Origin pg2

Nathan

"So what do the two of you think you are doing?"

The kids look up into the glare, startled like deer in headlights. "Oh crap!" one of them yells. They're both boxed in and blinded by the light.

The other one says "We weren't going to hurt anything. Please, we'll just go."

Before he can respond, Nathan feels something shift behind him. All around him, really. But it takes him a minute to figure out what it is. All over the city, lights are going out. Nathan feels it through his power more than seeing it. Massive sections of the power grid are shutting down, and as one fails, others fail under the increased load.

The two kids are looking at each other, or trying to. The first one says "They really did it."

"Who just cut off power to parts of the city? "

He was trying to sound authoritative. This was aided by the fact that they could not see him and they were disoriented by the powerful lights. But he didn't have a lot of time. Those grids failing was very bad. Hospitals will start switching over to emergency power but that didn't always work. And things would only get worse, especially if it caused a cascading failure.

"We don't know," said Student 1. "Chaz... he's a friend of ours... was a friend..."

The other one broke in. "Wait a minute. If you're a cop, aren't you supposed to identify yourself or something?"

"I am an engineer, not a cop. I work for the city."

Both were technically true, as he had a civic works project he was donating time to. So he was not lying with what he said to these two.

"I am not here to bust you or anyone else. I am here to fix the problem and if you tell me what is going on I might be able to do so before anyone gets hurt. So spill. "

"Can you point that light down a little?" Student 2 asked. "We kinda can't see... anything."

"We really don't know much," the student said, blinking and trying to restore his night vision. "Todd already told you about Chaz. He's the guy who died here. We knew him, and we knew he'd gotten in with some kind of crazy people. Some kind of secret society thing. He wouldn't tell us very much, and mostly it seemed harmless until a few months ago."

The first student, Todd, broke in. "Until I found the vial of meth. Chaz isn't... wasn't... a tweaker. But I flushed it down the toilet and made him tell me where he got it. He said he'd used what he learned in school to help fund 'the cause,' and they were almost ready to bring the city to its knees."

Student 2 added "Chaz always talked like he was in a comic book. I didn't really know what to believe, but now it's all over school that he died in a meth lab fire. We wanted to see this place."

Nathan kept the flashlight lowered. If he couldn't take two college kids, he'd eat his hand wraps. Come to think about it, Sis would probably make him. But that wasn't here nor there. Best to press on before they started to ask too many more questions.

"That make sense. Now what is the rest? They really did it. That was what you said. So someone made a threat of doing this, something you didn't really believe up till this point. Spill. "

"We don't know, okay?" said student 2. "Chaz was into this thing. There's this group. They talk on the internet on secure servers with encryption and everything. Never in the meatworld, so nobody knows anybody else. They work like flash mobs. A call goes out and whoever can does whatever they're supposed to do. At least that's what Chaz said. As far as we knew before this, they never really did anything."

Todd looked at the darkened city, with only a few pinpoints of light where people were running generators. "But they did now."

"Where do you think the rest of this group might be? Any indication of a symbol or a phrase that might identify them? "

Nathan started to run through his head, what he knew about the cities power systems. He hoped he had read enough of the city plans to recall where the power station was in that region. He didn't suspect he'd get anything useful from these two.

"There was a website," Todd said. "They had stuff on it. Just a second." He pulled out his smartphone and tried to launch an app. "No signal."

The city grid wasn't Nathan's specialty, but he knew some of the basics. Stations were set up several places in town to distribute the load, but if a few key ones failed at once, they'd start a cascading failure. And in a way, he could feel it happening all over the city. The constant buzz of energy through the wires was gone, but Nathan thought he might be able to figure out how to make it flow again, if he could see the problem up close.

Nathan noted the address that the kid tried to access, making a note to try examining it himself once he got somewhere that his own phone would get better signal. Or arrange better signal. But best to get going, if he was going to do something.

"I suggest you head back home. This is an ugly area to get caught after dark and we still don't have everything shored up. Wouldn't want to get trapped somewhere right now, if I were you. "

And with that Nathan started to head off. He was heading for closest power station. On some level, he needed to get that buzz of energy back. Like a sound you don't notice until its not there, the silence was unsettling.

Between the crazy traffic and the fact that his smartphone wasn't able to connect to anything, it took Nathan longer to find a power station than he wanted, but he finally remembered a location not too far away and thankfully not cut off by gridlock or emergency vehicles. There was one cop or security guard, Nathan couldn't tell in the dark, standing guard in front of the gate.

