I got out of bed for this? (Featuring Lisa Quentin)

[Giovanni Blasini]

At first, once the Overlord class stared landing, I thought this might be a California Nebula cross.  Which it easily could be.

But, yeah, Clanners landing on an alternate Earth with superhumans? That should be hilarious. Lisa may be invulnerable, and be like a toned down Invulnerability/Super Strength tanker from City of Heroes, but not every superhero can tank a PPC to the face.

This reminds me, I should go remake my old CoH Invuln/SS Power Pool build.

[Cannonshop]

[out of story]

Setting Notes:

The USA doesn't have the most powerful supers.  not in the world, not even in North America.  This isn't to say the US doesn't have powerful supers (both villains and heroes), but the U.S. doesn't have the most powerful ones.

for North America, the most powerful supers native to the continent are the RCMP's "Special Branch", which have probably the best infrastructure devoted to superhuman abilities and a lot of the most powerful of the empowered in the U.S. emigrate to Canada yearly to take advantage of that infrastructure.

World-wide, the heavyweight champion of superhumans, is Baba Yaga out of Russia, who is known to be ridiculously powerful, batshit crazy, and only really interested in Russia and the slavic peoples west of Russia.

Notably, she is only really interested in the historic borders of the old Russian Empire, and not particularly concerned with expanding the Empire.  which is good for everyone, but some bad feelings did happen since this meant that, aside from turning away probes at the southern end of her reach, and intimidating the crap out of Turkey, she refused to get involved in the troubles in the Middle East.

The U.S. has the second or third best 'organization' model for having superhumans and NOT turning them into super-dictators.

it's illegal to use your powers unless you have a Government Certification in the United States.  I suppose if we emptied the prisons at 'the Coal mine' in West Virginia or Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the U.S. could boast the second largest concentration of supers instead of being Sixth.

Power ratings:

F: functional powers, powers with severe limits.  F grade superhumans are barely above normal human limits in one or two abilities. a prepared normal can beat an F class using mundane technologies.

E: slightly above F, but below D class.  Abilities in this range are clearly superhuman, but not unstoppably so.  An E class might require backup by trained professionals, and will require lethal grade hardware to subdue in most cases.

D: Bring friends. A D-class can handle up to a squad of trained soldiers without breaking a sweat, or a moderately well equipped SWAT team,and requires advanced equipment to restrain and/or incarcerate.

C: Flashy powers, if you can fly, you're automatically going to pull a C-class, even if it's slower than driving.  C-class abilities might include a minor control over certain forces, super-strength up to ten times body weight, or speed up to 40 miles an hour.

B: We're starting to get into celebrity level ability here.  Most B class can Fly or move at super-speeds, most have superhuman strength up to 20 times body mass on a dead-lift, occasionally you see secondary abilities.  Requires a well-armed company of troops to stop and high powered weapons to put down.

A: A-Class superhumans are into your 'headliner' range.  Telekinesis, flight into the hundreds of miles an hour, super-strength sufficient to move up to 100 times the Super's body-weight, gross violations of conventional physics.

AA: this is where wearing a cape looks good on you. 

AAA: Mentally Ill Demigod.

as power increases, sanity takes hits.  it's a typically suggested phenomena in the literature that the more powerful your superhuman abilities are, the less emotionally stable you become,and the more likely  you are to believe in your own delusions.  Megalomania is a typical expresssion, which accounts for the greater number of Supers with a bent toward some form of irresponsible behaviours, whether it's the idea that they, alone, can save the world, or that they, alone, know how to 'fix' the world.  Narcissism is also pretty common, and stable governments have found ways to leverage that in order to keep some kind of control over their superhumans.

point blank, governments prefer their superheroes to be kind of dim, because it's easier to feed their delusions and keep them under control if they're kind of dim.  (hence, whole departments devoted to managing 'fame and celebrity' for powerful superhumans.)

The category that has the greatest threat to domestic order, are those superhumans whose abilities are mental.  particularly 'super geniuses'.  Most of these go deep into megalomania and have to be put down.  (Famous cases like Overlord in Tacoma, who was too dangerous to keep in prison not because he was particularly powerful, but because he was spectacularly clever-and utterly ruthless and without conscience, a 'macguyver' type when he was 'Cleverman' as a hero, Overlord turned his genius to getting people to agree with him-whether they wanted to or not, developing a number of mind and body control technologies and committing a slew of horrific crimes before being brought down...and he was only a B class intellect.)

Lisa Quentin is currently unrated, but classed as 'safed' by the Department of Defense and the Department of Superhuman Affairs, but her psych profile indicates severe PTSD combined with suicidal ideation and chronic depressive personality disorder, and she gets the really good drugs courtesy of the Veteran's Administration.  The stuff that costs five hundred bucks a pill and has a street value that is nearly incalculable... the stuff they give to make psycho mass murderers drool in the corner like lumps.   it's the stuff they use for crowd control at overcrowded sanitariums for the criminally insane.

she eats about 35,000 dollars worth of those a month with only a 500 dollar co-pay.

Just to...give you some perspective.

How long did that take, and what did it do to the rest of the world's weather patterns? 

It took Baba Yaga three days.  There...were casualties.  Baba Yaga is 'not nice'.  (and yes, there are environmental consequences.)

[Ttw1]

TAGed.

[Euphonium]

[out of story]
It took Baba Yaga three days.  There...were casualties.  Baba Yaga is 'not nice'.  (and yes, there are environmental consequences.)

I figured if it took less than 3 months then most of the population in North Korea would die apart from those on the coast who could float/swim out of the country.

I wonder how South Korea feels about the glaciers advancing on Seoul...

[croaker]

I wonder how South Korea feels about the glaciers advancing on Seoul...

They aren't. Baba Yaga asked them nicely not to, and they're terrified of what she'll do if they put one snowflake over the border.

[Rodon]

They aren't. Baba Yaga asked them nicely not to, and they're terrified of what she'll do if they put one snowflake over the border.

