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snowynightTitle: Countdown
Characters: Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Angela del Toro, White Tiger
Universe: Marvel 616
Rating: General Audience
Beta:muccamukk
Summary: A client hired Luke and Danny to investigate a seemingly straight-forward case, and led them into a conspiracy.
Warnings: none
Word Count: 4196
Disclaimer:Characters and situations are the property of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics. No profit is being made off this fan-written work.
Author's notes: This fic is roughly set in the Power Man & Iron Fist canon, with telescopic timeline used so the story is sent in now, rather than 70's. Angela’s age went a bit AU here so she was already a FBI agent.
Snapping the ledger closed, Luke grumbled from behind the office desk. , "We’re in the red, again."
Danny came from the corner to him, sneaking a look at the ledger and shrugged. "It will get better."
"You always say that." Danny’s carefree attitude always annoyed Luke. Money did not grow on trees, at least not for everyone. He was about to continue, “Danny...” but the door bell rang.
Luke straightened his shirt. "Come in."
A woman about twenty something came in. She had her straight long black hair tied up and had a firm expression. Her clothes, sadly, didn’t shout “money” to Luke. "You’re Cage and Rand, right?” She continued without any prompts. “ I need your help. My uncle was beaten last week. He refused to call the police, refused to say anything. I want you to find out why."
Finally a case comes, "Our service isn’t cheap. Can you afford our rate?" Luke asked, just when Danny said, "Of course we can." Luke glared at Danny, but Danny was used to ignoring him.
"What's your rate?" the woman asked.
Luke quoted a figure. The woman did not blink an eye. "When will I know the result?"
Signs of a good client. “Weekly report. We’ll call you if there’s a big discovery."
"Fair enough." The woman said.
"What 's your uncle’s name?"
"Hector Ayala," she said. She pulled out her cheque book. Luke handed her a pen to sign.
“How should we contact you, Miss Del Toro?”
“Through this number.” She wrote it down on a scrape of paper on the desk..
After she had left, Danny grinned, "See? We have business now.".
"It sounds like easy money." Luke couldn’t help but smiling. He couldn’t be annoyed with Danny for long anyway. He stood, picked up his coat and turned to Danny. "Now let's put on your jacket and we can visit the dear uncle."
They entered Metropolitan General Hospital and went to to Mr. Ayala’s ward. The ward was crowded with people but a man struck out by being a mass of bruises. He was hooked to IV line and monitors were beeping not far away. He raised his head, clearly noticed Danny and his face flushed red.
Danny looked constipated and was about to burst with words, but the man mouthed the word “no” to him several times. Danny’s mouth opened and closed, then he kept it closed. Luke watched the whole exchange and was annoyed at being kept in dark. Danny clearly knows the man, but why doesn’t he say anything?
Luke ignored Danny and told the man, " Nice to meet you, Mr. Ayala. We ‘re here because of your niece. She is concerned about you."
"Angela? How is she involved?" Mr. Ayala looked worried,
"Apparently your silence about last week 's incident worries her a lot. Can you tell us what happened to send you here?"
Mr. Ayala looked at Danny and held his eyes. When he saw Danny nodding, he looked around the ward, and waved them closer. He whispered, "Can you keep a secret?"
"Of course we can." Danny said and Luke nodded.
"Last Wednesday, some men in green went after me near Hank’s Bar. Never saw it coming. I’ve never seen them before."
"Do you recognize anything special?" Luke had a rough idea who they were, but he still wanted to confirm.
"When one of them pounded on me, I saw a serpent on his clothes."
Luke frowned. It had to be Hydra he was talking about. Things didn’t seem so good now, as it involved supervillains and looked like it just turned into the kind of pro bono cases that Danny loved so much. He turned to Danny and saw that he looked worried too. It made sense, as Danny and Ayala were probably friends.
“Did you remember anything else?” Danny asked.
“Sorry, no.” Mr. Ayala met Danny’s eyes. “Please keep it a secret from my niece. I don’t want her to worry. Say...” He suddenly seemed to come up with an idea. “Say I had a drunk stupid bar fight and was too embarrassed to say anything. Yes, it will be better.”
The nurse came and made noise at them. "Thanks for your information." Luke and Danny said goodbye to him.
When they were far enough away from the hospital, Luke groaned, "I know it can't be so easy. What’s the deal with you and him?”
“So you noticed.”
Luke rolled his eyes. Who was Danny kidding? "Come on, Danny, I have eyes.”
“He... he..” Danny stuttered. “He is a friend, but I can’t tell you more because he looked like he wanted to keep it quiet..” He looked at Luke pleadingly. “Let it pass. Alright?”
“For now. I’ll need the facts later.” Luke said. He was a bit hurt by Danny’s attempt to keep something from him . “So what should we do now?”
“We should follow up on the lead.”
Luke tried not to roll his eyes again. “So you want us to go up against Hydra.”
"Come on, this is what our client is paying us to do. " Danny bounced on his heels. “Besides,where is your sense of righteousness?”
"It was put side by side with your sanity in the closet." Luke said, already half giving up. He didn’t know why he has been pulled into so much trouble recently. Must be Danny’s bad influence. "Our client definitely didn’t pay us to take on Hydra; now what can we tell her? "
"Our clients does want us to find out what happened to her uncle. We’re only collecting more information for a fuller picture. She would want to know why, too.”
