“Remember that a gallon of water weighs a little over eight pounds,” Kirrily added in her delightfully Australian accent, screwing the cap back on and holding the jug high. “If you’re not used to carrying weight while you’re running, be careful.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for team us,” June whispered, nudging Ernest in the ribs with her elbow.
“I think I can handle a coupla jugs.”
“As you can see, each of the jugs has a glow stick inside it. It gives off a little bit of light— enough to make them visible, but not enough to make them visible from too far away. There are an equal ratio of jugs as there are band colors,” Copycat held up a pumpkin-orange jug. “And if you find a glow jug that happens to be your band color, it counts double. Your goal is to get all of your jugs to the drop site. We’ll set up signs for each team while you’re off on the hunt. Three a.m. is our cutoff time, so both teammates must be present for their points to count.”
“Yeah, no,” Kirrily said. “If you want your jugs to count, have ‘em back at the bus by three. Are we clear?”
Framing her mouth with both hands, Copycat yelled, “We can’t hear you!”
And again with the stomping and the screaming and the carrying on. Next time, she’d have to remember to bring two pair of earplugs. That, or pack a little less compassion for her fellow man.
This trip could have been interesting, had teenagers not been invited. The teachers were okay enough, and Ernest didn’t count as a teenage boy as far as June was concerned, so he could stay. Everyone else, she could have done without.
“Okay, ya’ll are on your own once we get there,” Copycat said, almost lost under the cacophony. “A treasure of glow jugs await you!”
“Driver!” Kirrily said, drumming the back of the front seat with her palm. “Let’s make like a baby and head out!”
As soon as the staff sat down and the bus started moving again, Underwood twisted around in his seat.
“Does our agreement still stand?” He asked, keeping his voice low.
June knew that the question had been directed at Ernest, but she didn’t care.
“What agreement?”
“Well, Mal’s one of my oldest and best friends. I’m sure I’ve told you that before.”
“I already don’t like where this is heading, but go on.”
“As kids, me, Mal, and Rosario agreed that we’d always help each other out. And right now, Mal really needs our help.”
Mal muttered something about unnecessary emphasis, but he didn’t project well enough for June to confirm that yes, his words qualified as fighting words.
“I wouldn’t go so far as that, but yes. Rosario, Ernest and myself have had a standing agreement for the better part of our lives.”
“And I can’t go back on a promise, ‘specially not one I’ve kept for so long. So we’re going to work with them, okay?”
It was an order, but Ernest worked it into a question.
“Underhanded, slightly rule-breaky schemes are some of my favorite things.”
He laughed, because he thought she was kidding.
“They said that student against student violence isn’t allowed, but nothing was said about student cooperation.” Underwood looked at Ernest, an eyebrow raised. “So, then. What is the plan?”
Ernest managed to turn a dry squeak into a question, too.
“I am the youngest Alpha in this group, as well as the lowest-ranked,” Mal said, looking him straight in the eye. “As a ninety-three, you take point.”
June felt Ernest freeze up. He stopped breathing.
She really wanted to smack Underwood. He was a nasty piece of work on Old June’s level, but he didn’t bother tacking up a false front. He hadn’t tried very hard to hide what information he hoped to get out of his ‘childhood friend’. Underwood wasn’t graciously allowing Ernest to take his rightful spot as the Alphaest Alpha— he was testing him.
He wanted to see if Ernest had a plan. He wanted to see that he could lead. He’d purposefully put him on the spot.
And that pissed June off. How dare he ask for his help, then screw with Ernest’s head? Who died and made him the great tester of future leaders? Ernest wasn’t a bad leader. When he was on his game, he could get people to follow him effortlessly. He didn’t deserve Underwood’s scrutiny.
So much for New Beta June.
June smiled at Underwood, imagining going full-tilt professional wrestler on his scrawny ass. In her head, she hit him over the head with a folding chair, ripping off his Alpha Bitch champion’s belt. The crowd went wild.
