Titan Industries/Stories

Having just opened their doors in February 2010 as a public operation, Titan Industries was hoping to make a quiet entrance onto the scene. Making money was the name of the game and generating a horde of enemies in those first few weeks wasn't really on anyone's agenda. While things did get off to a rather smooth start, trouble with an Arbiter by the name of Solomon Douglas soon cropped up to give the company its first real challenge. Douglas had been on something of a witch hunt to purge the ranks of the Arbiters of those he didn't feel were worthy to serve Arachnos. Rather than going after his fellow Arbiters directly, Douglas had been setting up businesses from around the Isles to look like they were plotting something against Lord Recluse. If an Arbiter didn't pursue the leads with the kind of enthusiasm Douglas thought they warranted...well, Solomon used his growing power to take down both the Arbiter and the company. He set his sights on Titan Industries and went about trying to frame them as tax embezzlers at the least and revolutionaries at worst. Shock Harvest, Eloques Umbra, Professor Reyham, and Shifting Reality all set about to try and find out as much information as they could about Solomon Douglas and his activities. A friend of Titan Girl's stepped in to help as well, and Mindwalk was able to provide some additional details for the group. After about a week of investigating, the company had enough information to prove that Solomon Douglas was framing organizations around the Isles, but no one seemed inclined or even able to stop him. Determined not to be overrun by the fanatical Arbiter, Titan Industries realized they were going to have to convince the biggest Spider of them all to see things their way. A tip from a friendly Arbiter who wanted see Douglas go down pointed the team of operatives to a secure location where Recluse was overseeing some kind of operation. The group fought their way to the leader of Arachnos and went toe-to-toe with him, eventually knocking him down to the ground. While probably more than a little irritated by the situation, Recluse decided to call a truce with the company and Solomon Douglas mysteriously disappeared.

While investigating a lead given to her by one of her contacts in May 2010, Brooklyn Cale ran into an old adversary of hers named William Austin. Austin was in the process of developing a drug he called Pallastin. This drug was meant to be a permanent power-killer, one that would basically turn meta-humans into normal people. He tested the drug on Brooklyn and then left her at the warehouse in Miami. Once she made it back to the Isles, Brooklyn instructed all employees to begin researching Pallastin and Austin Enterprises, the firm run by William Austin. Nicola DeVair confirmed how Pallastin functioned in the body during the early days of research, while Sharpening Block managed to find out a considerable amount of information about Austin Enterprises and its subsidiary companies. Following the intel gathered by Sharpening Block, a team of Titan Industries employees tracked down a front company that was conducting experiments on other meta-humans in Paragon City. The raid netted more information about Austin's activities in Paragon, and several employees volunteered to investigate locations around the City. Gold Chain was among those volunteers, but she was captured while looking into a facility in Talos Island. While Gold Chain was missing, Titan Industries continued to look into Pallastin and Austin Enterprises. India Ink managed to confirm that medical equipment was being sent to the same site in Talos that Gold Chain had been looking at. Voltaic Scorpion also confirmed that this site was a lab of some kind and that a woman matching Gold Chain's description had been seen in the area. That information prompted Brooklyn to order another raid on the Talos site, which was conducted on July 2, 2010 by another team of Titan Industries employees. Gold Chain was successfully rescued (though not looking quite the same!), and all of the materials related to Pallastin were recovered at the lab. William Austin's location and status were unknown during the time of the last raid, and it's suspected he might show up again at some point in the future.

On November 23, 2009, the De-Motivator went into an Arachnos warehouse located off the coast of Grandville and was shot to death when the chakra energy he used to protect himself gave out. De-Mo had been sick for several months, the "illness" most likely related to a parasite discovered on his heart just a few weeks before the fateful raid. Devastated by her boyfriend's death, Piper Sadowsky (aka Hyperdrive) buried him on one of the northern islands in Nerva and reluctantly began the process of grieving. Even more reluctantly, she eventually started to move on but her progress was halted abruptly when De-Mo's body went missing from his grave in early 2010. Believing that Arachnos or perhaps the Circle of Thorns had been responsible for the theft, Piper did what she could to find him again. She found nothing useful to help her and had almost given up her search. However, fate intervened in February 2010 when Voltaic Scorpion received a contract to kidnap a man going by the name of the Shakti Slayer. A full team of Titan Industries' employees pitched in to help Volt abduct his target, and the operation resulted in the successful acquisition of Shakti. The team transported Shakti back to the company's headquarters, and it was there that Piper found him in a temporary holding cell. After talking with him for a while, Piper confirmed that Shakti was a chakra user like De-Mo had been.

