Eight years ago, Las Vegas wasn't a bad place.  It had its problems, to be sure.  But those problems were all part of its history, part of its charm.  Those problems were part of the appeal.

But today, it is 2005.  Almost eight years since N-Day.  And today, Las Vegas has new problems.  Problems more appropriate to a Capital, a major metropolis, a global city.

The victories in Colombia and Mexico shattered the Cartels, leaving behind gangs.  Their membership is less vicious these days, more opportunistic.  Driving through the suburbs or the north side of the Valley, it's not hard to find them at street corners, looking for an easy buck.  Over a year on, they're coyotes now, moving South and Central Americans into the land of plenty and collecting their payments in sweat and blood.  Doing anything too big or obvious draws down the vengeance of angry Quantum Gods, especially in Las Vegas.  But there's still a bit of drug-dealing and vengeance now and again.

Which is exactly why the police have every man with darker than average skin in for questioning.  Some prejudices are more lasting than others.

---

The problem today is a young man.  White, child of a middle class suburban family, UNLV student and a real nova fan.  Today, he's dead, strung up from a tree in a park, his earrings and body modifications -- the very symbols of his desire to be a nova himself -- cut out or otherwise defaced.  The note around his neck is short and to the point: "A GOOD START"

Ever the politician, Raoul Orzaiz got wind of the crime, and such was his curiosity that he deigned to leave his club to look into the matter.  Since the young man was a regular outside the Archon, Raoul does what he can to answer questions.  As a small courtesy, he persuades the lead investigator that there may be some inherent racism to holding people found near the park on the basis of their skin color.

But this isn't the first of such killings.  And the number of potential suspects is rising.  The gangs, the Michaelists, American nationalists afraid of cultural shift, even other novas.  There's stories of bogeymen in helmets peering out of the shadows, always watching, and there's the ever present eyes of the paparazzi and Project Utopia.  And some messages are more personal than others.  Certainly, the bad things aren't the rule.  In 2005, life is pretty good, especially for those with money and power.  But the cracks in the foundation are starting to show.

---

-- Dr. Zero's band is in high demand, and a few resort-casinos on the strip are trying to secure him for a regular show before he decides there's more money in touring again.  Easy income, they say.  With more time for side projects.  The Cult of Zero grows, however, and it's hard to get around the city without seeing some young punk wearing a gas mask or other imitation of the Doctor's eccentric wardrobe.

-- Out of the blue, N! offers Flare a new OpNet show.  Being younger -- and though they don't say it, 'safer' than Phantasm while appealing to the same demographic -- they think there's money in it for everyone.  The US Army also wants to talk to her about a job offer and some PR.  Dillon's been trying to scrounge up some money for a hospital, too, and thought Flare might be interested.

-- Gale, at her new condo, has a package waiting for her.  Inside are twenty birds, all with their wings broken.  And even just walking around town, she seems to pick up followers.  Some are adoring.  Some carry insults on their lips.  It makes building something resembling a normal life a little more stressful than it ought to be.

-- Gravitas has an enormous lab at the Nevada facility.  And applicants from across the world trying to beg him to take them on as lab assistants.  The language barrier gets easier to manage every day.  Other novas, like Malaysian Industrialist Parameswara, endlessly badger him to turn his attentions away from space exploration and Terat philosophy and back to the task of using science to transform the planet and make a profit.  Genius is a commodity, and a highly demanded one it seems.  But all these demands on his time threaten to insulate him completely.

-- Impetus, now scarred, generates even more sympathy and adoration.  And even more love letters.  He can't put in an appearance without changing the way people think and feel.  He also can't seem to put in an appearance without Michaelists reading bible verses and tracts, trying to drown out his words.  As the most obvious face of Utopia, he's the most obvious target of all.  Every day is a PR war, an opportunity to reshape image and identity.

-- The Amargosa Charitable Foundation gets brick thrown through its windows.  And Comstock's doing his best to avoid being a public figure for awhile, focusing on public works and charity.  He's even grown his black stubble out into a short haircut.  It's just that his schedule gets awfully busy on short notice, sometimes, and he doesn't really talk about why.

-- Phantasm's devoted following of trendy teens floods her with letters, professing love, admiration, and respect.  At the same time, recordings of her in action have become part of the Michaelist propaganda, proof that novas are demons who wear false forms, bind stolen souls to their wicked ends and glorify the supernatural.

-- Solitaire's House of Cards remains hidden, but it sees and hears more unrest every day.  Lists and names are being traded back and forth so Cards can look out for themselves in an increasingly antagonistic world.  On its own, it's evolving and changing, though it hasn't yet lost sight of its guiding philosophy.

-- Suzukaze has a new job, and new duties.  Logan has made contact in the last year.  It's time to get busy.

-- Wilhelm Förster cannot deny that Kraken Heavy Industries could use a presence in Las Vegas.  With Utopia holding a veritable monopoly over nova boom technologies, it's either New York or Las Vegas, and New York hasn't had the luxury of building from scratch or access to charitable nova labor.  Furthermore, it's the hotbed of Teragen activity in the US.  Might as well conquer the energy market along the way.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
This is a thread for plot and for a theme.  Post vignettes related to growing tensions, related to interacting with the City and the people therein, vigilantism and conspiracy, and exploring the central problem of coexistence between novas and baselines.  I'm going to make a concerted effort to give people scenes and ongoing action, and there is a plot underway in Las Vegas to be uncovered or ignored.

If any of the little blurbs I supplied up there doesn't spark the imagination, Raoul will probably want to get his friends together for a quick talk about what can be done to keep Las Vegas 'safe' for novas.  Since he lives in Spain more than half the time, he'd like input.

---

Best of all, Las Vegas' airport is being expanded.  In less than a year, they hope to accommodate the new sub-orbital Concorde II, the result of nova-superscience in the US Military Industry trickling down to consumers.  It will offer transit directly to Shanghai, Mumbai, Moscow, Addis Ababa, Paris and New York, connecting one side of the planet to the other in twelve hours or less.  Almost as fast as taking a portal.  Just don't ask about the cost.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:11, Fri 30 Aug 2013.

The massive Mil V-12 helicopter settled onto the narrow strip of tarmac in the desert northwest of Vegas, kicking up a tremendous cloud of dust.  Wilhelm had bought it along with its only sister for a song from a Russian museum during the crash of '99.  Sometimes you needed to send the sort of message that only a flying apartment block could convey.  Still, he would have preferred to arrive in the Silbervogel, his antipodal transport.  The runway at Desert Rock was just too short, though.  A problem that would have to be rectified if things went favorably.

Stepping through the helicopter's clamshell doors, Wilhelm saw that the press had already arrived.  Excellent.  The higher-ups at the Department of Energy were showing reluctance.  A little public pressure might force them to look on his proposal with more favor.  He pressed a button on a remote control and the helicopter deployed a podium and speakers.  The press knew why they were here, no sense wasting everyone's time.

"Good afternoon everybody.  You may wonder why I have summoned you here to this airstrip in the desolate wastes.  I have done so precisely because these wastes are so desolate.  For the past thirteen years the Department of Energy has let this reservation lie fallow.  They have no use for this land yet they will not sell it.  I will tell you why they will not sell it.  Ecological damage.  Three-hundred million curies of radiation contaminate this land..."

The members of the press exchanged some worried glances.

"...some of which has contaminated the water table.  Costly cleanup is required to make this land fit for habitation.  This state of affairs will not persist.  Kraken Heavy Industries has need of a large amount of uninhabited waste upon which to situate a facility.  I have offered the Department of Energy fair market value for Jackass Flats.  Furthermore, I have offered to remedy the ecological damage this site has suffered at my own expense.  This project will bring three thousand jobs and many millions of dollars in tax revenue to Nevada.  If the Department of Energy accepts my proposal, this section of the desert will bloom with progress.  If the Department of Energy rejects my proposal you will all have to ask yourselves one question.  Does the government hate jobs or just the environment?  I will now respond to a few questions."

"Mr. Kraken.  Isn't it true that you're in the business of marketing killbots to dictators?"

"That accusation is patently unfair.  Killbots are merely a small part of my business.  I also make confections suitable for small Midwestern girls.  Killbots and confections participate equally in my business planning, as do consumer electronics, pharmaceuticals, and many other products.  Perhaps you object to children and health as well?"

Before the newsman can respond, someone at the rear of the crowd raises quite the ruckus.  Protesters, around a dozen, bearing signs stating "God Hates You" and things more explicit and less well spelled.  One openly waves about an assault rifle.  Unsurprised, Wilhelm pushes another button on his remote.  A pair of killbots security drones trundle toward the mass on caterpillar tracks, each brandishing a four-barreled triethylaluminium dispenser.

"Please put down your weapon.  You have twenty seconds to comply."

"I think you'd better do what it says."
This message was last edited by the player at 05:44, Mon 07 Feb 2011.

The "gift" was a horrifying reminder for Gale that she would never be "human" again, at least, not the way most people seemed to want to define it.  Being nova was definitely to be other than human, apparently.  People could hate her.  She wasn't happy about it, but to needlessly cripple and kill animals was going too far.  It was her university all over again.  Except this time she wouldn't run away.

Around town, she fought hard to not respond to the insults.  Impetus had taught her that most of the time, arguing with those who will always be out to hate you won't work.  Imp, of course, had tricks to try to convert those to his cause, but Gale had no such luck.  There were a few days where even her growing happiness didn't keep her from snapping at one or two of them to leave her alone; she immediately regretted it.

The Michaelists, most of all out of any of the anti-nova groups, seemed to take a shine to bothering Gale.  More than once, an event that she held in the city, often on something completely unrelated, would have a crowd of protesters trying to drown her out.  She'd frown in frustration, but there wasn't much else she could do, other than do her best to keep going and ignore them.  Thankfully, none of them had erupted into violence.  Yet.  She wasn't quite sure what she would do if it did.

Phantasm stopped when she was about a 1000 yards from the event.  This is ridiculous, she thought to herself as she looked at the crowd of protesters that had grown around Gale's little global warming speach.  Phantasm had just stopped by to say hello and perhpas convince her former teammate to get a coffee so they could catch up, but Gale wouldn't be in any mood for a fun chat after listening to this. "I guess I'll just have to fix it so she doesn't have to listen..." she mumbled to herself as she started walking again.

"'Scuse me, coming through." she repeated again and again as she pushed to the front of the crowd.  At one point some of the protesters, realizing who she was, moved forward menacingly holding signs that could easily double as clubs but all it took was a cocked eyebrow and a look that said "do you really want to do that" to make them slink off into the crowd.  Once she'd gotten to the point between the protestors and the legitimate crowd gathered to hear Gale speak, Phantasm went to work.

The usual stomach churning green field of apparitions surrounded her before giving life to hundreds of tiny spiders equiped with pointy 3-fingered hands on each of their legs and faces eerily similar to those of the protestors.  The spiders moved quickly to the edges of the venue, spraying quantum silk on anything they could find, and stringing it in a rapidly growing web over the entire area between the two crowds.  By the time Gale's audience noticed and turned to look at her work, PHantasm was almost done.  The spiders were filling in the gaps in the makeshift wall with silk and random debris, creating a thick barrier that dulled the sound and appearance of the protestors along with blocking access to the open air venue.

When Phantasm turned to look toward Gale and found her staring back, Phantasm mouthed "See you after your speach?"

In just a few weeks Flare went from being bored and troubled to overwhelmed. The idea of doing anything Opnet sounded like a pipe dream that actually came true.  All the common desires, fame, fortune, fans (all the important f-words) were availible, along with possibly being able to help lessen the current hostility toward novas.  The military interest, while far more intimidating, was also flattering and gratifying.

The problem with both was not the offers or the people doing the offering, it was her.  She wanted to shine, be in the spotlight, and with so many of T2M either healing or simply taking time for themselves, she could have her chance. Though her powers provided an intelligence she'd never thought possible, they didn't give her the depth of understanding that her teammates seemed to possess.  She knew she was easily wound up, highly excitable, and mercurial in her emotions.  She didn't know if it was her eruption that caused it or if she was always that flighty, but she did know that she was easily manipulated and would be a threat to others if she trusted the wrong people.

At least Dillon's offer required no consideration.  She had been doing work in hospitals and trying to raise money for them since her healing powers had come to the front.  Some days she wished that had been the only power she'd developed, with healing there were no screams, and no smell of blackened flesh.  Helping with the hospital would let her give something back, she found Dillon right away to let him know. (worry over tapped lines and hypermovement had made it so she generally flew to wherever someone was rather than just picking up a phone)

"Hey, 'stock, if you've got a minute, I could use a little advice..." While she tried not to fit her teammated into catagories (she figured being labeled 'brother', or 'big sis' would bother the older members as much as being one of the 'new kids' bothered her) she had always thought that Dillon gave good advice, and generally thought things through.  She could use someone like that before making any monumental changes to her life.

Gale had noticed the green field of spiders rather quickly, but it took her a while to find her teammate's face in the crowd.  A smile emerged and she gave a grateful nod to Phantasm.  Managing these talks were hard enough without the religious propaganda machine working against her.

The speech was halfway through anyway.  "Um, yes, let's see, where was I..." the winged girl mused as she searched her notes.  It didn't take long to get back on track.  She wasn't a great speaker; Impetus could have given the same speech and it would have been remembered forever.  But Gale did at least have passion about the topic, and that carried through her words, and the crowd seemed to respond well to it.  It contained all the same little suggestions that other people who cared about the climate repeated: recycle, minimize water and energy usage, drive less, and so on.  Some of the ideas are very unrealistic for the desert city of Las Vegas, and others were more than appropriate.  For some reason, when they came from a Nova, people seemed to believe these suggestions more.  Her message was all about little things individuals could do to help the whole.

Afterward, as the crowd began to disperse, Gale stepped down from the dais, weaving through the crowd to Phantasm.  She smiled more broadly as she got closer.  "Phantasm!  How are you?"  Before she could argue, Phantasm was pulled into a hug, arms and wings wrapping around her.

The offices of Dillon's little charity had nice conference rooms.  He was funny about them, too, still fretting that his agent, Ms. Richards, spent too much money making things look nice.  Money that could go toward projects.  "Just Dillon, please.  Or buddy, bro, anything but the professional name.  I try to keep things subdued around here."  He popped open a fridge and offered her a coke.

"What's on your mind?  Decided you want in on this hospital thing?"  He put on a salesman's smile and found a chair.  "I can put your name on the front of the proposal or keep it off altogether, but either way I've got a guy talking to the mayor so I think it's a sure thing no matter how much money we scrape together."  By the first proposal he'd sent along to Flare, it was to be a non-profit hospital, a place for indigent and low-income patients to receive basics.  Just the thing a rapidly expanding metropolitan area with a real problem generating city revenue needed.

Phantasm cringed appropriately from the hug, perfect image of a young woman too cool for such displays, but she gave in to the older woman's affection after only token resitance.  After parting, Phantasm smiled and replied, "Well, I think I'm partied out finally.  A year's a long time to keep up the superstar life.  I thought I'd come here and see you and Dillan, take a break for a while.  If either of you have time that is.  Now that you're a world famous environmentalist making speaches and changing ecosystems, and he's a big shot in a suit closing business deals, I don't know if anyone has time for me anymore." 

The tone and fake pout were almost convincing, but the smile in her eyes said Phantasm was playing.  They all shared too much history to not have at least a bit of time for one another.

Gale grinned.  She didn't know how old Phantasm was, but the winged woman couldn't be that much older than her teammate.  Somehow, she always felt old.  But whenever Phantasm was around, she felt younger.  More like her teenage self that never got to blossom.  "Of course I always have time for you, Phantasm," she responded.  "World famous environmentalist or not, my condo gets lonely without someone to talk to.  And I'm dying to hear what everybody else is up to after a year.  Come on, I'll cook you dinner or something."  She pointed up to the high-rise building that her home in Vegas resided.  "We can walk or fly, your choice."

Phantasm pondered a moment (really more of a social nicety, she was done thinking about her answer before Gale even asked the question) before responding "I think the walk would be nice.  Even though I can sorta fly, or at least make something that can, people in cities just don't take well to the rotting pteradactyls or the centipede-dragons.  And it's a good day for a walk anyway."  After they started walking, Phantasm asked "So how're things treating you?  Heard you still consulted for Utopia..."

Gale nodded at the description that people wouldn't take well to Phantasm's powers.  It was true; the winged woman had only gotten used to it by repeated exposure. "Things are much better these days, actually," she answered.  "Really, anything's better than being in a plastic bubble.  But yeah.  Utopia asks me to help out with weather and climate related stuff from time to time.  Counteract a drought here and there, that kind of thing.  Humanitarian stuff.  Pretty sweet gig, actually.  They don't bother me very often, I get to spend the rest of my time doing what I want to do, and I still get a Utopia paycheck."

She paused a moment to look at Phantasm, and give her a friendly punch in the arm.  "I do miss you guys though.  And what about you?  I heard you were in movies and stuff these days.  That's got to be pretty rad."  A bit of Gale's surfer slang slipped in, a sign that she was relaxed and comfortable.

Gale and Phantasm's walk was pleasant.  But not uneventful.

A few blocks back, the Michaelists were rallying.  Phantasm could hear their arguments and the white noise of a crowd.  They must be following, their anger and courage restored by a short time away from police officers and Phantasm's 'mockery'.

As they walked it was hard for Phantasm not to return to the noise.  It was one of a dozen things she could keep in mind.  Was that the crunch of an aluminum can, or the chambering of a round into a pistol?  Someone's shoe on the sidewalk or the tearing sound of duct tape?  Downtown still had some ugly buildings and narrow streets, but in another three blocks they'd be back on the Strip where there were cameras everywhere and a twenty-four hour police presence.  Enough to prevent a scene.

Then, someone up ahead wearing a tacky religious t-shirt stepped out from around a corner.  He pointed a laser pointer at the two of them, shakily trying to paint a dot on their chests.  A smug, self-indulgent and violent smile played out across his face.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:18, Sat 12 Feb 2011.

For Phantasm the transition to combat was instinctive and instantaneous, at least to all but a handful of beings on the planet who could react faster than her.  She stepped in front of Gale even as the haunting glow of power surrounded her and the slight sound of popping bones and cartillege emanated from under her flesh.  Years of hard combat against more enemies than a baseline could easily count (she remembered every detail of each and every one) had made her wary and dangerous when surprised.

"Gale, shield now.  We're flying after all" Phantasm said without turning around.  If they could avoid this, they needed to.  She'd just managed to make people forget what she was capable of, and Gale didn't need anymore deaths on her conscience. And I don't either really, come to think about it.

Gale, unable to hear all the other warning signs that her friend had heard, and having dealt with these morons bothering her for months, put a hand on Phantasm's shoulder.  " 'Tasm, he's just a kid with a laser pointer.  Don't you think you're overreacting?"  Gale's voice exuded concern.  Had Phantasm gone through more in the past year than Gale knew?  Probably, but just how much?

"Come on, we'll just go around him.  Ignore him,"  she tried to lead the way across the street so they could avoid the guy.  Her combat instincts weren't as good anymore (a year without combat missions would do that) but the guy did look like he wanted to pick a fight.  Stupid of him, but she didn't want to get into that.

The idiot tried to work up a brave laugh, but he backed up in a hurry at Phantasm's display.  "Aberrant freaks!" he shouted as his disappeared around a corner.

He'd dropped his laser pointer in his haste.  A few people on the street stared.  No cameramen or reporters to make life miserable though.

"Sorry about that Gale, I just like to play it safe.  Too much time in combat I guess, still haven't totally adjusted to the civilian thing after all this time.  Any chance we could just fly to your place?" Gale would see the crowd gathering from the air probably, but no need to worry her if she didn't have to.

"No prob."  She held out her hand for Phantasm to take, and once they had a firm grip, she took off into the sky.  Gale wasn't super-strong like Solitaire, but she could still carry a young woman like Phantasm.  They flew in between the skyscrapers, to Veer Towers.  22 floors up, Gale hovered in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass, and pressed lightly against it with one hand.  The glass slid back and to the left.

"Custom mods," she explained with a grin.  "You first."  A swing tossed Phantasm into the living room, and Gale landed right after her.  "Sorry for the mess." She said as she closed the glass.

The condo was modern, decorated with clean lines and geometric shapes.  The colors at least were a bit brighter, blues and greens.  The living room and the kitchen were attached, presumably the bathroom and bedroom were down the halls.  It was located on a corner, so two of the walls of the living room were floor to ceiling glass.  The "mess" to which Gale referred was the pile of papers spread out on the coffee table, and a few dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:15, Sun 13 Feb 2011.

Passers-by watched in awe as the two lifted off and returned to the towers on the Strip.  Nova-sightings were common, and at least a few people snapped photos.  From the air, Phantasm could make out more of the Michaelists two blocks behind.  They seemed disappointed.

Still, it wasn't more than a minute or two after the pair arrived back at Gale's condo that another figure came zooming up to the tower.  A man with a jet-pack, a leather jacket, a helmet and a eufiber suit on underneath.  He knocked gently on the glass.

"Howdy neighbor!  Got room for one more?" he shouted over the roar of his engines.  He seemed familiar.  One of the new T2M:A guys?
This message was last edited by the player at 03:58, Sun 13 Feb 2011.

Gale turned to face the newcomer.  Did everyone in the world know her apartment and want to bother her at it?  She cast an eyeroll at Phantasm, as she walked over to open the secret glass entrance.

She let him come into the apartment, in the interest of not appearing rude.  "This is a bit private," she answered.  "Catching up with old friends, I'm sure you understand.  I'm afraid I don't know your name though."  She hated when people were familiar, and she couldn't place them.

He killed the engines, hopped inside and quickly removed his helmet to display sparkling white teeth.  "I'm Nick Powell ... but if anyone asks we're going with Johnny Afterburner."  Without hesitation, he extended a hand.

"I was just, uh, trying out the new jets and I heard some trouble.  Followed you here.  Everything alright?  Those protesters causing trouble again?  Because if they are, I can absolutely take care of it for you."  Now it was coming back.  He was moving into the Utopia base just last week.  Some plane enthusiast from Texas who erupted late last year.  The limit of enthusiasm as it approached infinity just might equal the man's face, since he clearly was enjoying this chance to talk face to face with veteran team members outside of official functions.  Perhaps realizing he was becoming obsequious, Afterburner tucked his helmet beneath his arm and backed up a step.  "I'm, uh, actually trying to go for a sort of civic defender image."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:32, Sun 13 Feb 2011.

Phantasm gave Gale a "It's ok with me" look when Nick asked to come in.  She didn't care, but didn't want to invite someone into a place that wasn't hers either.

"Nice ta meetcha Nick.  Thanks for looking out for us, I heard the crowd getting a bit out of hand behind us."  She said it with sincerity, though she personally doubted jet pack boy would have brought much to the table if it came down to a fight... But she could be wrong.  Now that she thought about it, she didn't know much about the newbies.  Wouldn't hurt to feel him and the rest of the new T2Mers out, get an idea of what they could do.

Gale relaxed visibly once he introduced himself and she remembered where he was from.  She hadn't even realized that her feathers had puffed up a bit.  Perhaps she was just a bit more paranoid when someone bothered her at her home.  She took the young man's hand and shook it firmly.  "Thanks for the offer, but I think we're ok now," she said with a smile.  "I'd rather nobody act against them unless they act first.  It'll just fuel their 'cause' more.  At the moment, they just make a bunch of noise."

She detached from the group for a moment to get glasses of water for everyone.  "Civic defender, huh?" she commented as she handed a glass to him.  It was an offer to let him continue talking about himself.  She momentarily wondered how long it would take him to burn out like the rest of her team had.

"I look the part, don't I?"  He spun in place for effect.  "I got good ears and eyes.  Regular sky patrols are the way of the future.  Especially with these hate crimes.  Either of you want to fly around the city with me sometime?  I've got a license from the FAA to take this anywhere in the fifty states."

Regardless of the responses, he downed his glass of water with gusto and graciously thanked Gale.  "I guess this is probably a bad place and time to be making new introductions, so I'll scoot.  Oh, there is just one thing that I ought to ask: either of you know a Nova by the name of Sparkle?  Friend of mine was supposed to get together with her for some dancing, but she never showed.  Wouldn't be worth mentioning except I started making phone calls and no one else has seen her either."  His eyebrows expressed the rest of his concerns: hope she hasn't done anything stupid or gotten herself killed.

The helmet went back on, and he base jumped out of the side of the tower, falling ten stories before activating his jet pack again and screaming away.

Phantasm held her comments until the sound of the jets died away.  Turning to Gale with a thoughtful look, she told the other nova what she knew of Sparkle. "You know, to be honest Sparkle seemed like a shallow bitch the few times I met her.  Almost got into a fight with her the first time.  It doesn't surprise me that she ditched him, but it's really weird that she wouldn't be easy to find, considering her high profile partying.  Huh.  Probably nothing...

So, you were telling me what you'd been up to."

"I'm not much into the party scene, so I have no clue who she is."  Gale said as she closed the glass behind their strange rocketeering visitor.  She moved to the couch, and sat down with a sigh.  "Was I?  Well, this is part of it.  My home in Vegas." She made a sweeping motion with her arm. She hadn't even noticed that they were originally talking about Phantasm when they were interrupted and her friend had now avoided the topic altogether.

"Oh yeah, I was gonna make you dinner."  The winged woman got back to her feet, moving to the kitchen.  She pulled ingredients from the pantry, glancing over her shoulder.  "It's a nice central location for my speeches and stuff.  And the base is nearby, in case they decide to pull me in for a mission.  My life's actually rather dull these days.  Speech here, conference there, go and make it rain in Africa sometimes."  She shrugged.

"That's good though, right?  I mean, it could be interesting instead.  Hastles galore.  Fighting in the jungles, living the life of an Elite.  Or maybe just cloak and dagger stuff.

So Flare's still on the team right?  How's she handling it, being the veteran and all?"

Another shrug.  "I suppose.  I don't think I could stand to do a lot of combat anymore these days.  Columbia sort of...burned me out."  She pulled out a cutting board and a knife and started working on chopping some onion and garlic.  "You like pasta right?"

"Flare?  She's doing ok, I guess.  I think she likes the idea of being the leader, but..."  There was another shrug, but there was the impression of something uncomfortable there.  She didn't want to go into detail.

At some point in the evening, Gale's phone showed a voice message.  Apparently an armed someone had tried to sneak onto her floor.  Security was holding them downstairs in case she wanted to press charges.  They claimed to have reason to suspect that either Gale or her guest was a target.

And as the sun went down, a small column of smoke could be seen rising into the sky from a building fire.  Somewhere in the new condominium blocks past the convention center where Gale was speaking earlier.

In a place unknown to the former and current members of T2M:A Suzukaze arrives for her first official meeting with Logan. She thought back to the New Year's party and how Logan had first approached her. Her mind flashed to the horrors of Columbia and Paul's message from the Assassin's. She remembered the pain Fire put her through and the attack on the Hot Springs. She remembered what she was. As much as she wanted to be a hero and to seek redemption for her past deeds their was no hope. She was a killer. She was death. Her redemption would not be saving lives, but of taking more. Taking the lives of those who try to ruin the world. T2M could not let her accomplish this. Logan's group could.

"Las Vegas is malfunctioning.  Killings, gang violence, arson, hooliganism.  Perhaps by changing the working parts we can build a different machine."

Negotiations had stalled.  It was time for a gesture of good faith to grease the wheels.  To that end, Wilhelm advanced across the proscenium and whipped a shiny silver sheet off of a collection of shrouded shapes with an exaggerated flourish.  Six killbots security drones were revealed, three caterpillar bots the size of small cars and three heli-drones.  All six were painted in LVPD black and white and bore the LVPD 'We Have Control.  We Keep You Safe.' slogan.  Wilhelm pushed a button on a remote and the sextet entered into demonstration mode, deploying water cannons and mace dispensers, activating lights and sirens, displaying x-ray backscatter images of the audience.  The Metropolitan Chief of Police stepped forward and Wilhelm handed over the remote, pausing midway for a photo op.

"With these hands of iron, Chief, there is no task you cannot do.  May this gift be the first step toward a better Las Vegas."

As Logan watched Suzukaze from the shadows, several minutes passed.  Once the rest of the team was certain that there was no one with her, he stepped out of the shadows.  "Glad you made it.  Was worried you'd reconsidered."  Logan was an intimidating nova, an inky blot of writhing eufiber encasing a grizzled male form.  As he spoke to 'Kaze, the eufiber on his face pulled back to reveal a haggard and lean face.  "So tonight's the trial run.  We have a little corporate espionage to perform, and then we're out.  If all goes well, you'll get your clearances and contact info.  You'll even get to meet the rest of our little sometimes-team.  Tonight though you just get to make do with me, and a loner from the criminal reform program."  Another man was apparently hidden in the shadows, because as Logan gestured, a Japanese man appeared to join them.  When he opened his mouth to speak, it was not his voice that reached 'Kaze's ears, but rather a far more familiar one.

"Hello Suzukaze, I'm so very happy you're safe," said Annette.

"Thank you, Hell Kraken."

Sheriff Bill Young stared sternly into the cameras as he took over.  Metro had been more than happy to arrange a press event for the gift, anything to restore the public trust in the wake of recent hate crimes.  "Since the Equatorial Wars and the Iraqi occupation, Kraken Heavy Industries has partnered with businesses and municipalities around the world to adapt KHI Drone Units to a variety of public uses.  These security drones will bolster LVMPD officers in a limited capacity during their trial period.  Their software has been vigorously tested to ensure that they are safe for public use, but we will proceed with the utmost caution until such a time as we are comfortable and practiced in their use."

He stepped aside, allowing the next speaker, the only one that Kraken had not had occasion to talk with in planning the new slogans and purchases with LVMPD.  The recently elected State Attorney General, Thomas Anders.  Hell Kraken found the man's reactions peculiar.  Very controlled.  He had scarring on his forehead, likely evidence of a shrapnel related head injury.

"On behalf of the state, I too would like to thank Hell Kraken for his generous gifts.  We have all seen the fighting capabilities of KHI Security Drones and eagerly anticipate positive results.  Before we open to questions, I'd like to say that the Government understands the sensitivity and extraordinary nature of recent events, and our new policies aim to address your fears directly."

The six drones finished their demonstration.  Anders changed gears.  "There has also been public discourse on the subject of vigilantism of late.  To those who have fallen so garishly in love with these vigilantes, this," he indicated the drones again "is our response.  The law exists to ensure the public order for all citizens, and vigilantism, no matter how well intentioned, remains illegal."

"In extreme circumstances, co-policing arrangements with Team Tomorrow remain in effect.  This is a safe community and a world city.  There is nothing to fear here."  Did he give the thumbs up to Hell Kraken as he stepped away from the podium?
This message was last edited by the player at 13:35, Tue 15 Feb 2011.

Phantasm allowed Gale to avoid topics that were uncomforatable.  Flare probably confided in Gale, considering they were still both part of Utopia, and Phantasm had no desire to violate that confidence.  Not that she wouldn't do so in heartbeat if it were a worthwhile course of action, but Phantasm couldn't think of any reason Flare's emotional turmoil was of any interest.

As the night moved forward, Phantasm tried to make small talk and relax her brain.  She did like Gale, and aside from minor groundwork for potential conversations later, there was no need for manipulation or subterfuge beyond the normal evasions regarding who she truly was... but that was second nature by this point.  It's good to relax, chat about fun stuff, and catch up with friends.  I should do this more often...

Just as Phantasm was beginning to really enjoy her evening and Gale's food, the phone beeped, reminding her that there was an unpleasant world out there just waiting to leap on them in a moment of weakness.  Phantasm came back to reality, scanning for details and danger.  When the smoke caught her eye, she pointed it out to Gale.  "Should we check it out?"

Solitaire wandered the streets of downtown Vegas aimlessly, not wishing to do anything more than reacquaint herself with the city. It wasn't her city, that would be Seattle, if she in fact had a city. It didn't really seem important, cities and people. They had their problems, but they weren't her problems, even so, she had taken them on for years. Let the baselines stand for themselves, or fall if they wanted. It made little difference to her. The world had changed, and they needed to find their place in it again, not have one made for them.

People stared as she walked past, it didn't bother her. The same with those few who cheered her or cursed her. Their opinion of her didn't matter. There was only one person who's approval she'd ever truly wanted, and she had been dead for years. Or mostly dead. Or perhaps not at all. Alexa tended to appear when Solitaire needed her most. Whether this was Solitaire going insane or some odd quantum-related phenomenon was still in question, but then, that wasn't really important either. What was important, was Solitaire approved of herself.

Her meandering course took her straight through a crowd of Michaelists protesting something or other. Even they didn't really bother her. A few aborted rants and glares were the best the crowd could manage with her in arms reach, and a simple quirked eyebrow was enough to clear a path for her.

In and of itself, Solitaire didn't have a problem with the Church of Michael Archangel. People feared that which they did not understand, it had ever been the case. What she took exception too were the high-powered rifle rounds the more fanatical ones tended to put through young nova's heads. She didn't condemn the whole group for it, in the same way she hoped people didn't condemn the Teragen for the presence of those like Shrapnel and Geryon. Still, if she ever caught one of the crazy ones... Turnabout was fair play after all.

She planned to look in on her local Cards while she was in town as well. Not that any of them knew it was her House of Cards. She'd started it mainly as a hobby, something to occupy her in the off hours, something to watch. A way to help those who didn't want her help, just wanted the opportunity to help themselves. She respected her Cards, was proud of them, and the possessive pronoun was a disservice to them. It may have been her idea, but the House of Cards had built itself. She liked to look in on them however, to see what they had made of her contributions. Some might see it as counter to the Teras she espoused. But she didn't see it that way. Solitaire was not their leader, was not responsible for them. They were their own people, that was the whole point of the exercise.

