by Paladinlgt
At a private beach in Australia, two people were surfing with considerable skill. The blond man started doing tricks on his surfboard, while the blond woman rolled her eyes as they rode the wave toward the shore. The man washed out, while the woman rode the wave onto the sand.
“You are such a child sometimes, Jack,” the woman said as she picked up her surfboard and moved toward her bag.
The man swam toward the shore, towing his surfboard behind him. “Jill, sometimes I wonder if you were adopted when you act so damn uptight. It is just lucky for you that we are identical twins.”
The woman started fishing through her bag for a shirt, when she felt her pager buzzing. She pulled the pager out and looked at it with interest. “Playtime is over, my dear brother. Someone wants us to do a job.”
The man looked disappointed for a split second before becoming excited. “It is not surfing, but our chosen career is almost as much fun. So where is the contact number from?”
“Our new client must be quite eager to hire us, since the contact number is local.” Jill flashed a brilliant white smile at her brother as she pulled on a shirt.
Jack grabbed his bag and gave his sister a challenging look. “Race you to the bungalow. Winner gets to talk to the client.” At that, Jack raced off.
“Hey! Damn it. Stop cheating.” Jill looked irritated for a brief instant before grabbing her bag and racing after her brother.
***
At a Gotham City newspaper, reporters and other staff were busy and hard at work. They stopped in their tracks when the editor shouted loudly, “What the devil do you mean that you can’t do the story on the new business opening an office in Gotham?”
The business reporter looked intimidated before replying, “You assigned me to cover that business conference in London two months ago, so I’m going to be gone for the next month.”
The editor scratched his head sharply before lowering his voice. “So I did. Who’s available to do the story, then?” the editor said aloud. The business reporter wondered if he was supposed to answer that before the editor noticed he was still here.
“Why are you still in my office? Get the devil out of my office, and go pack your bags for the London trip!” the editor shouted as he started rummaging through his desk for a pack of gum.
“Yes sir, Mr. Black.” The business reporter slipped out of the office, relieved to get away without being shouted at anymore.
Jerry Black found his pack of gum and pulled out a piece to start chewing it. He tossed the wrapper onto the floor to join the many other pieces of gum wrapper trash. He flipped through his Rolodex, looking for someone confident enough to do the story. He called the first three names, only to be learn that they were unavailable, but on the fourth call he reached Alex DeWitt.
“DeWitt, I need you to do a story for me,” said Black.
“Who is this?” Alex DeWitt replied as she mentally directed a yellow hand of energy to unpack her bags a few feet away. The yellow hand moved around the room, pulling open cabinets and putting away clothes. Alex smiled briefly as the hand finished the unpacking job before dispersing into nothing.
“This is Jerry Black, and I need a talented reporter like yourself to do a story for me,” Black said as he glared at several of the reporters outside his office.
“Oh, it’s you, Jerry. How’s your wife?” Alex wiped sweat off her face before directing a surge of willpower at the yellow ring on her finger. A yellow beam created a whirling fan that blowed cool air in her face.
“She’s aggravating as usual. Can we get the small talk over so I can get back to work?” The editor tapped his fingers on the desk with impatience.
“Tell me about the story you want.” Alex looked at the fan with pleasure as the sweat disappeared. Feeling cool enough, she relaxed her willpower, causing the fan to disappear.
“A simple story about a branch office that’s opened in Gotham. I need to tell them who will be doing the story, so they can get someone to act as escort and tour guide, but my usual business reporter is going to be out of town, so naturally I first thought of you.” Jerry Black smiled.
“I have no problem doing the story, then. What’s the name of the business?” Alex DeWitt looked at the clock on the wall and frowned. The yellow ring on her finger surged to life, transforming her clothes to the costume of Corona. As a photojournalist, Alex now divided her time between being trained by Green Lantern, continuing her heroic activities, and pursuing her career in journalism.
“Its called Bishamon Technologies. I’ll send the details of when the tour guide is suppose to escort you through the facilities by mail. No more time for pleasant conversation, since I’ve got some reporters to chew out for wasting the newspaper’s time.” Jerry Black abruptly hung up the phone.
“And a goodbye to you too, Jerry,” Alex said with sarcasm as she put the receiver down. “I’m going to be late to my training session if I don’t hurry up,” she said to herself as she flew out the window. She became a yellow blur in the sky as she streaked into the heavens.
***
A meeting between the twins, Jack and Jill Sorason, and their potential new client was taking place in a secluded bungalow. An expensively dressed man with several large rings on his fingers was gesturing wildly at the sitting twins, whose impudence had already annoyed him so much that he’d lost his cool. “Again, my employer wants you to disrupt certain facilities in a city in the United States. Is that clear?”
Jack looked at the man with contempt before returning to staring at the pounding surf of waves. “We do not operate in the States for several reasons, unless you are talking about a city in Hawaii.”
“My employer would not appreciate the disrespectful way you are reacting to this most generous offer,” the well-dressed man said with anger.
“Instead of listening to you blather on about how great you and your employer are, I could be out there surfing, so chill with your superior attitude,” Jack said, contempt dripping from his voice.
“Damn surfer punk!” The well-dressed man pulled a Colt from a shoulder holster and covered the twins with it as his face twisted with rage.
