Author Topic: FICTION: Damocles  (Read 5325 times)

JWBullfrog

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FICTION: Damocles
« on: February 13, 2013, 02:32:37 AM »
Author's Note: In the days of the official forums I had developed a small habit of writing episodic fiction. This led to something in the neighborhood of 40,000 words worth of short stories that I posted there. Once 'the announcement' came, I thought I wouldn't have the heart to continue.
 
Well, a bit of time has passed and the voices in my head have reminded me that those stories were something worth doing. So here I am again. Starting here I will post one episode (about 1000 words) per week until I reach the end of the story. I appreciate the time you spend reading these and, if you care to, please feel free to comment via PM.
 
One final note, this story does pick up where my others left off. If I have done things correctly, you should not need to have read those to understand what is happening.
 
---JWB
 
 
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 1
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2013, 02:40:22 AM »
Damocles hung above the North Atlantic like a sword poised to fall upon the wicked as a punishment for their sins. At least, thought the man in the blue and silver battlesuit who was quietly typing instructions into the master control station, that's the image that the original designers intended anyway.
    The original owners of the station had possessed very definite opinions about who were wicked. They, of course saw themselves, and only themselves, as the righteous. They and they alone were the ones chosen to save the world which meant, by definition, that everyone else was wicked and would be deserving of punishment.
    But not without the inevitable round of ultimatums, threats, pointless posturing, and fights to the death... blah, blah, blah. He chuckled quietly as he pulled back his winged cowl and ran his fingers through his hair. It's probably a good thing I took it away from Malta before it got that far.
    The Malta group was a persistent thorn in the side of the world's superhuman community. They had decided that, despite all evidence to the contrary, that people with super powers were going to be the death of the world. Attempting to argue this point, or almost any point, with them would usually be a guaranteed fatal (and well advertised) shooting for anyone trying it. Malta had very little sense of perspective. It wasn't just that they could not accept shades of gray, they couldn't even accept black and white. For Malta, there weren't any other moral positions other than their own.
    They also have no sense of humor, thought Etherfalcon as he stopped typing and let the computer work through it's latest set of instructions. They completely failed to appreciate the irony when I destroyed their operational headquarters on Malta.
    The computer beeped quietly as it opened a window for one of it's standing subroutines. The window expanded to take up the entire view screen as it changed from a real-time view of the entire North American coastline to a more focused view of the Caribbean Sea and the area around the Bahamas. The camera slowly shifted and tightened it's view until it focused on one particular boat that was leaving Nassau.
    The yacht Katana was of special interest to Etherfalcon. On board was a person who, whether or not she knew it, was the linchpin to a dozen scenarios that would, over time, bring down a large number of criminal organizations and, perhaps, one or two corrupt politicians.
    Annoyingly, from Etherfalcon's point of view, she had reached that point without even trying. His plans involved careful calculation and consideration of not just dozens, but hundreds of factors. He worked hard to make himself the spider in the center of multiple webs. He was the culmination of years of intensive training, decades of study and top of the line equipment, whereas she was a slightly astigmatic, moderately talented writer who could barely fight her way out of a paper bag, had saved Paragon city twice (and his own life once), and who's idea of planning was to make sure her cell phone was charged. She functioned solely in the realm of luck and stubborn audacity.
    Etherfalcon still wasn't sure if she was a genius or the favored plaything of one or more deities.
    All we have to do is keep her alive and out of trouble for a few months, he thought while shaking his head at the foolishness of the idea. We could put her in cold sleep in the deepest salt mine under Utah and she'd still find a way to annoy somebody.
    For now though, she was safely out of the way and was unlikely to be of any trouble for the next few months. Masada has seen to that, he thought, letting his mind drift to the only other person on the planet that had more secrets than himself. The jury was still out on his opinion of Alexis Alexander, but he knew exactly how he felt about Madam Masada. Even if we don't end up killing each other, she'll be the death of me sooner or later.
    That was a problem for another time. For now, he had other business to deal with.
    "Riley," he said into the intercom on the desktop.
    "Yes, boss?" answered his personal secretary in a voice that suggested saxophones and cracking bubblegum.
    "Has my dry cleaning been delivered?"
    "About an hour ago. You scheduled a meeting without telling me?"
    "Not really. Just thinking about asking an old friend out for drinks."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Re: FICTION: Damocles
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2013, 08:53:16 PM »
Jessica Megan Duncan didn't have much of a social life.
To be fair, she had a lot of social engagements on her calendar, but having watered down drinks with a hundred people she only barely knew and who were really only there to get her to promote their latest...whatever... didn't really count.
    She had started to believe that her closest interpersonal relationships were the villains she fought. Sure she had her teammates in the Vindicators but, as close as they were, they still weren't quite enough. Her family had been as loving and supportive as they could be but, frankly being Statesman's granddaughter but a serious strain on family occasions. And most people couldn't get past the fact that she was also Lord Recluse's niece which, to be fair, was a legitimate point, but it wasn't like they were exchanging Christmas cards. She had tried a few times to get him to see the light but so far nothing had worked. In fact, once or twice, it had been nothing less than disastrous. No, she didn't have a social life anymore, which is why she was all too pleased to see the familiar face of an old college friend as he strolled up the steps of Atlas Plaza.
    "David!"
    "Good afternoon Jessie, still the patron saint of rookies?"
    Ms. Liberty frowned a bit. "You know I prefer Megan."
    "I know. But Megan is far too serious. Jessie is a girl who is far more fun. And I think you haven't had near enough fun recently. When was the last time you had a night off?"
    "David I'd love to but..."
    "But you're going to tell me that there are a million and one things that need to be done and you are the only person who can do them. Typical. Just what one would expect of His granddaughter." David's voice softened a bit. "You can't save the world all by yourself and, in case you haven't noticed, there are a hundred people just in the mile or so around this spot who are more than capable of dealing with trouble for the next two or three hours."
    "David..."
    "Do you want me to name them for you?"
    "David..."
    "I can even do it in alphabetic order if you prefer."
    "David..."
    "Dinner, maybe a drink or two? You can have your publicist call it 'a working meeting with a prominent local philanthropist' or something to that effect. I can have my assistant send over a couple of pre-packaged statements if you need them."
    "David..."
    "Everybody needs some time away from work, Jessie."
    "David, shut up for a minute will you?" She ran her fingers through her hair before she spoke again. "When?"
    "Whenever you're done here for the day. Just meet me at my office downtown. I can have a change of clothing waiting for you and my assistant will catch your calls while we're out."
    "Only a couple of hours?"
    "I wouldn't keep the legendary Ms. Liberty, beloved idol of millions, away from her post for too long."
    "David."
    "Yes?"
    "Too much," she laughed.
    "You think?"
                        ******
    At five minutes past eight Ms. Liberty walked through the front doors of Drake International's Steel Canyon offices. The heels of her boots clicked on the polished marble floors as she made her way across the lobby to the elevators. She slowed her pace as a uniformed guard stepped up from the side and matched her pace within a few steps.
    "Good Evening Ma'am," he said with a quiet respect. "Mister Drake is expecting you in his office. You'll be needing this." He handed her a blue and silver plastic card with a magnetic strip.
    "I have to pay to use the elevator?" she asked, letting some of the day's frustrations bleed off into sarcasm.
    The guard laughed. "No Ma'am. Mister Drake is a strong believer in capitalism but that's a bit much even for him. The top six floors of the building cannot be accessed without a security key. Just insert that into the slot above the buttons and choose your floor. You'll want the penthouse."
    "Thank you..."
    "Colby, Ma'am."
    The elevator ride was smooth but not silent. For some inexplicable reason, David Drake had a loop of  the greatest hits of the 1970's playing softly through the speakers. Must of it was ignorable and forgettable soft rock but the horribly sticky 'Afternoon delight' punctuated the trip past the last three floors. It didn't really do anything for her mood.
    She was all too happy to exit the moment the doors opened on the penthouse level. Here the halls were blessedly silent and incredibly tasteful. Neo classical artworks harmonized with the subdued colors of wool carpets. Wood and brass furnishings were placed to be both functional and pleasing to the eye.
    "The interior decorator cost me a fortune. It's not really my style, but it was worth it don't you think?" said David Drake as he stepped out around a corner at the end of the hall.
    "Sure, if you're looking to announce to the world 'hey look at me, I'm rich." said Ms. Liberty. She walked slowly down the hallway toward her host, trying not to appear too impressed by the decor.
    David chuckled. "That, Jessie, is exactly the point. This is all theater. It was all put together to impress those who are easily impressed, intimidate those who are easily intimidated, and to offend those people who think they are superior to me. The whole thing is designed to take people just a little out of their comfort zone and once they get so hung up on what they see and what they think it means, they don't pay as much attention to details as they should."
    "And you use that to your advantage."
    "Just as much as you would use your opponents distraction to your advantage when in a fight."
    Ms. Liberty sighed, "sorry, it's been a long day."
    David stopped in front of a door midway down the hall and pulled a key out of his pocket. He handed the key to Ms. Liberty and took a step backward. "No apologies needed Jessie. I think that you really need that drink though. Inside there you'll find a small private suite with a shower. You'll find a couple sets of civilian clothing that should fit. You can leave your work clothes on the hangar behind the door. I have a discrete dry cleaner on retainer and I can have them back to you in the morning.
    "David you don't..."
    "Have to do all of this? You're right, I don't. But I'm going to anyway. Now, get in there and get cleaned up. I'll be across the hall in my office when you're ready."
    Etherfalcon waited until she closed the door and heard the locks click. He smiled at her naive assumption that he would try to do something as blatant as trying to sneak a peek at her in the shower; and her even more naive assumption that he didn't have a second key for that lock.
    He turned and walked through the door to his office. Instead of sitting down at his desk, he reached across it to press the pause/break button on his computer keyboard. Taking a quick look around to make sure he was alone, Etherfalcon spoke one word...
    Go.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 3
« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2013, 10:39:51 PM »
Fort Darwin had been on alert all day.
    The word had come down early in the morning that trouble would come just after nightfall and everyone was expecting the worst. Weapons had been checked and rechecked. Weapons lockers had been secured and the computer systems had been placed on lockdown except for essential usage. Everyone had checked and double-checked their body armor to make sure there were no weak spots. Nobody wanted to be the weak link when it all went down.
    The radar officer spread the word as soon as he saw the approach. This was it. Officers ordered their troops into position. Positions were manned. Everyone was as ready as they could be but even the most confident of  Longbow's troopers knew that nothing they could do against the oncoming onslaught.
    Ms. Liberty was making a surprise inspection... and she was MAD.
    The sounds of hundreds of boots snapping to attention was lost in the sounds of her helicopter settling in for a landing. Nobody dared to move as the rotors wound down and a door opened on the side of the crew compartment. In the glow of the landing lights, the gathered troopers could see a famous pair of white boots and an even more famous pair of legs emerge from the doorway.
    Although most of the troops tried very hard not to be too obvious about it, they continued to stare as the legs gave way to the red and blue minidress, gold swordbelt and famously blonde hair of Paragon City's most photographed crimefighter. And, while it was considered bad form and against regulations to mention the various photographs taken at celebrity fashion shows (for charity of course), more than a few of those troopers had copies of those photos in the memories of their smart phones.
    The fantasies lasted for as much time as it took for Ms. Liberty's face to come into view. Neither her eyes or her mouth were smiling. Her expression promised instant and unforgiving death the the first person that even breathed in her direction. An echo of terror echoed throughout the ranks and it was silently agreed that someone either very brave or very stupid would try speaking to her.
    Captain Oswald Montcalm stepped forward across the flight deck and raised his hand for a friendly handshake.
    The assembled troopers were surprised. Not that he would be the one to approach her, but that he made it  more than three steps.
    "Captain, is that your preferred hand?"
    "Um, yes Ma'am"
    "Then, unless you want to learn to use the other one, you'll put your arm down and return to your position."
    Oswald Montcalm was too stunned to even move as his Patron and supreme commanding officer swept past him heading for a raised platform off to one side of the flight deck. When Arachnos owned the facility, that platform was regularly used by an Arbiter as they explained the 'rules' of Mercy Island.
    It was informally agreed later that most of the troopers assembled would have preferred the Arbiter at that moment.
    "One month ago, this facility was breached by a group of amateurs, resulting in the death of one of our own," announced Ms. Liberty from her position atop the platform. "I don't know why I should need to tell you this but that is unacceptable. I have seen your reports and, frankly, I've seen better writing coming out of a kindergarten class. As of this moment, every single person at this facility is in danger of being placed under arrest as an accessory to murder and may be facing a court martial for gross incompetence. Over the next two hours I will be conducting an inspection of this base and if I find even one thing out of place, I will have the entire lot of you shot. Now get out of my sight before I forget that I'm supposed to be a hero.
    Captain, "she said to the still stationary form of Oswald Montcalm, "You and your senior staff will accompany me. You will answer any question I ask with a clear and unevasive answer, you will provide me with any information I require..."
    "Yes, but..."
    "And if you say anything other than Yes, Ma'am or No, Ma'am to me I will give you a very short and comprehensive demonstration of everything that I from Back Alley Brawler's combat training. Am I understood?"
    "Y-yes Ma'am."
    "Good."
    Up on a nearby rooftop, a pair of low light binoculars followed Ms. Liberty as she stalked off the flight deck and through a doorway leading down into Fort Darwin, training Longbow officers behind her like condemned ducks. The binoculars shook slightly blurring the image because the person holding them was trying not to laugh at the performance she had just seen.
    Lily Abel waited until she saw the Longbow troops disband and move with great purpose to various points of Fort Darwin before she lowered the binoculars. She leaned back against a crumbling chimney and tilted her head back to address her companion.
    "As much as I hate to admit it, he was right. She's in."
    When it was first presented to her, she thought Etherfalcon's plan was insane. It was far too complex and relied on far too many things going right at once. If it were presented to her by somebody under her command, she'd have told them to go away and try again. Since it came from her employer, however...
    A slim blonde in wraparound mirrorshades knelt down next to her and offered Lily a bottle of water. "How long do you think we have?"
    "Maybe two hours. Probably a bit less. It all depends on how terrified everyone is down there. Once they start coming to their senses they'll start noticing that 'Ms. Liberty' isn't quite right. Hopefully our girl has enough sense to get out before then.
    "And if not?"
    Lily shifted her shoulders to try and get more comfortable. "Just the two of us? Not much we can do. Besides, it was her job to kick the anthill. We're just here to see where the ants run to."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Re: FICTION: Damocles
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2013, 02:11:44 AM »
David Drake was a poster child for overbooked, overcommitted, and lacking in time. He never had less than a hundred separate things to do at any given moment; so when he had the rare opportunity to appreciate the fact that he had a world-famous, beautiful, blonde, superheroine showering in the next room, a room that he knew for certain had three active cameras in it, he did what any normal man would do.
    He double checked the math on Drake Incorporated's corporate tax returns.
    Accountants were all well and good, and he knew he had hired the best, but it just wasn't in his nature to leave anything that important in the hands of others. In those moments he was being honest with himself, he had to admit that leaving things up to others was not one of his strong points.
    Twenty minutes later he heard the shower switch off and the rattle of a towel leaving the rack. He figured he had enough time for a few more profit/loss equations before she would be ready. He was well into the Q4 figures when she stepped through his office doorway.
    "David, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you weren't creepy enough to have a suit of clothes in my size just lying around."
