Super Sales on Super Heroes: Book 2

by William D. Arand

  Kit had dropped them there behind a screen of illusionary empty space. Kit literally was shielding them from being spotted while holding open a portal at the same time in case they needed to get out immediately.

  Need to reward her. She’s putting in the work lately. Pavlov would be proud of me.

  Clicking into the cameras that each of the three were wearing he checked each one. He wanted to get a better view of the situation.

  Settling on Eva’s viewing frame, he found he could see most of what was going on.

  Miu was holding what looked like a penlight and was drawing circles on the roof over and over. The same circle repeatedly and endlessly.

  Felix watched for a moment before pinging Lily with a screen-capped image of the action. The attached was only “What?”

  He figured it’d get his point across enough. If she saw it in time.

  Chances were she’d probably see it much later since she was working the PR angle right now.

  Switching back to the live view from Eva he couldn’t really tell if there was any change. Deciding not to sit there and wait, he flipped to the camera for Ioana.

  He got a view of a street, with manned barricades at the end of it. Ioana was storming down towards them at a dead sprint. Behind the barricade were men and women in colored jumpsuits on the other side. They’d armed themselves and were clearly resistant to surrendering and being taken into custody.

  In fact, one of them threw a Molotov cocktail that burst into liquid fire out in front of Ioana.

  She simply ran through it and burst out the other side.

  Felix waited for a few seconds more as Ioana leapt over the barricade.

  It was long enough to watch a sword swing into view from the side and cleave someone’s head from their shoulders, before he switched again.

  Don’t need to watch a snuff movie right now. Enough of that on Reddit.

  Grunting, Felix disconnected from the war-net. He closed almost everything down to a base desktop level and then opened up a web connection.

  He tapped into the live broadcasts on the internet and flipped to the news. He wanted to know how the coverage of the event was being handled, and if he needed to do anything more. He trusted Lily implicitly, but he would never be anything if not paranoid.

  The player paused for a moment and buffered the feed.

  “—ing to help everyone in the city,” said Lily as the screen popped open in front of him. “I know our CEO is on the scene himself and working to bring order to the situation. Our entire goal is to bring peace and order to the city.”

  She looked amazing. She normally didn’t go all in on the makeup and dressing to accentuate her looks, she was a bit of a natural beauty, but she’d clearly put in the time for this one.

  “Ah. That’s a relief to hear, though I wonder, is it really Legion’s place to do this? This almost seems like something more suited to the national guard. In fact, most would say you’re acting the part of a private military company,” said the newscaster, then pointed the microphone back at Lily.

  “It isn’t our place to be here. We don’t deny that and regret our involvement. The moment the government, national guard, or a federal agency shows up, we’ll be happy to turn over everything to them. We’re a company with a security team, not a military force.

  “Right now we’re acting as an emergency stop-gap measure. A relief group to provide aid and safety. The governor could not be found when we started to ask around to find out what was going on. The rest of his people were sitting on their hands waiting for help to come to them rather than seeking it when we finally got a hold of someone,” Lily said. Her tone was pleasant, even if her words were acidic.

  There was no mistaking that as Legion’s spokesperson, she was laying the blame squarely at the feet of the local government.

  “We stepped in because no one was doing anything, though we did get permission first from the lieutenant-governor. We’re acting well within the limits that were given to us, and are holding to the very letter of the law,” Lily concluded.

  “Of course. That makes sense,” the newscaster said, looking into the camera. “We’ve also received word that the Heroes guild won’t be able to assist as they’re currently combating the Villains who caused this situation.”

  Lily laughed with a silken voice at that, drawing the attention of the newscaster and the camera back to her.

  “The Villains didn’t cause the situation. The situation was caused when the guild decided to put a prison in the middle of Tilen. Right next to a power plant no less. One need look no further than who made that zoning happen to find responsibility,” Lily said, and left it at that.

  The question that everyone would ask who saw this broadcast would be the same.

  Who was responsible for this situation then? Who approved that jail?

  Most would find fault with either the local government, or the heroes guild, or both. No one else could have allowed the prison.

  Perfect. There’s no reason she would bring that up unless she could implicate the governor and lieutenant-governor.

  Felix grinned and then turned off the monitor. That was more than enough already.

  Half of taking power was eliminating whatever power base would support the official. The other half was the speed with which you could do it and hold the purse strings.

  There was no second place in politics after all.

  In this case, support was the constituents. A governor was of course an elected position, whose power base was built off of voting blocks.

  Next will be attacking the group of essential backers that are holding the governor and lieutenant-governor in place. That’d be whoever is funding them, and whatever business is gaining. Leaders of voting blocks, businesses, or religious leaders.

  I’ll pin that one back to Lily for later. For now… I’ll just send an email to the marketing team to get them working on a ‘Felix for governor’ build up.

  Start framing this whole thing as a failure to protect the citizens and how Legion could do better, and already has.

  I imagine Lily already knows exactly how this came to be and whatever measure was passed for it to happen. They’ll need to sync up to get the right ads out.

