Jude confirmed the Ranger's introduction and then cracked a joke. Which there is no way Kyle hadn't heard a thousand times before. The Ranger just shook his head slightly. Jude decided to double down. Again providing a line Kyle had heard before. This was clearly going nowhere very quickly. The Ranger turned to leave the room. Jude followed, but couldn't resist one last line.


He affected a terrible impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger and said, "Come with me if you want to lift."

The Ranger stopped and turned to face Jude. That was so bad he couldn’t help but crack a smile. Turning away he face palmed before walking off shaking his head. ”That was horrible. You an Sideshow should get along.”

As they approached the end of a hallway the Ranger pointed to a door, ”From there yo=’ can see camera feeds from the shoot house.” He looked to a blue light above the door at the end of the hall. ”Blue is cold, red is hot. The door won’t open if the room is hot.” Then not sure if the kid knew what he meant added, ”Hot means they’re shootin’ inside.”

Since the light was blue, the Ranger approached and the door unlocked. He opened the door and stepped inside. It was a large open space with what looked like a half built house inside. A group of four men stood near what looked like it was the front door. They were wearing their tactical gear and had pistols at their hips and rifles slung across their chests.

Pointing them out as he spoke, the Ranger told Jude their names as they approached. ”Jonas Gerhart, Chris Renfield, Thomas Blair, an’ Charles Montgomery. Their all Alpha, this is where they spend most of their time when here.”

As they approached the Ranger called out to the team, ”Howdy, yall. This is Jude, he’s some new blood in the office.”

Kyle snorted his coffee. Mission accomplished.

Jude stopped short just before he would have bumped into Michael. Sideshow? Jude tried to look innocent. Did he want to be lumped in with the likes of someone who carried the nickname Sideshow?

But they were moving right along. So maybe it was a good thing.

Camera feeds. Cool. He was ready to pop in there, but Michael went for the door instead. Hot, cold. Yeah, yeah. That made sense in a TV show kind of way. Why hadn't they chosen green? Maybe someone was Red/Green colorblind?

Ah but then it was time to meet the band.

Jude waved. They all had remarkably normal sounding names and looked remarkably... equipped. The teen also felt a pull from the group. So many mutants. At least none of them seemed so tempting that he had to wrestle his power away from them. Well, that was kind of good, kind of bad. Once he figured out what all their powers were, he'd decide which ones were best for copying.

Oh crud. Any telepaths in the house? he thought. 'Cause, he wasn't used to guarding his thoughts anymore and he hadn't planned on outing himself as a mutant yet... or maybe ever.

"Nice to meet you." He was worlds apart from these guys so he figured bland was safest. What was it that the first guy had said? Anyone in that building could break him in half?

"Finally, someone to do actual work around here." Chris Renfield called "I for one welcome the chance to not do paperwork guilt free."

"You already skip out of it seemingly guilt free, Sideshow." Chided Charles Montgomery before looking to Jude, "Good to have you here kid."

The other two men gave welcomes to Jude as well and Sideshow eventually followed with his own. Then Charles turned to the Ranger to inform him, "We're about to clear the house, if you or the kid want to watch."

Checking the time the Ranger answered, "Yeah, we can spare a few miutes." He waved for Judde to follow him and headed back out of the room. Once they had exited and made their way back to the room with the cameras the light above the door to the shoot house went red.

The Ranger opened the door to a room with a few chairs at a desk with many screens. The screens showed every room of the shoot house from at least two angles. "Here's what Alpha does."

There was a short wait but eventually a camera showed the door to the house bust open. Gerhert was in first, a bright flash like a bolt of lightning errupting between his hands. Whle he transitioned to his rifle the rest of the team poured in. Montgomery was the second in and moved along one wall shooting tagets, then Renfield who went the opposite direction also shooting tagets. Blair brought up the rear. They moved through the room all ending in different quadrants shooting past each other several times but never close to hitting a friendly.

While it happened the Ranger gave a brief rundown to Jude. The darker targets are what they're shootin' at. The white targets are hostages. They have to clear eah room eiminating their targets without hittin' a hostage or eachother."

From there the squad moved from room to room clearing the entire house with a swift efficiency that spoke to thousands of hours of practice.

If there was a telepath, he wasn't outing himself either... yet. Jude shored up his thoughts just in case.

