| Stories # - L | M - Z | Authors
Review this story
To the Victor…
Tog sat in
the day room waiting to hear from Ent and Mourning. They were
escorting Justine to where she had hidden the evidence she talked about.
Athena’s voice roused him from his thoughts. “Tog, you
have a telephone call.” “I’ll take it
in here. Thanks.” He picked up
the phone and his mood changed considerably. “Wow! It’s
great to hear from you. Yeah, we’re in the same place.
I’m actually a captain here now. How are things in your
part of the world? Really? Yes, of course we’ve got
a spot for you. When would you be coming in? Great, I’ll meet you
at the airport.” “Good news?”
asked Lista, who had walked in just as he took the call. “Yup, you are
finally going to meet someone from my checkered past.” “Cool, are
they hot?” “In an
awkward teen phase sort of way, I guess.” “Pfft.” A flash from
the telepad in the room signaled the return of Mourning
Angel. “We got
burned,” said Mourning. “She
lied?” “I don’t
think so. Someone found her drive, reformatted it, then filled it
completely with silly little graphics to overwrite the memory. I
brought her back here, and Ent went to get some things from her place.
Whatever was on that drive is gone. I think they’re
probably onto her now too.” “Dammit!” I thought we
had something that time. Today was actually looking up
too.” Tog stormed out of the room leaving Mourning alone with
Lista. “Hey, Lis,
you got a minute for some girl talk?” “Always.” “I think I’m
ready. You know? With Beau. I’ve done
a lot of reading on it so I know what to expect, but I’m still really
scared. Any advice?” “Tons!
Okay what do feel comfortable trying?” Before
Mourning could do more than blush they were interrupted by Athena telling Lista
she had a phone call. As she hung up, she told Mourning that she
was sorry and that she’d be back in a while. Something had come
up. ~~~~~ Lista landed
on the ledge outside Marcus’ office in “This is no
time to be copping a feel, where is “I was
contacted by a woman named Mrs. Donnovan. She said “It was three
words. Where. Is. “I’ve missed
you too. “And you just
call me now?” “He contacted
me a few days ago to see if I could get in touch with you. When he
was sure I could, he sent me a package to be given to you. It
arrived about 2 minutes before I called you. You suck at
waiting.” “Oh.
What’s in it?” “Not a
clue.” Lista opened
the package and Marcus watched as her eyes grew wide. She keyed
her radio and waited for a response. “Tog?
We need to get an escort team over to Marcus’ office right away.
He’ll fill you in.” She turned
back to Marcus. “I’ve got to go. Read this.
Don’t let anyone in here until Tog and the others get here, then go back
to the Harbor with them. This is why Marcus nodded
as she dove out of the window, then picked up the papers and began to
read. Ms. Monet, or whatever name you go
by, You know me as Davis, the Once the police had left the house, I
began to clean up Mr. Devon’s office. In doing so, I found a
compartment hidden in his desk. Inside that compartment was a
compact disk that contained the back up of the file that he was passing out to
the other guests. By the time I looked at it, I realized that
there was no one at the house that weekend that I could really
trust. Having worked for a few families of
influence in the past, I was able to arrange for a fictitious death and moved
back to Mrs. Forsythe seems to be exactly who
she appears. A self-serving, cruel woman who cares far more about
her position and influence than she does any form of
justice. Senator and Mrs. Wilson cannot be
trusted. Their activities after they left the house were normal
enough, but he seems to be too easily manipulated, and she seems all too happy
to control him. Mr. Abernathy is obviously
suspect. Even if he had no real knowledge of what was happening,
or his wife’s involvement, he is far too close to the
events. Mr. Hastings is missing.
Even if I could locate him, I don’t think I could trust him.
