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GM 2013, February 28th, Wednesday, 12.05 PM Freedom City, Bayview, Claremont Academy, Mathias Cooke Wing, Room 206B The place was Freedom City. The year was 1965, and the dim room had just gone through one of the harrowing stories of the human race on the brink. Some of the impact was lost on the more apathetic, dead or alien students, but everyone at least kind of looked interested. Dr. Amelia Valero clicked to the last slide, showing a faded 1960s picture of the bulky and purple Soarazon fleet roaring back into the sky, the Freedom League watching them go. The distinguished-looking woman paced forward, declaring placidly "That single stroke by Galatea and Sea-King was enough. The warlike Soarazons had never encountered mercy or forgiveness before from other races during an attack since the High Wars, and so they left Earth at once in the company of Star Knight to surrender themselves to the Lor fleet, vowing never to return." She smiled dourly "This vow has been broken at least twice before, each time on the anniversary of the attack, although each time the blockade fleet informs us that they stopped the invaders far from our system's borders. Something to think about when you go to Astronomy" she added with a faint grin. Looking over the lines of seated students her cool brown eyes flicked up to the clock at the back of the room(catching a few furtive backwards glances with a silent rebuke) the Supers History teacher sighed almost imperceptibly for those without super-hearing and began to put back together her notes and the class textbook. "I'm afraid time's up for today, class. Tomorrow we'll start in on the latter 1960s. All Tectonic, all the time!" the answering groan from the students got a real laugh from the sturdy Latin woman "Alright, settle down, I'm joking. He was a very crucial figure though. and his exploits fighting the Vibrator are difficult to believe. Dismissed!" In an instant the classroom burst into motion, the lights came back on and the dozens of students surged back out into the halls, most of them chatting happily to each other in small knots of friendship, handing in late papers with suitably apologetic looks to the briskly polite professor, or charging off alone to something they were already ten minutes late for, legs pumping furiously. Six students however were called back in. "Ah, Mr. Silvestri! Sondo! Stelzer! Griffith, Andrews, Solarin!" the last three were directed at a tall and refined-looking African boy, a stocky and grumpy British girl with dark red hair, and a muscular, excited American boy with bright blue eyes and black hair. She raised an eyebrow as she scanned over a small sheet on her desk "Lot of 'S' names in my classes for some reason. Anyway, since you did so well on the last test(and I must admit, in your case I'm astounded, Mr. Stelzer) I want you all to band together and do a mini-project on alien invasions of the 1960s. It has to be at least twenty pages if written, ten minutes if a recording of some kind, otherwise you're free to do as you like! Any questions?" She asked with a warm smile.
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Saturday, March 16, 2013 2:13 AM "... I believe that is all the questions I will answer for now. I thank you for listening, this has been Etain Maher, next session I will get more in deph about the creatures I have mentioned before. Goodbye until then." Curtis leaned back on his seat as the recording finished, looking up at the ceiling murmuring to himself after just having been sidetracked from his research into fellow local magical superheros and whatnot by her blog. "Should I contact her or should I not... oh come on... you're a superhero, and superheros don't not do things. Besides you should make friends in the magical community sooner or later." He logged in to his email account and started writing an email. From: cwright42@usnet.com Subject: I do magic too Dear Etain Maher, Hey, my name is Curtis Wright and I do magic too. I have arcane talent I've inherited from my grandfather and a magic book he left me. It's mostly a very complex style of rune magic and I've been able to make very complex spells with it due to my already existing expertise in programming and computer science. (You'd be surprised at how similar programming and some styles of magic are.) Though my grandfather might have had other magic books lying around with details on verbal and somatic casting. Still haven't figured those out so I'm limited to whatever spells I make before I head out. I just thought you might like to know about other magic users in the city, since you're putting yourself out there for the world to see on your blog and on your podcast. I think as for the type of magic I use, it's technically not technomancy (not yet anyways, haven't figured it out) and I think of myself as more of an artificer, or perhaps a "program-o-mancer." Regards, Curtis Wright.
