Energy Crisis
General Summary
Jarissa Paxton log:
The power goes out again. Who did it? Professor Gironde comes through the library looking vexed, and drafts Steven, Martin, and myself. Our employer informs us that Thomas has found something "very interesting" about the power outage pattern, that doesn't match up with what Metropolis's mayor is claiming. We're to stop whoever's tinkering with the power supply so Professor doesn't have to go over to help lock down the Vault again.
Thomas says:
When the brownouts started, and then the blackouts, he went running around to see if anybody's in trouble. He noticed that the power would come on again really quickly. Most of the time, it's centered near two different locations -- near the Oscorp warehouse in the warehouse area, and near the Samson Steel Refinery which has been shut down for two months for OSHA refit.
Samson isn't supposed to restart for another two weeks, and Tom says he looked -- no one is there.
There's a power substation at both locations. They had new parts put in last month.
We check out the Oscorp substation first, and find -- concealed under fake or groomed snow -- a pair of Bluetooth-enabled devices (one a broadcast and one a receiver?) brace the approach to a maintenance entrance. They're wired into the substation, tapping directly into the lines going to Oscorp and possibly the lines heading underground going to the Nutech warehouse, bleeding the power off into a groundwire. The Bluetooth things are pointing at the Nutech warehouse.
Nutech is owned by Dr. Doom.
We're leaving!
We go to the other substation.
The Samson Steel Refinery has a big "Under New Management" sign. It was damaged in an explosion in this area, involving part of a truck that landed at a 45 degree angle into a wall.
An armed security force is patrolling this area.
This substation also has the boxes and the camouflage. The Bluetooth arc seems to be pointed toward Morrowtech, who do electronics and scanning equipment and a couple government contracts.
Martin had the brilliant idea of picking up a couple bluetooth jammers, so we set one up and hide.
After a few minutes, three guys in white exit the Morrowtech building. One stays to watch and the other two approach. They're wearing Card Shark Syndicate insignia! "Two of Diamonds" and "Three of Hearts", respectively.
Listening VERY carefully to the conversation which one employee has as he reports in, he says: "Someone's on to us, we've got Bluetooth signal blockers here." (No, there's just one.) The other guy is looking around for anybody who might be watching. The other side is using a voice scrambler, but might have a European accent. "He" says he understands; "Remove the devices when you feel it's safe, you're not on shift for another 8 to 10 hoursl The Double Down Team is up for the next shift, they will be warned to look for this kind of devices. Are you sure you aren't being seen?"
"No," says the Two of Diamonds, "I think this might be an experiment."
"Everything is proceeding according to schedule," says the person with the voice scrambler. "Just be prepared to activate the power drain on schedule. We can't miss this window of opportunity, the package won't be there forever. Have you received tomorrow's timetable?"
"Oh yeah, we received the GPS coordinates and went and picked it up."
So once the backup guy goes indoors, we pounce on the other two and tell them "Blackjack says 'bonjour'."
Apparently they're working for a New Hire named "Lowball" who's very ... fanatical.
The plan is apparently to destabilize the electric grid according to a certain schedule. Lowball isn't at either location as far as this guy knows. He's a pretty decent sized guy, got a suit of body armor he wears in mostly white with red racing stripes on the side, he's got a symbol of his name on his shoulder, and he's got this thing he does with rubber balls where they just sort of orbit him. He can use them to block bullets. He might have TK
He's wearing 7-5 low in particular.
He also gives off a really creepy sensation.
Then I get shot with a sonic blast to the head and uppermost chest.
Doc shoves snow through the open window on the ground floor, burying the guy; two windows open upstairs, shooting at me again and at Amythyst.
Feral {gets heavily shot up by snipers}
Doc: That didn't go as planned.
So at two-thirds of the way to "Mind Over Matter", I charge the building while the guys use ranged attacks to really ruin the snipers' day. Once I get up the wall, I toss the two guys out their respective windows, go in, and confiscate a bunch of their stuff. And food. And then we call 911 to report meta-on-meta energy weapon fights, and we RUN LIKE HELL!
Doc Reynolds log addendum: Things Seized from Card Shark Hand
- 1 Black Box From Wall
- 1 Control Device
- Sonic Gun Power Pack
- 2 Encrypted Coms
- Tablet PC
- Random Snacks
- 2 White Knit Caps and Head Bands (2 of Hearts and 3 of Diamonds)
Mogul Shipping is owned by Jeremiah Mogul, apparently a semiretired self-styled Man Of Adventure
SHOULDER-MOUNTED WEAPONS and such
and the Mogul Shipping building is using some sort of amber-colored laser sights to track the perimeter of the NuTech building that had the Bluetooth box on it.
Snowballs happened.
I grabbed a falsified customs label with something about Morocco, haven't had a chance to read it yet. It came off a crate full of superscience energy guns or something.
I have pounced on a sniper, the Ace of Spades. He now has no gun and feels like staying still.
Thunderstrike goes toe to wingtip with three Green Goblin flying robot things.
