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Fasten Your Seatbelts; [Closed; Three Shot]
Topic Started: Jun 1 2012, 06:10 AM (340 Views)
Basswave
Unregistered

May 18th
2:00 AM




This was too much.

In the dark of her office, she shook her head as she strained over piles and piles of folders, documents, this that and the other thing. Her computer screen was filled with tabs upon tabs of video files, of phone-recordings, everything. What the hell was going on?

The release of that information about Project Hope, that might have just been a killing blow to everything they did. Their backers were pulling out left and right, sanctions being lifted against them, and, the community here at home had of course been less than receptive. And this whole shit-storm had only been one thing, one cloud out of a hurricane. Missing shipments, criss-crossed wires, industrial sabotage, records-tampering. Somebody was doing an awfully good job of making them look like amateurs, like scandalous liars and everything they were not.

And it all started with that god-damned unregistered bit of research in Nepal.

It wasn’t Purifiers, that much she could tell. Not proud, she’d called in a favor from a few high-places that she had knowledge of through certain benefactors. Nothing came back, and that was worrisome. That brought her step and again closer to thinking that this was some sort of inside job. And if it was, she damn well wasn’t about to waste time hoping it wasn’t. She sat there, going over background checks. Nothing stood out. Letting out a sigh of frustration, she stood to get a stretch and something to drink. The only people present at this hour were security and janitorial, and every time she wandered by one of them she got the “Go Home” lecture. Maybe she’d skip the vending machines and just get to the water cooler on this floor.

Stepping out of her office, she stopped there, briefly, turning her head to look out of the building’s glass façade at the neighborhood that was quickly growing into something she just didn’t recognize any more.

Then a sound.

She turned, expecting to see Kidds from custodial or one of the security guards. Nothing.

“Hello?”

The building was mostly empty, this late at night. That was good. There was no record of its arrival, and there wasn't going to be one. Avoiding the skeleton staff, and the security hallway-mounted cameras, was trivial. It knew all of their routes, knew where they were right this moment. It knew all the hidden ways, all the unmonitored routes, all the corners where the cameras just didn't reach. It had studied them carefully. In some cases, it had made certain they wouldn't reach. All of which meant that when it finally reached Basswave's office, there would be no eyes to see what happened between them, no ears to hear. None but Basswave's, that is, and soon that would hardly matter.

The original plan had been to let her continue to run the show while it all collapsed around her, and it had worked, for a while. Sabotage, crossed signals, confusion, untimely revelation... that was their way, at least for now. That was the job. But she was becoming suspicious, and it was time to take more active measures.

"Good evening," it hissed. It was no longer wearing the form it had adopted for infiltration; the time for disguise was not yet over, but this mission did not require disguise, and it wanted to see her eyes at the sight of its true face. "You're working late. Foolish choice."

She was confused. She hadn't seen anyone on her second sense of sight. Nothing at all, for something to be scurrying about up here, or for several floors for that matter, it would have had to have been something really small, a mouse or something. Oh great. Pests on top of everything else.

She now regretted not having the lights on, but that hardly mattered. Her eyes flashed a brief dull green glow as the building around her shot into her mind's eye. Still nothing at all. "Kidds? Benny? You guys in here? Hullo?"

And then that voice hit her ears and she looked towards the source. A few feet ahead, she saw its sillhouette outlined in the dark, and she jumped. A light chuckle escaped her before it spoke up again, and the slimy sound of it's odd voiced didn't place itself among memory of anyone who worked here. Forced, unnatural. English was not this person's first language.

"Who are you?"

She reached into the pocket of her pants, jamming her thumb onto the priming device for Box's defenses, but nothing happened. Were they off?

"Oh god!" She said.

A vague outline of the thing hit her in the brain, the shape, the face, inhuman. Some sort of mutant? No, she'd have no trouble seeing the glow.

No stranger to danger, she took the chance to dart to the side, but as she moved it's shape faded from her scanning, her mutation unable to track it with so much movement.

The woman did the predictable, the obvious, the useless. Her mutant power. Her little toys. Humans put so much stock in those things. They were so proud of it all. And all of it was ultimately so very, very useless. The children of Skrullos would use it against them, strip it from them, turn it back on them. They would neutralize it all, just as Basswave's abilities and gadgets were being neutralized. Just as she herself would be neutralized.

