RUBY CITY DEFENDERS! Issue #2 - Caught between a Hammer, a Sickle... and a hard case!

works for me too.

OOC No worries, we'll move things along. I thought the pair of you might also be interested to check out the Bank Robbery crime scene and glean a few clues as to who you might be up against but the priority is the Doctors' family now it seems.

Schmidt woke and despite being disorientated at first, gathered himself.

"Gentlemen. Before anything... else... heppens may I thank you for saving my life and I hope, my families' too." he mumbled whilst nursing a cup of coffee.

With darkness falling outside the trio ate quietly at the table, the two costumed fellows and the former Nazi scientist. An odd trio for sure.

Once satisfied, a time check revealed only a short time to wait before heading out to meet Conway opposite the Precinct House where DarkRaven would also presumably show.

"Shell I ... vait here or ..." the Scientist fiddled with his collar, a light sweat on his forehead "Or come viz you?" He was a coward for the most part, afraid of physical harm but pushing himself through and holding himself together for the sake of his family held in the Gangsters top floor penthouse suite. If he wanted his family back, alive, he would have to go to them. They were expecting... someone.

Things were going to get messy...

OOC meet Conway and DarkRaven then, yeah?

"Stay here where you are safe," Lightning Bullet says, "by the way, got a photo of your family in your wallet? That will help us figure out who needs to be rescued."

The Scientist started then nodded, fumbling about in his wallet.

His creased up stiffly posed photograph was of a woman in her early fifties, a son in his teens and a toddler in a sailor suit. Black and white of course, and reasonably recent.

"I treasure zis photograph. Ze other femily members - her Mother for instance - are not on here. My children are my life. Please... I beg... for too long all my life I hef dedicated my life to my work, to science. When my children were born I could not draw myself away from ze vork, it was at a vital stage. Zen ze vor came und I voz taken away, my family many miles away. Now here, in America, is a chence for a new start. if you can rescue zem!"

Lightning Bullet examines the photo carefully in order to help memorize what they look like then hands it over to Captain Conduit.

Captain Conduit takes the photo and looks at it. "Do they know any English or just German? And how recent is this?"

Captain Conduit has no detective skills and therefore isn't interested in checking out the robbery site. He'll trust the police or Feds to do their job with the Russian robbers.

"Lightning Bug, do you have a Bug-mobile or something that we can fit this crew into? I hope we're not just taking my car. I need some gas money, by the way."

"Sorry, no super vehicle, I figure just to fly anywhere.  Still working on reducing my size and increasing my speed.  Unfortunately, I can only fly about the speed of a fast dog.  So I guess we can take one of my cars unless you want to drive, then I will chip in for the gas," Lighting Bullet replies.  "Yours is probably less noticeable than mine would be. Give me a minute and I'll go get a ten spot for gas."


ooc:  Nice size rule that says for every level of shrinking, you lose one level of speed/movement.  So my 6 Flight is actually a 3.  Also some rule buried in Blood that says that you can only attack a number of foes equal to your speed/movement or one less, forget which.  So at best, he can only attack 2-3 foes a round.

"I don't think the German family can fly. Let's rent a van, unless you had some other idea about getting them all someplace safe. Maybe the Dark Raven can teleport them all back here, but then you'd have to tell him where here is...wouldn't you?"

"Don't know this Dark Raven, so no, not going to reveal the location of the Think Tank to people I don't know or trust," Lightning Bullet replies.

He motions Captain Conduit out of earshot of Herr Doktor and then whispers, "We have no choice, we have to turn them all over to the U.S. Government. This guy is a Nazi and probably slipped through the de-Nazification program and is probably still wanted by our government and our Allies. With his brain and knowledge of making super-soldiers, they will probably send him to some hidden city of brainacs and have him working on making the next Captain America or Shield. So ... to get them someplace safe, probably means heading for the nearest military base after we get them free and turn them over to their intelligence department."

"I could go and rent a van if you don't think your car can hold them all if you want to wait here with Herr Doktor while I do so. Then you and I will hop in your car, me driving, you blindfolded, and drive out to where I will leave the van. Then we can go into town and rescue his family. Then drive out to where we will leave your car, I get in your car and get Herr Doktor and then come back to where you are watching his family and you drive us to the nearest military base, which is about 60 miles away."

"Convoluted, yes? Here's the problem, I don't know you so I can't trust you with our location. Especially since you seem to think you know me. So unless you want to come clean on who you are, we have to jump through a lot of hoops."

