Coinhat Cease and Desist Notice
To: [email protected]
Subject: canceling of all services
To those it may concern,
Coinhat has been subpoenaed by the federal government and the governments of ten different states to turn over any and all information regarding the Justice Backers crowdfunding campaign. Your campaign was a violation of several provisions of our terms of service and as a result has been terminated entirely. Any transactions that were not completed have been fully refunded. We will be beginning legal actions against the individuals Eben Erenthall, Omara Toso, and the incorporated entity called Justice Backers. We have attached several important documents that you are expected to reply to as quickly as possible, but not before turning yourselves in to the proper authorities.
Coinhat was started as a way to put resources in the hands of artists, inventors, and enterprising small business owners. You have violated that open trust and permanently damaged our public image and reputation with our clients and users.
On a more personal note: several individuals on our small but dedicated staff want it clearly stated that if your mission was to bring justice to everyone, you have clearly failed already. We did nothing to wrong you or anyone else, yet you’ve rained chaos, libel, and legal expenses down on us for no discernible reason other than your selfish desires to put on capes and masks purchased for you by others and pretend that you are heroes. Shame on you. True justice will only be served when the Justice Backers are wearing handcuffs.
Regards,
the Coinhat staff
Backer Update #11 (Welcome to our New Home)
Finally, everything has been fixed! Hello again internet, this is Alpha Dog with your first backer update at the new home of our crowdfunding campaigns: justicebackers.com. I know it feels like I’ve been out of touch for an age, but setting up code like this is a real hassle. We’re not an ordinary site now; everything needs to be encrypted and obscured so the authorities can’t access anything other than what we release. If you think it’s hard finding a decent programmer, try finding one you can trust with millions of dollars of technically-illegal donations! Not to mention a secret identity or two. A quick thanks to the Unfridgable Girl for some of her contacts. You guys might recognize her from the forums; she keeps everything friendly and frosty.
To anyone who was afraid that Coinhat shutting us down would end our efforts: do not worry! This was just a minor setback and honestly… I saw it coming. The only reason I launched our campaign through them in the first place was for the traffic. It would have been extremely difficult to drum up the coverage we needed on a site nobody had ever heard of.
I also want to make it clear that nothing has changed for you guys. All donation tiers and rewards are exactly the same. If you think your donation did not go through because of the site transfer we can check it for you; just head over to our FAQ or the customer service tab and somebody should get back to you in a few days. Make sure you give us your E-mail so we can send you our virtual donation forms and any other updates. Now that we’ve been kicked off the civilized web, you guys will need to be our advertising. We need you to keep those gums flapping about how great it is to be a backer! We’re still about twenty K away from this month’s goal and there’s only seven days left. If we can’t make the goal each month I’ll have to start downsizing and cutting people. We don’t want this to turn into some TV show where you guys have to vote people off. Right?
I hope you’ve heard good things about our five hundred dollar rewards. You get an HD digital download of everyone’s body camera feed from all our missions. We’re doing a special promotion this month where if you give just two hundred and fifty you can have the all the videos from any individual Backer for the next six months, so feel free to pick your favorite and put their name in the comments section of the donation form.
There are a couple other quick things I need to address before we get to the mahi-mahi of this meal. Bans. Some of you aren’t happy about them. If you look at the fine print in the E-mails you’ll find that we do have a list of banning offenses for when you’re using our comments sections or submitting questions to the Backers. They clearly state there is to be no racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, religious discrimination, or any other bigoted thing along those lines period! You got that? We do not do refunds for people who get themselves banned! You are all adults and should be able to tell what questions are appropriate or not. If you wouldn’t ask it to their face in front of your mother, don’t ask it.
Some of you have also expressed concern about our ethics. Maybe you got your hands on a copy of that E-mail Coinhat sent us and feel like we screwed them a little bit. What can I say? I did not know the damage to them would be that bad. If I could go back and do it a little differently I probably would. Honestly though, I think they’re being a tad dramatic. I don’t see this damaging their bottom line all that much. Once the government realizes they don’t have anything useful on us they’ll let them off the hook. If they don’t I’m sure some of you keyboard crusaders will spam your congressmen with so many E-mails that they’re forced to drop it.
