Back to GatefoldIssue #2 by John Cheese
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“GENESIS OF EVIL – Part Two: Usual Suspects”
Jasper Daniels meandered through the crowds at Charleston Airport, heading for the baggage carousel. He hummed a jaunty 80s tune from Wax or somebody like that as he waited for his luggage to arrive.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the golf bag he had brought with him, the hideous tartan patterns an obvious giveaway that its owner had no taste whatsoever. Swooping down on the bag Daniels removed it from the carousel before heading back through the crowd, accidently bumping a man in a suit in his haste to leave.
Walking down the arrivals hall he saw his contact: a tall woman in a red tank top and slacks, her eyes covered with sunglasses, their lenses ruby-tinted and sparkling in the afternoon sunshine. In her hands she clutched a sign with ‘Daniels’ scrawled across the white surface in blood red ink.
“How was your flight?” she asked blandly.
“Okay, darling,” Daniels replied.
The truth couldn’t be more different. He had been kicked in the back all the way from Newark by some overweight kid with possible terrets syndrome. On top of that the flight attendants had taken away his peanuts before he had even opened the bag and had disposed of them. The woman in red tilted her head and faked a smile.
Jasper smiled back, but it was clear that this woman was all business. She didn’t strike him as a person who spent time in the field; more of a desk person pressed into service, but then again he could be wrong. He had been before.
Towing the golf bag behind him he followed the woman out to the short term car-park where a blacked out limousine squatted, dark and sinister, a definite sense of malice reradiating out of the car. The woman fished out a pair of keys and unlocked the vehicle before gesturing for Daniels to place his bag in the boot and get in, without firing off any one of a number of sarcastic comments revolving around in his mind. As Jasper got into the back he realized that he wasn’t alone, and worse, he knew his travel companions.
“Yo, guys, it’s a right Flashmob back here,” he commented as he eyed the two slim but muscular men sitting opposite him, their attire vastly contrasting with each other.
(The Flashmob is a collaboration of Luke Cage villains led by Deadly Nightshade. Members include Chemistro, Cockroach Hamilton, Cheshire Cat, Comanche, Mr. Fish and the Spear)
“It sure is, Daniels,” one of the men growled as he pulled down a set of goggles. The lenses glowed green. “You still owe me for the last job we pulled.”
“Dontrell, I’m getting paid real soon I promise,” Jasper yammered. “It’s good money and will more than cover the ten grand I owe you. You win if you let me live. Unless you own stocks in Roxxon Oil and Power, I may have done something reckless at the airport.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dontrell asked as he stuck a hand into the moth-eaten trench coat he wore.
“Cool it, both of you,” the second man, fancily dressed in black business suit, announced. “Dontrell, put it away, it’s not worth it.”
“You are a fool, Carr,” Dontrell said as he withdrew his hand from his coat. “You know who the bitch in red is, right?”
“Ex-Girlfriend, Supermodel, Undercover Police Officer. Whatever the case it doesn’t matter; she’s pulling the shots and I plan to go along with whatever she wants,” Jasper replied. “Actually, scratch that first one. You stink so bad that no girl would look at you more then once.”
Dontrell once again reached into his coat, pulling out a pistol and training it on Jasper’s head. “She’s the Headhunter, the witch of Wall Street, that chick who puts living skulls on the wall of her office. I don’t want whatever she’s selling. I’m here because I’m going to leave here with what you owe me, or your head.”
“Really?” Daniels stated peering into the front where the red-clothed woman was driving. “Headhunter or not she’s assembling a lot of people like us for something big; you really want to miss out on that?”
The limo pulled up into a private estate before parking outside an ornate mansion house, its walls covered in thick honeysuckle vines, bathing the whole property in a sweet sickly scent. The three gentlemen, albeit a loose term for any group containing such individuals, got out of the limo and removed their bags from the boot as their driver slipped out and walked towards the door into the house.
They walked down the path, after her Jasper noted that the lawn was overgrown and the hummingbird feeder hanging on the deck was empty, who ever owned this property hadn’t been here recently. Heading inside it became apparent that the overgrown exterior was just a façade; the interior was well furnished and had been cleaned recently.
“Get changed and meet me downstairs in the conference room,” the woman in red ordered as she slipped into the library. “Be quick; our host frowns on lateness.”
She pulled on one of the books, a large red covered tone, causing the shelf to descend and reveal stone steps leading down into the building’s basement.
Jasper shrugged and dragged his golf bag into an ornate dining room, the long ebony table contrasting with the plain whitewashed walls. The whole place smelled of money, Jasper concluded, as he opened his bag and removed his clubs, unscrewing the tops to reveal barbed spear points under the weighted ends.
A few minutes later and he was finished, clad in his work clothes: a blue bodysuit reinforced with Kevlar weave and a visor fitted with advanced optics. His tools, a quiver of bronze spears as well as his usual triple barrelled launcher and five foot trident had survived the trip unnoticed by customs or their X-Ray scans.
