"O'Hara?"
Delilah turned her head as she snapped out of her trance. She had been spacing out during the entire trip to her extraction point.
"Yeah, Arber?"
"We're almost there."
"Oh... Okay."
"You alright, O'Hara? Haven't said a thing since you got on."
"It's only been 10 minutes."
"We've been driving for half an our now."
"Really? I lost track."
"It's alright. You can have all the time to think about it while you’re training at base."
"Right..."
Arber continued to drive until he was at the drop-off in a remote area.
There, a smaller helicopter with a maximum capacity of 4, including the pilot, was waiting.
"We'll still update you on how the mission's progress is going while you're out."
"Where are you guys gonna go to find him?"
"At this point, we'll search every town for the hummer or them. Hopefully our rogue will want to play hero again and it goes on the news."
"Okay."
"Alright. We're movin' out!"
"Bye..."
Arber backed up and drove off as Delilah got on the chopper.

"When will those trackers be ready?! I'm sick of not knowing if there even is someone to look for!" Kane said, still having a firm grip on a struggling Savage.
"If you took the time to read the file on that, you'd know we still need to search for them. That "Tracker" is only gonna scan an area. And even then it's just concentration, not individuals."
"I know, but it would still be useful."
"Be patient."
"Yeah I know, ‘Wait for the perfect time.’ Easy for a sniper to say. But we had him! If it wasn't for this one taking your gun, you would've gotten the shot out on the rogue."
"It was unfortunate, but we'll get him. Someday soon. Probably..."
"And this time, Savage won't be a liability."
"If you weren't metal, I'd kill you right now!" He said angrily to Kane.
"But I am, and you can't." She replied with a smirk.
Arber found it a bit funny that a such a young trainee was back-sassing around a dangerous European hitman.

General Brooks, on the other hand, was busy in her office, balancing calls to the multiple projects that would help aid in this undercover war.
Iron Scorpion was coming along nicely, they did base the design off of the Batmobile in the movie "The Dark Knight", as it could adapt to both urban and rough terrain. They also found the motorcycle deployment system useful in both a practical and a surprise attack standpoint, as the motorcycles are the wheels of the original car, they can be attached to a new shell to remake the APV. Then, an opponent would not be expecting a downed APV to continue to fight, thus letting their guard down and allowing the two motorcycles to ambush.
They were made with capturing Neo-Humans in mind, so it's main weaponry was concussive cannons and a controlled electric shock administered by large tasers hidden in the outer layers of the wheels.
The Neo-Human trackers, on the other hand, were not progressing smoothly, if at all. Recycling parts from the Large Hadron Collider was theoretically needed, but difficult, as in a city-sized machine, it's difficult to find what part would make the tracker function as hypothesized. So until they were made, there was no way to know until they see it.
Balancing the multiple progress reports and orders was a difficult task, so much that Brooks was slightly buzzed from the rum she consumed to get through the tasks.
After the end of her last call, she breathed a sigh of relief and stood up from her seat.
"I signed up for this..." She reminded herself.
After the discovery of Neo-Humans was made months prior, General Cassandra Brooks personally signed up for the role of overseeing the Nightcaps. One would think that the president of all people would know about this, but in truth, they have yet to be made aware, as the election was nearing it's close, and the government didn’t want to inform someone who may be out of office in a few more months. Not to mention the debate that if one of the new candidates is elected, that they may not be trustworthy enough to know this secret. 
Thus, the headache of keeping Neo-Humans in control fell to Brooks, while research on Neo-Humans fell to the scientists that worked on Texas' LHC.
So far, attempts to transfer powers into normal individuals had been fruitless, but in some cases, special cells and other technology can be made to render a Neo-Human's abilities useless. But with new powers being discovered nearly every day, it was difficult for scientists to keep up.
After her quick break, Brooks was about to do more paperwork when her personal line with Kane rang.
"Yes?" 
"General Brooks. We were successful in getting O'Hara back." Kane said.
"I assume that that isn't everything you have to tell me…”
"The rogue wasn't with her. He just dropped her off and continued on his way, O'Hara said she was unconscious the entire time."
