Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Ana (Napalm) wakes up in the bed of Alexi Phillipov. Alexi Phillipov (still asleep at the moment) will later wake up on the sofa of Alexi Phillipov.
She is dangerously sober, and there is still no alcohol in the apartment of Officer Phillipov. So, leaving him asleep on the sofa, she raids his wardrobe for fresh clothes, uses his shower and kitchen (leaving dirty clothes and unwashed dishes everywhere) and then leaves for the City Records Office, in the City Duma building, on Ploshchad Revolyutsii, close by Red Square.
The City Duma building is some way away, so in a quiet street away from Officer Phillipov's apartment there is a brief flare of flame and Napalm rises into the Northern sky.
Ludmilla (Mother Bear) wakes up in her apartment on Nakhimovskiy Prospekt, to find her husband asleep beside her. She wakes him up. He has not been asleep too long, having just gone to bed after returning home from the night shift, and so is not too keen on this, but she does not let it worry her. She describes the recent 'bad luck' suffered by their neighbours to him.
Vladimir Leonidovitch has heard about some of them from work, and he too is suspicious.
Mother Bear asks him to be careful and to watch the children. He goes back to sleep.
Seeing this, she passes on similar advice to her older children, Nina in particular, and insists that they watch out for the younger ones while she is out. Nina complains that she wants to go shopping, not watch her siblings.
Ludmilla tells her that if she can find a babysitter for the other children, then she can go out.
Nina heads for the phone.
Ludmilla leaves and takes the Metro into the centre of Moscow to meet up with Napalm.
Elsewhere, Vladimir Patrovich (Akula) wakes up in his apartment in the Sparrow Hills.
He heads off to the University, to talk to someone in the Parapsychology Department about recent events. At the University he looks up the location of the Parapsychology Department, which proves to be quite small - a head of department and a few Ph.D. students - and goes to visit them.
He finds the department quite quickly, tucked away inside a basement close to the Psychology and Pharmacology departments. On the door of the department some wag has taped up a magical hazard warning sign (a black-edged yellow triangle containing a black pentagram). Inside is an entrance area with a few chairs and a coffee machine, with various doors opening off of it. Some seem to be offices, some labs. Only one door is marked - with a nameplate reading 'Professor Ursula Armanovich Agafia, Head of Department'.
Vladimir changes into Akula whilst no-one is looking and knocks on the professor's door.
"Ah, Akula, come in!" says a voice from inside!
'She's good!' thinks Akula, and opens the door and goes in.
Inside the professors office is a little white haired old woman, dressed in black with a white lab coat over the top, sitting behind a desk. Her grey hair is tied up in a bun. She appears to be blind, and there are various books in Braille scattered about the room.
They greet each other. She appears to have been expecting him. However 'the visions are not always clear', she tells him, so Akula needs to explain that the heroes are investigating a series of 'remarkable accidents'. He goes on to describe each incident in detail.
As Ludmilla exits the Ploshchad Revolyutsii Metro station, she notices Napalm (who, although faster, left later) flying through the air overhead. She makes no move to signal her (being in civilian identity) and heads for the City Duma building. This proves to be an ornate red brick 'Pseudo Russian' edifice, its gate guarded by two security guards.
Ludmilla asks them where the Public Records Office is.
They give her directions to an office on the second floor, so she goes in and along to the stated location. On the second floor, the public records office is in a long room containing huge numbers of shelved records - folders, books, boxes and so on - on bookcases, with windows along one long wall facing out onto Ploshchad Revolyutsii. "Yes? Can I help you?" asks a hatchet-faced middle-aged woman sitting behind a desk by the entrance when Ludmilla enters.
"Why?" demands the hatchet-faced woman when Ludmilla states her interest in the affected apartment blocks.
Ludmilla explains the 'incidents' and is handed a form to fill in for permission to examine the records.
Napalm finds a quite alley, lands, and returns to non-flaming civilian form. She too heads for the City Duma building.
At the main door she is, for once, not turned away as a smelly drunken homeless person, having washed and changed today, but instead receives the same directions as Ludmilla. She enters the building but, suffering from a low alcohol level in her bloodstream, she fails to follow the directions correctly and instead wanders rather aimlessly about. As she wanders she discovers the offices for Finance, Administration and Planning. She also discovers a vending machine with beer in it. She uses some of Alexi's Rubles to buy beer for breakfast. After a drink her 'DTs' calm down slightly so she heads off to find Ludmilla.
This time she is slightly more successful and discovers the Records Office and the hatchet-faced woman just as Ludmilla finishes filling in her form.
Ludmilla explains to the hatchet-faced woman that Ana is her 'assistant', so she is also given an application form.
