10/6/2018 Saturday Paladin checks with McQuark to see if
he has made any progress with a remote Virus Detector for the Coney
Island Primitive virus. When he reached the lab he found the building
gutted by a fire. It wasn’t burned to the ground but it is more or
less a ruin.
There is a sign on the front lawn
beside the sidewalk that led to the lobby with a phone number on it
and the instructions to call about the status of projects that
McQuark Development was working on.
Paladin called. Lydia Davidson answered. Through her he
learned the lab was torched. While the fire was burning Dr. McQuark
raced to the lab. He had an accident and crashed. He is in a coma at
Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital. Mick Kramer is functioning as the
head of McQuark Development. Lydia transfers Paladin’s call to
Mick.
Mick has more details about the
Doctor’s condition. His injuries are not considered immediately
life threatening but he is in a coma because of he is suffering a
swelling of his brain. When questioned about the virus detector Mick
tells him that not only was the lab destroyed but the off-side
data-storage where the computer’s backup data was stored as also
destroyed. Mick asks for a week to see what can be salvaged. After
that he will be able to tell the Brooklyn Brigade when they should be
able to expect the detector.
Paladin inquires if there are any
suspects for the arson. Mick says there is one person but there is no
evidence linking him to the events. Who? His name is Fuergeson,
Stephen Fuergeson. With the computer destroyed and the backup data
lost they don’ t have his contact information, or any of his
information in fact. Mick can tell them that Fuergeson is about 30
years of age, six feet four, thin, black hair, blue eyes, and he
constantly wears aviator goggle and a green scarf.
When asked if Fuergeson was a pilot,
Mick said he didn’t know. ‘McQuark attracts non-conformists into
his orbit so I never asked.’. Paladin is going to check with the
government Monday to see if Fuergeson is a licensed pilot.
He was fired by McQuark for not
following his non-lethal weapons only clause. Mick does say that he
was a gifted scientist and inventor. Last he heard of Fuergeson was
he started a weapons development company on the ‘dark-web’.
Paladin lets the rest of the group know
about what happened to McQuark. Kismet with her healing power goes to
the hospital. Paladin contact Lt. House to clear them so she can get
access.
Kismet is met at the hospital by Helena
Morgan. She takes Kismet to see McQuark. She uses her healing powers
to repair his broken limbs and other injuries. Helena order him taken
to radiology to have his brain swelling checked. Before he is taken
away Kismet enters his mind to see if he can be reached. What she
sees is McQuark driving his car, racing to his lab frantic about the
potential consequences of the fire. He started to decelerate around a
curve when his brakes fail and he slams into a guard rail. He sees
the guard rail rushing toward him, then the memory starts to replay.
Kismet tries to reach him but he either
does not hear her telepathic shout to him or he ignores it. Kismet
relays to Paladin that the car might have been tampered with. Elias
tried to slow to take the curve but the brakes failed at a critical
moment. Paladin agrees that the two fires and the car accident add up
to too many coincidences.
Some time later Helena Morgan lets
Kismet know the brain swelling has improved tremendously but there is
still some present.
Paladin and Kismet bring the rest of
the Brooklyn Brigade up to speed on the McQuark situation. Constable
goes to check out the car to see if it was sabotaged. Lt. House is
called to make sure it is okay. Since the car is not part of a
criminal investigation Constable looking at it isn’t a problem.
When he gets to where the car is being
stored he is taken to it by Tessa Akiyoshi. She says she does not
understand the wreck. It has a lot of safety feature that are absent
from any conventional car. She says it looks like a Dodge Viper but
only from the outside. What is inside is… like from another planet.
Not to mention that the only thing they can find in the fuel tank is
carrot juice. What car runs on carrot juice?!
Constable scans the car with x-ray
vision and creates a 3D model of the wreck. The car went into an
uncontrolled skid with the right side leading. The front and rear
right tired blew as the car careened towards the guard rail. The
impact point was right side front then the force was distributed
along the right side. That was the only thing that saved McQuark’s
life, if he had hit straight on or on the driver’s side he’d been
dead.
If the guard rail hadn’t held he
would have plummeted down a ravine and been killed by the fall.
After spending a hour with the 3D model
Constable came to two possible conclusions: 1) the car was hit by an
outside force that disabled all the safety devices and caused the
brakes to fail or 2) the car’s computer was hacked. The second
option is far more likely.
