The next morning, shortly after the sun rose over the skies, the five of them were still waiting in the mess-hall, when Thirteen finally arrived, carrying what looked like projector. While he entered the hall, somebody outside was closing the windows' shutters, so it would turn dark in the hall.
"What? You don't want us to see how the night messed you up?" Ginger sounded cynical.
Thirteen shrugged: "Can I hereby assume you don't want to know why you're here, Miss Fitzgerald?"
Hearing him call her last name, got Ginger a little surprised. Snake only just managed to say, before the shutters had blocked all the light into the room: "I told you he knows all about us."
"How, that's another story." Thirteen said, as he turned on his flashlight, so he could see where he should put down the projector, and to which wall he should point it, so he could show what he wants to show them. Once that was done, he switches it on. First he showed a few pictures, some of which were from a satellite, while others were done by people. In all cases, they were pictures of... giants, would seem to be the best way to describe them. The first few showed robots, that appeared to have some features, that made them resemble cars, planes or other vehicles a lot more than anything else. Other pictures showed other robots, that either appeared to resemble a bunch of animals or dinosaurs. More recent ones would show a robot that has an old red car as a head. While these pictures were being shown, Thirteen spoke.
"As you can see, during the past few decades, we've been plagued by many... well, giant robots." he explained, "Whether it be in the States, or even in Europe..."
At that point, pictures were shown that were taken in Paris, as everybody recognized the Eiffel Tower, where there had been a giant robot as well. Not to mention England, where two distinct robots appeared.
"Yet, there's no other place in the world where these things appear as often as they did, or still do, in Japan." Thirteen added.
What pictures he showed then were, if possible, even weirder than the earlier ones. Here, it was shown how many things (animals, bugs, vehicles, vehicles resembling animals, dinosaurs, magical and/or mythical beings, buildings, to name a few) combined into robots, fighting even stranger monsters, sometimes even heading into space to continue their fight,... everything one even can't imagine, could happen in Japan.
"Coulda used some of those things when the VLA attacked." Al remarked, "Or that lizard."
"You mean Zilla?" Snake asked him.
"VLA?" Max didn't know this acronym.
Ginger snickered: "Americans. They think they're so high and mighty, but when it comes to it, they need somebody else's help."
"Anyway..." Thirteen interrupted, "All the robots that appeared on American soil were of unknown origins, therefor we have no idea as to how these things work. However, as you can also see, the Japanese have mastered the making of giant robots long ago."
"Your point?" Snake wondered.
"One of Group W's clients, a Mr Tracy..." Thirteen explained, "... he wanted to gain access to the technologies."
"What for?" Max asked, "He wants to destroy the world himself?"
"Tracy is a respected astronaut." Thirteen told her, "If he needs the technology, I doubt it would be for that."
"Then what's the problem?" Snake still didn't have it figured out.
"When one of the Group's employers was to make the transaction, the technologies for Tracy's money, they were attacked." Thirteen said, "The assailant, however, took the blueprints to the technologies."
"And now you want us to stop this one man." Ginger laughed.
"This is serious, Ginger." Thirteen told her.
"I'm sorry." Al laughed, "But I think she's right. I mean, even all the right stuff and enough people, it would still take almost a year before even one such robot is made."
"Not to mention getting the materials or all the right people." Snake figured, "Too many people would notice."
"Believe me, Largo and I felt the same way." Thirteen told them, "But then this happened."
The following pictures were newspaper clippings. These mention the kidnapping of a young woman, and at the same scene a man was killed in a traffic accident.
"Meet Tess Doerner." Thirteen said, "One of the 4400."
"The 4400?" Snake asked, "You must be joking."
"I'd wish." Thirteen replied.
"The 4400 what?" Ginger asked.
"The 4400 have been a subject of controversy in the past decade." Thirteen said.
"Long story short, they're people who disappeared, only to reappear again, but with special powers." Al added.
"You remember that man who helped you when you were in Seattle?" Thirteen asked Ginger, "He's one of them."
Ginger didn't remember much of the time that she was a complete wolf. But whatever few she did remember, was that after she healed from the stab-wound in her belly, which quite nearly killed her, it had left a mark on her. She may have survived, but she lost some blood in the process, not to mention that it sometimes caused pain depending on how she moved. This made her quite an easy target for others to chase her and kill her. It worked, until someone, as Ginger saw it, laid his hands on her and not only took away the pain, but also partly cured her from her illness that got her to look like a wolf. Partly, as the man who helped her, who appeared quite young, mind you, apparently didn't expect that the wolf would start to look human at some point, so he screamed and backed away. Ginger, who didn't know what to think of this guy, nor how to react without causing too much attention, ran away and never looked back.
"Every generation has it's own people." Snake hissed, "The superheroes in the Thirties, the mutants in the Sixties, the supers in the Eighties, the 4400 in the Noughties,... now there's the transgenics like Max. What's next? Regular people who can...?"
"Can I continue?" Thirteen interrupted, "As I was saying, that man had the ability to heal, Tess over here..."
There was one clipping that had a more clear picture of Tess Doerner, which Thirteen made appear next.
"She has the ability to make people do what she wants them to." Thirteen continued, "She once drove an entire asylum to build a tower, with some plans that were imprinted in her head. Now that she's kidnapped, we suspect that she would be used to make people come and built the giant robot, to the extend that these same people will not only shut up about it, so nobody would notice, but also she would gather enough people to have this finished within a matter of weeks."
"And if she refuses?" Max asked her, "Give her one good reason why she'd cooperate."
"How about this?" Thirteen went a few pictures back to show the picture of the man who died in the accident.
When Snake saw him, he immediately asked: "Who's that?"
"This is Kenneth Tam." Thirteen answered, "Tess' boyfriend. Likely he saw the kidnapping, tried to save her, but... well, as you can see, he didn't make it."
"Are you sure about that?" Snake asked him.
"Yes." Thirteen replied, "Why? Do you know him?"
Know him wouldn't be the best way to describe it. The night before, Snake went outside the hall and met with a young man in a trench-coat. Seeing the picture of Kenneth Tam, Snake was sure that it was the same guy. If so, then how is that even possible? If he's dead, then how could Snake have met him just the other night? Unless... Snake himself is assumed to be dead to the world, Caine is as well, as is Al, and from what he has heard about both Ginger and Jason, so are they. Could this guy be just another one of them?
"Is there something you're not telling us?" Thirteen suddenly asked Snake.
Snake looked at Thirteen, and decided to be his same old careless self: "Something like 'why am I listening to you'?"
Thirteen didn't reply to this, instead he continued: "So anyway, Tess was a paranoid schizophrenic when she disappeared, her last boyfriend died in another horrible accident. I'm sure that whoever has kidnapped her would use the death of this boyfriend to get her to cooperate."
"And you need us here, because...?" Ginger asked.
"Because none of you are, as you yourself have noticed, the usual bunch." Thirteen answered, "We don't know who or what our opponent is, or who else is working with him. But all five of you special in your own ways, which makes you..."
"Yeah, yeah, I get the point." Al interrupted, "So where are we supposed to go?"
Thirteen had no answer at the ready for this, so he tried to tell them, cautiously: "Well, to be perfectly honest with you..."
That's when somebody knocked on the door. Thirteen almost sighed of relief, before he went to the door to answer.
