Leo's player was back (and, consulting my notes, the guy who was graffito tagging stuff was Alexander Sobieski), so we started by catching him up. His agent (Devon) got him a spot on the Hairy Gary Abnerthery Show -- a talk show with a guy who's kind of Oprah for mutants. 

He himself is one, though with a dud power -- he can make his hair grow and retract and that's it. Whee. But he's a decent interviewer, from a publicist's point of view, in that he pitches a lot of softballs. But every now and then he changes it up and asks a real stumper, just to keep his guests awake and his viewers entertained. Oh, and guess where Hairy Gary's located? San Francisco, home of Surge (about whom Leo knows nothing) and now of Heather (the volcanic mutant he adores from afar).

Before his interview, Leo got a tour of Heather's new job site at Mutagenet Labs. She's essentially typing and filing... and letting them measure her powers and explore her DNA. Leo got to meet the head of the lab, a mutant whose body was covered with a low-level aura of colored lights, flowing and glowing all around him.

LEO: Is that... your only power? Does it just produce light?
THE DOCTOR: It does other things.
LEO: Oh.
THE DOCTOR: You should come out for the Fourth of July. I really let it go, then. But it takes me a week or so to recover, afterwards.

(Note: The stuff about the color aura was completely off the top of my head. I'm just now deciding that the guy's name is Dr. Sjoek, and that most Americans mispronounce it as "Doctor Shock." Honestly, I really believe this helps us all keep the characters straight. It sure helps me.)

The doctor subtly insinuated that he'd love to bring Leo into the fold, too -- and was not quite as subtle about his beliefs that Mutagenet Labs was where the future was being forged. He was quite proud that they were working on a blood test that could reveal the potential for active mutation.

LEO: Don't you see the possibility for potential abuse?
DOCTOR: Any technology can be abused, and every technology initially benefits the elite. When the telephone was new, it did a lot more good for the rich than the poor. Should it have been left on the shelf?
LEO: Telephones don't draw lines between people in their infancy, or even before.
DOCTOR: You must know everyone's working on this. We're just going to get there first... control it, identify mutants for their own good. Who better than their own kind?
LEO: It could start with the best of intentions and end with pogroms.
DOCTOR: It could also prevent tragedies. You, Leo, are a tragic example -- forced to hide your talents for years! How much farther along your path might you be if you could have been open about your abilities?
LEO: I'm doing just fine.
DOCTOR: Then what about the unfortunates who wind up as Wild Tal-

At that moment, Heather walked in with coffee and both men guiltily looked up at her. Then the doctor asked her point blank, "Do you wish you'd known earlier about your potential? That you could have discovered it under controlled conditions?"

HEATHER: That's a bit of a puffball question, isn't it? 'Would you rather learn this on your own, or by nearly massacring people?' What have you been telling him, Leo?

Leo and Heather continued the tour, musing about their future, Heather revealing some vulnerability -- "Everyone here is so well educated, molecular biologists and biogeneticists and genetic biologists... and me, the college dropout." When Leo queried her about the lab's work, she told him they were examining regenerating mutants in the hopes of being able to clone new body parts independent of the body. "Think of it -- an endless supply of O Negative blood, wherever it was needed! No more relying on donors. No more worrying about illnesses slipping past toxicity screens." Leo agreed that it sounded pretty boss, then left to get interviewed.

Lucien woke up to find Chlotilde wearing his bathrobe and cooking crepes in his kitchen. ("I didn't even know I had the ingredients for crepes!") They chatted, mostly about her getting some clothes, and a letter arrived from Bahrira. Seth and Lucien got her some suitably stylish garb, and then she set out to reconnoiter her safe house and see if it had been compromised. They later heard that it was just fine, so she was going back to ground there.

Leo went on the Hairy Gary show and made a generally good impression, coming across as someone who wants to find a good way to use the gifts he's been given but who doesn't want to be pigeonholed ONLY as a Talent. The only curveball came when Gary told him that an anonymous witness to Heather's eruption had told a newspaper a version of events in which Leo's Alter showed up FIRST, with the shock of seeing it prompting Heather to defend herself with firepower. Leo convincingly argued that was ridiculous -- if he'd spent years hiding the Alter, why would he out himself in front of a big crowd?

