Background

Houston, Texas, the sprite capital of the world. A stable environment in a jewel on the Gulf Coast, home to NASA Mission Control and gateway to the Houston Shipping canal. Jason's early years were a struggle to fit in, He was smarter, faster, tougher, and more competitive than the kids around him. He learned early to let others win sometimes, or he wouldn't be allowed to play.

One example happened at 7 years old, his Adopted father had arrested a drug pusher for a local gang, causing the kids of the gangers to hunt him down. Cornered, he had to fight, putting 8 kids, ranging in age from 6 to 12, in the hospital, a dozen more limped(and ran) off with bruises and black eyes, some of which were teenagers. He wound up unconscious, needing 52 stitches in 3 places, including a scalp wound that bled like crazy. He told his parents later that "they just kept coming, it was 3 at first, but every one he put down, another two would join in!". The whole gang fled Houston, thinking they had killed him. Afterward, word spread, and no one wanted to take on the "Demonio de Tasmania".

In the years prior to 2004 there had been a slow but increasing trend in spring Typhoons, but 2004 was to be a year like no other. As long dormant, not so long dormant, and normal active volcanoes, erupted all over the world, the simultaneous development of 3 super cell category 6 typhoons in the Gulf of Mexico in but a single hour was a prelude to the destruction to come. As luck would have it, and Jason has over the years had far more lucky breaks than could be considered coincidental, Jason was 600 miles away on a School visit to Roswell, New Mexico. Whilst Jason, and his classmates were safe their families were not so fortunate as the worst Tornado ever recorded made land fall accompanied by 72 hours of torrential rain and the highest and most substantial storm tidal surge ever recorded inundated Houston.

With no method of returning home, they were declared refugees and moved to accommodation at the New Mexico Military Institute, being enrolled in the High School in the process. Whilst mourning the loss of his mother and sister, Jason took to the military life like a duck to water, and by his graduation in the spring of 2010, having placed 3rd in his year, he had secured an automatic nomination to the US Army’s 2 year Early Commissioning Program, which he gladly accepted. The Classmates mostly stuck together, helping each other out and supporting one another. Some failed out of NMMI, and left, moving on to Civilian occupations. some headed back to Texas to help rebuild when they got old enough. Jason's first experience with sex was with one of the other orphaned classmates, she made the rounds of most of the males before dropping out of sight with a drug pusher.

Whilst he was an excellent Marksman, his real talent lay in Electronics’, Computing, and Cryptography, and his route into the US Signals Corp was all but assured. Then in the Winter of 2011, he received a visit from Commander James Cartwright, who according to his card worked for Naval Logistics Command. The Commander was looking for suitably talented individuals with the right background, and Jason fitted the bill to a T. Whilst he would initially and officially remain at the Institute until graduation, he would unofficially work for the NLC and be required to attend an number of additional training exercises over the coming year. After graduation he would as planned, officially join the Signals Corp, whilst continuing to work for the NLC. Jason was intrigued, something didn’t feel right, whatever it said on the card Cartwright was neither who he claimed to be, and there was more to this mythical organisation. He said he’d think about. Cartwright said it was a limited time offer; he’d be leaving at 09:25 the following day.

Of course he checked, and of course Cartwright and the NLC checked out, why wouldn’t they? Graduating from the ECP in July 2012 he joined the Signals Corps as planned, deployed to Fort Lawson, Georgia. When the NLC scheduled the 3rd exercise to commence on the 27th December he regretted his decision. The October and November exercises, both a week long had been as tedious as hell. He was a Signals Analyst not a crime scene controller, yet they had them learning how to manage crime scenes, collect samples, and manage forensic evidence

The page at 00:00:17 on the 22nd December changed everything. It was a Category Black scramble, imminent and verified threat to US National Security. He made the Rec room at the base in a little over 7 minutes. He wasn’t the first to arrive. There were 4 others there already, but it wasn’t as he’d remembered it previously. The room was the same, mostly. However the lockers were completely different. Sure they were in the same places, with the same names on but that that was it. The uniforms were completely different, no NLC this time, the logo was reminiscent of the UN logo, but modified. The designator WDA. Over the next 3 minutes 4 more of the unit made it in. 5 minutes later they were running across the apron to the waiting transport. They were in the air for a little over 3 hours, which at least allowed then to organise their kit and weapons properly, and be briefed on the unfolding operation.

