Tate dropped the pen on the pad of paper and rubbed the cuts on her wrists, halfway through writing the 'list of enemies' she had ran out of ink and had to improvise, curved red letters gleaming against the white paper. Watching as her list of enemies dried Tate thought of Elizabeth's reaction to Bushwhacker's sudden collapse, Victoria had quickly taken him to a hospital and HAMMER forensic teams were doing toxicology tests to see what poisons, if any, were floating around in his blood stream. Meanwhile Elizabeth and Nijo were going through everyone's rooms to find the information leak. Gliding through the wall Ghost arrived and floated behind staring at her list.
"Baron Strucker, Viper and General Marani." he read, "You have a short list of enemies." he announced.
"Did they find the leak?" Tate asked.
"No, they searched my room first knocked over my white board but they found nothing. They didn't believe me when I said that no one on the team leaked information. None of us has any real interactions with the out-side world since we arrived besides stealing newspapers." Ghost informed her.
"Stealing is wrong Ghost." Tate chided him.
"Is that really the issue?" Ghost told her, "From what I overheard Victoria telling Elizabeth, Bushwhacker had high levels of nanites and the hormone Venlafaxine swimming around his blood stream. One knocks you out the other wipes your memory."
"And she' still treating me like I did something to him, besides scare the hell out of him." Tate replied
"I have a solution." Ghost offered, "HAMMER lies, there owned by Oz Corp what ever the truth is will be distorted out of context. So why don't we find the truth out first hand, we may not be able to access Bushwhacker but his PDA is being dropped off for analyzing in a private lab in Soho."
"Are you saying we should sneak out and steal the PDA?" Tate asked.
"Yes, I believe that the corporate giants are part of this some how?" Ghost replied as Tate went to the wardrobe and pulled out a black hoodie. "Let's go and see who wants to kill me." she said pushing the hood over her hair.
Elizabeth opened the door to the communication centre and sat down in the chair before pressing the accept call button. Almost instantly Victoria's face appeared on screen her hair ruffled and her suit wrinkled.
"You look awful." Elizabeth told her.
"You try keeping the Media, NYPD and Osborne at bay at the same time. It looks like Tate is in the clear for this particular incident; the Venlafaxine had a nano signature carved onto the Nitrogen molecule. The signature consists of a Serotonin molecule quartered with an S and T." Victoria told her.
"Any matches in the database?" Elizabeth asked.
"No matches, I searched for hours but then I remembered talking to the Taskmaster about a criminal who broke into the Initiative and started using a bio-chemical weapon against the trainees." Victoria replied, "The person was a former black op named Bile."
"I remember meeting Bile once." Elizabeth answered, "She was a nasty piece of work, always looking for a more painful way to kill."
"Sounds charming." Victoria answered, "From what I know Bile is currently lounging in the Negative Zone."
"Sounds like we need to pay a visit, I'll grab Tate and get the Gunship in the air within twenty minutes and meet you at the gate in Rykers." Elizabeth stated.
"No, take Nijo and head to Rykers by foot, Osborne has ordered me to come down and oversee anything that goes on in the team personally, he's been talking about compulsory terminations of contract recently, I would hate for him to target our unit." Victoria told Elizabeth.
"Since when did you worry about us?" Elizabeth asked.
"When my neck is on the chopping block," Victoria snapped, "Get Nijo and talk to Bile, I want to know who is behind this as soon as possible. Hand out." Elizabeth sighed Victoria and Osborne were certainly acting weird but maybe it was just stress. Flicking off the screen activation she headed out into the main living room where Geode was filling in bullet holes with sand which hardened into concrete.
"Charlotte; Nijo and I are leaving to chase up a lead but Victoria will be back later. Until then keep Tate safe and don't let any her out of the complex." Elizabeth instructed.
"Sure thing boss." Geode said as she moved off to another hole.
Tate squirmed uncomfortably in the chair she was sitting in "When you said we were stealing the PDA I had something else in mind."
"What?" Ghost asked as he quickly typed into the computer a series of encryption codes.
"Actually sneaking out and stealing the device, not sitting around in your room, which by the way needs a good spray of air-freshener, this place absolutely reeks."
"Air Fresheners spread an air-born form of Lasa Fever implanted by the pharmaceutical companies." Ghost told her, "Everyone knows that."
"Right." Tate said nervously, "Cool Board." she said looking at Ghost's board of conspiracies.
"Don't touch it." Ghost replied, "Look but don't touch everything has its place."
"Wow this is crazy; Captain America is actually a covert Nazi agent, Songbird has an evil identical twin, famous cyber terrorist Ghost gets a cameo in fanon about Osborne's Dark Avengers: The Deadpool Invasion. Is this all real?" Tate asked
"Real and very dangerous," Ghost whispered, "now come and have a look at this." Tate slid over to look at the computer system, "The PDA has one file on it, a connection to a website . Bug sweep says the site is clean but just to be sure I'm boosting the systems virus protection."
"Well what are we waiting for?" Tate told him, "Click it." Ghost clicked the link and the website popped up with a gothic looking home page.