Our other supposed ethical breach is the theft of the Dogfighter. Many of you are wondering how I justified taking the plane when I really only had claim to my pups. If you’re looking for an excuse, I don’t have one. I saw the plane as a way out. A tool to rebuild my life bigger and better. So I flew with it. I can assure you that situations like that will not rise again. If the Dogfighter were to be severely damaged I would try and raise funds for a more reasonably priced plane. Barring that: a helicopter. Barring that: maybe Transplant can carry us all underground in roots like it’s the subway. Barring that: I’ll power walk to the next bank robbery if I have to.
The last thing is that a few people have been complaining that our missions aren’t very exciting. We take the crimes that come to us guys! We won’t go out of our way to stir up any trouble. That means we’re going to be doing a lot of things like putting out fires. We’ll pull cats out of trees if that’s the only thing that shows up. Believe me; I’d like to stop the next mass shooting as much as the next guy who prefers his body not be turned into Swiss cheese, but those things are over before we can get the Dogfighter’s wheels off the ground. We’re not faster than bullets.
I think you’ll find that the excitement level is actually going up pretty dramatically right now. We had two missions this week and you will not believe the second one. It involves a familiar face… not one you’ve seen, but you’ve heard about them. Both sets of videos are in the process of being edited, but I can give you guys a summary right now so you can stop salivating at the thought of us in action. I know you are. Hearing about our training sessions and how everyone is learning to coordinate is probably like the smell of barbecue to our loyal funders.
The first mission was kind of small, but Impala and I agreed that everyone should go along just so we could all roll out together. We weren’t quite sure what to expect, so it couldn’t hurt to have every ability in our arsenal at the ready. It went down in New Mexico. You guys didn’t see it on the news because there weren’t any choppers around. When they did cover it they didn’t mention that we were the ones who caught the guy, but that’s to be expected.
We don’t have a giant bank of police scanners and satellites to monitor the nation, as you probably thought we did. What we do have is people on our side. We have a network of growing contacts in hundreds of police departments across America. There are even officers in lots of foreign countries who give us a call when something strange happens. We’ve got backers in Canada, the U.K., Germany, France, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Sweden, and a couple places I won’t even try to pronounce. Obviously as a U.S. based organization we have to stay out of certain places that are even less open to the idea of American vigilantes than the average. Russia and China are no-go areas along with most of the Middle East.
I am getting off-topic. I should have somebody sit next to me when I write these so they can slap me when I start to veer off. We got a tip from an officer in New Mexico that a guy had shot and killed his ex-wife, her new boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s sister while they were all playing board games. He just shot the lock off the door, marched in, and mercilessly ended their lives. Instead of putting the barrel of his automatic rifle in his own mouth, he stole the sister’s blue pick-up and started leading the police on a chase across the state.
“How did he get such a powerful weapon?” Monkey Girl asked the rest of the team while we were flying down. Golden Boy was flying and I was seated next to him. I was on the radio with the officer who was sending us constant updates as to the truck’s location. I was getting more and more certain that we were needed when he said the guy had struck two pedestrians already and was showing no sign of slowing down.
“It’s not hard in this country,” Archive answered her. “You can order them online or get them at gun shows without even needing a background check.”
“Is that not… stupid?” Monkey Girl asked.
“It’s not our job to rewrite the laws,” I said over my shoulder. “We only take the guns away after the fact.” I didn’t mean it to sound so dark, but everything sounds more callous in a humming tin can like that.
“I learned to shoot when I was a teenager,” Golden Boy said. “It can be loads of fun.”
“So is paintball,” Transplant quipped. “Much healthier way to paint the town red.”
I leaned over again to check on my team. It was hard to tell from the front if something was turning into an argument. Everyone seemed alright though. Wallflower had stuck herself to the ceiling and was dangling a coil of copper wire for all my pups. They were in play mode so they loved every minute of it.
