Captain Compass
Capt. Dane Casey
Cmdr. Edward Castillo
Capt. Jack McNeal
Principal David Hogan
Warden Cliff Stover
Johnny Quest
Slinger
Outlaw
Vanish/Gepetto
Bushkill
Onyx
Deathcry
Prowler
Erebus
#140
"Mind Crime"
Date: 10/19/02 Game Date: 10/4/02
It’s
early October in the perpetually rainy city of Seattle.
Things have been fairly calm since the big storm about a month and a half
ago, and cleanup is all but complete (see Forte 2000: “The Storm”). The waterfront managed to get back to normal just
in time for the crippling dockworkers strike, however, that’s stopped all incoming
shipments, affecting maritime commerce from Seattle all the way down to San Diego. Shipments of all kinds are stuck on cargo ships
anchored out in the Sound, waiting for the strike to end before they can be allowed to
reach the docks.
With all these ships and all that
tempting cargo just hanging out out there, Seattle’s own Captain Compass has
been cruising around there a lot, making sure no would-be pirates get any funny ideas. Unfortunately for him, so is a new hero of the
waterways—a young man with a speedboat trying to follow in the Captain’s
footsteps who calls himself Coast Guardian. The
Captain tries his best to ignore him.
The night of the big storm left more
than property damage. Forte’s Seahawk
has taken a leave of absence from the team while he spends time in Boston, where his son Gabriel
is seeing a specialist to help him recover from his near fatal injuries. Seahawk is also using the time to do a little
emotional recovery of his own. He’s
staying there with his ex-wife, Stephanie (separate rooms), and though she wishes
she didn’t feel this way, this fact is taking some emotional toll on Seahawk’s
Forte teammate, Nightsable. Her and
Seahawk’s unexpected relationship had just been starting to move to another level
when the incident with Stingray turned Seahawk’s world upside down. Now, with him semi-back with his family,
she’s not quite sure where she stands with him, or how she’s supposed to feel.
Nightsable, Tinker, and Dyna
Girl—the daughter of the earlier Forte’s Electro Man, recently back
in town after a year and half with L.A.’s Armor Security—are at the Forte
base (the new one), saying good-bye to Rainier, Max and Johnny Quest. The three men are off on an adventure to
Guatemala. Rainier—or archeologist Davis
Alexander, when he’s not all rocky—got a call from a glyph expert friend of
his down there. A hurricane uncovered a
limestone staircase when a large tree was uprooted near the ruins of the ancient Mayan
city of Dos Pilas. The glyphs carved on the
steps shed exciting new light on the city, its war with the rival city of Tikal, and the
fall of the Mayan empire. From first study,
it appears that there may have been some sort of war between two great super-powers within
the empire, opening all kinds of historical possibilities.
This is all intriguing and exciting enough (to Davis), but the discovery of
some kind of temple chamber buried beneath it, yet to be opened, is definitely enough to
get him down there. Pulling some strings got
him on the excavation team, and he invited Max along to 1) get some course credit, and 2)
experience what real field archeology is like.
Johnny, meanwhile, just needs a
vacation. Things have been really busy at Questar
(and the tech spinoff, Questech), and a trip into the jungle sounds like just what
he needs. Johnny has invited to fly Max and
Rainier down there in one of his jets, and is a welcome addition since, him having spent a
lot of his childhood running around down there, it’s almost like having a local
guide.
After
boring the ladies with talk of Mayan history, Rainier asks if they’re going to be
okay with him and Max leaving…after all, with Seahawk, gone, too, that does leave
them short-handed. The women all but push him
out the door, insisting they’ll be fine, especially with the addition of Dyna Girl to
the mix. So, packed and geared up, the three
adventurers leave the base.
The girls have their own plans today. Tinker has to be in New Mexico today
to speak at a parole hearing at the Pocantico Point SISRS facility
(the nearest super-villain prison to Seattle).
A year ago, Tinker and Forte stopped an art theft that went wrong.
A group of minor villain thieves led by a man called Dice
had enlisted the aid of a young New Jersey teleporter named Vanish.
