---

Fort Raymond – 0700 hours

O’Grady almost fell flat on his face as he rushed out of his room, his pants not fully pulled up. He was already supposed to be meeting Agent Carter but he had just woken up not two minutes ago and he hadn’t even had time to brush his teeth. He stopped to cram his shoes onto his feet and then raced on toward the main briefing room.

“Agent O’Grady!” a steely voice caused him to freeze in his tracks. “You were supposed to be meeting me in the briefing room!”

O’Grady spun around and spotted Agent Carter. She was hot, as in a ten. She had ling shimmering black hair the flowed about her face like water. Her eyes were ocean blue and as intense as her voice had been commanding. The only thing that stopped his jaw from dropping to the floor was the murderous look on her face. “Yes, uh, sorry,” he stammered. “I worked late last night–”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses,” Carter snapped as she flowed by him.“You’ve made me late and now I am going to have to spend the rest of the day playing catch up. Get moving, Agent, or are you too sleepy to walk?”

“I was only one minute late,” O’Grady grumbled to himself.

“This is S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, not high school…one minute can count for everything,” Carter reprimanded, her voice venomous.

O’Grady quickened his pace to keep step with his new supervisor. No use pissing her off more than he already had.

“My shift is run tight and smoothly. You will NOT be late again, not even by a second, or by God I will have you scrubbing toilets for as long as Crowne lets me. And just based on the fact you went from a Capekiller to guard duty I think Crowne would be happy to make that position permanent.”

Agent O’Grady scowled, scrubbing toilets was for trainees.

“Agent,” Carter acknowledged the guard at a door they were approaching. He saluted her. “This is Project Toxin.”

With a quick thumb scan and a code she opened the steel door and went in, O’Grady hot on her heels. “You will rarely be called inside, but in the event that you are you need to know where the emergency equipment is, where the project is and the where the head scientist is stationed.” The steel room they entered was huge but tightly cluttered with not only scientist but analytical equipment; things that he had never seen. Carter continued instructing him to the locations of carious fire extinguishers and emergency Tasers. Emergency Tasers?

“What exactly are they doing in here?” he interrupted Carter’s flow as she described how to access the third level catwalk.

Carter sighed and turned to him, a look of agitation on her face. “That information is on a need to know basis, and you don’t need to know.”

O’Grady smirked. “That means you don’t know either, doesn’t it.”

Carter cocked one perfect eyebrow at him then spun on her heel and continued her tour. “This is Doctor Ryan, he is in charge of this project. If things get bad you will need to secure him and the main package.”

A skinny black man turned around with a long neck so thin O’Grady swore he could have broken it with two fingers. He held out a limp little hand, O’Grady took it and squeezed just a little too hard and watched the man wince.

“I am sorry the package is not in its usual compartment,” the Doctor thrust his smarting right hand upward, indicating a large translucent cylinder held above the room, by four titanium rods. “We are going through empathy testing at the moment.”

“In cases like this,” Carter continued, ignoring the skinny doctor, “you will have to obtain Doctor Ryan so he can guide you to the package. Remember that these two are your first priority; help others only once the doctor and package are completely secure. Thank you, Doctor.”

Once she had pointed out another extinguisher Carter walked briskly back out into the hall. “Thank you, Agent Mulligan.” The blonde agent at the door saluted her without another word. ‘

What a chump, O’Grady thought to himself.

As they walked down the hallway the only sound were their footsteps echoing against the cinderblock walls. The room they had just left had been noisy but not a peep of it escaped into the halls, the rooms had been soundproofed.

“How will I know if the rooms are having an emergency?” O’Grady asked. “They are completely soundproofed.”

“Glad you’re not as thick as they said,” Carter managed a smile. “You will carry the radio which is connected directly to the guard inside of the room, at the post you couldn’t be trusted with. IF there is any trouble that you need to know about, he will relay it to you.”

