Heroes: Endings and Beginnings

[LadyTevar]

The driver's still up
Heidi strode around to the driver's side of the car to reach the still-moving gunman. The gunman was reaching inside his jacket, probably for a handgun. Heidi wasn't worried, as handguns did little to her. Her hand closed over the man's arm and twisted it behind him as she brought him to his feet.

Gentle! He may be just human
"Right now, I have minimum pressure on you," Heidi said sweetly into the gunman's ear, her arm locking the man's arm up at a painful angle. "A little more, a little higher, and you'll be screaming like your friend and needing a new rotor cuff. So, be smart and give up now."

[rhoenix]

Watching as the two gunmen were expertly taken down by their own car doors, courtesy of the buxom redhead agent he'd met earlier, Agent Pulse stayed in a crouch, but darted toward the two gunmen's car to assist Agent Gemini.

Seeing that she had the more mobile gunman's undivided attention, Agent Pulse moved toward the other gunman, who had his arm both broken and dislocated, and was currently screaming due to the agony of his arm. Crouching down, he went to work to repair and restrain this assailant.

Touching the man's neck, the man fell deeply asleep in nearly a heartbeat, his screams shutting off as if a lightswitch had been thrown. This being done, Agent Pulse secured the man's weapon before freeing the man's arm. Gently putting the arm back into place in its socket, and setting the bones properly, this man's arm was now well on its way to being healed. Having finished this, Agent Pulse pulled the deeply sleeping man upright, and cuffed his now-empty hands behind his back.

After having finished, Agent Pulse kept an eye on his suspect while Agent Gemini dealt with the other one.

[SirNitram]

The traffic mayhem receded. NeXT was in a pure chase now, trying to find where this biker was going, and hoping there'd always be wires on his path. "This is NeXT. I've still got the one they signalled to, but I can't get him to stop. I throw up lights, he just sails through and causes accidents!"

[B4UTRUST]

The screaming mercifully stopped as the shooter went limp and fell into an induced sleep. The other shooter winced and hissed in pain as he struggled for a few seconds.
"Alright already! Christ, Jesus let me freakin' go already fer facks sake!"

Overhead the sound of an approaching helo was audible over the blaring of horns and angry voices. The casevac was en route.

The biker jumped up onto the sidewalk again and braked, coming to a stop outside of a shipping specialty store, the kind that wrapped, packed and shipped packages as well as carried a small amount of P.O. boxes. He killed the engine, put down the kick stand and jumped off the bike. Looking around he walked inside the store, the door swinging shut behind him with the tinkle of bells. Street-level cameras kept a constant video stream showing the storefront and the bike.

[SirNitram]

"Alert. Secondary subject has entered shipping office. Monitoring for shipping orders/pickup." NeXT reported as he dove into the company's network, then that store. Ah, electronic tracking!

[LadyTevar]

"Now, why would I let you go?" Heidi asked, restraining the complaining man with just enough pressure to keep him in check. "At this point we have you on Firearm Possession, Discharge of a Firearm within City Limits, Wanton Endangerment, and various degrees of Homicide." Gemini grinned widely. "In short, you are under arrest."

[Charon]

Inferno was grumbling as he finally stepped out of the psych office. Apparently his doctor had been worried over some of the recent psychological exams he'd taken and demanded he re-do them. Inferno stepped into the elevator and pressed the floor he wanted. Wasn't her fault it'd been noticed at such a poor time. Plus it had been drilled into his head a thousand times that his psychological well-being was extremely important.

Inferno stepped out of the elevator and came up to the office of Agent Hawk to get filled in on what had been happening while he'd been gone.

[Dark Silver]

By the time it was over, Legion was finally coming to. His body reacted to a substance that wasn't there, until his own consciousness enforced it's will enough, to take the Fore again, his body responding to his knowledge that he had no drugs in his system, it was simply a echo of what was going through the other two men.

Then the helo was overhead, and Legion looked to Mr. Faulks, "Are you alright sir? I am Special Agent Legion with Ultima Team Omega...We will be transporting you to a hospital to get checked out, and we'll notify your wife your safe."

Legion was moving out of the car as he said the words, it almost felt muddled through, his mind not quiet clear yet....though the energy absorbed from Faulks, minor as it was, gave him the rush of adrenaline and the boost of strength he was used to when he had to drain a Baseline.

Yet, there was something else he had to do. "Keep a eye on the secondary NeXT," Legion said int he comms, looking at the unconscious kidnapper. "Gordan, Pulse, secure the prisoners for transport back to HQ, Gemini with me. We have one last thing to deal with."

