Chapter 7: I Spy
"We could bicker until the weather turns brumal and the sun totally brews our f***ing brains," Mentallo bends across the picnic bench, "But, I would not recommend that dalliance, Bert."
"I feel a bit betrayed, Marv," Fixer fumes under a baking Sol.
"Boo-hoo, Bert" Marv replies.
Frustrated Fixer wipes sweat, "Barney, do you feel betrayed?"
"That's Mr. Fiddler, Fixer," the fed reproves, "Felons aren't on a first-name basis with me." The sun brutally beats down on Barney's beetled, balding brow.
"The f*** they ain't, Barnabus!" the Thunderbolt remonstrates, "Don't bull****. You are just as filthy as the rest of us. We are all here on business and all 'morally flexible' about how we accomplish it."
Fiddler fingers his sidearm as though at high noon this early afternoon. In his mind, he could fix Fixer easily. But instead, Fiddler indignantly comments, "You must be crazy with the heat. It's as hot as Wakanda around here." The CSA man has been to Wakanda (see Black Panther v.3 #26).
"Well, now I f***ing ain't half-baked," Fixer hits a button on his supersuit. A clear shield seals his face, and an AC system cools his scowling mug.
Unimpressed, Fiddler adds, "By the way, Barney isn't short for Barnabus. So, I guess that you're not so smart, genius."
"Does it stand for 'barnacle on the ass of society'?" Ebersol cracks.
Barney clenches his teeth and raises his middle finger. Norbert just smiles. At the picnic table, a tense silence follows. In the surroundings, cicadas sound in the sultry air as mean men stare-down each other. Fixer, Flumm, Fiddler, and a faux frontiersman sit at a table fringed by forest. Gnats buzz their flared nostrils, and horseflies flit upon their sweaty, smelly forms. Turkey vultures soar and tilt overhead.
Exiting the staring contest, Plainsman scouts Big Muddy National Wildlife Refuge. To the right, he scans the Missouri River, the Big Muddy, in the distance. A few ducks dally on its shrubby sandbars as Asian carp erratically break the water. The birds seek soothing shade this scorching day. Surveying the silty waters to shore, Plainsman sees cottonwood strands ensnarling the tall grass along the bank. The green stalks have brown spiders sitting perfectly still in webs scintillating under the unsparing sun. The explorer turns left. He ogles enormous anthills, amazingly high, constructed of burnt umber sand, swarming with their laborious residents, ringed by dandelions and daisies. Plainsman sniffs nearby carrion on the dead air, and he discerns coyote tracks leading to a dead deer, maggot-covered. Methane from the meat distorts the already steamy air. On the horizon, over verdant wetlands, Plainsman spots gathering thunderheads.
The observer assesses this place both idyllic and ominous. "I reckon that we better conclude our business and skedaddle," Plainsman speaks some common sense, "We're likely to have Avengers or other trouble up our butts real soon. Plus, it's gonna rain 'fore long."
Mentallo avers, "Listen to the hillbilly, Bert and Barney. We need to hightail it before Hulk and a hirsute tiger-lady drop from the sky, before U.S. Agent ambushes from the bushes, before Wasp makes a pest of herself, before Speed or law enforcement lope in here."
Essentially a bad person, Fixer cannot let a conflict go—even to make the peace long enough (with a longtime ally) to escape in one piece. "F*** you," says Fixer, "I could stay here all day. I got AC. I ain't in no hurry."
"Let's all just get a cold one, Bert," Mentallo reasons, "Plainsman and I can provide Agent Fiddler his Argon, Element of Doom, and we can all part like professionals."
"F*** you!" Fixer repeats, "Don't f***ing preach to me about friendship and professionalism. You were supposed to be my guard dog at the meeting this morning. Instead, you collaborate with AIM."
Essentially a bad person, Mentallo also cannot let a conflict go. "Don't preach to me about collaboration," Marv declares, "Look at the company that you f***ing keep! You don't work with the government!"
"What?" Bert is baffled, "I f***ing told you early on that we were f***ing working with the f***ing CSA, you f***!"
"You f***ing told me when we were in f***ing Harrisonville!" Flumm declares, "And, s*** has just f***ing went down-f***ing-hill from there."
