Chapter 184 – Meeting
At precisely the time I set in the letter, Web Mistress brought us to the Syracuse Development Association’s office, into the room where all four of the individuals involved were standing. As the scream of dial-up internet faded, I looked at them, and saw expressions of surprise, but not fear, or outrage. No one going for weapons, which meant they had already figured out that I wasn’t coming here for a fight. Good.
I nodded to them, my tone even as I spoke. “Gentlemen, and lady, thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
The woman, who was known as Doc, chuckled. “You say that like we could have refused.”
“That choice was always available to you. But as a doctor, you, of all people, should understand that choices have consequences. If you’d chosen not to meet, or to try and attack, then that would have made a pleasant conversation into a more adversarial one, which serves neither of our interests.”
The Tactician cleared his throat, and said, “I believe we are all aware at how an adversarial ‘conversation’ with you would be bad for our interests, not even counting Web Mistress, here, or the other individuals you can call upon. But saying that it would be against your interests, as well, suggests that there is something you wish of us? A local perspective on things, from what you’ve called ‘reasonable villains’?”
I smiled behind my mask. “Indeed. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, there is only so much information that you can gather online, especially when dealing with closed networks and groups who are understandably paranoid about information leaks. And while I will be the first to say that the view from above is essential to seeing the big picture, I still remember my early days, and how the street-level view can change everything, letting you see things that don’t show up on satellite images.”
The Agent stroked his chin, and said, “So, would this be about Stepford’s old factory, which Globalview recently purchased? We were talking, and, frankly, Syracuse is below your pay grade. Even if you take the entire metro area, that’s only 650k people, give or take, and that’s still a full million less than Manhattan alone. So, whatever brings you out here, has to be something that changed the tone, and the only thing that’s really changed in the area since before the aliens invaded is Globalview.”
“Yes, Globalview is the reason we’re here. And, to give you an idea of the playing field, I will say that we were contracted for this job, by the Knights.”
That struck a chord in the room, as I expected. The Tactician was the first to break out of his shock, his mind clearly already turning to analysis. “The New York Knights contacted you directly, and asked you to look into this. Meaning something about Globalview drew the Knights’ attention, but it wasn’t something that they could legally act on, as they are state-sponsored heroes. However, if a supervillain attacked, and uncovered something, then that would allow the Knights to investigate, or even respond openly against the target.”
The Agent frowned. “My sources are strictly local, so they haven’t heard anything about Globalview’s connections, but the way they’ve acted makes it obvious that they are connected. When we got your message, I put the word out for the locals to stay clear of Globalview for the time being. At least until we figured out more about them. Doc’s already treated a couple of the locals after they went to check on the site, and discovered that the security system included turrets with lethal ordinance, even though the place isn’t even open, yet.”
I turned my attention to Doc. “What type of weapons did the turrets use, and what kind of damage did they do?”
Doc grunted. “Nothing too exotic on the weapon front. High-powered rifles. Not rapid-fire, but powerful. The round had an explosive payload, which caused massive internal damage after penetrating the body. Punched a hole in the guy who got hit, like shooting an apple with a pistol, and took a good chunk of his spine, with it. If he didn’t have a low-level regeneration power, he’d have been dead long before he got to my clinic. Thanks to me, he’s walking again, though I expect he’s going to need some therapy before he is good for the field.”
I nodded slowly. “Sounds like a design made to take down supers, who have higher defenses than normal individuals, rather than general security. Lethal response aside, they would have put something with the Autofire advantage on the turret instead of a high-powered explosive penetrator. That setup says that they built the system expecting more than street-level types to take them on. Which pretty much confirms the Knights’ suspicions about Globalview’s backers.”
The Agent frowned. “So, they have connections, like I figured. Haven’t been able to figure out who they’re connected to, though. Obviously, none of the syndicates, and they don’t behave like a supervillain. Heroes wouldn’t go straight to lethal force on their security systems. So, who does that leave? Some new player that is trying to build a base?”
“Not quite,” Web Mistress chimed in. “More like an old player looking to rebuild after some serious setbacks. The Superhuman Defense Initiative took major damage thanks to the Gel-Nak invasion. From what information I’ve been able to gather, they took major casualties in Paris, Warsaw, and New Delhi, their London and Moscow headquarters were wiped out completely, they were forced to abandon and destroy their Houston headquarters, and the Rio di Janeiro headquarters defected, with the entire base and all its files being captured.”
The Cleaner whistled softly. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch, but damn, that’s one hell of a beating.”
“Indeed,” she continued. “However, that is just the direct losses. There is also a lot less political and financial will favoring their work. Part of that is due to the financing of the UN Space Command, and the fact that most supers are an active liability in space combat, save for the few like Stolen Victory who are able to not only fly independently, but also have the power to at least damage enemy ships. The other part is that, when it came out what the Gel-Nak were going to do to humanity, well, some ‘uncomfortable parallels’ were drawn between them and the SDI’s rhetoric.”
