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The Summer Service, Episode 04

With a tropical storm closing in, Kurt takes delivery of a tactical nuclear weapon, the Biz decodes a message from Russian intelligence, and the team walks into a meeting of Marblehead's glowing, bloated Board of Selectmen without a plan.
Arc The Summer Service
Episode 04
Setting Marblehead, Massachusetts
In-fiction date Summer 1992; one stormy day, from leaving the lighthouse to the 6:30 p.m. selectmen's meeting
Players present Andre (GM), Dante, Ezra, Rita, Zack; Kira (guest) speaking mostly out of character
Previous Summer Service 03
Next Summer Service 05

Synopsis

The team leaves the lighthouse as the weather turns. Kurt, sicker by the hour, collects the weapon his old CIA contact has sent: an M28 Davy Crockett with one nuclear round, which he and Huell bolt onto the Biz's Buick. The Biz buys a copy of Moby-Dick and secretly decodes a Russian message about lost submarines. That evening Jester escorts the agents to the Board of Selectmen, which meets under a seal reading "Sons of Adam". The mayor blames Satan for everything, and the session ends with the agents standing in the room debating whom to arrest. (Summer Service 04)

Plot

Out of the lighthouse

Andre opens with a recap that names Kurt's contact: Carter, a former CIA fixer who claims Iran-Contra was his idea and is now an arms dealer. Kurt worked with him for about five years and once saved his life, but does not know whether Carter is his first or last name; Dante offers that his first name is Jimmy. At Andre's out-of-character offer, Dante burns one of Kurt's Luck points for "a really good weapon that is potentially more inconvenient and dangerous." (Summer Service 04)

Outside the lighthouse, Andrew Howard rolls Sharp, 8: the sky has gone yellow-gray, a cold wind and rain are coming in, and the tail of a squad car is driving away. Kurt puts the walkie-talkie back in the car so the team can talk. The rain makes him worse, with fever, joint pain and an itch spreading round his ribs. His umbrella is at the hotel (preparedness roll, 8), so Andrew produces a flimsy collapsible one from his satchel. The agents agree the lighthouse is "an active trap" and leave. Andre lays out the arrest rules: a good-faith case before a judge, and 48 hours to charge. (Summer Service 04)

Andre rolls a luck check for a large-animal vet and gets 7: the nearest is in Salem. From a payphone Andrew reports to Big Bill, who says a Los Angeles-class attack submarine has been retasked and will arrive within hours, while the National Guard is delayed by washed-out roads until tomorrow. Andrew tells him about the worms; Kurt grabs the phone to warn that the Guard must not eat anything in town. Big Bill's instruction is to keep Larson alive. (Summer Service 04)

Little Feller

Kurt is paged by a courier, who is waiting in a military-surplus armored truck beside McManley's RV at the post office with a crate seven feet long. Carter sends his love, says this is the last one, and considers the two of them even. Inside are metal tubes, a range table and a manual for the Davy Crockett (Andre reads the cover as "M29"; Dante corrects it to M28): range 1.25 miles, yield 0.2 kilotons, every part stamped "decommission", with an aftermarket rangefinder welded on and its numbers rewritten in Sharpie. Kurt explains to the others that it is a tactical nuke, because "that thing underwater gave me the spooks." Andrew: "I'm sorry, you have a nuke?" The Biz, who spent his career on nuclear-security intelligence, is privately appalled and smokes in silence. Andre notes that without the Luck point the delivery would have been a Scorpion, a shoulder-fired rocket launcher. (Summer Service 04)

Kurt and Huell spend three or four hours at a disused gas station mounting the launcher on the Biz's 1986 Buick Regal, two tripod legs on the trunk and a third through a hole cut in the roof. The car is left behind the station under a tarp. The warhead, about 60 pounds, goes back to the hotel wrapped in a poncho and five trash bags. Jester warns them not to leave "whatever that is" in the room; Kurt says it is laundry, and Jester points him to the washing machine downstairs. (Summer Service 04)

In a scene added after the fact at Dante's suggestion, the team persuades a reluctant Donald McManley (Manipulate Someone, 13) to lend his "useless" assistant Henry, who is sent to Salem for ivermectin on a Vespa, in the storm, with Kurt's concealed carry permit as his credentials. Andrew buys "I heart Marblehead" ponchos and a souvenir ornament for his mother; the Biz buys welding goggles and a box of earplugs. (Summer Service 04)

The sweepstakes line

The Biz's secret plan from the previous session needs a 1980 reprint of Moby-Dick. He finds one at the Readful Things bookstore, where the clerk has the glow and a fishy, open-mouthed face and tracks him with her head. Hours later he sends the others away and walks to a distant payphone. A recorded voice advertises a promotional sweepstakes and reads out lists of numbers. Ten minutes with the book cipher gives a message from Russian intelligence: "Two secret[?] submarine lost near Massachusetts. Cause unknown. Instructions to follow soon." The Biz concludes the Russians are probably not behind the events in Marblehead and tells no one. Andre delivered the message with the other players out of the room. (Summer Service 04)

Dinner and the board

Jester tells Andrew that the selectmen meet at 6:30 and that dress is formal. In suits, the team eats at McDonald's, where storefronts are being boarded up. Esteban, behind the counter, has been told by his girlfriend that he smells like beans. Kurt's Investigate (11) confirms it, and Esteban works out that his uncle, a church member who volunteers to do the laundry, is putting bean juice in the wash "to keep me a virgin." He thanks the agents with fries. (Summer Service 04)

