Chapter 12

Tuesday, 5:00AM Unnoticed by anyone two nearly invisible armored suits descended from the sky on to the roof of the Chronos Enterprises warehouse and offices.

“EyeSpy to Mother. We are in position. Target ETA: T Minus 4 hours. We are settling in to wait and observe. Active camouflage systems are green. Will notify when target arrives.”

Gypsy and EyeSpy settled in. EyeSpy was sitting on an AC unit that put her in a position to see the entrance to the parking lot and the road beyond it. Gypsy sat cross legged directly on the roof.

A couple of hours later, Gypsy jumped up. “Artemis” She started to walk back towards the warehouse section.

EyeSpy grabbed Gypsy’s arm. “What are you doing?”

“My mind made contact with Artemis. She’s in the warehouse!”

“No, this is not rescue mission. Our suits are not rated for combat. Stay on mission. Did you get any useful information about the target?”

“You are right, sorry. The contact was only for a few seconds. She was asleep. Her mind kicked me out as soon as she woke. I got a glimpse of the commands that were imposed on her, and a fleeting thought of something the target said to her, but I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“Could you make contact again? Get more information?”

Gypsy Sighed. “No, It wouldn’t be safe. She’s awake now and conscious, she would likely detect my presence in her mind. From what I saw, she is thoroughly his creature now. She might raise an alarm and jeopardize the mission.”

“Then we leave her for now. Mention everything you found out when we are debriefed after we have been extracted.”

They continued to wait, completely unnoticed by arriving personnel. Finally EyeSpy spotted the target’s vehicle. “EyeSpy to Mother. Target is arriving at warehouse. Unleash the hounds, the mission is on.”

Eye spy moved to stand at the edge of the roof so she had a clear view of the entire parking lot.

Matt arrived at the warehouse. Eager for progress updates. He had Hercules with him and after parking and getting out of his car, he let Hercules out.

All of a sudden, he heard a thud and a whirring noise. He turned. There was a person in power armor that looked like it was made for a woman standing in the parking lot around 20 yards away. The power armor had what looked like a miniature Gatling gun starting to spin up on it’s right shoulder.

“Who are you?”

“I am your doom!” And with that the Gatling gun opened fire.

Matt froze time. He turned most of the bullets back at his attacker. He noticed Hercules was running for the bushes and trees that divided the various warehouse lots. Good. Not the time to find out if his ‘Cerberus’ form was bullet proof. His car was probably going to be toast. He walked over to his attacker and tried to move her. The armor was too heavy for him to move. Not good.

He moved off to the side and restarted time. Most of the turned bullets simply bounced off the armor.

As she continued to fire Matt’s car got torn up. Finally she noticed Matt wasn’t there and stopped firing.

“What the fuck, where did you go?”

“Over here.” Matt said from a good 30 yards to the left of where he had been.

“Fast are you? Try dodging this.” The armored woman fired an energy blast from the palm of one of her armored hands.

Time slowed and Matt easily stepped out of the way, not going so far this time.

“How did you dodge that? No matter, my partner is only a few seconds away now and she’ll take you out.”

Matt caught a blur of motion coming into the parking lot and as time slowed, the blur resolved into a helmeted woman in a jump suit. She came at him with fists flying. Despite her speed, he slowed time enough to dodge all of her punches easily and land a few of his own, which seemed to have no effect.

This went on and on as they traded blows all over the parking lot. Matt started to realize that the bullet time mode was taking more out of him than stopping time. He tried stopping time and giving her commands but it had no effect. He suspected that the helmet kept her from hearing him.

He needed a break. He swept the speedster’s legs out from under her and she went tumbling across the parking lot. Time returned to normal for a moment.

Iron Maiden watched the battle between Zip and the target. Her armor could barely track their movements. All of a sudden Zip went tumbling ending up more than a hundred feet behind the target. She activated their private communication system.

“Zip, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I can’t touch him. I can’t even track all his movements. I haven’t been able to dodge any of his attacks, but it’s like getting punched by a normal person at normal speed. It wasn’t having any affect until he swept my legs and tripped me.”

