The Labyrinth
To define the Labyrinth is all but impossible, for it exists fully only within the mind of the man-bull Taurus. The Labyrinth is a maze of lies surrounding the truths of the world and Taurus’ role in it. As Taurus explains it to his inner circle, “When you control information and resources, all else is secondary. These feints of power and superhuman escalation are all well and good, but this world can more easily be controlled by wealth and the careful application of it, since greed is as universal as fear.”
The closest thing there is to the actual group is the phantom corporate shell of Labrys Industries, a tech firm involved in cryptology, computer coding, and various other concerns surrounding computers and code breaking. Its central office is in Switzerland, and money, contacts, and communications flow through it, but the building is simply a maze of security and deadly traps around one of at least nine places Taurus calls home. Labrys Industries employs more than a thousand people in offices in Tokyo; London; and Richmond, Virginia; and none of them—including the American COO, Marvin Allen—know the CEO and founder of their company is not the reclusive germ-phobic “Bruce Carter,” but the immortal criminal mastermind Taurus.
At least a dozen major criminal, business, and political leaders answer directly to Taurus, knowingly or not; of them, only Constantine Urallos of Delphic Inustries knows Taurus for who and what he is. These include Patrick Rice (COO of Rice & Stilman Holdings), Heinrich von Stauffen (Stauffen-Mann Media Conglomerate), Yuri Moloyev (of the Russian Mafiya, posing as an importer), Donald Cross (CEO of Crosstech), Stephen Cook (CFO of Carson Industries), and the aforementioned Marvin Allen of Labrys Industries.
Among the lesser holdings and subsidiaries of these firms and front men are Charon Industries (a conglomerate of mortuary services), Cross, Rose, & Temple (a European law firm), Hellas & Hellas (a Greek food importer), the Proteus Cartel (submarine facilities and technologies), Martuk Shipping (a Turkish travel and shipping cartel), LSAS, Inc. (generic corporate holding company/money laundering), Olympian Studios (American media company and owner of the Olympic Broadcast Network), and Asclepian Associates (a conglomerate of HMOs, nursing homes, and drug companies).
Taurus’ many companies and their subsidiaries apply for—and easily win—government contracts for public and secret projects. In this way, Taurus gets his fingers into world politics, as contracts do not come just from the Pentagon but nearly every nation on Earth. Collectively, he owns or controls some of the largest defense contractors world-wide.
Lastly, Taurus has more than a score of biotech firms vying for cutting-edge government contracts in classified biological weapons and superhuman development; while he has the technology, he rarely allows true successes to occur, lest the world become overpopulated with supers not under his direct control.
There are many, many more spheres of influence for the Labyrinth, as the organization is something Taurus has built for centuries. Many of the conspiracy theories claiming a secret group uses economics to manipulate world events name it wrong; they call it the Illuminati or the Gnomes of Zurich or the Committee of 300, when they should simply call it the Labyrinth.
Over the years, Ms. Scarlet and Constantine Urallos have laid hints that the Labyrinth is ruled from a central command. They claim “the Center” is an enclave of powerful people, but they have been evasive about it’s actual nature. Is it a triad of Asian, American, and European concerns, a committee of the world’s elite, an alliance of alien invaders, or even a sentient computer?
Structure
MS. SCARLET
Even Ms. Scarlet claims not to know who she truly is or where she came from. Taurus found her in the late 18th century on the streets of Prague, fighting a street gang and winning despite her burden of a stolen hand-keg of beer, a ham, and a loaf of bread. She had no memory of her past, though her fighting skills and languages proved she was not merely amnesiac. The two of them slew everyone who saw them in that alley, and the darkhaired woman hasn’t left the man-bull’s service since. In time, he started calling her Thea; she prefers the name Ms. Scarlet, which he gave her in the early 1900s due to her penchant for wearing red. Ms. Scarlet hasn’t expended much effort in uncovering her past, even when a chance encounter with Medea in 1922 uncovered a new mystery: A tattoo of a clenched, flaming fist appeared on her midriff when she was exposed to mystical energy. She didn’t know where it came from or what it signified, although she has since learned of a vulnerability to mystic forces, making her mistrustful of magicians. Since 1945, Taurus and Ms. Scarlet have worked tirelessly to turn the Labyrinth into a force to be reckoned with. As she is one of the oldest members of the Labyrinth and one with whom most of the important members interact, they see her as its de-facto leader, despite her insistence she’s merely a mouthpiece for “the Center.” After more than 40 years of association, she’s learned to like Constantine Urallos because he keeps more people guessing about the Center than she does. While she endures the presence of others at Taurus’ side, there is no question that she is his right hand. Ms. Scarlet stays combat-ready at all times, keenly aware of all the heroes around who might bring harm to what she and her master have built. Aside from her signature red clothing, she always carries a black leather whip. Trainer of thugs and villains, she’s the drill sergeant and primary enforcer of the Labyrinth. She educates and works with everyone, from the lowliest thugs and minions to the latest DNAscent subjects, and even spars with Taurus himself. She also instills in her trainees complete loyalty to Taurus and the Labyrinth; for special subjects, she takes on various roles within their brainwashing so they remain dedicated even if unaware of the Labyrinth.
