It was the morning after – everyone had gathered in Chrono’s office with its heart shaped girder memento and thick blue tarpaulin hastily nailed over the collapsed roof. As nothing had been resolved the previous night, the atmosphere was a little tense so when the door intercom rang to announce a possible client everyone was glad of the interruption. The door camera didn’t appear to be working but after everything that had happened the day before it was hardly surprising if some of the security was no longer fully functional.
A minute later a young woman with a blue streak in her hair entered and introduced herself; “My name is Mallory Chao (but my friends and family call me Rez) and my step-sister was the woman, Elaine Chao, the… Stormer? Who was transformed yesterday. My family wants to hire you…” see seems surprised at the number of people present watching her. “We don’t want a cover up; we want to employ you to fully investigate what happened in the Underpass and what the transporters wanted with the silver storm.”
Mary suddenly realised where she’d seen the woman before – this was the same “woman” who’d made the fake convoy disappear and then transformed into Superintendent Cunningham!
Rather than interrupt or confront her, she decided to let her talk. Mallory (Mary wondered why that name also caused her concerns? Damn her memory!) took out an envelope of notes and placed them on the desk. “This is a week’s fee. Please do what you can to find out what you can.”
She went on to state that she believed a company called KessKorp might be involved – someone obviously knew in advance the route and what the convoy was carrying. With that she turned and egan to walk towards the door.
Before Mary could connect the dots there was a bright flash behind her and suddenly Chrono was gone. The flash had left burn marks on the walls and small green slivers of crystal on the carpet that Sam checked for a scent…
What was going on here? The remaining three asked for a moment to consult. Thankfully Chrono’s instant disappearance hadn’t registered on the “client” who seemed oblivious to what had happened. Mary, Sam and Akira gathered for a quick consultation at the other end of the office…
Sam quickly tasted the crystals to see if they had anything he could use to trace Chrono while Mary checked out the burn marks with her mystical senses. Nothing – this was not mystical in nature and the crystals had nothing Sam could use to track.
Only Akira had got a momentary glimpse of what had just happened. A portal (which fit with Mary’s immediate psychic impression of some form of similar energy to that unleashed by Psipher in the warehouse when she and Chrono first crossed over to this world) had opened and he got a momentary glimpse of a man in a white coat with white hair and googles who had appeared, unleashed some form of green crystal sheath that had enveloped Chrono before dragging him back though the light… It had all happened in less than a split second – someone else was apparently capable of slowing down time like Chrono. There was no clues, no scent, nothing they could do.
Had it been a rescue from his own world, someone he’d upset (Mary didn’t think so, but couldn’t be sure) or a kidnapping? There had been no sense of fear, no reaction from Chrono… There was nothing they could do at this time, so they moved on to the mystery they could – Akira used his powers to jog Mary’s memory, Mary quickly explained that the girl who’d gone missing from Reading General when she and Chrono had first arrived had also been called Mallory and she’d been described as having a blue streak in her hair and her medical had been apparently paid for by KessKorp – not a lot to go on but this was definitely the girl who’d turned out to be a hologram projected by a hovering little machine (though how could this be a hologram since it had carried in an envelope of money and Akira could confirm that had been real enough). He quickly checked the money for impressions; no recent trace of being handled since it had been withdrawn from cash machines.
Looking over, their client seemed calm enough though obviously expecting an answer.
“We’ve agreed to take your case, but what is the KessKorp connection you seem convinced exists?” (Someone really needed to check if the girl, Elaine Chao really had a sister and if this was her. Damn their limited detective skills!)
“Mallory” (or Rez as she reminded them she preferred to be called) explained it was just something they’d heard but hoped they would treat this as urgent. After they agreed, she turned and walked out the door. Mary did notice that there were no sounds of footsteps either in the office or on the hard concrete stairs beyond…
Reluctantly parking the issue of Chrono’s disappearance, they did a bit of research on KessKorp and its CEO Alwin Kessler who they discovered has a minimal presence on the web – Akira’s suggestion he use a mystical illusion to pretend to be Kessler and visit a nearby manufacturing plant was quickly passed over when they realised that other than a single undated photo they didn’t know anything else about him including what his voice sounded like, it was unlikely to work.
They elected instead to start with a visit to a new friend, Inspector Tolliver who was happy for them to visit. “Call me Marcus“ he said as he explained what information had been obtained after the stormers and disaster had been dealt with. He explained that there had been another partially transformed stormer found in the wreckage who hadn’t survived his injuries and partial Meta-human-transformation. As the autopsy was still to be carried out by the pathologist Dr. Ira Cooper, he couldn’t give any more information on that at present.
