503 Backstories and Ellies

(Ed note: The title reference in this one is pretty obscure, so I’ll give it to y’all. Backstories is obvious, and “Ellies” refers to the 1998 Spielberg flop, “Deep Impact”, where they referred to an incoming meteor that would wipe out all of humanity by the name Ellie, which was code for ELE, or Extinction-Level Event.)

Low Earth Orbit, stealth shuttle ESV-228-01.

Jason Todd and Catherine O’Shaugnessy were reclining in seats in the small stealth vessel receiving final briefing updates for their upcoming task. Their mission: hunt down cult cells to the best of their abilities.

And their abilities were certainly no joke.

They would be heading to the Puget Sound area of Washington State, where they would take the identity of a newlywed couple moving to Harstine Island, an unremarkable, unincorporated, and very much out of the way island in the sound. Timothy Roberts and his wife Siobhan would settle down in Hartstene Pointe, a gated community on Harstine Island.