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Late June 2021 The Iceberg A dark, sleek dynamo at five foot three, Kalinda Kaur had moved through the AEGIS base with a bright smile and firm handshake. The Vice-President was known as a critic of law enforcement outside but inside she'd been nothing but professional, even friendly, as she'd met with everyone from Director Bonham to the lowest office drones. She was the sort of protectee that liked to bull ahead of her bodyguards without so much as a backwards look. Luckily they'd spent most of today down in one of the most secure sites in Freedom City. Special Agent Ashley Tran, on special assignment to the Vice-President's detail, had done her best to blend into the agents who occasionally had to jog a little to keep up with 'Desi'. Jim Ward, the VPOTUS's usual detail head, had proved to be philosophical about the whole affair; something Ashley appreciated. This was supposed to be a big day. In just a week now, Paul Revere would make his Fourth of July debut as Patriot II - a new hero for a new generation! The program had been founded in the early days of the Cahill administration but the O'Connor administration had embraced the idea, even if Revere (who had been left quite the blonde, blue-eyed Aryan superman by the DNAscendant treatments he'd been given) wasn't quite the kind of person the O'Connor administration tried to promote. Ashley had heard about the program in its early days, even if her duty to Judith Cahill meant she was never seriously in the running for it. The man who had actually gotten the position? She'd met him, even sparred with him, having been brought in to test his facility with hand-to-hand combat. He was cute, certainly; she liked big, muscular alpha males and the fact that he was a cop wasn't bad. But something else was...not right. - The Iceberg was home to a small studio, where against a curtained backdrop, Revere was practicing his speech. He stood behind the podium and gave the cameras a winning smile as he continued: "Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down - [up] man's old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism..." "Well he certainly can handle himself in front of the camera," said the Vice-President thoughtfully, "even if he does sound he's Ronald Reagan personified." She looked a little skeptical, but many of the agents in the room looked very interested in what the man had to say. Ashley knew for almost certain that one of the agents, a star-struck young sound engineer from Oklahoma, was actually sleeping with Revere on the sly. She hadn't said anything, but the number of people she could talk to about any of this was damn thin. "Beth, are the defense contractors on schedule?" Ashley knew for sure that they were; Alek and company wouldn't be late without finding a way to let her know, so while the Vice-President (and technical head of the project, answering only to the POTUS himself, who was back in DC getting ready for the holiday) chatted with her immediate staff, Ashley looked around and spotted maybe the only other person in the whole Iceberg whose knowledge of superhuman tactics wasn't theoretical. "Agent Zermeño," she said cooly from behind her shades, "a word?" She cocked her head towards the studio control room door.