THE CREW

Part 4

by Flexman

This story is a parody. The X-Men are owned by Marvel Comics. This is a not for profit story and free to anyone who wants to read it. No one under eighteen should read it.

SEVEN MONTHS LATER

Thursday - 2:02 A.M.

The telephone lines are underground, and Hooker needs to get to them. I take hold of his arm and we phase down through the street together. It takes him about twenty minutes to disable the security circuits. The trick is not to just disable them, but it's to not let the security company know they've been disabled. He does it. He's good, it helps he's a genius. We get out of there and meet the others on the rooftop. The heavy locks are not a problem. Dorsey waves his hand and they all pop open. Why bother with the locks? My power has limitations. I'm only capable of phasing with one other person in tow, no more. I'd have to take them in one at a time and that's too slow, especially if something goes wrong and we have to get out fast.

We can't just enter the vault section, there are still some security systems left to deal with. The floor is pressure sensitive and there are motion detectors. Hooker gets lowered down with a rope to the junction panel. He's upside down. No need for pulleys or motors, Cruz can handle Hooker's one hundred eighty-eight pounds without a strain, so he's the one who mans the rope. This time Hooker does the deed in only eleven minutes. It's all clear. The rest of us come down with our own ropes. The vault door is too massive for Dorsey to open like he did the locks, but he can reset the timer for it to open in a couple of minutes. I phase through first to look around. There are cameras all over the place but Hooker already took care of them. The rent a cops in the control room are totally unaware they are watching a feed from last night. I give the OK, Dorsey resets the clock and Cruz opens the vault door. Inside, row after row of safety deposit boxes. Not just any boxes, these are used by the happy residents of communities like Beverly Hills and Bel Air. They contained investment quality diamonds, bearer bonds, jewelry bought at places like Tiffany and Cartier and cash. Cash they don't want anybody to know they have. Anybodies like the IRS, business partners or their ex-spouse's divorce lawyers. Dorsey brings his arms up to his sides, forming a T, then walks down the aisles. As he passes, the boxes unlock and open. The rest of us walk behind, sliding the boxes out of their slots and emptying the contents into bags. We're picky, we only want things we can fence fast, without any problems. No rare coin collections or family heirlooms. We don't have the time to look over every document, just the cash, bearer bonds, diamonds and jewelry. If only Hooker had followed that rule our lives would have been much less complicated. Nobody really blames him. It didn't seem like such a big deal at the time. In one of the boxes he comes to there are three CDs. What gets his attention is these CD's are stored in special cases. These cases not only protect them from damage but they're also antimagnetic. Ordinarily, Dorsey's magnetic pulse would have erased them, but the cases protected them. Hooker figures CDs that well protected and kept in a safety deposit box probably weren't being used to store grandmas' old chocolate chip cookie recipe. He's thinking sensitive data. He's thinking possible blackmail, insider trading or industrial espionage. So he puts them in his bag and moves on. He plans on looking them over later, when he's got the time.

We walk out with eight bags stuffed. We feel good. This is our biggest score so far. It's party time.

Monday - 10:06 A.M.

He's a tall man, about six-two. His weight is around two hundred ten pounds. Not fat. His mid-section is flat and ridged. His most distinguishing characteristic is a massive barrel chest. His back is wide, his arms are thick and muscular but it's that chest that really stands out, deep and powerful. His long black hair with a few distinguished streaks of gray is combed back into a ponytail and he has long sideburns remission of the old muttonchops style not seen for many decades. He's dressed in a gray, tailored, Saville Row business suit that looks like it cost enough to feed a family of four for the better part of a decade. His black leather shoes look even more expensive.

Sebastian Hiram Shaw has flown in from New York, on his private jet, less then two hours ago and he's not a happy man. He's standing in his private suite in the west coast headquarters of Shaw Industries, a multinational corporation, primarily involved in worldwide defense contracts and munitions, as well as various other ventures.

At the moment the source of his displeasure is two men who work for him. For both men it would have been much more preferable to be standing in the middle of Dante's Inferno then to be Shaw's office. Shaw has his back to them. He's facing the window, staring at downtown Malibu.

