Aeon A-Team S02E02 – Eyes To The Future

A Fortress of Solitude
Alexander, Aysella, Hobs, Roth, and Jacob
The Panopticon 81°F, Muggy and overcast
Wednesday, July 6th, 2005, 7:00 pm
Unknown

They study Melvin for hours, scanning his brain with an advanced MRI, taking blood samples, and doing a full physiological work-up. What they find shocks them: Melvin’s powers channel some form of energy (GM Note: This has been long established as Kyberic Energy, but the PCs are just discovering it for the first time here.) and it’s causing him brain damage at the same time. The more he uses his powers, the worse it gets. His brain appears to be suffering from some form of neurodegenerative disease.

Moreover, they start to unravel how metahuman powers seem to work (GM Note: Roth’s player critically succeeded his roll – even with the massive -20 I gave – and made a a discovery about how powers work in Aeon). After a while Roth comes to the conclusion that whatever this energy that gets channeled is, it’s conducted from the hypothalamus and distributed throughout the brain from there. They figure if they can disrupt the limbic system overall it should disable abilities – or at least dampen them. The PCs bounce ideas back and forth and finally settle on trying to create a chemical.

A few hours later (GM Note: Yay for Quick Gadgeteer!) they have a working compound, but are hesitant to use it on Melvin. Instead, Singularity volunteers and before anyone can stop him injects himself. It makes him sick, but dampens his abilities for six hours (instead of the projected 12). Using Hobs abilities and Roth’s know-how, they tweak the formula several times (which they are calling “Adimere”) and eventually on iteration six try it on Singularity again. It works must better this time. Hobs muses on a way to weaponize it using Epipens….

They wake up Melvin and inject him with the drug. The effects are instant. Since metahuman powers requires the target to be able to concentrate/focus (this is why those with high Will scores are better at using their abilities), Adimere disrupts this and thus disrupts the use of abilities. Melvin immediately tries to use his abilities and…fails. They continue to monitor his brain activity and note that while his hypothalamus lights up as before, it’s only momentary sparks. He continues to rant and rave about “Arthur, from school.” Aysella deduces that he’s talking about “Arthur Keye” (one of Fort Hamilton’s most revered alumni who eventually became a football player and minor celebrity after he joined the New York Jets. Problem was Arthur or “Artie” was kind of a bully and a real asshole) and starts asking Melvin questions. He continues to rant about all the times that Artie bullied him

Alexander uses the Panopticon’s computers to help him dig up anything interesting on Melvin in the last six months, but finds nothing. He tries the same on Artie, but nothing he couldn’t find in a tabloid newspaper.

Not knowing what else to do, Aysella calls the Director of AEGIS and asks if he can house Melvin somehow safe until his condition is better understood. Director Daniel Legend informs them that Melvin is not the first to exhibit such symptoms, but is the most advanced they’ve seen. AEGIS has been calling it MAD or “Metahuman Awareness Derangement” after one of their researchers, Dr. Johan Unger, discovered it nearly six months prior. With the sudden influx of metahumans manifesting powers cases have skyrocketed. Doing some horsetrading, Sentry offers AEGIS access to their regenerative compound – Asclepius-37 for access to their database and information on MAD. The Director agrees and offers to house Melvin elsewhere on a temporary basis with the idea that Sentry and AEGIS can work together to create secure facilities to put rogue metahumans.

“Weid Science” by Oingo Boingo

“Fortune Days” by the Glitch Mob (as the “closing song” when the Director reveals that there are more cases like Melvin’s)

“I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones