[center]-Eudora-
-The Tower-[/center]

Only one other man had ever kept Eudora Carver waiting- that was her former husband; who, by happy coincidence, was dead. It had been an astonishing ten minutes of silence in the empty spare board room before a young staff member entered through one of the sliding glass doors at the far end. The employee was a cute girl, well dressed for an executive and less than twenty years younger than the Godmother herself. 

"Unless that rolling tin can had a sex change and learned to walk, I don't believe I'll be needing to speak with you." Eudora said plainly.

"Mister Bakker isn't feeling well today. He's enlisted me to take on all of his meetings today. Including this one." The girl replied. "My name is Jennifer Winters and it's an honor to meet you."

Eudora motioned for the other woman to take a seat without speaking a word. Instead, she reached into her small clutch purse and pulled out a single cigarette that she lit and inhaled deeply. Rage bubbled lightly within her, she would have preferred not letting anyone else within the company know how much of what was going on she was truly aware of. Ignorance was the best way to battle accusations, after all.

"They've made significant progress in analyzing the radiation given off by the meteorite." Winters said, starting off.

"What kind of radiation might that be?" Eudora asked.

Jennifer furrowed her brow. "Well, they aren't quite sure, to be honest, ma'am. The meteorite itself isn't composed of any element found on Earth- or anything we've gathered from our solar system so far. The waves emitted from the stone are being processed and recorded but they don't even calibrate properly with any of our sensors. The only thing we know is that it's somehow fueling how the laws of physics break with these new supers."

"How wonderful to have a team of such competent scientists between our two companies that have learned . . . absolutely nothing."

Winters looked as if she was about to speak up for a moment before instantly falling silent. Eudora ashed her cigarette on top of the files Jennifer had brought in, if only as a sign of power within the discussion. Exhaling the cloud of smoke like a contemplative dragon, she finally spoke up.

"What about the seven?" She asked.

"They're still in quarantine." Winters replied, looking mildly concerned. "Some of their bodies have reacted far worse than the others. We don't know if it would vary between them, but initial testing shows a likely mortality rate of seventy five percent within the next few days."

Eudora tapped her fingertips on the desk in thought. "[i]So[/i]. We'll continue with current protocol for the time being. If anything changes or if there are [i]any[/i] slip-ups by either team, we'll move on to Phase Two."

Winters nodded, jumping up as soon as Eudora began to stand, as if she had been sitting on a tac the whole time. Eudora put her cigarette out on top of the paperwork as she stood, burning a small hole in the center as she snuffed the embers out. The older woman grabbed her purse and slid the chair out of her way as she took a few steps away from the conference table.

"I trust that rusted old Roomba you have for a boss will be able to attend our charity function this weekend?" Eudora asked, her tone cheerily masking the harsh words.

Winters nodded shakily, not sure if she should correct the Godmother. "Yes, ma'am I believe so."

"Good. Tell him to put some streamers on his handle bars. It's gonna be one hell of a party." She said over her shoulder as she exited the room and left The Tower.

[center]-Finn-[/center]

Finn watched helplessly at the amount of carnage his brother was capable of producing. During their shaky escape from the bank, on of the duffle bags snagged on the broken wrought iron window frame and dumped a portion of coins, cash and jewelry into the street below as they hovered into the chaos of the street. While the water wielding hero put out some of the easier fires, Finn found it easier to escape while exploding hydrants hid them out of view from the ground.

Turning the duffle bag on its side to keep it from spilling any more, Pulse attempted to hold his scorching brother at a safe distance while the four objects bobbed through the sky. By the time a passerby spotted them, they would already be floating a block away and into the less populated area of town. Luckily, the news and police helicopters seemed to be distracted with a truck robbery across town.

Unable to regain any of his composure while fleeing through the skyline of the city, they crash-landed at the abandoned section of the docks. Tumbling and rolling to a stop, Fin was glad he hadn't been holding the safety deposit box when he went limp like a rag doll. Breathing heavily, it took a minute before he could even push his body up from the ground and manage to stand shakily on two legs.

Considering he had moved them through the city to the point of exhaustion, Finn didn't mind letting his taller brother carry the two bags of loot while he took the safety deposit box back. They made it the short distance to the condemned scrap yard and didn't speak until the pair made it inside the rickety old elevator that had last been renovated sometime in the forties.

The Regel brothers inspected the loot within the two bags, one considerably more full than the other. There was a good deal of jewelry they would need to pawn off, gold and silver coins and about seventy thousand dollars in cash. There was an unfortunate amount of stocks and bonds that were virtually useless to the two brothers without proper identification. Overall, it was about one hundred thousand dollars in two small bags; more money and precious items than he had ever seen

Thoughts of renovating and adding to their base of operations came to mind. They were going to need security, monitoring- hell, even floors and walls would do. His mindset moved to the methods they had used to accomplish the robbery. Far more guilt began to take hold of him than he expected. Finn made a promise to himself that he wouldn't endanger anyone on their way in and out, something that he wasn't able to uphold.

"We can't do that again."Finn said to his younger brother out of no where. "No more hurting civilians for fun. We don't want to be a national most wanted criminal."

Before it turned into an argument, Finn turned his attention to the safety deposit box that had been worth so much trouble. With a wave of his hand, the lock audibly broke and the brass lid swung open. Inside was a single, simple object: a small black flash drive.

"So. . . who gets to find out what's on this thing?"