2013.05.24 - Grodd's insect problem - Research

It is a fair Sunday morning in New York and Nate is walking southwards, from Greenwich Village towards the Halo Towers. Flight would be faster, but he is not in a hurry and he enjoys people-watching.

After meeting and examining Hope Summers, Grodd has accelerated his plans for the Legion of Doom and now needs to find more information about this 'Brood' these giant insects which are suppose to be taking over the planet. The only other person in Hope's memories which Grodd might find in this time is her brother Nate.

It took Grodd a few days to track him down but where Grodd sits in his lab the alarms have started going off. Grodd verifies the face matches the memories he stole and then accesses the city network making a phone booth ring on the corner just as Nate walks up to it.

Just in case Nate isn't the observant type Grodd turns all the traffic lights at the corner green at once trapping a public transit buss in the middle of the intersection as cars on all sides start to drive forward at once and begin honking at each other. The front of the buss is then changed by a signal from the central hub to read, 'Pick up the phone Nate'

Nate is pretty observant, the phone ringing says little, but the traffic light going all green are an obvious signal of an incoming problem. Still, that message makes him blink one or twice, and scan the immediate area carefully. There are hundreds of people on sight, though, and thousands of minds in a small radius around him. Living in New York has some disadvantages. He picks the phone, raising telepathic and telekinetic shields as he does. "Nice trick," he greets.

The voice of Grodd greets Nate from the other end of the phone, "Thanks. Grodd. I met an interesting girl last night. Hope. She had a lot of things on her mind. The one that interested me the most is the Brood. What do you know about them?" right to the point. Grodd is of course activating his camera drones and sending them into the area so he can get a better view of the whole situation but they will take a few minutes to fly there.

"The Brood?" Of all things to talk about through a weird phone call. Nate doesn't answer right away, instead he reaches with telepathy to try to find Hope. "You mean those alien that crashed in Brazil last year? Who are you?"

"Grodd, try and keep up." then there is the sound of writing, "Tell me more. And don't worry, Hope is fine. I gave her my number. If she needs help she can call me. I'll keep her alive. I can't have aliens invading my planet. " it is his planet after all.

"Dude, aliens trying to invade the planet all the time. It was Kryptonians just a few weeks ago, and..." uh, better not mention Daemonites to strangers, right? "Look, we destroyed the Brood nest and their spaceship, which was dead and rotting, I don't know much about them besides that they were murderous little creeps that infected people and animals to breed more Brood. Where is Hope?"

"She refused my offer of hospitality so I put her back where I found her. Given her knowledge of the future and the devastation caused to her time line by these roaches I think you are mistaken about how dead this ship of theirs is. Where might I find that ship?" the voice asks.

Nate uh-huhs. That is the very distant future of Earth, if he remembers correctly. "About 500 miles west of Manaus, in the middle of the Amazons. I doubt the local government has left much there. The ship was organic and dead anyway. It doesn't matter much. They are aliens, they came in a spaceship and I am sure there are more of them out there. What are you going to do? Invade them back?" Not a bad idea, but spaceships are a rare commodity.

On the other end of the phone there is a deep, dark laugh. It laughs a sound that all creatures recognize instinctually as the voice of a dangerous thing, a thing of madness, a thing that hunts the nightmares, that laugh ends slowly and then the voice says, "I'm going to kill them. Their entire species." and then the line goes dead..

The traffic lights go back to normal and life starts to resume it's normal pace..

Nate hangs the phone, "Yeah, good luck." He is going to have to talk with Hope about her choices of friends. He knows that kind of laugher. He needs to find Hope, but first he will spend a few minutes trying to find the spotter, the person or device used to locate him here. Being easy to find is bad for his health, given his lifestyle.