Vanish—real name Angelo Darabont—wasn’t such
a bad kid, but had a bad upbringing around the wrong people.
The draw of fast cash lured him in with this crew.
Forte broke in on the theft, and in the fight that followed, Dice
killed a civilian and took others hostage.
Having a change of heart after things got violent, Vanish switched
sides and aided Forte in bringing Dice and the others down.
He was tried and found guilty, but with all the circumstances taken
into account, he got a light sentence for his involvement. Two years, up for parole in one.
Well, it’s been one, and
he’s up. Tinker has been called in to
speak, a request run through the SISRS system by the law firm that represented Vanish. This also turned out to be a good opportunity to
finish the final paperwork for getting Dyna Girl certified for access at the Point. So they’re going to drop by UNCLE for
some final security details, and then be off for New Mexico.
Nightsable, however, asks if they
mind if she bows out. She’s still
feeling kind of down, and thinks she might head home to her own (alternate) Earth, maybe
visit her sisters and her Mom today. So after
she’s gone, Dyna Girl makes some last-minute leaving-town phone calls while Tinker
does the pre-flight on the Mariner, Forte’s submersible jet. She calls Dr. Jackal and lets him know
they’re leaving, so to keep an eye on things, and please drop in and feed Lucy’s
(Tinker’s) dog if they’re not back in time, and that Samantha (Nightsable) is
going to her own Earth, so not to be surprised if his (sort of) daughter isn’t home. She also calls Captain Compass on the radio and
fills him in on the absence. And she also
leaves a voice mail for Electro Man (Dad). With
that, they’re off to UNCLE.
They land on UNCLE’s roof and
head in, and are greeted by the familiar face of Captain Dane Casey, their hero
liaison. He takes Dyna Girl off for her
retinal scans. While they’re handling
the scan, he awkwardly asks her about her friend Stacy McKone, the intern/assistant
that works with Electro Man at the Forte Museum. Picking
up on what he’s getting at, Dyna Girl suggests Dane ask her out, and goes on about
how they have a lot in common, and offers to make a call for him.
Meanwhile, Tinker is approached by
the head of UNCLE Seattle, Commander Edward Castillo. He tells her there’s someone he wants to her
meet. He walks her over to where a graying,
military-looking man is suited up in full UNCLE combat gear, talking to a group of
macho-looking agents. He’s introduced as
Captain Jack McNeal, head of UNCLE Seattle’s new STRIKE team, a
fast-response SWAT/Special Forces team that goes in on the big jobs. As Forte will likely be working with him and his
team, he wanted them to meet.
Dyna and Tinker are getting ready to take off when Dane stops them
and asks a favor. It seems Angelo’s lawyer, James Avalon (also, unknown
to them, the recently-rumored Seattle hero and night-stalker named Moonspider…who,
no irony lost, is a defense attorney whose firm specializes in super-villains),
is also there, getting some last minute paperwork signed and getting some
copies of UNCLE files before his trip to the Point. He was supposed to catch a ride with an UNCLE transport going
there, but it seems that jet is stuck in Idaho somewhere. Dane asks if they can give James a
lift. Tinker and Dyna are both very agitated,
as they and just about every other hero in Seattle in the past few years
HATE this guy for getting villains light or no sentences, but finally
agree to give the lawyer a ride.
Dyna suggests to Dane, on the way out, that she may not be able
to make that phone call for him after all.
The three take off in the Mariner and have a quiet (and uncomfortable) flight. As they’re getting close, though, they get a
distress call. There’s a breakout
attempt going on at the Point. Guards are
down. And in the radio call, they hear the
name Vanish. They race toward the Point.
Meanwhile, back in Seattle, Paul
Seaborn, former Gotham City bomb squad cop and current science teacher, has arrived
for another day of teaching at Seattle’s Garfield High. He’s still the new guy, but is starting to
become a part of things. Leaving his past
behind, he fulfilled his goal to get as far from Gotham as possible without actually
leaving the country. The tragedy there that
both gave him the super-speed powers of Vortex and cost the life of his team still
stays with him.
