Report #3291
©1998 "Stabernide"

As per instructions, I've been nursemaiding our problem cell and trying to keep them on the straight and narrow; a task I equate to keeping a swarm of bees in a fucking fishing net. That business with the BLACK ORACLE in Brazil last year was easier work than this. The visit from Nancy helped--they're still afraid of her, even after all they've seen--but they think they can work around her too.

Tried to move N-cell out of the firing line. Except I may have moved them into the fire. DEEP GRIEF sent Niles off the rails. He's coked out of his head most of the time now, and he doesn't seem to care anymore that I know he's on the take from the Fate. Nixon holds it together better, but he won't when he finds out what NRO Delta have in store for him. Nixon's a ruthless bastard, but it just doesn't seem fair somehow. I stood over him whilst he was asleep the other night and seriously considered taking him out. They know something's amiss. They've both considered running--they have their old haunts in Columbia and Venezuela I'm keeping a close eye on--but they just seem so apathetic. Niles hasn't flown since the Hyperkind took out Natasha over Cuba.

The fire? Oh yeah. So I send them on some 'busy' work investigating a nowhere lead on a Corporate think tank--WESTCo--that's been buying fresh cadavers by the truckload. A friendly I know--the environmentalist Mary Monroe--she put me onto it. I can't say I was particularly interested; I'm too busy with this Orlando business. More on him later. N-cell were nearby, so in they went.

Get this; WESTCo's MD has spent the last six months in a lunatic asylum after a work-related breakdown; last week he stabbed his eyes out with a plastic spoon. It's about now Niles must have smelt the bouquet. Then they run into Doctor Walther Coleman. You remember Coleman; the field medic they caught sawing limbs off casualties in Laos, '68? The dishonourable discharge agreed with him. He's the head of R&D at WESTCo. The staff call his labs the Meatworks. Charming place, I'm sure. Niles used his colleagues at the DEA to drag up some dirt on one of the senior lab assistants--I have to admit; having an amoral, opportunistic rodent in your corner isn't always a bad thing if they have his initiative--and we started to hear a few things about what was going on in there.

All we know is that Coleman's experimenting with something he calls Carnotech. Whatever it is, I'm sure I won't like it. The informant told them what Coleman had done so far was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. N-cell mixed it with Coleman's pet experiments--the Skin boys. They were made from the cadavers, and somehow re-shaped, constantly shifting. Fucking, they are horrible. Pictures will be forthcoming. Nixon kicked off a few shotgun shells in the direction of one of them--they're dead tissue, obviously, and so bullets have a minimal effect; at least in small quantities. Nixon suggests you go for the knees--try to slow them down a bit. He's had to shoot dead things before. According to their informant at WESTCo, the Carnotech permeates the dead flesh, and is a distinct and separate entity to it. All the nightmarish stuff going on in the Skin boys is down to this black technology; whatever it is. Apparently, Coleman calls the Skin boys his 'etchings'. N-cell got away, but not before their informant had his head pulled off.

Once the Skin boys were out in the open, N-cell knew they were onto some nasty evil. They started to look at what else WESTCo had been buying; amongst all the usual stuff was a lot of human blood, a great deal of wicker, and a tank of "an organic compound" that was sitting in the railyard awaiting collection. N-cell went for a look.

The friendly--Monroe--found out what was in the tank the hard way. Protomatter. The same shit those agents ran into up in Groversville. Anyway; you can scratch her from central files. Niles thinks Coleman wants to replicate his experiments with the Skin boys, using the protomatter instead of human tissue. Things looked bad, what with the Skin boys showing up again, but N-cell have a certain ingenuity when cornered like rats in a trap with nowhere to run or hide. I won't bore you with specifics, but they made it. Again. I'd think of them as lucky--but then I remember what's in store for them.

WESTCo's been buying the protomatter through a company based in Arizona called Adaptive Biosystems inc. You'll probably recognise the name from the EXpo list Nixon got from that Majestic wetboy. It's big, and definitely bad--but I'd like to take a look at it sometime. Nixon would be good for the insertion; assuming he lives that long.

Then there's that bastard son of a bitch Orlando still on the loose; a serial killer who preys on philosophers and claims to be the living embodiment of the Aztec God Huitzilopochtli. I don't know about a God, but he has some bad magic on his side. He took four slugs then just vanished into thin air; cackling like some kind of fucking hyena.

So; the state of play. Nixon wants to waste WESTCo. Now, and before Coleman starts using the Carnotech for bigger and better things. I say hang back until we can establish if there's any MJ involvement in this project; we can't upset the big picture now. Niles? He just doesn't seem to care either way. Meanwhile Agent Solo is tracking Orlando North. I'll hook up with him in the Windy City; I've already alerted my mob contacts.

I swear to God; if I survive this case, I'll dance a jig. As some stupid fucking movie said once.

Love to Nancy;

Stabernide out.