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Excerpt from “The Hacker’s Guide to Indy Corps”, entry by pixel8ed69
Maleev used to be your average, quiet town on the Massachusetts coast. But, as the legend goes, that all changed during a little incident involving religious fanatics, bombs, and faulty detonators in the forties. Nasty business, that. Long story short, the entire town started floating out into the ocean. Sure, it would have stopped eventually, but Roderick Houle (pronounced OWL, and Thor help you if you got it wrong) the first and his fledgling indy company, Owl Corp, saw some potential in having a base of operations that close to - yet also that removed from - the mainland. They halted the island (no one knows how, yet, but it is undoubtedly stopped) and took the small town over. Previously, the town hadn’t had more than a few tourists at a time stop by. Owl Corp took over pretty quickly, bringing in scientists and laborers and security etc etc…, turning the quaint little town into a bustling hive city. Every bit of the island was used; the town, the countryside… well, that was all there was on the island, but there was a lot of countryside to be used. Whatever dirt was moved due to flattening hills and such was dumped into the ocean to expand the island even further, and the end result was a city that rivaled New York in size. Not bad for four years’ work, as Houle was fond of pointing out. The indigenous people? According to an Owl Corp representative, “They either joined the workforce or… uh… moved. Yeah, moved. That sounds innocent enough, right?”
Anyway, here we are, some fifty years later, with Roderick the first having disappeared some years earlier under what most would call mysterious circumstances and his favorite son Roderick the second is in charge. The city, being an island, didn’t have much space to grow out, but it has grown up, and like all cities, is divided in two. On the north end, we have the upper class, squeaky clean, super-fashionable, clichéd upscale part of town. On the south end (lovingly named Tarmack, after the first man Roderick the first ever kicked out of his home)… well, just don’t go there. Like, ever.
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Roderick Houle looked out across the city of Maleev. His city. He saw his reflection in the glass; he was tall and slender, with a long, almost droopy face. He looked docile enough; and that’s just what he wanted his employees to think. But he knew what he had inside of him. And his enemies… well, they found out. It was that dual nature that had allowed him his position; his father had only seen the docility… well, until shortly before his untimely disappearance, that was. Tragic, really. Houle smiled a slight, non-threatening smile at his thoughts. He was interrupted by the flash of a vidscreen on his desk.
“Mr. Hool, sir?”
Houle’s left eye twitched a little - just a little - but enough to cause Captain Braxton, head of Owl Security Services (O.S.S.) to start sweating bullets. With Houle, twitchy meant angry. Roderick Houle was not a man that should be made angry. Braxton wasn’t a coward, heck, he wasn’t even normally this jumpy, but there was just something in Houle’s voice when he got angry that made even the most resolute of men cringe. Braxton had figured out early on that pissing off Houle was the absolute last thing he wanted to do if he wanted to keep his cushy position.
“This is your first - and only - warning. It is pronounced OWL. Call me “Hool” one more time – just one more – and you will be fired.”
Braxton felt his heart jump into his throat. There were few things on Maleev island worse than being unemployed; Braxton’s own department being the primary cause of that.
“Uhh… y-yes sir. Very sorry, sir.”
“Yes you are. Do we know where our friend Tyler lives, yet?” The hostility in Houle’s voice made Braxton even more nervous than he was before.
“Yes sir. We have tracked Mr. Cole down to his apartment in Tarmack. One question, though, if I may?”
Houle sighed, annoyed.
“If you must.”
“Are we really sure that Cole is the Daredevil? I mean, he used to be one of us.”
“Yes, Braxton. For the thousandth time. I. Am. Sure. We have been studying this vigilante for over a month, since he first made his… presence known in my fair city. Cole fits the profile – both physical and psychological – perfectly.”
“Very well, sir. I’ll be going then.”
The vidphone blinked off, and Houle shook his head. Why had he promoted that idiot again? Ah, well. He was just nervous. In a few minutes, he would be rid of Cole – and Daredevil – forever. No fuss, no muss; and he was still on top of the world. He allowed himself another small smile.
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Braxton wished he could feel the breeze on his face through the faceplate. His suffocating mask came down over his eyes, coming to a sharp, beak-like point over his nose. He had his arms outstretched, his wings fully deployed. Two squads of three officers flew in tight formation behind him. He looked at their uniforms; the things must have been horrifying to people staring them down. The basic uniform was all black – black pants, jacket, tie, boots, etc…, and that wasn’t so bad in and of itself. But it was the armor that really put the fear of Thor into people. Silver wings spread under each arm, and a silent thruster was mounted in the small of the back. Those were the creepiest things… whenever they fired up, you thought there would be a heck of a roar, but what you got was… nothing. No sound. Complete silence. Scared the shock out of anyone they snuck up on, though. The footwear was possibly the least comfortable bit, the awkward talons built into the feet took some time to get used to. But the centerpieces of the armor, of course, were the gauntlets. Forearm-mounted automatic weapons were the main armament, but just in case, each finger was graced by a razor-sharp, molecule-thin talon.
Shuddering at the thought of those talons, Braxton looked down. They were headed south, toward Tarmack. As the minutes passed, he noticed the tall, clean buildings of uptown give way to the slightly grittier area of midtown, and then even that gave way to the crumbling, shoddy buildings of Tarmack. He wasn’t even sure that some of them could be qualified as buildings, actually. Some were missing a wall or two. Some were missing a ceiling. Some were rubble. He knew that those ones weren’t buildings anymore, anyway. Trash littered the streets; human and otherwise. He saw the corpse of some random decred in an old alleyway. Right where I left you, he thought to himself as he smiled. They were getting close. Time to check in with Houle. His commlink buzzed on.
“Braxton. Are you there yet?”
“No sir, Mr. Houle, sir. It’s just up ahead. But…”
“Ah, what is it now?”
“But, sir, I mean, he was one of us. He only quit because his entire family was killed, and we were nowhere to be found!”
Houle sighed.
“And that is why he decided to take the law into his own hands. And that is not tolerated in my city. Understood?”
“Yes sir. So… what do you want us to do? Storm the place and kill him?”
“Well,” said Houle, a wry smile forming on his lips, “Yes, actually.”
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Tyler Cole was down on the bench. Both of his hands gripped the bar, and he pushed up. 450 pounds, not bad, he thought to himself, I’m getting better. After doing the ten reps, he sat up. He looked around his dingy apartment. There was some sheet rock crumbling off the wall in the corner, and cracks formed along the walls here and there. The room was filled with exercise equipment; the bench he was sitting on, the treadmill in the corner, weights left scattered about, and the exercise bike in the corner. A black leotard was slung across the treadmill. His little kitchen area was messier than the rest of the room, with dirty dishes piled high on the counter. He hadn’t washed them in weeks… not since he moved here after… the incident. He looked to the table at his side, at the picture of them. His family. He picked it up.
