Log:Enter: Chalk

Best of the Best, 2058 2008/06/21 	 Allure Chalk Icon Jennifer Nexus Rebound Valencia 1

Setup: The heroes meet to examine a strange device which they found at the coliseum during the last Best of the Best event.

At present the stadium is closed. It's very quiet, in contrast to how it's been during the Best of the Best events. The playing field is occupied by a equipment from the most recent event: a series of long conveyor belts that divide the area into lanes, one for each hero. The belts are giant conveyor belts with maglev tracks laid on top of them. Each belt also has a maglev car on it -- it's a giant maglev treadmill.

Nexus ports in, right behind Rebound. "Hey. I asked Jen and Lorelei to join us, too."

Nexus says, "Thanks for coming, guys. Hope I'm not wasting your time, but with all the crazy going on I figure anything anomalous might be important."

Allure arrives in costume since Caleb said to suit up, though she hasn't actually used this ID in a while.

Allure says, "It's spooky when it's empty...."

Jennifer says, "Quieter too."

Icon floats across the sky, passing by the edge of the Coliseum as he passes. He glances down and onto the field.

Rebound waves to the Nexus. "Hey guys... Wow. It's been a while, Allure." He smiles.

Nexus, once everyone is here, points to a pillar in the bleachers. "So, I don't know what the hell it is -- gadgetry ain't my thing, really -- but there's some kind of dingus in that pillar that was doing _something_ during the last BoB. It ain't supposed to be there. DOn't know what it does, but I figure it ain't anything good."

Valencia bounds up to stadium's lip, balancing for a moment before hopping down the sections almost daintily.

Allure says, "Yeah, I've been busy...."

Jennifer heads over to look at the indicated pillar.

Allure head over too. "How did you spot it?"

Nexus says, "It was making some kind of weird noises during the train contest. I phased through it, found the gadgetry inside."

The pillar is different now than the last time that Caleb looked at it... it's discolored. Now it appears to be milk-white.

Jennifer says, "Bomb?"

Slowly, however, it's normal color seems to be returning to it.

Nexus starts to try to describe it, realizes that's silly. "Oh... it looks different, too. Discolored." He blinks. "And, changing. I don't think that's supposed to happen.

Nexus shrugs to Jen. "Beats me?"

Nexus hrms. "Hey, Icon - if I phase in and look around again, can you, I dunno, rebroadcast what I'm seeing to everybody?"

Rebound says, "Well, if it is a bomb, best to check it out now, while no one is around but us."

Valencia hmms as she sees people huddling around something. She bounds over.

Jennifer looks up, "Anyone know if the roof will fall in if I have to smash the pillar open?"

Nexus waves to Val and repeats his minimal explanation.

Nexus says, "Well, anyway, let me check inside again. Be back in a sec. Unless I'm not."

Nexus phases through the pillar like he did last time, and looks around.

Allure says, "Hm. Was the pillar always here, or is it new with the renovations?"

Valencia huhs, twisting a bit midair as she looks at something on the ground before landing near the group and looking around. She waits for Nexus' report.

By now, the appearance of the pillar is back to normal.

Icon pauses and turns and peers at Nexus. (Establish Mind Link) He turns and floats towards an exit.

Nexus pops back up. "Yeah, it's still there. I don't _think_ it's a bomb, but I dunno what it is, so I guess it could be. It's all computer-controlled and attached to a transmitter. Lots of storage." He shrugs. "I guess maybe it was recording info about the contestants, maybe?"

Valencia huhs. "Probably not a bad guess. It is Best of the Best, afterall."

Nexus looks around for a chalk-like repairman leaving.

Icon looks at the man and concentrates, attempting to look into the mind.

Jennifer grins, "Logical. Since the events are televised it must be scanning for something rather more detailed than simple actions. Genetic scan? Is that possible at range?"

Rebound says, "Something tells me it's not for YouTube."

Nexus shrugs. "Maybe it just peeks through our clothes. Naked metahuman wrestling, new big thing.

Valencia hmms at Jen. "That's kind of a scary thought."

[To Nexus] Allure says, "Wouldn't that have hit the Net already?"

Nexus fails to spot anything. "Guys, Icon spotted a weird-looking repairman leaving the place... not sure where, exactly."

