2013.03.23 - Alea Iacta Est

The section of Broadway is usually bustling at almost any time of day, but this afternoon sees it especially busy. A host of town cars and limousines roll up outside the Global Economic Foundation offices, depositing dignitaries and professionals from around the world on the sidewalk. A modest collection of photographers catch them in a strobe of flash bulbs, questions are shouted from behind a wall of police but the attendees seem fixated on getting inside.

Nearby, a gathering of men and women shout at the passing One Percent. They carry placards, baring phrases like 'End Third World Debt' and 'Shame On Debtors'. A man with a megaphone leads the congregation.

The police presence is strong. Officers on horseback hold up all but sanctioned traffic a block north and south. Barricades have been set up, allowing the cops to get a good look at those traveling on foot and a police chopper overhead keeps a watchful eye in the sky.

For an event of such scale, the Mayor of New York City often called in favors from their sister city of Gotham, west of the river. An entire detachment of Gotham City police officers have joined in the crowd control and peacekeeping efforts, distinguished by their GCPD insignia that seem vastly different from those of the NYPD.

Commissioner Gordon is present, of course, but he is not among those geared up for crowd control. He's neglected to check is trench coat, for fear of exposing the shoulder-harnessed sidearm he carries with him, and instead is mingling among many of the One Percent in an effort to show the face of law enforcement on a political scale. In truth, the aging Commissioner is here to be eyes and ears for his officers outside, because sometimes, if a problem is about to arise, it starts from the inside.

Besides. Ending third world debt does seem interesting enough to him, even though on a daily basis, he's most concerned with protecting lower income Gothamites from those who might seek to prey upon their misfortune.

It's not that Heather is -not- interested in hearing the speech. What it is, is that she is more interested in her assigned task of keeping her charge safe. She is here, hired in her persona as Arm-Candy-Personal-Security, for one of the visiting dignitaries whose personal bodyguard came down with a last minute illness and needed a replacement right away. Dressed in a subdued manner (ish), Heather is in a pantsuit to match the one of her charge. A dignitary from a small European democratic nation.

She steps out of the limousine to do the cursory once-over before she allows her charge out, "Mister Kipoweicz, it looks clear." she says to the man as he steps out and they link arms to walk inside. Of course, dressed like this, and not in an expensive evening gown, Jim Gordon may or may not recognize her from that crazy fire-mutant outbreak in the Gotham precinct a while back. She's none the worse for wear though!

Sue Storm heard from a coworker at the medical clinic where she volunteers that there was going to be some kind of 'thing' going on here today -- said coworker is likely among the group of shouting protesters -- and she couldn't help but worry that this might be a powderkeg kind of gathering. Knowing her own presence might rile the papparazzi and make things worse, she's arrived on the sly.

Currently, Sue is hovering invisibly about five feet above the heads of most everyone present, alternately watching the arriving dignitaries and the cordoned-off protesters. Hopefully, she'll just get to spend the time learning a bit of political current events and nothing else.

“You've got a job to do!”

“It's just bugging me, okay?”

“You're paranoid.”

“I've gotta tell someone, okay?”

A brief exchange between a pair of uniformed police officers ends with the younger one, a man barely out of his teens and the academy, approaching Commissioner Gordon. He looks anxiously over his shoulder at the assembled security detail, face contorted in an awkwardly apologetic grimace.

“Commissioner Gordon, sir? Can I talk to you a minute?”

There is only a brief moment where Gordon seems to recognize a lady in a pantsuit, when a green officer with unshed baby skin behind his ears draws him away. He looks at the officer's badge for a brief moment, before smiling candidly beneath his mustache. "Yes, Officer Brentwood, is there something wrong?"

Inside now, Heather lets her blue eyes flicker about the place, searching for any threats. She does this professionally, so she's not bad at spotting potential threat situations. But her charge just moves on forward. "Right this way." says an usher as the two of them are led to seats where they can watch the event from. Of course, Heather lets Mr. Kopiweicz sit down, and then stands back behind the guy where she can keep her head on a swivel, observing the room, not so much the speech. She's on the job, so.. guard guard guard...

Sue Storm's eyes check on the reporters briefly, nothing odd there. She then looks at the protesters. Noisy, but not out of control. Her eyes track the dignitaries and the one outlier of the group, that model-pretty blonde seeming just a bit out of place even though she's wearing a business suit in color boring to match everyone else. She then looks over at the police again, noticing them consulting with each other and moving about. Nothing untoward yet that she can tell, and here's to hoping ti stays that way. Knowing her luck, though...

