Small Things (Out of the Box Book 14)

by Robert J. Crane

  Well, if I managed to somehow stop all these unnatural metas from appearing, it’d kinda put a kink in our business.

  “I’ve got brushfires to put out,” Reed said. “But you’ve got a line on the arsonist. So, yeah, I want you to look into it. And if you need help—”

  “I’ll call,” I said.

  “Good,” Reed said with a curt nod. “Then if you’ll excuse me … I think I have business tonight in Oklahoma City.” He froze, thinking. “Or was it Yuma, Arizona? Hell,” he said mildly and fumbled for his cell phone to call the office. “Hurry up on this, because we need you elsewhere.”

  “I’ll get right to the bottom of it,” I said, trying to hold in my jubilance at having a case of my very own, one that I’d unearthed myself. It was a little unseemly, glorying in the idea of getting to work alone for a change, to tackle something serious that fundamentally affected all our lives.

  “Keep me in the loop,” Reed said and stepped up onto the air, letting it carry him away as he held his phone up to his ear. He wafted straight up, a blast of air the only sign of his passage, and left me alone on the mountainside as he headed off to the next destination.

  Hell yeah. Now it was time to do things my way.

  5.

  Sienna

  I tossed a glass of cold water in Friday’s face. “Wake up, jaghole.”

  He sputtered as he woke, icy water coursing down his face and dripping onto his torn, damp clothes. He looked like he’d gone for a moonlight swim somewhere before he’d shown up on my door, and as he shook his stubbly, bone-thin face in response to the water, he peeked up at me. “What the hell?” he asked pitifully. I recognized the voice, though it wasn’t as deep as Friday sounded when he was bulked up.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “How did you find me?”

  He looked down at the light nets wrapped around his chest, securing him to the chair. “Did you … tie me up?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Breaking out of them would give me the half-second I’d need to vaporize you, so I’d learn to love the feeling of light webs if I were you.”

  He gawked, then composed himself, breaking into a leer. “Kinky.”

  “This is going to turn into Fifty Shades of Skull Trauma if you persist in being a dipshit,” I said. “Now answer my questions or I will turn you over and feed you into my garbage disposal, because it looks like your pin head would fit perfectly down my drain, Beaker.”

  “I’ve got an assassin after me,” Friday burbled, dropping the stupid leer and adopting a deadly earnestness. I’d never seen him without his mask, but the lips looked about right, and so did the eyes, though they certainly evinced more fear now than I’d ever seen from him in the time we’d known each other. “He caught up with me tonight on a cliff over the Columbia River. I jumped and he shot me.”

  I took that in, glancing at the TV, which was still covering the events in Steelwood Springs, Colorado, though Augustus had vanished and now it was just a reporter talking with a bunch of police cars and a dark night for a background. “Why is an assassin after you?” I asked. I was marginally more interested in whatever Augustus had going on, but unfortunately, he wasn’t here and Friday was. “And how did you find me?”

  “I can’t tell you how I found you,” Friday said, straining lightly against the light nets.

  “I don’t like your attitude,” I said, lighting up my finger with fire. “How long has it been since you’ve done the ‘turn your head and cough’ test? Because I’m worried you might have a hernia after that fall.”

  “No! Please, wait!” Friday said, and now that I could see him emote, I sort of realized why he wore the mask. He did not have a poker face. Nor a particularly pretty face, at all. But the mask was probably more for the first reason. “I—I can tell you, but only if you help me.”

  I laughed. “I can kill you, and then I don’t have to help you.”

  “You can kill me, but then you’ll never know how I found you,” he said, sounding increasingly desperate. “Or if others are coming.” He licked his lips. “Help me and I’ll tell you.”

  “You’re seriously negotiating with me right now?” I stretched my shoulders, which were still glistening with sweat from my exercise.

  “Please,” Friday said, and again he showed off his expressive range of emotion. The pleading, the worry, it was all written across his forehead, around his eyes. “I don’t have anyone else to go to.”

  You should help him, Harmon piped up.

  Yeah, Zack agreed.