    "Jessie, you know me better than that," he said as he stood up from his chair and reorganized the papers he had been looking through. "It just so happens that my assistant is close enough to your size that I asked her to pick out a few things that she thought you'd like. After I rejected the first four outfits as being a bit too close to your working clothes... you really should change up your outfit you know. Sometimes I think people expect you to have a dozen of those mini dresses in your closet. We almost never see you in anything else, and Jessie, that's just not the girl I know."
    "David..."
    "I hear Serge over at Icon can do wonderful things... anyway, we decided that something simple would be best for dinner and maybe a drink or two."
    And simple was the right word. Unless they knew who they were looking at, most people just would not equate the young woman in dark blue jeans, copper-gold tone belt, running shoes and pale green silk blouse with one of the five most influential persons in Paragon City. Separated from her iconic look, Megan Duncan looked just like anyone else. And for the next few hours, that was exactly what Etherfalcon was counting on.
    "Ready to go Jessie? I know the perfect place."
                    *************
    Since it rose out of the sea, Talos Island had almost seemed blessed. From the real estate boom of the 80's to being spared the worst of the Rikti invasion, Talos had been the place for opportunity and growth. Now it was home to most of the city's high tech firms, startups, and venture capitalists. It was even a tourist mecca with the mostly tame seediness of Spanky's Boardwalk still attracting tens of thousands annually.
    The blocks surrounding the boardwalk were, as the glossy sales flyers suggested, in a state of 'transition', meaning that they were still recovering from 'the rikti recession' which drove down property values and allowed in some more questionable businesses.
    "Spunky's? You brought me to a place called Spunky's?"
    Megan Duncan had spent the past fifteen minutes wondering why David had brought her here. There were plenty of decent restaurants in Steel Canyon that were in much better neighborhoods.
    "Jessie girl where's your sense of adventure?"
    "But still, Spunky's?"
    David Draked looked sideways at her before replying, "I seem to recall a certain young crimefighter being referred to in the press as, and here I quote, Paragon's spunky new heroine, unquote."
    Megan Duncan sighed. There were some things you could never forget. Particularly when you were surrounded by people who seemed to be happy to remember it for you. "I never liked being called that it sounded so..."
    "Tacky?"
    "Yes, exactly, tacky."
    A slow grin spread over David's face. "Jessie, how could you possibly think I would put you in any position you couldn't get yourself out of? Besides, I happen to know the owner prefers a bit of tackiness. I also know that they have a world class chef, and one of the finest bars in the city."
    "But David I just can't be seen..."
    "Ms. Liberty can't be seen publicly in a place like this you mean. She has far too grand of a reputation to be seen slumming. There you go again Jessie, forgetting that you and her are not the same person. Besides I had an ulterior motive in bringing you here. Take a look around, what do you see."
    "I see a rundown neighborhood with a lot of closed businesses."
    "What if I told you that just three years ago you would have seen a completely different neighborhood full of strip clubs, barred windows, rampant crime and terrified citizens. The Marcones had a strong foothold here and they weren't the most attentive of landlords. A few brave citizens decided to stand their ground and, slowly, things have been changing. The streets are a bit cracked but clean again, shops are reopening, and the area is almost crime free.  Developers want to just come in and tear everything down and they're just about to convince the city that the whole area should be rebuilt in the name of 'progress'."
    "David that kind of thing happens all of the time. It usually works out for the best"
    "I happen to know that those same developers have connections to the Marcone family."
    "So what do you want me to do? Declare some kind of mob war?"
    David smiled again. "A few words in the city council's ear on the neighborhood's behalf would probably do far more good. Power is all fine and good but a sharp scalpel usually gets better results than a sledge hammer. Besides," he said, striding away down the street, "the chef really is worth the trouble. Come on Jessie, we'll talk about it over dinner."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Re: FICTION: Damocles
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2013, 11:08:10 PM »
The interior of the restaurant was, much to Megan's surprise, extremely tasteful. Wine dark fabrics were matched up with soft leathers and polished wood. Brass lamps provided a warm glow to the entire room while leaving the tables in a dim intimacy. The wait staff were efficient, omnipresent and, best of all, invisible most of the time. This was not the kind of place where you would hear an off key 'happy birthday' song sung by disinterested staff or some place where canned music competed with televisions for attention. The entire ambiance seemed to state 'this is how it should be done and the rest of you should be ashamed of yourselves.'
    Dinner was excellent. A light salad led into a fragrant fish soup. Perfectly seared beef paired up with lightly spiced vegetables. Cream cake with a caramel sauce rounded off the meal with just the right wines appearing with each course. The conversation over dinner was both a sharing of mutual frustrations, funny stories about the things they encountered in their costumed lives, and a remembrance of friends and times past.
    Megan Duncan was impressed, if a bit baffled by certain elements of the decor. Floor to ceiling mirrors were placed at odd intervals around the room. They didn't seem to reflect anything in particular, they were spaced too irregularly to provide the optical illusion of a larger dining space and they seemed to be tinted a faint green. The mirrors had been given elaborate gilt frames but they somehow failed to evoke Versailles.
    The single strangest bit of decor were the three brass poles set at one end of the room. The poles had been turned into a framework for an elaborate fountain and an arrangement of flowering vines but she really couldn't shake the feeling that they were meant to be something else.
    "David?"
    "Hm?"
    "You were absolutely right. The dinner was absolutely wonderful but I have to ask about..."
    David Drake looked briefly over her shoulder and back at the expression on her face. He took another sip of dark red wine before answering. "They're reminders."
    "What are?"
    "The poles. Don't worry Jessie, I can't read minds, it's just that everyone asks about them. This place wasn't always a two star restaurant. Once upon a time the Marcones called this a gentleman's club. Although using the word gentleman to refer to it is a massive insult to men everywhere." David set his wine down. "This was the core of the neighborhood's rot. The Marcones ran their entire operation from here. And, I'll admit, they were pretty successful for a while. Everything spread out from here and it would have continued to contaminate everything it touched except that one of the employees decided that she'd had enough and decided to take matters into her own hands."
     Etherfalcon wasn't about to claim eidetic memory but he had very good recall of facts. It also helped that he had nearby when one of the dancers, a blonde saddled with the stage name of 'Spunky Taco', realized that the same innate talent that infatuated men and made them subconsciously want to give her money and gifts could be used as a weapon.
    He'd felt the mental pressure from two blocks away and 500 feet up. It was strong enough that even he had trouble focusing at first. Even while he was regaining his senses the tactical training in his brain noticed that every human being in the area was trying to get as far away from a single point as possible.
    He landed outside the club's doors and was only briefly delayed by the presence of the particularly thick witted bouncer that insisted he pay a cover charge. Once the bouncer's unconscious body was propping the door open for him, Etherfalcon swept inside the club and burst into laughter.
    On the poorly lit stage, wearing little more than their underwear, were six Marcone foot soldiers doing what could only be described as a marionette's version of the Macarena. Sitting on the bar sipping a something from martini glass; one of the goon's coats wrapped around her shoulders like a cape, sat the source of the psychic energy.
    "Spunky, " said Megan around an astonished smile.
    "The same," said a smartly dressed blonde as she set down a Martini glass and pulled up a chair from an adjacent table. "They were pigs and I would have made them dance themselves to death but the almighty Etherfalcon here talked me out of it. To tell the truth I was just a local girl scared out my wits and I didn't know how to stop doing whatever it was I was doing. He calmed me down, found this lunatic of a gypsy street performer to train me, and set me up with a bit of cash and encouraged me when I decided to try my hand at crimefighting for a while."
    "I thought the name sounded familiar," said Megan.
    "Yup, I was pretty good at it too but, unlike some people, "she glanced sideways at a far too innocent looking Etherfalcon, "I was never really into punching people in the face. So, I retired and decided to see what I could do for my old neighborhood."
    "She does what she can Jessie, but if the Marcone sale goes through, all of the good that she's done around here will be erased in weeks. I wouldn't be surprised to see a headline saying that this very building suffered a 'fire of unknown origins' as soon as the Mooks move back in.
    Megan sipped her wine. It gave her a chance to think. Here was something she, as Megan Duncan, could do to make the world a better place. It wasn't a plot to take over the world, it didn't involve aliens or Gods, and it wasn't likely to make headlines but it had the possibility to save people in a more permanent way. Maybe David had a point. Sometimes the small acts of kindness were the ones that were the most heroic.
    "I'll see if I can speak to the City Council, " Megan said just before a huge yawn split her face. "Excuse me. David, I think I've had enough for the night, I should probably get home. It was very good to meet you..."
    "Call me Ash," said the blonde, shaking hands with Megan as she rose to her feet.
    "Ash, then. You have an excellent restaurant, I'll try to stop in more often."
    "Be my guest. I might even put a sign up on the wall. Ms. Liberty ate here, or something like that."
    The two women chuckled lightly at the joke. What would one more historical marker matter? Heaven knew that Paragon City had one of them every fifty feet. Ash and Megan started for the door while David finished signing off for the meal. When the two women had gotten out of earshot, he pulled his phone out of the inner pocket of his jacket and pushed a button for a programmed number. After a moment he spoke a single word.
    Recall.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Re: FICTION: Damocles
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2013, 10:55:47 PM »
The rooftops of Mercy Island were oddly relaxing at night.
Given that most of the island had been a wasteland since the Rikti invasion, Arachnos didn't even make an effort anymore, and the Snakes had free reign, it was actually peaceful enough that Lily Abel was tempted to settle in for a short nap. She and her partner had set up an observation post overlooking Fort Darwin but, for two hours, nothing worth observing had occurred.
That had changed.
Thirty minutes earlier, a single word had echoed through her earpiece over the closed network that her team shared. That word, spoken by a man nearly one hundred miles away, let everyone who could hear it know that time was up on their operation. Ten minutes after that short transmission, Lily could see a helicopter on the fort's flight deck begin to bring it's engines up to speed. Ten minutes after that, the VIP of all Longbow VIP's re-appeared on the flight deck of Fort Darwin.
The stance, the stalk, the sway and the attitude were all Ms. Liberty. Or, as Lily knew, a reasonable impersonation. Whoever Etherfalcon had gotten for the job had done a masterful job of keeping the entire garrison wound up tighter than Imhotep but it was time for her to disappear before somebody started thinking.
Lily could see the pseudo-goddess of Longbow and her entourage of thoroughly deflated officers speak briefly on the flight deck and, after a few very proper and completely insincere salutes, she climbed into the waiting helicopter that would take her back to Paragon City.
Once she was safely on her way, her spell had broken. Lily could see the bright red sparks in the watch stations  that hinted of completely against the rules cigarettes, and the slump in shoulders that had not stood at attention for that long in years.
Lily couldn't quite muffle her sigh.
"Teams two and three, eyes open. Here we go." She didn't wait for a response before she brought her binoculars back up to her eyes. Her view of the world shifted into shades of green as the available light filtered through the electronic eyepieces.
"Are you still secure, Spooky?" Lily asked her stealth specialist who had actually hitched a ride to the fort on "Ms. Liberty's' helicopter.
The woman called Carpenter laughed quietly. "No problems, one. I could be wearing a sequin disco suit, singing 'I will survive' and doing the Macarena and they'd never know I'm... oh, well that was fast."
"What do you have, three?"
"At least a dozen people heading for the front door looking like they have somewhere important to be."
"Can you keep close to them?"
"They seem a bit distracted. No problem."
The front door was the entrance ramp that led directly inland from Fort Darwin. During the Arachnos days, when civilians still lived on the North side of the wall, it was the site of carefully managed protests designed to show that Arachnos wasn't at all a repressive dictatorship. Those protests would regularly last all day, or at least until the Arbiters got tired of all of the shouting and used riot guns with live rounds to disperse the crowds. Now, since the capture of Fort Darwin and the 'liberation' of Mercy Island, there weren't any more protests. It wasn't because the people were happier, it was more because there weren't any more people. Anyone who had any sense had moved South of the wall where they could lead a reasonably safe, if not totally free and Democratic, lives. Those who could not or would not move, thought Lily, were probably discovering the joys of being cold blooded.
She shifted her focus from the flight deck to the base of the ramp just in time to see the people she had been told about walk past the guard drones, turn immediately to their left and walk three blocks to the second most vital installation on the island. The Dirty Duck.
Throughout history, wherever there have been soldiers, there has been someone who made a nice living selling them drinks. Although the amount of alcohol and the names changed, there was always one place that existed for just that purpose. Normally the Dirty Duck Bar and Grill featured reasonable drinks and even decent burgers, but the one on north Mercy Island didn't do anything for the overall reputation of the chain. By most standards of quality, service, and basic hygiene, it was completely sub-par and, if there had still been anyone enforcing health code violations, it would have been shut down long ago. It was horrible, but on North Mercy, it was the only place to go.
Lily lowered the binoculars and rubbed her eyes. 
"Two, is there anything from your side of things?"
The last member of her team was actually the farthest away from her. He was looking out at the desolation from the window of one of the tallest buildings on the South side of the island, but he was also watching the Fort through it's own security cameras and sensor systems.
"You'd think they would have at least changed the passwords, " came back the rough voiced reply. "I don't have anything useful for you right now boss lady. Nobody is doing anything out of the ordinary. Well, nothing we weren't expecting anyway. I'm checking everyone who accessed the computers against the Zedarkov list. Just in case."
"Did you get pictures of everyone who left?"
"Yep, if you want the names, I'll need a moment."
"Cross reference those as well and get back to me."
Lily knew as well as anyone that over the years Longbow had suffered from poor leadership, a lack of true purpose, a perpetually ill-defined mission, and a somewhat checkered reputation. It had been infiltrated and corrupted by every terrorist group and every flavor of organized crime and was mostly little better than a well armed street gang but some people, like Lily and Etherfalcon and others, believed that there was still some hope for it.
Thanks to information gathered (quite unofficially and possibly illegally) by an ally named Akim Zedarkov, Etherfalcon had a list of several Council agents within Longbow. If, the theory went, they could be made to start jumping at shadows, they would most likely get nervous and make mistakes. That was the point of the night's adventure; to shake the tree so hard that some of the bad apples would drop and take a few others with them. But it was beginning to look like the night was a washout.
Behind her, Lily's partner (and possible bodyguard; Lily still wasn't sure about that) was making a slow sweep of the rooftop. They would be leaving soon and it was always a good idea to know where the local reptiles were before going anywhere on foot in Mercy. They wouldn't have to go far. A surprisingly comfortable safehouse had been set up inside an old church just a few blocks away. Once there, her team would be able to regroup, compare notes, and figure out where to go next.
Lily had finished packing her gear when Jake, her team two, started speaking in her ears again.
"There are lies, damn lies, and Statistics," he quoted with a slight chuckle. "Care to guess what the odds are that all of the people who left Fort Darwin are on the list?"
"You're joking," replied Lily.
"Can't make something like that up. It's not everyone we know about, but I'd be willing to guess that it's a fair chunk of the Council agents hereabouts."
"It'd be a shame to let a chance like this pass," said Sandy.
"You want to take on four to one odds?" asked Lily. "You people are insane."
"Nope, " replied Jake. "Just highly paid, skilled professionals. It's part of the job description."
Lily shook her head and wondered why that had somehow made perfect sense.
"Alright, " she said. "Everyone meet at the Duck. We're going to have some awful drinks with even worse people."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Re: FICTION: Damocles
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2013, 02:42:40 AM »
As she walked through the door of the Dirty Duck, Lily had a mental flashback to every cowboy movie she had ever watched growing up. There was a comforting formula to the saloon scenes where you'd hear the sound of a slightly out of tune piano, the clinking of glasses, the quiet roar of a room full of people all speaking at once, and the inevitable sudden silence when the a shadowed figure walked in from off the street and proclaimed that somebody had done them wrong and they were here to collect.
 
