He couldn’t believe this. He left them alone for a few months, and they dropped their guard completely, resorting to petty games and happy fun time activities. Even when he’d been their leader, he’d frowned at how pointless the competition had been, and that had been in peacetime, too. If he were X or Zero, he’d give fifty lashes to the one who’d even suggested to revive the Olympiad, given the fact that the Mavericks had only been quiet a full three months.
But then, he decided as he finished reading the report, they didn’t know he was alive, either, though by now they should see it coming. Even after all these years, the humans and their Hunter slaves had made the same mistakes again. No one complained when a rather large piece of land was suddenly occupied by a “rich corporation”. No one voiced any concern when that land was slowly developed into a “research lab” with a motherload of security systems. And no one had bothered to report to the Hunters that several factories were coming up short in their count of finished Reploids. But that was their problem. He couldn’t help it if they were a bunch of halfwits; in fact, he encouraged it, because now he had a new fortress, built on land secluded from any city, and he had a full staff of new Mavericks to maintain it, as well as some old ones.
But by far the latest and greatest addition to the Maverick army was The Team, because they were so rarely seen that the other Mavericks didn’t know who they were, and simply referred to them as that. They’d come out of nowhere, seemingly, with skills he wished all his soldiers had, and each one had an unquestionable desire to aid his cause. And he did have a cause this time, he forced himself to remember, not just revenge.
He’d lost control of himself the last time, totally forgetting about his dream for Reploid dominance, choosing rather to do anything to kill his rivals. Well, that wasn’t exactly fair. He’d started out by turning the Repliforce against the humans, and so he’d given Reploids another chance to take over the planet. When that failed, though, he’d finally broken down. Too many defeats had whittled away at his mind, turning him into a desperate man, wanting only revenge. He’d seized control of Final Weapon upon General’s defeat, and in a rage tried to use it to wipe out the civilizations of Earth. X and Zero had gotten to him just in time-though he’d finally gotten to have a good long conversation with Zero regarding his past-and, as per course, sent him packing. Only this time, he’d left a body in reserve, a hastily created shell that he’d thought to leave just in case his plans turned sour.
So here he was now, in a new fortress with a new army, some members new, some old. Most importantly, he had a new plan, and the means to execute it. It was quite daring on his part, but he figured he didn’t have much left to lose. It would begin shortly, once he received word that the first step had been taken by The Team, and then it would all be a matter of playing his cards right.
He stared out a window at the local scenery, sunlight gleaming off his bald head, knowing deep down that this was the last straw. If he won this battle, the Reploids would become dominant, as he’d originally intended. If he failed, things were going to get a lot more messy than they otherwise might have been.
Because, he promised himself, regardless of whether or not he succeeded in his goals of world domination, he WOULD be victorious in his more burning ambition: vengeance.
Zero passed through the doorway leading into the Hunter Garage, breezing past the piles of spare parts waiting to be turned into something useful, as well as all the parked vehicles that, in the wake of the Maverick silence, now sat in disuse. He made his way towards a medium sized green Reploid who looked almost like he himself had been made of the aforementioned spare parts.
“Zero!” the Reploid called out, dropping his project and looking towards his scarlet comrade, “It’s been a long time, man!”
“Yeah, well, without Mavericks to go out and chase, I don’t have much use for the garage anymore…but nice to see you’re still keeping the place in decent shape, Douglas.”
“Dear me, was that…a compliment?!” Douglas feigned amazement while waving Zero towards a jumbled mass of wires, computers, and documents. It looked almost like some of the working areas of the Hunters working intelligence, and since reconnaissance wasn’t Douglas’s thing, Zero couldn’t help but wonder. “Well Zero, I guess I should explain why I dragged you down to the House of Grunge this fine morning.”
“It better be really frickin’ good,” Zero growled, though smirking, “I’m supposed to be indulging in heavily caffinated coffee right now.”
“Then try some of this,” said a new voice, thunking a mug of the said liquid on the table near Zero.
“Oh, uh…I was just joking, Signas, sir, but thanks anyway…”
“You’ll need it,” replied the large, military-esque Reploid that was Signas, “But lose the ‘sir’ crap, please…” In Dr. Cain’s growing age, he had decided to appoint a secondary leader of the entire Hunter force. His candidate, Signas, was an extremely stable unit who was well versed in combat. Signas’s CPU was also rumored to be the most advanced of all modern Reploids. Though Signas technically outranked every other Hunter, he didn’t actually think that way, regarding Hunters like X or Zero, who had fought in many more bloody battles than he had, as his superiors.
