1/13/13 - Seven Days of the Con Job - Pt. 2.5

Team Omega
(Cataclysmo, Friendly Fire, Underman (original), The Technocrat, Suzi Slam, Glimmer)
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * *

There's a room in the White House basement that cannot be found on any map or floorplan, past or present. 

It's a small thing, that room -- barely noticeable for its absence. People walk by what used to be its door every day and never think that the rhythm of the hallway is slightly off, or that its proportions seem a little out of kilter. 

If it had a function before it disappeared, it was clearly not a greatly-important one. 

Behind the wall is a thick slab of metal that has replaced its door -- an impregnable alloy forged on another plane of existence. Behind that door is a fire so bright it could blind half the world in seconds, yet so cold it could freeze it shortly thereafter.

An eerie fire that pulses from a glorious, golden sword that has been thrust halfway into the pale grey concrete floor -- both as sign of an empire’s dominion and protection from its opposite number.

A protection that has remained, though the yoke of its dominion has long since been thrown off.  

Once the fire was as golden as the weapon it emanated from, but for the last eight months or so its light has been less like the summer sun and more like an autumnal moon. Now it more closely matches the color of a bulbous, inedible gourd, festering in pallid and unhealthy soil.

It almost seems as though it’s been poisoned, somehow. Lord alone knows how that was even possible.

For some reason, at or around 7:25 in the morning – just as the morning sun’s rays strike the stately building that houses this unearthly, wounded wonder – the light changes once more. It wavers between a bilious orange and a darker shade, almost red, before steadily sliding over to that alternate hue.

And as the change occurs, a strange feeling begins to radiate out from that room that no one knows about. The feeling that something else is about to change....

* * *

… especially for Prisoner 52, who stops his stride through the superslam for a beat as he shivers a little, wondering why he feels so absent.

For a moment, he feels as though he almost sense the syllables of his own name, sliding across his tongue. He thinks he knows who he is, and why he’s really here.

For the first time in untold ages, he thinks he can see the whole picture, and his place within it.

But then, just as soon as he gets a sense of that picture – or at least the shape of its frame – it’s gone from his sight once again, leaving him blind and frustrated.

He hisses and pounds his fists on the metal railing. The sound is like a mighty boulder smashing against the hull of a ship, and the ringing causes the din to subside, suddenly and nervously – but only for a moment.

The Choosing is today, after all. And while the prisoners’ god might be angry, their new masters are here on a mission.

A mission that could mean everything to a lucky few.

* * *

“Yes, I’m aware of the privilege I’m being offered,” Foudre Blanc says as he stomps down the wet and dripping underground hallway to where the Maker holds court, really not wanting to talk to the person whose holographic head is floating above his wrist.

“Do you really, Bruno?” Julien asks, raising an accusing eyebrow: “Sometimes I cannot help but wonder. You do so say the most unkind things to us.”

“Maybe if you gave me reasons to say better things, I would say them,” the white-armored man growls as he approaches the man’s door.

“Now, see, that’s the kind of attitude I’m talking about,” the man says, sighing: “It doesn’t do our movement any good to have this kind of infighting between the people in charge-“

“Look, you putain,” Foudre Blanc hisses, stopping in his tracks: “The only reason you’re in charge is because the old man can’t get out of that bed and see what you’re doing in his name. And the only reason I don’t tell him is because it would kill him to know.”

“Now, that’s-"

“That’s the last thing I intend to say on the matter, Julien,” the hero says: “Now casse-toi or I’ll tell him, anyway, if only to see if he’ll tell me to deal with you before he has a heart attack. I will see you at the meeting on Friday. Goodbye.”

He cuts off the communication, sighs, and bangs on the door.

“Did you bring my Beignets?” the old man asks.

“Of course!” Foudre Blanc answers, holding up the still-warm bag. As soon as he does, the sound of magical, amazing gears and pistons tinkling and turning comes from within the door, and he is once more allowed into the magical cave of wonders beyond.

Pick any astounding invention of the last fifty years or so – record-setting vehicles, paradigm-changing appliances, or things once considered science fiction that are now so commonplace that no one wonders at their presence in their lives.

Now imagine their prototypes and forerunners – all invented ten to fifty years too soon, yet created with materials from over a hundred years in the future.

Now imagine each and every one of those magnificent things were housed here, with the man who either created them for someone, or else came up with them well before someone else did, and then went on to create something else, and then something else beyond that.

Here, in this seemingly-endless stone chamber, well below the sewers and catacombs of Paris, are all the unsung and unseen wonders of the modern world – all created by a single set of hands over the last century or so, all constantly repaired and dusted by a legion of clockwork, golden cherubs, flitting this way and that in an endless geometric pattern.

“Up here,” the wizened and tiny man says from a floating, square platform of bronze and marble, some distance away. As soon as he gestures, a set of bronze stairs clatters itself together, one step at a time, eventually reaching the ground just inches away from his visitor.

“Thank you, Maker,” Foudre Blanc says, quickly skipping up the steps: “I appreciate that.”

“I should hope so,” the old man says, scratching at the tuft of wild, white hair that grows between his two, large ears: “No electrical ports in here to fly through, eh? A bit difficult for you, yes?”

“All too true,” the white-armored hero sighs, surmounting the final step and standing before the man’s magnificent workbench, where he needs only gesture to have any tool he needs literally jump from its storage space and into his hand.

The old man reminds Foudre Blanc of that tiny, green Jedi master from the second Star Wars movie -- all head and hands, with eyes that see more than one might care to reveal. He wears a pair of overalls that seem as old as he is, stained with an age's worth of oil, grease, and less salubrious fluids. Beneath that, a shirt that proudly proclaims La Propriété Ce Est Le Vol!

