Chapter 9: Stakeout at the Senate

Xavier gets the idea to infiltrate Congress in order to properly expose Gonzalez' political tactics.

Another week went by, during which I made the trip back to Phoenix so we could all regroup. Xavier had suggested that we get together and discuss our strategy as to how we should carry our movement, to which the rest of us agreed. The four of us were currently gathered in Tequila's living room, watching a stand-up routine on her large flat-screen.

"So then I said to my wife, 'Hey, stop trying to look sexy all the time! You might accidentally turn someone to stone!'" a redheaded comedian quipped, followed by a couple of snares and a cymbal-crash.

The audience in front of the stage remained dead silent, obviously bored by the performance.

"What the hell?! That wasn't even funny! Is this really what passes as talent nowadays?!" I groaned.

"Does our president seriously think that everyone will succeed at whatever job they're forced into?" Second asked.

"Well hey, it's better than anything Amy Schumer could dish out," Tequila replied. "If there's one downside to undoing all these laws, it's that we'll have to put up with her s****y comedy again."

"Can we stay on task here, please?!" Xavier chimed in.

I sighed and turned down the volume on the TV as we all turned to face him.

"Alright, so I think we've been doing a pretty damn good job at spreading our message and attracting people to our cause. And I don't think we need to change a thing about how we currently go about all that," Xavier explained. "However, there's still the matter of that information Mark gave us about the 2024 election. It's been almost two months since we last spoke, and we've done absolutely nothing with it."

"You're right, we haven't. But the thing is, what exactly could we do with that?" I asked.

"Well we were given that lead, so I say we try and follow it. It's the only way we could get to the bottom of this," Xavier replied.

"Well how are we gonna do that? You mean you just want us to waltz into the Congress and check for lumps?" Second asked.

Xavier didn't say anything, but instead adopted a sly smirk. The rest of us looked at each other worriedly.

"Please tell me you're joking," Tequila said.

"O-ho, I'm afraid not. If we're gonna put an end to this presidency, then we're gonna have to take a few risks along the way," Xavier replied. "Honestly, out of all the massive movements throughout America's history, can you name one that didn't involve taking risks?"

"Well no, but..." I began.

"Exactly!" Xavier cut me off. "Think about it. If Mark just tells the media what he told us, how high are the chances that everyone will believe him? Nobody is swayed into believing something just via word of mouth these days. It's all about material evidence! And who better to uncover such evidence against the president than the very people who are trying to impeach him?"

"Alright, fine. We'll do it. But we'd better plan every single step of this thing out as carefully as possible. Who knows what kind of trouble we'd get in if we fucked up just one small thing?" Tequila replied.

"Well we can take as much time as we need for that. Our target isn't going anywhere, at least not any time soon," Xavier replied.

It took about a week to piece together a plan. Personally, I would've put at least a little more time into such a task, had I not been working with a guy who'd won two Nobel Prizes solely for his genius mind and the scientific achievements he'd made singlehandedly. Even after we'd planned the whole thing out, however, we had to wait until the perfect opportunity presented itself. We could technically do this at any time, but according to Xavier, the ideal time to strike would be during the next Senate meeting, meaning that most if not all the Senators would be present.

On the day of the stakeout, I parked my car in a lot as close to the Senate as I could, while also choosing a parking spot that was close to the lot's entrance, in order to make a quick getaway if necessary. All four of us stepped out, clad in black cargo pants, fingerless gloves, skull-caps and combat boots. Aside from that, we also wore long-sleeved black tops over the type of body armor that American football players wear. Seeing how women's clothing is generally smaller and tighter than men's, Tequila's shirt didn't quite fit over her armor, and thus left roughly an inch of her stomach exposed.

None of us said much as we trekked over to the establishment, trying to keep as low of a profile as possible by staying in the shadows. Once we arrived around the back of the building, Xavier quickly kneeled down and unscrewed two large vent covers on the outside wall.

"Now according to the digital schematics of this place, both of these vents will provide the quickest route to the main room of the Senate. Each duct is just big and sturdy enough to hold two people, so we'll have to split up here. I'll go with Second, so... yeah, I'm pretty sure I don't need to say the rest," he explained.

"Fair enough," I replied as I watched he and Second crawl into one of the vents, followed by the latter closing the vent cover behind him.

"Y'know, I've been meaning to ask. Are you wearing an extra-large codpiece, or are you just happy to see me?" Tequila asked once we were alone, a sultry look forming on her beautiful freckled face.

"Well, why can't it be both?" I asked in reply.

Tequila chuckled in an effeminate manner.

"We can answer that question later. For now, we've got a job to do," she replied, pecking me on the cheek before she dropped to her hands and knees.

