Night Shift

Volume 2, Episode 2

Wednesday, November 10th, 1999.  It's late in the day, and the team is canvassing the Salem Heights neighbourhood around The Glade.  They learn that no one saw anything "out of place", just the maid service - strange that it wasn't the regular day, when you come to think of it.  Pale grey van, no conspicuous markings except a small sign for "The Legion of Brooms."  The area is rather thickly wooded - especially around The Glade - and the houses are fairly distant from one another.  A beat-up VW bus might attract attention, but a sedate housecleaning van doesn't. 

A bit of follow-up work with Legion of Brooms reveals that they are a humdrum, relatively inexpensive and reliable cleaning service. Not top service, but no big problems either.  Naturally, they employ a lot of Saurians and Ferro-Americans.  Their vans and uniforms are easy to fake or steal.  The agency cooperates readily, and say no one was at The Glade the day before, since they are not due until Thursday.  Detective Segama interviews the Ferro-American maid who usually cleans The Glade, Brumhild-4.

Sgt. Fisher and the rest of the team make their report to Lt. Therius, while Detective Mortis starts contacting his underworld contacts to find out what the market is like for stolen power items and special devices.  After asking around, the word is that the market is heating up.  There's a demand for off-the-book power items, but it's fairly specialized at the higher levels.  The small, non-arcane, non-radioactive stuff, however, can be moved more easily.

Meanwhile, Lt. Therius gets a call.  Uniformed officers responded to a call for a dinner time armed robbery at a Harvest Supermarket in Southern Midtown, a middle- to lower middle-class neighbourhood.  Reports are that they used power rings and powers sceptres; their sergeant makes the connection with the SOB case and calls to ask if this could have bearing on their case.  Therius sends Sgt. Fisher and Detectives Parker, Segama and Landsen, and meets them there to observe their work.  Parker and Landsen interview witnesses while Segama examines the scene for trace evidence – finding evidence of at least three different weapons, heat-based, disintegrator and kinetic – and Sgt. Fisher handles the reporters.

After a short while, uniformed officers report finding what looks like a power rod abandoned in a nearby dumpster a few streets away.  Lt. Therius takes Fisher with him and goes to investigate.  When the glowing weapon starts melting through the evidence bag, however, Therius quickly throws a forcefield around it and calls for Parker to teleport back with Specialist Landsen.  Landsen puts the object in a containment bottle and tells Parker to teleport her to the secure lab at the station, where she starts cautiously trying to disable the device – with Parker on standby, ready to teleport away with the device before it goes critical.

At the dumpster, the uniformed officers breathe a sigh of relief when Parker, Landsen and the glowing scepter disappear, only to be rocked by an explosion in the direction of nearby Lanchester warehouse district.  Fisher takes to the air and examines the area; a moment later, flames come shooting out of a warehouse.  Fisher charges in, quickly followed by Therius.  Sgt. Fisher uses his powers to control and extinguish the flames, but the warehouse has been damaged by the explosion, and is filled with smoke and dust. 

Therius uses his amulet to search for traces of life in the building, and finds the unconscious bodies of a burly man and a Ferro-American, matching the description of two of the perpetrators of the armed robbery.  He uses the amulet again to open a pocket dimension where he stuffs them, then stumbles out of the building with severe smoke inhalation.  Parker, having returned from the station where Landsen successfully deactivated the power scepter, immediately takes the lieutenant to Blake Hospital.  Therius pulls the men out of the pocket dimension before passing out.

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