“He’s showing signs of fatigue. If you wear him down he’ll slow down and you can take him. I know you can keep this up for hours. Back off, give yourself room to accelerate and hit him at your maximum speed.”

Matt saw the speedster get up then vanish in a flash. He turned to the armored woman. “Your friend ran away.”

“No she didn’t, she’s just getting room to accelerate more.”

The speedster came running back in, moving at nearly twice the speed of sound. Again Matt and the speedster traded blows Matt dodging everything she threw at him and his attacks hitting the mark but having no effect. Matt was tiring by the second. He couldn’t keep this up. He needed to put her down so she would stay down. Suddenly he had an idea. It would probably kill her but at this point Matt was out of options.

Iron Maiden continued to observe. Zip bounced around the parking lot chasing the target. All of a sudden there was an explosion under zip. Dust and debris blocked Iron Maiden’s view.

When the dust cleared, there was a 10 foot wide crater in the middle of the parking lot with Zip laying flat on her stomach, her body broken. Sensor data from her armor showed that Zip was alive, barely but her injuries were extensive and horrific. The target was standing on the far rim of the crater, bent over and breathing hard.

“I’m going to kill you!” Iron Maiden Yelled.

Matt looked up at the armored woman after she yelled her threat.

Off to his right he heard “Harris County Sheriffs. Don’t move, Put your hands in the air.” It was Betty Smith and several male deputies that Matt didn’t immediately recognize.

The armored woman raised one arm and pointed it at the deputies.

A gun shot sounded from the other direction and a clang of metal hitting metal. Ted and one of the female security people had come out the far employee entrance Ted had an AR-15 type rifle and was oddly taking cover behind the woman.

The armored woman raised her other arm and pointed it at Ted and the security woman. She fired an energy beam at them. The front of the security woman’s shirt vaporized, but she was otherwise unharmed.

Matt noticed Hercules in his transformed state coming up behind the armored woman with Sam at his side.

Iron Maiden was in a real jam. Cops to her left, a man with a rifle and an invulnerable woman to her right. The rifle looked like a light military assault rifle, but it was firing rounds heavy enough to be a threat to her armor. The target was in front of her, but she had no idea what the fuck his power was or what he did to Zip.

Suddenly, something grabbed her arms, then her head was caught as well. Her HUD came alive with damage alarms. Her helmet was cracking. Something poked through her helmet, It looked like an enormous tooth.

She took the only option she had left. “Okay, I surrender.”

Matt stared at the armored woman, locked in Hercules’s three headed grip. He walked up to her.

“Release her head.”

Hercules released her head from the grip of the jaws on his center head.

Matt tapped on the helmet. “Can your unlatch your helmet without using your hands.”

“Yes” There was a click and the two haves of the helmet separated slightly.

Matt pulled her helmet off and tossed it to the side. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t snap your neck.”

“I...”

Deputy Betty Smith walked up to Matt and smacked him on the back of the head. “That would be murder. Dumb Ass.”

“This is their third attempt to kill me!”

“Whose third attempt to kill you?”

“The Matriarchy. And what are you doing here?”

“We had dozens of reports of gunfire and explosions in the area.”

The woman in the armor coughed. “We weren’t working for the Matriarchy.”

Matt glared at her. “So who are you and who were you working for?”

“I go by Iron Maiden. That,” she pointed at the crater with her chin, “was Zip. We were hired to hit you by the Russian Mob.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would the Russian Mob want a hit on me?”

“I have no idea. The woman we were working with didn’t tell us why.”

“A woman? You do realize that the Russian Mob is very misogynistic don’t you? You were hired by the Matriarchy.”

“I’ve been trying to get work from the Matriarchy for years. They keep telling me they don’t use mercenaries in general and they wouldn’t use me and Zip in particular.”

Matt thought about that. “Yes, but now they needed someone expendable. I’ve taken down two of their top agents and they have no idea how I did it. You were hired to make me perform on command so they could figure out what my power is. Ted, have our people search the area.”

There was a blur and a gust of wind and suddenly a man was standing next to Matt. He was wearing a tight fitting one piece jump suit with a lightning bolt and the Texas Rangers logo on it.