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Saturday, February 16, 2013 11:04 PM Megan Howell was somewhat quite as she and Kyle Conner rode the elevator in her apartment building to the thirty seventh floor. Because of Megan's business trip to Sweden last week, which had included Valentine’s Day, the couple had gone out tonight for a belated Valentine's Day. They had spent the last few hours having dinner and dancing at the Starlight Room, the revolving restaurant at the top of the Tremont Hotel in Midtown, which offered some of the most spectacular views of Freedom City's skyline. It had been a very enjoyable time, despite all the chaotic emotions that were currently at war within the young woman mind. In the month since she and Kyle has started dating, Megan had been enjoying herself, as one friend had put it, for a time she had practically been bouncing with every step. But then, almost three weeks ago, while out as Velocity, she had met another superhero named Siphon, who had inadvertently copied her superspeed and then joined her in chasing down a Chinese street gang who were on motorcycles or using Speed. While Megan really liked Kyle, there was something about Siphon she found so very appealing, someone that was part of the world she lived in as Velocity, AND could copy her powers and keep up with her, as she had allowed him to do when they had arranged to met up to patrol together once after that first meeting. As if all that were not enough, during Megan's trip to Sweden, she had gotten caught up in a situation involving her ex-lover from a year ago, Lord Robert Harrow, who had come into possession of a powerful artifact. She had also learned that in at least one possible timeline, she and Robert had been married and had a son, a son who had the ability to cause space and time collapse around him, and was driven mad by his powers. But the blonde young woman was determined not to let all that ruin her evening, and thus far, she had done so. Leading Kyle down the short stretch of hallway to her door, she gave him a wide smile as she opened it. "So, welcome to my little corner of the city." She said, stepping inside to a small foyer with hardwood floors, where she placed her small black purse and keys on a narrow table along one wall under a mirror. After she and Kyle had hung up their coats in the closet on the left side of the foyer, Megan led him straight ahead to where there was a step down and the apartment opened up into a dark area that faintly glowed with lights from other buildings. The living room area was a large space that ran perpendicular to the foyer, and connected to a small dining room area as well to the left. But the rest of the details of the room were quickly overlooked, as ones eyes were naturally drawn to the left wall of the living room, and the walls of the dining room. which were all large windows, providing a amazing view of the buildings of the Wading Way outside, including the three, twisting towers of Pyramid Plaza rising up in the distance.
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USS George Washington March 12th, 2013 Across the sea was the place where the monsters dwelt. Captain James Tremont looked out onto the horizon. At this point, he could see the edge of the island just crowning over the sea. He was just fine with keeping his distance at this point, though for all he knew, he would have to advance. This was not his operation. This wasn't even Uncle Sam's operation any more. This was pure UNISON. Kaiju Island. It was a bastardization of the Japanese, to be sure, but it had a gravitas that "Giant Monster Island" didn't. Or perhaps it just kept the secret better. Tremont wasn't exactly happy about coming here, but those were his orders. His family had a... history with the island. His grandfather had been on the crew of a bomber in the Pacific Theater; they'd been shot down over the Kurils, and had the bastard luck to crashland on the island. Of the six who walked away from the landing, his grandfather had been one of only two to make it off the island. His father had been part of one of the serious joint-force efforts in the Eighties to do something serious about the kaiju problem, after a disturbing number of them had made it to Hokkaido. All that resulted from that was severe damage to several American and Japanese ships until the Atom Family had come in to do cleanup duty. And now here he was. On the edge of one of the last places he want to be. He'd been keen to just let it sit where it was. Let it rot. But if the UNISON scientists were right, then the island was going to be a lot of trouble for a lot of people, and very fast. Hopefully, these experts would be a lot better suited to stop it.
