From his office. Garrick looked over Olympus. The mutant dorms saw little traffic as they were under strict guidelines implemented. The barracks, on the other hand, flowed like ants in a colony under Garrick’s lenient orders. Where before they could barely get a wrench without bureaucratic setbacks and price gouging, a fleet of vehicles once left to languish was brought to combat effectiveness, ready to be deployed across the city in case of an attack. They weren’t up to the standards that Garrick had for his own drones, but there were limits to how much the military would allow a civilian to control.
He closed his eyes to bring his sight hundreds of miles to the clouds of Lake Superior. The surface of Tartarus was an airfield that worked in tandem with the drone network to protect the island should an invasion reach it. Then there was the Little Boy armor: faster, tougher, and more dextrous than the Fatman, with modular components for simple replacement and improvement.
All this security should make someone feel safe, yet it is an inescapable fact that some group has been at work under his nose the whole time. A group even the best agent available could gather little on. Even having the supposed leader in custody could not stymie that unease, like a castle built on sand. The more Garrick tightened his grip, the more he could feel something slip away.
“Do you seriously drink this stuff?” said WhiteOut as she sipped on a sapphire martini, seated on the desk, “no amount of alcohol is good for you.”
“What have you uncovered about our enemy?”
“Nothing, which tells me everything I need to know,” she took another sip, ”even with possible mutant abilities factored in, some things will always leave behind footprints. Knowing what to rule out is valuable in its own right. Our enemies are limited in resources and ability to deploy them, that I’m certain of. Also, while they work with some bad actors, they themselves seem to avoid civilian casualties, if only to keep their secret,” she affirmed. Garrick spread his hands across his desk.
“Explain it to me clearly, what you’re so certain of. What mutant abilities do you think they have, without even confirming it, that makes you so confident?”
“Two I had theorized and are all but confirmed thanks to the Delsin Rowe incident: teleportation and some kind of electronic interference. It only took a moment for Delsin to disappear and the camera that should have watched him was scrambled. It is also proof that they are acting erratically now that we have Deimos in custody as they have never been so brazen before. While the interference is a concern, their teleportation is their most dangerous asset—at least, that’s what they’ll think. I hope we can turn it against them.”
“How do you mean?”
“As a group operating in secrecy, an ability that allows them to move without leaving a trace would be dependable indeed. Miraculous as it is, it can become a curse to depend upon it. You’ve fought terrorists and criminals before, you know guerilla tactics. They can be gruesome and effective, fast attacks that minimize the risk and expenses while maximizing damage. But they rely on those tactics to make up for their disadvantages. I want to drag them into our playing field and we now have an opportunity.” WhiteOut placed the empty cocktail glass on the desk and traced her finger on the rim. “I think that there will be an attack targeting Olympus and Tartarus to take both Deimos and the detained mutants. We need to display vulnerability, let them have faith in their tactics, and when they overextend we can encircle them, bog them down in a fight they can’t win.”
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“If we can’t find them then let them come to us. I get that part. Your plan involves us letting civilians be put in danger. Can you really trust them to hold back? With mutants, especially teleportation involved, they could bring anything to bear on us. And then there’s those two…”
“If they are traitors then we lose. If the enemy teleports in a nuke then we lose. There’s no point in worrying about those kinds of scenarios, all it will do is stress you out. Yes, there is a risk, and there will be losses, but that’s why it's up to the heroes can handle it. If a hero can’t do it, there is no one else who can. You are a hero, aren’t you?” asked WhiteOut.
“Of course I am.”
“Good,” WhiteOut hopped off the desk and went to leave, “I will be taking UnderDog to Tartarus, I leave Olympus to you.”
She opened the door of the office. On the other side was Tyler Deimos—in handcuffs reserved for mutants, escorted here by a soldier—who entered as she left. He sat in the chair in front of the desk. While Garrick opened up his fridge to reach his ingredients—Dry GIn, Sweet Vermouth, Blue Curacao—Tyler watched the large ant colony in the formicarium. Meticulous and diligent, hard at work at all times for a colony that can never escape, a monument to the survival of a family that is already dead. How fitting.
“You like them?” asked Garrick. He scooped ice into a tall cup then poured ounces of the ingredients in to be mixed with a spoon.
“When alligator eggs are close to hatching, ants will colonize the nest, chew into the shell, and eat the babies. If the egg does hatch on its own, the newborn is swarmed and devoured before it can even crawl. No, I am not a fan.”
“Those are fire ants, no one likes them,” Garrick covered the cup with a strainer so that the ice would not fall out as he poured a fresh martini into two cocktail glasses then topped them off with lemon twist garnishes. He offered a glass to his guest.
“No. I don’t drink.” Garrick gulped each glass down in one shot. Twist included. “Why am I here?”
“No one else wants you around: too much of a security risk. We can’t put you in Tartarus, so now we’re roommates.”
“I know that part. Let me rephrase: why am I alive? If I’m as dangerous as you say, then it would be best to kill me.”
“That’s out of my hands. What to do with you is for the court to decide under the rule of law.”
“And if they get it wrong? Would you be able to accept that?”
“Accepting the rules of others is part of living in a civil society,” Garrick moved over to a workbench and put on gloves.
“You know better than that, that’s why you want to be in control: because someone else could get it wrong. Like with Delsin,” said Deimos. Garrick picked up a vial from a rack on the workbench. Uncapped, he used forceps to pull out a jagged shard.
“What I’m holding now is a frozen piece of electricity. How is that possible?”
“Mutant abilities can interact with each other in ways that belie their true nature. Rather than electricity and ice, it’s all an energy formed after the idea of lightning and ice and one of those energies overcame the other. But then, if your cryogenics are capable of that, they must be based on a mutant. Whoever they are,” he smirked, “they are stronger than lightning.”
Garrick returned the shard to its vial.
“That’s why I have you around,” Garrick said as he removed his gauntlets, “to learn, right?”