Ghost floated away from the sounds of gunfire as Nijo took out a wave of targets on the firing range. He needed a quiet place to think and the usually deserted room adjacent to the 'shooting gallery' no longer fit the requirements he set. Floating into the main living area he saw Geode and War Machine watching the news. He stopped and floated behind them, as antisocial as he was even he needed to catch up with the outside news. The main story was another Carrion attack, this time on Tacoma resulting in the deaths of over 100 people, there was lots of anger directed towards HAMMER and Osborne for not catching the super villain in her previous attacks. From the main entrance into the sewers the doors crept open and Toxin came bounding in with Elizabeth in hot pursuit obviously back from the symbiote's 'play time'.
"How was the walk?" James asked as the Symbiote pulled back it's covering revealing Pat's face.
"Not as bad as usual." Pat commented, "Toxin isn't as aggressive as usual."
"It's true," the Symbiote hissed, "We like playing on missions."
"Ain't that cute in a very creepy way," Geode commented, "Oh everyone quiet I want to here this."
"San Francisco is still recovering from the vicious aftershock that struck the city at 13:37 yesterday afternoon. In a strange coincidence the headquarters of the biotechnology research chain Faunatron was levelled in the same quake despite being out of the main area of effect. Seismologists are still baffled about why the Earthquake resistant structure was damaged, search and rescue teams have reported that twenty members of staff are missing and are presumed to be trapped under the rubble. As of yet no official HAMMER effort has been made to help the survivors although this morning an Initiative team arrived to assist in the rescue attempt and to aid local law enforcement in keeping the peace." the reporter stated.
"You couldn't help yourself could you?" Elizabeth asked, "You had to knock down a few buildings."
"I only directed the quake, it's not like I started it." Geode said innocently, "Besides only the Faunatron building and the target structure were affected I probably saved hundreds of lives." she added in the same innocent tones.
"Well I'm going to leave you guys to your TV watching." Elizabeth told them, "I'm going to get some rounds off in the firing range." She quickly stalked out of the room and disappeared her bad mood obvious to the rest of the team.
"Well she's crabby today." Ghost said.
"Ghost, how long have you been there?" Toxin asked as he jumped onto the sofa between Geode and War Machine.
"Not long, has anyone seen the missing section of the Daily Bugle?" he asked
"Why, you still looking for conspiracies?" James asked, "What is it this time?"
"I believe that somebody in HAMMER has been putting hidden messages in the Bugle to inform the others that Osborne is planning to release a chemical attack on the town of Pigeon Falls, Wisconsin. I'm just missing the last word that should be found in the recipe of the day column."
"Ghost, when will you see that the whole world isn't out to get us?" James told him.
"Where is the article?" Ghost asked.
"Tate took it, apparently some old lady called May Parker sent in her home-made cookie recipe and Tate alleviates her stress by baking." Geode told him, "She should be finished soon."
"But I need that recipe now?" Ghost whined, "The people of Pigeon Falls are in danger."
"Seriously Ghost stop whining, sit down and have a break." James suggested, "We'll even let you by socially antisocial if you want."
"I suppose the conspiracy can wait a little while." Ghost said slowly. As he sat down Tate emerged with a comedy apron over her clothes emblazoned with a cartoon Moonstone holding a moon pie while Tate herself carried a massive tray of cookies.
"Wow smells good." James complimented.
"I made them myself." Tate told him. Ghost gave her a look and she blushed before adding, "No blood involved honest."
"What about the recipe?" Ghost asked.
"The word is Oatmeal." Tate replied sarcastically.
"Finally it makes sense," Ghost replied, "That's how they plan to disperse it, now to find enough money for a call and the one phone box in the city not monitored by phone snipers."
"These cookies are brilliant Tate" James said chewing one of the biscuits, "Seriously Ghost nothing is going to go wrong. Relax have a cookie" he said offering Ghost a cookie. Ghost stared at the biscuit and eventually took it before breaking it in half, "If I didn't no any better these look like trace amounts of opium and nicotine, somebody is defiantly messing with the mix." Toxin and Geode immediately stopped eating their cookies and looked at Tate who shook her head. "There is nothing wrong with my cookies." she told him just as the doors opened revealing a silhouetted figure.
