As the small group stood on the now otherwise empty ice floe that Chilz was maintaining, Artemis patiently led Agent Blazer through the morning’s events from the Vanguard’s point of view, with occasional supporting commentary from Quanta, the Blue Flame, Chilz and Phantom Ace. Quanta, in particular, wanted to get right to questioning the Underhill-Hart people about what they knew and when they knew it, but catching Artemis’ gaze, he bided his time.
“Well, it seems obvious that you had no designs on the station itself, and were only trying to help once you saw that our people were being attacked,” Blazer admitted once the tale was complete. “So Underhill-Hart will not be pressing charges for trespassing at this time–”
“Excuse me?!” Quanta burst out. He had grown increasingly annoyed at the woman’s presumption of authority, and this last arrogant pronouncement was the final straw. “We are duly deputized Federal officers, and this station is in US territorial waters – we have full jurisdiction here, especially in matters that pertain to meta-human crime and alien activity, BOTH of which were present, obviously. There is no question of our trespassing.
“In fact, given that you people seem to have been guarding a facility that may have been concealing a hostile alien entity, I think it’s you who’d better start answering our questions, if you want to avoid seeing the inside of a Federal prison for colluding with a known extraterrestrial terrorist!”
That seemed to hit a nerve with Agent Blazer who glared as she opened her mouth for a hot retort. “We had no idea Ebony Night was back on Earth —”
“None of us did,” Artemis cut her off soothingly. “And I’m sure Agent Blazer will be more than willing to return the cooperation we’ve shown her, Quanta, without our further emphasizing just how shaky her company’s legal position is right now. Indeed, I imagine she’d like to be gone, with all of her people, before SHADE shows up…”
The Underhill-Hart operative looked mulish for a moment but then relaxed, her mouth twisting in a rueful grimace. “Yes, I’d rather not get tied up with the government – that’s what our lawyers are for, after all. And we really are all on the same side here… OK, I’ll tell you what I can. ”
“Thank you,” Artemis replied, before a still disgruntled Quanta could throw more fuel on the fire. “My first question is, why was Underhill-Hart out here, seemingly guarding an empty research station in the first place?”
“Something I wondered myself, prepping for this rescue mission,” Blazer replied. “I went over all the information in the company files on this job – the contract was offered 12 days ago, and the terms negotiated and accepted, over the Internet. No one at Underhill-Hart actually met face-to-face with anyone at the Aquarius Research Group, but they are a known organization, if a somewhat secretive one. Which is not an uncommon trait with our clients, actually.”
“Is it usual, though, to take contracts over the Internet, without meeting any principals in person?” Quanta asked.
“It’s not SOP, no… but it’s not unheard of, either. Exceptions are occasionally made, and as I said, many clients insist on complete discretion. As long as management can be sure they’ve identified a client as being legitimately who they say they are, and are given proper intelligence on the mission parameters, threats, and objectives, we’ve not found it to be a problem.”
“So why did this Aquarius company want their station guarded, then?” Chilz asked, at the same time subtly renewing the melting ice beneath their feet.
“We were told that a refurbishment project would be getting underway by the end of the month, and that a particularly radical element of PETA had made threats against both ARG in general and the Porpoise Mount Research Station specifically. This was backed up by documentary evidence, or so I was told – I didn’t have time to go over everything personally this morning. Whatever the evidence was, it was enough to convince my bosses, and Agent Mariner’s team was dispatched 10 days ago to protect the faciltiy.”
Further questioning confirmed to even Quanta’s grudging satisfaction that Underhill-Hart had known nothing about the massive crystalline object that had lain under the station, nor about the concealed alien spacecraft. The timing of their hiring was suspicious, and the purpose behind it remained unclear, but there was little doubt the mercenaries were as puzzled as the heroes.
Agent Blazer showed little interest in taking custody of the defeated Changelings, but was more than willing to extend her loan to the Vanguard of the power-dampening restraints until they could deliver the prisoners to the authorities in Astoria. Quanta was grateful she couldn’t see his red face as he was forced to admit that their own devices were in various states of disassembly on a workbench in his lab.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Meanwhile, Agent Mariner, Scion and Orca, having run a systematic underwater search of the area for the missing villain Washout with no luck, began to investigate the collapsed station. Realizing that the power was still functioning, Scion decided to take a look inside, both to make sure Washout wasn’t hiding amidst the wreckage and to search for any clues. While Mariner continued the external search the two Vanguard heroes swam into the twisted metal maze of the ruins…
Neither Scion’s censors nor Orca’s heightened sense of smell caught any hint of Washout, and as they searched the lights began to flicker, the power finally succumbing to the ocean. Just as Scion entered the submerged Operations Center, its floor tilted at a 70° angle, the lights went out altogether. Except, he noted in surprise, for a single computer which continued to show blinking lights and a functioning screen!
