Mission: Possible 007 (Sneak Preview)

 

            Tonight was a big night for Hiro Hamada. The San Francisco Institute of Technology (a.k.a. “SFIT”) was holding a convention for up-and-coming geniuses, like Hiro himself, to showcase new inventions that would receive an acceptance into the university. Hiro planned on presenting his microbots – swarms of tiny robots that linked together in any arrangement imaginable using a neuro-cranial transmitter, worn like a sweatband on Hiro’s head.

            Investors were impressed by Hiro’s presentation, including Alistar Krei (CEO of Krei Tech). Shortly after the presentation’s conclusion, Krei attempted to approach Hiro and recruit him, until…

            SWOOF!

            Krei’s head was nearly knocked from his shoulders by a green-glowing fist that came within a hair of connecting. The attacker was an attractive, curvaceous woman with pale green skin, black lips, long thick black hair, and forest-green eyes. Krei would’ve been enchanted by her looks alone, had she not been there to kill him.

            She moved in with a fast and fierce roundhouse kick, which had suddenly been blocked by a blond-haired man in a grey flannel suit that constricted a muscular build. This man, whoever he was, became Krei’s protector that evening. He went toe-to-toe with the green woman, deflecting every single one of her blows.

            “You’re good,” the woman told her opponent. “But I was expecting a certain cheerleader, not a hunky beefcake like yourself.”

            “Sorry to disappoint,” the man responded with a distinguished British accent.

            They continued to fight after their brief exchange, which sounded a little like flirting to Krei. The CEO’s bodyguard soon came to his aid, escorting him away through the crowd, stirred by the sudden chaos. They did not get very far, as more assassins leapt in and took down Krei’s bodyguards.

            These attackers were different from the woman. They were ducks adorned in orange-and-red uniforms, complete with egg-shaped helmets. Their commander was a sharp-dressed rooster with a metal beak. He stood in Krei’s way, blocking his escape. “Goin’ somewheres, Mistuh Krei,” he asked, talking as if he was a gangster from the 1920s.

            Krei saw how he was surrounded by the rooster’s egg-headed foot soldiers. With nowhere to run, he demanded to know, “What do you people want from me?!”

            “We want ya to fry!” the metal-beaked rooster exclaimed, prior to retrieving a gun from his suit jacket, firing an electric beam that almost incinerated Krei. Thankfully, a redheaded, teenaged girl swooped in from the rafters and kicked the gun right out of the rooster’s hand. It dissolved into a nearby vat of acid on display for another presenter.

            The rooster looked on the interfering redhead with a fiery glare. “Who dah heck are youse?!”

            “That should be the least of your concern,” she told him. “I gotta admit I was expecting to find Dr. Drakken.”

            “He sends his regards,” the rooster sneered and then proceeded to chomp at her arms and legs with his metal beak. The teenager dodged his chomps, moving acrobatically in a series of flips and somersaults.

            Once again, Krei used the distraction to get away. Without any protection, he made his way to the rooftop.

            The first fight – between the pale green woman and the blond Englishman – led to one of the displayed inventions getting damaged by the green woman’s flaming fists. It exploded in a hail of sparks that set the entire exhibition hall on fire. The green woman and the rooster both noticed Krei fleeing to the roof. They brusquely abandoned their respective clashes and went in pursuit of the CEO.

            This prompted the teenaged redhead and the blond Englishman to give chase, but not before accidentally (and literally) bumping into each other along the way.

            “Who are you?” The redhead asked the Englishman.

            “I was about to ask you the same question,” he cynically retorted.

            Rather than dwell on figuring out each other’s identities, the two focused on the mission they seemed to have shared: protecting Alastair Krei.

-----------------

            As soon as Krei arrived on the rooftop, he took out his phone and made a call: “Luther, where are you?”

            The burly voice on the other line answered, “I’m comin’ right at ya, Ethan. Rendezvous with me near the lake adjacent to the showcase hall.”

            Krei looked over the edge of the rooftop that faced the exact lake Luther had mentioned. It was about twelve feet from the building’s foundation, presumably enough space for Krei to make the jump. He was just about to, before he heard a bothersome voice taunt him there on the rooftop, “Alastair Krei! It appears you have nowhere else to run!”

            Turning to see the speaker, Krei saw a man he vaguely recognized. His skin was pale blue, he had black ponytailed hair, and there was a scar below his left eye. Again, Krei demanded to know, “Why are all of you people after me?!”

            “Because you’re in the way of our future!”

            The scarred, blue-skinned man brandished another gun (like the one that the metal-beaked rooster had) that fired a concentrated beam of electric energy, meant to fry Krei to death. Just as before, Krei’s life was spared as he was pushed out of harm’s way by someone that arrived on the roof long before him.

