National Guard checkpoint¶
The National Guard checkpoint is the roadblock, command tent and medical tent at the entrance to Marblehead where the National Guard seals the town and the task force gives its cover story and falls asleep at the end of The Summer Service.
| Type | Location (military checkpoint and field camp) |
| Aliases | Guard checkpoint and tents |
| Region | Entrance to Marblehead, Massachusetts |
| Controlled by | National Guard |
| First appearance | Summer Service 06 |
Description¶
The checkpoint blocks the road into Marblehead. Behind it stand a command tent with a telephone and a medical tent. Evacuees are being diverted to a hotel outside the town (Summer Service 06). Earlier in the session a Guard sergeant, who gives his name as "Jefferson" and then "Johnson" within the same broadcast, announces on all frequencies that the Guard has arrived and taken command (Summer Service 06).
Notable places within¶
- The checkpoint. A young lieutenant first turns the team away. When they say they are the FBI agents the Guard wanted, he sends them to an older officer (see Older Guard officer).
- The command tent. Andrew phones Big Bill from here. The officer debriefs the team.
- The medical tent. The team is sent here for antivirals and hot soup. Huell and Kurt collapse into chicken-soup slumber.
History of events there¶
Summer Service 06¶
After the nuclear shot, the team drives a Pinto back to Marblehead: Kurt and Huell sleep in the back seat, Huell visibly losing muscle and hair as the worms die and running a fever, Andrew hangs his head out of the window and the Biz drives. A young lieutenant at the checkpoint turns them away, then passes them to an older officer in a lieutenant's uniform. They hand over the anti-worm canister, which is sent to a chemist, and Kurt says they have been intercepting a splinter group of bioterrorists (Summer Service 06).
Andrew calls Big Bill Nelson, who is about fifteen miles away, stuck behind roads four feet underwater and waiting for a boat. Big Bill has heard that the nuclear attack is under control and that a submarine was lost. He tells Andrew to give the military the conventional facts and to keep the real purpose of the task force for the report, "with appropriate classification". Andrew asks, "Terrorists, right?" and Big Bill confirms: "Terrorists" (Summer Service 06). See Terrorist cover story.
In the debrief, Andrew and Kurt describe a religious terrorist group, citing City Hall's murals and its literature on returning to the ocean, that tried to take down the plant after seeding the food supply with a parasite. The officer says the attack failed but killed a few guards, medics report "profoundly wild things" and the military is distributing deworming medicine, though some will not pull through. He sends them to the medical tent and, on leaving, mentions that "someone used a tactical nuke" at the plant and that it will be hard to keep out of the news. The team feigns surprise; Zack (as Huell) says, "That scoundrel. What?" (Summer Service 06).
The team ends the arc asleep in the medical tent; Andre ends the session a little early, noting that the players' choice to use the nuke and skip the facility shortened the climax (Summer Service 06).
Inhabitants¶
The young lieutenant, the older officer, the Guard's medics and soldiers; the four agents as patients.