"What were the CDs doing in that bank?" he asks without turning around. He did not raise his voice yet both men could swear he was yelling at them. His deep voice has a booming quality about it.

"Standard procedure," one of them meekly replies. "We always keep back-up copies in a separate location."

Shaw does not respond to this. "Sir," the employee proceeds. "Not to minimize the severity of the situation, but unless the thieves have advance degrees in bio-genetics or biophysics, the material on the disks will be nothing but gibberish to them. They won't be able to make heads or tails out of it."

"And there is one other bit of good news," the other man interjected. "They only have half the process. I took three of the disks out the day before to update them. I was planning on returning them the next day. So Ernie's right, aside from it being incomplete, I seriously doubt the thieves will have any idea what they have. I'd be willing to bet they'll just toss the disks out."

For the first time Shaw turns around and looks at them. The look in his eyes could burn holes through steel.

"So what are you suggesting?" he calmly asks. "We do nothing? Leave it to chance these people will not be able to figure out what they have and that nothing will come of it. You both believe that we shouldn't worry about this. Just forget all about it."

Neither man responds.

"Fucking morons!" Now Shaw is yelling. "Do either of you two idiots have any idea how many federal and international laws are being broken on this project? You have any idea of the consequences of being discovered, to this company, to both of you, to me personally?"

Both men remain silent.

"Get the fuck out! Get your fucking ass out of here before I personally toss you out the window."

Both men scurry out the door.

"Assholes." Shaw looks at his executive assistant, Ms. Lorenzo, standing in the corner. "They've become liabilities. All a federal prosecutor has to do is give them a dirty look and they'll roll over on me. I want them taken care of by tonight."

Ms. Lorenzo nods. "I'll see to it."

"What do we have on this robbery?"

Ms. Lorenzo opens her leather bound pad and reviews her notes. "This being a bank robbery it falls under federal jurisdictions, so the FBI is taking the lead on the investigation. The LAPD is cooperating. As of this morning they have nothing, no forensics, no witnesses, nothing. This was a first rate job, technically proficient and very clean. They knew how to deal with every security system in the bank, so they suspect some sort of inside job. That's their primary avenue of investigation at the moment. Anybody with any kind of knowledge of the security set up is being looked in to."

"And that's it?"

"There is one other thing. There is some suspicion that mutants may be involved. It's the way the robbery was done."

Shaw shakes his head. "They always say that. Anytime they can't figure out how they did it, they claim it must be mutants."

"There may be something to it this time. The timer on the vault door was reset, no one knows how it was done. All the locks, both on the roof, where they came in, and in the safety deposit boxes just opened. No sign of being picked or damage, and CSI checked those locks thoroughly. Besides, they emptied more than a hundred boxes. Do you know how long it would take to pick that may locks? They'd be there all night. Yet, the FBI is claiming they were out of there in less than an hour."

Shaw smiles. "That's interesting. If that's true, then the FBI's investigation is a complete waste of time. Think about it. If they have a telepath with them, it becomes the ultimate inside job. Every one of their security people could have betrayed the bank and not even know it. The telepath could have just picked their minds clean. This is truly a new age of crime. Do they have any particular mutants in mind?"

"LAPD checked for similar MOs, they seem to feel certain it was an outfit known as the Crew. They've been around for a couple of years. There are five known members, none with criminal records. All the information they have on them is through informants and there's scant little of that. The FBI has put then on around the clock surveillance, so far nothing."

"That's good news."

"Excuse me?"

"My dear Ms. Lorenzo, do you truly believe I want them apprehended? If there's any doubt about this Crew figuring out what's on those disks, there's none about the FBI. They have experts that can explain it to them. No, the worse thing that can happen is the FBI catches them and recovers the disks."

"Well, so far that doesn't appear likely."

Shaw gives her that look. She's seen it many times before. She knows what's coming. "I don't leave my future and destiny up to chance. I want a team of mercs put in the field," he orders. "Preferably mutant mercs."

"What instructions shall I give them?"

