THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLARS

Part I

By Wesley Overhults

Somewhere in New York City

Jeanne Foucault carefully and meticulously surveyed her surroundings with eyes that took in every last detail of the condemned warehouse. In her years spent as an international thief, Finesse always paid attention to detail. She researched her heists and her clients more than any other thief she ever encountered, using all that information to pull off jobs with the precision that would make a Swiss watchmaker jealous. Finesse didn’t make mistakes, mostly because of her innate ability to rapidly learn skills and information. She was the best around but the fact that she knew next to nothing about her current client made her a little hesitant to hear his proposal. Still, the money he offered was good enough for Finesse to at least hear the man out. Why he chose the rather shoddy accommodations for their first meeting was a question Finesse kept asking herself. Judging by the level of dust and grime on the warehouse, she would need to take a shower once she found a suitable place to sleep for the evening.

“Your tardiness isn’t enhancing your mystique,” she declared to the empty warehouse. “I get it, you’re a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Very boring if you ask me. Let’s just get this over with before my allergies really start acting up. Trust me, I won’t be as jovial then.”

Finesse saw someone step out of the shadows and assumed it was her client, the man who had only introduced himself as “Fagin” when he contacted her about the job. The man, or rather the young man, before her couldn’t have been him though. Finesse judged the person before her as a man in his early twenties, perhaps late teens if she was feeling generous towards him, and Fagin sounded much older when he contacted her. So if this man wasn’t Fagin then who exactly was he?

“Guess you’re not the guy who called me,” said the boy, extending his hand towards Finesse. “My name’s Henry Sledge.”

“Finesse,” replied the girl, staring at his hand as if Henry had made some sort of foreign gesture to her that she was unfamiliar with. “I guess it’s true what they say, everything is bigger in Texas.”

Henry chuckled lightly and nodded. Though he was a native Texan, Henry hadn’t been there in years. It took a keen ear to really pick up his subdued accent though it did make its presence known on certain occasions. Henry had a very checkered past, drifting in and out of foster homes almost since the day he was born. He always found himself in trouble with the law, often involved in various altercations with individuals of less-than-stellar character. Physically speaking, he was bigger than a lot of twenty-one-year-olds. His intimidating size as well as his superhuman ability to absorb and mimic the properties of any material he touched made being a mob enforcer the perfect line of work for him. Henry never really saw himself as that guy though. He broke a few legs for a low-rent gangster down in Texas before seeking his fortunes elsewhere. His search for a new life led him to New York where he thought he could start over. The call from Fagin was too tempting though. Henry would be a fool not to take that kind of cash.

“Fagin didn’t say this would be a two-person job,” admitted Henry.

“I work alone,” emphasized Finesse. “Where is our man of the hour anyway? He and I need to have a few words. I hope he doesn’t mind that I sometimes enjoy talking with my fists.”

“Used to break legs for a guy down in Texas,” said Henry. “Trust me, I know how to have that kinda conversation.”

“What I do is art,” corrected Finesse, quickly making a distinction between her profession and the one Henry seemed to belong to. “What you do is brutish and only slightly above the level of behavior I would expect from a gorilla.”

Henry was about to make a comment when he heard a noise. It sounded like running water but the water in the warehouse had long ago ceased its movement. It was too loud though, too violent. It sounded like someone had squeezed a tsunami into the water pipes and the pipes were starting to protest. Finesse noticed it too and swept the room with her gaze to determine its source. Both of them soon learned that it was coming from everywhere as previously dormant water pipes came to life, their contents bursting out in all directions. Henry automatically moved to shield Finesse from the sprays of water, an action Finesse simply ignored. The water coalesced into human form, swirling through the air before landing right in front of them with a splash.

“Ta da!” declared a young boy, looking up at the ceiling and basking in the imaginary cheers from his equally imaginary fans. “So what’s this offer you said you . . .”

Frankie Jensen cut off his sentence midway through when he finally looked at his two spectators. Finesse muttered something in French, most likely swearing, while shaking the water out of her short, black hair. Frankie was used to that. Since he discovered his hydrokinetic abilities, Frankie found that there was virtually no place he couldn’t slip into or out of at will. These abilities allowed for him to be a very good thief though until now his crimes were mostly petty. He stuck to robbing convenience stores, neighborhood markets, that sort of thing. He always made sure he never got caught and always made sure he bought only the nicest of things with his earnings. What good was having a lot of money if you didn’t use it to indulge in the finer things of life? A waste in Frankie’s mind but he also longed for more. This man Fagin said he had a job for Frankie, a job that could be the biggest score of the young seventeen-year-old’s life if he succeeded.