“At 23:59:57 on 21st Dec WDA monitoring stations detected an energy signature consistent with that known to create a Rift in space-time. At 00:07 on the 22nd it was confirmed that a Rift had opened somewhere SE of Seattle, and the Go codes were given to scramble resources in response.

At 00:31 hours local Law Enforcement received reports of a major traffic incident on the I90 above Franklin Falls SE of Seattle. The first local officer reached the scene at approx. 00:47, and reported a multi-vehicle pile-up with at least 4 vehicles involved, at least one of which appeared to have left the highway. At 00:58 the dispatcher made a request to the FBI for assistance.

The first FBI Agents arrived on scene at 01:34 and immediately called for reinforcements declaring a major incident. Our first agents reached the scene 7 minutes later and assumed authority. The weather in the area is currently poor. We’re heading into a Pacific Snow storm. Visibility is currently 20 to 30ft, with a 25 to 30mph west/south-westerly wind, gusting 45mph. precipitation is heavy. The LDZ is west of the Timberwolf restaurant at the West Summit @ Snoqualmie, between the two ski lifts - don’t screw up. We’ll be dropping you from 500ft upwind of the LDZ, use your GPS readout and watch your drift. You’ll be directed further on Landing. The Command centre is just south of the I90 itself.

The jump was somewhat terrifying, even if the chutes were auto deployed on the clipped lines. The eerie flashing lights reflecting of the snow covered mountains, clouds, and falling snow didn’t help matters, and without the ranged GPS readout the jump would have been impossible in the conditions.

They spent 4 days on the ground working 12 hour shifts to photograph, every element of the scene, before tagging and bagging every out-of place item they found. The area within 100 yards of the bridge was a complete and utter mess. There were 41 wrecked or the remains of wrecked vehicles, including one 6 seater mini-van and one big-Rig. One the remainder only 2 could be considered to being “Native” vehicles. The rest, well they came from the “other place”, and if the LEOs car hadn’t had a dash cam then they wouldn’t even have known that. Of the original attending LEOs 3 were dead and 1 was in critical condition in hospital.

What complicated matters further was that the mini-van was one of the 2 vehicles that had left the highway and plummeted into the ravine, scattering its contents to the wind. The problem with that was it had been a group of CosPlayers returning from a Sci-Fi convention. 3 of them wouldn’t be returning.

They’d then all been transported to WDA HQ in Washington, to be debriefed on what they’d found where, and it what condition, and to help try and sort all the recovered items by type and origin.

They’d been in Washington for 5 days, and had been in the last stages of the analysis when Jason had discovered the anomalous gun. It was anomalous for several reasons. Firstly it looked like a real futuristic gun, in fact it looked a lot like the rifles the Marines in “Alien” had been equipped with, so had been tagged as an item belonging to the CosPlayers.

Secondly Jason was sure it hadn’t looked as it did now when he’d first noticed it when they’d recovered the mini-van and found it underneath. As he remembered it, assuming it was the same item; it had been severely damaged, and had been bent at about 15degs about half way along its length. If it was the same item, it wasn’t bent any longer, and looked in much better shape. It took him the best part of 4 hours to cross verify the item tag against the site reconstruction and all the photographs. It was the same item and it wasn’t in the same state now as when it had been retrieved. The question was what to do about it? It had been put in the inventory to be returned to the CosPlayers because of where it had been found, but did it actually belong to one of them? He’d been asked to verify the inventory was correct, and apart from this one item he hadn’t found any other issues. He decided to leave it where it was on his bench and come back to it in the morning. Returning to his bench the following morning, the boxes of CosPlayer inventory had gone, but the gun was still there where he had left it, still in its evidence bag, and subtly different to how it had appeared when he had left it, it’s condition had definitely improved. He checked the system. The boxes had been collected and dispatched having been verified as complete. He was sure he hadn’t signed the verification block before he left. As he puzzled over what to do the Incident Commander, Alicia Vikander, appeared. He snapped to attention and saluted. “At ease Lieutenant! So what did you think of your first real incident experience?”

