Chicago:Sessions:20140201
On January 31st around 10am, Carla forwards a call to John Whitetop. It's an SOS from Chip. The Justice Patrol is trying to stop a bank robbery, but their entire team has been injured and some are incapacitated. Many police officers have also been injured and some killed. There are at least four or five perps firing "big guns" and lasers.
Whitetop dispatches the Irregulars, then heads out in a Hummer with Dr. Pyotorovich. When they arrive they locate Chip, who had been hit twice by laser fire from the bank's roof; she says it "stung." She had last seen the perps retreating into the bank. Earl, who had teleported to a nearby building, scans the bank and says no one's currently on the roof.
The bank manager contacts Whitetop and reports that the perps had just "left" but he knows neither how they departed nor which way they went. As Whitetop enters the bank, employees and customers rush out. None of them were hurt.
The door to the vault stands open. Inside, three safe deposit boxes have been ripped open and emptied. Scanning through the various filters in his suit's helmet, Whitetop determines that another box has been opened with a key and something removed. Some cash has been taken from a pallet.
A policeman approaches Whitetop. "I think we know how they got out." He leads them to a restroom where something, probably a shaped charge, has blasted a hole through the floor and into the sewers.
Earl calls Shabaz, who finally answers on the sixth ring, breathing hard. He says to Earl, "Did you know Missile Shield doesn't work against a laser?" Earl persuades him to get to ISHQ for medical treatment.
Whitetop and Earl descend into the sewers and follow the perps' footprints for a full half-hour until the tracks suddenly end at a T-junction. There's a manhole above, but the cover appears undisturbed and the steps unused. After a few moments, Earl announces that the perps had stepped through a magic portal.
"I guess we need to figure out what was in those safe deposit boxes," mutters Whitetop.
Earl calls Megan, who can readily access the bank's security recordings. Between 9:20 and 9:30, four tall men had entered the bank: a black man, two ugly white men, and a strange-looking man with a square build, flat blank features, and skin of an odd beige color [and the group calls him "Beigey" the rest of the night]. The white men pulled firearms from duffelbags and yelled for everyone to hit the floor. A fifth man carrying a backpack entered the bank and ascended the stairway.
Beigey brings the bank manager to the black man, who instructs him to open the safe. When the manager hesitates, the black man grabs him by the front of his suit coat and raises him to eye level. Once inside the vault, Beigey rips open three safe deposit boxes, and the black man has the manager unlock a fourth box.
The bank's silent alarm has summoned the police and two of the Justice Patrol. The two white men begin firing assault rifles; from the roof comes laser fire. Gold and Iron are shot down with .50 caliber guns. As others of the Justice Patrol arrive, they too are shot.
Megan processes the images through facial recognition software and runs them through a federal database. The black man is Tyrone Ford; the two white men are Shane Forrest and Miles Trek; the rooftop sniper is Harris Nelson. She doesn't find a match for Beigey.
Whitetop remembers three of the names from the confession of Charles Ray, one of those responsible for steading the elven artifacts last summer.
Whitetop collects some bullets from the scene. Earl says they had possibly been dipped in a necromantic potion, and suggests that Jarret have a look.
Under Pyotorovich's supervision, the injured Justice Patrol members -- every one except Zoe, who did not go to the bank -- are transported to ISHQ and placed in autodocs.
Whitetop goes to the office of Stanley Sharp and asks if any crossovers had rented the top two floors. Not in the past few months, Sharp responds. Some workers returned before their obligation was over. Of the twenty, ten of them were "ordinary" like Charles Ray, and seven of them have been reassigned. The other ten were all reassigned, but one of them is deceased (Walter Shade, a vampire, killed by a bolt of sunlight). Sharp's group has no holdings in the First National Bank of Chicago.
Whitetop shows him photos of the bank robbers. Sharp says that Tyrone, Shane, and Miles are very dangerous, stronger and tougher than they appear. Tyrone, in particular, is extremely smart, and Sharp wonders why he would expose himself like this, since the elves would be after him. Shane is a troll, with a glamor that reduces his height (and smell). Miles is an ogre. Harris is a murderer. Beigey is a golem.
Whitetop speculates that maybe the boxes contain something that will get them out of their contracts, or some sort of bargaining chip, or even a way for them to completely escape and disappear. Sharp obviously doesn't think so. Whitetop says, "We need to figure out why they risked exposure."
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