Officer Brentwood scratches the back of his head, looking nervous while the officer with whom he was conversing shakes his head and moves off to man a barricade.

“I'm not trying to raise a fuss or anything, but I'm meant to be on crowd control with Sleiman. We got briefed for it and everything, but this guy who just showed up to cover for him says Sleiman called in sick. Now, sir, I know Sleiman and he's never called in sick in his life. Guy's an ox. It's just weird, you know?”

Inside the building, a tall man in a pristine suit shows Heather and her charge towards their seats. A number of similarly-dressed individuals (private security by the look of them) mill through the crowd and in the aisles, each with an earbud in one ear.

Sue Storm realizes just a little bit late that she missed her chance to slip in the doors after the dignitaries and can't enter the building without giving her presence away. So, she settles for watching the police, the media, and the protesters, not really expecting unbecoming behavior to originate anywhere else. Well, she can probably catch up on what went on in the meeting by watching C-SPAN later.

"No," Officer Brentwood looks immediately embarrassed, his face flushing red as he unhooks the radio from his uniform and begins to speak into it. The conversation is clipped and hushed, Brentwood's face turned away from Gordon as he speaks.

The man in Sleiman's place stands at the barricade, looking out at a sea of curious faces with his hands clasped behind his back. He does not seem to notice Gordon or his colleague approaching, eyes fixed forward.

Nearby, a motorcade - it's security heavier than the others - arrives and pulls up to the curb before the building.

The hair on the back of Jim Gordon's head starts to stand on end. Maybe he's nic-fitting. Maybe it's instinct. Either way, he looks toward Officer Brentwood, then spies the officers lining the barricade. When the motorcade begins to pull up, however, he turns partly toward Brentwood and taps him on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Which one was it?" he asks quietly. "Who replaced Sleiman?"

Gordon turns back toward the barricade with a curious and vigilant eye.

Little things grab at Heather's attention, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She reaches a hand down to rest gently on the shoulder of her charge while turning her head to take in the newly arriving group. The heavier security gets a raised brow but.. something about the way some of the local law enforcement personnel are behaving is making her wonder if something is going on. She quietly searches for -something-... -anything- to verify her sudden spike of intuition. Something is wrong here, and she hates not knowing what it is. The hand on the shoulder of her charge is to make sure that the guy doesn't just go walking away from her while her attention is diverted.

Sue Storm focuses on the arriving motorcade, but does so more out of curiosity than any kind of worry that something is wrong. She watches the cars pull to a stop, trying to place the symbols on the vehicles. Maybe they're from a country she's familiar with, not that she's familiar with very many.

When Gordon's back is turned, Brentwood immediately reaches to his belt and draws his Smith & Wesson from it's holster. Without hesitating, he rears back and slams the butt of the weapon against the base of the Commissioner's skull with brutal efficiency. He snarls, the fresh-faced naivete seeming to drain away from his features immediately before being replaced with grim, malign determination. As Sleiman's replacement turns around suddenly at the commotion, Brentwood levels the pistol and fires at the other officer. The replacement crumples to the pavement in a heap. Then, all Hell proceeds to break loose.

In the throng of protestors a series of shouts ring out, followed by staccato bursts of gunfire into the air. The protestors begin to flee in every direction, some clambering over the barricades and onto the sidewalk in their terror. Over a dozen of the police men and women present draw their weapons, turning them on their fellow officers ruthlessly even as the crowd begins to surge into the cordoned off area. A diminutive Korean man and the Secretary of the Treasury, climbing out of the car at the center of the motorcade, look shocked. They turn to climb back into the car but the false police are already converging on it, the driver slumping forward over the wheel as a burst of fire shatters the windscreen.

The doors to the building are suddenly closed from the inside, the tall man showing attendees to their seats slamming it quite suddenly. This done, he draws a heavy sidearm from inside his jacket and aims it at the ceiling. He fires three shots into the air, prompting the remaining security personnel to draw their own weapons and level them on the dignitaries.

“Nobody moves.”calls the man by the door in a vague but indefinable accent.

Gordon simply never saw it coming. He lets out a gruff yelp of pain when the Smith & Wesson makes contact, his back arcing in sudden and sharp pain. One hand reaches back to grasp instinctively at the back of his head, which serves to conceal the wound, but not the blood that seeps between his fingers. He tries to turn and see who it was who'd attacked him, but all he sees are stars, and the blurry lines of the panicking crowd.

