Chapter Text
“To be honest, I’m really surprised that they agreed to the plan.”
It’s long after dark has fallen. Outside, the sky is obscured by a thick layer of dark grey clouds. Huge chunks of ice hit the ground, making enough of a noise that they have to raise their voices to be heard clearly.
“Why? It’s a good plan. You said so yourself.”
He smiles. “Well, apart from the fact that we’re taking a bad situation and giving it the potential to become that much worse…”
“Which you already mentioned. Twice.”
“Aside from that,” he continues, “I’m surprised because to be frank, I didn’t think they’d even hear you out. I mean, half of the division hate you, Veda.” He folds his arms.
“I’m just that good,” his companion replies with a vulpine grin, her eyes shining behind her glasses.
“I mean, you’re an ex-supervillain,” he starts. “You’re a woman, you don’t take shit from anyone, you read minds, and the worst part? You’re a lawyer.”
“Like I said,” she says smugly, “I’m just that good.”
“If I ever get arrested, Veda, I want you for my lawyer.”
Veda Scott grins at him. “Zack, I don’t think you’d ever get caught.”
“But if I did-”
“If you did, of course I’d be happy to help out a friend.”
Zack Sabre Jr sighs exaggeratedly. “Thank God.”
Veda sits down at the table and looks up at Zack with a serious expression. “So, now that we’ve got the question of your future legal representation out of the way… you’re absolutely certain you want to do this?”
Zack sits down opposite her and nods. “Damn right I am. You need someone with the skills and experience to lead this mission, and I don’t think there’s anyone more qualified than I am.”
“I’m not disputing that,” Veda says. “But seriously… the threat level’s through the roof. You do understand that, right?”
“You know I do,” Zack replies. “I’ll be fine, Veda.”
“You’re not going alone,” Veda states flatly. “You need someone with you. You can’t handle a team of villains by yourself.”
He holds his hands up, placating her. “I know. I tried to tell you before, I’ve already had someone ask me to come along, but I’m not sure…”
“Oh? Who?”
“Me,” a new voice says from the door.
“Mark, didn’t anyone ever teach you how to knock?” Veda asks, adjusting her glasses.
Mark Andrews shrugs. “Didn’t see the point in it.” He takes a seat at the table, peering down at the assorted papers scattered across the surface.
Zack and Veda exchange a glance.
“Look, I know I don’t have powers,” Mark starts, “but please don’t insult me by ruling me out because of that. I’ve got years of experience and I know I can do this, all right?”
“It’s not that I don’t think you can keep up,” Zack says. “If this were a normal military mission, I’d bring you along in a heartbeat. But this isn’t a normal mission. We’re talking about a team full of psychopaths, murderers, and psychopathic murderers. They’re not soldiers, they’re not used to taking orders, and even with the measures we’re taking, they’re probably going to rebel against the authority figures whenever they can. They’ve all got powers, and the fact that you don’t is going to make them not take you seriously at best. And to be honest, Mark… you don’t exactly make people fear you with your mere presence.”
“Also, for the record, just because they’re convicts doesn’t mean you can treat them however you want,” Veda adds. “Last time something like this got tried out, it failed spectacularly for exactly that reason.”
Zack blinks. “Wait, someone tried this before?”
“It was a long time ago,” Veda says, shrugging. “And in Europe, and kind of a secret. Basically, the government of a country I won’t name recruited a bunch of criminals with certain specialties and sent them off to retrieve some top-secret ultra-special weapon blueprints that’d been stolen by spies and sold to terrorists.”
“And it failed?” Mark asks, momentarily diverted.
Veda waves a hand. “Eh, kinda-sorta. They got the plans, but one of the guys in charge really hated the fact that he was working with criminals, so he kept getting physical to remind them who was in charge. The criminals were supposed to get reduced sentences for completing the job, but instead, once they got back to the home country, they topped the guy and mysteriously vanished, and none of them have been found since. I mean, they got the plans back, but they also got a pretty firm reminder of how they fucked up.”
“All right, I get you,” Mark says. “But I still want to do it.”
“Why?” Veda asks, mystified. “You do know that all of you could be dead as soon as you walk in, right?”
“Yeah, you mentioned it,” Mark says. “I don’t care.”
“Why?” Veda asks.
“I’ve been in the RS for years, Veda,” Mark says. “I’ve nearly been killed more times than I can count. I survived Villain and Marionette and the Riots, I can handle myself. Trust me.”
