Archive Mutants & Masterminds: Future Imperfect - Sacrifice (Sam)

[Joani]

There was quite some buzz in the Headquarters of the local Mutant resistance. One particular group was steadily growing in numbers lately but Sam had more important things on her mind. She observed several screens at once searching for something, just a single clue that would make sense of the latest bits and pieces Mouse had revealed.

He managed to intercept a transmission which was extremely promising. Parts of it was still encoded but two vital information were loud and clear. They were looking for two Mutants, a boy and a girl - siblings to be precise - who were obviously of extreme value for the Government. Sam had no idea why, but this was a close as they ever got to actually find evidence that something was brewing.

"Damnit...", she cursed watching the latest news feed. From what she could tell things were getting way out of hand. She wasn't sure if they should get involved but they simply didn't have the manpower to handle this. Originally she had hoped she could scan the footage and isolated potential Mutants who they could tag and watch. This idea was discarded pretty quickly, though - they had to get inside the MIC and find some other way to search for the kids...

[Ira Sagebrush]

Sam sat in the control room trying to watch the entirety of the bank of screens at once, but it only seemed to fuel her frustration when she would seem to glance something out of the corner of her eye, and turn to find nothing of interest. Her fingers were flying across the control panel, trying to record what she wasn't looking at in hopes to review it later, but much was being lost in the chaos and she finally threw her hands up in the air, "GOD...DAMMIT!"

A couple mutants who were approaching her with something, but at her outburst and subsequent look as she swiveled around in her chair and saw them, had them turning tail (one of them literally) and heading back the way they came. The latest packet of information that Mouse had intercepted had Sam on edge. They were at a significant point in their struggle, and this could blow the lid on the entire issue.

The Big Bang before the calm of an ordered Universe.

Sam stood up and began to pace as she mused to herself, trying to work through the problem, "The Mic is a deathtrap right now, that pot is gonna boil over. We go in there, we're liable to lose someone...someone we can't spare. And there's no guarantee that the pair are even there."

She sat back down and went over the physical descriptions of the pair again from the intercepted transmission to the base in north Vegas and suddenly she had it.

It'll help at the very least.

While her fingers flew across the keyboard, accessing the program she wanted to use, she used her mind to send a message to Mouse.

NEED YOUR CAMERA ACCESS CODES FOR VEGAS

Within seconds, a return message popped up with a RAR file.

Excellent. She quipped off another message before ripping open the file and beginning the hackfest to access nearly every camera in the Vegas metro.

<3

Time dissolved as she worked, funneling whatever video that passed her criteria to her laptop, giving her something much more manageable to review. And hopefully, a much better chance of finding the pair before they did.

Click to reveal..

Roll: [16 +18 Modifier -25 DC = +9] PASS.

[Joani]

The task Sam embarked on was physically tiring. She focused on several screens at once and her speed at issuing commands was uncanny and definitely superhuman. With Mouses‘ access codes the task seemed at least doable. The routine she wrote was starting to scan the faces of the crowds broadcast by both official and unofficial channels.

Sam was slowly relaxing now that the machine was taking over the task and she just had to monitor the fruits of her labour when suddenly all official transmission got terminated.

„What the?“, she started to curse quickly replaying the last indices of footage from the newschannels. They were all showing a similar situation. A group of Mutants just managed to break free and started a fight against the authorities. For a moment Sam felt like cheering for them when she saw flashbang and teargas grenades being fired at them. „Hey!“, Sam stood up and barely held back the urge to punch the screen. The next second a fireball shot from the crowd of Mutants and hit a Helicopter from one of the national newschannels, shortly after that all official transmissions got terminated.

War had offically been declared.

Mouse messaged her and what she read didn’t surprise her at all.

The mayor just requested support of the National Guard. We’re on the first step of escalation, Boss... Curfew is next and after that...

He didn’t have to provide her with details. She knew how the Government worked. Once Martial Law was declared they’d have a purging here. A purging of all Mutants...

[Ira Sagebrush]

Sam was truly on the fence. Despite the inevitable casualties and the damage done to mutant relations, this was an incident the public needed to see, they needed to see how the mutant population was being treated, but then the feeds got cut.

Frakkin' frak-frak...let's see if I can fix that.

