Recursion Read online

  Crisis Aid and Intervention Teams: The Sentinels’ original contract with the City of Chicago set the template for Crisis Aid and Intervention teams, which make contracts with municipalities much like private security companies and emergency-services providers. CAI franchises such as the Guardians and the Knights are extremely popular with state and local governments because they guarantee uniform standards. They’re popular with superheroes because they act collectively to provide legal and insurances services as well as collective bargaining support. CAI teams are certified through their agencies, but still need licenses issued by state governments and are always subject to jurisdiction requirements.

  Cryo: Cryo is a Brotherhood supervillain, an A Class Cryokinetic. He tried to “freeze” Astra during the Pullman Tower Fight, and she broke his arm with a thrown rock.

  Senator Todd Davis: Senator Davis was a “strong national security” advocate for the regulation and control of superhumans, and the author of the Davis Bill. He died in the Ashland Overpass bombing that triggered Astra’s breakthrough, the Dark Anarchist’s intended victim.

  The Dark Anarchist: (See first The Teatime Anarchist) The Dark Anarchist is the Teatime Anarchist’s “evil twin,” split off in the breakthrough event which gave them both the power to travel to the past and future. Neither could change the past, but they could visit the “probably future” and then come back to the present to change it. Both decided to create a better, or at least safer, future, but they diverged significantly as to means. This led to a time-war which lasted several years, in which the Dark Anarchist stole his twin’s code-name and framed him for a host of crimes and assassinations. Astra named the Dark Anarchist, and outside of a select group who had direct contact with him or very high security clearance and need-to-know, nobody even knows of his existence.

  The Department of Superhuman Affairs: The DSA is a department, like the Department of the Interior, rather than an agency, like the FBI. This is important; it means that the Secretary of Superhuman Affairs is a member of the President’s cabinet and reports to her directly. Without its own law-enforcement arm, the DSA relies on the US Marshals Service, which has its own chain of command. The DSA also directs a branch of the Secret Service, fielding breakthrough agents whose main responsibility is the protection of the President and the federal government from superhuman threats. Both US Super-Marshals and Secret Service agents are sent, with lawyers and investigators, when it looks like “supervillains” might be compromising local government and law enforcement. Lastly, the DSA works closely with the FBI on counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence operations, and aids the Justice Department in its mission to prosecute civil rights violations and public corruption when breakthroughs are involved. All of this creates something of a mess of competing missions, but it also means that the officials and agents of the DSA work very closely with the other federal departments and the Secretary of Superhuman Affairs (called the Director in-house and by the media) is senior to the directors of the various agencies. There are no DSA “superheroes.” DSA superhumans always dress civilian or in DSA uniforms.

  The Dome: The Chicago Dome is the Headquarters of the Chicago Sentinels. It’s located in Grant Park, across from Michigan Avenue. It sits in open park, a solid and half-buried bunker with wide sight lines and lots of space for evacuating civilians from the area; one story has it that the city planners initially intended to put the Sentinels’ headquarters in one of the new Post-Event high-rise business building projects, until Blackstone—a former US Marine—“had words with them.”

  Dane Dorweiler: aka The Dane. Annabeth picked Dane to be her boyfriend in sophomore year of high school, and the big good-natured goof went along with it. They’ve been Danabeth ever since. Hope likes him quite a bit and once had a crush on him she’ll never admit to.

  Detective Max Fisher: Detective Fisher is the senior detective on the CPD’s Superhuman Crimes Detective Division, assigned to all cases involving superhuman powers, and he may not be real. He (and Astra) is aware that he is a character from a short-lived and forgotten series of detective novels written over a decade ago. He doesn’t age and can’t be killed (although he can be beat up), and he has memories that don’t match reality. He hopes he’s the series’ author and just a delusional breakthrough; he might be a persistent thought-form created from the author’s obsession before he died.

  Doctor Cornelius: aka Rafael Jones. Doctor Cornelius was a college student majoring in metaphysics and seeking drug-assisted enlightenment when the Event changed the world. His hallucinatory and epiphanic breakthrough transformed him into one of the most powerful Merlin-Types known. He is a master of Hermetic Magic (also called Deccanic Magic), and a tormented man who would very much like to give up his “enlightenment.” He is a close associate of Orb’s.

