The X-Project

Following their look into the warehouse, Kane turns to his father's contacts at Knightwing Restorations, and finds exactly what he should have expected.



The party emerging from the van cab could not have been more unique if it had been staged; a handful of Westerners, an overly large man with his face concealed under a hat and raincoat, and a single young Chinese woman with a clipboard and the bossy statements of a corporate tour guide. It had been Cage's idea, to conceal the X-Men and others as yet another business group in for a tour of someone's China offices, hiding them in plain sight. The building in front of them was hardly that of a worldspanning global empire either. Wan Chai might be in the midst of modernization, but the building before them was a relic of the thirties, it's brickwork marked by a dozen typhoons and the name of a long defunct shipping firm still etched into the brick over the door. They walked in, with only a perfunctionary nod to security and headed up to the sixth floor, and the offices of KnightWing Restorations, Ltd. Christian had explained to his son that he'd funded several small agencies like this over the years, nestling them deep in the local politics and events to provide him detailed intelligence. This one had experience with the Landau, Luckman and Lake firm listed in the records they had seen at the warehouse as the end of the money trail for Sublime's more suspicious movements.

"You ever been here?" Kane said to Luke Cage, as he opened the door to the offices.

"Nope. Your old man likes to keep his resources close to his chest."

"Figures." Kane opened the door, and the group walked in, assured by Christian that they'd been expected.

"I just- Sweet Christmas!" Cage said, stopped dead as the door opened into one large open office, and three women looked up from their work at him.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Dad..."

"Well, well, it looks like our lucky day, ladies." The voice was low and sultry and as rich as Turkish coffee. The owner was a tall black woman who unfolded herself from her desk chair with a dangerous grace. Despite the heat, she wore long sleeves, and a glove covered her right hand. "What can we do for you fine folks?"

"I'm Agent Luke Cage, from SHIELD. This is Agent Garrison Kane from - well, his dad." Cage said smoothly, earning a snicker from the back. Garrison sighed and put out his hand.

"Garrison. My friends and I are doing a little investigation here in Hong Kong, and my father suggested you could help."

Another woman leaned back in her chair, chewing on her pen as she propped her boots up on the desk. Her long, black straight hair hung down well past her back and her bright eyes were inquisitive, yet .

"Depends on what and or who you're investigating," she said, her British accent readily apparent as a smile appeared. Sliding her boots down, she idly stood and stretched her hands over her head before shaking the bearded man's hand.

"Jessica," she said. She glanced behind him toward the other man, the smile turning into a grin.

"Did you just say Sweet Christmas?"

"What, a black man can't say 'Sweet Christmas' in Hong Kong?" Cage said, a bit defensively.

"We've been looking into Sublime Pharm here in Hong Kong. They've got a special secure warehouse that we think was used as stop off for a flight that may be involved in an attack eighteen months ago." Kane said, motioning the others forwards. "When we went inside, we found some things leading to a local law firm." "Landau, Luckman, and Lake," Paige finished, brushing shoulders against Kane as she stopped to stand between the two men. Nearly a foot difference in height, she was not going to jog to keep up with those two, but pushed bright blond hair over her shoulder in irritation. "And then it may have been mentioned you're acquainted."

"We are." The accent was American despite the Asian markers of her eyes and bone structure. Colleen had stood while their visitors introduced themselves, so to speak, but had hung back. She was dressed simply in black trousers and a form-fitting black shirt. She was quiet enough to blend into the background while Jessica and Misty took the fore. "Some of us more intimately than others. Kane sent you?" She gave the so-called son and once over, seemed to deem him as uninteresting and let her eyes wander over the others assembled there. "So who are the rest of you?"

"Garrison's high school graduating class." Marie-Ange said dryly. "You could not tell?" Because what was she supposed to do, introduce herself as Garrison's ex-girlfriend, the spy? "I was head cheerleader. You can tell from the lack of pom-poms. They are illegal in Canada."

Bobby slapped his head slightly and shook it from side to side. Slowly he leaned forward and whispered into Marie-Ange's ear next to him. "Down girl. We're gonna get more flies with honey than lemons here." And guessing by the amount of crap the team had already been through, these girls might be hiding a lot of flies. He raised his voice as he looked forward. "We're just a group of people trying to make the world better one less shady organization at a time. If there's any information you can provide us with, we can do just that." But as he found himself slinking back in line, he couldn't help but whisper one last thing to Marie-Ange "But if you're serious about the cheerleader uniform, I'm sure a picture slid underneath the doors of our hotel rooms could only boost morale."

Colleen continued to look unimpressed. Her gaze moved back to the blonde woman and two men she was standing between, Cage and Kane. "I owe Kane so if he sent you here then we'll help you, because you're his son and by extension of me owing him so do the others." Her eyes flicked over to the snarky redhead and company for a moment and then back to Kane. "Such debts do not extend to his son's 'graduating class,' snarky girlfriends included, whether or not they want to be the Power Rangers."

"Some of us have better reasons for wanting to help than others," chimed in the black woman who had spoken first, approaching to stand beside Colleen and Jessica. "Misty Knight. How about we check the attitudes at the door and have ourselves a sit down like civilised people?" The last was aimed more at Colleen than any one else. "We don't have a big operation here, but the conference room should hold you all."

