Tracer Foundation

The Tracer Foundation for Charitable Donations has taken over this blog, in order to leave it to serve as a memorial to the woman we all knew and loved. Please visit our website to find out more information about our work, and her legacy.

We'll Never Forget

Please direct all donations to the Tracer Foundation for Charitable Donations.

Temporary Addition

There's a new guest here at Chez Tracer.



Isn't he a cutie? His name is Boo, and I'm watching him for someone I know. Hopefully he gets along ok with Xolo and Xolelwa.

Hackers

I wish that certain tadpoles would stick to their own blogs.

Bobbie, redux

After seeing that Houston was having tryouts for a new tornado, I thought it would be a good time to investigate more into Mr. Phelps. I called the Mayor's office, and offered to come down and sit in on the trials, so he could be more sure he had an actual nova, and to get him to let me in on the investigations results. He readily agreed and I flew down there the next day with Hustle and Max.

Other than the crowds, it was uneventful at first. A lot of posers, and several novas who just weren't up to the job. Then, someone who seemed just about perfect showed up. And started yelling at the mayor about how he was involved with the Church of Michael Archangel...and turned into Geryon. I managed to disrupt him, and Hustle got the mayor out of the way, when we heard more screams outside the room. Several other members of Nova Vigilance were there, including Leviathan, Clarion, and my good friend Shrapnel.

Between Hustle, who was fending off some of their attacks and trying to protect the crowd, Living Wreck, and myself, we managed to drive them off, and they retreated into their portals...and Max foolishly went after them. I thought about it for a moment, but I wasn't going to be able to take them myself, and there were people here who needed help as well. Good Luck Max...

After recovery and rescue efforts from the partial collapse of the building, Hustle and I talked to the Mayor. He gave Hustle the Tornado's old uniform, and made him the Tornado. He also talked about his involvement in the Church of Michael Archangel. He had been a member, but left when they became too extreme. He was certain they were involved in the Tornado's death, but didn't have enough proof. He also said that Phelps was a big contributor and suggested I look into the Church's headquarters in New York to get more information.

After what seemed like forever, and when I had just about given up any hope, Max reported back to the office that he was ok. It seems that Shrapnel had blown herself up, and the distraction, along with some nearby Utopia agents, helped him escape.

I guess now it's off to New York, although I'm not sure what the heck I'm gonna do there.

Valentine's present

Well, I got a present for Valentine's Day. I tried to send it back to him twice, but he even bribed the doorman to put it in my apartment. I don't know how I feel about accepting such a valuable gift, but at this point I need to do something with it.

It is beautiful. Sigh.

At least I don't have fans like these...yet?

In one of my first days as Director, Slider stopped by and invited those of us in the office to lunch with her and Corbin. I should have known there were too many novas in one place for it to just be an ordinary lunch.

It ended up being me, Metal, Mothman, Fireguard, and, of course, Slider and Corbin. Slider got called away early on by T2M business. After about ten minutes or so, Mothman heads to the restroom, and comes out covered in blood, talking on his phone. While trying to keep the restaurant calm, I soon found out that someone was trying to blackmail Mothman into doing a concert for him, and issueing some kind of apology, and had shot a waitress to prove he was "serious."

After he shot two more people (Fireguard was able to save one of them), we started to put the concert together. During that time, we tried to find the guy, but he was no where nearby. And, there were no bullets. I started to think he must be a nova...somewhere else. But we had no idea where to start looking.

After the concert, Jimmy called and had another demand (and let us know his name). He wanted 50 million dollars, in two hours. Tess and Mothman tried to distract him by playing new songs, while the rest of us left to look for him, but it didn't work for long enough, and Jimmy started shooting again. He did briefly appear as some sort of apparition, and it gave me an idea.
I gave Mothman and Tess my corporate card, and sent them to the bank to try and get the money together. Between the two of them, they would make such a production it should keep Jimmy distracted. With them gone (Fireguard accompanied them), Corbin and I went in search of Jimmy.

Between consulting with Mothman's manager, and cross referencing some databases, we found out our likely suspect was a student at GWU. When we got to his dorm, however, he had moved out. We ended up chasing him across the city, from one place to the next, until we finally came upon him in a ratty apartment in SE. When we entered, we saw a boy, covered in blood, in front of his computer, with a gun and a cell phone next to him. The last number he had dialed was Mothman's, and on the computer screen was a letter saying that Mothman wouldn't be able to play at Jimmy's party.

I called Mothman, and he said they were in a fight in the bank with the "psychic" Jimmy. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure that disrupting Jimmy's powers wouldn't kill him with the wound he had. I called an ambulance, and some paraphysicians, and hoped. Corbin assisted with some basic first aid, the best medical knowledge either of us had.

Luckily, Jimmy survived being disrupted, and the ambulance took him away to the Utopia compound.


Being in charge isn't all it's cracked up to be. For a while, I had no idea what to do, and felt like everyone was looking at me to fix it.

My new boyfriend

Isn't he dreamy?

Do others really need an excuse?

Singularity, Pax, and outer space

Well, I see that press release has been issued. I suppose those problems I was going to relate to Dame are now mine to deal with. I can't believe yesterday though. And I'm still trying to digest it all.

I had a meeting with (former) Director Dame and Director Boyd of Internal Affairs. They had called me in to tell me about the promotion, and see if I would accept it. While they were explaining it, Singularity showed up. He said that I had to come with him immediately, and that the fate of the world was in the balance. Director Boyd said that he was telling the truth, so I told them I would need to postpone, and went with Singularity. He surrounded me, and took me into space, where he showed me a quantum anomaly, and asked me to shut it down.

The anomaly wasn't the only thing out there. It was hard to believe at first, but I detected Pax on the other side of the anomaly. Only, he was more powerful than any nova I've met...even Pax, now, today. I might not have believed it was him, until he started attacking us, throwing his kinetic blasts. I don't know how he did it, but Singularity managed to hold him off long enough for me to close the anomaly, although it took all of my strength to do so, and more. I pushed myself more than I ever had before (and it took its toll). Just as I got the anomaly closed, Singularity seemed to...discorporate, and I was left, alone somewhere in space.

Luckily, I seem to be able to breath in space. Or something. The vacuum didn't affect me like I thought it would, thankfully. As I thought about how I was gonna get myself back to earth, Ace showed up. He didn't really say anything, but picked me up, and took me back, landing me in a field before taking off again. Surprised the heck out of the guard. Luckily, I was home, near Johannesburg, and I had the guard call me a car, which took me to Montecasino.

I was exhausted, but starving, so I ordered some food before going to sleep. As I was finishing, Singularity called me. After I told him where I was, he phased into the room. I tried to ask him what all this was about, but he wouldn't tell me. He said it was better if I didn't know.

I reported the whole incident back to headquarters, but I left out who it was that attacked us. I don't know what to make of all this. What was this anomaly? Who was this "Pax" and why was he trying to kill us to stop us from closing it? I wish I had more answers...

OOC As the tag indicates, this is a private post to Tracer's blog and shouldn't be used IC. Unless, of course, you're one of the many characters that have hacked Tracer's blog. :)

Fame...

So, it seems when I went to Paris to find those novas who had helped Ivy's sister, someone took some pictures of me. So, now, all over N!, are pictures of me and this Psychopomp, with speculations that we're going out. And, of course, Andrew decides to believe the fucking paper, and gets in a tizzy about it all.

Sometimes, I just want to be left alone. Is that too much to ask?

Bhutan - debrief

We're back from Bhutan now...and it was interesting, to say the least. Bhutan is a beautiful country, and I got to spend some quality time with Robbie. He's a good kid, if perhaps from a slightly...unsophisticated background. I dare say we've become friends, and I hope I can be a good influence for him.

I also spent some time talking to Jean Splicer. She had a lot of questions for me, and we talked some about what it was like being a nova. She asked me if I would rather not be a nova. I'd never really thought about that before, but I think the answer is no. It's tough sometimes, being famous (I know, cry me a river), and I feel like I have a huge weight on my shoulders. But, I couldn't do half the good I do if I weren't.

Back to Bhutan, the mission didn't go quite how I wanted to, but I would call it a success. We got Slipstream, Recurve, and Sonic out of there, and I did manage to establish contact with the Zhabdrung, even if it's only by e-mail. Oh, and we managed to avert an international incident. So, all in all, good show.

The Biggest Little City

Today's mission sent us to Reno, where we were to track down an incident near a high school that put four boys in the hospital. Supposedly, an amorphous black mass was seen leaving the scene. This time I was teamed with Fireguard (who seems like kind of an ass), and Ace. Interesting thing about this high school is that incidents of eruption are three times higher than the national norm for the United States. Seemed like it would be interesting, and it was.

We headed over to Reno after stopped to get a snack. First stop was the police station, where we met with the assistant police chief. He told us what they knew so far, which was pretty much that the kids involved were troublemakers, but only minor stuff. The one kid that was still conscious had given a report, but then immediately lawyered up, so we were out of luck there. I had a sneaking suspicion he may have been the nova involved, so we decided to head over to the hospital so I could check it out.

When we got to the hospital, I did notice that there was a nova there, but it turns out it was just a celebrity getting some plastic surgery. One of the boys was just getting out of surgery, and at Fireguard's urging, I got us in to talk to him. His mother was with him, but Ace took her aside. When she was out of the room, Fireguard used his powers to heal the boy, and we were able to talk to him. It seems they were making fun of a boy at their school, Robbie Ellison, when he started to attack them with dark tendrils of energy. Tom didn't have Robbie's address, but he was able to describe the area and the house for us.

Having heard enough from Tom, we headed over to Robbie's house. Unfortunately, he wasn't there. I got in to talk to his parents by saying we were giving him a prize, and they told us Robbie was at school. Off we go!

At the school, they called Robbie to the front office. While we were talking, I noticed there were no less than eight novas in the area! Robbie's teacher reported to the front that he hasn't been in class, and while we were deciding what to do next, Ace told us to follow him, that there was trouble. We ran out towards the football field, where I could detect three novas and a baseline coming on another nova.

It was obvious that a fight was brewing, and we tried to stop it. Robbie was in the center, floating on an inky darkness, while the others were attacking him. The leader of this "gang," a nova in a diamond form, was shouting about how Robbie had killed his brother. After some effort, I managed to dorm down the novas except for the diamond one, and Ace was able to subdue him. We stopped the fight, and after I reported back to base, took them to the office to call their parents.

When we got to the office, the principal called us away from the children to talk, and showed us that the Directive was secretly monitoring the school. I wanted to know why they let Robbie in with the rest of the students after last night's incident, but he assured us they "would handle it" Yeah, right. It was pretty uneventful after that, with us talking to the parents to convince them to register their children with Utopia.

Ace mentioned something afterwards that still stands out to me though. When the Directive showed us their operation, the "principal" said that we should tell Utopia if they tried to expose the Directive's operation at the school, they had enough dirt to put Utopia's social programs back years. What could he have been talking about? Whatever it was, obviously he believed it was true, or he wouldn't have made the threats.

Phelps, the Tornado, and Church of Michael Archangel

I asked a friend to look into what Adam Phelps was doing in Houston in hopes of finding something that might help with Bobby's custody hearings. What he found was troubling, to say the least. Right now, we have pictures of Adam Phelps and Milo Arboghast. (He doesn't deserve the title of Reverend.) And Phelps was in Houston when the Tornado was murdered. And this information about the Tornado's death being linked with the Church of Michael Archangel...

That man needs to be kept far, far away from Bobby. And I'm going to make sure it happens.

N!

Tracer

Birth Name: Amber MacAllister

Date of Birth: June 17^th, 1980

Place of Origin: Johannesburg, South Africa

Occupation: Project Hestia Operative

Powers: Tracer is known for both her ability to locate novas, and her control of quantum energies. She has been known to locate novas through solid objects and underground. Her control of quantum usually exhibits itself in an ability to shut down nova powers, although she has also been known to copy the powers of other novas. Well, it’s correct so far.

Background: Tracer had a somewhat uneventful life before her eruption. Uneventful? Other than my parents supporting blacks fighting apartheid, even, at one point spending some time in jail, I suppose you could say it was uneventful. After attending Queen’s College at Oxford, she started work as a baseline for Project Utopia in Research and Development. She didn’t work on any noteworthy projects, but her work did bring her to London in April of 2006. How flattering. I suppose I didn’t do anything personally notable, but I was involved in the Ethiopian teraforming project as an administrator. That’s where I met Andrew for the first time since he erupted. We went to college together.

On April 17^th, a tube station was attacked by several Terats, including the known terrorist, Shrapnel. Caught in the collateral damage of Shrapnel’s attack, Tracer erupted, shutting down the powers of all novas in the area, including Shrapnel’s. The Terats fled, although they left behind one member who had lost all nova powers, and the potential disaster was averted. The nova left behind still has not recovered. Unfortunately, all of this is true…

After her eruption, Tracer continued to work with Project Utopia, this time assisting in tracking down and assisting with newly erupted novas. In December of 2007, she became one of the first operatives for Utopia’s new Project Hestia, a unit designed to assistant newly erupted novas, especially those with particularly damaging eruptions. All of this is as well. I’ve really enjoyed working with new novas, and my powers have proved particularly useful. I’m glad that I found a good use for them.

Interview Excerpts

Tracer: Thanks for having me on your show, Mike.

Pulverizer: Slide on in, I won’t bite.

Michael Michaelson: Thanks for coming. First things first. Tell us a bit about this new project you’re working on.

T: Project Hestia is a new team that Project Utopia put together to help newly erupted novas. We look for events that might be caused by newly erupted novas, and travel there to help them contain their powers and tell them how Utopia can help them. When you first erupt, it can often be hard to contain your powers. We can help new novas with that while they learn to adapt.

P: It often hurts like hell too.

MM: Do you wish there was something like that when you erupted?

T: I was lucky because I already worked for Utopia at the time, so help wasn’t very far away. If I had been at home, or if I didn’t have those connections, it could have been very different.

MM: Speaking of which, what’s your home life like? We’ve heard some very interesting rumors about you and Skew.

T: Andrew and I went to University together, and then worked together on the Ethiopian teraforming project before I erupted. We’ve been good friends ever since. It’s really nothing more than that.

P: Skew, you better sweep this woman up before I take ‘er from ya.

MM: *laughs* Watch out, Skew, I think he means business. And about your business, Tracer, what are the other novas on Project Hestia like?

T: They’ve all been great to work with. The team is being lead by Kimberly Dane, who’s been wonderful with leading us all. Some of the members I’ve worked with so far include Ace and Recurve.

MM: There’s one last thing I thought I should bring up. I hear that you’re an animal lover, and donate to several animal charities.

T: I do. Utopia hasn’t quite gotten to solving the problems of animal over-populations, so stray cats and dogs die in shelters every day. Even my own dog was adopted from a shelter. Some of the groups I work with include the RSPCA, the Animal Welfare League, and my own group, Helping Find their Way Home.

MM: Well, look at that. She’s a looker and a sweetheart. And that’s all the time we have for today. Tune in next week when we N!terview Splash and the Swoosh.

Wild and Crazy in Mexico City

So, Ace and I went to Mexico City to try and find Carlos. We started by visiting his family, but they had kicked him out. After talking for a bit, we decided to try the nearest church. The Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral is a beautiful church. They were having a service when we arrived, but I could detect at least one other nova nearby, so I decided to go in while Ace kept a watch on the outside.