Paul’s in the middle of trying to make science interesting to inner-city kids
when his principal, David Hogan, walks in. He
tells him he needs to speak to him outside. Putting
his student aid in charge, Paul steps out, and is told, quietly, that there’s a bomb
threat. And it’s no kid trying to get
school dismissed for the day—this news came directly from UNCLE. The threat came right to them, and they feel
it’s a credible one, made by the terrorist group Mandate that’s been
active around Seattle before (see Forte 2000 #’s 1-3). The threat says if anyone is seen coming into or
leaving the school, the bombs (plural) will be set off.
No demands have yet been made. David
tells him they’re going into lockdown. All
students are to be pulled into their classrooms and locked in, all windows closed. Paul is told to get going with his class.
Paul does so, but has to get out and see if he can find the bombs. He waits until everyone’s locked in, then
tells his students he’ll be back. With
the halls empty, he’s able to zip around the place at super-speed. Quickly enough, he finds bombs in the boiler room. Five of them.
Very high-tech, very dangerous, very able to blow up the school and everyone
in it. He vaguely remembers something about a
group of men delivering a bunch of school supplies that morning. That must be how they got the bombs in.
He runs back to a pay phone and calls 9-1-1, telling the operator he’s in the
school and he needs to talk to UNCLE. After a
little hassle with the incompetent operator, he’s put through to Jack McNeal—who
is actually outside the school now with the STRIKE team.
McNeal asks the situation, Paul tells him.
He looks up Paul’s info while they’re talking, and sees that Paul
is former PD and bomb squad. He also points
out it’s kind of coincidental, Paul being at this school for just a month or so and
suddenly there are bombs there…that he happens to find. Paul tells him he doesn’t have time to waste,
and is going back to check out the bombs. McNeal
has him talk to a less suspicious agent, an Everett Williams, the demolitions
expert on STRIKE (and cousin to former UNCLE Seattle man Gary Williams). They do bomb talk.
Everett tells him to get a good look at the bombs, see if it’s possible
to safely defuse them while UNCLE is waiting for demands.
Meanwhile, the Mariner is soaring
over New Mexico and into Pocantico Point airspace. Air
traffic control immediately clears them to land. Tinker
brings the Mariner down on the landing platform atop the giant butte that houses the
prison, and the platform starts to lower. Tinker
pops the roof hatch and tells James to stay put. Dyna
flies her out, and they lock James in behind them.
Flying down to the main hanger level,
they’re met by an armored escort. The
guards lead them inside, where the prison’s in complete lockdown. They’re taken to a hallway where injured
guards are still being treated, and they find out that two guards were killed. They’re approached by warden Cliff Stover
(who was deputy warden when the last incarnation of Forte last visited here (see Forte
(Volume 1) #’s 275-277)). He tells
them it was Vanish, and that Vanish is gone. He
finds out they have Angelo’s lawyer with them, and he wants him brought in to discuss
this, too. James is led in by guards (after
Tinker remotely unlocks the hatch).
The situation is explained and video
of the event is reviewed. Angelo is seen
being led down the hall toward the room where his hearing will be. Several guards are with him, but don’t
appear too concerned. Angelo, after all, has
been a model prisoner during his year here, genuinely showing a desire to reform, having
good counseling sessions, spending a lot of time with the SISRS chaplain. Plus, he has his inhibitor collar on (used when
outside his cell) that negates his powers. But
suddenly, Angelo ferociously and without warning attacks the guard next to him, gets the
guard’s energy weapon, sets the gun to its fatal setting, and begins shooting it out
with guards. He makes his way through the
hallways, somehow having all the access codes needed, and gets to a point just outside
where the inhibitor collars are active. Then
he teleports away. And he could be anywhere.
Stover is very upset about the death
of his guards, and more so because “it’s been a bad month”. Apparently, they had a break-in attempt about a
month ago. Some very powerful energy wielder
named Terroron tried to break in and free his girlfriend, Sunflare. His powers wreaked havoc with the prison’s
reactor, causing a complete power shutdown for nearly three minutes. Fortunately this took place in the middle of the
night, and many prisoners were asleep. A mass
breakout was avoided when the power came back up and Terroron was taken down (and sent to
a different SISRS prison than his girlfriend, to add insult to injury).
