This message Premiere #2: Most Wanted was posted by on Friday, January 25, 2002 at 13:52.
The Death Squad didn’t seem that impressed with the SPUD helicarrier. For all it was a modern technological marvel, the aerial equivalent of a sea-going aircraft carrier, the single most expensive piece of espionage and combat equipment on the planet, they had seen better. But then, the science heroes who stood on the briefing deck watching technicians scurry between information consoles had made the dimensional jump from Technopolis, a city sufficiently advanced to make the urban zones of this world look like medieval villages.
“Okay folks, let me do the introductions,” Dan Drury, the director of the planetwide security agency known as SPUD suggested. “The guy to my left dressed like a bird is Falcon. He’s one of our top field agents, an’ I’m assigning him as your liaison for the duration of your visit.”
The five members of the Death Squad didn’t seem impressed. “Index?” their leader queried, addressing his slimmer companion, the one sporting all the computerised implants.
“He’s baseline human,” Index reported dismissively. “Level five flying harness. Level five or six weapons package. Level three oblative shielding. Not much else.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Falcon told them.
“These rays of sunshine are science police from some city called Technopolis, in some alien dimension,” Drury explained to his operative. “They’re called Red Bounty, Razorbarb, Detonator, and Flashfry. Oh, you’ve already met the wind-up answer man, Index. We’re bein’ asked to give them our co-operation.”
Falcon wondered why five alien mercenaries were being accorded such respect. “What’s the mission?” he asked.
Red Bounty, the leader who had spoken before, pressed a touch-sensitive spot on his combat armour. A realistic hologram of a tall, greying man in a black and white jumpsuit appeared. “We’re here for him. He calls himself Premiere. He’s a metahuman and a convicted murderer. After massacring a roomful of our leaders he used a dimensional jump gate to come to your world.”
Falcon was still doubtful. “Isn’t this something that should be in our jurisdiction, then? Maybe we should call in the Lair Legion…?”
“We don’t need local amateurs,” Red Bounty told him. “We only informed your people as a courtesy because of our previous extradition treaty.”
This was news to the high-flying hero. “We have an extradition treaty with Technopolis?”
“So it seems,” Drury admitted. “Seems some of our covert comrades in different parts of the military/industrial complex have been getting tech from these guys for a few years now. It’s popped up a few times in our files without us realisin’ it was for them. The Sentinoid blueprints, some of the kit from Prophetic Genesis, the process they used on Saint…” The SPUD director sniffed. “Anyway, the order comes from the top. We co-operate with these bozos while they look for their perp.”
“Just assist us in locating our quarry.” Razorbarb demanded. “Leave the rest to the professionals.”
_______________
“What do you call this?” Detonator snickered, looking around the civic centre where Falcon had brought the Death Squad.
“We call it Akron, Ohio,” Falcon answered. He tried to keep civil, but the contempt his guests were showing for every aspect of the world they were visiting was starting to tell on him.
“And people live here?” Razorbarb asked in disbelief. “By choice?”
“I guess not all of us can be tightasses from Technopolis,” Falcon muttered in reply.
Index was checking one of the innumerable scanners attacked to his body. “I’m getting mild trace here. He was definitely active, but the trail’s over twenty-four hours old.”
“Like I told you, he was here yesterday,” Falcon repeated. “We’d never have known he was around, but for some reason your murderer ripped the side off a blazing building and somehow put out the fire, saving about fifty lives in the process.”
“We’ll be sure to give him a medal,” promised Flashfry. “After we smoke him.”
Falcon turned to look at the cocky young man with the pyrokinetic cannon. “I’m assuming that smoking him is some kind of smart Technopolis slang for capturing him with due process and minimum force, not what it would mean if we said it here,” he warned the science police.
“What part of Death Squad didn’t you get?” Red Bounty answered. “This guy has already been tried in absentia. We’re here to carry out the sentence.”
“That’s not how we do it here,” said Falcon. “I guess you’re going to have to learn some new ground rules.”
The Death Squad exchanged contemptuous glances. “I don’t think so,” Red Bounty responded. “And here’s why. We’re an elite trained metahuman counterinsurgence unit. You’re a hick dressed as a chicken with technology that we wouldn’t use to collect garbage with. We’re representatives of Technopolis, a city so advanced that we could wipe the surface of your planet clean by pressing a single button. You are the boy sent to look after us while we do the grown-ups job. If you have a problem with that then we could rip you to shreds, post your corny outfit back to your leaders in little pieces, and bomb you all back to the stone age to remind you to respect your betters.”
“You could try,” Falcon agreed. “In your favour, I couldn’t rip your head off and ram it up your backside, since it’s already so far up there you must be able to see what you ate for breakfast.”
