Your 14-minute Tuesday report in 3589 words.
Pashinyan about pre-war negotiations and "avoiding" the war:
The idea that a flexible foreign policy could have avoided this war is being constantly circulated. Those [former officials] who believe in this thesis must answer at least one question: as a result of their "flexible" policy, why was it not possible to avoid the war of 2016, which was preceded by the unprecedented escalation of 2015 and 2014?
The "flexible" policy adopted by Armenia for many years led to the introduction of Russian proposals in January 2016, which proposed the return of 7 territories (5 + 2) without any legal status for Nagorno-Karabakh.
Why did Russia make such an offer? For one simple reason, as a result of Armenia's "flexible" policy, the Madrid process had come to a standstill because Artsakh could receive a Status outside Azerbaijan only with the consent of Azerbaijan.
It was obvious to Russia and everyone else that Azerbaijan would not agree to this, so it was necessary to find ways to break the deadlock.
And, by the way, if certain people claim that Armenia's foreign policy after 2018 was not sufficiently pro-Russian and this was the reason for the war, then why in the conditions of the "sufficiently pro-Russian" policy of 2016 were Russian proposals born and why did the April war take place?
There was only one way to prevent this war: return the regions and forget about Artsakh's legal status. Now, after the war is over and we know the outcome, the number of supporters of [giveaway of 7 regions] is growing. What they forget is that if we gave away the lands to avoid the war, we would have the same situation in Syunik borders. They used to accuse us of "selling lands" [he means the contradictory statements like Nikol sold the lands, and why didn't Nikol sell the lands earlier to avoid the war].
The biggest failure by the supporters of the "flexible policies" is that they spent years trying to avoid a war instead of preparing for it. Our biggest failure is that we weren't able to recover enough embezzled public property in the past 2.5 years to help us better prepare for the war.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039231.html businesses owned by opposition leaders
What are the known businesses owned by some of the famous people you might have seen in the public square lately?
Vazgen Manukyan
20% share in
Lorva Amrots Ltd which plans to operate two hydro-power plants on Dzoraget river. Manukyan purchased the shares in 2011 after being appointed by Serj as the head of the Public Council.
In 2015-2016, he owned 30% shares in
Vanavka Group. In 2015-2017 he had 30% shares in
Jermakunq Group. These companies extracted and bottled water. At the time, the director of these companies was charged with illegal bottling and causing ֏55 million in damages to the state. The corruption case was sent to the IRS, which terminated the investigation after "not finding a crime". The companies export the products mostly to Russia.
Arthur Vanetsyan
Vanetsyan is a poor boy, according to the public declarations database. But if you have time,
take a look at the investigative report I covered in Ap29/2020 news, according to which Vanetsyan's family allegedly used offshore firms and owns mining shares.
More on that here. Here is a
Hetq investigative report.
Vanetsyan's father owns
AV Group flower importing business. About a year ago, the police investigated several flower sellers near a stadium. An opposition outlet claimed that the sellers were "beaten and forced" to testify that Vanetsyan's father was running an underground business. This was never properly proven and the opposition's claim that Vanetsyan was about to be charged did not happen. The police confirmed that there was an investigation against several flower sellers. These flower sellers ended up hiring Vanetsyan's co-party-creator Arsen Babayan as a lawyer.
Vanetsyan's father owns 50% shares of
A B Export oil import company that began operating in 2017. It was a minor player that quit the market in 2019. Vanetsyan's father also owns 60% of
A B Trans transportation company.
In Nov/2019,
CivilNet wrote about Arthur Vanetsyan's cousins' possible involvement with Zangezur Copper factory
(massive business). The same offshore firm in Cyprus, which purchased Zangezur shares, was tied to Vanetsyan's cousins' another business in the same offshore.
Vanetsyan's cousins also own a Switzerland-based
Exoil wholesale cooking oil and shipping company. In 2019 it had a revenue of $148 million
(11 billion Rubles). The cousins don't do this business in Armenia.
Per 2019 registration, Arthur Vanetsyan himself owns one apartment, $10,000, and ֏1 million.
Media reported in May/2020 that Vanetsyan's cousin purchased a ֏300 million mansion in Yerevan, which was donated to then-new political party "Hayreniq", co-founded by Arthur Vanetsyan and Arsen Babayan
(the guy who is accused of helping HHK to fabricate documents in 2018 to hijack the Constitutional Court by appointing HHK MP Hrayr Tovmasyan as a judge).
Arthur Vanetsyan's mother served as the chief of the personnel-management department in Serj and Pashinyan administrations, before quitting and working as Serj's aide.
Vanetsyan's wife owns
Villa Montessori preschool in Yerevan. She also runs the
Young Education Center Ltd.
ARF Ishkhan Saghatelyan
Pashinyan appointed Saghatelyan as Gegharquniq governor for a brief period after the 2018 revolution, when Pashinyan created a unity-government, represented by all political parties. The honeymoon soon ended and each party went their way.
Saghatelyan owns shares in
i-mega Service Ltd. It's a tourism agency founded in 2006. It operates in Armenia, Artsakh, and Georgia.
Saghatelyan founded
Navasar company and serves as director. It's owned by his father.
Saghatelyan family owns the
Tsovasar hotel complex on Lake Sevan shores. It's 10,000 m
2 (a hectare?).
As of 2018, Saghatelyan declared ownership of 8 pieces of land, 2 apartments, ֏18.5 million, $45,000, and €15,000.
Saghatelyan's father is the mayor of Gegharquniq's Geghamavan settlement. This municipality had recently sent a letter demanding Pashinyan's resignation.
Saghatelyan used to be a shareholder of
Shiman Ltd which is no longer active.
BHK leader Gagik "dodi gago" Tsarukyan
BUCKLE UP, KIDS! Overall, Tsarukyan runs 54 companies.
Студент, комсомолец, спортсмен, u наконец, он просто красавиц. His business empire was covered in details
here. Textile, gas stations, malls, Multi Group empire, Shangri-La Casino, Ararat Cognac & Wine Factory, BMW official office Euromotors (also Hyundai, Gazel, Niva), Multi Motors, Magas Invest, Multi Wellness, Olimpavan sports complex, Kotayk beer factory, TechnAlyumin door & window factory, Multi Rest House hotel chain, Paravon luxury restaurant, Onira Club, Zvartnot's airport's upper-level service company Avia Service, Farm Adama, Multi Pharm pharmacy, Multi Leon gas stations, Multi Solar solar panels.
He owns shares in Frank Mueller Yerevan watch company, Fortsa, Multi Gold, Multi Diamond jewelry firms, several fish-breeding businesses.
He also runs businesses in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Czechia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia.
Per official declaration, he owns $168 million, €29 million, ֏675 million, 14 pieces of land, 6 houses, 2 public buildings, 1 apartment.
Details for BHK MP Mikael Melkumyan and HHK Vahram Baghdasaryan in the link below.
https://fip.am/14388 https://hetq.am/hy/article/88755 https://www.reddit.com/armenia/comments/gagkyp/apr292020_wednesday_news_armenia_being_sued_fo?
www.civilnet.am/news/2019/11/01/Զանգեզուրի-պղնձամոլիբդենային-Մաքսիմ-Հակոբյանի-ու-նրա-որդու-փոխարեն-նոր-բաժնետերեր-Ժնևից-և-Աջափնյակից/369792 www.1lurer.am/hy/2020/01/29/Բենզինի-շուկա-Արթուր-Վանեցյանի-հայրը-դուրս-է-եկել-ոլորտից-Միքայել-Մինասյանի-մերձավորը՝-խոշորների-մա/182670 opposition continues the demonstrations
The street demonstrations, organized by the former regime and its allies, continue. They demand Pashinyan's resignation and the appointment of their candidate Vazgen Manukyan as the Prime Minister for the duration of a year, after which they agree to hold new elections.
ARF leader Artsvik Minasyan said they don't plan to discuss snap elections with Pashinyan.
"Right now, our only demand is Pashinyan's resignation. We demand SIS to immediately hold every criminal accountable". The demonstrators gathered in front of the SIS building to present the demands.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039316.html Pashinyan meets leaders of several opposition parties
QP leader Lilith: there is a possibility there will be a meeting between Pashinyan and the three Parliamentary political parties. They could discuss snap elections. The impression is that politicians who demand Pashinyan's resignation do not want snap elections in an attempt to bypass the citizen's right to form a government. Our political team reaffirms the position that none of us is clinging on seats. //
LHK MP Gorgisyan: we cannot hold snap elections now, under this chaotic situation. We will discuss snap elections if Pashinyan discusses his resignation and transfer of power.
(LHK wants its leader Marukyan to be elected as Prime Minister by a Parliamentary vote) //
Pashinyan met BHK leader Tsarukyan. The latter is against holding snap elections unless Pashinyan resigns now, and presumably, he wants Vazgen Manukyan appointed as PM.
LHK leader Marukyan also wants Pashinyan to resign now so a new Prime Minister can form a new government cabinet "consisted of experts".
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039261.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039268.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039299.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039322.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039323.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039327.html felony case: ex-HHK MP charged with armed attack on ex-IRS official
In August of this year, Russia extradited a former HHK MP Alraghatsi Lyovik to Armenia. He was wanted for allegedly burglarizing and shooting at a senior IRS official a decade ago. At the time, his case was "frozen". It was relaunched in 2018.
(magic wand) NSS says: suspect Lyovik, with the help of citizens AK and AN, organized an armed burglary against IRS Chief (?) Avetisyan in 2008.
AK was in the United States. In 2004, he stole $150,000 from jewelry shops in Los Angeles. He got caught but managed to flee to Armenia.
Once in Armenia, AK colluded with policeman AN to organize a similar criminal ring in Armenia.
[MP] Lyovik personally knew AK, and learned about their burglaries. Since Lyovik had bad relations with the IRS chief
(victim), he decided to punish the victim by urging AK to burglarize his house. Lyovik revealed the plot to his brother-in-law, who happened to be the victim's personal aide. The latter gave all the personal habits and details about the victim to the burglars.
[read the article for the full story, or wait for a Hollywood movie in theaters near you]
The burglars and organizers are charged with felonies.
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203835 ,
https://youtu.be/brdozVbwQ6A ,
https://factor.am/274836.html ,
https://armtimes.com/hy/article/183522 ,
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203835 ,
Russian Orthodox chapel will be built
... in the Armenian settlement near Nakhijevan where Azerbaijan had earlier shut down a Russian helicopter, which killed and wounded Russian pilots. It'll be on a hill in Yeraskh. Construction starts on January 6th.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039259.html Russian peacekeepers conducted training
... to stay in shape. A report by WarGonzo's Semyon Pegovn who returned to Artsakh to meet the New Year there.
https://youtu.be/-c1BSTkC-a8 Russia and Turkey comment
Russian MFA: The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh should not be used for the infiltration of foreign mercenaries into the region. Here we have exactly the same position as our Turkish partners.
