Byrd Man

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

Center City, WA
1:14 AM

Tracy walked through the smoke filled casino floor. Old ladies chain-smoked unfiltered cigarettes while they worked clattering slot machines with dead eyes. A half dozen dolled up ex-strippers wobbled across casino floors on too tall heels while they dishied out chips and cigarettes. The heavy make-up did a bad job of hidding the miles and the years. Tracy figured for the right price a man could take one of them home. Drunk businessmen played blackjack while geeks in Hawaiian shirts and Shriner fez hats played roulette.

The Gold Rush Casino got its name from Center City's past. The city sprung up in the wake of the Klondike Gold Rush. Situated in the Pacific Northwest, Center City was the one of the last outposts before Alaska and became a boomtown because of it. Like a lot of boomtowns, a primarily male populace needed a place to spend their money. Saloons and brothels popped up across the town to serve the thousands of rough prospectors passing through on their way north. The gold rush dried up and the boom years faded like they always do, but Center City pushed on. Its origins in human desire explained a lot about the current state of the city. How could the city be asked to clean up when vice was in its DNA?

Tracy found a pit boss walking around the craps table. He had his eye on a pair of hot hands rolling eight the hard way for the thrid consecutive time. He seemed mildly annoyed when Tracy got his attention.

"Yes, sir?"

"Here to see Milligan. Hyde sent me."

Annoyance quickly turned to deference. The pit boss pulled out a walkie-talkie and radioed some unseen party. A moment later, a security guard in a red blazer and slacks was escorting Tracy off the casino floor and into the back. They passed a room crammed with monitors. Every inch of the casino seemed to be under surveillance. Another room down from the monitors had its door open. Tracy saw soundproof padding and a single metal chair bolted to the floor. That was where cheaters went, and Tracy was almost sure there would be no cameras in that room. Based on the pit boss' look, the lucky craps shooter would soon find himself in that little room.

"Mr. Milligan? He's the guy."

The security guard led Tracy into a sprawling office. It was decorated in a very gaudy fashion, leopard print wallpaper and a faux fur carpet. Fake Venus De Milo statues flanked a walnut desk big enough to hold an orgy on. A long glass window behind the desk looked down on the casino floor. Behind the desk, his leopard fur slippers up on the desk, was Joey Milligan. Milligan looked like an extra from a bad disco movie. He wore a bright pink shirt with half of it unbuttoned, a large gold necklace and medallion caught in the steely gray fur on his chest. He also wore a white pair of pants that would have looked embarrassing on a man half his age, but made Milligan look clownish.

"Tracy Lawless, the man the myth the legend."

Tracy took a chair, a plush leopard print wingback, and nodded as Milligan took his feet down off the desk.

"Mr. Hyde said you needed help with something. So he sent me here to check things out. I came as quick as I could."

"For what I pay Hyde in protection, you should have been here the day before yesterday," Milligan grumbled.

Tracy remained quiet while Milligan rooted through his desk. He came up with a remote control and pointed it at a television to his right. The thing clicked on and, after a few button presses, security camera footage rolled on the monitor. Four minutes worth of footage, all of it taken at different parts of the casino at different times over the past month. Tracy noticed the pattern before Milligan even opened his mouth.

"Notice something?"

"It's the same two guys in every shot, always dressed differently and on different nights, but always at the casino and never together. Casers?"

"That's what my security guys think," said Milligan. "They've been here a long time, well long for case job. That's got me nervous, something may be coming very soon. I want you to case the casers, Lawless. Find them and make them pay for even fucking thinking of trying to rob my joint."

Tracy nodded his head and started to stand.

"I'll be on the floor if you need me."

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

100 IC posts in under two weeks? Has to be some kind of record for this section of RPGuild.

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

<Snipped quote by Nightrunner>

@Hillan

Semi-related, I was hated the doubt option in that game. Dude came on too strong for just simple doubt. I chose doubt one time and he yelled "TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW OR I WILL BREAK YOUR GODDAMN JAW!" Take it down a notch, Cole Phelps.

The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

Scott Andrews pulled into the gravel parking lot of Ray's and turned off the engine of his car. Ray and Jed's cars were parked near the front entrance of the bar, while John Norman's truck was still where it had been since last night. Scott closed his eyes and let out a long breath. He was way in over his head and he knew it. He'd known it since he saw Jed killed Howard Beggs...

No, his name was Jerry Miller. A state trooper and a SLED sergeant came to the sheriff's office today and identified the dead man as an undercover SLED agent. The story Scott thought was bullshit turned out to be true. Jed, and by extension Billy, killed a fellow cop. All the heinous shit Scott had been asked to do over the years, this was going over the line. He'd witness and murder and was trying to frame an innocent man while the fucking scumbag who did the crime acted like he was Scott's boss. He no longer cared about the money or Billy's promise to make him sheriff. He had to get clean.