A long moment passes, and nobody speaks. Zack casts a long look at Veda, and finally nods. “All right. I see your point.”
Mark lets out a breath, relieved, and smiles. “Good. Thanks.”
Both men turn to Veda, who shrugs, her face solemn. “What do you want me to say? I obviously can’t talk you out of it. Just…”
“What?” Mark asks, his expression falling.
“Be careful, OK?” Veda asks. “Don’t get killed. Especially not when I’m the one who thought up this whole thing in the first place.”
Mark crosses his heart solemnly. “I promise. I have no intention of getting killed.”
“Likewise,” Zack says dryly.
There’s an awkward pause, the kind that goes for just a little too long, and then Zack clears his throat. “Shall we?”
Mark flops into a chair and nods. “Sure. Strategy first, or?”
Veda shakes her head. “Strategy comes second. First thing we need to do is pick who you’re going with.”
She rummages through the bag beside her chair, pulls out a thick folder and sets in on the table. “These are the people they’ll let us take- there’s around thirty or so in this folder, I think. There’s a couple of catches, though: first is that you can only take about ten or eleven, second is that there’s no guarantee that the ones we ask will say yes. And, OK, third, the department might do some interfering if they don’t like our picks, but I’ll do my best to run interference.”
Mark nods. “What do we have to offer them?”
“They come with us and survive, their sentence gets cut in half,” Zack replies.
Mark considers this and nods. “All right. Think we should aim for numbers?”
Zack thinks about it for a second. “As long as we can control them, I don’t see why not. Emphasis on can control.”
Mark grimaces, looking down at the folder. “Something tells me this is going to be a lot more complicated than I thought.”
Veda shrugs. “Well, let’s make it simple. How about we go through the list and start by ruling out anyone who we don’t want on the team? Though I think that we should all agree on including someone, before we add them to the team.”
“Sounds good,” Zack says.
Mark nods.
She starts going through the folder, taking out bundles of stapled sheets and stacking them in the middle of the table. Mark pulls a tablet from his bag and turns it on, while Zack picks up a pen and pulls a pad of paper in front of him. “Shoot.”
Veda adjusts her glasses and picks up the first bundle, looking down at a slightly blurred photo of a huge reptilian humanoid with dead eyes. “Viper. Limited shapeshifting abilities, effectively turns into a very durable snake-man hybrid with venomous fangs…”
Zack’s already shaking his head. “Are you kidding? Viper’s a fucking sociopath. He only does things for his own amusement, and even if he agreed to come on the mission, he’d definitely stab us in the back as soon as it stopped being interesting.”
“Even if he had powers that’d make him useful, the fact that the reward for completing the mission is a reduced sentence is enough to make me say no,” Mark agrees. “Viper deserves every second he got, and I’m not going to reduce it.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t going to OK him either,” Veda admits, drawing a line through the name. “All right.” She sighs heavily, staring down at the next photo- a trio of beings that look like monstrous clowns. Rosemary: life absorption, both living and non-living materials. Temporary super strength and regeneration.”
“Isn’t she the nutjob who claims to be possessed by a demon?” Mark asks, frowning.
Veda grimaces. “Yeah. I used to know her, before she… changed. I don’t know her now.” Before either Zack or Mark can reply, Veda hurries onward. “And her friends: Abyss- super strength and some kind of extra-durable skin. Then Crazzy Steve. He’s officially an unknown quantity, but the smart money says he’s got some kind of enhanced senses. The three of them claim to have some kind of psychic link, but there’s no proof of that.”
Zack folds his arms, letting Veda’s earlier comment slide. “Abyss isn’t known for his agility. He can withstand a fair bit, but he can’t move that fast. I can’t really say he’d be that helpful.”
Mark looks up from his tablet, dubious. “Honestly, on a mission like this, I don’t think taking anyone with unconfirmed powers is a good idea. I’m not prepared to assume that the psychic link story is true, either. But Rosemary could be a good idea.”
Zack shrugs. “I wouldn’t be opposed to including her.”
Veda looks dubious. “I’d like to meet her first.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Zack says. “Also, would she agree to come on the mission without her… whatever they are?”
Mark shrugs. “Tell her the reward would stand for all three of them. They’re hardly big-time criminals. Those three going free earlier than they should isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
“So we’re agreed?” Veda asks. “We interview her, then decide?”
Both men nod.
Veda puts a question mark next to the name, puts a line through the other two and moves on to the next.
