Manchurian Candidate

James Hall, a.k.a Shadow, stood waiting to go on stage for his candidacy announcement. A crewman stood off to the side with a headset waiting for the cue to send him on stage as Tania straightened his tie, "Honestly, you can't straighten a tie?" He smirked, "I can, but I enjoy your fussing." She fainted a look of insult turning to a smile as she playfully slugged his arm. Since the fundraiser Shadow and she have gotten closer, his fierce reputation evaporated as she learned more of the man Shadow is. At first, she thought it was for show, but the longer they talked the more she realized he was being sincere.

The life he chooses to meet his lofty goals is a hard one, and one must be harder and meaner than the world to control it. He shelled himself in the character that is Shadow, suppressing the nobility of what he wishes to accomplish under the guise of a cold stare and harsh actions. However, as James Hall he found he could be that man behind the shell and found himself opening up to the beauty before him. Being a human being again is refreshing, invigorating, and he found himself

falling for Tania, loving her like no one before, but he must always ready to put the mask on again to run the network and command his followers. He sighed as he looked into Tania's eyes and admiring her ample form. She blushed slightly, "What?" she asked, he smiled, "You are so beautiful tonight." She beamed and gave him a kiss, "Just you wait till later." She whispered in his ear.

A lopsided grin formed on his face as the crewman called a one-minute warning, he straightened his suit jacket and adjusted the fit of his tie as the crewman counted down from 10 secs. As he heard the crowd applause and cheer he jogged onto the stage and waved to the packed stadium as he made his way to the podium. He shook the hand of the host and stood before the crowd, "Thank you all for such a warm welcome! Some may be asking themselves, 'Why would this corporate CEO, and rich man, want to be a congressman?' It is true I don't have a history in politics, but I find that to be of advantage. My company has employed over fifteen hundred, most full-time with triple-A health coverage and some of the best benefits in my industry. And yes, I have done quite well for myself, but I came from the bottom and worked fifty hours and seven days a week for more than a decade to succeed. Fighting lawyers, bureaucrats, and unions to give the best care and opportunities for my workers. I know your struggle, I've lived it, and I've sacrificed relationships and years of my life to earn my American dream." The crowd clapped and hooted.

"But not for so many in Washington. Not the corrupt and out-of-touch wolves that inhabit the seats of power in the senate, house, and supreme court, and yes even the administration. Though the Hayford administration is far better than some, and I support and believe in the man behind the desk, but there are some in the thousands of cogs and back-end bureaucracy who abuse their positions, who hold on to the self-appointed and perceived importance of their own station.

Agencies who protect themselves and violate the rights of the people under a false guise of security. A brave and honorable man once said Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. That man was Benjamin Franklin, and that ideal was shared by all of the founding fathers, set forth for us all in ink and paid for by blood. To have a nation not ruled, but lead by the people themselves. From the Greeks to Rome and ultimately the United States, that ideal has been a shining city on the hill and drawing the oppressed into its light for centuries. However, the freedoms paid for dearly by those Revolutionaries have been abused and corrupted. While the foundation is just, the body has sickened and has compromised the trust of its citizens.

"I feel compelled to act, to turn the course that has led to decay and ruin time and time again. Decadence and corruption, the slow erosion by progressive socialism, and the crippling of our children by the perversion of teaching what is politically correct instead of what is factual, to teach tests instead of educating our children to think for themselves. In my company I have turned away thousands simply because they lack the basic skills of reading or writing at a level necessary to do the job. Hundreds more because they couldn't do elemental math. Many who do have these skills lack practical experience or who have an unwillingness to learn the menial tasks necessary to grow. I end up spending more time and money to train new employees then they end up lasting in my company. Don't get me wrong, for every one of my examples there are a dozen who are stellar, but most of those come from private schools or have been honor students, those who push themselves more than the system.

"Much needs to change, many more need to be informed, and most of all we all need to make it a priority to be active. Both in life and in politics. So what do I mean? What is my point? The system needs leaders, not bureaucrats. Educators not teachers. Charity, not greed. I vow that I, James David Hall make a covenant to you, here and now. That I will do all in my power, risk my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor as those great men did in a small courthouse in Philadelphia so many years ago. So that freedom and liberty won't be snuffed out, that this experiment of the American Republic won't perish from the Earth." The crowd erupted in applause and shouts and Shadow smiled.

______________________________

The TV droned the cheers of the crowd at a political speech, but Apollo wasn't paying attention, his eyes were transfixed on the photographs, string, and thumbtacks on the wall. He has spent months decimating Shadow, and the network of a man unknown with an unknown agenda, and unlike supervillains of the past, he or she is quiet. Using pawns to do the bidding of the master, all under the Alliance's nose, and no matter how much he tries he can't let the wrongs done to him and

especially Sakura stand. He's compelled to act any way he can and no matter the cost. Apollo is on the warpath with such a laser focus he lays in bed at night wondering if he's on the edge of madness.