  Flare: aka, Mark Luxius. Mark is a musician and Flare is his stage-name. A D Class Photokinetic, he can generate and direct low-wattage lasers from unidirectional sources. At most his lasers can blind, but he can use them to create impressive “light-sculptures” and laser shows, a skill he’s leveraging into a performance career. (Flare was created by Spencer Brint.)

  The Fortress: Described as the superhero’s Hard Rock Café, the Fortress is a cape-memorabilia museum, a café, a club, and a Chicago landmark. Astra has seen many CAI capes hanging there, including Caterwall, Bombshell, Jack Frost, Hardlock, Red Robin, Blue Fire, Foxlight, The Cardinal, Wisteria, Flashback, and SaFire. Cosplaying groupies usually far outnumber the actual capes, who often don club-wear versions of their sturdier field costumes to party.

  Freakzone: “No we're not your daddy's villins/ we're not chillin' then we're killin'/ we want you, best be willin'.” (From Murder Night.) The entertainment industry made breakthroughs with even a little talent the new pop-stars, while “supervillains” took over the genre of music formerly known as gangsta-rap. The result is groups like Freakzone, a hugely popular villain-rap band.

  Galatea: A chrome gynoid (female android) robot creation of Vulcan’s, Galatea is variously a low-sentience AI and a drone shell for Shelly to “pilot.” Her configuration is subject to change and she has various modular add-ons like micro-missile racks and boot and pack jets, and she has been destroyed several times. The public believes her to be a human-shaped drone, which is more or less true, and fans endlessly debate who her pilot is.

  Gantry: aka Eric Ludlow. Gantry is a B Class Ajax-Type war veteran and member of the Crew, and was Astra’s first superhuman “fight” (she had to restrain him during a drunken tantrum). He later becomes Dozer, one of the Wreckers.

  The Godzilla Plague: Somehow, somewhere, some insane Verne-type thought it would be a great idea to create a race of Godzillas that were designed to attack pollution sources (mainly nuclear plants and, well, cities). The creatures go through two stages: a stealth-stage where they lurk in the depths, eat lots of fish, and lay eggs, and the monster-stage, where they grow much bigger and seek out contamination. Their primary weapon is a plasma jet that can melt steel and their secondary weapon is the ability to generate local electromagnetic pulses that interfere with electrical systems. Godzilla periodically appear and attack coastal cities and it’s proven impossible to find all of their eggs. Predictably, Japan seems to get an unfair share of Godzilla attention.

  The Green Man: Almost nothing is known about the Green Man. “He” appears to have been able to transform himself into a disembodied “spirit” capable of possessing plants and generating amazing waves of growth. He threatened Chicago with successive eruptions of green, but proved vulnerable to extreme heat at the center of his manifestations. Some speculate that he may have been boosted by the Ascendant.

  Grendel: Brian Lucas is a transformed A Class Metamorph-Type (within limits he adapts to his environment and opposition). Grendel lost his family when the Ascendant exposed several thousand victims to a psychotropic gas which triggered hallucinations, rampages, and several psychotic breaks and breakthroughs, and was permanently transformed into a gray and m
onstrous humanoid form which is the baseline for all his changes. He’s potentially stronger than the strongest Ajax-Type. Grendel has joined the Young Sentinels and has also sworn himself to Ozma’s service (he’s currently the Royal Army of Oz) in return for her promise to help him gain justice for his murdered family.

  The Guardians: The Guardians are one of the largest CAI franchises in the US, with teams in most states. The other seven Crisis Aid and Intervention teams in Chicago are all Guardian teams, named for their districts (South Side Guardians, West Side Guardians, etc.). They, and the Sentinels, are all coordinated through the city’s Dispatch Department in The Dome, under the direction of the Sentinels and city coordinators.