  I made a face at Friday, one that he probably thought he caused. Are you out of your minds? This is Guy Friday we’re talking about. We’ve stepped on more sympathetic dog turds than this guy.

  Yes, Gavrikov agreed, but …

  But what? I prodded, keeping my thoughts from springing out as I favored Friday with a hard stare during this little dialogue. He looked back with rising alarm, as though he thought I was trying to make him spontaneously combust with my mind. Which I could have done, technically, I suppose.

  You’re bored, Wolfe said.

  You have been training, waiting for a case to appear, Eve said. Well, here one is.

  But this is Friday, people! I said. Friday! He once locked himself out of his own cellphone because he forgot that his password was 1234.

  I don’t see anyone else knocking down your door looking for help, Bjorn said.

  Any old port in a storm, Bastian agreed.

  But. It’s. Friday! He’s tried to kill me—

  So did Scott, Zack said, but you helped him.

  And didn’t you nearly add Jamal Coleman to our ranks once upon a time? Eve asked. Yet when he asked for help, you came running.

  “I feel like you’re going to make my brain explode,” Friday said nervously.

  “You would need a brain first in order for that to happen,” I snapped. Those guys were different. Scott was mind-controlled. And Jamal had a history of helping me. There was context. There is no such pleasant history between Friday and I.

  You were colleagues once, Gavrikov said.

  Isn’t there a code that says you should help the people you work with? Wolfe asked.

  Bullshit, Wolfe. If you’ve ever helped a co-worker, I will commit an act of cannibalism.

  Wolfe worked for Omega, remember? There were many, many co-workers. Once I helped Bastet move a box. Wolfe smiled smugly in my head. Now … about finding some tender meat as a reward—

  I ate Sovereign, I said, so there. Promise fulfilled.

  Not fair. You spat him out. That doesn’t count.

  Sienna … Zack said. You’ve got nothing else going, and you live for this kind of thing. Give Friday a hand, and then he’ll tell you how he found you. It’s win/win.

  Helping Friday doesn’t feel like winning to me. I frowned, causing Friday to subtly flinch away from me. And what if he’s setting an elaborate trap?

  Look at him, Harmon said. You just know he isn’t.

  Why don’t you just tell me how he found me and spare me this Faustian bargain? I asked.

  Because then you’d just kick him out and move to another safe house, committing us to months and possibly years more of boredom while you endlessly pump iron and watch TV. Please, Harmon said, let’s break the monotony.

  “I …” I said, staring at Friday through narrowed eyes, “… I am considering your offer. The payment is that you’ll tell me how you found me?”

  Friday nodded. “I also have a few bucks—”

  “I don’t need your money, Friday,” I said. He was dripping all over my floor, but this safe house was basically burned now that he’d found me here, so it didn’t bother me as much as it might have otherwise that he was ruining things. I glanced back at the TV and my weights arrayed around the couch. Harmon was, as always, annoyingly on point: if I didn’t help Friday, I’d be sitting around somewhere else, head down, working out endlessly while irritating myself and my souls with a constant IV of cable news broken by the occasional grocery trip and On
Demand movie.

  It was a formula for madness.

  You said it, sister, Eve agreed.

  “Fine, you have a deal,” I said grudgingly and dissolved the net holding him to the chair with a wave of my hand.

  “Whew,” he said, rolling his shoulders around. “I was getting kinda worried there for a minute.”

  “You had good reason,” I said. “Now … tell me everything, Friday.”

  “My name’s not Friday.”

  “I know that. I’m the one who first called you Friday, remember?”

  “Oh. Right. So, for a while I worked in this paramilitary outfit,” Friday said. “We were totally awesome, like Spec Ops with superpowers. We were so badass, we were like kryptonite for every jerk dictator and terrorist on the planet.” The chair creaked under Friday’s skinny ass. “Anyway,” he said, “one of the guys in my group was named Greg Vansen. He didn’t recognize me, but …” Friday’s small frame seemed to somehow deflate further. “Greg was the guy who tried to kill me tonight.”

  “How did he not know … oh.” I stared at him, blinking in disbelief. “Did you wear your mask the whole time you were with them, too?”