"Very simple, they are to recover the disks and kill this entire crew, no survivors. I want it taken care of before the end of the week."

Monday - 2:43 P.M.

Xavier Institute for Higher Learning

1407 Graymalkin Lane

Salem Center, New York

Things have changed for Storm in the seven months since she and the other X-Men encountered the Crew. First, Ororo and her team rejoined the core X-Men team based in Salem Center. Second, her team, now designated as the X-Treme Sanctions Executive, the XSEs, working for the U.N., has officially become the global mutant police force. They respond to situations involving mutants worldwide. Third, her team has changed. Rogue, Gambit and Kitty Pryde have been reassigned to other X-teams and replaced by Kurt Wagner, known as Nightcrawler, Rachel Summers, whose street name is Marvel Girl and Logan, known far and wide as Wolverine. Still the problems with the Crew hung over them and threatened everything she hopes to accomplish. The team never speaks of the incident, even amongst themselves. The shame, humiliations and confusion are just too great. Even the three new members have not been told. Deep down Storm has always known the time would come when they would have to deal with it. That time arrived unexpectedly in the form of Valerie Cooper.

She arrived in the afternoon to meet with Storm's team in the conference room. Despite being reassigned to other teams, both Rogue and Kitty attended the meeting. Cooper began by announcing the Justice Department has asked the United Nations for the XSEs help in dealing with this Crew.

"The FBI has turned up nothing on this bank job. The Attorney General fears these people will go on a spree of bank robberies, not just in Southern California, but throughout the country. He wants it stopped before they get any bolder."

"I still don't understand what it is you want us to do," Storm asked. "You have no evidence against them, nothing tying them to the robbery at all. The only reason you suspect them is because of some unreliable unnamed sources from the LAPD. We have no cause to arrest them."

Val stares at her for a moment. She senses my reluctance, Storm thinks. "I was hoping you might be able to set a trap for them. Perhaps Rachel or Sage can scan their minds, determine when and where their next job is. Then you can be ready for them."

The room is silent. Bishop, Cannonball, Rogue and Kitty avert their eyes. Wolverine, Marvel Girl, Nightcrawler and Cooper all watch Storm with curiosity.

"Yes, that is a possibility," Storm finally replies. "It could work if these people truly are the thieves you're looking for."

Cooper continues to stare Storm. "You know Storm, you may not remember but several months ago the LAPD asked for your help in apprehending this exact same Crew. They were given the impression you would help, but later you backed off. Is there some problem?"

"You're right. I don't recall that. Probably something urgent came up requiring our immediate attention."

"Well, this is top priority now."

As soon as Cooper leaves Wolverine spoke up. "Ok, out with it. What's wrong?"

"What do you mean, Logan?"

"I know you too well, Ro. Something's bothering you. I want to know what it is."

"Nothing, I just have other things on my mind."

"Yeah, you and everyone else in the room. The way you all looked you'd think Val was asking you to walk down Time Square naked in the middle of rush hour. Come on, what is it?"

Neither Rogue nor Kitty meet his eyes. Sage remained silent. "Nothing," Storm insisted. "I have other things on my mind. We'll meet later to discuss how we are going to deal with this. Rachel can you stay behind. I need to speak with you."

Wolverine was not convinced but let it go, at least for the moment. After the men left, Rachel Summers found herself alone in the conference room with the four other women. For a long while there was silence as Storm contemplated what to say. Finally, "Logan's right, there is a problem," Storm told her.

"I don't have to read your minds to know that," Rachel commented. "Has it something to do with this Crew?"

"Yes and we need your help."

Storm explained to her what happened seven months earlier and their present predicament. "My lord, and all of you have been living with this over your heads all this time?" asked Rachel.

