Ravensgate PBEM

Ravensgate PBEM

Issue #23, “There’s Something About Salome”

PBEM

The air four hundred feet above Ravensgate is cool and crisp, and the haze of pollution gives it a golden tint in the morning sunlight. Danielle Devereaux adjusts her safety glasses and looks down. Theo Watkins’ firm hand on her shoulder guides her away from the handrail.

“This is going to be the most over-engineered skyscraper in the history of Ravensgate,” Watkins announces with pride. “I did the structural calculations nine times until I was certain I’d covered everything. Two hundred and seven pages of mathematical gibberish just to cover wind and seismic shears—-and the possibility of aviation collisions.”
Allan Locksley hands Dani a pair of binoculars and points downward to the foundation for the parking garage: “Check out those seismic straps and springs. They’ll absorb and dissipate most of the vibrations.”
“How do the structural calcs compare to code?” inquires Dani above the din of construction.
“Well, if the city bothered to enforce it, they’d find we exceed code,” says Locksley. “DDWL uses its own inspectors for QA purposes, just to put clients’ minds at ease and keep our subcontractors honest.”
“I’ll bet Poppy and Jean-Pierre just love that,” retorts Dani.
“We couched it to them,” says Locksley, “in terms of where on the ledger they wanted to carry the expense—-quality assurance, liability premiums or class-action lawsuit settlements.”
Dani unrolls the architectural drawings and studies them for a moment before asking, “Floor plans are very sparse. I take it you anticipated economic downturns?”
“Exactly,” says Locksley. “We went ahead with this project just so we could keep these men working. Real Estate Division can figure out later whether this building will be condos, rental, commercial or mixed. Normally, that’s a risk we don’t take.”
“I know. You won’t build unless there’s a buyer,” says Dani. “Avoids the pitfalls of standing inventory costs and allows for employee cross-training between residential and commercial construction projects.”
“Head of the class, as always,” says Watkins, adjusting his hardhat.
“Ah, speaking of class,” Dani says, “what is this about you two and your brothers and Salome? You’ve all been smitten with her since kindergarten?”
Watkins and Locksley laugh out loud.
“We’re all roughly the same age,” laughs Watkins, “so we ran together as a pack—and all the guys’ first kisses were with Salome.”
“Are you saying she was—-?”
“No, we boys were all precocious little mack-daddy-wannabes. Salome was a shy, bookish type who was cursed with drop-dead gorgeous looks and a quality about her I find hard to describe.”

On old grainy videotape stock, a little blonde girl in a white frilly dress is holding a picture of a blue jay and speaking with a KOJ-TV reporter. The pant leg behind Danielle is in all likelihood her late father Daniel, who also was known as Massdriver from the original Team Hyperion.
“This is Little Boy Blue,” says the girl, whom KOJ’s crawl-line caption identifies as Danielle Devereaux, 5½ years old. “He ate some Stryofoam somebody threw on the beach. He starved to death. It made me so sad.”
“I’m so sorry,” says the unseen interviewer. “Why do you think somebody threw Styrofoam onto the beach?”
“Because they were stupid.”
“But if we had a Styrofoam recycling plant, people wouldn’t throw it where birds could eat it.”
“That’s not true, because some people are still stupid and lazy. And what about places where they keep the Stryofoam before it gets recycled? Birds eat at landfills and dumpsters.”
“Yes, but if we recycled Styrofoam, there’d be less of it out there for birds to eat. And then little girls wouldn’t be sad.”
“Because of Stryofoam, there are less birds. We live in an ecosystem with a food chain,” says Danielle. “It’s like a house of cards. You can take some cards away and nothing happens, but other cards you shouldn’t even touch.”
“That’s a big word, Danielle, ‘ecosystem.’ Do you know what it means?”
“It’s the complex of a community of organisms and its environment functioning as an ecological unit.”
“Did your daddy tell you to memorize this?”
“No, I did it on my own. I read the Oxford English Dictionary and memorized it a long time ago.”
“A long time ago?”
“Yes, when I was four. I’m five and a half now. Maybe if Poppy Lem read the OED when he was a baby, he’d know better than to recycle Stryofoam. You don’t know much, do you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re the grown-up and you keep asking me questions.”

