Punching Bag kicks up his feet on the table and nods. “Eh why not? No harm in having a meeting right?”

"It couldn't hurt," Alicia agreed.  "We're probably going to cross paths eventually so we might want to know what they're planning so that there are no misunderstandings."

Sphere was there, laying lazily in mid-air on a soft cushion of condensed air.

"I agree with Alicia. It cannot hurt to talk to them, especially if they are asking for us and are also trying to do some network and relationship building. It would also give us an opportunity to get a feel for these Sentinels and what their powers are like, as well as their personalities as I haven't met with them personally." Sphere said.

"I don't mind if they aren't under AEGIS. As long as they aren't hurting people I don't care what label they are under. And maybe they'll one day actually become true friends of ours. I'm always down for making new friends. Especially ones that can also help us defend the people. So yeah...let's go meet with 'em."

"Friends might be a bit premature at this point," EM shrugged, "but I haven't heard anything worrisome on Rook though I'll be reviewing AEGSIS' data on him.  Still I agree, intel on our current case is exactly what we need and if Rook's offer is genuine and useful then maybe this can be a start down that path."

"But," she cautioned, "as always we have to keep in mind the need-to-know basis of much of AGESIS operations.  Rook may want details from us as well, some of which we may not be at liberty to share."


OOC: No worries about getting a hero network going but I see EM being a bit of a "by-the-book" kind of person hence her attitude

Sphere nodded.

"Friendships take time. But alliances and such are a good starting point." he replied.

"And we definitely need to be circumspect a bit with some types of information. For example, we shouldn't tell him that we are walking science-fiction movies that get our powers due to being worshipped as gods by trillions of sentient microbes that got put into us in a clandestine secret Starfish project and such." he said with a chuckle, trying to make it sound a bit ridiculous to help make his point.

"And of course...I won't reveal government secrets except on a need-to basis. But there's plenty of intel that I think both sides can exchange and if he knows about the Cabrini case and Cancer machine thefts that alone warrants a meeting."

Emerald One was a tower at the foot of the Yellow Brick Row, overlooking the pacific ocean.  Rumour had it that Billionaire Industrialist Maximillian Mars was going to move one of his offices into the top five or six floors--which were currently being renovated.

Apparently, Rook either had an in with Mars or he he had other strings,pulled as the building security didn't give them any grief as they entered and, in fact, directed them to the fourth elevator, the one that went to the top floors.

When the elevator opened up on 35, it was a wash of construction noise.  There was plastic-coverings and scaffolding everywhere and at least a dozen men working on various parts of the building.  Whatever Mars was doing to refit the building, it was all-encompassing.

The workers didn't stop to glance at them, simply continued working as if they weren't there.

"Come on in."  A voice called out--a midrange baritone with traces of a voice-modulator.   "It's an impressive view you wont' see too often.  Whatever I feel about Mars, he's got good taste in location."

Around the corner, came an athletic man in a grey and black uniform, accented in black.   He had a kind of cowl and cape that could apparently become winglike if needed.   "I've swept the place for bugs."  he said in an offhand manner as he approached.  "But you're welcome to take any precautions you feel are necessary. </DARKBLUE>

He stopped for a moment, then touched his throat.  "Gentlemen."  He called out.  "Thank-you for your work today.  If you could, please see yourself out."

Much of the construction noise stopped and many of the workers began to pack up their tools...  This meeting was, apparently, expected.

Rook offered a smile. "I wanted you to see the view, first.   But the only functional conference room on this floor is on the other side of the building."

He led the way to one of the great plate-glass windows that overlooked the Pacific ocean.  It was a stunning panorama of the bay, looking out towards Council Island.   As it was mid-day and the weather was far, they could see clear across to the North shore.


I figure waiting for the workmen to leave gives us time for small-talk before getting down to business...   I'm okay with one-liners here if you are...

“Is farting while flying similar to peeing while swimming?”

EM raises an eyebrow at Punching Bag's question but declines to answer, instead she simply offers a even, "Very nice.  This way to the conference room?" It's unclear whether she was referring to the view or the comment.

She allows Rook to lead the way, adding as the group walks, "We appreciate you reaching out with possible information, Rook.  Director Maddox said you're trying to setup a network of heroes, I'm curious who else you've added to this network."