[To Allure] Nexus says, "Maybe it has... I haven't had a chance to download Internet porn in a few days."

"I saw him." Valencia replies to Nexus, pointing at the exit where she spotted the repairman. "I just thought he worked here."

Icon looks at the man in question, hearing the puzzlement of location in Nexus mind (Mindlink open), and begins to broadcast location and thoughts of the pale man to Nexus.

Nexus heads in the direction Valencia and Icon indicated.

Jennifer follows Valencia.

Allure look the direction indicated by Nexus.

Valencia blinks. "Wait, what if the guy does just work here?"

Rebound looks to Allure. "Need a lift?"

Allure says, "Please."

Nexus mutters over his shoulder to Valencia. "We're just gonna ask him a few questions, is all. I mean, unless he should happen to attack us, or something."

Valencia sighs, realizing they're going anyway so she heads over, trying to get ahead of the repairman but still stay out of his way.

Jennifer runs in the direction Valencia just leapt. "I am going to have to work on my running." she mutters.

Icon looks down and remains high above, waiting for a moment.

Fist enters from North of Colonial Bay.

The Repair-Man raises his hand and fires a beam of energy towards Icon. Instead of striking him directly, the beam seems to be acting on the air around Icon.

Icon looks at the incoming attack and concentrates to protect himself, an amethyst color suddenly envelops Icon and a shield appears around him.

The beam of energy misses Icon. It coalesces into a block of white-colored steel. It falls from the sky and down onto the bleachers with a loud crashing noise.

"Whoa! Whoa!" Valencia tells the repairman as she lands in front of him. "We just want to ask you some questions!"

The beam of energy misses Icon. It coalesces the air behind Icon into a block of white-colored steel. The block falls from the sky and down onto the bleachers with a loud crashing noise.

Icon head turns and looks at the strange attack. "Sacre dieu!"

"Let that be a lesson for you," the repair man says to Icon. "Do not put your mind where it is not wanted."

Rebound stretches an arm around Allure's waist and he bounds towards the scene of the confrontation.

Allure says to the repairman, "Hey, calm down: we just want to talk!" She wonders whether she should have been more "forceful" about it, but then she's still not clear how far she can go without being identified as Lorelei.

Allure's arrival only draws a passing glance from the repair-man.

Nexus, suddenly given a reason to think there's something dangerous happening, ports quickly to the spot Icon indicated telepathically. He tries to port to a spot behind cover, but fails. "Dude, chill! Like the lady said, we just want information." After a moment he adds "Um, official United Earth business, and stuff."

The Repair Man points down towards the playing field and fires a beam of energy, encircling a Best of the Best maglev car with a corona of white energy. The train car itself blanches white. He jerks his had towards himself in a violent arc and the maglev car leaps into the air, coming at Icon from behind.

Nexus thinks. o O (Hm. OK... so this guy definitely did _something_ to that pillar.)

The maglev car proves to be an unwieldy weapon, and it misses Icon by a wide margin. The Repair Man is able to halt the car before it does any unnecessary damage.

Valencia sighs. "Ok. If you're not gonna calm down..." One of her arms snakes out, stretching to try and ensnare the repairman's legs and pull him down.

The Repairman steps back quickly away from Valencia's attack, just in time. He quickly looks back to the levitated maglev car, to makes sure that he has control of it still.

Valencia curses quietly to herself as she pulls her arm back. "Just set it down, and we'll talk, ok?"

Jennifer continues her run towards where most of her comrades has vanished around the corner of the tunnel. "Hi. I just had a train fly over my head. I'm guessing there's a problem?" she calls out.

"You are here because you have discovered the device," the repairman says, "I do not think that we have very much to talk about."

Nexus says, "You mean it _isn't_ just a naked meta wrestling youtube feed?"

Rebound steps forward and lets his fist grow to the size of a mailbox. "Let's talk about this. You're outnumbered otherwise."

Icon remains floating up above.

Allure decides to chance it and go for the full persuasive effect - after all, it was the Allure ID who was *supposed* to be the superhero. "Just calm down - there's no reason for this fight. Tell us what all this is about."

The Repair man seems to relax, actually. "Alright..."

