We received a message from Dr Cornelius Kempt, who worked in the Aesculaplan clinic in Kiev. An M-R node (which causes aberrants) had been discovered in an infant there and we were asked to investigate.

The Ukrane is a police state. Weapons and minicomps are banned there so we needed to plan accordingly. We arranged to fly in using microlights under the cover of darkness. I piloted one with Haken, and Rodregiz took the other with John. We planned to land outside Kiev but the controls on my microlight broke, causing it to crash. Rodregiz and John saw us go down, and were able to land and rendezvous with us, but we were left far further from Kiev than planned.

We found a bus stop and got on a bus to Kiev. The bus was stopped at a police checkpoint but we were able to bribe the police not only to let us through, but to drive us into Kiev and take us directly to the clinic.

We met Kempt at the clinic. He explained the child had been left outside the clinic and they had security footage of the woman doing so. After we examined the aberrant, John killed it and the body was put in the incinerator. Shortly afterwards 2 aberrants looking for the child attacked the clinic. We killed them both. The policeman waiting outside had been killed by one of the aberrants. Rodregiz took the uniform and car. I hacked into his minicomp and started a search for the woman who had abandoned the child.

The search took several hours but I got a result. She was Vasylyna Guba, her daughter was Tetiana. She was not a resident of Kiev, but her parents, Leonid and Svetlana had an apartment 7745 in block E12. Rodregiz put on the police uniform and we went to the apartment. It had been boarded up, and there was the chalked outlines of three bodies inside.

In the apartment was a basic workstation from which I obtained correspondence from the family of Vasylynas husband. Vasylyna lived with her husband Uri in Vano-Frankisk and went missing from there a month ago. We analysed a blood sample from the apartment. It had some unknown properties and a growth hormone.

We drove overnight to Vano-Frankisk. When we arrived we visited Uri's parents. Uri was also there. We interrogated them, but they appeared to know little more. Uri appeared upset over the disappearance of his wife. On their system I found an email from Viktor, the local mayor, saying “ensure Vasylyna is ready”. It was over a month old.

When questioned about this, the parents said their daughter in law had been 'selected' requiring her to go away and may not come back. They had been told they would be killed if they told anyone. They had to inject her with some drug before she was taken away. Haken found a medical storage box in a safe. It contained drugs.

We then went to talk with the mayor. When confronted with the drugs he tried to get a gun from his desk and had to be constrained. I hacked his computer system and found an encrypted file called Potocki. In his desk we found a fake ID.

We interrogated him and discovered he was the head of an aberrant cult. He had made a deal with aberrants living in the Potocki family fortress.

The aberrant leader believed he was a vampire and was trying to propagate by breeding with humans. A Dr Elizah recently discovered how to make human / aberrant hybrids. There were now 12 children, at least 6 of whom were hybrids.

The mayor had become part aberrant so we killed him. Rodregiz used his psion powers to change his form to look like the mayor before taking us in the mayors car to visit Dr Elizah. She was an aberrant and attacked us as soon as we started asking questions. She was very powerful but we were able to kill her after a long fight. We searched her office and found another set of the drugs in her safe.

We spent 2 days recovering from the fight at Uri's parents until a policeman arrived looking for the mayors missing car. He was overpowered then persuaded to help, with the help of evidence of the mayors treachery. He agreed to make a diversion while we went to the Potocki fortress to confront the aberrants.

We approached the fort with as much stealth as possible. There was an aberrant with tentacles on watch on the roof. Harkin positioned himself to provide covering fire while John, Rodregiz and myself climbed to the roof to attempt to neutralise him quietly. Unfortunately he proved to be a very powerful aberrant and was defeated only by concentrated gunfire from us all.

The noise drew 2 more aberrants out and we killed them. We then entered the main fort building and located the leader of the aberrants. He tried to use some aberrant power to affect our minds, but we were able to resist and killed him. His minicomp had details of his plans to raise an 'army of undead'.

The women and aberrant children were found in the adjacent brewery. Harkin and John killed them and burned the bodies to destroy all traces of the taint.

We walked through the Carpathian mountains to Romania then called in to be picked up.