Matt looked at the new arrival. “You must be Zoom. Welcome to a day late and a dollar short. I’ll bet it’s a new feeling for you.”

“Ha ha. What happened here.”

“Initially, after I got here this morning, I was attacked by the one in the armor, she calls herself Iron Maiden. She fired that mini Gatling gun at me, then some kind of energy blast. Both of which I dodged easily. Then the speedster in the crater, she went by Zip according to Iron Maiden, attacked. She was more trouble. I was able to dodge all of her attacks, but my punches and kicks seemed to have no effect on her.”

“Speedsters all have at least some invulnerability. It’s so we don’t kill ourselves if we trip and fall at speed. What did you do to her?”

“They were trying to kill me and I was running low on stamina. I have no idea how the physics of it works, but if I move an object while using my power, it keeps it’s momentum relative to itself. If I turn a bullet in flight, it will move in the new direction. She was coming at me at around mach 2, I grabbed her feet and rotated her so she was mid air facing the ground. She had no way to stop and she plowed straight into the ground at mach 2.”

“Ouch!.”

“Hey!” Deputy Smith yelled. She was standing on the edge of the crater. “I think this one is still alive.”

“What?” Matt said.

Zoom went over and looked in the crater. “Yes, she’s alive, barely, for the moment. With the extent of her injuries, even if she does survive, I doubt she’ll ever walk again, much less run.”

Matriarchy HQ:

Delphi and Isis were standing at the back of the operations center.

One of the techs spoke up. “Preliminary reports coming in. Mission complete. Mercenaries failed to take out target, as expected. Gypsy and EyeSpy were able to retreat from the attack site and made it to the extraction point undetected. Zip was badly injured. Iron Maiden surrendered. Target had 3 other sparks with him. Gypsy reports brief telepathic contact with Artemis at warehouse prior to attack. Result of said contact is not encouraging. The extraction crew is bringing Gypsy and EyeSpy back to HQ. Arrival tonight or early tomorrow.”

Isis spoke up. “Have Gypsy and EyeSpy debriefed as soon as they arrive and reports of the debriefing on our desks as soon as possible. However, It is likely that the Matriarch will want to hear from them directly with the council in session some time tomorrow. Prepare them for this.”

Chronos Enterprises Board Room.

Matt sat down at the conference table with the rest of his leadership team. Tony had set up an overhead projector.

“Before we get to status updates, Ted, how is the search going.”

“The search is complete. We found and dismantled an observation blind on the property across the street that was set up to watch us, or at least our parking lot. From the looks of things, it hadn’t been used for a few days. More interesting is what we found on the roof.”

“What did you find on the roof?”

“Foot prints with no indication that they got up there either through the building or by climbing the wall from the outside. The footprints are on the small side, but the depth would indicate almost twice the weight that the size of the footprints would.”

“Well then how did they get up there? Can we tell when? Can we tell who they were?”

“I can’t answer the first or last question, but I may be able to answer the middle one. I’m a bit paranoid. I set us up with a bunch of security cameras around the outside. Including on the roof. A few of the rooftop cameras watch the roof itself. Tony, run the footage.”

Tony activated an overhead projector. And started playback on a video file. It showed a slow sweep over the roof, covering one of the AC units. As it passed over the AC unit there was an oddly pixelated area in the rough shape of a person.

“What are we looking at?” Matt asked.

Ted responded, “A 1 minute loop off of one of the roof security cameras from around 5:30AM this morning. As to what that anomaly is, I think it’s a woman wearing some kind of stealth armor suit equipped with active camouflage, rendering the suit and it’s wearer nearly invisible.”

“Active Camouflage?”

“The military has been working on the idea for at least a decade for use on vehicles. The basic idea is that you use cameras on one side of an object and project what those cameras see on the other side of the object. Artificial invisibility. But like I said, the military was looking at this at a vehicle scale, tanks, ships and the like. This, 360 degree coverage of a person, I wouldn’t have thought that possible, but the evidence is sitting in front of us.”

“What else can you tell us?”

“I reviewed all the cameras over looking the roof from midnight forward. The anomalies start showing up at 5AM. There were two of them. I think they arrived from the air, but I can’t be certain. They stayed up there for hours and left just after Iron Maiden surrendered.”