And then, yesterday, there was
another guard death—an apparent suicide. It
seems a female guard named Timbre Rollins was assigned to a prisoner named Gepetto. It appears she turned off the security camera,
went into his cell, shot him, then turned the weapon on herself. Gepetto was rushed to the infirmary, and is still
there now, in I.C.U. after emergency surgery.
Tink, Dyna and James find this a
little suspicious and convenient, considering what just happened, and considering Gepetto
is a powerful mentalist. They ask to see all
his info. He has the power to get into
people’s heads. He can read thoughts,
control them, and, in one documented case, can transfer his own mind completely into their
body.
While they’re going through all
this, a staffer comes and tells the warden, uncomfortably, that the autopsy is back on
Timbre, and that, coupled with forensic evidence found in Gepetto’s cell, indicates
that she and Gepetto had been intimate, probably the night before her death.
The heroes are pretty sure that
Gepetto is behind the breakout of Vanish. Dyna
Girl heads down to infirmary to check things out. She
wants to question him. She’s told by the
doctor there that that’s impossible. He’s
in a coma, one he slipped into earlier. The
heroes match up the time code on the Vanish video with the time Gepetto went into the
coma. Gepetto’s brainwave activity drops
to almost nil the moment before Vanish starts his attack.
So it seems pretty clear…Gepetto
is in Vanish’s mind. But where has he
gone? He could be anywhere. They ask more questions about Gepetto. His cell had dampeners on it to keep his mental
powers from working. He couldn’t have
been controlling Timbre, as the dampeners were on during the time of her death and his
shooting. Perhaps something happened during
the power outage a month ago? She was his
assigned guard that night. Last night, during
the attempted-murder/suicide, they were active, but when he was taken out of his cell, a
collar could not be used…the collars could cause problems during emergency medical
procedures. Instead, he was pumped full of
medications to keep his mind off track so his powers could not be used. Seems clear to the heroes the meds weren’t
enough. He got moved to the infirmary, where
there are no dampeners, and he used his powers to jump into Vanish’s mind as Angelo
and his guards passed a wall of the infirmary.
The heroes need to find out where
Gepetto went. They ask the warden about known
associates, and get a laundry list of freelance villains Gepetto used to work with. Most are still at large and were last seen at
different spots all around the country. They
look into Timbre Rollins’ record. She
came from the regular prison system. Her
record is clean and uneventful. By all
reports, she was a bit of a loner. They find
out that Timbre lived in the small town built by the prison a number of miles away, as
many of the staff do. Many room together, but
she preferred her own place and paid extra rent to get it as such.
Not having any other clear leads,
Tinker and Dyna Girl decide they’ll head over and check out her house. They call the local UNCLE office and advise them
they’re coming, and that they should secure the house as a crime scene, and take
caution in case Gepetto might be there. Lawyer
James Avalon wants to go along, too, but the girls bluntly refuse him, no matter how much
legal jargon he throws at them. They finally
take off, telling him if he wants to see the place, he can get his own ride there.
Back in Seattle, Vortex, still in
civilian gear, is checking out the bombs. He’s
gotten the casings off. The bombs are motion
sensitive, too, so he can’t just run off with them.
While he’s trying to make his
decision, a voice behind him says “I hope you’re not the one who set
these.”
He turns around and finds Nightsable
there. She’s heard through UNCLE what
was going on, and decided to teleport in and see what she could do (didn’t quite make
it off to her own Earth in time). Paul
introduces himself and lets her know about his bomb squad experience. They discuss the possibility of her teleporting
the bombs away, but they way she teleports other things is by opening gates. She’d have to open one for them to fall
through, and that could set them off. Now the
question is which is more dangerous…that, or him trying to defuse them.
