Vulnerable part 5

IMD Session: Phantama (Frakes)

Frakes was already in the meeting room when Dr. Ansari entered. “Already here, huh?,” she asked cheerfully.

“I prefer to be early,” Frakes stated plainly.

“I see,” she sat down and looked at her notes, “So your codename is Phantama but I can refer to you as Frakes. Which do you prefer?”

“Whatever suits you.”

“I like birth names and I assume Frakes is yours.”

“It is.”

“So, going off the info I was given, you were Navy Seals before the IMD. Pretty strict branch?”

“It requires the best the Navy has to offer and I’m proud to have been chosen.”

“What made you join the Navy?”

“My parents are both Naval officers and they instilled in me, the values of the US military. I was expected to exemplify those values throughout my life.”

“I can tell. What happened if you failed to meet these expectations?”

“They would be disappointed and I didn’t want that to happen.”

“Did you go to private school?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What military academy did you attend?”

“US Naval Academy. Annapolis.”

“Forgive me, I don’t know a lot about that sort of thing but considering all I’ve seen so far, I imagine that’s an impressive school.”

“It is.”

“In my notes, it says that you allowed Director Pierce to choose what power you were given when it was your turn to undergo the Neutronium treatment.”

“Yes. IMD agents are allowed to request certain abilities, otherwise, those abilities were chosen by Director Pierce. As I am under his command, I trust him to assign the power best suited for my team.”

“And you acclimated to it quickly enough that Director Pierce assigned you to help future recruits get used to their powers.”

“That’s correct.”

“And now you’re the field leader?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Always the best?”

“I try.”

“I’m sure your team goes out for drinks or something on occasion.”

“They do.”

“Ever join them?”

“I don’t see a need. I’d rather focus on the job.”

“Your latest mission had a few surprises, maybe more than usual. It seems that someone with such an unwavering drive might have some strong feelings regarding it.”

“It frustrated me,” Frakes said bitterly, “Thankfully, we made it out alive.”

“Does it frustrate you now?”

“I’d be lying if I said I’m entirely satisfied with the way it went down.”

****

Frakes made her way through the casino, squeezing past international criminals trying to earn money on blackjack and roulette. Klausman approached with a drink in his hand and since the room was already noisy, no one noticed when the two spoke English in their natural accents. Still, they made sure to talk quietly and stand as far away as possible without making it look as though they were avoiding anyone.

“From my assessment,” Frakes began, “Bacchus usually has two guards at every entrance and with the size of this place, he likely has a little over a hundred armed men. The guests are unarmed but there’s always the surprise factor. The good news is that many of them are under the influence of one substance or another so if things turn South, we know who to worry about. How did the recon go?”

“I wouldn’t recommend looking in the dungeon,” Klausman said half-jokingly, “I’m no prude but…,” he quickly changed the subject, “Anyway, there’s an annex that’s completely guarded and locked away from the rest of the guests. It’s the only major area that we can’t access so I believe that’s where the armored suits are being kept.”

“That’s a good bet. I also wonder if we’ll find whatever it is that’s knocking out our powers.”

“You doing okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“You like being on top of things and I don’t recall us ever having a mission where we went in this blind. We’re literally powerless. Seems like the kind of thing that’d piss you off.”

“I’ll be fine once we take out Bacchus’ organization.”

Alam and Bronson approached next. Bronson surveyed the area for any listeners before speaking, “Me and Alam found where the auction’ll take place. It leads to a dining hall and a kitchen area with a back door. Once we make a move, we can escape through there.”

“Good,” Frakes told him, “Klausman believes the annex tower is our target area. Once we make it outside the mansion, that’s our next destination. Let’s hope Jones can gleam some information from Bacchus.”

In another area of the mansion, Jones spoke with Billy Bacchus as he made his way down the hall, flanked by two men. She smiled at him sweetly and spoke in a Russian accent, “The house belongs to your father, yes?”

“It did,” he told her, “He passed away some time ago and as I was the only child, I was left with the place. He wanted to keep it in the family but alas, I don’t think he much cared for me.”

“Why?”

He spread his arms out, “This. The shipping business is a nice way to cover expenses, especially since I don’t have to do much, but I always needed more and Mom and Dad never understood that. I needed the world. It started off as a few risky ventures: gambling, laundering, stuff like that. Just to see if I could. It was…,” a strange smile crept up, “Thrilling. I wanted to chase that feeling and eventually I got into the arms trade and that’s where I really excelled.”

“It’s all very impressive,” she placed a hand on his shoulder tenderly, “And these suits you built… so much more advanced than anything I’ve seen.”

“I wish I could say I built them myself but I have a team,” he admitted.

“Oh? So how did they make them?”

“Alien technology,” he pulled his phone from his pocket, “There were ships and weapons all over the place after the Resurgence. Just like in ‘81, some countries did a better job than others in cleaning up,” he showed a photo of debris from a U’ntari ship, “Apparently, the heroes destroyed a an entire fleet of ships in space and bits of them fell to Earth. This was in Malta and a few hundred kilometres away from this spot, parts of a supposed alien satellite landed in a small town. They outsourced a company to clean it all up. Can you believe that?,” he put his phone away, “It made it easy to bribe the right people. I was able to collect scrap from different points of the globe. Lots of nice blackmarket deals, too. After that, it was a simple matter of finding the right engineers who could make something from it.”

