In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy

Book 19: Disease of Behavior

Liam Gibbs

IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWRY book 19: DISEASE OF BEHAVIOR

Copyright (c) 2021 Liam Gibbs

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

As awesome as this book is, it’s a work of fiction. I know, I know. We were all hoping, but it just ain’t gonna be. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s freaky imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely bonkers and coincidental. In other words, sadly you can’t get Schizophrenic’s autograph.

ISBN 13: 978-1777638627

First printing: April 2021

{ PLOT DEVICE PUBLISHING }

The Story So Far...

This stupendous, amazing, spectacular, not-at-all-overhyped comedy/science-fiction series can be found in the following parts:

Book 1: Serial Fiction Sideshow, available in the hearts of one and all

Book 2: Home Sweet Home Invasion, available in the hearts of one and all

Book 3: Technophobia, available in the h—you’re starting to see a pattern here, aren’t you?

Book 4: Armageddon Trigger Finger, available in...hey...your heart. And one and all’s too.

Book 5: The Genetic Equation, available blah blah blah.

Book 6: Power Tool, not available. Just kidding. Totally available.

Book 0: The Story So Far, you know the drill.

Available on the Author’s Super-Awesome Site

Book 7: The Lesser of Two Egos

Book 8: Untitled of Attitude Adjustments

Book 9: Those We Left Behind

Book 10: Metaphor for Life

Book 11: Oh, Crock, Here Comes a Meteor!

Book 12: His Kingdom Come

Book 13: A Wolf in Sheep’s Armor

Book 14: Man Versus Machine Part 1 of 1

Book 15: Our New Hiring Policy

Book 16: Life Like Broken Glass

Book 17: The Church of Steeple

Book 18: Blood Bunny

Book 19: Disease of Behavior

Book 20: The Paper Tiger’s Yardstick

Book 21: This One Has a Dancing Gibbon

Book 22: My Brother’s Captor

Book 23: Marching Orders

Book 24: We, Robots, but not yet ’cause it’s being worked on just for you

Please visit www.inagalaxyfarfarawRy.com for more information.

Other Stuff the Author Spewed Out

Maybe check out these other things ’cause they’re superfine too!

Not So Superpowered, available at tiny.cc/nssuperpowered

Three Flash Fictions, available upon request from the author

Random limericks, available in bathroom stalls

Your Favorite Table of Contents

Book 19: Disease of Behavior

Chapter One: In Transit

Chapter Two: We’ve Got to Stop Meeting like This

Chapter Three: Attention, Ladies, Gentlemen, and That Palm Tree over There

Chapter Four: Insanity’s Wish List

Chapter Five: Weapons Hot

Chapter Six: The Peasants Are Revolting

Chapter Seven: And Ten Different Mustards

Chapter Eight: Pet Shopping

Chapter Nine: You Can’t Barricade the Revolution

Chapter Ten: No Method, All Madness

Chapter Eleven: The Shang in the Ointment

Chapter Twelve: The Emotional Baggage Claim

Chapter Thirteen: Precise Mathematics of Irrationality Divided by the Silver Ratio

Chapter Fourteen: ...And Then This Blithering Nonsense

Chapter Fifteen: One-Track Mob Mentality

Chapter Sixteen: Whack Job

Chapter Seventeen: Clean-Up Crew

Chapter Eighteen Contractual Obfuscations

Chapter Nineteen: Where Vultures Dare

Chapter Twenty: Retrospective Introspection

Chapter Twenty-One: The Doctor Is In

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Punchline

Appendices

About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once

Connect with the Series

This Isn’t Even My Final Form!

The following story ain’t professionally edited. I know, I know, why am I inflicting this on you?

For cool reasons.

Professional editing, covers, and the whole shebang takes money. And creating appendix material takes time. The In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy series has been steadily seeing new releases, but they’re release at the rate of one per year, while they’re written at a rate of one every nine months or so. Do the math. The series will never catch up.

The author, awesome brain that he has, only ever wanted to share these stories with the world.

Money wasn’t ever a goal. I know by offering these books for free—professionally packaged or not—I’ll be losing money. I honestly don’t care. Since releasing the books free of charge yet without the “professional” look, I’ve found the stress of running this whole series has gotten much manageable. This leaves me with more time to do what I set out to do: write the stories and share them.

I still attend trade shows and comic conventions and sell the books there. Each book will, eventually, be given the professional touch. But, while we’re waiting, all I want to do is share these.

If you see something ain’t right, or something you want to comment on, please feel free. Think of yourself as a beta-reader: a pre-reader of something unreleased. Voice your thoughts at liamgibbs@inagalaxyfarfarawry.com. Until the book gets professionally released, I consider it a work in progress.

So what you’re reading here is the book without the professional touches. I’ve edited this book a dozen times or more, and so I believe it’s as polished as I can get it. I feel comfortable letting you see it. It will one day be professionally edited. One day. But until then, know that you’re reading what I believe to be as polished as I myself can get it.

Enjoy!

Or don’t. I really have no control.

Chapter One: In Transit

March 14, 9110. 8:19 a.m. (Galactic Standard Time).

Shang Xiu’s name was Shang Xiu. These things rarely got past Shang Xiu.

Shang was a boy’s name. Shang Xiu was a girl. Shang Xiu’s parents had given Shang Xiu a boy’s name. People who gave their children opposite-gender names were people Shang Xiu’s former classmates called “bonkers crocked.” Consequently, Shang Xiu concluded that Shang Xiu’s parents were bonkers crocked. Shang Xiu would look up that meaning one day.

“Shang” meant, among other things, “business.” Therefore, Shang Xiu must mean, among other things, business. Business was how Shang Xiu operated. Mostly medical business. Shang Xiu’s bonkers-crocked parents had taught her the strictest rules of operating in business. Shang Xiu’s parents had reinforced these strict rules by supplementing all of Shang Xiu’s allowances with accounting ledgers.

Shang Xiu did not understand normal people. Shang Xiu regarded normal people as things, chess pieces, obstacles to remove when their usefulness expired. Manipulating normal people was effortless.

Shang Xiu could do little business right now. Shang Xiu was in shackles and leg irons. The shackles were inch-thick gloves. The leg irons were heavy space boots. Business was hard to conduct while you wore shackles and leg irons. Business was also hard to conduct with no accounting ledgers.

Shang Xiu stepped out from the South Gusgus Penitentiary’s front door. South Gusgus Penitentiary was a penitentiary for normal people. Hyperpeople, those with special abilities, did not come to the South Gusgus Penitentiary unless those hyperpeople were not revealed as hyperpeople. This was a shame. This was a shame because Shang Xiu was interested in hyperabilities, especially the fart sounds some of them made. Shang Xiu was not above bathroom noises.

Shang Xiu was in the South Gusgus Penitentiary ground’s dusty front yard. Shang Xiu noted the South Gusgus Penitentiary’s panoptical layout as Shang Xiu had noted countless times before. Shang Xiu breathed. The air Shang Xiu breathed was damp. The air Shang Xiu breathed was humid. This March 14, 9110 morning was the end of a hot March 13, 9110 night. The inhalation was the first fresh air Shang Xiu had breathed in six months, three weeks, two days. Shang Xiu could not be more precise than that calculation because Shang Xiu had no watch. Shang Xiu had broken her watch over fellow inmate Luyiss Limprux’s head four months, two weeks, eight days ago. Shang Xiu could not be more precise than that calculation because Shang Xiu had no watch.

Morning birds chirped. Leaves danced a brittle pirouette. Boots crunched on gravel behind Shang Xiu. Someone approached Shang Xiu from behind. If Shang Xiu had not worn leg irons, Shang Xiu could eviscerate the person approaching from behind. This was just business. Still, the assault might have somewhat entertained Shang Xiu: fart noises could have ensued.

Shang Xiu was indeed a special person. Some people compared Shang Xiu’s logic to binary. Some people compared Shang Xiu’s speech to a language textbook. Some people commented that Shang Xiu did not know pronouns well. Shang Xiu could not know pronouns well: pronouns were not people. Shang Xiu was that astute.

“Get moving.” Marshal Lucioss Gringe growled. Marshal Lucioss Gringe was a Trioxidillian. Marshal Lucioss Gringe had green skin. Therefore, Marshal Lucioss Gringe did not have blue skin. Blue-skinned Trioxidillians had tails. Therefore, Marshal Lucioss Gringe had no tail. Marshal Lucioss Gringe shoved Shang Xiu from behind. Marshal Lucioss Gringe was excessively forceful when interacting with Shang Xiu. Shang Xiu stumbled forward. Shang Xiu skidded a leg iron over the dirt path. Shang Xiu got the hint. Shang Xiu was to begin walking. Some hints were not fun to Shang Xiu.

Shang Xiu was being transported. Shang Xiu did not know to where Shang Xiu was being transported. Nevertheless, Shang Xiu was being transported. Shang Xiu accepted her transport since the usefulness of the South Gusgus Penitentiary had expired. Shang Xiu’s supply of secret hyperpeople had run dry. Shang Xiu’s business here had ended.

Shang Xiu began traveling the short dirt path. Shang Xiu was probably being transported to a higher-security penitentiary. Shang Xiu hoped this higher-security penitentiary offered more gravy. The South Gusgus Penitentiary’s mashed potatoes tasted bland. No gravy. Or blood.

A jail transport hummed idly approximately thirty-two dekameters down this path. The jail-tran was a Cackling Fire. Shang Xiu walked toward the Cackling Fire. Two other corrections officers stood next to the Cackling Fire. The two corrections officers standing next to the Cackling Fire held Marsek sidearms. Shang Xiu did not know the two corrections officers standing next to the Cackling Fire and holding Marsek firearms. One of the two corrections officers standing next to the Cackling Fire and holding Marsek firearms was Terran. One of the two corrections officers standing next to the Cackling Fire and holding Marsek firearms was Gharalgian. Oh. Now Shang Xiu heard the language textbook. Shang Xiu would have owed a certain someone an apology if Shang Xiu had not disemboweled a certain someone with a serving ladle. Oops.

Shang Xiu reached the jail-tran that was a Cackling Fire and that hummed idly. She reached the two corrections officers standing next to the idly humming Cackling Fire and holding Marseks. Marshal Lucioss Gringe was still behind her.

“Well, well.” The Terran corrections officer standing next to the idly humming Cackling Fire and holding a Marsek firearm smiled. A nametag was on the lapel of the Terran corrections officer standing next to the idly humming Cackling Fire and holding a Marsek firearm. The nametag of the Terran corrections officer standing next to the idly humming Cackling Fire and holding a Marsek firearm read, “Marshal R. Flugg.” Marshal R. Flugg was how Shang Xiu would continue to refer to the Terran corrections officer standing next to the idly humming Cackling Fire and holding a Marsek firearm. The Gharalgian corrections officer standing next to the idly humming Cackling Fire and holding a Marsek firearm had a nametag that read, “Marshal T. E. Hufwert.” Marshal T. E. Hufwert was how Shang Xiu would continue to refer to the Gharalgian corrections officer standing next to the idly humming Cackling Fire and holding a Marsek firearm.

“So you’re the famous Shang Xiu,” Marshal R. Flugg said. Was this not obvious? Shang Xiu determined that Marshal R. Flugg was not that astute.

Marshal R. Flugg had a thick southern accent. Marshal R. Flugg’s smile grew slimier. Shang Xiu had never smiled. Shang Xiu did not know what a smile felt like. Shang Xiu also did not know what a flamingo felt like. Shang Xiu had once written a list of three hundred eighty-two items of which Shang Xiu did not know the feeling. A Terran had once laughed at Shang Xiu for her list. Shang Xiu had etched item number three hundred eighty-three into this Terran’s face. Shang Xiu had to cross off her list item number forty-seven because she then knew what carving into Terran skin felt like.

Shang Xiu smelled Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s skin. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s skin smelled like whiskey. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s breath smelled like more whiskey.

“I never met a true sociorobotic before.” Marshal T. E. Hufwert cackled. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s uniform belt jiggled. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s belly jiggled. Marshal R. Flugg elbowed Marshal T. E. Hufwert when he cackled. Marshal. T. E. Hufwert cackled harder. Snot came out of Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s nose. Marshal T. E. Hufwert did not notice. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s cackle smelled like even more whiskey.

Shang Xiu regarded Marshal T. E. Hufwert. “Shang Xiu has never before met a Terran she knew she would kill ahead of time.” Marshal T. E. Hufwert stopped cackling.

Marshal T. E. Hufwert said, “Apparently you Terran sociorobotics put all other sociorobotics ta shame. True crockin’ apathy like no one ain’t never had.”

Shang Xiu was told sociorobotic was the term used for someone whose thinking matched a robot’s: without the capability of emotion. Shang Xiu was told her thinking matched a robot’s. Therefore, Shang Xiu concluded that Shang Xiu was a sociorobotic. But this could not be true. Shang Xiu enjoyed some things, among them control over and study of others. She enjoyed speaking a mere sentence to cause violently jealous reactions in others. She once told an inmate, Garhaft, that another inmate, Trysk, had stolen an affectation, simply so Shang Xiu could study the outcome. Trysk had killed Garhaft by beating her with a chair. Shang Xiu found a new use for cast iron. Then Shang Xiu had replaced Trysk’s affectation to analyze how Trysk would react to the perceived error. Trysk had hung herself. Shang Xiu had found this study fascinating. Shang Xiu used control to Shang Xiu’s advantage whenever Shang Xiu pleased, such as at family gatherings. Anyway, Shang Xiu redefined herself: Shang Xiu was not an exact sociorobotic. For instance, Shang Xiu enjoyed the thought of Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s reaction to her next sentence: “Your pants are on backward.” Hmm. Shang Xiu’s sentence had sounded more manipulative in Shang Xiu’s head.

Therefore, Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s claim was not true. Shang Xiu had little, but some, emotion. Shang Xiu was born with muffled emotion, as if enjoyment were muted behind a translucent silk veil. This led Shang Xiu to explore others, including Luyiss Limprux. The exploration had killed Luyiss Limprux four days seven hours fourteen minutes after the fight with Shang Xiu.

Shang Xiu had explored fifty-eight people. Exploration was why Shang Xiu was in the South Gusgus Penitentiary. Shang Xiu was in prison for life. The South Gusgus Penitentiary was Shang Xiu’s fourth prison. The South Gusgus Penitentiary was Shang Xiu’s fourth prison because Shang Xiu continued to explore people. Shang Xiu explored people no matter where Shang Xiu was in prison. Shang Xiu was being transported because Shang Xiu continued to explore people. Shang Xiu once found jewelry inside a person. Even Shang Xiu thought this was weird. Shang Xiu did not think anything was weird. Except finding jewelry inside that person. Weird.

Marshal R. Flugg traveled Shang Xiu with acerbic eyes. Marshal R. Flugg wore a collection of ears dangling on a necklace. Marshal R. Flugg smirked, chuckled. “I have plans for you,” Marshal R. Flugg said. Shang Xiu wondered if Marshal R. Flugg’s plans were dinner plans. Shang Xiu enjoyed dinner plans that included mashed potatoes.

Mashed potatoes with gravy.

Chapter Two: We’ve Got to Stop Meeting like This

“Field Agent, what ridiculous groupies have you hired to dog you this time?” Good Guy field leader Plastique swatted away another of Catastrophe’s hangers-on, a compact guy in a hoodie and discolored khakis guiding a floating camera with seizurelike finger sweeps. “This one keeps staring at my elbows. Why elbows? Hey, weird elbow guy. You, with the elbow fetish.” He smelled like fish oil. “Why elbows?”

Trioxidillian Good Guy leader, Lieutenant Colonel Matross Legion, watched Catastrophe wander the room, holding yet another headshot he wanted to pin to a wall or, more likely, someone. Legion didn’t care. Today was his first outing from Good Guy headquarters Station One in weeks. It was his happy rapturous day. Hapturous Day, as he called it. It made his heart flutter with an adrenal shot. He intended to adopt Hapturous Day on alternating weeks or, around Field Agent Power Plant, every waking moment. In fact, the thought so enamored Legion that he intended it as a galactic holiday.

This was why Legion didn’t bother with this rowdy squabble between Plastique and Catastrophe. On the other hand, getting involved was Legion’s job. But today he didn’t care. He’d send Plastique and Catastrophe to sulk in opposite corners of the room before Plastique could tear out Catastrophe’s single stud earring, but nothing would ruin this blithe mood he’d drugged himself into. Not even the fistfight that had threatened to ensue when the Good Guys’ beta team stopped on the way here to recharge their transport F-Reaper and grab sodas. The fistfight ensued over which tasted better: orange or grape. Sixth Sense said Power Plant insisted on grape since orange burned when it sprayed out your nose. This was why Legion was content to live without the ability to read minds.

Catastrophe was a recent Good Guy recruit who’d come from a fizzling acting career that included starring in a once-hit show, Jack Fistbomb. Eager to resurrect his career, Catastrophe had, since their arrival here, stretched Plastique’s nerves taut with his insistent marketing efforts and greasy air. He pinned a headshot or movie promotional poster to whatever surface could hold one. In fact, Legion wore a poster on each arm. Catastrophe had hired a two-man camera crew to follow him for some reason.

Plastique cut the air with a severe hand. Already an unnatural rosy flush, her skin heated to a furnace red. She shoved away another cameraman, this one smelling like wheat bread. The cameraman careened against a table. Plastique pointed at Catastrophe, accidentally jabbing Sixth Sense in his owlish glasses. “You’re in violation of Intergalactic Protection’s civilian-affairs manual, Field Agent Garris—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Catastrophe, the one-man show, said. An overtanned finger waggled in his voice. “Eugene Garris is my commonplace name. I left that behind. Use my fame name, Rock de la Roche. Especially around the”—his hand stirred the air—“entourage.” His back was turned: he was slapping a datasheet to a wall in preparation for the “uninitiated” to show up.

“Stage use Rock name Roche de la please.” The hunchback, nose-picking sentence mangler, Scapegoat, puttered behind Catastrophe and bumped into Plastique, almost pitching her off her heels. He still slurped his orange drink or, more accurately, poked himself in the eye whenever he endeavored to use the straw. Legion couldn’t pay for entertainment like this.

“Guys, maybe let’s shoot some footage of me against the sunlight here.” Catastrophe indicated a strip of windows with the forefingers of his hands splayed out in L shapes as if framing a shot. “Let’s start with the windows, then zoom out—”

Plastique threw her arms in the air. “Fld. Agt. Rock de la Ridiculous, seriously, you’re in violation of IP’s civilian-affairs manual section fourteen, subsection A. We’re here as guests. The facility can’t have you directing your convoy of groupies and their floating cameras. And it especially can’t have you lining every surface—especially the surveillance equipment”—she ripped a datasheet off a monitor—“with useless headsho—What are you doing in this photo?” Plastique had flipped the datasheet over. Now Catastrophe’s smarmy smirk oozed at her. “Is this...Are you asking me on a date with this headshot? Ew. Do you have a weird elbow fetish?”

Catastrophe approached and peeked over her shoulder. “Ah. I christened that look as Chez Nuance.” He winked at her and ran a hand along his gelled hair, slicked back so much it formed a helmet. “It featured in the Jack Fistbomb calendar of 9080. October, I believe. Halloween was never so suave.”

“Or ghastly. I don’t accept dates from headshots.”

“You should be so lucky. Headshots are picky inanimate objects.” Legion breathed deeply the fresh scent of this basement room. Ahhh. The musk of furniture. Upholstered furniture at that. The Good Guys could never afford such extravagances.

Plastique gestured at the two Terrans operating the floating cameras like radar-tower operators landing starships. The camera buzzed around her. “And who are these people, anyway?”

“Hi, I’m Vick.” The fish-oil cameramen stuttered forward with a hand extended.

Plastique tweezed one of Vick’s fingers between two of hers. She shook. Slightly. “Not what I meant, but nice to know Elbow Guy has a name. Rock, who are these guys? Elbow Guy, I will hang your head from my belt if you don’t look away. And who is this?” She whirled a thumb at a third person, a professorial Gharalgian in an artist’s smock and a hedge for a whitened beard.

“I, my dearest, am the mononymous Garsilotke, Esquire, acclaimed character backstory specialist.” The Gharalgian tipped a hand to his hat and twirled that hand, offering a curtsy. “I am the prestigious winner of eight Charactie awards for my works in The Magic of Booster Seats, Gruel Attack, the 8996 Olympics, Bonanza Kite Jumper—”

“Stop talking.” Plastique shoved her hand over Garsilotke’s mouth. “It’s in your entrails’ best interest.” Back to Catastrophe. “So why the upsurge in self-marketing?”

Catastrophe hooked the sunglasses he wore, which he slid halfway down his nose. He gave one floating camera a flirtatious wink and a tongue click. “My new movie’s releasing in a month.” Ah, yes, Officer Nuclear, that movie Catastrophe headlined. Would Legion see it? Nope. Not on your life. Something about a movie poster depicting a cop and a doughnut-shop owner in embittered combat in front of the background of a...as the tagline put it...“world gone nucletarded.” This was the poster hanging off his hairless right arm.

Catastrophe waved at one of the floating cameras that buzzed like a mosquito. “So I elevated my advertising level from Half-Crocked to Full-On. I was lunching with the great Vankter Quinch, and he turned me onto this multilevel advertising plan. Vick here”—he back-patted the dark-skinned Terran who sprouted a wave and another gust of fish oil—“is filming the making of the catering of Officer Nuclear. And Gabby here”—he swung around at the other Terran—“is filming the making of the making of the catering of Officer Nuclear. And Garsilotke is my backstory specialist. He’s helping devise a history to flesh out my character, draw the audience in to genuinely sympathize with the despair, the agony, the selfless sacrifice an atomic officer of the law must make in order to safeguard the citizens of Nucleoberg. Garsilotke is amazing. That’s how he became an esquire.” Catastrophe placed fingers to lips and smooched as if describing a French delicacy. “He’s responsible for the characters of Tom Sawyer vs. Huckleberry Finn. He singlehandedly came up with idea to give Tom Sawyer a urinary tract infection and shoulder cannons.” He shut his eyes to reflect in exhilaration. “Opened him up to a three-dimensional world of empathy and blood-filled urine.”

“And repulsiveness.” Plastique swatted a camera away. It knocked into a baseboard. “Field Agent, not that we don’t appreciate the camera crew that somehow followed us to a training exercise, or the catering crew—”

“Hey, leave the catering alone!” Legion dipped a wiener wrapped in a croissant into a tub of hummus that yet another superfluous and uninvited civilian held up to him. “They offer bacon. Thank you, Patty.” Such imitation-meat saltiness to his taste buds.

“—but I’d like to make a good impression on the Virgonese military. We don’t need pigs in a blanket.” Plastique took the wiener Patty offered. “But we want them. Thank you.”

Legion snickered. “I’ve discovered a new love for paid-for catering. Oh, man. I got hummus on my necklace.”

“Anyway, it’s vital to get publicity in.” Catastrophe checked himself in a mirror so he could smooth his eyebrows with fingers and saliva. “The studio intends to target the Virgonese population with this motion picture. They think it’ll relaunch my career.” He combed down a cowlick that wouldn’t stay down and then winked at his reflection.

“Uh. Hey. Okay. Question. So.” His impact suit too large for his frame, the Good Guy telepath and telekinetic, Sixth Sense, averted his attention to the caterer who held a ceramic platter decked with a display of cured meats that tickled the nostrils. “Do we tip caterers? And, if so, how much? Ooh. Horseradish salami.”

“And you’re unusually blissful today.” Plastique plucked a headshot datasheet off her back and handed it to Legion. “Here. Let this brighten your day.” Legion didn’t even consider the headshot. He’d already beheld Catastrophe’s “Puma que liga,” roughly translated as “puma that flirts.” Thanks, but no. He flung it aside. Its corner ticked into Sixth Sense’s forehead. Sixth Sense fumbled his salami into a wisp of honey mustard.

Plastique reeled back from Catastrophe, her fist twitching as if she wanted to reignite the fistfight from earlier. “But Fld. Agt. Gar—Roch—Rock de—Fld. Agt. What’s-Your-Pretentious-Name, please stop draping everything in sight with marketing material. You’re covering a datasheet with another datasheet!”

“Just in case they don’t catch the first. There’s a three-picture deal riding on this. If Officer Nuclear makes budget, you could see Officer Nuclear Two: Sergeant Nuclear and Officer Nuclear Three: Nuclear Winter. This could relaunch my acting career. There’s no way I’ll let this fail.”

“Fld. Agt. Catastrophe, let’s convey a certain decorum here. Display some restraint.” Plastique threw an arm at the Good Guy leader as a sister tattling on her younger brother would. “Lieutenant Colonel Legion—”

“Nope. Lt. Col. Legion is heavily engaged in Hapturous Day.” Legion stretched out his arms and creaked back into them in this luxury, leather-padded chair. “You’re beta leader. You deal with Catastrophe and his entourage.” He smelled the room, what he described only as a mixture of roses and whatever caused that exquisite aroma of apple potpour—oh. Apples. Well, that would teach Legion not to turn around every so often. “But leave the complementary Officer Nuclear footbath alone.” He settled his toes into the water frothing under his chair. Double magnificent. He didn’t know if there existed true Xanadu, but it was possibly here making him so loopy that, for the first time, he considered trying something Intergalactic Protection deemed edible. And IP was the reason half of Station One’s guests were sterile. “No one bug me. I have unlimited access to fudge.”

“Fine, then.” Plastique folded her arms. “Change of subject before I empty Fld. Agt. Catastrophe’s insides. Who’s our competition for this training exercise here?”

“Here” was the planet Poltergeist in the Virgo constellation, known across astrocivilization as the hub of military intelligence. Whenever Intergalactic Protection’s armed services needed training that IP couldn’t provide—quite often since the attempted galactic cleansing of Mechanism, a mutinous criminal in the roster of the criminal empire Bad Guys, had left IP hobbling and broken—they shipped the soldiers here, to the primary training facility in Poltergeist’s capital city, Strexjthrik. Citizens of the solar system of Renovodomus couldn’t pronounce Virgonese words without suffering a migraine, so they used the English translation, Almagest. Legion hadn’t spoken a word of Virgonese since daring himself on a first date and ejecting a wonton. He vowed to never eat Cantonese on a first date again. He also vowed to never eat on a first date again.

A legend among military outfits and laser-tag leagues, Poltergeist drew everybody—everybody—for training. Why? The planet brimmed with lush scenery, the air was pure and lavish with tropical luxury, and the culture offered a vibrant arts-and-crafts scene. Next door to the military training compound. Leave it to the Virgonese to plop down a thriving humanities community next to one whose online shorthand was mostly nuclear launch codes.

Legion interrupted his reminiscence to scoop another fluff of fudge ice cream from his clear-glass goblet. You couldn’t beat this fudge. Peanuts! Another plus here was the Virgonese had designed a nut that didn’t trigger allergies. Not shellfish, though.

And in this training facility, one building stood proud, at least until Catastrophe’s redecoration would topple it over: Traitmount 83. Boasting a control center in the basement, here where Catastrophe exhibited his lack of shame and Scapegoat exhibited his knack for boogers, Traitmount housed four floors of training simulation with babbling technology decades ahead of anything IP could afford. And IP couldn’t afford much. Their training budget this month capped off at rotten tomatoes. And only because fresh tomatoes weren’t discounted. The cost of produce these days.

“I—I can’t take this anymore.” Plastique swatted away a floating camera again. It buzzed in complaint. “I’m about to rip Fld. Agt. Catastrophe’s head off. Through his back end. It would be strangely self-actualizing.” She scowled at Catastrophe and tore layers of headshots off a wall. Then she crunched a drink can against her forehead. It was full. “I need to calm myself. Time for my disaster-scenario workout.” She stomped to the other end of the control room, clutched the chin-up bar she’d brought for downtimes, and began a set of exercises Legion expected to extend into the triple digits. “One, two, three—Where is the operating crew anyway?—four, five...”

Elbow Guy was studying a datasheet hooked to his floating camera. “Miss Plastique, I didn’t catch you storming across the room, threatening Rock’s life, and then starting your fury chin-ups. Can you rage through that again? Take it from the threat.”

“Elbow Guy, you really need to step away. Twelve, thirteen—”

Sixth Sense passed, pushed his glasses up his nose. Legion held his spoon of fudge aloft, and he and Sixth Sense tapped chocolate to pastrami as if giving cheers after a toast. Legion chuckled. “Hey, Catastrophe, whenever you want to make the making of making of making of literally anything, I’m a hundred and ten percent in if it involves the making of the making of this fudge.” He scrutinized the mustard that Sixth Sense’s pastrami had smeared on his chocolate. Shrugged. Through the teeth, past the gums...Blllarrghh! He heaved. Still delicious though.

A control chamber in an IP training facility offered peeled laser-paint, a festoon of rats quarreling over insect corpses, dud landmines, computers that sneezed sparks—everything in Legion’s childhood daycare center. Traitmount 83, however, gleamed like the polished front yard of the deity Alaphus’s garden and smelled like roses.

“Twenty-two, twenty-three...”

Wall-to-wall viewscreens, not free floating but affixed in place, kept watch over the four floors above. They teemed so numerously that they bumped shoulders for front-row seating in this basement surveillance chamber. The premises also boasted an assortment of highlights Station One didn’t even touch on: padded and custom-air-conditioned chairs, hypoallergenic ventilation, a quiet corner for midday napping, decorative foliage from around the universe. Proper waste disposal.

The airfoil snuggling in the far side of the room dinged awake, a light panel above it clicking on like someone when their alarm clock ignited in sound. The airfoil’s latent-technology doors vanished. Not even l-tech, that technology that summoned objects from and stored them in computer memory, affected hapturous Legion today. Through the l-doors, two people entered the room, Virgonese sergeants their uniform nametags identified as Schlechniss and Shrizchago. Today’s training operators.

“Welcome, Good Guys.” Schlechniss rushed into the room. “Sorry for the lateness. We were held up feeding our battle elephants.” He stretched out a hand to shake Sixth Sense’s. Shrizchago occupied himself by tapping at a datasheet.

“You have battle elephants?” Sixth Sense blinked in wonder. “Legion—”

“Not until Power Plant kicks his stampede obsession.”

“Eighty-six, eighty-seven...” Plastique rambled through her limitless chin-ups. Whatever. Catastrophe marketed past, and she sneered. The grit in her teeth wasn’t from exertion but her scathing annoyance at her squadmate. “One hundred.” Plastique dropped to the concrete floor and stomped to the catering table. She slew a raspberry muffin with a Bowie knife and began chomping it apart. Scapegoat puttered past behind her and chewed apart sentences as disjointed as symbols on a slot machine. Sixth Sense settled into one of the lavish chairs, enjoying the leather padding and a ham-and-egg bagel. And their pilot Withered Old Battle-Axe—darling, elderly Mabel—famous for slipping in and out of either sleep or a coma, roused to offer grandmotherly advice to an ornamental clock she thought was a college student. She snarfed down a badger sandwich with smacking lips, every bite a showcase of her timeworn, purple gums.

Legion looked up at Schlechniss. “I’m Legion, leader of the Good Guys, and—” Legion sneezed. Whoa. Nasally orgasmic! Each mucus droplet metamorphosed into a tiny fairy and twinkled off like a firefly. He reached out to grasp a few of Alaphus’s beautiful little starlets, but they glittered around his fingers. “Are you guys seeing this? Am I high?”

“Good morning, Sergeant.” Plastique addressed Shrizchago because Shrizchago had a stump of an arm you couldn’t help staring at. In return, the stump couldn’t help infecting your nightmares like a thought plague. Sleep tight tonight. “I’m Good Guy field leader Plastique. Who are we competing against?” She hissed at Catastrophe like an edgy cat to another cat nearing its territory. Legion guessed she’d rip Catastrophe apart and stitch him back together in another arrangement except IP conduct manuals outlined specific policies against that.

A burst of noise tossed through the bank of elevator airfoils as if butting into the conversation with an answer. The opposition? Legion checked his watch. A little past nine thirty. The opposition was due here at nine. Late. To the tune of an airfoil whirring up to the ground floor, Catastrophe slapped a datasheet to Schlechniss’s back. Twice. Schlechniss either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Maybe Catastrophe had inflicted nerve damage back there.

“Yeah, I’m definitely high.” Legion twiddled his fingers.

The airfoil purred back to the basement, and the light panel above it woke back up. The l-door trumpeted away and out swaggered a Terran who fixed his hands on his hips as if preparing to sing from his diaphragm. Head haloed by the light panel above the airfoil, feet spread at shoulder width, he posed as if for a portrait. Two followers wandered out behind him.

“What’s up, wash-ups?” he said, his voice like an aged bulldog’s gruff bark. He was clad in ripped blue jeans, a ribbed T-shirt under a reflective leather jacket, and running shoes. And a toque. That he wore indoors. In summer weather. “So you’re the duds we’re trouncing today?” With the toque’s emblem facing backwards. “You all ready to have your crocks regurgitated at you?” His followers wore identical outfits.

Legion knew this guy. Well, knew his reputation. He was Success Party, who had legally changed his name from Gord Sigwell because, as he put it, “The name Gord sounds too rip-roaring sucktastic to contain the unattainable masterwork that I am.” He made air taste like old bacon grease. He led the fashion-statement clones behind him, the Curb Stompers, so titled because they thought the term meant to literally stomp a curb. This made for humorous demonstrations at press conferences.

The Curb Stompers was a team of self-aggrandizing hotshots known for brash tactics and flippant defiance toward higher authority and grocery-store express lineups. They were a branch of the chief military organization in the Lower Antilles Region and consisted of twenty men and women who adhered to no conduct manual, something that no doubt boiled Plastique’s blood into a potent source of heat energy. Standing in this shiny room was a subset of those members: Success Party and his chief players, Greco (the stupid one) and Castolingo (the second-in-command, whose sycophancy rose almost to godly levels). They arrayed themselves like the thuggish honor guard at a state-run funeral. The other Curb Stompers probably waited in the car, trading bragging rights on who could force out the loudest fart. Clearly none of them had met Legion’s old college roommate.

“Aren’t you listening, sonny?” Mabel slapped the clock. “I said study hard! Kids these days, don’t know what’s good for ’em.” She burped epically.

“Seriously?” Plastique kicked a wall, not caring that her foot swept Catastrophe’s feet from under him. What conduct manual had she defied? She gawked at Schlechniss, who slid a finger along his datasheet, probably arranging statistical data. “Nine point two tredecillion people in this universe, and the Virgonese wedged this breathing abscess into a training exercise with us?” If her expression disclosed anything, her abhorrence for Catastrophe and her abhorrence for Success Party were tied for first place. Quite an honor that placed each as a suturing target. She tapped a foot on Catastrophe writhing on the ground. “On your feet, soldier. We have guests.”

Success Party broke his pose and sidled up to Plastique, rolling her shirt on his forefingers as if sampling the material. “That’s right, sweet skirt—”

“I’m wearing army-issue impact pants, Gord.”

“—the Curb Stompers are here to show you how to military. We’ll McClane this bad boy up before lunch.” Success Party high-fived Greco, who durped. He swiped a brownie off the catering table and wolfed it down. “You’re looking foxy as usual, Courtney.” He followed that up by assessing Plastique from heels to forehead. “Mmmmmmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.” He swallowed. “Mm.”

“Killer high-five, boss.” Castolingo squinted like Joe Cool. She swayed near Plastique.

“Keep away from me.” Plastique reared a fist that glowed with her explosive-punch hyperability.

Castolingo reared a fist of her own. “Don’t even think of touching me with your disgusting hyperability.” She shifted her teeth like a knife on whetstone.

Greco insisted his chin too close to Plastique’s personal space. With a playfully innocent grin, he chuckled. “I’m wearing army-issue impact undies. With baseball players on them. Frontwards this time so I can use the fly for wee-wees.”

Legion swept a gaze between Success Party and Plastique. Courtney? Gord? Sweet skirt? First-name basis was afoot. A buried history hid in the shadows. Wait, sweet skirt wasn’t a first name.

Success Party blustered past Shrizchago with a shoulder knock. Shrizchago tumbled against a wall. Success Party yanked Sixth Sense’s bagel out of his hands, regarded it, and peeled out the meat only to discard the rest of the ingredients onto the floor. He stuffed the ham into his mouth and studied Mabel, who creaked toward him on her walker, kneading lips over teeth. “What’s with the chalky mummy here?”

“Show some respect.” Mabel cracked her walker across what she thought was Success Party but was really an espresso machine.

Whoa. Legion gasped. He shifted his eyes left...right...left. Traces outlined the two adversaries, magical wisps that seemed to light his whole ha—Holy wow, what were these shenanigans? Red wisps outlined everything. He definitely needed more fudge. It was downright spell-casting.

Plastique strode up to Success Party. They squared their stances at each other. “Still got that fabricated audacity I used to find so off-putting, I see.”

“Audacity? Did you see that high-five we delivered?” Success Party leaned in. “Flawless. Didn’t even have to aim. It just came to us. That’s what win looks like.”

“Win looks like this man.” Castolingo flicked a finger at Success Party. Plastique pinched her expression as if Castolingo gave off skunky wafts.

“My seventh main man/woman Casto knows the score.” Success Party thumped a fist on his leather-jacketed breast. “She should. We toque-shop at the same outlet mall.”

Finished with her muffin, Plastique sheathed her knife—probably a good idea—with a practiced slide. “Gord, you’re the product of no parental guidance.”

“Parents didn’t need this master of awesome, and this master of awesome didn’t need their stupid guidance. Or their bicycle on my eighth B-day.”

“Gord, you suffer from so massive an ego, you walk around tilted. It’s impossible for you to love anybody more than yourself.” Plastique dry-heaved to stare Success Party in the eye. Recovered, Catastrophe tried to affix a datasheet to her back like a kick-me sign, but she swatted him away. “Field Agent, I’m not a wall.”

Legion didn’t care what affronts these two hissed out of their ember tongues. Hapturous Day blessed you with a level of deranged bliss not even the motor vehicle bureau could break. He leaned back, smelling the gentle leather of his chair, and scooped out the last of his sundae. Gotta love hot fudge. Or tepid fudge: he’d worked on this for a while.

Someone had definitely slipped something into his food today.

“We’re win, boss. Win!” Greco guffawed at Success Party but stopped when he spurted loose a string of drool on his ribbed T-shirt. “Awww. And I forgot my bib.”

“Win, eh?” Legion peered into his Faberge-inspired fudge bowl. “Word has it the last insurrection the Curb Stompers neutralized ended with eleven dead civilians and a dog that couldn’t hold its urine when it got nervous.”

“Hey!” Success Party spun at Legion. “Those civilians were expendable. We high-classed that situation with chief precision. And without repulsive hyperabilities. It took months of preplanning and research to even uncover that insurrection hideout.”

“The hideout was a mall’s lottery kiosk.” Legion spooned out some fudge liquid. Chocolate perfection.

“It was hidden behind the customer-service desk. But that’s not the point. The point is we’re that top-notch. You ever fire a rifle over your shoulder without looking? I have. That takes skill. And a rifle.”

“And he almost hit the broadside of that barn.” Addressing the entire room, Castolingo filed a finger under her toque and sliced it off like a down-in-the-’hood salute. “Three meters to the left and it would have been a direct hit.”

“Meh.” Legion clanged his spoon around the bowl and plunged it into his mouth. “Hold the phone. Fudge sludge tastes every bit as euphoric as regular fudge.” He sniffed his bowl. “What do the kids say? Da fierce? I think I once heard a high schooler use that to describe a sidewalk sale.”

“You’re a piece of work, Gord.” Plastique marched into a corner where she plopped into a chair next to where Scapegoat spun in uncoordinated circles. Well, ovals really.

“Piece of artwork, hot toots. You think you’re here to win this trainage?” Success Party snapped his fingers at Shrizchago. “Hey, Chru—Chr...You with the clipboard and the look of awe.” Shrizchago had neither. “Tell these nobodies who holds the time record at this hostage trainer.”

Shrizchago rolled his eyes. “The Curb Stompers.”

“Headline that loud and clear, grade-A turds: the Curb Stompers. Seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds even. And we monstered it out without hyperabilities. You capisce that little factoid?”

Castolingo swung to the forefront as if she and Success Party worked an arrogant dance routine. “You tell these grade-A turds, boss.” She stuffed a cheese omelet into her mouth. “Hyperabilities need not apply. That a hint of brie I detect?”

“Four cheeses to set your taste buds on fire.” One of the caterers sizzled up another omelet. He flipped it with a deft flick of his spatula.

“Nice touch. I’m definitely scoring your digits after today’s conquest.”

Success Party launched his words as he would hurl grenades: “Seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds. Best...record time...ever.”

“That’s what defines a record time.” Sixth Sense pushed his glasses up his nose, but they slipped back down.

Success Party made a precise endeavor of cupping Sixth Sense’s chin to raise his face up. “You less-thans think you swing enough cajones to beat that?”

“Less enough than cajones definitely, yes, yes,” offered Scapegoat.

Catastrophe passed by and pinned a datasheet on Success Party’s back. “We definitely have less than enough cajones to beat that.”

Success Party smirked. “Okay then. Seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds is today’s utmost. But let’s bake this barbecue up to max crank. I heard you lag-behinds got a military transport shortage. Love crashing them mil-trans. So how about this sweetness? You beat our record and the Curb Stompers’ parent military org buys you a brand-spanking-fresh fleet of Flagstars to crash. That’s the brand you guys ride with, right? We’ll even paint glittery fairy wings on those trans. But when you glean up that you have zippo chance—or if we slice our record down by a few secs—you crash-and-burns pony up a fleet of Lasergems for us to cruise, high-style style.” More old bacon grease in the air.

“Hey. Uhm. Huh. First, you don’t bake a barbecue. Or crank it.” Sixth Sense stood and regarded Success Party through eyeglass lenses as thick as a scuba mask. “Also, you guys fly Lasergems? The Bad Guys use those.”

Plastique grabbed Sixth Sense and swung him aside. “Soldier, careful who you wander near to. You could read his mind and absorb his personality. This room isn’t big enough for two arrogant crocks.” She whipped her arm away from Catastrophe. “Field Agent, I’m still not a wall.”

“Yeah, Lasergems. A man’s ride. Not them prissy Flagstars.” Success Party traced a finger along Plastique’s chin and then squeezed her arm. “Plus, let’s throw in a date with curvy legs here.”

Plastique yanked her arm away by the elbow and accidentally smacked Scapegoat across the chin. “I can name so many dozens of things I’d rather do.” She didn’t notice Scapegoat squirming on the floor.

“Hey, I’m game.” Legion shrugged and scooped up more of the fudge water. He was scraping out the thin veneer that stained the goblet. A pause. He looked around at his Good Guys, sensing vapors of disapproval in the atmosphere. Or maybe that was his lightheadedness. Hapturous lightheadedness, the best kind. “What? We could use the Flagstars. We lost Comanche and Eagle, the Bad Guys stole Stratotanker, Prowler’s engine keeps flooding, and there’s a family of endangered tigers living in Kestrel.” Back to clanking his spoon around the bottom of the goblet. “And honestly, Plastique, you could use the night out.”

“Hapturous?” one of the caterers said. Her name was Stacie. Stacie was Legion’s new hero, and her weapon of choice was that crackling deep fryer she played like a master pianist. “Is there some cool crowd you’re trying to fit in with?”

“So it’s a deal.” Success Party raised four fingers. “Quattro mil-trans if you win, dudes and dudettes.” Mabel inched past behind him. “And codgers.” He spat noisily on the floor. “But, if we inevitably win, you guys make good with four Lasergems. And a date with this tasty hors d’oeuvre.” Success Party winked at Plastique. “You’re my sugar glaze now, Courtney.” His answer was Plastique’s bared teeth.

“So. Uh. You don’t sugar-glaze an hors d’oeuvre.” Sixth Sense glanced between Plastique and Success Party, sensing tension like two warring nations. “And. Hey. Question. What’s with the familiarity?”

Plastique interrupted her growl. “Long...painful...story.” She swung away and smacked past Scapegoat, who had managed to his feet. Didn’t last long. He was on the floor again. “Fld. Agt. Catastrophe, I’m still not a wall.”

“We used to date, me and sweetness here.” Success Party chuckled at Plastique and then, with that oily bacon ambiance he exuded just by existing, winked at her. “Best time of her life.”

“This guy?” Sixth Sense’s eyes wowed at Plastique. “You dated this guy?”

“He owned beachfront property.” Plastique looked chagrined, eye contact with the floor as she said, “I think I was more accurately dating his ego, but”—she sighed—“yes. We broke up because I got sick of his hyperphobia. He almost threw me out of his place. Literally. He lived on the seventh floor. On a hill. Also he owned purple dress shoes. The color wasn’t the ugliest thing about them.”

“So says you.” Success Party winked.

“So said the funeral director whose ceremony you crashed. Into.”

“Anyway, I have a crucial kibosh on hyperdudes and -dudettes. Especially hyperdudettes without a tasty waist-to-hip ratio. You ain’t touch me with your hyperability, you’re gold by me. You roll that sick mammajamma on this numero uno hombre”—Success Party rapped his knuckles on a catering table, which caused a flutter in the stack of plastic forks—“you’re in for a spew of unhappy damage. I don’t even want that hyperjunk rolling on through my body. The idea”—he shuddered from head to toe to mouth—“bbrrrrr—it’s the sicks. But somehow, Courtney dug her claws into me something fierce. Grawr.” Now he leveled his attention at Plastique, and she had to swivel away and harrumph to keep in check. Her left hand took an orange glow, her hyperability waking again. “And she never let go. Ain’t that right, mamacita?”

“Gord, I stand by my claim: you never loved anyone more than yourself.”

“That ain’t true, my slice of ambrosia.”

Still perusing his datasheet, Schlechniss tapped several icons with a forefinger. He scanned the room. “If we’re through strolling down this ghost town’s memory lane, let’s begin our exercise. Good Guys, you’re on deck first. Suit up. Wait. Are you down one?”

“He’s on the floor.” Sixth Sense pointed with a hand hidden in a shirtsleeve.

“Yo, seriously, how much you snarp at a buffet, bro?” Success Party asked Catastrophe as he passed.

Legion held his empty goblet to the omelet-flipping caterer. “Hey, can I get some more fudge or sludge? My hapture is tapering off. By the way, Stacy, you glow like an angel.” He was definitely on some kind of wonderful today. “If that’s real, you’ll want a doctor to check that.”

Plastique slipped her hand over the goblet and eased it away from Legion. “Lieutenant Colonel, for everyone’s safety, I’m cutting you off of everything.” After watching Legion head for the wall, she felt the urge to add, “That includes licking the paint to find out if it’s pistachio flavored.”

Legion pouted. “But we won’t know until we try, ambrosia.”

“Because me and buffets? I go back for thirteenths. Thirteenths.” Success Party’s swagger emphasized his sentence. “I can snarp, my dude.”

Chapter Three: Attention, Ladies, Gentlemen, and That Palm Tree over There

Bad Guy leader Master Asinine’s typical Saturday morning activity was to make a complete spectacle of himself. So here, on Bad Guy headquarters Station Zilcho, he stood on the observation balcony of the Being Dastardly Room, allowing soft sunlight to hug him in warmness that settled through his skin. Last time he’d made a spectacle of himself was when he’d engaged Bad Aim in a freestyle rap battle. Today he aimed to top that by speaking. He’d brought alcohol, after all.

Behind him stood the usual suspects. The gelatinously obese ninja Multipurpose was sizing up one of the couches to determine if it was best served with guacamole or barbecue sauce. Hint: neither. Airheaded other ninja Amaranthia honed her swordplay, whirling longswords as if they were windmill blades. One accidentally sliced through the cherry bubble she blew from her gum. Rootin’-tootin’ cowpoke Master Asinine Sucks honed his shooting skills by plucking tin cans off a railing. Bad Aim joined him, honing his missing skills. Their blank-minded gargoyle Appetite did something about having a blank stare. And the mute and emotionless Braindead...well, Braindead perfected his imitation of a statue in a wax museum. Same as yesterday. And all of last year.

Asinine spread his gaze across the length of the street below the balcony and noted the swath of carnage. Stinky, sticky carnage. A couple weeks ago, Asinine had brought home an animal. Turned out that animal was a demonic aswang in the form of a rabbit. It slaughtered Master Asinine’s generics, those bottom-rung criminals in the Bad Guy empire. Asinine still hadn’t cleaned the violence—blood, bones, and ooze left from the aswang two weeks ago, along with the litter and discarded food from the charity barbecue that followed—but the generics didn’t mind slipping on all that carnage. Asinine had provided wetsuits.

After the slaughter, the generics numbered 1,500 and some change. But today the crowd swelled at close to 1,700 thanks to Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. The kids enjoyed spilling around the slop, and one entrepreneurial eight-year-old had fashioned a slide out of a length of plastic sheeting she’d found in the station’s tombs.

“Control, acknowledge. Activate public-address system,” Asinine said to the haunt control, software that took verbal commands and made them physical action, named for their ability to make locations seem haunted through automation.

“Public-address system activated,” the haunt control said.

“Okay, Schizophrenic, let’s start this party.” Master Asinine checked his temporary second-in-command, the two-headed Schizophrenic, with a leer born from skepticism. The usual Bad Guy second-in-command, Lieutenant IQ 23, was recovering in the Bad Guy sick bay, having sustained a near-fatal injury from the revenant’s attack. So Schizophrenic play-acted the part. Some second-in-command. The last several times Asinine had asked him to set up the public-address function, Schizophrenic had instead hurled him off the balcony.

Schizophrenic gave him a thumbs-up with something other than his thumb. “Just get this done, you breathing misadventure.” The left head, Lefty, snorted.

Master Asinine nodded and returned to the generics below, all wearing their customary red outfits. He wrung his hands on the railing, which cooled his calloused skin. “Fellow Bad Guys and little ladies, how are you on this fine February forty-second morning? Watch out for eyeballs down there. They’re everywhere.

“You’re probably wondering why I gathered you all here today. It’s because I call the shots. Deal with it. First order of business is, in today’s meeting/drooling session, playing the part of Lieutenant and participating in pinkie-swears over what we really put in your omelets is our very own Schizophrenic. Both heads. They’ll be filling the duties of bootlicking, toadying, adulation, and picking up my dry-cleaning.”

“Name even one of those things that’s true, stooge monkey.”

“But the most importantest reason I’ve gathered you here today is to apologize for our little mishap a couple weeks ago that claimed the lives of at least three of us. The aswang thing, in case you forgot.”

“How can we forget?” a generic hollered from below. And then slipped on an eyeball. Hey, Asinine had warned them. The generic splashed onto the pavement, which would teach him to ask questions Asinine couldn’t answer.

“Anyway, don’t worry about that pesky rodent. We’ve separated its brain and heart according to instruction, and we’re now keeping both in separate take-out food containers that Appetite hopefully won’t eat. They’re clearly marked ‘not food’ in yellow Sharpie.

“But you’ll be glad to know that, as a token of appreciation for not suing me, I’m offering unlimited sodas for everyone! With the purchase of a planetary system from our pawn shop.” Master Asinine spread his smile and arms wide. He let the words fall to silence to make way for the roaring applause that ensued from those followers below. Such an exciting offer. He was ridiculously generous, wasn’t he?

Except there was no applause. Moreover, there was no roaring applause. The closest he got was that one guy who could fit his entire fist in his mouth releasing a gargantuan yawn. Crickets applauded, though.

“Are you still out there?” Master Asinine leaned over the railing. “I can’t tell. Your shirts camouflage you in all that blood. Is that a palm tree a block away? How is a palm tree still standing?”

“You’re serious?” A generic spat. She stomped her foot over a squishy, severed ankle. “Unlimited sodas? That’s it?” Gazes from other generics wandered around, words mingling in unintelligible murmurs.

“Yeah. That’s pretty much it. I mean...come on. Everybody loves soda. But unlimited soda? That’s off-the-wall amazing.”

Another generic thrust an accusatory finger up at the balcony. “We pissing risk our lives for you day in and day out!”

