Chapter Six-
"Mr. DeVille!" Valentine cried cheerfully. He paused. "Wait, should I call you Harry? Or Mr. Hart?" He looked sideways, off camera. "Gazelle!" He made a face. "Gazelle, what should I call him?"
"Galahad," she called boredly. The camera panned out, showing the both of them.
"What? Bullshit. I'm calling him… Mr. Hart, 'cause we're polite and shit. Hey, wait a second. I fucked shit up. Can we start the tape again?" Valentine frowned.
"No."
"Goddamnit. Okay. Anyways." Valentine cleared his throat. "Hope you're doing well and shit. Sorry about shooting you in the head, it was kinda necessary." He shrugged. "And it was fun. But that's not the point. Hunter is probably standing beside you right now, slightly less confused than you should be." He did a little wave. Hunter snorted.
"I'm probably dead right now," Valentine continued, sounding sad. "I probably died some super heroic death. But that's also besides the point."
"Get on with it," Harry heard himself mutter. Hunter smiled.
"You better open your fucking ears, Mr. Hart. Because I'm going to say this once and only once. There is some crazy shit happening. But let me start from the beginning."
"About three years ago, I met a man who goes by the name of Marcus Whitman. He was a nasty guy, that one. Fucked a lot of shit up. Major control freak. Anyways, about a month after I met him at a convention, he invited me to coffee. And 'cause I'm a nice guy, I said sure. I'm a nice guy, aren't I?"
"Very nice," Gazelle answered smoothly, looking up from the seat.
Hunter was listening beside Harry, hovering over his shoulder. She smelled like pine- a woodsy smell with just a hint of vanilla, perhaps her shampoo.
"I know." Valentine chuckled. "Anyways, so here we went, out to coffee, and he suddenly starts chatting up a storm. He's going on and on, but the bottom line is he wants world domination. Like, what the fuck, right? I barely know this guy, and his first real conversation is about his plans for world domination. Not your typical cafe conversation. And the only reason he's letting me in on it is because I've got the brains and the money." Valentine's demeanor shifted, suddenly turning dark.
"His plans were vicious and savage. I refused right off the bat, taking it as some kind of cruel joke. But he sure wasn't joking." Valentine sighed. "If I had known what he would do, I would've gotten Gazelle to kill him right away."
Gazelle scowled, crossing her legs, making a soft swish as she moved.
He shook his head. "We should've killed him the first chance we got. I never did think he was completely sane, you know. He was a madman."
"Anyways, years passed, I graduated. Didn't hear nothing from him. And then one day, my security system picked up a threat. Now, my security system can do whatever the fuck it wants. Sometimes it counts a racoon on the lawn as a threat, but other times… it counts something that doesn't directly affect me at all. No. This time, it picked up a threat that involved the entire world."
Hunter raised a brow, pursing her lips together. Harry's attention flickered between the screen and Hunter. He seemed to catch every subtle movement of hers.
Get yourself together, Harry, he scolded himself as he forced his attention to Valentine and Gazelle.
"Whitman never did graduate. He disappeared in the midst of completing his masters in soldier nanotechnologies- dramatically improving military soldier protection and survivability capabilities. Nobody ever questioned it really. He was crazy enough that people thought he might've just decided to move to Canada or something."
Harry narrowed his eyes. Crazy, equally, unpredictable. Unpredictably equally bad.
"Unfortunately, this was not the case. My security system- V-Glass, informed me that in fact, Whitman had dropped out because he had discovered something big. Whitman was creating tiny little microchips. He probably got the idea while he was in university, working with soldier nanotech 'n all. The chip needed to be embedded in one's forehead. The moment it was, Whitman had complete control over a person, from their actions, thoughts, and even perception. The chip sent direct signals to the neural system, and from a center control panel, he could issue commands in binary. He conducted many experiments- and the microchip was 100% effective."
