The Meet Up
A collaborative post between @Chulance & @XandryaJace had made his way back to the safehouse with the bag of money now put up in his trunk. In the past few weeks he'd managed to seize a little over 500 thousand dollars from drug houses. It was more cash then he'd ever had at once & the most he'd ever accumulated in such a short span of time. At first it felt hypocritical to enrich himself with the funds from the illicit activities he was on a one man war to stop. However he wasn't getting any sort of compensation for his work which the streets of California so desperately needed. Leaving it behind would mean that the police would get their hands on it or worst criminal accomplices of the newly deceased who might stumble across it prior to cops getting to the crime scene. In the end he justified it primarily because he was also generously spreading the seized criminal wealth to other minorities struggling and living honest lives. "Shit I'm getting paid with everything I do, might as well hit ole girl up and see what she talm bout." Jace spoke aloud to himself as he was cleaning off some of his own guns at the safe house.
Anya had reached out to him seeking to form a partnership. Apparently she was a plant in some organization called Liberty, a secret operation put together by the U.S Government to monitor & police Altered humans. Part of him felt like any encounter with her could lead to him being nabbed in a trap sprung by the feds. But on the other hand he felt confident enough in his powers to escape standard federal custody. Only time would tell if he'd live to regret this meeting, but if this shadow group of hunters was real he needed to be one step ahead of them especially with the murderous mission he was carrying out with his own abilities. He responded to her saying that he was both ready & willing to go ahead & meet her. Now he was just playing the waiting game watching youtube videos and drinking a glass of wine in his safe house.
Having just had confirmation that Jace wanted to in fact meet with her, Anya hurried up the pace, taking a detour to one of the garages a couple of blocks away. It was there she’d take an FSS vehicle and drive to meet the infamous Shade. Anya wasn’t all that concerned about the meeting. Sure, he had his ability, but aside from that he wasn’t intimidating, not to her. She had advised her handler that he had agreed to the meeting and they were sending multiple operatives as back-up. Not that it’d be obvious. Quite the opposite, in fact. These operatives could blend into any environment and fool the sharpest of minds.
Anya got in the driver seat and started the vehicle. Back in the office, a couple of others would be monitoring the screen showing her and the vehicle’s location in real time. That was the new protocol they were following ever since this phenomenon started. Whenever an operative was meeting with one of those altered individuals, extra precaution was to be taken, and this morning was no different. Anya put the vehicle in drive and headed towards the location that Jace had provided for her.
The drive wasn’t all that long, but that was simply due to the fact that she was going against traffic. Eventually, when Anya arrived at the given location, she let Jace know. The young woman turned off the vehicle and stepped out of the car, waiting for him to greet her. The navy blue blazer she wore was partially covering her service pistol.
Jace felt a buzzing sensation in his pocket indicating that the elusive operative had arrived.
Well let's see what this game of jeopardy gets me Jace thought to himself figuring there was no turning back on the meeting at this point. Whatever happened was about to happen good or bad. He'd settled on the fact that he was making the right choice, if it was true this Liberty existed he needed to be one step ahead of him. There was only one force on earth he was still truly afraid of with his newfound powers and that was the United states Military. The thing about that was well it sounded like Liberty was allied with them.
"Glad you made it." Jace said coming outside in full gear, he wasn't one for any elaborate supehero costume. After all he could never see himself rocking spandex just because he was bullet proof. He was sporting the same gear he'd been running around in while he tore Devon's crew apart, everything was the same including the black dried blood stained mask. "Apologies about the stains I just got done with some work myself a little while ago." Jace spoke in reference to the remains of dried blood on his "uniform" coming from a battle against armed coke dealers within the past hour. "So what are we doing here? You know I'm Shade, you know what I can do and I have a funny feeling you agent types don't come alone. Yet you haven't sprung a trap on me yet, so start talking." Jace decided to take the initiative in asking questions after all she'd proposed this meeting.
