[MM3]Sunstormers IC

[Neo-Paladin]

K-Town. Great... Just flipping great... Helen mentally swore to herself. This area in the past had had lots of trouble with the gangs operating around here but with the coming of the Sunstorm, they've been getting bolder especially with the wild rumors that some of the hoodlums had gotten superpowers of their own as well.

She placed a call through dispatch to let them her location just in case. Being a white female cop all alone in this place is like being forcibly invited at gunpoint to a multiracial porn film exclusive.

With her being the "Star attraction." of course. Sick bastards!

Thankfully the police chopper was somewhere nearby although not quite near enough to draw attention.

She exited her car, locked the doors and carefully looked around before entering the building.

Her appearance has definitely been noted, for she hears a distant call of " Five-O!". There is no one hanging around in the open, however - no surprise given how chilly it is at the moment.

[Tony Jones]

"I'm not sure science has much to say about Sunstormer powers," Khemis comments to Sunny and Deborah, having noticed Sunny's twitching eye. "There was a medical student I met at the Plaza who was a bit freaked out by it all. I personally am going with 'miraculous gifts from Allah' at the moment. But they could just be 'science we don't understand yet', or magic or who knows what!"

[Shadowmask]

There were two ways to go about this. One, Helen could go in with guns blazing and drag the sunstormer freak outside in handcuffs if possible. But that would require search and seizure and arrest warrants which can easily be gotten within an hour no thanks to the inherent corruption in the local courts with plenty of crooked federal judges ready to hand them to any cop or fed with enough money and leverage.

Paladino was not rich and she didn't make friends easily as she had the charming personality of a rabid porcupine in heat so forget that idea plus she would have to really explain why she needed the quickie warrants anyway.

Two, Helen could use subtlety and hopefully put the freak at ease. Again, probably not a good idea as she was as stealthy as a nuclear missile.

It's going to have to be option three: just go on inside and trusting in blind luck.

[kenmadragon]

"... Try not to wiggle too much, and I'll do my best to keep this, err, whatever this is as comfortable as I can." Sunny does his best to ignore Khemis talking in his ear from behind him and the fact that Deborah is in his arms, and instead focused on making sure neither of them were going to slip from his grip while he flew... mostly by ensuring he could hover fine before taking off from Deborah's balcony, making his circuitous route towards the neighborhood where Albert Jun lived so he could find a conveninent place to drop Khemis off. While she skulked about in the shadows to provide overwatch, Deborah and Sunny would be walking at a normal pace on the sidewalks near where Al's stalker had been camped out so Deborah could read her mind.

[Neo-Paladin]

The stalker is still there, at the moment eating a kebab.

[Neo-Paladin]

There were two ways to go about this. One, Helen could go in with guns blazing and drag the sunstormer freak outside in handcuffs if possible. But that would require search and seizure and arrest warrants which can easily be gotten within an hour no thanks to the inherent corruption in the local courts with plenty of crooked federal judges ready to hand them to any cop or fed with enough money and leverage.

Paladino was not rich and she didn't make friends easily as she had the charming personality of a rabid porcupine in heat so forget that idea plus she would have to really explain why she needed the quickie warrants anyway.

Two, Helen could use subtlety and hopefully put the freak at ease. Again, probably not a good idea as she was as stealthy as a nuclear missile.

It's going to have to be option three: just go on inside and trusting in blind luck.

Inside the building, she becomes aware of a group of youths sitting on the stairs - two afro-american young men and a white or at least white-passing girl.
" Hey, aren't you that gravity cop?" she asks as she sees Helen approach. One of the other youths takes a look at Helen's chest and snickers.

[Tony Jones]

After being dropped off, Khemis invisibly goes up the wall to above head height and makes her way around the building to somewhere with a good view of the stalker and their vehicle.

She is still keeping to cover just in case they can somehow see her. And will have an open phone call with Deborah (assuming she is OK with that) in case they need to talk.

[jmucchiello]

Deborah attempts to read her mind as soon as she can see her (and Sunny can point her out without making it obvious).

Mind Reading, cumulative, effortless, subtle 2, Will DC 17. She can do this continuously until she gets something. And she will dig around looking for everything this person knows about her mission and her employer.

[Shadowmask]

"For your sake, i sincerely hope you're looking at my badge and not the other significant parts of my errr...chest anatomy." Helen said sarcastically; suddenly on edge.

Jesus, they better not be sunbathers, overly rabid fans (stalkers really) of those affected by the Sunstorm. Sunbathers unfortunately often took their hero worship to extremes, sometimes staging fake crimes to draw out and film sunstormers especially those dumb enough to play at being costumed vigilantes, attacking those who criticize their idols and even as the story goes, making snuff films of sunstormers fighting each other to post all over the Dark Web and 'collecting' body parts of said sunstormers as trophies.

Since she went public about her status of being a sunstormer less than a month ago, Helen often had been the target of the sunbathers. Crank calls to both her and the department. Love and hate letters and similar texts on email. Some even went so far as camp outside her apartment much to the annoyance of the paparazzis already there until Chicago PD and the FBI led a crackdown which resulted in several arrests, ironically more to protect them as Helen nearly beat the crap of one obnoxious man trying to break in her home. He'll live though his broken arms and legs will take time to heal.

There were threats of lawsuits but that quickly halted as the lawyers themselves were all arrested by the feds with the aid of Homeland Security and soon were permanently disbarred from practicing law. People got the hint and left Helen alone. For the most part as idiots never stopped trying to pester her.

Of course the price was now it was the feds who was camped outside her door, doing hidden surveillance. Perverts.

"And yes, i am that 'Gravity Cop' from the tv and the 'net. That was your freebie though, don't ever call me Gravity Cop again.