The terms under which he left the Royal Army, and his utter ineptitude
while serving Mr. Devon, force me to wonder if he might not have been involved
in some way. Mr. Gauthier came up quite ahead of
the pack once the events at his hotel, and his role in them, came to
light. You, my dear, were the only one other
than Mr. Gauthier that I really felt I could trust, and that was only after
seeing you appear in full costume at a press conference for some hero school
that Mr. Gauthier is sponsoring. Of the two, you seem to be in a
much better position to actually get the matter sorted. Since I am
not privy to your chosen name, I took what I now feel is a minimal risk in
contacting Mr. Gauthier in the hope that he may still be on good terms with
you. Here, then, is the file that the four
of them were to have been shown that night. God be with
you, Charles
Davis Attached to
the letter was the report that was to be handed out to Marcus and the others so
many months ago at the house on the lake. Starting in May of 2004, I enlisted a
private investigator to do some digging on some rivals. This
included the tapping of phone lines. While I did get some useful
information from a few of these taps, I also found something much more
sinister. Because these taps were not exactly legal, I don’t think
these recordings can be used as evidence. For that reason, I am
letting the four of you know just what was said. I chose you,
because you were all named in some way that indicated you were being
used. You were to be involved in something that I’m trusting you
did not know about. I’m passing this on in the hopes that you will
be able to stop this plan on each of your ends. Results from the wire tap on the
office phones of Mr. Reginald Danforth. Report submitted Date: Time: 1838 Subjects: Reginald Danforth (RD),
Unknown ( RD: It’s me. RD: Things are going well.
The code is in place, and working perfectly. The test on
Gauthier’s poker game should come off without a hitch. RD: Good. It’s looking
like this will go smoother than we planned. You sure you don’t
want to be my running mate? UK: I have a head for politics, not a
face for them. Until your next report. Call terminated at Date Time: 1837 Subjects: Reginald Danforth (RD) and
Unknown ( RD: It’s me. RD: It’s looking good.
We’re getting almost as much out as is going in. Look for
synthetic chlorophyll powered vehicles to complete federal testing sometime next
year. Once we have the… did you hear that? Some kind
of static on the line. Recording terminated 1837 due to
extreme potential for discovery. Date Time: 1837 Subjects: Reginald Danforth (RD) and
Unknown ( RD: It’s me. Good news
from the R and D front. We’ve managed to get a mole into
Abernathy’s operation and he says there will be no problem at all in setting up
some backdoor access through the BIOS on the new machines being sent to the
feds. RD: Yeah. Thompkins’
staff is too tight to get anyone in, but Wilson has a spot open.
It’s a typist position, so we’ll be able to get some really good
information from them. RD: Not a
problem. Call terminated at 1838.
Traced to Paragon City. Date Time: 1845 Subjects: Reginald Danforth (RD) and
Unknown ( RD: It’s me. RD: I had a
tail. RD: My staff got it
handled. RD: We’ve got the plant all lined
up. How are things on your end? Call Terminated at 1846.
Traced to Galaxy City area of Paragon City. Date Time: 1837 Subjects: Reginald Danforth (RD) and
Unknown ( RD: It’s me. We’re all
set on this end. When do you want the meetings to take
place?” RD: No
problem. Call Terminated at 1837.
Traced to Constellation Way in Galaxy City. Date: Time: 1343 Subjects: Danforth (RD) and Unknown
( RD: It’s me. RD: Not at all.
Everything is arranged and will be handled next weekend.
I’m also getting worried about a rise in hero activity around
here. I think I’d feel better if I were to have my data backed up
at your location and my system purged. RD: I do. There are some
local gangs active in the area that are attracting a lot of attention to this
office. I’d hate to have this operation discovered by some stupid
hero barging in to save me from some petty threat. RD: I’ll be
ready. Call terminated at 1344.
Trace complete. Destination confirmed as Shipping Office,
Warehouse 8, As I trust you can all see, some
unknown groups is attempting to either use your services or infiltrate your
offices for something far more sinister than just turning a
buck. Now that you’ve all had a change to
read the transcript for yourselves, I’d like to go over some Ideas I have to
stop them. Marcus gave a low
whistle and set down the report. ~~~~~ Lista arrived
at warehouse 8 just as the sun dipped down for the night. The
place looked abandoned and she hoped that anything moved here a year ago would
still be present. Hovering to
avoid making noise, she advanced down the hallway to the first
intersection. Ahead of her, the hallway continued.
