.|. COHERENT COMICS PRESENTS ----X----------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` =====, ======== ====. ===. ======= ======= // // // )) //|| // // ===== // //===< // || //=== //=== // // // \\ //==|| // // `===== o // o // // o // || o // o ======= o Superhuman Tactical Resources and Affiliated-Field Experts original concept by Dave Van Domelen development by Marc Singer and Terrone Carpenter Issue #18 - "Necktie" copyright 2013 by Dave Van Domelen ============================================================================ [Cover shows a younger Dan Tracey at a desk in a large office. His is the only neatly organized one, the eye in a hurricane of chaos. And he looks like he's about to snap.] ============================================================================ [STRAFE Headquarters, McLean, Virginia Sector - November 18, 2026] Karl Oyono placed another sealed folder on Dan Tracey's desk. "Ah, autumn in the government district, when the paperwork flutters gently from the trees." "Let's see if this one actually needed to be printed out and couriered," Dan sighed. In theory, the only paperwork that had to be literal paperwork was material considered too sensitive to trust to even the ultra-paranoid governmental networks. But with the increasing numbers of both rogue Khadamite Artificial Consciousnesses and the rumors (largely true) of a growing micro-nation of not-rogue-but-not-actually-loyal-to-anyone-else ACs, mid-level functionaries were starting to commit more and more material to unhackable paper. Grind estimated that it would be another three months before both friendly and unfriendly nations got their human intelligence operations spun up and ready to start intercepting couriers, at which point the pendulum would swing back towards electronic transmissions. He wasn't a spy per se, more of a commando, but there was a lot of overlap in the business. "More TerraStar fallout?" Karl asked. Obviously, if the folder had really merited the hardcopy treatment, Dan's adjutant might not have been cleared to know. But the eidetic paranormal had guessed right, and was certainly cleared to see yet another bureaucrat demanding action over Polla's "violation" of the terms of her parole. Never mind that she'd been careful to stick to the letter of the agreement. "Yes. This one is from the Oceania branch of DSHA, and has the stench of 'I need to look decisive' all over it," Dan tossed it aside. He'd have to reply to it at some point, but it was hardly urgent. "You know, when I was in training they told me that I'd eventually hit a rank where I'd spend more time managing files than fighting the bad guys, but I hadn't expected it to be so soon." "Lucky man, you still get to go out and be shot at on occasion," Karl grinned, his teeth jumping out against his deep brown skin. "I've known I was doomed to management since my powers manifested. I can merely bask in your reflected glory and try to weasel juicy tidbits out of you that don't make it into the official reports." Dan chuckled. Karl had been made his adjutant as soon as he could be rushed through the basic STRAFE training, once it became clear that none of the human aides could keep up with Dan's paranormally-efficient brain. Karl, if anything, could think circles around Dan...at least, in certain areas. He wasn't a scientist or a detective or a creative type, but his memory was as flawless as Dan's and better organized. Karl was a super-bureaucrat, and there was talk of actually giving him a field mission into the Multiversal Office to see if he could wrangle something out of it. So far, though, the consensus was that there was too much risk the Office would co-opt the young man. "Still, I can definitely understand the almost unholy glee with which Hendrick gave me my first undercover assignment," Dan picked up the folder again and started to skim it. Even a normal could carry on a conversation while reading something as predictable as the Oceania functionary's missive. "Oh, really?" Karl's eyebrows shot up. "I haven't heard that story yet. And that didn't feel like one of your five-jump chain of reasoning shifts, so how did your first undercover assignment tie into paperwork?" "Pretty much how you'd expect. Hendrick decided he wanted me out from underfoot while STRAFE moved here from the temporary camp in Cuba, so he gave me an 'easy' covert insertion assignment. I had to hold down a day job...." * * * * [February 13, 2023 - Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Sector] "...any questions, Mr. Danson?" "Jerry Danson" shook his head. "All seems pretty clear. Once the biometrics clear, I can get to work." And if they didn't clear, he thought, it was unlikely anyone in the building could keep him from making good his escape. Then he'd get to bawl out whichever STRAFE techie dropped the ball and failed to correctly build the fake identity. Assuming that the whole thing wasn't supposed to blow up in his face as a test...that would fit what he'd experienced so far, working with Colonel Hendrick. "Good. I know you're just a temp, but if things work out, we're always