"You have maps. Really detailed maps with area coverage and control with each of our groups. Are you sure you're willing to give this to us, Saber?"
"I am in formal wear so Skye or Knight Skye would be preferred as I am sure you would not understand the cultural usage of Master Jedi. But yes, those maps are the ones I have, and we have intelligence packets on all of you. I would assume no less from any of you."
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer got it." Trickster added.
"Very similar in reasoning, but my goal is to make it safe for a mother and child to go anywhere in the city at midnight and return home safely."
"A high goal."
"And specifically targeted against drugs, violence, theft. Keep your crime quiet and you will be overlooked but for too long even murder is ignored."
"So, if we had a gambling den and it was kept quiet you would not shut it down?"
"If I knew about it or something attracted my attention, then no, but Faultline and her club. I have been there and have seen worse. It is relatively safe there compared to other clubs."
"You in a club, I can't believe that, even if I see it is true." Tattletale intruded on the table. "But this is what Rapier and I have gathered off the PHO and from reading between the lines. It would be good to get more current videos of each of them and I could learn more. So, if you know something PM the private group on PHO."
"Please feel free to share anything that will be helpful about yourselves. Fighting skills, support skills, and other knowledge. I put in a list of possible team combinations against the members of the Empire and a campaign direction."
"Yes, I see very in depth. Well thought out flexible and feasible. I assume you have more?"
"I do but it does not concern this city directly and is outside of the here and now. We deal with the Empire and then if you are amicable then we can work further together. However, Coil the Force does not like you. The dark side swirls around waiting for you to go too far. I would suggest if you are doing something unforgivable I suggest you stop and reverse what you are doing."
"I do not take kindly to someone threatening me. We are discussing a truce to fight the Empire and you may feel it is necessary to say. I have to remind you. I know where you live. You do not hide your civilian identity."
"Then who am I? What is me real name?"
"You are a cape that believes they control the force. Your name is Skye Riflus. You have a cape name of Saber."
"You are partially correct. You used to know where I lived, and you feel frustrated that you cannot find me now nor have any of your attempts to kill me succeeded. Interesting that I do not remember. Is this part of your power perhaps." His calm shattered and she got a lot of information from him. He was not a nice man, and he had his hand on everything that went on in the city. Skye could sense he was connected to the Travelers and the Undersiders. Trainwreck and several other rogues maybe even a spy somewhere. He had a connection with Faultline, but it was not sure. The Force told her only one more thing as he was holding someone powerful against their will and with permission. The Force felt like there was more, but she did not know what it could be.
"All in favor of a truce for at least a minimum of two weeks to weaken the Empire raise your hand. Those that are against understand that the majority here has agreed so it would serve you well to do nothing against any of us. Faultline I would like to discuss a different matter. The box on the table has a cell phone that we will coordinate targets and attack times." His sudden ending of the meeting was to regain control.
Skye learned something very important about Coil and he was of two beings not just a split mind. The Travelers were influenced by another, perhaps even Simurgh. It was a guess that the Force was telling me was truer than I thought. Something was different between Coil, the Travelers, and everyone else that was a cape. It was a very valuable clue, but one that did not link to anything yet.
A New Hope
Skye knew little about the Empire and just enough to know their views were wrong, but nothing she had not seen before or even experienced as she was Sephi. All it took was one look at her ears and many Core world humans felt similar to how the few members of the Empire she had encountered.
So, she studied everything about the rise and fall of the Nazi party and World War II. When she was finished, she looked at the things that were done then and the political environment that the country, state, and city worked in. This did not look good as the Protectorate if they got any larger, they could have more influence and given the laws and rules they operated under it would take not much more for them to start gaining more power to the point they could even interfere with the regular human population. This was countered by the various villain groups. The irony was not lost that a Fascist view could gain power, but more along the lines of human versus parahuman instead of German and Jew or Black and White.
The difference in Brockton Bay is that the Empire was trying to do both at the same time. What they did to the Empire would affect how the city worked. With them removed their civilian positions would become known and the Force was warning that this would not be good. The reason why would become clear, but by then it might be too late. She continued to study the Nazi Party and the Neo-Nazi movement after the end of the war.
It rose and fell depending on who was leading or what events happened. Many different things were more focused on the Communist influence and the Cold War with Russia. This allowed the Neo-Nazi movement to grow behind the scenes and was one of the counter points to the civil rights movement. This made their agenda of excluding ethnic minorities even more.
