csyphrett

I expected the State of DeNile to be part of the lawsuit. But for the life of me couldn't think of what the other one might be.

I would dispute that there's 18 states backing this.
 
There's 18 Attorneys General backing this, not 18 states.
 
Attorney General is an elected position, in most states at least. So the guy who wins the election is usually a politician who has a law degree.
 
There's usually, and very deliberately, a limited number of ways that a governor or state legislature has to influence an Attorney General to do something or to not do something. He's the head of the state's equivalent of the Justice Department and is generally given a wide latitude to do what he sees as his job in the way he sees fit.
 
So basically you have 18 politicians who have signed onto a lawsuit to help a politician of their same political party. 
 
They're using their state's law department money to pursue the case, which might at some point in the far future come back to bite them in the butt. However, even if the Attorney General was literally the only Republican in the entire state, he likely in each state has the authority to join this lawsuit regardless of how the rest of the state government and the people in those states feel about it.
 
That's one of the reasons why you should elect ethical people to those offices rather than people like AG Paxton of Texas who had ethical and legal problems in his past before his first election and was under indictment on a separate matter during his second election in 2018.
 
At the moment, he's under investigation by the FBI for yet another matter. This week while he was at a White House party, his offices in Texas were being ransacked under an FBI warrant.
 
This whole lawsuit by Paxton is likely a fishing expedition by him to get a Trump pardon (in exchange for services) to try to get out of his own legal troubles.
 
There's not any real reason for Trump to not dangle a pardon in front of Paxton. And there's not any real reason for Trump to not follow through with giving him a pardon after this lawsuit angle has played out. It's not like giving a pardon to Paxton is going to give any more negative publicity than his pardons to former administration officials. It might not even make the nightly news.

The guys in Ohio are like Shut up Texas. You don't tell us what to do. Pennsylvania basically said that Texas is a stupid idiot and a rebel for filing this stupid crap, and they need to be put down.
 
Trump just dropped to being worse than Buchanan now, and his party needs to go.
 
CES   

This is like the fantastic four movie where they didn't want the fantastic four, or the lone ranger where they didn't want to follow the lone ranger rules. This is a niche character. if none of his fans show up, this movie will bomb
CES

Rose is a young woman born ten million years ahead of her time. She is a mental marvel capable of psychic and physical feats that no one has ever thought a ten year old could do.
CES

Shiny. I am so Shiny
CES

Shiny. I am so Shiny
CES

Tracy Nelson had devised a system to respond to threats to the country using aircraft with robotic crews onboard to solve threats where humans couldn't go. Calling her equipment Scarlet Thunder, Tracy remained unknown to the general public. One of her enemies found out who she was and destroyed her headquarters with the Scarlet Thunder machines inside. The explosion inside the complex made sure no one could identify her body if they could find it.
CES   

3
Charlie Moser drove southwest toward Las Vegas. He planned to be in the city in a
few hours, look for his hotel, and get settled in. He had talked things over with his
partner, Dave Pack, and they had decided that was the best way to do things.
 
Flying with the kids would have been too much trouble trying to explain their nature
to the airline. They would have been relegated to cargo. Charlie and Dave felt that
might have led to trouble eventually.
 
So they had the kids to draw paper straws and the short straw drove down with
Charlie. Dave and the remaining boys would remain in Chicago and handle anything
that might come up without their missing pieces.
 
Charlie had been willing to let Dave take the long drive. The nature of the conference
had not attracted his interest. They had decided that the winning kid could carry a
camera to record everything in his liquid metal body so the others could watch it later.
Green won the straw pull. The others told him to look at everything. They had never
left Chicago, and seeing a new place should be good for something.
 
Green sat in the back of the company SUV, looking out the back window. He didn’t
say anything as they drove down the highways from Illinois to Nevada.
 
Charlie was used to that. The other kids argued with each other, complained about
life, compared how they had performed rescues. Green barely moved from any spot
he settled in, rarely talked unless spoken to.
 
Were the other boys supposed to be more like him, or was he supposed to be more
like them?
 
Charlie and Dave had talked about it, but they didn’t have any answers. They had
their different personalities, and ways of talking and doing things. Green just seemed
to be more like a lump of metal compared to his brothers.
 
