The Abnormality Control and Extermination Corporation

Chapter 0: The Board's Response

Damon Hubson sat at his desk, a cigarette shaking in his unsteady hands. On his desk there was a folder marked "Pilot Project: Abnormality Counterbalance Team - Repurposed by the Board." With a sigh of disappointment, the bags under his eyes stretching out his face, he stared blankly at the folder, turning to its first page:

The Central Board

Location Redacted

July 1st, 2023

Dear 12th Division Leader, Damon Hubson,

The Central Board has carefully considered the contents of your request for a team consisting of danger-level low-risk abnormalities and have collectively come to the agreement that the project poses far too great of a risk to the organization. However, against our better judgement, the decision of the Central Board has been overruled by the Ace Foundation's Founder. He has decided to oversee the project. As per the contents of the project, a number of changes have been made per his request.

The team will remain under your supervision but for the time being will be considered a special task force belonging to no division. This will be subject to change upon future successes. Knowledge of the task force will be limited to you and those in the highest security clearance as it is his belief that this experiment must remain a secret to the greater organization to retain employees' confidence in the Board. However, once the task force has a proven track record, the team will be declassified and will officially be named into the 12th division. Wherein, you will take full responsibility for any and all actions already taken and to be taken by the group.

The founder has also reviewed the composition of your team and has generously offered to restructure it himself. The team will be mandated to hold seven seats rather than the initial five requested. He has deemed the initial collective power-level of requests to be unfit for the difficulty of missions such a team would receive. Moreover, he has suggested several candidates with better risk to power profiles that will be identified in later. Three of which belonged to your initial request.

For this project to be deemed a success, he expects all seven seats to be filled with his selections by the new year. Failure to obtain each selection is not an option unless told otherwise. In the case of failure to fulfill this requirement, the task force will be considered a failure; all documents and knowledge of the task force will be destroyed. While in the case of success, further goals and resources will be allocated, to stimulate the continued growth and success of its members within the organization.

With a final puff, a cloud of smoke covered the document, fragments of ash staining the page. Then, Damon let out a sigh, extinguishing the rest of his cigarette into a skull-shaped ashtray, and reached into his pocket. From his pocket, he grabbed his pack of cigarettes, taking another into his mouth and lighting its tip. Turning to the next page, Damon continued to read:

From the requested abnormalities, the founder has decided to make the following rulings. Provided is a brief explanation of the founder and the Board's thoughts on each candidate. Additionally, four abnormalities have been added to the summary per the founder's request:

Specimen 1777: The Judicial Angel has been denied due to its risk profile. As you are aware, the abnormality has the ability to "cleanse" any subjects it deems morally corrupt; its victims lose all motor functions and advanced reasoning skills. In isolation, this ability is extraordinarily useful for the purposes of the task force. However, classified experimentation beyond your initial clearance level has shown the abnormality to be near omnipotent within the scope of its presented stimuli. This worries both the Board and the founder, as working in the task force, the Angel would likely become aware of the Board or the founder's existence at some point. There is a significant risk that either the Board or the Founder are judged unfavourably by the Angel and subjected to its wrath. This is not an outcome we can allow.