#dem corp

[demcorps]

Some additional information

DEM Corps now has some extra info in the side bar links.  They are, currently, as follows:

About DEM Corps

Hire Us

Roster

Recruitment

Armory

Motor Pool

There may be additional ones added later.  That is to be determined at a later date though.  Should you wish to join, well...follow the directions on the recruitment page, and we'll go from there.  Always looking for a few good mercs.

[demcorps]

AU: Sleeper Agent: Contemplation

Josie, with a pack on her back, armor fully deployed and her helmet over her head once more, was in the air, flying as fast as she possibly could without pushing herself to the next level, the air and clouds visibly parting around her in passing.  Her helmet visor ticked off the distance to her target, even as she held a silent conference with her two most trusted lieutenants, hundreds to thousands of miles away. Small video windows provided some satellite feeds, letting her check on Lin, and anything that Dustine pointed out.

“Doc, did you get a triage location set up?”

“Yes.  Think it’s an old asylum building, about two miles away from here.  I’ve got the three you tasked to me straightening things up right now, and another team ready to drive a load of injured over there. Mind if I take the Huey you sent with Zin?”

“Go ahead.  How many survivors?”

“Two hundred, give or take.  Out of a crew that had to be in the thousands.”  Lin’s voice was bitter in Josie’s head.  She took the loss of life personally, even though there was nothing she could have done.

“Better some than none.”  Dustine interjected. 

“Maybe, would have preferred to get more.  They’re pulling themselves together, and I’ve been pulling some of their usable Quins out.  We’re going to need the transport capacity.”  On the video dedicated to the helicarrier, a Quinjet was slowly brought upright and gently placed on it’s wheels.

“Agreed.  Dustine, any changes in your A.O.?”

“Not yet, but teams that are close to their targets are picking up increased traffic on the  GUARD freq.  Firefights have broken out at a couple of them, so I’m guessing there’s survivors.  Who they’re fighting though, I can’t tell.  The transmissions are garbled.  Likely still diminished from what Zingari did to their network.”  Dustine’s video shifted to a grainy shot of a structure, smoking and on fire, with flashes of light appearing from several directions, both near the building, and away from it.

“If there’s firefights, verify and engage targets that are attacking the survivors.  Take’em alive, if possible.  We need information.”

“You got it boss lady. Hit’em hard and fast.  So what next after that?”

“A very good question.  Lin, any ideas what Facchino is planning?”

“Not sure, I think he’s still wrapping his head around the problem.”  A pause, then, “You know if they scatter we won’t be able to get them back with any ease, if at all.”

Josie gave a slight nod to herself as she agreed with her distant doctor.  “No, we won’t.  But they’re S.H.I.E.L.D.: we’re not.  They might have resources we don’t.”

Dustine snorted.  “As compromised as they appear to be, I wouldn’t trust those resources if I were them.”

“Agreed, but I’m not going to fight the man on it.  Suggestions on what we can offer?”

Silence followed as Lin and Dustine thought it over. 

“We could bring the survivors here.  After a thorough screening.”  Dustine offered.

“They’re already being checked, nobody’s shown blue blood yet.”  Lin groused.  She had been hoping for a fight to relieve some pent up tension. 

“That’s not all that I’m worried about.”  Dustine’s voice became more contemplative, and concerned.  “Think about it. How does S.H.I.E.L.D., one of the most secret and stringent organizations become so massively compromised?  If it isn’t shape shifting Skrulls, there’s gotta be something else making the sleepers awaken.” 

Josie’s eyes narrowed as she followed Dustine’s track.  “Either they had someone, or several someones, already in there that weren’t sleeping at all, or there’s something that’s activating them.”

“Exactly.”  DEM’s computer whiz sounded more concerned as she named off possible activators.  “Nanotech, chemical inducers, parasitic biologics, hypnotics, mind control, hell, even magic could be setting them off.” 

“Say we offer to bring them to Home.  What do we need to screen them?”

“Use the analyzers from the New York ‘house on their blood.  Those can detect nanotech, chemical and biologics, if there are any outside the norm.  Can’t do much on the other three, so we’ll have to find a trusted mind reader to scan them for at least hypnotics and mind control.  If we can find one.  Magic…”

“Yea, let’s not go there.  I’m short a goddess or a witch to call on for a verification, and I have no idea if Doctor Strange still lives.”  Josie started to slow down and decrease her altitude as she closed in on her target, tilting her body so that her feet were to the mountainous ground below.  “We’ll just have to take precautions on that last one.  Ok, we’ll offer them sanctuary, let them pull themselves together.  We need pickup points.”

“We’ve got the barn, and the asylum as natural points on the East Coast for now.”