"However, one particular experiment was not 100% effective at first. It involved a person who was schizophrenic. He was extremely aggressive and just barely controlled. After the microchip was embedded in his skull, it took fifteen minutes and thirty-three seconds for him to begin responding to commands."
"Now, this is where I come in. Think about it like this, Mr. Hart. This tiny chip could be fired from large distances, at anyone, really. Imagine- once that chip was activated, Whitman had total control over the individual. Take… The Queen, for example. If Whitman managed to get one of those things in her head, Her Royal Highness probably wouldn't even realize it until it was far too late and had given up the throne to the guy. Pretty scary imagining the things he could accomplish with that tiny chip."
Gazelle played with the cuffs of her black dress shirt. Her lips formed in a tight line. She was clearly not happy about this Whitman character.
"I sent Gazelle to observe Whitman. Lo and behold he was residing in an enormous estate, guarded by basically, a few medium-sized armies. Top-notch technology everywhere. My guess is he got the funding from a couple of billionaires with his chip in their head. Gazelle barely got out of there alive."
Gazelle huffed softly in the background.
"We tried everything to get in there. We sent in dozens of people. Assassins, spies, anybody who was willing to try. They never returned. Gazelle was the only one who came back, and that was 'cause she didn't even go into the estate."
"We tried bribing the soldiers of Whitman's armies. They didn't even respond, no matter how much I offered. I later realized that it was because Whitman was controlling them into complete and utter obedience and loyalty. He sent his little brain-washed- literally- servants to do his bidding. And his empire slowly grew. He needed to be stopped."
"I almost gave up. And then Gazelle suggested that we give Whitman a taste of his own medicine. So that's how V-Day became more than just a concept."
"We only had one chance to get it right. And that chance was wholly based off of that one test I mentioned earlier- the one where the guy with schizophrenia. His inhibitions were already next to nothing, and his aggression levels were pumped up pretty high. So, I thought, why not do the same?"
"Tada, my SIM cards were born. Like I said to you the day I shot you-" Valentine paused, snorting. "Sorry, it's still really funny. Anyways, like I said, the SIM cards sent out a neurological wave that trigger the centres of aggression and switch off inhibitance."
"The goal was to focus a particularly strong wave over Whitman's estate. We placed the SIM cards around the estate, buried in the grass and such, and we also made sure that the majority of his army received the cards as well. The hope was that the waves from my SIM card would cancel out, or at least, prevail over Whitman's microchips."
"Well, if you're watching this, then I failed." Valentine hesitated. "I'm probably dead. Otherwise I would've come to find you again myself, Mr. Hart. But I promise you, you're in good hands if Hunter's got your back." He tried for a smile, but it was rather forced.
"Also, as for why I kidnapped all of those celebrities and politicians, think about it this way: if I asked them to basically willingly allow global genocide, how easy would it be for Whitman asked them willingly to jump on his bandwagon? One of the only disadvantages of his microchip, we later discovered, was that it's unable to track sound transmissions and such, unlike my chip- the one used to counteract the waves from the SIM card."
"So if, in the case, a particular individual agreed to be part of Whitman's plans, God knows why, then I would be able to make their face explode." Gazelle smiled. "And as for the ones that didn't agree, I decided to keep them safe, just in case."
"Now. You must be wondering, Mr. Hart." Harry's heart beated a little faster when Valentine seemed to look directly at him. "What does this have to do with you?"
Harry agreed.
"Well, I'm asking you- and your little organization, Kingsman- to save the world."
WHEW. I'm so sorry for the big hiatus on this story- I got soooooo stuck. But the plot's all mapped out now, and I know what I'm doing, so chapters should be updated more frequently now. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO STUCK WITH ME FOR THIS, and cheers to my beta reader, 123Books. Leave a review! And thanks for all the favs and follows.
Next time: Harry has to get back to Kingsman HQ, and he has to meet with someone who he hasn't seen for a very long time… *cough cough Eggsy cough cough*
-happynomnom
