Capt. Dane Casey
Cmdr. Edward Castillo
Capt. Jack McNeal
The Lone Gunmen
#141
"The Late Shift"
(Online Game Session)
Date: 07/10/03 Game Date: 10/5/02
So Forte 2000 #141 was to be run as a Con game at the 2003 Comic-Con International, and was to involve a bunch of players, mostly old-school Forte people playing their old Forte characters. But I didn’t want to waste too much time at the table doing the necessary transitional stuff with the current players. See, #140 left on a cliffhanger, and we needed to wrap up some things before this new story started. So, I figured, why not get Ben, Kaye, Aaron and I online and do it in an AOL chat room?
And so we did. The first ever online Forte game. It became its own issue (#141), and the Con game that followed became #142. Much fun was had. What follows is the summary of the events that took place. But if you want to get the whole flavor--complete with dialogue, details, and inside jokes you probably won't understand--I've also posted the complete transcript of the session. Use the link below if you wish to do. Otherwise...just read on!
Click here for complete Forte #141 online transcript
It’s getting close to 2:00 am, and the Forte members Tinker and Dyna Girl—along with their new acquaintance, local Seattle mystery man Moonspider—are at UNCLE HQ following the night of combat and unanswered questions down at the waterfront. They had Nightsable teleport the mysterious Egyptian sarcophagus, the one that both Mandate and the villain Gepetto (in the hijacked body of Vanish) and his hired hench-villains were after, to UNCLE before she teleported back to the hospital to check on their other new hero acquaintance, Vortex, who suffered slash wounds from the villain Prowler.
Tinker and Dyna Girl borrowed a digital camera from UNCLE and took photos of the ancient artifact (posing Vanna White style with it) and uploaded them to Rainier’s Questpad. Rainier, along with Max and Johnny Quest, had left earlier in the day on one of Johnny’s private jets to take part in a dig in Guatemala. But no sooner does Rainier receive their upload than he calls them frantically on the radio, telling them to send Nightsable to the jet to teleport him back NOW!
While they’re waiting for Nightsable to do so, the villains they fought earlier are brought in, unconscious and bound, by Captain Jack McNeal’s STRIKE team. McNeal talks with the ladies, and Tinker is quite obviously taken with him. They’re soon joined by Commander Edward Castillo (head of UNCLE Seattle) and Captain Dane Casey (Forte’s hero liaison), and Moonspider takes the opportunity with the distraction to slip some of his cards (cards of his villain attorney alter ego, James Avalon) into the pockets of the snoozing villains.
A portal suddenly opens, and Rainier all but runs out of it, followed by Nightsable, and he rushes to the sarcophagus. He’s quite stunned by it, and its archeological value. He tells them that it’s pre-dynastic Egyptian, possibly the lower Paleolithic period. He’s amazed by the glyphs inscribed on it. Some he recognizes, some he doesn’t. He points to one in particular, one of a hawk-headed figure with eyes made of the sun and the moon, riding atop two crocodiles. He recognizes this as the aspect of the god Horus. He points out another near it that may be a derivation representing Osiris, and another that might be Isis. It’s possible that this may be the oldest Egyptian artifact ever found. He pauses somewhere through his ranting to be introduced to Moonspider, then badgers the others for information on where the item was found.
They explain about it being aboard the Star of Khufu, in a crate that was being delivered to a company called “Anuket Import/Export Group”. Dane just looked this up, but James Avalon had looked it up earlier, before heading to the warehouse where the big fight went down. The company has been very upset about their merchandise sitting out on the Star in the middle of the Sound due to the dockworkers strike, and have been trying to file legal actions to get their hands on it. Apparently they weren’t the only ones that wanted it. The terrorist group Mandate seemed to want it pretty bad, referring to it only as an “item of immense power”, and the mystical villain that was leading their team, Erebus, seemed to really be excited about getting his hands on it. And Gepetto had been after it simply due to discovering Mandate’s interest and figuring it would be a big score that would get him rich after his breakout.
The team discusses possibly moving it. Castillo states that this is clearly Forte jurisdiction, but because of the legal matters involved with it, and with it being evidence, he wants it to stay at UNCLE for the time being. Rainier says he can do his studies on it there, no problem…he’ll just need Nightsable to go to his place and get his laptop and books. The heroes decide that if it is such an item of great power, they don’t want to leave it alone until they figure out what’s going on. They decide they’d better take shifts tonight and stay with it, each of them taking turns sitting with Rainier (who’s not leaving its side anyway). A “batting order” is decided on, with Moonspider taking the first shift. Lucy decides she needs to run home and feed her dog “Beast” first, so takes off to do that. Dyna leaves a voice mail for her pal Ken Hollenbeck to feed her cat in the morning, and she borrows a free bunk at UNCLE to catch some Z’s before her shift (it’s been a long day). Nightsable will teleport Rainier home for his research stuff, but then wants to hurry back to the hospital to check on Vortex (a fact which Dyna teases her for…).
