ic SCP 46591- Dennis Deacon of Woodbury, New Jersey

[Poncho]

April, 2024

 

A.E.G.I.S. had sent out a request to the Atom Family about a situation involving a situation with an unknown origin point that was affecting the city of Woodbury; County seat of Gloucester County, New Jersey. Wanting to move fast, A.E.G.I.S. had sent out requests to two individuals on their rolladex; the mental manipulator Echohead, and the dimensional refugee with her own suit if powered armor, Predator.

 

The Atom Family had, in turn, decided to send out Rewind. The three represented a vary broad set of powers and skills, which meant forging into an unknown area and an unknown situation would be less dangerous.

The three were currently in a specialize train car of A.E.G.I.S.' design, traveling as incognito as possible when moving from Freedom City to the south of New Jersey.

 

Their handler was an older black woman named August Shrine, standing in front of three white sheets, each on a table.

"...I apologize that A.E.G.I.S. has pulled you out so suddenly, but we're having a significant issue in Woodbury of unknown origin." She explains. "24 hours ago, Dennis Deacon of Woodbury, New Jersey disappeared on a routine walk. He reappeared 8 hours ago, highly dehydrated and malnourished. He was transferred to a local hospital, where 4 hours ago, he passed away." she recounted. "...That is when the trouble began. Once Dennis died, anyone who touched Dennis' corpse became Dennis. They turned into Dennis, and then died within 4 hours. Anyone those people touch turn into Dennis, and so on. Each Dennis copy is highly aggressive to those who aren't Dennis, but primarily out of confusion and seeking help." she indicates to the tarps and pulled them off, revealing 3 corpses in full containers.

 

Each contained the body of a late 30s man, with bright orange hair and green eyes. They were each exact, perfect copies.

 

"This is Dennis Deacon...well, some of them. Don't ask how we got these, you don't want to know. These are being incinerated soon." Shrine said, calm, composed, and absolutely not going anywhere near the cases.

 

"We need the three of you to enter the town, determine what is going on with Dennis- if he's a metahuman, or has some other situation occurring- and stop it. I would rather not have the entire county become consumed."

 

She looked intensely, extremely serious about this.

[Supercape]

Echohead

 

Echohead felt the sweat on his brow. Not from heat - his impervium weave cool black suit was excellent at, well, keeping him cool, but from anxiety. 

 

This was proper spy stuff, and he was determined to look like a cool spy. Despite his bald head, weak chin, and flubbering speech. And five foot five of weedy bones. 

 

But underneath the neurotic ball of anxiety was a deeper fear. This could be a pandemic of Dennis, that could swarm over the world. The threat was potentially very serious. 

 

Predator and Rewind had been sent from AEGIS too. And he was glad to have their company. They looked like they knew what they were doing. Echohead tried very hard to look like he knew what he was doing, too. 

 

He examined the corpses. Same height? Same temperature? His cool sunglasses gave an indepth HUD of various aspects of the corpses. He adjusted them, zooming in on the bodies. Anything suspicious?

 

"Uh... I suppose you have... ah... put the corpses through a full forensic examination?" he asked August. "If.. I mean.. is it safe to do that?"

 

 

[Spacefurry]

Predator

 

The train was obviously of custom design and construction, Jean thought when she arrived. She met up with the other heroes recruited for this mission, giving Echohead a nod as introductions were made.

Jean regarded the other hero, she seemed young, but she had work with a number of younger heroes lately and they all seemed to be promising heroes.

 

Jean had been sitting calmly as the train sped along. She watched out the window as it carried herself and two others out of Freedom. She had worked with the Agent code named Echohead twice before. He was a good man and he could be counted on.

The other one though, called Rewind, she wasn’t familiar with. Jean had seen a few photos of her with other members of the Atom Family, but this was her first time meeting the woman. She would evaluate her by her actions as she did everyone else.

 

When Ms Shrine brought them to the covered tables and began to debrief them, she gave Ms Shrine her full attention.

 

The events Shrine described were unusual, without question.

“How quick is the transformation?”

Jean asked, leaning a little closer to look.

“I assume the transformation occurs despite protective attire.”

She added seemingly unphased.

“Otherwise you would have contained this already. What about bodily fluids? Spit or saliva?”

There was a ripple in the air around Jean and the Predator armor covered her. She scanned each body through the visual spectrum, everything from thermal to ultraviolet, recording and comparing them. Leaning in as close as she dared, Predator switched to more detail inspection, zooming in to a microscopic level.

“What happened when robotics were used to collect samples?”

She asked, assuming they had attempted already.