"Keep trying. We'll have new tech to point out specific locations soon." 
"Yes, ma'am! But another thing you should know General… O'Hara lost her comms. They were taken by the rogue."
"Noted. He so much as rings, I'll tell you where the area of the call was made."
"Alright. Well, that's all, General. O'Hara will be back at base soon."
"Thank you, Kane. And before you go, how is Savage?”
"Handcuffed for going against orders."
"Continue to assert dominance. Make sure an outburst like that does not happen again." 
"Yes, General. Over and out."

Mika was at her home in Arizona with her sister Zoe after Tracy and Jimmy saved the two from their unfortunate, and potentially fatal, situations.
Mika only told her sister as much as she needed to know, not mentioning Cyber-Punk's true identity or his partner, but she did tell Zoe that she knew the hero.
They were both enjoying their day off at their house when they heard the doorbell ring.
"I'll get it." Mika said as she got off the couch and went past her sister reading a book.
"Sure, thanks. Oh Caitlin, when will you learn?" Zoe said, commenting on her book.
Mika took a peek from the peephole and saw a man that had brown hair and wearing glasses, slacks, a white button-up shirt, and a red tie. He had a notepad in his hand and looked a tad anxious.
"Uh... sis? This might be your thing."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know. Some guy with a notepad."
"Hold on."
Zoe came to the door and looked into the peephole.
"Let's... Ask him what he wants."
Zoe opened the door slightly and spoke to the man.
"Hello? Can I help you?"
"Hello, are you one of the employees of the jewelry store that was robbed a few days ago?" The man spoke with an English accent. Obviously from the United Kingdom.
"Yes..."
"Allow me to introduce myself then. I'm Shaun Snow. I'm a journalist."
"Oh. Okay... Anything I can do for you?"
"I just want to ask a few questions. May I come in?" 
"Sure, come in."
"Thank you."
Zoe let the man in and let him sit on the armchair in front of the couch. Mika then pulled her sister to the for a moment.
"Okay, so... A journalist." Zoe said quietly.
"Obviously gonna ask you about... Him." Mika said extra quietly.
"I know. Don't worry, he won't get to me."
"I'll still be there with you, and my lips will be sealed too."
Zoe took out some water and a glass from the refrigerator and walked back to Shaun. Mika sat down on the couch 
"Water?"
"No, this will just be quick."
"Okay. So, what would you like to ask?”
"On the day of the robbery, the gunmen held you hostage. What happened that night that made the tables turn?"
"Our security guard, John, jumped into action, grabbing one of the three in the room with us and tasing him. One of my coworkers grabbed the other one while he was distracted by his friend getting tased."
"Go on..."
"John got hit in his forehead and a struggle went on but in the end he got the guy's shotgun and hit him with it to knock him out while the other guy, held by my coworker, had surrendered. Not wanting to take a chance, John knocked him out too and cuffed all of them before going to the safe."
"It was an electronically locked safe, yes?"
"Yeah. So they couldn't get in, but they were still trying."
"I assume Mister Tenpenny took them down too, correct?" 
"Yes, he did. And as soon as the driver arrived, he tased him too."
"Alright, that'll be all. Thank you for your time."
"Alright, glad I could help."
Shaun and Zoe shook hands and he showed himself out.
"That went well." Mika said.
"Surprisingly..."
Shaun made his way back to his car and while in his seat reviewed his notes
"They all have a different story..."
Prior to Zoe, he had questioned the other employees and the security guard as well.
Thanks to approaching them individually, the stories each one told were slightly different. Inconsistent stories were what he was looking for.
"What are they hiding?"
Shaun was convinced that something was going on with all the strange reports and sightings going on in the country, so he took it upon himself to uncover the underlying truth. 
"Okay... Next up, the giant raven reports..."
Just then, Shaun received a call.
"Bloody Hell! Not this again..." He said, irritated.
"Hello?"
"Snow, we need you to cover a story while you're in Arizona." A man on the other end said.
"Not now. I'm in the middle of something."