Well, it has helped global warming, but the downside is that South Korea is having to make some ice roads in a winter wonder land.  Or perhaps I should say Korea, instead of South Korea, since the North isn't in any position to raise any fuss over it.  China may be ok with it, since its a little hard to do anything across a winter waste land, with just ice roads to drive on.

[Euphonium]

So many consequences for this world, I can barely start...

[idea weenie]

"Perhaps this one was so eager to to fight that she even bid away her clothes!"

Maybe she remembered another fight, where since the villain said they wouldn't use their hands the hero bid away his shirt, like this

Of course the other fun is if the superheros manage to get offworld, or the local technoheroes and technovillains decide to reverse-engineer the various mechs and other technology.

If the Clanners were smart, they'd just turn the planet into a zone for their Scientist Caste to take all the tech improvements created and weaponize them.

[Cannonshop]

Intermission: Paul

Whoever 'baba yaga' was, scared her.  that much was clear to him-an almost worshipful terror at the name.

"Who is this...'Baba Yaga'?" he asked.

"Professor Milena Tsereshkovka of the Ikutsk technical institute and laboratory." one of the local Solahma, the one-handed man, 'Deke' said, "Also known as 'Mother Russia', 'General Winter', 'Little Grandmother', and the scariest...being...on the planet.  thanks to her, the Russkies don't even need nukes anymore except for their power grid, and their government's terrified if they try to fake an election.  Everyone else is afraid she might get bored with dominating most of Eastern Europe and Asia and start making a fuss, because we don't have a viable counter."

"If she is the strongest, why does she not already rule?" Paul asked.

"Because she doesn't want to."  He sighed, "You really don't know, do you?"

"I..really do not." Paul said.

"How did Lisa catch you?" Deke asked.

"She defeated two 'mechs and a point of elementals."

"With what?"

"Her fists." Paul acknowledged, "I have never even heard of such power."

"Lisa is very fragile, Mister..what the ungodly ****** is your last name anyway?"

"I have not yet earned a bloodname, sir."

"hoo, someone brainwashed the ****** out of you."  the old man shook his head.  "want a beer, kid?"

"What do you mean...'fragile'?" Paul asked.

"You're interested?" Deke asked, using a primitive mechanical claw to work the tap while filling a pitcher with something golden and frothy.

"Aff. she fascinates me." Paul confessed, "But nothing I have seen indicates this...fragility you speak of."

"Lisa spent ninety seven days in the hands of the Mahdi's forces, as a prisoner, which saw her service date extended because she was captured on her way home after serving her tour in the Marines."  Deke said, "THey overran the Green Zone in Damascus, her convoy was hit by a roadside bomb that killed everyone in her squad...except Lisa.  They put her through ninety seven days of torture-if you can imagine it, I can probably confirm it-they did things in that former hospital that make sadists puke.  She got to spend the next two years in Red River psychiatric hospital, because the first thing she did after being debriefed, was steal an SP's sidearm and try to blow her own head off."

Paul felt ill.

"So...fragile."  Deke finished, "She served this country and when she came home broken, they did what they did to a bunch of us when we came home from the Nam, doped her on happy pills and tossed her out on her ass with a monthly check that means she can't live anywhere decent, because they don't want her around 'their kind of people'."

"she is assigned inferior quarters?" Paul asked innocently.

"No, she gets enough from the government to afford a trailer in Aberdeen/Hoquiam, or up in Tonasket, or homelessness in the cities where there are actual jobs and opportunities."  Deke explained, "and they give her the kind of drugs they use for crowd control in the locked wards of our finest mental hospitals-the ones where the orderlies get away with beating and raping the inmates."

"Savashri, that is...that is barbaric!!"

"Tell that to the Congress." Deke said casually, "They vote for wars, and then they vote to cut benefits for the veterans that fight those wars, vote for veteran support, and then strangle the funding with porkbarrel riders, or 'targeted investments' that don't actually deal with the problems...because nobody knows how to deal with the problems."

"How?"

Deke snorted, and then recited from memory:

"...Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
    Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
    But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
    The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
    O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
 
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
    While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
    But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
    There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
    O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.
 
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
    For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
    But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
    An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
    An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!"

"Um...is that a poem?" Paul asked.

"Yes.  God, your schooling must've been worse than mine.  Rudyard Kipling's 'Tommy'.  You're what, twenty four?"

"Twenty Two, sir."

"Okay, Twenty two, and you never took English Lit?"

"it was not...relevant." Paul said.

"Lots of kids say that.  My Daughter complains about hearing parents say that during teacher conferences." Deke shook his head.  "I think when I was twenty I said it too."

Lisa came out of the back room with a scowl fit to curdle milk.

"So...what was she like?" Deke asked over Paul's shoulder.

"Vodka...no, rocket fuel, straight up." Lisa said, climbed on a bar stool, "And Deke, is my old guitar still back there?"

"yeah."

"good, gimme a bottle of everclear, a slice of lime, and some time to think. Baba Yaga called to let me know if I don't do something about these 'interlopers' she would...as if I could."

"So...the plan is..?"

"do my best to get hammered for as long as I can, play songs I've been practicing at the trailer, and wait for the world to end.  I got nothing." Lisa said sourly.  "No ****** ideas."

[Euphonium]

So, "deal with this or I turn your continent into an ice cube."

No pressure...

[Cannonshop]

I start with some stuff I learned in High School.  Patsy Kline, Siouxie Sioux, Cowboy Junkeez.  I'm in a mood.  On a normal weeknight, Deke or Harry will give a discount on drinks for using the stage, and a couple of times, I've gotten a few bucks for playing on a weekend. 

Simeon over at the corner, there, he crawled around in tunnels in Cu Chi province before I was born, got out, and makes one of the few decent livings left in Aberdeen-he made my guitar for me after hearing the piece of crap 'diablo' I was hauling around.  He likes old country music, and I'm feeling like a damn country song.  I use the arrangement Emmylou Harris used (and I grew up on back home, because Grandfather liked her stuff too) of a song written by Townes Van Zandt.

