All the regulars show up: Chris (Jack Holland), Nick (The Faceless), Bruce (Horace Wilkisson), Dave (a new character, as noted below), and Tim (also using a new character).
The characters wake to learn that there has been another Gargoyle sighting. Fortunately, there was only one casualty: a middle-aged man in the remains of a power-armor suit, apparently Crusader. Notably, several pieces of his more questionable equipment were found to be missing from the police evidence room. Needless to say, this new development suggests that Tim will be playing a new character.
Another important bit of new is the discovery by the world press that Libyan supers have been stirring up trouble, prompting the UN to dispatch IST units to deal with the situation. Matt Jenkins (aka Holocaust) has been sent to cover the fighting for the Associated Press. Thanks to this, Dave will also be using a new character.
The characters meet in an upscale coffee shop called A Cuppa Joe, conveniently located just across the street from the Blue Shield, the bar they had met at the evening before. Jack proposes that while he goes and gets warrants to search Trevor's and the offices of Leibowitz, Mauskowitz and O'Donnell, Faceless and Horace will disguise themselves and follow Raven's cyborgs around the neighborhood. The plan is to catch individual cyborgs performing crimes and arrest them one at a time. During the entire conversation, Faceless continues to insist that his name was also "Jack", pleasing Jack greatly.
Jack returns to the police station to work on paperwork. Some minutes later, he notes a commotion outside. Peering out his window, he sees a 9-foot-tall armored figure floating in the air outside. A brief conversation ensues, in which Jack learns that the armored man is called Black Aria, and wants to speak to Jack Holland about, "the goings-on in Queens." Jack, after some consideration, agrees to talk. He determines quickly that Black Aria is bulletproof, able to fly, willing to help against Raven's cyborgs, and able to provide intersting explanations of the cyborgs' technological tricks while under fire. With this knowledge, Jack invites him to meet with all of Jack's other vigiliante types later in the day.
After he finishes dealing with the armored monolith, Jack gets a call from dispatch warning him that a potential nutball calling himself "The Whisperer" is looking for him. Before taking the call, Jack calls up "The Whisperer" upon the DMI list of registered supers and finds that The Whisperer is there as a "self-described master of the mystic arts." The Whisperer volunteers his services in searching out the cyborg gang Jack is hunting. He is almost turned down because he is forced to admit that no, he is not bulletproof. He manages to save his chances by suggesting that he could simply hide behind things to avoid being shot. The fact that he has a secret identity (freeing Jack of the need to call relatives when he dies) pretty much clinches it: Jack tells him to meet everyone else at A Cuppa Joe later in the day.
The Faceless (disguised as a repairman) and Horace (disguised as a derelict) head over to Trevor's to check the place out. Horace plays backup, watching for trouble, while Faceless examines the place's security. He determines that there is very good security: an expensive lock and a camera system. Faceless incapacitates the camera system by pushing a dumpster over near it and using his Dampen powers to shut it down. He then tries to disassemble it, quickly discovering that there is no visible seam on the camera body. Continuing to examine it from the exterior, he determines that it can see a huge spectral range and is based upon really advanced technology.
While Faceless is fooling with the camera system, Horace is watching from across the street, covering the area with his AR-15. Just after Faceless removes the camera from it's mount, a tall and bulky man emerges from the bar. While Horace aims his rifle at him, the man turns the corner to confront Faceless. Faceless fails to convince him that he is there for legitimate purposes, so he Dampens the man. On cue, it turns out that the man is a cyborg, as he yells out in pain. Faceless runs while Horace guns the man down, shooting him three times in the legs. The cyborg responds by opening up with a launch pistol, shooting Horace once.
Horace takes cover and Faceless changes appearance and runs for it while two other probable cyborgs emerge from the building, followed by a stolid, professional-looking black man with a moustache who gives a lot of very harsh-sounding orders. The cyborgs try to interrogate the locals and find out who shot their friend, but both Faceless and Horace flee. Horace, in particular, dodges his way through a nearby bagel factory damaged by the cyborg's barrage of rockets.
