Their group, for obvious reasons, went by code names. At least they used to... For obvious reasons, especially when the old man began growing even more paranoid.

All of them had accepted their code names and agent numbers, then pretended they didn't know any better. Aside from their boss, Lady Clearwater, at least... Everyone knew her, of course.

And although many of them knew each other's real names by now, they at least pretended that they were all anonymous coworkers.

It was a fig leaf of innocence and the last line of defense in case the worst would come to pass.

But officially, they were all shadows with code names who no one could trace. Probably.

The policy was put into place by the boss due to the grand boss, who everyone called 'Old man Wickles'. Or 'That old fucker' or 'Fuckface McJerkface'. Probably for other reasons too, but the old asshole was clearly the largest threat these last few months.

Not that they interacted with him much, considering how old and crotchety he was.

Anyway, that wasn't the main point of their division.

No, they were considered the 'additional security' team. On paperwork, listed as specialists to handle 'other threats' when one was listing all the defenses keeping that old man alive. The 'Etc.' tacked on to the end of most of the rosters.

In other words, they were the squad of mutants keeping that old bastard alive from OTHER mutants who he pissed off as he rammed straight into old age and senility.

It was a job they did with various levels of enthusiasm, with the vast majority of them mostly just humoring Lady Clearwater until the old bastard kicked the bucket and their boss could take over.

Until now. "Holy fuck. For real?"

Recently things have taken a turn for the bizarre.

Agent M03 was holding her chin. "Yeah, it's true! And that bakery near my apartment? They actually took down the 'no mutants' sign out front! I mean, they are still assholes, but now it is more a feeling of widespread hate and spite rather than focused rage towards my neighbors."

The after effects hadn't slowed down after the grand boss went live on TV and arbitrarily changed social policy on a whim, if anything the world had only gotten MORE chaotic. "I heard there was a riot over on the west side."

That caught Agent M07's attention. "Anyone get hurt?"

She shrugged. "I mean, some people got knocked around but those things take time to ramp up to dangerous levels… Anyway, that's not important. See, THIS time? The cops actually showed up. Early, not after the bleeding started."

Seeing their expressions, she nodded! "Yeah, I thought they were pulling some shit too! Hell, one time I saw a cop high five some asshole who smashed a kid in the crotch while he was down for the count just because he was 'putting a mutie in his place'. But get this, they actually did something this time!"

One of her workers snorted. "What, did they question BEFORE shooting? That'd be a first."

True. "Preacher Smith got arrested."

That caught the others off guard. "Wait, no shit? I thought that asshole pervert had his fingers everywhere! I mean, he almost killed a kid and was basically treated like a hero the whole time he was being 'questioned' by the cops!"

Yeah, Preacher Smith was a dick. "From what I heard, it was our grand boss this time. Got stuff changed in the precinct… Half the cops are 'retired', a bunch of rookies got promoted, and the budget got completely overhauled! At least near my neighborhood and around most of west side, the pigs are playing things to the book for now."

The other agents looked shocked at the idea while a couple of other were nodding. "Two school systems in my neighborhood got some huge donations from Wickles Industries and a LOT of policy changes. From what I heard this sort of thing is happening nationwide… Not sure how many in total, but a lot. Some of the slums are near empty right now, since the money lets them offer free food if the kids actually show up."

What the fuck? "Why hadn't I heard about that?"

One of them shrugged. "Compared to the chaos in the news, this sort of thing is 'too boring' to make the top five topics. I mean, you turn on the tv and everyone is screaming about how Congress is in chaos and all those ongoing scandals being exposed and stuff, no one really cares about medications suddenly dropping in price or food becoming more affordable."

…Yeah, that tracked. "I thought i'd hear more shit about mutants on the news."

That got a snort from the girl to her side. "After what the grand boss said? A lot of assholes puckered right up when that rich old bastard actually took a position in public. Even some of my more dickish family members have toned down their 'burn all sinner muties' rhetoric, and my aunt is not a bitch who changes her ways easily!"

