No Master Plan Here (Madness Runs in the Family) (6 page)

             
She flinched and nodded sharply, still not meeting his eyes. Anansi sighed and shook his head, running a hand through the several days of stubble on his chin and realizing how long it had been since he had shaved. Getting absorbed into projects was really something that did a number on personal hygiene.

             
“Look, I'm sorry about the coffee, but as you obviously know who I am, I'll let you know that I don't kill people at random or on a whim, despite what you might have heard, so relax, would you?” He patted her on the shoulder and she flinched again, not enough to move away but a definite reaction to his touch. Anansi sighed again and muttered to himself before waving over his shoulder to the woman, off once again to find the shower he was desiring.

-~-~-

              Denise watched Anansi leave, the tiredness in his stance as he walked, dampening but not hiding the arrogant confidence of the supervillain. Once he was out of sight two hallways down, she allowed her form to return to natural, shedding the Asian features and skin tone like water at a thought, instantly growing an inch and trading the pudgy figure for her muscular form, pale skin for darker. She watched the hallway with confused thoughts playing about in her mind.

             
“He didn't recognize me.”

             
She made a mental note to test the development a couple more times, but if Anansi no longer could see through her disguises, it would mean she would be able to participate in the mission as opposed to just overseeing it, and that was preferable. Easier to keep a handle on things that she was near than just getting reports of.

             
She smiled, turned, and walked back to the cafeteria for another cup of coffee, a noticeable spring in her step.

Chapter 5

             
June 11, 2017

              Anansi watched out the window of the helicopter as they flew above the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a childish grin on his face as he stared at the forests and peaks below. Beside him sat Agent Ruthers, arms crossed and eyes shut, across from him sat Agent Lopez, a burly Latino who moved little and spoke less, and beside Lopez sat the Asian agent he had run into in the hallway, who had eventually introduced herself as Uso. Over the past several days he had seen her numerous times around the SHIP base, which was a high-tech submarine that served as a mobile command and containment center for the superhuman branch of the United States government. Anansi had shared the joke of SHIP on a ship with the agents, but none of them had found it as funny as he had.

             
Anansi had explored the submarine wherever he had been allowed to go, avoiding the restricted areas because his curiosity could have gotten the better of him and annoying his captors/co-conspirators would probably be a bad thing this early on in the collaboration. They had allowed him access to their armory, which was filled with the best Maker gear the government would buy, most of them bearing the mark of the company Blue Steel, Inc., which belonged to his sister and was occasionally supplied blueprints by him. Agent Lopez had looked at Anansi funny when he started laughing hysterically. Anansi hadn't told him what was so funny.

             
While their armory was good, it wasn't as good as his, which led to a request that sent the three agents and the villain in a helicopter ride over the mountains.

             
Thus far, he had figured Lopez for a Bruiser type, strong and near invulnerable, Ruthers for a Blaster, probably capable of blasting electricity from her hands, and Uso for a low level Works, but as none of them had actually demonstrated their powers and nobody let him get anywhere near a computer without supervision, he was restricted to guessing and not downloading the agency's files for future reference.

             
Anansi didn't mind. He was used to dealing with unknown factors.

             
Ruthers waved to get Anansi's attention, then activated the microphone on the oversized headphones he wore. “Where are we going, exactly?” the agent said, her voice garbled slightly by the noise canceling software in the cabin intercom. Anansi smiled as his mind went off on a tangent, playing with an idea to fix the problem. It would probably take him all of ten minutes with the computer to write the program, as if they would let him have a look. Unlikely.

             
“Well, you got the coordinates I gave you, right?” Anansi said. The blond agent nodded. Anansi looked out the window again, a smile on his face. He looked back to the agents. “If we go there, you will all be in for a treat. You'll get to see my base from when I was active. I can't face Archangel without gear, and while you had or could get everything I needed to remake my stuff, it'll be easier for me to just reactivate the base and get the gear I have there.”

             
“You left a base stocked in America?” chimed in Uso, a dark eyebrow raising. While the other two agents still wore suits with muted color tops underneath, she wore body armor similar to the type that the infiltration team had worn. A helmet rested on the seat beside her, and she wore a pair of pistols on her hips and a submachine gun strapped to her chest. White letters reading SHIP were emblazoned across her chest.

             
“Yeah. It was in case I ever needed to get back in a hurry. I could get here, store or refuel the plane I had taken in, restock, and get out to carry out more mayhem or whatever the order of the day happened to be.”

             
“Your files never indicated you took orders from anyone,” Uso said, apparently having overcome her fear of him in search of answers.

             
“You've done your homework, I never did, and don't plan to, as far as my own activities are concerned. I might make things I that I sell from time to time, but I don't usually do dirty work for anyone but me. Personal code, or some such silliness.” Uso nodded and began checking her weapons. Anansi watched her hands dance across her gear with the practiced ease of a professional and wondered where the apparently near-civilian organization of SHIP had found someone with obviously military level experience with weapons. Then he remembered the infiltration team and shrugged. She probably was one like them.

             
“Approaching coordinates. Orders?” came the voice of the pilot as he leaned around to face his passengers. Anansi nodded and pointed downwards.

             
“Land where you can. We'll need to enter on foot, so we have to land.”

             
“Not so much,” Lopez cut in, nodding to Ruthers. Ruthers unstrapped herself and took off her headset before she opened the passenger door and stepped out of the helicopter, dropping without a word or sound. Anansi watched, resisting the instinct to try and stop her, though it was strong. Lopez unstrapped himself and stood, hunched over so that he could fit in the cabin. “You and Mantis are with me.”

