Worried about making a scene in a public park, the Drifters nonetheless drag the captured thugs into the main cavern area. Oddly, nobody�s in the cavern. The above-ground visitor�s center is also empty�and so is the park, for miles around. Calling Jack Shen via cell phone, Jack admits that �he just felt like leaving� �and it didn�t seem at all strange at the time!
When questioned, the captured thugs reveal that they were rushed to the caverns to deal with some intruders. They were hired by �the Master��and Jack�s telepathy draws a visual image.
It�s Dr. Destroyer.
The Drifters have the stormtroopers� home address, in nearby Roanoke VA, and decide to check it out. Crater stays behind to guard the thugs until a WYRM transport can pick them up.
While in Roanoke Jam visits a gemologist, to have the Force Crystals cut to her specifications. The job will take a few days.
That night, the Drifters sneak into a guarded warehouse�and find that it�s a paramilitary training base for hired henchmen! �Thugs �R� Us.� Ramjet hacks into the computer files and finds that a payment was made earlier today � from an account in �Latverastan.� Dr. Destroyer is the �benevolent� monarch of Latverastan. Hmmm�
The team reviews the facts. Somebody placed a permanent, mind-controlling �sense of dread� around the crystal cave, to keep intruders away. Somebody was monitoring the cave�and able to assemble and send a team of stormtroopers from Roanoke (40 miles away) within a half-hour when Jam entered the cave. Somebody was also able to mind-control everyone within a few mile radius � including our mentalist, Jack Shen � making them leave the state park. �and that somebody is apparently Dr. Destroyer � one of the most physically and politically powerful beings on the planet. Do we really want to mess with him?
Apparently, yes. Ramjet and Jam go back to Cathedral Caverns and install a motion-activated web-camera into the crystal cave (luckily, no more stormtroopers arrive). They�ll now know who enters and leaves the chamber.
The team passes the next few days in Roanoke, searching the media, making calls, and mind scanning�unsuccessfully searching for clues of Arctica�s whereabouts. Jam starts having dreams about her first, childhood master: Darth Maul.
When Jam�s Force Crystals are cut, the team returns to Boston.
Arctica remains missing. Having nothing else to go on, the Drifters remember that Arctica (belatedly) recognized FBI agent Scully as being from her world! Investigating, the team finds that Scully is still on leave, and can�t be found�so, they break into his apartment! After trashing the spartan quarters, and finding nothing incriminating, our �heroes� compound their crime by stealing Scully�s computer!
Intending to scan the hard drive, Jack Shen�s assistant, Nathan (a.k.a. �Geek Boy�), disassembles the computer�and finds an unusual, �extra� computer chip! A micro scan in Ramjet�s lab reveals that the mystery chip is needlessly etched with minute pictograms and runes�identical to the �mystic� runes seen on the stone sarcophagi at the Canadian ABYSS base!
Ramjet�s armor continues to have power anomalies (as it did in episode #10). While the armor still functions normally, its maximum power reserve is gradually decreasing!
The missing Agent Joe Scully may be connected with Arctica�s disappearance, and may be connected to the secret organization, ABYSS�so our heroes investigate.
NOTE: the local, Boston ABYSS base was destroyed a half-year ago, when the demonic �Magog� was summoned. As a failsafe � to keep the base out of enemy hands � an immortal, shape-changing beast was released to destroy everyone and everything in the base! (The Drifters fought the trapped beast in episode #12)
The offices of �Destiny Enterprises� had served as a legitimate-business front for ABYSS, but are now closed down. The surviving Lesser Morbane, Mr. Black, has sold the assets and left the country!
The mansion of the dead High Morbane, Mr. Saturnine, has been burnt to the ground by the careless �Demon� street gang members who were squatting on the property!
So�Crater, Jam, Ramjet, Stretch, Jack Shen and Jessica return to the destroyed base. Jessica, and the claustrophobic Jack, wait outside. The base is now literally empty. Someone has cleaned it out! �but Crater�s seismic-sense reveals a corridor hidden behind two feet of seamless rock! Breaking through, our heroes follow more than 100 feet of corridor�before cautiously entering a cavern of weird, energy-absorbing darkness! Suddenly our team is surrounded by 100 gun-toting ABYSS commandos � similar to the two that shot Ramjet in the hospital (and presumably with the same double armor-piercing weapons)! A wizened old man rolls out in a motorized wheelchair and introduces himself.
