Cubist

The cheetah's attempt to remove the lone tentacle from the spacecraft yielded this result: Seven more tentacles joining the first one, so that the alien vehicle was now enmeshed within the tangles of eight tentacles, all of them superhumanly strong and tough. Unsurprisingly, Jubatus cursed himself for an incompetent—Idiot! Damnit damnit damnit! Just wonder-bloody-ful. Also unsurprisingly, his recriminations quickly gave way to analyzing the new situation, with the intended goal of figuring out the best feasible course of action. Eight friggin' tentacles? Looks like Wave-Eye didn't have any better luck than me—and Edge's blast didn't seem to have much of an effect, either. Fine. Until further notice, assume the fish-man isn't a factor any more, and Edge… hm. No idea what he might still be able to do. Pencil him in as a question mark. Anyway… Situation summary: Unless someone pulls an almighty big rabbit out of their hat, Mr. Megapus is free to do whatever he likes to the ship. Sucks to lose the vehicle, but at this point it'd be stupid to expect any other outcome. Switch to obvious Plan B: Salvage. Rescue the vessel-occupants, however many there are, and extract whatever equipment can be extracted while the ship remains at least vaguely intact. Since a goodly chunk of the ship was hidden from view under the eight—eight!—tentacles that had twined around it, Jubatus ran around and over the whole thing in hopes of finding some indication of where the ship's hatch might be… And there it is! Gotcha! he thought, noting a small section of hull that was attempting to swivel itself away from the rest of the boat. By some stroke of luck, this hatch (if hatch it truly was) wasn't directly blocked by any tentacle; however, there was a tentacle in just the right position to restrict the hatch's range of motion. Whatever's trying to open that, it looks like they could use some help. Deliberately disregarding his earlier concerns about whether it was safe to touch the ship's hull, the feline got a firm grip on the hatch's free edge and exerted every erg of Timeshift-enhanced force his muscles could generate… and the hatch opened, pushing that damn tentacle aside in the process! Jubatus didn't pause to savor his minor victory; instead, he looked down inside the ship—No airlock? You'd think that's a bad idea. At least that means I can smell the interior, and it sure doesn't seem like the occupant-or-occupants require environmental conditions inimical to Terran life.—and zipped inside. Only one guy, fine. Judging by his posture, he was pushing on the hatch from inside, which means he's clued-in about what's happening here. Hope he understands English, because there's no way in hell I can understand any ET language he speaks. The cheetah moved as far away from the vessel-occupant (pilot? maybe) as the space would allow, then downshifted to the common tempo of 1, and said, "Hello! My name is Jubatus, and I'm here to help. If you can understand English, point at all the things you'd like to take with you, and I'll begin transporting them all out."

Jube's Notice check (1d20+9=24) is a success, yay! He sees the hatch opening. Now for the STR check, that's 1D20 plus his STR mod of +4, which is STR check (1d20+4=24)—holy Toledo, a maxed-out roll! That hatch is so gonna open…

His attempt to unpeel the tentacle demonstrated that a cheetah, even one operating at a tempo 40 times quicker than normal, just doesn't have enough brute physical strength to manhandle said tentacle. Since protecting the ship from being crushed by the living flesh-hawser isn't an option for him, Jube will do (what he considers to be) the next best thing: Rescue the ship's pilot, plus as much of the pilot's equipment as he can manage to extract before the tentacles make it a moot point. If Jube can see any motion on the hull—like, just as a random example, the hatch that Phil is tryna open from the inside—Jube will zip over there and do his best to help the hatch along, after which he'll zip inside, downshift, and tell the pilot in English, "I'm Jubatus. We're getting outta here; point at everything you want to take with you." No, Jube doesn't know if the pilot can understand English, but it's worth a shot, right?

