🚀 go-pugleaf

     Alec Guinness (Coincidence) opened the door to his stateroom.  He was
tired.  He was getting rather old for this kind of shenanigan -- his reliance
on the unnatural applications of his skills was growing.  There was nothing to
be done for it, of course -- he was the only Corpsman near Planet South Dakota.
It was important that he befriend House Dukal now... before their quest got too
far underway.
     Which was not to imply he knew what that quest was.  But there would be
another day for that.
     He shut the stateroom door, and froze in place.  Something....
     He could feel... something.  Something pulling on the Third.  Something
out of alignment.
     The Black....
     Alec let his mind relax, and felt the cool silver of his ring.  He could
feel the comfortable weight of it, the smooth texture.  He smiled, and looked
amused.  "Hello friend," he said mildly.  "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
     There was a rumble, and the shadows in the far corner of the room seemed
to gather.  Alec could almost see someone or something coiling like a snake in
them.
     "You cannot block the path, old man.  We have worked too long, too hard
for you to block the path...."
     "Really?" Alec said, mildly leaning against the murphy table.  "I had been
under the impression that such designs were anathema to you.  This must be very
important."
     The shadows didn't answer.
     Alec arched an eyebrow.  "Quiet so soon?  Surely you have more posturing
to do?"
     There was another rustle.  "You have been warned, Corpsman,"
     "Indeed I have."
     There was no change in the room, but Alec knew he was alone.  He slumped
against the metal table.  He was far too tired for this.  Far too tired.
     But he had no choice but to carry on.



                                 The Adventures
                                     of the
                          Adjusted League Unimpeachable

                                   Episode #72
                           "Origins Volume the Third"
               "Unorthodox Biochemical Revenge Part the Eleventh"
                                       by
        Eric, Lord Sabre, who wonders if anyone's even reading this thing

                                      NOTE

          Mature themes.  If you felt these warnings were extraneous in
             previous posts, trust me that they aren't in this one.

                           I really, *really* mean it.


                                   * * * * * *

     Special Agent Paul let Special Agent Pongress open the door.  Paul was
carrying a tray with three cups of M.I.B. special blend coffee (made from
American coffee beans and chemically similar to turpentine) in the special
M.I.B. vanity mugs Field Agents and above received in their `Welcome to the
M.I.B.' Orientation Kits.  They were nice, dark blue mugs with `M.I.B.'
stenciled in gold on one side and golden airbrushed sunglasses on the other.
All three were full of black coffee.
     Paul actually didn't like coffee at all.  However, on a job like this you
drank it.  You needed it.  He couldn't explain how or why.
     Olson was inside, at his desk.  Staring at the wall.  Not moving.
     "Olson?" Pongress said.  "We brought coffee.  Olson?  You with us?"
     "It's too late in the game for this," Olson whispered.
     "Olson?" Paul asked.  He had never seen Special Agent Olson upset before.
He had kind of thought Olson wasn't capable of it.
     Olson looked up.  His ever-present M.I.B. sunglasses concealed his eyes.
"Paul.  Pongress.  Sorry.  I didn't hear you.  For me?  Thanks."  He lifted one
of the mugs off of the tray.
     "No problem," Pongress said.  "What's up?"
     Olson sipped his coffee.  "This and that.  Pongress, I need you to prep
Room One oh One for me."
     Pongress's eyebrows arched.  "One oh One?  I thought we had a
breakthrough."
     Olson shook his head very slightly.  "False start.  Blue failed to follow
up properly.  We've had a setback and reversion."
     Paul whistled slightly.  "We're looking at another three weeks then.
Minimum.  I don't know if we can keep the heat off that long."
     "We can't.  So we're going to the seventh protocol.  Pongress, we'll need
One oh One in thirty-nine minutes."
     "Kim's authorized this?"  Pongress sounded the slightest bit uncertain.
He was the newest of the Special Agents recruited for the Director's Primary
Team.  He had the least seniority.
     Paul shook his head and clucked his tongue.  "Pongress, haven't you
figured out the first rule of espionage yet?  You've been with the agency nine
years, right?  In all that time, in the Field and in the office, haven't you
learned the most basic fact of them all?"
     "Paul, can you have full recording set up," Olson asked.
     "Sure thing."
     Olson nodded.  "Thanks.  Thirty-eight minutes, gentlemen.  I'll see you
down there."
     Paul scooped up his coffee and walked out the door.  Pongress came
scrambling after.  "Hey," he said.  "What did you mean, the first rule?  What
are you--"
     Paul turned and looked long and hard at Pongress.  "How you got this far,
I'll never know," he said quietly.  "It's simple, Pongress.  You never, *ever*
ask who authorized an operation.  If you had to know, they'd tell you.
Otherwise, you can't testify what you never heard, right?"
     Pongress stared at Paul.
     "Right?"
     "Right."  Pongress's voice was faint.
     "Good.  Now, we have shy of thirty-five minutes to prep One-oh-One, unless
of course you have more silly questions.  And God almighty, do I hope not."

                                   * * * * * *

     The ship cruised low along the horizon, alien technology concealing it
carefully.  Logan Airport reported a low flying flock of Canadian Geese.  The
U.S.S. Rodger Young reported a localized thunderstorm.  The National Security
Agency would have reported a weather balloon of unusual size, were they not
busy opening mail, collecting electronic messages, illegally listening to phone
conversations, and otherwise collecting enough data on the supposedly free
citizens of the U.S. to make the K.G.B. at their height look like pikers.
     But I digress.
     It grounded three miles south of the University of Hartford Campus.  The
heroes slipped out in a tight formation.  No one spoke.  No one needed to.
     Healer felt almost clumsy next to them.  It was obvious the A.L.U. spent
many hours a week in group and small unit training.  But the feeling was
foolish -- she was also a trained operative.  Trained by the Agency they were
about to attack.
     It didn't feel hard.  It didn't feel hard at all.  It felt perfectly
natural.
     Perhaps betrayals always did feel natural.  Healer wasn't really sure.
     "All right," Trashman said.  "The key to this operation is surprise.  We
know they'll try to kill Unorthodox Lass the moment they detect us.  We need to
be in a position where they can't.  That means no grandstanding.  We'll try for
stealth, but the Dash will take a forward position.  With her speed, she has a
good chance of finding Trudy before they can take her out.  Is that
understood?"
     There were nods all around.
     "Good.  Healer -- can you provide a working link between us during the
mission?"
     Healer nodded.  "I'll need to take a relatively defensive posture, though.
In a direct engagement, I'll have to drop the link to concentrate on fighting
my opponent."  Healer tried to imagine making a report like that to Confusion
before a fight.  She tried to imagine Confusion asking for a report like that
before a fight.  No doubt about it -- the Adjusted League Unimpeachable was a
different breed than her old team.
     She closed her eyes, and tried to stop wishing Calforce were with her.
She'd be a lot happier with Chalandra and Badass doing the dirty work, while
HotFlash and MeltDown tore apart the upper levels.
     But they weren't, so they had to make do.  She allowed her thoughts to
spread out, visualizing crystal valances which reached for each member of the
team and closed them into one matrix.  All so different, but all so similar.
There a thrum from the Dash's thoughts, there the icy cold touch of Trashman.
The Masked Bruce's quicksilver wit flowed into Healer's spine, making her
shiver.  The heat of Spandex Babe's anger caught her up.
     And Kid Solipsism -- the man who was most like Faith... most like her
brother in the whole world....
     She realized she felt something completely different from him.  Something
generative, not chaotic like Faith's mind always was.  Where Faith's thoughts
lurched depending on his perceptions, the Kid's mind seemed insulated from the
world, with each spark of thought bursting entirely from within and flowing
out.
     She opened her eyes, and realized the Kid was staring into hers.
     }{We're good to go,}{ she sent over the link.
     Trashman nodded, and waved the ship up and away.  "Let's move," he said.

