Children of the Vortex Ch. 02

CHILDREN OF THE VORTEX: MIDNIGHT'S SON

Chapter Two: Known Fugitives

By FinalStand

*Not all prisons are made of steel and stone*

[MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION]

[TWO DAYS AFTER NEVERWHERE'S DEATH]

"I'll have you know entering Russia was a cast iron bitch," were the first words out of Candid's mouth once she joined Atticus Styx/Midnight's Son and Nightingale at an upscale café alongside the river they were eating at.

"It was one of the reasons I chose it," Atticus Styx responded with a congenial smile. "That and I wanted to see Moscow again ... I haven't been here since November 1944 under very different circumstances."

"Nightingale was correct in that many of the details surrounding you and the Sinister weren't for any unsecured airwaves. I want you to know I've come here for some serious answers and you had better be damn forthcoming."

Instead of answering, Atticus stood up and made to leave.

"Wait!" urged Nightingale, putting a light, restraining hand on his right elbow then, "Candid, he didn't come here to betray any confidences, but to share information. Push him and he's gone ... most likely forever."

Atticus looked down at the restraining hand, but ceased attempting to depart. Candid took in the dynamic and then something unlooked for clicked. No force on Earth could have stopped Atticus Styx from departing -- except one.

"Please sit back down," Candid restarted things. Once he had, she turned to Nightingale, "How long have you two been sleeping together?"

Nightingale acted as if slapped, looked down into her lap before saying, "Since last night."

Candid looked for some sign from Atticus about he felt about the situation. What she saw were warring emotions and confused intentions. He had sat back down though, which was a positive step.

"Well, there goes the profile straight out the window," she muttered. Damn those useless Behavior Analysis pricks back at Quantico. 'Mommy complex toward Red Dynamo' my ass! He's banging one of my operatives and I would swear to God he was a virgin until last night as well.

"I am going to have to report this," Candid sighed.

"I know," Nightingale gave a minute nod.

"And you wonder why I don't like you guys, especially after nearly eighty year of barbaric treatment and you wonder why I won't 'let it go'," Atticus murmured.

"How do we ..." Candid began to ask how to move past that.

"You can't," Atticus cut her off. "I will never like you, much less trust you with anything too critical to my mission. You are the bad guys, not me. Your control of the governments of the world only mean your attempts to act like legitimate law enforcement are a joke. Pull Nightingale from this case and you are hardly likely to have the opportunity to interrogate me again. I know my rights -- in over fifty countries and jurisdictions -- and I will use that knowledge to stymie any such attempts to crack my mind open."

"Show back up in the United States, or any country we have Extradition Treaties with, and you will be arrested then," Candid tried to get tough again.

"Ha! Good luck with that. I can already sense your pet telepath trying to weevil her way into my sub-consciousness. She's getting nowhere, but if you aren't careful, I am likely to pop over to where she and her two teammates are located and leave them somewhere in the Himalayas -- naked and phoneless."

That brought Candid up short.

"Do it and your criminal status will be confirmed," she said through narrowing eyes. "Those are law enforcement operatives with legitimate discretionary paperwork concerning this extraordinary situation."

"Legal in Russia? Do the Russians know about any of this?" Atticus questioned. Seeing the doubt in Candid's eyes, even just briefly, put a smile on his face.

"Didn't think so. Besides, like I care. I repeat, your control of the world governments mean your law enforcement endeavors are so much of a joke to me. I'm not playing ball with your side? So what? Besides, your side is the one who is trying to illegally -- according to the laws of the Russian Federation -- break into my mind this very instance ... oh, and I have a way of proving that too."

"Nightingale," Candid resorted to bringing her protégé back into the verbal struggle.

"Atticus, please. Drop the past and stick to the present ... please."

"Fine ... Candid, what do you want to know?"

"What are you planning to do with over $1.1 billion dollars? Let's start there."

"That is too general of a question. Suffice it to say, after having served their sentences, I am planning to recreate the Sinister. Next question."

"That is a criminal conspiracy."

"Nope. Not anymore. I talked to my legal team about it. Every member of the Sinister was either killed, died in prison, or was pardoned as long as they agreed to work with your government in a clandestine manner. Consider our current roster to be LARPing. Damn ... I wish they had LARPing when I was kid. I could have really gotten into that too."

"Oh," he continued, "you can tell Bart I discovered where he is these days as well. I am not going to come looking for him, but he's out of the Organization -- working for the Capitalist the way he did."

"Who?" Nightingale wondered aloud.

"Bartholomew Trakker aka the Red Terror ... later went by the handle the Bloody Baron. Died in 1978 -- complications resulting from a botched lung cancer operation," Candid filled Nightingale in.

"Nope. He is a hundred and ten years old now, but still kicking. Well, more like he rolls around in his wheelchair with some aplomb. Don't take my word for it though. Make the CIA tell you where they've stashed him. Or I can simply teleport you to him in case you are worried the CIA might off him before you can interview the old bastard."

"Me showing up on his stoop might give him a heart attack."

"Not only am I not enamored of the bastard, I sincerely doubt it. Now, he is not likely to talk to you, or me ... seeing as how he assassinated the final few members of the Sinister still working with the CIA after the end of the Vietnam War -- they were a tough lot -- plus he knows where the bodies are buried -- quite literally."

"The man has been out of circulation since 1978. What information could he possibly have which might be useful to our investigation of you?" Candid countered. "Sounds like a Wild Goose Chase to me."

"Whisper one word in his ear and he'll start singing. He's on Death's Door after all."

"What word?" Candid sounded bored, though she actually wasn't. This interrogation was going somewhere alright, just where though -- she wasn't yet certain.

"Catalyst," Atticus whispered just loud enough to be heard by the enhanced hearing of both Candid and Nightingale and by no one else. He knew he had their attention now.

"What does that mean?" Candid whispered back.

"You know. Don't play dumb," Atticus let his pitch black eyes narrow once more.

"But I thought all of that was used up back in World War II. Certainly none of that can be around after all these years ...," Nightingale worried.

"Company," Candid cautioned the others. The other two proved their professional status by not looking around for the source of concern. They took Candid's word for it.

"All of the original was indeed used up, but a small fraction was studied by the Red Dynamo ... as well as studying the only test subject to have survived -- me," Atticus clarified things. "She was a hyper-inventor and super genius after all. All she didn't have were the nationwide industrial facilities and the roughly three years of time necessary to recreate the Newark Experiments. Fortunately she knew someone who had one of the two things she needed."

"Who? " Nightingale leaned forward and mouthed the word.

"The Nazis," he mouthed back.

"What!" she gasped.

"Oh, we didn't work with them with the end goal of helping those murdering bastards create more super-soldiers. What the Sinister did do was steal all their work as the war wound down. We were a criminal organization if you recall ... whose leader hated Joseph Stalin as well as Adolph Hitler. Adolph was an actual fascist if anyone still remembers that. By the time Stalingrad rolled around, Red Dynamo had predicted how the war would eventually burn out so she knew the timescale she had to work with."

"Atticus Styx, I have a warrant for your detention," the older gent in the middle made eye contact with the metahumans sitting around the table. He was flanked by two very serious looking younger men -- all hulking 'Soviet' stereotypes. His accented English had a classic tint to it.

"By all that is holy," Atticus acted surprised. "Is that you, Alexei Ivanovich?"

"Styx? THE Atticus Styx," the old man seemed surprised as well. "You look good for your ninety-six years."

[Russian] "Your grandsons?" Atticus motioned to the other two Russians with his tea cup.

[Russian] "Great Grandsons."

[Russian] "Did they bring you out of retirement just to confront me? It figures you would still be alive after the Great Patriotic War and the metahuman purges which followed," Atticus grinned. "Sorry I never wrote you. I was otherwise occupied."

[Russian] "I learned to survive in all sorts of environments. I also saved Joseph Vissarionovich (Stalin) life on two occasions ... which helped," the Old Timer nodded over the 'fond' memories. "You look ... good for your age ... barely a day over twenty-five. Indeed exceedingly good for a man of ninety-six years," was added for the benefit of the two younger Russians.