Wandering into the library Jasper saw Carr dressed in red, his alchemy pistol holstered as he scanned the room with a portable chemical analysis set. Carr wasn’t the only person who had arrived before him; a woman with dyed purple hair dressed in white leather was also looking at the books, running her fingers over their spines. She had some kind of armor on, Jasper noted; it looked almost like her skin was really stone grafted over her actual flesh.”
“So, baby, what brings a girl like you to a place like this?” Daniels asked cheerfully.
“None of your business,” the woman snapped. “I can’t believe that I’m being forced to work with unpowered operators like you.” On the last two words the spears in Daniels quiver shuddered, threatening to fly out on the whim of the angry woman.
“Just trying to be friendly that’s all,” Jasper stated backing away over to where Carr was packing away his scanner. “So, what’s the verdict?”
“The majority of the books are bound with leather. Human leather to be exact, it speaks volumes about our host,” Carr replied. “Whatever the case I can’t afford to turn this job down. I’m down to my last 75 cents, nobody is hiring on the East Coast anymore”
“And I suppose asking Dontrell for a loan is out of the question?” Jasper joked as Carr pulled the same book the red clothed woman had pulled earlier.
“That’s why he hates you,” Carr replied as the book shelf descended once again. “Well, that and you’re always talking about his smell. We get it, he stinks, you don’t have to rub it in his face.”
“Wow, I love the prepare-to-die ambiance,” Jasper stated as he strode over to the stairs, ignoring Carr’s statement.
The armoured woman coughed something crude under her breath before pushing past him and marching down the stairs. Carr shrugged his shoulders and followed her down. Jasper stood at the top for a minute before sighing. Since he couldn’t hear any screams of agony he figured it was probably safe to descend, gingerly stepping onto the first step before heading down into the darkness.
As he rounded the first twist of the staircase the door behind him rose up to conceal the hidden passage plunging the chamber into darkness for a few seconds before tiny green emergency lights lit up along the wall, bathing the steps in an eerie green light.
Jasper sighed. The lighting didn’t really help calm his nerves. It wasn’t fear, just caution, as a marksman he didn’t like entering tight spaces like this, especially when you didn’t know who or what was waiting for you.
Removing his trident from the quiver he advanced down and around the staircase before arriving at an entrance leading into a massive hall, its walls covered in large white tiles. There were a multitude of people all facing a balcony mounted on the wall. Everyone seemed to be in costume or high tech armor and many of the faces were easily recognizable. Every one of them was a super-villain, mostly low powered individuals or mercenaries who were hard up, and while alone each of them were unimpressive, together they had the potential to be very damaging.
“That’s everybody,” the woman from the airport, now dressed in a red suit, told Crossfire as he scanned the group.
He had cunningly positioned himself in the crowd while the Headhunter stood on the balcony and addressed the crowd. This way he could listen in on their conversations and split the group accordingly. “Start the lecture, let’s see who we have here,” he ordered before stalking behind a man in a power-suit and next to a hulking dark skinned man with milky eyes.
“You all have been invited here to aid in a job,” the Headhunter announced. “A job which will see those who survive be rewarded handsomely.” She paused as the group murmured before continuing. “We have limited places on this venture, however. Only a select few will be able to come with us. We will determine who these people will be by an analysis of your past experiences as well as your powers and equipment.”
Crossfire smiled. The Headhunter was playing her role perfectly. From off to his left he heard one of the listeners complain about the selection process. Tapping his audio analysis implant he streamed the conversation over to the Headhunter who tilted her head before locking onto the culprit, a man in a skin tight suit with a large pair of wings on his back.
“Mr. Kincald, do you have something to say?” the Headhunter asked.
“Just saying that not everybody here is equal. If you search for new members by those criteria you might get some powerful players but not a group that will work together.” He didn’t notice as Crossfire and all the other mercenaries around him begun to back away as fast as they could.
“You’re right,” the Headhunter admitted as she reached behind her back. “You tried out for the Frightful Four once under the handle of the Osprey. How did that work out?”
“The Wizard threw me across New York,” Kincald answered his voice full of bitter resentment.
(As seen in the Fantastic Four Issue #148)
“Rest assured we do things differently in my organization,” the Headhunter told him as she removed a set of knives centred on a central point to form a razor sharp disc. “Step forward and hold your head up high.”
She glared into his eyes and laced her voice with hypnotic suggestion. Kincald took three steps forward and stretched his neck as the Headhunter threw the bladed disc, the projectile scything through her target’s neck and embedding in the wall behind. Seconds later Kincald’s body dropped and his head rolled forward, finally stopping at the foot of the dais, his surprised eyes glaring at the rest of the applicants.
The Headhunter smiled, a wicked grin covering her face. “Anyone else with a problem should leave now.”