Flicking on an external searchlight, he swam up to the mysterious device and extended a finger… his nanometal armor created a connection to its USB port. Plugging in, his own systems seized control of the computer’s operating system and he began scanning it… but the intrusion must have activated a fail safe. Even as Scion began to study the code the computer began to erase itself. He downloaded what he could, but in less than a minute the computer was slagged, its own independent power flickering out as the last of the system software vanished into a sea of zeros.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Once the last of the Underhill-Hart forces had departed, the sound of their helicopters fading into the east, the Vanguard prepared to return to the AzTech Pyramid. Quanta, on learning that the others had found no trace of Washout, used his post-cognition power to try and follow the villain’s trail… but this just confirmed that he’d taken off at high speed toward land. He had appeared to freeze in place when Ebony Night spoke, but had resumed his shoreward swim as soon as the alien had vanished.
Crux and Chains, both now conscious but fully restrained by the loaned power-dampening collars and wrist clamps (and in Crux’ case, a sonic gag), were loaded into the holding capsules of the Interceptor. Cassie, Chris and Paragon (as each preferred to be called) were allowed to ride in the passenger cabin, while Artemis and Phantom Ace teleported ahead and Blue Flame flew under his own power, so as to make room.
All three of the Changelings remained in various states of confusion. The teenagers retained nothing but confused fragments of memory between the time they were “taken” by Nimrod and waking up on an ice floe in the Pacific. Paragon had a somewhat more continuous sense of the last week, although it too was fragmented and dreamlike. Nonetheless, all three did their best to answer what questions they could.
Under Totem’s gentle questioning their stories unfolded: Paragon was sure that Nimrod must have realized his mission objective had been achieved and that his puppets were now prisoners, because he had cut loose all the captured Changelings. While under Nimrod’s control they had been unable to instigate even the slightest physical action under their own will. But the moment Ebony Night and the spaceship had vanished, their minds were their own again.
“It was strange,” Paragon tried to explain. “I felt like I was shoved out of my mind, but was still in my body… only, just as a passenger. I don’t think it was like I was hypnotized… I don’t know, it’s difficult to articulate…”
“I remember walking home from school,” Chris said, nervously chewing on a finger nail. “I heard a voice… a man’s voice… in my head… then it’s all just a gray jumble. I- I seem to remember opening wormholes… a bunch of times… and faces passing through them… but nothing else until I woke up in the middle of the freakin’ ocean… and then that creepy lizard guy’s voice…”
“Yeah,” Cassie agreed. “I remember eating dinner with Bobby and Felix… then hearing some guy’s voice telling me to come outside… after that it’s just a blur… the most I got is a few flashes when I went all ghost-like… I think I remember a big rock or something falling on me… then I was sitting on the iceberg… and really freakin’ out when that hissy voice started talking!”
“I do remember you guys, a little bit,” Paragon said to the younger Changelings, both of whom seemed fascinated with him, bashful but clearly taken. “I remember you and the others… in some sort of control room or lab… something pretty high-tech… and a man in black armor. And glowing red eyes. There were rooms… like dorm rooms, I think… were we slept when we weren’t on, um, missions, or whatever…”
“Do you have any idea where this “base” was located?” Quanta asked eagerly.
“No, sorry,” Paragon replied, shrugging. “It’s all in pieces, and sorta dreamlike… and I think that he had Chris here use his wormholes whenever we entered or left the place. I don’t think I ever saw the outside at all.
“But listen, I really want to understand what’s going on and I definitely want to prevent ever being a puppet for this Nimrod character ever again… or for anyone else that might figure out how to control us Incidentals. So if there’s anything I can do, be a guinea pig for any tests, whatever – I volunteer!”
“Yeah, me too,” both teenagers piped up simultaneously, which made them both laugh for the first time since they’d been freed. Then they grinned at Paragon.