They all looked so happy. Rhonda was smiling her bright smile, Todd was trying to get out of the picture, and Tyler was there as well. He didn’t so much care about himself anymore. He looked up around the room. He had covered most of the walls with pictures of his family. He hadn’t arranged it consciously, but as he looked at the walls now, the pictures were all roughly in chronological order. He started at the beginning; Todd was a baby, and Rhonda was so beautiful; her long black hair flowing across her shoulders. He moved to the right, seeing Todd grow and looking at Rhonda. It looked like she didn’t age at all during the six years these pictures spanned. Six years old… Todd was only… only six… when it… when it happened. Rhonda was walking Todd home from school. They stopped at the deli, like always, but they couldn’t have known they were walking into a holdup. The second they walked in the door, they were gunned down by the Spykes, a street gang from Tarmack that always caused problems for the O.S.S. They had killed the owner that morning, and proceeded to shoot anyone who entered the door for the next 4 hours. And the O.S.S. did nothing. Gunshots were reported, but the O.S.S. did nothing. The store owner was behind on his subscription. Well, the other 78 victims were up on their subscriptions, weren’t they?
His eye caught on one picture directly across from him. It was just him and Rhonda in the Owl Center Park, holding each other. She had cut her hair. It came down to her shoulders. Thor she was beautiful. He grabbed at the Mjolnir around his neck. It had been Rhonda’s, given to her by her mother. Just touching it reminded him of her, of being with her. The tears welled up in his eyes. One streamed down his check.
Suddenly he noticed the silence. There weren’t any people talking, screaming, crying, or anything else. There was silence. And there was only one thing that caused this kind of silence…
-BOOM!-
The wall in front of him exploded, sending debris flying toward him. He jumped back, turning his back to the flying debris and taking what little cover he could behind the exercise back. Three fully armored O.S.S. officers were staring in at him. The leader flew in, wingmates following closely. Reacting almost without thinking, Tyler grabbed the barbell and threw it at the lead officer. It struck him across the chest, sending him to the ground. He bolted towards the door; he didn’t bother to question why the officers were here. In Tarmack, the officers didn’t need a reason to kill you. He had almost made it when a burst of noise and four sharp pains in his leg sent him to the floor. He flipped over to his back and looked up; the gold shrugs on the shoulders let Tyler know who it was.
“Braxton… why?”
“Sorry, Ty, boss’s orders,” said Braxton as he squeezed a few shots into the beaten man’s belly. Tyler spat up blood before going limp. Braxton turned on his comm.
“Mission accomplished, sir. Cole’s been taken care of.”
The three other officers came in through the door.
“You started without us?” the wing leader mused.
“Shut up,” said Braxton, “This must be the costume…”
But it wasn’t. Picking up the costume, Braxton saw that it was just a simple dance leotard… that’s right, Rhonda had been a dance instructor.
“Shock. It wasn’t him. Ty wasn’t the ‘Devil.”
“What do you mean? If it wasn’t Ty, then who was it?” questioned one of the disturbed soldiers. They already felt uneasy with killing one of their own, but now they had done it for no reason? That didn’t sit well with any of them, especially Braxton.
“That would be me,” said a steely voice behind the officers, “Care to step outside?”
The officers whipped around, bringing their gauntlets to bear. They saw a tall, dark figure standing in the entrance they had made. It was him. They squeezed off a few rounds as the ‘Devil flipped backwards, landing in a crouch on the roof across the alley. He got up and flipped around, dodging the bullets.
“What the…?” screamed one officer, “I swear to Thor, that last volley had to have hit him… it, like, it went right through him!”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Braxton, “He’s just trying to rattle us. Stay focused. Formation Delta.”
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The dark figure formed a club in its hand. Braxton and wing one went in from the left, wing two from the right. Daredevil looked around him and thought his strategy out. Acting quickly, he morphed one end of the club into a morning star-like weapon, the other end into a very long cord. He hurled the ball at one of the officers, hitting home and caving in the beak-like faceplate. The officer was falling like a brick. Daredevil ran towards the group approaching from his right, pulling the cord back to him, and wrapping it around the arm of an officer with gold shrugs on his shoulder. The officers behind him fired again, at least three shots making contact. He didn’t seem to notice.
“What kind of armor is that guy wearing?!” remarked one officer.
“I said stay focused!” screamed Braxton, “Once he’s gotten you rattled, he’s won.”
Braxton himself was starting to feel a little frustration with the ‘Devil. He seemed to shrug off their fire. What was it going to take to kill this guy? Pushing these thoughts out of his head, he focused on the vigilante as he dropped into the alley, pulling Braxton off course with him. Braxton fell down, hitting the edge of the building along the way. The Devil tied the cord to the fire escape, weighing Braxton down. The vigilante formed another club in his hand, this time morphing it into a katana. He leapt up and back over an O.S.S. officer going in on a strafing run, slicing deeply into the officer’s armor on the way, sending the officer crashing into the fire escape that held Braxton. As the Devil bounced up between the two buildings, he was snatched by another officer. The grey figure remained calm, shortening his katana and plunging it into the stomach of the officer carrying him. The pair of them fell to the ground. Hard.
Braxton looked at his arm; the cord had vanished. He took to the air and flew towards the crash site. The remaining two officers flew down as well, calling into central as they came.
“We have four officers down, and a possible tag on the Daredevil,” said one as he landed.
“Sonuva-“ exclaimed Braxton. As the Devil popped up again, almost flying towards the two remaining officers. He formed a club in each hand, morphing both into maces in midair. His weapons connected with the officers’ heads, sending them slumping to the ground, blood trickling out from under one of their helmets. The other officer looked up at the Devil, eyes presumably full of fear.
“Ho-how did y-you survive that f-fall?” stammered the officer.
His answer came in the form of an energy mace across his face. Braxton heard the loud snap of the officer’s neck. Not a pretty way to go.
“You- you’re not human,” Braxton stuttered.
“So who says urban legends all have to be human?” came the steely-voiced reply. Braxton merely watched as the Devil formed a club in each hand, advancing slowly towards him.
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“What!? YOU You told him what!?”
