Chapter 9
The morning which followed was the longest I have ever experienced. There was just nothing to do.
Well, okay, I take that back. There were a few things to do, and I did them. I got up. I showered. I got dressed. I ate breakfast. I helped Toby and Nicolai open up and air out one of the spare rooms in the boys' wing to prepare for Bill's arrival. (Wizzit manages to keep our rooms clean somehow -- don't ask me how -- but even a clean room will start to smell stale if it's kept closed up for too long.) And then I went to the firing range and took my hundred shots with the blaster.
After that, I put Angela's weapons on a shelf in our weapons room and taped a sheet of paper around them saying, "For use by Junior Prime Pink". And while I was there, I scrounged around for a new weapon of my own. Generally speaking, I favor smaller weapons rather than something the size of, say, Toby's ridiculously large hammer. Not that I disapprove of Toby's choice -- it suits him well, and he's fairly effective with it -- but weapons with a shorter reach are more my style. I eventually found a pair of sais -- dagger-shaped weapons used in Okinawan martial arts -- that looked like they might be fun to play around with, and I set them to one side where I could easily find them in a hurry.
Unfortunately, doing all that merely took me up to mid-morning. To keep myself from going stir-crazy, I set about trying to find some way to keep myself busy. It wasn't easy; all I could think about was what was happening with Shelley.
Playing the piano was out; there was no way I was going to be able to concentrate on the Gershwin prelude I was supposed to be working on. I asked Trina whether she wanted to practice her knife-hand technique, but she shook her head. No one else wanted a round in the gym either, and while some days I'll happily spend a couple of hours training on my own, today was not one of those days. So I spent the rest of the morning doing what everyone else was doing: watching the map and listening to Shelley converse with her captors.
The map? Yeah, Wizzit had put up a map on all the large vid screens at HQ, and he was showing us the zigzag path Shelley was taking back and forth across the United States, as well as her real-time location. I'm not sure what this group of people thought they were doing, but so far, Shelley had crossed the country at least twice, both north-south and east-west, and was starting on round three. Maybe they thought they were throwing us off her trail; I don't know.
They had apparently not yet made a serious attempt to divest her of her belt, so we were able to listen in on everything that was going on. According to Wizzit, they had injected Shelley with some drug or other to keep her quiet almost as soon as they had loaded her into the police van. The healing coma took care of that, though, sending it out through the kidneys straight to her bladder, and I think she startled everyone by waking up after about forty minutes asking to use the bathroom.
They jabbed her again, and when she woke up ten minutes later, they jabbed her a third time. When she woke up from that, they held a radio consultation with some doctor (at least, the clip Wizzit played for us sounded like a doctor) who advised them not to continue administering increasingly large doses of sedatives to her every ten minutes unless they wanted a dead Prime on their hands. So she got to stay awake for the remainder of her trip, although I expect she slept for a while during the night.
Now, I've said before that Shelley's pretty damn good at everything that we Primes do. She's a good battle commander, she has absolutely no fear about confronting Enclave monsters, she can tear Zoinks apart one-handed, and I don't know of anyone (including me) who would want to take her on in a real one-on-one fight. Heck, rumor has it that she even built her broadsword herself years ago.
But if she has one outstanding quality, it's this: Anyone who has ever spoken to Shelley for more than five minutes has come away really liking her and really respecting her. She must get it from her dad, because he was the same way.
It's not that she's charming, exactly; I know charming. My sister Angela? She's charming. She could charm the scales off a cobra, but you don't walk away from a conversation with Angie feeling as though you would follow her to the ends of the earth. (Well, unless it was to ask her out on a date, I guess.) What Shelley has is . . . I suppose you'd have to call it charisma.
She was using that ability to its utmost right now. I don't know who was on the plane with her -- probably just some grunts and low-level officers, maybe a medic or two -- but whoever it was, Shelley was at her sympathetic-big-sister best. No histrionics, no begging them to let her go, nothing like that. She was simply talking quietly with them and, knowing her, doing a lot more listening than talking. I heard some laughter, a couple of sincere-sounding apologies (which Shelley verbally waved aside), and a whole lot of just friendly conversation. By the time she reached her final destination, she would have them eating out of her hand.
As interesting as all this was to listen to, though, we eventually had to eat, and then after lunch Wizzit called us into the office. He doesn't normally lead meetings; it would probably drive everyone crazy, including him, if he tried. This, though, was a meeting that only he could run, and we all had known it was coming. With Shelley no longer a Prime, the rest of us were going to get new colors and new numbers.
