"I'll pay you for everything later, just don't leave me," Anita muttered tiredly for the tenth time, lying with her head on the mercenary's lap and hugging his stomach.
"I told you, you don't have to pay me for this. Think of it as friendly support," Augustus replied distantly, corresponding with a grief-stricken Norma over the phone. Osborne's daughter has been missing since the attack, and all the evidence the police have found indicates that the terrorists had a second group that kidnapped some of the people. The terrorists hadn't made any demands yet and they were left wondering what had happened to the missing people.
Norma couldn't find a place for herself. A mother's anxiety for her own daughter was going beyond all possible limits. The first person she decided to turn to was Augustus. Norma offered him a fabulous sum of money to find her daughter, but the mercenary refused, telling her that he was already working on the problem. He asked Osborne to wait, trying to keep her from rash and ill-considered actions. The woman texted him almost every ten minutes.
Once again replying to Norma, Augustus sighed heavily and leaned back on the couch. Calming down two women at once... Damn, what does he even do! In these couple of days, Anita and Norma had managed to kill almost all the nerve cells in his body. The mercenary was on the verge of a breakdown! He hoped that Stark's artificial intelligence would find the kidnappers as soon as possible and then August could take out all his accumulated anger on them.
"'Joanna, switch on the television,' Anita ordered her artificial assistant.
"... A memorial has been erected in front of the former Stark Expo. The families of the victims and thousands of concerned citizens took to the streets of New York to lay flowers... - the TV was showing helicopter footage. Huge crowds of people marched through the streets of New York, holding flowers and photos of the dead people. - Having learnt about the grief that befell her hometown, Vanessa Fisk decided to financially support the families of the people killed in the terrorist attack and allocated one hundred thousand dollars to each affected family. This is not the first time Vanessa Fisk has donated her money... - the journalist on CNN began to list all of Fisk's donations for this year. The total came out to several tens of millions of dollars. Vanessa was the main patron of the arts in America, she had a perfect image in the media and on the Internet, everyone admired her. - Next, let's talk about how Stark ...
"Anita, go to your room and get some sleep," the mercenary switched off the TV with the remote control and patted the red-haired girl on the head. There was no response from her. August removed a strand of the girl's hair and looked at her face. - Asleep, then.
Carefully getting out from under Anita's body, the mercenary masterfully put a pillow under the girl's head instead of his knees.
"Mr. August, in my analysis of the city's CCTV cameras, video recorders and police reports, I have discovered the suspected location of the kidnappers who escaped," Joanna, Stark's artificial assistant, broke the silence. As soon as Anita and August returned to the villa, the girl, using all the available computing power of the servers, gave Joanna a command to search for the fleeing terrorists.
"How credible is that assumption? - Flipped a burnt coin to the mercenary.
"Eighty-nine and nine per cent," the synthetic voice replied clearly.
"Okay, then I'm going to the place you specified.
"Mr August, aren't you going to warn Mrs Stark about leaving?
"Anita has been working hard these past few days and is very tired, let her sleep.
...
"Mistress, the Soprano family people have found out the current location of the militants! - Her assistant burst into Vanessa's office and immediately apologised for her loud appearance.
"All right, prepare a team to eliminate them. I'll go with them," Kingpin replied without taking her eyes off her new tablet. The old one had to be thrown away, the screen was cracked and the sensor was no longer responsive to touch.
"Madam, but how can you do this? You can't go...
"Did I ask you? - Vanessa took her eyes away from the tablet and looked coldly at her assistant. - I just put you in front of the fact. Your job is to obey my orders and keep your mouth shut.
"Yes Mistress," Sarah lowered her head and walked away. Even if she can't influence Kingpin's decision, as a loyal assistant, Sara will make sure that Mistress is completely safe.
Though worrying about Vanessa's safety was pointless. That serum injected into Fisk's body hadn't worked at all as the science department had originally intended. Instead of the usual one-time physical enhancement, the Nazi serum of unknown origin mutated, completely transforming Vanessa's body on a cellular level.
Now the girl's body reacted to all sorts of stimuli in a new way, it tried to adjust to any irritant and levelling out its harmful effects on the body.
Got an accidental burn? The cells of the body will instantly react to the damage, study it, repair it and put forward a counteraction - a more perfect skin that can withstand high temperatures. This does not mean that in an instant a person becomes invulnerable to all high temperatures. He will still be able to be affected by the same fire, but the deleterious effect will be much lower. The more often the body is exposed to high temperatures, the less susceptible it will be. The effects of the body remodelling would not fade over time and in theory Vanessa, the only one to achieve this effect from the serum, would be able to become the strongest being in the world.
Fisk knew about the mutation of her serum and used that mutation to its fullest potential. In just a few months, she had surpassed the pure physical strength of all the mutants she had hired. To achieve such staggering progress, she had to literally tear her muscles daily in the gym and then in the lab. Her bones went through the same process.