                                   * * * * * *

     Trudy was dragged down a corridor.  Her legs were bound by steel. Her arms
bound painfully behind her back.  A cruel muzzle had been snapped over her
mouth.  Her knees were rubbing painfully along the ground.
     She had taken out three guards before they subdued her.  If she hadn't
been so out of it, she could have brought down more.
     The corridor was only intermittently lit.  It was growing darker.  The
floor was angled so that they were descending.  It was a long ramp.  It seemed
like it was miles long.
     Deeper and deeper.
     And then they threw her against something.  Something metal.  A wall, or a
door.  She fell helplessly backwards, landing on the manacles that held her
arms behind her.  Pain shot through her, as her shoulders came close to popping
out of joint.
     A light came on.  She was at the end of the Hall, and there was a door in
front of her.  A door of steel.  There were numbers cut into it, with black
paint in them.
     101.
     The guards were gone.  She was alone, with the door to 101.
     It opened.  Two men, all in black, with masks over their faces, grabbed
her shoulders and pulled her in.
     The door to 101 slammed shut.  There was no light at all inside the room.
Trudy felt herself being forced over something -- a low wall or chair back.
Her arms were released and forced into manacles that held her bent over it.
Her leg-irons were bolted to the floor.  The metal of the wall bit into her
stomach.
     A single lightbulb glowed into life.
     Special Agent Olson was standing there.
     "Hello Trudy," he said.
     "Go to Hell," she snapped.
     "Trudy, I'm very disappointed in you," he said, slowly circling out of her
limited frame of vision.  "Very disappointed.  We tried to be nice.  We just
asked you to be good. Where did that get us."
     "Sorry to disappoint you," Trudy snapped.
     Olson stepped back in front of her.  "Doctor Blue will need stitches in
her face, you know.  Hitting her with a barbed fishhook.  Really, now.  That's
just going a bit too far, don't you think?"
     Trudy forced herself to grin.  It came out like a grimace.  "I always go
all the way, handsome," she said bitterly.
     Olson's hand was a blur.  Trudy's head snapped back -- she almost felt
whiplashed.
     "We wanted to be nice about this, but you've been very, *very* bad,
Trudy," he half-shouted coldly.  "That's treason.  You're just a traitor.  A
traitor to your family, a traitor to your country -- a traitor to your
friends!"
     "Go to Hell," Trudy half-whispered, spitting out blood.
     "That's right.  Your friends.  Remember Dangerousgirl?  Huh?  Do you?
Well, that's all you can do -- you killed her, Trudy.  You pulled the trigger
on her.  Happy?  Are you happy now?"
     Trudy barely heard what Olson said. It was how he had said it that she had
heard.  Tense.  Angry.  On edge....
     She looked up into his sunglasses.  "You never had Dangerousgirl," she
said quietly.
     "Liar!"  Olson slapped her again, even harder.
     "You never had her," Trudy said again, perverse joy rising with bile in
her stomach.  "It's always been just me and you, and I'm beating you!"
     "Liar!"  A punch this time, hard.  Trudy's head snapped back, her nose
bleeding.
     "You can't take it.  You did everything to me and I still beat you!  And
now you can't take it!"
     "Lying bitch!"  Olson slammed into her again.  And again.  He stepped
back, his breath ragged.  "Do you know how much you've cost us?  Do you know
how hard we wanted you to just cooperate?  Do you?"
     Trudy laughed, spitting blood and a tooth out.  She couldn't stop
laughing, whether through hysteria or joy she couldn't tell.  "I beat you,
bastard!  I beat you all!"
     "Shut *up!*" Olson snapped, his fist lashing into her again.
     Trudy's laughter filled the room.  The laughter of pain and anger... the
bitter laugh of triumph.  "Do your worst, Olson!  Come on!  Hit me again!"
     Olson hit her.
     "Again!"
     Olson hit her again.
     "Swing from the heels, damn you!  Come on!  Do it!  Kill me if you can --
you don't own me!  You!  Do!  Not!  Own!  *ME!!!*"
     Olson stepped back, looking at Trudy as she stared at him through her
bloodied eyes and face.  She was panting.  She was angry.
     She was strong.
     "You want my worst?" Olson said quietly.  "I would be so happy to oblige
you."  A smile began to twist his face, and he took a black metal tube out of
his coat.
     He pressed a stud on it, and a telescoping rod snapped into place.  It was
about three and a half feet long, and looked to be made of a springy black
metal.
     "Here it comes," Olson said, quiet as death.