“Was that necessary?” inquired Finesse, giving Frankie a glare that could wilt lesser men but one that Frankie was accustomed to.

“Style is always necessary,” replied Frankie. “Frankie Jensen, wunderkind of thieves. And you would be who?”

“Not impressed,” answered the girl. “I highly doubt your meager résumé is comparable to mine.”

“She’s Finesse and I’m Henry,” greeted Henry. “It looks like all three of us were contacted by the same person so I guess we’ll be working together on this job.”

“My apologies about the confusion,” spoke up an unknown voice. “I know the three of you are mostly used to working alone so I was hesitant about mentioning the need for a group.”

“No, you decided to be vague for no apparent reason,” retorted Finesse. “I assume you’re Fagin and if you are then you need to hurry up and explain what you want us to do. You’ve already wasted enough of my time for one night.”

Fagin smirked at Finesse, knowing for a fact that there was virtually nothing she could do to really intimidate him. He had selected these three individuals not only for their special skills but also because of the fact that they were essentially harmless from his view. They were good at what they did, Fagin didn’t question that, but if the job went south then Fagin wasn’t concerned about them coming after him. They were easy to control and Fagin liked that in potential employees.

“I need the three of you to acquire some computer files for me,” said Fagin, pulling a folder full of documents from his coat. “Breaking into the building where they’re kept won’t be very easy, almost impossible for any one person to accomplish. That’s why I had to hire the three of you.”

“There hasn’t been a place built that I can’t get into,” boasted Frankie. “You should’ve just hired me instead of these other two. Would’ve saved you some money.”

“Your target is the SHIELD Helicarrier,” said Fagin, ignoring Frankie’s bravado. “Somewhere in its computer systems is a group of files called the Caterpillar List. I work for someone who’s very interested in gaining copies of these files. Still think this is going to be easy?”

“You must be crazy,” said Henry. “There’s no way we can get into that place. Nobody breaks into that place.”

“Then you’ll just have to be the first,” decided Fagin. “That’s all the information on the Helicarrier including blueprints, duty rosters, schematics of their security system, fake identification cards, everything. There’s a flash drive in there too. Figure out a way in, get the Caterpillar List on the flash drive, and then get out without being caught. Deliver the list to me and you each get the sum of money we agreed upon.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of money,” commented Frankie.

“It’s a hell of a job,” reminded Henry.

“It’s worth it,” decided Finesse. “I won’t speak for everyone, Fagin, but I’m in.”

The two boys only nodded their agreement, all three of the thieves looking at the contents of the folder Fagin had handed them. Just as Fagin said, everything they would need was in there. None of them knew exactly how Fagin got all of that information but they weren’t going to question it at this point.

“There’s a suite at a nearby hotel booked for you,” said Fagin. “You have until tomorrow night to come up with a plan. Get it done, kids.”

With that Fagin turned and walked out of the warehouse, leaving the three young people to strategize. The three thieves looked at one another and then back to the open folder. This was almost too insane to be true. Were they really good enough to break into the SHIELD Helicarrier and steal these files? Apparently someone thought so but all of them still had doubts about it.

“We should get to the suite and plan this out,” decided Henry.

“Probably only two beds,” mentioned Frankie, looking at Finesse. “You wanna share?”

“If I had my way, you’d sleep in the bathtub,” retorted Finesse, taking the folder full of documents and making her way out of the warehouse. “Come on, you two. Time is money.”

“She’s something isn’t she?” asked Frankie as he watched Finesse leave.

“We’re all something,” replied Henry. “And I don’t think any of it is good.”

Below the SHIELD Helicarrier
The Next Night

“You really think this’ll work?”

Finesse rolled her eyes at Henry’s question as the two of them waited for their shuttle. The fake IDs Fagin had provided them said that they were members of the cleaning staff. In a place the size of the Helicarrier, no one was expected to learn all the members of the janitorial staff by sight so it would be easy to slip in via that obscurity. All they had to do was wait with the other members of the cleaning staff for the shuttle that would take them up to the Helicarrier.

