Before we begin, a small announcement to be made.
As of the posting of this chapter, I have re-activated my P*treon (* = a) account, with an all-new page since I'm more-established as a writer and have a better idea of what the heck I'm actually doing.
While I doubt I have the sort of fanbase that'd enable me to make my Hobby into my Day Job like some authors can, I'd think that if I were able to draw in enough "unrelated fiscal gifts", I'd at-the-least be able to commission artists to bring bits and pieces of my long-standing works to life with greater frequency.
SO! If any of my faithful readers out there have a smidgen of disposable income you'd be willing to send my way for matters "unrelated" to certain copyrighted works, maybe hit up my P*treon page ("NewMystery356", same as here), see if anything on my Tier list catches your interest. Like a sneak preview of future chapters since that seems to be the popular thing nowadays and that's the most I feel I can offer.
Also, there is currently the Next Chapter posted on P*treon if anyone is interested. It'd have felt disingenuous to make this announcement but not have anything to show for it beyond a modest art gallery.
With that piece said, let's hit up that fanmail section!
*REPLIES*
To MagicalGeek, misdirection is part of the game; like the time the Allies sent radio static over into Germany and the Axis wasted millions in trying to decipher it.
To UndeadLord22, Spawn would be a hard sell because that isn't a franchise I've read or watched yet, and my big rule is to not make cameos or crossovers about stuff I don't "know". The most I know is from the pre-fight analysis in Deathbattle and some Lore videos.
To Pathfinder097, the hidden message behind Ultimatum wasn't something I picked up on the first time, but after watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars and digging into the lore, I could sympathize with the Ultimen more. That Young Justice makes more use of Designer Clones makes for great storytelling possibilities, and Virgil being a half-clone of an XOF Assassin turned Diamond Dog gives him an "in" with one of the Team's founding members; assuming he's in the mood to share.
To Blaze1992, you can't give d-bags their "due karma" unless you're an anti-hero. Smack them around a little, most definitely, but letting the bad guy "get away" was always something that bugged me on a more-practical level.
As for whether or not Kimura gets "a sequel", that's up in the air, to be frank. I mean I have some idea of how it'd happen, in-line with another Crossover I plan to use, but the when/if of it is undecided.
To The Viking Stranger, Virgil and Laura co-drowning Kimura was actually inspired by Rick & Mordy where those two co-drowned that one guy in that Mad Max parody world, and also a reference to that time Laura drowned Kimura solo. As for "The Interlopers", I have some of the team comp nailed down, but who all joins in the future could change. As for the name, it was a noun that hadn't already been done to death in DC Comics.
To K415, Virgil won't actively use Laura like "a shock trooper with self-healing", that'd leave a bad taste in his mouth because he's the sort not to make someone do something he's unwilling to do himself. There's delegating, and then there's just being an asshole. And while Laura is definitely no stranger to the age-old art of killing, and she may be inclined to help kill the people he's slanted towards un-aliving, he won't take away her own agency; something The Facility denied her.
To WeAreTheWorld, assuming The Facility knows that Dr. Kinney managed to smuggle out an entire hard drive filled with "actionable intel" on X-23's person, they'll have to pull up stakes quickly since their secrecy is basically out the window. Of course, FoxCry also knows this, so they'll have to plan around The Facility's plan; something you'll get to see this-chapter~
As for Bob, I think it'll be very, very soon~ Commissioner Creed might not appreciate the forearm-mounted arm cannons he's now packing, but he definitely makes for a hell of a bouncer.
When it comes to the "Suitcase Armor" collecting dust in Virgil's car trunk, I actually have a plan in mind for that, but I don't wanna spoil it~
As for New York Zero… That will be the big finale of Young Justice: The Hunter before I finally segregate the ongoing narrative into a "Part II" (or maybe "Second Saga"?). At 81 chapters and over 730K words not including this-chapter, first started at the tail end of November in 2014, such compartmentalization is definitely long overdue since it'll have only been close to a full year in-universe. I definitely appreciate that my maintenance of quality is being appreciated. When it comes to something being "Good, Fast, Cheap", you can only have 2 out of 3.
As for "David Washburn's" schtick as a Metahuman Liaison… I don't have a huge list in mind, but he'll definitely be able to use that as a platform to get certain villains "to the table". I can say, without spoiling future plot threads, that Brick (not Borderlands') will be approached and receive a "commuted sentence" outside of Belle Reve since his crimes are "relatively minor". I have one or two high-tier villains clearly in mind, but naming them would definitely spoil things, and I think the surprise would be more-satisfying~
As for the size of The Interlopers, I don't have a definite higher number in mind yet, but Virgil's preferred method will be "surgical strikes", similar to The Team only they actually do maintain their cover instead of flashing their pastel-colored costumes as soon as one of them fucks it up. If they have to move out "in force" and out in the open, shit has gone very south. Like, end-of-the-world kinds of south.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:00 EST
Adam Harkins was not a happy man.
Oh, make no mistake, when The Facility was running like a Swiss timepiece, he was happy as a clam that wasn't being ripped from its shell and fried in butter. But then… Dr. Kinney had to grow a conscience, get attached to their next big product after twenty-two straight failures.
Sure, he tolerated it for a time; after all, what kind of "invisible assassin" could X-23 be on approach if she wasn't even remotely normalized, as a certain "incident" in a public park set off by a damn music box of all things attested?
Only problem was, she started getting ideas. Maternal ideas. Ideas that went against Facility leanings.
Although in hindsight, letting that prick Zander get away with forcing Sarah into being the surrogate, might've been a contributing factor. The fact that Xs 1 through 22 had been abysmal failures possibly in part due to the artificial wombs they'd been using, only muddied the issue further with the eventual success of X-23.
Of course, now that they had tissue samples of a stable Weapon X clone, it wouldn't matter if they used artificial wombs or not.
Not that they could use Dr. Kinney again, given her own escape route…
"I really need to get some sleep," he said rubbing his eyes after spying what ungodly hour it was.
The next moment alarm klaxons went off, his blood pressure upticking.
*Elsewhile…*
San Francisco, California
May 19, 06:12 PST
Since their departure from Alaska, Virgil and Laura had flown to the state of Oregon where they infiltrated a thrift store, "appropriated" some new clothes, and took an inter-state bus all the way to the beating heart of California.
