401: Static Prevails

Synopsis

The season opens with a nightmare. Dr. Simeon dreams that he is first Drandy Savage, a black-scaled swordsman cutting down creatures in a burning village in front of a black obelisk, and then himself, running across an alien landscape of crystal pillars from a gigantic creature. The dream speeds up, slows down and reverses, until he is back at a pillar, watching a giant spider creature close in on his fallen self while his wife, Mary Beth, stands by, confused, and a scruffy stranger he does not recognize hides behind another pillar. As the spider's claws come down, a phone rings. Simeon wakes in a cold sweat in his dark bedroom, with sleet on the window and Mary Beth asleep beside him, and the phone is still ringing.

It is Billy, now a detective, calling at about three in the morning from the Riverview Apartments on Alesbury Street, across from Hangman's Hill. He wants Simeon to round up the others, especially Major Bakersfield, whom he cannot reach, and to bring their gear and be ready for anything. The Keeper sets the scene on the drive over: it is November 1925, two months after the fall of New Jerusalem in 316: The Last Stand, and the group stayed long enough to help the surviving townsfolk put something together so that they could start over somewhere far away. The Major sits in stony silence with a patch over the eye he lost there, though it is the injury that cannot be seen that weighs on him most. Goodman Gray and his men and the unnerving Constable Ezekiel Dawkins seem to have vanished during the final stand. Among the wreckage were the remains of Mayor Jedediah Marsh, who was killed not by tooth or claw but by a gunshot fired from close range, and his last words to the group, "Mayor Sidel of Arkham," have so far led only to more questions. There is one bright spot: Simeon found his brother Timeon through a dangerous bit of magic and a break-in at the Miskatonic University artifact storage. Timeon is home and safe, though he is still struggling to adjust, and he has gone back to their parents' old house. Simeon has not heard from him in a few days.

Tallahassee, Dom, the Major and Simeon pull up outside the run-down building. Outside, a homeless man calls out to them, asking whether they are "with the ferrymen" and begging them to tell "the boat man," all in black, that he needs another ride on the boat. The Keeper explains that the newspapers and the police have started calling people like him "boaters," after a new drug on the streets that nobody can trace. Upstairs, Billy meets them in plain clothes at the door of a small apartment where every surface, from the kitchen counters to the bathtub, is covered in radios, including a nice Kennedy Model 20 with two more stacked on top of it. The neighbors had called the police over radios blaring in the night, and when the patrolmen forced the door, they found the windows locked from the inside and a dead man in a padded chair in the middle of the living room, head back and mouth open, with stab wounds near both shoulders, in the middle of the chest and low in the stomach. His body looks as if he has been dead for days. None of the group recognizes him, and the sight costs the weaker stomachs a point of Sanity.

The Major examines the body and finds that the wounds are punctures from something like an ice pick, not a knife. He takes Billy aside to say, as gently as he can, that they look exactly like the wounds on the Major's own wife. For all the stab wounds, there is surprisingly little blood. Dom finds a loaded snub-nosed .38 on the body, with no shots fired and no ID. Simeon and Billy follow a low static hiss to the kitchen, where there are radios in the freezer, the refrigerator and the cupboards, and Simeon pulls out a small radio with no cord that is still hissing loudly. Stuck to the back of it is a pawn shop receipt made out to "John Johnson" for a man's wristwatch with a leather band and an engraved back, and a Kennedy Model 20 radio. The group also finds a stack of Tallahassee Turner's adventure books and an empty bottle of non-prescription caffeine pills that rolled under the chair, which suggests that the man was working hard to stay awake. An Occult roll finds no strange symbols on the small radio, and a search of the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen turns up nothing but more radios and no food. They decide that the pawn shop around the corner is the next lead. Billy wants to avoid being seen with them, so he goes to talk to the uniformed officers while the others head out.

By about six in the morning, the pawn shop is not yet open, and the group argues about whether to wait, break in or go to breakfast at the 24-hour diner where Denny now works after moving to Arkham. Downstairs, Billy finds Officer Michael Speekman outside the manager's office with his notebook. The neighbor next door, "just Joanna," called around midnight, after the radios, which usually play all day, suddenly blared static and kept changing stations. She had seen the man only once or twice, and he kept to himself and seemed skittish. The apartment manager, Mr. Kitty, said that the apartment had been rented to "John Johnson" for about a month and that he was willing to overlook paperwork for a little money. Everyone who spoke to Speekman and his partner, Officer James Sinclair, said that they had last seen the man at about nine the previous night, scruffy but walking around. Billy points out that the body looks days dead, and he asks Speekman to call in a favor for a rush from the mortician. Speekman says that it is above his pay grade.

Funny Moments

• Simeon says he will "translocate" to the Riverview Apartments. The table says that his eyes glaze over and he warps back to "Dungeons and Dragons," and he returns to say, "Hey, it's me again, brothers."
• Reminded of what happened in Evanstone in Keeper of the Ways, the table jokes that Major Bakersfield "never turned back into a human," and the Keeper has him lick his wrists, but also confirms that the group does remember what happened there.
• Asked whether he has brought his gear, the Major says, "Of course I've got my net. What a dumb question." Another player suggests netting the homeless man outside.
• While describing himself, Tallahassee announces that he looks like "a very handsome Indiana Jones," and the table answers that they do not speak that name, since he ripped off Tallahassee Turner. Someone adds that they even named the dog Indiana.
• Dom checks the dead man's pockets first and says, "I called it, bro." Another player declares the scene "seppuku," the samurai cutting themselves open.
• Faced with a kitchen full of radios, Simeon says, "I think we have to build a man out of radios." Another player jokes that someone is stuffing radios into his pants and asks whether that is why the case is called Radio Man ("you've cracked the case, we can all go home").
• Someone hands Tallahassee's own adventure books to Billy as evidence and is told that they are not signed.
• The Major pulls on his "1920s style latex gloves" to examine the body, and when another player says that he is tampering with evidence, he answers that Billy gave him authorization.
• Dom asks whether he can find a Freddy Krueger glove, and the Keeper replies that the wounds are punctures, not claw marks.
• Billy reads out the pawn receipt, then has to clarify "Pawn, not porn," and the table keeps going with "prawns" and "pawn and fish."
• The group's plan for the pawn shop is to leave a note: "Dear pawn shop, we tried to break in. Love. Please don't hide evidence." They check who has lockpicking skills (two of them have 1%), and someone punches a window and says they can never play guitar again.
• Tallahassee reminds everyone that he has "a book signing later today around lunch," and the group keeps changing its mind between pawn shop and breakfast.
• Speekman tells Billy that it is "the black humor we use to deal with the horrible realities of murder." He also starts to name his partner as "Pizza Dragon," then corrects himself: that is his favorite restaurant, and his partner is Officer James Sinclair.
• The table riffs on the neighbor's name, "just Joanna," as one name and a great first name.

Notable Quotes

• "Get my suspenders on and go answer the phone." —Dr. Simeon
• "Of course I've got my net. What a dumb question." —Major Bakersfield
• "You got to tell them I need another ride on the boat." —the homeless "boater"
• "A very handsome Indiana Jones." —Tallahassee Turner
• "Riverview seems like a bit of a stretch... if you can't have location, location, location, marketing will have to suffice." —Alex Morrison
• "I think we have to build a man out of radios." —Dr. Simeon
• "Pawn, not porn." —Billy McConnell
• "Dear pawn shop, we tried to break in. Love. Please don't hide evidence." —the group
• "That's your problem, detective. I just asked the questions." —Officer Michael Speekman