DR. PETER HANKS
Harvard’s greatest genetic theorist joined Grant Conglomerates after graduation in 1987, lured by obscene pay and free rein in the lab. Within a few years, Jonathan Grant even allowed Hanks to see and expand upon the secret research started by the Nazis—itself based on incomplete information acquired from Ultima Thule. Dr. Hanks was not the creator of The DNAscent Process—that was by Dr. Conrad Dippel in 1972—but he perfected it and made it more stable by introducing the use of radiation to lock the changes into the DNA chains. A spin-off of his work greatly increased the stability of organ and body part transplants. In 1998, using the technology he’d developed, he had two enhanced gorilla arms grafted onto his torso. A manic-depressive, Hanks works feverishly without stop for days, and then crashes and can be near-catatonic for weeks. He has a Nazi’s sense of morality and duty when it comes to his work, and has no doubt the many deaths that occur in his march toward greater knowledge will be worth it in the end. He’s already sacrificed his own life to the all-consuming work of mastering genetic manipulation and serving the Labyrinth.DR. VICTOR REEDS
Victor Reeds has been in love with the human machine his entire life and has been trying to marry biological and technological machines for much of that time. Victor was a 20 year-old doctoral graduate and resident genius at the Hanover Institute of Technology in 1969. His research intrigued Taurus, who planned to recruit the young scientist in a few years. When Victor’s experiments exploded one evening and scarred his face and chest, Taurus had his agents destroy the remains of his lab, leave a charred body behind, and bring the young man in earlier than planned. Since 1970, Dr. Victor Reeds has developed inventions, cybernetic weaponry, and bio-enhancements for Labyrinth, and his discoveries have leaked through various channels in the group’s subsidiaries to both legitimate and illegitimate markets. While all the glory and the bulk of the Labyrinth superagents come from the DNAscent Process, Dr. Reeds has advanced the fields of psionically-controlled weaponry and cybernetics by leaps and bounds. In fact, Labyrinth shell companies make more money selling thought-reactive weapons than any of the biotech firms that contribute to Dr. Hanks’ work. One of Reeds’ greatest achievements—and subsequent greatest failures—was turning the rookie hero Kid Gargoyle into Taurus’ assassin for hire, the Eye of Vengeance. For two years, the Eye of Vengeance was the Labyrinth’s primary assassin, easily controlled and programmed through his cybernetic implants. The Eye failed three times to recapture the escaped DNAscendant Evening, and she helped him break free from his cybernetic controls and brainwashing in 1975, becoming her partner, the Eye of Justice, in The Eyes of Night. Dr. Reeds is a genius, but he’s amoral and hardly human, thinking of every human—including himself—as a flawed and inferior machine. He has replaced his digestive system with a unique battery pack and encased his head in a supplemental computer system to enhance his vision and intelligence. He is difficult in the lab, as he keeps his notes in his own internal cybernetic computer where others can’t get at them. If given half a chance, he’d create as many cybernetic replacement parts for agents as requested, even including enhancements that weren’t asked for.ACCESS
Thomas “Tommy” Mendola was an Olympic-level gymnast, but gambling problems, a conviction for transporting stolen goods, and his questionable status as the nephew of known Mafia boss Frank "The Hitter" Tonifanni kept him from competing in the Olympics. His chance at a public life in sports gone, Tommy used his skills to become one of the best thieves in his uncle’s family. He ran the Bacchanal, a gentlemen’s club on the border between Southside and Bayview, for The Mob, and did very well because the club drew its share of the wealthy “tech geeks” from the private labs around western Bayview. After months of giving them special favors and leasing the club to them for private parties, Tommy met with them secretly and asked where he could go to get super-powers. The Duntronics lab on Marshall Street in northwestern Bayview was a secondary subsidiary for Cardistanic. Dr. Carl Walker, the head of that lab, was an old associate of Dr. Victor Reeds, as well as a frequent customer of the Bacchanal. Tommy got what he wanted, undergoing some drug processes and cybernetic enhancements in order to gain powers. This was all done through Duntronics and its personnel, though Dr. Reeds kept the project under remote surveillance. Once he had the enhancements, Tommy planned to pay for the job in full through the Bacchanal. However, the Duntronics executives told him he’d have to perform some jobs for them, unless he wanted the circuitry inside of him to degrade and leave him powerless or dead. These threats were bald-faced lies, but Tommy didn’t know it. He uses his powers to work on his reputtion as the best burglar in Freedom City, going by the nom du crime “Lockpick.” After proving himself capable, Mendola was recruited for more work with the Labyrinth, taught to overcome some of the limitations on his powers—expanding his influence over machinery—and indoctrinated with greater loyalty to the organization. Tommy liked the taste of even more power and adopted the name “Access.” Tommy has always been a ladies’ man; his gymnast’s physique and personal charm take him a long way toward impressing most women he meets. His ego is great enough that he sees himself as a rival to Magpie’s status as the world’s greatest thief.DYBBUK