Jasper Daniels looked around him, only seconds after the head had stopped rolling people were moving around him and a lot of them were heading for the stairs. Among them he spotted Dontrell cutting through the others using his multi-barrelled shotgun as a bludgeon, brutally creating a path for himself through the fleeing crowd. Loading a spear into his launcher Jasper fired, the spear streaking into the mob and pinning Donterell to the wall by the shoulder of his trench coat.
“What the hell do you think you’re fucking doing?” Donterell yelled as the last of the fleeing villains rounded the first spiral of the staircase.
“Saving your hide,” Jasper replied.
From up above the sound of cursing could be heard as the Headhunter dropped from the dais and sprinted over, slamming the door to the stair-well shut just before the muffled curses became screams of terror and the thudding of bodies falling down the stairs. Reopening the door, a set of decapitated heads rolled out into the room, all of them with a look of sheer terror frozen on their faces.
“There were lasers mounted in the staircase, all positioned at neck level disguised as emergency lighting,” Jasper explained. “If you went in there you would have lost your head, quite literally in this case. I owed you, but now I don’t. Consider your life as payment for the ten grand I borrowed from you.”
He pulled the spear out of the trench coat and the wall behind it. Donterell glared at him before smashing Jasper around the face with his shotgun and spitting in his eye.
“My life ain’t worth that much; you still owe me and I intend to collect,” he announced pumping his weapon.
As he squeezed the trigger a dart flew through the air and embedded in his neck. With a shudder Dontrell collapsed, landing on Jasper, his shotgun clattering onto the floor next to him. With a grunt Jasper rolled the convulsing hit-man off him before getting to his feet, looking around the twelve remaining figures he saw Crossfire holster a pistol.
“Now that’s taken care of,” Crossfire announced stepping through the crowd. “Let’s proceed with the interviews.”
# # # # #
Crossfire sat cross-legged as the Headhunter ordered the last mercenary, a hulking wrestler with milky eyes named Axum, out of the observation pod that he was using as an office. There had been plenty of interesting candidates but in the end he wasn’t convinced that he would need all of them to complete the raid on RAID’s headquarters.
Tapping a button on one of his gauntlets a massive plasma flat screen emerged from the wall, tuned in to the BBC’s News 24 channel. Rubbing his chin Crossfire glared at the screen as the Headhunter shuffled the interview transcripts into a pile.
“So, what do you think of your selection?” she asked.
“Good. Possibly too good in some instances. There are a few in the group that would be hard to control if I needed too. I have made my selection though.”
“Shall I inform them of…” the Headhunter stopped as Crossfire raised his hand.
“Let them tremble for five minutes. I want to watch this. You’ve down well, Gillette. I could use somebody like you as my right hand. Now go get yourself a cup of coffee. We’re in for a long night.”
Gillette nodded. While she was a manipulator of the worst possible kind, Crossfire was even more sinister, she knew an unswayable will when she sensed it. Cross possessed such a trait and more. It would be a bad idea to make him an enemy.
Crossfire heard the door slam and then scaled up the volume of the TV. “Ryan Gennaro, Vice President of Roxxon Oil and Power later died en-route from Charleston airport to a local hospital. As such the companies president and board of directors have refused to comment on how a lethally high dose of cone shell venom ended up in Mr. Gennaro’s blood stream. We will bring you more on the story as it breaks. Our other top story remains the out of control fire storm in the New Forest National Park, fifteen people are believed to have died and…” Crossfire tapped his gauntlet and the TV disappeared.
“Smokers,” he growled. “Never seem to care where they drop their cigarettes.”
(That’s the same fire that Crossfire started in Villains for Hire #1 with the Incendiary Gel Packs he conveniently left behind at the RAID base.)
The waiting room was a small room, it’s floor space dominated by a pair of black leather sofas, heaving under the combined weight of the people sitting on them. Those who had been interviewed later on, or gone to the bathroom and found their seats taken, had been forced to stand.
The wait for the Headhunter and Crossfire was agonizing, Jasper thought. It was if they were deliberately torturing them. The doors to the observation pod suddenly swing open and Crossfire strode out into the middle of the group.
“Congratulations; six of you made the cut,” he announced. “The rest of you will not be required. Those of you who received a green pin at the end of the interview did not make the cut. I wish you much success with any future jobs and ask that you leave my property immediately. I have disabled the security system so you don’t have to worry about sharing the fate of those who left earlier. The rest of you hit the training floor. We have a simulation to test your skills as a team before the debriefing.”
Jasper breathed a huge sigh of relief at the news; he had got through the initial interview and that was all that mattered, at least at the moment. When it came to actual field work he could keep his cool better then most, but in formal situations he melted within a few words. He had been sure he would have failed. Once again his actions had screamed volumes over his actual words. Looking down at the red pin he clenched in his hand, villains often grouped together for a multitude of reasons but only a few actually succeeded at completing their goals. This seemed different, like it would actually lead somewhere. It was almost as if the air in the observation pod had become charged with excitement. Looking around the ‘survivors’ Jasper saw from their expressions that they felt it too, even Donterell who usually wore a glum expression on his face.