That didn’t make him any less dangerous than the others for all their command of the
elements. He was the one least taken off guard, and more prone to knocking a
villain’s lights out.
 
Charlie wished he knew who was going to be at the conference. The meeting with the
rep at the local precinct house had just been a request for members of his group to be
there. He didn’t have a clue on what they were going to talk about, or how his group
could fit in with the others who might be present.
 
The kids had singular powers secondary to their robotic bodies. Dave had looked
them over when they got started. He said it would take a genius to duplicate the
hexagonal skin they had as an outer covering. He didn’t have a clue how the vacuum
tube and chip arrangement that acted as their brains did things.
 
The only thing he could confirm was that they were solar powered, but he had no clue
how that was supposed to work either.
 
Fitzgerald had not left any manuals behind to explain how he had built the kids, or
Hue Man. And since he was dead, they couldn’t ask him any questions.
 
They couldn’t ask Hue Man anything either. He was gone. There were buried reports
he was lost fighting some monster in Reagan City after taking over for the Monster
Squad. No one knew for sure.
 
Maybe Atom America knew, but he wasn’t talking about it either.
 
Charlie and Dave’s other contact in that time period hadn’t been on hand when Hue
Man vanished. He might have tried but his own power had kept him busy fighting in
Chicago after the robotic ranger had moved from the windy city to his new home.
 
The man had saved Charlie’s life and created the four kids from the remains of
Fitzgerald’s lab and the fifth brother they had accidentally created. His explanation
of what had drawn him to the scene and why he had set up the rescue agency
amounted to following dreams.
 
Moser understood since following a dream of fame and glory is what had led him and
Pack down to the buried lab and their almost deaths.
 
His talks with the Veil had given him information on the lost heroes that had fought
for the world before he was born.
 
One of the reasons he had agreed to attend the conference was Calvin Cassidy was
going to be present. He knew the Deacon, and could answer questions about the weird
hero and his sidekick, Kid Deacon. That would make the trip worth it in his opinion.
He planned to hit the Hero Museum on the way back. It was a long detour, but he had
wanted to go there since it opened.
 
Raising the kids, and dealing with Chicago’s problems had kept him busier than he
thought it would when he agreed to run the agency for the Veil.
 
He doubted Green would be interested in any of that. The synthetic child seemed
more interested in watching the world around him than digging up the past.
 
“We’re going to swing through Reagan City on the way back, Green,” said Charlie.
“I want to visit the Hero Museum and look around before we head back to the city.”
 
“Okay, bub,” said Green. His green eyes tracked a line of road dust as they drove
along.
 
“They have the world’s biggest ball of twine there,” said Charlie.
 
“Okay, bub,” said Green.
 
Charlie smiled. He supposed if he told the machine that they were going to fight a one
eyed purple people eater, okay bub would be the response a second later.
 
Nothing seemed to phase Green. It was just a part of his stoic nature.
 
“Would you like to visit anything on the way back to Chicago?,” asked Charlie.
 
“I don’t know, bub,” said Green. “Are there any zoos we can visit?”
 
“I think there are more than a few,” said Charlie. “Do you have anything in mind?”
 
“No, bub,” said Green. “Could I use the laptop to look for some?”
 
“Pick one, Green,” said Charlie. “This is supposed to be all business and boring. Dave
and your brothers will be pains about us taking time off while they are working extra
hard without us there to help out.”
 
“Okay, bub,” said Green.
 
Charlie smiled as he drove on. The other kids were going to complain anyway, and
Dave might have something to say, but visits to a museum and a zoo were in the time
allotted for them to drive back and get back on duty.
 
And it felt good to ride along in silence without someone shooting at his car, or
having to give information to the kids over their radio links, or wondering what the
emergency of the day happened to be.
 
And the city needed the kids to help out where they could. The Veil had been active
for a long time defending the city. Scattershot was more of a street level vigilante that
sometimes punched upward with his gun powers. E.P. did help out where he could
but he mainly had a lot of strength at his command. There were a scattering of others
across the area but the superhuman crime was low level in Charlie’s opinion.
 