Moving forward with confidence and act like you belonged there. It worked if you were applying for a job, looking for a girl, or trying something like this. And some time just enough of the truth to make it work.

He walked directly up to the guard. You don't evade, you attack head on.

"I'm here to repair the station. Take me to where the problem is. "

Curt enough to seem like I expected obeying but polite enough to seem like abuse. If he attacks me, he's involved with the group trying to stop the power station. If not, then he is probably having a bad night and is looking for someone to make that go away.

"You got some ID, Buddy?" the guard says. Nathan can now see his NYPD uniform, and habitually suspicious expression. "I ain't heard nothing about Con Ed getting a truck out here."

Tag Nathan. You didn't score quite enough to talk your way past him, but good enough that he's not immediately hostile. If you can convince him you're not here to blow up the transformer, he'll probably be cooperative.

Nathan slide the leather piece of his wallet with both his drivers license and union id, and flashed them to the police officer. He was hoping the guy wouldn't look too closely, but he had the basic certs to do electrical work. It made you way more marketable in this business.

"I was the nearest guy in the local who could come and take a look at how bad it is. You can't just bring in any truck for this. This isn't just some transformer losing its shit. Hell half the stuff is in the software and you don't need a truck for that. Just ruin my damn night. Tell you what, if it makes you feel better, pat me down and send a guy to follow me around but let me do my job. I mean for fuck sake, there is at least two hospitals on this part of the grid alone and you know as well as I do that no one takes care of the backup generators like they should. "

Concern, World Weary, and a sense of duty. Nothing like 10 years with a union to get you understanding guys like this.

tag GM

---

The Hard Rock Cafe

...The concert begins.

Normally, the opening act is a throway, but Ragdoll is pretty damn good. The drummer, a big, muscular woman, lays down a tribal, pulsing beat, the guitar and base flow around and through it, and then the spotlight falls on the lead singer. She's thin and waiflike, dressed in a vinyl corset and chifon skirts over truly punitive high heels. Her voice is almost painfully intense, and has more range than her small frame would suggest.

At the end of their set, she tells the crowd that she'll be at the band's table outside to sign CDs and t-shirts. They do one more song, a peppy, bubblegum pop rendition of Danny Boy that gets a laugh from the crowd, and then the lights go down for a brief intermission.

Jose looks around. It'll be hard to find anyone in this mess. But patience is key. Turning back to the boys, (there's Sean plus two more buddies): "I bumped into a fire inspector on the way here. Seems that Chaz burned his place. Weird. You guys seen him?" Then a tall redhead put his hands around Sean's head and covered his eyes. "Who am I?"

Camilo grabs a beer at the bar and tries to enjoy the show. The opening act was good, although a bit too strident for his tastes. He likes it in the end and thinks of buying the CD.

He hadn't found the resident. Just my rotten luck, he thouinks as he scans the crowd once more. Suddenly, his gaze stops in a group of kids. Nothing specil, just college students, but one of them glows like the Nexus. This one iss different, not like the others — the glow stays aroung him, like a halo. What the hell? What should I do now?

Jose feels another tickle in his thoughts, like someone is watching him. He looks up instinctively across the room and sees a guy at the bar, glowing with color like the Nexus, and like the fire inspector at the dorm.

And then the lights go out. The club is plunged into darkness. A few people laugh nervously. Others murmur "hey, what's going on?"

Jose gets up and walks straight toward Camilo. The colours again. You or someone else is going to tell me WTF is going on. Pushing people aside in the dark, and trying not to step over anyone is hard enough. Once he gets near to Camilo, he manages to mutter: "You see them? The funky colours around you?"

Jose isn't the only one pushing. The crowd is getting kind of unruly.

Camilo is startled by Jose's arrival. He had lost track of the kid in the commotion after the blackout. Confronted with what he thought was his secret until now, he thinks of dismissing the kid, but realizes this might be his only chance to find out what's going on.

"Yeah, I do. But this doesn't seem like the best place to discuss that, what with the crushing mob. Let's get out of here," Camilo says and turns around towards the nearest exit.

"Solid idea. Let's."

The exits are lit, at least, but there's anything but an orderly line heading for them. Pushing toward the door is a slow process, and ripples of pressure from other parts of the venue constantly hit like waves. Over the general murmur of frightened or confused people, Jose and Camilo hear the sounds of a fight breaking out somewhere they can't quite see. Then two dull cracks, gunshots! And then the screaming starts.