“Edge. Super agility and energy manipulation.” Veda purses her lips, handing around the papers. “I don’t know…”
Zack shakes his head. “He’s versatile, but from what I’ve heard, he’s got a bad tendency to rebel and he thinks he knows best. Not much of a team player.”
“Yeah, I’d say he’s a no,” Mark agrees.
Veda shrugs, crosses the name off and moves on to the next name. “Oh, God. Sweet Saraya-”
“No!”
“Hell, no,” Mark agrees emphatically.
“Yeah, I’m not even going to go any further,” Veda mutters, drawing a line rather heavily through the name. “All right… Snowflake?”
“The crazy bank robber?” Zack asks, glancing down at the photo of a tall, handsome man wearing a flower crown. “How’d he make it on the list?”
“Probably because it says here he does light fields that can effectively make people invisible, work as forcefields and he can use them as weapons,” Veda replies, scanning the notes. “Of course, he apparently has DID, so that might be a problem…”
Zack frowns absent-mindedly, staring off into space. After a few seconds, he looks thoughtful. “Tell you what. Let’s all assess him, and then we can decide if we want him on the team.”
Mark shrugs. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
Veda nods. “I can at least help there. All right, Snowflake’s a tentative yes… how about Thespian? Sonic powers…”
“Guy’s a total drama queen, no pun intended,” Zack objects. “Too much potential to screw up the team dynamic.”
“And sonic powers won’t be that helpful,” Mark adds. “Unless you’ve got countermeasures, they affect everyone, including your own people, and the kind of countermeasures we’d need haven’t been mass-produced yet.”
Veda shrugs and draws a line through the name. “Onibaba. Super strength, super speed, can turn her hands into claws…”
“Two problems,” Zack starts. “First, she’s sadistic to the point that it’s going to interfere with any orders we give. She loves fucking people up, and honestly, I don’t think that’s what we need.”
“And the second problem?” Mark asks curiously.
“I’m gonna guess Zack’s talking about the language barrier,” Veda says.
Zack nods. “Onibaba’s grasp of English isn’t too strong. She’d probably be able to understand the basic sentences, but that won’t work in a fight. And neither of us speak Japanese.”
“All right, scratch her,” Mark says. “Who’s next?”
“Lilith. Telekinesis, shapeshifting, and… well. She says it’s illusions, intel implies that it’s actually summoning monsters. No actual proof as to which is correct.”
“Either way, it’s useful,” Mark comments. “We either get disposable fighters or ways to manipulate the enemy.”
“Right, count her in,” Zack says.
Veda grimaces at the next name. “Yeah, no.”
“Who?”
“Villain.”
“No,” Mark says flatly, his eyes narrowed.
“Hell, no,” Zack echoes.
“Machine?” Veda asks. “No powers, but he’s a cyborg- super strength, resilience…”
“A cyborg with a serious attitude problem,” Zack objects. “The guy’s an arsehole. That’s how he wound up in prison in the first place. He’d be nothing but a liability.”
“Yeah, I’m not going to argue,” Mark agrees.
“Carmine,” Veda suggests. “Blood manipulation and some kind of emotion control.”
Mark looks troubled, glancing around the room. “I… don’t know. I mean… I did get him locked up, but…”
“But?” Veda asks.
“We used to be friends,” Mark admits, staring down at the photo of a man with an emo fringe, turning away as he flips the camera off. “I don’t know if he’d agree…”
“So that’s a potential source of conflict,” Zack muses. “On the other hand, he’s… well. Good at killing. And maiming. And mutilating…”
“And defiling dead bodies,” Veda adds. “The guy’s fucked in the head.”
“But capable,” Zack rebuts. “And honestly, cutting his sentence in half doesn’t change the fact that he’s not getting out for a long time. Thank God.”
“He is a qualified doctor,” Mark says, though he doesn’t sound too enthusiastic. “We can always use a medic.”
“Yeah, but using Carmine as your medic after the shit he did?” Veda asks incredulously. “Come on.”
Zack folds his arms. “I don’t know if we will use him as a medic, but if we do, then I can assure you that if he tries to fuck us over, it will not go well for him.”
Veda groans. “It’s your funeral, and I really hope that doesn’t turn out to be literal.”
“Look, let’s talk to him and see what happens,” Mark suggests. “I mean, I’d like to talk to him, anyway…”
“All right, sure,” Veda says. “Next up is Glitch: creates items, mostly weapons.”
Zack shakes his head. “Guy’s a little bit nuts. Thinks he’s a rock star, has a weird obsession with broomsticks. And the stuff he summons tends to give out after a few uses.”
