World Watch Headquarters, Washington D.C
My name is Kim Mai. Means Golden flower in Vietnamese, as if anyone actually cares. As I sit outside the office of my boss, waiting for my 'mission briefing', I think back on the past of the company that employs me.
For the last couple of years, I've been working with a Human Rights group known as World Watch. They were founded, so they tell me, on the principle of advocating human rights all around the world thru both business and political means. Companies that the group ran upheld a certain level of social standards and responsibilities. We didn't allow no third world sweatshops to produce crap for us. What's more, companies actually paid us for the right to be advertised as 'World Watch friendly'. Our logo alone raked in enough money to make Ted Turner look twice.
And when business failed to bring in the human rights, we turned towards pressuring the U.N, political action committees and crap like that. Not as effective as the money thing, but still worthwhile.
Eventually, World Watch went so far as to get its own hero, War Machine. Kinda odd for a group that advocates peace to not only hire a guy named War Machine, but to actually make him CEO. It wasn't that bad for a while. The guy did an okay job, even if he did break the law here and there. He was fighting for truth, justice etc. while doing so, and that makes it okay in my book. So what if he helped overthrow an evil dictator or two?
Anyways, after a while, War Machine broke contact with World Watch. From what I understand, the guy lost both his armor and taste for super heroics and went into business for himself. World Watch did okay without him though. But unfortunately, the face or armor of War Machine became permanently associated with World Watch.
I say unfortunately because someone else seems to have found his armor, or make one exactly like it. This second War Machine fought Iron Man and Warbird in Seattle Washington, destroying some company and killing a lot of people in the process. And even though World Watch hadn't been in anyway involved, the backlash tore the company a new asshole, what with the whole 'condemn first and never ask questions later' mentality of the war on terror.
CEOs came and went, donations dried up, companies shunned us and we're all but back to square one now. World Watch lost a lot of moral credibility thanks to that tin can, and that's something we need if we're gonna make a difference anywhere. Plus the whole 'barely in the black' thing we have goin'. Money helps too.
Which brings it all back to me. See, I'm the granddaughter of a World War 2 superhero. My grandfather originally set me up with World Watch because they owed him a favor. My job is and was largely lightning fast observer. Run into an area, take pictures before anyone could remove me and zip out. I've been doing that for a while now. But recently, it's been decided that neutral observer isn't the best role for me to play in the company (musta been all the times I kicked some bastard in the nuts for the sake of the gene pool).
"Kim?"
I look up to see Irene Besheda standing in the door of her office. Like me, Irene's no purebred. Her green eyes are Asian, her skin light brown with raven hair and just under six feet tall wearing one of those power suits you see Hilary Clinton wear like a second skin. Behind her, his butt leaning up against her desk, is the guy that creeps me out every time he looks at me.
Bruce Hoffman. When Irene was hired as CEO of World Watch, she brought in Bruce as a 'security consultant'. His face is ragged with lines of some sixty years of ageing, but his hairline, brown hair with temples starting to grey, is that of a man just beginning middle age and his body is as fit as your average thirty year old. As a former high-ranking CIA agent, Mr. Hoffman has connections all over the world. But what a lot of people don't know is that he's also a mutant, his powers perfect for his old profession. I've seen some of his contacts shudder when they say his name. None ever make eye contact, and one literally pissed himself just talking to the guy on the phone. When I asked what his specialty was, the guy just said 'wetworks'. After that, I really, really didn't want to know.
But I still gotta deal with the creepy old man. So before Irene can even mouth the words 'come in', I zip into her office.
Irene Basheda smiled slightly as she felt a quick breeze and brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face as she closed her office door. She had long since gotten used to being unable to finish sentences with Kim, and had turned attempts into almost a game with herself.
"So what's the deal?" asked Kim. She was dressed in a skin tight, dark blue suit with a sword in the center slashing downwards and a belt full of pouches around her waist and underneath her arms.
"I've been conferring with Mr. Hoffman, and we've come to the conclusion that we need to win back some of our credibility with the world's intelligence agencies if we are to move forward," Irene explained as she took her seat behind her desk. The office was filled with all types of paintings and artifacts of sorts - all tokens of appreciation from those Ms. Basheda had helped.
"So what's the plan?" Kim repeated. "Who do I hit?"
"Nero Blood," Hoffman replied grimly. If it was possible, he seemed even more serious to Kim now than only moments before.
"Never heard of him."
"That's because he's supposedly just a myth," Hoffman explained, arms folded behind his back. "A spook myth, if you can believe it. Someone killers and spies tell stories about to scare one another. The Kennedy assassination, the proliferation of extra normal hardware, the brain trust behind Tartarus…
Hoffman observed Kim's 'give me a break' face. "Though, there's no proof whatsoever he actually exists," he finished with a sigh.
"How very X-Files," Kim remarked, examining her nails.
"However, Mr. Hoffman believes that he's found something that could prove this Nero Blood actually does indeed exist," Irene stated, her hands folded on her lap.
"So why not call in some heavy hitters like X-Force or somethin'?" Kim leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other, bored out of her skull. By now, she'd processed the information Bruce had given her over a thousand times in her mind and run at it from every angle. And her every instinct seemed to say this was a waste of time, her chasing some damn white whale of Hoffman's. "You know, the professionals?"
"Contacting X-Force or anyone else would require too many levels of communication and verification," Hoffman explained. "What's more, we need to move fast on this. And that's something you're good at," he finished, playing on Kim's ego.
Hoffman held out a manila folder. "This here has all the information you need for the mission. Your flight leaves from Reagan National and the tickets are in…"
A blink later, and both Kim and the folder were gone.
"…side?" He scanned the room quickly. "Lord, I hate it when she does that."
"Are you certain she can handle this mission?" Irene asked cautiously.
"Reasonably. I knew her grandfather, he was a scrapper. So's she. She should have all the info she needs," Hoffman explained. "Besides, it's not like what we have in mind for her later isn't a lot worse."
The CEO of World Watch was silent for a moment, contemplating the future.
"True. If you'll excuse me, Bruce, I've other matters to address."
Hoffman nodded respectfully, and turned on his heels to leave.
"Oh, Bruce?" Irene smiled. "You laid it on rather thick, didn't you? About Nero Blood."
Hoffman didn't turn to face her. It would be an empty gesture for a man whose career taught him to casually lie to someone straight in the face. "What makes you think I was kidding?"
One thing I like about this job is the travel. The flight and various layovers are long as hell, (especially when you can break the sound barrier on a whim) but when you got speed like me, all you need is ten minutes to take in an entire city. An hour? A godsend. I also learned German on the flight, which was cool. I now know some dozen different languages. Its some twenty hours later that I finally reach my destination.
