Electra
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There was a brief kerfuffle with people scrambling out of the way of the hero rising from the earth, but the crew of SuperCrime! were nothing if not used to dealing with dramatic entrances. In a split second, Dave had redirected the camera to catch their guest's arrival and Paige had on her best professional smile. "Thank you so much! That's great to hear. If you like, we can give you one of our swag bags after the interview." Her smile became a grin. "This is our last season, so they automatically become vintage next year, I'm pretty sure." Right on time, a young person in an extremely puffy coat and a knit hat with a large pompom ran up with a paper sack. "Three with everything," Vivi reported, still huffing and puffing a bit from the jog. "I didn't know if I should get fries too, so I got fries." "Good initiative," Page told the intern approvingly. She took the bag and handed it over to Ghost. It was still very warm. "Would you like to have a seat? We can do the basic pre-interview stuff while you eat, if you'd like."
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In a shockingly off-brand development, Danica rolled a nat 20 on her initiative. Given her modifier, she goes on 19.
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It had been a pretty good day, right up to the point where it was suddenly a very, very bad day. In her fifth year at Claremont, Danica was used to leading tours of new students around the grounds and the neighborhood. It was important to pin down landmarks like "best place to get junk food" and "greasiest french fries" early if you wanted to have a really good high school experience. Not that the caf at Claremont was bad, it was just... healthy. Nobody should have to be healthy all the time. She was guiding her Segway with one hand while attempting to unwrap a Fruit Rollup with the other when the warm wind caught her attention. The fruit snack fell forgotten to the slushy ground when she saw what was coming up. "Omegadrones!" she yelped, her disguise of "girl in puffy coat and backpack" melting into "girl with huge black and gold tortoise shell." "We've got to get back to the school!" Immediately she pulled out her phone and punched the Freedom League's emergency number, one her mom had insisted be programmed into her phone for just such a time.
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One of the perks of having a show on the Discovery Channel was a generally cordial working relationship with public broadcasting systems all around the world. It was especially nice in cases like this, where instead of doing interviews on the street or in a rented conference room, they were able to line up a cozy little interview space at the FCTV studios right downtown. The SuperCrime crew had piled all their outdoor gear in an unobtrusive corner and taken an hour's break to thaw out, eat lunch and back up footage of the morning's work. Now Paige was redoing her makeup in front of a mirror in the corner, covering up a slight case of windburn with concealer while the crew did light tests and their waited for their guest to arrive. The studio was not very large, a living-room themed stage area big enough for perhaps four or five people maximum. It was set up with two comfortable chairs cheated towards the camera with a low table between them for coffee cups and looked very much like a thousand different news program sets. The crew already had all the cameras set up and ready to go, and the smell of coffee floated invitingly through the warm air.
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Under the circumstances, it was a beautiful day. The circumstances being Freedom City in early February, that meant clear skies and biting cold air that kept the SuperCrime crew of five huddled around their portable heater whenever they could get a break from setting up the outside shoot. It definitely wasn't the weirdest or most uncomfortable circumstances they'd shot in over the past fifteen years, but they were none of them as young as they used to be, not even Paige herself. They'd set up a small working area in a quiet park, a couple of portable chairs, several cameras, and a little canopy over a knot of equipment and monitors. "All right," Paige began, checking things off on her tablet as she spoke. "This looks like a standard two-camera interview, over the shoulder and with the overhead boom plus lavs. Is that all set to go, Fred?" The second unit director nodded, barely looking up from his own tablet. "I'm going to be doubling Kelsey on sound to try and kill some of this wind noise, but we'll have to handle it in post. It's too bad there aren't fifty thousand buildings in this city we could've gone inside for this..." Paige laughed. "His first suggestion was on a rooftop of one of those buildings; this was a compromise. Speaking of which, what's the hot dog situation?" "I sent Vivi to the cart," Fred confirmed, "they'll be back any minute. We'll have to keep this tight," he reminded her, "we still have that other one this afternoon." "No problem," Paige assured him blithely. "We've done this a million times."
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Danica's grimace was nearly comical at that description. "Um, okay, but you're giving me way too much credit." She cupped her hands and concentrated, and after a moment a tortoise appeared on her palms. Its shell was the same vivid black and gold pattern as Danica's, though it was only about the size of a soup bowl, and the whole thing was gauzy and a little insubstantial, as though it were a hologram or a mental projection. She tossed it across the room, drawing one or two interested glances from other students as it flew weightlessly through the air and landed next to one of the old folding chairs by the window. It padded silently up to the nearest chair and opened its little mouth to chomp firmly into the metal leg. It made a "tink!" sound. A moment later the chair slid forward and tipped, the leg cleanly severed by the force of the bite. "Ta-daaaa" Danica said weakly. "The only good part is that it works on basically anything. Nobody else can make a fake tortoise that bites ghosts," she quipped.
