Hideouts & Hoodlums: Justice Society of America

Game Master Scottenkainen

"Maybe we should grab him and interrogate him," the Sandman suggests before looking for a place to hide himself, if there is no obvious place, he will just melt into the shadows.

Sandman and Flash both get into positions where they think they won't be seen and wait. They do not have to wait long, as the little man in the lab coat opens the door to the storeroom a minute later. "Hello?" the man calls out. "Who's there?"

Flash jumps out first after the man enters further and blocks the exit. Sandman jumps out next and grabs the man's left arm. "Oh my!" the man exclaims. "How frightening!"

Flash quietly shuts the door.

"Hi." He states with a smile. "We've got a couple of questions, if you've got a moment?"

"He's got more than a moment," the Sandman pauses, menacingly. "Let's start with an easy question: Who are you and what do you do here at the chemical plant?" The Sandman turns to the Flash. "If it turns out that he's just a small fish, we need to dispose of him quickly and get moving."

"I-I'm Dr. Williams. I was just putting in some late hours tonight to work on an experiment, but I kept hearing noises around the factory, like someone else was here, then the dogs barking outside, and then I found you two."

Flash nods, letting Sandman do the questioning. He stands against the door, so anyone attempting to open it from the other side will be unable to do so (if it swings inward) or will at least be immediately noticeable (if it swings outward).

It swings inward.

Sandman pauses, either for dramatic effect, to think of another question, or to mull over the first answer.

"So then there's no one else here at the moment?" Flash decides to ask. "And what kind of research are you doing here so late?"

"What's this experiment that is so important? Do you work late often? If so, who else is often around? Men who don't have anything to hide are home with their families at this hour."

"I-I'm over-budget and behind schedule," the doctor stammers as he starts perspiring. "I have a deadline to meet...and I can't tell you what it's for. It's a defense contract, so the project is secret. There should be no one left here tonight but me and one nightwatchman. That's why I was so surprised when I heard voices earlier."

"Where should the nightwatchman be right now?"

"Oh, and we know all about the 'mutagen' project," Flash bluffs, "there's been a leak. That's what we're here to investigate."

Fate continues to observe the heroic duo. His mind beneath the fragmented voices wonders what the mutagen project portends....

This is all must watch TV!

"Well, my good doctor, I suppose you will have to decide what is more important to you: making it through the night or keep your project secret. If it helps you any, we have evidence that your military project is really a criminal project. In other words, your bosses might be keeping some dark secrets from you." The Sandman pauses and then: "What else is going on at Stauffer Chemical? Anything that makes you uncomfortable. Or do you love hurting innocents?"

The doctor is certainly surprised to hear Flash mention mutagens. "A leak! Good Heavens!" In fact, he's so shocked that Flash has to repeat his question about the nightwatchman. "Why, I don't know where he is. It was strange that I didn't run into him on my way down."

The doctor turns a wary eye towards the eerie mask of the Sandman. "I don't want any innocents harmed! I never noticed anything unusual about working here until tonight. It was the voices that made me uncomfortable because I didn't recognize them as anyone I knew."

"Voices? Tell us more about them."

Fate watches from his occoulded fortress his mind reboounds with the words "mutagen","innocents", "voices".

This is real quality programming! If only the invisible tower had a popcorn machine and dolby surround.

"Like I said..." the doctor says, pushing up his glasses, "I heard men's raised voices downstairs in the factory. Shouting at each other...or maybe one of them was ordering the others, I don't know. But when I came down to investigate, all I found was you two."

The Sandman whispers to the Flash: "That wasn't us." The Sandman stares at the man, trying to determine his trustworthiness.

Can the Sandman use notice things to notice a man's trustworthiness? Have I asked that before? I feel as if I have.

Flash nods at Sandman. "The question now is, what do we do with him? Can he be trusted to help us, or is he part of the leak?"

The man seems nervous, but that could be understandable under the circumstances of being surprised by two men in costumes. There are no telling signs that he's lying. The two Heroes will just have to call it from their gut...

"He seems decent enough to me."

"Dr Williams," Flash addresses the man, "can we rely on you to keep quiet while we complete our investigation here tonight? Maybe you had best stay somewhere out of the way, do you have any suggestions?"

"But for the moment, who else knows about the special project?"

"I can wait here. And the project is a secret outside the company, but not inside. I'm not sure how much of the staff knows about it, but counting administration, perhaps a dozen people...?"

"Alright then, keep low here and hide if anyone comes in. It sounds like something odd is going on right now, and I don't want you to get hurt."

Flash goes back to the door into the rest of the factory, slowly opens it, and looks out. If it's clear, he'll enter the next room.

