Psy Spy 3 - Agent X (Redrafted)

At the centre of a great dimly lit chamber, behind a semi circular table and half draped in darkness sat the six grand shadows; ultimate controllers of The League of Shadows; six unknown people who ran the largest secret network of crime and terrorism in six galaxies and, before them, facing the glare of a spot light stood a man dressed in a black suit with a face like a pale white and featureless mask, the sweat running down his face his only sign of emmotion.

"Agent X1", said one of the six shadowy figures, gruffly, "You were assigned to infiltrate Galactic Intelligence Headquarters were you not?".

"Yes, control", said Agent X nervously nodding.

"And you were designed in one of our laboratories to be the perfect chameleoid agent were you not?", continued the shadow, "Able to take the appearance, speech patterns and memories of anyone you touched".

"Yes, control", said Agent X.

"Then can you explain to us", said the shadowy figure, his voice becoming angrier, "How you managed to fail in your assignment?".

"Yes control", said Agent X1, "As you say I was assigned to infiltrate Galactic Intelligence HQ and so stealing the identity of a domestic engineer, I entered the home of its chief administrator Colonel Reginald Wheats; killed him with a venom injection in the fake forefinger the League provided and, after absorbing his memories and taking his form and speech patterns then I stuffed his body into a warp trash disposer".

"So you successfuly took the identity of the G.I.A's supreme intelligence officer?", asked the shadow, "How then could you possibly fail. Did anyone suspect who you were?".

"Not at first, no", said the blank faced man, "Things went very well for the first month or so. No one suspected my real identity, not even the Colonels wife Barbara and during that time I managed to transmit several highly secret documents stolen from Galactic Intelligence records.

Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on the agents from the G.I.A's extra-sensory-espionage unit".

"You mean they sensed something telepathically?", asked the shadow.

"One of them did, I'm sure of it. Agent Herbert Brozny. From my very first meeting with Agent Brozny in Wheats's office, he seemed to instinctively know that something about me was wrong.

I remember he asked me repeatedly wether I had had any memory surgery done, perhaps to remove some traumatic event from my time in the Astro-Marines.

Colonel Wheats had been a veteran, you see, of the Black Hole Wars.

I told him I had not but I was worried that he was growing suspicious and so I gave him an assignment investigating some strange, indecipherable transmissions that had been coming from a desolate asteroid called Urso - X 4 delta and, killing and taking the form and memory of a G.I.A space pilot, accompanied him on the mission, hoping to eliminate him once we had reached our destination and dump his body inside one of that asteroids many volcanic craters.

Strangely, when we got to the asteroid we discovered that the indecipherable transmissions were actually coming from an unknown but primitive alien lifeform that had the ability to produce and communicate with radio waves and as we departed from our space vessel we were attacked by the creature and, sadly, I was knocked unconcious.

But then fortunately, for Brozny atleast, he was able to use his psy-abilities to convince the creature that we were no threat to it.

But while unconcious I ofcourse reverted to my real, faceless chameleoid form and, seeing my changed appearance, Brozny placed me in neurocuffs.

When I awoke, I was locked up in a makeshift cell on board our spaceship on the way back to G.I. A headquarters".

"And what happened to you after that?", asked the shadow.

"Oh", sighed the faceless being, "Well after that I was placed in one of their virtual interrogation rooms and their computer probed my mind for information about the League".

"And you gave them no information, ofcourse?", asked the shadow.

"I had no information about the league to give them", said Agent X, "The league tells its agents nothing more than they need to know".

"But you managed to escape from Galactic Intelligence headquarters?", said the shadow, "How did you accomplish that?".

"By stealing the identity of one of the prison guards who was escorting me to my cell", said Agent X.

"I see", said the shadow.

The blank faced man saw the six shadows begin to whisper something amongst themselves.

"Now Agent X", said the shadow that had been talking earlier, "Would you like to tell us your real identity?".

"My real identity?", asked the featureless man sounding surprised.

"Yes", replied the shadow, "Unless you really expect us to believe that you were allowed to escape from the nerve centre of Galactic Intelligence so easily".

With his left hand Agent X tore off his featureless mask, revealing the face of Herbert Brozny underneath and as he did, a stealth gun, one of the undetectable and invisible firearms supplied to all G.I.A agents, materialized in his other hand.

"As we suspected", said the shadow, "And I suppose your agency has the co-ordinates of this room and a crack team of teletroopers ready to teleport into it at a moments notice?".

"Yes", said Brozny.

Lights all around the chamber began to illuminate themselves and Brozny saw that the six shadowy figures behind the table were really nothing more than robotic mannequins.

"So you see you have accomplished nothing", said one of the robots, raising a metal hand that was clutching hold of a maser pistol.

Reacting with the cybernetically enhanced reflexes that all Galactic Intelligence officers had, Brozny fired his stealth gun first, blowing off the robots hand in a blast of light and seeing it, reduced to a lump of smouldering metal, fall onto the table.

"So the whole thing was a set up", said the voice of Colonel Wheats replacement speaking directly into his mind via a neural transmitter.

"Yes, it looks like it", thought Brozny.

"Well atleast we know that the League Of Shadows exist and what they're capable of", said the voice, "And next time we'll be ready for them".