Four Summoners

[Shaddakim]

Recently (relatively), our group played a short campaign as villains for a change of pace. We have switched back to my FH campaign, but I found myself with with story ideas for the villains, so I've started writing their story. I am posting them here for entertainment and commentary. Please feel free to comment and provide feedback.

 

A few caveats:

 

Capital City is a ficticious city. In the real world, it is located where Port Tobacco, Maryland is. Why a ficticious city? Because none of us players could complain that "it doesn't look like that" as we have never been there. Why Port Tobacco? There's not much there right now and it gives us an anchor to "plan jobs".

 

We never named the organization Four Summoners was beholden to in-game, so I have added the name GLIMMER. If you don't like it, it's my fault, not our GM's.

 

Our group was named Four Summoners as there were four of us and when originally creating our characters, we all had some sort of summoning ability (if not the actual the Summon power). This changed as we tweaked our characters after the first session to get them to work like we wanted them to.

 

I will post the first story by "scenes" to keep the posts from being too long. Each scene is a natural break in the story and I have the first story completly written.

 

Thank you for your time and please enjoy.

[Shaddakim]

The Baltimore Bank Job - Part 1

 

Professor Demigauss took stock of his assets and status. Currently, the Summoner organization consisted of himself, his cohorts in crime (Cannonade, Dr. Zarathustra, Menagerie, and Mr. Goralac), and their first two strike teams of agents, wearing stolen power armor. “Mental note: update that inferior DanCo dreck soonest,” Professor Demigauss thought to himself.

 

In addition to direct personnel, Summoner also has a base of operations, Summoner I, hidden on the 15th floor of an office building on the edge of the Capital City Downtown, and the Summoner Shuttle, a gravitic airship about the size of a station wagon and able to become invisible in the visible light and radio spectrums. While the shuttle is cramped when holding its maximum capacity (nine people), it gets the job done until resources are available for a larger model. “Mental note: secure resources for larger shuttle.”

 

Next, there is the base staff and the cover organization. The Summoner I staff consists of Roderick, the base butler, and Pamela Yarborough, the receptionist for the cover organization who knew more of the truth than her nominal employers. The cover organization, Talents and Temps (“T and T: An Explosive Combination”), is a functioning temp agency that occupies the other half of the fifteenth floor, providing cover for the comings and goings of Summoner personnel and a revenue stream for the organization. None of the employees of Talents and Temps know about Summoner. Even the management in charge of running the agency only knows they have investors who dictated Pamela’s position, paid her salary, and paid them well to not wonder too much. They did not know that it was Pamela who had selected them and she was the only part of the agency not considered expendable.

 

Finally, there are those individuals in the city who owe their personal allegiance to Professor Demigauss. Nested in or running various other useful businesses or organizations, they are the Professor’s personal resources, his covert eyes and ears (and occasionally muscle) in the city at large. Professor Demigauss treats these people well as he relies upon their skills and access, but he always made certain that they knew who worked for whom.

 

Glancing at one of the ubiquitous digital base wall clocks, Professor Demigauss saw that it was time to prepare for another training exercise/revenue enhancement. He carefully replaced the tools he was using in their appropriate places and shut down the current to the lab bench where he was working. Professor Demigauss verified that all of the Van der Bot components returned to their inert states before walking away from the lab bench. “The new model is coming along nicely,” the Professor thought to himself. “When finished, this Opti-bot configuration will provide a superior tactical view of any area we are operating in.”

 

Before leaving his lab, the Professor stopped to verify that the large stone rings Summoner had “liberated” from the hidden lab at the DuPont Research and Development facility were still secure and that the containment field was operating at full power. The team knew that the DuPont security detail in the hidden lab had used the rings to teleport somehow. The basic, logical assumption was that the rings transported between each other. The Professor’s security bent (some would say paranoia) also told him that there may be more rings that can access these rings. Therefore, the rings were being held inside containment fields of the Professor’s devising that provided any potential uninvited guests no room to materialize that was not already occupied by a plane of force. The Professor was not certain what would happen if an object or person materialized coterminous with one of the planes of force, but he suspected it would be disruptive and painful to say the least.

 

Satisfied the stone rings were still secure, the Professor removed his lab coat and hung it on a peg by the door, exposing his Atomic Guardian Power Suit, a red and black uniform lined with circuitry and micro-miniaturized field generators and completed with black boots, and red gloves. He had several gear pouches (colored to match the uniform) on a modified holster around his right thigh in which he carried inert-state Van der Botz. He picked up his gun metal grey helmet and put it on as he left his lab and walked down the hall to the shuttle hangar.

 

In the hangar he found the members of Squad Alpha – four strike team agents in gunmetal grey DanCo powered armor suits. Their loyalties still lay with GLIMMER, but Professor Demigauss was slowly bringing them around to being loyal to Summoner first, GLIMMER second. Eventually, they would be loyal to Summoner only, but that was for later. Professor Demigauss had plans of his own, plans that did not include working for GLIMMER, but he was willing to use their resources and make them his own.

 

“Squadleader, report,” Professor Demigauss ordered.