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Chelone needs some new buddies, most of her buddies will graduate without her soon!
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"If they really wanted this all to disappear, they wouldn't have come here at all," Miss A pointed out, leaning in close to the robot's ruined head to assess the damage. "Junk both robots down a deep dark hole and nobody ever has to know anything about what happened. Instead they came here and risked their very secret agent's identity being made by a bunch of scientists." She glanced up at Terrifica. "And it's actually him, at least according to what they've told me and everything I could find out. Direct mental upload before physical death. This would've been even before I started doing it, so it's rough in places and of course the robot body was a disaster, but he thinks he's the real Patriot and so does AEGIS." Taking out a set of small tools, Miss A began poking through the opened cranium, delicately avoiding the worst damage and the fragile repairs. "When I worked on Irons years ago, there was a stack of nondisclosure agreements an inch thick before they even let me touch him. They take the secrecy seriously. I know Director Bonham has strong feelings of loyalty to the Patriot, but like we just told Angelic, the mission comes first with these guys. Whatever they're doing, it's not so dark and shady that they weren't willing to take the risk of us finding out." She shook her head and stood up. "Total loss there. Let's finish the download and then start taking the head off so we can get it into the 3-D scanner. A whole replacement body would be better, but we'll do just the head if we have to. Angelic, I'm gonna need the big toolbox and the scanning cart from the main MedSci lab, please. And if any of you all haven't had a look at Foundry tech before, it sounds like they brought a bunch of it in. Scarab, are we ready for transfer over there?"
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"Die hexe," Singularity repeated, her eyes suddenly huge and not entirely focused. "Bad luck..." She turned to Aquaria and shook her head. "We have to know who sent the zombies. It could be-" She hesitated, seemed to be searching her memory for something that wasn't coming back. "It could be really bad. We need to find some clues, and that ship is our only chance." With one deep breath, she got a short running start and leapt the distance to the boat, then started looking for a door. Or a porthole, or a convenient seam, anything would work.
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Paige's spoon dropped into her soup with a plop, and only telekinetic reflexes kept her shirt from being splattered. "You have a girlfriend?" she asked, in a tone of voice that indicated the previous topic was on indefinite hold. "For how long now? Where did you meet her? Is she from one of your writing groups?" "Girls are gross," Bryant opined, shooting a look at Holly under lowered brows. "That's not nice," Paige told him by rote. "We don't call people gross. Eat your soup. Does she know anything about your family?" she asked Will, sliding seamlessly back into the interrogation.
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"Awfully self-righteous considering they came in lying to me in my own lab," Miss A muttered as she joined Dragonfly at the robot's side. "I'm just going to have a word with security not to let them go poking around. Principle of the thing and all." She sighed at Eira's question, and at Dragonfly's response. "She's right, they probably would've been willing to kill an agent they thought was going to flip. AEGIS doesn't manage to field a team of mostly humans trying to police metahuman activity by waffling around." She looked to Voltage to make sure he'd finished the work on the secured partitions, then once again picked up the cord that would allow access to Irons' consciousness. "As to whether he was going to or whether they actually shot him, I don't know," she admitted. "All I know is that they've been lying since they got here, or using very selectively edited truths, and it's a goddamned personal insult that they think they can fool me with that." She maneuvered the cord carefully around Dragonfly's repair work and plugged it in. "Go ahead and start the download," she told Voltage, "just watch it carefully so we're sure nothing is leaking anywhere."
