Chapter Eleven:
The UN Meeting
Several miles away, the remaining three rangers flew swiftly over the mountains toward the UN conference center they had been summoned to. Peggy flew in the lead, tapping her earpiece over and over, trying to reach her captain. "Captain Cage," she said. "This is Lieutenant Madison. Come in. Do you read me? Josh? Are you there? Come in."
After repeated attempts, she finally shut it off, swearing to herself.
"Still not picking up?" Sean asked from his little screen on her visor.
"No," she said. "I can't even pick up a trace on his morpher. Where could he be?"
Kenny glanced up at her nervously from his screen. "You guys don't think," he asked, "that Josh actually did . . . what they're saying he did?"
Peggy glared at her friend. "No," she said. "No, I do not. Something else is going on here. I just don't know what."
Finally, they reached the U.N. Center in the middle of a large coastal city. They flew up over the building and killed their birdies, dropping to the ground below and tapping their morphers as they landed to vanish their suits, stepping up to the door in their dress uniforms.
"Come on," Peggy said, pulling at her uniform and feeling uncomfortable in it. She pulled open the door just as General Kenpachi and three other generals hurried out to greet them.
"Agent Madison," Kenpachi said with relief. "Cassidy, Austin, you made it. With Cage going dark, we had started to fear the worst."
Peggy smiled and nodded warmly to the general. "We're here, General," she said. "We're going to resolve whatever this is."
"You had better," General Scott said, standing behind General Kenpachi and looking as serious as ever. "We've had a lot of heat our way in the last twenty-four hours."
General Kenpachi cleared his throat. "Rangers, you know General Scott," he said.
Peggy nodded. "We do."
"And Commander Roberts, the ranger project's new liaison. And this is General Hallstrom, of the European branch."
The older man on the end smiled genially at the rangers. "It is very nice to meet you, rangers," he said, extending his hand and shaking Peggy's. "I have heard so much about you."
Peggy smiled politely, gratified that at least someone still thought they were heroes. General Hallstrom shook Sean and Kenny's hands as well.
"Come on," General Kenpachi said. "We should get inside. It's about to start."
A short distance away, June walked up the steps with her head down. Ivan Callahan apparently had a flair for disguises, as she hardly recognized herself in her finely pressed suit, press badge, and blonde wig.
"I don't know why you need me here," she said into her earpiece. "I've done my part."
"Yes," Ivan said in her ear. "And you've done it very well. We just need a civilian on the inside. That building will lock itself down shortly after the attack begins, and we just need you to open the front door when that happens, so that we can get inside and save the day."
"Save it from yourselves," June sniped.
"Well," Ivan said, with a chuckle. "You'll be saving lives either way, won't you?"
June scowled. "I didn't sign up for this," she said. "I didn't sign up for any of this. I just wanted to protect Gordon's career."
"And you've done that," Callahan said. "However, now you've got more to cover up, don't you? If you'll remember, twelve people died in that lab when you tipped us off to its location."
June's heart twisted, and she nearly stumbled in her high heels. She certainly didn't need to be reminded of that particular detail. "You had promised, when I called you, that no one would be hurt."
"I promised that Gordon wouldn't be hurt," Callahan said dryly. "Everyone else, well, accidents happen, especially in war. But we have more than enough evidence from that little interaction to pin every single one of those murders on you if you ever think about betraying us."
June scowled. She knew what he was doing. She'd dealt with sleazy agents and scumbag sponsors long enough to know when they were reeling you in with a hundred underhanded tricks to make sure you were stuck in their garbage contract for as long as possible. Except those people were only draining her money. Callahan was gambling with other people's lives.
"Don't worry about me," she said, continuing up the steps and up to the door. "I'll do what I'm told."
"That's a good girl," Ivan sneered as she pulled open the door.
Twenty minutes later, inside the conference hall, Peggy and her fellow rangers were called up to stand before the delegation.
"You are the rangers' leader?" the head of the delegation asked.
"The de facto leader," Peggy corrected him. "Standing in as leader in Captain Cage's absence. My name is Madeleine Margaret Madison, EAGLE first lieutenant, formerly an agent of CONDOR. I and my companions have elected to come forward with our identities today in solidarity with our comrade's exposed identity."
"You deny the charges brought against Captain Cage, then?" one delegate asked.
"I do," Peggy said. "I served with Joshua Cage for the better part of two years. I did not always agree with him, as I'm sure your record shows, but I know him, I understand him, and I respect him. He would not do what he is being accused of."
General Hallstrom cleared his throat and sat forward from his place on the panel. "Forgive me for saying so, Miss Madison," he said. "I do not wish to be rude, but are you really the best person to give that testimony?"
Peggy turned to look at him. "Excuse me?"
Hallstrom smiled back genially, just like he did at the door. "It does seem to me that your record is highly suspect as well. You have multiple counts of theft and robbery in your youth before you joined CONDOR at eighteen. From which you were dishonorably discharged for disobeying a direct order from your superior. Not to mention that you were in a long-term relationship during this time with one Diego Jordan, a known Black Cross spy that some here will know as the infamous Tiger Mask."