Turkish MFA: we see that a ceasefire has been established. We hope to establish the joint RU-TR monitoring center soon.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039281.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039282.html Vitalik Balasanyan will return the lands, kicks junkies, and restrict Facebook
Artsakh President Arayik earlier announced that he will allow his opponents to take jobs in the new coalition government. Kocharyan-ally Vitali Balasanyan became the Security Council chief.
Vitalik: we will return Hadrut and Askeran region with the help of Russian and Armenian military-political efforts. We are in a better situation now to solve territorial issues.
We will soon create border guard forces. It will report to MoD, which will report to the Security Council
(his office).
Drugs have no place in Artsakh. Drug users must quit or leave Artsakh now.
We need to return to traditional values of giving women as wives after asking if the man had served in the army.
No public official will be allowed to use Facebook during work.
More:
https://youtu.be/DceHyi4AB5g https://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/289056/ search operations are paused / the "welcome to Azerbaijan" sign
Azerbaijan received criticism for refusing to allow search teams to enter the Hadrut region yesterday. They also prevented UNESCO from checking the status of several Armenian cultural sights, after complaining that UNESCO was "biased" against Azerbaijan during the war.
HR Ombudsman: Any untrue information can not be a reason to disrupt the humanitarian process [referring to unconfirmed rumors on social media that Armenians opened fire at Azeris in Hadrut. An unofficial Iranian social media channel claims 3 Azeris were killed but due to an internal fight.]
The Human Rights Ombudsman also criticized the Azeri troops for installing a provocative "welcome to Azerbaijan" sign on part of a road that went under Azeri control near Syunik borders. The Ombudsman says it's meant to intimidate the locals.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039233.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039237.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039244.html ,
https://factor.am/325511.html Parliament votes: BHK MP Naira Zohrabyan's chairmanship
Context: BHK MP Naira Zohrabyan referred to the majority of Armenian voters as human trash *(or as she says: impure), and called for the establishment of forced re-education camps so people won't vote for a "wrong party" again. The ruling QP party launched a process to terminate her chairmanship in Parliamentary Human Rights Committee.
Read yesterday's thread for more details.*
QP MP Arthur: the law states that the Parliament can appoint and terminate the chairman. The termination of this seat does not require the same procedures as in the case of MPs and Judges. Armenian Constitution states that in Armenia, human beings are of the highest value, and inalienable human dignity is the inseparable basis of their rights and freedoms. MP Zohrabyan's public conduct is against it. //
The law gives the second-largest political party the mandate to appoint the chairman of this particular Committee. BHK, being the second-largest party, said they wouldn't appoint a replacement if Zohrabyan is voted out.
QP MP Arthur: per rules, if BHK refuses to appoint a new candidate, the largest (QP) party will receive the mandate. //
Parliament voted 78-4 to terminate Zohrabyan's chairmanship. BHK and LHK did not vote.
BHK MP Zohrabyan: this termination was a Constitutional crime.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039245.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039264.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039304.html ,
https://factor.am/325132.html Parliament votes: registering parties becomes easier / ideology instead of person / financial transparency
The goal of this reform is to have political parties that are more about ideology and less about an individual. The reform will boost internal democracy within parties; it will expand the powers of the Party Assembly.
Parties will be required to add more anonymous voting mechanisms.
The law also requires more financial transparency.
The required membership to register a party is lowered from 800 to 300.
Some of the public funding given to political parties will depend on the % of female members in the administrative boards.
Parliament voted 99-1 to approve it.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039270.html ,
https://youtu.be/bPuZViCCCxo Parliament votes: monthly fees towards soldiers' recovery are raised
Most workers pay a monthly 1000 Dram towards the Soldiers' Fund, which takes care of wounded soldiers and families of those who died. The govt found it necessary to raise the fee to cover thousands of new recipients. Here are the new fees and salary brackets:
֏1,500 for < ֏100k/month
֏3,000 for < ֏200k
֏5,500 for < ֏500k
֏8,500 for < ֏1 million
֏15,000 for > ֏1 million
Parliament voted 89-0 to approve it.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039296.html Parliament votes: ban on public smoking is delayed until 2022
The govt had adopted a law to ban smoking in public cafes and the public display of cigarettes in grocery shops. The ruling party wanted to delay parts of the bill that were set to go into effect in January, citing possible financial issues for businesses caused by the pandemic.
QP MP: the cigarette industry pays $383 million to state coffers.
Healthcare Ministry: it will be a mistake if you delay this bill for the sake of $10 million in tax revenues.
Parliament voted 86-0 to delay the anti-smoking bill until 2022.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039295.html Parliament votes: no tax on goods donated to Armenia
QP MP: When you donate a charitable product to the Republic of Armenia, you are exempt from customs duties and other tax payments, except for one payment, which we are trying to exempt with this bill as well. //
Parliament voted 80-0 to approve it.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039297.html how is the Judicial Branch doing?
The Supreme Court protects or punishes judges. It also handles complaints. It's separate from the Constitutional Court.
bad boys 19 complaints against judges were heard, 14 of which were petitioned by Justice Ministry and 4 by Judicial Ethics Board. 10 judges ended up receiving disciplinary penalties, 3 received a warning, 3 were reprimanded, 2 were terminated, 4 were cleared.
the system is overloaded 61 judges are handling 6470 felony cases.
86 judges handle 175,940 civil cases.
24 judges handle 17,390 administrative cases.
The number of Arbitration cases rose from 3100 to 9900.
finances This year, Supremes appointed 20 new judges. Supreme's budget remained the same this year. They returned ֏607 million in savings back to state coffers.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039249.html ,
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039284.html anti-corruption: SIS busts an IRS agent
SIS says: IRS border inspector took a bribe from a citizen to help him avoid paying Millions of ֏ in import taxes by splitting a large load into smaller pieces, so each piece would fall below the taxable threshold.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039293.html IRS wants you to file less paperwork
IRS says the latest reforms will help the exporters and simplify the process in which Armenia is used as a transit country for trade. Some tasks can be done online.
More:
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039247.html update: electricity prices
...won't go up for low-income families or those using less than 400 kWh. That's 90% of consumers. The rest will pay 3 Drams more. The rates are presented (6-10¢):
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039285.html police to guard Lake Sevan against poachers
Police and Nature Ministry have set up additional checkpoints as part of measures against whitefish poaching in Sevan. 24/7 monitoring on all alleys leading to the lake. They will also travel across markets to catch contraband whitefish.
Why? It's the egg-laying season. Fishing is banned for now. The legally-allowed fishing tools were temporarily removed from the lake.
https://youtu.be/8ZyRGpEazMQ https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039339.html rare Caucasus Leopard is spotted by cameras again
https://youtu.be/2nidC5QJaIg "only 10% of villagers should do agriculture"
...the rest should have access to other jobs. There is an opportunity now because many businesses operate remotely. Call Center workers don't have to visit an office. Businesses would rather pay less to hire a rural remote worker than more to hire someone in a Yerevan office.
The High Tech Ministry has an ongoing program to teach IT to 5,000 citizens. We must help workers to expand their skillset. We're working on a program to allow a worker to quit the job, not worry about the food on the table, and have enough time for education and learning new skills.
The villagers should ideally lease their smaller lands to large agricultural producers," said Economy Minister Qerobyan.
Full interview:
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039319.html State regulators bust another price-fixing ring: fruit mafia
Yesterday, the Economic Competition Committee busted the egg industry's alleged price-fixing and anti-competitive practices. Today they say a similar collision was observed in the orange, mandarin, kiwi, lemon industry.
The companies Best Fruits, Art-Fruits, and Promout were slapped with a ֏39 million in penalties for colluding to raise the prices for the products that had an increased demand during the pandemic period.
http://www.competition.am/.../resources/Vo370_17_12_2020.pdf https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039269.html Lenovo slapped for "anti-competitive practice"
The Economic Competition Committee heard a petition filed by
Oazis Computer company against Lenovo. The latter was issued a warning for anti-competitive behavior.
Public Regulator: "Lenovo" company had the ability to influence the process of importing Lenovo computers to Armenia from non-EAEU trade bloc countries. "Lenovo" took steps to reduce the import of Lenovo computers from non-EAEU states, by discriminating against
Oazis Computer importer. Lenovo is given a month to correct the issue and fix the requirement and standards related paperwork.
(Facebook next?) https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039333.html Artsakh will also increase childbirth benefits
First child: ֏300k instead of ֏100k
Second child: ֏300k instead of ֏200k
(or ֏500k if one parent is disabled)
As for monthly child care subsidy payments, it goes from ֏15k to ֏27k until the child turns 2.
https://factor.am/325487.html year wrap-up: births in capital Yerevan
girls 2019: 10173
girls 2020: 10489
boys 2019: 11251
boys 2020: 11430
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039278.html year wrap-up: tax revenues
2018: ֏1.257 trillion
2019: ֏1.458 trillion
2020: ֏1.379 trillion
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203846 COVID stats
+2483 tested. +348 infected. +22 deaths. +1267 healed. 13881 active.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039240.html chess news
Levon Aronyan has advanced to the
Airthings Masters quarter-finals where he will play against Hikaru Nakamura. He is 1pt behind the leaders. The winner receives a $60,000 prize.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/airthings-masters-chess-day-4 https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039228.html French city of Valence to name a street
... after Artsakh capital Stenapakert. It already had Ijevan Park, Armenia Street, and Yerevan Street. Stepanakert Street will be located in a newly built district. There will be Toros Street as well.
https://youtu.be/EuQV5bt4Ytc https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203833 Italian city of di Lovere has officially recognized the Artsakh Republic
https://www.facebook.com/HayastaniDespanutyun/posts/3499573803472410 https://factor.am/325379.html Kapan Medical Center has a new CT scanner
... thanks to generous diasporan donors like you. The first one was installed during the war in Goris city.
https://factor.am/325090.html Artsakh children receive New Years' gifts
Focus on Children Now charity organization distributed gifts to hundreds of Artsakh kids residing in Gegharquniq province. Backpacks, clothing, items of basic necessity, money, and postcards written by kids living in the United States.
https://www.focusonchildrennow.org/ https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039302.html Himnadram donates to refugee families
700 Artsakh families continue to live in 40 settlements of Gegharquniq province. The All Armenia Fund (HimnaDram.org) has provided food and household items to 241 families ahead of New Year.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039313.html daily life in Syunik bordering villages Shurnukh and Vorotan
https://youtu.be/E1UJd4NtLLs https://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/12/29/Շուռնուխ-Որոտան․-կյանքը-անկոչ-հարևանների-հետ/414772 donations for Artsakh & recovering soldiers
www.1000plus.am (recovering soldiers & their families)
www.HimnaDram.org (for Artsakh & Armenia)
www.ArmeniaFund.org (U.S. tax-deductible)
archive of older posts
Armeniapedia's archive of my daily news threads
: http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Daily_Anti-Corruption_Reports disclaimer
All the accused are considered innocent unless proven guilty in the court of law, even if they "sound" guilty.
submitted by Note: The particularly important details and music artist names are in
bold text. Licensed music track names are in
italics.
