color]." He terminates the call.

As soon as Nik puts the phone down, he begins to convulse. His breathing becomes labored, and he seems to be finding it difficult to speak. Intense pain fills him, a pain and pressure that's deeper than any other he's ever experienced. His skin coloration grows pale, his eyes bloodshot. And Nik cannot comprehend much in this agony, but he knows that he is dying.

Sonja screams, tries to help him, but he continues to thrash about and pushes her off of him. And then, after maybe a minute or so, he goes completely still. He's not breathing at all.

Agent Nikolas Siilasvuo dies in the backseat of a car.

Honeydog,Feel free to post Nik's final thoughts- I imagine they include Debbie, but it's really up to you. And yes, Nik is dead. But if you'll forgive the spoiler it won't last very long. ;)

[HoneyDog]

As the light fades, Nik is glad in the knowledge that the pain will finally stop. He hopes it was worth it.

[Mr. Handy]

Vanessa is numb from Nik's death. She knows she should be crying, but she has no tears left. Anyway, there's no time for that. She has his dying requests to fulfill. "I promised Nik before he died that I would look after you, among other things," she says at last to Sonja. "Those guys would have killed you back there if I hadn't saved your life. I called you our 'friendly,' which is why they spared you. You're probably wondering what that is, so I'm going to explain it to you, and I hope after I've explained it that you'll want to be one for real. I understand that you have a duty to the truth, and I appreciate that. Winston Churchill said once 'the truth is so precious that she must be protected by a bodyguard of lies.' Suppose you were a reporter in England in the spring of 1944 covering the preparations for the invasion of France. You had heard that General Patton was going to head up the invasion leading the First United States Army Group, which you had deduced would land at Calais, but when you went to their base you found out that it was a phantom army. Rubber tanks, wooden men, all to fool German aerial surveillance. Would you report your findings to the public at large, knowing that the enemy would find out? For if they did, D-Day would have been a disaster. If the Germans discovered that they were being deceived, Allied troops would have died on the beaches of Normandy, where the real invasion took place, in far greater numbers than they actually did. A beachhead would not have been secured, and the war would have dragged on for longer. The Allies would probably win in the end - and the Soviets would have invaded France from the east after finally conquering Germany. Then all of Europe would have been under Soviet domination for decades, not just half of it. There was no way to mask the fact that the Allies were going to invade Europe, so strategic surprise was impossible. However, tactical surprise was still achieved by deceiving the Germans about when and where the invasion would take place. This was what Churchill called Operation Bodyguard, named for that quote.

"All of our actions have consequences, some of them farther reaching than we realize. The creeps we just met are as bad as the Nazis, if not worse. If they get their way, all of humanity will be enslaved. Our organization is dedicated to stopping them, and Nik just gave his life in that cause. Not everyone who is part of this effort is a full-fledged operative. There are also people in all walks of life who assist us however they can, using their expertise. We call them 'friendlies.' Work with us, help us put a stop to the people ultimately responsible for what happened to Nik and Allen. It won't be easy, or quick, but it will be worth it in the end. We are the only line of defense that ordinary people have against an unspeakable enemy. We may not win every battle, but we must win the war."

OOC,I had forgotten that we had two cars. My intention was for [b]Jose[/b] to drive while I sat with [b]Nik[/b] in the back and tried to keep him alive until we got to the hospital, but I guess it's a moot point now. :cry: I'll drive the second car. Persuade roll (73% skill) to try to get [b]Sonja[/b] to become a "friendly": [dice]0[/dice]

[Silver Priest]

OOC:   Jose surely hears the screaming so if he wants to check out the other car he can see that Nik has died and hear all of this.

Oddly enough, Sonja breaks down once Nik dies. She had hardly known the man, but Vanessa suspects that all of the day's events are finally catching up to her, and she allows herself to grieve. She sobs quietly to herself as Vanessa speaks, but she listens carefully to the other agent.

"It's just not right. Allen's gone, Nik dies,and the aliens and the ones who support them get away with this scot free? What happened here in Groversville could happen anywhere. There's a hostile foreign intelligence out there that's experimenting on humanity-- and our government is acting to cover it up. How many people are going to be victimized by this before we can put an end to it?

"But you are in the government. I'm guessing you're trying to stop this, in your own way?" She considers. "I'll need more details about what's going on and what you're all doing to fight this. I need to know you're all not just trying to keep this silent too, that you're really working against whatever happened here. But if you really are... I'll help. In any way I can."

OOC:   Sonja's very dedicated to getting the truth out, so I was going to require more than one persuade roll to convince her, but Vanessa's explanation was really well constructed and appealed to her journalistic instincts. Provided the team can give her some proof that they're fighting back against this sort of thing, she's willing to keep quiet for the moment.

