Isiah sat on the motel room's bed, wondering idly what kind of Jackson Pollock nastiness a blacklight would reveal that he was sitting on. It was a cheapass dump. The kind of place with the motto, 'don't ask, don't tell'. Even so, the owner had looked slightly relieved when they'd taken him aside quietly and explained their reason for being here, and that they would deal with the resident of room eleven. If he had been relieved then, he had nearly started sobbing with it when they told him that all he had to do was make sure he was working in the back, out of sight, out of mind, when the guy came back.
So here he was, ready for the gentle approach. They had been given permission to use lethal force, but their orders hadn't stated to bring the target in dead, either, so of course there was the unstated point that if he could be brought in alive, then he should be.
But yes, two field operatives with a good amount of training and experience in permanent threat elimination was of course the response and secondary implication to an unregistered Meta-Human for which genetic evidence had been discovered in association with three murders in San Francisco, and five more dotted across truck stops and gas stations around the state. The victims had been mostly young women. A couple were high school or college students, where a couple more were strippers or prostitutes. On top of that though, there had been one trucker and two homeless people found that matched the M.O. of the women.
They seemed mundane on the surface. Slashes to the face and neck, particularly the throat, with a few shallow puncture wounds. There was plenty of knife crime in big cities like this, although gun crime was still prevalent. And although the slashing was haphazard and senseless, obviously foxes and wolves sometimes wandered into cities like this.
But only the trucker and the hobos showed lethal cuts to the throat, and the women showed signs of sexual abuse. And when the wounds were examined more closely, traces of neurotoxin were found in the flesh, and when examined, the blood. Eventually, CCTV footage had been found, making it easy for them to put a face to the artist's work. And then a name. The guy was on the police system, complete with I.D. photos. He'd been brought in on a few prior minors, it seemed.
So yes, the implication of putting this sick puppy the fuck down was also being made. But Isiah would go through the motions first. He glanced at the drawn blinds holding back the sun. They didn't want the guy catching a look at him through the window.
Lifting his lapel, he spoke. "Anything yet, Violet?"
"Nothing yet."
Viola lightly tapped at the tiny microphone strapped to her lapel and stifling a yawn. The heat was starting to get to her, cooped up in the sweltering walls of their company issue car. Too bad she couldn't risk rolling a window down. The car was parked across the parking lot from the room Isiah was waiting in, for apearances sake.
She gave a cursory once over of her pistol and some of the other gear they'd brought along. Unlike her partner she required a little extra hand now and then.
"Could be he's changed where he's camping out tonight. MO seems to suggest he doesn't stay any longer than - oh... oh scratch that. We may have a bite."
She perked up slightly as a lone caucasian male made his way along the motel front. He didn't look in great condition. Clothes in disarray, moderatly uncomfortable body language- that part may have been a side effect of their meta-ability. Some weren't so lucky as the metas with tabloid friendly powers. He turned towards her car as he made for his room, giving Violet a clear view of him in the mirror. Face definatly matched the ID photos. A few days without shaving but it was their guy.
"You've got inbound."
"alright, thanks," replied Isiah. Unthumbing his mic, he looked towards the door, remaining sat on the bed.
"Show time..."
About a minute later, the door opened. The man looked at him. Isiah looked at the man.
"Who the f-fuck are you?"
Isiah observed the man's twitchy gait. He was definitely on something. "Sir, I was wondering if we could have a talk," he said politely.
"Why the fuck are you here?! Wh-who the fuck are you?"
"My name is Agent Freeman," he replied. "I'm with the MHRB. I just wanna talk."
"No, no, no, no..." the man muttered, backing up against the door, shutting it firmly.
"I just want to talk," Isiah repeated firmly, though his tone made it clear that it would take very little for him to do more than that. He found it hard to hold his patience with scum sucking shit heads like the man in front of him.
"Fuck you, I ain't dumb enough to fall for that!" snapped the man in a sudden burst of defiance.
"I've been ordered to let you know, mister..." he thought back to the police file. "Ryan Chambers, that you are currently suspected to be responsible for murdering several people across the state of California. However, given your classification as a Meta-Human, which was previously un-fuckin'-registered by the way, you are to be taken into our custody."
"Fuck you, they send you to fucking kill me!"
Isiah's patience broke there. "*****, if I wanted to kill you, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Shut the fuck up and let me cuff you, 'cause three meals a day, a cot, and a pot to piss in is better than what I been told to do to you if you gimme any shit." He was standing now, towering over the other man by nearly half a foot.
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" Yelled the other man. His nails, abnormally thick, yellowed and pointed, extended by a good two inches with a dull 'thuk'. Lunging forward, he lashed out at Isiah's face. But for all his manic speed, he telegraphed the blow like the undisciplined moron he was. Isiah caught his wrist in an iron grip, the hand inches from his face.
"Make this easy on your dumbass self, Ryan," he said.
