Log:A Distressing Signal

2019/10/18 	 Chen Chyoode Grimm Magus Ryosei Thunder Victory Voyager

1

It's afternoon, with the threat of the falling moon still hanging (but insufficiently so) over the planet. Reception at Starguard is, unsurprisingly, more chaotic than normal. But Chyoode has managed to get through to the reception desk at last. "Hi - I'm Chyoode 0067/0189635435011. I'm here to report a crime, I guess. Not that I blame the criminals, whoever they are, exactly, but still I thought I'd better report it..."

Grimm has been traveling all over, taking turns with (Very) Special Agent Malcolm "Forge" Gibbs in babysitting Kyssie. It's his turn, so Grimm is at Starguard after being out to deal with the chaos. Specifically, she's on a quick coffee break, looking exhausted. It's not much quieter here.

The receptionist points out this isn't a police station as such, to which Chyoode replies, "I know that, but this is a Starguard matter. Something that shouldn't be on Earth!"

Chen is in the reception area debating strongly (read arguing) with her reporting officer from the medical facility. Nicky is pressing her case for travelling with the expected hero mission to Tranquility.

Rangel emerges from the barracks, geared up, ready to head out for more vigilantics. Sanctioned vigilantics. Not entirely her jurisdiction but it's still fun to play the part. She overhears, gets near, "A crime," she echoes. "And you're here instead of CBPD, what's up?"

The VoyagerSIM has spent the past week playing the role of the subservient housedroid while waiting for the first phase of its paperwork to be reviewed and processed.

Voyagerow at least formally recognized as an Intelligence under Sapience Review it is here filing another set of documents to formally lend its assistance to StarGuard.

It felt that it could learn a lot and benefit from formalizing a relationship with the entity as well as being the most logical step in its phased approach to reacquiring its original host shell.

The android looks up from its PDA as an emergency presents itself.

Victory is inside Starguard already, as he works here. On a normal day, he'd be helping with training. Today, he's been helping with logistics. He has managed to get some rest in the last few hours, at least. He start to walk past the reception area, and hears the conversation, which draws his attention. He walks over to get some more details.

Chyoode says to Rangel, "This!" She pulls out her PDA (a model no one recognises) and presses something. The room is suddenly fill with a deafening loud repeating signal.

Chen is camped in the reception ready to argue her case for being included in the Transquility mission, if only she could get to see the extremely busy Commander.

Grimm covers one of her ears and cringes, walking over as she sips her cup. "Ouch...I hate this track..." she quips with a slight smile.

Most people in the room cover their ears.

Victory winces and furrows his brow as he listens. "So...what is it, exactly?"

Rangel shouts something angry and aggravated, pulling the offending object to toss into her covered quiver to make it less horrible. "Too loud!" she says shoutily to Chyoode. "You know hot fix that?"

Chyoode shuts it off again, since the fact that people's lips are moving suggest they're probably trying to talk. "It's a distress signal. A very powerful, omnidirectional, subether distress signal."

Rangel waggles a finger in her ears. "Uh... yeah. Powerful is one word I'd use. Could you maybe not have it set to that volume for future demonstrations? Some of us gotta use our sense of hearing again."

Grimm lowers her hand. "So what's the distress? Omnidirectional means...we can't track it?"

The Model 9 Robot walks over to the loud device, curious about its origins and less so about permanent hearing loss.

Once it hears what it is it asks simply, "Who or what is currently in distress?"

Chyoode says, "Sorry - I got a party-model commer. Great sound system! And yeah, I mean, ok, I get it, people want to get off-planet and fast. I don't blame them for sending the signal. But, they shouldn't be able to. You can't send a subether signal that powerful without a power source which is banned tech for Earth. I only know that because of the trouble I had at customs!"

Victory sighs a bit as the important details are avoided. "Who is in distress? What is going on? And where?"

"So something is emitting a signal that's past safety limits and we're gonna track it," Rangel infers. "Shouldn't be hard since it's a distress beacon, right?"

This all sounds very interesting to the VoyagerSIM. "This Unit believes we should find this power source." It says aloud.

Chyoode says, "It's *very* close. Like, in Colonial Bay. Who's sending it, I don't know. It's just a generic message, probably pre-recorded. I guess the good new is, maybe a lot of ships will get it and try to help Earth out...."