"How?" Ebersol queries, "How has s*** went downhill because of me? You're the f***ing a****** who bypassed Berkeley for no good g***** reason! We could have comfortably exchanged s*** with the CSA at a secure facility f***ing hours ago. But, you had to be a headcase, Mentallo."
"I had good reason!" Fixer's partner pounds a fist, "Berkeley, Missouri, has Shaw Industries. Shaw Industries manufactures Sentinels for the Commission on Superhuman Activities and Project: Wideawake and other fascist United States endeavors. An ex-Resistant—or any mutant—would be mad to visit its odious environs."
Fixer shrugs, "Everyone's f***ing offended these days."
Mentallo spits. He states, "Yeah boy, I'm afraid that I must insist on a safe space so that my f***ing chest isn't open for some government vivisectionist to violate like a frog in a tray. Such a macro-aggression would make me uncomfortable."
"You're paranoid," Barney mumbles, "We don't do that sort of thing—for the most part."
"You're paranoid," Bert repeats, "Thus, we are in Big Muddy Refuge on a dog day of August while the sun cooks three of us like weenies. How smart is that, oh brilliant Mentallo?"
"Also," Fiddler interjects, "The Avengers surely draw ever closer because we stupidly drove out to the boondocks of Boonville instead of staying in the safety of St. Louis."
"Don't knock Boonville," Plainsman rejoins, "It is the hometown of Sara Evans."
"Well, I don't know who that is, Daniel Boone," Fiddler does not know his country music.
At the moment, Fixer does not give a fig about country music. He flings his hands up. He fusses, "Marv, like I f***ing said, I feel betrayed. The CSA comes to me in good faith. I let you in on the fun. And, this is how you f***ing repay me. Wow. I thought that you were a professional and a friend."
Barney adds, "When the government contracts you scumbags, it expects better than association with AIM and surprise insubordination."
"Don't be surprised that you summoned the devil and he didn't behave," Marvin chuckles, "Fixer and I are bad guys, and bad guys are who you wanted associating with AIM. If not, you should have just sent hero-guy Hyperion."
The spy startles, "How do you know about Hyperion?"
"I mind-probed you just now," Mentallo explains, "As Ben Franklin wrote, if you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. You know, fleas who suck-out your blood—and thoughts. And, take your dignity."
Already red with the heat, Fiddler flushes more sanguine from embarrassment and anger. With clenched fists, he stands-up and stares-down Mentallo. The Psycho-Helmet's visor reflects the outfoxed, outraged fed.
Smirking, Mentallo smugly explicates, "I know your whole plan, Barn. You and the CSA want protection from the powerhouse hero Hyperion. He is such a force of nature that this so-called superhero has owned Iron Man in a battle [see Hyperion #6] and even slain Sub-Mariner [see Squadron Supreme v.4 #1]. By beheading him, no less. No s***.
"When not pacifying Earth's protectors, this 'strange visitor from another planet' pummels us so-called bad guys, no problem. He plows through us like a powerful locomotive.
Ever since AIM extracted him from another dimension, and the Avengers rescued him [see Avengers v.5 #4], Hyperion has seemed unstoppable. And, he has been unregulated by Washington."
"In truth, he is scary," the CSA agent just admits, "He is unguided by the American Way."
"Thus, you seek any means to control him," Mentallo says, "The Commission will even commission two criminals to procure an Element of Doom."
"Specifically," Fixer interjects, "you seek some rare mutable argon. Usually, a.r. is a very stable element. However, the CSA seeks to synthesize some precious argonite, for argonite is the only substance known to weaken Hyperion. You want me to make some at an Iowa university after our current business."
Barney Fiddler hisses in disgust. He had planned to offer the Ames assignment after Mentallo and Plainsman left. That quiet campus is very important. It is essential to this nation's security, and its operational secrecy is imperative to the location's success. Fiddler is very pissed to encounter informational compromise.
"Hey, some of that s***'s classified" is all that Barney can bark back.