Moments after the incident at Trevor's, Jack gets a call from dispatch informing him of the events. The report indicates that the principals were a man in a blue jumpsuit, a derelict with a rifle, and Sentinel (described in his black armor costume). It is by this time evident that someone is trying to frame Sentinel for random acts of violence (even if, by mischance, this was a random act of violence he was responsible for).
Jack gathers together Black Aria and The Whisperer to investigate the situation.
Jack shows up at Precinct Twelve to sort things out. First thing, he points out Faceless and Sentinel: "vigilante", "vigilante." He then questions some of the various witnesses the police have accumulated, noting that their stories pretty much agree with Faceless' and Sentinel's, except that the only people they describe as firing was Sentinel, in his costume, and a bum with an AK-47. They also don't remember any big, bulky cyborgs wandering around threatening people. As far as Jack can tell, the witnesses aren't lying. Whisperer does his best to read the witnesses' minds, and comes up pretty much the same.
After everyone gets confused by the witnesses' stories, Jack proposes a frontal raid upon Trevor's. The whole group piles into an unlabeled police van and head over to the bar. They break in through the side door, which proves to lead to a kitchen. Jack manages to incapacitate a cyborg in the bar proper. Jack and Black Aria tie up the one unconscious cyborg and keep the remaining mortals in the room cowed. Black Aria determines that the cyborg is equipped with a variety of add-ons: subdermal plating, cyberlegs, cybernetic eyes and ears, a built-in weapon in his right arm, and several other devices. Unfortunately, neither Jack nor Black Aria are immediately able to bring him back to consciousness.
Faceless, Whisperer and Sentinel head upstairs, and find a room containing eight barrels, each equipped with a detonator. While Faceless and Sentinel (using Faceless' Engineering/TL7 (bombs & traps) skill) disarm detonators, Whisperer disintegrates detonators. After about fifteen minutes, all of the barrels have been disarmed. Faceless makes sure to hide all the detonators so he can obsess about them later, but later on Jack makes him turn all but two of them over as "evidence" (Faceless claims that the doesn't know where the remaining two detonators went). A touch more investigation suggests that the barrels contain two different foul-smelling liquids, which will presumably mix when the detonator goes off.
When Faceless returns downstairs, he gets into an argument with Jack about taking one of the barrels back for study. Faceless makes the case that he needs the substances in the barrel for study, so the group can learn how to deal with them in the future. Jack argues that it's all evidence. Finally, Jack comes around to Faceless' side of the debate. However, he also elects to call the bomb disposal unit. When the bomb squad shows up, they claim that the liquid in the barrels is rocket fuel. Black Aria and the Whisperer, who say that this makes sense as they have found three or four pairs of blackened patches on the roof.
As a bit of an epilogue, Sentinel realizes that the cyborg Jack arrested is the guy Sentinel had shot earlier. This is confirmed by the fact that there are three bullet holes in the cyborg's leg.
Jack Holland and the Whisperer interrogate the cyborg, aided by Whisperer's Truthsayer spells. To "soften him up" just a bit more, Jack drains away several points of his IQ. Unfortunately, he overdoes it a bit and sucks the guy down by 9 points, eliminating his ability to use language for several minutes. When the characters finally get him to admit that his name is, "Fred… Joesephus… Brown", they're convinced that's back and start asking real questions, like, "Where is the man called Raven." The guy answers, but Whisperer (who has moved on to reading the guy's mind) thinks that the response is a fabricated memory. The characters learn that:
During the interrogation, Whisperer warns Jack that the cyborg appears to be trying to activate his radio.
Black Aria checks with some of his sources, and learns that the stubby-armed snake-aliens are the Kaa, who have a fairly checkered reputation. There is currently one Kaa in prison, an individual named Ar-Zinittr who was incarcerated about a year ago for smuggling cigarettes and high-tech military weapons. It is not clear exactly how many Kaa are currently onworld, but it is clear that they have their own interstellar ships and technology much better than human.