The year is 1973, five years after the events of the Mafia III, and 22 years since Vito Scaletta’s seen or heard from his old friend Joe Barbaro. The canon ending of Mafia III with this Mafia IV story is Vito taking over the city after Lincoln skipped town, however Cassandra and Burke are left alive and loyal to both Vito and Lincoln still. Burke was able to survive his liver cancer by getting a black market liver transplant in Mexico, like he did in his ending, except with Vito running the city. On Vito and Lincoln’s behalf, Burke and Cassandra agree to stay behind in New Bordeaux and keep the city locked down, incase Leo Galante and the Commission try anything.
The beginning cutscene is Vito answering his telephone after getting up in the morning in his new penthouse, on the top floor of the New Bordeaux casino he finished that was once Sal Marcano's, and grabbing a cup of coffee. It's Alma with some urgent news. Lincoln Clay came down to the cigar warehouse to visit her after 5 years of silence, and he has big news.
Joe is alive in Empire Bay and has been this entire time. However, as punishment for his actions, he's become Leo Galante's personal driver against his will and is forbidden from contacting Vito ever again, or else him and Vito will be killed. Alma then tells Vito to meet Lincoln at the airport to learn more, as he's already there awaiting Vito's arrival. When they're away from anyone who could listen in on their conversation, Lincoln tells Vito he has a friend named John Donovan he's going to introduce him to, hiding in the outskirts of Empire Bay, ready to help Vito and Lincoln with their new mission
Vito gets dressed in one of his signature trench coats with a suit and tie, ready to rain down hell on the Vinci crime family and their allies, and finally be reunited with his lifelong friend he previously thought was dead, Joe Barbaro.
Here is my idea for the kill list, all related to the Commission in Empire Bay and their allies.
- Leo Galante - Top target on the list, Vinci family consigliere who's in with the Commission and the man you thought put Joe in the ground for the past 22 years. Bury this wrinkly old cocksucker.
- Johnny Galante - Vinci family capo and younger relative of Leo's mentioned in Cassandra's ending, possibly Leo's cousin even. John Donovan knows that the two are close, and that Johnny's a valuable asset to Leo's organization. Kill him both to hurt Leo's earn and influence, and to hit him straight in the heart by taking away his family and everyone he loves
- Michele Galante Jr. - Another Vinci family capo, and Leo Galante’s youngest brother. Killing Leo’s little brother will both take away one of his most reliable allies, and leave him stricken with grief and enraged, and more prone to making mistakes.
- Nunzio Galante - Leo’s seasoned older brother by 3 years, and yet another Vinci family capo. He knows enough about smuggling that he worked out an ingenious plan for smuggling military grade weapons into the city. He pays off corrupt officials at Empire Bay International Airport, to allow guns to be loaded inside the walls and floors of planes, unknown to everyone onboard save for the palms the Galantes and Frank Vinci have greased to cooperate and keep quiet. The time has come to put this crafty old bastard in the ground.
- Don Frank Vinci - Frank Vinci is the boss of the Vinci crime family, the family Leo's been a consigliere of for decades, and a lifelong friend of his. Kill Frank, and Leo loses more ground than he could ever imagine, and will be forced to deal with both the loss of his boss, and the loss of his lifelong childhood friend.
- Don Ennio Salieri - Longtime close friend of both Frank Vinci and Leo Galante, Don of the Salieri crime family, and a third party Frank and Leo call in to crush Vito's uprising, when it becomes too big of an issue for Vinci alone to handle. Salieri was eventually able to grease enough palms while behind bars to have his life sentence overturned, and he got released from prison on good behavior in 1953, after he served 15 years of his sentence. He’s since relocated to his main operations to Empire Bay, having already had connections and men present there while he was in prison, backed by the Commission and the Vinci crime family. He's seasoned, but he’s nothing Mr. Scaletta can't handle. Give this tired old fuck the gangland ending he's had coming.
- Isaac - Isaac is the personal assistant to an influential loan shark named Bruno Levine, who handles the money of the Commission, including the Vinci crime family and the Salieri crime family. He does anything from serve his boss coffee, to count incoming and outgoing money for Bruno. Because of his duties, he's aware of Bruno's location at all times. You’ll need to get to Isaac to get information on his boss out of him, and dispose of him afterwards if you want to get to Bruno.
- Bruno Levine - Bruno is a Jewish-American loan shark who kicks up all of his earn to both Frank Vinci and Ennio Salieri, and the Commission in Empire Bay. Killing him kills a lot of earn for the Commission, and they loses a valuable asset. In addition to getting rid of him being practical, to add insult to injury, he gave your father that loan. It's about time to put this asshole out of business.
- Mr. Chu & Mr. Chu Jr. - This old man has been leading the Empire Bay Triads with an iron fist since before you were even born. The bastard has a son too, who eventually went on to become his underboss. The Empire Bay Triads became a close ally of the Vinci crime family, the Salieri crime family, and the Commission shortly after Vito killed Don Carlo Falcone in 1951, forming a lucrative partnership with the Commission. Mr. Chu and his eldest son are valuable assets for Leo Galante who give him extra reach. Melt their iron fists and show these two pricks just who they fucked with.
- Eddie Scarpa - This cocksucker used to be Carlo Falcone's underboss for as long as you could remember. After you whacked Falcone in the fall of 1951, he decided to throw in with Vinci to save his own skin. He took over the smuggling and dock union extortion that fat fuck Derek Pappalardo used to run. You know all too well how to deal with this sorry fuckin' rat.
I'm thinking Vito and Joe work with Lincoln Clay and John Donovan to split up Empire Bay and distribute territory to three other factions not unlike what Lincoln did with New Bordeaux. This time though, this is a much larger city in a much, much different part of the United States. The empire building mechanics would be a lot smoother, more robust, and streamlined compared to Mafia III. They would work similarly a more modernized version of how the hit city sandbox game
Scarface: The World Is Yours handled it's empire building and management mechanics, minus the whole switching to other characters lower on the ladder to do your bidding. This would be ideal for a story rich organized crime game in my opinion. Here are my ideas for those factions, all close allies of the up and coming Scaletta crime family.
The Cuban mob led by Alma Diaz. Vito goes way back with Alma, and she does not hesitate to answer him and Lincoln's calls to save Joe's life and royally fuck both Leo Galante and the Vinci family.
Conti crime family, led by Enzo Conti. This Conti crime family formed sometime in late 1968, months after Lincoln helped Enzo flee New Bordeaux and drop off of Sal Marcano's radar. It turns out he fled north to Empire Bay and finally formed his own family, having more than enough years of experience in the underworld to handle the job. Lincoln's tight with him and manages to recruit him to Vito and Joe's cause.
The Yakuza, based out of Empire Bay's Japantown. Longtime sworn enemies of the Empire Bay Triads, with bad blood going back decades. They would greatly enjoy seeing Mr. Chu and his son's heads mounted on pikes, along with whacking everyone who's ever supported their organization. You don't know them well, and they're known to be very unpredictable and ruthless. Use these traits to your advantage when taking on the Commission of Empire Bay and their friends.
I should mention as expected, this entire 1973 section where you play as Vito is much shorter than Mafia III. Vito's takeover is shown much more quickly over time than Lincoln's, and there's time skips during it, to keep it short and sweet, and to show onscreen only what's important. There is also no option for your underbosses to betray you, as to reduce confusion and keep the story consistently the same each playthrough, like the first two Mafia games. However, unlike Mafia III, after all of these tasks are completed and every single assassination target on Vito’s kill list is dealt with, the game does not end. In fact, it's not even anywhere near close to being over yet. Vito's 1973 section was merely the beginning act. It was really a lead up to an entirely new Mafia story, centering around a newcomer to the American mob. Fast forward two years following Vito’s rampage that led to him taking over Empire Bay and the Commission, in the year 1975 him and Joe now rule Empire Bay, with Vito as the Don of the Scaletta Crime Family, and Joe working as his loyal underboss. You play the rest of the game as a young up and coming soldato named Louis in his 20’s, who’s a rising star in Vito’s organization. Do right by Mr. Scaletta and Mr. Barbaro, understand kid?
My basic idea for the character and his backstory is that he's a young Italian-Canadian mobster from Toronto, Ontario, or whatever Mafia's equivalent of it could be called. Let's call him
Louis DeSimone. His family hails from Tuscany in Italy and moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1939, shortly after World War II broke out in Europe. Louis DeSimone was born in July 1952 in Toronto, and was raised in Toronto's Little Italy. Being northern Italian and hailing from Tuscany, Louis has blond hair and green eyes, making him visually very distinct from past series protagonists, who were all dark haired brunets with brown eyes. Louis fled south to Empire Bay when the feds started cracking down on his old family and put his boss in prison, and he ended up finding a new home with the Scaletta crime family. The first few missions playing as Louis DeSimone involve shooting your away out of an arrest by a Toronto Police Service SWAT team in Toronto in December 1974, seeing the rest of the members of your old crime family either get arrested or shot in front of you as you make your escape. You spend the next two missions fleeing Ontario through Quebec and upstate New York, before finally arriving in Empire Bay in early 1975, late January to be exact. Winter is in full force with snow everywhere, Louis' arrival to Empire Bay for the first time in his life mirroring Vito's return to Empire Bay in 1945 30 years earlier, except under far different much more dire circumstances. Louis' older brother and his father, both capos in his old crime family in Toronto, are shown to be arrested by the TPS SWAT team in his first mission, the same one that attempted to gun him down when he resisted arrested. Louis knows someone had to have ratted out his old crime family, and he wants to find out who someday. The thing is though, he doesn't just want to kill them. He wants to get out of them why they did it before he kills them. More than anything else, he just wants to find out why his crime family was betrayed and served up to the feds on a silver platter, having most of his biological family sent to prison in the process. He’s out to uncover the mystery of why his family fell apart, and he’s more than willing to help people like Don Vito Scaletta and his underboss Joe Barbaro to eventually get the answers he seeks. In the end, he’s not even after revenge primarily, more than that, he wants answers and information regarding the fare of his old crime family, and wants to know why his family fell apart. I came up with the idea for this character because I figured that playing as a fugitive from the law made sense for the mob life, and I'm surprised we haven't had a fugitive protagonist in the Mafia series yet.
In the 1975 chapters while playing as Louis, the Watergate scandal, President Richard Nixon’s resignation, and the official end to the Vietnam War are all discussed on the in-game radio during news segments. In the last 1979 chapter, the beginning of the Soviet-Afghan War is also the subject of a news segment on the radio.
The story eventually transitions into the 1980's as years pass, with the scenery, cars, and music changing accordingly, and historical events of the time discussed in the game. In the 1989 section of the game, the murder of the infamous former Sinclair Parish Sheriff Walter “Slim” Beaumont is mentioned on the in-game radio, as just over 21 years ago Slim and his corruption ring were the top headline of national news. the time the game ends, it's 1992, and significant historical events from the past few years at the time that are covered on the radio in-game include anything from the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, to the 1992 L.A. riots. The rise of the internet and home computers are briefly touched upon during news segments on the in-game radio during the early 1990's section of the story, but not greatly delved into given their relative infancy in that time period.