willing to hire an ABD on as a long-term employee once the degree comes through." A lot of students Dan's age picked up their parents' "wage slave" habits and managed to finish all their classroom work before the end of their final semester of school, but most colleges hadn't caught up to the trend yet and still only handed out degrees at the end of term. These "All But Degree" students tried to get into the workforce before the awarding of their diplomas, usually as temps or interns. This made it a good cover for Dan Tracey, since there wouldn't be a need to forge as many documents to make Jerry Danson's paperwork plausible. Also, the manager was lying. Companies rarely hired their own ABD temps, for reasons tied up in labor laws, office politics and a somewhat old-fashioned sentiment on the part of upper management that people who are too eager to jump ship on college will be job-hoppers in general. So far, the statistics didn't support that, but it'd still be a while before corporate culture caught up. At least they were a few years ahead of the colleges on the trend. "I'll leave you to it, then, the workload should be on your screen as soon as the system recognizes you," the management drone nodded, gestured at the desk, then walked off to manage someone else. Dan Tracey schooled himself against the expected boredom and got to work. According to his mission brief, the odds were very low that this company was actually involved in anything shady, which was why he was there on what amounted to a training mission. But, as Hendrick said, "No business makes it big without having a few skeletons in the break room. Find some." * * [February 14, 2023] So far, the only wrongdoing he'd uncovered was the five married women (three of which clearly thought they were fooling him into thinking they were single, and one of whom was probably on her way to a divorce in the next three months) slipping him Valentines of varying levels of subtlety. The least subtle one probably also counted as workplace sexual harassment, but he doubted he could turn that one over to Hendrick as something actionable. "They do realize I'm a temp, right?" he asked Zeke, one of his coworkers in the break room. Normally he wasn't much for small talk, but he was trying to learn how to establish a cover identity, and that meant faking a lot of things that didn't come naturally to him. He doubted he'd ever be a top pick for this sort of operation, but he had to at least develop competence at it. "Oh, that's half the charm," Zeke smirked. "First, it's a race to see who can bang the new meat first. And then waiting out the awkwardness until you move on. And you're a lot more chase-worthy than most of the temps we get," he added with a wink. Dan hoped he looked appropriately uncomfortable and moderately shocked, although he'd pegged the man as gay on the first day, and knew Zeke was also fiercely loyal to his boyfriend. No particular worries from that direction. Carla O'Neal, on the other hand, kept finding reasons to hang around his desk and "accidentally" run into him in the hallways, which was already making it harder to dig for skeletons. Speak, or think, of the devil and she shall appear. "I hope you don't swing that way, handsome," Carla sashayed into the break room. "Zeke's taken, you'd only be disappointed." Zeke, for his part, merely rolled his eyes. Dan suppressed the urge to "do a Sherlock" on Carla, keeping the Jerry mask on. "I'm not on the prowl, I'm an ABD," he said, trying to put an edge of "Back, off, lady" into his voice without sounding totally like a freaked out teenager. Which, come to think of it, he felt like. It's not like he wasn't used to women coming after him, but Carla was a different class from the college girls he was used to. They were puppies, Carla was a wolf. "Oh, you don't think the company will hire you on after you graduate?" Carla leaned over the table. She was wearing a high-collared sweater, but the sway of her breasts communicated as much as obvious cleavage would have. Subtle as a battleship. And her guns were pointed in his direction. "I suppose it could happen," Dan admitted. "And the university could also decide to spontaneously award me an MBA based on my time here." "Ouch," Zeke winced. "So young to be so cynical." "Am I wrong?" Dan asked. "No," the other two chorused. * * [February 15, 2023] "Please don't make a scene, Mr. Smithfield," the security guard loomed over a nearby desk. Dan was on edge, not because his erstwhile coworker's firing bothered him, but because the security guard moved like someone with a lot more training than the job called for. He estimated he could still drop the man in five moves, but "show the incompetent idiot the door" guards were usually in the one-shot zone for Dan. "I gave this company the past five years of my life!" Smithfield was clearly intent on making a scene. "I'm not going to be pinkslipped like a fast food worker," he gestured at his computer screen, which presumably held a notice of termination. "I demand a meeting with the board to explain why I'm being tossed aside!" Dan schooled his