Luke glared at him. Danny shrunk a bit and continued, “Besides, I am going after Hydra on my own. You cant stop me."
"I hope it will satisfy her. It is the only profitable case in this month. We need to pay our rent." Luke said. They had returned to their office and he was about to open the door.
Danny followed him and said, "I can..."
"Stop. Equal partners, remember?" Luke stopped, turned and glared at him. He wouldn’t let Danny pay every time. It was not what partnership meant.
"I know, I know.." Danny put up his hands as if to surrender. Luke made a mental note to keep a keener eye on the back account, lest Danny sneak in money, again. "Hydra seems unusually active these days."
“Yeah. But why would they attack Mr. Ayala?”
Danny looked torn.
“Then we will need to follow other leads. “ Luke had half an idea what Danny was hiding. Danny wasn’t a good liar.
“Thanks for putting up with me,” Danny looked relieved.
Luke shrugged and said seriously, "If you want to poke the wasp hive, I 'd better go with you to keep you from trouble."
"Thanks, you’re the best," Danny leaned toward him.
Luke feigned a sigh, but there was a little smile at the corner of his mouth.
Back at the office, Luke picked up the phone and dialed their favourite information broker, Don. He answered almost instantly.
"Hydra? I can check, but it will cost you. " Luke could imagine the greedy glint in Don 's eyes.
"It depends. What information can you get?"
Don said, "It is Hydra you are talking about. I am risking my neck for you."
"Alright." Luke said. Don might be greedy, but he was a reliable broker. If anyone could get something out of it, it was Don. However, he was worried about justifying the expense to their client. He thought of checking up on Hector Ayala’s secret, but he resisted. He didn’t want to break his promise.
He hung up the phone. Danny wanted to say something but he suddenly tensed and went to the door. Luke stood behind the desk and settled into a fighting position. They both waited. The door creaked and spit open. A bunch Hydra Agents burst in.
"You must be kidding me" Luke rushed from behind the desk and pounced on the first Hydra Agent. He avoided a fist thrown by the other and kicked him from below. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Danny was using his iron fist on the Hydra Agents surrounding him, clearly enjoying it. So he focused on the enemies in front of him, trusting Danny to do his part.
The Hydra Agents were not very strong individually, but they were a really nuisance in group. One of them threw a chair at him, and he stepped aside and catching it in mid-air. He led the fight away from his desk and squirmed when Danny casually broke a pen bin over another Agent’s head. The sound of broken thing spread through the room
Finally Luke cornered the last agent and thumped him on the skull. The agent went down without even a whimper. Luke tied them up and sat at the desk. "Talk. Who sent you here?"
"Hail, HYDRA! Immortal HYDRA! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off a limb, and two more shall take its place! ......" One of them yelled. Annoyed, Luke pulled him up by his collar. "I don't have time for this nonsense."
"We... we were ordered to warn you away from the woman."
"What woman?"
"Angela Del Toro. The woman who found you this morning."
"How‘d you get here so fast?"
"We have her followed."
Danny called the police, ” Hello, police here? We have a bunch of of Hydra Agents. No? The police don’t handle it? Then put me to the guys who do.. Wait...”
Luke surveyed the office. Chairs were overturned, objects on the desk thrown to the floor, and there was a hole in the door. He thought about the cost of repair and knitted his eyebrows. "Now it’s personal."
Danny finished his call, took a broom to brushed away the mess on the floor. "We can't allow people to do this,"
Luke agreed. “No one gets away with trashing the office. It’s bad for business.” He gestured at the state of the room. "It seems not only was Hector Ayala involved, but Miss Del Toro seems to be a target too. What's so important about her?” He stared at Danny, “Do you know anything about her, or is that a secret too?”
“No. I‘ve never heard of her before.”
“We need to check up on her. " Luke said, "By the way, how did you know about these people?"
"I felt malicious intention."
"Your kungfu sense, I see." Luke said with a smile.
Danny feigned annoyance and put a hand on Luke 's shoulder. "Don't say things like that."
"Well, it is true." Luke said. He finished the tidying up and picked up the phone. "Let's phone our client and see what she'd say about it."
"What 's the matter? Do you have anything to report?" Miss Del Toro asked through the phone.
Luke put it on speaker phone and said urgently, "We’ve made progress, and we need to tell you something urgent. "
"What do you mean?"
“Some people followed you here, trashed out our office, and warned us off you. “
"But.. that’s impossible."
"It happened. Now what did you neglect to tell us?"
The voice from the other side of the phone hesitated. "Nothing. I … need to work now," she hung up the phone.
Luke looked at the phone. "She’s lying.”
“We should follow up on this. She's my friend’s niece, after all..”
“We need to. We can’t let people pull one over on us. I think we have to figure out our client "
"Hey, I have some dirt you may be interested." A few days later Don phoned. Luke readily arranged for a meeting. They’ve been hitting dead ends. Miss Del Toro was out of touch, and Hector could not provide more useful information. He met him at Don 's favourite restaurant.
Luke entered the restaurant and found Don already sitting in a seat facing the door, with his back to the wall. His beady eyes buried behind rolls of fat.
