Night Shift

Volume 3, Episode 7

Friday, November 19, 1999.  Detective Mike Parker, coming face-to-face with his mother, is taken completely by surprise.  Although Mrs. Parker is caught stuffing goods in her coat, acts nonchalantly innocent (as well as slightly tipsy).  Horrified at the thought that Lt. Therius might catch his mom shoplifting, Mike decides to take her back home.  After an apologetic call to sign himself off-duty, he gets the chance to pay for mom's grocery shopping (trying to limit the number of bottles involved), then walk her to her 10th floor tenement appartment.

After a gruelling visit involving many promises to show up for Thanksgiving dinner later that week, Mike finally extricates himself and meets with the Snowtown bus routes.  Waiting for a connection bus in vain, he learns of the unnoficial route detour from a streetperson.  With little choice but to walk ten or so blocks to the next stop (or to call for pick-up, an unappealing solution), he stumbles upon an abandoned Hypermart delivery van in a wretched alley overlooked by tenements and gravity rings.  There are other vehicle carcasses there, pulled apart and scavenged, but the Hypermart van is barely scratched.  In fact, it's in surprisingly good shape.  It looks just like the descriptions of Johnny's vision and Therius's time travel, thought the license plate is missing.

The back is unlocked, and Mike finds bloodstains.  He calls dispatch, signs himself back in, and refuses the offer to send the rest of the team back in since by now they have left Snowtown.  Although he has been leaving forensics to Eulalia and others lately, Mike remembers his academy training and carefully examines the van for fingerprints and trace evidence before driving it back to the precinct.  Once at the lab, his analysis confirms that the van was doctored to look like a Hypermart vehicle, and was used to move Rachel Pryor's body.

Tuesday, November 23rd, 1999.  On Parallel 9, the authorities take the news of Dr. Mortulus's illegal experiments very seriously.  Dr. Marvin Minsky, a technical expert working for Precinct 9, is assigned to provide assistance and liaison to the SOB team.  The team returns, with Dr. Minsky, to Precinct 10 in order to examine the evidence and information gathered.  Meanwhile, Precinct 9 works Dr. Mortulus some more.

Back at the precinct, Dr. Minsky examines the nanite trace found on Rachel Pryor, as well as the body itself.  Detective Eulalia Segama decides that it's finally time to take a close look at the black goo that was recovered from Johnny Mortis's AWOL body almost a week earlier.  The goo has been contained in a jar enchanted by the Osidian Sorcerer's magical wards. 

Lt. Therius uses his own sorcery to allow Eulalia to pipette a sample without breaking the magical protection.  The sample proves to be extremely similar to the nanites from Pryor's body – and have died.  Horrified at the idea that they might have lost a suspect in custody, Eulalia obtains more samples from the jar until she finds a bit of activity. 

Dr. Minsky is able to stabilize the nanites and coax them to multiply, and even to revive some of the Pryor nanites.  From his examination, he establishes that the controller's reach (the Caligulator) must be relatively short range, and that once the nanites are in a host body, the Caligulator must remain close at hand in order to keep control.  Left to themselves, the nanites will multiply until they achieve group consciousness and "a mind of their own."

Parker uses the time to find more employment ads that look suspiciously similar to the one that lured Rachel Pryor to the Caligulator.  Meanwhile, Dr. Minsky creates a rudimentary robotic interface to communicate with the nanites, assisted by Eulalia and her linguistic expertise.  W

ith patient questioning, they learn that the Mortis strain abruptly lost contact with "the Progenitor" and was left to find its own way.  The collective, equipped with Johnny Mortis's memories of places recently visited, tried to establish its own path and took a liking to fights, beer and lap dances.  These nanites believe they have been abandoned by the Progenitor.  The Pryor strain, more recently abandoned and not having had a body for more than a few hours, still believe that the Progenitor will return and they will be reunited with Him.

After a theological discussion, Minsky and Mortis manage to convince the nanites that Mortis is a better divinity, and that they should help by spreading the message to their brethren once they are reunited with the Progenitor.  They cook up a plan to lure the Caligulator back to Decepticonvalescent Hospital by having Dr. Mortulus contact him for maintenance and an upgrade, as previously agreed with Precinct 9.  They will then have Dr. Mortulus inject the Caligulator with the "upgrade", the heretic nanites who prefer their autonomy (and strip joints).  While the nanites are confused and are confusing him, they hope to capture the Caligulator.

Wednesday, November 24th, 1999.  The plan is put in motion.  Dr. Mortulus, carefully monitored, is coerced into sending a signal for the Caligulator.  The SOB team is on stand-by on Parallel 9, and Lt. Therius uses his amulet to grant himself a limited form of precognition that gives him an hour's warning before the Caligulator's arrival.  Nitro prepares by creating force field protection against nanite invasion for Parker, Mortis, and Minsky, who are likely to come in direct contact with the suspect (Therius is protected by his sorcery and Eulalia is not supposed to engage directly).  The long wait stretches, and just as they are starting to think the plan won't work, Lt. Therius announces: "He's coming."

A nervous Dr. Mortulus, assisted by Dr. Minsly and two beefy cybernetic "orderlies", waits for an off-the-book patient announced as "Mr. Smith."  Dr. Mortulus is so nervous that the Caligulator in disguise becomes suspicious and decides to leave.  Dr. Minsky recovers the hypospray from Dr. Mortulus and tries to administer the injection, while the orderlies converge on the suspect, but the Caligulator is too alert.  One orderly goes down in a gush of blood and hydraulic fluid, and the other grapples with the Caligulator.

The rest of the team rushes in from the next room, led by Lt. Therius.  Parker grabs the hypospray syringe and teleports behind the Caligulator.  Nitro uses her telekinesis gloves to isolate the potentailly contaminated orderly and to interfere with the Caligulator's struggles.  Therius attacks his nemesis in hand-to-hand (to hoof), and Mortis pulls the fallen orderly out of the struggle for Eulalia to give first aid.

When Parker manages to inject the Caligulator with the semi-autonomous nanites, the resulting confusion of his internal systems slows him down considerably.  Dr. Minsky uses his wifi network to increase the Caligulator's systems' confusion, with Mortis' assistance.  Finally, Lt. Therius knocks out a severely reduced Caligulator with a mighty horse kick.

Dr. Minsky is able to remove the nanite infection from the orderly isolated by Nitro, while the other orderly is rushed to surgery; both are saved.  Dr. Mortulus has escaped during the battle, but is rapidly recaptured.  Every bone in his body once again shattered, the Caligulator leaves the site in a maximum containment life support capsule.

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