"Is it just one? Or is there every alien on the planet trying to broadcast emergency evac at the same time?" Grimm asks, sipping her coffee.

Chyoode says, "It's just one - but like I said, omnidirectional. Almost like they don't know - or care - where to point it."

Chen asks the important question, "Can it be tracked back to the source."

Chyoode says, "I'm pretty sure! The message is on a cycle, so it's kind of traceable by relative strength. It's already louder here than it was at home."

"I also had that question, in different wording," Rangel adds. "Distress signals are supposed to be tracked. What I'm thinking is, we go faster. And put that thing in a box so we can hear it without blowing up our ears."

Chyoode says, "So - are we going to trace it? I mean - it might be illegal tech, but I guess someone is just trying to get rescued...."

Thunder, having been brought in for questioning no less, happens to be walking out of the back. Seeing the rather large crowd of heroes, the younger teen stops to listen. "Ah... hi? What was that loud noise and all?" That's definitely a teenager. With muscles. In what might as well be a costume. "Sorry if I am interfering or anything, they just wanted to ask me questions and stuff."

Chyoode fiddles with her 'commer', finding a way to set the volume in much smaller increments.

"Well knowing that much gives us at leat a partial heading." The Intelligence says through the Model 9 Prototype. It's head turns and watches Chyoode mess with teh device with interest. Its iris shifts subtly.

Chyoode turns up the volume one increment. Still loud, but no longer deafening.

Chyoode says, "Ok - should be good for tracking now!"

"Good enough," Rangel says. "So we just track by intensity, huh? Great! I'll cover from above, you operate that thing." She starts the exiting procedure. Walk to door, use door.

Victory nods. "Shoudl be good for a change of pace. Let's go see what's going on with whatever's sending out that signal."

Chen gives Ryosei a smile, "Hi. I saw you are the TransMat. Someone is using banned tech. We're going to talk to him, her, or it. Come along."

[To Ryosei] Chyoode says, "Someone's using illegal tech to send a distress signal - we're checking it out."

Thunder looks confused, then shrugs, "Ah... sure?" Now he's a bit confused by that, but well. They said come along!

Nobody says, "I guess people are in costume - maybe I should be too?"

Grimm finishes her coffee and and sets it in a trash bin behind reception, smiling apologetically at the receptionist.

Chyoode does a superfast-spin costume change.

The Android follows along, trailing the tail end so that it may better observe the native lifeforms interact.

Superhuman goes outside. "Hang on - I'll jump about a bit and see if I can get a better idea of which way to go to start!"

Superhuman does a fair bit of leaping over tall buildings, the returns to in front of the Starguard building. "It's east from here! And not too far, I think."

Superhuman points toward York Blvd.

"If this signal is from something unique and illegal why hasn't any other sensor picked up on it?" Rangel asks. "Is it dangerous or just unpopular?" She goes above to follow. "Go ahead and talk! I can hear you from up here just fine!"

Superhuman says cheerfully, "Oh, because humans are mostly so primitive they don't have FTL communications, of course."

Grimm murmurs to herself as she sees Superhuman's costume, "I'd get cold being exposed in something like that." She rolls her eyes to Victory and smirks. "But I bet guys love it," she teases.

Victory smirks and says to Grimm, "You should see my girlfriend's costume. She's in SGG as well. Just west coast at the moment." He follows along to the east, as the signal is tracked.

Chyoode says, "I was wondering if I should change it. It's kind of last-year - and anyway, I might have to get rid of the S. Depending on what new name I come up with."

Superhuman walks east, toward the tall Downtown buildings, the signal getting louder as she goes.

Chyoode says, "It turns out that people found 'Superhuman' offensive. I didn't mean it that way, but...."

"Ohhh? Do I know her?" Grimm is all about the gossip just to distract from the moon.

"So what can you tell us about why this particular cell type is banned?" Rangel calls from above.

Victory shrugs and smiles. He says to Grimm, "I'm not sure. Have you met Star Girl at all at Starguard while you were there? You might have seen her in passing a few times."

Chyoode says, "Oh - it's banned on the Guild side, not the Earth side. Tech too advanced, interfering in development of primitive cultures, stuff like that."

Grimm's eyes light up. "Yeah, a few times," she smiles warmly. "We really got along. I like her. Good choice," she chuckles. "I should tell her that, too. I didn't realize that's where she went."

