Moving on to the next act in Jack's storyline.

Another 1000ish

Jack sees that Roger seems to have split from the guard he’d been occupying and sends off a text to the Program folks again: He left the guard he was in, no idea where he went. According to info that Ron gave to Dan, he is looking for information on your systems regarding Sarah ____’s dad, apparently he made Roger?

Even as he sends the text, he starts to scan the area in broad motions of his eyes. Looking over everyone, trying to spot some sort of tell to indicate that Roger has hopped to them.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 2):

Outside, the Program people have started to mingle with the regular first responders who have started pouring into the parking lot.  Cops.  Ambulance drivers.  Two fire trucks with more on the way.

It's like looking through an ant farm out there, but from what you can tell, everyone is acting as you would think they would.

The guard who ha been Roger's host fumbles with the control panel on the elevator. It starts to move. It reaches the Program level and the guard starts to drag Mrs. Hollister and the other guard out into the hall.  He's tapped into his helmet com and is broadcasting that he was taken over but he is alright now.  His voice sounds like normal.

The few students who haven't made it out yet are struggling to do so.  There are a few who headed for the bathroom once the drugs kicked in.  They seem to have weathered the worst of it.  None of them look capable at the moment of doing anything other than breathing and retching.

Dan has moved into the crowd outside, trying to help people.

You can see Ronald has gotten out of the pool.  He's making his way down the street, cursing under his breath.  He seems to be headed towards the school, but whether that's closer than his home you aren't sure.

The two metas you discombobulated are up but seem to be trying to retreat.  Wisp girl, in her body, is helping the guy out a window.

Kevin has appeared.  He's coming in through a second floor window, headed out for the main hall.  He's fuzzy at the moment.  "What the hell is goin' on? Where is everyone?"

He should be downstairs in less than a minute at his current rate.

Darja has found Colby.  He's got a hand on her shoulder.  "Hey.  Can you reach Jack?  Tell him that smell...it's still there.  But it's like faded.  Like it's been covered up or something."

He knits his brows together.  "I don't know if it matters.  But...it was different for a little bit.  But now it's back to how it smelled before.  I...can't explain it any better than that."

Your cell ticks twice.

Lydia's number.  This is Marlene.  She's okay.  Got the worst of it out of her.  Called her parents so they don't worry.  I asked Saul to give us a lift to her house.

HT follows up.  You guys did good.  We're five minutes out.  Should be there soon.  Hemi and Jack will be there ahead of us.  Report in to them.

“Darja, keep an eye on Sarah until she's out of the area.”

Jack, hearing Colby and Darja talking, speaks outloud: “I believe it could be Roger that he's smelling. Ask him if he ever smelled that smell when Sarah was first getting harassed at the beginning of the year.”

He pauses while he waits for Darja to relay the message while he floats above the school, trying to watch as much as he can.

He thinks it might be wise to head underground shortly, but he's still thinking about that at present.

When he spots the two escaping, he relays their escape route to the Program: Meta mercs escaping out of window near room 108. West side of the building, and includes a description of each of them, along with the color of their outfits, hair, and general height and build.

He next sends a message to Kevin, catching him up on everything that has transpired. The two EMPs, the hit list, the machine-gunners, the business with the mercs, and Roger's disappearance. He tries to pencil in all of the details so that Kevin isn't wandering around blind. It's multiple pages of texts long, but it only takes him a normal person's breath to type it all out and get it sent.

To Lydia's phone: Thanks Marlene. Tell her I'll be over to see her as soon as I can.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 4):

Colby frowns and then slowly nods.  "How can you hear him...anyway.  Tell him...yeah.  Now that he mentions it.  But it wasn't this bad.  Or strong.  This is...like an open dumpster behind a fish restaurant.  In July."

You "see" Kevin roll his eyes at the layers of text and then he calls you.  "Probably take me less time to hear it than read it.  Where are you?"

He makes it to you rather quickly.  He's still speaking into his cell when he lays eyes on you and then rolls his eyes at himself.  "Okay.  That catches me up to speed.  Roger was trying to get down to the Program right?  I doubt he's given up."

Below, there are only a couple of people coming out of the Program bunker.  Two of them are helping the formerly possessed guard take Hollister and the other guard inside.

Kevin shakes his head.  "There are too many moving parts right now.  Whatever he's up to, we can't stop him from up here.  We need to get down there.  Can you open the way?"

Jack smirks at the response and relays his location, lowering himself to Kevin in the process. His luchadore mask and dance tuxedo looking dapper as he stretches his arms out slightly.

"I can, but I'm trying to understand where he might be right now, if they've got the area isolated to prevent him from getting the information he wants," he explains to Kevin. Trying to make sense of what is happening.

Thinking for a bit, he responds to Colby, who of course is relayed through Darja.

"Move him away, Princess, then come back and meet with Hemi and the others," he speaks into the air, looking away from Kevin for a second.

Looking back to Kevin he's still weighing the pro's and con's, and decides that it's best to head down and get their eyes on the issue without the issues from the meta material.

Picks up the Monkey and flies to the nearest elevator.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 6):

Kevin frowns as you speak into the empty air.  "You know...it's really weird when you do that.  You do know that right?"

As you lift him up he snarks, "I do have legs...oh what the hell.

"Anyway, from what you've told me, Roger's goal has to be something in the Program.  And if they know he's about, they probably have psych screening.  But I'm not sure how effective that would be.  It'd give him a headache. But I doubt it'd keep him out."

You peel open the elevator doors and the two of you descend down.

I am assuming you told him everything.  If something was not on your list, let me know and I will edit. Thanks

"What's got me worried is this "Manitou" thing.  I think that was some First Nation god.  Or demon or something.  A shapeshifter."

He shakes his head.  "But he can't jump into metas.  So it must mean something else."

The two of you come down to the elevator roof.  The hallway is clear.  The Program people have moved the injured inside.

Kevin considers as you open up the roof.  "If I were him...I think I'd maybe jump...

"Let's head to the infirmary."

The security doors open easily to retina scan.  Kevin frowns and glances around inside the hallway.  "Bad memories.  Bad memories."

You can 'see' inside now.  The guards who had been in the elevator are laying on the floor outside the infirmary.  Neither of them are breathing.

You see Hollister moving into one of the secure areas you haven't been into yet.  She's moving like she's drunk.

"You pick up on anything?"

“I’d think you’d be used to weird by now,” Jack replies to Kevin as he sets him down a moment later and answers, “According to the info that I’ve gotten so far, he’s looking for a girl named Sarah’s dad. He’s apparently Roger’s creator? Maybe?” he speculates.

Sending off a quick message to Hardtime he texts: Roger is probably in the lower levels still, moving down personally with the Monkey.

He then opens the elevator doors and steps over the edge, letting himself fall and only decelerating a moment before he touches the top of the elevator. He leaves Kevin to make his own way down.

Hearing about Manitou, he nods slowly.

“He’s back in a teacher, Mrs. Hollister. He’s headed that way,” he replies and starts to move that direction, but at a more sedate pace. “I’m going to send updates to the Program folks so they can take action.”

He passes along updates about Hollister then.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 8):

Shortly after you hit send, the lights go out.  Your cell dings.  HT

Gut shut down the power.  The security door on the data library will auto lock.  He won't be able to get in. Unless he already got in.

Did he?

Hollister is cursing, banging a fist against the door.

He didn't.

Kevin is shaking his head.  "A girl named "Sarah's Dad"?  Are you sure about that?"

The two of you soon come within sight...sound for Kevin...of Hollister/Roger.

"Son! Of! A! Toothless! Bitch! Shit..."

Roger lays Hollister's hands on the door.  They're bloody and you think he's broken four of her fingers.

"Why is everyone so useless?"

"Sucks to be you, huh?"

Hollister/Roger turns around.  Kevin has taken out a flashlight and is shining it in their eyes.

"Kevin?  Damn.  Thought I blew you up."

Kevin has also taken out some kind of short tube.  He points it their way and a small rope ejects out.  Hollister/Roger grunts as it hits, wrapping around them.  They slump to the wall.

"Cute.  Is this the Monkey Bola?"

"It belonged to Trapmaster.  I took it off him when I beat the crap outta him a couple weeks ago."

"Ha!"  Roger barks a laugh.  "You're still living like a hobo.  Takin' scraps after you bite the hands that feed ya."

He/she squints your way.  "Who the hell are you?"

Jack sends back a text: Nope, stuck outside of it.

He glances over at Kevin at his joke, and like all young men, he half chuckles and half sighs at the dad joke. Looking at Roger in the flesh for the first time, he’s wondering if there isn’t some sort of method to tell that Roger is inside someone and starts using his eyes on the boy for the first time. Trying to suss out and sort of tell besides the voice.

Temperature? Electromagnetic?

“Did a meta whose very essence is being a transient, really just call you a hobo?” Jack asks Kevin with a snort, his voice deliberately distorted. The hypocrisy is too thick.

Who is he? Well, in his heart he really doesn’t want Roger taking aim at him, even when he’s a full time Cape in the future, so he just says something random in response:

“Manitou.”

Now that you're looking for it, you notice Hollister's heartbeat is a bit erratic.  Elevated and it's not in a perfect rhythm.  But you can't be sure it's because of Roger or because of what he's been making her body do.

Other than that, Hollister appears as a healthy woman of middle age.  Nothing else of note.

Roger and Kevin both look at you sideways.  Roger cocks his head.

"You're Manitou?"

The head cocks in the opposite direction.  "Funny. You don't look like a world ending genius.  Must be the stupid mask."

Kevin flicks his eyes at Roger.  "What were you expecting?  A neon sign that says Here's your guy?  You wanted to meet him, right?"

Kevin's tail is reaching around, pulling something from his side pocket.  Kevin is moving slightly to hide it from Roger's line of sight.

"Well this is a huge let down.  I put down a lotta dinero for this shindig.  And the main guest shows up with beans and weenies for the potluck."  Roger sighs.  "I'll just have to chalk this one up as a loss.

"Anyway, either of you guys got the time?  See, I set up five bombs, each within a mile of the school.  Ya know.  To serve as a distraction so I could get away.  Well.  I can do that anyway cos I'm awesome. But mostly just to give a middle finger to the whole cold, cruel world."  He grins using Hollister's mouth.  "You wanna relay that to your bosses?  I figure they should be showing up here soon."

“It’s the mask I use for fools,” Jack answers, playing a mind-game with Roger. He expects that Kevin will figure out that he’s messing with Roger, to get him a little distracted, rather than owning up to being ‘Manitou.’ Though now Jack is intrigued. World ending genius? Dad?

Moving sideways when he catches the movement from Kevin, he seeks to draw Roger’s eyesight away from Kevin so that the Monkey can unleash whatever gadget or trick he has in store.

When Roger asks for the time, he actually checks and as the information comes from Roger, he sends out a quick text with that “information” if only so that they are on alert. He’ll act on it in a split second anyway. Five bombs somewhere within a mile or two, according to Roger. Going off shortly. Monkey is tangling with Roger by the data vault door, he's in the body of Mrs. Hollister.

“I’ll leave him to you,” he says briefly to Kevin, and then bursts away. Going back the way he came so that he can dart up the elevator shaft and start flying around the area, searching for the bombs.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:04, Fri 05 Nov 2021.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 12):

"So you wear that mask when you look in the mirror?  Kinda got a fetish goin' on there, don'tcha?"

Kevin makes his move just as you burst away.  His tail delivers a small sandwich bag into his hand.  The hand tosses it.  A fine powder fills the air around Roger/Hollister.

"Oh Come On-"

And then Hollister falls to the ground.

You can see what looks like a mini space shuttle landing on the football field.  The heroes have finally arrived.  HT and Gutshot come running out as well as a few others.  But you don't have time to watch.

Two of the bomb locations are very evident, now that you know to look for them.  One is on the roof of the closest hospital.  The other looks to be on the roof of the elementary school across the road.

Real class act, Roger.

The other three aren't as obvious.  Or they're well hidden to your telescopic/X Ray sight somehow.

"Ha."

Landing at each of the bomb locations as he finds them, Jack scoops them up and either defuses or disposes of them, depending on their complexity and his confidence to do it.

Using their location and the location of the school, he flies an arc in a similar manner. Looking for large public buildings, since those seem to be the targets, rather than houses. Apartment buildings, churches, department stores and government buildings being the key items he examines as he flies tightly and swiftly.

As he flies, he pulls out his phone and sends off another text: Found one at Lincoln Elementary on 3rd, and Saint Eustace Teaching Hospital.  Still looking for others, he claimed five, but I’ll keep looking.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 14):

Your reasoning seems sound.  You find another one in a gumball machine at a grocery store.  The fourth one is at a mechanic's, stuck inside a stack of tires.

Roger set them up in a circle around the school.  Going by the pattern, you fly over where the fifth one should be...

And can't find it.  The area is semi-residential.  A couple of apartment buildings set across the street from each other.  A small park.

Darja flies up beside you.  "Caught up.  What are we looking for?  Gutshot said bombs."

Kevin messages you.  <i>Roger jumped bodies.  No surprises there.  Did you find them all?

"Yeah, they've all been about this big," Jack replies to Darja swiftly and holds his hands up, indicating the rough size that they've been. All likely having been made by the same person, so he expects this one to follow the same pattern. "If it's following the pattern it should be in this area, but that's not guaranteed," he explains to Darja even as he flies.

Hearing the chime from Kevin, he glances at it, and indeed, it is as expected. 4 of 5 so far.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 16):

Roger might be heading towards it.  He's never been the type to leave things lying around.

I'm heading out. Don't want to tie into it w/Gut Shot.

Buzz me later

You can see things at the school seem more or less under control.  Gut Shot is giving out orders and seems to be taking command of the situation.  HT and the other heroes are moving to help out where they can.

As you're scanning the area, you notice something that definitely could fit into the odd category.  A bat.  It's flying along the street, as it it's following a car.

I'll keep an eye out for him.

When he spots the bat, Jack only takes a split second to remember the mention that Odelia apparently favors that shape. Assuming that it's her, he scans the car thoroughly, trying to make sense of what she might be following a random car for.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 18):

Darja frowns as she sees you focusing on the car.

"Why is it making that sound? You hear it?

Now that you know to look for it, you can hear sort of a dry scraping sound coming from the car.  It's odd.

The car turns into the parking lot of a supermarket.  One of your classmates...not a guy you know personally but someone you've seen before...leaps out of it and runs into the supermarket.

Odelia Bat is headed for it like a...well...bat out of hell.

Jack immediately scans the car, giving it a thorough examination in particular checking the undercarriage and parts that might be scraping against either the ground or each other. Moving against each other or a newly inserted thing, like for instance, a bomb.

Glancing at the boy running toward the supermarket, he suggests, “Princess, help Odelia with whatever that is about, I’ll check the car and then catch up.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 20):

Darja shoots you a glare at the word princess.  But she flys after Odelia-bat.

The car seems normal.  Normalish.  It's been hot wired.  But no bombs or anything in it.

Inside the market, the student is rushing down the soda aisle.  He stops in front of the shelf stacked with 12 packs of Fresca, and reaches in, pushing most of them onto the floor.

He grabs one box near the back.  You can't 'see' into it.

"At last!  I can at least show everyone the really refreshing taste of Fresca today!  Everything else has gone south."

Odelia-bat turns into Odelia-jaguar.  That doesn't go over too well with many of the patrons.  One old woman falls over, grasping her chest.  Darja curses and flies towards her.

Odelia-jaguar is headed down the soda aisle.

A quick text is thrown to the Program folks: Roger hot wired a car and is running around as a student at … the 5th device might be there.

A moment later, when he sees the Fresca, he gets a bad feeling. Nothing ever goes right with Fresca.

Jack calls out, “Bomb in the Fresca!” as soon as he spots it and starts flying in to help intercept the device and Roger-host.

Using the mechanical doors, rather than waiting for the sensor operated doors he zips down the adjacent aisle and then hops over the Frosted Flakes, causing them to shake and start to fly everywhere as he moves rapidly. Objects slowly moving in flight as he touches down and blitzes.

Prepared to assist Darja or act on his own, as necessary.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 22):

Roger turns as the air fills with fiber rich cereal boxes.

Darja flies past and snatches the Fresca box out of his hands.  She turns and flies straight up, just knocking a hole in the ceiling and keeping climbing.  Seems she plans to throw the box into the river.

"What is with you people?  Can't a guy have any fun?"

Apparently not as Odelia-Jaguar leaps at him, knocking his host body across the floor.

She snarls at the body, which suddenly screams in a higher pitch than a eunech.

A middle aged woman standing at the end of the row rolls her eyes, putting her hands on her hips.

"Seriously.  I thought you types didn't like tearing up the civies."

Roger turns and looks at you.  "What's your story anyway?  Your handle is "Manitou" and you're dressed like a Mexican wrestler?  Identity crises much? Maybe I should take a handle too?  What do you think a good name would be?"

“Look, you want to light off some bombs in the middle of nowhere, we wouldn’t show up, but don’t blame us for doing our jobs,” Jack replies with that same modified voice, his hands folding behind him for a moment as he pulls out his cell phone and sends off yet another quick text to the program folks. In case they can scramble someone like Omen to actually incapacitate Roger. Verifying his previous text about Roger.

Reaching out, he grabs Odelia-jaguar by the nape of the neck and keeps her from trying to have a go at the Roger-host.

“Damaging his hosts has no effect, don’t hurt her,” he tells the girl and then lets her go.

Looking back at Roger, he shrugs slightly.

“My other costume is at the dry cleaner. For you? The Creeper? I mean, you do spend all of your adult time harassing teenagers, instead of robbing banks or something normal hoods do.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 24):

He laughs.  "What can I say?  I seem to be stuck in the past."

He glances around and seems to fixate on a small, broken plastic tag holder.  He reaches his host's fingers down and picks up a jagged shard of plastic.

"Did you know human skin is remarkably resilient?  Takes more than you think to puncture it."

He jams the woman's thumb down on the edge of the tag shard, only managing to draw out a small rivulet of blood.

"But maybe you have a point.  Maybe I should be like all the other normal hoods.  Yeah."

He drops the shard, looks up at you and grins.  "I think I'm going to start calling myself Meat Puppet.  Yeah.  I think I'll just be like all the other hoods now.  Thanks kid.  You've really helped me find myself." He giggles.

The woman suddenly stops giggling and stumbles forward.  From outside, you can hear a large splash.  Darja chose the river option in terms of handling the bomb.

A moment later Gut Shot and a guy wearing a bandolero filled with several small glass vials come running in.

Gut Shot glances around, then at you and Odeila, who's starting to settle down.

"I take it we're too late."

Odelia manages to roll her eyes.

Jack just eyerolls at the show with the piece of plastic. He doesn’t act when the finger is punctured, but he’s prepared to step in if Roger goes for the carotid or something that the woman can’t come back from. Roger seems like the sort that if he doesn’t get a chance to make that point he’d just switch bodies and Jack would be playing keepaway for the next several hours until Roger managed to gouge someone’s eyes out or something.

“Yikes,” he replies to Roger.

When Gutshot and (the Alchemist?) show up, he nods his head slightly. Releasing Odelia, he answers, “Roger was here a few minutes ago. I can take a spin around and see if I can spot any idiots giggling, if you’d like,” he mentions. "Princess took the bomb to the river. Based on what I heard, she made it just fine. In fact.."

He pauses and then clears his breath and speaks in Estonian, "You good Princess?"

When he hears back in the affirmative, one assumes..

"Yeah, she's fine."

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 26):

Gut Shot nods at Mr. Bandelero.  "You haven't met.  Alchemist.  Uh...Titan, right?  Anyway.  You guys did good.  But man, is this gonna be a pain to clean up.

"Hard Time will debrief you and Darja tomorrow.  Oh.  I had someone swing by your place.  Your girlfriend is fine.  I had them contact her parents and take her home."

Odelia turns human and gives you a glare.  But she turns to Gut Shot, hands on her hips.  "Yeah, ain't that all hunky dory. But meanwhile, that whatever the hell he is got away."

Gut Shot gives her a cool look.  "It happens. Our primary concern is civilian safety. I want you to help anyone in here who might have been hurt."

She signals you to skeedaddle.

Darja is hovering over the roof.  She cocks an eyebrow at you.  I guess we did good, ja?

I will let you do anything you may want to do and we can wrap up homecoming. Thanks.

Jack listens and offers another prompt nod of the head. “Nice to meet you, Alchemist,” he greets the man and stands there with his hands behind his back as he listens to Gut Shot. He doesn’t really intend to act like a good little soldier, but he gives that vibe anyhow. He seems mildly pleased that someone went to check on Lydia, but he doesn’t say anything.

He looks over at Odelia’s comment and while it seems like Gut Shot is waving the girl off, as catching Roger is apparently impossible, he struggles briefly with making a contribution of his own. Wanting to point out that he felt that the Guardians were somewhat lackluster on their intelligence briefings. A simple “class” once a week to talk about the local Hoods.

Roger being one of them.

Something to bring up with HT when it isn’t a sensitive topic.

When told to make like a tree, he shoots out of the hole that Darja made in the roof and snorts at her comment, “Yeah, I saw you with that van full of mercs. That was pretty good. I’m guessing they lost the two meta mercs I tapped out,” he muses as he spins, looking in the direction they’d have gone.

“How’s Colby?”

This message was last edited by the player at 01:58, Mon 29 Nov 2021.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 28):

She grins.  You mean those two you fought with in the school?  We got 'em.  Or the Program people took them from me.  I saw them trying to sneak away.  Who's got your back?

She lifts both her thumbs, pointing them at her face.  This gal!.

Colby's fine.  I saw him getting some treatment.  I was going to go check on him.

She seems to think about something a moment and then says, in English, "Okay.  I can see why you want to wear the cape when you grow up.  There's a kind of high to pulling it off, right?"

Lydia texts you.  Got home OK.  Still feel funny.  Mom and Dad are freaking out.  Your aunt is nice.  Talk to you tomorrow

Jack nods at her when she begins to mention the duo that’d snuck away and then he actually shows a little bit of surprise before he smiles at her words. “Good. What kind of degenerate scum takes a job on kids?” he asks rhetorically and shakes his head.

Looking in the direction of the treatment area, he nods at her words and starts to fly in that direction as they talk. Not pushing the boundaries of speed, just casual flying.