 

The leader of Squad Alpha approached and saluted Professor Demigauss while the other three agents assumed a more attentive posture. “Squad Alpha assembled for deployment, sir. We are still awaiting the arrival of Doctor Zarathustra and Ghost.” The agents did not know that Doctor Zarathustra and Ghost were two parts of a tri-part entity. The third part, an eight year old girl possessed girl by the name of Charity rarely entered the base, usually only to establish a mind link with an assault team. For this evenings exercise, she would not be used – the team would use standard encrypted radios.

 

“Noted,” the Professor responded. The Professor looked up at the digital clock on the hangar wall. “There are still five minutes until departure. Doctor Zarathustra is punctual, if never early. He and Ghost will be here shortly. In the meantime, load up into the Shuttle while I start the preflight.”

 

“Yes, sir!” The squadleader turned to his squad and barked, “Squad. Mount up.” The four troopers climbed into the back of the shuttle, settling into the wall seats in the cargo/ passenger area. They were careful to not bump into each other – the helmets of the stolen armor being somewhat bulky.

 

“Mental note,” the Professor thought to himself, “make armor upgrade for the troopers a priority item.” The Professor then climbed into the pilot’s seat through the shuttle’s side hatch and started powering up the shuttle’s systems. The pilot seat did have direct access to the cargo/ passenger area, but it was easier to access it through the side hatch.

 

As he ran through his pre-flight, the Professor could hear the troopers going over their orders for this mission. They were to be the perimeter guards while the Shuttle was invisibly sitting on a Baltimore bank roof. Ghost would enter the building like his namesake to verify the location of the guards and report that information. Doctor Zarathustra would cut through the roof by leaching the solidity of the roof’s physical structure over a two meter radius and then easily tearing through the weakened material. Once the leaching effect wore off, the damaged material would regain its structural integrity in whatever configuration it was in. When the police finally arrived it would look as though someone with super strength tore through the solid roof, leading them along the wrong path entirely. Once inside, the Professor and Doctor Zarathustra would disable the security system and proceed to looting the vault. Accessing the vault would be as simple as breaching the roof was and for the same reasons.

 

Just as Professor Demigauss finished his pre-flight and activated the shuttle’s gravitic displacement field, Doctor Zarathustra and Ghost entered the hangar, exactly on time. Professor Demigauss had once asked Doctor Zarathustra how he managed to be exactly on time all the time. The Doctor had simply grinned an oily grin and asked, “How much is it worth to you?” Professor Demigauss had learned that that question invariably lead to conversations about how much a soul was worth, a conversation that invariably dead-ended.

 

Doctor Zarathustra nimbly climbed aboard with Ghost floating behind him. Doctor Zarathustra was wearing a grey flannel suit and appeared all the world like a middle-aged middle-manager. The only out of place accoutrement on him was a thin cane with a silver tip and handle. Professor Demigauss knew the cane was actually a sword cane and contained a thin, straight blade that was preternaturally sharp. Doctor Zarathustra did not use it often, but when he did it was to good effect. Ghost was his usual slightly out of focus, monochromatic self. He did not need to ride in the Shuttle, but it was convenient for him to do so.

 

“Greetings, Professor. I hope we are not late,” Doctor Zarathustra stated as he slid into a seat next to the Professor.

 

“Not at all, Doctor,” Professor Demigauss replied. “Directly on time as always.” Professor Demigauss keyed open the internal speakers and stated simply, “Prepare for lift-off.” He closed the intercom as the rear doors were closed and locked by a trooper and then he activated the Shuttle’s flux field – a morphing energy field that bent visible light and radio waves around the shuttle. The flux field’s efficiency was not one hundred percent, allowing those inside it to see outside and leaving a slight distortion in the air around the space occupied by the Shuttle. Up to ten feet away the outline of the Shuttle was dimly visible. Beyond ten feet the Shuttle was effectively invisible in the visible light spectrum and to all radar systems currently in use. Professor Demigauss had plans for adapting the flux field to also work in the ultraviolet and infrared portions of the spectrums, but the formulas were devilishly complicated and difficult to verify at the moment.

 

With the flux field at full strength, Professor Demigauss dialed open the gravitic displacement field, reducing the Shuttle’s effective weight to zero. He then keyed the exterior wall’s flux field, which was programmed to provide an exact image of the outer wall, and opened the outer wall. The outer wall moved in slightly, separating into two foot wide sections which then slid to either side, creating an opening for the shuttle to fly though. Professor Demigauss eased the Shuttle forward and out of the building, through the exterior flux field. During daylight hours any outside observer might have noticed a shiver in the field as the Shuttle transited, but at night it was completely unnoticeable.

 

Once clear of the building, Professor Demigauss sent a signal via gravitic wave to close the outer wall and then nosed the shuttle north, gaining speed as the Shuttle moved. The shuttle’s top speed was just under one hundred and twenty miles per hour, which was plenty fast for their purposes. Baltimore was barely 72 miles away, but as the Shuttle was invisible and Washington, D.C. was directly between Capital City and Baltimore, Professor Demigauss swung the Shuttle east first and then flew north over the waters of Chesapeake Bay. The passage near Annapolis was not without its dangers, but the Professor was very confident in the Shuttle’s flux field and the inability of United States Navy to spot it.

