Page 128 - Hunter the Vigil - Mortal Remains

THE REsPONsE

time for the Penitents to go to work. A demon is a horror from are the purest monstrosities out there, the masterminds behind
beyond, even if that beyond is actually Heaven. She needs to be de- the conspiracies that hunt Army of Truth videos off the net
stroyed, and the Loyalists are very good at accomplishing that. It’s and find ways to cut off the Record Keepers from their oh-so-
not just a matter of firing bullets or planting a car bomb. A demon clever-and-redundant backup plans. Face down these creatures
can be trapped in her own web of lies. The pieces of mortal lives directly, prove the existence of not just their servants but them,
she uses to interact with the world can be used as snares, and if she and who could imagine what their retribution might be?
tries to run? The Loyalists have already found her bolt hole. Still, they wouldn’t be Network Zero if these hunters didn’t be-
Demons will promise anything, and the worst part is that lieve that the proof was something beyond a threat. Even the most
they deliver. The thing about a good con is that the mark often paranoid Keeper dreams of unleashing the unvarnished and incon-
feels like he’s the one taking advantage of the con artist. Demons trovertible truth on the masses. It’s all just a matter of time.
are very good at disguising their bargains as opportunities, and
sometimes try to take advantage of the Advance. Yet there can Null Mysteriis
always be another layer of intrigue present in these interactions. I demand only one thing: ironclad proof. With demons, hard evi-
Often, the Indebted come to recognize a devil’s deal for what it dence may be thin on the ground, but I will collate, analyze, and collect
is, and seek to turn it back on the demon. If offered influence, whatever I can find, anyway.
they take it. In fact, they take and take until the demon’s got Sometimes a person begins to act strangely, behaves out
every one of its hooks latched onto their souls. Then they turn of character, or spouts strange words and spits on crosses. Un-
their ill-gotten power around on themselves. When the demon canny circumstances surround the victim. The smell of rotten
steals the Loyalist’s life in search of a greener pasture, she finds eggs lingers in the air. A black cloud hovers near the ceiling.
that pasture a minefield, a trap laid in a final act of atonement. The kindly grandmother has blood on her hands. The inves-
tigator who’s called in, is not a medium, or a priest — but a
Network Zero scientist. Null Mysteriis has files upon files on the activities of
You gotta admit it’d be the mother lode, right? Not just interviews lesser demons, mainly Voyeurs and Devourers, and tend to ig-
with weirdo possess-ees, not just some weird sigils found under the paint nore rumors about greater and institutional demons without
in a law office, but an actual, honest-to-pardon-the-expression-God hard evidence.
transformation from a human into a demon. That’d be about as big The Rationalists tend to label such files “Aberrant Psychol-
as it gets. As big as the Point Pleasant Mothman scoop was in 1994, ogy,” and while they investigate the cases in detail, they’ve rarely
or as big as the Boston wolfman footage would have been in 2002 if come to any hard conclusions. The Rationalists demand con-
everybody hadn’t kept complaining that they could see the zippers. And trollable, laboratory conditions — quite reasonable, that, but
it’d be so easy too; just trail one of these bastards long enough and he’ll also quite difficult to achieve when a victim’s being chased out
have to give up the goods eventually. What’s the point in being a night of his house by a telekinetic storm of high school football tro-
fiend from the pits of hell unless you cut loose once in a while, right? phies. They agree that something — something — is behind sud-
It’s almost inevitable Network Zero will catch up to a demon den, simultaneous deviations in behavior and the manifesta-
and film it when it changes. Hasn’t happened yet, but that’s just tion of unusual phenomena, but they don’t agree on what that
a matter of diligence. There are even arguable cases already, but is, or even if it’s a single problem. In fact, they’re right – even
for one reason or another the footage got destroyed or buried demons in the broader categories tend to be highly individu-
deep in a vault. The Painted Hills case, the Von Hausman Dark- alistic. The ones that might tell a common story, like greater
mind. Point is: it’s frighteningly possible to pull this off. demons, avoid a Rationalist’s microscope.
So the real question is… What’s the Network gonna do The Open Minds are a little more willing to accept evidence
with the footage once it’s got it? of demonic activity even with all sorts of uncontrolled factors
The question’s easy for the Record Keepers. Curate the potentially biasing the data. What they care about is that the evi-
information and make it ready for future witnesses for those dence is real, not that it’s clean or explicable. Though they’re not
who don’t just want — but are ready — to believe. As usual, the gullible, Open Minds accept eyewitness testimony when it comes
Record Keepers are masters of redundant backups and private from one of their own. They also won’t turn down supporting
cloud storage; everything to keep the data safe, to make it ready evidence just because it comes secondhand through, what they
for those who will ultimately view and judge it. deem to be, the more supernatural beliefs from another compact
The Army of Truth is, as is their wont, a little more activist. or conspiracy. Open Minds might even be willing to cooperate
Should they recognize a demonic hierarchy, they’d view the true on a short-term basis with the Loyalists of Thule, even if they’re
forms of greater demons as one of the greatest potential assets in conscious that the Loyalists share information with the same
conversion of the masses. Between modern recording technol- Theosophists Null Mysteriis had once rejected.
ogy being so crisp and the fact that the demons’ true faces don’t The Cataclysmicists view the evidence and are alarmed.
seem to have any special magic protecting them, the only people Where the other Theories look at the cases in isolation, per-
who disbelieve are the willfully ignorant. And it’s an article of haps willing to draw some parallels and accept them as related
faith among the Army that the willfully ignorant will dwindle in phenomena, the Cataclysmicists spot a rise in such phenomena
number once the proper proof has been presented. and suspect the patterns reveal intention. To them, cases that
As for the Secret Keepers? Demons freak them the hell out. might reveal demonic possession may actually show evidence
And they should, really. Some of them believe that demons of a possible invasion. They pay more attention to theories of a

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