Perhaps more importantly, she also learned that Shakti had information about what had happened to De-Mo's body. He told her that De-Mo had been resurrected by strange alien beings and was wandering the Isles, presumably under their control. Desperate to find some way to help De-Mo, Piper agreed to release Shakti in exchange for his assistance in finding De-Mo's exact location. Though the consequences for her decision were severe, Piper was able to use her observations about De-Mo and what little she knew about the insect-like creatures to begin researching for a way to help her boyfriend. After months of looking at dozens of reports, Piper finally found a scientist who was able to provide her with some guidance. She called on her fellow co-workers in Titan Industries to follow the leads given to her by Dr. Humenik, and they readily agreed to lend their assistance. A full team of employees embarked on a search that spanned several days and eventually took them into the heart of the creatures' cave. There, they managed to defeat the entire nest and their Queen, but they also had to take down the transformed De-Motivator as well. After the fight was over, the team believed that De-Mo had finally been freed and had been able to move on somewhere more peaceful. The group left the cave and was preparing to disperse when Suspense discovered De-Mo's body washed up on a beach in St. Martial. Piper, Sharpening Block, and Suspense transported De-Mo's body back to the company's headquarters where they learned he was alive. Or at least sort of alive...he just wasn't human any longer.

In early August 2010, Titan Industries received a request from the elusive Mr. Bulgatain to investigate a string of attacks on some of his weapons shipments. As head of Bulgatain Technologies Conglomerate, Mr. Bulgatain was willing to pay Titan Industries big money to put an end to his troubles, but he wasn't particularly forthcoming about the items he was shipping. Through the course of research, a group of TI operatives learned that the mysterious group perpetrating the attacks was after something called the Nemesis Round - a casing that was capable of fitting any caliber of bullet and could track a specific target by using a combination of DNA, brain wave patterns, and even a little magic. Brooklyn Cale instructed each member of Titan Industries to reach out to any and every contact they had to try and find some way to track the Nemesis Round and the people who were looking for it. Some employees were less than pleased about the nature of the Round and Mr. Bulgatain's reluctance to provide more details. He wanted the attacks on his shipments to stop, but he wasn't willing to share more than was absolutely necessary about the Nemesis Round.

Despite a lack of information, TI employees quickly realized that men and women seeking the Nemesis Round would stop at nothing to protect their secrets - including violently killing those who worked for them. Several weeks of investigations hinted at the power of this group chasing after Mr. Bulgatain's "Legacy of Violence," but their efforts to secure the fabled Round were unsuccessful. Eventually, Titan Industries learned that the unknown group had acquired imitations of the Nemesis Round and in a confrontation in Sharkhead Isle, India Ink was killed with one of these "knockoff" bullets. The incident gave the company a lead to pursue since Brooklyn Cale caught the briefest glimpse of one India's attackers. Chasing the two perpetrators into the Rikti Warzone, Titan Industries managed to capture the man who had been in Sharkhead. The company also learned that India's namesake wasn't just for show. India returned in a new form and made contact with her fellow operatives; she was also able to provide more information about the group that had killed her. The Hephaestus Initiative was the name of the people looking for the Nemesis Round, but there were very few details available about them aside from their interest in highly advanced weaponry.

Following a tip provided by Torquin and additional information given to them by Mr. Bulgatain, Titan Industries was able to track down the Initiative's shipping center and eventually their main production facility. They had created a substantial number of "Adversary Rounds." They were less effective than the Nemesis Round, but still plenty bad enough to cause a good deal of trouble. Titan Industries took the manufacturing plant down and then went after the man who had been helping (willingly or unwillingly) the Hephaestus Initiative attack Mr. Bulgatain's shipments while providing them with more information about the Nemesis Round. As with just about every other Initiative member Titan Industries had come in contact with, the man betraying Mr. Bulgatain had been given some kind of technology that rendered him unable to provide more details. TI employees were able to take the man down, but they weren't able to learn much more about the Hephaestus Initiative. Their work for Mr. Bulgatain was done however, and the company was rewarded for their efforts.

