Home and Native Land: Broken Delphi

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Backdated. North, Logan, and Garrison catch up with Lyman with some questions about Weapon X.



Kane had never been to the capital of Symkaria before, and in looking around the city, he felt less than overwhelmed by it. In fact, if asked to describe it, Garrison's first impressions would have been if Disney was asked to design a 'quaint, authentic' Eastern European city. Unlike much of Europe, it had a taste of 'new', despite the designs being faithful to the styles of centuries past. The article on the inflight magazine had mentioned that much of the capital had been reduced to rubble during the Second World War, which was why it lacked the same gravitas of age that many other capitals projected.

One thing it did have was order. Inexplicably well armed police patrolled the streets, arms resting on the sling mounted H&K submachine guns. Also unnerving were the number of citizens carrying bulky black and silver cases that obviously contained firearms, hoisting them as absently as a banker with his briefcase full of notes and ledgers. Symkaria's famed neutrality (which had been conveniently ignored by Stalin) was twinned with rigorous privacy laws regarding banking and technology, as well as a liberal approach to international relations regarding security and mercenary firms. As a result, the capital was dominated with the headquarters of major players in the private security industry; Aegis Defense, Blackwater, Wild Pack. No wonder that former American Special Forces Major Daniel Lyman had found himself a new career here. Shame that they might have to interrupt his routine, Kane thought grimly. North had located the man's home, and some basic surveillance showed he was inside, preparing to leave for work. Logan and North were arrayed strategically on the street, but Garrison was responsible for quietly co-opting him, being the only unknown face in the group.

The older man stepped out of the building, making sure the door was locked behind him, and started down the street. Kane fell in behind him, confident that both North and Logan would be shadowing them. As Lyman turned the corner, Garrison shifted as if to pass him, acting as part of a multi-person tail, constantly shifting different people in and out of the sight of the target. Lyman had been well trained, and took his personal security seriously. However, one could not anticipate mutant powers, as Kane caught his upper arm at the last moment and squeezed with just a fraction of his enhanced strength.

"Good morning, Mister Lyman. My name's Garrison Kane, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. My friends and I would like to ask you a few questions. Say, at that pleasant looking restaurant across the street." The firm pressure on his arm indicated that this was not an optional request.

"You little pissant," Lyman hissed, reaching for the inside of his coat, only to have his other arm twisted behind him in a standard pain compliance hold, aided by Kane's incredible strength. Strength, however, was only as good as leverage. Lyman went momentarily limp, then shifted his weight and slipped the hold, turning to draw a small pistol out of his jacket.

The Canadian's hand was a blur of motion before the trigger could be pulled, however, and Lyman found himself holding the bottom half of a pistol - the slide and barrel having been yanked completely off and resting in Garrison's hand. Almost sadly, Lyman sighed and tossed the broken firearm in a nearby trash can. "Well then, Mister Kane, I'd say you're quite a ways out of your jurisdiction. I know for a fact I don't have anything resembling a record in Canada, and Symkaria doesn't have any extradition treaties. Part of why I like it here."

Another sigh and Lyman turned his head towards the indicated restaurant, only to notice Logan standing in plain view on the sidewalk. Garrison could feel Lyman's tension as the older man braced as if to run. "Well, isn't this a fine little fuck-me-like-a-goat. You're too clean-cut to be in wetwork, so you're obviously one of Xavier's along with Logan. So which is this? A hit or a shakedown?"

Logan just grinned toothily at Lyman. He almost hoped he would try to rabbit, so he could take great delight in hunting the man down and bouncing him off the pavement a few times before they settled in to have their little chat. He made a come-here gesture and settled down in one of the restaurant's outside tables, ordering himself a stein of beer as long as his forearm.

Lyman really wasn't happy to see him. Which means he'd really, really not be happy to see Maverick.

"There's a bit of information we need, and I'm of the opinion that you still kinda owe some of us, eh?" Kane pressed him into the seat and released his grip. Even if Lyman tried to run, Kane could react before he'd be able to do more than twitch. There was an advantage to making it look civil, and making sure Lyman knew it was in his best interest if it stayed that way. "Might as well complete the reunion. North?"

David slid into the chair across from Logan, putting their former XO directly in between them. "Daniel," he said smoothly. "I'm not very happy with you."

"You know protocol..." Lyman tried to explain before North's palm hit the table angrily.

"I got you out of a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison in goddamn Peru, and you repay me by activating the fucking SHIVA program?" North's voice was quiet but intense, revealing a visible anger that the former Weapon X agent rarely showed openly. "Protocol be damned, you set me up and I'll have some answers out of you. I asked you before about active Weapon X assets, and you pointed me to the Watergate and set Mastodon and Wraith on my ass. I'm pissed about that, Dan, but I'm going to be a nice guy and let that slide for the moment. Logan here, well... which of us do you think is Good Cop in this little game, huh?"

Lyman tensed up, looking from Maverick to Logan and back again. "Fuck you," he finally said. "You're both fucking turncoats. You," he pointed at Logan accusingly, "killed your goddamn commanding officer back at Alkali Lake. Only thing you're entitled to is a firing squad as far as I'm concerned. And you," he hissed, turning to North, "were supposed to stay in your fucking cover. The fact that you're even walking around knowing your own name is a violation of god knows how many classified security orders. So if you're going to kill me, get the fuck on with it. I've got nothing to say to the lot of you."

"Mister Lyman, less than a week ago, an unknown force killed five members of Canada's Beta Flight program in a clearly professional ambush. North and Logan have reason to believe that the Weapon X program is somehow involved in the attack." Kane's voice was surprisingly level. "We are aware that you seem to be the person who the remains of that program fell to. So, we can get to the point where Logan points out all the ways that he can hurt you, over weeks and even months of relentless torture, until the only thing left is a crippled hulk dependent on machines to breathe for the reminder of your life. Or I can point out that I can easily stuff you in the trunk of a car, drive over the border, and formerly request Interpol's assistance in arresting and returning you to the United States to face charges. But really, if it comes down to it, we're most likely to ship you back to New York and let a telepath pick out the information we need, and any other tidbits, by skinning your mind open like a ripe orange."

Kane leaned back. "But the whole process back and forth with the threats and the stubborn refusals is really tiresome. So let's drop the bravado and the bullshit, eh? We will get the information we need from you, one way or another. So make it easy on all of us, answer the fucking questions, and we can leave you to your life here."

Lyman sighed, folding his hands on the table. "The first thing you need to know," he said, "is that Colonel Stryker was the most paranoid man I have ever had the honor to serve with. Even I wasn't privy to the entirety of his plans for the continuation of Weapon X. If the Beta Flight trainees have been attacked..."

His attention shifted slightly, past Kane's shoulder to the street. "Fuck. Who the hell else did you bring with you? WHO?"

Lyman barely ducked as the first bullet ricocheted off the surface of the table, followed by another volley from across the street.

That volley ripped across the table and the only thing that saved Lyman and Maverick from extensive reconstructive surgery needs was Logan throwing himself across the table into the gunfire, letting the bullets rip into him and ricochet off his indestructible bones rather than ripping through the flesh of people Logan didn't quite want dead yet. His blood sprayed from his wounds and he went down hard, his healing factor already hard at work at closing the wounds.

North was already moving, one hand pushing Lyman to the ground, the other drawing his pistol from its holster. From the moment of the first gunshot, adrenalin had flooded his system and kicked his combat precognition into action. Eyes gone solid white, he slid over the table, rolling across Logan's back in a move that looked almost rehearsed, as if they'd practiced it dozens of times - which they had, in another life.

Leaning to his left to avoid another barrage of gunfire, Maverick leveled his pistol and fired blindly at a seemingly-empty window, only to put a round right in the forehead of a would-be sniper who popped his head up at exactly the right moment.

Don't shoot where they are, shoot where they will be.

To a precognitive, a gunfight was like listening to an old familiar symphony, predicting where the staccato beats of the drum section would come in, knowing where to be when the crescendo hit its climax. To anyone else, it would have appeared like North was the luckiest man alive, every bullet missing him by mere centimeters as if he knew it was coming - which of course, he did.

One last shot and he whirled to press his back against a postal box, eyes gone blue once more as he ejected the spent magazine from his pistol. "At your two-o'clock, Mister Kane," he intoned as he reloaded.

The hapless gunman emerging from behind a parked car went flying back twice as fast as the table slung at him impacted in the centre of his chest. Super strength had a tendency to turn everything into a projectile. Garrison looked around, trying to let his chip take in everything. At least six guns, spread out, more on the way. Not good.

He burst out of the patio with his enhanced speed, clearing the closest parked car with an easy leap, and converging on a van that had shut executed a handbrake slide, obviously to disgorge more men. Kane hit it like a semi, crumpling in the side before flipping it over easily onto the side, and tearing off the rear axle.

"Logan! Three behind the red car! They've got artillery!" He called back, catching sight of the grenade launcher. Who the hell armed these guys?

"On it." Logan said, rushing said red car in a zig-zag pattern. He was mostly healed up from the gunshots, with only the superficial messy damage left showing. His claws came out of his hands as he prepared to head over the trunk of the car to ambush whoever was behind it. "Maverick!" he bellowed. "Get Lyman clear!"

Nodding in acknowledgement, North rolled forward from his cover, rising to his feet and grabbing his former XO by the collar. Yanking Lyman forward, the two lurched across the cafe patio and tumbled behind a low stone wall. The occasional puff of dust and splinters of rock from above their heads indicated that they weren't out of the ambush yet.

