Vanguard: The Complete Second Season: A Superhero Serial (Vanguard: The Collected Seasons Book 2) (18 page)

“It’s good to see you again,” said Abram Zukov. Jim shook his former partner’s hand and smiled at him.

“I can’t believe they appointed you the interim Director of Cerberus,” said Jim.

Zukov gave a nod and turned. “Apparently my record speaks for itself. Especially in light of all the information we provided on Callus’ illegal activities. Although I was surprised they didn’t offer you the job given your role in exposing him.”

Jim smiled. “Who says they didn’t?”

Zukov looked at him in surprise and Jim just gave a knowing wink. They both looked out at Earth through the observation window.
 

“Not really my thing anyway,” said Jim. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.”

“Agreed.”

“Any word on Callus?”

“No, he’s still in the wind. But that’s not why I called you here.” Zukov turned to Jim, his demeanor becoming quite serious. “There’s been some unusual activity detected from Vanguard’s former base.”

Jim looked at him in surprise. “Atlas? But it’s been decommissioned. Shut down.”

Zukov shook his head. “That’s what we thought. But apparently we were wrong. We’ve also only begun to break into Callus’ files. It seems he’s been involved with a lot more than initially believed.”

Jim sighed. “Guess our work’s just beginning.”

“Indeed it is.”

Next…
Under Siege

#8 - UNDER SIEGE

CHAPTER 1

A Few Months Ago

Colonel Leonard Thorne had just arrived at his room at the Dupont Circle Hotel and found himself face to face with a rogue special. With the ability to generate intense heat and flames, Clarence Black had been called Pyre, one of the super-powered operatives of the terrorist organization called the Red Fist. He was supposed to have been captured, along with the rest of the Red Fist’s numbers.

And yet somehow, here he was. Standing in front of Thorne. Pyre said something about Thorne pissing off the wrong people. Said he’d been sent to kill Thorne and only agreed because if he didn’t, they would kill his family.

Thorne’s weapon was useless. He tried to pull the trigger, but the gun just clicked impotently. Now all Thorne could think of was this was the end. And worse yet, he had a pretty good idea exactly who it was who sent Pyre after him.

Thorne and Vanguard knew that Joseph Ramsey, the Secretary of Defense, had been the Khagan’s mole inside the government. They couldn’t prove it, but it was the only explanation that made any sense.
 

Vanguard had been shut down by the new President but in its place would be a global peace-keeping organization overseen by the United Nations. President Lawson was going to appoint Thorne to the position of Director, although now that seemed unlikely. Ramsey had opposed the appointment, so it only made sense that he was behind this.

“Sorry, but it’s not my call,” said Pyre. Even through the glow of his eyes, Thorne thought he saw something like pity in those eyes. It was clear the special was being forced to do this against his will.

Sweat dripped down Thorne’s face. His shirt clung tightly to his skin. He threw the gun at the special and ran for the door, but once he touched the metal handle, he instantly pulled his hand away. Thorne held his hand in front of his face, inspecting the burn. The room had grown too hot and it only seemed to get even warmer.

Thorne coughed. Smoke filled the room and he fell to his knees. He covered his mouth, trying to keep it away from him. He looked up, leaning against the door and saw Pyre approaching him. The flames covered every inch of the man’s body now. Streams of fire flew into his open palms, forming into large orbs.
 

Pyre’s flames extended outward. Thorne pulled back and raised his arms in a futile move to defend himself from the fire. But before they reached him, there was a sudden flash of bright, blue light that blinded him to the point where he had to shut his eyes.

The heat in the room had been extreme, and Thorne was surprised when he realized that the temperature had decreased significantly. He didn’t feel any pain and cautiously opened his eyes. What he saw standing above him was a man whose skin was nearly translucent from the blue glow that emanated from his entire form. He reached a hand out to Thorne. The Colonel took it, allowing the special to help him to his feet. They were in another room that looked nearly identical to the one Thorne had just been in.

“What just happened?” asked Thorne. “What are you doing here, Zenith?”

Zenith had been an artificial intelligence with a robot body. But through a series of events, Zenith now inhabited the body of an energy-manipulating special who had fought Vanguard—a man by the name of Terrence Gibson, or Lucent.

