“The train went off the grid about an hour ago. It didn’t arrive at the train yard when we expected it to, and the last confirmed station it arrived at is here.” The Cell Leader, a daytime train dispatcher, points to a white dot not far off from the center of a maze of subway tunnels. “As you know, we have no means of monitoring the trains between stations. They’re too far underground for GPS to be an option. Every day we run hundreds of trains through those dark tunnels with little more than luck and prayers to keep them from smashing into each other. It’s a miracle the system runs at all, and a testament to the skills of the men and women running those trains that we don’t have collisions every day. Tonight one of those men is missing, and we have no way to be certain that he didn’t have passengers with him. We need you guys to bring everyone back, safe and sound. ”

“There are hundreds of paths that train could have wound up on from its last known location, but for now we are ruling out any lines with active late-night service because if our missing train was on one of those lines we’d know it by now. That leaves us with a few dozen miles of track branching out from here.” The Cell Leader circles a large area on the map with several grayed out dots. “Search teams, that would be you lot, are being dispatched to each of these locations.” The grey dots get circled with the red marker. “These are closed stations. With so many years of budget cuts and reductions in service there are large areas where we just don’t run connecting trains anymore.  We don’t use those tracks, so there’s no current running through them. The switch system isn’t exactly state-of-the-art, so it’s likely our missing train was simply misdirected by a faulty switch and is now stuck without power. You’ll need to find the train, restore power to wherever it is, get the train moving again, get it on the nearest active track, and get those people home. This will be no easy task. Those tunnels are black as pitch, and radios aren’t likely to function properly. You may even find people living in those tunnels. Lord know that with the economy being what it is we have no shortage of homeless. They probably won’t be too happy about unannounced visitors. And then of course… well… we’ve all heard the rumors, and we all know that some of those rumors are true. That’s why we’re here. Am I right?”

The assembled Hunter teams nod their agreement.

“Good. I pulled a few strings with the overnight dispatcher. Service is suspended until this train is found, or as long as he can keep them from starting those trains up again anyway. It’s the only way that I can make it safe, and I use that word loosely, to get that missing train back on a functional track. I don’t have to tell you what kind of unhappy this city is gonna be if we don’t have those trains going by rush hour.”

“You have about 4 hours people. Make them count.”

An Original Adventure for White Wolf’s “Hunter: the Vigil”
part of the “World of Darkness” game system.