After the show, Gary gave him a lock of hair crafted into a lapel pin -- a common memento from his show, and a real status symbol in certain circles. On his way out, Leo briefly chatted with an assistant to the Secretary of Defense, who was in the Green Room waiting to get interviewed.

The next scene was Cecily working on her base tan out on the quad, when she saw a shadow creeping up and slowly covering her. This shadow was cast by a man, who (deliberately or not) was walking at her with the sun right behind him. A pair of black wingtips stopped right in front of her face and a somewhat sneering voice said, "You must be Cecily."

CECILY: Must I?
MITCH: I'm Mitch Schantz. FBI. I'd like to ask you a few questions.
GM: When he badges you, you can see some kind of residue on his hands... something slimy. He's dressed in a black suit and sunglasses and looks like a Secret Service agent... but not. He's slightly rumpled, his suit looks off-the-rack and he just can't carry it off. He looks like a Secret Service agent in a high school play.

Agent Mitch wanted to question her about the attack (she couldn't imagine who would want to harm her) and her discussions with Dr. Park ("It's all on tape. I never had a moment's physical contact with him"). He was fairly brusque and snobby. He managed to sound smug and superior even when explaining that his hands were covered in ointment because he suffers from psoriasis. (Closer examination of the sort Cecily would probably have preferred to avoid revealed that, yep, he had it on both hands.) He was very interested in the notebook, and dropped a few not-too-subtle hints that (1) he was a licensed sorcerer working for the Feds and (2) he knew she was practicing too.

MITCH: What've you got around you there? Looks like the Blade of Justice, some kind of predation spirit and... can't quite make out the last one, something urban and depressing.
CECILY: I don't know what you're talking about.
MITCH: You're surrounded by spirits, girl. Don't play innocent with me -- it's not like anything's admissible court.
CECILY: You sound bitter.
MITCH: You sound disingenuous. You mean to tell me you didn't know you've got a cluster of spirits around you?
CECILY: I'm in the program. Perhaps someone put them on me to protect me. If so, it was without my knowledge.
MITCH: Doesn't seem to surprise or bother you much. (Looks in a notebook.) One of your fellow students said, lessee, "She's Eisenerbrecht's grad assistant, but she only got the job because she's fucking Trey Hogan." Is that accurate?
CECILY: Is that relevant?
MITCH: I'll take that as a yes.
CECILY: It's actually a no. I'm qualified for my job. Did personal qualities affect me getting the position? Of course. Hiring always has subjective elements. I can't help it if I made a good impression.
MITCH: So you weren't involved with Mr. Hogan?
CECILY: I'm not now.

(Note: I'm paraphrasing heavily. The dialogue between Cecily and Mitch was much sharper in-session, as was Leo's debate with Dr. Shock. Hard to recall four days later, is all.)

Muttering more veiled threats, Mitch left. She immediately called Seth and told him about Mitch, so when Mitch went to him, Seth just stonewalled. Where he was a pushy little dick towards Cecily, he was unctuous and ingratiating with Seth, at least until Seth's insistent cold-shouldering got through. Mitch asked about Cecily, asked what Seth would do if he found out she was illegally practicing sorcery, quizzed him about the bank job and his interview with Park. Seth kept saying, "I wrote all this up, read the files, it's all in my reports, look at the tapes of me with Park, are we done yet?" He didn't quite flick Mitch off as he flew away, but the subtext was there.

Cecily went and talked to Dr. Eden Majors, who suggested they go for a walk in the nearby oak grove. "I'm pretty sure the Box is wired up like a Russian embassy." Eden seemed familiar with Mitch and decidedly not intimidated. "You just keep your head down and he'll be out of your hair in a few days. I'll see to it."

CECILY: I told him that you summoned a spirit to help me when I was hurt. That you did it in the bio building.
EDEN: Technically that's a crime, yes, but I'd like to see him try to prosecute it.

She then intimated that if Cecily was interested in some "extracurricular" study, Eden would be willing to show her a few things. All she asked in return was the notebook from the bank, the one that Eisenerbrecht had been studying. "I wouldn't need it for more than a few days, even." Cecily said she'd see what she could do.