O’Grady sighed. This was going to be even more boring that boot camp, but at least this wasn’t going to be very dangerous.

He had no idea how dead wrong he was.

“Up next, guarded by Agent Howard here, is Project Soldier Ant,” Agent Carter resumed her hard ass tone and demeanor as if she had never smiled. Agent Howard was another female, but she had a case of what O’Grady referred to ‘Butter Face’ so he ignored her. “You’ll be taking over for her momentarily so listen up, O’Grady!”

He saluted. He had learned long ago that simple little gesture sometimes bought him some time before the shouting and irritating punishments.

“This project is run by Agent Goddard,” Carter said as she led him into the lab, which wasn’t nearly as crowded as the other lab. “Where is he? If he’s off gabbing with Crowne again I swear I am going to make an official complaint.”

“No need, Agent Carter,” Goddard showed himself behind some crates of lab equipment. “Your boys down at IT don’t get here fast enough so I am having to fix my equipment on my own. Very inefficient.”

“I’ll pass that on to Crowne if I see him,” Carter said, but from her tone O’Grady didn’t think she’d be passing anything along.

“The package is in its usual place, Carter, I’m sure that’s why you dragged him in here all wide-eyed and open-mouthed.” O’Grady closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes.

“This way,” Carter snapped as she continued to the center of the room where a large display case, almost like a glass coffin, lay under some intense lighting. In it lay a suit of silver, red and black much like one O’Grady had seen before. S.H.I.E.L.D. had a copy of an Ant-Man suit and either they had designed it or they were experimenting on it, or both. O’Grady shook his head, wondering what Giant Man would think when he found out.

“You are not allowed to speak about what you see in any of these laboratories, by the way. I should be able to trust you just to know that at seeing such sensitive material but some idiots don’t know how to keep their mouths shut.” She spun around and stared at him for a moment. “Don’t be an idiot, O’Grady.”

“No,” O’Grady shook his head. She nodded and they moved on. She pointed out the extinguishers just like she had in the previous laboratory and this time O’Grady paid attention, this was going to be his new job after all.

---

Fort Raymond – Later

“Come on you two, you want to continue your losing streak from yesterday?” Harrison shouted at Hunter and Cancino as they took pot shots at a diving Mimic.

The power copier easily blocked their blasts with telekinetic shields and blasts from his eyes. Now that he wasn’t being caught off guard he could hold his own against a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, or so he thought. He was lucky medical had ordered Castillo to take the rest of the day off; a third person would have made all the difference.

While he was looking good he decided to try. He extended his hands and blasted both of them with his ice powers. Hunter’s hand was actually frozen along with his gun so he couldn’t pull the trigger. Cancino managed to dodge to the left and avoided the same fate, though his right shoulder was encased in ice. He tried to shrug it off as he raised his stun gun to fire at his criminal teammate, but found that it was frozen there.

“Come on, Hunter,” Cancino shouted at his partner. “Let’s show this guy that powers don’t make the man.”

“Umm, but they do,” Hunter mumbled.

“You ought to know better than that.”

“Hey man,” Hunter was replying as he tried to pry his hand from the ice surrounding it. “I’m just speaking from experience here.”

They both dodged behind metal constructs that had been placed in the room for just such a practice. Mimic beat his wings up and down as hard as he could, lifting himself upward. Below, Cancino and Hunter covered their eyes from the dust that blew in their faces.

“Aw, come on, man.” Hunter groaned, trying to wipe the dirt from his eyes with his free hand.

A well placed optic blast from Mimic spun him around before he fell on his butt. “Haha! One down and one more to go!”

Cancino sneered at Mimic’s jubilant cry. “You took down the wrong guy first, Mimic! I’m not going down so easily.”

“We’ll see,” Mimic said to himself. Even as he was winning crippling doubt made his gut twist into more knots than a sailor knew. He had possessed the powers of the original five X-men for years now, but he had never accomplished as much as even one of them. What was it that held him back? He had spent years blaming his failures on everyone else, then on bad luck, now he knew that he could hold no one else responsible but himself.

