Avenger Assembled

"Isn't it exciting?" exclaimed Sharl. He took a seat around the table himself, the seat bobbing beneath his magnetized holographic body. "I mean, we're going to see a satellite that's been in real space! And had real alien stuff inside it! I mean...OK, maybe that's all old to you guys. But I think it's so cool! And in the middle of the forest with a big lake, and real trees...wow! This is going to be the best weekend ever. What do we need to do?" he asked Miss A. "Just tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it."

"Honey," said Fusion, sounding half-amused and half-fatigued, "I appreciate your open-mindedness, but when you've had a chance to see up close and personal that Solo Takashi's robots really are anatomically correct and he really does do with them everything his sicko freak mind can imagine, we'll see how enthusiastic you are about embracing robots built by sex freaks. Don't get me wrong," she added, "I've marched in my share of Galatea Parades. Sentient AIs deserve the same rights as anyone else with intelligence and self-awareness, and I think it's a damn shame this country makes it so tough on them. But that means the bad ones get the same treatment that bad humans do, whether that's lockup or just people like us tearing them a new one when they're causing trouble." Joan hmmed, not wanting to make an enemy of a kid who was guilty of nothing other than having some passion. "Like what you and Jack of all Blades did to those robots at the bank robbery last month. That was some really fine work, especially when you backed up the new guy like that. Not a lot of heroes your age have what it takes to be part of a Daring Duo."

That's a crit. DC 35 Tou save for the poltergeist.

"The only place I'm going to let you out is Hell! And my fists are going to send you there!" And with that, Fusion planted a chunk of Detroit iron in the ground before her as a marker and raised her fists. "Come on! Don't stand up if you aren't prepared to jump up!" When the poltergeist got close, she drew back her limbs and lashed at it in a hurricane of blows! "You think you can scare Freedom City's journalists from telling the truth? Well let me tell you, mister! THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD!"

If a 13 hits him flat-footed, that's a DC 26 Tou save. If not, grr!

Citizen sat up, having fallen much too close to the electrified third rail for his own comfort. Holy! That could have hurt me really, really badly...or worse! He opted not to mention that close call to Miss Americana or Gina, the last thing he needed was either of his mentors corralling his nighttime activities and keeping him from adventures like this. Even incredibly dangerous ones. With just his upper torso sticking up through the car floor, he advanced on the Serpent priest. "I am really, really getting tired of dealing with you freaks!" He threw a clumsy punch and said what sounded like a bad word. "Somebody take this guy out already!"

Fusion gave Grimalkin a look, the huge white eyepieces over her face narrowing as she studied the little pixie suspiciously. "I didn't know male robots were even _made_ in Japan, much less ones with interest in 'dating' human women. In my experience, half the AIs that come out of Japanese-influenced technological systems were programmed by some poorly-socialized otaku with his own perverted image of what femininity should be. Sounds like you got lucky if you found one worth your time." To Silhouette, she added, "You're damn right. The problem is, there are too many people with incredible talents and powers without the morality and basic human decency to back it up. Those skeezy superscientists are the worst. I'm glad we've got men like Viktor Archeville here in Freedom City to set things straight."

Mark raised his glass too, cheering along and happily clinking it afterwards to get another round of smooches from the bride and groom. When they seemed suitably entertained by the smooching going on, he let them get to their feet, casually getting up himself as the dancing started so he could study Chloe more closely. She really was very cute, he decided, though she'd tarried to snap pictures with an instant camera as her sister and new brother-in-law took to the floor. When she was done, Mark sidled up close to her and murmured, "Hi, I'm Mark. You're very pretty." He gave her an ingenous smile, not wanting to come across as too forward. "Do you have anyone to escort you for the wedding party dance?"

It didn't take long to get a deal made after that, one undersigned by all the members of the team who were legally persons, taking advantage of Freedom City's generous local laws about masks signing contracts using their secret ID. The team would have full leeway to deploy whatever methods necessary, and take whatever scans required, to move Skyhook, with the usual caveats about keeping secrets of national security under their belts. Assuming successful delivery of Skyhook to the Navy facility within seventy-two hours, they'd have their million dollars, and the promise of future contracts to go with them. Sharl hung back a little, knowing that he didn't have the identity to sign the contract, and let the others sign as necessary. For her part, the commander shook everyone's hand, her grip firm and solid, even when she shook hands with Sharl and Protectron. "It's been a pleasure. I'm sure you won't disappoint me, or the United States Navy."