She copies Ludmilla's form in everything other than name, and they hand them both in to the woman. Several corrections are made by her, accompanied by much tutting, and the forms are stamped.
The woman hands out two passes, along with strict instructions to hand them back before the office closes at one o'clock in the afternoon.
When asked where the land records would be the woman points, without looking up, to a large card index on the other side of the room.
Ana starts flicking through cards, apparently at random. Ludmilla makes a more systematic search.
In the professor's office, Akula is told that the department has not received any visions or signs of these incidents. She says that they sound like 'curses' that have occurred in the past, but it is unusual for a large number of people to be so cursed.
"Areas can be cursed," she goes on. "But I would expect that to be a long term effect unless it was cursed very recently. Perhaps the curse has been recently cast by a 'witch' or other magic user. Alternatively 'bad luck spirits', 'imps' or 'gremlins' could cause such events. Sometimes such spirits attach themselves to a person or family."
When Akula asks her how we might find out more about such things, she suggests more mundane lines of investigation than the paranormal.
Akula thanks her for her time and asks her to contact him through the police if she 'senses' anything that may assist them. She agrees to do so.
"Be sure to choose wisely when the time comes," says the Professor rather mysteriously as Akula gets up to leave. "All of you must choose wisely!"
And with that Akula leaves. He heads for Nakhimovskiy Prospekt, the location of Ludmilla's apartments, and seemingly the epicentre of the 'bad luck' epidemic.
In the Records Office, Ana and Ludmilla have fought the records system into submission.
They have discovered that the land where the two apartment blocks now stand was used for slums and factories in the pre-Soviet era. The precise area was owned by an Anton Demitriev, who owned a steel works and associated buildings on the site. This land was collectivised by the early Soviet regime and apartment blocks built on the site. These were flattened during the Great Patriotic War and then rebuild in the 1950's in new Soviet style.
During the building of the current apartments there were two deaths. An Edvard Borodinski was crushed by a falling steel girder, and a Galina Cupawhiskia fell to her death from one of the partially completed buildings.
Two murders have been committed in the blocks since they were occupied. A man killed his wife in a fit of drunken rage in the 1960's (that was in Ludmilla's block) and a Mafioski extortion-related killing occurred in the other block four years ago. Otherwise there is no evidence of particularly tragic events on the site.
By the time they have dug up all these details the hatchet-faced woman is giving them the 'it's approaching one o'clock' look. They leave to go and get food and drink, dutifully leaving their passes with the woman, who bolts the door behind them.
Ana expresses a preference for cheaper food and alcohol than that found in the very touristy restaurants around the City Duma, so the pair work their way through quieter streets to a local Cellar Bar.
They take a table and order the special - Beet soup with meat and rye bread - and a bottle of Vodka.
This arrives, and they eat and drink.
As they do so, Ludmilla discusses the monks in Tibet that Ana knows, asking whether they count as magicians.
Ana is not sure, but thinks not.
Akula arrives at the apartment blocks via the city water system and crosses the road to find the concierge of Ludmilla's apartment block. This he recognises as the one without a bit of balcony missing!
He buzzes on the 'concierge' button at the security door. When the intercom is answered, he has to explain who he is but having done so, is let in and invited into the concierge's apartment. He asks the concierge, a fat greasy looking man in a string vest, about the recent accidents.
They have not gone unnoticed by the concierge, who introduces himself as Denis. The first accident he heard about was ten days ago - someone fell down the stairs in the other block.
Akula asks him who the last residents to move into this block were. Denis pulls out a large communist-era account book/diary type thing, the sort of book in which, during communist times, the concierge would have recorded all sorts of interesting titbits on the other people in the block for the authorities. He looks though it. According to his records, the Semislous's, a wife, husband and two children, who moved in about two months ago, are the most recent new residents here.
When asked, Denis theorises that the accidents are caused by people 'being bloody stupid'. He also states that the other block has suffered far more incidents than this one.
Akula bids him farewell and leaves for the other block.
As he is crossing the street, Akula's phone rings. It is Ana.
They exchange news. That is, not much progress.
Ana offers to meet Akula in the foyer of the second apartment block. Ludmilla agrees with this idea.
They leave the restaurant and use the Metro to travel south across the city towards Nakhimovskiy Prospekt. On the train Ludmilla suggests building a database of the incidents so far. Ana suggests building a mock up of the apartments and colouring it in according to the incidents. Ludmilla sensibly dismisses this last idea...
Akula arrives at the second apartment block well before the other two. He is bored by the security door system by now, and so just passes through the gap between the doors in water form.
