INGLORIOUS BASTARDS

Part III

By Wesley Overhults

SHIELD Helicarrier

“Genetech is officially off limits,” stated Composite as he came out of Quake’s office and looked at the rest of his team.  “Why do I get the feeling that we got played big time?”

“Because that apparently happens every time we come in contact with Fagin,” answered Finesse, her fingers absently grazing the stitches across her stomach from where Ana Kravinoff had cut her with her hunting knives.  “Now we know that he’s working for this new player but we don’t know anything about him.”

“He seems to have assembled quite the hit squad,” noted Requiem.  “Some of them were people that we’ve encountered before, which leads me to suspect that ‘Mr. Helix’ has been pulling the strings this whole time.”

“Well it’s time we started getting ahead of him instead of playing catch up,” decided Finesse as she took off down the hall.

“What part of ‘off limits’ do you not understand?” asked Composite as he and the others trailed after her.  “We got played again and now it’s over.”

“It’s not over until I say it is,” stated Finesse after taking out her earpiece and motioning for the others to do the same.

“It’s over,” countered Composite, taking out his earpiece while the others followed suit.  “Besides, even if we wanted to find out his next move, we couldn’t.”

“I’m quite certain you’re wrong about that,” said Finesse as she led the rest of the team into the lower levels of the Helicarrier.

It wasn’t long before they reached a door on the lower levels that simply read “Gadget”.  Finesse had spent a few hours memorizing the entire Helicarrier’s layout, knowing that it would come in handy one day and today was that day it seemed.  She paused before the door and knocked.  Jeanne couldn’t be sure but she thought she heard something explode behind the door.

“Yes?” asked Gadget as she opened the door and poked her head into the hallway, a dirty pair of goggles sitting on top of her head and some smudges of grease on her face.

“When you were tracking down the Genetech buyers, did you happen to run across where this ‘Mr. Helix’ came from?” inquired Finesse.

“Agent Johnson said that case was shelved for the foreseeable future,” reminded Gadget.

“Just answer the question,” ordered Finesse.

“Uhm, yes?” replied Gadget meekly, clearly not really adept at dealing with authority.

“So how about we come into your workshop and look over what you found,” suggested Finesse though it was more forceful than a mere suggestion.

“Fine but don’t touch anything,” warned Gadget before leading the way inside.

“This equipment looks really unsafe,” noted Requiem.

“Well it just blew up so yeah I guess it could be,” admitted Gadget, motioning to the pieces of electronics that were still smoking.  “I was working on some new stuff for my armor but I’m not having very much luck integrating some of the systems.  Guess I’m going to need better capacitors.”

“The results, Lucy,” reminded Finesse.

“Oh right, that,” realized Gadget.  She sat down at her computer and clicked a few keys before frowning slightly.  “There’s been some activity with them recently.  Helix is shipping some stuff up here to New York.”

“Where’s it coming from?” inquired Finesse.

“Some place in Arkansas,” informed Gadget.  “Hope Springs?”

“That’s my hometown,” realized Wipeout.  “Are you saying Helix is from there?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Gadget.  “I’m just saying that’s where the stuff is coming from.  Looks like some big orders, lots of heavy equipment and stuff.”

“We need to intercept that shipment then,” decided Finesse.

“And spend the rest of our lives in jail?” asked Composite.  “Are you completely insane?  It’s over.  We lost.  Get over it.”

“He had his thugs murder Rosen and a lot of that building’s security squad,” reminded Neon.  “He’s a bad guy, Henry.  Aren’t we supposed to stop the bad guys?”

“Girl’s got a point,” agreed Wipeout.  “Plus I want to find out what this guy’s connection to Hope Springs is.”

“He said he knew us,” reminded Finesse.  “He said that we were his children.  Think about that, Henry, and then tell me you don’t want another shot at him.  Go on, tell me.”

Composite couldn’t deny that there were gaps in his memory that he couldn’t account for.  He just assumed that most people couldn’t remember the first few years of their lives.  That was normal wasn’t it?  So how did he get these powers if he tested negative for an x-gene?  Maybe Finesse was right.  Maybe this was the only way to get some answers.

