sparksol | Another Drab entry. (Reply)

A couple weeks after the events with the mech, we get called in again. Some unknown stone of some sort has been brought to a university in Dallas Texas, and we are being sent out to take it. Steal it, rather. Seems it'll be taken to a large storage facility somewhere and left there if we don't get it for further study.

We head out there, check out the campus for a couple days. Max comes along, he wins a few bets with some students and gets their money, so he throws a college party to celebrate. Makes for a nice distraction, anyway. I, along with Mr. Smith (who, as it turns out, tells me his real name is something I can't say, but I can call him Horus. He apparently uses all kind of names.) head into a mostly unguarded area, and take the stone, which is about a foot and a half long, oblong like a football, and blue. We get out, and the two of us (Max/Velocity makes his own way most of the time) fly back to headquarters. The stone is put into a newly finished lab, and I go to relax a bit.

The next day, we get talked to about being photographed. Seems some cowboy-looking bum had been following us, taking pictures, and sent them to the FBI. We're told to be more careful, and that we may later have to deal with that person if necessery.

A week later, we're told to find that person. Some extraterrestrial object landed in his backyard, and he called it to the FBI, wanting to talk to us. Horus/Mr. Smith and I head down to find him, since he's now in hiding (something about breaking out of a quarantined area) and being hunted by authorities. We go find him, reassure him we are who he thinks we are, and take him to headquarters after Horus makes sure he's not actually contaminated by anything contagious. He does, however, seem to have some 'enhancements' to his reflexes, muscular stability and the like. He wears a thick steel plate on his butt, "because I don't want them aliens to probe me no more!" He also has a rather nasty energy weapon he stole from the aliens. Finally, he has no manners that we can find.

Another week or so of not much to do (I've been molding granite rocks as though they were clay. I'm still not good at sculpting, but it's something to pass the time) and Horus calls us in. Some device he found a few months ago (while the electric menace and I were still being held by Dr. Genesis) has finally been revealed as a communicator and translator device. He's learned a language from it, and is about to use it to contact an alien craft in orbit almost directly above us. After he says a few things, and reads some text, it seems that some creature here is being directed to leave within one year, as some other group is claiming this planet for their territory, and will begin operations then.

This does not make us happy.

We resolve to find the owner of this device, and end up temporarily hijacking the Emergency Broadcast frequencies over the entire country to do so. A message (in what is presumed to be the alien's language) is sent out in this fashion, and we arrange a meeting north of Reno the next day.

At the meeting point, a van pulls up. Out steps two goons instantly recognizable as Dr. Genesis' clone Igors, one person who Horus tells us is a copy of a certain electrical numbskull, and a six-armed humanoid feline creature. After some discussion, we're told that essentially we don't have much hope of getting the eqivalent of the galactic government and applying for civilized beings status, as it would require us to invent and use a faster-than-light method of travel and get there within a year's time. Not to mention any red tape involved. A method of contacting each other is exchanged, and we part ways.

Things become rather hectic, as we now have less than a year to prepare ourselves and the world for a worldwide invasion. News is sent to goverments around the world, and placed online, but not many will believe it. (Although it only took the Inquirer two days to print the story. Of course.)

The professor and Horus let slip something about bringing 'The Family' into it. Seems they're talking about a illuminati-esque organization of related peoples that go back almost 6000 years, all traced back to a particular distant egyptian ancestor who was a king, and said to be a god as well. (It explains why his name is Horus, at least. He might have said he was a part of this organization earlier.)

We study the stone we brought back, and test it, as it seems to warp reality around it somehow. Its inside is apparently a few hundred miles longer than it's outside, it emits...something. I find out where it was found, and plan a trip to that point to see if anything else like that is down there. Horus does something to it, and disappears to its inside. The thing weighs half a ton now, so I'm the only one who can move it very easily.

The stone was found on the bottom of the pacific ocean somewhere south of Hawaii, and Alia, Horus and I end up hijacking a nuclear submarine. With the crew.

The first to notice, a marine on the bridge, leaps at Horus. I block, and the man knees me in the groin a few times. I tell him he should stop that, as he'll only hurt himself. The entire crew attacks us, as much as possible anyway. Alia and Horus seem to have tried emulating my powers, as the crew is having about as much luck with them as they do with me. They try to flood the ship, self-destruct it, and ram it into the ground.
None of it works, as Horus has already done something to the ships' systems.

We're not so much as throwing punches. Eventually, the captain listens to us, and agrees to take us to our destination. The crew still tries to take us out, stabbing us in the back (literally), attaching shaped-charge explosives on me while I sleep, and the like. Alia and Horus have the good sense to make themselves inaccessible while they sleep, while I simply sleep anywhere I think is out of the way (often waking up to find myself roped or chained.)

After a few days of this kind of thing (and many blunted knives, axes, and sprained wrists from poor stabbing technique) we reach the place, and I conveniently place myself in a torpedo tube. The crew happily launches me, thinking they've managed to kill one of us, at least.

Until I scream "Woohoooo!" on my way out, anyway. I'm just fine at any pressure, and can breath water easily. Didn't I mention that? I thought I did....

Alia joins me shortly afterward (she can turn herself into water? Every person helps.) I'm looking for the reality-distortions noticed around the stone, when Alia calls me over. (She can talk normally underwater. I'm kind of jealous.) The stone surface has a perfect indentation of where the stone was. She says the rock here shows signs of being shaped like this as far down as she can sense.

Okay, so the blue stone has been here for longer than humanity. Okay. Not much help, but at least that's one mystery solved. We have the crew take us to the surface, and we leave, to head back to base.

I don't know about the rest, but I'm thinking maybe we should talk to the 'Family' about funding Dr Genesis. And to Dr Genesis about stepping up his operations.