Living on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath's as hard as kerosene
You weren't your mama's only boy
But her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye
And sank into your dreams...

the old men get quiet, listening to me pick the twelve string and sing.  what the hell else can we do?  I don't know.  I have one trick.

Someone let the gorillas come in out of the cellar. I guess locking them in there with the spare booze occured to someone as a bad idea.  I keep the tune, and keep playing.  While I'm singing and playing it feels like my mind's clearing.  I have one trick... and Baba Freaking Yaga wants me to stop an invasion.

Jesus, one of the big guys is crying.  I'm not that good...unless he's never heard better.

I'll switch up to an Iron Maiden favorite, 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner', which was popular when I was a little kid. It's acoustic, I have no drums, no bass guitarist, no effects, and I sure as hell don't sound like Bruce Dickinson...but there are tricks, and a few bandmates in Portland taught me a few of them.

I know what I need.  I just don't have it.  I need a mastermind.  a Mental Attributes superhuman at least C class if not B.  There are two (were two?) in the Northwest.  One of them was Overlord, but he's in Yucca Mountain now, packed down at the bottom with the other toxic waste.

the other one is only a rumour out of Everett, on the other side of the Sound.  Violent vigilante super, ran MS-13 and the Aryan Legion out of snohomish county, the rumours are, he's a techboy genius with a gift for psychological warfare tactics and at least two powered henches.

Yes, Vigilantes get henchmen-they're technically criminals and that's how the law, MSNBC and CNN treat them.  ******, technically so am I after today...which isn't going to be good for anyone in this room if the Attorney General decides to press charges.

which, given O'Ryan being an O'Ryan and me being a Quentin, is a guaranteed certainty, and it doesn't matter that I haven't been in contact with the rest of the family since I got back, either.

I wish I'd called Aunt Cindy, talked to cousin Val...

but I didn't.  and now, I probably won't be able to.

[Cannonshop]

Interlude, Ernest Payton

"...was going to be famous, I thought." Ernest confessed. 

"Sounds like teenage rebellion to me."  Hector Schwarz nodded, "You got powers, and decided to make some noise."

"Yeah, exactly! only...first time out, in a costume i worked my ass off to put together, and PFHHHTH!!!" he said dramatically, "She stops me cold and tells me every step of how stupid my plans are...so I storm off, thinking how I'm gonna show her, show everybody!!"

Ernest wasn't stupid...well, for Seventeen years old son of an Executive and an old-money mom. 

"And that's when...these Clans showed up."

"Yeah.  I thought my plasma blasts were powerful until I saw what they were using.  So I got this new idea, right? gonna save the city from the invaders..."

"And how did that work for you?"

"Uh...I got two?" Ernest said, "It scared the shit out of me, but I kill...oh jesus, I killed two people."

"And there's your cherry breaking, kid." Hector said, and took the coke from Ernest, "You did a man's work, you should have a man's drink.  I was eighteen when I volunteered for the army, right in the middle of my brother joining the protests against Vietnam, so I went and volunteered for that, too.  I was going to show everybody.  My bro, he got in with bad people while I was gone.  Got himself killed in Chicago during the riots in '68..." he tipped a flask into the coke and gave it back, "Stir it a little or it'll burn."

Ernest never had a drink before. I haven't done a lot of things before he realized.  The scarred killer in front of him was older than his dad by a lot, and looked at him in a way his own father never did.

it took a moment to process what respect looked like.  what it really looked like.

"So she stopped me from making a terrible mistake...and then, she saved my ass when I found out they were a lot more dangerous than I'd thought."

"You feel you can do it again?"

"i...I don't know, I want to say 'yes'..."

"Good man. that fear? listen to it, but don't always obey it.  Crazy brave gets people killed." Hector counseled him, then took his wrist, "You'll be alright 'mano."

"H-how do you know?"

"I got a feel for people."

[Cannonshop]

I finish the set, and I feel clarified.  Maybe that's finishing half a bottle of grain alcohol.

"They were pretty clear about their mission." Deke tells me.  "Apparently, whoever their 'khan' is, she gave them instructions to hit a set of military installations that we haven't even had plans to build.  We've got numbers though."

"Numbers?"

"How many enemy, how they are getting around, the size of the battleship they have in orbit." he lined out.  "They aren't the invasion, they're just the vanguard, and they're early."

"How early?" I ask.

He does some napkin math, "About a thousand and seventy three years."

"what?"

"Means we only have to worry about the main body of their invasion fleet sometime in the thirty-first century."  He clarifies, "Or...they're all duped by real freak and this is all he has...either way, pretty sure once this bunch is defeated we're not going to see another for a while, maybe never.  Makes the problem solvable...and explains why they're not trying these landings outside of a few areas that really aren't considered 'key' in the strategic picture of today."

"Western Washington's pretty ****** important!"

He chuckles, and serves me a fresh beer, "it's important...but not as important as, say, SAC-NORAD, which their officer thinks is a bombed out crater, or Fort Huachuca, or Fort Hood, or Irwin."

"Places..."

"Points their maps say are irradiated wastelands, which is also why they're avoiding eastern washington, where, according to the guys you picked up, a nuke was set off over Yakima during a previous civil war."

"These guys are the face of our future? bullshit."

"Maybe not our future..somebody's, but maybe not ours.  Considering how much of OUR world they didn't and don't know anything about, I'd hazard a guess that the Star Trekkers were right about there being multiple timelines...so, now you've got a sidekick."

"Still not a hero." I say.

"I won't argue with you, Lisa." Deke tells me, "But you're doing hero's work, you might as well own it."

"Heroes get people killed." I quote Firefly.

"Okay, superhero work."