During this entire 1975-1992 stretch of the story, Vito is no longer playable, and Don Scaletta takes a backseat in the story as a main supporting character, similar to Don Salieri throughout Mafia: Definitive Edition. You now play as the Italian-Canadian Scaletta family soldato Louis DeSimone, who is later promoted to being a capo in 1985. At the end of the game in 1992, Louis is promoted to Consigliere of the Scaletta crime family, and it’s revealed in the epilogue that he became the don of the family in 2006 at the age of 54, and his now released from prison older brother serving as his underboss, and and Enzo Conti’s grandson Giovanni Conti serving as consigliere, taking over from Louis’ previous position which before that belonged to his father and Enzo’s only son, Lorenzo Conti from 1973-1992. It is worth noting that unlike Don Salieri, Don Scaletta has much more integrity, and has more genuine loyalty for his men and his associates. If you've beaten Mafia 1 or Mafia: Definitive Edition, you'll know this is something Salieri lacked in the end. Over time, Louis also goes from having a strictly business relationship with Vito and Joe, to bonding with them and becoming a genuinely close friend and trusted member of the family, seeing Vito as something of a second father, and coming to see Joe as the fun uncle he never had. Another major character development theme is Louis DeSimone adapting and assimilating into Italian-American culture in his new home in the Northeastern US, it seeming like something new mixed with the familiar Italian-Canadian culture he was raised in back in Ontario just north of the border.
The game will include a number of hit music from the 70’s that played on the radio back then, such as
Bobby Womack’s
Across 110th Street and
Tony Christie’s
(Is This the Way to) Amarillo,
The Grateful Dead's
Casey Jones and at least a few songs by the then new American rock band
Cheap Trick, as well as popular songs from the 1960’s people still listened to at the time, such as
Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs’
Wooly Bully,
King Crimson’s
21st Century Schizoid Man, Zager and Evans'
In the Year 2525,
The Zombies'
Time of the Season, and
Nancy Sinatra’s
These Boots Are Made for Walkin'. When you progress through the game, especially after you switch to playing as Louis DeAngelo for the rest of the story, years change, and the music changes. Different songs start playing on the radio, such as
Sylvester's
You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), Randy Crawford's
Street Life, and
The Village People's
Y.M.C.A.,
Cheryl Lynn's
Got to Be Real,
Gloria Gaynor's
I Will Survive, and the
Bee Gees'
Stayin' Alive start playing in the 1979 portion of the game. After you've completed the 1975 section of the game,
Foghat's
Slow Ride starts playing on the radio. Starting in the 1977 section of the game,
Cheap Trick's
I Want You to Want Me and
Heart's
Barracuda start playing on the radio. In the 1980's portion of the game,
Thomas Dolby's songs
Hyperactive! and
She Blinded Me with Science, in addition to
Night Ranger's
Sister Christian also start playing on the radio. If Hangar 13 can afford the licenses, I also think a few
Michael Jackson and
Madonna songs should definitely be on the radio during the 1980's portion of the story, given the immense popularity and regular radio airtime those two had in that decade. If this ended up being possible, I imagine that
Michael Jackson's
Smooth Criminal,
Beat It,
Bad, and
Billie Jean being on the radio in the 80's sections would be a must, Smooth Criminal especially because of how well it suits the series.
Madonna's
Lucky Star,
Burning Up,
Like a Virgin, and
Borderline would also be perfect for the 80's portion of the game to me. Also mentioned by NPCs and civilians in the game are topical events of the time period, such as the release of the groundbreaking 1973 horror film
The Exorcist at the end of Vito's playable portion of the game.
Other music of the 1980's segment when playing as Louis DeAngelo for the remainder of the game includes hits of the era such as
Joe Jackson's
Steppin' Out,
The Buggles'
Video Killed The Radio Star,
Corey Hart's
Sunglasses at Night, Laura Branigan's
Self Control and
Gloria,
The Weather Girls'
It's Raining Men,
A-ha’s
Take On Me,
Men at Work's
Down Under,
Kim Wilde's
Kids in America,
The Gap Band's
You Dropped a Bomb on Me,
Culture Club’s
Karma Chameleon,
Michael Sembello’s
Maniac,
Twisted Sister's
I Wanna Rock and
We're Not Gonna Take It,
Bon Jovi's
Wanted Dead or Alive and
Bad Medicine,
Soft Cell’s
Tainted Love,
Robert Palmer’s
Simply Irresistible,
Rick Astley’s
Together Forever,
Whenever You Need Somebody, and
Never Gonna Give You Up,
Cutting Crew’s
[I Just] Died In Your Arms,
Loverboy's
Working for the Weekend,
Dead or Alive's
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) and
That's the Way (I Like It),
Tiffany’s
I Think We’re Alone Now,
Daryl Hall & John Oates'
Maneater,
Aneka's
Japanese Boy,
Mötley Crüe's
Dr. Feelgood,
Girls, Girls, Girls and
Kickstart My Heart,
Billy Joel's
We Didn't Start the Fire,
Huey Lewis And The News'
Hip To Be Square,
Bill Medley's
(I've Had) The Time of My Life,
The Police's
Every Breath You Take,
Whodini's
Magic's Wand,
Guns ‘N Roses’
Welcome to the Jungle and
Paradise City,
Tears For Fears'
Everybody Wants To Rule The World,
Rockwell's
Somebody's Watching Me,
Regina's
Baby Love,
Nena's
99 Red Balloons,
Earth, Wind, and Fire's
Let's Groove and
September,
Billy Idol's
Eyes Without a Face and
White Wedding,
Rick James’
Give It To Me Baby,
Olivia Newton-John’s
Physical,
The S.O.S. Band’s
Take Your Time (Do It Right),
Kenny Loggins’
Highway to the Danger Zone,
Wham!’s
Everything She Wants,
George Michael's
Careless Whisper,
Toto's
Hold the Line and
Africa,
Blondie's
Heart of Glass and
Atomic, and
Mai Tai's
History.
**Note that not every single year and moment of the 17 year 1975-1992 section playing as Louis DeAngelo is playable or chronicled. My idea is it would be handled similarly to how the time skips in Mafia 1/Mafia: Definitive Edition were handled. Time skips of two or more years, or in this case, even longer such as 4 years sometimes, the game skipping from 1979 to 1983. This is to keep the game and story length ideal, and not risk it getting boring or repetitive, or going on for too long. Repetition was a big problem in Mafia III even if I still thought it was a superb game, so I think it'd be best to learn from that for the next big entry. The games story will skip ahead and show onscreen only what's significant, similar to the first Mafia game and it's remake, as well as certain aspects of Mafia II. Louis starts his section as a 22 year old fugitive soldato who got picked up by another crew south of the Canadian border, and in the epilogue of the game in 1992, is promoted to the consigliere of the Scaletta crime family at the age of 40, being set to take over the family once Vito and Joe become too old to run the day to day on a regular basis. Louis DeSimone is promoted to don of the Scaletta crime family following Vito and Joe being officially retired as of 2006. They’re both still involved and paid huge amounts of money by Louis out of respect, but keep a much lower profile by then since they have handpicked successors and aren’t worried about where the business is going.
The years chronicled in the main gameplay segments are as follows: 1973 1975 1977 1979 1983 1985 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 Much more of the rural areas and countryside outside of Empire Bay are included than what was available in Mafia II. The way rural environments are handled for this hypothetical Mafia IV is akin to how Mafia: Definitive Edition and Mafia III handled their rural environments outside the main cities, except much larger in scale, given the increased power of the current new consoles such as the PS5 and Xbox Series X. This region is based off of upstate New York and the surrounding areas across multiple states in the Northeastern US, and includes forests, fields, mountains, rivers, lakes, beaches, and small towns. Also included are other cities and towns, based off of other large cities in New York like Syracuse, Buffalo, and Rochester, where other story missions, business activities, and side missions take place, along with smaller notable places like Ithaca, Binghamton, and Utica. The entire states of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio are also included, including places based off of all of their major cities and most of their notable towns in between. Large portions of Pennsylvania are included as well, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Scranton. All of the province of Nova Scotia including the city of Halifax, and Large portions of the eastern half of the Canadian province of Ontario are included as well, including cities based off of Toronto, Ottawa, and Niagara Falls. There's even a small portion of Quebec included, including Montreal and the surrounding countryside of the province outside that city, including a few small towns in southern Quebec. The player must pass a quick border patrol check when crossing the US-Canada border in a car or other ground vehicle.
Wildlife is present in the game, mostly to add to the background, scenery, and immersion in rural environments on the map. These are all animals native to the Northeastern US, ranging from white tailed deer, coyotes, bobcats, Canada lynxes, rabbits, hares, groundhogs, gophers, beavers, raccoons, opossums, bats, chipmunks, red and gray squirrels, mice, and rats to more formidable and potentially dangerous animals that may sometimes attack the player, such as grey wolves, black bears, mountain lions, and moose. These last four animals are known to spawn in the mountainous regions, especially in New York, Ohio, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Ontario, including the rural regions based off of the Catskills and the Adirondack mountains. Dogs are present in the cities, towns, and settlements where humans live and keep them as pets, being walked and sometimes found in people's yards. Some are used as guard dogs by enemies and are aggressive towards the player on sight. Domestic cats are also present in the background of residential areas, and both Louis and Vito own them as pets throughout the game in their safe houses, as well as other onscreen characters we see the homes of throughout the game.
Aircraft make their first usable appearance in the Mafia series too, from airplanes to helicopters.
Vito cannot use planes or helicopters in his playable 1973 portion of the game, as he does not know how to pilot, being a paratrooper in World War II who never actually flew any of the planes himself. Aircraft are unlocked to use when Louis DeSimone gets his pilot’s certificate offscreen in 1977, and at the end of a chapter set that year, Louis has to fly Vito in a helicopter to a penthouse in Downtown Empire Bay acting as a family safe house, equipped with a helipad. Louis frequently serves as a personal driver and pilot for both Vito and Joe afterwards, having done a lot in his time serving the family to earn their trust and respect.
