Character Creation

Body of local man found in Municipal Pool



Wednesday 27 OCT, 2021 10:47 EST
Reuters/AP

The body of Roy Alan Beane was discovered floating in the John R. Wincombe Memorial Aquaplex this morning by city grounds crew working at the Aquaplex readying it for winter. The body was discovered around daybreak and both police and the coroner were called to the scene. Federal Agents arrived some time later to take custody of the body and assume jurisdiction over the investigation due to the unusual timing of finding the body relative to the fire that destroyed the Kincaid Cement Facility last night. (see related story on pg.1)
Beane had been a security guard at the Kincaid Facility for over ten years and his death has been ruled 'foul play' by authorities but have declined to comment further due to policy involving ongoing investigations. The Four Alarm fire at the facility resulted in the total loss of the facility according to a press release from Evans-Villiers Industrial Laminates LLC., owners of the Kincaid Facility. Evans-Villiers had funded ongoing upgrades to the facility since it was abandoned at the outset of the Recession of the early 2000's. There was no comment on whether Evan-Villiers would rebuild although hopes are slim given the cited extensive damage to the facility and the number of first-responder lives lost battling the blaze at the facility.

Beane is survived by his father, two brothers, wife and two children. Funeral services will be announced pending potential release of the body...

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Tuesday/26 OCT, 2021/23:11

There you are... Right on time. the blurred green image in the night vision binoculars focused in on a figure emerging from the roof access of a squat three story cement building that resembled more bunker than office building. Primarily because it was a bunker...or at least the exposed tip of the bunker below. The figure milled around for a moment before the signature flare in the night vision indicated a cigarette being lit. Fifteen minutes, mark. Terrapin muttered as he clicked the button on his watch and sailed silently into the air from the tree he'd perched in. He'd watched this same event unfold over the past week, the guard coming out to smoke between 11 and 11:15 pm, and that was his ticket in. The ticket out however would be up to the "inside man"...the one that pulled him into this rescue op and he'd just have to have faith it wasn't all a set up.

23:16
The guard pulled a long drag on the cigarette, stubbed it out on the concrete wall of the roof access and let out a long, hazy breath taking one last look at the twinkling light of the city before tackling the last half of his shift. Those things'll kill you, ya know... the low voice from the darkness startled the guard and he stumbled in the peagravel coating of the roof, falling backward as he spun. He caught only a glimpse of the source of the voice, a blackness hunched on top of the roof access, just above the light, silhouetted against the orange haze of the city's street lamp glare.

Cake or Death? the dark figure asked.

The guard's eyes flitted around as the wheels in his head spun frantically trying to land on a decision, all training having fled his mind. Gun or Radio? Radio or Gun? Fight? Flee? Beg? Gun! Gun! A hand he once thought steady and practiced fumbled like a toddler at the weapon secured in it's holster before freeing it.
STOP! STOP and show yourself... the guard's voice trembling hard enough he hardly recognized his own voice.

Death it is then, Mr....Beane. Terrapin smirked underneath his helmet as he read off the guard's name tag. Why does no one ever choose cake?? he thought to himself.

Beane pulled the trigger on his service issue pistol but the gun's slide refused to budge, caught as it was in the grip of Terrapin's power. That power flowed in waves over the guard, hurling him like a ragdoll into the sky.

Damn. Terrapin snapped his fingers in sudden realization. Should've asked him what was the carrying capacity of an unladen swallow... Ah, squandered opportunity there. Beane had thoughtfully propped the roof access door with a pop can, just like he had every night. Terrapin checked his watch before descending into the belly of the beast.

23:21

If there's one truth to the universe, it's that guard stations are often just repurposed closets stuffed with electronics and resentment. The one at the bottom of the roof access stairs did little to challenge that truism but it was more secure than most with foot thick concrete walls and a metal door with no external hardware.
Lincoln and Royce, the two guards remaining at the station checked in on their radios, the muffled exchange audible in the hall beyond, as Terrapin checked his watch. Check in was on time & he knew they'd cover for Beane.

