Vanishing Point - Wake of the Plague - Episode 1 - Meet the Boss

Back to Main Page:
== Session 1: Meet the boss ==
=== Past is Prologue ===
Our story begins with four strangers in the London area:
---
Albrecht Degurechaff has struggled to keep his small antiques store open, his love of antiques and re-enactment has led him into a financial hole for which he turned to Vinny the Shark, a person who he was able to arrange a substantial loan with, but whom he has been unable to keep up repayments to. 
A lone customer enters. Doris, a regular who enjoys looking at vases, but who never has the funds to buy anything.
"I had a dream about you last night Mr Degurechaff. You were screaming... there was this terrible woman with golden eyes in a forest of mushrooms." He politely acknowledged that this was strange and let her examine vases until she grew bored and wandered out. Only to be replaced by Vinny the Shark, who marched him outside and bundled him in a car. 
---
Andrew had a simple life, little more than a thug for one of the smaller London Firms that extorted business owners and provided goods that were not easily acquired elsewhere. But along the line he found that he had a rather inconvenient conscience. So he began informing on the Firm in exchange for being able to get out with a clean record at the end of it. 
He would often meet his police contact John, who would make a show of sending officers around to harass and investigate him. A fairly common occurrence in his line of work anyway. Then out of prying eyes, he would help the police. But today when the police came, they weren't taking him to the station, but deeper into the heart of London. 
---
Amelia was on the phone with a rather batty friend calling from Bermuda. He was a conspiracy theorist who was searching for a magical island that lay at the heart of the Triangle. Amelia was polite and supportive, but her recent investments weighed heavy on her mind. She had tried to short Game Stop last year. Which was certainly doomed as digital sales eclipsed physical ones. Unfortunately for her, a group of Redditors decided to stage a one of a kind intervention and through rampant investment artificially boosted the stock price to the moon. This had been such an obvious and sure fire bet, that Amelia had borrowed from unsavoury types to finance it and now she couldn't pay the short position she had taken out. A knock at the door interrupted her call and she hung up. 
At the door was a tall blonde woman in a white trench coat with her hair tied back tightly against her head. In her hand she held what looked like a large sharpened clock hand. She insisted that Amelia needed to speak to her boss about this debt. 
--- 
Across the city Firuz Mithrakani was packing a grab bag. He had pissed off the wrong people by moving people into the country and then tipping off the authorities so that they would be picked up by the legal system instead of being picked up by the gangs that normally handle such things. He packed a precious text and looked out the window. The thugs were already there. 
So he took out the back of the house, running down the street until he found an ajar door. Ducking inside he begged for help from the middle aged woman whose house this was. She looked out and saw the skin-heads following him. "Upstairs, don't touch anything, I'll let you know when they are gone." 
He climbed the stairs and went through the first door he found. Inside was an older gentleman. The room had thick layers of padded foam around all of the fittings and the man wore large padded gloves. He reacted in delight. "Oh, it's you again. I wasn't expecting you so soon.", Firuz was a little taken aback by the unexpected greeting, but was soon called back downstairs by the woman who said the coast was clear. He walked out the back alley but unfortunately as he reached the end a black panel van opened up and bundled him inside. 
---
=== Meet the Boss ===
In the Leister Square Hippodrome there is a Casino and that Casino has some back rooms. It is in one of these back rooms, the four people find themselves. 
In the corner of the room a BBC news report plays on an old TV:
* A Government minister talks about the immigration crisis of small boats, 
* There is a rise in missing persons over the last year and the police need more funding.
* A bomb was discovered and safely disposed of in the London Underground over the weekend and a section of the Elizabeth line was shut down for 24 hours as a result, nobody has claimed credit for the attack. 
* The government promises to be "tough on crime" by extending prison sentences for repeat offenders.
* Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has warned that Britain's multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy is being "deliberately undermined" by "forces here at home trying to tear us apart".
They said hello to each other but not much beyond that whilst waiting and were finally called into the Boss's office. 
Andrew knew tales of him. David “Tall Dave” Barnesby, was the big head of all the London Firms. His reputation is creepy, it's said that he doesn't sleep and is ruthless. He’s famously involved in organ harvesting and people trafficking as well as the drug trade and protection, but he’s never been positively identified by the police. People who cross him have a habit of slitting their own throats inside prison cells whilst under protective custody.
His lieutenant is Wskazówka (pronounced “Ska-zuvka”) Zegara, a pale angry woman. Amelia noticed that the shiv she carried was a sharpened clock hand and that she still had it with her, running it through her fingers. 
Along with Tall Dave and his Lieutenant, there were some thugs wearing long coats and a nervous man who looked like he was from IT.
Tall Dave explained that he was angry with all of them, for treachery, crossing him or the debts they did not repay. He knew they couldn't make up for this, but he thankfully had a job that he didn't want to risk his own people on. 
The Russian Mob have a piece of artwork that he wants. He is willing to do a trade for this, but relations with the Russians have been sketchy and previous deals have ended in bloodshed. So Tall Dave wants them to make the exchange and bring him the art work. 
They have until this evening, about 6 hours to meet and make the trade.
The Russian boss, Andre Skobel, a black market arms dealer. He's currently aboard a seized Oligarch’s yacht called the Royal Huisman Phi a 58.5 m (192 ft) superyacht moored in Canary Wharf. 
Police presence around that area is tight, so it’s inadvisable to bring firearms through there. 
His lieutenant left and the IT guy came in with the case and some ankle monitors that he attached to them all. Andrew volunteered to take the case and had it handcuffed to his wrist. The Russians, he reassured them, had the key to both the briefcase and the cuffs as they had been sent ahead. 