“Yeah, the successes are great, but we need to remember that there are failures too, and sometimes we’ll see the darkness,” he reminds her, to bring it into perspective. Good with the bad.

Pulling out his phone, he glances at the text and sends one back: Let me know if you get worse, I’ll make sure top people are helping you, just in case.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 30):

I am so sorry.  I thought I posted the start of a new story line.  Sorry to keep you hanging like that.

Marlene pokes her head in the next morning.  It's still dark outside.  Five AM.

"They just announced it:  your school is closed for the rest of the week.  Cos of...you know."

She is silent a moment and then says, "I liked your girlfriend.  She's nice.  We didn't get the best introduction obviously. But it was kind of cute the way she was so embarrassed."

Marlene opens her mouth to say something and then shuts it.  She shakes her head and gives you a wane smile.

"Anyway.  You're on an early Thanksgiving break I guess."

She's right.  If you're off this week, that means you only have about two days of school next week before the Thanskgiving holiday.

"Are you gonna do anything special today?"

After a moment she sighs. <royralred>"I guess I want to ask...did you get caught up in all that bullshit last night? "</royalred>

Looking up from where he is reading from the AER, while listening to language lessons, now working through rarer languages and dialects all while while simultaneously watching anime, Jack nods at her words. “Figures,” he sighs.

Listening to her compliment about Lydia, he nods in agreement.

“I'll try to invite her over this week, since we've got nothing else to do, apparently,” he tells Marlene idly. Thinking about things as his hands turn to his phone, stopping the AER articles from autoscrolling.

Thinking about his plans for the week and his open schedule, he nods after a moment.

“I'll go visit mom. Date with Lyds. Probably do some more Program stuff,” he checks off a few ideas idly, ticking a few fingers up.

“Get caught up? Sorta. I saved lives, I guess,” he answers.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 32):

Marlene smiles, though it seems to have more than a touch of wryness to it. "Figured. Proud of you for that. Just be careful, okay?"

She turns around then stops, poking her head back in. "Oh. When you go see your Mom, can you take her a package?  She texted me saying she wants me to send her some soap and cream cheese."

---

Lydia texts you that afternoon.

Thanks for saving the day. What a mess. Folks are overreacting so I need to be the good girl and stay home today. Can we meet up Wednesday for lunch?

HT texts you and Darja.  Good work this weekend. Let's meet up at that field we did the first time. Oh nine hundred tomorrow morning. Not like you guys got school

Around lunch time you "hear" something outside.

"You're just a liar..."

"You should BE honest."

"You kids are being rude. I just asked you a question."

You take a "look".  Saul is downstairs in the breezeway, standing in front of the door to the apartment under his.  A couple of BEs are facing him, some kind of pamphlet in their hands.

“Sure, just put anything you want me to take in a bag,” Jack suggests, since she still has a few minutes before heading off to work. It’ll save him from trying to figure out which cheese he is supposed to be taking with him, and which is supposed to stay in the apartment.

“By the way, have you given any consideration into the house thing?” he asks.

---

Of course.  Want to make it a trip? If you can get away earlier in the morning, I can take you somewhere and we’d be back by late afternoon?

Having said that, he sends a quick text to his mechanic on the other phone: Can I swing by and pitch a project to you? It’d be a quick thing to make. Frankly, I could make it with scrap metal and a welding torch. He’ll need to make a thing if he’s going to take Lydia anywhere more than a few blocks away.

Looking at the text from HT, he replies: Ok.

When he spots the interaction on going between the BEs and goes over to pick up his key and wallet. Stepping out into the hallway and locking up, he walks down the stairs to back up Saul.

“Hey Saul,” he calls out, then since he has been learning, among all the other things, he adds, "These guys bothering you?" in Hebrew. Just to practice.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 34):

Marlene nods when you request she bag stuff up but stops at your question. "Honestly, with everything going on, I actually forgot."

She seems to consider a moment. "I dunno. I mean...it would feel like I'm selling you for a house. I'm...I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that. Does that make sense?"

---

Saul blinks as you speak in his mother tongue.

The BEs just stare at you.  You notice they aren't blinking. No. Wait.  They just did.  Once.

Saul cocks an eyebrow, obviously surprised, but shakes his head. "No," he says back in Hebrew.  "When did you learn-Never mind. Hang around if you you a minute though."

He turns back to the BEs.  "Look. I'm not tryin' to stop you. But Mrs. Kowolski said she isn't interested. She's actually an atheist-"

"Then why do you care?"

The other one nods. "You should BE more concerned with those that think like you do."

Saul frowns. "Is that what you believe? Never mind. Mrs. Kowolski has asked you to leave her alone. She asked me to come down and explain that to you. If you want, we can ask the cops to come explain it to you. Alright?"

The BEs study him.  Then you. Then they look at each other.

Without another word they turn around and move off.

Saul waits until they are headed up the sidewalk and sighs.  Thanks Jack. Mrs. Kowolski talked to one a' them outside the Piggly Wiggly a couple of weeks ago. Now they keep stoppin' by.  She's elderly and served 'em tea and cookies cos she thought she had to be hospitable. But they kinda took it as a sign she was interested.  They...well anyway.  Thanks.

"I heard about what happened at your school.  Were you there? You okay? All your friends alright?"

“I want you to get the house,” Jack mentions. “It’s not you selling me, it’s me giving you a gift so that you get something out of having a Cape for a nephew.”

“Besides my handsome face.”

---

Jack looks back at the BEs, not blinking back at them. Playing a staring game with them.

Without looking at Saul, he gathers the rest of the conversation that he hadn’t been there for. They are trying to “convert” her. Weirdos.

Looking back to Saul, he nods at the older man. “I was there, defused a few bombs, stopped the bad guy, no big deal,” he tells the rabbi, acting like he’s joking. Mostly for the laughs. “But yeah, I’m fine. My girlfriend got hit with the ipecac, and she felt off for a bit, but she should be fine now.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 36):

"I saw her...well. I'm assumin' it was her. Cute young girl in a bluish dress?..when she was leaving.  I was a little concerned cos the lady she was with seemed kinda...police like.  But Marlene said it was fine so I didn't worry.  Sorry if I'm bein' nosy.  I'm old.  You get nosey when you're old.

"Anyway. Glad you popped up.  I'm goin' out to the facility tomorrow.  Wanted to ask if you wanted me to drop anything off for your Mom."

Jack doesn't bother to add on any other defining traits about Lydia, as the blue dress and the timing are too in line otherwise. “That's her,” he confirms without talking about who the people who picked her up were. It doesn't really matter.

Hearing the second question he nods a little in thought.

“Well, I'm going up too, we can travel together? I'm supposed to bring some stuff from aunt Marlene.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 38):

Saul grins. "That sounds good.  I'm gonna head up there about 8:30 in the A M.  That too early for ya?"

Your cell buzzes.  It's Kevin.

Come get a burger for lunch.

“That should be just fine, thank you Saul, do you drive or will we be taking the light rail?” Jack asks, knowing that there is an option. He actually knows the answer, since he’s a neighbor and has super senses, but he’d never travelled with Saul so he has to ask. Just so he can act like he’s planning ahead. “Oh, and did she like the sugar skull you brought last week?”

Looking at his phone, he sends back: Sounds good.

There any response from Lydia or Ooter?

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 40):

"Light rail.  Driving long distances is a bit tough on me these days. So why drive when I can make some city worker do it for me. Am I right?"

Lydia texts back.  Sorry. Mom wanted me to make cookies with her. She's been all about bonding time today.

Can we shoot for Wednesday? Folks were really freaked by what happened.  Neither of them leaves me alone for long. I need to let them work the worry outta their system.

No response from Ooter.

Saul chuckles about the sugar skull.  "I think she did.  Maybe. She studied it for a long time an' didn't say much. But she kinda shrugged at the end.

"Don't take this the wrong way but your Mom...she's a...very private person, ain't she?"

“Well, hopefully riding in a train is a bit more comfortable for you,” Jack says with a smile and reaches out to pat the man on the shoulder before starting to back away. Clearly intending to make his exit now that a plan has been made and the issue with the BEs has been dealt with.

Pulling out his phone, he glances at it and texts while he talks with Saul: Wednesday. Try to get a few more hours free.

With that said, he thinks about her reaction and then how he’d seen his father there. Or maybe had seen his father there. Huh.

“Super brains are like that. She might have been thinking about the molecular structure or all the things she could make with it,” he shrugs a bit himself. “Anyway, see you tomorrow Saul.”

He decides to head to the burger place.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 42):

The text is to Lydia, right?

You haven't heard from Ooter by the time you head over to meet with Kevin.

He's got another tray of burgers and curly fries.  He nods at you as sit down.

"How was your date?"  He chuckles as he dips a fry into some ketchup.  "She okay?"

He pops the fry into his mouth.

"So...during all that chaos, I sort of tripped into one of the Program's computer banks.  Sorta accidentally hacked it."

He picks up one of his burgers.

"You said Roger was lookin' for 'Manitou', right?  I've never heard that one.  There is a file on the Program's Mainframe.  But the security was tight.  I mean tight.  I didn't have the time.  But I was able to see where it was being kept.

"The file was where they keep the stuff on Black level MTI threats.  Your file was in there too.  Also tight security."

Kevin picks up his Mr. Pibb. "Whatever Manitou is, it's heavy of the heavys.  Did Roger give any clue as to why he'd be lookin' for something...or I guess someone...like that?"

Yes.

Jack takes a seat with his milk shake and sips at it a little. “Her parents are freaking out a bit, but I imagine that’s going around for everyone who isn’t in the Program,” he admits, looking at his fingernails for a second as he thinks about everyone else in the school.

Listening to the tale about the story, he waits for the question or point and nods slightly. “It was on a to-do list on his cell phone. The list was: Mess with Sarah noted as ‘done’, Kill Whitefalls noted as being close but not done, Kill Dan, one about whether you’re still breathing, a list of the students in the program which didn’t have me and implied a sixth which doesn’t exist, and the last item on the list was all in caps and italics ‘who is manitou?’” Jack relays the list, in case it’s in any way helpful.

He shrugs.

“Ron had said that Roger was trying to get to the mainframe to look up a girl named Sarah’s dad—who according to Ron, Roger believes created that this guy created him—which would also explain why Roger hates her so much. Anyway, unless Sarah’s dad is also Manitou, I've got nothing.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 44):

Kevin frowns and stuffs the last of the burger into his mouth.  He picks up another burger.

"I was afraid it might be another someone in the Program.  But if you haven't noticed anyone new, it's probably not that.

"I'm kinda worried.  Minneapolis usually isn't this exciting, ya know?"

He sighs.  "I had a run in with the Pale Image.  Well. Some of his images.  They were tryin' to break into the records room of that hospital again.  Made me actually break into it just to see what they were after.  Still trying to figure it out.

"And the Feds have somethin' goin' down.  They flew in a couple of big dogs a couple of days ago.  Agent Orange and The Bait.  Don't look at me like that. I didn't come up with their stupid code names.

"Anyway, you may not have heard of 'em," You haven't. "But they're with some govie black book operation.  They're both real pains in the ass.  So keep a low profile for a bit.

"Anything goin' down I should know about? Or you got anything you want me to look into?"

“I have some thoughts on why we have all the recent problems, but it's pointless speculation at this point,” Jack replies, and keeps mum on the reasoning.

After he gets the lowdown from Kevin, and Kevin asks if he has anything to look into, Jack has to take a moment to actually think about it: “No, I think you're pretty much in on everything new to me.” Thinking of how he'd possibly seen his dad, he doesn't really want Kevin to get involved any more than he has to. He also thinks that his dad might be Manitou, maybe? 'World ending genius' and then after the event at the  bodega with the shapeshifting, it fits on that level as well.

Maybe.

Then something Kevin could use his skills for comes to mind:

“You should look for this guy who supposedly made Roger, Sarah _____'s dad. She's his target at Edison, and it'd be good to see if there's any truth. Maybe he's a hood too.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 46):

Let's just call her Sara Smith.  I have lost some notes and can't find her surname.  Thanks

Kevin frowns.  He picks up a chili cheese tot and chews on it.  "So...I kinda connected some dots when you told me about Sara bein' on Roger's To Do list.  I don't think her Dad is..."

He shakes his head.  "Hell. If he's who I'm thinkin' he is, he's deader than disco.  He was a researcher at the Program when Roger and I were there-"

He stops chewing on chili cheese tater tots.  His frown deepens.  "Crap."

Kevin is quiet a moment and then shoves a bunch of tots into his face.  "Something just occured to me," he manages not to shower you with tot bits as he speaks. But it's a miracle it doesn't happen.  "I never really thought about why they picked Minneapolis for the first run through of the Program...well.  Never mind for now.  I need to snoop a bit.  I'll fill you in once I know something for sure.

"Have you already told the Program people that Roger was lookin' around for Manitou? Don't if you haven't.  If you have...just keep an eye on things. Let me know if they seem like they're doing anything weird. Well. Weirder."

He gulps down the last of his Mr. Pibb.  "Remember to keep your head down. Ya know. As much as you can. Keeping a low profile never really worked for me. I doubt you've been able to do a bang up job of it.  It's the Life.

"Stay in touch."

Anything you want to ask ol' Kevy before he rockets off?

Moving on.

---

HT waves as you and Darja land on the ground the next morning.  He's leaning against the back of his SUV parked out in the middle of the field twenty miles outside the city limits.

"You guys enjoying your time off?"

He sighs.  "So I'm guessing you guys have some questions or comments about what went down.  Wanna start there?"

Jack listens to Kevin as he has his epiphany and lets it play out without interruption, and in response to the question of whether he’d given the program anything about Manitou, he replies: “I still have the phone tucked away, pulled apart.”

He’s not sure what Kevin is thinking here, but he trusts that the guy will fill him in when he has leads. He is a bit tempted to ask for a full explanation, as he can probably look for things that Kevin can’t, but he decides that for the moment he’ll just trust the process.

“You’re the one who needs to keep his head out of crosshairs,” he points out as he starts to get up. Intending to exit with Kevin.

---

Jack thinks about how he wants to approach the subject: “A few comments.”

Though he does give Darja a little space if she wants to express anything first.

“First: I think the Program needs to include regular updates on the known badguys operating in the Midwest. Like, I had some idea who Roger is because I talk with the Monkey occasionally, but Odelia was about to gut the poor lady he possessed the other night.”

He leaves it at the first point so that HT has time to respond to each point without being hit with a deluge of Jack-thoughts.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:11, Thu 16 Dec 2021.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 48):

HT gives a dry chuckle.  "Yeah. We've been arguing about that.  Some thought that you guys wouldn't be running into the bad guys. At least not at first.  Some of us thought "Yeah. Has that ever worked out to be the case in these kinds of situations?".  Anyway.  I can guarantee there will be briefings on subjects like that goin' forward.

"Keep in mind though these kinda things are...fluid.  Bad guys might stick around then they might not.  Also..."  He shrugs. "Minneapolis was chosen for the Program cos this area historically had a low incidence of meta activity.  Obviously, that's not the case."

Darja cocks an eyebrow.  "You mean things are more...super-villainy than usual?"

Now the chuckle has some warmth to it.  "Yeah.  Things are more super-villainy than usual.  Sorry.  Just never heard it put that way.  Remind me ta teach you guys about magnet theory.

"But that's another conversation.  What else?"

Darja purses her lips.  "Is the Program all that secret now?  I mean...lots of security guys were all over the place during all that.  People are gonna wonder."

HT nods. "When they set up the Program, they considered what to do if there was a breech in security.  All I know is they are deciding which protocol to put into place.  I'll let you guys know what it is when I know what it is.

"Next?"

Jack would have made more comments, but HT acknowledges the point and says that they are going to be giving briefings going forward. No need to reiterate his thinking or argue its merits when the goal is accomplished. He slides his hands from his hoody pockets and folds up the sweater, setting it on the roof of the SUV.

Thinking about how he’d handle the situation with the exposure of the Program, he has some ideas, but those too are tucked away. In the end, it seems like the main ‘problem’ with the Program is that the Capes aren’t committed to the Program whole-assed.

“What's going on with Ron and Roger?” he asks.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 50):

HT frowns.  Scowls really.

"Ron has been removed from the Program. Obviously.  I'm not part of the debriefing team.  So I don't honestly know much more than you right now.

"All I know is they apparently had dealings at some point in the past.  Don't know if that's Roger got....uh...'inside' Ron or what.  I'll let you know what I can when I know it.

"What else?"

“I’d like to get privileges to read some files, find out a bit about what we’re dealing with. It’s stupid for me to need to figure some of these things out when people I know, already know the answers. Also, I still want to do training with Omen or a psychic, as a side note,” Jack tells HT. He doesn’t have any more questions though.

He anticipates the answers to the rest of his questions are going to be satisfactory. That the mercs were detained, and that they are going to ..

Even as he thinks through the problems swiftly, he thinks of another question, “What additional measures will be taken going forward?”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 52):

"You'll be given information that is available during the briefings.  But I'll tell you now: you may not get everything there is to know."

He sighs.  "Here's a quick lesson in the realities of the Life.  There's just as much bureaucracy and government red tape in superheroing as there is in the military.  More actually.  There's been a lotta times I've had to go into the field not knowin' something cos the information was classified above my level.  I will tell ya all I can.  Best I can promise with that one.

"As for the psychic training...Omen is kinda out of commission for a bit.  We're bringing in a couple of people to do some training on the psychic and magic stuff.  I was gonna let you all know this week about it but...you know.  THings got cluster fucked.

"As to how it will look goin' forward...all I know at the moment is this.  They're gonna shut down most of the facility at the school and move the Program to an orbital facility.  At least for now.  Since the Program's been exposed, we want to make sure any Hoods know we've cleared out so they don't show up at the school.  Also it's easier to control access when everyone has to teleport in.

"There's gonna be some substantial changes.  They won't axe the program...mostly cos of you two and Mia.  But now that it's blown up in everyone's face, all the suits will show up and second guess everything.  We already got some big wigs in on the Feds side.  You may have to talk to them.  Gut Shot's still arguin' over that one."

He sighs.  "Anyway.  This may sound like a cop out, but sometimes things just blow up in your face.  It happens.  We're dealing with people and beings that work on wavelengths regular folks don't.  Roger...or I guess now it's "Meat Puppet". I hate when they give themselves names...anyway, Roger is a good example.  He's just..."

HT hunts for the words.  "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.  The big thing is minimizing the civillian collateral damage.

"Does any of that make sense?"

Jack listens to HT.

“I’ll need to work on getting some sort of top level clearance then,” he decides, letting HT know his feeling on the matter. He’ll leverage something in the future for it. They’ll want him to do something and he’ll require that they give clearance, that’ll solve the issue. Hopefully.

The psychic training and the status of Omen earns a little disgruntled look, but he doesn’t say anything. He could have controlled that response, but he decides to let it show.

“Don’t suppose you could arrange a meeting with Mia? I don’t have any classes with her, and I still have no idea what sort of asset she is in the field. Like, could she have been useful to us the other night?” he asks, when the girl is mentioned. “The thing with the orbital—-if you need someone to lift stuff up there, let me know.”

Then as an aside he actually laughs a little and shares: “By the way, that’s one of my get rich schemes. I’m thinking about offering NASA and Elon Musk to haul stuff into space for them, I’m way cheaper than rocket fuel. Did you know that it costs like eight grand per pound to put things in space with rocket fuel? I’d do a huge haul for eight grand.”

(This is all dependent on them still using normal means to do things. I’m actually sort of expecting they can do it way cheaper with meta scientists and other metas, but it’s always been a fun idea I’d thought a guy like him could use if there weren’t that sort of influence by meta scientists.)

“Oh, and I’m fine talking to whoever.”

He nods at the last part about collateral damage.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 54):

The space thing is an interesting idea.  Let me think on that.

"Do it if you can. I don't blame ya," HT says about the clearance.  "If you end up gettin' one higher than me, will ya let me know what's goin' on? It would be nice if someone did."

He doesn't react much to your harumph over the psychic training/Omen situation.

Darja actually winces when you bring up Mia.  HT nods though. "I'm already schedulin' some training for everyone together.  Mia too.."  He shoots a look at Darja.

Just so long as she doesn't start laughing again...

"Can ya talk in English if you're gonna backtalk me? Thanks.

"Anyway...I know she's...challenging.  But she's a good kid. Ya know.  At heart."

Darja chews her cheek and doesn't say anything.

HT claps his hands together.  "Okay.  They want me to go over your performance during the event.  I think that's a bit crass, considering how things all blew up.  But any learning opportunity in a storm I guess.

"So lemme ask you guys: if there was one thing you yourself coulda done different during all that, what would it have been?"

Darja answers pretty quickly.  "I wish I had been earlier to check out the parking lot.  I heard some noises I thought were weird.  Looking back, I think it might have been the frequencies of the bombs that had been planted out around the parking lot.  But I might be second guessing myself."

Jack nods at the mention of training and getting clearance, he intends to follow through on all of it when the opportunities present themselves. Hearing about Mia, he continues to wonder how her powers work, and decides maybe he should just ask Darja to try to explain it. Maybe he can decipher it from the clues he has been given indirectly.

“I shouldn’t have needled Roger at the end there, I doubt he’s going to have a change of ‘personality’ or whatever constitutes his core being, but it was juvenile, and didn’t gain us anything. I’ll save my needling for the stable ones who need to be put off their game, not the ones who are already insane,” he answers, thinking about things in hindsight.

“I also could have acted more quickly, and I think I need to stash a more proper Cape outfit nearby. Oh, speaking of which,” he begins, not actually explaining this tangent immediately, “I need someone to make sure that my homecoming pictures aren’t available to the public. A person with sharp memory would spot that my tuxedo in my pictures with Lyds and ‘guy with mask in tuxedo’ are the same person. Same build.”

He thinks about it a bit more.

“Do you guys have a person who can make us something a bit less Walmart brand, in terms of temporary outfits in case of situations like this?”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 56):

HT nods.  "Way ahead a' you on the photos.  We've got a media suppressor on it.  Long story short, lots a' cell phones started experiencing technical problems yesterday.  The internet's always  a pain to comb through.  But they combed it yesterday and feel good none a' ours are on Tik Tok.  Or whatever the hell it is you kids use now a days.