Peru. More specifically, the Nazca desert. I musta done something right in a past life, because this place is just perfect for me. The base, a concrete dome surrounded by steel reinforced, fifteen feet high cement walls, is just sitting between the desert and the foot of a mountain. No innocent bystanders or nothin'.
Which is both good and bad news. It's isolated, so I can cut loose, something I rarely have a chance to do.
The bad news is…well, it's isolated. I estimate there's about three miles of open space before I reach the base in every direction. That means if I try to sneak in at superspeed, the trail of dust my slipstream creates will be seen 'cause I got no cover. And going in at regular speed would just mean that I'd trip a million alarms or worse, landmines. I've snuck onto enough military bases before (usually when they were intercepting aid intended for others) to I know when I'm beat.
Which means I gotta go in hard and fast, just like I like it. I reach into one of my pouches and pull out a pair of titanium brass knuckles. Luckily, I found an out-cropping of rocks to hide behind that puts me within a three-mile straight line of my target. I'm gonna need it for the first trick.
Choosing a boulder that's five times my size, I go to work. At speeds well over that of sound, I batter a large rock with my titanium reinforced superfast fists. You know how martial artists break cement blocks with their fists? They hit the blocks as hard as they can and instantly pull away, leaving the block to absorb all the kinetic energy. That's what I'm doing, but on a whole 'nother level. Within thirty seconds, the boulder is just a pile of smaller rocks, on the average about the size of regular bricks.
It takes me about five seconds to move the pile of once boulders directly into a path that places them directly in front of the fort, albeit some three miles away.
Remember when I said my grandfather was a superhero? His name was Super Sabre. He had superspeed, but unlike a lot of guys who had it, he didn't just run and hit people. He used his powers creatively.
As Sabre, a third generation mutant, I can use my powers even more creatively than my grandfather, God rest his soul. I know he's proud of me.
This trick however, is a little dangerous and needs some effort. It's inspired by Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity. See, everyone is connected to one another by gravity, no matter how big or small, there's a small, gravimetric attraction between everything. That's why whenever you watch shows like Star Trek, they always have some plot device that lets them travel at warp speed. Otherwise, lots of crap will get sucked in after you when moving at certain speeds.
And through a system of trial and error, I've discovered my body generates a forcefield that allows me to travel faster than the speed of sound without damaging those around me. What's more (and really cool), I've learned to use that field like a needy boyfriend.
Sabre cracked her neck, stretched her legs and readied herself for the task ahead. While she wasn't all that believing in the 'Nero Blood' crap Hoffman tried to feed her, she did know that his intelligence was always solid and whatever needed a fort was gonna be one tough nut to crack.
Prepared, Sabre sped some five hundred feet away and then circled back around. As she came back, her speed increased dramatically with almost each step. At one hundred feet, she'd broken the sound barrier. One hundred and fifty feet had taken her to mach four. By now she was an invisible blur to anyone who might be watching.
When Sabre sped past the piles of rocks she'd made, the mutant speedster barely slowed down as they were instantly lifted up off the ground by her slipstream, unraveling after her like yarn and followed the mutant like cruise missiles.
Carefully concentrating, Sabre manipulated her body's force field so that it had a firm grip on the rocks while she kept her eyes focused on the ground in front of her. If she tripped, Kim knew that the speeding rocks she'd hijacked would pulverize her into paste. The scene was almost like one out of Road Runner, wherein the hero was only a few steps ahead of high-speed peril. Sabre didn't allow herself to laugh at the thought. Distraction at this speed was far too dangerous.
A guard at the compound saw Sabre approaching. An instinct of danger and concern flared in his mind. But his brain hadn't even sent the signal for adrenalin to begin pumping before Sabre severed the connection between her and the rocks, and made a sharp right at the perimeter wall.
Ka-Thoom!
The rocks hit the wall with the force of run away meteors and pulverized the wall, utterly devastating the steel and cement barrier that was designed to hold fast against tank and mortar shells.
Men in various uniforms and of different nationalities, armed with weapons that looked lifted from Star Trek, rushed towards the hole. They were more than a little stunned by what they saw. Standing atop the wreckage of the wall, dust still wafting through the air, was a young woman in a skin-tight blue suit, a sword slashing downwards on the center. But what made it all seem so surreal was that the young woman was little under five and a half feet tall.
Sabre savored the looks of disbelief and astonishment before inquiring, "Okay, who wants the concussions, the contusions or just the plain beatings?"
Of course, given the fact that she could break the sound barrier on a whim, Sabre didn't feel anywhere near enough patience to wait for an answer. She took off and zipped through the men's lines, her arms straight out at her side. The men fell over like dominos, the air pressure created by her supersonic wake hitting them with the force of a sledgehammer. By the time all the men had fallen unconscious, Sabre was already examining the lock to the main building.
Heh, I never get tired of that 'it's just a little girl who's whopped our ass' look. Running through their lines like that, they just have to be near me for me to knock 'em out. At the speeds I reach and with my skill, air pressure is all I need. Grandpa would be proud.
But now that the cannon fodder's out of the way, I can get inside the main complex. According to the file, this bunker extends some twenty stories underground. The doors are solid steel and while I think I could bust them, charging in like that would be a really bad idea.
But like I said before, I musta done something right in a past life, because this little bunker uses an electronic keypad. I sprinkle on a small amount of dust, which collects on the six most often used keys of the ten. Concentrating, I run through hundreds of combinations before finding the right one. Wonder how many more rent-a-thugs this place has…?
The steel doors groaned loudly as they opened to reveal what looked like a storage facility for advanced weapons. There were racks for laser rifles, tanks that were sleek silver with cannons that glowed green mounted on the top interspaced with hover platforms lifted right out of Star Wars.
"Holy crap. When you're right you're right Hoffman," she said aloud. At superspeed, it took her only seconds to find the stairs to the lower level. The first level she searched was filled with the barracks of the men she'd beaten. Curiously though, she observed how the first level was filled with dozens of extra support beams. She reasoned that in the case of attack, the first level was a perfect buffer for the lower levels.
The second level was virtually deserted, filled with dust and support beams. It was the third level that really gathered her attention.
The room was brimming with technology. Dozens of columns reaching out from the floor like senior trees with wires in place of roots stretched from the floor to the ceiling and were covered with all types of buttons, display screens and circuitry. Wires connected virtually everything, and they themselves were covered in even more circuits.
"Reminds me of 'Nam, with tech in place of jungle," Kim thought to herself. Little devices like metal crabs scampered over the machinery, never giving the mutant a second thought.