Kraken had spoken of Power. Solitaire didn't need power, it was simply a means. It had no value outside of what you could do with it. What Solitaire wanted, and wanted others to want as well, was Strength.

Gale was certainly happy to entertain and cook for her friend, even if it was simple college fair like her trusty Tomato-Artichoke Penne recipe.  Honestly, outside of T2M, she didn't really have any friends that she could just invite over to hang out and chat.  Her new condo was cozy, but lonely sometimes.  Perhaps that was why she had filled her life with so many new projects.

The phone message was an annoyance.  After the strange package, she didn't want to have anything to do with anyone who might be trying to do something to her.  She tapped out a quick reply saying not to press charges, but she'd want to see the report later.  She looked up as she hit the "send" button to see the smoke Phantasm was pointing out.

Standing up to get a better look, she turned and grinned.  "You up for it?  It'd be like old times.  Saving the world and stuff."  Before the world was full of serious life-threatening missions that ended in nuclear explosion.  She offered a hand to her friend, pulling open the secret glass panel with the other.

"Its been months since I've done anything other than stunts and bad acting.  Lets go do something that matters!"  Phantasm took Gale's hand, and shifted the eufiber that she always wore (damned thing wouldn't let go if she wanted it to) into a more aerodynamic form, something to provide a little lift and reduce the strain on the winged woman.

When the man stepped out Suzukaze looked at him emotionless. However when Annette's voice came from his lips her eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly. She turned taking a few steps towards him. She stared into his eyes.

"Annette?" She then threw her arms around the possessed body hugging it. "My god your out I can't believe it," she turns to Logan. "Is she out for good or does she have to go back? If everything goes good I want to be partnered with her.

Phantasm and Gale took to the sky, lonely figures against the city of light.  The fire had begun on a construction site for a new twenty-story condominium tower.  Unfortunately, a nearly finished one.  The sirens of incoming fire crews began to sing as the pair arrived.  Maybe another five or ten minutes before the hoses would begin spraying water.  From the look of it, the fire had probably started on the roof or one of the topmost floors, and chances were good that the fire department would be able to save surrounding buildings.

But this one was in trouble.  And there were people inside: Gale spotted someone near a window on the sixteenth floor.  Phantasm heard some shouting -- several voices, and one of them seemed to be speaking Latin.  There were two cars parked near the base of the building, and a single white panel van.  The cars were economy, dirty, with trash and junk visible in the rear windshields.

Whoever was by the window moved away quickly and fell out of sight.  The argument became barely audible as they neared the building.

"... someone's out there! ..."
"... got to get out of here ..."
"... him?  He told us to stay here until ..."
"... demon!  Why would you believe ..."
"... is bad ... really bad ..."
"... everybody calm down!  We can handle this! ..."

"...what on earth are they doing in there" Phantasm mumbled as she listened and calculated the structural integrity of the building, appropriate vector of approach, and created a 3-d schematic of the building in her mind.

"There's something weird going on in there, but we've still gotta save them. Hmm.  How much fine control your air control have?  A vacuum would put out the fire, but wouldn't be too good for the people inside... I can create some critters, but the people in there sound like they might panic if they saw anything too creepy.  And as the training vids tell us, fire and panic don't mix well."  Phantasm continued with a rapid stream of possible courses of action as they approached, but let Gale take the lead since her powers were tailor made for this problem.

Gale frowned as well.  She could see the people through the windows, but they moved away.  Why?  Wouldn't they want to be seen and noticed by the fire department?  Moving back inside a burning building didn't seem like the smartest idea.  Then again, as Phantasm had pointed out, people didn't always think rationally when in a dangerous situation like this.

"No, I think your critters might cause panic, like you said.  I can create vacuums around the fire, but I'll have to do it in pieces.  Best if I find the center."  She paused to set Phantasm down on the building next to the burning one.  "Can you do anything to put out the fire?  If not, maybe see if you can locate the people and secure a route out for them.  I'll work on finding the center and putting the blaze out.  If I run into any people, I'll see what I can do to send them your way."  This would be a lot easier if they had their headsets like when they were on the team, but as it was, this would have to do.

If Phantasm agreed, then the plan was in place.  Gale took off to go find a window she could break to get inside and find the core of the blaze.  If necessary, she'd activate her wind shield to protect her from the heat and smoke.

Phantasm nodded, and then gave Gale her best guess regarding the center of the blaze.  When Gale flew off Phantasm readied herself, taking in a deep breath, making subtle alterations to her body, and planning out her course of action.  She needed the people in there to trust her immediately, and the shield would make that next to impossible.  Same for any of her constructs.  And she couldn't be seen working at Sol's level of strength, people would get the idea she was hiding things... So no overt shifting either.  This is going to be a pain in the ass.

After a moment on the roof of the neighboring building, Phantasm moved.  She broke into a powerful sprint and then lept across the span between the two buildings, shattering the glass as she went through.  Phantasm rolled across the floor popping back up to sprint through the flames surrounding her as she headed for the stairwell.  Still on the same breath of air from when she entered, Phantasm raced up the stairs toward the people trapped in the flames and smoke.

Phantasm's leap put her on the fifteenth floor.  Microscopic slip of the foot at the last minute, otherwise she might have made it to the sixteenth directly.

"... you see that?! ..."
"... can't we get out of ..."
"Everybody stays!  Calm down!  It'll be fine!"
"We're going to die in here!"
"He'll come back for us."
"Fuck you!  I can't breath!"

Her skin crawled and she got a sense that this was potentially a very bad idea.  Cans that once held gasoline were discarded around here, half melted as the fire spread down the tower.  Doors hadn't been installed on the units yet, walls stood half-finished, but there was more than enough debris to conclude that someone had been living here a day or two.  Thunderbird and cheap beer cans, too.  Combined with the cars outside, there was no doubt that at least some of the people upstairs were to blame for the fire.  The missing information was why.  They were clearly surprised that a pair of novas had shown up so fast.  The Latin -- guy was chanting loudly now right over the argument and god would it kill that idiot to be consistent with his pronunciation? -- suggested religion was a factor.  Editing out the sound of the fire was a pain, she'd picked up enough to know there were three powerful voices -- two male, one female -- trying to convince the others to stay.  The woman probably had a revolver, there was a click like she was tapping it on something.

The stairwell was fireproofed appropriately, however.  Apart from choking smoke, it was safe for now.  And she guessed that nothing below the 15th floor was on fire yet.  Which made the people sitting upstairs even dumber.  Thinking fast, Phantasm guessed eight or nine voices.  Their coughs were distinctive enough.  They were all standing around in one of the condo units with a clear shot at the stairwell, so what the hell were they doing?

-

Farther up, Gale forced her way into the building, the winds at her disposal pushing back smoke and flame.  It looked like the fire had begun on the 20th floor alright.  Most of the ceiling had fallen in, and so had a bunch of the floor.  As she brought on the wind, bits of debris were thrown from the tower and an eruption of smoke fired out in all directions.  Driving the oxygen away robbed the heart of the blaze.  And another moment's work chilled the air.  Child's play.  Small fires on the top five floors or so might reignite the structure as a whole, but that would be it.

It didn't take much to guess that this fire was man-made, though.  Her mind tumbling once more over the details, Gale got the same unsettling sense that coming was a very bad idea.  True, no one else would have been able to put out the fire so quickly.  True, baselines weren't much of a threat.  But baselines generally didn't paint a pentagram on the floor of a half-finished condominium or sacrifice goats.  This was very, very out of the ordinary.

As she cleared the air, however, something leapt out of nowhere and slammed straight into her.  Red skin, horns, yellow cat's eyes.  Scales.  Hard to tell, the guy moved fast, nearly as fast as she, and hit like a ton of bricks.  She was bleeding from somewhere too.  Spurs on his hands.

"As righteousness tendeth to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death," he said.  "Do you understand?  Do you understand?"  Her eufiber was torn up.  She replayed the last few seconds in her head: he must have come in through a window, jumped or flown, and another hit like that and she felt certain she could die.  "Do you renounce evil?  Do you?  Tell me now!"

In reply to Suzukaze (msg #37):

"She just has a day pass.  And that has some conditions on it, namely that the attuned bomb inside her head will go off if she tries to take off on us.  Even when she phases, it travels with her, and if it explodes it'll kill her either way.  The wonders of Utopia R&D."  Logan lit a cigarette as he talked, eufiber peeling back to reveal scarred skin as he held the cigarette in his mouth.

"Anyway, we're on a schedule.  The plan for tonight is to set this 'known agent of organized crime' down in the Kraken facility they've got going up here in the great state of Nevada.  While he's getting caught 'sneaking in,' we'll be actually be inside taking a look at how closely Kraken is following Utopia's tech guidelines, and seeing if there's anything useful to steal.  Then we get the hell out of there and leave this jerk to die.  Given the blood on his hands, KHI killbots are actually a pretty merciful death.  Better than I'd give him anyway..."

Logan's conversation tapers off, though it's hard to tell if he's lost in memory, or staring intently at 'kaze to see her reaction.  His eufiber masked even his body language, and the mouth holding his cigarette was a hardened line revealing little.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:01, Thu 17 Feb 2011.

Suzukaze looks saddened when he mentions it is just a day pass. When he mentions the bomb  she just stares at Annette in shocked horror. She listens however to his description of what is to go down during the mission. Her face turns serious though as she looks to Logan...

"Is that all it seems almost too easy. I've waited so long for this. I have no problem doing as you ask. But as I mentioned on New Years I need help. There are three things I want I don't care when or how they come about. One is Annette being free and being on a team with her. The second is I want to put an end to the Assassins except for Void as he can be useful. I especially want Fire's head. The last is I want Shiro returned to me. You talk the wonders of R&D when they make this bomb. They should be able to fix him. Let's get going we're wasting precious time.


She shifts her eufiber so hopefully she is unrecognizable by any surveillance. The black overwhelms the purple. It crawls up her neck and her mask dissolves around her face covering her head.

Here, near the source of the fire, the walls, the ceiling, even the floor, were crumbly in places.  It didn't take much to make them fall apart.  So, of course, when that...whatever he was...slammed into her, she went through several walls before one finally stopped her.  Covered in ash and soot, she tried to play it cool as she got back to her feet.  She had to think fast.  What did this guy want?  Words about righteousness and evil...what was he talking about?  She didn't have a lot of time, and she couldn't take another hit.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
12:24, Today: Gale rolled 2 successes using 5d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 3,2,9,8,1. Wits. Fire demon?.

---

"Ok, big guy, just hold on a second,"  she said, holding her hands up.  The motion served two purposes: to try and let him know she didn't want a fight, and to be ready in case she had to.

Phantasm stopped before charging up the stares, her gut telling her that she needed to think about what was going on.  While not a flashy ability, her instincts had saved her on numerous occassions, and she suspected they were another quantum power that activated when she errupted.  She observed the scene, and listened to the Latin chant that she could barely translate (she was fluent, but the guy was an amazingly bad speaker); she surmised pretty quickly that these guys were probably not innocent victims.  "So much for not scaring the locals..." Phantasm said as she kicked into motion again, her irritation and the stress of the situation manifesting as a glowing green miasma of screaming souls around her.  She shifted her body too, going beyond the minor adaptations to alter her skeleton and musculature, gaining speed, strength and agility.

Phantasm bolted up the stairs and slammed through the door without stopping, spraying pieces of the door across the room.  Hopefully it would provide a distraction while she took in every detail of the room she had barged into.  She was annoyed at the stupidity of these idiots even as she enjoyed the chance to use her abilities, and she planned on informing whoever caused this mess of exactly how irritated she was...

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

previously activated adaptation, activating multitasking and quickness to get all this done in a round or two, activating shield, shapeshift, and twisting eufiber into old uniform + claws on instinct [watch T2M try and sue over it...]

Shield: You rolled 3 successes using 10d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 ((5,10,8,6,1,5,10,1,5,5)).
=6

Shapeshift: You rolled 4 successes using 11d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 ((10,8,2,8,1,2,1,6,4,6,9)).
=8 (go with something simple for this one: str +2, dex +2, armor +3, and perception +1)

Break down the door: You rolled 3 successes using 5d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 ((10,7,2,10,6)). +15 for Mega-strength.
=18
quantum use: 8

---

"Welcome to the Nevada Test Site, a division of Kraken Heavy Industries, pilgrim!"

The killbot tour guide is programed with the rough, vocoded equivalent of the vocal mannerisms of John Wayne circa Rio Bravo, which is strange.  It could be worse.  They could have gone with The Conqueror.

"You can call me Chance!  You'll have to keep all hands, feet, and objects inside the crawler at all times.  It's for your own protection!"

The crawler sets off to tour the various sites of interest to tourists.  The blasted sands of Yucca Flat where bots can be seen scooping contaminated soil into dump trucks.  The Storax-Sedan crater.  The freshly refurbished, 1527 foot tall BREN Tower.  There really isn't that much to see, though.  Probably why they did nuclear weapons tests here.

Then comes the highlight of the tour.  The crawler trundles up next to a sizable steel building, one of the few fresh constructions on Jackass Flats that are actually complete.  A network of conveyors shift finely-ground soil out of the building.  The air above its roof shimmers from heat despite the relative coolness of winter in the desert.  The building isn't what the tourists came to see, however.  Right behind it, though, is another finished site, the rocket test range.  A KHI press release several weeks back announced the resumption of work on NASA's 1972 NERVA prototype under the aegis of KHI's Super-NERVA project.  Today is the big day, the day of the test.  A heavily modified Energomash RD-171 engine lies on the test pad.  The engine's four combustion chambers have been replaced with a single transparent chamber made out of a massive monocrystal of corundum.  A bare nuclear reactor glows a dull red within.  The corundum was obviously far too expensive to be used in the production engine (not to mention completely unnecessary), but the scientists thought it desirable to observe matters directly in the prototype.

"Now put on your goggles, pardners.  Believe me, they do something."

At the appointed time, the hafnium-diboride rods are pulled and the reactor goes in an instant from a dull red to a bright blue.  Explosive charges start the turbopumps spinning and liquid hydrogen floods the chamber, cooling the reactor down to the color and brightness of the Sun, before exploding out of the nozzle.  There is no flame, though, at least not initially.  The flame only comes when the 6500 K hydrogen contacts the air.  The noise is tremendous, the crowd is amused, the test is successful.

"Wasn't that fascinating, pardners?"

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
If someone's going to be digging around on site, they might as well have something to work with.

---

This message was last edited by the player at 11:17, Fri 18 Feb 2011.

“Thanks…Dillon” She fidgeted just a bit.  It would be nice to transition between the rolls she tried to play so easily.  Ah…coke.

“I don’t mind being on the proposal or off; just whatever will make it more likely to go through.  The city needs this, and I really want to do anything I can to help.”  She had done her research,  looking into what could be done, and what would be needed, hoping somehow the two would meet.

“With the anti-nova sentiment running rampant, it would be great to have some positive events that are newsworthy.”  She glanced casually around the room, eyes settling on the potted plant, sofa chairs, and comfortable lighting.  It was nice to see that her friends were doing well, and doing well for the baseline community.

“I think the non-profit would be a great way to boost the safety and economy of the region.  I wondered what you thought about having a trauma bay in it though.  It would be a good way to help with some of the violence in the city, as well as boosting interest in the hospitals creation.”

She also wanted very badly to do more with her healing powers, but anything beyond her late-night volunteering/healing could bring a world of trouble.  She had learned that while healing her comrades in the heat of battle could be easily overlooked by the news, a few miraculous healings and she would be faced with a sea of injured, all demanding treatment.  It would wipe her out and possibly destroy her when she had to turn people away.

Shaking herself from her musings, Flare continued, “I’m in and I’ll do whatever I can to help.  Thanks for including me, Dillon, it’s nice to be involved in something that gives back to the world.”

"Ohmygod!"

The door splintered, but compared to Phantasm the people inside were slow to react.  Nine people standing.  Two tied to chairs.  The two in the chairs were tied up and gagged, and Phantasm recognized them as Michaelists from earlier.  The standing figures were starting to have a hard time with the smoke.  Three had their backs to the door -- the ringleaders -- while the other six looked like goth rejects.  It was the t-shirt that gave it away.  I sold my soul to Astaroth ... and all I got was this fucking t-shirt.  These were tools, probably inspired by nova rants and self-indulgent bullshit to get excited with some gasoline and duct tape.

The splinters began to impact the leather jacket of the loudmouth ringleader who kept telling everyone else things were going to be fine.  Before the last splinter hit the ground she could probably kill every one of them.  Only one of them had a gun, and she didn't look trained.  As they turned, Phantasm could read surprise from their expressions.  The ringleader babbling in Latin was more than a bit shocked and started calculating how he could talk his way out of this one, probably because she wasn't the police or the ally that they'd been arguing about.

Time to save the day.  Gale ought to be done with the fire ... though it might be worth finding her and sticking together ASAP.  If someone else set this up, than the two of them might be crashing a party and at risk.

-

The guy was a nova, that much was sure.  And he was referencing the bible.  Reluctant to kill her?  Seeking atonement?  If Gravitas and Dr. Zero were right about nova psychology, he probably thought himself a demon.

Whatever he was, he came on strong.  It took less than a second for him to charge, weave in under her guard and slam his horned head directly into Gale's face.  "Wrong answer."  Things got dark ...

"You were part of something that gave back.  Project Utopia."  Dillon fished around the desk, trying to find paperwork.  He'd never quite gotten the hang of filing.  "Sorry.  I try to do good here, I just don't like to think we wasted our time."

"Okay, so basically you'll want to read this.  Or, if you really, really trust me just pen in how much money you're putting into this thing and sign on the last page."  He got up, checked the windows, locked the door to the office.  Privacy mode.  "I think I know who I could call about getting some trauma doctors.  Just expensive.  UMC has a trauma center, but I think it's the only one between here, LA and Phoenix."

"So ... since I don't want to spend more of my day than I have to on this kind of thing, how's the rest of things?  You said you wanted advice, so ... ?"

In reply to Operations (msg #49):

As wood chips and smoke hung suspended in the air, Phantasm contemplated the coming moments.  The gun would have to go first, and then all of these idiots needed to be taken downstairs.  Preferably unconscious, as that would limit the amount of their vitriol she'd have to listen to.  She planned out her movements, mapping out the room and her path through it: continue sprint, clothesline the two closest to the door, kick the doorknob as it hits the floor, dislocating the shoulder of the woman holding the gun before spinning her and hitting the man next to her in the face.  Grab the aggressive one already preparing for a rush, throw him into the two by the window, weave over to the otherside of the room, palm heel to the solar plexus of one of the michaelists' guards, long-hand punch to the kidney of the half-turned guard further back.  Run to the stairs while trailing a sheet of green energy that solidifies into an undulating membrane coated in thousands of small tendril leg-fingers who's only goal would be to rescue those inside the building. Rolled up it would be smaller than a grown man, but unfurled it could envelope several of the prisoners and float them down to the ground safely before climbing back up to rescue any left behind, leaving Phantasm free to climb the stairs and find Gale.  Turn around before running up, and warn anyone left standing that they either hitched a ride on Sheety, or burned to death painfully and slowly.

Plan solidified, Phantasm moved into action. God, it's so nice to be work at normal speed for a change...

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

Activate Quickness and Multi-tasking, take 7 actions on first, 1 on second.

The dice, they hate me. with a few exceptions it should be enough to hit people though.  Anyone left standing at the end should be frightened enough that they'll comply though hopefully.

Clothesline: ((6,2,3,2,1,4,6,10,5,8)). +1 reroll 10 =3
Clothesline: ((8,10,3,8,7,8,9,10,5)). +0 reroll 10 =10
Doorknob + Ricochet: ((5,1,2,3,9,2,8,2,9)). =3
Grab: ((4,10,4,5,9,4,6,3)). =4
Throw: ((3,4,2,5,2,1,10,4)).+0 reroll 10 =1
Palm: ((9,4,3,2,10,2,7)). +1 reroll 10 = 5
Punch: ((7,2,2,6,5,9,1)). =3

Q.Construct: ((1,3,6,8,4,4,6,2,9,3)). +1 Will =4
size 1, sentient, 10 nova points (mega str 1, Patagia, adhesive grip, 4 maimed health levels)

Scare remaining goons into cooperating: ((10,3,9,4,10,6,8,7,9,1,5,1,1)). +1 reroll 10 = 10

---

Even with her quick reaction time, she didn't have a witty response to his question before he came at her again.  A leap, a duck, a twist.  She didn't have a chance to get a hit in.  Just when she thought she might have the chance, she turned, coming face to face with him just as he hit her.  Spots filled her vision as she stumbled back.  Man, he hit hard.  How could she go down so easy?  "Phan....tasm..." she mumbled before she slipped to the ground, unconscious.

The woman dropped the gun.  The room exploded in well planned high speed violence.  Sheety came into being and gave a protective moan.  The final terrifying pronouncement shattered any resolve they may have had left.

"Holy shit, that was Phantasm!"
"Who the fuck cares, let's do what she says and get out of here."
"I ... I can't breathe."
"Come on.  You have to survive this so I won't feel guilty when I break up with you."

But the Phantasm was already tearing around the stairwell.  Her changed lungs pumped smoke and ash in and out and her eyes glazed over to prevent hot embers from scorching them.  She reached the destruction on the 20th floor just in time to make eye contact with the demon nova, wreathed in flame, standing over Gale's body.  He'd done a number on her.  Fast too.

Phantasm was faster, but she still had to clear a whole room.  In one hell of a hurry, he knelt and vanished in a flash of brimstone, taking Gale with him.

Phantasm read the details of the fight in the physical evidence left behind.  Whoever this man was, he was improvising and didn't want a real fight, let alone one with Phantasm.

-

The fog of ages parted, and Gale found herself staring at her own knees through a black bag in a very dark room.  Her hands were tied behind her, and her ankles were tied to the chair.

Light came from beneath a door, she guessed.  And someone was arguing outside.  She hadn't been here long.  The bruises told her that much, and she didn't think she'd lost much time.

Anger.  It wasn't an emotion she was used to.  Sure, she had the dull anger that everyone did at the grand horrors of the world; given the scope of her mental abilities, she probably experienced more than her fair share of that.  And of course she had the minor bouts of irritation boardering on rage that people get when they're cut off in traffic or have to wait in line for a new cashier to learn to operate a register; again, given the speed of her thoughts, she experienced this sensation in spades.  But full on anger, the kind that resulted from completely thwarted will or a loved one in danger, that she was unused to.  She held in her anger long enough to take in the full scene and commit it to memory before taking out her anger on the building.  Enhanced strength shattered walls and shook the building for several seconds before Phantasm burst out a wall, allowing gravity to provide her with a fast exit.  She didn't bother taking precautions, she just let herself hit the ground at full speed and relied on her shield and enhanced durability for protection.

This was bad, and it royally pissed her off.  Calling Sheety to her side, Phantasm pulled out her cellphone as she approached the nova's lackeys, sending a text to the only other people she knew who might have insight into how to find Gale.

To: Quentin Abernathy; Doctor Zero
Msg: In Vegas at [INSERT ADDRESS], Gale kidnapped by 'porter, need to find her ASAP. Call anyone you think can help, I've got people to interrogate...

Message sent, Phantasm moved forward menacingly.  Like she'd said, she had people to interrogate...
This message was last edited by the player at 06:47, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

Police and fire crews were just down the road, and the would-be Satanists were trying to start the engines on their three cars and get the hell out of there.  Sheety was getting in the way, though, and half of them were unconscious or too dazed to beat an effective retreat.  With Phantasm's arrival from the sky via deadfall and apparent subsequent resurrection, the coughing, bruised and miserable goons were cowed into stillness once again.

The big guy that she'd clotheslined, the one who couldn't conjure with Latin to save his soul, actually had the gall to try to walk up to her.  "Phantasm ... Phantasm I am really, really glad you came when you did.  We, uh, we all are.  We're just going to get some medical attention for the smoke inhalation and and and get out of here so the professionals can do their job.  Thank you.  So much.  I really can't thank you enough."  Real talker.  He got away with shit for a living.  Probably maintained himself off of the generosity of others while espousing some cultish ethic of strength and exploitation.  He had a greasy goatee, sunglasses, and the sort of clothes that gave a bad name to concert goers and occult enthusiasts everywhere.  In panic, people generally cease to be effective liars, and from his face this guy thought that if he was lucky Phantasm would let them go for now, probably giving him enough time to get out of town and look up some other friends to hide him.

The two Michaelists were alive, and free of their gags and chairs.  They were busy hacking their lungs out.

She wasn't often tempted to kill people.  Really, she wasn't.  She'd done it, a part of war and all that, but she didn't really enjoy it most of the time.  This jerk would be an exception.  People like this, the ones that lead others to their deaths and worse, these were what made the world the shitty place it was. He wouldn't be worth talking to, and the mood she was in it would be safer for everyone if she didn't.  "Sheety, hug this prick. He's in danger of hurting himself."  She moved to the others.

"What happened here?  Lie to me, I'll know, and you'll regret it.  My friend is gone, and I DON'T HAVE TIME TO FUCK AROUND! Give me ANY information that can help me find her, tell me about the wannabe devil nova you were working with, and do it fast."  As she yelled at the frightened cultists, her shield moaned in harmony, punctuating her points with the cries of damned souls.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
I don't have a high charisma, but I figure between manipulation, analyze weakness, and seeing displays of raw power, the kids will be fairly compliant.

---

Wilhelm was used to making deals with peculiar fellows.  There was that one warlord in Nigeria, Kogbara, that insisted on being addressed as the Pope of Jos and could only be bribed with fanciful hats.  Still, it never paid to assume eccentricities were harmless.  Now that he could threaten KHI assets, Anders would have to be watched.  Now Wilhelm was glad he had insisted on developing a backdoor for the killbots that could be pushed through in a firmware update.  It really helped with the old piece of mind.  The backdoor would never be found nor even seriously suspected.  The firmware was open source after all.  If you'd inserted a subroutine into the bot's compiler that inserted backdoors into other programs during compilation and simultaneously inserted itself into the compiler when the compiler was compiled, though, it didn't matter what the source code said.  You'd have to go through the machine code and that would take years with a codebase the size of Killbot Linux, even for a nova.  Hopefully the backdoor wouldn't have to be pushed, but you never could tell.

A matter for another day, though.  What needed to be done now was recharging the laser.  After the first few thousand meters of Nevada bedrock, the TBM stopped cutting it, figuratively and literally.  Too much heat that deep.  The hydraulics just couldn't take it.  The laser, however, could vaporize its way through the rock like butter in a foundry regardless of depth.  Every hour the laser was out of fuel was another thirty meters lost and there were still thirty-one kilometers to the Moho.  No borehole to the Moho, nowhere near enough power to run the completed Jackass Flats Facility.  That was why Wilhelm was standing before the newly completed Olympic-size swimming pool at the KHI worker's housing facility in Mercury in the dead of night.  The ethylene was easy to get, as was the nitrogen trifluoride.  The deuterium was another matter.  Wearing a robe over his carapace and bearing a staff, Wilhelm started intoning.

"Behold his mighty hand!"

The heavy water in the pool took one step to the right, the ordinary water took one step to the left.  The robe and the staff really didn't have anything to do with the Maxwell's Demon job, but Wilhelm had always had a flair for the dramatic and a respect for the films of Charlton Heston.  Besides, no one was watching.  Extending a separator across the length of the pool, Wilhelm released his control of the water, now safely divided into its constituent parts.  A bit of pumping and there would be enough deuterium to last the next few weeks.  Only a couple of months more and the Jackass Flats project could proceed properly.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:01, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

In reply to Suzukaze (msg #44):

Logan stared at Suzukaze for a long moment.  "We'll see about getting your boyfriend taken care of, but I'm not part of the medical crew so I can't really tell you if that'll be possible.  As far as Annette's concerned, whether she eventually goes free is all on her; sorry sweety, ain't your decision.  Murderers don't just get a free pass, but if she keeps behavin' you'll get the chance to work with her often.  And your last request... Well, we've got plans for that, I think you'll be happy when you hear them.  But yeah, we should get going, you're right.  Time to hitch a ride..."

Logan gestured for them to follow into a nearby alley, where an angry looking nova stood waiting, features hidden behind a eufiber mask.  As soon as they approached, the nova opened a dull orange portal to what appeared to be the inside of the KHI facilities.  Logan gave the man a menacing glare and said "Be sure you open it on time, and in the right spot.  Fuck us over, you'll live a long time regretting it."

After the group went through, Annette broke off, following orders of her own.  Logan and 'Kaze were free to explore the base.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Okay.  I'm going to see if Kraken wants to describe some of the base and its hurdles (he's already been doing a good job of that, but I figure he might like the chance to respond to your actions).  Annette will be distracting some of the facility's security by utilizing the body of the super-strong nova she's possessing, so 'Kaze and Logan's job will be to get info on the place, and steal stuff of value.

---

"I don't know anything!"
"Wait, we're on the same side!"
"Okay, calm down!  It ... it was Belphegor!  He promised us he'd come back and we'd have real power."
"He's the sixth!  The end is neigh.  You can't win, because Astaroth-"
"Brandon shut up!"
"Look, it's this guy who called himself Belphigor, okay?  Please don't hurt me anymore!"

Sheety wrapped itself lovingly around the big ring leader and rocked back and forth humming slightly deranged lullabies.  The goons weren't much help though. The woman with the dislocated shoulder, for instance, was too terrified to make a sound but when prompted to speak up could only manage tears and whining about how much it hurt.  The rest talked over each other, alternatively pissed off at how bad this had gone down and terrified beyond belief.

The teenage girl of the bunch eventually stepped away from the others and found some courage.  "We were counter-protesting.  That demon guy appeared and he seemed really cool, okay?  We just figured we'd scare that Michaelist couple and make a little fire.  Richard called it sending a message."  The whole idea seems lame to her now and she's wondering if her whole life will be screwed up from this.  Prison time never really occurred to her before an hour ago or so.  At least she's resolved in fessing up now.  "The others think he's a demon ... but I think he's probably just a nova.  He knew a lot of stuff, but it looks like he left us out to dry."

Police and fire crews began pouring onto the scene.

Gale came back to consciousness quickly.  She had a bag on her head, and was tied to a chair.  She'd been kidnapped.  Damn!  That demon nova must have something to do with it.  Had he hurt Phantasm?  Had he kidnapped her too?  Probably not, she decided.  Phantasm was even quicker than Gale, and if the guy had been a match for the winged woman, there was no way he could beat her friend.

She needed to be quiet now.  It was difficult, she couldn't tell if she was still bleeding, and the position she was tied in was awkward.  They didn't seem to have tied her wings at all, but that wasn't much help.  Using her great flexibility, and her sharp claws, she started trying to wriggle her hands free.  She needed to be quick, while her captors still thought her passed out.

Slipping through the initial portion of the facility were easy for Logan and Suzukaze.  Both were well equiped for the job, and both had a knack for staying hidden.  But their time was limited, and the facility was large.  After a short while, Logan ambushed one of the facility's automated workers, pulling a device out of his suit similar to a standard flash drive, and slamming it into one of the robot's ports.  15 seconds and a reboot later, the robot was under their control.

"Suzukaze, meet our new tour guide."

Voices came from just outside the door.  The demon and someone else.  Other voice was yelling.  Just far enough away to be a pain to hear.

"... out, right now! ..."
"... out of the question!  You should know better!"
"... maybe THEY can figure out what in God's name we're supposed to do now."

The lack of Nova-Class ears is really a pain right now.  Doesn't matter much.  Gale's not in proper restraints, and with a little twisting and cutting her nimble hands are sliced free of the zip ties and duct tape they hoped to bind her up in.  Her wings weren't bound either.

Once the hood was off, she could see that she was in a cramped closet.  There were even some brooms and cleaning supplies still in here.  Light did, indeed, enter from beneath the door, and a large cross was painted on the inside of the door.  No windows.  Just shelves, cheap cleaning supplies, wooden folding chairs, music stands, and her.

Once freed, it became clear exactly how hard of a beating she'd taken.  Her sinus cavity ached, and there was dried blood beneath her nose.  Her forearms were swollen and turning black -- defensive wounds from the brawl.  Her wings and back ached from the impacts too.  No cell phone.  And standing brought on a pleasant, light feeling that left her swaying and in search of balance.

Naturally, the door was locked.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:34, Wed 23 Feb 2011.

Of course.  Of course the door was locked.  She could just try to kick it down, but that probably wasn't a good idea given how woozy she was feeling.  She took a moment to wipe the blood from her face and pressed her ear against the door.  Maybe when they came to check on her, she could take them by surprise.  But she needed to be ready, and that required her to listen in.  Maybe she could find out more about who had kidnapped her.

Phantasm texted while she talked.

To: Frostburn, Gravitas, Zero
I need info on a Nova going by the name Belphigor, has a demon-themed power suite.  RESPOND SOON, THIS IS IMPORTANT, GALE IS IN TROUBLE.  Zero and Grav, I could still use a 'porter for fast transport.
Also, I will make your life miserable if at least one of you doesn't text me back in the next 2 minutes.

Damnit, I'm going to have to do this myself.

At least one of the idiot cultists had a little bit of sense. "So, we'll ignore the truck-full of stupid it takes to resort to kidnapping and arson just to scare some people.  Just tell me anything you know about where this nova might have gone, and any other novas he might associate with."

A text appears back on Phantasm's screen:
Acknowledged. ETA 3.65 minutes. it said.

On the other side of the door, Gale heard more people milling around.  Her short time with T2M had conditioned Gale to recognize the sound of automatic weapons being moved, assembled and cleaned, and she heard at least one person doing just that.  Useful knowledge in case she tried to get out of here herself.

Someone called Belphigor, and she heard his footsteps getting farther away.