She ran. That was wise of her; wiser than she had been so far. But not wise enough. It followed her, anticipated her movements, appeared where she did not anticipate, struck where she had no defense. A stiffened pair of fingers to the throat; a punch to the kidneys; a sweep of her legs. There was a limit to what she could dodge, block, evade; she was bound to her own rigid form. The Children of Skullos had no such limits. This was why they were superior. This was why they would prevail.

"God? Perhaps. Perhaps Skrullos will leave some of you behind to provide worship. I doubt it, however."

Whatever it was, it was fast, and she had no sort of defense against it, not with the mutation she'd come to lean on so heavily. With her scanning unable to aid in her evasion, it caught up to her, and, for a while, the training she'd gained during her years at Xavier held solid. Blocking a few hits, she through her own punch, but it went wide, and the thing's scaly hand struck her in the throat, sending her backwards choking for air.

She crawled away, trying to scream, but unable to. Staggering to her feet she was hit again, and again, and again, until once more it kicked out it's feet, sweeping her own out from under her, and she thudded to the ground, choking gasps coming out of her caving throat.

She pulled herself back towards her office, crawling into the light peering in from the window, struggling to pull herself up. If only she could reach the phone.

It considered letting her reach her phone. Not that it would do her any good if she did, of course; her calls out were monitored, controlled. But ultimately it decided not to. "Pathetic. Like all your kind. Not even sport." All it took was a kick to the base of her spine to bring her down, a smash of her skull against the floor to end her struggling, She was still barely conscious, though, and it chose to keep her that way for the final strike. "Make your peace with your creator, human," it hissed as a limb twined around her wrists, another around her ankles. "It is the last chance you will have." Then she was lifted off the ground and hurled against the window with enough force to shatter it, sending her plummeting to the ground below. Let all the residents of this so-called Mutant Town see her shattered body and know that their days were numbered.

Everything was quiet, after her head hit the desktop, she could feel the warm wet of blood trickling down her face, out from her ear, could taste it in her mouth. She didn’t realize what was happening, as she climbed in the air, as she was hurled forward. When she went through the glass, the shock of it didn’t even register; those windows were made to withstand all sorts of torment, all sorts of attack. The speed at which she must have hit was, well, it didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now. Nearly unconscious, she plummeted, the lights of the building whipping by, the only real sound the roaring rush of air. It was all so slow, and she didn’t see it coming.

There was a crack, a sickening, dead-weighted thud as she struck the ground. Red crimson painted the concrete walkway of the park set between the two buildings of the complex, her tangled form limp and lifeless in the orange-painted lamplight.

She was not awake, not alive, she felt no pain. It had been quick, the end at least. In the shadows of the park, eyes lit up, wide and bright and yellow, and as the scaled and pebbled forms moved to the body, they grinned with knife-filled smiles. Admiring their brother's work they each let out quiet hissess of laughter.

And then they vanished, one and all into the shadows, leaving that carnage and carrion evidence behind, painting the sidewalk red with blood.

She lay there in the night, and all was quiet.
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Basswave
Unregistered

May 17th
11PM
JP; Hartley and Doctor Nemesis



She watched the city lights move by in the dark, the offices were quiet. Stay late had become routine ever since that street fair, ever since the world found out their dirty little secret. She had no time. None to herself. None for Bobby, none for her folks. It was last year all over again, only this time it might cost her a job plus the jobs and livelihoods of who knew how many others. X-Corp was world-wide now but that didn't make it impervious. That global nature was still fledgling, still raw and soft and easily discounted if the right pressures and leverages were applied, and it seemed that right now, they were.

She sipped at the glass of brandy in her hand. Bobby didn't know she had it stashed here. She felt a bit guilty herself, but by now of all times it was warranted.

What did a super genius do when he was stumped on how to solve a problem? He worked on other problems and solved them instead while trying to edge closer to dealing with the big one. That system usually worked well for him, but tonight his mind just wasn’t in anything else other than the big “fuck you” X-Corp had received from one of their own. So he sat in his office, nursing a bottle of something he’d bought back in the 20’s as a graduation present to himself.