If they could get an organization together across Illinois out of this conference, the
trip would be worth it in his opinion. The experience of meeting others doing the
same thing he was doing would be something to carry home and tell Dave.
Hitting the Hero Museum would just be a bonus.
 
And he doubted Dave had the kids working extra hard at anything unless it was some
way to get cheaper Internet and some work done on the office they used.
 
“Green?,” said Charlie. He looked in the mirror. The machine still stared out the
window.
 
“Yes, bub,” said Green.
 
“Why are you interested in zoos and animals?,” asked Charlie.
 
Green had always focused on things more than his brothers. His one interest seemed
to be in animals. The other kids acted like human kids with a wide range of interests
from video games to sports to favorite television shows. Green liked anything to do
with animals, but hardly liked anything else enough to take an interest in it.
 
While the others played under the jungle gym treehouse the Veil had built for them,
Green would stand by himself and watch the birds in the neighborhood at the edge
of their property.
 
“I don’t know, bub,” said Green. “I’m trying to learn how to fly.”
 
“Can you do that?,” asked Charlie.
 
“I don’t know, bub,” said Green.
 
Hue Man and the other kids could change shape with Blue being the best at it echoing
his fluid inspiration. Green always seemed like a rock to the partners.
 
“What do you think you need for that?,” asked Charlie.
 
“I don’t know, bub,” said Green. “I can do minimal things like Red and Whitey. I
want to be able to do more.”
 
“You probably won’t be able to fly like a bird because you’re heavy,” said Charlie. “Maybe you can glide like a flying squirrel but you would need a high spot to jump from.”
 
Charlie frowned in the mirror. Green never changed his shape as far as he knew. The
fact that he could was both surprising and not at the same time.
 
“Flaps, bub?,” asked Green.
 
“Yes,” said Charlie. “I mean they can parachute an elephant from a plane, I don’t see
why you couldn’t extend flaps to catch the air. The main factor would be your weight
and the size of the flaps.”
 
“Thanks, bub,” said Green. He fell silent as he watched the road slide by.
 
Charlie put the information away in the back of his mind. Maybe there was someone
at the conference who could show Green how to change his shape enough to fly.
 
Just gliding would be big because of his weight. Flaps to catch the air might not be
enough to keep him aloft. It might slow down a long fall enough that the landing
impact didn’t destroy the robot.
 
That was one thing he didn’t want to test. The kids were like his kids. Having them
do dangerous things was mitigated by their toughness and secondary abilities.
Throwing one off a roof of a skyscraper to see if he could learn to glide on the way down seemed a bit excessive.
He definitely didn’t want Green trying on his own.
 
“Do me a favor, Green,” said Charlie. “Don’t jump from any place that will kill you
while trying to learn how to glide.”
 
“Okay, bub,” said the robot.
 
It was hard to tell when Green was being sarcastic, but Charlie thought he saw the
edge of the deadpan in the answer.
 
He drove on toward Vegas.

2
Calvin Cassidy decided to drive into Las Vegas with Mike Plumb. Los Angeles was
close enough that a drive through the desert to get to the oasis was better than a flight
in his opinion.
 
His second, Barry Ojai, was flying down from Vancouver and planned to meet them
at the airport in Vegas. They had talked it over and he was bringing Bobbi Hastings
with him, and leaving Calvin Cooper in charge at home.
 
They had decided on Cooper because he was an ex-policeman and had a grasp on
tactics to lead the team in the field with Ojai out of town.
 
That was the same reason Cassidy had left Doc Dinosaur in charge back at the studio.
The Doc didn’t move fast and wouldn’t be rash in doing things that might threaten
his colleagues, and the civilians they protected.
 
“What do you think about this, Cassidy?,” asked Plumb. He watched the road ahead
as they headed out of Los Angeles toward the Nevada line.
 
“It’s just a meeting with people from other teams like ours,” said Cassidy. “They have
been successful for the most part, and the Feds want us to get to know each other in
case we need to work together.”
 
“So if something happens, we can count on them?,” asked Mike.
 
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Cassidy. “It’s the Aces’ hometown. If something
happens, they’re the ones in the hot seat. They may need us, they may not.”
 
