“What?”
“Sorry, it’s a long story, you see, my mom never let me curse when I was younger and—”
“No, no, not that,” Hope interrupted impatiently. “I mean, sure, super interesting profanity substitute, but what does your text say?”
“Oh, um, well,” I paused, unsure of how to explain. “You see, I have this annoying younger cousin Ollie, OK? And he’s at the local creative arts governor’s school as a Verne-Type performance art major and he’s basically super horny and apparently super obsessed with proving society wrong and…”
“And…?”
“And earlier today he posted this video where he claimed “creator status” of the Neptune statue coming to life?”
“….and?”
I thought quickly. Well, relatively quickly. I was still pretty drunk. Better to leave out the part where I had actually found this out hours before the General had. “Aaaaand apparently that little ‘performance art spectacle’ was only the beginning of his ‘campaign for enlightenment.’”
“What?!” Hope yelped, getting to her feet. “Way to bury the lead!”
“…How would you like to fix your PR snafu by stopping a mad, genius, hormonal, angsty pseudo-socialist teenager from recreating the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac with automatons and laser cannons?” I asked.
She stared at me, dumbfounded. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
I smiled faintly. “He’s just posted another video where he claims the reenactment will be ‘a commentary on the futility of warfare as well as the mindless veneration of white historical patriarchy in the face of realism and oppression,’” I explained. “Honestly I think he just wants to see what happens when you give robot Confederate soldiers a shiny new metal boat and guns that go ‘pew pew’.”
“Why the heck can’t the police just stop him if they’re already aware of the performance?”
I grimaced. “They don’t actually know where he’s broadcasting from. He’s posting these videos from some sort of secret bunker. He’s a Verne-type, so he’s got all sorts of software on his laptop to mask his IP address and make him untraceable. Not to mention, even if we did manage to track him down, we have no idea what sort of self-destruct booby traps he’s rigged around his lair. I just got the message from the General—he thinks our best bet is to trap him at his performance tomorrow, and just hope things don’t get nuclear.”
“Nuclear?” Hope choked out.
“Not literally. I mean, I doubt he’s gonna go for nuclear power this time, since the whole warfare-involving-futuristic-lasers thing means there’s a huge risk of core breach and Ollie is generally really good at his technical designs. Even if his ‘artistic vision’ is somewhat misguided.” Thinking back to Ollie’s past performative artistic engineering pieces, I decided not to mention the fact that he focused more on the “artistic” part of creations, and not the “engineering” bits. The most consistent functional element he added to his creations was speakers, not an on/off switch.
She slowly started to bang the back of her head against the brick wall. “I feel like I should be used to weird situations by now,” she mumbled, dropping her head into her arms. “But every time I think ‘this can’t possibly get more bizarre,’ why yes, it does. With vengeance. And irony. And many, many hard to write incident reports.”
Sliding down the brick wall, I crouched beside her and patted her back. “I’m sorry. This probably wasn’t the vacation you signed up for.”
She groaned and ran her fingers through her hair, leaning her head back against the wall. “Honestly? The vacation was an unexpected bonus. I finished my briefing with—I finished a couple days earlier than we thought I would. I haven’t actually taken a real vacation since I got my powers three years ago.”
“How long are you in town for?” I squelched my questions about her mysterious “briefing.”
“The Sentinels lent me out to the DSA for two weeks. I’ve been here for ten days.”
“Well that’s alright then!” I said brightly. “Ollie’s performance is scheduled for tomorrow. You’ll still have three days of sunny beach time after that.”
Hope stared at me. “Tomorrow? As in…” she paused, checking her watch, “…the day that started exactly one hour and seventeen minutes ago?”
I winced. “Guess Missy’s running late with our ride then. You wanna be on drag-a-drunk-and-unwilling-siren-out-of-a-karaoke-bar duty, or do you want to attempt to find a cab right around last call?”
Hope grimaced. “Honestly? Neither sounds appealing.” She started rummaging through her purse. “I was a little leery about trying this thing out, but your Verne-types assured me that it functioned well enough in beta tests…ah.” She pulled out a black shiny metal brick.