Caught my recent interview from CNN, huh? Good for you. I certainly do not use codenames or wear halloween costumes and masks. Superheroes are make believe dreamed up by nerds who can't cope with the real world. Now that's said and done, do you want something or you are gonna let me pass?"

[Neo-Paladin]

Deborah attempts to read her mind as soon as she can see her (and Sunny can point her out without making it obvious).

Mind Reading, cumulative, effortless, subtle 2, Will DC 17. She can do this continuously until she gets something. And she will dig around looking for everything this person knows about her mission and her employer.

The woman's name is Deborah Sinclair. She is - or was - apparently in the Special Forces before being recruited for some kind of 'special project'. That was in 2018.
She was pumped full of experimental drugs to increase muscle gain and bone growth, apparently cutting edge stuff, but not without severe drawbacks - among them a massively increased energy consumption and thus need for caloric intake. Apparently, she also has some sort of internal injector which can be activated to release even more stimulants for short-term bursts of speed and strength. She was told to not use it unless it was an absolute emergency.
Apparently, when Sunstormers appeared, some of the higher-ups at the black ops research project got some panicked calls from even higher up the food chain, thus forcing them to activate these 'super-soldiers' even though they were untested.
She has no idea why she and her comrades are supposed to keep an eye on Albert Jun, but is still a dutiful soldier, doing it anyway.

[Neo-Paladin]

"For your sake, i sincerely hope you're looking at my badge and not the other significant parts of my errr...chest anatomy." Helen said sarcastically; suddenly on edge.

Jesus, they better not be sunbathers, overly rabid fans (stalkers really) of those affected by the Sunstorm. Sunbathers unfortunately often took their hero worship to extremes, sometimes staging fake crimes to draw out and film sunstormers especially those dumb enough to play at being costumed vigilantes, attacking those who criticize their idols and even as the story goes, making snuff films of sunstormers fighting each other to post all over the Dark Web and 'collecting' body parts of said sunstormers as trophies.

Since she went public about her status of being a sunstormer less than a month ago, Helen often had the target of the sunbathers. Crank calls to both her and the department. Love and hate letters and similar texts on email. Some even went so far as camp outside her apartment much to the annoyance of the paparazzis already there until Chicago PD and the FBI led a crackdown which resulted in several arrests, ironically more to protect them as Helen nearly beat the crap of one obnoxious man trying to break in her home. He'll live though his broken arms and legs will take time to heal.

There were threats of lawsuits but that quickly halted as the lawyers themselves were all arrested by the feds with the aid of Homeland Security and soon were permanently disbarred from practicing law. People got the hint and left Helen alone. For the most part as idiots never stopped trying to pester her.

Of course the price was now it was the feds who was camped outside her door, doing hidden surveillance. Perverts.

"And yes, i am that 'Gravity Cop' from the tv and the 'net. That was your freebie though, don't ever call me Gravity Cop again.

Caught my recent interview from CNN, huh? Good for you. I certainly do not use codenames or wear halloween costumes and masks. Superheroes are make believe dreamed up by nerds who can't cope with the real world. Now that's said and done, do you want something or you are gonna let me pass?"

" Phew, someone's testy", the young man remarks as the group parts to let her through. But the girl frowns at Helen's tirade and counters, " But superpowers are real now. So that makes no sense anymore."
" Yeah", the third one says, " I got a cousin who can shoot lasers from his eyes now. Watch out, maybe he'll show the cops how a real hero does his job."

[Tony Jones]

So, to summarise, there is a team of six operatives watching Albert, led by William Ebert and made up of four men and two woman (including Deborah Sinclair). They are holed up in an apartment a few blocks from Albert Jun's apartment.

All of the team are former Spec Ops who have seen action before. There is the leader (William Ebert), a demolitions expert, a sniper (Jack Kline), one specialist in communications tech and countermeasures and two, including Deborah Sinclair, who provide further security.

One of the team, Jack Kline, is starting to act erratically and Deborah Sinclair is concerned that he might be reacting to the drugs in a very adverse way.

The team does know that Albert Jun is a Sunstormer but Deborah Sinclair does not know why he is to be tailed; as a dutiful soldier she is doing what she has been ordered to do. However, they are on alert and possibly expecting the order to take him out.

Deborah Sinclair has no idea about other ops going down at the moment. She knows of about a dozen 'super soldiers' like them, but there might be more.

*So, should we go check out their apartment?* Khemis texts the others.

[kenmadragon]

Next to Deborah as she did her Mind-Reading thing and providing some measure of social cover for her, Sunny pursed his lips in thought. "Super-Soldiers... I suppose that clarifies things. I always suspected the governments of the world would eventually try to weaponize Sunstormers after Africa and Ukraine. Or, at least try to round us up to figure out which of us had powers useful to the military and then try to conscript us if possible. But super-soldiers that predate the Sunstorm? Well, that's a surprise," he whispered to Deborah (the woman beside him, not Sinclair the soldier).

A ping at his phone reveals Khemis' text, from where he'd been giving the other woman updates while Deborah did her thing and whispered what she had been finding to Sunny. He texted her back, ">>It'll be full of five other black-ops super-soldiers. Seems risky. If we get spotted, a fight will break out and people will get hurt.<<"

"If the military is backing Albert's stalkers, he's in big trouble. I was hoping for a PMC or well-funded gangsters: someone easier to strike at and disrupt. The military... I'm not sure what we can do to stop the US Military. Not without painting a bigger target on all our backs and making Al's situation worse..."

[Tony Jones]

*Fair!* texts back Khemis. *In that case we should wait for their leader to arrive for the shift change and see what can be found out from him.*

[jmucchiello]

"Yeah, I don't think we can do anything against the military," Deborah says. "Certainly not anything sane. Hopefully we learn something from the leader."