maskormenace | directive ⚛ { ENCRYPTED TO NETWORK }

[ This post, though visible to the network, is ENCRYPTED rather heavily so as to be harder to access via remote sources, such as anyone attempting to hack in or monitor the network through something besides a communicator.

Similarly, the first two "points" in this post will be accessible to all imPorts, regardless of status. The second two "points" will be further encrypted to Registered imPorts only, although they can be hacked.

Captain Holiday is sitting in what appears to his home -- it's an apartment, a sliding door that opens onto a balcony behind him and an end table to his left, a framed photo sitting on it turned face down. There's also an ashtray, which he stubs his cigarette into and present lights another. Somewhere off-screen there is the distant noise of a radio turned to the news in another room, and far-off cooking sounds. ]

All right, listen up, everyone. There's a lotta nonsense bein' thrown around, word of mouth and a hell of a lotta other crap, and damn if it don't get tiring. I'm the liaison between y'all and the higher-up's in the military and government, and I'm the one that takes the crap when the roads collapse. My number's there so I can help you, not sit at my desk while someone runs their mouth and blames me for terrorism.

Y'wanna ask me something? Now's your chance. I'll throw y'all a bone and hope it don't come back and bite me in the ass. But first do yourselves some listening, and accept if I can't answer something then there's a reason for it.

Before I really get started, I'm tellin' y'all on the record you did a great job handlin' that situation with what's his name. Y'know who, the devil. You won't hear a peep of complaint from the law about it even if you ain't Registered, even if you bent the rules a little to handles things, that's my promise t'you -- seein' as you did us a favor, too. No surprises down the line, nothing like that. This ain't a matter of taking things into your own hands, this is a matter of public safety, common decency, and dealing with goddamn hellbeasts. Our people ain't been coming back in one piece from that kind of crap.

But movin' past that for now. That was an aside, a thank you, but down to brass tacks--

Point one's the obvious. I'm not your enemy. I ain't your friend neither, but I'm a better one than you'll make with some of the other folk around here. Y'don't wanna trust nobody named Peter Narga, and y'don't wanna trust nobody that calls themselves a Hornet.

[ He drags on his cigarette. ]

Point two. The Porter was found in 1985 and we still don't know where it came from. Back then it worked differently. We couldn't control the people it pulled in, but we got it working to send folks back after about twenty years of trying. Course, that research was useless after Lachesis synched up with the thing, and y'all know the story from there. It does what it wants to now. It's all like I've been saying from the start, we don't got control of it.

Three. Them tattoos of yours... since it's relevant. In the vicinity of any of the Porters, they react to the tech to nullify a person's powers if they earn a particular title. If someone goes on a murder spree, for instance, their wrist will say "CRIMINAL" on it. Byproduct of the signals interacting that we tried to make the best of. Ain't a perfect fix, of course, but it helps toward getting someone apprehended if you get 'em in the right place.

[ Hint hint? ]

Four.

Y'all won't hear this in the official statements, and y'all didn't hear it from me, either. The imPorts before you weren't the only heroes we had around here. We had locals, too, normal folks without powers puttin' on costumes to fight the good fight. Most of 'em retired. Ones that didn't just kinda disappeared. But people here… native to this universe, I mean, they don't disappear same way y'all do. This is technically hearsay, y'follow me? But there's compelling evidence around that some of them folks are still active underground. Fighting crime or making it, sometimes both. No one knows which ones they are from the names we used to know, splashed up in articles and all, they keep themselves anonymous wearing yellow hoodies or jackets and black scarves over their faces. They're called the Hornets, and for all intents and purposes you'd be better off thinking of them as a lot of terrorists themselves. They think they got themselves a bone to pick with the government and you saw up in Nonah how they're expressing their displeasure.

[ He blows smoke from the corner of his mouth, looking weary. ]

Anyway. I got brunch with my partner in an hour, so let's make this worth the time.

[ OOC: Closed to new responses. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Security cameras and testimonies brought to the Nonah PD. And because they were goddamn urban legends before now.

[ okay, so. that's not unreasonable. ]

You mention them in the same sentence as Peter Narga. Do you expect that two are aligned?

I know he was present during our initial swearing ceremony, but I hadn't spoken to him, so I have very little familiarity with what he does. I suppose he must not have been interested in those who didn't hesitate to register.

I can't say, though I wouldn't be surprised. He's always got more rumors in the works, he's just the type of spin doctor that could've kept the Hornets out of the spotlight so long.

What sort of history do you have with him? It certainly couldn't have been anything friendly.

No, can't say it was. That's all I gotta say about that, though.

Well, you certainly haven't got to, no. But it would be appreciated if we knew something more about him, if we're to be considering him an antagonistic element.

[ He sighs. ]

His history and mine ain't relevant to why he isn't trustworthy. Sometimes people see eye-to-eye just fine until the day they don't, and that's that. Sometimes people are shifty snakes in the grass who offer help that don't do no one no good.

[ they were boyfriends weren't they, i think they were boyfriends. ]

Then perhaps just his history in general. You're hinting at stories without telling them, and they sound like stories that we need to hear. "Offers that do no good" was my impression of whatever it is he was doing on the beach that day, but it sounds lie this wasn't his first such attempt.

[ He is very happy with his husband and that is all that matters. ]

Offers that do no good is a good way to phrase it. Do harm's more like it. He's clean on paper, charity founder and general humanitarian, but he needs to look legitimate so that his stories sound it, too. He wants to trick imPorts into making the wrong decisions. The warning's all I got, but just pay attention to it.

[ thats adorbs yo ]

Did a lot of imports make those sort of wrong decisions in the past?

Some had been swayed. I don't know if I'd call it "a lot," but enough to cause problems.

And these are the sort that we're dealing with in the Hornets now. Or at least the natives who associated with them.

If superheroism wasn't limited to imports, what of the supervillains?

Mostly imPorts; native "villainy" picked up after the imPorts were gone, but it was rarely more than the police could deal with. No powers and all.

Right, I should think it was mostly technology-based. Death rays and that.

But you had no trouble returning the whole of import villainy in the previous set?

No trouble, really. Those who wouldn't come in on their own the heroes helped bring them in. Everyone was accounted for in the end.

And I suppose I would need to speak with Ms. Noimos to hear just how the Porter has changed since, aside from knowing the effect of it.

How long have you been doing this? Before, with the previous set.

Yeah. She's the expert at the moment. Closest thing we got to one.

The Porter's been around since '85. First imPorts turned up the year after.

I'm not asking about the porter, I'm asking about you.

Oh, me. I was appointed to my job at the tail end of the last wave. 2005 or so.

That tail end lasting five more years. So they had been about nearly twenty years before that.

Did it chafe nearly as much for them as it does us now?

I wouldn't say so. If it did, it didn't chafe quite as loudly.

But if it came to the point that they were all sent back, and their supposed loyalists are now bombing civilians, it must have chafed considerably.

Apparently. Bombin' civilians to get at who is the real question -- we can't exactly determine what the motive is yet.

To tell us that they did it better.

[ but what is "it" exactly? she'd assumed heroism, but they had a second message, didn't they? ] Was there a previous monorail in Nonah?

No. They have the train, but the monorail was new.

voice.

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