“I was suspicious and felt it best to follow you here. It seems I was right.” Zenith turned to the door. “Wait here, I’ll go after Pyre.”

“No, don’t.”

Zenith looked over his shoulder, his brow raised questioningly. “Why?”

“Pyre said he’d been sent by someone,” said Thorne. “My guess is this has something to do with Ramsey.”

Of course it was Ramsey. The Khagan may be imprisoned, the Red Fist now nothing more than a few scattered operatives who had—so far at least—managed to escape the reach of the law. But Ramsey was still sitting comfortably in his position at the President’s side. Still playing his own little games. And whatever those games were, Thorne knew it had a lot to do with this new organization the UN was in the process of forming.

“Then shouldn’t we do something about it?” asked Zenith.

“What would we do?” asked Thorne. “Ramsey clearly sees me as a threat. If he didn’t kill me this time, he’ll try again. We can’t take that risk. For the moment, we let him think he’s won.”

Zenith folded his arms over his chest. “And Pyre? If he has information—”

“He’s a puppet, said as much himself. And he said he didn’t know who sent him, just that it was someone high up. Even if he did know something, it’d be his word against Ramsey’s. Pyre’s a known terrorist—he was working with the Red Fist. No one’s going to believe him over the Secretary of Defense.”

Zenith sighed and lowered his head. “So what happens next? What do we do?”

Thorne scratched his silver-haired head. “We go back to Atlas.”

“It’s been decommissioned. As we speak, representatives of the Pentagon are boxing up some of the most valuable equipment, such as the Icarus. How can we hope to reassemble the team?”

“Not the whole team, let’s keep it small,” said Thorne. “We’ll need someone to help us out with the technology and since you can’t do that in your present state, that means we bring Lee Parker in, too.”

“We can’t just leave the others out of this, Colonel,” said Zenith. “They’re our friends. They fought by our side. If Ramsey is responsible for this, then they’ll want to know about it. They deserve to know about it, especially after everything he’s been responsible for.”

Thorne sighed. “I don’t like it, but we have to leave them out of this. If we start Vanguard up right away, Ramsey’s going to know something’s up. We have to let him think he’s won and monitor him closely. He and whoever he’s chosen as his puppet Director will slip up sooner or later. And when they do, we’ll be ready to strike.”

CHAPTER 2

The Present

The black helicopter hovered over the Adirondacks. A large, red circle was painted on the surface with the silhouette of a three-headed hound inside the symbol. It descended, lowering into a clearing in the midst of several peaks.
 

It seemed a strange place for a small airfield, but that’s exactly what sat there. The helicopter landed on the tarmac in front of the hangar and the blades slowed to a stop. Uniformed agents of the Cerberus agency emerged from the helicopter, dressed in black uniforms that bore the same symbol on the side of their vehicle.

One of them held up a small palm device and reviewed the data that appeared on the screen. He shook his head. “No readings, as usual.”

A sigh of frustration drew his attention to one of the two men who accompanied him. “Why the hell are they still bothering with this place? It’s been empty for months.”

Munroe, the leader, shrugged and slid the palm into a pouch on his belt. “What are you whining about, Jackson? It’s a pretty cushy assignment. Take the chopper out for a spin, get some fresh mountain air, do a quick search and then we head back to base.”

“And with the travel time, we basically kill a whole day. There are worse assignments,” said Thompson, the third man.

Jackson shrugged. “I’m just sayin’ it’s a waste of time is all. You’d think Callus would give up on looking at this place. What the hell is so important here anyway?”

Munroe shrugged. “Hell if I know. I’m not paid to ask questions, just follow orders. Word around the water cooler is it used to be some kind of bunker for the top brass.”

The three men entered the small building that led into the underground base. Munroe entered in an override code on the keypad on the wall. There was a few moments of silence as they waited for the door to open. Finally, the wall lowered, revealing an elevator.

“Tech in here is such crap,” said Jackson. “Always takes forever for that damn door to open.”

“Would you shut up already?” asked Thompson. “You
wanna
be doing paperwork or standing guard over some prisoner facility?”