"Vigilante at best Deke." I tell him, "Doug O'Ryan will have everyone in this bar in front of a judge as accessories once the panic's over.  'aiding and abetting a felon'."

Deke shrugs, "if he finds out."

"That's conspiracy to obstruct justice." I remind him,"ANOTHER felony...christ, I'm going to die in prison like my mom. He'll pursue each count separately to get me on Three Strikes."

"It won't come to that, Lisa."

"You don't know the O'Ryans, Deke." I tell him, "My family and his have a long standing...disagreement.  It occasionally results in arson, and has shed blood in the past.  Grandad's dead, but that doesn't mean that Dougie O'Ryan isn't going to do everything in his power to get one or more of us...and he's got a lot of power."

"You tanked a shot from a tank-grade artillery piece and it only messed up your clothes, Lisa."

"yeah, but I can't get a judge to issue warrants until I've bankrupted my enemies." I tell him.  "He ****** pushed to get the WSP on mom's case, the last time they busted her was on a parole violation involving a single joint that probably wasn't even hers.  Three strikes. three felonies, life in prison, where mysteriously prison medical delayed until her treatable cancer was terminal...and the son of a bitch did it while knowing I was a POW overseas in a war he lobbied to support."

I turn to look at the room.  "I have enemies, Deke...and now, so do you, and I'm so sorry about that."

"Kinda why you kept away from your family then?"

I nod.  "I'm going to have to go into the demon's den." I tell him.  "We need an ally-a specific kind of ally."

"what kind?"

"A mastermind.  someone smarter than they should be.  It's the only way we can beat these bastards and keep Baba ****** Yaga from 'doing it for us'...she threatened me, Deke."

"The old bat has a rep for being scary as ******, Lisa."

"It's deserved."

[Cannonshop]

The 'bondsmen', the four big guys and the normal sized Paul, bed down in the drunk room, Howard says it's fine and the old men post a guard.

Deke takes me 'home'.  The airstream's older than he is, set up on concrete blocks and made out of building code violations and aluminum.

It's nice to take a shower, even if the shower's camper-grade, and it's nice to have underwear to put on. I don't get a lot of sleep, but I get some.

Mentally I'm going over what I have to do. 

it keeps me awake until sunrise.

[Cannonshop]

CWS Pack's Den, Terra Orbit...

The impossible has happened, and they could not even report it.  The Vanguard attack on the Word of Blake had arrived in orbit over Holy Terra, but it wasn't Holy Terra.  Delta Galaxy reached the target, only to find the target wasn't there.

The recon in force on the surface yeilded several results, chief among them being that instead of it being the 31st century, on the surface, the population believes it to be the 21st century, no one has ever even heard of the Word of Blake, and the technology is as backwards as the worst parts of the deep periphery.

only with larger populations and no ancient history of having once been a star-spanning species.

and then, there were the strange atavisms.  Three were in custody from where the Court of the Star League should have been, and all three had abilities that make no sense whatsoever.

Superheroes, they call themselves.

All three had required enough force that lesser men would have died instantly.  all three were grievously injured. 

Fillip Wilcox, aka 'The Seahawk',  was captured after putting on a display that included unassisted flying, now in critical condition.  a thin woman with no identification whose ability to run meant she managed to run nearly a kilometer out over Lake Washington after being hit by a large laser.  the pursuing Aerospace pilot clocked her ground speed at just over 500 kilometers per hour, and a heaviset man in 'police' uniform named Monroe, who managed to take nearly an entire star of Elementals on in the streets of Queen Anne.

Detective Linus Monroe of the Washington State Patrol was the only one who was still conscious, and able to be interrogated.

"Who's the woman?"

Katya observed the interrogation.

the levels of serum in his blood were high enough to kill an armorbear.  "Prisoner 8735, King County Special Holding." he slurred, "calls herself 'gaian thunder'...ecoterrorist, suspected of ties to the cult of Morgause out of Oregon...she escaped when your troops hit the jail."

"Do you keep a lot of 'Supers' in that facility?"

"No, she was the only one.  we still haven't caught Tinsmith." He was fighting the drugs.  "WHo the hell are you people?"

Worse than having never heard of the Word of Blake, none of these people had ever heard of the Clans, either.

"How did you achieve what you did against our forces?" the interrogator asked.

"Simple...fight." he said, "Lady, even I don't know what the Moriarty process does...or did. My dad...****** you."

His body was already cleared of the drugs.  faster this time.

"Do you know where you are?"

"I'm in the hands of a lunatic supervillain and her cult, you're all under arrest." he said, then laughed,  "I'm so screwed."

"You are empowered to place criminals under arrest, Quiaff?"

"Queef your self lady, the badge didn't come out of a cereal box, I'm one of five Empowered officers of the Law with powers." he said, "Not enough powers to round you all up, but give me  a little time with my head straight and maybe I can work something out.  We can probably find prison space for your whole gang until trial."

"What of The Seahawk?"

"He's a bonded agent of the court, but he's not a cop.  Kind of 'part time help' when he's not doing publicity."

"Who do you have in Aberdeen then?" she asked.

"Nobody I'm aware of. The place is really in too bad a shape even for the usual villains, just a couple of meth gangs and garden variety petty crimes." his indicator showed he was lying.

"You're lying. Who do you have in Aberdeen?"

"She's not a superhero." he said.  detector showed no indication of falsehood, the image from the scanner showed a younger woman, thin, dishwater-brown hair, and associated memories of...

"Leave lisa out of this!" he actually bent the restraints.  "She's suffered enough!"

"You know this person personally, aff?"

"Yes...I put her mother in prison twice." He stated, "I've known her most of her life, and if you people...she's good, she just wants to be left alone.  You drag her into this and..."

"And what?"

"You'll regret it." he said with a wicked gleam in his eye.

"We came to this world in pursuit of criminals." she said.