He voiced some general platitudes and was about to ask about the boxes when she interrupted. “Good to hear. I’m sure yesterday’s varification exercise was thoroughly tedious, but these things need to get done. Good job by the way, it was noted you stayed late to finish. Next time remember to sign the verification box on the paper work. You’re on the 11:17 flight back to Fort Lawson, which should just about give you time to pack. Dismissed”, and with that she turned and left the lab through the door through which she’d entered.

He checked his watch. She was right. He started grabbing things off the bench and stuffing them into a box. He was in two minds about leaving the gun, but it’d just get binned if he left it. He’d take it with him and return it at a later date. Returning to the bunk room he transferred everything to his pack, and then hurried to make the plane. The first couple of days back at the base were busy and he didn’t have time to worry about the gun sitting in its evidence bag. In fact it wasn’t till the 5th he had any down time in which to consider what to do. The gun, as it appeared now in its bag, appeared “New”. Almost every single mark and blemish was gone. As he picked it up, still in its evidence bag to examine it further he felt something, a sort of whisper in his mind, “Unable to verify genetic identity! Place Palm firmly in grip to confirm!” He turned the bag over and examined the weapon carefully. It looked like a really good model, but model guns don’t “repair” themselves, and whatever this was it had definitely repaired itself; he had the photos from when it had been found to prove it.

There was only one thing for it. Breaking the seal, he undid the bag, and cautiously removed the weapon. “Unable to verify genetic identity! Place Palm firmly in grip to confirm!” The feeling was stronger this time. “In for a penny, in for a pound” he thought, taking hold of the weapon in a proper grip. “Analysing! Genetic signature verified. Re-Initialising weapon. …. Congratulations on your acquisition of your Gauntlet G12X5 Microlite Mauler. Weapon Status: Structural Damage at 24%. Estimated time to repair 72 standard hours. Grenade Launcher current offline. Main ammunition chamber at 81% capacity. Auxilary ammunition chamber 25% capacity. 12 targets detected within range. No hostile intent detected

He spent the next couple hours examining it, searching online for any hint about Gauntlet or G12X5 or Microlite(lots of crap there...) turning up nothing useful. Visual searches turned up similar stuff as Props in different movies, nothing real world, and nothing about Mental Links. For Camouflage he ordered a Suit of Colonial Marine Armor in his size to hang in his closet, planning on passing the weapon off as a realistic Mockup. He also used his gunsmithing to replicate the original "busted" gun from scraps and pieces acquired over then next few days, replacing it in the Evidence bag, barely in time before being questioned again by Commander Vikander about its whereabouts, (pretending absent-mindedly leaving it in the bottom of his bags) and enduring the lecture about evidence being turned in on time with composure and apologising profusely. He also snuck it out to a local Quarry for some target practice with the 10mm part...not stupid enough to use the 40mm and have to try to explain to a sheriff about explosions in the quarry.

Background – World Defence Agency (WDA)

The WDA was set up in August 2004 under the auspices of the UN Security Council following the events that happened in the period Jan 4 to April 4. It is headed by the former commander in Chief of the Botswana Military Intelligence Division. His deputy is the former head of the British Intelligence Division MI42. It appears that both the Botswana Military Intelligence and British Intelligence knew far more about the quasi-mythical events in the Bermuda triangle and other parts of the world (principally central Africa, Southern and South-Western England, and South Wales) than anyone had thought possible.

The WDA is principally responsible for investigating all mysterious arrivals and departures that occur on a semi-random basis though out the world each year. Whist the majority, 50%, occur in and around the Bermuda Triangle, the rest are scattered randomly across the world, although England and Central Africa have the next highest occurrences. The events are not completely random, and principally occur around midday/midnight on equinoxes/solstices, and at any point during eclipses. There are approximately 20 incidents a year.

US forces assigned to the WDA are done so via the NLC, which is the official cover for the WDA in Military Channels. The WDA(NLC) operates outside of the jurisdiction of the US Government and out ranks all other Federal and State Military, Intelligence, and Law Enforcement Agencies.