Notes taken by Alastair and Samantha Beadle.
Session 4.8 Index Session 4.10
Under Highgate Tube Station.
Spores puff out as the door opens, revealing the concrete tunnel turning into a fungal space beyond. John Doe stops breathing to avoid them. Servo seals his armour, going over to its internal air supply. Truth doesn't breathe anyway. Blitz puts up his force shield (John Doe copies the orange glow effect of the force field, but his is not as effective as the real thing).
Servo fires a flare into the area ahead to light the way. Light radiates around but we can only see 10 metres or so ahead because of the mist of spores or whatever in the air. The tunnel can be seen to open out into a larger chamber with other corridors leading off. Fungus dangles from the ceiling and fungal filaments fill the space between. Figures are seen shambling away from the light, dressed in tattered clothing.
John Doe extends several eyes into the room on stalks, each using little wings to keep them off the ground. Truth goes desolid and enters too.
Blitz, Servo and Mr Regis stay by the door. Blitz is forced, despite some effort, to breathe in some spores. He feels no immediate bad effects from this...
The change from the concrete walls of the tube station tunnel to fungus is gradual. The walls look grown rather than manufactured, as if the concrete walls have been eaten away and replaced by a larger fungus chamber. Some figures in the room appear to be doing something to an active looking patch of wall - possibly feeding it from dustbins.
Blitz phones Sergeant Courtould to ask about the spores; Sergeant Courtould looks things up on his computer, and tells Blitz that the fungal people do emit spores but they do not appear to have any effect on humans. Blitz is slightly reassured by thus. All the same, John Doe seals off the room by turning into a transparent shield.
Truth, invisible and desolid, investigates one the four tunnels that leads off from the chamber beyond the door. There are four of such tunnels, leading off in various directions. John Doe sends an eye down a corridor too (not knowing which one Truth is investigating).
Truth's corridor contains more fungus people, some carrying or just holding things (old clothes, rubbish and so on). After about one hundred metres she enters another chamber.
John Doe also finds fungus people (who look at his winged eyes on stalks with very mild interest before going back to their business). As he stretches out into the distance he is forced to reabsorb his seal on the main chamber door to keep stretching, and most of his mass slides on into the tunnel ahead. The corridor gets very dark as he leaves the light of Servo's flare behind. For stealth, he turns into a fungus person, allowing spores stick to him to let him take on the right smell (he cannot duplicate the fungus material directly). He starts to glow to show the way. This rather negates the stealthy effects of looking like a fungus person.
Blitz enters the chamber beyond the door (Servo volunteers to remain behind and wait for STOP to arrive). He finds the air think, but bearable. He goes over to the wall that is apparently being fed. The fungus people seem to be sticking bits of organic rubbish onto the wall (clothing, plastic bottles, foodstuffs, newspapers and so on). The fungus here pulses slightly. "What are you doing?" Blitz asks one of the people.
The figure turns and looks at Blitz with his solid jet black eyes. "Feeding it," he replies.
"Why?" asks Blitz.
"So that it may grow."
"Who asked you to feed it?"
"She did."
"She?"
"She."
"Where is she?"
"In the middle."
"In the middle of what?"
"The City... You are not one of us. Why are you here?" asks the fungus person dully.
"We are here to see what is happening. To see why She is doing this. Why is she doing this?"
"She is."
Blitz asks more questions - but cannot extract details of where 'She' is - other than in the centre of this underground city, the 'Downbelow City'. He finds another fungus person who appears to be less busy to try and get more information.
Truth and John Doe discover that they are in the same tunnel (Truth noticing John Doe before she reveals her presence to him). After another fifty metres they discover another tunnel. In the dim light of Truth's flashlight (it is absolutely pitch black in the tunnels other than the lights we have brought) they see more fungus people, carrying large yellow hospital waste rubbish bags marked with the biohazard symbol from out of another tunnel. Truth recalls that there are a few hospitals in this part of North London. John Doe challenges one of them "Where are you going with that sack?"
"To Feed."
"What would you do if I took your bag away?"
"I would have to get another one. Why would you take the bag away? You don't want it."
Some discussion about eating habits ensues, during which John Doe eats part of the hospital waste, just to show he can. It contains, he notices, several interesting infectious diseases.