“Put them over there,” the old man commands, not ceasing in his work on the oblong, wire-laden thing he’s working on: “And open the bag for me.”

“Of course,” Foudre Blanc says, doing as he’s told, and trying to get a good look at what the Maker is making. No sooner does he comply than he’s swarmed by golden cherubs – half of whom reach into the bag to take a beignet apiece, and the other half of whom place themselves between his eyes and the man’s work.

“Trying to get a preview, yes?” the old man cackles, happily taking a bite from what one of the cherubs offers him.

“An update, actually,” the hero says, taking a polite step back: “Things have changed a little.”

“Things often do, yes,” the Maker says, talking through his beignet: “I may have anticipated that. I have decided to kill two birds with one stone, yes?”

“You have…?”

“Yes,” the old man cackles, tapping the box: “This device will now do two things. The first will be to short out your Nthernaut, and take him right out of the system. The second will be to take over that system mere microseconds after he is gone.”

“It will?” Foudre Blanc says, blinking behind his mask: “That’s amazing, sir. Truly.”

“I should say so,” the Maker says, gesturing for a soldering iron, which duly leaps into his gnarled hand: "You will have need of it, now that your Eclat is gone, yes?"

"Yes, that's true," the white-clad hero says, quite surprised: "How did you know about that-"

“You may go now, yes?”

“Yes, of course,” Foudre Blanc says, realizing he's either offended or just overstayed his welcome: “And I can tell them it will be ready on time?”

“I should say so,” the Maker repeats: “You may go now, yes?”

“Yes, of course,” he repeats in turn, unable to help himself.

On the way down the stairs he feels as though a pair of large eyes are glaring a hole into his back. He can only hope the old man will be over his parting jest the next time he comes down; there are reasons he brings pastries from the world above, after all.

As if to answer his question, the stairs begin to disassemble themselves just as he’s on the final step down. He takes the hint and hastens his departure, trying to avoid breathing too heavily as he marches for the door, which is already closing ahead of him.

That it doesn’t slam shut right on his con the second he walks through it is either a miracle or a reminder of precarious their understanding with this tiny fellow is.

"More Beignets next time," Foudre Blanc promises, if only to himself. But he's so wrapped up in that litany that, as he strides back up the steps he came down, he doesn't realize he's being followed.

A lady in red lurks behind him, wrapped in ghosts and shadows exactly ten paces behind. With each step the anger within Ciel Rouge grows -- the desire to do justice upon him though the heavens fall.

Justice that will come, and soon. 

"More Beignets next time," Foudre Blanc repeats utterly oblivious: "And maybe some coffee."

* * * 

"That'll be six-fifty, ma'am," the skinny, pockmarked kid behind the Sixth Avenue Starbucks counter says. 

"Thank you," Martha Samuels says, handing him a ten and pretending to not be amused when he has problem counting out the change. She's heard that sometimes they do that on purpose to get customers in a hurry to say 'keep it' so they can add it to the tip jar. So she puts a dollar in the jar and smiles, which seems to miraculously trigger the part of his brain that handles mathematical calculations. 

After that, she puts her sunglasses down, takes her coffee, and walks out into the scrum of Neo York City's morning foot traffic.

She goes down one block, then over another, and then up yet another. She retraces her steps every so often, as if she's lost, but doesn't do anything to attract attention to herself. She stops into a chintzy Asian "souvenir" store for a time and leans over the long tables, pretending to be interested in their suspect, plastic wares. She watches a raggedy street performer busk for coins as he plays "Wonderwall," over and over again on a guitar that's seen better days.

(She does not, however, leave a donation. She merely hated that song the first ten thousand times she heard it. Now she truly loathes it.)

As she does her best to blend in without seeming too anonymous, she thinks she can hear the omnipresent street cameras whirl and click in her direction, every so often. But when she checks to look she sees they're not following her, after all. Just moving in random tracks, depending on what the mind behind them is choosing to focus on.

Much to her joy and surprise, she's not one of those things.

She smiles and taps the white button she's wearing, wondering what her son would think about all this. But then, Thomas -- now better known as the Nthernaut -- not only has no idea she's here, but he can never know she was here.

Not now, not ever. 

"Absolute deniability," she whispers under her breath, finally knowing the meaning of those words. The dire personal cost of each syllable.

At some point, she decides she's thrown off whatever eyes -- human, mechanical, or some combination of the two -- would have had cause to follow her, and moves towards her true goal. It's a small lockup, not too far from the Starbucks she'd gotten her coffee at. She ducks down an alley as though she owned the place, which she does (through a few shell companies), goes up to a door and puts her hand on the knob.

It unlocks, just then, and lets her into a small garage that no one outside of her small, crimefighting clan knows about. It hasn't been used in years, except as storage for various endeavors based in Neo York City, and even then it was more of a drop-off and rendezvous point than anything else.

But there has been something here, all along. Something that was meant to be handed off to someone else, quite some time ago, but that never quite got to where it needed to go in time.

Something wonderful, waiting under a dusty, cobwebbed tarp.

She pulls it off in one, fluid motion, sending a rapidly-unraveling cloud up to the naked lights in the ceiling. A line from an old song from her childhood comes to mind, and she quickly checks to see if the package has held up, after all this time.

It has, and why wouldn't it? Mark and her father worked on this, together. Assembled it in precious, spare moments in the Owl's Nest, ever-arguing over the precise placement of things. Each part laid down with care and precision. Each inch fought over and argued for, put together and taken apart, done and undone and redone until they'd gotten it just right.

And now, at long last, this masterpiece was going to see its moment come 'round at last.

