ic Lights, Camera, Action! (IC)

[Heritage]

Despite herself, Casey did shiver a bit when Aquaria revealed her teeth, but she did her best to kerp her reaction off her face. "Okay, well, I'll try to bring a variety of things, and you can can eat whatever you want." She paused as she chose her next words carefully. "Do you prefer your meat raw or cooked? I'd be happy to bring either, or both."

 

When the Deep One spoke of 'high places', the blonde heroine looked thoughtful. "Do you mean like on top of high buildings, or something else? I love sitting high up; the cold doesn't bother me and I love the view."

[Sophistemon]

Colonel Chalmers nods while Adept makes his exit and then clears his throat before turning to address Doctor Deoxy. "Our labs are a few floors down, in sub-level Gamma. I'll send word ahead; they'll have cleared some space for you in the labs to work your magic by the time you arrive." The Colonel extends a rough, thick-fingered hand for Deoxy to shake. "As weird as the circumstances are, it's a pleasure to work with you, Doctor. You come very highly recommended -- the Boys in the Back Room are big, big fans of yours. With your brain, Warne's intuition, Miracle Girl's brawn and Sea Devil's two-foot tongue on our side, I have no doubt that we'll get to the bottom of this in time." He grins, revealing a mouth full of teeth like tombstones -- flat, gray dentistry, some of which are crooked and moderately spooky to behold. He waves the scientist to the door and points him down the hallway. "There's an elevator just down there on the left. The password is, ah..." He reaches into his pocket, retrieves a notebook, and flips through it. "6... 9... 2... 5. That should unlock the doors and let you downstairs." With that done, he turns toward the two girls. "All right then, so here we are. The adults are off on their prep-work. I was only half paying attention, but I think that I picked up on you two wanting to watch some movies. We have a screening room in doors, if you're interested in using that instead of the roof. I'm sure that we can dig up those movies, too; this is AEGIS, and we're nothing if not well-funded. Some of that money went towards requisitioning films for our agents to watch during their little bits of downtime and their overnight stays at the agency. Sound about right to you? Heck, you can even ring down to the cafeteria for snacks for all I care."

 

@Blarghy

Spoiler

Samuel Steiner, known to some as Presto the Preposterous, picked up the phone on the third ring. The fact that the number three is considered by many cultures to be sacred had very little to do with it, but is interesting nonetheless. "Warne?" he asked, speaking into the receiver after recognizing the number. "Uh, hey, I hadn't expected to hear from you so soon after..." He was cut off by the Agent's clipped speech. All business, that Warne. No time for pleasantries. The Agent explained the situation in short, bleak sentences and Simon pondered a moment before responding. "You want me to try to identify a guy that wears black armor and a red cape? That could be... what, any number of villains old or new on any given day. Heck, back when I wore a cape it could have been me from a distance." He paused. "It's not me though. Still on the straight and narrow, I promise. Anyway, I haven't heard of anyone new in town. Not magically-inclined, that is." He thought a moment longer. "As for these kidnapped fictions... have you ever heard of something called the noosphere? It's... how can I explain this. Okay. First you've got the geosphere, right? That's all of the inanimate matter on Earth -- rocks, dirt, water. Then you have the biosphere. That's all of the animate matter on Earth -- the organic stuff. Plants, animals, people. Then you have the noosphere. That's the realm of human thought. It's not the Dreamtime -- that's similar, but different. That's more fluid." He coughs, clearing his throat. "Anyway. Long answer to a short question. Yes. If this person has found a way to access the noosphere, magically or otherwise, he might be able to interact with the unified consensus of the characters that appear in the films that have been made about them. Then thing is, we all exist in the noosphere in one way or another, as the amalgam of how everyone who knows of us imagines us. My noospheric replica would likely still be a criminal... you know, because that's how people see me. Yours might be a chain-smoking grumbler with no life and poor manners for the same reason. Think of the things that exist in the noosphere as being the distilled essence of mankind's perception. What's important to remember is that the things in the noosphere are as real as thoughtforms can be. They'll be real enough to themselves, anyway. I'm not sure what would happen if one disappears from the noosphere for two long, or... well, dies. That might be really bad."

