Control/Freaks session 1

(A writeup of the Control/Freaks game)

After a year's training at a secret Control facility in the Highlands of Scotland, Dan Leon, Harry Olmsted, Jack Thorn and Anthony Rowell were declared full agents of Control by District Supervisor Dixon, given one-way tickets to Al Amarja, £150 travel money each and a contact telephone number for District Supervisor Wormold and told to go forth and make the world a saner place.

Once their flight had landed at D'Aubainne International Airport the agents made arrangements to meet Wormold at the Bar and Girl in the Plaza of Flowers, went through a short but intense immigration interview and sought transportation, settling for sharing a jitney (Divine Wind Transportation Company) with a young Scots woman named Marie. Harry's initial misgivings about the jitney, based on the wild appearance of the driver and the fact that the interior of the bus was decorated with a mass of eccentric and deformed crucifixes, proved to be well founded as halfway to The Edge the driver started screaming about how the machine voices were singing songs of doom in the wires and he had to get everyone underground so the insect queens could shield their minds before the machines ate everyone's thoughts. Harry and Anthony bravely tried to wrestle control of the vehicle away from the driver, but only managed to do so at the expense of sending the jitney spinning down an incline and into a the edge of a shanty town. Jack relieved his anger at the situation by bouncing the driver's head off the windscreen repeatedly until he was interrupted by the bellowing of a very large and hairy man who was attempting to smash the back of the bus through headbutting.

The initial hostility of the mutant residents of the shanty town was defused quickly as Harry brokered a deal whereby the beast man whose house they had destroyed could have the jitney in compensation, as well as the assistance of the driver to turn it into suitable accommodation, once he had recovered consciousness. Pausing only to let Anthony take a few pictures of the beast man, who it transpired was named Hamm, and his spiderbaby son, Amos, the agents headed off in the direction of The Edge on foot before flagging down a taxi. After a brief journey during which Anthony entirely failed to chat Marie up, they had the taxi drop them off at the Plaza of Flowers before taking Marie on to the Science Barrio (and leaving her to pick up the fare).

The agents then took a side trip to a nearby cafe to allow Jack to buy some chocolate, after which there was a short fistfight triggered by Anthony making an issue about Jack's excessive consumption of said chocolate. Everyone then checked into the Bienvenidos Hotel where they found a reservation had been made for them in the name of Control. Opting to share two rooms to reduce costs, the agents dropped off their bags, cleaned up, stole a broom and headed off to Sad Mary's Bar and Girl just in time for the nun fights (Sister Bettina made short work of the opposition with her bratwurst-fu and was declared Mother Superior for the evening).

As they were a bit early, Anthony ordered tequila for everyone so that they could make a show of drinking and blend in, although Anthony opted to make a more believable show of it than the others. Eventually they decided it was time and asked for Wormold's booth, to which the barmaid answered, "Oh, you must be with Control, then." and showed them to what appeared to be an oversized confessional. Inside they found Wormold, a rather thin middle-aged Englishman, dressed in the official uniform of Control. After introductions he told them that he had a mission of the untmost importance and presented them with printouts of some rather odd email he had received recently...