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<blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 1372887" data-attributes="member: 16760">As the Shadow sped toward the office building of OmniMetal Inc., he rapidly filled Carlos in on what he and Mike had found.&nbsp; &quot;Do a websearch on OmniMetal, tell me what you find.&nbsp; Check recent news stories in particular.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Sir, Mike's still in our computer - do you want him to handle it?&quot;&nbsp; &quot;By all means.&quot;After a short interval, Carlos reported over the commlink, &quot;Mike says he's finding lots of boring stuff, for whatever that's worth.&quot; &quot;Check through it for things that would be interesting to me, as opposed to him.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Gotcha, sir... They're involved in a good bit of electronics assembly, looks like, pretty high-tech cutting-edge stuff.&nbsp; Oh, here's something, they were involved in that robotic arm business.&quot;The Shadow clicked on the memory that he hadn't been able to nail down before.&nbsp; A very sophisticated prosthetic arm had been a nine-day wonder in the news a month or two ago.&nbsp; While its range of motion was limited (with improvements expected soon), within that range it had a delicacy and precision beyond anything else on the market, indistinguishable in performance from a normal human arm.&nbsp; &quot;Oh.&nbsp; That.&quot;&nbsp; Then, grimly, &quot;Wasn't there also talk of them developing a full-body exoskeleton?&quot; &quot;Yeah, I seem to recall that.&quot;&quot;Oh, sir, Mike just found out that OmniMetal is a subsidiary.&quot; &quot;What is the parent company?&quot; &quot;It's called the 'Organized Multinational Investment Group'.&quot;&nbsp; The Shadow snorted. &quot;Now there's a name with marketing cachet for you.&nbsp; Have him see what he can find about them.&quot;&nbsp; Shortly after, &quot;Mike says he's running into some really heavy firewalls, sir.&nbsp; He asks if you want him to proceed.&quot;&nbsp; The Shadow pondered a moment, then said, &quot;Tell him to go ahead.&quot;Moments later, Carlos shouted, &quot;OH CRAP!&quot; and started typing so furiously the Shadow could hear it clearly through the commlink.&nbsp; &quot;What is it, Carlos?!&nbsp; Talk to me!!&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Can't, sir, wait a second!&quot;&nbsp; Then, &quot;OK, he managed to break the connection in time.&nbsp; Mike says there's something really Bad in that computer, sir.&quot; The young man clearly pronounced the capital letter. &quot;It tried to attack him, but I was able to warn him just before it struck.&nbsp; He's scared, sir.&quot;&nbsp; Carlos' tone revealed that he was rather shaken himself.&nbsp; &quot;Tell him he's earned a good night's sleep.&nbsp; Did he get anything at all?&quot;&nbsp; Carlos typed a little more, then reported, &quot;Just a filename, sir. 'Overmind Project'.&quot;Silence, then, &quot;Carlos, please repeat that.&quot; &quot;The 'Overmind Project'.&quot;&quot;I do not like this, Carlos.&nbsp; I do not like this at all.&quot;&nbsp; He hesitated, then finally continued, &quot;Grace has a theory.&nbsp; A very speculative theory, mind.&nbsp; She isn't sure about it.&quot;&nbsp; Carlos, a bit nonplussed by the Shadow's uncharacteristic hedging, asked warily, &quot;What is it, sir?&quot;&nbsp; &quot;She thinks these people are carrying around human brains in those suitcases.&quot;&quot;Gross!&nbsp; Why would anybody want to do that?!&quot;&nbsp; &quot;You do not understand, Carlos.&nbsp; Living brains.&nbsp; Living telepathic brains, to be precise.&quot; Long pause.&nbsp; &quot;Oh sh- er, shoot, sir.&nbsp; Um. Where, uh, exactly did these brains come from?&quot;&nbsp; The Shadow did not bother to answer that one.&nbsp; After a little more cogitation, Carlos followed up with, &quot;And what do they want them for?&quot;&nbsp; &quot;I do not know. But I do not like it.&quot; Carlos' agreement was fervent.By this time, the Shadow had reached his destination - an eight story office building.&nbsp; He circled it slowly, getting a feel for the place, his mental shields at maximum and his invisibility firmly in place.&nbsp; Then, cautiously, he lowered his shields to let his mental senses range outward.The first thing he noticed was a pervasive basso &quot;hum&quot; in the psychic background, almost like the thrum of a bank of generators.&nbsp; It tended to wash out other mental impressions, make it more difficult to get a fix.&nbsp; But after some patient (and quite passive) scanning, he managed to ascertain a number of facts.The bottom half of the building seemed empty save for watchmen, janitorial staff and so on.