Follow the Money

The outside of the ORACLE facility is a cheery looking redbrick construction. At a glance it could have been a school or neighborhood recreation center of some sort, the only identifying feature being a small sign bearing the ORACLE logo just above the front door. The interior was much like the rest of the ORACLE facilities scattered throughout the city with clean off white walls and shiny linoleum floors lit by overhead fluorescent lights.

---

Nadia arrived first making her way to the library and computer lab of which she was the only occupant.

Constance arrived soon after dashing inside she greets the electronic staff and one or two individuals she recognizes. She spots Nadia and says a brief hello but leaves her to her own devices until the others show up.

Fear parks near the building and makes his way inside to see if anyone had arrived for the meet up.

Archangel arrives and spotting a black car with a dent in it lands on the roof of the building, she sits down letting her legs dangle over the front of the building and waits with her wings spread out like a flag.

Tremor pulls up just before the agreed upon time and sees Archangel sitting on top of the building. As he walks up she waves down at him.

Shade arrives a few minutes late having had to deal with an issue with the morning meal not being to someone's liking.

Fear enters the building and grabs himself something to drink, water or coffee if it's available. He then sits down at a chair in the lobby and waits.

They'll recognize me for sure. If they got in contact with me, they must know what I look like, maybe who I am.

He watches out for anyone who approaches him, or anyone who he recognizes from last night.

After retrieving her bicycle from where she had left it near the bank, Logan spends her morning developing photos from the night before. She sorts the best ones to send to a couple different periodicals, and sifts out the ones that probably aren't all that useful. A few she sets aside for a different project: pictures of the white truck with its partial license plate, the door of warehouse 17, and the photo of the warehouse lot behind its sign. On the photo of the truck, she wrote 12:05 AM. She grabs two large yellow envelopes and slowly pens onto them in tidy, nondescript text: Third Street Bank.

Logan visits an office supply store, where she asks an employee to make two copies of each of her photos and print them on a different kind of paper, in black and white. She keeps the originals, tucking them into a separate portfolio from her other photos, and places one set of the copies into each Third Street envelope.

One of them, she takes to the police station. She does it discreetly, folding light around herself to hide and shuffling through the door after someone else. She waits for the person at the front desk to get up or turn away before leaning over the desk and propping the envelope in front of the computer screen. She waits to see what they do with it.

[Smarts d8: 8,5 = 13]
[Stealth d10: 2, Wild: 6,2 = 8]

Shade pulls up, parks outside the building, and adjusts his looser civilian clothes over his jumpsuit and body armor. The shotgun stayed at home, so he's looking inconspicuous in jeans and a button down under a riding jacket. Only the red sigils streaked across his face and his silvery white hair set him apart. He makes his way into the building, tossing a lazy salute up to Archangel, and grabs a cup of coffee before heading to the lobby where he sees Fear waiting.

"Glad to see you're doing a bit better. Cops said it was nothing lethal but you still looked pretty banged up. My name's Raphael, I'm not sure if we've had the pleasure." He extends a hand cheerfully.

After a few hours of sleep, Trevor wakes to his alarm clock blaring at about 8:20. Rolling over, he brings a heavy hand down on the off button and climbs blearily out of bed. This is too damn early to be awake. On a typical day, Trevor would be in bed for another four hours, but the typical days have been getting fewer and farther between lately.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Trevor heads down to the ORACLE facility. He parks on the street, walks up to the building, and waves up at Archangel on the roof. He's wearing his usual oversized t-shirt and black cargo pants, looking more than a little like the last few years of fashion have left him behind. The black complements the pale grey of his skin, at least.

Trevor steps inside to see Shade and Fear waiting in the lobby. "Hey. You're in pretty good shape for a guy that got punched out by Charlie's Angel last night."

Fear stands up and shakes Raphael's hand, "Nice to meet you Raphael, you can call me Fear. Can I assume you're with Constance Blanche?

When Tremor enters and addresses him, Fear chuckles and says, "Well, you know how capes are, all of us have a few tricks up our sleeves. It hurt for a second, but by the time I woke up, I was feeling much better. He looks at Shade and Tremor, A lot of folks present I didn't know about, they seem like pleasant folks.

Nadia wanders back from the library and pokes her head around the corner to see the three men assembled in the lobby. Oh good, they're here, she thinks, I didn't want to talk to the creepy car guy by myself.

