Dramatis Personae

• Derrick K. Ratnam aka Legerdemain (NPC Ally): Spin doctor and media liaison for Project VANGUARD. Twin to Bo. Tagline: “Well, actually that’s not how it happened…”
• Layla A. de Blackburn aka Nox (NPC): CIA-trained child assassin all grown up to be Daddy’s Little Monster. Maybe a little mad. Argues with her shadow often. Tagline: “No, we shouldn’t do that…should we?”
• Stainless Steel Rat aka “Sir” (NPC Ally): Bo’s best friend and assistant. A sentient drone in the shape of a stylized shiny metal rat mindlinked to Bo. Specialties are rapid repair construction and modifications. Imagine if K-9 and R2D2 made a baby and it looks a bit like a rodent. Tagline: “Repairs and upgrades in progress.”

Previously . . .

As The Pusher has injected a drug that regrew Threshold’s leg and he’s currently feeling fantastic after all the pain has faded away. While looking around, they put some thought into it and determine that a metahuman named Fracture was behind everything. A meta that can permanently copy something, but at the same time the psyche of a living person can get worse and worse until they completely break. The last that anyone knew is that she was in prison, Threshold suggests that Nyx go check out the jail while Nyx says the better plan would be to get Legerdemain to send in a request to check on her. It seems that she’s still in prison alongside her twin Gemini who has super strength that get more and more exponential the more of them there are.

Do Not Pass Go

Threshold and Whisper
Riker’s Island Prison Complex
Monday, May 4th, 2020, 2330 hours (EST) 
61-20 Utopia Pkwy, Fresh Meadows, NY 11365  462 1st Avenue New York, NY 10016

Whisper wants to interrogate the two alongside Threshold who suggests taking Prodigy/June along as she’s a null. Nyx checks that the field that was preventing their teleportation and scrying was taken apart while Wirerat has scavenged a bunch of tech that was down there, finding that the lights were on some kind of remote timer. Threshold gets himself and Whisper to Riker’s Island to check in, asking to interview for Fracture where he has to fill out a lot of paperwork to get in to see her. Eventually getting in and setting them in a room where they have to wait around thirty minutes until a woman in a full orange jumpsuit is shown into a door, her hands are completely enclosed in metal containers and has an expansive metal collar with a helmet on top, exposing as little skin as possible as he powers rely on skin-to-skin contact.

Threshold briefly considers what it would be like for there to be another one of him around before addressing her by her real name, Brittany Cornish. She flips him off, or at least raises a hand and refuses to answer the questions. He keeps trying to think of what he could use to convince her to talk, understanding that she has some weaknesses for pastries and baked goods. Offering some in exchange for information. She demands Voodoo Donuts, the closest of which is halfway across the country in Texas. He pops out, with a bit of difficulty due to all the nulls working there. He waits in line and gets a bunch of donuts and a bunch of rather disgusting ingredients that he makes a sandwich out of to give to Nyx later.

Back in the prison, he can barely see her eying the box through the helmet, though she says she probably won’t even get them back in her cell. She’s heard of M0le_Tr0ll in that he’s a technopath with a similar power to hers which is virtually unheard of. When asked about the hobo, she does say that there’s some things that she remembers something back then and then opens up the box of donuts forlornly. There’s some talk about removing the helmet so she can have one, but that’s far against the regulations and they don’t have the authority to do it. Eventually the guard accompanying her promises to make sure that she gets the pastries. Once promised, she tells them that about a year ago she started to get notes, that there’d be money put aside for her aunt if she did a few things, using her powers on a rat in her cell, much to Threshold’s indignation that there’s rats in the prison. The rat became several and it was put in a crystalline box and when she went out for her yard time, it was gone by the time she got back. She couldn’t tell too much about the rat, but there was one guy that told her that he did something similar, used his powers on something and then it disappeared. After that, she’s done, they’ve reached the edge of the donuts and if they want something else out of her, she’s going to need time knocked off her sentence.

Whisper wants to look at Fracture’s prison record as she’s only got five years left on her sentence. She tried to rob a bank and the Cavalry stopped her and put her in jail, the motive being that she wants easy money and is a criminal. Threshold thanks her for her time, but does ask if she ever fractured something with a virus in it, not to her knowledge at least. He does also say not to fracture any rat that looks sick in case the virus mutates.

All By Myself

Nyx
Old FDNY Engine 299/Ladder 152 Building aka New Base
Monday, May 4th, 2020, 2300 hours (EST) 
61-20 Utopia Pkwy, Fresh Meadows, NY 11365 

Nyx, meantime, has just been back at base making sure that no more fires had caught and then stops to take a nap to get some kind of sleep before his patrol starts at midnight. When they get back to base, they decide not to wake him.

