Three nights ago, at exactly 11:33 PM, a cargo container ship materialized out of thin air at pier 23 at the City docks. It remained visible for three hours, then vanished. The following night, the ship appeared again, and again the night after that.
The City Port Authority contacted Orpheus Group, and Agents Herschler and MacMillian were assigned to the case. After an initial observation of the phenomenon, Dr. Neel Shivani suggested that the ship, which was insubstantial to the living, could be boarded and explored by projected Agents. He also predicted that when the ship disappeared, it was actually "ripcording" back to wherever the actual, physical wreck of the ship was located, in much the same way that certain projectors can "ripcord" back to their bodies. If the Agents were on board when that happened, they would be pulled back to the shipwreck, which was was most likely somewhere on the ocean floor. It was vital, then, that the mission be completed within three hours.
Herschler and MacMillian boarded the ship at 11:50 PM. The interior was heavily damaged and half-flooded. At one point Agent MacMillian found her foot held by a thick tangle of long, black hair. When she shook it off, the hair slithered away through the water as though alive.
The Agents made their way to the bridge, where they encountered the ghost of Igor Patrionakos, the ship's captain, whose form had melded with the integral structure of the ship itself. He told the Agents that the ship, named Daedalus, had been carrying two containers full of young women, to be sold to a prostitution ring in the city. When a freak storm hit, Patrionakos believed that the ghosts of the women were punishing him, so he sabotaged the ship's controls and then killed himself. The ghosts of the women, whom Patrionakos called "the Furies," were trapped in the ship's lower cargo hold. He asked the Agents to open the cargo bay doors so that the Furies could escape to the sea, and he could follow and "serve" them.
Although the Agents had misgivings about Patrionakos' intentions, they made their way to the lower cargo hold to see for themselves. Before leaving the bridge, Agent Herschler determined that the Daedalus was equipped with an emergency beacon, and that the beacon release was also located in the cargo hold.
In the hold, the Agents encountered the ghost of the ship's first mate, who had been half-flayed by the Furies before escaping their clutches. The first mate confirmed that the ghosts of the women were in fact spectres, and that if freed they would prey upon every entity, living or dead, in the vicinity.
The Agents decided that they could not in good conscience release the spectres. Furthermore, Herschler was concerned that if the bay doors were opened, the Daedalus would ripcord back to its physical location and flood with seawater. However, the main objective was to stop the ship from materializing at the City docks every night. Herschler proposed that, since Patrionakos appeared to be causing the manifestation, the most direct way to achieve the objective was to destroy Patrionakos' ghost.
After releasing the emergency beacon, the Agents returned to the bridge. As the end of the three-hour window was fast approaching, Herschler ordered Agent MacMillian to flee the ship while he attacked Patrionakos. MacMillian made her way back to their point of entry, using her Beckon ability to hold off several of the Furies. Herschler, using a fire axe, was able to damage Patrionakos somewhat, until the captain no longer had enough energy to maintain the ship's manifestation. Herschler fled the bridge just as the viewport cracked and exploded inward, letting in a torrent of seawater. Both Agents managed to stay one step ahead of the flood, and exited the Daedalus just as it snapped back to its physical location.
Although the Agents had not neutralized any of the entities on board the ship, naval authorities were able to locate the wreck of the Daedalus near the southern edge of the Bering Sea. A salvage team recovered the bodies of the women. Once all of the bodies were returned to their families for proper burial, the Daedalus ceased to manifest at pier 23.
A criminal investigation into the prostitution ring is still ongoing.