expression to what he hoped was one of vaguely embarrassed "some people don't know when it's time to go away"-ness, but his hackles were all the way up. Maybe Smithfield was just given to excessive drama, but nothing about the man's position or work the past few days had given any indication that he could reasonably expect the board of directors to take a personal interest in his employment. "My orders are to escort you from the building, Mr. Smithfield. I would prefer that to be a literal escort, and not the polite fiction in which I carry your unconcious body out the door and call it an escort," the security guard rumbled. Smithfield fumed for a moment, then adopted a "you haven't heard the last of me" expression and started to angrily pick things up off his desk and shove them into his briefcase. "Leave the phone," the guard warned as Smithfield started to pick up the unassuming-looking mobile device. "Fine, you take it," Smithfield shoved it into the guard's hands. Dan almost blew his cover and leapt to shove the guard aside, recognizing the model of phone as a particularly nasty variety of black-cel. Most of the quasi-legal devices simply used implanted chips to ensure that only the owner could use them, that even a biometric fake of the sort Khadam was rumored to be working on couldn't access them. But this particular model not only failed to work for anyone but the owner, it could stun unauthorized users into unconsciousness. It went past quasi-legal and into fully illegal territory, and the fact the company had issued one to an employee meant this was not as safe an infiltration job as Dan had expected. Or perhaps his standards for "clean company" were too high and this sort of thing happened all the time. The guard spasmed and went down, sending the office into a panic. Fighting every one of his instincts, Dan let himself join the pandemonium as Smithfield looked around wildly for a way out. His little act of defiance had set the bridge on fire while he was still standing on it, and he was now a very desperate man slowly coming to the conclusion that he had made a fatal error. And that made him extremely dangerous...with the only security guard in the room currently in a twitching heap on the floor. Dan froze. Afterwards, he tried to tell himself that it was a plausible thing for a noncombatant like Jerry Danson to do, but in truth it was no cover. Every one of his instincts screamed at him to do something about Smithfield, but his brain fought back just as hard. Jerry wasn't a fighter, and there were at least three security cameras looking at Smithfield's part of the room. The odds of video analysis blowing his cover were too great. Even something sneaky or deliberately clumsy would.... Smithfield solved the dilemma for Dan by running from the room. * * [February 17, 2023] "Thank God it's Friday," Zeke sighed. "What a week." "Tell me about it. Do people melt down like that every week here?" Dan asked. The last two days had been very dull, but strained. No one would talk about Smithfield, and security had been ramped up to the point where even when Dan could shake Carla's amorous attentions, he couldn't get at anything interesting. So that left him nothing but to do Jerry's job, which could have been performed adequately by one of Radner's first attempts at artificial consciousness. Dan had segued into imagining Radner being forced to do brain-dead paperwork in prison, which helped make it a little more bearable. "Hmmm, only around performance review time," Zeke replied, his humor brittle. "Good thing you'll be out of here before those roll around." Zeke seemed clean, as far as Dan could tell, as did most of the coworkers Dan had spent time around. So, whatever the problem was here, it wasn't a case of an entire organization hiding in plain sight and just cycling in the occasional temp to keep from being obvious. Any rot was hidden pretty well amidst the perfectly innocent (the term being used in a legal sense, in Carla's case) workers. Dan had managed to get a coded message off to his handlers about Smithfield, but part of maintaining cover had meant not just running off to report in at the end of the workday. He hoped to get some information back over the weekend, but he was largely on his own until he got the signal to pull out. "If poor performance reviews involve getting tased, I think I'll pass on any offer to stay on," Dan joked back, equally uncomfortably. "They let me off with some light waterboarding last time," Zeke winked. "ALWAYS fill out your TPS reports fully. With coversheets." * * [February 20, 2023] Nothing all weekend. He'd managed to beg off one offer of socializing by claiming he needed to work on his college paperwork, and he'd firmly established himself as intimidated by Carla so just dodged her offers without making up a plausible excuse. But there'd been nothing in the various real and virtual dead drops Hendrick had arranged for him. His own digging on Smithfield (perfectly reasonable within the bounds of his cover ID) had turned up some interesting data. The man had been a traveling rep for the