"And uniforms. Yeah.  They'll issue ya some.  Heads up: you won't like 'em.  But it's free gear.  Put up with it for now.  I'll work on gettin' 'em ta...ya know...design something that suits you.  If that's how you say it.

"Anyway.  Overall, you guys did solid.  There was a minimum of civie injuries.  No one died, which in my book is always a win.

"Darj...it was a good idea pickin' up that van and flying it to the cops.  One thing though: you didn't know if those guys had ammo that could pierce the shell of the van.  More than likely they did.  You were shakin' the van as you flew. But...be honest.  Was that on purpose?"

Darja thinks about it and shakes her head. "No. I just...wasn't sure what to do other than to get them away from everyone."

"And that's fine.  You thought it out as you went. And that's what ya gotta do sometimes. But try to keep in mind the details.  That's where the devil is after all.  In all them details.  Goons like that usually have good equipment. If they fired at you through the van, it might not have hurt you. But it could have.  And even if it didn't, it could have travelled towards the ground.  Shakin' the van as you flew would keep them off their toes.  You ended up doing that just from jostlin' it around in flight. But that has it's own dangers.

"Jack.  When you came up on those two metas, you handled it well. You resolved the situation alright, but I think we need to work on how you deal with Caspers.  That's what I call hoods who can go insubstantial.  You threatened her body to make her retreat, right?  And that was solid. But some of 'em don't have that issue with their bodies lyin' around.  If her body had transformed into that ball of light, instead of it comin' out of her, that might have been a different fight.  The other thing was how you handled moving that guy Dan around.  He's in good shape, so there wasn't any harm. But you could've just moved him out of there completely.  You had time.

"But that's more or less nit picky stuff.  Well.  Kinda nit picky.  I thought it would be fair to give you guys a chance to critique."

He grins and brings what looks like a long decorative silver chain out of his pocket.

"As you know, we weren't around for all a' that cos a mission came up.  It's not one that has to be classified.  You guys want to see what happened?  It'll give you a chance to watch us so-called professionals in action.  You can critique how we handled the situation.

"It'll take us a few hours.  And you'll have to plug into my memories.  But it might be instructive.

"You game?"

Hearing about the media suppression, Jack nods. He should actually look into writing his own program to do that, it’d give him a coding project to use his novice coding skills on and progress to a new level. In case he didn’t have the Program people to do it for him in the future.

“As long as they aren’t as loud as the luchador mask or have a huge codpiece, I’ll be fine,” he says when HT talks about the uniforms they’ll be issuing.

Hearing the thoughts about Darja’s van handling, he wonders what he would have done differently. He’d have ripped the door off and bludgeoned them all unconscious. Leaving the Program to clean them up, instead of directly moving them. So he’d have never had that problem to begin with, but like the Mercs who’d run away from the shop, perhaps leaving people loose was a bad idea.

Hearing the critique of how he handled the ‘Casper’ he nods, he agrees. He’d dealt with it in the moment. He could try to explain his thinking, but the fact of the matter is that he agrees with the critique.

“I’m game.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 58):

Darja frowns at her critique, but nods at the end of it.  She can't deny she hadn't thought of armor piercing ammo.

She also nods at HT's offer.

I am going to pause us here until I get back next Sunday.

Let me know if there is anything in the game that you would like to see more/less of.

Thanks Sir.

In reply to Editor-in-Chief (msg # 59):

HT holds the chain up by one end and lets it dangle down.  He hasn't released the full length, and it's already dangling inches above the grass.  It's much longer then it should be.

"Alrightie. Lissen up campers.  This here is something Alkie...er...The Almchemist whipped up for us a few months ago.  It will store a day's worth of memories.  You guys are gonna plug into my head.  Without all the cussin' and such.  Alkie swears it only records like a video camera.  Not like a thoughts and all kinda thing.  You'll be able to go along with me as we went out on the mission that kept us all occupied while the Homecoming shin dig was goin' down.

"Now I'll tell ya upfront.  It got a little squishy.  And that's not edited.  You're gonna see dead bodies.  And not as in the whole "Oh she looks so peaceful in that casket" kinda state either.  This was a definite blood an' guts mission."

He flips up his wrist, sending the chain flying into the air.  HT quickly grabs it, deftly snatching it by it's middle before it has a chance to get near the ground.

"Okay.  If you're still game...grab one of the ends."

Darja studies one of the ends and shrugs, reaching out for it.  Can't be any worse than back home...

Assuming you take an end, but I will pause here so you can ask any questions before Jack does so.  If not, we'll move along.

Thanks

Jack takes a look at the chain when it is offered up and listens to the explanation, he isn’t sure he’d want to share his memories so openly. Since it might include things like using the bathroom, and depending on when it was made, intimate times with Lydia.

“Will it be a replay of the entire thing from beginning to end or will you have control of what we’re seeing?” he asks, just to get an idea of what to expect.

Regardless of the answer, he steps up and takes a hold of the chain.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 61):

"I'll skip over parts, so you don't have to sit through the shuttle ride over or me usin' the head.  We'll start at the briefin'.  You can ask questions.  I'll be able ta hear you and answer back."

As you touch the chain, you feel a slight sharp, cold prick in the fingertips that touch the chain.  And then you hear a soft voice hiss in your ear

not allowed...contingency...

You blink.  You're standing in a small room that has the same kind of floor and ceiling as the training rooms in the Program, but isn't one you've ever seen before.

You're leaning against a wall, looking at a large screen on the opposite wall.  HT and Gut Shot are standing by the screen.

Sitting on a table...a very sturdy table...is a large man in heavy duty kind of battle armor.  You recognize him from the news as Hemi.

Sitting next to him, a tall, nervous looking, thin man is holding a red plastic SOLO cup and pouring a kind of bluish liquid into it.  It smells vaguely like peppermint.  The Alchemist maybe?

Standing next to the screen, touching the lower corner of it, is a young woman in a track suit.  She's frowning as if concentrating.  You have no idea who she is.

Gut Shot points at the screen.  On it is a picture of a group of sheds or warehouses set on the side of a glacier.

"Station Sunspot.  Joint research effort by the US, Canada, and the EU.  On record as researching weather phenomena.  In reality conducting experiments on harnassing planetary gravity as a source of power..."

The Alchemis suddenly jerks and looks around, seeming to be confused.  He looks at the goo he's pouring into the cup and frowns.  What the hell is this... he says in Estonian.

HT frowns as well and looks around, scratching the back of his head.  "Uh...you guys inside my head?  I don't...uh...'feel you' in there.  Alkie said I'd be able ta tell."

Gutshot keeps talking as if no one has said or done anything out of the ordinary.  "Two days ago, contact with the base was lost.  Marines sent in one of their meta units to check things out..."

HT looks towards the Alchemist.  "Don't tell me you half assed this..."

Alchemist blinks back at him.  "Half assed what?  Where are we?"

HT raises an eyebrow.  "You can hear me?"

ALchemist stands, setting the cup on the table.  "I thought I was supposed to.  You said we could ask you quest-"  He stops.  "Why do I feel taller?"

He look down at his hands.  "Why are my hands hairy? And what happened to my tits?"

HT groans.  "Darja?"

Alchemist looks up. "Yeah?"

HT holds up a hand.  He looks around.  "Okay.  Where's Jack?"

As you hold up your hand, you notice HT seems taller than he was before.  And as you raise your hand, you notice you're...not you.  The arms you're raising are in a t-shirt you don't own.  And their skinnier than yours are.  And older looking.

You have no idea whose body you're in.  But obviously it's not yours.

Gutshot is still going on.  "...last contact stated there was a second man in the complex. And it was him who had wiped out the team..."

Finding himself in someone else’s body, Jack quickly makes a few quick guesses at what has happened, though he obviously has no idea how it works. He has begun to unravel the mysteries of the scientific side of things with the help of the AER but the mystical side will have to wait until he can get some tutoring from Omen and the Alchemist.

Out of curiosity, he attempts to use some of his powers passively. Trying to float up off the floor and look through things, just to test the limits of the body occupation aspect of things.

When he is asked who he is, he raises his hand and takes the time to really try to put a name to the body he is occupying. Checking his pockets for an ID, since running out for a look at a mirror seems unlikely.

“Sort of like the pensieve in Harry Potter, in that we are apparently going to be walking around in the memory and not like a few movies I won’t mention, where we have to view everything from HT’s perspective and can’t change what we’re looking at,” he shares his thinking out loud, using pop culture to really figure out the rules to how this works. “Cool. So, who am I in the body of, HT?” he asks.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 63):

No hovering.  You have a wallet and the wallet has a driver's license.  Jackson Tollman.

A rather plain looking man with brown hair stares back from the photo.  The only remarkable thing about him is he seems to be missing his left eye.  But you aren't noticing any problems with your depth perception or sight on that side.

HT blinks at you.  "Jack?  So you're there.  That's Jackpot.

"Dammit.  No.  You guys were supposed to be in my head.  Not in...those bodies.  That's the only reason I agreed to this.  Because it sounded like it'd be safe.  Stop rolling your eyes Darja.  It's rude. And Alchemist does that enough on his own.

"Hold on.  I'm gonna get us outta here...and nothin'.  Shit.  Something's really wrong."

Gutshot has finished her briefing and, for some reason, everyone is staring at you.

HT scratches his chin and then snaps his fingers. "Oh.  Jack said somethin' here.  Like asked a question about the number of members on the seal team. I think."

Everyone just stares at you. As if they're waiting.

“Yeah, I figured,” Jack confirms and holds up the ID for a split second before he packs it away.  Glancing over at Darja when she rolls her eyes, he points out, “Imagine if you have to pee.” Just to tease her a little while they’re waiting for the conversation between Gutshot and her crew to finish.

When he realizes that HT is saying that things aren’t in fact going as expected, he narrows his eyebrows a little.

Replaying the conversation as Gutshot had had it, he tries to figure out a good contextual question based on HT’s prompt: “I expect the SEAL team was running sixteen deep, given the size of the operation? Or were they just running a fire team? In case we need to look for survivors.”

He then turns his body slightly to shrug at HT as if to say: Something like that?

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 65):

HT blinks.  "He's not usually that smart in how he says things."

Gutshot raises an eyebrow. "Did somebody have some IQ points for breakfast?"  She smirks. "Nice to see you present and accounted for for a change."

HT frowns. "She...she didn't say that.  That's...new."

"What is?" Gutshot puts her hands on her hips and turns the raised eyebrow to HT.  He shakes his head.

"Ah...sorry boss.  You were sayin'?"

She turns back to you Jack/Jackpot.  "The team was a standard meta-infiltration.  Two front liners. A long range.  Five regs in high tech gear.  A second team with a front liner, a support, and four gearheads were supposed to follow.

"But the first team sent a hold off signal.  Then all vid got cut.  Government won't hand over the footage cos...you know. The usual.  So we're going in with pretty much what I told you and nothing else."

She sighs. "We'll look for survivors of course.  That's priority one. But I'm not holding my breath. This may be a The Thing type situation. But we won't make assumptions.  Questions?"

Jack pauses in thought, wondering how he should play this. The way this chain seems to be working is that they need to play their roles and follow along with the action, but he wonders if they can’t break the sequence of events in some way.

Or could this be some sort of weird time travel shenanigans? No, not likely.

He shakes his head at the request for further questions.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 67):

HT jerks his chin towards a door at the back of the room.

Gutshot gives him and you and Darja/Alchemist a look but says nothing as the three of you head out this side door.

HT turns to look at both of you.

"So I think you guys get that somethin' ain't right here.  Didja notice anything odd when you grabbed the chain? Not that I would know what it meant."

He sighs and rubs his head.  "Can either of you fly or...you know. Bend steel girders?  No huh?  Didn't think we'd get that lucky.

"Okay. All I can think ta do is go with the flow here.  This should be a memory. But..."

He shakes his head. "We're kinda down the rabbit hole here.  I'm gonna keep tryin' to contact Alchemist. Not you Darja. The real one.  But I can't seem to get out to him.

"Lemme give you the run down on your powers.

"Darja...Alkie is mostly just that. Alchemy.  He has all those little bottles in all those pockets and stuff.  Some of 'em are labeled I know.  Dig through your pockets and see what you can find that makes sense.

"Jack, Jack's power...shit this is gonna get confusing. Jackpot's power has to do with luck.  He can kinda wave his fingers and these little disks pop up.  Red ones are bad luck an' white ones are good luck. He'll then pitch 'em at things and stuff kinda happens.  I don't think he knows ahead a' time what will happen.

"The other thing I know if he has to do both. Everytime he does good luck, he's gotta bad luck someone.  And vice versa.  Make sense?"

“I can remember being somewhat close to this, sensory wise, but it feels like my head is wrapped in a thousand miles of buffers. I can't believe you people have to walk around like this,” Jack relays once the others are out of the room, talking as they walk toward the next step. Listening to Hard Time as they walk.

Discs of luck. Weird, but he thinks he can manage that if his accuracy and coordination aren't taking too much of a nose dive.

As he walks, his foot catches on a doorway and he stutter steps, but manages not to fall.

“So weird,” he mutters.

“Yeah, it makes sense,” he agrees with HT.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 69):

Darja has meanwhile pulled out some small vials and is looking at the labels.  \

"This one says moondrake and this one says shrink."

HT watches you stumble and then mutters, "Oh this is gonna be fun on a bun. Well. Whatever.  This is just like a hallucination.  So we can't really get hurt.  And any training is good training.  I guess.

"Alright.  We got a couple minute before we gotta get in the shuttle.  Go on.  Try ta...do something.  Jack...let's start with you."

You think about it.  Your left hand starts feeling like it's cold.  The right hand starts to feel...twitchy?  You notice the tips of your/Jackpot's fingers seem to shake a little when you think about his powers.

Then you're holding two small disks, one in each hand.  The right had has one white as milk.  The left has a disk red as a ruby.

They both feel light.  But then they start feeling heavy.  And seem to be getting heavier.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:07, Sat 29 Jan 2022.

Jack spends a moment looking at the vials with the alchemical formulas, doing his best to help her figure out what any of them which are labeled are. All other things being removed, he's still the equivalent of a recently trained human-Rosetta Stone, so perhaps he can help her figure out any arcane business.

Looking back at HT when he suggests he tries something, Jack then fiddles around and manages to produce the discs.

Holding them in his hands he thinks maybe they get heavier the longer he holds them and after a moment lobs them off at a nearby wall, just to try throwing them and watching their arc.

After he has heard about the being hurt thing, he tries pinching his arm just to test a momentary curiosity.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 71):

The two discs have the weight of maybe an Olympic discus.  This Jack seems to have good shoulder and back muscles.

The discs strike the wall and...pass into it.  After a moment, an alarm starts to blare.

HT stares down at his watch.  "The fire alarm system just shorted out.  And...the cleaning robots that had been offline are back on."

Darja is putting some of the vials you helped her decode into a top pocket on Alchemist's uniform.  "Okay. So what was up there at that base?  I mean...we kinda have enough going against us as it is.  Not knowing what we're walking into might be too big a handicap."

HT considers a moment, then looks at you. "Your opinion?  You wanna know what we'll find? Or you wanna see how far you can take it as is?"

“I need a watch that does that,” Jack says when he sees how HT is able to discern the problems in the building with a glance.

Having felt how they fly and their ability to go through things, he wonders how they decide what is lucky or unlucky. Couldn’t a wall be equally as inanimate and also be unlucky? Or did the thing have to serve a more unique purpose? Philosophical luck discs.

Apparently, his pinch hadn’t resulted in any sort of notable pain, so maybe he won’t be feeling it if Jackpot gets hurt.

“I’m fine with adapting as things come,” he says.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 73):

HT considers and then looks back at Darja/Alchemist.  "I'll split the difference and give you a hint.  Watch out for mosses."

A loudspeaker pipes up.  Gutshot's voice echoes down the hall.  "Everyone suit up.  We'll meet in shuttle bay 2."

HT groans.  "That's a hike.  C'mon."

He leads you downwards.  You realize the complex is deeper than you thought, the areas below masked against your vision as well as somehow being camoflauged.

There are several long tunnels at the bottom of the stairwell HT takes you too.  He and Darja are chatting about some of the vials she's found, so he isn't explaining much.  You can tell that this area seems to contain the power grid for the complex as well as several transit tubes.

As HT said, it's a hike.  Jackpot's legs are a little tired by the time you get to the end of one of the tunnels.

What looks like a small hanger opens up at the end.  Gutshot is talking to Hemi.  The others seem to be waiting for your group.

There's a hatch set in the floor.  It flips open and everyone starts to go down the ladder inside.

HT whispers to the two of you, "Alkie doesn't talk much to anyone except Hemi.  They're old friends.  Jack...you tend to be chatty.  But just say you've got a headache if you don't wanna say much.  Your call.

"Darja, you take the seat next to me.  Jack...you set up on the second row. Seat near the aisle."

Did you want to chat with any of the memory-heroes?  Or you want to just get to the site of the disturbance?

Jack is really not happy with being in such a weak body, but he trucks on without complaint. It would be so much easier if he could just run this distance. That said, he memorizes everything he can as best as this body seems capable of doing it. His memories don’t seem to be affected, as he can still speak Estonian fluently at least.

Moving up into his seat, he stretches and glances around gets a feel for who he can chat with. Figuring it’s a good time to ask a few questions, since nobody will remember what he asks later.

If he can get a word in with Gutshot, he asks, “What’s the latest with Omen?”

Just to try that one out, and maybe get some sort of information about that.

He’ll also ask: “How are those kids in the Program doing?” just to see if he can get any interesting info.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 75):

Gutshot gives you a hairy eyeball and then shrugs, settling into a chair across the aisle.

"Fred is Fred.  He says he's too busy looking into those BEs or whatever they are.  If they're up to something, they're pretty damn good at keeping it under the radar.  I've gone over four of their "safe houses" and nothing.  Just hippie communes. Or whatever they are."

She chuckles when you ask about the kids.

"If I'd known we'd have an omega in the batch, I probably wouldn't have signed on for the job.  The White House wants DNA samples.  Fuckers."

She leans back into the seat.  "Odelia's got the heart, but not the patience.  Darja...I wish I could find the button that'd motivate her.  I'd like to kick Ron's ass.  And Mia?"

She tosses a hand up.

"Poor kid.  She's gonna be that way the rest of her life probably.  It's not fair.

"Well.  If we can get Jack into the Life, we'll have done our duty.  He'll be good I think."

She's quiet a minute.  "I just wish we could find this Manitou and

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

You can see her mouth move, but her voice is swallowed up in the loud thrumming sound that echoes around the room.  It's painfully high.  You instinctively clutch your hands to your ears to try to block out the sound, but it doesn't help.

The sound stops as Gutshot smiles, looking over at you.

You can hear everyone.  No trace of the Bwaaa sound.

"Why are you so interested all of a sudden?  You gonna actually teach a class?"
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 05:09, Sat 29 Jan 2022.

The DNA thing. No surprise there, not that he truly cares too deeply. He’d asked mom several times for clarification but the gist was: ‘You can’t be cloned.’  He was apparently too complicated to re-create like that. Though he does wonder if he can’t figure out some way to make a trip to the White House. That’d be dope.

Jack does his best to memorize the movements of her lips, though he’s really puzzled by the interference there. Someone would have had to have done that, and to have done it to the chain? Maybe it’s a magic thing? Bizarre.

The rest is good to hear. He’ll have to keep an eye out for someone named Fred. He’ll find that dang Omen and get that training if he has to make the guy do it with a boot up his rear-end. Though that is really interesting, that he’s looking into the BEs.

“No reason, just curious,” he answers, glancing back at Darja and HT to see if they’d heard the noise. He doubts they had, but it’s worth checking. Thinking for a moment about other things he might ask.

Trying to think of any other hot juicy gossip I can get off of her.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 77):

HT and Darja are still chatting about the various vials in Alchemist's bolero.  If they heard the noise, they aren't reacting to it.

Gutshot rubs her eyes and then turns in her seat, glancing back at HT.  She leans towards you across the aisle.

"I'm gonna have you start doing more training.  Especially with Odelia.  Carl's going to do more work with the two bricks."

She shakes her head, seeming to be weary.  "I trust David. But Conrad..."

She waves a hand.  "I've just never had a good vibe about what happened the first time with this thing."

Carl would be Hemi.  You know his real name is Carlton Jakoby.

David Cosgrove is HT.  He doesn't look like a David. More like a Mike.  Or a Todd.  Not a David though. But a David he is.

Conrad...you're drawing a blank on that one.

“You should talk to Kevin about it, I’m sure he’d have some more notes on how things went the first time,” he points out, not that it’ll have any impact on what she does in the future, but he’s curious what she might say in response.

---

Later with Hardtime, he takes a moment when they aren’t otherwise busy and asks, “Who’s Conrad by the way, I heard him mentioned a few times by Gutshot.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 79):

Gutshot is quiet a moment, and then looks over at you.  "Kevin?  You mean Monkey?"

She seems to be studying you carefully.

---

HT clicks his tongue and then shrugs.  "Guess there's no harm in you knowing this much.  Or maybe it's better to answer then have you gettin' curious.

"Conrad is Red Tiger's civie handle.  Why?  What was someone sayin'?"

"Yes, the Monkey," Jack replies. He could very well go on, but he's really not sure what else to ask. There are certainly many mysteries, but he has no reason to expect that everything is just going to keep pouring out, and, given her latest response, he also thinks that she'd get further suspicious of too many random questions.

---

Jack decides to just come clean and shares, "Gutshot apparently doesn't trust him."

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 81):

Gutshot seems to let the conversation lapse shortly after that.

You listen as Hemi talks about his son's first day at kindergarten.  Everyone else seems to tune him out.

The shuttle is starting to land when HT nods for you to meet him in back of the shuttle...

---

HT frowns and rubs his eyes.  It seems like what you just said seemed to confirm something for him.

"Alright.  Thanks for tellin' me.  Let's just say there's some friction between the two groups.  It shouldn't get in the way of the program.  I would appreciate it if you didn' say anything to Darja or the others."

"I only talk to Darja, and I only have her best interests in mind. I don't see any reason she needs to know about office politics," Jack answers HT, not promising anything, because he likes Darja more than he likes HT. But he has no reason to download her on every bit of gossip he overhears. Especially given that with her hearing she might already know.