It was silly to feel an instant empathy to a man only because he'd been told he might. Still, Jude took special note of which one was Sideshow. He'd hopefully get the chance to say hi later to each of them when this Alpha team wasn't busy flexing their tactical practice.

And the whole SWAT team thing got even more TV when they shuffled out and watched from the monitors. Cool. So that's at least what one of them did. He was a walking flashbang.

"Mutant powers in conjunction with skill and equipment." Jude watched as carefully as he could, but no one else's powers were obvious. Still. Maybe that's what earned them the big sticker price: mutants with tactical training. "Looks like what's on TV, but with worse camera angles." Actually... "Why are there cameras? Is that how they review their fu—uh screw ups? If they're hot, does that mean they can actually shoot each other?"

Maybe Sveta wasn't a jerk for carrying a gun, but he still didn't trust her for it. She was far too cavalier with it; which was not at all like the tight control these guys so clearly exercised.

He still wouldn't.

It seemed the exercise had Jude’s attention. As the members of Alpha made their way through the house he commented and questioned.

”That’s right. Most of us aren’t so powerful t’ make due with just our powers alone. Those of us who are choose to train without using them much, adapteds are a thing. Train for the worst hoping for the best.” The Ranger watched Montgomery run dry while approaching a target and a blade sprung from his arm in an instant. A quick slice, the target was in half, and then the blade was back in the arm and he was reloading. Blink and you’d have missed it.


”Correct, they can review the run afterwards an’ assess any mistakes made an’ how t’ correct them in the next run. An’ yeah, since they’re runnin’ hot they could shoot each other. So far they’ve that hasn’t happened. You play how you train.” A camera showed a barricaded door. The team stacked up on it and Blair blew the door open with an unseen wall of force. The rest of the team filed through, Blair taking up the rear.

One last room and the house was cleared.

”This is where most of the bullets each week are fired. Those four in the shoot house. They’ll debrief and review the footage. I’ll show y' the garage so we’ll be out of the way.”

The Ranger led the way out of the room and out to the garage. Alpha was leaving the shoot house about the time the viewing room. After the Ranger turned to walk toward the garage Sideshow, from behind the rest of the team, gave Jude a look like he knew something everyone else didn’t.

Sideshow had the ability to project images into people’s minds. He also could to a minor extent get a feel for people’s thoughts. He couldn’t read or listen into specific thoughts but was able to gather an impression of them.

> "Most of us aren’t so powerful t’ make due with just our powers alone."

His power had given him that suspicion, but it wasn't like he could judge how strong someone was by the weird feelings he got. Half the time his power seemed greedy for whatever was closest. Sometimes it cared more for swapping if he'd held the same one for too long.

Jude wasn't sure how to phrase the questions he wanted to ask without outing himself so he instead watched the show with his full attention as the men continued to blow through doors and targets alike. And of course the one he'd been most interested to see in action hadn't shown off his power at all, not that he knew that any of this had existed before he walked in that front door.

"I suppose... you guys would have joined an official team like the X-men if you could rely on your powers alone." It was also surprising to Jude that Michael knew about Adapteds. If Ms. Taylor hadn't lived at the Mansion, he wasn't sure he would have known about them at all.

He had even more to think about now.

"How holy is that house?" If that's where all those bullets went...? It was probably on par with the Vatican as far as holy ground. "D'you ever recover the lead or whatever and melt it back together?" Maybe they should start a recycling program.

Jude was sad to miss the breakdown of the house shoot-out or whatever the Alphas were going to talk about. It would have been interesting to hear, but understandably it was none of his business as a paper pusher.

Renfield, AKA Sideshow, was the only one to pay Jude any mind as they crossed paths. The copycat tried to radiate pure and righteous thoughts just in case that was their telepath. It'd be just his luck if it was.

Besides, Jude had a garage to go see.

”I’ve rode with a couple of the X-men. Shootin’ guns an’ wantin’ t’ be paid like I get paid didn’t seem t’ line up with how they ran things. I’ve never considered whether I had the mutant muscle power to be part of them or not. I’d wager if no one here’ else I do” The Ranger answered, causally not disclosing his mutant power. Not that he didn’t want to tell the kid, he just had a power that took too long to properly describe and no sense in getting into it if the kid didn’t ask.