There was a flash of light and suddenly Mimic found himself in an out of control spiral downward. Cancino had grazed his right wing right at the joint, numbing his entire wing, making it completely useless. He pulled left wing into a dive and leaned into his right wing so that it clung to his body. He was lucky he had the agility of Beast to help him maneuver. He was also lucky that, unlike Cyclops, he wasn’t limited to having a visor. He twisted and turned to aim his feet right at Cancino and let loose with several blasts, one of them knocked the stun gun from Cancino’s hands, but not before a direct hit to Mimic’s chest. He fell heavily onto where Cancino had taken his stand…luckily for the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Mimic’s blast had knocked him out of the way.

“What the hell!” Harrison shouted, his face beginning to flush, a small vein pulsed near his temple. “So both of you die? Is that an acceptable solution, Cancino?”

“Yes,” Crowne’s cold voice cut through the beginning of Harrison’s tirade. “If that is what he must do.”

Cancino grunted as he struggled to his feet. “I didn’t die.”

“If Mimic hadn’t been holding back he could have easily killed you with a full power blast,” Harrison tried to ignore Crowne’s comment.

“I’m not happy about our new weapon already being damaged, however,” Crowne walked over to the panting but nearly still form of Mimic. “Calvin Harris, how seriously are you injured?”

“Mnfgm,” Mimic mumbled, one wing stirring slightly.

“Speak up, I can’t hear you.”

“My right wing is broken and I’ve sprained both my ankles. Idon’t know what else, my ears are ringing pretty loud.”

“Don’t we have a self-healing powered agent around here?” Crowne asked.

“No, sir,” Harrison growled.

“Get me Wolverine or somebody, I want Mimic field ready by tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You gave it your best shot, Rankin,” Harrison grumbled at the broken Mimic once Crowne had left the room. “Better than I expected out of you. Keep it up.”

“Didn’t have to try so hard,” Hunter spat as he marched past Mimic toward the exit. Cancino didn’t say a thing as he limped by. Rankin sighed as he tried to squirm into a more comfortable position, wincing as his broken wing moved. Beast had a healing factor but not much of one, this would still take Mimic weeks to recover from without help from some sort of healing power.

The door to the exercise room hissed open and three medics came trotting through with a large floating medical bed. At least they weren’t entirely above helping him.

---

Manhattan – 10:23 hours

Joystick sat at a cherry table in the very private restaurant, she was dressed in civilian clothes, a dress. She hated them as they were far too restricting for her taste. Her contact had insisted she dress the part when they met. Normally she would have told him where to go and how to get there but she had a score to settle.

She had been set up, that was the only explanation for Shield’s quick arrival. The only other person that had known about her break-in that night had been her contact. He had been the one to give her the information. There was no other explanation.

She had never been to a place as ritzy as Benedict’s, it was for very exclusive clientele only that specialized in breakfast and lunch. A plate of bacon and eggs cost you forty dollars. They weren’t open at night because they assumed you would be out, up to no good. It was a restaurant for super-criminals, and not just any super-criminal but the super rich super-villains. She heard Osborne liked to have lunch here every Thursday. Victor von Doom was even known to make an appearance when he was in the States.

“Admiring the guests?” a voice nearly startled her. A young man, no older than her, sat across from her, he had appeared out of thin air. She wanted to pull her weapon now and be done with it but first she had to know who this was. Was it her contact or just a stooge? If it was just a stooge she wanted information before she killed him.

“Are you my contact?”

“I am for this arrangement, yes.” He was kind of cute if you liked them young and squeaky clean looking; Joystick didn’t.

She sat down, she may be impatient but she wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t going to play all of her cards right away. The man smiled at her in a cocky, knowing fashion, she was half tempted to pull her gauntlets out right there and smash that little smirk on his face. Instead she calmly frowned.