Scott climbed out the car and walked into the bar. The chairs were already up on the tables. Jed was busy wiping down the bar while Ray counted money in the cash register. Both looked up as he entered.

"There's my boy," Jed said with a smile.

"I ain't your boy," Scott snapped. "And I ain't Billy's boy, not no longer."

"The fuck you say?" Ray said with a grimace. "You mind your goddamn mind, son."

"Fuck you," Scott said, pointing his finger at Ray. "And fuck Billy! You killed a goddamn state police officer, Jed. I'm out. Fuck all of y'all."

"You ain't out, nigga," Jed said as he walked around the bar. "Until Billy says you're out."

"I'm out of this deal and I'm out of the fucking sheriff's department," Scott said. "I'm calling SLED first chance I get and I am telling them every fucking thing. All of you motherfuckers are going to burn. The two of you, Jim Brown and DJ, even Billy goddamn Brown!"

Scott pulled his service pistol as soon as he saw Ray going for something behind the counter. Scott knew the old man kept a Colt Python down under the register. He kept a gun trained on Ray while looking towards Jed. Slowly, Scott started to back out towards the door.

"You sons of bitches forgot who the law was around here, and now you're all gonna fucking pay."

--

Gene Parker stood at the midfield point on the football field, smoking a cigarette while he waited. The grass was yellow and dead in the early winter air. It wasn't much of a stadium, just a pair of metal bleachers on two sides of the field and an electronic scoreboard on the opposite end of the field house. Gene never played on this field when he was in school, back when he went to school it was across town near the mill and the football field was a patch of land that was mostly dirt and sat right beside the school.

The man walking towards him had never played on the field either. Though he was just a few years younger than him, Billy Brown's graduating class, class of '72, was the last to come out of the old high school. They both played varsity together, Gene as a noseguard and Billy as a defensive back. Unsurprisingly, Billy always played with a chip on his shoulder. He was rough and mean when it came to the game. He almost got kicked off the team when they played Dixie and he stomped on a boy's leg after the play was over. They had damn good defense Gene's senior year, and it only got better when Billy was a senior. Gene remembered watching from the bleachers while Billy's '71 Pickett Panthers won the state championship.

"Billy."

"Gene."

"Sheriff calls in the middle of the night wanting a meeting, I got to know what's going on."

"Your boys killed a man a few nights ago. A guy who went by the name Howard Beggs."

Billy looked at Gene passively. Gene sighed and unzipped his jacket, pulling his shirt up and showing his flabby and pale stomach. He turned out his pockets and showed Billy that he wasn't wearing a wire. When he was done with his show, Billy just shrugged.

"Admit it or not, I don't give a damn. The fact is they done it, and the fact is he was an undercover state policeman. Sent in to investigate your businesses and my sheriff's department."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because either tonight or tomorrow, John Norman is going to do something very stupid because he has no choice in the matter. He thinks I can snap my fingers and make evidence disappear. He thinks you have blackmail on me, and that I work for you."

Billy let out a deep laugh. "You work for me? As if I'd want your sorry ass."

Gene bristled and stuffed his hands in his pockets to hide his balled up fists.

"I'm just giving you this warning, Billy. Take it serious or don't, I could give two shits. What I do care about is Scott Andrews. I know he's your guy inside the sheriff's department. If this SLED guy coming to town is the first wave of a serious state investigation, then something has to be done about Scott. His involvement with you hurts the both of us. You could go to jail and I could be run out of office."

"I see," Billy said with a nod of his head. "Want me and my guys to do your fucking dirty work, Gene?"

"I like the status quo, Billy. Scott and John can alter that status quo. I'm just suggesting ways to keep everything the same."

"And what about us?" Billy asked. "What about the shit between you and me. What about Re--"

"Don't you say her fucking name," Gene hissed. "You don't get to go there, Billy."

Billy smirked in a bit of self-satisfaction. He shrugged again and Gene had to take a deep breath to calm himself.

"Like I said, status quo. I keep getting elected, you throw me and my guys a few busts every so often to make us look good and we'll call it quits. What happened between us back then... it's the past."

"Past ain't never past around here, Gene. You know better than I do that the past is just waiting to come back around. The shit between us will always be between us until it ain't."

"I'm done, Billy. You got your warning and your advice. That's it."

Gene turned around and started walking off the field. He could hear his pulse throbbing in his ears with each and every step. He knew Billy's eyes were barreling down on him. Those little eyes that saw everything could see Gene's frustration and impotence as clear as day. He was right and Gene knew it. What was between them would come to light eventually... but not tonight. Tonight was about taking pragmatic measures. Tonight was about survival.

--

Mike pulled up to Ray's parking lot. John saw an unmarked car in the parking lot, the same one he was out by Reid Creek last night. Nail it as Scott Andrews' unmarked car.