Blitz convinces one of the fungus people to lead him to She, threatening that the authorities will 'close them down' if we cannot convince ourselves that they are good rather than bad. She introduces herself as 'Milly' and leads off - slowly!
John Doe also asks where 'She' is. He gets the useful information that all tunnels lead to 'the centre'. When asked which tunnel gets there the quickest they are given different answers depending on whom they ask. Truth tries to mind control one of the people to get them to point her and John Doe in the right direction. He has quite a lot of resistance, possibly because his rather woolly brain is difficult to get a grip on, but he points to a third tunnel as he direction to the middle. John Doe spins him around and asks him again. He gives the same answer, so they decide to follow that tunnel.
After a while John Doe, annoyed by all this messing around, turns into a large demon with a flame-thrower. The flame-thrower (rather than the demon) scares the fungus people, and they back off.
Milly leads Blitz slowly down a tunnel. Blitz is very nervous of the enclosed space so is not too bothered by the slow pace. His own glow lights the way a little. He mumbles out loud, trying to reassure himself. At one stage Blitz has enough of the slow pace and flies off to find 'She' for himself, but after one too many breaks in the tunnel he gives up and returns to Milly.
John Doe and Truth are asking random fungus people for directions at each major interchange they come across, assisted by Truth's mind control powers. This seems to work reasonably well.
At several points John Doe tries to perfect biological anti-gravity as a means of flight. And after a few attempts he succeeds! He hovers down the corridor after Truth.
It takes Blitz, and John Doe and Truth, a long time to make their way through the tunnels. As they go they see that there are at least two hundred fungus people down here! We also come across several openings to the outside world, which we investigate:
John Doe turns into a stereotypical UFO that 'thwoms' around the tunnels, lights glowing. When he finds out where he is now, John Doe mentally reorganises what he has been memorising about the layout of these tunnels to match it with his memorised map of the surface (as he now knows two points on his tunnel map which are matched with points on the surface).
After a while (during which John Doe turns into miniature horse on a flying carpet, and flies along) we find ourselves under Highgate cemetery. Tunnels lead up into Victorian mausoleums. Blitz meets up with Truth and John Doe.
Milly continues to lead us towards 'She'. We are lead to a chamber, on one side of which a ramp leads up. Truth reconnoitres and discovers that it leads up into another mausoleum. It is big and impressive and marked as the tomb of a Dr Gilbert Winterton. However there seems to have been fight in here (not recently though) - the top of the marble casket has been cracked, an urn at the head of the casket has been smashed and some of the other carvings and decorations (which seem to have a sort of jungle motif) have been broken and smashed. There are also visible claw marks in the walls.
Down below, Milly says, "She should be here." She repeats this several times.
Truth gets a very faint trace of Carnivore, the big blonde cat-man who we fought in the Viper base under the Thames. It has been months or years since he was here, though. There are similar faint traces of other people who she does not recognise.
John Doe goes up the ramp into the Mausoleum, followed by Blitz. John Doe opens the coffin and finds that it still contains its occupant, a very old-looking withered corpse.
John Doe then flies out of the mausoleum and up, to look for 'She'. He sees no immediate sign of her, so returns. Blitz goes outside and takes deep breaths of clean air.
Truth scans the area for scents and finds no recent traces.
From the sir, John Doe sees various people wandering around the cemetery and checks them out. A young couple is visiting a grave, an old woman is visiting another grave, and a man and small child are visiting another. John Doe checks out various other people and eventually finds a very white skinned woman, in tattered clothes with a wide brimmed hat, gloves and sunglasses, leading a homeless-looking man by the hand. John Doe flies into cover, from where he phones Truth and Blitz.
After getting the message, Truth wanders invisibly into the cemetery. Blitz hides behind a mausoleum. As she comes up to 'She', Truth vaguely recognises the man 'She' is leading as Mike, an old man who begs around the London train stations. The woman leads Mike to one of the mausoleums. Truth follows them. John Doe, still observing, phones Blitz to tell him where to go.
Blitz proceeds towards that mausoleum from inside the tunnels, hiding in the shadows.