Don lowered his voice. "I think I have what you wanted."
"Say it then."
"A hundred and fifty first."
"That much?"
"It’s worth it."
"Such as?"
"I knew who Hydra is hunting now."
"OK." Luke reluctantly took the billsfrom his wallet and handed them over.
Don squeezed the bank notes, licked the corner of each of them and held to the light, then quickly put them away. "I heard from the street that Hydra was targeting the street supers. Three hits in a week. They even tried to corner Spider-man and Daredevil, but failed. White Tiger was not so lucky though. Word is that they have made an ultimatum. There may be something you want to know, by the way. I don’t know if it’s connected, but they’re looking for someone."
"Who?"
Don held his hand out. "Another fifty."
"Don't play any tricks on me." Luke used his height to cow Don.
"OK, OK. I'll do it as a favour to an old client." Don raised his hands in surrender. "They are looking for a woman called Angela del Toro."
Luke hid his surprise and kept fishing for more information. "Who is she?"
"I know she's a FBI agent. That 's all I know."
"You are quite useless." Luke said.
"Hey, I did my best." Don protested. But Luke has already waved the waitress over and paid the bill.
On Luke 's way to the office, the gears were turning in his mind. Their client seemed to hide a lot of things from them, which he didn’t like the smell of it. Who was she? Why do the Hydra Agents need to find her? What had they been sprung into? The old suspicion of law enforcement officials came up. She could be a crooked cop, for all he knew.
Danny was reading newspaper back at the office when he heard the news. "She must have been caught. We couldn’t find her at her contact number. I used an disguise to call her work place but they said she was absent from work since we called. I called Hector, and he has heard nothing about her. We need to save her."
"If Don’s news is recent enough, they could still be looking for her."
Danny bit his nails. "She’ll be in danger, then."
Luke shook his head. "I don't know. I think we‘ve gotten caught in something too big. Something feels wrong abut this woman."
"Hey, I know. " Danny patted his shoulder. "But we are Heroes for Hire, right, we finish our job."
"Technically we finished..." Luke paused. "We can find Hector Ayala. He may know something about it."
"Is he still in the hospital?"
"Let's check it out."
The phone rang at the moment. Luke took it. "Heroes for Hire."
It was Hector Ayala. "Cage, I need your help; it’s about my niece."
"We’re just talking about you. Where are you?"
He told an address and when Luke wanted to ask more, he hung up the phone. Luke told Danny, "Ayala just rang. He cut off quite suddenly. “
"It’s weird for him. I say we check it up. Let's go." Danny jumped out of the chair and ran to the door. Luke kept pace with him.
The address was an empty construction side. Luke was surprised to see White Tiger here, “So that was your secret.” He glanced at Danny.
Danny looked embarrassed. “You’re right.”
White Tiger interrupted them "I know I should have trusted both of you, but now my niece is in trouble. Please help her."
Luke hesitated, "Tell us about your niece."
"She is a FBI agent, a good one. Working on something computer related. Anyway, she called me yesterday and said she was in trouble. I went to her house, and it was ransacked. I tried to call her workplace and find leads on my own, but I didn’t get anything. Then I thought of you two."
Danny asked, "Do you have any idea why they’re after her?"
"She said she’s working on a big case, but didn't tell me more."
"It seems another lead to follow up." Luke said. "Take us to your niece’s place. Maybe we can find some clues there." Seeing White Tiger’s worried face, his heart softened. "Don't worry, we will find your niece."
"Thank you. I don’t have much now, but I’m good for it."
"Consider it as pro bono." Luke said. Danny winked at him but said nothing.
They went to Angela 's flat. It was in chaos. Luke said, “There must have been a very through investigation.” He put the overturned chair back. “ Look at the furniture,” he pointed to the shelf on the ground. "Let 's split up. I’ll take the living room. Danny takes kitchen, and you..."
“I will take the bathroom. It seemed more intact.”
They systematically searched what remained of the flat. Luke put away the sofa and checked the ground tiles by tiles. He looked into every cabinets and shelf. Then White Tiger suddenly said, "I remember something. I looked at the bathroom cabinet and remembered. She brought me a pill bottle saying it was one of her mum’s remedies. I put it aside, but there may be something important. Could it be a clue? I still have it with me." He twisted open the lid of the pill bottle and found a USB stick in the pill bottle."
"It may be the clue we need." Luke said.
The computer in the house was broken, so Luke called Colleen for help. She knew computers better than him. He trusted pen and paper more than fancy machines and Danny was quite helpless with them.
At Knightwing Restorations, Ltd. Misty was not here, but Colleen was already waiting. She put the stick into the computer slot and tried to open the folder. "It needs a password." she said.
"Can you guess?" Luke asked.
"Well. I have a little program that may help." Luke watched her hitting keys so rapidly that it was like she was working magic. The folder was open. There was a file called "Forwhomitmayconcern."
"It was an .mp3 file. Let 's play it." Colleen double clicked the file and pressed the play button. A voice that Luke could recognize as his client’s started . "Dear uncle, if you are listening to this file, I’m probably missing or ... something has happened to me You must be worried and have found good people to crack the code. It’s important that you know this. Here is what I’ve been able to find out."