[Shaddakim]

Baltimore Bank Job, Part 2

 

After a relatively short flight, the shuttle was moving over the northern suburbs of Baltimore. While not as noisy as a jet or helicopter, the Shuttle still produced noise, so they were flying high enough that the noise was inconspicuous compared to the street traffic. Professor Demigauss brought the shuttle to rest on the roof of an office building a half a mile from their target. In the darkness, the lights of the bank parking lot were clearly visible from here, as were the main roads passing by the bank.

 

The bank’s cleaning staff would be leaving soon, as would the night manager. Once they left, the bank would be empty until the morning manager arrived to prepare for the armored car pickup. This facility held the weekly cash reserves for several of the neighborhood branch banks and would be making regular deliveries of cash to the branches tomorrow in preparation for the Friday payday rush. All of which meant that this location currently held a great deal of unmarked bills, neatly arranged and ready for a quick pick up.

 

To keep the local heroes off their case, Cannonade and Mr. Goralac were currently performing actions guaranteed to draw the attention of heroes in other parts of Baltimore. Their orders were to draw the attention of any local heroes to locations remote from tonight’s target, but to avoid getting caught or being seen. Professor Demigauss expected Cannonade to cause significant property damage at range using his various exploding energy projectiles. Mr. Goralac was not specific as to what he would do, only that it would draw “significant attention.” Doctor Zarathustra vouched for Goralac, so Professor Demigauss chose to believe that Mr. Goralac would support the plan.

 

Shortly after nine, an owl flew to the building and landed on one of the various pipes and vents on the roof of the office building. Menagerie had scouted the area thoroughly over the past two weeks and identified this building as the safest rendezvous point. Professor Demigauss was glad to see that she was correct. Once she joined them, the Shuttle would fly over to the bank and the work would begin.

 

The owl had been scanning the roof intently, looking for signs of movement. Apparently satisfied, the owl flew down to the roof itself, hopped a few steps, and then transformed into a sun-bleached, blonde-haired, tall woman wearing khakis. Her hair had a definite feathered look to it, reminiscent of the feathered head of the owl form she had just abandoned. She walked up to the edge of the flux field and waited. Professor Demigauss ordered the rear doors opened to let Menagerie in, causing a doorway to apparently appear in mid air in front her. She stepped into the Shuttle and moved to one of the forward seats. The trooper who had opened the door for her closed it behind her. Professor Demigauss partially rotated the pilot’s seat around so he could face her. “Are we good for entry?” he asked.

 

“Yep. The cleaning crew and the night manager just left. In another twenty minutes the local police cruiser will troll by before going for dinner at the Sonic half a mile down the road.” Menagerie’s irises still covered the majority of her eyes and were widely open, giving her an unearthly look. It was an after effect of her transformation and it, like the feathery hair, would fade the longer she stayed in her human form.

 

“Good. Cannonade and Goralac should start their diversions shortly.” In a slightly louder voice to the rest of the vehicle’s passengers, Professor Demigauss added, “We are set to move in twenty five minutes. The target is empty and the local police will have left for dinner. Let’s not make them miss their feeding by drawing their attention.”

 

Professor Demigauss received a short chorus of “yes, sirs” from the troopers and a snort from Doctor Zarathustra. Ghost was staring off into the middle distance, before turning to face the Professor and asking in a curiously wet voice, “When will I be sent?”

 

“It will take you about ten minutes to get there from here,” Professor Demigauss asked.

 

“Correct.”

 

“Then please head out in ten minutes.”

 

“You will let me know the appropriate time,” Ghost asked. “My watch seems to be broken.” Smiling a lopsided grin, he held up his left arm, showing the apparently water filled cracked lens of the time piece.

 

“Certainly,” Professor Demigauss responded before turning the pilot seat back forward. Professor Demigauss did not understand why Ghost continued to tell that same tired joke. It must have something to do with being dead. Perhaps something about being stuck between worlds caused the seeming memory loss. The Professor knew what Doctor Zarathustra’s response would be if asked for information on the subject, which exhausted the Professor’s access to things supernatural. “Damned supernatural clap-trap,” the Professor mused to himself.

 

After ten more minutes of waiting, Professor Demigauss turned to Ghost and said, “It is your time.”

 

Ghost grinned and replied, “Excellent.” He then faded out of sight. Professor Demigauss could no longer see, hear, or smell Ghost’s damp presence, but knew that Ghost was immaterially moving through the walls of the Shuttle and flying to the bank under his own power. Ghost would arrive at the bank at roughly the same time the local police performed their drive-by and would be able confirm their drive-by had happened. He would then have about ten minutes to verify the bank was empty before the rest of the team arrived in the shuttle. If he found anyone in the bank, he would, in his words, “drain their soul until they could no longer resist his commands.” Professor Demigauss, a skeptic about all things supernatural, doubted the explanation but not the results.