“Daddy, maybe we can swim in the soda,” a little girl said.

“Okay, fine then. How about eye-wash stations in the decontamination chambers?” Master Asinine twinkled a smile.

The generic faced his countrymen or whatever you called these underlings. “Every day, we crocking confront death”—he swung back at Asinine—“in either one of your harebrained schemes or your Olympic feats of strength. And you apologize with unlimited soda? That’s just...insulting!”

Someone whacked the griper’s arm. “Holy piss, daddy, you should totally quit this sinking ship. Crock this raging fail monkey.”

“I like this kid.” Schizophrenic leaned down at the crowd.

“We’re not taking it anymore!” screamed yet another generic. “I’m sick of traipsing over bones to get to the time clocks and punch in. It’s disgusting down here. It smells like rotten berries. And nobody uses time clocks anymore.”

“That’s not true. You guys use them.” Master Asinine felt greasy aggression wafting off the crowd on the gore-caked street. “I don’t like where this is headed. Lieutenant, what do you think we should do? Wait. You’re still in the sick bay. Schiztenant, what do you think we should do?”

“One of life’s little canker sores, aren’t you? I think we should flip you over the railing so I can finish my game of bloody knuckles with Braindead.”

“Let’s storm this building! It’s time to take what’s ours!” One of the generics hoisted the tailpipe of a transport. He also hoisted a femur. His hostile face, as red as a beet, bounced around his fellow generics, who collected around him, screaming and punching the air angrily. “We demand—” The generic paused. His eyes dithered, lost. A look Master Asinine knew all too well. But the generic’s eyes found reality again. “We demand stuff!” He rallied the crowd, leading them in a protesting chant of “We demand stuff! We demand stuff! We’re not sure what stuff, but we’ll make it up as we go!”

Master Asinine wrung his hands more tightly on the railing, so tightly his knuckles ached. “They want stuff. Could be my stuffed animals. They’ve been family heirlooms since last year. That can’t happen.” Fury! Master Asinine kicked aside a—Okay, nothing was there. Where was everything? He needed to furnish the balcony with more than zero kickables. “Schizo, what do I do?”

“What do you think you do? They look raging macked. Before they get in, order the haunt control to crocking bar the doors. That’s what you do, barrel of gaffes.”

Asinine scrambled off the uneven tiles of the balcony and onto the carpeted interior. “Control, acknowledge. Crocking bar the doors. That’s what I do, barrel of gaffes.”

A pretty little voice lilted out of the Being Dastardly Room. “Doors barred.”

A crashing assault barraged the door at the foot of the building. Asinine rushed to the railing and leaned over. The mob of generics had advanced and now surrounded the front door in a scarlet blob, everyone gushing forward to rip that door apart and burst in for the kill.

“Hopefully that keeps them away from my stuff.”

“This is sssooooo no good for my plans?” Amaranthia and the question-like inflection of her sentences had joined Asinine at the railing. She flicked a hand through her red hair and craned her neck to see the liquid of generics surging at the door. “I totes got a date with Jakey tonight? One-month anniversaries don’t anniversary themselves.”

“At least not under the current administration, they don’t,” Asinine said.

Chapter Four: Insanity’s Wish List

“Okay, okay, okay, so here’s what we have so far.” Cybernetic Good Guy computer technician Ace Spandex wiped a burgundy-clothed arm over the paper-thin datasheet computer to clear the fingerprints. It should have cleared itself—these things had the technology—but a few bugs ran loose in this thing. One was its random reboot times whenever Ace was banking.

He and the other Good Guys occupied the mess hall on Station One, Good Guy space-station headquarters. Vacant tables sprawled everywhere, separated by gaping aisles like desert roads rolling into the night. Air conditioning frosted them at an unfriendly sixteen degrees Celsius. Everyone bundled themselves in sweaters. They’d ordered their haunt control, Janice, to kick up the temperature, but a computer bug she suffered made her deny the request and then giggle at them.

Next to Ace Spandex stood Franchise, who loomed down on the datasheet Ace cleared. Organism sat next to where Franchise stood. Incendiary—Ed right now since his usual full-body mechanical armor slept on its charger in his living quarters—sat across from the two. As college intern to Good Guy field agent Power Plant’s fake nation Jefftaria, he silently awaiting some deranged constitutional decree from Power Plant to give political asylum to all the shopping carts in the food court of the civilian area of Station One. And then lighting those carts on fire. Kerosene would be involved naturally. Speaking of Power Plant, he sat on a stained table two rows down. Usually uncontrollably excitable, today he sat strangely introspective, chin cupped in hands and breath at a methodical rate. A hyperability-conjured duplicate of Franchise stood in the backdrop of the service counter, skillfully aiming a stream of urine into a hissing deep fryer. The cookbot using it to prepare doughnuts wasn’t programmed to mind.

Ace swept the datasheet to the top of the page. “First on the list, for Jake”—he indicated Franchise with a jut of his chin—“two free passes to Spin Cycle, the universe’s only household-appliance amusement park. Also the only amusement park that thinks appliances need an amusement park.”

Franchise interrupted his knuckle-cracking. “That’s on them. And we’ll get those tickets for tonight, right?” He hugged his goose-bumped arms.

“We’ll get them in ten minutes,” Ace said. He and Franchise high-fived on that one.

“Yesssss. Go date night.” Franchise snapped his fingers, eager for his month anniversary with Amaranthia. Behind him, his best friend and roommate Power Plant sat with cheeks in hands, issuing accentuated breaths, face drooping sullenly. “Jeffy’s in a funk so deep I’m not sure even he can recover.”

“He will. I wouldn’t concern myself with him.” Ace fidgeted his fingers over the datasheet’s keyboard.

“I’m concerning myself with us. I mean, he’s a double-edged sword. Sometimes he scares me, like when he joined the Titus Drinking Team, which I have yet to hear a clear definition of...but then sometimes he amazes me, like how he learned to pee, apply deodorant, and brush his teeth all at the same time without dripping anything.”

Organism raised an eyebrow. He used his hyperability of elastic form to mold an extra layer of padding to keep warm. “Standing or sitting?”

“Would I bring it up if it were just sitting?”

“You need one hand to brush, lift the other arm, apply deodorant with a thi—How does he not spray while he pees?” Ace leaned forward. “What a timesaver. That’s a skill I want.”

“That’s a skill everyone wants.” Franchise resumed his knuckle-cracking. “What I’m asking is why has nobody raised the proposition of really digging into his mind and playing with his reality? Points to the person who convinces him my spine doesn’t bend seventy degrees. More points to the person who convinces him not to try anyway.”

“Okay, number two”—Ace rotated toward Organism—“recliner for Alvin’s dad. Number three, Incendiary gets starship air fresheners for reasons unknown.”

“My armor stinks on hot days.” Incendiary bobbed on his feet, probably to warm up. His knees creaked.

“Make that for reasons I wish unknown.”

“Thought I might find you all here, brothers.” A deep voice rolled through the mess hall. Ace looked up at Pincushion entering through the fading l-door. Cocoa skinned and visible in the scant light by only the blue shirt he wore, he strode to the table around which the others gathered. Each footstep thumped the near-empty hall like a voice in a haunted cellar. He passed the inaudible Power Plant, whom he observed with a wide berth, and reached the table. His hypermutation, bony spikes protruding through callused skin, offset the dim light. He studied the datasheet. “What’s all this? Looks like a list of hotel demands for a glam-rock band.”

“You won’t believe this.” Franchise was positively bouncing on his heels. He was still gunned about his date night tonight. “You know that shipment of gratuity chicken thighs IP foisted on us?” He rubbed his hands together and blew into them.

Pincushion couldn’t help a chuckle. Franchise’s effervescent mood was contagious. “These the ones IP found rotting in a warehouse next to the rat corpses and didn’t make the connection?”

“Those very ones.” Ace grabbed a bowl of cereal and took a celebratory dunk with his spoon. He was the only one unaffected by the temperature. “A couple days ago, Legion ate a few thighs before we could warn him where they came from, and now he’s loopy.” He stuffed the spoon into his mouth and crunched. “The story goes that the chicken slackens your inhibitions. But someone left it out of the fridge doojigger too long, and the chemical bond in the seasoning loosened up. So the result shifted from slackening your inhibitions to putting you in some kind of drugged bliss. Makes you incredibly suggestable. Side effects include gassiness, so good thing he’s on a trip. Also blindness, so I hope someone else drove.”

“Nice chickens.”

“They were raised without the use of antibiotics.” Ace pointed with his spoon. “So for the last couple days, Legion’s authorized any request we’ve brought up. Any.”

“That explains the bouncy castle in the lobby.”

“No, they’re because the airfoils aren’t working. Anyway, we’re taking advantage by putting together a list of everything we ever wanted but knew wouldn’t get past him. We’re requesting Janice to order them knowing, when he gets home, he won’t make us bring them back and then sign us up for counseling.” He crunched his cereal. “Cinnamon Toast Crunch is amazing. I’m putting more Cinnamon Toast Crunch on the list.”

“Oh, add a three-times-nightly armor polishing.” Incendiary jumped in place to heat up. “Cherry polish.”

“Must it be cherry? Are you licking it?” Ace Spandex scrawled his finger over the datasheet to add Incendiary’s item. “You want anything, Abioye?”

A guarded chuckle came out of Pincushion, almost involuntary. “Not on your short, short life, brother. The voodoo that chicken put on Legion will fade sometime, and I refuse to be on the business end of the fallout.” Pincushion’s smile didn’t change—his teeth like a gleaming spotlight against his skin—but Ace sensed him shift from curious to wary. “This can’t end well.”

“Don’t worry. Jeff seems uninterested for some reason.”

“Oh, in that case, I give civilization two-to-one odds.” Pincushion stole another glance at Power Plant, who stared through the floor. Wow. He’d never heard such deafening silence from Power Plant. Despite the stony muteness, Power Plant twitched agitatedly with restraint as brittle as stale bread. “Weird, though. This is usually the part where everything coming out of his mouth sounds like combinations from Cards Against Humanity.” He faced Ace again. “You know, things like this are why people regard the Good Guys’ alpha team the worse of the two teams. Anyway, I’m out.” He clapped a baseball-glove-sized hand over Franchise’s shoulder and strolled back toward the door. “It’s my turn to check on our ‘visitors,’ and I have no idea where they went.” He referred to two Bad Guys at Station One who thought they’d fooled the Good Guys into believing they were new recruits media-named Detritus and Wasted. Legion let them roam around under close scrutiny to see if they would slip up and reveal any secrets. “Janice is bugged out and can’t locate them. So I’m on a search mission. Don’t order anything I wouldn’t order.”

“We’ll be sure to probably not.” Ace plucked the spoon from the pool of milk in his bowl and wiggled it between his forefingers.

“Seriously, let’s take advantage of this blank Jeffy and play with his sense of right and wrong.” Franchise lunged at the others. “Jeffy thinks antelopes shoot webs when they spit. There’s got to be a brainstorming session in that.”

“That’s very antidiplomatic,” Incendiary said. He held himself in the chill.

“Say that after you realize he can’t really issue you a travel visa.” Franchise didn’t notice his duplicate dipping the head of the cookbot into the garbage ionizer.

Incendiary clanked a shrug. “He can still smuggle me the Virillian flavors of Ramen Revolution.”

“Their flavors are all rat based.”

“Since when do people regard us as the worse of the two teams?” Organism asked. “I’m about thirty percent upstanding. Intergalactic Protection told me in my last write-up after they assessed the other seventy percent.”

Ace gulped down his next mouthful. “Okay, next up—”

“Access to all thems cleaning chemicals from the stockroom,” a sharp but mousy voice said. The usual twitter in its quality had vacated, replaced by graveness so uncharacteristic of its owner that recognizing it took several seconds. But everyone stopped short and peered up at the speaker. Power Plant. He still hadn’t budged, his chin still cupped in his hands, his breathing still sedate, full, and deliberate. His eyes didn’t waver, didn’t leave that spot on the floor he’d stared at for so long. Eerie. Like a ghost you knew was there but wouldn’t appear.

“All of ’ems. And the equipments. With the hoses and the launchers and the all you sees here, some assembly requireds, each solds separately. Janice, ’knowledge. I want access to all the cleaning chemicals and equipments. I’ll gets ’im good.”

“Access granted.”

“Wait, Janice. No. Access not granted!” Franchise spun from the table and whipped his hands around at the overhead speaker. Somehow the meager heat from the room leached away. “He means me. He wants to get me good.” He thrust himself at Ace. “He’s planning something for me, and the last time he used hoses on me, it didn’t exactly involve my birthday present.” His finger darted up. “My mistake. That’s precisely what it involved.”

“Oh, go whine to the guy who runs the taco truck.”

“Maybe I will! He’s the only one with any practical advice!”

“Jacob, this sounds distinctly like the time Scapegoat stole your slice of ice cream cake to soothe a sunburn. Okay, so do we have our list?” Ace twiddled his fingers in the air as if casting a spell to, hopefully, deflect whatever madness Power Plant planned with that hose. “And no playing with Jeff’s mind. As his surrogate older brother, I’m the one who has to poke around in there and clean up the mess.”

“You’re his older brother?” Organism leaned over to Incendiary. “He’s his older brother?” Incendiary just shrugged, making Organism groan. “I hate being the new guy.”

“So, hoses and launchers.” Franchise stood straighter, his color now flush with anxiety. “Add ‘protection against cleaning chemicals’ to the list.”

Ace shot him a withering glance “Just dress in layers.”

Chapter Five: Weapons Hot

Plastique wrung her hands. Anticipation of the exercise vibrated in her cheeks. Her legs jittered with restlessness, squeaking on the wooden floor. At the thought of Gord, she clenched her teeth and her jaw muscles, already aching, flared. That blustering showboat. He did have nice forearms, though.

Scapegoat dug around his nose up to the knuckle. He didn’t mismatch his words into sentences. He just spewed saliva. This would be the culmination of his contribution today. Catastrophe pasted a shot of his face over Scapegoat’s, tanned skin looking orange against his white hair.

Behind Plastique, Sixth Sense checked the “charge reading” on his Borgnada 16mm, a fake that shot paintballs. He’d come close to telepathically absorbing Success Party’s egocentricity but dodged that bullet. Instead, he’d picked up Greco’s braininess and wandered around asking what fire tasted like and other ridiculous questions the Good Guys had already covered with Power Plant. Thankfully, Sixth Sense had recuperated quickly after trying to answer his question the hard way at the caterers’ barbecue pit.

Catastrophe flirted with both cameras stalking him today, offering suggestive winks and tongue clicks. Mabel creaked up on that walker to which Castolingo had added a block of wood to the bottom of just one leg. She spilled over onto Sixth Sense. And Scapegoat—oh, innocent, naïve Scapegoat who spun uncoordinatedly into a painting—what could Plastique do with Scapegoat? No shark pits were around.

She yanked out her mock Borgnada 16mm and fidgeted her fingers along its crosshatch handle that aggravated her grip. Disassembled it, cleaned it, and reassembled it four times since waiting. The hostage exercise would begin in little under three minutes. Plastique checked her watch again. Yep, three minutes. She felt every second click along her arm. She sighted her gun again. Maybe another cleaning?

Wearing impact flak vests that read ANTI-SHENANIGANS UNIT, her beta team stood ready at the foot of this ground-floor staircase that seemed straight out of an old wooden church. The narrow stairs led to the first hostage mockup room on the second floor. The situation was that the Virgonese staff working here, acting as terrorists, had taken the Curb Stompers hostage. Plastique felt an acidic burn in her stomach at the thought of saving Gord and his gaggle of grandstanders. Then it was the Curb Stompers’ turn to save the Good Guys, which introduced an equally repulsive acidic burn. A typical training competition in Virgo, pitting one team to rescue the other so both would improve. But must the Virgonese pit the Good Guys with the Curb Stompers, make Plastique save this team? This presented a conflict of interest, as listed in several IP manuals. Unfortunately no Virgonese ones.

“Okay. Uhm. Warning. Plastique, if we don’t go soon, I’ll start spitting and revolving in circles.” Sixth Sense ducked to avoid Scapegoat’s veering arm. And veering tongue.

“Ten-four that. We engage in T minus forty-five seconds, Field Agent.” Every click.

“Anti-Shenanigans Unit ready?” buzzed a voice over the gabber, the pea-sized communication device, pinned in Plastique’s ear. The voice belonged to Schlechniss, who operated the exercise in the basement where both Legion and Success Party watched via several affixed viewscreens and floating cameras.

Plastique eyed her team. “Team ready?” Sixth Sense nodded, Withered Old Battle-Axe nodded, Catastrophe finger-shot a camera and nodded, and Scapegoat gave an affirmative nose pick.

Vick and Gabby both nodded. “Ready.” The backstory snob, Gotleib or whatever, curtsied. Seriously.

“Not you three.” Plastique sneered at the two cameramen and the Gharalgian. She addressed the catering team behind them, “You guys don’t go far. I might need more peanut brittle.” She peered up the aged staircase that smelled like an old log cabin, assessing how to rush it. Into her gabber, she said, “Anti-Shenanigans Unit ready.”

“Then engage in three...two...one. Move.”

Plastique led the charge—

“Young who’s-it, did you say ‘move’ or ‘tell me about your cats’ hairballs’?”

“He said ‘move.’” Now Plastique led the charge that thundered up the groaning steps, Sixth Sense monitoring the rear. These exercises didn’t typically have opposition coming from the rear, but Sixth Sense was on orders: Plastique wouldn’t put it past the organizers to throw in a monkey wrench or two or three or Gord. After all, one was already thrown in when they allowed Scapegoat to participate. Also when he continued breathing after he’d slurped down all the hamburger grease in the caterers’ breakfast trough. Nothing was sacred.

The beta team’s gabbers switched from monodirectional—each gabber to the control room—to multidirectional—to each other. In the fury of noise their footfalls stomped into the steps, Plastique wasn’t sure the team heard anything else. So she snapped her commands through their shared connection. She was unable until the timer started, or her team would lose score. The idea was to coordinate before the exercise began. “Fld. Agt. Catastrophe, you’re lead. Combat manual section fourteen point eighteen says best strategy in a hostage situation is a surprise flood: rush the enemy, take a four count to assess positioning and blocking, offer low-cost advertising deals at a one-month introductory cost, and neutralize. So use your hyperability to grab the walls and bring them down around the Shenanigans Unit. I want them up to their ears in soot. But harm none of the hostages, which is to say ‘Break Gord’s kneecaps.’ Fld. Agt. Withered Old Battle-Axe—”

“What ya young who’s it?” Withered Old Battle-Axe massaged her gums.

“—you’re number two: in case Catastrophe misses anyone, swat them with your purse. Backstory guy—”

“The moniker, my dear, is the esteemed—”

“—if you insist on coming along, you and your ridiculous moniker are light-bullet magnets.”

Her voice misted with age, Withered Old Battle-Axe gummed out, “Like those nasty rascals who what’s-it into my rose whatchamacallit every night.” Plastique didn’t know how Withered Old Battle-Axe negotiated that walker up each step, but she’d promised the old coot a visit from her grandchildren if she did.

Plastique continued, “Fld. Agt. Sixth Sense, use your telekinesis to create a wall and block the outside hallway. I don’t want surprises from lurkers. Catering team, you’re on ready with refreshments.” She assessed the top of the staircase: no situation. “Keep the sushi wraps on priority.”

Scapegoat’s voice chafed through the gabber and into her ear. “Orders forgot me you, yes yes.”

“Orders did forget you. Your mission is to paint the terrorists with boogers. The green stuff only. No white. We have our dignity.” Plastique topped the staircase. Her rush clapped over the last step in front of the first door. She swept aside and readied her 16mm while Catastrophe took lead by the door. Exactly as the IP manual dictated: unit lead to the side, lower-ranking soldier at point. Catastrophe slid his faux 16mm into its holster, steeled himself, and raised his hands in a Y, gripping the doorframe with his hyperability—

The l-door became vicious fragments and the frame chomped into it like shark teeth. The latent bits of the locked l-door had disintegrated to nothing, in its place a cramped room holding a gaggle of terrorists with SHENANIGANS UNIT vests and Harmax semiautos poised at the door. The far wall held a single window smeared with grime. It didn’t offer much light. Two faux hostages sat laser-roped to chairs. Plastique felt an itch under her skin like a rash: those hostages were Curb Stompers. Castolingo was not among them, her or the hyperphobia she borrowed from Gord.

Catastrophe grabbed the far wall with his hands and hyperability. He clenched his fists, which wrenched a section out and around the terrorists. He spun at Vick. “Did you get that shot?”

Vick gave him a thumbs-up. “You were hot, Rock. Red hot.”

“Field Agent, focus. For once in your duty.” Plastique pushed him into the room to complete the assessment as per combat manual B: ensure no hostiles lurked behind chairs, behind hostages, behind the octopus that—holy crock, was that an octopus on land? Did science regard nothing with sanctity?

Catastrophe examined the room in full-circle coverage with eyes and hyperability. He squinted through the square his fingers created, thumbs and index fingers in L shapes. “Room clear. Vick, grab this shot I’m framing.” Withered Old Battle-Axe hobbled past him, her dentures jutting half out her mouth in an alien moue. “Now for some promotion.”

“Field Agent, combat is no place for promotion!” Plastique wrestled a datasheet from Catastrophe’s clutches and threw it aside. It flapped against Scapegoat. “Fld. Agt. Withered Old Battle-Axe, secure the hostages, offer comforting peppermints, and regale them with stories of growing up in colonial England. Fld. Agt. Sixth Sense, mind scan.” Plastique barely got the words out before she suffered a mouthful of Withered Old Battle-Axe’s bellicose toot: touches of buckwheat gone afoul of the law. “Fld. Agt. Withered Old Battle-Axe, are you and your colon waging your own war?” Withered Old Battle-Axe’s dentures slid out.

“Hallway clear.” Sixth Sense skimmed fingers along his temple as if massaging his telepathy to action. Withered Old Battle-Axe had untied the Curb Stomper hostages and drowned them in whatever mustard gas she unleased upon their sensibilities. Her intestines had invented a new demise.

“Excellent, Anti-Shenanigans Unit. We’re on track to beat the record. To the second floor. Fld. Agt. Catastrophe, stop throwing datasheets at the hostages. Thanks to Withered Old Battle-Axe, they’re unconscious.” Actually, considering they were Curb Stompers, Plastique enjoyed that. “Caterers, I’m afraid we need more participation from your pastry oven.”

* * *

Legion had witnessed the first-floor combat through a viewscreen pinned in midair a few feet in front of him, fed from a matching one hidden in an understated corner of the ceiling above the Anti-Shenanigans Unit upstairs. Seated and chuckling about the gas Mabel had emitted—he saw it through the heat-sensitive spectrum the viewscreen displayed—he’d watched the red poison pervade the room. Couldn’t get over it. Better them than him. He’d fallen victim to enough of her errant leaks over her career with the Good Guys that he’d considered bottling and selling the pickled odor to that segment of the population that got off on self-torment. That segment consisted of either 12 percent according to IP’s latest poll or 97 percent according to IP’s latest falsified poll.

He jostled in his chair when Success Party jabbed him with an elbow. Ow. Right in the ribs. “Ha. Looks as if Courtney’s team is ready to lock that second-floor sitch. But she’s in for a surprise: you Good Guys ain’t getting past the third-floor team. Your weak wills ain’t getting nowhere. Catch that double negative? That means only one thing: this machismo stud means business. My superbs are so business we high-five using automatic weapons.”

“Yeah. We’re so business we automatically high-five weapons.” Greco guffawed.

With a hissing bite, Success Party grabbed an end of a submarine sandwich as big as a bazooka and wrenched. Like a boa constrictor, his throat massaged the chunk down whole. He chortled full mouthed. “Check them out there.” Legion’s viewscreen had flickered to an angle looming down on a wooden, constricted staircase: it now linked itself to a viewscreen high on a second-floor rafter. Plastique hurried to the steps, Sixth Sense hot on her trail with a sausage dog in his mouth. He halted on the steps, hand hovering around his throat. He choked out part of the bun.

“I briefly knew a guy like you.” Legion snickered at Success Party. Hapturous Day allowed his tingling delight to soar.

“Was he a stud muf?” Success Party leaned in close enough to stage-whisper in Legion’s ear. His breath felt hot. “Must have been. Jot that down in the noggin notebook.”

“I can’t comment on the level of his stud muffitude, but his self-superiority soared to an all-time sky high. It reached for the stars.”

“Self-superiority.” Greco sniggered, and a splooge of milk streamed out his nose. He didn’t notice. He slapped Success Party on the back. “Sounds like your kind of macho dude.”

Success Party shoved Greco away. “What have I told you about touching the leather, brah?” He tugged at the bottom of his jacket to straighten it. “Do you know why we kept you out of the trainage?”

Legion smiled. “Oh, he was your kind of dude-brah. He died about a month ago. All that could make you guys more alike is if you called everyone butt corks. Self-superiority isn’t a good thing, by the way.”

“All in the way you look at things.” Success Party clomped Legion in the back of the head, a gesture meant as an arrogant pat but instead rattled Legion’s Trioxidillian antennae and made his eyes bulge.

“Or the way Merriam-Webster looks at it.” Legion tilted his head to shift the sun’s glare. On the first-floor viewscreen, Plastique had positioned herself by the stairs leading to the second-floor combat room, Sixth Sense on the other side. Catastrophe should have positioned himself to rush up and rip the door off, but instead he sat in a make-up chair. If Legion harped on this, there were so many other things he’d append to the list. Like a certain actor’s aim.

“Lieutenant Colonel Legion, your team is organized to engage the second floor now.” Shrizchago saddled up behind Legion’s padded chair, checking his ever-present datasheet as it spat drill readouts, figures, and this week’s Orangutan Outfitters sales. Legion studied the matching viewscreen immediately beside the video feed: half off of bath accessories. Second thought: what did an orangutan need with bath accessories? Third thought: caring about orangutan bathroom needs was above Legion’s sanity pay. “They’re ahead of the Curb Stompers’ record by almost thirty seconds,” Shrizchago said. Fourth thought: no, Legion was too curious to leave this one alone.