Nexus becomes blurrier around the edges and approaches Repairman. "Yeah. What they said. Calm down and tell us what's going on, and we'll just arrest you. Otherwise we'll beat you senseless and _then_ arrest you and _then_ ask you questions. Which is, admittedly, more fun... but why go through the hassle?"

Allure thinks. o O (Smooth, Caleb. Threats aren't usually so conducive to calm....)

Jennifer tries to hold back a chuckles. o O(Calab at his best)

The Repairman shakes his head and shouts. "Enough! I am tired of you people and your mental trickery!"

"Yaah!" the repairman shouts. With a powerful gesture of his arm, he hurls the maglev car out of the coliseum and out towards the parking lot. The lot is mostly empty, save for a few stadium workers. Then he turns transparent and sinks into the floor, going down to the ground level of the stadium tunnels.

Nexus smacks the floor ineffectually.

Icon shrugs and looks over at the train, slightly relieved of not being hit by it.

Nexus contemplates phasing his fist into the ground in the hopes of hitting a target he can't see rather than simply pulping his hand. Decides not to.

Jennifer leaps over to where the train is going to land shouting for the workers to hit the deck. She braces for impact in an effort to have the train hit her and roll off from her away from the workers.

Icon looks over and decides to find a way to spot the fleeing villain, and floats towards the ground level.

Rebound isn't too keen on seeing Jennifer get squashed. He leaps into the air after the train car trying to grab it.

Rebound springs airborne and grabs the train car in midair. Once he's got a grasp of it, he tries to brake it's descent by billowing his body out like a parachute.

Icon glances at the repairman, then concentrates through the mindlink to Nexus of his general location.

Valencia sees Rebound's move, and not wanting to see Jennifer squished either goes to help him out. She leaps right after him, trying to mimic his move on another section of the train to slow it down even further.

Valencia snags a hold on the train, letting herself become softer and more liquid to expand and spread out until she can harden and help slow the train. She glances at Rebound. "This is a real drag, y'know! Pun intended!"

Rebound grins. "Nice one... Go Team Stretchy! (We need a better name than that...)"

Nexus says, "Team Flex?"

Rebound says, "Team Armstrong?"

Valencia just rolls her eyes.

Rebound says, "Maybe just 'The Band'... Get it?"

Nexus groans.

Allure says, "When you're done, Team Twisted, we have a presumed bad guy to chase...."

Jennifer sees Rebound and Valencia have the train under control, so responsive to Rebound's request over the team channel she goes after the Repair man. Keeping the force field active she gets out a small silvery sphere about the size of a baseball. That gets thrown at the Repair man first chance she gets.

Nexus says, "What 'presumed'? He threw a _train_ at _civilians_!!!"

Allure says, "Maybe he's just a lousy shot? Um... maybe not."

Rebound continues holding onto the train, guiding it to a safe landing with Valencia's help

Jennifer runs down the stairs muttering, "Darn. Baron Z, how about a bit of cheater next time? They're fast."

Icon looks at the fleeing villain, and concentrates, trying to strike the mind.

Icon shakes his head as he seems to not able to grasp onto the mind of the highly transparent man.

The repairman raises his hand. He encloses himself in a forcewall cylinder than runs from ceiling to floor. The energy wall is opaque, and he disappears from view.

Allure does what she can: she runs down the stairs following the repairman.

Nexus decides the Warpable Wonders have the train under control, and decides to take a chance, porting to a spot a couple of meters above the ground and near his target.

Valencia detaches from the train and decides to make sure everyone in the area is ok as she reforms.

Nexus (Caleb) pages Angstrom and Icon: If possible, send what I perceive over mindlink to Icon. Cale doesn't know enough to even interpret the situation, so he just holds remaining half.

Jennifer pulls out her energy whip and a short crystal rod. Tossing the rod into the air in front of her she catches it in the tip of the whip and presses obe end of the rod into the force wall cylinder. There's a horrid high pitched screeching sound going up and down in and out of audible frequencies as the rod seeks resonance.

Icon says, "Wait, oh non!"

Jennifer moves up to the force wall cylinder and strikes at it with a sidekick.