The Tactician nodded. “Eugenics always sounds a lot nicer when it is talking about someone else, in a theoretical sense. When you suddenly have someone talking about it for you and yours, well, that concentrates a few minds.” He sighed, and continued, “Though I doubt that it will be a permanent change. Especially since the Gel-Nak are defeated, to the point that their empire is dead and all Gel-Nak are now Gelnath.”
“We try not to do things in half-measures,” I chuckled. “But the way supers, from the big names all the way to local players like you all, behaved during the invasion, and after, were another mark against the SDI’s ideology. Seeing heroes and villains fighting side-by-side to take down the invaders, and having villains basically all go on hiatus, more or less, during the crisis, and the rebuilding phase? That ran counter to the SDI saying that they were necessary to take down rogue supers.”
The Cleaner nodded. “So, bringing this back around to Globalview, and the factory they’ve started moving in to, what is the connection to the SDI, and what are you planning?”
Web Mistress said, “The connection is that Globalview is a shell company in the same portfolio of shell companies that included the owners of the Houston base. The ownership records are actually circular in some parts of that portfolio, which is just purposefully designed to tie up regulators and hide their tracks. For instance, Company A being owned by Company B, which is owned by Company C, which is a division of Company D, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Company A. That kind of thing makes it hard for anyone to legally say who is in charge, and where the money trail stops.”
The Tactician nods appreciatively. “Of course, that only works so long as no other shareholders or those who might have appropriate standing open up cases, and no government agencies begin investigating. But those are both easily handled by anyone with SDI’s connections and financing. Which is why the Knights asked for some villainous help in getting evidence that they could not otherwise obtain, something that could be used to go after the SDI itself.”
“Indeed,” I said. “The Knights believe that the SDI is going to be planning something. They’re most concerned about direct action of some sort. A false-flag attack aimed to stir up tensions, or something similar. The SDI has worked to make all their operational networks stand-alone after the last time they tangled with Web Mistress in Tokyo, so any networks accessible from the outside only have useless data. Field units are no longer getting data uploads from SDI databases, for instance, and external communications are wholly separate from internal servers.”
The Agent’s eyes narrowed. “That makes it sound like you think they’re going to be up to something else.”
“Good catch,” I admitted. “The Knights are thinking in terms of terrorist groups, where they need to have accolades to their name to keep people believing in the cause, and keep supporting them. And, to be fair, there’s elements of that, too. However, I’m more worried about them going and being more like one of the three-letter spy agencies, and setting up eight or twenty long-term plans, that are simple at the start, but can snowball into something cataclysmic, the longer people are unaware of what is going on. Not bioweapons, because they aren’t stupid enough to pull that so soon after the Gel-Nak threatened to use bioweapons on Earth, but you can do a lot of damage with people in the right places, and it won’t even look like an accident, much less malice.”
Doc was the one who understood first. “Like getting people on the boards that review medical research, and decide what gets published, and what doesn’t. Or even getting people into teaching, to nudge the next generation along, reinforcing stereotypes, like how a lot of doctors still believe black people have higher pain tolerances, so don’t need anesthesia for things, and any pains they do have are discounted, especially when seeing white doctors.” Given the venom in her voice, it was clear that she had strong feelings about that, which is probably what made her such a good doctor. And also probably why she was working at a Syracuse clinic, rather than a hospital, with actual resources.
“That’s the shape of it, yes,” I admitted. “Or like how the Israelis put a bunch of women on long-lasting birth control through coercion or lack of informed consent, back in the 90s and into the 2010s, all because those women were not the right kind of Jew. Couldn’t have dark-skinned people ruining the pasty complexion of the state, after all. Applying the same, or worse, to those with superhuman genetics is something I could see them doing.”
I took a breath, and then let it out slow. “But as for why we’re here, with you, part of it was to ask you to do what you’ve already done, and ensure that the locals didn’t do anything to rile Globalview up until after I’ve checked things out. Smart play on your part, which brings up the other reason we’re out here. You lot have gotten a reputation for being ‘reasonable villains’, and teaching the locals to follow in that same path. Part of the reason the New York Knights have only ever needed to station three second-stringers in the area is because of how you’ve made certain that the supers never made themselves a problem that needed to be solved, while still going about their business. I respect that kind of work, and I wanted to see if there was any support you might need, to keep it going.”
The Cleaner chuckled. “My work is pretty simple. Just keep me in mind for any clean-up work in this area.”
The Agent and the Technician both shook their heads. Other than basic information-sharing agreements, or a heads-up when bigger issues were in play, the only thing they could use were training supplies for assets, and they had regular suppliers for that kind of thing. Suppliers who gave them discounts because they then went on to supply the people the Association trained.
Doc, however, immediately came up with a list of medical equipment, supplies, and pharmaceuticals. Her powers mostly involved closing holes in people, but she didn’t have painkiller powers, disease curing or antidote powers, or things like that. Plus, having backups in case something happened to her powers, or someone proved to be allergic to her healing was important. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the doctor was always thinking about what more her clinic could use to combat the next potential mass casualty event that might walk through her doors.
I glanced at Web Mistress, and she just nodded. Looking back at Doc, I grinned. “I expect you’ll have most of your list delivered before long. Resupplies may need different arrangements, since there’s a limit to how much can get ‘misplaced’ before people start asking questions.”