Sphere rolled his eyes a bit at Punching Bag's comment, although was "one of the guys" enough to still find the humor in it.

"No...unless my orbit gets cramped with a lot of people. Then it suddenly becomes a much longer flight than before." he replied with a smirk.

He turned to Rook as they walked.

"Yes we do appreciate the the thoughtfulness of you going out of your way to show us the good view. And I don't think anyone here is worried you'd plant bugs at your own meeting. Although if you think a third party might I'd love to hear out your concerns when we get into the conference room."

"Simply too many unknowns." Rook offered with a relaxed smile.   "Actually, I wanted this place because it's under construction.  I'm considering renting it.  This was an easy excuse to get a look around.  Two birds.

The conference room was the only fully functional room in the area.  Glass-enclosed with reinforced steel girders.  It hadn't been finished, but it was apparent that it was soundproof.  "Three weeks ago, I was investigating a rumour of a chemlab purporting to produce a street-dug, lustre.  Lustre is alleged to give people metahuman powers.  But without control or oversight, there's no telling what powers nor what side-effects.  Nor what cost these powers might come with.  Like teh events of the Silver Storm weren't enough.

There's an abandoned chemical processing facility in a West Vallee Industrial complex.  The place hadn't been used--officially-in five years.    He closed the door behind them.     On the table was a black faux-leather dossier.  Rook opened it.  Not a 100% match, but strong possibilities."

What was particularly interesting, though, is that the office of the place looked like it had been tossed, then torched.  I did, however, find the following in a fireproof safe.  He put forth one page with the following photo-copied from a biography on Herman Goring, found in the Emerald City University Library.  There were several scrawls written in pencil in the margins, and some incomplete mathemetical formulae.

(German original and English translation)


And another, type-written note:



Now, I know Tomas Morgan.  He's a professor of history and sociology at the Arcadia Academy, a private-school for metahuman teens.  Another of Maximilian Mars' pet-projects.

Erik Blaze died two weeks ago of complications due to pancreatic cancer.  Emilia Blaze was alive in a retirement home in Elysium Woods as of last week.  But three days ago, she apparently checked herself out. "

He let that sink in for a moment.  "A one-hundred and two year old wheel-chair-bound woman with dementia checked herself out of the retirement home three days after her husband's funeral.  The retirement home she'd been living in for the past twenty-five years.  They had no family, no kids.  And, as of three days ago, no bank-accounts.  Apparently, she closed them out the same day.

"When I told Morgan about it, he became very concerned. Upset, even.   I'm sworn to confidentiality on some things, here.  So, I hope you appreciate that I am walking a very fine line.   Morgan claims to have come from another time.  If I believe him, then it is possible that a trio of 1940-s era metas from Nazi Germany are in the present day hunting down a bunch of geriatrics.

He looked up and let out a slight sigh. "Want to run away yet?  I won't blame you if you do."
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:26, Mon 01 Feb 2021.

Sphere's face showed his concern as Rook began talking about the sketchy chemical processing warehouse. Lustre in particular concerned him. He knew from experience that metahuman power generally didn't come for free. The Silver Storm killed or injured way more people than it gave powers to for sure. The Colonies themselves had a high incompatibility rate with most hosts and 9/10 times killed or made hosts sick instead of bonded with them and granted powers. And he knew there were other metas who had nothing to do with either colonies or the silver storm and could only imagine the hidden costs they carried.

So one could certainly understand why he was skeptical about the benevolence of a mass-produced street drug that granted powers. So he doubted it was just as easy as taking a street-drug and getting powers in seconds. There most certainly had to be complications, awful side-effects, and other limitations compared to the relatively natural and organic powers the AEGIS metas had. He was sure people were gonna die over this without cold hard proof to the contrary.

"This Lustre? This is the first time I'm hearing about this, which concerns me because I like to think I'm fairly well-informed. But we're far from perfect, myself included, and thank you for bring this to our attention. I believe a street-drug could theoretically give normal humans superhuman abilities, even if only for a limited amount of time. But there's no way such a thing doesn't have brutal side effects and risks! My mother always said that when something seems too good to be true...that it usually was. And popping a pill to gain powers in seconds sounds too good to be true." he said.