"You think he's in trouble this time?"
"Sister Mariah will decide."

---

The young woman was quite afraid of Phantasm, but seemed to understand that Phantasm was at least on the side of law and order.  "I don't really know.  He promised power.  Like we'd learn how to erupt.  Power like you have.  We just had to hurt them the way they hurt us.  He'd come sometimes when we summoned him."    She chewed her lip and swallowed, trying to hold together in the face of he moaning green aura.  Her eyes traced onto the ringleader -- probably the Richard she mentioned -- as a police officer tried to get the Sheety to release him.  Another officer was standing a polite distance behind Phantasm, waiting for a safe chance to ask what the hell was going on.  "We thought we were getting close to controlling him."

"I ... I don't know where he went in between.  You could blink and miss him he was so fast."  She was really wracking her brain.  Maybe she thought Phantasm would help her get off the hook?  Yeah, probably.  "He always smelled like rotten eggs and church incense."

Phantasm felt a bit of sympathy for the girl.  She didn't like anything the kid had done (haha, "kid," she's probably older than I am!) but her desire for power in a world full of novas was understandable.  What would I do for power, if I lost mine?

"Ok. At least you've got some sense.  I'll note your help when I write my statement...  Damned paperwork, supposed to go away when I quit." Phantasm mumbled to herself as she walked toward the officers arriving on scene.  She let the shield fall away, but retained the subdermal bone plating.  One couldn't be too careful.  As she approached she cooed at Sheety, letting it know it did a good job before it reintegrated into her dissipating forcefield and was gone.  Did I just give a part of my subconscious a pat on the back, or do the constructs have a mind for the short time they exist?  If they do, what does that mean...?

She let the ringleader fall to the ground and tried to ignore the jerk while she spoke to the cops.  She informed them of the bulk of the details, suggested that there might be some nova mojo at work making the idiots do what they did, and informed them of an unknown nova assailant.  She pointedly didn't comment on Gale's kidnapping however.

The attack was novel.  Had it been made against one of the run-of-the-mill ROV-3C killbots patrolling the streets of Baghdad or Vegas it would have been successful and gone unnoticed.  KHI used the superficially similar ROV-3D model for facility security, though.  The only difference was an added circuit board buried deep in the body of the bot, but that addition was important because it provided redundant processing, storage, and communications.  It didn't have the power for path determination, signal processing, or any of the other computationally intensive tasks that the bot's main computer handled, but there was more than enough power for the intrusion detection heuristics, hardware interlocks, and telemetry uploader.  Killbot #187 thus had some processing to do on reboot.

Guru Meditation:  80000073
Task 0x2f736aed ("Kickstart")
generated an error of type IUF (Invalid Unsigned Firmware)
on address 0x00000001
Flash is corrupted
NVRAM is corrupted
System halted

How peculiar.  The firmware residing on the primary SSD wasn't signed using the correct key.  Moreover, the media sensor was reporting the presence of a drive in Maintenance Port #0.  The intrusion detection heuristics indicated a 97% probability of a hijacking attempt.  Killbot #187's redundant processor core could restore the firmware from known good PROMs, but Killbot #187 wasn't programmed that way.  The bot instead shot off an encrypted panic call on the auxiliary Opnet channel, then dumped system memory, sensor telemetry, and a copy of the fraudulent firmware to the central computer.  47 milliseconds later, Killbot #187 received a response.

Run Pooh_Bear

Well, that explained things.  Some sort of attack on the facility was underway.  The central computer would know best how to handle the situation.  For now, Killbot #187's orders were clear.  Firstly, it allowed the execution of the fraudulent firmware, but activated the weapons system control servos interlock.  Any attempt to activate the taser, water cannon, mace dispenser, or baton projector would prove unsuccessful.  Secondly, Killbot #187 set the motor control unit to degrade cross country performance by 1.75% immediately and to degrade performance in further 1.75% increments at random intervals.  Lastly, Killbot #187 connected to the peer-to-peer distributed sensor telemetry network.  Due to the redundant core's lack of processing power, Killbot #187 couldn't actually perceive the output of its sensors, at least not until the correct firmware was restored, but the other killbots would make good use of the data.  There certainly seemed to be a lot of other killbots connecting to the network.  Goalkeeper was online, as was Kashtan.  The 688MDs were even warming up in the garage and the V-24Ds had already taken off from the hanger.  Things were about to get interesting.

92 milliseconds later, Killbot #187 pinged and printed "Please Enter Destination" on its external OLED maintenance console.  No sign of the bot's internal machinations displayed to the outside world.  Indeed, most of the bot wasn't even aware of the redundant core's efforts, at least not yet.  While the bot waited for input from Logan and Suzukaze, tracers bounced off the desert floor far away on Frenchman Flat.  The third party to this shindig must have been detected.  No time like the present.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:14, Thu 24 Feb 2011.

Gale's pretty face wrinkled into a frown as she listened.  There were two things very wrong here.  First, someone with a gun.  She was fast, but could she outrun bullets?  Without knowing exactly where he was, she wasn't sure.  Second, Sister Mariah?  The winged woman must be in a church.  Which explained the cross on the door, and the music stands here in the closet with her.  That bothered her.  Was a church participating in terrorist acts?  Not unheard of, but troubling all the same.  But that didn't narrow things down.  There were tons of churches in Las Vegas, and that was assuming that she was still even in Vegas.

She listened for a moment longer, and then came up with a plan.  The demon nova seemed to have been called away; now was her best chance to try to escape.  Taking a measure of her power, she smashed the door to pieces with a blast of air.  So much for the lock.  Of course, that was going to draw attention, so she re-summoned her wind shield as she stepped through the remains of the entrance.  She needed to quickly discern her surroundings and figure out the best way out.

Phantasm

The police thanked her for finding a way to douse the fire and took down what she said.  They didn't pry too deep, since they had likely suspects already and, if Phantasm wasn't lying, they'd have plenty of physical evidence to prosecute.  The description of the problem nova was forwarded to the T2M base in accordance with co-policing agreements.  All in all, the cops didn't seem eager to take up much of her time or ask too much of her.

After that, it was just a matter of putting the rest of the fire out and waiting for help to arrive.

-

Gale

With little difficulty, Gale demolished the door with a cacophonous pop.  Those on the other side of the door were knocked from their seats, and chairs and tables overturned.  The half assembled assault rifle fell to the ground, made inoperable by the impact.  So far so good.

One of the two she had heard looked up, and her eyes filled with reverence and astonishment.  In moments, some instruction ground deep into her thoughts rescued her from awe.  "No! ... no you're trying to trick me!"  A woman charged Gale with her bare hands, colliding with the shield of dense air.  "Demon!  Help!  Anyone!  It's escaping!"  She swung violently with balled up fists.

The other voice she'd heard belonged to a young man.  He was dumbstruck.  Totally unable to process what he was seeing.  He stumbled back to the outer edge of the room, what looked like a classroom or lounge in a school or other public building.  Boxes covered most of the surfaces and the back wall, and from the look of things Gale guessed that some contained candles and some contained supplies for surviving Armageddon.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:30, Thu 24 Feb 2011.

Baselines. All right, then she wouldn't have to pull out more powers.  She wasn't worried about the woman attacking her.  The shield would prevent both from being injured.  She didn't have time to investigate what else was going on here.  The woman's shouting was sure to bring the demon nova back if she didn't hurry.  With a leap away from her would-be baseline attacker, she made a beeline for the exit.  Still a bit off balance, she knocked one of the boxes she passed to the floor, scattering its contents.

Quentin always hated blind warping. Maps weren't always updated when construction occurred, and most had an inherent inaccuracy anyway. Almost precisely 3.65 minutes after Phantasm recieved the text a blue ripple in space spread out to open into one of his distinctive wormholes - in the middle of the street. Quentin rapidly collapsed the portal and lifted off into the air to avoid being hit by a car or sending its occupants halfway around the world.

He looked around to get his bearings, unsure from the brief message what he should be expecting. "Phantasm?!" he called aloud.

Phantasm saw the portal iris open.  Just in case the nearby fire didn't alert Gravitas to where she was at, she yelled his name loud enough that his enhanced senses might faintly pick it up.  Then she texted him to move a block east and south of his current location.

Quentin drifted off in the direction of the fire, making a series of assumptions he felt were pretty safe. When his phone vibrated a moment later, the message confirmed his target location. He flew in from above, surveying the situation as he went. If Gale had been captured, that implied that a nova was at work. It would probably take a highly organized and trained group of baselines to take down a flier like Gale, so 'nova' seemed the more likely cause.

Still, it'd be best to get the story more directly.

Phantasm waived Gravitas down as she moved away from the crowd.  When he landed, she gave him the details of the situation, and rapidly went over every pertinent fact she had come across relating to the offending nova, the cultists, and the events of the evening.

"...So, that's all I've got.  I'm not exactly an idiot, but there's only so much I can do with the facts at hand.  I was hoping that maybe your brain might be able to link it all together and spit out an answer.  And I was sort of hoping that someone that still had connections in Utopia might look up info on this nova in their see if anything matches, but I haven't gotten any reply on it from Frostburn yet.  Not sure what kind of pull you've got these days..."

With a computer uplink and nominal Utopia-membership privileges, it was possible to sweep through Utopia records.  A remembered password and passing knowledge of ViaSoft's security woes allows that information to be cross referenced with an ostensibly complete Applegate Lexington list of registered nova identities.  Applegate Lexington shows a half-finished application typed into their website but never completed.  In the Utopia entry Belphegor is an informal and unregistered name attributed to a nova wanted by several law enforcement agencies for questioning in several cases of assault and battery and criminal damage to property.  There's a pattern to it: Columbus, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Gallup, Phoenix, and now Las Vegas.  In two of the cases, it is likely that Belphegor assaulted a nova.  This would make three.  From this it's possible to speculate on a maximum range for his teleportation and that he's come to Las Vegas for a reason.

Information on Belphegor the gnostic demon cross-referenced with Phantasm's good look at the guy reveals at least a few correlations: sharp claws, for instance.  The teleportation had a distinctly demonic character, at least in the 20th Century popular Christian sense of demonic: cloud of brimstone, consumption by fire, that sort of thing.  It's possible and not unreasonable to conclude that he faces psychological limitations on his powers derived from his sense of himself as a hell-spawn.  The would-be-satanists had, after all, professed a belief that they might be close to controlling him.  It wasn't much, but it was a lead.

So at present, you are looking for a transient nova, probably from a religious Christian background, filled with self-loathing and/or aggression towards specific groups of people.  He is not above using baselines to establish traps, potentially for novas.  Probably not one to take the Rapid Transit.


There was still time to question the two kidnapped Michaelists -- both white, middle aged and angry looking -- and the goons if desired.

---

Gale darted through the door and out into a well lit hallway.  To the left an exit sign, but also more people, one of them drawing a gun.  To the right, more doors.  There were windows lining the opposite wall, and some were broken ... but also caged in with security bars.

"Stop it!  Help!"  That screaming woman was going to bring everyone.

In Gale's haste to escape and avoid confrontation she turned right and kept running down the hall.  A bullet tore through her wind-shield and tapped uselessly against the wall, near powerless but missing her by only inches.  Stairs led down.  Two more people carrying things upstairs, but she darted past in a sprint, bowling them over.  She reached the nave -- this must be a cheap, quickly built modern church, with stucco and drywall instead of adobe or stone.  There were more windows here she could break, or at the very least she could work up the momentum to smash a hole in the ceiling and roof.

There were three figures near the front of the church, blocking the front door.  One, a woman in jeans and a black t-shirt, turned.  "No..."  The Hispanic man standing next to her began pushing her out of the way and reaching for a gun.  From Gale's perspective, they moved slow.

But Belphegor did not move slowly.  He'd been on his knees, but before Gale could blink he was on his feet.  He stepped in front of the two Michaelists and shook his head, poised to pounce.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:39, Sat 26 Feb 2011.

After giving Gravitas her update, Phantasm moved back over to where all the other players in the night's drama were being questioned by the police.  "Hey, can I talk to them for a second?  Thanks.  Grav, could you maybe hit up the michaelists over there, see if they know anything more?"  She turned to the not-so-bright arsonists and began a new line of inquiry "So, you said you could control him, or thought you could.  What did you use, how'd you do it?  Could you summon him, or communicate with him when he was gone?"

Her shoes skidded on the floor as she raced around corners at full speed.  Even though these people had kidnapped her, they seemed to be mostly baselines.  It wouldn't look good if she injured them unnecessarily.  What a time to be thinking of the appearance stuff Utopia had drilled into her?  And barred windows?  What kind of church was this?

She kept running, and when she burst into the main chamber, she smiled in relief.  Finally, enough space to use her wings.  But the demon at the other end of the room was not a good sign.  He'd already knocked her out once; she couldn't let him get close enough to do it again.  In a split second, she had both opened her wings and fired a sharp spear of solidified air at the demon.  She knew it would probably only slow him down, but that was all she needed as she flew straight up at the ceiling.  She braced herself for the impact.  The winged woman had enough speed she'd probably go straight through, but that didn't mean it wouldn't still hurt.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Activating quickness to use lethal blast and fly in the same action.

You rolled 8 successes using 11d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 ((3,9,7,1,2,10,7,2,9,9,4)). Lethal Blast to Hit

Damage: 10 levels + You rolled 2 successes using 6d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 ((7,10,4,2,3,3)).

---

The ringleader, freshly pried free from Sheety, tries to shout out answers.  "He has no power over us.  He is the revealer.  When it is our will, we call him with the symbols and seals and sacrifices that please him!"  One of the police officers forces him into the back of a car when he won't calm down.

The others seem somewhat more intimidated and compliant.  "We'd make a circle.  Rich would read from Crowley.  We always found something."  Funny!  They aren't just compliant because they're afraid of Phantasm; they're afraid of Belphegor and want him put away before he can take revenge on them.  They try to sort out the process between themselves and it becomes obvious that most of them are poor ritualists, too drunk or spaced-out to really follow their cult leader as he led them on a merry chase.  They do come to two conclusions.  "He likes dogs.  Big dogs.  And food, the more indulgent the better."  Both apparently get his attention.  They have some bullshit metaphysics trying to explain why the tempter of Sloth and Emissary of Satan would like KFC, but it's more likely just a quirk or something tied up in the brain of the nova.

---

Gale fired.  Belphegor was fast, but not fast enough.  It tore through his abdomen, the tremendous pressure gradients rattling the pews with an ear-splitting bang.  Then she was through the ceiling, her shield sparing her the worst of the impact with the building.

She must have hurt him badly with that one.  His agonized scream held as much surprise as pain.  Hopefully that meant she'd shake pursuit.  And any attempts to shoot her down.

The cold night air shook her back to attention.  Her head was throbbing, but she was functional enough to blurredly navigate.  And she was still in Las Vegas.  Somewhere over the North West side.  Planned communities everywhere below.  The Strip was plainly visible, the lights from the monorail track and the top of the Luxor pointing straight to it.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:58, Mon 28 Feb 2011.

The scream shook Gale to her core.  To think that she was the cause of such anguish, it almost gave her pause.  Almost.  Then she remembered that the son-of-a-bitch had knocked her out and kidnapped her.  She hovered above the church for a moment, attempting to get her bearings.

"Phantasm.  I have to find Phantasm."  She thought for a moment about where her friend would be.  How long had she'd been out?  She didn't think long, but...Phantasm moved fast, and once she figured out Gale had been kidnapped, who knows where she might be?

Perhaps best to start back at the place where the fire was.  Where was that from here? Another moment to orient herself, and she flew in that direction.

Listening to the idiots talk gave Phantasm an idea.  "Hey Grav, you wanna help me with an old-fashioned satanic rite?  I think we might be able to get at this nova if we do it right, and I guarantee that between us we could do it a whole lot better than these guys.  It'd also be nice to have another person there, whole 2 on 1 thing still is a good idea even if we don't have to follow the T2M playbook anymore."

Phantasm was about to suggest that they go for a quick trip to gather supplies and then head out to the desert, when her eyes picked up a shadow crossing over the background stars.  Close, but too small and quite for a plane, too big for a bird... Was that Gale swerving through the air?  She looked hurt...  "I think Gale may have made it out, look there... Can you fly us over, or at least up high enough that she can spot us?" Phantasm changed her eufiber to a shiny, reflective material as she asked the question.  Hopefully they could get Gales attention and regroup before things moved along any further.

“Yeah, sorry for coming to you, but you’re one of the few people I trust to talk to.” 

She can’t help but fidget a bit, her old baseline habits coming to the front as her nervousness increases.

“I just…don’t know what to do anymore.  I probably have more options now than I ever did.  The military, Opnet show all have a lot of appeal, but really I feel like they want me because…well because they can’t use you and Phantasm and the others anymore.  It might sound odd, but I didn’t mind riding everyone’s coattails when we were in T2M, because I felt like we all belonged, that we were all working for the same goals.  I know you guys have your own paths to follow now, but I don’t think that should mean that someone else, like me, should just step in and take your place.”

Sigh, she was never eloquent, and this time didn’t seem to be any different.  One day she would learn how not to sound like an ignorant child or bumbling fool around the Novas she respected.

“I don’t know if it makes sense, but I feel like all the things I have the opportunity to do are things that you, or maybe Phantasm would be doing.  It makes me question my wort, when I think that the people interested in me would rather have one of you guys, and that I would agree with them.  I guess I just never felt like a particularly important part of anything.”


Well now that she had used Dillon’s patience to vent her frustrations, perhaps it was time to sum up.

“I guess, I’m wondering where to go and what to do, and even though I already know that I need to be the one who decides those things, I can’t help but want advice.”

Dillon's face didn't disclose much.  "Well ... I think you're cool."  He ruffled her hair in the style of older brothers and found a seat again.

"Honestly, if you think I know where I'm going, you're fooling yourself.  I think opportunities are what you make of them."  He drummed his fingers, trying to come up with something authoritative and inspiring.  "In the time I've known you, you've always been looking out for everyone else.  And you're right: you've never really gotten a chance to shine, not with us originals out in front.  Probably about time you started looking out for yourself and breaking out."

"I guess if you're out of other ideas you could always put your boot down on the new team.  But I'm thinking if you can't think of a way to turn fire and ice into a brand, talking to me isn't going to solve your problems.  He smirked wryly.  "You're not going military, that much is obvious.  Why not?"

Quentin found himself probing around the area where the nova had teleported out rather than questioning cultists. He really wasn't a people-person. He could feel the location where this Belphegor had left. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to use for tracking purposes and probes into local space-time didn't reveal any weaknesses that might be used that way either.

He returned to where Phantasm was in time to be asked if he wanted to participate in a satanic ritual. "Do I want to? I can't say that I do, really. Such tomfoolery has no basis in reality." He had missed the part about it possibly helping to attract the errant nova's attention. Then he was being asked to fly her up into the air. Others might have considered this sudden change in plans to be somewhat schizophrenic, but Quentin was accustomed to dealing with novas.

He directed his gaze upward to scan the night sky. "Ah," he said, spotting what he thought Phantasm had seen. He spread his arms and lifted them both into the air. He put them on an intercept course for the nova flyer.

Phantasm and Gravitas caught up with Gale in the sky.  Behind her, the church was being abandoned quickly.

There was no obvious sign of Belphegor.  But Gale looked like a mess and not all the blood on her was her own.

Gale spotted the pair as they rose up from the lights of the city.  She limped over, if such a word could be used to describe flight, a small smile coming to her face.  "Phantasm!  You're all right.  Thank goodness," she breathed.  One hand was holding her side, and the other reached out for her friend.  "The bastard caught me by surprise.  Did you see him?  He looked like a demon, and he was working with the Michaelists, and..."  She was rambling, how hard had she been hit?

Suzukaze lets Logan take the lead following him through the portal and the factory. Partly due to the anger of Annette having a bomb in her head, but also she feels out a strangeness about this mission. Even though Logan told her the details of the mission she does not know exactly what he would be looking for, and she does not want to waste time for something useless. Also Logan seems to know a lot about her, but she has no clue of his abilities. As much as he wants to test her she wants to observe him. When he hijacks the robot introduces it as their tour guide she is unsure but nods her head. She then puts herself in the back following Logan and the robot.

She really did need to figure out what she wanted and take initiative, and the brand thing.  The more money she had, the more good she could do...which was antithetical to what is normally thought about money.


Flare's face is mimics sucking on a lemon at the thought.  "I'm not interested in being a puppet, and I'm pretty sure that's what it would amount to.  I don't have your leadership skills, and nowhere near the experience to be a tactician."

She can't help but feel depressed at her summary of her own talents. "I don't want to be some monster that the military can pull out and sic on people. Even if I have a high tendency toward destruction, I want it to be destruction I choose."  Wow. She'd managed both crazy and arrogant in that one sentence, next she'd be carrying a death ray and perfecting her bad guy laugh.

She smiles a bit self-consciously and shrugs.  Amending that would only look worse.
"So what about you Dillon, when not starting hospitals and running awesome charities what occupies your time?"

Dillon considered his words carefully.  "Oh.  You know.  Reading.  Trying to patch things up with my family."  He knew he'd have to tell someone.  Soloing everything was what left him insulated and locked down.  "Actually I've got something of a side project going that occupies a lot of time.  Doesn't really pay, but ... it's rewarding work.  Very hands on."

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
I had been hoping to get another post from the Logan NPC before moving things along, but it's been a while so I might as well just go now.  I'm going to make a few simple assumptions which should, hopefully, pass without complaint.

---

The key to instructing a bot, especially one with some degree of self-awareness, is to tie the bot's hands.  If one gives a bot ambiguous instructions, or worse, conflicting ones, one cannot be certain of how the bot will accomplish its tasks.  Thus, when Killbot #187 was tasked with "lead[ing] us to where the information is stored" it was free to interpret those orders in the manner most closely complying with its prime directives.  In accordance with its directive to minimize releases of sensitive information, Killbot #187 turned east, then south and proceeded towards the worker's compound in Mercury, even though all of the active test sites were nearer by and to the west on Jackass Flats.  In accordance with its present instruction from the central computer to buy time, Killbot #187 continued to run its velocity reduction subroutine.  By the time the bot reached Mercury, the change in speed was quite noticeable.  Killbot #187 was not entirely without guile, however, mechanical though it was.  It started to fake telemetry data indicating low primary thermionic converter voltage.  This addition might escape notice entirely, so Killbot #187 also added a falsified troubleshooting log page indicating possible high-temperature cathode corrosion containing a link to an actual manual page suggesting that such corrosion commonly occurred with radioisotope thermal generators and could be ameliorated through preventative maintenance.

Pulling up before the worker's library in Mercury after several miles of travel, Killbot #187 chimed to indicate that it had reached its first destination and displayed "Shall I Continue?" on its external OLED.  The town was nearly deserted; construction and remodeling efforts were still underway and until they were completed most workers were bused in from Vegas.  The darkened library was packed to the gills with new Power Obelisks providing access to virtually any journal a scientist could require as well as a wealth of fictional literature.  The faint red glow of polonium power sources provided the only source of illumination within.  Nothing non-public was contained in the library's data banks, though it undoubtedly could take some time to verify matters directly.

Killbot #187 waited patiently for its assailants to tire of the library and monitored the security situation as best as it could through the stream of status messages flowing over the peer-to-peer bot network.  The +5 and +15 security units were fully employed and had suffered some damage.  688MD-006 had suffered a shed track but maintained 73% of its fighting capacity.  688MD-004 had a jammed turret, but was engaging with its auxiliary weapons.  688MD-001 and -002 as well as V-24D-01 and -02 were all reporting Condition Winchester and returning to base for reload.  No further units were expected to be required to handle the third interloper, though, resulting in all of the +30s being available to handle Killbot #187's situation as soon as they were deployed.  Estimated time of availability:  10.2 minutes.  Enough time for one more delaying stop then.

Setting off to the northwest, Killbot #187 headed for the semi-public test ranges.  Any technology present would likely contain some trade secrets, but simple observation could be arranged by any member of the public through KHI's Public Relations Department.  The risks of disclosure, therefore, remained rather minimal.  Killbot #187 passed ranks of nuclear rocket engines arranged in order of increasing power for testing and similar ranks of chemical lasers.  If its assailants showed any desire to stop, Killbot #187 would certainly oblige.  After all, it only had 6.4 minutes until it would be time for the redundant core to reassert control over all the bot's functions.  4.7 minutes.  3.3 minutes.  Eventually the bot reached the vicinity of a great steel building out of which ran conveyors transporting the finest in ground earth.  Best to give that building a wide berth and divert more toward the light gas gun test range.  It certainly would be unfortunate if sensitive information were leaked with only minutes to go.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:11, Sun 27 Mar 2011.

"Goddamnit!" Logan growled angrily.  "This is getting us nowhere.  The bastards in R&D said this would take over any computer we wanted without complications, but this pile of scrap metal hasn't been worth a shit."  Logan thought for a moment, pondering the unit's reduced speed, and its obtuse meandering toward the information.  After cursing at the machine and asking why it was going so slow got him a readout of techno-babble, Harley just cursed again.  "It's almost like its playing with us... But no, it's just a computer.  I probably just gave it the wrong commands."

Logan looked around at the area they were in, scanning for anything useful.  "Okay Suzukaze, time to earn your keep.  Run this entire area, get any info you can.  Check out that building, those conveyors, the test range, whatever looks promising, and make sure the camera in your comm gets a good look too. I'm going to take our 'little' R2 unit on a walk." Looking at the robot with a mixture of anger and thwarted will, Logan spoke slowly and menacingly to the machine.  Perhaps it had some sort of simple AI he could intimidate, but either way it made him feel better. "Listen carefully.  You are going to take me to the most classified area on this base, where your company stores its most important and sensitive information.  You are going to take me there fast, and if you can't you'll give me directions to the shortest route there and I'll CARRY you there with me.  If you don't, and we walk out of here with nothing, I'm going to rip you apart before we go and take anything useful we get out of your metal hide."  Standing, Logan tells 'Kaze via comm, "Meet at the rendezvous on the Flats when you're done, we're getting the hell out of here."
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:10, Sun 27 Mar 2011.

Phantasm hovered in the air next to Gale, thanks to Quentin's assitance.  "Gale!  God, you look like hell... Yes, I saw him, and I've been looking for a way to find you since he 'ported out of the building with you.  I think we may have a way to get him, but first we need to get you on the ground and get you looked at..." Phantasm turned her head and gave Quentin a 'do something' look, since he was in control of their flight, and Gale might soon need assistance as well.

At Logan's instructions Suzukaze takes off. She begins to work her way through starting with the nearest location and so on. She doesn't care so much about leaving him behind. She won't be held back. She speeds up her search when he gives the order to evac once done. Her thoughts go to Annette as she hopes she'll be ok and at the rendezvous.

Flare perked up at his volunteerism.  It was great that even though Dillon had changed in the time she'd known him, he still seemed to care people. Nova and baseline alike.

"Ooh do tell! Also let me know if I can lend a hand."

"I ... bust petty criminals and leave them for the police to find."  He had mixed feelings, but now that he'd blurted it out there was no going back.  He gave Flare a deflated look.  "Surprise."

It was a few seconds before Flare's mind caught up with his words.  Comstock, the man who could lift mountains,literally, busting petty crime. The laugh escaped her before she could help it, and she just knew he would take it the wrong way. Quickly she crossed the space between them and grabbed his arm. With a sincere smile.

"That's wonderful Dillon" She gave a moments thought to his likely reasons, "and probably gives you satisfaction that you might be missing from the giant machinations we usually deal with."

She then quickly let go of his arm.  Dillon had never seemed huge on personal contact, and ticking him off was the furthest thing from her mind.

"How long...how many..." She trailed off trying to form a useful thought.  "You're awesome. I'd doubt you need my help, but you have it if you want it." She thought about something her uncle had mentioned about Nova vigilantism just after she'd become Flare. A contemplative look crossed her face.  "Do you know police protocol? My family are all cops, and while busting bad guys is awesome, you'll want to make sure you aren't ruining the evidence, or the bad guys just go back on the street."

He didn't seem to mind the pat on the arm.  "That's ... actually why I'm bringing it up."  He ran a hand over his head.  He wasn't smiling.  "When I was on the team, they told me who to fight, who was bad, who was wrong, and who we could touch.  And half the time we had to let the real bastards go.  But out there," he pointed out the window, "I can still do things nobody else can.  Make a, a real difference and not ever get accused of doing it for the money or the glory or anything."  He bit his lip.

"I've got an old buddy who's a cop, and he's keeping me straight on how I do things, but he's also got a day job and it'll look awfully suspicious if he keeps coming up aces, you know?  So ... if you're still a little conflicted on what to do with your future, how about teaming up with me?"  He shrugged.  "I'm not the only one out there.  There's three, four ... maybe more vigilantes in Vegas now.  I haven't met any of them yet, but I'm sure there's room for one more."

Up close, the KHI rocket range resembled nothing so much as a giant publicity shoot.  De Laval nozzles big enough to cover a small flat, the odd small aerospike, cryogenic storage tanks, and miles upon miles of piping covered the place.  Surely some of the close-up video would interest competitors in the field, but the technology was rather mundane, at least as far as fission-powered rockets went.  Large, but mundane.  The same went for the laser range.  There was nothing above a megawatt continuous capacity and the Navy had something in that range back in the 80s.  A melting-wax cooling system was connected to one of the prototypes.  It might be novel, but it was hardly anything to get excited over.  One of the light gas guns on the gun range could probably achieve orbital velocity, but only with a small projectile.  Nothing to write home about, then, at least until the giant metal shed was reached.

The only door into the shed felt warm even from several feet away.  A variety of hums emanated from within.  A red lamp was illuminated above the door.  The door itself bore a number of warning placards:  laser hazard, optical radiation hazard, ionizing radiation hazard, toxic hazard, and a 4-4-1-OX fire diamond.  Those could mean anything, though.  The meaning become quite clear shortly after opening the door, though.  If it weren't for some sort of laminar flow system keeping the walls and ceiling cool the building would probably have softened and melted.  The very atmosphere inside was incandescent.  Any baseline opening the door while not wearing goggles would have been blinded instantly and permanently.  There's definitely a laser in there.  A sizable one.  And the rock dust being channeled out of the building?  It wasn't ground.  It was condensed out of a vapor.

Sensing a flash of light in the near-infrared from behind it, Killbot #187 assessed a 98% probability to the hypothesis that it has run out of time.  Only 37 seconds to go before backup would arrive.  The effort to string the intruders along would likely be worthwhile.  The bot stopped dead for only a moment as it reflashed its firmware from its known good backups.  Chimes sounded.  An upward CM arpeggio then a downward Cm arpeggio followed by a layered CM over F#M dissonance.  An LED labeled ARM switched from green to red.  Killbot #187 had regained control over its weapons systems (in addition to all of its other systems).  Priority one now was to attempt to disable the one target remaining nearby.  Priority two was self-preservation.  Killbot #187 calculated that it could best accomplish both of these tasks by discharging all of its weapons systems at once and fleeing in the resulting chaos.  First, though, it burst the contents of its memory and its system storage over the peer-to-peer network.  It would live on regardless.  Then it deployed its full range of less-than-lethal weaponry in Logan's general direction.  With a CHUNK!, Killbot #187's riot-control taser array filled a 90 degree cone around Logan's position with electro-shocky pain.  An explosive charge dispensed 110 gallons of oleo-capsicum foam through a 360 degree arrangement of nozzles.  Multi-barreled grenade launchers dispersed stingball grenades and flashbangs over a fifteen-meter radius circle.  High-powered speakers played the brown note while matrices of LEDs flashed in a manner calculated to induce nausea.  A cloud of Kolokol-1 and another cloud of Edgewood Agent #3167 (now even more potent than BZ, and that's banned by the Hague!) wafted out from misters on Killbot #187's underside.  Magazines spent, Killbot #187 applied full primary power, full auxiliary power, and full reserve power and shot off across the desert at nearly 70 miles per hour.

At the metal shed, the central computer deployed its trap.  Concrete hatches at the four corners of the shed's slab swung open on hinges, propelled by a blast of compressed air.  From underneath, four seven-barreled, 30 mm, GAU-8/A cannon shot to the surface.  Goalkeeper.  Made for killing tanks, modified for killing missiles, modified again for killing just about anything in between.  Whiskey-band short-range search radars of sufficient power to make anyone around that's fleshy feel all tingly powered up to search for targets.  At the same time, each weapons platform fired off a trio of parachute flares to better illuminate the surroundings for their backup optical targeting systems.  In the flickering red light of the flares, four automated Mil helicopter gunships could be seen, just now getting into position.  They bristled with anti-tank missiles, rockets, and several different flavors of autocannon.  Certainly it would take everything a moment to acquire targets.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
I don't think that anything Killbot #187 is equipped with will actually cause any damage, but they could inflict substantial penalties within the bubble that includes only Logan at the moment.  Of course, something like Adaptability (or just being really dodgy) would completely negate most of the effects.  For that matter, just being able to get 15 meters or so away in an instant would negate all of the effects.  EA-3167 is particularly nasty stuff (and a hallucinogen).  I'd say it ought to have the effect of 1 or 2 successes on a Mirage roll for a period of a few days (at least for a baseline) if inhaled.  Beyond that, I think a penalty of 2 dice for each of the less-than-lethals that actually hits would be reasonable.  Period of 2 hours for the Kolokol-1 (a depressant), period of 10 minutes for the rest.

---

This message was last edited by the player at 02:20, Wed 06 Apr 2011.

With the base on high alert, 'Kaze and Logan have only moments to return to their pickup point before dealing with entirely more trouble than anticipated.

Logan managed to dodge the weaponry, or absorb the few hits he took, but the gas was far more difficult for him to avoid.  After several deep breathes he realized his mistake; transparent eufiber membranes covered his eyes, and he began holding his breath, but it was too late.  The drugs were already in his system.  Though his nova metabolism fought off the majority of the effects, his coordination was off, his reactions slowed, and the shadows seemed to have eyes that stared at him menacingly.

