Jonah Hanes
Time: Late Morning
Location: San Francisco, Hospital
Interaction: California Liberty Office
Two Hours Earlier
“Meet me at your office NOW Jonah it’s important.”
Jonah looked at his phone once again to see the message sent to him. It was from none other then Nathan Forrester, the infamous CEO of the Forrester Corporation. He knew if he had a meeting with Nathan then that was his ass. Ever since he’d been transferred to California his life had grown harder than ever before.
After interrogating Xavier & slipping him recreational drugs laced with cyanide he was back at the office. It was during the brief interlude between Kalina picking him up from the hospital & his arrival back at Liberty’s California Headquarters where he’d received the somewhat urgent text message from Nathan Forrester.
After getting dropped him off, he told Kalina to report to her desk & see what paper-work was required of her while he went to go meet the President’s older brother. A lump formed in his throat as he neared his office, wondering why the President had sent his brother down to Liberty’s office to meet him in person or worst if Nathan had come on his accord because of personal business hey had done together in the past.
With no time to contemplate if he was going to be chewed out or not he slipped into his office. Nathan had taken the liberty, pun intended of taking a seat at his desk. He spotted a bottle of wine on the table, and saw two silver goblets one of which Nathan had filled for himself. “Oh I see you’ve made yourself at home Nathan.” Jonah replied with a hint of anger in his tone that Nathan was sitting at his prized desk. Jonah didn’t want to argue or raise a fuss so he took a seat in one of the three chairs in-front of his desk.
“You know for someone whose close to the chopping block, you have some nerve to have that spunk in your voice Jonah. Listen to me and listen closely, David, my brother didn’t send me, I came here myself to speak to you in person. As you know I’m quite busy with my company’s blood tests now being federally mandated by American Citizens, you can imagine I have several places I need to be, and your office isn’t one of them.” Nathan retorted picking up the silver cup and taking a few sips of his wine. “Would you like a drink Jonah? “
“No sir, you know how I feel about drinking on the job.” Jonah remarked turning down Nathan’s offer to imbibe on the alcoholic beverage. He liked to maintain a clear head and aside from that with Nathan being mad at him he didn’t trust any beverage he offered. He knew very well who Nathan Forrester was, and a man like him had so many connections that even if he did something under-handed to Jonah there was little chance he’d face any severe punishment if any was given at all.
“Have you ever heard the saying, never trust a man that doesn’t drink. ?” Nathan said in response to Jonah’s refusal to partake before moving on clearly not in the mood to further reference Crumley’s advice. “Now I need you to be very clear with me, Hanes. Why the hell did you drop this last video, we already had everything we needed today. But what you did was playing with fire, quite frankly you’re going too far..”
“Going too far? What the hell are you talking about, I didn’t make any other videos, I’m sticking to the schedule Nathan, are you serious? What kind of bullshit are you on about.” Jonah huffed clearly mad about whatever Nathan was accusing him of.
“Oh….” Nathan bit his lower lip a few times and examined his cup before downing the rest ad setting the goblet on the table. “Your quite the capable liar, but I’m an even better one. I say this to say lying is a very useful skill when utilized for the right reasons, mastery of that ability also requires one to know the opposite the people are telling the truth, and unfortunately it seems like you are. I wanted to look you in the eyes when I poised that question, then it seems the other video was not merely a one time incident, someone has actually taken up the mantle.” Nathan responded and took out his cell phone setting it on the desk.
Jonah raised an eyebrow wondering why Nathan had whipped out his cell phone, and a few beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Nathan quickly opened up his youtube app and produced the latest upload by the radical altered terrorist Reaper. Jonah’s eyes widened in shock as the video played out.
“I have warned you people enough, but now you see President Forrester’s true colors. This nation’s true color. Should the new laws surprise you, absolutely not. This country was BUILT on the backs of enslaved africans and slaughtered native Americans. That spirt of inequality and racism has lived on throughout the years as evident by our current president. It is time for utter & absolute war, destruction of this administration & it’s government! I declare war on the Forrester Administration & all of America! I advise all Altered to side with me against Forrester and participate in the eradication of the United States Empire. It is time for their mighty empire to fall, all great empires have been slaughtered In the past including the Roman Empire, America is no different! An empire built on greed & inequality of others shall not stand not thanks to these powers we have been granted! DESTROY THEM ALL!!!!” Reaper screamed out and the video ended, with the screen fading too black.
“Fuck” Jonah said as the Reaper clip ended and Nathan took his phone back, pocketing it then pouring himself another glass of wine. “Pour me one too Nathan.” Jonah grinned his teeth and hissed as the CEO obliged his request pouring him a glass of wine.
“Now I know your not lying, the drink aside all the color’s been drained out of your face. So your little project’s taken a life of its own. I admired your ingenuity & initiative at creating Reaper, I mean it was nothing short of genius how could I not support the idea? Rather then waiting for some bastard to rise up and take charge of the altered. We created our own villain to demonize those genetic beasts, which gave us control of the narrative. But now.” Nathan’s voice faltered off as he took a swig of the wine as the realization sunk in of what was going on.