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Friday March 1, 2013 Mozambique air space between Pemba and the Messalo River Valley 11:00 CAT (Central Africa Time) [5:00 AM Freedom City] Though it was not yet mid-day on the southeastern coast of Africa, the temperature had already reached the high eighties, without accounting for humidity. Rain clouds lay to the west, though that was hardly unusual as March was the wettest month of the year for this region of Mozambique. An old, Soviet made Mil Mi-8 (Hip) helicopter was flying low over the acacia and palm savannah that covered much of the area near the Messalo River valley in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province. The sliding side door on the left side of the aircraft had been left open, providing those inside with some much welcome ventilation to help deal with the stifling heat, humidity and the smell of aircraft fuel from the twin turbines located just above the helicopter’s cargo area. For the ten passengers in the back of the Mozambique Air Force transport, this was the last leg of a long journey. More than fifteen hours ago, they had left Jordan International Airport in Freedom City aboard a plane chartered by Danger International. Their travel route had taken them through Accra, Ghana, where they had boarded a smaller plane, which had flown them to the airport in Pembra, Mozambique, where they had then boarded the Hip. Five of the passengers were employees of Danger International, a foundation and NGO that was heavily involved in humanitarian aid projects in a variety of Third World countries. Dr. Mario Conte; registered nurses Dorothy Cofield and Andrew Myers; civil engineer Denise Gorrell; and support personnel Steven Wilker were part of the disaster relief team DI was dispatching to the Messalo River valley in response to flooding that had occurred when a dam under construction on the river had collapsed less than forty-eight hours ago. The other members of the team, along with UNISON super-agent, Edge, were already on site, preparing the base camp the team would be using during its stay. The other five were individuals who had volunteered to assist the team for the next few days, and were in fact superheroes. Four were students (two young women, two young men) from the Claremont Academy. As a graduate of Claremont himself, during the rushed planning for this mission, Edge had had the idea to reach out to the school and see if any students might want to join the mission for a few days and get a chance to learn about other ways they could use their powers that did not involve fighting criminals. The fifth was by far the most unusual of the group, a humanoid cheetah, the superspeedster known as Jubatus.
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The mid-March weather was warming up just enough to make being outside bracingly brisk rather than an invitation to numbness and a lingering ailment. Wildlife had begun to return and become active again, the still largely bare trees home to more chirping birds than layers of snow. As he adjusted the sizeable pack slung over both shoulders and trekked further into the Wharton State Forest, Erik Espadas had a moment of unusual introspection and reflected that the gradual thaw wasn't dissimilar to the slow return to normalcy after his sister's kidnapping by the cosmic villain known as the Curator and eventual rescue. Then again, the wide eyed infant strapped into a harness across the dusty brown haired fencer's chest was a potent reminder that the normal of the day was a far cry from what normal had looked like a year before. He hadn't been camping since well before he'd taken up the heroic identity of Jack of all Blades but given the connection the mother of his child shared with the natural world, it was something they'd intended to do for a while. In the fallout of what the media had insisted on titling the Day of Wrath, however, he'd been reluctant to let Ellie too far out of his sight and had ultimately dragged not only her but her girlfriend and their adopted younger sister along as well. "C'mon, ladies," he called over his shoulder. "Almost there! ...I think."
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Tuesday, March 12, 2013 10:25 PM A thick cloud cover hung over Freedom City, intensifying the gloom of the already dark night. On the other side of the South River, the lights of downtown Freedom City glistened against the dark sky, seemingly alive with energy. Along the southern bank of the river, there were the bright lights and neon of the casinos of the Boardwalk, attempting to entice new patrons. But stretching out from the glitz of the Boardwalk were the dark streets of Southside. Long a middle and lower-middle class section of the city, Southside had for years struggled with the encroachment of crime in its neighborhoods. Despite the efforts of a number of costumed crimefighters, there still appeared that the bad areas were slowly expanding. As such, there often seemed to be something happening in Southside that would warrant attention, even from someone new to crimefighting.
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March 2013 Mark sat alone on the beach, his heavy jacket keeping the chill of a Freedom City spring off his body. He was out of costume today, resting after a long morning with his mother. He knew his mother was sick, knew it in that twisting place inside of him that all the good intentions in the world couldn't fix, and it was a bad feeling. His mom had done some bad stuff, but that had been because she had problems, not because she had a problem. Whatever had happened, Martha Lucas was still his mom. And that was good, because she needed a friend. He skipped stones for a while, his mind wandering as he in fact lost track of why he was on the beach at all. The ocean made him think of Nina these days, his girlfriend having gone back to Socotra for Typhoon's birthday celebration. Nina wasn't exactly a conventional girl, either, but she was still his girl. Maybe he needed to do more things for her....