"Max, it's Fred. If I have to give you my last name, then I'm going to give you a noogie. Sorry, I don't want my playful ribbing to cost any lives here. We already tried handing over the scientist to the authorities and it didn't work. Let's not plan on doing that again, until we at least have confirmation from someone who is willing to take these people. If you don't want to trust the new Dark Raven, fine. For all I know he was behind our pal's death. But you gotta trust me. If anyone asks me who Lightning Bullet is, I'll tell them that you'd never tell me your secret identity, because you think I'm a world class jerk. They'll believe me." Captain Conduit smirks. Now let's take my car and you or I rent a van in our civilian identity, so we have some place to put these poor people. Then we bring them back here and figure things out."

"If it'll make you feel better I can put the van in my name, as long as you actually pay for it. Then if someone looks it up I'll say it was stolen. Oh, I also need you to buy some electronics from me. It's good stuff and I'll give you a good deal. You can purchase it though a middleman or whatever if ya want. I just gotta look like I'm working. You dig?"

"What? Max? You mean," Lightning Bullet stumbles over his thoughts, "the big mouth from college?"

He smiles.

"Nice to know that three of us actually made our dreams come true to become superheroes! Hank being the first of us to do so and then he died before without reaching out to any of us. We got to sit down and talk and discuss things like how we both got our powers. Have you heard from any of the others? I made this base with our buddies using it in mind when I built it. And ...."

Stops and takes a deep breath.

"Sorry, time for talking later. Yeah, I'll front you the money, you get the van, size changing while driving is hard. Once I made myself rich, kinda figures I would help finance us all in our crimefighting ways. And being a millionaire inventor genius, no one blinks an eye if I order lots of sciencey stuff. Give me a list of what you need and I will get it for you."

"I figured you were too busy making money to remember our little pact. Guessed everyone would have forgotten about it, except for stubborn me. Maybe we should reach out to the others, but later."

Captain Conduit then goes into salesman mode. "Do you have a computer yet? I can get you an ERA 1101. It's one of the first commercially produced computers. The 1101 was designed by ERA but built by Remington-Rand for high-speed computing. It can store 1 million bits on its magnetic drum! I'd also need to rent a van to deliver it." Fred smiles.

"Possible, but not right now," Lightning Bullet replies. "Those things are made to order so who knows how long it will take us to get one."

ooc: computer probably comes under we have to purchase it for the base using HP since they are so rare in the 1950s. Ordinary stuff we can easily buy we can use money. Super stuff needs to use HP for, like building a lab to build gadgets from. Stupid gadget rules! Still think we should modify the Hero System gadget rules for this game - IAF, OAF, IIF, IAF, etc - take the appropriate minus to FC. Their rules for bases are probably better too.

Have to see what our GM says.

OOC the gadget rules have always been a headache in the DC Heroes (and therefore Blood of Heroes) game! 1st edition with a spoon or fork costing millions of dollars and fancy gadgets costing more money than the total on the Earth combined Even Lex Luthor would struggle...

Easiest way to buy the gadget is with HP and make a gadgetry check (to get it all up and running rather than build it from scratch). If you want a bespoke system that serves as AI and some kind of crime detecting genius then... that gets messy!

I can't think how the Hero system would be any easier to run than DC Heroes! The factor cost way of making characters was far easier to me than poring through the hefty tomes of 4e Champions/Hero and later. 3e was the sweet spot for me both in look and about as much crunch as I can happily deal with!

With the two fledgling superheroes finally coming to an accord about how to proceed - and establishing the trust required for them to formulate a plan, they get to work.

Max Dane's name and credit rating are easily enough to secure a truck to be driven over to his home and whilst that is happening he makes a few calls about a computer being delivered. The registration/insurance details can be in either name (OOC I assume Fred Aster unless otherwise stated).

OOC I will defer to the pair of you on knowledge of Computer Systems in the early 1950s. All I know is that they are room size and probably chuck out miles of ticker tape...

Schmidt confirms that his family only speak German - he was required to speak English because of his pre war education but returned to Germany when the war began and his family hadn't had long enough in Britain to pick up more than a few halting phrases.

With time ticking on the heroes grab a bite to eat and note that the little German scientist is becoming more unsettled.

"Perhaps... ve should just... hend me over. I vill be punished but..." he paces around, wringing his hands. "If some sing should go wrong... so many bullets flying around... vat... how can... perhaps I should..." With a face as white as a sheet he turns to the heroes. "Please, I beg of you! Do not let any harm befall my femily!"

OOC Are you guys happy to zip to the meeting at 10pm with Conway and DarkRaven? Anything else on the shopping list or just the truck and plain old fashioned fists of justice/electric zaps of law enforcement?