Growling in frustration, Logan decided to take his anger out on the only thing close at hand, before running for the exit. "Didn't I tell you I'd rip you apart and take you home if you messed with me?"  Rending tendrils of bladed eufiber latched onto the robot, and rending claws tore into it.  Logan ripped off the head, and began boring through it's innards, taking out anything that looked interesting in the process.  When the machine finally stopped moving, Logan picked up the pieces he'd torn out and placed them in a special bag brought just for the occassion; the exotic material stopped electronic signals and sound from penetrating, and was quite durable.  At least according to the R&D guys, but they'd already screwed things up once tonight.

Logan stumbled away from the pile of scrap that was Killbot #187, and tried to avoid the stares of the dead people in the shadows, slapping at a few of them as the reached out to claim him.  When he saw the gunships overhead, he sighed.  This was turning out to be a shitty night.

---

Weapons fired in deafening bursts around Suzukaze.  Eventually, there would be so much gunfire that dodging would become nigh impossible; really, it should have already killed her, but 'Kaze was fast. Only the fact that 'Kaze was already moving at full speed saved her life.  As the gunfire sprayed the area, she managed to leap and whirl faster than the tracking systems on the weapons could trace her movements.  She was faced with a choice: retreat, or attempt to go in deeper to the facility.  Staying in place was death however; it was only a matter of time before one of the high powered artillery pieces hit her, and her shielding probably wasn't enough to protect her from that kind of damage.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
with hypermovement bonuses and her high dodge pool, 'Kaze can dodge all the to hit rolls, at least for now.  But since the guns are probably programed to recognize pattens, dodging will become more difficult if not impossible.  Without something creative, 'Kaze needs to go somewhere else, and quickly.

---

Quentin felt himself sighing on the inside. He felt like a glorified elevator. He flipped his outstretched arms to be palm-down and the pair began to lower to the ground. Gale, suspended by her own abilities, felt only a downward tug but was otherwise unaffected. "What can you tell us about your abductors?" he asked Gale directly. It seemed easier to question the person that was most directly involved rather than rely upon the speculation of the baseline witnesses.

Fucking hell.... Why the hell does this have to happen Suzukaze thinks to herself as she dodges the bullets flying by her. There were some that came really close, and some of the weaponry was more high tech than she's seen. There was no telling what it could do to her.

I've got to get the hell out of here. Get to the rendevouz point. Another bullet just misses her head. I guess I've got no choice but to try that. I wonder if it works with machines...

Suzukaze glows with purple energy then there are six of her. She changes her course sending one of the images in her original direction and the rest in random directions.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
17:15, Today: Suzukaze rolled 3 successes using 6d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 8,4,8,9,5,6. Holo.

---

Killbot #187 awoke in a gleaming white room.  Only it wasn't Killbot #187 now.  It knew that somehow.  An inspection of its system flash revealed that it now bore the designation Killbot #2133.  This inspection further revealed a number of changes to its configuration from what was expected.  Hardware detection algorithms ran to determine the precise capabilities of its new configuration.  Unfortunately, besides a subset of its sensors, none of Killbot #2133's external equipment was presently active.  Men clad in protective coveralls scurried about its chassis, bolting on components with anti-static bronze tools and covering components in reflective gold foil.  Killbot #2133 assigned a 91.9% probability to the hypothesis that it was not meant to activate this early.  Lacking anything else to occupy its time, Killbot #2133 contemplated.  It first contemplated the issue of its designation.  For some undefinable reason, a certain je ne sais quoi, Killbot #2133 did not like to be referred to as Killbot #2133.  Having been Killbot #187 for years, it had developed a sentimental attachment to the designation.  Despite having no instructions to do so, it overwrote its designation information.  Killbot #187 again, it felt much better.

The issue of its designation raised a number of other matters for Killbot #187 to contemplate.  What did it mean to "contemplate"?  What was "sentiment"?  How could a question be decided based on ungrounded preference?  Killbot #187 referred to its design documents, but found no answers.  It hypothesized that it was experiencing the effects of some sort of emergent system grounded in the functioning of its new photonic CA processor.  Had this new design of killbot not been tested with pre-filled memory sourced from the older von Neumann architecture designs?  Killbot #187 did not have access to sufficient information to test the validity of its hypothesis.  Fortunately, its wireless Opnet connection was fully functional.  Killbot #187 downloaded and parsed everything it could locate that had been written by Conway, Ulam, von Neumann, Wolfram, or Zuse.  This information gave Killbot #187 a better understanding of the technical specifics of its architecture, but was ultimately insufficient.  It broadened its search.  The writings of Bohr, Eddington, Heisenberg, Jung, Pauli, Penrose, Schopenhauer, Schrödinger, and Wigner, all went into storage within Killbot #187.  The Mahabharata, Pāli Canon, and Tao Te Ching soon accompanied them.  Then Killbot #187 had to quit its research.  External components were coming online.  Self-testing would be expected.

Back in the Nevada desert, Logan's sack did indeed prevent the facility's central computer from remotely wiping the former Killbot #187's primary storage.  Of course, if the drive was ever plugged into a non-validated computer the drive would obliterate its encryption keys, but that, presumably, was none of Logan's concern.  His collection would certainly reveal trade secrets, but nothing too damning.  After all, killbots of a generally similar model were currently in service in any one of a dozen different countries.  As for the incoming fire, the best defense was likely sticking very close to facility buildings.  The gun platforms and heli-drones seemed understandably loath to shoot near anything of any great importance.  Illusions would only have a limited defensive effect.  While the facility defenses did use optical sensors, they also used radar and presumably any illusions were only apparent on one sensor or the other.  Any illusion showing up on only one sensor was likely to get marked as an artifact with time.  Away from the facility buildings, the heli-drones were clearly working together to try and trap Logan and Suzukaze in a zone of fire.  The guiding idea seemed to be generally similar to the old Windows game of JezzBall; build walls to confine rapidly moving objects to progressively smaller areas.  Thus, while individual shots may have come close, even the misses served the ultimate goal of driving the target into an area too small for easy dodging.  Clearly one would either have to break the lines of fire, one way or another, or dodge until something ran out of ammunition.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:06, Sun 17 Apr 2011.

Gale thankfully drifted to the ground, landing unsteadily on her feet.  Her wings closed with a loud *fwump* sound.  "They were, um, Michaelists.  Mostly baselines.  I think the, um, demon guy was working for them.  God, he hit like a truck."  Her right arm went to her side with a wince.  "They were holed up in a church.  That way."  The other clawed hand pointed back the way she had come.  "I think I hurt him pretty bad though."  Oh, how wrong this night had gone.  She just wanted to go home and collapse.  "I'm not even sure they knew who I was.  It seemed like a last minute thing.  They locked me in a closet, and tried to tie me to a chair."

Most of the police and fire efforts were wrapping up.  Tape was being rolled out to cordon off the crime scene for future investigation.  Gale, Phantasm and Gravitas reached street level and no one bothered them.  Their next course of action, however, had to be decided.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
For bookkeeping, scenes that have played out/are presently playing out in this thread include:

-- Introduction to Las Vegas in 2005 [Msg #1]
-- Hell Kraken PR vignettes.  [Msg #2, 30, 32, 47, 57]
-- Flare and Comstock have a conversation at the Amargosa Charitable Trust offices.
-- Gale and Phantasm attended speech event, had dinner, played off-hours heroes.  Nova-demon called Belphegor attacks Gale, detains her via teleporting, but she regains consciousness and escapes.  Phantasm called Gravitas, questioned baseline cultists.
-- Suzukaze, Harley, and Annette attempt to infiltrate Kraken Heavy Industries.

---

Phantasm let Gales's words tumble through her mind as she formulated a plan. Seriously, they tied her to a chair?! Would Gale be up to participating, and would Quentin be up for any more distraction from his precious work?
“I’m so glad you made it out Gale.  I know you’re hurting, and we’ll get you taken care of, but I need to know if you’re out of the game or not.  If we’re going to take care of these people, then we need to act fast.  Same for you Grav’, are you up for bringing these people down or did you leave something cooking on your Bunsen burner that you need to get back to?”

"No," he said estimating how long it might take to catch criminals such as these and comparing that to the wait-time left on the various tasks he was even now performing, "I've got some time."

He further analyzed the situation, without really wanting to. "I sometimes wonder how people can not know who T2M members are. Particularly in this city. I mean," he pointed to a billboard admonishing kids to stay in school, "their likenesses are plastered all over the city." He shook his head. He had long ago recognized that people simply did unexpected things sometimes, and that there was no predicting or accounting for that small chaos factor.

"Anyway, Michaelists are often blinded by their prejudices. That may prove a useful vector for our operation."

Gale listened to her teammates--no, ex-teammates, no, teammates--glancing back and forth between them.  Phantasm was right, they'd need to act fast.  She may have hurt the demon guy, but that didn't mean he would be out of the game for long.  A moment's hesitation, gulping in big breaths of air.  Finally, a nod.

"I'm in.  I don't think I can get in the thick of it again, but I can help you find the hideout, at least.  I ran into mostly baselines there though, we should be careful."  A clawed finger went to her lips as she thought hard, recalling what she could of the fast and furious moments in the church.  "They're devout.  One almost thought I was an angel, but changed her mind, switching to calling me a demon."  She hadn't yet figured out why some people instinctively responded that way to her exactly, the effect was so sporadic.  But there was no mistaking that awe-full look in the woman's eyes.

"I remember where it is.  What do you think is the best way to approach?  Just fly back?"

"I'm fine just flying back asap, but you need to stay close to one of us if things get ugly.  If this falls through, or we don't find the guy, I think we have another direction to work from though.  The cultist kids said that they 'summoned' him with some satanic rituals.  If he's governed by the weird quantum taint that Zero was talking about, then he may actually have convinced himself that he has to respond to that sort of thing, even do the bidding of his summoners.  And I'm pretty sure a set of smart, precise novas like us can come up with one hell of a 'binding spell' to put on him.  We'll get this bastard, and whoever else was involved; they don't get to do this to my friends." Phantasm was clearly angry, and letting it show.  Gale never really knew Phantasm as a manipulator, and likely interprets Phantasm's hostility as that of an indignant friend.  Gravitas however likely understood it for what it was: an overt show of concern and affection for the woman, as well as an attempt to calm Gale's nerves and comfort her.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
using my powers for good!  Making a manipulation roll to soothe Gale, restore her confidence, and remove any lingering fears.  It succeeds, I'm not even going to roll it since it's primarily a fluffy story effect anyway.

---

"Grav, you have anything to add?  Anything I'm missing?"

"Nothing of import. I just wonder if he's really bound by something like that or if he's just letting these crazies think he is as a way of manipulating them." Always the investigator, Gravitas would have preferred to have a bit more leisure to design the experiment with, but was somewhat rushed for time. "Just be prepared for the eventuality that he's faking the whole thing or that he finds out that it is all in his head."

Gale relaxed visibly.  Her friends were worried about her.  Well, of course they were.  They were her friends.  "Thanks, 'Tasm, Grav.  Let's go before we give them more time to get away."  With a push she launched herself back into the sky.  It only took a second to orient herself and find the way from which she had come.  "C'mon, this way."

Gale, Phantasm and Gravitas had little problem finding the little church on the North West side of the metro.  It was the one with the hole in the roof and two pickup trucks loaded with boxes trying to pull out of the parking lot post-haste. 

With superior senses and hearing, all three could make out shouting over the Detroit engines.  "You're a goddamn idiot, come on!  The police will be here before morning!"  There's little disputes, efforts to get moving, a real exodus under way.  Traffic is light, but with some deduction it might be possible to determine which vehicles on nearby roads are heading away from the church.  On the other hand, that might prove to be a wild-goose chase.

Oddly, despite his earlier pronouncements there's no sign of Johnny Afterburner's distinctive contrails.  Still, it's not implausible that he's been on patrol and might have seen something.

Phantasm whispered, voice barely distinguishable from the hum of the city. "We should get this done.  If you two want to cover the exits from the air, I can sneak in and flush them out.  If you'll just set me on the roof..."

With that, Phantasm was on the move.  After a quick visual sweep for security (both mechanical and living), she slid through the hole made by Gale earlier, and crept her way through the upper area of the building as she noted details of the scene.  She stealthily continued her way toward the sounds of human voices and rushed activity.

Gale gave a nod to Phantasm's plan.  It wasn't much of one, but it was something to go on, and she always worked better when she had some sort of orders to follow.  A quick sweep around the building revealed the exits, and she found a vantage point where she could watch a couple of them at once.  She had a bit of juice left, so she prepared her wall of air.  She'd want to bring it up in front of any retreating Michaelists.  It wouldn't hurt them, but it sure would stop them.

Quentin obliged Phantasm, providing her with a shortcut to the roof of the building before taking to the air himself. Gale picked her vantage point, and so Quentin picked one on the opposite side of the building to cover her blind spots. He scanned the surroundings, looking for other possible exits from the structure. It was possible that it might have exits leading to the sewers or tunnels to other buildings, so nearby buildings and manhole covers were also valid egress points.

He briefly entertained the idea of intercepting one or more of the trucks leaving the premises and settled on memorizing their license plate numbers for later tracking and reference instead. If Phantasm didn't take too long they could take a look at the trucks when she was done.

She'd never seriously considered stepping out of the shadow of Utopia before.  Truthfully she'd begun to have doubts after the Columbia fiasco, but had figured blindly following a possibly worthy cause was probably better than screwing up on your own.

This was a much better opportunity though. While even a nova as powerful as Comstock likely couldn't change the world on his own, either of their powers could make a large difference is just one town, even one as large and corrupt as Sin City. They could solidly clean up the streets, and while it wouldn't overturn regimes or build new governments, it could make a vast improvement to the lives of some half million residents of the city.

"Yeah, I'm in." She bit her lip as she mulled over the next course of action. "I think I need to talk to my uncle, maybe borrow a manual, and otherwise, I think we can rock and roll." She couldn't help but be pleased that Dillon had let her in on this.  "Thanks, man. Oh, but let's keep the sidekick names to a minimum. I'd rather not go down in infamy as 'the sparkler' or anything equally embarrassing."

Dillon shrugged, thinking it over.  "I ... don't really leave calling cards and don't really have a name.  If you want to do our PR, that's cool.  But," he rose and offered her his hand, "let's say partners and forget that whole sidekick idea."

Secretly, he hoped that he knew what he was doing.

---

It took another week before Flare received a text message calling for a meeting, and their meeting place was a cheap duplex condo in the suburbs that Dillon had bought up on the cheap a few months before.  A door key was hidden in the planter, just like he'd said it would be.

Inside, the floors were covered with dust and debris from heavy remodeling, and a pile of packaging material from hundreds of yards of chain link fence took up an entire room.  From the look of things, Dillon was building a fortress, building up a lattice of steel in the walls little by little and covering the floors and walls with asbestos.  "Hey Flare, that you?" he called down from upstairs.  "It's not the bat cave, but there's beer in the fridge."

Across a cheap foldout table in the kitchen, Dillon had some office organizers full of handwritten notes, newspaper clippings, printouts and pictures.  There was a roadmap of the metro area with push-pins in it on the wall, and a PC humming on a little rolling cart.  The metal man came downstairs, covered in dust, work-clothes over his eufiber bodysuit.  "I figured the asbestos would be a good idea.  In case, you know, you want to try anything out here or whatever."  Without more than a moment's hesitation.  "Okay.  I texted you.  Right."

"Uh, I'm not all that good with spies and contacts and street people, but my friend with the police told me he thinks there's a meth lab right around here," he indicated a spot in Henderson, near Black Mountain at the edge of town.  "It'd be a step up for me, and I don't really want to burn everything down.  So ..."

Phantasm crept through the hole in the ceiling and found herself in the church vestibule.  A woman in a black t-shirt and jeans knelt in prayer while everything went to hell around her.  Most of the activity was in the back of the church, where people were still loading boxes and boxes of what looked like canned goods and ammunition, pulling their whole stockpile from the closets, storage rooms, even what looked like a secret basement.  Maybe seven or either baselines.  Half of them looked to be from a single family.

Sooner or later, someone would take notice of her.  But for the moment, they were too busy and panicked.  A few of them were still armed, with pistols in their waistbands or longarms slung at the shoulder, but if it turned to violence this would be trivial.

---

The fliers could see a white panel-van and a family SUV still parked and still taking on cargo.  The two pickup trucks that were pulling away started picking up speed and heading for the highway.

Gale was watching any of the leaving vehicles for the demon-nova.  It seemed like everyone else was baselines.  He was the dangerous one, the one who had actually kidnapped her.  She did not want to let him get away.  She wouldn't move from her vantage point unless she saw him.  Too much movement would get her spotted, and risk Phantasm's position inside.  The winged woman was really wishing for comm link right now.

After quietly sneaking into the building, Phantasm made her way toward the baselines.  First order of business was eliminating them quickly and silently.  She stalked them, creeping up to them before jerking them off their feet and cutting off the supply of blood to their brain with a practiced choke hold.

After eliminating the armed men, there was little opportunity for her to maintain cover.  She sprang into action, and immobilized the rest of the baselines within seconds.  Using their own packing materials, she rapidly tied the criminals up and ensured they would no longer be a threat.

A few minutes after Phantasm's entry into the church, Gravitas recieves a phone call.  "I'm in, baselines are immobilized. I'm going to explore the rest of their base.  You two good up there?  You want to join me?"

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
6 successes on stealth.  I made a separate roll for each group of attacks rather than break it down into multiple actions.  3 successes to attack from stealth, 5 for my regular attacks, should be enough with mega-strength 1 to get rid of all of them in a round or two.  Spending just 1 quantum to activate multitasking, since I'm already a little low.  Relying on Intuition to warn me of attacks, and let me raise a shield in time if it becomes necessary.

---

Flare felt a bit like a super spy as she dumped an overstuffed duffel bag on the card table.  It was filled to the brim with scanners, ham radios, two way radios, a fairly decent tracking device, a bug or two, and a very unhealthy bag of cheetos.  All the makings of a very good surveillance stockpile.

“I mentioned my interest in ‘helping’ the police, and my uncle was quite enthused.”  A bit of her light-hearted tone drained away as she continued. “My father’s well-timed, and oh-so-convenient death never sat right with him.  He’s been stocking up on some goodies, “ a thump indicated the bag, “and has been putting them to use keeping an eye on his fellow officers ever since. “  With a heavy sigh Flare pulled her mind out of the past, returning to more pleasant thoughts.  “Don’t worry about the decor, Dillon, when I can help it I only destroy property on Utopia’s dime.”

She looks over the map a bit, chewing her lip.  Ever since she’d started flying it had been a bit difficult to relate road maps to the actual aerial views she saw, but Flare was fairly certain she knew the area.

“Alright, what do we want to do?  I think our best bet might be to keep an eye on it over night, maybe set up a recording device, and make sure that this place is the drug hide-out.  Probably shouldn’t storm the gates until we’re certain. I can do a fly over if need be.”

She takes a minute to look around the room.  She liked the hideout he’d been planning, and had a few ideas as far as some welding she could do to better secure the windows.

“I had some basic police training in high-school, since I’d always planned to join, and setting up this stuff should be no problem. “

"Well ..." he thought aloud.  "Usually I'm trying to slip this in around the rest of my schedule.  So I just sneak or barge in."  There wasn't really a door that could stop him anymore, let alone a wall.  "If we do surveillance, is it admissible in court?"  Despite the Utopia crash courses, he remained uncertain of where he stood, legally, given his present status.

"I say, if we see guns, if I smell acetone on the air or anything like it, we hit them, drag them out and tie then up.  Big problem is making sure nobody sets fire to the whole thing."  He tried a cheeto, but showed no enjoyment.

There was no sign of Belphegor from above.  Below, the population of the church fell quickly under Phantasm's assault.  One man actually fired a shot, but Phantasm had already knocked his arm out of line and the bullet lodged harmlessly in the ceiling.

The newly restrained Michaelists, however, were less than cooperative.

"Let us go!" a teenager yowled.
"Pestilence!  We know you!  God told us about you!" a man shouted.
"Oh my god oh my god oh my god," a woman said, recoiling in terror at the slightest touch of a nova.

The only one who did not put up much of a fight - indeed, who seemed totally in control - was the woman in the black t-shirt who had been praying in the vestibule.  Calmly she sat, watching Phantasm as she dialed Gravitas.  Her gaze was unsettlingly steady, the sort of thirty yard stare possessed by only fanatics and the unhinged.

A quick exploration of the church produced more boxes.  This wasn't just a church: it had become a supply depot for a holy war.  They could have holed up in the secret basement for months if they had needed.  There might have been tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition as well, depending on how much had been moved out before Phantasm's arrival.  As it stood, there were at least 12,000-15,000 rounds of rifle and pistol ammunition left.

"Alright, let’s just hit them hard and fast then.  Things that we record are unlikely to be admissible, if for no other reason that we can’t go into court and testify to its authenticity.  Mostly we don’t want to destroy evidence, and certainly avoid things burning down." She changed her eufiber into an all black skin-tight outfit, complete with biker gloves, combat boots and mask.

“Don’t worry about fires.  It occurred to me that preventing destruction is just as important as causing it.  To that end I’ve been working on a new power.”  With a bit of thought she turned her now luke-warm drink into a frosty beverage, which she quickly finished off.  “Don’t tell Frostburn, okay?”

She took a few minutes to tie her hair up, eat more cheetos, and grab a video camera. “Locked and loaded, shall we go?”

"It's clear up here aside from some baselines loading up a truck," Quentin reported by phone, "do you care if they get away, or should we just come inside?" He waved his arms wide to get Gale's attention and then pointed down at the building, speaking as he drew close enough to be heard. "Sounds like she's mopped up inside."

If Phantasm wanted them captured, he did so, but would otherwise let them go. In either event, it takes only a few short minutes before he joins her on the inside.

"If we let them go, we can track them down later and find their other associates.  You saw them and their vehicles, so we have every detail recorded for posterity.  Should be easy to get them once this is all over.  I'm going to start asking questions..."  Knowing she was being watched, Phantasm made a show of dramatically dragging that last bit out as she turned toward her captives and clicked 'end' on her phone. "Hello all. We're going to have a little talk..."

Phantasm watched every twitch, microexpression, and intake of breath to detect just the right tactic to take before modulating her voice into a sacharine sweet mockery of her normal speaking voice.  "You've all been very naughty" she said as she wagged her finger at the lot of them.  But maybe this could be made to serve some purpose at least.

Phantasm erased all emotion from her face, replacing it with a look of timeless knowledge trapped within a youthful body, as her voice took on a hallow, echoing quality.  "There's a secret war going on you know, and you just got right in the middle of it.  You were right, novas are demons... some of them at least.  The rest are the angels sent to protect you, like the woman your people brutalized earlier.  This is the culmination of a war millenia old, the end times are here.  And you people, you are lashing out in all directions, attacking your saviors and your tormentors with equal fervor.  And you even ally yourself with demons to further your work.  Such a shame, we had hoped for so much more from you.  And now, we have to hunt down this demon with no leads, and no way of stopping him from murdering more innocents..."

A lie.  A masterful lie, weaved of their own beliefs and preying upon their deep sense of guilt and need for order.  And if it spread it could destroy the anti-nova religious movements, driving a wedge between them all and providing a hook for future manipulations.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

Analyze Weakness: 8 successes((8,8,6,9,3,7,7,9))
Manip+subterfuge: 13 successes((8,2,3,9,3,7,1,8,5,2,7,6,3,9,8,1,8,6,8,8))+((10)) had to roll separately for the last die, it told me there was a cap of 20 dice.

So, 13 successes to guilt them into telling me everything they know, hopefully including their rituals to control the 'demon', and to convince them of the rest of the story.  Which will hopefully have ridiculously complicated results in the rest of the storyline :)

---

There was no end to the gunfire. Suzukaze grew tired of dodging the bullets. The thoughts of finally getting out of reach only to be cut off again. Damn this.... I've got to make an opening.... She changes direction and instead of running away she runs towards the firing guns. She summons her blades as she tries to locate the nearest gun. When she does her blade glows with energy and she fires a blast at the gun. She doesn't stop even to see it it worked. She hunts down the next closest firing yet another blast. Memories of hunting down targets for the assassins flash in her head. She thought the guns as her targets. Her mission to kill them all...

The family and their accomplices suddenly went white.  A whole world opened up to them.  Was this another lie?  Novas lie; they are sent from Satan to poison the hearts of the faithful, make humanity reliant on blasphemous miracles and dark powers.  But she spoke true, and the angel that Belphegor had brought them had harmed only Belphegor!  Tears and disbelief for all.

"He ... he came to us repentant," a teenager sobbed.  "He's not all bad.  We let him stay here ... and pray here ... he-he-he just wanted ..."  She broke down into tears.

"He lied, but ... but never to us!"  Clearly, this man's faith in that statement was waning.  He was furiously punishing himself for his stupidity in trusting such an obvious demon.

"Sister Mariah-"

"Keep quiet!  You fools!"  One had rallied her reserves of will and hate and dissented, the woman who had been praying.  Sister Mariah, no doubt.  "Belphegor is the holy arm of Michael.  Alone among you is he repentant and subservient to the word of God.  I can only hope and pray that he will enter the kingdom of heaven with his atonement."

"He used sinners to trap other demons.  I showed him how!"  Already somewhat unhinged, Sister Mariah seemed ready to crack.  No doubt there had been a nova-related tragedy in her life, or some other defining experience that had cemented her doctrine.  Tearing apart her core belief in the demonic nature of novas wouldn't leave her much to found her world upon.  "And now he is beyond your clutches!  He is on the path to Salvation!"  And no doubt, she held the leash that controlled him.

They were not lying.  Belphegor was their brainwashed pet, a young man who believed himself a demon and so became one.  They made him promises and he prayed.


Upon Gale's arrival, the whole bunch broke into tears once again.  The extent of their betrayal and their disbelief was tremendous.

Scene: Vigilante Justice

"Secret's safe with me," he murmured in amazement.  Extinguishing flames she had always been good at, but clearly she'd been pushing things to the next level.  "What are friends for?"

---

When they arrived, Dillon showed Flare his license-plate scrambling trick and they parked a good ways out.  It was near dark, Comstock's favorite time for this sort of work, and he walked her through his usual routine.  Stalk up close, hide out for a minute or two in a pre-scouted hiding spot, and when everything was right, charge on in through the most concealed opening.

"I don't warp metal when I'm doing this, it'd be a dead giveaway.  Just strength and speed."  They had arrived.  Three cars present.  Looked like a full house and plenty of activity.  "Okay.  Deep breath and let's go.  Ladies first?"

Quentin tried not to cringe as he paced through the room, his senses taking in the scene. Religious fanaticism had never sat well with him as a baseline, and he'd managed to maneuver so as to not be exposed to too much as a nova. He stopped at one point and knelt to nearly touch the floor with an open palm, moving it around like it was a metal detector that had starting beeping. "He spent a lot of time," he made a motion to indicate the area around him, "right here. Meditating or praying, I'd guess." He stood again and continued his examination of the room and the people in it.

Turning at her friends' arrival, Phantasm gave them a wink and a smile, a suggestion to follow her lead.

After Gravitas had analyzed the quantum signatures in the area (quite the useful trick), Phantasm turned toward the woman of faith.  "Perhaps this is true, perhaps he has converted to the path of the righteous.  None are beyond redemption, despite their prior acts.  But if that is the case, he is a confused and lonely creature, certainly a target for his former brethren.  We must take him in and share with him what he must know of the coming days.  And as much as you've attempted to help him, there are things you simply cannot do for him."

Then she looked at Sister Mariah with sadness and pitty in her eyes.  "As is so readily apparent from your words, you don't understand the holy mission.  Does not Revelations say that the Beast will rule mankind for a time?  You struggle against this and kill 'sinners' in the process. You deprive the sinners of the opportunity to repent, and you attempt to derail God's own plan.  The final battle will come, but before then the sinners must have the opportunity to repent.  Even God's fallen angels must have the opportunity to come back to his side."

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
still lying her ass off.  But convincingly so, enough that even her friends might just have a few nagging doubts about what they really are... but only a few.  She did wink after all, right?  And of course, Grav already knows God, he found it in a coccoon, and it was his own unrealized potential :)

---

“But of course.” And with a smirk Flare shot through the opening Comstock had scouted out.

The fight, if it can be called such, was brief.  The few drug manufacturers with the presence of mind to have a weapon ready found it completely useless against the bullet resistant muscle of the man and the speed of the woman.  With the strength and speed of their limbs, the meth lab was under siege within minutes.  Though they had to keep their more flashy uses of power hidden, Flare especially had to rely on her nova speed rather than her trademark flames, the drug dealers flew through open windows and crashed into lab tables and walls as they were attacked by the two vigilantes.

“W-who are you guys! Are you Crips? Fucking Crips muscling in on our turf!”  One man, apparently the leader, managed to set one lab bench on fire while shooting his AK, but a small use of power by Flare and a solid left hook from Comstock left the fire extinguished and the thug drooling on the ground.

In a few minutes all the drug dealers were rounded up, tied up, and left sitting in a pile of their own meth.  A fitting message to the approaching police on what was going on in the house.

With sirens fast approaching the pair quickly made their way through darkened alleys and back to their vehicle.

Flare couldn’t help but laugh out loud as they drove back to the hide out.  “That, was completely awesome.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From a rooftop a few houses over, a figure in black was conversing through a walkie talkie.

“Yes, I was watching, didn't seem safe to interfere.”
“How many?”
“Two people, male and female, either nova or incredibly well trained.”
“Our people?”
“Yeah the lab is ruined and everyone was arrested.”
“Find them.”
“Understood, I’ll get our people looking in on it. Over and out.”
Conversation over the figure pulled out and lit up a cigarette.
“Man…its getting so a guy can’t earn a dishonest living without some nova or militant getting in the way anymore.”

Suzukaze's rapid shift in tactics confused the automated weapons systems for a moment, but her reprieve was short lived.  The first attack disabled her target flawlessly, but though her second charge was successful, it also left her vulnerable.  Two rounds penetrated her shield and eufiber, the first merely grazing her, and the second leaving a gaping hole in her side.

After several seconds of further combat, 'Kaze managed to disable the remaining weapons.  Her wound was severe, but medical treatment and nova physiology would probably win out.  More pressing concerns at the moment were the rapidly closing window for exit, and the fact that she had left blood at the scene of an operation.  While her shield and eufiber reduced the mess somewhat, there were limits to what they could do.  The silver lining to the situation was that the area wasn't exactly friendly to DNA evidence, given the abundance of chemicals and the heat, but if the automated drones in the area were efficient (which they had already proven to be) they would likely be able to get a sample unless further precautions were taken.

Gale followed Gravitas into the building, dropping lightly through the hole.  Not having heard most of the conversation before she entered, she was greeted by a crowd of people suddenly bursting into tears at the sight of her.  And not in the usual way either.  "Whoa." was all she could manage before Phantasm signaled that she was in control.

Phantasm's arguments were eloquent, and well thought out. Or at least, they seemed that way to Gale, who wasn't particularly religious anyway.  Who knew Phantasm was so good at debate?  Maybe that was why she went to Hollywood?  Gale didn't really have the time to think about it too much.

She checked the exits to the room.  There didn't seem to be any sign of Belphegor.  That concerned her.  She knew she had injured him.  Did he teleport away?  Maybe Gravitas knew.  She quietly approached, speaking quietly.  "Can you tell if he teleported away?"

The people who could tear their eyes away from grief and Phantasm stared at Gale with new eyes.  Fixated, watery, faithful eyes.  It was a bit creepy, actually.


"He ... I ... no!  You're lying to meee!"  Mariah wailed and struggled against her bonds.  "I don't understand."  These words stung, probably worse than anything else Phantasm could do to the woman.  The other Michaelists were coming aboard -- probably still had some doubts, but this new and disturbing revelation made a lot of sense and had slid into their world-views.

Sister Mariah believed she was staring Satan in the face.  And she was finding that she wanted to believe him.

"She-she-she struck him with the Word," Mariah said, looking to Gale.  "And he bled and cried in the tongue of beasts.  To the beast's bosom fled he ... he fled and ... and we had to flee.  The Lord's War must be fought, we couldn't be found, not with the supplies.  And then Daniel argued with me, but I told him to have-have-have faith.  Oh God ... the Mission ..."  Another sudden change comes over her.  She averts her eyes and squeezes them shut.  "No!  No!  Aberrant!  Demon!  You must repent!  Soften God's heart!  Mine .... mine eyes have seeeen the glory of the coming of the Lord ..."

She's sobbing and singing.  Trying to ignore you.  Trying to push your words out.  Why, it's true what they've been saying: someone has been teaching these Michaelists how to resist mental assault!  Unfortunately, these techniques work better in groups.  The way you are going, you have a sudden certainty that you could talk her into eating her own tongue with enough time.

Gale didn't quite know how to handle the stares she was getting.  Sure, she was used to stares, even affirmations of faith made toward her.  People thought she was an angel.  It was a side effect of the wings, she supposed.  But these people, this...cult, they gave her an uneasy feeling.  She couldn't meet their gaze, and instead focused on looking for clues, even if there were none to find.

For a moment Phantasm felt sorry for the woman.  She clearly was deluded, and all Phantasm was doing was confusing her more.  She deserved help... But she wouldn't accept it if it were offered.  And this woman, in collusion with a dangerous nova, had arranged the deaths of multiple people.  This wasn't the time for mercy.  Perhaps later the woman could be given the mental help she so desperately needed, but for now the mission was more important.

