New Age of Heroes 1: The League of Protectors - Dawn of a New Age (15 page)

The
first thing the President noticed about Bianca was her very small
stature. She couldn't have been any taller than five feet and looked
as if she weighed less than one hundred pounds. She was healthy
though; she didn't have the thin physique someone battling anorexia
might have, or the physique of someone who was terminally ill. No,
Bianca Ramirez was simply a fiery fit little woman with a very small
frame.

“
Mr.
Connors, why are you here? I have a very busy day ahead of me and
this whatever it is you call yourself doing has just made my day
longer. My men could've killed you. Do you realize how foolish it was
of you to come in here like this?”

Mr.
Connors understood. To speed things along, he got right to it and
reached inside his pocket. The next thing he heard was the clicking
sound of several guns. He looked up and saw the servicemen aiming
their weapons at his head.

“
Sir,
maybe you want to move a little slower,” Bianca suggested.

“
Noted,”
Mr. Connors replied.

Slowly
Mr. Connors reached inside his pocket and pulled out a flash drive.
He held the flash drive in front of him so the men could see it. He
then extended his hand for the President to take the drive from him.
One of the President’s men moved closer and
pulled out a device. The device was able to detect if there was any
sort of radiation or anything that could bring harm to the president
upon touch.

There was a small
light on the inside of the device. The light bounced around from side
to side before stopping and holding green. The green light indicated
that the flash drive Mr. Connors had in his possession was clean. Mr.
Connors noticed there was a symbol on the right side of the device
the servicemen had in his possession. On the side of device was the
symbol of Shaw Enterprises. Mr. Connors couldn’t help but to
find the humor in that.
He
adjusted the professional looking glasses sitting on the brim of his
nose and held the flash drive out for the president to take. The
president hesitantly took the drive.

“
What
is this?”

“This Mr.
President is a file containing a much more accurate description of
all the Post Humans you and G.U.A.R.D have on record. It also
contains a list of thousands more Post Humans your agency have yet to
discover.”

The president
suspiciously looked Mr. Connors over. “Tell me Mr. Connors, why
am I just now receiving this? I thought there was a level of
cooperation between our two sides.”

Mr. Connors looked
around the room. He could see the uneasy looks on everyone’s
faces. Whatever little trust the government had in Post Humans, it
would be hard pressed to get it back now.

“Mr.
Connors?”

“After Mr.
Blake got the power back up at the facility he sent me G.U.A.R.D's
database. It quickly became apparent that someone has been misleading
you for months. Someone has been monitoring your systems. There has
been plenty of occasions where new data from our systems have been
erased from yours.” Mr. Connors said.

“That someone
is you! You have been purposely sending us information and then
having your tech freak erase it on our end before we can see it.
Makes perfect sense!” Vice President Martin shouted pointing
his finger at Mr. Connors.

The President gave
the Vice President a stern look and instructed him to sit back down.

“Why should I
believe you?” the President asked.

“
I
suspected you wouldn’t, I also suspected Bianca and I would be
denied access here that is why we came to you in such a drastic
manner. What I have to show you, you need to see.” Mr. Connors
pointed to the flash drive in the President’s hand.
“Please
take a look.”

The President
rubbed his face. He was clearly stressed. The unfolding events would
have lasting effects regardless of who was to blame. The President
looked over to one of his aides and instructed her to bring in a tech
expert. He didn’t want to take any chances. Even though the
flash drive was cleared of radiation or any other harmful substances
that still didn’t mean the flash drive was safe. For all he
knew, the flash drive could upload some virus that would cripple the
entire network. Or perhaps the flash drives would stealthily copy
secure data.

The
way technology worked nowadays, anything was possible. The President
wanted to make sure he had every aspect of the flash drive checked
before uploading it to the system.

Chris Koft, the
White House Chief Security manager returned minutes later after being
summoned by the President. He had that stereotypical nerdy look about
him. His hair was shaggy; he wore glasses, and had a signature
awkward walk.

The technician set
up his laptop on the desk and began running diagnostics of the
program embedded on the disc. If there was a virus or something like
that on the file, Chris would certainly catch it.

Vice President
Martin continued looking at Mr. Connors suspiciously. As far as
anyone knew, Mr. Connors could be a Post Human himself masquerading
as a human to earn the humans' trust. The Vice President just
couldn’t understand why a human had such trust in Post Humans.
Several times the Vice President had background checks run on Mr.
Connors. He was never able to find any evidence that indicated that
Mr. Connors shared the Post Human gene. That wouldn’t stop the
Vice President though. He was determined to find out all he could
about Mr. Connors. He was determined to prove that Mr. Connors
himself was a Post Human.

“How do we
know that you aren’t a Post Human yourself?” The Vice
President suddenly blurted out.

Chris Koft stopped
what he was doing and looked up at the Vice President. All eyes
shifted between the Vice President and Mr. Connors.

Mr. Connors
understood that nothing he said was going to gain the Vice
President's trust. He knew that fear and lack of understanding was
driving the mistrust that the Vice President had. In fact, fear and
lack of understanding was driving the mistrust that all the humans
had.

“Well? What
do you have to say for yourself?” the Vice President asked.

Mr. Connors didn’t
respond right away as he assumed the President would shut Vice
President Martin up, but that wasn’t the case. It seemed that
the President didn’t mind the question at all. It was as if he
wanted an answer himself.

“You see
that? He won’t even answer me. He’s guilty!” the
Vice President shouted. Mr. Connors was taken aback by the
accusations.

“
Guilty?
Of what crime am I guilty of? I did not know it was a crime to be a
Post Human. Is that the case Mr. President? Is that the next step
here? Being a Post Human makes you guilty of some crime?”

