The VIPER Officer, code name: Number Five, paced the floor of the barren apartment. He, like the majority of the men under his command for this mission, were bored to tears. Most of the men not on watch either played poker or cleaned their weapons. The boredom was getting to everyone. Surveillance assignments were mostly boring, but this one could potentially get exciting.
It had seemed like a simple enough mission to Number Five. His superior, the Nest Leader of the Manhattan Branch of VIPER, had learned that his Brooklyn counterpart had sold a cache of prototype weapons to a small time arms dealer. After months of investigating, they had learned who the seller was. Knowing the incompetence of his rival, the Manhattan Branch leader decided to take matters in his own hands. If all went according to plan, the Brooklyn Nest Leader would be further damned in the eyes of the Supreme Serpent, while he himself would gain recognition.
The Nest Leader had dispatched one of his best officers, Number Five, to complete the job. Number Five was given command over a sizable task force: three units of ground support, one unit of flying infantry, one of the newest supervillain operatives, and lastly an experimental anthroform combat vehicle dubbed the XACV.
A VIPER B&E team broke into the arms dealer's warehouse, owned by a sales con man by the name of Crazy Teddy. They installed surveillance equipment and planted a small bomb in the bottom crate of the VIPER prototype weapons. Having these weapons captured would simply not do.
Number Five’s orders were to watch the warehouse and wait. Eventually some crime fighter would figure out who was trafficking the deadly Retaliator weapons and come here. Once inside, they would no doubt deal with Crazy Teddy and his hired thugs with ease. That's when things would get more interesting!
The first act was to explode the bomb planted earlier to destroy all traces of the Retaliators. With any luck some super do-gooder would get caught up in it as well. Next, the VIPER units would pin the heroes down setting them up to allow the XAVC take them out. The main point of this mission was to test this combat vehicle out.
Three days of putting up with listening in on Crazy Teddy and his dealings almost had the surveillance team going stir-crazy! Then, on the evening of the third day, they spotted two unknown women in costumes moving down the alley towards the rear of Crazy Teddy's store. They were joined by the Scarlet Sabre. The later was a well known enemy of VIPER. The mission had in fact finally gotten interesting.
The VIPER forces followed the inside battle to its logical conclusion. With the heroine's victory, they exploded the bomb and then moved in for the kill!
Seeing the danger, Night Owl rushed towards the rack and attempted to hold it up! Unfortunately Night Owl wasn't quite fast enough and disappeared underneath the falling rack and the stock it had held.
Scarlet simply dove back from the rack and tumbled away relatively unscathed. The Huntress wasn't as lucky as a TV box landed hard on her left ankle! "AUGH!! Dammit!"
The rack and its contents hit with a resounding crash. Broken boxes and crates were everywhere. A fire was raging in the section of the warehouse where Crazy Teddy stored his illegal weapons. Weapon magazines were exploding like kernels being popped. Fortunately, the heroines were far enough away to not have to worry about shrapnel.
The Scarlet Sabre was the first to gather her wits. "I'm getting too careless for my own good...," she said to no one in particular. "Thanks a lot! Well, you didn't have to agree with me!"
Scarlet reached the Huntress and shoved the crate on her leg off to one side. "Who are you talking to?" The Huntress was feeling a great deal of pain from her ankle. She hoped that it wasn't broken. But she was not in enough pain to keep her from hearing Scarlet seemingly talking to herself.
"I don't think it's broken," Scarlet stated as she examined the Huntress' ankle. "Let's just say that I was having a disagreement with my guardian angel. Can you walk?"
"I'll be all right." It was a lie. The pain was terrible, but she had to put it out of her mind. "Night Owl might be in worse shape."
The Scarlet Sabre nodded and went to dig out Night Owl. There was no need for this as the pile of boxes and crates shifted violently, revealing their ebon-clad ally. She tossed the boxes about like a child would fling building blocks. "Remind me not to try that again, okay?" She appeared no worse for wear from her ordeal.
"Got any idea what's going on, miss know-it-all?" The Huntress' question was directed at the Scarlet Sabre. The Huntress had made it to her feet. Her ankle seemed well enough to support her weight. At least so far.
"We've got company," Scarlet announced. "VIPER assault troops are advancing in on us."
