Captain Possible and The Centurion Legacy

Chapter Nineteen: Flame Street

"I can't believe this!" Joss exclaimed quietly as she walked between Wade and Kim, dressed in a long sparkling black robe with technological symbols that glowed in various colors. "You and Ron go away for two days into another dimension, and come back acting like a couple o' mole rats in heat? And I get to find out by finding you having a simultaneous boy's and girl's night out?!"

"Joss, shut!" Kim whispered, keeping her black hood concealing her face. If not for trying to remain unrecognized in their surroundings, than to hide her reddening complexion. For several years, her and Joss had been the only two women in the Global Justice base, and Kim had given her younger cousin an open invitation to enter her room when she wanted to talk or felt the need to spend time together. Unfortunately, while trying to keep her relationship with Ron from Joss in an effort to avoid the inevitable drama, she had forgotten to rescind the invite and Joss had caught the pair in an especially passionate position.

"So how long have you been spankin' the Monkey Master?" Joss asked nonchalantly.

"Joss!" Kim nearly shouted, turning to her younger cousin with a dark glare. But Joss only grinned.

"Hey, you're not the one with your cousin's reddened tush burned into yer..."

"So why hasn't Drakken plowed this place down to dust yet?" Wade asked, eager for a change in topic. Ron was following behind the group with Rufus hidden in his own black robe, and was acting as though he couldn't hear Kim and Joss's whispered conversation.

The place he was talking about was Tech City, a mocking nickname for the United State's former Capitol City of Washington D.C. It was a hollow, metal shell of what it had once been, yet still bustled with people trying to scrape out a living in the broken world. There were night clubs and strip shows, food huts and drug bins that dealt in neural charges which were an addictive cybertronic surge introduced directly into the human mind through electrodes. The particular area of Tech City that Kim and her team had come to for information had been nicknamed Flame Street, and for good reason. Barrels of fire lined either side of the street where the homeless citizens warmed themselves and used them for light. Neon lights adorned every building, flickering in the night and giving the neighborhood the appearance of being engulfed in flames from the outside.

"Drakken needs the interface in the city to gather information from outside BN Headquarters. From what we know, it operates on a kind of Rogue's alliance." Kim explained. "It also acts as a form of psychological attack against the American people by leaving Washington as a ghost." Drakken also kept a military presence in the city in the form of armed synthodrones on every corner, to make certain the human populace didn't get ideas of revolution.

"Can't we take these Techno Monk robes off yet?" Ron asked. "They're kinda itchy."

"Listen to him!" Joss said, rolling her eyes. "He's not out of the hay for ten minutes and he already wants to strip down again."

"Jo..." Kim began with a growl.

Suddenly, a large blond man with hair running past his tattooed shoulders and a greasy handlebar moustache running over and around his mouth stepped out from an alley way. "Hey! You dudes lookin' for some brain charge?" he asked. "Cause Motor Ed has got your plug. Seriously, I do!"

Kim panicked a moment, doing her best to pull her face back further into her hood. If any of them were recognized here, it could spell the end of their mission quickly. At the beginning of the mission, the disguises seemed fitting. Techno Monks were looked on by the technologically savvy the way geeks used to look up to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or even Wade himself. She hadn't expected meeting someone that actually knew her here. "We're here to meet with someone named Mind Singer." she said, deepening her voice as much as she could.