Category: Dark*Matter

1. Game Date: 2016 March 5
2. Markov, Lester, Bill, Maverick
3. Investigating the leads
   1. Maverick recognizes the name Fascius Claudan and is able to plunge into the various internet theories about him and his most famous work – the Libri Plures Admiratio, or the Book of Many Wonders.
      1. Claudan was a Brussels-born sage who lived from 1535 to ~1561.
      2. First 6 books were published on astronomy and mathematics and responsible for many minor breakthroughs in science and technology. Some of his pulley systems, cog works and early machinery for pumping water as well as various knots are still in use throughout Europe.
      3. In the later years of his life, he was said to travel to Asia and Africa to learn from their sciences. Upon his return, he was said to be withdrawn and strange. His defaulted on his debts, and wrote a series of articles he called “Wonders” on astronomy, Asian and African-influenced science and alchemy.
      4. These were collected into his last book called the Libri Plures Admiratio. It contained a code which was thought to be an equation – this was regarded in small circles to be an epiphany or complete gibberish. Mathematicians and cryptographers throughout the ages have spent hours plugging away to solve the glyphs, with little to no success. This equation was called the Laqueus, a math puzzle he claimed to have learned from an Arab in Istanbul (Constantinople) in 1560. The book claimed that the Arab was 600 years old and had seen the “grand library of Nakotic,” wherein lie the secrets of the ancient architects of the world.
      5. Caludan was incarcerated in an alms-house in the summer of 1561 and assumed to have died that summer from an outbreak of cholera which swept through Brussles and killed thousands.
      6. Only 6 known copies of the Libri survived to the modern age, and all but one were lost during WW2. What is believed to be the original copy resides in Brussels.
   2. In examining the photocopied book Bill had found in Wei’s room, they learn that it was a photocopy of a copy in the university’s library. It was published by an “Educationals Studies Book” and translated by Maurice Ester.
      1. The company ceased operations in 1944. The location of the company in the lower East side of Manhattan is now a Shack Burger, having previously been a Dunkin Donuts, a tire repair store and an art gallery.
         1. Ester died from progressive Alzheimer’s disease in 1986.
         2. Lester, Markov and Bill begin cautious examination of the text.
         3. In the last pages, Lester and Bill realized that some of Wei’s mathematical scrawls in the margins are interpretable.
            1. Lester makes out 2012 October 11 1458 followed by his own date of birth and then his own social security number and “hello!”
            2. Bill reads out 2012 October 11 1458 followed by his date of birth and 42.634 and -70.156
            3. The date and time correlate to this exact moment they are reading the book.
            4. Recognizing this, Lester realizes that everything in his life is predetermined by this equation; nothing that he does is going to change it, and starts to become particularly fatalistic.
   3. Determining that the others who had seen the equation may be in danger, Maverick hacks into the googlelists’ moderator’s email – one Dr. Julio Kimbrel, a professor of math at Alfred University in upstate New York. He sees that the email is unread in his account and recalls the email from the list and deletes all evidence of it from his computer.
      1. Maverick then begins to hack into the email accounts of the various list members. They include:
         1. Kelly Casselman, 29, a math teacher in a high school in Brinkman, Montana.
         2. Ben Philbeck, 44, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore labs, California.
         3. Kelly Pletcher, 21, a physics student at the University of Columbia, Missouri.
         4. Julius Sward, 31, a house-husband in Modesto, California.
         5. Tia Markell, 29, a math dabbler from New York City.
         6. Emile Tumlinson, 51, a chemist for Tyson Foods from Miami, Florida.
         7. Jamie Izzi, 19, a biochemistry student from Paris, France.
         8. Noreen Kuder, 22, a math student from Manila, Philippines.
         9. Dr. Eve Mehaffey, 39, a physicist from Brighton, England.
         10. Lawrence Badek, 42, a math and chess enthusiast from Wiesbaden, Germany.
   4. They spend the afternoon in a rented hotel as Markov and Lester continue their attempts at deciphering the Libri and Maverick works to hack the emails.
      1. Tia Markell’s email is first as she is closest in NYC. The account proves easy to break into and Maverick removes the email from her Inbox.
      2. Maverick is able to confirm that Kelly Casselman had indeed read the email the day prior, but Philbeck’s email sat in a spam folder unseen. Tired from the all-night drive as well, he is not able to stay up yet another full night.
