R. Bluefish

If Starlight noticed Lynn's sudden suspicion, she didn't show it. "And if we wake him up, does that mean the spirit just...gets loose? And tries to kill us? I mean," she gestured emphatically, "what we do even know about this 'spirit?'" Starlight was also uncomfortably aware that so far her only contribution to this little escapade had been asking questions and getting spooked by magic. She was seriously going to need to bone up on her knowledge if she ever got out of this. At least learn to tell a grimoire from a tome.

Buffy eyed the device in her hands with undisguised apprehension. "I feel more like I'm being given way too much credit. Like, I need help just setting the DVR." Raising her voice, she said, "I want it on record that I am not to be held responsible if this thing breaks!" Lowering her voice again, she added in a mutter, "or if I push the wrong button and the world ends. Not my fault." It's one thing for the world to end. It's quite another for it to be my fault. Hesitantly, she followed after Dr. Spencer along with the rest of the group. Okay, Stein, you got this. It's just like a video game. Presumably. Positioning her fingers on the controls, she braced herself in case something exploded, and tried to ignore the buzzing of her extranormal senses. "So, what happens if I do...this?" She tweaked a control.

Echo will use an Acrobatic Feint on Chris. Using Skill Mastery to take 10 on the check, he has to beat a 32 with Acrobatics or Sense Motive, or lose his dodge bonus against her next attack. Then she'll boop him right back: 1d20+14 18

Intrigued despite herself, Echo scratched her chin as she chewed. "Huh. Evil company. Big bomb. Sneaky things happening. It does sound like my forte, now that you mention it. Okay, maybe I didn't exactly design my suit with sneakiness in mind," she gestured with a vaguely self-deprecating air to her blue-and-silver costume, "but y'know, it's all about skill. If you're really good at sneaking, you should be able to do it in a pink tutu if you wanted to." As she rambled, she realized that there was no way she was going to walk away from this, so there was no point in being coy. "Okay, okay, I'm in. I like this city and anybody who tries to blow up small parts of it is gonna have to answer to me." Cracking her knuckles, she asked "So what exactly are we doing? Surveillance? Break-in? You'd be surprised at how many problems can be solved by going into places people don't want you to go and finding out things they don't want you to find out."

Raising a finger, Buffy added a question of her own onto the red-haired girl's. "It seems like historians would kill to get in a room with this thing. You said that you can use to to view universes based on any divergence you choose? Does that mean that you could actually find out what the world would be like if X had happened instead of Y? I mean, how precise is it?" Can we see a world where zeppelins became the main mode of transportation? I love zeppelins. Already, she was trying to decide on what angle she would go with in her paper. The cultural impact of this kind of technology was probably more her wheelhouse than the technological impact - current events were her thing, not the tech scene. But then again, given who much weird crap happened on a daily basis in Freedom, there might not actually be that many everyday citizens out there who would care about a development like this. It wasn't any stranger than half the stuff that went on here. This might not be as much of an easy A as I thought.

From almost the moment Buffy had set foot in the building, her head had been swimming. Her sixth sense, wibbly-wobbly-reality-awareness or whatever the academic name for it would be, was in overdrive. She'd felt similar things before, on the occasions when she encountered people with powers similar to hers, but never this intensity and never this constantly. It hadn't come as a complete surprise, given the nature of the event she was covering. A device that could open windows to other worlds was a hard topic for any aspiring journalist to pass up, even if it did run the risk of reminding their elders a little too much of the Terminus Invasion. And with Buffy's own rather...unique history with alternate realities, she had figured that it couldn't hurt to learn as much about them as she could. And there they were, right in front of her eyes. Even as she stood there, old-school notepad in hand and book bag over her shoulder, she half expected to see a murderous clone of herself come charging out of the portal at any second. The professor's words didn't reassure her much, nor did they distract her from the incessant tingling of her exradimensional senses that was coming from the device, the so-called "Guardian of Infinity." Raising her hand quickly, she asked, "You say nothing living can come across. What about something that's not living? I mean," she looked around at the others in the crowd, "I can't be the only one here who's seen Terminator, right? Even though that was kinda the other way around."

