Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee

by Douglas A. Taylor

Chapter 10

 

  As nice as HQ is, it's pretty easy to get cabin fever if you spend too much time there, so whenever I'm on vacation, I try to spend a lot of it outdoors. So, while Angie would be packing, making the rounds of the graduation parties, and saying her goodbyes to all her friends, Toby and I planned to spend much of that afternoon wandering around town and the surrounding countryside. We had decided that we'd hang around until the next day, after the siblings had gone, and then all three of us would leave together.

  We were out jogging on a gravel country road when I heard Wizzit's voice coming from Toby's belt. "Green and Blue, we are going to hold a debriefing on yesterday's mission in a few minutes. Would you care to pop in for a bit?"

  We looked at each other and shrugged. "Sure, why not?" Toby said. "Give us half a moment to find somewhere to conceal ourselves."

  We ducked behind a couple of nearby trees, and Wizzit 'ported us back to HQ. As we materialized in the common room, Toby turned to me and grinned. "I've been meaning to ask you, Trev," he said. "What did you say about me to that sister of yours? She was giving me funny looks all through lunch."

  "Angie? Nothing."

  "No, not Angie. The other one. Joy. She called me 'double-oh-seven' once, and I'd swear, she winked at me when she said it."

  "Oh, geez!" I covered my face with my hand and shook my head. "I, um, kind of had to clue Joy in on the fact that we were a little more than we seemed."

  "You told her we were Primes?"

  "No, of course not," I said. "But like Nick said, she was all freaked out about Angie's legs, and she was really upset about her not going to college, so . . . to calm her down, I sort of gave her a few little hints . . ."

  Toby made a face. "Great! So now she thinks we're spies?"

  "Sounds like." I sighed. "At least it's better than hearing lectures every time I see her on how I'm wasting my life."

  "I suppose." Toby shook his head doubtfully. Then he chuckled. "I don't half mind it, I guess. No one's ever told me I look like James Bond before. D'you reckon I ought to wear a tux next time I come over for a visit."

  I grinned. "I'm not sure we'd be able to find one big enough."

  The others were clustered around someone -- I thought it might be Padma -- in Shelley's office when we walked in. I was following Toby, and when he stopped short, I nearly ran into him. "Is that you, Padma?" he asked incredulously.

  I had to edge around Toby and then stand on my tiptoes to see her. "Dang, Padma!" I exclaimed when I finally caught sight of her, "what did you do to your hair?"

  Trina gave me a dirty look; Padma shrugged despondently. "I cut it." Indeed, the long, black, glossy hair that had once fallen past her shoulderblades had been chopped off to just above her jawline.

  "I guess you did," Toby said, "but why? I thought it looked nice the way it was."

  She sighed. "I had to; some of it got burned on that last mission when I was struck by the energy beam. I didn't realize how bad it was until this morning when I took my shower. Trina helped me cut off the worst parts of it, and then we evened it up afterwards. This is all I have left." She disconsolately combed her fingers through her shorn locks. "I look just like a boy!"

  Nicolai came up and put his arm around her. "For the last time, you do not look like a boy," he assured her, kissing her on the cheek. "You look adorable."

  I decided to ignore the "You had better say something nice if you know what's good for you!" look that Trina was giving me. Instead, I pursed my lips and made a show of examining Padma from all angles, hmm-ing to myself all the while.

  Mike caught my eye; he was grinning. "What d'you say we take a vote, Trevor?" he said. "You, me, and Toby -- the three disinterested male parties who are affected."

  I grinned back. "Okay, but what are we voting on?"

  "Obviously, on whether or not Padma looks like a boy," Toby said.

  Mike snorted. "Nah, anyone who thinks that should have his eyes checked."

  "I think we should vote on which adjective to apply to her new haircut," I said. I winked at Mike. "I'd put it up to a choice between 'adorable' and . . . oh, let's go with 'cute'."

  "Hmm." Mike stroked his chin. "Adorable or cute? In that case, I vote for 'cute'."

  "I don't know about that," I said. "I agree with Nicolai. I'm going to have to say 'adorable'."

  "What's the difference?" Toby growled. "They both mean the same thing." He yelped, probably because Trina had just kicked him in the shin, and hastily added, "Which is, um, good, because, um, both of them apply. 'Cute' and 'adorable', yup, that's what I vote for. Both of 'em."

  Padma gave us all a wry smile as we found our seats, but she did seem pleased. Shelley waited until we had all quieted down, and then she said, "We had a busy day yesterday, people. Two monster battles in one day -- I don't remember the last time that happened -- and I think most of you know by now that Lily's back. Trevor, let's start off with you."