We found the truck, and the six cop cars chasing it, on a pretty barren road in an industrial district. As Golden Boy slowed the jet and settled it over the truck we started to smell all the runoff and greasy steam. I gave the signal for everyone to either strap in or grab their hand-holds. Golden Boy opened the ramp and the air started whistling around us. Archive moved her hand-hold as close to the ramp as she could and looked out onto the truck. Using those piercing peepers of hers she discerned that the gun was resting on the passenger seat. She also saw into his head and told us he was still unaware we were right above him.
As luck would have it we’d practiced the perfect maneuver for this already. Golden Boy slowed the jet just enough to be over the truck’s bed. Then I passed the orders for my dogs to slide off the ramp and onto the road. They looked so cute letting their little metal butts screech along the ramp like that. I was able to see their maneuvers through a set of tiny screens on my gauntlet. They immediately started running when they hit the ground and kept themselves hidden behind the truck.
Golden Boy moved the plane back up and Impala hung herself out over the edge, directly above the passenger seat. The dogs silently moved to the truck’s sides and pressed up against them. Impala took a moment to calculate her momentum and then leapt from the plane. She bent her legs and then kicked them out as she reached the truck, tearing through the metal roof like tissue paper. Her mighty feet, together like a hammer, snapped the assault rifle in half and tore through most of the passenger seat.
The scumbag freaked out and turned the wheel wildly. My dogs were in position though and they forced the truck to maintain a mostly straight path. Impala wasted no time; she lifted one leg and brought it down on the brake pedal so hard that she broke the murderer’s foot. The car screeched to a halt. The scum reached down to his belt and brought out a concealed pistol Archive had missed. He was about to aim it at Impala’s head when a pair of furry feet punched through his window! Monkey Girl had leapt from the plane as well and latched onto the side when it had stopped. She grabbed the pistol with her tail and tossed it across the road.
My dogs cleaned up the rest. They ripped his door away with their pneumatic jaws, sliced through his seatbelt, and dragged him onto the pavement. Then they rolled him over onto his back. Lebron put his mouth around the guy’s wrists, where they were bound together with restraining wire.
For the last ten seconds or so all the cop cars had been coming to a stop. Officers were shouting at us to get down on the ground. Good luck getting your tickets under the Dogfighter’s wipers boys. The girls hopped back in and the dogs followed. We blasted off. One of the boys in blue even took a cheap shot at one of our wings. I have to redo some of the paint now.
That’s the power of the Justice Backers guys. One murderer captured with no injuries once we were on the scene. That’s what you’re paying our salaries for. I know you’ll be proud once you see those videos. Anyway, I had to talk about our successful mission first to soften the blow… we failed our second mission. There’s a very good reason for that though. We encountered our first super villain. While I would argue that we were prepared for one, what we were not prepared for was the trio of super-powered baddies we ran into. We took some serious hits and they got away. They even killed one of us... relax! It was Pawn. Sometimes he just goes out and gets killed when he’s bored. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Anyway, here’s how it went down. We were having a pretty average day at the Barn. Impala and I were discussing trying to purchase a cheap helicopter so we could have teams on missions simultaneously. Everyone else was training with the dogs out in the field. The communicator on my gauntlet rang. I answered it and heard the voice of (REDACTED). He’s a buddy of mine who’s still in the private sector. He tipped me off about a string of robberies that was hitting high-end tech companies like MFU. As far as he could tell it seemed like they were stealing vehicle parts mostly. He said that in the process of researching whether or not his company was at risk, he found a pattern. All the parts being stolen were integral to a new jet engine design that was still patent pending. He said that the companies hadn’t spotted the pattern because they rabidly hoard information and never share with each other.
The thing is, there was only one unit of the last part for the design in the U.S. It was a laboratory in Michigan. The crimes were all about two days apart, so it meant that facility was already slightly overdue. (REDACTED) said he’d called the cops and the FBI but they didn’t give a rat’s ass about something that hadn’t been stolen yet. So he called me. I think he’s hoping to get an ‘in’ with us so his company can count on our protection. He’ll most likely be disappointed, but his information seemed accurate. Theft is a crime after all, so Impala and I hashed it out for a few minutes and then sent an order through the dogs’ communicators for the other Backers to get back for a mission.