  “Yeah, always,” Friday said. “It’s my totally awesome thing. It adds mystique, makes me an enigma. Plus I have a fake name now. Percy Sledger.”

  “Percy … Sledger?” I snorted. “You stole your name from the guy who originally sang ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’?”

  “He’s Percy Sledge,” Friday said with irritation. “I was Percy Sledger. And how do you know about Percy Sledge?”

  “My mom was a big fan of oldies,” I said. “So, I’m just going to call you Friday, because it’s easier for me and Percy is a lie anyway. Why does this Greg Vansen guy want to kill you? I mean, as a former co-worker, I kindasorta wanted to kill you at various points, but does he have a specific grievance, like you always left the coffee pot empty? Or is it just sort of ‘He knows you, therefore he wants to murder you’?”

  “I don’t know,” Friday said. “We seemed to get along fine when we were working together. Like you and me, you know—”

  I tried not to laugh. Not very hard, but I tried. “We did not ‘get along,’ Friday. Why is Greg Vansen trying to kill you?”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” Friday said, and then he sat there, stiffly, not looking at me. “But I know this: Greg Vansen … he’s the best assassin there is. You never hear him coming, never see him coming—”

  “What the hell does that even mean? Does he turn invisible?”

  “As good as,” Friday said. “He’s like a magician. And he has an array of weapons at his disposal you wouldn’t believe. Every gun imaginable—”

  “Wait, wait,” I said, holding up the hand to get him to stop again. “He uses guns? What kind of meta is he?”

  “I don’t know what his power was,” Friday said, and he shuddered a little. “He was like magic, though. If he needed a rifle, suddenly he had a rifle in his hands. If he wanted to disappear, he was gone—poof! I saw him do things I’ve never seen any meta do before, and whenever you’d ask him how he did it, he just did this kind of smug smile and said, ‘Preparation.’”

  “What … does that even mean?” I asked. “And why is this guy suddenly after you? You must have some idea.”

  Friday settled back in the chair, thinking hard. It looked painful, that concentration, like he was trying to get a thought out, or maybe like he was about to break a streak of constipation. “Well … there was this one mission we went on that might have something to do with it …”

  6.

  Friday

  Torrijos International Airport, Panama

  December 20, 1989

  Sienna note: I’m pretty sure Friday made this shit up.

  There was a band playing the most metal version of the “Star-Spangled Banner” you’ve ever heard when we came dropping out of the plane. It was like Metallica crossed with Nirvana but dipped in a little AC/DC, like the hard chocolate coating on a Nestlé Drumstick. It RAWKED! Which was good, because we came parachuting into Panama like the fallen angels of hell coming down on fluffy little unsuspecting kittens! RAWR!!!!

  Sienna note: Sigh.

  Stop interrupting! It was the awesomest awesome ever, falling out of the sky on wings of fiery hell angels spitting metal tunes like—

  You mean you were wearing parachutes?

  You’re such a buzzkill, girl.

  “HELL YEAHHHHHHH!” I screamed as I parachuted down, a full-sized Gatling gun in each hand, belts of ammo rolled around my huge, oiled-up biceps. My veins throbbed with pure power as the metal rocked my soul. “YEAHHHHHHHH!” I lit up the anti-aircraft batteries hanging out below, my Gatling guns screaming along with the metal badassness playing around us. It was so diesel, you could almost imagine bald eagles flying with us and ripping the shit out of the Panama soldiers running around screaming below.

  “OH MY GOD,” they screamed, “IT’S THE AMERICANS WITH THEIR HUGE MUSCLES AND HUGER PENISES!”

  Oh, yeah? They said that?

  Damned right they did.

  Just like that?

  Well, hell yeah. Exactly like that. Every word.

  In … English? *SMACK*

  OW! What the hell was that for?

  They speak Spanish in Panama, pendejo.

  Hey, uh, well, uh, the Panama-ians—uhh, Panama-ans -

  Panamanians.

  Yeah, the Panama guys, they really said it, I’m telling you. One look at me—throbbing biceps, heaving chest, you know—you see these cobras coming, it’s like Ah-nold and Stallone coming for you all at once, you know?

  Sigh.

