No Master Plan Here (Madness Runs in the Family) (5 page)

             
“Anansi and I have history. I worked for him for a bit, feeding information on his activities to the FBI. It led to a few of his plots getting foiled. He figured out I was doing it, so he rightly doesn't trust me.” Denise felt the detachment in her voice as she spoke. She saw Anansi put the pieces together and figure out that there was a game afoot that had little to do with his criminal past.

             
“Okay, but that doesn't mean you can't run the session. You can look like anyone. He doesn't need to know it's you.” Lopez wasn't interested in the interrogation anymore. His eyes were on Denise, and she could feel it. He didn't have any psychic powers, but he had a presence about him that made him hard to ignore. The fact that he was several inches taller than her and more than twice her weight in a way that had nothing to do with body fat did nothing but increase his presence, especially in the close confines of the room.

             
“He always knows it's me. I have no idea how he does it, but he does, and if he knows I'm running this, he might refuse simply to spite me. I've seen him do that before.” Lopez did not look satisfied with the answer, but he accepted it, for now. Denise knew he would be bringing it up again later. He nodded and finished his coffee, tipping the ceramic thermos up until the last drop was gone. He eyed the empty mug and sighed.

             
“I'm gonna catch a nap. Let me know if he acts up.” Denise nodded, and he walked out the door, mumbling to himself as he went. Denise turned back on the audio feed from the room, allowing her to hear the conversation as it continued inside.

-~-~-

              “What “game” do you think is afoot, Anansi?” the woman said, her eyes boring into him, inspecting him like one might a dangerous animal. Or a bomb. The look fit more with the situation than the impassive stare she had been giving before, which confirmed to Anansi that something was going on.

             
“So we're going to play it this way? Fine, I'll play your game. You have me here. You know who I am and a bit of what I've done, which would be enough to put me away for a long, long time. You have enough evidence to prove that I did those things, too, especially that bit with Lowe, which you probably think he deserved but won't say so because your job would be at stake if you did. And yet here we are, with you waving my crimes in front of me like some sort of television detective who still can't put the bad guy away without a confession, like you're trying to guilt me into something.” Anansi smiled and spread his arms as wide as he could, the chain rattling against the bar holding them to the table. “We can keep beating about the bush or you can tell me the real reason why I'm here.”

             
Anansi leaned forward, his head angled so that the light cast shadows across his eyes and gave the woman his most evil grin. “And if you don't want to play, I'll up and leave, and I'll kill everyone I meet on the way out.”

             
The statement got exactly the reaction he wanted from her. She looked back to the one way glass with a nervous look on her face. He saw her mouth “Can he do that?” in the reflection. When no response came, she turned back around to face him. Gone was her calm exterior, replaced with barely controlled irritation. A spark of electricity arced from her fingers, something she didn't seem to notice.

             
“As you may know, President Reese did not have a high regard for supers of either variety. He did not believe that people should possess that amount of power.” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “President Andrews holds much the same beliefs, but is willing to accept that supers are a fact of modern life and is willing to work with them. He asked us to find you and enlist you to assist in a matter of not only national security, but that of the world, and to coerce you, offer you a full pardon.” Anansi raised an eyebrow and sat up, listening intently.

             
“Two weeks ago, Agent Lockheart, better known as Archangel, went AWOL and stole the first part of a classified prototype chemical agent, SX-203. We believe he is attempting to collect the other three parts to complete the agent and deploy it in the United States. SX-203 is a volatile agent which has the capability of creating superpowers in approximately seventy percent of people exposed and remains on the skin, effectively making it contagious by contact. If deployed, it could spread across the world within days.”

             
“So it makes nearly everyone supers. I can see a few problems with that, but I don't see how this makes it an end of the world scenario.”

             
“In the third who do not gain powers, eighty-five percent die from spontaneous cancerous growth in their heart and lungs within a week. In the two thirds that do, the likelihood of this is only fifteen percent, but the likelihood of power degeneration and madness or death is approximately fifty percent, with actual percentages varying by class, greater chances for higher classes. Imagine the damage that could be caused by a Class four Blaster spontaneously detonating because they lost control of their powers.”

             
Anansi considered it. A Class four was no joke. Given the situation she was proposing, it could be as bad as detonating a large Fuel Air Explosive. Odds are it wouldn't be just one. And following that same odds, it would probably happen in a major population area. While Anansi had for many years been in favor of population reduction, he had never thought to do it actively. Well, not planned to, at least. Considering it because people were idiots and didn't know it and actually taking steps to follow through were two different things.

             
“So, the question is why are you reaching out to me to stop Archangel? Why not go after him yourself?” He tried crossing his arms and was brought up short by the handcuffs, so he put his hands back on the table. “Why not enlist the aid of one of the many super teams that are actually legal in America?”

             
“Because the President wants to keep this under wraps as much as possible. If news that Archangel has gone rogue or that SX-203 exists get leaked, it could jeopardize the nation's standing in the world. Archangel is the only Class Four super currently on direct government payroll, and while the loss is significant, people knowing it would be a political nightmare. Also, out of any fights Archangel has ever had, the one with you caused the least amount of collateral damage, and we believe you could duplicate that.”

             
“You keep saying “we.” Who is “we?” And who are you so that I can stop thinking of you as “Suit chick number one?””

             
“We are Superhuman Handling and Incident Prevention, and I am Agent Heather Ruthers.”

