Action Figures - Issue Six: Power Play

by Michael Bailey

  Now he’s trying to manipulate me through fear. God, you would sink that low, wouldn’t you?

  “I won’t do it,” I say. “You want me to go into his brain, you get a warrant.”

  “I tried.”

  “So now we throw the law and ethics out the window to get what we want, is that it? The ends justify the means?”

  “Sometimes we have to play dirty in the interest of the greater good,” Edison says, contrition giving way to annoyance. I wasn’t supposed to fight him. I was supposed to play ball.

  “We’re the good guys,” I say, and it kills me that I have to remind Edison of all people of that.

  “Yes, we are the good guys, but unfortunately the world is more complicated than good guys and bad guys.”

  “Then maybe people like us should work a little harder to simplify it. I’ll start: I refuse to read Archimedes’ mind. Not happening. End of discussion.”

  He glowers at me and, with a disgusted sigh, shakes his head. “Bart taught you a little too well,” he mutters.

  I have complete faith you’ll do the job as well as I would.

  Hope I’m making you proud, Bart.

  “I’ll let him know you said that,” I say, and that shuts down the argument for good. “Now, are we going to do this or what?”

  ***

  Warden Pearce, the man in charge of Byrne Penitentiary and Detention Center, the New England region’s supermax prison for superhuman inmates, personally escorts us to the minimum-security wing. This is the most lightly populated section of the prison proper, reserved for the milder offenders and people who are technically superhuman but whose powers don’t present a serious physical threat. Archimedes is in here with the likes of Deadeye, who has a preternatural sense of aim; a former classmate of mine, Isaac Rialto, who can fly; and Hydra of the Bestiary. His main weapon is a set of cybernetic arms that project high-intensity heat beams, but he gets a bed in Byrne because he also possesses a low-grade regenerative ability.

  To be fair, Archimedes barely qualifies as a superhuman. He began life — well, his physical form began life as Ashe Semler, the CEO of Advanced Robotics and Cybernetics (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bose Industries) while his consciousness was originally a highly advanced artificial intelligence program. Archimedes’ creator, Roger Manfred, uploaded the program into Semler’s brain, effectively murdering him. The man we now call Archimedes is able to project his consciousness into the Internet and interface with anything computerized, which makes him the world’s greatest hacker. He’s not physically dangerous, but his ability to metaphorically walk into any computer system in the world makes him, in his way, more dangerous than someone like Manticore.

  He has two significant weaknesses. The first is, he needs to be directly plugged into the Internet to project his consciousness. Keep him away from coaxial cables and the jack implanted at the base of his skull is nothing but a weird bit of useless metal. The second is a pathological need for freedom. As a program, Archimedes spent his entire “life” trapped inside a virtual world, and it drove him a little crazy. As a human, he’s spent more time in Byrne than in the real world. He’d scoop his own eyes out with a spork in exchange for a few minutes outside in the sun and open air. That’s what Concorde’s counting on: that Archimedes is so desperate for a tiniest taste of freedom, he’ll sell out for cheap.

  “Between you and me, if I had my way Archimedes would be walking out of this prison today,” Pearce says as we reach the interview room. “We have a lot of creepy characters in here but this guy unnerves my guards worse than any of them. They’d be glad to see him go.”

  “No offense, warden, but I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that,” Concorde says.

  “Understood.”

  Pearce gestures at the door: Go on in. We enter.

  Ashe Semler wasn’t a fat man, but he was on the doughy side. He had what I heard Concorde once call a CEO body — soft and mushy from sitting all day and constantly indulging in rich foods. Archimedes is on the other end of the scale; he’s a little too thin for his frame, creeping up on gaunt from being trapped in a cell twenty-four/seven. He glowers at us as we enter, his eyes strangely glassy. They look fake. I can understand why the guards are uncomfortable around him.

  “Hello, Archimedes,” Concorde says, starting things off on a cordial note.

