Temporally Looped

Temporally Looped

16 August 2003, Ravens Park (formerly Brewers Field)

The Foundry enjoys, for lack of a better term, from the owner's box the opener of the Giants-Ravens series. Barry Bonds and Benito Santiago combine to put San Francisco ahead of the former Expos 6-0 in the first inning, and Jason tells the team he has spotted a barista that resembles Jane Doe. Then Francois and some of the support staff get called away to the Manor to address a security alarm set off by a hacker.

In the middle of the sixth inning, the team springs into action when they notice the camera-shy barista on the RavenVision--and suspicious-looking people in the crowd near her on the 100-level concourse and near the mayor in the right-field bleachers. One of the suspicious people is a young woman who appears on the giant color screen only in black & white.

Vic and Max depart for the right-field bleachers while Oscar, Dani and Jason head to the main concourse behind home plate. At that moment, the suspicious persons attack Jane Doe and the mayor. Stuck in their civilian identities, the team has to improvise to combat the attackers as the mayor's security staff evacuates her.

Jason uses his energy-detection powers to learn that the attackers are psionic constructs created by the monochrome woman. He disrupts the electromagnetic frequency, but the woman's backup plan includes swarms of mind-controlled ravens to cover her escape. On the field, the magnetic discharge from Jason arcs off of the metal in Santiago's mask, prompting the Giants' catcher to bobble the ball and allow the Ravens' Vladimir Guerrero to score.

The game is stopped for an hour and a half while the Checkerheads restore order, but the action is long over. Oscar gets to converse briefly with his daughter from the future, Jane Doe, who takes him on a little trip through a pocket dimension and eventually escapes. Dani discovers a frightened adolescent extraterrestrial masquerading as a young baseball fan. And Vic discovers Phil Snow's oldest son Mike, 25, is a Checkerhead, a Patrolman 2 in Special Ops assigned to the Raven Park security detail.

The team discovers that Jane Doe traveled through time to help protect the mayor, and that she was the one who attempted to hack DeepThinker. The list of cryptic failed passwords seem to indicate to Oscar some type of message, despite her having told him at Raven Park "I can't break the rules (to meet with you)."

The next day, Simon Etienne Legba pulls up in a white Rolls Royce and knocks on the front door of the manor: "Mr. Washington, we need to have a little talk about your daughter."

Who won the ballgame? The Giants, 8-1.

Issue #40, "I Was So Much Older Then..."

17-18 August 2003, Ravensgate

Simon Etienne Legba comes knocking at the door of the Manor. He and Oscar discuss business. Seems that he's detected some imminent danger for both The Foundry and himself, and he has traced its cause back to the appearance of Jane Doe--Oscar's daughter from the future. However, he does not know if this danger is related to the Ravensgate Crime Commission, the al-Amarja Shrine Temple, or some other entity. Legba's scrying alerted him to the blood relation between Jane Doe and Oscar, and to the many protective wards that the late Romanyi placed upon Devereaux Manor.

Legba shows some nervousness as he asks for The Foundry's help, especially with regard to spying on the mysterious al-Amarjans. He admits to knowing who some of The Foundry are, but is uncertain as to whether Oscar is Jeopardy or Shadowstrike, or whether Vic is Tabula Rasa or Nevermore. Legba says he is certain he and Jonathan Crane Nash Sr. are the only RCC members who know of The Foundry's secret identities, and he is suspicious of the al-Amarjan Nash.

While Oscar and Legba talk in the garden, their adversary from Raven Park (Issue #39, Buy Me Some Peanuts...) makes her appearance. Or at least her pet birds do. Their eating habits unnerve Howard, whose friends are being consumed. He sends an indiscriminate wave of hornets after the birds, but Top Hat and Too Tall barricade themselves inside Legba's Rolls Royce while Collegium students flee for the safety of the Manor. Also, as they listen in on Oscar and Legba, Vic and Danielle debate honor and ethics with Jason. Hot under the collar, Jason destroys all his mechanical-cockroach surveillance bugs. Or so he thinks.

After Legba leaves, the team assembles to gather information on Jane Doe's whereabouts, and on the activities of the various RCC factions (Irish-Italian, Asian, Haitian, Russian-Goth, Clowns). They also discover that Margaret is experiencing morning-sickness, prmpting Oscar to buy a ring and propose. At the grand opening of The Mausoleum in The Old World neighborhood, Jason encounters a feline-acting girl in a PVC catsuit. She puts something in his drink--an odd powder that causes the soda to fizz out the words, "Someone needs Oscar's help in the future!"--before licking his face and leaving. Jason discovers that one of his bugs is still active and, following its signal, ends up in the future.

Oscar discovers that the cryptic failed passwords, left behind by the hacking Jane Doe, are both a list of anagrams of her alias (Charlotte Lacroix) and warnings of past and future events. Using clues from the list, the team gains new insights into the al-Amarjans as well as the recent death of Afri-Cola Drinking Man. A major power outage draws the attention of the team.

