Chapter 5

Tahir and the Captain were poring over the reports that were coming in. Apparently, Tahir’s earlier actions had put a short stoppage to the doctor’s group’s plans for a time. They had been at it for a couple of hours, when Tahir noticed a report of a body. It took him a moment to read through it, turning toward the Captain, he drew his attention.

“This report details a body that was found, what seems strange is that the body had no brain at all. It was almost as if the cranial cavity had been vacuumed clean.” Tahir said. Handing the report to the Captain.

Looking it over he glanced up, “you think it’s the work of the doctor’s group?”

Tahir shook his head, “No, actually it sounds more like the group’s leader. It was something that was floating on the fringe of his mind when I tried to delve in,” Tahir said feeling just a little sick, remembering the evil he had felt when he’d touched the man’s mind.

“You never said anything about that,” the Captain said looking at Tahir a moment, “that was all you got?”

“Yes, unfortunately he slipped, like I do and I lost contact. He is in no way as strong as I am, but the abilities he has, will make him much harder to deal with.” Tahir sighed; the depth of anger in that man went far beyond anything he had ever felt before.

Reaching out, his mind flew across the country to the building where he had lost the man. Going in, he began to look through all the rooms. Most were unoccupied but one he came to wasn’t. Moving into the room proved harder than he thought.

It wasn’t impossible, but it took a lot of his energy to get through the walls and doors. Obviously he had been expecting someone to try and break in, one way or another. The few brief looks he got in the room revealed less than he had hoped for.

Withdrawing he had felt the Captain touch his arm. “You still with us?” the Captain had been asking, “Hello? you ok?” more concern in his voice, than he had wanted to express.

Damn it he hated when Tahir did this. It was bad enough when he just vanished, that he could handle but when he zoned out, sighing he shook his head.

“Yes, I am here, now. I went to find out what I could about the leader of that group. It appears that he was expecting something or someone. He has a decent shield around his place, it was tough but I got through. He doesn’t stay in that place as much, but he had a picture of an older woman there.”

“Any idea who she is?” the Captain broke in.

“No, but she appears to be of some importance to him.” Tahir replied “I didn’t see any id or papers but I briefly saw what appeared to be a letter on a table. It had the word Ro on it; it also appeared to be on official government paper, though I never got close enough to see which one it was from.”

The Captain nodded thinking a minute. Typing on his laptop, he brought up every one of the DC departments, emblems. “Did the paper look anything like any of these?” turning his laptop toward Tahir he sat back and waited.

“Hmmmmm, well...” Tahir started to tick off any that didn’t look anywhere near it. “Ok, it’s a toss-up between these two, as I said I didn’t really get that good a look at it.”

The Captain looked at the two homeland security emblems, they weren’t all that much alike, but at a distance one might be mistaken for the other. “Let’s see, we have homeland security and this other one is for ICE homeland security” The Captain said looking up from the emblem page.

“ICE? What exactly is that?” Tahir replied looking at the Captain perplexed.

“Ah, well that’s the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department.” Snapping his fingers the Captain’s face brightened, “Didn’t you say that he spoke to you in Romanian?” Tahir nodded, “It shouldn’t be that hard, to find out who he is and what’s the motivation behind all this shit.”

Picking up the phone he started to call contacts he had in Washington. Tahir walked out, and down the hall. He needed the exercise, his leg had already gone to sleep once. Tahir was about to go see Kim when he felt a sharp twinge at one of the other centers.

Thinking of it he was there, looking around he saw that one of the seers was starting to sweat. Reaching out he saw that the seer was under attack, delving in he began to trace back. In the room he saw the boss and another concentrating. Knowing he might not have another chance Tahir froze the boss and pushed the attacker to the wall.

The man was starting to choke when he released the seer from the station. Working as quickly as he could, he reached into the attacker and began to remove all his abilities. He had barely reached the bosses ability center when he started to move! What the hell?!

This was the first time anyone had gotten out of that. Quickly before he got away he reached to the teleporting ability and ripped it hearing the boss scream. Suddenly the boss was standing behind him.

“So you piss ant American, you think you have won? I am not a sheep like those in this country!” Tahir sealed the spots before the boss image moved toward him.

Putting up his wall he noticed that it wasn’t as strong as he’d like it to be. “I know I haven’t won, YET! But you will be a lot easier to find now”

Grappling in the mind of the boss, was harder than he thought it would be. For one, it was his mind after all, plus Tahir had to hunt to find what he needed. Feeling weaker he chose to depart, like the little shit could find him now.