As the six remaining mercenaries got to work Crossfire skimmed through their files while keeping one eye on the training floor. The room was automated and constantly shifting to keep the participants on their toes and test out a wide range of skills, although there was only one that Crossfire actually cared about: teamwork.
Ten minutes in and it was clear who the team players were and who would rather go it alone. Cracking his knuckles, a habit that he found both compulsive and annoying, Crossfire begun dictating his analysis as Gillette finished her coffee and begun typing.
“Mr. Francis Doyle AKA the Mauler,” Cross began. “Equipped with power armor containing advanced weaponry including plasma Gattling Guns, cannons equipped with Depleted Uranium rounds and wrist mounted flamethrowers. While that is impressive it is the counter surveillance equipment that I am more interested in. That and his military training. The man has experience in working in a team.”
He paused and watched as Doyle ripped an automated sentry off a podium and threw it at a second turret, knocking the weapon off its base. “My only concern is his pugnacious attitude and that he is an alcoholic. Both traits could be a handicap in this mission.”
Gillette nodded and attached the comments to Doyle’s file before bringing up another image, this time of Donterell. “Mr Hamilton is an expert survivor, as his street handle Cockroach Hamilton would suggest. He also is a canny fighter and comes with the artillery to do damage against the toughest opponents. The only problem is that he works to his own code and so far we have not been able to decipher what that is from his own actions.”
Gillette nodded. She remembered the conversation that Hamilton, Daniels, and Carr had shared in the back of the limo. That and the withering glances Hamilton shot at Daniels suggested that one or both of them might be dead before they even reached their destination. Quickly she noticed that Crossfire had moved on from Hamilton’s flaws and that there was a new file on screen.
“Ms. Angela Costanza nee Haggard, or Lodestone, is a simpler person to predict,” Crossfire continued. “Her hatred for her husband and the need to rescue her child are carried close to her heart, which incidentally is the source of her powers after Charcoal disarmed her. Coupled with magically enhanced blood from Crusher Creel, AKA the Absorbing Man, her body is covered with a durable magnetic coating.”
He paused as Lodestone ripped a hole through a metal block before turning the shards into deadly daggers that she propelled into a squad of solid light holograms. “Like Hamilton she does not play well with others, especially non powered operators.”
(The events mentioned in the paragraph can be found in Russ Abbot’s Web of the Scarlet Spider #15, Daniel Ingram’s Force Works #25 and Max 2000 #32)
“A habit I could easily wean her out of,” Gillette offered. “A few sessions and I could work out most of their problems.”
“No need, Gillette,” Cross replied. “This alliance is temporary. When they get paid I expect that they will go their separate ways. Besides, we still have the others to analyze. Jasper Daniels and Calvin Carr, known as the Spear and Chemistro, both have family problems. Daniels is obsessed with avenging his brother while Carr wants nothing more then to remove his brother’s skin and play his bones like a xylophone.”
He glanced out the window to see Spear scythe through an attacking hologram before reversing his thrust and stab a sentry turret popping up from the floor directly behind him. On the other side of the room Chemistro was busy converting an automated suit of Mandroid armor into a puddle of slurry. “Both are team players and are skilled at combating more skilled opponents.”
“And the last one?” Gillette asked. “We have no file on her, hell I didn’t know she existed. She just turned up out of the blue.”
Crossfire smiled and got up from his chair before motioning for Gillette to follow, walking over to the window overlooking the training floor. Scuttling up the walls on massive metallic legs was an Asian woman, her shaved head revealing a cybernetic node stabbed into her brain. Dropping to the floor she landed onto a second Mandroid and stabbed her tentacles into its back before throwing the suit across the room, quickly turning to face a group of holograms. Her mechanical arms stabbed through all of her targets, each one being ripped into puddles of photons gleaming on the floor.
“She calls herself Makro, which is short for Macrocheira kaempferi, or the Japanese Spider Crab. Where she got the additional arms or the cybernetics I can’t say although I do have a theory that the Tinkerer may have something to do with it. Whatever the case, she’s fast and deadly as well as trained in covert operations. For now she is somebody I can use.”
Down below the mercenaries were being forced into a tighter group as the number of sentries, holograms and automated suits of armor increased exponentially, even as the front ranks were cut down. Suddenly the attackers all shivered and collapsed or dissipated as the hall lit up and Crossfire’s face appeared on the walls and floor.
“You have all done well,” the multiple faces announced. “I am not easily impressed but I will make an exception for your exploits. Pack your gear and meet me outside in five minutes. But bare this in mind: disappoint me and I will make your worst nightmares come true.” The image suddenly vanished and a hole in the wall appeared, the passage lined with emergency lighting, glinting like teeth in a long hellish maw.