"However Mister Rook, we can leverage our influence with the government and AEGIS and try and have folks on our side of things look more into these rumors about Lustre, and share new information we learn with the Sentinels as we get it in exchange for the same courtesy of course." he added, diplomatically.

He looked even more concerned when he saw the list of names and the notes. And at Rook's suggestion of time-travelling evil nazi metas possibly causing them to run he almost burst out laughing...but he controlled himself. He got physics-defying powers from the reverence of trillions of beings that worshipped him as a living god-planet, so at this point he was pretty-open-minded about weird stuff happening. Including the possibility of time-traveling nazis hunting down geriatrics. As silly as it all sounded.

"Mister Rook? I can assure you that none of my comrades here would run away over the things you're insinuating. We ourselves are involved in circumstances that are at least as weird ourselves. So what's a little more weirdness to our already strange lives?" he said.

"But this list of names is interesting, and the fine line you're walking may help us save lives. We also may have possibly found the Samantha from your list, but are still working on confirming that so cannot tell you more yet at this time. Although we can certainly try and determine if 'our' Samantha has any connection with the one from the list." he said, noting someone named Irene was also on the list and that "their" Samatha had mentioned the name Irene before confirming that she was named Samantha.

"Yes." Rook nodded. "That's why I contacted you.  My information says your Jane Doe named herself Samantha.

Morgan said that the Donitz Programm had an unreliable mechanism for time-travel, but that they'd fled with the one meta who had successfully used it.  Morgan has his issues, but he's got no police record and Mr. Mars says he's been a exemplary part of the Academy staff.   While I accept that such a thing may be possible, I don't accept it naturally and out of hand.  Any hypothesis needs to be tested.

So far, Lustre is a rumour only.  It's probably nothing.  But the drug trade is a personal crusade for me, so I'm invested and biased.   he offered it openly, with a bit of a self-mocking smirk.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:25, Mon 01 Feb 2021.

Punching Bag absorbed the information as much as possible. “The drug is certainly a concern that will have to be dealt with, but we have another issue of what I suspect is metas from a parallel dimension infiltrating ours trying to steal a machine meant to cure cancer which makes sense with all the radiation we detected.”

"The Cancer does seem to be a commonality." Rook said.  "What leads you to think parallel dimension?"


--

And, for what it's worth, I am assuming you've shared your characters experiences with each other.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:07, Tue 02 Feb 2021.

OOC: I see no reason we didn't share things are we're friendly and on the same team.

"I agree that the drug rumors should be followed up on. And even if they cannot grant superpowers per say, it still seems like something that is somehow under the radar still and tangentially connected to our case. So either way we'll try and look into it if possible and if we learn anything about Lustre we will try and share info with you, Rook." Sphere replied.

"As for 'our' Samatha...I have a theory about her based on the new info you're telling us. Mind you, I'm not the science brain of the team and am here mostly to look pretty. Buuuut I do recall Samantha mentioning the name Irene first before her real name, which is interesting and suggests a connection. But she seemed to think she was prepared for death, but I healed her with my powers. She was really confused and spaced out, but she seemed to looking for some high-tech equipment like hologram computers and communicators and an agent as well which could indicate she really isn't from our time and era." he continued.

"But if they are from some parallel timeline filled with nazis and metas then I'd say THEIR timeline and 1940's is waaaaay different and more advanced than ours was." he said.

"I can't piece together the connection with the cancer cure equipment, especially since Samantha seemed tech-saavy and sophisticated. In her own confused, loopy, spaced out sort of way mind you. But as hard as it is to believe in a parallel dimension...well just look at me? Everything I do practically breaks the laws of nature. Same can be said the rest of us AEGIS metas. So believe me when I say my bar for suspension of disbelief is set pretty high now."

side note:  Oh good! I'm glad you remembered the timeline/technology progression issue.  I was afraid it'd get lost in the flow of things!  Not that there's anything to be done about it.   But it is a key factor in my vision for tying everything together....

Punching Bag attempted to explain his theory. “Well the Alice we faced was not the Alice who was trapped in the prison and mentioned Blaze as if they were best of friends. She also called me by a stage name that I had considered once upon a time but never told anyone about. Alice also seemed to blip in and out of reality leaving a strong radiation trail in her wake which as we know, heavy radiation causes cancer.”