To her left and right were large storage areas. She decided
to try the right side first. Nothing but crates. The
left side was the same. She continued up the hallway to the next
intersection. This time the right side was not
empty. ~~~~~ Tog arrived
at Marcus’ office with Sliss, HAAL, and Mourning. Tog went into
the office while the others held a position outside. “Okay,
Marcus, what’s up?” “Lis came
here to pick up a package from the butler at that house last year.
She read through the file, then told me to call you and took off.
You don’t think she’s going to do anything stupid do
you?” “No, not
stupid. Reckless and impulsive; possibly self destructive, sure,
but not stupid. She runs by herself a lot. She’s
good at it. If she gets in too deep, she’ll fall back.
I wouldn’t worry about her. For now, let’s get you back to
the Harbor.” He keyed his Radio. “Ready,
Sliss.” The office
around Marcus vanished in a flash of light. When the light faded,
he was in the train station. HAAL, was creating force fields
around him while Sliss had already left on the train to secure the next stop,
where Ent and Epim were waiting for them. ~~~~~ Lista peered
through a gap in the crates. Four robots stood in front of an
office door. None looked to be that heavily armed, but they were
still quite out of place. She readied herself for combat.
A few cleansing breaths, one last look around and she was off.
Her moment of focus boosted her power significantly, and she unleashed a
swath of frigid air at the robots. They drew what weapons they
had, but two more rapid ice blasts made that a pointless gesture for the pair on
the right. As the one on the far left fired at her, she dove
behind a crate only to pop up and freeze it solid. Three more ice
blasts put down the one remaining robot, and the fourth was taken out before it
ever had a chance to repeat its attack. As smoothly
as that went, it wasn’t smooth enough. She could hear the sound of
a great deal of activity coming from the corridor on the opposite side of the
hall. Dozens of metallic feet striking the ground in rapid
succession were headed her way. Dammit. Looks like this
is one of those running away things, she thought, and leapt into the
air. She came out of the room and into the hallway just ahead of
the advancing robots. They were all around three feet tall, and
seemed to be heavily armored and well armed. She banked hard and
accelerated down the hallway in a hail of laser fire. Just for a
moment, she ducked behind a crate and summoned an ice storm to block the
hall. It might not hurt them, or even discourage them, but there
was a chance the ice shards might refract the lasers and give her a slight
edge. As she
approached the first intersection again, her heart sank. There
before her, on both sides of the hall, were dozens more of the little
robots. Okay, this
sucks. She dropped
as low to the floor as she could, hoping they wouldn’t fire if there was a
chance they could hit each other. Or maybe they would hit each
other and take some of them out of the fight. This hope quickly
vanished when she saw them aim for a spot between the ones on the opposite side
and fire a set of bursts that blocked the hall completely.
Fire
lanes? Seriously? She pulled up
hard and began to use every evasive move she could think of as the flashes of
light pulsed around her, hissing as they vaporized what little water was in the
air. How the
hell did I make it thorough that? There was now
only one long hall between her and the door. A quick glance behind
her showed the robots in pursuit, but not firing. She had just
begun to think it was odd when she felt the skin on her fingers split in several
places. This was followed by her arms folding in and a similar
sensation of the skin splitting on her face and shoulders.
She had hit
something. Something hard to see, something that wasn’t there
moments before. Her speed
slowed as she strained against whatever was in her path, until there was a
sudden release of pressure in front of her and a loud metallic snap.
She lurched forward one last time and collapsed to the floor, trapped in
a fine wire mesh net. The net was
designed in a way that when something hit it with enough speed, the frame would
collapse on its hinges at the corners and midpoints, closing around the subject
before they had a chance to fully stop. The tips of two of the
arms were powerful magnets that held the arms shut against all but the strongest
of heroes. The mesh was made of a fine wire made from some alloy
with a very high tensile strength. Some may have been able to get
thorough it, but Lista was stopped dead. She took all
of this in very quickly and formed a plan that just might get her out, but
before she could begin, a sudden pressure in her leg and the dull thud of an
impact distracted her. She looked down to see a large dart in her
thigh, and feel a slight burning sensation spreading up her leg.
The burning soon turned to a cold numbness and the dart blurred away to
blackness. ~~~~~
|