“Why bring me along?,” asked Mike.
 
“Because I might need someone to cool down my lemonade,” said Cassidy.
 
“How much trouble are you expecting?,” asked Mike.
 
“None really,” said Cassidy. “There’s going to be a group of superhumans meeting
at a hotel in a city with low superhuman crime. The last really big flap Vegas had was
what formed the Aces. The rest has been low scale at best.”
 
“Really?,” said Mike. “Why?”
 
“Vegas has always been a mob town,” said Cassidy. “Superhumans don’t last long in
a quiet campaign to wipe them out as soon their identities are known. The last big
flap before the Aces was a vigilante gunslinger blasting any bad guy that crossed his
path. A lot of things settled down when he vanished.”
 
“You would think someone knows what happened to him,” said Mike.
 
“No one has said anything,” said Cassidy. “I looked into it back in the day. It looked
like he had a final showdown with some of his rogues and died killing them off.”
 
“If that happened in the desert, it’s no surprise no one found the body even after all
this time,” said Mike.
 
“And if they haven’t found it by now, they never will,” said Cassidy. “No one but old
timers like me will ever remember the Gunsmith.”
 
“You’re old all right,” said Mike. He grinned to take some of the sting out of his
words.
 
“I don’t really need you for this,” said Cassidy.
 
“Then why am I coming along?,” asked Mike.
 
“Because I didn’t need you messing up some emergency while I was away,” said
Cassidy.
 
“That is pretty low,” said Mike. He put on a pained expression underneath his huge
mustache.
 
“It’s also extremely accurate as far as I can tell,” said Cassidy.
 
Mike lapsed into silence as he watched the landscape. He and his brother could reach
into streams of energy to draw out strange items to use as heroes. The road looked
like a river branching off down sidepaths that branched even more once they left the
highway and joined the natural trails beyond.
 
The effect was random, and he might have been able to grab out a faster car if he had
wanted to spend the time on it.
 
Mike had joined the Deacons out of a sense of adventure. He liked to help people.
Getting paid by the Ever Brothers was just icing on the cake. He liked to think he
would still help people if it wasn’t his job.
 
He had roped his brother into helping out and that’s how they had formed the core of
the first Deacons team. Starlit had come on next with her gravity controlling widget.
Doc Dinosaur joined the team after an accident had made him nonhuman. Lady
Specter joined the team after some upset in the underworld.
 
Mike didn’t know how the underworld kicked ghosts out in the real world. He didn’t
want to find out.
 
“Who do you have coming in from the second team?,” asked Mike.
 
“Ojai and Bomb Girl,” said Cassidy.
 
“Okay,” said Mike. “Did you tell her there wasn’t going to be any excitement on this
trip?”
 
“Why would I do that?,” asked Cassidy.
 
Mike scratched the back of his head and eased his cap back in place. He couldn’t
think of an answer to that question.
 
The Ever Brothers had asked Cassidy to set up another team in Canada. Instead of
recruiting supers like he had the Plumbs and the others on his first team, he had
stumbled over human experimentation and the local authority had asked him to do
something with the unwilling subjects.
 
So Cassidy had started training them to work as heroes. The first team rotated through
so both teams knew each other and could work together.
 
Mike supposed the premise was similar to what this conference was supposed to do
with teams run by other people in other parts of the country. The government wanted
them to get along so they could work together if they had to do that.
 
Bobbi the Bomb Girl liked to blow up any obstacle in her way. Patience was not her
strong suit as far as Mike could tell. Letting her come to Las Vegas for two days of
boring talk had to be some kind of punishment detail for her.
 
Or Cassidy wanted to make sure she wasn’t blowing stuff up in Vancouver while his
assistant was also in Las Vegas with them.
 
It could go either way in Mike’s opinion.
 
He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when they told her she wouldn’t be able
to hit the clubs.
 
It would be even better when they got to the conference and she had to listen to a
bunch of old people talk about future methods.
 
He leaned back in his chair. Something might happen at the conference. Maybe they
could set up exchange programs so some of the Deacons worked with the other
groups part of the year.
 
