Shades of Gray
XCOM:_Gray_Dawn#Recaps
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When we last left off...
Game #7 4/27/14
Day 6
Things have momentarily quieted down in Elma, allowing our resistance cell a chance to rest and begin investigating some of the questions that have come up.
They finally get a chance to question the two rangers that came back with the Skyranger. One was missing his combat knife which turned up in the hands of a behemoth (and fortunately not then in the ribcage of Fayth Wilson). Staff Sergeant David Knox (the Ranger who still had his knife) was interrogated first. He seemed collected and cooperative. The group wonders if their initial assumptions were way off-base; what if this guy tossed his partner's knife and framed him? This line of thought gets blown out of the water, though, when they talk to the Ranger with the missing knife, Staff Sergeant Charles Hoff. With only a bit of leading questions, they are able to coax his memories back to the surface. Sgt. Hoff emotionally recalls how he drew his knife for no good reason and, at Sgt. Knox's interjection ("What the fuck are you doing? Put that away and apply pressure to the wound, man!") he...tossed the knife into the back where the behemoth could get hold of it. He remembers that he was going to stab the door gunner he was trying to save, and from there move to attack the helicopter pilot. He doesn't know where these thoughts came from, but he is riddled with guilt and distrust of himself. The group takes their findings to Lt. Spiers, and says that Sgt. Hoff likely didn't mean any harm but was the temporary victim of a mental attack. They suggest giving both Knox and Hoff some light duty to keep their minds and hands busy, and also that they shouldn't be left alone, especially Hoff. He has all the signs of survivor's guilt, and they don't want him to hurt himself. Spiers agrees and thanks the team for their intervention.
Their next order of business brings them to the marital bliss that is the elder Kjelstad's relationship. Mr. Kjelstad has finished Brock's flask, and is sitting on one of the earth-movers near the trailer where his wife is resting. Theoretically, he is supposed to be watching over his wife, making sure she doesn't do something crazy or spy-like. However, he is mightily peeved at her right now because he has just discovered that she has been lying to him from day one and possibly been using their daughter as a guinea pig in some unscrupulous, cockamamie experiment. With that tiny smidge of discord floating in the air between them, he felt it best to stay outside where he couldn't beat her (of course, the knowledge that she took on two attackers kind of takes the wind out of his sails in the domestic violence department). They convince Mr. Kjelstad to be present while they grill (ahem) talk to Mrs. Kjelstad.
The question of the day for her is something along the lines of "What the hell?" Of course, it was worded a bit differently by the members of the group who have more tact. Marie, however, is bereft of tact (she got character points for it!) and pretty much blasts her mother with both barrels of incredulity.
Mrs. Kjelstad explains that she works for a secret organization that is vaguely responsible for scooping up and safeguarding alien technology. During the forties and fifties, several craft landed, and a small group of people saw the dangers--not only the potential of earth being invaded by extraterrestrial forces, but the imminent danger of any single nation cracking the secrets of captured alien tech. Their mission is to collect it, safeguard it, and prevent it from being used against man by other men. Marie questions where this high-mindedness was when people were busting out the nukes and the cold war and the mutually assured destruction. Mrs. Kjelstad (and the Ref) seems to be stymied by this line of questioning (The Ref's post-hoc explanation is that nukes were the cat that was already out of the bag; the horror of those weapons made this group realize the danger of the alien weapons and they wanted to intervene before that big, dangerous cat got out of the bag, too). Marie also questions the wisdom of making all these secret bases all over the world and then not staffing them with, say, any soldiers that can actually fight alien invaders. Mrs. Kjelstad tries to explain that the organization had hoped, based on their understanding of the aliens' order of battle, that they would have plenty of time to fill out the ranks in the event of an other-worldly invasion. In the face of current alien tactics, however, this seems like a romantic notion at best. In light of this, Mrs. Kjelstad welcomes the group to the agency, because evidently Project Covenant needs some warm bodies in order to help make some alien bodies cold.