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Aroma Cafe Monday, January 28th, 2013 3:52 PM Eliza sat in the corner of the coffee shop, taking in inspiration and trying to avoid distraction as long as possible. The small cafe in Lincoln was one of her regular after-school hangouts. It was one of the holdouts of the Seventies, aimed at encouraging art and expression in a part of the city with a reputation for gang warfare. The theory had been that it would be better for people to take it out with their voice than their fists - and, for more than a few, it had worked. The Aroma had a reputation for the "passion" of its clientele - that's when some people want to say "anger" but be real polite about it - but said clientele was an incredibly mixed bunch. More than a few students from Freedom College made their way down here and made it a regular hangout. Today, Eliza was working on her homework - notes towards a term paper, math problems, and another poem for her Creative Writing class. She wanted to get as much done as she could before Sharl showed up. She didn't know what was going on with him. They made a habit of talking regularly on the phone when they couldn't arrange to get together, and Eliza was used to Sharl being out of contact. His school often meant that there was some field trip to somewhere exotic and out of cell reception. But after the last jaunt, he'd been the one to call first, and he'd seemed... nervous. Somewhat excited, too. Said there was something important he wanted to talk about, and in person. So she waited, trying to focus on the necessary to make time for the important.
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A pair of Masks in civilian guise casually strode through the doors of HAX's Hanover headquarters, each with a small arsenal on their person. The male was a tired-looking twentysomething, with a couple of day's stubble and a mop of sandy brown hair hanging to the nape of his neck. He wore a loose, baggy black coat over a thick sweater and cargo pants. Beneath them, he wore a belt with a small arsenal of shuriken, a collapsible four foot long taser, and a handful of more advanced items. The female was slightly shorter and less disheveled looking, dark hair pulled up in a ponytail. She wore a plain white blouse over black slacks, with a battered looking leather jacket atop it all. She was less heavily armed, with nothing but an extendable metal rod tucked into one of her boots, and a belt around her waist with a control panel slung off to the side and hidden by the jacket. "I think this is where she works..." pondered Chris Kenzie, casually looking around the foyer. "Think, Kenzie? Could you be somewhat clearer?" came the exasperated reply of Liz Lawlett beside him. "Does she even know we're coming?" Geckoman waved one hand airily. "Maybe. I've been busy." At which point, unbeknownst to them, their hardware triggered the alarm systems.
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Trevor Hunter was very good at doing things for very good reasons. A personal moral code that allowed for no compromise and a keen, analytical mind meant that very few of his actions were left to chance, the end result always kept in mind. As such he had a number of excellent arguments for asking Erin White to move into the mansion to which he was heir. She'd stayed at the manor for a time after they'd moved out of the Claremont dormitories and the arrangement had proved agreeable. Even one of the bedrooms would very nearly afford more room than the entire apartment she was staying in currently, to say nothing of the other facilities. Being closer to the hidden headquarters secreted under the foundation would likely prove useful in their shared work as members of the Liberty League. Ultimately, however, honestly compelled him to admit privately that the core reason was that he really wanted to. That note of emotion over logic had the young, dark-haried man pacing nervously across the lobby in a most uncharacteristic display as he waited for Erin to arrive.
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Freedom City University, North End 11th March 2013, around 10 am The Library Whilst the FCU library was a spacious modern structure taking up around a half dozen floors there were still, if you wanted, nooks and crannies where one could have yourself away. One such area was where the library storied the myriad of periodicals and thesis’s belonging to the Physics department. Whilst the depart itself had some of the most prodigious scientists in the world it wasn't the held in such large esteem as some of the other departments. So there more esoteric, scientifically speaking, documents were tucked away in one corner of the library.