She was almost disappointed when her own entrance went completely unnoticed.
 
 
The Duck was exactly the way she remembered it. The establishment (she couldn't bring herself to call it a restaurant) hadn't seen any serious attempt at anything other than the most basic of maintenance in years. The interior walls were a patchwork of bare boards nailed sloppily over holes of various sizes and origins, the paint job was varying shades of 'whatever got spilled', and the carpets were more mold than material. The furniture was made up of mismatched, third hand remnants most likely lifted from the surrounding buildings, held together by nails, bolts, screws, and the occasional bit of fabric.
 
Somehow, in what must have been an attempt to make everything better without the intervention of a flamethrower, somebody had rigged blinking, multicolored Christmas lights across the ceiling and hung a brightly colored banner proclaiming 'every hour is happy hour.' On top of all that, a vintage jukebox, which had obviously seen better days, supplied a soundtrack of pop music's worst offenders from the 50's, 60's, and 70's.
 
Horrible wasn't a strong enough word for it. The words 'train wreck' came pretty close
 
There weren't that many customers. Considering where they were and the time of night, that was the least surprising thing Lily had seen. The dozen that she had followed were clustered around three tables to her right. The only other visible patrons were a man and woman in matching green power armor, a roughly humanoid cloud of smoke that had six empty shot glasses in front of it, and a small blue cat hovering between the tabletop and the ceiling. All and all, a fairly normal crowd for Mercy Island.
 
Lily stepped to her left, letting Sandy and Carpenter pass through the door. Jake, her electronics expert and the member of her team coming from the other side of the island, would be arriving in a few minutes. All she had to do was act casual until her team was assembled. Then it would be time to see how talkative her targets were feeling.
 
She decided to try her luck at the bar. She knew better than to drink while on a job but she was working on two basic assumptions. The first was that walking into a bar and not ordering something would look suspicious, and the second was that even the least alcoholic thing they served had to be healthier than the food.
 
While she nursed her drink, Lily scanned the room. There were two doors and six windows her targets could use to escape. Assuming that the other patrons would mind their own affairs, conventional thinking held that her team's best option would be to pin their targets in the corner and overwhelm them with superior firepower. Of course, conventional thinking in this case was based upon having an entire Longbow rifle team at her back. Once upon a time she had that, now she needed to think unconventionally.
 
She tossed back the rest of her drink. It was better than sipping it. She caught the eyes of her two teammates and nodded. Carpenter casually strolled away as if she was looking for the bathroom. Sandy stood up and stepped up behind Lily as the older woman moved to the center of the room.
 
"Excuse me," said Lily in an overly chirpy voice that could be attributed to too much Alcohol, "could I have your attention for a moment? Thank you. I'm afraid I have a favor to ask of everyone in the room. My friend and I," she said indicating the blonde standing just behind her left shoulder, "have a small bet. She has bet me that I could not get the attention of anyone in the room who is a Council double agent secretly infiltrating Longbow."
 