Cassie Everett, Radar to her friends, was furious. Her companion, known to many as the costumed vigilante Daredevil, was - as usual - the object of her anger. The two stood in Cassie’s apartment in Tarmack. It wasn’t bad, as apartments in Tarmack go. The walls were in relatively good shape, the paint was still there, anyway, and there were no holes in the floor or roof. At least… she remembered the apartment as being in one piece. She couldn't really see most of the walls due to all of the junk she kept lying around. She had always been a packrat, and she kept every bit and piece of electronics she ever found, and it had stacked up over time. She was currently working on a large-scale solid-light holo projector which took up most of the room.
“I didn’t specifically tell him anything, I merely hinted that –“
“I don’t care about the semantics! The O.S.S. doesn’t need to know that you’re not human, and you don’t need to go dropping hints about it, OK? Braxton’s no idiot, he might figure something out with what you told him. For all the bumbling idiot acts he puts on around his superiors, he’s pretty smart.”
“So you’re saying I maybe should have killed him?”
“Yeah, yeah that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“I was only really trying to give him a warning, you know? Let him tell scary stories about me to his buddies.”
Cassie sighed.
“Let’s change the subject. So Tyler’s dead?”
“Yeah.”
“And Marc killed him?”
“Marc?”
“Marc Braxton,” Cassie sighed again before resuming, “I suppose if you’re going to be a “hero” you’re going to need to know who to whack, who to warn and why. Get comfortable, this could take a while.”
“Being a solid-light construct, it would be pointless for me to get comf-“
Cassie glared at the hologram. Wish I could figure out how to turn off the lip, she thought.
“Just sit tight and listen, then.”
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(Eight Months Ago)
Cassie Everett sat at her desk, cleaning it out. She muttered to herself as she worked.
“Can’t believe I worked for these kinds of people. What was I thinking? No good, rotten, filthy shockin’ liars, all of ‘em.” All of ‘em!”
Her coworkers fought back the urge to call the psych division. Cassie’s mumblings were more than a little unsettling. They watched nervously, the tension mounting as Marc Braxton, head of the O.S.S., and Cassie’s ex, walked down the hall to her cubicle. Cassie looked up from her desk as he entered; a look of pure disgust spreading across her face.
“What do you want?”
“I just wanted to talk, babe. I mean, I think maybe you may have heard some rumors, and I just wanted to tell you that –“
“Save it, bithead. I know what you do. I know about the O.S.S. I know about the murders, I know about the beatings, I know – shock – I know about the Hyper. You make Hyper. And then you sell it. How can you sell that poison and sleep at night? And then – and then, then there’s Captain Hague. He was your boss, how could do that to your boss? How?”
“Like I said, you might be overreacting just a little. I mean, just because some people in my division may have made some shady deals, doesn’t mean –“
“Don’t try and talk your way out of this Marc. I know what you are, monster.”
Braxton glared at Cassie.
“You sanctimonious bit –“
Before he could finish his sentence, he saw a hand slapping for his face. He caught it by the wrist.
“Listen here, babe, I’m gonna make it nice and easy for you to understand. No one messes with Marc Braxton. No one jerks me around. No one. Especially not some high and mighty, naive, little princess. Like, say, you. Now I’m going to give you a choice,” he squeezed harder as she tried to pull free of his grip, “I’m gonna give you an easy choice. Stop being difficult and deal with what I do, and keep your job. Stay protected. Cuz you know, babe, it can be a big, bad, world out there for a single female. Know what I mean?”
Cassie glared defiantly back at the captain of security. He let go of her wrist and walked away sneering. She resumed packing her things.
(Two weeks later)
Cassie’s life had become hard. Almost the day she left Owl Corp, her life went to crap. Her credit rating had been revoked, her bank accounts had been hacked; in short, she was broke. She had managed to get past some of it; she had a job as a DJ at a new club in Midtown, and a new apartment. Well, OK, the apartment couldn’t really be described as all that “new.” It was actually kind of a hole. The walls were falling down, the ceiling was water-damaged as shock, and the atmosphere control – well, there was no atmosphere control. It was pretty much all hot, all the time. Oh, and it was in Tarmack. That sucked too. But she was learning to deal with it. She could hardly even notice the problems with the apartment due to all the junk she had already packed away in it. The stories about Tarmack had, thus far, proven to be a little less than accurate. She felt safe in her new apartment.
Two seconds later, all that changed. She was one her way home from work. She had stopped in at the grocery store (needed milk for her Super-Sugar-Hyper-Bombs. Thor, she loved those things) and was leaving. Then whoosh. She was airborne. She was taken aback at first, then horrified as the ground approached quickly. She hit the pavement hard, dropping her groceries and tumbling forward. Her heart was pounding, and the tears were coming down her face. What the shock just happened? She looked up into the sky, and saw a large black figure flying away on silver wings. She could hear him laugh as he flew up to his wingmates and gave them high fives. “She cried – that’s two cold ones you owe me!” she heard one say as they flew away. She got up and ran to her apartment, tears still streaming.
Over the coming weeks, Cassie was subjected to the same treatment, again and again and again and again until she was almost afraid to even go outside her apartment. She had been beaten, scratched shot at (but not hit… yet), and harassed beyond what she had ever thought possible. She was ragged and tired, but she still had to go to work if she wanted to pay the rent for her craphole apartment. So today, like any other day, she had to go out and earn her rent. She took the stairs down, and went to the door. She hesitated for a second, and went out.
She walked a few blocks or two without noticing anything strange, but she felt that something was just… wrong. At the start of the third block, she realized why she felt uneasy; the silence. It was too quiet to be a bustling hive city. It was already too late. An iron grip clenched her left arm, then her right, and the breeze on her face let her know she was airborne. She waited for the drop, but it came a little different this time. She was on a roof. She got up, expecting to be alone, and having those bitheads fly off into the distance, but instead she was surrounded by five or six officers. Her heart bumped into her throat. What the shock is going on? The leader stepped forward. Gold shrugs adorned his shoulders. Marc.
“Marc, wh-what are you doing?” she managed to squeeze out between muffled sobs.
“I gave you a choice, babe. You chose wrong.”
He took off his mask and smiled.
“Get to it, boys.”
With this, he stepped back, and five officers came forward, all removing their own masks and smiling the same vicious smile. They advanced slowly, grinning Cheshire Cat grins from ear to ear. The tears flowed easily now; she could barely breathe. They were on her in seconds, beating her to the ground with their fists, talons biting into her flesh. She cried out, begging for mercy; none was given. The assault was brutal, but short. In under a minute they were down with round one. The officers grinned at each other and looked at their prey; Cassie could do nothing but sob and quietly beg them to leave her alone. Marc spoke up for the first time since the beating began.
