Captain Cashmere - The Origin

**Viewer Discretion Advised: Language and Adult Situations**

“Whew! OK, team, we’ve waited all year for this moment and it’s finally here! All the noes for funding, those countless man hours, remember Mexico City?” The team chuckles reminiscing.

“Seriously, we did what we had to do, to get the things we had to get done, and we did it well.” The team cheers, inspired.  

“We have something that can change the world. My dream came true today and wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for the family standing here.” I go to raise a glass, “To life, liberty, and the pursuit…”

“And the pursuit of this fucking money! Whoo!” Ranger, our artillery expert shouts.

I laugh, “I couldn't have said it better myself, cheers!” After a few more glasses of champagne, I head toward the stage. 

“Has anyone seen Jerry?” I yell, feeling the effects of the libations. No response, it looks like we may have to start without him. Stage right, the laptop’s queued up. We’re on in 5.

“Nice turtleneck!” An audience member yells, noticing me off-stage.  

“Why yes, thank you,” I responded, appreciating the compliment.

“We got Steve Jobs over here!” He continues to heckle as the crowd begins to chuckle.

“My goodness, that accent is filthy…” I respond, slightly inebriated. I look across the stage and see my team lead, Natasha, giving me the thumbs up.

“Yeah fuck that guy.” I slur, getting to my starting mark. Awaiting my introduction, I turn on my earpiece. I hear Natasha counting me down.

“In 5,4,3,2…”, the stage lights focus, I’m introduced, and the crowd goes wild!

I was having a hard time finding words. Then I heard the words, “Speak from your heart.” And obliged.

“What is a dream? Is it an opportunity, a realization, is it something profound? Could it be anything, could it be nothing, could it be more? What if the answer was y-”

“SLAM!”

The sound of steel-plated doors being blown off its hinges stole my thunder.  

“How careless of me, looks like I left my invite in my other suit! Hahaha!” That fucking laugh, I can still hear it, taunting me. Bullets begin to fly, ricocheting into the crowded auditorium.

“Oomf” the sound my body makes, dropping to the ground. My notecards were all over the stage, and I crawled, trying to reorganize my topic points. No use, the debris from the blast is too thick and not the good kind of thick.

I relay to my team, “Who the fuck was that?”

“Not sure sir.” Hunter, our tactical lead responds.

“Anyone have eyes on him?”  

“Not yet, it’s hard to scope in all this debris,” Ranger responds.

“Acknowledged. Switch to protocol Alpha. Natasha, we need a parameter and information.”

“Sir,” Natasha replies.

Did you know she planned this whole itinerary herself? From wheels up to touchdown, I’ve been whisked away all week. Living the lap life of luxury. She does a lot, I should get her something nice.

“Has anyone seen Jerry?” I ask concerned.

“No sir, straight to voicemail,” Hunter responds.

Well that is concerning, he's a great asset and the only one who knows how to properly back the slides up to the cloud.

“You have your orders, check back in 5. We came together, we damn sure conquer together!”

“Sir!”, the team disperses.

The debris settled, and I could make out shapes again. It looks chaotic but familiar. I hear “Get down!” And react to laser beams wreaking havoc in the cramped room.

“We said no weapons!” I pinch myself, not a dream. I breathe, refocus, and radio my team, “Come in. How are we doing?”

“Whoo! Just like Mexico City!” Ranger screams with glee, cocking his gun.

“Whoever this is, had all of the exits blocked.” Natasha responds, “Reloading. Hunter I need-”

“On it!” Hunter responds, suppressing fire.

“How is he doing that? He’d have to be everywhere at once.”

“Or he could fly? Heads up!” Ranger responds, throwing something.

An explosion happens on the South wall.

“Looks like we have another exit.” Ranger chuckles.

“Looks like a great job! Switching to protocol Gamma. Ranger, you stay on the big man with the big guns. Hunter covers Ranger. Natasha, relay the rest of the team. Rendezvous at the warehouse.”

“Sir!” The team disperses.

In the chaos, I crawl stage right to retrieve the laptop. We can still salvage the remains of the presentation for another time. With the laptop concealed, I began my crawl across the active war zone towards the South Wall. Dodging bullets, falling debris, and the occasional trample, we're almost there.

