Pay the Piper (MCU)

[Major Mackenzie Keller]

A glossy black SUV with tinted windows hammered down the 101 freeway into the heart of Los Angeles at the same borderline treasonous speed as eighty percent of the other traffic, snaking around the hapless other twenty percent with all the grim dispassion of pack animals leaving the sick and infirm behind. But inside the cabin the traffic, the highway, and the world at large were nothing but background noise. Once you'd experienced the madness of convoy travel through the city streets of Basra, or a midnight prisoner transfer over Taliban-contested roads in southern Kandahar, you tended to be fairly jaded about what was considered to be the most harrowing commute in the United States. And Major Mackenzie Keller had more important things to occupy her time.

She had case materials spread across the back seat: dossiers of mutant suspects, maps of Los Angeles, official police and military reports, aerial photographs of Stanley Mosk Courthouse and the surrounding areas, all of marked them with the same chevron insignia - V for Vanguard. Propped on the tray attached to the driver's seat in front of her was a tablet computer, on which she was rapidly annotating other documents with a stylus. Most of it was only tangentially related to the unpleasant task ahead of her, but it was work that needed doing anyway, and overpreparation had never been a part of her vocabulary. Kenzie was nothing if not thorough.

But nothing changed the fact that what had happened at the MRA protest rally had looked awful from just about every possible angle. Vanguard special forces mowing through the crowds of panicked protesters. Mutants shoved to the ground and collared. Firefights in the middle of what had started as a peaceful, if tense, demonstration. No matter that Vanguard had apprehended several confirmed terror suspects, no matter that they had shown restraint when targeted with deadly mutant powers, no matter that they had confirmed the presence of Saladin's number two and the head of the local Brotherhood cell at the rally, planning God-knew-what...

Well, Vanguard would learn that soon enough, now that Geryon was tucked safely in a reinforced holding cell at the Jozua Clinic. The SUV merged onto the First Street exit and began the very short journey to the LAPD Police Administration Building.

Kenzie neatly compiled all her materials back into her briefcase and pulled on her white leather gloves. By the time they had pulled into VIP parking by the police headquarters, she was completely composed. One of her attendant troopers, clad in a gray Vanguard duty uniform, opened the door for her. "Thank you, corporal," she said. "Wait here."

"Yes, ma'am."

Her black pumps clacked against the concrete as she beelined for the main entrance, a slim tower of resolve in her army blues. Two cops laughing over some private joke sobered up and stepped aside for her as she passed like a stormcloud toward the front desk.

"May I help you, ma'am?"

It was a young kid, fresh-faced and probably straight out of the academy. Kenzie didn't bother returning his smile.

"I'm Major Mackenzie Keller from Vanguard. I'm here to speak with Captain Michael Stern and the other officers of the Mutant Crimes Unit."

The kid's smile evaporated entirely. "Er... yes ma'am. We have a conference room set up for you. I'll let them know right away."

"Thank you."

Minutes later, she was standing at the head of a long folding table with her briefcase open in front of her, waiting to face the men and women whose work and lives her colleagues had recently endangered.

[Stern]

Stern received the notice of Major Mackenzie Keller's arrival in a side room where he was trying not to blind his MCU officers and reviewing the end result of the rally.

"Well, speak of the devil and she appears," he said. "Thanks, man. Have a happy day!" These last words came out in a faux-enthusiastic tone one might associate with demented clowns.

"Ok, people. We do this as much by the book as we can. You're not allowed to lose my temper until I do. If you want to lose your temper in a physically violent way, I want to be sure her retinas are burned out first, so she doesn't know who hit her first."

Stern straightened his uniform and checked the seal on his goggles. "Ok, let's go be professionals."

[Major Mackenzie Keller]

Kenzie stood with a straight spine and with her gloved hands clasped behind her back as the officers filed in. There was the old cliche about looks that could kill, but it no longer carried much weight with the major - after all, there were looks that could kill, and by all reports none of the MCU officers had that ability. Not unless Stern could shoot X-ray lasers from his eyeballs. But you had to give them all marks for effort.