“Last chance, hon. You gonna play ball now, or do we need to finish?”
Cassie only cried.
“God, Marc, can we just shut her up?”
Marc looked from the impatient guard to Cassie, then back again.
“Sure Williams. Do whatever you want.”
Braxton turned and walked away, listening to Cassie’s sobs and humming a soft tune to himself.
Hours later, she woke up in a white room. It was clean. She felt she still wanted to cry, but she was a bit too drowsy to remember why. A kind face looked down at her.
“Hello, Miss. How are you?”
Cassie did not respond.
“You don’t want to talk? I understand, I understand. You’ve been through a lot, you deserve some leeway. I’ll just do the talking for now, then.”
She quietly nodded her assent.
“Well, when I found you, you were pretty torn up. Cuts, bruises; the works. I, uh… I saw some of what happened to you. Saw them leave, anyway, nothing else, really. But, uh, but it was pretty… evident what had happened when I went up there. My name is Dr. Barnes, by the way, and you’re in a Doc-in-the-Box. Don’t worry about payment, I’m putting your tab on my account. You’ve been through so much… I feel horrible about it, I really do. I… just, I… I wanted to help. What happened to you, it just… it shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t. I just… it’s just… I wanted to…”
Cassie looked at his face. Tears were welling in the corners of his eyes. She felt her own eyes moisten as well. The two sat together in silence for some minutes, before Barnes spoke.
“You’ll need to spend the night here, if you would,” he said, sniffing back his tears, “You should be ready to go by tomorrow morning.”
(Days later)
Cassie hadn’t slept since she came home from the Doc-in-the-Box. As soon as she had gotten home, she set to work. She needed protection. She had decided that this would never happen again. Not to her, not to anyone. Cannibalizing countless holovids, modems, and other electronic devices, she had set about her task of creating her protector. She used her immense knowledge of holotechnology to fashion him; “him” being a hard light construct made to resemble a human male. She programmed into him various fighting styles stripped from old kung fu vids, Alchemax corporate raider training vids, and her favorite games as a kid. He could fight with a weapon or without; and thanks to the hard light weapons arsenal she put at his disposal, he could choose whichever one fit the situation. But, as she wouldn’t always be around to make the decision for him, she had to come up with some way for him to be able to make that call on his own. She set about finding out how to build an A.I.
Within days she had found her tutorial. Using her new avatar, Radar, she had surfed the net and hacked into some of the most secure information vaults in the world; Alchemax and Stark/Fujikawa among them. Hours later, using a hacked Alchemax program, she had her A.I. Now all he needed was a name. Suddenly she felt very tired. She had gone days without sleep and barely any food. She needed a rest. So she went to bed, right then and there, at the pile of junk that she had been using as a desk.
She woke up a little refreshed, but mostly sore. Her desk was not all that comfortable. After a generous portion of Super-Sugar-Hyper-Bombs, she sat back down at her desk and got to thinking. After a few minutes of solid thought, she logged on to surf the net while her mind wandered. Hours later, after a morning wasted and a half-eaten ham sandwich for lunch, she stumbled across something in a message board. She had entered the board casually, not looking for anything in particular, but once in it, her eyes met a word she had not seen in a while. Her grandfather used to tell her stories of the Daredevil, protector of Hell’s Kitchen in NYC. She saw the same name here on the board. Doing a quick search, she found all the information available about him. He had tangled with a few high profile thugs, and one in particular caught her eye.
“The Owl? That’s gotta be some kind of sign,” she laughed to herself. She turned to the holomatrix she had pulled together. It was connected into the O.S.S. security network, piggybacking on their signals so that he could appear anytime, anywhere, and they’d never know where he came from or where he went. About time their network was put to good use. She smiled and looked at the screen.
“Daredevil, huh? Looks like you and me, we’re gonna have to clean this city up.”
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“So there you have it. The story of your birth”
“Oh. Interesting.”
“Yeah. So they killed Cole?”
“Yes. They thought he was me.”
Cassie expressed her hurt on her face. Tyler had been one of the few nice people she had met at owl Corp. It really weighed on her that he was killed because of her.
“Well, now that we know that Houle’s looking for us, we’d better change our methods a little.”
“How are we going to do that?”
Cassie was forced to admit she didn’t know. She bid DD goodnight, and flipped off the holo-emitter, sending her guardian into sleep mode. She looked at her computer screen for a while before getting up to leave. She set the burglar alarm as she left for work, grabbing DD’s emergency activation remote as she shut the door.
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Houle paced in his office. He was mad. Angrily mad. Furiously, angrily, mad. Braxton had failed. Sure, he had killed Cole, but the Devil was still alive. And he had had the perfect chance to get rid of him as well. Not five seconds after Cole’s death, the real Devil had appeared – no, not the real devil, of course, the real Daredevil. He was only a man. And he would be taken care of. Houle calmed himself down. He didn’t get to where he was by freaking out at every little thing. Houle breathed in heavily as his secretary buzzed him.
“Sir, Hikaru from Stark/Fujikawa is on line 8.”
“Thank you, Sonja. Put him on the big screen.”
A large holoscreen in the center of Houle’s office flickered on. Hikaru’s face took up the majority of the space on-screen.
“Greetings, my friend. I hear you have been having some recent… troubles. I trust this will in no way affect our deal?”
“No, Hikaru-sama, it will not. It would, of course, be terrible for business.”
“Hm. I concur. This deal will be very lucrative for both our companies… if nothing impedes its progress. I have… agents that I would be willing to loan to you, if you should feel that you need them.”
“Thank you for your gracious offer, Hikaru-sama, but no, I do not believe that it will be necessary. I have agents of my own that can handle this.”
“Of course. I know that these vigilantes can be quite the nuisance, if you don’t effectively deal with them as quickly as possible. I merely wished to know that our venture was in no danger. Goodbye.”
The screen flashed off. Pompous piece of- thought Houle. He breathed deep again. This deal would go off fine. He just needed to rid himself of his little problem first, and if the O.S.S. couldn't handle it, he would need to hire a freelancer. Not just any freelancer, either. The best. And that meant doing something he never liked resorting to.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” said Houle as he pressed the button to buzz his secretary, “Sonja, get me Dropshadow.”
NEXT ISSUE: Does she get him Dropshadow? Find out in Daredevil 2099UGR #2: Radar Sense!