After adaptation, Vanessa's bones became unusually flexible and hard, and her muscles were rebuilt, losing their human essence. Outwardly Vanessa's body did not change in any way, but inside, after undergoing many experiments and adaptation processes, she was no longer human. A human was simply not capable of evolving and adapting so quickly, of creating new cellular patterns and incorporating them into the body in a matter of hours.
Vanessa's development was kept a closely guarded secret. Only a certain circle of people knew about it - Sarah and a few researchers who conducted torture of Fisk's body.
...
"Gwen, are you awake? - Hera asked her friend in a half-whisper and gave her friend a little push.
Stacy grunted and uncurled her slick eyes. Her blurry gaze travelled across the unfamiliar room and stopped on Hera sitting next to her.
"Where are we? - Gwen barely got the words out of her mouth and tried to get up. There was a kind of weakness all over her body, her arms didn't obey properly.
"You do not remember? Right, you lost consciousness ... - Hera smiled exhaustedly and recounted all the events that had happened.
The militants who had carried out the terrorist attack in the centre of New York had kidnapped them with a very unclear purpose. They brought them to an abandoned meat packing plant and threw them into a mouldy basement. They've been here for days without food or water. The kidnappers have never visited them.
"Maybe they are already negotiating with the authorities to trade us," Petra said hopefully. She was now without her glasses, her school clothes were torn in several places and stained with mud. The guerrillas did not treat their prisoners with much ceremony during transport, any disobedience was equated with death. Not all the hostages reached the meat-packing plant; some of the more violent ones were shot on the way. On arrival in the basement, all the remaining hostages were terrified.
"We have to do something! - Hera said optimistically, but no one shared her optimism. Petra was hoping to be rescued by the authorities, while Gwen was preoccupied with the strange changes in her body. - Fine, I'll think of something on my own! Otherwise we'll all starve to death!
Hera got up from her seat and wandered through the basement. Together with them in the basement were the other hostages, but unlike the trio, the others looked more like living corpses. They were afraid to move or say anything, fear creeping into their very being. Hera and Petra were in the same state, they just hid their fear well.
As Hera left their company, hoping to find some sort of emergency exit in the basement, Petra crawled over to Gwen and helped her into a comfortable position. Stacy thanked her friend and covered her eyes, listening to the sounds around her. After the spider bite and painful awakening, Gwen's perception had sharpened. She could hear quiet footsteps above the basement and the conversations of people, presumably their captors.
As Hera wandered aimlessly around the basement, Gwen listened to the militants' negotiations. Negotiations with the government were out of the question, the terrorists were waiting for Anita Stark to arrive for some reason. For what purpose it was unknown, they only exchanged a few words about some prepared gift.
The quiet conversations of the kidnappers sent shivers down Gwen's spine. The main target of the militants was Anita Stark and her bodyguard August - Hera's lover. They, the hostages, were just bait and expendable material, their lives were absolutely indifferent to the terrorists. If in six hours Anita or August will not show up, the militants will launch a live broadcast on the Internet, where alternately, every ten minutes, will shoot one hostage while provocatively calling Anita Stark. So they'll reveal their location on the Internet and encourage Anita and August to act. Where the terrorists were in such a hurry Gwen didn't recognise, but she didn't care much.
Trying to remain calm and not show her terror in front of her friends, Gwen opened her eyes. Hera had already returned to them with disappointing results, there were no emergency exits and nothing in the basement that could be used as a weapon. Petra continued to reassure Hera, telling her that their kidnappers only wanted money and that the militants had already definitely contacted the authorities and were negotiating with them. Soon they would all be rescued.
"Yes, we'll all be rescued soon," Gwen said in her usual cheerful manner, trying to suppress the terror that was brewing in her soul. - We just have to wait a little longer and who knows, maybe your beloved Augustus, like the Ming princes, will fall in love with you after the kidnapping....
"Shut up Stacey! - Hera perked up and threw a lump of dirt in Gwen's direction. - You just woke up and you're already getting on my nerves.
"Ha-ha-ha, well I won't," Gwen laughed merrily, holding back the ugly truth inside her. It was better for her friends and other hostages not to know the true plans of the militants on them. Otherwise, panic and screaming would settle inside the basement, which would do little to help. The worst part of it was that the militants might not like the hostages' behaviour and decide to put their backup plan into action much sooner and there would be a lot of bloodshed.
Stacey had a small hope. Maybe Anita could locate them before the kidnappers' deadline and then none of her friends would be hurt. All she had to do was sit back and hope for it.
...
A black and orange Bugatti raced through the streets of New York City, deafening the bedroom neighbourhoods with the rumble of the engine. The speeding sports car was spotted by a police car patrolling the neighbourhoods. It switched on its flashers and tried to stop the night racer, but it failed. Bugatti squeezed out its thousand horsepower and even more, accelerating the car over four hundred kilometres per hour. How could the driver control the car at that speed? For all the unwitting spectators it remained a mystery.
