Most Dangerous Game: Office Space

[x-cannonball.livejournal.com]

Sam, Garrison, and Scott assist the FBI in the raid on Mojo Enterprises' Miami office. Everything is going according to plan until one of the office workers goes out the window.



The plan had been gone over several times in excrutiating detail. The FBI officers had made it very clear that the X-Men were along to assist, since they couldn't be sure whether or not Mojo was employing mutant "muscle" to guard his offices. Sam sat in the backseat of one of the non-descript vans that the agents were using to transport the bust team to the high-rise in downtown Miami that Mojo's offices were located in, looking over at Scott and Garrison. "Ah can't believe people pay ta watch the kind of trash this guy produces," he observed quietly. "Ah mean, this 'Kraven the Hunter' character kills practically defenseless mutant kids all in the name of entertainment. It ain't right."

"You're amazed? More people between the ages of eighteen to forty voted in American Idol than the last US election. I'm amazed he hasn't gotten a version out for cable yet." Garrison said, wiring in his earpiece. It was odd going in with a group of local agents but under Scott's command, as opposed to the local scene commander. He settled it tightly, and leaned back. "Remember back in the eightes, those 'Faces of Death' videos that went around? It's the same damn thing."

"Same mentality we're always seeing," Scott said a bit distractedly, "just a different manifestation." He was running over the short conversation he'd managed to have with Fred Duncan prior to the raid; getting Fred's view on the dynamics here and some of the people they'd be working with had been useful.

"It's still an unfortunate commentary on human nature, if ya ask me," Sam replied. "Ah mean, we'd like ta think we've evolved past the days of gladiatorial combat to the death in the Coliseum. Or at least -Ah- would. But then ya get stuff like this. Ah mean, ya can argue that football and other professional sports are the evolution of the old arena, but then ya got stuff like this lurkin' under the surface."

"Not all that far under the surface, either. The death penalty is the same idea. People like the idea of blood. It's hardwired into us, right down to the bone." Kane hadn't been on the force all that long, but institiutional memories run deep, and he'd soaked up from the Mounties nearing the end of thirty and forty year careers just how thin the veneer of civilization ran. "Some of the people watching are just curious, some won't believe it is real, and the rest, well," Kane checked the safety on his gun. "some people are just going to really enjoy it."

Scott didn't glance at the gun. He looked at his watch instead. "Cannonball, review the exits from those blueprints," he said, mentally calculating how much of the drive they had left. "Conventional and less-conventional, since we may have unknown mutants on-site. Dominion, I'd like a couple of additional options as to how to get your colleagues the hell out of the way if we happen to walk into those offices to find an energy projector or two. All of mine involve throwing Sam at them, and he tends to take exception to that." He gave Sam one of those slight smiles that dared him to say anything. This was about as close to actual pre-mission banter as he got, these days.

"That'll be the scene commander's call. The agents have standing orders to pull back in the case of mutant resistance, but they'll still have to lead inside the building. After all, the search warrent doesn't exactly include civilian 'specialists'." Kane said with a tight smile. "They've all had training with HRT and with local SWAT. If we end up with a go from the commander, the agents will pull back and secure the area as the heavy weapons come in. Which, in this case, is us, I guess."

Sam pored idly over blueprints he had already committed to memory, just to keep them fresh and in the forefront of his mind. He was comforted by the fact that the FBI agents had tactics in place for approximately this sort of thing. He quickly became lost in the drawings, and before he knew it, the vans were coming to a halt.

"Cannonball," Scott said before the doors opened, having been weighing angles himself. "However we get set up, I want you in front, so that if we get called in you're the first of us through the door. Just in case your blast shield is necessary." He met Sam's eyes for a moment, knowing that he didn't have to explain why. They'd both seen armed men incinerated by plasma-wielders and pyrokinetics on Youra. And if Sam was in the lead, he could leapfrog the FBI agents if necessary, let his shield protect them as well. It was as good as they were going to get without a telekinetic along.

"Gotcha, Cyclops," Sam replied quickly as the trio trotted into the building on the heels of the agents.

---

"FBI! Freeze! Hands where we can see them! Nobody touch a keyboard!"

Various combinations of those sentences were yelled and repeated by the FBI agents as they quickly poured through the office doors of Mojo Enterprises' office. It being a weekend, the office was sparsely staffed, but there were some employees seated at workstations. Records kept on those computers would be valuable evidence, but it needed to be taken intact if possible.

No overt signs of hostility. Scott hung back, half-consciously keeping enough distance between him and the few employees to make it easy to take down any one of them individually with an optic blast. "Stay alert," he muttered over his com to Sam and Garrison.

Kane moved through the office space, gun out and pointed at the ground. He stopped along one of the cubicles to secure the man in it, and pass him along to other agents behind. The FBI quickly started pulling the suspects back away from the rest of the office. "Cyclops, I think this area is clear." Kane holstered the gun.

"Cannonball?" Scott asked over the com, keeping his voice low.

In one of the offices off the main floor area, a blonde woman was standing alarmingly close to an open window, while an agent gently encouraged her to step away from it. Her eyes darted from the window to the agent, then back to the window.

"We might have a problem, Cyclops," Sam murmured, quietly moving in closer to the office.

Scott looked around for Sam, didn't spot him immediately. His heartrate immediately jumped. "Report," he said, his voice still low but the edge unmistakable.

"You don't know what he'll do," the woman said with a quaver in her voice. "He'll find me. He'll find my family." She backed towards the window, then suddenly turned and dropped out of it.

"Damn!" Sam burst out. The woman could be a valuable witness. On top of which, Sam's gallant instincts to save a woman in need surged forward. Without taking a second to react or wait for anyone, Sam charged through the door, bowling the agent out of the way. Planting one foot on the desk, he launched himself through the window, knifing his way through the air in an attempt to catch the woman before she fell to her death on the pavement below.

After what seemed like ages, but was likely only a second or two, Sam reached out to grab the woman's wrist. "Gotcha!" he exclaimed as he pulled her into his arms and prepared to ignite his blast field to fly them both to safety.

But before he did, the woman turned in his arms and smirked. "Got -you-," she replied, and with a flash of light, they were gone.

Garrison beat Scott to the window, but only just. The FBI channel had just exploded in a frenzy of chatter as Sam went out the window and the subsequent flash of light reflected off the side of the building. Kane scanned the air, looking for either the woman or the other X-Man, and saw neither.

"Fuck!" He grabbed at his earpiece. "Perimeter, what the hell just happened?"

"Your man just disappeared, Agent Kane. Grabbed the jumper and, I don't know, blinked out of sight." The agent didn't sound much more than a little surprised. "Is that what he's supposed to do?"

"No, you-no! Look--" Kane pulled out his earpiece in frustration. "Cyclops, Cannonball just disappeared halfway down. She must have been a teleporter or something."

Scott slowed down as he came into the office, hearing that. He came over and took a look out the window, as pointless a gesture as that was. "No residual energy that I can see," he muttered, and then looked sideways at Kane. "I need to call the Professor," he said, outwardly impassive as he turned away, one hand already going to his com. Charles was familiar with Sam's psi-signature, he should be able to find him if he was anywhere in the vicinity.

If the woman had been a long-range teleporter, though... "Coms, this is Cyclops," he said. "Patch in the Professor, now."