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Casting Call: "Once More to the Boards" Arc Synopsis: SuperCrime! , Discovery Channel’s flagship superhero show, is ending its run after fifteen seasons. Its longtime hosts, Fast Forward and Hologram (Richard and Paige Cline) are finishing up big, with one last double-legnth episode covering one of the most infamous supercrimes of recent history, the Curator’s kidnapping and replacement of heroes and villains throughout Freedom City. By doing research and interviewing witnesses, they want to show the world exactly what happened in those strange days, and along the way they might just turn up a mystery or two as well! It’s going to be a big and exciting finish for the world’s superest documentary television show. What it is: This thread arc is primarily narrative and will be centered around Fast Forward and Hologram as they conduct their investigations. Other characters will give interviews, provide clues, possibly participate in staged reenactment sequences, and interact with the Cline family. There will be some combat, probably a large combat sequence at the end, but this will not be a dice-heavy or combat heavy story. On the other hand, if your character wants to be on TV, now’s the time! Who We’re Looking For: Characters who experienced the Day of Wrath and are willing to be interviewed on or off camera (You OOC do not have to have been here for DoW, so long as your character would have a story to tell about that day) Characters with expertise in robotics, engineering and/or space travel Characters specializing in sociology, psychology, or especially Freedom City history Characters with a reputation for investigative or puzzle solving ability Players willing to take on NPC roles Because this is an arc and not a single thread, it should not be a problem to have more than one character per player involved. When: Soon! The opening thread of this arc (The Old Girl is Dying on Her Feet) is already posted, and because of the modular nature of interviews, many can possibly be conducted at one time. If you’d like your character interviewed, you can specify if you’d like Fast Forward or Hologram, assuming you have a preference.
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"We get some first aid here," Danica confirmed, "mostly the basics of triage and field medicine. How to tie a bandage, how to see if somebody's in shock and what to do about it, recovery positions, making splints, things like that." Danica liked to talk with her hands, but her oddly slow movements made it seem a little bit like interpretive dance. "I got to take it in both my freshman years, so the second time the teacher let me do some more advanced stuff. I can improvise a tourniquet!" she announced proudly. "Sobrinos are nieces and nephews, right?" Her forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. "Why would that be... oh!" Danica gave Ellie a scandalized look, then giggled.
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"Could be worse," Danica pointed out cheerfully, "I could be walking." She slid back into her shell and climbed onto the Segway, glancing around first to make sure they hadn't forgotten any particularly alien-shaped kids. Everything looked clear. Once they were out in the corridors, flat and broad and smooth-floored, she hit the gas! It still wasn't super-impressive by hero standards, but they made pretty good time as they retraced their steps through the ship. "We know they have some kind of transporter beam, but how do we get them to send us back to Earth with it? It doesn't sound like the sort of thing where we should just start pressing buttons."
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The door to the lab slid open again as Miss Americana walked leisurely in. "About time," the little Emerson muttered in her voice, "did the damn thing ride all the way to the ground floor and back?" A second later Miss A stopped and blinked, then began walking with much more purpose to the large wall console. "Voltage, if you'll hop on that keyboard over there, you can help me set up a couple of secure partitions. We'll need at least two." She turned her attention to the agents. "Was it actually an assassin droid?" she asked even as she began entering in commands at phenomenal speed. "We're preserving forensic evidence as we go along here, it's all standard operating procedure whenever ArcheTech assists with a possible crime. That video shows Agent Irons visibly hesitating while Keres is trying to flip him. If one of you shot him and that's why you want to restore him from old backups, it would be helpful for us to know that now before we do all this work on uploading brains and matching bullets."
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Paige laughed softly. "We're not going to be out on the street or tapping the college funds, guys, I promise. We've been careful with our money for a long time now, and the production company isn't going out of business or anything like that. Fifteen years is a great run for any TV show," she reminded Richard again, sounding both like she was repeating something she'd said a lot and possibly reminding herself as well. "We'll probably be taking a little time to decide what we're going to do next. I've had some interesting offers to produce shows, and your father has a couple of standing offers on other shows, unless he decides to finally start up that taxi service he's always talked about..." She gave Bryant his plate, then put his fork in his hand when the little boy seemed perfectly ready to go for his casserole with his fingers. "It's not all bad news! We've still got the rest of our regular season, plus the network has agreed to give us a super-size finale with a live-tape portion. One last big investigation to go out with, and we'll bring back some of our favorite guests, have little interviews with the production team, really do it up right. It's a much better sendoff than most shows get."
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Dragonfly's helmet radio made a soft chiming noise as an outside connection tried to establish itself. It was not hard to recognize Miss Americana, who had contacted her via technopathy before. "Something isn't right," and this was Gina's voice, flat and unhappy. "Eira says that the only tech they've got up there is standard Foundry gear, nothing that should have them antsy. And these guys... " The Emerson next to Dragonfly swiveled its camera all the way around to take in the whole field, even as it withdrew the offered connector cord. "I know these guys wouldn't tell you the weather without a little subterfuge in front of it, but this is different. They're hiding something big, and I don't want any part of it in my computers."