Okay, Jube is going to look over that subway station by himself. He's actually okay with being alone, but at the same time, he doesn't like the idea of facing N villains all by himself, which he regards as a very real possibility, albeit not one with a high probability of actually occuring. So he'll make sure to leave a commlink with his comrades on board Stormbreaker's ship, just in case he needs to push a panic button while he's looking at the station. Jube's relevant skills are Notice +9 and Knowledge: Technology +9, and Jube will Take 20 on both, with Quickness to negate the "takes 20* longer" penalty of Taking 20. Ergo, 'rolls' of 29 for Notice and 29 for Knowledge: Technology.

Jubatus would be excellent for a "live" version of Robotron 2084—he'll need every bit of speed he's got in order to avoid getting fried by the robots, and since they are robots, he could cut loose in a way that he's never been able to (or wanted to) when dealing with living opponents. If Player 2 is a non-homicidal villain who's strictly in it for the money, the sucked-into-a-videogame thing could be how he keeps heroes out of his way while he's grabbing his loot?

I am pleasantly surprised to learn that I got the "STR-vs-STR" deal wrong. However, I was already counting the +5 from Inspire, so after the erroneous +18 (Jube's STR value) is replaced by +4 (Jube's STR modifier), a difference of 14, the alleged roll of 25 becomes a roll of 11. So the outcome is unchanged—Jube loses this contest of strength. The digging-the-claws-in bit is probably why Mr. Sharktopus is bringing out his other tentacles; having a bunch of sharp pointy bits gouging into your flesh really doesn't feel good… :D

Jubatus nodded and breathed an internal sigh of relief. Either she's not freaking out at all, or else she's putting a lid on it for the duration. Either way, good. "'Can', obviously. 'Will' is another matter. That said, there's one guy in the near vicinity, Warren Wilder, ay-kay-ay the superhero Riff. Sound-based powers, pretty damned knowledgeable about sonics in general, it's a real good bet that he'll be willing to help you. Right now… hold on a second or three…" Upshift, run back to the festival area, confirm Wilder's location, cursory examination of amps and cables (no evidence of further tampering by Manderley or whoever, thank the Hidden Variables), run back to Constance, downshift. Elapsed time less than 10 clock-seconds. "Back. Okay. There's this 'Battle of the Bands' music festival going on, and Wilder's on stage right now, performing with his band, Octopus Dropkick. You want I should try to get him out here right now?"

Jube's Notice check (1d20+9=18)… may or may not be sufficient to detect any actual tampering. C'est la vie.

Jubatus is currently chatting with Constance. His next move: Run back to the festival grounds and confirm Riff's location. While he's there, give all the amps and cables a cursory examination, just in case Manderley replaced his hypersound-emitting pellets. If the missing pellets stayed missing (and there's no signs of fresh tampering), run back to Constance and continue chatting with her. Otherwise… well, that depends on what Jube finds. Not sure what sort of roll is needed, if any?

Edge's exhortation was not the sort of thing Jubatus was expecting to hear. He instinctively dismissed it at first, because while he truly agreed with the expressed sentiments, his seven decades of life experience had forcibly persuaded him that whenever someone actually said that sort of thing in public, it was invariably nothing more a rhetorical gambit, a weapon in a propaganda war. But… Edge was sincere. The cheetah's predator-keen senses detected no guile in him, no pretense, no hidden agenda. Incredible as it seemed to Jubatus, the kid actually believed what he was saying. Despite himself—despite his habitual, nigh-reflexive cynicism—Jubatus found himself wanting to not disappoint the transmuter… Okay. Gotta get the tentacle off the ship, the feline thought as he readied his breathing mask and oxygen cartridge. The damn tentacle's bigger around than my entire body, so I'll need the Timeshift as a force multiplier just to have even a hope of success… and there's the tip of the tentacle. Right. Grab hold—dig in with the claws for a solid grip—and pull, damn you, pull! The cheetah's whipcord musculature bunched up and writhed under his fur—to little (if any) evident effect. No! I'm not going to just let this happen, damn it! Jube thought. And he tightened his grip on the tentacle, dug his claws in a little deeper…

Yay for Inspire! Jube's going to try to unpeel the tip of that tentacle from the ship. I think that's an Opposed Check (Jube's STR vs Sharktopus' STR), so I'm going to roll 1D20 + 18 (Jube's STR) + 5 (for the Inspire), and… Inspired STR check (1d20+18+5=25) is a complete and utter failure. Frump! I'll let that stand, because Jube just isn't The Strong Guy, and it's appropriate for him to fail in tasks which require Being The Strong Guy.

