⚡️ January 30th to February 9th

[enodiajj]

RECAP

In January, after another bout of unusual readings from the Enodia rift, a mysterious prop plane crashed off the station's dome into the Riftlands. Its pilot, apparently a staff member from Terminus Station in Antarctica, was unconscious. The only passenger of the plane appeared to have taken a parachute and was never located.

Twelve hours after the plane crash, everything and everyone from the plane inexplicably vanished. Station residents came to around 6AM with no memory of the last six hours. All data readings and security footage from this time were also scrambled.

About a week later, two FBI agents arrived in Colchester with the intention to stay for at least a month.

THE INTERROGATION

On 1/30, the FBI agents who have posted up at the Water Lily arrive unannounced at Enodia Station to perform "preliminary interviews" with select staff members. They meet briefly with Director Riddle before posting up in the Security building to conduct their interviews. At about 10AM, a mass email from Riddle's office goes out to the staff to alert them to the interview process. This email implies that the interviews will be ongoing throughout the week.

Early in the day, Agent Leonello is taken aback to discover that one resident of the station (Zeke Zelizer) is a former high school classmate of hers. While waiting to be interviewed, Spirit Moneypenny overhears Lundy and Leonello arguing about her degree of acquaintance with him and how the potential conflict of interest should be handled. Spirit relays the information back to Zeke himself, because they’re a good friend, but also Eureka Castillo and Shannon Wan, because the gossip is pretty juicy.

After about ten employees have been interviewed, mid-morning gossip around the station is that the FBI agents seem to be primarily interested in technology augmented by liminal abilities, and vice versa. After an unnamed source tips them off, they are particularly thorough in cross-examining Enoch and Crysta Waldinger (as well as Doc Yowell) about their masquerade masks, how they work, and what they intend to do with the technology, spending about an hour with each of them.

Zeke Zelizer is the last Enodia employee called for the day, and he is interviewed by just Agent Lundy. After taking a detailed history of his acquaintance with Agent Leonello, Lundy also questions Zeke about his liminal abilities as well as his glasses and any other assitive devices he uses. This all takes about 20 minutes.

Although no Explorers were interviewed and nobody was asked about the plane crash, Thornton's assistant Yana Dworak calls a meeting towards the end of the day informing them that anyone who was sent into the Riftlands to investigate the plane crash needs to submit a written statement about their recollections of that day. Thornton and Dworak deny that this has anything to do with the FBI interviews if pressed.

THE AGENTS

Jessica Leonello

First Impressions: Brash, a little short tempered, and in quite a bad mood by the time any PCs get the opportunity to interact with her. Uses her liminal power of telekinesis liberally. Enoch may note that despite her hot head, she is a very accomplished liar and often artfully bends the truth to suit her means.

Digging Deeper: Leonello is a registered liminal, and requesting her records returns confirmation that her primary ability is telekinesis. There is a long redacted section underneath it that suggests she either has a second ability which is difficult explain concisely or many secondary abilities. It is unusual for IRIS files to be redacted in this fashion.

Christopher Lundy

First Impressions: The good cop of the operation, he does most of the talking and has an affable and charismatic demeanor. With her cellular vision, Crysta is able to surmise that Lundy is not liminal. Zeke may note that he has a metal pin in his hip which suggests a long-healed injury.

Digging Deeper: Lundy is a dual citizen of the USA and the UK. Although he grew up in the States, he spent several years in the late 2010s working for DOLUS, a branch of MI6. Its focus is investigating both liminal and unexplained phenomena. Taryn Payne also worked for them in her youth, although she did not overlap with Lundy there.

CALENDAR

1/30

Enoch's Birthday. Agents Lundy & Leonello arrive at Enodia Station and interview select staff.

1/31

Ernestine reports that Agent Leonello has gone to NYC on urgent business, leaving Agent Lundy in town with no vehicle. Further interviews at the station are postponed.

2/5

Norton Jacoby, the chief of police in Colchester, drops by Enodia Station for a lunch meeting with Director Thornton.

2/9

After working on it for several weeks, Shannon Wan is able to unscramble some of the security footage from the missing 6-hour gap the evening of the plane crash.

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Comments

1/30: Enoch's Interview

[imaginist]

Enoch is intrigued by the agents' apparent interest in Liminal technology. Aren't they here to investigate the plane crash? He'll deal with that bit of information later; his priority now is to obscure the viability of his illusion emitter technology. After the runaway success of the Halloween Masquerade experiment, he's been doctoring his reports to say that the tech is glitchy and not remotely ready for wider applications.

This is... half-true. He, Crysta and Doc have made notable improvements to stability and longevity since October, and it's only a matter of time before they crack the code on how to configure illusions without Enoch or Crysta's involvement at all. (Arguably, they should've shelved the project if they had serious concerns about government and military misuse of the technology, but... Well.) Enoch lies his way through the interview as best he can; friends would've known his tells, but Leonello and Lundy appear unaware of Enoch's truth powers.

Clocking Leonello's bad mood, Enoch leans into seeming impatient and irritated over being forced to explain a "failed" experiment that's easily canceled and useful for little more than party tricks. If the tech worked, which it doesn't, he intended it to supplant currently existing light hologram technology. He makes it sound ego-motivated, just one scientist wanting to outdo another scientist. Enoch presses the agents about why they're here and what they're really looking for, and takes note of Leonello's evasiveness. He tests them to see if they know about "what happened in January"; if they admit to knowledge about the plane crash, then he wants to know if they believe someone in Enodia is responsible for what occurred twelve hours later.

1/30: Enoch's Interview

[enodiajj]

Actually-annoyed Leonello and faux-annoyed Enoch are a bad match. Lundy doesn't speak much at all in Enoch's interview, although he is clearly deeply distressed by the dynamic at work and ends up pacing the room repeatedly when Leonello starts to get wound up. He even asks her to step out of the room for a few minutes at one point, and she is markedly more composed when she comes back in.

It is after this time-out that Enoch has the opportunity to sway the conversation in his favor. She admits they know about the plane crash (true) and that while it isn't unrelated to what brought them there, they aren't actually concerned about it (true). She also says she has no reason to suspect that sabotage is at play with regards to the missing hours (technically true, with a slippery veneer of falsehood over it that plagues many of Leonello's statements; with a deft application of his liminal abilities, Enoch may be able to intuit that she actually knows for certain that sabotage isn't at play).