The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Pharoah Dynasty
An ancient sorceress is on a quest to bring her long-lost warrior-king to the modern era in a bid for global domination. Can the heroes of the modern world stop her before all is lost?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
Running was a good general evasive strategy. Except, of course, when one was dealing with a telepath. Even putting his own experience-based prejudices aside, Slate could tell who were the real brains behind her mind.
I was not speaking to you, he stated firmly. The Italian followed her inside, but with distinctly less scampering. He followed at a steady, determined pace. Should she happen to turn around, she would find a slight frown on his lips, and a furrowing of his brown eyebrows. It was very possible for her to get quite far from him, given his pace relative to her own: to escape the range of his telepathy, however, she would have to leave the Mansion grounds entirely. And until such time as she did, he was still following her. Steadily, and without temperamental theatrics such as she was exhibiting.
A punch to the face was quite effective at establishing a mental connection, as it turns out.
Please do not be alarmed. I am a telepath, as I am certain that such logical individuals as yourselves would have deduced by now. Also, the poop was left by a house finch as opposed to an English sparrow: while the sparrows are certainly more common in this vicinity and I respect the statistical likelihood implicit in that observation, I happened to see the finch responsible. No, it was female. Can you really deduce that from excrement...? Curious. But more to the point: I can assure you that counterattacks will be quite unnecessary. I simply wish to talk. Would you like to get a cup of tea with me? I have a blend recently shipped from Colombia that I believe would pose quite the analytical challenge for your senses, should you accept my offer.
"It is entirely relevant to this conversation," Slate stated, writing the number 70 down in two deft strokes of his pen. "It is, in fact, the topic of this conversation and the initial starting point thereof, making it intrinsically and preeminently relevant, of which you are most assuredly aware. Though you may be prone to violent outbursts of testosterone-mimicking female hormones, you cannot hide that you actually—"
...That she actually had a hum of data in her mind regarding distances and the probability of further human interaction dependant upon the route selected.
It took Slate a moment to realize what was going on. When he did, his blush was sudden and profound.
"My sincerest apologies," he said, with great contrition. "I did not mean any disrespect, nor did I wish to belittle you in any way."
He should have known. Should have realized it, immediately. He of all people.
"I did not realize I was addressing more than one of you."
Thank you for helping with my studies, he stated within her mind, like a humble penitent. May I know what you call yourself?
He was not referring, of course, to their current voice box. The mind—minds?—within her were to whom he addressed his remarks, not the illogical punch-happy creature currently in control of their body. He was quite ready to be done speaking with her.
The woman was exhibiting a negative reaction to his response. A markedly negative reaction, he would go so far as to state. A markedly negative reaction which was drawing closer to him with short, determined steps. Slate stood as she approached, so as to meet her at eye-level. He tucked his notepad under his arm as he waited quite patiently for her to mount the stairs, and finish her approach. He braced himself for her slap—
Noted the curling of her fingers and the trajectory of her arm somewhat belatedly—
And received the punch to his cheek, in due course.
It took him significantly less than .43 seconds to become reacquainted with sitting on the ground.
"Oww," he said, as authentically as possible. It did hurt: enough that he had taken the trouble to heal it already (...as well as the impact to his posterior). It would have been a most inconvenient bruise to explain to his girlfriend.
[Cotton-poly blend,] came a more helpful addendum to her thus far most unreasonable reply.
"Oh." The brown haired Italian took his notepad out again, and dutifully recorded the data. "What is the exact percentage?" He asked, blinking baby blue eyes up at her.
Women were confusing. They could punch you, and answer your question in a most logical tone, all in the same instant.
The squealing, of course, was typical: well within previously observed pitches and frequencies. She was female; that was simply the female reaction to such stimulus. It was every bit as involuntary as the dilation of pupils in response to strong light: when one applied water directly to an unsuspecting woman, she squealed. He suspected it was an instinctual rather than a learned reaction, but the Mansion lacked a proper range of cultural diversity with which to properly test the theory. In any case, the noises she produced were tangential to the experiment at hand.
