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The Roulet Estate, Episode 03

The "grey alien" takes a pharmacy hostage, turns out to be a man in a latex mask, and the task force is scattered until the President phones Andrew about Virginia.
Arc The Roulet Estate (finale)
Episode 03
Setting The Roulet house and a Brooks Pharmacy, Rhode Island; then Huell's apartment building, Quantico, Vorkuta, Moscow and New York
In-fiction date January 1993 (the siege); March 1993 (Huell); April 1993 (Kurt); spring 1993 (the Biz and Andrew)
Players present Andre (GM), Dante, Rita, Ezra, Zack
Previous Roulet Estate 02
Next Radford Horrors 01

Synopsis

The agents' stolen car turns up outside a pharmacy 25 miles from the Roulet house, where the naked grey figure is holding hostages with guns from the Roulet collection. Kurt Larson improvises a smoke screen, the Biz crawls into the ceiling, and Huell Kendrick tackles the gunman; the Biz and Huell are both badly shot. The alien head is a foam-latex mask over a gaunt drug user. During the fight Andrew Howard finds his healing power gone and a craving for human blood in its place. An epilogue then visits each agent after the task force is disbanded: Huell on workers' comp, Kurt teaching at Quantico, the Biz in a Russian labor camp and then in front of Boris Yeltsin, and Andrew on desk duty in New York, where President Ross Perot calls him. (Roulet Estate 03)

Plot

The ride to the pharmacy

With the APB out on the agents' car, the agents wait at the house over police coffee, still hungover and woozy from the drugged water. Diane makes small talk with the local police while Andrew lectures them on whether a Grey could have a belly button; officers have asked to see his ID about four times. A young cop with a Friar Tuck hairline reports that the car has been seen at a Brooks pharmacy about 25 miles away and offers a ride. Kurt, Andrew and the Biz sit in the back; Huell rides up front. Diane gets a lift to the airport from another officer. When the cop asks Huell "So, aliens, huh?" Huell flips him off, and Kurt smooths it over on a Manipulate Someone 11. (Roulet Estate 03)

At the pharmacy the stolen car sits next to a squad car with two officers gesturing frantically behind it. The driver steps out and a rifle shot takes off the top of his head. The others are locked in the back seat, so Kurt searches the body for the keys under fire (Act Under Pressure 10), rolls the squad car into cover beside the other and lets them out. The squad car's radio does not work while it is moving, which is why nobody warned them about the hostage taker. (Roulet Estate 03)

The siege

Officer Todd, a local, "officially surrenders operational command" to Andrew and briefs him. The naked "alien" shouts in American English, has everyone on the floor, has shot a pharmacist non-fatally and was seen taking pills. He demands a fueled Range Rover with no trackers, no police cars in the lot, and every cop inside naked within ten minutes to be handcuffed to shopping carts, or he starts killing hostages. He claims an RPG; Todd saw a flamethrower, a machine gun and a big old wooden rifle. (Roulet Estate 03)

Kurt proposes a pincer through the locked back service entrance. The gunman shoots out the car's tires, and a businessman hostage runs out with a brick cellphone, a phone number and a warning that nobody is to go behind the building. Kurt scraps the plan and builds a smoke screen instead: a shot-out tire pried off its rim, the Biz's flask of vodka, the Biz's lighter and a bag of stale donuts from the squad car. The roll is a 7, so the smoke is slow and thin. (Roulet Estate 03)

Andrew stalls on the phone, first pretending to have the wrong number and then playing dumb about vehicle brands. The gunman cuts the deadline to two minutes and defines a cop as "anybody with a gun." Andrew redials and tries stripping one-handed while babbling about car dealerships; the roll is a 6 and the gunman hangs up. Kurt strips to his underwear, keeping his pistol, and with the smoke's +2 he and the Biz both reach the building's left side on 11s. Kurt boosts the Biz toward a retracted roof ladder, and the Biz's 13 gets him up cleanly. (Roulet Estate 03)

In the lot, an old woman in a lime-green VW Beetle berates the half-naked Andrew, pokes his nipples and cries rape. When he tries to pull her down, on a failed Manipulate Someone 4, she bites him for 2 harm. Huell takes over with a Kick Some Ass 11: she bites his shoulder for 2 harm, and he punches her unconscious and handcuffs her. The two officers behind their car refuse to cross the lot, and Huell vows to get them fired. (Roulet Estate 03)

