“Is this allowed?” he whispered.
Anna giggled. It made Sam’s heart pump faster. “Allowed? We’re not kids anymore, Sam. Stop being so uptight.”
“I’m not uptight, it’s just—”
Anna bent down, and suddenly her lips were on his. He tasted her, breathed her in, felt her warmth, her closeness against him.
Sam didn’t resist as Anna pushed him back onto the bed. The squirming shape in his head was still and silent, like it couldn’t quite believe what was happening right now. Or, more importantly, what was about to happen over the course of the next two-to-five minutes.
A thought suddenly occurred to him. It was so pressing that it leapfrogged over the hundreds of others that currently competed for his attention, and so terrible that to his horror he found himself voicing it aloud.
“Will it get itchy?” he asked, his lips brushing against hers as he spoke.
Anna leaned back a little. “Sorry?”
“Down there,” said Sam, the words slipping out before he could stop them. “Will it get itchy? Or, I don’t know, burn, or something?”
Anna retreated further. She was still straddling him, but the expression on her face suggested she was no longer sure if she wanted to be.
“What are you saying?”
Sam’s eyes went wide. “No! I don’t mean… I meant because of your powers. Not because of… I wasn’t saying you’ve got…”
Anna’s smile returned. “Relax. I’m messing with you. No, it won’t get itchy,” she said. She lowered herself so her face was by his again. “Not saying it won’t burn a little, though,” she whispered.
“Not saying what won’t burn?” growled a voice from the door.
Randy.
“Oh my God! Were you two going to have sex?” he demanded. He was standing in the open doorway, a scowl on his face. “After everything I said?”
“What? No! We weren’t,” Sam said, his cheeks reddening.
“Yes, we were,” Anna corrected. “And not even because we wanted to. It’s just to annoy you. So, go away, Randy. And shut the door.”
“No can do,” Randy snarled. “Chuck wants to see you both. Says it’s important.”
Anna sighed. “Can it wait like…” She looked down at Sam and regarded him with a smirk, before turning back. “…two minutes forty-five seconds?”
It took Sam a moment.
“Hey!” he protested.
“Fat chance,” Randy growled. “It’s vital that he sees us all. Right now. The fate of the world could depend on it.”
Anna groaned. “Fine,” she said, dismounting Sam. “Stupid fate of the world.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled with exasperation, then held a hand out to help Sam up. “Come on, let’s go find out what’s so important.”
Sam lifted one leg a little, disguising the bulge in his shorts. The redness of his cheeks became full-blown crimson. “I’ll, uh, I’ll catch up.”
“Surprise!”
A single party popper gave a disappointing paf, showering the floor in front of Mari with thin paper ribbons, sparkling confetti, and other mess she was all too aware she’d only have to clean up later.
Randy had insisted all three of them go at the same time, so Sam had been forced to waddle some of the way, until things calmed themselves down in the shorts department. Anna had taken great delight in this, and had sniggered gleefully for most of the walk. Randy seemed confused by the laughter at first, then increasingly irate when he couldn’t work out what was meant to be so funny.
To Sam’s surprise, Randy’s own walk was completely limp-free. The shape of his leg earlier had suggested he’d at least need crutches, if not a wheelchair. And yet, here he was, skulking along near the walls without a hint of difficulty.
“Apparently, it’s the suit,” Anna said, seeing how Sam was studying Randy’s legs. “It speeds up recovery. That’s why he’s still wearing the pants.”
And now, a few minutes after all that, here they were back in the dining room, with Mari shooting a party popper at them, and an uncomfortable-looking Chuck bellowing, “Surprise” in their general direction.
Anna frowned and looked around. The dining room looked pretty much exactly as she’d left it ten minutes ago. “What’s the surprise?” she asked. “Is it that you brought us back here for no reason?”
Chuck, who had been standing up, sat down. “It was Randy’s idea,” he said.
“Oh, was it?” said Anna, turning to glower at him. “He said it was something important.”
“It is important,” Randy growled. “It’s the most important thing in the world!”
