Lines of people were marched into the room under the care of the World Corps guards. They were put into the cells and sealed inside behind the thick, plexiglass doors. Children cried while adults trembled at the sight of the guns held to them.
Surrounded by a unit of soldiers for protection, Dr. Osteen worked hard at a computer in the middle of the room.
“Osteen. Progress?” Delta commanded.
“And hello to you.” Osteen sarcastically responded. “The augmentation is going just fine. The first batch is already made up. This new batch will be tricky. I haven’t worked with children yet.”
“Then you will learn.”
“What if they don’t survive?”
Delta coldly answered, “then you will learn how far the limits go for children. Now, get back to...”
“I WON’T BE TREATED LIKE THIS!” a man bellowed.
Delta looked up at one of their captives shoving his way out of line. He was restrained, but continued yelling. “Ask your damn questions and then let us go!”
“You will be silent.” Delta answered.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t use my powers, but I’ve had enough!” The man shoved his fist out and a wave of energy hit the nearest guard and sent the man flying. The man turned and punched again, and the other guard slammed into a holding cell. He yelled out to the other captives, “Fight back! If you want to live, fight back!” He shoved his hands out at Delta, but was met by the butt end of a gun to the side of his head.
Delta calmly approached the man. “Pity. You have great potential. But I must make an example for the others.” He grabbed the gun that had been used to hit the man and then shot. The man was vaporized instantly by the anti-morphon gun. Children and adults screamed. Delta handed the gun back to the guard. Speaking to the other captives, he said, “you stay alive by obeying. You’re all expendable.” With that, he walked out of the room.
***
A shuttle decloaked just outside the BADGE space station and entered the main docking bay. Robots approached quickly to assist those disembarking. Chase stepped out first, followed by Gar, and then Ambassador Ben Talos.
“Wow, that was quite a ride! I’ve never been on a space shuttle before.” Ben said.
Chase replied, “it is an experience.”
They were stopped by lines of people being registered by BADGE officers and robots. Another shuttle came in and opened up to unload ten more people.
Ben asked, “what’s with all the people?”
Gar answered, “we are trying to find all the people who are at risk from the witches.”
“Witches?” Ben asked.
Chase answered, “he means witch hunt, that’s what Nova has called this.”
“A good assessment. I thought there were safety cities and even the nation of Australia?”
“These people are from third world countries and other remote locations. Right now, a lot of our heroes are currently at the League Wars stadium, competing. If we had the stadium free, we could house some of these people there, but for now they get packed into this place.”
“I didn’t realize how many superheroes were around the world.”
Chase said, “many of these people have extremely minor affinity for morphonic energy. Most will never be able to use it at all. But even the tiniest amount of affinity is enough to get hauled off by the World Corps. It is a big job finding them before those mercs show up.”
“I’m sure you are doing a fine job. I’ll tell the UN how wise you are handling this.”
Chase and Ben continued talking about all the operations happening as she led them up the special elevator to the operations center for the station. No sooner had they left the elevator did they run into Quark, downing a large bottle of whiskey. He wiped his mouth, burped, and then greeted them.
Ben frowned. “Are you drinking on the job?”
Quark said, “I should think so. I was waaay too sober.”
“I see.”
Chase took the ambassador by the arm and led him down the steps. “Don’t mind Quark, he’s....strange. Ah, here’s the Director.”
Nova gave the new man a funny look. “May I help you?”
Chase introduced them. “Sir, this is Ambassador Ben Talos from the UN. He has been helping Minster Shizue in Onnotangu and is sympathetic to our situation. He wanted to meet with you. Our comm channels out of North Onntangu were being tracked by World Corps goons stationed just outside the wall. So, I had to bring him up here.”
Ben shook Nova by the hand. “A real pleasure, sir. I’m a big admirer of yours. You have done some great work. I wish I could help more here than just talk to you. My specialty with the UN is organizing aid resources. I see you could use some food and medical supplies for all these new people, but I’m not in a position to get it up here at this time.”
Nova freed his hand from the energetic politician. “Thank you for the thought, but the BADGE station is well equipped to handle the people at this time. I need to speak with my people.”
“Oh, sure. I won’t get in your way. Could I use a comm station to contact my office? I need to tell them where I am.”
Nova snapped his fingers, “Unit 10915, assist the Ambassador with the comm system.”
A robot escorted the ambassador to a computer station on a far end of the room.
Nova turned to Chase. “A politician...really?”
Chase answered him. “Ben is sympathetic to our situation...”
“You mentioned that.”
“He’s also a voice in the UN. I would think you would want to have that in your pocket during this delicate situation. Face it, Director, you aren’t a smooth talking politician. He’s energetic, but a good talker.”
“He could be of use. For now, I need to know what you found out in Onnotangu.”
Chase said, “A lot. For starters, we have a whole shipment of tech used by Osteen during his time there, some if it specially designed by him.”
“That should have already been turned over.”
“I know,” Chase said. “They had their reasons. It is in our hands now. However, the biggest bit of information I got was from a shard of Osteen’s old computer. I discovered several facts. Not only did he start the designs for those guns, he was already designing augmentation before these World Corps people got ahold of him.”
“That is interesting. But how can that help us?”
Chase smiled, “because, we have his very first test subject in custody on this station.”
“You don’t mean Arx?”
“I do. But I’m not talking about the augmentation they did to turn him into that supervillain back during the Hollywood attack. Everyone knows Arx had his super abilities and physical appearance altered back when he got his start.”
Nova nodded. “it was like plastic surgery. He got a super buff body, silver skin, and some enhanced powers to be a better action movie star.”
“Yes, but guess who gave him that initial upgrade?”
Nova's eyebrows raised in surprise. “Dr. Jason Osteen.”
“The very same. And, from what I could see, Osteen had all his research and information out in the open when he worked on Arx.”
Nova asked, “Did you see what it said?”
“I couldn’t. My powers are limited to details like that as I move backward. But he might remember something.”
Nova scoffed. “I doubt he’ll be any help.”
“There might be something.”
“He has yet to give me reason to trust him.”
Chase said, “Sir, I think you should at least talk to him.”
“I suppose we could ask him. Though interrogating him has given us practically nothing of value.”
“We have to try. Oh, and there was one more item I got.” She held up her wrist comm and typed in a command. She nodded toward the main viewscreen.
Nova turned to see the same picture that she took at the wall with Shizue. The gray-skinned hero stood on the other side of the wall, looking in at the prime minister.
Nova actually smiled. “Now, this is good news. Robots, I want a detailed analysis of that face. I need information, asap.”
All the robots in the room went to work. That photo transferred to all their screens and every sort of sensor and analytical program possible went after it.
Nova turned to Chase, “let’s go have a chat with our superstar.”
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