[Shaddakim]

The Baltimore Bank Job, Part 3

 

When the Shuttle arrived at the bank, all appeared to be as it should be. The bank’s parking lot was well lit by the lights on poles. Smaller lights on the grounds illuminated the walls of the building in attractive ways that also prevented anyone from gaining access to the roof unobserved. “Unless one was flying,” Professor Demigauss thought to himself. The bank’s steep sloped roof appeared to provide no place to land when viewed from the ground. From the air, it was clear that this was a sham and that there was plenty of flat space next to the bank’s air conditioning unit. More importantly, this space was shielded from all of the lights around the bank and completely dark.

 

Professor Demigauss aimed for that pool of darkness, neatly landing the Shuttle next to the very loudly blowing air conditioning unit, which masked any noise the Shuttle was making. Professor Demigauss had cut the dim interior lights in the Shuttle during the flight over from the office building, allowing the troopers’ eyes to adjust to the darkness. When the Professor quietly announced, “touchdown,” over the intercom, the squad opened the rear doors and confidently moved out into the darkness. Menagerie followed, carrying her enormous hunting rifle to a central position from which to respond if the troopers spotted trouble.

 

While Professor Demigauss was setting the Shuttle to hold position and stay invisible, Ghost returned. “The building is empty of inhabitants,” he wetly declared. “The security system is still active, but is exactly where expected. I will show you where to find it.”

 

“Perfect,” Doctor Zarathustra replied while cracking all his knuckles at once. “Time for my part.”

 

Ghost led Doctor Zarathustra and Professor Demigauss to an empty spot on the roof. “Open the roof here to access the crawl space. From there, the security room is to your left. The vault is below it, buried one floor underground.” Professor Demigauss found it more difficult to understand Ghost when he tried to whisper – the burbling sound coming from Ghost’s lungs was both distracting and obscured the sound of his voice.

 

Doctor Zarathustra knelt down to the flat roof of the bank, drawing his thin sword cane from its sheath. Doctor Zarathustra said a short incantation and traced a rough circle upon the surface, stepping out of the circle as he completed the incantation. Professor Demigauss could see a ghostly image of the roof section within the inscribed circle pull loose and stream into the thin blade of the sword. Professor Demigauss had no idea how an inanimate object could have a soul for Doctor Zarathustra to leach, but that is what Doctor Zarathustra claimed to be doing with this incantation. It worked equally well on animate and inanimate matter and Professor Demigauss could not argue with the results, but the seeming contradiction frustrated his sense of propriety and logic.

 

Once his sword had absorbed the “soul” of the roof section, Doctor Zarathustra stuck his hand into the edge of the effected area and pulled it back. The roof section tore away and pealed back with the same consistency as water logged cardboard. Below the roof was the crawl space Ghost had described. Wire conduits from several areas around the bank converged at an armored junction box below them and to the left of the torn roof. Doctor Zarathustra turned to Professor Demigauss and said, “Your turn.”

 

“Indeed.” Professor Demigauss climbed down into the crawl space, carefully placing his feet on supports to avoid stepping through the drop ceiling of the bank. He inspected the junction box thoroughly before touching it. “No sense in tripping a hidden alarm if I don’t have to,” the Professor thought to himself. After satisfying himself that the junction box was not trapped, Professor Demigauss set about opening the junction box and bypassing the alarms and cameras for the entire building.

 

Near the end of his efforts the Professor dimly heard Menagerie announce over the encrypted radios, “There go the cops from the Sonic. They’re heading west, towards Goralac’s area. Whatever he’s doing must really be drawing attention.”

 

“Yes,” Doctor Zarathustra responded. “He is very good at that. We should have plenty of time to complete our portion of tonight’s activities. Assuming Professor Demigauss finishes any time soon.”

 

“Mmph,” was the Professor’s only retort. He knew Doctor Zarathustra was ribbing him, but needed his concentration on what he was doing more than he needed to engage in witty repartee. Two minutes later Professor Demigauss looked up at Ghost and Doctor Zarathustra standing on the roof, waiting for the Professor to finish. “I’m done. None of the bank’s cameras will see us nor will any of the alarm sensors trip. The bank is ours.” Doctor Zarathustra smiled at that. “Ghost, show us the way,“ Professor Demigauss requested.

 

Ghost descended through the opening in the roof and then phased through the drop ceiling panel to the Professor’s right. “There is an office here with a desk you can land on,” he gurgled.

 

Professor Demigauss lifted the ceiling panel and looked into the room below. Below him was a large desk with a computer terminal, telephone, and some papers neatly stacked on it. The desk was against the wall and directly below the Professor. So was the computer terminal. “Ghost, would you please move the computer terminal to the side so I don’t have to step on it?”

 

“Certainly.”

 

After Ghost moved the computer terminal aside, Professor Demigauss let himself down to the desk and then the floor. Doctor Zarathustra followed him into what appeared to be the bank manager’s office. The pictures on the walls were of ships sailing in stormy weather. Each clearly showed the captain of the ship calmly piloting the ship as the rest of the crew scrambled to do their jobs. “Thinks highly of himself, doesn’t he?” opined Doctor Zarathustra.