He wondered who was coming from the other teams. No one had finalized the check
in as far as he knew. On the other hand, the first team was within flying time of an
emergency in Vegas thanks to Starlit. The others would have to come from Texas,
Minnesota, and Chicago.
 
“Do you know any of the people on the other teams?,” asked Mike.
 
“I’ve dealt with the Enforcer and Hue Man when I was a kid,” said Cassidy. “I don’t
know what these new robots will be like.”
 
“Hue Man?,” said Mike. “There’s another name I don’t know.”
 
“No one knows what happened to him either,” said Cassidy. “He was around in
Reagan City for a while. Some people thought he had killed the main hero working
there, but I never got the story straight until I saw a write up on the Hero Museum that
opened up there.”
 
“But Hue Man mysteriously vanished just like the Gunsmith?,” asked Mike.
 
“Probably for the same reason too,” said Cassidy. “He probably ran up on some
villian ready for him. The fact that he had government ties just means no one will
hear the whole story because it is classified somewhere. He might have went overseas
somewhere and was lost in some other country.”
 
“If he did that, it was some government job,” said Mike.
 
“A few of the other masked men associated with him were also lost,” said Cassidy.
“Except Atom America. He hung around for a while, then retired. He said his power
was used up and he couldn’t save the world any more.”
 
“Larry loves this stuff,” said Mike. “You should tell him some of your stories.”
 
“Why would I do that?,” asked Cassidy. “He’s already going through old case files
like a fan. The last thing I want to do is encourage his hero worship.”
 
“He wants to find the Deacon,” said Mike.
 
“And the answer is in our old case files?,” asked Cassidy.
 
“Who knows?,” said Mike.
 
“I guess I would since I have been over the case files myself a hundred times,”
said Cassidy. “The Deacon didn’t disappear. He left a note and quit. Then he
took himself off the grid such as it was. I looked for him forever and never found
a clue to where he had gone.”
 
“He might have found a way to go over to the next dimension and explore there,”
said Mike.
 
“And how do we find him if he did that?,” asked Cassidy.
 
“Larry hasn’t figured that part out yet, which is why he is going over the case
files for old villains that used teleport-like effects like the Great Gildersleeve,”
said Mike.
 
“So he thinks the Deacon used some gadget to take off somewhere where no one
could find him?,” asked Cassidy.
 
“It’s that, or magic,” said Mike.
 
“I think you are stirring the pot,” said Cassidy.
 
“I would never do that,” said Mike. He kept his laugh to himself.
 
“I think that you would,” said Cassidy. “And here’s the airport. Go inside and find our
guys. Then we can hit the hotel.”
 
“So we’ll be able to hit the casino and a show,” said Mike. “That’s great.”
 
“The conference is tomorrow,” said Cassidy. “We’re going to have to get ready for
that.”
 
“So no show, or gambling?,” said Mike.
 
“No show, or gambling,” said Cassidy. “This isn’t some vacation.”
 
“I’ll be right back,” said Mike. “It might do you some good to take a vacation.”
 
“My time in the hospital was all the vacation time I needed,” said Cassidy. “Vacations
are for the weak.”
 
“I can’t wait for my next one,” said Mike. He got out of the car and headed into the
terminal. Ojai and Bobbi knew what he looked like. He didn’t need a sign to wave
to attract their attention.
 
Cassidy shook his head. There was no way Larry could find the Deacon with the old
case files. He had gone through them himself, and the private ones from his father.
He had never seen a clue to where the original had gone.
 
If Larry did find something, that would be better than he had ever dreamed.
Maybe he shouldn’t dismiss the claim out of hand.
 
Mike came back with the Canadians in a few minutes. He opened the back doors of
the car for them.
 
“Hey, old man,” said Bobbi Hastings, hair dyed pink and green. She wore tattered
pants, a t-shirt, and a jacket she had taken off someone in a bar fight.
 
“Hello, Bobbi,” said Cassidy. “Business casual?”
 
“I have two suits in my bag,” said Bobbi.
 
“Our luggage didn’t come in,” said Ojai. “We asked for the flight service to send it
over to the hotel.”
 
“We’re gambling, right?,” said Bobbi.
 
“We’re gambling,” said Mike.
 
“We’re working,” said Cassidy. “That means no booze, no sex, and no gambling.”
 