  Elections are only a few months away and this’ll be a firebrand to burn them with, and set myself up as governor.

  Finishing up that email, Felix flipped back to the war-net map of Tilen to review what had changed in the last few minutes.

  His forces had expanded out to the police cordon on each side. The rear had already been secured.

  The rest of the push would be straight into where the prison break occurred. Re-establish peace and allow work crews to get in and start restoring power to the people.

  Everything really was on track and going according to the plan.

  Which means this is where it goes wrong, isn’t it?

  Cycling to Eva on the war-net, he opened up her camera.

  Miu was still using the pen-light on the roof, but there was now a clear difference. A thin line of blue energy was spiraling round and round in the same spot Miu was working. The energy was cycling downward at the same time, slowly sinking into the roof itself.

  Then all of a sudden, the section of the roof that she’d been working on fell inward. Light flooded up from the hole and bathed Miu’s face.

  She had an evil grin spread from cheek to cheek.

  Miu dove into the hole headfirst. The Fixer followed behind, then Eva.

  Turning off the camera, he found he couldn’t watch. His stomach had flipped over and twisted in on itself.

  Felix wasn’t a brave man, he wouldn’t watch what could be his people diving into a trap or worse.

  Changing the screen back to the news, he did his best to not think on it. For now, there wasn’t much to do but wait.

  Chapter 12 - Always Watching -

  There wasn’t much else he could do right now. He could hunt down whatever station Lily was talking to now. He didn’t think i
t’d be anything different than what she said the first time around.

  It’d be the same message, maybe with a few different words, but the same statement.

  Bracing himself, and realizing that there wasn’t much else he could do right now, he linked into Eva’s camera.

  And pulled up a view of Miu holding someone down to the ground. She twisted the person’s head up, revealing it as a pretty young woman. Her forearm flexed around her windpipe and the woman spasmed, then went limp.

  Miu released the woman almost as soon as she passed out.

  Reaching down, Miu took a hold of the back of the woman’s head. Glancing around at the hallway they were in she seemed to assess her options.

  Eva tracked the same place Miu was looking, and they found a cord snaking out of a runner. The runner wasn’t secured very well and the cord had started to slip upwards.

  Miu stood up, holding the woman like a doll and held her over the runner as if she were measuring something.

  As cool as could be, Miu slammed the woman’s head into the steel doorframe halfway down. There was a sickening pop and crunch as her skull was stove in on the hard edge.

  Miu released the woman and let her fall naturally. Leaning down, Miu inspected the work.

  “She’s gone. The swelling in her head will take care of her,” came a male voice from the side.

  Eva’s head swung around to the speaker. Felix found the Fixer staring at the body.

  “Good enough. It’ll look suspicious for sure but… not that we were ever here, but more like someone murdered her. Let’s go,” Miu said.

  That’ll be an ugly tombstone. Died by possibly tripping.

  Felix flinched when the call incoming screen popped up in front of his view. The sound was ear splitting and dominated his entire helmet.

  Damn it! I need to change that setting. Somehow. This is when it would have been a good idea to get a F.A.Q.

  Felix mentally smashed at the accept button on Lily’s phone icon.

  “Hey there,” Felix said, minimizing the window.

  “It’s a magical battery. I had Felicia put a discharge tip onto them,” Lily said.

  Huh? What… oh. I sent her a screenshot of the thing.

  “Ah. Alright. Was interesting to watch. Cut right through the roof,” Felix said, watching through Eva’s camera again.

  “It’s definitely a useful item to put in a tactical kit. I can’t make them that quickly, so don’t go expecting everyone to have one,” Lily said.

  He could hear people talking in the background. It sounded as if she were in the middle of someone giving an interview in fact.

  “Sorry about the noise. Some administrator showed up and is trying to do damage control. Too bad for them the documents relating to the zoning approval by the governor are already making the rounds on the net. Shame that the lieutenant-governor is also on the same approval,” Lily said. Felix could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Have I mentioned you’re quite good at this whole corporate thing? You really missed your calling,” Felix said.

  Miu stepped to one side and pointed to a door. The Fixer walked up and pressed his forehead to it.

  “I won’t deny I’m enjoying myself. Did you watch the broadcast?” Lily asked.

  He wondered if she was fishing for a compliment. Admittedly he had no reason not to compliment her.

  “I did. You looked amazing. I’ll be asking for a high resolution digital copy of it for me to watch later,” Felix said.

  The Fixer shook his head and said something to Miu.

  In response, Miu turned and kept moving down the hallway.

  The sooner they found what they were looking for, the better. Every minute they spent wandering around was more time to be discovered.

  Miu at least had experience as an internal security guard for the guild, and knew the normal patterns and protocol.

  Every major city had a guild, but they all shared the same procedures. It was a hell of a gap, but honestly, how often did they have to worry about someone who was foolish enough to break in?

  “And here I thought you were already captivated by me,” Lily purred into the phone.

