Notes taken by Alastair and Samantha Beadle.
Session 5.16 Index Session 6.1
Noesis is in Boston, to keep an eye on the situation there.
Servo is still in the bunker near Lille, in France, repairing the Telluric Energy Subtractor (TES) machine.
Everyone else is in France, having just delivered Brother Hawke, the Vice-Minister of State of the New Commonwealth, to Strasbourg for discussions on ending the war between the Octuple Alliance and the New Commonwealth.
Those of us in France decide to go visit Servo to see what the situation is with him and to 'help' him in his repairs.
Although we do what we can to assist, after a while he seems to conclude that he does not much like our assistance, and tells us to "get out of his lab."
That being so, Void goes off to rest and relax.
Truth and Blitz decide to check the Blessed Detector and see what they can find.
Beginning with France, they see all of us, and another natural Blessed who they think is Quincy. In addition to that, they see three other Blessed, two of whom are natural and one artificial. The artificial Blessed and one of the natural ones are in the New Commonwealth-controlled area of France. The other is in the French-controlled area.
Scanning further afield, they find two Blessed in England. One is natural, probably the invisible resistance Blessed that Bethany mentioned. One is artificial, presumably the Scarlet Enigma.
Further afield again, they detect a smattering of other Blessed across Europe, all but one of whom are natural.
Checking Boston again, they find that it is empty of Blessed apart from one natural one who they assume in Noesis, and the diffuse blob that seems to be the group-mind fish we drove off from the city. It is moving out to sea.
As for the rest of the world, the Blessed Detector indicates that there are Blessed scattered everywhere, in numbers that basically correlate with the population of those areas. These are all natural Blessed.
All of that being so, they relax too.
In Boston, Noesis decides to try and find the real Cromwell this time.
After considering his options, he decides that the best way forward is to explore the tunnel that he found leading off under the site of the Lord Protectors Residence.
Infiltrating the rubble, he finds the tunnel and follows it off. It goes on for some distance under the centre of Boston, and eventually comes out in the basement of what turns out to be the New Commonwealth Ministry of State.
Hunting around through the building, Noesis finds a very well guarded area on the upper floors of the building that does not seem to be connected to the rest of the Ministry. Using his powers to go inside, he finds a whole series of offices, rooms and living quarters containing, among other people, what seems to be Matthew and Margaret Cromwell.
Observing from inside the walls, Noesis sees that Cromwell appears to be running the Commonwealth from here. From what he says, he is using the cease-fire to play for time, giving the New Commonwealth forces in Britain and France time to reinforce themselves, and recover from the trouble we have caused there. Cromwell preaches to his Cabinet regarding all of this, and how God will not fail to let them achieve their Destiny to bring The Truth to world, and stamp out the Lies of Catholicism and the other Heretical Faiths.
This seems to be preaching to the converted. Most of the Cabinet seem to entirely agree with this. However, Noesis does notice that General McDonald (the head of the New Model Navy) and Hiram Wollaston (the Vice Chancellor of the New Commonwealth) seem to somewhat disagree with Cromwell's opinion, and to think that the cease-fire should be left as it is for now.
Cromwell continues to rant at his Cabinet in a generally barking mad manner. He seems to utterly believe what he is saying. He states that the setbacks are merely sent to try them. That they are the Right, and it is their Duty to spread the Right as that is what God desires. That all other religions and so on should be destroyed as the Lies that they are.
Bethany, who is watching all of this with Noesis, tells him that she thinks he should just seal up the area and then kill them all.
Noesis is not convinced by this argument, and instead sends Bethany to tell the rest of us what is happening. Through her, he suggests that we substitute the entire New Commonwealth Cabinet, thirteen people, with disguised agents from the Octuple Alliance.
In France, Blitz feels Bethany slide into his mind. She informs us of Noesis' plan.
In general, we do not really like it, and would prefer to do something else.
However, there is some useful information there, so we do pass a message to the Baron Charles de Bourges, at the negotiations, telling the Octuple Alliance what we have found out regarding the true intentions of the New Commonwealth.
Some time later, a message is received back. In it, the Baron thanks us for the information, but also tells us that is what they were assuming the New Commonwealth was doing anyway.
That being done, we discuss what to do next, with Bethany relaying messages back and forth to Noesis so that he is included in the conversation.
A number of options are put forward:
Servo believes he has almost completed the repairs to the machine.
It is that point that problems arise. After relaying information quite happily for some time now, Bethany, his only means of communication to the rest of us, tells Noesis that everyone else thinks he should kill all of the New Commonwealth Cabinet.