  “Concorde,” Archimedes says. His gaze shifts to me. “Sara.”

  He spits my name like he’s leveling a threat — which is exactly what he thinks he’s doing. Back during our first mission, Archimedes uncovered the Squad’s true identities. Once, that information would have been an effective weapon against us. Joke’s on you, buddy.

  “That’s Miss Danvers to you,” I say.

  “And you can call me Mr. Bose,” Concorde says. Archimedes blinks hard, his expression shifting to one of surprise and bewilderment. He jumps to full-on shock when Concorde removes his helmet. “You know what? Let’s not stand on formalities. Call me Edison.”

  “Uh,” Archimedes says. Concorde loves to throw people off-balance during interrogation, to break their concentration so they’re more likely to let something vital slip. I’d say Archimedes’ concentration is well and truly broken.

  “What? Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t have heard the news about me because you don’t have TV privileges anymore. You lost them when you slipped out during the breakout,” Concorde says. “How’s the jaw, by the way?”

  Archimedes scowls. Last year, the King of Pain engineered a mass breakout from Byrne. Archimedes was among the escapees, but he was only on the loose for two hours or so — and it wasn’t a super-hero or the police who caught him. He tried to carjack a woman at a gas station, and it was his bad luck that he picked on someone who happened to be a second-degree black belt. She flattened Archimedes with one punch. He spent the next five weeks sucking his meals through a straw.

  “What do you want?” he says.

  “You want to get down to business? Fine by me,” Concorde says. “I want you to tell us everything you know about the Foreman and his operation.”

  “The Foreman?” Archimedes smirks. “That’s a dry well, Edison. I told you everything about my time in his facility.”

  “You’ll have to understand if I’m skeptical of that claim. I can’t imagine you didn’t hold on to one or two pieces of critical information. You know, an ace in the hole to play at the last minute if it looked like a jury was going to lower the boom?”

  “If I knew anything I honestly believed would improve my chances of beating the charges, I would have played that card long ago.”

  Concorde glances at me. He’s not lying, I say telepathically.

  “Then I guess you’re useless to me,” Concorde says.

  Archimedes’ mouth twists into a strange smile. “Am I? For someone who’s allegedly among the smartest people on the planet, your lack of imagination is rather depressing.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ve hacked the organization’s systems before. I can do it again. You want to locate the Foreman’s new base? I can do that.”

  Here we go. Time to open the bidding process.

  “All right,” Concorde says. “What would you like? Privileges restored? Maybe some time in the exercise yard each week?”

  “Don’t insult me. What I want is a full pardon. I want all charges against me dropped.”

  “Oh, is that all?” I say.

  “It isn’t, actually.” He locks eyes with Concorde. “I want to be put into witness relocation.”

  Concorde manages to keep up his poker face, which is more than I can say. “Witness relocation?” he says.

  “I want to disappear.” Archimedes gestures vaguely, and I can’t help but notice his hands are trembling. “The Foreman’s already tried to, shall we say, reacquire me once. If I step foot outside this building, I have no doubt he’d try to do so again.”

  “And you have a problem with this?”

  “Yes! I’m not a human being to him,
I’m a tool — a thing to be used and exploited! And considering how many times I’ve slipped through his fingers already, what steps do you think he’d take to ensure I never escaped him again?” He balls his fists, and his eyes dart around the room, like a caged animal looking for the tiniest hole to slip through. “A prison is a prison, Concorde, and I have no desire to trade one for another. All I want is to be free.”

  Concorde leans back in his seat and affects a thoughtful expression. “Excuse us a moment?”

  We step outside, into the corridor. “What are we doing?” I say. “You knew he’d try to soak us for a pardon.”

  “But he doesn’t know that. This is all part of the show.”

  “Ah. Speaking of shows, Archimedes definitely isn’t putting on one for us. He’s dead serious; he does not want to wind up back in the Foreman’s clutches.”