There was an appropriate moment of silence while fourteen sets of eyes stared at the suicidal woman standing in the center of the room. Lily had just made herself a target for anyone and everyone. Once the magic of her sheer audacity wore off, Lily realized she would most likely be a dead woman. If she had been alone, she wouldn't have even thought of trying this stunt. Her whole plan relied on getting everyone in the room looking at her or, rather, at the woman standing in the center of the room with sunglasses in her left hand and her eyes closed. For anybody else on the planet, closing your eyes at the beginning of a hostile situation would be suicide. For Sandy, it was a precaution.
 
Sandy (short for Sandrine) was a Gorgon. Perhaps not a direct descendant of the sisters of Greek myth, and nowhere near as horrible, but possessing the same deadly glare. Seeing her unshielded eyes was a one way ticket to madness and death if she chose. Lily knew that she usually held back, just temporarily short circuiting the brain, but for a few people, she was the last thing they ever saw.
 
The effect on the room was overwhelming. Eight humans (and one blue cat) fell to the floor unconscious. Two more finished their drinks and simultaneously activated the teleport feature on their armor, the black shadow excused itself and walked out into the street and the last four people looked more confused than anything.
 
When you have a force multiplier, thought Lily, use it.
 
Lily moved forward quickly and used her right hand to drive one of the Longbow soldiers face first into the tabletop while her left hand shoved another backward to the floor, hard enough to leave him stunned.. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a third stiffen and collapse from an unseen blow from Carpenter leaving just one Longbow functional.
 
Lily leaned over, casually rested her hands on the tabletop, and smiled at the last soldier. "Now that we're alone, lets talk. You don't have anywhere important you need to be do you?"
« Last Edit: March 27, 2013, 02:52:33 AM by JWBullfrog »
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

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episode 8
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2013, 02:06:25 AM »
For the second time that night, David Drake found himself sitting behind his desk while a woman took a shower in his private suite across the hall. And for the second time, he found himself with some rare free time to get caught up on his paperwork.
He heard the shower switch off but didn't take his eyes away from the report detailing the last six months of operations at his South American coffee plantation. One of his regional managers was getting greedy and trying to cut deals with the somewhat less than virtuous local governor. That meant another round of e-mails, accusations, denials, and lawyers. David hated resorting to lawyers. The mess would take forever to clean up and, of course, you had to pay the legal fees, but sometimes it took a sledgehammer to get the idea into people's heads. If you worked for or with Drake Industries, you played by the rules or you didn't play at all.
He was in the middle of trying to remember the proper Portuguese phrasing for 'have your files ready for inspection' when Ms. Liberty's uniform landed on his desk. He saved the file and slowly looked up at the damp female figure in front of him.
"Enjoy your night?"
"Oh immensely," said the voice of Megan Duncan from under the midnight blue bath towel she was using to dry her hair. "I love getting undressed by the eyes of two hundred desperate men," said an entirely different voice from under the same towel, " I would just prefer that they were having fantasies about me and not Ms. Liberty."
David Drake tried not to laugh out loud. His assistant Riley couldn't have been any more different from Megan Duncan. Riley had been born in the resort town of Salamanca before it became a supernatural hotspot. Her family had never had much money to start with but when work went away with the tourist trade, they moved to St. Martial. Riley grew up surrounded by the neon, the lights, and the general lifestyle of Casino Row so it wasn't really a surprise that she found work as an escort. That could have led her to a bad situation but she'd had the good fortune of being employed by Madam Masada and that meant becoming something more than just a sexual plaything.
Under Madam's training, Riley learned how to be the perfect ornament; beautiful, polite, with a sparkling wit; capable of talking about baseball or current political theory. Riley also learned how to listen to what was being said around her and sift out information that could be useful to her employer. Madam paid well and Riley was able to make her way through college and develop a mind of her own and a strong desire not to become any man's toy. Oddly enough, it was that spirit that caught David Drake's attention. Within a year she had become his personal assistant and defacto second in command of Drake Industries' Paragon City operations.
One of these days, I'm going to have to ask Madam how many of her 'former employees' just happened to end up working as assistants to important businessmen, thought David. He knew that his relationship with Madam operated largely along the lines of 'ask me no secrets and I'll tell you no lies,' but sometimes it would be nice not to have to second guess one of his closest associates.
"Care to tell me more? Or should I just let my imagination dwell on that last phrase?" he said after a few moments.
"Dwell all you like boss, it won't change a thing.' said Riley as she wrapped the towel around her hair and flopped down onto the padded leather sofa to the left of his desk. She was dressed in baggy Paragon University sweats and looked nothing at all like the famous crime fighter she had just spent the night impersonating.
"The psychic disguise doodad you had me wear worked like a charm. Nobody expected a thing. It made the back of my brain itch though. I could have lived without wearing her clothes. They were still kind of sweaty you know."
"Sorry. Our available time window was just too narrow."
"Uh, huh. You just wanted to see me squeeze into that minidress. I almost couldn't breathe in that thing. Anyway," she said after getting comfortable "they're useless. If Arachnos really wanted Fort Darwin they would be able to do it with a pair of Night Widows and a case of whiskey. Their information systems are a joke. I managed to get the info taps you wanted into place but I would not be surprised if we were already getting hits on sensitive information going outbound to everybody who shouldn't have it. The only way I'd recommend using anyone in that facility as part of a successful operation is as as distraction."
"And how did winding them up go?"
"Perfectly. The only people in Darwin that weren't terrified of me were the ones too stupid to tie their own boots. The officers, particularly that guy Montcalm, were uniformly worthless. I can see why Lily hates him."
"And do you think you got them nervous enough to look for instructions?"
"Boss, if people aren't trying to reach their superiors for further instructions right this minute, I'll eat that minidress."
David Drake did laugh at that last one. No matter how successful she became, Riley would always be a working class girl.
"I suppose we should have it cleaned instead, " he said. "After all, we don't want Ms. Liberty standing around Atlas Park in her underthings do we?"
"Well...."
"Clean thoughts, Riley. Clean thoughts. Remember, we're the good guys."
« Last Edit: April 03, 2013, 09:53:56 PM by JWBullfrog »
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 9
« Reply #9 on: April 09, 2013, 08:20:38 PM »
    There were, in the opinion of Lily Abel, two good things about working in the Rogue Islands. The first was the absolute freedom to do what you liked so long as you never created a big enough disruption that Arachnos had to notice you. You could, quite literally, get away with murder; provided that the newly deceased wasn't important to the local overlords. If you were stupid or careless enough to find yourself in that situation, you would be very lucky if you were simply executed on the spot. Arachnos had far more terrifying ways of expressing their displeasure with you than a simple bullet to the head. Being handed off to one of their stable of mad scientists as a test subject, for example, would very likely give you a finer appreciation for the phrase 'a living hell.'
    In the grand scheme of things, ambushing a dozen Longbow soldiers in a barfight wouldn't even register as mild annoyance on the Arachnos scale. Given the complete lack of goodwill between the two organizations, there was a better than average chance that Arachnos would not only deny that such an event ever happened but they would slip you a hundred dollar bill and offer you work.
    The second benefit to working in the Rogue Isles, was the extraordinary number of decent restaurants. Even though it was the home of a singularly repressive government, and the stalking ground for some of the most dangerous people on the planet, the Rogue Isles had the highest percentage of world class restaurants of any city that wasn't Paris. The highest number of those could be found inside the hotels and casinos of St. Martial which is where, thanks to the generous living allowance provided by her employer, Lily Abel had set up her own base of operations.
    The Ice Palace was considered second or third behind the Golden Giza as far as luxurious accommodations were concerned. But it did boast spacious rooms and an excellent buffet that was a perfect place for a business meeting over breakfast.
    "So," said Lily as she slid back into her chair with her third round of selections, "two questions. First, what have you got to tell me? And second, why isn't he here?"
    "Well," said Riley Stephens around a mouthful of blueberry pancake, "the Boss asked me to apologize for not being able to be here in person but he had to make a sudden trip to the Bahamas. It seems that he has to go find somebody, or something , I don't know. He was in a big hurry and didn't say much. Anyway, he did give me some computer files to look over with you." Riley speared a piece of melon off of Lily's plate and popped it into her own mouth before Lily could complain.
    Lily could only shake her head at Riley's antics. She knew that the younger woman was intelligent, extremely competent and had an almost obsessional need to be non-conformist at every opportunity. There was probably some deep reason for that but it was somebody else's problem.
    "Files. Alright, that's good but is there anything else? Some hint of where he's going perhaps? I'm not crazy about working in the dark and he hasn't really shared much of his grand plan."
    "Get used to it," Riley replied. "Only he knows what's going on in his head and, to tell you the truth, I don't think he knows half the time either. Usually, things work out and he passes it all off as a deep and meaningful plan.. When it doesn't he mutters something about 'incomplete data' and then sulks a bit until he hits on the right answer. His heart's in the right place," Riley's fork struck again, stabbing a sausage. "No matter where his brain is. My advice is, don't think too hard about it, finish eating, then we'll look at those files and see if something makes sense."
    Two hours later, both women were sitting in Lily's suite taking turns staring at a pair of laptops. The files were cross referenced copies of the Zedarkov file, Lily's own conversations with not just one, but several of the soldiers her group had ambushed two nights earlier, information pulled from Longbow's own computers, and Etherfalcon's own notes.
    All the information pointed to the fact that The Council had been systematically been placing agents inside Longbow for several years in an attempt to do something more than just learn where and when the law enforcement agency was coming after them. Etherfalcon's notes said that he was certain that it was connected to the Council's abortive attempt to detonate an Atomic bomb over Galaxy City, and  that he strongly suspected that it was also linked to the meteor strikes that had decimated Galaxy months earlier. The problem was understanding why.
    "So he's thinking that the Council, the most racist, intolerant, supremacist organization in North America is working with aliens to overthrow the government? I don't get it. It just doesn't make sense." Lily leaned back into her chair and stared at the ceiling.
    "What's not to get?," asked Riley. "They're crazy. They do crazy things."
    "But what do they expect to get out of it? Lets assume for the moment that he is right and that there is some alien invasion on the way. Ok, we've seen that before and we usually deal with it pretty well. But what would the Council have to gain by it?" Even as she said the words Lily could see the answer.
    Riley saw it too. "They're thinking that by helping the invaders it will create a power vacuum that they can fill.  They infiltrate Longbow and render it useless. Vanguard is already stretched a bit thin as it is so they will be decimated even more fighting off the invaders. The world's Heroes will get torn apart trying to be everywhere at once and governments will be unable to function."
    Riley stood up and paced slowly around the room unconsciously imitating her employer.
    "And then, once the world has been brought to their knees, and the Council has had plenty of time to secretly observe and copy their alien friends' technology, they step up with their own army of enhanced agents, war robots, smart uniforms, and shiny boots and say to the world 'don't worry, we'll save you. Just do what we tell you and everything will be just fine.' And then the world, now completely shell shocked, will fall right into line behind them and they will throw the invaders back into space and become rulers of the world."
    "And they somehow expect that to work? Don't they even read science fiction?" Lily shook her head.
    "I'm not sure they read. Well only a limited selection anyway," replied Riley.
    Lily sighed and sat foward. She rubbed her eyes and looked over at the brunette who had drifted over to the far corner of the room. "It's crazy enough to be something that the Council would do but there's more than a few giant holes in the plot."
    "Like the fact that Arachnos would never stand for it?"
    "Yeah, or Malta, or Nemesis, or the Fifth Column, or any one of the dozen or so power players in the world conquering game. The whole affair with Statesman has shown that Recluse has a very clear position on who should be ruler of the world, so I can't see any of them just stepping aside and letting the Council succeed."
    "Unless that's just what Nemesis wants them to do, " quipped Riley.
    Lily just held up her hand in the universal 'let's not go there' gesture. Trying to outthink Nemesis was a surefire way to give yourself a massive headache.
    "The biggest problem I'm seeing however, " Lily continued after a moment," is proving that the Council is working with Aliens. I'm pretty certain that we have another invasion on the way, the new Shivans are proof of that; but I can't quite connect the dots between them and the Council. We need more information before we act and I don't know where to look for it. I suppose if we could get some of those data taps on the Council's own computers we could get a better picture but where would we..."
    "Sharkhead," Riley interrupted. "I mean thats where...it's the largest..," she stuttered to a halt as she suddenly realized she had Lily's full attention.
    "Sharkhead." Lily said in the same flat tone of voice she would have used on one of her soldiers who had just suggested a frontal assault against a better armed opponent. "You are suggesting that we sneak into the Largest Council base in the Isles, hack their computer network, and sneak back out again?"
    "Well..."
    "It's completely insane," Lily smiled and watched as Riley started breathing again. "But I guess that insanity is catching in this job. Alright, assuming that the all knowing Etherfalcon doesn't come back from his trip with a better idea, we'll work with that as a plan. But we'll take the time to make the best plan that we can. We're not going to leap until we look."
    Lily pulled her own laptop closer and stated paging through the data stored there. "We'll need a place to set up a listening post. I don't suppose you know anybody in Sharkhead that can help set that up?"
    "Actually, " said Riley in a slightly distracted tone, "I'm pretty sure I do. I'll just need to make a few calls to some old friends of mine."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 10
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2013, 11:30:38 PM »
In the opinion of the average person in the Rogue Islands who even paid attention to that sort of thing, the most important thing about Sharkhead Island was its massive deposits of Bauxite and the giant processing facility known as the Hellforge. Sure there were the rumors of an ancient sleeping monster below the island, odd rock monsters, hybrid coral people, and even demonic creatures from another world, but since the government had announced in no uncertain terms that these things simply did not exist, the average person had learned not to pay attention.
 
