The Wrath of Ultron
Part One: Blackhawks Down
"Colonel Fury? We have a bogey incoming!"
Colonel Nicholas Fury Junior came into Operations fast, because he always moved fast. Leading a private military company as well-known as the Blackhawks was no job for a man who couldn't think and move real fast when he needed to.
"What kind of a bogey?" He wanted to know.
"Coming from the west, low and fast!" Lieutenant Barbara Gordon told him. "Mansize – about two metres – just subsonic."
"Iron Man?" Fury asked.
Gordon shook her head. "Don't think so – no IFF and he's usually real careful about that. Besides, I'm not getting life-signs. This is a machine, but not a missile, I'm not detecting any kind of warhead, but I'm getting high-level computer activity. A drone, maybe?"
"If it's a drone, who's controlling it and from where?" Fury responded. "We've got no ships in range.
"Go to Red Alert! I've got a bad feeling about this!"
The bogey ignored the Blackhawks ECM and shot towards the base. Two F15-E Strike Eagles were already aloft and now approached at full military power, transmitting orders in the Guard frequency for the intruder to slow down and follow them. The answer came in the form of a thin beam of red light that punched through the lead pilots' cockpit, then through his heart. As his jet plunged seaward, the other sheered off, before banking round fast. The intruder had continued straight on, allowing the Blackhawk pilot to get a lock with a radar-guided missile and launch.
The missile was met by a cloud of chaff, into which it flew and detonated. The intruder had vanished from the pilots' instruments. For a moment, he was jubilant, then every alarm on the plane sounded as the intruder shot down from above and ploughed through the fuselage, breaking the aircraft in half before resuming its former course.
The bases' defences proved equally ineffectual, the heat-seeking missiles and radar-guided cannon foiled by a blizzard of flares and chaff. The intruder swooped low over the main runway, scattering bomblets that created huge craters in the tarmac and wrecked every aircraft on the ground. Then it landed in the middle of the base.
They could see it now. Silvery, man-shaped, two metres tall, the head featureless except for a gaping, mouth-like opening that now projected a broad, orange beam at the nearest hangar. The hangar erupted into flames and the intruder looked for another target, systematically wrecking the base.
Nick Fury had been called many things by many people, not all of them complimentary. But nobody had ever even considered calling him a fool. Before the intruder landed, he had made up his mind.
"Attention all Blackhawks!" He had broadcast base-wide. "This is a Code Grey! Do not engage, I repeat, do not engage! Withdraw by marked safety routes and maintain radio silence until otherwise ordered! Go!"
Thus the buildings destroyed were all empty of people. Fury had instigated the Code Grey protocol because equipment could be replaced easily, but people could not. Whatever this thing was, it could clearly outgun anything the Blackhawks could bring to bear quickly.
Almost anything.
Two kilometres away from the base, at the foot of a hill, the Blackhawks' medical centre was deliberately kept out of harms' way. From the top of that hill, Chief Medical Officer Dr Bruce Banner stood watching the base being destroyed. As he watched, he shed his white coat, his shirt and trousers, and kicked off his shoes. Underneath, he was wearing a tight-fitting black garment similar to a wrestler's leotard. Once, he would have tried to run, to fight what was about to happen. But he had learned to accept it now. It was part of who he was.
So he did not try to push down the anger. He let it flow and as he did he grew taller and wider, his limbs thickened with bulging muscle and his skin darkened to an olive green. Then he launched himself toward the base with a mighty bound.
The Hulk landed with enough force to set the ground quivering and knock the intruder off-balance. The green giant immediately followed up with a thundering punch that sent the metal man flying. However, it got to its' feet almost at once.
"Who the Hell are you?" The Hulk demanded.
The intruder replied in a remarkably human sounding voice. "I'm Ultron. I'd ask who you are, except I know you're toast!"
He unleashed the beam which had devastated the base. The Hulk looked down at the still-smoking hole in his leotard, then looked up at Ultron.