After some discussion, it’s
decided that she’ll go room to room and get the kids all teleported out. She knows a cop in Walla Walla, and she contacts
him to find a good spot, getting them all far away so there’s less chance of someone
(Mandate) finding out that they’re no longer in the school. She teleports back to the base first and picks up
an old-school Forte radio watch and gives it to Paul to keep in touch with her in case
there’s any trouble. Then she starts
teleporting kids. When the whole school is
empty, Paul gets to work. He manages to get
all the bombs defused.
He lets UNCLE know this, and wonders
where they want him (and Nightsable) to take them. They’re
cleared to teleport right to UNCLE HQ. They
do, and Dane Casey and some techs meet them, and the techs carefully and quickly get the
bombs into a room to begin dismantling them. Edward
Castillo thanks Paul for his help. They still
haven’t gotten any kind of demands from Mandate.
The theory starts to arise that maybe this bomb situation is some kind of
diversion.
An agent comes up while they’re
talking to let Dane know that there’s a high-speed chase going on on I-5. Local PD and UNCLE are chasing a
super-villain…in a late model Buick Century (?).
Seems someone spotted the fully costumed villain driving down the highway and
called it in, and it turns out that he’s got warrants (you know, as opposed to the
normal, law-abiding super-villains). His name
is Slinger, and he’s part of a group of Texas ex-cons calling themselves
“The Irregulars” that got their hands on some tech (like energy guns) a
while back and decided to become villains.
Paul excuses himself, telling them he
wants to get back to the scene and talk with Williams about the bombs, leaving Nightsable
and UNCLE to deal with the villain situation. In
actuality, he gets into his Vortex costume and plans to deal with the situation himself. Who else is a high-speed chase more perfectly
suited for?
He races down I-5 and quickly finds
the chase. Running along next to the Buick,
he reaches in and tries to snatch the keys out of the ignition. He fails twice, while Slinger—who
doesn’t seem particularly bright—tries to take shots at him and get away in the
vehicle. Vortex does manage to snatch both
Slinger’s guns away and toss them, eliminating that problem. Vortex runs back to a speeding police car and
asks them for a tire iron. Getting one, he
runs back up to the Buick and removes the car’s left front tire as Slinger is trying
to swerve off an off-ramp. The car hits the
road and skids off, sparks flying, to a stop. Nabbed
and gunless, the frustrated Slinger gets out and surrenders.
Not wanting to go back to jail, he
tries to cut a deal. He says he has some info
on a big heist about to happen in Seattle…the one he’s in town for. He wants immunity for the info. Vortex gives him a bunch of police and legal
jargon, explaining to him why he’s not getting anything for it, knocking the wind out
of Slinger’s sails. Vortex finally gets
him to give up the info on the promise of him putting in a good word for the villain. All he gets is the address of a warehouse down by
the waterfront, and time (9:00 p.m.). Slinger
doesn’t know what they’re supposed to be stealing, only that it’s something
big.
At this point, Nightsable teleports
in, and sees that the Vortex guy has already handled things. They meet (again) and Vortex fills her in on the
theft.
Back at the Point, James is still investigating. Using
his laptop, he’s tracing Timbre’s credit card purchases for the last month. They show an unusual amount of activity. She’s been ordering up a lot of high-end
consumer products and shipping them to various post office boxes around the country. While he’s doing this checking, a guard comes
up to the warden and tells him that a prisoner has information about the breakout and
wants to give it up. As this involves his
client, James asks to accompany the warden, saying he might be able to help.
The man is question is Outlaw,
one of the Irregulars, recently captured by Forte (see, again, Forte 2000: “The
Storm”). He’s one of two
members of the team with actual powers…not great ones, just heightened reflexes, but
enough to end him up in SISRS instead of a regular prison.
He and his brother, Slinger, both have them.
He says Gepetto passed him messages, looking for names of any merc villains
still in play that might help on a job if word got out to them. Outlaw turned him on to his brother, and got word
to Slinger. But Gepetto had promised to bust
Outlaw out with him. It didn’t happen,
and Outlaw is ticked off at the double-cross, so he wants to give up Gepetto and
his brother (the two brothers don’t really care for each other much). He provides the address of a warehouse in Seattle,
and a date and time (tonight, 9:00 P.M.)