"Anthropomorphic personification of space/time"? A bizarre and interesting concept… If you go that route, you'll want to figure out how come such an entity would feel like hanging around Freedom City instead of, say, taking a tour of the Andromeda Galaxy. And is this entity really an anthropomorphic personification, or is that just how it appears to us puny humans because that's as close as our puny human brains can come to perceiving the entity's nature?

Trollthumper, you leave me no choice but to incorporate your eminently reasonable comments into the character sheet… As per TT, the 3 'naked' points of Toughness save have been poured into boosting Protection up to 8. Also as per TT, the Critical Strike feat is toast, and the point which was thus freed-up has been invested in Contacts (i.e., ecoterrorism network). As per me noticing an embarrassing typo, the "+111" for the character's Rage-enhanced Fortitude save has been corrected to its true value of +11. Hmm. I went over the brute arithmetic, and it looks like I've got one unspent point of her 165-pt budget. I've spent that point on the Blind-Fight feat, but if I messed up on the re-check, I will of course remove Blind-Fight and be happy.

Yeah, Jube's intention is to try pulling the tentacle off of Phil's ship, starting with the tip. This probably isn't going to work, but he doesn't know that, right? A non-violent solution is always worth a shot. And who knows what Edge is going to pull out of his hat…

Jubatus? Initiative roll (1d20+31=49) puts him in the front of the line, barring some weirdness from the reality-warper in the vicinity…

Upshift—and the world paused, frozen in the stillness of fast-time. Okay. Tentacle around the spacecraft. Those things come in economy packs, typically 8 at a time, or maybe more, depending on what sort of critter it is. Damaging the tentacle will probably make this one let go, but what about the rest? I'd just as soon not have to deal with a whole friggin' swarm of the things… Wave-Eye went under, so he's probably going to handle the problem at its source. Maybe I can peel it off from the tip back? Not unlikely, since I'll only be dealing with a small section of the tentacle at any one time—but by the same token, the rest of the damn thing, that I'm not dealing with, will be able to re-attach itself to the ship— And then an idea occurred to Jubatus. The hero-types on the scene included Edge, a world-class matter transmuter… and the countless possible uses to which Edge's powers could be put weren't all hazardous to life, limb, and mental stability! The cheetah downshifted, returning to the common tempo of 1. "Edge!" he called out. "Got an idea: If I can grab the end of that tentacle and pull it off the ship, can you form some kind of shell around the ship for the tentacle to latch onto?"

Jubatus definitely noticed when the spacecraft bobbed up and down—especially when the bobbling was heralded by a muffled thump sound from somewhere below the surface. That noise was the discernable indication of what force had caused the minor motion, but was it hostile or friendly? "Watch it, people!" he stated, loud enough for all to hear. "Odds are, something just hit the craft from below—and if that wasn't any of us, it could be a hostile entity." The feline reviewed his mental inventory of what was in his Vest Of Many Things: Got a mask and O2 cartridges, they're intended for situations involving tainted air, but should be enough to keep me breathing underwater, if need be… no flippers, damnit…