"I hacked your computer and communications. Any Thunderbolt, especially Techno, knows CSA equipment and procedures pretty well," Fixer confesses, "When hiring help, the CSA should remember that there is no honor among crooks. I don't trust you, and you shouldn't trust me, son."
"I second that notion." Mentallo states, "We four are all a bit duplicitous. Fixer compromised your computer. You were bluffing before about definitively knowing of my AIM collaboration. You did not definitely know.
"Rather, Plainsman's head circuitry secretly livestreamed this morning's meeting to CSA associates. Their names are Dr. Andie Sterman, a psychiatrist, and Allie Magruder, a computer tech. Those two ladies analyzed my body language and voice patterns and guessed that AIM and I were on good terms as in the past.
Being equally sneaky and intrusive, I plumbed your little mind for this information—punk."
Perspiring profusely, Fiddler flicks sweat like sewage. It seemingly evaporates before it can spatter Flumm. Teeth bared, Barney would love to shoot his adversary across the table. Trained to withstand intense interrogation, the agent is peeved about how easily this pissant probed his brain.
But, Barney gets no chance to blow away good ol' Marv.
Suddenly, Plainsman slams a certain steel canister on the wooden table, "We must conclude our business. It's hotter than hell out here and perhaps getting hotter." Plainsman points west.
Two hundred feet away, a park ranger approaches the queer quartet. Strangely, no one noticed her previously. Butterscotch hair sways on the slight breeze as her buxom form sashays casually closer. She seems unconcerned to be approaching two supervillains in full garb and two oddly-appareled survivalists, one dressed like centuries ago and one clothed in the cutting edge. Of course, Spider-Woman, Julia Carpenter, has no need for apprehension. The Avengers have their enemies in their web.
As Spider-Woman approaches from the west, Wasp bugs-in from the east. Momentarily, she pesters the picnic table occupants: pegging Mentallo across the puss, popping-up in Fiddler's face, pelting Plainsman repeatedly, and then plowing into Fixer with such force that he pratfalls on his ass.
From the grass, Fixer figures that "That's the Wasp!"
Before any crook can react, Speed sails in (over soil) and seizes Mentallo. In a nanosecond, Speed streaks him west and then north and then southeast and then east toward the Missouri River. Scrambled himself, Mentallo cannot scramble any Avenger's brain like before. Over the open water, Shepherd easily skates until abruptly stopping mid-channel. Shepherd spins about-face for shore. Flumm, naturally, plunges instead of floating. With a slight splash, the psionic is cooled from the day and removed from the fray. Struggling desperately in the current really breaks the telepath's concentration further.
Consternated, Plainsman scopes the advancing ranger with his bionic eye. Suddenly, she rips away a rubber disguise revealing an arachnid mask beneath. Spider-Woman sprints for Barney and Buffalo Bill. Plainsman cants forward to stand, but he can't. Weird psychic webbing constricts about his legs. And, it adheres his arms to the picnic table top. Arriving, Spider-Woman picks-up the table. Furiously, she flips it back and forth, to and fro. If Hulk can beat a mischief-maker so in the movies, Julia can do so during this marvelous Missouri mission.
Fiddler flops on the canister, fallen from the table, like a fumbled football. Spider-Woman notices him, collars him, and flings the felonious fed forth through the sky. Fifty feet away, he splashes in swamp froth with the frogs and the sunfish. In the shore shallows, the filthy, jarred, corrupt fed feels sore.
From his position, Fixer ogles the canister at Spider-Woman's feet. He fixes to fetch it. But, instantly, Wasp zaps his faceshield. But, to little effect. Frowning, the faux fairy fires-up her discharge. Miniature lightning bolts dance wide. Wasp delivers an unbridled discharge directly on her foe. Unmitigated electricity flashes frenetically throughout Fixer's suit. However, Ebersol is not stunned in the least. Rather, his suit stores the substantial static and shoots it right back at Wasp and Spider-Woman. Internal computer AIDA even aims the electric bolts impeccably. Steaming Wasp goes down stung. Singed Spider-Woman slaps herself several times, summoning focus. Swiftly, Fixer scoops up the steel and attaches the stolen cylinder to his belt. The villain thinks that he will bilk Fiddler of his prized booty.
