The Town That Died [Open]

Participants: Hardware & anyone
Open/Closed: Open
Location(s): Chi-town adjacent
Time of Day: Late evening
Weather: Cold
Summary: For reasons as of yet known, the entire population of 700,000 of a town outside of Chicago has disappeared. The government doesn't want the news out but have "leaked" the info to heroes so that someone will solve the case for them.

Curtis did not trust the government. Never had and probably never would. So when the news came down the pipeline via his former team mates within Shadow Cabinet that the government was trying to figure out what had happened to 700,000 people in Illinois, Curtis was incredibly vocal to them in placing the blame on the government. With his many run-ins with SYSTEM, Curtis knew how the world worked and he knew that a very small few were responsible for control everything across the globe. The world governments always acted innocent and confused and uninformed about things, but in truth it was usually their very own overlords who were responsible for disasters and unrest. That was why ever since donning his suit of armor Curtis had dedicated his life as Hardware to dismantling and destroying SYSTEM and any other groups like them. 

However, Hardware knew how easy it was for others to accuse him of talking out of his ass without any proof to back his finger pointing. It was easy to write off his views and words as the rantings of an overly paranoid Black man. So it was Hardware who decided to make the trip to the town outside of Chicago, he would collect what evidence was available, and he would use it to take down whatever shadow cabal was responsible. People rarely believed things without seeing it first hand with their own eyes.

With very little information afforded to the heroes about the disappearance of those of the town, named Cliffhurst he had learned, each possibility was simultaneously true until disproven. Alien invasion? Zombie attack? Disease outbreak? Sinkhole? Interdimensional displacement? Hardware had to be prepared for all of it. So even without his prejudice against government he was still probably the best suited for the job. Pun partially intended.

Utilizing the Shadow Cabinet's shadowslide, a teleportation device only functional in complete darkness, Hardware was able to get to Cliffhurst in an instant. Stepping out of a building's shadow Curtis found the place was surprisingly rural, sporting a clear absence of towering high-rises like a mini-Chicago as Curtis had envisioned it. The buildings were sparse but clearly very old structures, closely gothic in design. He noticed there also weren't very many cars. It was almost like being transported back through time, if it weren't for the couple digital billboards in the distant sky, and the few modern cars that lined the side roads.

//DOBIE, run a scan for anomalies: tachyon particles, foreign pathogens, magic, cosmic radiation, nuclear radiation, and geographical disturbances.//

As Hardware's advanced CPU began its task the armored man began a slow walk through the town's main street. He walked between a row of shops that flanked his left and right sides. Each darkened window he peered into from a distance, looking for signs of persons or activity. Curtis wasn't a superstitious man but the town felt eerie, and walking alone in a place that should have been well populated was making him very uneasy.

Marco had to be careful when he hijacked certain jet streams - he'd learned that the hard way. The whole point of lining them up for a free, express trip across states was to keep a low profile. It was actually a helluva lot more comfortable than flying in anything less than a private jet. Plus, this way, Weather Wizard didn't have to deal with other people. That kind of tampering could be easily found out, he'd discovered, if he wasn't subtle about it.

So, instead of dragging a whole jet stream off course for his own purposes, or creating his own, Marco borrowed little strands of established ones. Tying them together in a line that went roughly from point A to B, Marco was carried through the clouds at a speed that would've peeled the skin off of anyone besides himself due to friction alone. Perks of being the Weather Wizard.

He watched the folds of the continental US ripple by below him and figured he was closing in on Chicago by then. Good. That was the end of the commute. He was supposed to pick up something or other in person for the Rogues from a black market dealer there. He'd volunteered, actually. Would've been a lot quicker with Evan's mirrors, but Weather Wizard had been chomping at the bit for days and wanted the space to clear his head and flex his powers.

Everything was going according to plan... Until it wasn't. There was a twist, like a hiccup in his control of the wind. Then outright backlash. Marco gasped, pain lanced through his head and stars sparked across his vision. He was so wracked by pain he was blind to the world, completely unaware that he was pelting like a living meteor toward the sleepy little suburb he'd been flying over.

Curtis Metcalf

There was no way to make a population of nearly a million people disappear overnight without leaving some sort of trace behind. Whether it be by means of magic or something technologically advanced, there would be some left over residual energy lingering to be backtracked. Since Curtis couldn't see any means of collecting and transporting that sheer volume of people by any conventional means, he was leaning toward magic - a phenomena he had very little experience with (that was by choice) - which was helping in making the place feel that much more eerie. To him, the means and how didn't really matter all that much, because an undertaking this big had to be funded by some entity with very deep pockets. Already the armored man was feeling vindicated.