“Isn’t he the guy who summons video game stuff?” Mark asks curiously. “That could be an advantage.”
“The problem with that argument is that most of the stuff he summons isn’t predictable,” Zack explains. “You know, he summons some cool gun he saw in an anime, fine, but what happens if you point that gun at an enemy, expecting it to act like a normal gun, and it blows the wall down?”
Mark winced. “Right.”
“Not to mention, some of the stuff he’s summoned before won’t work for anyone except him,” Veda adds. “Which is fairly problematic.”
“All right, scratch him,” Mark says. “Anyone else want a drink?”
“Please,” Veda replies, sighing. “It’s going to be a long night.”
Mark stands. “All right, I’ll get some coffee.”
It’s a while later, the hail long ceased and the night only grown darker when Veda puts down her empty cup and sighs. “Guess we’d better keep going, huh?”
“Who’s next?” Mark asks.
Instead of answering, Veda scowls down at the paper.
“Veda?” Zack prompts.
Mark leans over her shoulder and raises his eyebrows. “Seeker? Isn’t he your…”
Veda’s icy glare cuts him off.
“How the hell did he get on this list?” Zack asks curiously.
Veda glares at the paper like she’s trying to set it on fire with her mind. “I have no idea.”
Mark sinks back down into his chair. “I… guess he could be useful? Maybe?”
“No, seriously, how the fuck did he get on this list?” Zack asks. “I mean, who put the guy with mind control powers up for consideration?”
“Well, assuming that we’re going to be up against humans, I can sort of see where they’re coming from,” Mark says tentatively.
“But,” Veda rebuts. “The only person we absolutely know he can’t affect is me, and since I’m not going, what’s to stop him from taking control of everyone on the team and escaping?”
Mark’s eyes widen. “Shit. You really think he’d do that?”
“I’d like to think no, but he’s done similar things before, and honestly, that’s not a chance we can afford to take,” Veda replies. “Especially when you consider that by adding him to the team, we’d essentially be giving him enough firepower to level a city and politely asking him not to use it.”
Mark looks down at the papers. “Who the fuck put him on this list?”
“Good question,” Veda comments, drawing a line through the name heavily enough that it nearly rips through the paper. “Next is… Christ. Beast?”
Zack and Mark pause.
“I’m sorry,” Zack finally comments. “Did you say Beast?”
Veda nods, wide-eyed.
“Uh,” Mark says. “I guess… I mean… he is kind of a human Terminator…”
“…who only obeys orders if there’s something in it for him, and could take both of us out in a second, even with the failsafes,” Zack completes. “No way.”
“Yeah, no,” Mark agrees.
“Definitely no,” Veda concludes. “OK, we’ve got another trio: Huntress, Angelico, and Son of Havoc. Huntress creates these… ghost animal minions, for lack of a better description; Angelico regenerates, can fly and shoots light arrows; and Son of Havoc is a technopath with a focus on vehicles.”
“Not sure I like the idea of taking all of them,” Zack comments absently. “It says here they fight like cats and dogs, even though they’re dating.”
“I think we can use Huntress, and we can probably use Angelico,” Mark says, flicking through the pages. “Not sure about Son of Havoc, though.”
“Why not?” Zack asks.
“He’s not reliable,” Mark says bluntly. “He can’t build things at the same rate as most technopaths, so if we need something in a hurry, we can’t trust that he’ll be able to do it. And dragging along boxes of parts is going to slow us down. Why would we need a vehicle guy, anyway?”
“Fair point,” Veda admits. “But the file says that he’s the closest thing to a stabilising influence that the other two have. If you don’t bring him along, they might start acting out.”
Zack waves a hand dismissively. “We can handle that. If we have to, we’ll keep them separated.”
Veda grimaces, but shrugs. “All right. OK, next is… Messenger.”
“The Illuminati guy? Seriously?” Mark asks.
“Now, now, Mark, the Illuminati don’t exist,” Zack chides mockingly.
Mark rolls his eyes. “Yeah, there’s so many other organisations out there who employ assassins who can teleport and do weird blood rituals.”
“Look, let’s ignore that part,” Veda says. “The question here is, do you guys want or need an assassin?”
“Remind me what he does again?” Mark asks.
“Aside from kill people? The only confirmed power we have is that he can teleport through shadows.” Zack replies.
“Sounds useful,” Mark admits. “If he can teleport and take other people with him, that’d be even better.”