The purpose for their egress was to meet up with another of the Freelancers, a stay-at-home sort that'd largely retired from field work but had made the Silicon Valley and cyberspace their backyard. Once they had established contact, Agent California would work their magic and make it so that all attempts by The Facility to track their wayward asset would fail; on the off-chance that any of its core membership had escaped the Freelancers' raid on their compound.
Now, for Laura, the previous evening had been the first time she'd ever been allowed to choose her own attire, and it showed in what she picked; grossly-clashing colors, mis-matched patterns, if it was a fashion faux pas, she somehow stumbled onto it. Hence, Virgil had had to pick her "running away clothes" for her. Something done on a time crunch since a silent alarm of all things had gone off and a cop was nearby.
Her present attire consisted of a gray T-shirt with a rainbow and a unicorn, a denim jacket with rhinestone buttons, tight-fitting jeans, dark red boots, and a green rucksack.
When Laura's eyes had landed on a pair of pink-and-blue My Little Pony Pinkie Pie-themed sunglasses with a look that said she absolutely had to have them, Virgil didn't have the heart to tell her "no" with how-garish they were, so they ran off into the night after leaving a couple C-Notes behind.
Virgil's own attire as they stepped into that Oregon bus depo had resembled Alex Mercer's with its black shoes, plain blue jeans, white button-up shirt, gray hoodie, and black leather red-lined jacket; by the time he'd realized, it was too late to go back and change up.
So there they were in California, sunrise half an hour hence, Laura's hand in his and the two of them looking like wayward step-siblings from a broken home running away for the first time.
"So… Ever been here before?" Laura asked as they walked.
"A while back. I was living with North Korean spies."
" . . . Is that code… for something?" she blinked, trying to rake every inch of the flash-learning she'd ever done for that particular coding.
"No. No it was not."
"Oh…"
*Elsewhile…*
The Facility
May 19, 04:05 EST
"Fuck! Shit! Fucking! Shitfuck!" Harkins swore as he ran for the facility's interior.
Half the point of housing The Facility in the backwoods of Pennsylvania -where you could hear banjoes playing on the way in- was that no-one would go sniffing around. In fact, the greater portion of The Facility's security was from its secrecy alone.
However, all of that went out the window when their base's location and access codes were compromised; obviously what was happening here and now. A parting shot from that dearly departed bitch, perhaps?
Mind you, the Facility had no shortage of people they'd pissed off over the years, even if nothing could be lawfully proven in court, which of course meant whoever was attacking now had no intention of being "lawful" about anything!
And even if ambient daylight or lack thereof wasn't any such consideration in an underground bioweapons facility, at 0400 hours when everyone was still drowsy and not fully alert if not outright sleeping, whoever was attacking had obviously picked this exact time to really fuck with them!
"Dammit! Where are Kimura and Kestrel when I need them?!"
" . . . "
"FUCK!"
*SHIP SHAPE*
San Francisco, California
May 19, 07:57 PST
Agent California's place of residence was in the Silicon Valley suburbs, a little more than half an hour away from the beaches that hosted so-many surfers year-round.
The residence itself was an ocean blue one-story with an attached garage; the kind of place that wouldn't make it into magazines but everyone wanted to purchase. Be it bachelors or a couple looking to move in together, it was understated like all the houses around it, hiding in plain sight.
"So… Do we just go in?" Laura asked.
"It'd be suspicious if we dawdled. Let's just try the doorbell."
*Ding-Dong*
*Knock*Knock*
"Hm?"
"Knocking is polite."
"Oh."
"Ah, hold on! I'm coming!" a voice said from inside, the door opening a few moments later.
"Um…" Virgil hummed as he looked the woman in front of him up and down. "California?"
She was a lovely young woman with a lean, athletic build, lovely tanned skin, olive green eyes, and blond hair drawn back into a ponytail. Her attire consisted of a midriff-baring light-blue hoodie, dark-gray drawstring trunks with light-gray trim, and brown sandals. Her eyes were relaxed and she had a smile on her face, a stark contrast to Carolina and South Dakota, the only other female Freelancers he was acquainted with.
"Yep. That's me," she smiled. "Come on in, I'll put the tea on."
The two of them were quick to enter after scraping their shoes on the doormat, though Virgil had to introduce Laura to that courtesy as well. The interior of the one-story was almost completely ordinary, the only thing that especially stood out being the collection of surfing trophies, framed magazines where their contact was on the cover, and the large collection of colorful seashells scattered about.
"So… Is it safe to talk openly, or do we worry about nosy neighbors?"
"Nosy neighbors, I'm afraid," the pretty blond said with an understanding smile. "Come on, I'll get you some snacks, and then we can talk business."
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:10 EST
It's fine. Everything was going to be fine, Harkins told himself as he shut the Security Room door behind him. They still had Maverick on-hand, and even if he wasn't much of a conversationalist after his "reconditioning", he was the best The Facility had on retainer at this point in time.
Primary question being, who the hell had decided to fuck them all at four o'clock in the god damn morning?
Ordering the coffee-powered security staff to get him a feed of the breach point, The Facility's main loading ramp, what he saw was a band of soldiers in brightly-colored composite body armor with golden visors, while a few were more understated. He saw colors like purple, aqua, white, and blue, none of which could be considered camouflage anywhere other than an alien planet. The only color that could've been even remotely stealthy on-approach in the Pennsylvania woodlands was the all-brown armor worn by the smallest of the ranks, and maybe the tan worn by another.
"They've already seized all security measures around the main boarding ramp," one of the security staff said nervously.
"What about the secondary route?" Harkins asked.
*Boooooooom!*
"No… Wait… Don't tell me," he groaned as the room shook.
"Alright. I won't tell you then," another replied.
" . . . Fuck it," Harkins grit out after blowing air through his nose. "Fine. How bad was that?"
"Very bad, sir."
"A complete loss?"
"Entirely."
SHIT!
*SHIP SHAPE*
The contrast between California's personal and work quarters was like night and day.
The basement level looked like a hacker's den, large servers with humming fans going through countless numbers of calculations every second, a dozen screens of code scrolling incessantly, multiple keyboards overseeing stock data from a half-dozen countries, heavy metal playing to muffle the background noise, and technicolor neon lighting. Whatever spots of the walls were free had colorful graffiti in pastel colors, though they may've been reproductions.
"Um…?" Virgil blinked as he looked around, wondering what the practical purpose was for the lighting.
"It helps set the mood," the pretty blond answered like she were reading his mind.
"Ah."
"So, I hear you need help making the 'kid sister' disappear," California hummed as she pulled an unoccupied laptop from a bookshelf playing host to dozens of others, and began to get to work.
"More or less. She could go underground, or wear a disguise, but that isn't the kind of life I want for her," Virgil replied, Laura giving his hand an appreciative squeeze.
The "Halfa" may or may not have been touch-starved, and Virgil wouldn't have been surprised if that were actually the case.
"Well, against people like The Facility and who they answer to, it's difficult, but not impossible," California hummed. "Tell me, do you know how facial recognition software works?"
"Not even in the slightest."
"Well, if I were to boil it all down…" California hummed, clearly working out how to 'translate' it to non-techies. "Facial recognition uses computer-generated filters to transform facial images into numerical expressions that can be compared to determine their similarity; things like head height, distance between the eyes, nose-to-face ratios, etc. These filters are usually generated by using 'deep learning', which uses artificial neural networks to process large amounts of data. What I intend to do, if Laura here is going to be living anywhere even remotely near a security state, is that I'll compile those numerical expressions with my own equipment, and then when anyone attempts to look up those same numerical values, they'll be given the proverbial turn-around to a bunch of un-related people who look similar to her as soon as they actually happen upon any recent pictures of her."
"So like if The Facility looked up Elvis Presley, they'd get turned around at the Elvis Impersonators?"
"In as many words," California shrugged. "There's only so-much genetic diversity out in the world, even with a population pool of seven-ish billion. If you shuffle a deck of cards enough times, eventually, you'll get the same hand dealt to you twice."
"Except it's not a perfect solution; not that I was expecting one."
"If The Facility or whoever sends live persons out there to look for her, they'll still be able to do a side-by-side. At least as long as she looks like whatever images they have on-record."
"And I guess you can't give whoever The Facility answers to a bug?"
"Not as long as they're air-walled. It's why ransomware doesn't work on steam engines."
"Well, nothing we can really do about it until Laura hits puberty, I suppose," Virgil hummed. "I'll look into our own travel arrangements. Laura, you behave yourself, okay?"
"Mm."
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:15 EST
Whoever these guys were, their teamwork was exceptional, and their own comms were airtight despite his people's best efforts to get in at their wireless signals whenever they weren't using hand signs. The run-of-the-mill on-site security was doing little more than inconveniencing the colorfully-dressed free agents, buying a few minutes at most with each skirmish before getting thrown around by concussion grenades lobbed around corners with inhuman precision.
It was hard to tell if they were metahumans or just purveyors of advanced technology, but as it stood, he'd have to send out Maverick sooner than he'd have liked.
If Kestrel were around it'd have been an entirely different story, but the same thing that made him an excellent escape craft was also what made him such a useful commodity out in the field whenever they needed to "acquire" some thing or some person.
The one in the aqua-colored armor, possibly a woman, may have been the leader, and while she had the ability to dodge bullets even in an enclosed hallway, so did Batman and a few others of his ilk if the rumors were to be believed. The huge man wearing what looked like an EVA helmet was wickedly strong as he ripped out armored doors and used them like riot shields, but he was either a freak of nature, a metahuman, or hopped up on some kind of neo-steroid; the latter wasn't at-all unlikely because, after the way Steve Rogers fist-fucked the Nazis, everyone the world over had had a real hard-on for power-boosting drugs. That Dr. Erksine had been killed by the Nazis was an enormous loss to all of mankind, because if what was done to Steve Rogers could've been mass produced, even into the civilian sector…
And then there was their support from off-site. They were losing their eyes in the facility little by little, meaning there was some kind of hacker at-range if not nearby, and their firewalls and other virtual defenses were being stressed to the upper limit, to the point that they had needed to divert power from unessential equipment further down to prevent a complete digital take-over.
"How long until Maverick is on-site?"
"J-Just a couple minutes, sir," one of the security staff stammered as the woman in the aqua-colored armor beat up four men in tactical armor like something out of a Kill Bill movie.
*SHIP SHAPE*
San Francisco, California
May 19, 13:53 PST
California may've been a shut-in when she was working for The Director, but she kept the pantry sufficiently stocked, and given the amount of permutations to Laura's facial data she was making online countermeasures for, it only seemed fitting that Virgil make something nice for her in the kitchen.
After getting the young woman's permission, of course.
Something he'd picked up on during his time in Alaska was that, while you could use "Lifestyle Magic" to do things you knew the end-result for and the magic itself would intuit the needed steps to get there, if it was something you-yourself were familiar with doing and had done by hand, the "MP Cost" was significantly lowered, and repetitions would further reduce the cost until said action came as-easily as breathing.
Virgil would never be anywhere near as powerful as the protagonists coming out of Japan in the recent "Lightnovel Boom" of milquetoast protagonists going to other worlds, let alone the real practitioners of the magical arts who dedicated their entire lives to their craft. But he'd already decided that using catalysts and fighting dirty was more his speed on that front, so there was no measure of envy to be had at those who were more-prodigal in terms of magical talent.
Not to mention, the "Lifestyle Magic" in of itself was a huge time-saver in the kitchen, so he was able to whip up a good-enough "Brunch Casserole" for all of them to nibble on as California worked her magic.
The woman herself was appreciative of the effort and made no complaints, but seeing the way Laura tore into the home-cooked meal like a ravenous animal as though it were the most-delicious thing she'd ever eaten, made Virgil even more-determined to give his fellow half-clone the best-possible life away from The Facility and the teen mercenary lifestyle that he could.
Even if his found family in Bludhaven would be bad influences for an entirely different reason…
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:20 EST
If Harkins had to worry about posting mortality rates for future staff, he might've been worried about all the men they were losing as they gave Maverick the time he needed to get armed up and moved into position.
As it stood, all the blood spilt was well worth it. As long as they could get the X-Series (Half-) Clones off the ground, they could easily recoup whatever losses Dr. Kinney incurred upon them.
"Maverick is in position," one of the staff before him said as Christopher Nord, clad in an all-black spec-ops outfit and a yellow armored mask stepped out into the hallway to confront the colorful free agents.
"Well, at least he isn't in that all-yellow monstrosity like before…" Harkins hummed as he watched the man eat bullets and concussion grenades like sunbeams at the beach.
The free agents beginning to fan out, likely to move onto other objectives, the huge one in white and brown-accented armor that'd been using an armored door like a riot shield stepped forward, tanking Maverick's ineffective SIG Sauer P226 shots before chucking the door right at him.