Niece of a former New Jersey crime boss, Ellen Kahlberg came into the Mob when her parents were murdered. Her powers grew during her childhood, and her hair fell out as her psionic abilities grew stronger. She became one of the nastiest tools for the Mob, and soon took over her uncle’s family openly after more than two years of mind-controlling him. Dybbuk became a rising power in the Mob on the eastern seaboard, and even had ties to the Freedom City Mob. She seemed to be rising without limit, until her underlings botched a job involving a Labyrinth subsidiary and changed her life. Everyone except her was killed, and she spent six months imprisoned in various isolated locations. She was freed only when she made a blood oath to work for her captors—Jonathan Grant and Payback, acting as members of the Zodiac Cartel—until she worked off $15 million in debt. Eventually, Dybbuk ambitiously sought out the truth about the Zodiac Cartel, and Taurus offered her a choice: swear allegiance to him and an oath to Hades himself, or die. She chose to live and continue to serve the Labyrinth, but her ambitions have not dimmed; Dybbuk is alert for opportunities to improve her lot, so long as they aren’t too risky. Tactically, Dybbuk lets others do much of the dirty work for her and relies on her mind control. If in charge of a mission, she telepathically links everyone to ensure they can communicate silently.PAYBACK
Asad Sabir’s name means “patient lion,” and the Lebanese refugee lives up to it. One of the few agents with actual contact with Taurus, Payback only goes on the most crucial missions or those in which Taurus takes direct interest. He has a cybernetic left arm, having lost it as a child during the siege of Beirut. He is one of the mainstays among the Labyrinth’s agents, as he can take on nearly anyone else’s super-toughs and have a chance at defeating them. Payback’s rather unique power comes from an uncontrolled power surge during his creation (simultaneous with the DNAscent of Tamper). Larceny, Inc. chose that moment to invade the hidden laboratory seeking additional weapons to sell to a client, and they disrupted the process. Neither Asad’s nor Charlie’s powers were planned, but they have both become valuable assets. Asad is a devout Hades-worshiper, having been indoctrinated into the cult by Taurus personally. Payback is quiet, contemplative, and slow to anger—or to show any emotion at all, for that matter—but when angered, he becomes like a man possessed. Nothing matters but his mission, be it retrieval of a briefcase with critical documents or assassinating a head of state. He tends to stick to the shadows and strike at the best possible moment, causing one or two distractions to draw off opponents while he zeroes in on his target. He is more apt to fire at the surroundings, causing buildings to collapse on targets or bystanders in order to keep from being captured or thwarted. If he ends up in close combat with anyone, he relies as much on his bionic arm as his innate powers, and prefers to execute helpless foes by breaking their necks, if possible.SIDETRACK
Samantha Blackwood ran away from an abusive home in Seattle and became a prostitute in Portland, Oregon. Picked up one evening as an escort for a biologist on staff at Labyrinth front company GFR Biotech, Sam fell into the world of the Labyrinth. GFR often rounded up people who would not be missed as test subjects. Dr. Peter Hanks, who operated off-site as GFR research fellow Dr. Karl Honnegger, brought Samantha to Taurus’ attention while attempting to duplicate the experiment that created the rogue villain Trap-Door. She and a dozen others underwent the DNAscent Process, but only three survived; Sam was the only one who remained remotely human or sane. Sam had slightly different powers than Trap-Door, but helped Dr. Hanks ascertain how the DNAscent process worked and how to better control which powers a subject received. With her newfound powers, Sam began training with Ms. Scarlet as an agent for the Labyrinth. While Sam entertained a slight crush on her unforgiving taskmistress, she soon fell in love with a new student—the mute Hispanic girl who became Targette. They bonded, and their teamwork makes them exemplary additions to any operation, as they provide the cover that allows other team members to achieve their objectives. Sidetrack earned her codename because of her ability to distract foes with a dazzling burst of purple light and then teleport to her true objective, leaving behind a swirl of purple sparkles. Working in concert with Targette makes her even more dangerous, as she often includes Isabela within the dazzle effect, allowing Targette to charge up her mental blasts more quickly. What annoys some heroes who’ve faced the pair is their competition over how many opponents they can take down in a scrap. When directly confronting a foe, Sidetrack likes to attack with her kineti-gloves, then teleport to safety.TAMPER