Chen sighs as she overhears Grimm and Victory talking.

Chyoode says, "It should be pretty safe. I mean, unless you do something really stupid like trying to stick a coherent energy field through it or something."

Grimm glances Superhuman's way. "You're an alien, called Super-'human'? I...guess I can see the dissonance there..."

Thunder, meanwhile, is working on following as best as he can. He's definitely not got a good way to keep up. Or maybe. He occasionally leaps this way and that to catch up. "Um... this is just kinda weird so far. I mean, I was just brought in for questioning on yesterday."

Chyoode says, "Um, well, I kind of thought that since I was an alien it would be good if my hero ID was a human, but it turns out that I don't *actually* look human enough to humans to pull that off. But I didn't know."

Grimm glances at Chen as she sighs, having missed something. "Uhh. She not a Star Girl fan?"

The signal gets louder and louder as the group walks down York Blvd - and then begins to get quieter again. Just as the heroes are passing the Snipe building.

Rangel picks up on the change in volume. "Hey, it's back here a bit," she says.

Grimm nods slowly at Superhuman as they follow the signal as best they can. "Yeah. Kind of...missed the mark there. But good try?" she tries to be encouraging and just isn't sure how to salvage it.

Superhuman nods and turns back. She checks that indeed it's the Snipe Building and not the one across the street they want.

The Snipe Building looks old and rather unimpressive these days, but back in the day it was Colonial Bay's very first skyscraper.

Chen pats Thunder on the shoulder, "When one falls from a horse you should remount quickly." She grins, "Translate that to Mandarin and that's how Master Chung would speak to you. Maybe you messed up. Maybe not. Either way if you're going to be a hero you have to do hero things, not sit in a corner beating yourself up."

Grimm slows down a bit as the sound gets quieter, starting to look around with her shadow sight to get a feel for what's in the nearby Snipe Building.

Victory looks at the building and the others, "This is it, then?" He goes to check the door to head inside.

Rangel relays on radio, "the owner, who I think is inside is rich enough to buy illicit and illegal items."

Thunder looks confused at where they have stopped. "Huh... that's kinda a weird place to put some illegal alien stuff, isn't it?" He looks over to Chen, then switches to Mandarin. &lt;I know Mandarin quite well. Do you?&gt;"

Rangel uses the ground floor entry like everyone else, banking on this one using some high security to prevent access by windows.

Chyoode says, "Yeah, seems to be!"

Chen replies to Thunder, in native Mandarin, "It's my native langauge. Although my American English is now pretty good I think. Better than my German, even."

Superhuman goes in with Victory, 'commer' getting very unpleasantly loud again. The guy on the reception desk's smile looks strained as he shouts, "Can I help you?"

"He's got money, he's calling in whoever'll answer to take him off world," Rangel says at a guess. "Who sold him the thing? That we can find out if questions are asked of him." She tries to turn the volume down on the commer again.

Victory smiels to the guy at the desk. "Official Starguard business. We're picking up an alien distress signal from inside the building."

Thunder gives a nod at Chen, still speaking in Mandarin, "Ah, forgive my accent, then. Native Japanese here." He looks over to see what is going on. He knows some of the heroes at least, but is obviously a bit confused by what is going on.

Grimm rubs her temple as she follows along, her shadow sight being...overshadowed? She glances at the moon and gives it a spiteful glare, assuming evil Porter is somehow responsible. Or just regular porter. Or ...goth Porter? She's run into too many, but such is the live of a dimensional hopper. She follows the others.

Rangel fails to alter the volume.

Chyoode says, "Hey, careful!"

"Are you certain? There aren't any aliens in the building, as far as I know. Well. other than...." The guy looks at the group.

Victory nods. "Quite sure. We'd just like to take a look around to see if we can track down the source of hte signal. Then we'll be out of your hair."

The guy nods. "Well - ok. Since it's you! Hang on, I'll call security to let them know. Meanwhile -sign in, and put on these visitors' badges...."

Grimm feels all sorts of discombulated, almost blind without the shadow sight she's become accustomed to. It makes her feel a little vulnerable, so she keeps her head on a swivel.

"Would you please turn that thing down and/or off?" Rangel says loudly toward Superhuman. "I think we're as close as it's going to lead us!"