  Halo: aka, The Mighty Halo, aka Sydney Scoville. Halo is the first superhero Astra encountered on her visit to the Archon extrareality. Halo’s powers appear to derive entirely from five orbs to which she has become psychically linked (and physically linked, to the extent that she cannot be separated from them by more than a few feet). The DSA doesn’t know how to classify these orbs; they could be superscience, but observations of Archon indicate that the laws of the extrareality allow for hyper-advanced magic so they could be magical artifacts. Astra simply described them as “Really, really weird.” The power-levels displayed by the orbs’ different abilities range from D Class (the “lighthook orb”) to Ultra Class (the “pew-pew orb”). (Note: Halo is the creation and wholely owned intellectual property of Dave Barrack.)

  The Harlequin: The Harlequin, called Quin by her friends, was an acrobat and aerialist with Cirque du Soliel in Las Vegas. During a performance her rig snapped and she fell thirty feet to the stage—and bounced, her body permanently transformed to a rubber-like substance. Her skin is the texture of latex, her bones the density of hard rubber, and she is almost immune to direct kinetic damage; she will bend and bounce back under an impact, whether from a fall or bullets or a hit from Astra, which would injure or kill a normal person. Her transformation also makes her a lot stronger than the average person of her trim athletic build, and she can run faster by “bouncing” along. She is a trained martial artist and marksman (although she doesn’t normally use guns), and is the Sentinel’s field medic as well as its publicity and marketing coordinator, which she does with Alex Chandler.

  Have No Fear: “No backing down, no giving in./ I pick my fights, but I fight to win./ Though the Reaper draws near me I cry,/Conquer or die!” Have No Fear is an all-breakthrough band of Hillwood Academy alumni. They’re also CAI-certified capes, able to drop in with disaster relief and stage a concert afterward. They’re the most successful music group in history, and rumors of artistic differences are completely exaggerated.

  Hecate: Dr. Charlotte Millebrand, antiquarian, folklorist, Merlin-Type wicked witch, and Chicago Outfit assassin, tried to unite the second team of Villains Inc. to take down her bosses and seize control of the Outfit. The mob-war left civilian bodies everywhere, and Artemis put three bullets through her heart during their final fight.

  Hero Beat/Power Week: These are both superhero magazines. Hero Beat is a breathless fan-mag oriented towards teens, while Power Week is a more serious publication, a sort of cross between Time and People Magazine with a focus on superhumans.

  Hillwood Academy: There is a lot of trauma in childhood, and teen breakthroughs create their own unique set of problems. Hillwood Academy is a boarding school for teen breakthroughs, many of whom came from bad circumstances or were isolated by their breakthroughs. It has become famous for its more illustrious alumni, and a television action-drama has been (loosely) based on it. Hillwood Academy handles students grades 7-12: younger students go to Whitlow’s Academy.

  The Hollywood Knights: There is a term, Hollywood heroes, applied to superhumans who go to LA to act on television and in the movies. The Hollywood Knights began as a movie cast, but morphed into a team which makes a movie about their “adventures” each year, the rest of the time acting as a disaster-relief CAI team and doing charity events. Its current roster is: Rook (an A Class Atlas-Type and the team leader), Balder (a photokinetic), Starkness (scary), Ceres (a florakinetic), Fire Lily (a pyrokinetic capable of killing fires), Maui (a tattooed Maori shapeshifter). Seven was a member when Astra met him, but he has transferred to the Sentinels.

  Humanity First: Members of Humanity First believe that breakthroughs are a threat to humanity which must be checked by whatever means necessary. More fanatical members believe that breakthroughs aren’t even human. Their beliefs and activities have been compared to Aryan Nation and other racial supremacist groups.

  If-Man: aka, Adam McCoy. If-Man is a C Class Metamorph, the classic “stretchy” hero-type and a physical education teacher as Hillwood. He can stretch up to twenty feet, more than three times his normal height, with a reach of close to fifteen feet. He has normal human strength but is incredibly resilient and tough. He’s also a projection, a physical manifestation of Brandon McCoy’s alter-ego, the heroic, awesomely confident big brother Brandon always wanted. Only a few people know about this; to most of the world, If-Man is Brandon McCoy’s older brother and only family, and Brandon is the only “non-breakthrough” student at the school. (If-Man was created by Rick West.)