"What was Bushwhacker doing here?" Tate asked, "He was a priest surely he wouldn't believe in this?"
"He had a deck favourited; deck 2293201891-252018125518." Ghost said accessing the page.
"They must have a lot of followers if they have decks assigned to that kind of number." Tate mused.
"Oh," Ghost whispered, "Look at this."
"A card has been selected; The Temperance." Tate read, "Click to reveal chosen custom pattern." Ghost clicked the button and the card flipped revealing a blonde woman with red wings armed with gauntlet mounted wrist sprayers and dressed in the uniform of the original Chemistro.
"That's me." Tate told Ghost. "This is how they ordered the hit. Can you trace who placed this set of cards on the web?"
"Of course." Ghost said smirking, "Just flick the tracker on and we get the name. Our assassin master is Dr. J. Doe operating from an untraceable email account."
"That doesn't help Ghost." Tate shrieked. "It still doesn't tell me who is trying to have me killed."
Nijo and Elizabeth stepped into the Negative Zone portal and were greeted by the warden.
"I'm sorry Commander but we can't help you." he told Elizabeth.
"What you said that Bile was here awaiting trial." Elizabeth said.
"Yes well Ms. Tonin was transferred to the Raft a week ago, I even brought the transfer papers." the Warden stammered.
"Did Tonin make it to the Raft?" Nijo asked.
"Yes we were given confirmation of the prisoner's arrival. We don't want a repeat of that HYDRA ambush that ended in the deaths of Mr. Rhodes, Ms. Byron and the Ghost." the Warden said puffing his chest out.
"Wouldn't want that would we." Nijo said to Elizabeth, "You mentioned prisoners, who was she being transferred with?"
"Ms. Tonin was transferred with Mr. Marko AKA Sandman and Gauntlet from the Inhumans." the Warden told them, "And yes they arrived safely as well."
"That accounts for four of the five assassins Tate told me were hired to kill her." Elizabeth confirmed, "Can I see the transfer sheet?" The warden coughed and handed Elizabeth the sheet, at the bottom was a signature consisting of a single letter written in green ink. "What letter is this?" Elizabeth asked, "It doesn't look like a character from the English alphabet."
"Let me see." Nijo asked, handing him the paper Elizabeth watched as he scanned the page and growled, "It's the Egyptian Hieroglyph symbol for Kheper, the celestial scarab. Can we keep this?"
"Not really." the Warden stammered
"I'm not asking bub." Nijo told him, "We have to leave." he told Elizabeth. Suddenly all the lights went down and the portal flickered before disappearing leaving them trapped.
"Not again." the warden moaned, "this is the second time today we've lost transport power. Thank god the prision cells run on a different system or we would be overrun by now, lot's of angry people imprisoned in here."
"Great, just great." Nijo growled.
"What is it?" Elizabeth asked.
"Kheper written in green ink, what does that tell you." Nijo said angrily.
"It tells me that the person who wants Tate dead could be the Emerald Scarab." Elizabeth replied, "And if that's the case then none of us are safe."
Tate watched as Ghost fiddled around with the computer trying to find out who Dr. J. Doe was. Occasionally she looked at the board becoming engrossed in the crazy links and colourful comments that Ghost had added. It was one of these articles, about Osborne being possessed by Loki, that almost made her miss the Tarot Card changing.
"Ghost look." she told him, "The Temperance is greyed out and there's a message. New Target - The Hierophant."
"A second target?" Ghost said, "Or another user, this must be some kind of interactive target selector."
James strolled into the comms. room and saw a call waiting, lazily flicking the switch he saw Victoria running through the streets panting.
"Is Elizabeth there?" she asked.
"No she's at Rykers, we can't reach her at the moment." James said, "Are you okay?"
"No there after me." Victoria panted, "At least twenty of them armed with rifles, shotguns and machine pistols."
"Where are you?" James asked.
"I don't know, please help me." she asked as she turned and fired several shots back down the street.
"You left your pen here right?" James asked as Victoria began to run again.
"Yes why is that important?"
"Toxin can use it to track you, just keep running we're coming for you." James told her.
"Thank you." she said as James caught a glimpse of an armoured figure joining the hunt. Whoever these guys were, they weren't simple purse snatchers, they were pursuing Victoria with real malicious intent. Leaving the Comms. room he found Toxin and Geode in the firing range getting some unorthodox target practice in.
"Toxin we've got a new game." James told him, "We have to find the owner of this pen, her life is in danger." he told the Symbiote handing it the item in question. "Geode I need you to find Ghost and get Tate to the panic room just in case. When they get out of the Negative Zone tell Elizabeth and Nijo to contact us."
"Got it, I'll find them now and get her secured." Geode replied as Toxin sprinted off to the main exit, the doors still buckled from Bushwhacker's explosive entrance.
Tate watched as Ghost pressed the reveal chosen custom pattern button revealing an armoured Hierophant, the grey metal reflecting against his dark skin.
"Oh my god." Tate whispered, "The next target is James Rhodes."