            That someone Krei discovered to be a platypus in a fedora.

            “Perry the Platypus!” the blue-skinned man identified in a mix of surprise and agitation. “What are you doing here?!” After a quick second, he realized, “Wait. Why am I even asking that?!” He then fired his electro-gun at the fedora-wearing platypus, who avoided every blast until he managed to leap onto the gun barrel and deliver a fierce uppercut to the blue-skinned man’s scarred blue face, knocking him out cold.

            The electro-gun was dropped in the process, skidding directly to the feet of Krei. Picking up the gun, he glanced at the platypus named Perry and said, “I’m not sure whether to thank you or ask how I was just saved by a platypus.”

            Suddenly, the rooftop entrance door was blown off its hinges, permitting the green woman and the metal-beaked rooster to storm out. Krei fired the electro-gun their way, holding them off long enough for the teenaged redhead and the blond Englishman to show up and engage the two assassins, this time exchanging opponents.

            Their matches were soon disrupted by a section of the rooftop that crumbled, due to the intensifying inferno inside the building. The need to get off the roof was felt by both opposing forces, yet only one possessed the means of doing so. The metal-beaked rooster arranged via communicator for a pickup from an unmarked black helicopter. It dropped a ladder for him and his green-skinned associate to climb, but not without the unconscious blue-skinned man, who the woman carried on her shoulder.

            Watching the assassins leave in the chopper, Krei was now stuck on the collapsing rooftop with the Englishman, the teenager, and the platypus.

            “Any of you guys have an idea as to how we’re getting off this roof?” the teenager inquired.

            Krei remembered the adjacent lake and instructed to the other three, “We jump! This way!” He motioned for them to join him on the ledge facing the lake. With no other choice, they all made one grand leap that only increased in force when an explosion erupted behind them, propelling them across a distance much further than they collectively anticipated.

            They landed in the lake with a collective splash.

            After reaching the shore, the teenager noticed Krei’s face appeared disfigured. “Mr. Krei…your face,” she gasped, assuming the CEO sustained physical injury from the explosion. “Are you alright?”

            When Krei realized it for himself, he seemed very frustrated. “Argh!” he groaned, tearing away at the skin of his face, much to the disgust of the three people who witnessed him doing it. However, it dawned on them that what Krei was tearing away was not his skin but a mask of some sorts. As the layer was torn off, another face was revealed – that of a dark-haired man with features more chiseled than the one he masqueraded as.

            This unmasking undoubtedly came as a shock to the teenager, the Englishman, and the platypus.

            “Sorry for the deception,” the imposter’s voice sounded electronically distorted, Krei’s voice overlapping it. He removed some type of strip taped to his throat, allowing him to speak naturally. “I was sent to protect the asset.”

            “So was I,” the Englishman said.

            “Yeah, me, too,” the teenager also verified.

            The platypus gave his own confirmation with a distinct chattering sound it made. The humans still found his presence there questionable.

            “Who do you work for?” the Englishman asked the imposter.

            The imposter merely smirked and told him, “People who I would imagine you’d never find out about. People who I would imagine are pissed right now, because there’s no way for sure to tell if any of us succeeded in our mission, since none of us had eyes on the asset.”

            “You mean Krei?” the teenager clarified. “Don’t you know where he is, since you were the one who took his face? By the way, that was really gross.”

            “Krei wasn’t the asset…he was a loose thread,” the imposter clarified.

            “Then who is the asset?” the Englishman asked, his voice bordering on aggravation.

            Before the imposter could answer, a black van pulled up near the group. The side door slid open and an African American gentleman stuck out his bald head, addressing the imposter: “The asset’s safe. Though there was one casualty in the explosion. We better get goin’.”

            “Couldn’t agree with ya more, Luth,” the imposter told the man. As he headed for the van, he left one parting message to the teenager, the Englishman, and the platypus: “Thanks for the help…but don’t get in my way again.”

            They watched him drive away with his bald accomplice.

            The teenager particularly felt annoyed with his choice of parting words. “He thinks that we helped him?! Who does he think he is?!”

            “I don’t know,” the Englishman said. “I’m still having trouble fathoming how a cheerleader and a platypus were assigned for a government mission.”

            The platypus delivered a chatter of despondency before swimming away back in the lake. Now left alone with the Englishman, the teenager remarked, “Well, I can’t speak for the platypus, but I’m more than capable of handling a mission, Mister…?”

            “Bond…James Bond,” the Englishman introduced himself.

            Unbeknownst to the teenager, Bond had captured her face and all the others he encountered that evening, thanks contact lenses doubling as cameras.