 

Edited August 23, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Avenger Assembled]

Down in the screening room, Aquaria trusted Miracle Girl's ability to handle the Surfacer technology. So Sea Devil hopped around and turned off the lights, leaving her helmet open only when things were suitably dim. "These meats are okay," she croaked to Miracle Girl. They'd been brought a plate of sandwich meats, sans sandwich, by the base cafeteria and she was digging into them with her long-limbed, three-fingered hands like a moviegoer with popcorn. "Meat is better when it comes with bones." She sat next to Miracle Girl and smiled with her gigantic mouth, her gold and black eyes gleaming in the dark. "What should we see first?" 

[Exaccus]

Doctor Deoxy nods in acknowledgement of the colonel as he takes his hand firmly for a shake before leaving at his top speed, spiraling down the stairs, whilst admiring the workmanship of the AEGIS base with his tachyon enhanced synapses firing at speeds , knowing that most of the things here were actually grey helped put him at ease, for whilst he was still very capable, colour was a form of information lost to him, he'd spent long nights indeed attempting to convert the spectrum into another form to gain some understanding of what others claimed to see.

 

Rapidly typing in the pass-code he'd been given in the security panel of what he suspected to be a dark blue door he wastes no time in getting started on his project, a modified form of his capture cells that would generate a faint psychic resonance he could track with his own mental abilities.

 

quickly generating some of the apparently clear amber cellular goop in the palm of his gauntlet, zipping around the facility in his search for a slide to use to begin his work.

[Heritage]

"Oh, I agree with you on the bones thing," said Casey as she began to expertly navigate her Netflix menu, which provided a quick glimpse at Casey's tastes; the occasional rom-com was recommended, but mostly films about journalism (Good Night and Good Luck, All the President's Men) or people struggling against the odds in the outdoors (Everest, The Finest Hours). "Give me some Texas-style barbecue ribs or Southern fried chicken any day." She casually grabbed a handful of smoked turkey and popped it in her mouth as she saw which films were currently available.

 

"Okay," she said as she sucked her fingers. "We should at least watch one of each series, so we get an idea of the main character and, you know, the kind of world they live in." She shrugged. "So I guess the first of each one? They're not always the best, like Xenos is better than Xeno, to me at least, but the first one always sets the rules, right?"

 

She finally decided to pick the first Rhekgar movie; she hadn't seen any of them before, and she was actually a little nervous about how Aquaria might view the Xeno movies with their sometimes simplistic 'humans vs non-humans' plotlines.

[Blarghy]

Agent Warne frowned around his cigarette, yet chuckled soundlessly at the same time.  He preferred Presto sending a bit of cruelty his way than when the magician got all weepy about friendship and trust.  Concerning the matter at hand, he supposed this all made sense, much as something called the noosphere could, anyway.

 

"Bad for who?" he asked.  "If someone shot my dream-representative, I can see why that might affect me, but these characters aren't modeled on anyone real.  Do you mean to say that they could cause some kind of instability in the whole system?  Like pulling a block from a stack and causing the whole thing to crumble?"

 

Suffice to say, he'd found his motivation to stop this criminal. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Aquaria assumed an odd posture to watch the films, squatting down low and letting her long legs bend past her oval midsection, resting her arms in front of her body. It didn't look like a position any human could hold for long, but she looked comfortable enough in it. Her armor didn't seem to impede her movements any, moving naturally with her body as easily as a human's clothing might. She watched silently, her eyes so big that Miracle Girl could see reflections of the screen in them. Suddenly, in a scene of early passion and confrontation, Aquaria gave a croaking laugh. "That is not right!" she declared, pointing at the screen. "Surfacer females do not need to be defeated in battle to mate! Even I know that!" She subsided, folding her arms before her again. 

[Heritage]

"Well, it's not...these kinds of movies aren't very realistic. The fight scenes are way over the top, too." Though it did occur to Casey that she might be able to do some of the crazier stuff now.

