A HORNET FACES THE STORM

Chapter Two

The next morning Britt and Kato arrived at the Sentinel building. They met Lenore in the lobby after Britt told her they were coming.

"Mister Saxon is waiting for you upstairs in the boardroom," she said as she came up to them. "I have all the information I managed to gather on him in this file and…are you wearing makeup?"

Lenore got close enough to Britt that she suddenly noticed he was wearing concealer around his left eye. Beneath the flesh colored makeup she noticed a hint of purple ringing his eye.

"Do you have a black eye?" Lenore asked him.

"Um…maybe," Britt said sheepishly.

Lenore shook his head and shoved the manila folder into Britt's hands.

"I don't know what in the hell possessed you and Kato to become superheroes," she said as she turned and walked away. "Must have been one hell of a drunken binge you were on, the night you two thought of it."

"For your information, we were not drunk the night I thought of it," Britt said as he and Kato followed her. "We decided to do something with our lives."

"We wanted to make a difference in the world," Kato added.

"By doing what?" Lenore said, spinning around. "Playing superhero and getting yourselves killed? You two are crazy and I don't know why I'm sticking around to help you. I must be nuts too."

"You're not nuts," Britt said.

"Well thanks. Coming from the Green Hornet, that makes me feel tons better," Lenore said, rolling her eyes.

She shut up when they reached the elevator and all of them got in. Britt shrugged off her sarcastic comments and focused on the file in his hands. He opened it and blinked in shock when he pulled out one single sheet of paper.

"Wait, this is it?" he said, turning the page around and noticing the back was blank. "This is all the information on him? It doesn't even fill up one side of the paper."

"I know. I told you I could barely find anything on the guy," Lenore said. "He seemed to come out of nowhere."

"No shit. You barely have anything on him. This is basically his vital stats," Britt said while Kato came close and read the paper with him.

The elevator door opened and Britt stepped out while the others fell in beside him. They walked towards the boardroom and Britt stopped them when he was almost to the door. He looked through one of the plate glass windows into the boardroom and saw someone sitting at the end of the table. He had closely cropped brown hair and was wearing a jet black suit, white shirt and black tie. The man was sitting and waiting patiently while the other board members sat around the wooden table and talked amongst themselves. Britt stared at Saxon.

"Him?" he said in disbelief. "That's our competition? He looks like a funeral director. Are you sure this is this guy?"

"Yes, this is Harold Saxon, publisher of TARDIS," Lenore said.

"TARDIS? That has got to be the dumbest name ever," Britt said to Kato.

"So do we go in and meet with him?" Kato asked.

"Hells yeah we do. I wanna find out what Mister Funeral Director has to say. Fall in, crew!"

Britt led the way while Kato and Lenore shared a glance and fell in behind him. They opened the door and Mike Axford, one of the reporters, greeted his boss. Britt nodded a hello and smiled at Harry Saxon who stood up, a bored look on his face as he sized up his competition. Lenore and Kato sat down on Britt's right side and everyone sat down.

"So…you're the man everyone's talking about," Britt said to Saxon.

"Nice to know I'm being talked about," Saxon replied.

Britt raised his eyebrow when he heard the English accent.

"You're not American?" he said.

"No, I'm not. Is that a problem?" Saxon asked.

"No, no problem at all, dude. Just making sure," Britt replied. "So…my executive assistant, Lenore, did a little fact check on you and came up with almost zero information. Seems you're a very mysterious man, Mister Saxon."

"Am I? Well, perhaps your…assistant didn't look hard enough. I have nothing to hide and I certainly didn't delete anything from my public record. My life is an open book," Saxon said with a shrug. "Having said that, I'm very flattered that you checked up on me, I did the same for you. I'm sorry to hear about your father's untimely death several months ago."

"Yeah," Britt muttered.

"I also lost both my parents at a young age so my sympathies to you," Saxon continued. "It must have been quite a shock taking over your father's job at such a young age."

"Yes, it was but I've tried to live up to my father's standards," Britt said.

"Indeed. Then might I suggest you start reporting real news and keep away from the tabloid fodder?"

"I'm sorry?" Britt said. "Tabloid fodder?"

"Yes," Saxon said, reaching down and pulling a manila file out of a black valise. "Been reading the Sentinel for the last few months and I've noticed that you seem to be devoting a lot of energy to some thug called the Green Hornet."

"Yeah, so?"

"So, as far as I can tell, the Green Hornet is a petty criminal who wouldn't be worthy of a paragraph on the back page of any newspaper, let alone the front page of your newspaper."

"Now wait just a moment," Britt said, incensed. "The Green Hornet is a major badass. He's one of the biggest scourges this city's ever known."

Lenore shot him a warning look but Britt ignored it. Britt's anger increased when Saxon let out a chuckle and gave him a patronizing look.

"The Green Hornet is a two bit gangster who thinks he's a threat to civilized society. But he's nothing compared to some…scourges out there."

"Oh really? And what other scourges do you know about?" Kato asked.

"And you are?" Saxon said.

"This is Kato, my assistant," Britt said. "Answer his question."

"Very well. I know of someone who is more of a threat to humanity than this so-called Green Hornet and I've devoted most of my life to hunting him down and stopping him."

"Oh really?" Britt said. "And who would that be?"

"His name is the Doctor."

Everyone stared at him quietly.

"Doctor who?" Britt finally said.

"That's it. He's called the Doctor."

"The Doctor? What kind of lame ass name is that?" Britt said with a scoff.

"I s'pose it's just about as…lame ass a name as the Green Hornet," Saxon said, shrugging.

"Ouch," Britt muttered under his breath. "Um…do you know where this Doctor is?" he said to Saxon.

"No, not at the moment," Saxon said. "But I intend to find him and put him out of commission."

"Uh-huh," Britt said, not really caring. "Well, if this man is such a threat, why haven't you reported on him in your newspaper?"

"Because like me, the man is elusive and there isn't much information about him. Not any current information, that is. The man could be anywhere at the moment."

"Really?" Britt said as an idea began to form in his head. "And this man…he's a real threat to LA?"

Saxon chuckled.

"My dear boy, he's a real threat to the entire planet," Saxon said.

Britt shared a look with Kato. He leaned over and Kato leaned in.

"Pass this on to Lenore when you can," he whispered to him. "We need to find this Doctor and see if we can become buddy buddy with him so we can take him out. You and Lenore start looking for information about him."

Kato nodded and leaned back up in his chair while Britt did the same and cleared his throat.

"Well…Mister Saxon, I enjoyed our little chat today and…I look forward to more chats in the future," Britt said pleasantly. "I would love to continue our meeting but unfortunately I have other stuff I need to do."

Saxon nodded.

"I also enjoyed this meeting and I wish you luck," Saxon said. "I also have…stuff that needs to be attended to so I will bid you all good day."

Everyone stood up and shook hands with him. Britt was the last to shake his hand and as he looked Saxon in the face, he suddenly had a bad vibe about him. He wondered if perhaps there was more to Saxon than he was letting on and he decided that he and Kato would try to find out more about him. But for the moment, he plastered a polite smile on his face and let Saxon leave. After he was gone, Britt stayed behind at the Sentinel while Kato and Lenore left to start gathering information on the Doctor.

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