Chapter 2 - The Beaulac Clinic
General Summary
On Earth, Aeon operative Maria Fairbank assembled three operatives to assist with the investigation:
- Laurence Capet, a telepath working with Orgotek
- Desiree, a philanthropist, adventurer and society person; also a talent associated with ISRA
- Xzennon, a psychokinetic who currently works with ISRA
As part of the investigation, Fairbank assigned the Black Eagle to Desiree, a Banji Owl Scoutship, the civilian version of Banji's Peregrine military vessel. Desiree flew the Black Eagle to Olympus, where they met up with agents
Paul Rickard and Andromeda Chase.
Meeting with capable handler and Aeon Society liaison at the
Blue Room ,
Hector Ramirez, the agents reviewed the information to-date. Desiree met with the Luna Orbital Station Mockva communications controller for an interview, establishing that no
Aberrant quantum signatures were detected, and the only energy pulse detected was a large amount of EMP radiation which was consistent with the explosion.
Chase and Rickard returned to the hidden shuttle, setting up cameras in case anyone came through the concealed door.
The rest of the group decided to focus on their investigative efforts on the Beaulac Clinic. The Clinic had the contract to service Aeroc Corporation (owners of the Cantor Mining Station), and had taken control of all of the bodies after the incident, including 'John Doe', the mysterious corpse that had sparked the original investigation.
Laurence went into the clinic directly, finding it understaffed with long people waiting in the emergency queue. The paramedic on desk complained that things were difficult at the moment, given that three of the four doctors on staff had recently left working at the clinic. After casually saving a life with his scientific knowledge, Laurence was let through to see the clinic's remaining doctor,
Doctor Jerzy Grabowski. Grabowski was flustered, and guarded, telling Laurence that the clinic was operating efficiently and that their funding came through private contracts. Laurence tried to probe Grabowski's mind, but couldn't get through the man's mental shield.
The agents then decided to infiltrate the clinic.
Xzennon recalled some information from ISRA, and found a box of clinic uniforms and ID chips in a nearby station locker that had been placed there prior to the mission. The advantage to working for the clairvoyant psi-order! The agents then entered the facility through the concealed door in the hangar.
Disarming the security effectively with his military grade AI, Laurence and the agents entered the clinic's warehouse level without triggering any alarms. They found it nearly empty, with important equipment had been already shipped out. Laurence interrogated the warehouse computer systems, learning that the hospital was being stripped of resources, prior to being shut down. The shutdown had started two days after the mining station incident. The three doctors involved in the hospital had already left. Doctor Ashiluna had shipped outwards, while Doctor Mangels had returned to Earth. It was unclear what had happened to Doctor Malachi Ross, other than that he had 'disagreed with the project's corporate vision'.
Desiree, Rickard and Xzennon explored the morgue level of the facility. Rickard hacked the morgue level terminal, and learned that all corpses on site had already been reduced to biomass, including patient 'John Doe'
Agent Chase had set off to explore the clinic's lowest level. She found a sub-level below the tenth floor - a secret basement! The door was heavily secured, but that didn't deter her, as she teleported inside. She found a laboratory with damaged equipment, and was immediately attacked by a human covered in fleshy biomass implants; a biorg! The biorg sent a crackling wave of energy towards Chase, but she teleported out of the secret laboratory and met with the others.
Chase suggested turning off the life support to the laboratory and Laurence did so with his engineering skills. Images of three dying biorgs appeared on Andromeda's feed, through the drone she had set up. One of the biorgs appeared regain cognition and called out for a woman called 'Mary'. The agents argued about whether they should intervene to save the dying biorgs or not, with Laurence and Desiree favouring the conservative (and safer) option of watching them die, and Chase wanting them to be saved. When all the biorgs were comatose, Chase found that one was unconscious.
The agents loaded the three biorgs into quarantine pods (including the still living one) and transferred them to the clinic's secret shuttle for exfiltration. Chase also forcibly exfiltrated Grabowski, shocking him unconscious with her electro-gauntlet, and loading him into a pod. Reviewing the laboratory's computers, the agents learned that the biorgs were created as part of something called the 'Huang Marr Project', which they deduced to be illegal corporate research into making supersoldiers using Aberrant-derived bioware implants. Desiree also learned that the clinic was owned by shell companies - Linwa Telecom and Schilltronix without any further information about the real owners being immediately available. Further, she noticed a tablet on the ground - part of drug that was keyed to Grabowski's DNA and would induce amnesia. However, he had been disturbed in the middle of shutting the lab by one of his research subjects, and only taken half of the tablet.
Grabowski and the research data was handed over to Aeon (with Laurence making a copy of the data for himself). Given a chance to interview Grabowski, the man confessed he didn't know what was going on. Desiree accused the scientist of despicable moral behaviour, even as he protested his innocence due to his amnesia. Meanwhile, Aeon sent in a telepath to do a deep dive into Grabowski's mind to see what they could find.
With the first leg of the investigation, the agents pondering acquiring the hospital (after persuading Aeon, ISRA and Orgotek to provide the upfront funding). They determined that the next phase of their investigation would focus on investigating Linwa Telecom, in the Boltzmann Crater region.