The squealing was typical: the falling, less so. It made it far easier to gather his target data, as the test subject lay prone on the grass during the key time frame.
"One moment," he shouted back, jabbing a thumb down to stop the timer on his cell phone screen, and hastily scribbling the appropriate observational data into his notepad. His pen gave a final flick; then he looked back up, and met her gaze.
"I am gathering data on the relation between material composition and hue with regards to the relative rate at which transparency occurs under application of water. Your shirt lasted," he glanced down at his cell phone stopwatch, "Point-four-three seconds. Is it pure cotton, or a cotton-poly blend?"
This was an important distinction. Which the occurrence of "white" being so rare among the female population (at least, amongst the subset that knowingly walked near the Mansion's new sprinkler system), it was important to collect as much information as was possible.
As it was, it was clear that white held the potential to be a substantial outlier; .43 seconds could almost be considered embarrassing.
The effect had first come to Slate's attention approximately a week ago. It had been a cloudless day, but that was not to say it had been clear: the sky had taken on the grayish haze which tended to cover large cities during times of extreme heat and humidity. 'Smog,' it was called, and it was generally accompanied by a rise in asthma attacks and advisories to avoid long periods of exercise, particularly if one is pregnant.
Being neither pregnant nor asthmatic, Slate's attention had been focused elsewhere.
It was a day in which Katrina was not with him; much like today, in fact. She had a lot to do in order to get ready for going to college in the Fall, and not all of it required a boyfriend. Thus he had been left unchaperoned on the steps of the Mansion, with only a service manual for the Blackbird to keep him company. It was then that he had first noticed it.
It had first been brought to his attention with much squealing.
Some combination of metal-mancy and excessive free time following the start of summer break had resulted in the Mansion sprinklers being repurposed as... well, sprinklers. He was fairly certain that the water line feeding the curbside fire hydrant had been compromised as well, given the power behind the spray. It was like having a water park installed in the Mansion's lawns, which could be turned on by any passing child.
The squealing was sudden, and quite distracting. A group of girls had been caught in the spray, which had been turned on by a similarly sized group of boys, and they were making the sorts of protesting noises young females used to indicate that they were actually having fun.
After his initial frown for this interruption, Slate blinked. Then, he began to take careful notes in the margins of the manual; notes quite unrelated to jet engine maintenance.
Black was the least dramatic. Dark purple and blue were similar, but slightly more pronounced; then green, red, orange, yellow. The lighter the spectrum, the more noticeable the effect.
He began to include pictures along with his notes, then thought better of it; while Katrina was highly supportive of his mathematical pursuits, not all experiments required the eyes of a girlfriend.
Over the course of several days, he was able to gain much documented evidence of the effect. Yet there was one single point of data that eluded him: white.
They always seemed to avoid white, as if by some strange unspoken agreement. At first he thought it a mere statistical anomaly, but as the days stretched out, he began to suspect that they knew something he did not. It was most perplexing, as many matters concerning the gentler race were.
That is why he was startled to see the young blonde woman walking towards the Mansion's doors, wearing precisely that shade.
Slate blinked. Then he reached a hand out and, his baby blue eyes unabashedly upon her, dialed the water line to full. The lawn sprinklers sprang to immediate and voluminous life.
She was wearing a white T-shirt. He had to document the effects of water on her, for science.
>>> Yeah, you had me worried for awhile there. Did you find CS?
Yes, her telepathic boyfriend replied. He is in Colorado, very near you. The thought came with an image--a mountain on a sunlit day, viewed from a grassy field. It was one in a range, but very distinctive in its own right.
No X-Jet. What was it that normal people did, again? Take a commercial plane, certainly. From a public airfield. Slate’s plane tickets had always been arranged for him by his secretary, but he had full confidence in his own ability to acquire them. Thousands of people completed such transactions every day; it could not be difficult.