  “I was, I just realized that you’re a natural ten, that goes up to eleven when she wants,” Felix said.

  Miu gestured to another door and the Fixer pressed his forehead to it.

  Several seconds later he nodded and stepped back.

  “Well, everything is exactly as you asked. What’s next?” Lily asked.

  Miu stepped up to the door and then opened it, charging inside.

  The Fixer and Eva followed behind, shutting the door after all three were in. It was a rather simple office space that any manager or director would probably have.

  “For you? I need you to keep playing the beautiful PR lady for now. Though when you get back to a computer, I could use you putting in some time at a terminal. Need to find out who the funding for the politicians are. We need to neutralize their spending power as quickly as possible. I’m going to be a third party candidate, so we’ll have to plan for both Democrats and Republicans. The sooner we shut down their money, the better. After that, we’ll need to look into what public works they were sponsoring and which ones were favors and to who,” Felix said.

  Felix watched as Miu picked up a man slumped over a desk and laid him out on a couch. She adjusted him into as close to a natural position as she could.

  The Fixer moved over and stood over the couch, watching the sleeping man. Eva went and stood next to the desk, lifting her right hand to her earpiece.

  “This is Worm. Dirt is ready, need a hole. Mole actual, please confirm,” Eva said.

  Whatever response Eva got, Felix didn’t catch it.

  “That makes sense, didn’t realize you wanted to run for governor though. We can talk about your reasons later, but I think I already understand,” Lily said, competing for his attention at the same time as everything else was happening. “I’ll get on that immediately. Do you want to bury any of the candidates? I’m sure I could dig up quite a bit of mud.”

  “No. If anything, we need to expand the playing field. See if we can funnel money into any of them to run a separate campaign apart from their party. We’ll need to use a…” Felix paused as a portal opened up next to the desk.

  “… use a shell company. Make sure it’s not traceable back to us,” Felix finished.

  “You want to increase the number of people running against you?” Lily asked skeptically.

  “Yep. Their votes will be divided between the candidates. It’s why almost every political race ends up as one runner from each party. It’s how they solidify voting blocks,” Felix said.

  A pair of hands reached out to the computer on the desktop and turned it sideways. They pulled the Ethernet cord out of the computer and pulled it into the portal.

  “Understood,” Eva said, apparently to whoever she was speaking with. Looking at the rest of her team, Eva made eye contact with Miu. “Metal Detector will be done in ten minutes. Order is to stay with the dirt. Hole is to remain open until then.”

  Miu nodded her head and stalked to the door, readying herself if anyone should enter.

  “I… you’re right. I never really paid attention to politics,” Lily said.

  “It’s a lot like corporate life, really. In this case, we want a lot of them running. Muddy the field and spread it around. When we find out who the financial backers are, and eliminate them, it’ll be chaos,” Felix said.

  “As for what we offer, that’s easy. Jobs, protection, and separation from the guild of heroes. Our own brand of security, with regards to protection. Contracted out specialists who work with whatever needs and desires the companies or corporations have. It sounds terrible, but that’s how we win over the corporate backers,” Felix said.

  Nothing was going on in Eva’s room, so he opened up the war-net map instead.

  “Jobs, economy, and education will swing the masses over to our side. Jobs we’re already doing,
so that’s just a matter of making it a known fact. Economy… well, the jobs take care of that. And the pawnshops tend to boost areas that we’re buying in. And education was the whole setup for us being here, which brings us back to the first point. Making sure everyone knows.”

  Felix sighed and studied the map a second time.

  Ioana and her team were deep into enemy territory. The rest of the security forces were fanning out and clearing everything behind her.

  He imagined she wanted to get into the heart of this and tear it out. Remove the leader, end the resistance.

  “That’s… all very clinical, Felix. Have you thought about this before?” asked Lily.

  “Before Legion? No. It’s just what they’d want, isn’t it? It’s what anyone wants. Security, money, and the ability for their children to do better. It’s all rather simple. Everything else is detail work and an opinion that matches what the majority of the voting blocs want to hear,” Felix closed the war-net.

  Looking back to Eva’s camera he found that nothing was changed. He didn’t think anything would change either, now that he thought about it. The attack was successful, and his IT people were on the guild’s network.

  Access was always the hardest problem with any attack on a network.

  “Sorry, Felix. I have to go. Another reporter is coming my way and I’m betting they want an interview, too,” Lily said.

  “Knock ’em dead, dear. Give them that dazzling smile,” Felix said and cleared his windows.

  “Will do, bye hun,” Lily said, closing the connection.

  Felix looked out into the streets, watching as the stream of displaced citizens continued.

  “This is Tip to Throne, actual,” said a voice on the war-net communications network.

  That message could only be on the leadership channel if it was to Throne.

  Tip would be Ioana as the spear tip. Throne being his own code that she generously bestowed on him.

  Activating his own com link, Felix walked back to Victoria.

  “This is Throne, actual. Go Tip,” Felix said.