The Experimental Job
THE EXPERIMENTAL JOB
It’s a given that Murphy’s Law and hunting the supernatural go hand in hand.
Ghosts, poltergeists and angry spirits are unpredictable at the best of times and downright terrifying if completely insane. Pagan Gods come onto a Hunter’s radar only when they refuse to go quietly into oblivion. Their inability to accept that they no longer have a place in modern worship makes most of them insane, murderous and/or cannibalistic; not necessarily in that order.
The same thing happens when deities find themselves displaced; what makes a deity peaceful in Japan becomes corrupted and malevolent when plonked bang in the middle of a Mid-Western brewery.
Sometimes, the supernatural, are just plain evil. Take demons, for example; they are the twisted and perverted remnants of a human soul. The wicked do, indeed, go to Hell. They're tortured until they lose all traces of humanity and crawl out of the pit as demon spawn. It should be noted that not all wicked souls ‘ascend’ as demonic spawn. Most are trapped in the endless cycle of torture, or become themselves the torturer.
Bobby Singer knows all about the supernatural and its attraction to Murphy’s Law. Yet even an experienced Hunter like himself can be struck by Murphy’s Law. He hates it when that happens.
He hates things not going according to plan and right now, with all Hell literally breaking loose, having to sit in a bar, explaining the supernatural to a bunch of strangers; well, that’s about as far removed from ‘the plan’ as he can get.
And here he’d thought this particular hunt was going to be easy.
THE CONMEN COMETH
McRory’s Bar has a welcoming feel about it, add that to the fact its located right below Nate Ford’s apartment and it makes the perfect place for first meets. Something of a modern day ‘A-Team,’ Nate Ford and his band of merry grifters bring justice to those whose wealth, influence or plain old-fashioned brawn.
The team consists of Nate Ford, an ex-insurance adjuster turned criminal conman mastermind. Alec Hardison, electronic surveillance expert, his words, the others keep him levelled by referring to him as their hacker. Parker, whose expertise as a thief is offset by having next to no social skills, although she has been improving under the tutelage of Sophie.
Sophie Devereaux is a terrible actress but a brilliant grifter. She and Nate have an on again, off again relationship. It depends upon whether Nate’s tendency to impulsively change tack halfway through a con has placed the team in danger or not.
The final member of the team was Eliot Spencer. He was their retrieval expert and muscle. Ex-army with many of his missions ‘black-ops’ and ties to Boston’s crime scene, Eliot was tough. People assumed, often to their detriment, that he was stupid but he had a keen, intelligent mind and was something of a gourmet.
It was a mismatch of personalities, but all were loyal towards Nate and trusted, for the most part, his judgement.
Conning the ‘untouchable’ means most of their cases bring a sizable monetary reward to the team; so maybe they're not so much Robin Hood, as a ‘good’ Sheriff of Nottingham. That means that, from time to time, they take on cases which are of less monetary reward and more soul-satisfying.
For example, making sure that justice is served to those who take advantage of the walking wounded of war. Like Mr. Schaevel, whose daughter came to them seeking justice after the death of her father? Mr. Schaevel had been homeless at the time of his death. He had also been a participant in an experiment run by undergrad students focusing on helping those with PTSD.
“I thought what you guys did was help people when nobody else would?” Miss Schaevel asked.
Nate and Eliot exchanged a look. Nate reached across the table and gathered the file papers together. “Leave this with us and we’ll see what we can find out, okay? I have to warn you though, it might just be exactly what the police say it was, an unfortunate accident.”
“It wasn’t. Thank you,” Miss Schaevel said and left. Nate and Eliot sat quietly at the table, alerted the others they had a new job, then left.
***
Hardison stood in front of a semi-circle of monitors, each displaying a different set of data pertinent to the job. It appeared that the PTSD experiment was part of the University’s Psychology department. The undergrad in charge was Travis Zilgram who also served as student president a club known as The Order of the 206.
“Part fraternity, part secret society, it was originally formed in 1874 by a group of university physicians and Shakespearean scholars. “206” refers to the number of bones in the human body. Which is why they refer to each other as Dustmen.”
“Titus Andronicus,” Sophie said, a wistful expression flashing across her face.
“I will grind your bones into dust and, with your blood, make a paste,” Nate quoted looking toward Sophie who smiled.
“Mm, clever,” Parker said. When everyone looked at her, she realized she’d spoken aloud. “C-creepy, it’s creepy. Okay?”
Eliot, privately agreed with Parker. However, he also knew the Dustmen’s influence was widespread. “It’s not as creepy as the number of Dustmen that hold high positions in intelligence agencies around the world. You got CIA, MI6, NSA, Mossad.”