“Fine, you’re right,” he conceded.  “Gadget, you’re going to have to give us some cover so Daisy and the rest of SHIELD don’t know we’re doing this.  Can you hack into the security cameras in our safehouse and do that?”

“Oh yeah, sure,” confirmed Gadget.  “I mean they’re all patched into SHIELD’s network so it should be easy to loop some footage.  Isn’t that kinda, you know, against the rules though?”

“So is most of what we do,” reminded Composite.  “Trust me, we won’t let you get in trouble.  We’re just going to go on a little fact-finding mission.  Nobody puts in their radios on this one.”

The rest of the Secret Warriors nodded.  Composite knew that they needed this, particularly when it came to the three original members of the team.  They all had questions about their pasts and if Helix was telling the truth then he had the answers they needed.  One way or another, they were going to get some closure.

“Boss doesn’t waste any time, does he?” asked Excavator.

“Shut it, Calusky, and keep your eyes open,” ordered Fagin.  “Helix says he’s expecting company and we don’t want anybody screwing up this shipment.  Helix said this one was the important one.”

Excavator didn’t say anything in response.  All of them stood inside one of the hangars at the airfield and waited for their cargo plane to land.  None of them could figure out exactly why this shipment was so important but all of them knew not to cross their employer.  Ricky looked at the rest of his crew and let his eyes linger the longest on Ana Kravinoff.  The girl sat quietly, playing with her new pets.  Ricky wasn’t exactly as proficient with women as he let on.  Sure, he had his share of ex-girlfriends but there weren’t any like Ana.  Ana was dangerous, extremely dangerous in fact, and that was what made her interesting.  Plus it didn’t hurt that she was easier on the eyes than Komodo, the only other female he currently kept company with.

“If those things have to crap then make them do it outside,” ordered Fagin as he noticed that Watson and Crick were sniffing around and tugging at their leashes.

“They smell something,” noted Ana.  “We have intruders somewhere on the grounds.”

None of them had time to further entertain that notion.  They could hear the cargo plane approaching and watched it touch down on the runway.  Fagin was the first to come out and greet the plane, moving around to step inside the open cargo bay.  He turned into his mutated state and picked up one of the crates, casually putting it on his shoulder and hauling it over to the truck they were going to use to transport it to its final destination.  Mako followed Fagin’s lead and the two strongmen continued unloading the cargo while the others kept watch.  Watson and Crick perked up their ears and suddenly began to bark at something, tugging at their leashes and practically begging Ana to let them spring into action.

“Like I said, never was a dog person,” said Finesse.

Fagin and the rest of his team all turned to confront the Secret Warriors, Mako and Fagin setting down the crates they were carrying and readying themselves for battle.  The Warriors weren’t going to give them any time to enact some sort of battle plan.  Neon hit them with a blinding pulse of light and Requiem teleported towards them.  Sebastian landed in their midst and fired a blast of magical energy at Fagin first.  The purple-skinned behemoth shrugged off the blast and tried to hit Requiem with a backhand that would’ve connected had not Sebastian teleported away.  Composite put his hand on the runway and absorbed the concrete before joining in the brawl.  He clubbed Fagin over the head and continued pounding, taking him to the ground.

“The chances of someone actually getting killed by a shark attack are one in two hundred and sixty-four million,” noted Requiem as he stared down Mako.  “You were looking to enhance those odds in your favor then?”

Mako didn’t respond.  He simply tried to bash Requiem over the head with his enhanced strength.  Sebastian teleported to dodge the attack and that left Mako open for Finesse.  Jeanne used her weapon generators to create a giant harpoon that she wielded with two hands like a halberd.  She sent the weapon in a horizontal stroke that sliced Mako in the chest and caused the Atlantean to back up.  The ground underneath Finesse’s feet sprang up violently and suddenly, courtesy of Excavator.  The surge flipped Finesse upward and sent her flying through the air.  She gained control of her flight and flipped through the air, throwing out a round of shuriken at Ana Kravinoff and causing her and her pets to scatter so Finesse had a clear spot to land.

“Never would’ve figured you for a stooge, Fagin,” noted Composite as he hit Fagin with a haymaker that rocked him and sent him stumbling backwards.  “I guess maybe you’re not as smart as you’d like to think.”

