Justin had managed to track down more footage connected with his arrival. A shaky, long distance recording showed the results of the core implosion, as a section of lake water twenty-feet across suddenly bubbled up into the air before vaporising into a cloud of steam. The shock-wave, followed by the large void caused waves to swamp the lake as the water tried to recover from the atomic explosion within it.

Seeing the violence of the explosion, Justin was a little concerned about fallout, before realising the morning news casts showed coast guard, police and a couple of news choppers circling the site of the explosion, he decided someone must have checked for radiation before letting people get that close.

There was even footage of a super team investigating, Justin watched in interest as a few heroes floated nearby while another shifted the water from beneath the surface, letting them view the remains of the 'meteor'. He wasn't sure what they accomplished, but perhaps they simply wanted to get onto the news casts, media presence was important for new start-ups after all.

Or perhaps they were simply curious, or hoping for a quest or an interstellar exploding rock-monster to fight.

Once he was done snooping on the news casts about his arrival, Justin decided it was time to have a look at the mad-scientist's files, and was a little disappointed once he did. The encryption, like the man's firewall was ridiculously weak considering it was protecting what must be some sort of super-computer.

There were a few video files showing the scientist ranting into the camera, which Justin tagged for later viewing, but most of the files were related to genetic structures, molecular break-downs, and other biological minutia. Justin decided the scientist probably bought the advanced computer to help with his genetics research with little idea, or concern, for the system's potential beyond that.

Justin was a little surprised the guy had even bothered to connect it to the internet. Since they were apparently underground, it must have taken more than a little effort to get such a strong signal down here. After investigating a bit, it appeared the internet connection was for viewing porn on the man's laptop, which he had then networked with his laboratory computer, because apparently the scientist was lazy, horny, and had never heard of proper systems security.

A little disappointed that the files had proven so boring, Justin dropped a [Link]ed packet onto the man's laptop with an [Observe] command. It would use up some of his Focus to maintain, but there were file remnants suggesting he used the laptop for more than just porn, and Justin was hoping to get information on the man's identity and the location of this laboratory.

His morning checking out videos had convinced him that learning English was probably more important than even levelling his coding skills at the moment, luckily, Justin could do both at the same time, and went back to snooping on data feeds.

Hidden Quest Completed!

Learn the Lingo

Type: Hidden, Complication (Outsider), Chain

Description: Before you can be accepted by the people, you first need to understand the people.

Goal: Learn 10% of the local language.

Difficulty: Hard

Rewards: 300 xp

Justin mentally stretched. It had taken him a few hours, but he'd apparently raised his understanding of English to the level of a foreign exchange student. Just as importantly, he'd also levelled up Coding to the Novice tier.

Congratulations! Your knowledge of Coding has reached the Novice tier.

You have received 1 attribute point as a reward.

He checked his character sheet, trying to decide which attribute to invest in first.

Codename Artisan Designation Ketican Interstellar Probe VDCI Species Artificial Intelligence Archetype Inventor Origin Synthetic Wealth $ - Level 1 [80%] Integrity 210 / 210 Recovery Rate 0.2 per minute Strength - Intelligence 50 Agility - Acuity 40 Fortitude - Willpower 20 +1 Attribute Point Stamina - Focus 68 / 105 Recovery Rate - Recovery Rate 0.2 per second Powers Talents Complications - Machine Traits Amorphous - Inventor Outsider - - Partial Amnesia Skill Rank Skill Rank Analysis Beginner 2 [48%] [Science] Novice 1 [03%] Awareness Beginner 2 [21%] - Biology Novice 1 [04%] [Coder] Novice 1 [17%] - Chemistry Novice 1 [01%] - Coding Novice 1 [19%] - Materials Novice 1 [00%] - Decipher Beginner 8 [33%] - Mathematics Novice 1 [00%] - Encryption Beginner 3 [48%] - Physics Novice 1 [01%] - Hacking Beginner 4 [37%] Stealth Beginner 1 [12%] Meditation Beginner 1 [08%] Subterfuge Beginner 1 [08%] [Engineering] Novice 1 [00%] Visualisation Beginner 1 [10%] - Design Novice 1 [00%] - - - Crafting Novice 1 [00%] - - - Maintenance Novice 1 [00%] - - - Repair Novice 1 [00%] - -

In the end, he decided his current time displacement was confusing enough, and put the point into Intelligence.

Next he checked up on the scientist, and was surprised to find him missing. Damn, damn, damn. IRA had been watching the guy, but Justin had only instructed him to give a warning if the scientist was heading for the computer. It became clear that IRA didn't understand why Justin was worried, and was infuriatingly calm. Apparently, IRA had followed orders, nothing was broken, nothing needed to be fixed, which meant that everything was fine in the world of IRA.

Mentally grinding his teeth, Justin questioned him on the scientist's activities. He learned that the guy had left about 20 minutes earlier with a crate of ridiculously large bees. With no way to track him, Justin checked in with his observation packet on the laptop, which revealed that it had been used at some point before the guy left. Apparently the scientist had been busy, he'd checked emails, bank accounts, and strangely a number of environmental forums.

The emails and banking details were the kind of mother lode that Justin had been hoping for when he bugged the guys computer. He now had the man's villain name (Manticore), real name (Dr Leonard Pteroni), access to his accounts (containing a reasonable $564,034), and the email addresses of a number of villains and black-market suppliers.

Apparently a certain class of supervillains occasionally exchanged advice on the wreaking of terror and mayhem, also consoling each other on the unfairness of their inevitable and crushing defeats.

It was actually the environmental forums that revealed what Manticore was up to, mainly because he spelled it out in a number of rambling posts. Apparently he was offended that the science community had ignored his research into pesticide-resistant bees and was planning to interrupt a symposium on colony collapse disorder.

Quest Received!

Eye of the Bee-Holder

Type: Hero

Description: You have discovered Manticore's plans to release a swarm of mutated bees at the Michigan Science Center.

Goal: Stop him.

Difficulty: Average

Rewards: 200 xp

Ok, how was he supposed to do that?