“We simply need to go to the airport and purchase tickets,” he told Maya. Really, there is no need to swear.
Katrina, he said, please remain where you are. We will take public transit, and meet you in--
...How long did it take for normal people, again? He had always brought a book, when he had flown with the Kabal.
Back in the Mansion, Slate lifted Cerebra's metal helmet off of his head.
"He is in Colorado. The children are with him. There is a telepath named Amanda, and a group called T.A.T." His hands worked as he spoke the words in his usual monotone; he turned a dial back down, reset switches. The consol hummed lowly as it powered off. "They are in a base inside of a mountain. I can find it again."
He had never seen the place before, but he was sure of this.
He had never seen it, but its image hung in his mind, from a sunlit day in summer. Sam's birthday: it was in the summer. He had not known that. The dream had been very, very real.
He was glad he had not gone back inside of the man's house: had not met his wife and other children. Had not met--
Katrina, he asked, needing no machine to boost his connection to her. Are you there?
It was nice of Sam to send his nonexistent son away, so that the adults could have a private conversation. Slate had to wonder: when the boy went inside, would he succeed in finding Katrina? Was there some version of her here, just out of sight, created by Sam’s desires or the will of the psychic influencing him?
He did not want to meet that Katrina. He wanted to convince Sam that this world was fake, and return with him back to the real one, where his own Katrina was touring a college campus.
...With a well muscled air force cadet. He had almost forgotten that.
“It is 2013,” Slate started. “I am sitting in the Cerebra control room in the Mansion. A half hour ago, Maya called me in to operate it. You left the Mansion on the X-Jet, and you took three children with you. No one has heard from any of you since. You are not responding to communications.” He presumed so, anyway. Maya would have tried Sam’s cell phone before calling in a telepath, correct? “I located you in Colorado, and entered your mind. There must be a psychic involved, due to...” His eyes briefly flicked to the all-encompassing scene around them, “...the circumstances in which I found you, as well as certain blackouts Maya reported you having prior to this. Please try to remember, Sam: what is really going on? The Team will be coming for you. You need to prepare them for what they will find.”
If nothing else, Slate knew he could count on this: that Sam would not to send the X-Men into an unknown danger if he could prevent it.
Katrina looked worried. This was not the reaction he had hoped for as he led up to this question, and it did not help his stumbling fluency. She bit her lip, like she did sometimes when anticipating unpleasant news--
The sudden introduction of a dragon to this scene was a welcome relief. At the least, there was no mistaking its body language. Anger rippled through its every muscle, and vengeance crackled between the spines on its back.
The relief did not last long. It was replaced by a flush of irritation: finally, he had been going to ask her. He really would have. Could the dragon have not waited five minutes more? That would have been sufficient to ascertain--
Katrina pulled him out of his irate thoughts, and under the shelter of the plane’s wing. ...Yes. That was probably wise.
Edward Shaw had nearly reached the building’s doors; or rather, he’d reached the press of people trying to fit through the doors simultaneously. The doors themselves were glass, like that entire wall of the building; it was designed so that museum goers could look out onto the airfield. They were double doors, but only one had been opened: the other was now sealed shut under the crush of bodies. It was a non-optimal solution to the door-passage problem, and it was stopping the gentleman from reaching the safety he instinctively sought.
A glass-walled building was hardly an optimal solution to his safety concerns, either.
If he gets inside, the museum will be quite destroyed, Slate could not help but think. Whether he was blaming the dragon or the man for this was for any hearers to decide.
Happily for aviation enthusiasts, the gentleman did not reach his goal.
The dragon caught Edward Shaw like a child catches an insect: one large paw reached out, and its small prey was trapped between fingers of steely snakeskin. The rest of the people who had been outside--minus three--made good on their escape. The dragon was not interested in them; the museum was safe.