Another nodded. "Even some places that still treat us like shit have been toeing the line to not get targeted or focused on. Everyone is laying low I think, until someone is dumb enough to take another shot at the old man or something and things can 'go back to usual'."

So what, maybe a week or so more of people toeing the line? Or less. Lord knows there are a ton of morons out there.

Agent M18 hummed. "Shift's about to change, everyone bring it in and get ready for the handover procedures. M14, toss out the gum. M06, please don't leave your shit unbuttoned." "Meh, you girls are all prudes!" "Not on duty, at least." "...Fine! Whatever."

Right, best grab a drink before they get here and she'd have to go back on duty.

There had already been a small army of assholes out there ready to gank her (former?) bastard of a grand boss, after all THIS mess that number had probably tripled. A good cup of coffee would ensure she didn't zone out when on duty.

~~~Pocket System~~~

This was so fun! "I can't believe they are all interconnected like this…"

Humming happily while marking the list, Jeremiah continued to designate new targets. "You'd think they'd have diversified a bit more…"

Charlotte was directing her staff around as he kept himself busy. "While political action committees, or 'PACs', do allow anonymous and untraceable donations… The process of automating the ongoing actions over a length of time can be time consuming and frustrating."

He couldn't help but snort at that. "So instead of setting up numerous leads and fall back options, they all just go with the simplest options and then copy each other for the sake of convenience. Lazy bastards."

Convenient though, when you had a lovely list of related targets once you find out how shady a particular PAC happened to be. Oh, legally they all could waive their hands and declare innocence while soaked in the blood of their evil deeds, but for someone as rich as THE Jeremiah Wickles?

Well, the available options change quite a bit. "This isn't one of the ones I ended up funding myself, is it?"

She hummed. "No sir, we've dismantled those already. This is one of the OTHER unregulated anonymous money laundering political donation committees. I'm afraid that we will begin to run into the issue of diminishing returns at the rate we are progressing."

Meh, if all these groups went belly up nothing of value would be lost. "Are we still reclaiming all the stuff that boy Trask tried grifting from me?"

Charlotte checked her notes. "Two more 'unowned' manufacturing facilities for his robot large toys have been discovered, which has delayed the completion of that task… But overall the confiscation process is proceeding ahead of schedule. Especially for many of his 'off the books' operations, as the vast majority failed to file for proper permits or inspections. At this point, gaining ownership over such things has progressed surprisingly swiftly, with only minor issues along the way."

Good god, again? "How many automated construction bases did I end up paying for!?"

Far too many!

Wait, no. Something wasn't right. "That brat had a different robot design every week when he used to visit me begging for money, how could he even construct facilities like that to begin with without any finalized schematics to work with?"

She handed him a folder. "The manufacturing facilities in question are… Extensive. As you can see."

…Holy shit. "These aren't automatic robot construction assembly lines… These are automated FABRICATION lines that just happen to be used to make his trashy junk!"

Page after page got quickly reviewed. "Injectors, custom molding for parts, robotic waldo arms, automated quality control, three dimensional extruders and injectors, carving and etching tools, binding manipulators… That stupid fucker basically created a futuristic replicator from Star Trek on a large enough scale to craft a BUILDING and wasted that brilliance on his shitty pet project!?"

Charlotte nodded. "The entire setup was so automated that no personnel were present at the sites when our teams reclaimed them. Obscurity was the only security, basically."

FUCK! "I don't even have to ALTER these facilities and we can just start producing sellable products! Ready to go with packaging AND bundled into pallets, no modification needed! Sure specific raw materials need to be provided depending on what is being produced, but he even has automated machines designed to convert raw materials into usable feed for the whole setup!"

What a shit show. "This is like seeing someone paint a masterpiece to cover up a broken window because they didn't want to bother to fix the damn thing! Pure madness."