The Commissioner slumps to his knees, lets out a brief moan, then falls sideways and onto the sidewalk. His face smacks the cement hard, but his eyes are already closed. He lies there still, out for the count.

Well, as soon as something starts going crazy. Before things get nuckin' futz, Heather's already throwing her charge to the ground and making sure he's behind the cover of the chairs, "Stay put!" she orders as she tenses up and watches things devolve into a nightmare. She's already looking around for potential escape routes to get her charge out of here. But.. she was recently made a Titan, and there is more involved than the safety of just one man.

So she does more than look for ways she can get more folks to safety. "Back away from the front doors and windows! Move back!" she calls out as she starts trying to herd folks away from the immediate threat. She's also trying to make herself a visible figure so that any threats might look to her before other bystanders.

Well, as soon as something starts going crazy. Before things get nuckin' futz, Heather's already throwing her charge to the ground and making sure he's behind the cover of the chairs, "Stay put!" she orders as she tenses up and watches things devolve into a nightmare. She's already looking around for potential escape routes to get her charge out of here. But.. she was recently made a Titan, and there is more involved than the safety of just one man.

So she steps forward towards the levelled guns of the attackers inside. "Look, there's no way you can get away with this. Why don't you put those weapons down and make it easier on yourself?" she asks, trying to divert attention from the dignitaries. She knows she got hers down out of sight before the guns were pointed, but there's a lot of other folks here. Her hands are in the air, not reaching for the small pistol she has in a back of the belt paddle holster. "Seriously, this is pure stupidity..." she adds, almost like she's -trying- to provoke the guy into taking action against her, as opposed to anyone else.

Sue Storm gasps in surprise when things go from calm and a little boring to chaos in seconds, and seeing gunfire aimed at the just-arrived motorcade does what she can. She encases the vehicle under fire with a force field as she repositions herself in front of the doors and... oh my. There's unpleasantness going on inside as well. She can't handle both sides simultaneously, and she wasn't even prepared to do this. Thinking quickly, she encompasses one of the motorcade's accompanying vehicles and rushes over to abruptly appear next to the guards there. "Can you get that car to safety if I provide cover?" She means the car the Korean dignitary is huddled in, of course, and she HOPES that the guards take her seriously because, again with the lack of foresight, she's NOT wearing her distinctive Fantastic Four costume. Only the '4' necklace on her t-shirt might give away who she is.

The guards assigned to the motorcade are veteran government agents and the appearance of somebody wielding super powers is not that startling to them. The one in charge seems to recognize Sue's face, however, and he nods his head as he draws his service weapon from inside his coat. “Yes, ma'am,” he answers, ducked down behind the car, “We've got an emergency protocol. We need to get them to Broad Street Station.” The armed men who had concealed themselves amongst the protestors rush the barricade, firing at the town car. Inside it, ducked low on the back seat, are the Secretary of the Treasury and Bak Woo-Jin, chairman of the Global Economic Foundation. The bullets bounce off the shield, prompting one of the gunmen in the crowd to start calling to his compatriots in Pashto.

Inside the building, the man who seems in charge of the guards looks at Heather as she speaks. One of the men to his right has his firearm leveled on her, grimly silent as he listens to her words. When she's finished, the man in charge points at her and says, curtly, “Strelyat' v neye.” The gunman with his weapon pointed at Heather does not hesitate, finger depressing the trigger as he fires off a single round at her forehead.

"I can even vouch for any of you with the law enforcement officials when they come in and... " *KABLAM!* Heather's words are cut off by the gunshot. Well, not so much the shot as the bullet as it strikes her in the left side of her forehead and blows out a good chunk of her skull. She drops where she stands. Anyone looking closely at her might notice that the wound is healing already, but being a head wound, there's a -massive- amount of blood. Nobody could survive that, right? She'll be out for a bit, but oddly, her plan is working.. they 'hopefully' think she's dead, and that might make them pass over her and leave her there on the ground where she can recover and have a bit more freedom to act without being observed. But for now... healing and pain are the lessons of the day.

Sue Storm nods to the man who addresses her. "I can get you over there unseen and protect the car to the end of the block. Will that be enough?" She looks back toward the building. "I think there's more going on inside, and I'm staying here to help if I can." Then, though the man probably can't tell, she turns both him and herself invisible then puts one hand on his arm so he doesn't move outside of her force field. She flinches at the faint sound of a single gunshot from inside the building and says urgently but quietly. "We'd better hurry. Ready to move when you are."