“Oh shit,” Daniels announced as the group moved towards the exit. “Now we really have stepped in the crap.”
TO BE CONCLUDED...
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the golf bag he had brought with him, the hideous tartan patterns an obvious giveaway that its owner had no taste whatsoever. Swooping down on the bag Daniels removed it from the carousel before heading back through the crowd, accidently bumping a man in a suit in his haste to leave.
Walking down the arrivals hall he saw his contact: a tall woman in a red tank top and slacks, her eyes covered with sunglasses, their lenses ruby-tinted and sparkling in the afternoon sunshine. In her hands she clutched a sign with ‘Daniels’ scrawled across the white surface in blood red ink.
“How was your flight?” she asked blandly.
“Okay, darling,” Daniels replied.
The truth couldn’t be more different. He had been kicked in the back all the way from Newark by some overweight kid with possible terrets syndrome. On top of that the flight attendants had taken away his peanuts before he had even opened the bag and had disposed of them. The woman in red tilted her head and faked a smile.
Jasper smiled back, but it was clear that this woman was all business. She didn’t strike him as a person who spent time in the field; more of a desk person pressed into service, but then again he could be wrong. He had been before.
Towing the golf bag behind him he followed the woman out to the short term car-park where a blacked out limousine squatted, dark and sinister, a definite sense of malice reradiating out of the car. The woman fished out a pair of keys and unlocked the vehicle before gesturing for Daniels to place his bag in the boot and get in, without firing off any one of a number of sarcastic comments revolving around in his mind. As Jasper got into the back he realized that he wasn’t alone, and worse, he knew his travel companions.
“Yo, guys, it’s a right Flashmob back here,” he commented as he eyed the two slim but muscular men sitting opposite him, their attire vastly contrasting with each other.
(The Flashmob is a collaboration of Luke Cage villains led by Deadly Nightshade. Members include Chemistro, Cockroach Hamilton, Cheshire Cat, Comanche, Mr. Fish and the Spear)
“It sure is, Daniels,” one of the men growled as he pulled down a set of goggles. The lenses glowed green. “You still owe me for the last job we pulled.”
“Dontrell, I’m getting paid real soon I promise,” Jasper yammered. “It’s good money and will more than cover the ten grand I owe you. You win if you let me live. Unless you own stocks in Roxxon Oil and Power, I may have done something reckless at the airport.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dontrell asked as he stuck a hand into the moth-eaten trench coat he wore.
“Cool it, both of you,” the second man, fancily dressed in black business suit, announced. “Dontrell, put it away, it’s not worth it.”
“You are a fool, Carr,” Dontrell said as he withdrew his hand from his coat. “You know who the bitch in red is, right?”
“Ex-Girlfriend, Supermodel, Undercover Police Officer. Whatever the case it doesn’t matter; she’s pulling the shots and I plan to go along with whatever she wants,” Jasper replied. “Actually, scratch that first one. You stink so bad that no girl would look at you more then once.”
Dontrell once again reached into his coat, pulling out a pistol and training it on Jasper’s head. “She’s the Headhunter, the witch of Wall Street, that chick who puts living skulls on the wall of her office. I don’t want whatever she’s selling. I’m here because I’m going to leave here with what you owe me, or your head.”
“Really?” Daniels stated peering into the front where the red-clothed woman was driving. “Headhunter or not she’s assembling a lot of people like us for something big; you really want to miss out on that?”
The limo pulled up into a private estate before parking outside an ornate mansion house, its walls covered in thick honeysuckle vines, bathing the whole property in a sweet sickly scent. The three gentlemen, albeit a loose term for any group containing such individuals, got out of the limo and removed their bags from the boot as their driver slipped out and walked towards the door into the house.
They walked down the path, after her Jasper noted that the lawn was overgrown and the hummingbird feeder hanging on the deck was empty, who ever owned this property hadn’t been here recently. Heading inside it became apparent that the overgrown exterior was just a façade; the interior was well furnished and had been cleaned recently.
“Get changed and meet me downstairs in the conference room,” the woman in red ordered as she slipped into the library. “Be quick; our host frowns on lateness.”
She pulled on one of the books, a large red covered tone, causing the shelf to descend and reveal stone steps leading down into the building’s basement.
Jasper shrugged and dragged his golf bag into an ornate dining room, the long ebony table contrasting with the plain whitewashed walls. The whole place smelled of money, Jasper concluded, as he opened his bag and removed his clubs, unscrewing the tops to reveal barbed spear points under the weighted ends.
A few minutes later and he was finished, clad in his work clothes: a blue bodysuit reinforced with Kevlar weave and a visor fitted with advanced optics. His tools, a quiver of bronze spears as well as his usual triple barrelled launcher and five foot trident had survived the trip unnoticed by customs or their X-Ray scans.
