Offensive Operations

1 It's raining in Washington D.C. The war against 188 is all but over. The horrors inflicted upon the world are coming to an end. The bodies of secret service agents lie in the halls of the White House, the alarms are blaring. The invasion was sudden as it was violent. The President is in his oval office, sweating and his hands gripped tight against the sides of his chair. There is a barrel of a g*n pointed at his chest. He is surrounded by dead Secret Service agents. Their blood is dripping off the walls and had soaked into the carpet to its limit and refuses to drink anymore. “Security appears to be lacking in the White House these days,” Dan said with a wicked smile, his black suit is covered in the blood of secret service agents and Mud from Blackfire Island. “The war is going to be over soon. As you already know the Delta Squad is likely going to win the battle, but I don’t care about that,” Daniel said then continued. “Truth is there is a bigger plan but it’s too bad you’re not invited in it Mr. President, sir, but before I kill you, would you care to tell me where your Vice President is, what’s his name. Todd Stone?” Dan asked. Adam looked down the barrel of that g*n and tried not to be afraid. “I’d die before I told you anything,” he replied. “Have it your way,” Dan replied as he pulled the trigger. The blood of the President sprayed in all directions as the chair fell over backwards. “I Never killed a president before, I kind of like it,” he said to himself as the doors behind him were kicked in. Roger and Nick burst through the doors and took aim only to see they were too late. “Well son of a b***h, I told you that wasn’t an agent,” Roger said and Nick only rolled his eyes at that as they drew their weapons. “Shadow Stalker, Dan, whatever you call yourself, you are under arrest for the murder of the President and crimes against—“ Nick started to say and Dan just pressed a button on his left wrist and disappeared in front of them. “I also distinctly remember telling you to shoot him before you tried to arrest him,” Roger said as he lowered his weapon. “What in the hell are we going to do?” Nick asked as the two of them walked over to the dead president. “I have no idea, but no one knows he’s dead, all the guards are dead, I think we can cover this up.” Roger said as he began to think about how to do it. “Call it in and we’ll come up with something. No one can know they killed the damn president this late in the game,” Nick replied to him as Roger got an idea just before he called it in. “Heath, we have a problem. The President was killed by that Shadow guy, we uh, well we messed up,” Roger said into his communicator. There was no response for a few seconds. “Alright, well we need to deal with this. Clean up that mess and leave no trace, I think we have it about handled out here,” Heath replied to them, he sounded stressed as he said it. “You heard the man, cleanup and go home,” Roger said and tried not to think too much about what all of this would mean for the future of the world. Roger put his weapon away, he wouldn’t be needing it here. Nick followed his lead. Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver bottle. He opened the bottle of liquid metal and poured it on the carpet. It was a vial of nanites programmed to clean up situations like this for secret missions or assassinations. It was the best way to keep a secret. The tiny machines spread immediately across the room and made quick work in devouring the blood and the bodies Dan left behind. Within minutes there was nothing left remaining. “I’ll never get over these little guys.” Nick said as they returned to the bottle on their own and he put the lid back on. Roger walked to the chair and picked it up and pushed it against the desk to make it appear as normal as he could. “Oh, I can’t wait to see how we get ourselves out of this one,” he said to himself just before the two of them disappeared. 188 was vanquished by the dimensional weapon and the war was over in one dark flash. The five of them limped away from the scene of their final victory, beaten and tired. Emily and Heath met them back at the headquarters. “You guys did a good job, thanks,” Heath said to them and they knew it would likely be the only thanks they would get from anyone, same as it ever was. “There has been a development. You four can get lost if you want but Cody, we need to talk.” Heath said, disregarding the others as he continued. “I have a job for you,” he said and threw a device at him. Cody said nothing as he caught it with his left hand, surprised that he could catch anything with how he felt right now. “Hologram emitter?” he asked in response. “You’re going to need it,” Emily said to him and Cody nervously looked at the others for some kind of support. “This is all you, bro,” Josh said, laughed and the others did too. Cody did not get the support he was looking for but at this point