"Yes. If these photographs and videos ever become public, the X-Men are finished. They will no longer take us seriously. We'll be humiliated. That's why we cannot go after the Crew. The problem is that Val is right. The Crew is getting bolder. When we first fought them, they were just hijacking trucks. In the last several months they started hitting jewelry stores and brokerage firms. Now they moved up to banks. They do have to be stopped and we do have to confront this situation. As you said, we can't just let it hang over us."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Val's plan can work. I need you to go to California, get close to them, read their minds and find out where the material is kept. Find out how many copies, where they're kept and how this blackmail is set up. If we can destroy all the copies, then we'll be free to go after them. Be careful. We don't know how powerful their telepath, Hooker, is. I don't want to send Tessa because Hooker is familiar with her psionic signature. He doesn't know you. I still prefer you not take any chances, don't try to scan his mind unless you absolutely have to. Concentrate on the other four."

"I'll leave immediately. I 'll take Dani to back me up. She can be trusted and Hooker doesn't know her either."

Tuesday - 5:03 P.M.

They sat in their rented car across the street from a garage called the Chopper Stable. It was quitting time. They watched Diego Cruz leave work.

"God, he's as big as James Proudstar," noted Dani Moonstar. "Look at those arms and that neck. He looks like he can carry a van around on his back."

"Rogue said he swatted Gambit and her like mosquitos," said Rachel.

"I can believe it. Something I don't get, if they're taking down all these big scores, why is he working in a garage?"

Rachel smiled. "Because he likes it. He's a good welder and mechanic. He's looking to become a master fabricator and build his own custom choppers. That's why he's part of the Crew. He wants to get enough money together to open his own shop."

They watched Cruz climb on his Harley, rev it up and take off. The girls follow. "You don't have to stay so close," Rachel explained. "I can track him, so hang back a bit."

They followed him to Venice Beach, where he pulled into the parking lot of a warehouse type building. He walked in carrying a gym bag. Dani parked the car across the street. She looked at Rachel. "Well?"

"It's a gym. He's here to work out."

It's Tuesday and we're working out in Lonnie Valare's gym on the corner of Saulitos and Brados. Lonnie is a mutant and he opened his place for mutants only, no flatscans allowed. It's the only place Cruz can find enough weights to get a hard workout. Like Cruz, Lonnie is a bodybuilder, that's a mutant whose primary power is super strength. So his gym has more tonnage then other gyms. It's a good place and usually packed. There's a waiting list to join. Lonnie's thinking of expanding or opening up a second location.

Dorsey and Hooker went heavy today; started out with deadlifts, then pull-ups, upright rows, curls and a hell of a lot of work on their abs. Dorsey loves working out, getting the endorphins going, the sweat, the pump, the whole feeling, it's why he pushes himself so hard. Hooker has a different reason, it helps him deal with the bad side effects of his mutant powers - a weird form of attention deficit disorder; he has a low tolerance for boredom, the mundane or the routine. The intense workouts help him focus, which is important to him. It also helps him bleed off all the excessive energy he has. Sleeping for him is a problem . Even with hard workouts six days a week, he still only manages about four hours a night, but he says that's an improvement.

Perry and Cruz are workout partners. The spent the last hour and a half also doing deadlifts, power cleans and T-bar rows. Then Cruz goes to the rack and does jerks, while Perry uses these heavy kettle bells to do some one arm snatches. They also finished with abs. Me? I'm not into weights the same way they are. I come in and do two hundred pushups, some high rep pull-ups and I also use those kettle bells for a bunch of different exercises. We hit the showers and leave. We don't have to wonder where the FBI surveillance is, each of us lost ours earlier. Perry's talking about getting a beer and something to eat, when Hooker stops and looks up. We all know that look. He's sensing something. For a minute he stands there deep in thought, then says it. "Incoming!"

In seconds Hooker sends the data into our heads. Four men and one woman. We know what their mutant powers are, we know their street names, we know what direction they're coming from and most important of all, we know they're coming to kill us. That's all we need for now. We throw our gym bags in a corner. Dorsey is thinking up orders and Hooker is conveying them into our heads. This first order is loud and clear: scatter. There of them are projectile shooters. We don't want to present a tight target in which they can take most or all of us out in one shot. What Dorsey wants is a loose battlefield where they have to engage us one on one and we can get favorable match ups and support each other.