“What happened with Zip and Iron Maiden?”

“Zoom insisted on taking Iron Maiden into custody. We didn’t have a good basis not to turn her over. Zip was taken to a hospital. I don’t know which one.”

““Don’t worry about it. We weren’t going to get any useful information out of them anyway. They were duped. What the hell were you shooting? It looked like an AR15, but it damaged Iron Maiden’s armor.”

“It was an AR15, but they come in a lot more than 5.56mm NATO these days. Mine is chambered for .50 Beowulf. When you need to reach out and touch someone ... hard.”

“The woman who was with you? Invulnerability?”

“Yes. She doesn’t like to talk about it though. She didn’t get any enhanced strength with it, so she’s useless in a fight against heavy hitters. She won’t get hurt, but she just gets tossed around.”

“Matilda?”

“I have a contract for you to sign with a 401K provider. I’ve selected a provider for insurance benefits, but contract and coverage terms are still being negotiated. On this mornings events, I’ve contacted several contractors for estimates on repairing the parking lot. Your car is probably a total loss. I’ve arranged for it to be towed. I’ve also arranged for a rental car for your use it should be delivered here by the end of the day. Several other employee vehicles were damaged. Do we want to cover the repairs?”

“I can buy a new car. Yes, we’ll cover the cost of repairing other employee vehicles damaged in the attack. Tony, how are things with the web site?”

“We got the alpha site on-line for testing Sunday. The major search engines can pick things up pretty quickly. We are already seeing traffic on the site other than our own testing. Several tried to access the dominants side of the dating site and backed out after hitting the under construction pages. Four went to sub space and backed out after getting under construction pages from the link to create a profile from sub space. Five went to the slave pits page and four of those started the process to create a profile. Two backed out after hitting the slave contract. Two actually completed the process of creating a profile.”

“What? We had two people just run into the site at random and sign up as product?”

“Yep.”

“What about the rest of the site?”

“The dating site should be fully operational in another week or so. The slave store will be ready a week after that, assuming we have product to sell.”

“Sam, where are we at with the delivery vans?”

“The prototype has the decals applied and is ready for use. The second van is complete and ready for use. The last two should be ready by Friday.”

“Okay. I want you to dig into our two product sign ups. Make sure they are legit and who they say they are. Then run a field test on the communications protocol and bring them in. I want to interview them. I also want you to deliver Duchess to the ranch, tonight or tomorrow.”

“I’ll see to it.”

Matt was in his office making plans for testing the new recruiting script. As he was contemplating plans. He realized that they needed a way to distinguish script recruits from spontaneous sign ups. He checked the slave pit profile page. There was a field for a ‘promo code’.

He added a line to the new recruiting script. “Enter the following for the Promo Code when creating your profile, Xb23Av111” If they ever needed to test different versions of the script, the ‘promo code’ could be changed for each version.

There was a knock on the door.

“Enter.”

Sam walked in to Matt’s office carrying two manila folders. He sat in the chair facing Matt’s desk. “I’ve looked into our two product sign ups. One of them may be a problem.”

Sam set one folder on the desk and opened it. “Coral Jones, age 27, Dallas, Texas. Her face in the profile pictures matches the drivers license photos for her in the Department of Public Safety’s records.”

“Do I want to know how you were able to check her pictures against the Department of Public Safety’s records?”

“Tony says no. Under employment she listed two jobs. Both part time, one is a restaurant where she works as a waitress. The other is a ‘gentleman’s club’ it’s unclear if she’s a waitress there, or a performer. Her listed address is a run down apartment complex in a not very nice part of town.”

Sam set the other folder in front of Matt. “Sofia Lopez, age 17, Austin Texas.”

“You are thinking the age is a problem? I don’t have an issue with it as long as we can confirm she knew what she was doing when she signed up.”

“It’s not just the age. Her mother died when she was 12. Father died when she was 15. She’s been living in foster care since. Profile photos are a match for photos of her in the Austin CPS records. According to the CPS records, since she’s been in foster care, she ran away once and has made two suicide attempts. Foster mom is a serious feminist activist. Based on what she wrote as fantasies, her father was a serious misogynist and she is very much daddy’s girl. Based on her current situation, the standard pickup protocol may not work and collection could be an issue.”