She continued her story. For a month she had tried to trace a nasty computer virus targeted at banks and military bases. When she finally got close to it, her boss suddenly transferred her to a different case. Undeterred, she continued the investigation and traced it to an organization called Hydra. Then suspicious things started to happen. Some people were following her, and she has nearly been kidnapped. She went to the Heroes for Hire because she suspected her uncle 's beating up was part of it. Further investigation allowed her to see a conspiracy.
"I believed this organization has released a computer virus to grab control of the computer system in US and Russian military bases. Then when it had control of the two powerful countries, it can start a world war. I can't trust my colleague because I suspect that Hydra has bought some of them. I am going under to follow a lead in..." She said a location, and paused for a moment. "Whatever happens, uncle, please know that, I love you." The sound stopped here.
"That’s It." Colleen said.
Luke asked, “Can we trust this? It seemed too...” He tried to pick the right word, “big”
“It is my niece ‘s voice. I trust her.”
"It seems like Hydra’s style too." Danny said.
White Tiger said."I will go to see if my niece is there. “ He looked at them hesitantly.
"We’ll come with you. " Luke and Danny said at the same time. If it was true, the world was in danger. Beside, the client hasn’t paid yet.
"Hey, you can't leave out Misty and me out of all the fun." Colleen said.
Luke said, "Let's go."
There was benefit to have a rich friend, Luke grudgingly admitted, as they took a Rand industries plane and then hired a car to went to the place Angela specified. The place itself was a seemingly ordinary grey warehouse. Luke took out a set of binoculars and observed it through a crack in the window. "Let 's split up. Misty and Colleen take the guards, Danny and I go from the front to let White Tiger get in from the back unnoticed." He paused, “Any questions?”
Misty raised an eyebrow. “Sound good to me.” The others said.
“Then Let’s go.” Luke parked the car at an inconspicuous site nearby. He wasn’t one for pep talks anyway, but he added, “Be safe.”
“OK, mum.” Misty smiled, then she left with Colleen.”
White Tiger said when he got out of the car, “Be careful.”
“We will.” Luke said.
Luke and Danny went from the front, expecting a tough fight. However, the only Hydra Agents they found were unconscious. Luke whispered to Danny, “Is it a trap?”
“Way to know for sure.” Danny said, and rushed in. Luke had to follow him. Danny would only get himself in more trouble.
At a corner Luke saw Danny tensing, then he stroke out and held someone in restraint. The person cursed under the breath and sound familiar. Danny released his hand and Luke discovered that it was their client in clothes geared for sneaking.
Surprised, Luke asked, “What are you doing here?”
“That is my question.” Miss Del Toro replied.
Danny said, “Our plan was to save the client, save the world...”
“But clearly she does not need saving.” Luke continued.
Miss Del Toro said, “No time for gossiping. We need to stop a world war.”
“What was your plan?” Luke asked.
“Sneaking in to access the central computer to stop them.“
Danny said, “We can help.”
“Thanks.” She said, but her tone didn’t sound sincere to Luke. Luke couldn’t blame her. He would have suspected them in similar situation.
Danny grinned,“I’m glad we can find you. Your uncle worried about you a lot.”
“Uncle Hector? Was he here too?”
“Well..” Danny was struck.
Luke pitied him and said, “He hired us to find you.”
“Oh, Uncle.” she sighed, “no time for this now. Let’s go.”
Luke and Danny went in first, and heard the people shouting and gun shooting. He started to worry and followed the sound in case his friends needed help and was surprised that Hydra were fighting AIM. Well, it was good for us. “Go .” People there were too busy fighting to notice them.
“This way.” She led them to the left and entered a spacious room. Luke followed her, half expecting swarms of Hydra, but only found a large computer inside, with a terminal and dozens of blinking light.
“This is their central computer. I need to hack it to stop the process.” she said.
Luke signalled Danny to take each side of the door. He glanced at Miss Del Toro, who was busy working on the computer and undecipherable code appeared on the screen. Then the door was burst open.
A middle-sized Hydra Agent rushed in. Seeing the scene in the room , he tried to escape but Luke and Danny pounced on him. “Don’t try anything funny.”
“Success!” Their client exclaimed.
“How come... the worst premonition has come true! “ the man sobbed. “I should have trusted the Cat’s Eye!”
“What’s he talking about?” Luke asked.
“No idea.” Danny replied.
Luke said, “Think you’d know the mystical stuff.”
Just then Misty, Colleen and White Tiger joined them. “Look like you did it.” Misty said with a smile. White Tiger did not say anything, but Luke felt that the he was finally relaxed.
“We did.” Luke said.
After Angela - Luke suspected that he should call her Angela after a saving -the-world adventure instead of “Miss Del Toro” - deactivated the computer system and averted the disaster “We should have followed up the clowns outside.” He said.
They left after tying up the Hydra Agent and calling police. The fight outside was already over when they left and the AIM had retreated. Words were sprayed on the wall, “This is just a warning.!”
“Apparently some feud was going on. Wish we know what had happened.” Angela said.
“My enemy’s enemy...” Luke said.
Danny continued, “..is my friend, for once.”
“We work great as a team.” White Tiger said.
Danny joked, “We should form a team and just call it Heroes for Hire.”
Luke shrugged. Another job with no pay, again.
