Phone Partners LLC [Teddy Ashford]

"Oh, I have no interest in selling my nice toys to the highest bidder. If I wanted to do that, I would have just kept showing them off to the big men at the Pentagon..."

Doctor Möbius put his elbows up on the table and folded his hands together as he leaned forward. His interlacing fingers obscured his mouth and nose a bit, and the dark lenses of the sunglasses kept his eyes hidden. Thus, the only hint of Möbius' manic grin to Teddy was the way it carried in his voice when he spoke.

"Really, what I want is the chance to bring my wilder designs and dreams to life... but, alas, due to the capitalist system that has conquered the globe, I cannot legally acquire any materials without money. And stealing and squatting are rather difficult and don't offer the best return on my time investment!"

Möbius' hands unfolded and gestured towards Teddy, revealing his toothy smile. The Möbot with the mustache and the cloth returned, alongside a guest, and it set a basket full of little loaves of bread, and two clean glasses on the table. The second Möbot was holding a bottle of sparkling water, which had been looted from the captain's quarters. It opened the bottle and poured until both glasses were three-quarters full, before clanking back to the kitchen area to join the group of of shuffling shadows with red eyes.

"And that's where you come in, Teddy. An experienced businessman with independent wealth AND good connections through his family. The perfect patron of the sciences! Ah, but I can already hear you asking in your head, "Why should I give you money if you aren't going to give me anything back?" A fine question! But, you see, I will offer you a service, just not a lot of R&D..."

The kitchen was a bit lit up by then, as the Möbots inside turned on the stove and gathered ingredients from stores around the kitchen. Some canned vegetables were opened, along with great big boxes of spices... A handful of fresh, tropical fish had been brought to a counter, where they were being deboned and filleted.

"But first, a bit of explanation. You might or might not be a fan of them, but there are a handful of major comics companies which are still around. Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse... Now, they're mostly known for their science-fiction, horror, and western comics nowadays, but up until the 90s, Marvel and DC were more known for their superhero lines. Gigantic, interconnected worlds where men and women with superhuman abilities or high-tech gadgets or just plain ol' gumption and grit fought crime and saved the world from villainous forces of all sorts! There was the Justice League, there were the Avengers and... most important to my pitch... there were the X-Men. I'm sure you haven't heard of them, their comic line was cancelled after Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were brought before the House Committee to Address Oddities in 1994. Kirby died soon after, some believe it was the stress of the whole thing- ANYWAYS!"

The food was starting to get cooked. Vegetables were being seared and pans heated up and coated internally with oil for cooking. The fish fillets were almost ready to go in.

"Now, in the Marvel Comics superhero universe, there were a variety of ways that people got superpowers. Most received them as a result of some sort of accident involving radiation or gene splicing or strange, cosmic energies. Hell, there were a few that were wizards or mystical martial artists or just straight-up gods! However, one group of people simply had their powers from birth thanks to a genetic mutation, and they were called, rather un-creatively, "Mutants". And mutants were feared or hated by the public in the Marvel universe for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that they were often physically changed by their powers to look ugly or had difficulty controlling them. Sounds familiar, yes?"

Möbius paused for just a moment before continuing on. One of the Möbots was back, with a pair of wine glasses. These were set out in front of the two men, then filled up a third of the way with some decent-looking red wine. Then, off clanked the Möbot to wait for the food to be finished.

"Now, these mutants were often targeted by legislation and special "mutant hunting" super-weapons. Robots, specially engineered viruses, men in power armor, all sorts of things. In their stories, there were two men that were the "big names" in mutant rights. One was Magneto, a Jewish holocaust survivor who happened to have the power to control metal thanks to his mutant genes. The other was "Charles Xavier", a powerful psychic mutant who was also the heir to a small fortune and a large estate in New York. He used his psychic powers and a special machine to locate other mutants and turned his estate into a school that would give mutants a decent education and ALSO train them in how to control their powers. But, he couldn't take EVERY mutant into his school, and there were plenty of threats to mutants and regular people around the world in the Marvel Universe."

Möbius grabbed his wine glass and held it up to his nose for a little sniff. He wiggled the glass a bit to swirl and sift the wine, then took a sip before setting it back down.