&nbsp; The Shadow guessed that the first four floors were occupied by the other tenants of the building;&nbsp; at any rate the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors seemed to reflect OmniMetal's style...Those floors featured some of the strangest minds the Man of Mystery had ever encountered.&nbsp; Flat, passive, dormant - inhumanly so.&nbsp; The closest thing he'd ever seen was when he'd probed someone deep in meditation.&nbsp; These minds were awake, but not thinking anything at all.&nbsp; They were... waiting.&nbsp; Waiting, and nothing more.There were also some more normal minds moving about, though there was something strange about them too that he couldn't quite pin down.Finally, the eighth floor, which at first had seemed quite empty, proved to have the same utterly blank reading that the black cars had.&nbsp; The Shadow frowned deeply.&nbsp; They have power and to spare, it would seem, he thought.He stopped and hovered the cycle between two windows, near a place where his senses told him a mind was waiting.&nbsp; Cautiously he extended his telepathic awareness into its surface thoughts... or what would have been its surface thoughts, if it had any.&nbsp; There was a blank inactivity there that frightened the Shadow more than he could say.Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he thought.&nbsp; He projected a single word to the waiting mind, as flatly and emotionlessly as he could:&nbsp; Report.&nbsp; [SP:&nbsp; &quot;Ballsy.&quot; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />]The mind abruptly flared into activity, and the Shadow nearly cried out as he experienced something like a red-hot poker in his mind.&nbsp; He broke the contact frantically;&nbsp; it had been trying to stun him, render him senseless.&nbsp; When he recovered himself, he observed the reaction inside the building.The more normal minds were converging on the location of the one he'd just interacted with.&nbsp; Now that they were closer, he got a better &quot;feel&quot; for them... weak minds that seemed somehow augmented, sporting greater psychic strength than they ought to somehow. He'd never seen anything like it, and found it quite disturbing.&nbsp; These augmented minds entered some sort of rapport with the mind he'd touched... After a short time, they went their separate ways again.Grimly, the dark avenger reached out once more with telepathy, this time to one of the augmented minds.&nbsp; Despite its unnatural strength, its shields were no match for him;&nbsp; he easily slipped into the stream of consciousness...&nbsp; Noticing peripherally as he did so that one of the &quot;waiting&quot; minds suddenly became frantically active.Surprise and uncertainty - something about an alarm being triggered.&nbsp; Racing to another room and announcing, &quot;The detector just went off!&quot; Then tapping at a keyboard and anxiously scanning a printout that would have the answer.&nbsp; &quot;Sh**, we're being probed!&quot;&nbsp; Somebody else present ordering, &quot;Activate the defenses.&quot;&nbsp; The Shadow decided it would be prudent to back off the cycle from the building, but remained in mental contact.&nbsp; There was some more typing at the keyboard, then several &quot;waiting&quot; minds speared probes over and past the Shadow's location - he was certain they did not notice him.Then the mental background noise stepped up, and it became difficult to maintain his contact with the man in the building - the closest analogy he could think of being that of feedback squeals from an amp.&nbsp; Thinking quickly, he gave one parting shot before he broke off the connection:&nbsp; You should not trifle with Mastermind, fools! You have invaded my territory long enough!&nbsp; Hopefully that would give them something to think about - something other than the mythical &quot;Shadow&quot;.The Shadow sped away on his hovercycle, relaying what he'd found to Carlos. &quot;That's some big bad juju in that place, sir!&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Yes, Carlos.&nbsp; I know.&quot;&nbsp; He didn't bother to repeat that he didn't like it, as that would have been quite superfluous.&nbsp; &quot;Either those 'augmented' men live in the building, which I doubt, or they are working the night shift.&nbsp; I believe I shall pay a visit again early this morning, see what happens when they get off work.&nbsp; In the meantime...&quot;&quot;I think I am going to see if I can find Juan Martinez again.