He grinned back and gave them both a thumbs-up. “Don’t worry guys, this is the Vanguard – they’ll figure out a way to stop this from ever happening again. They’ll make sure we’re free to be the heroes I know we can be!”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
On returning to the AzTech Pyramid, the Vanguard settled their guests into visitors quarters and their prisoners into cells before turning to several vital tasks. Scion contacted his friend Stormlord, in Portland, to inform him of the apparent return of Ebony Night, while Quanta took on the job of informing SHADE of the morning’s events. Artemis relayed the same information to Raptor at the Libery Alliance. No one was happy to hear that they might be dealing with yet another alien threat.
They also made sure all appropriate agencies and concerned parties, including the APD, knew about the new so-called Nimrod and his ability to control many, if not all, Changeling meta-humans – another bit of news that pleased no one. The task of informing Cassie’s mother and Chris’ parents that the teens were safe and unharmed was a happier one, and thanks to Phantom Ace both families were reunited just before the authorities descended on the Pyramid.
SHADE and the APD, represented by Agents Jessup and Stark and Detective Ransom respectively, wrangled over jurisdiction while Artemis, Scion and Quanta pulled out all the stops to persuade both sides not to arrest Paragon or the teenagers. In the end Crux and Chains were taken away by SHADE, while the teens were remanded to their parents’ custody, and Paragon to the Vanguard’s supervision, until the DA could decide what, if any charges, were to be brought against them. Given their powers, especially Chris’, and the possibility of renewed mind-control, SHADE did insist that both minors be fitted with unobtrusive monitoring/power-dampening bracelets until everything could be sorted out.
Despite their willingness to help the Vanguard, neither Ghostlight nor Kid Singularity were allowed by their parents to do so. Quite adamantly not allowed. Once they had departed with their children, only Paragon was left to play experimental rat in Scion’s lab. He and Quanta were just beginning to run some preliminary tests on their volunteer when Artemis knocked on the door and stepped in.
“John, Quanta, I’m sorry to interrupt, but it is past time that we had a serious talk with Álvaro de la Vega. I know these tests you want to run are important, but I think they will prove to be more effective, and useful, once you have some additional information. Information which I believe Álvaro is best positioned to provide. I’ve arranged a meeting with him in his office in ten minutes.”
Puzzled, but trusting that their teammate knew what she was doing, Scion and Quanta sent Paragon back to the guest quarters which had been assigned to him and followed Artemis to the elevator. The rest of the team were waiting for them, looking mystified, and they all descended to the 65th floor and de la Vega’s office.
•• •• ••
“Wow, the whole team!” de la Vega said, standing up as Trevor ushered in the heroes. “I’m guessing this is more than just a courtesy call to fill me in on this morning’s little adventure?” At Artemis’ unsmiling stare he sighed and waved off his assistant.
“Thanks Trevor, hold all my calls and go ahead and reschedule my 16:00 meeting with the Secretary of Defense this afternoon… actually, clear my schedule for the rest of the day, I’m thinking we may be here for awhile.” Once the aide-de-camp had retreated, firmly closing the double doors behind him, Álvaro settled back into his chair behind the wide expanse of his teak, glass and steel desk. He looked thoughtfully at his guests for a moment, then sighed again.
His office was 2500 square feet of ultra-modern space, on two levels, in the southwest corner of the AzTech Pyramid. The west and south walls were unbroken expanses of his proprietary “glass,” and like the Vanguard’s Ready Room six floors above, provided expansive views of the city below, the Pacific to the west, and the foothills and rugged peak of Mt. Defiance to the south. Chairs and sofas were arranged in various configurations around the space, but at the touch of a few buttons, several of them slid silently across the carpeted floor to arrange themselves in a casual semicircle in front of his desk.
“Make yourselves comfortable, and let’s get this started. Artemis, this would seem to be your show… care to tell me what it’s all about?”
Motioning for her teammates to take seats, Artemis remained standing, her eyes locked on de la Vega’s. “I think you have already guessed what we are here about — Nimrod.”
Barely seated, most of the team were back on their feet, with various exclamations of shock, disbelieve or confusion. Álvaro never blinked, but a smile slowly overtook his features as Artemis waved her friends into silence. He tamped it down and broke his gaze with her, standing and coming around the desk to lean hipshot on it. He sighed for a third time, and shook his head.
“Well, I knew this was inevitable, from the moment I proposed funding the team,” he said, looking at each of the heroes in turn, ending with Artemis. “Frankly, I rather expected it sooner, given that I’m pretty sure that both you and Captain Astor, at least, have known since our first meeting, the day after the Incident. It was a good eavesdropping bug by the way, Captain… but both Raptor and I have been at this game a long time.”