“Only one way to find out,” said Finesse in response as the shuttle touched down and they boarded it along with the rest of their “co-workers.”

Henry was trying to keep his composure but he was still nervous. He had never been involved in anything this big before. He was just some low-rent thug, not a master thief. He couldn’t really figure out why Fagin had hired him in the first place but he was here now and it was time for him to earn his money.

“Haven’t heard a word out of Frankie,” said Henry, gesturing to the bottle of water he was holding in his hand. “Something tells me that’s not like him at all.”

“The quieter he is, the better off we’ll all be,” replied Finesse. “Take his cue and shut up. We’re about to come aboard.”

The shuttle docked with the Helicarrier and the cleaning crew stepped onto the mammoth hunk of floating metal. Neither Finesse nor Henry had been aboard the Helicarrier before. The sheer size of it was daunting and the fact that it was crawling with tons of secret agents didn’t do anything to ease Henry’s nerves. Finesse, on the other hand, was characteristically nonplussed by the Helicarrier just like she was with everything else. With all the time and effort they had put into coordinating this scheme on such short notice, she wasn’t as confident as she usually was when she was on a job. Of course she wasn’t going to show that in the slightest. Weakness was bad for business in her humble opinion.

The two of them separated from one another as per their plan. Henry walked into the nearest bathroom after grabbing a wet mop and a bucket from the supply closet. Once he was inside, he opened the top of his water bottle and watched as Frankie flowed out of its plastic confines, splashing out all over the floor before reforming himself and turning human.

“It was starting to get a little cramped in there,” he admitted, stretching his arms and checking to make sure everything was in working order. “What’s your deal anyway? I mean I know what I can do and I can see what the girl can do but what the hell do you do?”

“I’m the muscle,” replied Henry simply. “That plus I’m pretty versatile.”

As he spoke, Henry turned on the sink and then stuck his hand into the stream of water. Frankie grinned from ear to ear as Henry absorbed and mimicked the properties of the water, making him just like his partner in crime. Henry looked at his watery hand, turning it over and watching the liquid churn. Assuming a new form was always weird to him, like he was slipping into a skin that wasn’t his. He didn’t make a habit of absorbing things that weren’t solid but he had seen how mobile Frankie could be and he knew having that mobility on a job like this was never a bad thing. It would make it easier to get into and out of the places they needed to be.

“I never realized how cool I looked,” commented Frankie before slipping into his own water form. “We need some cool names like what Finesse has.”

“You think so?” asked Henry.

“Definitely,” decided Frankie. “I’m going with Wipeout. You?”

“Composite,” replied Henry. “Let’s move. I can’t hang onto a form for very long before I go back to being human. Finesse is supposed to be waiting for us at the main computer terminal but we have to get the keycard first.”

“You go down to the computer hub to meet her and I’ll get the key,” promised Wipeout before pouring himself into the pipes via the sink.

Composite nodded before doing the same thing. He felt himself shoot through the pipes and followed on Wipeout’s heels until he found the right connection that would take him further down. He tried to remember the precise layout of the Helicarrier’s water system and all the various twists and turns he needed in order to get where he wanted to be. In the end, Composite had to guess and his departure from the plumbing system put him in a broom closet somewhere close to the main computer hub. He came out of the pipes through the sprinkler system and reverted to human form seconds afterward. The young spy cautiously cracked open the door and checked to make sure he was in the right location. It was more or less where he wanted to be and he was still wearing his janitor uniform so he casually sauntered out of the broom closet and made his way down the hall. He arched his eyebrow as he heard some weird noises up ahead. There was the unmistakable thump and smack of blows being exchanged and it made his heart start to race.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked as he saw Finesse finish taking down the guard.

“You’re late and I got bored,” she retorted once she was done with her work. “Jesus, do you two morons not wear a watch? We planned this whole thing down to the second. I already managed to get into the surveillance room and set up a stream loop so the cameras are blind to us. What were you two doing?”

Composite didn’t answer that question. He just nervously motioned to the guard who was still conscious. Finesse cursed in French and then grabbed the man’s hand before he could reach the alarm. She broke a few of his fingers in a swift, easy motion before kicking him in the jaw and finally taking him out. She couldn’t believe she had been so sloppy that they almost got caught. She resolved that she was never going to work with people again if they were going to throw her off her game like this. She had gone her entire criminal career without getting caught, without making a mistake, and she didn’t plan on breaking that habit now when she was involved in the biggest heist of her life.