Legion looked up at the helo as it hovered, and medical personel, Emergency Medical Personnel really - traind as first response until patients could be taken to proper facilities - basketed down. It would take a few minutes before it could land, and he was sure Faulks and the driver would be O.K. until then.

"Omega Actual to Command, We may be needing Secondary Team for quick deploy and response to perform S&R and Assault. Standby."

With that, Legion waited for Gemini, nodded to her and spoke his orders as he tugged off the glove again, "I'm going to drain him some, if I start acting weird, restrain me, but don't touch my skin if you can help it. My headspace is getting crowded enough as it is..."

With that, Legion reached out, and touched the unconcious kidnapper's face. He felt the tug as he began to absorb the man's essence, the elation as adrenaline and endorphines flooded his body, and a slight smile crossed his thin lips.....

And it all flooded into him.

[B4UTRUST]

Several packages were scanned in and sent out within a few minutes of the man walking into the shipping store. Followed by several individuals all coming out of the store, along with the biker. The biker got back on his cycle and made his way back into the press of traffic. NeXT began to track the packages sent out for further analysis.

----------
Inferno found Hawk in C3. Hawk looked up from where he was sitting in front of a monitor with a map displayed on it. Several dots were moving and blinking but beyond that their meaning was lost without further clarification.
"Inferno, glad to see you back. Hope everything's good now. It is, isn't it?"

Inferno nodded.
"Good, good. Omega's still out in the field. Legion moved on the kidnappers as they were leaving the meeting. There was a shootout with some backup that was following the kidnappers. Both shooters are in custody as is one of the kidnappers. The other was killed in the fight. Mr. Fulks took a couple rounds but is stable and is being airlifted out. NeXT is monitoring and tracking another target that intercepted the data from the kidnappers. We think he's shipping it out since he just entered a shipping store. We're waiting for Legion's next sitrep at the moment. I'm sure they'll appreciate having you back out with them..."

--------

Legion reached out and touched the kidnapper's face. Fortunately the pain didn't carry over since he was effectively unconscious from the high-grade tranqs coursing through his body. The same ones that Legion's body would shortly begin to believe were in him as he absorbed the mind and memories of the man.

They came at first in flashes and jumbles, confused images swarmed together. It took several minutes for them to begin to rearrange themselves in any proper order. He caught a flash of a apartment building in a low-rent area of Chicago where questions wouldn't be asked. He knew this was the place that Fulks and his daughter had been kept. He caught an apartment number and a cross street from a memory of driving there with the pair of them passed out in the back seat. Other memories flashed to the forefront as he tore through them, trying to keep himself separate from the feeling of utter drowsiness from the tranqs and the man's personality. Four people in the same headspace was getting very crowded and making it harder to distinguish himself from the rest of the voices.

He was outside the apartment door. 2nd floor, apartment A. He unlocked the door and went in. It was sparsely furnished, a couch and some chairs, a small TV with rabbit ears set on top of an overturned packing crate. The bedrooms had mattresses thrown on the floor and the fridge was packed with sodas, a gallon of milk and stale pizza and a couple sixers of beer. One of the bedrooms had a padlock on the outside of the door. The little girl's room. Inside was a bed and a decent assortment of stuffed animals and toys for little girls to keep her quiet and occupied.

He caught a flash of another pair, a younger pair of kidnappers, another man and woman. They posed as her aunt and uncle for meetings. The woman was more attached that was good for her. She was a liability. She couldn't be trusted. The guy was cold and would do what was necessary.

Legion dug deeper, pushing this aside to go backwards, trying to find out who was behind it. He caught vague flashes of a man. Young. Charismatic. Clean cut. Legion couldn't find a name. He got more impressions of who the person was. Educated, probably wealthy from the way he talked to the kidnappers, a lord to servants. Intelligent. Dangerous. But the name eluded him. It wasn't in the kidnapper's mind. But Legion had a nagging suspicion he had seen the man somewhere before. He couldn't remember and it had only been brief. It would bug him for awhile...

He kept searching, tearing through the man's memories to find what he was looking for. He kept running across mental reminders about phone calls and schedules. Finally trying to figure out what they were about he dove in after them. Rules, regulations for the meetings, for handling the father and the daughter. Schedules for pickups, dropoffs, meetings, trades, phone calls for check-ins. And what would happen if those check-ins weren't made...

Legion found his answer. And something else he was sure not to be very comfortable or happy with...
"Ya fucked up, ya know dat right," came a voice in his head. He was sure it wasn't Pulse and fairly certain it wasn't Mr. Fulks. That only left...
"Dat's right. Ya fucked up, ya know. Aint dat grand?"