Nexus drops into a defensive posture as the wall shatters into nothingness around him, and waves to Jennifer. "Um... hi? Where am --" He looks around at everybody, shrugs. "OK, I'm here. Where's the bad guy?"

There is no sign of the repairman.

Icon looks at the newly visible scene, using his eyes and his mind to sense where that pesky repairman went.

Jennifer kicks the force wall hard enough to disrupt it. Her foot, at head height, is next to Nexus' face when the opaque wall disappears. "Hi, how did you get here?" she asks him.

Icon says, "He probably went down another floor!"

Nexus says, "Well... I was _trying_ to port where Icon TPed me the guy was... and ended up in a small dark room instead. No idea how that happened."

This is the ground floor. Beneath here would be physical plant and storage.

Nexus nods to Icon... "OK, I'm on it..." and waits for his next action.

Nexus says, "Thanks for busting me out, Jess!"

Allure says, "I'll never catch up....."

Icon looks around trying to see if the repairman is still around.

Icon shakes his head, "He's probably down below.."

Nexus nods. "On it. Any millisecond now."

The lowest level of the stadium is typically off-limits. On the ground floor, there's a locked door marked 'Private' and 'Storage Access' 5" away that provides acces to the lowest level.

Icon looks over and says, "Are you able to teleport us all downstairs?"

Nexus nods. "Yeah."

Icon floats towards Nexus, "Quickly!"

Allure says, "Sounds like a plan."

Allure moves over to Nexus too.

Nexus attempts to be transportationally clever.

The basement area the you appear in in filled with equipment from previous Coliseum events, including this years BotB.

Nexus looks around for any signs of where the intangible opponent might have gone.

Icon looks around using his eyes and his mental sense. "Hmmm, where is he..."

Nexus says, "He can't have gotten _too_ far... it's only been a few seconds!"

It's all mostly one giant room cluttered with junk. The repairman is down here, he's floating towards one of the walls he's only managed to get 5" from your porting point. He looks back over his shoulder as he spots the heroes as they spot him.

Nexus says, "Oh... there he is."

Icon points at him. "Oh la la..."

Nexus smacks the air in front of him, his fist appearing several meters away.

Allure strikes a stunning pose before the repairman looks away again.

Nexus 's fist reappears in the wrong spot, phasing through a woman's purse on a shelf.

Icon concentrates and attempts to strike at the mind of the man again.

The repairman sways unsteadily in the air for a moment, but corrects himself.

Icon grumbles and says, "His mind is quite hard to grasp..."

Nexus nods. "I had a history prof like that once."

The repairman says, "You are persistant. If you won't let me walk away, I will stand and fight."

Nexus nods. "I dated a girl like that once." (ooc: replaces earlier quote. More IC.)

Nexus rolls his eyes. "Dude, that _has_ been the idea!"

Icon looks at the man and then Nexus, "His mind is strong, but so bright, well he is bright, but you know..." then pauses to think, realizing the bad pun.

Jennifer holds ready. If the Repair Man becomes solid again she'll do one thing. If he starts to move she'll do another. Until he acts she has to wait.

The repairman becomes solid and he raises his hand, preparing to throw another energy blast.

Jennifer says, "Or... you could tell us what we want to know. Seriously dude, what laws have you broken? If the gizmo hasn't hurt any meta I think it's foolish to fight."

Jennifer lashes out with her energy whip attempting to knock the white-faced guy off his feet and behind a pile of junk so he has no line of sight on Icon or Allure.

Jennifer knocks hertarget away and behind a pile of junk. Shame there's a rolled up carpet that softens the impact with the floor but at least he's not able to blast Allure or Icon.

The repairman floats up to his feet and begins to fly away. He floats 8" distance before he crouches down to hide behind the giant floating stage. He closes a bubble of energy over himself and the area surrounding him.

Icon shakes his head.

Nexus blinks. "Oh! So _that's_ what happened!"

Icon nods and says, "You should teleport into him..."

Nexus stares at Icon rather as if he'd suggested throwing his own liver as an offensive maneuver.

Icon shrugs and says, "Quoi, you did it last time."

Nexus says, "Not as far as I know..." He seems puzzled by Icon's comment. "And I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed."

