At the same moment, somewhere else.

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“There is a problem.”

“We seem to have a surplus of those today.”

“Target Phillips has been seen with another target, one of the machina created by Project Zebulon.”

“You are certain of this?”

“Positive, sir. Zebulon Unit Number 5 has been located, and has aligned himself with Target Phillips.”

“Anything else I should know about?”

“We have reason to believe that the extraterrestrial who escaped and evolved Target Phillips is still in telepathic contact with him. It may have been he who warned the target before the attempted attack. Further, we are having difficulties reading the thoughts of the women with whom Target Phillips has been mating. Perhaps he is teaching them to block, or installing his own blocks.”

“This is getting out of hand. We must accellerate the operation.”

“Affirmative, Sir.”

The subordinate departs, leaving the superior, an aging general, alone with his thoughts. He turns to face the window, and pulls on the cord to raise the shades, revealing a face like an evil Cotton Hill from “King of the Hill”. Steepling his hands, he brings the tips of his index fingers to a spot between and just above his eyes.

“Putting down that combat-meditation cult was one thing.” he grumbles. “An artificially-evolved superhuman is something else entirely. If Victor Phillips is any good, he must certainly be on his guard now. The failure against Mr. Andersen and the two failures against him will leave him with **** but to realize that someone is after him, and wonder who. He will undoubtedly attempt to have the girl or the robot find out who is after him.” He spins around and taps the intercom button on his desk. “Maximize security to the computer systems immediately.”

“Yes, sir!” the voice on the other end replies. He taps the intercom off and sits back in his high-backed leather chair.

“I’ve spent too long protecting the world from superhumans and aliens to be shut down by some Jack Shit from a TV station.” he mutters. “If I thought I could make use of that Kevin Shadows that Zeta Squad has been watching all month, I’d do it, but he’s too idealistic, and if he became aware of our surveilance of him, he’d certainly disappear.” He sighed, turning toward the window again. “So far Phillips is on the defensive. We have to keep him there.” He withdrew his pocketwatch, opening it to reveal a picture of a beautiful young woman. He stared at it for several minutes before putting the watch back in his pocket. He wasn’t supposed to have this. When he joined up, he was supposed to have abandoned all personal items. Everything else was issued to him by the government. His wristwatch was high-tech, with so many fancy gizmos that there almost wasn’t room for the timepiece. He’d kept the pocketwatch secret, however, hidden away in his pocket, only rarely taking it out to remind himself of the young woman whose memorial was contained therein.

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