“I thought this was supposed to be a fun thing,” said Bobbi. “That’s why I
volunteered.”
 
“We’re meeting people we might have to work with later to save some portion of
the country, maybe the world,” said Cassidy. “What’s more fun than that?”
 
“Slot machines,” said Bobbi.
 

(Author's Note: I have been writing Stranger stories here for a while using the handles of people on the board like Bolo, Trebuchet, Hermit, Satin Kitty, Oddhat, and Death Tribble. They have always been side stories to my main page. So I decided to post this up here as I go along since I will be using some of the handles here. I hope you enjoy.) 
1
Tom Kerry and Lucinda Grable stood in the office of the local Federal agent they
reported to in Las Vegas. It was just like any other office in Vegas. A glass window
to see the outside, a desk of uncertain years and make, a desktop with flat screen
monitor, and a bureaucrat who seemed too tightly wound up.
 
Tom wore his tuxedo and mask to keep his identity concealed. Plenty of people wore
tuxedos in Vegas. Some of them were professional magicians like he was.
 
Lucinda wore the yellow costume she had built out of motorcycle leathers. A raised
collar and goggle-like sunglasses helped conceal her face when she wasn’t lit up.
 
Their contact, and supposed overseer, Tom Ryan wore shirt sleeves and a loose tie.
He fiddled with the papers on his desk and looked like he had swallowed a lemon.
That was his normal look, so neither of the Aces took that as indicative of anything
in particular.
 
Vegas had been a mostly quiet place as far as superhumans were concerned until the
Aces had started. Now he was there to make sure they didn’t do things the Gunsmith
way as much as he could.
 
“Where are the other three?,” Ryan asked.
 
The Aces had five members. This was supposed to be a team meeting.
 
“Random hates you,” said Tom. “Wilde is still wanted by the police. Wild Card had
some professional obligations to take care of in his personal life.”
 
“The school thing?,” said Ryan.
 
“Among other things,” said Tom.
 
“That was Sister Anna’s stipulation,” said Ryan. “Has he talked to her about it?”
 
“Viciously,” said Tom. “He’s a grumpy little guy right now.”
 
“As long as he doesn’t bite her face off, that’s okay,” said Ryan.
 
“It’s not Sister Anna we’re worried about,” said Lucinda.
 
“Let’s put aside Random’s anti-authority stance, and face eating ways,” said Ryan.
“I want to get to the real reason why I called you to come down.”
 
Tom made a go ahead wave with his hand.
 
“There’s been a small assortment of superhuman groups popping up over the last five
years,” said Ryan. “Upstairs has asked reps of these groups to come down to Vegas
and have a meet and greet. Your team is invited to participate.”
 
“That sounds good, I guess,” said Tom. He exchanged a look with Lucinda. “Who
will be attending?”
 
“Members from the Rangers, the Strangers, the Deacons, and Hue Man’s kids,” said
Ryan.
 
“Strangers?,” asked Tom.
 
“They got together over a giant turtle in Minnesota,” said Lucinda. “Some kind of
lake monster caused by Alchemo.”
 
“What about the Leaguer, Hero X, or the Blinker?,” asked Tom. They were renowned
enough to be included in his opinion.
 
“The Project doesn’t back them, so they weren’t invited,” said Ryan. “The same goes
for superhumans who are acting as vigilantes like the Fear, Log Man and Pinecone,
or Johnny Shield.”
 
“So what’s the point of this?,” asked Tom.
 
“Upstairs wants you guys to at least know some of the people in other parts of the
country in case of some kind of emergency,” said Ryan.
 
“The Rangers did help with our certification,” said Lucinda. “I spoke with one of
their guys when we were just getting started up.”
 
“Do you have a guest list yet?,” asked Tom.
 
“Not yet,” said Ryan. “I do have confirmation that the Warning and Calvin Cassidy
will be here for their teams, but nothing on who they are bringing with them.”
 
“All right,” said Tom. “Where are we holding this conference?”
 
“The Diamond Lilly,” said Ryan.
 
“The place where Wild Card started?,” said Lucinda. “The lobby was demolished.”
 