Standing in the back of the shuttle, he thinks about Jackpots power a bit more and wonders, "So Jackpot can hex anything, and en-luck anyone? You should tell this guy to bring a bunch of uh.. spare cell phones or something. Useless devices that frying won't necessarily hurt? Right now, the problem is I have no targets to curse or whatever, but it'd be helpful if I hit everyone on the team with good luck."

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 83):

HT points at both your hands.  "You can luck us all up, but remember. Whenever you luck somethin' you gotta hex somethin' too.  Supposedly it's bad ju-ju if he holds one of them discs too long."

The shuttle rumbles.  HT looks back towards the cockpit.

"We're about to land.  When we did this before...ya know. In reality...Guts split us up inta two teams.  I'm gonna try to stick with Darja, since Alkie's powers have a steeper learnin' curve than yours do.  Gutshot probably won't team you an' Darja up.  Jackpot and Alchemist's powers kinda both fall into the same category.  Ping me on the wrist comm if things get dicey.  And remember you aren't you at the moment."

Gutshot calls out to everyone.

"Alright. We're boots-on-the-ground in 30.  Hemi, you take Jack and swing south up through the storage shed and come up through the workshops.  Alkie, you take David and come in through the main entrance."

"What about you?" Hemi asks her.

She grins at him, pulling out a rather interesting looking zap-gunnish rifle and patting the scope. "I'm gonna go roofside.  They got sky lights here.  I wanna scope 'em out.

"We keep comms open.  We'll plan to meet in the mess hall.  That should be halfway for both groups.  Yell out if you find any survivors.  Our first priority is finding survivors.  Second is securing the installation for the next SEAL team.  Any questions?"

Beside you, HT frowns.  "This is different from before," he mutters.

Jack thinks that HT wasn’t listening to what he said: “I get that HT, what I’m saying is that this guy, Jackpot should carry a bunch of junk he can hex and toss away. He could possibly even weaponize it, just food for thought,” he repeats what he’d already said. That said, he starts to hit everyone when they get close and he’ll just lob the hex off into the distance.

When he hears that Gutshot’s new plan is different, and Hardtime’s concern, he thinks about it for a moment and takes a little gamble with the lucky man.

“I think you should come with us, just my instincts, luck,” Jackpot calls out to Gutshot.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 85):

HT starts to say something back, but Gutshot starts her pep talk.

You tag everyone with the good lucks and toss the hexes.

Gutshot considers what you said for a moment and then shakes her head.  "I think I wanna stay mobile on this one.  That's just what my gut's tellin' me.  I can rendevous with either team if things get dicey.

"Okay.  Let's move out."

Darja/Alchemist gives you a wave as she and HT head towards the front of the compound.  Hemi walks over.  "Ready?"

You haven't really interacted much with Hemi up until now.  He's built about as big as HT, even without the armor.  His size makes the armor look bulky, but close up you see the outfit is actually pretty light.  His helmet seems set up with a sensor array which mimics your own set of eyes and ears, though you doubt to the same level.

Well.  Your level as when you're in your own body.  Right now...everything seems sort of dull and faded.

Jack obviously is seeing and hearing the world through normal people vision/hearing.  Up to you if that messes with him or not.

Hemi holds up his forearm and a holographic display lights up the air just over his wrist.

You can see the back of the compound.  There are three storage sheds set up outside a back walkway.  The door off the walkway inside comes in through the compounds garage.  Past that are some kennels and then into a back bunker area.  The mess hall is just past that.

"Once we rendevous in the mess hall, we'll proceed as a full group up this side hall into the lab area.  I'll take point and stay on the ground for now.  You watch my six and handle the relay to the other two teams."

He seems used to giving orders.

The other two teams-HT and Darja, Gutshot solo-have not peeled away just yet. So if you want to do/say something with them, you still can.  Wanted to give you the chance before just moving us on.  Thanks

Jack tried. Hopefully the divergence from the original plan doesn’t result in further shenanigans, though he isn’t entirely sure what would happen if one of them were to die in here. He isn’t sure he wants to find out.

He waves at Darja when she heads off with HT.

Following Hemi, he nods his head at him when he starts to give his orders. Watching ‘on his six’ with those muted human senses and feeling a bit like he’s wearing a cloth over his head. Even the colors are so muted. It’s like watching everything on a television. Only the normal spectrum being visible now.

“Team two proceeding along the back of the compound,” he relays over the radio.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 87):

The two of you start with the storage sheds.

Two of the sheds seem to be locked up tight.  The third one though...

The door is still locked. But someone ripped through the outer wall to get inside.  Peeking through the hole, you can see the base was using this one as a natural freezer.  A side of frozen beef is thrown against the wall, huge hunks torn out of it.  Several crates that used to hold uncooked chickens are laying smashed against the wall, half eaten carcasses strewn about.

There aren't any tracks in the snow other than yours.  But it may have snowed recently.

Hemi studies it, switching something on his visor.

"I'm not getting anything on ultraviolet or infrared.  Telescopic...huh.  Some scratch marks.  Like buncha little scratch marks.  All over everything.  But...nothing besides that."

The door into the garage is also interesting.  The top portion of it is whole. But the bottom third of it is missing.  Just gone.

Hemi flips his visor again.  "More scratch marks.  Let's move quiet."

HT buzzes in.  "We got bodies up here.  Four...maybe six.  Hard to tell cos they're all...well.  Not together anymore.  Looks like there was a fight near the admin area.  Lotsa bullets."

"Nothing topside," Gutshot adds.  "I'm over the skylight into the mess.  It's just that.  A mess.  More bodies.  But no movement I can see."

Hemi uses a blow torch on his finger to open the back door for the two of you.

The garage is quiet and dark.  At the far end is an open doorway to a hall.  It should be the hall that goes up through the machine shops to the kennels.

A few snowmobiles are sitting in bays.  Various tools lay around on counters.  It's messy but not chaotic.  More like someone forgot to tidy up before calling it a day.

Hemi points at the floor.  "More scratches.  In a path from the hall to here."

You can't see any of these scratches yourself.  Well you can't see anything at the moment because it's dark.  There's a light switch on your right hand side.

Jack looks at the wreckage left behind by the whatever-it-is and thinks about it. “Little scratch marks. A swarm of bugs, perhaps? But why leave anything half finished like this? It smells of intelligent purpose,” he surmises with a shrug and stands back, flipping a lucky chip toward Hemi and an unlucky one toward one of the condenser units for the refrigerator as they leave.

Listening to the feedback from HT over the radio, he relays it all to Hemi.

“HT, did the firefight result in any bits of whatever they were fighting hitting the walls? Can you see any blood or bits left behind?” he asks, having something to put his mind to now.

As they walk, he nods at Hemi’s observations and relays messages as necessary.

He trusts his lucked-up instincts to flip the switch.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 89):

HT thumbs back.  "Good question.  Hold up.

"The gunk on the walls looks mostly human.  But there's this...grit all over everything.  Doesn't feel like people nor like any kind of shrapnel or ammo I've seen.  But definitely seems machine made.  Very metallic, rough, and sharp."

You flip the switch.

Every surface is red.  Not blood covered.  Just...red.  The cabinets.  The tools.  The tires on the snow mobiles.  All red, like the sunset.

Hemi tenses up and then flips his visor.

"Hold up...patching my visor cam into everyone's comms...flipping through ultra...infra..."

You can see what he's seeing by looking at your commn.  The red coating has no heat signature of any kind.

"...going telecopic...oh shit..."

The red coating seems to be lots of little machine bugs.  Lots and lots and lots of them.  It's a sold sheet of red colored nano machines that all look like locusts.

Gutshot pipes on.  "They don't seem active...You guys get outta th-"

Your comm goes dead.

But that is all that happens.  The red nanos don't do anything.  Yet.

Jack had actually thought nanobots were on the list, but that seemed even odder given their feeding pattern. In science-fiction they always swarm and devour and expand without limit, but perhaps it's for the best that science fiction is wrong with the case of the red nanites.

Apparently, they'd dealt with this so he has some confidence they'll make it through this in the vision, and obviously did in reality. So nothing to actually worry about.

He starts to back out.

Quietly.

Looking for another path to take so that they can maybe .. shut these things down? What did the AER say about nanites? Oh yeah, haven't read that section yet. Dang it.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 91):

"Nanos.  Damnit.  There's nothing in the briefing about experiments in nanos going on up here."

"This ain't right..."

Hemi frowns as he backs out behind you, covering your exit.  "Come again David?  What's not right?"

"This ain't what happened before."

You are outside, so you only see Hemi's back as he starts to come through the door.

And then his back is red.  All red.  Like he's been hit by a tidal wave of blood.

There's only a quick squawk.  A sudden "Hukk-"

And then the comm feed from Hemi goes blank.  Through the doorway, the room is suddenly a large wash of red color.  Like the air had turned to red lacquer.

"Hemi!  HEMI!  Copy!  Fuck! Retreat to the shuttle!  Pull back!"

 Jack is a bit confused, but immediately as soon as Hemi starts to get consumed, he starts running. It makes no difference to reality, and he’d rather not experience what it’s like to be eaten by nanites. Running around the compound as fast as this mortal frame can move, he calls out: “Hemi was hit by the nanites, condition unknown.”

And then he’s sprinting again.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 93):

"We got activity here too!"

HT's comm goes silent.  And then you see the wall from further further up in the compound blast open.  HT has burst through it, carrying Darja/Alchemist under one arm.  Behind him, a large gush of red comes spouting out like some effect in a kid's cartoon.

But the red doesn't pursue far.  It rushes back inside through the hole in the wall.  As you sprint towards the shuttle, you risk a look back.  The red wave has completely disappeared back inside.

Gutshot has landed on the ground and is following behind you.  She waves at you to keep going.

A moment later, HT is beside you.  "Please excuse..."

With that, he sweeps you up under his free arm and leaps forward, covering the distance to the shuttle in one bound.

He sets you both down.  "That's not what happened before.  Something's changed."

He looks back, seeing Gustshot sprinting towards you.  "I don't know what's goin' on.  But it's usually wise to assume the worst.  If anything happens to us here, it might have an effect on us back home.  Questions?"

Jackpot starts to throw out chips rather liberally, tagging himself with oodles of good luck while throwing lots of the bad luck in the direction of the red plague. Trying to hit the right direction, right through the wall. Hopefully it’s considered a single entity.

When he spots HT, he makes sure to hit him with the good stuff as well while throwing even more bad luck at the red nanites in the hole. Not caring what he hits, as long as it’s in the right direction and away from his team mates.

“Nope, because I’m guessing you don’t have any better idea what is going on than we do,” Jack answers Hardtime, even as he is picked up and being carried. “So this is what that feels like.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 95):

Darja looks over at you.  "I know, right?"

HT is shaking his head.  "I don't get it.  Hemi shoulda been able to get outta that.  His suit has force field abbility.  So why didn't he-"

"Get inside the shuttle!" Gutshot is about ten meters out, coming in fast.  "Let's get airborne!"

HT nods and heads inside, shouting at the flight crew to fire engines.

"Shit!" he suddenly yells.  He comes out of the shuttle shaking his head.

"They're dead.  Someone 86'd 'em."

Gutshot stops and stares for a moment before pushing past him.

You can see through the doorway.  There's a body on the ground.  One of the flight crew.  It looks like his arms are missing.

“I think it’s safe to assume that nothing you expect to happen is going to happen, HT. Darja and I are rolling with it, you should too and stop being surprised all the time,” Jack tells the man as he is carried to the shuttle. Jumping free of the man, he goes over to look at the shuttle controls, trying to figure out how to fly it, in case he needs to.

But also to glance at the bodies.

“That’d take some strength,” he remarks.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 97):

HT glances at you.  "It's hard to watch someone you've worked with get taken apart.  Even if it is just a head trip."

HT nods at your comment on strength.  "You got that right."

"Why tear them apart?"  You both look over at Darja.  She is looking inside, seemingly oblivious to the bloodshed inside.

"If it were the nanos...wouldn't they have just..."eaten" the bodies up?  Like with Hemi...sorry HT."

HT shakes his head. "No apologies necessary.  You're making a good point."

"What point?  The shuttle's been damaged." Gutshot walks back, wiping her bloody hands clean with a towel she picked up from somewhere.  "The pilot's all over the instrument panel.  I went to that guy's wife's birthday party last week.  Now I have to tell her he's dead.  I hate this part of the job."

She looks around.  "The nanos didn't follow us.  Maybe they're territorial.

"I tried sending out a distress beacon, but I'm not sure it's transmitting.  Team Two will send in a recon team after five hours of radio silence.  So we need to hold out until then.

"Thoughts? Observations?  What does everyone think we're dealing with?"

"I can only imagine, HT. I'm trying to think of it like a really high fidelity video game," Jack admits quietly to the instructor. He's distancing himself from it and trying not to focus on the grizzly aspects of things. Thinking of them instead, as best he can, as a conceptual exercise.

Not as people.

Moving back toward the entrance to the craft, he hells out, "Darja! You and Jack need to come to my voice, it'll fix everything!" in Estonian. Hopefully, Gutshot doesn't understand and the experiment will pay off. He's actually sort of curious.

Maybe it'll work.

In any case, he looks back at Gutshot and shrugs.

"Some sort of mental manipulator, probably. I sort of doubt any of this is actually happening. Hemi shouldn't have been able to die like that, and the idea of multiple hostile forces all in one place, unnoticed, is absurd."

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 99):

Sorry.  It was a long week and I may not be tracking well.  Why did Jack shout that "come to the sound of my voice" part?

Sorry. Thanks

Jack is curious if this "world" would let him call out to Darja, who has her super-hearing, and MIGHT be able to hear him. His instincts are telling him that this is some sort of mind game or illusion (beyond the one that was intended), so messing with the status quo might be a good way to break it.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 101):

Thanks.  That's what I thought, but did not want to assume

Darja/Alchemist looks over at you, cocking an eyebrow.  Huh?  I'm right here?

Gutshot gives you a look. "What was that?  When did you pick up a foreign language?"

HT cuts in quickly. "I think the idea this is a psychic attack is possible.  But...why couldn't there be multiple hostiles?"

Gutshot is silent a moment and then shrugs.  "Both are valid points.  But I'm wondering why whoever it is is messing with this research facility..."

"You mean why this target?"

Gutshot nods.  "Waiting for extraction is all well and good.  But if someone is getting up to something, I doubt they'll let us leave quietly.  The extraction team may just be more hamburger meat for them.

"I can't fix the comm board quickly.  They...whoever "they" are...did a good job screwing it up.  We can keep the heat on at least.

"For now, I wanna do a recon.  David, you come with me.  There's something I'm curious about.

"Al...your in charge here.  You and Jack try to do what you can getting the systems salvaged.  And...drag the bodies to the back, will ya?"

She and HT get ready to head out.  You see her lean onto Alchemist/Darja's shoulder and speak softly into his/her ear, then nod at HT and lead him out the shuttle door.

Darja waits for a moment and then looks over at you.  "She told me to keep an eye on you.  Jackpot suddenly knowing another langugage freaked her out.

"You think this is just a training exercise?  That maybe HT lied to us about what it was and this is some kinda simulation to teach us...I dunno.  Give us battlefield experience?"

She reaches down and grabs one of the bodies under the shoulders, starting to pull it towards the cargo bay.  Never thought I'd have to do this stuff again...

Jack shrugs, he’d only said as much because it was his gut instinct on the subject, he hadn’t made that call based on some sort of logical conclusion. It felt like the world itself was the trap, and there were obstructions on the various paths.

“Just the vibe,” he decides to answer.

He nods at the decision by Gutshot and starts to drag the bodies, looking over at her with another slight shrug.

“I considered that. That or that the chain was trapped by some mystic, or that this is all Omen’s doing, since apparently they’re psychic in nature and I’ve been asking for training. That said, I’m not sure how aimlessly wandering around in a mental illusion is supposed to help me train to escape one. I was thinking more progressive-resistance training, since I’ve got an instinct that my ability to resist everything else will eventually kick in to the new source of trauma and help me become resistant,” he rambles as he pulls the bodies toward the cargo bay.

“Not that I’m sure it’s them, either.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 103):

Darja stops dragging the body and looks at you, cocking an eyebrow.  "That is some instinct you have there.

"Really Jack. Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to the President of the United States when I'm with you.  You really-"

She stops as you both hear something new.

klik klik klik klik klik klik klik

It sounds like sharp nails tapping on metal.  Or in this case, something skittering all over the upper hull of the shuttle.  A big something.

Jack is actually curious what she was about to say, and makes a mental note to ask about it later. He'll need to review his 'how to act like a normal person' checklist, though honestly being normal without super-reaction speed is remarkably easier. No pauses between sentences!

When he hears the 'klik'ing, he readies a bit of luck in either hand, hitting Darja first with good luck and then throwing the bad luck in the direction of the skitterer.

"Gutshot, HT, we've got something big and bugg-y sounding on the exterior of the shuttle," he relays.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 105):

The comm squawks.

HT starts up "Copy. Can you-"

The comm squawks out. And dies.

Darja holds up her comm too.  Same boat.

The kliking starts skittering about the hull, heading towards the direction of the cockpit.

Darja points at the cargo bay door.

"Maybe we seal ourselves inside until we see what's going on? And I can figure out if I can actually do something useful with all these bottles?"

Jack continues to throw good luck and him and the Darjchemist, while he throws as much bad luck as he can at the skitterer’s skittering. He can’t know exactly where it is, but he has to try to do something. This guy isn’t armed or anything. Next time: bring a gun.

“We can try that, or you could lob one at it randomly. I’ve lucked you and hexed it, probably? It might just randomly be the lucky draw we need?” he proposes.

But all the same he starts to move toward the rear hatch, pulling her along with him. They might throw it, but first he wants to see what it does to the cockpit.

“Let’s see if it can get through the cockpit glass and hull.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 107):

The answer on whether it seems if it can get through the hull is...oh yeah.

You hear the unmistakable sound of metal coming apart from up towards the cockpit.

Darja sighs and goes to the loading bay door.  She presses the button.  "Maybe now is a good time to re..."

The door doesn't open.  Then the power goes off

"...treat. Well shit."

She takes out a couple of phials.  "We got two choices.  I think this one will act like a bomb.  This one I think will give whoever takes it like...strength or something.  You know. Our kinda strength.  Or there abouts.  HT wasn't sure.

"Which do you wanna try?"

From the sounds coming from the cockpit, whatever it is has come inside and is tearing down towards the passenger area.  From there, next stop would be the cargo bay.

Sounds like it's moving pretty quick.

He’d sort of seen that coming, but he might also be responsible with all his crazy throwing of hexes around. So he doesn’t say anything.

“Well, looks like we got nothing to try but fight,” he decides.

Listening to the report on the vials, he nods his head slowly and then snorts, amused, not actually arrogant though it possibly sounds that way. “They wish it gave them my strength. But I get it, uh, I’ll take the strength, you probably have better accuracy without your powers than I do. I feel so awkward. See if you can land it in the cockpit from here, or wait for it to be in the passenger cabin?”

He leaves her to make the call based on her own estimation of her ability to throw.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 109):

She tosses you the bottle.

The skittering sounds are coming pretty fast.

"I'll toss the bomb.  You charge in.  I'll...see what else I have.  Ready?"

Drinking the bottle?

Jack quickly hits the both of them with good luck, throwing the hexes in the direction of the skitterer. Doing his best guess at direction based on the sounds of damage being done.

Once he has thrown the luck as necessary, loading them up for a hopeful ‘jackpot’ he drinks the potion.

“Go for it!” he says.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 111):

Darja lobs the bomb...

There's a shuttle shaking KA-BOOOOOOOM!.  As the ship rattles, you manage to down the whatever it is you're drinking.  Tastes like grapefruit soda for some reason.  Wait a minute...Fresca?

But by then the skitterer is through the cargo bay door.

It's more or less a giant centipede.  Except it's got human like eyes all over it's front sections.

The bomb obviously did some damage to it.  There are deep gouges along it's top.  A kind of bluish ichor is leaking out from the wounds.

Also, it seems pissed.

It rears it's head, clicking some rather impressive looking mandibles, and launches at Darja/Alchemist.

You feel a warmth spread through your body.  You aren't sure how strong you are.  Definitely not You-you level.  But...well.  Only one way to find out.

Jack curses silently about the Fresca.

Then he grabs the nearest thing he can, something big and heavy, and throws it at the skitterer. Trying to force its vision toward the thrown thing. Better to open its guard so that he can proceed to the next step.

Leaping forward, he enjoys having some of his strength back, but it’ll take some getting used to. He reaches out to try to grab for the wounds that Darja had created, and to pry them further open.

Mixing it up with punches and other strikes as necessary as he does his best to combat the thing.

“Look for one that says something about shrinking, maybe?” he suggests as he struggles with his many-legged foe.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 113):

You grab up a crate.  It's something you should be able to toss across the Mississippi with one finger.  You get it airborne but man...so that's what sore shoulders feels like.  You aren't even as strong as HT.

You land on the centipede and start to dig in.  Whatever kind of illusion you're in, it's pretty sophisticated.  The centipede's flesh feels slippery, rubbery, and gross.  You get some of the goo in your mouth.  The taste is something that will haunt you for years to come.  But even worse is the smell.  It's like old socks treated with nail polish and left to ferment in the summer sun.

The centipede is organic.  You rip into muscles and manage to do some serious damage before it tosses you aside.  Landing, you suddenly hear another explosion.  A second later you're pelted by gooey centipede bits as it comes apart.

"Found another bomb instead.  Just found the shrinking though. You okay?"

You are kind of sore.

"This one says healing.  Anyway.  I can't hear HT or Gutshot on the comm.  Should we go look for them?"

As they get the centipede dealt with, Jack rolls his muscles and performs the stretches he usually does to seem more ‘human-like’ but instead now with the purpose of keeping himself limber. This illusion is too good.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just a bit sore,” he answers promptly as he moves over to crawl past it toward the cockpit and where it’d gotten in. Peering outward. Since they can’t get out through the rear hatch.

‘Keep the healing ready, in case we need it, and normally if it weren’t that the world were configured to screw us apparently, I’d say the smart move for two people of our current powers (but lacking experience,) would be to wait here. But my gut tells me that whatever this place is supposed to do isn’t to act realistic, and if something came once, it can come again. Let’s regroup.”