Constable prepares report to be given
to Lt. House. McQuark being an honorary member of the metahuman
community puts this in PART’s jurisdiction.
Constable gets Lady Paper’s help to
make hard copies of the report, the 3D model, and other data he
compiled while going through the wreck.
Lady Paper was at the film Venom while
the McQuark investigation was ongoing. While she was heading to the
Bunker she got a call from Anthony Lloyd Reid, her executive
assistant, about missing money from the company. Reid reports that
some 21 people have stolen just over $5,000 worth of supplies over
the last 6 months. Reid wants to fire 11 people (the worst abusers)
and issue warning to the other 10. Abby wants to speak to each of
them Monday. Abby wants a new office supply monitor to be assigned.
Reid starts working on implementing her instructions.
She then goes to the base to transform
the computer data to printed material.
With the report finished Constable
wants to set up a Psychic Defibrillator to try to shock McQuark back
to consciousness. Constable wants to try to boost Kismet's telepathy.
The prototype is a large, ugly, un-elegant machine that provides a
5d6 AID to Kismet’s telepathy power. Kismet tests her power boost
on a volunteer: Lady Paper. It works!
Before trying to use it on Dr. McQuark
they need to get permission from his family. Rationalizing that they
won’t get permission before Monday the group decides to take care
of some personal matters on Sunday.
10/7/2018 Sunday Kismet wakes up and finds that her
poltergeist has struck again. All her clothes have been altered.
Everything is the brightest, starkest, white imaginable. Her shirts
have been cut to reveal her stomach and the chests have been cut to
have a ‘power-girl’ like boob-window. All her pants have been
replaced with micro-length miniskirts, and all her underwear has been
replaced with dental floss thongs.
She starts to head out to get
replacement clothes but Constable arranges for replacement clothes to
be delivered.
Lady Paper asks her why she objects to
the alterations and Kismet replies that if they were black instead of
white she might be willing to wear the new outfits.
Paladin chats with Joe Nardini about
the vampire cops. He is told that no more cops have vanished
mysteriously from the night shift but street level criminals (vice,
B&E, muggers, etc.) have been vanishing. Some of the prostitutes
have resurfaced but their colleagues say they are behaving ‘Freaky’.
A dozen have vanished, 5 have reappeared.
Paladin goes off to try to find some of
the ones who reappeared but is interrupted by a phone call from
Cassandra Clemons. She wants to see him, now. She offers to send a
helicopter for him. He declines not wanting to attract more attention
to their ‘super secret’ base.
It takes him about half an hour to
reach her house. One of the Bruces takes him to see Cassandra who is
sunning herself in her mansions solarium in a fairly modest bikini.
She tells him that Lex Luthor is trying to acquire Prometheus Medical
(her company). She isn’t worried about that since she is the
majority stockholder at 51%. This is a good news / bad news
situation. Since Lex can’t acquire the company via a hostile
takeover he is buying her suppliers and distribution partners driving
her out of business. “My business funds your base, your cars, and
your salaries. You don’t want to wind up working for Lex Luthor, do
you?”
She believes that Luthor has taken
notice of her company because of the Brooklyn Brigade’s defeat of
Superman: Eradicator last July. She wants the Brigade to talk to
Luthor and then drop him on his bald head from the top of Lex Tower.
Paladin agrees to try to talk to him.
Walking back to his car he calls Mr. Luthor on the number the Brigade
was given the last time they met. Luthor says he has no interest in
Prometheus, he wants the Brigade to help his technicians test the
next generation of weapons. “You stopped the biggest threat to the
world, now I want you to help stop the next biggest threat.” He
suggests the Brigade would make excellent target practice but says
their resources, teamwork, and other qualities would be useful too.
They schedule a Wednesday 10AM meeting
at LexCorp’s New York offices to hammer out the details.
After giving Cassandra the good news he
informs the rest of the Brigade. Then he returns to his search to
find the missing criminals.
After getting decently attired Kismet
goes out to the site where McQuark crashed his car. She reaches out
with her mind to try to sense what happened. Trying to expand her
mind and open her consciousness to new possibilities. She spends most
of the day there.
