The seven men and four women of Team Constant Lightning sat around the U-shaped conference table studying their assignments. They all had worked together on one mission or another over the years, and silently nodded at each other in recognition. Each was the best in his or her fields - they all knew that. There was no room for false modesty in this business.
Stanley "Twitchy" Twikowski scuttled around the table passing out what were known internally as 'goodie bags'. He cursed under his breath each time his oversized black leather duster snagged clumsily on the wheels of the small aluminum cart he was pushing.
"Don't open them until I say so!" he squeaked asthmatically. The team members that were prematurely releasing the clasps on their bookbag-sized leather sachets stopped what they were doing and rolled their eyes at each other. Twitchy might be a technology savant with an IQ over 200 but he also had a Napoleon complex sized to match.
After the last bag was distributed the lights dimmed and a three-dimensional representation of the Earth hovered above the gap in the tables bathing everyone in a warm greenish-blue glow. The three-foot sphere, generated by laser projectors around the room, rotated slowly in a mist of microscopic water droplets sprayed from above and below.
Superimposed on the hologram were thousands of multicolored spots - most were green but some yellow and red could be made out. Some lights winked on, while others faded away. Dashed lines connected some and then were washed away or reconnected elsewhere in what looked like a random fashion.
"Our Heuristic Electronic Real-Time Observer, or HERO, mainframe has been hard at work since we received the Omnicron image from the field. " Twitchy removed his glasses and wiped them on his Cheetos-stained t-shirt. "For those of you that don't know, what you see here is all of the global Internet, cell phone, CB radio, and land line communications over the past two years filtered through our Omnicron database. HERO finished crunching through all of the data a few hours ago so let's fast forward to the results instead of watching the pretty lights go blinkity blink, shall we?"
The dots and lines became a blur and suddenly converged into six red pulsating target symbols. Three were in America - one in Southern California near the Mexican Border, one in Rhode Island, and one in Western New York State. The other three appeared to be on the outskirts of London, Kabul, and Berlin respectively.
"You may now open your mission toolkits. You will notice they are mostly the same old stuff geared toward your particular fields of expertise, but we have modified them a little based on the nuggets HERO was able to glean from the electronic noise." He sounded like a proud papa showing off pictures of his new baby. "Time is very short. I only have time to go over the changes once so pay attention." He pushed a greasy red shock of hair out of his eyes and held up what looked like a silver Tylenol capsule.
"This," he announced, "is how you will keep in contact with your partner and with HQ during the course of this mission." The team members looked doubtfully at the pill. "It may not look like much, but it is actually a self-contained encrypted satellite uplink-downlink system. After it is swallowed the outer casing begins to dissolve, turning that chemical energy into electrical energy to power the device. Your intestinal track then acts as a waveguide, much like the speaker design in a Bose radio, to transport sound either to the device or to your ears. It will remain functional for as long as it is in your digestive track."
"The second item is a biological suppressant," he announced, holding up another pill - this one unpleasantly brown-colored. "It will allow you to forgo food and sleep for the next 36 hours. In addition, it will eliminate the need for excretory functions such as sweating or calls of nature. Finally, an enhanced dopamine re-uptake inhibitor infused into the capsule will allow you to focus longer, with the side effect that certain drugs will only have a minor affect on your brain's chemistry. Please swallow both pills now."
The gold team did so. Twitchy continued with his mission overview.
"As you can see HERO has picked out six likely locations for Omnicron activity. You will notice that the bungled robbery of the gas station in the middle of nowhere that alerted us to the continued existence of Omnicron is not on this display. Investigation by local authorities seems to confirm that the perpetrators were interested in nothing more than the contents of the cash register. A bit of serendipity that someone one our side was there to stop them and that the computer was able to link that cell to the highlighted target in Afghanistan.
"Each of you has been paired with another Constant Lightning teammate with whom you are now electronically linked. You may now proceed to your targets assigned to you in your mission packages and highlighted on the display. Any questions?"
"Hey, genius, I might not be the math whiz you are but even I can tell you that two times six is twelve." Juan Sanchez interjected, cleaning his fingernails with a hand-beaten copper dagger. "I'm only counting eleven of us, so, unless you plan on growing a pair and joining us for some real action for once, it looks like we're a man short."
Twitchy's face turned crimson and he balled his fists at his side with indignation. But before he could sputter out an acid-filled response a shadow detached itself from the rough-hewn rock wall and strode into the light. "Well, then, Mr. Sanchez, maybe Santa should bring you an abacus for Christmas."
For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the distant rumbling of the mine shaft elevator transporting another group of Red Team members to the surface. The room then erupted into shouts of joy. High fives, fist bumps, and not a few hugs were passed around. Even with the biological suppressant pills in place the female members of the Gold Team were having a hard time fighting the urge to swoon.
Captain Wonderful Q. Awesome was back.
(To be continued. Check the sidebar for updates.)
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