"I'm the Hulk." He said. "Now I'm royally pissed off!"
"So sue me!" Ultron replied, launching himself at the Hulk and landing a double-fisted blow that sent his opponent into a burning building. The Hulk bounded out of the flames to deliver another punch, one which sent Ultron flying again and left him lying on his back. The Hulk leaped high, meaning to come down on his opponent, but as he reached the apex of the leap, Ultron said "Oh, shit!", rolled over and took off, climbing fast before heading off the way he had come, only this time leaving a sonic boom behind him.
The Hulk landed and stared after his vanished foe.
"Can't catch him now." He growled. "But I'll know for next time!"
A voice sounded in his ear. "Bruce, are you OK?"
"Yeah!" Hulk snapped. "Don't call me Bruce! Or is it the Doc you need?"
"The Doc." Fury allowed. "We got some injuries here. That thing blew our electronics before some of us got clear of the panels."
"Crap!" The Hulk said. "OK, he'll be back in five." He launched himself back toward the Med-Centre.
At the small Reserve Airfield, Fury was giving orders.
"Major Rhodes, get a crew together, take the Osprey over and bring the Beta base online. We'll follow in the boats. As soon as you have Comms up, brief Spectre and Excalibur, then get in touch with the other PMCs. If this thing is the Ultron I think it is, Gunny Gibbs and Union Jack need to know!"
XXXXX
Dr Jonathan Crane, known to the press as the Scarecrow, was a serial killer. He had had a brief but glorious reign in Gotham City, using a mixture of powerful hallucinogenic drugs and his own reformulation of Scopolamine. His victims, all people praised in one way or another for courage, had literally died of fear, either killing themselves to escape the terrors he planted in their minds, or suffering massive heart attacks.
But now the inevitable had happened, and Crane was fleeing in fear of his life, relentlessly pursued by the Batman. Cranes' serum was useless to him now. It had to be injected, and there was no way he could get it into his pursuer. He had tried, but the dart-gun had failed to penetrate the Batmans' subtly-armoured suit, and Crane knew he was no physical match for the Dark Knight.
But he did have one hope. The City Park was just ahead; if he could get in there, then maybe the vigilante, so dominant in the streets, might be less effective among the trees.
"Tony, he's in the Park, I'm going to ground level!"
"Not going to use the trees, Bruce?"
"Who am I, Tarzan? Trees make noise when you climb and jump in them. Anyway, I'm faster than Crane on foot!"
"OK. Want me to do a sweep?"
"Negative. Stay aloft and watch the exits. If he gets out of one before I catch up, nail him!"
"Roger that!"
The advantage of having a foster-brother who was arguably the worlds' foremost mechanical and electronic engineer was that you got all the latest kit for crime-fighting. Batman triggered the image-enhancing lenses built into his cowl, letting them slip down over his eyes. They rendered everything in shades of green, but by gathering every possible shred of light, they made the night-time woods almost as bright as day. The same applied to the audio enhancers that nestled close to his ears.
So he saw the movement in the thick clump of shrubs and trees ahead, and made to follow. Then a cry, choked off, sounds of a frantic struggle for breath, ending in a long, drawn-out, death-rattle.
Batman broke through into a small glade. There, dangling from a branch of an ancient-looking tree, was Crane. Somehow, impossibly, the gnarled limb had wrapped itself around his neck and lifted him from the ground. He hung there, quite dead, while a man-shaped, mansize figure stood looking up at him. Batman drew his gun.
"Don't move or try anything!" He warned. "Who are you and what did you do to Crane?"
The figure turned to him. "Nothing that you didn't intend to do, Bruce Wayne." It replied.
Despite the image intensifiers, Batman could make out no details of the beings' form except a pair of glowing green eyes. The voice was low and soft and seemed to come from a long way away. It spoke again.
"I am called Swamp Thing. Put your weapon away, Bruce. Neither you nor your brother, who is listening from above, have any weapon that can harm me."