“A feeder fraternity for spies,” Nate said.
“Well, the case that the Boston PD had on Shaevel’s death was closed within an hour and sealed by a federal order,” Hardison supplied motioning to the monitors on his left.
“Somebody with a lot of juice is protecting Zilgram. Dustmen take care of one another,” Eliot noted bitterly.
“Yeah, but which Dustman? What are they protecting? That’s the question.” Nate studied the monitors in front of him, trying to guess what was really going on behind those University walls.
With an air of frustration, Sophie pulled out her phone and noted, “Well, why don’t we just try asking for a change?”
She dialed the University’s Psychology Department's number. “Yeah, Travis Zilgram, please." She said, holding her hand over the phone, "I’m on hold,”.
***
The cells, located in the basement of the University’s Psychology department, were each fitted with a single camping bed. Music was piped into each cell and they were kept at a constant temperature of zero degrees Celsius.
“That seems to be the magic recipe. Temperature near zero, volume at 90 decibels and just let them bake for two to three days,” Travis boasted to his visitor as he turned off the remote and the corridor outside the cells went quiet again.
“And they do all this for, what, 50 bucks a day?” the visitor asked. It certainly was an impressive result and one he could apply further afield. Assuming these subjects broke under his interrogations. Mr. Conrad would be pleased with their progress.
“Well, when you’re homeless and hungry, you’d do anything for 50 bucks a day,” Travis pointed out, the visitor just laughed. “Look, your job is to break them. Let me worry about how to soften them up for you,” He added.
“Yo! Trav, phone,” another undergrad said and handed Travis a phone.
“Zilgram here. Who’s this?” Travis asked, his visitor took his leave and Travis focused his attention on what the voice at the other end of the phone was saying.
“Who am I? I’m the cop holding a warrant with your name on it,” Sophie spoke with an appalling Bostonian accent.
“That case is closed. Nice try,” Travis stated.
“Well, I got it re-opened. Merry Christmas, asshole,” Sophie bluffed and listened as Travis hung up.
“He hung up,” she said with satisfaction.
Nate smiled. “Shocking.”
“Safe to assume Zilgram’s on the move?” Hardison asked, rhetorically.
“Sophie, Eliot, go to Boston PD, try to get in a little trouble. Hardison, you’re with me,” Nate said, all business now that they were on the job officially.
“Where we going?” Hardison asked.
“Quail hunting,” Nate said, “I need you to man the fort, Parker.” Parker rolled her eyes and left, she’d much rather go “quail hunting” with Nate and Hardison.
“What’s quail hunting got to do with anything?” Hardison asked, completely non-plussed.
“Everything,” Parker stated, Eliot nodded agreement and Sophie chuckled to herself.
“I’ll explain on the way,” Nate said. Flushing out the guilty was much the same as quail hunting; except that you used surveillance to make the guilty run for cover. As opposed to beating sticks on bushes and dogs barking to make the quail flee cover and fly into the open and into the path of the waiting shooters.
***
Detective Grayson didn’t, for a minute, believe ‘Carla Crim’ and her associate were legitimate. However, a rookie on his first day would have known the body of Mr. Schaevel had been dumped, and generally people didn’t move a body unless they had something to hide. And that, pissed her off, so she played along with the charade and left them alone in the interrogation room with what little information the case file had. Who knew, maybe they could bring those responsible for Mr. Schaevel’s death to justice.
It wasn’t until she returned to her desk that Grayson’s suspicions were confirmed. Two FBI agents asked for the same file information. Then, they asked her some really strange questions concerning the Mossman Research Facility adjacent to the military base to the north of Boston. Grayson answered their questions as non-committedly as she could and retrieved the Schaevel case file from the, now empty, interrogation room.
She supposed she should report her suspicions to the Captain. But he was, an idiot, in her humble opinion, so she decided to keep quiet for the moment and, unofficially, keep tabs on the two agents, ‘Carla Crim’ and her associate. She picked up the phone and dialed ‘Skinny’s’ number.
Skinny was one of her more reliable informants. Skinny was a part-time private investigator and a full-time Hunter. Something Grayson didn’t know, but would find out as the case of Mr, Schaevel’s crossed over into Hunting territory.
***
Eliot and Sophie were just leaving the police station when the ongoing conversation between Hardison and Nate, currently on surveillance of Zilgram, got interesting. Eliot tapped his ear, slotting the hearing piece into a better position and gestured to Sophie to keep quiet.