“I’ll get straight to it then,” she added, crossing her arms and leaning against the vehicle. “As I told you before, I work at Liberty but I don’t work
for them. The agency I work for, my actual employers, have tasked me with recruiting you to help with various operations. These involving going after certain individuals and assassinating them, or maybe doing something as simple as breaking into a highly-secured facility to steal whatever they may need. In return, you get Liberty intel. Agents’ movements, missions targeting certain individuals or areas of interest, etc. If you’re interested, you’d have to come to one of our offices to go through a special screening.”
Anya stopped for a moment, looking around. “By now, I’m sure you have figured out that I don’t hold any allegiance to the U.S. government."
Jace nodded his head listening intently as Anya spoke. He was paying attention not only to her but the surroundings as well. "Well well the cat's out the bag then, so you just waltzed in here thinking I'd be cool rocking with a traitor to Uncle Sam." Jace spoke calmly apparently showcasing disapproval of a potential alliance with the woman who claimed not to have any real alliance with the United States.
"Lucky for you Uncle Sam hasn't exactly treated me all to well over the years, and I'm talm bout before I got these powers," Jace spoke in reference to the struggles he faced as just a black man prior to getting abilities. "Assassinations & high securlity facility break in's, you've got that much faith in my powers? Or you just really good at picking your fall guys? Your asking me to do some pretty heavy lifting. My interest is piqued with this liberty intel, but your people wouldn't happen to be offering a financial cash bonus for my service would they? Jace asked in a curious tone wondering if he was being asked to work for pay that didn't fit the task, or no pay all.
For a brief moment, Anya thought that Jace would back out. However, she was proven wrong when he continued talking, bringing up the possibility of monetary compensation. The young woman smirked in response. “Money is not an issue for us. Your cut will be dependent on the severity of the mission as deemed appropriate by the powers at be. This will be discussed beforehand during your briefing with me prior to every mission. With that said, you help us, we help you. It’s been my experience in the past that my superiors will, at times, offer either the cash or the intel for that one mission, but not both. I unfortunately do not have any say in that matter as it’s above my paygrade, but usually you don’t need to worry about that. If there’s any disagreement, then I will contact them and they will advise how to proceed...”
“How does it sound so far?”
"Well I'm still here and listening aren't I?" Jace said with a bit of sass in his tone towards her last comment. He was just trying to pus her buttons somewhat to get a better read on the undercover agent. "Hopefully the amounts the deem appropiate will resonate with me, lucky for you my hobby has been keeping my pockets pretty flush lately. So that means I can accept a mission or so for intel providing the intel is actually useful & beneficial for me." Whilst he had his own methods of making money, he wanted to avoid getting used for free super labor for compensation that was worthless to him. "Well suffice to say against my better judgement I'm buying what your selling agent. So what's next?" Jace poised the question to see what she'd suggest first.
Anya ignored his tone as there was no use responding accordingly. “Next up, we conduct a screening; standard for all individuals working for us. You will undergo a lie detector test. Our stress analyzer will simultaneously be measuring three factors. These include various changes in your voice which are undetectable to the human ear. It will also measure pupil diameter, eye movements, reading behavior, blinks, fixations, etc. Lastly, it will measure general physiological changes in your body which has been the standard test in the past. After that, you will meet 1-on-1 with some of my superiors. They will chat with you for a while, maybe offer you a drink or two, and then you’ll be on your way. I will let you know what time to come in tomorrow…today I’m a little busy with work. Speaking of which, I need an identifying item of yours. I advised my superior at Liberty I had tracked one of your locations and in order to legitimize my claim, I must bring him back something. In exchange for your troubles…” Anya paused momentarily before pulling out a stack of cash from her purse, “I can make a payment in advance.”
Jace fingers pulled at the hairs of his chain as she spoke. It seemed this was well thought out, very thorough. Whoever she worked for wasn't some rag tag operation or group, they were proficient and very official. "Okay so yall are organized, I guess that makes since if you infiltrated the feds." Being around anyone with ties to the feds made him weary, sure he wasn't pushing drugs or guns but he was black, with super powers.
"I think I'm up for the test or well all of those really, With the way your speaking, I've got a feeling this intel will indeed serve purpose in my life. ." Her final request brought back some of the initial discomfort he had about meeting her. But her producing a stack of cash pushed those worries back aside just as quick. "Ya know I was fina say hell naw but you put your money where your mouth is lady you've got a deal." Jace pulled off his mask and held it out in his hand ready to make the trade.