Scan for anomalies completed...
Tachyon Particles: Unfound 
Foreign Pathogens: Unfound
Magic: Unfound
Cosmic Radiation: Unfound
Nuclear radiation: Unfound
Geographical Disturbances: 0.12%

...will continue scans.

Hardware's eyes narrowed just marginally at the numbers DOBIE was able to pick up on disturbances, they were relatively low but the only thing of substance he had at the moment. The reason behind those numbers could have been a great many things from a sudden rain shower, tremors, or just plain climate change. Still, he had found a thread and now it was time to yank. Through his surveying of the area Curtis had already mentally ruled out any shower storms, from what he saw Cliffhurst lacked the signs of a storm's aftermath. But what really troubled him was DOBIE's quick dashing of his number one suspect on the case: magic. 

Magic was like any other energy source and it left a distinct frequency in its wake that could help identify how powerful the magic was or how skilled the user was. Sometimes that energy frequency dissipated quicker than other types and sometimes it lingered a little longer. Curtis would assume he had jumped on this case soon enough to be able to pick up a least a trace amount of the left over energy, but maybe he was wrong. Curtis did not like feeling like he could be wrong.

//Run a direct comparison of Cliffhurst's atmosphere and temperature today vs yesterday. Also, scan if any of the fault lines nearby have been active within the last 20 hours.//

While Curtis knew that Illinois was not on any major fault lines he also knew that the state was flanked at its east and west by seismic zones that could be fairly active throughout the year. No signs readily pointed to a quake but Curtis had only explored a fragment of the town and he knew there was more information out there to be obtained. He made a fist and lifted his right arm skyward, the steel alloy glistened in the light of the sun as his omnicannon fired a drone into the sky. The drone would complete the act of far field reconnaissance. 


Geographical Disturbance: 2% ... 8% ... 24%


Suddenly, DOBIE was going crazy, the computer's scanners going into overdrive as they continually cycled new information that was screaming of an approaching threat that held the potential of causing an ecological shift. //DOBIE, ready energy forcefield!// Hardware took a defensive position, his darkened eyes hyper focused as he looked for any signs of the incoming threat, while steadying his stance against strengthening gusts of wind. *Energy Field: DEPLOYED* Spreading first from his wrist, a deep cyan field of energy expanded around the entirety of Hardware's body, just as a man came crashing down from the sky. It didn't take any high-power computing to register that such a speed and height would kill the man, and before Curtis could really put any thought into it he threw his arms out to catch the body that plummeted toward the pavement. 

The energy field slightly modified in accordance to Curtis's thought and action. He lurched forward to meet the rocket of a faller and met his body with quickly ensuring arms. The effects of the Inertia Winder in Hardware's suit absorbed the kinetic energy of the other party as he crashed into Curtis, saving both he and the armor wearing from so much as a concussion or bruise. The jetpack that had flared to life in aiding Hardware's meeting with the victim slowly lessened its burners so that both men could meet the ground in a slow landing. Once feet were planted on solid ground - Curtis dropped the man unceremoniously and just stared at him, eyes silently questioning the chance of coincidence in this circumstance.

Marco Mardon

On some level, Marco was aware of the trouble he was in. Instinct had a way of working on the back burner in a lot of situations, and someone as used to riding on the back of the wind as him knew the difference between flight and fall. Thing was, even though Marco was distantly aware he was about to make a vaguely human-shaped splat on the ground, the pain holding his head in a vice didn't allow any room to think of changing that.

Colors spun and bled together in his squinting eyes. Then everything jolted back into place like a camera lens finding focus. Weather Wizard blinked confusedly, staring up at a shape that was looming over him. The pain was starting to receded, and with it Marco could put together the obvious. Another jolt, and the figure that had caught him out of his free fall must've touched down on the ground.

"Unf!" Weather Wizard felt asphalt under him, just barely reacting in time to spare his skull from connecting. "Thanks," he grunted, closing one eye in discomfort and looking up through the other at the other man. The levels of sincerity versus sarcasm were hard to tell through his pain-twisted words. "Now what the f*ck is going on?" Marco tried to summon a gale to help him back onto his feet, but only a soft breeze tousled his hair.

Curtis Metcalf