| From: | James Dening jdening@****.co.uk |
|---|---|
| Subject: | The Meeting - II |
| Date: | Thu, 15 Jun 2000 17:14:22 +0100 |
>>>>>[+++++begin video
+++++POV: Main Briefing Room
Minnie waits for everyone to sit down before starting.
"I trust my staff have made you all welcome? Is there anything
any of you need before I continue? I must state though, that I
must stipulate that what I'm about to tell you must *not* go
any further than the people in this room. If any of you have a
problem with that, then you can leave now, with no questions
asked. No? Right..."
"What.....about......the............money?" asks the tall, skeletal man
at the far end of the table.
"Mr Cypher...your attendance fee is right here, on freely transferable
credsticks." She leans forward and opens a rosewood case on the
table in front of her. Twin rows of credsticks gleam in the overhead
light, and the sight seems to reassure the sniper, who sits back in
his seat.
"That.....is.....................acceptable."
"Good. Right, you're probably all wondering why you're here, yes?"
There are nods and grunts of assent around the table. Minnie stands up
and paces round the end of the table, making eye contact with the
gathered runners as she does so.
"As you know, I am in an old, old family business." She pauses and
smiles at her own euphemism for the Mafia. "And my business is
one of money, power and control. Well, something came to my
attention last year. Something....big. So big, in fact, that for a while
I didn't know what I was looking at. Something has come to my
attention that appears, after months of careful analysis, to endanger
the current state of the world. I know, I know....why me? Why should
the Capo of a medium sized business family in Seattle be the person
to bring this up. What about the government? What about SIGA or
some other federal agency? What about the Atlantean Foundation
for god's sake? Well, the answer is....they don't want to know.
At all.
Here's what we've got so far. There's a classic set of prophecies
by a Voodoun shaman from early last century, known as the Captain
prophecies. One of my mages was attached to the team researching
them - they're extremely garbled and unintelligible, but over the last
few years, a few snippets have been found in them that have actually
predicted past events...well, events that hadn't yet transpired when
the prophecies were first made. Anyway, to cut a long story short,
my mage was on a research furlong with the Captain team, and
performing part of the routine translation from an obscure Indonesian
dialect came up with the following section:"
Minnie picks up a sheet of paper from the desk, and reads from it.
Those close to her realise that she's not actually focussing on
the paper at all....
"And in the year after the Frenchman dies, his woman shall dance
to ascendancy by the sea. And the darkness shall rise in the forest,
with the help of nationseeking fools. The darkness shall obscure its
own guise and shall rise and rise, taking the mist and the
<untranslatable> as its food. But the hunger shall never cease."
Minnie pauses.
"Pretty weird shit, huh... Well, that got us interested - it was the
Frenchman bit that we picked up on first - total coincidence really.
There's more, before you ask, about me. Mostly from when I was
younger..."
Again, those closest can see the colour rising slightly in her face.
"Amazing stuff...really quite detailed...but we don't need to go into
that now...There's a lot of garbage - this particular section was
taken from a two hour monologue from the prophet. The prophet
was a female Voudoun shaman being ridden by the Loa.
Apparently it was quite a remarkable thing - this group have
been working on the prophecies for some years now, and their
funding was about to be shut down when my mage spotted this
section. The research team is still only a few academics working
part-time, but I've continued their funding for fairly obvious reasons.
"Over the last few months, more and more has come to light,
connected to this 'darkness in the forest'. I'll read some more
to you."
She turns back to the paper, reading properly this time.
"The darkness can be stopped. The failed solder, his lover
and his claws will be there, as will the toad and the puzzle.
And the man that cannot die, with his wives. The sword, the
blade and the halfman will all fight, and one will die to save
the others. But at the end, all will fall, save the Scholar,
who will face the darkness on his own."
"Now, to us, it was fairly obvious who some of these people
are - the Toad is you, Mr Froger - no real mystery there. But
'The man that cannot die'? The 'Scholar'? We simply don't
know who these people are. However, we do know who some
of them are. And that's why you're all here. There's one more
section you should all hear."
She turns to the paper again.
"And the Red Lady shall return and again to see the dancer
fight the leopard. And neither shall win, for the grave shall be
the only victor if the darkness is to be stopped."
Minnie stops and picks up a glass of water from the table, taking
a sip. "Now, as some of you may guess, I'm not too happy at
some of the things that the prophecies seem to say, but they're
accurate enough, and believe me, you haven't seen the half of
them, that I will be doing whatever I can to stop this... darkness.
"There's something else. In the process of researching these
scripts, we came across numerous references to this artefact,
the so-called Red Lady's skull. We are currently in position of
part of this artefact, thanks to Mr Clarke-Jervoise and Mr Irish,
both here tonight. Thank you, gentlemen."
There's a soft murmuring of cloth as most of those present turn
to look at the man and dwarf, sitting on one side of the large
table.
"There are two other pieces - one is currently in the possession
of the UCAS government, a situation we hope to rectify. The
last one....we don't yet know anything about. We will be trying
to find out more from the piece we currently do have - one of
our associates will be conducting a ritual investigation soon.
"So, what do I need from you? Well, seeing as most, if not all
of you are mentioned in these texts, I'd like you to see if anything
unusual happens to you over the next few weeks. And, when we
find out more about the nature of this 'darkness in the forest'..."
She looks down, and takes a deep breath.
"...I would like to ask you to join me in trying to combat it
as best we can. Yes, I will be leaving my nice, safe, Mafia
mansion to see if I can do something...anything!"
Her voice is bitter - the onlookers aren't sure which is more
shocking - her loss of control, or the breaking of the taboo
that almost forbids the mention of the real nature of her
family business.
"I'm sorry...."she says, visibly pulling herself together.
"The thing is....well, before I met my late husband, " - her
lip curls at the mention of him - "I worked in clubs...
"I was.....a dancer. And it doesn't look like my particular
prognosis is very good. Shit happens, huh?
"So, who's in?"
+++++end video]<<<<<
-- Internal Monitoring <19:31:59/12-06-61>
Descabiere Mansion Security
