Ellington reported a new wave of designer drugs had been appearing in New York recently. One, called spiral dust, was believed to have some connection with the nearside, with its components having come from different variants. Habitual users developed a bluish spiral look to their eyes. The drug had powerful halucigenic effects and addicts had been known to disappear [To other variants?]. A local dealer, Leroy R Cain, was believed to be involved. His location was unknown but Melissa Romano, Sharon Coopersmith and Aldridge Chopra were known customers. Melissa is a hairdresser, Sharon is a freelance writer and Aldridge works for a computer company called Bluereign online auction services in New York.

The team visited Melissas salon. The receptionist had not seen her for a week and thought she had moved to Portland. Jack intimidated her into calling Melissa but her phone went to voicemail. Jaroslaw noted the number as 707 2135651. Brian threatened one of the hairdressers who feinted. The receptionist called the police and the team left. Jack grabbed the receptionists laptop as they left. Melissas address was found in the personnel records on the laptop and the team visited her apartment but found nothing to explain her disappearance other than a boot print on the floor.

The team then went to Sharons house. She was very friendly when Blue spiral dust was mentioned and even offered Jack sex as she liked army men. Jack accepted the offer and learned there was a warehouse nearby where illegal raves were held and Leroy was sometimes there. Jaroslaw asked around and heard there was a rave on at the warehouse that night. The team went. Jack recognised the bouncer as someone he had worked with in Safecore. He said Leroy dealt from the carpark and would be there later. When he arrived Gideon distracted him by pretending he wanted to buy drugs while Jaroslaw put a nearside mark on his car.

When he finally left he headed to Pioneer square, a very rough area of New York. The car was parked outside an apartment block. Jaroslaw sensed a broken room to Earth 13 in one of the apartments. Brian determined it was in apartment 11. Jaroslaw determined the key to the room was a painting on the wall of the apartment. There was something that looked like a grenade taped to the wall by the painting. Gideon used his reading meridian to determine it was a sophisticated electronic device called a recursion grenade designed to impede nearsight and meridian powers.

Jack used breaking which set it off. Gideon was peering into the room and disappeared. Jaroslaw determined the room had cycled. He then used opening to force the room to cycle again. The team found themselves on the beach of Earth 13. Gideon was lying on the beach nearby. There was tracks leading into a nearby cave. When Gideon came round he found he could not use his meridian powers without straining himself. The tracks went to the cave entrance but less obvious tracks headed North. Jack thought whoever left the trail was trying to disguise where they went.

The tracks lead to a campsite in a clearing. In the tent was another recursion grenade. The trail lead back to the beach where a figure could be seen collecting something on the beach. Brian rushed and grappled him. Gideon then used reading to read from his mind that he was a recursion miner who searched the reef for artefacts. He got is supplies of Blue spiral dust from a Lydia Nance in Nederland, Colorado. Her business address ' Dreaming crystal rock and gem shop' was written on a business card in his pocket. He had several artefacts in his satchel. Jack then shot him in the head. In the satchel was an iPhone 8 from the future, a calculator, and an abacus.

Jaroslaw determined the broken room back to Earth 1 was in the cave. In the cave was a dragon sitting on a pile of artefacts. The dragon seemed quite friendly. It offered to open the broken room if Gideon could played it in a game of chess and poker. It also took the artefacts. Gideon won the chess game and narrowly lost at poker. The dragon then opened the room back to Earth 1.

The room returned the team to Hawaii on O'ahu. The team arranged for Regency to ship their equipment then took a commercial flight to Colorado. The team spent the night in the hotel bar. Brian talked with the local drug dealer who nothing about spiral dust. However they learned that several homeless people had gone missing in Nederland recently.

Overnight the team started getting visions of a hooded figure. In the morning the team went to Lydias shop. Lydia was not there but two assistants were. They said Lydia was the manager. Jack asked to see her, saying he wanted her help with dreams. When the assistant went out the back Brian went to the back of the shop to listen at a window. He heard someone say 'go back and try to sell him something' so concluded Lydia was in the back of the shop. The team left to watch from outside. Brian sensed a broken room to Earth 6 in the shop.

At 6pm the shop closed then three people emerged and headed off. None were neersiders. Jaroslaw then disabled the security system and let the team in the side door. There was a safe in the office which Jaroslaw opened. Inside was money and 10 glass vials with the spiral dust. There was also a first aid kit which contained blue dust. There was also filing cabinets containing paperwork relating to the shop. There was also addresses for all the staff including Lydia.