I quietly walked through the church, trying to find out missing nova. Turned out the one I was picking up was a tall, rather good looking young man, surrounded by several mitoids. I tried to surreptitiously take a picture of him for facial recognition, but he noticed. After the service, he approached me, and introduced himself as the Feathered Serpent. He was...quite charismatic, but it was probably all a front anyway. (Turns out he was a Terat!) I asked him if he might be able to give me a hand in locating Carlos, and he offered to take me on a tour of the cathedral's "secrets" at midnight. We parted ways.

Shortly after Feathered Serpent left, I noticed another nova below the cathedral, in what must have been the catacombs. I pointed Ace in the right direction, and he told me it was Carlos, but he was in the tunnel with a bunch of snakes. Great - if I shut him down, it would make him lose control of the snakes. We talked it over for a bit, and decide Ace would try and work his way down to Carlos, while I kept an eye on things from above.

As Ace got close to Carlos, I began to pick up another Nova coming towards them. Ace had said he could still hear me, so I him what I was picking up, and to let me know if he wanted me to shut the newcomer down. Shortly after that, my radio began to pick up something, and I over heard him talking to someone else and signalling me to go. So I went big, and shut her down.

Maybe a minute afterwards, I picked up another nova headed towards them. Feathered Serpent. I warned Ace, and told him they needed to get out of there. Suddenly, he ran towards them, and I managed to move my efforts to dorming down him, and got him for a little bit. Carlos teleported away, but Ace managed to follow close behind. However, there was a wall between him and Carlos, and Feathered Serpent was closing in. Ace did another one of those super fast runs, and came and got me, then brought me to back to the wall, where we talked Carlos into taking us away from there so we could talk.

Carlos teleported us to his favorite restaurant, luckily back in DC. We talked over burgers. Carlos really felt his powers might go out of control, and after I offered to keep them under control when he wanted, he agreed to go to Utopia. He's a good kid, just needs some help getting himself under control. I can understand that. It was tough for me too at first. I gave him my cell number in case he needed any help.

Something weird about the whole thing - I've noticed that Ace is definately having some weird interaction with my ability to sense novas. Sometimes he's there, sometimes he's not, sometimes twice...need to look into that.

Whew - no more typing for now. Next, on Tracer's attempt to process - Bobby!

A picture

I decided to change my picture, but here is the old one for anyone interested.

What a day

We got called out of the "party" for a mission. Seems there was an incident at the "Allen Parsons Project" school. Never heard of it before, but it's a school where parents can send their gay kids to get them "fixed." Personally, I find the whole idea disgusting. When we arrived, there were bodies laying on the ground, as if they were mauled by animals. Made me want to retch. Ace, the guy I was with (more on him later), went to go help some teachers and students that had managed to baricade themselves in one of the cabins, while I followed the nova I was picking up.

After about a mile, I managed to trace him to the basement of what appeared to be "Allen Parson's" house. A couple of times along the way, I tried to shut him down, but it didn't seem to do more than tire me out. Nothing in the house, although a dead housekeeper in the basement. I have to admit I was stymied at that point. He was supposed to be underneath me, but I couldn't find another way down. Luckily, I suppose, he opened it for me. The floor broke away beneath me, and I was in some kind of "chamber" under the house. Standing there was a giant of a man, easily 10 or 12 feet tall, with grey skin. This time, I managed to shut him down, although I discovered in the process he wasn't the one controlling whatever animals did this.

It was only a small boy, perhaps 5. We talked a little, and I found out he was Bobby, "Parson's" son. And I thought I couldn't' have been more disgusted with him. Bobby's been living in this hole since he erupted. Poor kid. Ace had met up with us by this point, and I picked Bobby up to carry him out.

Ace and I looked around a bit longer while waiting for the "team," and managed to figure out it was probably a boy at the school who was kicked out that day for being caught with another boy. His family lives in Mexico City, so I suspect we'll be headed that way soon.

Oh...I almost forgot. For this mission, I was partnered with Ace, someone I hadn't worked with before. He flies really fast. Like, light speed fast. An odd experience to be sure. And...his quantum signature is all kinds of funky. Instead of flaring up when he uses his powers, I lose track of him. I'll have to talk to him about that sometime.

A picture

First things first. Here's a publicity still :)