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“It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it.”

- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

“No, no, you’re missing the point,” Oz insisted, “see, I think the central question is whether or not you should shoot the bear, not whether or not you’d go hiking in the first place.”

Mull waggled her hand in the air. “I think I could hit that fucker.” She decided matter-of-factly. “Unless it’s really cute or something, I’m going to light it up and then mount its head on my wall.”

Oz paused to consider that for a minute. “I still think I’d let it go. I have the bullet if it comes back, but if it doesn’t, then there’s no sense in starting the fight again. I think we can both live.”

“Excuse me!” McPherson shouted, trying to get their attention again. “You two aren’t off the hook here!”

At the moment, Mull was lounging next to Oz in the Consortium’s command room, getting chewed out by their government liaison, for… something. Mull wasn’t really paying any attention, to be honest.

“Crap, are you still talking?” Mull gasped in astonishment, genuinely amazed that the woman was still in the room.

“Sorry, I thought you were done like twenty minutes ago and I stopped listening.” She straightened in her chair.

“Did I miss anything important? Something which you can hopefully boil down into one or two short sentences to catch me up?”

To her surprise, Oz snorted in laughter.

She turned to look at him, still not used to hearing the man laugh at anything.

Things in Oz’s world always seemed to be so joyless and maudlin.

The man was “on the job” at all times of the day and night.

He didn’t seem to have any hobbies, outside friends, or pleasures.

So she genuinely enjoyed the few moments where it seemed like Oz let his serious mask slip and expose the more light-hearted man beneath.

McPherson apparently took it another way. She pointed at Oz, glaring at Mull with a fiery intensity. “You are a terrible influence on him!”

Mull glanced at Oz for a ruling on that.

He shrugged, as if admitting the point.

Mull started laughing and playfully smacked at his arm.

“You turned a city block into a fucking warzone! You killed a couple dozen representatives of a foreign nation…” McPherson continued, sounding furious and horrified.

“Are you here to tell me that the police commissioner is breathing down your neck and that I’ve broken every regulation in the books?

” Mull asked hopefully. “Because, I’m not going to lie, I’ve kinda always wanted someone to yell that at me.

It’s really what our buddy team-up is missing at this point. ”

McPherson’s temper exploded. “Who the fuck do you two idiots think you are?”

Mull pointed at Oz. “NPR.” She pointed at herself. “NWA.”

“That’s about the size of it.” Oz agreed calmly. “Today, at least.”

“You assassinated citizens of a sovereign nation,” McPherson continued, “then kidnapped one of their diplomats...”

“It was a fun day, yeah.” Mull agreed.

“ Why did you do this!?!”

Mull considered that. “Well, it might sound clichéd, but sometimes I think God puts things like this in my path just so that I have another opportunity to make everyone an awestruck cheerleader when they see how fucking amazing I am.”

“You are very good at what you do.” Oz agreed seriously. “I’m constantly amazed.”

“We’re all amazed by her,” McPherson yelled, “because the only thing she’s good at is killing people and causing wanton destruction to the city!”

Mull shook her head seriously. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m also pretty good at alcohol.”

Oz snorted in laughter again, then tried to hide it by coughing.

“He used to be one of the normal ones here!” McPherson pointed at Oz again, obviously blaming Mull for something. “ Look at what you did to him! ”

Mull was suddenly serious, not liking anyone insulting Oz in her presence. “I’d do more than that if he’d let me.”

That appeared to confuse Oz more than anything. The man just didn’t understand flirtation. He was a gentle, chaste soul.

McPherson could tell that Mull was a lost cause, so she focused on Oz instead.

“The greatest good for the greatest number means cutting that bitch loose. And you know it. People have already died over this and it’s got to stop.

Sooner or later, you people will have to stop making other people pay for your mistakes.

” Her voice lowered. “Your partner is stacking bodies like cordwood and it’s got to end now. ”

Mull turned to look at Oz. “You ever think about how weird it is that that doesn’t make sense anymore?

” She asked conversationally. “What is ‘cordwood,’ anyway? I mean, the phrase was invented to give people an idea about the scope of the body problem, but now the only time you ever hear the word at all is when it’s referring to bodies. ”

“I think about that constantly.” Oz deadpanned.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really?”