Seriously though, what was the thought process here? 'How do I get rid of mutants?' 'Giant Robots!' 'They are unable to do X, Y, or Z.' 'Here, have a miracle solution or four! Just staple them all together, it will be fine!' 'This is unbuildable.' 'No worries, I will just redefine the entire concept of automation and construction on a fundamental level using stolen money!'

Jeremiah wanted to pull out his hair! "Why did this fucker even ASK me for money to begin with!? Just one of these inventions could have been exploited to cover all the other costs instead, even as stupid as they mostly turned out to be. In fact, if he wasn't so busy hiding away the funds I willingly donated, he'd not NEED half of what I was sending him to build all this shit in the first place!"

It was cartoonishly and pointlessly wasteful. "You know, Charlotte, I've seen people do shit like this before. People building massive fortresses in the middle of nowhere for… Just no reason. Or wasting endless funds on secret escape tunnels even when they never actually NEEDED to escape in the first place… But it always infuriates me when some smart asshole just decides to make incompetent decisions for no apparent reason."

Charlotte hummed. "About the designs for these automated facilities, sir?"

Just the schematics alone were worth their weight in gold. "Yes?"

She showed him a report. "Bolivar Trask never bothered to copyright or patent them. Or any of the various inventions we've uncovered so far."

What. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

She nodded. "Aside from his robotic designs, which the confiscated logs imply he found too risky to publicly acknowledge or protect legally, all his other innovations were considered merely another step towards his goals. None of the innovations are documented nor claimed, and most of the inventors that assisted him over the years have also 'vanished' or been 'silenced' to prevent the spillage of secrets."

…Holy shit. "Are you telling me this asshole designed a portable medical scanner able to fully decode the human genome on the fly and just… Moved on? Created a machine that can fabricate complicated metal parts to extreme tolerances and then ignored it?"

At THEIR level of business, wasn't the process to protect intellectual property damned near automatic!? Who would just SKIP the part where you shout to the world 'MINE!'?

Another folder was placed to one side. "We've also uncovered a few large databases of prior innovations and inventions no longer in use for these automated construction facilities. Prior iterations of needed equipment that were designed and then discarded when new robot schematics were produced for review."

Well then. "Claim it all. I'm not even sure he'd notice, considering how little he seems to care about anything NOT related to death bots, but claim it! We have enough subsidiary companies that ANY of these innovations could cut our costs and speed up production."

He glanced at his schedule… "Damn, I don't have TIME to make all this money! Charlotte, organize a team to just review all this mess, put in patents and other paperwork, and then find the best way to monetize it all and implement it within our industry. The markets are a mess right now, but these new facilities will let us meet demand on the fly for nearly no overhead and we need to get on that."

She snorted, but hid it well when he gave her a glance. "As you wish, sir."

Ha! Got you to laugh! Sort of, anyway… Sigh.

Maybe it was time for a snack break? "Can I have another…"

Charlotte gave him a look. "No more apples before dinner, Sir. It will ruin your appetite."

…FINE! "'Kay. More ice water then?"

And she happily provided, and it was wonderful like always. "Sir, this is from a bottle of Svalbarði, Polar Blue Ice Edition."

He gave it a look as it seemed to glow in the glass. "This isn't one of those silly pretentious brands is it? I don't need anything too extravagant, you know. Normal water is fine."

She hummed. "These bottles support the Climate Sentinels arctic research project, so simply enjoying a glass is also helping to further research and helping keep the Wahlenbergbreen glacier under observation. They also donate funds for the Climate Sentinels research expedition across Svalbard, and…"

He raised an eyebrow.

His second in command coughed. "They were on sale? Only $111 a bottle."

Sigh. "Thank you for your efforts, Charlotte." It was a good try at 'normal' for her, honestly. And the water was delicious, frustratingly so. Stupid pretentious products.

And she lit up like the sun. "Thank you, sir!"

She was a good kid. Might need a bit of work on the common sense issue, but a good kid.