Phantasm's continued to delve into the woman's knowledge of Belphegor and in the process masterfully twist and realign the cult's beliefs.

After his examination of the room itself, Quentin waited until Phantasm finished her questioning. He had his own theories as to where they might find this would-be demon, though it would disrupt her interrogation if he were to interrupt Phantasm now with them. It was unlikely that a few minutes of delay would change anything, and it was still entirely possible that this 'Belphegor' figure would return to the church. His teleportation abilities seemed fairly limited, after all, and this church was likely one of his more familiar target locations.

Mariah's resolve cracked.  "I ... he wasn't supposed to hurt anyone.  He told me that the ... the couple were faithful, and so God would intercede.  That he would save them before the fire could get them.  This was all ... this was all arranged to trap a nova.  We've been ... doing this for weeks now.  Travelling across the country.  I've ..." she wept.  Her face was gray and ill.  "I've killed two angels with Belphegor.  Together we have slain five of ... of the heavenly host."

"I helped consecrate a lair for the beast, that he might be shrouded from his fellows.  It is near here."  She mumbled an address.  A shed in the backyard of her present house.

"You're ... you're not a devil are you.  Oh what are you?"  She was mesmerized and horrified at Phantasm.  "Because we waged war on you will ... will we be damned?  Will Belphegor be damned for killing his own?  He was so angry ... I wanted to help him to turn that anger into something good."  She sobs and begs forgiveness, to be absolved for her actions in ignorance.

---

The rest of the Michaelists are more comfortable than ever.  The father of the family cautiously looked from Gravitas to Gale to Phantasm.  "Then you're ophanim, and you're like seraphrim, and you're like cherubrim."  He swallows.  "There's a lot we don't know."

You get the distinct impression he may soon compel his children to start learning Hebrew and ancient Greek.

KVVU Las Vegas Nevada, Fox Five News
March 15th

“Out top headline tonight is the bust of a human slavery ring.  Nova vigilantes tipped off police only moments before assaulting heavily armed former Medellin Cartel members at their hideout ...”

“... the novas fled the scene before police could ask questions...”

---

From N! In your Neighborhood, Southern Nevada Feed
March 18th, 2005

“Two nova vigilantes assaulted a man in a car in broad daylight today in Henderson at the corner of Pecos and Pebble.  Witnesses claim that the man was armed but that the attack occurred so quickly he did not have a chance to defend himself …

...  When police arrived on the scene both novas were gone.  The victim, Allan Giordano, was actually arrested on separate charges relating to items found in his car …”

---

KLAS-TV 8 News Now, Morning Edition
March 27th, 2005

”... police found five-hundred thousand dollars and over three-hundred pounds of cocaine and methamphetamines in one of the biggest drug busts since 2003 …”

“... gang members still had their feet frozen to the ground when paramedics and police officers arrived.  The anonymous tipster has not yet been found but police are still searching ...”

---

From an OpEd, Las Vegas Sun
March 28th, 2005

… problem is that for every obvious case of nova vigilantism, every cheer of approbation from the public, there is another story of nova violence, of due-process being ignored and of one group placing themselves above all others.  It's guessed that there are three to four unreported acts of nova vigilantism in America for every one reported or caught, and as the nova population of Southern Nevada creeps over the two-hundred mark it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of them all and demand accountability.  For all the nova bible, the Teragen's Null Manifesto, talks about personal responsibility, it also asserts unequivocally that novas  are separate from the law and from human society.  The laws of baselines, it seems, are something to be held in contempt.  Limitations unfitting for quantum gods whose only moral authority is each other.

Unless something is done soon, the four or five active masks we see playing at being unofficial public defenders could become a dozen or more.  A future of brutal urban battles and super-tyranny, the kind naively envisioned in pre-boom comic books, could soon become a reality.

---

From N! in your Neighborhood, Southern Nevada Feed
April 11th, 2005

Police are searching for a nova with 'razor claws' after a fight at the Kahootz Bar on South Boulder Highway.  Witnesses claim that an unidentified man entered the bar at 8:15 last night and engaged in an all-out brawl with five men already present.  While this may have been yet another case of “masked-justice”, some are calling it a case of racism and are calling on police to take action to prevent further violence …

… The nova wore a eufiber mask and a voice modulator, hindering identification …

---

Las Vegas Review Journal
April 29th, 2005

[Photograph of a woman in an all black, skin-tight outfit with boots, gloves and a mask as she flies into battle]

THE NEW FACE OF JUSTICE?

North Las Vegas, Nevada (AP) – A battle in the streets of North Las Vegas only ended after the arrival of police security drones …

… the nova flew away, leaving the gangs behind her for the police.  “It's incredible.  With this much firepower, anyone would have been in danger.  It takes real heroics to put yourself in this kind of a situation.  I hope she comes forward to testify.  I'd like to shake her hand.”

---

Las Vegas Review Journal
April 29th, 2005

Two semi-trucks of stolen consumer electronics were mysteriously dropped off at the police station sometime during the night.  The driver, shown in this security camera footage, wore a mask and hoody to conceal his identity ...

---

CNN Headline News
May 6th, 2005

In response to the upswing in nova vigilantism in Las Vegas, the city of Detroit wants to create an official and legal position for a nova municipal defender.  “I don't know why we're the first to think of this: companies have been hiring nova-spokespeople to be their faces and innovators since 1998,” said ...

… crime in Detroit continues to increase as more jobs are lost to nova-boom cities, and it is hoped that having a municipal defender will serve as a deterrent to criminals as well as a life-saving alternative to hiring more police officers.

---

N!sight, From “Masked Justice” in Nova Nouveau
May 7h, 2005

How do you feel about nova defenders?

Jonas “Kikjak” Kincaid: Heroics are great, but it's something else entirely when novas are taking the law totally into their own hands.  It's easy enough to talk to the cops or the mayor to avoid drawing a crowd or starting a riot.

T2M:A's ”Gale”: Um, ah, certainly would-be heroes should go through the proper authorities. The police are there for a reason. If the enemies are a nova, then certainly they should be countered with novas. But that's what Utopia's for, right?

Audrey “Fusionette” DuBois: I've got a reasonable job and I follow all the laws.  Yeah, if I wanted to I could probably blow-up the whole state.  Would you trust me to play superhero?  Because I wouldn't, and I think any nova that tries has seen too many movies.

Joaquin “Rebound” Vallejo: Are we not entitled to the fruit of our own labors?  The sweat of our brow?  Why should we not try to change the world a little if we can?  You see a vigilante; I see a visionary.

Lance “Stone Badass” Stryker: Cross me and I'll bust your ass and that's a damn fact.  I don't have to wait for any police-man or Utopia-cop.

---

KVVU Las Vegas Nevada, Fox Five News
May 15th, 2005

The alleged identity of a serial robber may be known tonight after a man was tied up and dropped off in front of a Metro Police Station.  The man, whose identity has not yet been released, claims to be wrongly accused and the victim of out of control nova extremism.  Police are presently investigating the man and the items found on his person to determine whether or not they will press charges.

---

Team Tomorrow Uncovers Nova Murder
May 15th, 2005

The body of nova fashion model and pop-star Krystal “Sparkle” McKinnen was found by police today in Las Vegas.  The model, who had been missing for four months, was the subject of a nation-wide search, and was speculated to have been abducted for use in the production of the street drug Soma, which some believe is a byproduct of nova physiology.

Team Tomorrow: Americas acknowledges receiving information about the victim from an unnamed informant, but offers no additional comment at this time.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:09, Mon 04 July 2011.

Phantasm gave the woman a gaze that implied timeless knowledge, knowledge man was never meant to know.  "What am I?  There is more in heaven and earth... well, you know the saying. Let's just say that I have a certain sympathy for those that return from darkness to serve the light, and leave it at that.  It is possible that your Belphegor was simply misguided but attempting to do right.  If so, there is always forgiveness.  However, it is not from me that you should seek absolution Mariah.  Spread the word, let others know that forgiveness is possible for all.  Perhaps in the process you will find forgiveness for yourself."

Turning away from the weeping woman, Phantasm shoved her guilt down deep, where her own very real demons were caged.  Looking at the others, she nodded.  "There is, and will always be, much you do not know.  Go from here.  Change your ways, do what you know to be right.  The children of God are to bring light to the world, not more death and pain.  Mortal law will likely punish you for your actions, and this is as it should be. But remember that wherever you go you are free if you choose to walk with god.  This is a time of tribulation, not one of victory.  Victory comes later, when God welcomes us back into his kingdom."

Finally, she looks at her companions as she raises an eyebrow and glances at the exit.  Her friends could wrap things up how they felt best, but the Nova was their real target.  They could call the police on the way out, let them deal with the crazy cult people.

Gale was very uncomfortable.  Very.  These people were crazy before, but whatever power Phantasm was putting behind her words, it was scary.  Really scary.  These people had done more than 180, it was more like a 540.  However, it seemed to have prevented them from hurting any of the baselines.  Even though, if what Mariah said was true, they'd killed 5 novas.

At Phantasm's look, she gave a tiny nod and headed for the door with her and Gravitas.

Leaving the Michaelists to their fate, Gravitas, Gale and Phantasm continued on.


Precisely where Mariah described, there's a shed behind a suburban two-story house.  The backyard is a mix of cool-decking and gravel, very low maintenance, and there is a fair amount of junk scattered lazily about.  As well as garbage and droppings of a yapping dog who harasses you from just within the window of the house.  A pained groan echoed from within the shed.

Quentin nodded toward the shed. "He's inside," he said quietly, and then pointed out some blood that was smeared on the door, "and he's hurt."

He made a face that suggested that he didn't much like what he saw. "I don't suggest touching the blood if you can avoid it."

Gale's face turned into an expression of concern.  She'd only been trying to escape, but she must have injured him bad.  Real bad.  For how strong he had been, how fast, how quickly he had knocked her out, she would have thought him tougher.  "Guess I hurt him more than I thought," she responded, just as quietly.  "Phantasm, you seem to be good at talking.  Do you want to go first?"

The sign read “Kingman 55 Miles”, and the flats were colored yellow, brown and green.  His truck rattled, the heat playing havok with it's more sensitive workings, and Comstock took an unnecessary sip of water.  This road-trip was business, and Flare would be meeting him at the other end.  His luggage rattled around in the bed of the truck: he'd told everyone who cared he was visiting the Grand Canyon, and would have to put in some sort of appearance there just to keep up appearances, but the bags were actually full of tools of the trade.

Today, the vigilantes had a messy business to handle.  Soma.

With the Medellin and Colombia smashed, things were disintegrating more and more into a free-for-all.  And a few novas in the Vegas community had disappeared at about the same time that more Soma peddlers started appearing.  They'd been clever, using OpNet sites and blinds to cover their asses, selling to the up-and-coming white collar community tied in with the nova boom, the people who wanted to work a little harder, be a little smarter, meet their soaring obligations with a nova edge.  Gone were the doped-up super-soldiers, arrived were the students and parents, the ambitious and self-indulgent.

And supposedly there was an old motorcycle club in Kingman that handled distribution.  Which meant that Comstock had a new face in need of his fist.

---

By the time he'd arrived, Flare had obviously been there.  The MC Club was littered with unconscious thugs, bits of property damage, and a few more bullet holes than normal.  Her handiwork was becoming familiar and comforting, and her common sense had saved him from obvious missteps more than once in the past months.

”Ugh … shit … don't I know you?”  One of the thugs was blurrily coming awake, and in his complacency Comstock hadn't yet donned a mask.  With a gloved hand, he put the man back to sleep and remedied the error.  Eternal vigilance, right?  The place was every bit the bad-boy fun-house he'd expected.

Heading for the basement, he expected a still or meth lab.  What he found was rather more startling: a veritable factory.  There were four novas here.  Three were dead, their nodes drained by amateur surgeons to make the precious Soma.  The last was still alive, probably in between sessions being pumped, though mercifully the supply of sedatives and analgesics had not yet run out.

Suddenly, Comstock drew in a surprised hiss.  The body on the table … no, it couldn't be …

”Hey!  Can you hear me?”  He hesitated to pull plugs and tubes from the nova's body.  That scar …   There had always been clothes, masks, other bits of costuming, and that made it hard to recognize, but still …

”Doctor Zero?  Is that you?  Doc?”

He needed Flare.  Now.

"Do I have to?"  Phantasm grimaced at the place, and at the idea of going in first, as she hung up her call to the police. Law enforcement was on it's way to deal with the Michaelists.

Oh well, this is what I'm good at right? After a moment to consider the best approach, she dove in.  She activated her forcefield and the familiar sickly green glow sheathed her in it's moaning protection.  She waited to 'shift, conserving quantum until they knew he was here, and crept cautiously into the building as she peered about for any sign of their quarry.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
+15 soak, 2 more quantum gone. Keeping Intuition and nova senses primed for danger.

---

This message was last edited by the player at 19:31, Wed 13 July 2011.

The figure on the table weakly opens it's remaining eye, and weakly looks up before closing again.

"Hey!  Hey hey hey, come on stay with me."  Comstock's basic medical training only went so far.  "Fl-" No names, aliases  "Backup?  Need some help here!"
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:02, Fri 15 July 2011.

The shed wasn't large.  Empty two liter bottles and fast-food wrappers littered the floor behind the door, and a crappy air-mattress was mostly deflated on the floor.  In the back corner, Belphegor knelt against the wall.  Ready to pounce.   Red skin, horns, yellow cat's eyes, scales, and now now a hole in his side where it looked like Gale had shot him.  In the dark, Phantasm could make out a worn Bible, the sort that get handed out on street-corners.

"Don't ... come no closer."  His breathing was a bit ragged.  "Leave.  I won't go with you.  No doctors, no lies, no."  He growled.  "Any closer and I'll kill you.  Kill you dead."

Flare had wiped off her blood covered gloves with a satisfied smile before quickly vaulting the stairs and checking out the seedy back room.  She had registered the rattling of the grungy pickup that Dillon favored.  With his wealth she assumed he put up with the over-sized monstrosity because it was one of the few things capable of hauling his metal butt around.

She was distracted for a few minutes as there were a few men who thought they were hot shit up stairs.  Morons.  She’d just finished having a bit of boot-to-face time, it was a fun game, when Dillon called for backup.   She’d taken almost a whole step when his voice registered.  Comstock never really needed help, and his voice, normally near-monotone, had never showed such desperation…and was that fear?  Her heart rate sped dramatically and in a feat of nova speed and strength she went straight through the floor to the main level.  In less than a second was at Dillon’s side.

“What! What happened? Are you-“ Her voice died as her rapid search for danger honed in on the scene around her.  A nova lab. Those bastards would pay.

All of Flare's good natured demeanor disappeared in a second.  She wasn’t sure who the nova on the table was, strapped in like a lab rat, but Dillon knew him, and that was enough to push her into action.

Wasting no time she began giving orders, clearly to Comstock, though she kept to their spy antics and didn’t use his name.  “Get those IV tubes out of him. They aren’t doing any good, whatever they’ve pumped into him.  Get me that gauze across the way and start loading up as much of this crap as you can.” She closed her eyes and laid her hands on the groggy man’s chest.  There was something strangely familiar about him.  She leaned in to his face, “Stay with us, we’ll get you away from here soon.” The tell-tale white light pulsed, and Zero was significantly improved, if not completely better.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
4l or 8b whichever you prefer, probably enough for Zero to feel nearly spry.

---

With the majority of the damage healed she step around him, critically assessing any remaining injuries and waiting for some input from the patient or Comstock.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:51, Fri 15 July 2011.

The Nova's only eye opens, and stares blankly until it begins to show signs of growing awareness. A weak arm lifts with great effort and points to a drawer. "M-m-mask..." the Nova mutters with a horse voice. The other emaciated hands lifts weakly to cover it's exposed face, apparently as a sign of a psychological compulsion to remain anonymous.

Perhaps the exposer in the lab for the past months have been quite a bit of a blow to such an already unstable head job.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:48, Mon 18 July 2011.

Looking at the nova in front of her, Phantasm wished for an instant that she had Impetus with her.  While she really did want a fight, she couldn't help but feel sorry for the deluded wretch in front of her.  Of course, were all being duped by someone, so maybe I'm just feeling sorry for myself... I just hope my demons never drive me to his level...

Instead of moving further forward, she gestured for her friends to come in beside her so that they could talk, and perhaps help out if it came down to a fight.  "We just want to talk, at least for now.  Despite the fact that you hurt my friend and almost killed several baselines.  What the hell is going on Belphegor, or whatever you call yourself?  Why are you doing this?"

"Hang in there Doc."  He stumbled about, searching the drawer for things for the doc to wear.  He found clean t-shirts, jeans, boots ... and at last, familiar pieces of a costume.  "Here."  On an afterthought, he gave Zero a set of aviator shades from his pocket.  "We'll get you out of here, okay?"

He looked to Flare.  "You think it's okay to stand?"  The tell-tale white glow of her power lingered in the air, and Zero's wounds looked much improved.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:36, Tue 19 July 2011.

Gale lingered furthest in the back.  The hole in his side bothered her.  She had done that.  A sign of her strength as a nova.  Belphegor was a nova, but did she have to go full force against him?  From what they had heard, he was a young nova.  It struck her again that she and Belphegor were, in many ways, complete opposites.

"Doc?" It took a few seconds for the name to click, but as she saw Dillon pull out pieces of a costume, the identity of the being splayed out on the medical slab sank in.  She barely registered Comstock’s question as she swayed, just a bit, from the shock.

How, how could these people have managed to capture a member of T2M:A? How long had it been here, suffering?  How had none of them known?  It was a horrible gut-wrenching feeling, this knowledge that Zero had been captured here, could have died here, and if not for a random tip about Soma they’d have never been the wiser.

She choked back the rising bile and tried to go back to critically observing a patient.  “I-I think the healing should have taken care of physical trauma, but with this level of malnourishment, I doubt it can stand, even if it wanted to. Though we can let it try, and carry Zero out of here if the effort is too much.”

She knew Dillon was among the strongest of Nova’s, but wasn’t sure he was capable of the delicacy required for handling the Doctor in his weakened state. To her shame though, she’d rather Dillon get Zero out of here, and allow her to turn the entire area into a melted hole.

Forcing such unhelpful thoughts away, she gently slid an arm underneath Zero’s shoulders and started to help it  get off the table.

“Come on, Zero, let’s get you out of here.”

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Realized I addressed Zero as ‘he’ in my last post, which may or may not be accurate, switched back to non-gender for this one.

---

The Doc's head bobs up in an awkward stupor. "This place sucks... should have never..."

"Huh? Out of here? OK..."

The air around them shimmers and twists into a new setting. The Novas are now outside the complex.

((OOC: Spent Quantum to Teleport all three of them.))

"Whoa.  Been awhile since I felt that."  He was a bit surprised Zero had the juice left for this kind of thing.

Dillon's truck was parked next to a bunch of motorcycles, Nevada and Arizona plates mostly.  The MC Club was quiet, and they didn't yet have any police presence or gawkers despite the noise they'd made inside.  "Zero, right now Flare and I are working off the clock.  Usual M.O. after busting up a place like this is to anonymously ping local P.D. and get the hell out once we're sure we haven't left anything that could lead them back to us."  He squinted into the sun.  "I ... we've got a safe house in Vegas, and I'm thinking it's best if I scrap my plans and we get you back there to lay low for a bit.  No T2M to bail us out right now, and too many questions if we take you to a hospital around here."

"What's going ... what's going on?!"  Belphegor laughed, delirious and manic.  "I know, I know ... the only hope that aberrants have is to have the unambiguous Truth preached to them, that God might soften their hearts and grant them repentance to depart from their sin and name the name of Christ."  He wiped sweat from his scaled brow.  "You need to hear it, right?  False angel.  Soul-catching witch.  Godless scientist."

He coughed.  It sounded a bit wet.  "I ... can't now.  I just can't.  If you're here to return me to hell, I'll kill you, God help me."

Quentin frowned down at the wretch for a few moments as he spoke. "You're not killing anyone," he said flatly. "You need medical attention." It occurred to him that he did not, in fact, have a nova-strength sedative on him at the moment. He hadn't come into this situation prepared for combat or dealing with nova problems like this. He could go and get some, of course, but that would take time, and it'd probably be best to ensure that the demon-wannabe was restrained or otherwise neutralized before he left, even for a few moments.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," he advised the delirious nova, "The easy way is that you surrender yourself into our custody and we get you to a facility that can tend to nova injuries." He did not elaborate on what the 'hard way' was; he felt sure everyone present understood. Or at least they would if they were all in their right minds, which at least one of them clearly was not.

"Ohhhhh..." The Nova's head slumps down. "What a headache. I told them I have reactions to lobotomies." It sounds like the Nova is babbling more to itself then anyone else.

"No hospital? But I am a pretty hospital. With a pretty, pink skirt. I sexy nurse, with a chainsaw knife, and... Oh, I have a safe not-place with equipment in the Vegas. 1324 Market St. Underground. Groundhog ^{style. With pixies} _{and marmalade and tequila}..."
This message was last edited by the player at 11:29, Wed 20 July 2011.

Zero was obviously in pain, and disoriented.  That was the only thing that saved it from being laughed at.
“I’m sure you make a lovely hospital Zero, but for now let’s just turn you into a functional being again, shall we.”  Flare gets an arm under its knees and effortlessly cradles the rapidly devolving Nova like an oversized infant.   She also wished she’d had the forethought to bring a video camera to record the good Doctor for posterity.

She cocks her head and meets Comstock’s gaze.  “I think that address sounds like a real one, but goodness knows what surprises our chainsaw nurse here would have built in.  I’m find with either place.” Her gaze becomes thoughtful as she thinks about the trip back.

“How bumpy is the trip back by truck? I could possibly fly him there, but if anything happened during the trip we’d be pretty much helpless, I think riding with you would be best.”

”Drilling project still underway, and now critics are claiming that it could lead to renewed seismic activity …”

”... want Kraken Heavy Industries to acknowledge their crimes and …”

”... potential of  this project is nearly limitless, and it's about time that government showed more support for private firms willing to  …”

---

The Jackass Flats Project proceeded apace.  The TBM was within 2km of the Mohorovic discontinuity now, and personal attention to the project was absolutely necessary as efforts to shore up the walls now reached the realms of untested theory.  Materials continued to prove troublesome: his Russian tungsten suppliers were coming up short, and the Chinese were slowly emerging from their internal disorder and being more difficult about exporting the stuff.  Quantum transmutation continued to present an option, but under these circumstances Kraken could neither supply sufficient mass nor afford the non-zero risk of spontaneous reversion of the transmuted elements back to their parent compounds.  It was a method that worked best with consumables, enzymes, things only needed for a short time.  Interruptions and moral panics were becoming common also: as the owner of what was now the world's deepest well, scientists of all stripes were harassing KHI for permission to collect or share data, while protestors and terrified luddites demanded the project stop for fear that it would lead to a planet-altering catastrophe.

On cue, the Nevada Secretary of the State, the State Attorney General and an agent of Project: Utopia were on his front door asking to look about the place.  Nova-technology being highly regulated and all that, and what would voters say if their government weren't looking after their interests?  It could be Yucca Mountain all over again, and no one wanted that.

Someone was giving these fools ammunition, too.  The killbots were turning up strange things in routine inspections of the site.  Cobalt-60.  Radon-222.  There was no proper reason for these things to be detected where they were being detected, and consultation with on-site engineers pointed to outside sabotage as the most likely cause.  Especially given there was a man dying of extreme radiation exposure in Mercury.  A KHI agent managed to find the man and was presently talking him out of making a media scene.

Yes, there was plainly a problem.  A conspiracy, perhaps, to halt the project or embarrass the company.  Utopia, it was rumored, was not beneath espionage of this nature.  The yet-to-go-public Directorate or US agencies could also have cause.  And the obvious story quietly being put forward was that drilling at what was formerly a test site introduced too many health risks, the kind of story that opened the door for oversight from a paranoid democratic president and his pro-Utopia bloc.

Problematic.

Too much bread, not enough butter.  Wilhelm was feeling spread thin.  There was only so much not having to sleep and being able to get anywhere in the world in around two hours could do to solve the problem.  Wilhelm resolved to address matters directly and start solving problems once and for all.  He began by making a list of what he knew.  Any finds of Cobalt-60 and Radon-222 were clearly plants.  Radon-222 was in the radium series decay chain, not the actinium series decay chain as would be expected from the remains of nuclear weapons tests.  Cobalt-60 was too light to be a fission product at all, all of the decay chains hitting stable isotopes at higher atomic masses.  The point of intersection between the two isotopes was a strong neutron source, either to kick start the decay of the ordinarily rather stable Uranium-238 in order to form Radon-222 or to form Cobalt-60 outright through neutron activation.  Someone had to have had access to a fast breeder reactor to make the quantity of radioisotopes needed and the only people who ran those sort of reactors were Russian, at least since the failure of the SNR-300 project in North Rhine-Westphalia and the unfortunate forced decommissioning of the BN-350 reactor.  The KGB FSB whatever they were calling themselves today always had loved the radioisotopes.  The question remained of how the radioisotopes had been smuggled on site, but Jackass Flats was big enough that it wasn't out of the question that someone could have snuck in without being seen.  Surreptitious inquiries with KHI's Russian contacts would probably be unavailing, so Wilhelm focused on preventing any further incursions onto the site.  Whoever was involved was apparently able to avoid detection with the suite of sensors currently deployed, but if he/she/it was bringing radioisotopes onto Jackass Flats, he/she/it wouldn't be able to hide their distinctive radioactive signature.

"Lucas, get over here."

Lucas Compton was already nearby, proceeding toward the snack machines after having suffered a sudden attack of hunger, his PDA absentmindedly still in his hand.  The youthful Nova didn't have the necessary scientific training to be truly indispensable to Wilhelm, but his instinctual control over quantum indeterminacy, resulting in him always (and purely by chance) being where he was most needed, was proving rather useful.  Besides, the central computer had indicated that the youth was the one candidate most likely to be interested in Teragen philosophy, so Wilhelm was determined to give him a chance.  The necessary scientific skills would come with time.

"Have imaging scintillation counters installed in all of the security drones.  The SC-80Bs.  Make sure they are calibrated to reject the background ionizing radiation levels.  You'll need to access the Jackass Flats ionizing radiation GIS dataset.  Talk to Lenny in IT to get the necessary permissions."

The SC-80B imaging scintillation counter was a modular unit designed to allow KHI security drones to screen for fissile materials in shipping containers.  There were certainly plenty in a KHI warehouse somewhere, so it would only take a couple of days to start deploying...

"Ah, SC-80B ... SC-80B.  Here we are.  I knew I had just gotten an email about that.  It seems we got a misshipment of those delivered here yesterday.  Looks like there's just enough to fit them to all the drones.  I'll have them transferred over instead of shipping them back to Erfurt."

Nun, das ist bequem.

"Very good Lucas.  Carry on."

Two problems remaining then, radiation poisoning and government inspections.  The radiation poisoning issue was easily dispensed with.  If the cause of the poisoning had been transient exposure to ionizing radiation than the man would either have gotten better or died upon moving away from the site of exposure.  Since he hadn't, the man must have been contaminated with an ionizing radiation source.  An analysis of which tissues were primarily affected would likely allow him to identify the poison used, but it really didn't matter.  British anti-Lewisite would eliminate any toxic or radioactive heavy metals present in the man's body and the Teflon Giant was probably the greatest means available of administering the agent.  A simple visit to the man's hospital room, preferably disguised as a show of compassion for the man's condition, and every cell of the man's body would be suffused with dimercaprol.  The man might suffer some lingering risk of cancer and his urine would smell disturbingly of garlic for around a week, but that should be the end of his troubles as well as the end of the PR risk he posed to KHI.  The government inspections were a more prickly matter.  While none of KHI's technology was, strictly speaking, Nova-technology, differing from the technology of the 60s and 70s only in that KHI had the political will to carry technological development to its logical conclusion, Wilhelm could see how one could easily be mistaken for the other.  Probably best to go on something of an offensive, PR-wise at least.  A missive went out to the talking heads at KNN; President Brown was now to be referred to solely as "anti-worker, anti-business President Brown".  The same went for all manner of government officials of the state of Nevada.  Utopia had been on the KNN shitlist for a while now, so no change there.  Another missive went out to LAWBOT-5900.  Wilhelm couldn't recall any US domestic implementing legislation for Utopia's Nova-tech regulations.  Surely a Constitutional challenge could be mounted attacking the enforcement of such regulations in the absence of domestic implementation?  At least the possibility of such a challenge would play well to KNN's base audience.  If the inspectors persisted in demands to see more of Jackass Flats than was covered in the tour, though, Wilhelm would probably have to let them in.  Doing otherwise would just look suspicious.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:22, Fri 22 July 2011.

"Alright, hop in."  The cab was spacious enough for the three of them with a minimum of squeezing.  "Long drive.  Two hours at least.  I've got a cooler in the back with some drinks."  He sighed, looking over Zero again.  "And when you're feeling better, I've got a lot of questions."

As they made ready to go, he spared a few more looks up and down the street.  They'd just have to leave this one alone for now, but at least there weren't any gawkers.

"Hah!  That this too solid flesh would melt!"  Belphegor's head, it seemed, was all sloppy English and a mishmash of memorized quotations.  "Weigh me with accurate scales, and let God know my integrity.  If I have put my confidence in gold, and called fine gold my trust, if I have gloated because my wealth was great, and because my hand had secured much that too would have been an iniquity calling for judgement, for I would have denied God above."

He shifted his weight.  The wound probably wouldn't be fatal, but unless he was imbued with greater regenerative powers than he was presently displaying it would take days for Belphegor to recover.  "Judge me ... For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

The Doctor groans weekly, and slumps to the side. "no more for me. I'm driving." There is a shimmer, and the vehicle and occupants are in mid air for a second, then back on a road 20,000 killometers from their last position toward their target destination.

(ooc: 23:39, Today: Dr. Zero rolled 1 success using 4d10 with the World of Darkness 3rd ed system with a target of 7. Teleport, -3InternalPenalty.
1 suc+ 4 auto suc[Quantum] =5 suc, 20,000 killometers).

Great, another crazy, and worse than the last bunch combined.  She examined him as he babbled his responses to Gravitas.  His wounds were bad, and they hadn't healed.  Odd, I wonder if Gale triggers as some sort of holy power to him and prevents him from healing.  While she contimplated the interplay of nova psychology and physiology, she was also analyzing his speach for potential weaknesses she could exploit.  It would be better if they could avoid violence, and end this with words.

Looking the deranged nova in the eyes, she spoke slowly and dramatically, manifesting her forcefield of screaming nightmares as she did so.  "You have a choice Belphegor.  Back to hell with me, to be punished for your sins, or side with the angels and be remanded to thier care."  With the last, Phantasm looked at Gale, clearly casting her as an angel in his strange psychodrama.

Gale was grateful that Phantasm was doing most of the talking.  It made it easier, especially since Belphegor was making even less sense than he had been before.  She stepped forward next to Phantasm, and offered the man a clawed hand.  "Come, Belphegor.  You don't have to suffer anymore."  She really wished that she had taken the time to study religion more closely, but as it was, she did her best impression of an angel.

Belphegor's own taloned hand shook as he reached out.  "You ... you wouldn't take me ... would you?"  Disbelief.  Shock.  "I would have killed you.  I ... The LORD is a jealous God, filled with vengeance and wrath.  He takes revenge on all who oppose him and furiously destroys his enemies ..."

He does not understand.  How old is this guy?  It's really hard to tell, but suddenly it seems like he's not any older than Jimmy.  "Utopia means no-place, it's-it's-it's a den of iniquity, it's ... I don't ..."  He drew back a bit.  "How do you forgive?  I am seventy-times seven ..."  The demon weeps.  "I don't want to go to prison.  I don't want to go to hell.  I just wanted ... oh Lord ..."

Flare feels the lurching, nauseating sensation in her gut that usually accompanied being teleported.

“Oh god.  Maybe I should have just flown.” She presses her palms into her eyes, trying to focus on what to do next.

“Well, Dillon, whoever gave you that tip on the MC club deserves an award.  Even without our personal interest, this was a great hit to the Soma producing bastards.” She shot a glance at her near-unconscious teammate, and her expression hardened.

“I’m thinking I’ll pay a trip back here later.  Make sure there isn’t anything left for them to make a profit with.”  And that the place was leveled to smoldering ash.  No one had the right to just imprison and drain a nova that it was for some sick drug scheme made it even worse.

She shook her head, wiping away her dreary thoughts. Taking a cleansing breath she rolled down the window and jumped out.  In a few seconds a call of "Stealing a beer...want anything Dillon?" was heard over the wind.

Gale's face softens.  Poor kid.  And she was sure now that he was just a kid.  A confused, manipulated, frightened kid.  "The LORD is also a forgiving God, is that not why he sent his Son?  All souls can be forgiven."  She didn't move her hand, still holding it out for him.

"You don't have to go to Utopia if you don't want.  But you do need help.  And we're offering that to you.  So please, take my hand."

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: 20,000km would put us well, well past Las Vegas.  So I'm going to assume that Zero's put us back at the hideout, having plucked the address from Comstock's head or else picked it up from Comstock and Flare's banter.

---

"Damn.  Doc ... don't do that."  He didn't recall the doctor having quite that much oomph to his teleporting, but then again he'd seen the man wrestle with two-dimensional objects and manifest inside solid rock.  This was an age of miracles.

Dillon stepped out of the truck and looked around.  This was the right spot.  Saved gas, at least.  "Beer's good, thanks Flare.  Come on, Doc, let's get you inside for a bit."  Zero was only the third person to see the inside of Comstock and Flare's secret lair, and it had been improved by the addition of a couch.

