"Well, there might be, ah..." He tries to consider things, but his mind is clearly too scattered right now as he considers the ramifications, as well as running the calculations about how to aid in the zombie-man's condition. He'll have to see about transferring the creature to one of the lab's holding cells for further study later...
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"I have no idea," Tesla responds to Reece's inquiry about candy distribution. "However, I think that Jeanine--"
Nicola stops talking, and a shadow crosses his face.
"Erm, ah, I mean, some others, from the shop, may have some idea."
Tesla gets out his phone and his thumb becomes a blazing data point scrolling through screens and texts.
"I'll even go so far as to google 'free candy' and see what comes up."
"Any idea is a good idea, Sir!" He says, though a bit apprehensive as he notices the odd cut-off when he mentioned this 'Jeanine' person. Did something happened to them? ...Wait... He came here from an explosion at his work-station. Something must've happened to her there.
"Oh... And Mr. Tesla, are you alright? Did... where there people injured? If there's anything I can help with, please let me know."
Tesla and Guardian deduce that, with the impending All Hallows Eve activities, there are many places one might dispense with large amounts of tainted candy. However, two big names stick out:
1. Trick or Treat Street, a several block long area in the south part of the city that is famous for decorations and generous helpings of candy given to kids who have a joke to tell.
2. The All Hallows Eve Street Fair, new this year, featuring carnival stalls, rides, and seasonal activities. Citizens can take a hayride, have their faces painted, bob for apples, ride the ferris wheel, etc.
Additionally, the investigation turns up some info on your potential cultists: Members of a group called the Cult of Chaos have been
involved in crimes ranging from fraud to kidnapping. Authorities have never been able to prove that the cult itself is tied to any particular person.
Atticus is wondering where the AEGIS agents are with his ice cream.
He does offer a joke suggestion.
"I could always go full-villain and command the citizens of the city to bring me their candy." He shrugs.
Guardian's head swivels to orient on Hijack. "You shouldn't even joke about something like that!" he snaps, a bit harsher than he intends. "Once you start thinking that might makes right, and start doing things just because you can without thinking about the consequences..." he continues more softly, his voice tinged with sadness, "...you might do something you will regret, something that would be very hard to come back from."
Turning away, he composes himself. "Why don't we split up, check out both of the sites to see if anyone suspicious has been hanging around or if they have had any big donations of candy. If the police are willing to back us up, we could tell them the candy might be poisoned and confiscate it. We had better be ready to replace it, though."
You have several hours until either even begins in earnest. Right now crowds would still be sparse at the Street Fair, and Trick or Treat Street won't start until nightfall
Meeting with Petersen
Guardian takes this opportunity to have his meeting with Professor Petersen.
Petersen's house looks very nice now that it's been cleaned up, the broken art replaced with other works, every book in its place. The bedroom itself is still being repaired from the damage to the floor and wall, but the Professor's office is quite nice.
He ushers Guardian (and anyone who wishes to accompany him) back to the office and bids him have a seat. When Guardian shows Petersen the statue, he seems shocked and overjoyed.
"Barrik the Glutton! You've found him!"
Guardian nods. "I'm glad you recognize this. It was found at a crime scene; What can you tell us about it?" He avoids mentioning the unusual circumstances until the Professor has given him more information. He would like to hear an unbiased report before telling him about the "zombie".
"It's mine!" Petersen says, matter of fact-ly.
"Well, it was, anyway. It went missing after the dinner party incident you and your colleagues participated in. I didn't notice it missing for a few days, since it was hidden in my safe. Not sure how they got in there to get it out."
"Anyway, Barrik the Glutton is a 4th-century trans-African idol that supposedly grants its holder the power of control over the basic elements of food, in modern parlance 'sugar.' This control extended to the ability to supposedly control the actions of anyone having been cursed by the idol using a specific ritual, even to the point of death. A really bizarre and specific ritual, if you ask me, far more limited than most such legends. The Old Man is actually somewhat of a joke in occult artifact circles. I was so proud when I won him at auction last year!"
Atticus rolls his eyes at Reece.
"That's why its a joke Guardian. Or does my ability to warp minds not allow me to do that."
He turns to the attentions to Peterson. After hearing his oddly descriptive explanation, Atticus gives a disbelieving look to the others.
"Well....that certainly explains things..."
Stopwatch frowns, "You know, I really do think I hate magic at this point. See, why can't they be using a nano-dispenser in order to mix micro-bots into their vile products. That makes a lot more sense to me then 'Very specific obscure ritual that does specific thing'. I might spend an afternoon reading an entire library dedicated to the occult in the near future just to get an understanding of it all..."
He leans back in his chair, and tries to consider a more scientific approach to potentially undoing the effects of this insidious magic.