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Salome Throckmorton-d’Aubaine turns off the TV with a wave of the remote, then turns to face Maximillian Morell. Both have warm smiles on their faces as they sit on the couch in Salome’s office.
“That’s my cousin,” she says proudly. “That sound-bite was eloquent in its simplicity. I could give you fifty-seven pro and con arguments, with annotated footnotes and bibliography, but a sound-bite like that will render them meaningless. Dani’s little interview tanked the city’s funding of the plant, and it became my senior thesis at Stanford on media and government. Of course, Poppy built it anyway a few years later, but it cost him ten times as much money.”
“And Lemuel still holds a grudge against her?” says Max.
“Yes, but I think it’s aimed more at her departed father than at the four-digit-IQ five-year-old. Until yesterday’s little scene.”
“That was intense.”
“It needed to happen. Poppy has had a stranglehold on the company and this city since he was my age, and he needs to realize he won’t live forever. He’s seen even his own sons as rivals, so you can imagine how he’d view youngsters like Allan and Steve Locksley, let alone Theo and Mose Watkins. He once called Theo ‘a credit to his race’ and told him, and I quote, ‘You’re a positive role model for all Negroes.’” Salome shakes her head in disbelief.
“How old is Lemuel?”
“Eighty-seven. When he was a child, Ravensgate was the northernmost Southern city,” says Salome. “Most theatres and restaurants had sections for Whites Only and Asians Only—-back then they were called Orientals—-before a third strata of segregation was required for the first wave of black timber and steel workers.”
“But World War II ended segregation, right?”
“Ravensgate and Portland got dragged kicking and screaming into the Twentieth Century.”
“Good thing, too,” says Max, rubbing Salome’s shoulders.
“Yes, it is. So is the activity of The Foundry. They blew open the lid on this city.”
“What does that have to do with race relations?”
“In this town, everything. Just look at how white the Assembly was before they found Romanyi’s data disk. With six Assemblymen resigning under indictment and another five successfully recalled, we’ll have an Assembly that better reflects the city’s diversity.”
“How does your father feel about this?”
“He doesn’t like it one bit,” responds Salome, “but that’s his problem. His and Poppy’s generations need to step aside. They’ve been telling me my whole life what they want for me and from me. If I learned anything from the police strike—-aside from peeing standing up and throwing a mean left hook—-it’s that I’m the one in the driver’s seat. They’ll just have to deal with it.”
“What if they can’t?”
“I don’t care whether they can or can’t,” says Salome, turning to face Max. She cuddles up next to him, head resting on his shoulder, and he begins to smell that flowery scent Jason described. Salome continues: “I have the opportunity to put our generation on the map. That’s why I made peace with Phil Snow. He will be the next mayor, but not this year. I want to be a US Senator in ’04 or ’08, then President by the time I'm 45. Where would you like to be in fifteen years?”

