S100_Bloodmoon_Setting Sunday January 6, 2019 Recap: Most of the Cold Blooded League are knocked out; only Stegron and Snapdragon remain. The Neutralizer has been neutralized and there is nothing left to win by staying here. Stegron uses the same teleport technology that brought in the heavy weapon to remove himself to safety. Snapdragon uses her invisibility to sneak away. Paladin contacts PART and has the unconscious villains taken away; Dinosaurus, Draco, and Dragon King, With the ‘Greenhouse’ Generator shut down the bitter artic cold (a natural phenomenon) asserts dominance of the weather in the city. The Brigade return to the Bunker and enjoy a sumptuous meal prepared by Preston to celebrate. Resume: Sunday January 6. 2019 The majority of the team retire for the night but Paladin takes his place monitoring the Trouble Alert keeping vigil over the city. Monday January 7, 2019 07:00 AM The Bunker’s Automated phone system receives a call from a woman. She claims that she and her friends are being hunted an killed by Cybernetic Ninjas. The computer assigns it a Alert Level 4 of 5 and forwards it to Paladin. [0 is nuisance, ignore] [1 Relevant, but not our job. Call the police.] [2 We will look in to it when we have time.] [3 Someone will call you back in 24 to 48 hours] [4 Urgent, one of the Brigade is on the way] [5 The world is about to end. Load the backup files and programming and head of the spaceship and run.] Paladin advises the woman to contact the police but she says the police would be useless against the FREAKING Cyber NINJAS. She needs help now! Her apartment is less than 5 miles away and Paladin can be there in a few minutes. He puts out a general alert and Impact agrees to come with him. They arrive at the brownstone where the woman has a basement apartment. Paladin’s 6th sense tells him there is no danger, at least no more than anyone would be in living in a city of over 6 million people. They approach her door and announce themselves. The woman is relieved that they are here and opens the door for them. She is a human feline hybrid, very pretty, very sexy, and barely clothed. She invites them in. As they walk down the hall toward the living room Paladin starts to tell her that she is not in any danger. Before Paladin can reassure her he and Impact see that there are more animan in the living room waiting for them. The one who is sitting on the sofa stands up and welcomes them and thanks them for coming. Speaking to the girl he tells Chiasia to pour them a drink. He says to the heroes that he hopes they like Gran Duque Oro Brandy. It is a personal favorite of his. He bids them to sit an be comfortable but they decline both offers. He identifies himself as Aardwolf and apologizes for getting them here on false pretenses. Paladin says it the Aardwolf just flat out lied to them. Meanwhile, the girl Chiasia, keeps interjecting that the Cyber Ninjas are trying to kill her and all her friends too. Aardwolf tells her that the ninjas are a lesser problem, and they will deal with it, hopefully with the Brigade’s help, but only after the pressing matter is settled. Paladin is slightly (maybe more than slightly) annoyed at the tableau unfolding around him so Aardwolf start to get to the point. Aardwolf recounts the history of the Brigade’s and Bloodmoon interactions where the Glove Cleaner is concerned. -- [Issue 2] May 18, 2018 Crimson Knight, Paladin, and Shockwave save a woman who was being chased by a group of human animal hybrids and a squad of robots. They gave the woman shelter and fought off the group that was chasing her. She tells them her name is Cherry Darling. She and 4 other woman were exotic dancers kidnapped from the Boom-Boom Room a week ago by these monsters. Each night they released us into the city. If we didn’t get recaptured by dawn we were free. We never made it to dawn. After being recaptured the monsters gathered in front of a video monitor the size of an electronic scoreboard at a sporting event. Some creep calling himself Bloodmoon led the creatures in reciting ‘the laws’. After that they drank something that one of the robots gave them. After that they chose one of the girls to be the celebration feast while the others were used as party favors; meaning the monsters raped us. Tonight I am the last of the captives and I finally found you to rescue me. The Brigade managed to track down the lair of animen and destroy the robots. Cherry Darling then fled the city going back to her family farm in Kansas. -- [issue 17-20] July 11, 2018 Paladin, Apex, Marvel Girl, Atticus, and Kismet. The Citadel is attacked by a school of land-sharks (Bulettes) directed by a feline-human Animan who identifies herself as Hamani. She tells the group they are going to die because of the Brigade’s interference in the affairs of Bloodmoon. The group beats the Bulettes but Hamani escaped. She dropped a crude map as she abandoned the bulettes to cover her tracks. Paladin checks in with Lt. House concerning what PART has learned from the Animen that are in police custody. He tells them that the Animen digressing, becoming more feral and less human in both body and