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Paige rose from the table as Will approached the house, and was waiting by the dining room door for him. She gave him a quick looking-over for health and fitness just out of habit, then hugged him and kissed his cheek. "Don't worry about being late, sweetheart, we're just glad you could make it. You're right on time anyway, we've only just sat down." She took her own seat and began cutting up Bryant's food into smaller pieces for him. It was a good distraction, it allowed her to not have to look up as she said "We wanted you all to be here tonight because we have some news. I'm sure you all know that fifteen years is an amazing run for any television show, even with a solid company like Discovery. Doing the podcast helped, and the webseries, but unfortunately our ratings have slid a little and frankly, we're running out of stories to tell."
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The Emerson, a blocky little robot that bore a passing resemblance to Wall-E, rolled over to the body and extended its camera eye high enough to get a look over the edge of the table. "The head looks like it's going to be a total write-off, it'll be easier to fabricate a new one than to put this back together in any way that looks at all natural," Miss A's voice came through the speaker. "If you think the memory processor is intact, we should try to get a backup while the system still has some power. Somebody should get a look at Keres over there too, make sure that he's not going to wake up when we're not looking."
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"You don't have to burn it right away," Singularity agreed, still seeming fairly abstracted. The majority of her attention was definitely still on the ship, and her voice was a soft monotone. "Zombies usually rot a lot faster than normal dead bodies, but as long as they're moving they can hurt you. Don't let the head bite you or you might get sepsis," she cautioned Wraith. Moving a little further from the group, she prodded the landing boat with one foot to make sure nothing in it was still reactive. "Their mouths are dirty."
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Miss A passes all those checks by taking 10.
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"Understood, we'll bring him in now." Miss A ended the holocall and shunted her robot shell into autopilot with instructions to bring itself to the lab. Sliding effortlessly into the familiar network of ArcheTech HQ, her consciousness was in 3-A in a heartbeat, cameras turning to focus like eyes, equipment humming to life for hands and feet. An Emerson hibernating in the corner woke and stretched its spindly neck to look around. It was the work of a moment to disable the security shields designed to foil teleports and to unlock the lab's safety doors so that nobody would smack a literal or metaphorical nose while trying to enter the room. "Please set Agent Irons on the center table," Miss A instructed Voltage, her voice calm and even from the wall intercom. "There is a set of impervium-edged surgical shears on the equipment table, they should be able to cut through the uniform. Please make a vertical cut down from the neck of the uniform to expose the chest." The doors slid open to admit the rest of the scientists, mere seconds after they'd left the conference room. The robot would be slower, and was likely to wait for the elevator, so for now Miss A was bodiless. "Eira, please go to the helipad and greet the director and his team when they arrive. Scarab, would you go with her and help to secure the tech they're bringing in?"
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"They're fine," Paige promised, sotto voce. "We're all healthy, and the kids are doing great. I've had to threaten to gag Richard to keep him from bugging Will about settling down, if you can believe that," she continued in a more normal voice. "Considering what we were doing at his age, he's certainly one to talk!" Paige laughed and poured tortilla chips into a bowl to set next to the soup. "Holly!" she called, "come and set the table please!" "I can't, I'm watching Brybry!" Holly called back. "I think your father can manage just fine," Paige countered. "Come on, your brother should be here soon." She could hear Holly's groan from half the house away, but eventually the cupboard opened and dishes began floating out, with the teenager herself making an appearance moments later. "What's this about Mom?" she asked insistently. "Come on, you know you can just beam it into Will's head while you tell us." "Just be patient a few more minutes," Paige encouraged. "We want to talk to everybody at once. Bowls and plates, please, your grandmother brought us a casserole." "She brought what?" Holly blurted out, then checked herself. "I mean, awesome, Grandma!"
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"Thanks for making it tonight, Anna," Paige said, shooting a curious glance towards the oven. "I know we didn't give you much notice. And thanks for the, um, casserole?" Paige had not had any idea that Anna even knew how to cook. There was a crockpot full of tortilla soup keeping warm on the counter, but potato casserole wouldn't conflict, exactly. "You're looking very well. How are you enjoying the new place?"
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"Wow!" Danica exclaimed, obviously impressed. "I mean, I've gotten teleported a few times, mostly when kids got too rowdy on Nicholson field trips and we had to go home quick. Oh, and my friends and I got kidnapped to space a couple months ago but it was only to orbit and there were no princesses at all. I kind of thought that once I got out of super school it wouldn't happen so much." She pulled one arm back into her shell and came out with a phone. "A first aid kit is a good idea! My mom made sure I always have a week's worth of food and water in my shell, extra warm clothes, a change of sheets and blankets for the bed, lots of batteries, stuff like that. But I only have like, maybe a box of bandaids because I never get hurt." Danica swiped open her phone and opened up a notes app. "What should I put in a first aid kit?"