Melee weapons also make a return from Mafia: Definitive Edition, with even more variety this time. In their respective sections of the game, Vito and Louis may use anything from baseball bats, pipes, shovels, brass knuckles, golf clubs, police batons, switchblades, kitchen knives, bowie knives, ice picks, 2x4s, claw hammers, crowbars, tire irons, chain links, machetes, meat cleavers, pickaxes, hatchets, sledgehammers, to fire axes. This amount of melee weapons is so no matter what environment the player finds themselves in during a mission or any other game activity, there is usually a weapon of some sort nearby. If the player has obtained piano wire, you may also strangle an enemy to death with it from behind as a stealth kill, this being a classic assassination method infamous for being used by the Italian Mafia. Rope can also be found and used for similar strangulation stealth kills, appearing in the gameplay environments where piano wire can’t be found. There is a wide variety of new guns and explosives to use in this concept for Mafia IV, going with the new weapons of the time the game takes place that criminals quickly got their hands on. This includes the SPAS-12 combat shotgun, the Beretta 92 pistol, the AK-74 assault rifle, the mini uzi, the MAC-10 submachine gun, both suppressed and unsuppressed variants, the Beretta 92 pistol, the Taurus raging bull revolver, Glock handguns, the TEC-9 machine pistol, illegally modified to be full auto, the Ruger Mini-14 full auto variant, and even Vietnam war era flamethrowers, which I think is only natural given that as of Mafia III, we already have RPGs and grenade launchers. Late in the game from the 1989 section and onwards, the Benelli M3 combat shotgun becomes available. The Milkor MGL grenade launcher becomes available beginning in the 1983 portion of the game. Attached grenade launchers are also available for the AK-47, AK-74, and M16 assault rifles. More advanced rocket launchers of the 1970’s and 1980’s are naturally included as well.
Free ride makes a return in Mafia IV, with the player having the options to change the weather, time period, and an option to play as Louis, Vito, Joe, Lincoln, or John Donovan. Naturally, a multitude of new free ride missions are available as well.
I previously posted a much earlier and less detailed draft of this on the old
Mafia3 subreddit 3 years ago back in 2017 as an idea for a hypothetical Mafia 3 expansion where you play as Vito, but have since updated and revamped it to a possible Mafia IV plot, and fixed any plot holes I noticed and made it much more fleshed out and in depth, and focus on more than just Vito in the end. You may view my original here if you so desire, to compare.
https://www.reddit.com/Mafia3/comments/6sldhp/spoiler_mafia_iii_vito_dlc_basic_plot_idea/ Feel free to give me constructive criticism on this, as I encourage this discourse and believe it is integral to growing and improving, to build upon or improve these ideas I've come up with, or say whether or not you think something like this should happen in the future. Thank you for reading!
submitted by DCNext Proudly Presents…! STARMAN
Written by Fortanono Edited by VoidKiller826 << Previous | Next >> (coming February) -=-=-=-= 🌟 =-=-=-=-
Part 1: Jennifer Knight ”Now!” Ted barks through my earphone. I dash between the rooftops of a series of old brick buildings and look down. Courtney and Jack are shooting blasts of energy through the dense pale-green fog that fills the streets around us; Rick is looking around, clearly bored but unable to actually do anything. Darrell is above the arena, making sure everything goes smoothly, and Aunt Sandra is
somewhere around here but I have no actual idea where. I jump down, twisting my dial to the “Bubble” mode as I land. Quickly, I summon a purple-black bubble around me, trapping just a bit of the Mist’s fog in it. I’ve successfully separated part of the Mist from the rest of him, but I’ll have to be quick about what comes next.
The small tendril of fog in my bubble seems to realize what’s happening as I dart as far as I can down the street. I see it bend and contract, diving into my throat. I start choking; it becomes harder and harder to breathe, but I just have to go a bit further out. Eventually, as I begin to get light-headed, I release the bubble and switch my dial to “Panic.” A burst of energy surrounds me, knocking the fog away from me and out of my mouth. I cough a bit before straightening myself and speaking into my microphone.
”He’s gonna try to reassemble himself,” I say.
”Darrell, it’s your move.” ”Right,” Darrell says. I can’t see him above the battlefield, but I immediately notice his presence as dozens of tiny blue-and-red drones drift down from the sky, each one with fans. They surround the Mist’s missing piece, keeping him in one place, still separate from the cloud that Jack, Rick, and Courtney are dealing with.
”Fantastic,” Ted radios in.
”Mist’s primary goal will always be to keep himself together. It’s a sort of side-effect to his powers. Keep him there, and the rest of him’ll follow eventually, no matter how hard he resists.” It takes a few seconds, but the giant cloud of fog slowly starts drifting to meet up with the smaller one. Courtney and Jack rush over to the area with the fans, both concentrating fire on the one position where they’re merging. I turn my dial to “Energy Blast” and add my own energy to the mixture. Slowly but surely, the green fog begins to get thicker, and soon enough, the figure of the Mist begins to take hold.
“I was hoping you guys still thought I was in Gotham,” he mutters in a raspy voice. I stare at the face of the villain that Ted had been so worried about, remembering how we had prepared for this battle for over a month before he felt comfortable sending us out. He looks old, weak; in his eyes, I see a man who knows he’s been defeated, a man who may have once been a titan but whom old age has gotten to. I smile as Aunt Sandra decloaks and cuffs him with a pair of power-dampening handcuffs. Nearby, a police car pulled up and Clarence, one of the older O’Dare brothers, escorts him away.
“I will be back,” he hisses. “You should all know that.”
I know that it’s still possible for him to come back once again, that he had even come back when the world thought he was dead. There is a sincere promise in his words. But even so, seeing the frail figure of Opal City’s legendary villain once again defeated, I smile.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Rick, Darrell, Courtney, and I re-enter Ted’s workshop once again; Jack and Sandra split from us and went back to the Stargazer. As we descend the stairs, I could tell that Ted was over the moon.
“Wow,” he says to himself. “Just… wow. I’ll be entirely honest; I was certain we would have had to retreat at some point during that battle. I did not expect this to be one and done.”
“Well,” Rick chuckles, “I think the guy’s just a fucking pansy. No offense; I get why you couldn’t beat him or whatever, but like, the dude tries to make us go to Gotham so he didn’t have to deal with us. Again, no offense; I’m sure you were, like, a great hero in your time, of course.”
Ted laughs heartily. “None taken. I’m sure that as he’s gotten older, he’s had to rely more on cheap parlor tricks like the one in Gotham. I, for one, definitely knows how the aging process can take a toll on your abilities. I’m just… so happy that bastard is behind bars again.”
Courtney nods. “Here here.”
“Anyway,” Ted says, “I’d like to let you know that our little merry band of heroes is going to get a fifth member fairly soon.” His tone sours as he continues to speak. “My sister… she’s a vapid idiot, so you can understand that we haven’t talked in a long time, but her son started developing metahuman powers. And he started going out as a hero. She told me that she couldn’t stop him, so she wants him to at least have more support.”
“Ah, great,” Rick laughs. “Because I was just thinking that we didn’t have enough people who sucked at being heroes on this squad.”
“Rick,” Ted glares. “Please cool your behavior. I’ve seen what you’re able to do on the field and I must say: it’s pretty bad too.”
The door to the workshop slides open once again, and a new kid walks down the stairs. He’s got dark brown hair that’s just barely covering his eyes and is wearing a grey T-shirt and jeans. He waves to us as he walks down the stairs to meet with us.
“Hi,” he says. “Name’s Aaron. Aaron Munro. I’ll be working with you guys for a while.”
“He’s been helping people in his hometown of Liberty Hill as the great ‘Iron Munro’ for the past few months now,” Ted explains. “Unfortunately, Aaron, when you decided to do that, you perhaps made the worst mistake you could have made in this line of work. You made your identity public. Tell me, why’d you do that.”
Aaron sighed. “I… I just thought it was a small town, and I figured we all knew each other already, and… I guess I wanted to be recognized for my deeds or something.”
“I’m sure you’ll feel sufficiently recognized when your mother gets a bullet in her skull,” Ted says bluntly. “Let’s be clear: I hate the lady, but not
that much. Come with me.” Ted beckons Aaron to the far corner of the workshop.
I stare blankly at what’s happening in front of me; Ted’s a hardass, but this is… a bit much even for him. Clearly, this was about more than just business. I had heard small things about Ted’s sister before but never met her or her family. Whatever happened to separate them had to have been a big deal.
Ted shows Aaron to a costume on a stand in the corner; it consists of a brown-and-grey bulletproof bodysuit with metal accents and a full face-mask made entirely of metal. “This,” Ted says, “is going to be the new you. I’m calling it: ‘Metalsmith.’”
“Th-thanks,” he says. He looks frustrated; I can tell that he’s not happy to be here, but he’s holding it all in. “I--I just have to say that… this really isn’t my style. I’m trying to go for a friendly hometown hero vibe, and having my whole face covered up… It just doesn’t seem right.”
Ted grimaces. “You
did the hometown hero thing, and you failed. You showed your face to everyone. Metalsmith isn’t the friendliest guy around, but he’s safe and so is his family. If you wanna talk about alterations, feel free to tell me. But keep in mind that I have to work to preserve your safety first.”
Aaron nods. “Fine,” he says.
I look around the room; all of my teammates are either looking at the spectacle in front of them, or looking at their phones. Starved of anything else to look at, I turn to look at Rick’s phone. He’s responding to a text message from someone named Luisa; I think she’s a girl in his class or something. It doesn’t quite look like a message about normal things teenagers talk about, though.
hey, so I have a confession to make, the message begins.
John and Maya and i, we knew about you being hourman and everything before we met you. we’re still your friends, we always were, but we also want to get your help with something we’re working on. a project that involves metahumans, basically. let us know if you’re interested. I immediately turn away from the message on the phone. Clearly, this is something I’m not supposed to know about, but now that I do, I can’t stop thinking about it. Some other people want Rick to help them with…
something related to his powers. It sounds really shady; should I tell Ted about this? It could be a conflict of interest, whatever it is. On the other hand, Ted doesn’t seem like the most level-headed person to deal with this. Who knows; maybe it’s for some sort of superhero stunt show or something really cool, and I’d be denying him access to that.
Whatever. It’s not my problem right now. It was never meant for me.
“Hey,” Aaron says. “You here? You listening?”
I look up; Aaron is standing right in front of me, his hand outstretched. “Sorry,” I say, shaking his hand. “My name’s Jennifer. It’s nice to meet you.”
-=-=-=-= 🌟 =-=-=-=-
Part 2: Sandra Knight “Well, that could’ve gone a lot worse,” I say, currently on the back of Jack’s Star-Cycle. Jack apparently figured out that he could make his motorcycle fly if he used his Cosmic Rod, which is both hilarious and something that neither Ted nor David would ever begin to consider trying out. Which is why Jack is so great; he’s questioning everything, figuring out new ways of doing things, and making a motorcycle fly.
Feeling the wind rush against my face, I’m taken immediately back to my rebellious college days and my early stints as the Phantom Lady. It’s nice, almost nostalgic, but still different enough. We come to a descent in the back of the Stargazer, and Jack locks up his motorcycle.
Hope comes out the back door to greet us. “Glad you could make it,” she says. “Cutting it a little close, though, I gotta say. The meeting’s in less than 5 minutes.”
Oh, right. The meeting with our potential client. The Mist tends to give a lot of people tunnel-vision; I had completely forgotten about this.
“Sorry about that,” Jack chuckles. “You know how it is, going out, saving the day. Maybe someday, you should give it a--” He cuts himself off as I glare at him. His expression turns more serious. “I’m so sorry,” he finally says. “I forgot about what happened with you and the Mist.”
