by Beth Lynne
She was a shapeshifter and had the ability to change her form whenever she wished. However, they discovered she could not do this in other levels under the Earth’s surface, such as in the Chamber. This was why her true form was revealed to Sidra at a very inopportune time.
“Why are you so angry at me, Sidra? Did you really think I was a talking cat?”
“I’m angry because you didn’t tell me. All those times I was loving Mittens and it was actually a person.”
“Well, no, not really. Mittens is still a kitty and I take her place sometimes.”
25
“Mittens is still a kitty and I take her place sometimes.”
Sidra could not believe the words as they left this creature Saturn’s mouth. “Where is Mittens?” she shouted. “What the hell did you do with her?”
Celia rolled her eyes. Here they were, in a horrible world crisis, potentially about to be taken over by some alien creatures from below the Earth’s surface, and this teenager was worried about her kitty cat? Oh, for God’s sake! “Sidra, please pull yourself together. Let’s have our meeting first and then we can talk about the situation with your cat.”
Sidra was no rebel; she meekly followed her ex-principal out of the Chamber and back into the conference room. She did turn around and glare at Saturn, who vaguely reminded her of an older, prettier Venti. Why were her nemeses always tall blondes? How come she couldn’t kick some rodent’s ass, someone shorter, uglier, more insignificant than she was? Saturn looked past her and Celia turned. Sidra caught Celia’s mumble to Saturn. “Why didn’t you tell her? I don’t have time for this crap.” Wonderful, already on the boss’s shit list.
Saturn did not respond to Celia and stared down at the ground, definitely chastised. Wasting the boss’s time was a sin. Her paycheck was probably going to be docked. Saturn shuddered. Her credit card bills were crazy-high. And the apartment she barely lived in wasn’t cheap.
Smith was at the tail end of the disgruntled group. Women! Can’t live with them, can’t stab them, chop them into pieces, and bury them, mainly because of advanced CSI technology. He let out an involuntary, very audible sigh, which caused all three already stressed-out females to turn around and glare at him. He averted his eyes. This was all off to a bang-up start.
Once back in the conference room and seated, with Celia at the head of the table, and Jordan and Tanya, giggling, back from their own impromptu “meeting” and present in their closed circuit monitor, the introductions were made. Simon acknowledged everyone with a smile and a nod, while Val would say “pleased to meet you” to everyone as they said who they were and their role in this team. Sidra kept her head down and would not look at anyone, as she was embarrassed over her earlier behavior. She mumbled her introduction inaudibly and Celia thanked her by name, essentially repeating her introduction. Saturn sucked up the unfortunate incident and drew upon her acting classes to smile brightly at everyone. Bella glared, unmoving, and Tanya and Jordan waved excitedly at the assemblage. When Smith introduced himself, all of the team cheered and fist pumped in the air, even Sidra, who was starting to snap out of her funk thanks to Val, who kept poking the girl and whispering nonsense to her, which was impossible for Sidra not to laugh at.
“Now that the introductions are over,” Celia began, “let me explain in more detail why we are gathered together, what our specific purpose is. After that, please assist me in naming our team and also our teen wonder, Sidra.”
Sidra gave her a small head nod and smile at Val’s urging.
Celia continued, “I think the guides have shared with each of you fighters why you have been selected. Your vibes are strong, your hearts are true, and so far the reports from Smith are favorable in regard to your fighting skills. You each have skills and talents, i.e. superpowers, if you prefer, that complement each other as a team. You also have diverse backgrounds that I feel lend themselves to a cohesive team. Do you each know your superpowers? Val?”
Val replied, “I throw fire at the opposition.” She grinned, showing her bright white teeth. Everyone, even Bella, smiled back.
“And very well too, Fireball,” Smith added. “Such dead-on aim.” Val blushed a bit and lowered her eyes in response to the praise.
“Simon?” Celia inquired.
“I am fast as lightning and can jump pretty well too. I think there are some martial arts involved. And, let’s not forget my talent for growing hair on my head where there hasn’t been any for ten years.” The conference room resounded with laughter at this added benefit for Simon, but he decided to draw the line at the hair and did not mention his ability to view body parts below the waist in the absence of his gut when he caught sight of Bella’s scowl. Must be the hair joke, he thought. He looked over at Jordan instead, who gave him a thumbs-up.
“And we know Val’s codename is ‘Fireball.’ Would you like to share yours?” Celia asked.
Simon cleared his throat. “Umm, Gray Hare,” he shared. There were a few snickers, mainly from Val. “It’s kind of, uh, ironic…”
“And we love you, Gray Hare!” Jordan yelled from his screen.
“Gray Hare rocks!” Smith called, making the sign of the horns in the air.
“Yeah, GH!” Val added. “Woooohoooo!”
Celia and Bella both frowned. What the hell is with the scowling and frowning? Simon wondered. No lemons on the buffet, not that anyone had been invited to partake yet. He decided to add to the mayhem despite the obvious disapproval it generated and waved his hands in the air.
“Okay, let’s regroup, come back together, team,” Celia admonished. “I like that, though. GH. Sidra, what is your superpower?”