Before following the Flash into the next room, the Sandman turns to Dr. Williams: "Don't get any bright ideas. The Flash is a lot more forgiving than me."

The Heroes searched the next room and then the room after that. The factory seemed deadly silent, with not a machine running anywhere and only a few lights left on.

Moving with uncharacteristic slowness, Flash stays never more than one room ahead of Sandman as they systematically search the factory. They are over halfway across the building when Flash opens the door of a janitor's closet and finds two men tied up and gagged. One wears a nightwatchman's uniform while the other -- appears to be Dr. Williams!

Sandman sees knife edges and dodges as Dr. Williams swings at him. While Flash is able to hear the combat start from the nearby small closet, Sandman is fighting in a section of corridor 10' wide, 8' high, and 25' long. As he defends himself, he sees that Dr. Williams isn't fighting with knives in his hands -- his fingers have become knives! At least Sandman has no difficulty in blocking or dodging every swing, no matter how impossible his attacker seems to be.

Flash quickly un-gags this "Dr Williams" and the nightwatchman in the closet, in case they have any vital information to impart before he goes out to see what Sandman is up to in the hall.

"Who are you? We just met you, or someone who looks like you, a few moments ago..."

"Get me out of here!" the bound Dr. Williams screams hysterically. "A monster is wearing my face!"

"OK, OK, just give me a second." With a premonition of danger Flash immediately leaves to see what Sandman is fighting... no doubt the monster just referred to! If he sees Sandman fighting "Dr Williams" he will attack the "Dr".

Upon entering combat, the Sandman becomes eerily quiet, letting his fist do the intimidating. Since the creature has already initiated combat, the Sandman decides to avoid using his gas grenades, especially since he hasn't warned the Flash. Instead, he pummels the creature, hoping that his trusty fists will see him through another night.

Sorry about the quiet weekend. In person gaming and celebrating an anniversary. Should've warned you all.

The Sandman can keep up with his opponent for speed, trading a punch for every slash, but the false Dr. Williams' forearms widen and harden, creating natural shields for blocking punches, but Sandman does get in one good lick as they spar back and forth down the hallway.

Neither, of course, can match Flash for speed, who appears suddenly in the combat next to them, whizzing past and laying dazzling punches across 'Dr. Williams'. Not all of the flurry of punches that follow connect strongly, but the first to do so sends 'Dr. Williams' reeling and the second sends him skidding across the floor, apparently unconscious.

As Sandman and Flash stand over their prisoner, they see 'Dr. Williams' slowly transforming into a weird, alien-like humanoid.

"The real Dr. Williams is in the closet... or at least I think he's the real one." Flash informs Sandman.

Flash heads back to the closet and unties the two men.

Watching the Flash swiftly defeat his foe, the Sandman quips: "It's a good thing I'm scary, Flash. Because otherwise, I'd be completely useless when you are around."

Once the Flash unties the two men. The Sandman asks: "What is going on here, then?"

Being scary, though, works both ways and the Sandman finds that the two prisoners from the janitor's closet are terrified of him. In fact, it takes Flash nearly an hour to calm them both down, during which time Sandman has made a careful sweep of the factory and found no one else there.

Dr. Williams, a cup of water in his shaking hand, is finally ready to tell his short tale by the time Sandman returns to the hall. "I don't know what all to tell you. Everything was normal before -- well, perhaps not quite normal. I suppose it all began a week and a half ago when my supervisor first asked me why I was staying late past my work shift. I told him at the time that he must have been mistaken, for I had been leaving on time. And yet, I was seeing signs of my equipment being disturbed at night. I assumed it was a clumsy janitor, but didn't want to make a big deal about it. Nothing more was said until yesterday, when my supervisor assured me the nightwatchman had seen me here just the night before. So tonight I stayed after work to talk to the nightwatchman myself -- but instead he attacked me, tied me up, and threw me in here next to the real nightwatchman, John, here," he said, pointing to the other ex-prisoner.

"It's true," John says. "I was starting my rounds like I always do after closing when someone who looked just like Dr. Williams attacked me! Only, I know it couldn't have been Dr. Williams because he turned his hand...turned it into a sword, and cut my flashlight in half! Then I was trussed up and tossed in that closet alone until Dr. Williams -- the real one here -- joined me."

"What've you be working on Dr. Williams? Why would these creatures want to imitate you?" the Sandman asks, waiting to hear an answer before trying to determine for himself whatever it was that the creature was interested in, seeking out any suspicious corners of the factory where illicit activities occurred, or secrets have been concealed.

"My research area is allergy relief!" Dr. Williams says. "Although -- oh dear -- my most recent project has been about altering body chemistry so one isn't allergic anymore. I suppose someone could conceivably run with that in a different direction and alter body chemistry for other purposes..."