"Catch me if you can," Fixer taunts the two crimefighters. Techno rockets westward into the obscuring forest.
Resilient, riled Wasp shoots after Fixer. Spider-Woman sets her boots into motion to follow. But, a busted-up cyborg splits, splinters, explodes the wood atop him. And he stands staring down Julia and swearing up a storm. Cerebrum perhaps swelling, Plainsman staggers slobbering toward Spider-Woman. Sighing, she simply sidekicks Plainsman's midsection, and he slides sloppily across the soil. He comes to still rest.
Spider-Woman scans the treeline, but she sees no battle before her. Only smoke in the distance. Fixer and Wasp must be far away by now. She scratches her head. Where is Speed when you need him? He could catch his comrade and the criminal.
A moment earlier, Speed whizzes back toward the bench to remove another rogue. Fiddler would be a fine choice.
Out of nowhere, Mentallo manifests beside Speed. Amazingly, he seems to match Speed's prodigious pace. Seemingly, he matches the speedster step-for-step. The illusion fully fools the Young Avenger. Then, like a yahoo, tricky Mentallo trips fleet-footed Tommy. The kid smacks the long stretch of mud before them (which resembles the Big Muddy's bottom) and skips roughly over the muck. From the muggy air, Mentallo molds a make-believe mallet and malevolently makes for Speed. Swiftly, stalwart Speed stands. Just as quickly, the mallet mashes the Mercury waist-deep into the mud.
Smirking, Mentallo shambles through the slop away from trapped Tommy.
Suddenly, the whole scene changes. Speed finds himself stuck in a sandbar amidst the flowing Missouri. Mentallo stands over him sopping wet and spitting silty river water. Speed's costume is dry and unsoiled, except for his trapped legs. This scene seems real. Tommy thinks about things. Somehow, Mentallo summoned Speed back while the fink fought drowning.
"My mind is faster than your feet," the chicaner chokes. The super-goon grossly clears his nose with a forceful farmer snot.
"You give mutants a bad name," comments Shepherd.
"So do you. You associate with U.S. Agent, persecutor the Resistants," Flumm counters, "Where's your pride?"
"I am proud to associate with U.S. Agent," Tommy counters, "He is an established ally of Scarlet Witch, my mom, a most famous mutant."
"An infamous mutie," Marv rebuts, "She caused M-Day and 'no more mutants'. Now, that's a case of lacking f***ing pride."
"Mind your own hubris," Speed admonishes, "You ain't too quick if you think sand will hold kid Quicksilver."
With vim, Speed vibrates his entire form. Wet sand explodes outward. It sprays and blasts Mentallo, scouring his suit and skin. In a flash, Speed swipes the psychic off of his feet and propels him past Fixer and friends (Spider-Woman, Wasp, and planked Plainsman) before Fixer even rockets away himself. The two seem to disappear into the west.
A moment later, Wasp weaves through the woods in pursuit of Fixer. Forest shade eases this afternoon's infernal heat a little. The wee wonder watches the bushes and the boughs for a rascal about to ambush. She peers far ahead for any apparent sign of an escaping adversary. Pausing, Wasp pirouettes 360 to see any sign of Fixer at all. Her fluttering wings are glowing gossamer in a single beam of sun entering a sylvan clearing. Wasp herself is fantastic nature amidst roosting songbirds and pungent jack pine. A balmy breeze barely wriggles a thousand pretty twigs and their beautiful needles.
But, the beryl boughs conceal a green-garbed guerilla. Camouflaged, Fixer kneels frozen. He hopes to escape Scot free yet. The Avenger need only not notice him. Furtively, Fixer observes the glamorous gal. She stops spinning. Wasp assesses the shrubbery's shadows. Their eyes meet.
Bert brandishes his blaster. A bolt should ignite the copious pine needles beneath Wasp. She should experience her second fireball today, after the Rowen. Jan jukes aside and journeys wide. Like a jouster, she jockeys for her foe. Jostling branches aside, Wasp generates a giant static jolt. Intense electricity unleashes at Fixer's feet and ignites the dried discard under him instead.