“With all due respect, ma'am, the Secretary is our priority. We need to get him out of here. We've already called for reinforcements.”

When Sue disappears, the agent in charge wrenches open the driver's side door and drags out the body of the executed driver. He climbs behind the wheel, calling out the window as he restarts the engine, “We're moving.”

Meanwhile, the false policemen and the gunmen in the crowd have been forced into an entrenched position. The real police keep them suppressed, the distant wail of sirens heralding the arrival of more good guys.

Inside the building, the gunmen begin to herd the living members of the delegation towards the back of the room. They pay no attention to Heather's supposed corpse, stepping over it. The leader speaks with one of the others in Russian. After a moment's conversation, the leader appears suddenly incensed and shouts angrily: “My vzorvat' yego!”

The other men immediately hop to, dragging heavy canvas duffel bags out from hiding places throughout the room and withdrawing what looks to be explosives from them.

Sue Storm stays invisible and lets the man start to move the car away from the chaos, keeping a force field protecting the vehicle until it moves out of her line of sight. She moves back to the other guards and police officers, looking for someone in charge. She finally decides on one person and asks quietly, "Is there another way for me to get into the building?" Of course, maybe she should have dropped her invisibility before speaking up.

The car rolls away with Sue's help, soon disappearing around the corner as it evacuates the Secretary and the Chairman.

"Huh?" asks one of the real police officers, pressed behind a bullet-riddled patrol car and more than a little surprised at the sudden voice speaking to him, "What the hell is that?"

"The Invisible Girl," calls over another nearby officer, gun leveled on the entrenched attackers as he fires off a round and then addresses her directly, "I don't know, ma'am. They've got that door locked down pretty tight but we set up an emergency exit through the back in case of something like this. You could try that?"

Inside the building, the two gunmen go down quickly as Heather assails them. The others are too busy unloading the contents of their bags. One moves from point to point around the room, spray-painting crosses on the walls which the other men affix the explosives to in turn.

Okay, time to see what these guys are trying to set. Heather looks into the bag and then on a sudden flash of inspiration... one that falls to the wayside, she thinks.. oh, maybe they have radios. I could listen in on their conversations.... their... russian language conv... right nevermind. She looks at the explosives.. while not really trained for this, she can at least figure out if they're on timers or remote detonators.

Once that's done, she'll shoulder the bag and move on, trying to work her way towards another group to ambush the same way she did the first. She figures, the more she can disable before she's discovered the better the odds will be.

Sue Storm considers the information offered to her by the officer that (thank goodness) recognized her voice. "I don't want to make things worse for you by just busting down one of those doors..." She looks up at the building behind them again, hoping there are maybe some upper floors to it and possibly some windows she could use to get inside. The sneaky stuff is SO not her forte. "Direct me toward that emergency exit, please."

“Take the side street,” the officer tells Sue, gesturing as he ducks a burst of incoming fire, “Shouldn't be any trouble for you if you're staying invisible, huh?”

Nearby, the wail of sirens gets louder as a host of reinforcements arrive. The street is almost completely deserted now save for the gunmen and the police, making it easy for the newly-arrived officers to encircle the attackers. They continue to fight on, though their numbers quickly begin to thin.

Inside the building, the explosives appear to be hooked to a radio transmitter of some sort. Not the most advanced technology in the world but certainly effective. Heather takes down the next group of gunmen without raising the alarm. The leader, however, is in no position to be similarly assailed – standing amidst the hostages with his gun drawn.

Well, there's not much Heather can do to the leader at this point except maybe... well, she could charge like a suicide bomber. Then a thought occurs to her. Would she be able to survive being blown to pieces like that? Well, that's not something she wants to learn here and now. Instead, she just sets about trying to disable the receivers on the bombs she has. If it looks complicated, she won't try, but just removing the detonators from the playdoh C4 -should- be enough to disarm them.. she thinks.

Then... her plan is to draw her little Glock 36. Sure, it's a pocket gun, but it's a 6 shot .45 caliber. That's some stopping power. She aims from cover, trying to aim to disable... a shoulder shot. She doesn't shoot right away. She hears the sirens.. and is waiting for -something- to distract the guy, something to make him focus somewhere other than the hostages... before she will squeeze the trigger and then charge the guy.