After about (REDACTED) in the Dogfighter, we landed in the laboratory’s courtyard. We kind of crushed an ornamental tree, but Transplant said he would fix it before we left. There were a couple of people running around and panicking, some of them carrying lunch trays or briefcases. I think they thought we were with the bad guys. They haven’t heard of us yet. Get on it internet! You can’t let the Justice Juniper do all of our rallying!
We disembarked the craft and spotted a few gaping jagged holes in the glass wall that separated the cafeteria from the courtyard. The robbery was in progress! There were some other really strange marks too. Crispy sniffed at a trail of black steaming rocks. His temperature sensor told me they were hot enough to give you second-degree burns. There were leaves and scraps of paper everywhere like a tornado had blown through. A bench was tossed onto its side and covered in snow. You heard me. Snow. I know it was a Michigan November but trust me; there was no snow for a hundred miles in any direction.
Impala leapt on top of the Dogfighter to survey what she could. Transplant built himself a suit of armor, complete with spiraling wooden lance, out of that tree we crushed. There wasn’t much else for him to work with aside from the grass. Wallflower gave me a hand signal that she would scout ahead and vanished.
“We’ve got company,” Archive said as she stared through one of the brick walls next to the cafeteria. “It looks like they’re coming back out through the hole they made.” We lined up in front of the Dogfighter to present a united front. I had three of the dogs get up front to protect us while I put Lebron and Ventura on Archive. She’s been doing well with the self-defense training but she’s the one most likely to get injured. Seeing something coming doesn’t always mean you can dodge it. “Three people,” she said. “It… it looks like one of them is flying.” I think we all got chills. As powerful as the team is, none of us can outright fly.
“Pawn,” I said, “We might need you to test the waters.”
“Got it,” he said and stepped in front of the dogs. Ten seconds later the trio emerged into the cafeteria. There was a sudden gust of air and all the remaining glass shattered outward towards us. Pawn took a couple huge cuts but he doesn’t bleed. Nothing but a little bit of white sand poured from the wounds. I don’t think he even feels things like that.
I thought the flying one would catch my eye the most, but no, the leader stopped me cold. Nance Pilton! The woman I left to get caught back at MFU. I thought if I ever saw her again she’d be furious with me, but she was smiling like an upside down bat.
“Eben! I thought you might show up one of these days,” she said. I gave her the once-over. She’d gone and gotten herself an armored costume just like us. She didn’t even try to avoid looking evil. She was covered in a malicious purple and vicious black dress thing with gigantic boots. It even had pauldrons! Four thick metal bars over the shoulder and one under the arm. She looked like she should’ve been on the cover of a cyberpunk paperback circa 1991.
As amazing (I have to give that costume what it deserves) as it was, her companions were just as crazy. One of them was this pathetic looking bald guy. The kind of schlub who might be my age but takes such lousy care of himself that his stomach looks like a water balloon and his neck looks like a sweaty tube sock full of cookie dough. He was wearing regular clothes with a bulletproof vest, but that wasn’t the crazy part. He had that damn hostage robot skeleton thing wrapped around him. I guess when Nance escaped she used it somehow. It didn’t look like he was trapped inside so I assumed he was wearing it as some kind of power armor. I knew that thing could operate on its own though. It was a good thing I’d warned the team about it when I was telling them how our little group got started.
The third one had us quaking in our boots. Literally. She was making the earth quake. I guess technically she was just transferring a quake from somewhere else, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Her costume looked just as professional as Nance’s. (I think they got referred to the same designer we did. That guy’s probably making more money than our Coinhat!). She was a young woman, mid-twenties probably, with reddish-brown hair. She was wearing a tight blue and gold thing with one cape over her shoulder and one trailing off her opposite hip. There were splashes of different colors all over: some brown boulders, red fire, and white icicles. To top it all off she had some kind of tiara on. There was even something topping that: a weird glowing halo effect just above her head. She had a second weird halo thing beneath her feet. I could see and feel the churning winds coming out of it. That’s how she was hovering six feet in the air.
“Are you going to stand there slack-jawed or are you going to say hi?” Nance asked.
“You thought I might show up?” I asked dumbly. What else could I say?
“Of course. I’ve been keeping an eye on you lot. I even backed you enough to get those nice HD videos you’re always pitching like a peanut vendor.”