Tall Dave made it clear that they would be watched the entire time and any failure or double crossing from their part would end in their painful deaths, but if they succeeded, he would let them leave London and never return, as long as they never crossed his path or talked about him ever again. He even gave them £50 spending money for transport. 
He specifically wanted Albrecht as he's an antiquities dealer and would be able to verify the authenticity of the artwork. The art was a Van Braun kinetic sculpture from the late 19th Century, contained inside a wooden box, about the size of a standard office cardboard box.
With that, the guards showed them out to the Casino floor where Amelia particularly felt the call of the roulette wheels, but decided against it.
They each went home and most packed a go-back.
* Albrecht got a sword from his antiques shop and wrote a will. 
* Amelia just packed up her things, getting a martial arts gi to wear under her normal clothes.
* Firuz got a beard trim and a nice meal before the inevitable.
* Andrew, expecting trouble, got a set of golf clubs, a reasonable weapon that could be carried in public without too much trouble.
Meeting up an hour before the deadline at Canary Wharf, Firuz was able to allay suspicions of the police by acting as a hapless tourist. and they reached the ship. 
It was docked outside the Goodman Steakhouse restaurant, with a commercial team in blue branded polo shirts doing cleaning and maintenance. 
They approached one of the workers who asked if they were from "Head Office". When they said they were she directed them down into the lower deck of the yacht, where Russian mobsters frisked them as they entered.
Andre was sat there confident. He asked to see the merchandise. Albrecht asked to see the artwork first and Andre had the box bought out. 
One of his guards came over and unlocked the cuff from Andrew's wrist. Then opened the case. He exclaimed something in Russian. Whilst nobody could understand him, it felt like "This doesn't look like 20Kg of high value drugs." inside the case was the sharpened clock-hand. 
Andrew protested that they were just the couriers and didn't know what was in the case. The Mobster took out the clock hand to check for something concealed beneath. 
Then something strange happened. In English the mobster searching the case said "Die Andre" and threw the clock-hand knife at him, where it buried in his shoulder. The other thugs confused and alarmed by this attacked the treacherous thug. Andre for his part, pulled the blade from his wound and began to attack his own henchmen indiscriminately. 
In the confusion Andrew grabbed the case and ran outside. Albrecht confirmed that the case did contain the kinetic sculpture they were after and they fled onto the docks. 
With their strange collection of gear, even though they had avoided any blood splatter they did attract the attention of a police officer. Albrecht explained they were scouting the area for a re-enactment event and gave the name of a contact. The police officer was furious about this and called it in, demanding that they take their various implements and get out of the square mile immediately whilst he looked into this.
Thankfully Albrecht also knew of the nearby pub where the upstairs was almost always empty, where they could check that the sculpture wasn't damaged in transit.
He carefully wound the clockwork mechanism and as it started, the motion of the arms of the device seemed to swing strangely, seeming to move solid steel through itself. 
Then they realised that it was actually moving in more than the normal 4 dimensions. There was a terrible twisting sensation as their minds struggled to comprehend what they were seeing. 
Then they felt themselves being sucked inside out in a dizzying and nauseating feeling of being sucked through a straw backwards.
=== Immigration processing ===
They found themselves falling on to a slatted wooden floor in a gaslit room. Overhead was a vast stone monolith but no doors.
The floor suddenly started moving to the side and a wall slid down once they were out from under the monolith. Then 6 doors opened on one side of the room and a voice came over a tannoy system. "Please enter for processing" 
They went into the small individual rooms, where the voice asked them to disrobe and deposit everything into a chute. Once they had done that, their clothes and everything except the sword was returned along with a number on a lacquer tile. Although they quickly noticed that all of their electronics were dead, but Firuz's wind-up watch was fine. 
Once they were dressed again, the doors opened on the opposite side and opened into a large waiting room with green leather seating and looked much like an old bank, with a row of windows at the far end. Only one of which seemed to be occupied. 
There was a copy of the New London Gazette (Dated 7th March 2024). The headlines include: 
* A Government minister rallies against the immigration crisis caused by people from Earth crossing over to their world. 
* The Rebellion has blown up the Wellington train line causing delays, 
* There’s been a recent rise in missing persons, believed linked to the Pandemic.
* The government promising to be tough on crime by extending the death penalty to an additional 12 offences including pick pocketing, trespass and giving aid or shelter to the Rebellion.
* Deputy Prime Minister Lord Barton Barbary-Harrington, has warned that baseless speculation on the health of Lady Hortense Brook-Williams, the current Prime Minister is an unfounded attempt to undermine the government and that the leader of the opposition (Lady Elizabetha Mills-Singh of the Whigs) is trying to tear us apart with unfounded accusations. To which Lady Mills-Singh replied that the Deputy Prime Minister owed parliament answers.
One by one, the person at the screen called people up and asked them some questions. Although it was quite disquieting as the person there had no visible face. She was dressed in a bowler hat, white shirt, black jacket and a black tie, asking each in turn:
* How did you arrive? Do you already know anybody in the Vanishing Point who can be contacted?
* What is your profession?
* What are your most useful skills?
Firuz exclaimed that he must have accidentally been sent to some strange form of British Hell and that he didn't belong here. 
Albrecht got a receipt for his sword, but was told that he couldn't have it back until he had proof of gainful employment. 
Andrew saw the blank empty face and broke down in fear and confusion, fleeing them. But Amelia was able to answer on his behalf.
Finally once they had all answered, the teller said that their applications were denied and that they could retry in 6 months. A door opened, leading to a long corridor. In an alcove, half-way along the corridor's length was an alcove in which stood a tall monochrome figure in a plague mask. They silently observed them but did not otherwise move and they stepped out into a large public square in some sort of subterranean cavern. 
(6 exp to everybody)
Back to Main Page: