Akira had arrived back at the BASEment late and woke to a text saying that the two Mary’s were leaving in the Raft for the joys of Dublin first thing today and for Sam and Akira to try and stay out of trouble until her return. Akira decided he’d visit the office first to check if everything was ok and then suggest to Young Sam that they join forces and possibly pay a visit to Sam’s cave in Wales as well as his family home just back across the border. See if he could find some clue as to who was apparently targeting him and why.
He arrived at the office at 7am only to find that the alarm on the outer door was switched off (and he was 95% sure he’d activated it as he’d left last night) and when he reached his office, the door was wide open and the light blazing away.
Had the ‘doom’ already caught up with him? As he pushed the door open, his damned commlink buzzed to say he had another text message. Ignoring that, he braced himself for an attack by the big bad…
Instead he found himself looking at a very tall redhead in a smart, green business suit dismantling Chrono’s computer. She turned, smiled, waved and grabbed a pile of folders off his previously tidy desk.
As she straightened up two things became obvious. She was very attractive and she towered over him by almost a foot in height (admittedly two inches of those were her high heels. Why would you wear high heels when you were already taller than 98% of the population?)
“Hi, hope you don’t mind, I let myself in. Annie, remember? Sam agreed that I could work here when not required at the ‘bat cave’.” “Let yourself..?” “Ok so technically I picked the locks and deactivated your alarm system. Not very efficient by the way, can I suggest you fit a better system? Either an Omnitech high security package or I could link it to Frankie…..”
Akira momentarily tuned her out while he tried to make sense of what was happening. Annie? From the ARC? This Amazonian woman was..? I mean how? Then he remembered Sam talking about having a good use for the holo-bee and how it might benefit Annie..?
He interrupted her to ask “Holograph?” She stopped talking for a second, and nodded, “Yeah, you like?” and spun round on the spot and laughed. “Didn’t you get Sam’s message? We agreed last night I’d work for the Balance provided I also got to meet and greet people and he suggested I support you. Here. That’s ok with you right?” She suddenly looked concerned.
Ah, yeah. I must have missed Sam’s message. I take it this is new to you too?” “Yeah, I only got it yesterday evening and didn’t want to stop.”
Akira thought for a second, apologised and checked his texts – sure enough there was a very recent message from Sam telling him that Annie had agreed to work for them on condition she wasn’t always in the BASEment and he’d thought she might help him out with the Private Investigations office when not required elsewhere..? Oh and don’t be surprised by her appearance now, he’d explain more when they meet later. There were a number of spelling errors. Enough to suggest Sam had just woken up, remembered he needed to text him and scrambled off a near illegible message whilst still half asleep.
Okay! Wasn’t expecting that. Though having an attractive redhead towering over him in his office wasn’t something to be that upset about. Was it?
She waved her folders at him “Hope you don’t mind but I’ve been going over your old files or Chrono’s really. He seems to have been a good detective but lousy at administration. He had six cases pretty much completed but hadn’t made a final report or sent off an invoice.
Was a bit of a technophobe as well. Still using solid state photo prints taken on a 35mm camera, talk about old school. Anyway I’ve put together, ok I programmed Frankie to put together a final report on each of the cases documenting all the evidence. Had a bit of a problem when Frankie decided at first to write them in the style of Dashiell Hammett but I sorted that…”
“Ah, sorry to interrupt but who’s Frankie?”
Oh, sorry little miss motormouth me! Frankie’s my computer system, Sam’s going to help me move it to the bat cave and install it so I can better monitor systems there. Its’ why I’m cannibalising this piece of junk” motioning to the half-dismantled top-of-the-line computer that he’d been using the previous evening. Junk? “So what are you doing to it?”
“Oh, sorry, should have asked first. I figured if I upgraded the graphics card and replaced the processor with a water-cooled hyperthreaded GD2100 and then fitted an encrypted channel I could use it to link up here with Frankie and give you access to a decent system. You ok with that?” Before he could comment she continued. “Good. ANYWAY, back to my misadventures eh? So Frankie’s found additional supporting evidence from the public CCTV networks using facial recognition and completed the reports so with your permission, I’ll send them off with an apology for the delay in getting in touch and offering them a discount for prompt payment. You do know you’re effectively bankrupt don’t you?