pretty much knew that would how it would turn out. “See you later, right now I need to get out of this armor, take a shower and get back to reality,” Wyatt said as the others started to walk away. Cody started to walk with Heath and Emily in the opposite direction. “What’s the job, anyway?” Cody asked as they walked. “You’re going to be the President of the United States for a while,” Heath replied to him in a flat voice. “Wait, what?” Cody could only respond as they walked into the headquarters, completely stunned by what the new job was going to be but didn’t quite understand it. “All you have to do is wear this thing long enough, play the part. Make a few pre-written speeches and don’t make any public appearances. Until we can make sure it’s safe enough for the Vice President to take over and we make something up as we go, thankfully he’s still too scared to take up the mantle. We just need to make sure things are okay before he can come out of his bunker for a week or so. Things go right back to normal after that. No one knows the president is dead and we’d like to keep it that way. Do you think you can handle that?” Heath asked as Cody looked at the hologram emitter. “Why me?” Cody asked mostly to himself. “Well we could have asked Wyatt to do it but, well, you can imagine how that might turn out,” Emily replied, Cody shook his head imagining it. “Alright, I get your point,” Cody said with a sigh. “Oh, about that whole faking your death thing. Never do that again. You do that again and I will kill you. Again,” Emily said to him as Cody’s green and gold helmet slid back. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan on it,” Cody replied to her. “You didn’t plan on it this time, go get cleaned up and don’t tell anyone about this or we’ll detonate the bomb in your head,” Heath said to him in a completely serious voice. Cody was reasonably sure there was no bomb in his head but he decided to take it seriously for now. Cody had a chance to say goodbye to his team, but it wasn’t much more than a picture taken on the blood drenched shore of Blackfire before they all went their separate ways. Cody got ready. “I’ve always thought the best thing a Delta Squad member could wear is a nice suit,” Erin said to him as she smoothed out a wrinkle on his sleeve. “Well, it’s not my usual outfit, I feel over dressed,” he replied to her. “Yeah, but you’re playing the President of the United States for a little while. You should at least look the part, don’t you think?” she asked him. “Of course,” Cody replied and felt as ready as he would ever be to do this job. “Let’s get this party started,” he finished as the two of them walked towards the teleporting room. “Good luck,” Erin said to him and continued, “you’re going to need it,” she finished as he stepped on to the teleporting pad. Erin pushed the button on the control panel and with a blue flash, Cody was gone. He teleported to the Oval office. He was alone and despite being the commander of one of the most secret forces on Earth, he’d never once been inside the White House. He looked around the place, thought it would be better somehow. The hologram emitter was already on and working perfectly. He pulled out the desk chair to sit down. “First thing I am going to do is install a teleportation defense system in this place. No need for something like that to happen again,” Cody said to himself but even his voice was not his own. He was sure on a day like this he was supposed to be in the Situation Room or somewhere important like that. He literally had no idea what he was going to tell anyone. In this time of crisis, he expected more people to be in here. He didn’t know what to expect. All he knew was that he was alone, but it wasn’t going to last. He didn’t worry about it and while he was thinking of how and what he was going to do next his phone rang. Cody stared at and was nervous, he had no idea of what to say but picked it up anyway. “Uh, hello,” he said with the least amount of nervousness he could muster. “Relax, it’s me. In a few minutes someone is going to rush into the office telling you 188 is dead and the war is over. Act surprised,” Emily said on the other end of the line. “Also, the agents that Dan killed died in your defense against assassination attempts, if anyone asks stick to this story,” Emily said and was finished. Cody was about to say something when the other end of the line went dead. There were no agents, no bodies. No damage to even say anything bad had happened at all. Cody figured he’d keep his mouth shut and hope no one asked. “Well goodbye to you too,” Cody said as he hung up the phone. True to her word a man in a suit burst through the doors, Cody didn’t have any idea who this was. “I don’t believe it, but according to this report 188 was killed hours ago in a surgical strike by the Delta Force,” the man said and Cody was surprised, honestly and almost reacted in a way that would have betrayed him but he remembered that the Delta Force was an actual counter terrorism unit named after his own team and relaxed. “And how come I didn’t authorize or know about this attack?” Cody asked in response, standing up, looking as mad as he could, the man in the suit recoiled in fear just a little bit, his eyes widened. “It wasn’t planned. 