Wandering into the library Jasper saw Carr dressed in red, his alchemy pistol holstered as he scanned the room with a portable chemical analysis set. Carr wasn’t the only person who had arrived before him; a woman with dyed purple hair dressed in white leather was also looking at the books, running her fingers over their spines. She had some kind of armor on, Jasper noted; it looked almost like her skin was really stone grafted over her actual flesh.”
“So, baby, what brings a girl like you to a place like this?” Daniels asked cheerfully.
“None of your business,” the woman snapped. “I can’t believe that I’m being forced to work with unpowered operators like you.” On the last two words the spears in Daniels quiver shuddered, threatening to fly out on the whim of the angry woman.
“Just trying to be friendly that’s all,” Jasper stated backing away over to where Carr was packing away his scanner. “So, what’s the verdict?”
“The majority of the books are bound with leather. Human leather to be exact, it speaks volumes about our host,” Carr replied. “Whatever the case I can’t afford to turn this job down. I’m down to my last 75 cents, nobody is hiring on the East Coast anymore”
“And I suppose asking Dontrell for a loan is out of the question?” Jasper joked as Carr pulled the same book the red clothed woman had pulled earlier.
“That’s why he hates you,” Carr replied as the book shelf descended once again. “Well, that and you’re always talking about his smell. We get it, he stinks, you don’t have to rub it in his face.”
“Wow, I love the prepare-to-die ambiance,” Jasper stated as he strode over to the stairs, ignoring Carr’s statement.
The armoured woman coughed something crude under her breath before pushing past him and marching down the stairs. Carr shrugged his shoulders and followed her down. Jasper stood at the top for a minute before sighing. Since he couldn’t hear any screams of agony he figured it was probably safe to descend, gingerly stepping onto the first step before heading down into the darkness.
As he rounded the first twist of the staircase the door behind him rose up to conceal the hidden passage plunging the chamber into darkness for a few seconds before tiny green emergency lights lit up along the wall, bathing the steps in an eerie green light.
Jasper sighed. The lighting didn’t really help calm his nerves. It wasn’t fear, just caution, as a marksman he didn’t like entering tight spaces like this, especially when you didn’t know who or what was waiting for you.
Removing his trident from the quiver he advanced down and around the staircase before arriving at an entrance leading into a massive hall, its walls covered in large white tiles. There were a multitude of people all facing a balcony mounted on the wall. Everyone seemed to be in costume or high tech armor and many of the faces were easily recognizable. Every one of them was a super-villain, mostly low powered individuals or mercenaries who were hard up, and while alone each of them were unimpressive, together they had the potential to be very damaging.
“That’s everybody,” the woman from the airport, now dressed in a red suit, told Crossfire as he scanned the group.
He had cunningly positioned himself in the crowd while the Headhunter stood on the balcony and addressed the crowd. This way he could listen in on their conversations and split the group accordingly. “Start the lecture, let’s see who we have here,” he ordered before stalking behind a man in a power-suit and next to a hulking dark skinned man with milky eyes.
“You all have been invited here to aid in a job,” the Headhunter announced. “A job which will see those who survive be rewarded handsomely.” She paused as the group murmured before continuing. “We have limited places on this venture, however. Only a select few will be able to come with us. We will determine who these people will be by an analysis of your past experiences as well as your powers and equipment.”
Crossfire smiled. The Headhunter was playing her role perfectly. From off to his left he heard one of the listeners complain about the selection process. Tapping his audio analysis implant he streamed the conversation over to the Headhunter who tilted her head before locking onto the culprit, a man in a skin tight suit with a large pair of wings on his back.
“Mr. Kincald, do you have something to say?” the Headhunter asked.
“Just saying that not everybody here is equal. If you search for new members by those criteria you might get some powerful players but not a group that will work together.” He didn’t notice as Crossfire and all the other mercenaries around him begun to back away as fast as they could.
“You’re right,” the Headhunter admitted as she reached behind her back. “You tried out for the Frightful Four once under the handle of the Osprey. How did that work out?”
“The Wizard threw me across New York,” Kincald answered his voice full of bitter resentment.
(As seen in the Fantastic Four Issue #148)
“Rest assured we do things differently in my organization,” the Headhunter told him as she removed a set of knives centred on a central point to form a razor sharp disc. “Step forward and hold your head up high.”
She glared into his eyes and laced her voice with hypnotic suggestion. Kincald took three steps forward and stretched his neck as the Headhunter threw the bladed disc, the projectile scything through her target’s neck and embedding in the wall behind. Seconds later Kincald’s body dropped and his head rolled forward, finally stopping at the foot of the dais, his surprised eyes glaring at the rest of the applicants.
The Headhunter smiled, a wicked grin covering her face. “Anyone else with a problem should leave now.”