On anyone else, that much metal moving that-fast would've been like a middling vehicular collision, but against Maverick's mutant ability to absorb kinetic energy, it may as well have been walking into a padded gymnasium wall. Nord could survive a 10-story fall without suffering any major injuries, and the extent of Maverick's defensive abilities showed as he ate blows from the giant free agent that'd folded other men completely in half and left them puking blood all over the floor.
Maverick gave as good as he got if not better, because while the white-armored giant was putting on an excellent show of it, his inability to inflict any damage while receiving a steady stream of his own, was definitely slowing the free agent down. And it didn't help that Maverick had taken to using eskrima-style shock batons in his returning fire as well.
"Where are the other free agents heading?"
"Toward other objectives, most-likely," one of the nearby staff answered, hands jittery from something other than the coffee he'd been choking down. "Their cyber-attack is beginning to lose momentum as well."
"Very well then," Harkins smirked. "Let's turn this night around!"
*SHIP SHAPE*
San Francisco, California
May 19, 19:54 PST
"So do you really think it'll work?" Laura asked later that evening as California drove them to the bus depot in her jeep, a large bag from Miller's Maxi Buns in her lap, a cotton sick-mask on her face when she wasn't eating.
"I did as many simulated attacks as I was able to without compromising my other work, so the best advice I can give is to stay away from CCTV cameras, get back underground as fast as you can," California replied.
This of course meant that airports and trains were a "fuck no".
The bus depot also had CCTV cameras to contend with, but not nearly as many as the alternatives, and California had a backdoor she was able to use to jam them up usable through her smartphone
"So, where are we going next?" Laura asked.
"East," Virgil replied between bites of his Chemical Burger.
Despite being an attempt to throw off the yoke of American imperialism, it wasn't half-bad, even if it was 50% additives.
Not literally, but the point still stood, and ironically, the name actually made it more popular.
"Hm. Well, I wish you luck," California replied as they pulled up to the bus depot.
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:25 EST
A choke hold. A choke hold! How had Maverick lost to a freaking choke hold!
And it wasn't even that beast of a man in mostly-white armor that'd done it, but the tiny-ish woman in all brown after sneaking up on him!
While it was true that Maverick's mutant ability protected him from kinetic energy, apparently that defense was useless against a slow and steady application of pressure on top of the human body's own reliance on a steady oxygen supply to-and-from the brain.
Assuming they all survived the night, it'd be easy enough for them to retrieve Maverick since the free agents had just stuffed him in a broom closet after fitting him with restraints, maybe put some padded armor around his neck so something like this wouldn't happen again, but to have this kind of oversight take out such a reliable field asset right in front of them…
"Prepare the BOWs. Our cookie cutter guards are all but useless here."
The clients would be pissed that their products wouldn't be arriving in mint condition, but they'd be even more-pissed if they never arrived at all.
*SHIP SHAPE*
Salt Lake City, Utah
May 20, 08:22MST
The cross-country bus line that Virgil and Laura were taking was one of modest comfort; the seating arrangement being pairs of two running along the center aisle, everyone having to make due with what they could stream on the bus' mobile hot spot. The vast majority of the passengers were either in singles or pairs, no-one really talking to one another with empty rows separating the different parties.
Laura didn't have a smartphone, nor did she really care about the internet at this point in her life. At the moment, her attention was directed toward the passing landscape on the bus' starboard side, and the strumming of the guitar coming from her immediate left.
It was certainly one of the more interesting memories she'd accumulated since leaving The Facility's tender mercies; watching Virgil trade a fistful of Benajmin Franklin-marked bank promissory notes for a second-hand acoustic guitar so that the owner-of could limp back to his hometown with his tail between his legs for this or that reason.
She hadn't known Virgil could play the guitar, and he was no expert by any means, but he wasn't awful by any stretch of the imagination either; or at least no-one else on the bus really seemed to mind. Though them being in the back of the bus and him keeping it down may have helped on that front.
Apparently, it was an ability he'd begun to pick up on right before he met her, all he lacked being an instrument of his own to practice this craft, but there was something comforting in his muted tones as he tried his best not to intrude on anyone's sleep. And honestly, it was quite soothing, being serenaded to sleep by him, even if her hand on his elbow made his playing a little awkward at times as she nodded off.
All of this was still taking some getting-used-to; having an older sibling who was a half-clone like her. Sure, neither of them came from the same surrogate or even the same genetic donor, but there was this invisible… "something"… that made her feel like she could trust him. Trust him the way she trusted Dr. Kinney.
She wasn't sure if she'd ever see Dr. Kinney again. Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn't.
But when the woman told her that she would find family on the outside, Laura guessed she was right.
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:30 EST
Harkins wasn't really a fan of the colloquialisms that the assigned science teams had made for the other BOWs that The Facility was producing, but he could certainly agree that names like "Brawler" and "Zombie Boys" were somewhat accurate, if not substantially juvenile.
The "Brawlers", at least in shape, were based on the "Brawler Hunters" from The Infected Zone. Of course, given the UN's below-zero-tolerance policy on any traces of the Mercer Virus breaking containment and getting out into the wilder world where it could spread with impunity, it only made sense that the most they were allowed to do was replicate the shape. They were hairless, predominantly quadrupedal, shaped like a mix of gorilla and bear with shark-like teeth and tiny shrunken eyes, distinguished by the augmentation of muscle mass, and density, that made them individually stronger than their size would allow. Because of the neural degeneration resultant of making them, cybernetic implants were used not only to stabilize their neural architecture, but also keep them under control.
The "Zombie Boys", which were essentially cancerous tumors in human form that could more or less follow orders, were created using the various leavings of "The Merc with a Mouth", Deadpool. There was certainly no end to all the bits and pieces that Wade Wilson had left behind in all of his rampages as he swung the pendulum between hero, villain, and anti-hero, but all the better for The Facility since they never had to clone tissue samples in large quantities. If Deadpool was the "successful prototype", then the Zombie Boys were the "passable knock-offs", the severe, mind-shredding insanity suffered by the test subjects post-augmentation only curbed by the severe brainwashing each specimen underwent to keep them pliable.
Individually, either would be a terror on any sort of battlefield, and definitely the sort to leave behind a mess. Coming together from separate wings of this facility to meet and the middle, and there was no way these free agents would be able to endure.
It would be costly, and it'd most-definitely leave a mess that'd take weeks to clean up if they met any form of resistance, but any staff that could get caught up in it were either already in bed or had locked down their own labs.