"Show us the area where you've got the chemicals in question, I'd be interested to know if you think anything is missing."

An hour later, Flash stands with Dr. Williams as he finishes his inventory.

"You're right, Flash!" Dr. Williams says. "I never would have caught it had you not asked me to check measurements so carefully, but there is enough material missing here to have made, oh, perhaps 20 pills of...something. I'm not sure what effect these chemicals, mixed together, would have, but it would have to be some sort of radical mutagenic change!"

Meanwhile, Sandman guards their inhuman, and still unconscious, prisoner.

Also meanwhile, these same events play out in Dr. Fate's crystal, but he fails to observe them. Instead, he has stood by a telephone for over an hour, tempted to call the Spectre for help, but unsure if the Spectre too might work for the demons that taunt and hound him...

Flash nods, "I was afraid of that."

"Is there any kind of antidote or anti-mutagenic compound to the stolen chemicals?" he asks Dr Williams.

"I wonder what happened to Dr. Fate? If he hadn't gone berserk, perhaps he could've identified this goon." Turning to Dr. Williams: "What else has this plant been up to? I can't imagine that it would take multiple nights to simply steal some chemicals. Do you have any other idea what someone could be using your visage to accomplish here?"

"I couldn't begin to speculate on an antidote unless I knew how the chemicals were combined. Our main project is turning phosphorous into a herbicide," Dr. Williams says. "We don't have any top secret projects; I can't imagine what else someone would have imitated me for except to get a hold of the chemicals here."

The nightwatchman shows up, beaming with pride at an unknown accomplishment until he says, "I've called the police. They'll be here soon."

"Oh, good! You'll be in safe hands then. Well, we've got to be off."

Flash turns to Sandman, "You're right. Let's take this shapechanger to Dr Fate and see what he can tell us about it. Maybe he's feeling better now."

Sandman and Flash leave the factory with their unconscious prisoner but, unless they summon Dr. Fate to them somehow, they will have an all-night road trip to Massachusetts ahead of them.

"Um . . . I did tell you that Dr. Fate went insane back at your house right? I had to knock him out to get to the Belmont's. Is he still sleeping blissfully or should we head off to Massachusetts? Perhaps if we shout loud enough, we'll get his attention."

"Yeah, but I was there shortly after you left and he seemed fine. Or at least he didn't try to attack me or anything, he just gave me some cryptic warnings and magic'd himself away. I figure we can check in with him again, and take it from there depending on how he acts."

"But what's the fastest way to get hold of him?"

Sandman feels a little silly trying it, but you never know with magic so he tries shouting Dr. Fate's name. Nothing happens right away, so the Heroes wait for a bit to see if anything happens at all...

Paging our Dr. Fate player. You're on...

Sandman feels a little silly trying it, but you never know with magic so he tries shouting Dr. Fate's name. Nothing happens right away, so the Heroes wait for a bit to see if anything happens at all...

Paging our Dr. Fate player. You're on...

I'm here...just don't kinow what to do. I know I should call the Specter and get some high end healing but Fate is demon obsessed at the moment and knows about the demons using the telephone lines. So he does not trust the phone. Welcome to impass enjoy the view.

"Hey Dr. Fate!" the Sandman shouts again. "Hmmm . . . that isn't working. I guess if I'm going to look stupid . . . Hey Spectre!" The Sandman waits a moment. [b]"Maybe we should just use the Society's radio frequency.

The trip back from Dobbs Ferry would be shorter if they were returning to the Sandman's mansion, but since the Sandman's true identity is still a secret and Flash's isn't, they make the 40-minute drive back to Flash's Manhattan home instead.

Their alien prisoner remains unconscious the whole time and, still under cover of darkness, the two Heroes carry it into the unassuming brownstone belonging to Jay Garrick. There, the Heroes gather around the radio and try to raise one of the other Justice Society members...

Twelve minutes later, the two persistent Heroes manage to raise someone on their radio frequency. "Green Lantern responding. Is that you, Sandman? Something came up on my end and I'm back in Manhattan now. Is there anything I can do to assist you?"

Flash looks up from where he was watching the alien prisoner, and dashes over to the radio to quickly interject before Sandman has a chance to respond:

"This is Flash and Sandman. We're on the trail of Mr X, and we've found some kind of strange alien or something. We're trying to get in contact with Dr Fate to help us out, but we can't get hold of him. He was acting a bit off when we saw him earlier, he even attacked Sandman. Have you heard from him recently?" He dashes back to the prisoner while he waits for a response.

There is a pause on the other end before Green Lantern says, "I guess Flash is there too? So which do you need me to do? Come to you and help identify the alien or go find Dr. Fate and find out what's wrong with him?"