[Russian] "I was guest of the US Government in their Copperhead Super-Max Prison for the past seventy-nine years. I imagine your accommodations have been a bit superior to that, Alexei Ivanovich."

[Russian] "Yes, they have been. These days I live a life of semi-retirement in my spacious dacha outside of this fair city. Now my orders -- to personally come and retrieve a 'Cold War Era' Meta -- make sense," he also grinned while hinting he often got orders which made no sense whatsoever. "Are you going to come along to Militia HQ peaceably now?"

[Russian] "No ... but I'm not going to resist either. I'm just going to leave."

[Russian] "I don't ..." Alexei got out before Atticus, Candid and Nightingale fell beneath the table and kept falling. Whereas Moscow had been bright and sunny, the three were now falling over a darkened landscape with the terrain beneath full of lights and the unmistakable sign of cars moving about.

[***]

[Russian] "Great-grandfather, where did they go!" the younger of his two Great-Grandsons assumed a defensive Sambo stance, ready to strike out in any direction with barely a moment's notice.

[Russian] "Someplace outside of Mother Russia," Alexei Ivanovich Antonov aka Narodnyy Khranitel' (the People's Guardian) replied.

[Russian] "Can you be sure?" the elder Grandson inquired after transforming into an eight foot tall cyborg.

[Russian] "Consider it common courtesy," Alexei shrugged, his illusion shimmered into nothingness to be replaced by a warrior armed in the 16th century style. People were hastily backing away in all directions. Not only were the three Russians pretty scary, three other people had just vanished. As for Alexei, he may have lacked any firearms, but his powerful bow could send arrows forth strong enough to penetrate tank armor while his sword could do the same -- cleaving all about him when swung with his titanic strength. 'No', he thought, 'Someone like Atticus wouldn't have the courage to face the wrath of Mother Russia, 'little man' that he was. If only he knew how things had changed ...

[***]

"Where are we?" Nightingale shouted as they began to plummet.

"Langley, Virginia," Candid answered before Atticus could. "Oddly enough I recognize it from this angle."

"Yes. I figure we could drop Candid off here then make a few other stops -- purchase some things I need to acquire before I can really get the ball rolling."

"I really ought to arrest you," Candid scowled at him.

"A functional arrest warrant would be nice," he snorted in return, "or are you just like the NKVD these days ... or the Gestapo."

"Whomever devolves to the Nazis in an argument has already lost," Candid countered.

"Except I have personal experience with both the NKVD and the Gestapo," Atticus reminded her with playfully viciousness. "I've been interrogated by them, tortured by the NKVD and escaped from both their custodies. I've earned the right to use their fucking names."

Candid had no response to that.

"Who was the NKVD?" Nightingale asked instead. "And since when do you speak Russian?"

"They were the precursor to the KGB in the Soviet Union -- a real bunch of assholes without the creativity to be effective torturers, or so Red Dynamo once jokingly told me. Also she taught me to speak Russian ... as well as a few other languages she felt would be important in my future."

"Still hero-worshiping her?" Candid pressed even as Nightingale gathered them up and slowed their decent to a safe margin before leveling off and heading ...

"You would too had you ever gotten to know her," Atticus mused. Candid didn't bother answering. In her mind Red Dynamo was just another criminal 'mastermind' with the typical delusions of grandeur which came with the breed ... which still left her in some unmarked grave somewhere these days.

"Where do I go from here?" Nightingale inquired.

"Quantico," Candid answered first.

"Well, I am out of here then. No way are you putting me in some holding cell in Quantico, Candid. I'd rather wreck the place."

"We can't put you in a holding cell," Candid replied. "We can't positively associate you with a crime ... though selling that gold as a US Citizen is a grey area. After all, we aren't the Gestapo."

"As for the Gestapo, guess who they started working for after V-E Day?" Atticus taunted Candid.

"You are delusional. That was what the War Crime Tribunals were for -- to hunt down, locate and punish the wicked. You should be happy the US Government wasn't hanging people those days," Candid bit back.

"Oh, they hung me alright ... for eleven hours. Only when it become clear my neck hadn't snapped and I had regained enough air to start whistling ... oh yeah. That was when they finally decided to cut me down and drag me back to my cell," he informed them both. "In comparison the gas chamber was the worse, while the firing squad -- all three attempts -- hardly tickled."

"How did you survive the gas chamber?" Nightingale was virtually floored.

"I held my breath ... for thirty-six minutes. The most persistent means of ending me was the electric chair ... seventeen times they lit up 'Old Sparky'... which actually was a recharging experience. Not that I told my executioners that. Then there were the random beatings and the two rapes -- all by the guards."

"That's bullshit," Candid snapped. "He's playing for sympathy."

"I'm not so sure," Nightingale worried. "Did you fight back?"

"Yes, but it didn't do any good. If you recall I was a fifteen year old kid stuck in a damper field which stopped me from using almost all of my powers while they were grown men."

"What happened to those guards?" she had to ask. Atticus smiled at her, but said nothing. Candid used her phone to do a not so quick records search to find the answer to that question. It turned out that by 1967, of the twenty-two men assigned to guard Atticus Styx, they were all dead -- most by violent means. Their 'Captain' had ended his life by jumping off a commercial airline flight, claiming the plane was on fire and he had the only parachute -- it wasn't and he didn't.

Somehow, while under all those dampers in Copperhead Atticus Styx had reached out and had a hand in killing all those men. Candid was sure of it, but proving it in court on the other hand would be a cast-iron bitch though.

"You didn't learn a damn thing in prison, did you?" Candid snapped. "You are still the selfish, mass murdering sonofabitch today as you were seventy-nine years ago."

"No. I never killed a single person in the Western Hemisphere before they put me away and haven't killed a single soul since my release. Hell, most of the time Operative Nightingale has been at my side. Only when I was committing activities your lot might consider criminal did I move away from her."

"You are lying."

"No. I have only been so angry I took human lives once and that was in Kiel, Germany back in 1940 ... avenging Songbird and Clarion -- who happened to be a member of the British military in good standing. After that I realized I was simply not a killer. I never saw Judy (Songbird) kill anyone at all and Hiram only killed one person I am aware of -- a dumbass pimp about to shoot Judy in the back -- and his handle was 'Killer Mime' damn it!"

"San Francisco? Nine Dead? Ring a bell?" Candid reminded him.

"Wasn't me. I confessed to the crimes because the people who did the killings had access to my Mother. I took the fall and she got to keep on living. That's how I saw it."

"Who killed those people you confessed to killing then?"

"I don't know. We never exchanged addresses, or phone numbers," was his snarky comeback. "Lady, it was 1946. My lawyer was a semi-functional alcoholic and even he told me to confess ... to NINE COUNTS OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER -- which all carried a death sentence dating back to 1945 and the US still being at a state of war!"

"You could have asked the court for another lawyer. You could have appealed your sentences ..."

"Exactly where would a fifteen year old kid with no formal education come up with that legal knowledge from," he volleyed. "The court's sole interest was in killing me and a few other members of The Sinister, not proving the US Federal Legal System was 'fair and just', so stop pedaling that angle. It makes you look complicit in their stupidity, or worse, hopelessly naïve."

After that, Candid went silent. The worst part about Atticus' counter was he was indeed correct. Candid had gone over his proceedings and they were so terribly flawed a first year law student could have driven an Airbus through the holes in the case. Someone in the background had wanted him dead alright. What wasn't clear was 'why'.

A fifteen year old henchman? All the others either 'killed in the raid', or sentenced to death -- and executed, had been the big wheels within The Sinister. So why Atticus Styx? What did he know which made people think things would be better off with him dead as well? She hadn't found the answers to that yet, but she was damn sure she would!

[THAT BONDING MOMENT TIMES TWO]

[THE NEXT NIGHT]

Atticus rolled off of Nightingale, both panting heavily from their latest bout of love making. It was the third one tonight, but by far the most tellingly romantic. The very 'wrongness' of the act still haunted her yet she couldn't stop herself from rolling on her side and moving her right hand along from his hip to his sternum. His head turned her way and he smiled.