Hope sighs. “It’s fine,” she says. “We can deal with this another time. He’s behind bars yet again; he can’t hurt anyone else. That’s the best news anyone could hope for.”
We walk into the office; Jack takes a seat, ready for the meeting. “So, this new client. What’s the deal with them, again? Missing kid? Brother’s a supervillain?”
“She has some information on who might have been behind the prison break a few months ago,” I say.
“Okay, wow,” Jack responds. “That’s sort of a big deal.”
We hear the door swing open. A young woman with light brown skin and shoulder-length black hair walks in. She’s wearing a sleeveless white shirt and black winter coat; on her left hand is a tattoo of the Superman “S” sigil. “Look who’s here,” Jack smiles. “Glad you could make it.”
The woman sits down in front of Jack, putting her coat on the back of the chair. “Yeah, well, me too,” she sighs. “Listen, if you have any witness protection-type deals or whatever, can you hook me up with one of them? I’m honestly… I’m honestly terrified right now.”
I nod. “Well, there are a few options there. My cousin can easily create a fake ID and get you out of the city without anyone noticing. If you want to go through a more legitimate program, Hope here has contacts with the police who can get you into proper witness protection.”
“I’ll take the first one,” she says. She reaches out and shakes Jack’s hand. “Name’s Sarah. I’ve been working for Maxie Zayas for the last few months; I needed work, and he seemed really nice at first.”
Maxie Zayas. That’s going to be a tough one. A big-time club owner and crime boss, following in the footsteps of his father; I was personally involved in putting his old man behind bars. All of Opal City’s heroes
know about him, but we’ve never been able to really do much about it. A few years ago, David flew into Maxie’s club and arrested him straight-up for drug trafficking. Not 12 hours later, he was out, cleared of all charges.
This isn’t going to be a battle we can fight with force.
I walk closer to the table where Sarah and Jack are seated. “And you believe that Zayas is responsible for the recent breakout?”
Sarah nods. “At some point, I began to hear whispers that he was planning some meteoric takeover of Opal City. He said he needed something to distract the local heroes in the meantime. And then, a few days before the big event happened, I saw him talking to that card guy who broke them all out.”
“Jeremy Tell,” Jack says.
“I… I couldn’t be a part of whatever he was doing,” Sarah says. “I grew up in Opal City. Believe it or not, I loved you guys.” She points to me. “I actually had a poster of you in my room. I thought Zayas was a harmless dude who just sat around. It wasn’t a big deal, whatever he was doing. The people he broke out… I remember seeing what they did on the news. I had to talk to you.”
“Glad you did,” Jack says. “Hey, that’s awesome that you had a poster of Phantom Lady. Wait, why aren’t
we selling posters?” He turns to me. “Can we do that?”
I laugh. “Topic at hand,” I smile.
Mia leaves, and Hope walks up to us. “So… what’s the plan then? We can’t both take down Zayas and the people he released, right? Those are two huge undertakings.”
“That may be so,” I say. I pause for a second. “We may not need to. If we can get the All-Stars to handle the escaped convicts, we could divert all of our attention towards figuring out what Zayas is planning.”
“Okay,” Jack says, “but how are we going to take him down? David tried, and he failed miserably. The guy’s just super well-connected. We can’t just storm in there, can we.”
I smile. “Jack, sweetie. There are other ways to do this kind of work that don’t involve punching all your problems away.”
-=-=-=-= 🌟 =-=-=-=-
Interlude VIII: Hour of Espionage ”Positions, everyone,” Al Carlyle said through the microphone.
”We need to set the scene just right.” Carlyle stared at the multitude of cameras around him. He watched as Luisa, Maya, and John made their way to the docks. Turning to another monitor, he watched as several stealth-agents readied their sniper rifles, hiding on rooftops, in windows. He pressed a button on the console in front of him; a series of machines around the docks whirred to life; to the outside observer, they looked like they were doing nothing, but Carlyle knew that they were the key to this mission.
“I have to say,” Luisa said apprehensively. “I’m really worried about this. These snipers… if he doesn’t show up, they
will kill us, right?”
”11:49 PM,” Carlyle reiterated.
”Unfortunately, for this to work, the snipers have to be steadfastly committed to their mission. The dude doesn’t get visions about things that could
happen. He gets them about things that will if he doesn’t intervene. But don’t worry; we’ve run several experiments with the energy emitters. Every time, he shows up right on cue.” Luisa nodded. ”Okay. And what’s the deal with those machine things? You’ve explained them to me before, but I’m not good at remembering all the science stuff. Just isn’t my thing.”
”They emit a specific frequency of radiation that, for reasons unbeknownst to us, seem to massively increase the likelihood that Rick gets a vision in that area. We found residual traces of it naturally occurring in almost half of Rick’s usual visions; when we massively crank up the numbers, he always seems to show.” The three kids sat down at the dock. After a few seconds, Carlyle spoke up.
”We’ve gotten confirmation that Rick has now left his house. The snipers can now evacuate the area. The three of you, just act normal. It’ll take the better part of the hour for him to get here, so get comfortable.” As soon as they had settled in, the masked snipers quickly ran off, lowering their weapons and quickly changing into civilian wear like clockwork.
John was the first to speak up after Carlyle went silent. “So, what, we’re gonna wait, like, 58 minutes until he gets there? Well, this will be boring.” He pulled out a couple of joints from his pocket. “Anyone want some?”
“We’re on duty,” Maya said. “I don’t think it’s worth it.”
John shrugged. “What? We have to sit around, pretend like we’re doing something, and then act all buddy-buddy with him when he shows up. It’s not like we’re taking down Basilisk; this is easy shit. It’ll be fine.”
Maya shook her head. “We should wait.”
John chuckled. “Alright,
fine, you win. But we’re popping these babies out as soon as the man of the hour gets here. Got it?” He shoved the joints back into his pocket.
“Alright, whatever you want,” Maya smiled. “Just don’t come running to me when Carlyle yells at our asses for being high on the job.”
Carlyle watched the security footage, smiling and shaking his head to himself. Behind him, William Vickers walked up. He was the same age as the rest of them, but he had proven himself remarkably more mature than the others, quickly becoming the group’s de facto leader.
“Sorry to bother you at this time,” William said. “I gotta talk to you about another developing situation.” Carlyle hesitated, before standing up and dusting himself off. The two of them walked into the next room, where they began to talk.
“Basilisk activity’s been at an all-time high for the past few months,” William finally said. “Just recently, they’ve opened up 3 new cells in Germany, and are pulling in a remarkable number of recruits in Indonesia and Malaysia, to name a few. There’s also been a lot of restructuring; several smaller cells have been suddenly relocated to South America for some odd reason. If the ASA’s gonna be able to keep limiting their spread, we need more agents, and they need to be trained.”
Carlyle nodded. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I’ll remind you that you’re looking at only a small piece of the bigger picture. We are only a tiny fraction of what the ASA has to offer, and the adults are well aware of these issues. That said, you’re not wrong; we need all the help we can get. That’s what we’re working on right now.”
“Rick Tyler,” William affirmed. “He seems strong; he’d be a great start. But one metahuman won’t be enough. We need more metahuman soldiers, or at least, soldiers equipped with energy weapons and similar tech. The capes have been doing it for years; it works. But somehow, we can’t seem to find nearly enough people willing to serve. Maya’s the only metahuman on our squad right now, and her powers are still very much a wild card in combat scenarios.”
Carlyle nodded. “Yes,” he finally said. “Well, I don’t think that just recruiting a bunch of people is the right way to go. If we do that, we run the risk of potentially exposing ourselves to a large number of double-agents. But… if this lead pans out, there might be a way to enhance the prowess of the agents we already have.”
William perked up. “Yes? Do tell.”
“Presumably, Rick could gain access to the technology that Starman and his companions use to fight crime. Luisa could take a staff, you could take the blacklight…”
“I’m not the type of guy to stay in the shadows,” William said. “Have you
seen my attempts at infiltration? Not my strong suit. Appreciate the offer, though.”
Carlyle nodded and smiled. “Well, whatever happens, this new member could help us more than we initially thought.”
-=-=-=-= 🌟 =-=-=-=-
Part 3: Jack Knight I pull up to a street corner a few blocks away from what many Opal City residents affectionately refer to as the ‘Zayas Strip.’ Hope is sitting in the back seat, done up to look like a completely different person, and Sandra’s already run off to do some good old-fashioned sleuthing. The prosthetic nose I’m wearing feels so uncomfortable already; couldn’t we
just have gone for the blond hair dye and nothing else?
Sandra materializes on the hood of her green convertible, startling the bejeezus out of me. “Password for the night is ‘Prometheus,’” she mutters.
“Alright, alright,” I say. “Hey, I know it’s
technically your car and all, but maybe don’t jump on the hood, okay? That was probably the biggest scare I’ll have all night unless Grant decides that the Olympia is his new favorite haunt.”
Sandra ignores me. “You two head into the bar; I’ve given you fake IDs for the absolute worst-case scenarios, but you shouldn’t need to wave them around. I’ll never be too far behind, but as usual, you won’t see me. Got it?”
“Clear as ever,” I smirk.
“So,” Hope says from the back seat, “you ready to raise some hell?” Her usually-red hair is now jet-black, and she’s wearing these bright blue contact lenses that accentuate her eyes. If I didn’t know who she was, I would never have recognized her in the first place. Let’s just hope my disguise is just as good.
Sandra vanishes and we walk a few blocks further down Harris Street. As we walk down the street, the quiet townhouses are quickly replaced with a completely different atmosphere of bustling nightlife and flashing neon lights. On both sides of the street are a series of Zayas-owned businesses: strip clubs, brothels, bars, casinos, even a fight club at the far end of the street. It’s almost disorienting; look, I’m not the nicest guy in the world, never pretend to be, but I
promise I’ve never been in a place like this. Not
quite like this, at least.
Nestled in the middle of the brilliant signs and faint bouncing of club music is a single building not illuminated by lights. The top floor is taken up by some sort of high-end brothel with a sign reading ‘The Elysian Fields’ on it. The stairs that lead down to the bottom floor are guarded by a dude who seems absolutely ripped--like, probably-a-meta ripped--and a sign at the front reads “Olympia Nightclub.” Zayas’ personal shining gem, for those who were affluent enough to get an invitation.
I walk up to the bouncer and am immediately taken aback as I realize who exactly it is. Tony Woodward, aka Girder. Former Flash villain who got in a few fights with David before being broken out. As I get closer, it becomes clear that this dude’s entire body is made of rusted metal. He speaks up in a deep voice as we approach. “What’s the code?”
“Prometheus,” I say.
Girder bows his enormous metal head and steps to the left. “Enjoy.”