After this info is given, James
offers his card to Outlaw, along with his services as his attorney, and tells him not to
say anymore. This naturally ticks the warden
off. James is now ready to head back to
Seattle. He first asks his new client if he
needs anything. Outlaw needs smokes. James stops by the commissary and buys a couple of
cartons and has them sent down to Outlaw. James
hitches a ride on an outgoing transport jet.
Meanwhile, Tinker and Dyna girl have
arrived at Timbre Rollins’ home, which is now cordoned off by local police and UNCLE,
per request. They check her place out. Not much to it, not much in the way of furnishings
or personal items…no photos or other keepsakes.
Tinker does get into her computer, though, and they find the same credit
card info that James discovered. The drop
locations are around the nation. They decide
to contact UNCLE offices and provide this info, and advise them to check the mail box
places out and set up stakeouts.
Tinker starts to notice strange
things about the way the computer is set up, and starts hacking through some strangely
present security. Once she does, she finds
out there’s a lot more to Timbre than anyone knew.
E-mail, file and journal entries show
that Timbre is a member of Mandate, one of their deep cover people they have in useful
positions. E-mails, some coded, some less so,
reveal lots of talk about the big day coming (the group hopes to overthrow America), talk
about taking out the lower races, etc. One,
from another Mandater, talks about a big operation happening in Seattle—happening on
today’s date. It talks cryptically about
an item of great power that Mandate will get their hands on and use to further their
cause. No more info than that is found.
Reading her journal for the past
month, though, reveals things about her, and about her relationship with Gepetto. Timbre, while putting on a normal façade for
others, had a secret life with Mandate and a belief in the superiority of the white race,
and of returning America to its former glory. It
also reveals a woman with many fears and emotional problems. When it comes to Gepetto, he’s mentioned,
previous to a month ago, only in terms of disdain, and only briefly…he’s not
given much thought, just discussed as another job of hers.
Then, after the date of the Terroron break-in, she starts to discuss her
unexplained and irresistible love for him. Driven
by compulsions she could not explain, she began having late night romantic encounters with
him in his cell. Her entries suggest her
inability to understand or control these urges caused her great emotional distress.
A clearer picture of what happened starts to come together
when all the pieces are assembled.
Gepetto was in his cell when the power outage happened, and was
able to get into the mind of his guard.
But to his surprise, he found out his guard was secretly with Mandate…and
he found out about the big item they planned to steal, something of immense
power, whatever it was. He knew his time was brief, that the
power in the prison wouldn’t be down for long.
He could try to escape right then, but with the attack on the prison
going on, full lock-down was about to happen, making escape difficult.
A better plan must have come to him…using the guard to help
him, and using the kid Vanish, up for parole, to teleport away.
He quickly planted commands in Timbre’s mind while he still
could, hatching the plan to have her shoot him the day before Vanish’s
hearing, so that he’d be in the infirmary with no dampeners so he
could make the hop into Vanish’s mind and use Timbre’s knowledge
of the prison to get to a place where he could teleport away. Along with this, he also seems to
have planted the commands to send a bunch of expensive electronics to
post office boxes for some reason…and, just to amuse himself in the
month to come, the compulsion for her to come into his cell at night for
some secret encounters.
It seems clear to Tinker and Dyna
Girl that they need to get back to Seattle. Chances
are that’s where’s he’s headed. They
hop in the Mariner and race back.
Vortex and Nightsable spend the afternoon on a rooftop near the waterfront, staking
out the warehouse. There’s some movement
near it, and on the docks, but not much. The
dockworker strike has all but shut down the waterfront.
Ships can be seen anchored all around the Sound, probably filled with crews
that have been stuck there for a long time.
Nightsable gets a radio call from Tinker and Dyna Girl, who are now back at the
base. They trade information on what’s
been going on, and it seems like there’s a good chance this warehouse theft might be
the one Gepetto would be involved in. Dyna
and Tinker give her all kinds of teasing, wondering who the mysterious guy is she’s
huddled on the roof with. They decide
it’s a good idea to find out what’s in the warehouse, so they tell Nightsable
and Vortex to head inside. With a quick
teleport, they do just that.