“Of course,” Zero replied, relaxing and taking the coffee. Douglas looked to Signas for the okay to continue, and started talking again.
“X is going to receive this report as soon as he gets back from his patrol, so you’ll both be up to date…” Douglas grabbed some of the documents assembled near the computers, fumbling through them to find the right file. His hatred for paperwork was well known, and the other two Hunters couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up…okay, here we go.” He handed the report to Zero, who speed read it in a few seconds.
“I don’t get it. This is just a real estate document.” Douglas just stared back at him, head tilted in expectation, prompting Zero to analyze further. “All right…it grants a fairly large piece of land in the Alps to the ‘Seraph’ corporation. I know of Seraph, it’s just a weapons manufacturing company. We bought from them at one time, I remember. How is this significant to anything?”
“Seraph,” Signas explained for Douglas, “Was founded by a man named James Axlerod. They did indeed sell weapons-to both sides, it is rumored-but nevertheless, they could never keep up with some of the more prominent weapons dealers. The company was nearing bankruptcy, and was going to close around the time of Axlerod’s death. The company was inherited by his son, but he sold it shortly after to get it out of his hands. Under new management, Seraph started getting fairly decent weapons at their disposal, and the compounds which they created began to look more and more like military facilities. Now,” Signas paused for effect, “A company like Seraph, with almost no money in reserve, is bought by people who are rich enough not only to purchase an entire company, but to finance the kind of projects going on now. Don’t you think that someone would have at least heard of these new owners before?”
“I imagine,” Zero said warily, sensing a wild goose chase.
“Don’t disregard it just yet,” Douglas urged, handing Zero a new report. “I’m sure you remember Grizzly Slash? I know I do.”
Zero frowned, reading the report. Grizzly Slash was a weapons dealer formerly with the Seraph group, at least before it got its new owners. One night, he and Douglas had encountered the bear when the whole lot of them were fairly drunk, and so began a very interesting skirmish. “You interrogated him?”
“Interviewed is more like it,” Signas grunted, “We had to pay him nicely for that information. But as you can see, Grizzly Slash was fired from Seraph as soon as the company was sold. Grizzly was one of their better agents, so he naturally couldn’t figure out why they were so eager to get rid of him, and so he did a little investigating of his own. It turns out that Seraph’s new owners were in fact a whole group of people, and the money with which they were buying their new equipment was coming from a number of sources. With this information, we at Hunter HQ were able to use the passcodes Grizzly got for us and we found, after long, serious sessions of code cracking, that the accounts from which the money was coming from all belonged to, get this, dead humans.”
Zero blinked, suddenly more interested. “What do you mean…?”
“Well,” Signas went on, “We weren’t sure for a while, though we of course had our suspicions. Whoever had been responsible for the online transfers of money and managing of the accounts had covered their tracks remarkably well, leaving a number of viruses and hacker traps for anyone who dared to come after them. We did eventually find a user name, though. ‘Kujacker’.”
“Oh, boy…” Zero leaned back on one of the tables, finally starting to realize what Signas was getting at. “Cyber Peacock…?”
“Indeed,” the secondary leader of the Hunters nodded, “Cyber Peacock, the master hacker for the Mavericks. Apparently, Sigma was a lot more economically savvy than we ever gave him credit for. During his wars, he had his men laundering funds through bank accounts stolen from their human victims, eventually acquiring a pretty impressive sum of money in all. Of course, it didn’t stop there. Cyber Peacock found ways of infiltrating accounts of living people, robbing them blind without anyone noticing. Now, the Mavericks definitely preferred to plunder and steal whatever they wanted, usually violently, but I guess Sigma wanted some definite cash in reserve, just in case he ever really needed it.”
Douglas handed a picture to Zero. “This is an image of the compound Seraph is building in the Alps. We’ve done our reconnaissance, and we’ve more or less determined that if this isn’t a military base, nothing is.”
“And this,” Signas began again, handing another picture to the overwhelmed Zero, “Is the image I’m sure you didn’t want to see.”
Zero blinked at it a few times before letting his face crease up with worry. “It shows an escape pod leaving Final Weapon…”
“And,” Douglas finished, “It ain’t the one you or X took. Someone else was in that thing.”
“Zero,” Signas said in a rather serious tone of voice, “Are you sure Sigma died in that place?”