“Has contact been made.”

“Both were pinged with the call in notification. Coral called in. Pickup is scheduled for Friday morning. She says she’s good for the weekend, but if she’s not back by Monday, one or both jobs could be in jeopardy. Sofia has not called in, but I wouldn’t expect it before the end of the school day.”

4:30PM. Matt’s office phone rang. “Hello.”

“Matt, it’s Sam. Sofia just called in. She says both her foster parents work during the day. She want’s pickup tomorrow. She’s going to skip on school and be home for pick up while the foster parents are at work.”

“Do it. I’ll come in after classes tomorrow to interview her.”

6:00 PM at Matt’s Ranch.

The Chronos Enterprises delivery van pulled into the driveway and went up to the house.

Fred got out of the van, went to the back and deployed the cargo lift while Sam working inside the van got Duchess out of the dog crate and secured her in the fridge. When she was secure he opened the rear doors from the inside and wheeled the fridge onto the cargo lift. Fred lowered the lift, then Sam handled the fridge while Fred went and rang the door bell.

When Matt opened the door, Fred intoned. “Chronos Enterprises, Refrigerator delivery.” He held out a clipboard to Matt. “Please sign here.”

Matt took the clipboard, signed, handed it back then stepped back to let them in while laughing. “The paperwork is a nice touch, but a bit outdated.”

Sam was working on releasing Duchess from the fridge, so Fred responded, “Tony is still working on getting us some of those tablet things a lot of companies are using these days.”

Sam finished releasing Duchess and she ran over to Matt and knelt at his feet. “Is Horny Bitch Duchess home now Master?”

“Yes, yes you are. Lets go find Molly.”

Wednesday, Matriarchy HQ, Council boardroom.

“Bring in the operatives.” The Matriarch demanded.

Gypsy and EyeSpy were brought into the board room by security guards.

They both bowed. “Matriarch, we are honored to be in your presence.”

“Both of you. Stand tall and proud. We have read the reports from you debriefings, but we want to hear from you first hand. We’ll start with Gypsy. You reported making telepathic contact with Artemis?”

“It was fleeting, a few seconds, she was a sleep then woke and I was ejected from her mind.”

“Did you get anything?”

“Yes my lady, but it was difficult to process all of it in the moment and when I had, it was not encouraging.”

“Tell us.”

“First, I discovered that she had retained a deeply buried submissive streak after the deprogramming you put her through when you first rescued her from her father. Even she isn’t sure if it’s something of her father you couldn’t get rid of or if it’s part of the real her.”

“Why didn’t she tell us?”

“She was afraid that you would put her through deprogramming again.”

“What else?”

“I was able to see something of the commands that the target imposed on her.” She went on to describe the commands. “Those commands are deeply embedded in her subconscious and have become entangled with her preexisting submissive streak. I consulted with some of the other telepaths in the Matriarchy. I shared with them what I saw. We agree that those commands were all laid in a single pass, and that no telepath we know of could have laid them in that securely and that deeply in a single pass.”

“Do you have any idea how it was done?”

“Best guess is some form of subliminal messaging backed by supernatural power. The commands appear to have simply bypassed even her deepest subconscious defenses.”

“Is there any hope if we were to recover her?”

“We think not. The consensus is that nothing short of a complete mind wipe would be successful.”

“Did you get anything from her about the target?”

“One statement, that the target made to her, but I can not make heads or tails of it. The statement was ‘I walk between the moments.’”

“Once the target arrived, did you get anything from him?”

“No my lady. His thoughts move with incomprehensible and impenetrable speed.”

“And the mercenaries?”

“Iron Maiden failed to deduce anything useful about the target. Zip was confused. He moved so fast that she couldn’t hit him and couldn’t even always track his movements. And yet until the final blow, his own attacks on her she perceived as like being hit by a normal person at normal speed. They had no significant effect.”

Delphi raised one hand to her temple. The Matriarch ignored her. “EyeSpy, your impressions of the battle?”