In answer to their questions Marcus explained that the survivors of the convoy had confirmed that the transport truck had hit some sort of invisible force wall and exploded. They had witnessed the initial Storm effects including the stormers’ transformation and rampage. Between that and the other vehicles then hitting into the back of the convoy the people in the rear vehicles were subsequently rendered unconscious. They were the lucky ones, several had died.
He was able to confirm that he transport truck at the centre of the explosion belonged to Redshift Energies, based on the vehicle’s surviving, though well-singed, markings. The truck-driver was dead, apparently killed by the blast.
The truck had been carrying a load of storage tanks, and as they were aware one of the tanks had burst open (and that was the only one still on the truck) probably when one of the cars behind had hit it. As far as he knew whatever had been in them (if anything) was now completely gone… at least to the naked eye.
He did remind them that if anyone would know about the Silver Storm mist it would be Challenger-Wildeman family. Marcus’s research showed that the Silver Storm had first occurred in February 2012 and the last event (over the South of England) was six months previous. Whatever it was, it caused premature meta-human breakout in people with the potential. The majority of stormers were affected psychologically – even those who eventually learn to control their new abilities often exhibited periods when they lost control.
The last Silver Storm infected dozens of people in Wessex alone and rendered hundreds of others unconscious. The storm had been stopped by the Protectors and Challenger-Wildeman family working together to render the mist inert. Some of the mist had been captured by the Challenger-Wildeman’s using specially designed stasis chambers and that was what was apparently being transported.
Thanking him for his help, they left and elected to get Mary to see if Bethany could arrange for them to meet the family.
A short phone call later and they found themselves invited that afternoon to meet with the oldest of the Challenger-Wildeman children, Max. Jack Wolfe, their guardian who they’d briefly spoken to before about the eco-village concept in the Shambles recently was apparently not the ‘scientific type’.
Akira, having found his recent exploits had expanded some of his abilities was able, through a series of multiple jumps to teleport them to London where they made their way to the High-rise office block at Romaine Wharf. Having travelled up two separate elevators to get to the 44th floor they found themselves facing a young receptionist who buzzed through for Max. Not sure what to expect, they were caught out a little both by the bark-like cries from behind the screens that so reminded Mary of the Utahraptor they had encountered when they had first arrived and the sudden smiling appearance of Max Challenger-Wildeman, a young, enthusiastic 20-something with what looked like steam punk googles on his head which he removed the receptionist pointed them out to him.
The introduction from Bethany had obviously helped as Max was extremely friendly and helpful. He explained the background to their involvement with the Nanites. Alien in origin, like nothing he’d seen before and years in advance of anything they could build.
“As well as activating meta-human genes in those with the potential, the Silver Storm nanites appear to alter the stormers’ body chemistry. This is what causes the stormers often psychopathic behaviour, that and the sudden and often violent meta-gene breakthrough that accompanies the storm.
Interestingly the change in body chemistry also caused the stormer to release Kairomones, a unique type of pheromones which may attract some form of as yet unidentified predator or parasitoid by emitting a scent signal that benefits the receiver, but not the producer.”
Max explained that his sister Tess had managed to isolate the specific kairomones and they could let them have a small canister of the stuff if they wanted. As far as they could tell, the pheromone doesn’t actually do anything. Sam decided to ask anyway and was given a small sealed container.
They were also introduced to Max’s grandad, or at least the uploaded version of his consciousness he had uploaded prior to his death – a holographic image of an elderly man appeared in front of them floating in the air. The good Doctor was apparently what maintained the whole building and was still considered part of the family.
He explained that he constantly monitored a dimensional breach above Romaine Wharf but he had got side-tracked this morning when a previously unknown breach had appeared in Wessex for a split second. He identified that this was the same as the one that they had experienced; pointing out that it had been traced by its tachyon emissions. He explains that tachyons were particles that could travel faster than light. They may be an indication of time travel!
Sam decided to see if he could use the smell of the kairomones to track the lost shipment and after some discussion was allowed to do so in an isolation lab on the understanding that he underwent an extreme form of decontamination afterwards, just in case. Once sealed in, Sam released a small amount of the kairomones and realised that to his hyper-senses it smelt a little like rotting seaweed! He sealed up the remaining kairomones in the canister, passed it through for collection again afterwards and then underwent decontamination by plasma… Toasty!
Stepping out, Max offered to fly them to the Artefact Research Centre (which was owned by his family) but before he could do so a small metre-long velociraptor came bundling round the corridor, stopped in front of them and produced the bark-like cry they’d heard earlier.
It seemed ready to attack but before it could do so, a pretty little girl came after it shouting “Flossie”. She gestured and the creature floated towards her arms where she grabbed it like a little dog and started to skip off.