“I’m smart enough to pick the winning side,” retorted Fagin as he hit Composite with an equally vicious punch and then drove his knee into Henry’s face.  “You don’t even know what Helix can do for you, what he’s already done for you.  Personally, I think he’s wasting his time with you.”

“Good thing I don’t work for him then,” said Composite before hitting Fagin with an uppercut.  “I don’t really care what kind of past I have with Helix, Fagin.  He’s a bad guy and we’re going to take him down.  You can feel free to go down with him if you like.”

“You’re wasting your breath, Henry,” assured Wipeout as he hit Fagin with a blast of water that sent him sprawling backwards across the tarmac.  “He’s made his choice.”  Wipeout sloshed across the runway after Fagin, trying to get at him before any of the others did.  He wasn’t worried so much about Fagin as he was about the cargo that the plane was carrying.  He wanted to know exactly what Helix’s connection was to his hometown.

“He said you would be especially motivated,” noted Fagin while shielding himself from Wipeout’s attacks.  “Maybe you care more about that town than you think.”

“I’m really tired of you being such a smug bastard,” warned Wipeout.  “What’s your boss got to do with Hope Springs?”

“I’m sure trying to figure that out will keep you up at night,” said Fagin.

Wipeout didn’t have time to come up with a retort.  A stream of concrete hit Wipeout in the back and splattered him across the pavement.  Excavator grinned and then turned his attention to Neon.  With a simple thought, he rearranged the molecular composition of the ground under her so she found herself waist-deep in a puddle of quicksand.

“I’ve got you, Steph,” promised Composite as he ran towards Neon to pull her out of the quicksand.

“Not tonight, big man,” warned Excavator as he reached out with his powers once more.

Composite felt some unseen force propel his body sideways and realized what was going on.  Since he was made out of concrete, Henry was the perfect victim for Excavator’s powers.  Composite knew he would have to switch to a different material in order to take away his enemy’s advantage.  That was going to take too much time though and Neon didn’t have that long.  He tried to run towards her again but struggled against the invisible grip of Excavator’s powers.  A glowing baton hit Ricky in the back of the head and knocked him silly.  Finesse nodded to Composite and he realized that she was giving him the opening he needed to save Stephanie’s life.  Composite took that chance and reached Neon in record time, clutching her wrist and hauling her out of the quicksand.  She returned the favor by emitting a blinding flash of light that dazed Ana Kravinoff before she could attack Composite from behind.  Due to the animalistic mutations Ana had undergone, her eyes were able to instantly adapt from day vision to night vision.  Unfortunately, while her eyes were in night vision, they had a terrible sensitivity to light.  The burst of light from Neon almost blinded Ana, her eyes trying to quickly adapt but failing in their task.  She whistled a command to Watson and Crick and the two jackals pounced on Composite.  Henry soon realized that their teeth were incredibly sharp, almost sharp enough to pierce his concrete skin.  He wasn’t going to give them time to try it though.  He threw the dogs off of him, swatting at them with blows that could’ve shattered their bones.  He watched their limp bodies bounce across the concrete but they got up with surprising speed and began to circle him, showing no signs of an injury at all.

“These things heal fast,” realized Composite as he moved to shield Neon while Ana and her dogs continued to move in closer.  “I should’ve broken them in half with those backhands.”

“My pets are more resilient than you give them credit,” assured Ana as she drew her hunting knives and prepared to strike.  She and her dogs attacked as one but a flurry of magical bolts knocked them out of the air.

“Nice to have a punctual boyfriend,” noted Neon, grinning in Requiem’s direction.  “I think we’ve taken all these guys down.”

“Not yet,” corrected Komodo as she coiled her body around Neon and pinned her arms to her sides.  “Your power isn’t so hot if you can’t use your hands to focus it.  Now I’m going to squeeze the life out of you and I’m going to do it real slowly.  I know it’s not a lizard’s style but I think you’ve deserved it.”

“Funny you talk about squeezing someone to death because that’s what I’m going to do to you unless you let her go,” promised Composite as he wrapped one of his hands around Komodo’s head and began to make a fist.

