Mission 06 – Section 01 – Toronto 2103 and October Israel 1973.

During our stay in the hospital, we learned a few things. Firstly, time had gone a bit strange, we arrived back on the pad 3 years after we had left, which is highly unusual. We also learned that the Agency had gone public, and we are now held in some esteem, like 20th Century astronauts.

The most shocking thing, is though, the Israeli-Iranian war of October 1973 had a nuclear strike launched against the Pyramids at Giza, which was blamed on the Israeli’s. They of course, denied it, and when we discovered it was a Stopwatch op, due to the lingering residue and effect of the bomb, we were pulled from the hospital, given a quick brief, then after half an hour, we were launched into Tel Aviv, October 4th 1973, 4 days before the detonation of the bomb.

Our mission, to question a suspected Stopwatch agent, Daniel Somer, being held in a federal prision.

We managed to bluff our way into the prison, using a combo of intimidation, and the willingness to take several tickets for our drivers, Tel Aviv Police. We arrived in the prison and managed to get one word out of Somer, Napol, before he was shot by, we assume, a Stopwatch preventative force. With our only lead dead, we ’ported back to the pad, to debrief.

Mission 06 – Section 2

After our debrief, we had a good night’s rest, and against normal protocol, were prepped for a mission to July 1798, were the analysts had determined to be a good point for the bomb to be installed. We have a cover going in, a agent going back to get in Napolean’s good graces.

We have prepared ourselves, and are currently heading to the pad to ’port back to our insertion point.

End Report

Mission 05 – Section 05

We have managed to come up with a plan to blow the island. Using pig-iron cooking pots, some rocket fuel (essentially gunpowder mixed with magnesium) and a large quantity of magnesium shavings, we rigged a crude shaped charge over the key fault/fissure in the island, and let her rip.

Simultaneously, we (myself and Jack) rescued the Stopwatchers, who destroyed their notepads and left with us.

The island went up with a satisfying BOOM, and we returned to the future.

We were then put into the hospital for a mandatory 3 weeks of observation and recovery.

End Report

ATTENTION TIMEPIECE – A++ PRIORITY

From the team sent to 2250 BCE:

We have become aware that the Theran people have acquired unlimited access to a Stopwatch Notepad, giving access to technology far beyond what they should have. They have discovered an E.L.E meteor that will impact in approx. 200 years relative (2000 BCE). They are also aware that Thera itself will be destroyed in about 500 years.

The Therans plan to destabilise Egypt by building dam at Aswan, then conquering a now weakened Old Kingdom, then using the dam plus the more favourable geographic location to build some sort of device to launch at the E.L.E.

We await instructions and any additional equipment & personnel that you deem necessary to provide.

Yours Faithfully

Tom Longfellow

Mission 05 – Section 03

Sometime in 2250 BCE, I think it’s still a Wednesday.

This is big. We had a party, in order to remove some suspicion from ourselves from all the attention we were getting from the other Ambassadors in Thebes, chiefly the one from Punt.

While this banquet was being planned, myself and Seth investigated the Ambassador of Thera’s house, which was to say far more advanced in construction than the time period allows for, so given our experience in 1597 Belgium, we erred on the side of caution, and left the area.

Once the banquet had started, including with guests including the Ambassadors from Punt and Babylon, the Normarch and his mother, plus the normal hangers on, I went to see if the security during the night was any different to that during the day. It didn’t appear so, but I didn’t get all that far into my recon when the boy, Bekh, came running up, saying someone had dropped dead from poison at the banquet.

Upon my return to the lodgings, I quickly diagnosed the not dead, but unconscious man with cyanide poisoning. After a quick talk with Seth, who in his guise as the Princess’ chief guard, had interviewed the cook who had prepared the crocodile, the source of the poison, and had discovered the person who sold the kitchen’s the suspect spice.

We managed to find the seller of the tainted coriander in the spice market of the Bazaar, who we found dead, killed by cyanide poisoning. The merchant did not kill himself, as the body was positioned to look like he was asleep. Seth went to investigate the Theran Ambassador’s potential involvement, and I headed back to the lodge, via the docks, and discovered that the Ambassador of Thera had returned, not too long ago.

