SSV3 Chapter 8 (Patreon)

After Doctor Wells finished drawing blood, I headed up to The Spine, rubbing along my arm to get the blood circulating again.

Beatrix whirled around in her chair as I entered. “I set up your special access project.” She didn’t face me as she said it, simply spitting it out and turning back to her work.

“My special access project?” I frowned, not understanding for a moment. Then I realized Melody must have already agreed to what the girls had jokingly called project Velody.

“I just set up what I was told to. No idea what they are for or what’s inside them.” She snorted. “I’m professional. Do you want your analyst team to have access?”

“Let me talk to them first. I think I know what it’s about. I just wasn’t expecting it to move this quickly.” I paused, realizing Beatrix’s anger was going to be a problem. She was a critical part of the BSH, and I needed us to be able to work together.

I hadn’t expected a little flirting to blow up in my face so heavily.

“Look, B, I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea.”

She scowled. “Only Kim gets to call me ‘B’. What you did was highly unprofessional. Those files, why did you want them deleted?” She swiveled to face me directly.

“To protect someone.” I told her honestly; I just didn’t tell her it was to protect myself.

Beatrix’s nostrils flared. “By removing files from the bureau? What were they called? The Giantesses? I could rebuild that file. I could track down their information, last known locations and the video feeds we probably had.”

I held up my hands, trying to pacify the angry woman. “I know you could.”

“What you did was a grievous mishandling of information. The kind that could get you in hot water, even your clearances taken away. I want a damn better reason than ‘protecting someone’.” Beatrix crossed her arms, and I noticed a few heads turning at the tone she was using.

It was also clear that Beatrix had put more than a little thought into this moment.

“I did it to protect someone. That’s not something I’m going to back down from. Beatrix, I need you to let this go and trust me.” I tried to deescalate the situation.

“Why is that?” Beatrix cocked an eyebrow, but she at least dropped her volume.

“Because I’m protecting those I care deeply about, and I will do whatever it takes to keep them safe. There are no lines I wouldn’t cross.” I kept my tone low because of the prying ears, but it had the effect of making it sound like a threat. Throwing caution to the wind, I leaned into the threatening tone.

She swallowed involuntarily and turned her head because she couldn’t meet my gaze. “If I ever catch you trying to delete information again, I won’t let it go. I see you for who you really are, Miles.”

“You may think you do.” I snapped. “But none of you know who I really am except my heroes.” There was a little pain in my chest at those words. I didn’t even really mean to say it.

Hiding was taking a toll on me.

If I asked Angelina, she’d say this was an unconscious reach for help. But I didn’t want help. I wanted to crush things.

Taking a breath, I straightened myself up and smiled at Beatrix. “I’ll be back after I talk to my analysts.”

Beatrix studied me as I walked away, a look of uncertainty on her face. I’d just owned up to there being more to the file deletions than an honest request, and I’d also told her how far I’d go to keep it quiet.

I felt a little guilty about putting her through this, but it had to be done if I wanted to keep my secret and keep her from prying further. I didn’t want to have to decide if I needed to do more to protect my secret.

“Boss.” Ben whirled around as I tripped the sensor he had installed.

“Morning ladies, and Ben. There’s a new top security project starting. I haven’t even been briefed fully, but it seems that systems are already being set up around it.” I paused for a reaction.

They all just waited, staring at me expectantly.

Rachel spoke first. “You do realize the scrutiny we had to go through for this job, right? The security clearance was absurd to have access to the BSH databases.”

I paused. That made sense; I just hadn’t gone through all of it with the speed that they’d needed Stella to be on the job.

“Okay.” I prevented eavesdropping by muting sound waves in a bubble around us. “General Pratt wants to use Melody’s transformation to send her undercover into the villain organizations of the city, hoping to get her transferred over to the new city out in the wilds.”

Rachel gasped and covered her mouth. “That’s horrible!”

“And you can understand the need for secrecy.” I continued.

They all nodded. Even Ben looked serious. “We won’t let you or Melody down.”

“Thanks.” I might have lost Beatrix’s trust, but at least my analysts trusted me. It wasn’t as if the role I played with them was fake. They just hadn’t gotten so close to touching my secret and seen my other side.

“I’ll give you access on the way out. How is everything with you guys? This is mostly a social call.” I sat down in their little shared area.

“Good, boss.” Ben scratched the back of his head. “Great even. This is a dream job for me.”