�Marcus� explains everything, between wheezes. He and Agent Scully are members of the Chicago ABYSS enclave, and have claimed the now-empty Boston territory as their own. Different enclaves have different projects, and the techno-wizards of Chicago specialize in genetic enhancement. They�ve succeeded in breeding smarter, faster, stronger humans � but with one flaw. �Progeria� (accelerated aging) afflicts many of their enhanced �Familiars.� The nearly-mummified Marcus is, himself, only 34 years old! But now they have a solution: Arctica.
Arctica White � according to Marcus � was a genetically enhanced assassin on her world! Arctica was part of an extensive government eugenics program that also ran into the Progeria flaw � but had cured it with their �X-5� series of �TransGens.� Arctica is an X-5 TransGen�and probably the only one on this earth. When Agent Scully recognized her, the enclave determined to capture her � as a living research donor! To make Arctica �compliant,� they shot her � trusting that she would survive. An ABYSS �ambulance� was nearby; ready to take her body�but a civilian speedster carried her away first! Jack Shen was exploded to get him out of the way. Colt Enterprises was exploded as a diversion, while a couple of ABYSS agents tried to reclaim Arctica�s body. The third abduction attempt was successful, and Arctica was �removed� from the train! Marcus assures the team that Arctica is �alive�and mostly well.�
Our four heroes face a crucial choice: attack a 100-man, super-armed, genetically-enhanced army�or live to fight another day. They conservatively choose the latter.
Our team is ushered into a granite chamber, and the doorway instantly disappears! Stretch tries to go through an air duct and a sink drain, but hits an invisible barrier. With some trepidation, Stretch even goes more than 100 feet down a toilet pipe, before wimping-out and returning!
The granite walls appear endlessly thick, and any tunnel that Crater starts, quickly � miraculously � fills back up!
Ramjet�s radio hearing receives some ultra-low tones � but he�s unable to decipher a pattern or meaning to them.
Trapped, the Drifters can only wait for the next ten hours�until a disobedient ABYSS agent sets them free! It�s the Canadian agent they rescued from the fire-breathing hell-hound, �Burnie� (in episode #2)! The rogue agent nervously leads the team to a magically-opening stone wall, and then runs off as the wall closes behind him!
As the Drifters emerge from the �abandoned� ABYSS base, they find Jack Shen has summoned the Battlestars to the site. The Drifters will need allies to rescue Arctica�so they hesitantly team-up with the unstable local �heroes�, and make plans to invade the base. Stretch grumbles; Ramjet and Defender verbally snipe at each other; Jam quietly appreciates the conviction of the dark heroes; and Crater realizes, for the first time, how extremist the Battlestars actually are!
To find the base, Defender has a mobile ground-wave �sonar� made � self-contained in a nondescript van. To everyone�s surprise, the underground chambers of the base occasionally appear, disappear, and change shape! Is this an illusion? Teleportation? Ramjet scoffs at the suggestion that it really is magic. To counter the �magical� effects of the base, though, the Battlestars contact their ally, Doctor Arcane! Earth�s �Sorcerer Supreme� is ready to help.
On a strange hunch, Stretch asks the Doctor about the Egyptian goddess �Mayet.� (Stretch doesn�t want to confront the Battlestars, but they stole a statue of Mayet from the Boston Museum of Antiquities in episode #12!) The Doctor explains that �Mayet was one of the Elders, and a powerful goddess of order, truth and justice. She took the confessions of the dead before they saw Osiris�and often settled earthly unfinished business. She could also be a goddess of vengeance,� etc. etc. Stretch asks about Mayet in modern times, but Doctor Arcane goes quiet.
Away from the sorcerer, Jessica mentions that a heroic �Mayet� fought crime in the WWII group, �the Freedom Guardians.� Jessica and �Geek Boy� agree to research this further.
While the tech-types search and research, Crater-Maker passes the time by visiting Steeplejack in jail. Maranda Wilhite is still awaiting trial, considering going straight�and considering using Crater for sex.
No gratuitous fight this time�but the longest recap ever!