I eyed it suspiciously. “What’s that?”
“Hold on, let me just—” She fished out something that looked like a key chain remote. “Here we go.” She placed the brick in the loading zone in front of the bar. “We should step back.”
I stared at her. “Wait…you’ve got to be—“
She pressed a button on the keychain. With a series of metallic clicks, the brick slowly unfolded into a shiny, black SUV.
“SERIOUSLY?” I screeched. “They gave you a POCKET CAR?”
Hope looked at me innocently. “It’s a loaner. They didn’t give you one?”
“They won’t even pay for my parking!” I hissed furiously. “You got a CAR THAT FITS IN YOUR PURSE?”
Hope grinned. “I’ll just wait here then?”
I glared at her, turned, and stomped back into the club in a huff. Celebrity capes.
Chapter Three
“Operatives Typhoon and Nightingale later managed to subdue the suspect by utilizing available resources. Resources included a full bottle of vodka, a pair of novelty handcuffs, and the laces from a corset belonging to Nightingale’s paramour. Agent Typhoon informs me that use of said laces was conditioned upon reimbursement for destruction of property, as well as dry cleaning bills for all civilian property requisitioned for the arrest.”
After Action Report 5.12
7 AM, April 1, DSA Headquarters, Somewhere below Camp Peary
“So, are we clear on the plan, then?”
I looked up blearily from my fifth cup of coffee in two hours. “What?” I mumbled, half sarcastically, half confused from lack of sleep. “What plan?”
“Miss Aguilar, there is no need to be facetious. Your cousin’s actions threatened the lives of many civilians and tourists today, and his encore performance has the potential to be even more dangerous.”
This time, Special-Agent-In-Charge Hopper’s crisp, no-nonsense schoolmarm tone instantly made me sit up straight and guiltily brush my hair back from my eyes. An iron-boned woman with icy blue eyes and steel-lined posture, SAC Ada Hopper was a military legend. Rumor was, back in her Army Ranger days, she assassinated a South American dictator by infiltrating his top-secret compound using only an Elizabeth Arden makeup compact, three steak knives, some dental floss, and the Spring Runway issue of Vogue. Hopper was also married to The General, but neither of them liked to talk about it much.
“Yes ma’am, I apologize. We are all clear on the plan.”
I took a cautious look at the rest of my team. Cold Front rubbed his eyes and rotating his neck to crack it, probably as a by-product of sitting in the DSA War Room chairs since four AM. CeeCee’s sobriety was still in question, especially considering that the only thing she had eaten since her jello-shot-fueled karaoke performance was a plate of cheese fries and a diet cola (thoughtfully provided by the DSA cafeteria chefs upon hearing her rather impressive, word-perfect rendition of the entire third act of Rent).
Hope flashed me a chipper smile, looking annoyingly fresh—particularly because she had been in the War Room just as long as Cold Front had, after drinking twice as much as CeeCee. Despite our lightly chaotic night her uniform looked wrinkle-free, her hair non-greasy and immaculate, and her minimal good-girl eye makeup
un-smudged. I, on the other hand, had sparkly black eyeliner smeared down my left cheek, my hair had died a limp and greasy death, and my fish scale-patterned uniform looked like an elephant’s elbow.
In retrospect, Hopper probably wanted a helluva lot more affirmation from us than “clear on the plan.” “We are one hundred percent and kicking and will not turn this into the final sequence of an ‘80s action flick” would probably have been more reassuring.
“Your team will deploy at precisely 1100 hours. I suggest you all get battle-ready.” She sniffed, surveying our mostly disheveled status. “Please feel to make yourselves look presentable,” she added crisply. “You may wish to visit the barracks’ showers, Ms. Aguilar. And bring Ms. Tyler with you.”
I grimaced and attempted to covertly swipe at the streak of black makeup on my face and look less like a KISS groupie. Hopper frowned at me as she left, but not before pointedly handing me a pocket comb from her jacket. I reached for it and sighed. “Whose turn is it for cowboy duty, Charles?”
