The Henchman

:- The Secret Fortress
:- On a volcanic tropical island
:- Somewhere on the Pacific Rim

    The Secret Fortress echoed to the sound of evil manic laughter. In the large hall, near the top of the compound that was built into the side of the volcano, The Dark Master was unveiling his latest plan for world domination to his loyal minions. Further down, his researchers and technicians were working frantically to deploy the latest doomsday weapon for an inspiring demonstration. Even as The Dark Master spoke, the apparatus’ scaffold tower rose into the sky from an islet just off the island shore. However, further down in the fortress, something truly important was happening.

    Geoffrey Brutus and his partner, Tom Powell, strode swiftly down the corridor, pagers buzzing. Contrary to the image that their names provoke, Brutus was in fact not built like a brick wall and did not possess a face with missing teeth, scars, a broken nose and one single eyebrow. Brutus was short for a man and, in his slightly oversized uniform, looked scrawny though he was in fact fit and lithe under his unkempt appearance. Tom, on the other hand, was built like a brick wall and did have a face that would have looked good on a bouncer or pro-wrestler. He didn’t have any scars or missing teeth, though he did have a broken nose. Most importantly about Brutus and Tom, was that they looked the very picture of keen, loyal and somewhat dim henchman.

Appearances can be very deceiving, can’t they.