Christ. I'm dripping again. Oh man, this is not the moment to lose it. Else, we're gonna have some actual waves in the Hard Rock. Jose pushes forward but the people keep pushing him back. And his hands are really, really wet now. Not just perspiration.

As the screaming and shoving starts, Camilo does his best to keep moving towards the exit. He sees a worried look on Jose's face. The kid is losing it, better give him a hand, he thinks and grabs Jose's arm to pull the kid with him. As he does so, the jacket exudes water, as if Camilo was squeezing a sponge. God! Better orecribe some sudoresis control medicine to this kid.

The venue is total chaos, but people are pressing toward the exits now. A second tide of security men are trying to move against the crowd. One passes the two Amp wielders, and they hear from his radio, "My phone's dead! Call 911! Call 911! Shots fired. Two wounded. My god, I think this kid's gonna die."

Camillo manages to force his way closer to the exit, dragging Jose behind him. His intention was to clear the nightclub as fast as possible, but he couldn't let the kid that got shot die. Turning to Jose, he says:

"Listen, get out of here. I'm coming back, I'm a doctor and there are people who need me there. But hang around, as soon as I'm finished here, we can talk."

"OK, I'll be here." Jose left hurriedly, looking around for Sean or his girl. Thinking. Weird. That fire inspector also had colours around him, didn't he? Crazy. One thing was clear, he wouldn't find anyone in this mess. Nope. Dammit. I almost lost it in there.

---

Andy

Andy doesn't see anything out of the ordinary from his rooftop perch. Sara hasn't called back, which could mean she's busy. He waits for a while, thinking over his next move...

...And then he realizes he was one step behind again. The lights go out, everywhere. The city that never sleeps is plunged into darkness.

"Shit." Any snaps open his zippo and wills the fire brighter, without expanding its size until it glows with a white light casting a dim circle of light around him.

As Andy tires to figure out what to do he spies a black and white down at street level, the two officers have turned on their spotlight and each one carries a flashlight. They have begun to light road flares in order to provide as much light as possible while they try to figure out what happened. Andy smiles and reaches a hand out in the direction of the flares. He clenches his fist and the burning flares erupt into bright white light as if someone had thrown phosphorous in a kiln.

The flares explode into brightness, easily matching the lamps that roadside crews use. One cop steps back, surprised. "Woah. We gotta order more of these."

Andy knows the heightened effect won't last forever, but it's nice right now. The officers start directing traffic. Car headlights help, but aren't perfect, and with no signals at intersections, New York traffic congeals even more tightly than usual. Andy's got his portable scanner in his pocket, and he hears the dispatch chatter. There have already been several accidents. A call is coming through from a few blocks up even now: multiple car collision with several injuries. And response times are slow because the roads have become nearly impassible.

Then he hears another call, and long training translates it from cold numeric codes into chilling truth: a shooter in the Hard Rock, multiple wounded.

"God Dammit. I knew that kid was trouble."

Andy pulls the halligan bar from his back and jumps over the edge of the roof. Landing on the ground he rolls and starts forcing his way through the exiting crowd. Every time the door pushes open again he sees flickers of the Nexus, rainbow whorls, sometimes one, sometimes two. Hoping that the flickers of color mean something. He locks in on the last place he saw them and forces his way to the door...

---

The Hardrock, Outside

Andy forces his way through the throngs at the door. Most people are confused, rather than frightened. He sees people trying their cell phones, but without success. A panicked wave is rolling out of the front doors, and Andy causes further panic with his steel mattock, but it serves the purpose. People break to the right or left to get out of his way. He almost misses the kid from the college, who's on the edge of of the mob, and only really noticable because someone near him slips and falls - only spared being trampled by pure luck.

And then Andy hears gunshots from inside.

Andy grabs the kid by the arms and yanks him out of the mob. "Alright so you aren't the gunman, but there is something going on with you and you need to tell me what it is. You keep glowing and I know it means something." Suddenly Andy notices that the Jose is soaking wet. "What the hell?"

"I'm glowing? Well, you're glowing too, and so was that guy I saw inside the Hard Rock. And, let me tell you one more thing. I'm really tired now of holding back the waters. By the way, weren't you a fire inspector? What you doing here?"

"I'm...The Fireman... I dunno something like that. I haven't gotten that far. I apparently have superpowers now kid, I'm trying to clean up the city. Your friend Charles was into some bad shit and I thought the thing that gave me my powers was cluing me that you were in on it. I would have bet dollars to donuts you were the shooter in there."

