Horrors at the Asylum Part 1

General Summary

After foiling the plot to ambush and capture Faust at the carnival, the New Champions discovered GPS coordinates of a secret headquarters for NexHuman — a seemingly reputable biogenetics organization. Moreover, the drones monitoring the ambush attempt were sending live-feed visual/audio back to the same location. But before making their way to the GPS coordinates, the team confirmed with Socrates that the site location was not a known location for NexHuman but was, in fact, an abandoned asylum on the outskirts of Millennium City. Not wanting to leave the unconscious mercenaries to return and tell of the New Champions’ existence, the team decided to lock them in the armored vehicle found onsite and to barricade it with additional energy fields. But for the mutant “RoboCon” (formerly known as “Prisoner 241”) who ‘atomized’ the young teenage hostage named “Adam”, the team decided on a different fate. Maximum Resistance determined that RoboCon was being controlled by nanites and was sending and receiving regular pulses of data back to the same GPS location found on the drones. With some concern, he noticed that the nanites operate via a remote-host-control function which evaluate a checksum of Booleans delivered to the host every five minutes. The nanites had “trained” the mutant to obey remote instructions. After one “fail”, the nanites would turn-off certain internal-organ systems. After two “Fails”, the nanites turn off another system until the mutant is completely incapacitated. The nanites also had a fail-safe auto-destruct sequence. If their regular send-transmission is blocked for more than three cycles (e.g. fifteen minutes) then the nanites would sever the arteries in the mutant’s brain. With this level of sophistication, Cypher arrived on the scene, being the most adept with technology. He went to work quickly and explained, “ First thing we need is to remove the bad programming these nanites have. Let’s stop the ability to punish for unwanted behavior...I will create a loop of expected behaviours for the NexHuman science guys so they don’t try to nuke him prematurely. This next bit could take a few minutes to completely reprogram the expected behaviors.” Cypher’s eyes glowed red as he connected with the mutant’s nanites and ‘convinced’ them to discontinue their destructive behavior...After a few minutes, the work was complete. With the threat resolved, Runeforce appeared at the carnival as well — he and Maximum Resistance agreed to take the disabled mutant into the team’s newly acquired DEMON base via the long-range portals they’d recently established into the lair. Once there, RoboCon walked into one of the underground prison cells... Meanwhile Faust, Wildthing, Cypher, WindWalker, Ghost, and Nemesis proceeded directly to the Asylum to confront the ones behind the ambush. Nemesis, the unquestionably beautiful creature who had joined the team during the New Champions’ recovery of the DEMON base, came up with their suggested approach: Nemesis would shapeshift into the form of the mutant who attempted to kill Faust and then carry Faust into the building — a ruse to gain successful entry. But as they approached the driveway to the asylum, all havoc was breaking loose! Earthquakes were shaking the ground, civilians were scrambling out of the way, and supers were flying away from the building. More imminently, several enormous and ferocious earth and stone mutants were lumbering in the direction of the team, who worked quickly to engage the threat. Wildthing acted quickly to blow down fencing that blocked in civilians from their escape. Windwalker teleported one civilian away from the chaos, at the same time questioning them about the situation. The person was dressed in a lab coat and screamed in terror, “Let me go! The mutants are escaping!” Windwalker obliged and then returned to the fray. From a distance, Cypher and his minions blasted at the mutants. But one of the mutants raised up a cloud of dust that caught Nemesis and Faust, blinding them with a layer of thick dirt. Even still, Faust flew into the direction of the mutant, knocking it backward and to the ground...Faust asked for help and Ghost was quick to engage, pummeling the creature into the ground, several times. Still blinded by the dirt cloud, Faust flew into the air to avoid being attacked unaware. Nemesis was also still blinded, but making a straight pursuit down the driveway and toward the main entry. She stumbled on the steps and slowed her pace, feeling her way around. All the while, armed mercenary troops were fruitlessly engaging against the mutants...several of them were being ripped into pieces and thrown across the field into the woods. Will the New Champions meet the same fate as the mercenaries? Or will their combined efforts gain them entry into the asylum now that is has been evacuated? The story continues on Wednesday’s @ 8PM central. Watch the video of the session below: