Villains Defeated!

Hybrid Jackals

Type: Hero Team, Chain

Description: You have aided in the defeat of three members of the Hybrid Jackals.

Difficulty: Difficult

Rewards: 300xp

Finished with clearing the upstairs, and with things outside apparently taken care of, Justin inspected the downstairs lab with interest. Division wanted him to look things over to make sure dangerous chemicals weren't leaking everywhere, or about to explode. He'd also made a point of indicating the cracked test tube that the lizard-guy had drunk from, given Justin strict instructions not to touch anything, and then left the building to go notify the local PD.

It was almost like he'd wanted Justin to stick his nose into things. And come to think of it, he'd been particularly laid back about the bomb footage and decoy corpse investigation as well. Maybe Division was starting to accept that the local officials were, by necessity: either corrupt, slow, incompetent, or out of their league. Or maybe Division had always been more morally complex than Justin had appreciated.

Oh well, he thought, taking a swab of the formula from the cracked tube whether Division wanted him to or not. He hadn't put a lot of effort into learning about cryptogenetics, hybrid taxonomy, or active mutagenic compounds, and to be honest he wasn't sure he wanted to do so now, but a sample of the formula might be necessary in the future.

After running a full sensor scan to make sure there were no dangerous leaks or spills, he checked around for any notes or data systems, finding only details on the simple chemical treatment they were working on here. It appeared the lab was just a link in a chain of production which made it all the more suspicious that they just happened to raid the one location where lizard-bomber was hiding out.

Had someone spotted Oscen and Shade earlier in the day and arranged for the lizard-man to be here? Had they been led to this building on purpase? Or had someone warned the Jackals they were coming and they'd sent the hybrids to defend it?

Once again it felt a little like someone out there was playing their own game, moving pieces around a board that Justin couldn't even see. He hoped it was just the system AIs making things interesting, but he really doubted he was that lucky.

As he left the building, he saw that the hybrid gang members had finally reverted to their human forms, though the two 'sleeping' ones had yet to regain conciousness. Looking closely Justin could still detect small traces of the formula's influence. A few scales on one of them, sharp elongated nails on another, and the thick over-sized neck and hairy shoulders on the last.

Division had been trying to get information out of the gangers, playing good cop to Revenant's looming bad cop, but no one seemed ready to give up information, at least not in front of their compadres. Justin watched as Division made a big show of giving up and moving away to wait for the cops.

Behind the now muttering gang members, Justin could see Shade skulking in the shadows, listening in to the whispered conversations. Deciding not to be outdone, Justin scanned the gang members for cell phones, downloading whatever data he could find for later analysis, and dropping code packets that should let him find them again in the future.

Successful Skill Use +12 xp to Hacking - Novice Level 1 [05%].

+6 xp to skill group Coder - Novice Level 3 [06%]

After he was finished, he decided to leave the rest of the team to deal with the cops, he hadn't really been involved after all. He contacted Era to take over the drone's flight home, and settled back into his server.

Looking around, Justin decided things at home were going very well indeed. His nano-printer was finally working, which meant he could use it to start producing its own replacement.

So much of Justin's crafting seemed to be building a tool to build a machine that could build the tool he actually needed. He imagined half the things he wanted were already available somewhere out in the world, but they were specialist, precision technology, and each one would probably have cost a fortune.

Because of the money involved, he'd actually considered getting into the lab equipment business himself, but the scarcity of customers was one of the main reasons the equipment was so expensive in the first place. It did, however, lead him to appreciate another of the many advantages he had over flesh and blood scientists. He'd already considered the lack of sleep and the abundance of time, he'd basked in Kip's superior Intellect and speed of learning, but he'd never really considered how easy it was for him to interact and work with his lab equipment.

For most Scientists, their equipment needed complex code and detailed instructions to work properly, and needed intricate changes for the simplest shift in function.For Justin, something in his code reached out and liased with the equipment for him. Other than his Intelligence, it was the closest thing Artisan had to a power. and Justin wondered if there was some way he could expand on it.

Shaking off the errant thought, he considered his new robotic arm. Since it was designed for lab work, he had focused on simple, smooth motion, and despite being nothing like the humaniform arm he intended to work on next, it had still been excellent practice, and was definitely a step up from his previous store-bought manipulators.

Next he checked in on Chompers, who'd been exiled to a separate desktop system where the small program could be properly quarantined. The little guy seemed happier now he was back in a human-built operating system, with no strange code around to get him snippy. Ira also seemed happier being back to trundling round the workshop, cleaning things that really didn't need cleaning, and moving things that Justin could have sworn had already been moved yesterday.

His housekeeping finished, Justin moved onto the leads Era had found for possible business managers. Looking through them, he decided his favourite was actually one of her wild-card candidates, a woman in her thirties that reminded him strongly of a family member he couldn't quite place thanks to Somnus' interference.

Amelia Turner was currently an underemployed and unappreciated administrator with the Miami-Dade School District, having given up a promising career a decade ago to focus on raising her kids. Apparently her husband had died in a villain attack, leaving her on her own with very little support. She was a business graduate, a moderately active environmentalist, and was currently suffering financial trouble due to her son's hospital bills. Justin couldn't help appreciating the woman's aura of competence and continued joie de vivre despite the run of bad luck.

He spent some time trying to put together an offer of employment, before realising that Weyland Solar really didn't have anything to offer except ground-floor shares and the possibility of could be, maybe, future money and success. It was exactly the kind of situation that would appeal to the risk takers and fly-by-night businessmen Justin didn't want, not a sensible, dependable person with family and bills to pay. Dammit, he was going to have to put in a lot more work in to getting the venture established before trying to bring in someone reliable to run it.

Since he had plenty of time until the OOC team meeting, he decided to take the first steps in getting things up and running. The longer he put it off, the longer it would be until he saw any profit.

First he jumped into setting up the Kipman Affordable Safe Sustainable Energy fund. His totally above board, nothing shady to see here, international investor in renewable energy technologies. He even set them up with a nice webpage and had some fun creating a fictitious history for the fund's founder, former coal-magnate Heinrich Kipman.

He then spent much longer than he should have on their charter and the process and development guidelines for the distribution of the fund's $20 million in grant money.

Successful Skill Use +15 xp to Subterfuge - Beginner Level 4 [03%].

Successful Skill Use +16 xp to Business - Novice Level 1 [78%].

+8 xp to skill group Enterprise - Novice Level 1 [29%]

He decided to base KASSE out of Switzerland despite their ongoing issues with Pulsar, a particularly destructive super, and the newly crowned Radiant Emperor of Lichtenstein. The country's shielded banking laws were just too important for keeping the flow of illicitly-obtained money under the radar.

He considered that thought for a moment, and then really hoped Division never found out about any of this.