Doc trips a couple guys while Amythyst takes out some ranged combatants, including a turret gun.
Then Thunderstrike goes into the Mogul Shipping building and smashes some weapons.
Interrogation goes "very* well".
Doc impersonates one of the prisoners from the first place we hit and "escapes" with the tech from this second group. The Ace of Spades turns out to be the new Jack of Diamonds.
Vehicle stops in the Metropolis Research Park area, about a block down from the Reliant Book Depository. The only thing right here that's got any kind of landmark is a tech lab for Brownian Insights Incorporated, which is next to the book depository.
There's a woman in a bodysuit flitting across the roof tops, except it was a bluish purple in color with brick red highlights and the colors swirl a little as she moves: Dusk
OH GOD IT'S MATRIX
Charcoal black body suit with vague white swirls, a mask with white teardrop shaped eyes, and he is moving up and along the side of Brownian propelled by his eight tentacles: Octopi
I call for help and otherwise stands around contemplating the universe (not really!) while Amythyst spots where most of the rest of the MATRIX team are, Thunderstrike encounters LowBall and plays a game of Texas Hold 'em poker against him, and Doc sneaks into the Brownian Insights Incorporated basement, which the Card Shark guys have been drilling into from the Reliant Book Depository basement.
Turns out that the Clock King has already stolen the chrono dispersal mesh thing.
But, hey, at least I put her clothes and possessions someplace where they hopefully won't get destroyed in the fight. Assuming there's a fight. Always effective, I am.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a yellow bodysuit with brick red trim that moves down into the area where some pedestrians and homeless people are. She changes her appearance and shifts into a security guard. She heads up to Brownian and approaches a pair of actual security guards.
I ask Amythyst to "hit that", approximately as hard as he would hit a meth-head with a baseball bat and a chainsaw.
"He" goes flipping through the air and suddenly goes wire-fu, melts away into Dawn again. She lands like Scarlett Johannson.
Needless to say, Octopi and Dusk are now looking for the source of the lightning bolt. Dusk drops out of sight and tries to blend in with the brick on a ledge. Octopi uses his commset for a moment and then fades out of existence.
We take off running for the center of the deck and something to put our backs against. The edge of the parking deck, where we had been standing, explodes in spikes from above: Razor is coming for us.
I have to throw rubble at Dawn to get her to come off the wall. She goes for my leg (with her hair) and misses; Octopi puts an inky smoke field centered right between the two of of us.
Amythyst hits Octopi (on the ceiling) with a big blast of sonic energy, which knocks Octopi up into the cement ceiling of the parking deck. Octopi then crashes down to the ground between us, in the middle of his own smoke cloud. I immediately throws defense concerns away to cut off as many of Octopi's tentacles, as close to the bodysuit as possible, as I can in four seconds.
Dawn yanks me out of the cloud by one arm and one ankle, and slams me into the cloud.
Amythyst reaches down, grabs Octopi, and throws him up to the ceiling again with all his strength.
A hammer comes out of nowhere and smacks Dawn, who still does NOT LET GO OF ME DAMMIT. She smacks into a concrete column and is stunned enough to let go of me. I start working on what will probably not be a pixie cut.
Amythyst and Octopi go a couple rounds of knocking each other into the ceiling, then Amythyst has enough and knocks Octopi through one of the cement columns. Amythyst goes walking in the direction Octopi went.
Skyburner zots the hell out of Dawn, temporarily finishing my fight. I send him after Doc while I drag Dawn back toward the parking deck stairwell et al, hoping to get her contained while she is temporarily unconscious.
Amythyst gets a Lexus thrown at him. He defends himself with punching! It's SUPER effective! ((with enough HP applied)) Amythyst manages to deflect enough of the damage to still have one point left to unconsciousness!
Desperation Recovery makes that TWO points to unconsciousness!
I shove Dawn in the trunk of the already damaged nearby car so I can run sneakily yet fast in an arc to flank Octopi. Before I can get there, though, Amythyst takes them down. I jump Dusk, who's looking for another target and thinking Amythyst is tasty; while she's busy with me, Thunder Strike hits her in the back hard enough to put her out.
Amythyst figures we can fit one more in the trunk of that Mitsubishi.
But not Razor.
Calliope and Amythyst go downstairs, letting Doc come up, to help Skyburner deal with
Once Metropolis SCU is within two blocks, we turn custody of the Mitsubishi over to Razor.
Alexei, who wants Clockwork King's tab paid, suggests in the morning we might be able to find the Clockwork King around 7:00 a.m. in an automotive factory or warehouse or something, north of Metropolis.
Rewards Granted
62 points
Character(s) interacted with
- assorted Card Shark Syndicate hirelings
- The Clock King a.k.a. William Tockman Fugit
- MATRIX:
- Dawn
- Dusk
- Octopi
- Razor
- Dr. Jean-Claude Gironde
- Wyldfire agents and associates:
- Amythyst
- Feral
- "Doc" Steven Reynolds
- Skyburner
- Thunderstrike
Report Date
06 Jan 2014
Primary Location
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