Hardison stood next to Nate in a field observing Zilgram. So far he wasn’t doing anything more exciting than leaning against his car. Hardison looked about him, searching for the source of the weird feedback his equipment was picking up.
Nate noticed and asked him what the matter was. “I’m getting weird feedback. It’s like a - like a whumpa-whumpa,” Hardison replied.
“Wait. What do you mean? What kind of whumpa-whumpa?” The sound of Eliot’s voice, coming loud and clear through his ear-piece startled Hardison for a moment.
“I mean - how many kinds are there?” Hardison asked in a semi-frustrated tone.
“There’s seven of them. Is it a whumpa-pop, whumpa-pop?” Eliot asked in all seriousness.
“Are you being serious right now?” Hardison replied, glancing toward Nate who just shrugged and kept Zilgram under surveillance.
“Hardison!” Eliot snapped. Sophie had stopped walking and was watching him intently.
“It’s like a whumpa-tink, whumpa-tink,” Hardison said feeling foolish.
“All right, Nate, you need to get out of there,” Eliot stated. Hardison had just described the sound of an approaching helicopter.
“Yeah, well it’s too late. Helicopter just landed,” Nate said. He motioned for Hardison to stand still, all the while keeping the helicopter and Zilgram in sight.
“Nate, who do you think that is?” Hardison asked watching as a suited man disembarked the helicopter and, surrounded by bodyguards, moved to shake Travis’ hand.
“The CIA,” Nate said lowering his binoculars and moving away from their hide-out.
“You know him?” Hardison asked, following his lead and double checking they hadn’t left anything behind that would incriminate them.
“I know the type; dangerous,” Nate said. The suited man’s arrival at least told him who was protecting Zilgram. Now all he needed to know was why. “Hardison, how do you feel about going back to school?”
Hardison didn’t like the sound of that one bit. He liked it even less as he took his place in the lecture room, two places behind Zilgram.
Nate entered the room, posing as Dr. McClure from Holybrok and proceeded to lecture the class on what he called “the Prisoner’s Dilemma”. He proposed they test this psychological theory with a roll-play exercise. He called Zilgram to the front of class to help him illustrate how ‘the Prisoner’s Dilemma’ worked.
Hardison made a show of belittling Nate’s teaching, earning him applause from the others in class and intriguing Zilgram enough that he followed Hardison out of the classroom.
***
Meanwhile, Parker, under the guise of a freshman looking to do volunteer work, followed another psychology student down to the basement. In a comedy of errors, she lifted the ID of her guide, then used it to gain access to Zilgram’s study area. There, she managed to steal some papers from his desk. When she’d gained the necessary information, she left and returned McRory’s bar to wait for the rest of the team.
Hardison used his hacking skills to erase Zilgram’s parking ticket and Zilgram issued an invite to a garden party at his family’s farm. Hardison accepted the invite and then returned to McRory’s bar.
The team seated themselves at their usual central table and compared notes. When it was discovered, Zilgram was due to start another set of experiments in a couple of days; they decided that Hardison would continue to try and get close to Zilgram while Eliot would go undercover at the homeless shelter and see if he could find out more.
***
At the homeless shelter Zilgram recruited from, Eliot set his tray down on the table top and sat down.
“Seat’s taken,” a man said.
Eliot ignored him.
“I said, ‘seat’s taken,’” the man said and reached across to push Eliot’s tray away.
Eliot grabbed him, twisted his arm and drove him face first into the tabletop. “Don’t do that. Don’t touch my food. I just got back from Iraq and after what I’ve seen over there, if you think I won’t take you down, you’re crazier than I am.”
“Army, right? Rangers? No, Green Berets,” The man said with just the trace of derision. Eliot released the man.
“Something like that. How about you?” Eliot asked glancing at the edge of a tattoo on the man’s arm. The man rolled up his shirt sleeve.
“Semper fi. You know what it means? In English? Most people don’t,” the marine said.
“It means ‘always faithful’,” Eliot said around a mouthful of food.
“That’s the promise a Marine makes to his country. They don’t tell you it only goes one way.”
“If this country was known for keeping its promises, we wouldn’t need Marines, would we?” Eliot said matter-of-factly.
“You got that right, brother! Name’s Mac,” the marine answered.
Eliot noticed a man with a clipboard walking between the tables, every few minutes he’d stop and talk to one of the homeless men.
“Hey, if I can get you in on something, you want to make a little money?” Mac said.
“Sure, nothing better to do,” Eliot said.
The undergrad came up to Eliot and the Marine, spun them his spiel, which Eliot paid no attention to, and they signed up for a night’s sleep and $50:00. Five men left the homeless shelter, Eliot and Mac, another two veterans and a blond-haired drifter.