However, Noesis is not convinced by this argument, even if everyone else wants it.
By this point, Void has woken up, feeling fairly well rested.
He attempts to locate a Bible. However, all of the ones around here are in French. That being so, he uses his gate to hunt around over la Manche (the English Channel) in Britain, and steals a Bible that is in English from a house there.
Having obtained a Bible, he then begins reading it to see if it similar to the one he recognises from back home.
It appears to be something like the King James Version of the Bible that he is familiar with from home. In outline (he does not have time to read it in detail, and he is hardly a Bible scholar in any case) it appears to match what he remembers. Phew.
In Boston, with Cromwell located Noesis leaves the Ministry of State without following Bethany's advice to kill everyone there.
Instead, he moves subtly across Boston considering what to do next.
After some thought, he starts a poster campaign, merging with and converting otherwise blank walls across Boston into murals promoting peace. These murals are in bright primary colours, rather like the New Commonwealth propaganda posters that dot the city, and depict subjects such as families bring reunited and sunlit landscapes, with slogans along the lines of 'The End of the Age of Conflict'. Noesis' artistic skills seem to be quite up to the task of producing these posters, so he works to make as many as he can.
In France, Void is now fully rested and recovered from the large amount of gating he has done recently, and joins everyone else.
We all have a hearty breakfast.
While we eat, Blitz feels Bethany slide into his mind. Through him, she passes on some of Noesis messages about substituting agents for all of the Cabinet of the New Commonwealth.
We discuss this with the Baron.
He tells us that he can provide enough agents to cover for all of the substitutions. However, they will all need time to be trained for their roles as impersonators.
Via Bethany, the plan is discussed. Eventually, we agree that this is the best way forward. Even if the substitutions do not last for long, the agents should be able to have a significant effect. Let alone the fact that we will have taken the New Commonwealth Cabinet prisoner!
Noesis agrees to plant wire recorders throughout the Ministry of State and anywhere else useful, using them to obtain information on the style of speech and so on of the Cabinet members. The recorded information will be passed back via Void.
With this agreed, Noesis searches Boston until he finds some wire recorders. This is not a hard task, as they seem to be on sale to the public. He buys one in each of the many shops he visits.
That done, he uses his powers to plant them in the Ministry of State and anywhere else he deems necessary.
Interrupted only by the need to go and fetch wires from Noesis every now and again, Void goes off to enjoy some free time.
Blitz suggests that the TES machine is used to remove the powers from more of the New Commonwealth's artificial Blessed.
However, the Baron vetoes this idea for now, pointing out that it would go against current Octuple Alliance policy. And certainly end the cease-fire. Fair point...
Time passes.
Each night as we sleep, we continue to find ourselves in the grey misty space through which we came here with no-one but our counterparts for company.
We drift closer and closer to one another, until we pass through our counterparts and separate again. As the nights pass it becomes clear that we are each 'orbiting' around one another, coming closer and separating again, but each time we separate we do not go so far away, and the time between 'collisions' becomes smaller and smaller.
And as this proceeds, we all begin to wake up with our own powers, those of our bodies back in our world. Although these fade away within minutes, still, the times they are present get longer and longer.
Void attempts to communicate with his counterpart. He does do seem to be particularly worried about getting back, and smiles at Void in a way that does not imply good things.
Noesis' counterpart is refusing to communicate with him.
Truth actively resists letting her powers move from her real body to this one, thinking that having her counterpart break free in our world would be bad. This seems to work, and she and her counterpart do not swap powers.
She passes this information on to the rest of us.
Following this, everyone resists having their powers swapped. In general this seems to work...
We also try holding on to both sets of powers as we pass through our counterparts. This does not seem to work at all.
Elsewhere, the pre-negotiations between Brother Hawke of the New Commonwealth and the assembled representatives of the Octuple Alliance, on when, where and how to have the proper negotiations continue.
After a week or so, the pre-negotiations result in a slight withdrawal from the front lines for both sides in France. Also, a full conference between the New Commonwealth and the Octuple Alliance is organised for the following month. This will be held on a battleship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with an escort consisting of equal numbers of ships from both sides.
In Boston, the authorities do their best to stamp out Noesis' murals by painting them over. However, when they do this Noesis just restores them again.
Time passes. Noesis continues to feed information on the Cabinet of the New Commonwealth back to the Octuple Alliance. There seem to be weekly Cabinet meetings, so our plan is to replace the Cabinet members at one of these meetings.
