Small Things (Out of the Box Book 14)

by Robert J. Crane

  “I’m not going back in there,” Reed said from the passenger seat, “and I don’t expect any of you to, either.” He turned back to my brother. “Jamal …?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Jamal said. He pulled out his phone, giving it a quick tweak, little sparks of electricity flowing out of his finger almost unnoticeably. He sat like that for a second, then touched my car.

  “Calculating route,” my built-in GPS said as the screen mounted in the middle of my dashboard set up for a trip. “You will arrive at your destination at 5:59 PM.”

  “That’s handy,” Reed said. I put the car in gear and started to back out, using the park assist to keep from sideswiping the row of vehicles behind me as I damned near burned rubber to get the hell out of here, as though leaving the area could somehow cleanse the thought of nerdy sex from my mind.

  “Most new cars have GPS now, don’t they?” I asked absently as it put the car into drive and damned near smacked the curb as I gunned it, heading for the outlet to the road. The sun was low in the sky, orange tint cast over the buildings in the office park around us. This place wasn’t that dissimilar from the office park Sienna had detonated a few months ago, but it had the virtue of being on the other side of town so we didn’t have to listen to the noise of reconstruction going on around us.

  “I was talking about Jamal’s ability to keep us from having to send a man back in there,” Reed said as I signaled my turn and pulled out into the thickening rush hour traffic toward Interstate 494.

  “Yeah, that was a real traumatic-image-burned-into-your-mind-forever lifesaver,” Scott agreed.

  “Way to be a hero, Jamal,” I threw back over the seat.

  “I’ll take my bow now,” Jamal said. “Hopefully this is the only act of heroism any of us has to display today.”

  “Knowing Cassidy, and the trouble she’s caused us up until now …” Reed shook his head. “I kinda question that. But … yeah, let’s hope for the best.”

  29.

  Greg

  “Eddie,” Greg said softly entering his son’s room with quiet footfalls. Eddie was on the floor, playing with a Lego set. Greg’s eyes flitted over the tiny creation, a little version of Avengers tower that he recognized from the most recent movie. He’d taken Eddie to see it, and basked in the two hours plus of awed silence from his son. Of course, he’d had to compel the silence by threat of leaving the movie if Eddie talked … but still. It was a companionable silence, one punctuated by the expression of pure zeal during battle scenes and laughs during the occasional gags.

  “Daddy!” Eddie sprang up, his assembly forgotten along with whatever ill feelings he might have had when Greg had left this morning. He hit Greg at the midsection, a hug turning into a near tackle. Eddie was tall for his age and Greg was short, and painfully aware of it. He grimaced as his son impacted him harder than he would have liked, but his metahuman strength and sense of balance saved him from being rocked back off his heels.

  “What are you up to?” Greg asked awkwardly, trying to jump start some sort of conversation about the Lego project. Legos, Greg could understand and respect. They reminded him of the Lincoln Logs and Erector sets he built with his own father before graduating to model kits of the planes of the time—the P-38 Lightning, the P-51 Mustang, the B-52 Stratofortress. He actually had one of each of them now, carefully, lovingly maintained in his workshop with the same care and attention to detail that he cultivated when he and his father built the models together.

  “Avengers tower got destroyed in an attack by Ultron,” Eddie said, dropping back to his knees on the beige carpet. He was wearing shorts, and fibers of the carpet had left little impression marks on his knees. “Now we have to rebuild before he attacks again.”

  Greg felt a slight chuckle trickle through him like sweet relief, a breezy balm after a hot day. Talking about Avengers movies was no imposition on Greg; he certainly enjoyed them enough to discuss them in detail. He had copies of every single Avengers comic book from the first to now, also secreted away in the office in his workshop. And he’d read every one of them.

  “Did you know that in the comics,” Greg said as Eddie snapped together the sundered pieces of the tower, “Ultron isn’t created by Tony Stark at all?”

  “Oh?” Eddie answered by rote, not really paying attention to Greg’s words. These were rare, the moments when Eddie cared more about his own project than bubbling with conversation all over his father or mother.