“Hell,” Zero shrugged, letting his head roll back and his eyes focus on a crack in the ceiling,
“When has death ever stopped that guy…? But I KNOW I saw him blow up, every last one of his forms.”
“But usually,” Douglas interjected gently, “You guys will comb the rest of the enemy’s lair to make sure Sigma didn’t leave behind any surprises, like extra bodies.”
“There was no time…” Zero said weakly, looking back at the picture, “Final Weapon was dying fast. General couldn’t hold it much longer, so we had to leave right away…” There was silence for a while before Zero spun around angrily and kicked the wall, splintering it nicely. “Damn him! Why can’t he just be content to shut his damn mouth and die?!”
“It’s been nearly five months since Final Weapon’s destruction,” Signas went on, “So if that was Sigma, and it probably was, he’s been a rather quiet tyrant. It’s not like him to allow that much peace while he’s still alive.”
“Tell me about it,” Zero all but spat, his hatred for the Maverick Lord quite obvious. “Well? What do we do about it?”
“Already,” Signas said quietly, “We’re too late to make a direct assault on the base in the Alps, and we don’t have any hard proof that it poses a serious threat.”
“We’re too late,” Douglas clarified, “Because the place is defended by remarkably powerful weapons that Seraph is calling ‘experimental devices’. A direct assault would be more costly than it would be worth.”
It’s always more costly than it’s worth… Zero knew, but he was sure Signas and Douglas were aware of that too.
“We’re just making sure you guys know,” Signas finished, “That old Chrome Dome is probably back in action, and may well be up to his tricks shortly. So be aware.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” Zero replied, finally taking a sip of the coffee Signas had given him earlier. “Hey, this stuff is pretty good.”
“My own recipe,” Douglas explained. “Glad you like it, but don’t drink too much at one time or it might corrode your internals.” He grinned evilly at Zero’s reaction. “Kidding, of course.”
“Yeah, of course…” Zero said warily as he departed the garage.
The hacker sat quietly in his seat, staring across the table at the men who wanted to meet him so badly. Next to him was a short humanoid in dark blue armor, the contact who had informed him of this job. Across the table were two other Reploids, both bearing the crest of the Maverick army. One had armor that made him look like a camouflaged soldier, and he was sitting directly across from him, summing him up. Standing to the right of the Maverick in camo armor was a normal sized Reploid in night black armor. Sparkling golden trimmings adorned the said armor, and as he stood with arms folded over his chest, the hacker could tell that the Maverick’s forearms and forelegs were a very dark shade of purple. The look on the dark one’s face was fairly neutral, but he intimidated the hacker slightly more than the camouflaged Maverick.
“Well, my good sir,” said the camouflaged one, “This has been a fairly productive meeting, I’d say. You’ll have the file by…?”
“Wednesday,” the hacker replied, “Three days from now. Tonight I’ll learn what I need to know about the computer systems. Tomorrow I’ll do all the dirty work, and by Wednesday afternoon, what you want will be in this room.”
“Excellent,” the camo Maverick replied, “And you’re sure you don’t want to be compensated for this?”
“What’s a Reploid gonna do with money?” the hacker said simply, “The Hunters take good care of their soldiers, pampering them like kings, at least until it’s time to send them out to die. No, my allegiance is to the Mavericks, and if this ‘list’ will really help you that much, that’s good enough.”
“Well then,” the Maverick said as he got to his feet, nodding politely at the short blue Reploid, the same Reploid he’d talked to yesterday in this same neighborhood, “I guess we all have work to do.”
“Indeed,” the hacker agreed, getting to his feet and shaking hands with his co-conspirator before departing the room. The blue Reploid smiled knowingly back at the other two, as if to say
“Told ya I knew the perfect guy for the job!” and left them alone.
“You think he’ll do it?” said the dark Maverick, who had now found a section of the wall to lean back against.
“I figure he’s got as good a chance as any.”
The dark Maverick smiled slightly, and answered his own question. “Yeah…he’ll pull it off. No one will suspect him, of all people. And if he doesn’t, Gredam, I’ll have your head.”
“Hah, please,” Gredam laughed, “Sigma will have both our heads, Malevex. But I don’t really think we’ve got a lot to worry about.” He started for the door himself.
“What’s the next step?” Malevex asked as he started following.
“A really daring skit,” Gredam said, as though unnerved, “If we pull it off then we’ll be set to go. And of course, when we get that list…”
“Then the real fun begins,” Malevex finished, following Gredam out the door and killing the lights.