Jasper Daniels looked around him, only seconds after the head had stopped rolling people were moving around him and a lot of them were heading for the stairs. Among them he spotted Dontrell cutting through the others using his multi-barrelled shotgun as a bludgeon, brutally creating a path for himself through the fleeing crowd. Loading a spear into his launcher Jasper fired, the spear streaking into the mob and pinning Donterell to the wall by the shoulder of his trench coat.
“What the hell do you think you’re fucking doing?” Donterell yelled as the last of the fleeing villains rounded the first spiral of the staircase.
“Saving your hide,” Jasper replied.
From up above the sound of cursing could be heard as the Headhunter dropped from the dais and sprinted over, slamming the door to the stair-well shut just before the muffled curses became screams of terror and the thudding of bodies falling down the stairs. Reopening the door, a set of decapitated heads rolled out into the room, all of them with a look of sheer terror frozen on their faces.
“There were lasers mounted in the staircase, all positioned at neck level disguised as emergency lighting,” Jasper explained. “If you went in there you would have lost your head, quite literally in this case. I owed you, but now I don’t. Consider your life as payment for the ten grand I borrowed from you.”
He pulled the spear out of the trench coat and the wall behind it. Donterell glared at him before smashing Jasper around the face with his shotgun and spitting in his eye.
“My life ain’t worth that much; you still owe me and I intend to collect,” he announced pumping his weapon.
As he squeezed the trigger a dart flew through the air and embedded in his neck. With a shudder Dontrell collapsed, landing on Jasper, his shotgun clattering onto the floor next to him. With a grunt Jasper rolled the convulsing hit-man off him before getting to his feet, looking around the twelve remaining figures he saw Crossfire holster a pistol.
“Now that’s taken care of,” Crossfire announced stepping through the crowd. “Let’s proceed with the interviews.”
# # # # #
Crossfire sat cross-legged as the Headhunter ordered the last mercenary, a hulking wrestler with milky eyes named Axum, out of the observation pod that he was using as an office. There had been plenty of interesting candidates but in the end he wasn’t convinced that he would need all of them to complete the raid on RAID’s headquarters.
Tapping a button on one of his gauntlets a massive plasma flat screen emerged from the wall, tuned in to the BBC’s News 24 channel. Rubbing his chin Crossfire glared at the screen as the Headhunter shuffled the interview transcripts into a pile.
“So, what do you think of your selection?” she asked.
“Good. Possibly too good in some instances. There are a few in the group that would be hard to control if I needed too. I have made my selection though.”
“Shall I inform them of…” the Headhunter stopped as Crossfire raised his hand.
“Let them tremble for five minutes. I want to watch this. You’ve down well, Gillette. I could use somebody like you as my right hand. Now go get yourself a cup of coffee. We’re in for a long night.”
Gillette nodded. While she was a manipulator of the worst possible kind, Crossfire was even more sinister, she knew an unswayable will when she sensed it. Cross possessed such a trait and more. It would be a bad idea to make him an enemy.
Crossfire heard the door slam and then scaled up the volume of the TV. “Ryan Gennaro, Vice President of Roxxon Oil and Power later died en-route from Charleston airport to a local hospital. As such the companies president and board of directors have refused to comment on how a lethally high dose of cone shell venom ended up in Mr. Gennaro’s blood stream. We will bring you more on the story as it breaks. Our other top story remains the out of control fire storm in the New Forest National Park, fifteen people are believed to have died and…” Crossfire tapped his gauntlet and the TV disappeared.
“Smokers,” he growled. “Never seem to care where they drop their cigarettes.”
(That’s the same fire that Crossfire started in Villains for Hire #1 with the Incendiary Gel Packs he conveniently left behind at the RAID base.)
The waiting room was a small room, it’s floor space dominated by a pair of black leather sofas, heaving under the combined weight of the people sitting on them. Those who had been interviewed later on, or gone to the bathroom and found their seats taken, had been forced to stand.
The wait for the Headhunter and Crossfire was agonizing, Jasper thought. It was if they were deliberately torturing them. The doors to the observation pod suddenly swing open and Crossfire strode out into the middle of the group.
“Congratulations; six of you made the cut,” he announced. “The rest of you will not be required. Those of you who received a green pin at the end of the interview did not make the cut. I wish you much success with any future jobs and ask that you leave my property immediately. I have disabled the security system so you don’t have to worry about sharing the fate of those who left earlier. The rest of you hit the training floor. We have a simulation to test your skills as a team before the debriefing.”
Jasper breathed a huge sigh of relief at the news; he had got through the initial interview and that was all that mattered, at least at the moment. When it came to actual field work he could keep his cool better then most, but in formal situations he melted within a few words. He had been sure he would have failed. Once again his actions had screamed volumes over his actual words. Looking down at the red pin he clenched in his hand, villains often grouped together for a multitude of reasons but only a few actually succeeded at completing their goals. This seemed different, like it would actually lead somewhere. It was almost as if the air in the observation pod had become charged with excitement. Looking around the ‘survivors’ Jasper saw from their expressions that they felt it too, even Donterell who usually wore a glum expression on his face.