He’d never gotten around to drinking it though as his schedule had become impossibly filled; there was also the fact that getting drunk was more or less impossible thanks to the healing factor that kept him kicking even when death should have claimed him many times in the past. With bottle in hand, he got the sudden urge to take a walk around and clear his head. This walk lasted several minutes until he came upon one of the few, if only offices with lights still on; the main office. He knocked, then decided he didn’t care to wait until he was given permission, so he just opened the door. He looked at the dark liquid in the clear glass and smiled; “Great minds think alike.”


She didn't look at Bradley as he came in, shook her head. "Yeah I guess so."

She watched the lights far away, in midtown, flicker and pulse in the the night. Not long ago she'd been down that way, having dinner with her man. Those had been happier times. But she couldn't let this make her sulky and sullen. They'd get over it. They had to. It's what they did. Whoever this mole was, whatever the reasoning behind their intentions, they'd find it out and get over it and give whoever it was a kick to the curb for their troubles. Hartley took another small, calculated sip from her glass and finally turned to look at Bradley.

"You know, I spent the better part of two years fighting disease, dodging gunfire, and avoiding some seriously nasty people in some of the scuzziest, third-world shit holes there are on this planet. I've seen a friend killed, been shot, broken, beaten, I've buried good, innocent people. And none of that comes close to the hurt that someone I trusted has been lying to me for who knows how long." She shrugged. "It's like I suddenly don't know who anyone is anymore. Everything's changing and it's leaving me behind."

He walked to the window and looked out at everything below them; his eyes zooming in on people going about their nightly business. People blissfully unaware of how good their lives were, because unlike what seemed to be just about every mutant, they didn’t get the shit end of the stick. He took a seat and “hmphed” as Hartley spoke on her experiences and her feelings. When he’d said great minds, he wasn’t aware of just how much he and Ms. Lindwall had in common. Everything she’d said sounded like what he’d been experiencing since he got his powers. “Betrayal hurts so much because it’s not expected; everything else you can handle because you’re sure of what’s happening. Betrayal is always a knife in the back, and it always takes you off guard.” He took another sip and looked at her.

“Hartley, the things you just describe sound like my life when I was younger. The diseases, I’ve fought for and against the Nazi’s; I’ve even euthanized good people because they were hurt and knew that living would be more painful than just ending it.” He took another drink of his liquor. He was silent for a bit after that. “It’s not that simple. You don’t know who one person is; it just so happens that you also don’t know who that person is out of a group of people. But we can say that it has to be one of us who went to Nepal. No one else knew or had the capability to find out; unless we’ve got a powerful telepath that’s been hiding somewhere around here.”

"We'll find them. We'll find them and I am gonna crucify them." She nodded. "I have some contacts looking for them, contacts that I'm not entirely proud of having to go to, but contacts that get results." She looked to him, sipped at her drink. "That stays in here." She moved from the window behind her desk, sitting down and kicking her legs up, fixing her reading glasses on her head and opening a folder with a sigh. "I really don't know where to start though. Ed, Mitch, Moonbeam, you... Just starting anywhere means I'm going to be potentially calling good, honest people liars. It makes my stomach hurt."

She tossed the folder to the desk with a scoffing sigh. "But for what? Money? I mean if it were money they'd have hightailed it by now right? And hell, even if it were because they just didn't like what we did, you'd think they'd make that known. I want to say this is Purifiers but I honestly don't think it is, they'd have claimed responsibility by now."

She shook her head. "It's all bullshit."

He agreed with her and what she intended on doing to the traitor whenever he or she was found; she probably hadn’t meant crucify in the biblical sense, but it sure would be memorable to see someone strung up on a cross…nails through hands and feet was probably a bit too cruel for today’s standards, so he’d settle for restraints. “When we find them and get them up on it, I’ll be right by you with the lance, ready to poke some innards.” It was dark humor yes, but he was in a pretty dark mood and when you had a brain as big as his, sometimes morbid was a very real outlook. He downed another cup and poured more; it amused him how she was still so careful.

“You know by now that doctor-patient confidentiality is something I’m well versed in. And I’m not stranger to…less than credible looking contacts and associates. But like you said, they get the job done.” He leaned back in his own chair while she sat behind her desk, nodding with each name she threw out, even his. She was right; there was no way she knew who’d done it, even him. He knew his innocence, but the whole thing about being innocent was that you had to prove it to other people for it to count. “This isn’t some clear cut case of business sabotage. Whoever did this is obviously much more competent than they’ve been given credit for, and far more sinister than we anticipated. So there is no right or wrong place to start.