That said, he starts the effort of getting out of the shuttle.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 115):

It's easy enough to get out of the shuttle.  Almost too easy.

Bwah ha ha

The wind has picked up and whipped up the snow.  You can still see HT and Gutshot's tracks though.

The base is hard to make out.  But you can tell one part of it seems to be glowing red.  Not like on fire red.  But...well.  Kind of glowing red.

You think it's coming from the front section HT and Darja explored.

Darja comes out behind you, studying a couple more flasks.  She/he looks over your shoulder.

That doesn't look good

She/he puts the flasks away and mutters, "You know what's really bad? I gotta use the bathroom, but I'm kind of scared to since...you know. I'm not a guy.

"Anyway. The mysterious glowy part of the compound? Or the part where at least one person already died?"

Jack looks over at Darja and agrees with her assessment. It doesn’t look good. Touching his earpiece, he calls out for HT and Gutshot: “Gutshot or anyone hear me?”

In case being out of the shuttle made a difference.

Looking around, he points at the area that isn’t glowing.

“Let’s assume that the glowing red is bad, and go away from that.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 117):

She/he nods.  "No arguments here."

No response from HT or Gutshot.  The comm line is just full of static.

The two of you follow the same route you did with Hemi earlier.  Nothing has changed per se.  The sheds are still as they were.  The door to the garage is open partly.  However, inside, nothing is red.  The nanos are either hiding or have left.

Darja peeks around your shoulder.  "Is this where you and Hemi..."

She trails off.

Before you can answer, you hear a loud BAM BAM BAM.

It sounds like gunfire.  It's coming from above and further to the north.  Sounds like Gutshot...she's the only one with a gun after all...is back up on the roof.

Jack leads the way, since he’d been this way before and is watchful of the same nooks and crannies he’d been suspicious of the first time. This time, he’s a bit better at checking things quickly however, since there are fewer surprises about the small amount of architecture they walk past.

As they get to the partly opened doors, he starts to nod when she asks about Hemi. The question is the natural one.

Glancing upwards at the sounds of gunfire, he ponders for a moment and suggests, “Let’s see if there’s a way onto the roof?”


And then he hits them both with some more good luck and throws off a few hexes randomly at the dirt nearby. May that ground be bathed in Fresca.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 119):

You're going to feel bad when you find out Jack's kryptonite is Fresca

Darja give you a boost...she's the taller of the two of you now...and you swing up onto the roof.  You haul her up, but you notice it takes some doing.  Her strength potion seems to be fading.

The snow is still being kicked up by the wind.  So you don't have clear visibility.  But you can see the roof currently seems empty of anyone.  If Gutshot was here, she's gone now.

You can see squares of light ahead on the rooftop.  Skylights.  The lighting inside is shing up through them.  The closest couple are the normal yellowish kind of light.  But the one after that is red.  So are the ones past that.

From what you recall of the map, that means the red glow is filling up the front of the compound and probably down to the cafeteria where you were all supposed to rendevous.  The first skylight is for the garage.  The second one...you aren't sure.  The kennels maybe?

Questions?

"Let's move forward," Jack suggests with a shrug and starts to do just that. They aren't going to 'solve' this place by standing still and doing nothing. Or maybe they would, but his nature is to progress forward.

Be Aggressive.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 121):

You come to the first skylight.  As you thought, it just looks down into the garage.  No sign of the nanos in there now.  Or, they're hiding really well.

You get to the second skylight.  It looks down into a room lined with cages on one side.  Dead sled dogs are tossed all over the place.

...litapoeg...  She points at the bodies.  "Didn't the nanos...consume Hemi all up?  I mean...I didn't see a body or any blood back there.  So what killed the dogs?  And why didn't the nanos kill that centipede thing we faced earlier?"

Other than the dead dogs, the kennel below seems clear.  You can let yourself down into the room from here or head to the next skylight, which is glowing red.

Jack nods over at the Darja-chemist, thinking about it, “They didn’t kill it because this place isn’t based on reality. The same reason they aren’t consuming everything like a standard grey goo scenario. It’s fiction, remember none of this is what happened. It’s either an attack or someone is playing games with us, or me, or you,” he reminds her as he starts to lead the way to the next skylight.

As he walks at a brisk pace he thinks to his reading in the AER. He hadn’t read more than a few hundred pages on nanites. Just a brushing to give him some idea what he’s dealing with before he’d moved onto a new topic. Aerodynamics of unladen swallows or something of the sort, if he remembers correctly. Though his memory is feeling a bit unusual here. His senses all being linked, and without his speed of mind his thoughts feel a bit muddled to pull to the surface.

“Though, if they were programmed to attack but not consume, only enough to maintain their number, I suppose they might not become a grey goo scenario. The not-attacked targets could be explained if the crawler had some sort of marker on it, or was specifically included as a rule,” he theorizes a way.

But at the end of the day..

“But I still think the whole thing is nonsense. But for now, let’s just act like it happened this way. Let’s find the controller,” he decides.

Another pause.

"If I say the word: Manitou. What do you hear?"

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 123):

Someone's been reading ahead in the syllabus

Darja frowns.  "Is this really a good time to talk about Fresca?"

The roof under her comes apart like a bullet traveling through a sheet of paper.  Her/his body flies upwards, one of her ankles caught up in the mandibles of another centipede.  You can see her neck jerk in a direction it shouldn't and can almost hear the snap.

The centipede whips it's body, sending Darja/Alchemist flying.  You can see a thin spray of red as her ankle seperates from the rest of her body.

It rears back and starts to strike dive towards you.

Jack shakes his head as a bit of energy drains from his soul. Fucking Fresca.

As Darja is hit by the centipede, he immediately leaps back and starts to ready the luck coins. Throwing first a bit of luck into his own chest while the other starts to throw hexes at the centipede. Backpedaling all the while, he tries to get some luck over to Darja even as he scrambles and starts to run. Giving her time to get on her foot. Maybe she can use that healing potion.

“I’ll try to lead it away Darja, use the potions!” he calls out as he tries to run. Jumping over one of the skylights they’d crossed over earlier. All the while, he does his best with this mortal body to throw hexes and luck as best he can. Doling them out as appropriate.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 125):

The centipede lunges at you as you turn, it's maw making sparks as it scrapes across the rooftop.

You rush forward, leaping like a gazelle over the kennel skylight.

The centipede isn't obviously the smartest of creatures. It tries to charge right at you, and manages to crash through the skylight.  You watch it's body whip through the jagged opening and hear a sick thud sound.

Glancing through, you can see the centipede is still moving, though it appears the glass and fall took some toll on it.

Jack leaves the centipede, not able to do anything more than throw a few hexes at it before he departs back toward Darja. They haven’t seemed to do a whole lot, then again, maybe without a hex on it, it would have jumped over the sky light? Who knows.

Running over toward Darja, he calls out, “You still with me Princess? As soon as you can move, we need to keep moving, the centipede is down, but not fully out of the fight.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 127):

Princess is not moving.  And she does not seem to be with you.

Darja/Alchemist's neck seems to have snapped.  She/he is dead.

From inside the building, you can hear the centipede starting to recover.  Sounds like it may start rampaging.

In your ear, your comm comes to life.  HT, though there's a lot of intereference.

...Jack...s you...up.  You need to...

Jack runs over to Darja, since he can’t really check for a heartbeat without putting his fingers on her neck. Stupid human-level senses. But then he notices the way her neck is twisted, and the way her neck lolls, and he puts the pieces together. “I’ll probably be right behind you, Princess,” he tells the alchemist’s body even as he starts to loot him.

If it were Darja’s actual body, he’d be a bit more hesitant to search her for loot, but seeing the situation he’s in, he starts to pull out bottles, stuffing them in his pockets. As he takes off running again, he listens to the message and tries to pay attention to the instructions.

Moving in the direction of the red now.

They’re probably defending their controller.

As he hoofs it, he starts looking at the bottles, trying to puzzle out what each of them does. Using his grasp of languages and memory to try to make sense of any labels, and otherwise just relying on colors and similarity to what he’d seen used so far.

"Repeat your last HT."

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 129):

The bottles you can find are labeled

Strong

BOOM

Vine

Dance

Strong

Metal

The static comes back, thicker than the blizzard that seems to be starting up.

...ack...up...it's all about y...

Your associates aren't very smart, are they?

You've just found a side door that probably leads into the cafeteria when you hear the voice.  It's been a while.  Dad still sounds as disinterested and contemptuous as ever.

If you can judge a man by the company they keep, what does that say about you Son?

Jack pauses when the voice comes through, and sorts out the bottles into pockets so that he can use them when appropriate. Rather than needing to re-read them.

Hearing the voice, he just nods his head to himself.

“I assume all of this has a point, and isn’t just some sort of field test,” he questions as he continues to examine the area, looking for the controller.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 131):

IF the controller is around, he/she/it is inside.  At least from what you guess.

On the other side of the door, you hear a steady kind of pulsing noise.  A generator hum.  There's also a sound like...popcorn popping?  You can't tell.  It's a little faint.  If you had to guess, it must be coming from the far side of the cafeteria, right across from this door.

If this were a field test, wouldn't it be a little better organized?  There's no point in testing you in a body that isn't yours, with powers you don't have.

I guess the point is whatever those idiots wanted it to be.  Letting you see "the action".  Like seeing it would benefit you in any way, shape, or form.

Funny.  Instead of letting the advanced students go ahead at their own pace, they are trying to bog you down to match the speed of the slower students.  How that's going to make you a better "hero", I have no idea.

Be honest Son.  Aren't you just a tad bit bored by all this?  It really is beneath you.

“Oh, so you’re part of the randomness, not actually dad, that makes more sense,” Jack decides as he continues forward. Coming up to the door, he starts to bombard it and whatever lies beyond with hexes. He can’t really explain the entirety of the vibe he gets, but dad wouldn’t do something random without purpose, and he also wouldn’t try to divert the topic so blatantly—and if he didn’t create it, that means the voice is just part of the mass hallucination.

A pause as he considers, lobbing hexes at the door while slapping himself with good luck discs.

“Don’t suppose you can tell me where the solution to this place is?” he asks.

Whipping open the door, he gives it a quick glance.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 133):

So if I'm part of the hallucination, does that mean I'm just saying out loud what you really think of everything?

The cafeteria is a mess.  You found Gut Shot.  She's laying on one of the tables.  Well, her top half is.  Her legs are on the floor.

The red glow is coming from the walls.  The nanos again, but they seem to be preoccupied with doing something to the walls.  It's like they are embedding wiring and circuitry into the concrete.

To your left, right, and straight ahead are doors.  You guess the right is the direction HT and Darja originally were supposed to enter from.  The left should take you to the kennels.  And straight ahead would be those labs.

Curious.  They seem to be outfitting the room for some kind of spatial transport circuit.  See that mass over there?  It's going to be a coordinates control panel.  I tinkered with that design myself.

Oh. Don't forget about the centipede.  By my calculations it should come through the doors on your left-

The doors on the left fly open and the centipede you dropped through the skylight comes roaring in.  Obviously none too happy about what went down earlier.

Hmm.  I was off by 2.8 seconds.  I'm getting sloppy in my old age.

Jack picks up one of Gut Shot’s guns, just in case, adding it to his gear. Making the best out of the collection of items. Slinging it around his shoulders and letting it hang from his side, he looks around and seems to be listening to father-illusion.

“I’ll humor you, illusion-dad. If you were involved with this, you’d have made it, and you’d know that I’d know that. So, there’d be a purpose to this,” he explains to the voice in his head. Even as he continues walking. Looking at the circuitry, he considers tossing a few hexes, but decides to see what the nanos will come up with. “Also, no, I like Darja and HT.”

Spatial transport might ‘get him out.’

“Are the nanos maybe the solution? Everyone we’ve seen that died was killed by methods I’d consider non-nano,” he confirms and nods his head. That seems to make things fit. "But then again.."

When his father-delusion mentions the centipede, he starts to prep a hex and is in the process of fishing out the BOOM when the thing crashes into the room.

Even as he scrambles to get away, he does his best to lob both in the correct direction.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 135):

I like you.  I like your mother.  I even like your Aunt Marlene.  But "like" doesn't preclude treating someone like a chess piece.  You should remember that.

The centipede charges at you as you start to try to lob the hex and the BOOM.

Problem is you have the good hex and the bad hex in each hand.  You'll need to drop one or other to have a hand free for the BOOM...

Jack throws the good hex at his chest even as he reaches for that BOOM. He isn't clear if he can really affect himself, but it does free up a hand.

"And you should remember that if you ever do what you did to mom again, I'll find you and hit you with a telephone pole from space," Jack warns the illusion, fully expecting he's just having a cathartic moment with himself, and not talking to his father. But then again, maybe he's wrong.

Oh well.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 137):

You've been to a planet where they have telephone poles?  Because I doubt there are any left on Earth at this point in our technological progress.

The centipede takes the bad luck hex as it lunges at you.  You manage to side step as you fish out the BOOOM and toss it.

It catches the centipede on the side.  Predictably, the bottle goes

BOOM

Your eyes shut involuntarily but you hear the centipede smashing against cafeteria tables and whumping against the far wall.

When you can see, the centipede is still up.  Sorta.  It's peeling itself off the wall, slowly.  Moving like an old woman first thing in the morning.

As far as your threat...you haven't done a real bang up job of finding me yet, now have you?

Also, what makes you think

BWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The noise doesn't just burst into your ears. It explodes.  You don't even feel your knees as you hit the ground, hands clutching to the side of your head.  There's a warm sticky feeling on your fingers.  You are guessing the noise was enough to burst your eardrums.

If the centipede or nanos heard it, they aren't acting like it meant much to them.

Your head ringing, you get up on your feet.  Dad isn't saying anything else at the moment.

The centipede seems like it's trying to get itself into moving, but not having much luck with that.  One good hit should finish it off.

“Dad, anyone ever tell you that you’re like one of those people on the internet who begins every rebuttal with the word actually? Why would I use a telephone pole? I was being illustrative,” Jack rolls his eyes. He actually knows he behaves the same way sometimes, but that’s just the product of being the child of two super-scientists.

He sort of can’t help but think that way. Though he does try to act at least a little normal.

Speaking of which, this better not be taking as long in the real world as it is taking here. Hearing the comment about finding dad-illusion, he rolls his eyes.

“I haven’t been trying to find you, old man.  Just remember what I said the next time you think about messing with mom,” he replies as soon as the noise goes off, though his voice is dulled by the lack of functioning eardrums. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he fishes out one of the strength potions, downs it and runs over to smash the centipede.

Looking around at the nanos, he continues to debate his options.

If he guessed right and the nanos are trying to fix things, and that’s why the team was attacked by non-nano, then what happened to Hemi? Hemi went silent after they’d swarmed him, and they definitely had swarmed him. But perhaps that was just the attempt to fix whatever was going wrong.

.. but the nanos are also super tech, and doesn’t really scream like a fix to an alchemist’s ‘mind chain.’

Loading up a hex, he starts throwing them at all the circuits the nanos are working on.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 139):

You shake your fist, flinging away the centipede goo.  That thing is down.

The hexes seem to have an actual effect.  The circuits start sparking or smoking or seem to come apart.

But it's like sweeping back the tide.  The nanos just rush in and fix what goes ker-fluey.

From what you can tell, the nanos seem to be trying to install the circuitry as opposed to fixing it.  They seem to be building whatever around the walls of the room.  Where they got the parts from, who knows?

Maybe from the labs section, which as far as you know, is the only area left.

No sign of HT.

You have doors straight ahead which lead to the labs section.  That section is also glowing red.

Or you can do whatever.  It's your world. I just dance in it.

Jack throws a few more hexes as he walks out of the room, making his way deeper into the lab to look for some sort of control system. He has no idea what he is supposed to do here, but he doesn't feel like he is going to make much progress in this room. So, he progresses forward, checking his remaining elixirs as he travels.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 141):

The hall past the doors heads straight.  Two large rooms open off each side and there is a large room at the end.

The left door is closed.  There's no light coming out from under it.  There's a sign on it reading <bold>DEAD ROOM</bold>

The door on the right has been torn off it's hinges.  There's a big gaping hole.  Inside, there is a rather spacious lab with three large tubes about the size of pick up trucks in the middle.  Two of the tubes are split open, the floor covered with some kind of mucus-greenish fluid.

The large room ahead has no door.  It's an even bigger lab space.  There's a pillar of red light pulsing in the middle of it.  The space around it has been cleared.  Tables and equipment just pushed out of the way.

HT is on the floor in front of it.  One of his arms are twisted off. He's not moving.

There's someone at a computer near the back of the room.  They look up.

It's not Dad.  It's a tall man with flat plastic-looking red skin.  It's three eyes are really just slits of yellow.  It looks up at you and cocks it's head.

Them of last the are you?

“I suppose I am,” Jack replies after he takes a moment to puzzle out what the red-skinned man is saying, trying to make sense of things. Looking first at HT and then at the pillar of red light, he isn’t exactly sure what he’s seeing, but his gut instinct tells him that this is the source of the problem. That’s what HT had been trying to tell him.

As he stands there, he makes sure he knows where all of the elixirs are and is ready to throw his luck as necessary. He'll have to make the most out of every split second if the thing could beat HT so easily.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 143):

Red stands, nodding, and waves a hand.  Nanos peel off the wall and float towards him.

Agree will you?  Host a need I.  Once only and once you to this offer will I.  Time waste not Let's.

"Not going to happen," Jack says and pulls out a BOOM. Readying a hex with the other hand, he asks, "What are you and where did you come from?" he keeps the questions simple. He'd rather self destruct than let this thing make him his 'host.' But he isn't going to just automatically do that, maybe he can learn something first.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 145):

End the is beginning the and beginning the is end the.  Again begins everything or forward move to have I.  Backwards am I.

Obstacle an are you, me with not  are you if.

Red Guy raises his arm and the nanos start to form into a cylinder heading towards you.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:00, Thu 24 Mar 2022.

Jack starts throwing hexes and the BOOM at the Red Guy, followed by METAL, because why not, and then takes another of the STRENGTH potions. Once he has finished drinking, he picks up and starts throwing anything he can get his hands on, at the Red Guy. Trying to make sense of the problem. So he’s some sort of time-traveling nonsense entity.

And he’s going backwards?

Doesn’t that mean that Jack already won, since he didn’t encounter him before this? Or is causality broken?

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 147):

The nano swarm breaks around the hexes and BOOM.  Red sidesteps the hexes but can't dodge the BOOM.  As it goes off, you pop the cap on the METAL.

There are several different scenarios where what he's saying makes sense and causality is not broken. Dad chimes in, helpful as always.  Want to hear them?

The METAL tastes surprisingly like Ginger Ale.  As it rolls down your throat, you suddenly feel warm all over.  And your skin changes to....well.  Metal.  It's some kind of liquid metal.

Huh.  That's handy.  See if you can morph.

Note:  you can. You are, for a limited time, a being of liquid metal.

Have fun

Jack is glad this is the result of METAL, to be honest, he’d sort of wondered if it might not be some sort of metal wall. Heck, knowing that the Alchemist is a giant mental case, it could have also been an air-guitar followed by riffs of guitar playing for sonic attacks. With the ability to shift, he hopes that simply imagining what he wants to do is sufficient.

Then he thrusts forward in an attempt to skewer the Red Guy. If he can get a point into the guy, he injects “metal” rapidly and attempts to burst the guy apart. Ripping him apart.

"No one is stopping you from being useful."

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 149):

Are you talking to me or the colony creature over there?

You shove your hands into Red.  He seems to come apart, but then turns into waves of red that start to flow up your arm towards you.

You need to broadcast a jamming wave.  Head back to that other room.  You can use some of the circuitry the nanos were installing on the wall to rig one quickly.

Jack severs his connection with the piece that has begun being taken over by the red and turns to run back into the room that the nanos had been working on. He still doesn't know if it really is his dad, but he does trust that his dad doesn't want him getting possessed by some sort of red-goober monster. So maybe this is the right thing to do? It's hard to know.

Running to the circuits, he considers his options as quickly as he can. Trying to figure out the best way to get access without messing with the nanos.

While he considers it, he pulls out another hex and another luck. Hitting himself and Backwards-Man respectively.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 151):

I'd recommend sending part of yourself...like a hand or something...to do what I tell it to.  The rest of you can play with the colony creature.

Red barrels into the room not far behind you.  It seems to morph into a cloud and heads towards you, as if to envelop you.

Jack takes a moment to separate a chunk and reforms his foot as he shuffles sideways, throwing hexes and luck-coins. He also fishes out VINE and throws it at the Backwards Man. Still not sure he trusts, but he'd really rather not find out what happens if he is possessed by the guy.

Maybe I should just blow myself up.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 153):

Don't ever even think about doing that Son.  Dad jumps on that as soon as the thought crosses your mind.  You are too important

The VINE potion explodes in a mass of...well...vines.  Thick, knotty, thorny ones.  It's not quite effective against a being made up of nanos. But it does give you some cover for a minute.

While your foot finishes reforming, Dad alerts you.  Finished with the jammer.  Get ready.  This thing should have some kind of core.  You'll only have about fifteen seconds to find it and smash it.  Ready?  Go

Whatever he does, Red suddenly drifts apart into a thin mist of redness.

You see two glowing lights where it's eyes were.  One is glowing red.  The other glows purple.

They suddenly split apart and start flying in separate directions.

“I doubt it’d do anything to me outside this,” Jack answers the illusion-dad with a shake of the head, and prepares to launch himself at the business when it splits apart and the cores go flying in different directions. Forming a knife out of his hand, he throws it at the red one as he chases after it, trying to bring it down from range so that he can double back and go after the other one as well.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 155):

One thing about this Jack:  his pitching arm is in good shape.  You knife the red dot and it splits apart.

Suddenly, all the red in the room sort of collapses.  It's like someone just poured a dump truck full of Cherry Kool Aid from the ceiling.  It sort of splashes on the floor.

The purple eye is nowhere to be seen.

Well that worked out better than I though.

Anyway.  Good luck Son. And don't say I didn't try to warn you.

The room starts to go fuzzy.

Any parting words for Ghost-Dad before we return you back to reality?

