by Brian Cody
“Why here at this specific university”, Bryen replied as he looked to the group, “most of us are from the East Coast so there are other colleges that they could’ve steered us toward. Instead, they send us to a comparatively small Christian university in Central VA; it seems…I don’t know.” Bryen looked up as the sky brightened with solar hue. “It seems odd.”
“Well, you gotta look at it this way”, Shawn remarked. “Igneous is conservative both politically and morally, so, at the very least, with what we’re taught here, we’d be a little easier to keep in check; plus, Igneous is one of the more military-friendly schools.”
“I just go wherever I’m stationed. They told me Igneous, and that’s where I convinced my parents that I should go”, Turrisi explained.
“Same with me”, Erik averred.
“It just seems weird to me. With Erik and Turrisi already being sent wherever the government wants them, that leaves us four, and there are colleges closer to our homes that we’d be able to cross paths at…” Bryen pulled his right hand from his pocket to scratch the back of his head, “I just find it a little odd.”
“There are some things in life that come off as odd”, David noted. “Like our qualifications, (our abilities), or how Klinge is still alive despite being horrible at not getting hit by cars.”
“Really? You had to go there?” Nate asked as he stood.
“You know what I wonder?” Shawn began as he rubbed his chin. “Do you think there are others? Like, are there other gifteds at Igneous that we might know?”
“Turrisi?” Erik called as he stood.
“No, I would’ve been informed”, Turrisi replied. “It’s government policy.”
“Darren’s kind of weird”, Bryen blurted.
“You’re kind of weird!” David blasted while swatting Bryen on the shoulder. “Stop judging people! Just because you don’t want his hugs doesn’t mean you have to judge him.”
“I wasn’t judging him; I was just saying…I don’t know…he seems…off…”
“B-money, give me one good reason as to why I shouldn’t throw you into Chick-Fillet!” David began as he lifted his fists.
“It’s almost daylight; we’re in view of the store clerks behind us; and Chick-Fillet would have to close for repairs”, Bryen fired off.
“Looks like we’ve got a smart-aleck”, David replied. “I’ll remember that; maybe I’ll make you walk back! How about that?!”
“Campus is right past that line of trees”, Bryen remarked as he pointed to the stone wall.
“But are you willing to cross the train tracks and commit a felony?” Shawn asked with a smirk.
“Might as well; it’ll just be one more thing the government has on me”, Bryen sighed.
“Amen to that”, David replied with a handclap. “You know what? You’ve earned your ride. Go on, call shottie, it’s all yours.” He turned to his Escape, reached into his pocket, and squeezed his keys. With two mumbling clicks, the Escape’s headlights flashed, while its doors unlocked.
“Trunk”, Bryen muttered as he ambled for the back of the vehicle.
“I offer to bless you and you use it as your toilet paper? Fine, maybe I will make you walk next time.” David stomped to the driver’s door, opened it, and jumped in. Behind him, the rest of the group started for the vehicle, with Shawn calling for shotgun and jogging to the front passenger door, and while Nate, Erik, and Turrisi ambled towards the back doors and slipped in. David started his Escape in the next moment, and, after backing the vehicle out of his spot, drove past the gas station, turned onto the small road between Shultz and Chick-Fillet, and then turned right.
“So I guess we all know the drill”, Erik began as he sat behind David. “Keep this secret. Don’t tell parents, other friends, or significant others.”
“Piekarsky’s the only one with a girlfriend”, Nate murmured.
“Wait, not our parents?” Shawn asked as he looked back, “but they already know we have powers (except for B-money’s).”
“They don’t know that we’re now part of a super-secret law enforcement team; the first, perhaps, of many”, Erik replied.
“True, but if they ever catch on to it_”
“Still seek permission from Lamback first”, Turrisi interjected as he sat in the middle seat. “One of the things that resulted in the disbanding of gifted teams was the discovery of those officers’ friends, families, and loved ones. With enough information, ‘the bad guys’ wouldn’t have to harm us physically. They could do enough emotional damage by destroying everything dear to us. For all intents and purposes, you are all now under deep cover.”