Then the Golden Man appeared, and they latched on to this Ideal that Scion appeared to emulate. This created a group that thought the only superior human was one who had golden skin. That was when many Caucasians no longer used the term white as they claimed their skin was golden. Though until tanning became a sign of attractive good health many upper class and old money still clung to pasty white skin of one who never exposed themselves to the sun long enough to gain a tan.
So now the Neo-Nazis were split up as another group formed within calling themselves Golden. Skye was unsure if this remained an active group. Though she did not see many more references to Aryan Brotherhood, Nationalist Front, the Herren Clan, and thirty other groups. E88, or the Empire was different as they had links to Gesellschaft and the Herren Clan. Many of their members who had gone to prison had connections to the Aryan Brotherhood. This could explain why E88 had so many members rotate in and out. It was also a possible chance they would gain reinforcements from other groups.
The meeting was nothing new to several missions in the past. Her goal was still the same. Identify locations that the Empire operated from and remove them from the city. The initial surveillance was included in the report that Jeff had compiled. It was one of the ways that Skye could control the battlefield and the war in general. If you have easy targets presented and a plan in place, changing the plan would be harder.
Coil's mercenaries would be effective back up and would have no problem cleaning up different locations of their normal gang members. The combined capes could be put into several different groups. Ten different locations were set to be attacked in the early morning hours. This left several in reserve to back up any of the other groups.
Heavy hitters were naturally Bitch's dogs, Saber, Glamour, Genesis's projection, Sundancer, Ballistic, and Faultline. The middle capes included Rapier, Cutlass, Hast, Trickster, Gregor, Newter, Spitfire, Foliage. The support capes were Tattletale, Bitch, Regent, Grue, Imp, Trickster, Perdition, Labyrinth, Ayfour and Coil. Leaving Genesis, the only one who had to stay out of sight.
This gave us a one to one with combat power though that was very deceptive as the E88 were not just organized but their members could stand toe to toe against Lung several of their more public fights had Oni Lee and Lung holding off several of the E88. Their heavy hitters would be Krieg, Hookwolf, Purity, Fenja, Menja, and Crusader. Kaiser, Night, Fog, Stormtiger, Rune would fall in their medium group though Kaiser should be more in the heavy group, but as a leader he supported. Their support group was Victor, Othala, Cricket, Alabaster though all could fight well enough.
The meeting had ended with enough time to change into business attire. Make up to appear older but not overly so. Just more adult than the really young appearance of a Sephi. Her ears covered expertly with her hair. This allowed her to get downtown and talk with an electronics company, a construction company, a software company, and the Medhall Corporation.
If all went well, she could have several hours to meditate before any reconnaissance would be carried out. Jeff would follow her as her PA as he was easily the one who could help pull off the young rich teenager that had things she could offer long enough to get those things looked at. I could feel the greed rolling off the executives for the electronics company and the same happened with the software firm and the construction company as they would be supplying software to run the electronics the other company was going to make and that would lead into the droids to accompany new construction.
This was all part of the goal to increase the level of electronic technology so they could develop positronic hardware that would be as good as the hardware inside of Hast and Ayfour or better. With Mike working on the Molecular Furnace and with him being near completion on the parts assembler it would only be a matter of time before we could build droids and give out the designs to companies around the world. Not that they would get very independent droids. Load lifters, construction droids, and basic maintenance droids for starters.
"Okay this is the last company on the list. Medhall does business in the pharmaceutical industry. They are on par with other companies their size and have come up with several drugs and treatments that they control. There are fifty companies that have earnings in the billion-dollar range." They both continued walking until they got through security and to the main executive level as Jeff explained more about what they do and what drugs they control and sell.
"Where is Medhall on this list?" Skye or Sara as she was in her civilian role, wondered. A woman walked up just in time to hear her question.
"That would be under those giants I am afraid. Are you the medical tinker?" Kayden Anders replied. Sara let the Force pick up her emotions and she barely hid the surprise that this woman was a parahuman.
"I am Sara Underwood, Shrialla Import Export and this is Jeff Martin my personal assistant and legal representative of Shrialla Trading a new branch of my father's company."
"Yes, that would be you, but where is the tinker?"
"I think you have misunderstood. We do not represent a biotinker. We are offering futuretech. We have over a dozen different medications for you to do as you will for the short term, but the long-term goal will be to advance medicine by centuries."
"What mister Martin is trying to say is that what we have is reproducible and advance enough to make this corporation able to get in to the top ten of the world."
"That would be amazing, but it sounds too good to be true. Perhaps we should take this to my office."
