The Olympian plays the role of the tired adventurer. The godling walks the halls of the Boston Theoretical was a mug of coffee in his hand and tired look on his face, accentuated by long yawns. Theo finds one of the meeting rooms and sits down at the table, hand on his face, propping him up, half asleep.
Charles have found themself waking up with the sun of late... which given it's summer, means they're already up when the alarm goes off. As usual, after a bit of grooming (much easier in their bipedal form... however it works to have the cleanliness transfer between forms) they head to the mess to have a nice, large meal with their various additives.
"Perhaps they shall stage an attack to thwart rather than infiltrating..." he murmurs to themself as he eats. "Or perhaps both at once? An 'extraplanar' attack upon TAROT while we're supposedly away?"
The kitchen staff have prepared large quantities of Charles' favorite foods. They try to be discreet about it, but gawp at him while he eats.
People slowly file into the meeting rooms.
April is there. She has just discovered that Boston Theoretical has real coffee and not just mushroom-based substitutes. She's had a little too much of it. Tarantula is talking about wanting to see the armory.
L.C. arrives.
Nissa probably arrives shortly after.
Ron is collecting people's digital devices as they come in and putting them in a large metal box.
Henri comes in, a bounce in his step. He carefully does not disturb the Olympian.
”Oh! Ron, right? Am I supposed to get one of those from someone eventually? I didn’t know to ask…”
”And are we getting something temporary while we are,” he looks around, ”off-world?”
Charles makes sure to clean up after they finish eating, then head to the meeting room. They deposit their comm unit in the box with a silent nod to Ron.
"You're taking the lead on this, right Nissa?" he says. "What's our next step?"
Nissa does NOT put her phone in the box. An idea pops into her head as Charles asks the question.
“Add credibility.
“How about a birthday selfie in front of the open portal? I won’t lie to my fans. Nothing wrong with thanking them for the birthday wishes and showing an open portal on the flight deck, now that the secret’s out.” She says to L.C., “If you permit. This wasn’t part of of the plan, but the plan was always a longshot.
“Would our enemies really attack our base just because they think we’ll be out of town. How will they know when?”
If unclear, she explains her plan is to show a life open portal, give her fans a cute message, then go offline before letting the portal shut.
Ron promises to take a picture of the group in front of the portal. L.C. points out that opening a portal means you won't be able to use the wand again for 2d12 hours and asks if you're sure you won't need it.
Nissa can make a Supermodel check to send out a message that goes viral.
”No worries, L.C. We’re really heading offworld tomorrow.”
Nissa is looking hotter than her morning coffee, despite the hour. Her smile makes her look so completely innocent of things like underage drinking off-world and using her fame to intentionally spread misinformation regarding her whereabouts.
“Thanks for all the sweet birthday wishes! Before I’m off, I thought you might want to see the birthday girl in from of a real live portal!”
Charles does his best to pose for the picture behind Nissa, making sure to give the camera a toothy grin but not one that would terrify the viewers *too* much.
"So... now we wait? We'll need to be out-of-sight..." "Perhaps in the basements?" "We can watch the cameras."
”I wonder how good their information is. Do they even know about me?”
Nissa says, “I can hide pretty much anywhere, if you need people up here. The cloak could make one of you appear as a security guard, right?”
Nothing happens in the next two hours, other than the selfie in front of the portal going viral. Some of the First Responder friendly feeds start suggesting Nissa is being too flippant with the 'awesome responsibility' of transdimensional travel. The same newsfeeds suggest that a 'wise and moral guardian' like The Patriot would be more responsible with such power.
What do you do during those two hours?
If he’s not ‘patrolling’ as a fake security guard, Henri can walk through the halls in a lab coat to give the place a semblance of normalcy. He’s pretty non-descript, I think. Offering the idea to the others - he would rather be moving.
Nissa says, “I can hide pretty much anywhere, if you need people up here. The cloak could make one of you appear as a security guard, right?”
"That will work so long as PhDestruction has not informed them of what I looked like before I became we," Charles responds.
"Takes changing first, though," he grumbles, though they do proceed to do so.
He puts on the cloak and sits in whatever room has the security camera feeds, trying to remain vigilant, both helped and hindered by the fact that he was now much more adept at thinking to himself.
As the preperations undergo. Zellgato opts for the simple. "I'm less concerned about being erased from existance. I'll just borrow a guard uniform and weapon." Zellgato removes his mask, and hands off his rifle to the Security officer to stay with Charles. Opting to borrow a standard security guard's weapon and patrol the grounds as things go.