She smiles a little, wiping away a tear at the thought of how her father had beamed to see it completed -- a good and worthy gift for the oldest of family friends -- and takes out a cell phone. It's a cheap, anonymous, one-shot job she's kept laying around the apartment for such an eventuality.

"Hello, hon," she says to Mark Clutch, who, wisely, does not reply: "Tomorrow's looking good. I'll see you at 8. And we'll have guests..."

* * *

And just like that, the Choosing is over, and the lucky few have left the building. 

It's always something of an anticlimax -- at least at first. The Terre Unifee's guards come out of the reinforced bunker at the bottom of the elevator to the outside, bearing weapons that could shred even the toughest amongst them, and carrying nuclear weapons on deadman switches in case those weapons do not work. 

One of them has a list. It is read off, with all the pomp and circumstance of a lowly and bored soup kitchen worker listing off the wares of the day. It's a sign that those prisoners should come forward, provided they're still alive, or in any shape to present themselves. Should they not do so in a timely manner, they read off from the list of alternates, which is quite extensive. 

It didn't take too long, this time: the ones they called for were hard cons -- tough, experienced, or at least well-versed in how to survive life in such a place. One by one they came down, and extended their necks to be scanned for the combination ID chip and micro-bomb inserted at the start of their incarceration. And after they proved they were who and what they said they were, they got lined up under guard, by the door, and waited.

Just a short wait, after having waited for so long. 

One of them had to be withdrawn from the vault, down below: the place where those convicts too powerful, unusual, or just plain weird to be locked up in a standard prison cell were kept. It's the one made of hard light, Prisoner 52 remembered. Sometimes he can hear him weeping -- even from down there -- to be so far from the Sun. 

Weeping in the dark, and slowly going insane. 

The other five were less exotic, but no less remarkable. The middle-aged human bullet eager to kill his arch enemy. A betrayed, octogenarian gadgeteer with a score to settle. A furious woman more muscle than skin. A morbidly obese man who could make machines with his mind.

And, most frightening of all, the smiling, blind assassin who hunts with maniacal laughter.

All of them had been useful assets, down here, once upon a time. After the Imago left them all to die, and the riot broke out, they'd been as instrumental in establishing their new community as anyone. They'd banded together for survival's sake, one and all, and while leaders and regimes may have come and gone -- and rivalries been forged, fused, and then settled in blood --- the simple work of life had gone on.

It was only when the TU came, afterwards -- bearing real food and poisoned favors -- that the prison truly fell to barbarism and anarchy.

And now that no one needs to be presentable, any longer, those states of being descend once more.

It's like someone threw a switch. Punches are thrown, and blows traded back and forth over seemingly nothing. Arguments become fights, beatings become murders, and long-planned assassinations become truly gruesome and degrading things.

Here, a pyrokinetic roughly violates a seemingly-indestructible man in the showers, highly amused as his burnt skin keeps healing over, second after second, as the ordeal continues. There, a man explodes as someone who can shrink to infinitesimal size flies into his gullet and then regains his normal proportions, reveling in how far his rival's remains spray across the cell block.

High above it all, Prisoner 52 stands watch. The death below feeds him, without his even having to be present at the moment where life ends and something else begins. He grips the railing tight as his bones glow from within his pale skin, skull-pupils rolled back into his eyesockets as he rides the edge of what he can know, and what still eludes him.

A name. His kingdom for a name. The world for a name, if need be.

And if the world must drown in burning blood to bring it to him, then so be it.

* * *

"You think that's enough for the gravy?" Straffer asks as he scrapes the pan under the roast.

"I should !@#$ing hope so," SPYGOD says, stirring the vegetable curry just fast enough to keep it from burning: "Not sure how the !@#$ yorkshires are going to turn out..."

"Magnificently," the blonde man says, kissing his lover on the cheek. They smile, pause a moment, and then go back to making dinner. 

"You know what's going to be nice?" Straffer says after a time as the gravy begins to gel.

"What?"

"Eating dinner in a proper restaurant."

"Oh, !@#$ yes," SPYGOD says, taking an appreciative whiff of the curry: "Something someone else !@#$ing made for us."

"That didn't come in a !@#$ pizza box."

"Or a takeaway pack, for that !@#$ing matter."

"A long walk on a sunset beach, after that meal."

"!@#$ing like people who just !@#$ing met at a bar on that beach."

"Maybe we could do it at the meal?" Straffer asks, grabbing his !@#$ as he walks past.

"What, and get @#$ing arrested?"

"Well, we'll just have to do it somewhere it's legal," his lover chuckles.

They look at each other, then, and then over at the window, overlooking all the protesters. 

They look at certain bags and boxes that are stacked on either side of that window -- seemingly innocuous, but containing things that no one knows about. 

Secret things, meant to speed them to that special somewhere that no one can touch them. 

And they smile, just a little, wondering if they can get away with this, after all. 

* * *

"(You should not be here, outsider)" the beefy, salf-and-peppered Japanese man drinking alone at the mostly-deserted, bone-white bar says, regarding the strange thing that floats in his glass.

"(I know, Ju-San)" the shadowed stranger says, walking on up and putting away the taser he just used on the man's guards. They lie on the white marble floor, gibbering as the electricity leaves them. The few other patrons are getting up to go somewhere else, clearly terrified of the cyborg as he ascends the stairs to the bar.

"(Then tell me why I should let you leave?)" the former head of the Organization asks, swirling his drink so that the human eyeball in it floats to the top: "(This is not for the likes of you. You exist to expose the truth. But here, where all things are possible, we live with secrecy and lies to hide it.)"