"That would be preferable." She escorted us the short way to her office as Skye reached around her in the Force. In another office she felt the presence of a parahuman the secretary in front of the office was one as well. A bit farther away she felt five more. It was getting hard to hide the uneasy feeling that she was getting from the Force that something was wrong.
"So please have a seat. I can offer water right now and old coffee. I sent my secretary home for the day."
"Water is fine." They sat down in several chairs with a coffee table in between them. Kayden retrieved three water bottles as Jeff opened his brief case and Sara the folder she had. The silver case remained at her heeled feet.
"So, this is the list of chemicals we have and their use." Jeff handed over several files with a cover sheet on each. Kayden picked up the first one. Jeff explained.
"What you have there is a mass spectrum antibiotic and general antiviral. Then there is a dozen other cures or counters for several different diseases. We also have the work ups needed to target several other diseases genetically." Kayden did not hide several gasps, but then doubt took over and it radiated through the Force. A mix of doubt and hope. She also seemed to glow a bit at the possibilities.
"Okay this is amazingly impossible. What proof do you have that this is not the work of a biotinker.
"I have several examples of the drugs listed. The one drug compound is one that I doubt you can duplicate, but if you can then you could become the primary pharmaceutical company in the world. I call it Bacta. It is a mixture of two different biological compounds that excites cells into rapid cellular growth following the beings' own genetic pattern. Not as fast as seeing a parahuman healer, but nearly so."
"What does it do?" Sara picked up the case and once she had it open, she grabbed Jeff's bare arm and cut it."
"Holy, sh... what the F..." He tried his best not to swear as he tried to pull away, but Sara held firm. She sprayed the bleeding wound and it stopped once she wiped the excess blood away. She then took this tube as she laid out a line of paste before pinching the cut together as the paste mixed in with the open flesh of the wound. Jeff suddenly stopped trying to pull away as the pain had vanished and curiosity took over.
"You could have warned me."
"Then you would have refused. I can't use it myself and certainly I could not cut Mrs. Anders, could I?"
"Well no."
"That is Ms. Anders we got divorced."
"My condolences in that regard. As you can see it had been less than a minute and the cut is closing. The first compound was to arrest any bleeding and to sanitize the wound. The paste is the Bacta compound. Normally it would be covered, and the person sent on their way."
"How fast does it work?"
"Full immersion in a tank of medical grade and that cut would be gone in ten minutes without a scare. The paste takes longer and also does not leave a scar. At most four hours, but again it is impossible to artificially reproduce the agents, but with the number of parahumans then there could be a chance that a biotinker could figure it out. The rest will only take a bit of experimentation."
"What is in this for you. You can't just give this away."
"I am giving it away. I have plans for the docks as my parent company, pun intended is in the shipping business or they were here in Brockton Bay. I want funds to hire the remaining Dock workers to clear the Bay of ships."
"That would cost billions compared to how the world is."
"Not as much as you think and with other companies, I have contacted it will not take that much."
"Well, I will bring this to the board on Monday and go over what we think we could offer."
"Kayden you misunderstand. These cures and treatments will make this company millions if not billions from all the alternative drugs that you will be able to produce. There are over a million different combinations inside this datacube." Sara sets the cube on the table and the reader that goes with it. She left the chemical compiler inside the case.
"We do not have anything to read that."
"You will as soon as you update your company server to accept 10 petabytes of data."
"We will sell use of the data on a yearly basic of ten percent of gross sales. We thought to offer it as a take of your profits, but trust in accounting is thin when you could claim to make no profits. The ten percent is negotiable."
"That again is something for the board. Would you be able to come back on Monday to give the board a full demonstration?"
"I am not going to let you cut me again."
"Jeff it is nearly healed. You responded to the Bacta nicely."
"Fine."
"We would be happy to."
"Then answer me this. How did you get that information?"
"Oh, that is my secret, but if you must know." Sara brushed her hair over her ear and this made Kayden gasp loudly. With another motion the hair was again hiding her pointed ears.
"You don't look like an alien."
"Not all aliens have googly eyes and tentacles. Case 53's are weirder than space aliens. I am human born on Earth." Jeff said as she looked surprised at him as well. Sara stood after she put the datacube away. She left a small tube on the table with the write ups of the several drugs that would convince them.
"You can have your board or CEO run his own test. One inch incision just enough to break the skin and then use the paste on it." Kayden got up as well and Jeff held out his hand to shake hers and she took it. Sara to test how she reacted did the same and was surprised she took it, but there was hesitation and a feeling of hidden disgust. Sara smiled and giggled this was going to be interesting if she was right as she felt with the number of parahumans on this floor alone accounted for half of the E88.