Team Omega

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “They don’t see the bigger picture,” the Redeemer said. Her voice softened. “There are always winners and losers, just as there were winners and losers in the Congo before you intervened. Very few people are capable of seeing what’s beyond their noses—and what needs to be done for the good of all humanity.”

  She shrugged. “And those protests are not as spontaneous as you believe,” she added, sardonically. “Some of the organisers used to work for Congressmen—they helped get their candidates elected into Congress, where they became as corrupt as the rascals they threw out. Maybe most of the protesters think they’re doing the right thing, that they are standing up for their right to rule themselves, but they’re being manipulated by the same people who always manipulated them.

  “Give them a hot-button issue, and then watch the sparks fly. Abortion is murder—no, it’s a woman’s right to choose—no, it’s murder... Guns are deadly, ban guns; gun ownership is an essential right and must be defended at all costs. Religion is important, yet there should be freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion. And all crafty political leaders ride the storms they whip up into office, whereupon they become just like any other politician.”

  “You sound very passionate about the subject,” Hope teased.

  “I learned to read minds when I was very young,” the Redeemer admitted. “Do you know just how many people are slow and stupid? Even the ones who look impressive on the outside are so...banal on the inside. So few dare to dream big, even those who go into Congress. One lobbyist was successful simply because he arranged for Senators to have dates with pretty girls. And he wasn't even doing something great! All he wanted was to keep an unnecessary government subsidy flowing smoothly.”

  She shook her head. “Most people are sheep. Give them an idea and it jams in their heads, until no amount of logic and reason can extract it. All those people who say that abortion is murder simply cannot think that there might be a situation when abortion is justified, even necessary. And if one of their number did make that mental leap, they’d turn on him as a heretic. The same goes for the other side. They’re so hung up on a woman’s right to choose that they don’t allow themselves to think that abortion means ending an innocent life before it has a chance to grow into something worthwhile. The thought that the other side might have a point is alien to both of them.

  “Out there, there are hundreds of protesters who think that what you’re doing is wrong, because someone with a working brain and their own political bias has convinced them that you’re in the wrong. They don’t see that the problems gripping this country—the problems gripping the world—defy the simple answers they want. It needs a man with a vision and the power to push that vision through into reality to save the world. And when you leave, having cleaned out the government, they will thank you for it.”

  “I hope you're right,” Hope said. He looked at her, suddenly. “What happened to Mimic?”

  The Redeemer’s expression didn't change. “I believe he walked off into the Congo,” she said, smoothly. “I wasn't keeping an eye on him after he decided to leave.”

  Hope smiled. “I thought you kept a mental eye on everyone,” he said. “And I hope that means that you’re not watching me in the toilet.”

  “I have better things to do with my time than play voyeur,” the Redeemer said, sternly. “And I do have limits, as you are well aware. I keep a link to you because without you, this whole project would fall apart, but I can't keep a link to everyone.”

  “Pity,” Hope said. “Maybe I should go find Mimic.”

  “I don't think he wants to be found,” the Redeemer said. “I think that he left because he couldn't carry on with you, but didn't go back to America because part of him knew that you were in the right and he didn't want to oppose you. The best thing you can do for him is leave him alone until he comes back—besides, it isn't as if we don’t need him in the Congo.”

  He’d ordered most of his army of mutants to return to the Congo after they’d found themselves targeted by the more rebellious segments of the American population. With a handful of the more powerful superhumans to back them up, they could keep the Congo peaceful, work on the planned road network to start distributing food and encourage economic growth while building themselves a new homeland as well. It wasn't fair that the mutants were being targeted, but humanity had never responded kindly to people being different.

  “If he’s still there,” Hope said. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Forget about him,” the Redeemer urged. “He’ll come crawling back once he is prepared to admit that you are right—until then, forget him and leave him in the past.”

  She smiled, brilliantly. “And besides, you have the trials to attend,” she nudged him. “You have to be there to convince people that you mean business.”

  The White House Press Room had been hastily redesigned to serve as a makeshift courtroom for the arrested Senators and Congressmen. One of the superhumans with power over wood and trees had created a wooden dock, topped with iron spikes, for the accused to stand in while the superhumans debated his fate. It looked like something from the Victorian Era. The whole process was a great deal cruder than any other courtroom that would be used to charge the rich, powerful and famous, but it should work. Telepaths made it easier to separate the guilty from the innocent.

  Hope took his seat as a handful of reporters flowed into the room to sit in the benches that had been set up for them. A number of reporters had refused to return after his first speech to the American population, but there was no shortage of replacements. Besides, he’d agreed that every television and internet channel would have access to the live footage from the cameras. Hope had wanted to broadcast the trials over every channel, overriding the endless barrage of entertainment broadcast to couch potatoes, but Mainframe had talked him out of it. Upsetting so many people might just lead to more rioting in the streets.

  There was no jury, but then there was no need for a jury—or for lawyers. A single telepath could separate truth from lies, rather than have a lawyer doing his best to muddy the waters. And, more usefully, they could tell what someone had actually been feeling at the time; if he’d been governed by deliberate malice, desperation, or if the whole affair had been nothing more than a tragic accident. Hope had learned during his training that there was a difference between objective and subjective truth. Now, telepaths could bring both truths to light and allow him to decide if the subjective truth justified the objective truth.

  “Bring in the first prisoner,” he said, picking up the tablet PC Mainframe had prepared for him. “Show him to the dock.”

  The first prisoner had been chosen carefully, even though his crimes happened after Hope’s takeover of the United States. He’d drifted into the press room just after the first speech, made his way to Hope, and offered the superhuman a vast bribe in exchange for various services. At least he’d had more imagination than most of the other prisoners—or the average supervillain, for that matter—but Hope had been outraged that someone would try to bribe him. He’d put the lobbyist into the prison camp personally and insisted on trying him first.

  Warrior Girl read the charges. “Casey Wong, you stand accused of attempting to corrupt the new government of America by bribing some of its operatives,” she said. Hope hadn't been the only one Wong had tried to bribe. “Telepathic evidence has confirmed that you intended to manipulate your victims until they did as you wanted, including wrecking your employer’s competitors in business. Do you have anything you wish to say in your defence?”

  Wong had nerve, Hope had to admit. “What I did was nothing more than what everyone did, before you took over the country,” he said. “Lobbyists have been seeking to convince politicians to support them ever since the day Washington was founded, in exchange for campaign contributions. You say that these are bribes; I say they’re the cost of doing business.”

  He sat down and waited.

  “You are quite right; what you did is no dif
ferent to every other lobbyist in Washington,” Hope said. At least this case was fairly simple. “However, it is our intention to stamp such practices out, root and branch. The fact that you realised that you could go further in your competition-crushing practices than anyone else doesn't mitigate your guilt. I sentence you to ten years hard labour in a work camp in the Congo.”

  There was a pause while Triple A removed the prisoner before the reporters started muttering into their microphones, recording their commentary for the news. Hope could hear them; some were desperately twisting their words to avoid having to condemn what he’d done, while others were bluntly informing the public of what it all meant.

  No one was very comfortable with telepathic evidence, least of all the people who had no mental defences, but it did cut through the bullshit. Besides, the Redeemer had once told him that most people had deep, dark secrets that were actually pretty tame. Who really cared what porn they watched when they were home alone?

  The next prisoner was someone Hope would have preferred to keep until later, but he had already been the target of an FBI investigation that had been derailed when Hope and the Saviours took over the United States. Congressman Patrick Kent had been involved in a murky sex and murder scandal that had blown up in his hometown, with accusations that Kent had hired someone to murder a prostitute who had been demanding blackmail money in exchange for keeping her mouth closed. It was all based on rumours, but Kent’s political enemies were pushing it hard, intent on bringing him down. And while American law didn't allow telepathic evidence to be used against a suspect—at least not without the suspect’s permission—Hope had no such compunctions.

  “Congressman Kent, your mind was scanned concerning the charges brought against you by the FBI, as well as others,” Warrior Girl said. The Redeemer had had to dig deep to pull out the information. Kent wasn’t a telepath, but his mind was a morass, almost a natural defence against telepathy. “You had sex with Angela Murray on nine occasions while you were a freshman Congressman. Once she realised that she could blackmail you, you decided to order her death, a murder which was carried out by Wade Terns, a known assassin for hire and a suspect in several cases before his untimely death last year. You are unquestionably guilty of murder, sexual misconduct and corruption. Quite apart from paying for the murder of a prostitute, you also took bribes, worked to pervert the course of justice, and accepted a very large commission from an aircraft corporation to buy a jet the USAF didn't want in order to save them from bankruptcy.”

  She smiled. “Do you have anything you wish to say in your defence?”

  “Telepathic evidence is not admissible in a court of law,” Kent said, finally. He sounded punch-drunk, although no one had touched him since he’d been pushed into the prison camp. “You cannot charge me on those grounds...”

  Hope shook his head. “I’m afraid we can, and we will,” he said. “You were elected to a position of trust by the American public, and you betrayed that trust. In order to ensure that others considering similar courses are deterred, I sentence you to death. The sentence will be carried out this afternoon. In fact...”

  He broke off as his communicator started to buzz. “Hope, we have a problem,” Mainframe said. His voice was sharp, angry. “The main prison camp is under attack!”