Tango 2-3 and Tango 2-4 checking in with Bravo-Actual. the low muffled voice spoke slowly and loudly amidst the chirp of radio back & forth. Tango 2-2 is in the shitter. Will have him check in on return. Over.. The radio squawked a reply. Through his mind's eye, Terrapin saw Lincoln toss down the radio and Royce put his feet back up on the desk, reclining all the way back & tugging his hat back down over his face.

BAM...BAM...BAM the door shook. Goddammit, Beane. Did you forget your access card again? Lincoln jumped up from the table, startled and growing a little mad about it. I ought to let you explain your late check-in to Bravo-Actual yourself but we already covered for you. Get your lazy ass...in...here... Lincoln's words trailed off in shock as he buzzed open the door.

Candygram.... Terrapin announced with a lilt of irreverence and dark chuckle as the door opened.

oh, oh...FUCK!! Lincoln went for his sidearm immediately, a credit to better training than Beane had, but couldn't out-draw the intruder. Lincoln's head split open like an over-ripe melon, spilling it's fluid contents onto the floor as his body spasmed uncontrollably. Royce was caught yanking his hat off his face and trying to get his feet off the desk when telekinetic force spun his head around 180°. Dead-eyed, he flopped over the desk he'd previously napped on.

Sliding Royce's gurgling body onto the floor, Terrapin accessed the security array and attached a thumb drive to the dumb terminal running the cameras sweeping the inside and outside of the building. To the credit of whomever designed the security system, the internal array couldn't be accessed from a guard station like this one but the internal array did use data streaming in from external cameras. Terrapin's code loaded into the dumb terminal and looped the external feed. Hopefully, no one inside caught the nearly insignificant frame jump when the footage looped. It wasn't foolproof but he hoped it would hold until it was too late. The real fun came when, and hopefully IF, his inside accomplice managed to load his virus into the main system. That weird 'voice' the good doctor could do should make it a breeze but this guy was green to operations like this. Cold feet on the doctor's part could get them both killed.

23:25

Down the hall Terrapin passed the communications room. Kincaid Concrete masked a pretty advanced and secure operation. Nothing was networked to the outside and there was only a single point of contact between the facility below and the outside world and that pint lay behind the door he passed on the way down the stairs to the second floor. Taking out the communication room was vital to avoid too rapid a response by the Sept or whomever had a vested stake in this hell-hole. He didn't have time to address the issue, that's what he subcontracted out for. The comm room had to be trashed at precisely the same moment everything downstairs went to hell. Any sooner and downstairs security would be tipped off and the whole mission would abort and become a shit-show.

23:28

Like communications, there was only one way in or out physically. A single reinforced freight elevator that operated for ten minutes every two hours, power cut to it the remaining 110 minutes. 23:30 was the next operative window.
Located in the center of the second floor, the elevator was operated from a control room at the end of a long hallway.
Floors ceiling and walls of the hallway were cement; scoured, gouged and pockmarked by previous weaponsfire. The operators of this place might as well have put up a sign "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"

The guard at the elevator station had been busy prepping the elevator to rise and didn't see Terrapin descending the stairs until too late. The old man had time to just about register the dark presence at the end of the killing hall when Terrapin seized control of him.

Bam...Bam...Smmmeeeeaaar the old guard's head pulped and bounced off the reinforced glass in front of him twice before being dragged across it to complete a macabre and bloody 'smiley face' across the barrier.

23:30

The lights flickered twice as the elevator sucked energy out of the grid and shuddered to life, rising from the pit below. A second double flicker right after let Terrapin know the good doctor had inserted the virus into the security array below.

And now the real fun begins... Terrapin chuckled as the elevator shuddered and locked into place and the steel doors of the elevator parted.

