by Joker1, Eurostar and Gooz
Sente's internal data monologue, just after the meeting of this new team:
It appears the heroes have put me in check.
Exile and Meta 7 have discovered my mission. They will kill me if I do not help them. And they will send me back to my past. Exile and Meta 7 believe that my time coordinates were modified and that I have landed in a different past. I do not believe them, however. Even if I did, dying is better than facing my creator with a failure.
The Rhyme Guardian hero has just returned to the room and is spouting off some idiocy about the mission. I easily tune him out. I look around. These people are formidable adversaries, and possibly also powerful friends.
The Trout sits at the table, watching Rhyme Guardian preparing the plan of action. Sometimes, the map laid on the table turns sides all by itself. It's the Invisible Man. How is it possible to work with someone who's not visible? wonders the Golden Age hero.
"It will be easy. Don't fear," says a voice inside his mind. He turns to Exile, who smiles.
The dark, marble-covered Venetian palace lands in the middle of the Antarctic ice sheet a few miles north of the Russian-American expedition base. As the group of metahumans prepares to enter into action, a "woof" is heard from the nearby room.
"A dog?" wonders Rhyme Guardian. He runs to a door and opens it, but the room is empty. "I'm sure I heard a dog," whispers Rhyme Guardian. "Exile, have you... caught any thoughts around, from some... visitor?"
"Nothing," says the telepath. But he, too, is pretty sure that he heard a dog.
Outside the thick glass of the windows, a blizzard is beginning to take up. "We'll wait for the ice storm to end, and then I, Exile and the Invisible Man will go to clear the Russian-American base. Then, the rest of you will come," orders the field leader.
As the others talk with each other, Rhyme Guardian ushers Exile to a corner in the room. "Exile," he says, "I want to know their thoughts at all times. Relay the thoughts into my mind as we have the conversation with them. I don't trust some of these guys at all. They seem to be up to something else and only want profit for themselves."
"Will do, boss-man," Exile says, cracking his neck. I wonder if we're ready to go yet? he thinks to himself.