Chapter 148 Sorry.

Chapter 148: 148 Sorry.

"No problem," McLaren said. "I..."

He trailed off, his ruined face hardening as he straightened up and looked past me toward the door. I turned my head.

Oh, great.

I didn’t need to see a badge to know I was looking at a federal agent. The tacky shades and the immaculately pressed dark suit told me that much at a glance.

She was tall, thin, and looked like she was constructed entirely out of sharp angles. Her hair was cut in a severe, dead-straight bob just below the ears, and her tinted glasses were shaped like two aggressive V’s.

Oh yeah. She definitely had powers. Nobody looked that deliberately thematic without something terrifying to back it up.

The government usually tried to avoid employing supers as field agents—it made them too unpredictable and PR nightmares if they went rogue—but there were always exceptions for the really spooky black-ops divisions.

I grabbed my beer and pushed off the stool as she made a beeline straight for me. Well, here we go again. I didn’t want to bring heat down on McLaren’s bar, so I made my way toward an isolated corner booth.

It hardly would be the first time I had a run-in with government spooks. Alphabet agencies liked to keep close tabs on independent villains.

All too often, guys in my line of work got their powers from a stolen military experiment, missing hardware, or an EPA violation.

I’d been dressed down when I first got into the business—a ’threat assessment’ or some bureaucratic nonsense. It hadn’t gone very far.

Spooks are generally leery about snatching up supers without an airtight reason.

They didn’t want to piss off the various hero associations, and they really didn’t want to run afoul of the corporate heroes’ legal teams.

Governments already had enough trouble managing regular villains; losing the goodwill of the hero monopolies would be a political disaster.

I slid into the booth, wondering what the hell they wanted this time. I couldn’t think of anything I’d done recently that warranted federal attention...

Oh. Wait.

Maybe it had to do with Delirium?

I thought I already handled this with the BSA but I guess not, she’s definitely not with them, if she was she should’ve been an eight foot towering linen-wrapped, robe billowing mythical God avatar named Khonsu.

But that wouldn’t surprise me. It was an open secret in the industry that mad scientists didn’t just sell to villains.

If a government agency wanted some highly ’unethical’ tech without having to navigate the Pentagon’s standard ’this might accidentally vaporize the tri-state area’ paperwork, they quietly filtered black-budget money down to the real loons.

And that wasn’t even touching on how many villains were secretly on a federal payroll.

I’d once been approached by a shadowy suit who floated the idea of having a ’super-battle’ at a rival nation’s newly constructed naval docks, with a massive cash bonus if collateral damage just ’happened’ to level the entire facility.

I’d declined, obviously—I’m a villain, not a geopolitical mercenary—but a week later, Depth Charger mysteriously blew the place to kingdom come while fighting his nemesis, Oceania.

So while it wouldn’t be surprising if Delirium was secretly working with some alphabet agency, what the hell would they want with me?

Well, one way to find out.

The agent reached my table and slid into the seat across from me, her posture impossibly rigid.

"Miles Mitchell?"

I masked a wince, taking a slow sip of my beer. It had been a very long time since I’d heard that name.

I didn’t know my last name in my past life in the mob (orphan remember), and I certainly didn’t care to use one in this life.

Using my legal name was a deliberate, calculated power play to remind me they had a file on me.

"That’s me," I said smoothly. "What can I do for the federal government today?"

"Why assume I am with any agency?"

I looked over her immaculate, wrinkle-free black suit and into her eyes, which were as cold and emotionless as marbles. "Just a wild guess," I said dryly.

She stared at me in silence for a long, heavy moment. "Mr. Mitchell," she said. "My name is Jane."

"Jane Doe?" I guessed.

"Yes."

Shocker.

"Well, Jane," I said, leaning back. "What can I do for you?"

"Have you come into contact with any unusual individuals of late, Mr. Mitchell?"

I raised an eyebrow. "...Can you be a bit more specific?"

"Strange people. Out of the ordinary. Unusual in any way."

"Lady, my best friend can casually duplicate himself into twenty different men, my newest hire controls ice, and my tailor just dumped a towering succubus from hell in my living room for an extended sleepover. You’re gonna have to give me more to work with here."

She looked at me over her V-shaped glasses. I could practically see the bureaucratic gears turning in her head as she mulled over her words, trying to calculate how to give me absolutely nothing while extracting exactly what she needed. Ah, feds. Always so helpful.

"Someone... not human," she finally said.

Well, that did narrow it down a fraction. In my line of work, dealing with weirdos was a Tuesday, but the ones who explicitly weren’t human was a slightly smaller list.

Granted, the definition of ’human’ tended to get pretty liberal in the superhuman community, but still.

I tapped my fingers against the scarred wood of the table. "Any clue what this is actually about?"

"It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with."

"Since you tracked me down to a subterranean dive bar to ask me about it, it kind of feels like I do."

"Please simply answer the question."

I frowned. My natural instinct was to cooperate with authorities to the absolute bare minimum required to not get arrested.

That’s standard operating procedure for a professional villain. Cops and feds are always just looking for a slip-up so they can nail you with a crime, even if you’re technically off the clock. Bastards.

But at the same time, I wasn’t exactly looking to antagonize someone with the institutional power to freeze my bank accounts or raid my chalet.

Haaaah. Things would be so much simpler if I really was a mindless megalomaniac bent on grinding the world under my heel.

"I fought a squid-man not too long ago," I offered casually. "And I recently dealt with a maniac who was selling black-market super weapons. How’s that?"

"Anyone else?"

Really? That wasn’t it? I tried to get a read on her face.

She did a damn good job of maintaining that emotionless marble facade, but I had regular staring contests with Micheal Cortex, and absolutely nobody could out-stare that dude.

While Jane’s face gave nothing away, her posture betrayed a subtle spike of interest. The way she leaned slightly forward, the way her eyes actively scrutinized my micro-expressions—it told me she was hunting for something highly specific.

I had a piece of information she wanted. She might not know exactly what it was, but she knew I possessed it.

"Not really," I said plainly. "But why ask me? What exactly should I be looking out for?"

"I cannot answer that."

"Why not?"

"It is a matter of national security."

"Is the world in danger?"

"Once again, I cannot answer. Are you certain you’ve encountered no other unusual individuals?"

"I could tell you a lot more if you actually gave me some information to work with."

Jane gave a microscopic shake of her head. "I have already provided you with everything I am permitted."

Yeah, I heavily doubted that. But if she wasn’t going to play ball, then why the hell should I?

I simply shrugged, taking another sip of my beer. "Well. Sorry I can’t do more for you."