 

This made her consider something else; if the team ended up fighting any characters from these movies, it wouldn't be very different than fighting someone with superpowers. But instead of being powered by some sort of mutation or magic or stuff like that, they'd be powered by the laws of action and drama. It was like that scene from Roger Rabbit where Roger could only escape from the handcuffs when it was funny; characters had to follow the rules appropriate to their genre. 

 

This is going to be...interesting.

Edited August 29, 2016 by Heritage

[Sophistemon]

@Exaccus

The labs sequestered beneath the AEGIS base are extensive and well-stocked with all manner of scientific equipment, although due to bureaucratic pressure from higher up the chain of command some of it might be a bit more outdated than he'd like. For his more esoteric needs the good Doctor Deoxy might have to make due with jury-rigged devices hastily assembled from parts already available. As he works, Deoxy might notice a small cadre of AEGIS science-personnel peering over their own workstations at him, inspecting his actions and whispering among themselves as he tinkers. Eventually, one of them approaches him. The woman is short, squat, and has a respectable amount of motor-oil staining her clothes for someone who isn't currently laying beneath of a car. She raises a hand and greets him. "Hello," she says. "I'm doctor Marley. The others and I were wondering what you're working on?"

 

@Avenger Assembled & @Heritage

The AEGIS agent in charge of handling the projection booth puts the film into the player and then sets aside Xeno for later, after they've finished. Frankly, he prefers the first movie in the series to the second. It had a more psychological edge to the horror and was less of an action film over all. Not that Xenos was a bad movie, far from it -- and they were both enormously better than the two films that followed -- it was just that when he went for a horror movie, he wanted it to be scary. At one point, towards the middle of the film, a flash of color streaks across the screen too quickly to be identified. There and gone again, it might almost go unnoticed by the viewers if not for the stutter of static that accompanies it on screen. The agent thumps the player in annoyance and grumbles something about old equipment and too many tax dollars being pigeonholed for enormous suits of tank-like power armor.

 

@Blarghy

Spoiler

There was a moment of disconcerting silence before Samuel spoke again, and when he did it was with grave tones. "Warne," he began. "Just how real do you think we are?" There was another pause before he spoke again. "Let me put it this way, okay? You're as real in this reality as they are in theirs -- well, I mean, as the people represented by their noospheric counterparts are, anyway. It's complicated. In any case, I don't know that the entire thing would fall apart, because the multiverse is a sort of self-correcting system, but it'd certainly be a shame if someone were to get hurt, or even killed. Just go and do your hero thing, and call me again if you need any help." There was another pause, this one pregnant with consideration. "Actually, does this conversation mean that I can send AEGIS a bill for consultation? Because I'm moving out of my apartment and I could really use some new furniture."

 

Edited September 2, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Avenger Assembled]

"Is that supposed to be there?" croaked Aquaria, pointing with one long outstretched finger at the flicker of movement. She wasn't at all sure. While she could follow the action on the screen, the film had been made for the small, limited eyes of Surfacers, casting a strange, cramped pall over the action more so even than similar films she'd seen. This certainly was a strange movie - did Surfacers know so little of the peoples and places in the great sea of stars in which their world floated? She peered at the screen, folding her limbs up under her massive jaw. She found herself wanting to see more of the Xenos. Did a female in the forgotten nest weep that her egg had opened and closed and its occupant taken from the tribe? Did they exult that their seed would be carried among the stars? 

[Blarghy]

Warne had to admit, that gave him a moment of thoughtful pause.  If the kidnapped victims were essentially people, in their own way, then he was duty-bound to save them.  He assumed they didn't have their own AEGIS in the noosphere.  Or maybe they did and he could somehow call on reinforcements to attack the villain on ground where he now felt safe.  Adept filed that idea away for future consideration.

 

"Yeah, yeah," the agent agreed.  "I'll authorize compensation.  But if you're on the clock now, then keep your phone handy.  This case looks like a weird one, so I may call you again.  So send us the bill...and be sure to note your new address."

 

AEGIS liked to keep tabs on its consultants--and its former enemies.