"Good evening gents, I'm here for the money." the figure sneered unleashing a swarm of bullets spraying them across the living room. Ghost went intangible and watched as Toxin and Geode created a shield of webbing and crystal to protect the others.
"Do you want to take that back about the whole world being out to get us?" Ghost asked James.
"Not now Ghost, go to the armoury and get me a weapon." James ordered, "And tell Elizabeth and Nijo that we have an intruder." Ghost disappeared and James watched as holes appeared in the protective shield that he and the others were crouched behind.
"Seriously does this guy ever run out of ammo?" Geode asked as shell cases could be heard rattling on the floor above the buzz of the attacker's machine gun. Suddenly the firing stopped and a sick clicking sound could be heard. Tate popped her head round the shield and quickly retracted it before asking, "How sturdy is this thing?"
"Should deal with most small arms fire." Geode replied, "Why?"
"Because we have to move." Tate said as the sound of an RPG whistled towards them shattering the crystal shield. The clicking sound could be heard again and the Task Force HAMMER members dashed into the kitchen as Machine Gun fire once again raked the living room.
"I have a plan," Geode told the others, "Toxin if you can get his weaponry I might be able to get close enough to crystallize him."
"It will have to do." James sighed, "Tate do you have your gauntlets?" he asked.
"Of course," Tate replied rolling up the sleeves of her sweater, "Do you want lots of light or smoke."
"Smoke, let's give Toxin all the cover he needs." James told her. Quickly Tate sprayed a second tray of cookies with her gauntlets. "They should release the Red Phosphorus on impact." she told them.
"Okay Toxin, Geode gets ready." James instructed over a third set of clicking sounds as he picked up two cookies, "Okay go." he told them as he threw the biscuits as they began to admit a thick red fog. Toxin leapt into action and fired two streams of webbing and pulled before jumping to the ceiling as a jet of flame erupted from the red cloud.
"A flamethrower, what is this guy a one man army." Geode asked as the attacker's silhouette emerged from the cloud his arm morphing once again.
"Bushwhacker, what are you doing here?" James asked the attacker as he vaulted over the work surface planting a kick into Bushwhacker's face.
"Getting paid," Bushwhacker sneered firing his weaponized hand, shotgun rounds ripping through the air as James jumped behind the table. Geode quickly tried the same move be only to be on the receiving end of a shotgun blast that sent her sprawling clutching her chest in pain. Toxin quickly webbed Bushwhacker's arm but the mutant assassin morphed his hand into a massive blade cutting himself free while firing a regular hand-gun with his other hand. Bursting from the door of the armoury Nijo and Elizabeth arrived armed with shotguns as Ghost threw an Assault Rifle to James, the weapon clattering to the floor because of the poor throw.
"Surrender Bushwhacker, you're outnumbered and out-gunned." Nijo told him. Bushwhacker sneered and leapt at Nijo smashing through the shot-gun rounds fired before stabbing the mercenary in the chest as Elizabeth grabbed him and threw him off as his arm mutated into a biological shotgun. James ran in and smashed Bushwhacker over the head with the rifle Ghost gave him as Toxin tackled him the two men holding the man's arm down on the floor as Geode crystallized the weapon and kicked the hand-gun away.
"What the hell is going on?" James asked Ghost.
"Probably here about the oatmeal." Ghost said
"Let's find out." Elizabeth told them as she put a power-inhibitor collar around Bushwhacker's neck, his arm turning back to normal.
Two hours later and Bushwhacker still hadn't talked and Elizabeth angrily stormed out of the makeshift Interrogation Room. Angrily she called HAMMER but from the sound of her answers they wouldn't be getting any help from their superiors anytime soon. Heading to the main Living Room she slumped down in a chair and took one of the cookies left on the tray on the table, plates covering the bullet holes. Tate watched as Elizabeth sighed, putting down the fifth tray of cookies she slipped off to the Interrogation Room, she had been afraid that Bushwhacker wouldn't break even to a skilled interrogator such as Elizabeth, or Natasha, depending on who she was on the given day.