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Steam Manor, 3rd August 2012 Once the Avian’s had been dropped off on the Canadian mainland the dirigible Cressida made good time back towards Freedom City. Whilst the ship made its way back to it’s “home†the more technically minded of the group quickly found the information they needed On arriving at the manor Lord Steam’s staff, as efficient as ever, had arrange for a light luncheon for them to enjoy whilst they planned there next move.
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January 24, 2013 It was just after beginning of lunch period on Thursday, January 24th, 2013 when a holographic dog appeared in the common room of the Claremont dorm that had recently been the home of Sharl Tulink, the young hero who had given his life to save his home world, and much of Earth, from the ravages of the Curator earlier in the month. Claremont's students had been hard at work rebuilding their damaged campus and making new connections with friends who had been falsely accused of being Terminus replicants, or had in fact turned out to be evil robots from beyond the depths of space. Lora, Sharl's familiar electronic German Shepard, woofed at everybody a moment before Sharl Tulink himself simply appeared in thin air with a faint electrical hum. Standing right in front of the TV, and in fact seeming to be partially projected from it, he was hard to miss. "Uh, hey everybody," he said with a little wave. "I'm back!"
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February 14th, 2013 Hunter Museum of Natural History, Freedom City Noon Tona Baudin wandered through the halls of the Hunter Museum, looking up at the bones of long-dead animals or posed scenes out of prehistory. Fossilized ferns were lined up next to stone arrowheads and a slim piece of wood with the plaque "One-Note Flute" in front of it. Tona was more used to nature than most, heck she was a lot more comfortable in the natural world than in the artificial one most people inhabited, but this wasn't her natural world. She was used to living animals and green, growing things; not dust and rocks and approximations. But here she was, trying to find something to write about, because the Curator had abducted her before exams and Claremont wasn't about to let a test taken by a robotic duplicate go on someone's permanent record. Apparently. The young woman sighed and hitched at the straps of her bag, where her bow and costume rested. Even here she was ever ready, though goodness knows what kind of villain would attack a museum in the middle of the day. She walked out of the prehistory exhibit and began wandering towards agriculture. Ever since her visit to Sanctuary she'd been growing more interested in how many people a piece of land could support, so maybe she could write about the history of farming, or something. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she wasn't looking where she was going and bumped into another girl! Tona fell on her ass, blushing at her own clumsiness. "Merde. I'm sorry, I just wasn't watching where I was -- Katherine Shade? Is that you?"
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February 27th, 2013 8:00 P.M. North Bay Marina Ever since the fateful events in the previous month in which the Curator sprung a sense of terror that the city hadn't seen in well over twenty years, the word charity had become synonymous with Freedom City's night life. And although the city itself would never be desperate for repairs with the spirit of Dr. Metropolis, the families of the victims and the civil servants who gave their all still needed the proper assistance to get through the most trying of times. Of course proceeds for the needy in general would not go forgotten. The somber subject didn't stop many an event from becoming such a grand celebration that it could be considered the go to event of the evening. As could be expected along the piers of the North Bay Marina overlooking Freedom's own historical museum from the distance, a large 534 ft. luxury yacht would be home to just such an event. Celebrations were well under way, as one by one an expensive vehicle or limousine began arriving bringing many of Freedom City's elite all under one place. The generous spirit of the night would do nothing to dissuade those with unsavory intent from partaking in the festivities. In fact, it was even suspected that some of the items put up for auction were simply a means to transfer illegal goods. The massive vessel belonged to the financial titans at Rath & Stromberg. Though one would be hard pressed to find the two children of Stromberg whom actually chose to attend the event. Choosing not to be on full display as the family was one that valued privacy. The roar of an engine would rip through the night as a dark blue rear engine sports car pulled into the pier. Erick Sloane adopted son of David Sloane accompanied promptly exited the vehicle. The handsome young man was dressed in a sleek custom tailored suit. The 2-button classic styled vent jacket worn over a collared dress shirt afforded him little protection against the cold night air. The Russian wasn't a stranger to less than favorable ambient temperatures and the only concession afforded to the temperature would be the slight moment in which he checked to see if his breath was visible. Erick's light blue eyes rose to meet with the large lumbering vessel. He didn't often attend the showy functions, and in fact dreaded the small talk that inevitably followed. Other than sharing a tax bracket, Erick didn't often find he melded with higher society all that well. "Remember it's for a good cause. I can nod along for at least an evening...I think."