From the photo, the ERA 1101 appears to be small enough to fit in a truck. (The size of a desk plush a refrigerator.) Fred wants to pick up a travel German/English dictionary on his way. Before leaving he also asks Schmidt to write a note to convince his family to trust us. (He'll then check it against the dictionary to make sure it is okay before they arrive.)

ooc: From digging around the Net

The Personal Computer
Personal computers are now a very common item in many houses yet in 1955, there were only 250 computers in use throughout the world. In 1980, more than one million personal computers had been sold and by the mid-1980’s, this figure had risen to 30 million. How did this come about?

historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 17 Mar 2015. 3 Jan 2022.
A computer in 1955 was very large and could not have fitted into a normal room in a normal sized house. They frequently burned out and had a tendency to attract moths into the system which short-circuited them. (Getting a computer ‘bug’ now refers back to the time when moths were a problem to the early computers).

n the late 1950’s, computers got smaller because one of its main components – the valve – was replaced by the much smaller transistor. These made computers far more reliable and therefore businesses took a much greater interest in them. Firms such as IBM could sell a mainframe computer for just under £½ million pounds in today’s money.
By the mid-1960’s, the microchip was replacing the transistor. A microchip could have several transistors on it. But being smaller, it lead again to a decrease in the size of computers. By 1965, there were 20,000 computers in the world. The most famous was the IBM System/360.

The microchip also lead to computers being made that were small enough to get into the average sized room in a house. By 1970, one microchip could contain 1000 transistors on it. In 1970, a home personal computer would have cost nearly £70,000 in today’s money.

Probably why Batman used a card filing system on crooks until the 1960s, starting with the Batman TV show.

I guess that's just part of the computer in the picture. I found on the internet that this 1101 computer was 38 ft (12 m) long, 20 ft (6.1 m) wide, weighed about 8.4 short tons (7.6 t).

ooc: We could probably still get it but it should take awhile.
Hard to believe how fast things have progressed over the years. I was a kid when the moon landings happened. Nowadays, a lot of kids don't even know we have gone to the Moon a number of times. A Gold pocket watch or wristwatch was considered a fine retirement gift from your boss, now you can go into any convivence store and buy a watch for a couple of bucks.

Admin wrote:OOC the gadget rules have always been a headache in the DC Heroes (and therefore Blood of Heroes) game! 1st edition with a spoon or fork costing millions of dollars and fancy gadgets costing more money than the total on the Earth combined Even Lex Luthor would struggle...

Easiest way to buy the gadget is with HP and make a gadgetry check (to get it all up and running rather than build it from scratch). If you want a bespoke system that serves as AI and some kind of crime detecting genius then... that gets messy!

I can't think how the Hero system would be any easier to run than DC Heroes! The factor cost way of making characters was far easier to me than poring through the hefty tomes of 4e Champions/Hero and later. 3e was the sweet spot for me both in look and about as much crunch as I can happily deal with!

With the two fledgling superheroes finally coming to an accord about how to proceed - and establishing the trust required for them to formulate a plan, they get to work.

Max Dane's name and credit rating are easily enough to secure a truck to be driven over to his home and whilst that is happening he makes a few calls about a computer being delivered. The registration/insurance details can be in either name (OOC I assume Fred Aster unless otherwise stated).

OOC I will defer to the pair of you on knowledge of Computer Systems in the early 1950s. All I know is that they are room size and probably chuck out miles of ticker tape...

Schmidt confirms that his family only speak German - he was required to speak English because of his pre war education but returned to Germany when the war began and his family hadn't had long enough in Britain to pick up more than a few halting phrases.

With time ticking on the heroes grab a bite to eat and note that the little German scientist is becoming more unsettled.

"Perhaps... ve should just... hend me over. I vill be punished but..." he paces around, wringing his hands. "If some sing should go wrong... so many bullets flying around... vat... how can... perhaps I should..." With a face as white as a sheet he turns to the heroes. "Please, I beg of you! Do not let any harm befall my femily!"

OOC Are you guys happy to zip to the meeting at 10pm with Conway and DarkRaven? Anything else on the shopping list or just the truck and plain old fashioned fists of justice/electric zaps of law enforcement?

"Give us a note from you for your family to read to let them know to go with us when we break them out," Lightning Bullet says. "You are going to stay here so we don't have to worry about keeping you AND them safe at the same time."

ooc: Beyond that, can't think of what LB would need.

