A month later.
Inside an ordinary apartment located in the "Inwood" borough of New Amsterdam City.
Nicky Yin, a seventeen year old Asian girl, is knocking on the door of her little brother's room.
Nicky Yin, affectionately called Yinyuyu by her fans, is a good girl. Inspired by young environmental activists, she has taken up the cause in challenging world leaders to take immediate action against climate change. Although there have been youth climate activist leaders for years, such as Jamie Margolin and Isra Hirsi, it was Greta Thunberg's "school strike for climate" that finally motivated Nicky to become an activist. To reach those who are unreceptive to "the message", she pairs her cause with cosplay and modeling. Gifted with good fashion sense, her social media accounts have hundreds of millions of followers; even some of those who oppose her environmental-friendly message subscribe to her blog.
"Can you please keep it down?" She gently asks her little brother Rick as she enters his room.
Her little brother, Rick Yin, is watching a movie called the "Misadventures of Raunchy Roach" on the Cartoon Network.
The movie follows Raunchy Roach, an anthropomorphic roach, and his friends - Awkward Ant (an anthropomorphic ant) and Tired Tick (an anthropomorphic tick) as they go on hilarious misadventures. Raunchy Roach's inability to tell the truth gets him and his friends in hot water and prevents the trio from making their way home to Australia. Much of the movie's humor is crude and vulgar, with Raunchy Roach once being voted as Europe's third least favorite anthropomorphic cartoon animal. To Yinyuyu's confusion, "Awkward Ant" was once named "Anal Ant," but the censors made the show change the name.
"Fine," Rick rolls his eyes as he lowers the volume of his TV set. "Are you ready for your trip, sis?"
"Yup," Yinyuyu brightly smiles. "I'm so looking forward to it and..."
"Great," interrupts Rick. He pushes Yinyuyu out of his room and closes the door. "Have a safe trip."
-----
The next day, Yinyuyu's parents accompany her to the local bus terminal.
From the local bus terminal, Yinyuyu will board a bus taking her to the Port Authority terminal in New Amsterdam City. After arriving at the Port Authority terminal, Yinyuyu will board another bus, taking her to a port in New Jersey. And from there, Yinyuyu would board the ocean liner, the Queen Mary II , to cross the Atlantic. The Queen Mary II is scheduled to arrive in Europe in a little under two-weeks, just in time for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Like many people, Yinyuyu mistakenly believes that a cruise-liner is more environmentally friendly than an airplane; the Queen Mary II emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight.
After a tearful parting with her parents, Yinyuyu boards the bus and begins her adventure.
-----
Arriving at the Port Authority terminal, Yinyuyu dodges a few panhandlers and perverts and boards the bus taking her to New Jersey.
Shortly after leaving the terminal.
Shin Levi has been a bus driver for over twenty years. As he mindlessly goes about the commute, a disheveled passenger gets up and stumbles toward him.
"Hey man," asks the disheveled passenger. "do you think you can stop? I really have to go."
Shin quickly glances at the passenger before replying. "Please hold it in, sir. The trip is only 30 min..."
Shin's voice trails off as he finds a sharp object poking into his sides.
Holding Shin at knifepoint, the disheveled passenger hisses, "follow my directions..."
The GPS tracking unit and external comms were disabled as the bus veers off course, but it took multiple minutes for someone to notice.
"What's going on?" Asks another passenger as he stands up. "This isn't the way..."
In response, four other men stand up: three of them brandish long knives, while one of them takes out a suitcase.
One of them shouts as he waves his knife around, "everyone down! This is a hijacking!"
"We have two anti-tank rounds that will explode if you don't cooperate".
The man that took out a suitcase opens it to reveal the two explosives.
"I know there's a cop on board..." The hijacker continues,"...but stay cool and calm, and no one dies."
-----
The hijacked bus pulls into a large warehouse.
Several men armed with semi-automatic rifles encircle the bus.
The hostages disembark at gunpoint and are searched.
"Hey boss," says one of the hijackers. "We have a pregnant lady here."
"Put a bag over her head and send her back," replies the boss- a hard-looking white man with a dark tan. "We ain't baby-killers."
Afterwards, the hostages were restrained by zip-ties, had their mouths stuffed with cloth strips, and had bags placed over their heads.
The hostages were then separated, loaded into unmarked vans, and taken to an undisclosed location.
-----
By the next morning, the hijacking had made its way into the News cycle.
On Channel 7 News, KTNA- an affiliate of PNN.
The commentator, Maria Lee, is introducing the hijacking to its audiences.
"Yesterday, the 12:20pm Greyhound bus, traveling from New Amsterdam City to New Jersey was hijacked.
"The bus driver, fifteen passengers, and five hijackers were on the bus.
"Elizabeth Price was one of the passengers, but was released for undisclosed reasons. Elizabeth has made comments that the hijackers were well-organized and heavily armed.
