On the seventeenth floor of an office building in northern California, two men under the employ of the United Nations were staring at their computer screens, devoid of ideas.
"Shit," One of them said.
"I know," The other said, agreeing.
To keep a narrative flow going, the first is named Declan and the second is named... um... Declan 2.
The ding of the elevator in the hallway outside their office caught their attention.
"Shit!" Declan reiterated. The door to their office swung open.
"Sir!" Declan 2 said, jumping up from his seat. Their boss, a Jacob Rogers, had walked in. Declan 2 pushed his wheeled office chair a few feet in Rogers' direction, offering his boss a place to sit. Rogers looked at the chair and remained standing.
"...Snickers?" Declan said, offering the man a half eaten chocolate bar.
"Dickhead. Other dickhead. Why haven't I heard anything from this office about the La Perditan situation this afternoon? A report was due fifteen minutes ago," Rogers said, standing before them with his arms crossed. Declan 2 slowly pulled his chair back and sat back down.
"Um..."
"...we have a problem."
Rogers sank his forehead into the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.
"You two have one very specific and very simple job. Monitoring the La Perditan based members of Vanguard International," Rogers said, then sighed.
"Yes, well... we... we know what our job is..." Declan replied.
"And yet..." Rogers began.
"And yet we screwed it up?"
"You screwed it up."
"Well, see, we had the signal up until about half an hour ago..." Declan 2 said, spinning around in his chair to face his computer monitor.
"And then you lost it," Rogers said. "We have spent quite a significant amount of money creating the device. The device should be quite capable of monitoring the Vanguardians, both with or without their knowledge. And, if need be, combat and control any one of them."
"Yes, the squirrel..." Declan answered.
"The squirrel. The squirrel should be able to feed you a constant signal. We should know the whereabouts of Vanguard's employees at any given moment."
"Yes, we should," Declan 2 said. Declan nodded for emphasis.
"So where are they now?" Rogers asked.
Declan consulted his computer screen. He tapped his forehead a few times, then checked the second computer in front of Declan 2.
"We don't-"
"You don't know!"
There was a pause.
"...that is correct," Declan 2 said.
"There was a spike of electrical acitivity just before we lost the signal, and then nothing... like something attacked and overrided his circuitry," Declan explained.
"'His'?" Rogers said, raising his eyebrows.
"...its..." Declan said, correcting himself and lowering his head.
"He shouldn't be vulnerable to that sort of attack..." Rogers said, thinking out loud and not looking for a response from either of his employees. "At least, not from someone without a whole lot of tech and a whole lot of money at their disposal..." Something then clicked in Rogers' head.
"Shit," He said. "Merlin..."
"Pardon?" Declan 2 asked.
"Never mind. What's the Hearn situation?"
Declan 2 grabbed a printed piece of paper from his desk and began explaining to his boss. "Hearn is still in Melbourne, but it seems he's there without the knowledge of the rest of Vanguard. In fact, they don't even know he left the island. He's living there, actually. In Melbourne. In an apartment. He works as a waiter and is not actively pursuing any sort of vigilante activity."
Declan butted in at this point. "Should we send an extraction team down there? We did tell them that if any of them tried to leave the island they'd leave themselves open to arrest..."
"No," Rogers said, and held up his hand. "Something doesn't seem right here. A self styled superhero ditches his teammates, gets a waiting job on the other side of the world and moves into a shitty apartment? No, he's got something up his sleeve. I want to know what it is before we send men in after him. Keep monitoring him."
"Right."
"And the squirrel, sir?" Declan asked.
"Fix it," Rogers said, and stormed out of the room, leaving Declan and Declan 2 alone in their office.
"You know how to fix him?" Declan 2 asked.
"Nope. You?"
"Nope. Want to leave it for the nightshift guys?"
"Yup."
The two were about to get up and play foozball in the breakroom when the computers beeped loudly.
"Whoa!"
"Squirrel's back online!"
"How?"
"Looks like he's under attack. He's reverted to self defense mode."
On the sand of a La Perditan beach, Robo Squirrel beeped once, loudly. His tail whirred into action.
"...Hostile threat detected... self defense mode activated..."
Robo Squirrel shot into the air. His cute little silver squirrel paws retracted and opened, revealing two huge guns. His jaw lowered and readied the attack with dozens of steel walnuts. A flame thrower came out of his haunches for some reason that doesn't really make a huge amount of sense.
And then that little flying shiny squirrel thing went fucking crazy, man.