mind. During a physical examination of the Animen was found to have a titanium bone replacement in his leg. From the serial number he was identified as a army veteran who was injured by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device). After being released from the hospital he vanished into the homeless population of the city, until now. Bloodmoon seems to grab the homeless off the streets and transforms them into animen. The serum that Cherry Darling saw them drink before celebrating a successful hunt is some kind of stabilization serum that keeps them from becoming fully animals. Using the map they obtained after the Bulette attack the locate one of Bloodmoon’s labs. Apex phases through the wall and sees two Croc-men. The heroes quickly subdue the animen, technician, and security at this site. They also capture Doctor Juanita Conner, the lab director. PART takes custody of the lab. Lt. House tells Paladin afterward that PRIMUS pulled rank and took custody of Doctor Conner. Marvel girl and Kismet were able to discern from some of the files that the original Glove Cleaner pathogen was a silicon organism. This is why it is so hard to breed on Earth (where all known animal life is basically iron and carbon based) and any earthborn creature infected by it would have absolutely zero resistance to it. Apex took copies of all the computer files from the lab. It took days to decrypt everything. When the data was readable Paladin noticed that up to three months ago the lead scientist was Shelby Benson. Kismet looked into Doctor Benson’s background. He was arrested by PRIMUS three months ago during a raid on a VIPER base. Benson was working on weaponized pathogens for VIPER. Kismet took copies of all the files and everything the Brigade learned to this point to PRIMUS and gave it to the AIC (Agent in Charge). Kismet and Sasha Blackwell did not hit it off. Marvel Girl tells Paladin that she has a friend that has an uncanny, maybe supernatural, ability to understand things. They take the files to see Marilis, MG’s librarian friend. Marilis sets off Paladin’s danger sense so he only shows her one page of the captured documentation. She easily reads it and tells MG and Paladin the Glove Cleaner originated somewhere in space and traveled to Earth on a meteorite. Paladin tells her that she is working way under her pay grade at ESU’s library. Then he and MG leave. Not trusting Marilius Paladin seeks another expert that could help with the mystery. He goes to consult with Doctor Elias McQuark, mad scientist and resource to superheroes everywhere. McQuark looks over the material and agrees that it is both ancient and extraterrestrial. It must have landed somewhere remote where nothing living encountered it. He tells them he will work on a computer model to determine how the pathogen might spread should it become contagious. Paladin takes a risk and gives McQuark the viral samples the Brooklyn Brigade retrieved from Bloodmoon’s lab. -- [Issue 40] September 19, 2018 Paladin, Kismet, Constable, Lady Paper, Bear, and Nocturna Doctor McQuark has produced a vaccine (cure) to Glove Cleaner. To be effective as a cure it must be administered to the patient within 24 hours of infection. As a vaccine it will protect from the disease for life, probably. He gives Paladin 5 vials, each contains 4 doses, Paladin gives Lt. House 3 of the vials keeping 2 of them. The current roster of the team are inoculated. The group has two doses unused. -- [Issue 50] October 15, 2018 Paladin, Kismet, Lady Paper, Inspector Noir, Volt Aardwolf tells Paladin and Impact that Bloodmoon was responsible for burning down Doctor McQuark’s lab and sabotaging the breaks of his car in hopes the he would die. The purpose of the attack was to destroy the Glove Cleaner vaccine and prevent the creation of more. When McQuark was discharged from the hospital the heroes take him home and find that his house was ransacked and looted of everything of value. The thieves broke in through the basement, Paladin recognizes the holes as Bulette tunneling from when Bloodmoon attacked the Bunker. Doctor McQuark says he can not produce any more of the vaccine unless he can get a fresh sample of the Glove Cleaner virus. -- [Issue 64] November 1, 2018 Paladin, Kismet, Genji, Counterblast, Revenant, Blue Monkey Paladin gives Revenant one of the two remaining Glove Cleaner vaccines. -- [Issue 77] November 19 2018 Paladin, Kismet, Network, Revenant, Okina (Big Tuna), Marvel Girl Cherry Darling shows up at the Bunker. She says she was forced to leave her family farm in Kansas. Her house was surrounded by Animen who said that if she did not return to New York they would invade her house, rape her mother and sisters, while forcing her father to watch. Then they would kill and eat the women (except for Cherry) in front of her dad, saving him for last. After they killed him the animen would bring her back to New York by force. With the message delivered the animen left so that she could make her decision. Cherry was on the next bus to the big apple in hopes of getting the Brooklyn Brigade’s protection. Aardwolf tells Paladin and Impact that he