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“ . . . and then she said to me, ‘This is where I started out when I was your age.’ That’s when she started to smell funny,” says Jason as Namor darts around him for a layup.
“What, she farted?” responds Namor as he waits under the basket for the ball to drop from the net.
“No, jackass, she started to smell like a flower garden. It was quite intoxicating.”
“Uh-huh. I think Max has a rival,” Namor taunts as he fires the basketball at Jason’s chest.
“No, I’m serious. Something’s strange about her.”
“Are you going to stand there or are you going to dribble?” snaps Namor. “On second thought, don’t answer that.”
“Namor, she’s a paranormal.”
“Isn’t the city attorney one?” Namor fires back as he tips the ball out of Jason’s hands and drives out to the top of the key.
“Yes, but—-. It may explain why most of her staff is female, or else acts that way,” Jason says as Namor leaps up, releases the ball and drains a trey.
“I’m up 27-12. Your ball.”
“Dude, are you even listening to me?”
“Yes, Jason, I am.”
“Then what’d I say?”
“You said the mayor’s a metahuman who smells like a garden, and somehow you’re surprised even though this is Ravensgate. Jason, I’m from here, remember?”
Jason lets the basketball roll around the hardwood as he approaches Namor. When he gets to within inches of his friend, Jason whispers, “There’s some weird stuff going on. To find out what it is, I’ve bugged City Hall.”
“You WHAT!?!?”
“Keep it down!” Jason snaps, then whispers: “I’m getting 120 hours of compressed sound files a day out of these bugs, more than I can possibly listen to in a lifetime, and that’s even after I’ve had Deepthinker scan only for selected voiceprints.”
“Why are you telling me this—-in a city gymnasium, no less? Why not discuss it at the club tonight?”
“No one’s here, you wuss, not even the Checkerheads.”
“Now that’s weird,” quips Namor. “You’ve been on the job three days and you don’t even notice the—-.”
“So? Maybe they all went out for some Krispy-Krack donuts. They’re cops, Namor.”

“Do we have a warrant yet?” asks Captain Joseph Meaaloa as he adjusts the straps on his helmet. His voice echoes throughout the abandoned parking garage. Assembled before him and other cop brass are dozens of Checkerheads in heavy SWAT armor, plus Tabula Rasa.
“Jimmy’s getting the warrant,” replies Inspector Matt Shinmen, “from Judge Arnold The Pig.”
“Are you nuts, Matt? Why don’t you call up Spanno yourself and tell him when and—-.”
“Zip it, Joey. I’ve got everything timed so that Jimmy won’t be getting the warrant until we’re in position. Then Arnold calls the target, the Feds pick it up on wiretap, and we slam-dunk one municipal pain-in-the-ass of a judge.”
“But he’s not the primary objective?” chimes in Captain Rich Antinov.
“No, but I decided if I was going to play ball with the mob again I’d swing for the fences.”
At least twenty more cruisers and unmarked cars pull into the garage, many of them blaring The Theme From SWAT.
“I thought your cruisers didn’t have stereos,” says Tabula Rasa.
“They don’t,” Shinmen replies. “That’s Tactical Channel Four. I had Jimmy put the theme on continual loop. It’s why everyone’s assembling here.”
Officer Rube Cody runs out of one of the unmarked cars, a roll of plans in his hand. He hands the roll to Shinmen, who in turn hands them off to Meaaloa.
“I doubt these plans are accurate, but see if you can identify any possible hidden passages.”
“Right now that’s being handled by one of my associates,” says Tabula Rasa to Shinmen. “You know, the one who believes superheroes should be heard and not seen.”
Shinmen grins again, leaps onto the hood of his cruiser and yells out, “Okay, everyone, listen up!! We have word from an informant, former detective Bill Durden, regarding who murdered Sergeant James Smithson!! Joey, Richie and Alia will brief you on our objective!! But before we break into small groups, I want you all clear on the signal to move in!! We have a member of The Foundry on the inside!! He will verify the presence of the murder weapon on the premises”—-Shinmen glances at Tabula Rasa and smiles—-“and contact me!! Once that is done, I will cruise past the objective with siren and lights going!! Do NOT move in unless it is my cruiser that is doing this!! Because these are the same folks who brought you the Rust City firefight, this will be a no-knock warrant service and we will announce our presence with flash-bangs and CS gas!! Any questions?!?!”