Sitting down in the Interrogator's chair Tate remotely deactivated the arm shackle and instructed Bushwhacker to place his hands on the table.
"You going to see if you can break me?" he sneered.
"Yes but first I'm going to tell you something about myself." Tate announced, "As much as I hate to admit my true home was HYDRA Base 00297 hidden under Broxton, Oklahoma. I was created from stem cells of Viper and grown in batch 003 of the Ubermensch programme. I tortured my first victim when I was only 7 and scored my first kill when I was only 5, as you can see I'm completely different to Commander Monroe, she can't cross the line but I will happily skip over it if it means finding who ordered this hit."
Bushwhacker looked undeterred and simply snorted at her in mockery. Tate sighed, "This is how it works, I'm going to ask you who hired you and who the target is, if you cooperate you go to jail, if you don't we'll have some fun." she told him reaching into what HYDRA had called '0021s Tool Kit'. "First act of defiance and I'll freeze you right hand with Liquid Nitrogen. You won't be much of an assassin without that arm." she told him pulling out a stone ball before freezing it and then smashing it open with a rusty claw hammer. "After that I'll ask again, if once again you don't cooperate I'm going to spray this concentrated acid solution on you arms and face." Once again she pulled out another stone orb and dropped the acid on to the orb, the liquid eating through the stone. "I'll ask you again, this time the price of your silence will by fifteen minutes of exposure to a nerve agent of my own creation, it won't kill you but you'll be in so much pain that the acid will seem like relief," she told him putting a canister on the table. "You'll have one last chance and then you get this." she told him cutting herself with a knife allowing the thick brown syrup to drip into a syringe. "This is weaponized Ricin, fast acting it's boosted with green mamba venom and potassium chloride to create a quick acting poison. You'll hit the floor in five minutes, but those last five minutes won't be happy do you understand."
Bushwhacker didn't look nervous or even nod, he just looked stoic like a man unafraid to die, Tate knew she would have to mix things up a bit to get results. "Who sent you," she asked.
"Frosty the Snowman." Bushwhacker replied before laughing, "And I'm here to kill Elvis." he added.
"Fine, okay I'm fed up let's just head straight for the Ricin." Tate said lifting up the syringe and flicking the end. Bushwhackers sneer disappeared replaced by a look of fear, he obviously thought she wouldn't do anything she had told him she would.
"Wait I'll talk." he said, "Just don't kill me." he panted.
"Who hired you?" Tate asked
"I don't know they always wore a mask and disguised their voice." he said.
"Sorry not good enough." Tate told him plunging the syringe into his flesh.
"No I know who the target is and who the other players are, give me an antidote or something." he asked before screaming in pain.
"Talk." Tate instructed.
"You're the target." he said, "now give me the antidote please." Tate cut herself sloppily and watched the liquid drop onto the table. "Clumsy me." she told him "Now tell me the names of the others."
"Well there's me, a woman named Tonin, Gauntlet from the Inhumans, High Tech hunter by the name of Janissary, the Sandman and a bitch by the name of Red Back, that's it I swear."
"That's everything?" Tate asked
"There was something else, the computer the boss used had some-kind of logo. Now give me the antidote." he asked.
"That 'poison' is just an O Negative blood solution, you were never poisoned." Tate told him, "Now what about this logo or you get a dose of the real thing" she said menacingly
"It said Ni…" he stopped mid sentence and collapsed his head smashing into the table knocking the canister and stone fragments onto the floor. Behind Tate the door opened and Elizabeth stood framed in the opening with Victoria Hand standing nearby.
"Tate what the hell did you do?" Elizabeth gasped.
"I don't know." Tate replied, "But he told me nearly everything, somebody outside this complex besides Osborne knows we exist."