I checked with the ladies, and they all nodded along with smiles.

“We have pretty normal hours. The pay is wonderful. And with you as our boss, as long as we get the work done, you don’t care about much else.” Kate grinned. “So, what’s our work today?”

I shook my head. They just wanted to get to work. “Well, we’ll codename this project, Project Velody. We need strategic targets that have no loss of life. If we want to make Melody into a villain, we need to figure out what to go after. Then we need to understand how to integrate her into the villain underworld.”

The girls nodded, but Mary brought up a problem. “We know some spots where villains gather. The bureau mostly leaves them alone to continue collecting intelligence from them.”

I nodded, processing that information. Melody needed to make her first show at one that the BSH wasn’t monitoring. She was going to be forced to kill, and it would be better if that wasn’t on record. “Get a list of those ready for me. I’d like to take a look at them and pick out the right one for Melody.”

I assumed I could have Obsidian help me with a spot that wasn’t on the list. Because the first time she gathered with other villains, the last thing she needed was a hero showing up. She was going to have enough trouble when a few of the people in the bureau recognized her.

“Anything else I can do?” I asked.

“No, boss. We’ll get to work. Gotta keep the city safe.” Kate smiled like this job meant something to her as she turned back to her station.

“Thanks for trusting us with this.” Rachel smiled, her fox ears twitching.

My secret just kept feeling heavier on my shoulders as I tried to manipulate the situations and people around me.

“I’m worried about having Melody being watched at her first meeting with other villains. Worried that it will change how she acts.” I cringed internally as I worked to get them to suppress the footage.

“We can fix that. Thanks for letting us know.” Mary waved over her shoulder, telling me to leave.

I nodded, ready to get away from the lies.

Heading back out of The Spine, I caught Beatrix at the top of the stairs. “Beatrix, add my analyst team to the special access project.”

She answered in a single syllable grunt, not even bothering to look at me.

I sighed, moving on.

Heading out The Spine, I started getting several pings from Kim and General Pratt. There was an offsite meeting to talk about project Velody.

***

Beatrix watched Miles walk out of The Spine, and her attention turned back to the monitor sitting in front of her.

She hesitated for a moment, her fingers pawing at her keyboard but never quite pushing down hard enough to put in a keystroke.

“Fuck.” She pushed the heels of her hands into her brow as if she was trying to push the thought out of her mind. But it just didn’t go away.

Deleting that file still nagged at her. It wouldn’t be hard to run another facial recognition scan of all the footage in the city to find the villain group again.

She paused, realizing the villain group could still be at large. Maybe that was who he was trying to protect.

Kim had given her special orders not to pry into Miles or his past. The director had even signed off his clearance herself, and Beatrix was almost positive that Miles was put through none of the rigor or training. She didn’t understand.

But this wasn’t his past. She wasn’t looking into his past. She was just checking on the villain group, the giantesses.

Her fingers still hovered over the keyboard as she continued to fight with herself on the right answer.

But in the end, she found herself typing.

The cameras for the BSH building came up, showing Miles walking out the font doors.

It took an immense weight off her shoulders. Something about him had scared her. There was just something in his eyes that made him feel like a killer.

Kim may have tried to dissuade Beatrix, but she couldn’t help herself. It was a puzzle she had to solve. Lines of code glared off her glasses as she went to work.

She hit enter, and the command went through the server below, churning out files of the three giant supers and collecting any and all recordings from their original sources.

It only took a minute for a massive file to appear.

She went to push play, but then she paused. Watching on her screen was obvious, even if Miles was out of the building.

She grabbed her tablet, pushing the files over to it.

Her tablet chimed as it finished, and Beatrix picked up the thin piece of equipment. It felt ten times heavier than normal.

“I have to. To protect Kim and the BSH.” Beatrix wasn’t sure what she was going to find, but she had to make sure that Kim’s trust wasn’t misplaced.

Beatrix took the tablet and left The Spine for somewhere a little more private.

***

“Miles. Glad you could make it.” Kim waved me into a booth at a diner that had no customers. It didn’t feel like where you discussed secret projects. Then again, bringing Melody to the offices for a meeting with Pratt, Kim and myself before she went villain would be suspicious.

I walked over, trying to figure out what was nagging at me. Something felt off since I’d left the office. I didn’t like the itch I was feeling, like someone was watching me.

“Kim. General. Melody. Good to meet you two, though this is not where I expected.” The general was wearing a polo and jeans, but he looked completely stiff and wrong in them.