To the others, she says briskly, "Oh, you're here. Constance is around somewhere, I'm sure she'll be back in a minute." To Fear, she says, "I'm Dr. Delacroix: I wanted to meet with you here to discuss the incident last night. Perhaps we can share information that would be mutually beneficial."

Constance zips over to Fear, Shade and Tremor. She holds her hand out to Fear for a shake. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm sorry about the events last night, there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen and everyone was on edge for one reason or another."

Fear nods, "No apology necessary, mistakes were made all around, I'm at as much fault as anyone else, if not moreso." Fear turns to Nadia, "Sorry about that roof incident, hopefully you weren't to upset or injured. I didn't know anyone was up there, I just heard the alarms and prepared to deal with the situation. Unfortunately my abilities have the side effect of scaring away bystanders, including those I am not aware of.

Fear turns back and addresses the group. "So what brought you all to the bank last night?"

Trevor turns and focuses on Fear. "How about you go first?"

Fear shrugs, "Very well, late one night, after my weekly broadcast, I was doing some work when I heard a knock on my door, going to answer I found a man, blue eyes, smoke around him, long grey coat. He told me the bank was going to be robbed, so I went to stake out the bank and observe the goings on at the bank. After I heard the alarm, I went to enter the bank and, well, you know the rest from there."

"All right then," Nadia begins, holding up one finger. "Question one of... four to seven. Who is the mysterious stranger contacting ORACLE members? All five of us are licensed, I gather. Why did he not contact us through official ORACLE channels?" She turns to Shade and Trevor, then nods to Constance as well, remembering that Shade had indicated her as being with his group also. "Did he contact your 'crew,' or whatever, separately or as a collective entity?"

Fear looks at Nadia. "What about Archangel? She was there, and based on what I've heard I'm fairly certain that she's not registered with ORACLE. Whoever this is though, they're either acting for the greater good, as evidenced by sending us to stop a bank robbery, or they have some kind of grievance or rivalry with whoever was attempting to commit the robbery." Fear sighs for a second, then asks, "What information do we have on the individuals attempting to rob the bank? Names, contacts, employers, modus operandi, previous record of criminal activities, bank records, anything at all? I assume with so many capes on site, that the robbery wasn't successful, that the alarm notified the rest of you and you were able to respond in due time and stop the culprits from succeeding?"

"We were all contacted individually. We aren't a team, so much as we are friends or friendly acquaintances." Shade answers Nadia.
"We haven't gotten any info on the robbers (who we did stop, correct), we were planning on meeting here and planning the next move. Or at least some of us were? Others just wanted to make sure they weren't being targeted or anything."

"Wait, Archangel is unregistered? Seriously?" Nadia shakes her head. "Well, then. To answer your questions, there were three guys inside. They used a teleport device to remove the money, but we don't know how they got in. All three were arrested. Two identified themselves as Terror of Temperature and Phantom Fistpuncher" --Nadia mentally refuses to acknowledge the alternative spelling of Phantom-- "and a third didn't speak but appeared to have super speed. I don't think any of their apparent enhancements would have been sufficient to get the teleporter into the vault without help; Terror of Temperature implied that he was in charge of the robbery but I have my doubts about him being the true mastermind of the operation."

"Yeah, none of those guys seemed bright enough to pull that off unless it was the speedster, and he went down before he could say anything." Trevor thinks for a moment. "Robocop, you said something last night about them maybe getting in with something in a safe deposit box? Any ideas there?"

"I actually do like that idea. If they put the components for the teleporter in a few safe deposit boxes, the speedster could get in and assemble them to teleport the other two in. Although I guess we don't know if the teleporter does living matter; I'd imagine that'd be trickier than money. I wouldn't mind checking the bank or with the police to see if there's any footage from the vault that would confirm that theory."

Nadia nods. "I agree, and come to think of it, the 'speedster,' if we're committing to that terminology, turned into a sort of... lightning form at one point. We can only speculate about his powers, but it's theoretically possible that he could teleport, or like, transfer himself through electrical wires, to get into the vault and set up the device. Or turn invisible and hide in the vault after the bank closed, or shrink himself and be placed into a safe deposit box along with the device by his compatriots, or phase through walls, or any number of other things."

She appraises the group. So we're really doing this, are we? Aloud, she adds, "I suppose if we're committed to an investigation, we'd want to both check with the bank about the boxes"--she nods to Shade--"and also check with the police and see if the perpetrators were interrogated and gave any useful information." She pauses. "That is, assuming either party is willing to let us look into it." Nadia shrugs her shoulders. "Well? What's the plan? Split up or go together?"

