Four

Earth’s Supernatural Protection

Or: “In Which Our ‘Heroes’ Meet ESP.”

“We sent eight soldiers into that hellhole with no idea what they’d face. Only one of our people came back – but Lisa Clark got the job done.”

Captain Hannah Kennedy, UNENF.

Earth’s Supernatural Protection (ESP) Military Jet, En Route to America. April 7th, 2035.

“Fuck this noise, am I right?”

Sergeant Lisa Clark didn’t need to spend all that much time deciding that she really, really hated Jackson Stark. That was something of an overstatement, of course – she didn’t really know the man well enough to hate him. The fact that he never fucking shut up, however, didn’t do much to endear the man to her.

Judging from his profoundly bored expression, the escaped supersoldier turned village protector Nerve was not all that fond of Stark either. Stark was happily babbling in Nerve’s ear – first it had been conversations about their respective names (“they call me ‘Bounder’ – meant to mean that I’m a bit of a rogue, y’know?”) then about their weapons of choice (“I hear you’re big into shotties and snipers – more of a dual pistol bloke meself”) and had quickly turned to their respective superhero nemeses (“you got to deal with that bloke Reflex, yeah? What was he like?”). As the flight went on, Clark observed a great deal of Stark talking, but Nerve remained quiet throughout.

Probably doesn’t have much to say to Stark, Clark thought, smirking. Why would he? She had read both men’s files, and it was entirely in keeping that Nerve would remain quiet. Poor bastard doesn’t even have a name anymore.

The plane was the same sort of nondescript thing Clark had worked in a dozen times; military green exterior, gunmetal and grey interior, minimal decoration. ESP tended to go for things like that – nothing too extravagant, nothing that might get too much attention. After all – they were a top secret military organisation. Getting attention was the equivalent of admitting you fucked up at your job, badly. Even though Clark had only been seconded with them a few months, she knew that none of them were stupid enough to want to do that. About the only thing that made this plane any different from the two dozen other planes she had seen of its ilk was the collection of runes etched at strategic points – Clark had been told that they were protective wards, made to prevent magical sabotage.

I guess if I believe half the shit I’ve seen, I have to believe that, Clark thought.

Nerve had been the last member of this motley group that she had to grab. From here, her orders were to deliver them all to ESP’s HQ, where they would be immediately briefed on their new mission. She had said as much to them all. It had gone down as well as she had expected.

“Hey, so, what do you reckon it is?” Stark asked Nerve, and Clark wondered for a moment if he had read her mind. “This mission thing?”

“Shut up, Stark,” Clark snapped. “You don’t speculate on the job, you just do it when we get there. Clear?”

“Clear, clear, Bosslady,” Stark said, giving her a mock salute. He turned back to Nerve. “Must be bad. Yay us, huh? But won’t be nearly as bad as this one time I was in Scarborough and…”

Ignoring Stark’s incessant babbling for the moment, Clark decided to focus on the rest of her ‘team’.

There were the ones she’d inherited from the previous iteration of Team Omega, to begin with. Shayla Silverhand – purple skinned, white haired, and blindfolded – was one. The most notable thing about Silverhand was her arms – both her arms up to her elbows had been replaced with glinting metal appendages, entirely unlike any prosthetics Clark had ever seen. They flexed, making the softest of whirring sounds that Clark could only discern if she paid very close attention.

The file on Silverhand that Clark had seen read less like a file on a military asset, and more like the background for someone’s LARP character.

A former assassin of the Winter Court of the Fae, sworn to assassinate the superhero ‘Anathema’ but exiled from her home after her failure, Clark recalled, and she resisted the urge to snort. Sounds like my last fucking tabletop campaign.

Not that the woman sitting next to her was much better. Clad in a red surcoat, with red war paint on her face and a topknot tied up above her head, ‘Blood Templar’ was the picture of ‘Crazy LARP Lady’. There was no other name in her file – Clark assumed she must have had one at some point, but there was nothing in her file now except that pseudonym and copious details about her abilities.

She had a sword next to her that, according to her file, she physically could not be more than ten metres from at any given time without it killing her. The exchange for that frankly insane limitation was that, while holding the sword, she had the approximate strength of ten fully-trained soldiers, and could shrug off injuries that would normally kill a normal person.

How the fuck that actually happens to a person, I don’t know, but okay, Clark thought. Those abilities had, apparently, been quite useful in the previous iteration of Team Omega. Judging by the permanent scowl etched on the Blood Templar’s features, Clark could well believe it.