"What the hell does that mean?" he calls after the departing voice. Warning? He hadn't told him squat, and if he'd wanted to tell him something he had ample time. Looking around at the world as it starts to go fuzzy, he waits to wake up in his own body. Hopefully nobody is poking at it with anything.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 157):

They're poking at you.

Poke poke.

You open your eyes.  HT, Gut Shot, and a guy you haven't seen before are standing around you.

You're at the school.  The underground part anyway.  The infirmary.

HT grins.  "About time there Sleeping Beauty."

"See?" says the new guy.  "I told you it wasn't the memory chain's fault."

Gut Shot shoots him a look.  "We haven't really established that yet, have we?"

New Guy sighs.  He looks at you.  "Do you like nachos?"

“Not my fault you wusses couldn’t handle a red-nano time traveler and some feral centipedes,” Jack replies to HT and reaches up to puff up his collar, clearly being sarcastic, it was obviously a shit-show and he doesn’t think it was easy in the slightest. It was mostly luck and having dad-illusion there that made it possible.

Looking at the new guy, he wonders if this is the Alchemist without the outfit and whatever else he might do, but he doesn’t ask. He figures introductions will happen naturally.

Now back in his body, his mind has sped up again and so he takes the moment to enjoy and rehash all of his memories of the events that have just transpired, making sure that they are actually properly tucked away in his memory and not in some sort of metaphysical variation of it. He also enjoys having his senses working and for a moment hovers in place before setting back down.

“Depends on the nachos, but yeah,” he replies to new guy. “Who are you?”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 159):

HT cocks an eyebrow.  "Red guy? Nanos? What're you talkin' about?"

The short guy holds up a hand.  "Hold on.  Before we get into a whole "who's on first" routine..."

He turns back to you.

"You can call me Omen.  Nice to meet you finally.

"Short version of events is this.  The memory exercise didn't work.  Not for you at any rate.  Something happened.  We'll get back to that in a bit.  But you were seperated from Hard Time and Darja.  And your mind.

"Can you tell me everything that happened after you started the exercise please?"

You can summarize if you wish.  Or just tell me if you are telling them everything from start to finish.  What I mostly need to know is if you lie about anything and/or leave anything out.  And yes, that includes the stuff about Dad.

Thanks

As usual, it's part of his personality or maybe just because he grew up invulnerable, Jack's response to the fact that he was in a seriously dangerous situation is to sort of shrug and nod. "Ah."

When asked, he answers the question completely, not leaving a single thing out. Now that his memory is fully useful again, he will even relay things like dialogues, though he’ll gloss over them if not asked to expand. He does however go into details about the circuit, thinking that perhaps it was the point all along.

He doesn’t speculate on any sort of reasons or what had actually happened, but instead listens to Omen’s explanation if one is given.

“Is your name Fred, by the way? Or was that fiction created by my subconscious when I asked Gutshot about you?” he asks Omen.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 161):

Omen frowns.  Over his head, HT and Gutshot exchange a look.  HT doesn't seem too happy about the conversation you had with Gutshot on the shuttle.

Omen nods slowly.  "Thanks for being so forthcoming.  Yeah.  I'm a Fred.  At times anyway.  But let's stick with Omen for now.

"So here's what I can tell happened.  When you tried to open up to the memory chain Al put together, something cut you loose.  You got tossed into what was probably an alternate timeline.  I couldn't find you in this one or any of the close dimensions.

"What's got my curiosity up is...the thing that cut you loose?  Seems to be in here."

He taps your forehead with the tip of one short, thick finger.  "You have quite the little defense barrier up in there.  Or more accurately, you got a sigil cut onto your soul.  That's quite the impressive thing.

"Any idea how it got there?"

Jack listens to Omen, and hearing that he is indeed Fred he begins to wonder about alternate universes and multiverse theory, also about ideas he’d read on AER about shared memories. He nods his head slightly at the explanation, though that does make him curious about Manitou. That name had caused all sorts of static in that world.

“No problem.”

He isn’t the least bit ashamed of asking questions, and doesn’t really care if they don’t like it. They should know better, he’s going to ask questions and try to figure things out. Just the way he is, at least he isn’t outright investigating half the things he clearly knows about. Despite wanting to.

“That’s interesting that I was cut loose, but Darja and HT were both thrown over there, but  .. not. Since they were both still themselves, but Darja was in Al’s body. I have an idea or two,” he answers, thinking about it a little. Then seeing as it’s Omen and Omen is sort of an expert on these things, he speculates, “Something related to Manitou.  Both when Gutshot brought it up, and when I speculated that there might be a connection to the incident, internally, I mean.. When I said to Darja if she’d heard the name she heard me say,” he pauses, “Fresca.” The word is said with a little growl in his throat.

A pause there as he lets that sink in.

“Which is extra strange given how I feel about Fresca. It was either what I actually said to her, or whoever is responsible was playing further hijinks on her.”

Thinking about the sigil in his head, he shrugs.

“I could speculate, but I doubt I’d be right. My best guess? Time-transcending wizardry,” he guesses, with a smirk.

Wait.

"Wait. What does the sigil look like?" he asks, and glancing to the side looks around the room they're in and with a burst of speed, (oh, how he missed it,) goes over to pick up something disposable and he makes a quick engraving on it with his fingernail. Little flecks of metal moving around his hand as he cuts into it with the tip of his finger."Anything like this?" he asks, holding up a depiction of the reconfigured circuit his "father" had made.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:58, Mon 04 Apr 2022.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 163):

"Fresca..."

Omen says the word with a bit of weight.  Behind him, HT and Gutshot look at each other and both shrug.

When you mention Manitou, Gutshot's eyes narrow but she doesn't say anything.  HT looks the same.

Omen is quiet for a long while after you finish talking.  He seems to be studying the tips of his fingers.

"Wizardry is one word for it.  I don't think it was per se related to time travel.  No.  I think it was the sigil."

He looks at you.  "It doesn't have a shape per se.  Not one I can describe.  I don't want to get too mystical sounding.  But carving sigils on souls or minds is less about writing an actual glyph and more about causing a realignment in a person.  Someone tinkered with some aspect of you and that was the sigil.

"If I had to guess, it's meant as a ward.  For circumstances like the one you found yourself in.  I guess a better way to describe it is like a dissociative disorder.  When someone doesn't want to think of something traumatic, their mind will focus on other things.  Like an obsession.  Or a compulsion.  In more extreme cases it can lead to a seprate identity or view of reality. Anything it takes to keep the person from thinking about one specific thing.

"In your case, it's not a psychological condition.  It's a temporal one.  If you had gone through with the training exercise, you would have come across something the sigil...or whoever set it...didn't want you to encounter.  So the sigil threw you sideways.  You were moved into an alternate timeline where the experience was 'safer' in some way.

"Even there, you encountered mentions of whatever it was the sigil wanted to avoid.  And so...Fresca."

He considers.  "Whoever wanted you to not know something meant business. If I try to undo the sigil, you'll probably die.  If I knew what the issue was the sigil wants to hide from you, it would probably attack me.  It's that pronounced.

"There is something you are not meant to know.  And your ignorance is willing to wrack up a body count to keep it that way."

Jack thinks that explains it then, Manitou did it. He wasn’t meant to see something related to their mission that would have given him some clue or something. Though that still begs the question of why his father was there. Was it an alternate universe dad, then? Strange. “I can only imagine it was time travel, since they did it when I wasn’t aware, and I’ve been aware continuously pretty much always. So, time travel to before I was born, or do it later with my consent,” he reckons aloud and scratches his head out of habitual human-behavior tendencies.

That’s not really true, of course, he knows someone with mystic skills could probably do it without him knowing it. Or maybe they can, but he doesn’t like the idea that they could mess with his soul without him knowing, right in front of him. That’s scary.

“Fuckin’ Fresca,” he repeats.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 165):

"If all that's true...he didn't see what we actually went through at that base.  Should we show him? Or tell him?"

Omen shakes his head.  "No.  That would piss the sigil off.  No telling what it would do.  I have to figure out a way to get it off him."  He pauses then looks at you.  "Assuming you want me to figure out how to remove it.  Ignorance can be bliss."

“Yes, please find a way to remove it. Though I’ve also been requesting your help to learn to defend my mind better in general,” Jack mentions to Omen as he walks over to set the metal clipboard he’d scratched back where he’d found it. It’s still a functional clipboard, no reason to dispose of it. Then again, it does have that diagram on it. Out of a concern for safety, he changes his mind, and crumbles it in his palms. Compressing it until it’s a solid cube paper weight the size of a sugar cube.

Looking back at Gutshot, he theorizes.

“It was probably fairly similar to what I experienced, just divergent at a certain point. HT’s consciousness was copied over somehow, so he recognized when it changed and was pretty alarmed,” he mentions as he returns to where he'd been standing originally. Checking his phone for a moment to see if he'd missed any calls during the Trip.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 167):

She shakes her head. "There are similarities, yes.  But in yours everyone died.  At least Hemi and Alchemist did.  In what really happened, everyone was fine.  Jack Pot got a sprained ankle, but that was it."

Omen shrugs.  "It could have been a reality where the Jack Sharpe there was going into the exercise as was the HT...I mean Hard Time and Darja.  Don't sweat that too much.  When you're dealing with alternate realities, trying to catalouge the differences can become a real headache.

"As for your request for training, I heard.  But I've had some things that came up which took a higher priority.  Still have one going on.  We'll start training right after I wrap it up.  Should only be a week or so more."

Marlene called.  Darja sent a text asking if you were okay.  Lydia texted a few times.  Her parents have her under lock down.  Not that she's in trouble.  They just seem to be worried/scared over what happened at homecoming.  Was that only a week ago?  Or was it two weeks?  Time flies when you're hopping bodies.

Kevin also texted, using the code you two worked out.  We need to talk

Jack as always is multitasking like a boss. Not even seeming the least bit distracted as he replies to his texts, his thumb blurring over the digital keyboard without breaking eye contact or apparently breaking eye contact as he can glance down so quickly:

To Marlene: What’s up?
To Lydia: That sucks, are we still on for that date?
No response from Ooter, so he sends a follow-up. He’d like to get his project made.
The response from Kevin gets a simple: 10pm.

The talk with Omen earns a nod at the mention of when they should be able to do that training. “Sounds good, you have my info when you’re available.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 169):

Lydia is the first to respond back.  hell to the yeah!  I'll sneak out if i need to

Kevin sends back a simple yes

Omen nods.  "I will.  One thing though.  If you think that sigil is acting up again, contact me right away.  Well.  Contact this guy..." He jerks a thumb at HT.  "I can be hard to reach at times."

Marlene responds.  your dad came by.  come home when you can

Jack confirms the words of Omen with a nod, he has no idea what it acting up would feel like, but he imagines it’s one of those things that he’d recognize when it happens. Especially considering that his body runs a bit like a Swiss watch, even the slightest deviation should be immediately obvious. “Will do, nice meeting you Omen,” he says by way of making an exit, though they haven’t officially ‘dismissed’ him, he wants to see aunt Marlene pronto.

The response from Lydia gets a reply: No sneaking out, it’d make it harder in the future. I can come watch a movie with you at your house if they’re being sensitive. Assuming your parents are cool with that.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 171):

fine.  Be all grown up on me.  I'll ask

Gutshot doesn't put up much of a fuss about you taking off.  HT tells you to check in in the morning.

---

There's a bottle of tequila on the table.  Marlene isn't a drinker, at least not that you've noticed.  But she seems to have poured herself a couple of shots.

She shakes her head.  "That sonuvabitch.  He just strolls in like he owns the place.  Wouldn't answer any of my questions.  Even had the nerve to forget my name.  Kept callin' me Marion.  Arrogant prick."

She points at an envelope on the table.

"He just came by apparently to leave that for you.  Didn't even ask about your mother."

She starts mumbling various curses.

The envelope is still sealed.  Marlene is obviously curious but didn't snoop.

The letter inside is written in Dad's near, businesslike handwriting.


Hello.

To start with, I am not your "Dad".  You are not my "Jack".

Short version:  I am from an alternate timeline.  My world ended and I escaped.  I happened upon your consciousness in that other alternate timeline you were in.  I helped you out so I could follow you to your world.  It's not an exact match to my world.  My 'Marion' is your 'Marlene' for example.  Bet she's complaining about me not knowing her name too.

I am not interested in interfering in your life.  I am sure you are not interested in dealing with me.  Normally I would have just faded away.

However, I have been in your world for a couple of weeks now (I arrived a bit out of time sync with you).  In monitoring the current global situation, I have noticed that the problems that lead to the end of my world are occurring in yours.

I do not know exactly what caused my world to end.  I was too busy dealing with some business issues and my Jack's Mother's crazy bullshit to pay much attention.  But as events began to spiral out of control, I was able to determine a couple of things.

First, my Jack was involved.  I do not know how exactly. But he was at the epicenter of the event when it began.

Second, I was able to find out that my Jack and a friend of his who looked like an orangutan were investigating the murders of certain clergy.  Their names are below.  In looking at the recent news, I know the first of these clergy men has been killed within the past week.

Consider this thanks for giving me a roadmap to a compatible world.  Rest assured I have no interest in being part of your life.  You have your "Dad".

Whatever it is that is about to go down, please do a better job with it than my Jack did.

Goodbye

Jason William Sharpe

The Murdered Clergy

Father Ambrose Kileen (already dead)

Sister Mary Francis Smith

Rev. Lucas Billmon

Rabbi Solomon "Sol" Luboski

Paster Nina Hardgrove

Seeing Sol on the list given, Jack checks on the old man quickly and then folds up the letter and puts it into his pants pocket.

“Marlene, he didn’t forget, he’s from an alternate universe, he should have just told you, no reason for secrecy. Also, for whatever reason he implies he intends to lay low, which I doubt, but I don’t think you’ll see him again,” he tells her.

He doesn’t buy that attitude in the letter at all. Like changing universes somehow takes all the fight out of his dad, and everything else is the same? Yeah right.

The timing makes him think that maybe the murders have just begun and that might be what Kevin wants to see him about. He’ll have to bring a copy of the list. Once again, no reason for secrecy.

The big thing now is how much of the Guardians to involve in his investigation of this going forward, alternate-Jack had seen the world end by working it alone with the Monkey. So, including more people would probably be for the best. But he decides to wait until after the meeting with Kevin before deciding.

Sol is watching reruns of Firefly while seated in his easy chair.  No worries yet.

Marlene blinks at you.  "What? Alternate what? Like in bad sci fi movies? Really?  That's a thing?"

Lydia texts you.  Bowling on Saturday?  My Mom has to meet you to make sure you're not like a serial killer.  So she'll drop me off and pick me up. But it's better than vids at my place.

---

Kevin is eating light today.  Only two chili cheesburgers and one small order of onion rings.  He must be on a diet.

"Ooter asked me to tell ya he hasn't forgotten you.  The Feds pinched him.  I busted him out and he's holed up in his other secret base.  But he had to start over on your order."

Kevin sips his Diet Crème Soda.  He really is on a diet.

"I wanted to give you a heads up.  Roger's put out some feelers about you.  He was hitting some info brokers with pictures of you.  I scragged 'em.  Fed him some false intel.  But he is interested.

"I also have a lead on that phantom you saw.  The guy who was burying those kids alive.  I'll share more about it when I have something more detailed.  But I think the guy's done it for quite a while.  I've found 22 missing children cases that I think might be connected to him."

He glances at you.  "What's up?"

Jack gets himself a burger and a Dr. Pepper before sitting down.

“Ah, I should have done that mission for him. I had a feeling,” Jack says when he hears about Ooter getting caught.

The info-broker thing makes him a bit unhappy. “Me-me, or me with a luchadore mask like he’d have run into at homecoming?” he inquires. The former is a big deal, the latter isn’t. He can just replace the mask, and frankly, he isn’t too worried about that. But the former would also be strange, because they’d “been” at the same school at the same time, and Jack does stick out.

“The Sandman, okay, let me know, I’ll do anything I can to help with that,” he confirms.

Jack pulls out the list he copied with his own hand, rather than explaining where he got it from. “You’re the one who told me you needed to meet,” he points out when the Monkey looks at him expectantly. But he has something to talk about of course.

“So, through means both mysterious and amazing, I have a list of clergy who are going to get murdered by someone. I also have reason to believe that the world might end, and it may or may not be related to that.”

Boom, mic drop.

"Here's the list."

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 175):

"La luchadore version, but don't get too relaxed."  Kevin wipes sauce off a finger and picks up a curly fry.  "The outfit I raided had copies of the school yearbook and footage from all it's surveillance footage.  Including stuff from neighboring businesses.  They had pretty high tech body matching software running too.  I kiboshed it all. But that means Roger was will to pay quite a penny to get the intel. And if those brokers can do it, so can the Feds.  The Program should have your back. But..."

He takes a bite of the burger and then almost coughs it up when you do your little mic drop.

I am assuming you copied the list or tore it off the main letter.  I am acting as if Kevin did not see the note from Alt-Dad.  If that's not the case, let me know

He wipes his mouth with a napkin and takes a sip of soda.  He looks over the list.

"Isn't this Sol guy your neighbor?"

He is quiet a moment longer.

"I knew about Kileen.  Was already looking into it because of how he was killed.  And also why.  Him getting offed isn't making sense.  Shit."

Kevin looks over the list for quite a while.

"Okay.  I'm not gonna pry into how you got this list.  But I am gonna ask.  Are you in on this one?"

“I try to walk different and slouch more, but I’ll make an effort to go around and scrub footage. Any chance there’s a list of data brokers I could take to the exosphere and make them disinclined to disclose my information?” Jack asks, he takes the safety of his aunt and Lydia, in this case, rather seriously, and they’re his weaknesses with someone like Roger.

Eating his burger and sipping at his Dr. Pepper, he idly nods at the list he copied for Kevin.

“He is.”

Hearing about Kileen, he frowns slightly, this time only slightly on purpose. He’s not pleased that they’re already behind on the count, and he’d like to get out ahead of this.

“I’m here to help, fully. Should I have the Program move them all to the base? If it’s them specifically, and not in general, it could save us some legwork?”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 177):

Kevin seems to ignore you for a moment, still studying the list.  This must be his "deep in thought" mode.

"The Program wouldn't have jurisdiction to move them.  Citizens can't just be taken off the street and moved to a secure facility because some list showed up from an unnamed source that says they might be targets.

"I'm not saying I doubt you at all. But most hero teams aren't going to do something that could be construed as kidnapping civies by the press without  solid evidence.  You can ask 'em.  But they're gonna wanna know where you got the list.  And if you're not willing to tell me where you got it, are you willing to tell them?"

He meets your eyes and taps the first name on the list.  "Kileen was a Catholic priest who was found raped to death.  I won't go into the details, but someone had used something metallic.

"First thought might be that it's related to the pedophile scandal.  That was my first thought.  But the more I looked into it, the less likely it seemed.  Kileen was not only never accused, he was pretty vocal about victim rights on the issue.  And he had a long history of both trying to work with survivors as well as lodging complaints against the bishops who let it go on."

He taps the next name on the list.  Smith.  "She does a lot of work with soldiers who suffer PTSD.  She actually travels all over the country to offer free therapy and help families get help from the VA.

"This guy..." The next name on the list.  Billmon.  "He's been working on reconciling urban communities and the police.  He wants tighter scrutiny of police brutality investigations.  But he also wants to make sure cops get more training and counseling.  He talks a lot about how brutal a cop's job is and how that affects them."

The next name.  Sol.  "Mister prison ministry.  Your guy Sol does a shit ton of work with prisoners and the criminally insane.  You heard of Jabberwocky?"

You know the name.  A former hood who supposedly got religion in prison and is now a member of the cape group Star Squad down in Atlanta.  "Your guy Sol is the one who brought him to our side.  Well.  Your side.  I guess I'm technically a cowl.  But Jabberwocky credits Sol with helping him clean up.  Sol's apparently pretty good at that too.  A lot of prisons invite him to work with their populations.

"Lastly is Hardgrove.  She does a lot of work with the gay community.  Trying to reconcile them with the more hardline religious fronts.

"You notice something about all these names?"

“I was thinking more of inviting them,” Jack mentions when Kevin starts talking about how they can’t just get snatched up, and when he hears about how kind and charitable they are, he adds, “They might do it just to make things easier for us.”

Not that he thinks that’s necessarily the way to play it, but being a teenager, he can’t help but be a bit defensive at the concept. Sol seems like he might be willing to trust Jack on his word, and he could convince the rest? Whatever.

Listening to their credentials he answers, “They’re all the sort that fundamentalists and extremists would dislike, though not of the same religion so probably not an extremist, but could be a person who has a hardline right-wing nutjob vibe to them. Though in Sol’s case, I’ve never heard of someone being anti-reformed hood.

They’re all probably older, I assume? They all have European names, so I would guess they’re Caucasian?  Have they ever done missionary work overseas? Gone to any conferences together?” he speculates things that might be common among them, they’re all clergy from the Twin Cities area.

He is thinking about whether Kevin really should know about his dad-from-another-universe and makes a decision, “Take out your electronics and lose the batteries.”

Once they’ve fully gone into supre-secret mode, he reveals the details.

“My dad and mom are super-scientists, my mom is actually one of the people Sol visits, coincidentally. She’s at the mental hospital up near Saint Cloud, as of a month or two ago,” he begins. “My dad is probably the smarter of the two, at least he’s more deliberate and focused, mom is the troubled super-genius, he’s the megalomaniacal. Anyway, I was ..  somehow, sucked into an alternate dimension, alternate-universe dad latched on, followed me back. I’ve been wondering if he’s the one who drew me over there to begin with? Hard to say. He gave me the list and told me that you and I were investigating it, and then the world ended. He wasn’t there to see it.”

Kevin listens to your explanation with a deadpan expression.  Then says,

"Anyone ever told you you're a fun date? Cos they should.  They should tell you you're a fun date. Cos all that sounded like nothing but fun."

He sighs and reaches for his drink.  "You know...you hear about end of the world scenarios. But actually being in one...

"Okay.  That info changes things yet again.

"Off the top of my head, I can see one of three scenarios.

"First, your alt-Dad is behind it.  When did all this stuff with the alternate reality go down again? This morning? Never mind then. It's not him.  Kileen was killed a week ago.

