ic (OMTB) The Young These Days Are Glued to TV Screens

[Electra]

"We're not saying that everybody on that screen is a robot, that's be crazy!" Devin assured him. "Honestly, I don't think there's maybe more than a dozen, tops. But fourteen duplicates rained down hell on us during the first Day of Wrath, and these will have had a decade to get their claws in, instead of just a month or two. Imagine what would've happened if the infiltrators had been trying to cause destruction instead of a lot of noise and mess. Sixty people died just as collateral damage, but it could've been so much worse. It could still be so much worse."

 

"We think there's going to be a pattern," Kinsley picked up smoothly. Rising from her chair, she put a posterboard up on the easel. A timeline again, but this one starting at the end of the infiltration and moving forward. "Given the behavior of the first set of infiltrators, we believe that the secret robots would have gone to ground either just before or just after the Day of Wrath, within the previous year or six months after. A fifteen month gap between Stratos and Quickstep doesn't make any sense unless you put something in there, right?"

 

"So heroes who had some significant change in activity, or a new codename, moved to a new city, fell off the radar, any of that stuff could be a clue. Especially if you've got heroes who were social before and suddenly they ditch their team, or stop returning voicemails, stuff like that," Devin told Richard, advancing the Powerpoint again to "Suspicious Factors"

 

"Our problem is that we're not privy to any of that," Kinsley admitted. "We can see general patterns, who's in the news, who is responding to calls or patrolling their usual beats. But superheroes are notoriously closedmouthed about their social behaviors and home lives. How are we supposed to know if some hero broke up with their significant other and ditched their team, then just disappeared one day?"

 

"The only way to figure this stuff out is if an actual superhero does the searching," Devin agreed. "It's a matter of trust."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I think I can arrange for something like that," said Richard, thumb in his waistband as he considered this situation. "I mean, just to check it out," he added, making a little circling gesture with the other hand. "For the show." He wasn't going to get sucked into whatever conspiracy theory the kids were pushing, even if they had been carefully vetted to make sure they weren't pushing any nonsense about secret Illuminati masters or lizard people or any of the usual malarkey. I'll look at the demon invasion thing, he thought with a nod. See if they're actually onto one thing, that'll make it more likely they're onto another thing. "Why do you think nobody's looked any closer, even after all the crises since?" 

[Electra]

"Because of all the crises since," Devin replied, shrugging. "Weird things happen here all the time, and superheroes are always coming and going. Within a couple months of the infiltration there were Grue down in Missouri, more T-baby protests in Freedom City, the secret war against the Terminus, and all the other stuff that heroes deal with. People look to the next big thing and don't expect the past to come up and bite them right on the-"

 

"It's not just a matter of priorities," Kinsley cut in. "It's also a matter of pull. Various governmental organizations and private companies were very interested in getting access to some of the curator technology that was abandoned after the last battle. Check out Katastrof and Sorenson Industries, they're this mega-sketchy Swedish conglomerate that used some really shady connections to get a whole load of drones. No research ever came out about them, no papers, nobody ever talked about them again, but reliable sources say that a year after the whole thing, K&S lost an entire underground research facility to some kind of "wave of liquid metal." But nobody will say anything about it, or what happened to those other dead drones. If somebody does know something, they're not talking."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Yeah. Yeah, I know about the past." Richard looked down at his left hand and squeezed it tight, the scar of an Omegadrone's pike across the back flaring white for a barely perceptible second. "But...anyway," he added, falling back into 'character' with the long practice of someone who'd seen difficult topics come and go on the show. "They shut us down pretty hard when we tried to go looking for alien tech a couple of years ago, but I bet more doors are open now. We'll take a look. You know, I think I actually met somebody connected to that Swedish thing," he said, snapping his fingers as he remembered Miss Americana's sullen intern. Hey I'm not as smart as Paige but when introductions take so damn long, you have plenty of time to learn everybody's name. And Miss Americana was married to a cyborg, and a technopath herself, and had mentioned not doing any deep inspections of her husband upon his return either. 

 

"I'll see what I can do. You know," he admitted, "you guys are making some pretty good points. Maybe we should have had you on the show before this!" he added, only half-kidding in his apology. 

[Electra]

Both guests looked pleased at Richard's evaluation. "Well," Kinsley told him, "if you find yourself looking for a new project after SuperCrime! wraps..."

 

"Which you definitely should," Devin added, "because a whole lot of people will be really disappointed if you guys stop making television!"

 

..."There are a lot of so-called 'conspiracy theories' out there that people aren't paying attention to!" Kinsley continued smoothly. "You could put a lot of knowledge into the world and stop some very shady things all at once!"

 

"We'd be happy to consult!" Devin assured him, "even be cohosts! Lesser-billed cohosts, of course!"

 

"We wouldn't even ask you to do stories that might jeopardize planetary safety like the secret war against the Terminus," Kinsley went on, "we understand some things need to be secret."

 

"Yeah, we're not crazy," Devin agreed. "But people deserve to know the truth."