Jennifer runs forward to get into whip using range, "I'll try and knock the force wall down. Allure, Icon, do your stuff okay.

Nexus thinks. o O (It _would_ probably take him out, though...)

Nexus shouts, loudly: "Dude -- do we have to explain the difference between 'Stand and Fight!' and 'Run and Hide!'? What are you, French?" He adds to Icon "Um... no offense."

Jennifer has the satisfaction of seeing the force wall collapse when she strikes at it.

Jennifer then laughs at Nexus' comment.

The repairman doesn't seem French. Rather he speaks with an accent that suggests British English as a second language.

Icon looks at Allure and says, "I have an idea... if you may allow me to float you for a better view?" reaching out to take hold of Allure and fly to a better angle.

Allure says, "Um.. ok...."

The repairman becomes transparent again. He turns and flies downward through the floor.

Icon looks over and says, "Ahhh, he is worse then a French Marshal, and yes I can insult my own people."

Nexus says, "Jeez. Next time you threaten us we'll be sure to cower in fear of your escaping prowess!"

Icon looks down and says, "What is below us? Dirt?"

Nexus shrugs. "Beats me"

Allure says, "So much for that. And to be fair to him, we do have him rather outnumbered. I don't think most of us would go for a pitched battle under the circumstances."

Icon shrugs and says, "But he said he would fight... " then just looks around waiting.

Allure says, "Hm, true. It could be more of a tactical retreat, I suppose...."

Jennifer looks over at Icon, "Can you lock onto his mind? Follow him that way?"

Nexus returns to the basement, phasing up through the floor, looking not far from falling over from exhaustion. "Sorry. Couldn't catch 'im."

Jennifer supports Nexus, "Sorry, guys. My fault. Mea Culpa."

Nexus says, "Guess we should check the gadget..." he stops. "How the hell do you figure that?""

Jennifer says, "I was over confident. I should have Jeccisa here. I just never got ahead of the action. He was too fast for one of me."

Allure says, "Darn it - he even leaves a clear trail... look, anything he passes through is white..."

Nexus looks like he's about to argue the point, then sighs and shakes his head, murmuring something under his breath that might be "toughest in the yard... I swear." TO allure, he adds "Heh. Didn't notice that. Course, hard to see underground. I guess we could go digging or something, but... hardly seems worth it. Guess we should go check whatever's left of that gadget, though."

Allure nods. "That presumaly matters to him - hm, do you think he might even double back to it?"

Nexus shrugs. "Probably not -- I'm guessing he already did whatever he was here to do, and we caught him on his way out. But it wouldn't hurt to set up some kind of surveillance, in case I'm wrong."

Icon attempts the last resort. He concentrates trying to lock onto the man.

Nexus returns to the pillar, unless Icon strikes gold or something else interesting happens. He does so on foot, taking recs along the way.

Allure too heads back to the pillar, keeping an eye out for the repairman just in case.

Icon looks at Nexus and forwards the telepathic link to Nexus as best he can.

Icon shrugs and says, "He has quite a strong mind."

Icon floats upwards and says, "I'd advise we look at this device then."

Nexus shrugs. "Yeah. He went thataway, but I can't lock onto him from that. We lost 'im."

Some time later, near the pillar... (?)

Rebound is waiting by the pillar when the heroes return.

Nexus says, "Hey, Reb. Find anything?"

Rebound has unpacked the tools that he's brought along for examining the device. "Well, it looks like some kind of scanner."

Nexus sits down and puts his feet up. "Mm? Scanning what?"

Icon looks around, "People obviously."

Rebound says, "I estimate that there are at least a dozen others just like it in similar pillars hidden in the station. Together they form a phased array of sensors that can pinpoint any point or anyone on the playing field."

Allure says, "Including the audience, or not?"

Nexus hrms. "Well... OK... and then what?"

Rebound says, "It looks like it's built to focus on the playing field, not the audience, Allure. It's like the Coliseum is now the worlds largest CAT-scan..."

Nexus nods. "Ah. So, somebody's been peeking into our innards during the BoB. Data's long since been downloaded, I assume?"

Jennifer chuckles, "I knew Lorelei was popular but that's simply over-the-top."

Nexus waggles his eyebrows at Jennifer. "Or under it."