Truth sees 'She' leading Mike into the mausoleum. A fungus person is already there, waiting. As soon as 'She' arrives the fungus person reports. "There are people inside again," he says. "They are superheroes."
"Oh," replies 'She'. "Where are they?"
She speaks slightly faster than the fungus people we have met up to now, but still slowly.
"One of them is down there. We don't know..."
"...where the others are?" finishes She.
"What do they want?"
"We don't know."
"Oh."
She leads Mike down into the tunnels. Blitz flies off to keep out of sight. Truth follows directly (still invisible) and John Doe follows at a slight distance, taking full advantage of his new anti-gravity abilities.
'She' goes to the chamber under the mausoleum of Dr Winterton and asks Mick to lie down on a blanket on the floor that is off to one side. Mick's breathing sounds like that of a distinctly unwell person as he is helped onto the blanket. He does not look at all fungusy at the moment. 'She' sits down next to him and looks at him. 'She' sits there for five minutes, doing nothing but watch Mick's condition slowly deteriorate.
John Doe sends the tiniest of feelers across the floor to sample Mick. He is currently entirely human, with no trace of fungus in his system. John Doe finds a pulse point in Mick's ankle and monitors his condition.
Blitz gets up out of cover and walks towards 'She'.
"You're Blitz," She says, looking up.
"I am. Who are you?"
"I am She."
"So your friends have told us. What are you going to do to him?"
"I am going to save him from pain. Give him peace. He is dying."
"Is this is how you make all of your followers?"
"Why do you want to know?"
A discussion ensues about her followers. From what She says, we conclude that they are all dead. She says they died naturally or were murdered by others. She brings them back to life to give them piece.
Suddenly Mick gives a hideous racking cough, coughing and spitting up blood. John Doe feels Mick's heartbeat race and then stop. The coughing stops suddenly, a gurgling noise emerges and Mick goes limp.
'She' leans down towards him, takes a deep breath and takes his head and kisses him on the mouth, exhaling as she does so. A puff of spores is exchanged between their mouths and she sits back again.
"I half expected you to stop me there," She says.
"You don't seem to be doing any harm," says Blitz.
"People do not like us."
John Doe suddenly comes out of cover and into the room.
"Well, I am completely confused by this one," he says. "You appear to be doing nothing wrong but if you believe that there is a life after death then you are robbing them of that but then I do not know how any of that works..."
We discuss what to do. Leaving them to it is the favoured option - but STOP are now involved so it may be too late. The disruption to civil life they may cause is discussed. So far no major damage has been done and none is intended according to 'She'.
The discussion reveals that the fungus on the walls is what is holding them up. The fungus needs to be fed to keep it strong.
'She' says that she was murdered by Carnivore just over a year ago, along with her new husband, on their honeymoon. She then came back to life and discovered that she could bring others back as well. She says there was not enough of her husband left to bring back to life, though.
She asks for Jemima to be given back. We speculate that she was probably the fungus person that STOP detained for their investigations.
We leave to return through the tunnels and speak to Sergeant Courtould.
As we depart it can be seen that a network of white filaments is spreading across Mick's body; the network gets denser and denser until all the filaments merge together, turning his skin entirely white. Mick is seen to slowly lift one hand...
We get back to Highgate tube station. Servo is there, along with a detachment of STOP officers in NBC suits. We take Sergeant Courtould aside, and, with Servo, privately inform him of what we have discovered.
We recommend that She and her followers are left to continue doing what they are doing. However, Sergeant Courtould claims that STOP have not taken any of the fungus people for investigation - they did it all by watching and following, not taking people into custody.
We return to find out more about Jemima from She.
When we arrive back at the chamber under the mausoleum of Dr Winterton, Mick is up and about. He is questioned, and says he remembers his previous life. He consented to the reanimation/transformation process he has just gone through, and is happy with the results so far.
When asked, She says that Jemima was taken away by people in radiation suit-like clothing. The suits had no badges on them. The abduction took place outside while Jemima was helping She by Waterloo Bridge four months ago. She was taken away in an unmarked van.
John Doe says "Stay here," goes out through the mausoleum and zooms off towards Waterloo Bridge.
