TCR 50) The Plan
It’s pretty easy to be poker faced inside of a corpse.
I looked at Shrike, who was looking back at me. Behind her was the white feathered head of her younger brother who as best anyone could tell was called Heron, a Transporter 4, and a large muscular man with red and yellow feathers on his head and forearms. Phoenix, the second born of the seven siblings created by Dr Talon, as well as a Fire Former 3 with a side helping of Brute 2.
Turning from the faintly curious look from Shrike, I looked back at Falco who was smirking across the table at Dr Talon's "children."
As Sleazy walked in the door behind me, I crossed my arms and just stared straight forward. “I don’t know what the subtext is here, but I signed on to do a job. So I’m going to stand here in the middle until you two are done with your staredown.”
Shrike laughed as Falco gave me a dirty look. Then he leaned forward. “No subtext, we’re all on the same side here, so let me tell you all about the job.”
He tapped on the table, and an image appeared on the surface as well as each of the three walls aside from the one I had come in by. I guess the door in the middle of an image would have looked off.
All four images were of the Moon.
Falco stood up and walked around to the opposite side of the table from me with his hands in his pocket. “This little job is something new for all of us. An off world heist.”
Tapping the table in front of him again, the images changed to show a set of doors built into the cliff side of what I guessed was a large crater. A tower built halfway into the same cliff stood a good dozen stories above the large set of thick metal doors.
My new employer turned and held his hand out as if to embrace the picture of the base. "This is Fort Ares, the US Space Forces restricted Moon base. And so much more. If you could take it from here Shrike?”
The eldest of the Talons leaned back in her chair. “Ares is where the feds like to keep the Genius tech they get a hold of and want to study, or at least lock away.” She made finger quotes. “So their “Top Men” can figure out how they work.”
She crossed her legs, "What is important though is how many important people have been getting teleported to a remote habitat outside their base and then carted into Ares, before coming back out in better health. My people put together that several healers from all branches of the military have been doing tours of duty up there, shortly after receiving a higher security clearance.”
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Leaning forward, she set her feet on the ground and pressed her fingertips together, “None of those healers were ranked highly enough to do the rejuvenations or micro repair work that the various senators, their family members, and their contributors have been receiving.”
“That got me curious enough to have my sister Ibis peep in on some of their heads. Every one of them had their entire three month tour at Ares wiped from their minds. Again something no known government employee is highly ranked enough to do.”
She stood up to tap her finger in the middle of the picture of the base in the middle of the table, causing all the images to switch to an overhead picture of the area around the base. Which I could now see was on one side of an area labeled Mare Imbrium.
Shrike gave the table an irritated look, then glared at Falco, who in turn shrugged. I'm guessing the change of image wasn't planned.
She cleared her throat. “From everyone I’ve consulted, our best guess is that the Feds have a power booster.”
I pulled out a chair and sat down, before giving her a nod indicating she still had my full attention.
The purpose of this was to keep Samantha’s body from taking a nose dive while I shared this information with the team from my own lips.
This is huge.
A power booster could turn the low ranking Supers willing to work with the government up to fighting evenly with the first gen Rank 5s that made up the Circle which gave the Supers their own independent safe haven in Concentric City.
It could empower renegades like Shrike, Falco, and others to the level where they could rampage or try for a power grab, either in Concentric City or to grab their own country somewhere, or anything else they might be inspired to try.
Worst, if a power booster existed, the Circle could not let it exist without grabbing it for themselves, something that would topple the balance of power between the individually high powered Supers and the world governments. Tip it badly enough to make people with access to nukes try for a first strike.
And if I shared this information with Shimmer and the rest of the team, who knows who could be listening in at the base, or who they would tell it too?
Falco interrupted my inward spiral of panic. "Even if there isn't a booster, there are plenty of other toys we can grab a hold of up there. And the anti teleport field is not only triple backed up, but like most places is set up so it would take hours to shut it down so a single person bribed or programmed by a mind twister can't bypass it."
“So here’s the plan.”
He pointed at Heron. "Step one. We teleport in wearing some spacesuits I've managed to refurbish."
Snapping his finger as Buzz, he continued. “Step two. Buzz take control of the sensors while we walk up on the back of the base.”
He nodded at the sleazy guy, "Step three Teamster unload the sonic tunneler and we make our way to an interior wall, where Pyrope makes a hole through the interior wall.” He gave me a grin.
Spinning around he gave the woman sitting on his end of the table double finger guns, “Step four, we get a hold of someone and ask them some questions while Polygraph confirms they are answering honestly.
He flopped down in his chair. “Step five, we improvise.”
Spinning his chair around in a circle, he came around to face us again with a grin as he set his fists on the table in front of him, the images all around changing to show a bank vault overflowing with gold bars and pallets of cash spilling out on the floor. “Step six, profit.”
I leaned back in my chair. “And when does this go down?”
He winked. “Right now. Heron?”
The younger man closed his eyes for a moment as an intense white light began to flow out from behind him, then advanced across the room towards me.
Then I was elsewhere.