That evening the whole group convened at a bar and were out on the front deck playing a beanbag game called Cornhole when Seth spotted Mitch heading into the bar arm in arm with... Eisenerbrecht! Lucien followed them inside and spied as Eisenerbrecht assured Mitch he was fully willing to cooperate with the government. "We disagree on some principles, but I don't want to break the law. I don't think Park should be kept in the conditions he's in, which makes me trebly unwilling to share them." Mitch (who seemed tipsy!) was complaining about a dog jumping up on him and breaking... something. Eisenerbrecht suggested that it might be a coincidence.

MITCH: Coincidence? The most valuable artifact I have, the one I need to do my job, gets broken by somebody's Sheltie and you think it's an accident?
EISENERBRECHT: I merely suggest possibilities. Paranoia is an occupational hazard for you 'spook' types, is it not?
MITCH: Hmph. Well what about this notebook? What's in it?
EISENERBRECHT: I have no idea. Before we'd made much progress decoding it, Mr. Murphy insisted that I destroy my copies.
MITCH: And you did it?
EISENERBRECHT: Of course!

Mitch then all but stated that he'd arranged to have Park falsely imprisoned -- "If he could really do the sort of thing that happened in Austin, he'd sure as hell be able to get out of jail" -- in order to keep the public reassured that justice had been done. Then he went off to take a leak.

When he was gone, Eisenerbrecht turned, looked Lucien right in the eye and said, "When you report this conversation to Cecily, assure her that it's not what it looks like." Lucien complied and the PCs took off -- though not before Seth pulled a big nail out of the porch, went inside, and used it to seal the men's room door shut. They just had time to hear Mitch pitch a fit at being locked in.

Seth then went out to dinner with McAllister.

SETH'S PLAYER: I just know this is a trap.
GM: How d'you figure?
SETH'S PLAYER: What else could it be?

What it was, in fact, was a gratitude dinner and a suggestion that Seth might consider endorsing McAllister's firewall program. Seth asked for copies to make sure it was quality, and McA assured him the D.A.'s office was already using it.

The other three closed down a bar and then went to Tracy's house. (Can't remember if Seth joined them or not.) On the way there, Cecily filled them in on what she'd seen Anjelica doing. The name on the patient's chart was "Brett McClure." She wanted to immediately tell Tracy. Leo said that was unfair -- it would certainly blindside him, and besides, shouldn't he hear it from Anjelica? After putting it to a vote, Cecily agreed to tell Anjelica to come clean, or she (Cecily) would tell all.

They came upon Tracy sitting in a darkened room, staring out the window. When asked what was wrong, he said nothing was.

CECILY: Oh. Because nothing says 'Everything's Jake' like staring out into the dark all alone.
TRACY: You really want to know? Okay. Today, this date, was the first time I saw someone killed close up. In Vietnam. A guy in my platoon he... he caught it. Sniper. Right by me.
CECILY: Ooh. You know what might help you feel better? Some of that ol' glaucoma medicine!

Tracy just gave her a disgusted look, then turned to Leo.

TRACY: What've you got there?
LEO: Where?
TRACY: Um... never mind. I think I'm going to bed. You all keep it down, okay?

I called for Sense rolls and Seth (yeah, he was there, I remember now) and Lucien both smelled gun oil. Cecily went into the other room, saying she was going to powder her nose but actually looking for Tracy's cell phone to get Anjelica's number. Leo went upstairs to talk to Tracy and make sure he was okay. He made reference to the gun oil.

TRACY: I went out skeet shooting with Clarence yesterday, that's all. You don't think...? Look, I'd talk to Reverend Wright, or call one of my old buddies, or... um, look, don't worry. I have lots of options I'd run through before topping myself. But talk to me first thing in the morning, okay?

Cecily then called Anjelica, waking her out of a sound sleep, and made her ultimatum. Anjelica said she'd manage it.

Next morning, Tracy told Leo that he had the ability to sense living things in his general area.

LEO: What? Uncle Tracy, that's great! First you're healing, then bulletproof, now this?
TRACY: It's not really that great. Usually it's something I'm seeing, anyhow... though I do know that when your friend Cecily said she was going to the bathroom, she was actually poking around in my office.
LEO: Oh... she was probably looking for your stash.
TRACY: Classy. How well do you actually know her?