""Hello yourself, Wave-Eye," Jubatus replied—and this remark almost exhausted his meager knowledge of the aquatic hero, who clearly spent most of his time in an environment in which news reporters were rare-to-nonexistent. "Y' know, this is mildly amusing, what with us cats supposedly having problems with water…" The cheetah's shoulders moved forward and up (his version of a shrug), and one ear flicked in a dismissive gesture. "I don't make anything of it, just yet. It's a situation with a lot of unknowns—could be an ET with legit business on Earth, and their framistat blew out; could be a criminal on the run from whichever government; could be a lot of different things. Best advice I can think of is, be ready for anything." "And vice-versa," Jube replied. "That's actually a decent bet, of course. Different worlds mean different biospheres, and it's not all that likely that a pathogen from World A will be able to infect any life-form from World B." "Sure—low probability isn't the same as no probability. It's kind of a crapshoot, and we're here to load the dice for a desirable outcome." And the cheetah looked at Edge…

Hm. Reflexive surprise reaction when I popped up, but one of the quickest recoveries yet from a slowpoke. One point for the kid. Not so sure about Wave-Eye; I sure wouldn't make direct flesh-to-metal contact with a spacecraft of unknown origins unless I had some reason to believe the metal's not poisonous on contact or carrying a vicious ET pathogen or something. Eh, his choice, his funeral. Jubatus did not allow his concern to show up on his face; instead, he gave the fish-man a friendly wave of greeting. "Sounds like a plan to me, Edge!" The feline smiled, and his expression was only as predatory as was unavoidably dictated by his facial anatomy. Praise Athena, we're not all flying blind here! Don't know, or care, if he's lived through this kind of thing before, or UNISON covered this scenario in his training, or both. Either way, one more point for the kid. He still wasn't comfortable with the level of raw power Edge commanded, but even the not-quite-paranoid Jubatus found Edge's seemingly-effortless professionalism to be reassuring. The cheetah retreated a dozen or so feet when Edge offered greetings in English and… at least one language that Jube didn't even recognize—probably an ET alien tongue, if not two of them. Boy, am I glad to have an honest-to-Kissinger diplomatic type here. Disraeli knows I'm a habitual asshole, and Wave-Eye's looks are seriously against him. Yet another point for the kid, and you can stop counting now, Jube. Jubatus was perfectly willing to give the vessel's occupant (or occupants?), who- or what-ever it (they) might be, all the time they needed to decide on their course of action. In the meantime, I think I'll make myself useful with recurring perimiter sweeps— once every couple of clock-seconds, upshift and circle around the shiny thing at a radius of 25 feet, just to make sure nothing's gonna sneak up on us from a direction we're not paying attention to.