As if to emphasize his statement, someone screams from a hidden room, nearby. A ragged, wet cry that ends as quickly as it began. 

"(All things are possible, here, yes,)" the man says, pulling out a short stack of photographs, but not yet showing them to the man he's intruding upon: "(Even the real truth, after a fashion.)"

"(Explain yourself!)" Ju-San snarls, downing his drink -- hooker's eyeball and all -- and then slamming the glass down on the bar's surface:  "(I can have you raped, killed, and eaten here, outsider. And not in that order!)"

"(I know,)" the man says, as respectful as possible: "(And I come to you with an explanation. But also a challenge.)"

"(What is that challenge?)" 

"(To become what you once were,)" the man says, flipping through the photographs like they were cards: "(Once, the name of the Organization was enough to cause even SPYGOD to be afraid. But now that the Terre Unifee has taken it from you, and confiscated the weapons and objects you once safeguarded?)"

"(Go on,)" Ju-San says. It sounds like a threat. 

"(They say you are a joke, weeping into a drink in a Tokyo murder bar,)" the man continues, shrugging: "(And, with all respect? I cannot say they are wrong.)"

"(You dare-)" 

"(I. Dare. Everything.)" Randoph Scott insists, banging his free fist down on the bar's marble surface, shaking the empty drink of the world's most dangerous man: "(I get the truth, Ju-San. I get it any way I can. And when I get it, I hand it out freely.)"

"(The truth can kill, Outsider.)"

"(So do lies,)" the outlaw reporter says, pulling up a white and silver stool to sit right next to him: "(And I think you've been lied to enough already.)"

"(What do you mean...?)" Ju-San asks, suddenly unsure.

"(Hanami,)" he says, pulling out one of the photographs in the deck. It's of the young woman he once commanded, but no longer has much contact with. The bright, beautiful, and immensely powerful android that saved Tokyo, but at a terrible cost to her mind.

"(What of her?)" the man says, trying not to show his true emotions, just now.

"(They told you they would help regain her mind,)" Scott says, pulling out photos of various members of the Space Service -- especially Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir -- and placing them down by the man's empty drink: "(But I believe they have been lying to you. I believe they have no intention of bringing her back to you. They've emasculated your Organization, after all. Why would they fix such a powerful weapon, and then hand it to you?)"

"(You have proof?)" Ju-San asks, his eyes growing darker by the second.

"(Not yet, but I know how you can get it,)" he says, handing him a card with a string of numbers upon it: "(Your access codes were rescinded. This will allow you to log back in under your old name, with all permissions given. You can look at all files, just as you once did. And I recommend looking at the personal logs and security footage.)"

"What will I see...?" Ju-San asks as Scott gets up from his stool, lapsing into English for the first time in decades. 

"The truth, Ju-San," Randolph Scott answers, bowing respectfully before he turns to go: "I hope you will know what to do with it."

And then he's gone, leaving only a mystery behind. 

* * *

It's night in Korhogo, and the killing has stopped. 

Prisoner 52 sits in his cell, unable to sleep. He doesn't need to, though he sometimes likes to close his eyes and pretend. And when he does, the ghosts around him walk into his dreams, as though they were the court of their king.

A new spectre has joined the other four: one of the ones who was slain, this afternoon, after the Choosing. He's weak and uncertain, muttering of pain he can't really feel anymore, and the horrible injuries his former allies wreaked upon him as they decided he was more fun dead than alive. 

He should be greeting him, tonight. He should speak to him of the things he must know, and the strange places that they will have to walk, together. All those kingly duties and responsibilities. 

But right now, the king of the dead doesn't care about that. 

What he does care about is something he realized, today, as the wave of murder and mayhem washed over his mind and body. The strange and bloody overwhelming of his senses acted to shake two things loose, within his glowing skull. 

The first was a single letter. S. 

And the second was an understanding -- crystal and clear -- that before long he would not only know the rest of the letters he'd been deprived of for so long, but that he'd be returned to full power once he spoke that word aloud. 

"A king in his kingdom, once more," he says, sniffing one of the sickly roses his living followers have strewn in his cell -- grown fat and wrong in the gardens where the dead have been laid to rest.

And he closes his eyes to dream of change, sweet and certain after so very, very long.

* * *

It May Not Last

But Here Am I

Once a Caterpillar 

Now a Butterfly

* * *

(SPYGOD is listening to Metamorphosis (Pet Shop Boys, remix) and having a Mephistopheles Metamorphosis) 

1/13/13 - Seven Days of the Con Job - Pt. 2.0

Prisoner 52 and Absent Friends
(Art by Dean Stahl)

Dreaming is Easy 

Life is Tough

* * *

It's 6:30 in the morning in Korhogo, in northern Cote d'Ivoire, and the dead are whispering to the bone-white man they call their king.

Prisoner 52 sits in his unlocked cell, surveying the large, gently-curving cellblock beyond. From his makeshift throne -- a stool from what used to be the Warden's office -- he can see across and down three floors, and most of the sides.

And what he can't see, he can hear with obscene and total clarity. 

The superslam is buried underground. There are no windows on their cells, and no contact with the outside world except for the ever-so-tiny vents in the ceiling that let in air, and occasionally rain during a truly torrential downpour. 

It's always a little too cold, in spite of the climate, and always too tightly-packed, regardless of how open it actually is. Smells linger for days, mold grows riot at a moment's notice, and even the warmest blanket -- stolen from the guards' quarters, after the revolution -- can't keep out the clammy damp. 

They are, however, excellent for hanging oneself, as the most current occupant of his cell can attest. 

