One
Paige's POV
Looks at watch. Almost midnight.
Looks down. Manhole cover. Entrance to the sewers.
Entrance to the target.
"Come in, Paige." Bzz.
Marly, on the com. "Standing on entrance 1," I say.
"All right. Standing on entrance 3. Buzz Holly."
A sharp pain in my head. I wince. "You do it," I tell Marly. "I have to buzz the Cuckoos."
I close my eyes and let the telepathic voice take over. I concentrate hard and soon I'm invisible.
I'm a mutant. My name is Paige. I'm a bounty hunter for the Black Ops. I'm one of their greatest assassins and best hunters. Tonight, I'm going after a man. A scientist, my superiors say. He's kidnapped nine adolescent girls in the past two months. I'm going after him. My associates Marly Addison and Holly Belacqua are going along with this mission. They're my cousins, my best friends, and the second best in the Black Ops.
I'll give you three guesses to who's the best.
Me.
I've had training in Ninjitsu, defensive combat, and other things I forgot the names to.
This mission is important. We even have the best from our Psych Unit. The name sounds funny, but the agents aren't. For this mission, we have the Stepford Cuckoos. They're some of the most powerful telepathic agents for the Ops. They're quintuplets (Sophie, Esme, Celeste, Phoebe, and Mindee), each with a powerful mind, but combined their better and stronger than all the other units in the Psych Ward.
The one trying to communicate with me now is Celeste. Their telepathic link to Holly, Marly, and I let us tell one from another.
"Phoebe found a way to hack into his system," she reported.
"Which Phoebe?" I asked. There was another Phoebe, my half-sister. She was also working on this case, as a forensic and a computer specialist. I had another half-sister, Piper, working as a forensic anthropologist. Holly, Marly, and I are field agents. Bounty hunters.
"Phoebe Hathiwell," she said. Even though I could only hear her voice, I could tell she was smiling to herself. "Your sister."
"Anything that helps me?" I asked.
"Get into the sewers, get into the lab, and get out."
I made a wry face. "That doesn't help. It's basically what I was planning to do."
Celeste's telepathic essence gave me the feeling she was smiling. Then the mood got tense. "Mindee and Esme sense at least more than twenty people down there, coming from different directions. They can't identify whether they're his lackeys or someone else."
"Go help them. If they're lackeys I can deal with them myself."
"And if they're someone else?"
"I can still deal with them."
I block out her telepathic voice and open my eyes. I conentrate hard and look down at myself. I'm visible.
I take out some grenades and place them on the manhole cover. I go phantom. The manhole cover explodes. It sounds loud to me, but I bet civilians couldn't hear it.
I jump in. Lands in ankle-deep sewer water. Stinks.
Looks around. No one.
I turn on the comm. "Holls? M?"
Bzz. "This is Holls. Can't say anything about M."
"Shit," I mutter. "What about Phoebe or Piper?"
"Depends on which Phoebe. The Stepford Cuckoo Phoebe has been buzzing in my head all day long. But it turned out to be pretty helpful. As for Piper, I have no clue. Maybe tinkering with some other evidence Kyle found." Kyle was another one of our field agents and Piper's current boyfriend.
I look around again. No one. No lackeys, no homeless crazy people, not even a tiny little rat. Well, there may be a rat somewhere, but I can't see it. "Tell our Phoebe to do another set of schematics on my area," I say. "Report back, even if there's just a rat."
"Can't you contact her yourself?"
"Are you busy? You're the only one who has unlimited access to H.Q. I literally have batteries in my comm."
"Acch. Okay." Bzz.
Now I'm alone. No rat, no nothing.
Bzz. "This is non-psychic Phoebe. Over." Bzz.
"Keep talking."
Bzz. "Did the schem scan. You should go forward twenty paces and then go left fifteen paces. There's nobody down there for point five miles. I'm sending instructions into your comm. After following those instructions, buzz me." Bzz.
I click a button. Bzz. "Phoebe, what happens when I walk away that half-o'-mile?"
Bzz. "Fight. It's what you're good at." Bzz.
I sigh. She's right. Maybe fighting's not all that I'm good at, but it's the one talent that'll save my ass on this mission, not to mention get this mission done.
I walk twenty paces forward. The tunnel forks three ways. Forward, left, and right. Go left fifteen paces. I walk fifteen paces.
I continue following the instructions, turning this way and that. Turn right and walk twenty-one paces.
I turn right and scowl. In my path is a wall. Bzz. Hopefully, Phoebe will tell me that it's just a door that can easily be blown up.
Bzz. "Phoebe. In."
"Paige. Confused," I scowl again. "There's a fucking wall here."
"Do what you do second-best, Ghosty."
I scowl. I hate that name, not to mention It wasn't any-- Wait.
Wall. "Ghosty".
"Idiot!" I slap my forehead. This is so easy, even if Phoebe made instructions into riddles.
I concentrate hard and in two seconds I was a flowy, fiery phantom.
Twenty-one paces to the right. Hm. One pace through the wall. Twenty paces walking left. Gack. This mission is making my life so complicated.
After twenty paces, walk five paces to the left.
Acch. Another three-way fork. Only this time..
People.
From the front end, six or seven people. Dressed in navy-blue-and-gold uniforms that look like superhero costumes. X-Men.
From the left, a group of maybe even fifty people. None of them look normal. They're misfits, living in the sewers because the outside world can't deal with how they (the misfits) look. (That's my guess, anyway.)
From the right.. turtles? Gott in Himmel, two 5 foot something or maybe even six foot turtles wearing different colored masks. What the hell are they? Ninjas?
I raise an eyebrow. This was gonna get interesting.