Through the ceiling

Kurt picks the back door slowly (7) and creeps behind the ransacked pharmacy counter, where a hostage silently points him toward the front checkout. The Biz opens the roof door with a credit card, crawls into the drop ceiling and wedges himself in to wait as a fail-safe. From above he sees the gunman clearly: huge black eyes, an oversized head, spindly, naked, circumcised and tattooed. (Roulet Estate 03)

When the gunman starts to move where he would spot Kurt, the Biz fires first. On a Kick Some Ass 7 both sides inflict harm: the Biz hits a shoulder, and the gunman fires his Mosin-Nagant up through the tiles into the Biz's thigh for 3 harm. The Biz crashes to the floor, bleeding badly. Andrew and Huell storm the front. At the sight of a gut-shot hostage's blood Andrew is seized by a craving; on an Act Under Pressure 8 he accepts -2 for the rest of the fight rather than drink. Huell tackles the gunman on a 13, takes a 3-harm shot through the foot that leaves him at 2 health, and pins him anyway. Kurt binds the man's hands with his own underwear (13), adds handcuffs, and stands naked with only his gun. A seam shows around the gunman's neck. (Roulet Estate 03)

Andrew tries to "space heal" the Biz and nothing happens. He ties a tourniquet instead (Protect Someone 9) and compulsively licks the blood from his hands while the Biz watches. Police arrive, and one cuts leg holes in a fluffy winter hat for Kurt. They rip off the prosthetic to reveal a skinny man with blisters at his mouth and matted hair, and Andrew kicks over a card display. The suspect starts to collapse. Kurt guesses beta blockers, like those in the attic lair, and the pharmacist confirms the man had been hunting for them. The Biz and Huell leave by ambulance. Huell keeps most of his foot; neither will walk much for two or three months. (Roulet Estate 03)

Where they went

After a recess in which Andre asked each player what their character does once the task force is gone, the episode skips "about two months." (Roulet Estate 03)

Huell, March 1993. On workers' comp and in a wheelchair, he guilts his widowed neighbor Mrs. McGann into hauling him up the steps (Manipulate Someone 11). A mustard-stained kid in the elevator asks about his foot. He collects his paycheck, puts his mood at 3 to 4 on a scale of one to suicide, and goes to day-drink and watch Roseanne. (Roulet Estate 03)

Kurt, April 1993. He was sent to Sri Lanka against the LTTE, postponed the assassination of Premadasa, and was recalled after Waco to train American agencies. He lectures young FBI agents at Quantico on silent breach signals with flashlights and IR lasers. In his hotel he calls his wife and kids, spends hours "visualizing the polygon" and watches Roseanne. He privately believes a force "on the other end of a portal" is covertly influencing America and cannot get anyone to listen. (Roulet Estate 03)

The Biz. He vanished from the hospital. An on-screen subtitle places him at the Vorkuta Corrective Labor Camp, "abandoned since 1962," two weeks after the interrogations stopped, singing sea shanties and talking to a cockroach. A senior mustached officer looks through the slot, is greeted in polite Russian, and orders, repulsed, "Get this man on a plane." Handcuffed beside a silent FSB officer, the Biz flies first class to Moscow and is shackled to a chair in the former Soviet Parliament building. After an hour Boris Yeltsin walks in, cuts and lights him a Cuban cigar, and asks about "the humanists." (Roulet Estate 03)

Andrew. After a week at home, his doctor and officials of his church tell him his powers are unpredictable in crisis and promise tests. For the first time he senses they do not know what they are talking about, and that he is a "special horse," the test case; they X-rayed him and never showed him the films. He joins the World Trade Center bombing investigation on desk duty. Big Bill has been fired and Andrew was seen as his pet, but he cannot be fired because his misdeeds are buried in classified cover-ups, and colleagues run betting pools on why he still has a job. Diane, now in FBI records, phones to check on everyone and cannot reach Mr. Baxter. "He's probably dead," Andrew mutters afterwards. His doctor mails him human blood weekly, disguised as frozen orange juice. Shirtless in his hotel room, scratching his chest scar while the blood thaws in a Brita pitcher, he wonders whether he died, whether he is an alien hybrid, and whether his dreams are his father. He puts on Roseanne and raises a glass. The phone rings. (Roulet Estate 03)

Cold open and framing

  • Cold open: a shot from the back seat of the stolen car pans up to the grey alien at the wheel in slushy snow, a black 9mm in his left hand, his right drumming the dash. He tunes in "Radar Love" and hums along as the fuel needle dips into the red. Credits. Andre: "The producers of the show sprang for the rights to another song this time."
  • Subtitles: the epilogue's cuts carry on-screen text, including "Vorkuta Corrective Labor Camp (abandoned since 1962)" and translated Russian.
  • Exit shots: Huell's vignette ends on a TV-style exit shot, and the episode cuts to black on Andrew's reply to the President.