Victory nods and deals with the building security protocols. He has a sneaking suspicion there's a small space ship being stored in a trophy case upstairs someplace.

Thunder shakes his head, then looks to Chen. He keeps to Mandarin, "Is it always like this?"

Superhuman nods, and looks at the commer to do so. "Huh, I wonder what that m--" she says, just as the commer explodes in a flash of sparks. She emits a long stream of emphatic utterances in her native language.

Chen grins, "No. Usually it's scary and chaotic and violent. What I do in these situations is tag along after the smart guy," She nods toward Victory's back, "and wait for the punching to start."

Grimm winces and ducks at the sound of the explosion, raising up a shield of darkness briefly before drawing it down. "Yeesh." She's jumpy.

"Sorry!" Rangel says, assuming she is at fault for being the last to touch it. "If I can replace it, I'll uh.. try to."

Superhuman concludes her swearing. "What am I going to do now? I can't get a replacement within a couple of hundred light-years!"

Victory turns and says in Mandarin to Chen, "Are you talking about me there?"

"We can probably have something imported?" Rangel suggests.

Chyoode says, "Yeah. But but I don't have the money, either. Earth money's not exactly worth much out there."

Grimm looks impressed that Wade speaks Chinese, but she doesn't understand a word of it. "You're full of surprises."

Chen keeps to Mandarin, "I don't know. I was talking about a smart guy. Does the description fit?" She laughs.

"We'll figure something out after the moon stops being an imminent threat," Rangel says. "So, security, upstairs? We should proceed."

Thunder looks at what was the com device, then looks to Chen and Victory, still keeping to Mandarin, "Uh-huh. So... uh... why'd that thing explode?"

The guy on the desk has called through to security by this point. "OK - you can go on in."

Superhuman shrugs. "Guess the signal was too strong - overloaded it? I mean - we're right on top of it."

Chyoode says, "It was getting kind of hot."

"Oh, so not liable," Rangel nods. "I'm okay to go with that too, but the working out part, still wanna help."

Victory says to Grimm, "Six languages. It becomes a bit easier after the first couple. At least I found that to be the case." He heads through security, "So...how are we going to find it without the signal? Rangel, can you hear it directly?"

Thunder switches to English, "We could just search the building until we find it?"

Grimm smirks playfully at Victory. "Pssh. Why not go all the way and make it 10? Overachiever," she teases.

Rangel puts her ear to a wall. "Well, there's a few weird noises but I don't know what was making the signal specifically. I can track down the source of the weird smells though. We got a few stashed somewhere. I'm guessing somewhere we'll be asked for a warrant about."

Grimm sneers as she hisses under her breath, "...lawyers..."

The smell trail leads, mostly, to the elevator.

Victory shakes his head, "It was a distress signal we were following. I think a warrant won't be an issue. We have cause."

"Yeah, not surprising," Rangel says. "Buy things you can get in trouble for, have people around who can get you out of that trouble. Money helps everything." She's walking as she traces the scent. "Ooh. Elevator. Gonna have to check floor by floor as we go up. Or start from the top and go down. What do you think?" she asks Victory.

The VoyagerSIM listens and observes, learning every step of the way through the power of analysis!

It continues to cover the rear. It ntoes Rangel's comment and resolves to investigate further.

Grimm looks towards the elevator and makes her way there. She glances up, noting the place is shielded against her senses. But then she looks down and smiles. "Hm..."

Grimm rubs a hand against a panel in the eleavtor. "There's some hidden buttons behind here. Key required. And I can sense the levels below. Hmmm. Since you say we have probably cause." Grimm smiles and turns into a shadowy shape and starts to sink through the floor of the elevator.

Rangel fishes out a pick of locks, since she has no key.

Grimm's voice echoes spookily through the floor. "We all float down here. You'll float, too."

A laser beam cuts up through the floor and the ceiling abruptly, missing everyone.

Chen grins, "Now this is more like it."

Victory blinks. "What the..." He grimaces.

Grimm is started by the sudden laser beam. This is some vil security system. Or anti-vil. She suddenly teleports back up and into an empty spot in the elevator, all tensed up. "Whoooa...Everyone okay?"

"Great! We're being shot at," Rangel says, turning an arrow to aim through the hole the laser made to see if she can find a nice blinking target.

Victory doesn't turn on his shield, given the amount of space in the elevator.