"Alright… Let's see how these free agents handle this~" Harkins smirked, his face pulling into a grin as he prepared to see these BOWs in non-sterilized testing conditions.
*SHIP SHAPE*
Holcomb, Kansas
May 21, 08:20 CST
Truman Capote once described Holcomb as being in a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there". The name itself came from a then-local hog farmer, with the first post office in Holcomb established in December 1909; nearly fifty years after Kansas achieved statehood.
The town was thrust into national and -eventually- international notoriety after November 15, 1959 when four members of the prominent Clutter family (father Herbert, 48; his wife Bonie, 45; their youngest daughter, Nancy, 16; and son Kenyon, 15) were found bound and shot to death in various rooms of their home on the family's River Valley Farm on the outskirts of Holcomb.
The murders, arrests, and convictions of Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith eventually became the basis for Truman Capote's acclaimed book In Cold Blood, serialized in The New Yorker magazine in 1965 and first published in book form in 1966.
The 2005 movie Capote, directed by Bennett Miller, is also about the author Capote, as well as the crimes in Holcomb. The 2006 film Infamous, starring Toby Jones as Capote, covers much of the same material.
This and a few other snippets were the highlights of the local tourist brochures that Virgil and Laura found waiting for them after the shuttle that took them from the Finney County bus depot. The total area of Holcomb was 1.24 square miles with a population density of 1,800 per, the total population only slightly over 2,200 people.
The place was remote as fuck and the two of them would've stood out like sore thumbs if a point of contact hadn't already been there to pick them up in his nondescript dark-blue sedan. For all intents and purposes, the two of them may as well have been a couple of "big city kids" sent out into the countryside as punishment or to "build character". Or maybe because of a messy divorce if the local rumor mongers were feeling spicy.
Laura kept it to herself because her "sixth sense" didn't tell her it was anything she needed to be concerned over, but the plain-faced man who picked them up smelled like antiseptic. Or maybe it was more-accurate to say he didn't smell like anything at all; like the scientists at The Facility shortly after they'd cone through decontamination.
She also wondered how things at The Facility had panned out, and if she'd really be able to live out in the sunlight "like a real girl"…
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:35 EST
"No. No no no no noooo. This can not be happening…!" Harkins cried as he felt panic rise up in him like a science fair volcano.
All hands had successfully barricaded themselves in their labs or behind other closed doors, even going as far as to sabotage the motors on the pneumatic sliding doors from the inside, and the BOWs had been successfully unleashed along their intended paths, closing in on the free agents like angry tides of feral meat; kind of like the Running of the Bulls if he were being honest. Though they hadn't been able to lock the route to the upper floors behind them, thanks to the control implants, they'd been able to completely surround the colorful soldiers from all sides, and in the process had begun to collect invaluable field data to refine their craft.
However, what was meant to be a pre-launch live-fire test had turned into a rout. In the enemy's favor.
The two in the purple armor with green accents acted in almost perfect unison, fighting as if they shared the same mind against wave after wave of "Zombie Boys" as they fired around and vaulted over one another, throwing loaded weapons one anothers way without a spoken word or hand signal. It could've been private two-way comms, or some kind of low-level telepathy, or any number of things, but even though the two were massively outnumbered by shock troopers that could endlessly regenerate, they held the line.
The huge one with the EVA helmet had gone up against a pack of "Brawlers", choosing to go in with hand-to-hand combat of all things. Harkins had scoffed derisively as the opening blows were exchanged, since a half-dozen disgraced ex-Marines in full combat armor hadn't been able to take down a single unit when they were working together. And yet to the man's horror, the white-armored juggernaut was matching the Brawlers blow for blow; something that should've been categorically impossible. Sure, the BOWs were no Superman in terms of strength, but they were strong-enough to dig through concrete and, with enough time, steel-reinforced doors. And yet the white-armored goliath was picking them apart with a brutal tenacity, even going as far as to rip one's skull out and beat the others to death with it like something straight out of a Mortal Kombat game.
The woman in the aqua-colored armor and the man in the tan-colored armor were found in a dead-end hallway, the latter trying to hack his way through the electronic bulkhead leading deeper into the facility. Like something from a horror movie, an entire throng of "Zombie Boys" ran at the two's way like a cancerous wave, only for the woman in aqua-colored to rush them faster than Captain America with a stun baton in one hand and a P-90 in the other. Though the Zombie Boys could regenerate, even from massive head trauma, a concern that the science team had about their allegedly completed product made itself known; the inability for mental reconditioning to be retained within wholly regenerated tissue.
The remaining free agents, one in all-white armor, one in sleeker blue armor, and the short one in all-brown armor found themselves up against another tide of Brawlers, and though they appeared less-impressive than their alleged peers, their level of coordination wasn't anything to be discounted. The one in blue armor wielded an assault rifle in the cradle of one arm and a magnum in the other, nothing too impressive on the surface, but his level of composure as he took out Brawlers with eye-shots was like something you'd see from Deadshot, or maybe Bullseye. The one in the brown armor fought with a pair of combat knives, but what made her impossible to nail down were all the decoys she was spraying about all over the place; they weren't even solid like Luminus' "hard-light" doppelgangers over in Metropolis when he made the sun turn red, but the decoys moved independently of the original and their intangibility threw the Brawlers off, allowing her to sneak in attacks amidst the tide of brown armor. And then there was the one in all-white armor, firing off in close quarters with a sniper rifle of all things, shooting as if he knew where the un-deterred Brawlers were going to be and taking them out with armor-piercing explosive rounds.
The only upside to this steady loss was that on the digital frontier, they had been able to hold the line.
*SHIP SHAPE*
"Area 51.5"
May 21, 09:13 CST
"Welcome to Area 51-and-a-Half, kiddos!"
"Dr. Psycho?" Virgil blinked at who had met them once they were brought underground into a disguised military bunker.
Hell, maybe it was a legit military bunker that CryNet had co-opted for their own purposes. Or maybe the army had sold it off because of the military downsizing after the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union. In a world of political, military, and super-powered intrigue like theirs, not to mention extraterrestrial, it could've been just about anything.
"The one and only," the bushy-browed man said as he adjusted his bowtie. "So, the big boss tell you why you're here?"
"I'm supposed to pick something up, right?"
"I mean, if you can get it off the ground."
"Well that isn't cryptic at all."
"Relax, it ain't like a magic sword in a rock if that's what you're worried about," the ex-villain waved off. "Walk with me."
