Three individuals with nothing in common but their own recent tragedies are contacted by an anonymous source. The source promises retribution for the deep wrongs they have suffered. "These wrongs were witnessed and I can help you make it right. Please accept this $5000.00 and plane ticket to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Be in baggage claim Saturday at 6:35 P.M."
Arriving in NM, the three are met by a person who immediately instructs them to refer to themselves simply as Night Hawk, Jade, and Jom Jom. "From here on out, never reveal your identities. By the way, I'm Fist."
"So what's your first name?" one of them asks.
Glaring, Fist replies, "The."
A four hour limo ride sees them arriving at what appears to be a covert government installation. Met by an alluring Scandinavian woman referred to as The Administrator, they are taken on a rather long elevator ride to a NORAD-like command room where The Administrator introduces them to Dorian, or rather, Dorian's avatar on a giant screen. He will reveal nothing more than his computer generated image and altered voice.
He informs the group that he is the head of a black-ops government agency that goes back many decades. No one knows under which presidency it began or even who else is in it. Each member simply does their job, which is to detect and assess any and all "unorthodox" hi-level threats to national security. At present those threats are another black-ops government agency and the reports in the tabloids regarding the growing numbers of people manifesting paranormal abilities.
"The problem with black-ops groups," Dorian claims, "is redundancy. Since no one knows about us, from time to time a redundant agency is created. Before long we end up countering one another or even becoming adversaries. In this case, Crossbow, our doppleganger, turned rogue and has itself become a security threat. You have been chosen to be my eyes, ears, and occasionally my foot up Crossbow's backside."
"How are we supposed to pull this off?" someone asks.
"Is there any money involved with this?" Jom Jom chimes in.
"I chose you three because every one of you three has been deeply wronged, and I can help you make it right. I have a file on each of your cases. For every two missions you complete for me, you may choose one of you to be presented with a file on the individual or group who has wronged you, and the facts and proof surrounding the incident. From there on, your actions are up to you. Tell me nothing. As long as you keep your... 'follow ups' to yourself and your identities off of the evening news we don't have a problem."
"As far as how you are going to pull off the missions, The Administrator can fill you in on that. Thank you for your time."
Dorian's image disappears and the Administrator goes on to explain that each of them is to be administered "The Process." The Process involves being put under for over a week after having been injected with a solution that is promised to be disgustingly painful but mostly safe. The end result is an emergence of comic book-like abilities promised to give the three of them the prowess of a small army.
"You'll be fine," The Administrator says. Fist chuckles and throws each of them a hospital gown. "I'll be preparing the lab," she says hurrying off.
A week later they begrudgingly come out of their stupors. Alertness means dealing with the tormenting pains that fire throughout their bodies. After making peace with ongoing aches in the recesses of their bones, they emerge to find they can now break the bounds of human abilities.
Jom Jom displays the ability to fly, tunnel, and perform a sort of lizzard like regeneration. In addition he has a "Thing"-like skin and quills on his fingers that he can throw like a porcupine.
Night Hawk guards whatever abilities he has been given, if any. He seems content to indulge is his paranoid tendencies, pouring over the vast computer network and trying to dig up any insights that might shed light on their current situation.
Jade is the most obvious changeling. Her skin has taken on a light-green tone and a sort of scaly exterior coats 90% of her body. Fate has left her striking facial features free of anything but a green sheen and Night Hawk and Jom Jom silently applaud. Most unusual is her ability to coerce people into telling truths they would have never imagined themselves sharing. It doesn't make her popular.
After accidentally prompting Night Wing to confess to over "80 or 90" murders in his past, deaths that he insists were only to "Bad people who deserved it, and not really on purpose," she seeks a bit of solace in her elaborate dorm room, quickly locking the door.
Night Wing and Jom Jom hang back to discuss their first assignment. The Administrator had revealed that they will each receive $50,000 quarterly, but that another shortcoming of a black-ops agency is their lack of funding.
"The point of black-ops is to be untraceable, and funding leaves a trail. Even when it's tracks are supposedly covered, there will always be footprints for anyone with a big enough magnifying glass. Therefore you will all be working on commission. And your first assignment is to come up with that comission."
"A casino in Vegas called the Augustus is run by Crossbow. That's how they get *their* funding. The mob worked it for years, but Crossbow took it over ten months back. You three are to find a way to get in and get out, with a minimum of $5,000,000. And you are to do it in 'mob fashion.' That means that when the authorities investigate, everything should point to the mob making this hit in retribution for having their casino yanked out from under them. Beyond that, every detail is up to you."
"But consider this: To make it look like a mob hit, you have to do it without any obvious use of your new abilities. Got it?"
"$5,000,000? That's a little more than our yearly pay, wouldn't you say?"