He also uses his powers to discretely make sure that none of these people are doubles of Cromwell and the others, like the 'Cromwell' we captured earlier. As far as he can tell they are all the genuine article this time.
After a while, we ask the Baron about Madame Drakulich.
We are assured that she is fine and that we can be transferred back at the earliest opportunity, our work here being done. The earliest possible opportunity is not for a couple of months yet, though.
A flotilla of warships gathers in the mid-Atlantic. When they are assembled, the proper negotiations start between the New Commonwealth and the Octuple Alliance.
As more time passes, the dreams we are having of passing through one another in the grey, misty plane continue, with the cross-over periods extending more and more.
After a few week, the Octuple Alliance agents who will be replacing the various New Commonwealth Cabinet members are as trained as they can be from wire recordings of the real people talking plus descriptions of them and their behaviour from Noesis. They also allow Bethany to forge a link to them all, so that she can move to and from them easily. To be honest, the agents are not that well prepared, but are as prepared as seems practical.
And that being so, the Octuple Alliance agrees that we can do the swap.
With everything ready to go, all of the agents are loaded into a small boat, and Void gates them all across the Atlantic Ocean to Boston.
Upon arrival, they all meet up with Noesis, who gives them a final briefing, and then uses his powers to shapeshift the agents into copies of the various Cabinet members.
He and Void then find and prepare an empty railway goods wagon to receive our various prisoners, padding it and sealing all of its doors. Blitz and Truth are gated inside, ready to deal with the prisoners when they arrive.
Noesis then goes back to the Ministry of State and becomes one with the walls of the Cabinet meeting room.
While the conference room is empty, Void uses his gate to hunt around and find the best position to open it and allow the agents through.
And they are ready to go...
The various members of the New Commonwealth Cabinet, along with the Lord Protector, assemble in the conference room at the Ministry of State in Boston.
Noesis is already present within the walls. When everyone is assembled, he seals the door of the conference room.
And at a message transmitted by Bethany, Void opens a gate into the conference room and with it sucks up all of the New Commonwealth high command and passes them through to the prepared goods wagon.
In the wagon, Truth and Blitz 'restrain' all of the prisoners by way of smacks to the head. They quickly fall unconscious. Truth and Blitz then move to remove all of the personal items from the prisoners.
The agents are moved through Void's gate into the conference room and put into place.
As they come through there is a knocking at the door, and the voice of a guard from outside asks if everything is all right. The agent who now looks like Cromwell tells the guards that nothing is wrong, which seems to placate them.
Truth and Blitz, having stripped the prisoners of their personal effects, pass them through Void's gate to the agents, who put them about their persons as appropriate.
And the agents begin their work of impersonating the rulers of the New Commonwealth. We leave them to it...
The unconscious prisoners are removed from the goods wagon and loaded into the boat.
Noesis remains behind in Boston to keep an eye on things, with Bethany acting as a communications channel.
Everyone else also gets into the boat, and Void gates us all back to France.
Upon arrival, all of the prisoners are handed over to the representatives of the Octuple Alliance. Who are very happy to get them!
The prisoners are wheeled away, and we do not see them again...
In Boston, Noesis watches as the agents go about their impersonations of the Cabinet of the New Commonwealth, doing what they can to disrupt and cause trouble within the New Commonwealth while not being detected. They seem to be doing quite a good job.
Unfortunately, their impersonations are not perfect. As such, over the course of a few days their various staffs become more and more suspicious until, in the end, one of them is revealed as an impostor. Once one is revealed, the others are also quickly found to be fakes. The Ministry of Security moves to arrest all of them.
By way of Bethany, Noesis informs us of these impending problems, and Void quickly gates back to Boston re rescue them.
With Bethany providing him with locations he is able to rescue a few of them. However, the rest of them are taken into custody by the Ministry of Security, who vigorously interrogate - that is, brutally torture - them. Damn.
When it becomes known that the impersonations in Boston have been revealed, the Baron comes to us, and tells us that now we can use the TES machine on the remaining New Commonwealth Blessed.
This sounds like a plan to us.
Servo activates the machine, and focuses it on the first of the three artificial Blessed in Europe. Power surges out of the machine and dissipates into the ground. The target seems to have reverted into a potential Blessed. After minor repairs, the machine is ready to be used again, and the powers are stripped from the second artificial Blessed. After further repairs, the same is done to the third of them.
Nothing bad seems to happen. At least, no super-powered earth creatures appear to cause trouble. Yet.
However, we then test the TES machine on the natural Blessed we have detected on the New Commonwealth side.