                                   * * * * * *

     "This sucks."
     Mandy Harken rubbed her temples.  Her head was throbbing, even as the
H.M.S. Crimson Permanent Assurance rose into the upper atmosphere, preparing to
take a stationary orbit above the M.I.B. Lab.  "Look, it's just the way it
goes, all right."
     "I should be down there.  It's my fault Trudy was kidnapped."
     "You're so new at this game it's silly.  Come on -- do you want to take
risks with her life now that we almost have her back?"
     "That's not fair!  I've been a superhero my entire life!"
     "Your life has been measured in months."
     "So?!"
     Mandy shook her head, and considered braining Dani with her unbreakable
brip.
     Dani sighed again.  For about the three hundred and seventeenth time.  She
kind of hugged herself.  "I wish Lars were here."
     Mandy looked away.  She had heard -- as many of the A.L.U. Primary and
Support Staff had -- that Dangerousman, unable to cope with Trashman's
defeating him, had fled the planet.  He had left his wife, Relativity Woman --
who herself was dangerously unstable, now.  He had left all his friends.
     And he had left the girl he was training.  A girl who thought of him as
her brother.
     And that girl didn't even know it.
     It was Trashman's decision not to tell her.  He claimed that it was
necessary -- they couldn't afford Dani's breakdown while Trudy was missing.
But more than one person felt it was rooted in Trashman's hatred of Lars
MacPherson.  A hatred fueled by Dangerousman's accidental murder of the only
woman Trashman had ever loved.
     Mandy didn't know the truth.  She refused to even speculate on it.  After
Trudy was safe, they could deal with their little personality conflicts.  Right
now, they couldn't afford them.

                                   * * * * * *

     The door to the room burst open.  Doctor Blue had expected it, of course.
She was always right.
     Too damn right, sometimes.  She turned, letting the white antiseptic
dressing shock the intruder.
     Stanley Unorthodox, Doctor Gray, stared at her, stunned.  "She... she...."
     "Ripped half my cheek off with a fishing hook and line?  Why yes, Doctor,
she did.  How observant."  Doctor Blue turned away, her body language hurt,
angry....
     Too simple, sometimes.
     "Oh Gods... D-Doctor... I--"
     "Lilith," she said.  "My name is Lilith."  Her voice sounded distant...
hurt, as though mourning lost opportunities.
     Her name, of course, wasn't Lilith.  But she had to give the boy
something.
     "Lilith."  He spoke it like it were a gift.  He was so damnably simple to
twist.  "I... she...."
     Doctor Blue turned and looked at Unorthodox over her shoulder.  She tossed
her hair perfectly to let it fall over the dressing, concealing it.  The
picture was necessary.  "Your daughter is very brave," she said, letting pain
fill her voice.  "I can't... I won't blame her."
     Doctor Unorthodox looked away.  "Damn.  Damn me.  The message--"
     "Was sent.  They should be here soon.  You have to get away, Stanley."
     "I... I can't go without you.  Without making sure my little girl is
safe."
     Doctor Blue was not immune to human emotion.  For example, she could
recognize the irony of Doctor Unorthodox's words.  Ten years before -- even
five, she might have stared at him in shock.  She might have said something.
Something like `your girl?  Who you beat?  Whose mother and sister you beat?
The girl you took from her home and forced to be a fugitive?  A criminal?  The
girl you raped when she tried to help?'
     But Doctor Blue wasn't that person any more.  She just felt the irony,
even as she confirmed her initial diagnosis -- sociopath, with delusionary
tenancies.  Dangerously unstable.
     And intelligent enough to be valuable.
     "She will be safe.  I swear," Doctor Blue said, her voice breaking.  It
was so simple.  *He* was so simple.
     "Then... we have to leave.  To run.  I can't stay with these butchers--"
     "Wait... wait.  Stanley -- we'll run if you want, but there are... always
other possibilities.  Which is better... flight?  Or revenge?"
     Revenge shaped Doctor Unorthodox.  The drive of his ancient code -- an eye
for an eye... the need to kill an indestructible man for the accidental death
of his father.  In the end, there was only one answer Stanley could make.
     Of course, he made it.
     "What do you have in mind?"