Kim decided to stop wasting her time and raced out of the room to the lower levels. According to the files she was given, the second to last level was where she wanted to be. That held all the paper records regarding all the information that passed through this complex.
Sabre had just breached the entrance to the seventh level when she felt a disturbance in her force field, something she'd never felt before. A split second later, she felt something slam into her, sending her careening towards the far wall. With no time to right herself or stop, Kim concentrated and tightened the invisible field that protected her at superspeed.
"Ugh!" The impact jarred every bone in her body, but physically it was relative to running into a wall at regular, human speeds. Not the three hundred miles per hour casual pace Kim had been traveling, which would have shattered every bone in her body in the best-case scenario. It still hurt like a sonofabitch, though. Looking through the stars that clouded her vision Kim saw a young man with a shaved head, torn blue jeans and leather jacket looking down at her lecherously.
"Looks like ol' KopyKat's too much for ya, gook," chuckled the villain. He grabbed Kim by her wrist and hauled her up. "Nero's gonna give me a promotion once I give him your hide. After I have some fun first…"
Sabre felt the bastard pawing at her body, but refused to panic. She brought her free hand up to the man's ear, and snapped her finger.
Boom!
The slight sonic boom her fingers created was like a church bell tolling inside KopyKat's skull. He crumbled to the ground clutching his pulsating head. Kim stomped on his head for good measure, sending the mimic into unconsciousness.
"Bastard," Kim muttered before taking off deeper into the bowels of the base, only this time a little slower. One more level down, she heard the tell tale whirl of a gatling gun, and barely managed to move aside before three dozen bullets cut her down where she stood. She stole a glance down the long metal hall where her assailant was standing, and couldn't believe her eyes.
"What did I ever do to deserve such lameness as this?" Kim wondered.
At the end of the wall, standing eight feet tall and as wide as two line-backers, was a cybernetic gorilla. His chest was armor plated with a rocket launcher on his right shoulder and a gatling gun on his left. His right eye glowed green as he regarded Sabre.
"Monkeys? What did I ever do to deserve this?" Kim moaned.
"I am Ape of War, and I wiiiiiiiiiiillllllllll…" Sabre didn't hear the rest of the Ape's monologue as she kicked her body into high velocity in an attempt to overtake her foe before he could unleash his firepower. Lame-named or not, the ape was packing enough weapons to take on the National Guard.
The ploy wasn't completely successful, however. Ape of War's computer controlled weapons systems registered Sabre's movements, and fired. A half dozen missiles flew out of Ape's rocket launcher and his gatling gun began firing wildly in the hopes of hitting its superfast mark.
Not that any of that was nearly enough to stop Sabre. The bullets and missiles from her perspective were frozen in midair, and those she couldn't side step she simply pushed aside as if they were offending snow flakes. Sabre ran well past Ape of War, and then quickly doubled back.
Sabre slowed her pace moderately as she ran at Ape of War's exposed back. When she struck it, her momentum allowed her to easily lift his nine hundred pounds of metal and muscle into the air and sent him careening into the far wall as breakneck speeds. The cyborg ape didn't get up.
"A most creative use of power," a voice complimented. Sabre's head snapped around, looking for the source. She quickly realized the voice she was hearing, was in her head.
"So Hoffman sent you, did he? He never fails to amuse me."
"Lemme guess," Kim said aloud. "Nero Blood."
"Correct, though I'm not in the complex. Tell me, miss Kim Mia…" He drew out Sabre's name, as if to make a point. "What crimes did Hoffman accuse me of this time? Kennedy? The rise of extra normal hardware? Never mind, I already know. Key word induced memories. Hoffman is always flattering to me, though not always correct."
Kim instantly recognized her mind was being read, and then focused her speed internally. Nero's voice vanished inside her skull as her thoughts became too fast for anyone to read and became replaced by Nero's voice on unseen speakers inside the base.
"That certainly took you long enough, little girl. But at least you taught Ape of War and Kopykat a lesson. They were unduly cocky. A shame, I give Hoffman a bone and a skeleton crew after all these years and all he sends me is you." He sighed loudly, like a parent who'd been disappointed one too many times. "I really am saddened. I'm beginning to think he never really cared about Marcus at all."
"Hey!" Kim snapped. "If you're done being all mysterious, I don't suppose you can gimme one reason not to tear this place to the ground."
"Before you do, you may wish to take a look behind the far wall directly behind you."
"I just know this is one of those 'please don't throw me in the thorn patch' tricks," Kim scowled. This guy was unduly cocky, if nothing else. But Kim was determined to see this mission through to the end no matter what. She was stubborn like that.
The wall was perfectly seamless. Nothing to indicate a doorway of any kind, which meant she had to make one. A quick run through of the halls revealed that the one wall she'd been pointed at was in fact just the outer wall of a square this entire level had been centered around. Her curiosity was naturally piqued.
So she arbitrarily picked a spot at random, and started running her hand back and forth over the metal of the wall. The steel began to redden as the friction built. To Sabre it was like running her hand over a flame. It took some skill and more time than she would have liked, but the friction soon melted away enough of the wall to create an adequate doorway for Kim.
The smell was what hit her first. It was a combination of unwashed bodies, spoiled meat and bodily fluids all mixed into one creating almost tangible stench.
Then she saw the bodies.
There were two rows of eight. Men and women, though it was hard to, strapped down to filthy hospital beds. Their bodies were shrunken and malformed with tubes and wires running in and out, providing vital fluids and fuel. But their heads were abnormally swollen, supported by special pulleys that reached down from the ceiling. Cables and wires were run into their heads from the walls and floor.
"I trust you know of Modok, otherwise known as Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing?" Nero asked via the speakers. "Well, if you alter the formula that created him just a little, lobotomize your subject first and voila…!" To Kim Nero sounded like a high school student proudly displaying his science project. "…you have the perfect computers for not only storing information, but running your entire organization."
Sabre tensed. If Nero was telling the truth, then there was no way he'd let her walk away unchallenged. Hell, for all she knew she'd walked into a trap!
"But alas, the recent cost benefit analyses I've done just don't justify these wretched creatures anymore. Last year's model and all that. Thankfully, I can make up the losses in disinformation."
Sabre gasped as she saw electricity arcing off every piece of machinery in the room. Her first thought was to get the hell outta dodge, and she raced out the way she came. Once she was out though, she remembered the poor souls Nero had been using as his own personal servers. But when she smelled the burning flesh (and remembered the lobotomies) all she could see was red.