There’s not enough in petty cash to cover upgrading this junkpile” motioning towards the partially dismantled computer “or to pay for a couple of commercial camera drones. You really need a couple of drones if you want to get the necessary money shots for divorce cases…”
“Ah, we don’t really do divorce cases.” She smiled. “That’s not what your workload says. That, fraud and missing persons should be your bread and butter. I think that’s what Sam assumed I’d deal with for you. The humdrum cases so you can focus on the more juicy ones? Anyway, having checked out your supposedly closed cases – and found the six I mentioned – I also found three new cases on your answerphone and your email inbox. I hope you don’t mind but I also closed them as well…”
“How? You’ve only been here since… When exactly?” “Oh, I don’t sleep so I popped in at 3am and been working them until now. First was a husband whose wife thought he was double crossing her. I ‘checked’ the Police CCTV system and sure enough he was, with her identical twin sister. Just need a couple of money shots of them together in the hotel room which is why I wanted to buy a camera drone for a through the window photo-shot but maybe I could go undercover as room service instead?
The second is the CEO of a small import-export company who thought his partner was stealing from the company, in fact his partners actually cheating on their VAT – I checked the warehouse inventory against his tax returns and found his off-the-book accounts hidden in an online dropbox account. We’ll have to report it of course. The CEO may not want to pay us when he finds out how much the company actually owes to the VAT people and how much of his own dividend is from undeclared profit so we may need to take them to court for our fee. Oh and we got approached about a husband whose wife believed him to be cheating with his secretary. Turns out the husband is the secretary – he’s a cross-dresser. I think we’ll need to hold a case conference with them both to help clarify the situation as he really seems to be in love with his wife, I wouldn’t want to break up a happy couple over something so trivial.
Oh, where do I stand about taking on a pro bono case? There’s a young girl who was blinded by an acid attack. I want to find the man who did it and make sure she has a case for compensation… In the meantime, is it ok to continue to link this computer up to the system in the ‘bat-cave’ rather than have to duplicate its capabilities here.. I’ll pay and claim it back when we have some funds in the kitty?”
WHAT OH WHAT. DID. I. DO. TO. DESERVE. THIS? “We need to sit down and have a chat about how best to work together but I need to head somewhere first. Ah, if anyone comes asking after me for any reason before I get back, you give me a call immediately and get yourself to safety. I think someone’s after me so you need to keep yourself safe ok?”
Annie nodded “Don’t worry about me; you’d be amazed by how much I can be invisible when I need to; or how well I can look after myself when I have to.”
Interlude 2 ~ an hour later in the BASEment
The BASEment was still in total chaos. The floors and walls in the living quarters were now completed but the insect-like droids were now focusing on the corridors and furnishings and laying drainage and electrical conduits behind the panels before filling in the remaining space with some form of foam.
There was no sign of Adam and his robotic ‘dwarves’ had obviously been left on auto.
Sam and Akira went looking for Adam – and found him with Jeeves in the middle of the Hangar – trading punches and kicks. By the external bay doors were two strange craft. As they entered Adam momentarily lost his concentration and turned to look at them as they entered. “Hi guys..!” at which point Jeeves scored a perfectly executed Mae Geri Jodan (forward kick to the head) but pulled it a second before connecting however Adam still fell backwards slapping the temporary mat – “Ah Adam, you must always keep your guard up..” Jeeves bowed towards Adam and turned to Sam and Akira “is it myself you need gentlemen or young Adam here?”
Akira Pointed to the downed Adam. “I wanted to discuss a possible trip if you could manage to arrange some transport.”
“I’ll leave you to it Adam; I fear advancing age is blunting my skills and ability anyway… ” and with that he wandered off muttering about stopping someone called Mikey (?) from wrecking his new kitchen facilities.
Picking himself off the floor, Adam explained that Edward was showing him how to defend himself so as their pilot he wouldn’t be a complete liability to the team.
“I’m afraid the ‘boss’ has taken the Raft due to its newly installed shielding and borrowed Max as ‘scab labour’ to pilot them to Dublin with her… Grand-whatever relation. So I’ve pulled in a few favours and temporarily borrowed a couple of the ‘kids’ two-seater transports – the CAT’s over there” gesturing towards the strange vehicles “until they return. Hope that’s ok..? They can be linked to form a single craft or be flown separately by remote.”
Sam looked at the vehicles “but they appear to only sit two people comfortably; how you going to use them to get to where we want to go?” Adam picked up a towel which he used to wipe his face and said “Don’t worry I’ll fly the two CATs out separately, one on auto-pilot and then link them up in mid-air. They’re modular. Where do you need to go? I just need know if I have to file a flight plan?”
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 