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Tuesday, February 26th 4:18 PM The observation deck at the top of Pyramid Plaza was empty, save for one woman. No one else wanted to be in there right now, except for the people who were paid to be there. Around twenty minutes ago, the young woman had entered the observation deck. There wasn't much odd about here - sweatshirts, jeans, sneakers, short and somewhat untamed hair. She stood before the windows of the deck for about five minutes, not moving. And then she'd started pressing her hands against the glass, and slowly, it had begun to crack. The visitors began to move back when they saw what was happening, while the guards quickly moved forward. They didn't get within ten feet of the girl - she looked at them, and within seconds, they were asleep, passed out on the ground. In two minutes, she was the only person left at the top of the Pyramid. In five, the glass on all sides had cracked, with nothing but air surrounding the frame of the peak. For ten minutes, she stood up there, looking out over the city. Looking out... and waiting. STAR personnel were sweeping over the scene, keeping their rifles trained on the pyramid in case anything happened. The heroes would be arriving soon enough; if nothing went haywire until they arrived, maybe this could end peacefully.
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Monday, February 25th 9:32 PM He realized it hurt the mystique, but Nick really needed a cup of coffee. The urn had broken at work late in the afternoon, he'd found himself quite short of beans when he got home, and now that he was out on the street, he could feel himself starting to flag. So far, the night's patrol had been really peaceful - many of the ghosts were staying in at their haunts, there didn't seem to be new restless dead, and he hadn't run into any street crime. And he didn't exactly want to be dealing with anything while he was less than alert. There was a 7-Eleven on the corner of Lark Street. It was far from his preferred brew, but it would do. The cashier certainly started when Nick entered - having a man made up like the dead would do that. Nick had been amiable for the entirety of the visit, but the clerk never really let his guard down. Guy probably doesn't have many heroes stop by, he said. Or at least heroes that look like me. He'd just gotten back to the Pale Horse and taken a sip when he heard a loud bang in the distance. Any vague hope of it being a car backfiring was cut off by two follow-up bursts. He jumped into the car and took off towards the source of the gunfire. And now we're back in the swing of things... so to speak.
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January 23rd, 2013 FDR High School, Freedom City Late Afternoon FDR High was an unassuming building made mostly of brown brick, sitting in the middle of one of Freedom City's largest suburbs. It was bigger than most of the colonial and ranch houses around it, and the entire thing was enclosed by a chainlink fence. Jessica Parker had already walked around the entire thing twice, trying to figure out where students would come out (in just about ten minutes, now) and had found at least three, all spilling out in different directions. Which would make finding Baxter Bowles a challenge, to say the least. Jessica stopped underneath a bare tree and sighed, looking at her feet and snuggling a bit deeper into her fuzzy peacoat. The Day of Wrath had been a trying time for all of Freedom's heroes: she had engaged Victoria Atom in a rooftop duel to defend an apartment full of T-Babies, and even after subduing the heroine the body had burst into flames while Ironclad was flying her to Blackstone. Now the tangled wreckage was sitting at the bottom of the South River. Nothing could have prepared her for the news that the Bee-Keeper III, also known to her as Baxter Bowles and maybe-kinda-sort-of her boyfriend, had snapped and tried to incinerate a biker gang and a bunch of bystanders. It had hit her like a punch in the gut to think that someone she knew could be a cold-blooded killer. Now the truth was out and she and the rest of the world knew that the Bee-Keeper that had done such horrid things had been an imposter. But if what Jessica had heard was true, then it was possible that she had never known the real Baxter. Which made the possibility of talking to the real thing more than a little frightening to her. She had liked the Baxter Bowles she had talked to, but who knew if that had any relation to the real thing or if it had all been a lie? Nevertheless, she knew that if she didn't at least try she would always wonder, so here she was. Waiting for a guy who maybe didn't even know that she existed.