Characters: Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Angela del Toro, White Tiger
Universe: Marvel 616
Rating: General Audience
Beta:
muccamukkSummary: A client hired Luke and Danny to investigate a seemingly straight-forward case, and led them into a conspiracy.
Warnings: none
Word Count: 4196
Disclaimer:Characters and situations are the property of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics. No profit is being made off this fan-written work.
Author's notes: This fic is roughly set in the Power Man & Iron Fist canon, with telescopic timeline used so the story is sent in now, rather than 70's. Angela’s age went a bit AU here so she was already a FBI agent.
Snapping the ledger closed, Luke grumbled from behind the office desk. , "We’re in the red, again."
Danny came from the corner to him, sneaking a look at the ledger and shrugged. "It will get better."
"You always say that." Danny’s carefree attitude always annoyed Luke. Money did not grow on trees, at least not for everyone. He was about to continue, “Danny...” but the door bell rang.
Luke straightened his shirt. "Come in."
A woman about twenty something came in. She had her straight long black hair tied up and had a firm expression. Her clothes, sadly, didn’t shout “money” to Luke. "You’re Cage and Rand, right?” She continued without any prompts. “ I need your help. My uncle was beaten last week. He refused to call the police, refused to say anything. I want you to find out why."
Finally a case comes, "Our service isn’t cheap. Can you afford our rate?" Luke asked, just when Danny said, "Of course we can." Luke glared at Danny, but Danny was used to ignoring him.
"What's your rate?" the woman asked.
Luke quoted a figure. The woman did not blink an eye. "When will I know the result?"
Signs of a good client. “Weekly report. We’ll call you if there’s a big discovery."
"Fair enough." The woman said.
"What 's your uncle’s name?"
"Hector Ayala," she said. She pulled out her cheque book. Luke handed her a pen to sign.
“How should we contact you, Miss Del Toro?”
“Through this number.” She wrote it down on a scrape of paper on the desk..
After she had left, Danny grinned, "See? We have business now.".
"It sounds like easy money." Luke couldn’t help but smiling. He couldn’t be annoyed with Danny for long anyway. He stood, picked up his coat and turned to Danny. "Now let's put on your jacket and we can visit the dear uncle."
They entered Metropolitan General Hospital and went to to Mr. Ayala’s ward. The ward was crowded with people but a man struck out by being a mass of bruises. He was hooked to IV line and monitors were beeping not far away. He raised his head, clearly noticed Danny and his face flushed red.
Danny looked constipated and was about to burst with words, but the man mouthed the word “no” to him several times. Danny’s mouth opened and closed, then he kept it closed. Luke watched the whole exchange and was annoyed at being kept in dark. Danny clearly knows the man, but why doesn’t he say anything?
Luke ignored Danny and told the man, " Nice to meet you, Mr. Ayala. We ‘re here because of your niece. She is concerned about you."
"Angela? How is she involved?" Mr. Ayala looked worried,
"Apparently your silence about last week 's incident worries her a lot. Can you tell us what happened to send you here?"
Mr. Ayala looked at Danny and held his eyes. When he saw Danny nodding, he looked around the ward, and waved them closer. He whispered, "Can you keep a secret?"
"Of course we can." Danny said and Luke nodded.
"Last Wednesday, some men in green went after me near Hank’s Bar. Never saw it coming. I’ve never seen them before."
"Do you recognize anything special?" Luke had a rough idea who they were, but he still wanted to confirm.
"When one of them pounded on me, I saw a serpent on his clothes."
Luke frowned. It had to be Hydra he was talking about. Things didn’t seem so good now, as it involved supervillains and looked like it just turned into the kind of pro bono cases that Danny loved so much. He turned to Danny and saw that he looked worried too. It made sense, as Danny and Ayala were probably friends.
“Did you remember anything else?” Danny asked.
“Sorry, no.” Mr. Ayala met Danny’s eyes. “Please keep it a secret from my niece. I don’t want her to worry. Say...” He suddenly seemed to come up with an idea. “Say I had a drunk stupid bar fight and was too embarrassed to say anything. Yes, it will be better.”
The nurse came and made noise at them. "Thanks for your information." Luke and Danny said goodbye to him.
When they were far enough away from the hospital, Luke groaned, "I know it can't be so easy. What’s the deal with you and him?”
“So you noticed.”
Luke rolled his eyes. Who was Danny kidding? "Come on, Danny, I have eyes.”
“He... he..” Danny stuttered. “He is a friend, but I can’t tell you more because he looked like he wanted to keep it quiet..” He looked at Luke pleadingly. “Let it pass. Alright?”
“For now. I’ll need the facts later.” Luke said. He was a bit hurt by Danny’s attempt to keep something from him . “So what should we do now?”
“We should follow up on the lead.”
Luke tried not to roll his eyes again. “So you want us to go up against Hydra.”
"Come on, this is what our client is paying us to do. " Danny bounced on his heels. “Besides,where is your sense of righteousness?”
"It was put side by side with your sanity in the closet." Luke said, already half giving up. He didn’t know why he has been pulled into so much trouble recently. Must be Danny’s bad influence. "Our client definitely didn’t pay us to take on Hydra; now what can we tell her? "
"Our clients does want us to find out what happened to her uncle. We’re only collecting more information for a fuller picture. She would want to know why, too.”