The king of the dead is a big and burly fellow with skin the color of freshly-fallen snow. He's well-muscled and bald, with no eyebrows to speak of. His teeth are sharp, as are his fingernails. His eyes have small, black skulls for pupils. 

And no matter how much he tries to remember -- and he has tried, over the last thirty-odd years -- he simply cannot remember his name.

That might not be so odd in a place like this. So many of his fellow prisoners are incredibly damaged -- insane,  traumatized, or merely broken. It's a wonder some of them can even remember their lives before they were sentenced here.

A greater wonder that, after what happened when the Imago took over, they were able to survive as well as they did, before the Terre Unifee appeared to "rescue" them...

He smirks at that thought, listening as the solid, white walls of his cell begin to vibrate ever so slightly. The sound of a TU transport landing on the roof -- a big one, from the sound of things.

And that means that someone's getting out of here.

The whoop and cry goes up from all corners of the block -- a savage ululation, somewhere between defiance and supplication. All plans, pains, and punishments are stopped as the inmates return to their unlocked cells to make themselves ready, hoping this might be their lucky day.

The day they get to leave their past mistakes far behind them, and begin a new life somewhere well away from this place.

A day that will never come for Prisoner 52.

The ghosts that float near him begin to whisper louder, some strange echo of their hopes and dreams coming back now that so many people here are so excited. Their misplaced enthusiasm annoys him, but only slightly. He can't blame the dead for being confused, any more than he can blame a steer for defecating on the way to the slaughterhouse.

He rises from his stool, cracks his back and neck, and clenches his large, powerful fists. He strides past the piles of weapons, drugs, and other contraband his fellow prisoners have given him, hoping that when their time comes, he will be merciful. And he stands at the bars of the balcony, looking down at the surging mass of super villains as they run every which way they can.

"Like it's somebody's birthday," he muses, his voice rattling and sepulchral, and his breath so cold it steams in the air: "But who gets the surprise?"

The ghosts that float beside him have no answer. But then they never do. 

* * *

"Really?" the President of the United States sighs, looking down at the action plan he, Josie, and Ben Franklin have spent the last few hours coming up with, here in the Oval Office, since he got back from France: "How is it we can lose track of the leader of Team Alpha?"

"He goes where he wants to when he's off-duty, sir," Josie says, checking her datapad: "And, well, since it's 2 in the AM he's really off-duty by now."

"I thought we had them tagged by satellite?"

"We did, but he's a metamorph. He has a complete sense of every cell in his body. I suspect he found the tracker as soon as we implanted it."

"We suspect?"

"Well, if I was him, I'd leave it in during the day, and then take it out at night," she says, smiling: "That way we don't know where he goes, and don't know he's even gone."

Ben Franklin laughs at that: "A cunning fellow! I simply must meet him."

"Well, that's the plan," Mr. USA says, leaning back in his chair and looking somewhat dejected: "So if we can't rely on SIGINT?"

"Well, that's why I use HUMINT, sir," Josie says, holding up the pad and smiling: "I've got it narrowed down to a couple bars between Neo York, Trenton, DC, and Baltimore. We'll find him soon."

"I certainly hope so, my dear," Ben Franklin says, steepling his hands before his face as he leans forward in his chair: "He is the leader. If we take him out of the picture, the others will waste time deciding who's in charge. That's time we can use."

"Agreed," Josie says, putting her pad down: "Now, have we heard any more from the TU President about what he meant by "muscle"?"

"Not yet," Mr. USA replies, getting ready to order up yet another round of coffee, and being very glad he insisted the kitchen be open at all hours to accommodate those with odd metabolisms and weirder sleeping schedules: "I suspect he's rounding up some of his top Compagnie folks."

"That seems a little unlikely, good sir," Ben interjects: "This is the sort of thing best done quietly, in the dark of the night and the gloom of the shadows. If he sends in his brightest lights, it will attract too much attention."

"I agree," Josie nods: "It'll be strategic talents, but no one we'll have heard of before."

"Which means we won't know what we're dealing with until it actually begins to happen, unfortunately," Ben adds, leaning back and gently patting the sides of his chair. 

"Well, that's just great," the President glowers: "I'm getting really !@#$ tired of these magic mystery tours when it comes to anyone in a cape and a mask. I'd just like some straightforward planning for a change-"

"Trenton," Josie quickly says in response to what she's reading: "Wild Bill's Cowboy Bar. They stop serving at 2 but the party goes on until 3. If we hustle, we can nail him before he gets a block away."

"Excellent," Mr. USA says, standing up so quickly his chair almost breaks: "You get the troops rolling. I'll get with the Press Secretary and prepare a statement."

"What is the plan, my dear lady?" Ben asks, leaning forward as she starts tapping in orders.

"We're going to get the Cape-Containment Squad on it. Stunners only, we want him alive for questioning. And then a total containment unit."

"You mean those airtight balls?" the man shudders: "Rather medieval, I should think."

Josie looks up and smiles: "Sir, that man existed as a loose string of homosexual molecules for months on board the Flier. If we lose him, he's in the wind -- literally." 

Ben smiles and nods: "In that case, may I make an alternate suggestion? I have been working on something quite intriguing lately..."

* * *

"Quite something, is it not?" Khalil asks the beautiful woman standing next to him as they look down at the bottom of Ngorogoro Crater from the safety of the lodge's observation deck. 

"It is," Farashuu says, quite impressed by the view. From up here, the tiny world in the extinct volcano seems like a child's toy, complete with its own wispy clouds and flocks of birds.

"How many jumps would you have to make to get down there?"

"Oh, just three," she says, tracing the progress of a safari jeep, down by the lake.

"Only three?"

