Chapter 12: Justifying the Means
The pink and purple garbed martial artist perched herself above the roof of Guido's Deli, tailing the two men running full sprint through the maze of inner-city alleys as they made their way from their heist at Cornerstone Tobacco and Liquor. She had silently shadowed the men since she stumbled on their robbery but resisted any interaction, trusting her hunch that these men were nothing more than grunts.
Crime in this district had escalated since the Bang Baby reemergence, the police as it were being more preoccupied with other matters, and Shebang trusted her intuition that there were more than these two men involved. Her hunch paid off as she watched the larger of the two masked robbers hand a satchel off to a random pedestrian who, had Shebang not paid close attention to, would have overlooked simply by the relative unassuming appearance the man had. But taking the bag of money, he turned and bolted in the opposite direction, never looking back as the two men continued their journey.
Shebang was torn for only a moment as to which way to follow, but continued shadowing the two robbers. She knew immediately of her mistake when she watched them enter The Spanked Monkey, a known refuge of scum and criminals that caused even the most gung-ho officers to keep their distance. The other man was obviously the runner, but he was too far away for her to track now. Her only real choice was to enter the bar and hope she could force the robbers to spill their guts.
That of course, would not be an easy task. As she entered through the front door, fixing her trademark crooked grin to her face, she sized up the half-dozen lowlifes sitting drunkenly around the establishment. Her eyes quickly landing on two men seated at the corner table, she immediately made her way in the direction before a large, barrel-chested man stepped in her path.
"Little early for Halloween ain't it sweetheart?" The walking mountain of muscle sneered, cocking his head from side to side in a Neanderthalic attempt of intimidation. Shebang merely turned her eyes toward the towering thug, and smiling sweetly at the threatening man, drove her elbow into his rock-like stomach. Yet even with all of his strength, the blow caused the man-muscle to double over, allowing the brightly costumed teen to respond with the generous combination of her forearm and elbow slamming into his thick jaw.
Shebang's heightened strength caused the man's neck to snap to a quick forty-five degree angle, the momentum causing his body to spin likewise as his twisted limbs caused him to tumble unceremoniously to the ground in an unconscious heap. The entire exchange took no more than three seconds, and with the largest of the assembled patrons lying unmoving on the floor, no others seemed intent on interfering with the business of the underestimated young woman.
"Let's talk boys," she said, grabbing each by the collar of their shirts and hoisting them to their feet. "I only want to know two things, who do you work for and where was that runner taking the money?"
"I ain't telling you nothin' princess!" The larger man said, finding comfort in unconsciousness as his head was slammed into the unforgiving brick wall.
"Fortunately, I'm not asking for nothing...who do you work for?" Shebang asked, turning her attention back to the smaller man before the chiming sound of her communicator cut through the silence of the bar.
"Shebang, you there?" The voice squawked.
Disgustedly grabbing the device from her belt, Shebang responded to the annoying summons. "I'm a bit busy Gear..."
"We need you at headquarters ASAP. The situation has changed. Get over here as soon as you can."
Shaking her head sorrowfully as she released the squirming robber in her grip, Shebang smiled sweetly at the shaken villain. "I'll be back to talk about that heist later. Don't try running, and don't go too far."
Turning to bolt from the bar, Shebang darted into the bright afternoon sun. She didn't like releasing the bandit, but her only solace in the fact was that she slipped one of Gear's tracking devices into his pocket. He'd be easy enough to catch up to once she could get back to dealing with the robbery, but for now, she understood the urgency in Gear's voice, and the feeling that the hammer was about to fall made it all the more a priority to follow through with her teammate. With that thought, she sped her pace and made her way to the gas station.
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Sergeant Michael Billows had experienced some bad days in his line of work, having been assigned to the task force that stopped the Marcelli Crime Cartel and its conglomerates during the time period adequately dubbed by the New Orleans media as the Sin Wars. The countless battles between the gangsters and law enforcement professionals resulted in the permanent removal of field duty for more than a dozen seasoned cops, either from physical or psychological complications.
That was partly why Sgt. Billows relocated his family to Dakota, in the hopes of ensuring he would not become another statistic among officers and leave his children without a father. Of course, New Orleans didn't have the Meta-Human population problems Dakota had, a realization he discovered in full living color as he sat slack-mouthed in his cruiser, staring at the enormous iron robot that crushed many of the civilian vehicles parked against the curb as it marched unabated down Stanley Avenue.
'Perhaps', he thought to himself, 'New Orleans wasn't so bad.'
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Static landed before the gas station entrance and deftly folded his discus, returning it to the magnetic clip inside his coat as he entered the hideout and faced his friends, the four of them taking their usual positions as they awaited his arrival. Despite the closeness exhibited by everyone present, Static noticed without fail that Talon still hovered at the edge of the circle, as if not certain she belonged among the heroes.