(Roulet Estate 03) See also The show.

Player characters

Non-player characters

Monsters and entities

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • The "grey alien" is a man in a foam-latex mask. His name is never given. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • He needed beta blockers, which ties him to the attic lair at the Roulet house. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Andrew's healing no longer works, and the sight of blood now triggers a hunger for it. See Andrew's Condition. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Andrew's doctor and church have never seen a case like his. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • The task force is disbanded and Big Bill fired. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • The Biz went missing from an American hospital and is in Russian hands. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • The team split the Georgia gold equally. The other agents buried the Biz's share in a park near his home, and the Biz had already prepaid a year's rent in gold to a landlord who would not ask questions. (Roulet Estate 03)

Open threads

  • What happened in Virginia, and why the President is calling Andrew personally.
  • Who "the humanists" are and what Yeltsin wants with the Biz.
  • The gunman's identity and motive, and whether he killed the Roulets. The Roulet mystery gets no explicit explanation in this episode.
  • Who the people in the older attic Polaroids are.
  • What Andrew is, what his X-rays show, and where the blood comes from.
  • Kurt's portal theory.
  • The Biz's apartment, which Ezra hinted holds things the others would want to find, and which nobody has yet entered.

(Roulet Estate 03)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"The fucked-up thing is the hostage taker knows everything the DM knows."

Dante, out of character

Quote

"I officially surrender operational command of this hostage situation to the FBI."

Andre (as Officer Todd)

Quote

"Fuck! I fucking knew a Grey wouldn't be circumcised."

Dante (as Kurt Larson)

Quote

"Got shot by an alien."

Zack (as Huell Kendrick), to the elevator kid

Quote

"Tell me everything you know about the humanists."

Andre (as Boris Yeltsin)

Quote

"This is the President of the United States. I need you to come in. Something's happened in Virginia."

Andre (as Ross Perot)

Quote

"Did you call the right person? Like, there are a lot of Andrew Howards in the world."

Rita (as Andrew Howard), the closing line

Table notes

  • Roseanne became the table's symbol of rock bottom, and Huell, Kurt and Andrew each end up watching it. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Kurt's state of undress escalated from underwear to underwear-as-restraints to a hat with leg holes. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Dante shouted "Old Man Jenkins!" when the mask seam appeared. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Ezra's dice roller failed and Andre rolled for him; Zack's audio dropped several times. Zack was on a streak of 11s: "I've been rolling good today." (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Andre looked up Ross Perot's voice for the final call; Dante said it sounded like a D&D goblin. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Andre briefly forgot the Biz's name. Ezra: "Richard Baxter, a.k.a. Dick." (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Ezra proposed the Biz's disappearance as overdue "consequences" and left the details to Andre, who told him to have a new character ready but not to jump into using it yet. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Ezra suggested asking the gunman whether a Ford Bronco would do instead of a Range Rover, and Rita delivered the line on the phone as Andrew. Dante supplied the Biz's sea shanty about his frozen bucket. (Roulet Estate 03)

Continuity

  • Picks up from the end of Roulet Estate 02, with the police still at the house; the cold open shows the back seat where Diane slept in Roulet Estate 01, Corn Nuts packets included. The beta blockers and the looted guns from the attic resurface with the gunman.
  • Huell was shot in the shin in Roulet Estate 01 and is shot through the foot here. Andre rules that the first wound had healed, so the foot is the injury that puts him in a wheelchair.
  • Andrew shrugged off a rifle shot to the face in Roulet Estate 01; here his healing touch fails for the first time.
  • Andre sums up Andrew's record as "probably the greatest political scandal in American history, and also a nuclear accident, and also, like, all-out war with a small town," references to the team's earlier cases. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • Andre reminds Zack of an earlier conversation in which Huell told McManley that watching Roseanne was rock bottom. (Roulet Estate 03)
  • The epilogue has the other agents bury the Biz's share of the gold in a park near his home. In Radford Horrors 01 the whole of his share is found under a floorboard in his apartment.
  • Perot's call leads into The Radford Horrors; the Biz's disappearance is followed up in Radford Horrors 01, and Ezra's new character there is Daniel Webster.