The first kiss he placed was on her forehead, the second on the bridge of her nose and the third on her lips.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

"How wrong this is ... and how I don't want this to stop. Let's just say my last relationship was a disaster. He was 'going places' in the private sector and couldn't accept my desire to place my gifts at the service of the public welfare."

"Oh, I could see how that would be a problem. Red Dynamo had several members of the Sinister she had to ride herd on. They were in it for the money while the rest of us were in it for the mission," Atticus sounded so sad.

"Do you always have to talk about her," she pouted.

"I'll try to watch that," he flinched. "Just remember in my short fifteen years I had four important women in my life -- three dead now -- and then only one else for the rest of those seventy-nine."

"Four?"

"My Mother -- who always tried to look after me, Midnight -- my constant companion and the one who kept me sane over those long years in solitary confinement, Judy -- my surrogate Mom over those three years we were a team, and Red Dynamo -- who was, well, so multifaceted yet so nurturing when I needed it over five critical years of my development."

"Oh yeah ... nice of you to never forget your birth mother," Nightingale mused.

"Which reminds me -- what is your actual name," he prodded. "After all this time, and all we have been through together, it feels odd still calling you Nightingale."

"Sorry, but we aren't allowed to use our actual names while out on a case," she sighed.

"Are we out on a case right now?"

"I ... I don't know anymore. I know I am struggling with my feelings toward you," she placed her head on her hand over his heart. Her body now lay atop his right leg. "I know I should turn myself in for reevaluation, that's for damn sure. Why I'm not ... I can't put into words. I feel something horrible will happen to you if I turn away from you right now. So much is happening around you and so many people seem out to want to kill you ... I don't know what the proper way to react is."

She rose up and straddled him, with one hand she reached back and took his cock in her hand and positioned it so that she could insert it into her vagina again. As it slipped in she let out an 'aaahhh', taking comfort from it as the male tool slid along her most sensitive of spots as if born to be there.

"My name ... is Jasmine Ward," she panted.

"Thank you for that, Jasmine. What is Candid going to say about this confession?"

"She is going to want to pull me off this case the very instance she finds out," she rocked back and forth a tiny fraction. Atticus reached up and caressed her two breasts, fascinated by their shape and texture. She was coming to adore that look in his eyes -- that child-like delight she had never experienced before.

"Reciprocity," he exhaled.

"What?" she groaned.

"Reciprocity," he repeated. "Tomorrow I'll show you what I have been up to for the past two weeks when I was sneaking off."

"You ... you don't have to," she gulped.

"I want to," he grinned. "It is important to me and I hope it will come to mean something to you as well."

"Mmmm ... less plan-making and more fucking," Jasmine purred. "You feel so good inside me."

"I have no words to describe this sensation, Jasmine," he gave off an excited smile, fascinated with her body all over again.

Jasmine picked up the pace as she always did, but this time he was much more in control of himself and didn't explode inside her until well after she had cum and was coasting down from her climax. This truly felt divine ... if only it could last forever. She hoped in her dreams it could.

[***]

Jasmine woke up back in her apartment in Silver Springs, Maryland. She was in bed, but had clearly fallen asleep with the lights on. Her hand reached out for him ... but there was no sign of Atticus in bed with her, much less the bedroom.

"Atticus?" she called out.

"So is this truly what your home apartment is like," a female voice from another room spoke to her. "A stop above poverty, I imagine." Whoa, her home was way above the poverty line!

"Who are you? I should warn you," she checked her bedside table only to find it absent her ID Badge and regulation firearm, "-- damn --, where is it? I am stronger than I look, faster than you can track and trained in a variety of hand-to-hand techniques. Surrender is your only real option."

"You didn't answer my question, I didn't take your gun -- it is right where you left it, and I really think he can do better," the voice lilted.

"Who are you?" she called out even as she swung out of bed. Despite having gone to sleep both in another bed, and naked, she was clothed in a t-shirt and panties now. As she began rounding the foot of the bed, this tall, lanky dusky-skinned beauty dressed in a flapper dress walked into the door from the living room.

"You know who I am," the stranger smirked.

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?" she muttered. Dreaming was the only thing which made any sense.

"Yes."

"Midnight?"

"Yes -- got it in one," she gave a slow clap as well as a condescending twist of the lips, "Jasmine 'What the Hell are you doing screwing my Boy' Ward."

"I don't know -- wait, were you planning to leave him as a virgin forever?"

"No, but nor would I have chosen you as his first ... you slut."

"Whore," Jasmine fired back instinctively ... possessively.

"No, that was Judy, you Bitch," Midnight's eyes narrowed.

"I can't believe I am jealous of you ... that you are jealous of me ..." Jasmine gasped. Was she truly jealous of another woman in Atticus' life, and if so, 'why'?

"Yes, you are jealous of the bond Atticus and I share," Midnight barely seemed to move yet was in Jasmine's face instantaneously.

"Oh ... you can read my mind and since we are in a dream, it can only be easier, but I have an answer to that too!" Jasmine declared even as she put her telepathic intrusion training to work. Inside of a quarter of a minute, Midnight had vanished from inside her home.

Before she could celebrate her victory, Jasmine's dream facsimile of her apartment began to shake violently. It had to be Midnight trying to brute force her way back in to her sub-conscious mind. Jasmine rushed to her front door, opened it and was gifted with the sight of Midnight's human-sized eyeball staring back at her. Jasmine slammed the door shut and struggled desperately to come up with a solution to this dilemma.

Before anything came to her, she was shaken violently awake. It was Atticus and they were back in their shared hotel room in the same bed once more. Her badge and gun where right where she had left them -- underneath her pillow.

"You were having a terrible nightmare," he explained, "and mumbling fearfully so I opted to wake you up in case ... it was what I was afraid it was. What happened?"

"You were correct if you guessed I had a near tragic confrontation with your Midnight," Jasmine answered. "Let's just say she's not happy with me and leave it at that."

"But why?" Atticus pressed for answers.

"She is romantically dedicated to you ... the only man in her life," Jasmine reasoned out. "I'm not going to go so far as to say she is in love with you, but it looked that way to me tonight. She sure as hell resents our physical relationship."

"But why?" he repeated. "I would never leave her, or seek out a means of seperating us. She is as much a part of me as my very soul."

"Well, let her know that more from time to time," Jasmine insisted. "Make sure she understands you are not dumping her, for me. Talk to her for more often. As lonely as you have been for the past seventy-nine years, it has been worse for her."

"How do I do that?"

"Try out simply talking to her," Jasmine gave a sloppy grin. "It could work wonders plus you should stop taking her presence in your existence for granted. I will try to open up to her in my dreams tonight -- nothing sappy, but genuine." Jasmine suggested. "Maybe create some genuine gift for her."

"That might be difficult," he worried. "In essence she can already create everything she is ever going to consume, or even desire."

'If only you could come to understand what she desires most is you -- your kiss, whispered word and caresses', Jasmine sighed. With someone as emotionally stunted as Atticus Styx, this was going to be as tough going as ... paddling upstream in white water rapids, both ways, in a raging snowstorm. Ugh.

[***]

The next morning, after breakfast and a cautionary note to hydrate, Atticus teleported them both to a cave ... somewhere. He wouldn't say where precisely. What she did know was she was at a much higher altitude and beneath a mountain -- precise mountain range unknown.

"So, where is this place?" she decided to ask once more. She didn't expect an answer this time either, but she felt a professional obligation to try.

"Bolivia, or it was Bolivia. I'm not exactly sure these days. Throughout my youth and after my incarceration they had a multitude of wars down here which altered boundaries somewhat." Atticus began throwing some heavy-looking switches on the cave's wall and the overhead strings of lights came on. While Jasmine could see in minimal light, she couldn't see in utter darkness so she was relying on him to keep her safe as they initially moved through the area.

The first thing to come into her field of vision was a dust-covered work bench. It was secured to the wall and clearly hadn't been used in decades. There was a folded up newspaper on top of some paperwork which revealed the date it was published and by who ...

