Marvel: The Super Player

Mr. Nobody had also sensed that something was deeply wrong by this point.

"The ICA!"

Aboard his private jet, Mr. Nobody—who had just arrived in Europe to handle some local matters—found himself immediately sitting right back on a flight returning to the United States.

He stared at several photos of recovered corpses sent over from the streets of Hampton Bays. His eyes locked onto the specific tattoos on the wrists of the deceased. After a brief silence, he uttered the name of the International Contract Agency.

Sitting beside him, his assistant, Agent L, spoke up, "Director, the ICA..."

Mr. Nobody looked directly at Agent L, "The final operational files regarding Lorraine Broughton—were they extracted from that specific sector?"

"It was done under your authorization, Director."

"Is that so?"

Mr. Nobody frowned, pulling out his phone and dialing a number.

The call connected!

"Good afternoon, Mr. Nobody."

"Good afternoon, Commander Hand."

Mr. Nobody went straight to the point with Victoria Hand, the commander of SHIELD's New York branch, "I want to borrow someone from you to look into something."

"Of course," Commander Victoria Hand agreed without hesitation. "Anything you need, Mr. Nobody."

Ever since Nick Fury—who famously viewed everyone as a potential enemy—had been stripped of his position, Maria Hill had taken the reins.

Her approach was to "make as many friends as possible," completely reversing SHIELD's previous arrogant stance of looking down on all other law enforcement agencies just because they answered to the World Security Council. She actively sought cooperation and mutual advancement.

And Mr. Nobody was a friend worth cooperating with.

"Walter O'Brien!" Mr. Nobody requested. "I suspect someone within the CIA network has been monitoring my movements."

"Is this regarding the ambush on Locke?"

"...Yes."

"Understood. Is there anything else you need from our end?"

"Once you locate that individual, let me know. This is a private family matter, Commander Hand. It wouldn't be appropriate for your team to intervene directly."

"Understood."

Mr. Nobody hung up the phone, his eyes flashing coldly as he turned to Agent L, "Where is Locke right now?"

Agent L replied, "The NYPD headquarters building. He is completely safe."

Unless the enemy had completely lost their minds, the NYPD headquarters was the safest place imaginable in New York City. Ever since the events of 9/11, the no-fly zone over New York was enforced with absolute severity.

Mr. Nobody nodded, "Have the pilots reroute the plane. We're heading back to Langley."

Agent L frowned, "What about the situation in New York?"

Mr. Nobody let out a cold sneer.

"I always felt there was something highly suspicious about Lorraine Broughton's death back then. Unfortunately, I never had the definitive evidence to prove it. I didn't expect them to expose themselves like this, let alone try to murder Lorraine's son. If I don't drag this mole out into the light this time, I might as well stop calling myself Mr. Nobody and go by 'Mr. Brainless' instead."

Seeing the freezing yet furious expression on Mr. Nobody's face, Agent L nodded and walked toward the cockpit to instruct the pilots to alter their heading for Langley.

...

In Hampton Bays.

A blonde man dressed in a light-yellow suit quietly observed the cordoned-off crime scene from a short distance away. He pulled a phone from his jacket.

"What?"

Inside an office building overlooking the River Thames in London, M stood up abruptly from her desk upon hearing Agent Courva's report, her face flushed with a mix of shock and irritation.

"Fuck!"

Agent Courva, an elite operative from MI6, automatically ignored M's rare slip into profanity, "Ma'am, what are our next directives?"

M removed her reading glasses and sank back into her leather chair. "Where is Locke Broughton right now?"

"The NYPD headquarters."

"..."

Courva continued, "Locke Broughton's girlfriend is Gwen Stacy. Her father happens to be George Stacy, a high-ranking inspector with the NYPD. Furthermore, when the ICA operatives initiated their strike, Gwen Stacy was inside the vehicle as well."

The underlying implication was obvious.

They had kicked a massive hornets' nest.

Launching a brazen, daylight assault against the daughter of a high-ranking NYPD inspector right on their home turf meant he wouldn't be surprised at all if the entirety of New York City went into an absolute lockdown within the next few hours.

Actually, it was worse than that.

Agent Courva raised an eyebrow as he scanned a fresh wave of data coming through his terminal. He spoke back into the line to M.

"Correction, ma'am—the lockdown has already been initiated. New York just issued a high-level security alert, and the NYPD has broadcast an active fugitive warrant. I've forwarded the details to your device."

M picked up her device and frowned as she stared at the photograph of a bald man in a tailored suit.

"Which number is this?"

The field operatives produced by the ICA practically came off an identical assembly line. Short of scanning the barcode on the back of their heads with a reader, telling them apart was mostly a guessing game.

"Number 46!" Agent Courva reported. "I reviewed the transit logs. Yesterday afternoon, he abruptly altered his itinerary from Paris back to London and boarded a direct flight to New York instead. Ma'am, they deceived you."

M rubbed her temples, feeling thoroughly exhausted.

Years ago, after MI6 and the KGB were both thoroughly humiliated and played for fools by the CIA's Lorraine Broughton, the M of that era had sunk into a deep, bitter depression, passing away shortly thereafter without even receiving a royal title.

Consequently, when the ICA had stepped forward with their plot to assassinate Lorraine Broughton back then, M had chosen not to interfere. To block it would have felt like a betrayal to her predecessor.

