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WWYCD: Thieves steal rare books


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Straight from the headlines.

 

"Antiquarian books worth more than $4m have been stolen by a gang who avoided a security system by abseiling into a warehouse.

 

The three thieves made off with more than 160 publications after raiding the storage facility in what has been labelled a Mission: Impossible-style break-in."

 

(The original crime happened in the UK, but I cut that out to make it more generic. You can always put that back in if you want.)

 

The police are baffled, and need superheroic help.

 

WWYCD?

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Sounds like someone ordered the acquisition of some books to fill some holes in his/her collection.  I'll bet that is one hell of a collection, too...

 

Surreal

 

P.S. The person who was able to afford to pay thieves to do this (or who did it as an act of thiever him/herself), likely has piles of money ... as you don't put such books just anywhere.  If they are to be placed in the midst of others worthy of their presence ... it says something about the collector.  Thus, I doubt this was done to save any money.  More likely it was done just because the person could...

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Sunburn: If the books were of mystical nature, he could rattle off a list of mystical supers who would be intrested. Else, see if Penny Dreadful is in jail (and in secret, cause the nature of the 'truce' between Hudson City vigilantes and the rest of the superhero world). Then, depending on the books stolen, he could name a short list of interesting patties.

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Darkstar would talk to his magical books contact and find out if any of the stolen books was a magical tome. If yes then he would have to start asking around the few magical types he knows and look for leads. He isn't a fan of black magic. If no then he'd assume some rich collector had stolen them and lose interest.

 

Knight Rider would assume some sort of rich collector. She would start with a fine-tooth sweep for clues of the burglary site. Her power armour has super-sensors. Then she'd ask around her business and socialite contacts to get a list of potential suspects. Next she would start looking for underworld types whose MO matches that of the crime. She'd have to ask for favours from a cop or detective for this, as she doesn't have much streetwise or street level contacts. She would try to avoid doing anything illegal (like break and enters/illegal search) without good reason.

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Quasar - He would follow up with Primus and the local police, but street crimes really aren't his area of expertise.  

 

Shadowhunter - He would hit up all his contacts - Local beat cops, organized crime contacts, dealers in stolen items.  Street crimes ARE his area of expertise.  

 

Mystica - "Book?  What kind of book?  Tom Sawyer book, or SPELL book?  Why are you keeping spell book?  Where do you get?  What have you been doing with arcane spell book?  Does book have names of demons?  Why are you summoning demons in MY CITY?!?!  You work for DEMON?  Are you Morbane?  ANATHEMA!  Now feel the wrath of....  Wait, is Tom Sawyer book?  Why you bother me over Tom Sawyer book?  You lost book, but still have soul.  Be happy and stop bothering Mystica."

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Paradox Timely: Unless it is 50 Shades of Grey (or simular like The Story of O or Perils of Gwendolyn), or a book of "classic" sci-fi or fantasy, she would have little interest. Still, if a book being stolen can change the future...

 

Jet Justice: What is this thing called a book? You mean there are no Liebros Screens here? Are you sure Terra was once known as Earth?

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Paradox Timely: Unless it is 50 Shades of Grey (or simular like The Story of O or Perils of Gwendolyn), or a book of "classic" sci-fi or fantasy, she would have little interest. Still, if a book being stolen can change the future...

 

Jet Justice: What is this thing called a book? You mean there are no Liebros Screens here? Are you sure Terra was once known as Earth?

 

A book being stolen doesn't just have to have consequences of some sort for the future to be dangerous; the here and now

could also be in danger, especially if the book in question is something like al-azif -- A.K.A the Necronomicon -- in which case

it's time to call in Miskatonic U's A -Team and the appropiate units of the military.

 

Jet Justice: surely even in the quantum reality you hail from, there must be at least some books in existence, even if they're

only carefully-preserved museum exhibits or otherwise kept in climate-controlled protective storage vaults against the remote

possibility of technological collapse (there are several QRs out there in the Multiverse where that's happened,one of which was

due to magic reasserting itself as the dominant force in that reality; the others were due to wars or catastrophic natural disast-

ers).

 

Paradox Timely: I refer you to the episode of the mid- to late-20th Century television series Star Trek called "A Piece of the

Action", in which the Enterprise encountered an alien society which had patterned itself after 1920s gangland Chicago,

following a visit from an Earth vessel a century before -- during which several books on various subjects were left behind as

gifts to the planet's inhabitants (NOTE: IIRC, it was mentioned that the Earth ship's visit happened before the Prime Directive

was made part of Starfleet's policy regarding contact with alien cultures), one of which was a history of the gang wars and

personages of the 1920s. That gift resulted in a society in which everyone walked around with a weapon, and where drive-

by shootings were a daily occurrence.

 

 

Major Tom 2009 :shock:

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Jack Diamond starts by investigating the crime scene thoroughly. No matter how thorough and prepared the crooks are, they always leave some kind of evidence behind. Always. Then, it's just a matter of following the evidence.

 

Thunderstrike is no detective...but he is a hacker. He starts with a list of the books that were stolen, which he then searches and cross-references online. He looks for patterns and follows up with inquiries in person as necessary.

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