CHAPTER ONE - The Snake Bites
Across the nice little town of Springfield, the people lived their lives. Some of those people were walking home after a hard day at work. Others shared a kiss with significant others as they talked about what the evening what might bring. Children laughed and yelled as they played on a new artificial ice rink, with spectators clapping and cheering along. There were people of different ages and different genders, different colours and different creeds, but in one way they were all the same. None of them knew their lives lay in the power of one word spoken by one man.
The Man himself was nowhere near the town. He was housed in a building of glass and steel on a large anonymous island that was not on any maps, beyond any country's legal jurisdiction and, by the magic of technology, hidden from radar and satellite. He sat in near-darkness, the only light coming from a row of monitors. They were linked to hacked CCTV feeds streaming images of the chosen areas in grainy monochrome. The man stared, sure in his belief it was time to teach the world his truth - the only truth that mattered. He switched on a mobile phone and put it to his ear.
"Proceed."
The word had been spoken.
The Man hung up the phone and resumed watching the monitors. The images stayed consistent for a few short minutes, then all at once, the monitors were filled with a flash of light. The Man closed his eyes and bathed in the light. He saw it as the birth of his World Order. The light subsided as vanished as the CCTV feed died. Phase one was complete.
The Man opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a blue hood. He pulled it over his head and adjusted it so he could see perfectly. The hood sat snug on the top of his head, but hung loose around his face so the contours of his face could not be seen. He pressed a button and the door of an elevator opened. Another man was standing in the elevator. He was of Japanese ethnicity, hair slicked back and eyes narrow. He was dressed in a white shirt and matching trousers. A silk bandage was wrapped around the length of his right forearm and a katana sword was sheathed over his back. The Man entered the elevator and the two men descended to the lower levels. They stepped out of the elevator into a small room where several technicians were readying a camera and preparing an audio and visual feed. Two other men raised a blue banner with an insignia of a snake in red. The technicians looked up to see the two men waiting. The Lead Technician, the only one wearing a set of headphones, stood at attention.
"Is everything ready?" asked The Man.
"Almost," said the Lead Technician.
"Almost?"
"There is a problem with the voice software. We will need to use a voice box to keep on schedule."
The Man stared at the technicians, eyes unblinking. The he nodded. One of the technicians approached with a small grey box in his hand. The Man raised the hood, exposing his throat and the lower part of his face. The Technician attached the voice box and stepped away. The Man pulled his hood down then brushed down his blue leather tunic. He took an extra few moments to trail a finger over the snake insignia in the centre, then sat in a chair in front of the banner and camera. He took one last moment to concentrate; to realise he was there. Then he nodded to the operators and stared into the camera.
"Leaders of the world," he said, his voice a cold, inhuman drone. "You now know of us. You now know of our strength. There are soldiers and cells who believe as I do, and are ready to show her power again, and again, and again. This is the beginning of the new era, the era of Cobra. We are Cobra." He paused. "And I… am The Commander."
The Commander pulled the grey box that distorted his voice and threw it on the ground.
"I trust there was no problems?" The promise of repercussions should the answer not meet the one he expected was clear in the cold tone of his voice.
"None at all, Commander," said the Head Technician. "It was transmitted with audio and visual clear."
"And my face was not seen." It was a statement, not a question.
The Technicians all muttered their assurances but The Commander ignored them as he re-entered the elevator. The group of technicians watched the doors close. They did not see the Man in White silently move up behind them, katana raised to strike…