Max explained that Flossie, a bio-genetically engineered guardian for the younger children, was named by the youngest member of the family Andi (who they had just met) because she couldn’t pronounce her V’s properly at the time Velociraptor became Flossie-raptor and the name had stuck.
Looking at the shocked impressions on Mary and Akira’s faces – he reminded them that he and his brothers and sisters were all meta-humans. To change the subject he scanned them and pointed out that while Akira and Sam (to Sam’s surprise) were both meta-humans, Mary wasn’t.
What Max doesn’t realise was that what had shocked Mary and Akira was that when Andi had used her powers, it had been powered through mystical means not meta abilities; in fact Andi could be the strongest mystical being either of them have ever met. Max was obviously unaware that Andi was an apparently an untrained mage of immense power!
Changing the subject quickly, they learnt that Andi had a ‘nanny’ waiting for her upstairs so they head to the hangar where they discovered through conversation that ‘Nanny’ wasn’t a job description, it’s, his name was actually Nani, the name of a Sasquatch that had sort of adopted and helped look after the Challenger-Wildeman family.
Sam and Akira knew that other species of humans had been awarded sentient status by the UN; just not that ‘bigfoot’ was not only real but sentient… This was some rabbit hole they had all fallen down.
The flight by grav-vehicle (flown much more professionally by Max than Bethany, Mary was happy to discover) took them to the Artefact Research Centre and on the way to the Director’s Office they passed numerous display rooms and cases including one holding the so-called Spear of destiny itself, on loan from the German government.
As they entered the main hall area they saw the almost Amazonian director, Professor Tanya Weyland. She was happy to assist once Max introduced them as his friends. She discussed the blade they sold to the Centre and how the initial examination showed it to be millions of years old, possibly belonging to a pre-human civilisation and formed from the bone of some unknown reptilian creature which for some reason hadn’t fossilised.
The conversation then turned to the other mysterious prisoner Psipher and it turned out that she and her stasis chamber had to be turned over to the Government and had been subsequently transported to a Government base in Scotland also, just before the Silver Storm Nanites had been collected.
After the tour, Professor Weyland offered them the services of one of her interns to help them with their research and Max suggested Annie.
Again the three of them are caught slightly off-guard when a metallic seemingly headless robotic figure approached.
The feeling quickly vanished though when they saw the scared and nervous human head contained within the chest of the robotic body. Whatever had happened to Annie it was obvious that there was a genuine friendship with Max and an almost overwhelming desire to be accepted by the three of them.
Once introductions were made, they quickly discovered how useful Annie could be as she rapidly pulled data and information off the internet (some of which they assumed had to have been acquired from secure Government servers) without access to a computer. Sam even hinted that they should hire Annie to work for them (which secretly made her blush with delight).
It took her mere minutes to discover that Redshift Energies was a wholly owned subsidiary of a company called Paladyne Industries and that Paladyne was a shell company owned by Severn Avionics, Inc.
Seconds later she announced that Severn Avionics, Inc. had only a single contract with a Government department – a single document stated that department was called P.I.S.C.E.S.
Poking around for P.I.S.C.E.S.-related sources she discovered that P.I.S.C.E.S. was only mentioned in conspiracy theory sites and was considered a black ops legend… possibly formed during the War by Churchill himself.
Then she smiled. She has discovered that the only companies supposedly contracted by P.I.S.C.E.S. were KessKorp and Dalton Biogenetics.
After agreeing to dig deeper into the conspiracy sites, she announced that P.I.S.C.E.S might stand for the Paranormal Intelligence Section for Counter-intelligence, Espionage & Support and that AEGIS was often believed to be a cover for P.I.S.C.E.S operations (not likely she whispered) and S.T.R.I.K.E., Ghostworks and the White Chamber were all apparently cover names for sections of P.I.S.C.E.S..
Searching for P.I.S.C.E.S. also revealed a name associated with Scotland; ‘Magonia’, thought what it meant was a complete mystery. Could this have been where the female Psipher ended up and the Nanites intended destination or something else?
Doing one last search Annie stated that this might be unconnected but reports were coming in via dispatch that homeless people were vanishing in the East End of London. People were reporting people missing – in each case they were relatively new to the streets, not drug addicts and interstingly, all were believed to have the meta-gene but had not undergone breakthrough – Missing people included Charlotte Randell, Phillip Wilkes and a Mary MacCarty.
Mary MacCarty? Could it be?
She then delivered another unexpected announcement – on the news she’d discovered a report that “Noted philanthropist Sir Damien Dalton had issued a public statement, welcoming the city’s new costumed heroes and inviting them to meet with him at their convenience to discuss mutual efforts toward bettering Wessex”.
