Lost and Found
Lost and Found
With Operation Showdown behind them, the Elma resistance begin taking some time to recover from injuries, deal with the aftermath of the battle and catch up on things that they may have left to deal with until after the looming battle was over.
After Fayth discovered that one of the so called “sleepers” has a very close connection to her, she also found that another was close to her fiancé. With this, all X-Com personnel were asked to check out the sleepers to see if anyone else recognized any of them. All but one of them were identified.
One of the sleepers identified was Cherise Kamastafall, AJ’s mother. In the before times, she was a stalwart employee of the FBI, and came to have an antagonistic relationship with her husband, who worked for X-Com. AJ’s dad, Alton, had previously hinted that his wife began to suspect that he was up to some form of no good, and had long ago asked him to turn himself over for questioning. When he refused to comply, things went fairly south, to the point that Alton had at one point cautioned his son about his own mother, implying that she might come at him, now, due to his association with X-Com.
With the possibility of reviving the comatose sleepers looming, AJ must decide whether he even wants to revive his mother or if she should be kept on ice. He brings his father into the conversation, asking his opinion, not wanting to be the sole deciding voice. While Alton is hesitant, he knows how he would like things to turn out, and hopes that there might be some way for his wife to see reason and not be forever blinded by defunct loyalties and obligations. He would like to have his wife back, and an integral member of the greater Kamastafall family returned to everyone. He cautions his son, though, that he may have to to act against his own mother if she is not able to let her Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity go. AJ takes his father’s advice to heart, and also seeks input from his wife Naomi, who would love to have her mother-in-law back in the picture, if for nothing else than a helping hand with three children!
Dr. Rhys finds that one of the sleepers is his favorite instructor from college and his mentor, Professor Thaddeus Kingston, whom he believed to be dead, along with his fiancée. Dr. Rhys is not certain how to deal with this development, and requests that Prof. Kingston be kept on ice for now.
Fayth found her best friend from high school among the sleepers, Jordan McKellar. The woman connected to Carville is Major Miranda Nilssen of the US army. Last Carville knew, she had been deployed to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and has no clue how she wound up in Olympia.
Slick didn’t find anyone among the sleepers to complicate his life, but fate was sure not to leave him untouched in that regard. Shortly after returning to the bunker a surprise hero for his exploits in the battle with the Gatekeeper, he was rewarded with his band’s lead guitarist and backup vocalist, Nicolette LeFevre bailing on their band, “Bone Yard Pulp.” This leaves him with only Torvald Gunderson, and an uncertain future for their band.
Slick is approached by fellow engineer Armand Spiridakos, the front man for the bunkers other band, “Post-Apocalypse Jukebox.” Armand attempts to sympathize with Slick and Torvald’s position, wondering if they can pull off gigs as just a duo. Slick is not moved by this gesture of phony concern; he knows it was Armand that lured Nicolette away in the first place, and recruited her to the ranks of PAJ. Armand offers an olive branch and suggests that Slick and Torvald join PAJ, themselves and help enhance their sound. “After all,” Armand says with honey on his lips and a slither to his tongue, “we have a captive audience here. How many bands do we really need in the bunker?” With a much-deserved sneer and gusto, Slick tells Armand to piss off. Torvald backs up his bandmate, even though he, too, is at a loss for how they will perform.
Later, while Slick and Torvald are trying to practice in the back of the lounge and figure out the band’s future, they find someone watching them. It is Ophelia Bellaci, the girlfriend of Armand. At first, Slick has reason to be suspicious of her; perhaps she is just his second salvo to try and get him to cave in. Instead, she tells them that she is sorry for what they are going through and hopes they can keep playing because she rather likes their music. She says it has an energy that fits her attitude and dance style, which is uncoordinated and spastic in the extreme. She has an idea and makes an offer to Slick: she might have a lead on someone to help fill their ranks. She could arrange a meeting if Slick is interested. Slick agrees, and later on is approached by none other than Lieutenant Spiers, who claims to have some performing skills. Slick sets him up for a tryout at a later date.
Later on, Fayth is alerted by the Bunker’s tracking station late at night. They have detected a UFO over Montana. It stops over large population centers, hovers for a few minutes, and then moves on. It hits Bozeman, Idaho Falls, and Spokane, then turns directly westward toward Seattle. Fayth mobilizes the rest of her team and places the Rangers on ready status. She has Lieutenant Easton—who has recently undergone training to learn to pilot the Firestorm—to warm up their ship. As the UFO draws closer, the tracking station is able to get more information from it. It is a very large vessel, at least 4 times as large as the Firestorm, and almost ten times as massive. By the time it gets to Seattle, they are able to determine that while it loiters, several other radar contacts disengage from it at high speed headed straight to the ground. It might be dropping pods of some kind, or even bombarding urban areas. Then it starts heading south, toward Elma.
Fayth and her crew load up in the ship, determined to try and keep the UFO away from Elma. They attempt to lure the craft away, but it doesn’t quite take the bait and stays on target. Fayth attempts to engage it in aerial combat, only to discover the weapons on the Firestorm may not be enough to inflict serious damage, and that the UFO is armed with heavy weapons that may devastate her own ship if she tries to push her luck. Instead, they get the idea to roll out the artillery in X-Com’s arsenal and try to hit it with a combined attack if it indeed targets Elma, which it does.
Fayth has Lt. Easton take over for her in the pilot’s seat and drops with her team while Easton follows the plan. The artillery is called in, and the plasma cannons of the Firestorm attempt to nail areas of the UFO hit by the 155mm shells. The UFO manages to land a hit on the Firestorm and forces Easton to disengage, but another salvo of artillery lands as well, and does enough damage to the hull of the enemy craft to force it to do likewise, but not before it is able to launch three objects into areas of Elma.
One of these objects lands near the hospital, and two others land near apartment complexes. Fayth brings her team to respond first to the hospital, seeing it as a more vital target, while Carville informs her that one of the apartment complexes is the home of Ranger Barnacascel’s parents and kid sister.
Upon investigating the landing site at the hospital, AJ discovers that the object launched from the UFO appears to be some kind of pod about the size of a telephone booth, but it is obscured by a spreading cloud of what looks to be fog or smoke. There are also a few people within the fog, but while they look to be alive, they are not moving, until Slick attempts to disable the pod with his suit’s sonic weapon attack, then they spring to life like mindless zombies.
AJ is exposed briefly to the fog, and it immediately begins having an effect on him, clouding his mind and disorienting him until Fayth is able to hit him with her defibrillator, suspecting the fog was really a dense cloud of nanotech mites. Slick uses his glue restraint to plug all the vents of the pod, and then works to build a powerful electromagnet to sweep the air clean. Meanwhile, Fayth calls in her bois, who used their powerful vacuums to assist. The other sites were similarly handled safely, though at the other two sites, the victims of the fog were not “triggered.” All of these lost souls are taken into custody, and it is determined that the mites attacking them caused major changes to their neural systems. It looks doubtful that the damage can ever be undone. The question is then posed as to what to do with them? One solution was a merciful death which had the advantage of ensuring that they were no longer a threat. There was the concern, however, that this might pose a PR nightmare for X-Com. Since the Lost, as they were coming to be known, appear to be harmless while dormant, the option is exercised to simply fabricate a simple containment system for them and pen them up for now, with the hope that their affliction may one day be cured. However, if anyone has the know-how to achieve this goal, the general fear/consensus is that it probably resides with Vladimir Gurov, since he knows the most about weird brain science.