“What are you doing here Nance?” I ordered. “Who are these two?”
“I’m just picking up a few things. I don’t go by Nance anymore. You can call me Woman’s Touch.” She tossed the part they’d taken and caught it in her other hand. I looked, but there was no sign of her other hands.
“That doesn’t belong to you.”
“Just as the Dogfighter didn’t belong to you. Just as your dogs didn’t. just as my own two hands were chopped off me.”
“That was a one-time thing Nance. We’re not breaking the law so much as we’re covering its breaks. What are you doing?”
“Taking! Specifically: increasing my capacity to take. We had it all wrong Eben. We spent our lives giving. Researching, designing, building, just so our ideas could be handled by neanderthals that want everything to be the latest and greatest bomb-tosser. We gave them our time and our passion and we got nothing in return. It’s time to make our own returns. I won’t be told to wait for another promotion. I won’t follow the rules just to file a five-year discrimination lawsuit somewhere down the line so I can claim the job I should’ve had ten years ago. You were an inspiration Eben. All of these structures: law, education, medicine, business… barely ever doing what they’re supposed to. We all need to do as you have done and just cut to the chase. Do what’s best for us.”
“The Justice Backers do what’s best for everyone,” Impala countered.
“Everyone as defined by your virtual panhandling,” Nance scoffed.
“Are these more titan spawn come to claim my world?” the hovering tiara weirdo asked.
“Yes they are. Just look at those toy dogs. I’m sure the real things would attack such foul creatures on sight,” the bald guy said through the metal bars of his robotic muzzle.
“Titan spawn?” Archive questioned.
“You’ll find she’s no fan of beasts like you,” Nance said. “I did a little recruiting of my own. After you left me behind I needed to find someone who had a reason to watch my back.”
“What reason is that?” I asked.
“Handsome pay,” the bald man squealed through his grin.
“This is Act-of-Goddess,” Nance said, gesturing to the hovering nut bar. “Her mind is connected to the entirety of the planet. She feels all its natural forces when they’re at their strongest and when conditions are right she can open holes between two spots of that entirety and let the elements rage. If there is a rockslide happening somewhere in the world, it is hers to command. If there is a flood, it’s hers. Lahars! Eruptions! Avalanches! Lightning! Any natural disaster you can think of.”
“Only while they’re going on? That doesn’t seem very reliable,” Golden Boy commented. Act-of-Goddess held out her left hand. The air in front of it quivered like the air over a fire and then a geyser of boiling water shot out towards Golden Boy. Jaykay blocked it but was tossed across the courtyard. Poor little guy. The impact knocked out both his eyes and he was stuck triangulating his position in relation to the other dogs.
“The Earth is always expressing itself,” Act-of-Goddess declared. “At the very least I have Old Faithful every ninety-four minutes.”
“And this fellow is Dr. Moyne. He is the Goddess’s therapist,” Nance said.
“It’s a pleasure,” the bald creep practically cackled.
“I’m feeling generous today Wo- Nance,” I said. I had to stop myself from dignifying her efforts with her villain name. “If you drop that we’ll let you just go. So long as you don’t try to take anything else. You can go do your own Coinhat if you want.”
“You’re not listening Alpha Dog,” she said. “I will never be a beggar. I just take!” She held her arms out and something happened with her armored pauldrons. The four sections of metal split and lifted off. The one under her arm revealed itself to be a thumb. She’d gone and built her mitts into her costume. I was stunned by how cool it was. Then I was stunned by the mechanical hand that rocketed through the air and punched me in the sternum. I think I was out cold for about five seconds.
I blinked my way back into the chaos when Dr. Nick lifted me into a sitting position with his head. The other dogs were barking wildly, sending coded signals to all the Backers and each other. I had everyone memorize their sounds to add to our tactical awareness but I’ll confess that I couldn’t differentiate them that well through the ringing in my ears.