“I ran into some trouble.”

“We know.”

“What? So, you admit to setting me up?”

“Yes.”

She launched forward and grabbed him by his shirt her face not even an inch from his, her contact stayed completely relaxed. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t gut you here and then go after your boss?”

“I’ll give you three. First, you don’t have the slightest clue just who my boss is at the moment. Second, it was only a test to see if you were good enough for this next gig; we had six powerful people waiting to come in and help you if you needed. Obviously you didn’t. Third, I have job for you that will make you tens of millions in just a few weeks.”

Joystick looked him in his cool dark eyes and looked for any sign of deceit. He didn’t flinch, she dropped the little bastard back into his seat. “You say you were there but how am I supposed to trust you?”

“Do you really want a play by play of how you trounced those armored S.H.I.E.L.D. agents? You were there, so was I. Can I just ask you one question?”

“What is it?”

“Why did you let the cleaning lady go?”

A tingle went up Joystick’s spine. He hadn’t been lying, they had been there. “I wanted to make sure they knew who had taken their stuff.”

“And why is that? Ego?”

“No. Reputation.”

“This job I am offering you will solidify your reputation in our circles.”

“What’s the job?”

“Not here. Meet us at this address tonight at eight. Come ready for battle if you must, but this is just a meeting where you will meet the boss and hear the plan. No more tests, Janice; you have been deemed worthy already.”

“I do not like being referred to by my first name,” she hissed, taking the piece of paper he slid toward her.

“So noted.” With that her contact smiled and rose to his feet. “We really hope you come, Joystick, you’re going to like where we are headed.”

She glared at him for a moment, still undecided, then averted her eyes for just a second, when she looked back at him, he was gone. She stood up and stared around her, he must be a silent teleporter, there was nowhere he could have hidden that fast.

---

Fort Raymond – 12:17 hours

Eric O’Grady grabbed a tray and slid into the line waiting to get into the food area. At least his lunch was free, since they weren’t allowed to leave the base during a shift. After a long boring day of standing outside a door while people who ignored him passed back and forth through it he could use some social time. He glanced around for anyone he knew, but as a fairly new guy his chances were slim.

“Come on, wake up,” someone grunted behind him. He looked and the lined had quickly moved forward in the short time he had been looking at the lunch room. He turned to make a smart comment back, but stopped. It was the guard he had met earlier, Agent Mulli-something.

“Hi,” O’Grady mumbled as he sped forward.

“Agent O’Grady, right?” Agent Mulligan asked.

“Yeah.”

“I heard about you, what happened man?”

O’Grady flushed red. “Forget about it.”

“Hey, I’m not trying to judge, just understand.”

“Leave me the hell alone, Mulligan,” Eric snapped.

“Ok, whatever, Christ.”

“Asshole,” Eric mumbled as he walked into the serving room where their salad bar and grill were.

“What a jerk,” Agent Mulligan went the opposite direction.

O’Grady grumbled all of his way through the food and into the dining room, where he was surprised to find his former teammates. “Hey guys.”

There was an awkward silence for a moment before Cancino finally mumbled, “Hi, O’Grady.”

This just pissed off the red-headed agent all the more. “Look, I know you guys are mad at me about what happened but that doesn’t mean you have to go spreading it around like it was the news!”

“Everybody knows because Crowne had a hundred different agents view the footage from our armor cams, all of them.”

“Yeah,” Castillo agreed. He was wearing a large bandage on his neck and the side of his face where the electronics from his armor had broken and burnt him. “Every one of them agreed that if it hadn’t been for you we might have actually stood a chance against her.”

“Come on!” O’Grady shouted, his already red face deepening in color. “You can’t tell me that none of you have ever frozen up!”

“You didn’t freeze,” Hunter snapped. “You were just too concerned with yourself to help us. They had heart and adrenaline monitors up on the video, you never even got as scared as we were.”