As we walk in, the last trace of the booty-bounce music that I could hear vanishes as it’s replaced by a classical violin tune from a distant speaker in the corner. The walls are blue plaster; segmenting the walls are a series of white column-like decals meant to invoke ancient Greek architecture. The bar in the center of the room is also surrounded by similar white columns. On the far end of the club is a wooden stage, currently unoccupied, and a few poker tables. Still not nearly half as good as my restaurant’s interior design.
The bartender walks up to us as we take a seat. His head is completely shaved; from what I can tell from the rest of his body, he appears covered in tattoos of vines and flowers. “Don’t think I’ve seen you lovely pair before around here,” he says.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” I smile. “We’re new in town. Heard about this place from an old military buddy of mind, and as it turns out, we got just enough money to spend on a nice place like this.” I reach out my hand and he shakes it. “David Vosberg. This is my girl, Rita.”
Hope offers her hand as well. The bartender shakes it. She turns down towards the cocktail menu, looking over the options. Her face shifts a bit as she reads over the various options; each one seems to be based on various tragic events that Opal City has suffered through. Down the list, I see the ‘Swift Hydro Plant’ as their fancy new drink, the ‘Prison Break,’ the ‘Doll Killer’--complete with a miniature doll in Martha Williams’ likeness--a drink simply labeled ‘The Mist,’ and, the final drink on the specialty list, the ‘Fallen Hero.’ The description listed it as ‘a tribute to the asshole who tried to bust us finally kicking the bucket. May aliens continue to do what we never can.’
My stomach
drops. Fuck, while we go out and bust our balls to make this city a better place, the people in this club turn around and laugh at our failures. Laugh when one of us dies. I feel my blood boiling.
I need to stay in character. I can’t blow this for all of us. Gritting my teeth, I take a few deep breaths before sucking it up.
“What’s the matter?” the bartender asks. “Can’t take a couple of dark jokes? Lighten up, man.” He gives me a pat on the back like I would ever be okay with that.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just… Well, let’s just say I lost someone personal in the hydro plant attack. One of, uh, those flying shadow things cut my brother open. I’ll take… I’ll take a Fallen Hero, I guess.” At this point, I’m flying by the seat of my pants. I’m definitely excited to get that drink.
“And I’ll take a Mist,” Hope says.
“Damn,” the bartender says. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t realize that you could… I’m sorry to hear about your brother.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “You couldn’t have known.”
The bartender serves our drinks and we quietly sip at them. Aside from a few regulars, nothing much seems to really be happening.
I feel a slight breeze on the back of my neck. I turn around; nestled in my suit is a small piece of paper. The writing on it reads,
”Can’t find Zayas, but did find something else big. Meet me outside? -Sandra”.
“Hey, uh, Rita?” I clear my throat and put my arm around her, subtly passing the note over to her. “This place is getting really stuffy; I think we need to step out for a second. Whaddya think?”
Hope shrugs. “Oh, alright,” she says, covertly reading the note. “But we’re coming back; this place is just fabulous, don’t you think?”
“Definitely,” I say. We walk outside, brushing past Girder’s cold metal form as we do. Sandra’s waiting on the corner of the street, fully visible.
Sandra turns to us as we approach, and her voice turns to a whisper. “So,” she says, turning to Hope. “Before I bring this up, I figure it’s worth asking. How much do you know about what your brothers work on in the Force?”
Hope takes a deep breath. “Well, you know what’s going on with Mason, Clarence is in the same precinct as me, Barry just got a promotion to Major Crimes, and Matt works… well, I think he works around
here, actually.” Her face turns bright red. “What’s going on?”
“I managed to get into one of the back rooms,” Sandra says. “And… well, Zayas is there, and he’s talking to a bunch of associates. One of them was Tell. And I think one of them may have been Matt.”
Hope nods. “Okay,” she finally says. “I… I guess I’m not surprised. He’s always been really secretive about what he’s doing, he’s denied promotions before… but I didn’t really think about it before.”
Sandra sighs. “I know this can be hard to hear, but I, unfortunately, have to ask you for one more favor. We’re here to watch Zayas over an extended period of time, figure out what he’s planning. For that reason, you can’t tell your brothers about our suspicions.”
Hope nods. “Got it,” she says hurriedly. “My… my lips are sealed.” As she speaks, I can tell she’s not fully convinced.
We walk back to the car. This was a short mission, but if this goes right, it will be one of many. And once we’re done, I’m almost certain, we’ll be able to take Maxie Zayas down.
-=-=-=-= 🌟 =-=-=-=-
Part 4: Rick Tyler “Okay,” I snarl as I pass Luisa in the hallways of my school. She’s currently putting her bag into her locker. “I need to know
what the fuck is going on, and I want you to tell me everything. What do you want from me?”
“Rick, calm down,” Luisa says. “Look, there are reasons why we had to do what we did, why we couldn’t just tell you everything as soon as we met you. We’ll explain everything soon enough.”
I shake my head. “Again with the secrets. Just fucking tell me what I need to know, alright? You guys pretend to be my friends, stage some sort of chance meeting with me--I got no idea how you did that. You pay some guys to shoot your heads off if I didn’t show up?”
“More or less,” she whispers. “Look, keep your voice down, okay? What we’re involved with isn’t something we can talk about in public.”
Oh, for Jesus fucking Christ’s sake.
Luisa bows her head. “Meet me out front of the Valor Building, this Saturday at 3 PM. All three of us will be there. Once you get there, there’ll be no more secrets. You’ll get to know everything. Promise.”
I sigh and throw my hands up. “Okay,
fine,” I whisper. “I’ll be there.”
As I make my way to class, I shake my head. Fuck this. Clearly, they don’t trust me any more than anyone else seems to. But still, for some reason, I still want to meet with them. Just to figure out what’s going on. And then I’ll be done with them.
I nod my head. That seems fine. Find everything out, then leave. I can handle that.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Valor Building is one of Opal City’s oldest brownstone skyscrapers; it’s not even close to the tallest anymore, but it’s right in the middle of the city center, and it’s one of the most iconic buildings here. To those who actually give a fuck about Opal City, I guess. I remember that when Dad and Mom were still together, we ended up going for a weekend trip to Opal City. Dee and I were taken aback by the Valor Building and all of the dazzling skyscrapers in the city center; it felt so much nicer than Baltimore did. Then I moved here and discovered that like every other city, it’s full of shit. Tourists just like to hide the shitty parts from view.
I walk up to the front steps of the building. John is leaning against one of the pillars near the entrance, and Luisa and Maya are waiting for me up front.
“Yo, glad you could make it,” John smiles. “We were placing bets as to whether you’d actually show up. Seems like Luisa here owes me ten dollars.”
“Trust me,” Luisa laughs. “If you’d have been there, you’d have agreed with me. He didn’t seem like he was in the mood to keep putting up with our bullshit.” She turns to me. “Regardless, glad you could come. Sorry to put you through all of this.”
“Sorry,” I say, shrugging. “I can let my nerves get the best of me at times. I’m feeling better now, don’t worry.”
“So,” Maya says. “Are we ready to go?”
Luisa nods. Maya turns to the keypad next to her and types in a code. 7, 8, 4, 4, pound sign. The door clicks open. Immediately, as I walk into the lobby, I feel like I’m in a place I’m not supposed to be. The floor is made up of elaborately-patterned stone tiles; large windows to the sides let in a lot of sunlight as I walk to the elevators.
“So, uh, what do you do here?” I ask. “This is just, like, an office building, right?”
“Just, like, 10 seconds left,” Luisa says. “Then you’ll get to know all our secrets.” She calls the elevator, and we walk in. I push my way to the back as John and Maya get on.
“Alright,” John says. “I think it goes without saying that what we show you here today, you can’t mention to another living soul that we don’t approve of. Not even your hero pals. Got it?”
“Yeah, of course,” I say nonchalantly.
“Okay.” John reaches up above the panel of buttons on the elevator and opens up a small compartment. Inside is a fingerprint scanner; John jams his thumb onto the pad and the elevator begins to go down. After a few more seconds, the doors open. We’re in a pristine grey room; computers line every wall, and dozens of people look up as we walk in. Immediately, it reminds me of Ted’s workshop, but on a much bigger scale.
A man is waiting for us in the middle of one of the hallways. He’s wearing a neatly-ironed grey-green suit, with combed-over white hair. He reaches out his hand for me to shake.
“Al Carlyle,” he says. “Director of the American Security Agency. Nice to meet you, Rick. I’ve heard so many great things about you.” I turn around. All three of my so-called “friends” have deserted me, leaving me with this weird dude.
“Uh, nice to meet you too,” I mutter, shaking his hand. “So what exactly is going on here?”
“Well,” Al smiles, “what
isn’t going on here? I suppose you’re a bit confused, a bit overwhelmed, so I’ll try and give you the long and short of it. We’re like the CIA, sort of. But a bit more secret. We’re the CIA when the CIA can’t be involved. Take, for example, metahuman agents. Do you know much about the Freedom Fighters?”
I shrug. “Heard of them. The original Starman was working with one of them, I think.”
Al nods. “Come,” he says. “Walk with me.” I sigh and follow him through the convoluted halls and terminals of this absolutely massive underground base.
“Now,” he says, “the Freedom Fighters were a truly amazing group of people. They were a UN task force composed of one sergeant, a handful of regular soldiers, and three metahumans. Well, they fought long and hard for the values that we hold dear to us today, but in the end, the UN saw them as a threat. What’s to stop our enemies from conscripting metahumans too? It’d be another cold war, one that many countries were all-too-eager to stop. So, metahumans were banned from serving in combat.”
He clears his throat and lets out a hearty chuckle. “Well, you see, terrorists don’t tend to follow by our rules. I suppose that’s what makes them terrorists, don’t you think? So that’s where we come in. One of many examples, I suppose, of where we come in. We use many of the techniques superheroes use to fight against potential threats to the land of the free and the brave. And I’ve had my eye on you for a while. I think you’d make a great addition to our cause.”
I pause and look around me. This place is
huge. It’s bound to take up more than a few city blocks. When I intercepted the battle Jack was having with Swift, this base was underneath it all, computers typing away. Our school is only a few blocks west of here; it’s very possible the base extends that far too. I haven’t even been in Opal City for a year yet, but I had felt like I knew everything about it. Clearly, I was wrong.
I’ve never been the type of person who hated the government and everything they did. I followed the news, though, and they’ve clearly done some questionable things in the past few years. With Cale as President, that’s just going to get worse and worse. Do I want to be a part of this? Clearly, I don’t think I do. I was just here to get answers, and I got mine. That’s as far as this goes.
‘Take your time,” Al laughs. “We’d love to have ya, but no pressure either way.”
Before I can tell him no, my vision flashes white. A man walking down a run-down section of Snejbjerg Street. Nearly bald buzz-cut, blue eyes, wearing a grey hoodie. A car pulls up to him, firing three rounds in his chest. The blood splatters over the sidewalk. I snap back to reality.
“I have to go,” I say, my voice strained. “How do I get out of--”
Al gives me a knowing smile. “What’s going to happen, and where will it be?”