Her checklist continued with the new ‘acquisitions’ that she had been sent to find. Her eyes alighted on the hook-nosed, reedy looking man in a long black coat who sat sullenly a few spaces away from Shayla.

Johan Steiner – codename ‘The Warlock’, which she imagined was either him or one of her superiors being supremely unimaginative – was supposedly one of the last members of some cult or another that had, for a time, been interested in summoning a dark Spirit of some description. His abilities weren’t very well catalogued, but he had surrendered the second he saw Clark and her team approaching him.

Clearly not that tough, she thought. Then again, there was no way to know until they threw him up against something. He was certainly shifty – looking around constantly like he was trying to find a way out of the plane.

A few more spaces from him was a fairly nondescript woman; brown hair, jeans, black t-shirt, green eyes, and a plain, unremarkable face.

Or at least, she looked like a woman – Clark’s report listed the woman, known only as ‘Willow’, as actually being closer to a dryad or forest spirit of some sort. She had been caught by some of ESP’s specialists in France. Quite how, Clark didn’t know and didn’t especially care to know. From there, she had been delivered to Clark at Heathrow shortly after they had found Nerve. Willow had managed to be even quieter than Nerve, somehow. She had not said so much as a word as she was escorted onto the plane. Clark didn’t trust that necessarily, but the plane’s wards were, supposedly, the best in the business, so she tried not to worry too much.

The next ‘new acquisition’ was a little easier to understand. Easily nine foot tall, and easily wider than two of Clark, with leathery grey skin, ‘Troll’ was a troll.

Literally.

Clark had no idea where the hell someone at ESP had found a troll – much less one who talked almost exclusively in outdated internet meme slang from the noughties – but she had seen his effectiveness already. It helped that, when deciding on what weapon he wanted, he’d asked for ‘the biggest fucking minigun you have’, then had proceeded to carry it like it was a glorified water gun… and shot it like it was one, too.

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Recoil? What recoil? Clark thought, now perhaps a touch jealous. But Troll would be, in theory, very useful.

Which brought Clark’s mental checklist up to their two most recent ‘acquisitions’. On the surface the two men were entirely different on many different levels. Stark was still talking – something about the difference between the pistols SIN had trained him to use and the ones he preferred using. Nerve, meanwhile, seemed content to sit, listen, and pretend he couldn’t hear a word the chattier man was saying.

Yet… the two of them were both Starfall’s best efforts at supersoldiers, made in response to the growing prevalence of enhanced individuals. They were both more ‘product’ than ‘people’. Their files listed so much about their enhancements and very little about their personalities, yet Clark knew from her own experience that SIN’s work came with… complications. It was interesting to wonder if either of them had ‘real’ names, ‘real’ lives before they had been cut open and turned into…

“You alright there, Bosslady?” Stark was talking to her now, and Clark realised she must have zoned out.

“Fine,” she replied.

There was something strangely earnest in the question which made her re-evaluate the man, just a touch. When she had found him, he had hundreds of pounds of stolen banknotes in his wallet… and had been protecting a lost child. Nerve, too – he had been fighting to protect the little village he had been hiding in, rather than sitting on the sidelines. There was something about that, the desire to help in some way, that struck a chord with her.

What would either of them have been, she thought, if they hadn’t been turned into fucking monsters.

“Not to be – what’s the Englisch word? Overthinking,” Steiner said from his seat, “but this is a very… eklektisch group of people.”

Clark scowled. “Try not to worry too much about it, Mr Steiner.”

“I am forced to worry, Fraulein,” Steiner said with a leer. “We are all on this Flugzeug together.”

“Why worry?” Shayla Silverhand asked. “The worst that can happen is that we die.”

“Yes,” Steiner said irritably. “That is rather my point.”

Clark didn’t say anything else. Something about the man’s manner put her off immensely.

“He’s not wrong,” the ‘Blood Templar’ said. “You expecting us to fight one another – or something else?”

“Are you frightened, little girl?” Silverhand cut in. “I thought you were a berserker, ‘Blood Templar’. Do not tell me bloodshed scares you?”

“I’m not afraid,” Blood Templar said. “I just want to know if I’m splitting your pointy-eared skull open, bitch.”

“Enough!” Clark snapped. “You’re not here to fight each other. That’s all you get until you get briefed.”

“Wonderful,” Willow muttered, almost too quietly for Clark to hear.

“Wolf!” the pilot’s voice came through her earpiece. “We’re coming up on base now, might wanna let your menagerie know!”

