Prosperity Limited's new CEO was a remarkably successful man. He'd taken a dying mining company and turned it around; using its raw materials , smelters, and a set of fabricators to supply All-American goods to local businesses. The small town of Prosperity, Colorado nearby was doing remarkably well; new businesses opening up, more money in the local economy; you'd think that he'd be at least somewhat happy with this success. But no; he was cursing, kicking a cylinder off of a table, and rubbing his forehead.
"It just doesn't hit hard enough. I'm glad we got the cycle time down. Firing a couple of bolts every second is amazing. But we need more power!"
The room had a GigaFac; one of the remarkably expensive and also remarkably capable, high-end fabricators mounted on one wall; a legally purchased one this time, supposedly financed by production at Prosperity Limited; and a wide variety of quasi-legal things scattered on tables, mounted on racks; alternate armor designs; different variations on his chrome helmet, some with a classic Eyeball paint scheme, others with the two red eye appearance. Grenades. Rifles. There was enough firepower here to arm a few elite squads of meta-hunting individuals, and someone could, by design, pick a load-out off of these racks and go head-to-head with over 99% of the metas on earth; if you had Eyeball's powers, at least.
While the tall, somewhat heavyset russian in a grey uniform looked much the same as he had for decades, in his many bodies, Jason was starkly different. Cloned, implanted red hair; a carefully tailored flap of skin that hid the third eye; a differently shaped nose; he appeared to be the spitting image of a local man, Victor Hardy, one without surviving family, who'd disappeared down a mineshaft years ago after angering the wrong people.
He had a new ID; one that was completely supported by real documentation, and the only way he could be proven false would be to dig up the real Victor's family and run a genetic test. He'd walked around in public, attended openings of his various businesses; all at least mildly profitable, most simply means of laundering money from Reflex sales; and one that gave him an excuse to, sometimes, go to DC on a private jet.
He would pretend these flights were to business meetings; and often he'd actually set up, at least, a meeting with someone as a cover, just in case.... but the reality was a bit more sinister.
He was making iteration after iteration of a man-portable rifle with one intent; making something that could fire a round so fast, with so much force, that if it hit Spike he'd need to go so dense to survive he'd sink straight down into the earth's crust. And with each iteration, he would take his briefcase, get it set so that he could fire it from a hill a mile away from the DMA facility... and wait.
And when, inevitably, Spike left the building, heading to some meeting or other; no longer wearing the eyepatch, Spike seemed to have completely recovered from his encounter with Eyeball; he would examine the results. And every time, the rifle would remain hidden, go back into the plane... and make its way back to Prosperity.
"It doesn't even need to be able to fire a second shot."
Clone picked up the cylinder; the latest design based on one stolen from a Japanese tech building variations of railgun weapons to arm the 'UN Space Navy' that was being assembled; and set it on the table. "Boss. He once survived a nuke without having to go that dense. I still think your best bet is to just use something like this, and take him out in midair, that almost worked the first time."
"Sure, it almost worked the first time. He wasn't expecting to get shot down, he was actively making himself less dense so the helicopter could actually carry him; if I'd known exactly where he was on-board, I could probably have finished him right there. But he hasn't boarded a godforsaken aircraft since I escaped. High-speed trains, tanks.... he hasn't operated overseas in the past six months."
Clone shook his head. The only good thing about all of this, and the boss spending over ten million dollars and making at least a dozen heists in other countries to gather gear for this particular Moby Dick style hunt, was that Spike was just as obsessed with it as Eyeball; and clearly sufficiently afraid that he'd refused to drop his density to anything that most aircraft could lift since.
Meaning that the threat of Spike showing up to stop anything was virtually zero. The general view in the criminal underworld was that Spike was afraid of having a second run-in with the Titanslayer; which meant, by extension, now that he was part of the Family, that the feds were too afraid to run major operations against them anymore.
Which, with the advent of reflex in the hands of every gang that could afford to buy it... was almost true. The feds seemed to only target the absolute heaviest of gatherings, where they could bring in a full army for support; and even then usually took casualties.
Business was great. Everything was running perfectly smoothly. If they could just get the boss to be a bit less focused on this Spike character...
Eyeball gave a low sigh. "Alright, Clone. Have a look around, see if you can find the next target for some useful tech. And.... we might as well start working on selling these man-portable railguns."
He left the workshop; finding another of Emerald's joking scrawls about Ahab on the wall by the door, etched in soot, before shaking his head, walking out, climbing the stairs and shutting a hidden hatch before emerging in one of the Prosperity production centers; a few locals were employed, keeping an eye on fabricators, putting the finishing touches on various parts coming off the line; he waved at a few as he passed by, heading up for the office.
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Outside his own office, he had a picture of his new face; and his new name. He looked it over for a moment. "Victor. Your name is Victor." Before he could open the door, however, his secretary; Eveline, a decent enough girl who had only a vague idea of anything untoward going on with the company; piped up. "Hey, boss! There's a couple feds here to see you. FBI badges and everything."
