Amanda's Despair

A.R.G.U.S.

The command center, fifty meters underground.

A giant screen at the center glared red, bathing the entire hall in the color of blood.

Onscreen, Chu Men hovered in midair, slaughtering at will.

Smack!

A battle forecast more than a hundred pages thick went flying and slammed into the metal conference table.

Amanda Waller's chest heaved as she glared at the chief intelligence analyst across from her.

"This is the conclusion you reached with three supercomputers?" Waller's voice was hoarse with barely restrained fury.

The analyst adjusted his glasses. Unable to meet her eyes, he looked down at the scattered pages.

"Ma'am, the data is right here."

"Read it." Waller pulled out a chair and sat down.

The analyst swallowed and picked up the top sheet. "Using the combat data from the total destruction of LexCorp's private forces, we rebuilt our model of his capabilities. Chu Men's Bio-electric Field can withstand saturation attacks from armor-piercing rounds, guided missiles, and high-energy lasers at the same time. An armored vehicle is no tougher than a cardboard box in his hands."

The analyst turned a page, his voice tightening.

"Based on that, Task Force X has a zero percent chance of surviving close combat with the target and a zero percent chance of killing him with a long-range sniper shot. The probability of the nanobomb toxin affecting him... is also zero percent."

Waller clasped her hands, the veins standing out on their backs.

"And the conclusion?" she asked.

"One hundred percent chance of total annihilation." The analyst looked up, his face deathly pale.

"Zero chance of killing him in return. Ma'am, we aren't sending in a task force. We're serving him four appetizers on a platter."

The conference room fell dead silent.

On the screen, Chu Men turned toward the camera and curled his lips into a smile.

Waller knew exactly what that meant.

Chu Men was a madman through and through, a Tyrant who did whatever he pleased.

Sending those four after him would never kill him. It would only give him an excuse to follow the trail to Washington and massacre the city.

If that killer reached the skies above the Pentagon, everyone in the room would be burned to a crisp.

"Communications officer!" Waller shot to her feet and snatched up the red satellite phone on the table. "Get me Deadshot, now! Tell them to get their asses back here! The mission is canceled!"

The communications officer in the back row put on his headset, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

Strings of code cascaded down a secondary screen.

Half a minute passed.

The officer's face turned ashen. He took his hands off the keyboard. "Ma'am, I can't reach them."

"What did you say?" Waller strode to the communications station.

"Their signal is being jammed. We've lost outgoing contact."

Waller seized him by the collar. "Use the backup frequency! Use low-frequency radio! I don't care how you do it—get those four idiots back here!"

"I can't, ma'am." The officer made no attempt to free himself.

Waller let go and staggered back a step.

Out of control. Those were the two words she hated most in her intelligence career.

"Ma'am." The deputy stepped forward, his eyes cold. "If we can't contact them, we can't let them fall into Chu Men's hands. They know too many A.R.G.U.S. secrets."

Waller turned to look at him.

The deputy pointed to the black briefcase beside Waller. "Press the detonator. Set off the nanobombs in their necks. Dead men don't leak secrets."

Waller stared at him for three seconds.

Then she drew the pistol at her waist and planted its muzzle against his forehead.

Metal struck bone with a sharp click.

"Is your head full of shit?" Waller gritted her teeth and pressed the gun harder against his forehead. "Detonate them now? The proprietary A.R.G.U.S. chips in those four rotten heads are proof that we provoked Chu Men!"

The deputy raised both hands, cold sweat running down his temples.

"All Chu Men has to do is cut open their necks and see the A.R.G.U.S. insignia. By this time tomorrow, he'll have turned this underground base into an oven with his Heat Vision!" Waller lowered the gun and kicked the deputy in the knee. "Get out of my sight!"

The deputy winced and retreated to a corner.

The tension in the conference room reached its peak.

Everyone watched their usually unflappable commander pace before the console like a trapped beast.

"Ma'am." The chief of staff rose. His hair was gray, and he wore a general's stars on his shoulders. He approached Waller, his voice steady. "We've come this far. Conventional measures have failed. We can't just wait to die."

Waller stopped pacing.

The chief of staff pointed to the locked safe on Waller's desk. "Initiate Plan B. The red-skull file. You always said it was our last resort. Even the White House envoy signed the authorization. It's time."

Every senior agent and intelligence expert turned toward the safe.

It held A.R.G.U.S.'s greatest secret, the ultimate weapon supposedly designed for threats on the level of gods.

Waller looked at the chief of staff. The muscles in her face began to twitch uncontrollably.

She strode to her desk, grabbed the coffee maker, and smashed it against the floor.

Glass shards and brown coffee splashed everywhere.

"Fuck Plan B!" Waller roared, her composure shattered.

She pulled out a key, jammed it into the safe's lock, and twisted hard.

The alloy door sprang open. She snatched out the classified folder marked with a red skull and slammed it down in the middle of the conference table.

"Look! Come and look!" Waller pointed at the folder, her voice raw.

Frowning, the chief of staff stepped forward and opened it.

Inside were five sheets of paper.

Brand-new, snow-white sheets without a single word on them.

"Blank paper?" The chief of staff froze. "Is... is this invisible ink?"

"Invisible, my ass!" Waller planted both hands on the table, breathing hard. "It's just a few worthless sheets of paper! What the hell am I supposed to use against that walking cheat code?!"

The room went silent. Only the instruments' alarms continued to beep.

"It was a placebo for the politicians on Capitol Hill." Waller slumped into her chair, looking ten years older. "Without some grand-sounding Plan B, how would I get them to approve a fifteen-billion-dollar budget? Did you really think humanity had a way to fight a monster who could crush a S.H.I.E.L.D. with his bare hands and kick Superman around like a ball?"

The chief of staff stared at the blank pages in his hands. They shook so badly he could barely hold them.

The senior agents stared at the commander they had thought invincible, the "Black Mom" who always had a backup plan. Now she looked like a deflated balloon.

"We're out of the game." Waller closed her eyes. "Pray. Pray those four idiots die cleanly and don't bring the fire to Washington."

The arrogant government agency had admitted complete defeat.

It had been stripped of even the right to enter the battlefield.

Chu Men didn't even know they existed, yet sheer fear of him had already broken the backbone of humanity's most powerful institution.