  I ran my Gatling gun over their positions anyway, listening to the Panama-ia—uh, those Panama guys—screaming about, you know, our huge junk as they abandoned their posts and ran off into the night. I blew up their AA guns, running my line of tracer bullets over a fuel tanker sitting on the runway. It took a few Gatling rounds and BOOM! Like an explosion right out of a movie, man, it goes off like a little nuclear bomb in the night! KAPOW! It lit up the whole airport!

  “Hell yeah!” I shouted into the night as I landed, sweeping off my parachute in one move, explosions going off all around me as I walked in slow motion away from the tanker blowing up on the tarmac behind me. My gats were rolling, tracers streaking toward these dug-in sandbag positions—

  I thought everyone abandoned their posts and ran off into the night? Because of your huge penises. *Snicker*

  —and I was pounding them with heavy fire, both my gats roaring. Hot, blazing brass was tinkling around my feet as the ammo belts streamed off my heaving, muscled chest. But most of the bullets were hitting the sandbags and stopping. I strode toward that main position, trying to get up on them, but a guy popped up and took a shot at me before I could whip my gat around and take him out.

  “Ow!” Sexy blood went rolling down my arm where the Panama-guy stung me with his pop gun. Felt like a bee stung me, but I knew it was nothing. “You will pay for giving me a flesh wound that will mar my sexiness when I lay siege to your bars later tonight and quench my deepest desires many times with your Panama women! And none of your wives will ever want you again, because they will never be satisfied with your inadequacy after tasting the awesomeness and hugeness of me! FREEDOM!”

  … Really?

  I’m just ignoring you now because you’re totally breaking my flow.

  I felt a couple more stings and roared in the night. “Just flesh wounds!” I screamed, blasting away again with the gats. I could hear Panama guys scream, too, probably thinking about how my guns would kill them and my other gun would leave their widows—

  I will toss you out of this apartment via the window and you can give the pavement a more sincere kiss than any Panamanian woman—or any woman, period—ever gave you.

  “Are you all right?” A shouted voice from overhead caused me to look up.

  “I’m fine! I’ve got them on the run and fearing for the lusts of their women!” I shout
ed back.

  Jon Wiegert came streaking overhead, bulletproof surfboard attached to his feet and two Uzis clutched in his hands. He flew over me and raked those Panama guys that were hosing me down, causing them to jerk like they’d been shocked with an electric cable.

  “Those were my bad guys!” I screamed, raising my gats to the sky and letting them hammer out a rhythm to match that metal version of the “Star-Spangled Banner” playing around me. The screaming whine of the gat mirrored my own feelings; with the last of the Panama guys dead or running, that was the end of my non-Panama-lady fun for the night.

  Sigh.

  “What took you so long?” I turned and saw Greg Vansen standing on the tarmac behind me. He wasn’t a really tall guy, but he was standing next to a Concorde … he just looked small, like maybe 5'4" at most. He had a look in his eyes of irritated disappointment, and I knew that he was no competition for me with the Panama ladies, and his jealousy was thick as his abnormally stocky torso. Seriously, he was shaped like a fire hydrant.

  But he was standing on the bodies of like fifty Panama guys I hadn’t even seen. It was so metal, like he was on a pile of bones. Except they still had skin on them. For now.

  Jon flew back overhead and hovered, just standing on his surfboard, Uzis smoking in the night. “Whoa, Greg. Nice body count.”

  “Thanks,” Greg said, his raspy, lizard-like drawl and totally expressionless face kinda creeping me out. I thought about spinning up the gats but he was on my side. “We should get out of here. Now. Before—”

  Shots cracked off, and again someone got me in the arm. “Flesh wound!” I shouted as a little blood sprayed in the night like a money shot to my mask, making me look even tougher and more awesome—

  Sigh.

  —Ignoring you! I started to go for them, and I saw Jon do the same, using his surfboard as a shield for the bullets that were coming our way, but suddenly those guys were all like, “Whooooa!” And they all jerked like someone had stuck a Taser up their asses, and suddenly Greg was just standing there over their bodies, standing on one of their heads, out of freaking nowhere, man!