The Cage consortium had been able, by means of several well placed bribes, threats, incriminating photographs, and at least two unsolved murders, to secure the contract to run operations on Sharkhead. Even before the ink had dried, the Arbiter in charge of negotiations had made it perfectly clear that Lord Recluse would be most displeased if there were any delays in production. Since they were not idiots and since they saw the potential for making massive profits, the Cage consortium was perfectly happy to run operations 24 hours a day in order to meet Arachnos' demands.
 
Even if that meant killing their workers.
 
The accident rate among consortium workers had reached a level far above those suffered by workers in comparable industries elsewhere in the world before Arachnos sent an arbiter to point out that a worker genocide was unlikely to help in meeting production quotas and that, in the eyes of Lord Recluse, was entirely unacceptable.
 
Since that brief meeting, workers conditions had improved. Somewhat. The number of accidents dropped and workers found themselves with some free time and money to spend. A lot of that money went right back into Cage's hands via the ages old company store policy, but some of it went to pay for other things. And those other things are how Riley Stephens' friends made their money.
 
It has been a well established fact from almost the beginning of history that laborers had certain urgent needs. And it is also an established fact that by tending to those needs, people had made fortunes. The Masada Organization had established the reputation of providing those services at a lower cost, more discretion, and a higher customer satisfaction than their competitors. The organization's founder, Madam Masada, made sure that everyone who worked for her understood that the customer always came first.
 
After all, your average Sharkhead miner didn't know the first thing about dry cleaning, shoe repair, dentistry, or tax preparation and generally were being worked too hard by Cage to have time to learn.
 
Madam Masada had realized this fact when she first arrived in the Rogue Islands and she quietly purchased small businesses on the verge of failure, relocated some of them to different neighborhoods, and rebuilt others until she had a network of thousands of smiling faces and open eyes and ears. Information, it seemed, sold even better than starched shirts.
 
Lily Abel had taken up residence in a fifth floor apartment in a brownstone less than a mile from Blackheart Hospital's Sharkhead facility. For the past three weeks, she had been masquerading as the maiden aunt of one of Madam's employees getting away from an uncomfortable family situation in New York. Although she had resented the maiden aunt reference (she wasn't that old) Lily had to admit that everyone she met seemed to accept it at face value. After a few days, her cover story had earned earned enough sympathy that people started referring to her as 'the poor woman' and she'd been wrapped in the protective arms of those who understood far too well.
 
Over those same three weeks, Lily had been doing research on the Council's operations in Sharkhead. Thanks to satellite photos and maps, she knew as much as anyone could about the exterior of the Council base and it's entrances and exits. Information from around the neighborhood gave her a rough idea of when Council soldiers would leave their base, and direct observations by herself and others gave her a better idea of what forces she would have to face. She had as much information as any commander could ask for but what she didn't have was the most important piece of the puzzle.
 
A way in that wasn't suicidal.
 
Saturday night around the Cage consortium worker's housing district meant hard drinking and storytelling. Most of the time the stories meant nothing and the storytellers weren't really looking for more than bragging rights but one in particular had been brought to Lily's attention.
 
His name was Luther. He wasn't much to look at but it didn't seem to bother him. He was a long time worker in The Pit; the massive strip mine just south of the hospital. When Lily first saw him, she was sitting on the steps of her brownstone listening to the talk, and he was in the company of a pretty blonde in plain jeans and blouse. It was clear to any of the other men around that she was on his arm but Lily could see that she was the one doing the steering.
 
"Aunt Cathy," the blonde said using Lily's cover name, "you have to hear this story. It's so cool."
 
'It's so cool' was a code phrase that meant 'this might be important' so Lily smiled and patted the step next to her in invitation. Luther settled onto the step and Lily could see that the right side of his body was stiffer then it should have been.
 
Luther noticed her gaze. "Had an argument with a werewolf in the mines a month ago," he croaked. "Never quite got over it. Still can do a good day's work though," he thumped his chest with his left hand.
 
"A werewolf?" Lily knew that the Council had soldiers that voluntarily became hybrids called warwolves. Lily smiled wider. "Do tell."
 
Luther's story rambled a bit, and Lily was certain that some parts of it were complete fiction but it was, as Brandi had suggested 'cool'. His crew had been opening up an older mineshaft near the southeast edge of the Pit when they cut into a section of worked stone that should not have been there. Curiosity got the better of them and they decided to explore when, as Luther put it, "the wolfman dropped out of the rafters."
 
Luther had been hammered into the ground (not before beating the wolfman within an inch of it's life in an epic battle of course) and his crew had dragged him out of there and back to the main mines. A few hours later, a member of management came around to suggest that they forget all about what had just happened. Most importantly, while Luther lay in bed recovering, the shaft was quietly closed off a few days later and work was shifted away from that part of the mine.
 
'Well, I'm late for my appointment with Brandi here," Luther said as he climbed back to his feet. Lily looked up at his blonde companion and she smiled back.
 
"I'm his chiropractor."
 
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 11
« Reply #11 on: April 23, 2013, 08:47:48 PM »
Corporal Lewis Smith had been having second thoughts recently.
   It had all seemed like a good idea at first. Join the Council, beat up a few people who really deserved it for being the wrong kind of people, make a little bit of money and become one of the masters of the world. It really had been fun for a while, but lately he'd began wondering if perhaps he'd made a wrong decision somewhere. Not about the beating people up part, he still enjoyed that, but maybe being one of the Council's footsoldiers wasn't the fast track to world domination he thought it was.

   He'd been there when Archon DiDraghi's plans for Galaxy City (and as far as he knew the Archon himself) came apart in an atomic explosion. He'd been assigned to some top secret project that would have had him going to the Carribean but that was unexpectedly cancelled a few days ago and he wasn't cleared for off-world operations yet so, without anything better for him to be doing right now, his superiors had sent him to the Sharkhead garrison for 'unspecified duties as assigned.'
In other words, guard duty.
   Guard duty was just about the worst job there was. He understood the necessity of it, how constant vigilance kept the message pure and the soldiers secure, but why couldn't he have been sent over to Steel Canyon or even Port Oakes as part of a recruitment team?

   That was the thing he should be doing. He was young, good looking, a real model of human perfection. He should be marching down the street in uniform, showing everybody (particularly the girls) what a real man looked like. He knew that was where he could be of the most use. Sure, you got a bit of flack from the unknowing proletariat who just didn't understand the Council's view of the world, and every now and then a Super would drop out of the sky and start pounding on you for no good reason, but it was all better than guard duty.

   Particularly this guard duty.

   For reasons even he didn't understand, he found himself guarding a steel access door in the deepest part of fortress Sharkhead. It was a door that was always locked and didn't go anywhere important. It was rumored to connect to the big mine but everybody knew that, if that were true, arrangements would have been made to keep the miners away. Nobody was allowed to go out through the door and it was highly unlikely that anyone would be coming in through it, so Corporal Lewis Smith wondered again, where he had gone wrong.

   He was so lost in thought that it took him a minute or two to notice the slim brunette walking down the hall in front of him. She was a bit taller and not quite as curvy as his usual dream girl but, she was cute and she was smiling at him. He wasn't quite sure if she was real. The light kind of passed right through her and she looked like a ghost. Or perhaps an angel. Lewis had always thought any angel that would come to him would be blonde but, a man took the angel he could get. He watched fascinated as her hips swayed invitingly and she spread her arms as if to say 'here I am'.  He stood perfectly still as she walked up to him and stopped an arm's length away. He decided to play it cool and let her make the first move.

   "Hi," she said before the taser dart from the launcher in her left hand hit him high in the chest, shorting out his major muscle groups and dropping him to the ground like an improperly handled side of beef in a packing plant.

   It never failed to amuse Carpenter that men never saw what was right in front of them until it was far too late. She'd managed to walk through the door and down ten feet of hallway while the twitching idiot in front of her did absolutely nothing. Sure, she'd been slightly out of phase with reality at the time but that was no excuse. She'd even given him a chance and stayed partially visible but he just failed to notice. Typical. They never saw you until you put 300,000 volts into them.

   She stepped over the body and back over to the door she had ghosted through. It only took a moment for her to find and override the keypad that locked it. She spun the wheel that withdrew the bolts and let the door swing wide for the other members of her team. Lily, the leader of her team, stepped through first, the barrel of her rifle pointing the way. She stopped for a moment and looked down at the body on the floor.

   "You didn't kill him did you?"

   "Nope, he's still drooling. See?"

   "I can see that. Take his weapons, have Sandy help you drag him outside and lock the door behind us. He can sleep it off outside. Jake," Lily said to the only male member of the team, "what are you going to need to tap into the Council's computers?"

   Jake stepped slightly to the side as the ladies dragged the body down the hall. "All I really need is a computer connected to their network. One of the core workstations would be best but almost anything will do. After that I'll just need time to place the right instructions in the right places. The more connected the station, the less time."

   Jake had one of the oddest abilities Lily had ever come across in her years of working with the superpowered. He was a mechano-somatic telepath. By simply touching a computerized object, he could take control of it and reprogram it with his mind. He was also an expert in the more traditional electronic sciences which made him an invaluable source of unique equipment.

   "Ready, Spooky?" he asked Carpenter as she walked back from the far end of the hall.

   "You want to take this stuff" she asked, holding the soldier's rifle and combat harness out like a bag full of dog droppings. "It creeps me out."

