Sophomore Year Winter Break

16. Book of the Homeland I (1/89)
By the time Talon arrives at the scene of Lena's disappearance, the only witness is a fast-dwindling speck on the horizon. The devastation is complete: the house is partially aflame, and Lena's landlady is dead. The team places a call to Lena's parents. Surprisingly, one of them joins them within minutes—Lena's father is the fabled Soviet variant code-named Fugitive. Their investigations during the night reveal that McCulloch had been replaced while on a school trip to Russia by the Soviet variant Doppelganger; the real McCulloch is back in the states in a coma from a "car accident"
    "Mike McCulloch" (actually Doppelganger) was known to write to a pen pal in England once or twice a month. Section Eight goes through the dorm room and finds a scrap of one of the old envelopes, enough for Jen to postcognitivly view to get the address written on it. Using this information, Section Eight contacted Prest Industries for help in getting fake passports and disguises.

17. Book of the Homeland II (1/89)
Once in the UK they find Doppelganger's contact, a GRU assassin who's performing minor spy duty in England to keep the heat off. Through extreme effort, Section Eight deconstructs the spy's contact line, then attempts to capture him for questioning. He nearly escapes them in a midnight raid on his flat, but is captured by force of numbers. The spy, Mikhail Pidorkin, cracks under Shriekback's sonically generated fear, and reveals that the SVAF, Soviet Variant Armed Forces, is a division of the GRU and responsible for Lena's capture. The only SVAF members that Pidorkin knows of are Skimmer, the man who heads the Moscow house, Boris Sergiovich Kuriaken, the SVAF leader in the GRU, and Enigma, a telepath who is the group's Variant Leader. Jen wipes his memory of the incident and Jay, stripped naked save for a mask and a British flag taped to his chest while being held airborne by Fugitive, hands the spy over to the American consulate, claiming to be the White Ghost, a new British super-hero.

18. Book of the Homeland III (1/89)
Section Eight then heads to the USSR, both by their own power and by plane, hiding in a house in the country arranged by one of Fugitive's old colleagues. While examining GRU headquarters from the outside, Excellent Woman and Warped Warrior are lured into a trap by Skimmer. They defeat the GRU agents but Jen unfortunately kills one. Skimmer, a probability manipulator, escapes. During their recuperation, the group is beset by SVAF members Particle, Wave, Desire, Mouse, Red Wolf, Rainfall and Stealth. Rainfall escapes, Desire gets his mind fried in an attempt to exert extreme control over Talon (presumably because she's an android) and Red Wolf and Mouse are taken prisoner. The heroes are severely hurt, and Wolf is as yet uninjured, held captive only by Fugitive's TK powers. Retiring to their country house, they rest the night while Jay attempts to make friends with Mouse. His degree of success is unknown.

19. Book of the Homeland IV (1/89)
The next evening the group prepares for their final attack on SVAF headquarters in Siberia, its location plucked from Desire's mind by Excellent Woman. They attempt a three-way assault (Fugitive and Excellent Woman tunneling beneath the complex, Warped Warrior sneaking in over the fence, Talon and Shriekback attacking from above) against superior forces. Talon, Fugitive, Excellent Woman and the now rescued Death Penalty flee combat with Clockwork, Doppelganger, Whiteout and Enigma, while Shriekback and Warped Warrior fight off Siberian Tyger and Rainfall. Only the timely presence of Prest, who has been following them, allows their escape. The heroes make the Alaskan coast in 5 hours.

20-22. The Great Vampire Hunting Vacation I - III(1/89)
In Alaska, Prest reveals the truth about his origins: he is actually a true vampire of over 350 years of age. He needs Section Eight's help in destroying those vampires he created and cast into torment over 300 years ago for the killing of his wife. The tasking of the German countryside takes over a week, an adventure now known only as the Great Vampire-Hunting Vacation. Talon unknowingly heals someone, but the group forgets about the incident, believing that the healed person is a hidden variant regenerator (!?!).
    Prest dies killing the last of his creations as the two of them plunge beneath the ice in the moat of Prest's ancestral castle. Section Eight takes his bones, and a coded German journal that they assume is his, back to the states. Taurus Industries' intervention enables them to leave Germany as visiting heroes rather than rampaging foreign variants (but even then public reaction is chilled—the team killed over two dozen people who that claimed were vampires, but it's really difficult to prove that).
    Immediately upon their return , Lena is placed under arrest by Detective-Lieutenant Kyle Kreating for the murder of her landlady. Talon's lawyer, Sebastian Sinclair, calls M.E.D.U.S.A. to explain what happened. The charges are dropped under the condition that Section Eight be amicable to any jobs M.E.D.U.S.A. asks them to perform.

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