JJ looked chagrined, but didn’t deny the charge. At the time he’d been a little surprised that he’d gotten away with it, so it was no great shock to learn that he really hadn’t.
“Yes, we’ve known since that day,” he replied cooly. “I’d never heard of Nimrod, but Artemis knew a bit of the history, and we did our homework to fill in the gaps. But since Raptor and the Liberty Alliance seemed to be fine with it, we figured there was no need to make it a thing, if you wanted to keep it quiet.”
“I appreciate that discretion. But what’s changed? Why are we having this discussion today, in particular, as opposed to say last week, or six months from now?”
“Because,” Artemis said, crossing her arms, ”according to the mind-controlled Changelings, both innocent and criminal, involved in the recent attacks on ZeroPoint and an oceanic research facility, Nimrod is the mastermind behind it all… and by extension, behind the Incident itself.”
“Huh.” For the first time since they’d met him, Álvaro looked genuinely surprised… nonplussed, really, Artemis thought. If it was an act, it was a very good one. “Well, I hardly know what to say, beyond – I know for sure it wasn’t me, whoever this new “Nimrod” is.”
“So we believe,” Artemis sighed herself, finally turning and taking a seat with her teammates. A tension most of her teammates hadn’t noticed until it was gone left her body. “Else this meeting would be going rather differently.”
Álvaro arched an eyebrow and smirked. “I can only imagine. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but out of curiosity—“
“It was the launch of the Argos 7,” Scion said. “You were in the public eye, on one camera or another, for close to 24 solid hours, during which the initial attack, on the ZeroPoint headquarters, took place. And yes, I’m sure you could think of half a dozen ways you could’ve done both – I can think of at least three off the top of my head – but combined with the weight of everything else we know about you, we’re inclined to at least start with the possibility this Nimrod is an imposter.”
“Inclined,” Artemis added, “but not entirely convinced; not if we are going to keep on working together. I think it’s time for you to come clean about all of this, especially if you have any inkling of who such an imposter might be.”
“Oh, I have a very good idea who it is,” the billionaire replied, his usual insouciance momentarily slipping, replaced by a very cold look, his eyes gone suddenly hard. “And you’re right, it’s time and past time for me to let you all in on my sordid, if very exciting, past.”
The devil-may-care de la Vega was firmly back in control of his face, and he flashed them a charming smile. Artemis’ breath caught — in that moment he reminded her very much of his great-grandfather. A man she still missed, after almost a century.
“But it’s a long story, and if I’m going to do it the justice it deserves, I’m going to need a drink. Anyone care to join me?” After a quick glance at Scion and Artemis, most of the team warily agreed. Once he’d provided everyone with their beverage of choice, de la Vega returned to lean once more against his desk, arms crossed, his expression pensive as he studied the heroes. Taking a sip of his own drink, he gave one last deep sigh and began.
“I’m going to tell you all the full story, which no living person on this planet knows — not the Secret Service agents who vetted me for my Presidential pardon, not my shrink, and not even the Liberty Alliance. Although I think a few of them suspect there’s more to me than what they know with any certainty.
“I suppose we should start at the beginning… that’s usually best, even if it’s not always obvious what constitutes the beginning. For me, I suppose my childhood…I was always a precocious, intellectually gifted child – oh please, don’t give me those looks. There’s no point in false modesty, it’s just the simple truth. I grew up an only child of successful middle-class parents, who appreciated music, education, and hard work. I graduated from high school at 16, had my doctorate in Engineering at 20. After a few years at NASA I founded my first company, Vega Electronics, at age 24.
“Everything I turned my hand to seemed to flourish, including my business. Within the first three years I’d developed two new integrated chips that were smaller, faster and packed in more memory than anything Intel or Motorola was then putting out, while also running a growing multi-million dollar business. It was an exciting, heady time, one I’d call the best if it wasn’t for my parent’s death toward the end of that period.” For a moment he seemed lost in a memory, before he shook himself and took another sip.
“Anyway, my success attracted attention, and not all of it favorable, whatever that cover article in Omni Magazine might’ve had to say to the contrary. In 1987 a Seattle-based rival, Harlan Technologies began an aggressive campaign to buy me out, and if my company had been publicly held I have no doubt they’d have tried a hostile take over. But it wasn’t and I was able to thumb my nose at them… not terribly diplomatically, I’m afraid.