"Then second, someone is offing religious people who don't tow the line. But to your point, they're all of differing faiths.  So while it could be extremists, the theory loses some ground on the fact it would have to an extremist who cares about both Judiac, Catholic, and Protestant religions.

"Which leads us to the last theory."  He finishes off his soda and shakes the cup, listening to the ice jingle.  "Someone needs the blood of the righteous or something like that as part of some big ritual.  Magic isn't really my bag.  I've only had to deal with some low level types before.

"We need to talk to Omen. He in town?"

“I am a fun date, my girlfriend says so,” Jack says as he drinks from his Dr. Pepper in a manner that somehow conveys he’s cocky about this fact, in a humorous way.

Listening to the Monkey then list off the suggestions, he nods at each and the follow-up.

“He was, I'll have him meet us somewhere if he's around,” he mentions and starts to put the battery back into his phones. Turning them back on.

Getting up from the booth, he walks out of the restaurant and then walking into a blindspot where no cameras can see him between buildings, he shoots off into the sky and then horizontally several blocks to make the call.

"Hey HT, can you have Omen call me if he's still in town?"

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 181):

It takes HT a few minutes to respond.

Will do.  Anything up?

Jack sends back: I’ll let him brief you.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 183):

Omen doesn't ping you back that night.

Anything else you want to do tonight?

Jack goes back to the burger joint and tells Kevin that he'll be in touch once he has Omen lined up, but it'll probably need to be a quick meeting since he's such a busy guy apparently. He'll probably have to swoop them over to find Kevin for the tete-a-tete.  He also gets the addresses for the other members of the clergy and makes a promise to check on them regularly until they can figure something out.

"Do we want to send guards?" he asks. "I'm sure the Program can put a few undercover sorts on most of them without breaking the system they have, but it'll mean bringing Gutshot and HT in on it, not just Omen."

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 185):

Kevin pushes his tray through the slot on the garbage can, dumping everything on it into the bin.  He sets the tray itself on top of the can.

"If we're talkin' end of all life, yeah.  I think we do need to bring the Program into it.  Do they know about alt-Dad?"

“Yes, but when you texted me about meeting, I figured we’d meet first since alt-dad had mentioned you being part of it,” Jack explains. He’d been uncertain about bringing them in, because alt-him hadn’t, and maybe there was something he still needed to learn, but he’d been leaning toward it as well. Kevin’s opinion seals the deal.

Running his hands through his hair he nods before they step out into the parking lot.

“I’ll text you when they get Omen, or we'll plan for something the day after tomorrow if he hasn't shown up. The time-table seemed short, so I'd rather not wait too long. Also, do you have addresses for the clergy? I'll start eyeing them.”
This message was last edited by the player at 03:04, Mon 25 Apr 2022.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 187):

"Yeah.  I'll drop a fileshare with all the info I can gather on the targets by our secure site.  Give me a few hours.  You should have it in the morning."

He looks back at you for a second.  "You mind if I ask you somethin'?  Why do you even go to high school?  Your life is pretty much far from ordinary.  Why not just put on the tights and join a team?  There's plenty that would love to have you."

“Social interactions to keep me grounded and help me learn to be as normal as I can, when I’m not being a cape,” Jack answers the question, turning to look at Kevin. “There are a lot of things I don’t need to do. Like eating, but I still enjoy the flavors. Life needs to be more than just me in a cape, flying around the world.

Maybe eventually I’ll leave Earth behind, but I’ll have my memories at least, and I’d rather fill them with good things than seeing the worst things humanity has done. I suppose that all depends on how things go in the future. How long it takes us to get to something close to Star Trek, that’s my hope, you know? Get Earth to a Utopia, then go explore the universe..

But until then, I’ll try to find time to be normal and enjoy life.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 189):

Kevin purses his lips for a moment and then shrugs.  "Okay.  Never mind me sayin' something.

"Just do me one favor.  If you decide to go the other route, give me a heads up first."

---

You get the file from Kevin a little after one.  "Looking" around, you see the various clergy, all safe and snug in their beds.  No one seems to be lurking about.

School rolls on.  Class today is fairly boring.  Whitefall is still out from her injuries during that wreck.  Mrs. Hollister is of course out.  You have two subs instead.  Everyone in class is busy speculating about what really went down homecoming night.  Some say it was a government experiment gone wrong.  Some say a hood was trying to take the school hostage.  Others say it was an alien invasion.

Most of the teachers just try to act like nothing happened.  Casey on the other hand...

"We all know the term MIE.  Meta Impact Event.  We see them on the news all the time.  An MIE is defined as any occurrence where meta activity fifty or more non-related bystanders.  So Brain Death shows up at the bowling alley and threatens to hold everyone inside hostage.  Let's say it's league night and there are a hundred people present.  You'll hear about it on the news as and MIE.

"But if there were only say fifteen people present...it's a slow night at the bowling alley...it will be termed an LRME or a LaRaMiE.

"Anyone know why there's a difference?"

"Lansing vs. Traveller's Insurance"  Colby on the fast draw.

Casey nods.  "The difference was made because of insurance carriers trying to fudge claims, saying a meta event was not impactful.  Media picked it up and now we have MIEs and Laramies.

"Now of course, as you all know, MIEs get ratings.  One to five."</gray>

"Fives are like when someone tries to blow up Little Rock or take over the internet right?"

Casey nods at the girl three row's over question.  <aqua>"Fives are the big dramatic events.  Your example of when Tempest tried to level the city of Little Rock with tornados is a good example.

"But what makes up a one to four?"

He writes numbers    $    radius on the white board.

"There is an actual equation that's used.  Numbers means number of bystanders involved.  Important to note:  it's bystanders.  People who are unfortunate enough to be at the wrong time and place.  And they can be meta or not.  Anyone who is actively involved isn't counted.  So if the police show up, they don't count in the calculation.  They might be normies. But they are actively involved.

"Dollars...well.  You can guess what that means.  How much damage was done and what's it going to cost to fix things up.

"The last one radius concerns how much area was in danger.  Let's say Bad Guy X threatens to detonate a bomb that can blow up four square blocks.  The radius for htat occurrence will be four square blocks.  If Bad Guy X slugs it out with Good Guy A, and their fight spreads over 10 city blocks, the radius is now going to be considered 10 city blocks.

"Okay.  I mentioned there was an equation that's used to rank an MIE. Which of these three factors..."  He taps numbers    $    radius, one right after the other.  "...do you think carries the most weight in that equation? In other words, the equation is X squared plus y plus half of z.  What do you think is X?  What do you think is Y?  And what do you think is Z?"

While he feels a bit bad about the circumstances of his teacher’s not being in school, Jack is pleased not to have to deal with the obnoxiousness of a particular teacher. In fact, he’s fairly certain she was targeted for that very reason. So, maybe he might actually get something done in that class without a negative Nancy to ruin everything.

Jack already knows the answer to the question, of course, he has photographic memory and has read college level textbooks on the subject, but he can engage in conversation, keeping his speculations “normal” guesses.

“Since it's an insurance company determination, it has to be the money, but they’re all tied up. People need insurance payouts, property damage over so many blocks too and I bet a skyscraper is worth more than a hundred people, so they rate the event higher for property,” he answers. “So, x is money, y is property, z is people. The cold calculus of the cost of human life.”

He shrugs.

He’d tried to make it sound like a guess.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 191):

"That's actually what most people think.  But..."  Casey draws a Y over the $.  "...it's only the second most important factor.  Lots of commentators get this one incorrect, though their reasoning is sound."

Now that you think about it, all the references you read were pieces by journalists.  You can't recall seeing any kind of official type document or textbook discussing this.

Colby also seems puzzled.  "That sounds...almost too good to be true.  It can't be numbers."

Casey nods.  "That's right.  It would be too good to be true if it were numbers, i.e. people."  He draws a Z over NUMBERS.

He then taps RADIUS.

"This gets the heaviest weight in the MIE calculation.  Anyone want to make a guess why?"

“Possibly the same reasoning as the Gransy-Moller Scale, the larger the radius that can be affected, the more dangerous that Meta is considered,” Jack once again chimes in with a raised-hand, and a guess that’s meant to help keeping the discussion going. He doesn’t mind being viewed as a teacher’s pet, though it’s mostly with Mr. Casey because he considers this class one of the most important for him. He enjoys the subject because it’s relevant to his life and he can see how it works or doesn’t.

He doesn’t mind not always being correct.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 193):

Casey nods his head enthusiastically.

"Correct.  Exactly correct.  Radius is given the most weight because the farther afield a meta can threaten, the more likely these numbers..."  He taps both $ and Numbers in quick succession.  "...will be higher as well.

"So on a scale of 1 to 5, what do you think the incident during home coming rated?"

"Do we even know it was meta related?"

“One,” Jack speculates, once again, to keep the conversation moving. Mr. Casey really likes to ask those questions, but he can appreciate it, it’s probably one of those ways that he’d learn best if he didn’t memorize everything already. It resonates with his way of thinking. “Or a Laramie.” He tries to think of how it would have appeared from a civilian point of view.

The activities in the school itself were probably unknown to someone like Mr. Casey, same with the bombs, and the stuff in the underground base, obviously. The converted assault van in the parking lot had been dealt with by Darja on the downlow.

Roger had just gone after a few people and made like he was threatening everyone, but it never actually amounted to anything. So, would they rate it higher? He doesn’t think so.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 195):

Others in the class think two or three.

Casey finally answers.  "It was considered a two.  The numbers are what jacked it up.  Also...and this is something we did not talk about this time...the fact that children...Sorry.  You guys are still considered children for these purposes...were involved.

"But we'll get into nuances tomorrow.  I'm going to assign a project now that will be due in two weeks.  Kind of a creative writing assignment.

"We're going to reverse engineer some MIEs.  You will turn in five situations, one for each of the five levels.  You will detail out how the situation occurs, who is involved, where it occurs, and how it resolves.  You may use real hoods, capes, and cowls in your scenarios, or you can make them up.  You can base a scenario on an actual incident. But you will need to vary it from the factual account in some significant way.  And don't think I won't know which ones are purely factual incidents.  I'm a meta-nerd folks.  I know all the incidents.

"We will work in groups of threes.  I'll let you chose your partners.  Don't rush into it just yet.  We still need to cover some stuff over the next couple of lessons like environmental impact, demographic considerations, and other miscellaneous factors.

"But do start thinking of your scenarios.  Let me know tomorrow who is in your group."

The bell rings.

Jack turns to Colby and Darja, knowing that they’ll be his group and walks over to them as he slings his bag over his shoulders and slides his hands into his pockets. “I’ll write it up and send it to you guys to review, make suggestions and we’ll add more fluff and change things as we learn more, sound good? Should be done in ten,” he says and pulls out his phone and starts writing up the paper on a Google Doc, sending them the link for it so that they can see him typing in real-time.

Though he does double-check his work on the numbers and radius by hunting down an explanation on the ratios, since their books and his previous reading on the topic had been sub-par. He also decides to make the paper silly, because it’s more amusing to him.

For the tier one, he apparently needs to think smaller for a one. Over fifty, but under the amount at homecoming: a crazy meta wearing an inside out Captain Kirk mask, and keeps showing up all over town looking creepy.. and blowing things up, the number at the end is attenuated for the needs of the assignment as far as he can tell.

For the tier two, he tells the story of a runaway red nanite swarm controlled by a man who goes backwards through time, making sure the numbers line up.

For tier three, a crazy bodyswitching jackhole plants a bunch of devices in random places around town, and threatens a bunch of people. This time, the bombs went off, the numbers and the amount of damage are once again attenuated.

For tier four, a baby is hit by an enlargement ray which makes it super-huge, and it ends up toddling across a huge section of a city before it gets shrunk down again. The casualties are high and the damage is large scale, but not quite city leveling.

For tier five, he tells the tale of a fourteen foot tall multi-armed gorilla alien who set off tsunamis by raising a ship from the Laurentian abyss—and the hero lost his giant spaceship, because intergalactic bureaucrats stole it, oh, and the waves wiped out a bunch of coasts. But the real tragedy was the loss of the spaceship. He wanted that spaceship.

By the time he has reached his locker, he sends his friends a text: Doc is up and editable, feel free to make suggestions or change anything, just thought I'd do the bulk of the work since it only takes me a few minutes. <3

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 197):

Gotta rejigger something.  Will answer your post tomorrow.  Thanks

In reply to Editor-in-Chief (msg # 198):

Sorry for the delay

Colby frowns.  "Wait.  That sounds like you'll do the assignment all on your own.  I actually wanna write up at least one of them myself.  Let me do the Level 2 if you don't mind."

Darja nods.  "Yeah. I kinda want to take a crack at this as well.  I can do the level 4.   We'll work ours up and send them to you Jack.  Then why don't we talk it through and decide which ones to use."

---

You "check in" on the clergy.  They seem to be doing Godly kind of stuff.  One of them is holding hands with a crying woman, apparently comforting her as she recounts a traumatic event.  Sol is teaching a room full of inmates how to read.  Another one is sorting clothing donations at a homeless shelter.

These people are more squeaky clean then you are.

HT texts.  Omen has some time tonight.  Can you come to the gym at 8 tonight?

---

When you arrive at the gym, Omen and HT are sitting on some workout benches, talking shit.  HT nods at you and jerks a thumb at Omen.  "Here he is.  You want me to vamoose?"

“Not like that Colbster, I meant I’d provide the bulk, you guys just help make it pretty and provide your own flavor,” Jack tells Colby, and reaches out to pat him on the back. He nods at Darja, meaning much the same for her as well. He doesn’t mind anyone contributing, but as he demonstrates, it’s just so that they can work on things as they go without worrying, and less so that he can ‘do all the work for them.’

---

Good to see.

To HT: Yes.

To Monkey: 8pm @the gym.

---

Jack waves as he walks in and shakes his head, “No need for that, we’re just waiting for tall, dark and hairy. He was already on the case.” And moves over to take a seat on another of the weight bunches, idly picking up a 45lb. plate and flipping it with the tips of his fingers. Like a fidget spinner for the super-strong.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 200):

Omen raises an eyebrow.  "Tall, dark, an'-"

"He probably means Monkey.  The Minneapolis one.  Not...that other guy."  HT looks at you, frowning.  "I wish you'd told me ahead a' time.  He's not authorized to be here Jack.  The security team will treat him as a hostile.  And he'll probably smack them around.  I need to let them know-"

"Too late."  Kevin drops from the ceiling, landing softly despite the distance.  He's fuzzed out.  He glances at you and Omen, then nods at HT.  "Relax.  I just turned off your security system for a bit."

"Oh well yeah.  That's muuuuuuuuuuccccch better."

Omen laughs.  He reaches out a hand to Kevin.  "I'll turn it back on.  Nice to meet you.  Omen."

HT and Kevin already seem introduced.  Kevin looks over at you.  "It's your party.  Didja wanna fill them in?"

 “He can get past security, he can almost sneak up on me,” Jack points out, it’s not arrogance, he just knows his senses are many times better than a normal human’s. He’d almost not heard Kevin on the roof that one time at the University, and he’d gotten way closer than Jack had thought possible. It was like saying that he should have to let the bouncer know he was coming so that HT didn’t get beat up. Or something like that.

Smiling a little, he nods at Kevin as he proves the point rather adeptly.

Jack waits for them to get introduced and then nods and pulls out the list, “Alternate Universe dad hitched a ride from that other universe. He implied that the world was going to end, quite possibly, if we don’t figure out who is killing these people. Monkey has been investigating, Sol, on the list there, is my downstairs neighbor. I’d like to put a detail on all of them, if you have the resources.”

Having said that, he waits for any comments from Kevin, and will solicit with a: “Monkey had a theory,” if necessary to prompt why they are including Omen.

While he’s sitting there listening in, he checks in on everyone. Doing his normal scans of the area and specific people. His friends, family, girlfriend and the “people to watch over” listing.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 202):

Everyone seems to be a ok at the moment.

Kevin runs through the options.  Omen listens, nodding his head and frowning, apparently in thought.  HT looks like...well...HT.

Omen waits until Kevin is done.  "This kind of fits with the investigation I have going on.  Putting it simply, about a week ago, someone tried to summon something rather nasty into this plane.  The timing would coincide with that first murder.

"I haven't been able to pin point the what, where, or who.  Just the when and that the attempt was made.

"The manner of death for that priest...you sure it had nothing to do with the molestion scandal?"

Kevin shrugs.  "I worked on that angle first. But this guy doesn't fit the profile for a child molester.  No victims had ever come forward against him.  And now that I think it through, framing it in the way that they did, wouldn't we automatically think it had something to do with the sex abuse scandal?"

"Meaning someone wanted to throw everyone off the trail.  Yeah, that is one possible explanation."

"It also raises the question of why they thought it would be necessary to do so.  If they were using his death to bring over...whatever.  Then they must have known there was a possibility they couldn't succeed.  Otherwise, why try to hide anything?"

HT nods. "That makes sense.  So you think maybe in this alternate world, these guys tried five times before gettin' it right?"

"Possibly.  Or they need to complete a certain number of sacrifices.  I can only pick up traces of the magic that was used.  It's not like anything I've come across before.  it's almost...not magic.  More like..."

He shakes his head. "I can't really describe it.  It's more like a zeitgeist is floating around.  It's too difficult to explain."

"Maybe start by using smaller words?"

"It's a prevalent belief that defines a certain era in history.  Like the way people were excited about intellectualism in the Renaissance.  Or the way people were stupid about free love in the sixties."

"Oooooh-kay.  I guess that kinda makes some sort of sense.  So you're saying whatever happened with the way most people are feelin' about things these days?"

"Kind of.  Yeah."

"So...what are people feelin' about things these days?"

Neither Omen nor Kevin seem to be able to answer that one.

What was Jack doing at the suspected time?

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 204):

That would have been before the memory trip storyline...I think he probably would have been on a date with Lydia

“Well, we talked about how the common motivator any killer would have for all of these targets would be extremist conservatism and religious nut-jobs, though they’d have to be rather eclectic in their views. Monkey has researched everyone on the list and they’re all ‘good folks’ doing hard work to help minorities and such,” Jack says and will repeat any of that explanation, if Kevin doesn’t. “So the common zeitgeist involved would be a negative one?”

He sets the piece of paper down while they think about that.

Once they’ve had a chance to digest that idea, he adds another comment, since they’re all pondering on the first bit: “Also, of note, my alternate-dad said I was ‘at the center’ of the problem when it happened, though he wasn’t sure exactly what happened. So it could just be a coincidence that I was investigating this at the time.”

A pause again as he talks.

“Also, Roger? Monkey here says he's been going to info-brokers about me.”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 206):

When you mention the Info-Brokers, things get...weird.

Kevin kind of stiffens up, like you just told everyone some deep dark secret of his.

Omen sits up and glares at Kevin.  "How would you know-"

HT sits up as well, raising a hand in between the two of them.  "O.  We're on the same side here.  End of the world, remember?  Let's focus on what's an actual issue."

Kevin scratches the side of his face and then shrugs.  "Anyway.  I don't think Roger has anything to do with the end of the world thing."

"How can you be sure?"

"It's not his..."  Kevin hunts for the word.  "...style.  He'll try to kill someone, yeah. But not before he's had a chance to fuck with them.  He hasn't really had a chance to fuck with the world the way he wants to."

HT barks a laugh.  "Sad that that's what reassures us."  He glances at Omen.  "So we got a relation with what you were lookin' into.  We need to put eyes on all these holy folks. But-"

"What if that just causes them to switch out targets?" Omen finishes for him.  He thinks.  "Let's go with a bait and switch option.  I'll pose as one of the holy rollers.  Who was next on the list?  Sister Mary?"

"You'll look real cute in a habit.  How 'bout askin' Gutsy to pose as the nun?  You can be Lucas Billmon."

Omen nods.  "Set up security on the last two.  Isn't the rabbi your neighbor Jack?  You can assist with the survey on him."  He looks at Kevin.  They exchange deadpan expressions for a moment.  "I'm assuming you've already looked into the circumstances around Kileen's murder?"

Kevin nods.  "Yeah.  I'm going to keep running that angle.  There's never a perfect crime.  There'll be some clue."

"We agree on that.  If not, you can always go run to a broker."

"O. Knock it off." HT barks this.  He looks at Omen like a drill sarge who needs to beat a mouthy recruit down.

Omen just shrugs.  "I'll get to work then.  HT, we'll coordinate through you."

He then disappears.

HT sighs.  He looks at you.  "I need to talk to Kevin.  Can you head out?  I'll call you later.  And thanks for bringing this to us."

Need to know if you're going to leave and/or eavesdrop on the conversation.

Thanks

"I meant another being like Roger, not Roger in particular."

What could possibly cause that sort of response? Of course, everyone has their various feelings, but pragmatically, it’s like a spy knowing the name of and snooping on an arms dealer. James Bond isn’t less a spy (not that he’s a good spy) because he knows arms dealers and info brokers. That’s the job, knowing things. Jack doesn’t get it, and he’s fairly certain Kevin hadn’t asked him not to share that tidbit.

Without knowing things, he couldn’t have told Jack about the snooping. It was a benefit, not a drawback.

“Sure, I can look after Sol. Send me a message if anyone sees anything, as always,” he tells them as he gets to his feet.

Looking at HT when he says he needs to talk to the Monkey and nods.

"Sure, see you guys."

Leaving. Not gonna eavesdrop.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:09, Wed 11 May 2022.

Bwah ha ha ha ha is all I have to say.

Moving on.

HT gets some program goons taking shifts, watching the clergy.  Some of them are easy to spot, though to be fair that's because you know what to look for.  Others must be good or negligent because you can't tell they are there.  HT assures you they are there.

Gutshot is an interesting nun.  Her disguise is pretty on point.  If you didn't have a good idea what her voice sounded like and couldn't see the guns she had hidden in holsters on her body, you wouldn't know she wasn't the real nun.

You can't tell any difference in Omen's disguise.  He might not have switched places at all.

Darj and Colby send you draft copies of their scenarios and comment on yours.  The three of you hash things out and you feel fairly confident in the project.

Kevin pings you a couple of times.  He only mentions the info brokers in relation to you.  He doesn't mention what happened at the gym.  Roger has gotten jack and squat thus far.  I'm seeding some false intel.  So if you hear a rumor that you're really a twenty two year old Filipino who likes Sinatra and adores Judy Garland, that's me.