4. 2012 Oct 12, Friday
   1. The next morning, Markov, Lester, and Bill opt to physically investigate Tia Markell as well. After confirming she is still at work at as a accounting aid at Morgan Stanley, they break into her apartment and confirm there was no sign of disordered thinking.
   2. Shortly afterwards, a call from State Trooper Blanet, who informs them that he had gotten a lead on the origins of the murder weapon. It was a Remington Model 870 shotgun serial number 2022998 that was registered to the New York Police Department and supposedly still at the 24th Precinct in NYC.
      1. The agents meet with Sergeant Marquez at the desk who escorts them to the basement weapons storage lockers. The locate the wooden storage box still nailed shut in the locker. Upon opening it, four of the 870s sit undisturbed, but an empty cutout in the foam shows where a fifth is missing.
      2. Markov stays with the box as Lester and Bill accompany Sergeant Marquez up to get a forensics team for fingerprints and find out who was responsible for checking the weapons in and out.
      3. The computer records show that Sergeant Marvin Herrera had checked out dozens of weapons on the morning of 2012 Oct 10 as part of the quarter weapons maintenance program. They were moved to the precinct parking lot for the gunsmith to work on for the day and just brought back down at the end of the day.
      4. Herrera is brought downstairs and questioned about the missing gun, but swears he knowns nothing about it. He is a 19-year veteran of the NYPD with a sterling record and informs them that it was a simple “pipe” replacement of the shotguns under the care of Jose Lopez of Long Island Firearms. He claims he never left the guns unattended.
         1. Upon further questioning, he remembers that he did walk away from the guns “for a minute or two” when an accident occurred at the other end of the parking lot as an exiting squad car hit a dog.
      5. They pull up video surveillance of the lot on that day and “around 9 or 9:30”. As they watch, Herrera and Lopez are in the foreground with several wooden boxes of weapons. Bill makes out in the background of the video, Michael Wei standing just across the street from the parking lot. For about 20 minutes, he just stands there with a duffel bag regularly looking at his watch. Suddenly, he begins to walk to the west parking lot entrance. Some fifteen seconds later, a patrol car pulling out of the east entrance jerks to a stop as a terrier runs out in front of it chased by an older woman. The struck dog and frantic woman draws a crowd as well as the attention of Herrera and the gunsmith, who get up and walk to the other entrance. Just as they leave, Wei arrives at the boxes, uncovers the them and pries them open with a hammer he removes from under his jacket. He takes one of the shotguns and places it into the duffel bag, then hammers the box shut again before covering them and walking back away. The time stamp shows 09:21. A minute later, Herrera and Lopez return to their work.
      6. The Sergeants are obviously disturbed by what they saw and asking “how could that psychopath know we’d be gone for a minute?!?”
   3. Maverick continues to work on the email accounts of the mathgeeks as the agents investigate the driver of the squad car (Officer Jonathan Levy cleared), the owner of the dog (a pensioner Alice Richardson – cleared), and Jose Lopez.
      1. They drive to his home on Long Island and break in when they convince his wife that he had been in a bad car accident and they needed her at the hospital.
      2. The only math book of note they find is a picture counting book “for ages 2-4”, likely belonging to one of the 11 grandchildren pictured in the various family photos.
      3. Maverick meanwhile finds that Kelly Pletcher had accessed the email the previous evening. Julius Sward’s inbox was full of unread urgent messages “CALL ME NOW!”, “what’s going on?!??!!”, “OMG are you ok???” from this morning. The googlelist email was read in the morning shortly after it was sent on 2012 Oct 10.
         1. Further research revealed on news sites revealed a house fire in Modesto, California that is suspected to have “claimed the lives of the Sward family – investigators on the scene now”.
   4. With two suspicious events now connected with the Laqueous, Maverick calls Field Director Jones about the list of potential exposures and requests resources for help in containing the equation. They are requested to track down Casselman while the Hoffman Institute were sending other assets from St. Louis to investigate Pletcher and from California to Modesto. He states that he would be contacting sister organizations in Europe and Asia to look into the non-US names on the googlelist.
5. 2012 Oct 13, Saturday
   1. The four catch the first plane to Montana from NYC in the morning (with Maverick buying a nice hat prior to boarding).