“Oh, dear; now look what you have done, Jack. You have made this man angry, and he intends to shoot you full of holes,” Jill said, looking at her fingernails, seemingly unconcerned about the gun being pointed in her direction.
“Yeah. I am going to put some holes in you and your sister, Sorason. I don’t care how much my higher-ups want you to do this job for them.” The man sneered as he wondered whom to shoot first.
“Jill, do you think if I take care of this one that his bosses will send someone else out to offer us the job?” Jack asked his sister as he played with a sand-colored bracelet on his right wrist.
“If they truly want us to work for them, I am almost certain they will. Just remember that any mess you make in the room is yours to clean up.” Jill pulled out a fingernail file and began to buff her nails.
“You must be crazy.” The well-dressed man started to squeeze the trigger on his gun, just as Jack twisted his arm bracelet all the way around. Armor appeared seemingly out of nowhere to engulf the smiling Jack Sorason. The man frantically pulled the trigger on his gun, wondering just what the hell was going on as the bullets struck the now-armored Sorason.
“You must not be as important as you claimed, Fisk, since your employer forgot to mention why we are such well-paid mercenaries.” The electronically distorted voice of Jack Sorason boomed in the room as he held out one of his arms to the bullets. The bullets stopped in midair as Wilson Fisk gaped.
“I could just redirect these nasty bullets of yours back in your direction, but my sister would probably be quite irritated by the mess it would make.” Jack gestured, causing the bullets to fall to the ground. Fisk turned to run as the armored Sorason slowly moved toward him. A stream of iron particles formed in the air as Fisk tried to get away. The iron particles then hardened into a barrier that captured Fisk in its iron grip.
Jill clapped as she looked at the trick her brother just performed. “I see you managed to perfect that one finally, my dear brother. I am almost impressed.”
“Almost? It took me a month to learn how to do that one, Jill, and you have the gall to say ‘almost impressed’?” Jack turned his armored visage to gaze at his sibling.
“I wouldn’t want you to get a swelled head, brother dear. You might not be able to fit in your armor if that happens.” Jill gave her brother a wink, then began examining her nails again.
“Mr. Fisk, I bet you didn’t know that your blood contains quite a bit of iron, allowing a chap such as myself to do some very interesting things to it,” Jack said as Fisk was pulled into the air.
A stream of liquid fell to the floor from where Wilson Fisk was hovering, and Jack and Jill looked disgusted. Jill made a gesture at Jack, indicating that it was his to clean up.
“What kind of criminal are they making nowadays to allow such a paltry threat unman them? Fisk, I expect you to clean that up, since I have lost my taste for killing you now. If you don’t do a good enough job, I’ll let my sister take care of you. She’s the really vicious one of the family.” Fisk’s iron bonds faded away as the iron particles returned to a pouch on Jack’s armor. Fisk pulled off his own jacket and started scrubbing away at the mess, looking quite terrified.
The phone on the room started to ring at about this time. Jill picked it up and listened to the person on the other side. She smiled as she recognized the voice from her father’s recordings. “Of course we would be quite happy to aid you at double our normal price. After all, the Illuminati is quite a wealthy organization, even if the quality of its help has declined in more recent years.
“My father would be pleased at the compliment, as it comes from such a well-known figure as yourself. Yes, my brother enjoyed terrorizing the man you sent, at least up to the point that your minion lost control of his bladder. He was very willing to clean up his mess after my brother gave him a stern lecture.” Jill gave a small nod to her puzzled brother, indicating she would explain later.
“We generally don’t operate in the States because of all those damned costumed hero types, but in your case we will make an exception. Send the data to our father’s estate, and we will take it from there. It’s a great pleasure to work for such a infamous man as yourself.” Jill hung up the phone as she gave her brother a big smile.
“That’s a real switch, Jill. You are the one who didn’t want to ever work in the States, and now you have agreed to do a job there. What’s going on?” Jack deactivated his armor, sending it back to the suitcase it came from before giving his sister an intent look.
“It’s a representative of the person our father spoke of who gave him the research information to design the first armor that eventually evolved into what we use.” Jill looked around the room, ignoring the still frantically scrubbing Wilson Fisk.
“I thought he was dead, or at least somewhere else,” Jack replied as he walked out of the living room into the bedroom. The sounds of drawers being opened and closed were heard before Jack came back out with three suitcases under his arms.
Jill replied, “He didn’t say where his employer was before, but did say Mr. Savage has reassumed control of the Illuminati. (*) He’s going to send the information on the job to our father’s estate.”
[(*) Editor’s note: See The Suicide Squad: Path of the Immortal.]
“I packed your bag, too, since you insist on keeping all your clothes in my bedroom instead of your own,” Jack said as he dropped one of the suitcases into the lap of his sister.
“What about him?” Jill asked as she grabbed the bag and stood up.
“He doesn’t have a bag to pack, sister,” Jack answered, giving her a sardonic gaze.
“I know that,” Jill replied as she went to the closet to pull out another suitcase. “I meant, what are you going to do with him?”
“Nothing now. What do you want to do about our boards?” Jack dismissed Fisk from his mind as he wondered what to do about their surfboards.
“I’ll get that nice hotel manager to send them to our Australian house as we leave.” Jill opened the bungalow door and stepped outside. Jack followed her, shutting the door behind him. Wilson Fisk collapsed in fear, realizing that he had just escaped some horrible fate.