'The London Times ~ July 19th 1945'

Then she had to keep moving to keep up with Atticus. The next thing to catch Jasmine's gaze was the pair of railroad tracks leading off into the gloom. As they rounded a turn in the cave, she gasped. On each pair of rails were a dozen (at least) chemical-containing, cylinder-shaped rail cars.

"What's in those," she whispered.

"Catalyst, or at least the Catalyst the Nazis invented. It still needs to be refined and I've only just got into the process. I do already have what I need for my emergency uses."

"That is ... terrifying," she fretted. "What do you consider 'emergency uses' anyway?"

"Like bringing her back to life -- right now -- today," he enlightened her.

"Red Dynamo?"

"Her daughter really," Atticus reminded Jasmine. "There is no bringing the original back to life. I checked. For the few who have claimed to be able to resurrect others, she has been gone too long plus I don't have the original's body."

"You checked?"

"With people Red Dynamo pointed me at. Certainly, if they were dead after eight decades, they weren't really immortals."

"Makes sense. What's next? The ... resurrection?"

"Yes, she has been in a bath of Catalyst for twenty-four hours with a steady current of electricity passing through the device for four. All according to her instructions."

"When did you do all this? I don't recall you being gone from my side for that much time."

"When I took a shower, or went to the bathroom. Honestly, once I acquired -- paid for -- the new skeletal structure and increased the download rate of the old computer -- which is quite massive, I must say -- it only took a few tweaks to move things along apace. I even did some work while you slept. I don't really need to sleep anymore. I can go straight to my 'Dreamspace' and reenergize while talking with Midnight whenever I wish."

They turned away from the 'railyard' -- steam locomotive circa ~ Nazi Germany 1935 included -- and moved through a thick blast door and into the main workroom area. It contained everything from drawing room furniture to workbenches and finally ...

"What is that machine?" she pointed at the device in the center of it all.

"It is the Resurrection Chamber," he enlightened her with a sense of awe in his voice.

"A what?"

"A machine meant to unite the memories and genetics of a person so that they could be reassembled and brought back to a semblance of life. Essentially part-biological machine and part ... cybernetic system which could mimic biological functions to sustain the creation."

"And she built this ..."

"I know she was inspired to work on this device after corresponding with the Dimension Theoretician H. P. Lovecraft which happened long before our paths crossed. I know she would celebrate the day of his passing -- March fifteenth -- for as long as she lived."

"All this sounds insane ... and rather blasphemous."

"Well, the whole crowd in the Sinister weren't terribly religious," Atticus shrugged. "As for insane ... the missing component was an energy source which could power the cybernetics without frying the biological systems."

"The Catalyst," she whispered.

"Yes. All she needed was enough of it. The Nazi product was inferior to the original Catalyst, but before her murder, the Red Dynamo had found a way to purify it."

"But didn't those secrets die with her?"

"Of course not," Atticus laughed. "She told me everything I needed to do before the Sinister's final, fatal confrontation with the law. She knew they couldn't kill me and as long as I lived, the hope of her returning would carry on as well."

"And you've been waiting seventy-nine years to ... resurrect her?"

"Essentially -- yes, though it won't be the real Red Dynamo. As I said earlier, more like her daughter. She insisted the replacement be a woman as well."

"But let me get it straight -- the Red Dynamo created a device which could effectively bring a person back from the dead. Who is not going to want to steal this thing from you for all kinds of equally nefarious uses?"

"Well, thanks to Neverwhere's last gifts, they are going to be untangling themselves from their mutual hatreds and hunger for vengeance/justice for a few more weeks. It has also made it far easier for me to acquire the final parts to complete both the distillation process and the Resurrection Chamber -- alloys which didn't exist back in 1946 plus various incremental improvements in the field of robotics made since then too."

"So she is not going to be a clunky humanoid-shaped robot from 1940's pulp fiction," Jasmine nodded -- pretty much to herself. She knew she was playing a horrid game of catch-up. What would the most likely results of allowing Atticus to complete his own set of programs in bringing back his beloved leader? She could stop this. With all the fragile machinery surrounding it, stopping things in their tracks would be Child's Play.

"How did she bring her memories forward in time?" she asked instead.

"OH! The computer and operating rooms," Atticus perked up. He took her by the wrist and dragged her off through another set of blast doors. Inside was ... ENIAC, or is bastardized, younger cousin. She almost laughed out loud. The primitive nature of the computer gave her renewed hope this whole experiment would be an abject failure.

"That stores her memories?" she hid her grin well.

"Memories? Oh no. She realized the entire computing power of the Human brain was too vast even for a device of this complexity -- her own brain being multitudes more complex -- she had to create a means of passing on her lore to her daughter. This computer is just to run the experiment."

"Thus the operating room. First, by using minute amounts of Catalyst found in my own organs she developed the power of Regeneration like I already possessed with the limitation it only worked on her brain.

"Her brain?" the sense of horror began seeping in again. Just how ahead of her times was the Red Dynamo?

"Yes. She would operate on herself either directly, or with the assistance of robot-surgeons she created -- tiny creatures really -- and removed pieces of her brain and use those pieces to create an exact duplicate of her own brain while the nerve center in her head recreated the missing part. She hadn't perfected the process before her murder thus the creation of the Resurrection Chamber will only be her daughter, not a precise clone."

"Oh God," she gasped then vomited repeatedly onto the stone floor. Atticus kept a hand on her back, holding her hair so it didn't become fouled with her effluent while reaching around and activing a big red button on the wall close by. When he did, a robot which has been rendered undetectable by is immobility moved forward, examined the problem -- the vomit -- then produced a mop, bucket and broom to deal with 'the problem' once Jasmine was reduced to dry heaves.

"Robots too?"

"Yes. Most are here to replace the various circuits as they burn out so that the whole computing machine doesn't break down," he explained their utility to her.

"And they have been doing this for eighty years?"

"Red Dynamo stored up enough spare circuitry for a hundred."

"I have gained a newfound respect for your mentor and criminal superior. She accomplished this ... alone?"

"No. Gestalt helped her with the psionic energy transfer devices -- the thing which makes the brain more than an electronic storage device -- and the Conductor of Crime helped buy all the devices and materials she would need -- mostly from countries not in the War yet, though some we had to steal under the cover of other, theoretically greater, crimes."

"And no one on 'my side' figured this out?"

"Well, they did execute her without the benefit of a trial -- so someone somewhere may have figured it out. They couldn't have telepathically cracked those three -- Red Dynamo, Gestalt and the Conductor of Crime given a hundred years, so murdering them makes cold-blooded sense," he nodded.

"Just figuring all this out?"

"No. I've had eighty years in custody to figure that out," he smirked. "Not much to do during the daylight hours to keep me otherwise occupied."

"Now what?"

"We -- I bring her daughter to life. I promised I would and I am."

"Please don't do this," Jasmine pleaded. "This is going to lead to something horrible happening. I can feel it in my bones."

"And leave her behind, in the past, forever? No. I can't do that and be true to the man I have become. I promised I would follow this course of action to her hours before she was murdered. I could have saved her -- us -- but she had to see her course of action through to the bitter end. Only with her death would her enemies sleep well at night, imagining the threat she posed was ended forever."

"Exactly. This woman is a threat to world stability. Let this go."

"I can't."

"I could stop you. Don't you see that?" She picked up the closest worker-drone robot and prepared to throw it into the mammoth computing device.

"All that would prove was I was wrong about you," he stared at her with a blank face -- the same face he had worn the day of his release.

"Don't stare at me like that," she shouted at him. The robot continued to feebly struggle in her grasp. Nothing was said for the longest time.

"Put the robot down. It has a task to take care of," he finally said. She found herself putting the robot down. For a second she prayed this was some kind of mind control he was using on her for the first time. Instead, all she could feel was her love for him causing her to abandon all her other Oaths and Common Sense.

"Thank you ... for not destroying this room," he responded.

"Let me guess ... she has a backup room," Jasmine scowled.