"Police discovered the Greyhound bus in a warehouse near the Port district. The warehouse was rented by one 'Noah Fence,' a presumably fake name.
"The 'Followers of the Rot' have claimed responsibility for the hijacking and are demanding ten million dollars and the release of 'Father' Manuel Villegas in exchange for the lives of the hostages.
"Manuel Villegas has been convicted of seventeen murders: all of them women and children.
"The Authorities have made statements that 'they do not negotiate with terrorists' and that 'they fear for the lives of the hostages.'
"The Superhero Association has made the statement that 'they have dispatched highly regarded superheros to work the case'..."
With a pop , the TV turned off.
Maximilian Kaupland, an old white man with dyed dark brown hair and numerous botox injections, reclines on a lazy boy sofa in his multi-million dollar mansion. Numerous ornate paintings and latin crosses can be seen decorating the premises.
Maximilian, Max for short, is a famous televangelist and author associated with the charismatic movement- a "Christian" movement that believes in the granting of spiritual boons from the Holy Spirit. Unlike many of his peers, however, Max can demonstratively grant 'boons,' although they're not from the Christian Holy Spirit.
Max is secretly a Follower of the Rot, or to be more precise, Max is a Vice-Leader of the Followers of the Rot. Max's boons all come from "lifeforce" and can extract a heavy price on their recipients. Even though Max is over eighty years old, he is as spry as a fifty year old; and as long as Max can keep fathering children to sacrifice every decade, it is quite conceivable that Max can maintain his current state indefinitely.
Looking at the video teleconference screen, Max asks the other three individuals on the conference call, "did any of you authorize this?"
"Not me," replies Scott Ostan- a fifty-something-year old white man with dyed curly light-brown hair. Like Max, Scott also is a secret Vice-Leader of the Followers of the Rot. Scott's public identity is that of an author, businessman, pastor, and televangelist: the leader and primary preacher of the Rivertree Church.
The Rivertree Church was subject to a major scandal in recent memory. The Church initially balked at offering shelter and succor for families displaced by a major hurricane. Scott, however, did ultimately allow his venue to serve as a safe haven, and both the storm and scandal subsided, but not before five families went missing. Analysts believe that if the Church had opened up its doors earlier, those families would be with us today.
"No," responds Miguel de Triollo- a kindly looking white man with grey hair and a long grey beard. Like the others on the conference call, Miguel is secretly a Vice-Leader of the Followers of the Rot. Miguel holds a titular archbishopric with the Catholic Church. That is to say, Miguel does not directly run an Archdiocese; rather, Miguel is a member of the "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" and responsible for "rooting out heresy and maintaining the Catholic orthodoxy" in the New England states. Miguel's duties include investigating (and combating) the forces of darkness (especially vampires and witches), and ensuring that the clergy maintain their vows.
"I didn't, but I'll check with my guys," says Ernest Roy Saulus- a clean-shaven white man in his early seventies. Ernest is secretly a Vice-Leader of the Followers of the Rot, and openly the chairman of the Preserver party- an up-and-coming third-party in the United States. The Preserver party had recently won the governorships of Mississippi, Wyoming, and Alabama.
"Find out," Max harshly declares. "If someone dares misuse our name, I will make them pay!"
"What if..." asks Miguel, "what if the Great Founder, himself, authorized this?"
"Manuel is too high profile," scoffs Max. "The Great Founder will never agree to his release... at least not before we rule the world".
-----
Superhero Association, New Amsterdam State HQ.
Jenn Guerrette, an older white lady in her early 60s, is furiously typing on her computer.
Jenn is a Superhero Coordinator: her primary duties are to make and deconflict superhero schedules, and to assign superheroes to work on cases.
Because every hero has a different set of powers and abilities, Jenn's has to spend an inordinate amount of time crunching data to obtain the hero combination that would have an excellent chance of solving a case while minimizing the rankings of the heroes assigned. Just like one would not use a missile launcher on a fly, one would not dispatch a top rank hero to work on a kidnapping case.
Jenn's workload is further increased by having 'special requests' come in. Special requests for a specific hero to work on a specific case happen all the time, especially when the hero's agent wants to temporarily boost his hero's popularity, when a corporation wants to mask their poor quarterly earnings with heroics from their sponsored hero, or when a well-connected fan wants more action scenes of their favorite hero.
The landline in Jenn's office rings and Jenn answers it.
"Hello?"
"Yes ma'am."
"You want Sonic Boom in the hijacking case? Won't it be overkill, ma'am?"
"No ma'am."
"Yes ma'am."
"Moon Beam? No. Sorry ma'am, she's working the Ashford case... and frankly ma'am, her being on the case won't up the success rate."
"Yes ma'am."
"Okay ma'am."
"Thank you. Goodbye ma'am." Jenn hangs up the phone.
"Damn smurfs," Jenn mutters to herself as she assigns Sonic Boom to the hijacking case.