Victor gave a nod. "Thanks, Eveline. Could you let Emma know I might be late to lunch, and why?" The woman smiled, nodded. She was cute enough; definitely prettier than Emerald. But... dating the dragon-girl had been going fairly well for a few months. Discovering Emerald's real name was Emma was a bit amusing; he'd made a few jokes about her lack of creativity in names, she'd poked him in his extra eye and repeated his own joke back almost word-for word... Fun times.
And in the unlikely event the Feds had anything he needed to worry about, Eveline would let her know.
He could see the man and woman inside the office before he opened it; the man seated calmly at one of the chairs, the woman examining a set of antlers Victor had mounted to the wall; definitely a meta of some description. She was no Valkyrie, but if he shot her with anything non-AP it would bounce. Still; he had something to do the job on hand, just in case.
He slid open the door, walking in; and extended his hand toward the closest one; in this case, the woman. "Hello there! My secretary warned me you two were here. I'd have been here sooner but nobody warned me you were coming, I was down in the factory."
The woman smiled, shaking his hand firmly; with a level of strength that implied she could apply far more if she needed to; enough to hurt, but not crack bones. "Agent Banks. This is my associate, Agent Tyler."
Victor nodded a moment, shaking Tyler's hand as well. "Well, go ahead and have a seat. I'm not sure what brings you two here, but I'd be glad to help the feds out however I can." He matched actions to words; having a seat behind the desk; Tyler returned to his own chair, and Banks sat beside him. They seemed friendly enough; either they had no idea who he really was, or they were extremely well trained.
Banks leaned forward, smiling. "So, mister Hardy... can I call you Victor?" At Eyeball's nod, she resumed. "Well, Victor... about five months ago, you applied for the permit to make and sell guns here in Colorado; the highest-end available for the civilian market. One of our agents working out of the office in Denver stopped by Prosperity Arms the other day and checked out one of your special handgun lines. A very well-built handgun; impressively durable and reliable, it isn't too popular just yet.... but it reminded him of something he'd noticed."
Victor leaned back in his chair, arms crossed behind his back. For anyone who he didn't want to leave alive, this room was a deathtrap. If he could get Spike into one of those chairs, the meta would be six-hundred meters down in a groundwater reservoir contaminated by fracking years ago before he could blink.
"And what was that, agent?"
"Well. When a recent task force took down a deal in Seattle, the criminals were using that new drug, Reflex. Took out dozens of our people before we mopped up the operation. And about half of the men we took down were using Prosperity Arms handguns. Most of the guns... jammed or had problems. They couldn't keep up with how quickly one of the criminals was firing and would end up useless before the drug wore off. But your guns? Seem purpose built to handle the sort of strength and speed mid-grade metas can have."
Victor blinked. Were they... seriously going to catch him out because he made decent guns? Really? "Is that a problem? I take pride in making quality equipment, and my guns are perfectly legal to sell. Are you wanting my sales records? There are certain regulations about retrieving those, but if you have the serial numbers of the guns..."
"Oh, no, no." Banks smiled again, more brightly. She definitely wasn't an attractive woman to Victor's eyes; there was a such thing as too much muscle; though the smile helped. "We'd like you to make guns for the bureau. We have quite a few mid-grade metas in our employ, and in the past we've simply accepted that we'll have an enormous backlog of weapon replacements as they wear out. We'd like to keep this fairly quiet, but both the FBI and the DMA are interested; especially if you can custom-make a few weapons for some of our more esoteric employees. Many of our employees are actually using Prosperity Arms we picked up in the field now rather than our standard-issue."
Victor gave a slow nod. Looking at the two in front of him. Were they bullshitting him? Was this all a ruse to get setup for a strike down the road?
****
Hundreds of miles southward, deep in the desert, a figure in a long brown robe, dusty and worn, was driving a truck into Mexico City. When a guard attempted to stop him, the dull, lifeless face that greeted him gave a fair amount of alarm... but when a single golden coin was offered, he simply passed him through, examining the coin and wondering how many weeks worth of pay it would net him.
No alarm was raised until the figure stopped in front of a police station; leaving the truck parked partially blocking the street. Almost immediately two officers headed out, angrily screaming at the figure to move his truck. He raised his hands, approaching the two men... and slapped them on the back.
One of them collapsed to the ground, writhing, twitching. The other remained on his feet, screaming in pain loudly enough that he could be heard inside the precinct.
After a few moments, they both turned; one climbing to his feet, the other simply turning, his eyes glassing over, faintly moaning in pain.
As the three figures entered the police department, the air currents briefly shifted the robe... revealing legs completely wrapped in metallic tendrils, a body covered with scattered orange metal boxes each somewhat bigger than a fist. As the screaming inside the building began, and alarms began to sound out over the radio... a similar 18-wheeler; some labeled with food brands; some with major retailers; had pulled up in front of every police department in the city.
By the time the first of the trucks had opened; and the hundreds of skeletal dark red machines, each bearing the classic Hammer and Sickle logo of the old soviet union, had begun to emerge; over a third of the police in the city were already under control, helplessly watching as their own bodies were being used to attack their former co-workers.