   "I'll take it, " said Lily. She knew nobody on her team was as comfortable with weapons as she was and, if it all went to Hell, having a few grenades, a heavy pistol and once of the Council's own gauss guns would be a bonus. Heroes who had faced off against them claimed that they could shoot around corners and through walls. Lily doubted it's cornering ability, but being able to poke holes in armored robotic shock troopers was always a good thing.

   "Ok, let's get a move on," Lily said. "Let's find Jake a computer he can talk to."

   "Great, another escort mission," said Sandy.

 

 

   "Did you just make a video game reference?"
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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we pause for a brief delay.
« Reply #12 on: May 01, 2013, 12:26:24 AM »
My apologies to those who have been following along. It seems that, due to a combination of minor RL events, this weeks episode will be a bit delayed. I do promise that I will be back on track as quickly as possible.
 
--- JWB
 
update: Again, sorry for the delay. I'll be picking up again with the new episode on my usual day next Tuesday (May 7). THanks to all who have been following along.
 
--JWB
« Last Edit: May 03, 2013, 11:01:21 PM by JWBullfrog »
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 12
« Reply #13 on: May 08, 2013, 12:59:24 AM »
   back again and back on track I hope. thanks for being patient. --JWB
 
 
History, as it is taught in schools, is very clear about what happened at the end of the Second World War. The allied powers and their superhuman allies soundly defeated the Axis and rid the world of the fascist threat for all time.
   History, as it is taught in schools, is wrong.
   Fascism did largely disappear and was very quickly swept into the corners and under the rugs. It became a nightmare textbook example of mankind's greatest evil and an object lesson in what should never be done again. Anyone openly associating themselves with the idea became instant pariahs and discovered that they had extraordinary attention from the entire spectrum of law enforcement. It became seriously unfashionable to feature fascism in films or novels, except in a clearly negative way. Nobody wanted to think about it.
   But like all ideas, good or bad, fascism never died. To survive it had to go underground. It continued to be whispered in dark alleys, and darkened rooms, and even darker corners of the internet. It tried to flare back to life in isolated villages and remote countrysides, only to be stamped out as soon as it showed any sign of life. But it did not die. A few people kept the sparks of hatred glowing and slowly, over time, thanks to the twisted genius of men like the mythical Center, it survived. But to do so it had to go underground.
   The council base on Sharkhead Island was a quite literal example. In the 1950's, at just about the same time the Cage consortium forcibly secured their exclusive mining rights, the Council moved into part of the natural cave system of the island. Slowly, because moving quickly would draw unwelcome attention from the island's new overlords (and the same people they had split away from almost a decade earlier), the Council expanded and fortified their caves until they had an unassailable base to make their reappearance on the world stage.
   From there they had spread outward through the Rogue Isles where, since an absolute dictatorship already existed, nobody really seemed to care. Arachnos hadn't forgotten about them, but everyone else had. The Council had been underground for too long.
   For the better part of an hour, Lily Abel and her team had been walking through what she was beginning to think of as an evil anthill or perhaps a termite nest. She would have felt better about it if they were dealing with something like giant mutated nuclear ants. The ants had the advantage of a clearly understood motivation and were less trouble than the group of badly deluded men who volunteered to become werewolves, vampires, and hosts for  malicious alien life forms. The ants would just eat everything organic and move onward. The Council would hang around to make sure that nothing useful ever grew again.
   Lily and her team had managed to avoid any serious confrontations but there were only so many stunned and unconscious bodies that you could hide in unused rooms before somebody noticed. The problem was one of numbers. Lily's estimates had her team outnumbered by 100 to one, assuming best case numbers. Granted the other three of her team had superhuman abilities and she, herself, had several years of combat experience but, as her experience told her, 100 to 1 odds usually never worked out well for the one.
   The Council, it seemed had no plan when they built their fortress. Food stores were located next to armories, training rooms were located next to kitchens, re-education halls were located next to rec rooms. And nowhere, it seemed, was anything resembling a data center, or a map. So, it was a combination of blind luck and and the occasional random wild guess, that deposited Lily and her team on a catwalk overlooking the most complex section of the base they had seen yet.
   It descended three levels below them and spread out through a natural cavern that could have hosted a Yankees game. Catwalks stretched across the room and connected platforms holding computer terminals and satellite observation stations. It was exactly what they had been looking for and would have been perfect except for several dozen very large complications.
   "Do they recruit for size?" Sandy whispered.
   "Certainly not for IQ," murmured Carpenter.
   "Enough," said Lily. "They're smart enough to kill us all if they catch us. Jake, will these terminals do?"
   "Should. Assuming I can have a few minutes alone with one of them."
   "Is peace and quiet a necessity?"
   Jake smiled and looked sideways at Lily. "Nope. Planning on making some noise?'
   Lily held up one of the looted grenades she had strung around her shoulders. "Just a bit. Carpenter, I have about a dozen stun grenades here. Generally non-lethal but lots of flash and noise. See if you can get around the room and toss them where you think they can do the most good. Sandy, use the chaos to stun as many as you can. It looks like we have just the regular foot soldiers here so you shouldn't have too much trouble. Jake, get to the closest terminal, shut down their security systems, lock all the doors you can except for the ones along our escape route, and then politely ask their computer system to upload everything it knows to Damocles. Afterward I want it to erase its memory and, if possible burn itself and every other linked bit of electronics in this complex into slag."
   Jake shook his head slowly. "Isn't that just a little bit of overkill?"
   Lily pulled the Council rifle she had been cradling in her arms and pulled the charging lever back. She leaned it against the railing as it emitted a low hum. She pulled her own rifle off of her shoulder and pulled back the slide on the underslung grenade launcher. A quick check of the confiscated pistol at her waist and the sonic grenades in her pouch gave her a few seconds to consider her answer.
   "Perhaps," she said a little distractedly, "but I owe them for a few things. My life. My career. An atomic bomb over Galaxy City. You just don't let things like that slide."
   "I know this wonderful therapist, perhaps you should talk to him" said Carpenter as she faded out of sight and moved away.
   Sandy patted Lily on the shoulder. "Don't mind her. She's never really appreciated the value of 'an eye for an eye.'
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 13
« Reply #14 on: May 14, 2013, 11:37:37 PM »
It wasn't like William Gibson pictured it. There weren't shapes or symbols representing data passing through Jake's mind when he used his abilities. He didn't fly over neon lit canyon walls of digital thought or fight duels with sinister figures representing hostile programming. He didn't have to hammer furiously at his keyboard as another computer operator tried to destroy his mind so his body would die.
No, it was all much less interesting that that.
As his fingers settled on the council workstation's casing, Jake could feel the pins and needles sensation that most people would equate with a part of their body that had fallen asleep. He let his mind drift as he regained control of those wandering bits and then, once he could flex the fingers and curl the toes again, he started telling them what to do.
It helped that the council's computers were programmed by humans for humans. The basic assumptions behind the programming were the same despite the actual operating system. There were only so many ways that humans organized data and only so many ways that the data could move. It helped even more that the Council was using the same off the shelf OS that ninety percent of humanity was also using. If they had been more paranoid and written their own programming, it might have taken longer for Jake to take control. 
As it was, it took him ten seconds.
Lily had positioned herself so that she could see as much of the room as possible. Her first indication that Jake had successfully taken over the computers was the reaction of the Council soldier at the workstation some twenty feet below her. His hands stopped typing and he started roaming around the screen with his mouse pointer trying to get something to work. He stopped moving the mouse after a few seconds and looked around to see if anyone else was having a problem. A few feet away, another soldier was repeating the same routine. Stop typing, move the mouse, look around. Ten feet lower a third soldier had already stopped typing and was looking around, having skipped the step with the mouse. Lily figured she had about five more seconds before somebody started shouting.
She brought her rifle up into firing position and mentally ran through her target priority list. Anyone who seemed to be taking charge was a prime target as was any one of the Council's enhanced soldiers that made it into the room. Anyone targeting a member of her team moved right to the top of the list as did anybody who seemed to notice what Jake was doing. Lily wasn't looking to kill. She had a very long fairly justified list of grievances but shooting every Fascist she could find wasn't the best solution. Besides, it would be too easy. Her whole plan revolved around keeping things so chaotic that the Council simply could not see what was being done to them before it was far too late for them to react. If she could get their database, she could get the answers she needed.
The sound of echoing thuds and a slight change in the room's air pressure told Lily that Jake had managed to override at least some of the doors. Carpenter took that as her cue and pitched three of her grenades into the largest mass of soldiers in the room. Soldiers staggered away blinded, people started shouting, and Carpenter used her mobility to move quickly to another part of the room.
Another pair of grenades flashed to life in a different part of the room when Sandy calmly stepped around a corner formed by the concrete walls of a watch station. It took a moment for the soldiers there to stop paying attention to their failed computers and to notice the 20-something blonde standing just inside the doorway. She had a faintly amused expression and shining eyes. They were the kind of eyes a man could get lost in and the five men in the room did. Sandy walked away not caring if they lived or died. She wasn't trying to kill but she wasn't trying not to either.
Lily watched Sandy step out through a doorway and make a left turn toward another group of soldiers. She wasn't being cautious enough and completely missed the Council soldier drawing his sidearm behind her. That was the kind of motion that caused Lily's finger to tighten on the trigger and send a three round burst down from her position and into the soldier's body. The first bullet hit him high on the right side of his back spinning him slightly. The second two bullets, following less than a second later hit his left shoulder and the base of his neck. His body dropped to the ground and, without even looking over her shoulder, Sandy raised her arm and waved.
Lily hissed into her throat microphone, "be more careful."
Sandy's reply came on top of a laugh, "You looked bored. I figured I'd give you something to do."
"Worry about yourself."
"Yes mother."
Lily would have to have a talk with her later. In her time working in law enforcement, she'd seen more than a few super powered operatives come to a bad end simply because they believed that their powers would keep them safe.
When he was plugged into a computer, Jake had both a perfect and fuzzy sense of time. He could query the system for the time whenever he wished, but he usually didn't. It was distracting. He was busy with the sensation  of the downloading Council database so he could be forgiven for missing the signs of trouble heading for the control room. He had tuned out the explosions and gunshots but the hammering thud of a heavy impact on one of the blast doors, brought him back to reality. He needed more time than he was going to get so he started system overloads throughout everything he could reach and pulled himself out of the computers.
"Something big is coming. Time to go," he said over the team's radio link.
"Everyone move, I'll cover," shouted Lily. Carpenter and Sandy were already heading for their planned exit route and she could see Jake coming down the catwalk to her.
"Do you know what it is?" she asked him.
"Big," he replied. "hopefully those doors are as strong as they look."
"How much did we get?" said Lily as they moved with a sense of urgency.
"Rough guess? 70, maybe 80 percent. Won't know for certain until I can get outside and look it over."
"And their hardware?"
"Frying itself now. It will take them weeks to rebuild and they still won't know for certain what data they lost."
Lily smiled grimly. As payback went, this was pretty good. Now to make sure they lived to tell about it.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 14
« Reply #15 on: May 22, 2013, 12:53:06 AM »
"...Everyone! Blast the doors out of their frames if you must but I want every soldier and every mechanical hunting! The people who did this are to be found and dragged out into the streets and executed! Their lives are forfeit to the Council! They are..."
