Part Six

Fortunately, the neutralizer worked on the mysterious man. At least, he didn't try to break his bonds once he was under it. The FBI men very carefully brought their vehicles and prisoner - under the neutralizer the entire time - into the warehouse, to cut down on interference from people in the area who had been attracted by the fuss. The FBI men and women set up an interrogation room right there in the middle of the warehouse, with the big guy sitting on the concrete floor. The neutralizer was aimed at him from too far away for him to easily attack it, and the interrogators sat around him in chairs. Someone figured out how to turn on the lights for that area, and the interrogation began.

"Who are you?" asked Sanders.

"I am the Godsfather," the huge, misshapen man rumbled. "The progenitor of the gods. Where is she who bested me?"

"I'm asking the questions. What were you doing here?

No response.

"Who hired you?" said Sanders, more firmly.

No response.

Vic sighed and stepped forward to the edge of the light, though well back from the baleful glow of the neutralizer.

"My name is Victor Peltior."

"An appropriate name," said the man. He smiled at her. "Are you betrothed?"

"What?!" said Vic, sputtering. "NO! I mean, I..."

She snarled and shook her head.

"The love of my life is named Michelle."

"Ah," he said, nodding slowly. "A disappointment. As well as not uncommon for warrior women. Truly a pity. We could have birthed an entire new generation of gods."

He smiled at her. Leered, actually.

"What titans they would have been!"

Vic was a bit surprised at how well spoken he was. However, before she could think of what to ask next, the FBI came back into the conversation.

"Who hired you?" said Sanders, firmly.

The man sighed, and turned to look directly at the agent.

"I do not know. I was hired through an intermediary named Fred Richards - most likely a pseudonym - who made clear that he did not know the person's identity, either. I was to remain inside unless someone unauthorized tried to come in, then I was to stop them. Since I failed, I will not be paid."

"How did you know who was authorized?" said Vic.

"I was given a list of names with photos. Oh, and a description of one person who was not on the list. No name, no image for her."

"Where is the list?"

"Burned."

Agent Sanders swore.

"How well can you remember what was on the list?" said Vic.

He looked at her and smiled more broadly. He had fangs going both ways.

"Perfectly."

Over the next fifty minutes they got descriptions and names - which all present realized were likely false - for everyone except the exception. For some reason, Godsfather kept avoiding describing her. Finally, though, Vic persuaded him to admit he had actually met her, twice, when she had visited the warehouse. The woman was Caucasian, of roughly medium height and build. In fact, nothing about her stood out... with the exception of one feature.

"She wore makeup which made her look as if her eyes had exploded," said Godsfather. The image he presented seemed to make him feel uncomfortable.

* * *

Much later that evening, the flyer finally landed at the lair.

"I still can't believe that guy," muttered Vic, as they walked from the flyer to the rooftop stairs at the lair. "Hitting on me like that, after fighting us!"

"Yeah, I'd have given him a new sensation," said Energia, angrily.

She held her hands out in front of her, and the others jumped as she made a fat, blue spark arc between her palms with a loud Snap!

"How do you do that without burning holes in your gloves?" said Vic, once her pulse had settled back down.

"Superconducting fibers woven into the material," said Gadgetive, her tone scornful of Vic's ignorance, as they entered the stairs. "A not uncommon optional extra."

Soon the quartet was out of armor and in the main room, brainstorming, trying to make sense of all the odd information they had thus far gathered. After they rehashed this they tried for a while to come up with some revelation, some coherent plot behind all the events, but this eluded them.

"Masterminds generally don't have any physical powers," said Blue Impact, finally, frowning and pacing as she spoke. By now she was more thinking out loud than brainstorming. "They usually don't worry about not having them; since masterminds consider themselves to already be superior, they figure they don't need physical powers. Also, there's plenty of muscle just waiting to be hired. When they do have physical powers, either the mastermind part is secondary to the physical powers - like with Constantine - or they give themselves artificial powers. Most of those latter efforts aren't very successful, because they try for too much. Sort of the way people thought Dr. Gaunt had, a few years back, turning himself into a giant, before they learned that was an empowered homunculus, or whatever the actual mystical term is. (I need to remember to ask Dr. Piano about that the next time I see him.) One of the exceptions is Sung, who very sensibly boosted his body to just slightly beyond normal human limits, supplementing that with hard training. As several prison guards and fellow prisoners found out the hard way after he was captured."

"That reminds me," said Vic, "Sung was finally sentenced, two days ago. Life in prison with no hope of parole."

"Too good for him," growled Gadgetive.

"On a related note," said Energia, "I was checking my clipping service earlier. Solomon Harvek is now claiming that everything he did was part of a secret government project to develop the death ray he used against those Coast Guard boats. That it was all for the defense of the country."

"To continue, if this mysterious woman - or whoever is behind her - is an actual mastermind and is still hiring for this gig, we may be able to get a lead that way. I'll query my street and police contacts. Vic, you talk to your contacts at the Bureau, and also suggest they talk to the FBI."

"On it."

"Gadgetive, Energia, you both should ask around among supers you know whether there's been any activity related to someone putting the word out that there's work henching in the affected area. As well as whether known henchmen and assistants - especially empowered ones - have either gone missing or are bragging about their new job."

"Got it," said Energia.

"Got it," said Gadgetive, though she looked doubtful. "We've only got a few more days before break ends, though."

"Which is more important?" said Blue Impact, sternly. "Getting back to school on time or stopping a master criminal?"

"Putting it another way," said Energia, when her friend looked puzzled, "would it be better to get back to class on time and just let this go, or to chase down a mastermind working on a major scheme and get an excused absence?"

"Look, we've had this problem before," said Gadgetive, sounding annoyed. "What we decided then was to go back where we're supposed to be on time, and agree to meet on weekends and maybe evenings if things get hot."

"All right," said Blue Impact. "I think that's enough for tonight. Let's turn in and start fresh in the morning."

* * *

The two FBI agents met in the office of the senior of the pair later that evening. Both were tired; neither was happy with the day's events.

"Boss has already gone home," said Sanders, tiredly. "Though he was here late enough to get the report I called in from the scene."

"I don't like accepting help from outsiders," said Fuyumi Tanaka, as she sat. "Especially outsiders who wear masks."

"Vic Peltior is a badge-carrying federal law enforcement officer, and doesn't wear a mask. Technically, this is actually her case. She's interning with this team - Tricorne - as part of her training for the Bureau of Special Resources. One of the team's regular members, Energia, is registered with the Bureau. Also, while she doesn't look it, Blue Impact has been crime fighting longer than either of us and has a very good reputation."

"I still don't like it."

"Well, when we get a better budget we can handle all the cases ourselves," said Sanders. "Meanwhile, though I don't exactly welcome super help for super cases, they do come in handy."

* * *

"They've identified Godsfather and several of those he described," said agent Sanders, early the next day, in a secure call to the Tricorne lair. "He's an old foe of the Sailor, and someone who seems to be the same man appears in records and even myths going back thousands of years. However, he's been below the radar for decades, and was in our records as likely just a myth. Several of those from the list he gave us are known criminals, most of them with histories of working with masterminds. The eyeshadow woman has not been identified, but is likely the person in charge. Perhaps just of that warehouse; perhaps of this whole mess."

Blue Impact had the others gathered around the com center, with the phone set to speaker, but so far the three younger supers were staying quiet.

"Gadgetive did some research and found that the document manufacturing device was either an early version of what they used in the theme parks or a proof of concept prototype," said Blue Impact. "Either way, it's old, probably from the late Fifties. After several mechanical iterations, they started using a computerized system in the Eighties."

"So we need to find where it's from," said Sanders.

"Already know," said Gadgetive, finally speaking. "It was stolen from a museum of technology in Louisville, Kentucky."

"Did they report it missing?"

"Yes. Until now everyone thought it had been taken either by a classic tech collector or someone planning to sell it to one. Which I guess could still be the case. They just used it in the meantime."

"For making bogus documents." They could practically hear him scowling. "So, was it put there by the original thief? By the buyer? Or did it go through several hands?"

"You folks are better equipped to determine that than we are," said Blue Impact.

* * *

At breakfast Blue Impact refused to talk business, at least about the current case. Instead she kept the talk innocuous, insisting they not discuss the results of their searches until a meeting she scheduled for that afternoon. Since they hadn't had much chance to pursue their contacts yet that made sense.

Energia spent a couple of hours after breakfast contacting various people, mainly the Intrepids. None had any solid information. However, between the Intrepids, the Young Guardians and a few other teams and solo masks she spoke with she started to see a pattern.

She almost mentioned this to Vic during her morning workout, but didn't. Energia thought that the martial artist also was keeping mum about something she had learned. Their conversation in the lair's gym was curt and punctuated with knowing smiles.

Even during lunch the two of them kept quiet about their morning's work, though they both mentioned they thought they were on the trail of a clue or perhaps a big break. Gadgetive also was looking smug about something. Though they all still had work to do in pursuit of their hunches.

"Okay, spill it," said Blue Impact, impatiently.

"Nope," said Gadgetive, grinning. "Your rules. I'm still gathering information, but should be ready for the two O'Clock meeting. Not before."

"Same here," said Vic, not as impishly but still with a smile. "Don't want to speak prematurely."

"Ditto," said Energia.

"Right," said Blue Impact, tone and expression carefully neutral.

Finally, the meeting came. Or, rather, about ten minutes before the scheduled time the last of the four wandered into the lounge area. For once it wasn't Gadgetive, who was second to arrive, after Energia. Instead it was Blue Impact; perhaps to demonstrate that she could be more patient than the younger members of the group. She stood, staring at the other three as they sat on the couch, pretending a casualness they didn't actually possess. There was eventually some uneasy hemming and hawing by the two youngest, while Gadgetive just sat there impatiently.

"Okay, okay," said Energia, rolling her eyes and sighing. "Guess I'll go first. The main thing I found is that a street mask who goes by the name The Black Badge - rumor is that he's a former cop who got fired for actually enforcing the law on people whom the establishment treated as above it - has been all over several of the big cities on the East Coast, following a trail only he seems to have noticed. This mainly has involved beating up people until they tell him what they know about a new mastermind who is hiring lots of empowered thugs and gadgeteers. Oh, and while it's not confirmed that he's a super, given what he does and how, he's at least a low-level physical."

"Wow," said Blue Impact, startled. "I completely missed that. I mean, I knew about his rampage but didn't know what was behind it. Definitely worth following up on. Okay, Vic?"

"What I uncovered is very similar, actually," said the martial artist. "Except that it's Pink Monkey who's on a tear. According to the folks I spoke with at the Bureau, she's looking for some new mastermind who hired a bunch of her favorite cohorts. She was mad at first 'cause she needed those people for some scheme of her own; then she got even madder 'cause whoever hired them wasn't interested in hiring her."

"Wow," said Blue Impact, again. "Okay, good work."

"All I got was some puzzling thefts of old equipment," said Gadgetive, too quickly and far too casually.

"What sort of equipment?" said Blue Impact, suspiciously.

"Oh, just some old tools and parts, the sort of things used for mechanical watch and clock and typewriter repairs. As well as stuff for making replacement parts."

"Let me guess," said Blue Impact, nodding slowly. "Several small thefts, much of it of stuff in storage because there's not much call for it these days, but some of it was made by gadgeteers and such? Also, those several small thefts add up to a lot of material gone."

"Bingo," said Gadgetive, grinning toothily. "It's almost as if someone who recently acquired a lot of half-century old intricate mechanisms needs parts and tools to get them back into operation before selling them."

"Antique tools and parts," said Energia, laughing, "forgotten gadgeteer gear and obsolete microforging equipment. Electromechanical computers used for making fake documents. Stealing the stuff to make the stuff to repair the stuff. I think I love this case!"

"Well, while I don't consider my morning wasted, I didn't uncover anything about the case," said Blue Impact, also smiling, but wryly. "When none of my usual contacts had anything, I contacted Doctor Piano on the off chance there might be a supernatural connection. He thinks that is very unlikely, but will keep a metaphorical ear to the ground. I also contacted Samuel Logsdon, the son of the man who currently owns Abner Sturgeon's house; the missing Emil Logsdon. He's willing to let us in to check for clues. However, his priority is working with police to try and find his father."

"So," said Vic, leaning back and putting her hands behind her head. "Three good leads; maybe four if we can find something at the house. Where do we start?"

"Well," said Energia, lifting off the couch, "I'm going to call my folks and my advisor at Ramsey Technical College and let them know I may be late getting back."

"That sounds like a very good idea," said Vic, also rising, though more mundanely.

"Guess I better, too," said Gadgetive, with a sigh.

"Once you've done that," said Blue Impact, "actually, after we've all done that, we need to see if we can find The Black Badge."