Mutants & Masterminds Mutants & Masterminds: The Unlikely Prophets - Issue #2: The Man Who Built Yesterday

[Charlotte]

"... so then he pulls out this speargun and shoots him right in the damn dick."

"Ouch. Yeah, I'm gonna have to catch this year's 'Dirty Harry' then." The conversation had little urgency. Both voices were male, one sounding a lot older than the other. Just two people at the office, shooting the breeze.

"So where you going once this thing finishes?" asked the older voice.

[The Scarlet Samurai]

Kenshin watched as the computers shut down, disabling the building's internal security system as they went. "OK, let's move, the faster we get in and out of here the better, less chance of having to fight." Less chance of having to confront the demon.

[IndyPendant]

(Presuming she did find a voice-off switch) Sharatur forces the thing into one of her ears, listening for a moment. "Okay, it looks like I have at least some of the guards on here. They don't suspect anything." She quickly searches the guards for anything interesting, including security cards or the like. Once completed, she turns to Norman. "Lead on, No--Necronaut." A flicker of annoyance washes across her face. I have to stop doing that before I slip up completely.

The insecure, uncertain girl of just a few minutes has apparently vanished.

[Radiance]

"Any ideas where they are?"

[Charlotte]

"Necro mentioned something up on the top floor, didn't he? Might be a place to check. Jade, tell us if they say anything interesting, would you?"

Jade does indeed find a few security keycards, including one for the nearby security elevator. She's not 100% sure they can get anywhere in the building - at least, with the cards - but she's reasonably sure she can get wherever these guards went casually.

The conversation continued. "I'm getting a nice bonus and I'm taking some time off. What about you?"

"Uh, I'm going back to Argus Technical. Refresher courses. So, uh. Listen. I know we're not supposed to know, but I hear stuff. Did you, you know. Did you know what they're going to do once they're done cracking the code to the Goldsmith's vault?"

[SalmonMax]

"Top floor it is," Larissa said quietly...she couldn't help it. Even with the guards incapacitated, she felt a sense of terrifying thrill that demanded whispers. On a sudden impulse, she checked the security systems in front of her, looking for anything that might show a floorplan, even if it was simplified. They'd do a lot better if they knew where to look for stairs and doors.

[Charlotte]

There was a floor plan in the security elevator. It showed the location of various security stations throughout the office tower, the security elevator, the bathrooms, the junction boxes, and so forth on all the office floors. It also had a layout of the main floor and the basement. All of it was color coded and numbered for ease of use.

The button for the top floor was disabled. The second-top floor, however, was accessible.

The conversation continued, on Jade's headset. "Well... son, this is just stuff I heard. I don't remember any of it and I don't want to remember." The older man's voice sounded a bit fearful. "They figured that the Goldsmith had two components to the security system, the key we've been cracking for the past thirty years and the actual people who had access to the vault. One of them's in custody at the Iron Gates. We get her out here and we get inside. Then we see what the Goldsmith thought was so important he needed to build the world's most secure vault."

"What do you think's inside?"

"Spartan's secret porn stash. I don't know, kid. But if nothing else, I hear there's a few places and a few people they wouldn't mind testing the security system on. Like that town out in Eastern Europe where they lost power for a few weeks and decided they liked it better that way. Hate to be living there next week."

[Radiance]

Hikari waited patiently ready for combat laughing inside at the situation. "We've got to move faster, the longer this takes the great a chance of discover and reinforcement."

[SalmonMax]

"Okay," Lari...no, HEX...said as she hurried back to the elevator, shooing any stragglers along with her. "I think I see how this works."

"This elevator stops on the floor just under the top floor...it doen't go all the way up. There's probably some kind of super secure elevator up there, or maybe even a guarded stairway or something. So we'll need to be careful."

She herded the cats into the elevator and thumbed the button to go as high as it would take them.

[IndyPendant]

Sharatur glances at Larissa, an incharacteristic confident twinkle in her eyes. "Same trick, different floor?" she asks with a smile, looking at the ceiling as the elevator rises.

[SalmonMax]

"There was only one guard on this floor," Hex replies as she watches the little digital counter tick up, and up again. "But he's patrolling, which means we don't know exactly where he is now. Plus, there was a computer or something with some people at it...they may be able to raise an alarm if they hear anything weird happening before we can get to them."

[Charlotte]

(OOC: Just so you know, Sharatur/Jade, not everyone can hear what's on the radio. If you want to automatically relay what you hear, let everyone know.)

[Necronaut]

The Necronaut observed the infiltration warily, hanging back as the team advanced. He vanished as the elevator passed through him when it began to move, but managed to keep pace, floating roughly in sync with the car wearing a look of consternation visible under his half-real mask.