   2. Upon arriving in Brinkman mid-afternoon, they surveil the unassuming single-story ranch house in a quiet neighborhood. No car in the driveway, and no lights on in the house. Various neighbors go about their Saturday business.
      1. Markov and Lester sneak up to the house and notice the front door slightly ajar. The stealthily move in and see the living room covered in a bizarre mixture of ripped and arranged pictures – mostly of teenagers.
      2. Moving further into the house, they find the young woman seated at her desk working on a computer spreadsheet; a Mossberg shotgun laying across her lap. As they approach, she smiles at them and asks quietly, “What is the answer?”
      3. Quickly replying “9920.29…” before trailing off, Casselman suddenly raises the shotgun. But Lester was anticipating the move and fires a pair of shots from Johnson & Johnson – hitting the gun and causing it to fall. A scuffle ensues with Casselman’s Tai-bo put to good effect against the surprised Markov before they successfully restrain her.
      4. On her spreadsheet, a variety of math calculations has resulted in a series of seven 9-digit numbers. They delete all files on the computer (after Markov makes a backup copy). Then a quick call to Field Director Jones has them calling the police to detain the woman while being recommended to track down and destroy the copy of the Libri in Brussels.
   3. They depart on a red-eye to Chicago to head to Brussels.
6. 2012 Oct 14, Sunday
   1. The long flight gives time for Maverick to catch up on his rest while Lester and Markov study the Book of Many Wonders.
   2. Arriving in Brussels that evening, they secure a hotel room near the L’Universite libre de Bruxelles, where the Libri is located.
   3. While checked in the room, the news began running a breaking news story about an “unfolding situation” of a middle-aged man threatening suicide at the top of the Marktkirche Cathedral in Wiesbaden, Germany. Later that evening, the man had unfurled what appeared to be a bed sheet with numbers written on it in shoe polish. They recognize the same numeric sequence as at the Ridgway house. Sure enough, the man was later identified as Lawrence Badek, a previous math teacher. Even later, the Spezialeinsatzkommando stormed the rooftop to try to secure Badek, but it ended when Badek fell to his death along with one of the SDK SWAT commandos on live TV.
   4. Markov and Lester continue studying the photocopied English translation while Maverick finally manages to break into the email account of Emile Tumlinson. Scattered among a multitude of unread emails, are the occasional ones which had been read. Fortunately, the mathgeeks one is buried on the 12th page, unopened. It is quickly deleted from the email.
      1. Having spent close to the entire day trying to puzzle out the Laqueous, Lester manages to convince himself further that no only were his actions predetermined and non-malleable, so were those of everyone and everything in the world! To deal with these depressing thoughts, he wanders into the night of Brussels where he acquires – and immediately begins using – cigars; they calm his mind to rest from the constant thoughts intruding into it.
   5. Bill is able to get into contact with an acquaintance, Franc Petri; Franc had spent some time with Bill at the Hoffman Institute in New York. He was able to provide the agents with some pistols as they were unable to bring their guns into Belgium.
7. 2012 Oct 15, Monday
   1. Maverick works through the night and day to break into the remaining email accounts while the other three go to the Brussels University Library.
   2. The three find it quite easy to draw the attention of the librarian away from the small closed room where the special collections are stored and for Lester easily secreted the book away in his waistband. After a quick debate as to the merits of keeping the book, Lester regretfully sets it alight with a cigar.
8. Epilogue:
   1. The NYPD informs the agents that the fingerprints on the weapons box indeed matched that of Michael Wei
   2. Kelly Casselman was arrested and placed into a psychiatric ward. The numbers on her spreadsheet corresponded to the Social Security Numbers of 7 of her students.
   3. The Hoffman Institute also informs the agents that the body of the FBI mathematics crypto-analyst, Special Agent Sarah Comox was found Oct 15th at the Shaver and Sons – a small stock trading firm on the lower east side of Manhattan. Firefighters responding to the fire in the building (located at 229 9th Ave East) found her body on the ground where it appeared to have fallen nine stories from the room. It required several hours to id the body. Surveillance photo showed she accessed the safe and destroyed 2.3 million US dollars worth of bearer bonds by setting a small fire. Interestingly, the phone number of Shaver and Sons is 212-333-0229.
   4. XP 2