He goes over to the concierge's office and knocks on the door. Varinka, the fearsome looking concierge of this building, comes to the door, and is more than slightly surprised to see him!
He explains his mission and she lets him in.
He gets straight to the point and asks her to look up the last people to move into her block.
This she does, using a large book similar to Denis' in the other apartment block. The most recent new inhabitants of the block are Ruslan and Marina Massov, with their little girl Natasha. They moved into apartment 503 from the countryside exactly two weeks ago. Akula remembers that Fyodor, his luckless comrade from the Reactor Facility, lived in apartment 506. The first incident of 'bad luck' in the recent group of incidents was Mrs Narakova, who fell down the stairs and broke both of her legs about thirteen days ago. Mrs Narakova lived in apartment 408, but is still in hospital at the moment. Mrs Topolova fell from room 702.
Akula asks to look at a plan of the apartment block:
Varinka digs a plan out of a filing cabinet, and spread it on the table. On every floor there are eight apartments. A single corridor runs the length of the middle of each floor, with four apartments on each side, fire escapes at each end and a lift shaft and stairwell in the middle. Odd numbered rooms are on one side of the corridor and even numbered rooms are on the other. There are eight floors to the apartment blocks.
Akula asks if the Massov's are in at the moment.
Varinka tells him that they are.
He states that some comrades are going to join them and that they may want to go up to talk to the Massov's. He then leaves to await Ana and Ludmilla.
On the Metro train, Ana and Ludmilla are discussing fashions. That is, Ana's clothes and their lack of fashion. Ludmilla fails to convince Ana to buy some new clothing.
They arrive at the Nakhimovskiy Prospekt station, get off the train and head for the apartment blocks. Not wanting to meet up with Akula in their alter-ego forms they phone him from across the street.
They discuss the situation and exchange information. It is agreed that Ana will not enter the building in Napalm form.
Instead, she suggests that she goes off to speak to Ludmilla's children.
Ludmilla agrees to this, but asks her not to feed them alcohol.
Ana agrees to this, and goes off.
Ludmilla goes off to get some cake to introduce herself to the new people, as the apartment block 'welcoming committee'.
While they do this, Akula looks around the area.
Behind the apartment blocks is an area of open ground with a stream (quite full of rubbish and old shopping trolleys) running through it. This runs along behind the apartment blocks for a little way before going under Nakhimovskiy Prospekt and into a park on the other side of the street. Opposite the apartment blocks are more apartment blocks; some of the blocks have shops in their ground floor levels.
Akula searches for 'spirits' and 'gremlins'. He does not find any, but he does find some kids drinking beer in an alley. He sneaks up to them in water form, then scares them by appearing as if from nowhere and demanding if their parents know what they are doing. They run off.
He then disappears up a drainpipe to investigate the roof.
Ana enters Ludmilla's block and goes up to the Chestikov's apartment. The Chestikov brood are glued to the T.V. watching American cartoons, except for Nina who is on the phone.
Ana explains that Ludmilla has agreed to let her in, and offers to take over the baby-sitting if Nina wants to go out.
Nina jumps at this chance, and heads for the door.
Ana then raids the fridge, and that done, grills the brood about Natasha.
In a shop close by, Ludmilla purchases a cake that she can pass off as her own - a heavy suety fruit cake. She takes it back to her apartment, seeing Nina leaving the apartment block as she returns. "Be back before ten!" she shouts to her.
Nina acknowledges her mother and walks off more quickly, towards the Metro station.
Ludmilla enters the apartment to find Ana feeding her brood with junk food as they rot their brains in front of the T.V.
Ludmilla places the cake on one of her plates and leaves again for the other apartment block.
Upon arrival, she buzzes the Massov button at the entrance. A country accented female voice answers the buzzer.
Ludmilla introduces herself as 'the Building 51 welcome wagon'. She is buzzed in and goes up to the Massov's apartment, number 503.
Akula looks around the roof of the block. There is a good view of the University and down towards central Moscow. The roof is gravelled and covered in vents, dead pigeons, television aerials and satellite dishes. There is a single door down to the top floor in the middle of the roof as well as the tops of the two fire escapes and the winch gear for the lifts. There are no spirits or gremlins, at least as far as he can see.
He uses the vantage point to examine the surrounding area. He quickly spies a couple canoodling in the bushes in the park, as well as people and traffic moving about the streets and park.
He also sees Ludmilla enter the building below him.
In the Chestikov's apartment, Ana chats to Ludmilla's children and quizzes them about Natasha Massov.
Young Vladimir refers to her as 'Ugly Natasha', saying that she has a huge red 'blob' on her face.