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“What is the significance of these numbers inside the crescent?” asks Joshua.
“We have a few theories,” says Oscar, leaning back in a cozy chair across from Joshua’s desk. “All center around the Tarot, specifically Aleister Crowley’s variant. We have yet to figure out what the characters really signify, whether these are lodge officers or landmarks or components of a spell or ceremony.”
“Any insight into the objectives of the lodge?”
“One likely theory, given the founding Throckmorton’s propensity for mixing mystical symbology. The al-Amarjans are appropriating whatever mystical symbols and rites they can find in order to build power.” Oscar leans forward and continues: “Crowley’s Golden Dawn order appropriated the Jewish Kabbalah, Egyptian mythology and various pagan rites not as a means of enriching their own knowledge but as a means of mystification. Think of the cannibal tribes who eat their enemies to gain power.”
Joshua nods. “Any clue as to their true motives? Are they connected in any way to the Crime Commission?”
“I don’t know yet. After all this revelation, I’m still at Square One. I’ve figured out a means to combat their taint, so that’s a positive step, I guess.”
Oscar pauses momentarily and looks at the wooden box on Joshua’s desk. It’s an older and darker box, different from the one that once belonged to Romanyi.
“Joshua?”
“Yes, Oscar?”
”What happened to Romanyi’s cards?”
“I figured I needed to let go, so I put them in my safe and brought out my mother’s old deck.”
“I see. How many Magician cards are in this deck?”
“Three. Why do you ask?”
“Then Rabbi Benezra would very much like to talk to you about that deck.”
“But why? I’m not Jewish.”
“Neither am I, Joshua, and I don’t think that’s the point.”
Oscar and Joshua lock in on each other’s gaze, and the sudden realization drains the color from Joshua’s face. He reaches over to the box, picks it up, opens a desk drawer, drops the box inside it, and slams the drawer shut.
“Jason has City Hall bugged.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, forty-one listening devices in two dozen areas,” says Joshua, “and he’s got Deepthinker compressing the sound files for him. Should be useful.”
“That’s a lot of data,” Oscar muses. “When is he going to find the time to listen to all these recordings?”
“I don’t know, but I asked him about that. He’s only listened to—-get this—-eighteen and a half minutes. Of the mayor with Phil Snow.”
Joshua cocks his eyebrows upwards three times in rapid succession. Oscar’s jaw drops with realization.
“Does Max know about this?”
“No, but Dani accessed some of the sound files. She might know.”

Dani and Salome are up to their shoulders in a mud bath, the monogrammed towels of the Ditko Beach Golf & Country Club Spa wrapped around their heads. Packed-full shopping bags line one wall of the room, while two sets of clothing hang on another wall near a row of shower stalls.
“You know, you look like you’ve had a rough day,” says Salome.
”Not really, but it was more exertion than usual. I had to keep up with Allan and Theo at the Ocean Mist project. It’s utterly fascinating the way that building is stepped,” says Danielle. “Passive solar heating and lighting, rain gutters designed to drain indoors to water interior gardens, . . .”
Salome laughs: “My dad calls it the Don’t Drink The Water Building. Allan’s had a building like Ocean Mist Plaza on his drawing board since junior high. He and Theo didn’t, by any chance, corner you and ask you about a Project Blackbird, did they?”
“We didn’t have much time, but they did give me a business plan to take home and read. What is it?”
“It’s a new company that installs and monitors video cameras in public places for purposes of crime prevention. I can’t touch it because of conflict-of-interest laws—-I’d have to abstain if a contract vote came before the Assembly—-but it looks like a winner.”
“We’re talking about cameras along the lines of DOT traffic-cams and British police security cams?” Dani asks.
“Exactly like them,” Salome says. “I’d say it’s the brainchild of Allan Locksley, aspiring auteur. He had Holmes Park Prep Academy wired with about a hundred hidden cameras for a student film project. He wanted to milk every possible camera angle out of every scene.”
“What were the Locksley and Watkins brothers like when you were growing up?”
“Dani, they’re too old for you.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, Sal, I’m just curious. Theo said something to Max at the shareholder meeting the other day.”
“Oh no. He didn’t?”
“What, the story about how every boy in class had a crush on you?”
“Dani, it was a living hell having four of them chasing me for twelve long years.”
“Did you ever date any of them?”
“No. I didn’t want any of them to feel left out, they’re so sweet.”
“And that is why, with the four of them still eligible bachelors, you’re seeing Max?”
“Max is funny, intelligent, unassuming, romantic, apolitical, capable . . . plus, he’s European in manners and attitude. After a girl’s been to Paris, it’s very hard settling back down on the farm.”
“Sal, I don’t follow you.”
“Studying the life of Catherine the Great was a major awakening in my political education,” says Salome. “Max seems European enough that I don’t think he’d mind me seeing other people on the side.”
“Have you broached this subject with Max?”
“Not yet. Why?”