"VIPER?!" Night Owl was shocked. "Again?! Didn't we just beat these clowns?"
"Must be a different branch," the Huntress offered. She was aware that there were several different VIPER Nests in the greater New York area. Each was more or less independent from the others; only rarely did separate nests act in concert with each other.
"Manhattan would be my guess," Scarlet continued. "They're too well organized, too well armed to be any of the others." Suddenly a shell exploded some forty feet away from the trio! A whitish gas began to seep out from the shell and fill the area.
"That does it!" Night Owl was fed up with VIPER. "I've been tied up, blown up, and now gassed by these snakes! It's pay back time!" Night Owl began to stalk off in the direction that the gas shell had come from when she was interrupted by the Scarlet Sabre. "Hold on a second, Night Owl. They're employing a pincher movement-- They want us to go that way. It's a trap."
"Fine with me!" By now, she wanted nothing more than a fight, regardless of the situation or odds.
"She's right, Night Owl," the Huntress added. "Going off half-cocked isn't the way to go. I know... I've done it myself and I only landed in trouble."
"So what do you suggest? Just sit around and wait for the snakes to get us?"
"Not at all," the Scarlet Sabre said. "We'll simply do what they don't expect us to do. Right now there are a pair of five man assault units coming in from the east and west. Their goal is to drive us north. We'll turn the tables and take out the assault units. You take the gang to the east, we'll go west. Work for you?"
"Sounds like a plan," the Huntress said. "Let's do it."
"Very well," Night Owl responded. "A least I'll get to bash some snakes!" The ebon-clad heroine moved off and was soon out of sight. The Huntress and the Scarlet Sabre headed off in their direction. Unfortunately, they neared the shell and it was still issuing gas. The Huntress produced a small re-breather from her gadget belt. She took a deep breath and then handed it to Scarlet.
"Gee, you got just about everything in that belt."
"Just grabbed some things I'd thought I'd need," the Huntress said with a smile. "Level with me, just how much trouble are we in?"
"It's not good. There's too many of them to take on in a head-to-head fight. We'll have to pick them off in small groups. Unfortunately, they have back up and we don't. There was some type of combat suit out there. That's what they were trying to herd us towards."
"A combat suit?"
"About the closest thing I could compare it to," Scarlet explained, "is that metal work suit that Ripley used to fight the alien queen in Aliens. Except this one is armed to the teeth with weapons. The thing has a TOW missile rack on it!"
"Sounds like something to avoid," the Huntress decided.
"My thinking exactly. How mobile are you?"
"Not very," the Huntress said. She was walking slowly with a noticeable limp. I'll set them up and you take them out." The Huntress drew her crossbow, extended the bow and loaded a shaft. She took cover behind a stove crate and waited for the agents to arrive.
"Sounds like a plan." Scarlet projected her energy line towards the ceiling, locked it on a steel rafter, and rose skyward.
On the other side of the now mostly destroyed warehouse, Night Owl wasn't about to wait. Upon spotting the five VIPER agents move in, she grabbed a refrigerator and flung it at them!
"Incoming!", one of the snakes screamed as the unit tried to scattered. The missile struck two of the snakes and they both when flying. Neither man would be awake anytime soon.
"Alright!", Night Owl said to herself. "Give it up boys and I won't hurt you too much." The agents weren't so easily impressed. One of the men fired a mortar gun directly at Night Owl! The shell hit directly in front of her and exploded on impact with a tremendous boom!
"See, what'd I tell ya guys", the agent with the mortar gun said. "Even those super types can be blown to bits!" The other two agents laughed, and all three of them waited for the smoke to clear to confirm their kill. To their shock the smoke cleared and Night Owl was standing in the same exact spot. Her costume had many tiny holes in it and her face was grimy from smoke. Night Owl did not look very happy.
"Now I'm really pissed!" The agents jaws all dropped in unison as Night Owl leaped at them...
The Huntress worked quickly to prepare her attack. She removed a blunted bolt from her quiver and added a sleeping pellet from her gadget belt. Once loaded into her hand crossbow, she watched for the enemy to appear. The Scarlet Sabre was overhead somewhere, waiting for an opening.
