A Tabloid Article by Marcus D. Bone

Something stalks the inner-city streets, hunting the innocent and slaying the corrupt. The authorities, what little of them are available or even interested in investigating such things are stumped, with only a few tire tracks and collision marks to tell of the killer’s presence at the scene of each death. The media claim it’s a vigilante that stalks the residents of the city, while older voices whisper of occult happenings and the devil’s due. Whatever the cause it has the neighbourhood spooked and on edge…

Then a witness comes forward, claiming that they saw the killer; a General Dynamics Motors Lancer with no driver. She even has a blurry photograph to provide it! This poor frightened girl claims the Lancer tracked her and her boyfriend across numerous blocks, chasing them as they attempted to flee on their motorcycle. In the end it trapped them in a dead-end alley, and there she saw that it had no one inside of it, just before her lover was crushed!

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Facts – The Minion Hunters are drawn into the mystery of the driverless Car either because they feel the sense that something strange is afoot, or they begin to feel there own efforts to defend humanity is being undermined by such brazen vigilantism. The killer seems to randomly select their victim, with the dozen or so found so far ranging from known criminals, the homeless and even a well to do Mike who was just unluckily passing through the area. As the Minion Hunters investigate further, they discover the following:

  • There is no evidence to be found of any person being behind the wheel of the car. The tire marks found are common enough, and its only through the similarity of the victim’s injuries that any connection in the deaths was first discovered.
  • The car hunts only at night, and with enough information, the team will learn that it is active only between midnight and 1pm in the morning. Character’s doing enough leg-work will soon find a victim who escaped just as the hour turned, and who claims to have seen the car reverse and drive off moments before it could have run them down!
  • Rumours start to circulate that the victims all had something in common; that they had all witnessed some event that they have taken to their graves.
  • Another person hunts the car, Luke DeVere, a mechanic who lives on the far side of the city. Luke claims that his dead brother once owned the vehicle in question (having seen the young girl’s photo), but that it was a death trap and he watched it be crushed at the local junk yard six months ago!
  • ZBUG, a local radio station, soon offers a reward for proof of the killer car, and as could be expected the hoaxes and would-be hunters soon flood the streets. These idiots do nothing but make the Minion Hunter’s lives harder.
  • If not stopped the killings begin to become more frequent, and soon the Minion Hunters themselves will be targeted!

Options – Fully Automatic should be a short, sharp adventure, with the Minion Hunters attempting to track down the Lancer only to be thwarted at every turn. What follows is but a few ideas:

  • Free Spirits – The killer Lancer is actually an advanced Animator spirit (see page 212 of the 1st Edition Dark Conspiracy rulebook), developed and released by a rogue ET faction operating in the city. The car is used to test their new powerful protocols that allow an Animator to undertake much more complex and detailed tasks. If not stopped the aliens begin to animate other things, going to war with their rivals in the city). Of course, any such open warfare will result in the deaths of even more innocents!
  • A Deadman’s Revenge – Luke’s brother, Allen did not die in the racetrack accident as everyone believes, instead the young man lost his memories and was driven insane by his injuries. Once a up and coming stunt driver, he is consumed by rage and anger, and he attempts to relive his ‘death’ on the streets in a twisted lust for revenge against those he blames for his new ‘life’. Building a number of cars (the Lancer is but one), he either conceals himself from view in driving the vehicle from a hidden compartment, or in other cases drives it remotely! Over time the Minion Hunters will learn that each of the victims has some connection to Allen and his career. If not stopped even his closest family (Luke, son Will and estranged wife Sarah) will be targeted.
  • Slip ways – The animated car is actually a type of Mechaniacal (see page 59 of the Dark Races sourcebook) using the Dimension Walking ability to pass into our reality. As the Minion Hunters investigate the victims of the killer car, they will discover that different parts of their bodies are missing and that these have been removed with surgical like precision. You see, this robotic hunter isn’t simply the random killer everyone thinks it is, instead the symbiod seeks for new organic material to utilise in the construction of more of its kind. Trapped in a tiny and unique Protodimension, the Mechaniacal is slowly but surely building an army in which to invade our resource rich world. It is up to the Minion Hunters to defeat the hunter and its ever growing fleet of minions.