                                   * * * * * *

     Thomas Kim sipped coffee and read the morning reports.  He almost had to
smile when he read about the incident the night before.  Doctor Blue was good
at what she did, but Kim appreciated Unorthodox Girl biting back.
     The question was how to manage to avoid killing her when they released
her, given the incident.  Well, he should have time.
     Time.  It was mid-morning.  Time for his morning hypocrisy.  He pressed
the intercom.  "Dickson," he said, "please have Special Special Agent Less come
up here."
     "Sir?" Field Agent Dickson said.  "Agent Less left three hours ago, back
to Washington."
     Kim's eyebrows arched.  "Left?" he asked.  "What do you mean -- he
wouldn't... leave...."
     "Sir?"
     "Kim out."  Kim lifted his fingers off the button, the Hunter's instincts
taking over, blending with the Man's thoughts, the Man's training.  Less leave
in a hurry?  Like--
     Like a rat abandoning a sinking ship.
     Kim slapped his hand on the alert buzzer.  "Control!" he demanded.
     "Control here."
     "Bankert?  Where's Olson?"
     "In One-oh-One with the subject."
     "What?"  One-oh-One?  Kim had never--
     Oh Hell.
     "Sir, should I--"
     "Cancel everything," Kim snapped.  "Emergency alert.  Put this whole base
on alert -- expect invasion at any moment, most probably from the Adjusted
League."
     "Sir?" Bankert sounded surprised, and maybe a little scared.
     "You heard me -- I'll be below, securing the subject."  Kim snapped his
hand off the buzzer and ran, slamming the door into splinters as he went.  If
Olson brought Unorthodox Lass to One-oh-One....
     Kim wondered what Olson's blood tasted like.

                                   * * * * * *

     Doctor Green hustled, setting the autodestructs on her test equipment.
The Security Alarm was buzzing in the background -- Exodus Plan Gamma was in
effect.  She had to secure her stations.
     And her children.  Always her children.
     She herded them into the carriers.  They went submissively -- happily,
even.  They were so good--
     She turned.
     Buck... the Alpha she had never broken... was growling, pressed against
the far end of his cage.
     "Buck," she said.  "Please... you have to...."
     The animal growled again.
     She had to abandon him.  She had to get the rest of her--
     Abandon him, like she had abandoned Chuck.
     "I won't go without you, damn it," she said.  "I won't.  Damn it -- follow
me!"
     Buck's growl deepened, his matted and thinning hair rising.
     To save him, she would have to fight him.  Break him.  Did she have time?
     It didn't matter.

                                   * * * * * *

     On every level, in every room, the Lab prepared for the worst emergency
possible.  Far worse than earthquake, or nuclear bomb, or flood... the lab
prepared for invasion.  For discovery.
     In every room but one.
     And there the final battle began.


WILL THE ADJUSTED LEAGUE BE ABLE TO RESCUE TRUDY?
WILL TRUDY BE ABLE TO SURVIVE?
WILL OLSON CONTINUE TO CRACK?
WHAT DOES DOCTOR BLUE WANT WITH DOCTOR UNORTHODOX?
WILL HEALER BE ABLE TO WORK WITH THE ADJUSTED LEAGUE UNIMPEACHABLE?
DO THE PROLOGUES HAVE ANYTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THE REST OF THE STORY?

The answers to more of these questions than you could imagine will be found in
the penultimate chapter of "Unorthodox Biochemical Revenge," next issue, here
on SUPERGUY!