Tamper is Charles O’Neil, a former bomb maker from Dublin. A useful freelance terrorist tool of the IRA and some European power mongers, Charlie fled Britain for Italy in 1992. He gained sanctuary with The Order of St. Tomarinus, a secret group within the Vatican claiming to be holy warriors for Catholic causes worldwide—which they are, though they are also unwittingly linked through numerous channels to the Labyrinth. The devout Charlie signed on and was brainwashed into believing he gained his powers in an elaborate ritual in a secret chapel beneath Vatican City. In truth, he spent months undergoing the DNAscent Process, along with the man who became Payback. Even when saboteurs invaded the complex and disrupted the empowerment process, Charlie saw them as heretical demons, literally. While his brainwashing has weakened over time, Tamper does not know he works for the Labyrinth. His usual missions for the Order involve sabotage of, or theft from, “heretical” corporations and eliminating “sinners”—members of the Church who have discovered the Order—who have strayed from the Church, effectively keeping the Vatican hierarchy in the dark about Hades’ faithful operating in their midst. Charlie is a brash, loud, braggart who hasn’t mellowed since he gained his powers. As he has sworn to keep the Order’s secrets, he doesn’t discuss what he sees as his “holy crusade” with others; all he truly knows and cares to know is that he’s doing what’s right by his faith—he sees himself as a hero, despite the blood on his hands. Tamper’s standard tactics are to fly over a target area and disrupt any surveillance equipment and defensive mechanisms before he enters. His powers protect him from harm most of the time, but if he gets into conflict with superheroes, he’ll either flee at top speed once he’s finished his mission or use his thick skin and flying abilities to ram any “heretics” into the ground. His other favorite battle tactics involve making equipment go haywire or giving opponents a “fall from grace”— dropping them from great heights.TARGETTE
Isabela Varianza lived on the streets of Los Angeles until a rival gang member stabbed her in the throat during a brawl. The injury destroyed her larynx, but her powers manifested during the attack and she was able to transfer the pain of her wound to her attackers, knocking them out. Quickly discovered and recruited by Dr. Peter Hanks for study, Isabela became a star pupil for Ms. Scarlet, as she took to her reeducation and training exceedingly well. Now mute, she learned American Sign Language, and fell in love with her fellow student, Samantha Blackwood, the woman who became Sidetrack. Isabela, after finishing her training, was given the code name Targette, as her powers allowed her to absorb any damage and transfer the pain outward via psychic blasts. She refuses to work alone, preferring to act in concert with Samantha. Targette and Sidetrack have become a reliable duo on many Labyrinth assignments, drawing attention and fire away from the true operatives and objectives.TACTICS
“The Labyrinth has many turns,” as Taurus is fond of saying, and the organization backs numerous fronts and shells. Heroes have thwarted countless Labyrinth schemes without being aware of their true origins. Each is no more than a loss of a pawn to Taurus, and there are other plans waiting in the wings, or succeeding in the shadows, for every one that heroes or authorities managed to eliminate. Taurus allows for a considerable amount of personal initiative on the part of his underlings, to a point. So long as they do not stray from the bounds of their intended scheme, they’re largely allowed to run things as they see fit, and to take the fall when they go badly. The Labyrinth does not like loose ends, and many know that capture by the authorities is the least of their concerns should things not go as planned.Public Agenda
The Labyrinth exists for one purpose: to protect and further Taurus’ interests. He willed the organization into being and controls it completely. For the most part, the Labyrinth’s goal is to maintain its comfortable status quo; after all, the organization already controls more wealth and power than most, if not all, of the nations on Earth and influences events far more than anyone realizes. Centuries of life have made Taurus conservative and patient; he prefers to safeguard what he has achieved rather than gamble on potential gains.
Ultimately, the Labyrinth seeks to eliminate all possible threats to its continued existence. Taurus’ greatest challenge in meeting that goal is the relative short-sightenedness of his mortal underlings, who are not always willing to wait lifetimes—as he is—to see the Labyrinth’s goals achieved. Sometimes a forceful reminder is necessary.
Assets
The Labyrinth’s resources, accumulated over much of the history of western civilization, are almost incalculable. Certainly, they rival that of first-world nations and vast multinational corporations. Like other parts of the organization, these resources are vastly distributed and broken up into private accounts, hidden caches, and the like, so the full extent of the Labyrinth is known to no one but Taurus.
The Labyrinth has no one headquarters, save for whatever installation Taurus calls home, but it controls numerous facilities around the world to serve his needs.
Type
Illicit, Syndicate
Leader
Subsidiary Organizations
Manufactured Items
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