"Viktor Archeville's people would do it for us for under a million," said Harrison with a raise of one well-plucked eyebrow. "And with fewer...unpredictable elements in the equation. However, if your team _can_ provide the results you promise, and if you deliver Skyhook-3 intact to Lonely Point within the next seventy-two hours, I might be able to guarantee payment of a million dollars to your facility." She hmmed at that, looking around for questions. "Additionally, if your team's work is reliable and discreet, I may be able to make sure that further government jobs come your way. Super-contractors who have proven their worth can always find work through Uncle Sam."

Murdock was left baffled by Carson's words as he considered what he was trying to say. No, no, this is a friendly offer. He is a friendly man, and we simply have different experiences about food. "I would like to eat, if you are also eating." That was one rule that held between many of the cultures he'd seen. "Yes. There was nothing there that you would consider normal." He watched as Carson made food, and thought of his childhood, of the starving proles of the Black Ghetto. "The changes that were wrought on my flesh were significant. You would not wish to hear more."

"That makes sense," said Sharl, giving a tentative look Miss A's way to make sure she wasn't offended by him speaking out. "If something's leaking from the core, Protectron would be the most protected, or if there is still biological contamination." For his own part, he was very glad this had happened on this world; a crashing space object would have been simply murder in his home city, given the huge, closely packed buildings that were so different from land hereabouts. When no one objected to him speaking out, he added nervously, "I have wanted to see more of the forest. Er, I mean, I think I could do the work well also. If Miss Americana wants me there." He tended to assume Miss Americana was the leader, whether or not that was actually true. She was hard to argue with.

"Five dollars," agreed Joan, hmming as she put two cards down and deal herself two more. She put the five dollars in the pot, then sat back to study the others. "So, you ladies are new to gambling, eh? I'm no veteran myself, but I've been around a few times. There's this great casino in Osaka that's built inside the hollowed-out shell of one of the first giant space robots that invaded the Pacific back in the early 50s. The whole operation's in there, all the way from the waterpark in the feet to the revolving restaurant in the head. Back when I was working in the Japanese sphere, they comped everyone on our team free tickets as long as we made sure no bad guys ever took it down. You've got to watch yourself with those giant robots, some of them are quicker than quick and stronger than strong."

"Oh, okay," said Mark, getting the same baffled look he got anytime someone suggested giving away their secret identity. I just don't understand that? Why would you do that? He'd watched Alex's explanation about giving away her own secret ID a few times, but truthfully he'd just sort of wandered off around the time she started talking about the common purpose of humanity. "If that's what you choose to do," he told Eve, "we're your friends, and we'll have your back, however you choose to live." Did that sound weird? I thought it sounded weird...wait a minute! Psychic...high school senior...no secret ID... Mark put his hand over his mouth, his eyes going wide. "But Eve...Eve...does this mean you're a Terminus Baby!?!"

"The experiments were biological in nature," the commander assured the civilians, "designed to build a defense system against the Grue or any similar organisms. Other than that, there's not much I can tell you. The experimental pods were all self-contained and have already been removed from the crash site. While there was a small amount of environmental contamination, necessitating the evacuations I mentioned, my people assure me that it's been completely contained. Right now our priority is to recover Skyhook itself." She paused a moment, then gave them all a trim smile. "Hmm. If you want reassurances that I and my team have not been compromised by Grue infiltrators, I'd be happy to submit to whatever genetic testing methods you prefer. There were no secret Grue stowaways on Skyhook. No biological specimens more coherent than bacteria were aboard."

The commander did the same, taking a seat and studying the crew intently. She paid special attention to Protectron, of course, seeing as how he was some sort of wonderful mechanical man, but she gave the teenage Dragonfly, funny-looking Sharl, and the lovely Miss Americana all serious looks of her own before she went on. With so much strangeness around her, she evidently decided to go straight to business. "It's a pleasure to meet all of you. I'm sure our arrangements will be profitable for everyone involved." She used the conference room's computer to display first the image of an exotic-looking satellite that bore the American flag, then an orbital trajectory that even the non-scientists there could follow: a collision and then a fall, straight out of LaGrange Point 1 and into the (very) near-vicinity of Freedom City. For his part, Sharl watched in fascination, trying to pretend he belonged there. Look at that! It's a spaceship! He felt his usual stab of envy when he contemplated the advanced space program these relatively primitive people maintained. Of course, we don't actually have space travel at all...because we don't really have space. It was an ugly thought, and not one he wanted to dwell on heavily. Better worry about making sure I look human. I don't know if she'll believe I'm just an advanced telepresence display... "As some of you may know, in the wake of the recent Grue Invasion the US government moved elements of our anti-extraterrestrial program, Project Skyhook, into Earth orbit. What you're looking at is Skyhook-3, which up until a few days ago was an integrated, fully-remote-manipulated biological laboratory in Earth orbit, studying ways to prevent further incursions by the Grue, or, ah, any more local alien telepaths." She hmmed, studying the others for a response to that, before she went on. "We're not sure exactly what happened, but there seems to have been a core breach in the satellite, possibly caused by a micrometeor collision." She flipped forward, showing a decidedly-battered version of Skyhook-3 at rest under dirty brown water. "Right now, Skyhook-3 is at the bottom of a lake in Wharton State Forest. Divers have extracted the biological cargo and our team has evacuated the locals to Freedom city proper, but we need someone to go in there and remove a five hundred million dollar satellite and one of a kind remote-handling hardware before the fish get to it. It's too big for our people, and too delicate for our machinery, to get at. Hell, the area's so isolated we have to use landline telephones for communication in a 1-mile radius around the crash site. We need a team of people with experience in handling hi-tech machinery and with some knowledge of the kinds of metacrises that tend to accompany accidents like this. If your people think you can manage it, I'm authorized to ensure a payment of up to five hundred thousand to your organization upon delivery to Lonely Point."