Shrizchago pursed his lips as if to issue an impressed “hrrmm.” He gave a sideways squint at Success Party. “It’s too early to tell considering they haven’t reached the bonus round, but it looks as if they got this situation.” Behind him, a heat lamp warmed the deli meats, bringing about the aroma of spiced meats and spiced possum.

“More like not got this situation?” Success Party’s voice sounded so exuberant he slapped his knee. “Broseph here’s team revolves around that chump, Master Asinine.”

Legion sputtered a laugh. “I knew that broseph back when he was Lowensland. Cheap turncoat.”

“Dude’s name is Lowensland. Pfft. That’s who those Good Guys fist off with. They ain’t buff enough to take on my squad of victory winners.” Success Party now held a cheeseless toothpick, stabbing it in the air between himself and Legion. He filed it into the crevices in his teeth, plucking out bits of ham and lettuce. He examined the off-green fleck stuck to the end of the toothpick and licked it clean. “How hard is taking down a dude named Lowensland? He acts like Super Grover left in command of the Death Star. Probably skips leg day.”

“What’s a broseph? I love that enchanted word. But hey, broseph, why does this bonus round sound bad?” Legion had stood and began a set of lunges. Ain’t skipping leg day. Too bad the waffle maker was turned off. Legion wanted seconds. “And what bath accessories do you think an orangutan needs? I’m thinking loofahs.” He opted for a croissant. “Around shedding season, lots and lots of loofahs.”

Chapter Six: The Peasants Are Revolting

Lefty clicked his tongue, which almost dropped his toothpick on the crowd. “Have to hand it to you. You really macked off the rank-and-file this time.” He craned his neck over the Being Dastardly Room’s speckled railing. Or at least that was what Master Asinine assumed without pulling his face out of his palm. He hid in here. Still, neck-craning was what Schizophrenic usually did on this balcony: that and spitting on people passing below. And organizing competitions over spitting on people passing below.

“I wouldn’t worry about them.” Master Asinine finally lifted his face out of his palm and leaned back on the lounge chair he’d dragged out from the Being Dastardly Room’s side closet. The one he’d stuffed there countless years ago, which explained the skeleton clinging to it whose rigor-mortis grasp he had to pry it from. Over its dead body, right? Heh. Such a tasteful joke. “They can’t get through the door. It’s reinforced by l-tech.” Was he fooling himself with lies and false bravado?

Multipurpose snorted from his permanent seat on the Being Dastardly Room’s focal coffee table. Asinine regarded it as permanent because the only thing that could budge Multipurpose was a cattle prod, and even then, no promises. He practically roosted on that coffee table: marshmallow puffs of ninja leaked over it. “You think crocking l-tech can stop a macked-off mob, you should visit my aunt’s place at crocking Easter.”

Schizophrenic spat out his toothpick. “No one wants to hear about your latest feast fiasco, you lackluster ninja.”

The generics had started attacking the door, clawing walls outside, and painting unfriendly messages on the building across the gory street. In this case, “unfriendly” meant “with crudely drawn stickmen and a label that read, ‘Master Asinine is a stupid head.’” It was rude. Then again, Asinine couldn’t say that without being hypocritical until he stopped farting into the air vent that fed the generics’ lounge. Oh, the games he and IQ 23 played. His mood sagged coldly. He missed his lieutenant. They always shared revolts together.

The scaly Bad Aim floated to the railing, his tinny media suit reflecting lights. His legs had been severed at the waist, and he moved aloft a two-foot-wide hoverdisc that vibrated like a child spitting out of puckered lips. He was of the mute Virillian species, but his hyperability allowed him speech. Weird slangy speech. “Homeslice, them crazy playas down there ain’t chill ’nough for l-tech tricks to drop their beat. Haters gotta hate. They’ll bust on into yo business no matter what l-tech you runnin’, yo.”

“You homeslices have to trust l-tech more. After all, it brought us tons of great stuff.” Asinine counted off on his fingers: “L-doors...other l-doors...yet other l-doors. It’s the best letter of technology the alphabet gave us.” He finally stood and leaned against the support column that held the balcony above this in place. “The generics aren’t being terribly nice about being locked out, though. Is a homeslice a sandwich?”

The kettledrum angst that barraged the lobby door below still bellowed, tumbling up the side of the building and threatening to impinge on Master Asinine’s monopoly of stuff. The crowd still hadn’t defined this “stuff” they chanted, but their definition might involve sloppy joes or, if things got severe, beef sloppy joes. Master Asinine would never give up his beef sloppies. Those were his homeslices.

Amaranthia kept hacking the walls inside with a sword, carrying on about date night this and date night that, growing angrier in emotional notches until the walls resembled a killer’s art project. Bad Aim had buzzed back inside and now shuffled through Master Asinine’s snack bowl, grabbing random morsels but throwing the pumpkin seeds at Multipurpose to watch the Bulbosoid topple around to scarf them up. Master Asinine Sucks practiced his quick-draw skills—spinning pistols on his fingers and then snapping them up in aggressive aim—because what else could a cowpoke do? Certainly not grab a mop or anything useful.

The mob grew more raucous. That was it. Asinine needed to end this thing before the generics added a tongue sticking out of the hurtful drawing of him they’d spray-painted. “It’s time I used my talents of charm and charisma to quell this crowd. Someone cue my Best of Angsty Teen Breakups album.” He stepped toward the balcony railing—

A hand flew up to stop him/slap him across the cheek. Schizophrenic’s. It pulled aside to allow Lefty room enough to glare. “You mess this up, and I’m doubling my protection fee.” Slaps hurt and were hot.

“Pul-lease, Lefty. And possibly Righty.” Asinine brushed aside Schizophrenic’s beefy hand and then flicked away the blood trickling from his nose. He strolled toward the railing, rubbernecking around as he said to Schizophrenic, “Nobody can resist me. My overwhelming charms make other charms look like regular whelming ones. I’m positively smooth as silk.” He banged into the railing. “Oof.”

Asinine rubbed the back of his neck. Wow. The ground resembled a tide of knuckles fighting the air to the rhythm of their defiant cries for this “stuff” nonsense. He curled his lip. Groaned. Why couldn’t these attention Nazis lash out by crashing the family car like any other well-adjusted individual?

“Control, acknowledge. Activate public address system and trigger charm mode.”

“Public address system activated. You’re on your own for charm mode.”

Master Asinine cleared his throat. Charm mode: triggered. Time to butter up this generic-brand bread. “People, people, shut up already.” They did: calm resulted so sharply the tranquility felt thunderous. Asinine swallowed down some saliva, which crinkled deafeningly in this remarkable quietude. “It is I, your leader, your idol, your personal hero. How are things? From the way you’re overturning the transports and the bad hair days a number of you are having, not so great. Well, let me assure you that your concerns are over. Whatever you’re complaining about—I can’t tell because I don’t per se listen—is coming to an end. So you weren’t into the unlimited sodas. I get th—You weren’t into the unlimited sodas, right?” He scanned the crowd. Unimpressed glowers. “Okay, forget the unlimited sodas. But I hear you on the gory mess in the street. I admit it smells less than peachy around here. This coming from the guy whose euchre partner is a year-old pumpkin. So how about this deal? To help clean things up...new push brooms for everyone...which is to say we’ll steal maybe half a dozen. So you’ll have to pair up”—quick head count—“with about two hundred other people. I’ll leave that up to you how to group yourselves.”

“What the crock?” Someone belched out a blood-curdling roar of such unparalleled anger. Wow. The set of lungs on that little girl. “You seriously gonna jive us like that?”

“You let him have it, my precious baby,” said a generic.

Schizophrenic leaned in and snorted. “Tip: tell them no, you’re not seriously gonna jive them like that. And I’m saying this not to save your skin, but because being up here with you gives me brain hemorrhaging.” He flicked his toothpick at Asinine’s cheek.

Master Asinine’s heart grew weightier in his chest as it thumped. Where was this leading? With a gulp, he shook on tattered nerves. His breath froze, hooked motionless in his throat, so he unhooked it. “Uh...yes.” He dabbed cold sweat off his forehead onto a sleeve. “I’m seriously gonna jive you like that.”

“For crock’s sake, I just told you to say no, you brain bottleneck!” Schizophrenic rammed a club fist into the railing, which rattled all the way to its brackets.

“But I’ll throw in more trail mix for our group hikes.” Hopefully that would work. Otherwise, Asinine was in a mess of trouble. “With chocolate chips.” The clincher.

“You crocking oaf.” A generic clomped onto a civ-tran roof and spun around at the crowd. His face matched his red outfit. “My fellow generics and fellow generics’ adorable little daughters, we’re undervalued here, and it’s time we took matters into our own hands.” He cut a finger at the Being Dastardly Room’s balcony. “Let’s kill these fools and take over this operation for ourselves. Also, it’s Bernie’s birthday, and a card is being passed around. Please sign it and return it to me by six.”

“Yeah, let’s do this thing right. Our daddies and mommies deserve more. Kill management, kill Asinine, kill the named agents, wish Bernie a happy birthday. Kill management, kill Asinine, I’ve already lost track of the third thing.”

Asinine stood on his tiptoes to lean down more. “It was ‘kill the named agents.’” So helpful today.

“Kill management, kill Asinine, kill the named agents!” This chant, this mantra of murder, became a repetition that the rest of the generics adopted, fists in the air like vicious punctuation marks. Probably commas. “Kill management—”

“Named agents? That’s us!” Bad Aim had returned to the railing and wrung his hands over its blemished iron. He left smears of skin oil. “Yo, man, that’s gonna put a serious tread on my evening. And I got plans for this evening. An’ other evenings.” He grabbed a fistful of Master Asinine’s sleeve and yanked him around. “Solve this, hustler.”

The chant, the thunder, the hatred, the death threats toward management grew in rushes, spreading in caustic waves. This chant had started as a harmless little death song screamed out by some pigtailed cutie, but now it had mushroomed into an incantation driven by violence and a need to circulate that birthday card. It sent a winter’s tremble through Asinine’s bones until his thought centers, as underused as they were, lit with delicate dread.

Bad Aim shook Asinine. “Yo, you best slam this riot down, bones. And think twice before you take the mic ’cause I ain’t goin’ out like dat tonight.”

“This isn’t going according to my lack of planning.” Asinine recovered from Bad Aim’s reek of modeling clay and wrestled away from the Virillian. Now the thunder of stomping feet clamored from below, mixed with cadenced roars rioting for attention. “We need to consult Arbritrarius, the all-knowing crystal football.”

“Kill management! Let’s take what’s ours! Who’s with me?” The roars sounded more homicidal.

Asinine leaped at the railing, flailing his hands around. “No, don’t kill management! Don’t take what’s ours! Don’t who’s with me! Listen. I can offer so much more. Increased time at the shot-put range. Lower rates at the coin wash. Other empty promises.” Asinine spilled forward at Schizophrenic, clutched the collars of both heads. “They want to kill management. I think I’m management!”

“Get away from me, thought tundra.” Schizophrenic shoved Asinine aside and dealt him a kick to the ribs to propel him back against the railing. “According to them, we’re all management.” He forced a yell at the Being Dastardly Room, at Multipurpose who still scrambled around for seeds despite none being tossed at him. Wait, not seeds anymore. Bad Aim had progressed to popcorn. “Hey, Multiuseless, you up for a cannonball bomb?”

“Storm the building!” The squall of pandemonium below rose to a crushing tidal wave. The groundswell of the rallying generics became thunder against lampposts, walls, strewn transports. “Someone grab our holiday shanks.”

“We’ll kill management with the very gifts they gave us for New Year’s.”

“Don’t forget to grab some water bottles,” Asinine called down.

Amaranthia sliced the air with her sword. “Were you raised by Care Bears? Stop helping them, ya gitch!”

“Hey! Dehydration poses a significant threat that can lead to headaches, confusion, loss of skin elasticity, and, in extreme cases, death.”

“Solve this problem, circus leftover.” Lefty leaned so close his new toothpick scratched Asinine’s nose. Smelled like pine. “And solve it quickly. And, for crock’s sake, go into public wearing something other than yellow parachute pants.”

A tinge of anxiety bled into Asinine. He rubbed his clammy hands together and forced himself to take a deliberate, calming breath. Okay. “No need to worry, no need to worry. They’re still locked out. The haunt control barred the door, so we’re safe. Right?” He tittered a mousy, unsure sound, barely believing what he said. “Right. We’re still safe. The only way they’ll break through is by using explosives.”

At the railing, Master Asinine Sucks stared down at the blood-dyed street. “Then you ain’t gonna like what them varmints are cookin’ up.” He clicked a spurred boot on the balcony. “Aw, shucks. An’ they’re cookin’ it up on the lamppost overlookin’ my favorite tobacco-spittin’ jug.”

“What?” Master Asinine rushed back to the railing next to his Sucks counterpart. “Oh, no. That’s the lamppost overlooking my favorite drinking jug.”

Indeed, the generics and their spirited little girls twined detonation wire around the lamppost, threaded it around a transport’s side mirrors, hopped it over a news datasheet dispenser across the street, and fed it to what could only be the front door of this building, hidden by a red-and-white-striped awning. What a bonding parent/daughter day. The skirted little girls looked so adorable stringing high explosives up with their mommies and daddies. Such strong family values.

Wait. High explosives? Asinine’s eyes shot wide. “That’s ultra-powered C-4 they got their hands on. Who gave them the keys to craft-supply closet?”

A pair of hands wrestled him from the railing. It was Schizophrenic, his stare as unyielding as his brick jaw. His teeth were clamped tightly around yet another toothpick. He pitched Asinine to the ground only to yank him up, whirl him around again, and bowl him against the support column behind him. “Get us out of this mess, you high-functioning spectacle.”

“Don’t worry. As long as Multipurpose is out there, those explosives are as good as eaten.”

“You mean your best-in-show gastrocity? He’s stuck in here with us.” Schizophrenic threw an arm back at the Being Dastardly Room, where Multipurpose lay spread across two-thirds of the carpet, snoozing like a lawnmower. Apparently eating was too tiring a chore.

Master Asinine’s sensations blanched whiter than his grandmother’s skin but without the decorative liver spots. “W-w-well, then, as long as Appetite’s out there, those explosives are as good as eaten.”

“You mean the honor-roll student in here chowing down on your couch? No. It’s in here. Chowing down on your couch!”

Indeed, Asinine’s couch was swallowed almost whole.

“Oh, geez. Okay, in that case, as long as Amaranthia’s out—”

“Don’t even think it.” Amaranthia let the glint along her katana’s edge make the aggressive eye contact for her. She wiped a rag over the blade to clean off the wall powder.

“Maybe they’ve given more thought to the unlimited sodas.” Master Asinine almost drooled with fear. The rage burst forward from the generics below, louder with every coil of detonator wire they roped around the grisly landscape. Master Asinine tasted the bitterness of his death at hand. It tasted like engine lube. “Well, look at it this way. Them being able to get in using explosives was kind of an estimation. I had Brainiac upgrade our defenses. They’ll need a planet to crush their way in here.”

“Then you ain’t gonna like this next thing.” Master Asinine Sucks was staring at the sky.

Chapter Seven: And Ten Different Mustards

Plastique ducked back in to the room where Catastrophe still sat on his makeup chair. “Soldier, second floor. Now!” They had no time to spare. Plastique ushered Sixth Sense out where the stairwell sat, helped Withered Old Battle-Axe waddle into the hall by taking one of her arms and hearing another regaling story of her seven grand-what-are-theys, ushered Cata—Catastrophe?

“Catastroph—” There he was, an aide futzing with his rouge. “Eugene—”

“That’s Rock.” Catastrophe plucked a cucumber slice from his eye and bathed it in the nearby chocolate-fondue statio—

“Stop wasting valuable seconds, and stop messing with the best fondue I’ve tasted since college graduation. Upstairs, soldier. Gord’s ego is on the line.” Plastique stormed across the room, fake terrorist blood still caking the floor and walls, wrenched Catastrophe out of his chair, threw him into the wooden hall outside, dipped her finger in fondue chocolate. “Upstairs—now—or I’ll write you up for violating IP combat manual section eighty-two subsection R in a heartbeat.” She swung a kick at him when he passed her. A swift kick in the rear, Col. Daddy used to say before years of desk-job boredom and a frag grenade took him away. “You listen as well as my childhood cat when I told her four in the morning was too early for breakfast.”

“Your cat sounds like my kind of cat.” Catastrophe cantered up the stairs as old and as dusty as the candies in Withered Old Battle-Axe’s cracked-leather purse. Plastique wanted to shoot him in the back of the head. Here they were, sharpening their skills in a high-class military base, fighting to sliver out a record and cleave Gord’s self-worth in two...and he spent his time advertising some low-budget money grab.

“And you”—she threw her attention at Garsilotke—“start backstorying an effective soldier.”

Vick reviewed the footage he’d covered in his datasheet. “Plastique, can you throw Catastrophe across the room again, but this time say, ‘Too early,’ squint at the camera, and finish with ‘for breakfast’? It increases the drama.”

“You who’s-its don’t know how good you got what’s-it.” Withered Old Battle-Axe had wandered back in and whacked one of the faux terrorists with her purse. “You young lads causing such trouble. No sock hop for you. Get a real job.”

Plastique snatched a deviled egg off a table. At least the caterers offered Dijon, not that yellow crap. Someone around here exercised some sense.

And Catastrophe took to the stairs like he had the trots.

Plastique stomped a foot at Withered Old Battle-Axe. “Soldier, it’s time to move.”

“Yes, dearie.” Withered Old Battle-Axe inched toward the exit but not before throwing one last comment over her shoulder. “You young whatchamacallits need to find something constructive to do. Go join a sportery what’s-them.”

Plastique pinched her gabber mouthpiece to her lips. “Lt. Col. Legion, we’re pushing ahead to the second floor. We’re beating Gord—I mean beating the record by nine seconds, three milliseconds.”

Gord cut into the signal. Plastique knew it was him even before he spoke. The revealing sign was his haughty chuff. “I’m still on your mind, eh, angel? Amazes me you slackers think you got the cans to even scratch our record.”

Plastique stopped, time ticking or not. “Oh, we’ve got the cans. We’ve got so much can, our cannery has to take backorders.”

Legion laughed. “Hey, I’m okay if you’re behind by half an hour, broseph.”

Plastique paused. “Lieutenant Colonel...please don’t use Gord words. And I’m a sisseph.”

“I don’t care. I’m eating blueberry canpakes down here. Somehow the catering crew spread the blueberries so evenly, they look like a cloudless sky. No matter where I bite, I’m getting blueberry in my mouth. This is my seventeenth!” From the other end emerged gluttonous sounds of moistened gulps. “Tell no one.”

“Lieutenant Colonel, you need to slow down because I swear you said ‘canpake’ instead of whatever you’re forcing your insides to deal with.”

“I did say ‘canpake.’ It’s a pancake but tastier. And not happening. I can’t remember the last time I ate a blueberry canpake—”

“They serve them in the mess hall at home, sir.”

“—that I didn’t find llama hair in.”

“Lieutenant Colonel, permission to speak frankly? You’re ruining your appetite. You promised us pizza for dinner if we were a good squad/making-of crew. And, seriously, film guy, stop staring at my elbows.”

Full-mouthed words: “This is dinner, broseph.” Legion stopped chewing. “Ask the caterers how they keep the blueberries from making the pancake soggy.”

* * *

“Seems like your schoolgirls got a slim chance.” Success Party didn’t look at Legion when he said this. Instead he examined an apple that he turned over in his hand.

Legion, still on his luxurious chair and feeling fatter by the syrupy mouthful—and not caring—rapaciously tore off another downy chunk of pancake. This time it was apricot. Somehow these guys made apricot a delicacy. “Yes? And?” Why did he sense that Mr. Party wasn’t bringing this up as a compliment? “These canpakes taste like the nectar of gods. Did I sust jay ‘canpakes’ again? Did I just say ‘sust’—’”

Success Party gutted his apple with a crisp chomp. “Dude, what the crock are you on?”

“He’s on a chair,” Greco said. He slapped Legion’s chair. “This one. It’s padded and black and smells like a chair.”

“Lieutenant Colonel, reveal nothing,” spat his gabber. Plastique with another warning Legion would likely ignore. “Your diet is a matter of military security.”

“I have to answer, Plastique. It’s Hapturous Day!” Legion threw out celebratory hands and tossed up glittering confetti that caught a sparkle of light sprouting from a panel emitting waves of musical notes and okay, so none of that happened. He spun his chair around at Success Party but didn’t stop, kept whirling. “I have no idea what I’m on, but I’m obliged to do anything I’m told, and it feels like paradise. Tastes like an old shoe, though. Wheee!”

“Anything?” Success Party’s smile glinted. He filed a finger under his toque.

“Absolutely.” Another mouthful of canpake made that word taste divine. Also like apricot. “It’s a Hapturous Day policy. I make up the rules, and I make up the policies that I’ll likely regret tomorrow.”

“Sir, that was unwise and also against IP policy-creation manual R, page eighteen, para—Fld. Agt. Catastrophe, stop organizing a press junket in the middle of training. I’m tired of confiscating lapel mics.” Plastique sighed. “Floor two clear.” She was fanatical with these status reports. Legion didn’t care. He was relishing these Hapturous Day apricot canpake—Wait, not apricot anymore. This was raisin. Whatever he’d stacked on his heated plate, every bite was a culinary phenomenon. As long as a Frisbee hadn’t found its way into this golden stack, he was good. Even then, he’d enjoy it. “Holy sweet stuff, there ain’t no mountain high enough to keep me away from these canpakes. Except Mt. High Enough. That’s pretty high. But there ain’t no two mountains high enough. You read?” Legion slurped down another bite. As thick as a burger and as flavorful as the food of the gods. “Mr. Party, you are rocking that toque.” He twined a thumb in his Alaphan necklace.

Greco shoved his way at Legion. “You better believe he has rocks in his toque.” He stabbed a finger at his own toque. “In his head. Ow.”

Success Party finished his apple. “You like? Here.” He reached behind himself and pulled out an identical toque from who knew wherever. He tossed it to Legion. It landed on Legion’s face. “Have.”

“Sir, do not wear that toque,” Plastique insisted. “Wearing that toque opposes several policy manuals and signals a breakdown in our military resolve and your pride and you’d look like a goon and I can go on and on. Do not—repeat—do not look like Gord.”

“Heh. Matross, my man, I’m gonna love playing around with this Hapturous Day thing of yours.” Success Party bit into a new apple, but his face melted into a grimace. He tongued the bits out onto the floor and flung the rest aside. It hit a ventilation grate and lodged in the blades. “Powdery.”

He returned to Legion. “I love Hapturous Day almost as much as the weeping looks of disappointage on your uglies when the Curb Stompers dominate our tiny gamble. You beautiful baby girls might look hot on the tail of this record, but ain’t no way to strike out my ninjas. The Curb Stompers sealed this deal. And without hyperabilities like your cheeseballs, dude-boy.”

Via their gabbers, another voice clamped in on the conversation like a vocal vice. Castolingo’s. “The best part was when you called them cheeseballs, boss-man.”

“Castolingo, how are you on this connection?” Plastique asked. “You’re a hostage.”

Legion slipped the toque on. It felt like a fluffy hug for his head. No, wait. It wasn’t backwards like Success Party’s. He shifted it around. Even fluffier. “You’re really hard up on this hyperability thing. Jealous?”

“Jealous? Pfft. Hardly, pig snout.” By now Success Party had grabbed a third apple. This one he didn’t bite. Instead he underhanded it at Legion. It smacked Legion’s cheek. “Hyperabilities ain’t nothing but disgusting smoke and mirrors. Takes a real prizewinner to finish the job without them. Snag that logic?”

“Snagged, my man.” Legion puckered canpake syrup off his fingertips.

Plastique grumbled over the gabber. “Lieutenant Colonel, you must not talk like him. That is tantamount to a war crime.”

Legion’s eyelids fluttered. “This cinnamon canpake—Stacie, look at me—this cinnamon canpake is mindblowin—no, euphoric. I now know why Catering Biannually called you ‘the most tolerable food service of recent memory.’ You earned their three and a quarter stars.” He lingered on his pinkie with an extra-hard smooch. “It also occurs to me why there’s enough market for a food magazine to come out only once every two years.” His breath tasted like tangy honey in his mouth. In fact, the oxygen here tasted like that. And everyone’s head was ice cream. He wanted to lick Greco’s butterscotch ear. Being high was hapturous.

“Hey, Legion, this Hapturous Day thing is total amazeballs.” Success Party scooped up a dollop of hummus with one finger and poked that into his sundae face. His mouth was a banana split.

“Thanks, Mr. Party. It’s as amazeballs as your T-shirt. Also, your eyes are big cherries.”

Greco tried to fork up a potato chip. “Balls are amazeballs. Golf balls, basketballs, baseballs”—the chip fragmented—“hockey pucks.”

“You like the T top?” Success Party punched his palm. “I can score you one, make you an honorary T bro.”

Legion sprang from his chair, face ablaze like a pole star. “I’ll be part of the T brotherhood?”

“Oh yeah. Got an extra T right here.” Success Party held up a ruffle of ridged fabric. “It’s yours.”

“Yeeessssss. Part of the T crew.”

“Celebrate by dunking your cranium in the deep fryer over here.”

Legion snatched up the sleeveless T-shirt. “Deep-fry me. On the one hand, I’m risking permanent disfigurement by shoving my face into something close to two hundred degrees hot. On the other hand, I’ve lost all ability to distinguish between good and bad.”

Plastique over the gabber again. “Sir, don’t dunk your head in the deep fryer. You’d die. More important, don’t wear that T-shirt.”

“Okeydokey.” Legion sat in his chair, the T-shirt limp in his hand.

“Nah, duder.” Success Party winked at Legion and then the deep fryer. “I think you’re all aces on both scores. How awesome would the deep fryer feel?”

Legion slipped off his uniform top—“Like a trip to the spa if the spa were a medieval torture palace”—and dived into the sleeveless T-shirt. He leaped at the bubbling fryer halfway across the room.

Plastique again. “Sir, I must insist you remain seated and don’t dunk any body part into any food-preparation device. That includes the waffle iron. You remember what happened the last time?”