Luke glared at him. Danny shrunk a bit and continued, “Besides, I am going after Hydra on my own. You cant stop me."
"I hope it will satisfy her. It is the only profitable case in this month. We need to pay our rent." Luke said. They had returned to their office and he was about to open the door.
Danny followed him and said, "I can..."
"Stop. Equal partners, remember?" Luke stopped, turned and glared at him. He wouldn’t let Danny pay every time. It was not what partnership meant.
"I know, I know.." Danny put up his hands as if to surrender. Luke made a mental note to keep a keener eye on the back account, lest Danny sneak in money, again. "Hydra seems unusually active these days."
“Yeah. But why would they attack Mr. Ayala?”
Danny looked torn.
“Then we will need to follow other leads. “ Luke had half an idea what Danny was hiding. Danny wasn’t a good liar.
“Thanks for putting up with me,” Danny looked relieved.
Luke shrugged and said seriously, "If you want to poke the wasp hive, I 'd better go with you to keep you from trouble."
"Thanks, you’re the best," Danny leaned toward him.
Luke feigned a sigh, but there was a little smile at the corner of his mouth.
Back at the office, Luke picked up the phone and dialed their favourite information broker, Don. He answered almost instantly.
"Hydra? I can check, but it will cost you. " Luke could imagine the greedy glint in Don 's eyes.
"It depends. What information can you get?"
Don said, "It is Hydra you are talking about. I am risking my neck for you."
"Alright." Luke said. Don might be greedy, but he was a reliable broker. If anyone could get something out of it, it was Don. However, he was worried about justifying the expense to their client. He thought of checking up on Hector Ayala’s secret, but he resisted. He didn’t want to break his promise.
He hung up the phone. Danny wanted to say something but he suddenly tensed and went to the door. Luke stood behind the desk and settled into a fighting position. They both waited. The door creaked and spit open. A bunch Hydra Agents burst in.
"You must be kidding me" Luke rushed from behind the desk and pounced on the first Hydra Agent. He avoided a fist thrown by the other and kicked him from below. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Danny was using his iron fist on the Hydra Agents surrounding him, clearly enjoying it. So he focused on the enemies in front of him, trusting Danny to do his part.
The Hydra Agents were not very strong individually, but they were a really nuisance in group. One of them threw a chair at him, and he stepped aside and catching it in mid-air. He led the fight away from his desk and squirmed when Danny casually broke a pen bin over another Agent’s head. The sound of broken thing spread through the room
Finally Luke cornered the last agent and thumped him on the skull. The agent went down without even a whimper. Luke tied them up and sat at the desk. "Talk. Who sent you here?"
"Hail, HYDRA! Immortal HYDRA! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off a limb, and two more shall take its place! ......" One of them yelled. Annoyed, Luke pulled him up by his collar. "I don't have time for this nonsense."
"We... we were ordered to warn you away from the woman."
"What woman?"
"Angela Del Toro. The woman who found you this morning."
"How‘d you get here so fast?"
"We have her followed."
Danny called the police, ” Hello, police here? We have a bunch of of Hydra Agents. No? The police don’t handle it? Then put me to the guys who do.. Wait...”
Luke surveyed the office. Chairs were overturned, objects on the desk thrown to the floor, and there was a hole in the door. He thought about the cost of repair and knitted his eyebrows. "Now it’s personal."
Danny finished his call, took a broom to brushed away the mess on the floor. "We can't allow people to do this,"
Luke agreed. “No one gets away with trashing the office. It’s bad for business.” He gestured at the state of the room. "It seems not only was Hector Ayala involved, but Miss Del Toro seems to be a target too. What's so important about her?” He stared at Danny, “Do you know anything about her, or is that a secret too?”
“No. I‘ve never heard of her before.”
“We need to check up on her. " Luke said, "By the way, how did you know about these people?"
"I felt malicious intention."
"Your kungfu sense, I see." Luke said with a smile.
Danny feigned annoyance and put a hand on Luke 's shoulder. "Don't say things like that."
"Well, it is true." Luke said. He finished the tidying up and picked up the phone. "Let's phone our client and see what she'd say about it."
"What 's the matter? Do you have anything to report?" Miss Del Toro asked through the phone.
Luke put it on speaker phone and said urgently, "We’ve made progress, and we need to tell you something urgent. "
"What do you mean?"
“Some people followed you here, trashed out our office, and warned us off you. “
"But.. that’s impossible."
"It happened. Now what did you neglect to tell us?"
The voice from the other side of the phone hesitated. "Nothing. I … need to work now," she hung up the phone.
Luke looked at the phone. "She’s lying.”
“We should follow up on this. She's my friend’s niece, after all..”
“We need to. We can’t let people pull one over on us. I think we have to figure out our client "
"Hey, I have some dirt you may be interested." A few days later Don phoned. Luke readily arranged for a meeting. They’ve been hitting dead ends. Miss Del Toro was out of touch, and Hector could not provide more useful information. He met him at Don 's favourite restaurant.
Luke entered the restaurant and found Don already sitting in a seat facing the door, with his back to the wall. His beady eyes buried behind rolls of fat.