"Well, I'd leap from here to the center, and let myself fall," she explains, pointing to the air: "And then when I got close enough, I'd jump again and come out at a different angle, so as to slow myself. And then one last jump at the right angle, so I landed softly, and on my feet, rather than my punda."

They laugh at that, and then, nodding, turn to look around for their extraordinary contact, who said he'd be meeting them here.

The fact that this person would meet with them at all was something of a shock. That he wanted to meet in the middle of an overpriced, tourist-laden place like this safari lodge was even more impressive. 

But then, given his reputation, nothing should have really surprised them at all. 

"When did he say he'd be meeting us?" Farashuu asks, wondering if she'll need to change into her costume, or just stay in civilian dress, today.

"Right about now," Khalil replies, looking at his watch and wondering when he should ask her for a drink, after all this. 

"Indeed," a gravelly voice says, not far from them. Farashuu, to her credit, doesn't so much as jump, but Khalil has to work to avoid looking as startled as he is.

The timeless black man walking towards them is almost regal in appearance. His features are dark and stern, his hair is close-cropped to his skull, and his eyes are both commanding and terrible. He wears a metallic-grey suit so sharp it seems to cut the air as he walks, and a tie made of shimmering gold and green. 

"Sir, it's an honor," Khalil says, stepping forward to shake his hand. The man just looks at him, and then his hand, as if he was handing him a pile of monkey @#$# instead of a handshake. Khalil slowly retracts his hand, and takes a respectful step back, not wanting to anger this man in the slightest.

"Sir, please," Farashuu says: "I know there's a long-standing feud between your two agencies, but we have a bigger problem."

"A problem, young lady?" the man says, shaking his head: "There is no problem for me. I no longer have an agency, thanks to recent events. I and my remaining colleagues are, as you say, independent operators. And as such we are happy to cooperate with this sorry man, and his sorry masters, for the greater good. But I wonder if either of you appreciate the true nature of this transaction?"

"Sir, as I understand it, you have access to something our mutual friend requires," Khalil says, wondering why time seems to be going so slow, all of a sudden: "He's willing to pay you handsomely for its temporary use, and then return it to you safely and secure."

"I am certain that he is," the man nods, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small, white box with a complicated lock: "Just as I am certain he will return it. He knows what will happen if he does not."

"Then what else is there to speak of?" Farashuu asks, trying to be as polite as she can.

"There is the matter of debts, young lady," the man says: "Three times, now, this mutual friend has been aided by me."

"Three?" Khalil asks, suddenly realizing that time has stopped, here and now -- birds caught in mid-flap, tourists' drinks frozen halfway to their mouths: "I thought this was the second time?"

"No," the man replies, handing the box over to Farashuu, who is clearly surprised at how heavy it actually is: "This makes three, as I hand over this box, and you inform your paymasters that they should, in turn, pay me. Before this was the sending of assistance during the fight for freedom, a few months ago. These two are the ones you must be referring to?"

"They are, sir, yes," Khalil says: "May I know of the first, so that I may explain this to our mutual friend?"

"You may, yes," the man says: "Tell him that when the Object was moved, and he thought he had infiltrated his way into where it had been moved, I was less than two feet from him the entire time, and yet I did not kill him."

Farashuu and Khalil just look at him, as they obviously don't know what to say.

"So you tell our mutual friend that, young lady," the man says, turning to go: "And you tell him that I said that three is a dangerous number. I will soon come to call upon him for aid. He would be wise not to refuse me."

And with that, the man turns completely, walks away, and vanishes between heartbeats. 

The birds begin to fly again. The tourists talk as though nothing had happened. And Farashuu -- aka Skyspear -- and Khalil both take a very ragged and uneven breath, realizing that the most powerful spy in all of Africa just threatened their employer.

And if you were going to assemble a short list of people you just don't !@#$ with, the Wandering Shadow would be right around the top of the list.

* * *

The inmates scatter well ahead of Prisoner 52 as he slowly strides from level to level, taking in each and every cell and office along the way.

The guards' offices are always of interest to him. The badly-battered ghosts of the men and women that used to toil there -- keeping a careful eye on the superpowered population of this hole -- remain there still, watching long-smashed screens as though they still had something important to say, or do.

As he passes, they stir into increased motion, perhaps rehearsing the last moments of their lives. Knobs are turned and monitors peered at intently as they relive the early acts of the horrible, red day when the riot swept from floor to floor, as the essentially-abandoned villains realized they would all die a lot sooner if they didn't do something about it.

All the guards had died, that day -- not a one of them in any way that could be described as good, or gentle. There had been brutal and sudden ways to die, as well as slow and torturous. There had been rape and murder, sometimes not in that order. Many inventive means were employed, either devised entirely on the spot or else done in accordance with long-imagined fantasies of revenge.

And in that paroxysm of blood, bone, brain, and bowel, Prisoner 52 -- never the most mentally engaged or aware of convicts -- had truly opened his eyes for the first time in decades, and knew, at long last, what he was.

Just not why he'd been sent here, or, more importantly, who he had been.

Other names have appeared in his mind, along with some sense of their place and personality. The ever-bountiful Aegio, fecund and full. Lordly Seranu, commanding from his throne of stars and night. Kanaan, ever-dicing with the lives of men.

And primordial Hoosk, from which all things spring fully-formed...

Those, and still even more -- a pantheon of mysterious, half-formed images and ideas. Sometimes he imagines what his relationship to them must be. Was he their brother, perhaps? A father, or a cousin? A lover of one, an enemy of another?

All of those things at once, somehow?

But try as he might, the nature of their web, and his place within it, remains a murky and uncertain thing. All these months later, all he knows for certain is that he is here, and they are not.

That and he knows what he can actually do. 