The
President gave Vice President Martin a stern look. He was ok with the
questioning the Vice President had until the word “guilty”
was thrown in the mix.

“Of course
not Mr. Connors, Vice President Martin used a poor choice of words
there. However he does have a valid question that you have neglected
to answer. Are you indeed a Post Human?”

Mr. Connors looked
around the room. All eyes were staring at him intensely. He wondered
what their reaction would be if he said that he was.

“No Mr.
President, I am not a Post Human. I’ve simply dedicated my life
to understand them and the way in which their abilities work. My goal
is to bring about a peace between the two sides. I have no favorites
or ulterior motives. I simply want to play my part in ensuring
peace.”

The President
nodded, he seemed satisfied with Mr. Connors' answer. The Vice
President, however, was not.

“The flash
drive is clean Mr. President and ready to be viewed whenever you are
ready.” Chris Koft said.

15

Our
Files Are Better Than Yours

The
President’s men remained standing keeping a close eye on the
two intruders. Some of his men repositioned themselves so that they
were closer to their targets. The President didn’t like how
close they were but he understood they were just doing their job.

“I certainly
hope you aren’t wasting my time Mr. Connors. This would be a
very unfortunate situation if what's on this flash drive isn't of
great importance,” the President said.

With everything
that had transpired at the island prison, the last thing the
President needed was any sort of distraction. Mr. Connors assured him
that he wouldn’t be disappointed. “May I?” Mr.
Connors asked pointing towards the laptop in front of him. The
President nodded giving Mr. Connors the go ahead.

Mr. Connors began
crunching numbers on the laptop bypassing several files in search of
a specific title.

Chris Koft kept a
close eye on Mr. Connors movements. Chris would throw up the red flag
if Mr. Connors gave any indication he was doing something shady.

“Ah yes here
we go,” Mr. Connors said flashing a bright smile. The middle
age man adjusted his glasses and pressed enter on the laptop. He slid
the laptop over to the President and waited for his reaction.

“Unbelievable!”
the President was genuinely surprised. In front of him for his
viewing pleasure were thousands of files of Post Humans. Those
numbers far exceeded what G.U.A.R.D had in their database.

The
President slid the laptop towards Chris Koft.

“
How
is it possible this many entries could've been deleted from our
system without our knowledge?” The President asked.

Chris
Koft did not have an answer.
The Vice President wanted
to take a look at the files but he knew better than to just walk over
there and take a look. He knew he needed to wait until the President
gave him permission.

“How accurate
are these files Mr. Connors?” the President asked.

Mr. Connors had an
amusing look on his face. His files were very accurate. Vice
President Martin was on the edge of his seat chomping at the bits
trying to get a view. He did not like being left out of the loop. He
wanted to know what was going on, when it was going on, how it was
going on, and he wanted to know right away.

“Let me take
a look at those files!” Vice President Martin said as he was no
longer able to resist the urge to stay put. The Vice President got
out of his chair and walked towards the President to see what it was
that the President was looking at.

“Sit down
Hal!” the President ordered emphatically as Vice President
Martin neared him. Begrudgingly, the Vice President did as he was
told.

He sat there stone
faced, extremely embarrassed to be put in his place in front of all
those people. It was as if he was just scolded by his mother in front
of all of his friends. That was how he felt.

“Mr. Koft, if
you would be so kind as to check the transfer file dates.”

Chris Koft looked
towards the President. President Mitchell nodded. He read the
transfer dates out loud. All the transfers were sent to G.U.A.R.D's
and the white house's database just as Mr. Connors said.

Chris then checked
to see if the original documents had been edited or changed. There
was no sign of any tampering done by anyone on the League's side.

“Mr.
President, I believe this man is telling the truth. These files have
constantly been updated and uploaded to our databases. If tampering
occurred, it didn't occur from their end.

The President was
glad to hear that The League was not responsible for the breakout or
the tampered-with files.

Now his concern was
about the breach on G.U.A.R.D’s end. They’re suppose to
be the number one defense against Post Humans. If they were
compromised there was no telling what intel their enemies had.

“Contact
G.U.A.R.D headquarters and get me in contact with Commander Sullivan
right away. Also, make sure Mr. Blake and Mr. Shaw remain at the
facility until they find the source of the breach,” The
President said.

Chris nodded, stood
up and left the room.

Mr. Connors had
more information to share. He looked towards the projector and asked
if he could have it turned on. The President approved Mr. Connor’s
request and had the screen turned on for everyone to see. Mr. Connors
flipped through several files looking for a particular name.

“Here we go,”
he said. The file came into view for everyone in the room to see.

“Who is
that?” the President asked.

“Mr.
President, this man here is named Kyle Stanton,” Mr. Connors
replied respectfully. He spent the next several minutes giving the
room a quick review as to who exactly Kyle Stanton was.

“Mr. Stanton
here is a very dangerous man skilled in many forms of combat. He is a
Post Human who seems to be operating as a mercenary these days. From
the intel I've gathered on him, he'll pretty much do any job as long
as the money is right. His ability allows him to take on the
appearance of anyone he comes into contact with.”

The cabinet did not
like the sound of that.

“Take on the
appearance of others? You mean like a shape shifter?” Bruce
asked.

Mr. Connors turned
around to acknowledge Bruce, “That’s correct.” It
wasn't lost on Mr. Connors that the servicemen still had their
weapons drawn on him and Bianca.

“Mr. Stanton
here can also mimic the voice of anyone he comes into contact with.
These abilities make him the perfect spy. He could be anyone at
anytime and it would be almost impossible to tell the difference.”

Vice President
Martin had a concerned look on his face. He suggested making Kyle
Stanton one of G.U.A.R.D’s top priorities. The President
insisted on letting Mr. Connors finish his report.