And walk with him they did, deeper and deeper into the facility through a number of elevators and security checkpoints until they arrived at a large, darkened room the size of an airplane hangar. A large electrical switch on a wall getting flipped, one by one, rows of overhead lighting came on toward the posterior of the room until what Virgil suspected he was there to "pick up" was revealed in its full splendor.
It was a space-faring vessel of alien origin, that much was obvious, even to Virgil's untrained eye. The shape as well as size were like the "Hunter-class gunship" from Metroid, but it was far sleeker, done up in all-silver like liquid mercury, with symmetrical swooping streaks of black running across the front and down the body. The hangar did double duty as a laboratory if all the equipment was any indicator, and the vessel itself was sitting atop an array of large industrial-strength braces done up in yellow and black, custom-tooled for holding up irregularly-shaped vessels.
"The science nerds can't seem to agree on what to call it," Dr. Psycho hummed. "Half of them are calling it 'Navi' because it looks like the thing from Flight of the Navigator, while the other half want it to be called 'Indie' because its jack system looks like the one from Independence Day."
"It looks… familiar…" Virgil hummed warily.
"It should. Your little green gal pal has something similar. Probably a newer model."
"Soooo… it's stolen," Virgil deadpanned.
"Nah. The pilot was a dead alien," Dr. Psycho waved flippantly.
"That hardly makes it better…" Virgil huffed with a flat look.
"Yeah, well, if they didn't want alien tech falling into human hands, they shouldn't have died on the job," Dr. Psycho shrugged. "I mean just look at what happened at Roswell."
"I mean, I doubt Miss Martian knew that guy, but it could be real," Virgil admitted.
And honestly, it amazed him that there were still people in denial about that with all the real-life aliens flying around and all the legit alien invasions. Even if half of them did look like Earth-people with add-ons, and said "invasions" were more like skirmishes.
"So I take it there's a reason this thing hasn't seen any kind of use?"
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:40 EST
"Damn… Damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN!" Harkins swore as the last of the Brawlers were eliminated, caught in a pincer attack once the last of the Zombie Boys were felled mere minutes before.
"Sir…? What do we do now?" one of the security monitors, privy to the entire attack, asked meekly.
"With all our BOWs gone and our escape routes cut off, we've don't have any other choice…" Harkins said going over to one of the consoles and plugging in his key card, fingers dancing rapidly over the keys.
"Are you going to pump nerve gas through the vents?" one of the more-paranoid staffers who'd been binging Archer on his off hours asked.
"Something like that…" Harkins hummed as he continued to type, locking the security room down to its maximum level and activating the enclosed atmosphere .
An "intent-to-fire" prompt reading [Trigger 42] standing prominently on the center of the screen, the Facility's head dithered for but a moment, adjusting his glasses before hitting the Enter key.
Moments later all throughout the floor that the free agents were occupying, red-colored gas began to spill from the vents, washing over them before they could get clear, but not otherwise affecting them.
"Uh… Boss? I think you vented an expired batch of nerve gas."
"Can nerve gas even expire?"
Harkins deigned not to dignify that commentary with a response, instead keeping his attention on his monitor as he keyed into another part of the facility, a myriad of "intent-to-fire" prompts rising up to meet him.
*SHIP SHAPE*
"Area 51.5"
May 21, 09:26 CST
As the stories went, every major world power had at least one alien spacecraft in various states of usability stored away in some black site somewhere. The United States had all the tech they'd been able to gather together at Area 51, with the compound itself being more like "Space Guantanamo" in The Director's opinion since there was never any due process for all the beings –"allegedly"- held there. The former Soviet Union had the Rocket Red Brigade, whose tech was partially alien-derived, though the rumors that there was involvement with a plus-sized Green Lantern remained largely unsubstantiated. The People's Republic of China, democratic or otherwise, had the Dragonwing, the worst-kept secret regarding alien tech among major world powers since, while they tried to claim it was all-Chinese tech, their inability to mass produce proved otherwise.
And of course, setting S.T.A.R. Labs aside, there were the smaller private firms experimenting with alien tech that'd slipped between the cracks, be it LexCorp, Wayne Enterprises, or all the little out-of-the-way places that actually knew how to not blab about this sort of thing.
The CryNet Systems research cell they were all in now, was one such "private firm", and one that The Director held to the highest levels of secrecy.
The vessel that Virgil saw in the hangar was a Martian Bio-Ship; once upon a time, at least. An indeterminate period of time after the Roswell Incident in 1947, The Director, either directly or indirectly, was able to seize a crashed scouting vessel from Mars, or "Ma'aleca'andra" as M'gann called it. The pilot had already expired by the time the craft was seized, and the Bio-Ship was functionally "dead on arrival" with all the damage it'd taken even before hitting Earth's atmosphere.
While the Bio-Ship had the equivalent of a Blackbox computer on board, the data had been so heavily corrupted that then-current computers couldn't parse it, and the data only further deteriorated as the years went on.
The vessel's polymorphic, camouflage, and anti-gravity tech was simply amazing, though not the source of the Nanosuit's own abilities by any stretch of the imagination. While CryNet had been able to "Frankenstein" it back together with other bits and pieces of human and alien tech however, the standing problem with this quasi-Bio-Ship was that regardless of what was done with the interface, it absolutely refused to fly. While they could brute force it to "turn on the headlights and the wipers", the vessel vehemently refused to fly, even though at-present it was even less quasi-sentient than it had probably been in peak form.
That was where Dr. Psycho and, more importantly, Virgil, came into play.
Dr. Psycho was able to parse out enough of a communication with the half-dead telepathic alien vessel to determine that, without the proper "Cipher" of a pilot that'd already piloted a Ma'aleca'andran vessel, on something akin to instinct, the once-Bio-Ship was outright "unwilling" to fly.
To that end, because Virgil had become uniquely ingrained into the social circle that M'gann M'orzz was a part of, the young man did-in-fact have that very same "Cipher" that CryNet was incapable of artificially replicating.
Compared to China's own "Dragonwing", an alien scout ship of indeterminate origin that could exceed speeds of Mach 10 in less than three seconds, stop on a dime, and maneuver omnidirectionally while also carrying an arsenal of over fifty different weapon packages -possibly including nuclear arms-, the "Franken-Ship" was intended by The Director to be a pure-stealth, "deep scout" troop insertion device for both terrestrial and extraterrestrial operations.
