Angel Cruz

Affiliation: United States

Position: Center for Disease Control Field Scientist

Player note: This character's perception of reality is not entirely accurate.

Background

Religion ought to be treated like a disease. Where there is religion there is poverty, illness, and death. Where religion is faltering there is technology, health and progress. Religion has been the single largest cause of death if you take a look at history and fully consider its impact.

Okay, maybe you're overdoing it a little there. There is one other thing that has killed more people: politics.

Now, here you are in a backwater little pile of sand and dirt in the middle east where there seems to be nothing going on except religion and politics. You put those two things together and presto! It is no wonder so many people have died in the region.

You don't always get to pick where you go, though, working for the CDC. Some wackjob, probably in the employ of a military contractor, came up with one heck of a biological weapon. It wipes out whole towns, doing positively horrendous things to the bodies of the victims, and leaves startlingly little trace of itself. Whoever created this thing let it get into the hands of some nutjob terrorists.

Actually, they probably sold it to the terrorists. Just like the U.S. government facilitated the 9/11 attacks in order to invade Iraq for oil. Just like MI6 murdered Princess Diana at the behest of the British Royal Family because she was going to reveal family secrets. Just like the U.S. allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor to happen in order to create justification for trying out a nuclear bomb.

Governments are crazy things. You should know, you work for one. You've pretty much never met a conspiracy theory that wasn't at least touching on the truth. The Moon Landing was faked, a UFO really did crash at Roswell, and there are Jewish plots to dominate the world.

Well, you get to play your part in the cover up this time. They've said you're here to try and get a sample of the biological weapon that has been let loose in Iraq. That may be the case. Perhaps it did get out of their hands too soon. Perhaps it was someone other than the U.S. government that let it loose. It could easily have been Israel. They don't mind about dead Iraqis. Regardless, you get to try and find it so that it can be shelved away until the next time they need to pull it out.

Back to religion though. Religion really is the biggest racket around. You really hope that no one starts pulling the religious cards at the meeting. Blah, blah, blah, Jesus. Blah, blah, blah, Allah. With all the politicians around though, you're sure it'll happen. In this little sand dune they seem to need it to cling to power and wipe out as many civilians as possible. Maybe you can convince some of them to cut the bull and tell it to you straight. Unless they are true believers. Uggh, those people need to just be put down in order to save the rest of humanity.

As if religion and politics wasn't enough in this case, there is also a big business angle. Apparently whatever bio-weapon was released also has a very stimulative effect on plants. There was some absolutely phenomenal growth in the flora. Some politicians in the pockets of agribusinesses are leaning on your bosses. They want to get a hold of a sample as well to see if they can engineer a better plant growth product. Of course, they could just as easily want to get the real thing in order to hold the politicians of some small nation or another in check. Businesses get into politics just the same way as religious nuts get into politics.

Speaking of politics, some sort of alien or genetically engineered mutant has gotten loose from a holding facility somewhere in Iraq. Your bosses have reason to believe that it might be here. They want you to get blood samples from as many people here as possible to try to find it.

You have an ace up your sleeve. You have the one person who survived the biological attacks under your care. You brought her here with you, hoping she could identify those actually responsible. You really must find out who was behind this conspiracy and what the actual agenda was. Nawal will help you do that and the truth will be heard.

While you're here, you have to take advantage of the location. This conference is taking place in Babel, the actual site of the Tower of Babel. The best theory you currently have for the Tower of Babel is that this is the first place where the aliens came to experiment on humans. They captured a few at a time and warped their brains so much that they couldn't talk to each other any more. You want to get down there and find evidence to decide if this is what really happened or whether it was something even stranger.

Contacts

Joseph Prince: This guy is a Christian fundamentalist leading a private military contracting company. You wonder what his real agenda is and how man conspiracies he's been involved in covering up. He's got to have some interesting stories, if you could only get them out of him.

Field Marshall, The Right Honorable Lord Lockwood KG: You heard a rumor that this elderly fellow was involved in the assassination of Princess Diana. He's certainly a major player in British attempts to control the oil in Iraq. It is always hard to tell what lurks beneath that prim and proper British exterior.

Tariq Ibn Faruq: So, this is the leader of Al-Araf who ordered the use of some sort of WMDs inside of Iraq. You'd love to find out where he got the weapons and who else was really involved.

Abd-al Aziz Mamoon: Some religious nutjob associated with Al-Araf.

Veronica Miles: She is supposed to be from the State Department, but you've never heard of her before. You suspect she's really working for one of the several dozen covert agencies in the United States. She's undoubtedly looking to cover up what really happened in the attacks.

Nathan Kennedy: Yeah, he's just a bodyguard. Really. You believed that one for less than the time it took to say it.

Rodney Greiner: A United States politician who just happens to be in Iraq around the time of the attacks, and just happens to be selling robot soldiers to the Iraqi government, and just happens to get invited to these talks. You have no clue where this guy fits in to the puzzle, but he has to be a crucial piece.

David Kinder: This guy shows up near the top of your list of world conspirators. He seems to have really bizarre connections with all kinds of strange events all around the world going back at least two decades. His presence assures that something fishy is going on.

Basit ibn Karim: This guy wants to run Iraq his way. You wonder if he wasn't somehow connected with the attacks in order to take advantage of the surrounding chaos and come out on top of things. Or maybe he's the target of all of this as someone maneuvers to take him down.

Imad Ibn Junayd: You never trust the quiet, dedicated and apparently loyal second in commands.

Wafi Nagi: So, this guy came to power by promising all kinds of things to the Sunnis of Iraq. Then, once he's got a job in the government he backtracks on all of it. Maybe someone is blackmailing him. Maybe he found out something he shouldn't have. Maybe he's just a cheap politician.

Munir Faiz: This guy has dozens of ties with the United States and United Kingdom. He's probably supported by the CIA and MI6. In return he probably does all kinds of favors for his backers. Maybe he's involved in supplying the WMD to the terrorists for whoever he works for. They could also use him as a fall-guy if things go wrong. That sort of thing happens all the time.

Abilities & Artifacts

Stats

• Combat: 2
• HP: 5
• Sanity: 4

Medkit

Use of this medkit allows a target to recover to full hit points.

• Quantity: 5

Stimulants

Use of this stimulant increases the target's combat score by 1 for five minutes. Their combat score is decreased by 1 for ten minutes after that.

• Quantity: 3

Sample Analysis

To gather a blood sample a target must be willing, unconscious or restrained. Once collected, by spending 5 minutes analyzing a blood sample you can gather potentially interesting information. See a GM when using this ability.

Goals

• Get a sample of the biological weapon.
• Get as many blood samples as possible from those in attendance to identify the mutant or alien.
• Uncover the truth behind these attacks and any other conspiracies you find.