Arriving at the University Psychology department, they were led into the basement area. Travis Zilgram addressed the men, “Look, let me just break it down for you. You agree to participate in good faith, and in exchange we provide squares, a bed and 50 bucks a day. You always have the right to walk-away. No one will keep you here against your will. If you do walk away, you don’t get paid.”
“They had me at ‘food,’” Mac said as Eliot uncapped a pen with his teeth and signed a consent form. Then the men were put into the cells by the students. Eliot sat down on the cot and let Nate know he was ‘in’.
He lay back down, thinking to nap when music blared through hidden speakers within the cells walls. “Weird,” he thought to himself. He smiled a little when he heard a voice yell, “Metallica, yeah, bring it!” He wondered whether it was one of the other vets or the blond-haired man. “Blond-haired man,” he thought and then just relaxed back into the bed and blocked out the noise.
***
The Zilgram Family farm wasn’t so much a‘farm’ as country estate. Hardison had asked Parker along as his ‘date’. He was nervous about getting himself noticed enough to become a ‘pledge’. Even with Sophie guiding both he and Parker through garden party etiquette, Hardison didn’t think he could do the job. They were sitting at a table when Parker turned to him and tried to help ease his nerves.
“Remember the other night when you were playing with your pretend friends?” she began.
“They’re real. Look, they’re- They’re not pretend. They’re just not in the same room with me.” Hardison had tried explaining online gaming to Parker before and had always failed.
“They’re an elf, a dwarf and a thing with a tail; I’m pretty sure they’re pretend. Remember when you took the thingy with the glowing thingy and then you used it to kill the guy who was on the shiny stuff and then also there was all this magic?” she continued.
“I think so,” Hardison replied, wondering what point Parker was trying to make.
“That was so cool. I mean, how many people here are cool enough to kill the guy with the thing?” Parker sat back smiling at Hardison.
“Yeah, you know what? You’re right, that was pretty cool.” Hardison said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, I’m gonna get our drinks or something.” Parker kissed him on the cheek and walked away.
“That actually worked?” Sophie's voice piped in his ear.
“No, but the fact that she thought it would work; that worked,” Hardison said as Travis came up to the table.
“What’s up? You been in the corner since you got here, if you’re not having a good time, you don’t need to stay,” Travis said just as Parker came back with two glasses of champagne. She handed one to Hardison and then weaved exaggeratedly toward Travis.
“That’s probably my fault, huh! What?” looking from Hardison to Travis she continued to ramble, “A guy can have his hands all over a girl and he gets a medal for it! But when it’s the other way around, oh, suddenly, I’m a slut. Well, you know what? Fine!” She kissed Hardison passionately, “Yeah, Take that.”
With a slightly wonky gait, she walked away from a laughing Travis and slightly shocked Hardison.
“Dude, Nice,” Travis tilted his glass towards Hardison’s.
“Real nice,” Hardison echoed as they touched glasses. Travis took a long drink of champagne, “Come meet some people.”
It didn’t take long before Hardison was sitting at a table surrounded by people. True, most were taking advantage of his hacking skills to have a series of misdemeanors wiped clean from their student records, but it had the attention of the 206ers and that’s all that mattered.
“And…boom. All right, there you go, record’s clean. But no more jaywalking, you mad, reckless son of a bitch,” Hardison said handing the phone back to its owner. Parker came back to join him. “You, Harry! HP,” Travis called out to Hardison, making his way through the crowd.
“Who’s HP?” Parker asked.
“Sup? It’s like, a nickname, ‘cause I’m like, a wizard with computers,” Hardison said, catching a pin Travis tossed towards him.
“Tomorrow morning, first thing. Don’t be late,” Travis said and then turned back to his friends and the party.
“Nate, I’m in,” Hardison said, touching his ear-piece while twirling the pledge pin between his fingers.
***
Hardison found himself standing in his underwear with the other ‘pledges’. There were six of them, including a tall gangly kid with a mop of hair. He thought his name was Sam something or other. Hardison wondered how he’d been chosen, considering the state of his clothing. More thrift-shop than tailor made.
It was one of the few times he was thankful his fashion taste was strictly classical. Good cloths could get you anywhere. Anyway, he was "in" and about to go through the farce of ‘pledging’ so that Zilgram and his cronies could be served the justice they deserved for murdering Mr. Schaevel.
An embarrassing run through the grounds of the University in his underwear to some dumb statue to memorize and recite the accompanying plaque was the first ‘test’.
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