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20th, Sunday Normal Illinois Silverware went click, clatter, clink, on a square table in a room rectangular room. An old, antique cuckoo clock ticked in the corner, next to the staircase. The wallpaper was dark, and if Kat looked behind her she knew she’d see a glass case filled with exotic china. The tiles that Kat’s feet just barely touched were floral. She bit her lip, straightened her blouse, grabbed at the hem of her skirt and squeezed. Click. Her mother stared down at a slab of meat as she sawed at it with a knife. Clink. Her little brother set down his glass after drinking it all in one gulp. It did not break the silence as much as punctuate it. “So,†her mother said, tapping the edge of her plate with a fork, “Lyle, how has school been?†“Fine.†Bless him, her brother looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt, squirming in his seat, averting his eyes and reverting to monosyllables. But Kat’s mother just raised an eyebrow. “Oh?†Oh, how he squirmed under that. When he didn’t say anything she sniffed pointed her knife at Kat. “He’s been having trouble in Ms. Lynn’s class, Lilly. You did well with her; you should help your brother.†She was a small woman, with sharp, angular features and eyes like jagged flint. “Uh,†Kat eyed the knife and smiled. “Sure.†Her mother nodded as though to say ‘of course’ and drove the knife back into her meat with a wet thud.
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January 18, 9:30am Three days after the havoc wreaked by the robotic hero doppelgangers, Freedom City was still finding a precarious balance of normalcy. The rescue work was done, the destroyed buildings were being put back together, the rubble swept up and carted away. Funerals and memorials were being held for the dead, funds raised for the care of the living. As usual in these sorts of events, the Viktor Archeville Foundation, the charitable branch of ArcheTech, was one of the earliest and largest donors of both money and equipment, but for the first time in more than a year, the charismatic CEO was nowhere to be seen. In fact, no one had seen the unmistakable Miss Americana since before the Day of Wrath, and people were beginning to wonder. On the morning of January 18, ArcheTech released a statement that Miss Americana had been injured while defending Blackstone Prison against a robot doppelganger and would be recovering at her home. All inquiries would be routed through her office until further notice. Not too far away from ArcheTech, in an unassuming house on an unremarkable street, Miss Americana herself was busy catching up on her correspondence. Or rather, Miss Americana lay in useless pieces on a lab table in the corner while Gina sat at her computer and picked through her messages. There were a lot of them. She felt no guilt about taking a couple of days off after the crazy trip through space to save Steve. It had taken almost that long for her to just start feeling normal and safe again. She might even have been willing to play hooky a little longer, but Steve had insisted it was time for him to get back to his job, so she'd done the same. The first thing that stood out when she checked her transcribed voicemails was the more than a dozen messages from Ghost Girl, aka Kimber Storm, all wanting to talk about Sharl. Gina remembered, of course, being told about Sharl's teammates, and suspected she knew what this was about. Sharl was another topic she'd been unfairly putting off, but it really had been a difficult couple of days. Steeling herself, Gina activated the voice modulator that would trade her own voice for the more dulcet tones of Miss Americana, then called the offered number. "Hello, this is Miss Americana, calling for Kimber Storm, is she available?"
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February 1st, 2013 Freedom City, United States Liberty Park Late afternoon Tona Baudin made her way through Liberty Park, choosing a path to avoid the few determined joggers and dog walkers. The boles of the leafless trees didn't provide much cover, but the young woman didn't want to be around people very much just now. It hadn't even been a month ago that an artificial duplicate of hers had a rampage just south of the river, attacking her friends and a group of young Terminus mutants, even killing a few. While most citizens didn't know to connect Blue Jay with Tona, she still felt a twinge of guilt at walking around free after something modeled after her skills had killed people while she was stuck an unimaginable distance, captive to an alien intelligence. It didn't make a lot of sense. Tona knew that, admitted that it didn't make any sense. That didn't make her feel any less guilty. In almost no time she came to the center of the park, near where the lake split into two tributaries. She hitched at the pack carrying her bow and quiver (Headmaster Summers had reminded her to bring her gear) and looked around. She had been told that she was to meet someone here, but she seemed virtually alone.