"Should I scout ahead?" He whispered as if somehow his words put them at greater risk of discovery than the arrival of an unscheduled elevator.

[IndyPendant]

"See if you are able to" Sharatur suggests. "You weren't able to enter that last floor before, after all." She takes the time as the elevator rises to relay what she has heard/is hearing through her earpiece.

[Necronaut]

"Oh, I'm not going up there alone even if I could." he grimaced. "No, I'm checking ahead on our route to however we get in there. I'll find you guys in a couple minutes."

He accelerated his rise through the elevator shaft even as he vanished from (most) mortal sight, intent on doing some more through recon of the next-to-last floor.

[Charlotte]

After a few problematic issues with avoiding electrical fields, Necronaut sails up smoothly to scout out the shaft. He counts out the expected number of doors. He also encounters the top of the shaft, which is a different colored concrete than the rest of it and with a slightly newer assembley for the elevator. It would seem that someone decided that, rather than just disabling the top floor, they would have to physically block it off. Necro's not sure how long ago this happened.

Poking his head through the door, Necronaut sees the same man from before, a rotund individual reading a book while the computer displays the block it is decrypting. At this point, close to the elevator, the guard is nowhere in sight.

Inside the elevator, as it rose, there was a sound of leather stretching as Jack twisted his walking stick in his hands.

"Testing out the security system. I see." His voice was like a layer of thin, level ice with a tsunami of anger underneath.

[Necronaut]

The Necronaut takes a few extra moments to look for anything else of tactical relevance and then glides back down into the elevator to report all he's seen. "...The guy will probably notice that the elevator has arrived before the doors even open. We'll have to be quick."

[Radiance]

Hearing what was being said made Hikari frown. Something big was going on here. She resolved herself to see this through and nodded.

"Yeah, worse come to worst, I'll carve us an exit and then a path up there."

[The Scarlet Samurai]

Kenshin followed along silently unsure of what they were doing or what he could do to help.

[SalmonMax]

"All right, wait," Hex said. "Lets work this out. The man at the computer's probably the biggest threat as far as sounding an alarm. Necronaut, can you get behind him without him seeing you? Then the rest of us can arrive, and at the exact moment we attack the guard, you take out the guy at the computer. A one-two punch."

She looked at the others, finger hovering over the elevator button that would take them up. "Sound good?"

[Necronaut]

"I'm on it." He pauses and stares off into the near distance... an odd thing to do in an elevator. Then he fades slightly as he makes a weird series of 'beaconing' motions with his arms. "Er... We're on it."

There is a sudden sense that the elevator is very crowded, though no new occupants can be observed. The Necronaut flies up the elevator shaft again to take his position behind the tech, urging his summoned host of ghostly minions along, "Come on guys, the elevator's only got a few floors to go..."

[Charlotte]

Necronaut, as he scouted ahead, noted that the ghosts he had summoned felt... different. Not less loyal, not less ghostly, but this far from a graveyard the ghosts weren't as coherent. Some of them repeated the same sentence over and over. Others seemed focused on things such as wealth or their missing loved ones. But at Necronaut's direction, they positioned themselves behind the technician, waiting for the signal.

The elevator hummed as it rose, and then it reached the top. The doors slid open - silently, since this was a security elevator. The room was a small way station with no camera screens, and also, no guard. The door to the station was open and the group could see the technician through it.

[The Scarlet Samurai]

Kenshin waited for the others to move off the lift and out before moving behind them. The sword, its gibbering muted, lay in its scabbard and his hands were well away from the hilt. Kenshin felt, accurately as it turned out, that if he drew the blade it would not be put away without being fed and he would be lucky if it only required blood to be sated this time.

[z-Gloom]

Gloom began to edge forward, intent on surprising the technician. She didn't want him to sound any alarms, so she tried to be as quiet as possible.

Click to reveal..

Here's her Stealth roll if you need it:

1d20+7=14

[Radiance]

Hikari dimmed the lights of her powers and also sought to move silently from the elevator, hoping that Gloom would be able to handle things, but prepared to back her up if not.

Click to reveal..

(10:47:20) ChatBot: (Radiance) rolls 1d20 and gets 10.+9 = 19

[IndyPendant]

For her part, Sharatur takes a more direct route. As soon as she can see that there is only the one technician visible, she simply pops in behind him. "Hello there, could you please direct me to the bathroom?"

She hangs poised to react on a moment's notice; if there's anyone else in the room, she doesn't risk waiting but simply assaults everyone she can with her bo staff. If there's just the one technician, she will knock him out if he does anything remotely close to sounding an alarm, erring on the side of caution as needed.

[SalmonMax]

Hex waits in the elevator, knowing that she's ill-suited for stealth and trusting the others to follow the plan...little knowing that Sharatur's already off on her own.

