Chapter 1

"Alpha Operative Will Du reporting for duty, Ma'am!"

Global Justice's top agent stood at attention and saluted with absolute precision before Dr. Director.

The woman in question looked up from the binder she was browsing through and languidly returned the salute.

"At ease, Will. Have a seat." She motioned to the chair opposite her office desk.

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"You know, you don't have to stand attention and salute me every time. You've been with Global Justice long enough and you rank high enough to be at least a little more relaxed."

"But it's the regulations, Ma'am." Will Du seemed genuinely mystified by his superior's attitude.

"All right. Anyway, it's good to have you back. I take it there were no problems for you to work as a parole officer?"

"I filed a complete report as per regulation standards."

"Of course you did." She said with a little sigh. "What is it with you and regulations and rules?"

"Wha...but...?" Will looked like a puppy who's just been kicked by it's owner for no good reason.

"It was a rhetorical question, agent. It's not supposed to have an answer!" Betty Director threw her arms up in frustration. "Forget about it, already. We have something more important to deal with and I need my top agent on this."

Hearing himself called the top agent of GJ calmed Will's hurt feelings.

"At your service, Ma'am!" He said eagerly.

She patted the binder she had been browsing.

"These are old documents, unfortunately not digitized and entered into the database since they've spent the last three decades or so on a shelf in the basement.

"Three decades?"

"Yes. This was before you joined us. Heck, I hadn't even made Alpha Operative myself then."

Will Du thought for a few moments.

"This was during the Quimby-directorate, right?"

"Yes, and that's the problem. Well, part of it at least. You see there were some, shall we say, irregularities during that time."

"Like...what?"

Dr. Director leaned back in her chair and sat silent for a few moments before answering.

"Like a highly unorthodox approach to taking on organized opposition and use of outside assets to create a...well, for lack of better words, a super law enforcement officer. And then some very poorly documented and dubious processes to control and support this particular officer."

There was another pause as Dr. Director closed the binder, pushed it towards Will and then went on:

"Agent Du, that special officer is still out there, somewhere. He's operating in the field with no controller that we know of, no orders coming in. Nothing. He could be doing anything and he should have gone into retirement ten years ago.

We don't even know how to reach him because all the contacts ever made were done personally by Director Quimby and all were rigged to self destruct and all the radio channels we have managed to dig up are all dead by now."

Will Du lost his composure for a moment.

"You mean he turned against us?!" He said, aghast.

"What?! Heavens, no! He's just Rogue, he's no Renegade! Don't be so morbid, Will."

Will let out a relieved sigh.

"Thank goodness."

"So I need you to bring this one back. Alive. This thing, " She pointed to the binder "has gone on far too long and the less said about it the better. He's one of our men and we have a duty to look out for our fellow agents, don't you agree?"

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Good. This case is yours, Will. All yours. Global Justice doesn't need to be embarrassed with the budget hearings coming up and all. I trust you to be able to handle this efficiently."

Will Du jumped to his feet, snapped to attention and saluted again.

"Consider the matter solved already, Ma'am!"

Dr. Director dismissed him and sent him on his way to prepare for the mission

Some time later, Will Du was in his quarters, reading up on what little there was to find about the man he was supposed to bring in.

Apparently some sort of early cyborg experiment, made by someone named Dr. Shlickstein and an, as yet, unnamed assistant.

Then there were hints of some sort of biological or genetic 'construct' whatever that meant, and a 'handler'.

There were names here and there. Apparently parts of the documentation were missing or intentionally destroyed.

Still, he had a very good notion where to start.

Metro City wasn't too far away and if the man he was looking for had been in law enforcement, and as heavily cyber augmented as the documents said, surely city hall would have some records of him at hand.

This would probably be over in a few days.

After all, how hard could it be to find this Inspector John Gadget?