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GM Monday, January 28, 2013 1:30 PM Freedom Aquarium stood on its own pier along the city's Waterfront district, a large three story building that also included a walled-in area beneath the pier to serve as a habitat for the various marine animals that called the aquarium home. Despite being early afternoon on a weekday, the aquarium was fairly busy, a number of school groups and mothers with young children making up the majority of the crowds at the moment. Out in front of the main entrance to Freedom Aquarium, Katharine "Kat" Shade and Giang Trang made their way off of the public bus that had brought them from Bayview. The two teenagers were students at the Claremont Academy and had been sent to the aquarium as part of a report they had to work on together for biology.
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With the heroes and two-thirds of the ship's complement beamed down into the heart of the Curator's central control room, it was just Jill and Vrix-117, and of course Quickstep as well. Vrix wasn't as talkative as Samran or Shepard, and admitted that as she showed Jill how to read the panels that showed everyone's life readings inside the Curator's construct. "Commander's tactical, Shepard's science, but I'm more engineering. I mostly keep the ship running while they're on missions." Vrix had removed her helmet too, revealing bronze skin and hair as red as a lollipop. "I...oh!" she pointed as one of the wall panels lit up to reveal a flash of light from the distant perimeter of the ringworld, a silvery saucer ship flying through the gap. "I don't know that design, but they're not local. Hang on." She tapped a button on the panel in front of her, then shook her head. "Damn. I can't reach the commander, but I got a tachyon squirt out to the fleet. They'll be sending reinforcements. Friends of yours?" she asked, cocking her head Jill's way. Dorothy peered at the screen and said, "Looks just like a flying saucer from the movies!" - The saucer erupted into the Curator's system as it dropped from FTL, spilling a wash of tachyons and neutrinos along with a spray of visible light. They were between the ringworld's star and its structure, and for a moment the sheer size of the magnificent construction, known to be one of the largest structures in the Milky Way, filled the scanners of the ship. Thanks to the Curator's famous paranoia, it had been a long, long time indeed since anyone had ever gotten this close. 'Beneath' them was an ocean big enough to swallow multiple Earths, a storm playing across it that could have covered the entire planet, with distant shores visible even to the naked eye beyond before the ring curved away into invisibility. Trillions of people were down there, living their lives, perhaps never knowing about the Curator. Above them, close to the star, hung a black sphere the size of the Earth's moon, part of the circle of rotating black squares the size of planets themselves that made day and night for the people below. It was the central control unit of the entire structure, the geniuses aboard could tell at a glance. And inside that sphere, somewhere, was Steve. And attached to the side, visible as they got closer and closer, was a white pod the computer recognized as a Lor military vessel.
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The group of young heroes and their Lor allies stepped onto the transmitter pads and vanished, their atoms quantum-tunneling five hundred miles through solid computronium and re-emerging in the central control room of the Curator - the mighty cybernetic intelligence whose vast power and arcane manipulations of their world had brought them to this place. They found themselves standing in a vast, cathedral-sized hall lined with dark and silent monitors cut in a triangular shape, the too-bright silver light overhead a source of stark illumination inside the central hub of the Curator's lair. The air was stale and smelled musty, a relic of however many eons it had been sealed inside since the Curator's original construction. At the 'altar' of the room sat a massive chair, almost like a throne, covered in the same silver-black pyramids that were the Curator's symbol, tentacles of computronium rising from it to infiltrate the wall behind. Sitting in that chair, its head bowed ever-so-slightly, was a still, silent Curator drone, its three eyes dim and dark. And standing next to it was Dr. Sebastian Stratos, lightning crackling around his fingers. "Hey, kids!" he called with a wave. "Got your hive going, eh, Barry?" He chuckled. "I wondered if I'd see you again. You didn't happen to bring any food with you, did you? Because I am _starving_!" He waved his lightning-covered hands around for emphasis. "I found this zoo a couple of levels down, but most of the animals tasted terrible, and one kept trying to shapeshift into my mother or something. It was awful!"