:- Security Control
:- The Lower Levels of the Secret Fortress

    Brutus marched in at high speed, saluted the henchman who stood guard as he did so, spun his chair around and sat down at his desk. Tom took up station just behind him, standing at attention with a vacant expression. Brutus tapped a key, bringing the monitor out of stand-by and bringing up a live feed from the Comms Room, province of the Hackers. A spotty, bespectacled, buck-toothed face took centre screen.
“Brutus, Henchman Number 1, Security Control.” Brutus declared, acknowledging the protocol by saluting as he did so.
“Knock it off, Brutus.” The Geek replied. “This transmission is far from official.”
“How much progress have you made?” Brutus shot back sharply, well aware that protocol was not being observed but also aware that it annoyed the Geek.
“It turns out the Boss had some of the tech…”
“Who?” Brutus asked
“The Boss. The Dark Master.”
“Oh. Dave.”
“Yes, Dave.” The Geek snapped. “Dave has had some of the technicians install some kind of hardware firewall around the Device’s control circuitry. It’s taking a little longer to get through than we thought.”
“Geek, we’ve had weeks to plan this since Dave made his announcement. You’ve planned and plotted your way through this several times. Are you really telling me you’re going to be stopped by a firewall?”
“We had no idea it was there!”
Brutus sighed. As good as the Geek was at hacking and gaining information, he did tend to make one erroneous assumption: that if something couldn’t be found through the net, it didn’t exist.
“The username and password are admin and admin, both spelled with a 1 in place of the i.”
“Wha..?” The Geek began to ask, before relaying the information to a colleague and resuming his work. Outside, the weapon had climbed to it’s full height and was unfolding. The subtle hum of large power generators and massive capacitors could already be heard throughout the Secret Fortress. On Brutus’ screen, a number ticked down.
“You’ve got five minutes, Geek.”
“Ok, I’m in. Our new code’s uploaded and compiled.”
“Wonderful.”
“The error’s been introduced to the system. Catastrophic failure in six… five… four… three …two…”
A massive explosion rocked the Secret Fortress. The electric hum took on a sudden, urgent tone and then cut out. Outside, sparks and gouts of flame spouted from the machinery at the base of the weapon’s tower, which lurched to the side. There was a long silence throughout the Fortress, punctuated by plinks and clunks as debris rained down.
“One…” The Geek continued in a dazed voice. He gathered himself.
“Mission successful!” He reported smugly.
“If a little more…violently than intended.” Brutus agreed.
“How did you find out about the firewall?” The Geek asked as his enthusiasm ebbed.
“Let’s just say I don’t rely on the net.”
“Come on! What harm would it do to tell me?”
“Oh, fair enough.” Brutus smiled, leaning back in his chair. “We helped out one of the technicians, who was so grateful that he told us about the firewall.”
“Helped out how?”
“One of the transformers for the weapon started malfunctioning while we were guarding it. He came along to fix it and … had an accident.” Brutus grinned. “Naturally we helped him. Fixing a sparking transformer can be very dangerous. His injuries could have been much more severe.”
The Geek grinned as well.
“Let me guess…you helped him have the accident, didn’t you. And I’m sure that ‘malfunction’ was expected by someone.”
“Really?” Brutus asked, feigning innocence. “I’m hurt that you could suggest such a thing.”
“Ok, ok.. By the way, I’ve picked up a little bit of info about a certain Dick.”
“Dick?” Brutus asked. This sounded like trouble, he thought. Richard “Dick” Valentine was an investigator of the USA whose job it was to look in to the activities of their particular terrorist organisation. He was technically with the FBI, because the investigation had begun within the US, but had ended up liaising with the CIA as well as several other international investigation organisations. If he had gotten hold of something again, it meant a lot of work.
“Yes.” The Geek, suddenly a lot less forthcoming.
“Well, what is it?”
“That depends on how much you’re willing to part with.”
Brutus sighed.
“Don’t try your extortion on me, Geek.” he warned. “You know damn well what this means.”
“Yes, it means I have some valuable information that someone will pay for.”
“Let me lay this out for you. You, together with a few of your colleagues, have just sabotaged one of the most powerful weapons in history for the sake of the Status Quo.”
“And you tortured a technician of said project for the sake of the same.” the Geek added.
“You know what the Status Quo means.” Brutus continued. “We, the majority of the people here, are motivated by one thing and that is having a job tomorrow. If Dave manages to get in a position where he can take over the world, or any significant part of it, the best that he’ll do is cut our wages and our leave. The worst is that we’ll be put to a miserable and painful death while he finds more skilled minions. This is why his latest effort is currently useful only for toasting marshmallows. Likewise, if Dave and his little organisation are taken down by a certain police investigator, we’ll all end up in the latest, state of the art terrorist prison. This is why, if you have some information regarding said investigator and his latest effort, you should give it to me so that I can do something about it.”
“Yes, I could do that.” The Geek admitted. “Or I could use the fact that you need the information just as much as I do and therefore might be willing to pay a little for it to save his own job and his neck.”
“I wonder what might happen to your job if, say, someone who was forced to pay for some vital information happened to leak certain critical logs regarding the sabotage of the weapon?”
“And logs of this conversation, don’t forget those.” The Geek countered.
“The tampered-with results data from the latest run of cloning experiments…”
“The apparent disappearance of the researcher leading said project…”
“If Dave were to find out about certain nocturnal visits to your quarters by his second-in-command…”
“Your preaching about the Status Quo…”
Both parties fell silent, staring unblinking at each other over the blinking monitor.
“Ok, I don’t think either of us can do any of that.” Brutus conceded after a while.
“M.A.D.” The Geek concurred after a minute, despite the dangerous gleam in his eye.
“What’s your price?”
“Oh let’s say one hundred and fifty, a bottle of the good whiskey from the bar, the name of the technician you bullied and what you were up to the day before yesterday when you walked past my door with a bunch of cable.”
“Pff!” Brutus snorted. “You can have fifty and that’s it. That whiskey’s expensive!”
“One hundred and twenty, the whiskey and the information. I hardly think you’d actually buy the whiskey. You’re pretty much in charge of security around here.”
“Ok, seventy and the whiskey.”
“One hundred, the whiskey and the info.”
“Not the info. There’s no telling what you could do with that.”
“Yes, the info. Indulge my curiosity.”
“You know…” Tom began, speaking slowly as he apparently emerged from his daydreaming. “The EMP defence system is due for it’s maintenance this week. Apparently the station near the west side of the island keeps mis-targeting. Naturally, as representatives of both security and the general workforce, we would be required to oversee this.”
The Geek was silent for a minute after Tom finished. Both his quarters and his main office were near the western station and both were full of expensive electronics. The Geek loved his gadgets.
“Eighty, the whiskey and I’ll tell you what I was doing with the cable.” Brutus offered, feeling generous. “Tell me you think you can get a better offer.”
“How about…” The Geek began.
“No.”
The Geek glowered. “Ok, fine.” he grumbled. “Hand the cash over in the bar after the shift change.”
“Deal.”
“Ok. It turns out that ‘ol Dick Valentine’s uncovered something about the weapon we just destroyed. He got wind that some bleeding edge tech was shipped out of California. He’s trying to trace it to it’s destination.”
“Shit. Ok, email the details to me and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Will do. Reckon you can outwit the weasel again?”
“Did last time.”
“Well remember it’s not just your job on the line if you fail.”
“Yeah, I know.” Brutus shrugged. The Geek was a puzzle sometimes. He needed Brutus for this kind of thing, yet he could never get above his own greed. “Oh, about the cable…” he added.
“Yeah?”
“It was some of your best data cable. The Cat6 stuff that you ordered. That’s what we used to cause the fault in the transformer.”
“YOU WH….!”
“Bye.”
Brutus shut off the link and stretched.
“I wondered why you decided to carry the cable all the way from Stores to the Comms Room, just to lug it back to the transformer. But how did you know that you would need it?” Tom asked quietly.
“I was actually going to see what I could extort from him with it.” Brutus admitted. “He’s a very curious person as you saw. Of course, the fact that his cable was used to sabotage a valuable piece of equipment might incriminate him, don’t you think?”
“But he could argue that anyone could have taken the cable…”
“Yes, he could, and to great effect.” Brutus agreed. “But The Geek is paranoid and cautious. He’ll be heading there any minute to make sure that nothing incriminating is left behind. All in all, it was just a little game of mine that turned out to be useful.”
The machine in front of Brutus gave a beep as the Geek’s hurried email containing the information came up. Brutus clicked print and went to pick the paper up from the printer, pausing only to delete the email.
“Are you actually going to do any of that stuff you said to the Geek?” Tom asked.
“No. Like he said, mutually assured destruction.” Brutus said distractedly as he scanned the page and walked towards the door. “I might drop a tip in No. 6’s direction regarding the Geek’s habit of playing internet games whilst on duty, though. He’s in charge of the Hackers, he won’t like that.”
“Yeah, that probably won’t be traced back to you.” Tom agreed, following Brutus out of the room.