Coldfront didn’t even bother to lift his head from his crossed arms on the table. “Is that a serious question?” he mumbled sardonically.
“…Yeeeees?” I answered guiltily.
He raised his head a minimal inch from the table to fix me with a one-eyed death glare.
“Nicole Aguilar,” he drawled, “are you the person responsible for the need to cowboy?”
“….Yes,” I mumbled, even more guiltily.
“Did you have to leave two adorable six-year-old girls behind to report to DSA headquarters?”
“….Noooo…?”
“And, ultimately, whose cousin is responsible for this entire debacle in the first place?” he finished triumphantly.
“Mine,” I admitted reluctantly. “Though, to be fair, he’s more of a sec—”
“Don’t make me freeze your swimsuit, girl,” he threatened. “You think putting your tongue on a cold piece of metal is bad? I can make that happen with things that are not your tongue.”
“Charles!” I winced. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t! You don’t have to bring out the big guns!”
“Good,” he said grimly. “Now go do your duty, cowboy.”
“Fiiiiine,” I grumbled. “CeeCee, come on.”
“Come where?” CeeCee said, whirling around in her swivel chair. “Come why? Come how? Comme ci comme ça? Oops, not what I meant.” She giggled.
“You know where we’re going,” I said through gritted teeth. I turned to Hope. “You wanna help?”
Hope looked at me, confused. “Help what? I have no idea what ‘cowboy duty’ means.”
I waved towards CeeCee. “You know the phrase ‘cowboy up’?”
She nodded.
“You also heard the phrase ‘fallen off the wagon’?”
Hope nodded again, comprehension slowly trickling across her face.
“We gotta get CeeCee off the Oregon Trail and up in her saddle. You know. Cowboy up, pardner!” I said, miming a whipping motion.
“Yeeeeeehawww!” CeeCee cackled, spinning in her chair. Her expression abruptly changing from gleefully schwasted to uncomfortably nauseated. “Ohh….I don’t feel so good.”
Hope sighed and gingerly took hold of CeeCee’s chair. “Where do I roll her?”
I smiled. “First stop, the barracks’ showers.”
Two hours later, we sat in the DSA cafeteria. CeeCee was mumbling something rude (and Marxist) into her coffee cup, my face no longer resembled an avant-garde chimney sweep, and Hope was eyeing both of us in mildly impressed trepidation.
“So…I’m guessing cowboy duty is a regularly scheduled chore for you guys?” Hope asked cautiously, poking her scrambled eggs with her fork.
I shrugged, tearing into a warm biscuit smothered in apple butter. “Cold Front and the General seem to think that learning how to clean up after our own ‘youthful recklessness’ is part of our training.”
“Seriously?”
“I mean, we’re not exactly a high profile area, you know? Sure, we’ve got a ton of military bases, but the 757 is basically just a sleepy little group of cities that occasionally ends up in a travel brochure as a ‘family friendly destination.’
She smiled wistfully. “My last real moment of ‘youthful recklessness’ turned into a nation-wide sex scandal—so unfair since it wasn’t really. You’re lucky you guys can party without paparazzi documenting every bad life decision.”
I smiled in sympathy. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I had my Breakthrough when I was fifteen. CeeCee had hers even younger. We didn’t really have a normal childhood, per se, but at least our awkward moments never got plastered all over the Internet.”
“Yeah, except for the times when some desperate wannabe supervillain attempts to gain some notoriety,” CeeCee pointed out, flicking through screens on her smartphone. “Speaking of which, have you seen Ollie’s latest blog video?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Um…no? Since when do you follow Ollie’s blog?”
CeeCee snorted. “Since I found out he posts all his devious plans ahead of time in order to get people to watch his ‘protest art.’ Duhh.”
I moaned. “Why can’t he just use Facebook like a normal person?”
CeeCee rolled her eyes. “He probably doesn’t have enough friends in real life? Anyways, since the Neptune attack video went viral, people are actually starting to pay attention to him. Also, he’s calling himself ‘The Gepetto’ now?”
I crinkled my nose. “Of course he is. How many potential spectators are we talking?”