Legion stroked his crosshatched hand. “I remember.”

“Legion, my hombre, about this bet we got cooking? You and your hyperteam are coming in a close numero second. That’s cool. But my team? We deal in full. We’re gonna take this joint. And I’m so convinced, I’m upping this ante. Upping it all the way to eleven. You tight enough to go all in?”

“Ooooh, bosshead, I don’t think he’s tight enough,” Castolingo interjected.

“Of course, he’s tight enough!” Plastique blurted. “Sir, you’re not tight enough.”

Legion’s heart squealed at the chance to blindly comply with whatever whomever said. “Whatever the ante, I’m compelled to up it all the way up to eleven”—he squinted conspiratorially at Success Party with a smile like a knife blade—“point one. I’m locked into this ante all the way past, dude-man. Bro. Dude-man-bro.”

Plastique again: “Sir, do not increase any existing ante number. Also, by wearing his T-shirt, you don’t know how many infractions you’ll incur. Military and fashion. Staying out of the fryer is your second priority. Do none of the things he wants.”

Greco tapped Success Party on the shoulder. He spread his hands at one of the buffet spreads. “Ta-da. I set the table. All by myself.” He indicated an array of plates, forks, carpeting...He bit into an onion. “This is a tasty mango.” He choked on his words. Then he choked on the fumes.

“It’s a buffet, Grecster. I need to draw up another chart for you, don’t I?”

“I charted the other day.”

“You pronounce that with a sh, dude.” Success Party grabbed a bruschetta off the lunch table and snapped off a bite. A tomato cube rolled off. “Anyway, Legion, I’m nogginning...” His eyes nudged from the bruschetta to Legion. “...how about the dud that loses today’s challenge closes shop?” He tossed a datasheet at Legion. Legion scanned it. A contract, already drafted. And a dotted line humming and pulsing with light at the bottom.

“How did you whip this up so quickly?” Legion’s bones locked, his ligaments refusing to budge. Despite this blithe state of emotion, Hapturous Legion would not be fooled. Something inside him knew accepting this contract was poisonous, maybe because of the caterers’ shark fin soup. But Legion felt the impulse to accept nonetheless. Never mind that he didn’t have authority to end the Good Guys, he still felt that nameless compulsion prickle his logic center. He’d figure things out later when regret settled in.

“Lieutenant Colonel.” Plastique on the gabber again. “This is a horrible idea. Refuse those terms. This is like when you hired Sauce Nation as Station One’s sole condiment supplier. We know how that ended.”

“With sweet-and-sour ribs.” Legion zipped a finger along the sugar glaze of his cinnamon bun. Milky. He slathered the same finger across the datasheet, signing and smudging on the pulsing line. “I’m in. All the way to eleven point a million.” And then he met Success Party with dead emotion. “I’m also throwing in a pizza bagel. Deal with it, my bro.” Behind him, Greco pretended he was an airplane.

“Lieutenant Colonel, you just put the Good Guys on the line. And eleven point a million is mathematically the same as eleven point one.”

Success Party checked the deep fryer again. “But seriously, brofessional. Imagine what the deep fryer tastes like. Doughnuts are made in there. Just plant your front grill in and get all upon that flavor.”

Legion leaped to his feet. “I’m all upons that flavor!”

“Lieutenant Colonel, must I babysit you?”

Chapter Eight: Pet Shopping

December 31, 9999. 6:02 p.m. (Galactic Standard Time).

Blackguard entered the facility, his three children in tow. He called them children not because of their need for leadership but because of their need for a good slapping. What Brother Plaster called a “king-sized smackaround” when regarding Brother Ripsaw with the “stink eye.” Blackguard knew not how an eye could stink. He would ask Plaster to explain, but he wished not to subject himself to Plaster’s stink mouth.

Blackguard, apostle of for their mighty Lord and Savior Continuum, was a creature made from the blackest of flowing matter and could fashion that matter into different shapes. He hopped around time and space—chronoported and teleported—enlisting those creatures Continuum saw fit to join his army. And he was here for that one purpose: to recruit another disciple. Accompanying him were the super-resilient and super-strong Brother Plaster, the controller of living flesh Sister Marionette, and the calculating and blade-wearing speedster Brother Ripsaw.

Outside this lockdown facility on this penal asteroid called Outcrop 492, lamenting winds whipped the barren terrain. However, inside, only the exterior’s ammonia atmosphere leaked in. Where were the previous four hundred ninety-one Outcrops? They did not exist. Those who had named this stormy asteroid decided, for whatever Neanderthal reason, that four hundred ninety-two was a good number to start counting Outcrops. Blackguard wished to king-sized-smackaround asteroid-belt planners.

He and the others traveled the facility’s silvery hallways. Behind him, Plaster issued a throttling burp. This was his customary signal that preceded speech, as if to say, “Beware, all, for I will reduce your intelligence with absurd street talk. Attempt not to bleed from your ears.” Here it came. Good thing Blackguard had become skilled at not bleeding from his ears.

“We breakin’ into another jail here?” Plaster’s hypermutation, a continually-melting- continually-replenishing skin disease, dribbled bits of flesh. “You sure the Good Guys ain’t gonna come for us once we start a ruckus? We lucked out they ain’t come when we broke out our butter-knife expert.” He offered Ripsaw a sideways leer from a face that resembled a skull dripping of scraps of flesh.

Blackguard wasted no time, mutely progressing through this hall. “I assure you Lord Continuum has designed our schedule with precise perfection. We have not lucked out. While we liberated Ripsaw, the Good Guys occupied themselves by freeing one of their own from the clutches of the Bad Guys and a deviant named Craig Tolliver. Today, they occupy themselves by being dead.”

“They always got interestin’ team-buildin’ activities.”

Outcrop 492 housed this single facility, one that separated from society those savages the judicial system deemed the most brutal, hazardous, or irrational. Some inmates boasted baseline intelligence, guided only by instinct or feral impulse. As basis for comparison with cultured individuals, Blackguard noted that Outcrop 492’s occupants often spoke no language. Some licked their armpits, a talent in itself. One shaved with a cheese grater.

Some people’s children.

In this aerogel-lined corridor, around Blackguard and his followers wailed a warning alarm and dizzied a spinning red light. This commotion meant Blackguard and the others’ presence was noticed and unappreciated, likely because of the four guards Blackguard had eliminated upon arrival.

Like most penal facilities, a hyperstasis field prevented him from availing of his teleportation. Even his hyperability had limits. Therefore, they walked. Not entirely disadvantageous, it afforded Blackguard the chance to vent frustration on every guard whose path they crossed and whom they cross-hatched.

Much like now. “Freeze!” That challenge, bellowed from a foolish Trioxidillian who emerged from a fluid-metal door, an f door. Centuries ago, fluid technology had replaced latent technology. Instead of computer memory storing objects, now objects hid in liquid form, compacted to microscopic size until called upon when they grew and assumed solidity. That or the opposite when a command forced them to shrink away into microscopic space.

Blackguard stopped. His carbonized heart, that dim organ sitting deep inside his core, smirked. What folly, as reckless as his two buffoons who adored king-sized smackarounds or Marionette, the other buffoon who adored calling them stuck piglets.

Blackguard had savored the previous four slayings, but time dwindled, ironic considering he served the master of time. Therefore Blackguard simply slid a blade-fashioned hand through the guard’s body. As easy as slicing fog. The guard stood as one piece but fell as two.

Somewhere in this hall, with its spiraling light and caterwauling alarm, hid cell 492—the coincidence was not lost on Blackguard—so Blackguard scanned the cell numbers that hung near the arched ceiling above each featureless space as his guidepost, the suctioning of Plaster’s footsteps performing a duet to the alarm in this hallway. He counted 495, 494, 493 as he advanced. And he arrived at his destination. If Plaster slurped one more suction footfall, Blackguard would lug him around in a cradle of arms.

Brother Ripsaw sidled up behind Blackguard. Clad in a one-piece impact suit with blades along the sleeves and leggings, he scratched his back. Plaster kept calling it his more photogenic end. Blackguard rarely understood what Plaster talked about—he often prattled on about the inflictions he’d wreaked while running errands for his previous commander, and Blackguard had no access to a medical dictionary—but he understood this chunk of slang. Too bad.

After seconds of meditation upon the wall space, Ripsaw shrugged a harumph. “What are we gandering at?” Marionette allowed him that much time before shoving him aside to take front row. Marionette’s eau du overkill replaced the bitter smell of Ripsaw’s blade polish. The asteroid’s reek of ammonia remained.

“This, Brother Ripsaw”—though Blackguard now spoke to Marionette—“is cell four hundred ninety-two.” He surmised the featureless wall as if it would act. He also surmised Plaster’s reflection that aped how he spoke.

Marionette shifted her chin, preparing to speak. Blackguard prepared his brain to change gears from racist-brute lexicon to southern-belle twang-a-lang. Though Lord Continuum had accelerated his intelligence hundredfold, he feared his brain could not perform the switch. He’d oftentimes smelled burned toast when conversing with Plaster.

“I’m noticin’, darlin’”—here came Marionette’s less-than-charming accent—“half this dang army you keep jawin’ ’bout is prison issue.” She placed lacquered nails against the yellow impact material of her new media outfit’s hips. Behind her, having clanged his head against a wall, Ripsaw had slipped into unconsciousness. At least he remained untroublesome, unlike Plaster, who had taken to finger-painting “doodles” on the opposite f wall with his waxy flesh. His latest artistic expression since Blackguard disallowed him from battering snails with a heavy block.

“So behind this heah wall’s a cell?” Marionette faced Blackguard. Blackguard disliked the wafts of Cajun carried on her breath. How often could a person consume mesquite chicken in one week? Eighteen and a half. Blackguard would not comment on the half. “Who’s this stuck piglet, an’ how we plannin’ on unstickin’ him? Or her, since we need more ladies on this team?” Again with the stuck piglets. “I ain’t seein’ no l-door, precious. And as far’s I know, Plaster ain’t strong enough—”

“Hey!” Plaster reared around from his artistic endeavor. “You don’t know what I’m strong enough ta do. We talkin’ about farts, right?”

Marionette rolled her eyes. “He ain’t strong enough to bust through heah, an’ Ripsaw can’t slice through a wall.” She knocked on the wall for emphasis. “And he’s out like a possum.” She glanced at him. “An’ suckin’ his thumb. So unless you aim to pop yourself in or you hidin’ some grip strength you ain’t lettin’ on, darlin’, how we gettin’ through?” She reached behind herself and clutched the rope of blonde hair that hung thickly braided. She weaved her fingers through it to massage out some inadequacies. Dissatisfaction trickled into a sneer. “Got some Plaster on me.”

Blackguard responded with nothing but a snigger. Okay, and words. “Dear, dear, Marionette. We have traveled several hundred years after the era from which we plucked you.”

“What’d y’all say ya did to me?”

“Latent technology is the past. The reigning technology is now fluid technology. It replaced latent technology after programmers resolved some disagreements it had with Google Home.”

“Over who kept the kids?” Plaster smeared his finger in an arc. He’d captured Ripsaw’s foolish countenance remarkably.

“You find no door because there is no door.” Blackguard gave the slightest of smiles, even for him. “Computer, acknowledge. Unlock cell four hundred ninety-two. Brother Plaster, do not imitate that.”

Lord Continuum had employed the excellent foresight to dispatch a small troop here to preprogram Blackguard’s voiceprint into the haunt control, concealed behind technological backdoor after backdoor. Therefore the wall obeyed. It thawed to the consistency of butter and adopted a runny luster that dazzled in the spinning red light. It slurped apart as if an invisible spoon scooped it aside. Now the rounded edges of this new gap sharpened and resolidified, losing its sheen to a matte finish. An archway allowed them to see the occupant inside a six-by-six-foot entrapment. The occupant peered up at them, ferocious gray eyes socketed inside a face of pustuled, muted-bronze skin. The release of pent-up mustard coughed from the enclosure. Meanwhile, Ripsaw dreamily babbled about showing up for work without pants.

Upon spotting Blackguard and Marionette, the creature snarled. Marionette shuddered back half a step, but Blackguard remained in place. This savage could not reach them. Elastic shackles reached from the floor to its wrists, ankles, neck, waist, and tongue. Yes, that dripping tongue, all three ridged feet of a hungry probe, as prominent as the plated tail of a Jurassic-era stegosaurus. Its shackles rattled with its outburst.

The savage lunged, slicing with talons that met only air. The f shackles offered only a few inches of freedom before pulling back with a gummy slurp. A pustule on its forepaw popped and dribbled pus to the floor, and another on its shoulder vented gas.

“This thing’s pitchin’ a fit like a starved gator.” Marionette retreated another step. She tapped her fingernails together.

By now, Brother Plaster had stopped finger-painting the wall. He cautiously approached. Blackguard noticed, for once, none of Brother Plaster’s doodles portrayed a comic-strip rendition of him inflicting Blackguard’s face with a king-sized smackaround. He’d doodled that the previous few times, the outcome always exact, which disappointed Blackguard by removing the storytelling element of suspense.

He and Marionette remained outside the confines of the cell, and Ripsaw remained either bashful about his lack of pants at work or boastful. But Blackguard strolled through the archway with no trepidation. Though the creature had clawed at them before, Blackguard’s presence now subdued it. By the time Blackguard reached it, it peered up at Blackguard like a pacified dog. Blackguard petted its head, and it shut its eyes to relish the moment. A burning sizzle seeped from Blackguard’s hand upon touching the dog, though Blackguard didn’t recoil.

“My dear army, meet the newest addition to our army.” Blackguard should have rehearsed the repetition out of that line. “Brothers Plaster and Ripsaw”—Brother Ripsaw still mewed in slumber—“Sister Marionette, meet Gangrene. A member of a domesticated species in Gharalgian culture and kept as a service animal, Gangrene was forgotten when its owners abandoned its home planet due to environmental abuse. After decades bathed in toxins, our dear Gangrene became what you see here. Trawlers found it, ‘rescued’ it, and deposited it here where it remained incarcerated and nicknamed by the prison staff as Gangrene due to obvious reasons. Today we liberate it.” In a blink, his fingers elongated into a blade, and he severed all seven shackles that held Gangrene. Rubbery, they snapped away.

“Prepare for our next liberation, brother- and sisterhood, for soon we travel to the past, to the Stavehill Hyperperson Penitentiary. But first, a break in the year 9000, for a feast to replenish.” His bladed arm swiftly melted back into a hand that confronted the air. “To Burger Wench!”

Chapter Nine: You Can’t Barricade the Revolution

Back to “today,” March 14, 9110. Feeling confused yet?

Master Asinine returned from his frantic tour of the building’s roof. He and the others had ascended the four floors to the top to find a way to flee. Everyone came without complaint but Multipurpose, who’d explained that his steely ninja muscles didn’t see a use for stairs. From what Asinine observed, they didn’t see a use for anything involving work. That theory died when Amaranthia mentioned horsemeat was up here: suddenly Multipurpose burst into the airfoil so fast he left a smoke trail.

Master Asinine had commanded the haunt control to erect a shield screen around the roof. The haunt control obliged, gripping brownstone with an electromagnetic claw that scratched the brick but didn’t pierce. Now the sky was tinted a faint electric indigo, and the air tasted and smelled like burned voltage.

No escape possible. None of the neighboring buildings stood close enough to leap to. Though he’d spotted a few adjacent balconies, they lay at a bone-breaking drop from this altitude. Asinine had suggested they throw Schizophrenic across to one of them, but Schizophrenic made a convincing counterargument by promising to snap Master Asinine in half. Couldn’t outshoot bulletproof logic like that.

Meanwhile, the groundswell of homicidal chants from below carried up even four floors higher. The generics still wanted to kill management, kill the named agents, and locate that missing birthday card. It was, after all, Bernie’s big four-oh. They had tried scaling the fire escape bracketed against the building’s west-facing wall, but Lefty had threatened to prop Multipurpose against the railing and pummel his kidneys until he barfed. It was like defending castles by pouring boiling water from parapet walks. The generics relented.

“You think the generics are still down there?” Asinine asked.

Amaranthia swept her sword around, growling at Master Asinine as she paced the limited space of the roof. At the question, she forced the growl from her diaphragm instead of her throat. A useful idea come karaoke night.

Asinine slapped his forehead. “Right, right. They’re still carrying on about killing everything. In that case, Bad Aim, put out the fire we lit in the basement.”

Bad Aim threw up his hands and made his way to the airfoil. “I toldja that scenario be wack, homeboy. We’s in the building you set on fire!” He disappeared into the airfoil, the reek of clay going with him.

Asinine leaned over the roof as far as he dared without spilling over the railing. “Then hurry up. And don’t waste water with the hose. Your aim is for crap, and I still want a hot shower later.” But the airfoil had already murmured Bad Aim away.

Asinine spun around at the rest of his army: Schizophrenic, Amaranthia, Master Asinine (Certainly Does Not) Sucks—make that (Certainly Does Not) Suck, for all those grammar Nazis—Appetite, Braindead, Multipurpose, and Multipurpose’s military-grade chicken drumstick from his bottomless pockets. “Okay, brainstorming session. We need escape ideas, and we need them tomorrow minus a day. Let’s start with hyperabilities.”

“Uh, how about this one, atomic-level idiot?’ Lefty clomped down on his thirtieth toothpick. He went through two packs a day now. “You start promoting more people with hyperabilities”—Multipurpose shambled in front of him, snarling another gullet-load of meat off that drumstick as big as a caveman’s club—“other than the hyperability to eat every crocking thing in sight.”

“Good idea, but eating is technically a hypertalent.” Asinine regarded the vast cave Multipurpose’s mouth became when it wrapped around that drumstick and puckered the barely-cooked meat off clean. “Or a hypermutation in this case.” He checked the open sky through the shield screen that partitioned them inside. “well, time to unleash my inner eagle and fly to safety.”

“That won’t help either.” Schizophrenic snorted. “But feel free to unleash your inner lemming.”

“Fine, then. Someone call Starscream for a pickup.”

“Holy crock, inner moron.” Schizophrenic reared back as if he wanted to slap himself. “He’s not going to help on account of his nonexistence.”

“Why not?” Asinine said. “He’s a villain, we’re villains. He might do us a professional courtesy.”

Schizophrenic trod across the rooftop for a private conversation. He licked his lips and sipped a deep breath as if to consider his word choice. “I don’t enjoy knowing you.”

“Okay, okay, not cool, okay, fine, not cool, not cool.” Master Asinine stood erect with nervousness and stretched his hands behind his head. “So. No named agents with a hyperability—We seriously don’t have any hyperabilities among us up here?”

“None of us, sitcom.” Schizophrenic tapped the shield screen to test its resolve. It sounded a dong. Musical resonance, affirmed. “You didn’t have the foresight to promote anyone with a single hyperability”—he watched as Multipurpose limped past, nursing a leg muscle—“except the hyperability to overlook the stench wafting from Sir Eats-a-Lot’s laundry.”

“Hey!” Multipurpose bellowed. He’d have stomped a foot but his previous effort had enflamed his calves. “Let’s not forget my crocking hyperability to samurai the crock out of everything.”

“A lot o’ the cowpokes ya didn’t promote are tootin’ full o’ hyperabilities.” Master Asinine Sucks was poised at the other end of the rooftop, observing the generics flying outside the shield screen with high-yield firearms leveled at them, waiting for that clinch moment for the screen to fail. If it would.

“And, according to some unwritten rule about professional courtesy, we can’t even phone a friend or ask the audience.” Master Asinine arched his back, blinking at the blue-tainted sun. “Oh, this sucks but good this time.”

Brrrffffzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-pop, something said. And then a fizzle disappeared, a sound Asinine hadn’t noticed until its absence.

What was that? Everyone stood motionless, silent, daring not to breathe lest they miss some follow-up sound. Like a reverse brrrffffzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-pop.

“Something just totes brftz-popped?” Amaranthia said, her katana held high as it was when that ominous sound had brtfz-popped. She dared not lower her blade. “And that sounded like sucks city?”

Asinine didn’t like that sound. It wasn’t because he couldn’t spell it. He’d come to terms with so many things he couldn’t spell that the list was legendary. His dislike stemmed from somewhere else. White noise and fizzles were funny things. You didn’t notice white noise until it disappeared, and then that unnoticed noise needled your thoughts, irritated until it hurt like paper cuts or burning oil or geography tests. This was one such time.

Then the haunt control brought them the really bad news. “Access breach on ground floor.”

Bad Aim burst through the rooftop access so fast his hoverdisc sliced the l-door before it disappeared. “Yo, homies and homegirl, got word from the streets. Them gangstas ain’t chillin’ at the door no mores. They bustin’ in killa styles. Click, click, bang, bang, if you catchin’ my vibe.”

Master Asinine’s stomach dropped into his feet. Bad Aim had just yoed the worst yo since divulging what was in beef jerky.

Amaranthia stomped toward Master Asinine, her katana forgotten and dropped on the ground. “You. This sitch is totes your fault. You mega super gitch! No, worse than a gitch. You’re a cronk.” She threw her weight at Asinine, all 110 pounds, hands clamped around his throat. “No, even worse. You’re a yearbook editor!”

Asinine grappled Amaranthia’s slender claws off his throat and threw the rest of the body aside. “No, anything but a yearbook editor! That’s horrible! I think, anyway.” He dropped to his knees, scuffing his favorite parachute pants on the rocky ball bearings he’d littered up here among all those baseballs he’d lost over the years. He crumpled into a tight ball and lowered his head against the rooftop. “This is so bad.” He mewed.

Heavy boots scratched toward him, a series of footfalls unmistakable as Schizophrenic’s. A shifting shadow crouched next to him, and his limited field of vision filled with the burly knee of Schizophrenic’s brown pant leg. “By any chance, is the computer administrator a generic?”

Master Asinine nodded. “Uh-huh. She is.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Schizophrenic paused for a tick. Two ticks. A snort. Three ticks. “So what have we learned from this situation?”

Asinine unwrapped himself and blinked up at Schizophrenic. “That I’m still a backwater moron?”

“No, we’re upgrading you. You’re a parliamentary-level mental hand-me-down, and I’m two seconds from letting Amaranthia gut you with her press-on fingernails.”

The chant of “Kill Asinine, kill management, kill the named agents” blustered up the stairs, climbing from a lethal hush to a stage whisper to an outcry as the generic battering ram rioted up the airfoil.

“Those generics will bust through this thing.” Schizophrenic now stood at the rooftop access, pressing an arm against it. “We’ll have to reinforce it with something immovable. Like a gigantic boulder.” He flung a finger at Multipurpose. “Boulder, roll on over and squat here.”

“Warning,” the haunt control said. The frame of the rooftop access cracked, where the haunt control didn’t reinforce since Bad Aim had nicked it. Wood splintered straight down the middle, brick misaligning like Asinine’s vertebrae when he tried a new sport. “Barrier breaking.”

Schizophrenic hugged the frame, though even his brawn couldn’t keep it from chinking apart. “Boulder, over here. Eat as many generics as you can!”

A blade shunted through the l-door. It cracked open a fissure straight down the meager barricade.

“A poleaxe?” Amaranthia squinted at the access. “Seriously, ya spoofs? You’re using a poleaxe?”

Master Asinine blinked at Lefty, whose chin looked like an Easter Island statue from here. “You think I can fire them for breaking a zoning bylaw or something?”

From the side, Amaranthia piped up. “End this now, yearbook editor.”

Asinine lunged at her. “You take that back!”

Chapter Ten: No Method, All Madness

“Well, let me know if Schizophrenic calls Master Asinine anything else along the autism spectrum,” Franchise said over his gabber. He had his girlfriend Tamiko on the line, Amaranthia to those not on a first-name basis. “And don’t kill too many generics. You came close to cutting up the pool manager last time, and it’s hard to find a good towel boy.” It came as canned rehearsal in his and Tamiko’s relationship nowadays: “Don’t kill too many generics.” “Don’t kill too many store clerks when the nylon sale is a day late.” “Don’t kill the rainforest.” Was he encroaching too much on her hobbies?

He strolled outside in the brisk dusk, under a fake sun Janice had painted over the skyline to lend this place a circadian schedule. His backdrop was the hangar containing their Fireball mil-trans, where he’d hid to avoid Power Plant and the funk into which he’d sunk. The lack of dirty bombs detonating both on Station One and in video-arcade lineups disturbed Franchise, as ear-piercing in its absence as when one of those dirty bombs launched anthrax in his face.

So he had hidden in the hangar to avoid his friend, watching insects scurry along the cracked concrete floor and vultures wonder why there wasn’t so much food left from Power Plant’s dirty bombs. When birds found something weird, it was double weird.

Tamiko had finished explaining her “balls-up day today” and everyone she wished she could kill because the bathroom was calling and she was stuck on a roof. Franchise winced, reaching the l-door to the barracks. “Well, let me know when you’re free. I have a surprise for date night tonight.” He reached for the unlock button on the l-door. His shoulders slouched. “No, it’s not killing whoever stopped producing Chauncey handbags in confetti print.” He stopped short. “I am not a pacifist.”

He tapped the button and Janice giggled. Franchise ducked underneath the latest virus that had infected her salesmanship program: popup ads. This one was a viewscreen that hyped the cleaning benefits of acid baths. Yeah, sure. Last time Franchise had tried that, it was against his will, and things didn’t end well for his clothes, skin, hair, and the movie theater he was in at the time. “No, you’re gonna love it. It involves—Well, I can’t tell you or it’ll ruin the surprise.” He almost slapped his forehead. “No, it for once doesn’t involve killing people. Or making other people kill people. Seriously, no more death matches for you.” He set foot in the building. “I’m not a pacifist. I swatted at a fly the other day. Does that sound like something a pacifist would do?”

Up ahead on the north-facing side of the warm hall was his and Power Plant’s room, number 114. Franchise’s hand traced over the doorframe to Pincushion’s room as he surmised the stretch of hall that led to 114. “If you’re set on killing, though, let’s grab a pig on our next date.” Free bacon. “Free bacon.” Free bacon.