The shooting star attracted a certain amount of attention as it hurtled across the late afternoon sky. For most people in Freedom City, it was at most a minor distraction; for Jay 'Jubatus' Xavier, a person whose visual cortex was wired up specifically to detect moving objects, it was extremely obvious. Still, Xavier would have been willing to let the 'star' pass unremarked, had he not heard a particular arpeggiated chord. Hmm. Wonder if this has to do with the meteor? Xavier thought as he said, "Jeeves: What's up?" 'Jeeves' was a software entity Xavier had written to monitor public data-sources, for the purpose of alerting Xavier to troubles that a super-fast cheetah might be able to help deal with. "Ærial anomaly with a minimum probability 95% of impacting in Great Bay," Jeeves replied. Which means there's a good chance of the thing kicking up dangerous waves, even if it doesn't hit the 5% jackpot of cratering out on land. Wonderful. Looks like this evening's patrol starts a little early, the feline thought as he began his 'pre-heroing' checklist. "Jeeves: Thank you. Jeeves: Get some rest." Within a few clock-seconds, Jubatus was on the road: Blurring off down the Route 4 highway, then down MacArthur to Sidney, and finally across the liquid surface of Great Bay. Running on water was a trick Jubatus been pleasantly surprised to find he could do back when he was learning control over his powers, back when he first decided to do the superhero thing; of course, he hadn't had much call for it while zipping around in Freedom City proper… Huh. Someone already out there? Just walking normally, it looks like. On the water. When he got closer, Jubatus recognized the figure: Edge, the disturbingly powerful matter transmuter who was one of the more terrifying members of the superhero community. Jubatus only had publicly-available data such as news reports to work from, but given that information, it didn't appear that Edge's powers had any known upper limits—and it also wasn't clear whether those powers were based on magic, or exotic biology, or what. Sure, the man seemed like a shiny happy civic-minded soul, but in view of the disquieting possibilities inherent in even the publicly known uses to which Edge had put his powers… The cheetah suppressed a shudder. Oh, be cool. Edge is what he portrays himself as. Because if he's not, the entire [bg=black]xxxx[/bg] planet could conceivably be screwed. Okay, I… damn. I can't just say hello. Because if I downshift so I can talk to Edge, I'm gonna sink. Gosh, Jube: Didn't fully think through this whole run-out-to-the-meteor deal, did you? Well, I'm here now, so I might as well see what I can see… One thing Jubatus didn't see, was any evidence of destructive waves. Which means the thing might actually have been under sophont control when it came down. Good. As he drew nearer the 'meteor', the feline noted that there wasn't so much as a wisp of steam rising from around it—another datapoint in support of the 'controlled vehicle' hypothesis. And when he arrived at the 'meteor' itself… a shiny, smooth, metallic object which floated peacefully in the Bay… Jube circled around it for a 360° view of its exterior. Hm. Looks like a manufactured object, all right. Human make? Maybe, maybe not. The $64,000 question is, controlled by a mechanical autopilot or a biological driver? Hold it—Edge was on the payroll of UNISON, the United Nations agency devoted to intelligence-gathering and crisis management. And a UNISON wonk thought this thing is worth sending one of their most valuable assets out for a look-see? Okay, someone in a position of Authority thinks this thing definitely is piloted, with a non-trivial probability of its pilot being an ET sophont who could be hostile. Damn, now I really want to— Jubatus paused in mid-thought. Wait. Edge is a matter transmuter. So if he's walking on water… A short run out to the UN-affiliated hero later, Jube was gratified to discover that yes, the man had created himself a solid walkway, most likely by transmuting it from water. The feline stepped onto the walkway, about 15 feet behind Edge… Be cool, Jube. This is not a Jerome Bixby story, and Edge is—too damn young, but at least he's not three years old. …and downshifted. "Hello, Edge!" he said, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the ambient sounds of the Bay. "My name's Jubatus. I take it you're here because that thing's an alien spacecraft?"

"Yep. But it's okay, we're mostly civilized here in the Colonies!" Jubatus replied, hoping that the levity would improve the woman's mood. Hm. No idea who White-Hair might be. Jubatus winced. Of course. Of-friggin'-course. I hate being right all the time. What do you want to bet that the 'something broke' event happened just when you were smashing those pellets, Jube? By this time, Jubatus had updated his likelihood estimates on possible explanations for the story Constance was feeding him, and she's telling the truth had pulled ahead of she's bait for an as-yet-unknown scam. That was exactly and precisely the question: Could he—did he actually have the power to—help Constance? "I… I'm not sure what I can do for you," Jubatus acknowledged. "I've dealt with some pretty weird situations, but your situation is a new one on me." He upshifted, making precious extra seconds to think over what he was going to say next so that (Carnegie willing) the transformed woman might not freak out entirely. "I think your body has been completely transformed, Constance. I think you're a living, sentient standing wave of acoustic energy. Which is seriously bizarre, granted, but transformed or not, you're still you! And speaking from relevant personal experience, I can assure you that even if you're not biologically human, you're still human in every way that actually matters worth a damn. Okay? "Now, you started talking to me after I smashed a bunch of gadgets that were emitting hypersonic frequencies. I left one intact, just in case it might be needed later, but the fact that you didn't communicate while the complete set was intact suggests that said gadgets were keeping you contained. And if that's correct, the last gadget is probably the, quote, ball and chain, end quote, you're feeling now. There are… other possibilities, some of which are pretty nasty. But that one's my best guess. And if I'm right about that last gadget, smashing it should free you. If I'm wrong… well, if I'm wrong, there's a chance that smashing the gizmo could kill you, or worse. I don't know how to even begin to work out the odds here, but like I said, there's a chance. It's possible that smashing the gizmo could mess you up, big time. "So it's up to you, Constance. Your choice, not mine and not anybody else's. Tell me you want that final gadget smashed, and I'll do it. Tell me you don't want that, and I'll make sure the gadget's protected. Whichever you choose, I'll back you up on it. Okay?" Whatever happened, Jubatus knew he'd be playing with the woman's life. It was only fair, and ethically sound, that she be given the opportunity to grant or withhold her informed consent…