Tinker is almost home when her special pager goes off with its special tone. Her pager has certain alarms built into it…and the one that goes off indicates to her that someone has bypassed (they think) her security system at the airplane hanger that’s both her home and place of business. She calls and wakes Dyna back at UNCLE and asks for backup, and Dyna takes off flying at top speed to meet her. Putting on her night vision sunglasses, Lucy scopes the building before moving in. Dyna sneaks up on her and meets her, and they decide to split up. Dyna hits the skylight on the roof while Tinker sneaks in through the front door. Lucy sneaks her way to her kitchen, where she hears voices. Peeking around the corner, she sees three males raiding her fridge, with her dog sitting happily between them, wagging his tail (NICE guard dog…).
She and Dyna surprise them, and it turns out to be old friends of Lucy’s—the Lone Gunman…Byers, Langly and Frohike, whom Lucy has met and befriended during her Forte adventures. Despite them breaking into her place and eating her food, she hugs them all, happy to see them. Dyna decides to take Beast for his walk (if for no other reason than to get Frohike’s eyes off her), and the Gunmen explain they were passing through and had some information for her. Seems her “boy, Parker”—Jack Parker, editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and best-selling author (not to mention being Forte founder Dr. Jackal, but they’re not hip to that info)—has made some enemies with his latest book, “Foreign and Domestic”, an expose of the U.S. Government’s complacency in known terrorist/villain groups over the years, and their creation of shadow organizations that have become such. The Gunman heard word through the grapevine that someone may be making a move against him. Nothing specific, but they figured she might want to warn him anyway, seeing as how they know he’s a friend of hers. They also admit that there’s another reason they came by. They lead her into the main hanger and show her something hidden under a tarp. It’s a state-of-the-art hydrogen engine, one that they “liberated” before it could get to this Yemini guy that was getting it by less than legal means. They got it for her instead…because it’s her birthday in just a few days!
Dyna takes the time to check her voice mail, and finds two messages. The first is from her father (Electro Man), with a reminder about tomorrow. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are going to be in town with their team of writers to do the first of the Forte interviews. They’re producing an HBO mini-series on Forte (ala “Band of Brothers”), based on Jack Parker’s biography of the team, called “For a Day or a Lifetime: The Forte Story”, and they’ve arranged to bring in different groups of Forte members at different times to do interviews at the Forte museum. The first shift is tomorrow, and interviewees will be Dr. Jackal, Electro Man, Vanguard, Tommarsuk, Lightsedge and Anvil. He reminds her they’re meeting at the old base for breakfast before heading over to the museum, and hopes she’ll be able to join them.
Her second message is from Grav, her old teammate from Armor Security. His message, too, is about the event tomorrow. He’s letting her know that The Voice, one of Armor’s most popular team members, who joined the company after she left, is going to be there doing security for Hanks and Spielberg. He knows she hasn’t gotten to meet him yet (she missed him last time when he was in town, when he and Grav ended up on a cross-dimensional adventure with former Forte members), so suggests she take this chance to do so.
Dyna decides to let Lucy catch up with the Gunmen and heads back to UNCLE to take her shift, relieving Moonspider (who was getting put to sleep by all of Rainier’s archeological mutterings anyway). They arrange to meet back at UNCLE to discuss strategy on this thing at 10am. James Avalon heads back to his house to take care of some business before getting maybe a couple of hours of sleep (he’ll have to go into the office before heading back to UNCLE). He checks his messages and e-mails (including one from his assistant, Constance, who sent him the file on his new client, Outlaw—the one he just offered his services to at the SISRS prison last issue). James has a cocktail and winds down a little, watching the TV news footage of the big waterfront bust he was part of. Then he heads to bed…
…only to find a knife stuck to the wall above his bed, stuck through
a note. The note reads, "You won't know when. You won't know where.
But your time is coming”. The note is written in red, and may or
may not be blood. The knife is his own, and came from his kitchen. He
places it in a ziplock bag and checks the rest of his home. No signs of
break-in, no other clues, nothing. Someone is obviously upset with him…and
sent him a very disturbing message.