Jester, in a suit thirty years out of date, leads them to the town hall. The second-floor room has eleven chairs with name plaques in a circle and a wall seal reading "Sons of Adam", showing Jesus amid parted waters. Jester takes one of the two unoccupied chairs, marked "J. Evans, businessman". The one left empty belongs to Arnold Weathers. Present are the mayor, whom Andrew recognises as the man who preached in the priest's place the day before; the priest himself, Amos Shaw, alive, smiling amiably and beginning to bloat, although his house "looked like somebody exploded in it"; and the Chief of Police, who glares at Jester. (Summer Service 04)

Huell's Investigate a Mystery (9) shows that everyone in the room has the glow, the agents included, and that the mayor, the chief and several others are bloated with near-translucent skin. As far as Jester is concerned, the agents called the meeting. Asked about the scientists, the mayor says they left town suddenly just over a week ago, having talked of going back to Washington for more resources, and that the tone of their questioning "was not very well received here". Asked what causes the illnesses, he answers "Satan": the second coming is near, and the dead fish are a blight curable only by prayer. Huell's Read a Bad Situation picks out the nervous glances at Weathers's chair and the banker Horace Cromwell, the most bloated man in the room, who says "I'm fine" while his neck swallows twice. When Kurt raises the melted shoreline, the chief goes very still; the mayor suggests lightning or dynamite fishing and tells "Jimmy" to look into it. Andre calls the session there. (Summer Service 04)

Cold open and framing

In pouring rain, a woman of about ninety jogs circles around her block. Her daughter runs out with a jacket over her head. The old woman says "Pastor says God is coming," promises "I'm not going to let you go to hell. You'll come with me," kisses her and runs on. Cut to credits. (Summer Service 04)

Player characters

NPCs

Monsters and entities

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • The glow is an early stage of the town sickness; bloating and translucent skin come later. The town's leaders are furthest along, and the agents now glow too.
  • The Board of Selectmen is a church body. Jester is a selectman.
  • The mayor's claim that the scientists left of their own accord contradicts the evidence from the lighthouse.
  • Russian intelligence has lost submarines off Massachusetts and does not know why.
  • The Biz is in contact with Russian intelligence through a book cipher. His first approach, a request for information, happened off-screen.
  • Andre's read on the board: hostile, sincere fanatics, except Cromwell, who cannot be read.

(Summer Service 04)

Open threads

  • Whether to arrest the priest for murder, arrest the chief for concealing evidence, or search the mayor's office.
  • Why Arnold Weathers is missing, and what is happening in Cromwell's throat.
  • Henry's return with the ivermectin.
  • The Navy submarine's findings, the Guard's arrival and the storm's landfall.
  • A warhead in a hotel room with maid service due tomorrow.
  • The Russians' "instructions to follow soon."

(Summer Service 04)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"Pastor says God is coming." Andre (as the old woman), cold open.

Quote

"I got chicken pox and nerve agent and worms, apparently." Dante (as Kurt).

Quote

"I'm sorry, you have a nuke?" Rita (as Andrew).

Quote

"It's just laundry, man." Dante (as Kurt), explaining the nuke to Jester.

Quote

"That motherfucker is putting bean juice in the laundry." Andre (as Esteban).

Quote

"The devil prefers to work behind the scenes. But, you know, as we get closer to, let's call it game day, you know, the devil is going to be forced to undertake more and more of his works out in the open." Andre (as the mayor).

(Summer Service 04)

Table notes

  • Dante spends a Luck point to upgrade the delivery from a rocket launcher to a nuclear weapon.
  • "Thanks, worms": the worms are blamed or credited for everything, including Huell being "jacked".
  • The nuke as laundry, as a telescope, and as "Little Feller II", its real code name, which Andre supplies as trivia.
  • Andre slips on Esteban's name (Alejandro, then Jose) before correcting himself.
  • Ezra and Zack both go for the backwards chair at the meeting.
  • Andre calls "bullet time" so the players can plan mid-scene, then ends the session with "spend a week thinking about it".

  • Ezra: "This whole thing has RICO written all over it." Dante: "This whole thing has Waco written all over it."

  • This episode survives only as a single mixed audio track, so it is not always clear who is speaking; in particular, it is uncertain which player rolled the 13 that won over McManley.

(Summer Service 04)

Continuity

  • The weapon is the one Kurt ordered in Summer Service 03, and the Biz's secret plan and Charm roll from that episode pay off here as his call to the sweepstakes line.
  • In Summer Service 03 the blood-soaked house turned out to be Amos Shaw's and an unfamiliar, bloated preacher had taken his pulpit. Here Andre confirms that "the mayor was the replacement priest" and that the actual priest is alive and sitting on the board. (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 04)
  • The mayor's account of the scientists leaving for Washington contradicts their field journal, found in Summer Service 03, which says the board threatened them and that they were heading to the lighthouse. Andre confirms that "just over a week ago" does match when they disappeared. (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 04)
  • The Navy submarine Big Bill sends is seen in the cold open of Summer Service 06.
  • The empty chair is explained in Summer Service 05, and the Davy Crockett is fired in Summer Service 06.