“My refusal, not to mention my… let’s call it “brash” attitude… did not sit well with Roger Harlan, their founder and CEO — which I discovered when he tried to have me killed. Nothing dramatic or flashy, no exotic poisons, no gunning me down in the street, not even a “robbery gone wrong”… he just had his assassins ambush me while I was attempting to solo the West Face of Mt. Defiance.
“If they’d just cut my ropes, hell even I would’ve believed, however briefly, that my death was accidental. But Harlan’s ego wouldn’t be satisfied unless he knew that I knew that it was him killing me; so the two assholes took the time to gloat, and deliver the old man’s message. God, they were smug… but that bit of ego gave me the opening I needed. I wasn’t in any position to stop them, but I sure as hell was going to try to take them down with me.
“And I did. All three of us plunged from that cliff face. Which, as it turned out, is what saved be from instant death.
“Of course, it also left me laying on top of two broken corpses on a slope of icy scree at 7,000 feet, with a great many broken bones and some serious internal injuries. Which I realized, once I came to, were likely just going to kill me slowly instead. Assuming hypothermia didn’t do me in first, of course. For all my proud intellect, I couldn’t think my way out of this one… I was going to die.
“I don’t know how long I lay there, drifting in and out of awareness, but the sun was low in the west when a voice spoke to me. Do you want to live? it asked. Even in the state I was in… well, sarcasm is just my default setting, I guess. No, no, I’m quite enjoying the whole dying experience, thank you very much. There was a brief pause, and then the voice said Oh, well, in that case, I’ll just leave you to it, shall I?
“Even through the pain and delirium, right then and there I decided I liked this guy, whoever he was. Of course I want to live, I croaked. My throat was very dry by that time. Where are you? I can’t… see you… who are you? And in the answer to that last question lies a whole lot of story — but a story that is, in many ways, not entirely mine to tell.
“Well who was it?” Jonny burst out. “You don’t need to give us his whole origin story to tell us that!”
“I sort of do, actually,” Álvaro shrugged. “And we’ll get to it… we have to, if you’re going to fully understand what’s happening right now. But for the moment, I’ll just say that the voice made me an offer. It explained that it was, in essence, a disembodied intelligence. One that had been around for a very long time, in fact. The voice also pointed out that, while disembodied, he was in fact male, and could I kindly stop thinking of him as “it.”
“OK, so it – he – could read my mind. Sure, why not. I still wasn’t entirely sure that I wasn’t just hallucinating the whole conversation in my last few delirious, light-headed minutes of life. Either way, it was more entertaining than the pain, so I was willing to go with it.
“He needed a human host to give him full agency in the world, an “avatar” as he called it. He had taken many over the years, but he was currently between hosts. If I would consent to become one of these avatars, let him use my body as a host, he could heal me, completely and quickly… if not exactly instantly. I may have been delirious, but I wasn’t stupid. I had questions.
“He answered them all, including the most important one – no, he would’t be evicting my mind from my body and taking it over. It was more of a symbiosis than a possession. But he made it clear that there might be times when he would take over, and at those times I would be a passenger in my own body, and he the driver. But mostly it would be a side-by-side thing, and on occasion it might even be just me again, alone in my head.
“I accepted.”
“Hardly a shocker, given that you’re here telling us the story.” Chuck took a swig from his beer, trying to appear nonchalant about the whole thing. He doubted he was fooling de la Vega.
“Indeed,” Álvaro tipped his own drink in acknowledgment of the point. “And however glad I am to be here now, back then I regretted it almost immediately. The pain of my savior’s healing was even worse than the pain of my fall – or rather the sudden stop at the end of it. And it lasted considerably longer.”
“How did this nameless, disembodied intelligence manage to heal such grievous injuries,” Artemis asked, genuinely curious. She’d known for quite some time that there was more to this man than he let on, but she hadn’t begun to imagine this fantastic tale.
“By jamming a small kundalini crystal onto the back of my neck. Which, before you ask, he did by means of a spider-like robot that appeared out of a rocky crevice nearby. And I assure you that freaked me out more than anything else that day — this isn’t something I advertise, but I have a terrible case of arachnophobia. If I hadn’t been completely disabled, I’d have run away, consequences be damned!
“Anyway, as I later learned, the crystal was absorbed by my flesh, and fused itself to my spine, at the base of my skull, eventually diffusing throughout my nervous system… and this gave the Hunter the access he needed. In that moment our two consciousnesses… well, they didn’t fuse; rather let us say, they truly met… I suddenly knew him in a way I’d never known anyone other than myself. And it was… overwhelming.