After expressing some strong reservations about Cecily, including his suspicion that if his (Tracy's) powers were diabolical (and that, by extension, all mutant powers were tainted) it only made sense that they'd work on her if she was practicing black sorcery. He then said that he'd detected a life form in Leo's clothes. Some experimentation isolated it as the hair pin Gary Abnerthary had given Leo. Leo put it in a sealed glass jar up in his closet, hoping to kill it.

That night, the whole gang went to a meeting of People for Religious Freedom, where they sat at the front table with Eisenerbrecht. There were various speeches, including a rundown on Park's conditions, Cecily's paper about the dissonance between permitting "religious practice," of which there was no evidence of truth, while forbidding "magic practice" which showed every sign of being genuine.

CECILY'S PLAYER: And because you've been dropping such heavy-handed hints, I'm going to summon Ben Franklin.
GM: What?!?
CECILY'S PLAYER: I'll see what he has to say about the country he helped found and what it's doing.
GM: Are you doing this out in the open or going back somewhere private for deniability?

While she was doing that, Seth's phone rang. Mitch. "I'm out in the parking lot. You coming out, or should I go in there and we talk in front of everybody?"

Seth went out, meaning that Mitch didn't get to see Ben's ghost. That's probably a lucky break for Cecily and everyone else.

Ben's ghost was quite a hit, giving a thoughtful and intelligent discourse on the topic -- wish I could remember what I had him say! I do recall that he had some disagreements with the PLF position, but it's all vague and cloudy. Damn.

It was rainy outside, and Mitch said, "You haven't typed up a REPORT about that shooting the other day, have you? So you mind telling me who it was that got shot?"

SETH: Me, for one.
MITCH: You brought someone to a hospital. A woman. Who was it?
SETH: I can't tell you that.
MITCH: Can't or won't?
SETH: I'm not permitted. I'm sorry.
MITCH: Look, you seem to have this antagonistic mindset towards me, but I don't hold it against you. I admire you. You could have gone off to be a mutant superstar, but you went the hard route of public service. Like I did, see? I think you're in a bad position, in over your head, and I hate to see you taken out of commission. But you have to let me help you. Tell me her name.
SETH: I can't.
MITCH: Okay, so here's your subpoena.
SETH: (Looking at it) I'm afraid that you'd need to take me in front of a FISA court.
MITCH: C'mon then. I'll make some calls.

They drove off to interrupt judges at dinner while the PLF meeting broke up. Coming home, Leo heard a commotion -- raised voices, the sound of a hard punch, and then a woman's sobs.

TRACY'S VOICE: Oh, hurts does it? Well HERE, just let me FIX that for you! And that's the LAST healing you'll ever see me do! Get out of my house!

The door opened, and Tracy threw Anjelica out onto the lawn, where she collapsed, weeping.

LEO: What happened?
ANJELICA: I... he hit me... and then he grabbed my face and fixed it.
LEO: Well, that was nice of him. You want me to call you a cab?
ANJELICA: I drove.
LEO: Oh. Well then.
ANJELICA: Could you...? I don't... don't think I can drive right now. Safely.
LEO: Then I'll call you a cab. I'm not going anywhere with you or doing anything with you.
ANJELICA: That bitch Cecily got to you, didn't she?
LEO: Who's Brett McClure?
ANJELICA: (Pause) He's my husband.
LEO: Would he want you prostituting yourself to get him well?
ANJELICA: He doesn't know anything about it! He's been in that coma for TWO YEARS! What else could I do?
LEO: Did you try just asking him?
ANJELICA: You know how he is. He doesn't want to use his power, he's worried it's from the DEVIL, I was trying to get him some confidence with it and then you had to come back, and bring that... that...
LEO: Sorry I spoiled your plans to cheat on your husband and leave my uncle heartbroken.
GM: She spits in your face and then turns to go.

The last scene of the session was an impromptu court getting set up in a judge's home. (Seth's player knew a lot more about all this National Security FISA stuff than I did, frankly.) Mitch made one last effort to get the woman's name.

SETH: Why don't you just give up?
MITCH: What did she tell you? Did she false-flag you? Say she was CIA or something? If my guess is right and that woman was Chlotilde Giroux, you've been played like a harmonica. I tried. I tried to make it easy on you.