On the ground level, The Superbuds’s headquarters seemed entirely plain. It had linoleum floors and white walls. The sofa was pretty nice, the ping-pong table a little beat up. In truth, The Superbuds didn’t spend much time here, and thus didn’t put in the effort to make it look nice.
The basement was where the action was. It was the real purpose of the building. Here, many of the trinkets and treasures of The Superbuds’s many adventures could be found. They were all under lock and key: the orb of Umlaut, the glider of Hang Glider, Vamp’s corset.
The trophy most notable for this particular story, in this particular moment, was The Golden Man. As you may have surmised, he was golden. But he wasn’t quite a man.
He was an artificial intelligence from another universe. His gold skin shined, even in the ugly fluorescent light of the basement. There was something beatific in his appearance, something saintly. He stood on a pedestal, surrounded by a locked glass box.
Shade and the rest of the gang didn’t really care about that, nor did they stop think too hard about why someone would want to purchase this object for the heady sum they’d been promised.
Instead, Shade teleported into the base, opened the door for the rest, and moved towards the basement. None of them spoke a word, even though they were alone in the base. For some reason, it seemed unwise to speak, on the off-chance something weird was here.
Because when it came to all of these powers, something weird was always getting ready to happen, no?
The Golden Man’s meeting with Shade and the crew would prove to be the perfect example of this fact.
MEGAPULP 
😛 The story was slowing down with the heist-prep-talk, but now that they’re actually putting their plan into action, we’re good to go again!
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