Don lowered his voice. "I think I have what you wanted."
"Say it then."
"A hundred and fifty first."
"That much?"
"It’s worth it."
"Such as?"
"I knew who Hydra is hunting now."
"OK." Luke reluctantly took the billsfrom his wallet and handed them over.
Don squeezed the bank notes, licked the corner of each of them and held to the light, then quickly put them away. "I heard from the street that Hydra was targeting the street supers. Three hits in a week. They even tried to corner Spider-man and Daredevil, but failed. White Tiger was not so lucky though. Word is that they have made an ultimatum. There may be something you want to know, by the way. I don’t know if it’s connected, but they’re looking for someone."
"Who?"
Don held his hand out. "Another fifty."
"Don't play any tricks on me." Luke used his height to cow Don.
"OK, OK. I'll do it as a favour to an old client." Don raised his hands in surrender. "They are looking for a woman called Angela del Toro."
Luke hid his surprise and kept fishing for more information. "Who is she?"
"I know she's a FBI agent. That 's all I know."
"You are quite useless." Luke said.
"Hey, I did my best." Don protested. But Luke has already waved the waitress over and paid the bill.
On Luke 's way to the office, the gears were turning in his mind. Their client seemed to hide a lot of things from them, which he didn’t like the smell of it. Who was she? Why do the Hydra Agents need to find her? What had they been sprung into? The old suspicion of law enforcement officials came up. She could be a crooked cop, for all he knew.
Danny was reading newspaper back at the office when he heard the news. "She must have been caught. We couldn’t find her at her contact number. I used an disguise to call her work place but they said she was absent from work since we called. I called Hector, and he has heard nothing about her. We need to save her."
"If Don’s news is recent enough, they could still be looking for her."
Danny bit his nails. "She’ll be in danger, then."
Luke shook his head. "I don't know. I think we‘ve gotten caught in something too big. Something feels wrong abut this woman."
"Hey, I know. " Danny patted his shoulder. "But we are Heroes for Hire, right, we finish our job."
"Technically we finished..." Luke paused. "We can find Hector Ayala. He may know something about it."
"Is he still in the hospital?"
"Let's check it out."
The phone rang at the moment. Luke took it. "Heroes for Hire."
It was Hector Ayala. "Cage, I need your help; it’s about my niece."
"We’re just talking about you. Where are you?"
He told an address and when Luke wanted to ask more, he hung up the phone. Luke told Danny, "Ayala just rang. He cut off quite suddenly. “
"It’s weird for him. I say we check it up. Let's go." Danny jumped out of the chair and ran to the door. Luke kept pace with him.
The address was an empty construction side. Luke was surprised to see White Tiger here, “So that was your secret.” He glanced at Danny.
Danny looked embarrassed. “You’re right.”
White Tiger interrupted them "I know I should have trusted both of you, but now my niece is in trouble. Please help her."
Luke hesitated, "Tell us about your niece."
"She is a FBI agent, a good one. Working on something computer related. Anyway, she called me yesterday and said she was in trouble. I went to her house, and it was ransacked. I tried to call her workplace and find leads on my own, but I didn’t get anything. Then I thought of you two."
Danny asked, "Do you have any idea why they’re after her?"
"She said she’s working on a big case, but didn't tell me more."
"It seems another lead to follow up." Luke said. "Take us to your niece’s place. Maybe we can find some clues there." Seeing White Tiger’s worried face, his heart softened. "Don't worry, we will find your niece."
"Thank you. I don’t have much now, but I’m good for it."
"Consider it as pro bono." Luke said. Danny winked at him but said nothing.
They went to Angela 's flat. It was in chaos. Luke said, “There must have been a very through investigation.” He put the overturned chair back. “ Look at the furniture,” he pointed to the shelf on the ground. "Let 's split up. I’ll take the living room. Danny takes kitchen, and you..."
“I will take the bathroom. It seemed more intact.”
They systematically searched what remained of the flat. Luke put away the sofa and checked the ground tiles by tiles. He looked into every cabinets and shelf. Then White Tiger suddenly said, "I remember something. I looked at the bathroom cabinet and remembered. She brought me a pill bottle saying it was one of her mum’s remedies. I put it aside, but there may be something important. Could it be a clue? I still have it with me." He twisted open the lid of the pill bottle and found a USB stick in the pill bottle."
"It may be the clue we need." Luke said.
The computer in the house was broken, so Luke called Colleen for help. She knew computers better than him. He trusted pen and paper more than fancy machines and Danny was quite helpless with them.
At Knightwing Restorations, Ltd. Misty was not here, but Colleen was already waiting. She put the stick into the computer slot and tried to open the folder. "It needs a password." she said.
"Can you guess?" Luke asked.
"Well. I have a little program that may help." Luke watched her hitting keys so rapidly that it was like she was working magic. The folder was open. There was a file called "Forwhomitmayconcern."
"It was an .mp3 file. Let 's play it." Colleen double clicked the file and pressed the play button. A voice that Luke could recognize as his client’s started . "Dear uncle, if you are listening to this file, I’m probably missing or ... something has happened to me You must be worried and have found good people to crack the code. It’s important that you know this. Here is what I’ve been able to find out."
