Chapter up. This is a short one but I like it so here you go. Please R and R, thanks to those who have. I hope you enjoy. :) I should update by Saturday.
Chapter 25
The following morning...
Victor lay back in his bed wondering what he should do for the day; he was going to take samples of team's DNA. He wasn't sure what Dick's DNA would do for him but he decided he would use it as a base sample along with his own. Victor sighed and clawed himself out of his bed before heading downstairs. On the way down he spotted Joey crashed out on his couch. "Does that kid ever go home?" Victor muttered to himself as he reached the bottom floor of his apartment.
Victor began making his breakfast as his father joined him in the kitchen, "Morning Victor," Silas chirped as he joined his son. Victor nodded and continued to make his breakfast. "Joseph!" Silas yelled as he spotted the boy on his couch, "Would you like breakfast?" An upward pointed thumb appeared over the back of the couch and Silas smirked. "You make our friend some breakfast Victor," Silas said calmly, "I was sorting out Mr Wintergreen's ship yester so I'll have to sterilise those needles you wanted."
Victor nodded as his father walked over to the worktable on the other side of the room and set about working on the needles. Victor began frying more bacon with one hand whilst making waffles with the other hand. "Best message the others and get them to come up here." Victor said as he served up the food and passed the finally risen Joey a plate. Victor sat at the table and set out the message before tucking into his breakfast.
"What do you expect to find in their genetics Victor?" Silas asked as he removed the needles from their sterilising fluid. "I suppose the powers they possess will show in your friends DNA. This will certainly be an interesting experience. We should probably take a couple of samples from each person just to be thorough." Victor nodded and shovelled some more food down his throat.
"It's mainly Garfield and Rachael's I'm interested in, though Joey here's ability to dematerialize himself before inhabiting people could prove very useful if we could harness that power." Victor said causing Joey to smirk as he too finished off his breakfast. "Best to have us all on record." Almost on cue a knock sounded at the door and Victor rose to his feet to answer it.
He found Garfield stood at the door with Rachael stood a few feet behind him. "Come in we have work to do," Victor said as he walked over to the worktable and picked up a flask and a needle. "We are going to take urine and blood samples from each of you, who's going first?" Victor asked with a smile and Rachael grabbed the urine bottle before heading upstairs leaving Garfield with the needle. Victor grinned and lent in close with the needle. "This won't hurt a bit."
Slade tightened his tie and took one last look at himself in the mirror. Upon his examination he repositioned his eye patch before smiling. "Damn it Slade you've still got it." He said to himself before heading towards the door. "Rose, I'm going out, your brother should be round at lunch time." Slade shouted through his house before stepping out of his home. Outside William, Hive and Mammoth all stood by a car suited and booted. "Are we ready gentlemen?"
The four men climbed into the large black four by four and William began to drive them towards their pick up. "We'll be collected by a helicopter at the harbour and flown out to the Ark Royal which is only a few miles off shore at the moment." William said calmly as they drove down the hills towards the glistening bay below, the silhouette of the vast aircraft carrier visible as the sun burned behind it on the horizon.
"This is the start of a new era for us;" Slade said proudly, "Mr Wintergreen is going to meet an underworld contact for us later today but now we're meeting our contact within the Empire." The two men in the back nodded as the car pulled up outside the harbour and the four men disembarked. Following Slade's lead they strode across the pier towards the helicopter at the end of it.
"General Wilson, Colonel Wintergreen." The pilot said as they approached and the two men nodded. "Climb aboard." The four men boarded the helicopter and strapped themselves in. After a few moments the helicopter soared into the air and surged out into the bay. The four men in rear section of the helicopter sat in silence as the flying machine rapidly crossed the bay. Only a couple of minutes had passed when the helicopter set itself down on the deck of the air craft carrier.
The four men stepped out on to the deck as an officer strode towards them. The man stood at an impressive six foot six, with eyes almost as dark as his ebony skin tone. Even though he was wearing an officer's hat it was clear he was bald beneath it. The man smiled reviling a shiny set of teeth below before he saluted the new arrivals. The men saluted back before the officer spoke, "It's good to see you again William," the officer called out in a think West Indian accent. "And Mr Wilson, it's a pleasure to finally meet you."
Slade walked over and shook the man's hand, "Field Marshall Kingston I believe," Slade said with a smile and the man nodded. "Mr Wintergreen has said you may have some work for us." Kingston nodded as the men made their way across the deck and entered the control tower. He beckoned the men to a table in the centre of the room and the men positioned themselves around it. Slade looked down at the table and saw a map of Africa upon it. The continent was divided into two colours, everywhere on the eastern three quarters or so of the maps was red along with several other territories on the remaining quarter. The remaining area was blue.