"Funny, it looked a hell of a lot like you're here to invade to me.  a little of that whole 'invade and conquer' action going on, you killed a lot of good people in your search, I have to say your methods leave something to be desired and are utterly inadequate for an investigation and pursuit.  even, unprofessional if you were here to nail a criminal."

"You will assist."

"No, I will resist, I swore an oath to uphold and defend the constitution of the united states of america, and to defend and protect the people of Washington State. You're a bunch of scumbag invaders who've killed a lot of the people I'm sworn to protect, I will not comply."

"If I order your execution?"

"Then my successor can add murder of a police officer to your rap sheet."

[Cannonshop]

Data from the King County library was revealing.  Superhumans appeared in the 1930s, and were a major part of the second world war, the United States program to identify and create them was called "Lumberjack" and involved inhumane experiments on volunteers of African descent, at a facility in Tuskeegee Alabama, with the process only being applied to non-colored citizens late in the war, after the first successful batch of survivors had been deployed to Italy and North Africa.

the first supers 'born' with the abilities showed up in the 1950s and 1960s, with treaties limiting the development, deployment and eventually recruitment of superhumans gleefully being ignored and undermined by every major nation on earth during the so-called 'cold' war.

The Watch officers were diligent in their research of public records.  Finding out who "Lisa" was was not difficult.  Finding out what the public knew about the only survivor of a place in the middle east termed 'The Slaughterhouse' was...disturbing.

Only slightly less disturbing than seeing a genealogy of the girl that would embarrass a Bandit Caste.

a long line of criminals and suspected criminal activity.  The Quentins were, essentially, a rural region crime family that had managed time and again to evade prosecutors, while being known to be criminals, or at best, 'outlaws'.

Yet the girl had managed to become one of her nation's elite, joining an elite military organization and serving with distinction through 30 months in a foreign war, only to be captured and taken by the most brutal of enemies just short of coming home for good.

and it was all public record.

"Why Aberdeen?"  Katya asked her prisoner, Monroe.

"Why Aberdeen?" he shrugged, "I don't know. she took the bus from Portland, filed the paperwork, and went there-got all her mail forwarded from the halfway house, she's been 'looking for work' since last year, only there's no work in Aberdeen Washington.  The whole area's been in decline since Weyerhauser left the state and the governor killed the port project there.  I guess she's temped on fishing boats, but not for long-the kid needs her medication."

"Medication?"

"Ninety seven days of torture screws you up, Miss kerensky." he insisted on not using her proper rank.  it was a small defiance but telling.  the man's integrity would not let him openly cooperate...but the man's human need for contact meant she could get more by indirect means.  "Lisa's discharge code? that's a psychological discharge, and she was in Red River, which is high-grade in-patient treatment run by the Navy out in Kansas for two years."

"And she has powers."

"Allegedly." He said, "She's on the red list of known supers, but the Feds didn't want to tell us what she's capable of, only that she needs to be monitored and kept medicated or bad things happen."

the Watch report included public facts about the ratings of superhuman ability.  "What is her rating?"

"Given they wouldn't tell us that either? I'd guess she's high. maybe B or even A when she's not doped out of her mind." he replied, "They wouldn't say but we get taskings from the federal side to support their monitoring efforts on her, and some of those guys are ex-Delta force."

"But no supers?"

"Miss kerensky, you know about the ratings, you have to know the Moriarty Ratio.  One out of every Million people even has powers.  one out of a thousand of those, has powers higher than a C rating.  There are 350 million people in the United STates as a whole, gives us a maximum of 350 people with measurable powers-at least, people who weren't processed by the U.S. Government-artificial supers top out at a C rating. They had to rescale it in the 1960s when naturals started showing up with powers nobody expected at levels nobody could explain.  Your 'elementals' would rate a D rating, right out of the box, training puts them up to C."

"and yours?"

"I'm solidly in the high end of the D ratings.  Your guys were just unprepared. specialized gear lets my department handle up to a low B, like Louise is...by the way, how is she?"

"Still comatose, but her body is healing."

"Good. she can finish serving her sentence then." he sighed.

"What was 'Louise' convicted of?"

"She's an eco-terrorist, mostly tree-spiking and assault, some property damage.  She'll be eligible for parole in four years." he stated, "She hasn't directly killed anyone, and she turned herself in after a logger was killed in the St. Helens area."

"So more of a voluntary surrender then, aff?"

"yeah.  if Louise broke out and broke some of your boys, it's because she means well...but isn't exactly the sharpest crayon in the box.  Miss kerensky, most of the Villains, and capitalize that in whatever report you're filing away, because it's a proper technical term...most of them start out trying to be heroes and get...obsessed, then they get in too deep, and only then do they turn out really bad.  Louise triggered hers during a school shooting.  she took out the shooters, and was on a fast track to be recruited by the feds, only...see, her parents were these 'flower child' types, heavy on the activism-so she went that way instead."

"My watch analysts did look at the trial records." Katya said. "It was in the briefing."

"Then you know the kid can be saved." he said.

"Your profile is also interesting.  you testified against sentencing on several people you yourself were instrumental in arresting. you are a bleeding heart."

"Don't tell my dad that." he said somewhat impishly, his mahogany skin crinkling with a smile, "He thinks I'm a cold-blooded reptile for voting Republican.  even my ma won't speak to me for putting on a badge instead of joining 'the movement', and it's been twenty years since 'the movement' was even relevant."

"You don't want innocent people to die or be harmed." she continued.

"That should be obvious, Miss Kerensky-it's right there on the badge, 'to serve and protect'."

"yet you refuse to render assistance."

"The badge does not say 'to enslave and punish'." he countered.  "Let me clarify for you;  When a police officer fires his weapon he is expected and honor bound to know where that bullet is headed. He is expected to use the minimum force necessary to stop a crime or criminal. there is an expectation that the criminal we stop, actually committed a crime, that there is evidence of it, that we aren't just coming in like a cocaine cowboy guns-a-blazing and devil to the consequences.  There is a social contract that says we uphold the law, that we don't just round people up and beat confessions out of them!!"