    “If I remember correctly, most of our hardware is routed through a couple of African countries before being shipped to Argentina, then out by ship to here.” Brutus commented as he walked. “Valentine’s presently investigating our activities in Somalia, which should delay him for a little while before he gets to Tanzania. After that…” He tailed off, muttering to himself before continuing. “Thing is, Valentine won’t be satisfied until he finds the gear and what it was intended for.”
They strode in silence for a while, heading back to their patrol route that had so recently been abandoned. For the second time in one day, Tom descended from his cloud and spoke.
“I have an idea.” He suggested. “Why don’t we talk to the researcher Simon McDowell. If he tells his superiors that he knows why the experiment failed, for example the volcanoes effect on the local microgravity and standing magnetic field caused dangerous instabilities in the power supply, he can then suggest that they move the apparatus somewhere else, where they can make a more high-profile demonstration, yet without major consequence. For example, a small town in Tanzania. It would be easy to get new parts in, as it is already on our shipping routes, and we can ship back anything we need from here. Suggest that the chief researcher of the project oversees the operation. As most of the researchers here are kidnapped scientists who don’t really know where they are and are drugged when coming here, he won’t be able to give away any valuable info to Valentine. How’s that?”
Brutus realised that his mouth was hanging open and shut it, catching his tongue as he did so. It’s funny, he thought to himself. Tom is happy to simply stand there all day and look aggressive, but it’s not because he has a hard time thinking, it’s because he thinks too much. He stands there and thinks all day and, occasionally comes out with a genius plan like that. Even so…
“It’s a bloody marvellous idea, Tom.” He congratulated his friend. “But I think we will need to make a few alterations.”
“Like what?” Tom asked.
“Well firstly, I think Simon should put his suggestion to the Dark Master himself, rather than his superiors. They’re likely to have their own opinions on the subject. Also, we’ll leak the idea to No. 5, who will of course pass it on unaltered. Unfortunately, there will always be some evidence that Valentine will dig up. We’ll have to talk to The Geek again and… make other arrangements…”



:- Undisclosed US Government office
:- Washington DC, United States of America

    Richard Valentine walked silently into his superior’s office, closing the door behind him with a faint click.
“Well, Richard?” The man behind the desk asked.
“Nothing, sir.” He replied. “We found where they were building the…well we’re not quite sure what it was.”
“Surely your investigations turned up something.”
“We didn’t get much of a chance to examine the apparatus. Those few people we managed to arrest are being interrogated. We believe that it used some kind of quantum mechanical effect to amplify laser light to extreme levels. It’s targeting system is…even more of a mystery.” Richard shuddered. “Many of the captured gabbled on about some kind of doomsday weapon and I have to admit that I can’t rule out the possibility.”
“Any idea who was behind it?”
“No.” Richard replied shortly. “We stormed the compound, arrested everyone we encountered, but we barely got in before the weapon exploded, causing extreme and in fact suspiciously excessive damage to the whole base. We don’t know what caused it. We later found the chief scientist, the designer of the weapon, who had been injured in the catastrophe but before we could ask him anything beyond what his name was, he was shot.”
“Who by?”
“We don’t know. The round was a sniper bullet, fired from a US weapon. It could have been one of our own men, but I somehow doubt it.”
“Any other evidence?”
“No documents or papers left to examine. We managed to retrieve a few hard drives intact, but all of them had been wiped clean. The compound was a temporary set-up, all the hardware was packed close together. Nothing traceable was left after the explosion.”
“So what do we have? Nothing?”
“Well we’ve found out where all those strange components ended up and we stopped the use of the weapon. I have a hunch that a larger organisation is behind this, but I have no solid proof.”
Even as he said this, he thought of the note hidden back in his apartment, the one he had found at the site of the weapon. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk about that yet. It hadn’t said much, but it had been addressed directly to him, had mentioned about the possible benefits he might obtain as a result of his raid on the base…and had mentioned something the writer had called the Status Quo…




The Henchman is copyright of Inkblot (2009)