188 was spotted by a team on another mission and took the chance on their own volition, it was a success,” the man replied to him and Cody smiled. “Then the war is over, their leader is dead,” Cody said with a smile. “I’ll hold a press conference immediately to tell the world,” he finished saying to the man. “Yes sir, I’ll set it up, this is a great day,” the man in the suit replied and left. “Of course, it just had to be an American victory,” Cody said to himself, sighed, realizing now that he had to figure out just how to do some public speaking, even though part of this gig was no public speaking or appearances. This was turning out to be more complicated than shooting the enemy already, and he was regretting taking the job. Ten minutes later he found himself standing, behind a podium in front of many reporters who had no idea why they were standing there in the first place. Cody had actually never given a public speech in his life. It was said that the speeches would be pre written by some over paid writer. He didn’t have that. There was nothing on a teleprompter, no words in. Now he had to wing it. Cody took a deep breath before he got started. “Hello everybody, how are you doing today?” Cody asked, as he did there was a hushed murmur in the crowd, this wasn’t how the President addressed the nation and Cody realized it, he had to step it up a little bit to be convincing. “Oh, right, national announcement thing, it is why you’re all here after all,” Cody said and swallowed before speaking again. “I would like to announce that 188 is dead, for real this time. A Delta Force unit got lucky and in a covert mission happened to find the terrorist leader nearby. They attacked and ended up killing him. The war is over, his forces have been crushed,” Cody said it as quickly as he could. Immediately the crowd erupted with questions. Normally the President didn’t take any questions. “You, in the red,” Cody said and everyone went quiet. “How do we know you’re telling the truth this time?” she asked, Cody smiled as she asked that. “Well, you’ll just have to trust me, but this time I am confident that that maniac is toast and I doubt we’ll be seeing him again,” Cody said not as the president but as himself. He really had no idea how a president was supposed to sound. The answer did not amuse anyone. He was discovering how easy it was to lie, too. There was no possible way to know for sure if 188 would return or not. “Now that the war is over, how are we going to proceed?” Another reporter jumped in when he saw his chance. “Well, I suppose we are going to rebuild stuff and make life better again. It seems like the thing to do,” Cody said and with that he didn’t want to answer any more questions. “Alright, tell everyone what I just told you, this war is over but we can’t relax. The work of rebuilding is just beginning and it’s going to be a long road from here,” Cody said and waved to the reporters. He didn’t have any idea why he waved as he walked from the podium. He had no idea how he was going to do this, keeping the secret of the Delta Squad was one thing, lying to the country about who he really was and what happened was tearing him apart inside, it just wasn’t right. He walked back into the White house and was surrounded my men in suits, there were people here, too. Everyone wanted to talk to him and all he could hear was a jumbled storm of noise coming in his direction. Now that the war was over this time, everyone had a concern, complaint and a request and everyone wanted to be heard at the same time. “Guys, listen, hold on,” Cody said to all of them. “The war is over. We all have a lot of work to do and we all have issues right now. But for today, take a day off. Your problems, concerns and issues will all be here tomorrow. I will get to work on helping you all as best as I can, but today. Well, today we should take a moment to celebrate. Go home. Say hi to your kids, call your mom. Do something or get some sleep, but today we all deserve a break,” Cody said to them. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get some me time,” he finished and walked away down a hallway. The small crowd he addressed was stunned into silence. “Sir, it’s not my place but—“ Cody turned and looked at the agent with those weary, battle hardened eyes that nearly cut through the holographic disguise and sent chills down the agent’s spine. “You’re right. It’s not. It’s been a long war. Be thankful you didn’t have to fight in it,” he replied to him. The agent had nothing else to say and the two made their way down the hall in silence.