Hiding his own deep-rooted concerns, Static turned to his partner and waited for him to begin. "So, what's up Gear? You find something interesting enough to call us all here?"
Shuffling his feet nervously as if contemplating how best to proceed, the brilliant young man offered a half-hearted smile. "Well, I've got good news, bad news and turn the world on its ear news. Which do you want first?"
Static scanned his friends, their alert and business-like postures nearly eliciting a slight chuckle from the electric youth at their apparent seriousness. Yet any humor he may have found died immediately as he himself shared their apprehensions. "Give us the bad news first."
"Well," Gear began, a deep-rooted sigh passing his lips, "I started investigating a hunch I had, feeling that there was more involved than just the sudden emergence of the SCU. Bottom line is, we've been used."
At watching the sudden and confused stares he got from his colleagues, Gear continued. "See, I started investigating the reemergence of numerous Bang Babies that should have lost their powers in the power outage incident. What I found, for example in the case of Chainlink, was that he was moved from Dakota State Federal Penitentiary to another prison outside the demutation quarantine zone. Basically, when everyone began losing his or her powers, he wasn't affected.
"I thought this was a bit strange, so I did a bit more digging and found that he wasn't the only case. I've got a list of probably 15 Bang Babies; all transferred from local penal installations to other "higher security" facilities and all of which still have their powers. Now, obviously, I started wondering how all these transfers were done, both secretly and within one month prior to the antidote being dispersed. So I did a little more digging."
At this point, Gear lifted his visor and took a hearty drink of soda to quench is thirst before continuing. "Turns out, each warden of whatever prison the Bang Babies were housed at received unsolicited deposits into their bank accounts that exceeded their annual salary. So, as the old line goes, 'Follow the money.' So I started tracking the source of the finances exchanged between the prison officials and the as of yet unknown benefactor. After about two hours of hacking into various dummy corporations, I found the source. I tell you, Alva really likes covering his tracks."
"Alva?" RubberBand Man asked, his arms unfolding as he stared purposefully at the lecturer. "You mean Edwin Alva?"
"None other," Gear continued. "Turns out, ol' Mr. Alva has been doing some illegal book cooking with his company. I found out, judging by his inter-business transactions, that he has implemented quite a brilliant program that began filtering money from an apparent slush fund made to look as if its only purpose is to equalize his company's finances. Every hour, the fund is transferred to another branch of Alva Industries, where on alternating hours, $1,000 was withdrawn by one of several of his dummy corporations, only to be replaced by a legitimate company."
"I don't get it?" Shebang spoke up. "Why withdraw money if you're only going to replace it?"
"Because any government agency looking at a multi-billion dollar company for fraud is not going to be concerned by pocket-change transactions. They'd completely overlook it."
"It's a dismal commentary on our times that $1,000 transactions can be considered pocket change." Talon retorted from her corner.
"Yeah well...I'd have to agree with you." Gear smiled, pushing forward with the explanation. "Anyway, those $1,000 withdraws happen 12 times during the day, every day...and the money seems to be filtered to some unlisted account, probably in Brazil or some offshore Caribbean bank..." Gear said, his voice tapering off as his super-quickened mind began searching for the answer.
"Stay on topic Gear," Static broke in, knowing all too well the faraway look his partner began exhibiting.
"Oh, right," the genus said, a crooked, abashed smile donning his features. "Anyway, I figured this program has been working for at least two years...I didn't feel like trying to track it at the source, but so far, it looks like Alva has filtered, at the very, VERY least, $8,760,000 from his slush fund. The genus behind this is that the Anti-Trust Investigators would have noticed that much money taken from the account, unless it was done over the length of time Alva did it."
"So, that $8 million whatever, that's what Alva is using to transfer prisoners and stuff?" Shebang asked. She wasn't fond of figures and facts, her personality and actions always proved to her that action above words were what determined victory.
"Well, partly. The fact alone that Alva knew of the serum and began transferring prisoners before it was activated suggests he funded Dr. Todd's efforts. But now were getting into the 'Turn the world on its ear' news." Another pause followed by another healthy gulp of the carbonated beverage before slamming the large stack of printed-paper onto the desk before him. "I downloaded this from Alva's computer system. It took me two reams of paper and an ink cartridge to print it all, so I'll give you the Reader's Digest condensed version.
"Apparently Alva predicted everything up till now. He knew how we'd react to Ebon's new Meta-Breed and took steps against us. While we kept mixing it up with the Breed, Alva would go behind our backs and finance the rebuilding of all the destroyed property, effectively turning himself into the city's greatest philanthropist and Dakota's Favorite Son. But that's only the tip of the iceberg.
