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3.04 - Contingencies

Daytime. Outdoors, wide exterior shot of a typical high-rise apartment building in the Gardens: all grubby brick walls and tiny windows. The camera slowly pans in on one window about halfway up. Traffic sounds drift up faintly from the street below.

Cut to inerior shot. An old black woman sitting in a dusty recliner. Warm sunlight from the window bathes her face. Her eyes are closed. She is humming to herself. The apartment is cramped and cluttered with knick-knacks, doilies, photographs in little stand-up frames. Most of the pictures feature two little boys, one white and one black. And there are flowers. There must be hundreds of flowers in vases in this room alone.

The old woman stops humming. Without opening her eyes, she says, "Is that you, Emmet?"

Cut to a reverse shot of the room, the old woman in the foreground. Standing in the far corner of the room is Emmet Milton.

"Hello, Momma," he says.

The woman smiles and opens her eyes and holds out her hands. "Come here and give your Momma a hug."

As Emmet steps forward, his skin ripples slightly and becomes more vibrant, more solid. He kneels down in front of the woman, and her frail hands touch his face — his real, living face. "Oh, how I've missed you," she coos, fussing with his jacket and hair.

"Momma," says Emmet, "I gotta tell you something. You know all the important things I been doing? Well, I have to do the most important thing of all, now. It's dangerous, Momma. I might not... be coming back from this. Not for a long while."

The old woman just nods, still beaming into her son's eyes. It is somewhat ambiguous whether or not she is really listening to him.

"Now, you remember that phone number I gave you? You know where it is?"

"Yes..."

"If something goes wrong, you call that number. They'll take good care of you. They'll take care of everything."

"Yes, yes," she says. "You're so handsome, Emmet. How did you grow up to be such a big, strong, handsome man?"

Emmet smiles for the first time. "Guess you just raised me right, Momma."

Suddenly, Darryl Milton drifts silently in through the far wall. "Emmet," he says. "We need to talk."

The woman peers over Emmet's shoulder. "Darryl? Are you here, too?"

Darryl ripples into solid existence and smiles sheepishly. "Hi, Momma."

"Come here, Darryl," the woman scolds. "Let me get a look at you. You never visit me, not like your brother Emmet."

"I'm sorry, Momma."

"Your hair's so long. Why can't you be a nice, clean boy and cut your hair?"

"It just grows back, Momma. I have to talk to Emmet now, Momma." He and Emmet both fade back into wispy wraith-forms as the old woman sulks and mutters about grown boys with "all that hair."

"Well?"

"I heard back from Rook," says Darryl. "Bishop says we're on our own. He says we've pretty much done our part in his plan; he's moving on to the next stage."

Emmet's eyes glitter from deep within the shadows that hide them. "Good. That means we have done right by him. Now all that remains for us is to do right by Momma."

Darryl seems unconvinced. He glances over Emmet's shoulder at the old woman, who has fallen asleep in her chair. A pained expression crosses his face, but he quickly suppresses it. "Yeah," he says finally. "Guess you're right."

Although Orpheus' raid on the Last Eight Ball had left the pigment-dealing Blasphemers in disarray, they still had a headquarters across the harbor, at the Farther Shores Amusement Park. Soon they would regroup and resume operations. The Senior Agents were in disagreement as to how to proceed. Walter Hanley was in favor of striking quickly and decisively, taking out the drug dealers while they were still on their heels. Agent Herschler advocated waiting, watching the amusement park, and picking off ghosts individually or in small groups as they left their stronghold. Agent Matthew Podlowski used his forboding ability several times to get a reading on possible outcomes of a raid on the amusement park, but in every case he foresaw only fire, catastophe, and death — those whose death, exactly, he could not say.

Eventually, Kate Hennisson ordered them to adjourn the meeting, with the caveat that they would have to reach a decision the next day.

Agent Herschler went to meet with his CIA contact, Phillip Nash. In exchange for information about Orpheus' current mission rosters and client list, Nash let Herschler know that the DEA was heavily investigating two former drug dealers, Darryl and Emmet Milton. However, the purpose of their investigation was unclear, since the Milton brothers had both been dead for nearly 10 years.

On his way back from the meeting, Herschler was contacted by Radio Free Death, who informed him that Darryl and Emmet Milton had been fanatically devoted to their mother, who was still alive and living in an apartment in the Gardens. Any investigation into the Milton brothers' weaknesses would undoubtedly start with this woman.

Meanwhile, back at Orpheus Group Headquarters, Kate Hennisson and Dr. Neel Shivani were holding a meeting with the other Senior Agents regarding a new application of ghost-form emanations. After further research into the phenomena exhibited by Agent Doug Sands, they had determined that it was possible to power emanations using "spite" — the negative energy built up by repeated exposure to the death of living beings or the dissolution of ghosts. Use of this method caused minor spikes in spite-levels, but not to an extent that Shivani considered dangerous. Several agents expressed extreme misgivings about using this method, but Hennisson insisted that she had a responsibility to send her agents into the field armed with every weapon available.

Herschler returned to headquarters and asked Hennisson for 24 hours to work out an alternate plan for dealing with the Blasphemers. She agreed. Herschler then told agents Watts, McGee, Morrisson, and Lane what he'd learned — though not exactly where he'd learned it from. Some preliminary investigation turned up the address of Delilah Milton, and the others agreed to keep her residence under surveillance while Herschler snooped around at the DEA office in spirit-form.

Just as Herschler was reaching the end of his 24-hour time limit, he overheard an agent dispatcher giving someone the green light to "take the Milton woman." At the same time, Agents Morrisson and Watts spotted DEA Agent Scott Archer enter the apartment building with two fellow agents in tow. Herschler managed to knock a telephone off its cradle and used Inhabit to place a call to Delilah Milton's apartment. The phone there began ringing just as Agent Archer began knocking on the door. McGee puppeteered the old woman and went to answer the phone, allowing Herschler to transfer himself to the apartment through the phone line. Then he opened the door, just as the DEA agents burst in.

There followed a frantic and confused with the DEA agents, who had come nominally prepared for spectral opposition but did not know what to do with an 80-year-old woman who seemed strong beyond her years and well-versed in hand-to-hand combat. Agent Watts teleported himself and Morrisson up to the apartment, using spite to partially power the emanation. The method was surprisingly easy.

At the same time, Darryl Milton appeared on the scene. Herschler intercepted him and the two began struggling, using Nimbus to burn each others' spirit-form.

One of Archer's men was shot, and Archer himself put his gun to Delilah Milton's head and called out that if the agents did not back off, he would shoot her. Watts Enshrouded the woman at the last possible second, just as Archer pulled the trigger. Archer then retreated along with his wounded partner.

Herschler, meanwhile, managed to defeat Milton, dissipating his spirit entirely.

Delilah Milton in critical condition.The group rushed back to Orpheus Headquarters, but Herschler's 24 hours was up. Walter Hanley had already led a group of projectors into the Farther Shores Amusement Park. Emmet Milton and the rest of the Blasphemers retreated into the House of Mirrors in the center of the park. Then there was a huge ripple of other-worldly energy, and the building disappeared. In the ghost-world, all that was left was a deep, dark crack in the ground, and an odd rippling in the air above it.

When Agent Watts returned Delilah Milton to the living world, she was in a deep coma. She is still in critical condition in Orpheus Group's infirmary at this time.