That bastard is not getting away with this. No freakin' way in hell. Running through the complex I see that this place is totally abandoned. He musta teleported his crew out while he was talking to me. I see some files here and there, but totally ignore it. Something tells me it wasn't a slip of the tongue, when he said this base was gonna spread disinformation.
Which means to me this place needs to be taken out. I run to the first two levels, where the majority of the support struts are. At mach 3, it's easy enough to punch through the things like butter using my titanium knuckles. Within the span of a minute, over fifty stone and steel supports are severed beyond repair. I see the roof sag, but it doesn't give. Nero built this place to last.
That's okay though. Apparently when they ditched this place, they didn't see fit to remove the weapons. Most likely to give this place some credibility for whatever illusion Nero wants to create.
I run into the weapons lockers and remove every last one. Grenades I place in door ways, bombs on the outer walls. With the bullets, I disassembled them and pack the gun powder into some crates I found. Finding key places to set these makeshift bombs takes a few relative minutes, but I manage. After moving, hauling and preparing to demolish this base, it feels like I've been doing this for hours. Looking at my watch, I see that it's been ten minutes. Yeah, superspeed can bite ya in the ass at times. But everything's set for my last trick.
Dangerous doesn't begin to describe what I'm about to do. I rip out of the complex at top speed, and don't stop until I'm some fifty miles away. Luckily, the Nazca desert is largely empty, and the towns nearby are easy enough to steer around.
It takes me a good hundred yards to fully stop when I put on the breaks. My feet dig me into a trench, but I'm used to it by now. Looking back the way I came, I brace myself for what's next.
If I manipulate my bio field just right, I can collect all the ambient energy in the air into my body and store it. Sounds a lot less dangerous than it actually is.
Practically speaking, it means the faster you run, the more energy you create, like particle accelerators. But, to even approach those speeds, I need to build up a whole hell of a lot of momentum. And I have to manipulate my bio-field just right, otherwise I'll become a five and a half mile long stain. I've done this only two times before and it was far from perfect. Third time's the charm…?
Sabre took a moment to offer up a silent prayer, and was off.
For the first three miles of her journey, she slowly increased her speed to just over that of the speed of sound.
For the next ten miles, she breached mach 2, then mach 3. Her speed gradually increased with each yard, the landscape becoming little more than blobs to her vision.
By the time she was within a mile of her target, Sabre, granddaughter of the World War Two hero Supersabre, was traveling at over three quarters the speed of light. Her body glowed as electricity freely traveled up and down it, generated by her speeds. Pulling her fist back as she approached the base, Sabre prepared to release every last erg of energy she'd absorbed from the start of her run, until now.
Kh-thoom!
The complex disappeared as a massive explosion of white light overtook it, producing a mushroom cloud roughly twenty stories tall that could be seen for miles away. Then the light faded, all that was left of the base was a large crater.
Some distance away, lying unconscious on the grass, was a thin, frail young woman dressed in a blue suit as a homage to her grandfather. The suit was torn and frayed, steam billowing into the air from her smoldering body. She was deathly still.
The first thing Kim Mai felt when she awoke was thirst. Her throat was so parched she couldn't even swallow, much less complain about the pain in the rest of her body. Something she very much wished to do.
"Here."
Kim cracked her eyes open to see Hoffman holding out a bottle of Gatorade for her. She snatched it and guzzled it down.
"You feeling okay?"
Sabre took a moment to take in her surroundings. She was resting in a hospital bed with an I.V in her wrist, probably re-hydrating her after she pulled her 'super charger' act. The room was empty save for herself, Hoffman and Irene.
"How do you feel?" asked Irene.
"Thirsty," Kim quipped. "Keep it comin' Hoffman."
Hoffman rolled his eyes and handed the young mutant another Gatorade as he asked, "Did you find anything? And why'd you destroy the base?"
"Well," Kim sighed, "I found out you're not insane. That Nero guy does exist…"
"I already knew that."
"…And I destroyed the base because Nero said he was gonna use it to spread disinformation."
Hoffman glared at Kim. "Or he was lying and manipulated you into covering his tracks."
Sabre shrugged dismissively, "That thought crossed my mind. But if it's damned if you do, damned if you don't, I'd rather do."
Hoffman snorted at that.
"How do you feel, Kim?" Irene asked sweetly.
"I'll be out of here in two days," Kim answered confidently. "I hope you brought me some books."
"We did. But we also wish to talk to you about another matter."
"Shoot."
"Before I begin, I must warn you what I am about to ask of you is considerably more dangerous than what was required of you in the past," Irene explained impassively. "I would fully understand if you chose to refuse."
"*pfft* Bring it on."
"Just remember you asked for it kid." Hoffman dropped a folder in Kim's lap. When she opened it, she was more than a little surprised by what she saw.
"Force Works? What do you guys want with these fascists?" Kim asked disbelieving.
"How is their work any different from yours and ours?" Irene smiled.
"They're not me," Kim said simply.
"At any rate, they have a problem. Or will, to be precise." Hoffman placed his hands behind his back in what Kim considered his classic 'Patton' pose.
"What, you can see the future now?" Kim asked flippantly.
"After a fashion."
"When the team first debuted," Irene began, "they began a campaign in their base city of Metro City to purge it of the drug trade. They were surprisingly effective, especially considering the fact that the city was a major port for drugs coming into America."
"I sense a 'but' coming up."
"But…" Hoffman continued, "they didn't eliminate the demand for drugs. There have been two attempted coups on Force Works at date, both efforts to return the drug trade to the city to its previous level."
"So?" Kim asked. "Bring this around to me."
"Several of my sources have indicated to me that things in Metro City are coming to a boil. There have been no overt or covert efforts by members of organized crime to move into the city, indicating someone else may already have first dibs. Someone with enough power to keep regular criminals out…"
"And enough power to feel confident enough to challenge Force Works," Irene finished.
"So, am I supposed to warn these guys or what?"
Hoffman shook his head. "We only know the what, not the who and why. But we know whatever's gonna happen, it'll likely happen soon."
"What'll happen?"
"The shit meeting the fan. And we want you inside the city, ready to help Force Works, when it does."
"Why?"
"Because Force Works, unlike the majority of other hero teams out there, have proven themselves quite sympathetic to our cause," Irene explained serenely. "There are other benefits as well. The team has a multi million dollar operating budget, multi cultural appeal, experience and moral credibility to both the left and right wing. They would be of great assistance to us, and us to them."
"So basically, I help bail them out of the mess they're in, and see if I can get them to sign up?"
"That's correct," Irene affirmed.
Kim examined the file and smiled. Something told her this was the start of something new. "Sounds good to me. When do I leave…?"
