Missions of the Retrieval Team - A Kilt By Any Other Name

**Kilted_John** · 25th July 08, 11:05 AM

Cool, another episode...

-J

**michaelbeeman** · 25th July 08, 04:05 PM

Sweet! Now I'll I gotta do is keep these stories straight. Great start!

**davedove** · 26th July 08, 04:46 AM

Scene 2

Charleston International Airport

I have to give my team credit. They had gone from complete relaxation to completely packed in under five minutes. We quickly drove the car to the airstrip and transferred our bags to it.

We gave Jonathan the keys to the car so he could take it back to the chalet. I had every confidence that he would take care of the place while we were gone.

We climbed into the jet and buckled in. Ms. Falcon fired it up and soon we were airborne and on our way to South Carolina.

During the flight, we all checked out our traveling equipment. We had our general gear kits, as we didn’t know exactly what Panache wanted us for.

When we arrived at our hangar at the airport in Charleston, we found one of the League’s cars waiting for us. Our newest Herald, Arlen, waited there as we parked the jet in the hangar.

Grabbing our bags, we headed out to the car.

“We’re in a hurry, right?” Ms. Falcon asked me.

“Yes, we are,” I answered.

She nodded and walked up to Arlen. “Give me the keys,” she ordered him.

Arlen looked at me and I nodded to him. “Give them to her,” I said.

He handed her the keys, then climbed into the passenger seat. The rest of us quickly got into the back of the car.

Ms. Falcon fired up the vehicle and turned to Arlen. “Ya’ll might want to hold on,” she said to him.

Arlen’s eyes went wild and he quickly fastened his seat belt. He had barely secured the belt when Ms. Falcon stomped on the gas and the car’s tires squealed on the pavement as we left the airport.

“Okay, Arlen, what’s going on?” I asked.

Arlen, gripping the dash tightly as Ms. Falcon took corners at speeds at which he was obviously unaccustomed, turned back to me. “I don’t know for certain. I had just returned from a trip to town when Jamie ordered me to come pick you up. Whatever it is, it’s definitely big. I’ve never seen such frenzied activity in the Great Hall.”

“No ideas at all?”

“All I could make out before I had to leave was that something has happened to David.”

David, our resident evil genius; if he wasn’t one of our Moderators I had no doubt that we would be facing him as foes. Fortunately, he was on our side, and that meant we got to play with some of his more interesting toys. I wondered what could have happened to him that would cause this commotion.

With Ms. Falcon at the wheel, we made it to the Great hall in record time. I’m not sure Arlen will ever get over the trip though. I would almost swear there were dents in the dashboard where his fingers had gripped.

We grabbed our bags and headed up the stairs. There to greet us was Dee.

“Good,” he said, “You made it. Jamie wanted me to bring you to the briefing room as soon as you arrived.”

“What is going on?” I asked him as we moved down the hallway. “I take it from what Arlen said that something has happened to David.”

Dee nodded as he walked. “Yes, something has happened to him; he’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“It will be explained better in the briefing.”

**davedove** · 27th July 08, 04:19 AM

Scene 3

Media Room, Great Hall of X Marks the Scot

Dee led us into the media room, where most of our briefings were held.

“Go ahead and take your seats,” he said. “The others will be here shortly. If you want any coffee or tea, there’s some on the table.”

We all grabbed a cup and sat down to wait for the others. Arlen and Dee took seats along one wall while my team sat in the front.

We didn’t have to wait long until the Moderators arrived, all the Moderators. I was surprised as it wasn’t often that they all were in the same room. All except David that is, but I knew he was the reason we were here. Even Hank, the often-absent leader of the League was there. They all took seats at the front of the room.

Jamie was the last to arrive and he came in with a gentleman I didn’t recognize.

“Good,” said Hank, “It appears that everyone is here. Did you all get some refreshments?”

When we indicated that we had, he continued. “Okay, Jamie, would you introduce our guest to everyone?”

“Of course, Hank,” he answered. “Everyone, I would like to introduce Jerry. Some of you don’t know him, but I’ll bet you all know who he is. He is from the little hamlet of Stillwater in Minnesota and is a supplier of Scottish apparel.”