&nbsp; My instincts tell me that he has been involved with these people before... They would certainly account for his unnatural terror of mental contact, and he does have a mind-shield stronger than the average.&nbsp; It could be unrelated, I suppose, but it is worth checking.&quot;[To quote a Mr. Han Solo:&nbsp; &quot;I've got a bad feeling about this...&quot;&nbsp; For that matter, Obi-Wan's comment has some merit too - the one about millions of minds crying out in unison...][That's no moon, ladies and gentlemen...&nbsp; I think this may be the biggest caper the Shadow's ever faced.&nbsp; Hope it's not more than he can chew.]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="The Shadow, post: 1372887, member: 16760"] As the Shadow sped toward the office building of OmniMetal Inc., he rapidly filled Carlos in on what he and Mike had found. "Do a websearch on OmniMetal, tell me what you find. Check recent news stories in particular." "Sir, Mike's still in our computer - do you want him to handle it?" "By all means." After a short interval, Carlos reported over the commlink, "Mike says he's finding lots of boring stuff, for whatever that's worth." "Check through it for things that would be interesting to me, as opposed to him." "Gotcha, sir... They're involved in a good bit of electronics assembly, looks like, pretty high-tech cutting-edge stuff. Oh, here's something, they were involved in that robotic arm business." The Shadow clicked on the memory that he hadn't been able to nail down before. A very sophisticated prosthetic arm had been a nine-day wonder in the news a month or two ago. While its range of motion was limited (with improvements expected soon), within that range it had a delicacy and precision beyond anything else on the market, indistinguishable in performance from a normal human arm. "Oh. That." Then, grimly, "Wasn't there also talk of them developing a full-body exoskeleton?" "Yeah, I seem to recall that." "Oh, sir, Mike just found out that OmniMetal is a subsidiary." "What is the parent company?" "It's called the 'Organized Multinational Investment Group'." The Shadow snorted. "Now there's a name with marketing cachet for you. Have him see what he can find about them." Shortly after, "Mike says he's running into some really heavy firewalls, sir. He asks if you want him to proceed." The Shadow pondered a moment, then said, "Tell him to go ahead." Moments later, Carlos shouted, "OH CRAP!" and started typing so furiously the Shadow could hear it clearly through the commlink. "What is it, Carlos?! Talk to me!!" "Can't, sir, wait a second!" Then, "OK, he managed to break the connection in time. Mike says there's something really Bad in that computer, sir." The young man clearly pronounced the capital letter. "It tried to attack him, but I was able to warn him just before it struck. He's scared, sir." Carlos' tone revealed that he was rather shaken himself. "Tell him he's earned a good night's sleep. Did he get anything at all?" Carlos typed a little more, then reported, "Just a filename, sir. 'Overmind Project'." Silence, then, "Carlos, please repeat that." "The 'Overmind Project'." "I do not like this, Carlos. I do not like this at all." He hesitated, then finally continued, "Grace has a theory. A very speculative theory, mind. She isn't sure about it." Carlos, a bit nonplussed by the Shadow's uncharacteristic hedging, asked warily, "What is it, sir?" "She thinks these people are carrying around human brains in those suitcases." "Gross! Why would anybody want to do that?!" "You do not understand, Carlos. [i]Living[/i] brains. Living telepathic brains, to be precise." Long pause. "Oh sh- er, shoot, sir. Um. Where, uh, exactly did these brains come from?" The Shadow did not bother to answer that one. After a little more cogitation, Carlos followed up with, "And what do they want them for?" "I do not know. But I do not like it." Carlos' agreement was fervent. By this time, the Shadow had reached his destination - an eight story office building. He circled it slowly, getting a feel for the place, his mental shields at maximum and his invisibility firmly in place. Then, cautiously, he lowered his shields to let his mental senses range outward. The first thing he noticed was a pervasive basso "hum" in the psychic background, almost like the thrum of a bank of generators. It tended to wash out other mental impressions, make it more difficult to get a fix. But after some patient (and quite passive) scanning, he managed to ascertain a number of facts. The bottom half of the building seemed empty save for watchmen, janitorial staff and so on. The Shadow guessed that the first four floors were occupied by the other tenants of