“And if they scatter?”

A brief moment of silence before an inset map appeared on Josie’s HUD, replacing the video stream from Dustine.  It zoomed in on an old airstrip on the west coast of the United States.  “If they change their mind, have them strike for this location.  It’s a decommed AF base, but the strip looks good.  We can set up a comm relay so they can contact us to pick them up, and some basic gear.  Nothing that can track back to us.” 

“Do it.  Try to find similar pickup points in other parts of the world so we can make recoveries.”  Her armored boots clicked as she landed and took in the sight of the rising black smoke and roiling fire over the Greenland outpost.  “I’m at my target now.  Now, say we find someone with any of the previously mentioned things in their system.  Suggestions?”

“If they haven’t been awakened, try to save them from that fate.”  Lin replied instantly, predictably.

Dustine’s response was rather more atypical of the platinum blonde woman, surprising both Lin and Josie.  “Kill them.  We lack the equipment to detox blood of chemicals and biologics, and we sure as hell lack the technology and equipment to counter nanotech.  It just doesn’t exist in the levels we’d need.” 

Josie thought it over as she walked around the outpost: both were valid options, and she would prefer to save them.  Still… “We’ll have to leave it to Facchino.  His people, his call.  If we happen to find someone with at least some understanding of what to do with nanotech, maybe we’ll have a shot of saving them, if that’s what they’ve got.”  Focusing on the moment, she reached out with her senses, while her cybernetic eyes shifted through several modes, seeking survivors.  “Greenland outpost is pretty trashed.  Not finding much here to save or salvage.  Head-wait one.” 

She gazed slowly, head turning as she tracked what she was looking at, her senses focusing on a weak life sign.  She then jumped, and landed several feet away from her previous location, landing near small shed.  With her eyes set to detect chemicals and biological traces, she had picked up on a significant amount of blood, and a switch to infrared allowed her to follow the blood trail to the shed.  It wasn’t much of a shed, but from what she could tell, it was likely for storing tools and other items for the small patch of garden that was nearby.  Focusing, her hearing picked up on labored breathing inside.  Josie switched her eyesight to X Ray, and detected a man inside, an arm around his waist, and a pistol in a hand, propped up on his knee. 

Moving silently to the side of the shed and kneeling, she let her tail slip out of its’ armored slot in her belt, and tap lightly on the door.  “Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., my name is Josie Acken.  I was sent by John Facchino to find and recover any survivors.”

The man could be heard shuffling inside, and the pistol was cocked.  “S-stay back! How do I know he sent you?”

“UN authorization, Section 45, subsection E, paragraph 32 allows S.H.I.E.L.D. to deputize police and military forces in instances of an emergency, and buddy, you’re in one hell of an emergency right now.”  Josie replied, giving a little bit of a white lie.  The new Director didn’t specifically deputize DEM, and she wasn’t about to go along with that anyways.  Still, having O’Neal provide that was useful, since she didn’t have any other real way to verify her story to a wounded and frightened agent. 

“I’ve also got some medical gear with me and I can get you out of here.  Are there any others here with you?”

The man didn’t reply right away, and she was half afraid he was slowly passing out.  Still, she thought she could still detect some slight shifting inside.  Finally, as if he had made a decision, he replied, “Not anymore.  Agent Falco was inside with Agent Stewart.  I don’t know what happened to Stewart, but Falco came out and opened fire on me.  I managed to get him, but before he died he set off the charges.  If Stewart was alive before, he isn’t now.” 

Josie nodded.  It seemed to fit the pattern.  “What’s your name, Agent?”

“Swartz.  Jim Swartz.” 

“Ok Agent Swartz, I’m going to open the door to the shed, and I’m going to ask that you don’t shoot me.  I take offense to that.”  She slowly stood up and started to creep her way to the door. 

“Yea, I know the feeling.  I’m not disarming though.” 

“Not asking you too.  Will you let me help you?” 

The man sighed, and she heard the pistol become uncocked.  “Yea, sure.  Though I’m going to ask that you don’t kill me.  I take offense to that.” 

Josie smirked.  “Humor.  I like that.  It’s a good sign.  Ok Agent Swartz, I’m opening the door now.”  She reached over, and pulled the door aside, slowly.  Inside, the man, with close cropped black hair, sat hunched over in a blood soaked uniform.  His skin was pale in the light of the fire of the outpost. 

He looked her up and down briefly, and shook his head slightly.  “Like I could have hurt ya with this peashooter in that getup.”

She held her gloved hands to the sky.  “Needed you to trust me.  And I really do dislike getting shot at.” 