Jennifer swats at Nexus playfully.

Icon nods and says, "Obviously they were interested in metahumans, as this was a hub for them?"

[To Jennifer] Allure says, "You don't think it could really be for m- her?"

Nexus shrugs. "If I had to guess, I'd guess somebody wants specs on all the Bay's metas."

Nexus says, "If it was just Lor, they'd probably have targetted her at a shoot or something."

Allure says, "Well, that was my first guess,"

Rebound says, "The local storage is just for buffering the information, it's all been downloaded. It's for collecting data on how powers work... Damnit..."

Jennifer shakes her head, "Not just for Lorelei. Everyone competing."

Rebound says, "Silver Spider always warned me about this sort of thing happening... I just never listened."

Nexus nods. "Yeah, OK. So, anything interesting about the gadget itself we can use to trace its manufacture?"

Nexus shrugs. "Come on, we all know we give away info about our powers when we compete on these things. This is just a bit more in the same direction."

Icon pauses and says, "This reminds me of that cameraman..."

Nexus says, "Mm?"

Icon nods and says, "That man, I remember a story about him at the zoo, with a cheese throwing woman."

Allure says, "What cameraman?"

Nexus blinks. "Cheese-throwing woman?"

Icon shrugs and says, "Rumors of this camera that can scan and steal powers."

Rebound says, "Was it a story in the news?"

Icon nods and says, "Oui, a bit back. There was this man called Chalk and a woman named Cheese, and this strange attack at the zoo. So, I was told."

Nexus says, "'Chalk and CHeese'? Are you serious? Man, ACRO must've rejected 'em for membership..."

Kibin enters from North of Colonial Bay.

Allure says, "A camera stealing powers? I'm not aware of anyone who lost her powers but Lady Luck..."

Icon shrugs and says, "Lady Luck, who is this Lady Luck?"

Nexus messes around with his PDA for a while.

Rebound says, "Amy... she had luck based powers, well, until she lost them."

Icon nods and says, "Ahh, the sparkly woman. I remember her."

Nexus chuckles. "Man. It's like that old joke about the rabbit's foot."

[To Nexus] Rebound says, "So the sensor network has it's own server. If you have the password, you can log in and download it, which is probably how they get the data out. Probably what they'll do is dump the data before the next round of the BotB and start recording again. Chances are they'll connect again to download that data."

Nexus hrms. "So, any idea what that guy was doing here physically?"

Icon nods and says, "He was fixing it."

Nexus looks over at Icon. "Was it broken?"

Icon shrugs and says, "I presume so, his thoughts were he had just fixed it."

Nexus hrms. "Well, that'd be convenient. D'ya get any sense of whether they'd actually pulled useful data from it?"

Allure says, "If we're lucky, then, maybe they have nothing yet..."

Rebound nods. "It looks like some parts of it were recently swapped out. Nothing that would have broken it. One of the high-speed cooling fans was loose I think. Would made a noise that would drive the local dogs crazy..."

Nexus nods. "Oh! Yeah, Kibin heard it. Hm. So, OK... they've got the data.

Nexus says, "Well. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try to hack the thing, so we can trace it back when they try to upload data, if they're dumb enough to do that."

Nexus says, "Maybe do something subtle to the electronics, too, so they get corrupted data but don't know it. If anybody here is good with that sort of thing."

Jennifer says, "Assume they try again. Can you poison the download?"

Nexus nods to Jennifer. "Yeah. What she said. Xcept she used fewer words."

Rebound looks to Nexus. "I think we can do both between the two of us. Poison the download and maybe put in a Trojan Horse that will contact us with the downloader's information."

Nexus nods. "Cool."

Allure says, "Although they might be expecting something like tha now."

Icon floats upwards and says, "I must be going, adieu..." as he vanishes into the sky.

Nexus nods. "They should be, if they ain't stupid. On the other hand, can't see what harm it does to try it."

Rebound says, "If we're lucky, maybe they don't have the full dataset they need yet. But to be honest, the data I've seen so far is pretty detailed."

Allure says, "THough if they have *everything*, they wouldn't have to fix it."

Nexus says, "Well, new metas might compete."

Nexus says, "Or old metas might use new powers."