"Yet, this does happen."

"Not where I can see it, not where I can stop it." his voice dripped with anger.  "I won't look the other way. that's the difference between us, Miss Kerensky.  Power, corrupts. Abraham Lincoln said 'anyone can survive adversity, the true test of character and courage is to give a man power'.  to be the man I need to be, I have to pay very, very close attention to my own actions and those assigned under me-because I have power, as a law officer, and as a superhuman, and it's very easy to get used to abusing it. when I was working internal affairs, most of the bad cops I busted, had good intentions, but no self awareness-they didn't realize they were going bad until they were so deep they couldn't get out again. Those were the losses, the ones I couldn't save from themselves."

[Red Pins]

Tagged.

[Cannonshop]

[out of character: Washington State Patrol Detective Linus Monroe...]

as of 2008:

Age: 48 years old.
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 350 pounds
Build: slight paunch, muscular.
Ancestry: African-American

Born: Tacoma, Washington, October 2, 1959

Superhuman Status: Second Generation, Son of Marcus "Enforcer" Monroe (WW2 era Tuskeegee project survivor, 1st generation superhuman, deceased, vietnam, 1965, cause of death, "Red Guard", a Soviet superhuman advising the Vietcong)

Powerset: short-distance superspeed, regeneration, super-strength, superior sensory ability (Smell and hearing, some vision).  Over all average rating C+, though no single ability exceeds D Rating.  (lacks flight but combined abilities merit the higher over-all ranking when combined with training.)

Known Relatives: Janice Parkhurst (Mother), Robert Muhammed Parkhurst (Stepfather), Tanisha Parkhurst (Half Sister, age 35), Adrianna Monroe (age 19, Daughter), Karianna Monroe (age 24, daughter)


Service Notes:

Graduate, Olympic Community College Law and Justice Program (Associates degree)1978-1980
Washington State Police Academy (1982)
SWAT certification course (1983)
Detective (1986)
Detective Sgt (1990)
Lieutenant (1999)

Linus Monroe is one of three superhumans along the west coast of the united states whom isn't a bonded contractor, but an actual, serving, law enforcement officer for a political entity in the United States.  (the others are located in Los Angeles and Needles, California respectively).

while normally working as a generalist officer of the law, Monroe has received specialist training in the monitoring, apprehension and detention of superpowered indviduals, and has a Federal level security clearance through Department of Justice and the Bureau of Superhuman Affairs.  He is qualified to testify in court as an expert witness up to Federal Appellate level.

Conviction Rates: 89% of cases brought to the Attorney General for prosecution have resulted in convictions.
Overturn rate: 2% of convictions from Cases worked by Linus Monroe have been overturned in appeals courts.
Throw-out rate: 0% as of 2008.

Monroe has 1 ex-wife and 2 daughters. He has unsupervised visitation rights and pays his child support in full, and on time.  His relationship with his children is good, and his interactions with his ex-wife and her current husband are considered 'cordial'.

Monroe is notably apolitical in his public life, though it is known that the man votes.  He is a registered Republican and contributes a small amount of income to individual candidates on an individual basis.  He has refused numerous times to speak on behalf of political candidates, even when offered significant amounts of money, but does speak to school, youth, and church groups regularly on subjects such as integrity and honesty.

He has authored 1 published book for Scholastic Books ("Justice is the Journey"), directed at young children (ages 6 to 8 ).

He is currently single.

[/out of story]

[monbvol]

Damn this is giving me bad ideas about turning a super power RPG I was trying to put together into a story.

[Cannonshop]

Damn this is giving me bad ideas about turning a super power RPG I was trying to put together into a story.

"DOoO EET!!!"

[monbvol]

"DOoO EET!!!"

Fair warning to people it will not be a Battletech story and I'll have to gather what notes I still have for it before I get started but lacking a better idea for something to work on for the short term it'll do.

[Dave Talley]

a lot if the background reminds me of the GURPS Supers world,
very cool stuff so far

[Cannonshop]

"Okay, so...how are you planning to get across the mountains, up the sound, and into occupied Everett?" Ernie's asking.

"Well..." I don't know.  ****** me, I don't know.

"And then, assuming 'The tinsmith' is real, how do you expect to find her before the Wolf Clan does?" He added.

"You ask a lot of questions, Ernie."  a lot of questions I still don't have good answers for.  We're under a deadline defined by the patience of someone who murdered a ****** country with a storm.

not that many people outside of Africa, China, or a few useful idiots in the west are going to miss North Korea...but she froze an entire nation to death with surgical precision for launching ONE missile, then buried it under a literal mile of ice.

pissing off Baba Yaga is right up there with...what, I don't know if there's even an equivalency.  It's something smart people just don't ****** do.

When someone...something like that calls you up and says 'Take care of this before I have to', you do it, or you do your damnedest to do it, because the consequences aren't even on your head-they're on the heads of everybody around you too.

and there's the Easter-egg.  It hasn't come back since it showed up, but sighting reports from people along the Peninsula say it's decided to park in Bremerton, occupying the navy base there...which means we can probably write off Seal Team 41 entirely.  Given the weird artificial muscles in the Clan armors, the powered harnesses the Teams have probably didn't stand a chance.

especially against the lasers.

What's surprising the hell out me when I bother to think about it, is that the Wolf Clan commanders haven't sent someone to find out what happened to their guys.

This is bothering me almost as much as how Paul and the big guys seem to be trying to 'join in' with the vets...and how the vets are letting them.

but I'm not the leader there, Deke is, and he says it's alright, they've got the guys we captured under control.

today I'm riding a bicycle into town.  My twelve-speed, which I bought and paid for, because Washington State won't issue me a driver's license.

Ernie's riding with me, he has a new model, shiny even, all carbon fiber and worth more than the land I'm renting.

"You know, Lisa?" Ernie asks, as we coast down the last steep road onto 101.