My name is Kim Mai. Means Golden flower in Vietnamese, as if anyone actually cares. As I sit outside the office of my boss, waiting for my 'mission briefing', I think back on the past of the company that employs me.
For the last couple of years, I've been working with a Human Rights group known as World Watch. They were founded, so they tell me, on the principle of advocating human rights all around the world thru both business and political means. Companies that the group ran upheld a certain level of social standards and responsibilities. We didn't allow no third world sweatshops to produce crap for us. What's more, companies actually paid us for the right to be advertised as 'World Watch friendly'. Our logo alone raked in enough money to make Ted Turner look twice.
And when business failed to bring in the human rights, we turned towards pressuring the U.N, political action committees and crap like that. Not as effective as the money thing, but still worthwhile.
Eventually, World Watch went so far as to get its own hero, War Machine. Kinda odd for a group that advocates peace to not only hire a guy named War Machine, but to actually make him CEO. It wasn't that bad for a while. The guy did an okay job, even if he did break the law here and there. He was fighting for truth, justice etc. while doing so, and that makes it okay in my book. So what if he helped overthrow an evil dictator or two?
Anyways, after a while, War Machine broke contact with World Watch. From what I understand, the guy lost both his armor and taste for super heroics and went into business for himself. World Watch did okay without him though. But unfortunately, the face or armor of War Machine became permanently associated with World Watch.
I say unfortunately because someone else seems to have found his armor, or make one exactly like it. This second War Machine fought Iron Man and Warbird in Seattle Washington, destroying some company and killing a lot of people in the process. And even though World Watch hadn't been in anyway involved, the backlash tore the company a new asshole, what with the whole 'condemn first and never ask questions later' mentality of the war on terror.
CEOs came and went, donations dried up, companies shunned us and we're all but back to square one now. World Watch lost a lot of moral credibility thanks to that tin can, and that's something we need if we're gonna make a difference anywhere. Plus the whole 'barely in the black' thing we have goin'. Money helps too.
Which brings it all back to me. See, I'm the granddaughter of a World War 2 superhero. My grandfather originally set me up with World Watch because they owed him a favor. My job is and was largely lightning fast observer. Run into an area, take pictures before anyone could remove me and zip out. I've been doing that for a while now. But recently, it's been decided that neutral observer isn't the best role for me to play in the company (musta been all the times I kicked some bastard in the nuts for the sake of the gene pool).
"Kim?"
I look up to see Irene Besheda standing in the door of her office. Like me, Irene's no purebred. Her green eyes are Asian, her skin light brown with raven hair and just under six feet tall wearing one of those power suits you see Hilary Clinton wear like a second skin. Behind her, his butt leaning up against her desk, is the guy that creeps me out every time he looks at me.
Bruce Hoffman. When Irene was hired as CEO of World Watch, she brought in Bruce as a 'security consultant'. His face is ragged with lines of some sixty years of ageing, but his hairline, brown hair with temples starting to grey, is that of a man just beginning middle age and his body is as fit as your average thirty year old. As a former high-ranking CIA agent, Mr. Hoffman has connections all over the world. But what a lot of people don't know is that he's also a mutant, his powers perfect for his old profession. I've seen some of his contacts shudder when they say his name. None ever make eye contact, and one literally pissed himself just talking to the guy on the phone. When I asked what his specialty was, the guy just said 'wetworks'. After that, I really, really didn't want to know.
But I still gotta deal with the creepy old man. So before Irene can even mouth the words 'come in', I zip into her office.
Irene Basheda smiled slightly as she felt a quick breeze and brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face as she closed her office door. She had long since gotten used to being unable to finish sentences with Kim, and had turned attempts into almost a game with herself.
"So what's the deal?" asked Kim. She was dressed in a skin tight, dark blue suit with a sword in the center slashing downwards and a belt full of pouches around her waist and underneath her arms.
"I've been conferring with Mr. Hoffman, and we've come to the conclusion that we need to win back some of our credibility with the world's intelligence agencies if we are to move forward," Irene explained as she took her seat behind her desk. The office was filled with all types of paintings and artifacts of sorts - all tokens of appreciation from those Ms. Basheda had helped.
"So what's the plan?" Kim repeated. "Who do I hit?"
"Nero Blood," Hoffman replied grimly. If it was possible, he seemed even more serious to Kim now than only moments before.
"Never heard of him."
"That's because he's supposedly just a myth," Hoffman explained, arms folded behind his back. "A spook myth, if you can believe it. Someone killers and spies tell stories about to scare one another. The Kennedy assassination, the proliferation of extra normal hardware, the brain trust behind Tartarus…
Hoffman observed Kim's 'give me a break' face. "Though, there's no proof whatsoever he actually exists," he finished with a sigh.
"How very X-Files," Kim remarked, examining her nails.
"However, Mr. Hoffman believes that he's found something that could prove this Nero Blood actually does indeed exist," Irene stated, her hands folded on her lap.
"So why not call in some heavy hitters like X-Force or somethin'?" Kim leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other, bored out of her skull. By now, she'd processed the information Bruce had given her over a thousand times in her mind and run at it from every angle. And her every instinct seemed to say this was a waste of time, her chasing some damn white whale of Hoffman's. "You know, the professionals?"
"Contacting X-Force or anyone else would require too many levels of communication and verification," Hoffman explained. "What's more, we need to move fast on this. And that's something you're good at," he finished, playing on Kim's ego.
Hoffman held out a manila folder. "This here has all the information you need for the mission. Your flight leaves from Reagan National and the tickets are in…"
A blink later, and both Kim and the folder were gone.
"…side?" He scanned the room quickly. "Lord, I hate it when she does that."
"Are you certain she can handle this mission?" Irene asked cautiously.
"Reasonably. I knew her grandfather, he was a scrapper. So's she. She should have all the info she needs," Hoffman explained. "Besides, it's not like what we have in mind for her later isn't a lot worse."
The CEO of World Watch was silent for a moment, contemplating the future.
"True. If you'll excuse me, Bruce, I've other matters to address."
Hoffman nodded respectfully, and turned on his heels to leave.
"Oh, Bruce?" Irene smiled. "You laid it on rather thick, didn't you? About Nero Blood."
Hoffman didn't turn to face her. It would be an empty gesture for a man whose career taught him to casually lie to someone straight in the face. "What makes you think I was kidding?"
One thing I like about this job is the travel. The flight and various layovers are long as hell, (especially when you can break the sound barrier on a whim) but when you got speed like me, all you need is ten minutes to take in an entire city. An hour? A godsend. I also learned German on the flight, which was cool. I now know some dozen different languages. Its some twenty hours later that I finally reach my destination.
