Norman Tuttle was totally absorbed in his work, fiddling with some new gadget for Street Hawk, when Jesse Mach stormed into the Command Center and headed straight for his training room, bolts of lightning fairly shooting out his eyes.
"Levine is still alive," he said tersely, with neither pause nor preamble. Norman looked up from the shield generator he was experimenting with, his concentration broken.
"Uh...what?"
"Burton Levine," Jesse repeated over his shoulder. "He's still alive." He shed his jacket, kicking off his shoes and grabbing his black racing suit. The federal agent stared after him, wracking his brain to put a face to the name, a growing feeling of unease blossoming in his stomach.
"Levine... The guy that hired that friend of yours to kill you a couple months back?" Jesse jerked his head in a perfunctory nod, and Norman swiveled his chair around, now completely focused on the cop. "I thought a stack of cars fell on him."
"So did I," Jesse said. He zipped up the top of his suit and grabbed the high-tech helmet off its stand, tucking it under his arm as he strode out the changing room. "But either he got out the way, or just happened to go through a window, or something, because he's still alive. Someone called the station and claimed they saw him down around the junkyard, and video footage confirmed it." He pulled on his gloves, his jaw set, and the feeling of unease that was gnawing at Norman turned to full-on dread.
"What are you doing?" he asked, though the question was basically just pro forma. He knew perfectly well what his colleague was about to do.
Jesse shot him a look that plainly said he was thinking the exact same thing. "What do you think I'm doing?" he returned, heading for the controls that opened the doors of the bay where Street Hawk was housed.
Tuttle stood up, already dreading the coming confrontation. He was a timid man, and did his best to avoid conflict of any kind whenever he could; but when it came to Operation Street Hawk, his rather pedantic nature forbade him from sitting passively by while his technical subordinate railroaded him.
"I can't let you do it, Jesse," he said, nervous but firm. "Street Hawk is government property, not your private vehicle to be used to pursue your own personal vendetta." Jesse stopped, standing very straight and still for a moment, before turning to face the engineer.
"Are we doing this right now?" he asked, the resignation in his voice underlined with a hint of anger. Norman crossed his arms, an unusually decisive gesture on his part.
"I know Kevin Stark was a friend of yours," he began, "but that doesn't give you the right-"
"Oh, come on Norman!" Jesse cut him off, flinging the motorcycle helmet onto a desk in frustration. Tuttle winced at the cavalier treatment of his custom technology. "Kevin wasn't just a friend; I told you, we were like brothers! He's gone, and the man responsible for his death is still out there! And I can't run him down as just Jesse Mach. I need Street Hawk."
Norman blew out a frustrated breath of his own. "I understand your relationship with Stark," he said, enunciating very clearly, the way he always did when angry. "But that still doesn't give you the right to take Street Hawk out for personal reasons. It's a one-of-a-kind prototype owned by the federal government, and for federally approved missions only. If anything happens to it while you're on an unauthorized jaunt-"
"It's a motorcycle!" Jesse practically exploded. "If anything happens to it, fix it!" Norman gaped at him.
"'Fix it'?" the engineer repeated incredulously. "'Fix it'? It's a highly advanced, custom-built, thirteen-million-dollar piece of technology! It took me four years and countless tax dollars to build! If something happens to it, you can't just take it to the nearest auto body shop and say, 'Oh hi, I smashed my particle beam generator in a freak accident, and my hyperthrust is malfunctioning, can you fix it?' I have to make all repairs myself, and it would take me countless more hours, and more money than I care to think about."
"But you can do it," the cop shot back. "So it might take a few more million dollars; when has the government ever cared about bleeding the taxpayers dry, anyway?" His gloved fingers clenched into fists, pain and anger written all over his face. "You can't put a price on friendship, Norman. Kevin is gone, murdered, and the scum responsible still walks free. I have to do this." Norman shook his head.
"I'm sorry, Jesse," he said, almost apologetically. "But I can't let you. Washington put me in charge of Operation Street Hawk, and I can't jeopardize what we're trying to accomplish here. Street Hawk is only to be used for authorized missions; I can't let you just take it out whenever you want." He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "This would be the second time you would use it for personal revenge. First Marty Walsh, now Kevin Stark - when will it end? You put yourself and the Hawk in danger when you went after Corrido, and to what end? It didn't bring Walsh back, did it?"
Even as he said it, Tuttle winced. As soon as the words came out his mouth, he knew he had crossed a line. Jesse's face was like stone, but his eyes blazed.
"Don't," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Don't go there." Norman bit his lip.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, but Mach ignored him, cutting him off again.
"If you want to maintain your illusion of control, give me permission to take Street Hawk. We both know it's going to happen, and we're wasting valuable time arguing about it."
Two sets of blue eyes met and held each other's gaze, locked in a silent battle of wills; though deep inside, Norman already knew who would win. Jesse was right - his control of the whole Operation was just an illusion, and it kept slipping more and more as the weeks went by.
He sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "Not a scratch, Mach," he said morosely, already resigned to a night spent buffing out scrapes and dents. "Not a scratch."
