iStory:The Agent/chapter summaries

The Agent/chapter summaries
The Agent is the third volume of iStory.
First mentioned:	February 10, 2009
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The following is a list of chapters of the "The Agent" volume of iStory, with summaries and appearances noted.

Heroes Evolutions

The following summaries are for each chapter as to what must happen to complete the mission successfully.

Chapter 401

Chapter 401: The Agent (released 2/10/2009, 2/13/2009)

Rachel Mills has survived bizarre encounters at Pinehearst and in the Middle East, but this week she begins her strangest adventure yet. Rachel has found acceptance and a sense of belonging in her new role. But her first mission turns her world on its head. At a crater that was once an airplane, Rachel learns that she is again a soldier in a war, and the enemy is more dangerous than she could have possibly imagined.

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Hired by what she believed to be a professional paramilitary organization, Rachel Mills finds herself in the middle of a secret war between the government and not-so-ordinary citizens. Rachel continues to encounter Jim, who is now a fellow agent, while working for this organization. She thinks Jim seems protective of her, but knows that Jim knows much more than he will admit to her. It is now the end of the day, and Rachel feels empty and drained. She wishes to herself that Gibson was with her, then looks at the woman they captured. She notices that the woman is scared, and thinks that she should be. Rachel then recalls to herself how the day began. Rachel's recollection begins with Rachel participating in a training exercise in a gutted office building surrounded by woods. The building has mold on the floor and water leaking in the walls. As Rachel gets close to her target, she holds her breath. Her target appears to be a short Asian guy, who wears glasses and baggy clothes, dirty from the chase. Rachel then moves into the shadows of a hallway. While following her target, Rachel notes to herself that the agent training is brutal, intense, and bizarre. Rachel recalls being in shape in the Marines, but being part of this organization is a different experience. The trainees are taught a thousand ways to take down a target, wearing all sorts of protective gear and in odd conditions, often with various handicaps. When the target stops briefly and scans the area, Rachel hides again before he can spot her. He kneels down and pulls a grill from the wall, and Rachel realizes they had found his stash. She then steps out from hiding and shoots him twice in the head. The agent screams in pain, and says that one shot in the shoulder would have been fine. Rachel replies that doing that wouldn't be good practice, and then the other trainees start coming out of the woods. Her trainer, Moore, leads the trainees as they approacher her, and holds a stopwatch and clipboard. He tells Rachel that she broke the course record and the other trainees cheer and applaud. Rachel notes that most of her fellow recruits were very competitive and hated her as of a few days ago, but that she has been turning around their opinions by being better than them. One trainee, Gibson, who was two years younger than her, tells Rachel that he could be out if he fails this test one more time. She replies that she will give him some tips to help him, but he says he just wants to hear about Iran again. Pausing her recollection, Rachel notes that Gibson's eyes told her that he had never been out in the field. However, his eyes also made him the best shot in their training group. She guesses he thought he was just playing a video game and feels sorry for him. Rachel also notes that he should be standing next to her right now as she promised him, but that things didn't go as planned. Continuing, Rachel recalls that they get a call about the plane crash. They are briefed that the plane carried federal detainees, and their instructions are to recon and contain them. The recruits then all pile into black-painted helicopters that immediately take off. Everyone is given live ammunition, and the trainees appear happy to get a reprieve from the deep-assessment training they had been getting for the last forty-eight hours. When they land, Rachel is told to report to Danko for orders. She recognizes Danko's name--she had been compared to him in training, and they called him the Hunter: lethal, focused, instinctive. Rachel locates Danko when he is talking with Senator Petrelli and listens to their conversation. The senator is arguing with Danko that the detainees are going back into custody--that they are not assassins, but Danko says that the detainees should be killed. Danko also notes that the Senator's daughter turned the transport flight into a National security emergency. While the arguing continues, Rachel turns her attention on the girl Danko pointed to. She notes her blond hair and that she appears to be a teenager. Rachel also notes the girl is scratched up and very upset. Several agents stand around the daughter, and her hands are tied behind her back. Then Rachel looks at the crater where the plane had been, and ponders what she is capable of. Suddenly, Rachel feels a burst of air and another blond girl appears, and then both the new girl and the senator's daughter disappear. Next, Rachel hears people say that Claire has disappeared, and pieces together that Claire is the senator's daughter's name. Shortly thereafter, Danko spots Rachel and approaches her while calling out her name. He tells Rachel to pick three men and follow the main search party. Danko adds that if that party gets into trouble, her squad is to ignore everything else and capture Claire by any means possible. Rachel asks what if they can't capture her, and he instructs her to shoot her in the back of the skull. As Danko walks away, Gibson approaches Rachel and asks to be in her squad. Rachel tells him to stay close to her, and that he should keep his head down to stay okay. Following the main search party, they find a group of the escaped detainees including the senator's daughter next to the smashed tail of the plane. The agent in charge begins setting up an ambush with hand gestures when the fast girl stands up like she is going to take off. Gibson then starts shooting and hits the fast girl, sending her hard to the ground. Claire goes down also, and Gibson pauses a micro-second when she falls. The other agents continue shooting and shouting around him. Before Rachel can realize it, another of the fugitives faces off with Gibson, and he turns and starts killing everyone around them. In a matter of seconds, everyone else but Rachel is dead and Gibson points the gun at her. Then Danko fires and kills Gibson. Claire begins moving again and Danko approaches her. Rachel thinks he is going to end her life, but instead he pulls out a tie and takes her prisoner. Rachel pauses her recollection again, and looks down at the blond woman's face. The woman appears dirty, tired and terrified to Rachel, and Rachel notes to herself that now they just need to stop the rest before more good men die. The player is then given the opportunity to try one of the assessment examinations that was given to Rachel Mills, and is instructed to respond in the way that best reflects the player's own style. The player is also told that there are no wrong answers, to assume that every choice results in success, and to keep score while answering questions. After completing the eighteen question exam, the player is told how to rank the results and then told what the score should mean in terms of how the player reacts to various situations.

