The X-Project

The first introduction to M-Squad.



Piotr and Garrison stood at the very back of a large room, surrounded by uniformed police officers who were staggered in rows waiting for the arrival of the task force captain. It had been an old friend of Fred Duncan's who had arranged to get both of them into the briefing for the manhunt that was going to take place. Duncan's friend, a retiring Commissioner, had been more than a little suspect about how this manhunt was being arranged, muttering darkly about a 'political circus' in aid of the Chief of Police's aspirations for elected office. Both men were non-descript, holding note pads like everyone else.

"Settle down." Captain Garvey took the podium, motioning for those who could to sit. "I'm going to keep this short, since most of you are going to be coordinated by precinct. Despite our best efforts, we have only been able to narrow our search to the Centrel-West region of the city. That means New City, Englewood, Gage Park, West Lawn, and a half dozen others. That's a lot of geography to cover." Behind him, an officer was tapping away on a laptop, and the area appeared on the screen with the briefing.

"Now, to review, our suspect is Raymond Thomas Maxwell. He's eighteen, five-eleven, slight build." The image of the young man appeared. He was dark haired and thin faced, but otherwise unremarkable to look at. If he'd sat on the bus beside you, he wouldn't make any impression. "Maxwell's parents confirmed that they believe their son is a mutant, but they haven't seem him manifest. That means his powers could be anything. That's one of our main concerns. Because we do not have a confirmed test on the suspect or any data about his potential abilities, SHIELD will not send a team in to assist us. The Chief of Police, after consultation with the Mayor, has decided to retain the services of M-Squad. They are a group of specialists who study mutations and deploy countermeasures in order to put them under control. They will be advising us in the field, and when any team makes contact with Maxwell, your very first call will be to them. I'm not going to risk people if our suspect turns out to be more dangerous than we think."

He stepped back from the podium, and motioned to an officer near a door. He opened it, and five people walked through the door. The man in front was tall and awkward looking, with an expression of slight distaste as he looked over the squad. Behind it, it was a mixed group of individuals, all dwarfed by the larger police that they past. Only one woman was in the group, and the look of slight curiosity as she scanned the faces.

"This is M-Squad. Dr. Ira Wainsborough, Dr. Sidney Lutz, Dr. Susan Leibovitz, Dr. Moshe Ben-Menahem, and Dr. Jagdish Singh Raghava." He stumbled slightly under the last two names. He motioned for Dr. Wainsborough to approach the lectern, which he did in an awkward sidle.

"Good morning. I'm Dr. Ira Wainsborough, the leader of M-Squad." There was a confused scuffle from the others and he glared at them for a moment. "Just so we're clear, before I start to explain things, how many of you come from a science background?"

There was silence from the assembled officers and Ira shook his head. "Alright. Let's try something different. How many of you have or are working on a degree of some form?" About two thirds of the officers raised their hands. "Good. Now, those of you who have degrees in some form of Arts, please lower your hands." A number of the officers did so. "Those who have degrees in some form of physical education or therapy, please do so as well." More hands fell. "Now, those who have degrees in what are laughably referred to as the 'soft sciences', such as psychology, criminology, and other assorted hokum, please lower your hands."

The room was left without a single hand in the air and Wainsborough turned to his team. "Alright, I can't do this. We're going to be working with mall security who's education is rooted in reading tea leaves. And really, people-" He rounded back on the assembled force. "How is your search supposed to be taken seriously as police when the public discovers none of you are qualified to apply a logarithmic spiral of r = eκθ in your search?"

"That's enough, Ira. I can take it from here." The short man in the glasses stood up, placating Wainsborough back to his seat. "I'm Dr. Sidney Lutz. What Dr. Wainsborough was trying to say is that we'll be using a complex search pattern based off the growth of squares as applied to a logarithmic spiral in order to cover all the ground inside the limited range of our detection systems."

"It's not that complicated." Ira said sulkily from his chair.

"When we have the location, we'll move in to assess the abilities of the mutant and make sure we can safely contain him. At that point, we'll notify you to get men on to the scene, contain the mutant, and make sure he can be safely held by the police. So, you know, you just need to wait for us to call, and then you can bring the hammer down." He grinned. "You know, the hammer. You can, uh, bring it down. Uh--"

Garrison turned for the door, motioning Piotr to leave with him. As they exited the room unnoticed, Garrison pulled out his phone. "We have met M-Squad and determine they are complete wackadoodles. Let's go find Ray."