Komodo tried to sink her razor-sharp fangs into Neon’s throat but Composite pulled Komodo backwards and forced her to uncoil herself from Stephanie.  Komodo twisted and squirmed against Composite’s grip but the leader of the Secret Warriors just took the villainess and slung her across the pavement.

“We’re clear now?” asked Neon after catching her breath.

“Yeah, we’re clear,” confirmed Composite as he saw that only he and his teammates were the ones still standing.  “I say it’s time to find out what’s in those crates.”

“Better do it quickly then,” suggested Requiem as all the Secret Warriors heard sirens in the distance.

Composite and Wipeout both moved to the truck while the other three Warriors moved to the cargo plane.  Henry ripped open both the containers that were loaded into the truck but they were dismayed at the contents, or rather the lack of contents, inside.

“They’re empty,” realized Wipeout after a few seconds of disbelief.  “Why the hell would he bother to ship empty crates?”

“These are empty too,” confirmed Finesse as the Warriors gathered on the tarmac.  “We’ve been conned again.”

“Now you know exactly what kind of man Helix is,” warned Fagin.  “We knew those crates would be empty but he told us to make it look like they weren’t.  He knew you’d come after him after being schooled earlier today at the press conference.  You’re never going to get ahead of him so your only choice is to either get in line with us or get dead.  Personally, I’m hoping you take the second option.”

“That bastard is going to give us answers one way or another,” stated Finesse.

“Not tonight he’s not,” realized Composite, the sirens drawing ever closer.  “Everyone clear out.  We need to meet back at the safehouse and plan something else.”

The Secret Warriors gathered around one another and disappeared in a flash of magical energy.  They reappeared at their car and piled in, knowing that they had parked far enough away that they could get away without being hassled by the police.  Composite started the ignition and hurriedly backed the car out into the street.  The safehouse wasn’t that far away from their current position.  They would be home before anyone even knew they were there.

“We’re going to get in so much trouble for this and it was all for nothing,” realized Neon.

“We’ve got Lucy covering our asses,” reminded Finesse.  “If she’s half as good as SHIELD thinks she is then we’ve got no problem.”

“We’ve got a problem,” stated Composite as he realized something was wrong.  He felt the car lock up on him, as if some other force was guiding it instead of him.  He knew that it was probably Daisy and when the video screen in the console clicked on to display her face, he confirmed his suspicion.

“You definitely have a problem,” agreed Quake.  “Did you think we wouldn’t have the technology to retrieve you when necessary, especially after the fact that Frankie totaled the first car we gave you?  We knew exactly where you were at all times thanks to you using the car and you are going to catch hell when you get back to the Helicarrier.  I can guarantee you that.”

“So you’re content to let us look like idiots while we try to stop whatever Helix is up to?” questioned Finesse.

“You made yourself look like idiots when you didn’t let this go,” corrected Quake.  “I told you five that Helix and Genetech were both off limits.  If we’re going to take them on then we can’t do it directly, something you’ve hopefully learned by now.  It’s going to take time to coordinate an infiltration of Genetech and even then it’s going to take more than one mole if we want to get any results.  Helix is too crafty to not see us coming so we have to work around him.  We can’t just blindly stumble into one of his operations, especially not when it’s a decoy.”

“So he did move something out of Hope Springs then?” asked Wipeout.

“The cargo shipped tonight,” confirmed Quake.  “Gadget tracked down the shipment but we can’t intercept it without probable cause, which we don’t have.  If you had been patient enough to wait, you wouldn’t have fallen for that decoy.  Speaking of decoys, don’t try that again with the camera footage.  You seriously thought that Gadget was the only computer geek we have on our payroll?”

“We told her to do it,” admitted Composite.  “If you’re going to punish someone for that, punish us and not her.”

“Oh trust me, you’ll be getting punished,” assured Quake.  “See you when you get inside.”

The car rolled to a stop and all the Secret Warriors looked out of the front window to see the Helicarrier hovering in the distance.  SHIELD already had some flying cars with agents waiting to escort them inside.  They got out of the car and then made their way towards one of the flying cars.  Inwardly, all of them were still fuming about the deception they had fallen for.  All of them knew that their meeting with Daisy wasn’t going to alleviate that anger.