You’re going to try and find enough evidence to place blame rather than spouting baseless accusations. If you got it right, you’ll still have to prove it. If you get it wrong, the true culprit knows to be more careful and catching them gets a little bit harder.” Half of his cup was emptied in a moment. “No one’s coming out of this without hurt feelings, but you are in charge, so you have to handle this situation as the person in charge, not as Hartley, but as Ms. Lindwall. You’ve got to make the tough choices and live with them, because it’s your job.” Another gulp and the rest was gone…most of his bottle was empty by now. “I can’t even begin to guess a motive, but I highly doubt the Purifiers; they’re too proud of their work.” He signed and poured yet another one. “Agreed. Bullshit to the highest degree, but we’re the ones neck deep in it and we’re the ones who have to pull ourselves out.”

Nemesis assured her that she could keep her trust in him in good faith, but the fact of the matter was that now, she didn't know who to trust. Of course, there was no real apparent motive for Nemesis to be the culprit, but then nobody had any real obvious on to turn traitor, not in her team. But so long as the source remained anonymous, so long as nobody owned up, it was all up in the air. What they said about not knowing be the worst. That was applicable and true now more than ever. it tore her up.

She drained the glass, and looking over her feet to Nemesis she sighed again. "We'll find out who this was and fix this. Rao is off in DC giving a statement tomorrow to the Senate Health and Sciences committee. That should help lessen some of the stress. When she gets back though, I want you to have a talk with her. Make sure she doesn't have any other skeletons that need airing."

His mind kept turning in circles, trying to come up with rhyme or reason for one of their own to do this. He could find none, absolutely none at all. No matter who he thought of, what they were capable of, what they could do, their past…nothing. He was slamming his head into a wall repeatedly and getting nowhere, but there was nothing he could do except keep it up until he finally got through. He looked her in her eyes and listened; Kavita was taking a bit of the pressure off…not all, but any would help. “Understood. If she’ll open up to anyone, it’s me. And of course we’ll find who did this; we have no choice in the matter, now do we?”

She gave him a nod before standing and crossing the room to him, taking his bottle and filling her glass with the rest of it before clinking her glass into his. "So we agree. We'll get them." She nodded and held up her glass. "To justice, huh? Or something like it." She downed the rest of it and looked back to the window, to the city that never slept. "You know I'd give just about anything to not be here right now. I got a guy out there who is a lot more comfortable to sleep on top of than a futon." She huffed, a bit embarassed by the moment of levity and openness before moving back to her desk. "You should get going. I don't pay you past eight anyway." She laughed, slumping into her chair.

Like he needed her money.

"Still... Doc. Thanks. For everything you're doing here."

Their glasses clanked and they held them up; a toast to some ideal or standard they had to uphold while they solved this thing, lest they lose themselves in the process. She said to justice, or something similar; he smiled and cocked his head to the side. “I usually say science.” After her he guzzled the remains of his liquor and put the cup back on the desk top. He chuckled when she basically told him of her and Bobby’s bed time habits; sleeping on top of someone was bad for your back though.

“Is he, really? Sleeping on ice can’t be pleasant at all.” It was a bit of a joke to keep things light; keep them playful in the face of a very serious crisis. She went back to her desk and gave him the okay to go home; he could have done so hours ago if he’d felt like it. He didn’t then and he almost didn’t now, but he was just so tired…maybe some warm milk and Schindler’s List? That could put him to sleep.

“Alright; I’ll be here bright and early though. And don’t mention it.” He walked to the door and left, closing it behind him; then he opened it back up and peeked his head in. “Seriously. Don’t mention it to anyone. I have a reputation to protect.” He smiled, nodded his head and went to lock up. A tune came to him as he walked. “That’s life, that’s what they say. You’re riding high in April; shot down in May. But I know I’m gonna change their tune, when I’m right back on top in June.”

She moved to her door, sliding it closed, hearing him humming as he left. "Sinatra? Ya old fart I knew I liked you for a reason." She called after.

She loved that song.

She moved back to her desk and sat down, picking up that file folder, unaware that despite Bradley's departure she was still not alone.
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