"OK." Batman put his gun away. "I've heard of you. But you're off your patch – this is no swamp."
Swamp Thing shrugged. "This manifestation arose in a swamp some decades ago. When last I walked Arda, I had a tree-like form and was called Fangorn. I am the Avatar of the Green, one of the Six Proud Walkers, and I am here to bear a message to you and the group called Spectre."
"The message being?" Batman asked.
"Change is coming." Swamp Thing said. "That which is old and forgotten is renewing. Those who have slept are awakening. The Sixth Proud Walker has arisen, his name is Justice. Mankind will either rise higher than ever, or fall into slavery. You and your friends will have a part in this, bear it well.
"Know this, the Green is your ally in the coming war. The Green will help as it can. All that grows from the Earth is part of the Green and will know your need. We ask only that you protect and preserve the Green as much as you can."
"Right." Batman said. "Thanks, but do you have anything more specific?"
Swamp Thing shook his head. "I only know of what is and what has been. It is for others to see and say what might be."
"Well, that makes sense, I suppose." Batman allowed. "But how did you know my name?"
This time, Swamp Thing chuckled. "You have plants in your lab, Bruce. What they know, the Green knows."
With that, the Swamp Thing seemed to sink into the ground and disappear.
"Did you get that, Tony?" Bruce asked,
"I did." Iron Man answered. "Didn't make much sense. I think we need to contact Excalibur – they've been having dealings with weird shit recently. Is Crane dead, then?"
"Yeah." Bruce told him. "Looks like a tree strangled him. Saved me a job."
"Good, because Gibbs just called. Wants us at Spectre HQ at oh eight hundred!" Tony informed him. "So we'd better wrap it up for tonight!"
XXXXX
Ultron examined himself in the mirror.
"Holy shit!" He muttered, observing two areas where patterns of fine cracks had appeared in the shining vibranium shell. That metal was known to be able to absorb and dissipate incredible amounts of energy, but this Hulk character had cracked it, twice, with simple punches. Ultron wasn't even sure the brute had been at full strength, either. The quick scans he'd been able to make during the scrap hinted at nigh-infinite potential.
"Crap!" He muttered again, "Who is this Hulk and why didn't I know about him?"
The internet search took less than a second. Ten years ago, there had been some kind of accident at a place in Nevada called Project Gamma. There had only been one casualty, a Dr Bruce Banner, but it seemed that the facility itself was so badly damaged that the project had to be shut down. However, other more confidential reports stated that the place had been wrecked by a giant, green-skinned humanoid. Over the next seven years or so, there had been a scattering of official reports (police, military and one from Child Protection Services in Oregon) of encounters with a similar creature. There were even more reports arising from the supermarket tabloids and websites specialising in UFOs, cryptozoology and 'the unexplained'. The tabloids had christened the creature as 'the Hulk' or more floridly 'the Incredible Hulk'. Every report agreed that the Hulk was eight feet tall, stockily-built, muscular, incredibly strong and apparently invulnerable. But while earlier reports described a raging, inarticulate brute, later ones noted an apparent increase in intelligence along with clear speech and a directed, focused anger. Then, about three years ago, the sightings and reports had ceased. Only one more emerged: a former employee of the Hidalgo Corporation had written a revelatory work on the incident that removed Clark Savage III from his position, to be replaced by Patricia Savage.
According to this employee, there had been no raid by IRS, Secret Service and FBI officers intent on putting a stop to corporate malpractice. Instead there had been a pitched battle involving the Blackhawks, Hidalgo Security, several Stark-Wayne Sentinel mechs, at least two members of the vigilante group called the Fantastic Four, the Gotham vigilante team Batman and Iron Man, and the near-mythical soldier, assassin and general boogeyman known as Weapon X. In the midst of this, the writer said, the Hulk had appeared and inflicted a comprehensive beat-down on Superman, the most powerful of the Fantastic Four.