Truth talks to Mick. He seems happy, no longer in pain, and at peace - if a little slow!
When asked, She says she has other spore-based powers. It was in using these that she discovered how to raise the dead.
Blitz agrees to go with Sergeant Courtould to brief his superiors in STOP. He returns to Highgate tube station again. Sergeant Courtould agrees to keep this whole thing quiet, at least for the moment.
John Doe arrives at Waterloo Bridge. He examines it in detail in order to make a scale model of it later. He memorises the positions of all the security cameras.
At Highgate tube, Mr Regis is asked to re-secure the door and to also keep this whole thing quite. He is reassured that there is no danger. He says he will keep quiet.
Blitz, Sergeant Courtould and the other STOP officers leave Highgate tube and drive off to STOP HQ.
John Doe returns to the chamber. He becomes a scale model of Waterloo Bridge and asks She to indicate where the abduction took place. She considers for a while, then indicates a spot on the South Bank of the Thames, near the bridge. From his examination of the place, John Doe concludes that some security cameras may have seen it. He intends to try to find the security videos made at the appropriate time (if they still exist) and look for some evidence.
However, Servo thinks it likely that the tapes will have been used again and so overwritten by now.
John Doe phones The Lost Girls to see if they can help with this investigation. Scarlet answers, and he asks them to come down, bringing 'magical things that will help you look into the past.'
She says she will have to check with Mestnusen about that. Mestnusen is currently busy at her job (Scarlet is reluctant to tell us what that job is though).
We wait for now. A day passes...
During the next day:
Truth goes off to meet her alter ego to 'see if she can wind her up some more'. She trawls her normal haunts in an attempt to find her, but unfortunately has no success. The other Verity seems to have disappeared. Several contacts are annoyed at this, as she disappeared owing them money. The real Verity berates them for being stupid enough to lend her money in the first place.
Then she goes off on a crime-fighting patrol.
John Doe patrols the night sky of the city, looking for bad things happening and putting a stop to them. He hands the results over to the police, but keeps the money and drugs he takes from the criminals he catches.
Blitz goes to STOP, where he, along with sergeant Courtould, briefs various senior STOP people on the fungus people issue. Blitz strongly promotes the 'leave them as they are' philosophy, and drops heavy hints that he will be annoyed if they do not. He says he will keep a close eye on the fungus people - both to make sure they remain benign, and to make sure that they are not exploited or persecuted by anyone else.
He does indeed return to Highgate the next day to check up on them; nothing bad seems to have happened to them.
During the day, John Doe pursues his investigations into how he came to be a garden shed in Teddington for fifty years some more. In particular, he investigates the owner of the garden in which the shed was located, at 25 Laurel Road, Teddington, who vanished in 1947 (number 25 is currently owned by a Dr Clarence McDonald).
He discovers that the man, Dr John Peterson, was a Captain in the medical section of the 3rd Irish Regiment during the occupation of Japan after World War II. Before and after the war he worked as a doctor in St Thomas's hospital in London. John Doe wants to find people that are still alive who knew John Peterson when he was in Japan and shortly afterwards. He finds the names of Dr Peterson's neighbours at the time and some more background information on the 3rd Irish Regiment.
One neighbour, Robert Allinson-Hyde, was a child at the time living in the house on one side of Dr Peterson's (number 23). The other, Margaret Simms, was the wife of the household on the other side (number 27) at the time. John Doe obtains addresses for both of these people, and four people who were serving in the 3rd Irish Regiment at the time when they were in Japan (Sergeant Damon O'Connor, Captain Richard MacDermot, Lieutenant Iain O'Grady and Sergeant Eamon MacCormac).
Having done this, John Doe also calls the BBC to see if any work is available. They say that they have something for him on Wednesday - he says he will be in if nothing major comes up.
Blitz returns to the WTDII to relax.
In the late afternoon, Mestnusen phones to offer her talents in our investigation into the disappearance of Jemima. However, when asked, she says she cannot, at present, look into the past. Damn.
We give her a brief description of the problem in tracing Jemima's abductors. She does not think that she can help much. We also tell her briefly about the fungus people.
We agree that both teams - the London Knights and The Lost Girls - will meet up tonight on the WTDII to discuss things...