"She speaks like an idiot," Thomas adds. "Like a baby."
They go on to describe how they and others tease her at school. In fact, it turns out, Sergei (who was impaled by the icicle) and Svetlana (who was run over) where both particularly involved in teasing Natasha. Svetlana actually stole Natasha's doll.
Mrs Varusha, the teacher who fell down the stairs, had told Natasha off and confiscated her doll a little while before too.
Ana phones Ludmilla and then Akula to pass on this important news.
Having done that, she then goes back to the junk food and breaks into Ludmilla's drinks cabinet, then handing out glasses of vodka to the children!
They children do not, generally, like the taste, so she then goes on to teach them how to drink it in one gulp so as to avoid having to taste it! Quite quickly all of the older children get drunk and some of them throw up. The two youngest (bear-like) children do not, though they do get drunk.
Vladimir, Ludmilla's husband, is woken up by all this commotion, and is clearly shocked by Ana's behaviour. He throws her out of the apartment, and tells her never to return.
She goes up to the roof to see Akula, not realising that he is in fact on the roof of the other apartment building...
Ludmilla knocks on the door of the Massov's apartment. Marina Massov answers the door, peering out past the chain. She is quite short, broad-shouldered, and blonde with blue eyes. Ludmilla explains her presence, and Marina lets her in.
Ludmilla welcomes the family to Moscow and hands over the cake as a gift.
She is shown in and offered a glass of tea.
She apologises for the delay in welcoming them, explaining that she has only just found out they have arrived.
They discuss the Massov's previous town, the small village of Dolgino near the city of Novgorod. Marina tells Ludmilla that Ruslan was a farmer in Dolgino but, with the fall of communism he lost his job, and they had to move to Moscow to find work. Apparently he now works in McDonalds, and Marina is also working part-time.
Apartment 503 looks quite poorly maintained, and is full of things that still need unpacking. And in time, the conversation moves around to Natasha.
Marina says that Natasha is eight, and seems to think that she is 'getting on all right'.
The recent accidents are discussed. Marina did not seem to know about these. Natasha did not arrive home early when school was closed after Sergei's death.
Ludmilla senses that Marina is hiding something, that she is suddenly concerned about these accidents now that she has found out about them. She asks to see Natasha.
Marina agrees to this request. "But she is a bit shy though, she has a birthmark on her face," she says. Ludmilla picks up a definite undertone of warning in the way that Maria describes Natasha.
Marina slices up some pieces of cake and they take it in to Natasha.
Akula, on the roof, phones Professor Agafia at the University for advice.
When she takes the call, she suggests that we be careful (!) and when asked says that she may be able to help in rehabilitating Natasha, but is not sure without knowing more about the case.
Napalm comes up onto the roof of the other apartment block, and spots Akula. She bursts into flames and flies over to see Akula. She is quite drunk at this point, and makes several inappropriate suggestions about how Natasha should be handled.
Akula suggests that she waits out here and 'keeps an eye out for trouble'. She agrees and Akula enters the building's water system to try and get closer to Ludmilla.
In the Massov's apartment, Ludmilla is taken through into one of the bedrooms, where she is introduced to Natasha, who is sitting on the bed reading. Next to her is a rag doll, and other stuffed toys and animals are scattered on the bed and about the room. Natasha is short and well built with ragged blond hair and blue eyes. She has a large 'port wine' mark across her face. She greets Ludmilla and tucks into the cake. They talk about the fairytales that she is reading. Apparently she is reading a story about Kosechi the Undying.
"And who is this?" Ludmilla then asks, and goes to pick up the rag doll.
"That's Anushka, my favourite," explains Natasha. The rag doll appears to be very old, but also very well kept.
By this time Akula has arrived, via the pipes, under the Massov's apartment and is listening on the conversation with his acute hearing.
Ludmilla puts Anushka down and 'makes her comfortable'. She then offers to be 'very good friends' with Natasha. She says that she knows that Natasha is 'very special'.
Natasha looks suspicious, especially when Ludmilla says that she is special too.
Marina is also looking rather suspicious.
Ludmilla asks is Natasha wants to see something very special.
At this point Akula begins to sense something 'not quite natural' in the room above.
Ludmilla asks Marina if she can 'borrow' her daughter for a short while.
After some persuasion Marina reluctantly agrees to this, so Natasha closes her book, picks up Anushka and takes Ludmilla's hand. They go out of the apartment and downstairs.
Akula follows them outside through the pipes and then shadows them.
Outside, Ludmilla sees Napalm circling the building up in the sky and points her out to Natasha. Natasha gawks at this strange sight - she has clearly never seen a superhuman before.