She continued her story. For a month she had tried to trace a nasty computer virus targeted at banks and military bases. When she finally got close to it, her boss suddenly transferred her to a different case. Undeterred, she continued the investigation and traced it to an organization called Hydra. Then suspicious things started to happen. Some people were following her, and she has nearly been kidnapped. She went to the Heroes for Hire because she suspected her uncle 's beating up was part of it. Further investigation allowed her to see a conspiracy.
"I believed this organization has released a computer virus to grab control of the computer system in US and Russian military bases. Then when it had control of the two powerful countries, it can start a world war. I can't trust my colleague because I suspect that Hydra has bought some of them. I am going under to follow a lead in..." She said a location, and paused for a moment. "Whatever happens, uncle, please know that, I love you." The sound stopped here.
"That’s It." Colleen said.
Luke asked, “Can we trust this? It seemed too...” He tried to pick the right word, “big”
“It is my niece ‘s voice. I trust her.”
"It seems like Hydra’s style too." Danny said.
White Tiger said."I will go to see if my niece is there. “ He looked at them hesitantly.
"We’ll come with you. " Luke and Danny said at the same time. If it was true, the world was in danger. Beside, the client hasn’t paid yet.
"Hey, you can't leave out Misty and me out of all the fun." Colleen said.
Luke said, "Let's go."
There was benefit to have a rich friend, Luke grudgingly admitted, as they took a Rand industries plane and then hired a car to went to the place Angela specified. The place itself was a seemingly ordinary grey warehouse. Luke took out a set of binoculars and observed it through a crack in the window. "Let 's split up. Misty and Colleen take the guards, Danny and I go from the front to let White Tiger get in from the back unnoticed." He paused, “Any questions?”
Misty raised an eyebrow. “Sound good to me.” The others said.
“Then Let’s go.” Luke parked the car at an inconspicuous site nearby. He wasn’t one for pep talks anyway, but he added, “Be safe.”
“OK, mum.” Misty smiled, then she left with Colleen.”
White Tiger said when he got out of the car, “Be careful.”
“We will.” Luke said.
Luke and Danny went from the front, expecting a tough fight. However, the only Hydra Agents they found were unconscious. Luke whispered to Danny, “Is it a trap?”
“Way to know for sure.” Danny said, and rushed in. Luke had to follow him. Danny would only get himself in more trouble.
At a corner Luke saw Danny tensing, then he stroke out and held someone in restraint. The person cursed under the breath and sound familiar. Danny released his hand and Luke discovered that it was their client in clothes geared for sneaking.
Surprised, Luke asked, “What are you doing here?”
“That is my question.” Miss Del Toro replied.
Danny said, “Our plan was to save the client, save the world...”
“But clearly she does not need saving.” Luke continued.
Miss Del Toro said, “No time for gossiping. We need to stop a world war.”
“What was your plan?” Luke asked.
“Sneaking in to access the central computer to stop them.“
Danny said, “We can help.”
“Thanks.” She said, but her tone didn’t sound sincere to Luke. Luke couldn’t blame her. He would have suspected them in similar situation.
Danny grinned,“I’m glad we can find you. Your uncle worried about you a lot.”
“Uncle Hector? Was he here too?”
“Well..” Danny was struck.
Luke pitied him and said, “He hired us to find you.”
“Oh, Uncle.” she sighed, “no time for this now. Let’s go.”
Luke and Danny went in first, and heard the people shouting and gun shooting. He started to worry and followed the sound in case his friends needed help and was surprised that Hydra were fighting AIM. Well, it was good for us. “Go .” People there were too busy fighting to notice them.
“This way.” She led them to the left and entered a spacious room. Luke followed her, half expecting swarms of Hydra, but only found a large computer inside, with a terminal and dozens of blinking light.
“This is their central computer. I need to hack it to stop the process.” she said.
Luke signalled Danny to take each side of the door. He glanced at Miss Del Toro, who was busy working on the computer and undecipherable code appeared on the screen. Then the door was burst open.
A middle-sized Hydra Agent rushed in. Seeing the scene in the room , he tried to escape but Luke and Danny pounced on him. “Don’t try anything funny.”
“Success!” Their client exclaimed.
“How come... the worst premonition has come true! “ the man sobbed. “I should have trusted the Cat’s Eye!”
“What’s he talking about?” Luke asked.
“No idea.” Danny replied.
Luke said, “Think you’d know the mystical stuff.”
Just then Misty, Colleen and White Tiger joined them. “Look like you did it.” Misty said with a smile. White Tiger did not say anything, but Luke felt that the he was finally relaxed.
“We did.” Luke said.
After Angela - Luke suspected that he should call her Angela after a saving -the-world adventure instead of “Miss Del Toro” - deactivated the computer system and averted the disaster “We should have followed up the clowns outside.” He said.
They left after tying up the Hydra Agent and calling police. The fight outside was already over when they left and the AIM had retreated. Words were sprayed on the wall, “This is just a warning.!”
“Apparently some feud was going on. Wish we know what had happened.” Angela said.
“My enemy’s enemy...” Luke said.
Danny continued, “..is my friend, for once.”
“We work great as a team.” White Tiger said.
Danny joked, “We should form a team and just call it Heroes for Hire.”
Luke shrugged. Another job with no pay, again.