[Exaccus]

Deoxy Takes a break from his wizzing around the room to regard the young lady "Pleasure to make your acquaintance Doctor Marley." he says as he holds up the slide "I'm working on altering this Genetically modified Bacterial culture i use to encapsulate criminals to induce a slight beta-brainwave ping that i can track it by, I intend to use it as a method to trace the armoured villain where-ever he may run too." he explains as he gestures to the amber blob on the slide "Hopefully with a little more radiation the mutation should take and carry on through Mitosis to the daughter cells." he gestures to the projector ports on his palms "Don't worry, All very safe, contained and directed...electromagnetic coherency barriers." he explains;

....

taking a moment to tap at his work in process "or at least thats the theory; may have to go with a isotope trace." he mumbles to himself as much as to Dr Marley.

 

"I take it you're a robotics engineer?" he says, sparing a brief glance to the oil stains.

[Heritage]

"No, that doesn't look right," said Casey as she shook her head. She looked over her shoulder and called out to the agent in the booth. "Excuse me, sir? Can you rewind the movie back about five minutes and then replay that section? I just need to check something."

 

Once the section was rewound and replayed, Casey shifted herself into overdrive, which made her slightest movements blur, but for once she was more concerned about how fast her brain was processing information as opposed to how fast her body moved. Twenty-four frames per second was nothing if you could redecorate your whole room in the blink of an eye, so with the persistence of vision destroyed, all Casey saw was a series of slides projected on the screen. She took a step closer, which to Aquaria appeared to be a sudden lurch towards the screen as she leaned forward, waiting for unusual 'flicker' to show itself.

[Sophistemon]

@Exaccus

Doctor Marley carefully examined Deoxy's work, cooing now and again over something particularly interesting. What he was working on wasn't really in her field, but life at AEGIS had prepared her to understand quite a wide variety of various scientific jargon. It could be said, actually, that she spoke fluent technobabble. When he'd finished his explanation and asked his question, the woman shook her head. "Hah! No, but I wish! I'm a mechanical engineer; I work on the X-O9. That's the big, silver tank-like exosuit that you might have seen flying around." She chuckled. "I swear, not a day goes by when I'm not pounding dents out of that thing. 'Indestructible plating' my right cheek! If I could get my hands on one of those space-metals, now that would be something. But then the budget would go even higher and the taxes in this city are already poking holes in the roof." She shrugged. "Anyway, I was just curious about what you were working on. I'm sorry to bother. If you need anything, we're right over there. We've got some down-time, so just let us know if we can lend a hand."

 

@Avenger Assembled & @Heritage

The projectionist nodded, though as he was inside the booth the odds were that neither of the women saw him do it. "You saw that, too, huh?" he called out. "There might be something wrong with the disc. Or maybe it's an Easter egg they put in when they released it on Blu-Ray? Either way, I'm a pretty big fan of this movie and I don't think that I've seen that before. One sec, I'll take us back." The film rewound, soundlessly reversing itself until they had retreated five or so minutes. The projectionist hit Play, but slowed the film so that it progressed at only half speed when they approached the point of origin for the flicker. When it appeared again, he hit Pause. There, frozen on the screen in front of them, appearing for only three frames while the camera panned from left to right, was a clown. His white, plaintive face was smudged with dirt, his curly red hair was mussed, and his garish clothing was stained and tattered. He held a sign in his hands with twelve letters written on it in large block letters with what appeared to have been his black-stained fingers. SAD CLN, it said. PLZ HLP.

 

@Blarghy

Spoiler

Sam breathed out a sigh of relief. "Oh, wow, thanks. I'll keep the phone charged and nearby in case you need me. And, speaking of the new address, you should stop by. I was thinking of throwing a party -- nothing big, really, and it might be cool to have you there. I've got a sort of patio outside, so you could even step out to smoke if you wanted." There was a pause. "Anyway, just a thought. I'll keep my phone on. Let me know if you need anything."

 

Edited September 12, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Blarghy]

"...Ahh...hm.  Yes, well.  Just send us the bill, Steiner." 