Excerpt from “The Hacker’s Guide to Indy Corps”, entry by pixel8ed69
Maleev used to be your average, quiet town on the Massachusetts coast. But, as the legend goes, that all changed during a little incident involving religious fanatics, bombs, and faulty detonators in the forties. Nasty business, that. Long story short, the entire town started floating out into the ocean. Sure, it would have stopped eventually, but Roderick Houle (pronounced OWL, and Thor help you if you got it wrong) the first and his fledgling indy company, Owl Corp, saw some potential in having a base of operations that close to - yet also that removed from - the mainland. They halted the island (no one knows how, yet, but it is undoubtedly stopped) and took the small town over. Previously, the town hadn’t had more than a few tourists at a time stop by. Owl Corp took over pretty quickly, bringing in scientists and laborers and security etc etc…, turning the quaint little town into a bustling hive city. Every bit of the island was used; the town, the countryside… well, that was all there was on the island, but there was a lot of countryside to be used. Whatever dirt was moved due to flattening hills and such was dumped into the ocean to expand the island even further, and the end result was a city that rivaled New York in size. Not bad for four years’ work, as Houle was fond of pointing out. The indigenous people? According to an Owl Corp representative, “They either joined the workforce or… uh… moved. Yeah, moved. That sounds innocent enough, right?”
Anyway, here we are, some fifty years later, with Roderick the first having disappeared some years earlier under what most would call mysterious circumstances and his favorite son Roderick the second is in charge. The city, being an island, didn’t have much space to grow out, but it has grown up, and like all cities, is divided in two. On the north end, we have the upper class, squeaky clean, super-fashionable, clichéd upscale part of town. On the south end (lovingly named Tarmack, after the first man Roderick the first ever kicked out of his home)… well, just don’t go there. Like, ever.
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Roderick Houle looked out across the city of Maleev. His city. He saw his reflection in the glass; he was tall and slender, with a long, almost droopy face. He looked docile enough; and that’s just what he wanted his employees to think. But he knew what he had inside of him. And his enemies… well, they found out. It was that dual nature that had allowed him his position; his father had only seen the docility… well, until shortly before his untimely disappearance, that was. Tragic, really. Houle smiled a slight, non-threatening smile at his thoughts. He was interrupted by the flash of a vidscreen on his desk.
“Mr. Hool, sir?”
Houle’s left eye twitched a little - just a little - but enough to cause Captain Braxton, head of Owl Security Services (O.S.S.) to start sweating bullets. With Houle, twitchy meant angry. Roderick Houle was not a man that should be made angry. Braxton wasn’t a coward, heck, he wasn’t even normally this jumpy, but there was just something in Houle’s voice when he got angry that made even the most resolute of men cringe. Braxton had figured out early on that pissing off Houle was the absolute last thing he wanted to do if he wanted to keep his cushy position.
“This is your first - and only - warning. It is pronounced OWL. Call me “Hool” one more time – just one more – and you will be fired.”
Braxton felt his heart jump into his throat. There were few things on Maleev island worse than being unemployed; Braxton’s own department being the primary cause of that.
“Uhh… y-yes sir. Very sorry, sir.”
“Yes you are. Do we know where our friend Tyler lives, yet?” The hostility in Houle’s voice made Braxton even more nervous than he was before.
“Yes sir. We have tracked Mr. Cole down to his apartment in Tarmack. One question, though, if I may?”
Houle sighed, annoyed.
“If you must.”
“Are we really sure that Cole is the Daredevil? I mean, he used to be one of us.”
“Yes, Braxton. For the thousandth time. I. Am. Sure. We have been studying this vigilante for over a month, since he first made his… presence known in my fair city. Cole fits the profile – both physical and psychological – perfectly.”
“Very well, sir. I’ll be going then.”
The vidphone blinked off, and Houle shook his head. Why had he promoted that idiot again? Ah, well. He was just nervous. In a few minutes, he would be rid of Cole – and Daredevil – forever. No fuss, no muss; and he was still on top of the world. He allowed himself another small smile.
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Braxton wished he could feel the breeze on his face through the faceplate. His suffocating mask came down over his eyes, coming to a sharp, beak-like point over his nose. He had his arms outstretched, his wings fully deployed. Two squads of three officers flew in tight formation behind him. He looked at their uniforms; the things must have been horrifying to people staring them down. The basic uniform was all black – black pants, jacket, tie, boots, etc…, and that wasn’t so bad in and of itself. But it was the armor that really put the fear of Thor into people. Silver wings spread under each arm, and a silent thruster was mounted in the small of the back. Those were the creepiest things… whenever they fired up, you thought there would be a heck of a roar, but what you got was… nothing. No sound. Complete silence. Scared the shock out of anyone they snuck up on, though. The footwear was possibly the least comfortable bit, the awkward talons built into the feet took some time to get used to. But the centerpieces of the armor, of course, were the gauntlets. Forearm-mounted automatic weapons were the main armament, but just in case, each finger was graced by a razor-sharp, molecule-thin talon.
Shuddering at the thought of those talons, Braxton looked down. They were headed south, toward Tarmack. As the minutes passed, he noticed the tall, clean buildings of uptown give way to the slightly grittier area of midtown, and then even that gave way to the crumbling, shoddy buildings of Tarmack. He wasn’t even sure that some of them could be qualified as buildings, actually. Some were missing a wall or two. Some were missing a ceiling. Some were rubble. He knew that those ones weren’t buildings anymore, anyway. Trash littered the streets; human and otherwise. He saw the corpse of some random decred in an old alleyway. Right where I left you, he thought to himself as he smiled. They were getting close. Time to check in with Houle. His commlink buzzed on.
“Braxton. Are you there yet?”
“No sir, Mr. Houle, sir. It’s just up ahead. But…”
“Ah, what is it now?”
“But, sir, I mean, he was one of us. He only quit because his entire family was killed, and we were nowhere to be found!”
Houle sighed.
“And that is why he decided to take the law into his own hands. And that is not tolerated in my city. Understood?”
“Yes sir. So… what do you want us to do? Storm the place and kill him?”
“Well,” said Houle, a wry smile forming on his lips, “Yes, actually.”
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Tyler Cole was down on the bench. Both of his hands gripped the bar, and he pushed up. 450 pounds, not bad, he thought to himself, I’m getting better. After doing the ten reps, he sat up. He looked around his dingy apartment. There was some sheet rock crumbling off the wall in the corner, and cracks formed along the walls here and there. The room was filled with exercise equipment; the bench he was sitting on, the treadmill in the corner, weights left scattered about, and the exercise bike in the corner. A black leotard was slung across the treadmill. His little kitchen area was messier than the rest of the room, with dirty dishes piled high on the counter. He hadn’t washed them in weeks… not since he moved here after… the incident. He looked to the table at his side, at the picture of them. His family. He picked it up.
