A news reporter spoke to the London audience. Behind him could be heard the sounds of a fight. “Earlier today, heroes from BADGE attacked the location of a World Corps encampment. We were informed by the World Corps that the BADGE officials were attempting to free villains that the corps has apprehended during their questioning process. However, cameras only caught those same heroes disarming the World Corps soldiers. The heroes working with the corps attacked the BADGE heroes, and the fight is still going on.”
There was a flash of purple light and Krystal Fae stood next to the reporter. The sounds behind them had reduced considerably as heroes flew and walked away, each carrying armloads of debris.
“Oh, my. Oh, hello, are you with BADGE?”
“Yes, I’m Krystal Fae with the News Sentinel and member of BADGE. I wanted to state clearly for your audience that we have only come to remove lethal weapons from the hands of the mercenaries the World Corps hired. As you can see, we did as little harm to them or their superhuman as possible.”
He asked, “what about their detainees? We have been informed that your targets were those detained for questioning.”
She smiled, “we’re only carrying away the remains of those horrible weapons. There aren’t any detainees among them. Where they have put them is as much a mystery to us as it is to you.” A member of the World Corps’ security was coming toward them, obviously ready to address this. Krystal smiled at the camera. “I’m afraid we must dispose of the weapons. Thank you for your time.” In a flash, she was gone.
On the station, Nova let out a relieved sigh. “That was a good interview. Even though I asked our heroes not to speak with the media, Krystal did a fine job.”
Chase said, “she has experience.”
“Yes. And right now, we have the World Corps on the run. They can’t fight us, they can’t stop us. I just hope we can clean this mess up before they have time to shift gears and regain control.”
The elevator opened, Gar stepped out with Craig. EB sat on Gar’s shoulder, chattering away. “So, there I was, eggs all over the place, and these hunters were trying to find me. Dumb rednecks thought they could catch me. But, oh, no, I’m WAAAY faster than them. I think they were drunk. I swear I smelled moonshine. Oh, hi buddy.” EB hopped down and bounced around Nova. “It worked! Toldja it would. He ate three of em and BANG, his memory is that much clearer. It’s sooo much easier using magic on him now that he has all those old dumb enhancements drained from him. He’s a pretty cool guy, not the arrogant, pompous, Hollywood jerkface that...oh, sorry, Craig.”
Craig shook his head, “don’t worry. I read all about Arx on and off camera. I really got a big head for a long time. I never want to be that person again.”
Nova said, “we all appreciate the effort. Now, about that memory.”
Gar handed Nova a tablet. “He put in everything he remembered while under that memory charm EB placed on the eggs.”
Nova looked it over. “Interesting. So, they had a location in Canada, then they had a place in Nevada. But this...this is the most interesting place.”
“Where?” Chase looked at the tablet.
“The World Corps HQ. Looks like it has a secret sub-basement that is guarded by tetyron energy barriers. We have nothing that can see through that. But how did you know? I doubt they brought you there for experimentation.”
EB hopped up and down. “He had this brain blast, real memory explosion...BOOM! There he was, on the table. They thought they had him out, like sooo out he wouldn’t...”
“Let him explain.” Nova stopped EB.
Craig said, “like he said, they had me strapped down and Dr. Osteen pumped some kind of chemical into me to put me out. But, I guess my enhancements blocked it enough I could still hear. Dr. Osteen left the room, and this guy named Delta talked to a woman. He spoke about this place and that it was their HQ. I recalled the word tetryon. That is as much as I could recall, everything else is...gone.”
Chase said, “yeah, from what Dr. Henderson said, your memory isn’t just blocked or locked away, it was stripped out by the process. Nothing but bits and pieces left.”
Nova added, “It’s a miracle you remember anything at all. But this will give us a way to put a stop to them. Quark!”
A blue flash appeared and a five foot blue duck stood in front of them. “I was in the middle of my bath.”
“You bathe like that?” Chase asked.
“Yup.”
“What kind of tub?”
“A quasar.”
Chase muttered, “of course.”
Nova said, “get back to normal...at least what you call normal.”
“I hate that word.” Quark changed into his normal blue self. “So, what’s up?”
Nova handed him the tablet. “Can you get a team inside this place asap?”
Quark looked at the specs. “Hmmm, I can get you to this island. But not inside. Tetryon energy is in flux with normal space, which is why it’s so powerful. I might get through it, but if my fluctuations are off a tiny bit, it will scatter atoms across the entire solar system. Do you know how long that would take for me to put myself back together?”
Nova said, “Take Gar and Chase. Find a way to get inside that secret base. Apprehend members of their hierarchy and bring back their data.”
“Understood.”
Before anyone moved, a robot announced. “Director Nova: UN emergency meeting is happening.”
“What? Talos was supposed to meet with them tomorrow.” Nova and the others looked up at the main screen. “Put it through, now.”
Chase gasped, “our people didn’t do that...did they?”
Nova shook his head, his face turning a new shade of red. “No. The World Corps murdered their own to craft this story. I underestimated the lengths they would go to.”
Alpha continued. “This news was only brought to my attention early today. I had come to make a different announcement, one that would hopefully put to rest the false narrative BADGE has created. It has been said that we are kidnapping people and never returning them. Due to the interference of BADGE and their allies, our process has taken much longer than expected. However, we are glad to be returning over three dozen children to their parents in Pretoria, South Africa, tomorrow. This will be the first of many returns that will show we only mean to do what is best for the world. Thank you.”
“What does this mean?” Quark asked.
Nova said, “it means that they are already changing gears to regain the upper hand. What I know is that they aren’t simply returning children. There is a deeper, darker reality behind this act. What I don’t know is what they plan on doing during this. They could be distracting the world from our report from Talos that will go live tomorrow. But, I just don’t know. Quark, Chase, Gar, get moving. We have to put a stop to them before it’s too late.”
Chase paused and gave Nova a smile, “at least we still have Ambassador Talos. Hopefully he can sway the U.N. to not trust Alpha and her lies.”
“I hope he does a fantastic job tomorrow. Now, move.”
0 Comments