The setting sun shone a warm light as Apollo checked the time, since being stripped of any real authority in The Purge he, and the few like minds are forced underground. In an ironic twist heroes from the light must live as villains in darkness. 'Perhaps that was Shadow's plan all along, to dethrone us from our ivory tower to experience the fate of who we hunt.' Apollo thought as he pulled out his now flat black suit. Whatever the cost Apollo knows he must make things right, to rebuild what was destroyed, and unlike before he now has a direction for his anger and his focus. A new purpose for his life, to not relive the mistakes of his predecessors in the Alliance, and to create a new league to protect Earth free from governmental control. He now sees how vast a weakness it was to be controlled, to be destroyed by a political whim, 'No I won't make the same mistakes, I'll make a new Alliance, a stronger one. I vow to never let a bureaucrat rule me, and never lend my trust to those political wolves as long as I live.' He vowed silently as Sakura showered in the small bathroom to a small apartment, once he had a 20,000 sqft working and living space packed with

the latest of tech and comforts, decadent pride was once his attitude. Spoiled into being a sheep, silent and asleep to the forces moving against them all.

Anger now fills his heart, righteous vengeance his purpose, 'Perhaps this is how many villains begin?' He mused as he finished suiting up, 'I must take care not to cross that line. Just like my life before the Alliance, fighting evil with just the suit on my back, my cunning, and my powers.' The water stopped flowing as he latched his shield on his back and strapped his old Glock to his thigh. He got out his tablet as Sakura emerged from the bathroom drying her hair wearing only a sports bra and panties, "You have our patrol tonight babe?" she asked casually as she also started to suit up. His mind wandered a bit as he couldn't help but admire her lithe form, "Yea. Um, our last tip was for the financial district. War Eagle has ties to the Metro United Bank, we might find some info using Spark's tablet." Sparks was the nickname to the Alliance's late master tech. He had no powers but was, and is still the best hacker Apollo has ever seen, "Great, what's the plan?" she asked as she zipped up her tactical vest. She would normally have her active camo suit for such a clandestine

mission, but like every Hero snared by Tier Zero, they had such high tech toys confiscated and reversed engineered into TZ's Powered Defense Suits, part body armor, part argumentation exo-suit, and bristling with countermeasures.

The PDS armor was the bane of Apollo's existence and any other hero and villain who steps out of line. The U.S. Government made a hostile takeover of the protection business and doesn't tolerate competition. It has been painfully obvious that TZ has been carefully planned months, even years in advance laying the groundwork, laws, and political clot to act. Perhaps it was planed as far back as the Alliance's conception as some sort of backup plan. Apollo shook off that line of thought, it only angered him more, and right now he needed to stay calm and have a clear head.

_______________________________

The winter air chilled Apollo and Sakura as they emerged from the stairwell and walked over to the waiting Sniper. The marksman still had an eye in his scope and only acknowledged them with a curt wave, "What's the situation?" Apollo asked as he overlooked the MUB tower, the glass and steel behemoth towered 20 floors above them and stood a block away like a leg of a giant, "Twenty guards for the night shift, cameras everywhere even the roof, and it's not going to be easy Mike." Apollo sighed, "Didn't expect it to be, we are talking about War Eagle here," he thought for a moment, "Did you get the anti-grav packs?" The antigravs were standard equipment in the Alliance, but with the disbandment, Sparks had to build two from scratch and junk, they aren't the polished A.I. stabilized models he was trained on, but Apollo had little choice. Sniper pointed to his right, "Yea, heavy bastards, but Sparkie assures me they function, though they may have bugs." Apollo froze, "Bugs?" Sniper turn to his friend and smirked at Apollo's expression, "Yea, something about unable to find sensitive enough gyros or something, anyway he said they might be sluggish while maneuvering." Apollo winced, "Great," he said sarcastically, defiantly not looking forward to any dog fights he and Sakura had a good chance of getting into if they're detected.

He exhaled and strapped on the mass of wires, computer boards, and superconductors graciously called grav packs, "What's the layout on the roof ?" Apollo asked changing the subject, "One wide-angle camera looking to the west, overlooking the landing pad and the door, the comm gear is the tower and shack on the north. The best bet is to come in from the east as low as possible right behind the pole housing the camera. Watch for IR lasers, it looks bright up there using NV, but my angle prevents a good look-see without drones; and good luck boss."

Apollo tightened the 5-point harness, "Right, thanks Jack, and keep your eyes open will ya? Don't want any party crashers." Sniper nodded and looked back to his scope, "ten-four buddy" and with that Apollo and Sakura activated the packs. The three superconducting discs spun up, a faint blue glow appeared around their exposed edge as the electric field began charging the atmosphere, the packs function by generating gravitons above and to the sides of the backpack size device, so the wearer essentially "falls" upward relative to Earth, and since the tech was reversed engineered several heavy construction equipment manufactures began using them to artificially lighten loads, vehicles, and even replacing whole sets of cranes for skyscraper construction. NASA even has plans on using the technology to construct a space elevator and Ford announced the development of a

flying car concept they had patented as Grav-Cars. All without a cent to the designer, Sparks himself, the government basically stole the patents and distributed samples to the highest bidding defense contractor, who then leased lower-powered prototypes to subcontractors and manufacturers. Keeping the most refined and powerful ones for military use of course.