  Wizzit brought up a still image of Lily on the big vid screen. It was of the first time I had seen her yesterday, curled up under the tree and half-hidden in shadow. It was actually a rather glamorous-looking shot, like something you might see in a fashion magazine, and I have to say, she looked good -- really good. And to judge by the expressions of some of my male teammates, they must have thought so, too. Padma dug an elbow into Nicolai's ribs and whispered something sharply to him. Interestingly, Trina did the same to Mike.

  Now, I have never been very good at narration. I assume I'll get better with practice; Trina certainly has, and Mike's getting to be a pro at it. Regardless, Wizzit replayed a vid of my rather one-sided conversation with Lily, and I fumbled my way through a description of everything that happened from the first moment when she caught my eye right up to where I teleported away with her.

  "It was a bit rash, wasn't it?" Mike said when the vid stopped. "I mean, going off with Lily to heaven knew where just on the strength of a note saying you would not be harmed? What if JB Swift had been lying? Or what if someone else had control of her?"

  "I'll admit that it was a gamble," I replied, "but I figured the odds were in my favor. You heard me talk it through with Wizzit; I had some reason to believe I was not going to be in any real danger. And I made sure Wizzit knew where I was going. If I hadn't come back in a timely manner, you would have at least known where to come after me."

  Mike grimaced and shook his head. It was clear he wasn't convinced.

  "Sometimes it is good to be a bit rash." That came from Padma. "I mean, when I accidentally ran through the teleport trap that one time in Vietnam, Trevor jumped through it as well, to come get me. That was rash, but if he had not done it . . ." She shrugged. "Who knows where I would be now? Perhaps on my way to becoming another Lily."

  Shelley stirred. "I don't think we're going to settle this here," she said, forestalling any further discussion. "Trevor, please give some thought to what Mike said, would you?"

  I nodded. That was probably the clearest sign I would ever get that Shelley was siding with me. In three years, I had never seen Prime Commander and Prime Red disagree in public, at least not about team-related matters. If Mike thought I was being careless, then it was up to him, as team lead, to correct that, and Shelley would have limited say in the matter. Which was not to imply that she would not try to influence him, but if she did, it would be done out of sight of the rest of the team.

  "I have no recordings of anything that went on between Trevor and JB Swift at the secret base," Wizzit declared. "For that, we will have to rely solely on Trevor's memory."

  Shelley nodded. "I've heard just the very basics of what went on. Trevor, I'd like you to go through everything from beginning to end, in as much detail as you can -- actions, conversations, everything."

  I let out my breath. "Okay, I'll do my best." I stared up at the ceiling, trying to picture things in my memory. "Let's
see. As soon as we materialized, Lily let go of my hand and stepped away from me . . ."

  Once I got started, it turned out to be easier than I thought to reconstruct the entire scene. Easier than narrating, that's for sure. I got a few things mixed up, and I had to go back and correct myself more than once, but overall, I think I gave everyone a pretty clear idea of everything that had gone down. Wizzit picked up the story at that point, showing the vid of me dropping Lily off in Costa Rica. Then, at Shelley's suggestion, he played the vid of my returning to find her gone.

  When we finished, Nicolai said, "So, Trevor, you're telling us that Enclave wanted Lily only to distract us during a battle?"

  "That's what JB Swift told me," I replied.

  "That is interesting." He frowned at the floor. "I do not believe he was being entirely candid with you."

  I shrugged. "That wouldn't surprise me. Why do you think so?"

  "We were not able to recover much from his computer files last night," Nicolai explained, "but Wizzit and I did reconstruct parts of what seemed to be an angry exchange between him and the Harley twins. They were wanting more control over Lily -- perhaps the same kind of control he gave you -- and he was not giving it to them."

  "Why did they want that?" Shelley asked.

  Nicolai slowly shook his head. "It was not clear. Understand, we were piecing together fragmentary parts of a computer file, and we had to make some guesses as to how they fit together. There were hints of a . . . of some sort of project, something big that, if I read it right, would either disable the Primes or destroy them. I saw the phrase 'unaltered human' a few times; I assume it was referring to Lily."

  "They did say that they had important plans that depended on her," I mused.

  "When was this?" Trina asked, surprised.

  "Out at the battle site yesterday," I said. "I think it was before you guys arrived. Wizzit should have the vid."

  "I do indeed," Wizzit said promptly. "I will replay it when we get to that part of the debrief."

  Padma spoke up. "This is troubling. The Harley twins have created some of the toughest monsters we have faced. If they have some secret plan to use Lily to destroy us, and they now actually have Lily as well . . ."

  "That's bang on, Padma," Mike muttered. "Now I know what Damocles felt like. There's a sword over our heads hanging by a thread, and we don't know when it'll come crashing down on us."