As Kismet started to sense something
but her concentration was interrupted when her uncle Edgar Cizko
called. He needed her to bail him out. It was just a hundred dollars
but the [expletive deleted] cops wouldn’t let him bail himself out.
He is in the 7 th precinct.
Kismet goes to the precinct to bail him
out but does ask the desk sergeant what he was arrested for? It seems
that at the Coffee Bean where Cizko is a barista a group of college
students, actually all the customers in the coffee shop, started
tearing off their clothes and engaged in an orgy. Only Cizko and the
other barista were unaffected.
The police are checking to see if any
chemicals were added to the drinks. Because of Cizko’s past record,
and his standing on the coffee counter cheering the victims on, he
was arrested on suspicion of criminal mischief and possible 3 rd
degree sexual assault.
As evening starts to descend on the
city Lady Paper, Abby Zola, gets a visitor. A smallish german man
stating that she is the last member of his family and he wants to get
to know her. He takes her out to dinner. They get a private dinning
room with a personal butler. He orders an extravagant meal of steak
(rare), lobster, crab, with baby potatoes. She orders the same but
opts for her steak to be more done. Over dinner they discuss her
being a superhero and philosophies about the use of super powers to
make the world a better place. He said that most super heroes were
short sighted while Noah (of the Ark bible story) was a true
superhero.
Abby finally gets around to asking him
his name, his answer: Arnim Zola.
Constable goes through is little black
book to find someone to go out to dinner with. He finds Beverly
Garner. He takes her to Carne Mare.
At dinner when Beverly goes to the
powder room Constable (Keith Cameron) is approached by Justin Hammer.
He wants to buy the power armor. He admits having tried to acquire
the Iron Man going as far as buying enough Stark Stock to get a seat
on the board of directors. Alas he was not able to convince Tony to
take advantage of the opportunities the armor made available. When
Constable declined to sell the armor Hammer offered funding and
resources in exchange for ‘rights of survivor’ for the project.
Constable declined but did say he would consider some kind of
arrangement. Hammer excused himself as he spotted Beverly approaching
the table.
She wanted to who he had been talking
too. She recognized the name of Hammer. Constable told her he refused
the project that Hammer was suggesting. He changed to subject to her
playing tennis in college. She told him that she did play tennis but
also played a lot of other games just not publicly.
Kismet is still at the police station
to get her uncle when Constable contacts her via the mind link and
asks her to notify Gene LaJune and tell him about Mr. Hammer’s
offer and possible veiled threat. She does. No sooner than she
finishes with that she gets a message from Lady Paper (Abby Zola).
She wants a quick background check run on her estranged family member
Arnim.
What Kismet finds is the only Arnim
Zola of interest was a biochemist in the 1940s who worked with Nazi
Germany. He was last seen fighting Captain America in the 1960s. He
is presumed deceased or still at large.
Paladin spends his evening checking on
the (fairly minor) criminals who vanished and reappeared, mainly the
hookers. Their friends on the street said that when the girls who
‘came back after being gone a few days’ were behaving ‘freaky’.
Paladin locates one who calls herself
Brittany. He asks her to tell him what happened to her while she was
‘missing’. ‘Sugar if you want to know that it will cost you 50,
for 100 you can have my life story.’ He gives her a hundred and
they go to a nearby coffee shop to talk. The coffee shop has about 10
people in it in addition to Paladin and Brittany; a couple talking,
the waitress, the cook behind the counter, and other people escaping
the chill of the October wind.
Despite having been paid for her life
story Brittany is evasive about her recent whereabouts. She claims to
have been fishing and does not understand why she is being hassled
about taking some time off. Paladin asks about her ‘business
manager’ but she says she is a independent agent who answers to no
one.
While they are talking he starts to
fiddle with a napkin dispenser on the table to catch her reflection.
He sees her clothes but the lady herself casts no reflection. She is
a vampire!
Paladin says his goodbyes, exits the
coffee shop, and finds a place to hide. Brittany comes out a moment
later talking on a old style flip cell phone. “Yeah, I made contact
but I think I was made. Nah, I know I was made. Tell the Master.”
Brittany then goes back to her corner
where Paladin approaches her again. “I know what you are, you know
who I am. Are you going to come quietly?” “Sugar, I’m not
coming at all!”
Paladin mind links to the group saying
he is going to capture a vampire.
(End of Session)