Her mind and hands flying in a concerted effort, she tried to relay the security camera feed from the MIC to her favorite local news station that had actually shown some level of neutrality and hadn't not taken the popular mutant bias that so many had done. She wasn't going to take over their broadcast, but if they wanted to show it, they could.

Click to reveal..

Roll: [8 +18 Modifier -25 DC = +1] PASS.

The Mic was a cesspool, that it took that long is the real surprise. I imagine the troops out looking for that pair were the spark that set this off. The increased presence would not have been welcome.

MOUSE, MAKE SURE THE STATIONS CAN STILL BROADCAST, WE NEED TO FIX IT IF THEY CAN'T.

IT WAS VOLUNTARY, BOSS.

"Gah. Idiots!"

KEEP WORKING ON THE TRANSMISSION, THAT AND THE PAIR ARE MORE IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW.

She couldn't do everything, and throwing more of her people into that fray would not gain anything but blood on her hands. She kept reviewing footage while also keeping an eye out for someone she knew. If there was someone that happened to be in the MIC, she could contact them and put them on the trail of the pair and warn them of the incoming support.

[Joani]

Sam was electrified. Her Mutant abilities were slowly going into overdrive and she slowly felt the telltale signs of the V trying to wrestle her down and stop her from doing what she was doing. The screens came back to live showing footage from all cameras Sam managed to link in to the stream.

Her eyes instantly went back to checking the scans trying to find a familiar looking face, or even better, the two mutants she was looking for. She felt the juice pumping through her veins, her heart beating faster with each breath she took.

As her interface merged more with the machine she closed her eyes, blending out all factors that could distract her. Her mind was one with the stream of data and processing information at the speed of light. There!, she gasped – a 87% match – the picture was blurry and only showing the faces for a fraction of a second but it was the best she could get.

Mouse! Possible positive contact – here is the GPS-feed. Sent someone anyone who can get them!

She tried to adjust the angle by working with other camera feeds creating a 3D Image of the area and quickly adding textures to it to get a real google-streetview like impression of the vicinity. Her eyes widened suddenly as she realized that the kids were surrounded by 8 Policemen who were about to pummel them to the ground.

[Ira Sagebrush]

"NOOO!" Sam shouted, the screen flickering for a second as her anger was felt by the electronics.

There were concerned glances made toward the room from the outer area of the resistance's base, but none dared go in, for fear of being on the wrong end of Sam's anger, and knowing that whatever she was doing was likely more important that their concern for her. If she needed something, the past had taught them, that she would make her needs known over the intercom or some other means.

Sam zoomed in and focused on the imagery, refusing to get so close, only to have this prize taken away by those she opposed. If they were captured by the wrong people, the pair would disappear, vanish like they never existed and Sam and her people would be back to praying for a cure. She quickly looked over one of the cops, confirming her hypothesis that the squad would have comm-links. She spun the 3-D view as she zoomed out, spotting some streetlights surrounding the pair and their would-be attackers.

Eureka!...Eureka?...seriously? that's what you're gonna go with? Come ON.

Filing the 'epiphany' inner argument away for another, if ever, time, Sam went to work, quickly gaining access to the city power grid and finding the correct frequency.

Click to reveal..

Roll: [20 +18 Modifier -20 DC = +18] PASS. W00T!

Rolling through the security was easy, almost too easy for Sam's comfort, but she put aside the thoughts as she focused on the task, forcing a massive power surge to the streetlights and a 140 decibel pulse from a gunshot mp3 to the commlinks of the eight officers that had her pair of hope surrounded.

"Now get out of there!" Sam yelled at the screen, hitting the enter key. But even as she did, a young man appeared out from off camera and had all the officers on the ground before the streetlights could even get hot. Only after they had all lost consciousness did they pop with a flash and the gunfire go off, surely to give them some terrible pain to wake to.

"Merry Christmas from the Mutant Underground you bastards!" Sam cheered.

The pair seemed to be fine, but the approaching personnel carrier would seek to change that quickly. She had to get that speedster or 'porter or whatever he was to get them out of there fast. She zoomed in her feed while he was talking to the older one and saw the earbud of his mp3 player.

"Fuck, yeah!" she exclaimed.

She tapped into the Market software for the mp3 player, and from that it was relatively easy to pinpoint his and send through the message, interrupting his music, "Hey. Can you hear me? You need to get that pair out of there. They very well may be the answer to the Virus!"

[Joani]

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