"Look, if you want to keep using that van and keep your job as our traveling journalist, you need to do some work."
"Fine, Steve. No need to remind me. Where to?" 
"Go to Phoenix, cover the new pieces in the Phoenix Art Museum. I heard some of them were imported from Venice."
"Will do..."
Shaun hung up and started the engine.
"At least it's on the way."
As Shaun drove, he tried to connect his findings, however he couldn't find anything that could connect. 
He only had two theories that could make sense; Government doomsday weapon testing or aliens. Either one meant that the government was hiding something from the public, and he didn't much care for that.
For as long as he could remember, he had believed that there was more to the world around him then what was shown, and as he grew into adulthood, his curiosity about the world grew as well. Taking the path of journalism was an obvious choice, but alas, he was not given what he wanted to do as a journalist. However it seemed to be a blessing in disguise when traveling and just so happened to be at locations where out-of-the-ordinary events happen.
Unlike some conspiracy theorists, he was polite and composed as he knows that evidence is required for anything to be proven real, and gathering evidence is difficult to say the least when no one trusts you or thinks you've gone insane.
As he played a CD of AC/DC while driving, he wondered… What were the motives of the employees to all lie?
"Money? Blackmail? Threats?" He thought. "Covering up their test run, or weapon gone rogue?"
He kept on thinking while on his way to Phoenix.

After hours of flight, Delilah landed back at the Oregon facility. But her thoughts were still unclear and unfocused as she walked back to the main building.
As she made her way though the corridors to her quarters, she saw General Brooks pass by.
"General." She said as she saluted 
"I'm glad to see you return to us O'Hara. How are feeling after your kidnapping?"
"I'm alright, I just need to rest for a few days after that."
"Sad to hear, I was hoping to give you a mission."
"What is it, General?"
"I see you're still interested. Quanesia Evans, one of the escapees from Alcatraz, has a relative in Portland. Her father."
"So, you want me to watch him and maybe pose as her to keep an eye on him?"
"Yes."
Delilah thought about it. This would be a more quiet mission, watching was really all she did as an occupation prior, it seemed good.
"What did Evans do, if I may ask."
"Learned our secrets from deduction. As a polymath, her intelligence knows no bounds. She could've potentially hacked our databanks had we not acted."
"Did she manage to hack into the systems?"
"Prior to her capture, no. Although, during her breakout on Alcatraz, the rogue may have helped her wipe the system there."
"Alright, I'll take the mission. I'll see where it goes.”
"Splendid. You'll start at 0600 tomorrow."
"Will do, General Brooks."
Brooks continued to walk, leaving Delilah.
"Okay, Delilah... Let's... Keep a straight, one-track mind on this. Just watch the guy and call in if things get messy. Simple..." She thought to herself. "But first... I need a drink. There any wine here?"

A tad later that same night, Jeffrey was making a break for Jim after receiving his message. He wanted to be with his brother and now that he was nearing New Mexico, he felt so close yet so far.
He got off the bus with his luggage case and began walking to the next stop some distance away.
As he was walking, a teen in ratty jeans and a brown hoodie approached him.
"Hey man, got some some money? I need it." The teenager said.
"Sorry, I'm on my way somewhere."
"Come on man. I need cash!"
"I need it too."
Jeffery continued walking, leaving the teen, but his shoulder bumped into two men that looked like they were on… Something. With rotted teeth and ghetto clothing, the Caucasian man was hiding his one hand in his oversized pants while his African American partner had nothing.
Jeffery took a glance behind him as they passed And saw the teen from earlier turn back and start running away from the men and a chase started.
Jeffrey made a split decision to chase after them too, so he lifted his rolling suitcase and started running after them. 
Three minutes of running later, Jeffrey was at the end of an alleyway that the teen and his pursuers ran into.
As he looked in while breathing heavily from the chase, the two men had the teen cornered at the dead end of the alley.
"I don't have the money right now! Just wait and I'll pay you!" The teen said with his back to the wall.
"No money? NO MONEY?! Bullshit!"
"Yeah, cracker! If you ain't gon' pay now then we just gon' have to fuck you up!"
One of them pulled out a Glock 9 and pointed it at the teen's head sideways.
"Don't shoot if you know what's good for you." Jeffery said as he aimed his Smith & Wesson 327 M&P revolver at the man with the gun in the weaver position.
"Shit, man!"
"Let him go and nobody gets hurt!"
"This ain't about you man! Walk the fuck away!"
"Fuck that.”
The man pointed his gun and Jeffrey with his friend watching.
"You ain't got shit on us man!"
With the Glock 9 pointed at him in a sideways position, Jeffrey saw something in the man's gun.
"Man, you gangbangers are stupid as shit."
"Wha'chu talkin' 'bout?!"
"That gun's fake, wouldn't hurt a fly!"
It was true, the gun had screws where a real Glock would never have in order to secure the metal plating.
"Shut up!" 
"Nice try buying one with metal plating, but it's not gonna work! This gun I have? Real! So back off!"
"Bull-"
Before he could finish, a fed-up Jeffrey shot him in the leg, the bullet went in trough his kneecap and out through the back of his knee.
The man fell to the ground and screamed in pain.
"GRAAAHHH! YOU SHOT ME IN THE FUCKIN' LEG!" The man said, writhing on the floor with pain, trying to cover up the bleeding hole in his left knee.
"Oh SHIT!" His friend said as he ran away.
"Come on! Let's go!" Jeffrey said to the teen
With a nod the teen ran away with Jeffrey, far away from the alley.
After a few moments they reached a convenience store, both panting from running so much.
"Thanks man... I thought for sure... they'd get me."
"No problem... But why were they after you?"
"I..." The teen was reluctant to say it. "Bought something from them... And I didn't have the money to pay them off."
"You bought drugs off of them, didn't you?"
"What the- How did you know?" He said in a defeated tone.
"The look you have, the look of those guys, the fact you're begging for cash."
"Shit, man..."
"Look, I'm gonna be blunt with you and say you're going to get into some really bad spots if you keep going down this road."
"You don't understand! I need it!"
"No, you don't!" Jeffery raised his voice in annoyance.
"You wouldn't say that if you saw what I saw!"
"Oh, yeah? Try me."
"I... Don't wanna talk about it."
"Spill it. I'm not the best conversationalist, but I'm going to say what I think you should do."
"You wouldn't believe me. Nobody does..."
"I've seen more shit than you know, so talk to me, man."
"I... I know it sounds insane but... I saw a girl break her leg. Like full 90 degrees, the shin was all purple and shit, then she just... Straightened it out and... Walked like normal."
"Okay... Go on..." Jeffrey knew he was dealing with someone who had witnessed a Neo-Human display their powers.
"So, I'm thinking that... It can’t be real, so I follow her, and when she's watchin' TV while painting her toes, and for some reason, she cuts off her pinky toe and then... It grew back! I'm not joking, man!"
"Okay. Look, I know what you saw was probably rough on you, but that's no excuse to take whatever they're selling!"
"Why not?! She keeps denying it! No one believes me! It's all a mess!"
"If you don't want to die, or for the people closest to you to get killed, you'll stop. You wanna know how I know so much about it? I speak from experience!"
"You've... Done this before?"
"No, but my mom and girlfriend did... For a long time and... It was Hell."
"What happened?"
"My mom made friends with some tweakers, shortly after we had moved to LA after my dad had passed away a few months prior. They gave her what she wanted, and every month, even knowing that we lived from paycheck to paycheck, they leeched off of her until she was dry. My girlfriend, who had previously had a problem, and had started recovering shortly before we met and started dating, got hooked back in, but for her, it was just pot."
"I heard this story before. School always says it's bad for you and it'll destroy-"
"Shut up! I'm not done. Those tweaker gangbangers leeched off my mom CONSTANTLY everyday, even when she was starting to quit and my girlfriend had been recovering, they kept trying to tempt them back in and took all their money even when they were dead broke. It got so bad that I convinced them to leave and just start anew. It took a few months but my mom finally listened to me and my girlfriend. But... Then something happened."
"What?"