Anna crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“OK, no, it’s not that important,” Randy admitted. “That would be insane. But it’s still important. To the team.”
“He has a point,” said Chuck. “You guys did good today. We should celebrate that.”
“We were just about to when Randy walked in,” Anna said.
Chuck frowned. “Huh?”
Anna sighed. “Doesn’t matter.”
Sam’s head was still a little light from the wine and the abrupt, unexpected movement of blood around his body. He wasn’t quite sure what was happening, exactly, but whatever it was, he was pleased to see Kapitän Nazi didn’t seem to be part of it.
“Sit down,” Chuck urged, gesturing to the seats at the table around him. “Mari, do me a favor? Grab us the bottle of wine from the cabinet. The real stuff, I mean.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Anna.
“No, please, I insist,” said Chuck. He nodded to Mari, and the robot trundled off. Chuck fixed Anna with a somber look. “Unless you have something to tell me?”
Anna’s face became a picture of innocence. “Hmm? No. No, don’t think so.”
“Like that you broke into the cabinet and already took the bottle,” said Chuck. “For example.”
Anna clicked her fingers. “Wait. That is ringing a bell.”
“It was my idea!” Sam blurted.
“No, it wasn’t,” said Anna.
“No,” Chuck agreed. “It wasn’t.”
Sam seemed to shrink a little. “OK, no, it wasn’t.”
“Under normal circumstances, I’d be pissed,” said Chuck. “But, as Randy pointed out, this is supposed to be a celebration, so I’m going to let you off. Do it again, and you’re off the team.”
Anna’s eyes lit up. “You promise?”
“Does that go for me, too?” asked Sam, rising from his seat. “Because if so…”
“Funny,” said Chuck, stony-faced. “Look at me cracking up here.”
Mari whirred in and deposited a full whiskey bottle on the table with an unceremonious thunk. “There was no wine, so I brought that,” she said.
“Now you’re talking!” said Anna.
“Do you want me to open it for you, too?” Mari asked.
“Would you mind?” said Chuck.
“I was being sarcastic,” said Mari. “What am I? Your servant?”
Chuck straightened a little. “Oh. Oh. Sorry, I just… Sometimes, it isn’t clear. With the voice, I mean.”
Mari’s digital face became a scowl. Everyone at the table jumped as a blade scythed out from within her metal torso and neatly decapitated the whiskey bottle.
“Fuck!” Anna ejected.
The bottle teetered on the tabletop for a second or two, before righting itself.
“There,” Mari said. “Enjoy.”
She returned to the site of her party popper launch, and as she rolled herself back and forth across it, the streamers, glitter, and other debris were all quickly vacuumed up.
There were four wine glasses on the table. Chuck opened his mouth to ask Mari for other glasses, but then thought better of it. He glugged a shot into each glass, then slid three of them across the table to Sam, Anna, and Randy. Randy peered down at his like it was an unexploded bomb.
“I don’t drink alcohol,” he growled. “It poisons
the body and clouds mind.”
“Yeah, pretty sure that’ll be the least of your mind’s problems,” Anna said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Randy demanded.
“Seriously, still with the voice?” Sam muttered. “Even now?”
“Nothing,” said Anna. “It’s not supposed to mean anything. All I’m saying is don’t worry about it. When has alcohol ever hurt anyone? Booze is our friend, not our enemy. I think we’d all do well to remember that.”
Sam swirled the amber liquid around in his glass, then took a sip. His gums drew back of their own accord, then his whole body gave a shudder. “Nice,” he said, his eyes suddenly streaming. He tried very hard not to cough. “Smooth.”
Anna sniffed her own glass, then touched the liquid to her lips. She smacked them together a few times, and flicked her tongue lightly across their surface, savoring the taste. “Mmm. Yep,” she said, nodding her approval. “It’s a good one. You know how you can tell?”
“How?” Sam asked.
“Because they’re all good ones. It was a trick question,” Anna told him. “Again, booze is not our enemy, it’s our friend.” She raised a finger, emphasizing the point. “With benefits.”