“He thought of himself primarily as the Hunter, although there was a cavalcade of other names as well. And he was old… the vista of time that opened before me when his memory hit me was dizzying. It might well have overwhelmed my own mind, had he not been experienced with the technique, and distracted me by immediately beginning to heal my shattered body.
“It was a form of psionic healing which, believe me, is not the same as magic! The process was agonizing and it seemed to go on for an eternity… but in fact it was only a mater of hours. When the sun rose on the next day I was fully knit back together. Actually, I was healthier than I’d ever been, if I’m being totally honest. I was energized!
“The Hunter assured me his nasty little spider-bots would take care of the evidence of my fall, including disposing of the bodies of the two hired killers; since I had absolutely no desire to see more of those damn things, especially when they were doing whatever it might take to “dispose” of human bodies, I departed for civilization without another look back.
“And the Hunter went with me, a permanent resident in my head, very different than when he’d been just a disembodied voice… although it’s hard to describe exactly how it’s different. I suppose it was because now he was in there with me, not merely projecting in from the outside—“
“The call is coming from inside the house!” Jonny said in a loud whisper, eliciting a laugh from Chuck and Gideon and causing Álvaro to do a spit take with his rye.
“Well yes, that really does pretty much sum it up,” the billionaire laughed, setting down his drink and pulling out a handkerchief to dab at the aerosolized alcohol on his tie. “Although it turned out better than your standard horror movie, thankfully.”
“So ever since 1987, you’ve been essentially two separate people?” Artemis asked, getting up and stepping over to the bar. She’d changed her mind about that drink. “Are you saying this Hunter being is actually Nimrod, not you?”
“Well yes,” he replied as she snapped open a bottle of Nikasi Imperial Stout. “But mostly no.”
“Álvaro…” she said in a tone that made every other man in the room glad she wasn’t addressing them.
“Really, my dear, I’m not trying to be obtuse, or even clever. It’s an exquisitely complex situation currently, and there are still several twists in the story before we get there. I’ll try to be succinct, though, and we can fill in details later, once you understand the broad strokes.
“The Hunter’s knowledge on every subject was staggering, including science and technology. My own genius had already pushed my tech to what I believed was the bleeding edge; but with his guidance I began to make leaps an order of magnitude ahead of my contemporaries… well, except for maybe Mark Sampson. Now there’s a polymath genius! Anyway, one of the first things I used my new super-tech for was to build myself a suit of powered armor — which I intended to use to see that Roger Harlan got his just desserts for trying to have me murdered.
“But first I wanted to make the bastard suffer. He’d wanted my company, so I decided that it was only fitting that he should lose his instead. My first attack was on a major Harlan Technologies manufacturing facility in Seattle. I destroyed it completely. And yes, I made sure no one was killed in the process, or even hurt… much. There were a few cuts and scrapes, but I was new at the whole business back then, so cut me some slack.
“Unfortunately, my scruples meant I lingered a bit longer than was smart, and I ended up face-to-face with Stormlord before I could make good my escape. The do-gooder was well known to be the region’s main meta-human protector in those days, so I wasn’t entirely unprepared for the encounter. Thanks to a pre-planned distraction, at just the right moment, I was able to slip away — but not before getting hung with the name Nimrod.
“I hadn’t actually given any thought to a code name — it wasn’t like I planned to hold press conferences or anything — so when Storlord demanded to know who I was, despite my planning I was taken by surprise. I suppose I could’ve played the silent, mysterious type, and said nothing… a real mystery man, like in the old days.”
Scion snorted a laugh, and Álvaro shrugged in wry agreement. “Yes, you all know me well enough to know “silent” isn’t really my style; and Captain Astor knows the pitfalls of letting the press name you. So I blurted out the first name that came to mind, which happened to be one of the names the Hunter had recently been telling me about from his long past, one that he was actually rather fond of – Nimrod.
“Which didn’t particularly please him in the moment, but done was done, and from that day onward, my armored persona became known as the “supervillain” Nimrod. For the next eighteen months Nimrod was the terror of the tech world, attacking high-tech targets, stealing plans, prototypes and resources… oddly enough, almost exclusively from companies owned by or affiliated with Harlan Technologies. But simply driving Roger Harlan out of business wasn’t my only goal — many of my crimes were really covers to retrieve deeply buried data concerning the man’s many criminal enterprises.