Finishing up with the other man Tahir was preparing to withdraw when the boss lashed out at him. Not concentrating on two minds now, he found he had more strength.

“This is not over, you lowly American dog! I will find you and I will enjoy destroying utterly,” the last thing he saw was a look of surprise on the bosses face when he tried to slip and couldn’t, then Tahir was back at the center.

Stepping over he checked the man who had collapsed when the invader had withdrawn. The Boss tried to move again, when nothing happened he looked where Tahir had been in his mind. Cursing he saw the damage and the sealed area, withdrawing he took his anger out on the other man there.

Laughing at the shrieks and screams of the man as he died, the Boss was feeling a little better. He strengthened his shields and defenses. Never again! He wouldn’t ever be caught off guard like that again.

<Captain, > Tahir thought to Roberts, <There was an incident at the 06 center, I’ll be there in a few minutes to report> after the attack by the alternate personality of Tina, Tahir had rechecked all the seers and staff, leaving no one out.

Finally satisfied that all was alright, Tahir told the Director of what had happened, to watch them all, he would know if anything was wrong, like he had this time. Appearing next to the Captain, Tahir sighed, sitting down he started his report.

“You say that you managed to take some of his abilities?” the Captain inquired.

“No, I was able to enter his mind and I sealed his ability to move with his mind.” Tahir replied. Captain Roberts was trying to process exactly what this meant. Since he didn’t really have an ability anything like it, he was having a hard time wrapping his head around it.

“I was hoping that I could’ve put an end to this today, I found him much stronger than I thought at first. I also noticed that he was using more brain power than I. The thing is, he wasn’t producing nearly as much as he was using.” Suddenly an idea hit Tahir. “You know” he started again, “I may have figured out why the brainless corpses.”

The Captain looked at him questioningly, “figured it out?”

“Yes, again, a brief flash I got, while I was in there this time. I think he needs the brain matter to somehow survive.” Roberts looked at Tahir with disgust.

“You mean he’s actually eating their brains?”

“No, it’s more like his body is absorbing the gray matter into his system,” Tahir said as he flashed through the memories that he had gleamed from the boss’s mind.

Roberts just shook his head; they were obviously dealing with a sick and depraved individual. “We have to find a way to stop him. The amount of missing women has started to increase in the last two weeks. The trouble is, we aren’t sure if they are all from him or not. We lucked out, when there was a raid and the body was found. They were about to incinerate it to hide the evidence.”

Tahir felt the anger build in him, the son of a bitch more than deserved to die. “Have you received word yet from Washington?” Tahir questioned.

“No, we are still awaiting word from ICE, they should let me know something in the next two hours” the Captain was as anxious as Tahir.

The doctor was laid up again, damn it that little shit Tahir! He had almost killed him this time. He thanked god that Natasha could still sway him. Unable to talk for at least a week, his larynx had been partially crushed.

Moments later the boss walked in looking at the doctor, he was still pissed off greatly. If the doctor wasn’t the most important person in the plan, he would enjoy slowly killing him.

“I don’t know how but that little American pig, got into my mind. He has sealed off my ability to move. I have had several try to regenerate it but they were unable to. It seems not only did he destroy it but he sealed it so it can’t be healed.”

Growling the boss looked at the wall, a huge hole appearing where his energy blast took a major section of it. “We must find a way to take this little shit out. He is the only THING that stands in our way to finally dominating this second hand shit hole of a country. Doctor, find me another, that can take this ass hole out. I want you to almost kill them with the radiation, I want them fucking strong. This son of a bitch needs to fucking die!” he shouted as another section of wall blew out in front of him.

The doctor’s eyes flew wide; the boss was sorely pissed off. The doctor hadn’t seen him this mad ever! He was glad that the boss needed him so bad, the radiation couldn’t be handled by someone that had abilities already opened up. He remembered the first time he had gotten near, after his initial exposure.

He thought that he was going to die, his breathing had almost stopped, and his limbs had gone almost numb. Had he not fallen backwards, he felt that he would have died then and there.

Tahir was so tired, that had taken so much out of him. Kim had checked on him soon after he had lain down. Wearing a worried look she had fretted over him till he had fallen asleep, with her next to him. Waking with a start he realized that he had been dreaming.