“They are reopening with a brand new conference area,” said Ryan. “We rented it as
soon as we found out. This isn’t going to be a week long thing as far as I know. This
is just going to be a couple of days.”
 
“You’re expecting trouble, aren’t you?,” asked Lucinda.
 
“Not particularly,” said Ryan. “All of these teams are operating, and have done some
things, and Cassidy has been on the scene for a while, and the robots are associated
with the Veil and Hue Man which might bring some problems with that baggage.”
 
“Okay,” said Lucinda. “So Cassidy and the robots will look like prime targets to
anyone who finds out about this and wants to take a shot.”
 
“Which is why we haven’t told anybody outside of our invitees and are trying to keep
a minimal standard of security,” said Ryan. “Agent Aylwin is wrangling the Strangers
for us.”
 
“Have you dealt with any of these people?,” asked Tom.
 
“Just the Enforcer for the Strangers,” said Ryan. “He was crusty when I was coming
up, and I doubt that has changed.”
 
“When is this supposed to happen?,” asked Tom.
 
“Next week,” said Ryan. “Our guests will be coming in the day before the conference,
and taking off the day after. I’m going to have a couple of our guys pick them up at
the airport and take them over to the hotel.”
 
“All right,” said Tom. “We’ll let the others know to be on their best behavior.”
 
“Good,” said Ryan. “That takes a load off my mind.”
 
“I promise that I won’t let Random bite someone’s face off unless they deserve it,”
said Tom. He smiled.
 
“I’ve heard that justification before,” said Ryan. “Go ahead. When I know who’s
coming, I’ll get together a better briefing packet for you.”
 
“Thanks, Tom,” said Kerry. “We’ll work something out where one of us is at the hotel
to help out in case something happens.”
 
Ryan nodded at the assurance.
 
“Come on, Tach,” said Tom. “We need to see what Wilde is doing. He’s the hardest
one of us to track down.”
 
“I’ll do it,” said Lucinda. “You find Wild Card at his tournament.”
 
“All right,” said Tom. “Do you know anything about any of these people?”
 
“Some,” said Lucinda. “Let’s meet up at the Church. We can talk about it over pizza.”
 
“All right,” said Tom. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
 
Tachyon took to the air on a trail of light. Joker Wilde liked to haunt the high crime
areas of Vegas and surroundings. She had no doubt she would find him chasing down
some gangster, or other menace to society, and inflicting his own brand of justice on
them.
 
It gave Ryan heartburn, but the night owl lived to hunt, and would not give that up
for the government.
 
Tom took off his mask when he was sure no one was around to see it. He put it in his
pocket as he headed for the Strip in his car. He knew that Wild Card was there as his
other face. All he had to do was find the tournament and let him know about the
meeting.
 
Some of the games didn’t allow phones. Cheaters were known to use them to count
cards.
 
Random would be at the Church. Sister Anna didn’t let him patrol on his own until
he was done with his school work. He chafed at the restriction after spending
however many years on the street.
 
On the other hand, if someone raised a hand to the nun, they were in deep trouble.
The feral boy would turn into a relentless monster at even a hint of a threat.
 
Don’t mess with the penguin is all Random ever said about it, and Tom didn’t push.
 
He liked his face the way it was.
 
He rolled up to the Lily. Wild Card had entered the tournament here, and should still
be playing unless he got wiped out early. Once he had brought the other man up to
speed, he would drive down to Sister Anna’s nunnery and talk to her and Random.
He would also have to let Karen know he had the next week going so she wouldn’t
worry. They didn’t have a job for another two weeks, and then they had to put on a
couple of shows at one of the smaller clubs off the Strip.
 
The fact they were getting jobs at all was thanks to the All Caps busting in the first
big show they had, and Jack Dragon hiring them to cover him while he took care of
some personal business.
 
That had led to the founding of the Aces and the current conference the government
wanted them to attend. He doubted Wilde would want to show his face, but Wild
Card might like to meet others that did the heroing thing and get pointers.
 
Tom walked through the underground garage to the stairs leading to the casino. He
headed upstairs, following the signs to a closed room with a security guard outside.
 
“Tournament closed to the public?,” Tom asked. He gestured at the door.
 