If they check-ins weren't made within a certain time frame, the op would be considered compromised and shut down...
"Bingo, bub. Heheheh. Aint life grand..."

[Dark Silver]

"Oh Gods......we interrupted the check in...."

Legion's body was wobbly, his mind was a crowded torrent of voices, and one in particular was almost as loud as Legion's own...

"Omega Actual to Command, deploy secondary team to," and Legion gave the address and apartment number he ripped from the kidnapper's mind, even as the effects of the tranqs in the kidnappers body was working their way on him. To much distraction, and the revelation of what would occur, or even was occurring at that moment due to his calls, came in clearly.

"Move out double time..clock..ticking... Teleporting..."


Legion was wobbly now, but the adrenaline in his system from the draining of the kidnapper was helping him burn through it. His body was begining to react, despite the voice of the kidnapper telling him how badly he fucked up.

"Back to Headquarters......I have to tell a mother that I killed her baby...."

[B4UTRUST]

The order went out. A few minutes later the live video feed was streaming in to C3 from the helmet cams of the HRT. It showed the different views of the team storming up a staircase and some securing lines to the roof of an apartment building.
"Sound off."
"Roof, ready."
"Door, ready."
"On three, execute. Three, two, one, go!"

The door was broken in by a battering ram. Three of the team members came in through the broken door. Three more came in off the roof, kicking in the windows in a shower of glass. They all wore body armor and carried short barreled SMGs.
"Entry, clear," came someone over the comm. The group broke off in pairs and began to sweep the rooms.
"Kitchen, clear!"
"Front bedroom, clear!"
"Bathroom, clear!"

A pair moved to the last door. It was already cracked open. One hit the door open as the other moved in. They checked the room.
"We've got bodies in here! Get a medic!"

The shaky helmet cams focused on the floor of the rear room. The first body was an adult woman. It was difficult to tell her age as most of the front of her face was missing due to a gaping hole where it use to be. Someone had shot the woman almost point blank. A second body lay nearby. A used syringe lay near her.

A moment later the medic came running in. The medic entered the room and took one look at the scene before dropping to the ground next to the little girl. He pressed his fingers to her neck, feeling for a pulse. Not finding one he immediately began CPR.

The team lead stepped out of the room and walked over to one of the broken windows, looking out.
"Command, this is HRT. We need an ambulance here and a morgue team. Two bodies, one is a probable kidnapper. Gunshot to the head. The other is the girl. Looks like she was injected with something. Medical is trying to resuscitate now. No sign of the other target. We'll be returning to base as soon as criminalistics shows to secure the area."

---------

Hawk sighed and looked up at Inferno.
"What a fucking disaster," he commented. He flipped the comm over to Omega's frequency.
"Command to Omega team. Secure the area and return to base. NeXT, forward the images of the third target back here. We'll get it passed to CPD and see if they can catch him."

[rhoenix]

Hearing Agent Hawk over his cleverly-hidden earpiece, Agent Pulse nodded once to himself slightly at hearing the news from their superior officer. Running down his mental checklist, he then sent a message to the team. "Agent Pulse to Team Omega - I will contact the local police to escort our two suspects to the hospital, and meet you back at the base."

Immediately dropping off the channel, he then called for police escort for the suspects that he and Agent Gemini had caught and immobilized, making sure to wait until they arrived. Once they had, Agent Pulse showed them his new badge, and briefed them on the situation regarding the suspects. Once that was finished, which mercifully didn't take long, he assisted the police in loading each of the injured suspects onto gurneys for transport to the hospital, giving the paramedics specifics as to what he'd done to help stabilize the most seriously injured suspect. As for the shooter with just a few bumps and bruises, he assisted the police in escorting the shooter toward a police cruiser, for a taxpayer-paid limo trip to the Downtown Malcontent Hotel.

All that having been done, he took a long, slow breath before opening his team's channel once more. "Agent Pulse to Team Omega, all suspects now in custody of local authorities, now on my way back to base."

[LadyTevar]

"Oh Gods......we interrupted the check in...."

Oh no... oh no, tell me he doesn't mean that
Gemini stared at Legion in horror as he contacted Command and rattled off the address pulled from the kidnappers mind. As he wobbled, Gemini reached out to steady him, carefully touching his uniform only, avoiding any exposed flesh.

"Back to Headquarters......I have to tell a mother that I killed her baby...."

"We don't know that. We don't know that yet...," Heidi muttered, hoping that the rescue team could get there in time...

.. and fearing Legion was right.

[Agent Fisher]

Gordon had secured his rifle and rig back behind his seat and pulled the car over to where Legion and Gemini were.