“The fight was very strange. Iron Maiden attacked first, with a miniature Gatling gun. The target not only dodged this attack, he some how reflected some of the bullets back at Iron Maiden. Then she attacked with an energy blast. He dodged this as well. I could not track his movements.”

“And when the speedster, Zip, attacked?”

“It got stranger. Sometimes I could track his movements, sometimes not. No mater how fast zip attacked, the target somehow moved faster. Zip never landed a single blow. The target landed many punches and kicks on Zip, but other than a leg sweep and his final attack, which was the strangest of all, his attacks despite being delivered with extraordinary speed had no force. No more force than I my self could generate in a punch.”

“And his final attack?”

“I can not comprehend the physics of it. He some how rotated her body so she was parallel to the ground face down. He also redirected her momentum so that instead of flying off in the direction she had been going, she crashed straight into the ground. The impact was horrendous. Her injuries were terrible, multiple compound fractures to both arms and both legs. Her rib cage was crushed. Her pelvis and collar bones shattered. I don’t know how, but she was still alive when we bailed. I doubt she survived the night.”

“What happened after zip was down? You indicated multiple sparks.”

“After the dust cleared, the target was exhausted, but still standing. Harris county sheriffs deputies showed up. A man with a rifle came out of the warehouse, using a woman as a human shield. The woman was invulnerable. A very dark complexioned man with stealth so strong I could barely sense him at all came up behind Iron Maiden with an animal spark. A massive dog the size of a bull with three heads. The dog grabbed Iron Maiden with all three jaws and was crushing her armor when she surrendered. Zoom showed up as we were flying out.”

“So, we could possibly use multiple speedsters to overwhelm Mr Murphy’s power...”

EyeSpy objected. “I wouldn’t recommend that my lady.”

“Why not?”

“What ever he did to destroy Zip, he could have done at any time. She only managed to exhaust him because he was reluctant to resort to outright lethal force. It would be an error to expect him to make that same mistake again.”

“I see your point.”

Machina interjected. “Matriarch. I may have something that will shed some light on the target’s powers. Given everything we just heard.”

“What is it?”

“We decrypted one of the files our agent got from the Texas Rangers meta-human squad. No real data, but it’s an index of code names of known meta-humans in Texas. There is a new name on the list with a date that matches the timeline for Mr Murphy. That code name is ‘The Time Lord’.”

Delphi put both hands on her head and screamed.

The Matriarch reached out. “Delphi, what is wrong.”

“Time, time, time. How could I have been so stupid. Have you ever had a thought so terrible, that you couldn’t think it?”

“How could anyone ever have such a thought if they couldn’t think it?”

“I just did, or rather I remembered having one. Do you remember when I described looking into Mr Murphy’s future, out to 500 years?”

“Yes, where is this going?”

“At the 500 year mark, one of his possible future selves noticed me and he reached out through the veil of time and space and struck me physically. The target’s power is time. The ability to manipulate time. This is bad, very, very bad.”

“Why?”

“Gods of time tend to be primordial, and very powerful. None of the ancient mythologies have any mention of a god of time interbreeding with humans. I know now what he is doing. He manipulates the flow of time around himself, moving himself into a higher frame of reference where time moves so fast for him that the rest of the world slows down or even appears to stop.”

“Aha!” Machina exclaimed. “That would explain what he did to zip. To move an object, he would have to bring it into his own frame of reference.”

“So?” Isis asked.

“Information exchange. There are theories that everything we know about physics is based on information exchange between objects, between sub-atomic particles. Since he isn’t using speed to reach his accelerated frame of reference, the exchange of information is broken and when he moves an object, it’s momentum is conserved relative to itself, rather than relative to the rest of the world in our frame of reference.”

“I see, and his own punches would only apply as much momentum as he could in the normal frame of reference.”

“Exactly”.

“Enough!” The Matriarch yelled. “What does this mean for what plans we make for Mr Murphy.”

“It means we don’t.” Delphi interjected. “Remember when I said the sniper attack would have to be an instant kill. If he lives even milliseconds after the bullet hits and he can react, he could suddenly develop the ability to move backwards in time and alter his past so the attack misses. It would explain why his past is out of focus, it is uncertain, even if it is not as uncertain as his future.”