“Wipeout is getting us the keycard,” informed Composite.

“You two were thinking up codenames while I was working,” realized Finesse. “How typical of guys. So what’s yours then?”

“Composite,” replied Henry.

“Because ‘Absorbing Man’ is already taken?” retorted Finesse with a smirk. “Yeah, I know what you can do. I make it my business to know everything so don’t act so surprised.”

“Working with you is quite an experience,” commented her companion.

“So it would seem,” she said in response. “Now we just have to wait for that idiot to sneak into the right room and get us our keycard.”

Wipeout came out of the piping system in someone’s bathroom. He looked around to make sure he was in the right room before opening the door and peeking into the bedroom on the other side. Having memorized the duty roster, he knew that Daisy Johnson would be in bed for the rest of the night. That meant that all he had to do was steal her keycard and slip back into the pipes to get to where Composite and Finesse were.

“Maybe take a little souvenir too,” he whispered to himself as he caught sight of Daisy. “Business first though.”

He crept across the room and examined the uniform hanging in the closet. He ran his hand along every inch of it, looking for any sort of hidden pocket. Where the hell did people keep their wallets in these things anyway? Frankie didn’t think of Daisy as the type of girl to carry a purse with her, much less given her occupation. He couldn’t find anything though so he decided it must be somewhere else in the room. He turned his attention to her bedside table and that’s when he saw her wallet lying open on it. Getting to it was going to put him closer to her than he wanted though. No risk, no reward in Wipeout’s eyes and it was this thought that spurred him onward. He reached out and closed his fingers around the wallet. Daisy momentarily stirred rolling over in Wipeout’s direction and the movement made him unconsciously flinch. He stood completely still for a moment to make sure she was still asleep. When he was satisfied that she still was, he lifted the wallet off the table and then rummaged around in it for the keycard.

“Gotcha,” he muttered as he pulled out what he wanted and then put the wallet back on the nightstand. “Be seeing you, pretty lady.”

Wipeout snuck back to the bathroom then turned back into his water form, slipping through the pipes with the keycard still in his grasp. He came out of the pipes through the same sprinkler system that Composite had used moments before. He whistled a tune as he walked down the hall, turning the corner to find his two teammates standing there waiting for him.

“If this thing is too soaked to work then I will find a way to break every bone in your body,” warned Finesse after taking the keycard from Wipeout. “You two also have no sense of urgency or timing. We need to hurry this along.”

“I’ll take that as a thank you,” replied Wipeout.

“Finally,” said Finesse as she got the slightly damp keycard to work and they made their way into the main computer room. “Composite, you keep an eye on the door and make sure nobody comes in unannounced. Wipeout, you come in with me and watch my back for anything else.”

Satisfied with her orders and not wanting to hear any of Frankie’s retorts, Finesse led the way into the room and took a seat at the terminal. She swiped the stolen keycard through the computer’s reader and gave the screen a satisfied smirk when it acknowledged her as Daisy Johnson. She began searching the database for the Caterpillar List while pulling the flash drive Fagin gave them from the belt she wore. She plugged the drive into the USB port on the computer and began copying the entire Caterpillar List onto it.

“What is this list anyway?” asked Wipeout as he looked over Finesse’s shoulder. “Just looks like a bunch of files on random people.”

“They all have a caterpillar tag on them because they’re descendents of heroes or villains,” realized Finesse as she took the time to actually read the files while they were downloading. “SHIELD is keeping an eye on them, tapping them as future recruits in case of serious emergencies.”

“Am I the only one who finds it creepy that Fagin wants a list of kids?” asked Wipeout.

“I don’t really have time to care about you and what you think,” said Finesse as she noticed something very disturbing. “This thing isn’t just a flash drive. There’s a program running on it that’s giving someone else full access to the mainframe. We’re being set up to take the fall while Fagin or whoever else gets a copy of the list.”