Edward Shaw was not.
“Onccce, you wondered how ssssstrong my jaw pressssure wasssss. Sssssshould we ssssssee?” The dragon grinned.
The gentleman may have had a reply to that, but he appeared to be having some difficulty in voicing it, given the tight grip around his chest. And his waist. And a good portion of his upper legs. ...That was quite the impressive mutation, actually. Slate did not think he had ever seen a transformation so large.
The grin did not get wider; that would have been physically impossible. But the skin covering the dragon’s teeth pulled back, revealing several more inches of gleaming white than most people wished to find in the same mouth.
“Ooor ssssssshould I try an exxxxperiment of my own?” It unfurled its wings, and drew back from the building to give itself room; then, in a series of tornadic flaps, it gained the air.
“I did not bring my X-communicator,” Slate stated simply, after regaining his breath.. “Did you?”
The dragon’s experiment would involve gravity, he suspected. X-communicators would not actually be of any help. If they did not begin moving faster than 9.8 meters a second, and soon, it was not hard to hypothesize the result.
...Slate could not quite decide: was this density the effect of a psychic-induced dimming of Sam's wits, or a persistent mental state? In either case, it was clear that his demonstration had failed to produce the desired effect. Either the enemy physic was too good at what they did, or Sam was too... Sam.
To be fair, the disappearance was well within his hypothetical wife’s illusionary capabilities.
However.
“You say we have been friends for years,” Slate stated, quite reasonably. “In that time, have you know me to joke cruelly with Katrina’s permission?” He assumed that some things in this future of Sam’s had remained the same. Katrina would have gleefully allowed--would most assuredly have been the one to instigate, in fact--turning Sam’s son invisible. A child invisibly tormenting its father was well within the realm of her humor. The boy would have to be in on it, of course, but what flying monkey boy did not wish to add “invisible” to his adjectives? Dogs, however, would not understand what had happened to them; they would not be gleefully launching invisible stealth raids on their parental unit, they would be frightened. She would never have allowed that for a mere joke.
Additionally.
“When have you know me to...” What was the phrase? “To ‘play a prank’? Really, Sam, please think logically for a moment.”
Logically, which was more likely: that Sam’s mind was under the control of a powerful enemy telepath of which he was utterly unaware, or that Slate had gained a spirited sense of humor?
This was not the shocked reaction that the telepath had expected.
For a moment, he sympathized with Mirror, waiting next to his body back in Cerebra's control room. Was this as frustrated as she had felt, when he had failed to believe her? He seemed to remember that she had thrown her hands in the air; that her voice had become louder, and her words pronounced with distinct emphasis indicating agitation.
He restrained the desire to mime these things. He could practice socially appropriate reactions later. For now: he would focus on killing Sam's dogs.
"I am speaking the truth," Slate stated, falling behind as Sam continued walking, and he did not. The dogs, of course, only cared about their master; once he started moving, they took off again. Just as real dogs would.
"Mirror does not run the school," Slate stated. "I am not married to—not yet married to—" He had not shared that ambition with Sam, as a point of fact, and he did not care to address the issue now. "And neither are you."
The younger dog was even the faster of the pair; it raced out ahead, its tail held high as the elder lagged behind. It was all very realistic—the dogs, the house on the other side of the mountain from where Sam had been born, the way the man had known about certain plans regarding his future spousal aspirations.
It was enough to make him either doubt his own grip on reality, or sincerely appreciate the art of the mutant he was up against. As he took his own state of sanity as a given, he chose the later, and focused on the dogs.
This was Sam's mind. Slate was no artist with his mutation: he could not create such a flawless setting as this, or make someone believe something that was not true. But he could slice a mental knife through things; separate pieces from the whole, and wall them off. All he required was to be in touch with the mind in question.
"Watch your dogs, Sam," he instructed levelly.