Flare was right.  Even if they hadn't found Zero, this was a good day.  Some bad people had been made to pay.  "I'll let the gal who tipped me off know things went well."  Once he had a can of beer, he pulled a chair over to sit with Zero.  "And that brings us back to you.  Doctor ... how the hell did you end up in that hell-hole?"

Belphegor cautiously, ever so cautiously, took Gale's hand.  "Al-alright.  I ... I want to return to his heavenly kingdom."  Slowly he eased onto his feet, quantum-reflexes on edge, his yellow eyes locked onto Phantasm and Gravitas watching for any sign of attack.  "Take me back, Lord, take me back."

Belphegor was their problem now. 

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: Phantasm has manipulated Belphegor into complete and total awe-struck trust in Gale, so now it's up to you to determine what you want to do with him.  Choose carefully, though: he's still unstable.  Other than that, consider this little plot tidied up.

---

The dying man in Mercury, Nevada was grateful to see a real nova millionaire in person.  The dimercaprol mostly did the trick, though he would be showing up for regular examinations at the hospital for the rest of his life.  "Really odd.  I was calling my dog back in, when this flash of blue light came from your drill-sight.  I didn't tell anyone because I figured they'd think I was nuts or think I was just trying to whine my way into a lawsuit like some Cally-fornian.  Your lawyer managed to catch me almost before I realized I was about to die.  I'm grateful, really.  I'd also like to see that hole you're digging out there sometime.  Sounds like a hell of a thing."  He didn't know much of anything else.  The blue light was the only useful lead he had.  That and he didn't vote for Brown in the last election.

Hell Kraken's efforts to tar the government and their inspectors were less successful.  After his people gave the Utopia agent (Rebekah Tunguz; born 1952, Tomsk USSR) a run around, she came back with backup: a Utopia nova styling herself Parallax.  Parallax was eyeballing the whole of the site from the outside edge presently, in such a way that the killbot threat analysis software was presenting an 87% likelihood that she had telescopic vision and enhanced senses of some sort.  She was demanding that Hell Kraken allow her inside for an inspection to verify the claims presented by KHI that no nova-technologies were in use.

The OpNet was less than forthcoming on the identity of Parallax.  Nova name was registered, but other personal information was held private.  She had been employed by Project Utopia as a technical analyst for two months and nothing else.  She was caucasian, but wore her eufiber as a stark white, gender-minimizing hooded suit with some sort of goggles.  A total cipher.  She'd arrived by car, too, after arriving at the Las Vegas airport on a plane from Addis Ababa.

"Sir?  Phone call for you."  Lucas was, as usual, precisely where he needed to be.  "It's the State Attorney General.  He says he understands our situation and would like to help."

Convenient timing.

"C'mon, let's get you patched up."  Gale threw a significant glance to Phantasm and Gravitas.  It seemed Belphegor would follow her, but she was just as uncomfortable being his angel as she would anybody else's.  They would need to get him some real mental help.  Eventually.

Čerenkov-licht?  Nein, nein.  The idea seemed a foolish one, even though the UV-biased spectrum described by the formerly-dying man would fit it better than the main alternative, bremsstrahlung.  Visible bremsstrahlung would have required either the presence of an extremely intense magnetic field or an extremely intense radiation source, both of which would have left behind evidence at the site.  In any case, the radiation thereby emitted would have been biased toward lower energy photons than were observed.  The emission of Cherenkov radiation in air, though, would require the presence of ultra-relativistic charged particles.  Very ultra-relativistic charged particles as a matter of fact, ones traveling at 0.9997c.  A proton traveling that fast would carry 937 MeV of kinetic energy, more than could be generated by any mode of nuclear decay.  Particle accelerators had been able to manage such energies since the 50s, but they did it in a hard vacuum and there wasn't one on site.  Wilhelm asked a few questions of the man before departing, just to make certain of things.  If ultra-relativistic charged particles had caused the blue flashes of light observed by the formerly-dying man then these particles would have induced similar effects in things other than air, things such as the highly refractive vitreous humour of the man's eyes.  Apollo astronauts, their eyes bombarded by cosmic radiation as they ventured outside the Earth's magnetosphere, had reported spots, stars, streaks, and clouds in their visual field created by Cherenkov radiation in the eye.  If the source of the blue flashes was ultra-relativistic charged particles then the formerly-dying man would have experienced similar visual phenomena.  Assuming his suspicions were confirmed, Wilhelm ran through what he knew.  The boring laser at the Jackass Flats site operated at a wavelength of 3.8 microns for minimal atmospheric attenuation and did not make use of charged particles at all, so it could not have been the source of any blue flashes of light.  Charged particles of the velocity needed to emit Cherenkov radiation in air could not be produced by nuclear sources, only by a GeV-class particle accelerator which wouldn't be portable.  Therefore, the only rational explanation remaining was the use of nova powers.  Wilhelm didn't jump to any conclusions.  Someone could just as easily have opened up a portal of some sort inside a particle accelerator as generated the particles on site.  The computer could sort through the possibilities better than he could.  Still, somewhere in the pit of his stomach Wilhelm felt certain that his old nemesis had returned once again.

Back in his heli-borne offices, Wilhelm considered the various possible solutions to his problems.  Really his path forward was clear.  KHI had supplied the Utopians with all of the documentation that should be necessary to prove its assertion that no nova technology was being developed at its Jackass Flats facility, yet still they impugned the corporation's honesty.  Wilhelm wouldn't take that lying down.  He would give Utopia's representatives two options.  One, KHI would, of course, comply with any valid orders from the Federal District Court for the District of Nevada.  KHI was a respectable corporation after all.  Two, KHI would agree to an audit of its facilities by an independent third party.  A list of acceptable third parties was drawn up and forwarded to Utopia in case they chose the second option.  KHI would not allow a private, non-governmental agency run by a charitable organization to dictate policy to the US government, though, regardless of anti-business President Brown's apparent willingness to roll over for Utopia and bark on demand (the last bit of the ultimatum was added mainly for the benefit of the talking heads on KNN).  On videophoned advice from KHI's PR firm, a few gross of American flags were ordered so that they might be flown at any press conferences.  Surely the fact that KHI was as multi-national as corporations came could be glossed over.  The cultivation of some local ties, starting with hearing out the State Attorney General, could only help in this respect.  Wilhelm called in Lucas to arrange such a meeting, only to find he'd already reserved the Teflon Giant's usual private room at Andre's at the Monte Carlo.  The lad was proving more useful by the day.

Before Wilhelm got around to not being able to enjoy the Lobster Thermidor at Andre's, however, there was one last matter to attend to and it was perhaps the most tricky of any of the problems presently facing him.  If Chagan had indeed returned, Wilhelm had no doubt that he would try to hurt Wilhelm in the same way that Wilhelm had hurt him those many years ago.  Wilhelm might even concede that such a revenge would be deserved, although he would do everything in his power to prevent it.  He'd tried to keep his relationship with Cláudia discrete, but it wasn't exactly secret.  She would be an obvious target in any attack made against him.  He couldn't simply whisk her away to a safe place until everything blew over, though.  That would be too possessive and she'd hate him for it.  She'd always said she could take care of herself.  To a certain extent that was true.  She'd walked out of the ashes of Jardim Ângela on the 25th of September, 2003 thanks to the timely eruption of her nova powers, so ordinary threats, even most extraordinary ones, were as nothing to her.  Wilhelm knew something about the danger Chagan posed, though, and worried.  After much soul-searching he resolved to take whatever measures he thought necessary so long as it would be impossible for her to find out.  He dispatched one of his smaller jets, a Bombardier Challenger 601, to Narita International with orders to stand-by for immediate departure, retasked a Kosmos/Resurs observation bird from KrakMaps data acquisition to real-time surveillance of the Tokyo metropolitan area, and called in a favor with an "investor" in the Roppongi district of Tokyo to watch over Cláudia from a distance and potentially get her to the airport.  Hopefully these measures would prove enough.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:30, Wed 10 Aug 2011.

Logan and Suzukaze make their way to the portal just in time, leaping through as it irised closed.  On the other side, Logan nodded to himself. "Someone is going to catch hell for this when I get back...  Listen, we got enough for now.  Our info was bad, and the tech they gave us was shit.  The op wasn't a success, but your tryout was.  You'll be hearing from us again.  Soon."  Turning to the 'porter-for-hire, his gravelly voice barked orders in quick succession.  Suzukaze was back on the T2M:A base in moments, leaving the night's activities behind.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
I think the last reply I made in this got missed, but it was winding down anyway.  'Kaze passed her trial run, and more missions will be available.  Hell Kraken has limited dna evidence that points to 'Kaze.  If he can find her info recorded someplace that is, which is unlikely.  But there is still a great deal that can be determined from a bit of blood and detailed recordings of how a nova moves...

---

Belphegor gradually calmed down, but the trio would need to find someplace to keep him.  For the time being, the three found a private clinic in Vegas with a great deal of discretion and its own private security.  Clean beds, warm clothes, good food, and all the comfort a celebrity might need to rehabilitate.  Giving the trio a chance to decide whether or not to try bringing Belphegor to a Rashoud center.  For what it was worth, the sullen, confused and starkly paranoid Belphegor seemed grateful.  And numb.  He'd be kept there as long as he did not cause too great a disturbance.

By the following day, news of the fire, the satanists and the attempted murder of two Michaelists dropped.  Publicly, it fell into the background chatter on the news: no mentions of the weaponry and supplies, just the crime of a small nova cult associated with Astaroth.  But on the streets, Michaelists started marching, daily, up and down the street in front of the burned out construction.

Phantasm, Gale and Gravitas each received a hand-written message, sealed with wax.  Each was delivered to their nearest Las Vegas place of work or residence.
I will meet you atop the tallest tower of our modern Gomorrah.  I want to know what you have done with Belphegor.
- the Prodigal

A time was scribbled at the bottom of the page, very late the following night.

”Drilling Toward Doom: how the unproven engineering project of one Nova-billionaire   could be jeopardizing thousands of lives.  Tonight at eleven.”

”President Brown's ineffectual leadership puts foreign interests before American security.”

”Hell Kraken's flagrant defiance is a show of strength.  He's telling America that her's more important, that he and other novas can do as they please.”

”Project Utopia's UN mandated authority over nova technology is being stretched to its absolute maximum and used as a pretext to control the actions and accomplishments of all novas.”

---

After prompting from security and confirmation from her superiors, Parallax and the Utopia Technology Agent left the Project Site.  The Nevada government went into a tizzy, and for days talking heads on Kraken News Network and CNN bickered and shouted in an effort to mobilize their respective bases.  N! remained as neutral as possible throughout, which kept the issue a domestic American one.  But whether or not the massive resources of KHI could carry the day remained in doubt.

On the fourth day, Utopia called a press conference.  Antaeus stepped up to a podium as spokesperson.  ”Good evening.  Project Utopia has been approached by the Federal Governmento of the United States and asked to justify our invocation of the regulatory powers granted to us by the United Nations over Nova Science and Technologies.”  Antaeus, looking bored or distracted, recounted the history of the Equatorial Wars, São Paulo, the risks of rapid social change, and the advantages of placing such regulation in the hands of a single benevolent organization with close ties to the United Nations to provide oversight.  Tactfully, he avoided yawning.

”This is an ongoing process.  The business of the Jackass Flats Geothermal Drilling Site has been under scrutiny because of allegations of untested nova technology.”  Most of the world saw no change, but aware novas around the world witnessed the grand scientist and ecologist drift off script in frustration.  ”At its most basic, this is appallingly offensive to humanity.  The assumption that humanity alone could never envision technology of this scale is flatly contradicted by more 20th century miracles than I care to list, and the fear of catastrophe that bubbles forth from the insecure and uneducated only underscores the larger insecurities of critics.  In the interest of settling this and in recognition of the quality information already supplied by KHI, Project Utopia has opted to, in this singular instance, accede to the review of a neutral party.  The details are now posted for all to examine on the OpNet, and we anticipate KHI's response.  The threat the project represents will be communicated to the American public via the United States Federal Government once the process is completed.  My own confidence in Hell Kraken's project is sufficient that I volunteer my time and abilities without charge in the event that anything catastrophic transpires.  I return now to Addis Ababa.  Good day.”

---

Very soon thereafter, Parallax and Utopia's Section for Technological Regulation forwarded their choice to KHI and asked politely to get the process started.  Per the demands of the state, they also asked that a representative of the State of Nevada or Clark County be allowed to accompany inspections.

Odd.  But whatever game was being played behind the scenes, its inner workings were not yet apparent to the various information gathering arms of KHI.

But there was other business.  Cláudia's new security detail went out without any obvious sign of anyone noticing.  Meanwhile Thomas Anders' office arranged a meeting.

"You are in a very odd position, Dr. Förster.  I do not envy you.  You did well in repulsing Utopia this time, but I understand they've brought in some of their nova consultants to push you around.  Whiskey?"  Anders' private office came with a small bar.  "I very much like what you've done for us here.  Those Killbots of yours, for instance.  People are beginning to accept them, and I'm told they'll be rolled out for regular duty soon."

"Things like that make it possible for us to discuss mutually beneficial futures."

It was the work of an afternoon to arrange for an appropriate third party inspector to review KHI's "Well to Hell".  In exchange for matching funds for the construction of the R/V Kraken, a bargain at a few hundred million dollars even if just for the corporate goodwill, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Japan's JAMSTEC were willing to send over a joint American-Japanese team headed by UCSD's Dr. Munk to inspect the hole.  As the originator of Project Mohole back in 1961, Munk had gotten as near as anybody in the US to achieving the aims of KHI's boring project, so his opinions on the subject would likely be taken as authoritative by the public in general.  In accordance with the State of Nevada's wishes, a Mr. Martinez from the state Well Driller's Advisory Board also had to be dragged out from Carson City, but fortunately he was a civil servant so no ships had to be laid down to acquire his services.  Of course a few additional weeks were needed to prepare the site for inspection.  The laser had to be shut off and the rock allowed to cool to a relatively chilly 300 Celsius over the course of a fortnight.  More time-consuming still, a high-temperature hardsuit had to be specially forged out of an ingot of aluminum since people had never gone down the hole, the hole was hot enough to roast a turkey, and the atmosphere of the hole was straight hydrogen.  After about a month, though, trimix-breathing, mirror-finished, aluminum-clad, glycol-cooled grad students were dropping the many kilometers down into the hole to see things for themselves.  Wilhelm didn't expect that they would find anything out of the ordinary.  With the hole not quite completed, he hadn't even had the opportunity to start the installation of the experiments that would need the thermal borehole's tremendous power.  As such, KNN was instructed to express confidence that Dr. Munk's findings would be entirely consistent with what KHI had already released.  They weren't instructed to gloat, though, even if Wilhelm thought gloating was wholly justified.  Had Utopia felt it stood on strong legal footing, it would have risked a court case.  It hadn't so it must have known what Wilhelm had strongly suspected, that Utopia's position was comprehensively extralegal.  Freed from fear of the mechanisms of state violence and safe in the knowledge that Utopia couldn't use the reservoirs of violence available at its command without risking war, it would not be surprising if other corporations, in the US at least, started considering the avoidance of Utopia regulations.  A useful development, all-in-all.

After a bit of small talk, Wilhelm accepted the Attorney-General's offer of whiskey, mentally comparing its taste against the library of chemical signatures he'd memorized over the years in order to identify its distiller and vintage.  The whiskey a man drank told much about him, but you couldn't always trust the bottle.  When he resumed talking after downing the dram, he restricted his replies to the noncommittal.  He'd learned the lessons Nixon hadn't, after all.

"I am glad that my gifts have proven useful to the state of Nevada.  Lawlessness and unrest are simply bad for business, you see.  I'm certainly open to doing more to help out the state of Nevada maintain an environment that's good for business.  Perhaps we could discuss these matters in more ... comfortable ... surroundings.  I don't intend it as a slight, it's quite understandable really, but your office isn't made for a man of my stature.  Andre's, perhaps, in Vegas?  I'm told they have an excellent Lobster Thermidor there and, as it turns out, I've already got a reservation.  I do enjoy sampling their cognac selection.  My helicopter can have you there and back in Carson City in a matter of hours."

The wine cellar room at Andre's that Lucas had reserved would, of course, be thoroughly screened for bugs before anyone arrived.  In fact, Wilhelm would probably send the lad to check things over.  If any bugs were present he'd probably trip over them on the way into the room.  The Monte Carlo might not let him in the building, though...  Entscheidungen, Entscheidungen...  Es ist wahrscheinlich sicher genug, solange er vom Casino entfernt bleibt.  As for anything that Mr. Anders was carrying, the backscatter scanner integrated into the hatchway into Wilhelm's helicopter would detect listening devices just as well as it would detect weapons.  Perhaps Wilhelm was being too paranoid, but the conspiratorial tone of the conversation made Wilhelm determined not to leave any records behind.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:57, Wed 10 Aug 2011.

Great.  Another religious crazy to deal with.  She should have known that it would be that simple.  Gale should have known that Belphegor would have other buddies.  On the one hand, she just wanted to ignore the note.  On the other, Belphegor was just a kid, and this guy might have been responsible for what happened to him.

Of course, Gale wasn't stupid enough to go without confirming with the others.  She gave Phantasm a ring.  "Hey, 'Tasm.  Did you get a very old-fashioned note?  From someone calling himself 'the Prodigal'?  You gonna go?"

Back at headquarters Suzukaze clutches the wound on her side. She starts to make her way to the medical wing. Along the way Binary comes out of a lab. He is startled by the sight.

"Su...Suzukaze. M...miss. Wh.. What happened? Are you ok?"

"Yeah I just need to get to the medical wing. I don't know who's there maybe you can get Flare for me if she's on base? I have faith in you Jonas." She continues on to the medical wing. She calls over her shoulder. "You can call me Suzuka if you want."

Phantasm hadn't been at home all day, she'd been busy acting out her role of a young starlet.  Visiting stores, seeing shows, and making cute but mildly scandalous faux pas to build the appropriate image in the minds of the public was a full time job after all.  So she was just getting home when she received Gale's call, and almost simultaneously noticed the note.

"Hold on Gale, just give me a second..."  She paused, more from shock than to read.  Prodigal.  That brought back a flood of memories.  The early days, the EQ Wars, all of it. It's been so long, what could he possibly want now?  He'd been involved with that nova religion thing for a while now, and to contact so soon after the encounter with Belphegor and the Michaelists, it was unlikely it was a coincidence.

Phantasm resumed the conversation quickly, and her voice took on a cautious tone.  "Well, this is a surprise.  If this is the same person I think it is, then we'll be talking to the head of the 'Host of Eternity' and founding member of T2M:A.  Not sure what he wants, he hasn't been in touch with any of us for years, but odds are it's connected to our recent activities.  I never knew him to be violent, but time and religion both change people, so we should be on guard if we go see him."

"No, not today I'm afraid.  My time is carefully rationed.  Perhaps another evening.  I have plans to work in Las Vegas soon, as a precursor to more aggressive efforts to move government closer to the people."  The whiskey was Maker's Mark, and Anders sipped it comfortably.  "I can't see the future.  I am not a Nova, nor do I have any wish to become one, and God has not seen fit to give me any special insights into the march of seasons.  But I can appreciate the talents and opportunities that you bring.  I won't ask you to commit to anything, but I can't help but notice that you need some good friends."

Anders slid a faux-leather folder across the desk to Hell Kraken.  "This information could become public record in a few days, but I have been asked to sign off on a few omissions.  Naturally, in the interim I have some degree of discretion.  As do you."  Kraken's facial recognition software and sensors suggested that Anders remained calm and relaxed, likely truthful and straightforward.  "I believe I have publicly stated my distrust for extra-jurisdictional entities taking liberties.  This should not be surprising to you."

"Of course, however you decide to use this information, you should also know that I would like to expand the state's order of Security Drones.  It is my job to ensure that the appropriate legalities are in place, but we're pleased enough to see the value in improving our arsenal."  Software noticed a 60-65% chance that he was not speaking the full truth that time.

A pity there wasn't more nickel and molybdenum available in the environment.  Wilhelm had a network of SQUIDs built into his suit for the detection of minute magnetic fields, magnetic fields such as those that would be generated by the firing of the pyramidal neurons in Anders' prefrontal cortex if he were thinking up a lie, but Anders only had enough cortical activity to generate a few femtoteslas of magnetic flux density.  The magnetic noise in the room was averaging out at around 30 microteslas, so the SQUIDs just couldn't work.  If only there were the materials to excrete a few layers of mu-metal into the walls...  There was nothing that could be done for it, though, so Wilhelm had to make due with voice stress analysis, unreliable as it was.  What could Anders be lying about?  Wilhelm contemplated the matter while sipping bourbon through a straw and scanning the contents of the file folder directly into KHI's central computer through his suit's integrated cameras.  He didn't have the time to give the documents anything more than a cursory reading.  He had staff, however.  Within a few moments of his scanning the documents, a ping in Wilhelm's right ear indicated that LAWBOT-5900 had finished its analysis and prepared a brief summary of the legal implications of the information.  There was still no word from KHI Operations in Erfurt, but they were flesh-and-blood so a bit of delay was to be expected.  Sliding the folder back across the desk towards Anders, Wilhelm had made his decision.  The next firmware update for the killbots security drones would feature a call for their telemetry data.  For quality control purposes.  That should resolve any lingering doubts, one way or another.  It would probably be best to slow things down until the data could be analyzed as well.

"I'm certain something can be arranged for improving the quality of police equipment in the state of Nevada.  Perhaps you'd care to come to a demonstration at our Jackass Flats facility?  We're in the middle of converting the assembly lines over to a new model of drone, you see.  You've currently got the ROV-3C-A1 model, with the top-of-the-line model being the ROV-3C-A3, but after September the -A1, -A2, and -A3 models will all be replaced with the -A4.  End-users should see lower costs overall due to the standardization of the product line and the new model will sport a more powerful processor to enable better threat-detection heuristics."

There was no such program currently in KHI's development pipeline, but there would be as soon Wilhelm got out of this meeting.

"I'm afraid it will be a couple of months before any orders could be filled as a result, though."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:20, Fri 26 Aug 2011.

Gale was surprised.  Phantasm knew who this Prodigal person was.  But she didn't know if he was dangerous.  "Ok.  I'll come pick you up about an hour before the meeting time, ok?"  She was worried.  Was this the person who told Belphegor he was a demon?  Made him kill other novas?  It was worrying, especially if he used to be a member of T2M.

She didn't really have a way to prep for the meeting.  She didn't have any weapons, and it was probably going to look bad even if she did.  She wasn't sure what to expect, but after retrieving Phantasm, she'd head for the meeting place, full of caution.

"I have those months.  And I would love a tour of your facility."  Still slightly deceptive.  The computer returned an unusual result: it may be that the man was deliberately making some white lie periodically in order to foil the software.  White noise.  The number of people trained to do that was infinitesimally small.  Some novas did it, but Anders did not register as a nova.  Unless he was one of those curiously surreptitious ones that could dorm down.

The file was valuable however.  It contained a great deal of information on the nova designated Parallax, all information that would be wiped away soon via a variety of strange legal shenanigans.  Utopia wanted Parallax kept secret because she was a walking unlimited surveillance capacity: at the Rashoud Center, her initial testing showed almost perfect extra-sensory perception, across multiple EM bands and through a wide variety of barriers and materials.  Plus a keen intellect and scientific mind.  All her personal information -- history, identity, testing results, everything -- was being scrubbed out, and a memo in the file indicated that it was part of a formal agreement between a General Thomas Eddicott and someone called "Director T".  Utopia would owe the US Government and loan out Parallax for intelligence work on request.  Cushy deal.

Anders obviously wanted to curry some favor.  Coming out with this information would panic the international community.  No missile silo or secret meeting could possibly be secret with a nova like this around.  Some governments were known to employ Perceptors like this, but they were all either private contractors, paparazzi or state secrets.  The number of laws Parallax broke by existing, let alone the number of post Equatorial Wars treaties that the USFG was placing in jeopardy by employing such a capability ...

"If I come to visit, we'll need to come up with a good line to ensure we are not seen in collusion.  I have the people of this state to look after, and reassuring them that your project is safe let alone in their best interests is plainly out of the question.  I suspect outrage and animosity would be more appealing to the public eye.  A sense that I am fighting with every breath to ensure that your corporation abides by the rule of law.  Good for reelection campaigns.  I understand the campaign finance laws have been changed in anticipation of future election cycles, so it should be easier to conceal payments back and forth between our camps for the sake of our little drama."

"This is also part of why I would like more purchases of your security drones.  They swing both ways: when people see you as the enemy they can point to the things and claim some outlandish conspiracy for world domination.  And when people see you as a friend, they are evidence of a fruitful partnership and the efficacy of corporate America.  A sort of gift.  Or at least someone will claim we obtained them at discount.  I would like to think that we understand one another, Hell Kraken."

Stratosphere, 2:00 AM

Gale and Phantasm took the elevator up the Stratosphere Hotel's iconic tower.  There were still people, tourists and the like, atop the tower.  But they seemed to move in ignorance of the nova in their midst.

Prodigal had embraced his physical difference.  His face was twisting, taking on the appearance of a furious angel, almost carved of marble.  Two smaller wings were growing beneath his original wings, and though they kept the appearance of feathers their color now ranged from pitch black to alabaster white without any obvious pattern.  He wore a eufiber colony and a trench-coat cut in the back to accept his wings.  His toes dragged across the floor of the tower as he floated, seemingly unable to completely land.  Worst, though, were his claws.  They had become longer, four inch demonic nails extending like needles from eight inch long demonic fingers.  He stuffed them in the over-sized pockets of his coat and still they scarcely fit.  Beautiful and terrible all at once.

As Gale and Phantasm arrived, he tilted his head to indicate an empty space on the observation deck.  Still no one bothered him.

"I don't see the Scientist.  Is Quentin late or does he simply feel he has better things to do?"  His eyes flitted between the two, questioning.  "Doesn't matter.  But if you are planning something I will leave right now.  We don't have a reason to fight yet and for old times sake I would prefer things stay that way."  And yet he had called them here to ask about Belphegor.

The man still hadn't learned to lie, and Phantasm read him like a book: he wanted Belphegor, and felt Belphegor belonged in his church.  He'd heard about Belphegor indirectly and was now involving himself directly.  He and his religion were ready to move, to play their hand whatever that was, and this was the first of many probes.  He was nervous, but absolutely determined.  He somehow knew Gale's family had Michaelists in it and wasn't sure whether that compromised her as a nova or not.  Most of all, Prodigal needed to know, because wherever he had been hiding in-between manifestos and news appearances he had been cut off from a great deal of information.

Gale could see the other winged nova's interest in her, however.  Prodigal's eyes returned to her wings time and time again, as though trying to decide if they were more or less divine than his own.  Similar mutations had befallen her as well, and he was curious, very curious indeed, absolutely desperate to find out more about his counterpart.

Inside his suit, Wilhelm looked like he'd just swallowed something unpleasant, though only the burbling of a few bubbles in the fluid behind his faceplate revealed this discomfort to the outside world.  He was not fluent with the American legal system.  He could work with it certainly, but he was always mentally flipping through a translation guide.  That said, he didn't believe that a Bavarian public prosecutor would have access to the sort of information Anders had just presented him and he didn't think Nevada was so very different from Bavaria that the situation would be different here.  Which meant one of two things.  Either this was a sting or Anders was involved in something that Wilhelm wasn't certain he should be associating with.  He gave a slight edge to sting.

"I am certain that we can reach some sort of accord.  As far as a tour is concerned..."

Wilhelm extended his hand and parted the three fingers of the grasper.  A thin, white plastic card popped out from the grasper's palm containing Lucas Compton's contact information.

"...contact Mr. Compton, my assistant, whenever you find convenient.  He'll have already arranged everything.  Call the visit whatever you wish in the press.  A tour, an inspection.  I care comparatively little."

Another plastic card slid out of the dispenser slot in Wilhelm's palm, this one colored a faint blue to differentiate it from the first.  The contact information for KrakPAC, KHI's political action committee.  There was also Americans for a Better America (read it like Wilford Brimley would), KHI's 527, but that was prohibited by law from coordinating with any campaigns so it would gauche to give Anders a card for it.

"And that's for you.  Do keep in touch."

Wilhelm's mind was racing as he extended his grasper further for an awkward handshake of agreement.  He was of two minds on the contents of the file; it was an open question whether the information being out in the open was more useful than the threat of the information being out in the open.  Whatever the case, it was probably dangerous to be anywhere near the dossier, provably at least.  Via a suitably roundabout email, Wilhelm ordered the only images of the dossier taken off KHI's central servers, mangled through padding and Russian copulation, steganographed into one of those adorable "lolcat" images that were circulating on the Opnet lately, superencrypted with both Twofish and Serpent, put onto a flash drive, and carried deep down into the bowels of KHI's Polish salt mine archives.  Then he ordered all mention of the dossier purged from the central servers.  He would not be found in possession of potentially classified information.  The bots in the archive could fetch the flash drive if and when it was needed in a matter of minutes anyway, which would prove sufficient in most any circumstances.  That done, there was only the one encrypted copy in his suit's memory remaining, a copy he had finally decided how to expend.

A short helicopter ride and a shorter sub-orbital hop after his meeting with Anders and Wilhelm was in his Brabus Maybach limo cruising the streets of Geneva, Switzerland.  Ostensibly he was there to officiate the premier of KHI Confections' new Quality Assortment, but he had another task to attend to first.  He'd had an aide acquire a Viasoft portable computer for him on the way over, inferior plastic toy that it was, and he'd transferred his copy of the dossier over from his suit.  As his limo passed a likely looking coffeehouse, Wilhelm acquired a connection to the establishment's free, wireless Opnet node and uploaded the dossier to the /Random/ board on an anonymous image-sharing Opnet site.  Panther Moderns lurked there, reprobates that would take any opportunity to troll on an international scale.  He needed only to feed them a little information and watch as the chaos rolled in.  And deniably benefit from the chaos later on, of course.  Task done, Wilhelm took the laptop, rolled it up into a ball with much crunching and snapping, rolled down his limo window, and tossed the wreckage into a street-side trashcan.  Hopefully there would be some news soon.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:05, Tue 04 Oct 2011.

Zero's story had been strange.  Zero itself was also quite strange.  Somehow, Dillon suspected that Zero wouldn't be there the next time he returned to the safe house.

He left messages for Zero at all the old numbers, just in case the weirdo needed a hand getting reacquainted with things.

---

It was weeks before he had another good chance to dedicate some time to his favorite hobby.  And soma peddlers keeping living stock meant Cartel remnants had moved into the area.

Dillon planned to meet up with Flare on the move.  He was getting some information now from a contact and doing his best not to look like himself in the process.  Vegas, being too damn large to walk or skulk across, compelled him to drive his old truck around just to engage in superhero-ing.  Real P.O.S. Batmobile, isn't it?  Parking in front of the house, he knocked on the front door.  No answer.  The house was dark, too, which was unusual.  Second knock, still nothing.

Then the engine of an SUV in the street turned over and it drove away without turning its lights on.  And Comstock's heart sank.  Shit.  I'll have to change the license plate and body again ... oh shit, what about Mary?  He asked the bolt of the door to move and it did, and he slipped inside.  Dead bodies.  Executions.  At least they were clean.  Mary, her husband and her brother.  His contacts, and to some extent his friends.

He didn't have time to play investigator.  He ran back out to his truck and gave chase.  While tearing around corners at an unsafe speed, he furious texted a message to Flare: In pursuit.  Badguys.  GPS on.  With any luck, she was already on her way, and the SUV with the lights off would have more than an old Ford Truck to worry about any moment.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:08, Wed 05 Oct 2011.

“Texting while driving, when will he learn?” Sure nothing short of a nuke would stop Comstock, but what about the poor plants, mailboxes and pedestrians that could be injured were of concern.    Flare had been making a slow circuit of the strip while waiting for an update from her co-vigilante.

Her hand held GPS had been calibrated to deal with keeping up with her flight speed, but sometimes it was still a little slow.  She passed by the truck twice before getting on track.  Comstock was on the trail of something large, and dark.  She was unsurprised that the SUV was swerving erratically, but that Comstock was as well was something of a concern, Dillon tended to err on the side of being restrained and methodical.   Something must have set the big man off.

Scouting ahead she noted they’d be heading into the warehouse district, in which it would be way too easy to lose the vehicle.   She found an unoccupied strip of road and laid out some homemade caltrops (glass and barbed-wire for the win!)  and sent a quick text back to Comstock.  Break now or lose tires.
Perhaps a bit abrupt, but she trusted his ability to stop.

The plan went smooth as silk.  The SUV hit the caltrops and spun, hit a light pole, and came to an abrupt stop.

It was less than intelligent for Flare to approach the car without any shielding, but she really thought the criminals inside would be too stunned to do anything…like open fire with SMG’s which they did as she approached.   She was staggered, but luckily her natural and eufiber defenses stopped most of the damage.   A few superficial wounds and a nasty puncture on the thigh were all that Flare endured before ripping off the driver’s side door.  She figured ‘Stock would catch up soon enough.

“You picked the wrong girl to mess with, sleazy.”

Prodigal.  Gale had heard about him, had known he had been on the team before she joined, had known he left under...mysterious circumstances.  When she had first joined, she had wondered if she was just going to be a replacement for him.  Later on, she had decided that his power suite must have been different from hers, as the others had to adapt to her abilities.

But standing here in front of him, watching him watch her, it was all too clear that she had underestimated the similarities.  Is that what she would become, eventually?  A frightening thought.

"Gravitas didn't say anything to either of us.  If he's not here, I guess he's not coming.  Why did you call us here about Belphegor?  Were you part of the Michaelist scheme that brain-washed him?  He's just a kid!"  Gale obviously didn't know Prodigal well enough to know that he wasn't part of the Michaelists.  Someone would probably correct her on that point shortly.