They all looked so happy. Rhonda was smiling her bright smile, Todd was trying to get out of the picture, and Tyler was there as well. He didn’t so much care about himself anymore. He looked up around the room. He had covered most of the walls with pictures of his family. He hadn’t arranged it consciously, but as he looked at the walls now, the pictures were all roughly in chronological order. He started at the beginning; Todd was a baby, and Rhonda was so beautiful; her long black hair flowing across her shoulders. He moved to the right, seeing Todd grow and looking at Rhonda. It looked like she didn’t age at all during the six years these pictures spanned. Six years old… Todd was only… only six… when it… when it happened. Rhonda was walking Todd home from school. They stopped at the deli, like always, but they couldn’t have known they were walking into a holdup. The second they walked in the door, they were gunned down by the Spykes, a street gang from Tarmack that always caused problems for the O.S.S. They had killed the owner that morning, and proceeded to shoot anyone who entered the door for the next 4 hours. And the O.S.S. did nothing. Gunshots were reported, but the O.S.S. did nothing. The store owner was behind on his subscription. Well, the other 78 victims were up on their subscriptions, weren’t they?
His eye caught on one picture directly across from him. It was just him and Rhonda in the Owl Center Park, holding each other. She had cut her hair. It came down to her shoulders. Thor she was beautiful. He grabbed at the Mjolnir around his neck. It had been Rhonda’s, given to her by her mother. Just touching it reminded him of her, of being with her. The tears welled up in his eyes. One streamed down his check.
Suddenly he noticed the silence. There weren’t any people talking, screaming, crying, or anything else. There was silence. And there was only one thing that caused this kind of silence…
-BOOM!-
The wall in front of him exploded, sending debris flying toward him. He jumped back, turning his back to the flying debris and taking what little cover he could behind the exercise back. Three fully armored O.S.S. officers were staring in at him. The leader flew in, wingmates following closely. Reacting almost without thinking, Tyler grabbed the barbell and threw it at the lead officer. It struck him across the chest, sending him to the ground. He bolted towards the door; he didn’t bother to question why the officers were here. In Tarmack, the officers didn’t need a reason to kill you. He had almost made it when a burst of noise and four sharp pains in his leg sent him to the floor. He flipped over to his back and looked up; the gold shrugs on the shoulders let Tyler know who it was.
“Braxton… why?”
“Sorry, Ty, boss’s orders,” said Braxton as he squeezed a few shots into the beaten man’s belly. Tyler spat up blood before going limp. Braxton turned on his comm.
“Mission accomplished, sir. Cole’s been taken care of.”
The three other officers came in through the door.
“You started without us?” the wing leader mused.
“Shut up,” said Braxton, “This must be the costume…”
But it wasn’t. Picking up the costume, Braxton saw that it was just a simple dance leotard… that’s right, Rhonda had been a dance instructor.
“Shock. It wasn’t him. Ty wasn’t the ‘Devil.”
“What do you mean? If it wasn’t Ty, then who was it?” questioned one of the disturbed soldiers. They already felt uneasy with killing one of their own, but now they had done it for no reason? That didn’t sit well with any of them, especially Braxton.
“That would be me,” said a steely voice behind the officers, “Care to step outside?”
The officers whipped around, bringing their gauntlets to bear. They saw a tall, dark figure standing in the entrance they had made. It was him. They squeezed off a few rounds as the ‘Devil flipped backwards, landing in a crouch on the roof across the alley. He got up and flipped around, dodging the bullets.
“What the…?” screamed one officer, “I swear to Thor, that last volley had to have hit him… it, like, it went right through him!”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Braxton, “He’s just trying to rattle us. Stay focused. Formation Delta.”
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The dark figure formed a club in its hand. Braxton and wing one went in from the left, wing two from the right. Daredevil looked around him and thought his strategy out. Acting quickly, he morphed one end of the club into a morning star-like weapon, the other end into a very long cord. He hurled the ball at one of the officers, hitting home and caving in the beak-like faceplate. The officer was falling like a brick. Daredevil ran towards the group approaching from his right, pulling the cord back to him, and wrapping it around the arm of an officer with gold shrugs on his shoulder. The officers behind him fired again, at least three shots making contact. He didn’t seem to notice.
“What kind of armor is that guy wearing?!” remarked one officer.
“I said stay focused!” screamed Braxton, “Once he’s gotten you rattled, he’s won.”
Braxton himself was starting to feel a little frustration with the ‘Devil. He seemed to shrug off their fire. What was it going to take to kill this guy? Pushing these thoughts out of his head, he focused on the vigilante as he dropped into the alley, pulling Braxton off course with him. Braxton fell down, hitting the edge of the building along the way. The Devil tied the cord to the fire escape, weighing Braxton down. The vigilante formed another club in his hand, this time morphing it into a katana. He leapt up and back over an O.S.S. officer going in on a strafing run, slicing deeply into the officer’s armor on the way, sending the officer crashing into the fire escape that held Braxton. As the Devil bounced up between the two buildings, he was snatched by another officer. The grey figure remained calm, shortening his katana and plunging it into the stomach of the officer carrying him. The pair of them fell to the ground. Hard.
Braxton looked at his arm; the cord had vanished. He took to the air and flew towards the crash site. The remaining two officers flew down as well, calling into central as they came.
“We have four officers down, and a possible tag on the Daredevil,” said one as he landed.
“Sonuva-“ exclaimed Braxton. As the Devil popped up again, almost flying towards the two remaining officers. He formed a club in each hand, morphing both into maces in midair. His weapons connected with the officers’ heads, sending them slumping to the ground, blood trickling out from under one of their helmets. The other officer looked up at the Devil, eyes presumably full of fear.
“Ho-how did y-you survive that f-fall?” stammered the officer.
His answer came in the form of an energy mace across his face. Braxton heard the loud snap of the officer’s neck. Not a pretty way to go.
“You- you’re not human,” Braxton stuttered.
“So who says urban legends all have to be human?” came the steely-voiced reply. Braxton merely watched as the Devil formed a club in each hand, advancing slowly towards him.
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“What!? YOU You told him what!?”
