Escalation Miniseries, Issue #1, “Over and Under”

LOCATIONS: Tajikistan

CHARACTERS: Bruiser II, Gemini, Umbra, E.M.M.A. (Electronic Mission Management Agent)

GUEST STARS: Lady Liberty, Heat Death, Ace of Spades, the Sinister Scientist

SYNOPSIS: Bruiser, Gemini, and Umbra travel via AeroJet to a remote valley in Western Tajikistan to investigate an attack on a suspected Underhand facility. They find the ruined facility is being picked over by a gang of local slavers led by a crooked Tajik officer they call “The Colonel”. Gemini uses his powers to infiltrate the site as an associate of the gang with Bruiser acting as his bodyguard. Umbra follows them down into the underground base, dispatching guards with his voodoo powers and magic machete. When their cover is blown, the team takes down the slavers in a fight and captures the Colonel. Investigating the base, they find evidence indicating that it was being used by the Sinister Scientist for experiments on human test subjects. The attack on the base was the act of one or more superhumans, one of whom broke the Scientist’s neck with his or her hands, leaving the infamous mastermind’s body behind and freeing a number of test subjects from their cells. The team burns the corpse in a furnace located in the lab’s emptied morgue and searches the facility for more clues. Gemini finds part of a journal entry on the Scientist’s archaic terminal and helps Bruiser and Umbra locate a hidden storage room. The room contains several specimen tanks preserving the remains of alien life forms which E.M.M.A. dates as being from the Pre-Cambrian Era. Lady Liberty, Heat Death, and Ace of Spades from Vigilance suddenly enter the base, claiming that they have authority over the scene. Overwatch helicopters begin to arrive outside as the team heads upstairs.