Costumed heroes? Surely that had to be someone else they were talking about? They didn’t wear spandex! Putting it aside for the moment they still had a number of leads to look into.
Thanking Annie again for her efforts (and realising that a disembodied head can still blush) they elected to do one last research visit for the day and decided to contact Rabbi Shallach Ben Holmz to see if he could help them trace the last steps of any of the missing people.
The Rabbi was happy to help as he was also worried about the homeless people going missing though disagreed that they were all Metas (he estimated that there had been over a dozen had vanished in the last two weeks alone but most had no-one to miss them) and offered to put them in touch with people who might have contacted them. He mentioned that some of those who had suffered bad Meta-human-breakouts previously have elected to move into the hundreds of miles of old railway lines, abandoned stations, tunnels and drains that honeycombed what he referred to as London Below.
About an hour later they found themselves in a dank and disused cellar unlocking an old hatch. Seemed there was a nearby old railway station that Mary may have once stayed at and this entrance was the closest access point to it. The owner kept it sealed to stop those below from intruding but had been ‘persuaded’ to allow them access to it though they would have to make their own way back out. Equipped with torches, Akira levitated down. Sam had no need of a torch and just jumpeds down but Mary unfortunately started to climb down the ladder when she found a weakened rung and started to fall. Sam tried to catch her but the confines of the tunnel restricted him too much and Mary was forced to transform into Banshee and go insubstantial.
Once down they moved the 100 metres towards the station which is lit with camping lights. There were currently three ‘residents’; a man, a woman and a young boy who stood apart and appeared to be about 12 but was likely older going by his confidence.
Forgetting she was in her ghostly Banshee personae, they approached. When she saw the frightened and confused look on their faces Mary quickly transformed back and passed it off as a trick of the light.She needed to work on her glamour when in Banshee form, Sam was surprised that although the two adults seemed hostile the boy seemed at ease with transformed people like himself. When they revealed that they were looking to find the young Mary MAcCarty the other two drifted back to their blankets and drugs leaving the boy, Mike to ask why? Mary quickly explained that she believed the young Mary might be of her clan…
“Family?” he asked, and she confirmed it. He smiled and explained that he met her only a few days ago but he’s been looking after her and gave them a glimpse of the long sharp knife he kept to protect himself (and her). They asked to see where she was staying and he took them towards an old cupboard with the bottom panel kicked in. He explained that Mary slept at the back, in the nest of newspapers and sleeping bag and he slept at the door to protect her from ‘him’ (nodding towards the junkie male on the platform).
Sam asked if he can take a cutting of the sleeping bag, Akira suggested one of her blouses instead and Sam realised that although he would now be able to recognise her by her scent it would not be strong enough to track her by. Mike then offered to take them out and show them where the young Mary was taken and took them down the line to a nearby storm drain and came out near Cleopatra’s Needle by the Thames. He pointed out a burrito van they had got some food from and the alley where the kidnappers had pointed a machine at her and then kidnapped her. He explained that he tried to stop them and had got kicked in the head and stomach for his efforts which is why he hadn’t got the registration number of their van. Only that they’d subsequently driven off towards the Centre of London..
Sam suggested that Mary tried to heal his injuries and after a few minutes of her harp music, the bruises started to fade.
They had reached another dead end. They were considering asking the Rabbi for a suggestion as to where to stay when they received word that someone claiming to be Flint’s brother was at the loft and wanted to know where his brother was.
Akira again transported them back to the office then went off to collapse in exhaustion while Sam and Mary looked at a bookish skinny man who said he was Jasper Dexter (‘yes our dad was a geologist and had a bad sense of humour when he came to naming his sons’) an accountant who needed to see his brother and sort out the repairs and latest rental charges on the loft.
Not sure what to say about his brother’s abrupt disappearance, they elected to just say they haven’t seen him and when the subject on repair costs came up they offered to help pay for it out of the money from the sale of the dagger.
Jasper handed them his card. It stated that he was a senior accountant at Leonidas Industries. He added his personal contact number on the back and asked them to contact him if Flint resurfaced – seemed his brother has assumed that Flint was off on another bender leaving his long-suffering brother to deal with his mess – again!
It had been a long day and Sam and Mary made the mistake of checking for messages before heading back to container town;
“Name’s Mark Lyndon, I work for Sir Damien and he has asked me to invite you to his offices at Pyramid Towers to discuss a job offer? He has suggested possibly next Monday at 3pm. Please don’t be late, he hates inpromptness…”
Monday was four days away…
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 