 

“I think you are correct. A bit pompous as well. I wonder what his employees think of our Mister…,” Professor Demigauss picked up the name plate on the desk to read the name. “…our Mister Charles D. Worthington?”

 

“Not very highly, I’m sure,” Doctor Zarathustra replied. “I wonder what they’d trade for Mister Worthington to receive his comeuppance,” Doctor Zarathustra asked with a predatory bent to his voice.

 

In an impressively tired voice, Ghost asked, “If the two of you are quite through, I will show you where the vault entrance is.” No one could beat a dead man for sounding tired. Doctor Zarathustra and Professor Demigauss looked at each other and shrugged. Doctor Zarathustra gestured for Ghost to show the two of them the way.

 

Ghost led Doctor Zarathustra and Professor Demigauss through the bank to a gated doorway, behind which were stairs leading down. Ghost simply floated through the steel grate and waited on the other side. Doctor Zarathustra looked at Professor Demigauss, asking with a look, “You or me?”

 

“I’ve got this one. You can get the vault,” quipped the Professor as he stepped forward.

 

“Oh, thanks,” Doctor Zarathustra dryly replied. This was actually the agreed upon plan, so the response was mostly sarcasm with little bite.

 

Professor Demigauss stepped up to the gate and activated the powered cutting function of his power suit. His hands immediately glowed blue from the focused energy fields surrounding them. Professor Demigauss pressed his hands to the grate, slowly melting through the metal. After a few minutes, he had cut away enough of the grate that he and Doctor Zarathustra could safely climb through. Professor Demigauss deactivated the cutting function.

 

Doctor Zarathustra immediately stepped through the opening. Before stepping through himself, Professor Demigauss activated his radio. “We’re descending. Perimeter check.”

 

Each trooper responded “All clear” in quadrant order. Menagerie wrapped up with, “No targets in sight. Good hunting.” Satisfied that they were in the clear, Professor Demigauss stepped through the grate, following Doctor Zarathustra and Ghost down into the underground part of the bank.

 

Professor Demigauss caught up to the two as Doctor Zarathustra was repeating his incantation on the vault door. The vault door was at the far end of a counting room. There were several tables in the room, some push carts, and a short stack of palates stacked in a corner. There was a small freight elevator on the left wall that went up to the bank’s loading area. It could only be controlled from this room, which is why they entered through the stairs. While Ghost could have phased through the floor and activated the elevator, Professor Demigauss wanted to keep the police from clueing in to the fact that one of the robbers had that power. It would be useful to spring on them later, if necessary.

 

The vault door was made of sterner stuff than the roof, and Doctor Zarathustra had to remove individual components of it to get through. This took some time, but when he was done, the vault door was completely out of their way. Inside were bricks of cash, shrink-wrapped into larger, square piles of money. The three of them paused for a moment to appreciate the sight and then started loading the shrink wrapped piles onto push carts, checking each pile to verify it was not all one dollar bills.

 

Once the four push carts were loaded, they moved the push carts up to the ground floor loading area, one cart at a time. From there they removed another door to access the rest of the bank interior from the loading area. They pushed the carts to the bank manager’s office, stopping outside the door. Doctor Zarathustra entered the room and climbed the desk and through the ceiling to the crawl space. From there he climbed up to the roof and called Menagerie over to the Shuttle.

 

In the meantime, Professor Demigauss pulled four identical devices from his utility pouches and tossed them to the floor in the office, calling out, “Van der Botz! Attack!” Instantly each device was covered in a blue, crackling field of energy that expanded rapidly into a roughly humanoid form, the devices supported in the “chest” of each humanoid form. Arcs of blue energy crackled along the forms from the center out, following the limbs to their tips.

 

Professor Demigauss ordered the Van der Botz to form a chain and start passing the piles of money, one to the other, up to the roof. On the roof, Doctor Zarathustra and Menagerie (transformed into the form of a great ape) completed the chain, passing the shrink wrapped piles into the back of the Shuttle.

 

After the second cart had been emptied and as they started emptying the third, one of the troopers announced over the radio, “We have a flyer approaching from quadrant three.”

 

The entire team paused for a moment to listen except for the Van der Botz, who continued passing up the bundles of money. Professor Demigauss ordered them to pause before asking, “Has the flyer seen us?”

 

“That does not appear to be the case, sir,” the trooper replied. “The flyer is not moving directly at the bank but will approach closely.”

 

“Understood,” Professor Demigauss responded. “Menagerie, if you are not in human form already, please shift immediately and draw a bead on the flyer with your rifle. All other troopers stay sharp in case this is a diversion. Quadrant three, can you identify the flyer?”

 

“Negative, sir. The distance is too great for me to make a positive ID.”

 

“Give me a moment to get the target into my sights and I’ll see what I can do,” Menagerie interrupted. Her voice was rougher and deeper than normal, due to the after effects of being a great ape.

 

“Professor,” Doctor Zarathustra interjected laconically, “Your robots glow enough that the flyer’s attention might be grabbed. Perhaps dowsing them would be a good idea?”

 

“Point taken. Van der Botz, deactivate!” With that command, the force field bodies of the Van der Botz shut down and the core units dropped in place. Professor Demigauss collected the two in the office with him – he’d collect the two in the crawl space later.