About the numbers: We call ourselves Primes for a reason, and it isn't because we consider ourselves to be 'prime' specimens of humanity or anything like that. It has to do with numbers -- prime numbers, to be specific. You know, the numbers that are not divisible by anything except themselves and one? Those prime numbers. It's what all our tech is based off of. I don't understand how it works, myself. For a good explanation, you would have to talk to Nicolai, our tech guy; or Padma, our assistant tech, uh, gal. Toby could maybe tell you something about it, because he used to help out Nicolai before Padma came along, and I'm sure Bill understands it as well as anybody. And, of course, Shelley's pretty damn good at everything, in case I haven't mentioned that.
All I know is, each of us is given our own number, and it has to be a prime. Prime numbers make our weapons and force shields strong; composites (that is, non-primes) would make them weak. That's the way it works. Prime Red is always assigned the number two, Prime Orange is three, Prime Yellow is five, and so on. As Prime Indigo, I'm lucky thirteen. According to Nicolai, in theory every prime is equally strong, and each of us Primes is equally powerful. Practically speaking, though, as your number goes down, it gets easier to use your powers. It gets more intuitive, I guess.
(As an aside, you have heard me refer to my sister Angela as Junior Prime Pink. She's not a full-fledged Prime like the rest of us. She doesn't have a belt like the rest of us, either. What she has is . . . okay, there's no good way to say this except to say it -- it's a toy. An "Official Junior Prime Pink" toy badge that Bill made for Shelley's sister Francesca years ago, when she was about six. Wizzit decided to give it to Angie as a bribe to keep her mouth shut after she figured out I was a Prime, which happened . . . eh, it's a long story. Also, Wizzit really likes Angie, so maybe that's another reason he gave it to her.
The Junior Prime Pink badge, when activated, makes Angie look and sound like a Prime, and it lets Wizzit locate her for teleportation purposes, and that was initially about it. But then Wizzit made a slight modification that lets her use our weapons and blasters. It's not a very strong little gadget, though, definitely not strong enough to give her a force shield or provide a healing coma, so we're always very careful to keep Angie out of harm's way whenever she joins us on a mission. That's my rule. She's not a whole lot of help -- more than an unpowered human, sure, but not as much as Prime Black was going to be -- but she does give us an edge, and sometimes we need that edge.
Oh, and the modification that Wizzit made? He changed her number. It was originally four hundred thirty-seven, which is nineteen times twenty-three -- a weak composite number. He didn't change it to a prime number; that would have overloaded the poor little badge's pow
er supply. But he did the next best thing. He gave her the number three sixty-one, which is nineteen times nineteen. A prime squared. Weak enough that the badge could handle it, but still powerful enough to use our tech. A neat little compromise.)
So, you can probably tell that our numbers are important to us, more important than our colors. The purpose of those is just to identify us and visually delineate the chain of command. Red is team lead, Orange is second-in-command, Yellow is third, and so on. And as we all trooped into the office, I'd have bet a penny that each of us was looking forward to moving up one step in the pecking order. As it turned out, I was wrong.
"All right, I can see that everyone's here, so let's begin," Wizzit said, speaking rapidly. "Mike is Red, Trina is Orange, Nicolai is Yellow, Toby is Green, Trevor is Blue, and Padma is Indigo. Any questions? No? Good; meeting is adjourned. Trevor and Mike stay behind, please."
We all looked at each other. Everyone must have noticed the anomaly, but Padma was the first one to speak up. "Wait a minute," she said indignantly. "Nicolai should be Orange, not Trina! Why did you promote her over him?"
Nicolai laid a hand on her arm. "It's all right," he told her mildly. "I don't mind. Really."
"But you have been a Prime for longer than she has. You should be second-in-command."
"But I don't want to be!" Nicolai looked around at us. "I don't like being in command, and I'm no good at it. Everyone knows that. Trina would make a much better Prime Orange. I just want to be the tech guy. So, I . . . I asked Wizzit not to promote me. I want to remain Prime Yellow."
No one said anything at first. I mean, what was there to say? He was right, and we all knew it; Nicolai would have made a lousy second-in-command. I had never heard of anyone asking not to be promoted, but I couldn't argue with his logic. And to judge by the look on her face, neither could Padma. As I've said before, a man's got to know his limitations.
Beside him, Trina leaned over impulsively and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "That was very sweet of you to say about me, Nicolai. I will try to live up to your confidence in me."
"Um, Wizzit?" Mike said cautiously. "About the numbers . . . will they be assigned as usual?"
"Correctamundo!" Wizzit chirped. "As of now, you are two, Trina is three, Nicolai is five, Toby is seven, Trevor is eleven, and Padma is thirteen."
"Then where exactly does that leave Bill?"
"Bill will be seventeen."
There were some surprised looks. "Does that mean he will be like a Prime Violet?" Trina asked. "That doesn't seem fair to him."