“Hey,” Index reported. “I’m getting a reading!”
“We could just scorch the area, clear the field so we can get a proper field of fire,” Flashfry suggested.
“You do anything that endangers civilians and I’ll show you just what this old antique flying suit can do, bozos,” frowned Falcon. He figured he could probably take one of them down, maybe hold the rest off while the Lair Legion got as far as their Lairjet hangar bay. But by the time the team got to Ohio all there would be was a crater.
“All you have to do is stand there, not interfere, and maybe learn something,” Razorbarb told him. She patted him on the cheek. “Think you can do that, birdie?”
Falcon was about to remove the offending arm, possibly permanently, when a blur of movement flashed before his eyes and Razorbarb vanished into a wall. In her place there was the black-and-white costumed fugitive called Premiere.
“I have never liked Death Squads,” the fallen science hero admitted to his pursuers, “but I’m insulted they only sent one team.”
Falcon had to admit that Red Bounty, Razorbarb, Flashfry, and Index moved like a well co-ordinated machine. Razorbarb and Flashfry attacked directly, the one generating psionic needles that detonated on impact, the other blossoming flame from his pyrokinetic cannons to engulf Premiere. Falcon had to dodge aside as his own armoured flying costume redlined on the periphery of the attack. Meanwhile Index had peeled off a half-dozen remote floating weapons platforms and was moving them to encircle his quarry. Red Bounty was holding back, assessing the situation.
Premiere stamped down hard on the pavement, spilling the Death Squad from their feet. Falcon, already airborne, had a perfect attack shot. He didn’t take it. After all, the science heroes had been very clear about not wanted him to interfere.
“Collateral damage!” shouted Red Bounty. He unleashed his own optic blasts, spraying the shopping street, detonating cars and shopfronts amidst the screaming frightened pedestrians.
“Falcon to Drury,” Falcon reported over his helmet-mike. “The party-guests are outstaying their welcome.”
Drury’s reply violated a number of airwave ordinances.
There was a huge wind and the fires died down. Red Bounty had to break off his attack to avoid two crumpled balls of burning former car that Premiere pitched at him. But by then Index was ready to make his move. The six floating platforms belted out charges of hard radiation, bathing the fugitive in an eerie green glow.
The Death Squad expected Premiere to deal with the painful barrage first, and Index had already programmed his mobile units to avoid even the hyperspeed manoeuvrings of the enemy. He wasn’t prepared for Premiere’s reply to be in the form of his thermal spray. Suddenly Index’s personal force fields were strained to maximum. The weapons platforms toppled uselessly deprived of a control signal through the reinforced defence barriers.
Razorbarb came in from behind, generating searing psionic edges that cut straight through Premiere’s invulnerability; but the former science hero had literally written the book on how to counter telekinetic-based assaults. Another blow to the ground threw up black clouds of obscuring debris and dust. In the few seconds it took for Razorbarb and Flashfry’s visors to adjust to the new conditions, Premiere’s enhanced vision and hearing had positioned him to deliver shattering blows to his two attackers.
That left Red Bounty standing alone. “Not bad, old timer,” the Death Squad leader admitted. “Perhaps your rep wasn’t all PR after all. But now it’s time to cut to the chase.” He indicated a countdown timer on his wristguard. “Ninety megaton thermonuclear strategic device,” he explained. “Timer set for thirty seconds. You have that long to surrender. Otherwise even if you don’t go down, you’re causing the deaths of millions of these miserable mudsuckers around us. And it just so happens that I…”
“I’ve read your file,” Premiere snarled. “You’re immune to kinetic energy, heat, and radiation. You’ll walk away unscathed.”
“Twenty seconds.”
“This is going too far,” Falcon warned, helplessly. He stated at Premiere. “What are you going to do?”
“Fifteen seconds.”
“I don’t trust Red Bounty further than I can throw him,” the fallen science hero admitted. Then with a blur he had seized the Death Squad leader and hurled him skywards at escape velocity. “Of course, I can throw him pretty far,” he concluded.
There was a bright flare above the ionosphere.
“That… was really close,” Falcon said.
“It’s a long time since I read his file, but I don’t think Red Bounty’s powers include breathin in a vacuum,” Premiere noted neutrally. He looked around at Falcon. “So do I have to fight you now?”
“They very clearly told me not to interfere,” the high-flying hero answered quickly. “Sir. But on the other hand, you are a mass murderer. Are you?”
“Yes,” Premiere admitted. “I am.”
“Damn. Then I think I’ve got to arrest you.”
“I see,” Premiere answered. “And if I don’t come quietly?”
“Then you have to deal with us,” Fin Fang Foom warned the fugitive.
The Lair Legion had arrived at last.
This poster posed from 213.120.56.41 when they posted
Message Thread