Smiling in response, Anya tucked the cash underneath her arm as she put on a glove, then she took Jace’s mask as she handed him his compensation.
“Pleasure doing business, Mr. Williams. I will be in touch.”
With that, Anya headed to the trunk to grab a clear plastic bag she could use for the blood-stained mask. “Try to stay out of trouble, yeah?"
Feeling the air on his face brushing against his hair was strange whilst still rocking the rest of his Shade "gear". Usually when undressing from this particular garb he was in private, this wasn't something he wanted to become public knowledge. Sure he was scrubbing the streets clean of itss worst occupants, but in reality he'd murdered several people in the past few weeks they all happened to be violent criminals. "I hope so, ." Jace replied to her while thumbing through the stack of cash. "I'll do my best, but I should be able to punch my way out of almost anything." Jace finished oozing with confidence not just in his own innate powers but of his new connection with Anya. She was deadly he could see a fierceness in her eyes, what she lacked in superhuman powers she made up for in her viciousness & intellectual capabilities. Liberty was one thing but what he saw in Anya was something else entirely. He didn't want to get on her bad-side and he was bullet proof.
Some time later...
After parking the FSS vehicle back in its designated garage, Anya took the short walk to Liberty, the bloodied mask isolated in the plastic bag which was concealed by a brown paper bag. To any random passerby, she could have just picked up some food and was now on the way to the office with it.
Once Anya got past the various layers of security in the building, she headed straight to her superior’s office. The door was closed, so she announced herself with a light knock. “It’s Donovan, may I come in?"
Jonah was sitting inside at the desk typing rapidly on his macbook and looking up at the television watching the President. He'd just issued the Emergency Altered Acts, the blood tests already had his blood pumping but these new so called temporary laws were even more exciting. This would grant Liberty far more power and resources to work. He had a brief phone call with some of the California National Guard before hearing a knock on the door. "Okay yes perfect, I'd say mobilize soldiers by places with heavy foot traffic. Grocery Stores, popular fast food chains, educational facilities, medical facilities, court-houses, gas stations, police stations." Jonah was lifting off some locations before getting off the phone. "Yes go ahead you may enter." Jonah spoke in response to the undercover operative
“I’ll be quick, promise. As it turns out, my contact didn’t pan out. I did, however, manage to get my hands on this...” Anya placed the bag on Jonah’s desk, right by his laptop. “It’s that vigilante you’re not too fond of... Shade. He started bright and early this morning, the blood’s fresh.” The woman reached in the bag so that Jonah may see the bloodied mask.
Jonah raised an eyebrow when Anya started off with bad news,.
I don't know why I expected Agent Donovan to pull through with something that big Jonah thought to himself as she continued. He was a bit taken aback when she produced Shade's blood stained mask. "Impressive, not Reaper but still he's another menace." Jonah noted examining the mask to see if it was the real deal thing he'd seen on Shade's own head. "Liberty picked up a report from San Francisco PD, bodies ripped apart, a drug house torn to shreds, mushed bullets, sounds like Shade's MO. " Jonah spoke referring to the murders of Devon's crew that Jace carried out earlier. "Take that down to the lab see if we can get a match, maybe this guy's been in the system before. But there's always that odd chance that he's never been caught for any crimes, after all he is a criminal serial killer. I'm not too fond of these altered freaks there not natural, there dangerous, but also don't care for gang bangers & thugs, you know a part of me thinks we should let Shade kill as many of them as possible, maybe even send him some lists of some rotten guys, then when he's done we take care of the last bastard him, is that wrong?" Jonah asked Anya wanting to see her answer but also to get her opinion. He didn't really see himself doing business with someone like Shade, especially considering that under the mask he was probably the same type of person if you could even call
them that, ones he was raised to hate.
“I’m gonna be frank with you,” Anya went on, grabbing the bag from his desk, “if we go that route, that betrayal may come back to bite us in the rear. Yes, he’s working alone, but you never know how ahead of the game he is, or whom he knows. If for some reason he finds out what you’re planning, then we may find ourselves in quite a bit of trouble, or you know, dead. We can let this run its course, let him do all the dirty work for now and see where we are down the line. There’s no reason we can’t turn him, you know?”