During the summer of 2010, some rather strange things became apparent about Charles Wheeler's lucky hat. Wheeler had acquired the hat years before as a reward for winning a bet and often asserted that the article of clothing was his good luck charm. However, what was a running joke among Titan Industries' employees soon became very unfunny when the "hat" began to show signs of life. It spoke. It moved. It sang. Charles, aka Sharpening Block, became so alarmed (and perhaps a little annoyed) by the object's growing number of oddities that he placed the hat in a special containment box to keep it quiet. The arcane container seemed to work until late October 2010. Despite being trapped in confinement, the "hat" started reaching out to people again, and in an effort to silence the voice for good, Wheeler removed the object from its box. After all, no one really wanted a talking hat poking its brim into their business.

On November 1, 2010, a small group of TI'ers and Daniel Thorn from Sin Enterprises attempted to destroy the hat, but they found their powers were utterly useless. At a loss of what else to do and finally curious enough to accept what was supposed to be an inanimate object wasn't so inanimate anymore, the gathering of people decided to talk back to the hat. The voice emanating from the article of clothing claimed to be a luck spirit who had possessed the hat years before and had been content to remain as a silent token of good luck. Recent events had prompted the spirit it to change its tactics though, and the "hat" went on to explain that someone was stealing all the luck in the world. It urged Wheeler and his friends to find out who was doing such a thing and stop them immediately.

While more than a little skeptical, Brooklyn Cale ordered Titan Industries to begin a limited investigation into the hat's claims. Employees were generally unconvinced, and the theory that the company was suffering from a mass hallucination wasn't unpopular. At least until the streak of bad luck hit. Exploding coffee machines. Untimely falls. Jobs going mysteriously wrong. One event after another chipped away at the idea that the talking "hat" was just a figment of the collective imagination. For several weeks, multiple teams of TIer's chased down leads to figure out what was happening to the world's luck. They came to learn that the source of the "luck drain" was located in Ireland and made tentative plans to investigate further. Very tentative. There was still a healthy amount of disbelief about entire situation.

The string of bad luck continued though, and in early December 2010, Brooklyn Cale finally authorized a company field trip to Ireland. Two teams formed and split up to investigate a series of caves that were thought to be viable locations for the source of the disturbance. Each group discovered that the caves were ritual sites for a cult devoted to the force of luck, and that this cult had enacted a plan to draw all the world's luck to objects under their control. Following the advice of the talking hat, both teams destroyed the luck "magnets" and defeated the cult's leaders. The luck spirit promised that things would return to normal and promptly went silent.

Skepticism lingers in the company.

In early December 2010, Tommy Cortex’s business came under attack, as an unknown party began killing those people who owed him money. Tommy was unable to figure out who was doing it, and how they knew the victims, so he enlisted Lapis’ help to find out the killer’s identity. She discovered that the hits weren’t contracted, and that the shooter was very short. Tommy searched his organization, looking for whoever was leaking his customer and contact information to the killer.

He finally decided that it had to be his consigliere, Tony Calabrese. He confronted Tony, who denied any wrongdoing. Moments from killing him, Tommy finally pieced together the clues and realized the killer was Edward ‘Brainchild’ Kristoff. Kristoff was a former associate of his and a telepath who held a grudge against Tommy.

Meanwhile, several years ago, Thomas attempted a brain transplant on Kristoff to free him from his genetic deformity. The surgery was a failure, and the operation left Kristoff in a coma for some months. Kristoff made his ultimate revenge by infecting all of Thomas' hospitals, killing and reanimating his patients and employees into zombies.

As the Titan team stormed through the hospitals, destroying the infected subjects, they encountered a minor villain from Thomas’s past, Sewer Dog. As he lay defeated, Sewer Dog let slip that Kristoff was behind the plot, revealing to Thomas and Tommy that they had a mutual enemy. Providentially, Tommy almost immediately received a call from one ‘Snaps’ Fiocchi, a contact of his who had information on Kristoff’s whereabouts. Fiocchi revealed that Kristoff and an old flunky of his, a pyrokinetic named Backdraft, had paid the Council to house them in one of their bases until they could arrange to be extracted to Paragon.

