“We’re under heavy attack and request assistance. Minimum force suggested is three wardens to neutralize threat,” said the Tip communications officer.
“Understood. Reinforcements en route,” Felix said.
Turning his head to Victoria, Felix lifted a hand.
“Send four wardens out to assist Tip,” Felix said.
“We only have two. I’ll get them moving,” Victoria responded, picking up a tablet she’d set down on a planter.
Felix frowned, staring down the street.
“I’ll go as well. I’m not at a warden’s level of power, but I’m sure I’ll be able to make up the difference,” Felix said, starting to go down the library steps.
“No! I’ll go instead, you remain here,” Victoria called out from behind.
Before Felix could argue, turn around, or change his mind, a number of refugees pulled weapons out of their clothes and began attacking his people directly in front of him in the line.
Guns fired, people screamed, weapons clashed on armor.
There were even clearly Super Villains in the sudden battle with the Legion forces.
Then Felix’s Supers sped out of the library to engage, and the battle escalated.
Three men charged straight for him, two with clubs and a third with a blade.
Victoria was out in front of him in a heartbeat, her sword speeding outward to pierce the closest man through the eye and into his brain.
He dropped like a stone.
Felix had been in action as well. He drew the pistol from his holster and racked the slide. As he pulled the muzzle up he was already slipping his finger onto the trigger.
He trained the iron sight on one of the hostile targets rushing him and then fired twice. Both shots struck the man center mass.
Moving to the next target, Felix pulled the trigger twice more. Again, both shots hit the chest.
Both enemies went down, groaning, screaming, bleeding out on the ground. Begging for help as they gasped for air.
Felix didn’t care.
They weren’t his people.
Marching forward, Felix maintained proper gun control. Looking for targets that he could fire on cleanly, he had no choice but to wait.
Clearing the dying men, Felix found two more targets and put two shots into each of them.
Eight spent, seven left in the clip.
Victoria danced ahead of him, her enhanced super powers making her a whirlwind of death. Her blade snaked out, skewering enemies on its length.
Legion security forces were highly trained. Drilling almost all day, every day. The simple reality was that their job was to prepare for situations worse than this.
They worked in tandem with their super partners, wardens, and coordinated the fight. Officers made snap calls on the communication line and the defensive line firmed up.
By the time Felix made it to the line of combat, his people had ejected the remaining attackers from the field. Who were then forced to cut and run, leaving behind their dead and wounded.
Confirming there were no active threats in sight, or on the war-net, Felix thumbed the clip release on his M9.
Catching the clip with his free hand he reached down to his left side and pulled out a fresh magazine. He turned the half spent magazine so that it didn’t fit right in the slot and slid it into the now empty space.
His goal was to make sure he could identify it later if he needed to.
Popping in the fresh magazine he thumbed the safety and returned it to its holster.
“This is Throne, actual. Team leaders, cart your wounded and dead back to HQ. Telemedics are to prioritize Legion.” Felix paused to consider the fallen enemies. Smirking to himself, he made the choice. “Power sausage the enemy wounded. Pile the dead.”
Apparently Felix’s dour mood was shared with his people, as he could actually hear the collective dark chuckle.
“Mole actual, this is Worm. We have contact,” said Eva’s voice over the high level security channel.
Felix turned his head down and to one side, pulling up the Eva’s camera with a thought.
Everything was more or less how he left it. Eva was pressed up to the door with her forehead touching the wood.
“Need a time on the hole. Farmer is about to notice,” Eva said again.
“Mole actual reads. One minute on the hole,” Kit said into the void.
“This is Worm, actual,” Miu said into her headset. “Moving to Hole. Prepping.”
The Fixer and Miu got up and went to the portal, stepping through it and to the other side. Back into SC:HQ, he imagined.
Eva twisted the lock into place on the door and moved to the portal and then stepped through.
She was staring back at the side of the computer and its missing Ethernet cable.
Felix knew that it’d be ideal if they could do this without being caught. Information was always best when it was retrieved with no one the wiser.
Turning her head around, Eva gave Felix a good view of where the portal opened up to.
Sitting in a rolling office chair was Kit. A tablet held in one hand, she was watching the tablet and the portal in equal measure.
She was surrounded by a crew of what could only be IT computer engineers who were all working on laptops that were wired into a router. That router had the Ethernet cord from the guild splitting the network feed between them.
An IT dungeon. They’re all working to crack the network.
Near the rear of the room was a handful of men and women in black suits with SMGs pointed towards the portal. Their fingers were inside the trigger guards and it was clear to him they were ready to fire.
Good protocol. This portal is a way into the base as much as it is a way into the guild. We should build a portal control room where we can launch sorties out of, and defend too.
Should probably talk to Felicia about it. Her machine would need to be moved wherever we put the launch room.
“Done. Everyone log out, I’ll leave the connection open as if I forgot to shut down,” said one of the engineers.
Everyone else started typing furiously into their laptops. Each of them closed their laptop lid after they finished whatever it was they were doing.