He gave a weak smile as she moved inside and brought her pack around.  “Fair enough, ma’am.”

It took twenty minutes to bandage Swartz wound (and having to temporarily relieve him of his firearm in the process so she could patch him up) before they were ready to leave.  An oxygen mask and goggles on his face, neoprene wrap over his head and hands, and his weapon secured in his holster, he clasped his hands behind her head as she cradled him effortlessly in her arms. 

“Doc, I’ve got a survivor.  A casualty.  I’ve patched the wound for now, but he’s got shrapnel and at least two bullets lodged in him, far as I can tell.  I think he’ll make it, but I’m bringing him right to you anyways.”  Her power flared around her, before she pushed off the ground into the sky.  He didn’t even question the fact that she could fly.  She turned in mid-air, threw a hand out from under Swartzs legs, and unleashed a golden energy blast that brought part of the mountain down on top of the outpost, burying it completely.  “Target’s been cleaned, best I can do anyways.”  Josie turned back and took off at her fastest speed once more, heading for Lin and most of the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D.  “Speaking of being clean, I’m thinking that if any of the agents there turn out clean, we should offer more than sanctuary.”

Dustine’s voice was curious, if a little disbelieving.  “What, like offer them a job?”

“Nothing is more motivated than a merc with a personal mission, and since we’re working on the same goal right now anyways...might as well bring some of them into the fold.  Temporarily, if they want. Help give them some further cover.  I’ll ponder it further on the flight and get back to you.”  She looked briefly at Swartz’s goggled face, and through the lens she could see his eyes, while wincing and full of pain, were also determined and focused. 

“Definitely bring your man directly to me. I’ll check him out before sending him on for more medical attention.”  Lin inserted into Josie's thoughts. 

“Will do.  ETA is thirty, maybe forty minutes.  O’Neal?” 

The heavy weapons specialist responded quickly, his thick brogue coming through clearly.  “Aye, Lead?”

“Inform Facchino that I’m on my way to your location.  Get his approval to move the wounded now, but don’t let him send the rest of them to the four corners just yet.  We have business to discuss.” 

“Aye ma’am.  I’lla let the lad know.”  

Josie put on an extra burst of power, and plowed through a cloud formation, the sonic boom bouncing off the distant mountains behind her.

[alastor-the-executioner]

AU: Sleeper Agent Drabble: Broken Chain of Command

*drip*

*drip*

John's eyes opened with difficulty, and his entire body seemed to be made of pain. He could feel the sharp edges of filing cabinets digging into him, and the sickening sensation of his body healing around them.

*drip*

It was dark, and there was water, and he just didn't know. Breaths came to him in short and panicked gasps, the reality of drowning eclipsing his fears of everything else for a moment. In the darkness, alone, with no one to hear him but the other damaged souls, John Facchino opened his mouth and screamed. The filing cabinets came apart at the joints, files scattered, and the furniture in his crushed office was reduced to their component parts.

And the door, when he looked at it, ceased to exist, the metals reduced to their elemental state in a heap of dust. There was light out there, and Sub-Director John Facchino of SHIELD crawled for it like a crazed animal, huddling near the broken body of the intern and the fire burning merrily in the remains of the copy machine.

He needed to find the others, assess the situation, get orders. Deputy Director Hill was on bridge duty; she'd know what to do. He put the fire out before he left, and made his way cautiously through the wreckage, navigating more by scent than sight.

It took him the better part of an hour, and he might have had to ease a few souls that couldn't be helped otherwise along their way. He was leading a group of five walking wounded when he kicked the door that led to the bridge in, aided by the dissolving of the hinges into base metals. He was getting the hang of that, but he felt more like passing out each time.

He swept his eyes over the unfamiliar pair running a search and rescue op, and growled. He was tired, sore, scared, and didn't know what the hell was going on. The feral in him was not playing well with others.

"Who are you, who sent you, and where are Director Fury and Deputy Director Hill?"

The two people standing in the bridge, one a large burly man in heavy armor with bright red hair was pulling up a piece of debris. The other was checking a fallen Agent who was alive but had a piece of shrapnel through her shoulder. The second, a young woman spun and drew her side arm, aiming it at the group.

The man dropped the chunk down, supporting it on his knee and held out a hand. “Oy! Wait lass, look at the Uniform. They’re SHIELD.” The woman looked over at him, then back to Facchino and nodded, holstering her side arm. The man straining again against the debris pulled it aside and let it drop. “We be your rescue crew lad.” He shook his head slowly however, “We dunna know where your Director be but…” He nodded over towards a body covered in a black tarp near the center of the bridge. “Yer Deputy Director I’m afraid is no longer with us.”