Thomas and Tommy weren’t about to let Kristoff get away. Quickly assembling a team, they raided the Council base with extreme prejudice, first killing Backdraft and then facing Kristoff. Kristoff fought as well as he could, but he couldn’t withstand the team’s furious onslaught, and moments later, he lay broken and wounded at Tommy’s feet. Kristoff’s pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears, as the vengeful Tommy fired his guy empty into his enemy. Just to be sure, he reloaded the gun, and Thomas borrowed it, firing one last round squarely between Kristoff’s eyes.

Beginning in March 2011, Director Brooklyn Cale issued a contract for work to members of Titan Industries. The company would be going up against Syntech, Inc., a secretive research and development organization with connections to the US Department of Defense. Syntech had access to a broad range of advanced technologies, some terrestrial and some not, that could net Titan Industries a very tidy profit once the jobs were all complete. However, the contract wouldn't be without risk. Both Brooklyn Cale and Piper Masters had firsthand experience with Syntech - experiences that weren't particularly pleasant. The organization had been responsible for bringing and developing technology from a world codenamed Enoch. That world was dominated by a type of telepathic technology that had evolved over decades into a sentient psionic network called the Will. Syntech had helped bring pieces of Enoch's tech to earth and developed them for a super-soldier program called the Titan Project. So while stealing technology from Syntech was the main goal for Titan Industries, Brooklyn Cale also intended to use the operations to expose Syntech to the American public. She knew just how reckless and dangerous the organization could be, and she had every intention of stopping it.

A number of employees agreed to take on the contracts. Some were motivated by profit. Some were motivated by the desire to see a corrupt governmental organization destroyed. All seemed aware of the risks. The March contract wasn't the first time Titan operatives had come in contact with Enoch's technology. In February 2011, a group of telepaths assisted Piper, aka Hyperdrive, in gaining control of the Enoch tech she used as the basis of her psionic powers. Those telepaths went up against the Will while they tried to rid Piper of dangerous mental influences, getting only a glimpse of the psionic network's abilities. They were ultimately successful in helping Piper, but the encounter with the Will demonstrated how risky Enoch technology could be.

Despite the potential problems, Titan's employees accepted the contract, and the company set out to acquire the information necessary to expose Syntech while acquiring some of the less dangerous technology. The operations were successful in some areas, while less successful in others. Titan Industries did get some of the tech they were after, but exposing the organization proved to be much more difficult. Employees also experienced troubles, both personally and professionally. After Operative Junior was seriously injured in an attack on a Syntech facility, Brooklyn suspended all activities against Syntech for several weeks. When a US senator decided to investigate Syntech, Titan Industries resumed their campaign to acquire Syntech's technology. By May 2011, the company had acquired most of the technology they wanted, and the senator dropped his investigation into the organization on two conditions - 1) Syntech was dismantled immediately, and 2) Colonel Franklin Sadowsky was no longer connected to Syntech's subsidiaries in anyway.

The technology that Brooklyn Cale really wanted, the Enoch technology, disappeared from Syntech's warehouses and was transferred to an unspecified military project. Information gathered by Titan Industries as they swept through the last of Syntech's storage sites seemed to suggest that the Titan Project had orchestrated the break-up and dispersal of the organization's assets. While things with Syntech appear to be over for now, the acquisition and destruction of Enoch's technology remains a possible future goal for the company.

In the beginning of July 2011, Tommy Cortex found himself and his mob crew in the midst of an escalating war. His longtime enemies, the Bonanno Family had formed an alliance with the Kong Tsoo clan in St. Martial and a Triad gang in Port Oakes. Faced with superior numbers, Tommy lost ground steadily and barely escaped several assassination attempts. Though he was reluctant to involve Titan Industries in what was essentially a personal war, Tommy decided to hire them to shift the balance of power and end the conflict decisively. First, the Titan operatives forcibly reclaimed several key businesses and properties for Tommy, giving him some needed ‘breathing room’.

During this phase, Enrico Bonanno’s nephew was killed by Tommy and his team, prompting the vengeful Bonanno crime lord to contact his best assassin, an Arachnos Seer called Denara. Bonanno was controlling the powerful Fortunata through her addiction to a ‘Dyne variant known as Clarity, which he was supplying her with.