Even better, unlike the Dragonwing, the quasi-Bio-Ship would not siphon full years off the life of the pilot. Because while China's premier pilot was lauded as "The Immortal Man in Darkness" who never failed in his duties to his nation, there was in fact a literal conga line of "successor pilots" waiting for the one in front to literally age their way out of the program.
Assuming of course that there was anything left to go to a retirement home, but that was beside the point.
"So basically, because of who my friends are, I've got the 'secret sauce' to get that thing off the ground," Virgil hummed as the de-briefing concluded.
"More or less," Otacon hummed from the tablet in front of him. "It was purely coincidence that you had the proper… 'constitution', to get this vessel properly into the air."
"And if I had never come along?"
"CryNet would've been able to reverse-engineer this tech to be mass produced; eventually. As it stands, this vessel is a one-of-a-kind 'one-off'. A test bed in the utilization of human and alien technology in tandem."
"So I fly this thing back to base and then what?"
"As it stands, if you actually can get that thing off the ground, it'll be the center vessel used by your team of Interlopers," Snake hummed as Otacon's screen split in half. "That thing was never meant for open warfare, even if it could be armed. As long as the secret holds, it's the ultimate stealth craft. At the most-indiscrete, you could drop smart munitions out of the belly, but that hardly seems like your style at all."
"Well, you wouldn't be wrong…" Virgil said chewing on his knuckle.
He could clearly remember what it was like piloting M'gann's Bio-Ship with its anti-gravity drive. The absolute feeling of… of freedom that came with being able to ignore the bonds of gravity. The knowledge that he could go anywhere, within reason, and no-one would ever know about it.
"I know that look on your face," Dr. Psycho hummed. "You're completely sold, aren't you?"
"What makes you say that?"
"You have the same look on your face I had when I found my first car. Sure, there was some 'baggage', but when I saw that old girl, I knew I wanted it."
" . . . Well, you aren't completely wrong," Virgil sighed, the opportunity too good to ignore.
To be able to put boots deep behind enemy lines… represented an enormous boon for any spec-ops team imaginable. And if the vessel was still as-polymorphic as M'gann's had been, there was no real limit to the sorts of disguises that could be implemented if he ever had to break out of "Stealth Mode".
"Where do I begin?"
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:45 EST
"RAAAAAAGH!"
"Uh, did someone patch a horror movie into our comms by accident?" York asked warily as he finally got the next security bulkhead open.
"I'm more worried about that red gas we got sprayed on our suits," Wyoming huffed.
Sure, their armor was all hermetically sealed because Dr. Kinney's intel, courtesy of "Washington", forewarned them about the potential to face gas warfare inside The Facility. But that didn't mean it wasn't still cause for concern; especially when The Facility was screwing around with DNA.
"Trouble," Carolina said readying her weapons as a stampede of footfalls sounded from up ahead.
Beside her, Maine growled angrily from the back of his throat, his armor spattered and smeared with BOW giblets.
"Geze, how many of these Franken-things do they got around here?" South Dakota growled angrily, pumping a borrowed shotgun.
A moment later they got their answer, more than two-dozen strong.
They were tiny little things bordering on adorable if it weren't for the absolutely feral look in their green eyes and the three bone claws protruding from between their knuckles. They were all Caucasian-mix with tan complexions, maybe ten years old with shoulder-length dark-brown hair. Their modesty was preserved by cris-crossing white straps like something out of The Fifth Element, and they all had the exact same face. As in, exactingly the same.
"Well… shit," CT swore as she got ready to defend herself, the other Freelancers following suit as the X-Series clones ran at them, some on two feet, some on all fours.
*SHIP SHAPE*
"Area 51.5"
May 21, 09:37 CST
Virgil stood before the human/alien hybridized space vessel, staring at the swooping black streak spanning the bow like it were the windshield, a button cam staring right back. All around him, technicians were analyzing every expression the vessel made in seeming response to his presence. No-one was wearing any real form of protective equipment, mainly because there was no radiation or pathogen risk to be had. The alien body had been taken off-site decades ago, so the vessel, which Virgil preferred to call "Indie", was the most-alien thing in attendance.
"Sooooo… I just walk on in?"
"From the back, usually," one of the techs stated, a camcorder in hand.
Virgil hummed in affirmation, circling where the vessel was moored before finding himself at the stern. The rear of the vessel tapered off into a very aerodynamic point above him, and when he stepped over a yellow radial threshold line that had been re-painted onto the floor countless times, a sort of trilling sound issued from the belly of the craft.
A portion of the vehicle melting away to reveal an entrance of sorts, that very same material trickled down like through an invisible mold, creating a perfectly-formed set of stairs; albeit with no handrails, making him idly wonder if OSHA was a thing on alien worlds.
Warily stepping up into the vessel, since falling over and breaking his neck would be a demonstrably embarrassing way to go out, that minor sense of unease only went away once there was away from the open air. The interior was in all-gray, like a matte chrome with streaks of black and cobalt running throughout. The swooping curves were very "organic", almost like the belly of an alien creature; something only further reinforced when the wall before him peeled away from the floor like inside the Great Jabu Jabu out of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
The anterior of the vessel, in its unadorned state, looked like a domed chamber with a blacked-out windshield spanning the entire panoramic view. Stepping forward, an off-chrome throne rose from the floor on his approach, a draft like a long-held exhale seeming to wash over him as a sort of "tension" in the air seemed to relax.
"Doc, how are things looking out there?" Virgil asked of the walkie talkie clipped to his hip, his eyes on the vacant pilot's seat.
"I'm not picking up any sort of aggression. Science nerds say you're all good too."
"And the chair?"
"Nothing new there. The techies say it's something like a reflex; no-one can seem to agree if it's comfortable or not."
" . . . "
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:43 EST
"I was hoping there'd be enough of them to help recoup our losses, but I'm sure the footage will make for a nice selling point," Harkins smirked darkly as X-24 through X-50 were released from their gestation tanks, the traces of Trigger 42 in the air whipping them up into a frenzy.
An instant later all their equipment let out a belt of static, the security monitors ripping away their headsets.
"Hello? Is this thing on?" an unfamiliar voice called out from their own equipment.
"Who is this?! Identify yourself!" Harkins demanded.
"I'm Otacon. I'm impressed. Your security's pretty state-of-the-art. Not good enough, though," that same voice said as all of their monitors except the one showing off the X-Series clones turned all-blue.
"What? How long have you been listening in?"
