Mercenaries? We don't need those scum. (Closed to Brainy and Huntress)

Slamming his fist on the table, Slick jumped up from his seat. He couldn't take it anymore. The fact that their little group had been divided. Hurricane and Snoot had been gone missing for months and despite their best efforts, they were unable to make any progress on a rescue mission. Rush raised his hand to calm his brother down. It was down to three guys, against an organization of Heroes. It wouldn't be easy to not only find the location of Hurricane, but break him out.

"I'm working on it Simon. We'll hire some professional trackers. Maybe with their skills we can pull this off." Rush said. If they had Snoot still with them, they coulda tracked Hurricane easy. But he got captured too. Chicago had a lot of gangs and drug dealers for the Heroes to deal with, it wouldn't be too much for them to find a hole to hide in. In the underground, wanted mercenaries were seeking to be hired. The wanted ad was looking for a professional mercenary group to track a prisoner and assist in freeing him. The price was negotiable. Nothing more was said, he preferred to talk over details in person.

They hung out in an unknown dingy bar that criminals frequently hung out in waiting for any communication from a helping hand.

Theresa leaned over, standing at the edge of a building ledge taking in the sweet air of Chicago. It was the perfect night to prowl and she was ready. Though there was business to take care of and she would have to focus on that before anything else. She was given an address and a time to be there, which she had no intentions of ignoring. Money was money and she needed all she could get of it. The bar was rather crappy looking and she didn’t like it one bit. Theresa pulled her warm coat closer to her neck before stepping through the front door.

Predatory eyes scanning the room for those who had called for her and they soon were made known. Maybe it was just something they said but too low for the human ear,but she recognized the voices from the transmission. With stride she walked over to them and took a seat. Looking the two in the eyes.

”You two know why I’m here. I assume you do anyway. So what do you need from me gentlemen?

Suddenly two strange beings wandered into the dingy bar, each of them wearing gray jumpsits and leather gloves, their faces hidden by motorcycle-helmets. Most people probably assumed that the strange suits where to hide their identities, but this was not the case. None of these men where wanted by the police, They wore the strange suits mostly to hide the fact that they had been dead for some months. The only reason they where still moving around was the fact that they had hydraulics wired into their bodies and their blood and innards were replaced by devices for pumping out formalehyde throughout their body to retard decomposition. Their brain was replaced too with a small, rather limited A.I-processor that allowed them to take action and move about, like puppbets dancing on the command of their puppetmaster and creator.

This creator hovered between them, and far from the awe-inspiring creature one would expect when considering that he was flanked by automated corpses-servants, or "Atomic Robo-zombies" as he called them himself. In fact the man in question was a rather small globe, barely one and a half-feet in diameter, consisting of glass and metal, connected to a screen hanging beneath it, connected to it by a hydraulic arms and cables. Two tesla-coils on either side of the glass-dome gave out an occasional spark as he hovered towards the small group that had gathered in the the dingy bar.

Normally Doctor 0 would have little buisness being in a dingy bar, since he really had no way to ingest alcohol, and due to his lack of hormones in his bloodstream he had no interest in interracting with the sort of loose women that might frequent this place. And even if he had hormones, his lack of a body would probably limit his chances to the point where he would give up trying to pick up women. After all, women tend to like taller men, with more skin.

"Oh, er, hello there young fellows!" The brain said, a happy depiction of albert-einstein showing up on the screen attatched to the globe to give the poor men a "face" to his personality, so that their interaction would go slowly.

"I happened to intercept, interprete, decrypt and comprehend your message, and I would like to. . .Whats the word? Groin? Join? Join! Thats it! I would like to join your little outting! I might even supply some useful usefullness in the technical fields that might even be enough to even overshadow my overwheleming incompetence when it comes to all form of combat and tactics. You see I lack subroutines and protocolls for such situation. A deliberate choice of my creators to instill and install docility and pacifism on my part." The good doctor spoke, his voice somewhat akin to a confused, somewhat senile yet cheerful grandfather-type. As he spoke the small indicator-lights on the site of his chassis lit up quickly with every syllable he spoke.