Suddenly, Lyman grunted, doubling up and pressing both hands to his leg.

"Hit?" North called out, raising his weapon and returning fire blindly. Lyman shook his head.

"Ricochet. Grazed me. Who the fuck are these people?"

"People want you dead. Couldn't imagine why," Maverick responded wryly, stopping once more to reload. Instead of returning fire, however, he jammed the hot barrel of his pistol against the calf of Lyman's leg, eliciting a howl of pain from the other former agent of Weapon X. "Beta Flight! Five people dead! We want some answers, Daniel!"

"Fuck!" Lyman shouted, flinching from the contact but held in place by North's forearm across his throat, pinning him against the stone. "Get me out of this alive, North. And you've got my word I'll tell you what I know."

Maverick narrowed his eyes and glanced over the edge of their cover. "Yeah, alive. I fucking hate Symkaria. Kane!" he yelled across the patio. "Give me a report!"

"Scattered showers of fucking bullets at the moment!" Garrison replied, as he tore the side door off the van and tossed it through another inbound car. The mutants certainly had the advantage, but they were outnumbered and facing professionals. "I'm hearing sirens in the distance." He smashed the van down again, hard enough to disorient the poor people still inside. "Maybe a minute before we've got cops on the scene."

"Symkarian police, hah!" North laughed as he whipped his arm to the side, firing two shots into the thigh of another assailant. "Just more mercenaries with a fetish for starched uniforms and stupid hats. Logan! Pull back and rally up, dammit!"

Logan cleared the car and disabled the two assailants by the simple means of cutting through their gun-barrels with his claws, then following up with adamantium-backed punches to send them down for the count. "Clear!" he shouted, then rallied back to where Garrison and Maverick were waiting for him. "We'll figure who's gunning for Lyman once we're clear." he said, sheathing his claws. "Got a way out?" he asked.

Maverick cracked his neck, eyes going pale, then completely white as a series of images flashed through his brain, possible futures, possible courses of action. Dead. Dead. On fire, then dead. Lyman dead, that was acceptable, but... aha.

He blinked and raised his pistol to the level of his eyes, turning slowly as he counted in his head. "Through the cafe, rear exit. Take the next streetcar." The inevitable heavy artillery would be moving into position... now. "Let the city fire brigade be the distraction we need." He couldn't see or hear the sound of a safety lever being cocked back, but he knew it would be happening... now.

Two... one...

"Now!" North stood, instinctively aiming at the first-floor window of an apartment across the street. He fired one shot, the nine-millimeter bullet leaving his gun a split second before their would-be assassin could clench his finger on the firing button of the AT-4 anti-tank rocket aimed in their direction.

The assassin's head snapped back, and his finger hit the red button, firing the rocket directly upwards into the ceiling of the apartment. Flame and chunks of wood and concrete erupted as North and Logan each grabbed one of Lyman's arms and ran through the cafe in the chaos. Garrison added a needed distraction by bouncing the van off the pavement and into the car that some of them men were using for cover. His own speed allowed him to clear the door before the others, and he simply went through the rear door, exploding it outwards into pieces as they moved through.

The streetcar was just starting to move, but it was a simple enough process to sling Lyman aboard and hop on themselves, as the civil services of Symkaria found themselves in a micro-war with the assassins behind, not aware that their target was rapidly escaping.

"No more Nice Guy." Kane turned away from the window. "Tell North and Logan everything they want to know, or I will tear off one limb at a time. I am having an extremely bad week, and the idea of torture is appealing in an entirely new way to me right now."

Lyman laughed, struggling briefly against North and Logan's grip, then shook his head. "Beta Flight. Inspector Kane. Garrison Kane, of fucking course. Think for a moment. Who benefits from the Alpha Flight program being eighty-sixed? And using Weapon X to do it, that's fucking brilliant."

"Oh, the hell with this," North grumbled, grabbing one of Lyman's thumbs and twisting. The snap was muffled by North's body as he bent his former CO's wrist back beyond its normal range of motion. "Dan, I've wanted to kill you since nineteen ninety-three. You're giving me a really good excuse here."

"There are... assets," Lyman grunted, trying to pull away and failing. "You think the SHIVA program was our only backup plan? Someone's activating other surviving program assets."

"Just so we're clear, if you're lyin' to me I'm gonna make you die real slow." he said with a certain degree of relish that was not-entirely-feigned. He glanced at his partners, then back to Lyman. "So start talking. From the top."

Lyman glared over at Logan, but continued. "You think you were the only team of operatives the Weapon X program produced? Wake up, Logan! This was military bureaucracy in action. Redundancy programs required a second field-capable team. But they were supposed to be shut down when we put you all under. If they're active again, I have no fucking clue who's behind it."

He narrowed his eyes at the feral X-Man. "You want answers, look somewhere else. I have nothing for you."