Returning to the lodge, I informed Rurik of the return of the Ambassador, and then spotted him at the head table, feeling somewhat foolish. Then I had an idea. Rurik informed me, during a break of his Egyptian Crocodile Roulette game, that only the Ambassador had turned up, none of his guards, or more importantly, the priestess had.

I told Rurik in High Niger (read: English) that I was going to have a go at the priestess attempt to free the priestess and gain some info.

And what info!

Freeing her was easy, a single guard was all that stood between me and the priestess, who was easily beaten with a stunner.

I got the priestess out of the complex, and out to our arrival point in this time stream, a cave about a hours walk from Thebes.

There she told me how that somehow, the Stopwatch equivalent of our own Notepad PC’s had fallen into the hands of the Theran’s, and did not bounce back. They learned of many things that they shouldn’t, including their destruction some 500 years in the future. They have used this learning to convince the Pharaoh to build the Dam, then use the weakness following it’s completion to invade Egypt and take over.

Also, they have apparently, using lens based telescopes that shouldn’t exist for at least another couple thousand years, have predicted a Extinction Level Event (E.L.E) asteroid, that will hit in 200 years.

Clearly, as we were born, this didn’t happen, so either someone screwed up royally on a mission even further back in time, or we did something to stop it.

We need to contact our superiors, as our channels are still open, whilst the Stopwatch Agent’s aren’t, as they cannot “bamph” back to their Absolute Now (AN).

End Report

Mission 05 – Section 02

Sometime in 2250 BCE, I think it’s a Wednesday.

We left the Dam construction site, and returned to the city of Thebes.

On the way, we found the place where we had forced the Ambassador’s barge to ground, and we discovered that several crocodiles had been killed with extraordinarily sharp and precise blows from spears, and we also found a papyrus scroll, written in English, concealed beneath a “clock” stone.

The message was from the unusual priestess of the “North”, who wnated our help, whether we were Stopwatch or Timepiece, because her mission had gone badly wrong.

We suspected a trap.

However, upon our return to Thebes, and our lodgings, we found our little spy, bloated and overfed, who gave us a second message from the priestess, again in English, which the child clearly didn’t understand “Help me O Bi Wan Ken O Bi, you are my on ly hop”, which we are now taking a bit more seriously.

We informed the Nomarch of our findings at the Project site, and were taken to see the Pharaoh. Who, was wearing glasses (made from local materials), and is apparently, after my questioning, a type 2 diabetic.

During my examination, I think I may have invented Machiavellianism a tad too soon, but after I provided aid to the Pharaoh, I may have convinced him of the fact that building the dam is wrong, though we have no idea how to derail it.

After our visit to the Pharaoh, myself and Rurik hit the Bazaar, where I purchased some throwing knifes, and a Khopesh, as I suspect things will be going downhill soon, and fast.

After some careful walking away, insults from Jenny, we managed to acquire some knowledge from the spymaster, Elyas, about the origins of the Ambassador, a small island near Italy that we have the foreknowledge of it blowing up some 500 years in the future.

End Report

Mission 05 – Section 02

Hopefully these mission statements reach base, as we are back in the 2000 BCE zone.

In my last report, I mentioned that we arrived near Thebes, in the Upper Kingdom, and found lodgings for our stay, using our cover of being a Royal doing a tour of a neighbouring kingdom, with Agent Washington playing the part of the Princess Chenai of Niger, and the rest of us making up her retinue.

We did catch a spy, a young boy of no more than a score of years, by the shorter Egyptian calendar (approx 10 yrs our time). We have yet to get any worthwhile information out of the boy, only the name of his employer, Rodhas (or Elyas).

We did have an audience with the nomarch, the local ruler, which played out strangely, least of all because one of the other visiting dignitaries, a Man of the North, who in appearance appeared much more West African, was accompanied by a female priestess, garbed in clothes that are at least 2,000 years more modern than they should be, although she had no holy “symbol” that I noticed to identify which deity she followed.

At the conclusion of the meeting, we managed to get ourselves a guided tour of the “Project”, which the Man of the North clearly didn’t like.