was responsible for sending the animen to Cherry’s farm and warning message that they delivered. He wanted Cherry to have inescapable motivation to seek out the Brigade and get their protection. He also promises that his agents were only making idol threats and no harm would have befallen her family if she had refused to be reasonable. -- [Issue 78] November 19, 2018 Paladin, Kismet, Revenant, Okina (Big Tuna), Network Paladin goes to Doctor McQuark to see if he can recreate the vaccine from blood samples of people who have received the vaccine. He says he does not know but he will try. The disease being an alien silicon bacterial lifeform makes the task extremely difficult, if not impossible. -- [Issue 79] November 20, 2018 Paladin, Kismet, Revenant, Okina (Big Tuna), Network McQuark is still unable to recreate the vaccine. He continues to say that he needs the original pathogen but he also says he will continue to do his best without it. -- [Issue 86] December 3, 2018 Paladin, Revenant, Network, Kismet, Big Tuna, Impact Network gets Revenant a job on the cleaning staff at the New York location of Moreau Bio Industries, 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Revenant using a false identity is looking for more information on the Glove Cleaner virus. December 7, 2018 Friday After most of the regular staff have left for the weekend Revenant who works third shift rendezvous with Network so they can access the secured floors in the subbasement where they locate a BSL4 viral facility. They bypass the first and second airlocks and enter the research area. The computer does not have the details of what is done in here but the pair find metallic notebooks with hand written data in them, while not in code per se the information is in viral techno-babble that they don’t understand. In the refrigerators and freezers are many sealed vials with three letter prefixes, a hyphen, followed by a steam of characters they likewise don’t understand. Network copies the information from all the binders and puts it on the internet for all to see. Network does not know what the information is but he believes the information to be bioweapons. He feels better that everyone has access the doomsday weapon rather than letting one group have the power of global life and death. The information leaked was not about Glove Cleaner but was being produced on the behalf of the Department of Defense. Now every nut case has access to the information concerning truly terrifying biological weapons. Hopefully the materials they need to make use of the information is beyond their reach. 0730 AM After bringing everyone up to date Aardwolf says that Cherry Darling is due to give birth to a human / animan hybrid that has been designed to produce an airborne contagious version of the Glove Cleaner virus. He will use all his resources to get that child as it is the key to the future of the planet, as far as Bloodmoon sees it. The child is Plan A but it is not the only plan. Aardwolf knows some of the details of Plan B but he has no idea what Plan C, D, E, etc. might be. He is however certain that Bloodmoon has more plans in the works. What he knows of Plan B is that Bloodmoon has produced, and is still in production of, Glove Cleaner Spores. These spores can ride on pretty much any surface and can lay dormant for months, maybe years, before being breathed in. After being inhaled the spores will infect the host. Twenty-four hours later the host is doomed. The only saving grace is the disease is not contagious, only being exposed to the spores will cause the disease. Bloodmoon is going to release the spores into the jet stream in the upper atmosphere so it gets spread around the world but huge areas would be missed. He also intends to release the spores in airports, bus stations, subways, train stations, anywhere and everywhere that he can expose as many people as possible. It might not completely destroy the civilized world but it would cast the world in chaos buying him time to find, or create, another human / animal hybrid to produce the world ending epidemic. After his words sink in the asks, “So are we on the same side now?” Paladin wants to know where the Glove Cleaner is. Aardwolf says he will give the heroes the production location but he needs something first. If Bloodmoon is taken off the map, or if he learns of Aardwolf’s betrayal, he will lose access to the stabilization serum that keeps him and his associates from devolving into full animals. In the interest of self-preservation he wants the laboratory equipment and the knowledge to produce the serum. He knows where one of the serum production facilities are. There is a scientist there, a Doctor Know, who knows how to produce the serum. If the Brigade can’t get Doctor Know Aardwolf will need one of the techs employed there who also knows the process otherwise we are doomed. At this point Chiasia whines that the cyber-ninjas also need to be dealt with. Aardwolf silences her with a near lethal intensity glare. “One thing at a time my dear. Saving the world, and getting the serum, takes priority.” Paladin refuses to deliver Doctor Know or