    After the first five seconds, Archon Marain didn't need the intercom system to be heard throughout the base. His rage was enough to shake the heavens and, had they given him the excuse buy not acting quickly enough, he would have used that rage to execute every single one of the worthless incompetents that surrounded him.
    Women! Women had done this! The computer system was all but destroyed but his technicians had managed to recover a few camera images. He did not recognize them. Why should he? They were inferior and, therefore, beneath his notice. Had they stayed in their proper place, they would have remained there and lived another day.
    But they dared rise up and strike at the council. Did they not know their place? Did they not know who their betters were? Did they not know that they were only free to defy the council because so-called 'progressive' society allowed them a place above their station? The Council would change all of that. Once the grand plan went forward, the world would understand. But first he would deal with these arrogant, cowardly...
    The Archon had to calm himself. The rage was his strength but it was something that needed to be saved to crush his enemies. He could feel the fur growing and it wasn't time for that...yet.
            ****************************
    Lily hated running. It was bad enough that she had to do it to stay in shape, but in her experience running meant that things had gone wrong. They had made it back through the base and into the mine tunnels but they were far from safe. All hell had broken loose fifteen minutes earlier and she and her team were moving at full sprint.
    Lily turned quickly and fired a short burst back along their path, chasing two soldiers back into cover. Her team had been in a running firefight for the last five minutes and she had dropped back to cover their rear. She had already emptied and discarded the pistols she had obtained earlier and she was running short on ammunition for her primary rifle. She still had a fully loaded Council magrifle and a full grenade magazine. Quietly, she was hoping she wouldn't need to use either, but hoping for the best wasn't a good part of any military plan.
    Carpenter was out front picking up trouble spots as best she could but there were just too many cross tunnels. If she hadn't been so hard to see, she would have never walked away from the three to one against ambush that started the team running. As it was, she had several cuts and a really spectacular bruise from a spinning kick that almost dislocated her shoulder. Her attackers weren't as fortunate. Lily had seen the Lovecraftian angles of the soldier's necks and limbs as she moved past the spot where the fight happened and wondered exactly why Carpenter was seeing a therapist and how well that person was being paid.
    Sandy stared at the ground just ahead of her own feet as she ran. In the ambush, a bullet had grazed her temple and shattered her sunglasses. She was bleeding, dizzy and possibly concussed and was just clear headed enough to know that she had no fine control over her abilities. She was a walking death sentence to anyone who met her gaze. If she closed her eyes, she could keep her teammates safe, but she would slow them down. Looking down was the only option.
    Jake kept pace with Sandy; ready to catch her if she stumbled. "Come on, don't fall down and make me pick you up. You know my back isn't that great."
    Sandy managed a weak laugh. "You say the same thing when you drop a pencil. Stop being lazy."
    Jake laughed. As long as he could keep Sandy distracted she'd keep up the pace just to spite him. He knew they didn't have much farther to go before they got out into the pit. As soon as they cleared the tunnel he could cover her eyes and get her into the vehicle they had waiting.
    "How far?" shouted Lily from behind.
    "Two more turns and we're outside."
    "Halt in the name of the Council!"
    Corporal Lewis Smith had something to prove. He'd been played for a fool and thrown outside the base. At first he'd tried to find his way outside so he could get word to his superiors inside the base but he'd gotten lost and decided to turn around and try to make his way in through the door he'd been guarding. He'd gotten lost again so, he decided to set up an ambush for the intruders but, since he had no idea if they would even be coming back out through these caves and, even more importantly, he didn't have any weapons to use even if they did, his plans were not as well thought out as they could have been. Still, he had to try. His honor, and the glory of the Council were at stake. He could not fail a second time.
    As he felt the sting and paralytic shock of a taser for the second time that day, Corporal Lewis Smith made the smartest decision he had made in years.
    He'd go back and get his diploma starting tomorrow. World domination hurt too much.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 15
« Reply #16 on: May 29, 2013, 12:29:51 AM »
The phrases 'fresh air' and 'the Pit' were almost never used together in the same sentence; except perhaps, ironically.
    The massive strip mine was contaminated with barely contained toxic side products and poisonous emission fumes. Radioactive heavy metal slag interacted with carcinogenic processing agents that Cage had purchased from warlords who had no reservations about killing millions simply because they looked funny; but were more than happy to get those particular chemicals as far away from them as possible. The air contained a lower average concentration of oxygen than a used scuba tank and smelled a lot like the Ohio river in the days when it was still flammable. If it were not for the value of the ore coming out of that particular hole in the ground, Arachnos would have long since declared that  the entire site to be closed, sterilized with fire, filled with concrete and labeled off limits for the next 100 generations. A popular joke around Sharkhead Island went, if Lord Recluse got superhuman powers by drinking from some mystical fountain, all a regular person needed to do was find a puddle in the Pit.   
    The sun was actually shining through a hole in the smog as Lily Abel and her team stepped out of the mine tunnel. The air was predictably foul but at least it was possible to shake off the trapped rat feeling Lily had been having for the last few minutes. She didn't want to stop moving but everyone in her team had been pushing hard and, whether or not she liked admitting it, she needed a few minutes to get her breath back. She sat down on a rock near the tunnel mouth and laid her rifle across her knees. She propped the heavy Council rifle that she had been carrying against another rock and waved her hands at her team to indicate they should take a break.
    Carpenter sat down next to her. "We should have a vehicle waiting for us up on the access road. Do you want me to go take a look?"
    Lily nodded. "Go quickly. I don't think we have much of a lead on anybody following us. We'll be five minutes behind you."
    Carpenter climbed back to her feat and took off at a jog up the path. Within three steps she had faded from sight. Lily looked over at Jake and Sandy. He had applied a bandage to the side of her head and was wrapping gauze around her head and across her eyes to keep it secure. It was lousy first aid practice to do things that way but, considering the situation, all but blinding her was the safest option.
    Lily climbed back to her feet and walked over to the pair. She knelt down next to Sandy. "How are you feeling?"
    "Sick. Dizzy. Do we have time for me to throw up?"
    "Sorry. Try and hold on for a bit longer. I'm pretty sure you're concussed. Once we get to a safehouse we can get you taken care of. Are you good to walk for a few more minutes?"
    "As long as we're not going fast I should be ok."
    "I'll keep her going.," said Jake.
    Lily nodded and shouldered her weapons . The three of them started up the path that led to the closest of the mine's access roads.  As the three of them crested the path and stepped out onto the service road, they could see the car. It was a non-descript sedan with Cage consortium markings idling twenty yards ahead. Carpenter was standing by the back bumper waving them forward. Lily had taken her first step when she caught the lightning quick flash of fire and contrail of an air to ground rocket being fired. Her reflexes had already started her turning and dropping to the ground when she saw the car ahead of them explode.
    She never saw Carpenter get clear.
    Lily had turned the energy of her reflexive dodge into a spin and kneel which brought her rifle into firing position at her shoulder. It took her a moment to find her target; a Council hoverbot slowly descending from over the edge of the Pit.
    Hoverbots were armored flying platforms built around a twelve shot rotary rocket launcher and a simple AI system. The Council used them for point defense and support fire. They weren't fast by Longbow or Arachnos or even Rikti standards, but they could easily manage 40-50 miles per hour out in the open. Their biggest weaknesses were their slow firing rate and the slow reaction time of the controlling AI. If you could keep ahead of their turn, and had enough firepower, you could bring them down fairly easily.
    Lily had flipped her rifle's select lever to full automatic and pulled hard on the trigger. The rifle's advanced recoil system fought the natural tendency of a gunpowder weapon to rise every time a bullet left the barrel, allowing her to place her shots in a tight pattern just beneath the left wing. Lily knew that her rifle didn't have armor piercing ammunition, but it had more than enough kinetic energy to simply smash through the hoverbot's armor if she could focus on a seam.
    The hoverbot started to wobble and shake. Physics was starting to take control. The hoverbot's thrusters had already been pushing in two opposing directions in order to make it turn. But now, in accordance to Newton's third law, an outside force was trying to push the hoverbot over on an entirely different axis. A human pilot would have been able to adjust and recover but the simple onboard AI was more programmed for target recognition than flight control.
    The hoverbot's brain saw only: THREAT=AVOIDANCE, and tried to sharply reverse it's turn. This move built upon Lily's fire sending the hoverbot into a tumbling roll that ended with it smashing into the ground and sliding off of the roadway and down into the pit. Lily could hear the metallic crashing of it's fall as she changed the clip on her rifle. She had been expecting an explosion but perhaps that was only a thing in the movies.
     It wasn't important anyway.
    The enemy knew where she was, she had a team member injured and incapable of fighting, another who was functionally a non-combatant, and a third who was dead. The only thing she could do was keep moving and try to make it to the main part of the island. If she could make it out to the streets of the island it was possible that Arachnos would take action to safeguard their own interests. That might mean her own capture and possible execution but the idea of maybe being shot by the Spiders was better than the certainty of torture and death at the hands of the Council.
    She glanced at Jake who said nothing. He glanced at the burning car and back at Lily and nodded. "We knew it was a suicide mission when we took it, Captain." He saw her surprised expression and smiled faintly. "We haven't forgotten who you are. It takes more than a haircut and a dye job to make a good disguise."
    "Besides," Sandy's voice drifted in from somewhere close to delirium, "you're just as crazy as we are. Anybody who is willing to fly a ticking atomic bomb out to sea is someone we want running the show."
    "We'll mourn  her later," said Jake as his eyes drifted back to Carpenter's funeral pyre.
    "If we live long enough," mumbled Sandy.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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episode 16
« Reply #17 on: June 05, 2013, 05:51:09 AM »
One mile.
The world record for a normal human over that distance was just under three minutes, forty five seconds. The average person could manage eight and a half minutes and her own personal best was just under seven. When she set that record, she was fifteen years younger, had better knees, was running on a flat surface, and wasn't half exhausted and trying to keep herself and two other people alive. Lily knew several superpowered individuals that could cover that distance in under ten seconds but, as useful as the would be, none of them were here now. In her current situation, one mile might as well have been the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
Lily and the remaining members of her team had gotten a half mile before the next wave of Council soldiers intercepted them. Ten soldiers had come up from behind them and Lily had to use the entire magazine of grenades in her rifle's underslung launcher to scatter them.
Even the most fanatical of the Council's foot soldiers had a strong aversion to high explosives. Their field uniforms were moderately bulletproof but there was only so much their suits could do against high explosive grenades; particularly when an insane female mercenary was shooting them directly into their chests. Showing a respectable amount of caution, the soldiers retreated back down the trail to wait for heavier reinforcements.   
Corporal Lewis Smith (having been reluctantly handed a pistol and dragooned back into the Council) closed down the radio link to base command and looked out from behind the rock he had taken cover behind. The older blonde with the rifle was walking backward uphill, her rifle still pointing back toward the still living members of Lewis' squad. He wasn't sure if she still had any grenades, but he wasn't about to take the chance. The male fugitive was all but carrying the younger blonde up the hill. Lewis couldn't see the tall brunette that had become his personal nightmare recently but, he admitted to himself, he hadn't had much luck seeing her before. He glanced back over his shoulder, just to be sure.