Rush guided his hand towards an empty seat in front of him and Slick. She was aggressive, but he didn't really care. All they needed was for her to fill her role and shut her mouth about the operation. Rush had been taking the lead on the operation, Slick just didn't have the patience to deal with others.

"We're looking for someone who knows how to track captured victims of the Black Knight. If you're not a tracker, you can walk away. If you are, however, I need some reputable sources that say you know how and can do your job. What are your skills? Any metahuman powers?"

They weren't afraid of anyone coming in the bar looking for a fight. Whoever called themselves a hero would have to face a few dozen people at once, including Rush and Slick. Talking freely was the best part about the unknown bar. Scraps occasionally occurred, but as long as it wasn't out of hand nobody cared. This girl couldn't start anything they couldn't handle. Enter suspect number two, a globe housing a brain. Couldn't say it didn't catch anyone's eye as Doctor 0 and his escorts entered the bar. It was obvious they weren't here for drinks.

"Groin us eh? We can use a few more hands but it seems you don't have any." Rush said with a smirk. "You've obviously got balls coming here, but what are you capable of?" He wouldn't turn anyone down, but what they really needed in this operation was the tracker. Extra muscle couldn't hurt, but they needed to know what Doctor 0 was capable of before deciding whether or not he was a necessity. Rush waved his hands to another seat next to Huntress, though unsure if he could even sit in it.

She smirked raising an eyebrow.”No need to be testy boys. I can smell the ire wafting off of you like a stench and its making me anxious. I won’t be able to help it if I slip a knife into one of you by accident.” She may have had a smile on her face but her eyes were another matter. They looked as if they could back up the threat. She took a deep breath of the establishment.”Though I would like to hurry this up,this place reeks of sweaty men and formaldehyde.” She was of course referring to the brain in a jar approaching the table with his goon squad.

”Nice to see a fresh….face. Thought I would be stuck with these two. Anyway I know where your little friend is and how to get there. Though we are a little far from where it is aren’t we?” She said only loud enough for this little group to hear. Tapping a knife like nail against the crappy looking table top. Expecting negative remarks from the boys,though she was busy looking at her right index finger and bending it to an impossible angle before allowing it to relax. It was her testing her flexibility.

The two featureless men in gray jumpsuits moved forward, one of them on each side of the floating brain-in-a-fishbowl that had seemingly decided that crashing this little party would be a good idea. They moved rather awkwardly, not exactly unsteadily, but rather stiffly and strenously, seemingly with a slight twitching, looking more and more like puppets the with each and every movement. However, the reflective visor of their motorcycle-style helmets seemed to be completely capable of hiding their faces from all those that were curious enough not to mention brave enough to give the pair of intimidating oddities a gaze.

One of them twitchily bent down, grabbed a hold of an empty chair and moved it aside, allowing the Doctor 0 some room at the table. He hung in the air in front of the superpeople, seemingly just to prove to gravity that it had no hold over him whatsoever. He felt a sudden tinge of uncertainty about getting involved in this sort of operation. It might bring heat down on him, but he had ways to deal with that. A few deft keystroke on a computer and all of the information they had on him was gone.

"Oh my! Thank you for the compliment-slash-flirtatious gesture, but as you can see I am quite lacking in the department of testicles. If you want, you could compliment my pitituary-gland instead." The brain said in an amiable and generally well-meaning manner, his friendly, calm voice lacking any hint of veiled threats or insults. If you looked up "sincerity" in a dictionary, there might just be a picture of Doctor 0 next to the page.

If Doctor 0 could nod, he would have when they asked him to explain what manner of skills he would offer their little party. Instead the picture of Albert Einstein on his attatched tv-screen nodded and smiled happily.