Major Keller ticked the faces off her mental list as they walked in. Captain Michael Stern, Detectives Lorrance Duqesne and Christopher Wilde, Officers Veronica Hu, Christine Rosario, and James Carlton. Not the whole unit, but a fair representation, and she knew for a fact all six officers had been present at the rally. They fanned out around the table like a parliament of wolves.

"Good morning," Kenzie said. "Please, take your seats."

Whether they did or not, she didn't much care. Officers, whether of the law or of the military, were universally at home on their feet.

"I am Major Mackenzie Keller, executive officer of the Vanguard agency. As I'm sure you know, your department requested an explanation for our agents' operations in the park beside Stanley Mosk Courthouse on Friday. We have already copied a report of all declassified mission details to your superiors, but at our own request, we have arranged this meeting with you, the men and women of the Mutant Crimes Unit, so we can hopefully address your concerns and smooth things out between our two agencies."

[Veronica]

As far as Veronica was concerned, Vanguard had taken what was a hot situation, thrown gasoline on it, grabbed a blowtorch, lit the gasoline, and then pumped pure oxygen at it. Why not throw a few propane tanks on there? Maybe a touch of napalm?

Vanguard had to fill in the Grand Canyon to smooth things out. It was a sentiment that was well shared in the MCU. None of her explanations could possibly justify Vanguard's actions.

She sat, and crossed her arms. Not the most professional thing to do, but it was better than drawing her sidearm and emptying it into Ms. Keller.

[Major Mackenzie Keller]

So far, so good. Meaning that no one had physically attacked her yet.

"I don't think we need to rehash the events of Friday's rally," Kenzie continued. "So let me begin by offering our apologies. First for drawing you all into a dangerous situation. Second for the lack of communication. We had cleared our presence with the Office of Operations and the Office of the Chief of Police, and of course we knew the LAPD was providing security for the rally. However we had not been informed that your unit was directing security operations. We had been led to believe that the MCU was primarily a crimes investigation unit, and therefore we assumed you would only be providing support. Had we been better informed, we would have coordinated our operations with you beforehand. We are not accustomed to such lapses in primary intelligence."

[Stern]

"I'm not used to lapses in intelligence. Period."

Stern didn't necessarily want to start with a dig at Vanguard, but it was fitting. Besides, she walked right into it. Chief knew Vanguard was going to show up? It was not like him to neglect to tell Stern that kind of game changing information. Something wasn't adding up, but he would wait to see what else he got before he started asking the dangerous questions.

"Ok, let's forget for a moment that there was a serious lack of communication. Incidentally, that's only the the second on the Top 10 reasons I'm very angry with your organization. Let's start with Number One."

Stern gripped the back of a chair and resisted the urge to flare. "Let's talk about the part where you guys decide the only way to catch a known terrorist is to come marching down on a gathering of peaceful mutants and start collaring every single one you can get your hands on until you reach your target. How do you justify that? Do you know what you've done to an already volatile situation?"

Stern wanted to rant, rave even, about how bad Vanguard fucked up. He could have done it better, quicker, quieter, with only the five people he had in the room. But he had to stay in control of himself. Let her explain first.

[Major Mackenzie Keller]

"Yes," Major Keller replied. "Extensively. Intimately, even. This was not our preferred venue to make a capture, but we didn't choose it. The Brotherhood did."

As she spoke, she pulled the fingers of one of her white leather gloves, and she could sense one or two of the officers shifting forward for a better look, as if they expected to see a bionic hand or some horrible deformity underneath. If so, they were going to be disappointed. Her bare hand looked perfectly normal.

Kenzie reached into her briefcase, and withdrew a small device about the size and shape of a smartphone. With a few swipes of a finger across its touchscreen interface, it began to whir and glow. The major set the device on the table, and in the air above it appeared a shimmering image of a woman with platinum blonde hair and poisonously green eyes.

"This is Jocelyn Kane," she said. "Her known aliases include Spectre and Sylvia Argentum. She is one of the most notorious operatives within the Brotherhood of Mutants and is a member of Saladin's inner circle. As such, she is accorded the maximum threat rating of six, but make no mistake, she has earned it."

Kenzie passed her bare hand through the floating image, and a new one replaced it - an aerial photograph of the rally some time before Vanguard entered the fray. The major stabbed an area of the photo with an index finger, and the image re-centered and zoomed in over a head of glistening platinum hair.

