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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vigilance" data-source="post: 568054" data-attributes="member: 4275">Part 2: Black BudgetMarcus walked around the warehouse headquarters like he was on an inspection tour.  Always impassive, he seemed particularly unimpressed with the surroundings of the "New Coalition".  Turning suddenly, the former Excalibur agent fixed the mysterious woman shadowing him with a steely gaze.  "The Senator certainly has a lot of toys. And what did you say your name was again?"The blonde woman just watched him for a long moment, and Marcus felt a chill, like someone walking over his grave.  "You can call me Cassandra", she said at last.Marcus snorted.  "Like from Greek Mythology hm?  Or perhaps the medical journals?  I'm not sure I believe that anyone 'sees the future' except the insane and the religious. So, I’m assuming all of these toys are accounted for on a government budget somewhere? No?  Black Budget project then is it."Cassandra just smiled.Marcus persisted, “So, you, a telepath, and a precognitive, me, a broken-down Excalibur agent, and Mr. Stradling, we three are supposed to track down the Countdown Killer? What do we do if this person has real powers?”Cassandra’s smile vanished, and her eyes glazed over, like the return of winter to a still deep pond, and in an other-worldly voice uttered, “In the end no power will save us”.Marcus took a step back involuntarily, as Cassandra smiled as if she had never spoken, voice back to its normal icy tone, “The Senator has arranged some firepower for us Mr. Warrick, rest…”Marcus took another step back, and Cassandra’s expression changed, “It happened again didn’t it?”“You mean you don’t know?”Cassandra shook her head, but reached into her jacket and removed a small tape recorder, like one would use to record a meeting, and scanned backwards until that other voice, hers but not hers, again sounded through the quiet warehouse, “In the end no power will save us.”Cassandra turned her back on Marcus, but he saw the muscles in her back tighten, and was suddenly glad he had never been given a “gift” like hers.  Quietly, almost tenderly, he asked, “What does that mean?”Without turning around, she answered him, “It means, Mr. Warrick, that we need to get to work.”Walking briskly, she returned to where Jeremy was still studying the strange vehicle, “So, Mr. Stradling, are you ready to take her out for a spin?  We have some friends to pick up.”Jeremy smiled.  Marcus couldn’t remember having ever seen him smile before, and it was infectious.  Pushing up out of his wheelchair and into the cockpit of the large vehicle, Jeremy’s fingers danced on controls he had just seen for the first time moments ago like he had been training with them for months.  With quiet authority, the engine came alive, and in his thick southern accent Jeremy said, “Absolutely darlin, let’s get this show on the road.”Still smiling, Marcus shed his jacket, shouldered his large frame into the passenger seat, looking at Cassandra.  “I’ve got shotgun, the lady can sit in the back, that is if there are no objections?”And Cassandra smiled too.  A smile that almost managed to reach her eyes, “No Mister Warrick, no objections whatsoever.”As soon as the door closed behind her, Jeremy opened the large bay door that allowed the vehicle to exit the warehouse, and, gunning the engine with a lion’s roar, hurtled out into the night.</blockquote>

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