"That sounds great," Angel chimed in, having watched the various exchanges go back and forth with something akin to wide eyed confusion. There was some kind of international pissing contest going on and, for once, Angel was perfectly happy being too young or too inexperienced to really understand why or accidentally get herself involved. If she did, anyone from either side could eat her alive. She continued, hopefully with, "Ma'am, you wouldn't happen to have really strong, black coffee you could point me to, would you?" It was directed to either of the three ladies in front of her - she just wasn't sure if "ma'ams" was a real word or not.

Whatever ire the snarky ginger had inspired clearly didn't carry over to the kid who had manners. Mostly because she had the sense to have manners when asking someone for help. Colleen smiled and waved her over. "Yeah, kid, I think we've got you covered there. If there isn't strong enough coffee for you here then you'll have to tell me where I can find better." She pushed away from her desk and led the way to the back corner of the room where a small kitchen laid with a full pot of coffee. With a glance over her shoulder to be sure the kid was following she asked, "Anyone else in search of caffeine?"

Hank took a seat and pulled out his touchpad, pulling up some of the information he'd been collecting since their arrival. At the mention of caffeine, his brow perked up and a toothy grin curled the edges of his lips, "I would love some tea if you have any." Not waiting for a response, he tapped a few places on the screen and was quickly reviewing what they were here for. "If we are indeed finished with the typical espionage game of my dad can beat up your dad, may we get down to the business at hand?"

"A chap after my own heart," Jessica said as she clasped her hands over her chest.

"Say, can you fix me up a bit of tea too, Collie love? Y'know the way I fancy it," she added as she sat on the edge of the desk, casting a glance over the amount of people that filled their modest little office. Her feet skimmed the ground as she dragged her the tip of her shoe along the rug.

"Dodgy fellows, that firm. If you weren't apparently already knee deep in I would've told you lot to stay clear and turn the other way but something tells me you're not the types. What happened during the attack?"

It'd give them more to go on, and satisfy her own innate curiosity.

"They killed four Canadian mutant operatives and put two more in the hospital. We tracked the flight that carried them into Canada to an ex-military pilot named Archie Corrigan, who linked the flight with Sublime right before he was killed by a highly trained team of mutants. Including one that had been in the service of a secret US government weapons program the last time we saw her." Kane motioned at the materials Hank had brought out. "We managed to link Oyama with this secure facility of Sublime Pharm here in Hong Kong. From looking at the manifests, Sublime is secretly putting together a big expansion in what looks like genetic research. The problem is that the money trails all stop dead at LLL. So we don't know exactly what they are looking into, who authorized the financing of Corrigan's flight, or any clue why a Pacific Rim pharm company is tied up with an attack on a Canadian program in the first place. We also picked up an echo of mutants moving through the warehouse. Lots of them."

"So now you know why we're comin' to you. What can you give us on LLL?" Jubilee asked, moving forward to peer around Beast's shoulder at his touchpad, she directed the question at the three women in front of her however.

Rising from the desk, Jessica grabbed a pen from her desk and started turning it over in her hand thoughtfully. She glanced toward Colleen and Misty.

"Not much, I'm afraid. It's a tangled web, unfortunately." "And they're assholes," Colleen added, pushing the cup of tea Jess had requested into her hands despite her twirling pen. The other cup in her hand was set down in front of the big blue guy before she sat down. "And they have an issue with legality. Misty wasn't kidding when she said steering clear of the firm is a good idea, but if you're dead set on poking the hornet's nest..." She sighed and finally sat down herself. "Then you're going to need to go into the nest. Our dear friends at Triple-L are good at covering their asses and their tracks. So if all your roads stop with them it's because the thread you're following goes straight through them. If I had to guess? They're probably the ones in charge of all the shit you're trying to track down." Which was great, really. Colleen liked Landau, Luckman and Lake about as much as she liked the idea of chewing off her own arm. Actually, no, she might like chewing off her arm better.

"So what's the best way for dealing with LLL?" Angel had found a seat and was sitting with her very black cup of coffee clutched firmly in both hands. No one was taking that away from her without anything short of a taser. "We've totally been roadblocked and can't get around but you guys seem, you know, to understand how they work. What do you recommend -" She grinned at the three women over the top of the mug. "Besides not dealing with them, of course."

Misty was going through the documents Hank had provided. "Not dealing with them ain't gonna be an option if you want Sublime," she said at last. "Everything you want is being funnelled through their offices and they keep everything locked down. What you want will be with Triple-L, probably with one of the named partners."

"Well, since they will certainly not share the information with us..." Marie-Ange was practically on her toes trying to read over Hank's shoulder. Having it all there on a screen helped put some of the pieces together. "Then perhaps we should just take it from them. Without them knowing, of course." As is if it was just that easy. She caught the skeptical expressions, and shrugged. "It would take planning and I think, ah, some certain willingness to ignore the rules, but no company is completely safe from espionage."

"No chance getting inside the LLL building here in Hong Kong. They share office space with the Bank of China, and that security is on 'shoot first and don't bother asking questions later'." Cage said, considering the situation. "If you want that info, you need to get it from a source off site."

"Someone high enough with an outside connection or file records. Partners, associates?" Kane pointed out, looking over the sheets.


"Hmmm," Jessica said, chewing on a pen as the wheels turned behind her eyes.

"...They're actually having a party in Macau that may make for an easy access point," she said. She slowly smiled.

"Lax security, random people mulling about....Anyone feel like crashing?"