by Kristogar Velo, Captain Sammitch and The Eurostar
The Fish Factory, La Perdita:
"Hello, Kit," floated a sullen voice. Kit Piper bucked his chair and grabbed the edges of his desk, as if preventing himself from falling downward. He looked up at the voice's source standing in front of him and started panting a few breaths of relief.
"Jesus, Velo, why don't you ever knock? Just once?" Marv Velo looked bemused, but the moment passed. "Velo! Man! I was worried about you. I told the team you were probably going to be back in a couple of days, that was a while ago! You're probably wondering what happened to the team you left, eh?"
"You could say that," Velo said as he glanced about the makeshift office. "I'm sure we've gotten healthily bigger without my presence."
Kit didn't get what Velo's tone implied, but he was used to that. "Yeah, we've got a lot of new guys now, but none that I'd think you'd disapprove of. It might take some time for them to grow on ya, but y'know..." Kit sat back in his chair and beamed. "Man, Velo! Things are certainly looking up with you around! I have a feeling business is picking up, and there's nothing we can't handle!" Kit got up to shake Velo's hand and perhaps squeeze his shoulder to properly reintroduce him into the team.
"Who do I have to let grow on me?"
Kit stopped. "Well, that was just a figure of speech, I didn't mean anyone in particular--"
"Kit..."
"His name's Dirk Bell." Kit almost cringed, expecting some sort of reaction or revelation, as was the norm when any name was dropped in front of Velo. But to his surprise, Velo just casually nodded and continued surveying the room about him.
"All right. I'll try to reserve judgment. Now, perhaps you can tell me what the hell we're doing in a fish factory?"
Kit smiled and gave a throaty chuckle. Squeezing Velo's shoulder, he led him out of the room. "C'mon, I'll show you around."
The apartment complex:
"Vox recog calibrate for new user," Phil Smith instructed the computer.
"Security access heuristics must be designated prior to addition of new users," the computer replied. Phil figured the others might get a laugh out of him configuring the computer to speak using the voice of Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who supplied the famous computer voice from Star Trek. He was a bit upset that he couldn't designate more than one administrator at the same time, but after consulting the documentation for the computer core, he decided the long way was the only way.
Not wanting to start a fight, he reluctantly entered Grissom Montag into the user database as an administrator on the same access level as Phil. The two of them would share unrestricted access to the entire MBL Consulting computer network. He hoped that might win at least some of Montag's trust. "Griss," he called.
The mercenary walked into the steel-and-concrete panic room that housed the new computer core, which would serve as the brain behind a complex security and information network reaching throughout the building. "What is it?" he asked.
"I'm configuring the voice-command system for the core," Phil replied. "You're an administrator, so we need to teach the computer your voiceprint and access codes."
Grissom cast a curious eye on the core, which resembled nothing so much as the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, a tall, thin rectangular prism made of some unidentifiable solid black composite material. It was about four and a half feet high, two feet wide, and no more than six inches in thickness. "This little box is going to run the whole show?" the merc asked. "What kind of power can we squeeze out of that little thing?"
Phil smiled. "Five terabytes of physical memory. A processor with an operating rate of nearly eight gigahertz. Enough bandwidth to keep Yahoo and MSN running worldwide. And some of the most advanced voice recognition and security encryption algorithms ever devised." He looked at Grissom. "Is that enough power to scrape by for now?"
Grissom's eyes widened. "Where could you have possibly gotten something like this? Who could have manufactured it?"
"It wasn't manufactured," Phil said. "It was designed by collaborating groups from Cal Tech and MIT. This is a prototype for an unimaginably powerful supercomputer. Only five computers with this much power are known to exist in the entire world. One is at MIT, one is somewhere in Washington, and two are unaccounted for. And one is here."
"You said an IT contractor owed you a favor," Grissom muttered.
Phil nodded. "And I wasn't lying. I just didn't want to spill everything out in the open."
"In front of other team members."
"Do you tell the others everything?"
Grissom thumped his fist on the wall next to him. "Phil, if you want to be part of this team, you're gonna have to start trusting everyone."
Phil looked at him blankly. "Griss, I don't know if you've noticed or not yet, but things are changing. Old members of the MBL are returning, and new ones--" He caught himself. "--newer ones than us, at least, are strolling through the door faster than we can keep up with them. Now, I'm not paranoid, and I have no problems with anyone on this team. They've all been pretty cool, and I have no reason to be angry with any of them. But in all honesty, only a handful have managed to earn my trust thus far.
"Chance is a nice guy, but he's a pacifist and a scientist, and as an intelligence gatherer of a completely different kind, I can't trust him to understand -- and therefore to co-operate -- with any work of mine to make this team a viable fighting force. Euro totes around a mystical sword which has clearly gone to his head, convincing him that this whole hero thing is all about him. Tayden? He claims to be an angel, which I can actually believe, but I would never expect him to understand that he ultimately has to take sides when we mortals face off against each other.
"Ameristar -- Jackie -- is a great person, but she's completely caught up in being the stereotypical superhero -- a tactical nightmare for anyone who thinks practically. Blackwulf sees everything so flippantly. For me it's just an affectation, but I doubt he really can see the seriousness of anything, at least enough to be trusted to uphold our operational infrastructure. M'xy is about as different and unpredictable as it gets. Drax, the new guy -- I've never even spoken to him. And I could go on and on."
"In that case," Grissom asked, "who do you trust?"
Phil thought a moment. "Danny stuck his neck out for me when I first arrived here. We're both misfits after a fashion, and he's never given me a reason to question his leadership. Grimm is pretty damn strange, but his loyalties are consistent, and he's a good fighter. I don't butt heads -- pardon the pun -- with him very often. Dirk -- pretty much the same story. I'm pretty sure we see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Priest is definitely not someone you take lightly, but he's had the opportunity to hurt us for a while now and has only helped at every turn. And I'm pretty sure I can trust you, Griss. We are, after all, on the same side here."
Griss looked away. "How do you know I wouldn't turn on you if I got the chance?"
"I don't," Phil replied. "But you've got resources and skills that I need. Sooner or later you have to trust someone like that. I'm sure you agree." He walked over to the console. "This computer's not getting calibrated any quicker, you know."
Grissom sighed. "What do I do?"
Phil handed him a white card with printed instructions. "It's all right here."
"Understood." Grissom looked over the card. "And Phil?" Phil turned. "Thanks for trusting me," the mercenary said. "You'll be glad you did."
A former fish factory, now the temporary base of MBL Consulting, Del Mar, La Perdita:
"...and then there is Ameristar, who joined us during the hurricane and is a very sweet girl. She teleports and has a very impressive suit of armor. Ah, there's Tayden. Hey, Tayden, come here! You have to meet Marv Velo, another one of our returning founders," said Kit Piper, waving his hand toward the human angel.
Velo brought his hand up to meet the one he expected coming from the young-looking man, but instead Tayden ignored him and, very worried, began to talk to Kit.
"Have you allowed Euro to go away without his sword?"
"Well, why not? It would have been impractical to send it. And everyone is responsible for his outfit, you know. It's in the policy rules," responded Kit, not fully understanding why the angel was so worried. Velo observed, imperturbable.
"No, no, you don't understand! The sword is a demonic artifact. More than an artifact. It's a demon itself. Cicciotto can't stay separated from it! It's like a parasite. Without the presence of the sword, he will die!"