“I am a samurai,” Sidra offered, more as a question than a statement. She hadn’t trained too much, since Celia asked Smith to go easy with Sidra, not liking the use of weapons too much by a minor child. She wanted to possibly develop Sidra’s espionage skills, as well as use of evasive tactics and fighting, rather than using swords and knives, as her aptitude and Smith’s evaluation indicated. She might have no choice, though, but this would depend on Sidra’s stability. At the moment, she seemed to have a propensity toward hot-headedness, as evidenced by her attack on another student at school, although it was a bully and one with a vibe at that, and also this near-attack on Saturn, who may or may not have deserved it.
“What else do you think you can do?” Celia asked.
“I am a pretty good artist,” Sidra told her.
“That’s nice, but what makes you a fighter?”
“People underestimate me. I am small and insignificant, but I can and will attack if needed, particularly since I am sick of being picked on by people who think they are better than me.” She glared pointedly at Saturn, who smiled at Sidra. Sidra gave her a scowl to rival Bella’s. Saturn returned her focus to Celia.
“Sidra, do you have a codename?” Tanya asked from her place on the wall before the room became too uncomfortable.
“Not yet,” Sidra told her.
“How about ‘Feisty Girl’?” Smith suggested. Sidra blushed a bit.
“We’ll work on it,” Celia assured him. “Now what is also interesting is that I knew all three of our fighters back when I worked for the school district. Val was a social worker, Simon was a coworker in the science department of the high school, and Sidra was a little girl when I was a brand new elementary school principal.”
There were murmurs around the room of how interesting that was, how serendipitous, how fortunate they were to meet again.
“And now we are together again to fight a common enemy, one that threatens our freedom, our way of life, our lives, and those of our families. I am talking about what we are calling the Underworld, a group of terrorists that live under the Earth and crawl out through fissures in the Earth’s surface.” She nodded at Twinkie, who was manning a PowerPoint. She showed the group several slides of two-legged ruddy-skinned creatures with horns, similar to those in the training simulations. They were accompanied in some pictures by four
-legged beetle-type things that were at least six feet long and three feet high. “So far, we have been able to keep them out or detain them at several different maximum-security facilities, but they are multiplying and their threat is increasing. We also have a few different factions that are attempting to, or may have already, assisted these threats in entering the Earth’s surface through the fissures. At the moment, we have a rather large fissure in our town, which is why there is a critical need for our team to get into shape. The agency prefers to keep this under wraps to prevent hysteria, so local law enforcement is not privy to this information. If it should be revealed, God only knows what might happen. The panic, the mass hysteria…”
Simon cleared his throat. “So the end of the world is ‘need-to-know.’ That is ridiculous. Truly, Celia, is all of this for real? Those creatures look manufactured.”
“Simon, I understand your skepticism, but I assure you, this threat is real, and we have groups who are helping these creatures come through to our surface. We need your help to keep them all in control because you are able to go into their world. You can be of more help than you can imagine by keeping them at bay in the Underworld. Right now, our immediate concern is the fissure that I mentioned, which we are honing in on to pinpoint. We have it almost identified, thanks to the hard work of Agent J. Flowers.”
“So where is this fissure?” Simon asked, still not convinced, although he had already seen the impossible this week.
“Agent?” Celia directed to Jordan.
“It runs along Center Street, stretching three blocks, with the largest and weakest structure under Fourteenth Street. Which means it is directly under—”
“The elementary school,” Celia supplied.
A collective gasp emanated from the room.
26
“It is an extremely critical spot,” Celia continued.
“All those little kids!” Val exclaimed. My kids, she thought, panicked.
“Exactly,” Celia agreed. “So this is why we need you now, to stop the Underworld and their helpers before they do something terrible.”
“Forgive my skepticism again, Celia, but how do you know these creatures are a threat? They could just be incredibly ugly but not dangerous.”
“Glad you asked, GH.” The group chuckled at her use of his codename nickname. Celia nodded at Twinkie, who forwarded a few slides to a structure whose side walls were leaning toward the center of the building. It appeared as if the whole thing had caved in to the center.
“This is a school in Borlänge, Sweden. A few months ago, during the school day, the building collapsed into a sinkhole, trapping over thirty students and their teachers. Our team there was able to recover most of the children and the two teachers within two days, but four of the kids perished, three from the fall into the Earth and one from diabetic complications. He was just five years old and had type 1 diabetes. There were many cases of dehydration and injuries such as broken bones and contusions, and we discovered that it was the work of these creatures: planning, digging, and kidnapping. They are targeting children, expecting that whatever demands they make will be met in a way that they won’t with adults. Our Swedish components were pretty quick to cover up the reason behind the collapse of the building, but we have intel that points to similar incidences all around the world. We need to stop them here in our town.”
“Oh, wow, I saw that on NewsSource Online!” Sidra exclaimed. This was an online news site that catered to teens and twenty-somethings that provided quick news soundbites. It was also a frequent source of fake or exaggerated news that was questionable in veracity. “They said it was a sinkhole that formed, I remember.”
“Why are they here, though, Celia, where they probably know you are and have the means to stop them?” Val asked. Simon nodded. That was a great question.