company, lately doing a lot of work with companies in South America. He was more important than his desk out in cubeland would have indicated, since he was really just using a pool desk to get some work done between trips. His work abroad could explain the souped up black-cel, either issued because of the dangerous places he was expected to go, or acquired there. The company didn't have an official branch in South America, but there could have been a few layers of shells if they did have some properties there. And, of course, the looser legal structures down south made even the more above-board South American companies attractive partners for those in the Combine proper. That was one of those inevitable skeletons Hendrick had been talking about, though. It was hard to find a large company without some questionable business dealings outside the Combine, although most were scrambling to either sever their ties or get their partners "up to code" as relations with the hard-hit continent slowly normalized. There was probably something there, though, and Dan needed to keep his nose clean and his work record spotless long enough to find it. * * [February 21, 2023] "Must not strangle co-workers. Must not strangle co-workers. While in an area covered by security cameras." * * [February 23, 2023] "If one more person points out that it's two-twenty-three-twenty- twenty-three, I may have to do a Smithfield," Dan confided to Zeke. "Ugh. At least you weren't here a year and a day ago," Zeke rolled his eyes. "Oh, God. It was bad enough in school that day," Dan shook his head. * * [February 24, 2023] Tensions had finally eased enough that Dan felt comfortable doing a little sneaking around into places he wasn't strictly supposed to be. And Carla seemed to have moved on to new meat. Fortunately. One of the keys to getting into places you're not supposed to be is to NOT sneak. Act like you belong, like someone sent you there, and people rarely question you. And as a temp, he could always use the excuse that he'd messed up the instructions somehow and gone to the wrong place. Now he was in a part of the building inside connection range of the secure wireless network that was off-limits to regular employees, but not so deep into it that he couldn't explain his presence. An intrusion program built into the heel of his shoe by Tesla Branch was grabbing as much data as it could while he walked around looking like he was going somewhere. He figured he had another minute before he needed to actually get someplace he should be and get back to his deadly dull cover job. He could analyze the stolen data when he got back to Jerry's apartment. "You sure you don't want to come along to the bar?" Zeke asked as they headed for the door at the end of the day. "I'm pretty sure we don't like the same kind of bar," Dan smirked. "Hey, you could get free drinks all night, you don't have to go home with anyone...unless you decide to give the other side a try," Zeke winked. He'd been ribbing Dan about the subject almost from the start, it already felt like a hoary old running gag. "I feel like I need to go home and take up opera singing or something or the right side of my brain will shrivel up and die," Dan demurred. "Or the entire thing. I think today's work just cost me half my sophomore year." "Hopefully not the good half," Zeke waved. "See you Monday!" Dan only barely had to fake the tired trudge to the bus stop, but it wasn't opera he planned on learning once he got back to the apartment. If there was something juicy enough on the shoe, he could turn it in and get out of Form Shuffling Hell. Something made him pause at the door. None of the sensors had been tripped, but there was a bad vibe he couldn't consciously explain. It was certainly possible someone could have broken in despite the security Tesla Branch had installed, but unlikely...it looked no better than what a college student could afford, but it was pretty good under the shell. That just meant that if someone had gotten in, they were good. Before his pause could be taken as a sign he'd been spooked, he decided that his best bet was to keep to the cover for a little longer, rather than burst in fighting. So he jangled his keys as if he'd fumbled to get them out (explaining the slight pause) and unlocked the door. Once he was fully inside, a voice came from the blind spot he'd have chosen for an ambush. "Shut the door, and give me the skimmer." "Hello, Carla." Of course, because it *was* the spot he'd have chosen for an ambush, it had an extra little security measure he'd whipped up with some odds and ends of "spy stuff" and a six-pack of beer picked up at the convenience store down the block. It amounted to a squib attached to a full bottle of beer sitting on top of the minifridge, and pressing a button on his keychain made it detonate. It was just enough of a distraction that he had Carla disarmed and on the floor without her weapon discharging. "You are in so much trouble, mister," Carla snarled. "What, no innuendo-laden banter?" Dan deadpanned. "I'm disappointed. I'll admit it, I didn't think you were corporate