  “Yes,” Greg said, taking slow, ambling walk to the front window, which looked out over their idyllic street. “He was actually created by another Avenger. Can you guess who?”

  “Umm … Scarlet Witch?” Eddie was focused entirely on his project.

  “You’re not thinking this through carefully,” Greg said, clucking his tongue. “Scarlet Witch isn’t a scientist.”

  “Umm … Bruce Banner?”

  “No,” Greg said. He felt a tiny prickle of impatience. He’d told Eddie this before, hadn’t he? When they’d had this same conversation after they walked out of the movie? But of course, Eddie was so intent on being a babbling brook of excitement, he probably hadn’t paid attention to a word Greg had said.

  Still … at least he was closer with Bruce Banner. “Dr. Banner is a scientist,” Greg agreed, feeling like perhaps this would sugarcoat his disappointment in the wrongness of the answer with a pat on the head, “but he didn’t create Ultron in the comics, no.”

  “Mmm …” Eddie was putting together an Iron Man suit, a little minifigure smaller than Greg’s pinky finger. “… Thor?”

  Greg made a grunting noise in the back of his throat. “No,” he said, trying to keep his patience. Maybe he remembered that in the comics, Thor had a secret identity as Dr. Donald Blake. It still irritated him that this little detail hadn’t been in any way faithfully conveyed in the movies, ending up as nothing more than a wink-and-nod joke. “Not Thor.”

  “Black Widow?”

  “No,” Greg said, huffing now. “Black Widow is not a scientist, she’s a spy. An assassin. Honestly, I don’t think you’re even trying at this point, Eddie. We’ve had this conversation before.” He knelt down and tapped Eddie on the forehead—gently—trying to prod him to pay attention. “Think. Who created Ultron in the comic books? This is important.”

  Eddie looked up at him with a mixture of fear and confusion, looking a little like he’d been attacked. He reached up to his hairline and touched the spot on his forehead where Greg had just vigorously tapped him. “I … I don’t know—”

  “He was my favorite Avenger,” Greg said, trying to prompt him, but the statement came out bubbling with anger. “We’ve talked about this. A million times. Haven’t you been listening?”

  “I—I don’t—” Eddie was stuttering now, and collapsed back on his haunches, his knees once more showing the pressed-in shell-like pattern from the carpet fibers. He was blinking, lip quivering.

  “This is truly pathetic,” Greg said under his breath as he rose to his feet and looked down at Eddie. He seemed so small. And he was a quivering mess again—and all over a question that he should have known the answer to. It was so simple! “Why are you down there like a baby, whining—” Eddie was whimpering, too, a sound low in his throat. Greg put a hand over his eyes. This wasn’t the way this was supposed to go. He’d come up here to offer an olive branch. He’d started a conversation on a mutually agreeable subject. And now Eddie was just sobbing, fearful, like—

  Like any number of people Greg had looked down on, asking them if they had any last words. He hadn’t asked that here, though, so what the hell was the problem with Eddie?

  Maybe Greg was just tense, he decided. Failing to kill Percy Sledger … it was not the sort of event that conspired to put him in a good mood. If he could just kill the stupid bastard, things would get better. Morgan was wrong—everything had been fine before this contract. Some contracts were just like that, though he’d never had one go quite this wrong before …

  That was down to S
ienna Nealon, though. She was beyond problematic, she was a day-wrecking trauma of the first order. He’d sort her out, though, once he figured out where she was. The nuke was loaded and ready to go when he headed out next. Sledger would be out there, somewhere, the fool. Probably predictable, too, since he seemed to be bouncing around, running to people he’d had past associations with—

  Theo.

  The name bludgeoned Greg in the head like a skyscraper coming down on him. His eyes widened as the idea occurred to him. Yes, Theo. Theo could very well be the next stop on Sledger’s agenda. It was logical, tracking him down. Jon had been first, after all, and surely not for no reason. Sledger was seeking out his old associates, which left Theo and Chase. Chase would be the last one Sledger would voluntarily look for if he had a brain in his head—which didn’t rule out him looking for that brand of trouble—but Theo …

  What was Nealon seeking? Answers.