He could smell it, but he had to see. It couldn't be. Behind him one of the more impressionable of the rescued crew at least had the decency to throw up away from those needing rescued.

John crossed to the tarp, and though he could have moved it out of the way without so much as a blink, he knelt and pulled it back from her face. The angle of her head, no pulse... the baby would have had a longer time of it, and a slow and painful death it would have been. There was no life within, neither of them.

Someone would pay dearly for that.

"I am Sub-Director John Facchino, Human Resources.  Have any other senior agents been located?"

The man nodded, “Aye.” Kneeling down he checked the pulse of the agent that had been under the rubble and sighed. Nothing. “Know the name Zingari?”

Facchino shot a horrified look at Maria's corpse and swallowed hard. "Please tell me, oh God, please, that you didn't let him wander off after telling him the Deputy Director was dead?"

He shook his head, “No, he came to us. ‘S why where here. Last report I got he was about thirty miles west of here, beating the living tar out of the woman who killed that poor lass right there.” He pulled a bottle of water off his belt and approached the agent who’d blown chunks. “That was about forty five minutes ago.”

"Shit."

The unnatural swearing, torn from the lips of one of SHIELD's more uptight members, had agents pausing everywhere, looking at him in shock. "He was the father." He said simply.

There was little to no hope of catching Zingari now. There was too much to be done, and Facchino was the highest-ranked and thus had to do it. "Who are you from, anyway?"

“We’re DEM Corporation. Problem solvers. You lot tend to call us Mercenaries.” The younger woman moved over to the Deputy Director’s body and re-covered her. “We got special orders to make sure her remains are cared for so she can be buried. Beyond that we…” The man paused, and put a hand up behind his left ear, eyes defocusing for several moments. “Well, Zingari has been a busy boy."

"Update?" He moved to a heavy desk resting against a bulk head and moved it aside with minimum effort, kneeling to check for a pulse. Thready, but present. He motioned one of his men over to care for the agent, who he vaguely remembered had a mild addiction to Galaga. "And at the moment, I wouldn't care if you were Hydra as long as you were helping."

“Aye we’re getting a report now.” He waited a few moments before his eyes refocused and he put his hand down. “Well Bitch who did this is dead, Zingari apparently blew her to high hell. Brass, our brass is heading to a rendezvous point, and we got another team heading this way to help with the evacuation. Job’s simple. We get you out, we regroup, and then we hit the bastards who did this to ya.”

"Who did this?" He looked around the ruined room, glass and metal everywhere, and his eyes hardened. "Because it sure as hell wasn't one woman." He should call his family. He should call Kri- oh God. "Are there other teams, working in here?"

The man nodded, “Aye, we got about 8 people here, divided in teams of two. We couldn’t dedicate all of us here. But now that the initial threat seems to be waylaid we’re moving as quick as we can. And we’re deploying members of our teams from other parts of the world too. As for who did this,” to his credit, he didn’t shrug. “We don’t know yet. Zingari apparently got the woman who did some of this’ files, our top hacker is currently all over it.”

"I need to know... science labs, have they been cleared yet? Any survivors?"

“Lad I don’t know where the Science Labs are, so I couldn’t tell ya.”

Torn between wanting to find Kristi, but knowing her mutation would save her, John Facchino did what he knew best; his job.

"In the absence of any other Sub-directors, I'm taking charge of SHIELD. Can you patch me through to Zingari? He's the next-highest rank I know is alive."

“I’m afraid we carry our Comm’s in us lad, not on us. Unless you got something with I can adjust the frequency on I’m afraid I canna do it. And if you do I’m gonna have to listen in, just how our Tech works.”

"Tell him I'm alive, and I'd appreciate it if he at least waited for backup. It's more a friendly request, and if he feels he can't wait, to at least make sure they suffer for a few seconds"

One of the agents gaped at him, and decided not to say anything.

"I need the dogtags off the bodies, so I can figure out who's unaccounted for and who's alive."

He had far to many in his belt pouches as it was.

The man pulled a pouch off his belt and handed it over, it was heavy with the tags he’d already taken. In the meantime his other hand was up by his ear again. “Zingari is currently unconscious in a car being driven towards a rendezvous. Bastard fell asleep.”

Facchino nodded and took the bag, adding it to his belt. I have the full SHIELD roster on me, undamaged. I always do." He cast another glance over at the shrouded body of his superior, and for a moment there was an emotion more akin to grief that fluttered across his face.

"If he can, let him. He deserves a moment of peace, God knows he'll allow himself none when he wakes."