1. 2016 Feb 28
2. Markov, Lester, Maverick, Bill
3. 2012 Oct 10, Wednesday: A call around 16:30 from Jones to investigate murder in NJ that occurred around 1430 that day.
   1. Jones said a post-doctoral math student at Columbia University identified as Michael Wei proceeded to a upscale neighborhood in Alliance, New Jersey and shot and killed 8 people belonging to a family. Witnesses out in the middle of the day reported hearing gunshots and then saw Wei chase Michael Ridgeway out into the nearby Highway and killed him. Witnesses understandably kept their distance as he proceeded to spray paint a series of numbers on the road before turning the shotgun on himself.
      1. The numbers are suspected of possessing dangerous, paranormal properties, having been tied to cultic activity and unexplained phenomena. This flagged an alert in the Hoffman Institute system
      2. Some of the Hoffman theoretical physicists say if the world could be considered a simulation run by a very powerful computing system, then some calculations would be “back-doors” into the code – hacking reality as it were.
   2. Secured transmission says:

BRIEFING

Operation IAPETUS

You are to investigate the murders of MALCOLM RIDGEWAY (44), DINAH RIDGEWAY (43), MICHAEL RIDGEWAY (18), CLARK RIDGEWAY (16), DEAN RIDGEWAY (14), MARY RIDGEWAY (13), ALICE RIDGEWAY (12), CLAIRE RIDGEWAY (10) in Alliance, New Jersey on 12OCT10.

Murderer is MICHAEL WEI (26) (DECEASED). Wei was a mathematical student at Columbia University New York. Wei inscribed a series of numbers at the scene which are suspected to possess dangerous, paranormal properties.

Mission Instructions:

— Determine if WEI distributed the number in any manner besides the crime scene (phone, fax, email).

— Locate WEI’s notes and work on the number and destroy it.

— If possible, destroy the number inscription at the scene and all photographic evidence of it in the hands of the authorities.

— Locate any exposed to the number with mathematical experience and report them back.

— Link WEI romantically to DINAH RIDGEWAY. Fake whatever documents necessary to make an affair between the two seem likely.

— Once protocols are complete, contact director for further instructions

Possible Friendly Contacts :

— Trooper Thomas Blanet, New Jersey State Patrol

1. Jones says that the numbers found have been tied to paranormal and potentially Dark Matter activity
2. They are to go as special forensics consultants to the FBI after their previous mission
4. Markov, Lester, and Bill fly. Maverick drives through the night and day, researching on his phone as he does so
5. Bill goes to the John Jay Hall in Columbia around 2100. The front sign declares it houses dorm rooms, as well as the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, containing the Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics divisions.
1. He is met by Sandy Beema, the school’s representative, who shows him Wei’s messy room.
2. He turns on the computer to find the most recent email To: mathgeeks@googlelists.com with the Subject line reading: “I’ve got the Laqueus Solution!”
   1. This is followed by complex math in the body
3. The most recent file utilized was a complex excel spreadsheet that resulted in a numeric outcome:
1. 10.10.12,921,40.796901,-73.968158
2. 9:21(AM), 40.796901, -73.968158
4. Under the futon, he also finds a binder clipped stack of papers that look to be a photocopied book entitled “The Book of Many Wonders” that looks well-read annotated, and heavily marked

6. Meanwhile, Markov and Lester investigate crime scene.

   1. They successfully avoid the media circus that have flocked to the scene – after all, what else can attract media attention more so than a horrendous murder scene with innocent victims, insanity, and a confusing picture of a student with no connection to them; KILLER MATH TEACHER! blares the headlines.
   2. They meet the 3 FBI Special Agents: William Gant (a stocky young white man in his mid-30’s) who points out Special Agent in Charge Aiden Canor (well-dressed black man in his 50’s), and Sarah Comox (white woman in her mid-30’s) a mathematics cryto-analyst.
   3. The bodies are not yet moved, but are covered by tarps; the victim outside is face down with GSW to the back and Wei is nearby with his head mostly gone. Lower jaw is intact, and a shotgun and spray-can is next to the body. On the pavement, a series of numbers which has been spray painted. A pictures is taken of the number sequence: 9920.229989212.333
   4. Inside the nice 3-story house sitting on some quarter acre, they find the bodies of the 7 other victims; one near the front door, a few others sprawled on the couch and recliner, two near the back sliding down, and one near the kitchen counter.
      1. Markov pockets some of Dinah Ridgeways’ lipstick, perfume, and underwear.
      2. They note that the shotgun was loaded both with buckshot and slugs.
         1. There was also a shot to the kitchen stove that froze the analog clock at 14:28:13.

7. The agents retire to the Motel 6 in Alliance for the night. Maverick meanwhile managed to break into Wei’s various computer and phone records.