Evergreen debris explodes around Ebersol. Smoke and fire surround him as the kindling combusts upon soggy soil. "S***!" shouts Fixer semi-stunned and unable to see. Wasp does an Immelmann and barrels like a bullet for Fixer's body armor. She bops him backward into burning boscage and then blasts boughs above him, bringing raining wood on his head. Fixer falls down on the fiery ground. He appears helpless as flames sear his suit and surely scorch him.
But, Fixer feigns. His suit can resist the heat.
At full-size, Jan lands beside supine Bert. Teary-eyed, she blinks in the thick smoke and struggles to breath. The horrible heat harasses her, and the intrepid Avenger resolves to get her enemy back into the one-hundred degree day, where it is cooler. Wasp kneels over inert, "neutralized" Fixer.
Flat Fixer goes low-tech with a low move. Techno's flashlight momentarily blinds Wasp before he bonks her on the noggin. The kneeler falls over. The bad guy drags the brunette, by the boot, through the smoldering tinder. She vigorously bats burning debris aside. Abruptly, he grabs her wrists and wrenches her upright against a tree. Wasp grimaces grated. Spraying some sticky stuff, Fixer affixes her gloves to a sapling.
The Master of Evil pronounces, "Wasp, you are an ever worthy foe—while also always being kind of a bimbo. Bye." The major jerk jets skyward.
Shuffling on unmerciful embers, Wasp considers how she must also make her escape. She cogitates a shake and a sec. Then, the experienced metahuman adroitly makes her hands shrink from her unstable molecule gloves, which would normally shrink with her. Huffing and heaving soot, Wasp rides the conflagration's updraft into the seething sunlight. She sees no sign of Fixer. There are only approaching thunderheads in the distance.
Meanwhile, down below, Spider-Woman restrains recumbent Plainsman by plying picnic table piping around him. She concentrates on wrapping the pioneer as an arachnid would its prey. So occupied, Julia seemingly notices not a scrappy Barney approaching. A disheveled and disoriented Fiddler staggers forth from the mire into which he was thrown. In his mitts, he prepares a powerful petard to harm his seemingly oblivious adversary. He pulls the pin. The grenade soars. The assailant smiles.
Still, even sans Spider-Sense, Madame Web is perfectly perceptive. Without looking, Spider-Woman snatches the incoming explosive and spins around, all in one fell swoop. The munition speedballs back to its source. Barney bats the bomb away—but not far. It blows. The blast buffets. Julia jaunts to injured Fiddler. Carpenter fractures the firearm which he defiantly draws. She teases him that CSA must stand for "corrupt slobs annihilated". The humbled g-man surrenders to the superior Spider-Woman.
To the west, g-force should have Mentallo unconscious by now. But, mutants are a tough lot, as Speed appreciates. The ol' Resistant is still alert and not under-control. Thinking fast, Speed swishes Mentallo violently about and scuds him near the solid, unforgiving earth. Anything to keep the telepath distracted. Luckily, rocketing Mentallo remains reeling.
Suddenly, Speed skids to a stop. He swiftly slaps a scoundrel seventeen times in a single second. In the next, Tommy u-turns and takes off. Muddled Marvin lunges forward angrily, ready to avenge himself on an Avenger. The menace plummets eighty feet off of a railroad trestle over the Missouri River, one hundred miles from Boonville, at Kansas City. Fortunately, supervillains tend to defy death.
In the east, Fixer fortuitously finds the pick-up that brought Mentallo and Plainsman to Big Muddy. It is the lone vehicle in a dirt parking lot adjacent hiking trails. Fixer considers taking the truck. But, he thinks better of that idea. Undoubtedly, the Avengers have made the auto while waiting in ambush.
Ebersol decides to hurriedly become inconspicuous. Hastily, he strips his clothes and stows them in a duffel bag secreted in his suit. The lout now merely looks like a park goer clad for the wilting weather.
An eighteen-wheeler idles on nearby Highway 98. Fixer tramps for the rig. He does not want to seize the cab. A stolen semi is easy to track via GPS. A stolen semi is also a big, easy-to-spot vehicle. Thus, Fixer undoes a few locks and enters the refrigerated trailer, avoiding any heat. Argon accompanies him.