It took a moment. A mind was a very large place from the outside; bigger still from the inside. Especially when the dog's names—Bruno and Bo—came to him unbidden, as if he really had known them for years. It was the names that lead him: to the right area of the mind, to the place where the running dogs existed as just a part of this scene. Despite his claims, Sam was not well trained against psychic invasions. Once Slate had them located, the rest was easy. Like dropping a computer file into the trash bin.
The dogs disappeared, from one bounding step to the next. He wondered if Bruno's whimper in the last moment had been an extra artistic flare by their host, or a touch supplied by Sam's own mind.
"This is not real," he re-stated with calm practicality. "You are being mind controlled. Wake up."
The telepath stood awkwardly as the taller, distinctly more muscular man embraced him with decided emotion. He was not entirely certain that his feet remained on the ground during the encounter. He did notice he had trouble staying on them when the man released him, and subsequently patted his back.
"...Party?" The young Italian asked dumbly.
The X-Leader's words kept coming, in a jubilant rush. Alexandra (Circe? ...The woman who had once blown his arm off?) Katrina (and their child?) A walk with the boys (the boys were dogs).
Slate blinked. Before he knew it, he was out the door and standing in a sunlight day. A well kept yard stretched out before him; there were other houses in sight, but none very close. Sam did not put his dogs on leashes. This was nothing new. Despite New York City law and general dog owner etiquette, the ice elemental persisted in—
It was the familiarity of the criticism that made him realize just how unfamiliar the rest of this was. For a moment, he had been enjoying the feeling of the sunlight on the skin; for a moment, he had almost remembered Katrina and their child. Surely they would be back in that house, if he only turned around.
...Surely this was a very powerful psychic he was up against.
"Sam," the telepath stated, holding out a hand to the man's chest to stop any forward progress on this inconsequential walk of nonexistent dogs. "Something has happened. Mirror believes you are being mind controlled; I..." A dog came running back, barking at the bipeds to hurry. "...Have just confirmed this."
Slate did not actually believe that tabs were kept on the Mansion's children, no. Unless she meant only the younger ones? That would make sense—unlike the Mansion's somewhat transient population of teenagers and young adults, an small child disappearing was alarming. Still, Maya's proof of Sam's sudden turn to villainy was hardly conclusive. Three children had disappeared "at the same time" as Sam? She did not have anything more concrete than that; if she had, it would have been only logical that she would have offered it. There were no witnesses of Sam leaving with these children, no photographs, no mutant divining powers indicating so. There was only Mirror jumping to conclusions after Sam returned from a trip with holes in his memory. This did not sound like an atypical weekend for the X-Leader.
This all lead him to wonder: was Gawain always this prone to hysteria, or was it a facet unique to his Maya days?
"This," Slate said evenly, "is serious. I will do what I can to ascertain his exact location and mental state."
On most days, he found his general lack of facial expressions an inconvenience in social settings. At this particular moment, he was just as happy to be hard to read. Still, while his thoughts may not have shown on his face, a somewhat more telling statement may or may not have slipped out of his mind.
I am glad Katrina is not such a... girl.
He was undoubtedly the Mansion's premier expert on Cerebra. Being the only psychic to dust the thing off in years, he could not help being so: it was not a very high bar, when there was no competition for the title. Still, since moving into the Mansion, he had visited the machine a few times, and asked what members of the staff he could what they knew of its operation. From there, it was a matter of experimentation. He still did not know how the machine worked, anymore than he knew how the Danger Room did, but working it was a really a simple matter. All it did was boost a physic mutant's existing range; how far the boost went depended on the mutant's inherent strength, and the extent to which they wished to incur cranial bleeding. Like many things in the Mansion, the machine had not precisely child safe.
With no further irrational feminine prodding, Slate pushed at buttons and twisted dials until the machine was set to "Minimal Brain Damage." Then he slowly lowered the large metal cap onto his head.
