The Rumor Mill

Chapter One: Persons of Interest

There will be no mysterious girls (or boys) with incredible powers, or never-before-mentioned obscure relatives of our famous higher-ups worming their way into this report; no sir, no ma'am! If they're not instantly recognizable when they walk down the hallway, they are not going to be mentioned in this manifesto.

Who are we? Never fear, good people. We are not here to put ourselves in the spotlight. Goodness, no. We're not even going to bother giving our names. WAY too many of us have had a hand in assembling this report for us to name every contributor, and plus, we've got nothing to do with the story. We're just here to tell it.

We're here to tell tales of the people we all know and love - the people that you damn well should be here to read about – the people that keep our lives interesting.

There is a standard of intrigue that must be met in order for a person's name to make it into these reports, and we are not the least ashamed to say that none of us even come close to meeting that standard.

Currently, the list of individuals deemed worthy of a place in this tome is limited to only six names.

White Knight. Doctor Holiday. Agent Six. Rex. Noah Nixon. Bobo Haha.

The Providence elite!

Every other day, it seems, we get some new character with a ridiculously saccharine name and so-called amazing powers, many claiming to have some affiliation or relation to our elites, but really, no one gives a flying fuck about any of them and their "riveting" backgrounds. We don't care. The public doesn't care. As a matter of fact, all of Providence finds them to be incredibly annoying.

Our interests lie in those whom we have been fighting alongside for a good long while. Those who have earned our respect, admiration, and trust. Those who, oddly, we seem to know so little about despite how much time we've spent in their presence. Their files are top secret, and kept locked away. They've revealed little to nothing about their pasts to anyone outside that elite circle.

Let's start at the top and begin with our head honcho. That'd be White Knight - the boss-man himself. The grouchy white-haired man who barks out all the orders.

It's common knowledge that he may be the only being on the planet not infected by nanites…how he got that way, however…well…there are plenty of rumors and theories…

Knight wasn't always the head of Providence. He wasn't always nanite-free either.

For most of us, the events that formed the Elite circle were way before we came along, but some of the guys who have been around long enough told us that Knight used to be just a regular agent, and that he was Agent Six's partner!

Most of us have never seen him as anything other than a picture on a monitor, scowling and growling commands.

Just like White Knight wasn't always the head of Providence, Dr. Holiday wasn't always Providence's top scientist.

Dr. Fell used to be Providences numero uno brainiac, and Holiday used to work under him.

They say Bobo was around back in Fell's days too, before Rex made the scene.

There's a lot of talk swirling around about how the Providence dream team came to be, but there are only a few things we're certain are true:

Fell disappeared around the same time White Knight became nanite-free and came to power. This was around the same time as Rex surfaced - and Knight appointed Holiday to replace Fell as top scientist. All this happened around the same time Six and Holiday were rumored to have been seen talking to each other in private. That can't all just be coincidence.

It's real shady. Any records surrounding those times are kept well out of reach of any of us, and Knight, Holiday, Six, Rex, and Bobo won't say anything.

Well, Bobo and Rex tell us some stuff, but given their records, we know better than to believe what they tell us. Screwing with us is their favorite pastime…when they're not hanging out with Noah on the basketball court.

Noah seems to be the most recent addition to the crew. SEEMS to be. SUPPOSEDLY, he's just a normal civilian, but, we have our suspicions.

He seems like a good kid, though. At least he gives Rex and Bobo something to focus their time and energy on that isn't us. Personally, I don't see how Noah could have been involved in the incident with Fell, since he'd have been pretty young at the time (if he is, in fact, human)…but Providence seems to attract the improbable.

There are a couple rumors going around that, purposely or not, Six, Knight, and Holiday are all involved in a conspiracy that ended in Fell's murder.

Some say Holiday might have done it. Maybe there was some romance there, and Fell didn't return her feelings? Some think Six might have convinced her to kill, or help him kill Fell; and Knight was trying to stop them, or that Six was trying to stop Holiday from killing Fell, or that Knight was the one who killed Fell, and Six was trying to get Holiday to help him stop Knight or at least keep her away so she wouldn't get caught up in the murder, or that it was all some big accident…in any case, we know Knight, Six, and Holiday were all involved in covering it all up.

There's also rumor that some kind of freaky illegal experimentation was going on that might have had something to do with Rex. Noah too, if you're one of the guys with the hardcore belief that the whole Providence inner circle is built on conspiracy.

Whatever the case, most of us can agree that Knight, Six, Holiday, and Rex do good work, and are trying to help the world (we probably wouldn't be here otherwise)…but we still have many pressing, unanswered questions about the Providence elite.

How and what does Knight eat? Being nanite-free means he'd have to avoid eating nanite-infected food, right? What about oxygen and plumbing? How do they keep that nanite-free? And is his name seriously White Knight? Is that what his mother named him?

What's with Six's sunglasses, and why the suit-and-tie for a ninja? And why GREEN? And is HIS name seriously Six? Did he have his name changed? If so, why? And why Six?

Why does Dr. Holiday wear red shoes on Fridays? What's this lady's first name anyway, where did she learn to fight, and how on earth is a smart, beautiful woman like her still single!

…IS she single?

Bobo…the accent, the eye patch (what happened to his eye?), the fez…and there's an explanation out there somewhere that makes it all make sense to him. We would all love to hear this explanation.

Where did Rex come from? Why does he only remember his own first name? Why don't his clothes rip when he uses his EVO powers to change his body? Why does that seem to be true of all EVO's? Motorcycle underpants: where can we get them? What does Rex see in those awful soap operas?

Is Noah really a civilian? Is Noah even human? How did he meet Rex? How does he get to and from Providence? Where are this kid's parents? Do they know he ends up in some pretty dangerous situations while hanging around Rex? Where did he learn to operate a bulldozer, and since he's so good at keeping Rex occupied and happy, can we keep him?

We have composed this dissertation to chronicle the greatest mysteries surrounding our exotic, high-profile agents, as well as to record some of the most popular speculations circulating among the ranks that might explain why they do what they do. It is a log. A manual. A creed.

It is our hobby, and it is our lives.

This is a record of the Providence rumor mill, and we, its historians, keepers, and writers, are The Grunts.