"They'll make it, Legion." He assured him. He knew he was most likely wrong, but there wasn't anything they could have done. The father and child were never going to be allowed to live, too much of a loose end for the kidnappers.

[SirNitram]

Lights shifted to help the ambulance to the scene. The images were transferred. And NeXT was silent in the network.

Again, he had failed. And again, he had retreated like this. What had he been thinking? He's not a worthwhile kind of metahuman. He's just a warm body with a network link. He wasn't trained for this. He didn't know what to do.

[B4UTRUST]

As the team arrived back at the Ultima building they were promptly escorted off for debrief. Each individuals accounts of the operation was taken and recorded. Finally, after what seemed like hours though it was relatively brief, they were released.

When they sought each other out, Legion was absent from the group.

-------------
Elsewhere in Ultima

"So, I'll ask you again. Who. Hired. You."
"I told you the truth! That's all I know!"
"See, I'm not sure I can really believe you at this point. Because I've got two dead bodies down in medical that are telling me that you're lying. But that's okay," the agent said, smiling.
"We'll move onto a different topic for the moment. One of your friends at the apartment was dead when we got there. Wanna tell us who shot her?"
"I wasn't there! I don't know!"
"Yeah, that's true, you weren't. But I'm doing simple math here. Two people on the husband, two people on the daughter. One child, one kidnapper, still leaves one other kidnapper left. Who are they? Where are they?"
"I don't know! I swear!"
"We'll see. I'll come back in a few hours. Maybe you'll feel like talking some then?"
------------

"You wanted to see me, sir?"
"Come in, agent. Coffee?"
"No thank you, sir."

Hawk set the coffee pot back on the warming plate and turned, walking to the other side of his small office. He paused in front of it, staring at a framed picture hung there. The picture showed a small group of agents dressed in BMA uniforms. He stood there a moment, silent, staring at the picture. He took a sip of coffee from his mug before turning around. There wasn't a look of anger or disappointment there, more like a look of sad resignation.

"When I was younger, still a new agent with the bureau, my mentor at the time asked me a question. He also gave me an answer that helped make my career a lot easier. And a lot harder.

"So, one day he asks me to tell him what our job was. Why we were there. So, me being the rookie and fresh out of the academy I gave him the standard straight textbook answer. I told him the why the BMA was founded, how we were there to uphold the law and protect the common man. This, as it turns out, was the wrong answer. He gave me the right one, just like I'll tell it to you now.

"Our job, he told me, isn't to serve and protect. It's not to enforce the law or protect the citizens. And it sure as hell isn't to swoop in and save the day. Our job is simple mathematics. That every day we try to do more good than they do bad. So we can go home every night and ask ourselves in the mirror, did we do more good than harm? Did we help, more than hurt? Because at the end of the day, regardless of what the bureau mandate says, we can't stop everyone, and we can't save everybody."

Aint that the truth, came the voice in his head again.

"Today we saved a doctor's husband. We took some dangerous people off the streets and got their weapons along with them. They're just a little bit safer tonight because of that. We made three arrests and we're looking at a fourth to boot. And we'll get information from all three of them on who's running this show. So a man's life saved. Three, soon four, arrests. Good intel. And to get it, we lost a innocent civilian, and a little girl died.

And how'd dat work out for ya, hero?

"So, Agent Legion. How do you add up today? How does the total come out for you? Because right now, you need to go home. You need to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, did we finish today in the black or in the red? That's not an answer I can give you, because everyone's sum is different. It's something you've got to figure out for yourself. I don't want your answer. That's strictly for you to decide. So go home, Legion. Go home and think about it.. Good night, Agent."

So, hero, hows you gonna add dis one up? Here, let me do da math for yas. It's gonna be a very negative number."

---------------

The phone vibrated in the man's pocket. He pulled it out, looking at the illuminated screen showing the incoming number. Recognizing the number, he pressed the ignore button and turned the phone over. It was a cheap thing, the kind found in convenience store aisles.

As he continued walking down the hallway he pulled off the back cover and pulled out the battery. He tossed the phone into a passing janitor's garbage bin as he moved past it. The battery he would dispose of later elsewhere. He dropped it back into his pocket before stopping in front of a closed door.

He knocked once before opening the door and stepping inside.
"I've got your speech ready for your review, sir."
"Ah, good good. Just set it there in the box and I'll go over it in a bit."
"Oh, I think you're going to have no problems at all with it, sir. Or should I say, Mr. President?"
"Oh, lets not get ahead of ourselves now. I've still got to give my candidacy speech..."

The man shut the door behind him softly. Next to it was a placard identifying the occupant of the office as one Donald Henderson - Senator, IL.