 

Warne left it at that, hanging up and sliding his phone back in his pocket.  He uncharacteristically fidgeted; this latest offer of friendship, an appeal to the better nature that most people thought he didn't actually have, made him oddly uncomfortable.  Warne didn't like or trust ex-cons, without exceptions, but Steiner's persistent puppy-dog optimism made him feel like more of a jerk than usual. 

 

Besides, I don't really do parties.  ...Although I could use the opportunity to take stock of his associates.  See the interior of his home legally and without the trouble of getting a warrant.  Hm.  Hmmm.

 

The agent shrugged it off for now and focused on the matter at hand.  Now that he'd followed his primary lead, he could cast his net wider.  This armored concept-villain hadn't made the news yet, but the criminal underworld was surprisingly perceptive.  Somebody probably knew something, and after Warne bullied enough people, then he could know it too. 

 

He swaggered down the street with a wicked smile on his lips.

[Avenger Assembled]

When Miracle Girl turned around, Sea Devil was on the ceiling! Clinging with bare hands and feet (she appeared to be triple-digited on both, with pads on the ends of her digits), she looked for a moment like a startled frog in power armor - in the instant before she landed smoothly back on bipedal legs in the ground below. 

 

Aquaria ran her three-fingered hands over the top of her head, nervously patting her crest back down from where it had leaped up in surprise at the sight of the strange figure inside the film. "Why is that?" she croaked, pointing to the clown and its words. "What did it say?" Surfacer languages in their written form were sometimes a difficulty. While she got a translation, she hopped backwards, as if nervous the clown might simply step out of the screen at her. She folded her arms over her chest. "That is strange. This does not happen in the movies I have seen. Are the dreams...leaking?" 

[Heritage]

Casey had gone a little pale herself at the sight of the disturbing figure, and took a step back away from the screen. "Not...normally..." She remembered a Halloween many years ago, when her older brother Josh had forced her to watch It on DVD when her parents weren't home, and the horrible nightmares about Pennywise that she'd had for several weeks afterwards. "That's just...creepy as all get out!"

 

But then she thought about that sign, and what it might mean. "Could there be...more than one person who can step inside the movies? One who's somehow trapped inside? Or maybe it's someone from our that was taken hostage and left inside?" There were so many possibilities and additional questions raised! Casey took careful note of where the strange clown appeared and how far it was into the movie, then turned back to call out to the projectionist. "Sir, we're going to have to check them all; could you please put the next one in, but maybe play it in fast-forward? I can scan them faster that way."

Edited September 14, 2016 by Heritage

[Sophistemon]

@Avenger Assembled & @Heritage

The projectionist nodded -- though, again, the two young women couldn't see him do it -- and put in the following film. He set it to play at double-speed, and it wasn't long before Miracle Girl spotted the clown again, standing at the rear of a crowd shot as the camera panned by en route to more important things. He was looking even more disheveled, with his garish shirt torn away to reveal the white -- not Caucasian, white -- skin that lay beneath. It was apparent now that he wore no paint; that was his natural color. Even his sign looked to have seen better days, as it had been torn in half and repaired with ragged strips of tape. SAD CLN, it echoed. PLZ HLP. Interestingly, despite the damage to his clothing and sign, and the dirt that caked his body here in there in rough patches, the clown himself appeared to be uninjured. His expression had also changed to one of wry bemusement; it was a face that said, silently, "What are you waiting for?" The movie played on, characters whirring by at outrageous speeds, and the film ended without another appearance. The projectionist placed in a third film and it was a good long time before he popped up again, towards the end, all but hidden around a corner but a hair's breath away from the monster. Unbeknownst to the slavering beast, the clown had raised a hand up behind its head and was giving the peace sign so that his two raised fingers gave the creature crooked bunny ears. Despite the apparent silliness of his actions, the clown was frowning, the corners of his red lips dragged down in an exaggerated expression of distress. His sign was discarded, but his bright yellow eyes told the two young heroes that he was running out of time.