We scatter going in every direction. Dorsey's right, as soon as they come around the corner, Harpoon let's go with a couple of his namesake at us. They are charged to explode. I phase under the street, down to the sewer and move fast. My job is to get behind them. I come up and head for my target, Vertigo. At the last minute I think she senses what I was doing. Too late, as she turns her head she runs right into my fist. I nail her good. Vertigo's power is the ability to psionically disorient anybody's equilibrium. You know, cause nausea and sever dizziness, shit like that. To prevent her from using her power I have to keep her from concentrating. I can't think of a better way of doing that then to pound the shit out of her. My next punch breaks her nose and the one after that smashes her mouth. I follow up with a perfect kick to the ribs. I can feel them go crunch. My final punch sends her to the ground.

Meanwhile, Riptide was on us, spinning like a mini tornado, shooting these disks, coming out from who knows where, made of who knows what. Problem for him is he's not an accurate shooter. They are going all over the place. Cruz dives behind a dumpster for cover. Blockbuster is trying to back him up but Riptide moves too fast and gets far ahead of him. That's a mistake. Hooker messes with his mind, doing to him what Vertigo wanted to do to us, screw up his equilibrium. He has to stop spinning to reestablish his sense of balance and that's when Perry nails him. He throws a shoulder tackle and slamming him to ground. Before he can get up Perry grabs the back of Riptide's head and slams him down again on the concrete. He then picks Riptide up and shoves him hard, face first, against the brick wall. Blockbuster is trying to come to Riptide's aid, but Cruz intercepts him. Riptide's face is a bloody pulp and he's looks almost unconscious, as Perry wraps his arm around his neck and effortlessly snaps it.

Harpoon throws another two of his harpoons at Dorsey. Stupid, they probably never told him what Dorsey's power is because his harpoons are metallic. Dorsey takes control of them in mid-flight and sends them back to him with even greater force. Being behind the Marauders, I couldn't see Harpoon's face, but his eyes must have popped out seeing his own weapons coming back at him. The two harpoons hit him full force, one on either side of his chest, coming out the other side, lifting him off the ground, impaling him against the brick wall two feet behind him. He just hangs there, dead, his feet dangling a couple of inches off the ground.

Scrambler went straight for Dorsey, but Hooker got in his way. That didn't seem to matter to him, one target was as good as another. He's oriental, Korean I think, wearing a suit and tie. I almost thought he was a bystander who just happen to be in the wrong place. I mean, what kind of an asshole wears a suit and tie to street fight. Anyway he puts both hands on Hooker and stands there with a smile on his face, waiting for Hooker to react in someway. After a few seconds, the smile disappears, as he realizes nothing is happening and notices Hooker is smiling at him. Then his expression changes to one of intense pain and he screams. It sounded like someone clamps down on his balls with a pair of needle nose pliers. In about a minute it ends for him, as he collapses. I'm not sure what Hooker did to him.

Cruz has his hands full. He's now punching it out with Blockbuster. See what I mean about street names? Who in their right fucking mind is going to name himself after a firecracker; how lame is that? Luckily for Cruz, he has an advantage - Hooker. Hooker alters Blockbuster's perception an inch or so off. So when he throws a punch, it misses. Cruz has no such problem. His fist score every time. I'm sure he would have won, but it never got to that. Dorsey manipulated a manhole cover to fly up and sent it soaring like a high velocity frisbee. It doesn't quite decapitate Blockbuster, but it comes dam close. What's left of his head is not a pretty sight.

"Anybody down?" asks Dorsey.

"No, we're all good," Perry answers.

"Any of the bad guys alive?" asks Hooker.

"Hey, I got to know. What'd you do to that guy?" Cruz asks Hooker.

"Feedback," he answers. "His mutant power is, just by touching you, he can pump energy into you that disrupts things like your nervous system, life force or mutant powers. I made him think he was pumping all this energy into me. In reality he was pumping it back to himself. It didn't agree with him. I think it gave him a stroke."

"Mine's still alive," I said.

Vertigo woke up, but she was in bad shape. She barely crawled to the wall and rested against it. Her nose was completely smashed, one eye was swollen shut and she was spitting out teeth. She was spitting out a lot of blood. Yeah, no doubt, I broke her ribs. Hey, I don't care if it's man, woman or child, when someone wants to kill me, I don't fuck around. We all stood around her.