Starlight followed Lynn even more hesitantly than Gretchen did, constantly darting looks around her as though she expected demons to spring out of the woodwork at any moment. "If that's what he did, then I think he did a pretty damn good job," she said. "Anybody else would have one hell of a time getting in here. This is some safe house." Moving up beside Lynn, she peered down at the comatose man, noting the resemblance. There was something about the whole scene that made her uncomfortable, put a heavy lump of sadness in the pit of her stomach. "He looks like you," she said unnecessarily, trying to cover her unease.

The moment Erik said "go," Buffy was moving, shooting straight up into the air in an impossible leap. Inverting herself in midair, she hit the ceiling in a crouch and stayed there as her personal field of gravity reversed itself and the world suddenly flipped upside-down. "First tap?" she said, throwing herself forward at Chris before he could react. "How hard of a tap are we talking here?" Her hand flickered out with inhuman speed and she hit Chris in the center of the chest with her open palm, far more gently than she could have. "First blood - Buffy." Dancing backwards on the balls of her feet, she settled into a boxer's pose, with her fists up in front of her face. "Bring it on, Slim."

All right, sorry for the holdup folks. Move action: Jump up to the ceiling. (I assume Chris is still up there.) Standard action: Unarmed strike vs. Chris: 1d20+14 33 I do believe that's a point to Echo, unless I'm much mistaken.

Behind the opaque lenses of her mask, Echo's eyes flicked to the food, then to Miracle Girl, then back to the food. Stomach and brain fought, and stomach won. "You know how to start off on the right foot, I'll give you that," she said, sitting down next to the blonde girl and delicately picking up a piece of chicken. "I'm going to be very disappointed in you if this is poisoned, though." Holding up the chicken to her eye, she inspected it with an air of faint suspicion, then sniffed it. Eh, seems legit. Rolling up the bottom of her mask, she took a bite, then sighed appreciatively. "Right, so did you just call me up here to give me chicken? 'Cause that's okay with me. It can just be about chicken. There don't need to be aliens or zombies or anything. There's no need to introduce any life-or-limb peril on my account."

Echo's initiative: 1d20+14 25

Walking to the center of the makeshift arena, Buffy shot an annoyed look at Steve. "I heard that, you know. Could have a little more faith in me." I mean, he's almost certainly right, but that's not the point. She had also chosen to go barefoot, wearing black workout pants and a navy blue tank top. "I beat Wildcard once, you know. Kinda-sorta." Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she cracked her neck from side to side in readiness. "But keeping talking, tough guy. We'll see if you've got the stuff to back it up. I don't think geckos are exactly famous for being dangerous." Hesitating, she glanced off to the side at Erik. "So is there a bell, or do we just start hitting each other?"

Around 9:30, on the top of a nearby building, there was a gentle whumph sound and a thin, masked woman with white hair appeared out of thin air. Echo always did her best to be understanding. Superheroes could be notoriously difficult to get a hold of when you needed them, and it wasn't as if she exactly had a public inbox. So scattering day-glo orange flyers all over her favorite haunts was, when you thought about it, a perfectly valid means of getting in touch with her. Assuming I'm the Echo they're looking for. Wouldn't that be embarrassing? "We meant the other Echo who hangs out in Midtown, go away." Thing was, it also kinda spelled "trap." Kneeling down on the edge of the rooftop, she produced a small pair of binoculars from her utility belt and held them to her eyes, scanning the Centurion statue. It wasn't easy to tell in the fading light, but Echo could see there seemed to be a young woman hanging out on top of the statue, along with some stuff she couldn't quite make out. Well, there's somebody there all right. Question is whether or not there's also somebody waiting to put a sniper round through my skull the moment I show my pretty little head. That would suck. Prudence dictated that Echo should yield to caution and leave it alone. The whole thing seemed suspicious, and if she wound up walking into a trap she might not walk back out of it. But on the other hand, who was there who had a real grudge against her? With one notable exception, she didn't have a whole lot of major enemies that she knew of, so her paranoia probably wasn't that justified. And besides, no evil person would ever make a Star Wars reference. Rising to her feet, Echo placed the binoculars back into her belt pouch, then suddenly blurred forward, zipping down the side of the building. Time and gravity bent to her will as she sprinted straight down the vertical surface to the ground, across the park, and up the side of the Sentry Statue in a handful of seconds. Casey had been waiting for slightly over half an hour when the blue-and-silver clad woman appeared out of nowhere, joining her on top of the Centurion's head. "You got a funny way of getting somebody's attention," she said. "Why not just hire a skywriter? It's flashier!"