"Well, of course she does. The only thing not duplicated at the other facilities are the number of tanker-cars with the Catalyst in them though at each site I have already began to refine the Catalyst for its ultimate use."

"Who are you bringing back?" occurred to her to be the question to ask.

"The Conductor of Crime, Gestalt, Killjoy and Wrath in the first round. They were all the big wheels in the Sinister before it was destroyed -- material acquisitions, planning, recruitment, and strategic decision-making."

"Once you do this, you will lose control of the Sinister you know. They don't respect you."

"I have considered that and there is precisely one of them I don't want to 'put in their place'."

"Red Dynamo."

"Precisely. Not only is she the brightest one of the bunch, she had a long term vision for us."

"And she confided this to you as well?"

"Correct. Who else could she talk to about what she truly wanted to do with a bunch of ruthless criminals? Sure, a few of them were enamored with her, or shared her Trotskyite leanings, but she never trusted them because deep down, the Sinister was staffed with career criminals. That was why she took me to meet Neverwhere among others ... and no one else within the Organization."

"You are a career criminal," Jasmine sighed.

"Am I?" he volleyed. "Do you think for an instance in October, 1945 had the Red Dynamo told me to drop it and go somewhere off the beaten path and live a simple life, I wouldn't have?"

"Oh ..."

"Yes. I was never in it for the money, or prestige," he continued. "I was in it because all my friends were and I refused to abandon them no matter how bleak the odds were from time to time."

"When you were stocking shelves at S. Klein on the Square, what was Hiram doing? Judy?"

"Hiram had a friend who had been pinched, done his time and came out reformed. He owed Hiram so he got him a job as an assistant auto mechanic. Not great money, but it was a steady paycheck and Hiram was a quick study. We had hopes of him becoming a unionized mechanic in a few months. Judy played happy homemaker in our one room apartment (I slept on the floor) and she loved it."

"Sadly, some law dogs wouldn't let us off the hook for crimes we had committed earlier in our careers ... and someone's snitch recognized Hiram at work and that was that -- the end to our sole attempt to go legit. I miss those days so much it hurts at times."

"You weren't wanted for anything ... yet I doubt you even considered for an instance abandoning them, did you?"

"Of course not. How else were they going to get out of jail if not for me?" he finally grinned once more.

"I suspect I am about to lose my job," she sighed again. "Let's do this," and Atticus' smile broadened.

[RED DYNAMO RESURRECTED]

The scene was closer to a 1950's Frankenstein horror film than a modern surgical room. The operating room had a plethora of robots; big, small and downright tiny (not the size of nanites though). Liquid Catalyst moved through tubes surrounding the Resurrection Chamber. Electricity arced from Tesla coils anchored into the ceiling. Ozone stank up the air and all the while, Atticus moved around the central device so rapidly she could have sworn he was shadow-stepping so as to avoid stepping on, or pushing aside, power cables and Catalyst providers.

"What can I do?" she asked. "To help."

"Nothing right now," he shouted over the whine and screech of the machinery. "Stand by the front of the Chamber. You may have to help her exit it when the time comes. She can't hold her first breath forever and the Chamber will be filled with neutralized Catalyst -- not chemically dangerous, but it might drown her."

Jasmine / Nightingale moved over and took that final plunge. She was absolutely sure this was the end of her career in law enforcement. Bringing back Red Dynamo, the head of the Sinister, would surely brand her a criminal before long. What was she going to do then? How far was she prepared to go? What was she not prepared to do? Certainly murder was right out, but what about theft and the protection of those committing those kind of felonies?

"Atticus ... I'm seeing some movement from inside," she called out. The central part of the Resurrection Chamber was one solid clear glass disc which allowed those outside to see the subject from six inches above their head to the groin area. "So much for privacy," she murmured. Inside the Chamber Red Dynamo's eyes flickered inside the Catalyst soup she was marinating in.

Luckily for any sense of modesty the criminal mastermind might have had, her form was encased in a red suit of battle armor from neck to ... out of sight. Arcs of lighting still cascaded over the device from time to time, so opening the door remained a near fatal experience should she attempt it. Then the moment came. Red Dynamo's eyes opened fully and she stared out at Nightingale with frank curiosity.

"She's awake!" she nearly screamed at Midnight's Son. Holy Shit, she was awake. The wacky device built eighty years ago was struggling desperately to create metahuman life! Inside the glass, the first desperate signs of activity could be sensed. The figure was trying to work some switches and leavers inside the Chamber ... and they weren't working. Most likely the handle which opened the door wasn't operating properly.

"Atticus, she can't get out!"

"On it." By that he meant he jumped onto the top of the Chamber and grabbed hold of the two coils. All the electricity stopped surrounding the device and coursed through him instead. "Open -- the -- door -- now," he conveyed through gritted teeth. Nightingale could barely comprehend the amount of energy coursing through her lover's body in that instance. It was clear he couldn't keep up the diversion for long!

Jasmine grabbed hold of the wheel handle, but it wouldn't turn. It was locked in place by the pressure of the Chamber within. Instead of panicking, she dug deep and then grabbed the edges of the door with all her might. For an instance she flexed and nothing happened. The seal was that tight! Then, finally, as Red Dynamo's daughter began beating on the glass, the door's outer frame began to buckle and bend.

Minutely at first, but slowly ... so very slowly, it began to give way ... and then it exploded outward, throwing Nightingale -- and the door -- across the vast room and into a far wall, all propelled by the pressure inside the Resurrection Chamber.

"Ow ... that hurt," were the first words out of Jasmine's mouth as she fell to the lab's stone floor.

"Help ..." reached her ears. Jasmine looked back to the Chamber. Above it, Atticus was beginning to smoke, so great was the power transiting his body. The call for assistance though came from within the Resurrection Chamber itself. The Red Dynamo was too weak to exit the Chamber unaided and it was clear Atticus had only seconds left before he could no longer suppress the energy which would then instantly surround the Chamber ... and probably killing anyone in it!

Jasmine felt her legs coil and then unleashed their energy as she propelled herself back to the entrance to the Chamber. She grasped the Red Dynamo's feeble, outstretched hand and yanked her free of the device.

"I'VE GOT HER!" she screamed out to Atticus who immediately sprang free as of the fatal coils too.

"Hmmm ... the chamber over-pressurizes ... power coils need a bleed off switch ... subject in chamber needs a separate supply of oxygen ... about twenty minutes should suffice," the Red Dynamo droned on and on for several seconds. Then, "who are you?" she addressed Nightingale.

"MORALE Operative Nightingale," she answered. She almost wanted to add 'and you are under arrest' as a weak joke only to realize this Red Dynamo had come back into creation with a clean slate. "MORALE stands for 'Metahuman ..."

"I know what MORALE stands for -- Metahuman Organization for Registration, Aid and Law Enforcement," Red Dynamo clarified. "I am not aware of when it was finally instituted -- I was dead before then, but knowledge of the project was discovered by me back in late 1944."

"How could that be? MORALE wasn't founded until 1948."

"Oh, what to do with all those nasty, dangerous metahumans the armed forces of a dozen countries had created?" she mockingly laughed ... then she coughed up some spent Catalyst onto the floor.

"Just how bright are you?" Nightingale asked.

"That is a question for another time. Atticus, what is she doing here?"

"Ah ... I think I am in love, Freja," he replied. It took Jasmine a second to place the name 'Freja Rask' to the true identity of Red Dynamo.

"Oh ... that's nice ... I guess. What is it you do, Operative Nightingale?"

"You might as well call me Jasmine, or Ms. Ward," Jasmine sighed. "I think my career with MORALE is over."

"Please answer the question, Ms. Ward. I need to know if I can find a place for you in the Organization," Red Dynamo pressed.

"Class-B metahuman stressing physical abilities along with high functionality in several martial arts. I also fly -- I've been clocked going 725 kph -- and have minor regenerative and damage resistance powers."

"Ever committed even a minor misdemeanor?"

"Ah -- no. Laws exist for a reason."