“They are not just here, Val,” Bella offered. “They are all over the place. Celia is in charge of the team here because she is familiar with the area.” She settled back in her seat and awaited Val’s rebuttal, it seemed.
Val made a face in Simon’s direction and rolled her eyes.
“I saw that, Val!” Bella scolded her.
Val laughed and nudged her new friend Simon. “That’s my girl, ya know!” Simon laughed with her.
Celia cleared her throat to bring the group back to order. “We are wasting time,” she said sternly. Val and Simon turned their attention back to Celia, feeling like little school kids getting in trouble for inattention in class. Saturn also unconsciously straightened in her seat.
“Anyway, as I stated before, the fissure Agent Flowers has discovered is a direct threat to the elementary school. It appears that the Underworld is going to attempt to access the school, kidnap the children, and hold them until they make their demands.”
“Which are?” Simon asked.
“We don’t know. We haven’t asked and haven’t attempted contact with them. And as bad as they are, we think that the people on the surface that are helping them are worse.”
“What do we need to do?” Val asked. She was extremely concerned about the children, particularly because her kids attended school there.
“There are several things. We need to step up your training, both in fighting and in accessing the layers below the surface. You need to drill in getting down there, so I need you to work with Smith and with your guides. I need you all to spend time together and practice meeting up in designated locations. You need to be a team. You also need to take more of the serum so that your body becomes used to having the superpowers. It works almost like an allergy shot, in which you develop immunities. In this case, you hold on to the powers and they may stay with you on the surface in time with regular shots. Currently, you haven’t got enough in your system to last more than a few hours, but if we are consistent with the treatment and you train, I think you will eventually be able to go weeks without needing another inoculation.”
“Are there long term effects using this drug?” Val asked.
“Serum, not drug,” Celia corrected. “Yes. It has made me stronger, younger, and happier than I ever was.”
“No, I mean is there any risk of dementia, cancer, or arthritis?”
“There is nothing that has been found. I do think your physiology is altered somewhat, I mean, it must be, but I think the benefits outweigh the risks.”
“Hmmm, that’s what long-time users of Tylenol thought. Now their livers look like they belong to heavy drinkers.”
“Wonder how your liver is looking, Val?” Bella called out.
“Probably like a tattooed scalp, Bella!” Val replied. “Cheers!”
“Oh my God!” Celia shouted, exasperated. “What is with this group? Agent Klein, you should know so much better than this! I won’t even get into your peccadillo, Agent Saturn. I am not done with you.” Saturn started to object. “I don’t want to hear that it isn’t your fault. And Agents Flowers, I would expect more decorum from the two of you. Married or not, your behavior is nearly indecent. Thank God it isn’t live and in-person!” The Flowerses looked up in alarm and with guilty, caught-out expressions on their faces.
“We are trying to become parents and I am ovulating,” Tanya started to explain.
Celia rose from her seat at the head of the table. “But during a meeting! You guides are horrible influences on your trainees. I have never seen anything like this!”
Everyone stared down, not able to meet Celia’s eyes or anyone else’s.
“And you trainees! Don’t tell me that I have to have a behavior class for you. Val, your side comments and whatever friction there is between you and Agent Klein is going to have to be put aside.”
“She ruined my marriage!” Val protested.
“To save the world!” Celia and Bella yelled in unison. Simon and Val snickered, while Smith looked amused. “This is serious business, people,” Celia added. She continued her litany, directing her gaze at Simon. “You, Mr. Skeptic, need to start believing in what you are doing.”
&n
bsp; Simon sighed. “I didn’t ask for this, you know,” he stated quietly.
“Then you don’t need to stay if you don’t want to.”
He sighed again and rose. “That may be for the best. How do I get out of here?”
“Agent Flowers?” Celia nodded toward Jordan.
“Aw, c’mon, man. Give it some time. We all got off on the wrong foot.”
“Nah,” Simon said. “I retired from this crap. Meetings, being treated like an adolescent in trouble, taking frigging orders. Hell no.”
“You’ll get old again!” Celia warned.
“Old ain’t bad! At least I was my own old man. This is not for me. Jordan, if you please.”
“Ah, Simon,” Jordan murmured, but he complied with the request, and in an instant, Simon faded away in front of the assemblage’s eyes.
Celia sank back down into her seat, slumping a bit and sighing. “Now, if we can get on with this meeting, here are your assignments. Agents Smith and Saturn, you will take control of training Fireball and Sidra as fighters. Agent J. Flowers, continue to monitor the fissure under the elementary school, following it as well to determine what other structures may be affected. Agents Smith and Saturn, you need to get underneath and bring your trainees with you to see what the fissure looks like from below. It may be a completely different view from what we are seeing up here, which is alarming enough. Agent Klein, you and Agent T. Flowers need to identify the turncoat who is assisting these creatures to the surface. Twinkie, please show everyone the person we are looking for.”
Twinkie went through a few slides until she landed on one of a slim figure dressed head to toe in black—black skinny jeans, black trench coat, black knee-length boots, and black balaclava covering the lower half of the individual’s face. They were standing next to one of the horned figures, in what appeared to be an alleyway.