“Okay, I gotcha”, Shawn replied as he looked to David turning right and driving his vehicle up a steep hillside and onto campus. “What do you think we’ll be called? Most superhero groups had team names, right?”
“Who knows?” Turrisi humphed. “The government usually gives out codenames, and, depending on how we’re operating, the names might change with each new mission or task. At the very least, I can tell you that most of the time, the codenames do nothing to relate to our real identities.”
“We could be like Team Flames or Team Igneous or something…” David began as he drove the SUV through the dining hall’s empty parking lot, “or maybe Team DX.”
“Team DX”, Shawn repeated as he looked to David. “You know what? I kind of like it. We’re repping the dorm as we’re beating up bad guys. How about that for a team name?” he asked to Erik and Turrisi.
“Uh…” Erik began with a grimace.
“That do nothing to relate to our real identities”, Bryen interrupted as he peered between Turrisi’s and Nate’s shoulders. “Team Flames—is pretty general and has a decent variety of meanings that could be attributed to it (depending on the area of the country we’re in); but Team DX—that one’s so specific, especially in this part of town, that if anyone wanting to kill us ever caught the slightest whiff as to its meaning, we’d be screwed.”
“Says who!?” David blasted as he looked to Bryen.
“Says logic”, Nate retorted with a thrust of his head.
“Says your face!” David replied before slowing beside a stop sign and looking skyward. The red-orange effulgence marking the sun’s ascension hadn’t yet appeared, but the atmosphere was inching towards a cerulean-blue, and, for David, bringing him closer to twenty-four hours without rest. “I think Team DX is a good name”, he finished as he continued past the stop sign.
Chapter Seven: Wednesday, 20 January
Turrisi opened Dorm 10’s rear entrance. With a book-bag on his back that was swollen with four textbooks, he lumbered down the hall, breathing into his hands and then retracting them into his sleeves. He squinted while peering under his hat’s eyeshade, and his breaths lengthened into a yawn. “Dave Turrisi!” blasted from an open door on his right, about halfway down, directing him to spin and to point before continuing towards Room 116. Turrisi motioned for the keys in the pocket of his jeans, but hummed as he found the entrance ajar.
With another hum, Turrisi grasped the straps of his book-bag and flung it from his shoulders. As he held it by one strap, he turned into the doorway and called, “It’s, what, 4:30? How about we go get dinner at 5:00?”
“Sure.”
Turrisi stopped and looked to David, who leaned over a desk on the right side of the room, to Shawn on David’s right, and then, to Shawn’s right, Nate, who sat at the desk and typed on a crimson laptop.
Turrisi stepped away and scanned the room, finding the lights inactive, the blinds rolled up, the window ajar, and neither of his roommates present. “Where are Josh and Kevin?” he asked as he stepped forward.
“WallMark, I think”, David replied.
“What exactly are you guys doing on my computer?” Turrisi asked as he dropped his book-bag.
“Nate said he figured out your password last year”, Shawn replied as he pointed at Turrisi’s screen.
“Shawn, we weren’t supposed to tell him that part!�
�� Nate groaned as he clicked Turrisi’s mouse.
“Huh”, Turrisi grunted as he unzipped his coat. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing on my computer.”
Nate looked over his shoulder to Turrisi. “Is anyone outside of your door?” he asked, while David and Shawn looked back.
“No, why?” Turrisi asked as he swung the door with enough force to close it two-thirds of the way.
“I memorized Handler-Dave’s password to get onto CORGI; or”—Nate paused as David tapped him on the left shoulder—”I memorized his finger movements, and Piekarsky and I went to WallMark, replicated the movements on an almost-identical remote, and recorded the numbers which he entered to get into CORGI.”
“Yeah, and who drove you?” Shawn asked.
“Shawn was there too”, Nate sighed as he turned to the computer.
“Uh, whoa”, Turrisi gasped, “first of all, illegal like it’s no one’s business, and second of all, the window’s open!”
“No one can hear us”, David replied. “The sidewalk is on the other side of the dorm. That’s why we’re doing it on your computer.”