counter-espionage, you did a pretty good job on your cover." "Corp...ha!" Carla barked a laugh. "You're not dealing with some rent-a-spy, Mr. Danson, or whatever your real name is. You just assaulted a CBI agent...and unless you want to get in a lot deeper trouble, you'll let me up and..." "That son of a bitch," Dan stood and offered Carla a hand up. "Wait...what?" * * * * [STRAFE Headquarters, McLean, Virginia Sector - November 18, 2026] "Colonel Hendrick claimed afterwards that he had no idea the CBI was running an investigation at the same time, but once I got higher security access I was able to do a little digging. The CBI agent in charge of the investigation that 'Carla' was running was an old buddy of Colonel Hendrick's, Hendrick was apparently getting back at the guy for screwing up a SPIRIT operation in '21. A little 'harmless fun' of the interagency rivalry sort," Dan explained. "Not so harmless to agent Carla," Karl frowned. "Yes and no. The company was pretty clean, but Carla's boss would've kept her on it for months just in case she could catch someone trying to spy on IT, hence her habit of attaching herself to any new employees. Since any one of them could be a spy for some other company. He was one of those kind of ultra-thorough guys." "Can't say I know ANYONE like that," Karl rolled his eyes. "Hush, you. Anyway, Carla had been careful enough that her cover didn't get blown, the data I'd skimmed managed to satisfy her boss that there wasn't enough there to keep her in place. She got to move on after a few more weeks. My own departure was explained by having Jerry's after-work efforts succeeding in getting an early diploma issued, but I think the office scuttlebutt had me and Carla..." "...blowing each other's covers?" Dan finished writing a reply in the confidential folder, sealed it and handed it to Karl. "Something like that. Now off with you, get this in the delivery queue." "Does it have the proper cover sheet?" "I know ten ways to cripple you without getting out of this chair, you know...." ============================================================================== Author's Notes: Written for High Concept Challenge #34, "A Working Class Hero." I'm kinda pushing the bounds of the challenge specifics, but I tried to get the spirit of having a job that got in the way of being a hero. I actually came up with this idea shortly after the challenge was announced, but since I'm NOT employed at the moment I've been finding it harder to write. It turns out that without something to unwind from, the creative juices are harder to get flowing. So my writing has been more focused on reviews of toys or online games, with job applications being about as close as I got to fiction for several months. But with the deadline looming, I decided to turn off Lord of the Rings Online for the rest of the night and put in a three hour writing stint on the first draft of this. Yes, this is the first issue of STRAFE to come out in over a decade, and the first not written by Marc Singer. I considered making this story a standalone like the HCC27 "Element of Surprise" story I set around the same time, but I decided early on that it would probably be long enough to merit being a proper issue. And hey, a way to revive a dormant title, symbolic of something or other. I would have had Dan draw a direct comparison between the manager in his first flashback scene and the manager in Office Space, but Office Space was in theaters in 1999 and therefore never came out in the ASH Universe. But people like that character certainly exist in the ASH Universe, unfortunately. Here's some info on Karl Oyono I couldn't find a graceful way (or even a clumsy way) to work into the story, but wanted to write down lest I forget it. His parents were in America on student visas in 1998, both were Cameroon natives who met after getting to America (dad started college in 1996, mom in 1997, but same school and same sponsoring program). By the time things had settled down enough to try returning home, there wasn't much home left...the economic instability of the 1990s had left Cameroon particularly vulnerable to the blandishments of the Godmarket. He is at best distantly related to Ferdinand Oyono, noted author, but he likes to see if he can string people along into believing he's Ferdinand's great-grandson, demonstrating how easily people can be fooled. ============================================================================ For all the back issues, plus additional background information, art, and more, go to http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH ! To discuss this issue or any others, either just hit "followup" to this post, or check out our Yahoo discussion group, which can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ash_stories/ ! There's also a LiveJournal interest group for ASH, check it out at http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=academy+of+super-heroes (if you're on Facebook instead, there's an Academy of Super-Heroes group there too). ============================================================================