Peggy clenched her fist. A ripple of whispers swept through the room as Hallstrom kept looking at her, smiling obliviously like he had no idea the dangerous waters he was treading. She ground her teeth and did her best to keep her temper under control, to keep herself from saying the colorful things she wanted to say in response.
Sean seemed to notice her struggling and leaned forward to grab the mic. "That question is irrelevant," he said. "Lieutenant Madison has been exonerated of her past misdeeds by her exemplary conduct since."
"I hate to say so, but you have little room to speak yourself, Mr. Cassidy," Hallstrom continued. "According to your record, you went AWOL for two years after serving under a branch almost entirely run by known Black Cross spies. Not to mention your fighting on the side of the alien invader last year."
"That's not fair," Kenny said, speaking up. "Sean was under control—"
"You are not in the clear either, Mr. Austin," Hallstrom said. "You spent an entire year on an alien planet, the same planet that acts as home to last year's invading force."
Kenny fell silent.
Hallstrom looked at the other delegates on the panel. "It seems to me that all three of you are as likely to be part of this conspiracy as Captain Cage is."
Peggy's temper broke.
"We are not here to dig up our old garbage," she spat. "We are here to talk about the character of Joshua Cage and whether he could have done this thing. Check his record. I'm pretty sure you'll find it spotless."
"Except of course, for his involvement in selecting the three of you."
The room fell silent. Peggy stared at the general, dumbstruck.
"Peggy," Sean said, trying to pacify her.
"Don't you dare," she shouted, lurching forward to get at the general, her teammates hold her back. "Don't you dare suggest that—"
General Hallstrom smiled. He had done his work. He reached down and flipped a switch just inside his sleeve, activating his virus. The morphers on the three rangers' arms activated, and the rangers stopped, staring down as nanites spread across their arms. A bright flash filled the room, and suddenly, all three were in their ranger suits.
People screamed as Peggy, Sean, and Kenny stared down at themselves in confusion.
"What the heck?" Kenny asked.
"Rangers," General Kenpachi whispered. "What are you doing?"
"I don't know," Peggy said. "We—"
Before she could finish, all three rangers' arms moved of their own accord, their guns materializing in their hands and aiming straight at the delegation.
Just outside the room, June listened at the door, hearing three laser blasts and closing her eyes. Screams filled her ears as alarms started blaring and locks clicked all over the building. Her time had come.
She pushed herself up away from the wall and crossed the lobby to the front doors, the screams echoing louder and louder. Several loud crumbling sounds followed by multiple metallic clangs met her ears and she looked up at a screen momentarily to see that multiple Devil Machines had dropped into the conference hall through the ceiling and were now attacking everyone inside.
June pulled her eyes away and picked up her pace, reaching the front door and holding out her hand. "Now, let's hold on just a minute there," Ivan Callahan said in her ear. "We don't want to make our arrival seem a little too convenient, do we?"
June gripped the handle tightly. "People are dying in there!" she shouted.
"And you will wait," Ivan said. "Unless you want to join them."
For just a moment, June considered throwing open the door anyway. It was what Gordon would have done, or any of those rangers in there now being framed for terrorism. Her hand lingered for several seconds before, finally, she loosened her grip.
"Yes, sir," she said.
She turned and stared up at the screen again, where the three rangers had jumped up onto the delegates' table, most of the panel having managed to dive for cover just in time.
"I can't move my arm," Kenny said, his gun trained on the Chinese representative, her arms covering her face.
"I can't either," Sean said, his face sweating with the strain.
"Keep trying," Peggy said, her gun trained on the British representative. "We can't—"
She felt her finger close around the trigger. She closed her eyes so she didn't have to see it happen.
In that moment, a new figure smashed through the ceiling just like the Devil Machines before him, dropping down between the rangers and their targets and taking their shots. As the smoke cleared, a figure in red rose up before them.
"Josh?" Peggy said.
Captain Joshua Cage's face popped up on their visors. "Hey, team," he said with a smirk. He lunged forward, grabbing Peggy by the arm and holding his morpher to hers, transferring over the antivirus Doctor Kuchar and Algernon had developed on their way over. After a momentary beep, Joshua released her, and Peggy stumbled back, once again in control of her own body. He did the same to Sean and Kenny, and both hit the floor in surprise.
"There you go," he said.
Peggy stared down at herself, turning her hands over and over. "I'm free," she said. "You saved us."
Joshua smiled at her.
"Care to tell us what's going on here, Captain Cage?" General Scott asked, getting to his feet.
"Yes, sir," Joshua said. "If you want answers, arrest that man." He turned and fired a perfect shot at General Hallstrom, striking the small device hidden under his sleeve and making him stumble backwards. The general clutched at the device as it fell from his wrist, but anyone could see the Black Cross marking on its broken steel face.
"General Hallstrom?" General Kenpachi said, looking confused.
Joshua nodded. "That's right. And I'd love to explain more, but right now, we have a situation." He turned to his team, to the robots attacking the delegates behind them. "Rangers, it's time to do our jobs."
*Also, to anyone reading this, all views on this story mysteriously stop right around the time the site was undergoing maintenance last month. To let me know if it's a technical issue or if all my readership just up and left without a trace for some reason, please leave a short review saying you read this chapter. Thank you!*