"Apart from having an intelligence that would count as 'superhuman' on any scale, I also have psionic abilties. high-end telekinetic abilities as well as the ability to absorb information from any scource just by being in its vicinity. Except for living, for some reason. Unless you cut the top of their heads off and expose the brain of course. I can also deal with locks, security-systems and such pesky things. On the top of it all, I might bring a few of my minions to the table, if we need them." The brain said, his voice still resembling that of an amiable teacher/grandfather figure.

One of the two humanoids in jumpsuits stepped forward, as on an invisible signal, so that the men could get a better look at it. It looked at each of the men sitting on the table, his face completely hidden behind the helmet.
"They might not be pretty to look at, ut they are loyal and qui-et dangerous. Not a thought in their head that I did not put there!" He said, before the humanoid resumed its place behind him.

Though Rush was calm, The Huntress was trying Slick's patience. He had more blood on his hands, and it showed in his wild glaring eyes. His leather gloves quietly squeaked as he clenched a closed fist even tighter. If he did any further you might think he would draw his own blood. Rush was calmer because he could act faster than anyone he knew. Surely, The Black Knight defeated him. But the victory was based off cheap tricks and Rush's hesitation to kill him. Had The Huntress made a scene he had an assured belief she would have to dodge two full magazines of bullets at close range before she could get within an inch of the two brothers. While Slick emitted anger, Rush emitted confidence.

"You don't seem like a team player, girl." Rush said. "You want to get paid, I need to know you're not some cheap knock-off tracker, or a washed up hero trying to pretend she's saving the world. You know where he's being held. Before our... invitation, you knew nothing about what the mission involves. Doing absolutely no research, you know where he is? How?" he crossed his hands and raised his nose slightly waiting for a response.

Doctor 0's contribution appeared to be much more substantial. Sure, the tracker would be essential to getting to the prison, but there were more roles needing to be filled. Missing Snoot and Hurricane, they were lacking the 'intelligent' part of their party. In a prison designed to keep in some of the most dangerous villains in the world, they must have some sophisticated technology and security. Bypassing that was going to be vital for the mission. Meat shields to absorb bullets wouldn't hurt either, when they thought of the minions. They weren't going to want to use Doctor 0 for combat. To the contrary, they wanted him alive to the end. If anything went wrong, they were confident they could kill the unfortunate brain in a jar if they had to.

"You can consider yourself hired, Brain." Not knowing a better word to call him. "Don't worry about your combat skills, we have that area covered. We will probably be needing your abilities to bypass the security of the prison. We're paying 20,000 up front. After the mission is successful, the pay will be negotiable depending on the level of your participation."

Theresa enjoyed the mans hateful glare,returning it with one of equal intensity. She was far from a has been and had probably killed more than he could claim to have. Honestly they would be hard pressed to find anyone else with the knowledge she bolstered. He was questioning her information and that would have normally made her quite angry but she wasn’t in the position to do anything , even if she could use the hidden blades stashed on her body. There would be no fun in that and money was more important . ’You asking for my help was enough. If you can’t find the person you’re looking for,I can only assume he was taken to one place. If you doubt me,I’m sure you can find the information you need from someone else. Since plenty have escaped from GUN prison. What do I know?” She shrugged.

If they wanted to play hardball, she could do the same. ”I could easily leave and let your scour the country for it. It makes no difference to me.” She had to keep herself from chuckling at the situation that she had put the two boys in, though they were most likely only getting angrier at her. ”So,what do you say boys?”

The brain in a floating fishbowl that was called Doctor 0 listened to the conversation going on around him, quickly losing interest. The female one seemed intent on harassing her potential employers for some reason, whilst the men at the table was voicing their displeasure with this sort of behaviour and loudly opposed themselves from any further such outburst. The good Doctor found this to be quite boring, as it had little to do with anything even remotely related to science or robots. He yawned loudly to show his displeasure at the conversation, one of his atomic robo-zombies holding a hand up in front of his voice-module for the sake of politeness. However, it seemed that this action managed to catch the attention of the two men, that informed him that he was hired, much to his suprprise. He had expected them to talk a him at great lengths first, similarly to the way they kept conversing with the female.