Ludmilla explains about this 'superhero' who looks after and saves people. She explains that she is Napalm's friend, and that she is 'special' too.
At this point Ludmilla's husband Vladimir phones his wife and explains what Ana has been up to, and that he now has the happy job of cleaning up a good deal of vomit. It is agreed that Ana will never be allowed back in the Chestikov's apartment again.
The phone call over, conversation returns to secrets. Natasha and Ludmilla walk down Nakhimovskiy Prospekt and into the park there. Ludmilla heads for a copse of trees and bushes, quite dark and shadowy. Natasha begins to look nervous, but follows.
Noticing this, once they are hidden from sight, Ludmilla declares that "My secret is that I am like Napalm. I am a super hero, except that instead of changing into a burning flying super hero I change into a bear. I am Mother Bear!"
After reassuring Natasha that she will not scare her or Anushka and warning them both to keep this a secret, Ludmilla turns into bear form.
Natasha gasps and takes a step back.
Akula, lurking close by senses something 'strange' happening again, and approaches cautiously.
Ludmilla changes back to human form again and asks Natasha if she would like to meet her 'special friends'. Over Natasha's shoulder she sees Akula approaching and introduces him to Natasha.
He advances, and greets Natasha and Anushka, shaking their hands. As he touches Anushka he feels the strange sensation again.
Ludmilla calls Napalm and summons her, too.
She takes the call, and flies over, plummeting down towards the ground and pulling up nearby. Natasha looks scared again.
Akula feels the strange sensation again as this happens.
Akula asks Natasha in what ways she is special. She says she isn't.
Akula demonstrates his water jet power and asks what powers Anushka has. Natasha becomes nervous, and is reluctant to talk about it.
Akula asks if he can hold Anushka.
Reluctantly, Natasha agrees and he takes the doll from her. As he does so he feels the sensation again and this time is certain that the doll is the source of the feelings.
Natasha explains that her mother and grandmother had Anushka before her, and asks for her doll back.
Ludmilla agrees that she can have it so Akula reluctantly hands it back.
Ludmilla takes Natasha's hand and leads her back to the apartment block while Akula and Napalm stay behind in the park. Akula tells Napalm about the 'feelings' from the doll, then phones Ludmilla and tells her the same thing as she and Natasha walk back to the apartments.
Back in Apartment Building 50, Ludmilla and Natasha (and Anushka) ascend to apartment 503, and are shown back into the apartment by Marina. Ludmilla shows Natasha back to her room and leaves her to continue her reading. She then closes the door and goes into the kitchen to talk to Marina.
"Did bad things happen to people when they were mean to you when you had the doll?" she asks.
"No, people were not mean to me when I had it," replies Marina. She goes on to explain that she knows about the doll and the strange things that could happen, even before Natasha had it, but that they never happened when she had it because everyone around her 'knew'. Around here they do not know so they tease Natasha and fall victim to the doll.
Ludmilla suggests that the accidents are not desirable, to which Marina agrees. However, she does not know what to do about it - they cannot go back to the village and Natasha goes everywhere with Anushka.
Ludmilla suggests that Natasha leave Anushka in her room so it cannot take revenge for things it does not observe. Marina is not sure if the doll would allow itself to be left, but cannot explain what the doll could do about it. Ludmilla tries to convince Marina that the doll is too dangerous to be left with Natasha.
Marina agrees to talk to Natasha and Anushka. She thanks Ludmilla for the cake and puts it onto one of her plates so Ludmilla can have her plate back. She washes up the plate it was on. Ludmilla offers to dry, and does so. However, as she takes the plate it slips through her fingers, bounces painfully on her foot and breaks on the floor.
"So it seems that I have offended Anushka then!" says Ludmilla.
Marina appears embarrassed by this.
Ludmilla says goodbye and leaves Marina to think about what has happened.
They part, saying that they hope it will all work out all right.
Ludmilla leaves the apartment block and phones the other two.
Meanwhile, in the park, a weight of melting snow falls from one of the branches of a nearby tree. The branch snaps back and breaks off another branch, flipping it through the air, straight through where Akula's heart would have been were he not in water form, and into the ground; because he is in water form Akula takes no damage, though.
At this point Ludmilla's phone call is received. She warns them about possibly being cursed.
"You are a little late!" says Akula.
They discuss the situation by phone, and after some talk agree that something must be done - perhaps talking to someone who knows more about such things than we do will help?
As a first step it is decided to call the Guardians, their leader (and magic-user) Magus in particular, to ask for their assistance.
Before they do this, Ludmilla comes to join them in the park. On the way she is splashed with dirty sludge by a passing car...