 

“I have an eye on our flyer,” Menagerie announced. “Pretty little thing. She’s looking down at the ground, not really paying attention to what’s ahead of her. Must be patrolling for street crime.”

 

Professor Demigauss repeated his question, “Can you identify her?”

 

“Hmm. Blue costume. Blue jacket over star-spangled tights. Blue feathered cap and a light blue scarf. I think she has a broach or something holding the scarf on, but the lighting is too bad to see clearly. She’s not one of the majors. Maybe she’s a sidekick or something?”

 

“What makes you think she’s a sidekick?”

 

“She keeps looking back to the west where Goralac is working, like she knows something is going on over there, but can’t go look herself.”

 

“That could be bad news. How close will her path bring her to the bank,” Professor Demigauss asked while evaluating the amount of money they’d leave behind if they were required to leave right now.

 

Menagerie took a moment to form an estimate. “Assuming she keeps flying in the same general direction, about 200 yards, give or take. Definitely close enough to look at the bank.”

 

“Hmm.” There was more money on the last two carts than Professor Demigauss wanted to leave behind. That left either hiding so the cape would not notice them or having Menagerie take her out. Taking her out would solve the immediate problem, but leave any other heroes in the city very angry, especially if she was a sidekick and not an actual cape herself.

 

“Should I introduce myself to the girl,” Ghost asked wetly with a certain unwholesome eagerness.

 

“No. Not yet,” Professor Demigauss answered. “OK, here’s the plan. Zarathustra, get in the shuttle and close it up. This will leave you invisible and able to keep an eye on our guest. Menagerie and the troopers will conceal themselves on the roof. Ghost and I will stay down here. It sounds like she’s been told to stay away from whatever Goralac is doing and keep an eye on the rest of the city, but she’s not really enthused about it. Best case will be she is not paying enough attention to notice the hole in the roof – in fact she probably will be at the wrong angle to see it at all. Worse case is she can see the shuttle and flies over to investigate. In that case, Menagerie takes her out with the rifle from surprise and we finish loading up the loot. Worst case is she notices us and calls for back up. In that case, Menagerie takes her out and we all leave immediately. Questions?”

 

There were none and the team moved into their positions. Doctor Zarathustra spoke up from inside the shuttle, “I can see her. She’s still just flying along and appears to be looking down.” Doctor Zarathustra paused for a moment before adding, “Isn’t she the Star-Spangled Singer?”

 

Professor Demigauss and Ghost exchanged a glance and Ghost shrugged. Professor Demigauss asked, “Who?”

 

“A Baltimore local who’s part of a group called the Minute Men, I think. I seem to recall she has sonic-based powers, but nothing major.”

 

“Any defenses I need to know about,” Menagerie quietly asked.

 

“Nothing I can remember,” Zarathustra answered. “I think she’s a cape in her own right, but not very significant.”

 

“Good. We might be able to use her later if we don’t have to take her out here,” Professor Demigauss said. “Zarathustra, do you have any of the Kraken throw-down stuff with you?”

 

“No, I wasn’t told we’d need it for this job. Are you thinking of taking her out anyway and setting up Kraken to take the fall?”

 

“That was the plan.”

 

“We could –“ Doctor Zarathustra started and cut himself off. “No one move,” he whispered over the radio. “She’s stopped and is looking at the bank.”

 

“Can you tell if she’s seen anything,” Professor Demigauss whispered back.

 

Zarathustra started giving running commentary. “She’s stopped and put her hands on her hips. She’s quickly looking around the area. She doesn’t seem to see anything worth her direct attention. She’s flipped her hand at the area and is now heading west in a straight line.” Zarathustra paused before adding, “I think she’s given up on her patrol and is heading to where Goralac is working.” The entire team relaxed.

 

“Good. Let’s give her two minutes to clear the area and then finish loading the money. All troopers back to positions and Menagerie, please reassume gorilla form.” The team moved back into position and waited for the superheroine to leave the area, completely unaware of how close she came to finding what she was supposed to be looking for.

[Shaddakim]

The Baltimore Bank Job, Part 4 of 4

 

“BALROG ATTACKS CINEPLEX” was the headline on the next day’s copy of the Baltimore Sun, including a picture of a huge fiery, winged form, partially obscured by smoke and brandishing a police cruiser. There was also a significant article about explosions and fires at a chemical plant north of the city that was, according to all of the television news programs, still burning. None of the news venues had anything to say about a bank robbery that happened during the night at a regional bank.

 

“Looks like the distractions worked,” opined Doctor Zarathustra, leafing through a copy of the Capital City Tribune while sitting on the couch in the Summoner I living area. “Not a word about our heist.”

 

“Give them time,” Professor Demigauss responded from a nearby easy chair where he was drinking his coffee while reading the Sun. “The Feds will keep it quiet to avoid a panic at the branch banks and to verify how much we took.”

 

Doctor Zarathustra grinned and said, “I’ve got a stack of fifties that says they inflate the amount missing to collect more on insurance.”