Peru. More specifically, the Nazca desert. I musta done something right in a past life, because this place is just perfect for me. The base, a concrete dome surrounded by steel reinforced, fifteen feet high cement walls, is just sitting between the desert and the foot of a mountain. No innocent bystanders or nothin'.
Which is both good and bad news. It's isolated, so I can cut loose, something I rarely have a chance to do.
The bad news is…well, it's isolated. I estimate there's about three miles of open space before I reach the base in every direction. That means if I try to sneak in at superspeed, the trail of dust my slipstream creates will be seen 'cause I got no cover. And going in at regular speed would just mean that I'd trip a million alarms or worse, landmines. I've snuck onto enough military bases before (usually when they were intercepting aid intended for others) to I know when I'm beat.
Which means I gotta go in hard and fast, just like I like it. I reach into one of my pouches and pull out a pair of titanium brass knuckles. Luckily, I found an out-cropping of rocks to hide behind that puts me within a three-mile straight line of my target. I'm gonna need it for the first trick.
Choosing a boulder that's five times my size, I go to work. At speeds well over that of sound, I batter a large rock with my titanium reinforced superfast fists. You know how martial artists break cement blocks with their fists? They hit the blocks as hard as they can and instantly pull away, leaving the block to absorb all the kinetic energy. That's what I'm doing, but on a whole 'nother level. Within thirty seconds, the boulder is just a pile of smaller rocks, on the average about the size of regular bricks.
It takes me about five seconds to move the pile of once boulders directly into a path that places them directly in front of the fort, albeit some three miles away.
Remember when I said my grandfather was a superhero? His name was Super Sabre. He had superspeed, but unlike a lot of guys who had it, he didn't just run and hit people. He used his powers creatively.
As Sabre, a third generation mutant, I can use my powers even more creatively than my grandfather, God rest his soul. I know he's proud of me.
This trick however, is a little dangerous and needs some effort. It's inspired by Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity. See, everyone is connected to one another by gravity, no matter how big or small, there's a small, gravimetric attraction between everything. That's why whenever you watch shows like Star Trek, they always have some plot device that lets them travel at warp speed. Otherwise, lots of crap will get sucked in after you when moving at certain speeds.
And through a system of trial and error, I've discovered my body generates a forcefield that allows me to travel faster than the speed of sound without damaging those around me. What's more (and really cool), I've learned to use that field like a needy boyfriend.
Sabre cracked her neck, stretched her legs and readied herself for the task ahead. While she wasn't all that believing in the 'Nero Blood' crap Hoffman tried to feed her, she did know that his intelligence was always solid and whatever needed a fort was gonna be one tough nut to crack.
Prepared, Sabre sped some five hundred feet away and then circled back around. As she came back, her speed increased dramatically with almost each step. At one hundred feet, she'd broken the sound barrier. One hundred and fifty feet had taken her to mach four. By now she was an invisible blur to anyone who might be watching.
When Sabre sped past the piles of rocks she'd made, the mutant speedster barely slowed down as they were instantly lifted up off the ground by her slipstream, unraveling after her like yarn and followed the mutant like cruise missiles.
Carefully concentrating, Sabre manipulated her body's force field so that it had a firm grip on the rocks while she kept her eyes focused on the ground in front of her. If she tripped, Kim knew that the speeding rocks she'd hijacked would pulverize her into paste. The scene was almost like one out of Road Runner, wherein the hero was only a few steps ahead of high-speed peril. Sabre didn't allow herself to laugh at the thought. Distraction at this speed was far too dangerous.
A guard at the compound saw Sabre approaching. An instinct of danger and concern flared in his mind. But his brain hadn't even sent the signal for adrenalin to begin pumping before Sabre severed the connection between her and the rocks, and made a sharp right at the perimeter wall.
Ka-Thoom!
The rocks hit the wall with the force of run away meteors and pulverized the wall, utterly devastating the steel and cement barrier that was designed to hold fast against tank and mortar shells.
Men in various uniforms and of different nationalities, armed with weapons that looked lifted from Star Trek, rushed towards the hole. They were more than a little stunned by what they saw. Standing atop the wreckage of the wall, dust still wafting through the air, was a young woman in a skin-tight blue suit, a sword slashing downwards on the center. But what made it all seem so surreal was that the young woman was little under five and a half feet tall.
Sabre savored the looks of disbelief and astonishment before inquiring, "Okay, who wants the concussions, the contusions or just the plain beatings?"
Of course, given the fact that she could break the sound barrier on a whim, Sabre didn't feel anywhere near enough patience to wait for an answer. She took off and zipped through the men's lines, her arms straight out at her side. The men fell over like dominos, the air pressure created by her supersonic wake hitting them with the force of a sledgehammer. By the time all the men had fallen unconscious, Sabre was already examining the lock to the main building.
Heh, I never get tired of that 'it's just a little girl who's whopped our ass' look. Running through their lines like that, they just have to be near me for me to knock 'em out. At the speeds I reach and with my skill, air pressure is all I need. Grandpa would be proud.
But now that the cannon fodder's out of the way, I can get inside the main complex. According to the file, this bunker extends some twenty stories underground. The doors are solid steel and while I think I could bust them, charging in like that would be a really bad idea.
But like I said before, I musta done something right in a past life, because this little bunker uses an electronic keypad. I sprinkle on a small amount of dust, which collects on the six most often used keys of the ten. Concentrating, I run through hundreds of combinations before finding the right one. Wonder how many more rent-a-thugs this place has…?
The steel doors groaned loudly as they opened to reveal what looked like a storage facility for advanced weapons. There were racks for laser rifles, tanks that were sleek silver with cannons that glowed green mounted on the top interspaced with hover platforms lifted right out of Star Wars.
"Holy crap. When you're right you're right Hoffman," she said aloud. At superspeed, it took her only seconds to find the stairs to the lower level. The first level she searched was filled with the barracks of the men she'd beaten. Curiously though, she observed how the first level was filled with dozens of extra support beams. She reasoned that in the case of attack, the first level was a perfect buffer for the lower levels.
The second level was virtually deserted, filled with dust and support beams. It was the third level that really gathered her attention.
The room was brimming with technology. Dozens of columns reaching out from the floor like senior trees with wires in place of roots stretched from the floor to the ceiling and were covered with all types of buttons, display screens and circuitry. Wires connected virtually everything, and they themselves were covered in even more circuits.
"Reminds me of 'Nam, with tech in place of jungle," Kim thought to herself. Little devices like metal crabs scampered over the machinery, never giving the mutant a second thought.