“By the time the banks were foreclosing on Harlan Technologies, the man himself was preparing to flee the country, just one step ahead of the SEC, the Washington State Attorney General, and the FBI. But as satisfying as seeing him behind bars might have been, I wanted blood — I still vividly remembered my own near death at the hands of his hired killers. And the pain, both of the fall and the healing.
“When I burst into his safe house in Tacoma, shortly before his departure for a small local airfield and the private jet which would whisk him away to some tropical country with no extradition treaty, I fully intended to kill him. After revealing to him who had orchestrated his fall, of course. I admit it, I was prepared to monologue, full-on supervillain gloating.
“But when the moment came… well, it was then that the Hunter seized control of my body for the first time. Before I could reveal myself to the sniveling bastard, much less kill him, I was shoved out of the driver’s seat, as it were. As I’d been warned that first day, I became a mere passenger in my own head. I was furious at my impotence as the Hunter proceeded to simply truss up the old coward. Then he opened the man’s laptop, sucked out the electronic information on, and credentials giving access to, his very well hidden and very illegal off-shore accounts, and then waited until the sirens could be heard approaching. He didn’t return control of my body to me until we were home again, and I was out of the armor.
“That was not a happy time in our still-relatively-new relationship, as you can imagine. The honeymoon was definitely over. But as he pointed out, he’d been clear about such a possibility when I’d agreed to the deal. Under some pretty significant duress, I’d snarled. But I couldn’t deny the fact, as furious as I was. Over time I came to actually be glad for his high-handed control that night, and not only because it kept my hands un-bloodied – let’s be honest, I was never all that villainous, really. My crimes were generally property crimes, and since I never killed anyone, I was never particularly high on the Liberty Alliance’s, or the government’s, most wanted lists.
“But the real reason I was glad for his seizing control was that it demonstrated, quite starkly, that it was possible – which motivated me to learn how to defend myself against it ever happening again. It was six months before the next occasion arose — well, actually, I engineered the situation, as a test — and that time it was the Hunter who was shocked and angry, when he discovered he couldn’t just push me out of the driver’s seat again.
“Actually, he wasn’t all that angry, nor terribly shocked — for someone as old as him, there really isn’t anything new under the sun, and rare as it was, I wan’t the first host who’d been capable of resisting his domination. Joan of Arc was apparently another, and much more troublesome, example he told me of, once he calmed down.
“We eventually came to an understanding, and in the decades since we’ve had quite a fruitful partnership. He was never wild about the whole “supervillain” thing, but he had his own concerns that needed to be dealt with, and over time he came to see the utility of having a foot in the villainous camp, as it were. Plus, going up against heroes like Jetstream, Stormlord, and even on occasion the Liberty Alliance itself, was a great way to test out each new generation of my armor as it evolved and improved.
“Over time, however, as I more-or-less perfected the suit and became more involved in running my growing tech empire and related philanthropic endeavors here in Astoria, I indulged in my Nimrod persona less and less. I grew bored with it, in truth. I had also come to realize I now had too much to lose if the truth ever came out. By the late ‘90s I was more-or-less retired from the supervillain game, and the few times I did don the armor in those years, it was more likely than not to lend the heroes a hand in some dire situation.
“One of the last public appearances Nimrod made was in the fall of 2001. A Saudi terrorist had plotted to crash a series of hijacked planes into various high-profile American targets – the Empire State Building in New York, the Tesla Towers in New Atlantis, and the White House and the Pentagon in D.C. I happened to be in Washington, D.C. that September day, negotiating a defense contract with the Air Force for some new AzTech guidance systems. Even though I considered myself out of the “show” I nevertheless always travelled with the armor.
“I was a able to bring down the plane aimed at the Pentagon safely, various Alliance members and the Sampson Family handled the planes in New York and New Atlantis, while civilians aboard the plane targeting the White House managed to overwhelm the hijackers and successfully regain control of their own plane, making an emergency landing in a Pennsylvania field. No lives lost, another evil plot foiled… it barely made a blip in the national news cycle that week.
“It did cause a brief diplomatic crisis, once it was learned the nut-jobs involved were almost all Saudi nationals, but by the time the World Series began the media and the public had lost interest in even that aspect of it. Not least because the politicians kept hemming and hawing about confronting our supposed “good friends” in the House of Saud.