"They got killed. Some men barged into our apartment and shot them. I was out on a walk then, by the time I came back, I was only met to the sight of the two people I love dead on the floor in a pool of their own blood."
"Shit..."
"After they got sent to the morgue... I went ahead with what we had in mind... we were going to pay fixers to ‘alter’ what documents we needed to move away, but... I was alone instead."
"Shit dude..."
"But then... When I wrote my name down, one of the fixers asked me if I was related to someone and... they gave my mom's name. I was shocked and then I slammed my fist on his laptop, breaking a bunch of the keys, and asked him what he knew. At first he wouldn't talk, but when I pulled my gun out, he told me that other fixers he knew, the ones that work like hitmen, took the contract. I asked him with the gun to his forehead who hired them and surprise, it was the two tweakers that had already ruined their lives... Because my mom had traded some jewelry with them for some pot, so that she could save her actual money. And I guess the jewelry turned out to be fake or something, so… Yeah… You’re probably smart enough to realize where that goes…”
"What did you do?"
"What did I do? Something that felt right at the time... But now I regret... I put a suppressor on my gun and snuck into their house. Picked the lock on the back door, snuck past some of their pals that were hanging around there with them. When I found them, they were high off their minds and didn't even notice me come in. I was so angry that they killed the only people I had in life, they took away EVERYTHING from me so... I shot them.... Both, in the head. They stopped moving and with all the loud Gangsta Rap playing no one even knew. So... I went on with my life and moved away before the police could even think of coming to me. Luckily the fixer finished my documents quick after having his client pull a gun on him. But something... Didn't feel right..."
"Why?"
"Revenge was... It made me feel better at first, but... After a while, I realized that..." Jeffrey sat down as he remembered how he felt that day. “Nothing that I do will ever bring them back. I felt dead inside as I stayed in my new apartment in Vegas, a good way away from all the shit that happened back then. I was alone, not very good at conversations, and just generally not really social at all after my dad had passed away. Anyway, over and over again, I thought about what I did to the point where... I thought a LOT about ending my life. But... One day I... met someone." Jeffery began tearing up. 
"Who?"
"A new person moving in caught me coming back from the convenience store and asked for some help with his stuff. I wanted to go but... Something about him made me want to help him out. So I did. And that small choice I made that day was the best one I had made in my life in a long time. After a few weeks of talking with him, I opened up and... He was a great guy. I was prepared for the worst, but he gave me his best. He said that he judged me on who I am now, not what I did then. That day... I had a new family. And that's where I'm going. He left to do some stuff but now I'm heading to him. He got me out of my guilt and misery and for that... I owe him my life."
"Wow..."
"So, do you see my side of things now?"
"I... think I do... Thank you. It must've been hard bringing all that up."
"It was. But you still have a chance, don't throw your life away, you never know who will be affected." 
"Thank you..."
"Here... I'll take you to the police station. It's not that far from the bus stop anyway so I can still make it."
"Where is your friend now?"
"El Paso. Why?"
"Well... Let me return the favor. My dad doesn't know about me doing Crack... yet. I'll tell him though, and start going to rehab or something. But anyway, he's a taxi driver. After explaining what you did for me, I'm sure he'll give you a free ride. But only as far as he can go. He can't take you all the way to El Paso."
"It's plenty. Thank you..."
"Wally"
"I'm Jeff."
The two shook hands and started walking to the police station.

Brooks paced around in her office with a phone in hand and the same calm demeanor.
"Colonel? How's progress?"
"The high profile target, uh… Sorry if I butcher the pronunciation... Iosif Vadim... Anyway, that guy has been recaptured along with 60 more Neo-Humans throughout the country, General."
"Good news. Any setbacks?"
"None reported, General. Some facilities have been attacked, but the attackers were either subdued and captured or retreated."
"Thank you Colonel, that will be all."
Brooks sat down and leaned against her chair, then started to remember who she was doing this for. Her calm and usually stern, emotionless face suddenly becoming a face of sadness, with a bit of regret.
"I'm sorry, Lucy..." She thought sadly. "I hope Washington is keeping you safe…”