"So he formed "the X-Men", a team of mutants with powerful abilities, specially trained for combat, who could fly around the world and appear where they were needed. Now, in the Marvel Universe itself, this team was rather unpopular and people hated them for being mutants. But in the real world, the X-Men became one of Marvel's most popular and lucrative comic lines. People just couldn't get enough of them! There were comics, special editions, toys of all sorts, and even an animated series or two! Merchandise that kids couldn't get enough of... It was a golden goose for Marvel, until... well... you know, the "incident" on the White House lawn in '93."

Ethan Ashford

Doctor Möbius laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed, cackling like an utter madman even as the Möbot waiter with the drawn-on mustache brought the plates of steaming fresh food. Which appeared to be... seared fish fillets with some sort of sweet sauce paired with rice and various vegetables. Cooked with all the skill of an expert chef.

Möbius stopped laughing, but he didn't stop smiling, and he grabbed for his fork.

"Close, Teddy. Oh so very close! I won't be founding my own real-life X-Men..."

He picked up some fish and rice, and lifted the food to his mouth. Then he chewed it up, and wiped his chin with a napkin that had been deposited by the Möbots moments before. He washed down the bite with a good sip of the wine, then he reached for his water.

"You are. And before that, you're going to get inherit your father's entire business empire!"

He drained a gulp of his water, and then began to scarf down his food, speaking in excited bursts between mouthfuls.

"You see... I didn't just hack the security... everything on the island is smart-tech! Fridges, self-driving cars, AC, power grid... it's all on a shared network! The main thing protecting it was distance... that and being largely disconnected from the Internet... Except for personal computers and such..."

He took a good gulp of water again, then continued... pausing his meal to keep speaking.

"I cracked what little security there was, and now I can very quickly mess with anything on Ashford Island... for now. If your father wakes up, I'm sure he'll notice what I've done almost immediately. And I wasn't able to get to the cloud service and linked servers he uses for the rest of his companies... That's where you come in, ah! But I'm getting ahead of myself. How am I going to wrest the Ashford business empire from your brother's grubby hands and keep your father from touching it again? Well..."

The good doctor gestured to the submarine all around them, the bulkheads and tables and steel that wrapped them up and kept them from drowning below the waves.

"We are currently onboard an Ohio-class submarine, built for the U.S. Navy, then it was lent to the O.S.E. for use in blockading Ashford Isle. It has a nuclear fission reactor with enough material in it to keep going for literal decades! And, it also currently boasts its full complement of one-hundred-and-fifty Tomahawk cruise-missiles, all of which I now control. I can fire them at any time, and send them to any place on Ashford Island."

Möbius paused for a moment, allowing the weight of that knowledge to sink into Teddy's brain. Certain things that he'd said the night before were probably making a lot of sense all of a sudden.

"So, here's the plan. You are going to stay here for about a day or two, then you're going to "escape". I'll give you one of my arc-guns, you'll punch a wall until your knuckles are bloody, and my aquatic Möbots are going to help you "wash up" on the shores of the island. You'll tell them all about how some crazy mad scientist from straight out of an old B-Movie kidnapped you and demanded secrets and company assets that you didn't have, because Ethan was given them. People may or may not believe you at first, they might even think that you're crazy! But... you'll be proven right when a cruise missile hits your father's room at the mansion and he, and anyone visiting him at the time, are blown to smithereens!"

He gestured to himself at that point, before continuing.

"Then, I will take over all of the Island's technology, turn things off and on, make cars go insane, broadcast my face on all the TVs, and invade with some of my Möbots! If any Oddities fight back, I'll take record of them and we can maybe scout them out for recruitment... Then pull my punches, get rocked, retreat. You will suggest that the civilian Oddities should be trained for combat, and made into a team... We'll see if anyone goes for it. After this, everything your brother touches will turn to shit. Every single company that he runs will have production problems and logistical issues. People will show up at wrong times, shipments won't go where they need to, emails will be lost and data will be deleted... because you'll have planted a bug of mine where I need it to go. Meanwhile, your personal companies will be working fine, and a few of your firms will even have breakthrough designs, which I will supply."

The good Doctor Möbius paused in his explanation before looking, really looking at Teddy.

"Are you with me so far?"

Ethan Ashford

Doctor Möbius gave a small, evil chuckle before drinking his water. Somehow, some way, he seemed to have developed the willpower to refrain from cackling like mad again. 

