No Master Plan Here (Madness Runs in the Family) (7 page)

             
Shaking off the morbid thinking and reminding herself that Anansi dealt mostly in cybernetics and electronics instead of biotechnology, she pressed on. That sort of thing really only happened in the movies anyways.

             
Unless you were in Florida. That was the Swamp Thing's main strategy.

             
Anansi paused at the next set of doors, playing with the panel beside those for a moment before the doors slid open as wide as the first had. He glanced back at the agents and smiled.

             
“You're lucky you're with me. Had you crossed that span by yourselves, you would have triggered every trap in the place.”

             
“You have traps in your entryway?” Denise asked, looking back down the seemingly featureless hallway. She knew they were there from when she used to come here before, but she had never seen them. Anansi had always conducted maintenance on them while she wasn't there, if he conducted maintenance on them at all.

             
“Yup. Real nasty stuff, too. Probably wouldn't have stopped Stone for long. Not sure about Spark. It can take out someone with up to Class three toughness, I think. Simulations say so.” He started walking through the space between the doors, whistling the tune to some pop-rock song from the nineties. The tune was familiar to Denise, but she couldn't quite place it.

             
“How do you know that?” Spark asked, drifting closer to Anansi so that she hovered over his shoulder. Anansi stopped abruptly. Denise nearly bumped into him as he did. She looked between Anansi and Spark. Anansi looked up at the shape of Sparks head, a vicious grin on his face as he stared at her for a long second. Spark backed up away from the villain, several bolts of electricity coursing across her body. Anansi turned away and started walking again, whistling the same tune he had been whistling before.

             
“He's creepy,” Spark said as he walked away. Denise shook her head and followed after the villain. “Reminds me of that Nefarious Zod we took down a few months ago. “I will destroy you all with my DEATH BEAM!”” Spark flailed her arms as she mimicked Nefarious Zod's voice perfectly. Denise chuckled and shook her head.

             
“Let's stay focused.”

             
“Yes, yes. Don't want your evil ex to bring out his death ray and kill us all.” Denise and Spark started forward again. Spark laughed, then abruptly stopped. “He doesn't have a death ray, does he?”

             
“He thinks death rays are too stereotypical for mad scientist, evil genius, world dominating supervillains like him. He prefers piranha guns.” Denise laughed and continued forward while Spark stopped and watched her, processing the comment. Spark flashed forward to hover beside Denise again.

             
“I can't tell if you're serious or not,” she said, more than a hint of worry in her tone. Denise smiled behind the visor of her helmet. Spark was fun to play tricks on.

             
The hallway they were in now was just as large as the previous one, maybe five yards tall and wide, but there were doors spaced along the walls every so often. The hall stretched for maybe three hundred yards before opening into a wide room. The center of the room was dominated by a raised circular platform, consoles and desks surrounding the platform. More hallways, each about three yards tall and two wide, branched off at each of the cardinal directions from the room. Anansi walked into the one on the left and through a door with a radiation hazard sign on it. Denise stopped at the door, looking in.

             
The room was filled with a mechanical device of some sort. Whatever it was, it was big, extending a good distance both above and below the floor they stood on. Anansi had pulled a second cable from his implant and plugged it into a port on the terminal at the base of the machine. The screen lit up and started streaming information in code faster than Denise could read it even if she knew how. She watched over his shoulder as he worked, waiting for something to happen.

             
Something did, indeed, happen.

             
Lights along the machine lit up in sequence, starting from the bottom and continuing to the top. Then the lights came on, illuminating the base with pale fluorescent bulbs. Screens in the main chamber began lighting up, diagnostics programs beginning start up procedures. The platform in the center of the room began to hum, a deep vibration that set Denise's teeth chattering.

             
Finally, a blue-green ball of light formed beside Anansi, resolving into the form of Kay. The AI stretched and looked around, appraising the situation. Spark and Stone stared at the hologram's sudden appearance with awe from their positions outside the reactor room.

             
Then the door slammed shut, sealing the other two agents outside behind a metal door. Anansi turned around and adjusted his glasses. “Kay, I think we need to talk with
Agent
Uso
alone.” Denise felt her heart stop.

-~-~-

              [Command Protocol: Initiate]

             
Anansi felt the base start coming to life through his link, machines waking up for the first time in years. Several spider drones activated first, moving from their containment area at the base of the reactor to return the fusion cores back into the reactor to give the base power again. The lights began cascading up the reactor until it came fully to life. Then the terminals in the teleporter room, and the teleporter room itself. Everything running just as smoothly as the day he had shut the base down, for the most part. All the data was gone from everything, and the teleporter would require some work to get operational. No big deal.

             
[Long time, no see, darling.]

             
Information flooded Anansi's neural link and glasses, emotion, locational data of research pods from Sanctuary, and the sense of rightness as his mind found Kay's again. He passed along all the data he had recorded during his time on the SHIP submarine and on his current situation. Kay dug through the contract he had signed and found it to be acceptable. It looked solid from a legal standpoint, though she would have to cross-reference other similar cases to be certain about that. She brought up the base scanners when they came online to assist with the analysis of the SHIP agents. A camera feed from the one watching the door tagged the two there as Stone and Spark, a subnote with their actual names, and a second with their powers and suspected levels.