“Innovation is a highly underrated trait,” she twirled his hair a bit, “But tell me you did more than just make some boring old suits.”

“Boring?,” he appeared offended, “I am many things but boring isn’t one of them. See, my team also found energy traces of that glowing stuff the aliens use… Neutronium? We couldn’t get our hands on the real deal but my guys were able to learn all they could from the energy source and created a field that countered it.”

“Countered it?”

“Yeah, I have a big doo-hicky up in the tower. It creates… Oh, how do you say it in English?… A Negation Field!”

Jones rolled her eyes as if tired of hearing his voice, “I don’t know what that means.”

Bacchus took note of her bored expression and took it as a challenge to make his successes sound more exciting, “See, we were afraid that building these suits might attract the IMD so the engineers created the field to knock out their Neutronium-based powers. If any of them get too close to the island, they’ll be just as helpless as you or me. See, I’m smart because I know only the IMD can touch me out here in international waters so I made sure I was ready for ‘em.”

“Wow,” she leaned in, “You really have thought of everything.”

He smiled arrogantly, “And you seem more… spirited than the rest of your group.”

“Russians are stoic but believe me…,” she whispered into his ear, “… we can be very spirited,” she broke away from him and headed back to the casino, “But sadly, I can’t mingle… just yet. My boss wants us to be focused on the auction but afterwards,… I’m allowed to do what I want.”

“Make sure to invite some friends,” he said happily before blowing a kiss.

Later, the team gathered in the main hall where they were seated in rows of chairs in front of a small stage. Jones whispered Bacchus’ plan to the team as they waited for the auction to start.

“… and apparently, the machine creating the Negation Field is in a tower,” she told them finally.

Klausman nodded, “The annex has a tower so it seems that’s where we need to go next to take out the operation and get our powers back.”

As they continued to talk more about the plan, Bacchus emerged on the stage and did a playful shuffle while his his men wheeled suits of armor on trollies. “Hello, beautiful people,” he spread his arms out to his guests, “Thank you for joining me for this little auction. As I’ve explained in the past, resources are limited so there will be little chance of getting these bad boys in the future. Now’s your chance to snatch them up for a good price and I guarantee, they’ll last decades.” He slapped the first armor in the line, “We’ll be starting our first bidding at €200,000. Let’s make it interesting. Do I hear €200,000?”

Frakes raised her hand, “200,000.”

Another guest raised his hand, “250!”

“300,” Frakes responded.

It went on this way while Billy Bacchus watched with glee. Finally, when Frakes reached €800,000, the other bidders backed down. Bacchus produced a gabble from somewhere and slammed it down on the podium, “Sold!” There were some appreciative claps and one of Bacchus’ men rolled the armor off the stage as an attractive woman set a box on the podium.

“Looks like the Russians got the first suit,” Bacchus motioned toward a nearby office, “I’d like to congratulate them personally in my office with a little surprise… Could the Bolsheviks please follow me?,” he pointed to the woman showcasing the box on the podium, “In the meantime, I have some lovely hollow-point rounds up for bid. My equally lovely assistant will take over for a while.”

A large man in a suit materialized next to the team and beckoned that they retire into the next room. Cautiously, they obliged. Once inside the office, they saw Bacchus stood behind his desk; around the room, several men in suits blocked every exit. The team counted four of his men all together at various stations with pistols in their folded hands.

“Like I said… spirited,” Bacchus addressed Jones first before pacing around her teammates, “As you are all aware, I always take precautions. I make sure my enemies never touch me. I’ve always had a certain amount of … apprehension when it comes to metahumans, however. I don’t like the idea of having an opponent that has something I don’t. It makes me feel inferior and I rarely feel that way, so it pisses me off,” he turned and began moving about the room in no particular fashion, “Part of this apprehension led me to ensuring that the IMD would be powerless once they set foot on this island. Of course, IMD agents are still pretty sneaky what with them being spies and everything. I wanted a little extra muscle in case they were dumb enough to worm their way into my abode, so I hired a mercenary to take care of any problems I couldn’t,” a smile spread across his face, “As luck would have it, this mercenary has a past with the IMD and since I was concerned they would show up, I let him take a look at the CCTV just before the auction and guess what he noticed?,” he paused, indicating it was not a rhetorical question but since the Badges remained quiet, he decided to answer all the same, “He noticed the Russians sitting up front were goddamn Badges!” The IMD agents remained quiet and Bacchus shook his head in frustration, “You people honestly came here with no powers and no weapons? I’m actually insulted you had that much confidence in your little monkey-wrench operation.” The Badges continued to stare at him, unmoved. He rolled his eyes, “And you’re boring,” he snapped his fingers at his men, “Okay, I thought this was gonna be a lot more fun than it was. Kill them now!”

Continued…