Cassie Everett, Radar to her friends, was furious. Her companion, known to many as the costumed vigilante Daredevil, was - as usual - the object of her anger. The two stood in Cassie’s apartment in Tarmack. It wasn’t bad, as apartments in Tarmack go. The walls were in relatively good shape, the paint was still there, anyway, and there were no holes in the floor or roof. At least… she remembered the apartment as being in one piece. She couldn't really see most of the walls due to all of the junk she kept lying around. She had always been a packrat, and she kept every bit and piece of electronics she ever found, and it had stacked up over time. She was currently working on a large-scale solid-light holo projector which took up most of the room.
“I didn’t specifically tell him anything, I merely hinted that –“
“I don’t care about the semantics! The O.S.S. doesn’t need to know that you’re not human, and you don’t need to go dropping hints about it, OK? Braxton’s no idiot, he might figure something out with what you told him. For all the bumbling idiot acts he puts on around his superiors, he’s pretty smart.”
“So you’re saying I maybe should have killed him?”
“Yeah, yeah that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“I was only really trying to give him a warning, you know? Let him tell scary stories about me to his buddies.”
Cassie sighed.
“Let’s change the subject. So Tyler’s dead?”
“Yeah.”
“And Marc killed him?”
“Marc?”
“Marc Braxton,” Cassie sighed again before resuming, “I suppose if you’re going to be a “hero” you’re going to need to know who to whack, who to warn and why. Get comfortable, this could take a while.”
“Being a solid-light construct, it would be pointless for me to get comf-“
Cassie glared at the hologram. Wish I could figure out how to turn off the lip, she thought.
“Just sit tight and listen, then.”
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(Eight Months Ago)
Cassie Everett sat at her desk, cleaning it out. She muttered to herself as she worked.
“Can’t believe I worked for these kinds of people. What was I thinking? No good, rotten, filthy shockin’ liars, all of ‘em.” All of ‘em!”
Her coworkers fought back the urge to call the psych division. Cassie’s mumblings were more than a little unsettling. They watched nervously, the tension mounting as Marc Braxton, head of the O.S.S., and Cassie’s ex, walked down the hall to her cubicle. Cassie looked up from her desk as he entered; a look of pure disgust spreading across her face.
“What do you want?”
“I just wanted to talk, babe. I mean, I think maybe you may have heard some rumors, and I just wanted to tell you that –“
“Save it, bithead. I know what you do. I know about the O.S.S. I know about the murders, I know about the beatings, I know – shock – I know about the Hyper. You make Hyper. And then you sell it. How can you sell that poison and sleep at night? And then – and then, then there’s Captain Hague. He was your boss, how could do that to your boss? How?”
“Like I said, you might be overreacting just a little. I mean, just because some people in my division may have made some shady deals, doesn’t mean –“
“Don’t try and talk your way out of this Marc. I know what you are, monster.”
Braxton glared at Cassie.
“You sanctimonious bit –“
Before he could finish his sentence, he saw a hand slapping for his face. He caught it by the wrist.
“Listen here, babe, I’m gonna make it nice and easy for you to understand. No one messes with Marc Braxton. No one jerks me around. No one. Especially not some high and mighty, naive, little princess. Like, say, you. Now I’m going to give you a choice,” he squeezed harder as she tried to pull free of his grip, “I’m gonna give you an easy choice. Stop being difficult and deal with what I do, and keep your job. Stay protected. Cuz you know, babe, it can be a big, bad, world out there for a single female. Know what I mean?”
Cassie glared defiantly back at the captain of security. He let go of her wrist and walked away sneering. She resumed packing her things.
(Two weeks later)
Cassie’s life had become hard. Almost the day she left Owl Corp, her life went to crap. Her credit rating had been revoked, her bank accounts had been hacked; in short, she was broke. She had managed to get past some of it; she had a job as a DJ at a new club in Midtown, and a new apartment. Well, OK, the apartment couldn’t really be described as all that “new.” It was actually kind of a hole. The walls were falling down, the ceiling was water-damaged as shock, and the atmosphere control – well, there was no atmosphere control. It was pretty much all hot, all the time. Oh, and it was in Tarmack. That sucked too. But she was learning to deal with it. She could hardly even notice the problems with the apartment due to all the junk she had already packed away in it. The stories about Tarmack had, thus far, proven to be a little less than accurate. She felt safe in her new apartment.
Two seconds later, all that changed. She was one her way home from work. She had stopped in at the grocery store (needed milk for her Super-Sugar-Hyper-Bombs. Thor, she loved those things) and was leaving. Then whoosh. She was airborne. She was taken aback at first, then horrified as the ground approached quickly. She hit the pavement hard, dropping her groceries and tumbling forward. Her heart was pounding, and the tears were coming down her face. What the shock just happened? She looked up into the sky, and saw a large black figure flying away on silver wings. She could hear him laugh as he flew up to his wingmates and gave them high fives. “She cried – that’s two cold ones you owe me!” she heard one say as they flew away. She got up and ran to her apartment, tears still streaming.
Over the coming weeks, Cassie was subjected to the same treatment, again and again and again and again until she was almost afraid to even go outside her apartment. She had been beaten, scratched shot at (but not hit… yet), and harassed beyond what she had ever thought possible. She was ragged and tired, but she still had to go to work if she wanted to pay the rent for her craphole apartment. So today, like any other day, she had to go out and earn her rent. She took the stairs down, and went to the door. She hesitated for a second, and went out.
She walked a few blocks or two without noticing anything strange, but she felt that something was just… wrong. At the start of the third block, she realized why she felt uneasy; the silence. It was too quiet to be a bustling hive city. It was already too late. An iron grip clenched her left arm, then her right, and the breeze on her face let her know she was airborne. She waited for the drop, but it came a little different this time. She was on a roof. She got up, expecting to be alone, and having those bitheads fly off into the distance, but instead she was surrounded by five or six officers. Her heart bumped into her throat. What the shock is going on? The leader stepped forward. Gold shrugs adorned his shoulders. Marc.
“Marc, wh-what are you doing?” she managed to squeeze out between muffled sobs.
“I gave you a choice, babe. You chose wrong.”
He took off his mask and smiled.
“Get to it, boys.”
With this, he stepped back, and five officers came forward, all removing their own masks and smiling the same vicious smile. They advanced slowly, grinning Cheshire Cat grins from ear to ear. The tears flowed easily now; she could barely breathe. They were on her in seconds, beating her to the ground with their fists, talons biting into her flesh. She cried out, begging for mercy; none was given. The assault was brutal, but short. In under a minute they were down with round one. The officers grinned at each other and looked at their prey; Cassie could do nothing but sob and quietly beg them to leave her alone. Marc spoke up for the first time since the beating began.