Chuck raised his glass to the center of the table. “I’m going to propose a toast,” he announced.
Everyone fell silent and waited.
And waited.
“Are you going to propose it today, or…?” Anna asked.
“I’m just trying to word it properly,” Chuck said, punctuating the reply with a tut of irritation. “OK. Here’s the thing,” he said. “When we first started this project, I was right behind it, you know? I was fully committed, and I thought—no, I knew—that it was a good idea. I knew that, if the time ever came when we had to activate it, the Sidekicks Initiative was a solid plan.”
“Amen!” said Anna, chinking her glass against his.
“And then I met you guys,” Chuck continued. “And, I’ll be honest, I lost some of that confidence.”
“Oh, you’re not done,” said Anna, lowering her glass again.
“You were not what I expected,” said Chuck.
“We were better than you expected,” said Randy, nodding in agreement.
“No. No, worse. Definitely worse. In every way,” Chuck corrected. “When I saw you all fighting those henchmen, I thought, ‘Chuck, you have wasted your life. You have just gone and thrown those years away.’”
“Amen!” said Anna again, although she didn’t bother to raise her glass this time.
“Twenty years, and what have I got to show for it?” Chuck asked. “A god who won’t use his powers, a borderline alcoholic who makes people sneeze, and a guy who—and I’m being generous here—might be able to talk to butterflies.”
Sam looked around the table at the others. “Uh, are you sure you understand the concept of ‘celebration,’ Chuck? Because this doesn’t feel like one at all.”
“I’m getting to my point,” Chuck replied.
“Thank God for that,” said Anna, staring longingly into her glass.
“My point is, John told me how you guys performed out there today. He told me you delivered the goods. Was your style unorthodox?” Chuck nodded. “Sure. Sounds like it. But you worked together, and you stopped four gangbangers mugging an old lady. Hell, maybe doing a whole lot worse. I had my doubts, but I was wrong. You guys weren’t sidekicks today. You were heroes.”
Anna shrugged and gestured to the others sitting around the table. “Well, he almost killed himself, he got shot in the chest, and I fell off a drainpipe, but… fuck it. I’ll take it,” she said. “To we three heroes!”
They all clinked glasses together. Even Randy, although he didn’t join the others in taking a swig. Instead, he brought the glass to his mouth and tentatively touched his tongue against the surface of the liquid.
His face contorted in displeasure and he shook his head violently, flapping his tongue around in an attempt to rid it of the taste.
“How can you drink that? It’s disgusting!”
“It’s only disgusting the first, like, twenty to thirty times,” Anna told him. “After that, it’s tolerable for a while, and then, much later, it’s awesome.”
“So… what now?” asked Sam.
Chuck peered at him over his glass. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what happens next? We’ve been out in the field. We did good, you said so yourself. Do we go after the Beef Chief?”
“Shit, no!” Chuck blurted, almost choking on his drink. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, Sam. You took down four non-powered, lightly armed individuals. There’s a long road ahead before you’re ready to take on any supervillains, let alone one at Beef Chief’s level.”
He leaned back in his chair. “In a week or two, maybe—maybe—you’ll be ready to go after someone like Fiddlesticks or Mister Fister, but there’s a whole lot of work to do before then.”
Randy had set his glass down on the table. Anna eyed it for a while, then reached over to take it. “Well, if you’re too much of a wimp, I’m not letting this go to waste.”
“Ha!” Randy spat, snatching the glass up before she could take it. “Butterfly King is no wimp.”
He drew the glass to his lips, eyeballed everyone in turn over the rim, then knocked the whole shot back in one go.
For a moment, his expression became a grimace of horror, with just a suggestion of surprise, like he hadn’t actually been expecting the booze to enter his body.
Finally, he set the glass down. “See? Easy,” he said.
His head fell forward and thunked onto the table. Everyone watched him for a while, waiting to see if anything else was going to happen.
Nothing did.