On a computer was a bitcoin wallet and two folders called spirals and Donna Ilsa. In the Donna Ilsa folder was a diary. It said she regretted dealing with Ilsa and if she did not continue to produce the spiral dust the creatures living in the basement would eat her like the others. Also she did not know how the raw materials were delivered.

In the spirals folder there were sub folders called Leroy Kane, Obol Demere, Jack Chen, Wakin Lopez, Nadir Boutros, Sanir Betty, Illa Ialmas. Each had a different location all spread round the world. The map on the wall had pins in the same locations.

The stairs to the basement descended 20ft. The basement had a door with a large combination lock which Jaroslaw opened. There was sounds of buzzing from beyond so Brian went back upstairs to get some cans of mosquito spray he had seen. Inside the room were buckets of water with clouds of mosquitos above. Brian and Jack entered the room to kick over the buckets. As they did so two horse sized spiders which were on the ceiling attacked. They fired webbing which hit Brians gun, pulling it from his hands.

Jack opened fire and injured one but they seemed unaffected by Jaroslaws Ktech pistol so he pulled out his Russian pistol and opened fire with that. It took many shots from Jack and Jaroslaw to kill the first spider while Brian futilely fought off the other with his knife. They then opened fire on the second spider, finally killing it. There were a number of bodies wrapped in spider silk hanging from the ceiling.

There was another room in the corner of the basement. An area of the floor was taped off. There was also many empty glass vials and other supplies. Jaroslaw sped up the rooms cycle to half an hour and reduced the friction. When the room cycled the team found themselves in an empty basement.

Outside the shop the space elevator could be seen in the distance. Jack noticed a set of tracks leading to and from the shop. The team followed the tracks which went to a set of tyre tracks. There were two people in the shade nearby who knew of Donna Ilsa. She lead one of two local gangs and lived in Boulder. The team borrowed their car and followed the vehicle tracks to a walled compound with armed guards.

The team watched the compound from a distance. After dark, a black van approached and 8 black clothed figures got out and stealth fully headed to the compound. They broke through the gate and attacked. The team used the distraction to creep in themselves. Inside the compound was a villa. Brian tried jumping through a window and managed to cut himself badly. The noise alerted guards and Jack threw a grenade through another window to try to distract them. The team entered and were attacked by two guards. One was immediately killed and the other surrendered.

The team continued to the hall and were fired upon from the top of the stairs by two guards. Jaroslaw was injured in the gunfire before the guards were killed. The team headed upstairs killing two more guards. They headed to a room where Jack sensed a nearsider. Jack threw a grenade as he burst through the door and shouted surrender. Donna and the two guards quickly surrendered. Gideon tried interrogating her but she resisted so Brian knocked her unconscious.

He then picked her up and jumped out a window. The rest of the team followed. Another guard appeared at the window and fired but Jaroslaw returned fire and killed him. The team then retreated back to the car and made their escape. Gideon then started interrogating Donna. She said monarch was behind the operation. Their base was in an abandoned arc tower up the mountain only accessible by helicopter. Her contact was called Luke. She saw the monarch operatives wore rings, yellow, green and yellow which they used to operate the lifts.

Jack then shot her before the team returned through the broken room and reported back to regency. They then equipped for the mission to penetrate the monarch base. Regency provided a small helicopter and the location of a broken room to Earth 6 in free space. Brian did a crash course on helicopter piloting. The broken room was between two peaks in the Rockies. Brian nearly crashed the helicopter before getting it to the broken room as it cycled.

It was a 3 hour flight to the arc tower. When the team approached Gideon convinced them that they were monarch flight 3478 and had an emergency. The team were given permission to land. When they landed there were four alien figures standing guard. A human approached and identified himself as Luke. He demanded to see ID but when Donna was mentioned he calmed down and the discussion turned to how much spiral dust she wanted.

Gideon read the mind of one of the creatures and found it was some form of human karathi hybrid called venom troopers. He also read the password to control them was Nacarand. He commanded them to stand at the edge and then Brian used his moving meridian to push them over the edge. Jaroslaw then used opening to unlock the door to the tower. Inside was a reception area. It was busy and there were another eight alien guards. Luke was returning. Gideon asked to use the toilet and said Luke sorted some guest access. In the lift the team jumped him.

After some interrogation he revealed monarch had captured a creature called the Nacarand which secreted the spiral dust. Addicts would be ported to its guts and digested. The creature was at the top of the tower. There was another creature called the dustman that had a symbiotic relationship with the Nacarand. The dustman was helping monarch with technology and had knowledge of the nearside.