“Hey, Ernie,” June said, patting his arm. “I’m so sorry to interrupt you guys, but what about that idea that you were telling me earlier? You know, about rearranging into three-man teams in order to maximize our collective effectiveness? Remember?”
“Oh. Yeah...” Ernest said, slowly. The domino mask gave him a halfway decent poker face. “Do you, uh. D’you want to break it down for ‘em? I’d like to make sure you were listening and all.”
She was proud of him for getting it. Not proud that she’d cornered him into telling a little fib, but proud that he’d trusted her enough to go along with it. She hadn’t been completely sure that he’d react well to her shoehorning her way into things when he was trying his hardest to flex his leadership muscles in front of his cool friends, but he’d looked like he was straining himself.
Already, he seemed to be calming down. June was happy enough to assume control. She worked best that way.
“Rosario,” Underwood said, getting her attention from across the aisle. “Ernest has a plan.”
“This I’ve gotta hear,” she said, swinging her legs around.
That confirmed the theory that at no point in his life had Ernest been blessed with the gift of complex planning.
“Like I said, we’ll split into two groups. Kinglet and Champ will sweep in one direction, and Zip, Level Field, and Riot will go the other way,” June said, getting down to brass tacks. “If we run into trouble, we’ll scatter. For Team Punch and Run Away, Zip is in charge of being the distraction. For Team We Are Men, Underwood will do whatever it is that he does to distract people.”
“He bleeds a bunch,” Zip said, with a sigh so hard that it ruffled her crazy red fauxhawk.
“Wow, hey, that is a super bad habit to get into,” June said, a little alarmed. It was hard to miss Underwood’s stripes, but her brain didn’t want to think of him doing it recreationally or tactically. “I would rather you not, but we’re leaving the improv in your hopefully capable hands. If our supergroup gets outed on our test run, we’ll be the scandal of the summer. And I’d really rather not, so let’s avoid that, shall we?”
“What about you, princess?”
“I’m the goalie,” June said, bracing for a running-weight-coordination joke that didn’t come. “Two reasons. The first reason that I make a good goalie is obvious: nobody messes with flaming tigers.”
“Well— ” Underwood began to say. June cut him off with a flap of her hand. So was already done with him.
“Fine. Fine. People are more likely to pause to evaluate their life choices before they wrassle a flaming tiger. Moving on to reason number two, we want to avoid interacting with the staff until the very end. They can’t tell us to stop working together if they don’t see us doing it. We’ll consolidate our booty in a single pile until the last ten minutes or so.”
“Which will minimize our interaction with the staff while maximizing the overall impact of our haul,” Underwood said, sounding just a teeny bit impressed.
“Exactly. But we’re going to need someone to guard our pile o’ jugs until the final countdown. I’ll hang back, and if things look like they’re going to go pear-shaped, I’ll protect our glowing assets. Fire’s good for that kind of thing.”
“Please don’t set the forest on fire,” Ernest whispered, taking her hand and squeezing it. To get her attention, obviously.
“I’m making no
promises, as the night is still young, but your desperate plea to save the environment has been noted. Smokey would be very proud.” June drummed her fingers on the back of the seat, jerking her chin at Underwood. “So. Thoughts?”
“It’s workable,” he said, which was close enough to his seal of approval.
“What about you, Roz?”
Rosario scrubbed her forearm with the padded leather palm of her fingerless gloves, shrugging.
“I’m not the team Alpha. Abuelito is.”
An easy enough mistake to make, she felt. Rosario was a tough cookie— June consciously avoided pissing her off, and she didn’t say that about many people— so she seemed Alpha-ish. If that was a thing.
