Steeled Spies #0: Lions Among the Lambs

The Force's Recon Agent in the Heat of Conspiracy...

Art by Spookitty

In the palm of the black wolf’s hand lay the dying light of a revolution. When the electric death rolled up his back, both heart and mind were claimed in a swift, blistering shock.

The footage revolted the team.

“Before you is the image of Justice served,” came the announcer’s proclamation. The words cut through the smoke-hazed room where a quartet of black-clad gray wolves, and Haven’s arch-vigilante Lita, sat glued to the screen.

Suddenly, a voice came from the sanctum’s darkest corner. “So they got one of us.” The shadowed figure’s remark wafted out on the smoke of his cigarette, a trace of the Transatlantic tongue nestled within.

“The whole man and nothing less,” came Lita’s bitter reply. The 40-year-old dark gray sat backwards in the old wooden chair, her denim jacket slung over the seat’s ear, jeans and tank top peppered with holes. There was a twitch in the punk’s sandalled paw as she itched the back of her neck with coked-out agitation, like a bad case of fleas had come on.

Slowly, the gray stepped out of his corner, a shade lighter than the rest. Roger Steele was rather chiseled for a wolf of any breed, his hard-edged features sharp in the light of Lita’s sanctum. From his full snout and finely groomed fur to the blue eyes that radiated ice-cold analysis, he stood monolithic among the rest. He crossed the room quietly, black shoes silent on the floor. His slacks, blue button-up, and holstered Mauser glided along with him as he pulled a chair up, his own leather jacket hung on its back.

“You say he was playing ball with some of yours—”

“Not mine, Pal,” she cut off, “New kids on the block.” The blood red eyes of the inner-city agent locked with his.

“Another batch of your biker bears?” Steele teased.

“Not quite.” Lita whipped a small disc out of her jacket and flung it his way. “Group’s called Haven Reformation. One of the cats who showed after your time in Forcefield Tower 8X last year. They were small then, but they sure knew how to grow.”

“What was the pitch? Curing cancer, AIDS, or just plain-old world peace?”

Lita smirked. “If technocracy’s cancer, they’re the ACS. Been protesting with us for about a month now. They don’t know the cats we play for, and I know Knox wants it kept that way. We all cool wit each’udda though.”

Steele nodded gently as he loaded the minidisc into his portable viewer. The pint-sized silver machine displayed everything in green text over black:

ORGANIZATION: Haven Reformation
SPOKESPERSON: Lucille Devenreaux
KNOWN DETAILS: “To the Bright Organic Tomorrow”

Roger stared vacantly at the crumb of data. “You spend a month with friends and they don’t show you the secret handshake?”

“That was the last thing DeVol sent us before the sting.” she replied. “Reported damn-near night and day via telecom that they were doing everything from major demonstrations in Empire Square to fighting for a seat on the Board. His tip-offs got me front row seats to some killer fireworks. The Reformation have been polling like saints, they’ve made public addresses on everything from the increased android population to attacking A.C.E.S. herself. And all he sends us is a three-line disc for a month’s worth of intel.”

It wasn’t long before the realization crept up on the agent. “And if cops had intercepted, they wouldn’t have wiped it.”

Lita nodded. “Or let it through to us, unless it’s a decoy. We’ve tried decryption, digging through metadata, but all we got are those three lines. Something ‘bout these suckas don’t read right to me. Especially when one of my boys gets killed for ‘em.”

“Any idea what the Artificially Controlled Eco-System is thinking?”

His punk handler shook her head again. “Just that Ol’ Mother Acc’s all about uniformity, and we all know what Mommie Dearest does to us rebels when we get too close. She does Ralph ‘til he’s stone dead. She still weakening though. Reports say the forcefield is down to 85% coverage, a 4% drop after your stint in 8X. Guess she had to tighten her iron fist around something.”

“Think this whole thing is like Mulligan and the access codes?” Roger quizzed. “A whistle-blower or a leak between the retrieval and delivery of data?”

“Could be.” Lita sighed. “Not the same cats though, the Reformation weren’t a beada sweat on nobody’s ball sack when you and ‘good ol’ Glenn’ got your goods.”

Roger turned to the fellow grays in the room, all standing tall in their dark ensembles. The four gentlemen cocked their ears when he spoke. “If anyone’s going in, it’ll be me.”

Lita couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Bitch, you got all the street cred of a Happy Meal! The hell you gonna do getting down with hippies like them?”

Before she knew it, he slapped her hard in the snout. Her feral reflexes snapped back with a sharp scratch across his face. He refused to flinch as the blood trickled down his cheek. “We’ll start with scars,” Roger said with a smirk.

The vigilante sat slack-jawed, the wolves in black stifling a collective chuckle.

“You’re lucky I didn’t pull my pal Wildey on you,” she barked. Steele answered with a knowing nod.

“You...crazy SOB,” she guffawed. As they shook hands on his trademark audacity, a sudden burst of static rocked the speakers, and onto the sanctum’s TV screen came the gal of the hour.

“We’re in control of the airwaves now!” cried the powerful, feminine voice. “Brothers and sisters, we cannot live under this tyranny for a second longer! How many more innocent lives must be taken in the name of their order, not ours? How much more blood will be spilled? Let our brother Ralph DeVol not die in vain. Join us for the Bright Organic Tomorrow!”

Roger Steele turned to the television, and was met with the visage of Lucille Devenreux. She was a gray wolf whose features were at odds with her voice. The voice held every inch of ground, the incendiary talk of liberating the “real” wolves of Haven from the technocratic menace rocketing right through the screen. In another life, she might’ve preached the sin out of a congregation in the deep South. But then there was that face.

What a face for a revolutionary to have. Her snout was slender to the point of mousy, her darling deep blue eyes popping off the screen for all to see. Her fur was well-kept, but thick enough to exude that “edge” of not having shit, shaved, or showered in a fortnight. It was the scruff atop that gave her the street cred she needed. Must be quite the sight on the big screens in the Commercial-Entertainment district.

The group stared at her spiel a while longer, the tone shifting away from fire-and-brimstone.

“We’ve made too much progress to stop now! Who revealed the Board’s hypocrisy in the Town Hall? The Reformation! Who declassified the insidious and malicious propaganda of the Newsreels? The Reformation! Who—”

The revolution was not long for the airwaves, for A.C.E.S. regained control of the frequency and began firing off deafening disavowals over the signal. Lita killed the feed with a flip of a switch. “Well then, now you’ve met the first lady of the resistance.”

Steele nodded, throwing on his jacket. “Charming, but I gotta see her from the chest down to make sure she’s real. Get me your contacts and I’ll hook up."

“Caldwell Ave’s your junction, and these are the cat’s you’ll meet.” She passed over a photograph of a red, white, and black wolf, all in their teens. “Charmed again.” he remarked through his teeth.

“Remember, you ain’t too big for their britches.” Lita chuckled. “Leave the parlez-vous français bullshit here. And don’t fall for Lucy too hard either! Bitch is bigger than all us right now, and that’s a target twice as large.”

Roger looked over his shoulder before parting the door. “For? Never. In’s another story.”