Children of a Lesser God 175 The Coming Storm

Fred looked at Brian in horror. He had no idea what he said that seemed to pissed him off, but now he couldn't help but shrink back from the now enraged young man. Every other patron in the bar looked at Brian but seeing who it was, they just returned to their conversation. It was obvious to anyone that Brian was a regular at the bar and they knew not to say anything to him.

After taking a few breaths to calm down, Brian sat back down and ordered a new drink while wiping off his hand with a napkin. After the drink had been set down, Brian took a sip and turned back to Fred, once again asking,

"What was that person's name again? And what did they look like?" Brian asked, the picture of serene. Fred calmed himself down and explained what he remembered about Laz from the confrontation outside of the club. As Brian listened, his expression became darker and darker, but he held onto his temper and didn't say anything.

After Fred described everything he remembered, he sat back and drank his drink while Brian just sat there, lost in thought. Finally, he ended up laughing as though he had gone crazy.

"This is actually better than I thought, much better. I can work with this... Yeah. I can bring them in... and get a detail. He will fall right into the trap. Obviously he won't be expecting it..." Brian mumbled to himself as he grabbed out his phone and sent out a few texts. Then dialed a number and waited until the other side picked up.

"I need a favor," Brian said.

"Yeah, normal price. Uh huh. Right. I will let you know the time shortly. Less than a week for sure. Right, money wired first. Got it. Yeah, I will get the 'evidence' together tonight. Not a problem." Brian finished his conversation and hung up the phone, turning back to Fred once again.

"Well, looks like you've given me the perfect opportunity to do something I've been meaning to do. If you play things right for me, I can promise you will be well rewarded for it," Brian encouraged Fred while giving him a reassuring smile. Although Fred wasn't the brightest, he saw that whatever it was that Brian wanted him to do wasn't going to be simple. Sadly for Fred, he had no place else to turn. At least for now. He needed money and this kid was the fastest way to it.

"I will do my best," Fred said.

"I know you will," Brian agreed, although his meaning was way different than what Fred had intended.

Leaving the bar about half an hour later, Fred took off to a hotel that Brian had put him in for the night before pulling out his phone again and also a card that he had recieved. He dialed the number while walking over to his Mercedes.

"Agent Wallace, I've have some information that could be really useful for you. It's about the cause of that warehouse fire and a very dangerous infected. Yeah, I would love to meet in person. Right, feel free to send me a text at this number with a meeting place. Proof? Well, not only can I give you the one responsible, I can also get you a freebie that is also infected, although slightly less dangerous. Neither of them are anyone important, but one is a career criminal. Yes, I figured that would make things quite a bit simplier. Of course. have a good night Agent." Brian hung up the phone and smiled. He wasn't taking any chances and would make sure to have offical government help with this. Afterall, when hunting a monster, extra guns would always be helpful. In the back of his mind, Brian had already come to the conclusion that people like Laz and Fred were the dangerous infected that the government was looking for, which meant that he had to be one of those chosen that they were also recruiting. Not only would he be a hero for capturing two enemies, he would also be a god that others could only look upon.

And when all of this was complete, he would have Leona locked in a nice little cell for his personal enjoyment until he was sick of her and decided to discard her like a few of the others.

As far as he was concerned, he was going to be a new god afterall. He could therefore do whatever he wanted with his newfound godhood.

...

Just as Brian was swimming within his delusions, Agent Wallace was looking at a computer screen with information on Brian on it.

"Is this everything?" Agent Wallace asked.

"Yes sir. Based on the phone number, this is definitely the kid who just called," replied the suit who was in front of the computer. Agent Wallace looked over at the information and pulled out a notepad to write down a few things.

"Looks clean. Son of a mayor huh? Small town, but the father is rich. probably bought his way to his office. Wants to run for state congress. No surprise there. Boy just graduated highschool and on his way to college in the fall. Hmm... I wonder who he is selling out?" Agent Wallace spoke his thoughts outloud.

"You believe him to be selling someone out sir?" The man on the computer asked.

"Of course. It should be real information based on the fact that this kid is the son of a mayor and his father would probably kill him or worse, take away his trust fund if he messes up his father's election chances. So I'm betting the information is true. However, when someone like this is willing to turn someone in, it means that they either need to silence them, or can't get them on their side." Agent Wallace informed the suited man as he kept writing notes.

"Is that good for us or bad for us sir? It seems like we are being used..." The man asked.

"It's fine. Results are what matter, everything else is nothing more than the thin grey line. Unforunately, this isn't the 50's anymore or we could do things a bit more harshly. Sadly, we have to wait until we can varify that these people that the kid is selling out are actually infected. Otherwise, if it gets out that we attacked and arrested innocent people, things might get rough."

"I understand sir."

"Good. Set up the appointment with Brian at a local place and I want the first flight out there."

"Sir, you're going yourself? But we have people setting up bases around the country for that." The suited man pointed out.

"And that's fine for the rest of the time. But this time, it seems like we hooked a big fish. Did you read the report about the fire from the warehouse? There were melted bodies in there. But there should have been a lot more people there, anywhere from 45 to 50 people were in that gang and have gone missing according to our organized crime group in the area."

"What does that mean sir?"