Sharl had hung around with Miss Americana often enough to know when to play the quiet, invisible assistant. Truthfully, he was more comfortable playing roles like that in Lab business: his knowledge of hyperadvanced computers didn't help him much when he knew so little about how they worked. At least Gina and Miss Americana were both making excellent progress in getting his program portable enough to send back to Tronik, giving a chance to see the family he hadn't seen in too many months. Distracting himself from his parents and sister's face, he studied the commander from the back as the lady herself studied Miss Americana. "I understand that your team may be somewhat irregular. That's a necessary hazard of dealing with civilian contractors," said the officer crisply. She broke her icy demeanor with a faint smile to add, "If your collective reputations are justified, that should be well worth the risk." The elevator doors hissed open, and together the ladies and their computerized escort headed for the conference room.

It begins!

Two days earlier The satellite's cloaking field was designed to endure even a direct nuclear strike or a close-range miss from a Grue battleship's main batteries; it held even as it tore across the Freedom City skyline with no more than a clap of thunder, held even as it rushed towards the darkest part of Wharton State Forest with a tremendous roar, and held even when it slammed into Lake Muir with a tremendous crash and fountain of water. Curious locals investigated the crash, of course, brave souls rowing out to investigate what had landed, some even bringing back what they found. The men from Lonely Point arrived not long after that and evacuated the locals back to the city, while extracting the biological material from the heart of the satellite to head off to de Haviland Laboratories. But that didn't solve the problem of what to do about the satellite itself... March 5 The Lab Commander Dani Harrison looked smart and proper in her dress blues, and she'd spoken with politeness when she'd made her appointment with a Lab crew that (thanks to one conference, one superhero mission to Nova Scotia, and one case of the flu) turned out to be Dragonfly, Miss Americana, Sharl, and Protectron, for all that only the first two actually counted as Lab personnel as such. Miss Americana was on hand to welcome her in the front entrance, the naval officer shaking the civilian's hand briskly. "Ma'am," she said professionally, "it's a pleasure. Is the rest of your team available? I know when I spoke to your agent by telephone, she said your numbers were somewhat truncated." Sharl was hanging around too, but the teenager's slightly diffident manner and odd clothing (at least by normal human standards) meant that the officer paid attention only to the gorgeous patriotic heroine.

"Yeah, we're great!" said Mark ebulliently. "When I graduate, I've got a job interning with a UNISON office in Africa; probably the one in Tanzania or Ethiopia, depending on exactly where they put me. I'd hoped to get a job working in the superhero industry, you know, at the Hero Museum or something," he said, using the lie he told about his future plans whenever anyone who didn't know his ID asked, "but I really feel good about this. I'll be able to use my abilities to help people who really need it, and I'll be able to do it under my own name and with my own face. It's all about getting out there and making your own destiny, you know? Oh man..." Across the room, Chloe had just yawned. ShiRAM! "Now Trevor here, he's going to inherit his family business. That's why we're such good buddies, because this guy is loaded!" He winked. "You know, his grandpa gets a dime every time you chew Bazooka Bubble Gum." He thought for a minute, then frowned. "Or wait, is that actually true? I forget. Anyway, I totally do know a guy at Decca. My dad used to know people who worked with Elvis."

As requested, that's a DC 20 Bluff check for Fusion to get the ghost to come out and put up a fair fight.

