Not everything superheroes do is in the open - sometime Intelligence agents have pretty serious cover.
The instant I stepped into Blackren’s Eye Room, I knew something was wrong. The screens that covered every available inch of wall space were dark, almost as if they had gone from displaying information to absorbing it. Comparing them with blank stares of dispassionate people gave me an uncomfortable shiver, so I turned my attention instead to the man at the far end of the room.
He was back into his usual outfit of a pale grey suit with silver accents, hands clasped together behind his back and feet spread in what I could only call a military parade rest. As I approached, my supposed boss turned to eye me with a cool eye. Normally, he would have an expression of cheer overlaying relaxed confidence - the mask, I termed it, for it wasn’t the true face of Baatsi Ren.
This, though... This was the expression that heralded the arrival of Blackren, his inner demon, the true monster behind all the murders and atrocities I was investigating. The back of my neck prickled uncertainly, and I had to remind myself that he knew me as Miss Moffat, spymistress and assassin extraordinaire; Blackren had no reason to mistrust my cover, yet.
“I’m glad to see you are fully recovered from that unpleasant skirmish with the Jr. Team, my dear.” His voice, normally flowing like clear water in a mountain stream, sounded rough, edgy. Following the face, this was the second biggest indicator that Blackren’s nastier side was about to emerge.
“Your words are appreciated, sir.” I bowed my head respectfully, grateful that the vocal synthesizer within my mask could hide my nervousness in addition to disguising my voice.
“Though, I have been puzzled by something I hoped you could clear up for me.” His left hand rose and gestured to a screen immediately before us, which activated with a burst of color. After I’d blinked, my stomach dropped to the approximate level of my feet.
Grainy security footage, despite the camera being severely damaged, was still able to display a few moments of the battle that had taken place two days before.
Specifically, when the group of teenage superheroes-in-training known as the Jr. Team had invaded Blackren’s headquarters in an effort to shut down the central control for his robotic army wreaking havoc across the largest cities of the country. The unexpected attack led to the rather ramshackle distribution of villains in Blackren’s employ to combat the intruders. One fight, which the screen now displayed, was between myself and a ninja of the codename Phase.
His real name was Austin Brindoll, and he was my eldest son. Up until that point, he’d been ignorant of my undercover assignment, something that’d been eating away at me for the three years I’d been posing as Miss Moffat. I’d taught him to fight when he was a child, and with my own restrictions within my cover, it had been clear to me at the time that Phase could have easily defeated me, and ruined those three years of work.
So I had turned off my synthesizer to speak to him.
Fortunately, the camera that caught us wasn’t able to pick up audio feed, or I’d have been dead already. What it did pick up was Phase’s suddenly stiffened posture, and the roundhouse kick I’d used to knock him out.
Hurting my child like that, worse than anything I’d ever done when training him, had affected me enough that I moved him out of the way of any other combatants, before running off to supposedly help my fellow villains in their own fights.
I hadn’t stopped to consider that any security cameras were still functioning enough to see that.
“Sparing an enemy on the battlefield is not something I’m opposed to... But it is certainly not something to congratulate, and seems completely out of your usual line of work, Miss Moffat.” Blackren stated, tilting his head to one side as he glanced at me. The inherent question was innocent enough, I suppose, but all the previous signs I’d noticed now screamed at me to be very, very careful with how I handled this.
“My first thought is always to kill my opponents, sir, but in this case your voice of reason prevailed over my instinct.” I spoke slowly, cautiously, still thinking furiously.
“Oh?”
“Yes... I recalled your frustration at no longer knowing the location of the Jr. Team children once they received a headquarters not contained within the Houston Center. I placed a tracking device upon my opponent, and attempted to ensure he would survive the battle and lead us to their base.”
The calculating expression of a hunter, debating whether or not something before it was prey, vanished, to be replaced with his usual look of cheerful confidence.
“And has your device sent back location coordinates?” He asked, eyes glinting. Now I bowed my head in a gesture of shame.
“No, sir; the signal vanished about a mile north of the city. I can only assume that the children’s new headquarters has state-of-the-art cloaking shields to guard against just such a tactic.” His annoyance was instant, but brief. Satisfied with my explanation, Blackren dismissed me, and turned to reactivating the screens around his Eye Room. They flickered to life as I walked out, treating me to a few brief images of my son in uniform, and the other teens of the team he was now a member of - all part of the new obsession of Blackren’s schemes.
And that scared me worse than any other dark deed the mastermind had committed.-Triscribe
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