Through the smoke from the fire, the Huntress could see figures begin to form. Sure enough, there were five of them. She scanned the scene for the heaviest armed of the VIPER agents; he would be her target. The first agent was armed with some sort of pistol. A Fang Pistol, she thought. It did resemble the weapons she encountered in the Brooklyn base. However, men with heavier hardware appeared. One of them had a small missile launcher! This branch of VIPER was indeed heavily armed!
The Huntress fired her bow and it solidly hit the chest of the bearer of the Smart Sam. The force of the bolt knocked the man back a step. Simultaneously, sleeping gas rose up into his face. He coughed a few times and then fell to the floor.
A split second after that, the Scarlet Sabre swung out of the rafters on the energy line projected from her sabre. Her target was also heavily armed as he carried a bazooka! Scarlet swung hard and directly into the man. The force of the impact sent the agent reeling across the warehouse, his weapon flying out of sight. Scarlet again disappeared into the rafters.
The VIPER agents returned fire with their Fang Pistols, but missed both heroines. The Huntress ducked back behind her stove box and began to reload her bow.
Scarlet renewed her assault on the VIPER agents, catching them unawares. They fully expected her to come down from the ceiling again, but she did not. The Scarlet Sabre ran in from behind a large pile of boxes. Her energy sabre was reconfigured into club mode. Using this, she swung hard and smashed into one of the agents' head! His protection helmet shattered into pieces and he dropped hard to the floor.
Scarlet turned to the remaining VIPER agents and said, "Okay, boys, who wants to be next?" The two remaining agents thought better of it. They turned and ran. Scarlet let them go, as she made her way back to the Huntress. "It's all over", Scarlet said as she neared the Huntress.
"What do you mean? What about the outside forces??"
"All taken care of."
Night Owl appeared on the scene from behind the Huntress. "You gals okay?"
"Couldn't be better," Scarlet said eyeing Night Owls ripped outfit.
"It's nothing... They like tried to blow me up with some kind of shell. To their regret, it only made me mad."
"Taken care of? By whom?" The Huntress wanted answers to all of this and fast!
"A couple of the Avengers showed up-- Black Diamond and Muskateer," Scarlet explained. (Editor's Note: See Muskateer #3 for details!)
"The Avengers?! Here?! Cool!" Night Owl seemed quite impressed by this revelation.
"I see," the Huntress said. She wasn't ready to face Black Diamond-- not yet anyway. "My job here is done then."
"You don't want to meet the Avengers?", Night Owl asked.
"It's not that," the Huntress tried to explain, as she gathered her spent bolt. "You went into this for fame. I went in to it to solve problems that I was uniquely qualified to solve. Like shutting down Crazy Teddy and VIPER. I don't want the fame or the recognition. You two go on ahead. I'll just slip out the back and into a nice hot tub."
"I understand," the Scarlet Sabre said. "I'll see you later and give you the explanations you deserve."
"I'll be looking forward to that. 'Night all."
"Seeya around, Huntress."
With that, Night Owl and the Scarlet Sabre made their way towards the scene of the outside battle and the arriving authorities. The Huntress slowly made her way back to her car and drove off into the night...
The drive back to Kirby Manor was uneventful. After parking the car, she removed her Huntress outfit and let it rest in the Hunter's Lair. She was too tired to make the drive back to Manhattan; she stayed the night at the Manor. After a nice hot bath and a snack, Helena Kirby crashed.
Helena slept late into the next morning. "My adventure must have taken more out of me then I suspected," she mused to herself. "Guess I wasn't in as good of shape as I had thought." Her ankle was still sore, but not as bad. The swelling had eased during the night. It would be fine in a few days.
Making her way to the kitchen, Helena started up the coffee machine and finished up the last of the leftovers from the wake a few days ago. Helena was startled by a sudden knock on the front door. Drawing her robe around her, Helena made her way to the front of the house. Looking out the peephole, she saw the civilian identity of the Scarlet Sabre: Jessica Flynn.
"Mornin'!", Jessica said with a smile as the door was opened. "You look pretty beat. Rough night?"
"How can you always be so perky?"
"I'm used to the stress and hours of the job. You're not."
A scarlet red RX-7 was sitting in the driveway. "Nice car," Helena commented.
"Thanks. As if you couldn't guess, red is my favorite color. Can I come in? I do owe you some explanations."