As the six remaining mercenaries got to work Crossfire skimmed through their files while keeping one eye on the training floor. The room was automated and constantly shifting to keep the participants on their toes and test out a wide range of skills, although there was only one that Crossfire actually cared about: teamwork.
Ten minutes in and it was clear who the team players were and who would rather go it alone. Cracking his knuckles, a habit that he found both compulsive and annoying, Crossfire begun dictating his analysis as Gillette finished her coffee and begun typing.
“Mr. Francis Doyle AKA the Mauler,” Cross began. “Equipped with power armor containing advanced weaponry including plasma Gattling Guns, cannons equipped with Depleted Uranium rounds and wrist mounted flamethrowers. While that is impressive it is the counter surveillance equipment that I am more interested in. That and his military training. The man has experience in working in a team.”
He paused and watched as Doyle ripped an automated sentry off a podium and threw it at a second turret, knocking the weapon off its base. “My only concern is his pugnacious attitude and that he is an alcoholic. Both traits could be a handicap in this mission.”
Gillette nodded and attached the comments to Doyle’s file before bringing up another image, this time of Donterell. “Mr Hamilton is an expert survivor, as his street handle Cockroach Hamilton would suggest. He also is a canny fighter and comes with the artillery to do damage against the toughest opponents. The only problem is that he works to his own code and so far we have not been able to decipher what that is from his own actions.”
Gillette nodded. She remembered the conversation that Hamilton, Daniels, and Carr had shared in the back of the limo. That and the withering glances Hamilton shot at Daniels suggested that one or both of them might be dead before they even reached their destination. Quickly she noticed that Crossfire had moved on from Hamilton’s flaws and that there was a new file on screen.
“Ms. Angela Costanza nee Haggard, or Lodestone, is a simpler person to predict,” Crossfire continued. “Her hatred for her husband and the need to rescue her child are carried close to her heart, which incidentally is the source of her powers after Charcoal disarmed her. Coupled with magically enhanced blood from Crusher Creel, AKA the Absorbing Man, her body is covered with a durable magnetic coating.”
He paused as Lodestone ripped a hole through a metal block before turning the shards into deadly daggers that she propelled into a squad of solid light holograms. “Like Hamilton she does not play well with others, especially non powered operators.”
(The events mentioned in the paragraph can be found in Russ Abbot’s Web of the Scarlet Spider #15, Daniel Ingram’s Force Works #25 and Max 2000 #32)
“A habit I could easily wean her out of,” Gillette offered. “A few sessions and I could work out most of their problems.”
“No need, Gillette,” Cross replied. “This alliance is temporary. When they get paid I expect that they will go their separate ways. Besides, we still have the others to analyze. Jasper Daniels and Calvin Carr, known as the Spear and Chemistro, both have family problems. Daniels is obsessed with avenging his brother while Carr wants nothing more then to remove his brother’s skin and play his bones like a xylophone.”
He glanced out the window to see Spear scythe through an attacking hologram before reversing his thrust and stab a sentry turret popping up from the floor directly behind him. On the other side of the room Chemistro was busy converting an automated suit of Mandroid armor into a puddle of slurry. “Both are team players and are skilled at combating more skilled opponents.”
“And the last one?” Gillette asked. “We have no file on her, hell I didn’t know she existed. She just turned up out of the blue.”
Crossfire smiled and got up from his chair before motioning for Gillette to follow, walking over to the window overlooking the training floor. Scuttling up the walls on massive metallic legs was an Asian woman, her shaved head revealing a cybernetic node stabbed into her brain. Dropping to the floor she landed onto a second Mandroid and stabbed her tentacles into its back before throwing the suit across the room, quickly turning to face a group of holograms. Her mechanical arms stabbed through all of her targets, each one being ripped into puddles of photons gleaming on the floor.
“She calls herself Makro, which is short for Macrocheira kaempferi, or the Japanese Spider Crab. Where she got the additional arms or the cybernetics I can’t say although I do have a theory that the Tinkerer may have something to do with it. Whatever the case, she’s fast and deadly as well as trained in covert operations. For now she is somebody I can use.”
Down below the mercenaries were being forced into a tighter group as the number of sentries, holograms and automated suits of armor increased exponentially, even as the front ranks were cut down. Suddenly the attackers all shivered and collapsed or dissipated as the hall lit up and Crossfire’s face appeared on the walls and floor.
“You have all done well,” the multiple faces announced. “I am not easily impressed but I will make an exception for your exploits. Pack your gear and meet me outside in five minutes. But bare this in mind: disappoint me and I will make your worst nightmares come true.” The image suddenly vanished and a hole in the wall appeared, the passage lined with emergency lighting, glinting like teeth in a long hellish maw.
“Oh shit,” Daniels announced as the group moved towards the exit. “Now we really have stepped in the crap.”
TO BE CONCLUDED...