[edit] Character Appearances

Rachel Tracy Moore Gibson

Emile Danko Nathan Claire Bennet Daphne Millbrook

Chapter 402

Chapter 402: The Agent (released 2/17/2009, 2/20/2009)

Rachel Mills' first operation left her shaken, but the troubled young ex-Marine has impressed the Hunter. The senior government agent gives Rachel a special assignment. Her investigation uncovers far more than she expected. Before the week is over, Rachel's life will take a very strange twist.

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Rachel Mills has become an accepted and respected member of a secret new government unit. After the plane crash, Rachel promised fellow trainee, Gibson, that she would protect him, but fugitives that Claire released killed him. Now, Rachel's deepest secret begins to haunt her. Rachel wakes up and finds herself sitting in a metal chair in a Pinehearst lab. She has taken a bullet and blood runs down her arm. A spotlight is pointed in her face, and she can only make out the outline of her interrogator's body. Then, Rachel sees a blue IV dripping into her arm and the interrogator shuffles forward. Rachel addresses the interrogator as Petrelli, but realizes it is the girl that almost killed her in the desert lab. Rachel notices the girl's stained skin, swollen arms and legs, and unfocused eyes, and that fluid is dripping from the girl's veins onto the floor. When the girl lunges at Rachel, Rachel recalls that the last time she faced off with the girl almost ended in her own death; so Rachel dodges the girl's blue hands, rolls over the table in front of her, and rushes out the door. As she reaches the exit, Rachel hears behind her the girl's bare feet slapping the tile, snapping her limbs inhumanly fast. Suddenly, Rachel arrives in a funeral home. She notices lots of chairs in the room, and everyone there is tall and wearing black. Thinking the girl is still after her and that the casket will protect her, Rachel starts walking up the aisle. As Rachel approaches the casket, no one seems to notice her. When she reaches the casket, Rachel finds it closed and tries to open it. She succeeds in raising it an inch a few times, but it always drops back shut as if something is holding it closed. Rachel then whispers, "Please, Mom", and a blue arm snakes out and grabs her wrist. Rachel screams no and wakes up on the floor, realizing she is back to the nightmare that is her life. Rachel notices she is in her room, and the curtains are gray so it must be close to dawn. She finds her T-shirt soaked with sweat and her body severely shivering. Rachel looks at her bed, and notices that the covers are still settling--that a second before she was lying there. She then lowers her head into her arms and groans, when someone calls out for her from the doorway. After quickly snatching her gun from her desk drawer, Rachel watches a tall, square, and unshaven man enter her room. She surmises that he is ex-military with a few years of something else blurring the edges, probably CIA, and is likely one of Danko's men. The man notes that Rachel is fast, and she asks him what he wants. He replies that he is her new partner. Rachel processes the word partner, recalling Gibson's face and realizing that Gibson had been her responsibility, not her partner. The man apologizes for not knocking, saying he heard a yell, and Rachel notes that she just had a dream. Her partner notes he had some of those lately as well, guessing it involved a "freak" with powers, and Rachel thinks to herself if he only knew. She asks for him to come back later, but he says he can't. He says Danko sent him with another file for her about the "special project", and Rachel lowers her gun. Two hours after Rachel's partner leaves, Rachel reflects on not asking for his name. She thinks that it was too soon, and recalls the recent deaths she has experienced: Gibson; David, at Pinehearst; Eric, the young Special Forces officer; and tough old Barton, in Ghanaf. Rachel also adds her mother to that list, since it has only been weeks since she learned why she killed herself, and notes they all died because of powers. Rachel then turns her attention to Danko's file. She notes to herself that Danko has had her searching through some old websites, stuff that used to be run by people with abilities. They were just trying to understand more about how they think when Rachel found the first message. When Rachel reported it, Danko instructed Rachel to keep the project off the grid as he thinks there might be a security breach. Rachel was informed that when Danko's analysts started looking at the websites, bursts transmissions began leaving the government firewall, with each transmission always being comprised of 200 characters. The technicians suspect it is probably some kind of Trojan virus that they picked up from one of the websites. After turning on her computer, Rachel begins going through a new