GM Post Casey's search was not an easy one, given the sheer number of heroes present in Freedom City, and the fact that the more sneaky and less scrupulous ones by their very nature tended to avoid the spotlight. Even of the known operators, there weren't many that it would be easy to get in touch with, and of those there weren't many who seemed like the type who would be open to working with partners. As Casey was scrolling through months-old news reports, seeking a promising candidate, a story caught her eye: the case of Stewart Bench, a local candidate for city council, whose campaign had been dismantled after evidence of election fraud was discovered. Bench had been prosecuted on a variety of charges, and during the investigation, much of the initial evidence was attributed to the efforts of a pair of local heroes. One was Jack of All Blades, but he might prove difficult to get a hold of, and even then there was no guarantee he wouldn't have other things to do. The other, however, was a minor operator who went by the name of Echo. There wasn't a great deal of data available on her, but from what Casey could tell she seemed to be some sort of speedster-martial-artist hybrid who had a special flair for investigative work. Rumors indicated a loose affiliation with the Interceptors, but by all appearances she wasn't particularly active either with them or with high-profile work - which might mean she would be open to a spur-of-the-moment teamup. And the caper itself seemed as though it might be up her alley, since there were also rumors that her investigation of Bench had involved breaking into his campaign headquarters. It wasn't easy to pin down exactly where Echo's territory was, since being a speedster she tended to be sighted all over the place. But according to a superhero-watching blog, the most common location for her to be seen at these days was Midtown...

Sam's eyes widened as the scene took form before her. "Oh, @#$% me," she whispered. Warily, she put one foot out to test the new floor, then stepped forward. I don't think I'll ever get used to this. Craning her head back, she squinted up at the high vaulted ceiling, twinkling with stars and rolling with false clouds. "Hell of a place," she breathed. Makes me feel more low-class just from being here. "Is this a theater or something? Fanciest theater I ever visited had sticky floors and guys in cardboard hats." Looking to where the spotlight illuminated the lonely unconscious figure, she hesitated, then asked, "What are we supposed to do now? Do we just...wake him up?"

Why not! It's a pretty good way to get the whole team-up thing going.

GM Post Despite her rookie status, Casey discovered a respectable wellspring of information at her fingertips, hidden just underneath the surface. As it turned out, Mercury Shipping was just the latest name of a shipping company that had been in existence since the late 1800s, when it had operated using railroads. It would also seem that this wasn't the first time Mercury's business practices had been under suspicion - there were a number of incidents of the company being accused of trafficking illegal goods, and each time the case had been defeated by Mercury's iron-clad legal team. Looking up the address Kapoor gave her, Casey confirmed that Mercury's headquarters occupied six floors of a downtown skyscraper. Getting in might be tricky. The ground floor entrances were kept under surveillance, from both cameras and a security guard. She was able to find at least one side entrance in an alleyway, but there was a decent chance it was kept locked. The building almost certainly had a roof entrance as well, which may or may not be locked. Being who she was, of course, she could always try to go in through a window, which would save her from having to sneak up or down through the building to reach Mercury's floors - but it also carried the risk of being seen by outside observers. As for where she would need to look once she was inside - if that information was publicly available, Casey couldn't find it. A "school project" was one thing, but corporate espionage a bit harder to research.

All right - let's get this sucker going again! Again, I'm really sorry about leaving this fallow for so long. I'm crap at keeping as schedule, and then The Unfortunate Event happened and put me out of commission for longer than was probably acceptable. I got no problem with the post - just give me a Gather Information check and we'll be off again.