The group agrees that it would be best to split up to investigate. They make sure to exchange contact information amongst each other and promise to alert the others if they find anything. Nadia and Constance volunteer to speak with the police feeling they will likely have the best luck on that front. Tremor and Fear being interested in what ORACLE might know about the three villainous Capes found in the vault decide to investigate together. Leaving Shade to investigate any leads at the bank.

Getting up from the table the group splits up. Tremor and Fear go to the front desk finding one of the robotic assistants manning the station. Nearly as tall as Tremor with a longer slender body and appendages the robots appear almost fragile with their white polymer bodies. A simple emoticon looking face is depicted in green led lights on the head the expression of which changes and flows as it interacts with people.

The rest of the group leaves the building. Watching from above Archangel calls out and glides down to speak with them. She asks how things went and the others fill her in. Hearing that they are splitting up to investigate different aspects of last nights events Archangel agrees that it does sound like the fastest way to get answers.

"It sounds like we have nice even pairs to investigate, that is if you don't mind me tagging along as backup." she says directing her last comment to Shade.

Fear addresses the robotic assistant, "We were wondering if you had any information about three criminal supers, they were involved in a robbery last night and we'd like to know about their abilities, previous activities and allies, or if they're registered with ORACLE for some reason."

Shade looks a bit surprised at the offer before nodding in agreement.
"I'd appreciate the company, if you don't mind me slowing you down. I suspect I'm not as fast on that as you are with yours." He points at the motorcycle and wings.

With that settled the rest go their separate ways. Nadia takes to the sky sticking close enough to follow Constance they make their way to the precinct that has jurisdiction over the bank. Archangel flies high enough to not draw attention to Shade but close enough to keep track of him on his motorcycle.

---

The duo headed for the police station come to a newer building of concrete that looks secure and professional. All kinds of individuals are coming and going from the building. The two make quite a stir as they arrive but for the most part the officers are friendly and any civilians just give them a wide berth and stare. Entering the building they come to a desk with a middle aged woman in uniform. Asking her about the bank she checks ORACLE ID's as a formality. She says that Detective Ilham Kadir has been assigned the case. She calls his desk phone and speaks with him briefly. Getting off the phone she asks that they wait a moment gesturing to some chairs and that he would be along shortly to speak with them.

They wait a few minutes and are eventually approached by a short athletic looking man with dark skin and hair. Dressed in a white button up shirt with rolled up sleeves and dark slacks a shoulder holster and badge at his hip are clearly visible. He shakes both of their hands and invites them to follow him to one of the interrogation rooms for some privacy. The room is concrete with one wall being a one way mirror the light is on behind the mirror revealing an empty space. The interrogation room has a metal table bolted to the floor and a handful of sturdy wood chairs. The Detective takes a seat and places some papers he had been carrying with him onto the table.
"So. What can I help you with?" he asks his face displaying a curious but guarded expression.

---

Archangel and Shade arrive at the bank to find it well guarded by police. A large armored truck out front is being loaded with a pallet of cash under supervision of an agitated and portly older man in a nice suit who continuously mops his face and balding head of sweat with a handkerchief. Archangel lands next to Shade as he parks his bike, her wings fade away and she stands cross armed as one of the officers moves to investigate their arrival.

---

"I would be happy to assist if I am able. Do you have ID numbers or pictures of the individuals in question?" the caretaker responds to Fears question in the usual soft feminine voice.

Trevor shakes his head at the caretaker robot. "No pictures, sorry. One guy goes by Fantom Fistpuncher, Fantom spelled with an F. He's got superstrength, invulnerability, and he can turn invisible. Big guy, almost as wide as he is tall, and he was wearing a ski mask with a skull on it."

"The next guy referred to himself as 'The Terror of Temperature' or something like that, but I'm guessing it was more a title than his Super name. Older guy, dressed with a helmet like a thermometer. He could shoot out ice and flames from his suit."

"We didn't catch the last guy's name, but he was probably about mid 20's, short blonde hair, lightning bolts on his suit. He was super fast and I think he turned himself into electricity or something at one point."

"I doubt they'd be registered, but I'm assuming you guys keep records on super criminals?" Then again, maybe they don't. I don't really know how all this works.