"Seventeen is the smallest prime not yet assigned," Wizzit said simply.
"He should be fine," Nicolai put in. "He and I talked about this at the party. He thinks, and I concur, that because he was once prime two, he should be able to handle any prime number with equal ease. The reflexes, the . . . the understanding should still be there."
Everyone stared at Nicolai. "Why were you talking to him about that?" Toby demanded. "Did he tell you he might be coming in as Prime Black some day? Did you know all about this Protocol Black stuff beforehand?"
"No, he just brought the subject up out of the blue sky," Nicolai replied calmly. "It was certainly an odd question, I'll admit, but I just thought he still hoped that Wizzit would call him back in some day. To be truthful, I felt a little sorry for him for asking it."
"He must have known," Trina said. "Even then, he must have known about Protocol Black."
"Of course he knew!" Mike declared. "I mean, think about it. If someone contacts you asking you to drop everything in your life for an indefinite period of time, do you say, 'Sure, just give me a couple days to pack'? He's been waiting for Wizzit to call."
"And why not?" I said. "Shelley said they've been planning this since before Prime Commander was killed. Why wouldn't they let Bill in on it as soon as they decided they'd want him?"
No one had an answer to that, it seemed. After a moment, Trina said hesitantly, "There . . . is another reason as well that they would have brought him in on their plans. Shelley didn't want me to tell anyone just yet, but under the circumstances, I suppose you all should know -- she and Bill have been seeing each other the past few months. Dating, and pretty seriously."
Mike threw up hands in disgust. "Of course they've been dating!" he exclaimed. "And of course she didn't tell anyone! Why would she bother to tell us something like that? After all, we're only the people she's closest to in the whole world! Why the hell should she tell us anything?"
Trina said mildly, "Maybe, because she has been a Prime more than half her life, she wanted to have something apart from the Primes."
"Right," Toby said with a smirk. "Like a fling with a former Prime."
"It certainly does explain a few things," Padma mused. "She never used to take vacations, but then she suddenly took a long one."
"Yeah, and she came back two weeks later with a song in her heart and a twinkle in her eye," I said. "Any idea where they went, Trina? Hawaii? The Bahamas? The Riviera?"
Trina smiled demurely, but didn't say a word.
"Yes, well . . . thank you for letting us know about it now, anyway," Mike told her diplomatically. "Anyone have any more bombshells they want to drop? Any other little secrets that Shelley didn't get around to telling us about?" He looked around at the group; no one said a word. "In that case, as the new Prime Red, I've got a few things I'd like to say. Let's start with the obvious: I'm not Shelley."
"Better make sure Bill knows that," Trina said, giving him a sly wink. "Things might get a bit awkward otherwise."
"Duly noted," he said with a faint laugh. "Look, I know I'm not the most beloved member of our little group. Black sheep, that's me; lots of faults. I'm sometimes surprised I've lasted this long, and if you're expecting me to suddenly become the perfect Prime Red, then you're going to be sorely disappointed. But I want you all to know that nothing is more important to me than being a Prime, absolutely nothing, and I'm going to do my very level best to be a good team leader. Fair enough?"
He received several nods and a chorus of "Sure, Mike"'s. With the meeting obviously over, Trina, Nicolai, Toby, and Padma filed out of the office, leaving me alone with Mike and Wizzit.
"What was it you wanted to talk to us about, Wizzit?" Mike asked the ceiling.
"Wanted to talk to Trevor," Wizzit replied. "You are here because you're team leader and should hear this."
"Okay, what did you want to talk to me about, Wizzit?" I said, trying not to sound impatient.
"Trevor, I need Angela. She is going to be my new Prime Violet."
There was a silence as I slowly drew in a breath, then let it out again. "I believe I have already let you know how I feel about that," I said evenly.
"I will not recruit her until sometime after the new year," Wizzit went on, "and she will not join us here until after she graduates from high school, just like we did with you."
I nodded. Much better. "Okay, I can live with that," I said. "Thank you for letting me know. Um, can I suggest that you find a better cover story for her? My parents are already not happy that I'm supposedly putting off college to be on an international Tae Kwon Do demonstration team. If Angie suddenly told them the same thing, they would go ballistic."
"I will search for a better story. I have also decided that she should be allowed to meet the others face to face as soon as possible. Please invite her to your next party."
Mike and I looked at each other in surprise. Up to now, on Wizzit's orders, I had been the only Prime she knew by sight. Now he seemed to really want to draw her into our family. "I . . . suppose we could have her over to dinner some night?" Mike said.
"Excellent suggestion, Prime Red," Wizzit declared happily. "Please make it so."
Attack Doll 3: Protocol Black Page 9