“I think this is worse than the walk we took after that mission with HYDRA,” noted Wipeout after they stepped out of the car and into the Helicarrier.

“You could do us all a favor and shut up,” suggested Finesse.

“You’re the one that pushed us into this,” reminded Composite.  “You couldn’t just let it go, Jeanne?”

“I told you that nobody ever calls me that,” snapped Finesse.  “Look, if we’re going to get chewed out by Fury then it should be me, not all of us.  I’m willing to take the brunt of the punishment for my mistake.”

“You just want to get kicked off the team so you can go back to stealing stuff,” retorted Composite.  “I’m the leader here, remember?  I’ll take the most punishment but we’re all going into this meeting as a team.”

Director Nick Fury’s Office, SHIELD Helicarrier

“So this is the team that I thought would be a great idea,” said Nick Fury sarcastically as the five Secret Warriors came into his office and sat in the chairs provided for them.  “Anything you have to say for yourselves about this whole mess?”

“Whether you want to look into it or not, Helix is bad news,” stated Composite.  “On a more personal level, we think he has answers that some of us need regarding our pasts.  Can you really blame us for going to whatever lengths necessary to try and get those answers?”

“If you’re trying to relate to me, I doubt that’s going to work,” said Fury, chewing on the end of his cigar.  “I get that you kids today are headstrong and that you want the answers you feel you need.  You need to get something now though.  You are employed by us and that means you work within our system of rules.  Do we know that Helix is dirty?  Hell yes, we do but we can’t do anything about that without solid proof.  Getting that proof requires coordinated operations instead of bumbling around aimlessly and punching anything that gets in our way.  You are members of SHIELD and you will conduct yourselves under our rules.  There’s no getting around that.”

“Understood,” agreed Composite.  “We’ll accept our punishment now.”

“Daisy will take care of that,” informed Fury.  “She is your handler, after all.  You’re dismissed.”

The Warriors left the office and saw Quake standing outside in the hallway, her arms crossed over her chest and her glare sending invisible daggers at each member of her team.  She had heard every word that was spoken during that meeting and it did dull her anger towards them but they weren’t going to get off so easy.  She was responsible for them and whatever they did reflected on her because she was their handler.  The better they did at their job, the sooner she could get off this detail and get back in the field.

“Just get it over with,” said Composite.

“Your pay is getting docked until you learn how to play by the rules,” stated Quake.  “This is your warning.  Next time you pull a stunt like this, we’re going to fire you and then maybe toss you in jail depending on how big you screw up.  Go back to the safehouse and go to bed.  I think you’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

The Warriors all gave various signs that they understood and walked down the hall back the way they had come.  Quake stared at them as they retreated and then slipped into Fury’s office.  She knew that he would want to meet with her, probably to chew her out just like he had done with the team.

“Get your team under control, Agent Johnson,” said Fury without even looking up from the papers on his desk.  “If they pull another stunt like this then it’s going to be your ass.”

“Yeah, I got that,” assured Quake.  “Sir, I wanted to talk to you about some of Agent Sydney’s old cases.”

“You wanna know why Stephanie’s Caterpillar file is blank,” realized Fury.  “I did it as a favor to Ray.  He was a good agent and also a good trainer.  I felt like maybe I owed him one after all his years of service.”

“I understand that, sir,” clarified Quake.  “I specifically need to know about the undercover operation in China that he was a part of.  It’s my theory that he met Stephanie’s mother during that mission.”

“There’s no official record of that woman anywhere in our files,” reminded Fury.  “Ray only mentioned her to me once and that was when we had the meeting about putting Stephanie on the list.”

“Did he say who she was or what his connection to her was?” asked Quake.

“All he said was that he met her while he was in China on that op,” answered Fury.  “She helped him make that bust and in return he did her a little favor.”

“He smuggled her into the country,” realized Quake.

“You won’t find any proof of it,” said Fury.  “That’s all he said about it, Daisy.  If you want the whole truth, you’re just going to have to talk to Ray himself.  Of course you can’t do that since he’s dead.”

“No,” admitted Quake.  “It doesn’t look like I can.  Thank you for your time, sir.  I promise I’ll do a better job with those kids.”

“I’m sure you will,” said Fury dismissively as he motioned for her to leave.