"Long enough. But right now, Mr. Harkins, I've got to shut you down."
A moment later right as the X-Series clones had galloped halfway from the bend in the hall toward the colorfully-armored soldiers, the sub-dermal implants meant to keep the X-23 clones in line went off. Their bodies going rigid mid-run, a moment later they began to gracelessly fall to the ground, tiny arcs of electricity fanning out from behind their left ears, making them convulse for several seconds before they went still.
It was only when the last of the clones fell to the ground that the sole working screen went blue, the spattering of white text seeming to stare up at him mockingly as a blue gas was suddenly vented into the room, Harkins' vision narrowing before going completely black.
*SHIP SHAPE*
"Area 51.5"
May 21, 09:42 CST
After a minute's deliberation, Virgil decided to take the plunge; or "the sit", as it were.
Comfort-wise, the seat was only so-so, looking like some kind of quasi-metal with a feel like sun-heated plastic stadium seating.
A moment after he'd gotten settled, the ends of the armrests morphed into glowing spheres underneath his palms, casting some kind of non-light throughout the cockpit.
An instant after that his stomach pressed against his diaphragm as the Franken-ship rose from its mooring, a round of cheers sounding through the still-open rear of the vessel.
'Come to think of it, why is that thing still open? Not that I want it to close or anything…'
"Well holy shit, that thing really does fly," Dr. Psycho hummed from his hip as the vessel drifted forward over the yellow line before Virgil reeled it back, the feel of it like balancing on an exercise ball.
A strange metaphor when he thought about it, but the thing was partially Human tech, so obviously it wouldn't have 100% the same "feel" as a stock Ma'aleca'andran vessel.
"This thing isn't armed, right?" he asked into his walkie talkie.
"Not at the moment, no."
"Well thank God for small miracles."
*SHIP SHAPE*
The Facility
May 19, 04:50 EST
"Well… This is a big fucking mess," Carolina hummed as she and the rest of the Freelancers got the X-Series clones into binders after pushing their claws back in, sitting their unconscious bodies up against the wall after Otacon assumed full control of The Facility and hitting the staff with tranquilizers.
Why The Facility had so-much infrastructure to tranquilize their own staff in advance painted a grim picture of the workplace culture. Doubly-so because it could also pump kill-spray into the halls that would set off a pack of feral ten-year-old girls.
Shit was like Lord of the Flies mixed with Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones...
"Okay, seriously, who clones feral children with bone-claws?" CT asked as she edged away from one of the clones, the tips of their bone claws still protruding.
"According to Filyss, The Facility meant to age them up to thirteen before hitting them with the stabilizers, but that Harkins guy had to let them out of their cloning tanks a bit early just to deal with little old us~" Flowers hummed cheerfully, despite how messed-up that all was.
"Still, is this everyone?" South Dakota asked as soldiers from C.E.L.L. filed past carrying prisoners now that the facility had been taken in full.
"We got everyone important," Carolina hummed. "Adam Harkins, The Head; Robert Chandler, Head Chemist; Zander Rice, Surgical Head. Sarah Kinney would've been the Head Geneticist, but she didn't let The Facility take her alive after she helped X-23 escape."
"So other than 'Washington', she has, what, two dozen identical sisters with change?" North Dakota asked.
"First we have to un-wash their brains," Wyoming hummed from the end of the hall, Maine trilling in the back of his throat. "After that…"
"Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we need to find where Dr. Martin Sutter is," York cut in as he eyed a personnel list on the inside of his visor.
"Oh, damn, did we miss a spot?" CT pouted.
"Seems like," Carolina hummed, looking at the same list that York was. "Still, let's leave the new guy out of it. No need to pile on more than he already has to put up with."
"Why? What happened in Alaska?" South Dakota inquired.
*SHIP SHAPE*
"Area 51.5"
May 21, 09:42 CST
"Agent Washington. I've heard excellent things about your progress," a synthesized voice behind an [Audio Only] screen spoke up in the conference room.
"I suppose," Virgil hummed, still coming to grips with the fact that the man on the other end of the line had commissioned him like a custom-made product. "In regards to the Bio-Ship… if it can even still be called that…"
"The title will be waiting for you when you get back to The Bunker."
"So it's really going to be all mine?"
"You're the only one with the 'Cipher' needed to cater to its primary components. Theoretically you could enable others to pilot it, but only temporarily since any such follow-up 'Cipher' would be… diluted."
"Also makes sense," Virgil nodded, trying to keep the giddiness out of his tone in regards to having his own super-ship that could not only turn invisible, but also look like other stuff. "In regards to my tagalong…"
"You will be her handler. I'll leave it in your hands to ensure she behaves herself."
"I… I want her to have a life outside the Bunker."
"Once again, I'll leave it in your hands to ensure she behaves herself."
Taking that as The Director's blessing to allow Laura to live a double-life so it wouldn't be all-work all-the-time, a thought immediately occurred to him before he could continue that conversation.
Where the hell would Laura lay her head down?
Thoughts for tomorrow's him…
"Sir… In regards to New York Zero…"
"If at any point you ever feel like you're 'ready' to walk back into that hell…"
"Then I'm probably not ready. Not that I think I'm ready now, I just want to know if conditions are still stable."
" . . . If conditions change, you'll be made aware," the Director stated. "As for your training in Alaska… Excellent work. Your retrieval created quite the windfall, which will reflect well on your end-of-year bonus."
"Not that I can ever note it on my tax returns…" Virgil sighed. "Sir, I want to thank you again for the opportunity to train in Alaska. I feel stronger in all areas than I've ever been."
"I was merely investing in your future. I don't intend to send you on any sort of suicide mission."
"The sentiment is appreciated."
A minute more of exchanging pleasantries, and the Director signed off, leaving Virgil by his lonesome in the conference room, Laura right outside the door, and his new ride, Indie, just down the hall.
*AN*
Even though the events of the A and B-Plots were happening two days apart, the intent of the scene-hopping was that they were meant to feel like they were happening in tandem, since Laura's future freedom is heavily predicated on the Freelancer's raid on The Facility. Also because Adam Harkins' day is going on a downward trajectory, while Virgil's is going upward, hence "Ship Shape" has multiple meaning.
Like many of my artistic decisions, doing what I did here, here, "felt right".
If you want to see the next chapter two weeks early and/or support the commissioning of story-related art, be sure to hit me up on my P*treon. And maybe name drop some trusted Artists on my Discord.