“Okay, I’ll let you go. Enjoy Schizophrenic throwing Master Asinine off the balcony. Film it for me. Love you.” The seven doors to his and Power Plant’s didn’t take long to pass, so by the time Franchise tapped his gabber bud to hang up, he had reached door 114. It automatically unlocked, sensing Franchise’s biorhythm and allowing him in, unlike the previous several times it had first forced him to purchase Party Pooper’s improved flat cider in three vibrant colors: swamp-water green, darker swamp-water green, and lighter swamp-water green.

He swung a foot through the door—froze, foot in midstride. Sitting on his bed, his mouth an angry square full of teeth that overpopulated his scowl, Power Plant rifled through a hectic collection of vials with caustic elements, pumps, hoses, trigger valves, a live crab. For some reason or other, a live crab was involved.

“Lye...paints thinser...rubberin’ hoses...valve...other valve...another other valve—” Was Power Plant itemizing the mess on his bed? At least he wasn’t planning an act of war this time. Franchise could tell when he was: they fell on Tuesdays, and his tongue always peeked out the side of his mouth as though he exerted extra effort. He really applied himself in plotting civilizations against each other.

But the happy-go-lucky chi that characterized him was evaporated, replaced with a choleric energy Franchise had never before knew. Gone was the familiar Jeffy environment: the cackling howler monkeys, the fireworks display over the stovetop, the music player venting gladiatorial battles, and why were he and Franchise friends again?

The ambiance felt so solemn, so ominous that you’d swear Power Plant never touched this room. He locked a vial of solvent into a hose and snapped the two together by twisting in a quarter circle. He clamped this assembly over a valve.

His eyes clicked up from his work, claws sifting through his tools. A skeletal finger pricked Franchise’s chest. So cold was the sensation that it made him throw up a little inside his mouth.

A vial of red liquid spilled over Power Plant’s bed. It snacked on the sheet, burning a hole. He didn’t notice. Or mind. Franchise wasn’t sure which was scarier. Then the pungent smell hit. Holy bizarre, the smell. That was scarier. Definitely the smell.

“H-h-hey, buddy.” Run. Run! Get away before Jeffy throws a net over you, and you wake up inside another trash compactor. “How are things? And stuff? That’s an impressive collection of mayhem you’re not thinking of using on me.” Franchise swallowed. Run, run, run! “With any luck.” Jacob, you’re an idiot.

Fake smile, fake smile, feign happiness. “What are you up to?” Franchise asked, doughy sensations roiling in his stomach like a witch’s brew. “Oh, look at that. Clamps. And it’s not even game night.” He had to tread carefully around the guy who considered burnt sienna as a headliner in the crayon circuit.

Power Plant blinked. Didn’t answer the question. Just...blinked. Why was he wearing a hairnet? Next question: why did that matter?

A moment of silence. Finally, Power Plant answered, “Ain’t nothin’s.” Oh, just great. His “ain’t nothin’s” response was like an admission that he was preparing to soak Franchise in wood-working glue. “Got some stuffs to...cleans aroun’.”

Even worse. Franchise hated Power Plant’s version of cleaning, which resembled a demolition crew’s version of cleaning. Power Plant didn’t break eye contact. He reached for another vial of something caustic. Or contaminating. Either way, it smoked and would land Franchise in the infirmary. He clacked that over a brass pipe and began welding the two together using his laser hyperability. Franchise recalled the week after Power Plant was dosed with Hyperthesia, a hyperability suppressant. Favorite vacation ever.

Franchise backed out of the room. Easy, now. He needed to spend more time in the hangar while he waited for Amaranthia to either gut or bludgeon Master Asinine. “Ooookkaaay. In that case, I suddenly realized I need to figure out where else I should be right now. I’ll see you later? Yeah. I’ll see you later.”

“Control, acknowledges. Orders me a laser-cuttin’s kit and a chisel.”

The l-door reappeared, serenading into place. Whatever biological weapon Power Plant was concocting, hopefully it couldn’t penetrate this door. Hopefully. Franchise wasn’t sure how realistic his wish was. Power Plant had once melted three-inch-steel walls with grain softener. And this was when he had a cookbook open to potato salad, which was when Franchise vowed never to let him do groceries again.

Despite this, Franchise pressed his back against the door and shut his eyes for two pacifying breaths. In, out...in—

Something in the room quaked and dry rot crumbled from the ceiling and okay, time to run.

* * *

“Janice, acknowledge. Report on current location of entities Detritus and Wasted.” Pincushion wanted to make sure he still headed in the right direction. He smelled smoke, so he probably was. Maybe those two chuckle nuggets had taken a bathroom break. Or finally realized the Good Guys hadn’t sent them on a single mission in the month plus that they’d lived here. Those Bad Guys still didn’t realize their cover as new Good Guy recruits was blown. Anyone who kept employment with Master Asinine wasn’t keen on applying logic.

Pincushion hadn’t visited Station One’s training tower in some time, but he was assigned to check on the visiting Bad Guys. For whatever reason, they spent almost 90 percent of their waking hours in a particular hallway cuddled in one of this tower’s blank arteries. What was odd was their biorhythms routinely disappeared in this hallway. Pincushion aimed to discover why. He suspected a room not catalogued in Janice’s database.

The training tower huddled close to the reception building where Station One kept its main lobby, so Pincushion’s trip took no longer than a few minutes and one stern warning from Janice about purchasing more lathes. Why lathes? No idea. Home-hardware companies weren’t listed as any of the Good Guys’ paying sponsors, so unless a bakery had expanded into the renovation business, someone was spamming. And it occurred to Pincushion to examine the ingredients list on Refurbishment Raspberry Tarts. He shuddered. He should schedule an X ray.

Janice’s report at last came through. “Good Guy entities Detritus and Wasted are currently not locatable. Grab three liters of oxygen for the low price of eighteen moolahs, the price of a sigh of relief. Receive a free brain hypoxia ventilator with every purchase.”

Good. Well, not about the ventilator—that chilled him—but about the Bad Guys’ current location. Same as always: nowhere. Janice couldn’t comment on what they were doing, since, for some reason, she had no jurisdiction wherever they hid. Her control over the station extended everywhere—everywhere—except their hideout. And the Bad Guys were together. Always together. These two were so inseparable that, for the first two days, Pincushion thought they were one guy called Detritusnwasted.

He’d had a short discussion with Janice about these two earlier, a discussion that ended in a fun-filled puke of information: “Good Guy entities Detritus and Wasted have lived on Station One for one month, one day, eight hours, forty-two minutes, sixteen seconds. Their whereabouts are unaccountable for eighty-eight percent of that time.” Meaning they’d spent that long in their hideout. “Their bowel movements consisted of—” And the conversation ended there, thanks to Pincushion’s hand waving, sticking fingers in ears, blah-blah-blahing, and promises to ask her assumed boyfriend Ace Spandex if they could buy a geranium for the room, and Pincushion still heard about the undigested frozen carrots in Detritus’s diet.

Pincushion entered the weird hallway, laminate wood flooring everywhere. Footsteps tapped against lonesome walls. To Janice, the hallway was labeled TR/1/14. And so this suspected room should have been cataloged as TR/1/14/2, but Janice had no knowledge of it, so it remained outside her allocation table.

Here he stood at the head of the hallway, hearing an irregular clanging procession from the room louder than the squawks from his metal knee, as if these two built Ikea furniture except used their Allen key in all the wrong ways.

Curiouser and curiouser. Yup. The sounds clanged from a room, as he’d suspected. These two were never destined to split the atom...or figure out long division...so Pincushion thought it prudent to add hustle to his step before that chain of clanging resulted in a fire. Chances were they weren’t operating a blender in there. Strange enough these two came to spy on the Good Guys and hadn’t done an ounce of reconnaissance.

Pincushion whirled into the room so fast his squeaking heels almost whipped past and continued down the hall. Half of Pincushion expected to catch the Bad Guys in some deranged ritual: stripped down to their heart undies, dancing around a campfire, hooting a ceremonial chant in prehistoric Virillian. The other half of Pincushion wished that were the case.

By the saffron illumination of a single light panel that had floated in, he made a quick scan: a foosball table on one end (blue was winning); a headless corpse sitting on a chair and bent to one side as if it had fallen asleep a decade past and now sat slumped; a potted Venus fly trap engulfing half a cow; walls as featureless as a museum bathroom.

And in the back? The star attraction: robots. Gigantic robots. Their eyes glowed red, but they stood frozen in time, towering over the room’s features. A console sat at their feet, blinking Virillian text nobody could understand.

And there was Detritus at one robot’s heels, trying to strip the ankle off one monolithic automaton, using a crowbar that had seen better days. He got fed up and just whacked the sheeting that covered the ankle. Another clang pealed out.

Detritus reeled back as if swinging for the fences but must have noticed something, some weird shift of shadow, because he stopped and checked over his shoulder. He blinked at Pincushion. Bit his lip. Didn’t even attempt a fake smile. “This ain’t what it looks like, buck.”

“It ain’t? ’Cause it looks like one dude abusing company property while the other thinks a headless corpse is responding to his advances, brother.” Pincushion eased a hand to his holster. “And keep your knees bent slightly and your elbow down.”

Detritus didn’t release his batter’s stance. Instead, he checked further over his shoulder at the oxygen-inebriated Wasted, who schmoozed with the headless corpse and, from the sounds of his whale calls, getting somewhere. “Okay, this is exactly half of what it looks like.”

Chapter Eleven: The Shang in the Ointment

Shang Xiu still wore the shackles and leg irons. Shang Xiu felt the shackles and leg irons grow tighter by the minute. This was a physical impossibility. Therefore, Shang Xiu’s shackles and leg irons could not be growing tighter by the minute. And, therefore, Shang Xiu stopped feeling the shackles and leg irons grow tighter by the minute.

Someone had dressed up Shang Xiu’s shackles with pony stickers. The pony stickers had glitter. Shang Xiu did not care. Glitter was of no interest to Shang Xiu. People often told Shang Xiu that Shang Xiu was the life of the party. People also said sarcasm was lost on Shang Xiu.

Enough about shackles and leg irons.

Shang Xiu was aboard the droning Cackling Fire jail-tran. Shang Xiu was seated in the rear deck of the Cackling Fire. The rear deck of jail-trans contained their storage compartment. Storage compartments were sterile of character. Storage compartments were painted a drab gray. Storage compartments were nothing else. Riot gear was usually kept in drab gray storage compartments. In this drab gray storage compartment, the riot gear was removed to make room for Shang Xiu and the droning sound. Shang Xiu would have sat in one of three small prisoner cells in the Cackling Fire’s midsection. Shang Xiu was considered high risk. Therefore, Shang Xiu assumed Shang Xiu was moved to the Cackling Fire’s rear deck because Shang Xiu would pose too high of a risk to fly in one of three small prisoner cells in the Cackling Fire’s midsection.

The Cackling Fire’s storage compartment was eight feet by six feet by six feet. The Cackling Fire’s storage compartment contained tattered netting on the left wall, empty metal crates by the door leading to the Cackling Fire’s midsection, and one floating chair on which Shang Xiu was bound. The Cackling Fire’s storage compartment was sieged by the monotone hum of the Cackling Fire’s engine. The Cackling Fire’s engine had a nut loose. The loose nut made a fan blade in the Cackling Fire’s engine rattle. Perhaps the fan blade was the life of the Cackling Fire party.

Jail-trans often carried prisoners to different locations. This jail-tran was specially fitted. Shang Xiu was told this jail-tran was specially fitted for her. Shang Xiu was told this jail-tran was specially fitted with additional firearms—which were not located in the jail-tran’s storage compartment—and additional pony stickers with additional glitter. Shang Xiu was told this jail-tran was specially equipped with seven working internal defense turrets. These seven working internal defense turrets were motion sensitive. One internal defense turret was malfunctioning. Shang Xiu did not know why someone would install a malfunctioning internal defense turret.

Shang Xiu was told these defense turrets were attuned to track her movements. Shang Xiu was told if any of her movements fell outside narrow parameters, these defense turrets would open fire. Shang Xiu found this to be the life of the party.

Shang Xiu should have found humor that the malfunctioning defense turret was malfunctioning because the malfunctioning defense turret had been loaded with foam. Shang Xiu heard this was because of a bachelor party. The malfunctioning defense turret smelled like soap. Shang Xiu now just realized why the malfunctioning defense turret was installed: as with other people, bachelors needed to bathe.

The l-door hushed away. Marshal T. E. Hufwert entered the room. Marshal R. Flugg entered the room. The l-door reappeared behind Marshal R. Flugg. Marshal T. E. Hufwert was arrogant. Marshal T. E. Hufwert walked with a wide stance. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s smile was slanted at a ten-degree angle, inclined to the right. Arrogance came with a wide stance. Arrogance came with a slanted smile. Therefore Marshal T. E. Hufwert was arrogant. Perhaps Shang Xiu should ruin Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s arrogance. Shang Xiu enjoyed manipulating arrogance.

Marshal T. E. Hufwert was smug. Shang Xiu recognized smugness. Smugness came with an inclined chin. Smugness came with shallow and thinned eyes. Marshal T. E. Hufwert had shallow and thinned eyes. Therefore, Marshal T. E. Hufwert was smug. Shang Xiu would relish erasing Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s smugness.

Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s nose was red. Therefore, Marshal T. E. Hufwert felt the cold in this rear deck as he said, “Well, well, prisoner.” Marshal T. E. Hufwert rubbed his hands together. Yes. Definite arrogance. Marshal T. E. Hufwert said, “How you enjoying your transport?” Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s accent was what some called “backwoods redneck.”

Shang Xiu said, “I do not feel enjoyment the way you do. I am not enjoying my transport. I am enjoying picturing your entrails on the floor.” Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s smile vanished. “Now I am enjoying my transport.”

Marshal T. E. Hufwert stomped toward Shang Xiu. Marshal T. E. Hufwert said, “You little—” Marshal R. Flugg placed a hand on Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s breast to stop Marshal T. E. Hufwert. This game of emotion manipulation amused Shang Xiu.

Marshal R. Flugg said, “Don’t do anything you’ll regret, Tim.” Marshal R. Flugg’s necklace of ears danced. The necklace perhaps wanted to hear better.

Marshal T. E. Hufwert twitched on his feet. Marshal T. E. Hufwert might resume stomping forward. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s shaking legs indicated such. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s reaching for his sidearm indicated he would not bother. Shang Xiu classified this as a toss-up. Marshal T. E. Hufwert said, “I wouldn’t regret nothing.” Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s accent was more overt. Shang Xiu assumed he would say, “Yeehaw.” Some characterizations did not equal truth. Shang Xiu would reassess this characterization for future use. Maybe Marshal T. E. Hufwert would also swing from the rafters. There were two rafters Marshal T. E. Hufwert could swing from. Another toss-up.

Shang Xiu wanted to test what would happen if she angered Marshal T. E. Hufwert. Shang Xiu said, “Marshal T. E. Hufwert, your neck is not red. Why do you speak with that accent?” Shang Xiu wanted to observe Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s angry reaction. Perhaps Marshal T. E. Hufwert would lunge at Shang Xiu. Perhaps Shang Xiu would be able to murder Marshal T. E. Hufwert.

Marshal T. E. Hufwert turned red. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s temperature radiated red. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s redness matched a poppy’s. Marshal T. E. Hufwert was now a redneck.

Marshal R. Flugg laughed. Marshal R. Flugg laughed hard. Marshal R. Flugg lost his breath. Perhaps Marshal R. Flugg should practice more cardio. Marshal R. Flugg said, “She’s got you there.” Marshal R. Flugg clicked his fingernail on something in his left pocket.

Marshal T. E. Hufwert said, “You know what, Xiu? I ain’t gonna beat you. Not worth it.” Shang Xiu was now aware beatings were too expensive for Marshal T. E. Hufwert to afford. Marshal T. E. Hufwert said, “I’m gonna let the jail system chew you up instead”—and now Shang Xiu was aware the jail system could masticate—“’cause you jess ain’t worth the trouble.” Marshal T. E. Hufwert should ask for a raise. That would allow Marshal T. E. Hufwert the money to beat Shang Xiu.

Shang Xiu assessed Marshal R. Flugg. Marshal R. Flugg still fidgeted with something in his pocket. Marshal R. Flugg concealed his left side by angling his hip away from Shang Xiu, into desolate shadow. Marshal R. Flugg looked straight at Shang Xiu but slanted his head down, which concealed his expression. This concealment denoted a hidden agenda. Shang Xiu had previously assessed many people. Shang Xiu recognized these qualities many times before. Hence, Shang Xiu concluded that Marshal R. Flugg hid something. Perhaps Marshal R. Flugg intended harm toward Shang Xiu. Shang Xiu anticipated revealing more about Marshal R. Flugg’s hidden agenda. Shang Xiu would also enjoy causing Marshal R. Flugg agony when Shang Xiu used Marshal R. Flugg’s intestines as Marshal R. Flugg’s noose.

Marshal T. E. Hufwert stomped closer to Shang Xiu. Marshal T. E. Hufwert pulled his face close enough to Shang Xiu that he could have whispered. Marshal T. E. Hufwert said, “How you feelin’? Knowin’ you’re gonna sit in a chair that’ll zap you fulla two thousand volts?” That was not a whisper. Ow.

“I feel indifferent,” Shang Xiu said. “The pause in your sentence was an unnecessary wait to express meaning. Was there a nuance you conveyed? I can modify my perception of nuances to better understand future nuances. Or perhaps you were waiting for your brain to catch up to your tongue.”

Marshal T. E. Hufwert laughed so uproariously he had to stand erect. Marshal T. E. Hufwert said, “Ya hear that, Roenick? This murderer feels indifferent. She gonna die and she feels indifferent. Get a load o’ her.” But Marshal R. Flugg could not get a load of Shang Xiu. Shang Xiu’s loads were indivisible. Shang Xiu also did not come in loads.

Marshal R. Flugg gripped the netting. “Don’t worry, Tim. I already got a load of her back at the prison.” Oh. Then Shang Xiu was mistaken. Shang Xiu did come in loads.

Shang Xiu said, “I must correct you. I am a female. Therefore, I am not a murderer. I am a murderess.” Marshal T. E. Hufwert did not react. Maybe Shang Xiu should say something else. “My parents were bonkers crocked.”

“What?” Marshal T. E. Hufwert crossed his arms. Marshal T. E. Hufwert said, “Whatever. I don’t much care. Alls I know is you’re also dead.” Shang Xiu was breathing. Shang Xiu was seeing. Shang Xiu was moving. Shang Xiu fit the definition of alive. Therefore, Marshal T. E. Hufwert was incorrect: Shang Xiu was alive.

Marshal R. Flugg no longer angled his left hip. Shang Xiu concluded that Marshal R. Flugg no longer desired to conceal his intentions. Marshal R. Flugg removed his left hand from his left pocket. Shang Xiu was proven correct: Marshal R. Flugg revealed a weapon. Ergo, Marshal R. Flugg no longer desired to conceal his intentions. Marshal R. Flugg held a stiletto knife, which he clicked out. This attack would prove interesting because Shang Xiu was curious in which of Shang Xiu’s organs Marshal R. Flugg would place that stiletto.

Marshal R. Flugg brought the stiletto up. Marshal R. Flugg snapped it into an attack position in his hand. Marshal R. Flugg sliced open skin. Blood flowed. Blood flowed from Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s neck. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s neck opened. More blood flowed. And more blood flowed. Shang Xiu heard the blood spurt. And even more blood flowed. Shang Xiu felt disappointment. Shang Xiu had wanted to make Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s blood flow herself. This game of manipulation had ended. Marshal T. E. Hufwert contained a lot of blood.

Marshal T. E. Hufwert attempted to speak. Marshal T. E. Hufwert seemed incapable of speaking. Marshal T. E. Hufwert seemed capable of only gurgling. Marshal T. E. Hufwert seemed capable of only gurgling k sounds. Shang Xiu knew this from the many throats she had slit. Oh, wait. Marshal T. E. Hufwert was also capable of clutching his neck. Shang Xiu’s mistake.

Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s hands struggled to squeeze the wound shut, as if Marshal T. E. Hufwert tried to suture the slash. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s eyes grew wide. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s eyes grew glazed. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s eyes grew dreamy, as if Marshal T. E. Hufwert replayed something in his mind. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s blood soared high. Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s blood slapped walls. Then Marshal T. E. Hufwert’s blood did not soar high. Then Marshal T. E. Hufwert stopped standing. Marshal T. E. Hufwert collapsed. The sound Marshal T. E. Hufwert made when his bones broke against the floor in contorted zigzags was comical. Marshal T. E. Hufwert stopped breathing. Marshal T. E. Hufwert stopped seeing. Marshal T. E. Hufwert stopped moving. Finally Marshal T. E. Hufwert stopped bleeding. Therefore, Marshal T. E. Hufwert stopped fitting the definition of alive. Marshal T. E. Hufwert started twitching.

Shang Xiu felt deeper disappointment wiggle inside her. Shang Xiu had felt eager to play one marshal against the other to discover reactions, to exercise control, to compute nuances, to manipulate. Now the game was cancelled. Control was cancelled.

“Marshal R. Flugg, are you a hyperperson?” Shang Xiu asked.

“No, I’m not.” Marshal R. Flugg sheathed the stiletto blade by folding it.

“That is a shame. I am interested in hyperabilities.”

“So I hear.” Marshal R. Flugg put his stiletto into his pocket. Marshal R. Flugg issued an amused snort at Shang Xiu. Shang Xiu was not amused. Shang Xiu did not understand amusement. Marshal R. Flugg said, “You’re not going to the electric chair, ma’am. Let me help you with those restraints.”

Marshal R. Flugg was incorrect: the Cackling Fire’s course had not changed. Therefore, Shang Xiu was still going toward an electric chair.

Chapter Twelve: The Emotional Baggage Claim

The beta team had to win this. Had to. If they didn’t, the Good Guys were no more, and Plastique would have to return to not being legally allowed to shoot people. And losing this was likely to result in a lot of shooting.

Plastique burst onto the fourth floor. She followed both Intergalactic Protection’s combat manual and the rape pamphlet from her last women’s-empowerment meeting. Borgnada 16mm poised. Covered the left, right, rear, four corners. Two windows, one table, four hostages, nine chairs, one coatrack, one Lancombe representative. No errant furniture, no personalization or knickknacks, no visible aggressors, only hostages, no identifiable enemy. Reengage verbs, cease itemizing. Crock, she weirded out when she got caught up in things. Just ask her MMA sparring team.

“Clear. And unrealistically organized for a terrorist group. Also, don’t touch me with that mascara pencil.” Plastique swatted away the makeup artist and then made one final sweep of the conflict environment. All bases covered. Where were those aggressors? She wiped hot sweat away. She had no time for sweating.

She swung out of the room, and Sixth Sense veered in to replace her. He poised his hyperability like a firearm. Weapon of the mind. Fingers massaged his temple to help concentration. “I’m sensing four hostages, four attackers, one giant beetle and, oh no, I read its thoughts. Now I’m a beetle.” He dropped on hands and knees and scuttled away from the light.

Plastique edged against the wall outside the room. Four hostages. She kept a precise mental tally like a miserly bean counter tracked moolahs. So she knew all remaining Curb Stompers—Castolingo included—were accounted for in this final, bizarrely tranquil combat stage. They sat unmoving, legs laser-roped to floating chairs, hands gripping the table, panicked bewilderment painting their faces, one hostage’s beard so long it looked like new steel wool and stank like used steel wool. But no aggressors. No target. What was the deal here? Plastique needed someone to fake-murder. She should have engulfed that extra kelp smoothie this morning. Marine algae smoothies always helped her reasoning. Anything with photosynthetic abilities helped. Now all she could think of was the chloroplast extract she missed out on. She’d snap these terrorist animals in half! “Fld. Agt. Catastrophe and Needless Backstory Snob, Esquire, on point. I want a three-second sweep of the room, sympathetic backgrounds for two terrorists, and you both have sour cream on your chins. Does anyone have any algae? A rhubarb leaf? Anything with an organelle?”

“Move aside, you young who’s-its with your wild, three-second parties.” Withered Old Battle-Axe swatted Sixth Sense aside with the purse she used whenever Franchise tried to help her across a street. “I’ll cover this here what’s-it from those nasty hooli-who’s-its and their loud rock music with the boompa-oompa-chugga-chugga-womp.” She engaged the coatrack in mortal battle.

Plastique’s nerves grated her bones with razor edges. Her fingers scratched the butt of her Borgnada 16mm, sensing the weave of its crosshatched grip sync with the pattern of her fingerprints.

The Good Guys were still on track to win this. The Good Guys could still earn those mil-trans. The Good Guys could still mash this victory in Gord’s face. And what boompa music?

Behind her, Sixth Sense scuttled by. Index fingers twiddling at his scalp, he strained to open his shell, spread his wings, and take majestic flight. He’d seized that beetle role and slipped it on like a second skin.

Too bad Catastrophe didn’t embrace the soldier role. Plastique shouted, “Fld. Agt. Catastrophe, take point. We can’t rely on Fld. Agt. Withered Old Battle-Axe.” Withered Old Battle-Axe thought Plastique was a mechanical fortune teller and kept asking what was in store for Capricorns. “Fld. Agt. Sixth Sense, cover the hosta—” Nope. Sixth Sense was covering discarded apple seeds.

In Plastique’s head, time ticked away so audibly she felt a bass beat. Each tick signaled the Good Guys’ oncoming demise. That record breaker eroded second by second, like bones rumpling against the brunt of a frag grenade. Come on, come on. Plastique needed this victory, needed to ram it down Gord’s gullet. She definitely needed to unwind at the shooting range later.

Not only did time spin away on her stopwatch, it dwindled on the clock behind the hostages. Every tick rattled her, every tock knotted her teeth, every click grilled her skin. Where were those terrorists? She wanted nothing but to launch into that faux boardroom, blaze paintball guns at the terrorists, take this record, and mount Gord’s ego on her wall like the head of a lion. Every one of her childhood birthday parties rolled into one, especially her seventh where Col. Dad brought her hunting with tanks to help her become one with nature. And then cheeseburgers after.