Thunder looks over at the laser beam hole bit. He blinks a few times. Then looks for where the laser came from supposedly. He looks at the other heroes, "So... since we're being shot at, can we be destructive now?"

"Why yes, I'm fine, it went right through me, thanks," Grimm says sardonically to Rangel.

"It also missed all of us, and we're fine," Rangel adds. "Uh... whatever made the shot is gone. That's not a good sign."

There's the faint sound, presumably of the laser, from far below, for those with excellent hearing. But no beam is seen this time.

Chen goops into liquid and flows over the elevator floor. "Should be oka. It will have to get past me. Although if you could all move your feet, otherwise I cannot save your soles."

The laser lancing up and nearly injuring the squad sets the Model 9 into a defensive mode.

Two circles over its shoulders begin glowing red as its resonance deflectors come online.

It lifts its feet.

"Something firing down there," Rangel says, pushing button for the lowest sub basement after ensuring Chen has her floor, stcking herself to a wall.

The elevator begins a slow descent. Old piece of equipment.

"It's down below us. I couldn't tell what," Grimm says, hovering like a shadowy specter in the elevator. "Thanks, Chen. We'd be fish in a barrel otherwise."

The weapon charging whine can be heard again by those with excellent hearing. Then the elevator is suddenly in freefall.

"Oh shi---" Grimm starts to say as the elevator drops, and she remains floating where she is. She looks down and reaches out to try and catch it as she becomes solid, shadows starting to coalesce and reach out for it.

Chen attempts to punch six tentacles out through the sides of the elevator to grab hold of the shaft. "Was expecting that."

Grimm sees the elevator's stopped before her shadows can assist. They're dismissed quickly. "This place is a real fun house..."

Chen grabs the sides of the shaft with suckers on the tentacles. "Okay. Uh, What I expect next is a heavy block dropping from the top of the elevator shaft. I'm kind of busy so if someone could figure ofn dealing with that..."

Caught by surprise, Thunder goes to one knee as the elevator starts to fall, giving a surprised shout at it as he looks up. Then he looks down. "Right... ah... want me to get the door?"

Victory manages to keep his balance...but barely. "How much further down is the bottom?"

Superhuman ends up standing on the ceiling, but ok.

Thunder moves to open the doors. By force at that, so they can get an idea of just where they are.

Grimm floats back into the elevator car from the top as she goes desolid again. "That was scary."

Chen chuckles at Grimms comment, "I call it a licence to hit back."

Victory thinksa bout it. "Chen, can you carry the elevator down to the bottom the same way you stopped it? By just carrying it down to where our attacker is?"

Chen doesn't nod. Because her 'face' is spread over the floor of the elevator, "No problem, Victory. By the way, elevator operators usually gets tips, no?" She starts 'walking' the elevator down the shaft toward the bottom.

Chen is suddenly shot in the underside by the 'laser'.

Chen yelps, "Okay, we may have a bit of a problem. I think it's an X-ray laser or something. Anyway it's cooking my insides."

"You're already getting a back massage with our feet, what more do you--are you okay??" Grimm asks.

Victory nods. "Let the elevator drop, then. We can survive that, I think. Grimm, stay desolid. Rangel can get on top of the elevator and cling to the call or something."

Grimm nods to victory, staying desolid. "I could maybe get it to focus shooting at me instead of the elevator if I drop lower."

Thunder looks thoughtful. "This thing has cables, right?" He looks to the others.

Chyoode says, "Oh - if I can get through the bottom I could jump down and catch you."

Victory says, "No time for complicated solutions! Let it drop!"

Thunder looks for a hatch or something on the top of the elevator. Failing that, he pulls his sword and tries to cut his way out of it. Literally.

Chen pulls in her tentacles, letting the elevator drop freely. But uses the body mass to create a spongy soft layer under the elevator cab to act as a shock absorber.

Chen absorbs the falling damage without injury.

Thunder moves to open the doors, and get them out of the elevator. Even if he has to bust through another set of doors to do it.

Victory turns on his shield while Thunder works on the door.

Thunder moves to the doors, then brings back a hand. In the flickering light, it's obvious that he's tensing his muscles before he throws the punch rather hard. The result is the doors rippling before they bend outwards from the force of the blow as the teen moves through them, pushing them the rest of the way open for the rest of the group as he moves to get out of the elevator. He looks at what's beyond and comments, "Anyone seen an alien device or two around here? Or did we hit the wrong floor?"