  Hope cursed. “I understand,” he said. The camp was guarded by mutants, not enough to stand off a major attack by soldiers who wanted to carry on an insurgency against Hope and the Saviours. He’d need to reinforce them as quickly as possible. “Call the others. I’m on my way.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “They could have made a better mousetrap,” Matt muttered. The Saviours had taken over a stadium on the outskirts of Washington and turned it into a makeshift prison camp. Inside, his senses picked up hundreds of people, all captured as they attempted to flee Washington. Most of them had worked in Washington before they were captured and the Saviours hadn't managed to get around to processing them yet. The Saviours hadn't even bothered to tell their families that they were prisoners, leaving their nearest and dearest to fear the worst. “I make fifteen mutants on guard duty, and one actual superhuman.”

  “Hypersonic,” Lee muttered back. “Using to be in Department 14. Flies fast enough to cause problems for anything she hits.”

  He looked back at his small group of superhumans. “We get in, we take out the guards, and then we free the prisoners,” he reminded them. “Hope and the Saviours will be on us very quickly, so we fight long enough for the prisoners to escape. Then we break contact.”

  And hope that the rest of the plan goes as we want, Matt added, in the privacy of his own thoughts. The Saviours were dangerous opponents; fanatical enough to risk their lives in battle, smart enough to understand that battles weren’t as important as winning the war. And Hope could be on them in seconds if he flew straight from the White House. The televised trials proved that he was there, thankfully. Team Omega would have its chance to get inside the building without having to contend with a Level 5 superhuman.

  Lee drifted up into the air and grinned. “Go,” he ordered, and flashed towards the prison camp. Hypersonic had been sitting on the roof, gazing at the prisoners; her face betrayed no trace of the turmoil inside her mind. Lee hit her before she could react, slamming a fist in her face; it smashed right through her skull. Her invulnerability depended upon her flight and she hadn't even been moving when Lee had hit her. Lee dropped the Russian flyer’s body on the ground and started to work on the main gates.

  He always tried to avoid killing people, Matt thought, as he ran down and followed the others towards the mutants. They were screaming for help as they passed out weapons and prepared to fight—and some of them would have powers of their own. One mutant belched a ball of fire towards Jack Lofting, who jumped up and over the fireball. Jack landed in front of his opponent and slammed a fist into his chest.

  Lee was still working on the gates. Someone had used heat vision to weld them shut, preventing the prisoners from escaping. It took a minute or two, but Lee wasn't about to be denied. He tore the gates open and threw the debris at the final mutant, who collapsed under the impact.

  “Everyone out,” Lee barked. “Run into Washington and go back to your homes. Run!”

  The first prisoners started to emerge from the stadium. They were a curious mixture of male and female, wearing clothes that had started to stink in the three days they’d been kept prisoner. The stadium was useless as an emergency prison in the long term because it just wasn't large enough to provide sanitary facilities for so many people. No doubt the prisoners had been on the verge of panic, only kept in check by the presence of the mutants.

  Matt stepped back as the trickle of prisoners turned into a flood. Washington was a large city, and the prisoners were only human, but most would probably be able to hide in the crowds. Maybe they’d need a bath or a shower first, he told himself, as the prisoners started to run, some heading away from the city. Someone like Hope could probably sniff them out, given time.

  “Portal,” Lee snapped. “Here they come!”

  Matt saw a man and a woman emerge from a glowing square of light, the woman carrying a pair of swords in her hands. Warrior Girl looked just as he remembered from the last time they’d met, although she hadn't called herself Warrior Girl then. The last Warrior Girl had been murdered in the same killing spree that had claimed the life of Marvin Lofting—but then, she would never have stood for Hope claiming the right to rule over the United States. Her replacement was less of a hypocrite, but more of a danger.

  “You,” the man shouted. His body seemed to shimmer before he split into three identical beings, each one carrying a fighting stick and a shield. “I knew you weren't a simple reporter.”

  Matt braced himself as Triple A advanced on him. The superhuman was strong and fast, although nowhere near as powerful as Hope or Lee. But one mind covering three bodies gave him the ability to perfectly coordinate his—their—attacks, as well as other advantages th
at weren’t so useful in a combat zone. And he had his weaknesses. Matt produced his own fighting stick from his trench coat and carefully extended his senses to touch Triple A. As always, the multi-bodied superhuman confused him; unlike others, his three bodies were completely identical. He smiled as Triple A lifted his sticks. All he had to do was accept that the superhuman was in three places at once, and work with it.

  “I don’t know what you are,” Triple A said, “but you have to know that you are not going to get away with this. Surrender now, and we will be merciful.”

  “You don’t have to talk like someone out of a comic book,” Matt said. He sensed Triple A’s flush and built on it. “What is it with superhumans these days? They spark—and then they start talking like Superman, or Batman. Why can't they just be themselves?”

  Triple A hissed and sprung forward. Against anyone else, it would have been decisive, but Matt read his movement and jumped forward. For a brief moment, Triple A was vulnerable.