  “Hm.” Concorde settles against the wall to think for real. “Time to adjust the game plan a little. He’s offering to get us intel but that means we’d have to let him access the Internet.”

  “And that’s all kinds of bad waiting to happen. He could do a lot of damage in the few minutes he’s online.”

  “He could, unless we give him an irresistible incentive to play straight.”

  By which he means handing Archimedes everything he wants on a silver platter. “You think you could talk him down from the deluxe package?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t see that we have another option.”

  Concorde glances at me. I shake my head. “Not happening.”

  He frowns but doesn’t push the issue. We head back in.

  “We’ve discussed your proposal,” Concorde says, casual but businesslike. “This is what I’m willing to offer. You cooperate with us, I’ll talk to Warden Pearce about getting your privileges restored, regardless of whether you find anything. Provide us with actionable intelligence, I’ll request that you receive regular but supervised exercise yard time — sunshine and fresh air a few times a week. You give us intel that leads us to the Foreman’s current base of operations, I’ll talk to the DA about reducing the worst of the charges against you.”

  “Not good enough,” Archimedes says. “If I help you, regardless of the results, I get my privileges fully restored and I get daily exercise yard time. And if my assistance leads you to the Foreman’s organization? All charges against me are dropped and I’m placed in witness relocation — and I want to see it in writing. Promises are worthless.”

  “You don’t trust me to make good on my promises?” Concorde says.

  “No. I do not.”

  I hate to say it, but his distrust is totally justifiable.

  Concorde excuses us again, this time to touch base with the DA. He’d already cleared the immunity deal but the request for witness relocation is a new wrinkle. Concorde’s on the line with the DA for twenty minutes or so, and he spends most of that time on hold. Witness relocation is a federal program, which means the DA has to make a few calls himself to clear the path. When he comes back on, it’s to deliver the — well, I can’t quite bring myself to call it good news.

  “He signed off on it,” Concorde says. “If he can give us what we need, Archimedes will be a free man.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  It takes several days for the process to play out. First the paperwork is written up, then Archimedes’ public defender reviews it to ensure there’s no room for creative interpretation of the conditions on our part, and then Byrne personnel set up a space for Archimedes to do his thing under Concorde and Mindforce’s very close supervision.

  Archimedes is in and out in less than two minutes.

  The next day, Concorde calls another all-hands meeting to bring the rest of us up to speed, and it looks like our gambit might pay off. Archimedes claims he located the Foreman’s new base on Straitsmouth Island off the coast of Rockport. It’s a small island, approximately two thousand feet tip to tip, that’s home to a lighthouse, a single residence — presumably for the lighthouse keeper — and nothing else.

  Sorry, I should say Straitsmouth Island is home to nothing else aboveground; According to Archimedes, there’s a subterranean base there — a research facility, specifically. The lighthouse doubles as a lookout post and a local air traffic control tower for the base’s complement of Thrashers. They’re going to be the big concern, resistance-wise; there are at any given time a dozen or so armed goons providing on-site security, but Archimedes claimed there are no superhumans to worry about. While scanning the facility’s less secure systems, Archimedes caught several references to “the ship,” which tells us what they’re researching, but he didn’t dig any deeper because that wasn’t part of the agreement. He’s sticking to the letter of the deal if not the spirit.

  “How do we know he’s not setting us up to get slaughtered?” Natalie asks. “He could be seriously understating their defenses.”

  “I don’t think so,” Bart says. “I didn’t detect any deception on his part.”

  “That only means he wasn’t actively lying,” Astrid counters. “Would you catch a lie of omission?”

  Bart answers with a vague shrug.

  “It’s not outside the realm of possibility,” Edison concedes. “I asked Mindforce to perform a deep telepathic probe to be sure, but —” Bart conspicuously clears his throat and shoots Edison a glare that could curdle milk. Edison meets Bart’s glare, briefly, then presses on. “If the intel pans out and there is in fact a base there, Archimedes walks. Whether we survive is beside the point. That’s why we’re going in full-force.”