“Just a little further,” I tell myself as my belly is torn by the shards of broken glass on the ground. “Maybe this is like Mexico City,” I chuckle hysterically.

Finally, I reached the South Wall. I hid behind the rubble, pulling out the pieces of shards clinging to my stomach. Good thing black hides bloodstains. I look and see the laptop still intact. I gather myself and notice a body on the floor. It was the heckler from earlier, jokes on him. I commandeered his piece and headed down the hallway.

The question, “What do we have here?” immediately stops me in my tracks. That voice feels condescending. Every fiber of my being is telling me to attack. I turn around and unload, but not a scratch on him.  

I come to, tied up. My team unconsciously plastered on the wall, in what I hope was sticky webbing.

“Looks like he’s waking up. Good.” The man says, floating over to me.

He was handsome, not “drop-dead gorgeous” but “drop dead, gorgeous”. He had it all: flight, super-strength, invulnerability, lasers, catchphrases, and shit. He even knew how to pull his punches.

“What did you do to my crew? Let me out of this!” I yell angrily.

“Calm yourself, I just want to ask a few questions.” He says self-righteously.

I was not calm, I was nervous. “What is this? Is this semen, it feels like semen.” I say disgusted, feeling the oozing cocoon covering my body.

“It’s a synthetic solvent that neutralizes kinetic energy. If it seeps into your sweat glands, it produces psychoactive responses.”

“So, you jizz truth serum? You fucking monster, I have a lady on my team!” I could feel my heart beating, I didn’t understand what was going on and panicked.

“It’s not semen!” He yells, adjusting his tone, “It’s not semen.”

I refute.

He cracks on, “We received Intel about you and your team. You're making a lot of very important people very scared.”

“Very important people huh, what does that have to do with my work?”

“They believe if your work ever fell into the wrong hands it could destroy the world as we know it.”

“Is that so?”

“Indeed, we have no other choice.” He goes to pick up my laptop bag.

“I don’t want to destroy the world, I want to change it! You said I’m scaring people like I’m the villain. Was I a villain when we needed funding to keep the lights on? I pleaded with banks for loans, promising them whatever interest rate they could come up with because I believed, we believed in what we were doing. The real villains laughed at us and left us for dead. When times got harder, we didn’t turn to crime, we stayed the course. We found a solution, then another, and another.” I attempted to use my shoulder to wipe my eyes but was too exhausted.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” he said, unaware.

“All it took was one yes, and in return, a favor. We did not spend 18 grueling months of back-breaking work, just to have some “Super” chump in tights fuck it all up.

“But our intel…”

“Fuck your Intel!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw footsteps.

“Jerry, oh thank God you’re alive!

“His name’s not Jerry.”

Jerry rips off his matching turtleneck and jeans like they were breakaway pants, wearing his super-suit underneath.

“Not gonna lie Jeer, that stings.”

“For the past 6 months, Lieutenant Liberty has been working undercover to foil your evil plan!”

“Evil plan? Jerry, is that true?”

He looks away.

I was hurt. “Jerry, you son of a bitch, what did you tell them! What evil plan?”

“The documents you shredded after you met with Russia, I had them translated. I told you I could do more than just bring you coffee and donuts!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! That’s why you gotta crawl before you walk Jerry!” Tears begin to fill my eyes. “But the turtleneck?”

“I hate turtlenecks, sir.”

“I’ll kill you! Sorry Jeer I didn’t mean it, it’s the semen talking.” I feel myself getting lightheaded.

Before passing out, I see Jerry turning around speaking with the chump, “Did you tell him that it was a solvent?”

I woke up in a warehouse. I see Ranger and Hunter across from me, passed out on vertical slabs, breathing. I go to move but I’m pinned. I hear a familiar voice.

“Oh good you’re awake. How did you sleep?”

“Better than Mexico City.” I chuckle, feeling some discomfort. I heard her heels before I saw her face.  

“Sorry, sir,” Natasha says as she slips me a sedative. “We need that favor sooner than we thought, and we have a lot to discuss.”

I hear Natasha counting down, “In 5,4,3,2…” as she walks away. The drugs are kicking in. I see both Jerry and the “Super” chump, lying lifeless on two horizontal slabs. I mumble “fuck you Jerry”, as I doze off.