“Well, you broke him,” said Sam. “Good job.”
“Let’s be fair, he was already pretty broken to begin with,” said Anna. She lowered her voice and directed it at Chuck. “I mean, seriously. What is with that guy? Where did you dig him up?”
“He’s been… around. We’ve kept an eye on him,” Chuck said. “He was the only one of you guys to keep up the whole sidekick thing, then he went solo. We hauled him in a couple of times, trying to dissuade him from getting himself killed, but he insisted he was making a difference.”
Chuck shrugged. “And I guess he was. Was it a positive difference? That, I don’t know. But he was trying. I thought we should give him a shot.”
“OK, but we’ve just seen what happens when you actually give him a shot,” said Anna, flicking her gaze to the back of Randy’s head. “I mean, I’m not saying I don’t like him—I don’t really, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying… is it wise? Having him tag along, I mean? He could’ve died jumping off that roof. We could’ve died helping him.”
She tapped her glass and eyed the bottle. Chuck got the hint.
“And then there’s the whole butterfly thing,” she said. “I’m still not clear on what he can do with them.”
“Nor are we,” Chuck admitted.
“Exactly my point,” said Anna. “I just think… You know, with everything… Is it wise?”
“Probably not,” conceded Chuck. “But the alternative is he takes matters into his own hands, goes out there on his own, and gets himself killed.”
Anna took a glug of her drink. “If the choices are, ‘He gets killed on his own,’ or, ‘He gets killed along with both of us,’ then that’s not really a choice at all,” she pointed out. She gestured around them. “Can’t you keep him here? Isn’t there some job you can give him that’ll keep him safe and out of our way?”
Chuck looked thoughtful as he topped up his own glass. “Like a desk job?”
“Exactly! Like a desk job. He’s in the game, but he’s not in it in it,” Anna said. “Sam? You agree with me, right?”
Sam blinked at the sound of his name. “Huh? Oh. Uh…” He regarded the unconscious Randy as his mind raced to catch up. “I kind of like him. I mean, sure, he’s got his issues, but he
’s been out there fighting the fight for years. And he’s still in one piece, so he can’t be that bad at it.”
“You haven’t seen his medical records,” said Chuck.
“No, but I’ve seen his scars,” said Sam. “To get hurt like that and still want to jump right back into the ring every time? That takes a lot of guts.”
“Or a complete lack of common sense,” said Anna.
“Or that, yes,” Sam admitted. He slid his glass across the table from one hand to the other and back again. “I’m just saying, good luck getting him to take a desk job.”
Randy muttered something in his sleep. It was loud, but mostly incomprehensible, and while it sounded like it might have been something about goat cheese, it equally might not have been. Whatever it was, it was enough to steer the conversation away from his shortcomings and onto a different topic.
“What’s with the museum?” Sam asked.
Anna raised an eyebrow, and Sam realized he hadn’t mentioned it.
“There’s a room full of old superhero stuff,” he explained. “It’s like a little museum or something.”
“Oh. That. Yeah,” said Chuck. “Been so long since I was in there, I almost forgot we had it. It was Mari’s idea, mostly.” He pointed to the robot. Her digital expression didn’t change. “Because we had space down here on the government’s tab, they started sending us some stuff for storage. Junk, mostly, but there were some interesting pieces in there.”
“Like what?” Anna asked.
“Bits of costume. Old weapons. Artifacts from various adventures. That kind of thing,” Chuck explained. “We didn’t know how difficult it might be to convince you guys to get involved with the project, so Mari came up with the idea of making like a… What did you call it again?”
“An inspiration room,” said Mari.
“That was it. An inspiration room. You know, to inspire your asses,” Chuck said, grinning at them. “Turned out, we didn’t need it.”
Randy sat up suddenly, ejecting a loud, “Buh!” that mostly came out through his nose. His goggles had slipped down over one eye, which seemed to confuse him greatly. Both eyes swiveled madly, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Aaand he’s back,” said Anna.
The Sidekicks Initiative Page 16