Finesse’s irritation soon turned into fear when she realized that the other hacker, whoever it was, wasn’t just downloading the Caterpillar List, they were also erasing it from SHIELD’s mainframe. The only thing Finesse could think to do in order to stop it was trip the system’s emergency protocols and lock everyone, including authorized personnel, out of the mainframe. She furiously began typing and executed the security breach as quickly as she could. The system’s firewalls reacted to the breach and did exactly what they were designed to do. The whole mainframe went into lockdown mode and everyone was completely shut out. Unfortunately, it also set off every emergency alarm in the Helicarrier, leaving the three young people sitting in the middle of a nest of very angry hornets.

“That can’t be good,” realized Composite as he saw the red lights flash and heard the claxons blare at full force. “What the hell did you two do?”

“I’m innocent,” declared Wipeout.

“Hardly,” retorted Finesse, disconnecting the flash drive and then hastily moving for the exit. “We need to get the hell out of here before we’re caught. Someone else was in the system with us and I had to trip all the emergency protocols to get them out. We’re completely blown so we need to leave.”

“Far be it for me to disagree with a pretty girl,” said Wipeout, turning into water and zipping down the hallway as fast as he could.

Composite ran after him while Finesse was the last one out. They didn’t have any clue as to where they were going, only that they were following Wipeout. They careened through the labyrinth of corridors that made up the Helicarrier, trying desperately to find an exit. They managed to make it into an open area and then realized that they had only boxed themselves into a corner. A couple dozen SHIELD agents all trained their weapons on the three would-be thieves and prepared to fire in case any of them should make a move.

“I think you have something that belongs to me,” said Daisy Johnson as she approached the trio. “I’d like it back and I’d also like to know what the hell is going on here.”

“If you’d like your key back, you’re welcome to come get it,” warned Finesse, holding out the keycard and daring the agent codenamed “Quake” to make her move.

“Do your thing and make us a hole,” ordered Wipeout, looking to Composite.

Henry nodded and touched the metal floor, absorbing its properties before running towards the hoard of SHIELD agents. Quake sidestepped Composite’s charge even as the bullets from the agents’ guns bounced off his metallic skin. Henry managed to knock most of them aside and sent the rest of them that were still conscious backing up to gain better ground. Finesse took this as her opportunity to leap into the fray, displaying her vast array of martial arts knowledge in the form of crippling strikes that took down the remaining agents. Wipeout unleashed streams of water from his hands, the blasts acting like fire hoses and throwing everyone backwards. The three thieves were almost in the clear until the floor began to shake.

Quake jumped onto Composite’s back and clapped her hands against the sides of his head, sending powerful vibrations through his metallic ear canals that rattled his brain and knocked him to the ground. Daisy turned and threw up a vibration barrier that stopped an incoming water jet from even touching her. She sent vibrations through the floor that knocked Finesse off her feet and sent Wipeout hurling backwards.

“Yes, I’d like my key back,” said Quake, putting her foot on Finesse’s hand while bending down and picking up her keycard.

Wipeout and Composite saw that one of their own was in SHIELD custody and tried to figure out what to do. At this point, the mission was completely out the window and all their timing and scheming was wasted. They were flying completely blind and they needed to figure out a plan quickly or all of them were going to wind up behind bars. Faced with that option, Wipeout did the only sensible thing he could do.

“Screw this, I’m out,” he said before heading for the water pipes.

Composite cursed under his breath and chased after Frankie, managing to get a few fingertips on the water that was his body. That water then became Composite’s body as well and the two of them entered the piping system and shot towards the exit. They sloshed around the Helicarrier until finally coming out of an exit tunnel and heading towards the ground below. Finesse, however, wasn’t so lucky. She grabbed Quake’s ankle and tripped her up but by the time Jeanne got to her feet, she had guns pointing at her from all directions. She was arrogant and overconfident but she wasn’t stupid enough to think she could take out all the agents, especially if she gave Quake enough time to work up another round of vibrations. It was best to cut her losses and surrender.

“Tell me what you were doing in our computer system,” ordered Quake even as Finesse held up her hands in surrender.

“We were hired by a man named Fagin to steal the Caterpillar List,” replied Finesse. “Believe it or not, that’s not your biggest problem. Until I stopped them, somebody else was succeeding wildly at exactly the same task. So now someone out there, probably Fagin, has at least a partial copy of the list, maybe a full one. The question now is: what’re you going to do about it?”

NEXT: Quake and Finesse go Caterpillar hunting while Wipeout and Composite go hunting for Fagin!