With a smile, I watched her crawl into the vent before me. After looking around briefly, I crawled in after her and shut the cover behind us. For a while, we just crawled through the vent, following the map we had screen-capped on our smartphones. Without warning, my own phone vibrated as Xavier contacted me.

"What is it, X?" I asked, putting my phone on speaker. "Anything wrong on your end?"

"Negative. Just reminding you that we're getting close to our destination. And don't worry about stealth or anything like that. The cool air passing through these air ducts will be more than enough to conceal our heat signatures," Xavier replied. "Hence why I suggested we all wear long sleeves and pants."

"And you wanted to wear a tank-top." I sneered at Tequila.

"Well hey, it was the baggiest shirt I owned, and likely the only one that would've fit over all this f*****g armor," she replied defensively.

"Regardless, thanks for the heads-up," I said, before hanging up.

Suddenly, the two of us were forced to halt as we reached a four-way fork in the road. Our route told us to go straight ahead, but on the path to the right, the vent cover at the end was wide open, and a maintenance guy was peeking in. We stayed quiet and waited patiently for about a minute, before I peeked around the corner and saw him leave. Quickly we kept crawling and eventually found ourselves overlooking the main room, where bills were written, debated, and voted on, before being sent to the president.

"Just as I suspected," Tequila said, looking through a pair of binoculars. "Every senator in this room has that same lump in their left ear."

"Scanning them now," I heard Xavier reply through her phone. "Hmmm... it seems that these are no ordinary lumps. Each of these people has a chunk of some sort of metal implanted under their skin, and I'm also detecting an electromagnetic circuit inside."

"Can you find anything else?" I asked.

"Yes, actually," Xavier replied. "There's a tiny microchip inside each chunk, and judging by how it's constructed, I'd hazard a guess that it's operated remotely."

"Hold on, hold on," Second chimed in. "Electromagnetic circuitry? Buried under the skin? Operated remotely? ...Wait a minute..."

"Yup, that explains the odd twitching that Mark told us about," Tequila replied. "Whoever's operating these devices must be using them to shock the senators."

"And I'll bet anything that the operator is President Gonzalez himself. No wonder the Congress was stupid enough to go through with everything on his agenda. He must be trying to make them pass his bills, and using the shocking mechanism to beat them into submission," I added. "Furthermore, I'll bet this is why Gonzalez got away with all that s**t he pulled, including my mom's murder! No one even lifted a finger to try and get him impeached, because it would mean thirty volts directly into their ear."

"Well I guess our best bet is to try and get rid of these devices somehow," Tequila replied.

"Exactly!" Xavier chimed in. "Hey Second. You know how to perform surgery, right?"

"Well duh, of course I do! Whaddaya think I went to medical school for?" Second asked incredulously.

"Well then what say we put those surgeon skills to the test for once in ten years?" Xavier proposed. "I've already activated a device of mine that can jam surveillance equipment. So I'll just drop this bad boy in there and get 'em all distracted. Then you can drop in and work your magic."

I was just about to ask what he meant by "bad boy", until I saw the vent cover from the opposite side of the room open as discretely as possible. To answer my question, Xavier stuck two fingers out and released a barely visible white pellet, about the same size as an Advil PM pill. It was light enough to ride the air current and glide into the center of the room, unnoticed as it hovered above the heads of the busy senators. It descended just a bit closer to the ground, and then without warning, it quietly popped, releasing a thick cloud of turquoise gas that quickly flooded the room. Various occupants looked around in wonder and a few coughed a little, before all of them collapsed onto the ground in an air of drowsiness.

"Alright Second, now is your chance," Xavier said. "The anesthesia will wear off in roughly an hour, so you've got until then to do your job and climb back in here. And don't sweat it if you don't get them all. Just a majority oughta' do the trick."

I watched from across the room as Second donned a gas mask and opened the vent, before dropping into the turquoise haze below. I could just barely make out a scalpel, Ziploc bag, and portable sewing kit in his hand as he made the jump.

"You two might as well get out of here while I monitor him," Xavier said. "That way, we won't all be trapped in here in the off-chance that we're discovered."

"Roger that," I replied as I hung up.

With that, Tequila and I made the trip back outside. It didn't take quite as long to leave as it did to enter, seeing how we didn't have to constantly look down at our maps. Upon finally reaching the exterior vent, I was relieved to find that the cover was still loose. Upon crawling out, I looked around and noticed that nobody was around to see us. As soon as Tequila crawled out after me, I quickly closed the vent and we hurried back to the car.

"Whew man, it sure feels good to stand up again," she said, stretching as we ran through the shadows.

"True. But personally, I'd say it sure feels good to finally put a dent in Gonzalez' agenda," I replied.