Apparently, dressing down a general didn’t make him seem any less intense.

“Hi Miles. I agreed to their work.” Melody told me as I sat down.

“He’s already briefed?” The general narrowed his eyes.

I rolled mine. “She’s my hero. Of course, I knew the general gist of what you had offered her. But I don’t know the full deal, so let’s get down to business.”

Kim and the general pulled out devices to create a small hum around the four of us at the same time and frowned.

“Turn yours off.” The general grumped.

“I’d rather you turn yours off. I trust mine more.” Kim didn’t budge.

Giving in, the general turned from Kim, dropping the topic and focusing on Melody and I. “We are going to send Melody undercover in project Darkside.”

“Project Velody.” I corrected him with a small smile on my lips.

He was completely unamused, but after a moment of checking with Melody, he nodded. “Velody will have a strict budget on how much damage she can do, and we’ll cover the cost through the city’s budget. Hendricks knows there’s something going on, but not what. She signed off on the budget of five billion in total damages.”

I choked. “five billion? Are you kidding me?”

“The families of any deceased will receive some reimbursement. And I assume we’ll have to ransack some banks. The city will back the insurance money of any individual affected, as we normally do for villains.” General Pratt said coldly.

“Deceased?” Melody’s purple face drained of color. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to kill?”

“It’s inevitable. Please try to prevent the loss of life where you can.” Kim replied a little more gently.

Melody turned to me, looking for help.

“We won’t try to kill anyone. I have already started the analyst team on creating plans for non-lethal shows of force to get you started.” I consoled her and scowled at the other two at the table.

“I can do that.” Melody nodded. “Velody can smash some buildings and parks. We’ll work our way up to some smash and grabs?”

Kim nodded along. “But at some point here, we are going to have actual hero responses. They are going to come, and they won’t be in the loop. What are you going to do when Rocksolid shows up? What about when they recognize you?”

“Get my loot and run?” She asked hesitantly.

She would have to face them eventually, and the implications that she had become a villain.

All three of us shook our heads. “Put up at least a decent fight against someone like him, and you’ll score a lot of points in the villain circles. The goal here isn’t to destroy things and make a mess of a few shops. It’s making the villain community welcome you in and want to work with you.” Pratt continued. “We are spending a lot on this. The ultimate goal is getting recruited to Project Cerberus’ City. There are still indicators she’s actively recruiting. But from what we can tell, she’s been working slower and more under the radar since the prison break.”

“Your power is fantastic. You’re a muta, which we know she targets. Now, we just need to make you sell it in person.” Kim said calmly.

I hated each and every bit of this plan.

Part of me just wanted to rip my secret off and have Void undertake this mission rather than Melody risk herself. But it was also a massive chance for her to grow. It seemed to give her a sense of purpose with her recent changes, and she was getting to experience a bit more gray.

For her, it was the best option, even if it made me worry far too much.

“We’ll have your back the whole way. The first few fights, I’m hoping that you can go up against Stella or Mona and get some reputation.” I added.

Both of my superiors nodded along with that suggestion.

Pratt slid across a folder to Melody. “New name, new everything. Very easy to explain any differences given you took the monster fruit. But you should practice. Tell me your story.”

Melody nodded as she took the folder with a graveness that only happened at funerals. But I realized that with this new identity, she was giving up her old one.

“I’m a store clerk that’s fed up with life and the system. My power was a pitifully weak version of my current power. I hated the discrimination that those with weaker powers faced and took monster fruit.” She habitually fluffed her hair, covering up the points on her ear.

She was purple, so I wasn’t sure it made her stand out any less, but if it made her feel better, so be it.

“Good. And now you are going to take revenge. We’ve had an agent that matches your false identity’s description working at a store for the last week to help give some credibility.” Pratt explained. “We’ll handle suppressing anyone that knows the old you.”

I paused. The timeline didn’t add up. “This was planned before she took monster fruit.”

The general ignored my comment.

But my mind still swirled. He’d planned to risk supers’ lives and have them take monster fruit until he had one that was able to play the part.

I hated how disposable he thought of his supers.

“Our operative will quit tomorrow, fed up with everything and close the store.” Pratt continued to coach Melody. “You’ll come back after we are sure everyone is gone and wreck the store. It’ll be a minor story, and we’ll make sure it makes the news. Then we will begin.”

AN - Beatrix is getting nosey, and project Velody officially starts.