Clark rolled her eyes. Whoever picked ‘Wolf’ as my callsign can fucking die.

“Copy that,” she said.

“We landing soon?” Nerve asked. It was the first time he had spoken to her.

“That’s right,” Clark replied. “So you guys had better get ready to meet your new boss.”

Nerve didn’t reply. Stark, on the other hand, sighed loudly.

“Please tell me it’s not some SIN arsehole,” he said. “Because you can shoot me now.”

The words were glib, but there was something in his tone that was – again – strangely earnest.

“We’re not SIN,” Clark said. “But your questions will be answered by my CO when we get there.”

Blood Templar was scowling. “As long as we get to kill our enemies soon.”

Shayla laughed. “You need not fear, little girl. I suspect we will have enough killing to sate even your bloodlust soon.”

Clark felt the blood leave her face. The words were truthful enough – they were, after all, at war, and this group would no doubt be sent into dangerous missions. Yet… something about Shayla’s nonchalance was terrifying.

Man, Clark thought. I get all the shit jobs.

***

Earth’s Supernatural Protection (ESP) HQ, Bozeman, Montana.

The base was bustling – soldiers in black uniforms running to and fro, some heading to vehicles, more moving from the barracks building to the briefing hall. Clark had rarely seen ESP HQ this busy. But then again, she had rarely ever seen it at war.

It was a surreal feeling, leading the little group of misfits off of the plane and towards the main HQ building. Partly because she was acutely aware of the contrast between herself and her squad – all of them ESP’s finest – and the group of misfits they were escorting. Partly because she still wasn’t entirely used to ESP.

And partly, it had to be said, because everyone was staring at their group.

“Is that them?”

“Shit, they’re really doing it.”

“I didn’t think the brass would really go that far.”

“What the fuck is that thing?!”

The whispers – and sometimes the things louder than whispers – weren’t especially subtle. Not that Clark minded – she understood well enough that their group was unusual. As long as people did their job, she didn’t mind what they said.

“Fuck me,” someone exclaimed from behind her. “The Wolf’s leading Team Omega?!”

She almost didn’t mind. She forced herself to grit her teeth as more soldiers commented – all of them using that stupid callsign. She had never, ever, enjoyed being called Wolf.

Just ignore it, Clark. Just do your fucking job.

She kept walking, glancing behind her to make sure her charges were still following. Sure enough, none of them were dumb enough to have made a break for it. Stark looked… nervous, almost as though he was scared he was being led somewhere… unfortunate. Given his history, Clark couldn’t blame him. Nerve didn’t look much better – he looked more stoic than nervous, but she could tell that was a front.

They reached the building after a walk that felt like hours but was likely less than two minutes. The inside of the HQ building was about as dull and grey as they came, but Clark wasn’t really paying attention (beyond keeping her eyes on where she was going and occasionally making sure Troll was able to actually get through doors).

After a few minutes, the group reached a pair of double-doors labelled Briefing Room A.

“Wow,” Stark muttered. “This looks exciting.”

Clark gave him a dirty look, and he shrugged. She opened the door with a grunt, and stepped aside to let the misfits in first.

‘Briefing Room A’ was one of the largest in the entire HQ building, There were twelve rows of chairs sloping gently down like a lecture hall, in front of which was a large white projector screen. Standing in front of this at a podium was a man with short, black hair, clad in a black ESP officer’s uniform. Clark frowned – she had been expecting Munro, or maybe Strike or one of the other officers if Munro wasn’t available. She didn’t recognise this new man, but the uniform clearly meant he was important.

“This guy looks the shit,” Stark muttered.

“Das ist der Boss,” Steiner said. “You can tell, ja?”

“Quiet,” Nerve said. “All of you.”

Clark glanced over her shoulder at her troopers. None of them looked all that happy either – clearly none of them knew who this man was.

There was something very, very strange going on.

Stop worrying, Clark, she told herself. It’s not your job to question who the REMFs are. Just do what the bastard says when he says it. Same as always.

The thought was nowhere near as comforting as she wanted it to be.

“Hello, everyone,” the officer said when the various members of the group had finally sat down. “My name is Captain Daniel Romero. I’m your commanding officer for the duration of your secondment to ESP.” He grinned. “Welcome to Team Omega.”

Clark’s heart sank.

Daniel Romero, she thought. The man who’d run ESP when the first Team Omega had been slaughtered fighting the demon Malice, years ago.

Oh fuck, Clark thought. We’re so cooked.

***