“No.”

McPherson continued glaring at her, obviously not liking the fact that Mull noticed things like that about popular sayings. And, also, probably objected to the many people Mull killed in an average day.

“Listen, I don’t solve mysteries, I’m an assassin.” Mull reminded the woman. “What the fuck did you think was going to happen? They’re trying to kill me, I got to them first. End of story.”

“You’re really not going to stop her?” McPherson remained focused on Oz, expecting him to be the voice of what she considered “reason.” “You’re going to let her completely destroy our opportunity to look for a compromise here?”

“They tried to kill my friend while she was in the hospital, then brutally murdered a mother in front of her 6 year old child.” Oz replied calmly. “Just what kind of ‘compromise’ would you suggest that I try to make with people like that, Agent McPherson?”

“I’d start with: ‘How’s about you only kill innocent people every other day.’” Mull suggested sarcastically.

McPherson threw her arms out in exasperation. “Even if you kill them all, what makes you any different than them?”

“Well… there’s the fact that I’ll still be alive.” Mull guessed.

Oz tried to cover his smile with his hand, but he still made a soft snorting sound of laughter.

“And you’re still okay with this?” McPherson asked, sounding deeply disappointed in him. “ You’re one of the sane ones! ”

“ I make the decisions in my life. I decide who I want to be and what I want to do.” Oz calmly rearranged his gloves.

“Earlier this year, I looked at my life and voted for the Consortium of Chaos to become my employer. I backed a team of supervillains over the world’s foremost superheroes.

Because I don’t believe in labels like ‘hero’ and ‘villain.’ I believe in people.

I believe in actions over words. I believe in ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ I believe that most people will make the right choice if they’re given the opportunity. ..”

“ The ‘right choice’ like blowing up a building!?! ” McPherson interrupted.

Oz ignored her and kept right on talking.

“…I believe in second chances but I also believe in personal responsibility and making people pay for their actions.” He met the woman’s eyes.

“I believe in this world. Which is why I’ll fight for it.

Even if no one else does. I don’t believe that violence solves things, to me, process is more important than results.

No end is justified by unconscionable means.

Had it been my choice, we would have gone a different way on our mission today.

” His tone grew hard. “But we were attacked. Multifarious decided her best course of action was to strike their headquarters, and in that situation, I will support a teammate over an army of kidnappers and murderers. Any day. Yes, there were casualties as a result. But I don’t compromise with bugs and I don’t cry when they get stepped on.

” He let that sink in for a moment, then his tone was once more its usual calm.

“Was there anything else you wanted to speak to us about, Agent McPherson?”

Mull nodded to herself, utterly impressed with that man.

Yes, okay, she was probably corrupting his lifelong White Hat-ness, but… it was so much fun to corrupt him! And he was so good at it!

“You make tolerance sound badass, Oz.” She breathed.

He looked confused by that. “You consider equating my enemies to bugs which need to be stepped on… tolerant?”

“Compared to me?” She nodded. “Yeah. That’s like fucking Gandhi.”

As they were sitting there, the Commodore marched into the room. The Consortium’s patriarch wasn’t seen in meetings as much over the last few months, preferring instead to play online military strategy video games in the TV room, and hand off the day-to-day matters to his son-in-law.

Today was no exception. The man appeared to be looking for a recharger to one of his laptops, which was still plugged into the wall .

“Commodore Cruel!” McPherson called the man over, obviously believing that he would side with her. “Can you please tell these two that they can’t just indiscriminately gun down foreign nationals?”

The Commodore glanced at them, looking bored. “These the crummy creatures that caused the casualties at the clinic and came close to crippling my child’s chosen one?”

“Some of them.” Mull reported. “Monty’s going to take care of the rest in a few minutes, using the information that Oz found in the building we hit.”

The Commodore considered that silently for a moment, then nodded. “Capital. Be so cordial as to cheerily continue. I commend you on your contributions to the cause.” His voice hardened. “ Crush them. Leave them cinders and cracked cartilage.”

The Commodore swept from the room.

“Does nothing matter anymore!?!” McPherson let out an aggravated groan. “This whole team is fucking insane!”