 

@Blarghy

Agent Warne left the AEGIS base with his mind full to bursting with ideas. He had leads to follow, and a grim vision of justice to sustain him. It was as close to heaven as he might expect to get today, and he relished the thrill of the chase. In addition to a head full of ideas, he also carried with him a slim file full of information -- specifically, the addresses of the electronics stores that had been cleared out by the black-clad villain. Speaking to the proprietors revealed something relatively unsettling. "Yes," they all told him, "We remember the guy in the armor. He came in and bought a ton of old junk." When Adept pressed them for further information, they all searched their memories in a similar way before responding. "He was here just a few days ago. He showed up at about a quarter to three. He gathered up every teevee, radio and antennae we had, and then he paid in cash."

[Avenger Assembled]

Half-expecting to be pulled through as if she was touching the mystic gateway to the gods that Surfacers (in their pallid ignorance) called simply "the yellow sign", Aquaria cautiously poked the screen, her armor closing over her head as she did so in automatic reflex. She still didn't really follow the way Cavalier had described its connection to her autonomic nervous system, but she appreciated the way it obeyed her thoughts and desires when she wanted it. Her helmet went translucent as she spoke, giving Miracle Girl a mostly-clear view of her froggy face, as if glimpsed through red-tinted glass. "Should we...help it?" she croaked to Miracle Girl, not at all sure that such a thing was possible. 

[Blarghy]

As he enjoyed another cigarette on the sidewalk outside the last shop, Warne puzzled over this information.  The target wanted his money left at an electronics store and showed several signs of being inexperienced.  Perhaps they were dealing with a budding super-engineer, some nobody who just recently came into his powers and was now using the kind of scraps he was familiar with, having previously worked at the drop-point.  But why the suit of armor?  No, Warne set this theory aside for now and instead suspected that the villain was more arcane.  How would a TV repairman-turned-kidnapper know about the noosphere at all?  A sorcerer, though, would.  But why the old electronics?  Warne's mind turned to the notion of rituals, where magicians could create their biggest spells by gathering things conceptually linked to their goal.  But what kind of dimension-hopping mage used his powers to extort film studios? 

 

What if the kidnapper himself was originally from this alternative reality, drawn through somehow and exposed to the real (Warne amended the thought to add in heavy quotation marks, recalling what Steiner told him about the noosphere) world?  It would explain his clumsiness, if he was accustomed to straightforward movie logic.  Kidnap someone valuable (by his standards), demand a lot of money (by his standards), and that was that.  He might anticipate gun-slinging action heroes standing in his way, but meticulous investigation and modern police work?  A niche genre at best.

 

Warne wanted to go immediately and check out the drop-point; he suspected the location held some importance to this person, whether it be his original place of employment, or where he broke into this world.  The risks, however, were of course too great.  The kidnapper might just, as the team already discussed, want an environment he could use to his advantage somehow.  The shop might be his lair, and if not, then he might have ways of watching it; if he had power over electronics, then monitoring the shoplifting cameras was a strong possibility.  Warne couldn't chance the whole operation on a hunch.  Besides, he had one last lead he could follow.

 

He dialed Chalmers and, assuming the handler answered, reported what he'd learned so far.  "...But there's one last thing I want to check before I report in, if you can find me an address.  I've heard that this website, FilmFanatix.com--" he spelled it slowly, "--has denounced the films our missing 'persons' came from.  Even started a petition to shut them down, not that those mean much these days, with the internet.  It's a bit of a jump from there to interdimensional ransom, but I still think it's worth looking into.  Think you can point me toward a real person to go talk to?"

 

Bullying people through a computer screen just wasn't Warne's style.

[Heritage]

This was all so weird, but that was to be expected nowadays; nothing in Casey's life had been normal since she got her powers. "I...think so? Maybe. I don't know." 

 

She turned to face her 'partner', shaking her head. "Okay, so the way I see it, there are three possibilities here. One, it's another guise of the kidnapper, and he's trying to trick us. Two, he's an innocent bystander who somehow got sucked into Movieworld and needs our help to get out. Three, he has same the powers as our bad guy and somehow got mixed up in all this, like maybe an accomplice and they had a falling out." The blonde heroine frowned. "Though I guess...I guess there's a fourth option; he could be a character from the Movieworld who sort of 'woke up', and now wants to get out." 