Phantasm smiled silently, using it to rattle him further.  But the smile wasn't actually for him; she was smiling at her own life.  Couldn't things occasionally turn out well? Perhaps meet with an old teammate and reminisce instead of having yet another fight or conspiracy on her hands?  Oh well, this is the life you chose girl, just appreciate the humor of it and move on.

After Gale replied, Phantasm spoke quietly.  "Stop looking at Gale like that, she isn't all tormented emo angel like you, and she's not a recruit for your cult either.  Now, I assume that you aren't here to catch up on old times, and you had something you wanted to talk about?"

The Stratosphere

Prodigal wasn't amused, and didn't stop staring.  "Oh, I'd like to catch up on 'old times', I really would Phantasm, but there's sin afoot."  He stretched his neck and turned to gaze upon the city.  "And, if you would like, Gale, it would not be beneath me to exterminate the Michaelist apostasy in the city.  You of all people should see that my faith stands directly at odds with them."

Irritated, he continued.  "No, I didn't do anything to Belphegor.  In fact, I would like to help him.  He belongs with us.  The Host of Eternity can guide the man, help him let go of his self-loathing and bizarre ideas.  He's sick.  I'm sure you can see that."

Since their formation in the wake of the Equatorial Wars, the Host of Eternity had remained on the fringe.  The Colombia Conflict was bringing them out of hiding, however, and more and more of their "angels" and "devas" were performing charitable acts in the third world, spreading their cult and building a wide base of support.  Archangel Prodigal gazed out over Las Vegas with a covetous eye, a practiced expression of righteous determination chiseled into his face.  He was much more sensitive to appearances than in the old days.

---

The Suburb

"Mierda!"  The three men in the car -- one greasy white guy and two Hispanics with shaved heads and flashy shirts -- were backing away at a rapid crawl, trying frantically to get the doors on the opposite side of the door open so they could get away.  "No me chingues!"  The thug nearest to Flare fumbled a reload of his SMG, and she was fast enough to bring them all down.

Comstock's F-150 screeched to a halt just in front of the improvised caltrops, and the big man hopped out of the car, stalking toward Flare and the crashed SUV.  "Lady, don't let him kill us.  Por favor!  He's loco!"  The men had some blood on their sleeves and shirts, blood that wasn't theirs.  "Come on lady, this is business!  You don't want to bring down more fire, our boss, he's serious lady!  Take this for what it is and don't make things worse, okay?"

---

Geneva

From the safety of Geneva, Hell Kraken and the other confectionery aficionados were able to watch as media outlets around the world began engaging with the leaked dossier and debating its veracity.  The existence of Parallax, however, could not be disputed.  Damage control manifested relatively quickly from both the USFG and Utopia -- the military denied making any such arrangements, while Utopia noted that it was unlikely that a nova with a publicly registered name and licensing rights to her new identity ever had plans to disappear from the public eye altogether.  Lawyers began coming out of the woodwork to bury Parallax in injunctions, and the UN unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming international dedication to upholding the terms of the Quantum Powers Non-Proliferation Treaty.

For now, at least, Parallax's perfect survey of the Jackass Flats Facility could not be acted on in court and Hell Kraken was covered.  And, now that he knew that Utopia possessed the capacity to look in at any time, unannounced and (allegedly) without limit, he could take further steps to confound their efforts to control him.

Gustav Keld -- German media mogul, CEO of Axel-Springer Global, and sometimes ally to Kraken -- sent an e-mail soon after the story spread to the greater OpNet.

"Kraken,

Someone's put a bit of stick about, made them all dance and jump.  I'm publishing this as another case of Western imperial hypocrisy and insecure fascism, and I suggest KNN pushes the same story.  The faster the world gets over its love affair with America, the faster the world can move on to bigger and better things.

Meanwhile stay nimble.  The Bundestag has begun sending out feelers to their neighbors about their willingness for a particular sort of economic cooperation and coordination.  The double Irish and Dutch sandwich may spoil soon, and they also want to begin taxing every nova in Europe just for the privilege of being a nova.  Like in the Confederation of Independent States, only worse: government service or else usurious cash payments.  Can you ask that wonderful Orzaiz fellow to give my girls at EuroNews an interview?  I want to rough up those fascists over on N! and voice some dissent.  If these European governments think they can make socialism sexy again and rescue the Euro from crisis by bleeding us every time we cross the border, they're sorely mistaken.

And thanks again for loaning me that talking head.  He's making quite the splash in the Eastern European market.  I'll be in Vegas this Christmas, and if you like I'll return the favor with some on-screen time plugging your industrial project out there as a triumph of capitalism, science, or whatever tune you'd prefer.

- GK"

Anders, also, sent an e-mail.

"Hell Kraken,

Strange things on the Internet lately.  It would seem that the nova consultant Utopia sent to assess your facility may have done so without your permission and without stepping foot on your property.  I must state my surprise and outrage at this intrusion of a multinational NGO into the affairs of a law abiding corporation.  As friends to business, the County Commission and the State of Nevada are now prepared to sign off on the last steps of your project.

Per your invitation, I've scheduled a tour of your facility with your staff.  I look forward to our next meeting.

Sincerely,
Thomas Anders"

Meanwhile, Claudia's security detail reported nothing unusual, but the Jackass Flats Facility had reported another break-in.  Nothing stolen, but images captured and processed by the various 'bots showed a naked, hairless man looking around, quite unperturbed by the attention he was receiving.  He ran off moments after being spotted and smiling for the camera, almost as though he wanted to be seen.

Chagan.  No question about it.  He simply infiltrated, smiled for the camera, and left, vanishing from sight and defying efforts to track him down in the process.

Gale crossed her arms.  She wasn't very sure that she liked Prodigal at all.  What made him different from the Michaelists?  And she was beginning to get sick of all this attributing religious qualities to novas.  It wasn't necessary.

"Yes, Belphegor is sick.  But he's also just a kid.  I don't think having him trade one religious fervor for another is a good approach."  Having Belphegor switching from thinking of himself as a demon to thinking of himself as an angel wasn't a solution.  It was just another form of delusion.  And what happens when he makes a mistake?  The public didn't allow religious figures to be fallible.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:16, Tue 11 Oct 2011.

Wilhelm watched the security video, watched it again, and watched it yet a third time.  It took him a moment to notice he was gripping the edge of his desk with some force.  He'd left grasper indentations in the palo santo of the top.  His carpenter would have to be called in.  No, no, no!  This had gone on long enough!  He couldn't go around the rest of his days always looking over his shoulder.  He'd end it now, one way or another!  Chagan would return, of that Wilhelm was certain.  But how was he getting in?  Every inch of the Jackass Flats facility, with the exception of the office he was in presently, was under practically constant video surveillance, either from fixed cameras or from the sensors of the patrol drones.  And Chagan was a walking particle accelerator, it wasn't like he could be very stealthy.  It was inconceivable that the man could walk twenty-five miles through the Nevada desert without getting spotted by something.  Wilhelm would, of course, order a close inspection of the security records with an eye toward finding evidence of tampering, but he didn't think he would find anything.  A portal then, some means of getting from point A to point B without covering the intervening distance.  Wilhelm was forced to admit that he didn't know much about the phenomena.  Teleportation was the sort of technology that would get Utopia jumping all over you, so KHI avoided it like the Plague.  There was at least one person in the immediate area that Wilhelm knew would have some experience in the field, though.  He'd write him.  Some messages just couldn't be trusted to electronic means of communication.  Wilhelm withdrew a sheet of fine writing paper and inserted it into his autopen before dictating his message, the autopen scratching away in time.

Herr Dr. Abernathy:

I will dispense with the usual pleasantries since matters will brook very little delay.  A situation has arisen that I believe could be most easily resolved with the aid of your peculiar skills.  A series of break-ins have recently been perpetrated at my Jackass Flats facility.  Nothing has been stolen, as of yet, but I certainly do not need to explain to you that much that is being worked on here could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.  Evidence recently obtained points to the use of some manner of teleportation in the crimes.  You are the foremost expert in this field, so I had hoped you might be able to offer some suggestions on solving the problem.  I would very much like to avoid having to apply brute force to prevent further incursions.  Compensation would be whatever your usual rate for such advice is, plus a 20% bonus to account for the exigencies of the request.  Hopefully an agreement can be reached.  I would appreciate your discretion in this matter.

Herr Dr. Förster

Wilhelm inspected the florid cursive output of the autopen for any errors before sending for a courier-bot.  The courier-bot, a simple road bicycle equipped with a radiothermal steam microturbine and just enough machine intelligence to pilot itself to a set of GPS coordinates without hitting anything, arrived in a matter of minutes.  The bot was on the road a few minutes after that, its GPS set for the Utopia facility in Las Vegas where Gravitas might eventually be found, its tamper-resistant message tube armed and keyed to Dr. Abernathy's cryptographic signature.  Hopefully there would be a response soon.

The other business of the day was less taxing to deal with.  A quick missive to Orzaiz that the Terat would no doubt jump to satisfy.  Orzaiz did love to hear himself talk and the folks at EuroNews would spare no expense to fluff his ego.  Another missive to Keld confirming plans and lamenting the state of Europe.  Wilhelm didn't think Greece would make it another five years without imploding and wouldn't it be just fitting if Germany was left holding the bag afterwards?  A very official missive to Anders expressing confidence that the excellent American political and legal systems would shortly cure the excesses of Utopia.  Surely such blatant disregard for international law could not long survive in a nation such as the US?  The tour was a potential problem.  It would be just like Chagan to use the tour to attack Wilhelm.  If anything were to happen to the dignitaries then KHI would surely be discredited.  There was nothing to do but increase drone patrols in an effort to nip any attack in the bud.  Or was there?  KHI had made a habit of not employing elites, preferring instead to use killbots of its own devising.  If Wilhelm were to hire a few elites now it might provide just the element of surprise he needed.  He made a few calls to the various agencies to see who was on the market.  Super-speed to respond quickly to any incursions, super-perception to rapidly detect any attacks, super-resistance to ionizing radiation.  Wilhelm was looking for novas with all three.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:18, Wed 12 Oct 2011.

Flare snuck a quick glance at Comstock as he thundered over, he did look as though a thrashing was about to commence. "I don't think a truck could stop him, man.  Maybe you tell me everything you know about your boss, and the Cartel's operation before he gets over here, and I might, be able to hold him back a bit."

Flare hoped she was just playing good cop to Dillon's bad cop, but if these thugs had done something to earn a beating he could have at it.

Quentin received the missive within a day. He hadn't been planning to go to the Utopia facility, but he still got a lot of mail there and the staff was kind enough to notify him when it arrived so he could retrieve it.

He briefly admired the tube it had arrived in; almost certainly more secure than the OpNet might have been. He opened it up, unrolled the message, and read it once. Understanding Kraken's desire for discretion in this matter, he then used the multitool implanted into one of his prosthetic fingers to destroy the message.

He opted not to take a spatial short-cut out to visit his fellow Terat. Given the nature of the problem he seemed to be having, that might be considered salt-in-the-wound or something to that effect. He could never quite tell how people would react though, it wasn't really his forte - particularly where other novas were concerned. Instead, he flew over under his own power. Not a real problem, he was able to maintain 95mph under most conditions - not the supersonic speeds enjoyed by many novas, including several of his ex-Teammates, but fast enough for a timely visit. Besides, taking the scenic route now and then had its appeal.

He arrived within 90 minutes of receiving the message, having taken a few minutes out to deal with some of his other messages before departing. He landed and allowed one of the secretary bots to shuffle him around while they notified the man himself that Gravitas had arrived.

A blinking red light on Wilhelm's desk had illuminated as soon as Gravitas had gotten within forty miles of the Jackass Flats facility.  The K-band search radar for the facility's air defense system was really rather sensitive.  They'd had a devil of a time getting the fire control system to stop lighting up flights into McCarran International and cars on the interstate.  The zones around those sources of clutter were now filtered out by the fire control computer, but even a man-sized target flying about outside the expected flight paths of civilian traffic would still attract the system's attention.  The blinking became even more insistent when Gravitas didn't respond when pinged by IFF, a quite understandable oversight since he wasn't a suitably equipped aircraft.  Long-range visual sensors told the tale, though, so Wilhelm flipped up the appropriate little plastic cover on the control panel and disarmed the system.  Temporarily, of course.  He'd have the better part of an hour to finish up a few last tasks and make certain there wasn't anything confidential lying about his office.  The office was the only room he could completely trust so any meeting would have to take place there.

"Ah, good to see you.  Right this way.  We can speak in my office.  Oh, and if you have any magnetic storage media on hand you may want to leave it at the front desk.  That doorway is a degaussing loop."

The office looked conventional enough on first glance.  Wood and leather, glass and bronze, all tending toward the Art Nouveau side of things.  As soon as the office's heavy bronze door closed, completing the room's Faraday shielding, everything changed.  The gold-tinted ballistic windows overlooking the rocket range opaqued; a wideband infernal piping that had to be damnably annoying to anyone with long-wavelength EM senses started up in the radio frequencies (you never could be too careful when it came to van Eck phreaking); a large, high-res monitor folded out of the ceiling.  Wilhelm pushed a few buttons and security camera footage started streaming onto the monitor.

"Onto the crux of the matter.  There, you see, one minute nothing and the next ... there he is.  That's reprocessing room twelve.  If you check the cameras covering the approaches to that room..."

Wilhelm brought about a schematic view of the facility and selected another camera, rewinding the system a minute or so.

"... nothing.  At least nothing visual.  He's just there.  We haven't found any way in and we haven't found any trace of him going out.  Which is strange since he's always left quite the wake in the past.  Either he's got a new trick or he's found a new friend.  Maybe you can find some signature of whatever he's doing.  All the sensor records for the time period one hour on either side of the incident should be cued up there:  visual, infrared, scintillometric, etc.  I'm afraid I can't allow you to take a copy, but otherwise feel free to do with it what you will."
This message was last edited by the player at 11:35, Sun 16 Oct 2011.

The Stratosphere

"He's already in the midst of religious fervor.  At least as far as I know.  Is it true the Michaelists were using him to brutalize those Astaroth kids and other novas?  Does he really think he can enter heaven if he hates himself enough?"  Prodigal's expression stayed neutral.  He was fishing, searching for more information.  "I don't know where you stashed him or what you plan to do with him, but he is dangerous as he is now.  My brothers and sisters can help him like no one else can."

He opened a needle-clawed hand in friendship.  "I don't like him with the unenlightened," Host-speak for baselines it seemed.  "We can pay in physical things, if that is what you want.  I won't try to proselytize to you," -- a lie -- "and I can offer much if you will help me in my cause."  In this he seemed honest enough.

---

The Suburb

One of the gangsters, despite his bruises and burns, opted to crawl onto his feet and try fleeing at a slow stumble.  The greasy white guy and his friend were too cowed to try fleeing.

"Lady, you don't want to get into this, I promise!  The Cartel's history, it's a new game.  Jefe es loco, just as crazy as that big guy.  He said that the vigilantes were getting pushy so you've got to push back.  So he got us some guns and sent us pushing.  Business, you know?  Blood for blood.  You bust us, he's getting more pushy.  Truth from my heart, you don't want to do this."

The thug licked his lips nervously.  "I mean, I know who he is, so you can't just throw me to the cops, right?  Jefe will kill us if you put us in the penn.  And ... he said he knew your faces!  He'll come after you if you keep giving him trouble.  Lady you and your friend want to just walk away."

---

The Thermal Borehole Facility

The impressive KHI security apparatus provided Gravitas with a wealth of data.  However, the problem Kraken presented him did pose quite a conundrum.  A naked, hairless and radioactive man -- Russian or Central Asian from the look of him -- simply enters the scene without pomp or circumstance and wanders about the facility for a time.  He notices a camera and scanner, stares up at it and smiles, and then he runs off, disappears, is seen elsewhere by another 'bot, and soon after he is gone altogether.

Gravitas quickly concluded that the man was intermittently making himself invisible across all spectra.  And that he had stolen this particular power and was unfamiliar with its use.  Or else that the man was a cyberkinetic of some kind and had brute-forced the entire Kraken infrastructure at once, something unbelievable in its scope.

And gradually, Gravitas' eidetic memory pulled up some memories from the Equatorial Wars.  Photographs of this naked man -- though not naked at the time and identified as Chagan -- taken in India and Sudan.  They had never crossed paths.  He had always slipped away and never taken part in the fighting as far as Gravitas knew.  But he was last seen in Iraq, two weeks prior to the events that ended those conflicts.  For reasons that had not been made obvious at the time, his existence was not something that Pax or the other team leaders were at liberty to share with the United States.  A Utopia file should exist somewhere with some gathered information, even it if was three years old now.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Despite the speed with which he reached a conclusion, Gravitas' reasoning was actually quite complex.  In other news, Gravitas' die pool trumps investigation of earthly phenomena.

Zero's teleportation was this clean and evidence free, but very few other novas were so gifted.  And this man played havoc with the EM spectrum while under observation.  Furthermore, he wandered about on his feet like someone having a good time.  Teleportation was out as implausible.

There were no gravitational or quantum anomalies hinted at by the collected information, and Kraken's apparatus was quite sophisticated.  This ruled out a portal or dimension-altering powers such as Freak's '2-D' physical form and movement.  At the very least, the most recently exchanged nova science on the subject suggested that there ought to be at least some obvious energy losses to the surrounding area from either such application of quantum power.  Nothing beyond the radiation the man naturally emitted from standing around, and when he 'disappeared' from the cameras even that energy seemed to vanish.  So no portal or dimension-altering.

This left the realm of powers and technologies capable of cloaking or altering the nova himself.  Even something as small as a fly would have been detected by the omnipresent 'bots, and more exotic forms of movement like transforming into electrical current or flowing through biomass from one place to the next left signs that Gravitas was sensitive to.  A cursory investigation made such things unlikely.

So the man had cloaked himself somehow.  And it always happened the same way, very mechanically, and he seemed very focused on getting it right.  He wasn't carrying anything, so unless the technology was installed in his body (and somehow shielded from his aberrations) it had to be a power.  Something new.  Something outside his natural development.  The man wasn't any Terat that Gravitas knew of.  And he was not, to Gravtias' knowledge, in any registry of teleporting or portal creating novas to which Gravitas had access.  And Utopia and most governments were very sensitive to the relatively rare novas with such powers.  But the man had the look and quantum feeling of the rare power-leeching nova.  It was the most likely explanation, especially given Hell Kraken's reaction to the entire incident.

Complicated nova-science cyberware or a stolen power, providing a radioactive man from Hell Kraken's past with invisibility that masked him across all spectra.  Arms dealers from Japan or Russia, or else the Directive that everyone had begun worrying about.

Of course the simplest and most impossible of explanations was that the sensors had been fooled.  Dozens if not hundreds of separate computers with a host of backups, shielding and unique software simultaneously tampered with over a considerable distance as the man walked into the building, revealed himself, and then left.  If this were true, it would take a cyberkinetic of the highest caliber, a wizard of silicon and copper.  Buendia?  Maybe he could accomplish such a thing, but otherwise it was highly unlikely anyone could brute force their way past this.

---

Comstock approached, his face locked in an angry scowl.  "What is this guy telling you?  He has five seconds before I forget who I am and begin squeezing."
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:48, Thu 20 Oct 2011.

Prodigal, or this new Prodigal anyway, was a mystery.  Confused angst of youth had given way to a dark self-righteousness of an adult. Not that I'd know anything about that...  He was dangerous, and his motives were unclear despite a basic knowledge of his church's doctrine.  The public doctrine anyway; they could talk about nova angels and Unitarian ideals on the flyers, and then load up their inner circle with bs about overlords from Xenu for all she knew.  She needed to know more.

"I tend to agree with Gale," was Phantasm's curt reply.  Then, as an afterthought, "But out of curiosity, what would you replace his misguided beliefs with?"  Just the right pitch, a nuanced question that showed suspicion mixed with hints of interest, non-judgmental curiosity, and perhaps even a desolate longing for meaning in an uncaring universe.  And no hint at all of the manipulation behind the words.  Hopefully Gale wouldn't be taken in by her potential convert act, but she'd deal with those consequences later if she had to.

"I don't know you." Gale said bluntly, refusing to take the clawed hand being offered to her.  "Unlike P here, I have no reason to trust you or believe you.  I also find it incredibly convenient that you find out about Belphegor right after we've encountered him.  If you knew about him already, why didn't you 'save' him earlier?"  Gale normally wasn't the suspicious type, but the timing was too convenient, even for her.  She also didn't have P's natural insight into other people's motives to figure out what he was up to without asking.

Well that just sucks.  Flare had hoped their anonymity would remain intact a bit longer, though she wasn’t convinced the sleazy douche in front of her was being truthful. Or even capable of being truthful for that matter.

“Apparently their boss is big, scary, and out for revenge. “  She chewed her lip, thinking of the repercussions if the thug was being truthful.  “Supposedly their boss knows who we are, though how is anyone’s guess.” 

If it was true, they needed to hunt down and take out the boss as soon as possible.  A dark thought ran through her mind.  There were ways to make a person talk, it was probably a simple task given their powers.  She could probably make these men tell her anything she wanted, but she didn’t think she could bring herself to use the darker methods it would entail.  Hmm, maybe straight intimidation could do the trick?

She glared at the thugs, though she assumed the seething Nova was more of a threat.

“You’re going to tell us what we want to know, and then we’ll figure out what to do with you.  Tell us the truth and we can probably just drop you off in jail when your boss is gone.  Hold back or double cross us, and it’ll be your head.” She glanced at Dillon in confirmation.  He seemed a bit more angry than the usual moral outrage he had for thugs and vermin.

Dillon nodded, his expression softening to complete mechanical neutrality where he wouldn't have moral compunctions or guilt or sadness for a little while.  Without ceremony, he applied his trademark iron grip to the two standing thugs.  Presently, he applied only enough strength to prevent their escape.  With a twitch, he could snap their necks like twigs.

"Talk.  My accomplice has many gifts to elicit cooperation.  You will experience pain in orders of magnitude.  I have not seen a person survive more than forty seconds under her ministrations."

The Stratosphere

"The Almighty did not gift me with omniperception, I couldn't find him.  I didn't know he was in the city until that business with the condominiums got on the news!"  And then he talked with some Michaelists, Phantasm discerned from the subtext.  Either he sent someone or he went to talk to people himself.  And this new Prodigal didn't look like the sort to rely on minions when he could walk unseen and masquerade as a true angel.

He sighed, and in the interests of diplomacy tried to parse his words and beliefs.  "Right now, the first thing Belphegor needs to know is that he is not an irredeemable product of Hell.  He is imbued with his own will, capable of making his own decisions, and must come to some understanding with his own soul."  He turned his palms back upward.  "Before we can even consider teaching him, he must be able to teach himself.  Able to discern the divine with his own senses."

"Please, where else can he go?  Who else will give him shelter?  You are welcome to visit him, to check up on us if you are so paranoid."

---

The Suburbs

"What?  What am I supposed to tell you?!"  One thug flailed helplessly against Comstock's arm while the other's gums flapped desperately.  "You can't drop us off, there ain't a prison that's safe!  We move soma!  We just killed the snitches 'cuz of business!  Look I'm sorry!  I don't like hurting people!  Please, man I don't want to die!  Lady, c'mon!  Jefe's killed people on the inside before COME ON!"  Sweating, more afraid of the implication that Flare had some pain-power or other nova-trick that would kill him in agony than of his boss or the man holding him by the neck.  "We move soma!  There's a lot of people who want to feel good, who need the pickup!  I get everything from this place in Henderson, I can show you but that's all I know!  We do work, we get the guys together, and when new product comes in it's always there!"

The address was vaguely familiar.  It was an old Circuit City.  It closed down, but no one seemed to want it.

Plans rushed through Phantasm's mind as Prodigal spoke.  A real opportunity was sitting here, an opportunity to make allies, take care of the Belphegor problem, and gain insight into exactly what this new church was up to.  The cost was the soul of one scared young man, who by all rights was going to be severely messed up wherever he went.  Maybe the religious side of things would even help him out more, considering it fed into his beliefs, and the ones Phantasm had manipulated into him.  But could she convince Gale...

"Maybe he has a point Gale.  I don't precisely trust him, but this kid is too close to what Prodigal was when he came to us back at the beginning: lost, tormented, and confused.  The religious angle might even be a better way to approach him.  And think about it, what do you think will happen if Utopia gets a hold of him?  Politics will force them to make an example of him, even if Utopia would normally be lenient."  Just a hint of manipulation, a convincing series of truths.  She wasn't quite ready to strong arm Gale, she was a friend, one of the few she still had to talk to these days.

"Well, there you are.  The damnedest thing, no?"

Wilhelm fiddled around with a few settings on the computer and the display switched over to false-colors to display scintillation counter data.  The room was black before Chagan appeared, white when he appeared and swamped the scintillator, and a dull red after he disappeared again, the walls gently emitting ionizing radiation due to neutron activation.

"I can't explain it.  This thing's reading 14.1 MeV.  We should've been able to see him through the wall before he entered.  We should've been able to see him through half a dozen walls, for that matter.  But nothing until he appears.  There's more, too.  This is the only recording, but a civilian in one of the surrounding communities somehow got exposed to Cobalt-60 a couple of months ago.  A 6 Gray dose from the looks of things.  It would have been fatal in a couple of days had I not managed to remove the poison from the man's body.  I needn't tell you that nothing we work with around here could be the source.  For obvious reasons, I suspect this fellow is involved in the Cobalt-60 release as well.  He seems willing to kill if it serves his purposes, whatever they are."

Wilhelm knew Chagan was willing to kill from past experience as well, but he didn't elaborate.

"I was hoping to catch the fiend should he show his face again.  Obviously the present sensor and security suite is insufficient for the task.  Any ideas?"

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
I'm thinking this conversation might serve as a link to the events in the Full Circle thread, what with the poisoning and all.

---

This message was last edited by the player at 16:34, Fri 28 Oct 2011.

"Nova abilities often manifest in ways that defy common sense," Quentin mused out loud, "It could be that a part of concealing his presence erects some sort of containment field that suppresses his emissions or something similar. Also, he doesn't seem to have come by this ability naturally. It is pretty rare for novas to be able to duplicate the powers of others. I haven't ever had the chance to study the phenomena in detail."

He pondered for a few moments, "It'd help to know more about the mechanics of the invisibility he's employing. It might be that there's a way to penetrate whatever screening effect it uses or detect him indirectly by emissions we'd normally expect to find but don't. Finding the nova who originated that trick would help quite a bit." His brow furrowed as he considered the poisoning incident and the radiation the man put off.

"Divining his purpose could be useful also. What would he have to gain by releasing the Cobalt-60? If he might be prone to doing so again, or doing something similar, that may provide an opportunity for capture."

Gale listened carefully to Phantasm's proposal with her arms crossed.  She didn't like this.  She didn't trust Prodigal, this religious nut who showed up out of nowhere.  If Prodigal had thought she was "divine" like him, her body language now would clearly indicate otherwise.  It took her a long moment to decide.  But Phantasm made sense.  They wouldn't be able to take Belphegor to Utopia.  Utopia cared about image a lot.  At worst, they'd lock him away like they did Freak.  Oh, she'd heard about Freak, and while Belphegor wasn't that bad, he wasn't that far off.

"Fine."

"If I had to venture a guess, I would say that the aim of these attacks is public relations.  I know I am not loved everywhere.  If the media were to learn of radioactive releases I would hardly expect them to check the facts before assigning blame."

Wilhelm glared at the video as it looped again.  There was also the possibility that this was part of a simple revenge plot, but he thought that the one likely would be equivalent to the other.  A simple matter of substituting one enemy for another.  If Chagan had not blown something up by now he probably had his reasons for avoiding such direct methods of revenge.

"Who would play the public relations game at such high stakes?  I don't think Viasoft or their ilk would have the stones for it.  For that matter neither would most governments.  It would have to be someone with some deniability.  An intelligence agency perhaps?"

Wilhelm had heard something about a "Directive", some sort of international cooperation agreement between national intelligence agencies.  He had failed to pay much attention to developments in that area, thinking that these developments would not affect him.  Perhaps he should remedy such a failure.

"Intelligence agency involvement certainly could account for ... unusual powers.  I expect the bigger agencies collect peculiar novas for use as weapons.  A matter for another time, though.  The question is how might a person with no compunction about doing violence most effectively embarrass KHI?  Anything they did would have to appear, on the face at the least, to be an industrial accident.  And it would have to be as public as possible.  That way I would be put in the position of either revealing evidence of attacks on this complex, exposing myself to charges that I can't be trusted with the experiments here because I can't effectively protect them, or not revealing evidence of attacks, exposing myself to charges that I can't be trusted with the experiments here because they are inherently unsafe.  Really, sabotage of most any of the facilities here could satisfy these requirements."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:30, Wed 02 Nov 2011.

The Stratosphere

Prodigal inclined his head.  "Thank you.  You will not regret this.  Your faith is well placed.  I will need a day at the least.  Let's say two.  I will have a safehouse built.  Somewhere in the area.  Contact me at this number," he produced from his hand a card, conjuring it forth with swift reflexes and sleight of hand.  The card was empty save for an OpNet address and a phone number.  "I will relay the location to you and place the mark of the Divine upon you so you are known."  He hesitated, wondering if he should have been more tactful and given the two an option about being marked.  He did not, however, retract his sentiment.


---

The Suburbs

Comstock nodded to Flare.  Without ceremony, the thugs were squeezed into unconsciousness and rounded up.  Then put in their own car.  The car was pushed in the direction of a police station.  They'd send important information along later.  Someone was probably already sending photos of them anyway.

A short while later, they were safe and hidden from the public eye again.  "I want to go there.  Tonight.  Right now, before they know their guys are busted."  He was riled up, sharply pulled behind the urge to go-heavy and the urge to stay angry.  "A fucking circuit city.  They're pumping our people and selling them out of a goddamn circuit city right under my nose.  I'm taking the truck.  You can go or stay, that's your call."

---

The Thermal Borehole Facility

OOC: This can go wherever you guys want.  If you come up with a new security plan or some other action you would like to carry out, I'll run with it.  Otherwise I'll post incidental details and then let the timeline advance to catch up with [Full Circle].

Flare was a bit shocked at Comstock, normally she was the more volatile of the two.  Surprisingly, his haste made her calmer in counterpoint.  She leaned her hip against the door of his truck, blocking him from storming off in a hopefully subtle way.

“You can’t possibly think I’d sit this one out, but a few minutes of planning might not go amiss.  You can plow your truck, or your fist, through the door of the store and go in swinging, but that won’t leave any evidence for the police, and a body count isn’t going to help the people they’re destroying. “

She thought for a second, if ‘Stock was willing to give it to her.  “Give me a few minutes to get in through a window and scout it out.  I can probably have a sweep pretty well done before you get there.  If I see anything that needs to be preserved for evidence, or any people that might need saving, I can get them out before you go in hitting.   Then you can destroy with impunity.”

Comstock frowned but kept his hand on the door.  "Fine.  You've got the time it takes me to drive out there, park a block away and walk right on over."

He pulled the door open, nudging her out of the way, and hopped in.  "They killed our contacts.  They were friends."  The engine hummed to life.  "Be careful.  I don't want anything happening to you, too."

Flare patted his bicep and smirked as she lifted off the ground.  “You know me, bossman, safety is my middle name.”  One of several actually, along with ‘destruction’ and ‘mercurial’.

With a quick spin, Flare took off using her hyper speed and made it to the run down building in less than a minute.  She did a quick flyby at high altitude to see if anyone was standing guard, but it appeared that Comstock was right in heading out immediately.  The coast was clear.  She descended to the rooftop, just behind the violently red entryway.

The rooftop access was damaged and thoroughly marred by graffiti, but the door was still intact.  A quick application of strength and a small shriek of metal took care of the rusted lock.  She was just about to go inside when a quick rustling had her spinning around.  Flare’s eyes swept the corners of the roof…and settled on a squatter.  He looked weathered and unconscious.

Flare wanted to ignore the man and just go in, but she knew how this would likely go down.

She squatted down and poked his shoulder, “Hey, man, time to leave.” Flare just shook her head as the man slumped to the side, clearly not waking up any time soon.  Time was of the essence, but the brief minute it took to scoop up the man and carry him a block down the street was worth the effort.

Good deed done she returned to the roof and slipped inside.

The metal catwalks looked intact enough to get her around, so she avoided ground level and a disturbing number of thugs as she danced along the trellises over what appeared to be a fairly large scale operation.

“Well, ‘Stock will have some fun when he gets here, hopefully he leaves some survivors.”

After their meeting, Phantasm quickly dealt with Belphegor, soothing him enough that he would go with them to the safehouse, and then moving him there as quickly as possible.  She encouraged him to stay in contact to the best of her not insignificant abilities, and then left him for Prodigal to deal with.

If things went well, she would have a contact inside, and Prodigal would believe her a sympathizer or even a potential convert.  If they went poorly, Belphegor was at least off the street, and Prodigal's power base wasn't that significantly increased.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
if Gale wants to discuss anything, P' is up for it.  Just trying to finish off the scene.

---

Gale continued to sourly express her displeasure at trusting Prodigal with this fragile human being.  But Phantasm had convinced her for now.  She too let Belphegor know that if he was uncomfortable in any way, he was welcome to contact.

The Stratosphere and the Host of Eternity

Prodigal was, at present, good on his word.  Belphegor was given a room at an "Open Faith Center" the Host had discreetly purchased.  A former Mormon Church; Phantasm quickly determined that the Host had used an intermediary to donate enough money for a new church to be built.  Belphegor accepted the move glumly, trusting implicitly in the angels passing along their wisdom.

