Steve looked around the wrecked Casino Cash Cage and shook his head. The place was wrecked, blood all over, not a single dollar bill in sight, and not a single clue either. Not that he needed one to ID the perps. They hadn't even bothered to jam the recorders, just the emergency signals so they had some time to get the cash.
Steve had returned from his visit to the Chicago office to find the HQs in chaos. Several key people had disappeared or quit, including Diana Prince. Numerous operations and undercover agents had been compromised somehow and the agency leadership seemed to be focused on various paperwork trails and tying things up in red tape.
"I would get a chewing out if the director knew I was here. He flat out told me that this wasn't really our problem and that my Equal Opportunity Training had expired. If I don't have it done by tomorrow I will get an official reprimand. Can you believe that?" Steve said to a friend of his from the old days in the Air Force who was now head of the Metropolis SWAT team.
"Eh, bureaucrats will always find a way to fuck up people doing their job." his friend replied as he bent down to look at a shell casing. "I shouldn't be here either, the Major Crime Unit has this one, but damned if they are doing anything but sitting on their hands. It got so bad there after this two of the best detectives up and quit due to the LT being such a friggen putz. Weird that, he was a real go getter until a couple of weeks ago."
Steve was looking at a poster advertising a charity show featuring Wonder Woman that had been cancelled due to Wonder Woman not returning the calls to set everything up.
That had been a couple of weeks ago.
Just before Ms. Golddigger had shown up.
Steve suddenly had a bad feeling in his gut. He had learned to trust his instincts long ago and for once he was really hoping he was wrong.
LATER THAT DAY:
"Damn it! What they hell were you doing there? I gave you a fucking order! This is a LOCAL problem, not agency!" The director spat at Steve who stood at attention infront of his desk.
"Sir, this gang has at least one super human on it and has shown itself to be completely ruthless. The police are out of their depth..." Steve started to reply.
The director cut him off. "SHUT UP! I am going to cut your balls off for this you worthless jackass! I'm..." the director was mercifully cut off by the phone ringing. He picked in up with a grunt and said "I'll be right down."
"You stay right there, don't move one damn inch until I get back. I got a 15 minute VTC over a couple of our made agents in Romania who are now being held for ransom. When I get back we will figure out if you suspended or fucking fired!" The director stormed out.
Steve watched him go. He happened to notice that the director had a new assistant. A perky little redhead with a nice body who had replaced his previous secretary of nearly 20 years. Steve caught her face reflected in a glass door as the director headed out. She was smiling, no smirking, at him. A look of someone who knows a lot more than they should.
Steve looked back at the director's desk. The door was open and after a couple of minutes the redhead got up and headed out to the bathroom. She didn't lock up, and left several classified documents open on her desk. The director normally would can someone for that, but Steve was getting the feeling that wouldn't happen here.
"Opportunity knocks." Steve said to himself. He quickly moved behind the directors desk and started looking at what was there. Lists of agents, operations orders, tons of critical information on agency operations. While it was odd that the director would be mixing all of this on his desk, it wasn't anything illegal.
Just as he was about to move back, Steve noticed a small post it note stuck on the directors lamp. Steve read it: "I fucking own you baby! You do as I say, or else this video goes viral. Diana is your queen now! XOXOXO!!!!" Below it were several crossed out phone numbers and one that was not crossed out.
"Diana? Oh God. Please no." Steve was shaken, but had enough presence of mind to move back and make sure his face was stone when the redhead returned and so did his boss. The redhead was giggling and sat down to redo her lipstick. Steve noticed a red stain on his director's collar when he walked in with a glazed look to his eyes and a somewhat dopy grin.
"Sir, you are right. I need to focus on what is important. My mistake of earlier today will not be repeated. I am going to stay late tonight and finish my required online training and you won't hear a peep from me again." Steve said in as meek a voice as he could manage.
"Hrmm? Oh, Agent Trevor. Yes, excellent, do that. Dismissed." The director sat down and turned his chair away towards the window and began to hum.
Steve about faced and marched out the door. The redhead blew him a kiss on the way out.
At his office, he found a surprise waiting for him. It appears that HR had assigned him a new assistant. A bubbly, very pretty Blonde haired girl who wore tight clothes and lots of makeup and liked to bend over in front of him a lot.
Steve sent her home early, despite her protests that she REALLY wanted to help him. "You can help me tomorrow. I just have some boring online training tonight, nothing you can help there."
"Like, I can make you a cup of coffee? That can help!" Cassy had replied.
Steve had agreed and she had come back with a cup in a few minutes. Steve set it down and dismissed her. She was very reluctant to go, but left when he agreed to take her personal number "Just in Case something came up."
Steve dumped the coffee excepting a small amount he sealed in a plastic bag. While doing his online training, he opened a backdoor via a laptop that had been "Destroyed" during another mission. He was no hacker but what he was after wasn't anything sensitive. Just personnel admin assignments.
Several hours later Steve was completed with his training and was in a cold sweat. "This is bad. The whole agency has been infiltrated and corrupted. I can't trust anyone." he thought to himself. He also had a white noise generator going while he paced back and forth thinking about what he had found. Key people had quit, new people hired without proper vetting, and everyone from division head up had a new "assistant", all pretty young girls or guys. And the odd commands, behaviors and so on started right after the new employees went to work. Veteran agents were quitting or disappearing.
"I'm out of my depth. It appears local law enforcement has been hit too. I need help. And my gut is telling me Wonder Woman is not going to show up. I need to get someone on the outside. Someone outside the city, outside the police." Steve thought to himself.
While walking in his office he saw a newspaper. On the paper was an advertisement. Steve stopped and blinked.
"Of course. When light won't work against dark, use another dark."
The last thing Steve did that evening was drop a request for 2 weeks leave in the director's box, and then he drove to the airport, not even stopping by his apartment on the way.