             
“SHIP?” Anansi smirked a little. The agent nodded. “So...like “This ship is sinking and I'm here to bail it out?” Or “Who's running this ship?!”” Anansi flailed his arms as best he could and laughed. He adjusted his glasses and rolled his eyes. “You people and your acronyms.” Agent Ruthers gave him a stare which made him smile wider.

             
“So if I am going to be taking down Archangel, will I be doing it in handcuffs the whole time?” Anansi yanked at his cuffs again, rattling the chains. “Or can I get extended a bit of trust and lose them?”

             
Agent Ruthers stood and walked around to Anansi's side of the table, pulled a key from her hip pocket, and unlocked the handcuffs. Anansi rubbed his wrists and watched Ruthers closely as she unlocked his ankle cuffs. Anansi grinned at Ruthers, who returned the smile with an impassive look before returning to her seat.

             
“Now,” Anansi said as he pulled a cable from the cybernetic implant at the base of his skull, connecting it to the port in his glasses. His virtual display did not activate, but he was able to activate the recording feature of his glasses. “Let's get this straight. I stop Archangel from releasing something I'm going to call “Instant Superhero-Kaboom” on the unsuspecting population for reasons that you don't know on behalf of the President so that he can save face with the global community. That about right?”

             
“Not my terms, but yes.”

             
“Alright, I have a few terms, before I agree to do that.” Ruthers started to protest, but Anansi held up a finger and simply talked over her. “First, while I don't really care about it, I'll take that pardon that you mentioned earlier. I might as well if it's on the table. All crimes, and I'll give you a detailed list of everything I did so that you don't try to accidentally not include any of them to prosecute me on them later. Second, you leave my family the hell out of any dealings we have. I know three of my siblings are registered. You mess with them, you mess with me.” Anansi leaned forward, interlacing his fingers beneath his nose. “And seeing as you lot have left me alone for three years and are now sending me after a Class four Works, I know you think I'm dangerous enough to do something if you do.”

             
Agent Ruthers nodded and sighed, looking more irritated by the second. “Is there anything else on the damned list? Money? Political demands?”

             
Anansi leaned back and smiled. “Just one more thing. I want a damned sandwich.”

             
“A sandwich?”

             
“Yeah. Bacon, crispy but not too crispy, fresh lettuce and tomatoes, and toasted whole wheat bread with butter.” He licked his lips and chuckled at the incredulity on Ruther's face. “Hell, had you asked me to, I would have kicked Archangel's goody-goody ass for free, and it wouldn't have cost me a couple of months of work on security protocols destroying my experiments.”

             
“We did.”

             
Anansi's grin disappeared in an instant. He blinked. Maybe he hadn't heard her right. “What?”

             
“We tried to contact you. A week and a half ago when it was first authorized to pull you in on this mission.” Agent Ruthers crossed her arms across her chest. She snorted and shook her head. “You never responded, which we were told was to assume you didn't get it or that you were ignoring us to get back at America. We were told to get your attention with more direct means.”

             
Anansi stared at the table, processing that. He wished he had Kay to confirm that, and the realization that he was without her made him feel like a part of himself had been severed. How long had he been working on that exoskeleton without a break? He could have asked what day it was, but he couldn't think of when the last time he had checked the calendar, despite regularly having an artificial intelligence in his head that could tell him whenever he so much as thought about it.

             
“Can I get a finger of whiskey to go with that sandwich, then? It is not often I'm the dumb person in a room.”

-~-~-

              An hour, a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, and a bit of whiskey later, Anansi was leaving the interrogation room for the showers. He had a verbal agreement for now and the written agreement would be presented in a day or two, once verified and signed by the President. In the mean time, the plan would move forward to thwart Archangel's plot. Anansi chuckled to himself at that thought. Usually he was to be the foil-ee, not the foil-er. It would take a little getting used to, being on the side of the government for once.

             
As Anansi headed towards the showers and then a room, an actual room, not a cell, he considered just how amusing it was that the government, with whom he held a not so secret loathing for and felt the feeling was mutual, would be reaching out to him for help. It was amusing, if slightly suspicious.

             
Absorbed in his thoughts, Anansi did not notice the woman who came around the corner into the hallway until he had collided with her, knocking his glasses off and her coffee mug from her hand, spilling it onto both of their chests. Anansi hissed at the pain of hot coffee soaking through his tank top to his chest, kneeling quickly to try to recover his glasses.

             
“I'm so sorry about that,” he said, making out the blurry form of the woman kneeling down beside him. “I wasn't paying attention to where I was going.” Her hand touched his, holding his glasses, and he sighed with relief. While a fall certainly wouldn't damage them, the fact that he couldn't see a thing without them made them mostly crucial to his well-being.

             
“It was all my fault. I was rushing,” she said as he put on his glasses. As the world came into focus, he saw that the woman he had run into was Asian, with the soft features of someone who enjoyed food and did not care for exercise but did it anyways, wearing black dress pants with grey pinstripes and a blue blouse that was soaked with coffee. He could see the outline of her bra from the way the liquid caused her shirt to cling, and promptly focused on her face again, standing as she did.

             
“No harm, no foul. Good thing the coffee wasn't too hot.” Anansi smiled, taking a step back to a more comfortable distance. He noticed a nervous stance to the woman, and the way she was staring at him like he was some sort of rabid beast made him slightly uncomfortable. “Are you with SHIP as well?”