“Umm… I think I disagree with you on the sensors. No matter whether or not they’re subverted, it does make sense to put sensors into place to keep an eye on the bay. We never know when someone is going to try an underwater attack,” Ocean Spirit disagreed, shaking her head. “I admit it’s unlikely due to my presence, but it isn’t guaranteed that someone won’t think they have a way around me.”
“Alright, you might have a point,” Sky Defender admitted. “I still think it’s a distraction, though. What about my other suggestion?”
“It makes sense. It’d get Morgan and Warden out of the way while we captured Lilith, and their reaction would tell us a lot about whether or not we can trust them further,” Ocean Spirit said, rubbing her forehead as she asked. “The question is how the hell do we keep Lilith from escaping? Shadowmind had her teleporters, I’ll remind you, and they were advanced enough to have backpack-sized recall units.”
“I hate to say it but I’d say we should have Hypergizmo bring the Seajet. We can set up a teleportation disruptor in it. It’ll screw most signals to hell and back while it’s on, but if we can take her by surprise, I bet we can keep it brief,” Sky Defender said, shaking his head. “I hate to risk Hyper since he’s the weakest member of the team, but he’s the only one who hasn’t been in her presence before.”
“Shit. Well, you’re probably right. Let’s look things over and see what we can work out. We can’t talk to anyone about this beforehand,” Ocean Spirit said grimly, setting her bag aside. “You’ll have to do the job, but you should be able to subdue her. I also want to see the results of your tests. This is a huge problem.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Sky Defender agreed, letting out a breath as he came back over and sat down. “Let me grab my data for you. Just make sure it doesn’t hit the team network; I don’t want her to have a chance to get away.”
Ocean Spirit nodded and pulled out her laptop. This was going to be a long, unpleasant night.
Thursday, January 3rd, 2031
Unknown Location
The man stepped into the room and paused, frowning to himself as he murmured, “Well, that is new. And rather unfortunate.”
Sitting in the center of the room was a chessboard illuminated by the morning light. The archaic pieces were worn and pitted, but he was used to the sight of the game which played itself slowly, sometimes going months between moves, as white and black battled things out across the board.
Now things had changed, and not for the better. White and black were both present, but the board had expanded and there were new colors on the field. On one side, far from the other pieces, were a number of green pawns surrounding a rook, while white’s queen had turned bright crimson. There was a crimson bishop and knight on the board as well, almost out of reach of their queen, and the man’s lips thinned slightly.
“I see I’m going to have to do some investigating. This bodes ill,” he murmured, and turned to leave the room.
Chapter 14
Thursday, January 3rd, 2031
Dr. Johnson’s Lair, Santa Cruz
“Oh Doc-tor!” Dreamer’s sing-song voice echoed through the lab, and Doctor Johnson couldn’t help but twitch slightly at the sound.
Part of Doctor Johnson regretted ever associating with Dreamer, but the villainess was deadly and useful at times. That was often helpful, but it didn’t change the fact that he knew she was a psychopath, and only relatively under his control due to how he’d managed to mitigate the worst of her symptoms so far. As soon as he cured her illness permanently, she was going to be far too dangerous to allow to stay around him for long.
Turning to face the albino woman, Doctor Johnson gave the beautiful villainess a nod as he asked, “Yes, Dreamer? Is there something I can help you with?”
“Of course there is! You’ve been running tests on the little Orchid for almost four days, now,” Dreamer purred, smiling as she glanced toward the one-way mirror that gave a view of the heroine, continuing. “You haven’t told me anything. I came to remedy that.”
“Ah, yes. My apologies, but that’s because I haven’t made an enormous amount of progress,” Doctor Johnson replied, and as Dreamer’s smile began to fade, he quickly continued. “I’ve been testing the gene-mapping settings on Blooming Orchid quite heavily, I’ll have you know. She was in exceedingly intense pain at first, and it took some time to find the settings which would get the most information on her genetic code while not causing too much pain.”