We can do a scene transition right here, unless you have questions for Kapoor?

GM Post Kapoor sighed theatrically. "That is unfortunate indeed. If there was someone here who could do that, and someone who could legally provide them with that information, then a lot of problems could be solved." He stroked his chin. "For example, in this situation, one person might tell the other one exactly where to find their corporate headquarters." Casually, he plucked a small piece of paper from his pocket and dropped it on the ground near Casey's foot. "Whoops. Clumsy me." He continued, "Heck, in case the other person wasn't much good with computers, somebody might even provide her - er, or him - with a one-use computer worm designed by anonymous experts." Taking a flash drive from his pocket, he handed it to her. "On an unrelated note, have a free flash drive." Thrusting his hands innocently into his pockets, he started to saunter away. "Good luck with your future endeavors, Miracle Girl. Don't go doing anything illegal, now."

Echo Starlight Nothing Fancy, Just Hanging Out Justicar GM Dark Dealings

GM Post "It's more than just this dock, though," said Kapoor. "Like I said, they ship to nearly every port in the country. Which is why it's in our best interests to get those containers taken off ships and safely dealt with. Problem is," his face twisted with frustration, "Mercury's lawyers. They're good. Some of the best. They've been blocking my investigation at every turn, and with them in the way, I've got no chance of getting the court orders I'd need to take care of those containers. They can just deny, deny, deny, swear that they're just another patsy in this whole thing. And all the while, people's lives are going to be in danger from those explosives. I'm betting that they didn't know those things were going to be so unstable - but that won't stop them from trying to ship them anyway." With a furtive glance over his shoulder, Kapoor lowers his voice slightly. "What I need is proof of their dirty dealings. But I've exhausted all my leads, and if I push any harder then they're going to clamp down and cover their tracks even more thoroughly than they have been. Before now, I've been content to just keep working at it, but now that there are lives at stake..." He licked his lips nervously, clearly conflicted. "Look. Mercury's main corporate headquarters are right here in Freedom City. If someone were to, say," he waved a hand with deliberate vagueness, "sneak into their headquarters and find proof that they've been smuggling weapons, I would be able to get the court orders I need to have those containers pulled from ships and safely dealt with. You know." He coughed. "Hypothetically speaking."

I'm really sorry, Heri. I wish I knew what else to say.

GM Post "You could say that," said Kapoor with a slightly bitter smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "As much as I can. But the thing with being a cop in this city, sometimes you can hardly move for all the red tape." Pointing to the distant outline of the abandoned barge far out in the water, he said, "I've suspected Mercury Shipping's involved in smuggling for a long time now. Just wasn't sure what. As it turns out," he nods again in the direction of the barge, "it's weapons. That can was packed to the ceiling with high-powered, high-tech explosive devices. We've got our people digging around, trying to figure out where it came from, but for now we've got a problem." Sighing, he looked Casey in the eye. "Mercury Shipping's big. They ship to just about every part of the country, and a decent chunk of the world. We have no way of knowing how many of their other containers might have those kinds of grenades in them. But if even one percent of them do, and if even one of those grenades is as unstable as those were..." He made a sudden explosive gesture with both hands. "Boom. Chain reaction. And they might not be so lucky as to have a superhero nearby when that happens."

GM Post "I'm Detective Alan Kapoor," said the man, shaking her hand firmly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miracle Girl. Some damned impressive work you did here - a lot of these people probably owe you their lives. And they certainly owe you their jobs." This sentiment was met with a ragged cheer from the nearby workers as they overheard. Kapoor frowned slightly at them, then looked back at Casey. "I don't know if you noticed the label while you were," he made a vague twirly gesture with his finger, "flying around up there, but the container you just dealt with belonged to a company called Mercury Shipping. I've been..." he trailed off as he cast a suspicious glance around him at the onlookers, then jerked a thumb at a more secluded spot, away from the crowd. "You mind if we take this over there? Bit more private."