[Charlotte]

At the voice, the tech turned around. His mouth slowly slid open at the sight before him. "Uh. Uh." He turned an unnatural shade of white.

Then Necronaut's ghosts grabbed him, hoisting the tech into the air and keeping his mouth shut. A soda can slipped from his fingers and bounced as it hit the floor, making a tingling sound.

Click to reveal..

There's enough of them that I'll rule it's an auto-success.

The security guard was still nowhere to be seen.

[SalmonMax]

Seeing the immediate threat taken care of, Hex slipped from the elevator and looked both ways. "We've got to find that guard fast," she whispered. "Keep him from calling for help once he realizes something's up."

She nodded at Sharatur and CyCo, "You two are the fastest, search the floor as fast as you can and let us know where he is."

[Bodhie Armstrong]

Bodhie loomed over her peers peeking carefully out of the elevator. Sneaking wasn't really what she was 'designed' for and she felt that each step she took shook the building enough to alert even the dumbest of guards.

"Hex, can you... change my outfit with your magic? Something with a mask maybe? I'll try to get something selfmade as soon as we get some time off."

The large female was wearing a rather ragtag mix of baggy clothes since there wasn't much that would fit her back at Jacks. "It should be able to keep up with my growth... just in case.", Bodhie tried to smile confidently but there was a hint of hope in her request. It seemed important to her.

[Charlotte]

Cyco was off like a shot, and she located the security guard walking the halls within seconds, dashing through the floor like a zephyr.

She bowled him over, sending him flying into a cubicle wall. The wall tilted over, and he lay there, unconscious. The floor was theirs.

The tech, still awake, looked terrified. His mouth was still shut so there was no telling what he was scared of.

[Necronaut]

The Necronaut shimmered and faded into view, attempting to loom politely. Not really wanting to menace the tech, but making it clear that he was indeed being loomed at.

"Please don't struggle or cry out. It is not our intent to hurt you."

He paused for a moment and, primarily to clarify matters, added "But, you know, in the heat of the moment accidents do happen. Best not to risk it."

It probably sounded a little more menacing than he had intended. He decided not to dwell on it, instead instructing his ghostly assistants to check the man's pockets for anything of interest.

[SalmonMax]

"I could make an image of a costume for you," Hex answered Bodhi, "but I'd have to make it move with you, which would be really hard. It's different for me...I can sort of tie the magic to my own mind. But I don't know how to do that for someone else...oh hell, I think she found him!"

Hex ran after Cyco...instantly left in the dust, but in the small confines of the floor she caught up in time to see her standing victorious over the unconscious guard. She quickly gave her teammate the thumbs up and went to join Necronaut.

"Is he...oh good."

To the guard's eyes, a masked woman in slinky occult robes seemed to glide towards him.

"Cyco, Sharatur, keep an eye on the elevator. Let us know if it starts moving."

She fixed the guard with what she hoped was a steely gaze. "And you...tell us what you know about the Vault, including how to get up to the fourth floor."

[Bodhie Armstrong]

"I take that as a "no" then.", Bodhie shrugged at Hex who just sped after Cyco. With a few heavy steps she caught up towering over the slinky robed witch giving her muscles a short impressive flex for the guard to see. Then she smiled at him in anticipation as if him not telling what they wanted to know would give her an excuse to put those muscles in "action".

(ooc: If you want some kind of intimidation or bluff roll then let me know)

[Radiance]

Hikari watched the others, her attempts at Stealth rendered moot by those who just walked up.. "Well that was mildly pointless."

[Charlotte]

"Whu? Uh." The guard shifted position, and the wall shifted as well, and with the sound of snapping plastic a cable pulled free from one of the computers on the other side. "Hatch is up there... what the hell? Who are you? You're not supposed to be here..."

Not far away, the tech's computer showed

Originally Posted By: Tech's Computer

Network Error

Network Error

Network Error

Network Error

His mouth was shut and he was staring straight ahead, so he didn't see it.

[SalmonMax]

"Hell!" swore Hex. She fell to her knees and grabbed the network cable, pulling the computer's casing over a little so she could stab it back into the port in its back.

"That probably raised some kind of alarm," she said tersely. "We have to move."

Hex looked up at the ceiling to where the guard had indicated, looking for a hatch.

[The Scarlet Samurai]

Kenshin moved forward looking up into the ceiling to see the hatch the technician indicated. "I'll take a look," he said and leaped upward reaching for the opening to pull himself through.

[Radiance]

Once Kenshin had made his way through Hikari did the same., looking around quickly for another means of exit.

[Bodhie Armstrong]

Bodhie remained on guard and grew even a bit larger until she could easily lift anyone through the ceiling if necessary. She had no idea what could happen but making a quick escape sounded like a good plan.

"And what we'll do next? Are we going to wreck this place or are we looking for more clues?"