"Shit, police," Mike said under his breath.

"It's Billy's guy."

"Let's go," Mike said as he started to put the car in reverse.

"No. I don't care if he's in there or not. If I can get what's in that safe, who gives a fuck?"

Mike stared at John for several seconds before shaking his head.

"This is suicide, you know that?"

"Better to die here than on a slab at a state prison, needle in my arm."

"Look..."

Mike gripped the steering wheel and sighed.

"The stuff between me and you... it ain't never been easy. I've been like I've been to you because... goddammit, you remind me so much of your daddy. Daniel was my pride and joy, I loved that boy something fierce. It hurt me so bad when Billy took him from me. Just looking at you reminded me of all that I lost and wouldn't ever get back. That's why I was never around, why I was so nasty to you. I never got over your daddy's death, and the last thing I want is to see you wind up the same. I... love you, boy. I do."

"I love you too," John said softly. "Which is why I hate doing this."

John brought the shotgun off the floorboard and struck Mike in the temple with the butt. The blow smacked him against the door and dazed him. He groaned and tried to form words as John climbed out the Cadillac. He walked towards the front door of Ray's with the shotgun in his hands. To John, this slab of concrete in the South Carolina backwoods looked an awful lot like the Alamo.

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

Triskelion
Washington D.C.
13:15 Local Time

George Smiley sat behind his desk and ruminated on the nature of human weakness.

It was common that there were flaws amongst those in his profession. One did not become a spook if they were a well-adjusted individual. Plenty of them were obsessive like Smiley, but plenty more were out looking for some thrill. All they knew of the trade was from movies. They thought spy work entailed walking around in a tuxedo and bedding beautiful Russian women. They fond out the hard way that the tuxedos were nowhere to be found, and the Russian women they encountered looked more like Russian men. The strains of the job, mixed with the flawed people doing them, made it very easy for betrayal to take place.

M.I.C.E. was the acronym Smiley learned at the Circus. The four main reasons intelligence officers began to work for the other side. Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego. With the small salaries government work provided, accepting money to betray ones country was the most common cause behind double agents. Ideology was few and far between, Smiley himself had only once witnessed a full-on fanatic dedicated to the cause he served. Coercion was very common as well, it and money were the two tools the Circus used to turn Soviets to their side. Run a honeytrap and catch a KGB Lieutenant Colonel with his pants down and with a nice young man. If Boris didn't play ball, he would be outed. The ego motive played back to the thrill seekers. They got off on playing the game at such a high stake. They wanted to prove how clever they were. It wasn't enough to pull one over on the enemy, but to take it further and pull one over on your own country.

Smiley thought about M.I.C.E. as he looked at the six folders spread out on his desk. He'd narrowed the potential leak down to six SHIELD agents who all occupied communications related posts in Eastern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Through careful inspection with the tech team, Smiley whittled down his list from ninety-two to just six. One of these agents was Tiger Shark's man inside SHIELD. One of them had given him or his people access to the network, allowing him to hijack a drone strike.

He placed a pudgy hand on a folder. Money: The chief of station in Nairobi had big debts to his name. He had three ex-wives and seven children back in the States, four of those children near college age. Along with him, the communications specialist SHIELD stationed at Diego Garcia had over one hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt, the consequence of acquiring a doctorate in electrical engineering.

Ideology: Nothing there. HYDRA's fascistic bent did not resonate with any of the agents on his list. Nothing in any of their histories even suggested a ideological sympathy with HYDRA.

Coercion: Three there. An agent working out of the Mumbai Station battled drug addiction off and on. It was something on few people in SHIELD knew. If he was off the wagon, he may very well trade his soul for free drugs. A driver for the chief of Johannesburg Station was a closeted homosexual. The one that leapt out to Smiley the most was the agent stationed in Jakarta. The man had a secret second family in Indonesia. Secrets and the need to keep them hidden was often a motivation to commit treason.

Ego: Just one agent met that standard. The roving martial advisor in the Middle East. The man was a full on action junkie. He loved being a spy, he lived it and breathed it. The only thing that would complete his perfect picture of espionage was to in fact be a double agent.

Six agents, six possible leaks. Smiley gathered up the files and stacked them neatly on the desk. Each and every person had a weakness, that flaw that was the chink in their armor. Everyone had one, Smiley included. His had always been his wife. No matter how much Ann ran around on him and turned him into a cuckold, he always welcomed her back home with open arms. That weakness had been exploited by Karla and his man in the Circus for years. He'd purged himself of Ann not long after he retired from the Circus, but he still knew that he would always love her. Even if she came back to him here in America, he would welcome her into his home.

"Ms. Henderson?" Smiley said into the intercom on his desk.

"Yes, sir?" The secretary down the hall replied a few moments later.