 

Then her eyes went really wide. "Hey, maybe our bad guy is from the Movieworld, too! Maybe he woke and realized he's a made-up character, and swore revenge on the 'real' people who he thinks are oppressing him or something! Like Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" She clutched her head and winced. "Oooooooh, there's so many possibilities! Either way, we need tell Doctor Deoxy and the others what we found." She grabbed a handful of cold cuts and stuffed them in her mouth as she started to run. "Cun ah!"

Edited October 7, 2016 by Heritage

[Sophistemon]

@Avenger Assembled, @Heritage, & @Exaccus

The two heroines leave the viewing room and rush as fast as their legs can carry them -- with Sea Devil in particular making her way through the hallways by literal leaps and bounds -- through the winding corridors of the AEGIS complex. They are followed by the hapless projectionist, who has had the foresight to gather up the relevant tapes and rush after them, pausing only for roughly three seconds to assemble a half-hearted sandwich for himself out of the contents of the abandoned snack tray. The three of them reach the elevator and, using the code provided by Colonel Chalmers, make haste to the lower levels and the labs contained therein. Doctor Deoxy's conversation with Doctor Marley is interrupted when the doors to the room slide open with an annoyed pneumatic hiss. The two heroes and one bespectacled agent of AEGIS bundle into the workstation and home in on him like heat-seeking missiles with something clearly on their minds.

 

@Blarghy

After leaving the final electronics depot, Agent Warne's phone begins to buzz insistently within the confines of his pocket. The device rattles against a ring of keys, two quarters, one stick of gum, and three extra-strength breath mints that he carries to reduce the unfortunate aftermath of his frequent smoke-breaks. When Warne answers, Colonel Chalmer's gruff, bulldog voices starts barking in his ear. "Sorry for the delayed response; we've had some of the eggheads look into it," the bureaucrat explains. "And they're pretty sure that they've located the website's owner -- she lives in the city, which is weirdly coincidental. Not that I'm complaining, of course; it means that you can head over there and find out if she knows anything about what's going on. Her name is Gabby Brown, and she lives in Grenville. I'm emailing you the address now." There's a pause, and then a muffled swear. "Hold on, Warne, I mis-clicked something and CC'd the entire department. One second." A moment later, a small ping indicated that an email had arrived. "There. Modern technology, Warne. I'll never understand it. Remember when we did everything with a pen?"

Edited October 7, 2016 by Sophistemon

[Avenger Assembled]

"Dire portents!" boomed Sea Devil, her voice a deep mechanical bass while inside her armor. "Visions of white fishbelly things, like dead Surfacers that walk - but that beg for our aid against some fouler THING in the shadows of their world. Miracle Girl thinks they may have come to judge our DOOM." She said the last word with a particularly deep croak. By the time Aquaria had finished talking, she was only a few inches from Dr. Deoxy, crouched down so she was beneath his eye level, gigantic hand spread wide as she told her fantastic tale. She didn't know exactly what it was they'd seen - but she knew it was nothing good. 

[Blarghy]

"God, I miss pens," Warne agreed.  He started briskly walking down the sidewalk, eager for this new lead.  Maybe it was nothing, but he agreed with the colonel: Brown being based in Freedom City was a hell of a coincidence.  Best to at least check it out. 

 

"Have any of the others made any progress?  Should I rendezvous with them and proceed together?"

 

He preferred to work alone more often than not, of course, but Warne respected the idea of teamwork, if not always its practical application.  If nothing else, people tended to complain when he left them out of the loop. 

[Heritage]

"Well, that's one way of putting it." 

 

Casey gestured towards the films the projectionist was holding.

 

"There's somebody in all the movies; just for a few frames each time, but he's definitely in there. He looks like a clown in tattered clothes holding up a sign that says 'please help'."

 

She shrugged, clearly at a loss.

 

"I don't know if he's the perp, an innocent bystander or an accomplice who got left behind, but whoever he is, he's still in there, in several different movies. If we end up going into 'Movieland' or whatever it is, we need to make sure we have a way back, and that we don't get stuck."