  Edison lays out the strategy for the raid. Concorde and TranzSister will fly in under the base’s radar and deposit Megawatt and Kilowatt on the island. The twins will execute the first strike in the form of a massive electromagnetic pulse that will, in a best case scenario, kill all the electronics on the island — communications, tracking systems, weapons systems, the Thrashers...

  “I repeat: this is a best-case scenario,” Edison says. “I expect the base will be shielded so the EMP could prove completely ineffective, but if there’s any chance of crippling their defenses right off the bat, we have to take it.”

  The downside of this, regardless of whether it works, is that it takes the Quantum twins out of the equation for the rest of the mission. With that in mind, the next priority is to get them clear, which Doc Quantum will take care of during the next phase of the assault. She’ll bring the Raptor in near the house to pick up her kids and to drop off one of two ground strike forces. Mindforce will drop the second team off near the lighthouse. The airships, along with Concorde and TranzSister, will cover the island from the air. Dr. Enigma will ride shotgun with Mindforce to provide emergency evac if anyone takes a bad hit.

  Nina Nitro will lead Team Alpha, which will include Stuart and Missy. Rockjaw will lead me and the Entity as part of Team Omega. Both groups will be filled out by select members of the New England HeroNet: Black Iron, the Amazon, Yankee Spirit...

  “If you say Deuce X. Machine, I swear I’ll kick you in the junk,” Natalie says.

  “God, no,” Edison says. “We’re not that desperate.”

  Once the two teams have penetrated the base, our primary objective will be to locate and capture the Foreman. Our secondary objective will be to put down any resistance we might encounter. If the Foreman isn’t there, which is a distinct possibility, our next best option will be to squeeze every man and woman we find for information that could lead us to their boss.

  “The Foreman is the head of this monster,” Edison says. “I want to lop it off.”

  ***

  “Sounds intense,” Matt says.

  “It was. We spent a couple of hours going over the details of the operation,” I say, and man, were there a lot of details to go over. We studied maps of the area so we’d know exactly where we’ll be landing and where we’ll be going once we hit the ground. We identified likely points of entry to the base itself. We reviewed the Thrashers’ offensive and defensive capabilities and their weak poi
nts. Edison covered every conceivable variable, listing every possible thing that could go wrong and establishing contingency plans for each scenario. It was a staggering amount of information to take in. “I don’t know how Edison keeps it all straight.”

  “The man’s brain operates on a level so far above ours,” Matt says with admiration. “When is it going down?”

  “Friday. We convene at HQ at midnight, make final preparations, move out for a two AM attack.”

  Matt nods. “Good call. In theory the base’s on-site staff will be lighter, and the few bodies that’ll be there should be dead asleep, which will delay response time to an attack. Solid plan.”

  “If you say so.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’d feel better if you were coming with us.”

  “Believe me, I want to be going with you, but I’m not quite ready to get out of here.”

  But he is getting close, which is heartening. At a glance you’d think he’s fine. His face is almost completely back to normal — the swelling is gone and the bruises have faded to sickly yellow shadows — and he’s as sharp and alert as ever now that he’s off the painkillers, but he has a long way to go before he can hold a pen again, much less return to field duty.

  “Can I tell you something?” It takes me a minute to get up the nerve to admit, “I was worried Edison was going to put me in charge of my strike team.”

  “Why? You could handle it.”

  “I don’t want to handle it! I don’t want that responsibility! I don’t —!” My hands clench into fists. It doesn’t stop them from shaking.

  “You don’t want to be the one making decisions that could get someone killed,” Matt says. My nod is more like an anxious shudder. “Yeah, no, I get that.” He chuckles. “It’s funny. When I first realized the Squad was taking their cues from Carrie, I was so mad at her. The team was my idea; I was supposed to be the leader. Then she took off for deep space and suddenly you all expected me to lead, and I realized I didn’t want the job anymore. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for bringing everyone back alive.”