The Other Eight, page 12
“Wait, I nearly forgot!” he said.
He produced a top-bound spiral notepad and a pen, scribbled out a note, and signed it with a stylized C and S made to look like a chicken’s head. Once it was finished, he crammed it into the hinge of the door, where it would not be missed.
“What was that?” Dentata asked.
“Calling card,” he said, grunting as he shouldered a sack of fertilizer. “Can’t pull a job like this and not give them an idea of who did it.”
“Well, should I do that?”
“Unless you’ve got something quick in mind, I say skip it. Just grab a bag and let’s go.”
“Uh… okay, wait.”
The villain tore a hole in a bag of the fertilizer, spilling small white pellets onto the ground. She then nudged them around with her foot until they roughly formed the shape of a tooth.
“Good enough,” she decided. “How much of this stuff do we need?”
“He just said, ‘some,’ so grab a bag and let’s go. I don’t know that Bottleneck can hold off the police forever.”
Dentata briefly attempted to snag a fifty-pound bag, but two fruitless tugs convinced her to take a ten-pound bag instead, and she rushed off to follow Chicken Scratch. The yellow-suited villain huffed and puffed down the aisles and to the door. Sure enough, Bottleneck’s confounding effect on traffic patterns had prevented cops, or anyone else, from coming down the street. Chicken Scratch popped the trunk, and the pair of robbers dumped their ill-gotten gains inside.
“Pollinatrix!” he called out. “It’s time to make our escape!”
It was hardly necessary to call after her, as the location of their partner was constantly marked by a drifting cloud of bees and a continuous, yelping scream. The dogs had long ago taken cover, leaving their tormentor to sprint in circles, trying to stay ahead of the swarm.
“It’s about time!” she managed to call out in the distance, shifting to run toward them. “Open the door and start the engine!”
Dentata and Chicken Scratch piled into the front seat, leaving the back door open. As their ally drew nearer, Dentata desperately rolled up her window. In a practiced dive, Pollinatrix torpedoed herself into the back seat.
“Drive, drive, drive!” she bellowed.
Tires squealing, the rental peeled away. The speed of the getaway managed to leave most of the bees behind, and those who made it into the car were deftly swatted by Pollinatrix. At first the others were nervous about being stung, but it became clear that the bees had no interest in either of them as long as Pollinatrix was in the car. She’d received a few new welts, and was badly out of breath, but overall they sensed that the whole process was typical to the point of being mundane to her.
“We get”—she gasped—“what we were after?”
“Yep. Our first act of villainy is a triumph!” Chicken Scratch said. “That was a lot of grunt work, though. What do you say we pool our resources for the next gig, maybe hire some minions? I’ve always wanted minions.”
“Me too!” Pollinatrix panted. “If this all works out, maybe I can get them some matching outfits. We could call ourselves The Hive.”
“Whoop!” Dentata hooted gleefully. “I’m already better at this than at my last job! I’m going to like being a villain.”
Chapter 19
Each day of testing had a few hours of downtime for the heroes. Due to the hastiness of the boot camp’s construction, there were a few things that had been overlooked, not the least of them being the proper facilities to deal with this downtime. Retcon had brought along a deck of cards, and he and the other jocks of the group tended to while away the evenings with poker. Not surprisingly, it was a very exclusive game. The others found themselves milling about the courtyard, commiserating about the day’s activities and trying to come up with something to kill the time.
“Honestly,” Gracias said, kicking a stone as he trudged toward his cabin, “taking apart and putting together a gun? What kind of a hero test is that?”
“It’s an army thing. Field stripping, remember?”
Gracias snickered. “Yeah. I remember.” He picked up another stone and tossed it in the air. “Still sounds like something else. Something that would involve a pile of singles and a pair of hiking boots… see, because…”
“Don’t.”
“Strippers, you know…”
“I said don’t.”
“In a field…”
“You need to stop explaining jokes. Good jokes don’t need to be explained, and bad jokes aren’t worth explaining.”
“You’re just cranky because it was cloudy all day and now the sun’s going down, so you didn’t get your between-meal snacks. I swear the only time you aren’t moody is when you’re soaking up the rays. Then you’re all serene.” He tossed the rock up and snatched it out of the air. “Hey, betcha I can hit the flagpole with this rock from here.”
Chloroplast eyed the twenty feet between Gracias and the flagpole doubtfully. “You’d miss it.”
“Bet you a buck I get it on my first try.”
“You’re on.”
“Watch and learn.” Gracias lined up the throw and released the stone like a basketball free throw. When it was airborne, he leaned forward and cupped his hand to his ear. The stone struck the pole with a tinny ring. “Oh, oh, you know what that sound is? That’s the sound of me earning a dollar. Pay up, partner.”
“Oh no. That was too easy. I’m not giving you a dollar for that.”
“Oh yeah? You try. Double or nothing says you miss it.”
Chloroplast grabbed a rock from the ground and started to line up.
“No, no, no. From back here, where I threw it.”
Chloroplast took position, sized up the shot, and promptly missed.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Gracias said with a grin, his hand held out. “Two dollars, please.”