technicians to Aarwolf but he is willing to make a compromise. Aardwolf understands the offer as Paladin will provide all the technical and material support that is needed to produce the serum and Aardwolf will provide the Glove Cleaner production facility’s location upon delivery. When the Brigade has secured the facility they will give Aardwolf the formula for the serum Paladin might have understood their arrangement differently. Aardwolf writes the number for his burner phone (it will be good for about a week) on the margin of a $100 dollar bill and gives it to Paladin. Paladin memorizes the number and will give the bill to Okina, Big Tuna. Aardwolf also gives Paladin a sample of the stabilization serum that he so desperately needs. Paladin commits the Brooklyn Brigade to trying to establish peace between Bloodmoon and the Tsukihama-gumi. Since Okina the Big Tuna has a contact with them Paladin gives him the task to do what he can. Aardwolf’s recitation of the Brigade’s history with Bloodmoon and the Glove Cleaner virus reminds Paladin of the vials they gave to Agent Blackwell. He contacts Director Canfield of PRIMUS to ask for some of the samples back. It takes her several minutes to track down the current whereabouts of the samples before answering. The samples they had were sent to the Center for Disease Control in Washington DC and were consumed in their attempts to create a Glove Cleaner vaccine. They were not successful. Canfield asks if the group could give them more samples of the disease so they could continue pursuing their research. Paladin agreed if the heroes were successful in procuring more of the alien bacteria that Bloodmoon perverted into the mind destroying Glove Cleaner virus PRIMUS would be in line to get more samples. Paladin calls Doctor McQuark’s and speaks to Lydia Davidson. She says he can come over right away assuming he brings a dozen bagels with lox and cream cheese. He agrees and stops off at Bagel Point (the best bagels in the area) to get some. Lydia takes the bagels from him when he arrives, prepares one for herself and one for the Doctor, then she puts the rest in the company breakroom. Doctor McQuark is happy to provide the materials. He bases the requirements on what he used to create the Glove Cleaner vaccine. He once again asks if there has been any progress on getting fresh samples of the virus so he could (try to) recreate the vaccine. Paladin tells him the bad news. McQuark promises to continue doing what he can and hopefully he will be able to pull off a miracle. Paladin give the stabilization serum samples to McQuark to see if he can replicate the formula. He will take the samples and promises to do what he can. As for the equipment and supplies they should be ready today. He will have the truck ready for pickup at noon. Okina (Big Tuna) has contacts with the Tsukihama-gumi yakuza clan, the one that employed Death Blade and his clan of cyber-ninjas, and is going to try to arrange a peace between them and Aardwolf. He had hoped that once Death Blade was in custody the cyber-ninja threat would have been resolved. No such luck. Okina contacts his ‘old friend’ Sencho Nomura, Wakagashira to the Tsukihama-gumi clan, to negotiate the peace. Okina and Sencho meet over breakfast to chat. Sencho initially says the can be no hope for peace because Aardwolf’s vice activities invaded their territory. When the Tsukihama-gumi tried to convince them to leave Aardwolf used land-sharks to massacre a dozen of his men at the Tokyo Market. As breakfast continued he seemed to reconsider. Sencho says that if Aardwolf agrees to a million dollar payment, to be used to compensate the families of the shark attack victims, and 30% stake in Aardwolf’s enterprises peace might be possible. If Okina gets Aardwolf to agree to the idea he would carry the proposal to Emiko Nomura. Okina calls Aardwolf’s burner phone. They talk for a while but Aardwolf agrees to the terms, under one condition; that Bloodmoon be taken off the map first. He confides in Okina that Bloodmoon takes a greater percentage of his profits so taking the deal will actually increase his share of the take. Okina calls Sencho Nomura and tells him that Aardwolf has accepted the deal along with the single condition that Aardwolf requires. Okina assures Sencho that the Tsukihama-gumi needs do nothing but wait. The Brooklyn Brigade will take care of neutralizing Bloodmoon. Sencho needs to know how much time is needed before he takes the deal to Emiko. Okina asks for a month. Sencho agrees to take the proposal up the chain of command to Emiko the clan’s Saiko-komon. It is a good deal so he is sure she will take it. While Okina the Big Tuna and Paladin are taking care of McQuark, Aardwolf, and the Tsukihama-gumi yakuza clan the rest of the team were asked to go back to the base and keep Cherry Darling safe. If Bloodmoon came after her she and her unborn baby would need the protection. The baby’s due date is in 4 days so she could deliver any time now. After finishing with the Doctor Paladin contacts the group’s lawyer, Harold Leland, to find a discrete place where Cherry can give birth. Prestige Legal can get her into a private hospital under an assumed name. No one will ever know she was there or why. He suggests Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital. Members of the nursing staff even hand knit baby hats for every child born there. Paladin picks up the semi-truck at McQuark’s filled with equipment and supplies. Paladin tells Carolyn Evanson (McQuark’s accountant) to send the bill to the usual place. She sighs in relief, has him sign for the consignment and off he goes. Aardwolf takes possession of the truck. There is some slight tension between he and Paladin as Aardwolf has no idea what to do with the materials. ‘My guys are not scientists, most are uneducated!’ Paladin assures Aardwolf that the Brigade will provide the know-how somehow. Paladin was sure based on the questions he asked, and answers Aardwolf provided, that he had the people to make the serum. Both men are annoyed but Aardwolf provided the location of the Glove Cleaner production facility. Bloodmoon is using the Waterview Nursing Home on Flushing Bay as a cover. None of the elderly or disabled patients know what is going on and most of the staff are equally clueless. Bloodmoon has taken over a single (but very large) building on the nursing home campus to be his factory floor. Aardwolf advised caution when the heroes raid the place. There are explosives set to release the spores in the air. It won’t affect nearly the numbers that Bloodmoon wants to infect but it will do a great job of poisoning eastern Manhattan, Brooklyn, and much of Queens. Aardwolf also tells the group that animen are immune to the Glove Cleaner as it targets human (and higher order primates) which, thanks to the process that turned them into animen, they no longer are. The laboratory is easy to pick out. It is the only building on the campus that has armed guards by the one and only entrance, and the entrance is a airlock to keep the hazardous biological agents from escaping into the world. Revenant and Impact, because of their ability to be functionally invisible and pass through solid matter, are selected to run a stealth mission and recon the lab. Network uses the computer circuits of Revenant’s suit to tag along. Inside the lab they find 30 plus security guards, 24 animen of varying stock (bear, feline, insect, etc.) and 20 some odd technicians producing the Glove Cleaner. They also have a small number of side experiments running but the virus production is the principal reason for the lab. Impact focuses on the more populated areas of the lab (getting the number of people present that have already been listed above) while Revenant and Network try to find the virus stores. Revenant phases into a room that is the residence of the Project Director (who is not here). Network exits the suit systems and invades the project director’s computer. He locates files that have dispersion plans for the entire world including where stockpiles of the viral weapons are located. There are 300 places across six continents listed for the Glove Cleaner release points. The spores are to be released in major cities, three of the world’s global jet streams, and the five major ocean currents. All totaled every major population center of the planet will be hit. Antarctica and the northern most arctic areas are not being directly targeted. Network puts the dispersion plans, the formula, and the formula for the stabilization serum on the cloud (presumably in an secured location). Then they (Network and Revenant) locate several barrels of what is very likely the active spores of the Glove Cleaner virus. Impact takes a last look around the lab at super speed and finds a small, but powerful, nuclear reactor that is powering the lab and production floor. Before leaving the lab he ‘borrows’ a bee-keeper outfit and gets a live sample of the source of the virus. The virus is alien and silicon based. It is very hard to create an environment where the virus will grow for cultivation. This is the material that Doctor McQuark needs to create more of the vaccine. It is only from living spores that more of the Glove Cleaner can be created from. The data is going to be shared with PRIMUS and McQuark is going to get the Glove Cleaner sample. After getting out of the lab undetected, and discovering the ‘small’ nuclear power station, Paladin stated that they should let PRIMUS take care of the cleanup. The Brooklyn Brigade will be available to help if PRIMUS should ask for it. Monday January 7, 2019 Daily Bugle Evening Edition Big Tuna and other members of the Brigade have questions about Cassandra Clemons, the former patron of the team. As her story is told, with undeserved negative emphasis cast on Paladin, the group’s curiosity about her and the murder accusations against her increases. Cherry Darling, a current guest at the Bunker, comes forward with a letter that was delivered to the Bunker a week or so ago. The letter is from Pearl Ivy and says that Andrew Rufus is a bad guy. Ivy pleads for the group to help Cassandra. Ivy admits that she is not a nice person but she does not deserve to be sent to prison for murders that she did not commit.