The Fifth Column

Chapter 3- Mission 18

A/n: Hope you enjoy!

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Mike's POV

We all ran back to our rooms, in formation as is customary after a briefing. On our way back, we saw another team run by. It seems that a lot of teams are being mobilized today. We broke off at different points to follow our designated lights. I got back to my room, pressed the button and practically leapt inside. I saw on the bed was my duffle bag, all set with my wardrobe device and my computers. I got out and held up my wardrobe device, quickly changing back to the outfit I was wearing before. I put it back in and walked out of the room. Now with a calmer mind, the door did take an extra second or two to open. I strided through the corridors, not really caring about rules, regulations, or expectations. I always liked going on missions. At the docking bay, there was a fleet of "Jeeps" waiting for teams that need them for teams.

Oh, sorry, we call them Jeeps for when we are outside the facility, and the habit has reach all the way into common slang in the facility. Jeeps are private jets. Priced at $3,000,000,000 for about 52 hours of work each one. We spent about $300 for about 3 hours of work each, all running purely on solar energy, CO2 emissions from human breath, and human brain waves, due to our many Omega abilities put together. As a result, we have a fleet of about a hundred planes, ready and waiting for teams to be dispatched.

I walked around a little bit until I had found the Jeep that had my color code on it. I walked in and looked around. The interior looked like the a private jet. It had a full bar and kitchen, a lounge, sleeping quarters up the staircase, a separate briefing room, a library, a self cleaning pool and exercise room, and an armory.

Now, you might be wondering why we don't just stay in the plane all of the time. Now, I could tell you what they tell us, that it is unhealthy for kids of our age to be doing that much travel, that jet-lag could be detrimental to the mission, etc. etc. etc. But I uncovered the real reason a long time ago, but I haven't told the rest of my team. The reason that we always need to check in at the base is because of a contingency plan. If, for some reason, they had to get rid of all of the Omegas in the world that is connected to this facility, they could call everyone back for an "Emergency 7 briefing" without too much suspicion of every Omega going to one place all at once and blow up the entire facility, bringing every Omega with it. Now, you're probably wondering why they don't just put the contingency plan inside the planes. There are 2 reasons: 1, Omegas do the maintenance on the planes, so they could remove it and start a revolt and all that jazz, and 2, since it would be almost impossible to destroy every Omega all at once in their planes, and if it was truly necessary to destroy all of them, then they don't want any of them escaping, so it would be easier to make sure that they are all accounted for if they are all going to the same place. But that's not important right now.

It didn't take long for the other's to get to the plane. We got comfy while we waited for our pilot to come. We were in the air in almost literally five minutes. Once in the air, we went to the briefing room.

"Okay, mission 18. Only 5 of our targets have a name attached to their face. And we don't know whether or not they are just aliases of the same person. The only problem is that 2 of those people are presumed dead, 2 of them only appeared three times in the last five years, and the last one is missing."

"Then how are we supposed to track any of them?" Alice asked.

"That's where the good news comes in." I said. "We have an insignia for the order." I clicked a button and the symbol of a rose crossed with a sword in front of a shield appeared on the screen behind me.

"So?" Stephanie asked.

"There was a video posted on youtube yesterday." I pressed another button. A video started playing. There was a bus roaring down the street. Out of nowhere, a guy ran in front of it and was completely crushed. There were bones sticking out of different places. He looked dead. He had with him a shoulder-bag, the person with the camera reached inside the bag and pulled out something that looked like a tarot card, but with the insignia of Ultionem Pulchritudine. Then the crushed guy got up, His clothes were still roughed up, but he his injuries were all healed. The man then ran off, completely ignoring the missing card. Then the video ended. "We were able to wipe the video from the website and we scrubbed all of the witnesses, but not before we picked up this little beauty." I reached into a drawer and pulled out the very same tarot card from the video. "On one side is the insignia. On the other is an invitation. According to this, there is a gallery. Supposedly, the man in this video is going to be there. It is also possible that other members of Ultionem Pulchritudine will be there."