 

Professor Demigauss snorted. “No bet,” he replied. Mostly to himself he said, “I’d love to know how Goralac managed a balrog – that definitely got attention.”

 

“Well, I did say he normally looked like that guy from Lord of the Rings…”

 

~End~

[Shaddakim]

Short Timeline

 

Here is a short timeline for Capital City, Maryland, current base of operations for Four Summoners.

 

1864

Tobacco Port, recently rebuilt after being destroyed during the Civil War, is renamed Capital City.

 

1923

Malone Shipping established and dock facilities constructed.

 

1924

Malone Shipping fleet starts service, mostly carrying product for the Capital Tobacco Company.

 

1928

Malone Shipping fleet now 12 ships

 

1929

The Great Depression starts.

 

1930

Capital City Community College established. Capital Tobacco and Malone Shipping major contributors.

 

1951

Mob War 1 starts

 

1953 September

FBI puts an end to the Mob War, arresting most of the Zarrazina Family and many corrupt local officials.

 

1953 November

Many new local officials elected to "clean up the city"

 

1954

Peppino "Peppy" Malone, founder of Malone Shipping retires. Ownership goes to his son, Julias.

 

1955

Capital City Community College becomes Capital City University.

 

1958

Peppy Malone dies peacefully in his sleep at his mansion in Nevada.

 

1961

Chronos Chemicals moves their Corporate Headquarters to Capital City.

 

1964

Capital City celebrates 100 Year Anniversary. Malone Shipping now the number five short-haul shipper in America.

 

1967

Military Advanced Research Systems establishes offices in Capital City

 

1978

Mob War 2 starts and ends. The all members of the di Centa and Scarpelli Families disappear or are found dead.

 

1980's

Some street gangs gain access to advanced weaponry and fight for turf. Blamed on cocaine trafficking. The Capital City Police make some notable arrests and drug seizures and things quiet down after 1989.

 

1984

Julias "Ceasar" Malone retires and ownership of Malone Shipping goes to Eduardo "Eddy" Malone, Julias's eldest son (but not his eldest child...)

 

1986

Julias Malone dies in his sleep of a stroke.

 

1987

Eddy Malone takes the Malone Shipping company public to moderate success.

 

1988

Eddy Malone nearly loses control of the Malone Shipping, Incorporated, to corporate raiders. Only intervention by his older sister Lara, Julias's oldest child, and some fortunate breaks keep the company in family hands.

 

1991

Malone Shipping is once again the target of corporate raiders. This time Lara Malone uses the event to her advantage and seizes control of the company herself. Eddy is forced out.

 

1993

The Malone Investment Group, under Lara Malone, incorporates and starts acquiring other companies for piece-meal resale (corporate raiding).

 

1996

Eddy Malone dies of a drug overdose. Exactly which drug is unclear.

[Shaddakim]

The Mobs of Capital City

 

The Mobs of Capital City

Capital City, despite its grand name, remained small and unimportant until Prohibition started. Local bootleggers and moonshiners needed a friendly place to tranship their wares and hide their boats. With the long approach from the Bay, lookouts with radios or (later) telephones could be placed to provide ample warning of the approach of Federal agents by boat or ship. Peppino "Peppy" Malone made an offer to the Mayor and Sheriff - turn a blind eye and accept a personal cut and "taxes" off the profits and Peppy would keep the bootlegging discreet.

 

Seeing the advantage of adding a second "industry" to the taxbase (not to mention the personal financial incentives), the Mayor and Sheriff agreed. Peppy paid to improve the docking facilities and had warehouses built for "Malone Shipping". Look out posts were established to warn of approaching Revenue agents and a small hotel was built to house members of the Malone gang and any rumrunners that needed to lie low for a while.

 

Peppy started bringing in alcohol from stills hidden in Virginia and points south and from ships in Rum Row off the coast. The alcohol would arrive by boat and be unloaded at one of the new docks in an area obscured from sight, keeping the agreement between Peppy and the Mayor. The alcohol would then be readied for distribution by truck or fast car and sent to speak-easys closer to Washington D.C. and the various naval bases on Chesapeake Bay.

 

As more booze was shipped through Capital City, the Malone organization grew and the town did as well. The "taxes" paid to the city by Malone Shipping allowed for improvements to the town infrastructure and "salary adjustments" to the city council to keep things running smoothly.

 

In order to provide a veneer of legitimacy to his cover organization and new revenue streams, Peppy had Malone Shipping purchase three small ships. He had two of the ships rigged for hauling cargo (mostly locally grown tobacco) and one as a floating casino and brothel. The casino/brothel ship, the _Devonian_, sailed twice a week for two day excursions out beyond US territorial waters. The cost to get in was fair, the drinks cheap, the women good looking, and the house's take of the gambling reasonable. Cost of entry for city council members and the sheriff was free. This was later extended to sheriff deputies as well.

 

When prohibition ended, the Malone gang was entrenched in Capital City, which was starting to grow to meet its lofty name. Peppy had expanded Malone Shipping to a small fleet of cargo ships and smaller fleet of casino ships that ran up and down the East Coast. Several other businesses that took advantage of Malone Shippings good rates and cheap (stolen or counterfeit) goods opened offices in Capital City. A local college had been established which drew faculty that was willing to work cheap due to "troubled" employment histories and the need for a second chance. Enrollment was low initially, but it grew over time, especially after World War Two.