"Me?! No, I didn't do anything," the kid said. "But there's a guy with a gun in there, and another glowing man. He went back to try to help."

"Stay here kid. If you see a cute redheaded detective, tell her Andy's inside. Don't say ANYTHING else."

Andy slams through the door and flicks open his zippo as he orients himself on the standoff and heads for it.

The panicked club-goers are still a barrier, but Jose knows a back way around. "This way," he says.

---

The Hardrock, Inside

Camilo finds it easiest to move along the edges of the room, where he can press through narrow gaps. Even so, he catches an elbow to his jaw and picks up some other bumps and bruises - not from malice, simply from panicked people not blinded by their fear. As he gets closer to the altercation, it's easier to move because people are clearing out, all but a knot of five or six people frozen in a dangerous tableux.

The man, boy really, with the gun is standing tensly, swinging his pistol toward anyone who moves near him. There are two people on the ground: one woman hunched protectively over a man and already surrounded by an expanding pool of his blood. Then three women are under the gunman's sites. The one in the fore is an Asian woman, slightly built, but radiating powerful control. not magical or Amp related. She's just good in a crisis

"Look, it's okay. Just put the gun down and we'll work this out. It was an accident. I understand." She has her arms spread open, and her legs only barely bent, but Camilo can see the coiled tension in her stance. She's ready to move at any moment, and despite her calm demeanor, adrenaline is pouring through her.

The security men came from the other side, and are pushing their way forward with more force than finesse. As two hulking men approach, yelling "Drop the Weapon!" "On the ground! On the ground!" the boy panics. Shots crack the air. Most of them are far wide of the target, but with so many people in such close space, Camilo is certain that people were hit. One of them was the woman, whose upper torso explodes in blood as she spins under the pain and impact and falls.

Camilo curses himself for being too slow as he sees the woman fall. In a split-second, he decides to go for the closest person, the Asian woman. If I fix her quickly, I can get to the man in time, he thinks, although he knows he has no way of knowing which is more badly wounded. Unless... Camilo concentrates in his new ability, trying to extend it to his senses, trying to perceive the state of health of the people around him.

The sudden input was almost overwhelming. Several hundred racing heartbeats pounded in Camilo's ears including one that was fading fast and another that beat out of time, and with erratic strength. He managed to focus on those, and his power claimed his eyes as well. It was almost like having comicbook x-ray vision. Dimly, he saw the life flowing through everyone around him. The two he focused on were the clearest. He could see the man's gut wound, having damaged his intestines but missed any other serious damage. The bullet was lodged in his abdomen. The woman was much worse. A shattered rib pointed shards at her lungs, and the bullet was lodged next to her heart, tearing at the muscle wall with every beat.


It worked! Camilo had time to think in the tiny moment that took to dive toward the woman, hopefully avoiding the shooting festival started by the kid. He slids to a stop right next to her body. Without really thinking, otherwise he would try to be more discreet, Camilo places his hands near the wound and concentrates on healing it.

Around him, what little order existed is completely breaking down, but Camilo can't concentrate on that. He shuts down everything else and feels his way into the woman's bleeding body. He begins to heal her, pouring light into her body. Faintly, he realizes that other people are taking notice.

The gunman runs, fleeing from the rushing security team.

Andy, in better shape than Jose, pulls ahead and yanks open the door just in time to see a guy in his late teens or early twenties running his way with a gun in his hand. In the glare of the emergency lights, it's hard to tell much more.

Crap! I got get out of him pronto, Camilo thinks, but he can't just leave the woman. He concentrates on mending her as fast as he can. Ok, a couple more seconds and I'm outtta here.

Andy charges towards the man with the gun, shutting his eyes tightly as his zippo flashes brightly filling the are with white light Fire Control 2d6+4=14 he snaps the zippo shut and takes a baseball grip on the halligan bar swinging it hard at the gunman's hand. 2d6+4=11 (athletics)

And he only got a 6. Bad day for him.

The kid, blinded and cringing from the sudden flame, didn't even get a shot off. Andy's weapon slammed into his hand with a crunch and sent the gun clattering to the floor after it struck the wall. Absently, Andy realized it was probably lucky the damn thing hadn't gone off, but that thought was pretty low on his adrenaline-soaked brain's order of priorities.

The kid backed away, saying "oh god, don't kill me, oh god."

Camilo's patient sits up with a gasp.

All around, people are too shocked by the sudden events to react. Both Amplified men hear people saying things like "Is it an angel? Did you see that?"

Tag Andy, then Camilo

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