The engineer who’d spoken reached out and unplugged the guild cord from the router and held it out to Eva.
“Good to go,” he said.
Eva snatched the cord and ducked into the room. She was halfway in, and halfway out when someone started banging on the office door.
There were muffled shouts that were clearly punctuated by a curse.
Flinching, Eva dropped the cord. Immediately she bent down to grab it.
Smashing her forehead into the desk in the process.
Pressing one hand to her head, she grabbed the cord and then slipped it into the network port in the back of the computer.
Stepping back quickly she came back into the IT dungeon.
Kit shut the portal without any visible gesture as the sound of a door being opened could be heard.
“We’ll have data in a day or two. It’s all there though. Once we were in the network it was over. That was a lot easier than spending weeks trying to break in first,” said one of the engineers.
Felix couldn’t help but nod at that.
He could only imagine it was significantly easier being on a network line inside of the building.
“Alright. Good work. Let’s get this all spun up. I’ll need to let Felix know about it and send him a status report,” Kit said. “You alright, Eva?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Smacked my head pretty good,” Eva said.
He couldn’t see it, but Felix imagined it was probably more than a smack. The noise that came through the microphone was pretty loud.
“Alright. Good work everyone, you’re all dismissed to return to your posts,” Kit said. Everyone got up and immediately left, catching the intention behind her words.
Kit then got up and came over to Eva.
Felix felt his heart speed u
p a notch with how close Kit was to the camera.
She tilted Eva’s head to one side and began to inspect the injury.
“It’s going to be a heck of a bruise. We’ll need to make sure Felix doesn’t see it. He worries incessantly over you,” Kit murmured. “It might even be worth asking Felicia to put you in one of the tanks for a few minutes.”
“Huh? He doesn’t worry about me. He doesn’t worry about anything,” Eva said.
Kit released Eva’s head and chuckled softly.
“You forget I’ve seen inside his head. He’s done quite a bit of worrying over you. He’s also done a lot of things to protect you,” Kit said. “You’re probably the closest thing he values to what he’d consider family.”
Felix felt panic rising up in his heart. If she told her what he’d done, she’d want to go on many more missions. He’d have to tell her about the changes he’d made in her and how little they cost point-wise to do.
“What? Really? What exactly—”
“This is Throne, actual,” Felix said, activating his microphone and interrupting Eva. “Status report on operation Farmer.”
Kit’s eyes immediately flicked to the camera on Eva’s head. The corner of her mouth quirked upward as she stared into it.
“This is Mole, actual. Operation Farmer was a success,” Kit said knowingly. She didn’t openly call him out on it, but he was certain she’d considered it. “Expect a report within two hours.”
“Thank you. Throne actual, out,” Felix said and closed his mic.
“He was watching the OP, wasn’t he,” Eva said. Felix had no idea where she made that jump in logic, but he was proud for a moment, before being horrified that the conversation hadn’t stopped.
“He was. Pretty sure he still is. And he’s not watching from just any camera either. Want to guess which camera? Or rather, whose camera?” Kit asked, still looking into the recording device.
“Mine? I don’t… he really worries that much? About me?” Eva asked uncertainly.
Kit didn’t say anything to that.
“Felix? Can you hear me right now?” Eva asked.
He contemplated not saying anything. Then realized it would only damage their relationship.
“Yeah,” Felix said into her comm alone. “I’m here. We’ll talk later.”
“Ok. Thank you, Felix,” Eva said.
Felix disconnected from the camera and went back to work.
He had a campaign to plan.
Chapter 13 - Quid Pro Quo -
Felix was staring down at the after action report on his desk. They’d finished up their operations in Tilen this morning. The national guard had shown up and taken control over the situation.
Luckily for them, the situation was already under control. All that was left to do was maintain the peace.
Legion had lost thirty-some odd security officers, two Fixers, and a single Warden.
Of those lost, everyone had signed the resurrection request to be brought back.
Felix sighed and tapped the report with a thumb.
Which means I’ll be converting gold bricks for points later.
Part of the contract for resurrection was putting aside enough pay to purchase five pounds of gold. The gold was purchased in advance for the person signing the contract, and the pay was deducted on the back-end over time.
In the case of death, Felix would convert the gold to something worthless, like dirt, and use the points to resurrect people.
He planned to never be put in the same position that he was in previously, where he simply didn’t have enough points to bring people back.
Setting the report to one side, Felix pulled over a tablet. He put in a meeting for himself to go into the vault, then the morgue.
“And that’s that. Everyone should be up and running by tomorrow,” Felix said. “Might take a bit longer for that Warden though.”
Victoria looked up from the corner she was lurking in at the sound of his voice. Realizing he was talking to himself she went back to whatever it was she was doing on her phone.
Andrea made a humming noise at his side but said nothing either. She wasn’t quite pleased with her role the other day. She’d been asked to split into hundreds of herself and to secure and hold both T:HQ and SC:HQ.