“I’ll pay you when this thing’s over. They’ve got our wallets, remember?”
“An IOU is always good from a fellow member of Team Green,” Gracia said with a handshake.
“Someone say IOU?”
All eyes turned to the new voice. It belonged to Third Person, who was walking out of the mess-hall-turned-poker-hall. He had a stack of napkins scribbled with various amounts of money sticking out of his pocket, presumably from a good run at the poker table.
“Well, look who came crawling away from his precious card game,” Gracias said. “You get tired of playing old lady games and decide it is time for a man’s game?”
“Hey, if it was up to me, I’d still be at the table. They kicked me out because they insisted I was using my powers to look at their cards.”
“Were you?” Chloroplast said.
“That’s not the important question. The important question is ‘Can you prove I did it?’ And the answer to that is no. Hence me keeping the IOUs. Now come on, what’s the game? I’ve got twenty bucks from”—he checked the napkin—“Omnivox that says I can beat you.”
“Fine. The game’s Horse, H-O-R-S-E. You hit the pole with the rock however you want. Everyone else has to do it the same way or they get a letter. Last one standing collects,” Gracias said.
“Sounds good. I’ll start,” Third Person said. He scooped up a rock, covered his eyes, and threw it. The rock struck the pole squarely in the center.
“How did you…? Oh, wait. You were looking over your shoulder, right? The whole third person thing.”
“Can’t prove it. Who’s next? Or should I just collect the win now?”
“Oh no. Team Green doesn’t give up that easily, hand me a rock.”
Third Person obliged. Gracias took some time to line up the shot, covered his eyes, and just barely missed.
“Okay, fine, that’s H. But this game’s just started,” Gracias said. “Try this one.”
He turned sideways and arced it up over his head, nailing the pole.
“Simple,” Third Person said, searching out another stone and adopting the same position.
“Oh, that reminds me. I never thanked you for picking up the stone for me.”
“No!” Third Person said, realizing what was coming and trying to line the shot up first.
“Grassy ass!”
A burst of dust and sod in his pants had precisely the effect on Third Person’s aim that one might expect.
“Game’s tied at H,” Gracias said.
“Well fine, be sore losers!” yelled Johnny as he marched out of the mess hall. He spotted Third Person. “Hey, you were right, man. Those guys accuse everyone of cheating. You’d think this of all places wouldn’t discriminate against people with superpowers.”
“Johnny! Come over here!” Third Person said, trying to shake the remnants of Gracias’s gratitude out the leg of his fatigues. “Johnny’s on my team. Just give me a minute to clear out my drawers.”
“Oh ho! We’re making it a team game. Come on, Chloroplast.”
“Against those two? No thank you.”
“You know what? I’m in,” called Nonsensica from where she was watching. “Someone’s gotta put these guys in their place. Non Sequitur, come on, it’s game time.”
“Uh… that’s okay. I’m pretty sure they don’t take too kindly to gambling on a military base.”
Nonsensica glared at him. “Get over here, boy scout.”
“Fine…”
She turned to Third Person. “Now you pick a third.”
Gradually the teams expanded until Gracias, Nonsensica, Non Sequitur, Phosphor, The Number, and Chloroplast (after a change of heart) were facing off against Third Person and Johnny On the Spot along with the three other players they could scrounge up. They turned out to be Undo, who hadn’t been terribly interested in poker to begin with, Primadonna, who had been kicked out after a temper tantrum, and Hocker, who had been kicked out after a much more worrying (and much more literal) outburst.
“Okay, okay. That’s enough. Five on five. The rules are simple,” Gracias explained. “You take a shot how you want. Miss the pole and you get a letter, hit the pole and everyone on the other team has to match it or they get a letter. Powers are allowed. Everyone has their own letters, but you have to knock the whole other team out to win. No doing the same throw twice, one-minute time limit for throws. Twenty dollar buy in, winning team splits the pot.”
There was a sequence of nods, some more reluctant than others, and the game began. Non Sequitur ended up being the first one out after failing to come up with a way to use his powers to gain an edge in this game and not being the best shot to begin with. Phosphor, on the other hand, was a surprise MVP, throwing the stone with uncanny accuracy.
“I get a fair amount of practice hucking those bulbs around. Once you get the heft of it, throwing one thing’s just about the same as throwing another,” he explained after being the only one to score a ringer from forty feet away, a throw initiated by Undo (who’d had the built-in benefit of being able to take a second try at each throw without gaining a letter). “I believe Johnny throws next.”
“Come on, man, you haven’t got a single hit. What’s the deal? Where are these powers of yours?” Third Person muttered, handing the disappointed partner a stone. “One more miss and you’re out.”
“What can I say, man? Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t,” Johnny said. He took the stone and absentmindedly lobbed it into the air as hard as he could. It flew almost straight up, sailing on a trajectory that didn’t have a prayer of hitting the pole. At that moment, a bird flew by and collided with the flying stone. It bounced off and struck the flagpole on the very top. “See? Like that.”
All eyes turned to Chloroplast, the next thrower. “I have to bounce it off a bird,” he said flatly. “We all have to bounce it off a bird.”