This raised a question, which we have yet to answer: Why is a foreign ambassador running a construction program in the furthest reach of the Upper Kingdom?

A follow up question; what did the Ambassador do to the Pharaoh, Pepi II, to get these concessions?

As far as we can tell, they fixed his eyesight, and some other minor (by our standards) medical problems.

Anyway, hoping to get the jump on the Ambassador, we quickly set sail oar on the barge provided to us by the nomarch, and left upriver (South) towards the furthest part of the Upper Kingdom.

At night of the same day, we saw the Ambassador’s barge pass us, being guided by the strange priestess, though how she did it in the near total darkness remains a mystery. One of the team members, shot his stunner and stinger at the woman, forcing the barge to shore, where some of the crew (slaves) were set upon by the resident crocs.

We then packed ourselves up, re-mounted our barge, and headed swiftly to the construction site.

The site appears to be near what will become Abu Simbel in a few hundred years. They also appear to be building a Dam at the site of what would be the same site as the Aswan High Dam (built in they 1970’s).

We have had a talk to the architect, who appears to be a exceptionally clever Neanderthal.

This raises a further question: Why would Stopwatch want to preserve the power of a ageing Pharaoh, especially one who death ultimately led to the fall of the Old Kingdom of Egypt?

End Report

Mission 4 Session 1 and 2.
Session 1.
The Titanic. The very name evokes wonder and mystery. Having been to the Raised Titanic exhibit in Florida the chance to actually go back and see it as it was and be paid for doing it? Wow!

What you mean I have to go back as a woman????

Oh well them’s the breaks. It seems that the original team for this mission were yanked at the last minute and we were dropped in their place and we aren’t exactly a perfect fit with their covers. Too much sausage on this festival so to speak. Means two of us have to slip into the lace panties for this one when we ain’t used to wearing em, well I’m not and that’s my story that I am sticking too..

We gear up including several convincing prosthetics and quantum out of there back to 1912.

We land in a room fitted with a crude alarm system that promptly gets set off, not looking at anyone…and meet the agent in place who initially had assumed we were there for the Westminster fire. We advised we weren’t we were the Titanic lot and bunked out for the night. Odd huh. Normally we would have been all over that Westminster thing. Obviously the team for that job never made it judging by the papers the next morning.

We have our list of targets and the Stopwatch list as well, Some are survivors some deaders, on both lists. No idea what Stopwatch want for theirs but we will keep an eye out for em.

Session 2

First class train as a pair of Newly weds, ooh la la, ain’t this grand. I wonder how seriously we are taking this one, I think a reasonable level of PDA is called for, holding hands, a chaste kiss on the cheek in the salon that sort of thing. No successful contacts with any of our target list and no sign of Stop Watch on the train.. I hope they aren’t going to be using a sub again.

Boarding the great liner goes relatively well, the old man and nursey head off to A deck, we grab out C Deck suite, very nice, I wonder what our covers would have made of all this for real. Honestly probably wouldn’t have been seen by anyone for most of the voyage, heard maybe, seen no.

Our other ‘Couple’ are on C too however smaller room inboard from the sounds of it, and the ‘Doc’ has found a berth as an ancillary surgeon or something.

Lunch still no contacts with our marks, however after dinner and salon and we start turning up a few. A redoubtable Suffragette who didn’t survive the first time, who we need to find a way to get on a life boat this time round. She’/s all very self sacrificial etc from her conversation so may need to get physical when the time comes. Jenny works the servants and the Doc the pursers and picks up on a few more from our lists. One of them is a thoroughly obnoxious sort, from the Stop watch list though so we don’t need to make sure he survives, in fact we dont know whether they want him to survive either.

In company with the Suffragette, we ‘ladies’ stage a push on the salon that traditionally male preserve, Cards ensues, ‘Wodka’ is consumed, all in all a good night was had.

In an amusing aside our through the bath neighbour is a dealer in antiquities, and doesn’t he have some pretties, such as an Elizabethan Mirror and a 8th century chinese dagger… just exquisite. I arrange for ‘hubby’ to take him off for a few drinks whilst I rifle through his gear. He’s not a stopwatch and not on any lists so some items may just have to be ‘rescued’ before this jaunt is over….