Jack then killed him and dropped him through the service hatch in the elevator. They ascended to the top of the tower. When they opened the door they were confronted with a large armoured creature that demanded identification. The team opened fire and it returned fire with particle beam weapons, seriously injuring Jaroslaw and Brian. Jack used armour piercing ammo, Gideon used his venom pistol while Brian and Jaroslaw used meridian powers to attack it. After a brief fight it was destroyed.

There was a door. Luke ring granted access and beyond which was another room with three technicians. They seemed bored and assumed anyone that had got there must have access. They were tied up. The team then went through a door labelled venom clone tanks. Inside the room was vats with the alien creatures growing inside. There was one engineer wearing red overalls who Brian shot.

The other door was labelled Nacarand feedway, extreme caution. The team entered and found themselves on a walkway leading to the mouth of a huge coiled creature. Jack shot it and it reared up. The team retreated quickly. Gideon thought it wold be a good idea to get one of the technicians to call his boss and get her to come up. However he just raised the alarm when he was given the opportunity. Jack used breaking to break the cable on the lift. The other door was jammed open.

An examination of the vats revealed the vats were full of an acidic mixture. The team started rigging pipes to duct the acid onto the Nacarand. When it was ready Brian and Gideon went into the Nacarands room and started spraying it. The Nacarand reared up and swallowed them in a flash of blue light. Jaroslw picked up the piping and started spraying it from the doorway. The Nacarand approached and in a flash of blue light Jaroslaw was gone. Jack took the pipe and started spaying acid down the lift shafts but when several venom troopers emerged and threw grenades Jack ran to the Nacarand room and got swallowed as well.

The team found themselves floating on the inside of the creature, though there was no gravity and it appeared larger on the inside than it did on the outside. There was floating white spheres. When Jack hit one it burst and covered him in acid. Another was pushed towards the wall. When it collided it was absorbed. The team advanced down the 'passage' until the way was blocked by strands. Jack bashed through and found they oozed a yellow liquid that healed him.

Further on the 'passage' widened and a vortex could be seen stirring up the white spheres. Brian used moving to freeze the spheres so the team could pass. Further on the space the team were in seemed to expand vastly. In the centre liiked like a planetoid. A tube descended kilometres to the surface. There was a metallic structure on the planetoid near the tube. White spheres appeared to be being sucked up the tube from the surface. The team started descending the tube to the surface. Brian slipped off but Jack caught him.

As the team descended it became apparent the surface was covered in people. There was white veins Chris crossing the surface. People near them were petrified and turning blue. There were people in protective suits moving about near the structure. The structure was a warehouse with an open front. As the team descended they were spotted. Three surrendered at Jacks shout and the other three ran to the warehouse. Two were shot and the third was found cowering in the warehouse. They were stripped of their suits which the team donned.

The team was told there was regular collections by a vengeance class Chrysalid which flew down. It was explained that spiral dust addicts were transposed here when they reached stage 4. There was some two way flow between the Nacarand and the planetoid which gave it sustenance through the tube. Jaroslaw started hacking at the tube. Brian explored the warehouse and found a tube he thought was explosives. Jack set it up by the tube and triggered it. Instead of exploding a laser beam flashed out and cut the tube. The planetoid started drifting away and a hooded figure appeared and attacked. It had no legs, rather it moved across the planetoid on a trail of blue smoke. It carried a sword of blue smoke and appeared to be the robed figure from their visions. [Its appearance when the Nacarand was attacked would strongly suggest it was the dustman]

Brian and Jack shot it with felsteel rounds. It swung the sword at Brian then Jack who both dodged. Jaroslaw used opening on its wounds and Gideon fired his venom pistol at it. The planetoid started spinning away from the tube. After a short fight the creature was destroyed. Gideon picked up the sword. Brian used moving to push the team up to the tube which was several hundred feet away. The tube retracted upwards depositing the team in the base of the Nacarand.

The team ran back to the Nacarands mouth. There was a flash of darkness and the team found themselves outside the Nacarand. It appeared to be in death throws. There were six venom troopers lying comatose on the floor. They were wearing jetpacks and carrying venom rifles. Everyone except Jack put on the jetpacks which attached to them like Ktech rifles.

Jaroslaw ascended to the roof. There was a fortification with air defences at the top with a dozen venom troopers lying there. There was also a helicopter. The rest of the team ascended, Jack climbing a rope that was lowered to him. The team were attacked by a helicopter. Jack and Gideon shot it down but Gideon used one of the venom rifles but the backlash seriously wounded him and rendered him unconscious. The helicopter on the roof was damaged when it was hit in the firefight. Brian flew it to the ground barely.

Trapped on the surface of Earth 6 with no transport and facing a long walk in the heat Jaroslaw forced open a temporary broken room back to Earth 1 and smoothed the transition to take the team to safety.