Apex phases through the wall and sees two crocodile men and
a secretary. Seeing that the entrance was a comfortable foyer they decided to
have Paladin knock on the door. A man in a three-piece suit answered. Paladin
said that he was here to file a complaint about the attack on the Brooklyn
Brigade base. The man in the suit let him in but ordered the secretary to
signal ‘Condition One’ and he ordered the crocs to kill Paladin and the others.
A fight ensued which quickly left the crocodile men and the suit unconscious
with the secretary paralyzed. Kismet used the secretary’s computer to download the
encrypted files to the cloud so they could decipher it later. While Paladin was
checking out one wing of the lab Apex checked out the other. Apex found a room
for ‘Live Animals’ where a dozen homeless people were imprisoned. They were
guarded by a bear man that Apex downed very quickly. They found three scientists hiding in the corridor that led
to the airlock for the main lab. Apex frightened them into revealing that they
were working on a virus to remove the higher brain functions from advanced
primates…humans. They admitted they were working for Bloodmoon. The virus is a
success but only from direct contact with the disease. They are trying to make
it contagious so it can be released and ruin the world of man. The virus takes
days to reach full effect. Apex and Paladin tell the scientists to enter the isolation
room in the main lab and release them. The scientist refuse. While they can’t
contract the disease from the test subjects they say the disease can be flooded
in to all the lab areas from the Director of Research office or from the
Monitor Room. The scientists direct the heroes to the director’s office. Paladin leaves Apex to watch the scientists and the main lab
area while he, Kismet, and Atticus go to the director: Juanita Conner. She is holding a gun to her own head and declares that she,
and Bloodmoon, are going to save the Earth from the destruction being wrought
by ‘modern’ humans. Before she can pull the trigger Kismet paralyzes her. Initially she refuse to help by the commanding and
terrifying presence of Apex convinces her to comply. Paladin calls PART and Lt.
House to secure the area while Atticus puts together a stamp sized transmitter.
It would have a range of 10 miles, broadcast a full minute once an hour for a
week. They then have Dr. Conner call Bloodmoon to tell him that
she had a breakthrough and the virus is now contagious. She wants him to come
and get it but instead he tells her to release at JFK airport. Apex seeing
their attempt to follow the virus back to Bloodmoon zaps her in the chest grabs
the vial and tells Bloodmoon that the Brigade had his virus and he would have
to come and get it. Bloodmoon refused and Apex taunted him each time he tried
to speak. Failing at being able to follow the virus they started
working on deciphering the data. Apex puts together a logarithm that will
decrypt the data in a day or two leaving the group free to do other things.
Paladin gets a call from Lorrie Haley, Cassandra Clemons’ executive assistant. She
tells him to read the July 26 th paper and come to see her. Kismet and Paladin head over to Lorrie. She tells Paladin
(almost to the point where she ignores Kismet) that LexCorp wants the Brooklyn
Brigade to help the LexCorp/STAR/PRIMUS partnership develop weapons to police
metahumanity. The Brigade took down The Eradicator so they would be good for
‘target practice’.
Kismet and Paladin return to the Bloodmoon lab to convey
LexCorp’s offer.