The purple/pink-band pair were about the same height, so, as usual, June had barely noticed that Jack was there. He’d folded his long, skinny self into the window seat next to Rosario, his chin propped in his hand. He straightened, stretching
“Well, I’ve been givin’ it some thought,” Jack said, and for once she had no trouble hearing him. “And I agree with the Champ’s gal. Each of us has got a different band color, so we could get double points for almost any jug color we stumble across.” Jack glanced at Rosario. “That’s enough to make me want to throw my hat in, but your vote counts just as much as mine. This whole business of ranking folks by what they’re born with really gets under my skin— you know that. We’re partners, you an’ me. I’m no general, and there ain’t a power above or below that could turn me into one.”
“Hot damn, grandpa,” June said with a laugh. “You’ve finally found your outside voice. It’s a Night Games miracle!”
“Turns out that it’s easier to muster up some piss and vinegar when you’re not doped up to your eyeballs,” Jack said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I’ve been feelin’ more like my old self, lately. I appreciate your noticing, I guess.”
Rosario slipped her hand around his skinny wrist, giving it a squeeze that could have been meant to comfort him, or to warn him to knock it off. It was hard to tell which.
“We’re in,” Rosario said, still holding onto Jack.
“I think that you know what that means, Fred,” June said, winking at her partner.
She’d had to explain her proposed working relationship model to him in simple terms that he would understand. To liken them to the only fictional crimefighters that they both knew of, she’d dubbed Ernest the Fred to her Velma. She was the curvy, brilliant brain of their operation, but Ernest was the one who pulled the rubber mask off of the disgruntled costume fetishist at the end of the caper. He was a natural born leader. Everyone said so.
“Let’s split up, gang.” Ernest said, and she was reasonably sure that he winked back at her behind his domino mask.
°
After everyone had synched their watches, the teams that Ernest had designated split up to search in opposite directions. They’d already wasted half an hour driving from the forum to the drop site, so they only had four and a half hours to find and gather as many jugs as they could. They had to keep a careful eye on the time, because if both partners weren’t present at the extraction point at three a.m. on the nose, their team would be disqualified.
They were taking a risk by splitting up, but it was worth the gamble. Each winning team would receive half a point. There were sixteen Night Games in total, so it was feasible that a person could raise their scores an entire eight points if they won all of the Night Games.
Eight points would bring them up to a much more respectable number. Zip hoped that bumping their score up would help her partner sleep at night. Poor Mal was starting to look a little threadbare in places. He didn’t talk much about it, but she could tell that he wasn’t sleeping well. Mal’s stress level made Zip selfishly glad that she was working with Rosario and Jack. They were a good team, pure and simple, so it was refreshing to see them work.
They worked together like they’d been partners for half their lives. They hardly even had to talk, communicating through touch, military hand signs, and inscrutable looks. It didn’t take long for Zip to start feeling like a third wheel, but that just gave her more of a reason to dash further and look harder.
She was fast as all get out, but she wasn’t very strong. Carrying more than two jugs at a time while running was seriously pushing it, so she was just going to find and gather jugs for Rosario and Jack to carry back to their group stash.
Zip was getting much better at running through the forests at night. Under her partner’s direction, she’d been slipping out for fast food at least once a week, so she’d racked up plenty of night-running practice. Mal cooked up a different way out of the compound every time, so it doubled as much-needed practice in following directions.
Who knew that breaking the rules would have such a positive impact on her performance in school? She wasn’t sure if she’d call Mal a good influence, but he certainly was something.
Catching a flicker of blue out of the corner of her eye, Zip slid to a stop, kicking up a cloud of half-rotten leaves, mud, and debris. Pushing up her goggles, she squinted. Sure enough, she could just barely make out what looked like a whole stack of blue gallon jugs.
If a pyramid of blue jugs didn’t put a smile on Mal’s face, nothing would, she decided as she snapped her goggles back into place. It was a few months early for a birthday gift, but she couldn’t think of a better one for him.
The glow coming from the jugs got brighter the closer she got to it— which was expected, of course, but it was really bright. It was anyone’s guess how so many blue jugs had ended up bunched together in one place, but Zip was more than willing to accept a gift from the universe.