Mission 03 – Section 03

1800, Dallas Tx, 16th November 1963, mission time 3830 hrs

After finishing at the police station, we hit the clubs. Firstly we went to the Andrapov, where after one or three vodkas, Daniel and I managed to get out the name Jakob Rubenstein, and his location in the nightclub district, at the Carousel Club, a middle grade strip joint.

Staggering out to the car, we made our way to the Carousel, where we met and sort of interrogated Jack Ruby, AKA Jakob Rubenstein. The rest of the team had better luck, clearly 1960’s vodka is much better than the stuff in the future, as the floors wouldn’t stay the right way round after I had a couple o five.

Somehow, we got Jack to give up the location of a warehouse near Dallas airport, and so, to prevent him from tipping off the Stopwatchers, we took him to the local police station and had him locked up for 24 hours, as protection.

We then staked out the warehouse, waiting until myself and Daniel had sobered up a bit, then we attacked, with myself, Veritas and James going through the front, and the others going in the back.

2330, Dallas Tx, 16th November 1963, mission time 4200 hrs

I quickly disabled one of the men on watch, then there was a light show coming from the storage are of the warehouse, thinking quickly, I shot out the electrical panel, disabling the light, then I joined the rest of the crew in disabling the getaway vehicle.

Once we had disabled the vehicle, we “rescued” Lee Oswald via stunner, then we manged to find out from one of the surviving Stopwatchers that Oswald had a bomb strapped to him, in his heart. We used this opportunity to send a request for a medical profession to be sent back to arrive on scene around 5 minutes after we had secured the warehouse.

Whilst we waited, we managed to get the last Stopwatcher to request asylum, which we kicked up the line to the bosses via index card.

After the surgeon had arrived, he removed the bomb, we convinced Oswald that nothing odd had happened, and we let him go, and shortly after, we got Jack Ruby released as well.

We spent the next few days shadowing Oswald, to make sure that he performed his historic shooting at the correct time.

1220, Dallas Tx, 22nd November 1963, mission time 16220 hrs

We set ourselves up on the grassy knoll car park, with me lying down with the same model 98 rifle that Oswald was about to use, on the back of our custom car, that featured no rear window.

Oswald’s part went according to plan, and we left the scene rapidly, ditching the rifle in it’s component parts as we left, and abandoning our vehicles out in the middle of nowhere before we bounced back to the future.

We have been given a week’s leave, though this may prove to be longer, as per the nature of the job.

End Report

Mission 03 – Section 02

1200, Dallas Tx, 16th November 1963, mission time 3230 hrs

We visited a couple of shooting ranges, giving me the chance to sight the Carcano Model 91/38, the exact gun used by (or will be) Lee Oswald to kill JFK. Apart from the slow shot cycle-time, it’s not a bad rifle, but with my experience with the WW1 era .308, it seems a odd gun.

The others had found out a little more about Oswald’s bad manners, and we learned of a white Studebaker that seemed to be following him around.

We then hit several clubs, and were pointed in the direction of the Free Cuban Enterprise group, a pro-Cuban, pro-Communism outfit that Oswald was involved in.

After a brief chat with a character that looked and sounded like Yosemite Sam, we hid in wait, and heard a scuffle. We (Rurik and myself) ran back to the office, and found Sam out on the floor, with Seth rifling through the material on the table. I helped by checking through the filing cabinets.

Not finding anything, we decided to go back to our extreme bluffing skills, and Seth left the office, breaking a window on his way out, Daniel and I woke up Sam, and proceeded to get a quite profitable amount of info from him.

We concluded that the Stopwatch agency had taken possession of Oswald some time ago, and were holding him, with his co-operation somewhere nearby.

As we left, we discovered that Jack and Jenny had shot off somewhere in one of our cars, and we discovered later, when we followed the sounds of sirens, that Jack and “bounced” a Stopwatch agent back to the future, and had outrun several more. I pointed out at this point, instead of breaking the speed limit and attracting the attention of the motorcycle cops that hide behind every billboard, that he could have led the agents on a merry chase to our hotel, where we could have counter-ambushed them.

