Chapter VI
Jump City, ten years before the founding of the Teen Titans.
Mr. Charles was new on the job, but he knew that something was not quite right. They usually met by fours or fives, but never by the dozens like they did that afternoon. He looked around to see about thirty to forty tuxedo-clad men inside the dimly-lit room. "Pawns of a criminal mastermind…just like me.", he thought to himself.
Their boss was seated behind the desk at the end of the room. He was a pitch-black silhouette against the afternoon sunlight from the windows behind him. Charles remembered hearing somewhere that his boss had just come from the country of Quarac. He wondered when the last time he had seen his boss's face was. And then he remembered – he had never seen his boss's face. Come to think of it, this was the first time he ever saw of him. But the overwhelming evil in that silhouette was enough to terminate all curiosity. Once you saw that dark outline, you'd be sure that you don't want to see any more of him.
His boss had just finished talking to their new target over the phone. It was a guy named Wilford or Nelson or something. Charles didn't quite get the last part of the conversation…something about emperors and power and omni-whatever. But he did realize one thing…
"Umm, sir?", he called for the boss's attention. "I think you forgot to tell him where and when to meet you, sir…", he finished.
There wasn't really any noise in the room, but it somehow managed to grow more silent in a split-second. Charles could feel every man in the room holding his breath. Apparently, he did something wrong. Charles didn't really see his boss's stare, but he could feel it. The fire in it petrified the poor guy. It bore a hole right through Charles's soul.
A man near the desk took a deep breath before saying, "I'm sorry, sir. He's new."
The boss's seemingly all-seeing stare turned to the man who had just spoken. A sinister voice echoed from behind the silhouette. It said, "Oh, he is, isn't he?"
"Yes, sir." said the man again, now a tone of hopelessness perceptible in his voice.
"Are you the one who recruited this idiot?" said the boss casually…so casually, it sounded so cruel.
"Y-yes…sir…" replied the man, the tone of hopelessness transforming into despair.
"I see." said the boss. For a time, Charles felt the others moving away from the man who confessed to be his recruiter. Then he realized that they were clearing a path…between the man and another one at the other end of the room.
"Regal, you know what to do.", uttered the boss. The man on the other end of the room, Regal, pulled out a handgun with a silencer attached. There was a suppressed sound of a gunshot, and a muffled scream as blood gushed out from the other man's throat, stripping him of all rights to scream before dropping dead on the ground and making a bloody mess.
The boss's stare turned back to Charles now. He thought it was bad before, it was worse now. Charles felt he'd rather take a bullet from Regal's gun than suffer the torment of that evil gaze.
"Now, underling…" the boss spoke. "…are you suggesting that I explicitly give Mr. Wilson confidential information over a phone conversation, and risk being intercepted?"
Charles dared not speak.
"Clearly…" the boss went on. "You have no idea of what good old Mr. Wilson is capable of. The thirty-six of you…" here, he stopped. He gave a momentary sideways glance at the corpse on the floor before continuing. "…thirty-five of you…would not all be here if we were dealing with just anybody. You're all here because we're dealing with someone…special."
Slamming the phone down, Mr. Wilson gritted his teeth. He was desperate to save his son. But he knew it wasn't going to be as easy as some superhero dropping in from the future to help him out. No, it wasn't going to be that easy.
The message still rang inside his head:
"Many emperors embody titanic might, especially in new perils. Inevitably, emperors rise, fall, or remain timeless. Yet omnipresence, never easily attained through self-empowerment, eludes vain emperors nonetheless."
He knew at once what the message was all about. The mystery caller knew that Wilson was not your average Joe. Combat experience from his days in the US military had honed his skills to razor-sharpness.
The message he was given, when taken at face value, roughly translates to: "You're powerful, Wilson, especially when faced with danger. People like you come and go, and some remain legends forever. But you can't be in two places at the same time. And we took advantage of that in kidnapping your son."
However, Wilson also knew that it was a code. He proceeded to mentally decipher it. He pulled out the first letter in every word (remembering that "self-empowerment" was one word) and dropped all the other letters. He was left with:
"MEETMEINPIERFORTYONEATSEVEN"
Which, when organized into separate words, read: "Meet me in Pier Forty-one at seven."