"Thank you," is Sue's completely sincere response to the officer's directions. "Stay safe, all right?" And with that, she uses her force fields to zip to the indicated exit. The place is already noisy, so she doesn't feel the need to worry about the sounds of her force field encased hands pushing on the door until whatever it has holding it closed buckles and lets her through. Then she's ghosting from hall to room as fast as she dares, looking for the quickest way to the front of the building and the location of the other bad guys.

The leader is struck in the shoulder when he makes the mistake of stepping away from the crowd of hostages, Heather's bullet finding it's mark. He lets out a startled cry, clasping his shoulder and shouting out in Russian for the remaining gunmen to open fire on her. In an instant a firefight has broken out, the hostages shouting in terror as gunfire rings out through the main floor of the building.

Sue Storm mentally curses and moves faster through the building, bumping against a couple of corners along the way but not really noticing. The moment she reaches the epicenter of the chaos she drops her invisibility and drops a force field over as many of cowering dignitaries as she can, catching a few of them in groups so her fields don't end up spread too thin. It's already pushing matters as it is. She then takes a risk and starts using another, tiny force field to shear off the front section of each weapon she sees, being as careful as she can to avoid taking hands and fingers with the weaponry.

Sue's powers cut through highly-trained gunmen like a hot knife through butter, slicing their weapons in half and leaving them unarmed and stunned. The hostages know better than to lift their heads, keeping down and under the shields that the Invisible Girl has generated for them. With only six attackers left, all of them unarmed and one wounded in the shoulder, there is little fight left for them to put up. Still, the leader lurches to his feet and nursing his bullet wound he rushes across the floor for the detonator he has dropped.

Sue Storm lets the tiny field pop like a soap bubble but then snaps a flat force field in the path of the leader, also rushing toward the small electronic device. She doesn't know yet why it's important to him, but that's enough to make sure he doesn't reach it. The larger field, though, is pushing past the limits of what she normally controls field-wise, and she's already feeling the beginnings of a migraine.

The leader lets out an angry shout as he strikes the invisible wall, slumping against it and reaching for a secondary weapon concealed in his boot. That is all he manages to do, however, as a voice suddenly commands him to 'Freeze!'

A man clad in body armor, a SWAT officer by the look of him, leads a small contingent of similarly-dressed men into the room from the same corridor Sue came down. Though the gunmen put up a fight there is little they can do without their weapons and, soon, they are being rounded up.

“Miss Storm,” the SWAT officer calls, nodding his head at the Invisible Girl, “Looks like we owe you one. Is the Secretary here? We've got orders to secure him.”

Sue Storm visibly flinches when the man smacks into the invisible wall, stumbling and nearly falling as well. When the SWAT team shows up and starts to take care of the remaining thugs, she lets the force fields protecting the dignitaries dissipate. She looks at the officer in mild befuddlement, partly because of the growing headache. "I'm sorry, who?"

"The Secretary of the Treasury," the SWAT officer tells Sue, looking over the hostages with a disconcerted frown on his face, "He was in the motorcade outside. The one you made disappear."

It seems as though his temper is getting the better of him as he turns around again, taking a step closer to Sue, "Miss Storm, we need you to tell us what you did with the Secretary right now."

Nearby, one of the other members of the SWAT team calls out, "He's not here. No positive ID."

Sue Storm's eyes go wide as the man steps closer. "But... I helped them get away from the area." She tries to mentally rewind the goings on, then blurts out, "Broad Street Station. The guard said that was an evacuation point?"

"God damnit," the SWAT officer curses aloud, immediately lifting his radio to his mouth and talking into it urgently, "Dispatch, put out an APB. The Secretary is missing. Last seen heading for Broad Street Station."

That done, he reaches up a gloved hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, "I'm sorry, Miss Storm. But you've been played. Broad Street isn't an evacuation point. Someone else has the Secretary of the Treasury ... "

Sue Storm stares up at the SWAT officer, going pale as realization sinks in and she ends up sitting on the floor in a sort of numb shock. Well, more migrainey shock than numb, but semantics.

“Get the paramedics in here,” the SWAT officer calls out as the main doors are opened, the gunmen outside stopped in one form or another, “Have someone take a look at Miss Storm. She's not looking so good.”

The fight is over for now. The gunmen are incapacitated or otherwise under arrest and the bomb squad is already investigating the bombs affixed to the wall as they remove the detonators.

But what of the Secretary and the Chairman ... ?