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

Echohead and Predator examined the corpses with beyond human senses, eyes scanning over the beings hidden behind the glass.

 

"Robotics become unresponsive and short circuit when exposed to the corpses or the person; it's causing disruptions in the power grid when the Dennis Deacons touch circuit breakers or similar. It's very odd, maybe a clue?" she offered.

"As for touching, yes, this occurs through PPE. That's why they're sealed like this. It's...well it's an unknown situation that seems beyond dangerous. We wouldn't be calling for heroes if we didn't think that this was something worth an intense, very careful examination."

 

Meanwhile, the super-senses were active, filling the heroes with information about this extremely questionable situation they were in. A horror possibly unfolding!

 

"...I won't lie, this situation is concerning."

 

[Supercape]

Echohead

 

"C-concerning, y-yes..." blubbered Echohead. "T-terrifying, more accurately."

 

He pulled himself together. 

 

"These are perfect copies, down to the fibres of their clothes. And they disrupt electronics? And infect those who touch them? I mean... this is a potential pandemic? Don't we need to call the WHO? or WEST?"

 

He turned to Predator. "What do you think?"

 

He gulped. 

 

"Or more precisely, could I borrow your brain a bit?" he tapped his own shiny scalp. "You know more about science thingies than me, I am sure..."

[Spacefurry]

Predator

 

Information scrolled across her screens as her suit scanned and magnified. Without a properly equipped lab even her sensors couldn’t tell the difference down to a cellular level.

 

But there was something amongst all the data…

 

She turned her attention to Echohead as he asked to copy her mental capabilities. Everything she had been able to find out about the man and his ability said it was harmless to those he ‘copied’.

Though the long term effects on him are something yet to be seen.

 

Still, she gave him a nod.

“That’s fine, you may proceed.”

Predator turned her attention back to examining the bodies.

“Your input may be useful.”

She added.

“I am detecting something from the specimens.”

 

She sorted through a few screens before settling on one in particular.

“You have a monitor I can use for a moment?”

 

[Supercape]

Echohead

 

Echohead reached out and extracted Predator's brain. 

 

No, this was not a B-Movie with an axemurder and a gallon of blood. 

 

Instead, it was a subtle as a camouflaged feather. With the lightest of touch, Echohead copied Preadtors brain and left it nice and cozy within his own skull. 

 

Intelligence! And skill! 

 

Suddently, complicated maths and circuit boards seemed, to Echohead, to be the simplest things in the world. Obscure codings software seemed to be as malleable as a lump of placticene. The most exotic technology seemed to be no more arcane than a hammer and a nail. 

 

"Wow... that's better!" he muttered, peeking over Predator's shoulders with new eyes, finding the previous unknowables seemed to have swum into crystal clear focus. 

 

[Spacefurry]

Predator

 

Predator followed Agent Shine’s lead to a computer she could use. She easily slid into place to work, connecting to it only enough to send her findings to the screen for the others to see.

 

On the screen, several widows appear. Some contain graphs, others, shifting numbers and text. She points to one set of widows in particular, the signal’s signature.

“Here.”

 

“With no identifiable electronics, one can only assume this is some form of electromagnetic signature.”

A second, identical set of windows open.

“Both bodies are emitting identical signatures. But no normal person should be registering a signal like this.”

Predator sat back to allow the others to examine the data as she spoke.

“While it’s too early to assume its purpose, I think we can assume its source is the cause of this epidemic. Perhaps the original Mr. Deacon, or perhaps more likely, whatever happened to him.”

 

A single articulated finger on her gauntlet tapped the chin of the helmet.

“But perhaps with some work, we could modify trackers to pick up on the signal. With a strong enough signal we could possibly find our patient zero, or possibly even the source.”

She offered.

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

"Interesting..." Shine said, frowning. "So some sort of electronics...that does explain why there have been electrical problems as well; so this really is a multi-pronged epidemic, a physical disease changing from person to person, and some sort of electrical problem. Combined, if it swept across the county, or the state, it could cause severe destabilization. This might be the start of a terrorist or extra-terrestrial attack, at this rate." The Agent muttered, looking between the gathered heroes.

"You can take whatever you need from this train to see if you can build some sort of tracker to find the source of this and take it down before it spreads any further. We can stay in contact as well and if you need heavy firepower, we can scramble a jet to bury something in firepower." she looked at a screen, then at the bodies in the containers, and shuddered a little.

 

"We'll be hitting the last stop before Woodbury in a few minutes. If you need to keep looking at these corpses you can, but as soon as you're done I'm going to incinerate them. As soon as you're ready we'll send you out to try and find the source and set it down."