“Frankly, the whole thing pissed me off, and after a couple weeks of nothing being done, I flew to Pakistan myself, pulled the plot’s so-called mastermind out of the hidey-hole he’d bolted to and dropped him off in The Hague, to let the World Court deal with him. Which of course pissed off the American government, and put another dent in my slowly improving relationship with the Alliance – violating sovereign airspace, proper diplomatic channels, blah, blah, blah. Of course none of their hand-wringing or supposed scruples stopped them from providing, quite quickly, all the evidence The Hague needed to prosecute that Bin Laden joker and his little terror group.
“If it wasn’t for the Z’ardani Invasion the next year, right in the middle the of bastard’s trial, I have no doubt he’d have spent the rest of his miserable life in prison… as it was, he was killed while trying to escape in the confusion of the alien’s attack. Which might be called justice, if he’d been the only one killed…”
Álvaro grew silent, and his expression introspective. Caught up in his story, everyone in the room was brought up short as well, their mood turning equally somber recalling that dark time. A great many people had died in the Invasion, defending the Earth – civilians, soldiers, heroes and even villains. They were all remembered and mourned, but one death stood out before all the others. The death of Ultra, the worlds first and greatest superhero. Invulnerable, unstoppable, supremely powerful — he had somehow died closing the alien’s star gate, stopping the main alien fleet from reaching Earth to reinforce the beachhead they’d already established.
After refilling his own drink and several of the others’, Álvaro resumed his position leaning against his desk and took up his tale again. “The Invasion was the last public appearance of Nimrod… I was in New York that day, and of course I fought. Everyone did, hero or villain. My identity was finally blown during the battle, at least to several members of the Liberty Alliance. It hardly seemed to matter in those dark hours as we fought side by side. If only we’d been in New Atlantis when Ultra – well, we weren’t, and things unfolded as they did.
“In the aftermath, in recognition of my aid and the injuries I’d sustained, I was granted a Presidential pardon for the past crimes of Nimrod. When it was emphasized that my pardon covered only past crimes, I assured both the President and the Alliance that Nimrod would trouble the civil tranquility no more. Surprisingly, the Liberty Alliance, or at least Raptor and Sure-Shot, invited me to join the team, albeit with a new name and maybe a new paint job for my armor – I remember Sure-Shot suggested replacing all the black with red. I declined, of course… to the great relief of Jetstream, I’m sure. The old fart.
“And so I retired. Not that I’ve stopped tinkering with the armor, of course.” Álvaro twisted around and laid an open palm on an innocuous looking section of his desktop and said “Display.” A circular line suddenly appeared on the floor between the billionaire and his arc of seated guests, quickly isrising open. A beam of white light shot up as a glass tube rose, revealing the latest version of the Nimord battlesuit, gleaming in gold and black.
“No need to be alarmed,” he assured his visibly tensing guests. “While I like to keep the armor up to date, just in case, my “villainous” past really is behind me, I assure you.”
“I’m prepared to believe that,” Artemis conceded. “Certainly Raptor and the Alliance seem satisfied. Not to mention the President. But this “ancient intelligence” which shares your mind and body, de la Vega, that is what is really concerning. Does the Liberty Alliance, does anyone else, know of this?”
“No one in the Alliance is aware of the Hunter, or at least of his relationship to me, and very few others outside of it. As I said, this isn’t a story I make a habit of sharing, and I trust that you will all keep it strictly between ourselves. But given what’s going on right now, we felt it was absolutely necessary to bring you into the loop.”
“We?” Scion asked sharply. “Is this Hunter here now, a part of this conversation?”
“Hmmm, not as such. I mean, he’s always only a thought away, but he is not always consciously present within my skull. Certainly when he “returns,” he will be able to access my memories of this meeting — essentially “re-live” it — but he’s not ‘here’ right now.”
“Wait a minute,” Chuck said, frowning. “You said before that he needs a body to act in the physical world, right? So if once he, um, possessed you… I mean, where does he go, if he’s not always inside you?”
Jonny barely managed to choke back his immediate response of “phrasing!” Instead he just nodded his head in earnest agreement with the question, and tried to look serious.
“That’s a very good question,” de la Vega said, setting down his glass and pushing off his desk. “And it brings us to the second of this evening’s origin stories. It’s time for you to actually meet Nimrod, the Hunter, and to hear his tale from his own lips… so to speak. To do that, I’m going to need to take you to a place very few people have ever visited.”