Guardian tries to wrap his brain around this bizarre story, and figure out some sort of logic to this "spell". "Will this control still work without the idol? And is there any way to reverse it? A cult has used this ritual on a large amount of candy and we need to figure out how to stop them before they dispense it throughout the city!"
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"So...the city is about to be mind-controlled by an obsolete cult that managed to get everyone to eat their cursed candy?
That is...actually quite brilliant. But now that we know our quarry..."
Tesla again buries his nose in his phone, researching Barrik the Glutton, guessing that any "rumors" about the idol may now be treated as fact. Or at least more than just fiction.
While he's at it, he sends Theodore a quick text. >>>Bomb went off @ factory. Was able 2 save J, but now in coma. Dont no who didit.<<<
"A cult has used this ritual on a large amount of candy and we need to figure out how to stop them before they dispense it throughout the city!"
"Oh, dear," Petersen exclaimed. "Well, if we were to assume the ritual were real, which, of course, is silly, then the legends are quite clear. Anyone who ingests the sugar is doomed."
Tesla again buries his nose in his phone, researching Barrik the Glutton, guessing that any "rumors" about the idol may now be treated as fact.
Tesla turns up sparse information on his search; unfortunately it merely confirms what Petersen is telling them, without any additional information. Seems the internet is blissfully unaware of Barrik, by large.
He leans back in his chair, and tries to consider a more scientific approach to potentially undoing the effects of this insidious magic.
No matter how he tries to wrap his head around it, Stopwatch determines it's crucial to destroy or at least stop the disbursal of the tainted candy beforehand.
"That makes it all the more clear then. Whatever we do following, the first step is beyond important. We need to destroy or somehow stop the disbursal of candy beforehand. And we need to find out a solution in about... now."
"They needed to move and ship the candy somehow with trucks right? I had an old boss, you know back in the evil days, and he was one of those computer freaks. He could track anything moving int he city through cameras and hacking into the computer systems of banks and jewel stores. Always knew the biggest targets to hit. If Tesla here could access the city's cameras and we could figure out how they moved the tainted stuff, we could find it..."
"Or we could just ask for the police to legally check the traffic cameras, if they haven't already, and see if they could track any large vehicles in the vicinity of the factory. Good idea!" Guardian adds while pulling out his phone and dialing the police station.
"Hello, this is Guardian; Is Detective Wade available?" Once he has him on the phone, he asks him if they have checked the traffic cam footage from the area yet.
Atticus shrugs.
"Thought Tesla might be able to sift through the data faster, and I doubt the police would complain if it helps prevent a catastrophe. But if you wanna risk the red tape, be my guest."
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Tesla cocks an eyebrow at Atticus. "And what, pray tell, makes you think I know a whit about teh Haxx0rz? I am a professor of -physics- my dear boy, not some witless Millennial sleeping in my mom's basement, working from home and typing a board of keys endlessly for both work and pleasure."
Tesla, despite himself, returns to his phone and starts searching "How to Hack traffic cameras."
He also sends a company-wide email asking the same question.
The subject might raise eyebrows at other companies, but given that the mission statement of the company is to "Twist the Laws of Physics until they Scream" as long as the email itself doesn't set anything on fire, most won't give it a second thought.
"Well, I may not be an expert either, but if you really wanted to I could take a crack at it myself. I think it'd be easier getting official approval however, Hijack."
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Tesla peers at his phone, then announces, "It seems that one of me employees may be able of attempting such a feat as you describe. He just sent my an electronic letter saying, 's|-|uR, I can t0tes help U n008s 0ut if eye can 4cc355 ur l33t teKX0rZ. T|-|3N we can t0tes pwnz0rZ teh L4MEZ cameras.'
I...have no idea what it means, but I conjure that it is an offer of assistance.
The man is on salary so you can cease your worrying that I'd have to pay him overtime. I know that was my first concern."
"Well.. he's at least confident..."
"Bah. the one thing I hate about being a good guy are these boring periods. And to your credit Tesla, I thought you were adept at any technology. Didn't realize you stopped keeping up a few decades ago."
At the mention of a non-teammate.
"You choice bossman. He is technically your employee and I think Good Samaritan laws covers this. Probably."
Later, at the HQ...
Mitchell, Tesla's employee, is working the computer feverishly.
"Darn it! I had it for a second, but they moved off-camera. They're somewhere in Dutch Town or The Grove..."
Alarms go off in everyone's head as they realize that The Grove is the location of the new All Hallows Eve Street Fair. It should be kicking off soon.
"That's good enough. Good work, but we need to move now! Tesla, Guardian, you two can fly. Go up ahead, try to warn people about the danger and track down that van. Atticus, can you contact AEGIS to have them come by with a helicopter? We won't have much time to sit in traffic."
"Tesla, could you use your anti-gravity to make the others weightless? We could move them with us as we fly." Guardian suggests.
Atticus pulls out his smartphone and begins to dial.