However, this time, although the machine seems to work perfectly, no power is drained from the Blessed. From their (lack of) movement afterwards it has seemed to knock them unconscious, but according to the Blessed Detector machine they are still Blessed. So the TES machine will not affect them in the long term. Damn.
After the impersonations are discovered and the powers removed from the artificial New Commonwealth Blessed in Europe, the peace talks taking place on a battleship in mid-Atlantic very quickly break down in mutual recriminations.
No-one seems terribly surprised at this. And so the war begins again...
However, we do not really care. We have done what we can, so we think it is time for us to go home.
Fortunately, the Octuple Alliance seems to agree, so the Baron tells us that we may return as soon as 'the stars are right'.
That being so, we meet up with Madame Drakulich again and discuss the situation.
We decide that the best way forward is to send one of us home to find out more about the situation, then for them to return with what they have found out. After that we will decide how to proceed.
After further discuss we conclude that the best person to send back is Void, as he is the only one of us that is, as far as we are aware, still at large in our world. However, we do not want him returning and then just gating away again, so we decide that we will remove Void's powers and then send him back. This will stop Void's counterpart escaping and also allow us to check whether removing super-powers here will cause our original bodies to lose their super-powers at home.
That being so, Void walks off across the fields to a point a mile away, then Servo warms up the TES machine, and fires it.
Out in the field, Void feels power crackling and draining out of him. This hurts a lot. Then he falls unconscious. In the case, the TES machine crackles and sparks as power dissipates off into the earth.
When he wakes up, he finds that his ability to create gates from one place to another seems to be utterly gone.
On the Blessed Detector machine the rest of us see that Void is now only a potential Blessed.
Void trudges back across the fields and rejoins the rest of us.
Servo fixes the TES machine. Again.
Everything is now ready for Void to be returned to our world.
That being so, we are driven off cross-country to a stone circle.
As night falls, following the directions of Madame Drakulich, moves into the centre of the circle and sits down on the ground.
She sits down outside the circle, and begins humming, as before, as she performs the spell.
Mist rises within the circle, and Void, now asleep, finds himself in the grey misty space between worlds.
He moves through the mist, and quickly sees another form approaching - that of his counterpart. Who does not seem to be terribly happy to be here. He grapples with Void, as best he can with a largely insubstantial body, and seems to be trying to throw Void back into the body he came from, while he goes back to our world.
Void fights this. After a prolonged struggle with his counterpart, he manages to overpower him, and the two of them fly apart in the mist.
A bright light grows ahead of him, and Void opens his eyes to find himself back in his own body.
He gets up and looks around. He seems to be in a large attic of some kind. It appears that his counterpart has been camping out here. There are books, clothes and cooking utensils scattered around, along with a camp bed and lots of books.
Void examines the books more closely, and finds that his counterpart has been reading up on various aspects of modern technology, and in particular things relating to how to build nuclear weapons and other such nasty things. Most of the books seem to be from various libraries from different parts of London, though some are not. Most of library books are past their return dates.
Looking around further, Void discovers that he is in the attic of a warehouse in the area of the Tilbury docks in east London. Hidden around the attic is a stash of money, some guns, and a bible. Hmm...
He tests that his powers still exist by hitting his hand on the wall. As the kinetic energy of the blow feeds into his powers, he finds that they do. Phew.
All of that being so, he lies down on the camp bed and goes back to sleep.
To find himself back in the misty space between worlds. He passes his counterpart going the other way. He does not look terribly happy, but does not attempt to stop him.
And eventually Void finds himself falling into the light, and wakes up in his powerless body back in the centre of the stone circle. He gets up and comes over to the rest of us as the sun rises.
He explains what he found in our London. He also tells the Baron that his counterpart will be very dangerous when he returns, and should be killed. Void has concluded that his counterpart now knows far too much.
Noesis is concerned about leaving the powers of his current body here, as it seems to be very powerful. As a natural Blessed his powers cannot be removed. He considers whether he should try to hold on to its powers when we return, and let his counterpart take his psychic powers instead. Eventually he decides that he will try and take the shapeshifting powers back to our world.
We do not worry about the powers of Blitz, Servo and Truth as they are all artificial anyway.
And with that in mind, all three of them submit, one after the other, to the TES machine. Each of them has their powers ripped out in a painful and unpleasant manner, falling unconscious and recovering in a field some way from Servo's laboratory before making their respective ways back. Servo, of course, goes last in this as he has to keep the TES machine working.
And with that done, we are basically ready to return.