“Those are the rules,” Third Person said with a grin.
Chloroplast dropped the stone on the ground and pointed to Johnny. “Screw. You.”
Johnny shrugged. “I get that a lot.”
An hour of play passed. Nonsensica was a nightmare for the other team, earning them at least three letters each with well-timed gibberish. She eventually eliminated herself after a complicated bank shot failed to connect. Despite Third Person warning his own team to avoid doing anything that even resembled a favor for Gracias, he stuck in there out of sheer skill. Hocker rage-quit after Gracias managed to land a shot by throwing it over the roof of one of the cabins, declaring it to be a stupid game that wasn’t worth his time. Thirty more minutes of play and the game was down to the final three: Undo, The Number, and Primadonna, each on their final letter. The two dancers had dominated the competition for obvious reasons.
“Okay,” said The Number, “I’ll take it easy on you, Undo. Step, ball turn, brush, brush, kick ball change, throw.”
The dancer executed a tight, fluid sequence of dance moves that brought him close enough to the pole for an easy hit. Despite a stuttering sequence of retakes, Undo simply couldn’t get the sequence right and forfeited his final letter. He walked away muttering as Primadonna picked up his stone.
“Child’s play,” she said, gracefully executing the routine and scoring the hit. “Perhaps something tasteful.”
She strung together a sequence of pirouettes and complicated steps, ending with a quadruple turn before a light toss. He matched it and offered up a complex routine of his own. They traded back and forth, reducing the pole toss to a tap at the end of an escalating dance-off.
“Come on, Number. Do some flips or something! Take her down!” Nonsensica urged.
“Yeah, I’d say it is time we ended this,” he said.
He launched into a routine that was positively gymnastic in nature, with aerial pivots, rolls, and hand springs. As it progressed, the cocky expression on Primadonna’s face began to fade. Just as he rolled to his feet and prepared to lob the stone for the pole, though, it slipped from his hand and rolled to Primadonna’s feet. The cockiness returned to her face in full force, and her team erupted in cheers. The Number dropped to his knees, eyes wide and staring in disbelief at the fallen stone.
“There, there, my dear. There’s no shame in losing to the best,” she said as the losing team scribbled out their promissory notes and handed them over to the winners. “Even though that is, what? Two times I’ve bested you on the dance floor.”
“It’s okay, man. You had her scared with that one,” Gracias said, patting him on the back.
“It is always something,” The Number growled. “First the music, now the prop. I’m telling you, if it ever just came down to pure dancing, you’d see. I know I can beat her.”
“Well, hey, you never know. Maybe there will be a dancing trial,” Gracia said, the pair walking back toward the cabins. “Like those army dances, with flipping the guns and stuff.”
“Those are precision drills, not dances.”
“Oh… I thought it seemed weird that dancing was part of basic training.”
Chapter 20
Dr. Aiken and Private Summers were seated in a conference room in DARPA HQ, the doctor nervously flipping through his notes on the screen of his laptop.
“I don’t know… Do you have the notes I took on those team exercises yesterday?” he asked.
“They are transcribed in that little file with yesterday’s date, Doctor,” Summers said.
“I feel like I took more notes than this. Maybe I scribbled something in the margin that you missed.”
“I’m fairly certain I typed up everything, but we’ve got the original notes in storage on-site at the test facility.”
“But what if it is something important that I should bring up at this meeting?”
“With all due respect, Doctor, the general is not very easy to advise. He tends to treat meetings like this as a regrettable necessity, like colonoscopies. Short of video evidence of one of the recruits running over his dog or saving it from a burning building, you probably won’t have much luck changing his mind.”
“Well, why would they even bring me on the team if they don’t care what I say?”
“Because policy says they have to. You’re like one of those maximum occupancy signs—a legal obligation that nobody pays much attention to until it is too late.”
“You’ve got a real gift for analogy, you know that?”
“Thanks! I took a lot of creative writing back in high school.”
The sound of a loudly cleared throat down the hall signaled the arrival of the general. He opened the door at the precise moment the clock struck the scheduled meeting time. His face was a few notches more disgruntled than usual, and the cigar in his mouth was already well gnawed.
“Dr. Aiken, Private Summers,” he said, offering a stiff nod to each as he took a seat. “We may have to keep this short. Some of the yahoos we rejected have been getting into mischief, and for some reason the press wants to talk to us about it, as though what those twisted malcontents do has anything to do with us.”
“I think we can manage that, sir,” Aiken said. “I’ve been able to conduct some more-thorough interviews, I’ve been observing the training, and we’ve got the results of the deeper background checks. I’m pleased to say that for the most part my initial assessments appear sound.”
“Excellent, that’s what I like to hear. Same time tomorrow, then?” the general said, standing up.
“Err, there are a few things we need to discuss, though,” Dr. Aiken said quickly.
Siegel’s expression hardened a bit as he took his seat again.
“The most pressing issue is The Hocker. I’d indicated that I had some concerns regarding his self-control and overall stability, and I think those concerns may be well warranted. He’s showing clear signs of homicidal tendencies.”