Anya was obviously against the idea. She was hoping Shade would turn into an asset for the FSS, maybe something long-term, and killing him off before that was simply not an option.
Jonah paused to listen to Anya, staring at her as he took in every word she was saying about the Shade situation. "You do present quite an important point with everything you just said." Jonah started happy to see the agent was putting some thought into her response to the question he'd just asked. "As for us loosing our lives, we're up against plenty of people with powers right now, he's just another one even if he's bullet proof. So what if we can't shoot him, there's other ways to take someone down. Restrict his airflow, poison, target the other criminals he cares about." Jonah's built up bias & discriminatory personality oozed through his words as he indicated that anyone that Jace/Shade cared about was probably a criminal and almost certainly one in his mind. "Also as much as I despise the Altered humans, we do have some "trusted" ones among our ranks as we speak." Jonah continued
As he was speaking the office phone began ringing. He got a text from one of the employees that it was a direct line for him. He picked up the phone noting that it was Marcus on the other hand. "Hello Agent Brown nice work with Lopez, listen." Before he could continue his face contorted to one of anger before slamming the phone on the hook. "Agent Brown just went rogue, apparently he didn't take too kindly to the Presidents new laws to keep some damn order in this country." Jonah was clearly flustered for two reasons loosing an agent, and having an ex liberty agent running around who had powers. He connected his laptop to the projector causing Agent Marcus Brown's file to appear on the wall as he turned the projector on for Anya to see. "See this man here, ex special forces, ability molecular acceleration fancy name for super speed he's the guy who just went rogue. Like you said fuck Shade forget him for now, aside from Reaper & any other Altered attacking innocent people in the open in the area he's now our main priority."
Holding back the urge to smile in regards to her recently-acquired source being on the clear for the moment being, Anya nodded attentively as Brown’s profile came up. “I’ll get working on that right away.” The young woman shifted her weight, switching the brown paper bag to her other hand. “My approach will be friendly, merely one co-worker concerned about the other. It may take a little time, but I want to build some form of rapport with him. I won’t take any drastic action without prior approval from you first, unless it’s obviously an emergency... I imagine this operation will be on a need to know basis?"
Jonah squeezed at his chin as if pondering on what to say in response to Anya. A rogue liberty agent was a threat they needed to focus on, but perhaps alerting everyone of his splinering from the organization would be a bad idea especially since they still had some liberty field operatives remaining that were altered humans. "Alright it's settled we handle this matter with Marcus discreetly, thanks to his ability a direct approach might be useless unless it's superhuman anyway thanks to his speed."
Can't believe we gave that bastard a heat resistant suit Jonah mentally rolled his eyes at the fact that they'd provided direct assistance/aid to someone who was know an enemy. "I want you to keep me posted on everything tied to the Brown communication & I mean everything. I can't afford another agent going rogue, not saying your a traitor. I'm almost 100% Marcus is, it's just what his people do and I don't mean Altered, but on the slight off hand chance that he's being manipulated or had his own control seized by someone with powers be very careful in dealing with him." Jonah concluded showing that he despised and discriminated against Marcus for other reasons then his newfound powers but also that he was still privy to other scenario's that could explain Marcus's abandoning his position even if he didn't deem them too likely
She could only listen as Jonah went on with his speech. She couldn’t help but pity the man for letting something like skin color get the better of him. Sure, the fact that seemingly all the Altered were of a different ethnicity was quite strange, but that deeply-seeded hate Jonah felt did not suddenly spring up 3 months ago. “I have his personal number, I’ll call him. Maybe invite him for a drink and see what he has to say…” Anya then leaned over Jonah’s desk, coming within inches of his face. At such close distance, it was safe to assume Jonah could smell her perfume. That, and possibly peak down her shirt if he chose to. “Sorry, this has been bothering me since I got in here,” she mentioned, pulling away and holding a piece of lint in front of him before discarding it. “I’ll keep you in the loop, you know you don’t have to worry about me.”
With a smile, Anya turned around and left his office, closing his door as she did so.
