Specter, Chapter 5: Heroing Hard with a Vengeance
GREETINGS TRUE BELIEVERS!
Welcome back!
Last time, our heroes had made good their escape from the Oscorp Industries lab in the Metropolis Research Park. With them went copies of incriminating evidence showing Oscorp is indeed running a secret ‘super soldier’ project for their own gains. Called ‘Project Protector’, it's founded on the missing meta-powered kidnap victims from New York and chemicals from a mutagenic orange ooze.
But that isn’t all! Wyldfire also rescued one of the missing New Yorkers and an Oscorp field tech. The latter had been altered through accidental mad science in the Oscorp Industries’ lab. Both evidence and the librated people were left in Dr. Henry McCoy’s care for treatment.
Once again, Dr. McCoy lived up to his scientific reputation. After two days he had answers, but not ones that Wyldfire wanted to hear. Oscorp Industries project was nothing less than a ground-breaking, and disturbing, take on a ‘build-a-hero’ project!
The project was to create polymer-based combat androids with bio-engineered artificial organs but all too organic cloned brain tissue samples from the kidnap victims. Samples that allowed the dangerous droids to have their own bizarre meta-powers.
In the wrong hands, such an android could spell major trouble. Wyldfire all agreed that Oscorp was indeed the wrong hands.
Despite that dire thought, there was good news. ShadowStar, Wyldfire team tech specialist, had tracked down where Oscorp was maintaining its backup systems. Specifically, inside a mild-mannered data center company in Atlantic City called Paragon Networks Ltd!
Convinced those backups contained clues to the rest of the missing New Yorkers, the team packed up for the bright lights of Atlantic City. There, using a well-crafted false IDs and backgrounds, they posed as representatives of one ‘Neptune Imaging Ltd’, a medical imaging company looking for a new data center.
The ruse worked! A tour guide from Paragon Networks showed part of the team around while the other half remained outside. Given the danger posed by these mysterious Oscorp Protectors and other Oscorp security, they felt some of the team should keep watch outside.
It was a good thing, too!
Inside, our heroes inside had noticed unusual clues. First, the building’s normally tight security being lowered, then covered up without question. Next, one secured warehouse section was being secretly maintained at just the right temperature to fool the temperature triggered motion sensors inside.
Then there was the small, yet brief, flash of the words “Downloading and Transferring Data” across one screen in the main monitoring room. Words written entirely in Kryptonian!
At that exact moment, outside the building, the rest of the team uncovered yet more trouble. For slowly, casually, unknown figures now roamed or loitered near the Paragon Networks Ltd building. Figures that Feral quickly identified as Deck Agents and a Face Card Agent! Footsoldiers and enforcers for the criminal mastermind, CARD SHARK!
This can only mean one thing… Paragon Networks may be about to be attacked by a team of thieves from Card Shark!
It looks like our heroes have been dealt a bad hand, True Believers! Will they counter the Card Shark attack in time before it starts? Can they decipher the meaning behind Kryptonian messages appearing on a screen in a data center? And what of the data center’s security being mysteriously shut down then covered up?
Finally… is something being concealed in the data center’s warehouse? The same warehouse being rented by none other than Oscorp Industries?
Time to double down and place your bets, True Believers! For our heroes may have to play a long, dangerous game if they want to get to the bottom of this case!
This is Not Stan Lee saying ...
EXCELSIOR!
Components
Goals
Strange rumors send the Wyldfire team to investigate a modest and nondescript Oscorp Lab building on the southern edge of the Metropolis Research Park. Sources suggest Oscorp has some connection between five missing ooze victims in New York and a shadowy bio-genetic “special project” for “life enhancement”.
This is compounded by the fact that Oscorp is one of the companies studying the mutagenic ooze from the New York.
Wyldfire’s mission
Once they arrived...
The plan, to use a "Bloodmobile" and administering company sponsored vaccines to the employees, went off without a hitch. Medkit and Dr. Blake provided cover, while the others searched the building. In no time, the search turned up:
Fortunately, the plan worked… mostly…
The team has liberated one of the missing kidnap victims, research samples, copies of research report data, and a Kryptonian Tri-Comm being used by Oscorp! As a bonus, they recovered a mysterious ‘replicant’ type android made from a mysterious polymer.
They know from a surprise ally in the form of an Oscorp Field Tech, that the other kidnap victims have been taken to a location in Jersey, an off-shore platform, or both!
And then, there is this “Dr. Joara Zarn-Del”, a scientist from New Krypton who seems to be the silent partner in Oscorp’s current escapades. What is her stake in this? The team doesn’t know, but the clues suggest something sinister.
And now!
A little tech help from ShadowStar pointed the team at a mild-mannered data center in Atlantic City, owned by Paragon Networks Ltd. This unassuming location was not only housing several actively used servers by Oscorp Industries but also was renting warehouse space out to Oscorp!
After the clever use of false IDs, the team has made their way inside the building. But… with strange goings on happing both inside and out, Wyldfire must…
And last, but never least…
Relations
Protagonists
Allies
Neutrals/Bystanders
Adversaries
Backdrops
Locations
The hustle and bustle of Atlantic City, specifically the building for Paragon Networks Ltd in the Atlantic City Research Park area.
Plot type
Chapter
Parent Plot
Related Characters
Related Organizations
Related Locations
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