Kim decided to stop wasting her time and raced out of the room to the lower levels. According to the files she was given, the second to last level was where she wanted to be. That held all the paper records regarding all the information that passed through this complex.
Sabre had just breached the entrance to the seventh level when she felt a disturbance in her force field, something she'd never felt before. A split second later, she felt something slam into her, sending her careening towards the far wall. With no time to right herself or stop, Kim concentrated and tightened the invisible field that protected her at superspeed.
"Ugh!" The impact jarred every bone in her body, but physically it was relative to running into a wall at regular, human speeds. Not the three hundred miles per hour casual pace Kim had been traveling, which would have shattered every bone in her body in the best-case scenario. It still hurt like a sonofabitch, though. Looking through the stars that clouded her vision Kim saw a young man with a shaved head, torn blue jeans and leather jacket looking down at her lecherously.
"Looks like ol' KopyKat's too much for ya, gook," chuckled the villain. He grabbed Kim by her wrist and hauled her up. "Nero's gonna give me a promotion once I give him your hide. After I have some fun first…"
Sabre felt the bastard pawing at her body, but refused to panic. She brought her free hand up to the man's ear, and snapped her finger.
Boom!
The slight sonic boom her fingers created was like a church bell tolling inside KopyKat's skull. He crumbled to the ground clutching his pulsating head. Kim stomped on his head for good measure, sending the mimic into unconsciousness.
"Bastard," Kim muttered before taking off deeper into the bowels of the base, only this time a little slower. One more level down, she heard the tell tale whirl of a gatling gun, and barely managed to move aside before three dozen bullets cut her down where she stood. She stole a glance down the long metal hall where her assailant was standing, and couldn't believe her eyes.
"What did I ever do to deserve such lameness as this?" Kim wondered.
At the end of the wall, standing eight feet tall and as wide as two line-backers, was a cybernetic gorilla. His chest was armor plated with a rocket launcher on his right shoulder and a gatling gun on his left. His right eye glowed green as he regarded Sabre.
"Monkeys? What did I ever do to deserve this?" Kim moaned.
"I am Ape of War, and I wiiiiiiiiiiillllllllll…" Sabre didn't hear the rest of the Ape's monologue as she kicked her body into high velocity in an attempt to overtake her foe before he could unleash his firepower. Lame-named or not, the ape was packing enough weapons to take on the National Guard.
The ploy wasn't completely successful, however. Ape of War's computer controlled weapons systems registered Sabre's movements, and fired. A half dozen missiles flew out of Ape's rocket launcher and his gatling gun began firing wildly in the hopes of hitting its superfast mark.
Not that any of that was nearly enough to stop Sabre. The bullets and missiles from her perspective were frozen in midair, and those she couldn't side step she simply pushed aside as if they were offending snow flakes. Sabre ran well past Ape of War, and then quickly doubled back.
Sabre slowed her pace moderately as she ran at Ape of War's exposed back. When she struck it, her momentum allowed her to easily lift his nine hundred pounds of metal and muscle into the air and sent him careening into the far wall as breakneck speeds. The cyborg ape didn't get up.
"A most creative use of power," a voice complimented. Sabre's head snapped around, looking for the source. She quickly realized the voice she was hearing, was in her head.
"So Hoffman sent you, did he? He never fails to amuse me."
"Lemme guess," Kim said aloud. "Nero Blood."
"Correct, though I'm not in the complex. Tell me, miss Kim Mia…" He drew out Sabre's name, as if to make a point. "What crimes did Hoffman accuse me of this time? Kennedy? The rise of extra normal hardware? Never mind, I already know. Key word induced memories. Hoffman is always flattering to me, though not always correct."
Kim instantly recognized her mind was being read, and then focused her speed internally. Nero's voice vanished inside her skull as her thoughts became too fast for anyone to read and became replaced by Nero's voice on unseen speakers inside the base.
"That certainly took you long enough, little girl. But at least you taught Ape of War and Kopykat a lesson. They were unduly cocky. A shame, I give Hoffman a bone and a skeleton crew after all these years and all he sends me is you." He sighed loudly, like a parent who'd been disappointed one too many times. "I really am saddened. I'm beginning to think he never really cared about Marcus at all."
"Hey!" Kim snapped. "If you're done being all mysterious, I don't suppose you can gimme one reason not to tear this place to the ground."
"Before you do, you may wish to take a look behind the far wall directly behind you."
"I just know this is one of those 'please don't throw me in the thorn patch' tricks," Kim scowled. This guy was unduly cocky, if nothing else. But Kim was determined to see this mission through to the end no matter what. She was stubborn like that.
The wall was perfectly seamless. Nothing to indicate a doorway of any kind, which meant she had to make one. A quick run through of the halls revealed that the one wall she'd been pointed at was in fact just the outer wall of a square this entire level had been centered around. Her curiosity was naturally piqued.
So she arbitrarily picked a spot at random, and started running her hand back and forth over the metal of the wall. The steel began to redden as the friction built. To Sabre it was like running her hand over a flame. It took some skill and more time than she would have liked, but the friction soon melted away enough of the wall to create an adequate doorway for Kim.
The smell was what hit her first. It was a combination of unwashed bodies, spoiled meat and bodily fluids all mixed into one creating almost tangible stench.
Then she saw the bodies.
There were two rows of eight. Men and women, though it was hard to, strapped down to filthy hospital beds. Their bodies were shrunken and malformed with tubes and wires running in and out, providing vital fluids and fuel. But their heads were abnormally swollen, supported by special pulleys that reached down from the ceiling. Cables and wires were run into their heads from the walls and floor.
"I trust you know of Modok, otherwise known as Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing?" Nero asked via the speakers. "Well, if you alter the formula that created him just a little, lobotomize your subject first and voila…!" To Kim Nero sounded like a high school student proudly displaying his science project. "…you have the perfect computers for not only storing information, but running your entire organization."
Sabre tensed. If Nero was telling the truth, then there was no way he'd let her walk away unchallenged. Hell, for all she knew she'd walked into a trap!
"But alas, the recent cost benefit analyses I've done just don't justify these wretched creatures anymore. Last year's model and all that. Thankfully, I can make up the losses in disinformation."
Sabre gasped as she saw electricity arcing off every piece of machinery in the room. Her first thought was to get the hell outta dodge, and she raced out the way she came. Once she was out though, she remembered the poor souls Nero had been using as his own personal servers. But when she smelled the burning flesh (and remembered the lobotomies) all she could see was red.
