[continued from previous message]

A female Secret Service agent peeks into the archive retreating unnoticed. McBain snatches the sack from Pierce peering inside, “A couple of used cigar boxes.”
Trevor flings the bag at Pierces’ chest speaking to the group, “Let’s get
out of here.”
Michelle spoke even tempered, “A lot of battles have been fought using the words in these books. This library houses the largest collection of occult books outside of The Vatican.”
Maurice sets Tatianni down solemnly “I’ve got to lock this place up tight
and get home.”
The somber company of adventurers leaves Maurice to secure the building, scrambling into Lisa’s touring car they head home. Trevor and Pierce accompany Aurian in the rear so Moses has enough breathing room to unwind. Michelle turns the radio on to
fill the chastening silence.
“Morning dews end as only the brave have the courage to weep. In dusty mausoleums we drink from the book of days, silently awaiting demolition of our five-star hotel. All the while pretending the pretense, to own your own life there is no secret, each
day one must begin again. Knowledge creates power and will make you a King, until pride comes whispering “You are God you are above the law; make your enemies kiss your ring.” First you lose innocence then you lose your soul, if that isn’t enough,
the devil shall steal your self-control. Start again. Start again. Rhythm balances the finisher, the ancient song of the tortoise and hare. You can listen humbly or laugh to curse your fate, without thought or care: wiser after
falling, a child’s fable
oh so clear.”
Forty heavily armed operators housed at The Farm are assembled and receiving a briefing for the nights tasks at the last grotto on this side of the Ayre River. Major Danes assumed responsibility for Special Recovery Team training exercises at Oldham
Air Force Base when Harris and Alex were forcefully decommissioned by the current political administration four years ago. Reconnaissance teams scouting
and covertly monitoring the flickering gate on the railroad tracks are reporting a small silvery
blue cloud is appearing in the meadow beside it moving slowly back and forth. When it leaves the meadow, the scouts observing the gate report, it is on the railroad tracks moving rapidly up and down the railbed between the base’s terminal and the
Oldwood Depot. The train station across the river in the forest serviced The Farm when it was The Asylum before the Tuberculosis outbreaks were diminished by more efficient cures.
A contact in the Templeton Secret Service security detail radios Danes communications officer.
“Recovered repeat recovered. The two Amber Rooms are in play and on the move.”
Six blocks inland from the Harland Building LeMond and Bitterman are conferring with the upper echelons of The OSG Consortium. Standing on a wide balcony outside the penthouse on the twentieth floor of the Morse Building they
are waiting for Harris and
Alex to arrive.
The Major standing in the dark points his penlight at a field table with an unrolled map. The five team leaders follow the light as he traces a path of waypoints on its surface, leading to the far northwest corner at Great Fork Falls where the Challis
River and Ayre River diverge.
The communications officer calls out.
“Rolling speed is ten miles per hour. The car count is one hundred and ten.”
The Oldwood Map which the team leaders are studying is a thick sturdy canvas atlas the National Intelligence Directorate recovered in 1947 from a patient at
The Asylum.
On the lower left corner the map a roman numeral thirteen indicates it is part of a series. The topography between the two rivers west of Fairfield is pockmarked with colored dots and lines representing a transportation and communications hub. The dead
gates and failed connections
still magnetically detectable. They were rendered unusable and inoperable at a point in time in the distant past for reasons unknown. The compact wiry blond haired German Ted Danes has carbon dated the map to be approximately five hundred thousand years
old.
An Eagle lands silently atop a concealed platform to the northwest of the five teams as an unseen shaft of vertical light, hidden by the thickness of the
old growth forest, expands flickers and closes. A deranged elderly native is walking towards the
Majors squad swerving slightly talking to himself and waving his left arm erratically gesticulating with spirited fervor. Approaching the Major he takes a long pull from the whiskey bottle in his right hand capping it. Breaking into
a drunken trot he
stops a foot away from Danes with the laser sights of forty automatic rifles pantomiming a war dance on both sides of his head.
Occasioning a snappy vigor and zestfully buoyant playfulness, “Dead Ted’s
out of his head.”
Ted frowned “Go home old timer and leave the serious work to the sober adults of this world.”
“Just checking up on you Senor Theodore; I needed to know the illustrious guardian of the sacred airwaves was back on the job. I heard the center for disease control has ZB 12A case zero under round the clock surveillance. I wonder who the fall guy
for that caper is going to be.”
Forcing the fat whiskey bottle full of iced tea into his back pocket the grey haired native raises both hands spreading his boney fingers menacingly. “I AM
ZOE BEN 12 A ETERNAL…”
He turns back and forth slowly in half circles stooping forward “THE GREAT DEVOURER!”
Satisfied Ted won’t hurt himself the Old Chief resumes strolling drunkenly through the woods.
Ted is among the infinitesimally small portion of the human race that is genetically susceptible to the ZB 12A virus after a single exposure. The virus produces a pneumonial condition five to six days after exposure to live airborne particulates and
recedes after six to eight weeks. Three months post exposure at Fort Tabor: Danes astoundingly won the national lottery’s second tier prize of one million dollars, choosing five of six numbers correctly, twice in the same month. He is currently on
restriction at The Farm under the watchful eyes of forty elite shock troops belonging to the always denied, ultra-secret, non-existent National Intelligence Directorate.
Each of the Majors guardians are also believed to be infected to different degrees with the later occurring 12A symptomology. They live in one of the original isolation units of The Asylum and are medically monitored before and after each infection.
The Old Chief is not sympathetic to Ted and his men’s plight and often brings
his guinea pigs from the research building with him to group therapy. Thousands
of exposures have left him immune to any further complications.
The old native whistles loudly from inside the tree line, Danes turns instinctively, Lance Corporal Ian Dunross adeptly pierces the carotid artery injecting Ted with 2000 milligrams of Methaqualone. Two waiting C-Team members grab his shoulder as two
others flick open the poles of a retractable field stretcher. The shafts threaded through the cots handles two burly squad members carry Ted towards the
Oldwood Depot. The communications officer sends the all clear signal to the engineer of the
approaching train. Danes’ guards carry him down the access road and across the ornate metal bridge, halting on the tracks thirty feet north of the waiting
gate. The troop train lumbers southward gradually slows and silently comes to a
stop a whisper
away.
Reaching the antique well-kept station the Old Chief draws a wheeled oak step ladder under the platforms two sided clock. He moves the hour hand seven times triggering The Tonal Magnetos.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)