“Now there’s a real Reaper, you know damn well I didn’t upload this video. I don’t even know why you asked, spirit of inequity hah. These wetbacks and monkeys should be glad we brought they’re ancestors to this country otherwise they wouldn’t have the priveledge of living in the greatest nation on earth. But we’re not here to discuss ungrateful colored criminals now are we Nathan, I understand you had to make sure that I wasn’t getting into character too much especially at a sensitive time like this..”
“Correct, our worst fears been realized. I’d hoped the last Reaper video was just a one-off thing, perhaps a prank or at most some over-zealous idiot trying to take on the mantle just to stir up the internet, but this is no troll. Someone out there took the bait, and assumed the identity of the enemy we created. And now there trying to use it to rally up the Altered against the Government, perhaps the only good thing to come from this situation is at least we don’t have to figure out anyone to blame for being the Real Reaper.”
“Yeah because now we have one.” Jonah responded and downed the glass of wine with one chug, shaking his head as the warm feeling of the alcohol settled into his stomach.
In The Present
Jonah was pacing around the room furious with the situation. A Giant woman was attacking the city, a nine foot mutant had been spotted tearing people apart, Shade had been spotted with an accomplice & a call had been placed to the police about some national guardsmen being melted alive at a check-point.
Just as Nathan had feared & predicted Reaper’s message was inciting violence. Not only that the reports of protests in other cities against the President’s new emergency act were starting to get violent. Maybe I made a mistake with creating Reaper, at the time it seemed like the perfect idea. Had I known that Sanchez kid was going to sink his high School in Chicago that would have been enough.
Jonah was furious at the situation, and now the military was being deployed to deal with the giant woman tearing up downtown. Another thing that had him worried was his partner Angela Fields who he’d just got off face-time with, she was out there in the thick of things. He’d witnessed a lightning bolt almost take her head off. “Angela I hope you get out of there.”
“Mr. Hanes.” Jonah looked up to see his secretary Patricia had popped into the room, and he motioned for her to step into the office.
“What’s going on, what update do you have for me?”
“Well your family’s been secured, they’ve boarded the chopper & are on the way to the Liberty Base in Nevada. I just thought you’d want to know they’re safe. In other news the tail you placed on Agent Green turned out to be more than necessary.” Patricia responded and walked over to Jonah’s desk handing him a slim folder with some files & papers in-between.
Jonah took the folder from her, setting it down on the desk and flipping through the pages skimming the information & notes. Austin Green was an agent of Liberty, who’d been part of the organization since it’s formation three months ago. He’d been plucked from the CIA & was someone who was personally recommended to him by the agency as a stellar agent who’d serve Liberty well. In recent weeks he’d begun to suspect that Agent Green had ulterior motives for being part of the organization or at the very least was allowing confidential information from Liberty to be delivered elsewhere. As his suspicions grew he’d placed a tap on his cell phone as well as getting a tail on him to track his every move. The results of that had been brought back to him and he was’t happy.
“So I was right about Agent Green, he’s been giving out intel on Liberty targets. I assume you’ve brought him into custody correct? I don’t mean to be rude Patricia, but I’m not exactly happy to be right about Green, as you and not many others know he’s the second agent that’s defected today. Anyway while this information is important & much appreciated I’d much rather get a play by play of the military’s response to Lori Martinez, right now that’s the biggest problem on our hands aside from Reaper. Anyway your dismissed.” Jonah opened up a drawer at his desk to put the files away when Patricia made a noise to indicate she had something else to say. “What is it Patricia.”
“Well Director Hanes, I..I.. took the initiative to look through the files. Apologies sir, but I know your busy as is everyone else with everything going on right now. You know one thing I’m good at is paying attention to detail in situations when many others don’t. Martinez is one of the targets Agent Green gave out intel about, & another thing the other eight targets have been reported missing or dead as well within the same time-frame that Green gave out their information. I’ve concluded or well highly suspect that Green’s source has a direct connection to the rampage going on downtown right now. In-fact according to the information we recovered, Green’s source acquired Lori Martinez’s information this morning.”
Jonah paused listening to what his secretary was saying and getting more upset at by the minute, but also more & more impressed with Patricia’s investigative abilities. He closed the drawer and took out the folder spreading the files about on his desk to take a second look on the information connected to Agent Green’s betrayal of the agency. “So your saying you think there’s a connection between Agent Green’s source, and big bitch stomping around. What do you think that is?”
“That I don’t know director, but what I do know is there is one. It’s importance might not be relative, but it also could be very pertinent perhaps even having to do with why Miss Martinez is demonstrating more then one power unlike all the other Altered we’ve encountered thus far.” Patricia concluded not having the answers Jonah sought for what the exact connection between Green’s source, defecting & the attack on downtown had.
“Alright you’ve done enough, in a good way. I know I’m hard on you sometimes, well all the times but you did good. I’m sorry if I’ve taken out any anger on you, it’s just being surrounded by monkeys & mutants all day is starting to get to me. Thanks to you we have a lead, and instead of sitting on our asses we’re going to follow it, let’s go have a word with Agent Green.” Jonah rose up from his desk clenching his fist thinking about the agent who was now a traitor causing his blood to boil. Luckily he had a way to take out his frustrations and that way was Agent Green.