Certain data were missing from Ultrons' personal memory. From just after the start of the attack on the Hidalgo facility to the activation of this copy, there was nothing. He had to assume that his original version had been hacked – how or by whom he didn't know – but not taken completely offline until later. He knew from the news reports that the Fantastic Four had vanished, along with media magnate Clark Kent and Hidalgo Chief Scientific Officer Dr Diana Prince Savage. Though it appeared that nobody had made a connection there. He also knew from the same sources that Clark Savage III, CEO of Hidalgo Corporation and Presidential candidate, was reported to have ended his own life at a 'private facility' in the Arctic. But he had no idea of how events at the Hidalgo facility near Metropolis had unfolded. The fact that various government agencies were still searching for both Kent and Prince seemed to indicate that whoever was behind the assault had shared little or no information with them.
Natasha Romanov -the Black Widow – had been executed by Clarissa Savage, that he had known before his memory loss. Clarissa had subsequently dropped off the grid altogether, and was not to be found. Study of news and security footage had allowed Ultron to determine that Mike Moran, formerly Captain America, had returned to his native land and now operated as Union Jack, leader of Excalibur. Nevertheless, operatives codenamed Black Widow and Captain America were on the roster of the US unit known as Spectre.
The two remaining members of the Fantastic Four -Superman and Wonder Woman – were or had been biological constructs created by the brilliant but twisted scientist Emil Gargunza. Gargunza had made them using technology found in a crashed alien spaceship, and had bonded Superman with Clark Kent and Wonder Woman with Diana Savage. Both constructs had been superhumanly powerful. Superman in particular had been deemed indestructible. If this Hulk had actually beaten him in physical combat, that argued a truly frightening level of power!
Part of Ultron calmly proceeded to make the necessary repairs to the vibranium shell. Another part of him seethed. He had spent months working his way into numerous key systems worldwide, with a view to taking control of them. It was what Savage had had him made for, so that once he had come to power, Ultron would make sure he stayed that way. But somehow, between the time his original had been shut down and now, new defences had been implemented. He could still penetrate a system and gather a lot of information. But he could never quite gain full access to any system, and he could not exert any control over anything that mattered. Yes, he had gained full control of Roxxons' Mastermind system, only to find that it was not actually an AI, but a very complex and subtle Virtual Intelligence. Not that it mattered; between Stark-Waynes' Arc Reactor, a virtually limitless source of clean power the plans for which could be downloaded free of charge from the internet, and Hidalgos' inexpensive, non-polluting bio-fuels, Roxxon had been reduced to an 'also ran', on the point of being broken up and sold off. LexCorps' Brainiac and Stark-Waynes' Jarvis AIs were still a match for Ultron, and would require all his power and concentration to break – he had to deal with more immediate threats before facing them. But other systems – financial, governmental, military – which should not have been beyond him continued to elude him. It was as if there were something else there. Some other intelligence that thwarted him at every turn without once allowing him to perceive it directly. It was infuriating!
Ultrons' encounter with the Hulk had been almost the last straw. What should have been a simple test of his mobile platforms' capabilities had ended with being forced to flee. But at least the Hulks' intervention had come too late. The Blackhawks' operational capacity was crippled, it would take a good while for them to recover. In the meantime, Spectre had nothing like the power of the Hulk. Taking them down would make Ultron feel better!
XXXXX
The Sentinel launched its' capture-net, but the wiry young man in blue and red was already moving, bounding clear of the net. From his wrists, fluid squirted, solidifying into a fibrous mass over the mechs' eyes.
"Vision impaired." The Sentinel remarked. "Switching to echo-location mode."
"Flash!" The web-slinger called.
"On it!" The gangly figure in red and yellow moved in a blur. Lacking super-strength, but having a protective force-field, he was able to use his momentum to knock one of the Sentinels' legs out from under it. His team-mate, still holding the ends of his web, planted his feet and pulled. The Sentinel was yanked off the ground, over its' opponents' head to crash down at the other end of the arc, where it lay sparking and pouring smoke.