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Tabula Rasa sits in the front passenger seat of the unmarked cruiser, surveying the damage to Centanni’s Ristorante. Perhaps as many as six hundred Checkerheads are swarming all over East 30th Street and Erskine and Eddington Avenues, and there are police cars and SWAT vans as far as the eye can see. The front windows and doors of the restaurant are blown out, broken glass litters the street, and smoke rolls out into the late afternoon air. Ropes from rappelling SWAT officers dangle in front of blown-out second-story windows. SWAT cops from the Rapid Armed Intervention Division (RAID) drag handcuffed and bedraggled wiseguys out of the building to either waiting paddy wagons or waiting ambulances. Inspector Shinmen and Rube Cody are conferring with some heavily-armored RAID officers—-and three agitated men in business suits whose SUV is blocked in by all the cop cars.

The right rear passenger door of the car opens and closes, seemingly of its own volition.
“You okay?” asks Tabula Rasa.
“Affirmative,” responds a disembodied voice. “Not a single grenade came close.”
“Any results?”
“Inconclusive,” says the disembodied voice. “I found seven or eight alcoves that could serve as an ingress into the Old Underground, one of which contained unrefined narcotics of some kind. However, I was able to record a phone conversation between the maitre-d’ and the judge who is signing the search warrant. RAID interrupted them in mid-sentence, so the maitre-d’ never had a chance to pass along the warning.”
“Hey, bonus!” laughs Tabula Rasa as the car’s fax machine beeps. “Here’s the warrant now.”
“Any results on your end, TR?”
“Yes. Shinmen passed along some information on one condition.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, that I investigate Max.”
“What?”
“For some reason, Pyro, Max’s relationship with the mayor makes Snow nervous. It has to be Snow, because of Shinmen’s body language.”
“What information did Shinmen give you?”
“That Dominic Spanno struck some kind of deal with the DEA and that it’s under a tight national-security lid,” says Tabula Rasa. “Marcoli told Shinmen exactly what I told you. Apparently, our friendly tax attorney from New Jersey did some wet work for the Alphabet Soup, and he has an ample supply of markers to call in.”
“Interesting,” says Pyro. “At least we confirmed Shinmen’s suspicions about the judge.”
“Yes, and hopefully Arnold and Durden will start singing. As long as Shinmen can convince the public that Durden—-. What the—-?” Vic points at a handcuffed man being dragged by his feet through the broken glass by two SCU cops.
“That’s Giuseppe Spanno,” says a dumbstruck Pyro.
“Yeah, where the hell did he come from? SCU’s had this place under surveillance since April Fools Day, the Feds”—-Vic points to the men in the business suits arguing with the cop brass—-“ever since Giuseppe went underground. And nobody’s been able to find him?”
“We need to reexamine those alcoves,” says Pyro as Shinmen returns to the car and opens the driver’s-side door.
“Feds are a little steamed,” says Shinmen, “but their parabolic mike picked up Judge Arnold tipping off the maitre-d’. In the end, that’ll make 'em happy.”
“Quick question, Matt,” says Tabula Rasa. “What does it say when Dominic Spanno enters the building and, instead of him, your boys drag out Giuseppe?”

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