"Kane's presence on any field of engagement is a game-changer. Her mutation gives her the ability to telepathically control the actions of others. Therefore everyone in the area had to be considered a potential threat, including LAPD officers. What you seem to consider indiscriminate actions against the mutant protesters was a directed countermeasure against her influence to ensure both our safety and theirs. We only engaged mutants who impeded our progress to our primary objective."

[Shield]

Lorrance Duquesne, who was sitting in his chair as if he'd been poured there, flipped up his hand almost carelessly. "Excuse me, Major. Even giving you the benefit of the doubt... which, I gotta say, is more than I feel like giving you right now... and even if we assume making an arrest is worth this enormous risk you're talking about saving everybody from... Did you do any research into our personnel at all? I can dampen psychic influence. I could have neutralized this, this Spectre if I had been told she was there. Or did you write us all off as liabilities?"

[Major Mackenzie Keller]

"Detective Duquesne," Kenzie said with a curt nod. "Yes, we were fully aware of your personnel and capabilities. Your telepathic barriers have a limited effective range, correct? Even if we had asked for your assistance, we had no assurance that Kane or her targets would remain within your sphere of influence. However, she was not the only high-ranking agent of the Brotherhood in attendance."

Kenzie swiped through the image again to another aerial photograph with a tall woman with short, spiky hair circled in one sector and a slender, almost gangrel man in a dark coat and shades in another. File images of their faces hovered over the rally landscape.

"Jane Meyer, alias Zombie, the regional commander of the Los Angeles cell. Her mutation grants her an advanced healing factor that allows her to recover from fatal injuries. Dale Troy, alias Void, an active covert operative and hitman. His mutation allows him to phase through solid matter and turn himself invisible. Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I find it disturbing that these terrorists were so comfortable moving about in broad daylight under the noses of the LAPD."

[Stern]

"So do we. But for an event this significant to the mutant population, and with such a large amount of people there, it would be more disturbing not to see them there. And I agree with Duquesne, here. Did you look into our personnel files? I can travel at the speed of light. For all the mayhem your people cause just getting to Geryon, I could have had the collar around his neck in less than a second."

Stern waved at his other officers. "I had Hu and Wilde on the lookout for others. Duquense might only be able to affect psychic powers in a mild way, but he can physically stop people from going anywhere! And during a nice, civil rally, I thought it might be prudent to remove potential threats in a more surgical fashion!"

Stern shrugged. "But what do I know? I'm just the man in charge of making sure a minority is treated fairly and justly. Not like cattle or animals to be collared and caged. I have to play by the rules and follow the law. It must be nice to be above it all." The sarcasm was beyond obvious.

[Major Mackenzie Keller]

Kenzie found herself at a loss to describe any situation outside a secure holding facility where a lack of terrorists could be considered disturbing, but that was incidental, and she wasn't here to fight a war of semantics.

"I'd hardly describe our situation as nice, Captain Stern," she replied. "I can appreciate how our actions have made your duties more difficult, and for that I apologize. But Vanguard is tasked with keeping this nation safe from individuals who intend to kill innocent Americans and destroy our way of life with weapons that cannot be detected, tracked, or confiscated. We cannot give them quarter when they choose to operate in full view of the public, and while you may consider our tactics extreme, be assured that they are neither random nor senseless.

"That being said, I'm happy to hear constructive suggestions for how we may better coordinate with you in the future. Obviously we would not presume to pull you away from your duties, but we know the Brotherhood has chosen Los Angeles as a target for their long-term operations. It would be reasonable to expect our paths will cross again in the future."

[Stern]

She appreciated how she made his job more difficult. Well, that was a nice understatement.

"Let's see. Call me directly. If you are chasing down a mutant terrorist, then that's part of our duty. We'll be glad to help. If you make a plan that involves us, I want to be around for the plans being made. I know my people, and I want to be sure they're abilities are going to make the maximum effect. Also, keep your hands off of mutants that aren't your target. They get out of your way just as easy if you ask them."

Stern looked about at his people. "Any one else have suggestions for the Major?"