“Yep,” said the guard.
 
“How many are left?,” asked Tom. “I’m looking for a friend of mine.”
 
“Just a couple,” said the guard. “A lot of the littler fish was pushed out pretty early.”
 
“Willie Cotton?,” asked Tom.
 
“He’s still in there,” said the guard. “They aren’t due for another break for another
hour. You will be able to talk to him then.”
 
“Thanks for that,” said Tom. “If he comes out early, can you tell him Tom Kerry is
here to talk to him about a job next week.”
 
“Sure,” said the guard. “He’s been on fire tonight. I think he might clear out everyone
else in the room first.”
 
“Thanks,” said Tom. He headed for the bar. A glass of water would do him some
good.
 
Meeting some other masked men from other parts of the country might do them some
good.
 
At least they didn’t have to travel to the meeting. He couldn’t see Wilde or Random
behaving well on a plane.

The lawsuit in Penn, not the one mentioned with the senators, but the one that was ongoing has been dismissed with prejudice so it can never be brought to the same court again
CES
 

Ezra Manning was an expert monster and mage hunter. He armed himself with special bullets to punch through any magical defense, wards, and patiently stalked any quarry that crossed his trail. After the Society broke apart, he retired. Some rumors report that he could be training other monster hunters to carry on the tradition.
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Anwar Mustafa came into possession of a magical weapon that allowed  him to cut spirits and spells that attacked him. He was recruited for this weapon. In a battle at the tail end of his career, the weapon was taken from him and he was killed.
CES  

The key point is they never tested for arsenic in her victims until the last guy when the hospital told her to quit bringing cookies to the hospital. The thing is a coroner is not going to check for a disease when the cause of death is splattered by a semi. It might show up in a tox screen accidentally, but at the start of the pandemic I would think this is unlikely. And I would think it doubly unlikely they would put that down when the cause of death is blunt force trauma
 
It's just the guy was in the Navy, and he should know better than this but he doesn't
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Ray Sunnear is the Sun Summoner. He randomly drafts monsters into existence to help out with whatever scheme he has going on. He treats the monsters like his pets, and they reciprocate his affection. He allows them to wander around his estate when not on a mission.
CES
 

Henry Hacker is known as the Man with the Suitcase. It is his distinguishing feature and hides his arsenal of devices and weapons. If he loses the case, a replacement shows up eventually. Or is it the same one?
CES
I came up with Gaston's Greats. If someone else has a team, they can go first.
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There is a possibility that Trump will be tried in New York for crimes there. Jean Carrol's lawsuit was going ahead but I don't know if that has stalled, or Trump paid her off. I do know the DOJ tried to step in and was told to STFU and GTFO by the judge in that case.
 
Whether Trump gets chased in the court or not, I would love for something to happen to Bill Barr and Mitch McConnel. I loathed them more than I loath Tom TIllis, a man who should get what Vigo got.
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The stolen election narrative is the party/team getting straight up murdered by NPCs and one guy is like going I still have one hit point/body left. It's over. You're dead. Get a new character and quit your whining
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A Saturn, a 2012 renewal sticker, and the plate.  Seems like a trifecta.

I am still making the same pay today that i was in O3 when I got this job. Everything else has gone up. Everything will continue to go up whether pay goes up or not. If you want to change the system, you have to make it that people at the top don't bankrupt their companies with bonuses like the Hostess people
CES

I am still making the same pay today that i was in O3 when I got this job. Everything else has gone up. Everything will continue to go up whether pay goes up or not. If you want to change the system, you have to make it that people at the top don't bankrupt their companies with bonuses like the Hostess people
CES

I am still making the same pay today that i was in O3 when I got this job. Everything else has gone up. Everything will continue to go up whether pay goes up or not. If you want to change the system, you have to make it that people at the top don't bankrupt their companies with bonuses like the Hostess people
CES

The SWAT guys interviewed by the review investigation said the Taylor detectives screwed up everything and should have been shot since they were all standing in the door when they went in to arrest. Then they screwed up the after action. And the detective in charge was trying to file eight arrest warrants at the same time. SWAT was like hold your roll. And they went for this warrant anyway without threat assessment, or backup
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