             
“Not to sound like a worrier, but we're still pretty high and I don't fly. I'm not The Suit, and even if I were, I still wouldn't be able to fly without my gear, which we are going to get.” While he was protesting, Uso, apparently Mantis, unstrapped herself and took off her headset. She put on her helmet, fastening it to her armor with a series of clicks. She nodded to Lopez and moved to the door. Lopez took off his own headset and looked back to Anansi, who still hadn't taken off his harness. With his slow and deliberate pace, Lopez unstrapped Anansi, despite Anansi's attempts to prevent him from doing just that, and physically pulled him out of his seat.

             
“You scared, villain?” Lopez shouted, his voice carrying over the sound of the engines. Anansi stuck his tongue out at the bigger man, unwilling to admit what was probably obvious. “Good,” said the Latino agent as he stepped backwards, pulling Anansi along. He grabbed Mantis by a handle behind her neck and stepped out of the helicopter into open air.

             
Anansi felt his insides climb up into his mouth as they fell. He stopped his glasses from getting blown off of his face, just barely, and made a mental note to install clips to hold them in place as part of the shield to his cybernetics. Anansi looked down to the ground rushing up at the three of them in time to notice Lopez undergo a transformation.

             
The first thing that happened is his muscles started to grow, then his skin started to crack as what appeared to be smooth grey stone began tearing through and replacing his skin. Lopez's suit ripped as his bulk exceeded the fabric's ability to contain, revealing a stretchy black bodysuit underneath, a grey boulder in a blue circle over the letters for SHIP in white emblazoned on his chest. Anansi guessed that the man had gained at least four inches in height and who knew how much weight and density with the transformation.

             
And he still wasn't flying. More like falling like a rock.

             
With the ground quickly approaching and no reduction in momentum apparently coming, Anansi allowed himself to wonder if this had all been an elaborate plot to kill him, just as Lopez threw Mantis and him skyward, plowing into the ground at what was certainly terminal velocity. Anansi realized as his momentum reversed once again that he was now resuming falling, but this time at only ten feet off the ground. He landed in the pile of pine needles beside the crater Lopez was currently walking out of and fell on his ass, his feet, ankles, and knees screaming in pain from the impact. He might have added his own exclamation of pain, but wasn't entirely certain. He noticed that Mantis landed with the grace of someone who had practiced that particular maneuver, which she probably had.

             
“While a novel idea for exiting aircraft, do you think we could maybe use the normal method of egress next time?” Anansi said as he sat up, pain lancing through his back, glaring at the rock-skinned agent. Mantis glanced in his direction, though her expression was unreadable behind the tinted visor of her helmet.

             
“This way is much easier,” Ruthers said, her voice coming from behind Anansi. Anansi looked, his glasses' lenses immediately darkening to compensate for the fact that Ruthers' body was now composed of raw electricity. Her body maintained its shape, still the same hair, the same length, except now it floated on the currents of her power as crackling energy. Anansi also noticed that her suit seemed to be gone, but unlike Lopez, she did not appear to have anything underneath. He looked away and stood. He brushed himself off and adjusted his glasses.

             
Lopez and Mantis waited as Anansi got his bearings and started trudging through the brush towards the edge of the clearing they were in. He pulled the cable from his implant and plugged it into his glasses, the lenses lighting up and linking with GPS satellites to provide a readout of where he was. Anansi turned in a circle to ensure that he was being tracked properly before turning back towards the crater and the SHIP agents.

             
“Ladies and gentleman, if you will come here, please.” He beckoned them over enthusiastically, his smile back on his face. Ruthers flitted over, hovering far enough above the ground that she did not set anything on fire. Lopez and Mantis followed. Anansi's smile widened.

             
“Welcome to the lair of the spider,” he said, sending a mental command across his neural link. The ground beneath them opened up suddenly, dropping the three that were not flying into a chute that curved sharply, turning fall into slide and eventually depositing them into a dark room with a cushioned floor. Ruthers floated down in after them, filling the room with light.

             
The walls were white and also cushioned, the ceiling high enough to accommodate even Lopez's increased height. While the agents stood and got their bearings, Anansi walked across the room to the large double doors on the other side. “Not as fun when it's you, is it, Rocky?”

             
“Stone, actually, and I don't care,” responded the massive agent. He tromped across the room, to look at the door.

             
“Creative. And I bet she's Spark,” Anansi retorted as he fiddled with a panel beside the door.

             
“Yes.”

             
Anansi paused and looked back. “Really? Stone and Spark? You people take uncreative naming to a new level. Does she turn into a giant praying mantis or eat her lovers?”

             
“As amusing as this conversation is, does this place have power?” asked Mantis, walking up behind Stone. She had unslung her submachine gun and was holding it in one hand, the other resting on her hip.

             
“Not at the moment, no. The reactor is disabled to prevent people from getting in here, but,” Anansi paused as the doors slid open wide enough to admit the group. He gestured to the doors and smiled. “Some things don't need it to work. Follow me.”

Chapter 6

             
Denise walked behind Anansi into the “lair of the spider,” Spark behind her and Stone taking up the rear. The hallway, like the rest of the base, was white, but the shadows cast along the floors and the distinct lack of noise save her breathing and their footsteps gave the walk down the entrance corridor a creepy atmosphere. She felt like a group of space marines on a derelict spaceship and half expected for there to be a killer alien lurking in the shadows, watching their movements and waiting for them to split up before it killed them all.