 

After World War Two, the Malone gang started to factionalize over the introduction of narcotics. The Don recognized that the sale of narcotics in Capital City had the potential of breaking his agreement with the City Council to keep operations discrete. Cesare "Double Z" Zarrazina, one of the Don's newer lieutenants, saw the immense profits to be made and felt that the gang had enough control to run the city, City Council or no City Council. Zarrazina made a deal with the “Diamond” Nick Bartalucci of New York for additional muscle and support and then made his bid for control of the family in 1951.

 

The mob war lasted nearly two years and ended when the City Council was forced to ask the FBI to intervene. The FBI investigations led to the arrests of both mobsters, sheriff deputies, local judges, and particularly corrupt members of the city council. The replacements to the City Council ran on "Law and Order" planks and were elected by a landslide. Little known at the time was the fact that most of these candidates were funded by the organization Kraken. Additionally, Don Peppy was able to utilize favors owed him by several senators to avoid prosecution and went into retirement, moving to Las Vegas.

 

For the rest of the 50's and the early 60's, Capital City grew by emphasising its cleaned up reputation was a modest city by 1963. The city's criminal underworld had learned its lesson about becoming too visible and reorganized into several smaller families: the Malone's, the di Centa's, the Scarpelli's, and the Bartalucci's. With the growth of the city and its economy, there was money enough for everyone and turf battles were rare. More importantly, the "Arrangement" with the remaining old guard members of the City Council was re-established and slowly expanded to include some of the newer members of the City Council.

 

Things started to crumble as the 70's started. With the downturn in the economy, growth stopped and turf wars between the Families and the street gangs associated with them became more numerous. In 1978, the di Centa's and the Scarpelli's went to war for control of the heroin trade in southern Maryland and northern Virginia. With mobsters being hit on an almost daily basis, the Malone's and the Bartalucci's were concerned about the "Arrangement" being broken and so stepped in to end it quick. In a combined offensive, Malone buttonmen and Bartalucci thumb-breakers quickly moved in and took out both the di Centa's and the Scarpelli's. The Malone's took over the drug trade, the Bartalucci's took over numbers and stolen goods rackets, and they split the rest of it between them. It was not until the 80's, when Cocaine became King, that it became clear that the Malone's had gotten the better of the deal.

 

It was also during this time that Kraken started gaining influence over the Malone Family. In 1984, Julias Malone retired as the head of Malone Shipping and as the Don of the Malone Family. His oldest son, Eduardo "Eddy" Malone, was given control of Malone Shipping, but his eldest child, his daughter Lara, was given control of the Family. Lara had shown an aptitude for "the business" and had gained supporters among the capos by developing new rackets dealing with white collar crime. She also brought in a source of advanced weapons for the Family to use.

 

The members of the Malone family and their client street gangs started carrying these advanced weapons. This made them more fearsome and allowed the gangs to start encroaching on Bartalucci territory. The few times the Bartalucci gangs pushed back, they were cut down by the superior firepower of the Malone gangs. This led to Bartalucci client gangs abandoning them and joining up with the Malone's. Seeing the writing on the wall, the Bartalucci Don sued for peace with the Malone's in 1989. This allowed the Bartalucci's to continue to operate as a family, but they were now subserviant to the Malone Family. That fact rankles the Bartalucci Family to this day.

 

In 1988, Eddy Malone nearly lost control of Malone Shipping, Incorporated, to corporate raiders. Lara used the Family's muscle to "convince" several of the raiders to change their mind and staved off the attack. In 1991, Lara had to keep corporate raiders from taking control of Malone Shipping from her brother for the second time. Having had enough of this, she tapped her alliance with Kraken for the necessary deep resources to fend off the raiders and to seize direct control of Malone Shipping herself. She installed herself as CEO, put in a loyal puppet as president and restructured the company's finances so she would never have to go through this again. In the process, she discovered she liked corporate raiding and picked it up as a hobby.

 

By the end of the 1990's, the Malone Family had control of several powerful members of the Capital City city government and the Capital City Police Force, control of several judges on local, state, and federal levels, and control of several members of Congress. This has made Capital City a ripe plum that several groups are wont to pick. Additionally, by 2006 more superhoeroes have started noticing that things are not quite right in Capital City and looking closer and several of the underworld factions are starting to get tired of the Malone's being on top.

 

The "Arrangement"

The "Arrangement" has been kept fairly intact between the Families and the City Council since the 1950's. New members of the City Council are either brought in or find they have trouble getting re-elected. The mobsters keep the public believing that any drug problem is a street gang and occasionally feed a gang that has displeased them to local law enforcement. This keeps the public feeling like the police are doing their job and keeps the street gangs in line. The "Arrangement" has also let the Families avoid the federal problems that plague their brethern in cities like New York or Chicago by appearing to the FBI to be an area with minimal mob activity with rare flare-ups of activity.