"Hey! It's Atticus! ... Hijack? ....Right! So me and my buddies need to stop a voodoo choco curse before its unleashed upon the city. Could we borrow a helicopter? I promise this isn't like last time, and I also promise I won't pilot it."
The chopper sets down in an abandoned lot near the HQ, and the team is off toward Dutchtown in search of the Sweet Tooth Candy Truck.
Guardian does a quick fly-over to scan as large an area as possible.
The pilot sets the copter down, and the team gets out. Stopwatch saw what he thinks is the van among the vendors along the main street of the festival. No one has seen Rift in a while; she was using her portals to travel below the copter, but she doesn't appear to have completed the trip.
By the time you get to the main street, there are parents, children, and adult partygoers everywhere. If you could pick a nightmare place for a confrontation, this would be it. There, handing out candy from the back of a Sweet Tooth truck, are several hooded figures mingled perfectly into the costumed partygoers. One of them notices you, and bangs on the side of the truck.
Assume you're about 40 yards from the truck, with a crowd between you and them.
"Yes, do it, before they can get away." Theodore cuffs his hands around the front of his mask, and starts to shout to the crown. "Everyone please, we are the Regulators! I need leave your candy bags behind and flee the scene! That group of hooded men have tampered with the product, and we're about to engage them and confiscate everything for your safety! Go, now!" He drops his hands, and mutters in Hijack's direction. "If they don't listen, I need you to have them do it forcefully. We can't risk their safety here."
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Tesla nods, and, never one to need to be told to display his devices more than once, concentrates his anti-gravity-field around the van, cancelling its pact with the Earth to forever bring it down, and evicting it from the good graces of its ability to travel down the road.
He fluctuates the field slightly so the van don't simply fall upwards, certainly doing mortal damage to the passengers, but he'll try to make it reach the ceiling of it's hover as gently as possible.
But not too gently.
Guardian sets down in an open area of the sidewalk and reaches out telekinetically to grab the cultist who spotted them, yanking him close.
"What kind of monster are you, to harm innocent children!?" he shouts in his face, his anger barely kept under control.
Your opponents are in range of your Control power.
Several bystanders stop in response to Stopwatch's entreaty, and then drop their candy bags and run.
The van moves into the air under Tesla's power (feel free to calculate how far if you want; otherwise, I'm just going to assume you let them down relatively easy).
Guardian grabs hold of the villain, but he's a slippery cuss, and manages to get loose.
Tesla:
Guardian:
Atticus:
Stopwatch:
Cultists:
From the air, two cultists open the rear doors and begin firing out at the heroes:
Hit:
Damage:
Hit:
Confirm:
Damage:
Damage:
One hits Tesla for 19, before DR.
Atticus' action.
Attticus lashes out mentally, his mental form seemingly a giant among these puny minds of relatively little mental power.
One hits Tesla for 12, before DR.
Damage adjusted. I misread the 19 as a natural 19; there's no confirm for a 16, duh.
Atticus gains control of one that's on the ground.
Tesla's action.
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As Tesla gently hovers in the air, controlling the van, the hubris of the two cultists that pop out and fire at him is impressive, to say the least.
As the bullets ricochet harmlessly off his force-field, he feels a sense of kinship with them. They dare to look certain death in the eye and fire guns at it. Good for them.
Of course such a move costs them the truck. Tesla selectively allows Earth to reassert her motherly hold on it and the vehicle falls to the ground in the natural order of things.
He also allows gravity to reassert itself on the two cultists. But their guns, those remain aloft. So they'll perfectly safe...assuming they can hold on.
This should make them more reasonable to deal with. And hopefully they'll learn a valuable lesson: You can mess with Death, but don't f!$# with Nicola Tesla.
Atticus orders the 'Hijacked' goon to relay all information relevant to the current operation to him, and then begins relay that info to the others.
"We are the Children of Chaos! We were called from across the country by our leader and master Janus for the holy mission - to spread Chaos throughout the city, then the nation, then the world!
"Our presence here has served its purpose. Soon, very soon, you will see what we have wrought!"
"What is it, what have you people done?!"
Atticus mentally relays to his "hijacked" goon to cut the crazy and relay facts. Plans. Details. What was he expecting in the next fifteen minutes.
As Tesla carelessly drops the truck, Guardian's eyes go wide with alarm. His hand snaps up to focus his telekinesis as he tries to nudge the huge weight aside to make sure it won't fall on any of the panicking crowd.
The truck slams into the ground, one cultist bouncing out roughly onto the pavement, the driver slamming into the front airbag as it deploys.
Atticus' mind-puppet replies "The children are the key to this caper. Those eating the sugar will attack in moments; but we have been told the cult has even greater plans than these in coming weeks. I do not know more than this."
As he finishes, screams break out in the crowd, and people move away from four children on the side of the street, one of which has blood dripping from his mouth as his mother lies bleeding on the ground in front of him.