"Good," Red Dynamo responded in the positive which surprised Jasmine. "I will have easy access to a good number of people with strong criminal backgrounds. Having someone who isn't a criminal who is also trustworthy has its advantages. Namely acting as a spokesperson as well as a fist to keep the lower ranking criminals in line."

"In line ... like an enforcer. That would involve a great deal of assaults. I'm afraid I would have to decline," she shook her head.

"Why? You would be doing more good in a week keeping those scum in line than you would in a year of honest police work. It is in their nature to press the boundaries, oppress the weak, and otherwise be a threat to law abiding citizens."

"Then don't associate with them," she grew a bit cross with Red Dynamo.

"Sorry, but we are a criminal enterprise due to our overall goal of resisting the influence of the World's prime governments and the United Nations. A showdown is coming between the New World Order and those who are willing to resist it. In case you missed it, we are the forces of the Resistance. I learned that lesson during my tenure associating with the French Resistance as well as Brno Tito's armed struggle in Yugoslavia."

"There is no record of you doing this," Jasmine stepped back a bit in her hostility.

"My two greatest enemies were the fucking Stalinists and those perverted Nazis, not the Capitalist Republican Democracies. What did your predecessors think we did with all the money we stole, or resources we purloined? Throw lavish parties?" she finished with a smirk.

"Okay, but Trotskyism isn't the answer either. A world revolution with the goal of installing a World Communist Regime would only be worse. Economically and politically, Communism doesn't work. That has been proven time and time again."

All the Red Dynamo did was give a sliver of a smile, not the tired argument of 'Communism simply hasn't been done right yet'.

"I concur. My study of both Free Market & Controlled Market Capitalism has revealed that to be true which lead to the inevitable question of how does one steer mankind into a state of political and economic being where the individual has the freedom to control their own destiny and the destiny of their community?"

'Oh shit, this lady is scary,' was the first thought to cross Jasmine's mind. 'She sounds so persuasive'.

"Are you, or are you not, a Communist?"

"I call my philosophy Dynamic Communism. It seeks to have Communism to work on the small scale while the greater community operates on Modern Controlled Market & Libertarian principles. The Communes keep the average citizen honest and hard working -- no slackers on a farm -- while the Communities guarantee liberties and rights so no 'Great Leader' rises up to destroy the Communist ideals from within."

"Holy Shit ... I thought you were ... would be ... Old School Trotskyite. Now I don't know what to think."

"Whatever I thought was worth having me executed before I could realize even a part of my dream. Unfortunately, my brain was formed before Red Dynamo's final confrontation with the forces of Law & Order, so I am not sure precisely what went wrong."

"I know where to start looking," Atticus said as he hopped over to where the two ladies were.

"Where? It has been eighty years after all. Who involved isn't already dead themselves?" Jasmine voiced her doubts.

"The metahuman who killed me. Any idea who that might be, Atticus?"

"I was in the room when it happened. It was Agent Shatterspike who personally killed you. Agent Stampede killed the Conductor of Crime and Agent Counterstrike killed Gestalt, though it took him a few minutes to complete the deed. Gestalt, even drugged and under a damper, didn't go down quietly either," Atticus informed them both.

"Shatterspike?" gulped Jasmine. "That was Candid's mentor when she entered service. She -- Shatterspike -- retired back in the late 1980's though. I have no idea where she is these days, but Candid might. In fact I think they correspond from time to time."

"Well, seems like it is almost time to launch our own string of satellites," Red Dynamo nodded as if speaking to herself.

'YOU can launch satellites?" Nightingale couldn't believe her ears.

"Yes. We were able to 'locate' and repurpose a series of German V-2 rocket systems which I can reconfigure into a multiple engine -- single payload delivery system. Building my own satellite shouldn't be that much more difficult that making my own brain using 1940's technology."

"Locate? You mean you stole one, or more rockets?"

"Well, it would have to be more than one giving its limitations and 'yes', we stole it under the cover of a US air raid on a V-2 engine factory. If it matters, we saved nearly a hundred slave laborers as well. Sent them south to join the Czech resistance."

"How come I never heard about any of this -- the good things you did during the war?"

"For our own reasons we kept much of our work secret because we didn't want you, or 'Uncle Joe' (Stalin) sending operatives after us to see just what we had made off with. I thought I had done a pretty good job of it too ... but somehow, not good enough of a job because I still ended up dead despite numerous precautions."

"How do I not know you are simply lying to me?" Jasmine wondered.

"Why would we care? Honestly, you are more trouble than you are worth, Operative Nightingale. We would be better off escorting you somewhere far away and getting on with our far more important work."

"To upset Global Security and Stability?"

"Yes," she remained unapologetic which appeared to be a damn epidemic.

"Oh," Red Dynamo looked to Atticus, "make a note of it. I've decided my name will be Paramount. My creator was Red Dynamo and she alone should get the credit for it. You and I are creating a new chapter in the history of the Sinister."

"Got it."

"Why are you treating him like your secretary? He has no education so aren't you really setting him up to fail?"

"He has a Total Eidetic Memory, Operative Nightingale, or didn't he tell you? He never forgets anything he sees, hears, tastes, touches, or smells."

'Consider the misery the US Government have inflicted upon him by sentencing him to seventy-nine years in the exact same hole in the ground ... that was truly cruel and unusual punishment,' Nightingale realized.

"Oh God," Jasmine turned to him. Atticus nodded his understanding.

"I'm so sorry," she blurted out.

"It wasn't you making those decisions concerning what happened to me and my friends," he injected into that awkward moment.

"Still, what we did was blatantly wrong," she repeated.

"Had they known I had Eidetic Memory, they most likely would have had a telepath crack my mind open and steal my secrets, killed Midnight and me, or killed Midnight and left me a vegetable for life. I think in the end, due to their wanton cruelty things turned out much better for us all," Atticus sighed happily.

Then Jasmine suddenly saw the Silver Lining to all this misery.

"Wait! You've been studying my body every time we've made love, haven't you?"

"Yes," his grin broadened. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Well ... next time I want to see you utilize that knowledge better," she snickered, "damn it."

"That was my plan all along," Atticus' grin turned into a full-blown smile.

"Aren't you young kids just so cute -- but we have work to do. Nightingale, stay here and whatever you do, don't try to communicate with the outside world. It would be 'bad'."

"Okay. What are the two of you doing?" she wondered aloud.

"To start the process to bring back the Conductor of Crime, Gestalt, Killjoy, and Wrath," Atticus informed her. "It shouldn't take too long."

"And you need to be less chatty with your new girlfriend," Freja chastised Atticus.

"Sorry," he appeared contrite.

After that, the two were whisked away to 'someplace else' while Jasmine waited.

[***]

"Tell me about your childhood," Freja later asked Jasmine over a very expensive dinner at a restaurant in either Italy, or France -- she was leaning toward Italy. Jasmine was fluent in Spanish so knew the difference between a Romance Language and something else.

"Well I -- hey! Are you in my mind?" she whispered heatedly.

"Good for you," Freja applauded softly, not wanting to draw too much attention. She couldn't draw no attention as beautiful as she was, long golden locks and deep blue eyes. Nightingale with her brunette hair worn a bit -- regulation -- shorter and hazel eyes was nearly as standout-ish. "Do understand, your anti-telepathic training isn't up to my power level. On the other hand, all I can do is read surface thoughts and memories. I can't alter a damn thing, or do any other technique normally associated with telepathy. No possession, body jumping, or mind control. I can 'Mind Blast' though. Want to see me do that?"

"I'm supposed to take your word for all that and 'no', I don't want to have my mind scrambled?" Nightingale frowned.

"I also applaud your suspicious nature as well as your common sense. I wasn't going to blast you though. There is a man three tables over who is here cheating on his spouse. He deserves a good chastisement don't you think?"

"Besides, I am going to need that suspicious mind unscrambled soon enough. You are going to need it with the variety of tasks I'm going to assign you."

"If I chose to accept those assignments," Jasmine countered.