“Can only imagine what he’s goin’ through. Most of us in this job don’t go for families cause of this.” He looked down at the body and sighed to. “Man’s somethin’ though. Never seen the entire Corp volunteer for a job. Not like this. Ya dun fuck with family.”

“Wait... what? "You know him? From before SHIELD?"

“No use in keepin it secret I guess. He worked with us, before he left to work for you.”

"I know they allowed a fair amount of vagueness in his file, and some outright lies, so I never knew much about him before-hand. It makes sense, I suppose."

“Vagueness and lack of information is how we make a living.” He unfocused again, and there was a sound of engines outside. “Second teams here, and they brought air transport. We need to get the survivors we have out of here. Then we can sweep what we haven’t, we got orders to clear as much equipment as we can to, cause much as it might hurt for you to hear lad, not much of SHIELD at the moment, and we can make use of it.”

He nodded. "Consider it payment for services rendered. There's some things I can't let you have, but they mostly would have self-destructed anyway. If they say "Stark" on them, that's not ours and you’ll have to give it back to Stark Industries. Dr. Stark can be litigious

“Mr. Stark is dead.”

That was a punch to the gut. "W-What?"

"That's not... I mean... What about the rest of the Avengers?"

The man sighed, “You were not the only people hit, more than the Helicarrier fell. The North East is in chaos. There are riots, some because Mutants have found themselves without their powers, others because… people panic when their heroes die.” He crossed his arms. “Tony Stark’s body was found impaled on his tower, the head of a man identified as Dr. Bruce Banner was found beside him. And there are reports of a hammer that nobody can move, in a crater in midtown. As far as we know, the Avengers are dead.”

"Holy Mary, Mother of God." He should have been a priest. He'd wanted to be a priest. But now... "Fine. Take what you find, any questions on how it works, please do contact me. SHIELD AGENTS!" He raised his voice to be heard by the all too few in the room. "Those of you who don't need hospitalization, and you will not be making that determination for yourselves, will come with me. We're going to go keep the peace, if we have to arrest everyone between here and the Atlantic Ocean to do it."

He did not look again at the body, though his thoughts were on it. "We have suffered heavy losses today, we have all lost someone. We're not letting them die in vain. We swore an oath to serve and protect, and we will damn well do it."

He looked around at the frightened and angry faces, and nodded almost to himself.

"There's rioting, and New York will be worst off, so we head there. We will pick up any SHIELD agents we can find alive and well, hospitalize the ones who can be helped. We will recruit and deputize police forces and military. We have UN authorization to do so under Section 45, subsection E, paragraph 32. It's important, so memorize at least the location in the charter. Let's go save the world."

He nodded to the mercenaries and said softly "I'm leaving you be; I appreciate your work and efforts here. Stay in touch somehow?"

“I’d highly recommend against such actions lad.” He waved his hand around the room. “Your command structures gone, while your network was up, and we had access to it, we saw the ID tags of nearly two hundred agents go offline. Someone is going after you and going after you hard, and marchin’ straight into one of the most densely populated areas in the world isn’t going to help ya at all, ‘specially if what my boss says Zingari is suggestin’ is true.”

Facchino paled even more if possible. Two hundred... "Guess my arguments against tagging agents was valid, after all."  He wanted desperately to crawl back into a hole and never come back out, but SHIELD needed him.  "What about the Council? Any word from them or the UN?" There was a moment, and then he ran the conversation back through his head. "Wait, what was Agent Zingari suggesting?"

“We’re a paramilitary organization lad, not a rightful one, and we keep quiet about ourselves. We don’t know anything about the UN’s response to this, or any Council. Hell for all we know they got hit too, public communications are spotty, we got our own network that’s walled off but, we ain’t got no way of knowin’. As for Zingari’s thoughts…” With no real explanation he pulled a knife out of his belt, and nicked his cheek, his associate doing the same. “Red blood, as you can see, not blue.”

His eyes narrowed, and a low growl was barely heard. "Skrulls. He thinks Skrulls did this. They tried it before, and we stopped them."

“Aye,” He nodded and flipped the knife over, holding it out to Facchino, his other hand very clearly on the grip of his holstered revolver. “So, I’m going to have to ask that everyone prove in some shape or form they’re not a shape shiftin’ alien. Then we can get you outside, cause there are a couple hundred dazed and confused agent’s out there who have no leader, and only a handful of us trying to convince em to board our transports to safety.”

Facchino accepted the knife and drew it over his cheek without hesitation, the cut oozing red for the merest of moments before healing over without a trace. "You heard the man. If you're not already bleeding, shed a few drops. I'll be outside." HE stalked to the broken windows at the front of the bridge, through which he could simply step to the ground. There were people to reassure, and orders to be given. One out of two he could do...