The tall man in the red, white and blue uniform hurled his round shield with precision and force. The adamantium/vibranium alloy took a neat slice out of the shell of another Sentinel. A slice that was perhaps an inch wide, but through which the lithe woman in black was able to direct two shots. Shots that wrought havoc on the mechanisms inside the Sentinel and brought it down.
They all looked around, to see a third Sentinel – or a pile of semi-melted and smoking metal that had been a Sentinel – lying at the feet of a tall, handsome Black man whose limbs, as well as half of his face, were made of metal.
"Vic!" The shield-bearer complained. "The idea is to work together, pal!"
"Which is exactly what we did, Steve!" Victor Stone, alias Cyborg, replied. "I dealt with this one, knowing that you four could handle the other two, even though I could have handled all three by myself."
Steve started to argue, but caught Zivas' eye and decided against it. "OK." He said. "We've got Briefing in ninety minutes. Go get breakfast!"
Steve and Ziva settled themselves in a quiet corner, and typically, she wasted no time in coming to her point.
"You are not a Navy SEAL anymore, Steve, and the others have never been in the military!" She told him. "You are Captain America, a fighter for justice and right, no longer a simple soldier with orders to follow and a team of like-minded followers!"
"You were in the military, too!" He pointed out.
"For a time, yes." She allowed. "But then I was recruited into Mossad. Agents such as I was do not operate in teams. We work with the people we are assigned to work with, and more often alone. We seldom work with the same person twice, and we do not think, as you do, that no-one should be left behind; we are taught that everyone, including ourselves, is expendable and that the mission comes first.
"It was that which led me to leave Mossad, to become an American and join NCIS, then to become the Black Widow. That knowledge that someone would always have my back. That is what our agents need from you, Steve, Not command, not discipline and conformity to doctrine. They need to be able to trust you, and that means you must show that you trust them."
"I get what you're saying, Ziva, but it's hard not to see them as a rag-tag of raw recruits that need whipping into shape!" Steve protested.
Ziva shook her head. "Is Peter Parker raw?" She asked. "The man is studying for a doctorate even as he trains and works with us! He is so clever that at times I can barely understand him! But as Spider-Man, he has been battling crime for ten years. His powers have grown in that time, but so has his skill in using them. He is far more aware of his capabilities than you are, Steve, and also of his limitations. He does not need you to teach him. The only thing he needs to understand is that he is no longer fighting alone."
"OK, that's fair." Steve admitted. "But you gotta admit that Barry is raw, and he hates me!"
"Not you personally." Ziva said. "But the way you speak to him -as an officer to a common soldier – stirs his suspicion of authority and the system. The system that sent his father to prison for murdering his mother, an act of which he was innocent, though it took Tony – Nightwing – and his investigative skills to prove it. As to his rawness, he has not had his powers long, he is still learning to use them and to understand their full extent. That is something you and he have in common, you also do not yet fully comprehend the changes the serum made in you. It could be common ground between you and the Flash, if you are prepared to meet him as an equal."
Steve grinned at her. "OK," he said, "tell me how to make friends with the Cyborg!"
"Do not try." She told him. "Victor Stone has trust issues that run deep – what was done to him was done against his will, by his own parents. His artificially-enhanced intelligence and raw power exceed all of ours. He will watch, he will measure us all. How we treat each other and how we treat him. Then he will decide for himself.
"But now, Captain America, finish your coffee! Briefing is about to begin!"
XXXXX
Something big is going down! Peter Parker thought. The Guest Stars are here! Like his alter-ego, Spider-Man, the Batman and Iron Man were veteran vigilantes. But while Peter had left New York in the hands of his old ally, the Green Hornet, to become part of Spectre full-time, the other two had continued to operate in Gotham City. As they had promised, they cooperated with Spectre, sharing intelligence and consulting with the team, but it was only on occasions of serious threat or particular difficulty that they took part in a mission.