“Last chance, hon. You gonna play ball now, or do we need to finish?”
Cassie only cried.
“God, Marc, can we just shut her up?”
Marc looked from the impatient guard to Cassie, then back again.
“Sure Williams. Do whatever you want.”
Braxton turned and walked away, listening to Cassie’s sobs and humming a soft tune to himself.
Hours later, she woke up in a white room. It was clean. She felt she still wanted to cry, but she was a bit too drowsy to remember why. A kind face looked down at her.
“Hello, Miss. How are you?”
Cassie did not respond.
“You don’t want to talk? I understand, I understand. You’ve been through a lot, you deserve some leeway. I’ll just do the talking for now, then.”
She quietly nodded her assent.
“Well, when I found you, you were pretty torn up. Cuts, bruises; the works. I, uh… I saw some of what happened to you. Saw them leave, anyway, nothing else, really. But, uh, but it was pretty… evident what had happened when I went up there. My name is Dr. Barnes, by the way, and you’re in a Doc-in-the-Box. Don’t worry about payment, I’m putting your tab on my account. You’ve been through so much… I feel horrible about it, I really do. I… just, I… I wanted to help. What happened to you, it just… it shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t. I just… it’s just… I wanted to…”
Cassie looked at his face. Tears were welling in the corners of his eyes. She felt her own eyes moisten as well. The two sat together in silence for some minutes, before Barnes spoke.
“You’ll need to spend the night here, if you would,” he said, sniffing back his tears, “You should be ready to go by tomorrow morning.”
(Days later)
Cassie hadn’t slept since she came home from the Doc-in-the-Box. As soon as she had gotten home, she set to work. She needed protection. She had decided that this would never happen again. Not to her, not to anyone. Cannibalizing countless holovids, modems, and other electronic devices, she had set about her task of creating her protector. She used her immense knowledge of holotechnology to fashion him; “him” being a hard light construct made to resemble a human male. She programmed into him various fighting styles stripped from old kung fu vids, Alchemax corporate raider training vids, and her favorite games as a kid. He could fight with a weapon or without; and thanks to the hard light weapons arsenal she put at his disposal, he could choose whichever one fit the situation. But, as she wouldn’t always be around to make the decision for him, she had to come up with some way for him to be able to make that call on his own. She set about finding out how to build an A.I.
Within days she had found her tutorial. Using her new avatar, Radar, she had surfed the net and hacked into some of the most secure information vaults in the world; Alchemax and Stark/Fujikawa among them. Hours later, using a hacked Alchemax program, she had her A.I. Now all he needed was a name. Suddenly she felt very tired. She had gone days without sleep and barely any food. She needed a rest. So she went to bed, right then and there, at the pile of junk that she had been using as a desk.
She woke up a little refreshed, but mostly sore. Her desk was not all that comfortable. After a generous portion of Super-Sugar-Hyper-Bombs, she sat back down at her desk and got to thinking. After a few minutes of solid thought, she logged on to surf the net while her mind wandered. Hours later, after a morning wasted and a half-eaten ham sandwich for lunch, she stumbled across something in a message board. She had entered the board casually, not looking for anything in particular, but once in it, her eyes met a word she had not seen in a while. Her grandfather used to tell her stories of the Daredevil, protector of Hell’s Kitchen in NYC. She saw the same name here on the board. Doing a quick search, she found all the information available about him. He had tangled with a few high profile thugs, and one in particular caught her eye.
“The Owl? That’s gotta be some kind of sign,” she laughed to herself. She turned to the holomatrix she had pulled together. It was connected into the O.S.S. security network, piggybacking on their signals so that he could appear anytime, anywhere, and they’d never know where he came from or where he went. About time their network was put to good use. She smiled and looked at the screen.
“Daredevil, huh? Looks like you and me, we’re gonna have to clean this city up.”
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“So there you have it. The story of your birth”
“Oh. Interesting.”
“Yeah. So they killed Cole?”
“Yes. They thought he was me.”
Cassie expressed her hurt on her face. Tyler had been one of the few nice people she had met at owl Corp. It really weighed on her that he was killed because of her.
“Well, now that we know that Houle’s looking for us, we’d better change our methods a little.”
“How are we going to do that?”
Cassie was forced to admit she didn’t know. She bid DD goodnight, and flipped off the holo-emitter, sending her guardian into sleep mode. She looked at her computer screen for a while before getting up to leave. She set the burglar alarm as she left for work, grabbing DD’s emergency activation remote as she shut the door.
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Houle paced in his office. He was mad. Angrily mad. Furiously, angrily, mad. Braxton had failed. Sure, he had killed Cole, but the Devil was still alive. And he had had the perfect chance to get rid of him as well. Not five seconds after Cole’s death, the real Devil had appeared – no, not the real devil, of course, the real Daredevil. He was only a man. And he would be taken care of. Houle calmed himself down. He didn’t get to where he was by freaking out at every little thing. Houle breathed in heavily as his secretary buzzed him.
“Sir, Hikaru from Stark/Fujikawa is on line 8.”
“Thank you, Sonja. Put him on the big screen.”
A large holoscreen in the center of Houle’s office flickered on. Hikaru’s face took up the majority of the space on-screen.
“Greetings, my friend. I hear you have been having some recent… troubles. I trust this will in no way affect our deal?”
“No, Hikaru-sama, it will not. It would, of course, be terrible for business.”
“Hm. I concur. This deal will be very lucrative for both our companies… if nothing impedes its progress. I have… agents that I would be willing to loan to you, if you should feel that you need them.”
“Thank you for your gracious offer, Hikaru-sama, but no, I do not believe that it will be necessary. I have agents of my own that can handle this.”
“Of course. I know that these vigilantes can be quite the nuisance, if you don’t effectively deal with them as quickly as possible. I merely wished to know that our venture was in no danger. Goodbye.”
The screen flashed off. Pompous piece of- thought Houle. He breathed deep again. This deal would go off fine. He just needed to rid himself of his little problem first, and if the O.S.S. couldn't handle it, he would need to hire a freelancer. Not just any freelancer, either. The best. And that meant doing something he never liked resorting to.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” said Houle as he pressed the button to buzz his secretary, “Sonja, get me Dropshadow.”
NEXT ISSUE: Does she get him Dropshadow? Find out in Daredevil 2099UGR #2: Radar Sense!