Jubatus found Stormbreaker's imperious attitude to be… 'amusing' was probably the right word. Whatever role she saw herself as playing, she was seriously into it; however, she did seem conscious of the 'limitations' of 'lesser' beings, so the whole of-course-my-least-word-will-be-obeyed deal probably was just play-acting on her part. Eh, whatever. Woman's only got one arm, so if her coping mechanism is Overcompensating For The Loss, I'm not gonna get in her face about it. With an unnoticed shrug, the cheetah returned his attention to the problem at hand: Investigating the epidemiological cluster. Okay. All the victims ride public transit to their respective places of employment. So let's see which transit lines they share in common, if any. The Freedom City Transit Authority website had a slick interface for finding the perfect combination of bus, subway, and monorail to reach any place in the greater Freedom City area; the Freedom Medical Center had authorized the heroes to access the patient records for all meta-virus victims; within a clock-minute or three, Jubatus discovered that all of the victims' commutes passed through one particular subway station in Hanover! Interesting. Unusual. No bleeding way that's just a coincidence, he thought. And… let's see if that FCTA password they gave me for that one job is still good… yes! I can harvest all the data I want on exactly which buses and trains and subway cars our meta-virus victims have ridden on in the past three weeks! Now Jubatus fired up a lightweight utility application to suck in all of that information. Gonna be a pretty damn big pile of data, though. Take a while for it all to get safely stored on my machine. Fine. In the meantime— "Got a lead," Jubatus told the assembled heroes. "There's a subway station in Hanover that every one of our meta-virus victims passes through on their way to and from work. Anybody want to join me over there for a bit of forensics and/or good old-fashioned detective work?"

Crashing spaceship? If Jubatus is anywhere near the area, he'd want to zip on over to the crash site… possibly getting there before the spaceship does, depending on the spaceship's velocity and how close its trajectory is to being purely ballistic… and do his damnedest to keep anyhone from getting hurt. "Crashing into the bay" suggests that an instant wall of sandbags might be helpful.

Okay, I've made the desired changes on the character sheet, plus one more… The [x PP] notes on the Feats: Gone. Uncanny Dodge: Now specified as belonging to the 'Hearing' sense type—her Ultrasonic Hearing, in specific. Rage: Modifications to abilities & saves now noted explicitly under Feats, and explicitly listed under Abilities and Saves. Diehard: Is toast, which reduced the Feats budget by 1 PP. Improved Crit: Two of the four ranks in this feat have evaporated, and will not be missed. The 2 PP that were thereby freed up will be put to good use. Since the edits on the Feats list gave me 3 PP to play with, I used 'em to boost the Toughness save up to +12. She's a PL 11 character whose Trade-offs include -3 Defense / +3 Toughness, so this should be okay.

Does Jube have any idea who that "British girl with white hair" might be? If said "girl" is a supervillain, she presumably operates in Europe, with possible emphasis on Spain in particular, and she's interested in high-tech, with possible emphasis on sonic/acoustic gizmoes. Or... hmmm... does (Wlodjyka's wife) Farahilde Moefehnler have white hair?