Maybe the instructors had forgotten to spread out this cache of jugs? That seemed likely enough.
As Zip skidded to a stop again, something slimy kicked up with the dirt and smacked her square in the face. Squeaking, she wiped off her cheek with a reflexive shiver.
“Gross-gross-grossgrossgross!”
It was cold and wet and she was mostly sure that it was just a leaf, but she wasn’t sure enough to look. The forest outside of Foundation was much soggier than what she was used to, and sogginess fostered bugs.
And Zip didn’t like creepy-crawlies. Not one bit. She shuddered, cautiously squinting her eyes open and praying hard that she hadn’t flattened a slug.
But she’d been right. It’d been a leaf. A big, slimy maple leaf. In the pale blue light, the blood it’d smeared on Zip’s hands almost looked black.
She heard a whimper.
The glow hadn’t been coming from a secret stash of blue-band gallon jugs. Glow sticks gave off a steady illumination, but this one had a cycle. This light breathed, slow and shallow.
The light— and the blood— was spilling out of a person.
Her eyes widened. Curled up on the ground, Maks reminded Zip of an old light bulb. He flickered with every exhale, dimming, so she knew that he was on the verge of burning out. Sideshow was crumpled on his side, his shirt stripped off so as to expose more of his glowing skin. His right arm was bloody, twisted and trapped underneath him. It was folded all wrong.
“Oh no,” Zip whispered, acid rising up the back of her throat. Maks was hurt. Maks was hurt— bad. He needed help, and they were out in the middle of nowhere, and she wasn’t sure which direction the school bus was, and—
“O-oh-no-no-nononono— ”
“Get out of here!” Maks hissed between his teeth, his eyes flying open. “RUN!”
But the warning came too late. Even for her.
The pain of the first strike was an explosion. Fireworks. It was such an overload, Zip’s brain struggled to process it. Technicolor stars and spikes jabbed behind her squeezed-shut eyelids. The pain was so palpable, she could taste it.
Oh, no. That gagging thickness in her mouth, surging up her throat, was blood.
Even baseliners claimed that their perception of time slowed down in emergencies. When her adrenaline surged, it was like the entire worl
d ground to a stop around her. Usually, that was her golden moment, her chance to really lay on the speed, but that wasn’t an option this time around.
Zip had just been hit in the back with something hard. She heard the high, singing note of something metal connecting with her spine and ribs. It felt like it stretched on forever, a siren that resonated just like an aluminum baseball bat, probably because it’d been an aluminum baseball bat.
There was no golden moment, because her body was in shock. She had been hit with a bat, winded, so her mind was the only thing capable of running.
Strike two. Another swing and a hit. This time, she both felt and heard her ribs break. It sounded like wet wood splintering. It felt like swallowing fire. Still, she couldn’t move. The bat was coming at her again in a slow, whistling arc, but she couldn’t get away.
Zip screamed.
°
“...you hear that?” Ernest asked, turning with his rainbow armload of jugs. He cocked his head to the side like a curious dog, frowning. “Was that...?”
Yes, Mal had heard it. Yes, he had heard the scream, and he knew exactly who it had come from. The sum of this knowledge made his skin tingle in response, his nerves lighting like struck matches.
“Zipporah!” Mal shouted as he took off running. It was as much of an explanation to Ernest as a call to his partner. It’d only been a single cry, abrupt and panic-shrill, but he was sure that it’d come from the direction of the lake. He had to be sure. Mal had trained with her, had fought with her, and knew that his Beta did not cry wolf under any circumstances.
She was a proud girl. It took a lot of pain to force her to cry at all.
Ernest easily pulled ahead of him. His legs were longer, and he could run through obstructions, rather than around them. He disappeared into the darkness ahead, reaching the shore before him.
“HELP! WE NEED HELP!”
The Posterchildren: Origins Page 25