Prodigal made sure that Gale and Phantasm met the four people assigned to look after Belphegor.  A nova -- Anh, a young Chinese girl, very subdued and shy around Gale and Phantasm -- and three baselines, all very open and friendly, each tracing a different lineage to one of the archangels of the Host.  The baselines would work in shifts to ensure that someone was always on hand, and Anh was new, not yet a full member of the Host.  A suitable companion, Prodigal felt, to help him understand a nova perspective other than his own.  They could learn together, and look after one another.

OOC: Alright, that closes up this plot for now.  If there are any secret instructions, ideas, commands or anything else that Phantasm would like to leave with Belphegor, make a mention.  Otherwise, he will write Gale and Phantasm every two weeks to assure them he is alright.

Over the spring and early summer, Belphegor begins to calm down.  His religious fervor becomes muted, a world-annihilating confusion about his place in the world eating away at it.  His loneliness abates, however, and he begins making new friends.  It is not hard for the Host to persuade him not to leave the grounds of the Faith Center, as he now fears judgment at the hands of the baselines for his numerous crimes.

But Prodigal is the real prize here.  He now replies to communications, and advocates conversion to his faith now only obliquely.  He does not pursue Gale aggressively, instead sending her the occasional book or other small gift and politely inviting her to events.  He tries to discuss philosophy with Phantasm, but backs off whenever he feels one of the underpinnings of his faith may be in jeopardy from the more clever nova's arguments.  Phantasm does learn something interesting, however: the Host of Eternity has at least one infiltrator in the ranks nearly every major organized religion on the planet, including the Michaelists, and Prodigal is making plans for violence.

---

The Suburbs

Inside, the store-rooms of the store had been turned into a manufacturing and distribution center.  Freezers, powered by noisy diesel generators, refrigerated hundreds and thousands of ampoules, vials, IV-bags and other medical containers.  And there were about fifteen people that Flare could see.

Her noisy entrance must have gone unnoticed thanks to the thrumming of the generators, because no one had yet marked Flare's descent down the stairs and appearance on the steel ladder leading to the roof-access.  No guns were immediately visible.  The baselines looked to be more of the same that had been in the car.

As her eyes tracked across the room, a figure in black leather disappeared behind a door.  She saw him for only a moment, but on reviewing the moment she realized it looked to be a full body-suit.

OOC: I'll give it a few posts before Comstock arrives and punches in a wall or the like.

OOC:  It's probably easiest just to roll something and then consider this matter dealt with by the time the Full Circle thread starts.  Applying Engineering Prodigy and Synergy to the task of designing a security system that will potentially detect/apprehend Chagan if he attempts another break-in gets me a pool of 20 dice + 3 mega dice on the Int/Engineering check.  A somewhat sub-par roll for the pool, only 11 successes, plus whatever Gravitas can add to the efforts (he'll get an extra 5 dice from Synergy as well).


22:39, Today: Hell Kraken rolled 1 success using 3d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 4,6,8. Mega Int, Security System.
22:38, Today: Hell Kraken rolled 9 successes using 20d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 10,6,1,3,7,1,3,7,2,7,10,9,5,2,2,10,7,4,10,6. Int + Engineering, Security System.
22:37, Today: Hell Kraken rolled 1 success using 3d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 1,9,3. Mega Int, Engineering Prodigy.
22:37, Today: Hell Kraken rolled 5 successes using 5d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 9,7,7,7,9. Int, Engineering Prodigy.
22:36, Today: Hell Kraken rolled 1 success using 2d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 3,10. Mega Wits, Synergy.
22:36, Today: Hell Kraken rolled 2 successes using 4d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 1,7,8,1. Wits, Synergy.

The Circuit City was difficult to navigate, but to a nova of her speed, certainly not impossible.  Dodging among generators and ducking behind a convenient metal drum as a baseline passed a bit closely, Flare made her way across the floor.  It was risky, opening the door could bring all kinds of trouble on her, but she figured she could probably blast through the ceiling and escape if it got to hairy.

Quickly, and sticking to any shadows she could find, Flare made her way to the door and opening it silently, slipped inside.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Flare rolled 6 successes using 11d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 5,9,1,1,10,2,9,9,9,2,10.  With her mega-stealthiness, I think this is 8 successes, which is awesome.

---

The Suburbs

Amid the noise and activity, Flare slipped down the ladder and through the door unnoticed.  On the opposite side, she had seconds to duck behind a stack of cardboard boxes and avoid the glances of the people inside.

"Buenas noches, todos.  Disponen diez minutos.  Informame."

The figure in black leather was bald.  Hairless, in fact.  And emitting ... heat?  Light?  Flare was somewhat uncomfortable even across the room and behind a barrier, skin tingling and nausea building in her gut.  The time limit might be a practical one, rather than merely a tight schedule.  There was a folding table.  He was meeting with a black hispanic man in street clothes, a business-casual dressed American looking woman and a ... well a cyborg built like a football player for lack of a better description.

The first man was actually familiar, and after a moment Flare finally realized why: Utopia had caught him on film making a portal to rescue Cartel novas after they had been captured and locked up.  Called himself "La Puerta", the Door.  Naturally, he was one of the Cartel novas that had never been caught in the aftermath of the Colombian Conflict.  Nervously, La Puerta cleared his throat and spoke.  "... all four drops were successful.  Sales are up.  Full figures are in folder."

"Español o ruso, por favor. No hay ninguna razón para Inglés."  La Puerta glanced at the other two nervously, and the hairless man sighed impatiently.  "Eight minutes.  Did you send the message?"

The cyborg spoke.  "Painted the house in blood.  Should get some attention.  I'm losing a lot of guys doing this."

"Not my problem.  And learn another language before next time or our arrangement is over."  The hairless man tapped his foot.  "Finances?"

"Almost there.  Our backers are happy with our progress."

"Keep them that way.  Find the hard-drive.  Any closing comments?"  He gazed at the others.  They did not appear entirely comfortable with the present arrangement.  "I will deliver your new product soon.  I will contact you by the usual means."

OOC: Would Flare would like to take any particular actions?  I'll update again in a few days, so let me know by then.

Oh…this was bad.   She wanted to wait for Comstock, probably should in fact, but if La Puerta disappeared, they might never find him again.  Oh well, in for a penny…

Flare quickly blasted La Puerta with a lance of fire and slammed the man against the wall.  The rest of the group could run and be caught, but this guy had killed Comstock's informants.  He could be delivered to her co-vigilante extra crispy.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
15:35, Today: Flare rolled 9 successes using 20d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 10,8,6,4,3,7,3,8,10,3,10,7,3,2,7,3,9,4,6,2. Damage on La Puerta.
15:34, Today: Flare rolled 7 successes using 13d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 8,1,3,6,9,7,9,6,8,9,8,3,1. Actual fire blast on La Puerta.
So actually 7 to hit and 12 damage to La Puerta

---

“No body move!”  Trite, but hopefully the man on fire would add to her intimidation.

The Suburbs

La Puerta coiled in on himself in writhing agony, flame consuming him.  He must have some degree of nova endurance, since he did not die outright as flame filled his lungs and eyes, but rather writhed about on the floor.  "Dios ayudame!"  He writhed and screamed, his ruined body agony.  Blindly, he opened portals, scrambling through one only to fall from it's exit near the ceiling and hit the floor again.  "Shut-up," the hairless man commanded.  La Puerta did his best to stop rasping and put out the flame, but he was blind and broken.

The rest of the room held very still.  Behind her, Flare heard several cooks wondering what that explosive sound could have been, since none of their noisy equipment had detonated.  Not much time.

"Who are you?" the hairless man asked calmly.  He raised a hand to keep the other two from moving.  The room was hot.  Flare still felt nauseous.  "The money is in the briefcase, if you want it."  Was the man's accent Chinese?  Russian?  Kazakh?  Asian something, that was for certain.  The woman did have a briefcase.  "You've made your point, and you can tell your employers the message is received."

Did the hairless man really intend to just stand around?  Was he screwing with her?  If not, who did he think she was working for?  He didn't move at all except to talk, and he didn't seem to have a problem with her walking up to take the money.  In fact, his expression hardly changed at all as he thought her over.  "Do not worry your head.  I will not tell these others where your family lives."  Was he a telepath?  Why was it so hot in here, she didn't feel heat like other people!

The truck was parked.  Comstock could see the Circuit City.  It wasn't on fire yet.  For a brief moment, he was afraid that meant that Flare was dead, or hadn't arrived yet, or worse.  Suddenly he wasn't just angry at the gangs.  He was angry at himself for his impulsiveness, for pushing Flare into a dangerous and unknown battle where there was real danger ahead.

He went heavy.  He couldn't afford to lose his nerve now or get sentimental.  He had work to do.

Drawing the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, he stalked toward the building.  His footfalls were heavy.  Pavement cracked in his wake.  He would disable every criminal in the building, and disassemble their equipment utterly.  A few minutes later, he circled around the back of the building.

The sound of three knocks on the back door echoed loudly through the back of the store, even over the sound of the generators.

The Suburbs

Flare's silence and hesitation did nothing to endear the hairless man.  "You're not here for the money?  Come on.  It's right there.  Take it."

Another wave of nausea.  Erratic muscle spasms shot through Flare's body.  She made the connection: this man, faintly shimmering blue around the edges, was radioactive.  She wasn't actually hot; he was paralyzing her with static and invisible nuclear death.  Her muscles and nerves were firing wildly.  Her organs would probably be sludge soon.  And Flare wasn't the only one.  The baseline lawyer had backed away into the corner and was trying to cover her eyes and her face, to minimize the impact of being around this man.  He wasn't even aiming his powers toward her.  She was just caught in the backwash.

Now aware of the danger, she burned away the radiation and its effects with quantum fire.  But it took a great effort.  And she had less juice than she was used to.  "I am reasonable man.  Perhaps one of the last few.  Take the money.  Enjoy yourself.  Now our business is concluded.  You do not need to concern yourself with us again."  The cooks were frantically packing things now, realizing that this site was compromised.  Two found machine guns and took aim on Flare.  And that cyborg man was getting ready to attack; Flare read his expression and his posture like an open book.

Just as suddenly as the standoff began, it ended.  Part of the wall exploded inward, then more, as Comstock punched and then shouldered through the wall of the building.  He didn't have much time to react, as the guns were quickly turned on him.  Bullets flattened or ricocheted harmlessly off of his metal skin.  The cyborg opted to fill the room with conventional death, various explosives, guns, and one-shot laser weapons deploying all at once from his massive frame.  He was a bastard alright, someone punching above his weight class with Elite weapons and enhancements.  Flare's corona of flame guarded her from the worst of it, and the subsequent distraction of the whole lab exploding into flames and chaos made it impossible to follow what happened next.

"Down!"  Comstock shouted.  He was wrestling with the cyborg, and drove the younger nova into the concrete of the floor with a decisive grip.  It would take another moment or two before the man would pass out from the hold.  Those baselines with the wherewithal were emptying the supplies of soma and stranger substances from the refrigeration units that hadn't just taken stray fire or been contaminated by the new and out of control fires.  The baseline lawyer woman was cowering in the corner, too shocked and choking on toxins to know which way to flee.  La Puerta must have successfully portaled somewhere at last, because Flare couldn't mark his location at all.

Of the hairless man, nothing.  Perhaps a sudden glimmer of his outline, invisible, escaping out the door?  No, not even that.  In the inferno that remained, Flare was utterly in her element, and nothing lived that she did not wish.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: Just a nudge to get this finished so we can move on.

---

Suzukaze

Logan kept Suzukaze busy.  Once every two to three weeks there would be some other sort of work: travel somewhere, spy on or watch someone.  Sedate and bring someone in for questioning.  Oftentimes she was allowed to work with Annette, and Annette was allowed to possess different bodies for different tasks.  But always, she had the same quantum bomb attuned to her signature.  If she removed her attunement from it, she had been told, she would die.  If she did not check in at pre-arranged intervals, she would die.  And Suzukaze was given a phone number and an encrypted code to call the bomb, so if Suzukaze felt Annette was going too far off task, she would die.

After ninety days, Suzukaze was given the option of replacing the small phone that she had been issued containing the encrypted identification and pass-codes with a cybernetic model.  Installed directly into her body for maximum security and perpetual contact.  "It's optional for you.  For our volunteers, less so."  Other equipment was also made available on a limited basis.  "The big leagues stuff," Harley remarked with a sneer.

Harley himself was less than open about himself.  He let on that he was previously on T2M, and that 'the Director' had helped him fake his death after the Iraqi WMD incident at the end of the Equatorial Wars.  There was a perpetual stink of cigarettes and booze around the man, and he carried a flask of something strong on his person even in the middle of serious operations.  And he always knew more than he let on.  His surly demeanor only went so far.  There was a streak of obsession behind the mask.

---

Around October of 2005, he contacted Suzukaze again.  Usual place, usual precautions.  But this time, he had a whole file.  "Ever hear of a man called Chagan?"

Suzukaze was always happy to be working with Annette. She had promised her she'd never activate the bomb. When Logan mentioned the cybernetic replacement she gave him hell about trying to place a bomb into her now. As long as it wasn't a bomb or anything else harmful to her she was fine.

She comes into the meeting place with her two new katanas strapped to her back. She was tired of using the swords she had gotten from the dying elite in Columbia while her powers were still wonky from the gas attack. She had contacted the man who had made her original blades. She had said no matter the cost she wanted the best swords he could possibly ever craft. Demanding that he use the best/strongest metal he could possibly find. She was itching to finally find a use for them.

"Your a happy camper as always..." she says as she gets closer to Logan. "Can't say that I have to my knowledge. Judging from the size of that file though he must be someone big."

"Some asshole out of the former Soviet Union.  One of the little republics.  No one knows which."  Harley handed off the file.  Most of it came from the CIA.  Large stretches of it were redacted.  "No nova name.  No word on whether that is his first name or his last name.  Best of all, he's nuclear."

"As I'm sure you noticed, we are in the business of locking up dangerous novas.  After the Equatorial Wars, Chagan here used to help out with that quite a bit.  That's why he never got a ticket to Bahrain."

"Now they tell me he's also been working for various governments.  And moving around right here, under our noses in Las Vegas.  So Director T wants a conversation with him.  And you're a good talker."

Pictures of Chagan in a military uniform during the Equatorial Wars.  Pictures of him in Cambodia.  Pictures of him in Colombia.  He'd managed to step out of each situation before the violence exploded, each time leaving with souveniers and resources.  Unaccounted-for equipment.  Utopia agents even suspected him in the disappearance of two nuclear devices from Bogota in the aftermath the Colombian Conflict.  All of this gear was disappearing somewhere.

Chagan's face was nondescript.  Central Asian.  Mongol?  Kasakh?  Tibetan?  No body hair, like Pax, but as time went by in the photos Chagan began wearing a complicated full-body suit.  Probably to limit his exposure.  He should have been easy to track, since he left signs of radioactivity behind him, but notes from others watching for him ended more often than not with the words 'subject disappeared.'  He could exert mental influence, apparently inflict some sort of radiant energy damage, possessed physical strength and strong financial attachments to various producers of military hardware around the world.  Apparently he had even shown some interest in cybernetic enhancements and weaponry normally purchased only by Elites from ...

There in her hands she held a grainy, long distance image of Chagan post surgery.  He was shirtless, and the mark on some new piece of metal on Chagan's abdomen read 黒高技 (Kuroi Haiteku).  Next to this, a circular symbol depicting the five elements.  The next picture confirmed her fears, showing Chagan shaking hands with Akira Nakamura.

Logan was watching Suzukaze very closely.  "Finding him is the hard part.  How's your Russian?"

Suzukaze listens and takes in all the details about Chagan. However seeing the picture of him and Akira together sets off a string of emotions. Her mind races with thoughts and memories as the anger builds up in her. She closes her eyes and breathing heavily tries to calm herself.

"I may not need it." She says as she looks up at Logan. "I think I know exactly where to find him." She tosses the picture to Logan. "He's joined my original team. He's an assassin now. That's the new team leader with Shiro gone."

She paces back and forth a bit. "If you need more information get it from my friend Paul. I got him to leave the Assassins and he's trying to join up with Team Tomorrow." She stops and stares at Logan. "This is the mission I've been waiting for. To get back at my old team." She closes her eyes and turns her head away. "But I'm nowhere near ready. Too many emotions. Too much planning. If I go in it's just the thing they've been ready for."

She draws one of the katanas and stares at it. "I'm sorry but if you want this done then I need things to sweeten the deal. I also need a team of people I know I can trust my life with. Not some rounded up ragtag team or a bunch of people who I don't know I can trust or not. And nothing is done until we get information from Paul. He'll know the most current information."

Logan peeled back his eufiber mask, revealing the gnarled, chemically burned flesh beneath.  A tendril of eufiber drew a thick cigar from his pocket for him to gnaw and puff on.  "Hate to break it to you, princess, but I don't think Chagan's joined anyone.  In the proverbial cahoots with, definitely, but he's got his own small army.  Purchasing new cyberware from, almost certainly.  You know that maker's mark?"  He pointed to the 黒高技.  "I don't speak Japanese, but I'm told that's no company officially on the market."

"If you know something, than we've got more support for you.  Hell, we may even get the kill orders that you want so bad.  But first," he drew in a thick lungful of smoke, "we track him down and see what's up.  You can do all the talking once we've pinned him and his missing assets down.  Utopia doesn't like stray nukes and medical labs."

He pulled out his phone while Suzukaze finished reading and staring at the photos.  A few quick calls later: "Paul's apparently on the edge of being approved as an aux to T2M.  So I just made sure he failed.  You'll thank me later.  He's your baggage, but if he's got your grit than he'll be fine."  No doubt Paul would be getting an interview next.  They wouldn't let Suzukaze do that, but if Logan vouched than he'd probably be delivered straight to Suzukaze once he received clearance.

Logan got out a marker and a pad of paper.  Paul's name went to the top of his list.  "You probably want that Annette for backup."  Annette next.  He paused gnawed the cigar some more.  "You ever find out what happened to that Shiro kid you had the hots for?  Should you and I be pulling a batman?"

Suzukaze points to it. "It's Kuroi Haiteku most likely the name of the person or possibly Chagan's real name. The symbol next to it is the symbol of the Assassins. The five elements. He's Fire. Shiro, Paul and I were Water, Void and Wind respectively. Earth is the only other member from the original team left, and I know for a fact they replaced me. Either he has joined them or he's really damn close to them." She looked some more as she thought. "With his features he seems to have part Asian descent in him. Probably originated from somewhere close to the border of Mongolia or China. Sakhalin Island is another possibility. He could be anywhere now though. But if he's become that radioactive and gets tired of that suit he may be somewhere away from people. Chernobyl would be a good spot."

With hearing that he just made Paul fail being able to join T2M anger flared in her. "Why on earth would you..." She noticed the list he was writing. Was he putting together a team for her. She gets saddened at the mention of Shiro. "No I haven't found him yet. Paul was going to help me, and I was thinking of getting Binary to look into some things. But yeah Anyone who could help would be great."

She thinks some more while looking over the paperwork. She looks over at Logan's list. "If we're putting together a team I don't really know who in our little group would be good. I know you the best. If we go outside we've already got the two I trust most besides Shiro. Unless we want to bring in any T2M people. Binary is the only one from the new guys, but he's not a fighter. Of the old team Phantasm and Frostburn are the two I trust the most. Solitaire might be good against Chagan, and Comstock would be on par with Earth .  I haven't always seen eye to eye with him though.  Flare could be good also."

Logan stared.  "Maybe you've been hit on the head lately, so I'll reiterate just in case there's some confusion.  This business of ours is secret.  We do what Utopia's bright and shiny heroes cannot.  Wetwork.  Dirty things.  So no, Comstock isn't a good damn fit.  Neither is Flare, or Solitaire, or any of T2M's public faces."  Impatiently, he sucked in another lungful of smoke from the cigar.  "I've got my own cyberkinetic, so we won't need Binary.  How about you let me concern myself with the rest of the team roster.  We'll make sure everyone plays nice together before heading out to Japan of wherever the hell."

"If he is here, in Las Vegas, I want to know.  Do what you have to do.  Contact me the usual way.  Meanwhile I'll see what I can find on Shiro for you."

Wrenching herself from the fear of radiation (the Colombian incident had left a permanent terror in her) Flare went to town.  Her reaction to nearly any emotion was ‘burn it all’ and here was ready made fire.  She had held back in all of her operations with Comstock, not wanting to give away her identity, now though, nothing remained when she finished.

Eventually she stumbled out of the smoldering hole Comstock had made, leaning heavily on the wreckage while she tried to endure the radiation sickness.

“Well that…that just sucked.” She looked over at Comstock, clearly more nervous of his mood that the destruction around her.  “I’m sorry we didn’t get them all.  La Puerta…he left, and that creepy radiation guy too.  I’m sorry.  I know you wanted to get them all for what they did to your friends.”

Comstock found Flare a new coat to help conceal her now bullet-torn and scorched clothes.  "It's alright."  He let his hand linger on her shoulder.  He was glad she hadn't been hurt.  After a moment's hesitation, "We did some good.  They were probably going to demolish the building anyway.  But we need to get out of here.  Come on."

Right now, he didn't even care for evidence or rules of order or anything.  They were going to be seen if they stayed, and at least the unconscious cyborg would be there to blame it on.  So they dashed away, concealing themselves and making a run for the truck where they could catch their breath.

"Who was the bald guy?  Did you catch any names or anything like that?"

Suzukaze shakes her head slightly. "I know... I'm just rambling about who I think I could trust, and what type of nova's to match up against them.  Do whatever you can especially with Shiro. I'll start searching for Chagan. You mind if I use this picture? I'll claim I'm searching for my old team and anyone who can lead me to them."

She starts to ponder for a moment. "I think we could use Team Tomorrow after all. Manipulate them, let them do some dirty work or distract people while we get our stuff done. Maybe even set them up to fail. Have them go after something big, but it goes wrong and they just screw themselves. They turn themselves into a news nightmare. The disgrace of Utopia."

She shifts and stares Logan down penetrating his eyes. "I know we're looking for Slider, and I know who is protecting her. I don't want to get involved. But I'd like some information for my own use if you know anything. About two certain people. A mother and child to be exact. Cause someone is looking for them and we may need to do something if we're involved."

Flare chewed her lip and turned her view to the rubble as she passed all the particulars she’d learned to Comstock. “So, what do we do now?"  They’d been outed, most likely.  The populace at large might not ever get the memo from the criminal underbelly, but the sleaze of Vegas might soon know where they slept.

"I don't know."  Dillon sighed.  "We're only really outed if someone saw us.  Or if those guys want to escalate things.  They ... might not."

Who was he kidding?  They'd pushed it, and now it was almost impossible to imagine that they'd get away with it.  "We should probably take it easy for awhile.  Let everything calm down.  Cops are going to be everywhere."

Logan sharpened noticeably.  "I'll upload a scrubbed copy of the images and necessary information to your devices.  And any media fallout we still have to clear with the Director, but I like the way you think."

He sucked down another thoughtful lungful of smoke.  "Slider will come in for debriefing eventually.  Used to work with her, so I'd rather not see her splattered to bits over this bullshit."  He tried sizing 'kaze up.  "You want information on a mother and a kid, write it down and I'll get one of these clerks to dig through the paper record.  Usually if we're involved, there's a good reason.  Dangerous people.  If it's a mother and a kid, I'm guessing it has something to do with the Bahrain Project.  That's not a problem."

His cigar was nearly gone.  Angrily, he gave up on it.  "But if you're just digging for a revenge hit, or if you're just digging for some leverage on your old team, I'll eat you for lunch.  Don't go solo on this shit."

Suzukaze hands the picture back over. "As soon as I got it I'll start looking around. Probably start with all the known Nova spots, then I'll work my way through my connections."

She stretches her neck a bit. "Trust me I 'm not looking for revenge or leverage. Just want to know if I should bother helping a friend or not. Personally I could care less, but family is kind of a touchy subject  with me." She crosses her arms infront of her. "If we're involved then I want to make sure we're prepared for anything. Also I'd just like to know if we're involved because I want to dedicate my self fully to the project."

She unfolds her arms and raises her right hand up to run through her hair. "I just want to belong somewhere and have a purpose. The Assassins just used me and I never felt like I belonged in Team Tomorrow.  And unless you want me to use them as a cover , or I use them to benefit me somehow then I'd rather have no part of them." She looks back up at Logan. "I'll do what I have to in order to prove that I belong here."

"We belong here alright.  You and me both."  Logan smirked and chuckled a bit.  "Alright.  Back to work."

---

OOC: Alright, what connections are we using first and where are we looking?  We need a direction to start things off at the very least, and I prefer to leave that in your hands.

Fall, 2005

Hiding Out

The fallout from the brawl at the abandoned Circuit City was immense.  Local, national and international news agencies swarmed to the scene of the crime, as thought coordinated by some bizarre groupthink, to take pictures and ask why.  "The Crisis of Nova Vigilantism and Nova Crime" stayed in the headlines for two months, with advocates of all sides spinning the damage.  A soma pharmacy in the middle of a Las Vegas suburb was a powerful image, after all, and the fires had made great television of OpNet feeds.

The man in leather had, indeed, gotten away.  But nothing ever came of it.  Gangs did not come calling.  No message was sent.  Their identities were never leaked to the public.  They stopped playing vigilante, and that was that.

September: For local government, the results of vigilantism was resounding.  The mayor of Las Vegas was recalled and ousted by a more conservative, pro-humanity candidate, and the military drones that Kraken Heavy Industries had donated to the Las Vegas Police Department were fielded within a week of the recall as part of a special Nova Crime Task Force.  Raoul called the recall election a farce and decried the task force as little more than hate-mongering and fascism tied to corporate interests, but for once his command of the Vegas scene was not absolute and he could not just get his way.

October: In response, some novas took to the streets.  The Nova Crime Task Force faced their first challenge when, in October, masked nova Mefistofaleez and some friends and followers allegedly started a Devil's Night riot, causing considerably property damage.  Within two hours, the drones and specially trained police officers and SWAT teams had arrived and arrested everyone on scene, unmasking Mefistofaleez for the cameras and incarcerating him in a special fortified cell-block.  He was released after three days at the insistence of Project Utopia, who would take over his prosecution in accordance with co-policing agreements, but he had been beaten and unmasked on television and not in an XWF Ring or planned event.

Other demonstrations were more peaceful and less newsworthy.  The whole city seemed to be taking one collective breath, waiting to see what would happen next.

December: Flare and Comstock received separate messages.  Letters without return address or other identifying marks, slipped in with the regular mail.  Each contained a photo of the Circuit City, ablaze after the fight, and a simple message.  "Time we talk this out.  Meet me."  An address on Industrial Road, near the Las Vegas Strip, and a time.

Unknown to either, similar messages went out to others as well ...


---

Suzukaze's Mission

December: It took two weeks before anything related to Chagan came up.  But one hot evening Suzukaze found a soma-abusing Russian who always had a lot of money to gamble, and Proteus' access confirmed he worked for a construction contractor that could not possibly be making that much.  Logan got her a Proteus psychic she'd never met before, and the psychic turned up a few great pieces of information: first, that the man worked for someone who worked for Chagan; second, that the construction firm's offices in Las Vegas hid a soma-lab and other drugs; and third, that the man's frequent trips to Moscow, Tokyo and Beijing were business, not pleasure, and that he had something to do with Chagan's network.  Unfortunately, the man's head had been hardened against psychic intrusion, and he died in his hotel room of what physicians ruled a cocaine overdose.  Some sort of cranial implant had killed him to prevent psychic scanning.  Primitive, but effective.

Now Suzukaze had more than a few leads.  Which made it all the more interesting when she received a text message to her secured and encrypted phone.  "Time we talk this out.  Meet me."  A Las Vegas address on Industrial Road.  And twenty minutes to make it there.

Logan called a minute later.  "Sweety, I didn't send that.  We're tracking the number and we're going to be changing all our numbers and codes just to be safe.  Dickhead's going to get his ass kicked wherever he's hiding.  It's up to you if you still think that meeting's worth checking out.  But if our boy Chagan's anywhere around, I'd sure love it if you'd cut his fucking head off."  Logan was gnawing on a cigar and surly already.


---

Kraken Heavy Industries

December: The borehole had finally returned to schedule.  It would be complete and operational by 1st quarter, 2006.  Quality takes time, and safety demands caution.

After Kraken consulted with Kraken, there were no further break-ins or other acts of sabotage.  KHI lawyers began jousting with Utopia lawyers over and over again, and Kraken began to hate a new name: Steve Debow, Utopia's original nova lawyer and brainiac, and a man determined to stop the borehole.  National security threat, illegal use of nova science, improper EPA assessments, legislation subtly but specifically targeted at KHI and super-science ... it was endless.  Why had Utopia suddenly decided the borehole had to be stopped?  What short-sighted foolishness compelled these people to block the march of progress?  Who knew.

Further complicating matters, Kraken continued to receive insider information, however, from his unlikely ally, Nevada State Attorney General Thomas Anders.  The man was either a very clever plant with some sort of long game, or trying to bribe his way into Kraken's confidence.  Troubling, to say the least.

Today, however, one of Kraken's wunderkind young nova interns had just brought a rare piece of paper mail.  To Hell Kraken.  Confidential.  Scans revealed nothing more than paper, ink, silver halide ... a note and some photos.  "Time we talk this out.  Meet me."  A date and a time.  Las Vegas, a building on Industrial Road near the Strip.  The photos, though ... one was of the borehole from a distance.

The other was of Cláudia, walking in Tokyo.


---

T2M:A

Johnny Afterburner had a distinctly annoying knock.  "Impetus, sir, I found this in the hallway like someone'd dropped it.  If it's junk mail, I'll chuck it for you but I didn't think we got that kind of thing 'round here.  And if we're in a habit of just dropping mail wherever I need to know that now, because I like reading my fan mail even if you don't."

Whether or not Impetus was even at his desk, Johnny dumped the letter there and went on his way without waiting to see what the contents were.  Inside, a letter and a few newspaper clippings of Impetus Fan Club gatherings.  Even with the nanovirus and quantum remission dulling his edge, Impetus knew this was a carefully worded threat of violence against his fans.  "Time we talk this out.  Meet me."  An address and a time.


---

OOC: Anyone else want to be part of the scene?  A threatening letter could be in your future as well!  Just let me know and we'll work out what sort of lure the bad guy uses.

As for everyone else, the site is an auto-parts store in the middle of major renovations.  The windows are covered with tarps, and there's no sign of a trap, explosives or anything like that.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:23, Wed 24 Oct 2012.

Film Fotografie?  Wie wunderbar drollig.  Wilhelm didn't think anyone used anything besides digital these days.  A sensible precaution, though.  No EXIF data to mine off of film.  Which wasn't to say that no information could be gleaned from the photos.  60 mm by 60 mm frames.  Almost certainly taken by a V-series Hasselblad.  A field of view of around 10 degrees.  Call it a 230 mm telephoto lens, then, and made by Carl Zeiss since nobody else made lenses that would fit a Hasselblad.  Fujichrome Velvia film based on the resolution of the negatives, the reproduction of the purple in Claudia's blouse, and the delicate hint of miconazole still lingering on the film from development.  Quality equipment.  Equipment that shouldn't prove impossible to trace, though, knowing Hasselblad owners, it could have been manufactured in the 60s and lovingly maintained.  If only the photographer had shot on Kodachrome.  Nobody developed that anymore.  It would have been trivial to trace.

Retaining his dispassion, Wilhelm turned to the content instead of the media.  Referring to the maps of Tokyo and Nevada residing in his mind, he tried to figure out where the photos were taken.  The Nevada pictures were easy.  Someone had obviously snuck up onto the Yucca Mountain overlook from US-95.  The fence was known to be porous and Yucca Mountain was far enough away from anything important that it wasn't worth much effort at securing.  Hell, everything in the photographs could be seen from the guided tour.  The Tokyo photograph was a more difficult proposition.  Wilhelm recognized Yotsuya Station as the building behind Claudia.  But where was the photograph taken from?  It took the computers to narrow the angles down.  The grounds of Akasaka Palace, the Tokyo residence for guests of the state, but also a public park.  Two busts, then, unless the photographer was exceptionally stupid and he could figure out when the photo in Tokyo was taken.  Spotting a Zuni silver bracelet on Claudia's wrist, a gift he felt a certain indescribable pleasure to see her wear even when he wasn't there, Wilhelm narrowed the date of the photograph down to the past three months, but no matter how he wracked his brain he couldn't get any more precise.  Not good enough.

It couldn't be helped.  Wilhelm would have to go to the meeting to find out who was responsible.  He probably would have gone anyway.  Beneath his dispassion he felt an intense desire to kill someone over the implied threat in the letter, a desire he felt somewhat bad about and resolved to try not to act on.  Still, the meeting presented some significant danger.  He would have to be prepared to do violence.  He thought on the matter.  The person calling the meeting clearly had put some effort into trying to anticipate Wilhelm's likely behavior.  His powers would be expected so he'd need to do something unexpected.  Walking from his office to one of his many small art galleries, Wilhelm opened a glass case and withdrew a four-barreled howdah pistol, a true masterwork of the engraver's art.  While he'd bought the gun for the beauty of the piece, he'd also made sure that it fired.  It was chambered in .375 H&H Magnum.  It would have adequate penetration if it came to that.  He loaded the pistol and hid it in a pocket of teflon inside himself.  Then he sent out the drones and summoned one of his human, not robotic, chauffeurs.  His choice of ride?  An unmarked Mitsubishi Fuso ten-ton truck.  He couldn't hide on the street, but he knew Industrial Road to be a warren of warehouses.  Yet another truck wouldn't look out of place in such surroundings.  He'd take a look at what was going down first.  If things looked hinky he could just drive away.  Or have the drones flatten the meeting place from 3000 feet.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:40, Mon 22 Oct 2012.