"I have some cables I need sent immediately."

Smiley prepared the dispatches while she came to his office. Six different cables about six different subjects. Everything from scraps of intelligence to specific orders. Each dispatch would go to one of his six suspected traitors. How the events of the next twenty-four hours played out would mark his man in a way that Smiley would know for certain who had betrayed SHIELD. The trick was known as a barium meal, one of the oldest counter intelligence moves in the book and it was still an effective weapon, even at a time when robots flew in the sky and rained death and destruction from the sky.

"Yes, sir?" Ms. Henderson asked as she came through Smiley's soundproof door.

"There are specific coding and handling instructions for each one," Smiley said as he handed her the sealed pouches. "I'd like to supervise transmission of them myself."

"Certainly, sir. Follow me."

Smiley glanced down at the six folders one last time before he followed Ms. Henderson out of his office and to the communications center. With good luck on Barnes' end, Tiger Shark and his whole bloody network would be dismantled in just a few short hours.

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

Center City, WA
2:15 AM

Tracy sat perfectly still in his chair while Sebastian Hyde fumed. Tracy's shirt and pants were spattered with blood, his ears still rang from the shootout. He'd just left the Flynn home where he'd called Hyde and came straight away to his office. The old man drummed his fingers on the desk and stared at Tracy over his glasses.

"You let the whole situation get out of control, Tracy."

"Flynn acted on his own accord. He made it clear he was going to move forward, regardless if I helped or not."

Hyde sighed and lifted his glasses up to rub his eyes. In the reprieve from conversation, Tracy thought about what went down at the soccer field. Two Russians were gunned down by Flynn's men, while all three of them were killed and Flynn was gutshot. A private doctor was back at the big mansion fixing him up. He was certain Flynn was going to make it alive. His daughter Linda was shaken up, but not hurt. The same for little Anton Belyakov. Tracy shielded him during the worst of the shooting. Anton's father was unhurt in the shooting. The last he saw of the two Belyakov's, they were running away from the shootout with the lone Russian who made it out alive.

"It's a mess," said Tracy. "But both kids were returned safely. The only ones killed in the whole thing were Flynn and Belyakov's gorillas."

"The money?"

Tracy laid a stack of banded bills on the desk. Five twenty thousand dollar stacks. Hyde's eyes twinkled from behind his glasses.

"That's one hundred grand, Flynn's worth of my service."

Hyde took two of the stacks and tucked them in a drawer in his desk.

"The rest if for you. I give you the lion's share because you've got one last job to do."

Tracy raised an eyebrow while Hyde leaned back in his chair and lit a cigar. The old man took his sweet time inhaling the first puff. Tracy wanted to come across the table and shove that cigar down his throat.

"Belyakov and his ilk can't be allowed to live. They perpetrated an unsanctioned kidnapping in my town. Anybody goes behind my back, the cost is death. The rest of the shit stains in this city need to remember that. Send a message, Tracy."

Tracy took the remaining sixty thousand and stood. He walked out the office without another word.

--

Konstantin Belyakov died two weeks later. He and an associate of his sat parked at a red light when an unknown person on a motorcycle rode up and gunned them down with a submachine gun. This was the final act in a two-week bloodbath where Belyakov's organization was picked apart by unknown assassins. A firebombing on his deli killed six known Russian organized crime members. Three more were gunned down over the course of a night, while one man was strangled in a back alley near a strip club. Another was found after jumping off a roof. Several sources claimed he was pushed by a tall, blonde man with scars on his neck.

When Center City Police found Belyakov's body, they also found a message. Written on the hood of the car in the Russian's own blood were the words: DEATH TO KIDNAPPERS. The handful of Russian Organized Crime members in town quickly and quietly left Center City, returning to their West Coast hub of Los Angeles. The message sent to them had been read loud and clear. Center City was off limits. This was and would always be Sebastian Hyde's town.

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

<Snipped quote by Ruby>

---

On another note, am I free to interrupt what's going on with White Tiger and Iron Fist to post...or...shall I wait?

@Strawberry425

Interrupt the hell out of it. I'm about to.

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

I think you and me come from different perspectives on Olsen.

@Gowi

I guess so.

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

or you know Jimmy could be a dynamic and idealistic young reporter; thus he is fine the way he is?

@Gowi

I've always liked the Silver Age Jimmy that Superman forced to marry a gorilla, the same Jimmy that thirsts to death in the desert with Aquaman while Superman gloats above him with a pitcher of water.

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

Could always have him re-assume that Plastic Lad role he had with the Legion of Superheroes for a little while, or I recall in a DC RP a long time ago someone had Jimmy Olsen turned into Superboy through his own serious cravings for superpowers and being a hero basically making him CADMUS' experiment. Make Jimmy something more neato.

@DrewVonAwesome

Eww. Superpowers.