“It took four days for you to figure out which settings would reduce the pain?” Dreamer asked, seeming slightly mollified, but still displeased as she crossed her arms. “I would have thought it would be quicker, since you said the scans only take a few minutes.”
“You’re right; they do only take a few minutes. However, the first scan caused so much pain for Blooming Orchid that her heart nearly failed,” Doctor Johnson explained, his smile fading as he remembered the near disaster. “I’ve been forced to be more cautious since then, as I also don’t wish to drive her insane with the tests.”
“Why does that matter? Another of Ebon Dragon’s silly requests, like keeping her alive?” Dreamer asked, scowling as she walked over to the window to look inside. “Why is Eve in there with her, anyway?”
“No, I want to keep her sane. If she’s driven mad, it won’t tell me if there are any untoward mental effects from using the genetic manipulator,” the doctor told her, frowning deeply. “That’s why Eve is in there. If she can cause a bit of Stockholm Syndrome to come about, so much the better. I need her to be relatively stable for the rest of the experiments. If you want me to cure your AIDS, you’d best hope she holds out as well.”
Dreamer scowled, looking into the room for a long moment and snorting as she shook her head, then glared at him. “What about afterward, then? What are you going to do with her?”
“Assuming everything works well, she’s too useful to simply discard” Doctor Johnson replied, shrugging. “Likely brainwash her into believing she’s someone else and a loyal servant, then improve her strength so she’ll be of use to me. I promised not to kill her, and I won’t.”
“A pity. I could make proper use of her, I’ll tell you that much… her dreams and nightmares would be sweet,” Dreamer murmured, then glanced at Doctor Johnson, her crimson eyes narrowing. “However, I expect to be kept informed. I’ve been working for you for quite long enough, and I’m getting impatient.”
“You’ll be kept informed, I promise. Now, would you mind letting me get back to work? I do need to program the first round of changes I’m going to test on her,” he replied, growing more annoyed as he did so. He was going to keep his side of the bargain, but that didn’t mean he had to like the woman.
“Good. I’ll leave you to play with your little toys, then. Let me know if you need help whipping the flower into shape. I’d be happy to help,” Dreamer replied, turning to leave the room.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Doctor Johnson turned away from the door and looked in on his test subject and assistant as Eve washed the heroine. Blooming Orchid was pretty enough, but he’d trained himself to ignore that. She was simply a test subject, and that was all until after he was done.
Pressing a key, he spoke calmly. “Eve? Is she ready for the next stage of tests?”
“Yes, Doctor, though I suggest giving her an hour or two to rest before moving on,” Eve replied, looking up at the window as though she could see him. “Blooming Orchid has undergone significant stress over the last few days, and she didn’t rest properly at night.”
“I see. Well, it’s going to take at least a few hours to get ready for the next stage anyway, so she can rest for that period,” Doctor Johnson replied, nodding as he reached over and toggled the switch to set the lights in the lab to night mode. “Please come out and help me, Eve. I want you to try to keep me from making any mistakes.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Eve replied, picking up the bucket and gently rubbing Blooming Orchid’s cheek before she left the room.
Despite how dark the room was, Doctor Johnson could see the tiny shiver rock the heroine, and how a few tears streaked down her face as her eyes closed.
Shaking his head, Doctor Johnson headed back for the console he’d been working at. There was quite enough to do before he’d be comfortable testing the genetic manipulator on himself.
Friday, January 4th, 2031
Ocean Shield HQ, San Francisco
“You wanted all of us here?” Morgan asked, following Warden into the meeting room as the others settled into their chairs. “I assume you found something?”
“Take a seat and we’ll explain,” Galvanic Action said, frowning. “I’m not too happy about what we’re planning, but I don’t see a lot of other options.”
“We’ve discussed this, Galvanic. It doesn’t matter what we want to do; this is a rather messy situation,” Ocean Spirit said severely, shaking her head.