Helena nodded and led the way in. "I just put some coffee on."
"Anyway, I tried your apartment but found you were not home. Your father's estate seemed like the next logical choice. Nice place."
Once in the kitchen, Helena searched around to find cups while Jessica sat at the table. "I don't have much to offer you," Helena explained. "The cupboard's rather bare."
"I had breakfast already, although a cup of coffee would hit the spot."
Helena pour the cups as Jessica began her tale...
"Anyway, gymnastics was not my main goal in life. I had the natural talents for it, got me through college, so I can't complain. Anyway, I was majoring in computers technology at MIT. We were working on a project to directly interface the human mind with a computer. Instead of typing or speaking commands, all you have to do is think them. You could work at the speed of thought!"
"But something went wrong," Helena said.
"How'd you know?"
"You don't hear too many origin tales where something goes right."
"Hmm... I guess not. Anyway-- you got a TV around here? It would make things easier to explain."
Helena was puzzled by this request, but she complied and brought out a small set and placed it on the counter.
"Anyway, I did something foolish. With practice and all my other work, I was behind schedule. I was working on the project during a storm. Lightning hit the computer center while I was connected to the system."
"That must have really lit up your life."
"You could say that," Jessica said with a smile. "I was thrown across the lab and hurt pretty bad. But that wasn't all it did. For that brief instant when the computer and I were connected and we were both struck by the bolt, a two way transference took place."
"What kind of transference?" Helena was intrigued.
"It's hard to describe. It's not something tangible. I gained some of the traits of a computer. I can react at super human speed, process information very fast. Even do advanced mathematical calculations in my head."
"If that's what you gained, what did the computer get?"
"This." Jessica rose and turned the TV set on. She produced a small device and plugged it into the cable socket in back. The screen flared to life and an image formed on the screen. It was a woman and she looked identical to Jessica! "Helena, this is Jaime."
"Hi, Helena!" The image on the screen spoke to Helena. "A pleasure to finally meet you!"
Helena was speechless. Seeing this, Jessica continued to explain. "As near as I can figure, while the computer was giving me some of its traits, I gave it some of mine. It took my personality and used it to form an intelligent cyber-being."
"Artificial Intelligence?" Helena had finally found the words to speak. "I had heard theories and rumors of artificial intelligence, but this..."
"Artificial Intelligence does exist, although there's only two or three in the entire world. UNTIL has one, so does Dr. Destroyer. And then there is my Jaime."
"We're sisters," Jaime added. "We share everything."
"So you were able to do all those things because of Jaime?", Helena asked.
"Exactly. Jaime and I share, what we've been told, is a psychic bond. Our minds are connected. Jaime views the real world through me, I see the cyber world through her."
"Amazing!"
"That's right, Helena," Jaime explained. "While you two were taking it easy as prisoners of VIPER, I was doing all the work!"
"Jaime caused all the problems that VIPER ran into. She controls the Sky Sabre when I'm not there. Realizing that we were captured when she lost contact with me, she connected into the phone lines and waited. When they tried to connect with other VIPER Nests, Jaime invaded their system. Did everything she could to stop their transmissions, all the while she explored their database. I learned what I did via our psychic bond. Once I had what I needed, we escaped and cleaned house."
"I see... Then Jaime also fed you information at the warehouse."
"Exactly. She could see everything going on from the Sky Sabre. I couldn't risk letting VIPER learn about Jaime. Since we already know each other's identities, I figured I could trust you. Not like either one of us as a choice in the matter."
"Your secret is safe with me."
"Thank you!," Jamie responded from the TV.
"Once I recovered from the accident and figured out my new abilities, I decided to become a hero. I built some gadgets and came to New York. My time in the Crusaders was an eye opener. Eventually Sheryl Campbell approached me with the idea for the Freedom League. I accepted. Now I get a regular salary to be a hero and a full lab to pursue my scientific work. I couldn't ask for much more."
"At least things worked out for you."
Jessica disconnected the box from the TV and Jaime disappeared. "I won't take any more of your time. I should be at work myself, but Sheryl isn't strict about our hours."
"That's understandable, considering your occupation of work," Helena said. "Thanks for coming by. I appreciate your honesty."
"No problem. I'm sure we'll run into each other again."
"I wouldn't doubt it."