"As you'll know being that you led the Allied forces in Africa the peace settlement between the once separate nations is unstable." Kingston said pointing at the blue part of the map. "They've taken a stab at forming a single nation and as expected it's all gone down the pan. Now the Empire would rather not be forced into incorporating the east into our lands. To be frank we have no use for an empty desert. But several warlords have risen to power, there are genocides, mass rapes and countless other atrocities being committed on those lands and we'd like you to stop it."
"How much are you willing to offer us and we're going to need all the facts, who, where, when etcetera." Slade asked calmly as the Field Marshall walked over to a computer.
"You'll be saving us billions Mr Wilson so I wouldn't worry about your payment. As for the other details..." Kingston said as he threw a file onto the table. "Most of these warlords are meeting each other on an oil rig. Don't ask me why, we assume they're planning to divide their wealth. Now of course we can't kill them as we'd be seen as defying the treaty, whereas you remove any risk to us." Slade smiled and nodded as the group turned to leave. "Oh and Mr Wilson, they're meeting in a few hours, so you're going to have to move sharpish."
Dick sat on Victor's couch as the half cybernetic man worked on mapping their DNA using a remarkable programme on his computer. In front of him Garfield and Wally sat playing a game, Joey had headed home once Victor had his same and Rachael was sat upon the kitchen counter reading a novel. Dick glanced over at Starfire who was as usual barely dressed but he could see she was still depressed about the previous day's events. He had taken her for a meal, admitted upon texting Victor for ideas, but he still see she was in pain.
He decided he would talk to her about it later; he'd already had to do a long building up speech to Bruce. Dick turned his attention turned back to the objective at hand when the screen in front of him flashed on. "What do have?" Dick asked Victor as his friend walked over and began examining the screen. Starfire looked over to see as well but the others didn't even glance up from their activities.
"It's amazing, Star looks very similar to a human and from her description of her species' internals they're remarkably similar. And yet her DNA is completely different. This is remarkable, there are only small differences between our DNA and a chimpanzee's and yet we're so different whereas her Star's DNA is vastly different from our own but she could easily pass herself off as human."
Victor then flicked over to the next file. "You and I are just normal humans as we'd expect. Wally here is going to take men a few days, his differences are surprisingly minor. The case is similar with Joey; the only odd thing with him is that it appears his condition is hereditary. Then we come to Rachael." Rachael herself finally looked up to see what he had to say about her.
"It's like nothing I've ever seen, she's not a half breed or interspecies creature as we know it, there is not a mix of two different sets of DNA. There are literally two separate strings of DNA, she's a chimera." Victor said and turned to see Rachael looking at him in a way that asked what it meant. "An interspecies creature such as a liger, a lion tiger combo, is a mix of two strings of DNA a unique creature which is neither one nor the other, whereas you are essentially both at the same time."
Victor sighed, thinking. "I'm not sure if this means anything, though there is a bit warning. On the upside unlike a regular interspecies creature you will probably be able to have children, but we don't know which set of DNA will be passed on. Like I said though I've never seen anything like it, you're not like a child of your parents so much as a clone of them both combined. I think the human DNA strand is quite literally your mother's exact strand of DNA. I'm taking a wild guest when I say that the two of you probably look pretty similar."
Rachael nodded and silently left the room, "The rest of you can go as well." Victor said and the team began to leave but Victor took Garfield by the shoulder. "Not you green bean." Garfield sighed and watched the others leave before turning back to his friend.
"That bad huh," Garfield said but Victor shook his head. Garfield was confused but Victor continued.
"Actually no that's kind of the problem. On the upside we'll never have to live out our deal which is a shame cause I was looking forward to shooting you in the face but hey you can't have everything in life. The rate of change in your physiology is slowing massively; I believe it was linked to puberty, which is interesting. The thing is after checking your urine sample you have hormone levels are enormous, we're talking animal mating season big." Victor said and Garfield nodded with a grin. Victor raised an eyebrow before continuing, "How much do you think about sex?"
"When do I not? Why do you think I didn't want a girl being put with me, thankfully she'd be able to stop me if I did try anything." Garfield said with a grin.
"How are you restraining yourself?" Victor said shocked and Garfield leant in close and whispered.
"Let's just say I have an ice pack." Garfield said before the duo burst out laughing. Victor put his arm around Garfield. "Look I'm sorry about not giving you all the details right away."
"No problem little man, but I'm afraid you're going to getting injections from here on out. A hormone suppressant a day keeps that rape charge from Rachael away." Victor said with a smile as he pulled a needle from the desk.