   1. He most often communicates with Mom, Imogen Wei (both with Californian numbers), Tony, and Molly
      1. The latter are more recent and text messages revolve around dinner plans
   2. He has no social media, but multiple online dating profiles, none of which have any substantial activity, and mostly inactive for past 6 months.
   3. He manages to stay refreshed regardless of his all-night drive
8. 2012 October 11, Thursday
1. The next morning, they return to the John Jay Hall. Markov places the pilfered items from Dinah Ridgeway as well as pornographic magazines featuring older women purchased from an adult book store.
   1. In his room, further searches reveals various credit card receipts for food purchases from the school cafeteria. Special Agent Gant confirms no unusual credit card purchases, and no weapons receipts.
2. They go to meet with Wei’s mentor Professor Offenhaut, who informs him that he hadn’t seen Wei since their weekly meeting the Thursday before.
3. His work and dissertation involved research into Mersenne prime numbers. He had been working on “fast distributed math models to generate extremely large Mersenne primes, numbers somewhere in the range of fourteenmillion digits, but he was not having much success.”
9. Offenhaut only knew the Laqueus Equation as a historic math puzzle that was unsolved. Looking into one of his texts, he remembered that it was a puzzle attributed to a Fascius Claudan, “a mathematician, astronomer and scientist who lived sometime in the 1500’s”, but not much else about it.

Examing the various items found, the agents follow the lead on the napkin and head to Happy’s Place. They arrive mid-day in Berry, Florida at a mostly empty biker bar, with only a few patrons inside.

Questioning the bartender, they learn that a man matching Hearst’s description – whom he refers to a “the bald guy” was part of a bike gang that started showing up and hanging around the bar about 2 months previous. During the conversation, the agents see some pictures of a young woman behind the bar who has a parrot tattoo on her should – a parrort identical to the one drawn on the napkin found on Hearst. The bartender tells them that she was the best waitress he ever had, by the name of Lorene Foster. She was the object of the bald guy’sflirtations, and packed her bags and went with the gang when they left town a few weeks prior. He too had heard the rumors that she had been murdered by the gang, and sadly believes them to be true.

The agent’s questions draw the attention of a trio of biker’s that were playing pool in the bar, who attempt to disuade them – with their fists. The first blow sends Maverick to the ground and rather than reciprocating with his fists, Lester pulls out a pair of pistols and ends the fight – by way of acute lead poisioning.

In the violent aftermath of the conflict, the agents fled back to Miami; fortunately for them, the deaths did not attract too much law enforcement attention – the two suviviing bikers refused to cooperate with investigators, and the dead biker had quite a rap sheet accumulated.

At the Miami office, they begin the process of trying to locate Lorene Foster in hopes of getting a lead on what had happened to Agent Hearst. But it appeared that a week after her departure from Berry, there was no further trace of her. Credit card and cell phone use tied to her all stopped, having traveled no further north than Hollywood, Florida; neither were there any recent law enforcement records. A call to Field Director Jones at the NY headquarters prompts them to follow on the rumors of her death, and a search of Jane Doe’s leads to a body of a young woman with a parrot tattoo on the shoulder. Maverick was able to convince the eager coroner’s assistant to provide the autopsy report.

Of particular interest, the barrel she was placed in was still in at the morgue and had a partial label which he helpfully read to the them: “Under the serial number it says ‘Eagle Storage,’ something, ‘—ade City, FL.’ And there’s a partial number: —5-0414.” A quick search internet search returned an address for a Eagle Chemical Waste Storage located in Dade City, Florida – ~40 miles north of Berry.

[This ended the first session of the new campaign. Each character received 2 XP.]

The day is coming to a close when the phone in the office rings. On the other end is a harried voice – “I’m Hearst! Benjamin D. ! Look, just punch it into your computer! Red Baron eight one eight! Come on, hurry! I’m in Picnic!… Oh, please don’t tell me I got the wrong num—”

Not hearing the responses from Markov, the phone is cut off. Calling their supervisor Field Director Calvin Jones in New York when their computer files noted extra-secure security, they learn that the Hearst is an Hoffman agent who has been considered deceased after 16 years of no contact; he had been investigating a death cult thought to be behind a series of murders in the Florida area that the local law enforcement had attributed to drug gangs. Hearst had gone deep undercover to infiltrate a group he tracked down, but then all communications stopped. He tasks the group with rendezvousing with Hearst while he contacts the re-surfaced agents’ supervisor.

 

The agents trace the call to a pay phone at a gas station in Picnic, Florida and the 4 hour drive from Miami gives them plenty of time to mull the many questions that remain open. Where has Hearst been? How was there no sign of him anywhere in such a connected world?

Upon arriving at the address, they are greeted by the flashing lights of an ambulance and Sheriff’s patrol car. The attention is focused on a middle-aged man sitting on the paramedic gurney; although now shaved bald, heavier-set and aged, he still bears resemblance to the man in their file. As they approach, the Sheriff half-heartedly waves them off before Markov informs him that the confused man is his acquaintance – one Ben Richards.