"Interesting." Rook said.  "So, Samantha Luck.  She was active in the air-force during world-war II.  Posted to West Coast Operations.  On paper she wasn't anywhere near the front lines.   But her service record is classified.   You've got more government pull than I do.  You might be able to get a look at that.  If your girl is the same... there could be some value in finding out whatever you can.

If travel through time emits that level of radiation...  I can see why they might want a readily available cure.   I suggest you talk with Maximillian Mars.   I'm sure he'd love to make your acquaintance.  He'd probably give his right..." he glanced at Jenni, "uh... hand... to establish some sort of tie with AEGIS."

Rook pulled out a business card from one of the little pockets on his utility belt.  He was quite the boy-scout, apparently.   "If you need to get a hold of me.   Encrypted SignalFlare account.  I did a favor for one of the rich tech guys in View Royal.   He set it up for me."  The SignalFlare account was: "WhiteRook"

My long-term focus is on Lustre.  But if there's further connections, I'll share anything I can.   If you find anything earth-shattering, please contact me, too.

EM looked around to her fellow collogues and nodded, "This was very productive.  We'll reach out if needed and if we come across any information on Lustre we'll pass it along as well."

She hadn't been certain what to expect from Rook but his offer had been genuine.

Punching Bag accepted the card. “Looks like the next step is Mars. Let’s have our guy get in contact with him to set up a meeting. Then we can have our techno guys try tracking down Blaze while we look at Lustre distribution.”

Alicia nodded in agreement as Sphere described their encounter with Samantha, having noticed the connection between the names Samantha and Irene with the names on the list.

"Okay, so we know the whereabouts of Morgan, Mr. Blaze, and someone who might be Samantha.  It looks like we need to find the others on this list before our Nazis do,"  Alicia summarized.

"Samantha was too out of it to give us any information as to whether she knew the whereabouts of the others.  Morgan is probably our best lead and can also explain why they are being hunted down."

"It doesn't seem like revenge would be a motive.  If they are that old, they don't have much time left.  They're also past the age where they could have kids who can be causing problems in the future, you know, like the premise of that Terminator movie?"

"Maybe they have something that the Nazis want to recover, like an object or a piece of knowledge," the miniature metahuman speculated.

Alicia couldn't yet figure out the connection to the cancer cure equipment either.  At one time, she would have been following any development when it came to cancer treatments.  Where was this several years ago? she wondered.  If it had existed at the time, she might not have had to resort to taking an unconventional and unproven treatment in desperation to save her life -- one that eventually resulted in her present state.  Although there was something special about being superhuman, she couldn't help but wonder how her life would have been different if she had just been just a normal human.

Sphere nodded.

"We have Samatha in protective custody with us so she should be okay for the time being. But based on all the pieces of the puzzle each of us and you Rook are saying, and putting it all together, it sounds like following up with Morgan should be our next move. I know you said Morgan was nervous about this whole thing, but I assure you we're the good guys here. We're not out to hurt these metas as long as they aren't the bad guys." he said.

"We need to go interview Morgan as quickly as possible. I'd also like to take him into protective custody as well although we won't force him if he refuses. This isn't a black ops government sort of deal, and I told my director before we came to see you that we expect it to stay that way. And I'll tell you she's not broken our trust even once since we met her - I was unfairly hard on her early on but now I will tell you I explicitly trust her and AEGIS to be good guys too. I just wanted to tell you that, Rook, so you feel better about all this and with sharing your info on Morgan with us." he added.

"We can run down more of these leads if we split up.  I can look into the classified records of Samantha Luck and see if any of the other names are also on file.  Anyone else is welcome to join me; if we get leads we'll try to make contact."

"The rest can pay a visit to Morgan and see what details he's willing to share."

The green-skinned woman waited to see if there were any takers.

Sphere nodded.

"I can fly us faster than any of our normal transports can go for those who wanna visit Morgan. I think at this point, time is of the essence if there are assassins running around."

Punching Bag raised his hand. “I’ll go with the group visiting Morgan. Sounds like it has the highest probability of running into one of these Nazis or having to deal with somebody who doesn’t want protection.”