That bastard is not getting away with this. No freakin' way in hell. Running through the complex I see that this place is totally abandoned. He musta teleported his crew out while he was talking to me. I see some files here and there, but totally ignore it. Something tells me it wasn't a slip of the tongue, when he said this base was gonna spread disinformation.
Which means to me this place needs to be taken out. I run to the first two levels, where the majority of the support struts are. At mach 3, it's easy enough to punch through the things like butter using my titanium knuckles. Within the span of a minute, over fifty stone and steel supports are severed beyond repair. I see the roof sag, but it doesn't give. Nero built this place to last.
That's okay though. Apparently when they ditched this place, they didn't see fit to remove the weapons. Most likely to give this place some credibility for whatever illusion Nero wants to create.
I run into the weapons lockers and remove every last one. Grenades I place in door ways, bombs on the outer walls. With the bullets, I disassembled them and pack the gun powder into some crates I found. Finding key places to set these makeshift bombs takes a few relative minutes, but I manage. After moving, hauling and preparing to demolish this base, it feels like I've been doing this for hours. Looking at my watch, I see that it's been ten minutes. Yeah, superspeed can bite ya in the ass at times. But everything's set for my last trick.
Dangerous doesn't begin to describe what I'm about to do. I rip out of the complex at top speed, and don't stop until I'm some fifty miles away. Luckily, the Nazca desert is largely empty, and the towns nearby are easy enough to steer around.
It takes me a good hundred yards to fully stop when I put on the breaks. My feet dig me into a trench, but I'm used to it by now. Looking back the way I came, I brace myself for what's next.
If I manipulate my bio field just right, I can collect all the ambient energy in the air into my body and store it. Sounds a lot less dangerous than it actually is.
Practically speaking, it means the faster you run, the more energy you create, like particle accelerators. But, to even approach those speeds, I need to build up a whole hell of a lot of momentum. And I have to manipulate my bio-field just right, otherwise I'll become a five and a half mile long stain. I've done this only two times before and it was far from perfect. Third time's the charm…?
Sabre took a moment to offer up a silent prayer, and was off.
For the first three miles of her journey, she slowly increased her speed to just over that of the speed of sound.
For the next ten miles, she breached mach 2, then mach 3. Her speed gradually increased with each yard, the landscape becoming little more than blobs to her vision.
By the time she was within a mile of her target, Sabre, granddaughter of the World War Two hero Supersabre, was traveling at over three quarters the speed of light. Her body glowed as electricity freely traveled up and down it, generated by her speeds. Pulling her fist back as she approached the base, Sabre prepared to release every last erg of energy she'd absorbed from the start of her run, until now.
Kh-thoom!
The complex disappeared as a massive explosion of white light overtook it, producing a mushroom cloud roughly twenty stories tall that could be seen for miles away. Then the light faded, all that was left of the base was a large crater.
Some distance away, lying unconscious on the grass, was a thin, frail young woman dressed in a blue suit as a homage to her grandfather. The suit was torn and frayed, steam billowing into the air from her smoldering body. She was deathly still.
The first thing Kim Mai felt when she awoke was thirst. Her throat was so parched she couldn't even swallow, much less complain about the pain in the rest of her body. Something she very much wished to do.
"Here."
Kim cracked her eyes open to see Hoffman holding out a bottle of Gatorade for her. She snatched it and guzzled it down.
"You feeling okay?"
Sabre took a moment to take in her surroundings. She was resting in a hospital bed with an I.V in her wrist, probably re-hydrating her after she pulled her 'super charger' act. The room was empty save for herself, Hoffman and Irene.
"How do you feel?" asked Irene.
"Thirsty," Kim quipped. "Keep it comin' Hoffman."
Hoffman rolled his eyes and handed the young mutant another Gatorade as he asked, "Did you find anything? And why'd you destroy the base?"
"Well," Kim sighed, "I found out you're not insane. That Nero guy does exist…"
"I already knew that."
"…And I destroyed the base because Nero said he was gonna use it to spread disinformation."
Hoffman glared at Kim. "Or he was lying and manipulated you into covering his tracks."
Sabre shrugged dismissively, "That thought crossed my mind. But if it's damned if you do, damned if you don't, I'd rather do."
Hoffman snorted at that.
"How do you feel, Kim?" Irene asked sweetly.
"I'll be out of here in two days," Kim answered confidently. "I hope you brought me some books."
"We did. But we also wish to talk to you about another matter."
"Shoot."
"Before I begin, I must warn you what I am about to ask of you is considerably more dangerous than what was required of you in the past," Irene explained impassively. "I would fully understand if you chose to refuse."
"*pfft* Bring it on."
"Just remember you asked for it kid." Hoffman dropped a folder in Kim's lap. When she opened it, she was more than a little surprised by what she saw.
"Force Works? What do you guys want with these fascists?" Kim asked disbelieving.
"How is their work any different from yours and ours?" Irene smiled.
"They're not me," Kim said simply.
"At any rate, they have a problem. Or will, to be precise." Hoffman placed his hands behind his back in what Kim considered his classic 'Patton' pose.
"What, you can see the future now?" Kim asked flippantly.
"After a fashion."
"When the team first debuted," Irene began, "they began a campaign in their base city of Metro City to purge it of the drug trade. They were surprisingly effective, especially considering the fact that the city was a major port for drugs coming into America."
"I sense a 'but' coming up."
"But…" Hoffman continued, "they didn't eliminate the demand for drugs. There have been two attempted coups on Force Works at date, both efforts to return the drug trade to the city to its previous level."
"So?" Kim asked. "Bring this around to me."
"Several of my sources have indicated to me that things in Metro City are coming to a boil. There have been no overt or covert efforts by members of organized crime to move into the city, indicating someone else may already have first dibs. Someone with enough power to keep regular criminals out…"
"And enough power to feel confident enough to challenge Force Works," Irene finished.
"So, am I supposed to warn these guys or what?"
Hoffman shook his head. "We only know the what, not the who and why. But we know whatever's gonna happen, it'll likely happen soon."
"What'll happen?"
"The shit meeting the fan. And we want you inside the city, ready to help Force Works, when it does."
"Why?"
"Because Force Works, unlike the majority of other hero teams out there, have proven themselves quite sympathetic to our cause," Irene explained serenely. "There are other benefits as well. The team has a multi million dollar operating budget, multi cultural appeal, experience and moral credibility to both the left and right wing. They would be of great assistance to us, and us to them."
"So basically, I help bail them out of the mess they're in, and see if I can get them to sign up?"
"That's correct," Irene affirmed.
Kim examined the file and smiled. Something told her this was the start of something new. "Sounds good to me. When do I leave…?"