It wouldn't surprise Apollo in the lest if hover tanks, fast strike craft, and hypervelocity missiles start showing up in hot-spots within the year. Fate for the tech that Sparks worked damn hard to avoid, which admittedly, Apollo exploited to get the master tech on board. It vibrated on his back and he could feel the charged atmosphere raising the hairs on his head and neck, a feeling of uncertainty nearly caused him to freeze in terror, but there was no other way to scale the height necessary to reach the roof of the 100+ story skyscraper. So with a deep breath he rotated the crude hand controls and with a surge of queasiness he rose into the air, the conflicting gravitational fields flew his sense of balance into a loop, the more finished units had dampeners and shielding to ease the effect on the user. If only he was so lucky. Once the sensation eased enough that he wasn't on the verge of vomiting, he pushed the controls forward like he was driving a WWI tank, and was about as precise.

He overcompensated and tried to level himself, the half-second delay from his input to action frustrated him, but he quickly got used to it as his adrenaline surged through his body. It's funny that the fear of death completely eliminates the feeling of sickness, he thought as his senses came to razor focus. Slowly he got the hang of the make-shift grav-pack, Sakura bobbed and twisted as well, and Apollo noticed her face was pale as she too fought with nausea induced by the unshielded graviton effects. Eventually, she also adapted and eased alongside him as they climbed their way to the skyscraper's roof.

_____________________________

NEO-G awoke to a beeping from her console, she kicked off her covers and scrambled to her workstation, and what she saw sent her into a bout of cursing as she franticly played her keyboard. Shadow's accounts are being hacked. She quickly put a multi-threaded tracing program and went to work on sealing the firewall, what she saw was a sophisticated autonomous firewall cracker. The

breach warnings showed a pattern of a rapid hex key sequencer, basically similar to the NSA's programs to crack passwords on hacker's files. It systematically attacks the floating-point data ports to find one unsecured and leaves a hole for an operator to exploit and gain access to the system. Luckily her defense programs use a learning A.I. of her own design that detects the pattern and anticipates the next 10 moves ahead. It shifted to a brute force attack pattern and began to flood

the ports with pings trying to overwhelm her A.I., but it was slow and her program is running on the latest CRAY supercomputer, one dedicated to security software and traffic management. She gave a wicked grin, 'It's working to slowly to be a workstation. It must be a handheld. Which means...' She ran an intelligent threat search on the security cameras of the bank's HQ. Her console pinged moments later and an enlarged image of the roof camera showed light reflecting off of a polished

steel duct. 'Got you!'

_____________________________

"What's taking so long?" Apollo whispered, as Sakura worked the handheld, "I don't know Michael, how bout you stop asking me every five minutes!" she snapped. She has been crouched beside the comm shack and staring at the screen of the handheld computer that Sparks gave them to autonomously extract the needed data. He said it'll take 5 minutes, but it has been close to 30, and tempers and pertinence were wearing thin. He felt exposed on the rooftop, and knows from experience, the longer you remain exposed the odds of being discovered grows exponentially.

The handheld began beeping and glowing red as Sakura swore, "They're on to us!" Apollo snapped into action, "I guess we do it the hard way," he pulled out his stun pistol, another one of Sparks designs, it fired electrified darts that work like small Tasers, but are self-contained and function like normal ammo. Sakura pulled the fiber optic leads from the comm shack and pulled out her own stun pistol, "Do we wait for them, or invite ourselves in?" she asked. Not getting the data was not an option for Apollo. He has gone through too much humiliation and pain to stop his crusade against Shadow. His loathing running so deep in his soul, he's even entertaining putting conventional ammo in his gun, but he shook that line of thought off and buried it. So close to the edge between Hero and Villain, Apollo has to be on guard with himself, one slip can turn his fight for justice into a fight for revenge. "Let them open the door for us, then we roll over them." Sakura nodded in agreement.

Sakura also knew the stakes, and struggled with the hatred, but more so, what fuels her malice was the betrayal. The callous stripping of her privacy and laying her past bare for all to gloat and to spit on. The hate mail, the public scorn, and the realization of the many so called friends who turn on you when her old life as an assassin was made public. It didn't matter if it was a life she gave a blood oath to atone for, or the family and clan she abandoned, nothing was sacred in those

accursed witch trials. Apollo is obsessed, but Sakura, even though she is ashamed of it, she burns with a fiery hatred of Shadow that he couldn't comprehend. The only truly unchanged relationship she had left was with Michael, and though she has this unmentionable hatred, he keeps her sane and focused.