O’Grady sneered in rage as he glared at his supposed teammates, they had stabbed him in the back to make themselves look good. He spun on his heel and left the cafeteria. Forget those backstabbers, he hoped the next villain they ran into beat the ever living crap out of them. Maybe then they would realize it wasn’t all his fault.

---

Elsewhere on the base Crowne was having another agonizing meeting with Fury. Yesterday the man had forced him to add Mimic onto the team, and had strongly suggested that O’Grady leave the team as well, though that would have happened no matter what Fury had said on the topic. Crowne had hoped that would have been the extent of the man’s meddling. How wrong he had been.

“I hope you understand the ramifications of what we are doing with Rankin. He’s not the ideal test subject for the program but he had to do in a tight pinch.”

“I’m not sure I am following you,” Crowne cleared his throat. In all actuality he was afraid he understood all too well.

“Well, obviously we don’t want to risk any more agents than possible on these types of missions,” Fury began. Crowne’s stomach turned to jelly; he had been absolutely right. “Mimic is just the beginning. I want to use super-powered agents against these super-powered beings. Instead of risking our own to do it why not use some of the many villains we have in confinement or that we pick up along the way? Mimic is just a test run, I want to use agents I can trust more, ones that are really trying for a new beginning, they have more to lose. In fact I have one in mind already.”

“Sir!” Crowne finally burst. “I thought I would have some autonomy in this position. How am I supposed to prove myself if I am never given the chance?”

“Have I been on you about Project Toxin or Soldier Ant?”

“N-no.”

“Do you want me to start?”

“No, sir!”

“Good,” Fury glared at him with his one good eye. “I am trying to give you a good start with this program, obviously it is not ready as is.”

“Yes, sir,” Crowne nodded in acknowledgment. Fury’s face disappeared off Crowne’s screen. Fine, if Fury was only going to give him freedom in the science experiments he already had a few ideas for some projects of his own.

“Agent Goddard!” Agent Crowne shouted into his phone so that it would automatically dial the agent. “Hey, I am reassigning you, right now. I have a new project much more up our alley. Meet me in the lowest level.”

---

Manhattan – 16:23 hours

Agents Lucas and Humphries were back in Manhattan chasing down another super criminal, only this time they were merely observing. They were waiting outside his apartment across the road in a car, their target had entered last night and not yet left.

“Do you think he’s possibly given us the slip?” Lucas asked, folding his arms in annoyance.

“Oh no, no, no,” Humphries denied. “I’ve seen him up there several times, through his window.”

“You’re pretty good at peeping,” Lucas winked at his partner.

“The skill that only comes with lots of practice, my dear young man,” Humphries smiled back.

A man in clothes a little too casual for the neighborhood stepped out of the apartment building, both of them froze. “Speak of the devil. My dear Humphries, I believe that Frank Payne is on the move.”

“So he is.” They both exited the car and followed on foot.

---

Frank Payne, also known as the criminal the Constrictor, knew he was probably being followed he had seen enough in the past few days to know that he wasn’t just being paranoid. Who and why were the big questions in his mind. He had been laying low for quite some time now, hoping to avoid trouble and most of all the attention of superheroes.

He had been living off the profits of his exploits, but funds were running lower than he was comfortable with and he knew he would have to do something soon. How could he with someone constantly on his tail? If he tried to lose them then they would know he knew they were following him and he didn’t want to give that away yet. If he didn’t do anything they might get whatever it is they were after.

He would try to lose them without looking like that’s what he was trying to do. He casually glanced at his watch then did a double-take and looked at the time with a look of shock on his face. He began jogging pretty rapidly. It was a ploy. Whoever it was that was following him would have to speed up and thus give themselves away. Hopefully they had bought the watch act.

“Call it in to base he might know we’re on his tail,” Humphries ordered, serious for once. “It’s not like me to lose my man.”