The next phase in the offensive was directed at weakening and discrediting the alliance. Through several quick and clever strikes, the Titan members turned the onetime allies against each other, and set the stage for the final phase. Meanwhile, Tommy captured Enrico’s top advisor, Sal DeMarco, and extracted from him the location of the top bosses in the alliance. However, he was killed – and Tommy severely injured psychically - during a surprise attack by Denara. Tommy fought back and barely managed to escape alive.

Pushing through the pain, Tommy joined the Titan operatives in the final wave, killing all of the leaders in the alliance before finally putting an end to Enrico Bonanno. His jubilation would be short-lived as Denara struck again. His team defeated and killed the tenacious Fortunata, but in the conflict, Tommy was again injured, this time even more seriously. Returning to the base medbay, Hyperdrive entered Tommy’s mind with Junior’s assistance to assess the damage done to him. Finding serious psychic trauma, she was confronted by a representation of Tony Calabrese, Tommy’s consigliere and closest friend. With his assistance, she repaired the damage but in doing so, inadvertently revealed to Tommy the true nature of Tony Calabrese.

Tommy learned, to his sorrow and horror, that Tony Calabrese was merely a psychic projection manifested by Tommy’s subconscious mind. Tommy is still coming to terms with ‘Tony’s’ fate, though in every other respect, he is as strong and confident as ever. In addition, he’s absorbed what remained of Enrico’s businesses, making his own business stronger.

In October 2011, one of Brooklyn Cale's former teammates from her days in the United States Marine Corps was abducted by a mysterious group of mercenaries in San Jose, Costa Rica. The director of Titan Industries mobilized her employees to track down just who had kidnapped Dominick Campizzi and why they had taken him. Titan operatives soon found out that Campizzi had been taken by an organization called Silver Light Solutions and that the purpose behind the abduction had something to do with a weapon known as the Erebus Cannon. Subsequent investigations produced more intelligence on Silver Solutions, their employees, and the reasons they wanted a piece of technology capable of producing "extreme gravity fields" at specific locations. Using information gathered by Vetal, Mu'Phaidra, Boss Gao, Junior, and Tommy Cortex, Titan Industries was able to determine that Silver Light Solutions wasn't the only group involved in Nick's abduction. Information surfaced that members of the Titan Project - a program developed by the U.S. Department of Defense to create super-soldiers - had set the entire operation into motion.

After three weeks of searching for information and tracking down every available lead, Titan employees discovered that Silver Light Solutions had planted several decoy weapons in circulation in order to distract Brooklyn Cale and her colleagues. The ploy didn't last for long as operatives were quick to recognize inconsistencies in the fake Cannons. Still, the hunt for Erebus provided additional information that allowed Titan Industries to pinpoint Nick's location and extract him from the custody of Silver Light Solutions. Once he had been rescued, Dominick was able to confirm what Titan operatives already suspected - that the Erebus Cannon was stored in a secure facility and had never been in danger of being captured by Silver Light or any other organization. He was also able to offer evidence that the true purpose of his abduction had been so that the Titan Project could perform a series of tests on him to determine if their super-soldier program was advancing in ways never originally planned.

The security of Erebus and the safe return of Brooklyn Cale's teammate were counted as successes, but there is no doubt that the information discovered in the wake of Campizzi's rescue is confirmation that Titan Industries and its employees are on a collision course with the project that turned their director into a super-soldier.

In December 2011, Brooklyn Cale decided that Titan Industries had grown sufficiently enough to warrant an expansion of resources. She contacted Specialist Vetal with her plan: Titan Industries and its operatives would initiate a takeover of a smaller, weaker security firm. Vetal agreed to lead the operation and put together a list of potential companies that best suited Titan's needs. The women decided on three candidates and ultimately settled on a firm based in Japan. Furugawa was owned by associates of Vetal's and the state of the company seemed most fitting for what Brooklyn Cale wanted.

Once she received the go-ahead, Vetal orchestrated a plan to force the CEO of Furugawa into a position which left her weakened and unable to effectively run the company. Titan Industries followed through with Vetal's plan in late January 2012 and managed to force Furugawa into selling. Details were finalized by February, and Furugawa became a legal subsidiary of Titan Industries. Because of the success of the operation, Brooklyn Cale promoted Vetal to an officer position in Titan Industries. Tommy Cortex and Gigawat also received bonuses for their rolls in assisting with the operation.

Titan Solutions remains based in Japan and will provide its parent company with personnel and administrative support.

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