Lewis didn't see any taser wielding women but he did see the gigantic figure of Archon Marain storming up the trail with his personal guard unit. It was a double strike group of enhanced operatives made up of twenty Galaxy, Vampyri, Warwolves and only the finest of the ground troops. It was the Archon's hammer; the troops he used when he was personally enforcing the will of the Council. Lewis looked back up the hill. The older blonde had stopped and taken a position in the middle of the path. She had one of the Council's own rifles (his, Lewis remembered) leaning against her left leg and the rifle with the grenade launcher in firing position at her shoulder. Lewis knew that he was about to witness her execution and, for the first time in years, he was not looking forward to seeing somebody get hurt.
"This is going to hurt," joked Lily to herself. She had no grenades left and perhaps thirty rounds of ammunition between her two rifles. She wasn't going to waste time on action hero fantasies where she killed her targets with singularly well placed shots. She was here to buy time for Jake and Sandy to escape and since her targets were all mostly bulletproof, the best she would be able to do was slow them down.
Archon Marain stalked uphill. He didn't hurry. He didn't feel the need to. He could see the pathetic woman on the path ahead of him and he knew that he would be her death. That was the only punishment for those who defied the Council and this woman, this cowardly woman, had hurt the Council. She had not destroyed them, far from it, but it would be months before this facility was working correctly again. Her death was a certainty but maybe, he could have the pleasure of tearing her apart first.
He could feel the fur growing. But this time, he didn't even try to stop it.
"Ok, first target, " Lily mumbled as she saw the transformation. She shifted her sights to the warwolf's center of mass. It was the easiest thing she had done all day.
It annoyed her a bit that they were just casually walking up the path toward her. On one hand it meant she would live longer and her people would have more of a chance to get away but, on the other hand, it was taking forever for them to get into firing distance.
"Just hurry up and get it over with," she mumbled.
"When the Union's inspiration /Through the worker's blood shall run,/ There can be no power greater/ Anywhere beneath the sun,/ Yet what force on earth is weaker/ Than the feeble strength of one?/ But the Union makes us strong."
The song echoed over the edges of the Pit and down into it's depths. At first a single voice, singing the song of the oppressed but, after a moment, Lily could hear more voices joining on the chorus.
Solidarity forever! / Solidarity forever!  For the Union makes us strong.
The singing was growing louder and behind it was the half remembered sound of gigantic footfalls. The ground wasn't shaking, but her mind told her it should have been. Ahead of her she saw the Council soldiers stop. and, despite all logic, begin to back up. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the edges of the Pit lined with people, she couldn't be certain but their outlines suggested laborer's clothing.
The singing grew louder and the strong sensation that she was about to be stepped on grew. She stood her ground in complete uncertainty.
The figure swept past, over, and through her without a sound. It was humanoid, blue and twenty feet tall. It's arms swung back and the hammer it was carrying moved unstoppably toward the Council elites.
Lily ran.
Longbow had an extensive catalogue of hazards they might face during operations in the Rogue Islands. Most of them were criminal and terrorist organizations but a few were classified simply as 'Extreme Hazard. Avoid"
The Ghost of Scrapyard was one of those.
The Council elites tried to retreat but the first swing of the hammer smashed through them sending them flying across the Pit. Even those soldiers that survived the initial impact could not resist the simple force of gravity and the brutal math of 32 feet per second squared as they plummeted into the Pit.
The singing grew louder. But not loud enough to drown out the screams. The few survivors of the Council tried to fight back but they were doing nothing more than dying where they stood. Lily focused on catching up to her people and getting all of them as far away as possible.
She was a few feet away from Jake and Sandy when she was hit hard from behind and driven into a hard roll across the ground. Dirt and dust flew as she tried and failed to tuck into a roll. She travelled several feet before she lost momentum and stopped. She pulled her face out of the dirt and looked back down the path. The warwolf she had been targeting earlier had escaped Scrapyard and was coming after her.
"You," it howled. "You pathetic, insignificant, worm of a mongrel woman. I. WILL. KILL. YO-
The Archon's speech turned into a howl of pure pain. The wolf collapsed to it's knees and Lily heard a very quiet voice behind her.
"Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a Wolf when the Wolfbane blooms, and the autumn Moon is bright," Sandy's voice was still loopy and disjointed. "Stay down Captain, please. There's only one way this can end."
The wolf's howls grew louder and more tortured. He could not break eye contact no matter how much he wanted to. His eyes were fixed on Death and he could not break free.
Sandy had overextended herself and the world began to shift. The Warwolf was dying but she wasn't going to remain conscious long enough to make sure the job was finished. With a faint sigh her eyes closed and she slid to the ground.
The Archon was still on his knees but his mind was once again his own. In a moment he'd have his strength back and he would smash the criminals in front of him. He was climbing to his feet when a sudden coldness lanced through his chest. Standing in front of him, was a partially transparent figure of a woman calmly holding her arm out in front of her. Her arm did not stop at his chest but seemed to extend inside. She stared at him dispassionately and, perhaps, with a bit of disgust.
"You know," she said to Lily and Jake, "I think I get it now." She turned her attention back to the Archon. "I like to think that I'm not a killer and I've spent a lot of time and money trying to convince myself of that. I've justified the lives I've ended by saying it was in a good cause or in self defense but I guess I really am a killer. I suppose I'll have to work all of this out with my therapist later. But right now, you're a threat to my friends."
Carpenter looked sideways at the Archon. "I'm not going to rip out your beating heart and show it to you. It's messy and just not my style at all. I'm just going to let go of the grenade I have in my hand and walk away." Carpenter took a step back and pulled her intangible arm out of the Archon's chest.
"I figure you have about five seconds."
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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Episode 17 - finale
« Reply #18 on: June 12, 2013, 12:51:59 AM »
It was a bit less than five seconds. It wasn't exactly messy. But it wasn't at all pretty.
The Council scientists that designed the Warwolf conversion process were geniuses. Evil and twisted, but geniuses none the less. The Archon's enhanced musculature and skeletal structure, which was intended to make him impervious to damage in combat, was actually strong enough to contain most of the force of the explosion.
Which was exactly the wrong thing to have happened from the Archon's point of view.
The average hand grenade in use by armed forces around the world contains 6.5 ounces of explosive. When triggered in open air, this is enough to cause an omnidirectional blast of about thirty meters in diameter. Standing within that blast radius is usually considered fatal and being within five meters is a death sentence. Having that much explosive inside a fragile structure such as a human body, is more than enough to tear that body into pieces. The Archon's body, being far more durable than an average human, resisted the explosives enough to force the shockwave of the blast back in upon itself. It echoed through his chest cavity and rebounded again off of the layer of muscle on the opposite side forcing it back upon itself again and again until the energy of the explosion finally ran out.
The Warwolf's body collapsed in upon itself and crashed to the ground. Nothing was left to provide support. His brain might still be functional but it wouldn't be for long. There wasn't a heart to supply it with blood or any lungs to supply it with air.
Lily didn't pay attention to the warwolf's fall. Carpenter's body language was more concerning. She stood very still for a full minute, arms at her side, staring at the corpse, slowly fading in and out of visibility. The slow strobe made it hard to tell if she was breathing normally.
"Spooky? You ok, girl?" Jake's voice was part concern and part fear.
Carpenter snapped back into full visibility and breathed out hard. She turned and looked at her teammates, "this is going to cost our employer's mental heath coverage a fortune, I just know it. Come on, " she said as she helped Lily back to her feet, "this still isn't a good place to be. Big Blue down there might decide to come back and stomp us flat."
"Heh, no fear of that girl," said a older miner coming down the trail toward them. "we make sure Scrapyard only harms those that deserve it. And those Council punks have been asking for this for a while."
"Luther?" As he got closer, Lily could make out the face of the speaker. He was the same miner that she had spoken to two days earlier.
"Told you there was a werewolf," he said as he smiled crookedly at Lily. "Come on, I've got a truck just around the bend and you all look like you could use a first aid kit."
Lily pointed downhill. " Is this your doing?"
"Scrapyard?," Luther shrugged, "He's not really under our control you understand. He shows up when things get bad or when we feel oppressed enough, that sort of thing. As long as we can keep everyone mad enough, we can give him a purpose. We saw the explosions and figured 'the master race' was causing trouble again. Once the word got around that a few of the boys saw you doing a pretty good Little Big Horn, we sort of decided that enough was enough. Scrapyard won't last long. He'll fade away when everybody has cooled down enough. But," he looked downhill and smiled, "I think we have enough grudges built up against those punks that it's going to be a rough few hours for anyone in a Council uniform.
                ***************
Luther had underestimated his fellow worker's anger. All through the night, the radio and TV broadcasts announced the names of streets and neighborhoods where Scrapyard had been sighted, and urged citizens to stay indoors or seek shelter, reminding them that "Lord Recluse says: your safety, is your concern." Arachnos had sent an Arbiter to ask Consortium management what they had done wrong this time, and heavy weapon teams had been dispatched to protect key locations on the island. Reports grew of Council soldiers throwing down their weapons and surrendering to any Arachnos soldier they could find in the hopes that Lord Recluse's mercy would allow them to live. Not every surrender was accepted. The Arbiters had issued orders that Lord Recluse was displeased and, since this seemed to be a Council problem, they could sort it out for themselves.
By morning, things seemed to have calmed down. Lily kept one eye on the news as she sat next to Sandy's bedside. Doctor Vendetti had made her way over from the hospital as Lily's team had made it back to their apartment safehouse. The Doctor was professional, efficient, impatient, and not at all surprised by Sandy's injuries. It helped that the doctor was a semi-retired mercenary herself.
Using her own healing abilities, Doc Vendetti fixed the worst of the damage and declared that Sandy should stay in bed for a few days. She took a look at Lily and told her to do the same. Lily had followed the doctor's orders for a few hours while Jake and Carpenter kept watch. She had sent them off to get some rest while she settled down to watch over the sleeping blonde next to her. With a cup of soup in her hands, and a shower in the recent past, Lily had time to think things over.
"What did we accomplish here?," she said quietly. "we nearly got killed and we're still not any closer to figuring out what the Council's big plan is. We've hurt them, but how badly? How long before we have to deal with this again?"
"Metus Est Plenus Tyrannis, Captain," came Sandy's groggy but much more focused voice from the bed. "It means 'Fear is Plentiful for Tyrants."
"Lon Chaney and Latin?" Lily looked down at Sandy's bandaged eyes. "You're completely ruining the blonde stereotype you know."
Sandy giggled, "Look who's talking. But, seriously, that's your answer, Captain. The Council want to hurt a lot of people and somebody has to call them on it. That's what we do for a living.
Things really didn't go to plan but overall we came out better than expected. Because of us, they're going to be looking over their shoulders a lot more often. We've cost them time and money and a whole lot of face. Their enemies are going to take advantage of this and launch attacks of their own which will cost the Council even more.They're going to be so busy rebuilding and defending themselves and trying to figure out what we know to cause anyone much trouble for a while."
"We've bought ourselves time," replied Lily.
"We've bought everyone more time," chided Sandy. "That's all we really can do. You're still thinking like a soldier. There's no such thing as a clear cut victory in our line of work. The best we can hope for is to buy a few more weeks or months of relative peace before the next big threat. As long as we keep doing our job, there's a chance that people with money and connections like Madam or Etherfalcon or Ms. Liberty or even Longbow can make a bigger difference."
Sandy turned her head to face Lily. She would have been staring if her eyes had not been covered. "Relax. We won and nobody we cared about died. Finish your soup, get some sleep, and let tomorrow take care of itself."
"How did you know I had soup?"
"The nose still works. Goodnight Captain."
end Damocles.
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.

JWBullfrog

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afterward.
« Reply #19 on: June 12, 2013, 12:57:07 AM »
Thanks to all of you who have been following along. I appreciate you taking the time.
 
Thanks again to Protectorites @Justicefalcon and @Ferria for the continued loan of their characters.
 
---JWB
 
 
As long as somebody keeps making up stories for it, the City isn't gone.