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Posted by Blue Beetle
on 8/19/2008, 12:03 pm, in reply to "Quiet Move: Battery"
76.84.93.240
"I don't like this." I state looking at the comatose body. He's 46 years old, has a wife and a baby on the way, he's the first victim infected with the OMAC virus. I wish that he's the last but I know better. The virus is supposed to be dormant; I was supposed to be tracking these people down in an effort to find a cure it before it was activated. I failed.
"Unfortunately Ted you don't have to." Michael Holt, Mr. Terrific, looks over at me, his red eyes glowing. "Mari could be the key we need in all of this."
"But lying to her?" I ask, watching as Mr. Terrific's T-spheres scan the body. The man's vital signs show up on a computer monitor nearby, I'm not a doctor but I've been to enough to know that it's not good. "Everything I've heard says her powers are mystical in nature and everything I know about OMAC's tells me they're grounded in technology..."
"We need to know that she can function without her powers if it comes to it, and the only way to do that was to tell her that we've been blocking them." I turn towards the doorway as Sasha walk into the lab, she brushes her bangs to the side of her face tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear. I see a glimmer of refracting light from off her hand. The dim bulb that hangs in the center of the room catching it just right. The deep silver color that blurs into blue is almost beautiful.
"It was my call, don't blame Michael for it. A chimp with a drinking problem owed me a favor. The glamour is only temporary so don't get too worked up." Her voice has a certain gruffness to it, in a strange way it reminds me of Bruce. "Is he?"
"Dead? No, not in the traditional sense." Michael leans on the table, I watch as his shoulders slouch. "His brainwave activity is low though, if it gets any lower the damage already done could be permanent. The nanites that are still in there are keeping him alive at this point."
"We're going to need some more help on this one." Sasha replies sternly. I wonder if they know I'm even in the room at this point.
"I'll go call Pieter, see if he can't get away from Portsmouth for a few days." Michael stands up, the creaking of his leather jacket breaking the silence that had set in as he leaves the room. One of his T-spheres remains, reminding the both us left that he truly hasn't left.
"Now, Mr. Kord." Sasha turns her attention towards me; I've lifted myself onto one of the room’s cupboards having gotten tired of standing. "Amanda told me everything, it seems she's been holding a lot more back then we first thought."
"Yeah, I'm getting the feeling she does that a lot." I reply looking at the woman, the patch of organic metal over her face is barely noticeable to me anymore; she wears it almost like a beauty mark.
"I've been in contact with the Security Council and S.H.I.E.L.D, Stark is going to be coordinating with us from here on out. The Security Council has called an emergency meeting to decide whether or not to go public with this. Either way the next few weeks are going to be a b###h." She stares down at the body on the table.
"His name was John." I say, reminding myself that even after all that happened he's still a person and not a thing.
"I know, I've had Pawns 301 and 812 contact his family. A scholarship for his child has been arranged as well." I see her hand on the table; it's the same shade as John's body. How close was she to becoming one of these things? What would that do to a person? With her other hand she reaches into her pocket and takes out a small flash drive. She plugs it into a nearby computer.
"This is the information we've been able to gather since John was activated. We caught it for a brief moment and then it was gone." On the screen scrolls a series of zeros and ones.
"It's binary; I'm going to guess an activation code." I say the zeros and ones continuing to scroll.
"The thing is whatever activated the virus; this isn't the first time the code has been transmitted." She continues, my feet hitting the ground as I descend from my perch on the cupboard and walk towards her. "The codes been masked in transmissions from radio signals, cell phone signals, anything that can carry a frequency, for months now. We just didn't know what we were supposed to be looking for."
"I take it you don't think you buy into John being Patient Zero then?" I ask, who's ever been pulling our strings is clearly a few steps ahead at this stage in the game.
"No, we backtracked the signal and looked for a similar energy signature at the time John's virus became active." I watch as the computer monitor shifts its screen from binary to a map of the world. The map zooms in on North America and then Colorado Rockies.
"Found another energy signature did you?" I ask as the map zooms in tighter.
"Yeah, this signature was weaker or at least masked better. Our sensors wouldn't even have picked it up if it wasn't for us finding the activation signal with our boy here."
"It's weak enough that you could have missed detecting it for months? This energy signature that is." She looks up and glares at me, I can't blame her.
"Yes, which leads us to conclude..." She turns off the computer, removing the flash drive as she does so.
"You found Patient Zero." I reply back.
"You picked up a lot from your time in Gotham didn't you?" She cracks a smile if I didn't know better I swear she just made a joke. "You better get the sparring room; don't want our newest agent to get impatient."
With everything that had been happening I forgot that I was supposed to spar with Mari. My muscles and bones ache just thinking about it.
"Once your sparring session is over, get suited and ready to leave. We're sending the two of you to Colorado." She walks out of the room her heels clicking against the stone floor.
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