The day after Jack and the Whisperer interrogate the cyborg, Black Aria arranges for two technical experts from Ericsson Industries to come by to deactivate the cyborg's equipment. The engineers show up in the company of an Ericsson Industries executive promptly the next morning. They say that they can disable most of the external parts without much trouble, but don't know how to turn off the fellow's brainwork without inflicting lots of damage.
Jack gets a car out of the police motor pool and drives past the addresses he got from the cyborg as other safe houses. Two of them look very much like crack houses, while the third looks like an apartment building. There is nothing particularly unusual about any of them (considering what they look like).
Faced with the question of how to see what's going on in these buildings, Whisperer suggests, "I could create a small earthquake under one of the buildings." Jack doesn't react well to this idea, but reacts better to Whisperer's backup plan of creating a geyser in their basement.
Sentinel gets temporarily deputized to go bug Leibowitz, Mauskowitz and O'Donnell. He also acquires Lockpicking and Electronics Ops/TL7 (electronic surveillance) skills from Jack to make the job simpler. He and Faceless head over to the office after hours disguised as the cleaning crew. They effortlessly sneak into the office and place a bug in the central PBX box for the phone sytem, allowing them to monitor all of the phones in the office except for any cellphones the folks inside might be using.
Jack elects to investigate the cyborgs' apartment building by disugising himself as a building inspector and going through the place. Most of the place looks like a tremendous series of safety violations. He determines that there are a lot of people living in the place, and that the cyborgs are probably living in the top two floors. In particular, there is extremely loud music emanating from the top floor. He tries knocking on doors and asking people if there is anything wrong with the building. He concludes fairly rapidly that most of the inhabitants are high-strung types, and that about 75% of them are strung out. He is unable to determine how they are making their rent payments. He does manage to determine that security is very good: there is truly awesome-looking surveillance equipment in the hallways. He makes a point of looking up at each and every one of them, saying "theft deterrence…" and checking a mark on his clipboard. Likewise, the fire escapes are in quite good shape.
When Jack heads down into the lobby, he is intercepted by Derrick, who describes himself as, "one of the people living in the building." Derrick makes an effort to bribe him $50,000 to avoid reporting the various safety and public-health problems: "YOU have a briefcase containing forms documenting the problems with this building; I have a briefcase containing $50,000. Perhaps we could trade briefcases." Jack takes the money.
Outside, in his truck, he determines that there are $50,000 in the briefcase, in addition to some kind of electronic device. He drives some distance, ditches the briefcase and the electronic device, then donates the money to a nearby charity (making certain to get a receipt).
Whisperer persuades Sentinel to drive by the apartment building so he can try and place a trace upon Derrick. Unfortunately, his attempt is a total failure, resulting in a huge bright flash that blinds both of them for a time.
Jack visits the police armory again and picks up five tear gas cannisters, a gas mask and a headset radio for each character. He also visits the city archives and gets blueprints for the building. Black Aria points out that the cyborgs have internal radios and may be able to easily identify frequencies used by their enemies and listen in. Jack also arranges for a team of six SWAT snipers, several street cops and an EMT unit to provide backup.
Jack and Sentinel disguise themselves as locals; they will go in through the front door. They won't pull out guns until they reach the floor below those used by the cyborgs, to try and bypass the surveillance cameras. Faceless, Whisperer and Black Aria will fly up and head down from the roof.
Black Aria sets down very gently in a section of roof that isn't covered by cameras. As soon as he releases his passengers, he heads towards the roof entrance. Violence breaks out almost immediately as they are engaged by a cyborg with a vibrosword. Through a combination of eldritch sorcery and phenomenal gunplay, they dispose of him.
Meanwhile, Jack and Sentinel encounter several guys equipped with automatic weapons and (much worse) grenades, including one cyborg. They manage to dispatch them with only minimal injury.
The session ends with the characters about to meet up in the cyborgs' hideout, on the verge of a tremendous firefight. Each character gains three experience points.