  "It may not be as bad as all that," Toby said. The rest of us turned to look at him in surprise. I like Toby; he's one heckuva great guy to have at your back in a fight, but . . . well, he's not exactly a strategist. It's unusual for him to express an opinion in this sort of discussion. He went on, "Look, I've never been Lily's number one fan; everyone knows that."

  "No, that would be Trevor," Trina interjected, giving me a sideways smirk. I felt my face turn red.

  "Yes, exactly." Toby grinned at her, then grew serious. "All I'm saying is that Lily's sort of a queer duck, isn't she? We found that out when we held her prisoner. These Harley twins might have her, but they might not actually have her, if you know what I mean."

  I sure didn't, but Shelley nodded in understanding. "That's a good point, Toby. From all indications, the Harley twins are not Lily's masters, not in the sense that JB Swift was. If that's true, then the only means they would have of controlling her would be JB Swift's old remote control, and something like that is bound to be clumsy at best."

  "Whereas we have Trevor," Mike put in.

  "Whereas we have Trevor," Shelley agreed. She pulled at her lower lip, lost in thought for a moment. "I'd like to bring Bill in on this," she said at last. "Not right now, of course, but this is something we're going to have to think about, and I want his opinion, if that's all right." She was speaking to everyone in the room, but she was looking straight at me.

  I nodded. "Sure. That's a good idea."

  She waited a moment longer, then she said, "Okay. Anything further on this? If not, let's go over the battle itself."

  Wizzit brought the vid up on the screen. I went over the brief conversation I had overheard between JB Swift and the Harley twins. Mike took over after that; he narrated the battle up to the point where he got himself knocked flat. Toby winced when that happened, I noticed, the same way Nicolai and I had. After Wizzit had teleported him out, Trina took over. As I've already mentioned, she's gotten to be pretty good at narrating our little adventures. Somehow she was able to keep track of what everyone was doing while she was shooting and dodging monsters. She was even able to describe most of my dance with Ape-fist, as well as Padma's getting zapped by Cyclops.

  I paid particular attention to what happened a few minutes later, when the Harley twins showed up again. Their bombs went off and the screen just went wild. I think Wizzit must have been playing with the visual filters, trying to compensate for the EM spectrum overload produced by the bombs; the colors were shifting around crazily. I'm not sure who it was, but someone was facing directly toward JB Swift, because we had a very good image of his small form as it started sparking and then blew itself to pieces.

  After the light show faded and Wizzit stopped the vid, Shelley said, "I guess that's that. Any comments?"

  "How could they destroy all their monsters so quickly?" Trina asked. "I don't understand that; it doesn't seem possible. We can't even do that, and it's our job."

  "I am sure the Harley twins must have access to certain information we don't," Nicolai replied after a moment's thought. "Access codes, private encryption keys, backdoors . . . I suppose they could have exploited anything like that to blow up every single monster in the area."

  "They could indeed," Wizzit agreed. "Each Enclave base, in fact, has its own unique backdoor baked into every monster produced there, from the highest level on down. I believe it's to keep everyone in line and to prevent rogues like JB Swift. Anyone who knew the code could create a bomb like the ones they used."

  "So that's why the Harley Twins left before the bombs blew up," Trina said thoughtfully. "To keep from getting destroyed themselves."

  "But to create such a bomb would be foolish in the extreme," Nicolai objected. "And not only because of the danger to themselves. If the backdoor were to become known to us . . ."

  "It would be difficult to determine the backdoor code simply by analyzing the event we just saw," Wizzit said. "For one thing, it would require extremely detailed recordings from several distinct sources. Those recordings would have to be gone over in great detail by someone with a good deal of patience and technical knowledge and oodles of computer processing power backing him up. I'm sure they're not worried about that at all."

  No one can sound as smug as Wizzit when he wants to, and I waited for him to say something further, maybe to crow about how clever he was or something. He didn't, though. In fact, that seemed to be his last word on the subject.

  "So JB Swift really is gone, then," Padma said softly after the silence had grown uncomfortably long.

  "Looks like," agreed Toby. "It's hard to believe."

  "When I talked to him during the battle," I commented, "he seemed surprised that we hadn't adopted the tactic he was using, getting the monsters to attack and destroy each other."

  "The reason we haven't done that is because they never give us a chance," Mike said. "Enclave always send their monsters to different spots around the globe. We don't ever see any more than one at a time."

  "Yeah, that's kind of what I told him."

  Mike turned to Shelley. "You're going to go over this with Violet tomorrow when she gets in, right?"

  "That's right, whenever that is."

  "Right, then. I think we're done." Mike got to his feet, signaling the rest of us to do the same. "Toby, Trevor, I expect we'll see you tomorrow when you bring in our new Prime Violet."