On his way to the floor, he comes across a younger fellow, dying out on the walkway -- clearly beaten to the point of death by his enemies, and abandoned by his friends. Such a thing happens a lot when the transports come, so as to eliminate competition.

(El Azul, he called himself. Some emotional pirate or some such. Apparently it did no good, down here.)

He kneels down before the young man, holding his cracked skull with one hand. The boy tries to talk, but no real words are coming. Spanish stutters and bloody bubbles as his eyes stare in two directions, their pupils widening.

"You must be calm," the prisoner says, stroking the boy's hair with his free hand: "This is not death. Death does not exist. It is merely a metamorphosis. Relax and let it happen. Nothing worse can happen to you, now."

The boy seems to take comfort at that, perhaps. Or maybe he's too weak to fight anymore. He slips away, then and there, and as the rattle comes from the back of his throat, Prisoner 52 feels a small surge of power building within him -- rising from the base of his spine to the roof of his skull, and then back again.

His pale skin begins to glow, just then -- the bones beneath revealing themselves as black, backlit structures. His eyes go wider, the skulls within them seeming to scream. And all around him that fear death are urged by the most primal portions of their brains to get away from him as quickly as they can.

And something in his mind begins to whisper a word to him -- an answer of sorts, preparing to reveal its full glory at last. 

But as soon as it's noticed, it's gone. The power dials itself back and down. He realizes that he's breathing, again, and his heart is starting to beat its familiar tattoo.

And whatever voice he'd heard, even the barest remnants of what it was preparing to say are gone from his mind, as though they'd never even been spoken. 

He looks about him, wondering if his spectral entourage has grown. It has not. Clearly El Azul was meant for a different place, after his demise. Or perhaps his presence, here at his end, kept him from being condemned to wander the stark white halls of this prison for eternity.

Prisoner 52 isn't sure. His actions are largely trial and error -- a daily voyage of discovery that seems to lead nowhere, but always gives him one more puzzle to chew over.

One day, he knows he'll get it right. Until then, he'll just have to endure.

That and be glad his singular diet is so well-sated in a place like this.

* * *

"Oh God, you're too !@#$ing gorgeous," Gosheven mutters, burying his lips into the cologne-drenched neck of the man he's left the bar with. 

"So are you," the leather-clad man says, running his hands through the pudgy fellow's hair, and then up and down his back: "I can't wait to have you."

"Why wait?" 

"What, here?" the man asks, looking up and down the almost-deserted street, just up the way from the club they left.

"No, silly," Gosheven says, gesturing to a nearby alley: "Just there."

"What, up against the wall?"

"Why not?"

"You pitching or catching?"

"I'm a big fan of 'and,' honey," the metamorph grins, and gently pulls the fellow over that way. 

Gosheven loves this sort of thing. It's still a massive turn on for him that he can go somewhere and not be recognized, even after the silly thing he said and did yesterday. And the fact that he can just go to a club and be wholly and completely anonymous -- especially when it comes to a no-strings hookup with young leatherboy -- is just the sloppy on the seconds. 

(Not that there's going to be any seconds. As soon as he's good, he's gone. And he wouldn't have gone out the door with this guy unless he thought he was on the same wavelength.)

The alley is dark and smells of old trash and wet newspaper. Two cats run out of a box before them and skitter away like the devil was after them. Gosheven grins as he adjusts his eyes to see in the dark and then debates whether to take it or give it. 

But then, as he's shifting his eyes over, he realizes they're not alone back here. There are men in No-Suits, trying to blend into the landscape. 

And they're carrying the weird, long guns with orange-and-purple lights that can drop a charging rhino for hours on end, to say nothing of most supers...

"Oh !@#$!" he says, ducking the volley that swings his way. His paramour is lucky enough to follow his lead, just then, and dive behind one of the trashcans. But no sooner does Gosheven seek to join him than he sees there's even more weird, human-shaped blurs coming down the street.

"Honey, listen to me," he says to the man beside him: "Just stay the !@#$ down, okay? They won't hurt you. They'll ask you a bunch of questions but you did nothing wrong, here. It's all about me-"

"I know," the man says, and then does something with his wristwatch that Gosheven doesn't quite see, but feels all too acutely a second or two later. It's like every inch of his body has been dipped into fire and then ice. He tries to scream but can't. 

And when he tries to shift himself -- maybe into a gas, or at least a fly -- he discovers to his horror that, for the first time in his life, he can't change his shape.

"Ohmy!@#$inggodwhatthe!@#$didyoudotome..." he stammers out as he falls down, shivering and shaking as every cell in his body utterly refuses to leave its place.

"I said I couldn't wait to have you," the man says, standing up and revealing the badge he had shoved into the front of his pants: "And now I have."

The cape-catchers. He'd been had. 

"GosheventoallTeamAlpha," the metamorph croaks out as the men in the No-Suits appear around him, stunners ready to fire: "Gameon! Run! Dear!@#$inggodrun-"

And then it's all bright lights and chittering sounds, and he's gone. 

* * *

The President throws something across the Oval Office. He doesn't care what it is, even after it shatters against the other wall, sending pieces every which way.

He can track the arc and fall of each one, but doesn't care to. He's too !@#$ angry, right now.

"I've got no excuse, sir," Josie says, radioing in from the location: "I told the agent to zap him before the others moved in. I guess he must have seen the agents, somehow-"

"Those No Suits are complete and utter !@#$, Josie," Mr. USA says, avoiding the temptation to pound holes into the desk that Teddy Roosevelt used to write upon: "Compromised six ways to Sunday, in fact."

"I'm sorry, sir. I thought we'd overcome that design flaw."