Jackson didn’t offer another word and the elevator descended in silence. The doors opened to a large room with monitors and computer consoles all around and a round table in the center. The three pulled on night-vision goggles to see in the darkened facility.

“You know the drill, boys. Floor-by-floor sweep, then we can start heading back,” said Munroe.
 

Thompson gave a nod and Jackson muttered something unintelligible under his breath. They both continued on to inspect the rest of the base. Munroe pulled out his palm device again and started another scan. He hummed to himself, walking around the darkened room and occasionally glancing back at the palm readings, but not really paying any attention to it.
 

The device suddenly beeped. Munroe looked down at it in surprise. The display read, SPECIAL DETECTED. Munroe reached for the gun holstered to his thigh and held it up. He moved slowly around the room, checking in every hiding spot he could find. He looked up at the roof but saw nothing there.
 

It beeped again. Munroe checked the screen instantly and now, it read, AREA CLEAR. He sighed and holstered his weapon. “Must be a glitch. Probably needs an update or something.”

Once the team completed their sweep, they met back in the ready room and stood at the elevator. Munroe regarded his two men. “Anything?”

“Whole big load of nothing,” said Jackson. “As per usual.”

Munroe rolled his eyes. “Stow the attitude already.” He looked at Thompson. “And you?”

Thompson shook his head. “Nothing. No signs anyone’s been here for a while. Wish we knew just what this place was for, though.”

“Above our pay-grade,” said Munroe. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

They boarded the elevator and rode it back to the surface. Not long after the helicopter rose off the tarmac, the lights and monitors on the ready room suddenly powered on. A compartment in the floor slid open and three people climbed out.

Colonel Thorne was one of them and he reached a hand down to help the young man down there with him—Lee Parker. The third was Zenith, still stuck in the body of Lucent.

Lee went over to one of the consoles and sat there, laying his hands over the keyboard and just whispering. He possessed the ability of technopathy, which allowed him to communicate with any machine.
 

“Anything?” asked Thorne.

Lee shook his head, turning away from the console. “Everything’s clear. Just some grunts doing a check.”

“They’ve dropped to monthly sweeps now,” said Thorne.

“Perhaps Callus is giving up the search,” said Zenith.

Thorne sat at the round table, leaning back in the chair. “I doubt it. Nathan Callus doesn’t give up easily. If he thinks there’s some slight chance I’m still alive, he’ll be on the look-out. He can’t be happy that he still doesn’t know what happened with the two of you for that matter.” Thorne regarded Lee. “You might wanna ask yourself if you still want to stay, kid. You’ve got family out there and Callus may decide to go after them to put pressure on you.”

Lee folded his arms. “I don’t scare easy, Colonel.”

Thorne smirked. “Good man.” He clapped his hands together and leaned forward. “Okay, so what have we got? Tell me there’s something we can use against Cerberus.”

“There might be,” said Lee, turning his attention to the computer. Images of people flashed over the array of monitors and Thorne had difficulty processing them all. As did Zenith, now that his perceptions were human and no longer robotic.

“Slow down,” said Thorne. “You’re making me dizzy.”

“Sorry.” Lee turned his chair away from the console. “These are photos of people who have been reported missing over the past few months. Most appear to have one thing in common.”

“Specials,” said Zenith.

Lee nodded. “Right. Medical records, incident reports, everything we’ve been able to find out about them seems to indicate that they’re specials. And it’s not just limited to the States.”

“But there could be any number of reasons why specials would go missing,” said Zenith. “Not everyone is very tolerant.”

“Could be, but when we’re looking at numbers like this, it starts to get pretty staggering,” said Lee.

Thorne rubbed his chin. “Cerberus is supposed to police specials. How do we know it’s not that?”

“There are some dangerous cases, yes, but a whole lot more that look innocent,” said Lee. “But recently, we got a break.”

Lee placed his hand on the keyboard and the monitors all displayed a login page for the Cerberus server. The login and password fields filled in seemingly of their own accord and then they were in. Thorne rose at the sight, slowly stepping closer to the console.
 

“How did you do this?”

“Took a lot of searching to find the right channels, then a lot of finessing to get in,” said Lee. “Their system’s a bit stubborn and anti-social.”