Holding the steering wheel with one hand, August looked at the car's touchscreen display. It displayed a map of New York City and his current location. It was about a thirty minute drive to his destination. The car would need to be parked somewhere inconspicuous. If the abandoned meatpacking plant on the edge of the city was really a temporary terrorist hideout, then they had set up observers around its perimeter, and they would have to get rid of them first.
The map on the car's display disappeared and an unknown incoming number popped up. August took the incoming call with some hesitation.
"'Hello, sorry for calling so late, my name is George Stacey. You're the one who saved me at the Stark Expo.
"Hello Captain Stacey, how did you get my number? - deja vu flashed through the mercenary's mind, he must have saved people at Anita's expo too many times. We've got to stop with these heroics, they're not going to do any good.
"I made a request to Stark Industries and they gave me your number. I just want to thank you for saving me. If you hadn't pulled me out of the fire the other day.
"Captain Stacey, you don't have to say that. I'm not a hero or your saviour, I was just acting in the interests of my employer, if anyone needs to say thank you, say it to my employer, Anita Stark," Augustus interrupted the man as he rounded a sharp bend. - If that's all Captain Stacy is, then I bid you adieu.
"Wait Augustus! - The mercenary's finger in front of the call reset icon paused. - My daughter, Gwen Stacey, is missing from the exhibit. We're looking for those damn terrorists all over the city right now, but we don't have any leads yet. Is there any chance you might know something about this? We need some kind of lead to catch these scoundrels as soon as possible!
"Am I to understand that once you find them, you'll put them in jail?
"Yeah, they're looking at life in prison for this kind of thing!
"Unfortunately, I don't have any information yet," the mercenary chuckled quietly. - If that's all, I'm hanging up.
"Thank you for your time. If any information comes up, please let me know on this number - it's my personal number.
"Prison? I'm afraid if they're in that meat factory, they won't make it to prison. To the morgue at the most," August thought aloud after dropping the call.
The Bugatti pulled off the main motorway and stopped in a wooded area. The door of the sports car opened and a large man in an iron black and orange suit stepped out. He went to the boot of the car, opened it and took out a large sports bag with "SPORT" written on the side.
"Okay, all the sports equipment is in place. I hope there aren't too many sportsmen in these woods. Damn, did it have to rain at a time like this? Now I'm gonna be a pig in these woods.
...
"Northeast, report the situation! - hissed an excited voice over the radio.- The northeast is in place, the position is quiet, - the woman answered quietly, looking through the scope of her sniper rifle.
"South-east, north-west and south-west do not answer, north-east scout what happened!
"Roger that, - the sniper answered clearly and the earthen hill moved and a miniature female body covered with green leaves appeared. Northeast was undergoing special sniper training. She had mastered sniper and conventional weapons, was good at camouflage, and was an expert in close combat. With her skills, she could safely enter the elite special forces of the United States or special forces of any other country.
(Sniper, originally from Ireland. Formerly a member of the British Special Forces. She still has a camouflage suit on top of her like a leshoe, but the neuron couldn't generate it, no matter how hard I tried).
The woman got out of her hiding place, but decided not to stand up to her full height. Something was bothering her, for some reason there were goosebumps running down her back, as if a hungry predator was now looking at her. Quickly glancing back into the dark thicket, the sniper saw no one.
"Damn rain, it's going to freak out," she said, but she didn't let her guard down. Her mates had disappeared somewhere, it wasn't for nothing.
"Yeah, I hate this rain, too. I got mud all over my suit while I was crawling after you ladies.
"Mmm! - The sniper mumbled, her face sinking into the soft mud, and the lash around her neck. Her limbs twitched in an attempt to lift herself up.
Keeping one hand on the back of the sniper's head, sinking her face into the mud, Augustus used the other hand to slip the metal wire around her neck. A couple of minutes of struggle and the girl's body settles.
"So, you seem to have the same kit as your friends, nothing new, - the mercenary checked the pockets of the murdered woman without feeling any pangs of conscience. When he found a twenty-dollar note in her trouser pocket, he was as happy as a child. The other three snipers didn't have any cash. He didn't expect to get anything from the last one. It would seem that the twenty on the dead one didn't make much difference to him, but it didn't. At least he'd be able to fill up the Bugatti for that twenty, which meant he could at least recoup the cost of the trip here.
August wasn't a good man, he knew that, but he couldn't help it. At some points he even enjoyed being a bad man.
Taking the sniper rifle from the corpse and taking off his camouflage coat, the mercenary took the sniper's former position, burrowing into the same hole and pulling the camouflage coat over himself.
"What is she doing here? - August noticed Kingpin getting out of the minivan.
(Kingpin is in a combat suit, as requested. She doesn't really need the suit, but Vanessa is a bit of an over-anxiety freak.)
***
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