target list of about a dozen websites Danko has given her to look at. She finds that the first website is a kind of message board, and spots a few images with bar codes or something that she wants to check out. Rachel copies them to her computer and attaches them to an email to a hacker buddy who can sort those things out and let her know about anything interesting. After a while, Rachel narrows the list down to three other websites that give her a weird feeling. Rachel opens Site 1, Senator Petrelli's website, and finds a hidden message looking her in the face after some searching. She wonders aloud who "Rebel" is. Site 2 is "Las Vegas Niki", which Rachel notes to herself is like a creepy tomb since Niki is dead. Rachel searches this second website for a while, but finds another hidden message in plain sight just when she is about to push on. She writes "ALEX" in the file and underlines it twice, thinking that it is something she has to tell Danko about. Site 3 is "HG", which Rachel notes to herself is a very intense website. Rachel learns from the website that the woman, "HG", waged an ability-related campaign for a while, coordinating with a number of others through the website. Rachel has trouble parsing the sheer wall of information at first, and takes a break after a few minutes of writing down names and places. A minute later, Rachel walks back to her computer with drink in hand and from a distance, far enough back that she can't read text, sees that she has been thinking too hard. She whispers aloud that she is going to shut down the messenger. Just as Rachel finishes looking at the websites, her phone buzzes. Rachel checks the caller ID, sees that it says "UNKNOWN", and figures it must be her hacker buddy. She rolls her eyes and answers the phone while writing another note on the file for Danko. Rachel says "What's up, Volts?", and he replies on how early it is. Rachel comments that it's practically lunch time, and he responds that she is right and he should be in bed. He adds that he is up, playing her little mind games, because he loves her. Rachel replies that she loves him too, but threatens to break his legs if he forces her to drive over there to find out what the bar code said. Volts then asks if Rachel really doesn't know, sounding weird. Rachel responds telling Volts to just say what it is, asking if it is a nuclear launch code and he's afraid of ending up in a maximum security prison. Then, Volts says "Stop this, Rachel." Rachel responds that Volts is grumpy, and to call her back after lunch. However, Volts says that the bar code means what he just said, and Rachel realizes they know who she is. Suddenly, the power goes out and Rachel is left standing in the dark. Rachel tells Volts she will call him back, but her cell phone connection has been cut off. She tries to call Danko's office, but gets an "All circuits are busy" message. Rachel then grabs her gun off the bed, tucks Danko's file under her arms and prepares to leave her room when her phone buzzes with a text message. Rachel examines the message: I KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO REBEL She also finds an attached video file to the message. Knowing ahead of time what the file likely contains, Rachel opens it and views security footage of herself at Pinehearst teleporting across a rubbled space inside the crumbling building. She thinks to herself that she was scared and stupid, damaged goods. Then another message arrives, "DON’T TELL DANKO WHAT YOU FOUND TODAY". Rachel replies, "OR WHAT" and she gets the response "YOU KNOW". Rachel thinks to herself that she had had it all: a team that respected her, a leader to follow, and real enemies to put away; but now it is all wrong. She notes she hates REBEL almost as much as she hates herself, then she gets another message. The message reads "I NEED YOU TO DO SOMETHING". Coming Up on iStory Next week: Rachel tries to get back to business as usual. But her first field operation as a full agent takes a turn for the bizarre. What did Rachel find on the websites that REBEL wants to hide? Discuss at 9th Wonders.

[edit] Character Appearances

Rachel Compound prisoner Danko

Rachel's partner Volts

Notes

• The first iStory chapter for The Agent, Chapter 401, was released on Tuesday, February 10, 2009.
• Most of chapter 401 of The Agent was released on February 10, 2009. A second part to this chapter was released on February 13, 2009, where each player is allowed to take a psychological assessment test that Rachel Mills also took and see what evaluation the test score provides.
• Most of Chapter 402 was released on February 17, 2009, and the chapter ended with Volts about to tell Rachel the translation of the bar codes she had e-mailed to him. On February 20, 2009, the story continued with Volts explaining what he found.

See Also

• For a summary of the The Agent series of iStories as a whole, see The Agent.