"It means that not only did all of the members of the gang have disappeared, but it also means that for every bit of remains that we found, there were many more that vanished. Either the killer is really good, or they had help. And I mean a lot fo help to clean up that many bodies. The fact that there was so much liquid remains and based on the factors the doctors have come up with, the ones who died did so long before the fire."

"That's..." Getting Agent Wallace's meaning, the suit at the computer couldn't help but frown. It was an almost inconceivable theory that was being suggested.

"The real troubling part is that the FBI, DEA, and Homeland security were working together in a joint task force once it was discovered the number of arms deals that were going on there and yet now all of the arms are gone. That means that a whole lot of weapons disappeared very quickly. And no one is happy about that." Agent Wallace finished. As he walked back to his office, he was greeted by several new people he was now assigned to work with. He walked in and closed the door, walked over and poured himself a drink. Although federal employees weren't allowed to drink on the job, he didn't really care.

"This was suppose to be a big reassignment, but now they've got me chasing down special little snowflakes that they need for testing. This is an insult," Agent Wallace said to himself, yet outloud. But in the end, it was only the beginning. Afterall, once he was able to show results, the department would get major funding increases that would allow it to grow and expand. Although the general idea was accepted in Washington, there were still a lot of people who were against giving them money when there were so many other departments that could use it. And the bases that were being set up all over the country, that had been put on halt after the ones in charged had learned of the bill. So for now, everything was in limbo, or so he ahd heard.

But once he showed how dangerous these people could be, he would then be in charge of a country wide unit, something he could have never dreamed about while a member of the FBI before.

That was the only reason he had taken this job.

Therefore, he was going to be there so that when they got these two handed to them on a silver platter, he would be the new face of the department.

He could only hope that they would cause more trouble and violence in the meantime. In fact, the louder, the better. If they resisted arrest, that would sweeten the pot even more, making it international news worthy.

He had heard the stories from overseas already. Many places were making seperate units like the U.S. and a good number of them were military based. It seemed like only the United States had the funding and the means to simply use internal services to begin the department, which made things much easier for him. Military would have been impossible to control, but civilan forces were much more easily manipulated.

No he just needed to go meet with this Brian kid and get everything he could out of him.

Things were looking up for Agent Wallace.

...

As these things were happening, something else was going on in the basement training rooms of the Hearn Company.

Malene and Vivi were standing in front of the group of about twenty people as Kennedy rattled off a list of names that neither of them would remember. Malene was just awe struck that Kennedy had recruited so many different people who had abilities since she rarely ever came down here. In fact, most of the time when she visited with Kennedy, it was in her office. Malene had different interests that kept her behind a computer screen while Kennedy was the one that handled these sorts of matters. Each girl was good at what they did and needed eachother for that. Malene did comunication on a large scale, reaching across the country and nations while Kennedy was getting people together in person to create a personal army.

Vivi wasn't as amazed at Kennedy, but was more so amazed at how strong these people were getting. They were obviously far from newbies and Vivi could tell they had fought actual creatures before, although something still seemed off to her about them.

It was like, they had the taste of blood, but they didn't produce an aura of it.

That could only mean that although they have killed creatures before, they hadn't been worried about living or dying at the same time. Since this was Kennedy's business, Vivi chose to keep silent.

After she finished reading their names, she turned to look at Vivi, as though seeking her opinion, something that Vivi didn't miss out on.

"What did you want to ask?" Vivi questioned.

"What do you think?" Kennedy asked with a smile, which caused an almost audible reaction from the room, something that would never happen otherwise. Their leader, their goddess, had actually asked someone else's opinion. On top of that, it seemed like she was asking a girl who was much younger than herself, one that even looked somewhat weak.

They had no way to keep their surprise inside.

Normally Kennedy would be mad about this, but she let it slide this time. Besides finding out things about Laz and getting the information about the next levels, there was another reason she had invited Vivi here and didn't mind if Malene tagged along. Having both the girls here would cause these fighters of hers to relax their guards.

"They are... ok." It was the best answer that Vivi could give. If she compared them to Laz, they would be nothing more that shiny pieces of stone, fun to look at, but useless otherwise. He could kill all of them before they would even have a chance to resist.

"Only ok?" Kennedy had expected some reaction from Vivi, but this was even worse than she had anticipated. Both Vivi and Kennedy heard mumblings from the group after Vivi had given her evaluation and Kennedy had hoped they could at least learn something from this.

"Have they seen live combat?" Vivi asked.

"Yes, they each have killed at least ten low level beasts and at least two on the same level as themselves." Kennedy answered.

"How many died?"

"None..."

"Why not?

"Why would I let them die? Do you know how hard it was to find them in the first place and convince them to come here, train and help me."

"And that's the problem. How many of them would have failed and died the first couple of fights they had? Five? Maybe Ten? If you want them to be useful, it means that they have to understand that it is either life or death when they fight. Without that, they will simply show cowardness and run the first time their lives are actually threatened."

Nodding her head, Kennedy understood. She was still thinking along the lines of how things are and not training her people for how things are going to be.

With a sharp glint in her eye, Kennedy turned back to the crowd who was looking on, somewhat nerviously. Especially those that would have died the first fight had things happened the way they should have been allowed to.

Every single person knew that when you got that look ,they were about to undergo something hellish which might kill them.

Chapter end