“Sheer fucking incompetency is what it is!” The lanky man in a red suit raved while sitting at his desk, slick black hair matted to his forehead with sweat.
Brad looked on in silence, her tan suit as immaculate as ever and face impassive. Which did wonders to hide her annoyance at the raging child in front of her that was trying to play super-villain, “Immadesco”. The dingy abandoned apartment they were in wasn’t helping with her mood either, even if she understood the necessity of keeping a low profile. She briefly considered letting the slime-ball know that she had his name and even information on his family but that would reveal too many of her cards at this stage and she might not be able to play them more than once.
“It’s no wonder other villains don’t make it big when the pool of talent is this fucking abysmal.” Immadesco near growled before taking several measured deep breaths.
He’d just finished getting the report from the teleporter he’d sent to take out Styx, Sam was his name and he had promptly teleported away in a plume of red smoke as soon as the meeting was over. The reason that kid was scared was one of the very few things Brad could respect about her “boss”; he came down hard on traitors and incompetents but didn’t needlessly crush good help just because the mission didn’t go perfectly.
Didn’t stop him from getting pointlessly mad about it though.
Brad intentionally drew in her broad shoulders, the opposite of what she usually did, before saying. “At least they succeeded in putting the Heroes off-balance and they won’t be able to trace any of it back to us.” Her deep baritone of a voice nearly echoed throughout the large room but she paid it no mind, the only thoughts she could pickup around here were those of a few opportunistic squatters and druggies.
“Yes, at least they did that.” Immadesco replied as he smoothed back his hair and glanced down to the red mask that was on the top of his desk. Brad knew he only wore it around the members whose loyalty he couldn’t be completely sure of but not around her or the expendable ones that she had told him weren’t particularly perceptive. “I just hope our investors are just as understanding.”
Brad nodded both internally and externally with him for once but probably not for reasons he would agree with. If she got even the slightest hint that the investors were going to come after him or cut him off from his money than she would be gone and out of this city within the hour.
“Brad, did you secure the help of that Lily girl to keep an eye on the other Heroes?” Immadesco asked.
“I got her onboard yesterday and I told her to keep tabs on any Hero that passed by her neighborhood.” Brad responded. “Just flashed her a few thousand and she fell in line pretty quickly.”
Immadesco pulled open a draw and opened a dull grey laptop and powered it on, typing only a few seconds later. Brad would have tried copying the files from it long ago if she didn’t know it would brick if anyone without his power tried to access it. “Remind me again what her power is? Want to make sure were using her optimally.”
Brad quickly scoured Immadesco’s thoughts and found out he was only looking over uninteresting finances before answering. “It’s a pretty piss-weak one but it’s good for recon. She can summon some weird mix between a bug and chameleon that can fly and turn invisible. It’s about the size of a dog and can’t fight for shit but she’s got about three blocks worth of range.”
Immadesco nodded in the affirmative after opening up and checking his own file on her. “Alright then, that should be all for today. Remember I want you to collaborate with Todd, Jerry, and Francis on the next big operation next week. It is imperative this one goes off without a hitch.”
Brad nodded her head and stood up from the folding chair she’d brought with her, straightened out the wrinkles on her favorite suit, and strode out of the office. The dark and abandoned office building she walked through would have been scary to most people, especially those that actually lived in the neighborhood and knew how dangerous it could be, but she walked through with casual confidence and made it to her black sedan parked in front of the building.
She slid in to the front driver side, bulked her seat belt, and checked her rearview mirror for anyone sneaking up on the car from behind or squatting in the back. Both attempts had only happened to her once but the scumbags had come close enough to getting her that she had made a habit to periodically check. After that was done she decided to quickly look over her visage for any signs of degradation.
Dark skin, chiseled jaw, dark brown eyes, and broad shoulders greeted her just like all the other times Brad had looked. With a nod she put the car in gear and drove back to the accounting firm she worked in the less seedy sections of the city. Purposefully avoiding the streets that she new were close to where the shooting had taken place and the ones Lily had told her Samshiel and Terram were patrolling.
With a minor effort of will she used a bit of telekinetic force to grab onto the car to let her take turns just that little bit faster but without being too apparent to the untrained eye. She’d been ordered to not be too inconspicuous with her powers anyway, might as well take the time to save a little gas money while she was at it.
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