”The walls inside the house are all drywall, they get replaced every other week. The outer walls are kevlar with strike plates behind them. We have a company that comes in and cleans out the lead an’ copper every month. We mostly use Gold Dot so we don’t hand load any of our own cartridges so there’s no need for us t’ hang onto the lead. “ Lead was a pain to deal with, the Ranger was fine paying a little extra to have someone else deal with it.

The garage, like most of the doors, unlocked as the Ranger approached. Inside the garage there were four black murdered out SUVs, a murdered out Suzuki Hyabusa, a murdered out Ford Mustag GT500, and an absolutely massive truck. A F650 with diesel tank running boards, black diamond plate steel bumper and guard, shell over the bed, and a general feel that it was excessive for any purpose short of staging a war from.

The walls had anything they would need for general maintenance. Fluids, tires, spark plugs, etc.Toolboxes sat spaced out enough that you would only have to walk over at most one other car to get to one.

There were two spots that lacked a vehicle. Security out on duty was using them.

”The bike, Mustang, an’ the Fordasaurus,” He pointed to the F650, ”...are mine. The other SUVs are the fleet for when we are doing escort work.”

>"Shootin’ guns an’ wantin’ t’ be paid like I get paid didn’t seem t’ line up with how they ran things."

Jude could agree that that whole-heartedly. The worst part about the X-men had been the pay, which was nil. The fame was okay, not that he got any as a trainee (and a rarely exercised one at that). It was nice to be out on his own.

> "I’ve never considered whether I had the mutant muscle power to be part of them or not. I’d wager if no one here’ else I do”

He just kept saying interesting things, assuming that translated from Texan into English to mean that he was possibly the most powerful mutant here.

"Humble thing, aren't you?"

Michael explained about the house. So much expense went into training. On one hand, it felt like a waste. On the other hand, those guys lives were on the line. Jude had a feeling that was a mental rabbit he would chase for some time. For now, he set it aside. It wasn't his problem. They paid someone else to clean up that stuff.

And then, he turned on the garage lights.

Jude had been born in Europe, in a rural village in a rural province. In the future averted, he'd lived and worked in bigger cities, but all still in Europe. Eventually he'd made it to London, arguably the most America-like of them all. And here, now he'd lived in America for a good 8 or 9 years.

Nothing prepared him for the Fordasaurus.

"I-uh..." He couldn't put words together. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. It was mammoth! He felt like it would be perfect for running over nuns and puppies and sucking down dead dinosaurs. It also appealed to a very primal part of him that put him in the driver's seat while those things were happening... while laughing. "I didn't know they came... like that."

The motorcycle, the cars... all of it actually. "Are you okay, man? Like, this isn't a cry for help, right?"

"Humble thing, aren't you?"

The Ranger shrugged. "I'm the only one who can toss a pick up an' outrun Sammy Hagar" As soon as he said it he wondered if the kid had ever even heard "I Can't Drive 55." Oh well.

Jude's reaction to seeing the Fordasaurus was about par. He had no idea what to say. When he finally pulled a few words together it was a new reaction though.

"I didn't know they came... like that."

"Medium-duty commercial truck. It ain't an every day truck." Anymore. "It is equipped to run as a staging platform for an operation. Guns, medical supplies, enough diesel to run it for days, an' almost as many radios as SETI." The last one was an exaggeration, but it certainly felt like it when you sat in front of the panel.

And Ranger actually laughed when Jude made sure this wasn't a cry for help. "No. I'm just addicted t' adrenaline and have a highly marketable skill set." He would just not tell the kid that the bike had 500 horsepower and the car had 767 horsepower. And once the Fordasaurus had an engine swap it would have almost 500 horses itself. "Besides, there are worse things I could be doin'."

Medium duty. It was a medium duty truck. But... if that was medium it was the most extra medium he'd ever seen.

"Just so we're clear, heavy duty means tanks and artillery shells?" That didn't seem too distant a cousin to the behemoth with wheels that were almost as tall as he was. Jude wasn't even going to ask about the whole operation bit. He was not going on any operations and only just smart enough to not even entertain that ambition.

> "Besides, there are worse things I could be doin'."

Said the man that, by his own admission, could lift trucks and name obscure people by name that by context sounded like they should be fast.

"Yes. I imagine there are worse things you could be doing." Worse things that Jude could do as well. But here they were, both being so good about it all.

"So... you have time to make me a key fob thing? I have time to bang my head against that wall of paper for a while today." And, every day after for that matter. For all its oddities, Jude had a feeling he might actually like this job.