"GET THE FUCK OFF ME!" Ryan screeched, slashing at Isiah's chest with his free hand. Isiah let it land. The man's claws shredded his tie and cut his shirt to ribbons. Buttons fell to the ground, and the shirt fell open, revealing a rough, speckled pale surface of pure granite. Ryan yowled in pain, pulling away from Isiah, and clutching his left hand. Two of the claws had broken on Isiah's chest. Predictably, the man turned and ran, ripping open the door with his uninjured hand. Isiah let him go.
"Coming your way," he said into the mic, before taking a plastic bag from his inside pocket and stooping to pick up any broken shards of claw he could find.
"On it."
Violet grunted slightly as she grabbed up her gear and struggled her way out of the car. Blasted heat had made the seat all sticky. Didn't it know she had a proffetional image to maintain?
Mr Chambers was making a full on break for it, subtelty be damned. What was up with his hands too? No way Isiah had done that to him, they weren't like that before, must have been a part of his ability. Best keep her distance, give herself more room to manouver. Just in case.
"MHRB, freeze!" She yelled, levelling her stun launcher at him.
He didn't freeze. No one ever did.
She lowered her aim just slightly to allow for distance and drop before squeezing the trigger. The launcher gave out a high pitched wine followed by a gassy hiss and a click as it fired off. The large black disk shot out like a discuss and a black lash extended from each side, whipping out in a dark blurr towards Chambers like some vengeful spider monster.
The bola wrapped itself around her target's legs and brought him down quick and heavy. He twitched and spasmed on the floor for a few seconds as the electrified binds did their work. Violet could here the low crackle from where she was standing.
"Target is bagged. I repeat, target is bagged." She walked over to the prone Chambers, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from her eyes. Cuffing this one wouldn't be fun.
"Great," said Isiah, picking up the briefcase he'd left by the bed, and heading out into the parking lot. As he approached Violet, his phone beeped. Pulling it out, his eyes scanned the text message.
"New orders incoming," he said. "I'll sedate this mother fucker, and put him in the car, then we'll break open the laptop."
Waiting until the low crackle of electricity had stopped, Isiah crouched and opened the briefcase. From that, he removed a small zip up kit box, containing a hypodermic needle, and a vial of green liquid. Loading it up, he flicked the needle to disperse air bubbles, and jammed it in Ryan's neck. Fireman's lifting him, he put him in the back of the car, before returning to his briefcase, and following Violet into the motel room.
Violet held the door open for Isiah as he stuffed their sack of a convict away, making sure the hobo looking idiot didn't smack his head open as he went in. It wasn't looking to be a good smelling trip back. Violet grimaced internally and longed for the days when she got support from clean up crews.
"No rest for the wicked I suppose." Violet cricked her neck and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Maybe this time we'll get to meet someone nice."
"You wanna bet money on that?" Isiah asked, as he took the laptop out of the briefcase and hit the power button. Minutes later the video conferencing software was firing up, and he was entering passwords to get through the various proxies.
Eventually, an image came into life onscreen. A middle aged woman, her grey-brown hair drawn into a severe bun, was sat behind a desk, dressed in the grey of the Bureau's upper command. "Agent Freeman. Agent McCracken. How goes your current assignment? Have you dealt with the rogue element?"
"Yes ma'am," replied Isiah.
"And what condition is he in?"
"He's sleeping," Isiah said. "Should be out for twelve hours."
"Excellent. Now, concerning your next mission, I trust that you are both familiar with the news out there in California?"
"You mean the Meta-Murderer killings, Ma'am? We've kept abreast of the situation." She glanced over at Isiah. It wasn't hard to guess where this was going. "Has some new information come up?"
"A little bit, here and there," she replied, lighting a cigar. "As you've already guessed, that is your next assignment. I want the two of you in Westlake City before tomorrow. You'll be trading off Mr. Chambers on the way there; the spot hasn't changed." She took a drag on the cigar. Both agents knew there was more, and did not interrupt.
"We are going to catch this killer, agents. You will be working openly. The President has requested personally that we do something about this, and be seen to do something about this, and frankly the Bureau Council agrees. When you get to Westlake, you'll be meeting a tech specialist in the city center, who is to assist you in your investigation. Any questions?"
"None Ma'am." Violet nodded curtly.
'All the way to Westlake before tomorrow? Crap.' This wasn't going to be a fun drive. And now she'd need to call Mrs Machado to keep Enu at her place. Oh she'd owe the old lady for this! Bureau work did not fit well with pet ownership, how did Mercy pull it off?
"I got nothing," agreed Isiah.
"Good," the General replied. "The specialist assisting you will also be handing over a physical file containing what information we do have. That will be all. Good luck, agents."
With that, the screen went blank.
"Well shit," said Isiah. "Guess I gotta call my wife and cancel date night. And probably the one after that, too. Man, I ain't never gonna hear the end of this one."
"Why can't the world change itself to suit our needs?" Violet nodded along to him. She took a second to enjoy the cool of the room, trying to ignore the stale germ feeling in the air, before getting to her feet. "Well, looks like we're against the clock. I'll drive the first half."
"Cool," Isiah responded. "But let's grab a burger before we hit the open road."
secondly sorry about the short opener, just easing myself back in.