(to be continued)

23:33

The florescent lights in the elevator flickered off and stayed off, replaced by the wan orange lights of the emergency backups. The intercom system crackled to life to emit an unnervingly distorted alarm followed by crackling silence and the sounds of the ventilation system grinding to a halt. A hiss and a crackle in the intercom let him know what was coming. By now, the infrasound the intercom had been pumping out would be making the skin crawl among the sensitive ones below. Now a blistering guitar solo hits at top volume and the emergency light strobe eerily. Under his helmet, Terrapin cracked a smile knowing the sort of mayhem soon in store.

....BAHM, BAHM.... BAHM, BAHM...
Sometimes I Feel I've Got To...Run Away... I've Got To...
Let's all listen along, shall we?


The steel doors of the lift creak and slide open to a hallway much like the one above...a killing zone. This one is packed with lab jacketed and expensive suit wearing men and women carrying laptops and files and briefcases all jammed up against the steel doors. At the mid- point of the hallway two squads of men provide point security for the assembled refugees awaiting the elevator.
The crush of lab and office refugees could hardly wait for the doors to open before trying to push inside until they see the figure already inside the elevator. Chairs erupts as the ones at the head of the crowd try to turn back only to be pushed forward by the unsuspecting refugees at the back.

BOO! Terrapin cackled as the throng simultaneously tried to advance and retreat. Gunfire from the end of the hall only exacerbated the panic. The smart ones hunkered down and got out of the way before they got trampled, the unwise ones turned on each other in panic not having any where to go.

...The Pain That You Drive Into The Heart Of Me...

Security took a minute to catch on to the panic at the end of the hall given the music flooding through their coms at insane volumes. One squad turned from guarding the mouth of the hall to address the problem and having exactly zero idea what to do. Fire at Terrapin and shred the scientists and executives they were ordered to protect or do nothing and get slaughtered... All it took was one rookie to break and go weapons-free, bullpup full-auto down the hall for the others to join in on the frenzy. Quantum energy caught the few bullets that made it to Terrapin in mid-air, the others shredded through scientist and bureaucrat alike like rats in a blender. Stopping that took more out of him that he'd care to admit... Getting old isn't easy. Hiding the baker's dozen bullets before him, he sent them back down range to thin the herd of security forces.

Dammit. Should've gone with Ballroom Blitz... he mused as Tainted Love looped and started over.

The security forces were caught in a two-front battle as a group of the asylum inmates rounded the corner into the hallway. Terrapin's virus had crippled security, internal coms and the locks on every safeguarded area. He'd banked on a lot of pent up (and probably homicidal) rage the folks down here might harbor towards the staff being enough of a distraction to occupy most of security. These folks weren't A-Listers, by any stretch of the imagination, in the superhuman department but they were superhuman enough...
One 'inmate' teleported in the middle of the security squad and bit part of a face off before jaunting away. Doing the math, the squad decided with their charges dead to just make a break for the elevator. Maybe the math of one Terrapin as opposed to a growing gang of 'inmates' seemed like the better solution. What it turned into was a General Custer at the battle of Greasy Grass.
Checking his watch, he'd spent a bit much time enjoying the chaos and carnage. The timetable was inviolable if they were going to get out without having to face any of the Sept or their associates. The Doctor and whomever was still alive in the horror chamber he'd described below were expecting him and he'd best not be late. This wasn't the day to operate on Indian Time like he usually did...

Dispensing with the usual toying around and quipping one liners til he got tired of it, Terrapin just sized control of one of the security guards guns and full-auto-ed them from behind. Honorable, no, but whose keeping score?

...Once I Ran To You, Now I Run From You...

Stepping through the carnage and bodies, he sort of imagined this wasn't exactly what Dr. Larry had in mind when he asked for his help. This place has to go down and down hard...for good. He picked his way across the landmarks the Doctor had given him for the rendezvous, the administrative offices. Normally only lightly manned at midnight they seemed like a good staging point.
The place, despite being an underground black site, looked like any office building in corporate America...complete with reception desk and a big shiny metal "J.A.N.U.S." sign hanging over the giant teak reception desk. Grimacing, he shot the sign a double-bird and dropped the giant metal J onto the expensive desk.