“Bbbaaaannnnzzz—” Catastrophe surged into the boardroom, roaring a guttural bellow that would have pissed rage had he not bitten down a wooden spoon. He clutched the air above his left shoulder and beside his right flank. Opened his mouth to let the spoon plink to the floor. Head frantically combed the room. Tongue lapped up the sour cream slathered on his face. Sleeve wiped his nose. “—zai?” He looked genuinely disappointed over the inactivity but not with the egg roll he grunted down. Extra wasabi. Fault him for his amateurish behavior, but in his defense, those egg rolls won Best Fried Heart Clogger in last year’s Starvies awards.

Plastique worked on her own egg roll, leaned back, dipped it in the honey mustard on the condiment bar, and finished it.

“Hey, bank some of that scarfage for me.” Castolingo struggled to free her legs. Plastique leaned at her and made an exaggerated show of lip-smacking. “Oh, come on!” Castolingo barked.

“Gabby, let’s start my interview with this background.” Catastrophe elbowed the wall behind him. His background was a paintball polka-dot display of fake death.

Sixth Sense bounced up beside Plastique. “Uh. Gee. Sorry. Okay.” He stretched his neck in humble abashment and pushed his glasses up his nose. “I’m back. Insect life is a hard life. Pupa envy. I mmmmight be emotionally scarred now. Anyway, one terrorist hidden behind the viewscreen on the left”—he pointed—“another in the closet against this wall on the right”—pointed again—“a third clinging to the ceiling”—again—“and the last behind you”—stepped aside to reveal—what?

The fourth terrorist lifted a wave. “Hey, what’s up?”

Plastique planted a paintball in his abdomen. Easy tag.

“Good shot. Sorry about the whole”—the terrorist swept a hand around the boardroom—“you know, revolutionary thing.” He approached the catering table and leaned over the deli-meat selection. “Nnniiiccceeee spread.” Dropped a paintball shard in the salami. “Whoops.”

“Field Agent.” Plastique slapped a hand on Sixth Sense’s shoulder. “Inside. Erect a field around the hostages. Shut the combatants’ minds down.” The record was still attainable. It tasted like salt. Celery salt. Maybe that was the egg roll.

Sixth Sense mustered up some concentration that manifested as pressed lips. “On it.”

“No hyperabilities!” Castolingo flailed her legs around the laser-rope, tried thrashing to her feet. “Don’t jack me up with your disgusting force-field jamboree.” She shrank back, the thought of touching a hyperability withering something deep inside her.

Garsilotke tapped his lip, studying Castolingo. “I can adapt you in my latest screenplay treatment, my friend. It is a perverse dystopian world used to reflect children’s decaying upbringing.” With a tantalized smile, he palpitated in place. “A world in which children engage in goose, goose...duck.” He squealed. “Ooh, I shudder to ponder the implications.”

The Good Guys had a twenty-second lead that was dwindling. A closet door burst apart—a terrorist had kicked it open—Sixth Sense blocked a paintball salvo with a force field—plastic pellets splattered it—“Force field down,” Plastique ordered—force field sputtered away—“Fld. Agt. Catastrophe, fire”—Catastrophe obeyed...for once—seventeen seconds—paintball to the terrorist’s forehead. Another terrorist appeared—ejected from behind the viewscreen—“Fld. Agt. Catastrophe, midbattle is not the time for a press junket”—“The best press junkets are battles!”—“You say that about pig-roast night at the Red Spit!”—which was true considering the Red Spit’s bacon quesadillas were to die for—fourteen seconds—terrorist’s gun blurted out two rounds—struck Catastrophe in the arm—Catastrophe was out of play—Withered Old Battle-Axe cracked her walker against the terrorist’s arm—“That’ll teach you who’s-its what happens when you smoke on the marijuana”—twelve seconds—Sixth Sense’s double shot tagged the terrorist. One more terrorist—dizzying on the ceiling fan—Plastique swept into the room—the terrorist dropped—spewed paintballs and a raging scream—splattered Sixth Sense in the cheek—smacked the floor like a graceless dummy—seven seconds—popped up—at the buffet table—grabbed a deviled egg—commented on its piquant flavor—was not wrong—Plastique parried right—dodged an aggression of paintballs—targeted the terrorist with her Borgnada 16mm—click, click—out of ammo—crock, six seconds. Dropped her Borgnada 16mm—sorry, sweetie—probed a toe under Catastrophe’s Borgnada—five seconds—kicked it up—caught it—ducked—fired—four seconds—

A paintball slapped the terrorist’s forehead—time! Plastique clawed the pause button on her stopwatch. It beeped to mock her. You’d better have good news, watch.

Had they made it? Had her unit beaten the record? Had they trounced Gord’s ego? Had they eaten the last of the pie? Plastique’s heart hammered between her ears, in her forehead, in her soul, everywhere. She hesitated to check her stopwatch but swallowed that hesitation, stomped the fear because fear had no crocking room in her resolve. To the sound of Withered Old Battle-Axe clonking Scapegoat over the forehead for some perceived all-night rave, Plastique lifted her stopwatch to her eyes but didn’t read. Scapegoat watched her, expectantly awaiting the news. Sixth Sense blinked at her, breath immobilized in a cold vice. Catastrophe joined a question-and-answer period with nobody about immersing himself in the role of Officer Nuclear, deranged protector of the streets by day, deranged protector of other streets by night, deranged lunatic by every breathing moment. In Plastique’s opinion, Catastrophe didn’t need to immerse himself in the deranged part.

The stopwatch read T minus...three seconds? Her heart launched into her throat, wedged past her larynx, and erupted as a vomit of relief. And cold cuts. She collapsed backward into a chair. “Three seconds even.” She apologized to the Curb Stomper she’d collapsed on.

Scapegoat cheered something that, somehow, still sounded stitched up. He picked his nose in green and white and then red celebration. Sixth Sense pumped an arm. Catastrophe hooted and then addressed an imagined fan on proper method ham-acting, not playing a role but submerging yourself in the responsibility of patrolling the bowling alleys of Throttleberg.

Plastique hollered from her chair, “Field Agent, do you even know where you are?”

Catastrophe clasped his palms together. “Excellent question, fan. You see—”

“I withdraw everything I ever asked because I no longer care.” Plastique grabbed the stem of her gabber and blurted into it. “I’ve got a message for you, Gord. We broke your stupid record, and I hope that shatters your precious little self-worth. Right now I’m smothering your little fragile ego with gluten-free ketchup, chewing it up, turning it into hot piss, and then in a minute, I’ll do it all over again because it was the tastiest ego I’ve ever experienced. What do you have to say to that?” Yes, yes, yes, Gord was through. “Hello?”

“Your dream come true is right here, beautiful.” Gord’s greasy voice oozed through the gabber connection like thick mud. Its mere sound made Plastique smell the contaminated odor of a lake beside a sewage treatment plant, recalled from their first date. “What’s your message?”

“We beat your precious record. Beat it by three se—I mean...thirrrttttyyyy-three seconds. Point eight. And a half.” She winced. “Times two. It’s the imperial system.” Okay, covered nicely.

“The imperial system measures distance and weight.” Sixth Sense folded a wad of naan bread into a ladle shape and dipped it in hummus. A bit generous. Some slopped onto the flax-plant tablecloth, and some smeared on his too-long sleeve. “Yes, I’m a fountain of correction today. Yes, I’ll shut up.”

Gord snicker-breathed. “Heh. It’s all good, pretty eyes. Ain’t no thang.” Had Gord said “thang”? With an a? Plastique vowed never to use the letter a again. Fat chance. Argh, twice in one phrase. And again! Had she no shame?

Sixth Sense tiptoed over. “Uhm. Hey. I’m sensing unhealthy emotions from you. Why are you thinking about strangulation right now?” He cocked his head. “Wait. Now fire ants.” Cocked it more. “I’ll shut up again.”

“Time to create a letter to replace a.” Plastique was amazed that, even through Gord’s silence, she detected sultry haughtiness. She pinched her nose. Fire ants were appropriate, but where could she find easy-flow honey at a time like this? Her eyes found the catering table. Oh. How about that.

“Okay, Gord, well, if it ain’t no...ahem...thang, then—don’t look at me like that, Fld. Agt. Sixth Sense. Gord, I’m trying to say let’s see what you got. Your time to beat is now sixteen minutes and”—she counted on her fingers—“fifty-nine point...no, fifty-eight point...some imperial unit of time. Don’t look at me like that, Fld. Agt. Sixth Sense.”

Castolingo shouldered past her. Slowly. As she crept passed, she assaulted her with a predatory glare, like an alligator advancing through marsh grass. The other members of the Curb Stompers followed, each giving their own versions of glares except Stromball due to his cross eyes. He banged into the doorframe. Also due to his lack of depth perception. Poor guy.

Gord smooched through the gabber connection. “Still ain’t no thang. Now, drift your tight caboosery down here so we can discuss this record...close. Tender close. Come on down, play my banjo. I’m too amazing for you to pass up. So amazing I nearly called myself Super Amazing Guy except Super Amazing Guy already took that name and, if there’s one thing the Success Party animal respects, it’s intellectual property.”

“Eww. No. I will come downstairs, but I’m coming to gloat and also I really want some cheese fondue. And what’s a banjo have to do with anything? Save me some cheese fondue.”

“It’s the most romantic of the bayou instruments. Anyway, I’m locking and loading something...ultra special...for you. So sashay on down, my little bran muffin.”

“Stop calling me pet names!”

“As you wish, sugar cookie.”

“That’s a pet name. And it’s worse than ‘bran muffin’ because it has no nutritional value.” Plastique kicked something, didn’t know what until she realized she’d kicked the fry cook. She gagged at the idea of wandering tenderly close to Gord, that tapeworm. She gagged at the idea of wandering remotely close to him. She was too close now. “Gabber, acknowledge. Cut connection. I can’t believe that disgusting creep thinks he’ll romance me back. I’d rather contract lichen. All of them. And Catastrophe, if you don’t for one second stop marketing your flailing B movie, I’ll reach into your inner soul and redefine your concept of psychological scarring.” She fired Catastrophe a look akin to twin drills boring into the core of a planet. Catastrophe froze in place, in the middle of offering his making-of film a sound bite.

Sixth Sense stood a couple feet away, idle as if waiting for his cue to speak. He held up a bowl to her. “For some reason, I thought you’d need this.” It was filled with honey and syrup. “Not sure why. I also dug up this.” He held up a datasheet, on it a gabber callsign for the South Epilade legal defense team. “Also not sure why.”

Chapter Thirteen: Precise Mathematics of Irrationality Divided by the Silver Ratio

Franchise found Ace Spandex still in the murky, chilly mess hall where he’d left the computer expert an hour ago. He’d charged immediately here after he’d left Power Plant to stew in their living quarters, a war chest littered across his bed. And Franchise’s bed. And the rug. And every square inch of the garden outside their window. And Power Plant’s collection of commemorative pizzas with seven species of mold stinking out of them.

Now alone, Ace sat on a lonely table deep in a covert corner of the room, facing away from the serving counter. His seat was so underlit and remote that he looked ready to plunge into unplumbed depths in a muddy-lit ocean. The only sounds here were Franchise’s rushed and stilted footfalls. The only light, scant as it was, projected from the datasheet Ace fiddled with and the glow of the soda machines, arranged like onlookers at the sideline of a parade, along the wall.

Franchise wobbled up to Ace, checking the door for any pursuing Jeffys carrying entrails of explosives, people’s heads, or the two combined. He arrived at Ace, but his echoing footsteps took a second to catch up. “Aaron, I’m worried about Jeffy.”

“So are several authorities and casinos.” Ace kept his back to Franchise, rapping the datasheet with a finger. Was he playing a Mario game? No one stabs Mario! But Ace gave up his game. Mario had died. Mushrooms couldn’t save him this time. “Well, I have to go. After a failed trial run”—Ace grabbed a mop Franchise hadn’t noticed in the dark—“I have a mess in my bathroom.”

“Aaron, I’m serious. I’m legitimately worried about Jeffy.”

“Sometimes I am, too. I’m thinking specifically of the way he clears birds off the station’s corn field. You know what he thinks ‘murder of crows’ means?”

Franchise squeaked onto the bench next to Ace. The squeak bounced around this barren mess hall. “This isn’t our normal abnormal Jeffy. I mean, I’m usually this worried”—he raised a rigid but trembling hand to neck level—“like how he gets scared at lights out when I leave the closet door open and asks if he can crawl in bed with me.”

“He does?”

“He’s...Yes. He twitches and kicks his legs in his sleep. He’s like a dog dreaming of chasing rabbits. It’s fascinating in all the wrong ways. Let’s not talk about it.” Franchise’s rigid hand shot to his brow. “Anyhow, now I’m this worried. He doesn’t even swear anymore. Well, he kind of swears, but he says ‘snotcopter,’ and I don’t think that counts. And I hope it’s not a weapon idea. I don’t want to find out what he made the rotor from.”

“That’s a remarkable increase in worry.” Ace set aside his mop and coughed into a fist. “Judging from your hand level, I’m calculating a twenty-eight point seven percent rise in worry.”

Franchise snapped his fingers. “Yes, I was just thinking to myself how my worry rose twenty-seven point eight percent.”

“Twenty-eight point seven.”

A palm smacked the tabletop. “Can we focus on Jeffy and his possible implements of my ridicule? The last couple days, he’s been...brooding. Consider his wish list. Why quick-dry cement? I don’t know. He does.”

“Janice, acknowledge. Recite a list of entity Power Plant’s requests.”

“Okay, pookie.” Janice’s giggle enflamed the mess hall in more assaulting echoes. She sounded like a cackling demon child. “Entity Power Plant has requested a marching band, piranhas that breathe flames underwater, a trampoline in a room with a low ceiling, a helmet, a G.I. Joe playset, a mansized roulette wheel, darts, darts, darts, darts, hamburger cake, darts—”

“Janice, acknowledge. Recite a list of entity Power Plant’s requests from today.”

“Entity Power Plant has requested access to the solvents, hoses, and launchers in the stockroom, atom-smearing lasers, a hoist and chain, a box of raisins, darts—”

“That is disconcerting. He hates raisins. They always disappoint him when he realizes he’s not eating bugs.”

“I know! I have no clue what he has planned, but I signed up for therapy just in case.” Franchise hugged himself. Was the room growing colder? “Ace, if aggressively detached is a thing, that’s Jeffy’s thing now. I just came from our quarters, and he was on his bed, assembling some torture device worse than IP’s conduct videos. Remember earlier when he said I’ll get him good? I’m the him!” He jabbed a ferocious finger at his chest, and his eyes kindled as if he were nurtured in the wild. “He’s planning something, like when we caught him with the oven timer that turned out not to be an oven timer.”

“What do you mean, aggressively detached?” Ace blinked, and in the darkness, Franchise discerned the twinkle of backlighting in his irises. Whatever caused the flicker whirred. Was his brain burping? “You are worried. Your biorhythms reveal a forty-seven point nine percent rise in tension. Don’t undersell changes in your emotional levels. It can reflect badly on your life-insurance policy.”

“I’ll consider that next time I’m not an everyday, ordinary, regular person. Now, back to the guy who measures success by what he stuffs up a cat’s nose...can we please check up on him? You’re his surrogate brother, and I’m his best friend/brother who must be insane to live in the same room as him. It’s our duty.”

Ace Spandex raised a hand. “Hold on. I’m interfacing with Janice.”

“I’m ecstatic you guys are taking your relationship to the next level. What does that mean? Also why?”

Something rumbled, like a volcano erupting two counties away. Power Plant! Though Franchise sat, he gripped the bench to make sure he wouldn’t spill onto the floor like every drink the servingbots brought him ever since he told Janice he wouldn’t help her drug Acey before he uninstalled all that malware. He released the bench but kept his hands at the ready in case Power Plant caused an aftershock. Yeah, it was only a tremor, but with Power Plant, tremors preluded dragon attacks.

Ace Spandex stood but kept his knees bent. A light panel, off, drifted into his scarred brow like an ice floe on a gentle current. It rebounded with a tick. His eyes journeyed across the ceiling as a mellow dusting sprinkled the floor. “What was that?”

“No idea.” Franchise suffered flashes of items in Power Plant’s homicidal list—hoses, spouts—“Enough public displays of interfacing. Where’s Jeffy and how wide a berth should we advise people to give him?”—epoxy, sponges—

Ace gasped. “The commemorative garden.” He slapped Franchise’s back. “You head him off there. I’ll be along as soon as I notify the environment protection agencies and wildlife preserves.”

—paint thinners, quick-dry cement—“Got it.” Franchise darted off toward the mess hall’s exit, which now stood as the only stark light. His heart raced faster than he did—sprays, detergents, solvents—His gut swam in that distinctly acidic feeling that he was running to either his doom or a construction site—raisins, those raisins—

Chapter Fourteen: ...And Then This Blithering Nonsense

Plastique hammered off the airfoil. “This explanation better be phenomenal, Gord. I’m sick of hearing about how badly you can trounce the welterweight-division boxing champs.” She barreled into the basement control room, its orchestra of viewscreens and Catastrophe’s orchestra of datasheets playing their orchestra of Catastrophe’s weekly-rotating theme song. She’d positively throttle Catastrophe, but then she’d have to attend his funeral where someone would play an orchestra of dirges, which was just a jumble of tunes Catastrophe thought should appear in credit sequences.

To target her brewing storm of animosity at Gord, she jostled between Sixth Sense and one of Catastrophe’s crew members. Each stomp she pounded at her ex was an attack of thunder and “Gord, what the crock are you doing?” Her Borgnada 16mm flowed into her hand and spat up at Gord before she knew it. Gord threatened Schlechniss with his own weapon: a K13 Megabreach pistol with walnut stock and a stitched-groove grip. An effective conceal-and-carry weapon, six-thousand-degree-max heat caliber in each light-bullet, with capacity to store and charge sixteen light-bullet shells. He held this at Schlechniss’s ear, an arm locked around Schlechniss’s neck. “Gord, why does this look remarkably like the night I met your parents?”

The scene Plastique had stumbled upon was a harlequin of confusions. Gord had taken Schlechniss for some reason, Shrizchago lay dead with a mix of fluids leaking from an exit wound behind his skull. None of the other Curb Stompers had returned to the basement yet. Only Gord stood here. Even Greco was absent. The catering team was all right. Most important, the cheese fondue station purred at peak efficiency. Legion sat there, a tree of broccoli taking a long shower under the aged mozzarella. He’d shed his military uniform in favor of a sleeveless T-shirt, a leather jacket, a pair of jeans, street-gang running shoes, and that infernal toque. That infernal backwards toque.

“I wish this coulda gone over better, sweetie eyes.” Gord struggled against Schlechniss’s writhing. “Thought you woulda gleamed on my vibe already. But sometimes even my tremendous foresight can’t account for everything. And you’re aiming a paintball pistol at me, my little electric charge.”

“Leave fundamental forces out of this! And, crock, you’re right.” Plastique tossed the paintball Borgnada away and replaced it with a glowing fist of hyperenergy that snarled like a guard dog, her explosive punch charged. “And, Lt. Col. Legion, why aren’t you fighting back?”

Lt. Col. Legion shrugged with his hands. “He asked me to chill like a villain.”

“Wrong tense, stupid nuts,” Gord said. “Way I put it, it rhymed and was chiller.”

Plastique’s eyes never left Gord. She pumped more hyperenergy into her fist. It glowed hotly, snapping like a campfire. “Seriously, sir, you look like his green clone.”

“But my hombre said to chill back. I’m not a villain averse to a period of chilling. I flowed that chill drift so hard. Plus...cheese fondue.” Legion rotated the broccoli. “Admit it, the fondue is seventy-five percent the reason you flipped back on down here.”

“Eighty.” Plastique’s lower jaw jutted out. “And, squad, a little help?”

Behind her, action clattered: Catastrophe raised his fists to rain the very ceiling over them. Sixth Sense stomped forward, prepped for any damage his telekinesis could inflict or deflect. Withered Old Battle-Axe whacked her walker around, ready to reprimand a party of who’s-its over how loud their musics were hipping and hopping. And Scapegoat picked his nose with more aggression than usual. Plastique still couldn’t understand why they let Scapegoat leave the station. He was clearly a housebound pet. Also, Catastrophe raising his hands was apparently him comparing which headshot he favored. Scapegoat’s nose began to bleed.

“Gord, what are doing?”

“Got my main troops in prep mode upstairs. You caught me in midscooch. I’m outta this place. Shoulda scooched hours ago, but I had to shelve that action until now because I didn’t get my word earlier, and the catering superstars here don’t deliver, my sweet crème brûlée.”

“You rushed me downstairs to tell me this? Your word on what?” Plastique’s sizzling rage materialized in her fist, which deepened from yellow to orange. It emitted zealous heat.

“I want you to scooch with me, my hot-cross bun.”

“Gord, you’re ruining a lot of people’s comfort foods today.”

Schlechniss struggled again, both hands screwed around Gord’s arm. Gord tightened his grip, compressing against Schlechniss’s wheezing windpipe a tad more. “Scooch with me, babe. It sucks we had to be splitsville. We did awesome together. Remember the time we beat up them thugs using thirty-pound dumbbells?”

“That was the day I realized I loved you. You’d progressed from twenty-five pounders.” Plastique risked a step closer, her hands poised like twin cannons.

“See? We did real awesome. We belong together, like that thug’s throat and iron. Plus, I have this deadly fierce tattoo with your name. A grinning skull, two guns. Top-notch eye candy that I can’t even flaunt to the crowds at the beach.” Gord’s eyes stretched so wide he looked like a goon in a Halloween mask. His tongue waggled.

Sixth Sense scratched his sweaty forehead against a poised sleeve. “Uhm. Hold on. Hey. Skulls can’t hold guns because they don’t have hands.

“He’s right.” Plastique felt her cheekbones stiffen achingly. “That tattoo won’t impress anybody but art-house primates.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Courtney.” Gord shifted his feet, dragged Schlechniss to the left. He was shuffling toward the airfoil in a counterclockwise direction, hoping to slither around and behind the Good Guys. “You scooching or not, baby back—”

“If the next word out of your mouth is ribs, not a chance. If it isn’t, then not a chance.” Plastique shuffled her feet. By now Gord had reached the salad bar. He inched toward the sauces arrangement.

Gord pounded a fist over the bowl of Italian croutons. “But my little bazooka—”

“Uh. Uhm. Okay. What does your scoochery have to do with a hypersurgeon?” Sixth Sense interjected. He searched Gord, Plastique, Gord again. He pushed his glasses up his nose until the frames rested against his cheeks, but they slipped back down. “And a meeting point on Stigrathcha? And that look you’re giving me right now?” His gaze, fluttering like a gentle butterfly, finally eased on Gord. “Sorry. I have telepathy. I’m reading your mind. Why are you thinking of me and guillotines now?” A moment’s pause. “Right. Stupid question.”

“Crock, you wish-you-weres and your pissing hyperabilities. Now you blabbed everything, you D-and-D geek. Try correcting this.” Less than misty eyed, Gord shoved his K13 forward with a clatter and yanked the trigger. Sixth Sense plummeted to the floor as quickly as if his head couldn’t wait to smack the table. The platter flipped, its remnants somersaulting like action heroes diving from the blast radius of a bomb. The platter clanged to rest. Too bad. It had the Elizabethan cloth and the platinum-trimmed, three-foot-wide platter of poached salmon with decorate lemon wedges on a bed of rice and spinach. “Never slick your diseased hyperabilities on me.”

“You killed him?” Plastique threw herself at Gord. Her punch swung in the air and smacked him in the ear. She couldn’t bring herself to use her hyperability to split his head as though it were a rotten cantaloupe. Oh, but she wanted to.

Catastrophe gripped a table with his hyperability, prepared to hurl it, but Castolingo appeared behind him—“Ah, ah, ah”—with a pistol to his ear. He hesitated. Scapegoat looked gripped in terror while Withered Old Battle-Axe regaled a spider web with a story on how she got her fourteenth cat, Clawpookie.

Gord released Schlechniss, hand to nose—looked up—Schlechniss retaliated with a punch—missed—Gord shot him—forehead, direct hit—victory-danced a pelvic thrust—“yeah, yeah”—swung around—fired and killed Garsilotke—Vick threw the salmon platter—Gord deflected—punched a bullet through Vick’s neck—“Babe, you coulda scooched with, but you denied yourself me”—fired an evil stare at Plastique—“Your bad choice, your funeral”—Plastique parried forward again—Gord was prepared—clapped a chop into the base of Plastique’s neck—

Plastique’s world went red and black. Except for the stars.

Chapter Fifteen: One-Track Mob Mentality

The rooftop access howled in its destruction. Shrapnel of brick and wood exploded away from its form. Its top collapsed. The door folded backward, and the haunt control saw no reason to keep the shield screen alive. It disintegrated in a blink and a fzzzz-pop. The sky regained its normal tint: smoggy gray with imported bluebirds coughing and dying.

Master Asinine backed up to the roof’s railing. He clutched the pebbles he brandished as a weapon, kneading them around his grip, resolution burning his eyes. Nope. Wasn’t resolution. Was sweat. Rancid sweat at that. And several coats of it.

The wave of generics, like red spume from the violent tide of a shark attack, burst through the dam of the access’s wreckage. “Kill management, kill Asinine, kill the named agents!” The frontrunner wore a conical paper hat and a pin that said, “Over the Hill.” Ah, have a good one, Bernie.

The tide roared over Multipurpose, not bothering with the sleeping glutton who’d passed out a few moments before. He’d lived a full life, anyway, after knocking off the last item on his bucket list: show his ninja jaws who was boss by taking down a seventy-pound wedge of cheese.

The next to fall was Amaranthia. She flipped backward, somersaulted, spun, tossed throwing star after ninja star after throwing st—hey, they were the same thing this whole time? She flailed at the unstoppable juggernaut that was the tidal wave that was the undertow that was the generics that was th—The metaphor should stop there.

A generic grabbed her ankles and tossed her to the ground. She was saved from a broken neck only by her maroon impact suit. She winced, but the generics still tied her in knots of clutching arms and seizing hands.

