SD 07/26/03 Oh, Dam aka "MiT - Men in Trek" #10 - Finaly made it out of the cell, with a little help, and it looks like the team is almost here.
M'Rander finally managed to get in contact with me, and I explained what I had found. While we were talking, the door was unlocked, and those two stonefaces stepped in. They were about to inject that "truth serum" into me when M'Rander had the "Hamsterdance" music blast through my comm. The two goons were taken by surprise, and that gave me the opportunity to take them by surprise by laying a left hook onto the goon with the syringe. That left just one other for me to take care of, and after several blows were traded I finally had him "sleeping on the job." Not sure how many others were here, I made sure those two would be out for a while, I tied and gagged them up and locked the door behind me.
I then began looking for a way out, but I don't know my way around and there are no maps around. As I occasionally see one or two more of those men, I'm under the additional factor of trying not to look like I'm lost. I did go through the gadgets I found on those two men. No ID badges in their wallets. One looked a little like a penlight, but it just made one single bright flash when I pointed it into a dark area. I did find one thing that looked like a weapon. It resembles a tiny pistol, and makes cricket-like sounds when adjusted, noisy little thing.
I gave Brundle a comm, thinking he was closest. T'Kee answered in the background, and I found he had met up with the others. He also had an explanation for these goons that have given us trouble. He explained they seemed to be very much like a covert group in a 20th Century movie he had seen - "Men in Black," which described not only their uniforms, but also their status. They're a secret rouge group independant of any governmental authority that makes it's mission to keep aliens away from the Earth. From what Brundle explained, looks like someone got their hands on some alien technology, and assuming all outsiders are hostile are using it to isolate Earth from Contact, or as Brundle put it "protecting the Earth from the scum of the Universe." But if they're xenophobes, why would they show interest in that treaty they mentioned. Perhaps some of the fighting got too close to exposing knowledge of aliens to the public, and they feel the treaty would make their jobs easier.
Brundle explained most agents in the movie were fairly reasonable, but the ones he ran into seemed to have sadistic streaks. In any event, if they thought you were a troublemaker, they would dispose of any pleasantries when dealing with you. As they think we're trying to sabotage this treaty, it's obvious any meetings with them could easily result in trouble, though as they want to keep knoweldge of aliens from reaching the public, most likely they'll try to avoid making a show.
This development certainly puts a wrinkle on things. Although we usually have a free reign when dealing with worlds with space age technology, here it's in the hands of some vigelante group. While for now they seem content to just keep others away, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if they'll start manipulating governments and businesses. I also keep thinking of "Section 31" the rouge Federation covert operations group which answered to no one but themselves.
These guys need to be shut down, before they threaten the people they claim to be protecting. Most likely others outside their group have found out, and these jokers threaten them into silence, or use this "neuralizer" that Brundle described as a memory eraser. Question is, how. Even if we were to blow up every one of their space age tools, they probably have the skills to make then again. While there is the "neuralizer," can we be sure of getting all of them, especially with our time-limit? And even if we could do both, it cannot be denied not everyone "out there" is freindly. If "their" Argelians and Vorlins keep passing through her, do others? Brundle described this place "like the movie," and those kinds of movies had at least one big villian. Would simply removing them expose this version of Earth to even worse trouble?
What to do?
NARRATIVE: In the vicinity of Hoover Dam, Dammers & Lynx's bike blows a tire and they wreck, Dammers getting injured in the process. To make matters worse, the way he lands results in a hypospray he carries injecting him with a massive overdose of drugs, giving him wild halucinations and periods of falling unconscious. The van arrives in time to get him a medpack. Elsewhere, T'kee had gone to get Dammers a replacment bike, and getting it and making a getaway results in numerous incidents, including a car crashing though a rual fence and a bull charging out. Eventually everyone save Captain Lee gets back together, and seeing Las Vegas on the horizon head on. Back on the ship, Demian goes into a Jefferies tube to deal with a problem, and discovering an infestation of moths, his methods of dealing with it result in the "Freedom" loosing main power.