"Apparently not," the President says, sighing: "Well, I guess we have to catch the rest on the run, now. I wonder how we're going to do that."

"Did you ever find out what the President meant by muscle, sir?" Josie asks. Mr. USA's about to answer, but then he realizes he's not alone in the room, anymore. 

Floating above the center of the Oval Office, looking right down at him, is a man with long, red and blonde hair. He's wearing a blue suit with bright lightning coursing over the lengths of his arms and legs, and crossing over at his chest. Electricity crackles between his fingers, and plays from tooth to tooth inside his overly-friendly grin. 

"Mssr. President," Tempete Bleu says, slowly coming down to the ground: "You will please forgive the intrusion."

"Of course," Mr. USA says, cutting Josie off for a moment and stepping over to shake the man's hand: "I didn't know you were coming. Are you the muscle the President was talking about?"

"No," the man says, some strange humor playing across his features: "But I bring news of that matter... amongst other things."

"Well, I'm all ears," the President says, smiling: "We both are, actually-"

"Actually...." Tempete Bleu interrupts as he waves a hand at the screen on the desk, making it go blank and dark: "We must speak of this in confidence. My apologies."

"I see," Mr. USA says, somewhat astounded by how forward this man is: "What do I need to know?"

"The muscle, as you put it, is being assembled now as we speak," the man says, clasping his hands together as though there was some secret there: "You do not need to know who they are. In fact, it's better if you do not ask too much of them. They will be new, and raw. This will be their... baptism of fire, if you will."

He seems to smile a little too widely at that notion, which makes Mr. USA very uneasy. 

"I presume we're to give them every courtesy as they hunt down the rest of Team Alpha, then," he asks after a moment. 

"Yes," the man says, grinning: "And once they're done, they shall become Team Alpha. We'll find some interesting explanation as to why. Perhaps we can say the others were all killed in some horrible, secret battle with a long-lost villain? I understand that's a convenient excuse."

"Yes," the President says, really not liking this conversation at all: "Well, you can assure the President he has my full cooperation."

"Good," the man says: "Then I'll go back to France, and..."

He seems like he's about to say something, and then changes direction a second later: "I must ask you something, Mssr. President. Something important."

"Please do."

"Do you know what's about to happen?"

Mr. USA looks at him, and then blinks a few times, wondering why he feels so strange, just now: "Which something? There's a lot of things going on, right now. Some more important than others-"

"You'd know this one," the blue-clad French hero says, taking a step forward as he does: "It would consume your mind and chill your heart. It would demand your attention, every step of your day. You would awaken to the fear of it, and refuse to sleep because of it. And each new day, as you watched the clock count down the hours, you would be aware of just how little time there actually was left."

"Do you mean (Unintelligible Concept)?"

Tempete Bleu just looks at him for a second, and then, ever so slowly, rises from the ground and begins to float away.

"We'll speak of this again, Mssr. President," the man promises, and then zips away to the door in the ceiling they had built for fliers, however many decades ago.

As he watches France's greatest hero leave his presence, Mr. USA remembers a terrible feeling he once had. It was last Thanksgiving, in fact. And somewhere between the turkey and the pumpkin pie he felt as though someone had hammered cold, iron nails into his soul, making his spirit bleed from within. 

And then, just after dessert, something truly terrible had happened out on the lawn...

"Jesus Christ," he says, taking a step back as he realizes where that feeling was coming from, just now. 

The words are like tacks on his tongue -- sharp and dangerous. 

* * *

"Oh you have to be !@#$ing kidding me," The Commander says, looking down at what's left of the person they were about to kill, themselves.

The three supervillains are standing on the upper loft of a nice, A-Frame chalet, out in the boonies of Upstate New York. Up until maybe an hour ago, it was the home of a rather florid fellow who called himself Mr. Mental. And, up until a few second ago, their plan was to come here, do away with him as quickly as possible, and then replace him with a psionic of equal power.

Except now they don't have to do all that, apparently.

"Okay, this is !@#$ing weird," the purple-clad teleporter known as Klute says, pointing to what's left of the triangular, floor-to-ceiling window that used to make up the wall of this loft: "Someone shot him through this."

"That's hardly weird, Klute," the Organ Grinder sighs, wrapping his white smock around his knees as he evaluates the body for digestion.

"Well, how about this," Klute says, pointing to the wall across from the window, and the gore-strewn floor before it: "I know from splatter patterns. He was standing about... here, and then they shot him at a downward angle, which is why the spray goes over there, rather than up against the wall."

"And that's weird because... wait," the Commander says, figuring it out: "There's nothing out there for someone to shoot from, is there?"

"No there is not," the Klute says, gesturing to the clear, wide vista, and the hill that slopes down for as far as the eye can see: "And I can't see what else they might have done, except maybe made a trick shot from a plane."

"Maybe they did," the Organ Grinder says, thinking he's found the right end to start from: "But do we really give a !@#$? We're kind of on a time crunch, here."

"I guess we are," Commander sighs, leaning down to take a DNA sample from the cooling corpse, and then feed it into the curious, transparent mask and gloves he's wearing: "I guess someone did us the favor of nailing his !@#$. I wonder who we have to thank?"

"Who cares," the Organ Grinder says, pulling off one of the nearly-headless corpse's shoes and getting ready to chow down: "Can I have a moment here?"

"Sure," Klute says, taking Commander -- now looking a lot like the late Mr. Mental, thanks to the mask and gloves -- and teleporting him well out of range of the anthropophage's rather loud and messy eating.

They may be supervillains, but even they have some limits.

(SPYGOD is listening to Metamorphosis (Pet Shop Boys) and having a Kill 'Em All)