"Touché. If you want to keep hanging around Atticus you will do what I need you to do," she smirked. "Trust me, I know Midnight much better than you do and between the two of us, we could end your little courtship overnight."

"What about what Atticus wants," Jasmine voiced her frustrations.

"Yes?" Atticus inquired, realizing his name had been brought up. He was making serious progress on his 16 oz. steak when he was disturbed.

"Freja is discussing how inconvenient our love affair is to the Sinister."

"Something like that," Freja smiled his way.

"Well, it is not inconvenient to the Sinister, or to me," he countered Freja's playful look bravely. No fear whatsoever.

"See, my young protégé wants it all ... and I can't blame him."

"You had your chance with him eighty years ago," Jasmine was confused.

"Two things about me you might want to know," that knowing smile turned her way. "I despise pedophiles in all their manifestations ... and I'm a lesbian," the smile broadened considerably. "The age you can be drafted to fight in their wars is the point I draw the line concerning what is 'acceptable'. I have always seen Atticus as a Son to be proud of instead of a mate. He knows my proclivities and isn't at all judgmental about them."

"Ah ... you might want to know homosexuals have it much better these days. They are often referred to as LGBTQ+ -- that means 'Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Trans and Queer alliance. In general they are accepting of any variations in sexual practices. They are also working on adding the 'B' and the 'I' to their alliance. 'B' stands for ..."

"Black and 'I' stands for Indigenous Peoples," she sighed. "You don't need to talk at me. I can, and am, reading your mind."

"I wish you to get out of my mind instead."

"Sigh," she emoted. "Very well."

"Oh, and don't start mind blasting people in the restaurant. That would be all kinds of bad," Nightingale cautioned Paramount.

"I'm not a child," Paramount chuckled, "despite my young age."

"Well, you have a bad history you need to work on and put in your past."

"Oh," she leaned over and whispered, "I can also use other people's senses. I can't direct them -- that would be my non-existent Mind Control I wish I had. Eat up. After dinner I want to confront Operative Anderson aka Shatterspike once more. It should be so much more fun this time around."

"Well, I am going to call Candid and have her meet us there," Jasmine informed the other two.

"As you wish," Paramount shrugged.

"Okay, just don't do anything stupid at least until Candid arrives."

"Let's hope she doesn't bring an entire team. That could be awkward," Atticus joked. "Very awkward and tough on the residential housing prices as well."

"Hey, I thought Atticus couldn't find Shatterspike?" Nightingale recalled.

"Don't worry about it. I've got that angle covered," Paramount smirked. "Now go make that call."

Nightingale's call woke up a grumpy Candid at her home. She was a lot less grumpy when Jasmine informed her of what had transpire 'on the case' since they were last together and then dropped the bomb -- Paramount was going to meet Shatterspike at Shatterspike's domicile.

"Shit, shit, shit," Candid cursed. "I'm on my way. Keep them occupied until get there. Despite the danger, Candid elected to go alone after dropping her boss, Deputy Director Bozeman, an e-mail. With any luck, he wouldn't open it until daybreak. By that time she would be back at Quantico, ready with a valuable report to hand in.

[***]

Moments after she parked her Black SUV outside the rural residence of April Anderson aka Shatterspike a portal of utter blackness opened up and three people walked through -- Midnight's Son, Nightingale and Red Dynamo, or a close facsimile of the Red Dynamo.

"Okay, before we knock on that door, I want you to tell me how you discovered Shatterspike. Who did you buy, or whose system did you hack?"

"Oh please -- Candid -- it is Candid, isn't it -- we had no idea where Shatterspike was hiding until you drove here. All I had to do was convince Operative Nightingale we did know where Operative Shatterspike lived to make that panicky call to you -- then we waited -- and here we are." Nightingale looked suitably embarrassed.

"I'm ... I'm sorry," Nightingale blathered.

"It is okay. Shatterspike is no pushover, despite her advanced age.

"And yes, it is MORALE Operative Candid, you mass-murdering bitch. Don't sweat it, Nightingale. All they have really done was make this a three on two brawl if they get antsy. Being over a hundred has barely slowed Shatterspike down."

"I haven't committed a crime which I wasn't arrested for -- and executed under suspicious circumstances. As Operative Nightingale has pointed out, I have a 'Clean Slate. Now let's go talk with Agent Anderson and see what she has to say."

"I'm not sure what you have come looking for, but be prepared to be disappointed," Candid responded. She led the way as the group waked up onto the home's covered porch. Candid rang the doorbell.

[Telepathy] 'Nightingale, or Ms. Ward, I have placed a link in your mind so you can share surface thoughts with Atticus and I. I will bring Candid into the mind link once the time is right. Please do not resist.'

[Telepathy] 'Freja, I'll boot you out the second I think you are doing something 'freaky'. Atticus?'

[Telepathy] 'Yes.'

[Telepathy] 'Just checking you were still here.'

[Telepathy] 'I am. Ready and willing to go and pull us out if necessary. Also, inside the house is an older woman with a shotgun. She is standing and close to the door. I think she is planning to open the door now that we've finally announced ourselves.'

[Telepathy] 'Everyone got that,' from Candid. The others chimed in positively.

Indeed, right after Canid rang the bell, an astoundingly fit older woman looking to be somewhere between fifty and sixty (certainly not over a hundred) opened the door.

"Hey Charlotte," she said to Candid. "Who is everybody else?" She held a shotgun in her right hand, but it was pointed down.

"April," Candid addressed Shatterspike by her given name, "this is really important. Can we talk inside?"

"Sure," April Anderson appeared worried. She stepped aside to let Candid then followed her into the expansive living room. Apparently retirement had been good for Shatterspike. Atticus, the last one in, shut the door behind him. For a moment no one spoke. Then came the accusations. When things like Red Dynamo and the Sinister came up, Shatterspike shut up, citing persistent matters of National Security. That wasn't good enough for Paramount. She went digging into April's memories.

[***]

[MEMORIES FROM OCTOBER 16TH, 1945]

"So Agent Donavan, or would you prefer Operative Shatterspike, you are the one they have chosen for the task -- loyalty to country, cause and all that -- to the bitter end. Or is this for 'truth, justice, democracy and the American Way of Life?" said Red Dynamo, looking rather small and helpless outside of her power armor, sitting on a bench with her fellow members of the Sinister. Their backs were conveniently against a concrete wall.

"Ah, shut up!" Operative Shatterspike snapped then quick-drew her regulation 1911 Colt and pumped three bullets into her foe's face, blowing the back of her skull all over the wall behind her along with three bullet indentations. Red Dynamo, her wrists still handcuffed behind her back, slumped over -- very dead.

Within seconds, the Conductor of Crime joined her, executed by Operative Stampede. His last words were ~ 'Don't I get any last words, or at least a glass of water?' said in his classic jaunty Cuban style, belying his fear of what would come next. Operative Counterstrike had to unload both her pistols into Gestalt as well as use her super-powered fists to punch and strangle his neck as hard as she could until his head finally popped off his body.

All the while the once most dangerous telepath (Gestalt) on the planet pleaded for his life then gurgled out his last breath through shattered pipes. A truly ignoble end for a once noble foe ... who had never been charged with killing a single soul his entire, long criminal career spanning three decades. A rarity among his fellow felons, he had always held life to be sacred ... and he was disposed of like so much trash.

It fell to Agent Haze to attempt to finish off the final member of the Sinister in the room, the teenage Midnight's Son -- the final witness to this terrible deed. First she used her pistols which hardly left a mark. Then she took a submachinegun from one of the human agents guarding the room and unloaded that into Atticus as well. Finally she resorted to her fists as well, but to little effect. And all the while, tears streamed down his face. He had failed to save any of them. Little did anyone know -- he hadn't failed. By not rolling over and dying inside, he was securing his friends' immortality ... just not at that time.

[A FINAL TURN OF THE SCREWS]

Nightingale was stunned into immobility for a second.

"So it's true ... you murdered her," she gasped. A lone tear began rolling down her cheek. "You murdered them all."

"Snap out of it, kid," Shatterspike growled.