Zellgato uses this as an occasion to passively test the previous training he'd forced on some of the guards.
"Any of you smoke? Smoking on the roof is a good excuse to hang out on the roof and keep an eye out. Does make you a target."
Zellgato finds the guards particularly lax today. They're gossiping about the rumours on Superhero News about L.C. and Nissa.
Henri gets to see more of the complex. It's connected by tunnels to the complex of science institutes and think tanks that surround the Boston university network but remains a separate building in many ways. Most rooms are pretty high tech. There's one glass-walled room amongst the labs with little to no tech. It's marked as Dr. A. Moore's lab. It contains (1) three chalkboards covered with notes about "narrative trajectory" and "anachronistic weight" and "archetypal dopplegangers", (2) about 2000 works of fiction, and (3) a comfortable leather chair.
Charles is in a room with a number of large monitors. The AIs choose what to display and highlight areas for Charles to focus on. They zoom in on faces. If Charles looks intently at any part of the screen, the AI zooms in on it or provides explanatory text telling Charles what he's looking at. Names float above the heads of any employees on the screen. Both Henri and Zellgato elicit attention from the AI, since they're dressed as security.
It's around noon that the newsfeeds start displaying teasers for the story "Flying Monkeys Attack Boston". Emergency calls start coming in on whatever substitute devices were given to you when you turned off your own. A video of Tasha Gentry plays. She's standing a few hundred feet from Boston Commons near Beacon Street, "Tasha Gentry here. About a dozen flying monkeys are attacking visitors to the Boston Commons right now."
Video from Tasha's drones shows apes, about four feet tall, swooping down on a pair of hover bladers, lifting them into the air, and dropping them. Another video shows a man trying to defend himself from spiked clubs wielded by two of the flying apes.
"I've just seen the First Responders rushing to the scene. Hopefully they can handle this without TAROT's help!" continues Tasha.
Just as they'd thought, an incident as soon as TAROT is 'gone'. Flying monkeys seemed like they could easily be PhDestruction's work.
So... did they rush to the scene, to steal the First Responders' thunder? It would be easy to make it look like they'd antcipated something like this--they had, after all. Just saying something along the lines of "We thought there were enemies waiting for us to be gone so we tried to draw them out" would be true enough, and hopefully a good explanation for the press.
"We should go," Charles says into his replacement comm. "Beat them at their game." "They likely engineered this to make us look bad, but if we can show up and do well we can turn the story around."
[b]"Depends on the goal... This would also be an efficient time to track them. If they caused this, or their higher ups did. Then presumably somewhere near there is a handler. Unless they just threw them out randomly there should be signs of it somewhere. Which we could follow back to where they came from?"
Further continuing, "If we're wanting to split the difference. Some of us could go, some of us could search. If Nissa at the least shows up suddenly it would be pretty easy to call us out on "lying to the public" and such. Granted, we have a few of us who are less noticed and less well known."
A hoverdrone video shows a trio of 'flying monkeys' take down a cyclist by throwing sticks at his wheels. One hits the mark and the cyclist goes flying.
All three of the apes wear vests and bulky helmets.
"Look at the antenna on those helmets," says Kai, drawing your attention to a 2 inch tall springy antenna on the side of each of the apes' helmets.
“You mean like they’re remote control? So if we can get to the monkey and get a helmet, we can prove foul play.
“Shall we go save the day, then?”
"No. Too soon", Theo comments. "We need to see if The Responders are inept in their response. If we show our hand too soon, this ploy would have been for nothing."
“You mean like they’re remote control? So if we can get to the monkey and get a helmet, we can prove foul play.
“Shall we go save the day, then?”
"Better get Kai's help," suggests L.C. when the question of remote control tech comes up.
"No. Too soon", Theo comments. "We need to see if The Responders are inept in their response. If we show our hand too soon, this ploy would have been for nothing."
EIG appears, tapping on her hairpin, "I said, so we're just going to sit here?"
More videos from the park appear in the newsfeed. Tasha Gentry's brand is stamped on most of them. She appears to have multiple drones on the scene before anyone else did. The videos show Bostonians being harassed by multiple groups of flying monkeys. There are at least a dozen there.
"No. Too soon", Theo comments. "We need to see if The Responders are inept in their response. If we show our hand too soon, this ploy would have been for nothing."
Nissa replies, “Better too soon than too late. We wanted to see what they’d do thinking we’re not home.