"What?"

"You're already a Vigilante, right?"

"Unregistered, used powers, yeah." I tell him, "So are you."

"So we're already breaking laws, right?"

"We are."

"So why don't you go ahead and get a damn car?"

I must admit, that idea had NOT occurred to me in the morass of how much trouble my friends at the Legion hall are going to be in, as soon as the government has time to start scapegoating.

"I haven't thought of that." I comment, and shift down to pick up rotations before shifting back up to pick up speed.

[Cannonshop]

The display in the Oval Office was short, blunt, and to the point.

Mister President;

I will not allow you to sell off any part of this nation, not even to alien invaders.

-Alice

It was definitely a threat, and NSA's expert hackers were at a loss to explain how it got here...but not who sent it.

Two years ago, top NSA programmer Dr. Alice Okuda was working on Cheshire, a high-end artificial intelligence algorithm for use in covert electronic and digital warfare applications when she suddenly resigned and vanished, taking her work with her.

a lot of speculation in the government centered around her complete absence-her presence in every database nation wide had been simultaneously either corrupted, or erased.  The fear of yet another Snowden incident had put CIA, NSA, and the various branches of covert security on high alert, where they have been almost continuously due to the apparent complete and total loss of data security.

In an election year on the heels of near national economic collapse, with bail-outs being debated in congress (how much, not whether), and the catch-phrase 'too big to fail' having left his lips, the president knew his party had no chance of retaining the white house for one of those ever rarer every time third terms.

a Lame-duck president could conceivably get away with compromising with aliens from beyond the stars to make a try for technology secrets, or just to avoid having the nation's capital turned into a glass lined crater.

and this president had seriously considered doing just that, given the absolute military superiority demonstrated by this 'Clan Wolf' against the United States.

He'd considered it.

he hadn't made his decision yet, because there was an equally stern warning from the Russian Consulate as to why giving Clan Wolf what they asked for, would have repercussions...

and smart people don't cross Baba Yaga without an exit strategy or an overwhelming advantage.

"My legacy has turned into a rock, and a hard place." the President told his chief of staff.  "Tell me we have something, Bill, I'm facing this 'Khan Katya Kerensky' in an hour over video call, I don't know how long I'll be able to tap dance and keep her busy."

"Sir, a plan is being worked out as we speak."

"What kind of plan?"

"Better that you don't know, Mister President, you want to be able to deny involvement if it goes south.  if you can buy us more time, even another hour, it will help, sir."

"I'll sell my soul for whatever time you need to find a way to fix this...jesus, and I've got to brief the front runners, don't I?"

"Looks like it sir."

"Can we just leave Bob out? he's polling in the dirt."

"You do that, and you're just briefing in the candidate from the other party, sir."

"I'll be briefing in the winner, who's going to inherit this mess, Bill."  the President said, "Bob's got no chance in hell.  Hell, this year, a member of the party would have a hard time winning a race for dog catcher.  We're at risk of losing Boeing, Bob, the second largest export income this country's got, we're in a banking crash, and we've got alien invaders...from The Future demanding we hand over the one part of the western U.S. that isn't seeing skyrocketing unemployment or a financial collapse!"

"you're taking a defeatist line, sir."

the president turned red, "****** you, Bill!! we lost!! unless you and your spooks can find  some way to turn this around, we've lost, this administration will go down in history as the second administration to see part of the continental united states invaded and conquered by a foreign power!!"

"When was the first?"

"War of 1812 you nitwit!  It'll be the first time we lose a gods-damned State!! find me some options, Dammit!  I will NOT be remembered down there with Buchanan!!"

the normally soft-spoken, pliable man was red faced and raging.   The chief of staff recoiled from him, where did he find a spine?

"We're working on it, Mister President." the bureaucratic 'real power' in the Administration said soothingly, while privately noting it may be necessary to remove him from office, he's no longer under our control.

Objectively, the third man in the room considered the same possibility, noting that the current front-runner, and the Party's chosen sacrificial candidate, were both well-conditioned and pliable, while being more charismatic than the lame duck in the White House.

the Chief of Staff and the third man walked out of the Oval office, and the Chief said, "Inform Brutus, Caesar has gone mad."

"Sir? you're sure?"

"I'm sure.  That texas son of a bitch is ready to fight, and he doesn't have a clue that we rigged the last one.  He'll destroy the country if he fights this...so tell Brutus that Caesar has gone mad."  Bill looked sad as he said it.

"Of course, sir." when the third man turned away, however, he was smiling.

[Cannonshop]

When I got to the Legion Hall, someone had beaten me to the punch. 

again.

"Motorcycles? Deke, you've got one arm, can you even ride?"

"I don't need to.  You know how." he tells me.  "I mean, they're not Harleys or those crotch-rockets, but you want a bike to get you somewhere, not a project to fix...and they'll make more sense where the roads are...obstructed."

[Cannonshop]

Getting out of Grays Harbor County turned out to be more challenging than I assumed.  Governor Gregory must've been caught in Olympia early, maybe even during the first series of landings, since she's on the radio telling citizens to stay in their homes and cooperate with the invaders.

For their own safety.

passing through Olympia was kind of a revelation.  The Washington State Flag was hauled down over the Capital building and replaced by a red, eight pointed star design with one leg of the star extended out longer than the rest.

some of the potholes in the highway were deep enough to hide a bike, and a lot of wreckage hadn't been cleared.  If we'd tried using a car, we'd have never gotten from 101 to I-5, much less past Olympia.

Still, had to walk the bikes through some parts, an overpass had fallen across the freeway, blocking it at an angle.

It was almost dark by the time we passed through what was left of Fort Lewis. 

I should probably explain...

Me, Ernie, and for some ungodly reason Deke sent Paul with us.