OOC The mind boggles at the pace of technology advancements. I only really saw it from the late 70s from Pong to Atari VCs to 8 bit home computers then 16 bit, the consoles and the rise of the home PC. The earliest home PCs were rubbish and hopeless as a gaming machine. Forever messing around with the DOS set up to have a chance at running anything with the memory manager. My youngest son has a Ryzen processor (not even the very latest), 32gb ram and a 2070 Super video card, a generation behind the stuff that's so expensive these days - if you can even get hold of it! He doesn't know it yet but that setup is going to last him a few more years yet, judging by the cost/scarcity of components...

The former Nazi scientist wrote out a note explaining what was happening - his family were to trust the two brightly clothed superheroes and he hoped to see them all soon, safely, and from there life should improve. Hopefully.

With that Lightning Bullet locked the place up. Whilst secure, a genius like Schmidt could probably concoct something from the basic chemistry available in the cave (even using such things as a cars' acid battery) to melt through locks, or find some other means to escape. Without putting the guy out for a few hours they'd just have to trust that he'd stay put.

Slipping into the truck the heroes weren't as conspicuous now as night had fallen and soon they entered the city proper, heading for the rendezvous with Conway and DarkRaven on the roof of the building (an office block) opposite the Precinct House Conway called home most of the time.

Arriving slightly early and circling around the block a couple of times, the pair spotted nothing untoward and were able to make their way to the rooftop by flying up!

The glittering lights of the city by night sprawled out in every direction. An expanding, thriving place, but one which had the potential to sink into trouble should crime go unchecked. The minutes ticked by and the rooftop access door clicked open with an irritated Conway clearly heard.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look. I'm tellin' ya this is official Police business an' if you don't wanna explain ta ya boss why ya was obstructin' justice I suggest you leave tha key an get back to the desk. Kapeesh? Right." Footsteps. "Wise guy."

Conway came into view. Dishevelled, tired looking, irritated and frowning as he leaned in to shield his cigar from the wind and relight it.

OOC Assuming you greet him rather than step out of the shadows and scare years from his life...

"Huh. So ya showed up. When you two vanished my life got harder as I had ta explain what went on at th' diner to the Captain, the Chief of the Police AND the Commissioner. They ain't happy 'bout you caped types dancing about an' tossin cars around. Rather you leave the law enforcin' ta us but after what happened today at the Bank." He raised an eyebrow. "I heard you didn't show when some flatfoot banged on my door ta wake me and I dragged my sorry ass over ta the scene. By then the Reds had made off with bags of cash and left fifteen cops with broken bones an' sent a clear message. We can do what we want, when we want, ta whoever we want."

He shook his head, angry. "Miracle no one died. Anyway, the Commissioner an' the Chief changed their tune from no capes ta where th' hell are the capes? Bah. Sleep is overrated anyway, but there'll be hell ta pay with my ulcers tomorrow. Besides all dat. Where's the other one?"

As if on cue and stepping from the shadows, Darkraven appeared and bowed his head slightly to Captain Conduit and Lightning Bullet.

"My apologies" he rasped. "I am new to all... this." he said with a sweep of his hand. "Besides that I have a life behind this mask and I have to be realistic. Taking on five or six super powered Russians would have been suicide on my own."

Conway growled but sighed shortly after. "Alright. I can't ask you three ta step up an' take on those Commie Supers officially. I'm supposed ta arrest ya, if we're goin' by th' book. Unofficially I'm sayin' here n now dat there's no way we should be leavin' dis to the feds. This is OUR city an' I'll be damned before any red thinks he can do what he likes here on MY beat! Kapeesh? So, what we gonna do about it, huh?"

He looked at each hero in turn.

"First," Lightning Bullet says, the 3' hero floating up to eye level, "we are going to rescue a Nazi scientist's family from a criminal gang who are busy trying to make super-powered crooks. We are doing it tonight, hopefully. Then we are getting them to safety. I'm all for taking them over to Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps base, as it is closest to us and let the military and the FBI fight over who has jurisdiction over them. He worked on super secret super-soldier programs for Hitler that made folks like Captain America for us and Captain Nazi for them. Got to get his family out of those crook's hands. Captain Conduit's not so sure we should turn them over to anybody yet, after what happened earlier."

"Then we handle the Reds! I imagine the Kremlin is giving the old line of these Reds being villains wanted in the USSR and not actual Red spies and saboteurs, that if they actually admitted that, it would cause our little Cold War to go Hot very quickly! Ike wouldn't stand for them having avowed agents running around the US like they please and would have to get a declaration of war from Congress. Dang Commies! I hate Commies!!"