Ms. Starling spoke up, “Yes, I think we all know him. He’s the inventor of the Sciuropterus Delivery System.”

Jerry smiled and answered, “Yes, that’s who I am. I see you’re familiar with my work.”

Jamie interrupted, “And it is that work which brought him to our hall and is, unfortunately, responsible for our predicament. Jerry, would you please explain our situation.”

“Of course, Jamie. Several weeks ago, David contacted me. He was interested is adapting the technology of my system to the use of the League. Now, since I am a staunch supporter of the League, I readily agreed. So, for the last two weeks, David and I have been working to develop a system to transport the members of the League quickly and safely.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Two days ago,” he continued, “We managed to get a visual on our portal. It clearly showed the valley at the base of the mountain. David recognized some of the rock formations. The picture only lasted for about three seconds though before it vanished.”

“You can imagine that we were excited. You see, the portal itself is an open object, much like a doorframe. We had turned it into a viewing screen of a location where there was no camera.”

“Amazing,” was all Ms. Starling could say.

“Amazing indeed,” Jerry continued. “We had managed to view a remote location without a camera to send us an image. Unfortunately, the power drain was considerable, which explained the short duration. The equipment just couldn’t remain active very long.”

“We also found that the activation of the portal nearly drained David’s reserve batteries in his lab. It would take nearly a full day to recharge them before we could activate the portal again.”

“David and I decided to try a little experiment. Yesterday morning, we were ready to activate the portal again. David had wadded a sheet of paper into a ball. When I activated the portal, David tossed the ball into the portal. Just before the portal closed, we both saw the ball bounce into the valley shown in the image.”

“The ball was transported?” I asked.

“So it would appear. Since the portal is just an open frame, we mostly expected the ball of paper to pass through the image and onto the floor on the other side. There was also the possibility that the energy field inside the frame would burn or damage the ball in some way.”

“I think I see where this is all going,” I said. “You’re going to tell us that David,” I paused, not wanting to say what we were all thinking.

“Yes,” Jerry finished for me. “This morning, David went through the portal.”

**Jock Scot** · 27th July 08, 04:27 AM

Oh no!

**starbkjrus** · 27th July 08, 06:20 AM

Well we can always call Une to check but somehow I doubt it put him down on the docks at Southhampton.

**davedove** · 28th July 08, 04:31 AM

Scene 4

Media Room, Great Hall of X Marks the Scot

There was a lot of excited murmuring from Jerry’s statement. Hank had to speak loudly to get everyone’s attention.

“People, please,” he said. The murmuring died and the room went silent. “Jerry, would you please tell us what happened.”

“This morning,” Jerry continued, “We activated the portal again. David was standing in front of the frame so that he could examine it more closely. When the image appeared, David put his hand out to tough the screen. I don’t know what caused it, but as soon as he touched where the image should have been, he was sucked into it. Just before the image ended, I saw David rolling across the grass in the image.”

“I was worried about David; I didn’t know whether or not he was hurt. I came up to the main hall and found Dee. I told him what had happened and described the location we had seen. He guided me out to the valley so we could find David.”

“You couldn’t find him?” I asked.

“No,” answered Dee. “We looked all around the valley, but we found no trace of him. I contacted some of the Moderators and we did a search all around the mountain, but we didn’t find him.”

“What about his tracker signal?” I asked. Shortly after I was assigned as the security chief at the Great Hall, I had instituted a tracker system for all of the staff. Each person had a beacon on their body that could be tracked anywhere on Earth.

“Nothing,” Dee answered. “There is no signal from his device. We checked the signal log and compared it to the log from the laboratory. His signal went silent the instant he passed through the portal.”

“That would mean that the portal somehow disabled his beacon.”

“There is one other possibility,” said Ms. Starling.

“What’s that?” Hank asked.

“It’s pretty far out there,” she said. “I would rather not mention it until I have some other information. How long before you can power up the portal again?” she asked Jerry.

Jerry looked at his watch. “About three hours,” he answered.

“There’s a little experiment I would like to try,” she told Hank.

“Okay,” said Hank. “Let’s all grab a little nap. It’s late and we’re all tired. We’ll all reassemble in three hours.” He looked at his own watch. “That would make it about, oh lord, three-thirty in the morning.”