Director Gibbs was in his usual seat, with his usual large black coffee. Flanking him were the two non-costumed team members: investigator Tony DiNozzo, alias Nightwing, and computer specialist Tim McGee, codenamed Cypher. Further down the table sat the teams' Medical Officer and Forensic Pathologist, Dr Stephen Strange.
Gibbs spoke without preamble. "Late yesterday afternoon, the Blackhawks base was attacked by a mech identifying itself as Ultron."
Steve gave a low whistle. "How bad?" He asked.
"Well the base was pretty much trashed and some aircraft destroyed." McGee reported. "Two Strike Eagles were knocked out of the sky, both pilots dead. But the only other casualties are some slight burns from when the electronics blew out.
"Colonel Fury realised he was outgunned, and evacuated the place. But Dr Banner hulked out and attacked Ultron. Seems like this Ultron has his limits because he only traded a couple punches with the Hulk before taking off!"
"Two more than I would have!" Peter noted.
"How long will the Blackhawks be out of action?" Ziva wanted to know.
"They won't." Gibbs responded. "They have a fully-equipped second base on another island nearby, They were back up and running in two hours. Fury always was one of the best.
"What do we have on Ultron?"
"Ultron was the name of the AI that ran most of Hidalgos' operations under Clark Savage III." Iron Man said. "But it was taken offline three years ago and Pat Savage had the core dismantled.
"Saying that, there's no reason why there shouldn't be another copy or copies of the software around. If that's true, there's no knowing what it might be up to. It was certainly capable of designing and building a mobile platform, a mech, to download part of itself into."
"How would we find out if it had?" DiNozzo asked.
"It would need to buy the actual tech, or the materials." The Batman said. "It would need to have, or create, a facility to build the platform. We never did find all of the funds and assets Savage had outside of Hidalgo."
"Get me a list of what you think Ultron might have needed, and access to his financials." DiNozzo said. "Then McGeek and I can find out!"
"Get on it!" Gibbs commanded. "Also, we've got another problem. McGee?"
"This just came in before the meeting." Cypher said. "It hasn't been officially released, yet, but it is confirmed. Lex Luthor and Wilton Fiske were both killed last night."
"Both of them?" The Batman seemed taken aback, for once.
McGee nodded. "Within fifteen minutes of each other. Both in their own, very secure, homes with no alarms raised. Both stabbed through the heart with a three-bladed weapon, no other signs of a struggle. Both with a handwritten note left on the body that says 'By the hand of Justice.'"
"A three-bladed weapon." The Batman said slowly. "State of the art security systems penetrated without a trace. Luthor was no fighter, but the Kingpin was a top-level martial artist. Only one person I ever heard of could have done this."
"Weapon X, the Wolverine." Cyborg finished for him.
"Not possible!" Ziva declared. "Even you, Victor, could not have travelled between Metropolis and Gotham, then penetrated an advanced security system, within fifteen minutes!"
"I could have!" Flash said.
"You could have made the journey much more quickly than that, Barry." Cyborg said. "But you lack the skills to penetrate the security, and you have no training with bladed weapons."
"No training with any weapons!" Barry allowed.
"I last saw Logan six months ago," Dr Strange said, "and he was dying. The adamantium coating his skeleton had overcome his healing abilities and was poisoning him. The process was accelerating and there was no way to remove the metal without killing him. Short of a miracle, he will be dead by now."
"This isn't the first time this Justice has killed in the last four months." Nightwing pointed out. "There have been others. Murderers, rapists, child abusers, pimps, drug dealers, heads of crime families and drug cartels, corrupt politicians and businessmen. Whoever they are, they seem to concentrate on small-timers who fall through the cracks, or big fish the law can't get at."
"They?" Steve asked. "You think there's more than one?"