Jack nearly lost it, but we walked away from it.

1600, Dallas Tx, 16th November 1963, mission time 3630 hrs

We then managed to find the location of the place the Stopwatch agents were hiding, by using a reverse directory to track the number left by them with Sam, which he had gratefully provided to us, after we partially foiled a break in.

We assaulted the motel, disturbing not only the owner, but former VP Nixon, and his incompetent Pinkerton Agency ‘guards’. The raid was a bust, however, we did prove the existence of Stopwatch in this timezone, as we found a referent device. The rest of the room was cleaned of any prints and so forth.

We managed to get a rough direction of the people leaving the motel from several of the guests, but not much else. Deciding to use some more of the Dallas PD resources, we acquired a radio the size of most toasters, and got an APB out on the pickup that the Stopwatch agency used to flee the hotel.

Now we wait.

End Report

Mission 03 – Section 01

0800, Timepiece HQ, 2100 A.D.

After a relaxing nine days of leave, enough to get rid of the smell of Elizabethan England, we were summoned to a briefing room on the ground floor of HQ. We felt honoured to be breaded above ground for a change. This briefing room seemed more like the rooms I was used to, stark, beige walls and no decoration.

After a couple of minutes, our briefing officer arrived, a middle aged “power” female, Lindsey Sword. For some reason, Rurik found this name highly amusing.

Our mission, to go to 1963, Dallas, and find out what had happened to a Mr Lee Harvey Oswald, who was reported missing on 15th November 1963. As this is/was a week before he is supposed to kill JFK, we were going in to find him and insure the assassination was to go ahead as it should.

For this, we were issued badges and documentation as Federal Agents of the Department of Reclamation, and to pretend to investigate a plot against the Hoover Dam. After getting period government issue suits and side arms, we were also given $5000 in cash to purchase vehicles and additional equipment, as well as access to $250,000 in a bank for real emergencies, which we needed receipts for. We then went to the Pad.

0730, Dallas Tx, 15th November 1963

We dropped into Dallas just after dawn, in a park not far from Dallas Police Station. I headed off to start the ball on getting info out of the police, as I knew it would take time to pull the paper files from the file rooms, whilst the others went to a used car dealers to get a couple of Lincolns, and to a gun shop to purchase some shotguns and for me, a Model 91/38 rifle and scope, identical to the one Lee Oswald was set to use in a week, just in case we couldn’t find him in time.

As we had to wait a while longer for the police reports, we hit Oswald’s boarding house in Dallas for info, where we didn’t get very far. After, we went to an authentic 1960’s diner for an authentic 1960’s cholesterol enriched meal.

Entering the police station again, we talked to the Sargent that I did earlier, and got some info about a Agent Hosty, who was in charge of Oswald’s case in the regional FBI office, and not much else. Deciding that we should go there next, we did and after enjoying more authentic 1960’s cuisine, in is case lemonade, we got a little more info from Hosty, though not all that much.

For the remainder of the day, we watched the police station for Ruth Paine, who had filed the report that led us here, before we would go see her, so we didn’t screw up the timeline any further. We booked into a motel 6, and rented the rooms for the next week.

0800, Dallas Tx, 16th November 1963, mission time 2430 hrs

The next morning, after the motels continental breakfast, we left to talk to Ruth Paine. We didn’t get very far, she gave us less info than we already had on the missing persons report. There were No signs of foul play at her house, nor any sign of anachronistic tech.

We then went to check on a Mr Everette Glover, who was actually some help, despite not seeing Oswald for over three months. He informed us of several places Oswald like to hang put at, and slipped us a card for a club, Alexei’s.

Knowing that this club would be deserted at midday apart from some staff, we decided to check some of the other places, which would give me a chance to sight the rifle we got yesterday.

Our plan for the remainder of the day:

1) visit the local shooting ranges to see if Oswald was keeping a eye in
2) visit Alexei’s in the evening to see if Oswald had been around there lately, or if anyone had been looking for him
3) do the same at Andrapov’s, a more political club
4) check in at any marine or general military clubs, for the same reasons

End Report