"Darkraven, we know... well we have a tip from the German nerd about where his family is. How many people can you teleport? I'd like to get in and out without anyone getting shot, especially not any kid or old lady they have in custody."

Fred then turns to Conway. "Is multiplying one of these Commie's powers? We barely got past two of them with our lives. If you want us to help you fight a half dozen super-Ruskies, then we'll be needing more supers. Do you have any in lock-up that you can give a deal to for helpin' us?"

"Is teleporting your main power or do you have others, Dark Raven," Lightning Bullet asks, "I didn't see you in action so I do not know what you can do. I'm small, fly slowly and have a shocking touch. Those are my main abilities."

Conway scowls. "What? That scientist guy with the funny accent in the diner, you was tryin' ta hand over? At least he's in safe hands wid you." he mumbles.

"Listen, I don't know WHO we can trust right now, an dats from a guy talkin ta three guys in their PJs and masks coverin their faces!" he growled. "Till then, best bet is ta get his family out n hold em somewhere till we can figure out if the feds are on the level... or even if they are feds." He looks around. "Can never tell who ya talkin to these days."

DarkRaven pursed his chin in his black gloved hand, all over face mask obscuring his expression but it seemed he was in thought. "I can teleport multiple people but... they need to hold hands, stay close and there is a maximum weight limit. Furthermore the old or people with heart conditions... I am reluctant to risk them for understandable reasons."

"Yeah. Imagine a judge tryin ta get his head round dat!" grumbled Conway. "I was rescuin em yer honour an when we appeared in a different place cause o this fancy thing I do, there was like, corpses lyin all around."

Dark Raven gave him a look.

"What? You just said so I said... anyway. Sounds like the old dear gotta take the stairs. Like THAT's any better for a dicky ticker."

He turns to Captain Conduit "Well there was those two wise guys dat trashed the diner. We know how tough dey are. And fast. Couldn't draw a bead on em." he mutters. "Sounds like they have some buddies, and yeah lil guy, we had a few chattin at the station house bout them guys. Expectin some kind of official 'dey ain't wid us' from the Russian Amabassador. Like that fools anyone, but if dey say it, we gotta smile and grit our teeth cause otherwise things will get heated."

"And by heated... it seems pretty clear dey got atom bombs like we do. Unless one o you jokers can catch one o them when it's fallin best bet is ta play nice... but keep an eye on da other guy."

DarkRaven considered then replied to Lightning Bullet. "You have to understand I'm still learning to use my abilities. My predecessor had more experience but there are limits and it seems he found them, unfortunately."

"Yeah, den bullets found him." interjected Conway.

"Right. Well, I can project a field of darkness so intense no flashlight will pierce it. I, however, can see. I can teleport myself and others. I suppose my range isn't fully defined so at the moment I will say 'to somewhere I can see with my own two eyes' and go from there. In a fight? I'm ... not a skilled combatant. However by blinding a foe with darkness then attacking them I can be effective."

"Sucker punch huh? They ain't never gonna parade you in front a school kids and say 'dis here is a model of how heroes should be kids', am I right?" laughed Conway.

DarkRaven gave him a look then added "I agree with you. We need more... muscle. The two Russians on their own were enough to give us problems. If there are five of them... it will get messy."

Conway scratched his head. "We got reports o guys in capes an domino masks but dat don't mean they are tough guys. Maybe just whack jobs wid a day pass from da nut house. Dere was reports of a guy on da east side. Calls himself 'Kestrel'. Don't know what dat is but Smitty at 14th said it was some kinda boyd."

"Boyd?" asked DarkRaven

"Yeah. Boyd. Can't you unnerstand? Boyd? Flap flap?" asked Conway whilst making a flapping motion with his hands.

"Ah. A bird." said DarkRaven. Somewhere under his mask LB and CC suspected he was rolling his eyes.

"So, you want me to help with this rescue? I can do that." said DarkRaven. "I'd prefer not to get too close to bullets though. I'm not any more resistant to those than Mr Conway here."

"Mister? Dat was my father. So. You palookas gonna grab da family an get back here... say, tomorrow night? Hopefully i can make a few calls." asked Conway.

"I'm not bulletproof either and don't want to change my name to Captain Swiss Cheese. Conway, could you get your hands on any of those flack jackets used in the war? Until I can learn to generate an energy field around myself, I'm a sitting duck for projectiles. Also, how about a helicopter? We get the aged out a window and fly her to a 'copter. A bulletproof 'copter. Or can we get a safehouse nearby. I think I could fly someone a short distance. It may also cause a panic attack, but we can't do the stairs, it'll be too slow."