“There’s something really off about him, though,” Zack says thoughtfully. “I mean, everyone thinks he’s only in prison because his employers want him there to do something. What’s to stop him from taking this opportunity to escape?”
Veda shrugs. “As far as they’ve been able to establish, none of the wards in the Citadel can block his shadow teleporting. He could literally escape any time he wants, he just hasn’t chosen to.”
Zack looks unconvinced, but he shrugs. “I’ll think about it.”
Veda nods, looks down at the next name, and bites her lip. “Ah.”
“What?” Zack asks.
“Zack… just hear me out, OK?”
Zack sighs. “Just say it, Veda.”
“Buggy Nova-”
Zack goes still.
Veda presses on regardless. “Flight, light bursts-”
Mark manages to sound almost innocent. “She sounds like a good idea.”
Veda nods. “You know how she works, she actually knows how to take orders, and frankly, you could use a reliable quantity on this mission.”
Zack finally reacts. “Give me a reason.”
“Look, it’s not like she killed anyone,” Veda says curtly. “I mean, shit, she could have killed you any time, and she didn’t. Just talk to her, Zack. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I don’t know if I have anything to say to her,” he says quietly.
“Give it a shot, Zack,” Mark suggests.
There’s a very long pause, but Zack finally nods.
“All right,” Veda says. “Mundo… says here he’s got earth manipulation, does parkour…”
“Three problems,” Zack starts, already looking more animated. “The first is the big one: Mundo can make earthquakes and fissures. Effective, sure, but it’s also got a lot of potential to kill us all by accident, or get out of his control and take the whole place down. Then there’s the fault lines… I don’t know if I want to take that risk.”
Veda nods. “Understandable. By the second problem, I take it you’re referring to Valkyrie?”
“Who?” Mark asks.
“Mundo’s girlfriend,” Veda explains. “She escaped getting caught when the RS captured Mundo, and since then she’s made more than a few attempts to free him.”
“Oh, right,” Mark says. “So if we bring Mundo along, Valkyrie might come after us…”
“And God knows if she’d listen to reason,” Zack completes.
“What’s the third reason?” Veda asks.
“He’s an arsehole,” Zack says bluntly. “And frankly, I don’t want to have to put up with him.”
Mark shrugs. “Fine by me. Scratch him.”
There’s a pause as Veda draws a line through the name. “Thousand Faces. Kind of hard to sum up what she does, but you’ve probably heard of her…”
Mark blinks. “Wait. Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Veda replies.
“They’re actually going to let us…?” Zack says incredulously.
Veda nods.
“Why?” Mark asks.
Veda smiles coyly. “Well, as I pointed out to the nice people, Thousand Faces is not an operative, an agent, or any kind of employee of the US Government. She’s a prisoner who has occasionally agreed to help out with various problems, but she has no official status. Which makes her just as eligible as anyone else in the Citadel.”
“Yeah, but if she agrees and if we all make it out of there, her sentence gets cut in half,” Zack says. “They won’t like it if that happens.”
Veda waves a hand casually. “They can deal with it. Thousand Faces hasn’t agreed to help out with that many problems, and frankly, she has no reason to. This is a problem just like all the other ones, and to be honest, we could really use her help.”
“You really think she might agree?” Mark asks dubiously.
“I think there’s a good chance,” Veda replies. “She’ll like the reduced sentence, and she probably just wants to get the hell out of her cell for a while.”
Zack shrugs. “All right, but I hope you’re prepared to deal with the fallout if something happens and she gets killed.”
Veda shrugs. “Eh, fuck ‘em. She doesn’t belong to them.”
“Tell them that,” Zack mutters. “Who’s next?”
“Caveman,” Veda says. “Some sort of psychic vision. Lets him see through things.”
Zack shakes his head. “Bad idea. Caveman’s incredibly anti-authority, so I doubt he’d say yes.”
“Is it worth asking anyway?” Mark questions.
“Doubt it,” Zack says. “I mean, he’s in jail for attacking authority figures.”
Mark sighs. “Who’s next? And are we done yet?”
“Almost,” Veda replies. “Next is another trio: Architect, Powerhouse, and Rabid. Architect has some kind of power that lets him make really good plans, Powerhouse has super strength and super resilience, and Rabid… well, nobody really knows with that guy, but regeneration is a possibility. Thoughts?”
Mark flicks through the files and shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
Zack and Veda look at him.