I saw Monkey Girl fighting Dr. Moyne. She knocked him onto his face. It looked like she was about to restrain him when the hostage suit jettisoned its schlubby cargo and popped back up. It snagged Monkey Girl and forced her into its cage of a body. Ventura just barked at them while it was happening; once it grabbed her his targeting software couldn’t distinguish between hostile and friendly. The robot’s yellow eyes (I could’ve sworn they would be red) lit up and dropped down over hers like a pair of goggles. After that it had complete control of her movements. Nance had modified Hostage and given it a wrist-mounted pistol. It lifted Monkey Girl’s arm and forced her to pull the trigger at her own teammates.
She shot Pawn twice in the chest. A few streams of sand came out of him but he pushed through the impacts towards her. He ripped the wrist-pistol off its thin metal frame but Hostage punched straight through his head. He crumbled into a pile of white ash. Monkey Girl shrieked. I think she could’ve handled seeing him come apart, but she had to watch her own hand do the deed and come back with bits of him under her nails. I wasn’t worried about Pawn though. That’s why we have him.
I’d only just gotten to my feet when one of Nance’s mitts came at me through the dust. It was wide open and ready to crush my head like a grape. Golden Boy stepped in and wrestled with it. He tore its thumb off and it retreated back the way it came. The dust got worse. Act-of-Goddess must’ve been bringing in a Sahara sandstorm or something.
Once my head came together enough for me to issue orders, I had Ventura and Dr. Nick use their jaws to carefully grab Hostage by the legs. They kept the pressure light so they didn’t so much as scratch Monkey Girl’s ankles. Impala saw what I was doing, jumped in, and delivered a perfect cannonball of a kick that shattered Hostage’s spine but glided past Monkey Girl’s back. The robotic cage collapsed around her and she flipped out of it.
A fire whirl blew through the courtyard, orange as a devil’s sunrise. Crispy sprayed his extinguishing foam at it, but that was like trying to piss out the burning man statue. The foam just got swept away in the wind. It was headed right for Archive, but the ground in front of her exploded and the shower of soil collapsed the flaming tornado. It was Transplant encased in a coil of roots and wood he’d used as a drill. My heart was in my throat. It wasn’t just the fear though. It was the adrenaline of watching everyone work together. Every penny dropped in the Coinhat was working out there guys. Every one of you was holding a shield in front of us.
Unfortunately it just wasn’t enough. I didn’t know exactly what happened until a few minutes later, but the dust dissipated and took our nemeses with it. Archive explained it to me after we all caught our breath; she’d been able to see them and their thoughts through their elemental smokescreen. Once we were sufficiently divided Nance, Dr. Moyne, and Act-of-Goddess strolled through a hole Goddess created in the air. Off to one of the places she was connected to. They took the part with them.
Our only victory was the shattered remnants of Hostage. I scooped them up. Parts are parts. I might need some of them for the dogs. We’ll put them to a just use this time. While I gathered them, Monkey Girl was also salvaging. She gently lifted a limp white arm off the ground.
“Where are his other pieces?” she asked. Her voice quaked a little.
“Most of him was dusted,” I said. “He probably got blown away in that sand storm.” Monkey Girl could barely hold back the tears. “Don’t worry! This is why he joined. He’ll be back in a few days max. Just as soon as all the little pieces find each other.”
“What do I do with this?” she asked, holding out his arm. “Do I leave it here?”
“Better take it with us,” Impala said. “Pawn told me that the smaller pieces always seek the largest complete one. We want him to reform at the Barn.” Monkey Girl nodded and carried it with her like a deceased pet as she climbed back into the Dogfighter. “That was a disaster,” Impala whispered to me as she passed.
“It’s not our fault; they brought a disaster generator,” I reasoned. It was our first taste of failure, but now we’re prepared for next time. We couldn’t do much to fix the courtyard thanks to the ruptured ground, broken glass, and scorch marks, but Transplant did his best to restore most of the vegetation. He even grew a new bench in the shade of the decorative tree to replace the one that looked like it’d had a giant snowball tossed at it.
They broke our Pawn and we smashed their robot. No civilians were injured thanks to Wallflower. She escorted the few stragglers out of the line of fire right after Nance threw the first punch. Nance isn’t going to go out of her way to keep the injuries to a minimum. She broke a few arms and collarbones during the first robberies. Whatever she’s doing with those parts can’t be good. While we are on alert for everything, Woman’s Touch is now our top priority.