“Now we know, and I’m afraid someone will get killed by these monkeys if we hesitate. We take ‘em out and see if we can trace to whoever’s controlling them.”
She hesitates only enough for consensus.
”How far is it? What’s our fastest method to get there - other than me?”
Henri would have seen the helicar the other day. Six sets of redirectable rotor blades lift and stabilize the vehicle while propelling it in any direction. It's 2219 and this world has flying cars. Your world might not even make it to 2219.
Nissa replies to Henri, “Helicar. Let’s do this!”
Unless dissuaded, Nissa will run to the helicar and make a speedy approach to the scene of the chaos!
Nissa replies, “Better too soon than too late. We wanted to see what they’d do thinking we’re not home.
“Now we know, and I’m afraid someone will get killed by these monkeys if we hesitate. We take ‘em out and see if we can trace to whoever’s controlling them.”
"I concur. The monkeys are likely under the control of one of their allies."
"PhDestruction," Charles snarls. "It looks like his work."
"So basically they're guaranteed to look good," he continues. "Speaking of which, if we show up the monkeys will probably try to make us look *bad*, so... be ready for that."
They get in the helicar with Nissa.
Nissa replies to Henri, “Helicar. Let’s do this!”
Theo shakes his head. "Good thing I brought my Angel Sword and Shield." The Olympian gasps. "I wonder if I can get a matching Angel Shield?!!"
The godling also enters the helicar.
There are two helicars, but one is really nice and the other is used to haul the recycling to the processing center. I'm pretty sure Nissa took the nice one.
Henri hops in the flying jalopy, waving to Zellgato to join him.
After everyone gets to the chopper, Nissa calls out to Ron, ”Keep tabs on the Responders, or any suspicious activity near Boston Theoretical. The social media may have drawn so much attention that the Responders are suspicious, and the flying monkeys are bait.
“That’s not lost on me… but people are getting hurt.”
"Utility chocie. Draws less attention." Zellgato hops in and takes his rifle, affixing his scope.
By the time you arrive at the park, your newsfeeds show that the First Responders are on the scene, taking on the flying apes. They aren't really working as a team and seem to be taking them on solo, sometimes in different parts of the park. The apes are putting up a pretty decent fight.
As you fly over and choose where to land, you notice things different things.
Nissa sends Tasha a voice message:
“It’s my birthday; I can postpone an off-world trip if I want to. I’m flying the helicar, right above you… was gonna keep my presence quiet, but monkeys happened!”
Theo rushes toward the ambush tree next to his 'cousin', Angel Sword at the ready.
"Let us off here," Charles growls, pointing at an area of the park shaded by many trees.
"There is a camoflagued car there," they explain.
"It may be our prey!"
Nissa hovers at a safe height for Theo to leap out, then she heads to where Charles directs her.
Once close to the remote-control guy, Nissa asks Henri if he’d mind taking over. She flies out in fairy form to board the parked helicar.
Having thought better Zellgato hops out of the craft with his rifle. "Too right, might be a distraction. I'll provide home coverage and I'll be able to deploy from here if something crops up else where. " Hoping off the flight deck and heading to the roof. Calling up April and requesting if she'd keep an eye out with (whoever it is) the security booth. Given her higher level experience in infiltration and operation management.
Henri grins at Nissan’s request, ”Yeah, I’ve been watching you - I think I can manage. Where to, guys? I think she’s got her own plan.”
Henri will attempt to drop off each of the heroes, then take off and hover above the playing field for now, calling down updates to the team.
[dice=Perception]1d20 + 10
Having thought better Zellgato hops out of the craft with his rifle. "Too right, might be a distraction. I'll provide home coverage and I'll be able to deploy from here if something crops up else where. " Hoping off the flight deck and heading to the roof. Calling up April and requesting if she'd keep an eye out with (whoever it is) the security booth. Given her higher level experience in infiltration and operation management.
Somewhere in the security booth guards are shuffling around trying to decide who gets stuck with Zellgato. One guard volunteers for the task.
"Big Z," says Eager Kevin. He's always the first one to jump to any task during Zellgato's training exercises.
Nissa hovers at a safe height for Theo to leap out, then she heads to where Charles directs her.
Once close to the remote-control guy, Nissa asks Henri if he’d mind taking over. She flies out in fairy form to board the parked helicar.
Theo can leap into the trees with the monkeys or down beside the Last Atlantean or some distance from both. What's the play, Theo?
Nissa and Charles drop out near the helicar.
The man standing outside the helicar seems intent on working on his device.