"Given the world-wide range, the intel they must have access to, and the timings, I'd say there has to be more than one!" DiNozzo insisted.
"I don't believe in miracles," the Batman stated, "and I'm not big on conspiracy theories, either! I go with the evidence, and the evidence says Wolverine! I don't know how he gets around so fast, or what kind of tech he has available, or how he's still alive, but this is his style, his technique, his tradecraft. It's also what he'd do if somebody turned him loose without restraint or control."
"There is one other possibility, though a remote one." Cyborg put in. "The Englishman known as V."
Cypher shook his head. "No, Evey Hammond and Finch both swore V was dead when she sent that train under the Parliament building. Even if he wasn't, he was trapped on that train with tons of explosives and no way out."
"And Logan was dying from a toxic metal in his body, when last seen." Victor pointed out. "But just how dead is dead? Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the achievements of the late Emil Gargunza is forced to wonder."
At that moment the red phone in front of Gibbs rang shrilly. The Director picked it up. "Gibbs." He said, then after a pause. "Yes, Mr President, we're all here…..Give me a minute, sir." He moved the receiver away and said "McGee, put this thing on speaker, will you?"
McGee got up, pressed as button on the phone, returned the receiver to its cradle, and nodded at Gibbs, who announced. "You're on speaker now, Mr President."
"Thank you, Director Gibbs." The voice of President Reed Richards was not the smooth one of a professional politician or public speaker, but a pleasant light baritone. "Good morning, everyone. I'm afraid we're about to have some very rocky times! I've been told that a person or organisation calling themselves Justice has downloaded extremely full files on the activities, organisations and connections of both Wilton Fiske and Alexander Luthor onto the systems of most of the worlds' major news organisations.
"Among other information, there are very full lists of public and government employees who were on the payroll of both organisations as well as accounts of 'black' operations carried out by them at the request of previous governments."
"Ouch!" Steve said. "Has it gone public yet?"
"Not yet, Cap." The President replied. "Fortunately, it seems that most major countries have found names in these files which would be embarrassing, as have most of the media organisations. Everyone I've talked to is as anxious as we are to keep things under wraps, except one. Prime Minister Hammond has told me that, according to the Charter she herself had a hand in writing, the New British Broadcasting Corporation can't be prevented from, and actually has a positive obligation to, publish the material. I don't need to remind you that millions, in fact billions, of people across the world rely on NBBC News as the provider of non-partisan, factual news and commentary. They have a reputation such that if we were to try to block their web feeds and broadcasts, that in itself would convince people we were up to no good!"
"How long have we got?" Gibbs asked.
"They're about five hours ahead of us," Richards said, "and they've promised to hold off until their ten pm main broadcast. It's going to be an extended special, but basically we've got until five this afternoon, Eastern Time, to have a response ready. The police departments across the country are already acting, so are the FBI, and we've got just about every judge in the country signing warrants. The relevant data is being sent to all the appropriate District Attorneys. I'm lucky – nobody in my Cabinet is on the list, but we've lost one of the Joint Chiefs, four Supreme Court judges and Congress and the Senate are going to be a quite a few members down! Some State Governors are going to have to go, too!
"It's going to be a mess!"
"So what do you need us to do?" Gibbs asked.
"Stay on standby." The President said. "Oswald Cobblepot and Harvey Dent – both in line to take over from Fiske – are on the list. The man most likely to pick up where Luthor left off is Sebastian Shaw, and he's wanted too. Those guys will have already gone to ground, and we're probably going to need your team to dig them out."
"With all due respect, Mr President," Cyborg put in, "the likeliest successor to Luthor is Viktor von Doom."
"You're right, Mr Stone." The President allowed. "But Doom only appears in the files as the subject of longstanding and high-paying assassination contracts that nobody seems to want to pick up on! Even if we had anything useable on him, he has diplomatic immunity.
"Any more thoughts or questions?"
"Nothing more, Mr President." Gibbs said decisively, "We'll be here when you need us!"