James Avalon makes it back to the firm and does a little research
on that address. He looks into the deal on the warehouse, and finds many shipments
are slated to be deposited there once the strike ends. He checks the records of his firm,
on whim, to see if anyone’s tried to file legal means to get their
cargo off a ship and onto shore for pickup.
He finds one that stands out—an Egyptian company called the
Anuket Import/Export Group. There’s a certain piece of cargo,
one crate, that they’re fighting to get as soon as possible, and
the company seems perplexed and quite agitated by the strike that’s
holding things up. Interesting. He decides that maybe when 9:00 rolls around, Moonspider might
want to be at the address to see what goes down. With any luck, Gepetto, in James’ client’s body,
will be there.
Nightsable and Vortex ‘port into the warehouse, and find no one in it. There are a number of crates, but the warehouse is
only about half full. Using super-speed,
Vortex decides to open and check every single crate in record time. Nothing suspicious or overly valuable in any of
them, and certainly nothing that looks like anything of “great power”. They decide to check the manifest in the
warehouse. The one thing that seems odd is a
crate—a single crate—set to be delivered there from an Egyptian liner, the Star
of Khufu. Just one crate, not a whole
shipment like the others. Tinker does some
online checking and finds the ship is one of many anchored and waiting since the strike
started. This sounds like a good start. It occurs to Tinker that the crate is supposed to
be in the warehouse, but isn’t because of the strike.
It might be possible that Gepetto doesn’t know this (his information is
a month old, after all…).
Based on this, they decide that a double stakeout is the best plan—one team
checking out the ship, the others in the warehouse. Dyna
puts a call through to Captain Compass and asks him to keep an eye on that ship. She and Tinker get back in the Mariner and
submerge through the base’s underwater exit. Staying
underwater in sub mode, they head over to the waterfront and hold under the ship. Nightsable and Vortex hide out in the warehouse. And during the wait, Moonspider shows up on the
warehouse roof and camps out at a skylight.
Soon, a noise and voice can be heard. Vortex
peeks out and spots Vanish (sort of) and a group of four other villains—the
gem-skinned Onyx, the Australian mercenary Bushkill, the armored Deathcry,
and the feline Prowler. They start
looking around on Gepetto’s orders. Nightsable
calls Dyna Girl and Tinker and tells them it’s on.
Tinker brings the Mariner up to the dock and surfaces, and she pops the top hatch.
Gepetto—in Angelo’s body, wearing a polo shirt, slacks, and a couple of
nasty-looking high-tech gauntlets, is looking through the manifest, yelling at the other
villains. “What do you mean it’s
not here?” Too late for the villains,
they realize they’re in an ambush—Vortex comes speeding up and attacks, and Dyna
Girl busts in the door. The fight is on.
The fight is fast and furious. Dyna
Girl begins with the biggest opponent—Onyx, who quickly grows to twice his normal
size. She lays some devastating blows on him,
but he seems tough enough to take most of them. Vortex
ends up sparring with a very quick Prowler and her deadly-sharp claws. Bushkill starts swinging expertly with his sword,
but Tinker, still outside the door, opens up on him with her Fire Ant Launcher. Covered in ants, he screams and writhes, and is
probably better off when one of Onyx’s punches at Dyna goes horribly wide and nails
the Aussie. And martial flip from Dyna sends
the big gem crashing down on top of Bushkill, too. Nightsable
has teleported in and is battling the sonic Deathcry, whose devastating scream can’t
seem to hit anything but crates (let’s hope they’re all insured).
Gepetto has teleported away from the fight and to the back of the warehouse. Spotting him, Moonspider crashes through the
skylight and starts throwing leaping kicks down on the villain. Gepetto rants about not letting them stop this,
and he fires electrical blasts at Moonspider with the gauntlets he wields.
While Dyna keeps on slugging it out with Onyx, Vortex is landing blows on Prowler,
who’s getting more and more angry. Finally
she gets in a lucky shot, and slashes him across the abdomen with her claws, drawing a lot
of blood. Seeing this, Nightsable jumps into
that fight and tries to get keep Prowler off of him.