Lydia is wearing a tight, fuzzy sweater when you see her at the bowling alley.  Her face lights up when she sees you.

"Hey Boyfriend!"  The two of you share a fine smooch.  "Feels like forever since I saw you."

The bowling alley is busy, but it is Saturday night.  Lydia has a lane already.

"Hope you don't mind bowling a few games.  I wanna practice cos I'm thinkin' of joining a league.  Yeah.  I know. Very Big Lebowski.  But I like bowling.

"You mind if I ask..."  Her eyes dart around, as if to make sure no one is listening.  She then leans in closer.  "Do you...like...enjoy games?  I mean.  I figure you can ace them all cos...you know.  You're you."

On the ones he can’t see, Jack takes the time to try to find them because it’ll be a good learning exercise. He tries not to stoop to the point of looking in their pockets and such, but he feels like he should learn to be at the skill level of being able to spot a high-level surveillance setup.

The message from Kevin gets a response: As funny as that is, you should make them believable, or he’ll know he’s being trolled and will keep looking. I’d prefer he thinks I’m someone from the middle of the jungles in Amazonia and was visiting someone, so he spends three months trying to hack his way through the jungle. I mean, I know you know that, but that’s my two cents. Thanks tho.

Seeing his girlfriend in that tight sweater, he swoons a little on the inside. He's a lucky boy.

“Hey beautiful,” he replies and wraps his arms around her.

He shakes his head at the question of minding.

“You can ask me anything you want, Lyds. Depends on the game, I can hold back in some ways, not so much in others. Like, I don’t think I could deliberately slow my reflexes to the point that I’d ever lose at air hockey, but in pool I only really have good control of my muscles, so I’m fairly normal. Obviously, all contact sports are out.  Why do you ask?”

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 210):

Remind me not use humor on you going forward.  Of course I didn't use that ID jackass.  I have done this before.  Jeez.

I do want to set up a few fake social network accounts for you.  Talk to you about it later

---

She frowns, hefting her 8 pd ball.  "Well, I was gonna offer you a bet on the game.  But  I don't want you throwing it on purpose.  So bowling is out.

"You can't read minds can you?  If so, let's play 20 questions while we bowl.  Loser has to give the winner one wish.  I'm thinking of a person.  You guess."

Ask three questions at a time please.

The alley starts to fill up as you begin your two games.

I guess I just wanted to be sure you weren't letting your personal issues with him cloud your judgment and making it a prank. If he weren't a flippin' nutjob, I'd be fine with you pranking them instead of totally misleading.

---

“If I would throw that, why wouldn’t I just ask twenty questions and guess wrong?” Jack asks, not sure at her logic, but he doesn’t press her, instead, he smiles at her and puts his hand on her lower back while she’s waiting for her ball to come back. While he’s talking to her and playing the game, he puts on some bowling shoes and picks out a ball that fits his fingers nicely. Adding himself to the scorecard when he has a chance.

“Do you know them personally?”

“Male?”

“Over thirty?”

Humor isn't one of your super powers is it?

I'll reach back out once I have more info.  Peace.

---

Lyds gets a spare on her first frame.  She only manages a seven pin on her second.

"Let's see.

"Nope.  Never met them in person.

"Yep.  A guy.

"Probably over thirty, yes."

You peek in on the clergy.  Saul is clipping his toenails.

The fun game of "spot the security detail" gets a bit easier since it seems to be shift change.  Of the three you could not be sure of, you got two of them right.  One lady catches you completely off guard.

At the shoe rental kiosk, a couple is arguing about what size shoe she wears.  Her jerk of a date is laughing because she wears a size 11.

Two lanes over, there are three guys who are playing.  One of them is telling a long, boring sounding story about work.  He apparently works IT security for a hospital.  Someone keeps trying to track their mainframe.  "Yeah.  The Feds are all over it.  They think it's some big name Hood or somethin'."

"Which one?"

IT Guy shrugs.  "Hell if I know.  Not sure why anyone would want patient records anyway."

Next three questions please.  Thanks

In truth, Jack’s sense of humor is sometimes a little off. He doesn’t know when people are being stupid, and he values facts. Thanks mom.

 Jack thinks about it for a second as he watches Lydia, she’s the cutest thing in a thousand miles as far as he’s concerned and she defines the words : poetry in motion. Leaning his head over onto his hand, he only gets up when it’s his turn and scoots past her unnecessarily close, giving a little squeeze on the sly. “Okay, next questions then..”

“Do they have known superpowers?”

“Do they do whatever they do in the Midwest?”

“Have you seen this person in some way, television, computer, etc. in the last month?”

He glances over at the couple arguing. That guy isn’t getting laid.

The commentary about the computer break in makes him think it’s about the exploding people case, but it doesn’t sound like anything new will be coming out of this guy.

If it was Kevin's hack, he knew the Feds would be "all over it" so that's nothing worth reporting.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 214):

Lydia grins as she throws another spare.

"Yep on the superpowers.  Are there any celebs these days that don't have them?

"Midwest?"  She frowns, coming to when her ball comes back up the chute.

"Uhmmm...I think.  I mean...yeah?"

At the shoe counter, the girl is laughing at her date because his shoe size is small.  He only wears a 4.

IT Guy's friend nods.  "You guys have been having a lot of breech issues this year, haven't you?"

IT Guy nods back.  "Yeah.  This.  When someone hacked the morgue record archives looking up all the dead kids.  And when gwibble gwotch snorkum hovitz."

Lydia shakes her head.  "Ya know.  I can't remember when I've seen...this person.  Maybe it was on TV or one of the meta podcasts?  You know I don't like sweet potatoes as much as people think I do."

Next questions if you wish

 As soon as Lydia starts talking gibberish, Jack takes her by the hand, grabs her purse and leads her from the bowling alley, pulling out his phone and sending off a message to HT: Something in play at bowling alley, or everyone here is having a stroke. Need medical and possible quarantine. I’ll keep you updated if I figure it out.

"Come with me Lyds, I think something is wrong."

As he walks out the door, he considers pulling the fire alarm, but that just might end up dumping a bunch of people with exposure and confusion onto the street.

Once he gets Lydia outside, he starts checking her over.

Simultaneously, he’s checking the area, looking for anything that might be attached to the heating system. It’s Minnesota, everyone has one.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 216):

Well, let's not get too far outside now...

As you are grabbing her purse, a man in a costume suddenly stands up on the concession stand.  Where the hell he came from, you have no idea.

He's dressed in black.  Well.  His sister's yoga pants and a t-shirt that are matching shades of black.  Too little is left to the imagination.

He's spray painted a big, yellow BD on his shirt.  And he's wearing a ski mask he's tried to spray paint a shade of black that matches the rest of his uniform.

There are guys with shot guns and wearing pig masks (seriously...where the hell did they come from?  They weren't there a moment ago).

"MWAH HA HA HA HA HA!!!" mwah ha ha's Mr. Yoga Pants, yelling out through a megaphone in one hand.  "LISSEN UP BITCHES!!! YOU'RE PARTYING WITH THE BIG BD NOW!!! I'M BRAIN DEATH!!! AND YOU ARE ALL MY HOSTAGES!!!

"NOBODY MOVES AND NOTHING STUPID WILL HAPPEN TO YOU!!! MWAH HA HA HA HA!"

You find yourself tapping the same smiley emoticon on your phone, again and again.  You're also walking around in a circle instead of outside and holding Lydia's bowling ball instead of Lydia.

She's back at your lane, sitting cross legged on the ground and seeming to think really hard.

Brain Death?  Why does that sound familiar?

So as not to frustrate you too much...

For the purposes of this scenario, Jack can think as intelligently as he always does.

But if he tries to do something, it may or may not go as planned.

Leaving or trying to contact the outside world seem to be two of the "somethings" that won't work so well.

As he begins to understand what is happening, Jack very carefully moves until he is between “BD” and Lydia. Even if they can mess with his brain, he’s still invincible, and he’s not going to let Lydia get hurt. Though he sort of suspects that the people with weapons are a hallucination, in fact, he sort of wonders if this entire scenario isn’t a hallucination.

Focusing on his phone, he gingerly keeps pressing buttons. Trying to get a message to send.

Anything, to any of the people on the list, especially if gibberish, would be useful.  Anyone on the Program would be a win, they’d investigate why the Black-rated Cape is acting insane on his phone and figure it out. Aunt? Same, she’d just pass the ‘weirdness’ along. Colby would tell Darja. Darja would tell HT.

There isn’t anyone on his phone that would be a fail to get a message, no matter how gibberish to. So, just get a message out, any message.

He doesn’t move anymore than that. He just keeps himself between them and Lydia, and waits. He'd normally want to cover her more directly with his body, but if he does, he risks accidentally pulling her apart like cotton candy. He's honestly surprised a "not fully in control" version of him was walking at normal people speeds. That was usually an act of concentration.

Maybe he's some sort of puppeteer and doesn't know how people work?

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 218):

Let's leave it to chance as to who gets your message and what you send.

Pick a number between 1 and 10.  And then pick another number between 1 and 10.  Can be the same number each time.

Thanks.

3 and 8

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 220):

Aren't you Johnny on the Spot?

Your cell bleeps.  Kevin.

Yr auto correct is a dumbass.  You're at the bowling alley.  What's Bette Davis doing there?  And why are you afraid of bacon?

Jack keeps sending emoticons. Trying to make the message make sense, but obviously that isn't doing anything. So he just makes sure to stand between the villains and Lydia, and sends the texts behind his back. His fingers tapping at the keyboard repeatedly as he keeps doing it.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 222):

Kevin again.

OK.  You are either butt dialing or something is wrong.

If something is wrong, try to send a pattern to me.  If you know morse code, use that.  If nothing else, send me one long string of offensive emojis.  Just something that isn't random.

Tracking you in any case.  Sorry if I get interrupt something

Meanwhile the Pig Masks have started herding people away from the doors.  There are about ten of them.

Two of them walk up to BD.  You can "hear" them fairly easily.  You are also picking up heartbeats.  So, if you thought the Pig Masks were illusions, they are either really detailed ones or they are guys.

"Hey.  Ter-"

"Brain Death."

The Pig Mask sighs.  "Brain Death.  You sure you can cover this whole building?"

"I'm sure.  Anyone in this building I wish is no longer in control of their nervous system."

Second Pig Mask looks at First Pig Mask. "What's that mean?"

First:  "It means no one Terry-Brain Death here doesn't want to can do what they want to."

Second seems to consider that.  "I don't get it."

"It's very simple.  They can't do what they want to do cos I won't let them."

"What if they want to do something else?"

"They can't do that either."

Second cocks his head to one side.  "What if they wanna take a swing at one of us?"

"I don't know.  They'd..." BD is quiet a moment and then shrugs.  "...They'd probably start playing Tic Tac Toe instead."

Second scans everyone in the bowling alley.  "So anyone playin' Tic Tac Toe is thinkin' about taking a swing at us."

First seems to have a headache.  "Yeah.  Why don't you go look for anyone playin' Tic Tac Toe.  'kay?"  He turns to BD.  "I'm still kinda worried about any Capes showin' up. "

BD pshaws him.  "Don't be.  My power means I'm the smartest guy in the room."

First seems to swallow what he wants to say and then looks around.  "Alright.  Just in case, I brought some insurance.  I'm gonna set it up.  Keep...doin' what your doing. "

He wanders off.

BD goes behind the counter and starts making himself some nachos.

Let me know what kind of message you send Kevin or if there is anything you want to do other than guard Lyds.  If not, I will move us along.

Thanks

When “BD” explains how his power works, Jack inwardly nods, then actually ends up hopping on one foot.

He quickly maps back everything he has done and the commands he’d sent to do those things, and starts testing if he can send the “wrong idea” to do the thing he wants it to do, just a whole new nervous system map. “Lift my pinky finger means, step forward.” And so on.

He isn’t sure it’ll work, but he has to try.

He sends either of those two things as best he can, to Kevin. He’s just glad that he has somehow managed to work his thumbs when he wanted to.


Trying to re-map action keybindings, so to speak. He'd pause before each action and consider it.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 224):

Interesting.  I would bet Jack could go through a number of random actions in a split second due to his speed.

Give me five actions he would prioritize.  You can make them as specific or as general as you like, but the more general, the less likely he'll stumble upon them

I'll proceed once I get that list from you.  Thanks

Wiggling each toe, 1-5. Right foot.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 226):

Are you going at it in reverse?  Seeing what action you get for each toe wiggle?

If so...

Big toe wiggle...................You aren't sure but you think your blushing.

Toe 2 wiggle.....................You have a terrific thirst for Fresca!

Toe 3 wiggle.....................You take a deep breath in and exhale.  Mightily.

Toe 4 wiggle.....................You suddenly leap to the left.

Toe 5 wiggle.....................Your left foot sweeps out.

On Toe 3, you of course can blow at the Super level, depending on how bad you wiggle that toe.

Toes 4 and 5, You seem to be in control of the strength level.  That is you could leap at Jack type distances.  But only to the left.  Toe 5 is more or less a leg sweeping motion or sideways kick.

Questions?

Your cell dings.  Almost there.  Can you send me one character if there is nothing wrong.  Two if there is.  Three characters if I should come in by the roof.  Four for back door.  Five is don't come in.

Oh, yes, if you were offering to let me map out how to move properly, then it'd be move forward, backward, side to side and slap a hoe.

Getting the message from Kevin, he spams the keyboard. It's not about a number, it's just sending a bunch so that Kevin knows that the problem is in the building, and that he should scout before entering.

Scout like a boss.

He'll continue to map out motions, memorizing what each one is making him do. Hoping that he doesn't do anything drastic like.. crush his phone into dust, or unleash a blast of heat from his eyes.

I figure it's much easier for you to tell me what moves you're looking for since Jack can probably test 50 moves a second.  Besides.  It lets me be jerk.

Head Pig has gone to a duffel on the shoe counter.  He's picked it up and is heading for the door that leads to the alley's machine room.

Kevin pings back.  So I'm guessing I need to be careful then?

By the time BD is done with his nachos, you have this figured out.

Toe 4 wiggle...................................................Move left.

Pull your right earlobe........................................Jump back

Lick the back of your upper central incisor tooth..............Move forward

Press your knees together......................................Move right

Think about enjoying the great taste of Fresca!!!!!...........Smack a ho

During the testing phase, Jack probably looks a bit spastic as he twitches and moves different muscles independently. Figuring out the mental map behind well, all sorts of things, he memorizes the list and basically moves himself like that character from QWOP.

 (You should see the game if you haven’t. It’ll take 2 minutes and the comparison is hilarious.)

Realizes after a few tries that any attempt to send a correct text message ends up as word-salad, or probably does, he can’t actually tell since his brain is reading things incorrectly and how to reprogram that seems like it’d take time. So, after the latest from Kevin, he sends yet another layer of spam.

For the moment, this appears to be a heist, and blowing his cover is unnecessary. Kevin is here.

He waits.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 230):

And you wait.  And wait some more.

After a while, you get another text.

So I'm guessing the bad guy in there makes everyone stupid.

Cos I tried to take out the guy in the back room and ended up sucking on the end of my tail.  What I saw when I peeked out the door made me think it wasn't just me.

His power has a wide range.  You can apparently do something since you're spamming me.

Can you make it to the bathroom?

You'd have to walk down four lanes worth of aisle to get there.  There's pig masks wandering about but also plenty of hostages doing the same.  They might not pay attention to you if you did...

You can via the toe wiggle/knees together/put your right foot in and shake it all about/etc.

The question will be will they notice you heading there.

Jack heads off toward the bathroom at the request from Kevin, deliberately letting himself stumble from time to time, and generally trying to appear like he has no control over what he is doing. Not that he has much control over how he looks. In fact, the stiffness of his posture is probably rather strange, like in his first days at school when someone had first pointed it out. He can’t make himself slump now.

Well, at least he isn’t setting anything on fire with his eyes.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 232):

A man screams as he suddenly catches fire from your eyes.

Just kidding

There's a guy in the bathroom with his head in a sink.  He's making sounds like a cockatoo.

The bathroom is against the outside wall.  And there are small windows near the top of the wall, most of them cracked open  to ventilate.  You can see Kevin on the other side of one.

He glances away from his observation of the cockatoo and shakes his head.

"You're a fund date, you know that?

"Can you fight?  If not...I can think of a way to do this.  But it's not gonna be fun for you."

You could fight.  Probably. That's your call.  Fight or Plan B

Kevin looks rather serious for the moment.  "One of these guys...he's got a pig mask on for some reason...he's in the back.  Like in the mechanical room. And he's setting up some kind of device.  I don't think it's a bomb.  But it looked fairly high tech.  So it can't be good.  Whatever it is, I think we need to move before he finishes setting it up."

Jack takes ten seconds, during which time he spastically starts processing through a few hundred more things. Moving erratically, far too fast for a human, now that he’s out of line of sight from those in the bowling alley. As he starts to wrestle some control back, he tries to breathe in the fresh air from outside and attempts to speak. “It’s cross-wiring nerve FRAUDS, it’s taking me chickens to purple out a proper Fresca. Yoga pants, megaphone, in charge. Brain Death.”

He tries to relay as much information as he can as he tries to regain his faculties by drawing in outside air, since it seems to be air based? With his mouth to the vent, he inhales more air than his body should be able to hold, and he exhales it, then does it again, and holds his breath.

Testing, testing.

In reply to Editor-in-Chief (msg # 233):

Kevin is silent on the other side of the window.

"Yoga pants, huh?

"Okay.  I guess we'll have to go with Plan B.

"Do you think you can draw the...Brain Death?..guy in front of the glass doors near the entrance?  If you can get him there, I'll try creating an opportunity.  Once you feel back in control...you know. Do your thing.

"If possible, try not to let any civies get near the doors.  But if you can't...we'll just have to do what we gotta do.  I'll be as careful as I can.

"I'm guessing you can understand.  I need about two minutes.  OK?"

You can nod or shake your head.  That will work

Though if you want to talk about Fresca some more, I'm all for it.

"Yes."

He pauses and seems to be thinking about whether he can lure the person, he isn't sure. The whole point of getting Kevin here was to do it without doing his thing, since he'd be somewhat memorable, but he has to do what he has to do.

"Yes."

Walking out of the bathroom, he looks around to make sure he has a line of sight on Brain Death, then he starts to walk toward the glass doors, slowly. He needs to give Kevin time to set up whatever his trick is.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 236):

Brain Death is sipping a Diet Pepsi and scratching his butt.  Literally scratching his butt.  Not even being subtle about it.

One of the Pigs...from his voice you think it's the one who had a thing about punching before...is walking your way, mumbling "No one's playin' Tic Tac Toe.  I think they were goofin' on me."

He stops and glances over.  He's looking at Lydia.  She's doing something with the scorecard.

Pig narrows his eyes under his mask.

"Wait a minute...Is she playin' Tic. Tac. Toe?"

He starts heading her way.

"Brain death," Jack calls out when the guy starts to get distracted by Lydia. "Tic tac Fresca."

Standing near the doors, he waits for Kevin and Brain Death. He's also preparing to start intercepting, but he would prefer that the plan goes off somewhat similar to what Kevin had proposed.

He continues to spasm a bit here and there as he continues to chart out the connections.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 238):

Pig jerks his head your way.  "Tic Tac Toe an' Fresca, huh?  Buddy...You just bought yourself a ticket ta Pound Town."

Brain Death wanders your way at the mention of his name.  "Careful now Butch.  This one looks like a linebacker."  He giggles.  "All brawn and no brain.  Get it?"

"No."

"Cos of me.  My power.  It's making him dumb."

Butch-Pig thinks on that.  "Maybe's he's just dumb to start with."

<yellow>"Well duh.  He looks like he takes steroids at a gas pump.  But that doesn't mean-"

What it doesn't mean you aren't sure.  There's too much noise and breaking glass.

Kevin drives a motorcycle through the front doors.  He screeches across the lobby and slams into Brain Death, hitting him in a pass by with a two by four he's wielding like a club.

Kevin pulls the bike around and kills it, looking at the lump that's Brain Death on the floor.  BD is still alive, but he's not going to be out of traction anytime soon.

"Doesn't matter how stupid you are if you're already in motion."  Kevin asks aloud, not looking at you directly but obviously meaning you when he asks, "You okay? "

As a matter of fact...you are.

“Shotguns,” he warns Kevin.

Jack then glances down at the unconscious form and gives a very subtle thumbs up before he goes for cover and starts to make his way toward Lydia. The room is still filled with thugs with shotguns, and he isn’t about to have to try to cover up how he survived getting hit with a shotgun.

Once he’s behind cover, he pulls out a handful of coins out of his pocket and starts using them as projectiles with quick little, faster than the eye can follow, throws over the top of the bowling ball racks between the subfloor with the bowling alley and the elevated area with all the amenities. Each coin aimed to foul up the aim of those with shotguns further away from Kevin.

But for the most part he’s just trying to make his way back over to his girl.

“Lyds, you okay?” he asks as he gets close and gets her behind some cover. Taking his coins in hand he continues to make quick little super-speed throws to mess up the thugs.

In reply to Jack Sharpe (msg # 240):

"I just went through a plate glass door.  Would it really kill you to smack these guys around?"

Kevin mumbles that under his breath.  Whether he's forgotten you can "hear" him or doesn't care you aren't sure.

But he does his thing, knocking out the nearest Pig before launching at the others.  He takes to the ceiling, using his tail to swing from rafter to rafter.  It keeps the shotguns aimed upwards and away from the civies, who are scattering.

Lydia shakes her head and huddles up to your back. "FINE!  I'M FINE!  I'M NOT SCARED!"

She's shakier than the plotline for the Disney installments of the Star Wars franchise.  But she's obviously trying to be brave.

You ping out a few of the Pigs easy enough.

Then you "see" something.  The Head Pig.  The one who went into the mechanical room.  He peeked out the doorway as the fighting between Kevin and the Pigs started.

Head Pig has goen back into the room. That suitcase he had before is laying on the floor.  Head Pig kneels by it, and starts fumbling with something inside, acting like he's flipping switches.

There's something mechanical inside the suitcase.  But you aren't sure what it is.

There's a sudden thrumming sound.  It's on a wavelength the human ear can't pick up.  Yours can of course.