Yet ever since, as she watched the ICA continuously drain institutional resources and rapidly expand under the guise of that very assassination operation, M found herself filled with deep regret whenever she looked back.

And now?

M took a deep, steady breath, "Vacate New York. Now. Immediately."

Agent Courva blinked in surprise, "We don't need to—"

M shook her head, "No. There is absolutely no reason for us to alienate the CIA over this. Let MI5 deal with their own headaches."

Yes.

MI5.

The organization M commanded was MI6, formally known as the Secret Intelligence Service, which dealt strictly with foreign intelligence.

The KGB in Moscow.

The CIA in Washington.

Mossad in Israel.

And MI6 in London.

These four entities were recognized globally as the world's premier intelligence agencies, and among the first three, MI6 was widely acknowledged as the absolute pioneer of modern espionage.

However...

Shrouded beneath the immense prestige of MI6 lay MI5, an agency birthed from the London Security Service.

If one wanted to understand the distinction between MI6 and MI5, it was fundamentally identical to the operational divide between the CIA and the FBI. One operated entirely abroad, while the other managed domestic security.

Yet unlike the CIA, which was legally restricted from operating openly within its own borders, the FBI had managed to exploit a legal loophole.

They frequently operated overseas by utilizing a specific statute: "If an international matter involves or potentially threatens a citizen of the United States, the FBI retains full jurisdictional authority to conduct an active investigation."

Faced with such aggressive maneuvering from their former colony, how could the British establishment possibly remain indifferent?

Thus, even though the sun had long since set on the British Empire, their distinct brand of quiet arrogance remained entirely intact. MI5 viewed the situation simply: if the FBI could operate globally, why couldn't they?

And that was precisely how the ICA was born.

Back then, elements within MI5 argued that while MI6 couldn't openly avenge the late M under the watchful eyes of the CIA, they could. With the tacit approval of M, they assisted MI5 in pushing through the administrative framework required to establish the ICA.

The department made a name for itself immediately. Later on, they even formed back-channel connections with compromised assets inside the CIA, successfully rebranding the ICA as an independent, global corporate entity.

But as the saying goes, the CIA was a landscape filled with conflicting factions. While some were close allies of Mr. Nobody, others were his bitter adversaries—especially during the years when Lorraine Broughton's reputation was at its absolute peak.

Jealousy was a common trait in any agency, and the CIA was certainly no exception.

Over time...

As the syndicate took on more high-profile international contracts, the increasingly wealthy and independent ICA gradually slipped away from the control of MI6, which originally possessed the leverage to restrain it.

By now, it had evolved into an autonomous entity within MI5—one that acknowledged their authority in name but operated entirely on its own terms.

Hearing M's explicit command, Agent Courva nodded, "Understood, ma'am."

M cut the connection. She glanced at a highly classified, direct-line terminal sitting on her desk that connected straight to the ICA leadership.

A cold smile touched her lips as she watched an incoming call flash across the display. She pulled open her desk drawer, swept the device inside, and slammed it shut.

You never bother to show respect when things are calm, but the moment a crisis hits, you come crying to mother?

Get lost.

...

Deep within the ICA command facility.

Mr. I lowered his receiver and looked across the table at Mr. C and Mrs. A, who completed the executive triad of the organization, "M has refused the line."

Mr. C and Mrs. A exchanged a brief look before one of them spoke, "Completely expected."

They hadn't actually anticipated any material assistance from M anyway. The call had merely been a courtesy extended out of institutional history—a formal attempt to claim that the operation hadn't been sanctioned by leadership and was merely the work of a rogue asset acting on his own initiative, blah blah blah.

Now that M had actively shut down communications, Mr. I honestly felt a sense of relief.

"What is the status of Number 46?"

"Everything remains within our parameters."

"Good." Mr. I's eyes flashed with a calculating light. "Initially, I believed we had successfully eliminated Lorraine Broughton years ago. However, Mr. Nobody's recent movements have been entirely too overt."

A dead woman, supposedly buried long ago.

To die a second time?

What kind of operational anomaly was that?

Two negatives make a positive.

Could Lorraine Broughton still be alive?

Mr. C spoke in a low, gravelly tone.

"We must verify this intelligence with absolute immediacy. After all, if Lorraine Broughton survived that encounter, then where are the classified files she secured back then? We thoroughly purged every single one of her safe houses; we verified beyond a shadow of a doubt that the data was not there."

Mrs. A let out a soft, dismissive chuckle, "Do not worry. Number 46 will see his contract through to its conclusion. He hasn't been apprehended, has he?"

If Number 46 had actually been captured, the NYPD wouldn't have found it necessary to broadcast a city-wide fugitive warrant.

And that exact composite sketch?

Locke had personally helped the sketch artists draft it.

He was actually quite curious himself. It appeared that by the time he had executed his aggressive breakthrough back at the Hampton Bays blockade, Agent 47—or rather, Agent 46—had already vanished from the immediate area.

But...

This was New York. Once the NYPD truly mobilized with absolute intent, not even a foreign fly could manage to slip through their perimeter undetected.

Locke thought as much as he pushed open the door to the holding room George had allocated for him and Gwen.

He stepped inside.

The first thing that caught his eye was Gwen, her face pale with an unmistakable tension, looking as though she was just about to head out the door herself.

Locke's brows knit together.

***

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