  Iron Jack: aka John Corrigan. Iron Jack is a transforming A Class Ajax-Type. He is a highly successful Chicago architect, and he experienced his breakthrough on the day of the Event. He became a reserve Sentinel, and has been able to maintain a secret identity because of his ability to unrecognizably transform himself (in Iron Jack form he looks like a statue of iron plates and rivets). He kept the secret even from his children, which gave Astra a second shock on the day of her own breakthrough.

  Director Kayle: The President of the United States was aboard Air Force One returning from a campaign trip to LA on the day of The Event. Air Force One made a crater and Vice President Kayle was sworn in as President Kayle the same day. President Kayle is the main reason that federal superhuman-restriction laws were not passed in the first weeks after The Event. He created the Department of Superhuman Affairs, built the alliance system that became the new League of Democratic States, and successfully guided the United States through the internal and external chaos that was much of his eight years in office. He hand-picked his successor, Touches Clouds, shepherded her through her successful presidential bid, and in return she made him Director of the DSA. As the Director, he prefers to work quietly and behind the scenes, but make no mistake—he is one of the great power-players in Washington. Many conspiracy theorists believe him to be a secret superhuman; the only way to explain his amazing success.

  Kitsune: Kitsune was believed to be Yoshi Miyamoto, an old man who disappeared from an elderly care center in Osaka Prefecture. A true shapeshifting breakthrough who believes himself to be a kitsune (a Japanese fox-spirit) and who apparently also has the magic ability to invade dreams, he first came to the Sentinels attention when he engineered the war between Villains Inc. and the Outfit. Initially believed to simply be a supervillain (albeit a principled one), Kitsune is now known to be an agent who at least occasionally works for Defensenet Intelligence, Japan’s primary counter-intelligence agency.

  The Lady of Doors: aka, Erica Free. The Lady of Doors is an Ultra Class Merlin-Type who practices a ritual magic tradition based on her conception of the Theory of Forms and the Platonic Ideal. After years of cross-reality adventures, she cut a deal with Iudal, the Decan of Transitions and Crossings in order to get home. Serving as his (aethyr) avatar, she controls the Castle of Doors, an inter-reality domain from which she can travel anywhere there is a door. The few that know about her aren’t really sure of her goals and priorities, but she’s proven an able defender of Reality-Prime (if that’s what the Post-Event World is) against incursions from the “magic” realities. (Erica Free was created by Chase Wayment).

  Legal Eagle: aka Tommy Brannigan, esquire. Just out of law school, Tommy learned how to fly when his weekend skydiving vacation went horribly wrong. Since flight is his sole power, Tommy went into la
w instead of trying to become a cape. The media dubbed him Legal Eagle, which he doesn’t mind at all; he quickly carved out a niche serving Chicago’s capes and superhumans, and is on retainer for the Chicago Sentinels and the city’s Guardian teams.

  Lei Zi: Her name means Mother of Storms and comes from Chinese mythology. Lei Zi is an A Class Electrokinetic Type, able to fly by electrostatic levitation, suck the power from electrical systems or burn them out with power surges, and draw from the atmosphere’s static charge to generate lightning and ball lightning. The daughter of Chinese Nationals who fled China during its collapse into warring states, she served a tour of duty in the US Military. Blackstone recruited her to be the new Field Leader of the Chicago Sentinels after the death of Atlas.

  Lunette’s: A bar and club in L.A. owned by Orb, Lunette’s mostly caters to a breakthrough crowd. Unlike the Fortress, it is not a high-profile establishment and non-breakthroughs usually get turned away by the bouncer at the door; mostly it is a refuge for breakthroughs, capes or otherwise, a place where they can hang out with others who are like them or who at least understand them.

  Doctor Mendel: Dr. Alice Mendel is the mental-health counterpart to Dr. Beth, retained by the City of Chicago to vet all of its contracted CAI heroes for mental fitness. Understandably, she has taken advantage of the situation to study superhuman psychology close-up and has written many papers and monographs on the subject.

  Mirth: identity unknown. Mirth is a flamboyant but very professional criminal. He wears a mask modeled for the Greek “comedy” mask (this his name), while his minions always wear Greek tragedy masks and no law enforcement agency has ever been able to identify Mirth or any of his crew. They also never appear to use powers in their high-speed heists against banks, jewelry stores, and art galleries. If a heist takes place by night with no witnesses, Mirth always leaves his mask.