Fusion left the jerk in the van to his own devices. Instead she catapulted upwards, punching out the van's roof as she went, and carrying the civilians with her. "It's all right people!" she called, abandoning her usual faux-alien hissing in the crisis. "I can handle this!" When she'd removed all the injured journalists, placing them neatly by the side of the road out of the path of traffic, she jumped to the van. "Listen, you psychic impression or whatever you are, I've dealt with versions of you people that'll turn your hair green! And this is how I dealt with them!" She still remembered that bizarre encounter she'd had in Japan with that psychic echo left behind by the dead teenager. She picked up the van in her limbs and began tearing it to shreds, driving the chunks of steel and glass she tore loose into the asphalt to pin them in place. "I'll pull you apart like an Otaku-bot!"

Metahuman Dictatorship There's a reason why you don't hear much about the only country in the Freedom City universe with a superhuman head of state: it's not a very nice, or very hospitable, place to live. Back in 1938, Kreigsmarine Captain Alfred Ritscher commanded the Third German Antarctic Expedition, officially aiming to build a whaling station (and possible naval base) for the Third Reich in Antarctica. (Ritscher's genuine target was of course the extra-terrestrial city discovered by the ill-fated Lake Expedition of 1931). Despite the high adventure and terrifying ordeals faced by the Nazi explorers in the interior of the islands, the German sailors and soldiers posted to the secret Kriegsmarine base in New Swabia actually considered it something a punishment detail, given the length of time between resupply missions and the harsh conditions of the Antarctic coast. In 1943, American superheroes interrupted an attempt to transport a shoggoth by U-Boat, and the subsequent damage caused by the creature rendered the base uninhabited. Until 1946, when an American superhero arrived. Othello (born Paul Leroy) was a New Jersey native by birth, a Freedom City son whose mutant abilities had manifested in 1940 during his time on the Freedom City Watchmen, Freedom's Negro League baseball team that later merged with the Flags. With strength, speed, leaping, and invulnerability akin to the early Centurion's, Othello was a smart man, a former political science major at Freedom City College who recognized that his strongly left-wing political leanings would be held against him in the conservative climate after the war. He worried in particular that his superhuman abilities would make him a target by government scientists, who he felt had targeted him for particularly dangerous missions during the war so as to eliminate him as a political actor. Visiting New Swabia in secret, Othello used his speed and strength to rebuild the shattered and melted fortifications, give decent Christian burial to all the dead Nazis, and make the former German settlement fit for human habitation again. He used his connections in the OSS to cover his work, recruiting several disaffected Allied supers and inviting them to join him in his plans to build a homestead in the last frontier on Earth. By 1950, when word of their activities finally reached a distracted United States, Othello had recruited a half-dozen former American, British, and French super-agents and their families to his cause. President Truman dispatched the Patriot to deal with his old comrade, and two days before the outbreak of the Korean War, Simmons met Othello at the Schirmacher Oasis for a conversation that had unfortunately not been recorded by historians. The Patriot left Antarctica with a recommendation to his superiors that they leave the (technically-illegal) base alone, going to his own destiny alongside the Atomic Brigade later. Time passed, and the colony's population slowly grew. Several Chinese super-agents opted to resettle in Antarctica after choosing to remain in UN hands after the Korean War, while Othello made the controversial decision to accept the immigration of selected Ubersoldaten (only those who had either served their time or had not committed formal war crimes) and their families to the colony he had dubbed New Freedom. The coastal settlement was theoretically under American and UN auspices, but in practice it was something new, a colony of superhumans and the normals they loved, an independent republic under the auspices of the now-greying Othello and his family. With the weather-manipulating Hosato making the region hospitable and the teleporting Mathson providing transportation and formidable scientific expertise, the cold ice of one small corner of Antarctica gradually became habitable in shirtsleeves even by the smallest mundane child. Othello proved his desire for independence when he repelled an 'incident' carried out secretly by Soviet super-agents in 1957, and again in 1961 when he defeated an uprising against his leadership organized by agents of Dr. Sin. It was a social experiment, a colony of several hundred hardy souls whose primary goal was freedom: in New Freedom, superhumans could live without fear of discrimination (that they faced in many Third World countries), fear of conscription (that they faced in the Warsaw Pact and various dictatorships) or simply an inability to fit in with the conservative social consensus of the West. Every man and woman was equal, powered or otherwise, and everyone was valued by the community. And all of it, at least in theory, under the auspices of the American government and the United Nations. It all came to a crashing halt in 1968, when AEGIS arrived to arrest the Drifter. Peter Hopper, given powers by a secret government experiment some years earlier, had abandoned his post in South Vietnam, fleeing to Antarctica to escape