“Why not just bring your computer in here?” Turrisi asked as he crossed his arms.
“Turrisi, stop complicating things”, Shawn replied, his eyes glued to the screen.
“Turrisi, if it’s any consolation, you can look at your CORGI file now”, Nate remarked, “or should I say…’Boston Mercenary’?”
“I’ve already seen my file”, Turrisi replied as he leaned over Nate to look to the screen. At the top of the document was his name, across from that and initiating a bulleted list were the words ‘Reference Alias’, and across from those words, ‘Boston Mercenary’.
“That’s it!” Shawn blasted as he shot up, causing everyone to rear back. “That’s what you were named!”
“Yep”, Turrisi grunted. “A newspaper coined it; the government went with it.”
“We’ve been wondering”, David began. “What’s the ‘CORGI rating’?” He pointed towards the bullet-point at the bottom of the document’s second, and last, page.
“It’s a rating listing two numbers”, Turrisi began as he pointed at the screen, “the first number is a fraction showing the destructive potential of the given individual; mine is two-sixths. Most humans are usually a ‘one’, Special Forces members and highly trained, normal assassins, are usually a ‘two’, maybe a ‘two-point-five’, but powerless humans rarely come close to three. If I recall”, Turrisi continued as he looked to David. “The government has you at a ‘tentative five’ because they’re not sure of the extent of destruction you could cause if you ever, say, lost your mind.”
“Is that…good?” David asked.
“Sort of, I guess. ‘Six’ means the person is, more or less, a living Weapon of Mass Destruction. If it even smells like a Six is going to threaten American interests, the military has the go-ahead to kill them by any means necessary.”
“I’ll stick with five then”, David replied.
“You really don’t have to worry about it”, Turrisi noted. “Sixes are rare, like, once-in-a-generation rare. The only one I can think of is Sterling Blue, but that was during his prime. For comparison, Garcia is a four-point-five. His powers are pretty decent as far as destructive potential goes; nothing overwhelming like Sterling Blue, but he has the training to use them effectively.”
“What’s the second fraction, then?” David asked.
“Number of recorded vigilante acts on the bottom and the number of those that the government deemed successful on top”, Turrisi replied. “I’m seventeen for twenty-two. For the twenty-two times I’ve acted in law enforcement (with ten of those times as an illegal vigilante), seventeen of them were deemed successful.”
“So then I’m…one for one?” David asked.
“Yep—a flawless record thus far. I know Erik’s twelve for twelve. If he makes it to fifteen, he’ll have beaten Sterling Blue’s streak.”
“Nope!” Shawn called as he reared back.
“What is it?” David asked as he turned to the computer.
“Nope, Nate, look for someone else; go back to Piekarsky’s”, Shawn ordered as he reached for the mouse.
“Magellan…Albanius…the Tenth”, Nate recited between spasmodic chuckles.
“Huh”, David muttered as he leaned towards the screen.
“Nate!” Shawn growled as he lunged for the mouse, that time tilting over the desk.
“Albert, easy”, David called as he grabbed Shawn by the shoulders, lifted him off of the floor, and set him down beside Turrisi. As he caught his breath, Shawn glanced to the mouse, but then glanced to David, whom he knew—despite his attempts at denial—was the stronger of the two by a discernible margin.
“It was my ancestor’s name”, Shawn began as he rubbed his forehead. “My family thinks he changed his last name to Albanius because his family ostracized him, either for being accused of witchcraft or for condemning slavery before it was popular to do so, or, more than likely, for both. Since him, it’s been a tradition for each male descendant with Magellan the Flightless’ paper powers to be named after him… I myself hate the name. My dad insists on it being my hero persona (by the off chance that I do have to act) but I kind of want to be my own hero, ya know?”
“Since your predecessors were so well known, including your dad”, Turrisi began as he stepped forward, “they kept the name and used it as your reference. It’s recognizable and unique, like a brand”, he continued as he leaned towards his screen. “Four out of six, and seven-for-eight successes—not bad.”