"I'm hired? Oh, I'm hired! Well, that is good! Most good indeed!" The doctor spoke, his amiable, good-natured voice somewhat confused, similar to a man that had just woken up in a room full of strangers, not entirely sure how he got there, and not entirely sure why he was there either. However, he expected this to be good work, not only forthe 20.000, but mainly for the fact that GUN prison probably had files on quite a few metahumans. Files that could find him some new research-objects at a later date. Plus, establishing relations with these goons might prove fruitful in the future.

However, the female once again started to speak, to wich the good doctor sighed heavily at her pointless prattling. Was she in or was she not in!? There could not nearly be place for so many unscientific words based out of nothing but personal experience and conjencture. Oh how he hated facts without solid grounding in state-approved research-methodology. He made his voice-module snort derisvely in boredom, but due to the inability of his voicemodule to accurately reproduce human snorts, it came out as nothing but static.

As the conversation went on, he once again drifted off, starting to do calculus just for fun, humming tunelessly and rather loudly as he did so. "La-li-la-li-laa Loo-li-loo-li-loooo Hum-po-pom-po-pommm." he went his voice somewhat high-pitched and riddled with static due to his voicemodules difficulty in processing such vocabular nonsense

"GUN Prison? And you know where that is, I assume." Rush replied. He leaned forward to make a point specifically clear to the Huntress. "Tell you what, let's play a game. Unlike the brain, you're the one I'm having the most difficulty trusting. We'll have a little wager over it. You'll get 10,000 up front just for starting. We'll follow you to the 'Gun Prison', and if our good friend is not there, you die. And you lose all your money. If you're right, you'll get your pay in full and doubled. Are you willing to risk your life over your... best guess? Or do we have to find another tracker who knows what they're doing?"

His eyes stared directly into the Huntress'. He meant every word, and he wasn't planning on dying. He knew he could activate his power and increase his speed so fast she'd be dead before she blinked. This was somewhat of a test. The two accomplices of Hurricane were not a fan of wasting time and resources off wild hunches. They specifically asked for a tracker on their advertisement. But is that what they would get?

”Yes,Gun prison. I was sure I said that.” The the man spoke of a game and that caught her interest. The terms were simple and she could go along with them Though she was unsure he could deal with the smartass in a jar. He would have to be dealt with but not right now. ”Very well, I will accept these terms as they are. I don’t guess on this so its easy money. Don’t think me a fool, I am no such thing.” He eyes were predatory as they bore into the young mans. Reclining in her seat as she looked over to the brain in a jar analyzing him and thinking of thirty different ways to kill him. She could tell he was someone she wouldn’t like. It was a gut instinct and something she was rarely wrong on.

”So are we going to sit here and speak terms all day? I cam practically smell the adrenaline in the air.” She said and in actuality she smelt the adrenaline, from her and possibly the others. This would get heavy soon.

Doctor 0 was less than amused by the jabbering of his employers as well as his possible fellow employee, as they were debating the huntress usefullness in the great scheme of things. He could feel his thoughts grow muddy and sluggish as his strange, senility-like affliction acted up, seemingly as a reaction to the rather unstimulating surroundings or merely as a response to his ridiculous humming. One could not afford to take any such chances, so he immediately stopped his annoying humming, and instead decided that he might have better luck if he looked through his files to see if there was any way he could temporarily modify his audio-receptors to ingore the words of those around him without taking them offline alltogether.

as Huntress decided to keep up her "hard to get"-act Doctor 0 considered telling his employers about his ability to absorb the memories from disembodied brain, just so that they could cut off the top of her head, have him absorb whatever it was they needed to know, stitch it back on again and send her on her way, but it now seemed as if the two fellows and the Huntress had reached some sort of agreement. It was about time too. He had never really understood why people could not simply do these things faster. If Huntress had not mouthed off to their employers on, and if their employers had simply not goaded her on and "taken the bait" so to speak, they would have been done much faster on the term.