Neon hesitantly knocked on the door to Gadget’s workshop and hoped that nothing blew up this time.  Satisfied that she wasn’t in any danger, she waited until Gadget opened the door.  Her work goggles were still perched on top of her head and Stephanie couldn’t tell if the grease stains on her cheeks were from earlier in the day or if they were fresh.

“I just wanted to say thanks for what you did for us,” explained Neon.  “I mean covering like that for us was really risky and you didn’t have to.”

“Oh, it’s cool,” assured Gadget.  “I mean, you know, my pay’s been docked too and I may not ever get to finish my armor but it’s all good.  It wasn’t even really that hard since I’m the one they had monitoring you all the time anyway.”

“Wait, what?” asked Neon.

“Come in first,” suggested Gadget and Neon did so, shutting the door behind her.  “My lab is safe so don’t worry.  I’m the one that does the surveillance for you guys.  All the video footage from the cameras and all the audio from your earpieces goes through me before I send it to Daisy and whoever else.”

“But you don’t do that anymore?” asked Neon.

“Not after today,” admitted Gadget.  “They pawned it off on some other tech person but I can probably get the feeds to run through my private server first.”

“No, it’s alright,” said Neon.  “Lucy, you know that we’ve done some shady things.”

“Juggernaut and Taskmaster,” realized Gadget.  “I kinda took care of that for you guys.  I made the audio from the earpieces match the reports you were turning in.  I know I also had to watch all the video footage from the cameras but I didn’t put anything down in my reports unless it had to do with work.”

“Why do all that for us?” inquired Neon.

“I don’t get out much,” explained Gadget.  “I got busted for trying to hack into Tony Stark’s mainframe so I could get a look at the Iron Man armor specs.  That’s how I started working here in the first place.  Since then, I haven’t gotten the chance to talk to kids my age and people here only talk to me when they want something from me.  It’s always ‘Hey, Gadget, fix this’ or ‘Gadget, this needs an upgrade’ or ‘Gadget, I really need to get the porn off my computer’ or whatever. I just thought maybe, you know, I could be friends with you guys?”

“You can hang out with us any time, Lucy,” promised Neon with a smile.  “I mean we owe you a ton and you didn’t have to cover for us with that stuff.  I told Daisy about it anyway.”

“Do you guys always have to break the rules?” asked Gadget.

“Sometimes I don’t think we have any to break in the first place,” said Neon glibly before moving towards the door.  “Like I said, Lucy, any time you want to talk or hang out you can call me.”

“I will,” promised Gadget.

Genetech Corporate Headquarters

“Make sure that equipment gets to its proper location,” ordered Helix before hanging up the phone and seating himself behind his new desk.  He had a feeling he was going to enjoy his new job and the change of scenery that it provided him.

“Decoy move worked like a charm,” confirmed Fagin as he came into the office.  “I trust you got all your equipment shipped in like you wanted?”

“Oh I got much more than just that,” promised Helix.  “Your decoy wasn’t only a decoy, Fagin.  I want them to know where that equipment came from.  I want them to know that I came from Hope Springs.”

“Why would you want anyone to know you came from that little piss-ant town?” asked Fagin.

“Because they need to know exactly where they came from,” explained Helix.  “Oh they’ll have to stay away from me for a little bit but eventually they’ll start asking themselves questions that they know only I have the answers to.  Hope Springs is the next step on their journey that will bring them back to me.”

“I keep telling you that you don’t need them,” reminded Fagin.

“I understand you enjoy thinking of yourself as an only child but you are far from it,” said Helix.  “You need to learn not to be so jealous, Fagin.  After all, there’s a reason I gave you that name.  You were meant to bring my wayward children home, meant to collect them and teach them the same way the character in the Dickens novel does.  You’re already my favorite son, Fagin.  Adding some new members to our family won’t change that.”

“It’s good to hear you say that,” admitted Fagin before leaving the office.  “By the way, you really need to start hiring better help.  Most of them aren’t ready for this type of action.”

“That’s why I need my lost children now more than ever,” said Helix with a malicious grin.

Next Issue: All it takes is one bad day to drive a person mad and Chris Colchiss is having a very bad day.