Heaven

It's been a quiet week since all that craziness at Arkham Asylum. The Captain hasn't left them any orders, a case file, not even a "Thank You" card. Then, they get a strange mission: Gather evidence against the Crazy Don. Evidence? That's never been part of the Night Shift's charter!

Then again, the Crazy Don has proven himself against Gotham's regular cops time and again. The D.A. has brought him to trial numerous times, but no jury wants to convict a doddering, old man who spends his days shambling through the park in his bath slippers. Maybe this is a job for the Night Shift.

As it turns out, one of the PCs has an in with the family: he used to court one of the Don's nieces. (This is the Grifter, if you're using the pre-gen characters.) Split your players into two teams. One should describe the seduction of the niece while the other conducts some surveillance; you can run these scenes simultaneously. The seducer's goal is to get the niece to accept a marriage proposal, thus getting him into the family. The only problem is that she's already engaged! Breaking up that relationship will be a necessary first step.

Let the other team handle their surveillance work any way they please. It's not hard to get incriminating recordings of the Don's conversations with the D'Angelo underbosses who just "happen" to sit next to him while he's feeding the ducks. They may even catch sight of the thug who's enganged to the Don's niece.

Finally, the wedding day arrives. Against all odds, it's a sunny day in Gotham and the ceremony is being held outside. Team Seduction is front row, center. Team Surveillance is inside, covering the entrance. They don't want that spurned lover crashing the party. He does, of course, and a fist fight probably ensues. While that's going on, Team Seduction has to distract the guests and make sure the priest gets to, "You may kiss the bride."

After that, it's off to the reception! Now that's he's part of the family, one of the PCs has a free pass to get into Heaven. The others will have to sneak, con, magic, or force their way in. During the festivities, a woman in a veil will approach one of the PCs and warn him that he should back off this mission. If pressed, she'll tell them that crooked cops from Internal Affairs are just using them to blackmail the Don.

She doesn't want to reveal her identity, but she may not have a choice. She's a D'Angelo cousin and a secretary for GPD Internal Affairs. When "Mad Stan" was sent to Arkham, the Candy Store was supposed to be decommissioned. She hijacked the paperwork and kept the project going, to help rid the occult underworld of various scumbags the mundane police couldn't touch. In other words, she's the Night Captain.

After that stunt at Arkham, her "bosses" started snooping around. She doesn't know if they've identified her yet, but they certainly know about the Candy Store. She's been laying low for weeks; this was the first chance she had to make contact without exposing herself.

Give the players a few minutes to process all that, then spring the big finale on 'em! The SCV has chosen this building to test their new Dustech. They're going to turn it into a gigantic fountain. Step one is to encase it in a shell of nano-dust. Step two is to fill it with water. (They're not trying to drown anyone, they just don't know about the speakeasy.) Step three will be to open holes in the shell and turn a few spotlights on their creation.

Of course, the PCs had better think of a way out before anyone gets to step three. Going down is out of the question, because the lower floors are already submerged. Blades and bullets bounce right off the shell, but Hoodoo stands a good chance of working. If they have a pair of mirrorshades, they can try negotiating with the "spirits" who control the dust. Otherwise, play it by ear.

Once they're out, the "fountain's" windows light up to form a smilie face pattern with a bullet through it's forehead... just so we're clear on who's to blame.

Addendum: The crew will probably want to take action against the Internal Affairs guys who hijacked them. A quick campaign of terror should do the trick. Let your players concoct whatever intimidation tactics they like, build up some dice pools, roll 'em all at once, and use the total as a generate measure of effectiveness. More successes will keep the crooked cops more frightened for longer times. They might even be pursuaded to give the Captain a promotion... before packing up their families and moving to a new town.

Recommended Opener: Start with the wedding scene. (I had the Grifter in a foreign military uniform and holding a tiny, yippy dog.) I dropped the other PCs into the middle of a fist fight and told the Grifter to keep the guests distracted. I cut away after one round and let them finish off the Threats once we caught up to the scene.