"It was a very different time and you get to live in the future we bled for to create ... for you. What kind of future would you be living in if Red Dynamo had escaped yet again and started her worldwide revolution? She had all those millions in gold plus all those damn Commies hidden away inside the government just waiting to reveal themselves. We saved you from the true bloodbath."

"You were no better than they were," Nightingale countered.

"You knew about the Gold?" was Candid's immediate follow-up.

"Yes. Joe Stalin's boys told us about it -- it was Beria himself actually told 'Wild Bill' (Donovan) -- and they came clean about the whole plot to fuck us over and steal those bombs," Shatterspike glared.

"They saved maybe a hundred thousand GI lives," Nightingale sniffled. "That was a damn heroic thing to do too and this was the way you rewarded them?"

"Your hopelessly naïve, Nightingale," Shatterspike shook her head. "So, is that ... really Midnight's Son? Fuck it all, he had the secrets all along, didn't he? We unloaded a whole Thompson Submachinegun into him then ran him over with a tank and still the little bastard simply wouldn't die. It was my idea to have him thrown in into an active volcano. Sadly we didn't have one in the United States at the time and our higher ups decided transporting any member of the Sinister to another country could have been construed as an act of war all by itself -- they were that hated."

"You ran a fifteen year old henchman over with a tank?" Candid grunted as if gut punched. "He never killed anyone outside of participating for a few minutes in World War II ... and you ran him over with tons of steel."

"Yeah -- twice," Shatterspike was unapologetic in a moment when everyone else felt she should be begging forgiveness. "I think we managed to break some of his toes the second time around ... but that was all."

"Time to die," Paramount said in a cool, virtually seductive voice. Atticus didn't react at all, being strangely enigmatic.

"No," Candid and Nightingale said as one. "She committed those crimes and she needs to stand trial for it," Candid added.

"Cool your bloodlust. I was pardoned before the fact by President Harry S. Truman himself, though I'm sure he had no idea what we planned to do with the members of the Sinister we had already marked for death," Shatterspike informed the room. "I'm not guilty of shit except defending my Nation to the utmost of my abilities."

"Still wondering why I consider you and your predecessors to be the 'Bad Guys'?" Atticus finally added his voice to the cacophony. "Paramount, we need to be leaving now. You've had your revenge. You've survived despite everything she tried to do to you. How does the saying go? Tomorrow is a new day."

Just then Shatterspike lunged at the Paramount, her fingers becoming obsidian-edged talons, only to be intercepted by Atticus and batted aside. While not as strong as the female metahuman, he was far faster plus had seventy years of martial arts tutelage while in Copperhead Super-Max. Now, finally, his muscle memory was catching up, making him even more dangerous.

"Fine, Atticus, but know this, Shatterspike, come the Revolution, old scores will be settled. I promise you this: you will answer for your crimes."

"I'll be waiting for you, Bitch," Shatterspike seethed, her look one of pure hatred. She pulled herself out of the ruined bookshelf she had been thrown into, shrugging off any and all attempts at assistance. Paramount turned and left first, her back guarded by a retreating Midnight's Son who faced the room until he exited out the door.

"Candid, who knows this crazy bitch is on the loose again?" April inquired.

"Just the three of us so far," Candid replied. Atticus and Freja didn't count.

"You had better get the word out, and fast. You cannot comprehend how dangerous she really is," Shatterspike persisted.

"I -- I can't do this anymore," Nightingale sobbed then raced out the door after the two members of the Sinister.

"She's gone over to the other side," was all Shatterspike had to say to her former protégé; not a single sense of being sympathetic for the life ruined.

"Yeah ... whose fault is that, I wonder?" Candid glared at her former mentor. "I imagine you had better inform whomever you really worked for as well. I'm taking this straight to Champion's desk ... and I won't be going alone. Pardoned be damned, what you four did were Capital Crimes =>

First Degree Murder with Extenuating Circumstances. In this case a law enforcement agency assassinating prisoners in custody. Damn, that was some Pinochet bullshit!"

"That you will never face justice for that is yet another crime. Then there's =>

Conspiracy to Commit First Degree Murder. Finally there is the cover-up =>

Crime number three: Conspiracy to Commit First Degree Murder After the Fact.

People are going down for this and I don't give a damn how old they are. Along the way someone is going to crack and you know it. Then it gets handed over to the Press. Your true bosses will know that as well. Have fun being retired, Shatterspike."

Candid backed out the door, no longer trusting the woman who had at one time convinced her to be a metahuman law enforcement officer with MORALE. Now ... now she had her own serious doubts. Once outside, she found the other three waiting for her.

"I didn't trust that bitch to not murder you and then point the authorities at me," Paramount stated.

"Candid, were can I drop you off?" Atticus offered.

"Quantico." She walked over and got into her SUV then waited.

"Got it," he nodded then concentrated on creating a shadow portal to a guardhouse just outside the main gates. She drove through it without a rearward glance. If Nightingale didn't come ... then she didn't come. Could she blame her?

'No', but she had friends to rouse and her own alarm bells to ring. She had to bypass normal channels and get this straight to Champion's desk. Despite being a metahuman, Champion had risen through the ranks to become appointed as the current head of MORALE because he was honest, straightforward, and 'that damn tough'. He'd also done more than one stint in the Presidential Protection Detail -- which hadn't hurt his rise to the top at all. The Man was virtually a Living Legend.

Now it was those contacts of his she needed to utilize. Sure the Sinister was in its infancy, but that didn't make them all that less dangerous. There were hundreds of metahumans out there who were disgruntled with how this world had turned out for them ... and the Sinister was just such the group to rally them to an anarchistic cause.

The Sinister with three members was almost laughable. The Sinister with a hundred dedicated members was a hydra-like monster much, much worse. The alarms had to be sounded and the warriors of the New World Order brought up to speed about just what they were facing. Plus she couldn't forget the shadowy forces who had been out to murder Atticus Styx and Nightingale. They had to be made to pay for their crimes too. No cover-ups. No mercy.

[BACKGROUND STUFF]

MORALE Data:

Metahuman Organization for Registration, Aid and Law Enforcement

April Anderson -- (retired) Shatterspike [name remains unused] -- (former) Senior

Field Operative / (former) Deputy Director of MORALE Field Operatives.

[1921 --???/104 years old]

Jasmine Ward -- (released from MORALE for Conduct Unbecoming) Nightingale

Charlotte Elyon -- (active) Senior Field Operative [SFO] in MORALE; Candid

Champion -- (active) Director of MORALE [once saved the current US President]

{Flying tank with syphon defense technique -- draws attacks to him}

Bozeman Washington -- (active) Deputy Director of MORALE Field Teams and

Operatives Department {human} [FTOD]

Paula O'Brien -- (active) Assistant Deputy Director of MORALE's Foreign Operatives and

Visitation Department {human} [FOD]

Gustav Mortenson -- (active) Deputy Director of MORALE's Technology

Development Department [TDD]

[9] Departments and Main Sections in MORALE

Field Operative Department (includes Law Enforcement {with Homeland Security}, Kidnapping {with FBI} and Hostage Rescue {with FBI} Sections)

General Resources (includes general purpose metahumans and the humans trained to work with metahumans as well as the Military Reserve Section)

Training (includes Recruitment, Training, General Aid, Advanced Training, and Military Preparedness Sections)

Government Outreach (includes Presidential Protection Detail (with Treasure Department) as well as Emergency Embassy Protection (with State Department) and Federal Bureau of Prisons Sections)

Disaster Response (includes Teleportation, Hyper-Speed, Disaster Relief Coordination (with FEMA), and Weather Manipulation Sections)

Registration Department (includes Records, Metahuman Testing, Items Testing Sections and Reevaluation Centers)

Foreign Operatives and Visitation Department (includes working for the CIA, State Departments and Spy Hunting at Home & Abroad with the FBI ~ "The Spooks")

Technology Development Department (includes Analysis, Development, Systems' Testing and Technology Redaction Sections ~ 'Department Q')

Office of the Director (includes an Oversight, Internal Affairs, and Archives Sections)