"Well, Even I am aware of your lack of foolishnessness, and I am qui-et certainly certain in my belief that our employers are aware of it too too, young woman. Anything else would definately rank rather low, on the 'likely'-scale." The brain said calmly, amiably and reasuringly, as if reassuring a young child. However, her next complaint about them sitting her talking got the good doctor somewhat riled up. her own smart mouth and refusal to keep blabbering on was the sole reason they had been sitting here for the last couple of minutes!

"The evidence, as well as the proof points out that you are in fact the main factor in the whole 'delaying our departure from this locus'-conundrum, young woman" Doctor 0 pointed out rather sternly as he hovered next to the tables, ready to depart

"Then its settled, we leave immediately. We have one more ally joining up with us. He doesn't talk, just leave him be. He's just the muscle as far as we're concerned. If we're going to raid the GUN Prison, I'm sure we will run into Agents of GUN. Ghurk can keep the tough ones occupied fine."

Rush stood up from his seat, and Slick stopped slouching to get up as well. Slick wasn't going to enjoy working with Huntress. If killing her was part of the mission, he wouldn't have any complaints. But for now they needed a certain number of people with skills. They had an intellectual and a tracker. Now all they needed was to get to the location, and free their companion who had been waiting a long, long time.

"You will be given briefcases full of your up-front reward as soon as we get to the GUN Headquarters. From there, you will need to work to earn the rest. Let's go."

Rush headed out first, followed by Slick. Of course, Slick gave Huntress a death glare on his way out. He didn't like her attitude one bit, but there probably wasn't anything he could do to change it.

((Exiting topic for Hurricane's Accomplices. Topic Resumes at GUN Headquarters.))

Theresa nodded in agreement to the mans plan, ignoring the brain that seemed to enjoy to agitate her. Standing from her seat she popped her joint to make sure they stayed flexible. ”It will be a pleasure to work with you boys.” She said with a smile,flashing sharp white teeth. Wiping her hair down with steady hands as she patted the knives hidden under her leather coat. She would need to change soon and had left a small stash with her weapons and clothes nearby. She was already for this and if Ranger were still in the prison,she would meet him once again. It would all go as she planned it to.

Doctor 0's mobile chassis rose slightly higher into the air to mimic a living human rising from a chair, a chair that was not even present at the table. However, why he did this was not entirely clear, not even to himself. He quickly checked the backlog of his programmed and realize that none of his scripted, automatic actions had caused him to perform in this manner. It was indeed very odd and more than a little bit disconcerting. He was quite certain that it had something to do with the human brain that he had been created from. It seemed to have some strange remnants from its earlier days. Like the dust in the corners that never seemed to get cleaned away entirely no matter how many times you vaccuum the floor. And these involentary actions had become far more numerous as of late, and more easily noticable too. The good Doctor was slightly worried about what this meant for him. If the personality of his brains previous owner reasserted itself, what would that mean for him? What would happen to his consciousness and his ideas? He would have to examine himself later on, just in case something like this could actually happen too him in the forseeable future.

However, he quickly got up and hovered towards the exit, his two masked minions following behind him, in a slightly disjointed military style. Right now he had to focus on the task at hand. They where going to visit the infamous gun prison after all, and when they did, all of its technology and data would be his! He could feel a slight stream of endorphines being let out at the thought of all those prisoners and wanted superhuman types the had data on. All of the wonderfull potential test-subjects, ready to be captured, prodded and disected on his tables! He shuddered slightly at the though of how much knowledge that would be avalible for him after this whole mission! He would not tell the others, though. . . He doubted they would understand.