Issue #41, "...I'm Younger Than That Now"

17-18 August 2003, Ravensgate

23 July 2025, Las Vegas

Francois is accompanying Capt. George Diem to a radio studio appearance when The Vidiot strikes again--killing a shock-talk jock right under their noses. Max also encounters The Vidiot, who makes an attempt on the mayor's life, as well as an older version of himself. Max survives The Vidiot's attack because of his faster metabolism and hyperintellect, but he is surprised by his encounter with his future self.

The Mistrunner parks above a convenience store in The Old World that seems to be (a.) the epicenter of the power outage and (b.) trashed by a magnetokineticist--like Jason. The airship's sensors detect sensor anomalies that diagnostics, written by Max, identify as degraded Nth particles that have a 22-year temporal trail! In the future, Jason finds himself in a field of rubble just east of a field of glass, then he follows the feline girl's trail to Las Vegas. He attempts to sell some antique money, but is stymied by the future's Big Brother security--which tells him that he died in the April 2004 nuclear destruction of Ravensgate!

In the present-day, Danielle, Vic and Oscar debate the safety of adjusting The Mistrunner to pursue Jason, and of who on the team is to follow him. Oscar, keeping in mind a date his daughter gave him, proposes that he and Margaret follow Jason to the future, but both his limited knowledge of temporal mechanics and Margaret's trepidation--she now has to think for two--nix that idea.

Oscar follows Jason to the future, where the two men discover that a renegade corporation named VGI is after his daughter and has discovered Jason and Oscar are in the future. They take two VGI operatives out to the desert and interrogate them before taking refuge in a motel. In the course of the interrogation, they discover that VGI is a front for a vampire conspiracy.

Max joins up with the team after encountering en route his older self, who hands him a clear acrylic object about the size and thickness of a PDA before disappearing.

Issue #42, "Times Have Changed"

18 August 2003, Ravensgate

23-24 July 2025, Las Vegas

In the future, Oscar and Jason meet up with Shen Lung and The Daywalker when VGI operatives, impersonating police, attempt to capture the time travelers at Motel Hello. Seems that both sides were drawn to the motel room on the basis of Jason's fake ID in the name of Ignatius Patrick (I.P.) Dailey.

Also along on the rescue mission are Neon and the future version of Second Cadre student, and vampire, Eric Butler. The combined forces defeat and evade the VGI strike team. Oscar and Jason learn that the four vigilantes belong to the super-secret trans-temporal organization known as MTI (Morell's Temporal Irregulars). They have intel that Jane Doe, Oscar's daughter, may have been captured by VGI--and that VGI may be using an old rusted-out prison as a base of operations.

In 2003, the rest of the team investigates all the possible links between The Vidiot's victims and focuses on a collegiate gymnast who had undergone emergency neurosurgery after a practice accident. She had fractured her skull in a freak accident on the uneven parallel bars, and had to undergo surgery to relieve pressure on her brain. The neurosurgeon who had treated her at University General was both a victim of The Vidiot and the defendant in a class-action lawsuit alleging negligence. The woman's family was among the plaintiffs, alleging she had suffered temporal-lobe epilepsy as a result of the surgeon's gaffes.

The team intercepts the woman in The Old World as she transforms into the monochrome young woman they had spotted at Raven Park (#39, "Buy Me Some Peanuts And Cracker Jack"). The Ghost of Nikko Wylde drops by and siezes control of the woman before her telepathically-controlled birds can peck apart The Mistrunner.

In the course of subduing the young woman, the team and Nikko learn that a "combined mystical-psionic entity" took up residence in the damaged portion of her brain. The entity calls itself "Fatwa Morgana," but it has multiple personalities that include the homicidal Vidiot and the cyberpathic hacker Monochrome Vector. Its origin is unknown, but Nikko believes it (a.) may be able to traverse time and space and (b.) has yet to be "created."

Nikko assists the team in downloading that part of the woman's consciousness onto more than 100 CD-RWs and then either destroying or locking away the discs.

Issue #43, "Sucks To Be You"

24 July 2025, Las Vegas

Jeopardy, Energon, Shen Lung, The Daywalker and Neon head off for a desolate corner of Nevada and meet up with MTI affiliate Surge. They assault the supposedly-abandoned prison. It is occupied by VGI operatives of all types: clown-faced familiars, mime-faced vampires, Asian master vampires Ch'i Lung and Iridium Jade, master vampire Vecna The Handyman, serpentine grandmaster vampire Ophidian, and a hyper-intelligent marksman chimpanzee in a tuxedo. The heroes make their way deep into the prison to rescue Jane Doe and cosmetics heiress Scheherazade Gaudi, both of whom were being confined in an alchemical machine being fueled by their blood.