“I promise that next time you can have a few Others around me. I mean it. I just couldn’t trust the HQs to anyone else, Andrea,” Felix said, looking at her.
“Yeah?” she asked, not meeting his eyes.
“Yeah. Promise.”
“Nn. Kay. I just wanted to be there for you.”
“You were right where I needed you, protecting our home-front,” Felix said. He meant it too.
Andrea smiled and ducked her head, nodding. “Okay.”
Felix didn’t want to read anything more in the action report. He’d already read it through twice.
Something like a hundred people had been turned over to the Sausage Machine. There was no looting, pillaging, or crime on Legion’s part, other than taking no prisoners of those who attacked their security forces. All in all, it was a successful OP. Many of his people gained real world experience, they gained a massive amount of positive PR, gave the Heroes Guild a black eye in the media, and even managed to steal everything on their private network completely.
His office door opened, Andrea, two Others, and Victoria all coming to attention.
Only to relax when they saw it was Kit and Lily coming through the doors. No one but his inner-circle would be coming in the door in the manner they did, but it still set his guards on edge.
“Felix. I think it’s time to talk about your plans to run for governor,” Lily said without preamble or even so much as a greeting. She slumped down into a couch and seemed to ooze into the cushions. Kit took the seat next to her and crossed one leg over the other, looking the part of the ever present cool collected head of HR that she was.
“Alright. You ok by the way?” Felix asked.
“Tired. Very tired. I’ve done nothing but interviews and press conferences with interested parties,” Lily said, laying a hand over her eyes.
“Oh? How’d that all end up by the way? Seems like everything went well according to the reports,” Felix said, setting that very report back down on his desk.
“It did. It did go well. Even the National Guard was quite happy with us. They didn’t have to do much and weren’t the bad guys. I made sure that whenever we talked about them, it was always neutral or positive. They don’t control their own deployment, of course, so it’s not their fault.”
Felix nodded at that. She really had been careful about the wording for them. He imagined it might make some people happier about it. Especially military veterans.
“The new governor is furious of course. He won’t do anything directly since he took our bribe, it’d implicate us both, but he’s definitely no longer a friend,” Lily said. She didn’t sound concerned about that. “The Heroes are in a tizzy. This isn’t just a black eye for them, but an embarrassment. As for the people themselves… they’re beyond grateful. In the end, our rapid response, recovery, and peacekeeping kept damage and looting quite low. Far lower than the expectation.”
“Great. Good work, Lily. You’ll have to tell me how to reward you for this one,” Felix said. He earnestly meant it to.
“Tell me that again after I get you elected. Half of my team is already running up everything we need to get you legally ready for office,” Lily said. “The other half is starting to go through the paperwork on donations and who’s sending what to where. The election itself and how to run it is all Kit’s.”
Kit smiled and rearranged her hair with one hand. She’d cut it short late last night, and had a hairstyle very similar to what she looked like when he first met her.
“We’re also digging through who the players are on the governor’s spot. Pay, donations, business deals, all the like. As for running the campaign, I think that’ll be rather easy. We just flood the radio, TV, and Internet with ads,” Kit s
aid. “We just do it exactly as you told Lily. Focus on the essential items that the voters want.”
“Good. At the same time, I want you to talk to all local elected officials below the governor, as well as the police chief, fire chief, and local federal agent liaison. See if we can get them on board. I’m open to promises of support to them, either for public funds, private donations, or equipment,” Felix said.
“Do you need their help though?” Andrea asked. “It’s a voting thing. You just need to get everyone to vote for you.”
“Somewhat. Votes are only half of it. I need to expand the number of people who are supporting us, and decrease the number supporting the governor. The fewer he has in his coalition, the harder it is for him to maintain power. And if we can take away the replacement backer pool he’d draw from, it makes it ever harder for him. Those people are who others turn to for direction and support. The more of them we get in line, the better. Actually, in addition to all of those people, contact their opponents, and subordinates who would be considered if their boss lost their job.”
Kit frowned at that and rubbed a finger against the back of her hand.
“The people I use to take power, may not be the same people I use to keep power,” Felix said. “I have to consolidate my power base almost as soon as I take office and the people who put me there will more than likely cost more to keep in my pocket than who can replace them.
“We’ll also have to get an idea on the city treasury within a day or two of taking office. So let’s get some new accountants ready and set to dig through a lot of shady bookkeeping. I imagine we’ll end up using Legion funds at some point, but I’d rather do that as a last resort. Making the books balance for both the city and Legion after that would be annoying. And costly.”
Andrea lifted her head and stared at him with a glum look. “I don’t like this. Do you have to be a governor?”
“I don’t have to be, but it’s the easiest way to get approvals all the way around for Legion. This is a golden opportunity, and I’ll leverage it for all it’s worth,” Felix said.
Andrea sighed and then leaned forward, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “Ok. I understand.”
Felix grinned and patted her lightly on the head, taking a moment to rub her ears.
Super Sales on Super Heroes: Book 2 Page 14