In a show of supposed full disclosure, she takes them on a tour of the secret base she has been the custodian of for the past couple decades. The subterranean dome is vast, yet mostly empty; they left a lot of room for expansion. During the tour, Fayth takes an unexplained powder. Her absence is only noted when someone asks her a question that she can't answer because she is not there. Fayth emerges from a room down below explaining "I, uh, dropped my car keys." No one chooses to interrogate her sketchy activity, showing the Ref the complete double-standard the players have toward thin excuses given by PCs versus NPCs. (Oh, why, why don't you people grill each other?! Why must the NPCs bear the brunt of your wrath?) The tour comes to a close, and it is getting late. Without any attacks looming or electrical grids to save, the group feels safe to get some rest and let the world spin without their supervision.
The next morning AJ is awoken to his son, Trevor, flicking the light on and off. AJ is momentarily overcome by this, realizing that the only reason his son can rouse him from a safe distance (just like Dad taught him--thanks, PTSD!) is because just the other day he helped save the world. This moment of reverie soon passes, and Trevor tells his dad that one of the local cops is looking for him. Trevor reveals that another of AJ's lessons sunk in over the years when he tells his dad that this cop "doesn't look right."
Under most circumstances, Trevor's gut would be spot on. AJ meets with Officer Cristelli of the Elma PD, who looks like room temperature Hell. He is disheveled and punchy, probably from lack of sleep or, considering his lack of sheveled-ness, possibly from actually being punched. He tells AJ of some treachery afoot within the local PD. It seems that Chief Danforth came to the development park during the night and took custody of Jules Saint, the meth cook that had come to them seeking asylum from the Pershing Clan. Not only that, but the police chief then turned Saint back over to the Pershings. Officer Cristelli isn't even sure what (if anything) they want to do about it, but he figured they should know. His faith in his own leadership is dwindling, and his ability to do anything about it is fleeting hourly. AJ's wife offers to take care of Officer Cristelli, freeing up Fayth to accompany the rest of the group to go into town and find some answers.
They arrive at the tiny police station to talk to Chief Danforth. Marie scans him with the LD, and comes up with nothing. It would be much easier to blame his malfeasance on alien mind control, but Marie must rapidly accept the fact that some people are jerks and don't need aliens to turn them into assholes. The chief doesn't deny his actions. He tells them that reps from the Pershing clan came to him in the night and offered to leave Elma alone if he turned over Mr. Saint. If he did not, then they would turn the full wrath of the clan onto his town and burn it all down. For the Chief, it was a no-brainer. The Pershings are close-knit and disciplined, after a fashion. The dozens or hundreds of them and their hangers-on could easily devastate the small town in its current state. He checked Saint out of custody using his badge and authority to get the job done. When they take this news to the mayor, he is appalled, but is largely powerless to immediately do anything about it. He says he will support whatever decisions they make regarding Mr. Saint, and will see what he can do about Chief Danforth.
This sets the group up for an important (and definitely not one-sided) debate. They made a promise to Mr. Saint that they would keep him safe from formidable opposition. If they never intended to do so, shouldn't they have told him to kick rocks when he first showed up? If they choose to try and save him, they all know they are risking life and limb for a former meth cook, an occupation slightly more honorable than child pornographer. Additionally, if they do make a rescue attempt, there is the very real possibility it will come at the cost of other lives; those of the rescuers or the Pershings (or even Saint, if things go South). Even if they were to pull off an extraction that would make Ethan Hunt proud, is there any doubt that the Pershings would not retaliate? Hate is kind of their stock in trade, after all. How many lives are they willing to risk on principle? What right have they to take the law into their own hands? And, if they wind up in a war with the Pershings, does the Elma Resistance have the forces to hold them back, or do they have to roll over and take it from the hill people?
It is clear to some that the team's actions and motivation has set them on track to be seen as leaders and role models to the isolated community. This raises the questions: how do they want the community to perceive them, and what sort of leaders should they be? Integrity, compassion and lawfulness are some of the virtues that hang in the balance, and the fate of those virtues will lie in the choices our heroes take.