The doors are blown off to reveal some sort of lab. 3 techie sorts and 4 security people are immediately visible in the room. All have some sort of obviously alien weapon - and force field belts, already on. It's almost like someone called and told them you were coming. :)

The lab also contains a number of other interesting objects, possible alien. Including the redly glowing obvious power-source thing many things are plugged into.

Chen takes a moment to pull herself together. Literally. For a instant there's just the shortish Chinese girl stood there. Then she morphs into a should high sabre tooth tiger, and roars. You thought Chyoode's comm was loud?

The sudden appearance of the tiger seems to scare the various people in the basement more even than hostile superheroes. The security people are clearly shaken - even the guy who seems to be in charge. As for the techies, it's brown trousers time.

Victory strides forward, "This is your only chance! Stand down now!" He's not about to strike them while they're stunned by Chen's appearance, even though they were just shooting at the elevator moments ago.//Half move, holding a half. (I suspect a PRE attack would be negligible compared to Chen's)

Grimm floats out of the elevator, her right shoulder and arm phasing through the right side as she takes up a spot off to Victory's side. She waits for them to make up their minds.

Chen turns her fanged tiger face toward Thunder, and says quietly in Mandarin, "When I said scary earlier I meant scary for the bad guys."

Suddenly a patch of fur on the sabre tooth tiger ignites and burns.

The tiger show no reaction.

Another X-ray laser takes out Rangel.

The techies drop their weapons and put their hands up at once. The security types wait for orders. "Shit, why are you after us?!" says the security chief. "We were just trying to get off this planet!"

"Grrr, there's two snipers back there. I'm on it," Grimm says as she vanishes in a cloud of inky darkness, only to reappear between the two snipers in a similar fashion. Dark, forbidden whispers announce her presence. "You guys are going to jail, hoping the moon does fall so you don't have to serve your time."

Lien leaves Starguard - Reception Area and enters Alien District.

Chen roars again, and bounds for the wall where she thinks the laser came through. Perchance a charred spot might confirm that. She bulks in muscle tone as she runs, and slams into the wall at full speed.

Chen smashes through the wall tearing a large hole in it and narrowly fails to bite a sniper with a sideways lunge of her head as she passes him.

Victory remains focused on the tech and security people in teh room he's in. "Why are we coming after you? Your buddies shot at us with lethal weaponry." He points to the wall that Chen just crashed through and Grimm appeared beyond. "Remain still. I'd prefer to resolve this with as little violence as possible, please."

"But you were coming for us already - why else would you be here?! Look - it's ok for you capes, I bet. You probably have friends who can fly you all away to space or take you to fairyland or whatever. We're just ordinary joes, who necks. So we do that, and what happens? An army of capes knocking on the door. How'd you expect us to react?!"
 * happen* to know there's stuff down here that shouldn't be but can save our

Grimm just gives the sniper closest to her an angry look as she regains color and becomes opaque. "Time to sleep."

The guy Grimm targeted suddenly screams in horror!

Superhuman doesn't know the situation outside the elevator. She shields her fallen companion with her body to be on the safe side.

At the chilling scream, two of the already-spooked security types - the leader included - panic and fire at the targets in front of them - Victory and Thunder.

The ripped off elevator doors behind the two heroes shrink down to a fraction of their former size.

Superhuman sucks in her breath, recognising the weapons.

Thunder turns towards the ones that shot at him and Victory and moves that way. He doesn't look happy. He rushes the poor guy, then brings a hand back as the last step he brings his hand up, gives a small hop into the air, and comes down with his fist slamming the floor in a shockwave like motion.

Thunder rolls for HAP's and gets 2 for this scene.

Victory takes the brunt of the shockwave on his shield, but gets knocked over, only to roll to his feet immediately.

The shockwave stuns the security guards, though.

Victory hurries over to the leader, "You DID shoot at us first. We were responding to a distress call that you inadvertently set off. So...good job?" He reaches down and tries to disarm the guy.

Victory knocks the weapon free. "Surrender. NOW."

The guards surrender - they only fired in panic, anyway. "Inadvertently?! WE set off the distress call - on purpose! Weren't you even listening?"