the building; at any rate the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors seemed to reflect OmniMetal's style... Those floors featured some of the strangest minds the Man of Mystery had ever encountered. Flat, passive, dormant - inhumanly so. The closest thing he'd ever seen was when he'd probed someone deep in meditation. These minds were awake, but not thinking anything at all. They were... waiting. Waiting, and nothing more. There were also some more normal minds moving about, though there was something strange about them too that he couldn't quite pin down. Finally, the eighth floor, which at first had seemed quite empty, proved to have the same utterly blank reading that the black cars had. The Shadow frowned deeply. They have power and to spare, it would seem, he thought. He stopped and hovered the cycle between two windows, near a place where his senses told him a mind was waiting. Cautiously he extended his telepathic awareness into its surface thoughts... or what would have been its surface thoughts, if it had any. There was a blank inactivity there that frightened the Shadow more than he could say. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he thought. He projected a single word to the waiting mind, as flatly and emotionlessly as he could: [i]Report.[/i] [SP: "Ballsy." :)] The mind abruptly flared into activity, and the Shadow nearly cried out as he experienced something like a red-hot poker in his mind. He broke the contact frantically; it had been trying to stun him, render him senseless. When he recovered himself, he observed the reaction inside the building. The more normal minds were converging on the location of the one he'd just interacted with. Now that they were closer, he got a better "feel" for them... weak minds that seemed somehow augmented, sporting greater psychic strength than they ought to somehow. He'd never seen anything like it, and found it quite disturbing. These augmented minds entered some sort of rapport with the mind he'd touched... After a short time, they went their separate ways again. Grimly, the dark avenger reached out once more with telepathy, this time to one of the augmented minds. Despite its unnatural strength, its shields were no match for him; he easily slipped into the stream of consciousness... Noticing peripherally as he did so that one of the "waiting" minds suddenly became frantically active. Surprise and uncertainty - something about an alarm being triggered. Racing to another room and announcing, "The detector just went off!" Then tapping at a keyboard and anxiously scanning a printout that would have the answer. "Sh**, we're being probed!" Somebody else present ordering, "Activate the defenses." The Shadow decided it would be prudent to back off the cycle from the building, but remained in mental contact. There was some more typing at the keyboard, then several "waiting" minds speared probes over and past the Shadow's location - he was certain they did not notice him. Then the mental background noise stepped up, and it became difficult to maintain his contact with the man in the building - the closest analogy he could think of being that of feedback squeals from an amp. Thinking quickly, he gave one parting shot before he broke off the connection: [i]You should not trifle with Mastermind, fools! You have invaded my territory long enough![/i] Hopefully that would give them something to think about - something other than the mythical "Shadow". The Shadow sped away on his hovercycle, relaying what he'd found to Carlos. "That's some big bad juju in that place, sir!" "Yes, Carlos. I know." He didn't bother to repeat that he didn't like it, as that would have been quite superfluous. "Either those 'augmented' men live in the building, which I doubt, or they are working the night shift. I believe I shall pay a visit again early this morning, see what happens when they get off work. In the meantime..." "I think I am going to see if I can find Juan Martinez again. My instincts tell me that he has been involved with these people before... They would certainly account for his unnatural terror of mental contact, and he does have a mind-shield stronger than the average. It could be unrelated, I suppose, but it is worth checking." [To quote a Mr. Han Solo: "I've got a bad feeling about this..." For that matter, Obi-Wan's comment has some merit too - the one about millions of minds crying out in unison...] [That's no moon, ladies and gentlemen... I think this may be the biggest caper the Shadow's ever faced. Hope it's not more than he can chew.] [/QUOTE]

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