"So Babe, were you guys just bored or was it something we did?" Dorsey begins.

She spits out some more blood and whispers, "Fuck you."

Hooker smiles. "That's Ok babe, you don't have to talk," he says as he puts his hand on top of her head. "All you got to do is think."

After a couple of minutes, Hooker takes his hand off of her. He has this confused look on his face.

"Oh shit," he says. "I forgot all about those CDs."

"What CDs?" Dorsey asks. "Does she know who sent them?"

"No, they were contracted through a middle man. They were just told to recover the CDs and kill us."

"Ok, same question," Perry this time. "What CDs."

Hooker stops talking to us verbally and switches to telepathy. "At the bank, there were three CDs in one of the boxes. I put them in my bag."

"What was on them?"

"I don't know. In between helping you fence the stuff and avoiding the FBI, I've been kind of busy. I forgot all about them."

"All right, the cops'll be here in about three minutes," Dorsey says. "Let's get the hell out. We'll meet at the warehouse tomorrow morning, and you," he points at Hooker. "Look over those CDs tonight. I want to know what's on them."

Across the street Rachel and Dani watched the whole battle in horror and shock. They saw the Marauders. What were they doing here? When they saw them attack the Crew they froze, not sure what to do. Do they help the Crew? The fight was over before they had a chance to decide. Now they were watching the Crew get in their respective vehicles and tear out of there, leaving the corpses of Marauders behind in the alley. Rachel nudged Dani. "Start the car," she insisted.

"What about Vertigo? She's still alive."

"Dani, the police will be here in minutes. I don't want to have to give them a statement. I don't want to be a witness. Get moving!"

Dani started the car and they drove out. After several miles Dani asks, "What now?"

"Back to the blackbird. Nothing left for us to do here."

"What about the blackmail? Did you get a chance to read their minds?"

"Yeah, it's no good. Dorsey, Perry, Cruz and Kurita have no idea where any of the images are. Everything was turned over to Hooker. He's set the files up and knows where they're at."

"So you're going to have to read his mind?"

"I tried."

"And?"

"I couldn't read his mind at all."

"He's that powerful?"

Rachel thought about it for a moment. "I don't think it's a matter of how powerful he is. There's something about him. When I tried to scan him, it was like my telepathy quits. It's like psionic energy dissipates when it gets near him. It's weird. I just can't read his mind."

Wednesday - 5:16 P.M.

We were supposed to meet in the morning but in the middle of the night we each got a text message from Hooker telling us to push the meeting back to five in the afternoon. All he said was he had to go do some research. We all got there a little early after slipping our FBI surveillance again. Those guys must be pretty pissed at us by now. Hooker was late. Dorsey was worried, but he shows up fifteen minutes later.

"The fuck you been?" Dorsey asked.

"Had to use the UCLA library. I was there when it opened this morning."

"You had to go all the way to UCLA to use a library?" Perry asks.

"What's on those disks is out of my area of expertise. I had to do some heavy research and talk to some of their professors in the medical school. The last two hours I've logged into their law school library."

"That serious?"

"We may have gotten into some heavy shit."

"So what's on those disks," I ask.

Before he can answer, Hooker gets that look on his face. Shit! Her we go again. Here comes another fight. Great.

"How many?" asks Dorsey.

Hooker slowly shakes his head. "Just one."

"What? Now they're sending a mega mutant after us?"

"Really Mr. Cruz, I'm not that fearsome looking, am I?"

We all turn. She's standing in the corner looking at us. She's black and has a beautiful sweet face, medium height with nice curves. Bundles of hair, shoulder length, styled in a perm. She casually walks up to us. Her stiletto heeled boots clicking on the floor. We're all on edge and ready to move. She might look harmless but if she's a mega mutant that doesn't mean anything. She stops and smiles. Beautiful smile. Lights up her whole face.

"Good afternoon gentlemen," she says. "You may call me Threnody, and I'm in the service of Mr. Sinister."

TO BE CONTINUED