Without a Hitch

Nyx, Threshold, and Whisper
Old FDNY Engine 299/Ladder 152 Building aka New Base
Tuesday, May 5th, 2020, 0900 hours (EST) 
61-20 Utopia Pkwy, Fresh Meadows, NY 11365 

In the morning, after the graveyard patrol where they really only had to deal with petty matters. Gimmick has gotten some takeout from Frank’s Franks in the form of waffle dogs where he put the hotdogs in a wafflemaker, smashed them, and gotten covered with syrup and condiments. Nox hisses at it and June gets her some pop tarts, only Nyx and Whisper eat them, with Nyx also eating June’s and Nox’s that were pushed away. M0le_Tr0ll’s dossier shows that he’s got a power-foci that is Technopathy, but he also has the ability to duplicate himself up to thirty times when he’s working really hard. How he does it is that he buds, a lump that grows into a full sized M0le_Tr0ll. They ran a few experiments on him in Riker’s Island and he decided that he never wanted to go back. He’s not that great of a hacker, just that he’s got a lot of people that can work in concert with each other.

The mid-shift and late patrol also go off without any hitches, though Threshold still acknowledges that he still feels really good, sorta healthy and refreshed which causes him some concern and wants to run some blood tests on himself, noting that his cells appear to be extremely healthy, better than textbook health. He writes a letter and is given to Medevac which is forwarded onwards who promises to give it to her before asking Threshold out for coffee where he says sure and he promises not to blow her off again unless something comes up, but he tells her that if he’s late again to call him since he may lose track of time. It’s suggested that they get coffee at midnight, after his patrol is over.

With a Hitch

Nyx, Threshold, and Whisper
Old FDNY Engine 299/Ladder 152 Building aka New Base
Wednesday, May 6th, 2020, 0900 hours (EST) 
61-20 Utopia Pkwy, Fresh Meadows, NY 11365 

With nothing actually getting done on Tuesday, it rolls over to Wednesday evening where Threshold decides to actually call a meeting to discuss what’s going on when they hear a scream coming from outside. Threshold immediately teleports out and into a hail of gunfire that rips through his shin, taking off his leg. . . again, as well as the chest ripping through his vest and bleeding all over. He should be feeling some kind of pain, but he isn’t and he notices that it’s supposed to hurt but he isn’t. Around him, he can see an ice cream truck. Threshold, Nyx, and Whisper can tell that there’s a gun barrel poking from within the ice cream truck. Looking inside with his shadow sight, he can see an anti-material rifle and explosives set up and immediately reads off any identifying information from it out loud right as the explosives go off while Threshold obliterates part of the truck. There’s a large amount of various shrapnel and glass that is spread all around the street and a large amount of screaming and Threshold notices that he’s actually healing as bullets are pushed outside his body.

Teleporting to the rooftop, he overlooks the crime scene while Nyx does a sweep to insure there are no other casualties, the screaming must have come from the ice cream truck speakers. Wirerat is able to detect a signal, but it’s barely more than a blip. Not finding much, Threshold scans himself and it seems that his cells look more rugged and healthy but doesn’t get much more information at the current time. Whisper moves in with a fire extinguisher to get the remains of the truck but it keeps coming back, figuring out that it’s got some white phosphorus in with the mix of explosives, where Nyx calls out Fridge Boy to go try to kill the heat. Eventually, after causing a localized snow storm, he manages to get the temperature cold enough that the phosphorus cannot sustain itself. Whisper cordons off the area and keeps folks from messing with stuff until the other authorities show up. Nox sits outside, enjoying some snow with flavoured syrup and says to Threshold that someone is trying to kill him and asks who he ticked off.

Threshold cannot think of anyone except at the board at Harvard. Nox is more interested in the fact that Threshold can suddenly regenerate himself and wonders if he can regenerate his head if it were blown off. Threshold, a bit creeped out by it, teleports himself away to investigate himself some more. Whisper, having controlled the scene when the authorities arrive, comes back inside goes through the secret underground tunnel to her house and disguises herself as a civilian and heads back to the scene to look at the people that are there, check to see if there’s someone there that just doesn’t belong.

Aftermath

Nyx, meanwhile, has the serial number for an Barret .50 caliber anti-tank rifle and thinks if he can remember anyone that runs weapons around, the only one that he narrows it down to is Dion “Die Die” Crawford who deals just about everything from mundane to savant weapons. With him the money is never in the same place as the merchandise and him, but if they wanted to get something like this, then Dion would be the one to talk to. Nyx also quickly follows up on the hobo with a shotgun, a former stockbroker named Ryan Robertson who went nuts after the dot com bubble burst and went underground. Whisper, meanwhile, to thank Fracture for her help, she makes sure to send some Whisper-made donuts out to say thank you to her.

After Action Report (GM)

After the hiatus this was good to get back to. We didn’t play long because everyone was sick or not feeling well but we did get stuff going. Threshold’s got a new power? Maybe. I will say that when the Pusher healed him something else happened neither could have predicted. Overall, good session.

Other Notes

Bonus Report from Rory.

Soundtrack

“Tuesday’s Gone” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
“Click Click Boom” by Saliva