Specter, Chapter 11: Fate of Justice! Report
General Summary
SUBJECT: WYLDFIRE Team investigating Oscorp Industries Offshore Research Station Gamma
Supplemental UpdateRelated Project Classification: Justice League Initiative
CLASSIFIED:
EYES ONLY
DO NOT DUPLICATE
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
S.A.F.E.G.U.A.R.D. Field Report, Agent Vi as transmitted from Agent El
10.20.2009
It was that 'heat of the moment' where everything happened at once.
Feral had confronted the Oscorp scientist, Dr Stephen Baptiste, in the main hallway between habitats. SAFEGUARD had placed the doctor on its watch list some time ago. He had drifted between STAR Labs, LexLabs, and Oscorp Industries in his career. Now, thanks to the Wyldfire team, we got a ton of details.
Over the commlinks, Baptiste talked on about having to work with the Society of Rao. I got the impression he wasn't in favor of that. Feral didn't waste any time and got the point: the kidnapped Metas from New York City and those "Oscorp Protectors".
Baptiste hedged his answers. There's more there than he's letting on. He knows he is making "living weapons" for Oscorp. But are they actually sapient? It took a second before he said yes. Baptiste left something out.
I have to admit; I held my breath on that one.
- Agent El
But Dr Baptiste made it clear, he's got a personal project of his own: control his runaway shapeshifting power. Which, given he's an untrained telepath, just makes that twice as bad. Feral sent him to follow Amythyst around and do what Amythyst needed. Fortunately, Baptiste cooperated.
Really? are Oscorp Technicians actually 'hapless'?
- Agent Vi
Meanwhile, Amythyst, MedKit, and I had our own problems. Medkit, still disguised as a hapless Oscorp tech, was getting hauled out of the stargate chamber by the Oscorp Protectors. The first Protector stayed toe-to-toe with Amythyst while the second flew out of the room with Medkit.
Luckily, the Protector took Medkit in Feral and Dr Adel's direction. Mistaking Dr Adel for another Oscorp tech, he headed right for her. Dr Adel did a great job of playing up the disguise to maintain her cover.
Unfortunately, they were all in the same direction as the AIM cybercommandos. It's also when things got real complicated.
AIM had stormed in through another airlock on the far side of the sea base, intent on grabbing research data, tech, and Dr Baptiste. It was pretty clear what they were after: the 'power transfer' technology and Dr Baptiste's own shapeshifting meta power. Not good. AIM's bad enough, they don't need 'power transfer' tech.
Feral and Dr Adel held AIM at bay. Feral did the distraction technique, then dove at the AIM raid leader, Ajax McGee. Dr Adel used some of the AIM cybercommado tech, namely one of their Data Disks, against them. She picked up how those things worked pretty fast.
Atlanteans. We know so little about them...
- Agent El
Meanwhile, Dr Blake was still outside the sea lab. The paneled walls were reinforced but gave a magnificent view of the ocean floor and Dr Blake disabling the Society of Rao underwater drone. Once that wreck headed to the ocean floor, he hesitated before I saw him shoot like a torpedo through the water to the other side of the sea base.
AIM had an assault sub moored on the other side. Dr Blake swam right for it. Good call on his part. AIM does nothing halfway. They always have a backup plan. It may be a mad science, 'you have got to be kidding me' kind of plan, but they have one. Sure enough, they had one this time.
While Ajax McGee led the raid, the crew aboard the AIM sub attached tow cables. Tow. Cables. They were going to steal part or all of the sea base. I’m not sure how they thought this would work out. Dr Blake got right to work tossing a wrench into that plan by wrecking the sub's tow cable system.
Meanwhile, in the stargate room, Amythyst stopped holding back on the Oscorp Protector. They were a match in strength and unloaded on each other, blow for blow. Amythyst got the last punch in that dropped the Protector cold. Amythyst ran to the doorway then hammered the other Oscorp Protector, the one out in the corridor, with a direct hit from his paralysis beam.
A few quick words to Dr Baptiste sent the scientist to download a backup of his research, erase the Oscorp databases, then turn the base security against AIM, and any remaining Oscorp or Society of Rao people. We left him to it and ran for the hallway.
By the time we got there, a Society of Rao Enforcer had run up. Thankfully, Dr Adel and Medkit's disguises held and fooled the Enforcer. He shot past them at superspeed to barrel into the AIM cybercommandos. Looked like they considered AIM a bigger threat than us.
That let us concentrate our efforts against AIM and the last of Oscorp and the Society of Rao. The fight inside was over in seconds. Outside? It took about that long, but Dr Blake was on his own against a determined AIM cybercommando.
But just when things looked rough for Dr Blake, the AIM commando's mini-sub suffered technical failure then rammed the ocean floor instead of Dr Blake. The mini-sub had taken some damage earlier, but I didn't think it was that much. I suspect some of Wyldfire's psychic talents were at work there, wrecking the craft. But it did the trick. Dr Blake helped the wounded cybercommando back to the AIM sub, then boarded it himself.
After that, it was just the cleanup.
Feral stripped the cybercommandos of their equipment and brought that back with us. Medkit and Dr Adel? They raced into the 'Meta Study Lab' and deactivated the sensor pods. This let the meta's from New York out.
We still needed a cover story to throw Oscorp, and maybe even the Society of Rao, off our trail. AIM made it easy.
Amythyst joined Dr Blake in the AIM assault sub. Meanwhile, the rest of us escorted the kidnap victims out of the sea lab. We quietly slipped aboard the oil rig's emergency boat and headed for shore. Amythyst and Dr Blake followed in the captured AIM assault sub.
At that, we went our separate ways. Wyldfire headed back to Atlantic City to maintain their cover there before they headed back to Metropolis. They also called their boss, Jean-Claude Gironde, to update him. I didn't get the details, but I gathered he took care of Dr Baptiste and getting the kidnap victims home.
CASE CLOSED ... ?
As for Vi and myself? We regrouped with the rest of the SAFEGUARD team. There wasn't enough clear evidence to target Oscorp without the company using the old 'rogue project manager' stunt. Which they did. But at least we know about the Oscorp Protector project.
Next time? We'll be better prepared.
Character Quotes
"I hold up MY disk and get ready to play "Pong" ... and send it back!"
“Refreshing, isn’t it?”
"Hope you wore your favorite Undaroos, Roderick, because everyone is about to get a view"
"Dr. A, Amythyst, seriously. How normal is it for a Kryptonian to move at what the usual human on the streets of Topeka, Kansas would call 'superspeed'?"
"I'm asking for science."
Feral: "Anything else? Do you folks make up most of the people at the annual Polar Bear swim meet?"
Dr. Adel Urda-Na: "Yes, but that is a secret!"
Feral to Dr. Don Blake, and not in a quiet or calm voice: "THE AIM SUB?!?"
Feral to Don via comms, still not quiet nor calm: "You're in an AIM sub and you're high on morphine?!?"
Don, in a calm voice: "Not morphine, it was Tylenol"
Feral: "Amythyst. You can swim. Right?"
Amythyst, still in his rock-crystal armor form: "I can walk on the bottom... Yes I can swim, I think."
Dr. Blake and Amythyst: "We see a skeleton crew in this AIM sub."
... seconds pass...
Dr. Blake and Amythyst: "We have some AIM prisoners in this Amythyst Sub!"
Feral to Dr. Adel: "What are the odds that your man and Amythyst go full-on pirate?"