Despite Mirror's assertions of far-flung X-Jet flights, he began his initial search locally. Manhattan. The city. The state. He found... a cockroach, trying on hats. Something in the sewers. A bird man, flying. A cat, eating something—what even--?
Rat in a sweater, Calley replied. Move along, Slate.
He did. There were more; mutants he knew and didn't, mutants who sensed his attentions, and those entirely oblivious to it. He did not know the three children well enough to search for them; it was Sam alone that he was trying to find. He reached out, and clicked a dial on the control panel one notch higher.
There was a unicorn in Wisconsin, but no Sam.
Another notch.
He found—
Katrina, in Colorado. If Maya was watching his face, she would see a smile tug at the corners of his lips as he updated their chess game; in the middle of her question on flight simulators, he visualized a white bishop moving to F5, and placed it in her mind. Your turn. Of course, he did not need any machine's help to contact Katrina; her mind, he could find anywhere in the—
—such strong arms—
...He broadened his narrow focus out, to include her tour guide. Her young, blonde tour guide, of above average stature and musculature. His visualization of the bishop hiccupped before it was complete; it only went to E4, rather than F5. This was a poor strategic move.
The boy experienced a minor, inexplicable feeling as if someone were frowning inside of his skull.
Slate moved on. Since he was already in Colorado, he might as well finish with the vicinity. This was not something he did because he was trying to keep one psychic eye on Katrina and her buzz cut young tour guide; this was simply because—
Because Sam was here. And so was someone else; that much was immediately apparent. Someone strong. The X-Leader's mind was... not as Slate had remembered it. It felt almost...
He pushed at it, and something intangible gave, but it was not simple mind control he found on the other side.
Slate was standing in the hallway of a house. A clock was ticking. Somewhere, he thought he heard the sound of a child laughing.
"...Sam?" The telepath called out hesitantly.
There was sunlight here, and something else. It felt almost... happy.
"Kidnapped?" Slate repeated, somewhat bewildered. "Meaning, they left not only without the consent of their parental figures, but also against their own will? What are you basing this upon?"
He scanned his own mind hastily—the man's general disposition, his rather unorthodox leadership and teaching styles, his well-known-secret mini-fridge. All available evidence supported his own conclusion. From what source of information was Mirror drawing hers?
"I... believe I will be able to detect another mind, yes," he answered. "What do you know, Mirror? Where did he take them? Why have you not alerted the rest of the team, also?"
The telepath's initial reaction was as eloquent as it was simple: he blinked.
Rogue. Sam had gone rogue, and taken Mansion children with him. Though he was not familiar with the listed codenames, it sounded like three young boys. Possibly a speedster, a venison shifter, and a—stuffed animal shifter? No, that was far too ludicrous of a power, even by the Mansion's standards. 'Teddy' was, possibly, just a normal nickname.
"Well," he stated matter-of-factly, "I suppose it was only a matter of time. Do not worry, I will treat this matter with the utmost of discretion."
For as long as discretion was necessary, or even possible. This was Sam; this was Sam, with three missing students. It wasn't just the Team who would find out soon enough—the entire Mansion would know before long.
"Yes, I have used it before," he said, inviting himself to sit in Cerebra's chair, in front of its ill-labeled control panel. Its use was quite simple, really: one pressed a few of those buttons over there until the lights over here flashed; that meant it was turned on. The buttons in the middle controlled the intensity of the headache it produced in the wearer. Also, the effective range it boosted the wearer's own telepathic abilities out to. He left the eldritch monstrosity of a hat hanging innocuously above his head for the moment; there were things he needed to know before they began.
"How long ago did Sam take them?" Slate asked. "What was their transportation—car? X-Jet?" Finally, and most importantly: "Am I searching bars first, or would he have taken them to a strip club?"
Slate had been practicing his humor lately, but this was no joke. Oh, Sam. How he had ended up in a leadership position, entrusted with the care of so many minors, Slate had never understood. It really had been a matter of time.