“Well, his post has about 5,000 reblogs, and the local newspaper is linking to his announcement in its coverage of the whole Neptune thing. Oh hey!” she said, clicking on her screen, “There’s a short video of all three of us at the karaoke bar! Cool…oh, no, oops. Not cool. Crap.”
Hope’s head whipped around. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Um, well, ok, so, on a positive note, ‘Astra drops the F-bomb’ is only like five seconds long and SUPER crappy quality. Maybe people will think it’s not really you?”
She turned bright red and mumbled something that sounded like “Shell” under her breath. “And the not-so-positive note?”
“…It has about 5 million views. Which, on the bright side, is WAY MORE than Ollie’s video has, so at least we might be overshadowing him in the news!”
Hope made a sound somewhere between a teakettle and a forlorn kitten. “Oh my God,” she whimpered, banging her head against the table. “I am so, so dead.”
“Yo, chill!” I ordered, grabbing her plate her plate before she splattered scrambled eggs all over the table. “I mean, like, I get you have an image and a brand to maintain or whatever, but what’s one little curse word in the grand scheme of saving the world on a regular basis?”
She gave one last pathetic flop, her chin resting next to her orange juice. “You’d think it wouldn’t matter at all. But it will. It always does. It’s like having lettuce stuck in your teeth on picture day. Nobody ever forgets your awkward picture, even if you look fine all the other days. I’m gonna be a late night TV joke for months.”
CeeCee scoffed. “It’s an election year. I think you’ll be fine.”
“Yeah!” I chimed in, “And why would they care about grainy low quality footage of you possibly cussing when they could have high quality news helicopter footage of you fighting a hundred robot zombie Confederate soldiers with lasers? On a boat!”
She covered her eyes and whimpered.
“Did I just make it worse?” I whispered to CeeCee.
“Dude, you, like, are the worst pep talker ever,” she whispered back. “And I say this as the girl who once drunkenly told Hopper that ‘even if she had resting bitchy face, her figure was fly as hell.’”
Hope peeped through her fingers. You didn’t.”
“Oh,” CeeCee said drily, raising an eyebrow. “I assure you, I did. Or at least, Nikki assures me I did. Thankfully, I have very few memories of that banquet.”
At least t
hat made her smile, if somewhat reluctantly. “Well then, at least I have you guys to make sure the awkward moments are evenly distributed.”
I clapped her on the shoulder, gathered my things, and stood up. “What else are teammates for?”
“Cowboy duty?”
“Now you’re getting it!”
Chapter Four
“I’m a big fan of symbolism, but only, like, ironically. Symbolism is totes dead.”
Cecelia, “CeeCee” Tyler, aka Nightingale, from her English 210 final paper, Odysseus Sucks and Penelope Was a Lesbian: Queer Interpretation of Heteronormative Literary Canon.
The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, April 1, Noon
“Well this is the weirdest bait and trap assignment I think I’ve ever been on,” Astra said, as she landed us on the roof Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel control center. “Which, honestly? Is saying a lot.”
I covertly attempted to pick at the wedgie caused by flying in a high-tech tankini. “Seriously? Didn’t you save Chicago from like, a rampant Godzilla plague?”
Astra nodded. “Yeah, but that wasn’t really a bait and trap. That was more a prevent-the-apocalypse sort of situation.”
“Like that’s LESS weird than ‘catch the little arrogant prick of an evil genius’ situation we have here today?” I casually made my fingers and toes erupt in tiny little octopus-like suckers and plopped down on the tilted roof, stretching my calf muscles. “We’re just here to make sure nobody does anything stupid to provoke the zombie robots.”
Astra looked slightly nauseated at my admittedly disturbing metamorphosis. “Zombie Civil War robo-sailors with lasers,” she corrected after a moment. “And let’s hope it doesn’t get worse. Because as awful as a plague of gigantic plasma-breathing lizard monsters is, I can’t even imagine what this will be like if things go…Charlie Foxtrot.”
Grimacing, I nodded in agreement. “So when is this thing supposed to start anyways?”
Wearing the Cape 6: Team-Ups and Crossovers Page 40