We warn the Baron that if Noesis shows any signs of shapeshifting powers then lethal force should be used on him right away. With those powers he is too dangerous to be allowed to roam free, but probably also too powerful to easily stop unless it is done right away.
Void considers taking poison before he goes to sleep, so that his counterpart wakes up in a dying body. However, his innate sense of self-preservation stops him from doing this. Instead, Void sets up a hollowed-out bible whose cover holds in the detonator of a pin-less hand grenade as a trap to kill his counterpart.
Truth is most definitely of the opinion that letting her counterpart gain her real powers would be a very bad thing. As such she intends to do her best to not let her do this...
And we are ready to go. Night begins to fall.
We all troop into the centre of the stone circle, and we all go to sleep there.
The last thing we see is Madame Drakulich beginning to hum as she works to send us all back...
We all find ourselves in the misty grey space, moving through it, hopefully back towards our own bodies.
All of us see our counterparts emerge from the misty greyness ahead of us. We seem to be heading towards each other on a collision course.
We all meet, and begin to pass through, our counterparts. We feel all of them begin to grapple with us, attempting to tear the powers from us and take them for themselves.
Blitz succumbs to this sudden attack, and feels his counterpart begin to take the powers of his real body on through the mist with him. He fights back against this.
Truth struggles with he counterpart, feeling her madness and frothing anger. However, she remains strong, and manages to resist her counterpart's attempts to take her powers. She moves onward through the grey void.
In the grey misty space, Void struggles with his counterpart once again. Again he manages to retain his powers, and passes on the greyness.
Servo does the same, struggling with his counterpart for a while before passing on through the void, and retaining his own powers.
Noesis also meets with his counterpart in the grey misty plane, and struggles with him as he attempts to carry his counterpart's matter-shaping powers with him.
However, his counterpart seems to be quite strong, and the struggle continues.
Blitz and his counterpart struggle on. Eventually, in a burst of mental strength, Blitz manages to overcome his other half and fly off through the void with the powers of his real body intact.
Noesis and his counterpart also struggle on. After a while, his counterpart weakens slightly and Noesis takes advantage of this to mentally 'head-butt' him and fly off into the misty greyness.
Light appears out of the mist ahead of us all, and we all pass into and through it to the other side, where we wake up.
Void wakes in the attic in Tilbury once again. He still has his powers. Phew.
Noesis wakes up in a cell that looks rather like those he saw in Project Safeguard before it was destroyed. He experiments, and discovers that he now has shapeshifting powers...
Truth also wakes up in a cell. She attracts the attention of the guards and gives them the code word she arranged with the authorities when she briefly returned to our world before.
After a short delay while this is confirmed, the guards open the cell door and she is released.
She is told that she is on Project Stronghold, on a converted disused oil rig moored in the mid-Atlantic. And that the authorities would like to interview her on what has been happening. She agrees to this, and is led off.
Waking up in another cell, Blitz also gives the code word.
Again, after a short delay he too is released.
The guards tell him that the authorities would like to interview him, too. He agrees to this.
Void leaves the Tilbury warehouse and makes his way to S.T.O.P. headquarters in London. He is greeted rather warily by the police officers there, but they listen to his story, and once he has established his bona fides, give him tea.
He is also interviewed as to what happened to us all.
In his cell, Noesis find he can no longer levitate his shell. Damn. Instead, he has it grow legs. Speaking through his shell's speaker system, he also establishes his identity with the guards and is let out of his cell.
He also agrees to be interviewed.
Members of S.T.O.P. stationed at Project Stronghold separately interview Truth, Blitz and Noesis. This takes some time, but they are provided with refreshments and so on while the interviews take place.
And once they are done, the three of them are released and are free to go.
By now a VTOL aircraft has arrived, and the Blitz, Truth and Noesis climb aboard and are flown out of Project Stronghold and back to London.
On the way they read the newspapers provided. It seems that it is now the first of May 1996. We have been away for exactly three months.
Upon our return to London, Truth flits off to Servo's company, where she advises Brian Clinton, Servo's father-in-law, that all is well again.
Thus Servo is released from the cell in which his father-in-law has been keeping him while his body was used by his counterpart. Phew.
Void returns to where he had been living in south London. He finds that he has lost both his teaching job and the flat where he was living, along with most of his stuff. Damn.
Blitz and Truth also seem to have lost their respective flats. Also damn.
Noesis, on the other hand, now has a whole new set of powers.
He experiments with these, and soon finds that he can shape himself a new, living, human body out of organic matter. This he does.
He then spends quite a lot of time enjoying just having a body again...