The sheriff informs the agents that they were called about an hour prior from the neighbors reporting a near-naked man wandering about the houses in the area. They had arrived to find him in the similar state in a backyard treehouse of a house whose property abutted the gas station. Although uncommunicative, they were able to talk him down and for the most part, he appeared to be healthy.

They successfully convince Sheriff Miller (who was coming to the end of his shift and just wanting to head home) to release him into their care. Yet, Hearst is not of much help – he wears only torn jeans and is now rocking back and forth, arms hugging his chest. He is unresponsive to questions, but Isaac is able to lead him back to the van while the others went to gather more information.

In the treehouse, they found a necklace with a silver inverted cross. As the agents left, Sheriff Miller also stopped them and handed over a clear plastic baggie with a few coins wrapped inside a cocktail napkin, the latter with a doodle of a parrot from a “Happy’s Place” in Berry, Florida.

On the way back to the Hoffman office in Miami, Hearst remains in his uncommunicative state. The agents reach back out to Field Director Jones, who by that time, has gotten Hearst’s supervisor Intelligence Department Chief John Randall on the phone. He tells them that “Ben got us pretty far inside the Temple of Ashes, but he suspected there was another cult calling the shots. He was going to look for the connection when we lost him. If he found it, we need to know what he knows.”

For support, Randall sends over the limited electronic files he has and tells them that the Institute will gather as much information from the archives as they can get together.

I started by the players all making characters for the setting. Rather than start from a complete surprise about the paranormal, I opted to dive right in. This was essentially the introduction I gave them all.

You are all members of the Hoffman Institute – publically, a not-for-profit privately funded think tank with a focus on public policy (foreign and domestic), technology, and history. (Something like the Rand Corporation, McKinsey, or Deloitte). Privately however, it spends much of its energy and resources on research of the supernatural, paranormal, extraterrestrial. You are all members of the Hoffman Institute because of your past experience with, or belief in it; governments and corporations have their own interests at hand, and can’t be trusted – and have shown signs of actively acting against the interests of the people they are supposed to serve.

Dark matter and dark energy are the hypothetic stuff that make up more than 95% of the total mass-energy in the universe. It is responsible for the acceleration of the expansion of the known universe, and has been around since the Big Bang. Unable to be directly observed or measured, it is not even know what physical properties it has – even as it permeates the known universe. But as the levels of dark matter crest and fall, it interacts with the very fabric of the laws of reality.

Much of the investigations and research that Hoffman pursues is nothing more paranormal than the coincidental intersections of low-quality video, skilled street performers, manipulative sadistic sociopaths, the willingly delusional, or many of the above. Occasionally however…

Character generation is easy in this system. The main thing to do first is to think of a character concept. For inspiration, think of a gritty cross between X-Files, Grimm, Marvel Agents of Shield (Season 1 especially), Bourne, Mission Impossible, James Bond, Homeland. Main restrictions are 1) Only human race, and 2) No Arcane Background (ie. supernatural abilities). So far, the PCs are:

1) Markov (Ari): Former FSB field agent. On a mission, witnessed the apparent wreckage of an alien UFO. He was subsequently sideways transferred multiple times until he was pushed out and then recruited by the Hoffman Institute.

2) Isaac "Maverick" Lee (David): Graduate student in history that became convinced of the existence of centuries-old non-governmental entities that manipulated world events and stayed in the shadows. Turns out some of those conspiracy theories aren’t just wacko ideas. The Institute brought him onboard to put his investigative and analytical skills to work.

3) Lester (AJ): Brought in by Hoffman to create a new identity. He is wanted for felony murder after killing a cashier at a Dunkin Donuts… then saw him alive and well the next day – a man that Hoffman was also investigating.

4) Angus "Pug" McGillicuty (Thor): Crossed paths with the Hoffman Institute when he began searching for his mother. She was a Wiccan priest, and he grew up with her going to various Ren Faires and such; upon returning from an Army deployment, all trace of her was gone when her bed and breakfast was burned to the ground; the Institute was looking for her help when it found rumors of the return of witch-burnings.

5) William “Bill” Thulson (Lawrence): Orphaned at a young age when his house exploded while his parents were inside. A Hoffman agent looking into the mysterious circumstances after the police closed the case as a gas line eruption took pity on the boy and brought him into the care of the Institute. He has since trained to be an agent.