“Why isn’t Crimson Bull here?” Warden asked, nodding at his chair as she settled into her own. “I mean, if it’s worth calling in the rest of us, he’d be a major help.”
“He was on shift last night and is sleeping in one of the ready rooms,” Black Comet volunteered. “Probably so he can help if we find something.”
“Right, before we get any other questions, the answer is that some of Sky Defender’s contacts in LANCE quietly passed along word of a few… suspicious locations in the area,” Galvanic Action explained, frowning. “The military intends to investigate but they’re going to be somewhat delayed, so they got authorization to pass it along to us to make a first pass.”
Morgan’s eyebrows rose, turning to Sky Defender, who nodded, his voice calm as he spoke, a map of the region appearing in the center of the table. “There are three possible locations where we could have Destruction Corps lurking. None of them are guaranteed, but they’ve had odd heat signatures for the areas where they’re located. One is in the mountains near Vallejo to the northeast, the second in the area of the Vasco Caves, and the last down in the mountains south of San Jose. Widely spread out, obviously, but considering the situation, one or all of them could be real or decoys.”
“That isn’t good. And that makes it hard to tell which might be real,” Warden murmured, frowning. “What do you want us to do? I doubt you’d call us in to just sit around and watch LANCE come out.”
“No. The plan is simple,” Ocean Spirit spoke up, frowning. “Hypergizmo is going to keep the Seajet on standby so we can respond quickly, but we don’t dare investigate the locations one at a time. I’d like you and Morgan to go to the location near Vallejo, Warden, while Black Comet checks on the Vasco Caves, and Sky Defender investigates the location south of San Jose.”
“That’s spreading our forces thin,” Morgan said, frowning at the thought. “We could be ambushed and defeated in detail.”
“That’s why I wanted to split the teams the way we did. Warden can stop nearly anything short of a nuclear warhead if she puts the effort into it, and in an emergency, she might be able to teleport out, if she can get a grasp on her new power,” Ocean Spirit said, then paused, raising an eyebrow as she asked. “Warden, you haven’t had a breakthrough with the teleporting, have you?”
“No, not really. I managed to teleport across the living room the other day, but that’s it. I’m not sure how Blue Impulse managed it,” Warden admitted.
“That’s unfortunate.” Ocean Spirit sighed, shaking her head, then continued. “In any case, the caves are going to take a lot of time to investigate, which is why Black Comet is the only real option. No one else is fast enough, and he’d be able to evade pursuit for long enough for support to reach him. As for Sky Defender…”
“No need to explain. Anyone trying to ambush him is asking to be wrecked,” Morgan interrupted, laughing softly. “I suppose it makes sense. Warden?”
“I’d be fine with it. It’s a fairly long trip, though… it’ll take us a while to get there,” Warden warned, glancing at the others. “If we’re going to coordinate the investigations, we’ll probably take the longest to get there, even if our trip is a bit shorter than either of yours.”
“Seems fair by me. I mean, there’s only so much we can do to match up speeds, and if we don’t want to risk the ’jet being out of position, there isn’t really another option,” Black Comet said, frowning thoughtfully. “I have to say, the caves could be pretty nasty. There’s a lot of places people could hide in them.”
“That’s part of the reason we’re so worried,” Galvanic Action agreed, sighing. “I wish that it was even just two locations. I’m nervous about all of this.”
“We’ll have to do what we can. But if we’re going to get out there in a reasonable amount of time, the sooner we go the better. Right, Warden?” Morgan said, looking at the map in the middle of the table.
“Agreed. I don’t want to let them get any deeper of a foothold in the area than we have to,” Warden agreed. “Is there anything else?”
“No, I’m afraid not,” Ocean Spirit replied, sighing. “Good luck, all of you. We’ll be here if you need support.”