  Who would have had the clearest insight into how Greg could do what he could do? Theo, in all probability, because the idiot had lifted his mask that time, and Greg had let him live afterward.

  “I have to go,” Greg said, giving Eddie, still whimpering on the floor, one glance. Part of him longed to stoop down, to gather Eddie up in his arms. But that was weakness talking, and there was a wall of pride built between them. Greg had made his position clear; he loathed weakness. Detested it. Somehow, it was even worse from his own blood. He needed to make Eddie strong, to not indulge the boy in this pitiful quivering. Picking him up would be to tacitly condone such behavior.

  And he could no more do that than allow this contract to slip through his fingers.

  Greg had almost made it to the door when an answer came, weakly, from behind him. “Hank Pym.”

  Greg turned. He almost thought he’d imagined hearing it. “What did you say?”

  “H—Hank Pym is your favorite Avenger,” Eddie warbled out, biting his lip. “I think.”

  Greg’s skin felt suddenly cold, a sick sense of guilt rolling into his stomach, stealing the life and strength from his hands; if anything had been in his clutches right now, they would surely have fallen out. He clenched his fist tight in opposition to the feeling that was weakening him. “Very good,” he said, once he had composed himself. “I guess you were listening,” he offered as grudging praise. “And do you remember which Avenger Hank Pym was?”

  Eddie was still on the floor, but he wouldn’t look at Greg now, his face down, eyes rooted to the carpet. “I … no.”

  Greg couldn’t find it in himself to be angry at the failure. Not this time. “Keep thinking about it,” he said, and walked out the door, not daring to look back, especially when the sobbing started … again.

  30.

  Sienna

  “Does this place have good margaritas?” I asked Theo as we studied the menu. Mariachi music was playing over the speakers in the background, and a pleasant hum of conversation filled the room, which was yellow-toned and bright, a few festive piñatas hanging from the high ceilings. It kinda screamed either “Mexico!” or “Kid’s Birthday Party!” I was fine with either as long as there were margaritas.

  “Had one of those days?” Theo asked, looking sidelong at Friday with a world of suggestion.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “You know what I mean.” Theo nodded subtly.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Friday said. He’d reduced himself to a much more basic size than he’d been in the gym, fortunately, now merely the size of a dude who was headed to Muscle Beach or Gold’s Gym rather than impossibly large. “What do you mean?”

  A waiter passed by and I almost ripped his arm off trying to get him to stop. “Margarita, please. Large. Large as you can make.”

  He nodded, and once Theo had ordered a top-shelf shot of Patron—I guess since I was paying—and Friday had ordered a Diet Coke with a slice of lime, which he was very particular about, the waiter disappeared and we were left studying menus while I avoided the topic of conversation I most wanted to get to. I knew Theo would get around to it sooner or later, he was just working up the liquid courage to broach the fearful subject.

  “How long have you been in LA?” I asked, figuring I’d give him some alternative conversational topics to play with while we waited for the booze to arrive.

  “Ten years or so,” Theo said as the waiter came back with his shot of Patron and Friday’s Coke. He disappeared again after saying something like, “Un momento, por favor,” to me, but I just assumed that meant the bartender was working on my drink.

  “Things changed much in that time?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah,” he nodded, eyeing the shot. “Do you mind if I …?” He looked at the glass with significance.

  “Go right ahead,” I said. “For the pain, you know.” He looked at me blankly. “Your knee?”

  “Yeah. Exactly.” Theo downed the shot in one and held it up as the waiter passed. Still no margarita. The waiter scooped up the shot glass as he went by, nodding at Theo as our dinner companion silently requested a reload. “The world’s changed,” Theo said, waxing philosophical as the alcohol started working its way into his veins. “Hell, metahumans were still a secret ten years ago, and now we’re the talk of the town. Probably every town.” He looked around nervously. “I still ain’t saying nothing, though.”

  “Why not?” I asked. Friday made a slurping noise through his straw and rattled his glass, his Diet Coke at an end. By a razor-thin margin of self-control I kept myself from slapping it out of his hand or performing amateur dentistry on him with it.