[Mr. Handy]

"Yeah, we've been trying to stop them," says Vanessa. "Jose is a new recruit, but Nik and I were recruited after the events in Arizona that you looked into when we first met. Those murders were caused by an alien parasite infecting a human, one that I killed personally. I can tell you about the other cases the two of us have dealt with before and show you some of the things we've found. We do our best to protect the human race. We never get any glory for it. If we do our jobs right, nobody will ever find out what we've done. There's a secret war going on, and it's worse than the government merely covering it up. The group we just met, Majestic-12, is a government agency that actually makes deals with these aliens. That's what happened here in Groversville. We put a stop to it by convincing the aliens to terminate their 'research' and leave by pretending to be from Majestic. Unfortunately, much of the damage was already done before we got here. We've been exposed to what the aliens call 'protomatter' in small amounts, and when it decayed, we were left unharmed. However, they've also abducted people and replaced some of their organs with what they consider 'better' ones. Those failed, killing the unwilling recipients. That's what happened to Nik. They'd replaced both his kidneys and his liver. I'd hoped we could still get him to a hospital in time to keep him alive until he could get a transplant, but Majestic got in the way.

"It's not an easy fight, like I said, but it's one we can win if we're smart about it. If the truth comes out and the people learn about it, there will be open civil war in this country. If we fight each other, only the aliens will win. We have to do what we can behind the scenes, undermining Majestic at every turn and stopping the alien threat through direct action. I'm going to have to call this in to my boss now and let him know what happened." She takes out her cell phone and calls Dillinger.

[Anatomist]

José heard the scream and leaves his car running over to Vannesas car, and the dead Nick

"Buddy, this will not be in vain "

OOC:   Jose will catch all the dialogue, understanding a whole lot

[Silver Priest]

José sees the same thing-- his friend was dead. Perhaps somewhere he yet exists and can hear the new agent's promise. But then, perhaps not.

Sonja meanwhile listens as Vanessa explains more to her, looking more and more torn. It was easy to see why; breaking a story of this magnitude would win every award in the book and place her down in the history books as being in a class of journalist all of her own. Keeping it a secret likely went against everything she believed in. But she nods reluctantly, the agent's arguments seeming to convince her. For now, anyway.

Vanessa dials the number. It rings several times, Derringer clearly not being there at the moment. There's no way she can leave a message, either. Probably to avoid leaving a trail of correspondence for the agency's enemies to follow. So she hangs up.

And that's when Nik's eyes jolt open and he erupts into a fit of rapid breathing.

Nik,Whoever said death was the end of all things was lying. [b]Nik [/b]knows he had died and been dead. But there was no heaven or hell awaiting him. It was an indescribable feeling,a dark void that was not nonexistence but neither was anything [b]Nik [/b]could classify as living. He had some awareness of his state, but it had been muted, as if he was under a deep lake. It could have lasted for five seconds or five eons. Coming back to life filled him with an intense set of feelings, and he felt himself overburdened by the sensory assault that followed. He rapidly sucks in air, almost as if he is trying to force the life back into his lungs and ensure he does not go back into the arms of death. But one thing he does notice is that the intense pain he had felt just before dying was gone. Aside from the panic attack, he felt fine. [ooc]Nik's suffering a bit of a panic attack due to his transition. I leave it up to you how long he takes to calm down. Also, please roll san 1d3/1d8, and also add that much to your unnatural skill. Nik knows he was dead and it's exposed him to a few bits of the Unnatural, but it's also rather harmful to San as you can imagine.[/ooc]

Sonja screams again, jumping back in fright as the agent returns to life. But Vanessa and Jose are likely equally surprised. Both had enough medical knowledge to know that Nik had just been dead, and had been for a few minutes. Barring medical intervention, people don't often just jump back to life. This was a miracle-- unless it wasn't, and this had a darker purpose behind it.

OOC:   Vanessa and Jose should both roll san 1/1d4. They may both be glad to see their friend return to life, but it's also an impossible sight that is hard for them to comprehend.

[Anatomist]

José jolts back a few steps. "what the fuck is this!, no nononono this isn't possible!"

failed SAN 58%,[dice]0[/dice]

potential loss,[dice]1[/dice]

[HoneyDog]

Nik

SAN,SAN 60: [url=https://orokos.com/roll/777603]SAN[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]20[/b] SAN loss: [url=https://orokos.com/roll/777604]SAN loss[/url]: [u]1d3[/u] [b]2[/b] Now 58

Nik comes to with a shrieking gasp, his eyes wide in panic, hands flailing. It takes him a moment to realise what just happened, and when it sinks in, he starts to shiver uncontrollably. Looking at the shocked faces of the the others, he understands that he is back.

"C...Call Shaeffer" he stammers. "Check on Jane".

[Mr. Handy]

Vanessa is startled by Nik's sudden revival, but she isn't one to complain. The phone already in her hand, she calls Shaeffer's number. Doing something else helps to keep her mind off of the impossible.

OOC,Sanity roll (current level 63) for [b]Nik[/b]'s return from the dead: [dice]0[/dice] Sanity loss: [dice]1[/dice]

[Silver Priest]

OOC:   You all rolled rather well on sanity. I'm a bit dissapointed.

The phone rings three times. When Shaeffer answers he sounds out of breath.

"You should get back here," His voice is tight. "Jane just had some sort of convulsion. I swear she was dead, but she's awake now. She's still looking a little out of it. And the child..." He pauses, seemingly unwilling to say more. "It...came apart. It's completely gone."