Thing is, some people say The Bank has enemies. Enemies within. You see, The Bank has an unusual investment portfolio. Diverse. Rumour has it, The Bank has funded gun-running, drug-trafficking, political assassinations – maybe even a few civil wars. Those people have to be wrong, right? So, sometime the Board ask you to root out the real enemies. The political activitists. The secret services operatives. The disgruntled businesses who defaulted on their loans. And don’t even start with the reporters.

Of course, you’re a reporter. Or is it a spy? Or a potential saboteur, bankrupted by The Bank’s lending and now ready for a little C4-based redecorating. You don’t want to be too overt about your intentions, but someone in The Bank has to pay back a little interest for you, right?

Then again, you also have that stuff in The Vault to consider. That evidence of your misguided past. That guy you killed in a hit-and-run. Or was it that string of prostitutes you physically abused. No…? The cocaine you smuggled across the border, but didn’t account for getting caught on camera.

So… you work like a good employee, never quite knowing who might know about you… who might be watching you… keeping tabs. In time, you’ll get back the leverage The Bank has against you, and get the Board to pay back their debt to you.

Or at least get your own penthouse office…

(inspired by watching the trailer for ‘The International‘)

Yes. It’s a trailer for a film based on a book. I should probably try to find the book… Anyone else read it? I checked out Wikipedia and the book is set in 241… almost a familiar date…

I would like to think that the general atmosphere of the end of the film – a claustrophobic trip through a locked down facility full of infected scientists hungry for blood ending with a showdown with the super-powered ex-commander of your team – could be translated over to my first PARANOIA mission, ‘Patch Job’. I would hope that over time my writing has improved – and that I still have a long way to go after PARANOIA: The Underplex – but my ‘Crash Priority‘ mission did leave a lot to be desired. I read the reviews – and, to be honest, when you’re sharing mission book space with the likes of ‘Stealth Train’, then what hope do you have? I would dearly like to try again from scratch and make it more memorable – and could probably take it in different directions.

A riff on the ‘Doom‘ ending would certainly be one direction. The Troubleshooters have been sent to repair the systems in the underground station and find what at first seem to be ordinary citizens and tech crews trapped down there. However, Rex-I’s condition has spread – like the Black Oil from ‘The X-Files‘ or some similar horror film parasitic invader – and the ordinary citizen start turning against – and ultimately attack – the characters. You need to add a few more corridors, ducts and maintenance gantries to offer tantilising options to reaching the goal, and the chance injury of the players to plant the seed of uncertainty about infection within the team… Then, end the whole thing with a Rex-I who fights like The Rock and looks like a metallic Auric Goldfinger.

Well… it works for me.