“What can I say”, Shawn replied as he pouted and placed his hands on his hips. “I won’t admit to anything, but maybe my dad has some friends in the New Jersey State Police, and maybe he finagled his way into taking me out on a couple training runs; you know, give the police a break every once in a while, and stuff like that.”
“I didn’t hear a thing”, David replied.
“The government already knows”, Turrisi remarked.
“Nope, you’re wrong”, Shawn retorted, while Nate selected another document.
“Ha!” David coughed with a smile. “Nathanael Kristopher Klinge!” he chuckled.
“Yep, I have a middle name; now if you’re ready to stop reliving preschool”, Nate began.
“Gosh, Klinge, have some humor in your life!” David exclaimed as he tapped Nate on the left shoulder.
“Wrong shoulder”, Nate muttered while scrolling and reading each line.
“Oops, I forgot”, David called as he reached for Nate’s right shoulder.
“No, Piekarsky_”
“Death-hurst?” Shawn uttered, bringing David to lean towards the screen and analyze each letter of the word ‘Deathirst’.
“What?” David asked as he pulled back.
“Death-hurst—that’s his hero persona”, Shawn replied, “it says it right here.”
“Shawn, no”, Nate called as he scrolled to the top of the document. “That’s not how you pronounce it.”
“Nice try, Nate; but if I have an embarrassing name, you should have one too; it’s only right”, Shawn replied with a swing of his fist. “So ‘ha’ to you, sir!”
“It’s not an embarrassing name”, Nate retorted, “it’s part of my old X-Box gamer tag, and you’re pronouncing it wrong: it’s Dee-yuh-thirst.”
“I’m confused”, David replied as he stepped back, “so Nate gets a better name than Shawn because he plays more video games?”
“If I recall correctly”, Turrisi began, “After the DOJ tracked down his identity, they just went with his gamer tag because the local newspapers never gave any descriptions, and all of the other names the DOJ tried to come up with were crap.”
“If I had been given the opportunity, or I needed to name myself for any reason, I guess I would’ve used that one”, Nate replied as he scrolled down.
“I still think mine is better”, Shawn remarked.
“Three-point-five out of six”, Turrisi
noted as they came to the bottom of the document.
“What!?” Nate blurted, “And Erik’s a four-point-five?”
“_And fifteen for seventeen; good job”, Turrisi replied as he patted the left side of Nate’s back.
“No, Turrisi, the right side causes pain”, David remarked.
“Go to B-money’s now; we haven’t seen his”, Shawn proclaimed.
“Wait, Piekarsky, did your file have a reference alias?” Turrisi asked, while Nate exited that document and scrolled down to the last one.
“Here we go”, Shawn cackled.
“No, but I’m only one for one. One thing I can say the government doesn’t have on me is an embarrassing nickname.”
“Speaking of embarrassing nicknames”, Nate began as he read the top of the document, his back shaking as cachinnations pulsed through his chest. Beside him, Shawn rested his arms on the desk and planted his head into his elbows, his mouth shut, while his face glowed.
“What is it?” David asked as he leaned over Shawn and skimmed over the document. He scanned through the first page, but his mind paused as he found the reference alias, inhaled, and then cackled. “Lynx”, he guffawed as he reared forward and grasped his stomach, with Nate and Shawn chuckling beside him, “‘Lynx of the East’?” he hooted, his attempt at restraining his laughter failing through his exclamation. “B-money, why?” he wailed as his laughs heightened in intonation and volume, forcing David to step away, while Shawn chortled.
“Why ‘Lynx of the East’?” Shawn laughed as he shook his head and looked to his left, to where Turrisi walked up, leaned, and looked through the document.
“That just opens the door for so many more questions”, David replied as he leaned against the loft.
“Uh”, Turrisi moaned as he balled his hands. “Holy crap!” he called as he reared up.
“What’s up?” Shawn asked as he looked to Turrisi but then spun to the screen.
“His CORGI rating”, Turrisi remarked, while David stepped in front of him.
“Is a three out of six, with the word ‘tentative’ beside it”, Nate spoke.