  Theo smiled thinly as the waiter stopped back with another shot. What the eff was taking him so long with my margarita? He vanished without a word, and Theo said, “You probably don’t realize this, sitting at the top of the scale, but for those of us way down there at the bottom, having powers doesn’t make you all that powerful. It makes you a target.”

  “What are you going to get?” Friday asked, shifting his yellowed menu as he looked at it, ignoring Theo and looking at me. “The chimichangas?”

  “Do I look like Deadpool to you?” I asked, giving him the evil eye for his rudeness. “I’m going to get a burrito.” And then I was going to avoid eating the shell, because the calorie count on that thing had to be nuts beyond measure. “Assuming our waiter ever manages to get his thumb out and bring me my margarita. I’m starting to suspect sexism.”

  “I have that problem, too,” Friday said. “Sexy-ism. People ignore me because I’m just too sexy. They can’t handle it.”

  “I doubt that’s why,” I said, turning in my chair so that I could face Theo. “You mentioned that being low-level makes you a target. For who?”

  The waiter stopped off and delivered another shot of tequila and no margarita, and I let out a growl so low that he stopped for a second when he was already about five steps from our table, looking around like he’d heard something but didn’t know where it had come from. Then he shot off again, not a word about my beverage.

  “Humans thinking they can be a badass if they take down a meta,” Theo said. “Governments and other sketchy groups looking for superpowered firepower. All kinds of people, I’m guessing. I don’t want to find out for sure, so I just stay quiet about what I can do.”

  “What can you do?” I asked.

  Theo looked strangely at Friday. “You didn’t tell her?”

  Friday was drinking a fresh Diet Coke, one I hadn’t even notice the waiter had refilled, rattling the cubes. “Huh? Oh, I don’t know what you can do.”

  “I’m a low-level earth mover,” Theo said when he looked back at me, and I suspected shotgunning that second round of tequila had helped him loosen his tongue enough to part with this info without asking for more money. Judgment was always the first thing to go. “But I can’t move much. That’s why when Bruce and I were with that outfit, they called me Sandstorm.” He eyed his shot glass longingly and licked his lips. It disappeared as the waiter went by and scooped it up, catching Theo’s nod as he went past but not stopping
long enough to answer any other questions.

  “Okay, I’m about to make a scene here if someone doesn’t get me my damned margarita soon,” I said. Turning my attention back to Theo, I said, “Before you drink me into the poorhouse, what did you see in Saddam’s bunker?”

  Theo looked at me blankly. “Whose bunker?”

  I didn’t even bother to look back at Friday with an accusing glare for lying to me. “Whoever’s bunker it was the night you lifted the blindfold and saw … whatever Greg didn’t want you to see. Describe it for me.”

  “I didn’t see much,” Theo said, looking at the table. “What Greg didn’t realize is … I pulled that mask up for a second. That was all. He caught me right at it, and you better believe I dropped it back down right then.”

  “Why did you lift it?” I asked.

  “Because a few seconds earlier we’d been standing in a corridor in a bunker,” Theo said, slurring slightly now, “and there were little grains of sand all around me from where people had tracked it in out of the desert. See, I can feel the bigger stuff—mountains and whatnot—I just can't control them, lift them, whatever, the way that cat that hangs with Sienna Nealon can.”

  He was talking about Augustus. I almost snickered; Theo hadn’t recognized me. Which was good, overall.

  “But the minute Greg did his thang,” Theo said, “there was suddenly no dirt anymore. Not in the air, not in the distance. Nothing I could control, just—big-ass pieces of rock everywhere.” The waiter dropped another shot in front of him and he took it down immediately. “So I lifted my blindfold because we were in the desert—well, a desert bunker—one second, and the next, there’s not a single grain of sand anywhere around. You explain to me how that happens?”

  “Magic,” Friday said with certitude.

  “That’s what I think, too,” Theo said, waving the empty shot glass at Friday. “I think he can teleport from one place to another, like a storehouse or something, and then booyah! Teleport right back in the blink of an eye with, say, a Concorde or a machine gun or something.”