"Someone's got to pay the light bill," the Administrator says. "I'm busy baking superheroes and Fist is busy... being Fist. So that just leaves you three."
She smiles as she and Fist head out for anonymous business leaving Jom Jom and Night Hawk to decide that they don't really have an affinity for one another. Night Hawk scours the computer for leads while Jom Jom investigates the facility.
Hearing someone in the elevator, Jom Jom investigates and finds his quarry invisible. A futile argument with the mysterious intruder ends with Jom Jom grappling the individual, who is unfortunately called Fuse for a reason. An explosion fierce enough to punch holes in steel plating rips through Jom Jom and out of the 30 x 20 foot cargo elevator. Jom Jom is left dying here and there about the floor as Night Hawk approaches hurling threats at the assailant.
It turns out that Fuse has been in the facility for over week, all the while frantically trying to get out, but has thus far having failed to get the elevator to work.
Deciding not to make Fuse his 90-something fatality, Night Hawk lets Fuse off the hook when told, "I didn't mean to hurt him. I can't control it! Any time someone grabs me it just happens! I told him not to, dude."
A trip to the infirmary sees Jom Jom helped back from the claws of death, thanks partly to his newly discovered regenerative abilities and partly to the lab's revolutionary machinery. Jom Jom's right arm is broken and his unusual gate is indicative of ongoing internal damage. None-the-less, his burns are nearly gone and he's mobile.
The two return to the elevator where Fuse is still trying to find a way out. He's probably not the brightest knife in the drawer.
Cursory investigations of the elevator reveal the walls, floor, and ceiling have all been peeled away in the corner where Fuse exploded. Shockingly, behind both walls, the floor, and even the ceiling (!), is nothing but dirt.
Fuse ponders the obvious, "Shouldn't there be a shaft or something there? It' just, like, dirt and stuff."
Night Hawk proposes that the elevator is no elevator at all, but more like an illusion or a room built to look like an elevator. A man of few words, unless he has something pointless to say that is, Jom Jom doesn't bother with theories. He flies up to the 20 foot ceiling and scratches at the dirt above the hole. Clawing furiously he begins tunneling through and finds himself quickly surrounded by 100 degree dirt walls.
"How deep are we, anyway?" he wonders. A quarter of a mile later he breaks through a sheet of ice and emerges in what looks like the north pole. "Can this get any weirder?"
Jom Jom fills in Night Hawk who quickly proposes teleportation. "Remember our initial elevator trip down? None of us could sense movement. We assumed it was due to high-tech refinements in the elevator, but maybe there was something more going on."
"No way," Jom Jom comes back. Teleporting us to the north pole? That's too much. No one could do that."
Using his phone to snap a picture of the constellations, Night Hawk compares it to some webpages and decides that they are somewhere in upper Norway.
"Makes sense with The Administrator being Scandinavian and all."
Jom Jom jumps in, "Man, she's hot. Oh, and do you think that Jade's still going to be hot now that's she's all green and such? Remember when she all just stripped down and put on her gown? Geeze, we need to have operations more often around here. But what does Norway have to do with all this? "
"Who knows? Maybe this agency is bigger than a single government. Maybe it's global."
"Right. Makes sense."
Fuse, who is quickly discovered to be claustrophobic, is reluctantly allowed to be left on the surface. "You're gonna' freeze up here," Jom Jom insists. "It's a bad idea. Even I know that."
"I'm not going back down there!" Fuse screams.
Jom Jom leaves Fuse above ground, but comes back to check on him a few hours later to find his carcass is frozen into the earth. After carving him free, Jom Jom races him down to the facility where he is treated. No use. He's dead.
But not for long.
Left to himself, his pulse slowly begins to throb and in a few minutes his body is as warm and his demeanor as surly as ever. "Take me back! I can't handle it down here!"
"I'm not taking you back up there," Jom Jom comes back. "You'll just die again."
Fuse grabs Jom Jom's arm and glares. "You know what happens when someone grabs me. Are you gonna' pull my hand off of your wrist or are you gonna' take me back up?"
Trying to assuage him from another "explosive outburst," Jom Jom leaves him above ground again figuring that anyone who apparently can't die shouldn't have too much to fear from a little cold. He returns to find that Night Hawk has uncovered a bit of encrypted info from Dorian's database. This isn't the first time Fuse has died. In fact, Dorian thought Fuse was still dead from an unnamed incident. And it looks like Fuse was indeed supposed to be a part of a strike team.
So they ponder on that point, as well as something that Fuse said before totally freaking out:
"I'm not supposed to be a part of *your* team, I was supposed to be a part of the *last* team. What happened to them anyway?"
Name: Maxwell Stone