“Two problems,” Mark explains. “First, they’re not team players. I mean, sure, the three of them together make an awesome team, but they don’t work well with others. If we bring them along, we can’t just let them go off and do their own thing- we can’t trust them that far. If we put someone to supervise them, that’ll ruin the dynamic. And the three of them would be constantly questioning orders, bickering with others- I don’t think we can risk it.”
“And the other problem?” Veda asks.
Mark shrugs. “I honestly don’t think they’ll want in. They work according to their own code, whatever that is, and they spent years following that code as some of the most vicious vigilantes on the record. They wound up in jail for following that code, so why would they want to work with the people who locked them up for doing what they believe is the right thing?”
Zack grimaces. “He’s got a point. And the three of them are an all-or-nothing deal, so we can’t just ask one.”
Veda purses our lips. “How about this? I’ll ask them whether they’re interested, but we’ll proceed on the assumption that they aren’t.”
Both men nod.
“Next is Death Machine. Some kind of clairvoyance that lets him know how to kill people.”
Mark blinks. “Who?”
Zack’s eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously?”
“I did a lot of arguing,” Veda replies. “Though officially he doesn’t exist and we’re not making this offer.”
Light dawns on Mark’s face. “Wait. That guy? Holy shit.”
“Yeah. The board weren’t pleased, but their insistence on going down with that utterly stupid ship is plain moronic.”
“So would they actually cut his sentence in half?” Zack asks. “I mean, he never actually got a sentence, they just threw him in prison without a trial…”
Veda nods back. “I’ll do my best to see if I can get his status clarified. Everyone going on this mission is risking their life- if you make it back, I’m sure as hell not going to let anyone get cheated out of their reward.”
“Good,” Zack replies.
“That’s ten,” Mark says. “Isn’t that enough?”
“We’ve still got three left,” Veda points out. “We should at least give them due consideration.”
“All right, who’s left?”
“The Young Bucks,” Veda says.
“Oh. Brilliant,” Zack mutters.
“Blitz and Glitz, right?” Mark asks. “The twins?”
“They’re not twins,” Veda corrects him. “Brothers, but not twins.”
“But they somehow got the same powers, right?” Mark says thoughtfully.
“And a lot of people are very curious about that,” Veda agrees.
“They do lasers, but they have the ability to amplify one aspect of them while minimising the others,” Zack explains. “That is, make a laser so bright it blinds people, or so hard it can knock a wall down, but unable to do other damage.”
“Could be useful,” Mark admits.
“That being said, I’m not working with them.”
“How unexpected,” Veda says wryly.
“You’ve met them, Veda. They’re arseholes, and not only are they arseholes, they’re glory-hogs. We can’t have people on the team if they’re going to spend their time bragging, making trouble and trying to one-up everyone else.”
“Well, when you put it like that…” Mark says.
“I wasn’t expecting a yes,” Veda agrees. She looks down at the last name and freezes.
“What?”
Veda’s eyebrows rise so high they vanish under her hair. “Now that is not what I expected.”
“Who?”
“Marionette.”
“You have to be kidding me,” Mark says, all humour gone from his voice.
“We could use her,” Zack says almost idly.
“She’s a monster,” Mark spits.
“So’s half of the people we OK’d,” Veda points out. “She’s also a lot milder than most of the people on this list.”
“Mild? Did you even see everything she left behind?” Mark asks, his voice rising in pitch. “I did! I was there! You don’t even know what you’re talking about!”
“You’re letting your feelings get in the way,” Zack says like he’s talking about the weather. “Give it a rest.”
Mark seethes, but he subsides.
“Look, I’m not saying she didn’t do horrible things,” Veda starts. “But that’s beside the point. She’s powerful, from what this says, she’s controllable, and she’d make a good asset, I think.”
“So do I,” Zack says, and they both turn to Mark.
He takes the stapled sheets from Veda, reads them closely, thinks for a long while, and finally glares at them. “We talk to her first. And I want it on the record that I’m not happy about this.”
“Duly noted,” Veda replies.
“I guess we’re done, then,” Zack comments. “Eleven people in total, huh.”
“Should make a good squad,” Veda agrees.
“So now what?” Mark asks, still looking angry. “Do we talk strategy?”
“Strategy? Fuck no,” Zack replies. “It’s fucking late. I’m going to bed. We can talk strategy tomorrow.”
Veda nods. “And we need to get started on getting agreements from our villains. No point in making strategies if we’re not sure they’ll join up.”
“Tomorrow, then,” Mark says decisively.
And that’s that.
Would that it were so simple.