desertion charges and bringing with him shocking evidence of corruption in the highest corridors of power in Washington, centered around the Golden Triangle of opium trade in Southeast Asia. When AEGIS agents showed up in force, brushing past Othello's automatic offer of sanctuary for the wanted criminals, blows were struck, and then shots were fired. When all was said and done, the AEGIS carrier was down, the Drifter was dead (by 'suicide'), and Othello had made up his mind. Though Jack Simmons showed up to personally apologize and arrest the rogue agents in New Freedom's custody, Othello had seen enough. He personally ran to Washington to deliver New Freedom's Declaration of Independence. The world's first metahuman nation was born. Things were bad after that. New Freedom had gained their dream, but at the cost of trade embargoes by the West and East, both of whom saw the new nation as a threat to their imperial destiny. There were more attacks by the Eastern Bloc, and supervillains too saw New Freedom as an egg suddenly abandoned by its mother. War came to Antarctica, a quiet, vicious war waged in the snowy outskirts and fertile fields of the small country. The defenders of New Freedom learned to kill to defend themselves, and Othello reluctantly allowed his country to become part of the non-aligned block. The superhuman nature of the early settlers meant that New Freedom had, by a huge margin, the most superpowered population on Earth. Young men and women of Antarctica became mercenaries and superagents, renting themselves to South Africa and Israel, Taiwan and Pakistan, all the 'rogue nations' of the Cold War era looking for, but lacking, superpowered protectors. New Freedom began to take in more and more disreputable elements; Portuguese from Goa and white settlers from Rhodesia, along with wealthy superhumans who liked the nation's lack of extradition treaties, and the dream looked very close to dying. Othello died in 1983, the Presidency of New Freedom inherited by Jade Harper, a Eurasian chemically-powered agent who had been one of the most lethal warriors of Southeast Asia. Jade had come of age in a New Freedom constantly under attack from within and without, and had learned her tradecraft in some of the most vicious fighting of the Cold War. She did not have the loyalty to the United States that her predecessor had maintained in his heart of hearts, nor did she want to maintain the democratic traditions he had established. By the Terminus Invasion, New Freedom was nothing of the sort. New Freedom Today Leah Harper, of mixed Vietnamese, Israeli, and Irish heritage, inherited the Presidency of New Freedom from her mother in 2010 after one of Jade's many enemies finally caught up with her. Leah presides over a nation of some 10,000 souls, a uniquely multi-ethnic melting pot recently increased by migrants from Iraq, Hong Kong, and Albania. New Freedom is a harsh place, a tightly unified dictatorial republic presided over by the President and her appointed Council. Over two-thirds of the population is superhuman in one way or another (superpowers being the only guaranteed path to legal migration), and one of the primary job tracks (as well as a good way to keep the population down and get rid of young people With Ideas) is work as a foreign mercenary in Africa and Central Asia, or as a supercriminal in the United States. New Freedomites speak English with a faint, unique accent, and look to be of no particular race. The nation is not actually a United Nations member, but their population is large enough, and powerful enough, that no one has ever worked up the resources to do anything about their government. The Harpers have written several long, didactic books of political theory justifying their rule, the sort much beloved by poorly socialized high school students and undergraduates: New Freedom's government is strictly utilitarian, and is as likely to take in North Korean super-exiles as they are to rent the services of their own citizens to the Kim family as legbreakers and goons. It's true that superhumans can live like kings in New Freedom, insulated from many of the laws restricting their activities in more civilized nations...assuming they don't mind the dark grey clothing, the political indoctrination, the cramped living conditions, and the nationwide commitment to service, order, and peace. It's not a bad way to live, if you're well-connected and can get access to the resources of the outside world that work outside the country so often brings. Leah herself worked for various American mercenary companies in the 1990s and 2000s, and she has many connections still in Washington and Baghdad. (She hopes to be able to bring over former super-agents of the various Arab dictatorships facing overthrow at the time of this writing.) People who can't, or won't live the New Freedom way leave. The ones that have seen too much die, or change their names, all trying to avoid a hit squad made up of lethal, professional ex-black ops agents with connections all over the world. Like so many new nations, New Freedom has kept its independence, but lost its soul. It's a land that needs heroes.

"Yeah, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. With your smarts, and my luck, and Erin's combat prowess, there's no problem we can't handle," said Mark confidently. He paused a moment, looking expectantly at the others. A moment passed. "OH. Okay. I'll just be going now." He got up and said, "Happy Valentines' Day, again! Just because things are silly and commercial doesn't mean we can't enjoy them, right?" And with that, he headed out the door, leaving Erin and Trevor to do their thing. Maybe they're further along than I thought, he hazarded. Weird!

Sharl's gonna spend this round refocusing, and go first next time.