“No, it isn’t, is it?” Lucas giggled as he waited for someone to answer his call. “Payne might know we’re...what? Are you sure? Yes, sir, I mean ma’am!”

“What is it?”

“They say we bring him in,” Lucas looked stunned.

“But we’re not equipped for...well I am always equipped for my man, but you know what I mean. You can’t just spring this sort of thing on a body.”

“We better get to it,” Lucas nodded the direction Constrictor had disappeared to. “Or we really will lose your man.”

“Not on your life.” Humphries sprinted down the street, he may have a high-pitched voice and the fashion sense of a drag queen but he could run. Lucas panted and struggled to keep up, he may have been younger and stronger, but his smoking habit was biting him in the ass. It wasn’t long before they caught sight of Constrictor, and he caught sight of them.

He spun on his heels and turned to face them, a grimace on his face. “I’ve been good, what the hell do you people want?”

“Frank Payne, aka Constrictor, under the authority of the United Nations and S.H.I.E.L.D. you are hereby under arrest for multiple accounts of extortion and domestic terrorism. Come peacefully and we’ll make this easy on you.”

“That’s it?” Frank asked. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is after me and all they send is some British fag and a kid.”

“I never!” Humphries shouted as he came to a skidding halt. He pulled a standard issue energy pistol, Lucas doing the same.

“I’ve told Fury to stop sending his lackeys after me,” Constrictor told them as he let the adamantium coils burst from under his jacket sleeves. “Now I am going to have to teach him a lesson, through you.”

“Any ideas?” Lucas whispered to his partner.

“Of course, Mister Lucas,” Humphries smiled at his partner. “Fight for your life.”

Constrictor used his tentacles to pick up a car and fling it at them. They both barely had time to dive to side as metal and glass shrieked past them. Lucas aimed wildly with his pistol and shot, it glanced off a coil that smashed into the pistol, shattering it and Lucas’ hand in the process.

“You deserve everything you get,” Constrictor blocked more shots from Humphries with his other coil. “You better run away before I decide to crush your windpipe like I did his all five of his fingers.

In a surprising move Humphries pulled out something resembling a throwing star, but with needles and flung it at Constrictor. It hit the villain full on in the chest. Electricity coursed over his body, blue sparks arcing from his torso.

Yet the man laughed. “I have a few tricks of my own,” Constrictor ripped off his jacket revealing his electrically insulated costume underneath. His own coils sparked with more electricity than Humphries’ device had mustered up.

“The electricity was only a distraction,” Humphries grinned cockily at him. Constrictor roared and slammed a coil into Humphries lightly armored torso, sending him flying.

“What do you mean?” Constrictor asked, standing over him his coils lashing violently around him.

“You were injected with a powerful, fast-acting sedative,” Humphries told him in between painful coughs; Constrictor may have cracked a few of Humphries’ ribs. “It ought to be hitting you right now.”

“My suit must have blocked it, I feel fine,” Constrictor laughed at the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. A wooden board suddenly collided into Constrictor’s padded head. The villain stumbled but turned to face his attacker.

“Get away from him!” Lucas stood there, a shattered piece of wood still in his hand. The young agent stood in between the villain and his mentor, his right hand a bloodied and limply hanging mess.

“That was the dumbest and last thing you will ever do,” Constrictor advanced on them. Suddenly he stopped and held his hand to his head. “Sonuva–: He glared at the agents and stalked toward them again, but his feet began to drag, as if unwilling to do the vile crime the man had in mind. He stumbled once, twice and then fell to the pavement, struggling to hold his eyes open.

“You’ll regret harming my young apprentice here,” Humphries hissed at him as the criminal’s eyes finally fell shut and a soft snore escaped his lips.

---

---

To Be Continued...

Next: In Capekillers #4: Who is Joystick’s new mysterious boss and what is this big job they are planning? Also someone betrays their teammates and it might not be who you expect!

---

Previous Issue | Next Issue