“Right, let’s get going,” Morgan agreed, getting up and nodding to Warden. They could call Lilith and let her know that they’d be delayed as they started their flight.
“Are you absolutely certain about this?” Hypergizmo asked, finally speaking once he was alone in the room with Ocean Spirit and Sky Defender, his voice worried. “I really don’t like lying to either of them, or to the others for that matter.”
“I know you don’t. It’s not a good situation, but I really don’t see any other option,” Ocean Spirit told him, sighing and shaking her head. “We have to capture her, you know that.”
“But—” Hypergizmo began, only for Sky Defender to interrupt.
“Hyper, you’re the one who told us that after she was nearly killed, Morgan called you and asked about the status of Shadowmind’s creation. If we hadn’t been certain before that, her question certainly made it obvious that she had an idea of what was going on,” Sky Defender said, shaking his head slightly. “She knew that, and she didn’t tell us. She didn’t say anything to any of us at all. That on its own just makes me more certain that something has gone horribly wrong. I’m afraid that my worry of her actually being Shadowmind herself is far more likely, now.”
“But… isn’t it possible that they thought it was because of the Reinfield Act? I mean, she specifically asked about the bioweapon designation,” Hypergizmo argued, much as he had the previous day. “I really can’t blame her for not turning someone over if she thought they were going to be executed out of hand!”
“Then she should have told her team!” Sky Defender snapped. “We’re supposed to trust one another and help each other figure things out! Instead, every revelation we’ve gotten about Lilith has been grudging and in reaction to events. We don’t know that those weren’t staged or anything else! Do you really think we can afford to leave them under the influence of someone whose goals we don’t even understand?”
“I… no, I just don’t know that this is a good idea,” Hypergizmo protested weakly, lowering his head slightly. “I can’t say you’re wrong, but it feels wrong.”
“I know, Hyper,” Ocean Spirit said, standing and stepping closer to lay a hand on his shoulder. As he looked up at her, she continued, sighing, “I don’t know that there’s any other choice. That’s why we’re bringing her into custody. As soon as possible, we’ll put neural inhibitors into place and find someone to check and see who she really is.”
“I suppose so. You know that my teleportation disruptor won’t shut down magical teleportation, though?” Hypergizmo warned, frowning. “If she has another ally who can teleport in…”
“We’ll deal with that if it comes up,” Sky Defender replied grimly. “Just make sure you don’t let anyone know before we take off. I don’t want them to warn Lilith by accident.”
“Okay,” Hypergizmo said reluctantly, and Ocean Spirit frowned, worried about how subdued the man was.
&
nbsp; Lilith’s Condo, San Francisco
Lilith frowned, flicking through the company books on her computer. Gina and Rachel were off doing something mysterious, as was their usual, so she had decided to get some work done. Something about the invoices was looking strange, and she was trying to track down whatever the problem was.
It didn’t help that Lilith wondered what was drawing both of her… her girlfriends out this time. The last month had been far more eventful than she’s prefer to think about, and she couldn’t help the sense of gnawing worry in her stomach. She hoped they’d be safe and was trying not to worry, but she wasn’t certain that she’d be able to manage that.
Shaking her head, Lilith took a deep breath and got up, moving around the edge of her desk to adjust the picture of Morgan in her new dress on the wall so she could see it more easily. The sight of the painting made her smile slightly, as she murmured softly, “Be careful, Rachel. I do worry about you.”
Once she’d adjusted the level of the picture, which truthfully hadn’t needed it, Lilith returned to her chair, her back to the window as she got back to trying to figure out what the problem with the invoices was. It had to be there; it was just a matter of finding it.
Foothills, Vallejo
“That is one ugly looking hole in the ground,” Warden said, and she smiled as she heard Morgan laugh.
“You said it. That’s what happens when people need rock and gravel, though,” Morgan said, shaking her head as they looked down at the work site on the edge of the mountains. “I wish there was a better way to do it, but there it is.”
Down with the Queen Page 14