This is a continuation of my Zona Alpha Campaign, the last post was back in January 24 Last Post
There have always been strong rumours that the first exclusion zone was created in Canada, indeed I even came across someone who claimed to have worked there. CFB Suffield is very similar in many ways to the Yuma Proving Ground, ostensibly it’s an Army Training Facility occupying a huge area of land, approximately 1,000 sq miles, but it had many other more clandestine departments within its secure perimeter fencing.
CFB Suffield is in the South East corner of Alberta, just north of Medicine Hat, conveniently missing from the map, as are many other details, and it's a greyed out area on Google Earth. This might give you pause for thought.
The following information is lifted from Wikipedia.
Following the fall of France in WWll the British Army required a new training facility for carrying out experiments in chemical warfare to replace the one it previously used in French Algeria. In 1941, the Canadian Federal government purchasing the land and Experimental Station Suffield commenced operations on June 11, 1941.
In 1947 the Canadian Army turned the operation of Experimental Station Suffield over to the Defence Research Board, and in 1967 it was renamed the Defence Research Establishment Suffield. The DEDC is an agency of the Canadian Department of National Defence and is made up of eight research laboratories, one of which is Suffield, the leading laboratory for chemical and biological defence research.
What Wikipedia fails to mention is that in 1975 there was an explosion in the Central Laboratory (B-1) which apparently was a Recognized Federal Heritage Building, mainly because of its historical associations; presumably with Chemical and Biological warfare! The explosion breached the outer walls and certain experiments “escaped”. In the early 80’s the military pulled back from the central facility because it could no longer control the “Situation” but there is very little information as to what the “Situation” actually was.
1st Yorkshire Regiment Battle Group in Suffield 2014 just before returning home. Some of the chaps were not available to meet their families on their return home and indeed some of them have not been seen since returning home.
Much of the land was still in use by the British Army as their largest armoured training facility; it was particularly used for live-firing and tactical effect simulation. In the 90’s that included tactical nuclear munitions firing and evaluation. When the situation in the central facility deteriorated in 2014, the British went home and the Canadian Army moved outside the wire and strong patrols were conducted to ensure the “Situation” didn’t deteriorate any further. Of course patrolling a perimeter of 1,000 sq miles is a considerable undertaking and was not as successful as had been expected by the Politicians. It was about this time that the effects of residual radiation from the nuclear munitions reacted with a number of the escaped experiments, a devils brew you might think.
As with the Yuma “Situation” the reasons for the Exclusion Zone are clouded in mystery. There’s obviously some Government involvement, something they don’t want the public to know about and it’s getting worse. Some catastrophe, incompetence, illegal or fraudulent use, or maybe just plain stupidity, there are many more reasons our Government’s would want to keep us in the dark about their doings, none of them honest.
As you are aware, there has been some sort of incident quite recently at the Yuma Proving Ground. This aroused the interest of reporter Katie Monk of the Global Tribune. Her editor Joe Diamond authorised an interview with the Vagabonds a Yuma Biker Gang, to see if there was any connection between the YPD incident and the expedition she and Liam O’Rorke made into the Mojave in 2018.
She thought there was, because when sober the Vagabonds had talked of Zombies attacking them as they had rescued Alice. Of course drug and alcohol fuelled biker’s don’t make the most reliable witnesses and who the heck is Alice, so Katie needed to corroborate their story.
She had imparted information to Captain Andy Donovan, the man in charge of security along a huge boundary fence around the YPG, information so interesting that he had allowed her to accompany him on a reconnaissance into the outer part of the exclusion zone around the facility. They had encountered Zombies and some form of Ghoulish creatures, but because they had to beat a hasty retreat there was no evidence that could prove their account of events to be true.
The only thing to be done was to revisit the scene of the 2018 expedition into the Mojave, which back then, also had a less than satisfactory outcome. The news crew and bodyguards only just made it out of the area alive. They had encountered numerous unexplained creatures and anomalies but in spite of having video and DSLR cameramen with them they had not been able to bring any of this information out at the time.
If you read the last chapter you will know that the current foray into the Mojave was much more successful than last time and Katie had recovered all the evidence collected and stashed during their previous escapade. This is now on its way to the Texas Wichita Energy and Research Program Society, a shadowy organisation that has facility to decontaminate most things…..given time. We must hope it arrives to be decontaminated! Unfortunately for Katie neither of the 2 recent encounters in the Mojave were earth shattering, dogs and looters, that’s not the story she’s looking for.
The Suffield “Situation” seems to have many similarities with the other 2 “Situations” and Andy Donovan has agreed to try and infiltrate the facility and meet with an old couple who run the wildlife centre on the east of the Suffield facility and inside the wire perimeter fence. His objective is to see if he can gather evidence that might tie all 3 events together and the couple’s evidence might help make a case.
Joe Diamond has sent along one of his top reporters Liam O’Rorke to help Donovan gather whatever information he can. Liam is accompanied by his regular cameraman Billy Diamond, well known drunk and son of Joe, together they make a good team. Well that’s Billy’s version of the story, Liam isn’t so sure.
Big Freddie is riding shotgun on the pair of them and he has contacts north of the border, Gabrielle and Roxane are those contacts. For a rather large fee they are going to help Freddie with the shotgun job.
Please note that while some of this is fact, like all good “Historical Drama”, I may have embellished one or two points for story cohesion, and yes Suffield is on a flat featureless plain rather like the British army training grounds on Salisbury Plain. It's not in deep woodland but I didn’t know that when I set up the game.
The Researcher has been sacked.
The game is written and is in the process of being edited.
Cheers