This leaves Deathcry open to wreak havoc, but Tinker tosses her Personal Fog
gadget in, which keeps a cloud of blinding fog around the villain’s face.
Wounded but seeing Moonspider alone against Gepetto (whoever Moonspider is…),
Vortex decides to lend a hand. Rushing over,
he joins Moonspider, and the pair take the mind-hopping villain down. Meanwhile, Tinker and Nightsable take out
Deathcry, while Dyna Girl finally puts Onyx under.
Tinker binds up the unconscious villains with zip ties, while Dyna Girl makes a
call to UNCLE to get down there for pickup. Dyna
Girl also puts a call through to Captain Compass to see if anything’s changed on the
ship. He starts to advise no, but suddenly
spots the top of a black mini-sub barely above the surface of the water, right next to the
ship. There’s a rope ladder attached to
the rail. Someone’s going for the actual
crate, it seems, who’s smart enough to know it’s not in the warehouse.
The heroes dash over to the ship—Vortex by running over the water, Tinker,
Dyna Girl and Moonspider in the Mariner. Nightsable
stays behind to guard the villains. Vortex,
in need of medical attention, still wants to help, and he searches the ship at
super-speed. He soon finds some men in one of
the cargo bays below, ones obviously not part of the crew.
Six Mandate agents are down here, along with Erebus, a mysterious villain in
a black costume. They’ve found the crate
they’re looking for, and Erebus seems extremely happy about it (in a dark, mysterious
kind of way, of course). Vortex uses the
radio he’d gotten from Nightsable and lets the others know. Dyna Girl, having already yanked off the rope
ladder, decides to just pick up the whole sub, and she sets it gently down on the overhead
cargo doors above the bay the thieves are in. They
start trying to raise the doors and get the crate out of there, but the doors aren’t
budging.
The heroes all show up, and Vortex explains to the Mandate men that they really
have no chance, so they need to just surrender. Being
fanatics—and being egged on by Erebus, who’s desperately looking for a way to
get out of there with the crate—they decide to start shooting. That decision doesn’t last long. Vortex races by and grabs all their guns away from
them, and they’re not much use after that.
Erebus, however, proves to me more formidable.
He’s a magic user and throws a number of spells at the heroes, including one
that (briefly) binds Dyna Girl. But things go
south for him when, while he’s momentarily knocked down, Tinker slaps her leg clamps
on him, making him a much easier target, and the heroes combine to pound him into la-la
land.
They decide to look in the crate and see what all the fuss is about. They find, in it, an Egyptian sarcophagus with
intricate carvings and markings on it. This
seems to be what everyone was looking for all right.
And since it’s supposed to be an item of great power, they decide
it’s best to get it out of there and get it over to UNCLE for safe keeping and
further study.
Nightsable is anxious to get Vortex to a hospital, and does so. Tinker and Dyna Girl introduce themselves,
properly, to Moonspider, thanking him for his help. They’ve
heard of him before, but just haven’t run into him until now. Moonspider secretly finds this amusing, getting
such friendly treatment from the same heroines who so clearly disliked him earlier in the
day. They provide him with a modified Forte
watch to contact them in the future if the need arises.
As UNCLE vans show up, Vanish wakes up…and it appears to really be Vanish. He doesn’t remember anything, just being led
to his parole hearing. Tinker explains to him
what’s been happening, and though he’s concerned that he’s blown his chance
at parole, she assures him that based on all the evidence and their testimony, he should
be just fine. Gepetto, however, likely now
back in his own body, will have a lot of new crimes to answer for when he recovers from
his injuries, and likely won’t ever be leaving the Point again.
Back at UNCLE, Dyna Girl and Tinker borrow a digital camera and take some shots of the mysterious sarcophagus (posing humorously with it in a few shots), and they e-mail them to Rainier’s QuestPad for review, since this is right up his alley. With almost no delay, Rainier gets back to them on the radio, sounding frantic, telling them to send Nightsable to pick him up right now!!