"Excellent! Now, let's get into what happens after that big assault on the island! So..."

Möbius set his glass down and made sure his fork was on his plate. He didn't seem interested in eating while he continued speaking, though he did gesture quite a bit with his hands.

"Now, while your brother is struggling financially, you'll be swimming in money! Enough to give me "liquid funding", cold-hard cash. I'll use that money to make improvements on my Möbots and other equipment, and to make gadgets and gizmos for your super-team. I'll also ramp up my attacks. I'll appear once a week to try to rob the island's bank or destroy the university or attack your family's mansion or blow up a warehouse, standard super-villain fare. Whenever I pop up, I'll wipe the floor with your family's security forces, so you'll have to send out your team of Oddities, who will always, always win. It'll all lead up to some climactic final battle where I wander in with a super-weapon and they give me such a thrashing that I have to flee the island! By that point, they'll be somewhat competently trained, know how to use their neat toys, and, most importantly, think that they are the only people that can stop my "evil plans"..."

He leaned back into his chair as his grin grew uncomfortably wide. It seemed almost as if Doctor Möbius' jaw was about to unhinge and open wide enough to swallow up Teddy's head.

"Now, the world won't care at first, since I'll be attacking that island full of Oddities, some might even think I'm some sort of agent of divine justice or something..."

Möbius leaned forward all of a sudden, slamming his hands onto the table. It didn't move, since it was bolted to the deck of the submarine, same with the chairs. But it did shake a bit, and a bit of wine spilled.

"And then, I'll go global! Do all sorts of stupid things everyone in a country can hate me for doing. Try to blow up the Statue of Liberty, steal the Eiffel Tower, kidnap the British Royal Family, drill a hole through the Great Wall! Again, all things that seem to have no purpose other than evil, standard super-villain stuff. And, just like here on the island, I'll trounce police and military easily, just as easily as my Möbots took this submarine from trained sailors and S.E.A.L.s on loan to the UN. So, of course, you'll need to send in your team of Oddities to stop me, always showing up in the nick of time and sending me running! Suddenly, these people won't just be freaks, they'll be heroes who saved beloved national monuments and people and stopped major disasters from an international criminal!"

He moved to sit in a more natural position, and picked up his fork, he looked to a blood-stain that had been left on the wall. The blood had been there long enough to start looking like dried rust, but it was still a splatter of blood. Someone had died there. A lot of someones had died on this ship.

"And through it all, you'll be riding high, giving me the money I need, and your brother will be doing terribly. At some point, the various investors in your family's public companies will notice, it's inevitable! Then they'll vote to transfer ownership and executive titles away from Ethan, and to you. Meanwhile, with your father dead, we can very easily falsify a will that gives you control over various private assets, taking those away from your brother, as well! You'll get everything and the whole world will know you as the man that makes sure the Dastardly Doctor Möbius is kept in check! Not to mention... this super-team can get you a tidy profit as well! Movie and TV deals, corporate sponsorships and ads, toys, comics, authorized biographies! So many possible revenue streams!"

Doctor Möbius stood up, putting his napkin on the table as he wandered around behind Teddy. He put a hand on the namesake Ashford's shoulder, and gestured with another hand.

"Just picture it... you on top with the lion's share of the family fortune... your brother humiliated and left dependent on you... your father dead and buried... and the whole world knowing your name and putting it in the history books! The whole world on a silver platter for you! Doesn't that sound nice? Like what you deserve?"

Ethan Ashford

"Well, there were a few Oddities that fought back against my Möbots during my first false-flag to steal this submarine... They might make for a good first-pick of this new super-team. There's also a girl with wings, could be interesting if she can fly or shrink or something..."

As Theodore Ashford Jr. held out his wineglass for a toast, Möbius grabbed his own and held it up to *clink* the rims together. Yes, the fool had fallen for his pitch hook, line and sinker. Typical rich brat, having more than he could ever need, and still wanting the world for himself. Oh, and for people to like him on top of it.

"To the start of a grand, successful partnership! Now, how about dessert? I had my Möbots work on turning the flour and various odds and ends into something edible!"

Right as Möbius said this, that Möbot with the mustache squiggled on its face came with a pair of platters. Each one piled high with pastries. Cupcakes, cookies, danishes, and whatnot, all made with some substitutions, but still nice and sugary.

Ethan Ashford