"The financing of his rebuilding projects could be done with visible funds as it's a charitable contribution. Right now, the biggest political issue is the anti-Meta-Human legislation. That document proves that Alva used his filtered money not only to financially influenced the mayor and city council to pass the restrictive policy against the Bang Babies, but is also financing the political campaign of Felton Spence, who's currently running for governor against Governor Marshal.
"Basically, this plan outlines in detail that he expects public opinion to sway dramatically against the anti-Meta-Human legislation. Governor Marshal is presently backing the mayor on her stance against the Bang Babies, but the polls have him nearly six points behind Spence for the governor's race. If Spence gets elected, and public opinion sways violently against the mayor and her hard line stance, then there will be an emergency vote positioned for the purpose of removing the mayor from office on the grounds of no confidence. When that happens, Spence will put Alva in as acting mayor. But Alva just won't run the city; he'll run the state. Spence works for Alva Industries, but his identity is so secured that he's not even listed as on employee payroll, meaning he's financed under-the-table."
"Wait a minute, so how did you find out this guy Spence works for Alva if its not publicly known?"
"Never mind that," RubberBand Man said, interrupting Shebang's question, much to the young woman's dissatisfaction. "How does Alva intend to sway public opinion regarding the Bang Babies?"
Gear closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. "It all depends on us. Alva plans to initiate a full-scale war between the Meta-Breed and the police. For it to work though, we need to be quiet and not interfere. That way, the public view on us will change and they'll blame the mayor that her policy drove us into hiding. With that, her public opinion will plummet and she'll be removed from office, to be replaced by Alva."
"Well that's totally stupid!" Shebang said, her anger again rising. "Does he really think we'll sit quietly and let the Meta-Breed destroy the city just so the mayor can be removed?"
"No, he doesn't," the tech genus said, his hands fidgeting nervously as he fought to continue voicing his findings. "Alva plans to keep us quiet. He has us all targeted, and has assembled the means for the sole purpose of stopping us and keeping us isolated until his plan is completed. Basically, we're all marked."
The silence that followed the statement was palpable as the unsettling, eerie chill of realization settled over the heroes. Finally, after what seemed an hour of brooding silence, Static found his voice. "So Gear, what was the good news?"
"That I don't have anymore bad news."
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Ebon growled menacingly as he and his team skulked about the alleyway across the street from the Central South Police Station. The station was headquarters for the Special Crimes Unit and hitting it would bring Static and company out of hiding. But more importantly, it would bring Gear to them. The genus inventor was essential if Ebon was going to make more of the Bang Baby gas.
"Alright, you guys know what to do?" Ebon asked, his eyes surveying his over-eager team.
"Shut up blackie," Hotstreak snarled. "All we gotta do is bust the place up, right?"
"Not entirely," Ebon said, a silky smile against his ebony skin. "We're going to show the precious SCU what it means to tackle our turf. This is our city, and they don't belong here. Now, lets make a mess."
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Edwin Alva sat casually in his office, listening to the report given to him by the shadowy figure before him. "So, they figured it out have they?"
"Yes sir," the shadow answered, making no move to explain further.
"Well, it can't be helped. I knew they were intelligent; it would be no challenge if they weren't. But still, I suppose I'll need to reevaluate my plan with this latest information. I must thank you for your continued support. Not only have you kept tabs on the Breed for me, but now Static's team as well. I must thank you."
The shadow shrugged its shoulders, as if the matter meant nothing. The shrieking of the portable communicator however, interrupted whatever the shadowy figures might have said.
"Talon, come in..."
Eyes slightly wide, the feathery young woman picked up the communicator from her belt. "What is it Static?"
"We need you at the Central South Police Station, Ebon and the Breed are trashing the SCU headquarters. Get here as soon as you can."
Steeling a glance at the elderly businessman, Talon smiled. "On my way."
"Well," Alva said smugly as he listened quietly to the exchange. "It seems the Breed has made its move faster than expected as well. I suppose it's only proper to let you go now. After all, you wouldn't want to keep the heroes waiting would you?"
"Right, I'm off then." With that, the winged Bang Baby stepped onto the ledge of the open window and flew into the open sky.
Kindred spirits were often something of a myth to the businessman, yet the winged young woman in his employ was just as devious, just as cunning as he was, and perhaps made a believer of him. If only his son could develop her spirit, he would consider himself truly blessed. As he watched her fly across the skyline to her destination, a smile parted his features. "Good hunting my little pawn."
-To be continued
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A/N: What's that? Another evil cliffhanger? Well, at least now you all know what Alva is up too, but I'd like to think I haven't eliminated all the mysteries yet. Things are just going to keep moving forward. At any rate, I hope everyone likes this chapter, and as always, reviews are always appreciated. Thanks.