"Once pacification operations begin, work crew will be assigned to clear roads and make necessary repairs." he tells me, "Some of it is probably already on-going inside the urban centers, but highways and railways will be lower on the priority list initially, with repairs there focused mainly on maintaining the inflow of foodstuffs and raw materials to the urban areas. Once the cities are stabilized, efforts to consolidate the population for reassignment will be undertaken."

"Reassignment?" I ask, "What the ******?"

"Clan society has castes, Lisa." he tells me, "Warrior at the top, then Scientist, Merchant, and Laborer.  Four castes, to make society efficient."

oh ****** no.

"Centrally planned economy?" I ask him.

"Yes, to make most effic-"

"Efficient use of resources."  I interrupt him, and look out the window of the abandoned AM/PM gas mart just north of what used to be Fort Lewis.  "Let me guess... a committee from each caste??"

"Aff."

"And your warriors, they have assigned liaisons from each caste, and approve projects and plans?" I continue.

"Aff."

"Well, shit, no wonder that communist bitch is collaborating." I say it with real venom.  "Your invasion just offered her and her fellow travellers a short-cut for imposing a socialist dictatorship! The Soviet of Washington for real...jesus ******, well, that explains what we're up against then."

"I do not understand...communist bitch?"

"The governor, Paul." Ernie says, "Lisa's from eastern Washington.  They're not...progressively minded out there."

"You do not like efficiency?" he asks me.

"I don't like busybodies who think their pretty ideals are worth the lives and livelihoods of other people, no...especially when it's not them who are being told to sacrifice.  I'm not a Left wing trust fund baby."

this just confused paul more.

"Lisa's a Conservative, Paul." Ernie tried to clarify.  "In Bellevue, she'd be considered a right-wing fanatic."

"****** off, I'm not a bible thumping church skank." I snap, "I don't have a problem with gay people getting married or having kids, I don't have a problem not dumping oil in my drinking water, I don't have a problem with the idea of paying for first responders to fight fires, or deal with criminals, and I don't have a problem with funding public schools.  I am far from being a right wing fanatic."

It finally dawns on Paul, "OH!! Local politics!"

"bingo." I say, "Hence, now that you've outlined Clan society a little better for me, Paul, I understand why Charlene Gregory,  from Seattle's Green Lake district, who basically got in office on three cities along the I-5 corridor, is eagerly cooperating with your invasion.  she thinks she'll be on top of one of your Castes by the time the dust settles, able to impose her rebranded marxism on everyone even more."

"You hate this person, but you do not hate me?"

"You were raised in it, you didn't get a choice.  she's a rich girl who won an election and has been given christmas early, she chose." I tell him.  "Big difference there between someone who just doesn't know any better, and someone who really ought to.  you gotta understand, there are parts of this state where they'd have surrendered pre-emptively to the communists during the cold war, because they like them.  One of the Polish peacekeepers in the green zone, nice guy, nice eyes, good lay? he told me 'Centrally planned economy is a great way for everyone but the leadership to starve together'."

"Speaking of starving..." Ernie interrupts, coming over to where we're sitting with his hands laden with plastic-boxed fruit and cold cuts, "The refrigeration still works, and we should probably eat."

"Good idea."

American history is filled with nations whose leaders sold out.  Hell, it's how the 'West was won'.  Indigenous nations, impressed by higher tech interlopers, selling off pieces of their territory in exchange for trinkets and promises of peace.

most of the trinkets turned out to be junk, most of the promises were hollow lies.  Our governor is carrying on a fine, North American tradition.

I really want to kill the bitch, but we're on a time table.

We stay in the gas station a little while longer as a column of military trucks escorted by a pair of robots Paul calls 'kit fox' class 'mechs, passes along the highway heading for Olympia.  The military trucks are escorting a pair of eighteen wheelers with Fred Meyer ads decaled on the sides.
  food trucks.

"I guess they screwed up the railways too." I note.

The convoy's moving kinda slow, so it takes a little while to go by.

[Cannonshop]

[out of story]
Lisa's politics are not...typical superhero viewpoints.  She's not typical superhero psychology.  Remember, this shit may use real world names but it's FICTION.  resemblances to real world people are coincidental at best.  Real people are deeper than that.

[Euphonium]

[out of story]
Lisa's politics are not...typical superhero viewpoints. 

I don't even know what typical superhero politics are!

[Cannonshop]

I don't even know what typical superhero politics are!

then you've been spared the last 20 years of mainstream comic books, movies and television media?  there is a definite template for how a Superhero is supposed to look at the world.  Lisa doesn't follow that template.

this is on purpose.  A lot of the "Genre Norms" for superhero fiction revolve around a highly urban perspective.  this actually includes things like costuming and code-names, and how they look at society and the law.

Lisa's perspective in a DC/Marvel context would put her squarely in the 'Villain protagonist' range, instead of the 'Laudable hero' range.

Examples of "Villain Protagonist" range would include the pre-1990s Punisher, the 'antihero' type character.  Basically, she's got more in line with Steve Ditko's "Mister A" than with Supergirl or batgirl. 

which is all intentional.  The world she lives in has LOTS of (Well, relatively-there are maybe 3-5 thousand superhumans worldwide in her 2008) 'type standard' superheroes-with costumes, and codenames. 

The majority of them would have issues with her personal political viewpoints.

also, though she's the primary narrator, she's not the most...reliable narrator.  she has opinions, she has viewpoints, they're not universally held even within the setting, even among her friends.

[Euphonium]

I haven't read a comic book in 30 years, and back then it was Judge Dredd & MAD Magazine.

I have never read a superhero comic. I don't even remember seeing them in the shops. I don't remember superhero cartoons on TV either.

I haven't lived in a house with a TV since 1998.

In recent years I saw the Dark Knight Trilogy and most of the MCU movies but didn't really pick up any politics from them beyond "great power/great responsibility."

I try to turn my brain off when dealing with Hollywood otherwise the lack of scientific/engineering plausability, and sometimes common sense, stops me enjoying them.

This probably means I've missed a few things.