             
[Red Flag: Banned user in base. Action?]

             
A second camera feed dominated Anansi's vision, one watching him and Mantis. It stated that based on collected information, that Mantis, or Uso, which was Japanese for “lie,” matched readings taken from Ghost with a 93 percent chance of accuracy.

             
[Recommendation: Dispose of the agents. Based on news sites, there has been no coverage of any attacks on any high level facilities for research on chemicals, diseases, or weapons. While this matches with their story, it also matches with nothing being wrong. Despite all indications that they are playing truly, their mission could very well be access to your technology, which is still beyond anything on the open market or available to the American government, and if this facility is captured, the reactor alone would be a massive loss.]

             
[Seal the reactor. Give me a minute to talk to our Liar.]

             
[She can still kill you, based on her armaments. Chance of survival if we engage in current state is 23%.]

             
[Manifest, seal the reactor.] Anansi broke the mental conversation as Kay manifested her holographic form beside him. He heard the door hiss shut behind him and turned to face Mantis, Ghost, whoever she was. “Kay, I think we need to talk to
Agent Uso
alone.”

             
Anansi watched as Mantis's vital reading skyrocketed, pulse quickening, muscle mass increasing. Her hands twitched, the submachine gun raising ever so slightly. Anansi leaned against the railing behind him, watching her squirm. Kay stood beside him, clutching her holographic datapad and looking nervous.

             
“So, do I call you Uso, Mantis, or Ghost?”

             
“Mantis is my official codename. Ghost was a cover. Uso isn't really my name, as you probably already figured out. It's actually Denise. Denise Sanders.” Mantis scuffed a boot on the floor, hanging her head. She took off her helmet, revealing not the face of Uso but of Ghost. Anansi crossed his arms, ignoring the pounding on the door, and wondered if that was her real face. He looked at Mantis. At Ghost. At the woman he had loved, and maybe still loved. At the woman who had nearly killed him.

Chapter 7

             
February 1, 2012

              [LilRed enters chat.]

             
[Users online: KT3.141592653.]

             
[LilRed: Hey Kay, you wanted to talk to me?]

             
[KT3.141592653: Yes. Your brother is moping around his lab and I am not sure what to do to cheer him up.]

             
[LilRed: Jakey is being all whiny about Tommy getting married, isn't he?]

             
[KT3.141592653: It started shortly after he received the announcement, so it seems a logical conclusion. Do you have any recommendations?]

             
[LilRed: Hmm...]

             
[LilRed: Have you tried bacon? Or maybe fire and explosions. That seems to cheer him up a lot. :D]

             
[KT3.141592653: I have not, but that strikes me as a temporary solution to an underlying problem.]

             
[LilRed: Like him having been single for the last year or so? OMG. I remember his last girlfriend. You weren't around yet, I think.]

             
[KT3.141592653: I was, but his neural link with me was not, so I was confined to the lab. I have heard stories.]

             
[LilRed: Stories don't do her justice. She was cray-cray. Super loopy, in ways that aren't even cool. The final straw was when she told him to choose us or her.]

             
[KT3.141592653: Which was what showed her idiocy.]

             
[LilRed: Totes. Know what would be awesome?]

             
[KT3.141592653: What?]

             
[LilRed: We should find him a girlfriend.]

             
[KT3.141592653: …]

             
[LilRed: :D]

             
[KT3.141592653: How? He hasn't left the lab in three days, and the only reason he left was to restock on food. He only associates with people on the net, and refuses to let himself get involved with a distance relationship. He is incredibly antisocial, and simultaneously desires human contact.]

             
[LilRed: Yeah. He's a weirdo.]

             
[LilRed: Ooh! I've got an idea!]

             
[KT3.141592653: ?]

             
[LilRed: We can make him a dating profile on some website and find him a date, then you can get him out of the lab for some excuse and get him to meet whoever we find.]

             
[LilRed: It'll be awesome! It can't fail, with you and me working together! Muahahaaaa!]

             
[KT3.141592653: I am skeptical, but knowing your family as I do, it sounds just crazy enough to work.]

             
[LilRed: C'mon, Kay! Lighten up! It'll totes work.]

             
[KT3.141592653: If I didn't think it had a chance of success, I wouldn't agree to participate.]

             
[LilRed: That's the spirit. Which site do we use?]

             
[KT3.141592653: Why not Matchmakers. They claim a high rate of success.]

             
[LilRed: Too normal. SupersHookup might work, though I think that's just a sex site.]

             
[KT3.141592653: It is.]

             
[LilRed: Eww...Uh...Let's stick with Matchmakers, then, but make the profile for his alter-ego so it brings out the type that might be able to deal with dating a supervillain.]

             
[KT3.141592653: That could bring law enforcement.]

             
[LilRed: Do you really think the NSA or whatever is watching dating sites?]

             
[KT3.141592653: Yes.]

             
[LilRed: So you can figure out if they are spies from talking to them. You're smart.]