In the coastal metropolis of Modern City, Georgia, a ship transporting a cargo of chemicals explodes just off the coast and sinks into the bay. This tragic disaster will give rise to a variety of people developing superhuman abilities. They are Meta-Humans, the first of their kind. But are they friend or foe? Hero... or villain?
[hr]
It was morning, well, the tail of end of the morning hours anyway. At almost 11:30 AM, Modern City was well into its busy day, citizens traversing to all manner of places for all manner of reasons. Some were taking an early lunch break, others perhaps were heading into work late that day for one reason or another. Either way, it was sunny and the city was bustling with its usual daily activity.

At city hall, the mayor's office to be exact, Mr. Rick Wellington sat at his desk with an exasperated expression. The incident a few months back had given rise to certain individuals with unusual abilities, Meta-Humans, he believed they'd been dubbed. Well, those Meta-Humans were causing all sorts of headaches for his office, what with the political controversy that had sprang up with their appearance. Not only that, but the ones who apparently decided to either take the law into their own hands or use their power for crime were also being rather irritating thorns in the Mayor's side, mostly because of the collateral damage they had a tendency to cause whenever they decided butt heads with each other. And all it ever meant was even more paperwork for his office and even more of the city's budget getting spent to keep these things in check.

"Ms. Andrews to see you, sir." the receptionist's voice on the intercom snapped Wellington out of his thoughts.

"Send her in." he responded in kind. A moment later his office door opened, and in walked his Deputy Mayor, Claire Andrews. Ms. Andrews was lovely, but sharp young woman with blond hair she almost always kept tied up in some form of ponytail or the like. She wore a slim pair of glasses and a woman's business suit. As usual, her tablet stayed in her hand, in fact she was inputting something on it as she entered, "Let me guess, more paperwork?" he asked in an incredulous. Honestly that seemed to be all he ever did anymore.

"Actually, sir, you asked me to remind you about your 12 o' clock meeting? It's close to that time." Claire said, her voice even and her eyes never leaving the tablet's screen.

"Oh, right..." Wellington checked his watch and stood up, "...thank you, Claire. Be a dear and look after the office for an hour or so 'til I get back?" he asked, then walked out the door without awaiting a response.

When he was gone, Claire briefly put down the tablet and rubbed her temples, "Sure, Mr. Mayor, I'm already practically running the city for you, may as well make it official and sit at your desk while I'm at it." she muttered to herself under her breath. She wasn't exactly exaggerating, either. Wellington was charismatic and his family-man persona earned him popularity, but the man was terrible at management and so it ended up falling to her to take care of that, while he essentially just made speeches and signed papers.

"Gretta, please have all calls to my office redirected to Mr. Wellington's, please. Looks like I'm gonna be in here a while." she spoke to the intercom, then sat in Wellington's chair. Once again she picked up her tablet, only now she was not only working on it but also simultaneously on Wellington's computer as well. Quite the multi-tasker, Claire, always was. Before she could get too wrapped up in work, she remembered something and paused her work in order to use her cell phone. Finding the number she needed to dial, she pressed the call button and waited for an answer.
[hr]
In a newly refurbished office in the downtown area, a man sat at his rather empty desk. He could see the sign of his office on the window though he letters were backwards in order to be read from the outside. They read 'Andrews Detective Agency', and Carter sighed to himself. He sometimes wondered if perhaps he should change the name of the office to something a little more exciting, but no ideas ever came to him. He sure as hell wasn't gonna call it "Condor Detective Agency" since that would have made his secret identity way too obvious. He wondered if maybe he should ask someone for suggestions, like Eli maybe.

Elliot Sinclair, Eli to her friends, was a young woman Carter met on a previous case. Actually, it was his first real case since opening the office, now that he thought about it. Anyway, the case had him investigating a college student that was said to be able to shoot lasers from his eyes and was apparently using that to hold up convenient stores. Well, as it so happened Eli was investigating the same Meta-Human, and so Carter had bumped into her while looking into the student. They seemed to hit it off pretty well, or at least Carter thought so, and they ended up working together to find the guy. That was how Carter learned about Eli's little talent, her ability to see visions of an object's history. It made finding the Meta-Human a complete walk in the park, and once they did it was just a matter of taking him down as Condor. Funnily enough, Eli discovered Carter's secret by happenstance, essentially her ability kicked in when she came into contact with Condor, and she saw the history of the suit and that it was made by Carter. In the end, Carter told her that he could definitely use a talent like hers in his cases if she was ever interested, though he had a feeling she probably wouldn't be.

The sound of his cell phone snapped Carter back into reality. He fumbled around with it until he clicked the answer button, "Hello? Andrews Detective Office, you got mysteries, I got answers." he said, greeting the caller with his office's slogan. It wasn't exactly the greatest slogan in the world, in fact it was kinda corny.

"I thought you said you would change that stupid slogan?" asked the voice of his sister, Claire.

"Huh? Oh, hey, sis! Uh yeah... I, uh... I'm working on it," he answered, feeling a bit embarrassed, "So what's up, anyway?"

"It's about lunch. Doesn't look like I can make it today." Claire answered bluntly.

"Aw, too bad. You sure you can't skip out on the office for a break?" asked Carter nonchalantly.

""Skip out"? What are you, 16, Carter? We're not in school, you know. And no, I can't get out of the office, Wellington's at a meeting and decided to leave his office in my care."

"Oh, playing office sitter again, huh?" asked Carter, knowing how much she hated when Wellington did that, "Okay well, another day I guess. Is tomorrow open?"

"We'll see." she answered.

"'Kay. Talk to ya later, sis." Carter said, and then they hung up, "Well, crap." Carter said to himself, leaning his chair back and even lazily propping his feet on the desk, "There goes my afternoon."