I sigh. “Some dude in a grey hoodie is gonna get shot on Snejbjerg Street. Drive-by shooting. It was a black sedan, I think. Just let me go, okay?”
Al turns on a radio on his jacket. “I want a dozen soldiers placed across Snejbjerg Street within the hour. Look out for black sedans, check each one for weapons. And get Rick Tyler here a tall glass of water.”
Immediately, the people around me start getting up and gearing into action. A young woman who was manning a computer earlier walks up to me and offers me a glass of water. I drink from it.
“Thanks,” I finally say.
Al hands me a burner phone from his pocket. “If you ever get any visions at an inconvenient time, text me from this phone. We’ll have it handled, and you can focus on the things in life that matter.”
I smile. “Wow, thanks.”
Al nods. “Look, Rick, I know that everything must be really disorienting for you right now, but trust me when I say that we’re here for you. From what I’ve heard from my agents that have been interacting with you, that doesn’t seem to be the case with the other team you’re on right now. They see you as a loose cannon. Maybe they’re right, who knows. But here, we need loose cannons. You can beat up as many terrorists as you want here--or don’t, whatever floats your boat. But you’re welcome here as you are, no matter who that is.”
I pause, looking around for a second. He’s right; in the few seconds I’ve met him, Al has made me feel at home more than I’ve ever been with the All-Stars.
I reach out and shake Al’s hand. “I’m in.”
“Fantastic,” he smiles. “Well, let’s meet the team then.” He brings me to a room with a circular table. Around the table are John, Luisa, Maya, and another kid I don’t remember. White kid with neatly-trimmed brown hair.
“Well,” Al says, “this is one of our finest covert ops units. We’re calling them the ‘Force of July.’ Right now, they’re mostly doing international missions, but we’re planning on bringing them into the spotlight as superheroes to handle domestic matters in the near future.”
He gestures to John. “You’ve already met John Trujillo, Jr., alias: ‘The Black Condor.’ His dad was one of our finest officers before sadly meeting his fate protecting our country. He piloted a one-of-a-kind wingsuit that his son now uses.”
“Besides that,” Al continues, “the Campoverde sisters have been fantastic assets. Luisa first came to us because she needed help with her sister’s metahuman powers. That’s right:
she found
us. Always a good metric for future success. Turns out, her sister has a bit of a way with plants, and it was a bit out of her control. Now, the two of them serve us as Lady Liberty and Mayflower.”
The last kid, the one I haven’t met, reaches over to shake my hand. “William Vickers,” he says. “Also known as Major Victory. My teammates have been telling me a lot about you. It’s good to finally get to meet you in the flesh.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” I say. And somehow, surprisingly, I mean it.”
Al nods and smiles. “Now that we’ve gotten to know each other, Rick, I have a special mission briefing for you and only you. I can tell that this will be the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership.”
submitted by I've never made a post venting about my personal life unless you count my contribution to the constipation sub-reddit. But this group seems to strike a personal chord .
So some background info:
I'm the middle child in my family. My mom gave birth to my sister in 89 , and to me in 93. We both had different fathers, and we both never met our fathers. When i was about 9-10 my mom met someone when she was bartending who then became my step-father. shortly after my mom gave birth to my little sister, Mikayla. Jay ( step dad ) Was always cool and i loved having him as a step dad. He was funny as heck and his other kids ( My step brother and sister ) would come sleep over our house every other weekend and we would all have so much fun.
My step-brother and step-sister lived in the inner city and were primarily raised by their birth mom who i never really met. Jay hated her and it seemed like they didnt get along any more and that was fine. I would hear how she would say nasty things about Jay and my mom but it never really affected me. when my step siblings started to grow into their teens they got into drugs and crime. So my mother who doesnt see the good in people convinced our side of the family to cut ties with out step-siblings because she didnt want drugs in her house. We never really saw our step siblings again. To this day, the last time i spoke with Jay i brought up my step brother and he even told me not to tell my step brother anything about him or my mom ( this will make more sense in a minute. )
My step dad had a drinking problem when i was really young. It never affected me and i never saw him do anything violent or hurt my mom or anyone. I remember when i was in the car with him sometimes, he would be drinking beers while driving us. That was the worse of it from what i ever saw. My mother drank a lot too. When i was in middle school they both stopped drinking all together. They made it look easy. But my mom was verbally abusive and manipulative saying that because of how we act she would run away and never come back or kill herself when no one was home. These are things she would say all the time, even when i was little and thought she meant it. They would fight and argue slightly more than your average family. I later found out that my step dad had a addiction to painkillers. since my mother never really tells me any details when it comes to personal things like that i never really knew how bad it was. All i know is that he went into detox and that was it. Never talked about it, never got to say how proud i was that he was sober and how important that is, because i never knew at the time. I only knew after i went to rehab myself for opiates.
Anyways to speed things up, my step-grandmother was wealthy. She had a great job when she was younger and knew how to handle money and invest. She also loved to drink and 2 years ago she started getting sick and turns out she had cirrhosis of the liver. We all stayed with her while she laid in bed slowly dying. I found out that my mom was looking up ways to " Speed up the dying process " and searched up " songs to die to " on her ipad and they would administer the morphine to my step-grandma. She passed shortly after. So now my lower middle class family is about to receive over a million dollars in bonds and stocks and all that. Part of me always felt that thats all they really cared about.
Taking a step back, My Step-father and my mom loved to gamble. They were without a doubt gambling addicts. They never lost the car or wernt able to pay the bills, but they would spend thousands of dollars at the casino and when i would go with my mom, it would mke me sad to see her win 1,000 dollars then be at 5.00 spinning a nickel at a time. She would never walk out with any money. Sometimes she wouldnt even have enough money to pay for the tolls or put gas in her car. Sometimes she would run away to erie PA , spend all of her money at the casino , and be stuck there until someone wired her money to get home.
What do they do after they get the money? Move to LAS VEGAS. Myself, my sister, and other family members expressed our concerns because clearly it was a terrible idea. But she assured us that she doesnt really gamble anymore and she just loves the area. ( they started taking vacations to vegas as a little family a few years prior. My mom/Step Dad/little sister ) So Jay ( step dad) Got a job a the water treatment center in Las Vegas because thats what he did here. They left everything in their old house and my sister moved into that house. And they went to look at houses for two weeks in vegas before they officially moved. And my little sister told me they spent the whole 2 weeks at the casinos and on the last day they bought the first townhouse they looked at...
5 months goes by and my little sister want to move back to Buffalo. She tells me all they do is fight and now my step dad is drinking again. its been over 14 years since he last drank to my knowledge. He quit his job at the water treatment center and now they all stay at home all day and get blackout drunk. My mom started drinking again too. They would spend thousands and thousands at the casinos. They bought nice new cars, a harley, a old VW travel van, and a 9mm pistol. During this time it never really bothered me that they never gave me or my sister any of the money because money isnt that important to me, but it is important. And we just had our first child a year before. So it kind of hurt to hear thats how they are spending their money, when me and my sister are both starting families and cant even afford basic things. My little sister has 80,000 dollars for when she turns 25 that my step grandma left in her will. We got nothing. And it also hurt that my mom and jay were OK with only one of us getting that much money. I try not to be resentful at my little sister for that because i know its not her fault. My older sister has tried multiple times to try and get at that money. When my little sister wanted to come home, my older sister took her in. My older sister is a terrible human and i can make a whole book about all the fucked up shit shes done. She only cares about money so she saw an opportunity by taking my little sis in.
So now its just my mom and Jay out in vegas. No Job, drinking every day, burning tens of thousands at casinos. My Grandma has a stroke. My mom comes home to help take care of my grandma. Jay calls my little sister crying about his life and how he wishes he was there and how much he loves our grandma that is sick. He also wired her 800 dollars to send him acid in the mail. He rents a car a week later and drives back home to buffalo. We would all go over there and would have fun and then all of the sudden he just leaves. he says he needs to get home to feed the cat and is afraid of covid lockdowns. My older sister told me that he texted her when he was still here asking for pain pills. She didnt know where to get any so im assuming he was getting sick and wanted to get back home. So he left after being there for a little over a week. Thats the last time i will ever see him.
last night my mom tells me that she saw Jay get on a party bus in front of the house on the house camera. She calls him out over text i think and he doesnt respond. instead, he shut all the cameras off on the house. i asked if anyone has checked up on him because he could be dead. I apologized after i said that because it was a bit morbid but this was right after i found out he was back on opiates. My mom calls for a wellness check and the police found him dead at the house with a self inflicted gunshot wound. He shot himself. Im assuming he was drunk and on pills, i dont know how pre-meditated this all was. But im broken and sad. I fear for my little sister because that was her biological father andi know how much they loved each other.
My mother and Older sister Are experts at manipulating and when they argue, they use very personal things to try and cut deep to try and hurt you as much as they can. I will always wonder what exactly my mom said to Jay the night she saw him enter the limo Bus. Could it have been something she said to trigger this reaction? If he was as drunk as he was would he have handled it differently? I tried talking to my older sister about it ( I do not talk to my sister often. She has done some many things to hurt me that i will never ever ever trust her again, and part of me will always hate her sadly.) But she is only concerned about the money as well. She is going on how Mom isnt going to give us any of the money or help us in any way , although true, It just hurts me that they care so much about money that they are willing to put it infront of family. My little sister hates that she has 80,000 coming to her and shes told me time and time again she wish she didnt have it. My sister has already tried to manipulate mikayla into splitting her inheritance.
The Thing that gets me livid is whats happening now. So after we found out we all went over the see my mom. We felt terrible and we brought her grandaughter over the cheer her up and be there for her. We talked outside ( me,little sister, girlfriend ) about going with mom with help clean up the house because they dont clean that shit up. So today i talked to my mom and said " hey we are going with you to help clean the house because you cant do that alone." And she refuses. Like, insists that she can do it herself. She HAS to do it herself. She will not let us go with her. and shes leaving tomorrow. She was taking care of my dying grandma and now we dont know what to do about my grandma. Shes going to go back to the house herself, clean it up, and she said she DEF has to "sage" the house.... I cant help but get angry because she just cares about the money. She wants to be able to go to the casino without Jay making her feel bad for asking him for his money all the time. She wants to just sit in the guilt and feel sorry for herself and she wont let us help her. She has nothing in vegas anymore and she still wont come home. Shes going to burn whatevers rest of that money, sell all of his cars, burn that money, get depressed when its all gone and shell have nothing. we will continue to struggle with our finances while she gives the rest of that money to the casinos. She got mad at me for telling my step brother that his dad died because she.s afraid his family will try to come after the money. I wish they never got that stupid fucking money. It ruined our family and my step dad would still be here if they never got that money and i really believe that.
Sorry if this is worded poorly and is not in a comprehensive order or whatever. I just wanted to vent and it felt good to type it all out. The only activity that pulls me away from this stuff is streaming games and goofing off but i dont even feel like doing that right now.... idk. money sucks. actually , getting a large sum of money when youve been poor most of your life sucks.
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