Primal Passions: Issue # 7- Conspiracy Theory
Primal Passions: Issue # 7- Conspiracy Theory
Monique stared into the barrel of blaster as Jason stood over her, his eyes full of disgust.
"How?" she asked in disbelief.
"All in good time," Jason replied coldly. He held the blaster steady as his eyes flicked towards the lounge area. Tyler had risen and was now staring in utter confusion at him and Monique. Natasha was just getting to her feet, the numbness still fading from her limbs. Erica sat up on the floor and shivered before quickly turning her attention to Primal who had not moved since before they had been seized by paralysis. At her coaxing, he groggily lifted his head and looked around the room, his eyes finally fixing on the scene before the mainframe terminal.
"Everyone, over here."
Slowly, the others approached, their movements cautious as they tried to assess the situation. Tyler's eyes never left Monique. Natasha kept glancing apprehensively at the mainframe screen as Watchdog's image stared back at them in unnerving silence. Erica did her best to support Primal as he limped forward on all fours, too injured to walk on his hind legs.
"What the hell is going on? What just happened?" Tyler asked as he eyes flicked from Monique to Jason to Watchdog. His usual bravado was replaced by something suspiciously like fear.
"Do you want to tell them or should I," Jason asked as he glared first at Monique and then at Watchdog. Neither of them spoke, Monique staring nervously at Jason's blaster while Watchdog remained eerily impassive.
"The Next Generation Project," Jason said flatly.
"The program that put our team together?" Natasha asked.
"Ours and about a dozen others. That's roughly seventy-two neo-humans out of ninety-three initial recruits. Odd for a program that was supposedly established to handle a neo-human population boom. According to my estimates, there should have been twice as many recruits in the program, and I don't find it very likely that the Defense Force just overlooked half a generation. So where are they?"
Jason kept his blaster trained on Monique as he turned a defiant eye to Watchdog.
"You allowed all the weaklings and wannabes to be sorted out along with us just so that you could make a big show out of weeding them out, but what about the one that were too powerful? What about the one too dangerous to be free? They never even made it that far. You took care of them long before you even approached the rest of us. It wouldn't do to have all those new recruits watching when you dragged some of them away to be locked up. That might make them rebellious and rebellion is one thing that the GDF cannot tolerate."
"Do you think that it was easy?" Watchdog finally spoke, his voice low and harsh. "Do you think that we wanted it this way? We had no choice. There are just too many of them. They're out there running wild, out of control. Half of the recruits we approached were little more than thugs and lunatics! Most of them couldn't even control their powers. We had to intervene. "
"So you locked them up for their own good, is that it? Half a generation of neo-humans just swept under the rug."
"No. An entire generation of villains locked up where they can't do any harm. We have an obligation to keep the planet safe. How long do you think the rest of humanity will tolerate us if we can't even police our own kind? It was the logical thing to do. You would have done the same and you know it."
"Perhaps," Jason said, his gaze breaking away from Watchdog's image as his eyes looking away with a hint of uncertainty before they returned, filled with righteous fury. "Maybe I'm just sore that you considered doing it to us."
"They were gonna lock us up?" Tyler asked indignantly, a small crackle sounding as he made a fist.
"Not right away," Jason replied, still staring down Watchdog. "You see, we were the maybe pile, the borderlines, too dangerous to be left on our own, but too much potential to just be thrown in some gulag. So they decided to give us a chance, provided that they got to keep us on strings."
"I was suspicious of the program from the start but but my first real clue was when Natasha complained about feeling sluggish. She's so fast that no one else would have ever thought that she was slower than usual but she knew. That's why I decided to run a few tests. I didn't trust the equipment that you installed here, so I took the liberty of using the equipment in my father's base when they helped me clean it out. Everyone was so distracted by the fiasco with the Heartbreaker that they didn't even notice that I scanned them all. I found something very interesting."
Reaching up with his free hand, Jason lifted a small flap of his gauntlet, revealing a small keypad. After pressing several buttons, a small box came up in the corner of the mainframe screen, displaying the magnified image of what looked like a smooth, metal stingray.
"Nano-machines," he clarified to his teammates. "Billions of them clustered all along the lengths of our neural pathways. Once activated, they left us paralyzed and completely powerless. I'm guessing Micro-Man designed them using Watchdog's submission collar technology."
Watchdog's jaw grew tight. Encouraged, Jason pushed forward.
"However, the nano-machines were just a leash. A leash needs a handler, someone to pull it tight if the need arises. It wasn't that hard to figure out. Watchdog knew that I'd go over this base with a fine-toothed comb after we moved in. Besides, hidden transmitters or a secret software program couldn't keep us in check while we were out in the field. No. The trigger would have to be mobile and shielded from my armor's sensors. My first thought was a surgically implant. But then I thought, why bother? Why try to hide it close by when you could hide it miles away?"
Jason now turned the full force of his gaze on Monique. She flinched as if burned.
"You were the only one without the nano-machines. It made since that it was you. It only took you a second to teleport away and return with the trigger. You must have practiced that port a dozen times."
"Of course, discovering these 'paralysites' was only half the battle. For such tiny machines, their access codes are extremely complex. Even my father would have had trouble hacking them."
"I knew that if things got intense enough, if you thought that one of us might cross that line, that you would have no choice but to activate the fail-safe. I simply programmed my armor to intercept the signal and duplicate it. After that it deactivated the paralysites and changed their access code to one of my choosing."
"Then you have full control. The trigger is useless now," Watchdog seethed.
"That's right," Jason said as he fired his gauntlet at Monique.
Monique and Erica screamed together in fright at the sound of the blast. After a spray of hot shrapnel, it took a moment for Monique to realize that she had not been shot and open her eyes. She turned her head shakily to stare at the bits and pieces of the remote that had laid on the floor beside her only moments ago. She sobbed silently as tears of fear and relief started to roll down her face.
"How does it feel Monique? How does it feel to be powerless? Now you know how they felt!"
"Enough!" Watchdog commanded.
Jason turned an annoyed glare towards the screen.
"Why?" Erica's voice came soft and insecure. "Why would you do this to us?" she asked looking back and forth between Monique and Watchdog.
"Why? Do you really need to ask?" Watchdog asked as if reprimanding a spoiled child.
"Mental instability," he said piercing Erica with his visored gaze.
"Emotional instability," he continued as he turned towards Tyler.
"Unpredictable power manifestations," he stated at Primal.
"Suspicions of espionage," he accused, giving Natasha her turn.
"Suspicion of treasonous acts against the Global Defense Force," he finished as he fixed his eyes on Jason once more. "Of course, you already knew that didn't you Jason. You probably read the files yourself. You've been hacking our mainframe for a long time now. Oh yes, we knew. You started just after Donald died. I guess without him around to keep you straight you just decided to slip into your old habits."
"Don't you dare talk about my father! If he was anyone's moral compass, he was yours! You wouldn't have had the balls to try something like this if he was still around! He would never have been so deceitful! He would have had faith in us!"
"That was his one flaw wasn't it. Having faith in people. Handing out trust like it was candy. I tried to be supportive when he took you under his wing and adopted you but I was wrong. You'll never be his heir. You're too much like your real father."
"Shut up!" Jason roared, turning the blaster towards the screen.
"No. You've talked long enough. Now it's my turn to...."
Watchdog's voice was drowned out by the report of the blast as Jason fired three shots into the mainframe, shattering the screen and exposing the machines silicon innards.
With an exhausted sigh, Jason let his arm and the power gauntlet fall to his side. He turned his head to look at Monique with tired, disappointed eyes.
"Get up."
Rising off the floor, Monique drew her arm across her face, wiping away snot and tears.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed before Jason could say anything else. "They recruited us before any of the others."
"Us?" Natasha asked.
"The handlers," Jason clarified.
"There are more teams like ours? With nano-machines?"
"Three," Monique sniffed. "They stuck me with you guys because you were the most dangerous."
"We're not dangerous!" Natasha scoffed.
"Says the communist spy," Monique looked at her defensively.
Natasha's jaw clenched tight as she averted her eyes.
"The GDF's magic experts almost shit themselves when they met Primal. Whatever he's got inside him is dawn of time old and wild as hell. You think he looks bad now? He can get a lot worse. And Erica? They pulled her out of a damn psych hospital!"
Erica gasped slightly as a pained look came crept over her face. Monique looked to her apologetically.
"I'm sorry E. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to warn you but I couldn't. This was the only way I could get my life back."
"By doing their dirty work?" Jason asked with disgust.
"They said all I had to do was a few high-risk missions and then they'd clean my record and let me out of the program. I could go back and live with mom and just have a normal life again. That's all I want. Don't you?"
Monique looked pleadingly from face one impassive face to the next. Finally it was Erica who spoke.
"I understand Monique. It doesn't make it hurt any less."
"There is no going back Monique," Jason explained. "Even if you go home, you'll just be pretending. We are who we are, by birth or circumstance. Watchdog was right. We are dangerous. All neo-humans. We can't have normal lives. That's why we needed each other. That's why we were supposed to stick together. So we can help each other. But all you thought about was helping yourself."
Jason raised his gauntlet and pushed yet another button on the small keypad of the gauntlet. With a discreet beep, the submission collar around Monique's neck deactivated and clattered to the floor.
"Get out of our base," Jason said with finality as he turned his back on her, undaunted by the small blaster that she had earlier stashed in her waistband.
Monique stood awkwardly as she looked to the rest of her teammates, her eyes begging for absolution. Natasha, Erica and Primal would not meet her gaze. Only Tyler looked her directly in the face, his eyes hurt and jaw quivering.
"Ty, I just...."
"Just what?!" Tyler snapped his voice full of betrayal. "Are you fucking deaf?! He said go! Go back to your bosses! Go get your life back and stop pretending that you give a damn about me!"
New tears sprang to Monique's eyes as she hung her head in defeat. Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold. Then with a soft pop of displaced air and a flicker of light she teleported away.
Several moments passed as the remainder of the New Defenders stood in silent contemplation. Their thoughts and feelings were their own as they each tried to wrap their minds around the events that had just unfolded before them. Naturally it was Jason who spoke first.
"Ty," he said as he tried to capture Tyler's attention. It was only after several recitations of his name that Tyler was able to stop staring at the place that Monique had been standing but a few minutes ago.
"What?" Tyler responded with a hollow voice.
"Help Erica and Natasha get Primal to the infirmary and patch yourselves up the best you can. You and he need to rest but it'll have to wait. I want everyone to meet me in the lab in twenty minutes."
"Why?" Natasha asked as Jason began to walk away from them.
"I'm going to deactivate those nano-machines for good and get them out of our systems," he said without stopping or turning around. "Then we're going to decide if this team is beyond saving or not."