They also find Jericho Throckmorton's old time machine from Ravensgate's Municipal History & Industry Museum. And an alchemical device that would have opened up a one-second portal to The Sun when mixed with Nth-particle radiation--just enough to wipe out a medium-sized city. Seems the alchemical Blood Engine was intended to power the time machine and send the device back to Ravensgate in 2004.

Fearing that some of the vampires may revive, the team evacuates with the two women and torches the building.

Issue #44, "All The Right Friends"

24-30 July 2025, Las Vegas

Jeopardy and Energon stay and help nurse Jane Doe (real name: Charlotte Marie Palomar-Washington) to health. They learn about Ophidian and Fatwa Morgana, and that MTI might need The Foundry's help again sometime.

They also learn that Charlotte gets around: she's been to Haiti in 1805 to prevent a rogue time-traveler from establishing himself as king, to 2002 Ravensgate to hack Patria Morii's version of Anime Mundi to ensure a chance of survivability, and she once helped a pregnant homeless woman in late 1970s Ravensgate evade cultists. Oscar also learns that he and Charlotte are distant cousins of Dr. Legba's, most likely through Oscar's mother's lineage.

Neon, as Opal Lace, pays Jason a visit as Oscar and Charlotte have dinner at the White Rabbit--a week later than originally scheduled. Charlotte gives Oscar a different take on Legba, and they agree to make the Haitian gangster her godfather when she is born in 2004.

The mission now completed, the 23-year-old and 71-year-old versions of Max coordinate to send Jason and Oscar back to 2003 and confiscate the time machine in 2025.

Issue #45, "…He Didn’t Notice That The Lights Had Changed"

28 November 2003, Ravensgate

Checkerheads are stymied by a bizarre high-profile murder near Union Station. One of Phil Snow’s 2002 mayoral campaign contributors, Nehalem Amalgamated Plastics VP Bud Kimball, is found dead in an overturned SUV half a block from picking up his daughter, who is home from college. The manner in which Kimball was killed, a bullet to the head from apparently inside the vehicle, points to possible metahuman involvement when virtually no gunpowder residue is found inside the vehicle. Inspector Shinmen asks for Tabula Rasa’s assistance, and he brings in the rest of The Foundry.

Energon locates the electromagnetic signature unique to teleportation and is able to map at least half the trajectory of the bullet that killed Kimball. Frisson uses mathematics to narrow down the search, and Energon uses his magnetic resonance to locate the slug in a building nearly two miles away. Velocity pursues the angle of temporal displacement--either time or dimensional travel of the slug--as a possibility, and Frisson champions the possibility that Kimball died accidentally.

Frisson also determines powder load by factoring in the slug size, trajectory and distance traveled. Using this information, Tabula Rasa and Jeopardy check public records for a list of owners. They come up with more than 2000, but narrow the list down to 11 when the powder charge indicates a single-shot targeting pistol.

The powder charge indicates a custom load, which singles out the family of one Jefferson Kroker, a 45-year-old dairy farmer and Army veteran who lives on the line between Nehalem and Tillamook Counties. His neighborhood is one of six areas of Nehalem County that the City of Ravensgate wants to annex for a number of reasons: (1.) The higher property tax rate for the city and (2.) the fact that Ravensgate's per-capita crime rate would drop through annexation of these outlying neighborhoods. This was a major plank of police superintendent Phil Snow's unsuccessful 2002 mayoral campaign, which Kimball supported.

Using politics as a possible motive and believing Kroker and his three sons--Jed, 15; John, 13, and Joe, 11--had opportunity, the heroes debate setting up a shooting competition as a way to recover slugs they could match to those already recovered. Then ricochets from thin air send cops and civilians in the neighborhood scurrying--and the heroes bolt out of the coffeehouse the Checkerheads are using as a temporary command post.

Velocity takes off for the Kroker farm, running at 200+ miles per hour, as Energon makes several attempts to access the portal that Jeoprdy located by sense of smell. Eventually, Energon gets pulled through the portal and out of someone's hand around the same time that gunshots from a gravel pit adjacent to the farm attract Velocity's attention.

It is discovered that the Kroker boys are helping their friend Billy refine his powers. Billy, who wants to be a superhero, can open up small wormholes with his hands. They have Jefferson Kroker's old Army helmet and have placed Billy behind a pile of sandbags for safety. This is an area where they go shootng all the time.

The kids are dumbstruck to discover that Billy isn't vaporizing the bullets.

Velocity is dumbstruck that Energon is so impetuous with his own powers: When Velocity asks a rhetorical question about the energy manipulator's powers, Energon takes it as a challenge and attempts again to teleport. He succeeds in bringing Velocity and the kids back with him, but the displaced air shatters windows, mirrors and latte mugs inside the coffeehouse.