They didn’t bother with Appetite. They knew the deal with that witless piece of breathing furniture. The next were Master Asinine Sucks and Bad Aim. They were the losers of the group, anyway. Then Schizophrenic, who wasn’t so much as swept under their tow as he was swept by nonchalance. He crammed two generics’ faces into each other, shrugged, walked to the other side of the rooftop, and cracked out the lounge chair Asinine had dragged out. He started tossing leftover popcorn into Lefty’s mouth and Righty’s eye.

The wave reached Master Asinine, its venom-spitting vanguard only a scant few feet away. Like the tide reaching seashore, it slowed, quieted its roar, fingers of water tickling the sands before receding. But this wave didn’t recede. It only stamped poleaxes against the stony roof. Master Asinine inched backward, his spine rolling along the railing. The scaly Braindead stood next to him, a pistol in his grip and a slither in his tongue. They stood shoulder to shoulder as the generics encroached on those final inches, trapping them on the left and right.

“Well, good buddy.” Asinine poked Braindead’s side with an elbow. “It’s been great causing mayhem with you. We did a lot of good in our years together: tried to blitzkrieg the galaxy’s faces, survived a meteor that nearly smashed a military campus, flipped the gravity controls at a Ferris wheel. But I guess it’s all over now.”

One little girl swung a punch at Braindead, nailing him out for the count. He collapsed against the railing and slipped down until he was no more than a crumpled bag of scales and cold blood. Holy wow, that girl had a left hook! Asinine was serious: her left hand ended in a hook. Asinine needed that attachment on butt-scratching days.

The generics stamped their poleaxes on the roof’s floor again. They no longer resembled a tide, their faces stitched with ire. No, if they were a tide, Asinine would have enjoyed a refreshing swim and then drowned because he didn’t know how to swim.

What to do? His heart caused tectonic shifts in his gut. He hoisted himself up on the next-to-tallest bar of the three-barred railing. From up here, he noticed none of the named agents were killed as the generics’ credo had called for: they were just held back or knocked out. The nerve! Could he not trust even a simple murder credo these days?

He licked his lips. “Hear ye, hear ye—”

“This ain’t the colonial west, you barrel of gaffes!” Schizophrenic yelled over the mob. Popcorn crackled in his mouth. “Would you red barons pissing kill him alrea—” Graceless choking, like a cat spewing up a hairball. “Crock. Kernel shell went down the wrong pipe.”

“Schiztenant, whose side are you on?” Asinine couldn’t even see the two-header.

One little generic tugged on her father’s shirt. “Daddy, hurry up and take this guy’s gonads as a trophy so we can get back to our tea party.”

“Patience, sweetie.” The generic kissed the top of his snuggle bunny’s head. “Tooty Bear asked us to come no earlier than ten.”

“I’m on the side of the girl who wants to take off your gonads,” Lefty said.

“Okay, okay, generics.” Asinine’s pulse now pummeled in his stomach, and his stomach was in his larynx, and his larynx was in his throat, and, okay, that was where it was supposed to be. But the point stood. “Look, I understand your problem with the gore strewn all over the street. And risking your lives. I admit: bringing home that rabbit wasn’t my best idea. In my defense, though, it also wasn’t my worst.”

“It killed Reed!” A generic swiped at Asinine with his poleaxe.

Asinine slouched in profound despair. “Not the ESL teacher.”

“Scuuz snark trefolia!” Irate and redder than her outfit, another generic gestured madly with both hands.

Asinine straightened his posture, spine creaking. “Okay, I’m ready to negotiate. Forget the unlimited sodas and the eye-washing station. What would help you guys not rip necessary parts off me? I define necessary as my gonads. Those are definite keepers.”

“Let’s start with clean drinking water in the generics’ quarters.” That generic stomped the floor. He scratched his backside and then sniffed his fingers. “What do you say, fellow generics? Contract renegotiations?”

“You guys are on contract? Can I pay you in doubloons?” Asinine scratched his chin though it didn’t itch. “And can I get some birthday cake?”

Another chant rose from the crowd, first as a dove’s coo. It progressed into a murmur, into a hubbub, into conversational volume, and quickly into vehement rallying. “Renegotiate contracts, renegotiate benefits, renegotiate deals!” The one rallying the others was the guy who’d sampled his own fart. “Renegotiate contracts, renegotiate benefits, renegotiate deals!”

Several generics dropped their poleaxes and stomped forward. They grabbed Master Asinine, hoisted him aloft, and surfed him to wherever generics spent their free time. The pool hall or tattoo parlor or convenience store. All the while, they recited their chant, renewed vigor as this chant loudened to a volume the neighbors could hear down the solar orbit. “Renegotiate contracts, renegotiate benefits, renegotiate deals! And if we don’t like it, then kill management, kill the named agents!”

Schizophrenic shifted off his lounge chair and plopped down the datasheet he’d been reading. “And there’s my cue to go drinking.”

Chapter Sixteen: Whack Job

“...crtn...”

Plastique grunted. Everything was still black in her world except the parts that glittered like stars. And her seething red anger. Her head felt as if rubber mallets had pummeled it, just like trips to the dentist. Except this trip didn’t involve anesthetic. Or maybe it did. She didn’t remember the catering table offering anesthetic. Mmmm. Anesthetic was her favorite fruit, full of rich vitamins and flavonoids and antistimulants.

“...crtney?” Who’s voice? Someone’s voice. A dream voice. No. Dream voices didn’t shake you. “courtney?” Dream voices sounded more like that cute guy who anchored the weather on the astraphobia network. At least he was cute when not cowering under a desk after the first snowfall of the season hit.

“Courtney.” She wanted the dream voice to shut its yap. Its use of volume flew against several military policies.

Plastique blinked herself awake, found the floor under her...where it should be. Stood. Stumbled. Stood again. Itemized her surroundings. Gord had cleared out...but where were the Good Guys? Where was the catering team? Where was Schlechniss? Crock, where was the catering team?

Oh, yeah. The fight.

In fact, where was she? She recognized this place. It blurred into coherence, sounding like someone tuning into a radio signal. Finally. Still in the basement of Traitmount 83. She could tell by the baseboard design, the muted red and white of the room, the bodies littering what used to be edible and fantastic protein-rich cereal grains.

“Lt. Col. Legion?” Ow. Her voice sparkled in her ears. It echoed in this stagnant room. “Fld. Agt. Catastrophe? Weird elbow guy?” She waited for voices to call back. “Caterers?”

“Uh. Hey. Easy now. I’m here.” A hand at her shoulder said that. It was attached to an arm and then a body and then a face that had spoken. Hands still tended to attach to things like that, right? Sixth Sense. Plastique would have felt surprise at seeing him alive, but she still felt like the sparring partner to an octopus.

Now that he’d woken Plastique, Sixth Sense held an asthma inhaler that he puffed into his mouth. Asthma, in this day and age. Apparently the soldier came from farm country, from a family that eschewed medical interference. He pocketed the inhaler.

“How are you...” Her throat tugged at the hints of vomit. “How are you still alive?” She didn’t wait for Sixth Sense’s answer: she whipped to her feet. Had to track down Gord. That rat was headed to Stigrathcha? That was Poltergeist’s second-closest moon, some minor pebble that knocked against its larger brothers like a bashful teen shouldered about by bullies.

“Uhm. Okay. About that. Threw up a telekinetic field at the last second. Deflected the light-bullet. Went down and played dead to give him the surprise of his life. Never got the chance.”

“Nice reaction time.”

“I saw it coming.” Sixth Sense winked behind his thick glasses. Glasses, in this day and age.

Plastique winced and cupped her forehead. Even her thoughts felt like shattered glass. “We have to go get Gord. Where are the others? Where’s the soufflé?”

“Uh. Geez. Bad news. Your ex killed the catering team”—crock—“Catastrophe’s entourage”—silver lining—“anyone with a hyperability. Catastrophe, Scapegoat, Withered Old Battle-Axe...they tried to stop him, but it’s tough when you’re armed with paintball guns and your hyperabilities include drawing blame and kicking kids off your lawn. They got to Catastrophe before he could stop them, mainly because he tried to sell them Officer Nuclear tumblers first. They swatted an Officer Nuclear tumbler out of Catastrophe’s hand, and it knocked me unconscious.” Sixth Sense blushed. “I never saw it coming.

“Your ex took the Good Guys as hostage. All of them. Mabel, too. For some reason. Said he had tests to perform. Needed their hyperabilities. He missed me, though, since he thought I was dead. Be glad Scapegoat didn’t wander close to me. He would have blown my cover, and my finger would have shot right up my nostril.” The field agent pushed his glasses up his nose. “He took Legion, too. Said Legion was good leverage.”

The airfoil had been destroyed. Sparking from a circuit. Plastique stumbled to the door on bipolar legs: one fast asleep and the other tingling as though from caffeine jitters. She spilled into the door, which faded with a jingle like a power saw in her head. Her brow hit the green carpet of the airfoil. Her nose hit a datasheet. Not one of Catastrophe’s. She could tell because it wasn’t a headshot.

She rolled over and propped herself against the doorframe, picked up the datasheet. It was white, rigid, activated, hopefully containing the callsign to a lobotomy center because she wouldn’t mind erasing the past twelve hours from memory.

But the datasheet contained something vastly different. A note. Personalized to her. Ugh. From Gord. By all the misspellings and frequency with which he called himself the Master of Machochismo, she realized he’d never taken that high school equivalency test. But she read it anyway. Probably a bullet-form catalog of top-ten lists he put himself on. But it was worth a cursory glance. Eww, she detected Gord’s cologne on it: bacon. And the grease stains: also bacon.

“Courtney, it’s me, Gord; yer wonder stallian and every1’s idol. I’ll be strait up, sweetz; I came to Poltergeist to see you. Accepting this training thing wuz a cover. Genius, eh? I’m that awesome, aren’t I. But you ain’t interested. I’m sly to that. You like staying on the ground level of the mindblow scale with all the loserz. Not a lot of the ladiez can pack in my chief charm. Your loss, babe. You’re dead to me as of right now; cuz I ain’t talking to you anymore. Enjoy hanging with the nobodyz and dreamerz. See you when I’m even awesomer than I am now. I’ll be watching you from the top. I’m a big deal. I have covered parking.”

Holy crock, this was contrived. Plastique continued reading, “Oh, and don’t bother coming after me. Your friends won’t be around when you find me anywayz. They’ll be long cut up; surgeon style. Okay, NOW I ain’t talking to you anymore. SYSTEM PROCESSING ERROR: END OF FILE NOT FOUND.” Gord still ended plurals with a z and mixed his metaphors. And didn’t know how to use a semicolon.

He planned to cut them up surgeon style? He’d kill them. Plastique dropped the datasheet and wrestled with her legs to stand. Sixth Sense gripped her arm to help, but she wrenched it away. She’d manage this herself, crock it. “We have to hunt him down.” When she spoke, both brain hemispheres resonated at different frequencies. She had to brace herself.

“Hey. Yikes. Nuh-uh. You can’t be serious. You can barely stand.” Sixth Sense sized her up. “You’re in no shape to chase after him.”

“I’m in the perfect shape to chase after him: alive and macked off. But our friends and Catastrophe won’t be for long. He has plans to give them fatal surgeries. No idea what his—”

“I have some idea what his plan is.” The field agent beamed. “Got a couple of flashes from his mind after he shot at me.” Plastique opened her mouth to ask for details, but Sixth Sense was one step ahead of her. “I’m one step ahead of you.” He had to stop that. “I have to stop th—Please stop glaring.

“He’s meeting some lunatic who views herself as a hypersurgeon. She suffers from acute robopathy and acute arthritis in her pinkie toe. Little emotion except base sick glee and hatred for the acute arthritis in her pinkie toe. She’s been incarcerated in maximum security for performing brutal surgeries on hyperpeople. Cuts them open, not to cure them of anything, but to see what makes them tick. To watch their hyperabilities work...from the inside.” He said this last phrase while swallowing a leftover two-bite brownie from the dessert table. In one bite. By not taking the requisite number of bites, he’d affronted no fewer than four eating protocols. And three social ones.

Sixth Sense worked the brownie until it vanished and then reached for another. “So Success Party plans to meet this ‘surgeon’ to find out how to eradicate hyperpeople. He’ll have her study their hyperabilities as she cuts open and examines our friends. Catastrophe’s at risk, too.”

Plastique reached for a brownie herself and then almost choked on it after taking zero bites. That would have made her no better than the bite-affronting field agent who took one fewer bite than the packaging and title endorsed. “Crock. I knew Gord hated hyperabilities, just not enough to want them extinct. I mean, that would be an improvement in the case of Scapegoat or Fart-Man Fabrice from my third-grade phys-ed class, but...my crock. He’s planning a cleanse no smaller than what Mechanism attempted. That egocentric freak.”

“Sticks and stones, Courtney.”

“I don’t need to know what he uses to make fire.” Plastique mashed another mound of cake into her mouth. “The bite recommendation on these brownies is not fair.”

“I know, eh?” Sixth Sense worked his words around another brownie. The aroma of chocolate slithered out. “I can barely keep them away!”

“But, seriously, Field Agent, I could write you up for this one-bite business. Society has rules.”

Chapter Seventeen: Clean-Up Crew

Franchise collided with the corner of a building. His hip flared bluntly with a thousand and one brick rasps. If not for his impact clothes, his side would have shredded open and bled down his leg. As it stood, he’d lose only a few layers of skin thanks to whatever acid bath Jeffy would hose him with. Imagine that: an acid bath was the upside to this. But if Jeffy planned to melt Franchise with caustic liquids, Franchise would take the nut bar down with him.

Panting, lungs scorching, bracing himself against the stippled bricks he’d scraped himself on, he felt like cursing. “Jeffy, I don’t care how brooding you’ve gotten or how often you say you’re one of eight essential nutrients found in plutonium. I’ve had enough.” He stamped a fist against the building. The bee stings stabbing his knuckles immediately told him how stupid that was. “Crock, I’m an idiot.”

Franchise knew he should stay away. Dealing with this mess head-on would put him on the losing end. Last time Jeffy had tried something, Franchise couldn’t be exposed to direct sunlight for a week. But he marshaled his resolve. He had to find out what was eating Jeffy. He’d rested enough. Back into a sprint. Lungs so strained he felt as if he’d guzzled liquid nitrogen.

His legs were jelly, without sensation, but he rode them across Station One’s main campus. Blasts grew louder and louder as he barreled toward the commemorative garden. The garden now stood only a couple blocks away, a distant square hedged in by thirteen-foot-tall shrubbery. He watched fire spew out of the hedge’s top, heard a commotion. On the outskirts of its east entrance stood a dedicatory statue of Reef, an inscription etched on a plaque reading, “In honor of Silas Reef, Good Guy field leader and all-’round chill dude. December 9, 9051 to February 8, 9110. Loved his children and pickles.” That was what you got when you kept your life private: an inscription about pickles.

He toppled against the rubber-edged step marking the margin between the street and the garden, where the hedges indicated the garden’s ivy-covered entrance. “Jeffy, please don’t try tunneling to the core of the station again. There’s no chewy center, and it isn’t a giant Tootsie Pop.”

The commemorative garden spanned three blocks by three blocks, layered inside three square alleys of hedges. The commotion seemed to come from the center square, so Franchise couldn’t see it. But he heard angry bellows and a hubbub of a crowd at the mercy of Jeffy’s weaponized and likely nuclearized cleaning equipment. He careened through the outer hedges, bounced around until he found the next perimeter, and then threw himself through the opening into the central garden.

The sight greeting him was such a reversal of assumptions it sent Franchise reeling into the shrubs. Some poked into his mouth. Ugh. Tree bark.

In the jolt the scene inflicted, sound failed him. The commotion was muted. The details whirled so fast he could summarize it only in point form without falling behind in the silent specifics: a teary-cheeked Jeffy versus a raging mob; moist sobbing; Jeffy spraying his hyperability and cleaning chemicals to hold back the mob; said mob dressed in cheap approximations of Mechanism’s body armor, hostility aimed through whatever weapons they’d hooked their claws on; commemorative statues marred, laser-painted, broken, shattered, toppled, ruined; the mob closing in on Jeffy, who defended a statue a little left of dead center, next to a large granite tombstone that listed the names of all fallen Good Guys.

Sound pressed back in. The mob snarled so angrily, their voices roared like alpha lions. Jeffy scattered light from hands that whipped back and forth as though he warded away demons with incantations. Franchise couldn’t discern what was said: the clashing threats clambered over each other, and picking out words was impossible.

But the scene was sharp with explanation. Mechanism’s sick-minded supporters had gone to work on the commemorative garden, divulging their beliefs by dressing the statues in ferocious vandalism. And toilet paper. And a chair for some reason.

Jeffy stood atop his fallen older brother’s statue, brutally defending it with his life. His brother, Burnout, had been killed in Mechanism’s attempted galactic cleansing last month. So one of the Mechanism supporters had lit Burnout on fire, scorched him beyond identification. A hand had been snapped off, and he was beheaded.

“Jeffy?” Franchise said. The meek word incised through the commotion.

Jeffy, sobbing eyes and zigzagging breaths, fell silent. “They’s ruined Mark’s statue, Jakey. Mark ain’t supposed to be like this. I told you I’ll gets ’em good.” His words hopped around his gasps.

He’d said them. Not him. Them. Franchise deflated. “I know, Jeffy. And he never wore a chair.” He used his hyperability of self-duplication to push out several clones, too many to count. The headache it instigated was...unfathomable, swathed in waves. The duplicates attacked the mob, pressed them away, ate poison berries off the shrubs. Why? Why, duplicates? The dozens of Franchises made no ambiguity that sticking around would be a huge mistake for the mob. Repelling the mob took the better part of an hour. Then the duplicates started urinating. Everywhere. Not pretty. Sticky, though.

Franchise was already on his gabber. “Tamiko?” He sat on the platform base of the ruined tombstone with the names of the fallen. And bird dookie. In his pain, he could see only in glittering shapes. “Can we postpone date night until tomorrow?” But he saw Jeffy. He watched Jeffy sink to his knees at the sight of the mutilation spread across the commemorative square. Bleakness blackened him. “I know you were looking forward to it.” Some things could wait. “But Jeffy needs me right now.” Other things couldn’t.

The mob was threatened with the fact that the Car Alarm commemorative statue had a button that produced a direct quotation and Franchise wasn’t afraid to use it. Okay, wasn’t very afraid. Still a lie.

Franchise ordered Janice to close off the area with a shield screen and to allow only Good Guy entities to cross the electrified boundary. He sucked back in his duplicates and recovered. He and Jeffy grabbed the cleaning equipment and took an hour and a half—and gallons of the solvents Jeffy had ordered—to scrub the defacement off the statues and surroundings. Ace joined them shortly after, Incendiary shortly after that, and then Organism. A few Good Guy supporters pitched in: Franchise instructed Janice to let them through. Some things needed professional attention, and some supporters were professionals. Statues were still broken, shattered and destroyed, fragmented. A top hat still sat on top of Smithereens’s head, and a monocle was charred over one eye in an ironic display. Shrubbery still burned, pungent and decayed. Steps and platforms were still gouged and caved. When the cleanup ended, the commemorative garden wasn’t as good as new. But, for now, the repairs were suitable. Jeffy paid careful attention to Mark’s statue and didn’t rest until night fell frostily and his brother was as good as he could repair it. He fell asleep there, cheek slumped over Mark’s knee. Mark, the only family Jeffy ever knew. At least before Franchise. And Ace.

By the time the work ended, Franchise was starved and depleted. He didn’t even have energy to crack his knuckles. But you did that for family.

All wasn’t right in Jeffy’s world. Franchise couldn’t ever make it completely right. But, for now, this was close enough.

Chapter Eighteen: Contractual Obfuscations

Master Asinine grunted when the gushingly cute angel tightened the setting on the inertia field locking him to his chair. His arms were knotted behind the chair’s back. His legs twined around the chair’s legs. The back of his head pressed into the chair’s high cushion, with the rest of the head doing regular head stuff like looking around and sniffing the pleasant cinnamon scent from the sweet pea who fiddled with the inertia dial. “Okay, might be a bad time to bring this up, but I’m sitting on my wallet.” He wrestled to twist his head to see Little Miss Inertia Dial, who was dancing in place. “And I think you set the inertia high enough, pumpkin. It only goes to ten, and somehow you found a way to beef it up to twelve. Hundred.” He blinked at her. “Thousand.” Ow stinging ow. “You’re such a capable little girl, killing me like a grownup.” The little devil boosted the setting again, and the back of Asinine’s head squashed further into the chair’s upholstery. He felt tight ropes of pressure constrict his forehead. “Is this because I replaced all the generics’ toilet paper with duct tape?”

Where was he? This room was like no place he’d seen before. Festive streamers spider-webbed the ceiling, shiny knickknacks lined shelves, pendulum blade swung overtop the door. Ohhhh, of course. This was his leisure room.

The room felt confined, stuffy, about the size of a linen closet, though it felt as if it had the elbow room of a walk-in closet. Darkness bathed it, offering only a single light panel that didn’t have the sense to stop whirling dizzyingly in place. Two chairs enclosed a round, three-foot table. Asinine found himself fastened into on one of these cushiony chairs and now awaited his adversary to take the other. And beyond the light of the panel gathered a shadowy crowd of generics and their mouthiest daughters. And one son. What an affront to Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.

A generic pulled out the other chair and sat in front of Asinine. Mustached, slouched posture, chubby, drooping and weathered countenance, pale complexion, all characteristic of someone working under Asinine. Apparently, this was their contract negotiator. Or somebody important. Maybe their basketball coach.

“Let’s get this over with,” Coach Contract Negotiator said. “Neither of us wants to be here. Baby, if he says anything out of line, you know what to do.”

The little darling at the inertia control unplugged her thumb from her mouth with a squishy pop. “Smush mistah’s brains int’ da chair, daddy.” Awwwww. Cute as a button.

Asinine’s head was embedded in the chair so powerfully he had to look down the bridge of his nose to see anything. He smelled the leather, felt the padding cozily grip him. “My skull is mashed against a chair thanks to the cutest dial turner I’ve ever seen. You’re giving me a headache at a college level, sweetums.” He forced a smile at the negotiator, the daddy who eyed Asinine with as much love as he eyed Asinine’s attempt at creating Cheese Mountain. “Hi there. Still lactose intolerant?”

He rolled his head along the chair padding to explore the room and then back to the generic he’d referred to as Coach Contract Negotiator. An embroidered nametag identified the negotiator as Crenshaw, Custodial Team. Wow. If it took an entire team to clean up the mess after Asinine was through with the bathroom, he should cut down on Cheese Mountain. Create Potato Mountain maybe.

“Okay, so let’s start renegotiating contractually.” Asinine cleared his throat. Tasty phlegm. “My first demand is to be able to stand. Happy birthday, man.” He nodded at the paper-hatted generic, who responded with a tweet from his noisemaker.

“That isn’t how this works.” Crenshaw slammed a fist on a datasheet set before him. The datasheet, inelastic and activated, rattled against the graphite tabletop. “My crock, you’re as stupid as the PR team claims. Do you know what a contract renegotiation is?”

“If this meeting is any indication, it’s when you test how much pressure you can apply safely to a person’s forehead. Quick answer: about half a gram less than what you’re applying right now.” Asinine swallowed. His palate felt so dry it crinkled with a sting. Time to sweet-talk the darling in pigtails into easing off that inertia setting. “Sweetheart, would you believe me if I lied about you being my best friend?”

“Pay attention here.” Crenshaw snapped his fingers at Asinine’s nose to refocus the Bad Guy leader. Joke was on him: Asinine rose above such mortal things as focus. Nevertheless, Crenshaw tried, slapping the datasheet on the table again. “Let’s start. Our demands are short and simple, but they’re obligatory.”

“Then how is this a renegotiation?”

“Just listen. If we don’t meet an agreement, we walk. And then you’re left with no workforce, nobody to order around, nobody to throw pies at. You understand?”

“Barely, but keep going. And can I get some orange juice?”

A generic in the dusty darkness shuffled off.

Crenshaw tilted his mouth, which wrinkled his salty mustache. “First demand is stop doing bird calls in the bathrooms. You sound like an idiot, and that’s not what ‘singing in the shower’ means.”

“Noted. And hurt, but I appreciate your honesty.”

Crenshaw continued, “Second, we demand fewer life-threatening incidents. Over the last month, we’ve endured sixty-one—”

“Wow, that’s high.”

“—related to fish, forty-two related to forestry tools, sixteen related to ecological crises, four related to garden gnomes, and one related to both ecological crises and garden gnomes.”

“Ah, the trip to the gnome habitat.”

With a sheepish frown, Crenshaw lowered the datasheet out of which he recited his stats. “To be fair, Raymond shouldn’t have swallowed that gnome whole. It had a spade. But you know him and ceramic.”

“He is the group’s sword swallower.” Asinine offered a sheepish frown of his own. “Hey, can we dial the inertia field down several thousand tads? I can’t even shrug.”

The generic who’d slunk away for orange juice returned. Without the OJ. He instead held a can of Rutabaga Crush. Blech. But Asinine was thirsty. The generic tabbed open the can and poked a straw in, which bobbed like an overboard sailor waiting patiently for rescue. Asinine fought to lean over and grasp the straw between his lips, but his effort resulted in the inertia field forcing its stranglehold on him. All he could do was smell the can’s dirty aroma.

“Look, the deal is this.” Crenshaw deactivated the datasheet. “I don’t want to itemize everything in this list. It’ll bore us, it’ll confuse you—”

“Because it involves three-syllable words.”

“Precisely. We’ll release your named lackeys. In the meantime, take the list back to your attorneys and look it over. It’s the rest of our demands. But know this.” Crenshaw cracked an open palm on the table. “Our demands, written and otherwise, will be met.”

“Espec’ly the one for pony rides,” inserted the darling muffin rolling that inertial dial around.

“Aside from the oral ones, we reduced our written demands down to the essential so you wouldn’t get confused. Read this thing over.” With every syllable, Crenshaw jabbed a fingertip on the datasheet. “Care...ful...ly. Or else one day we all go missing.”

“Hide-and-seek?”

“Yes, but without the seek part.” Crenshaw had stood and was already halfway toward the door, which was a mere outline in this inky darkness. “Baby honey, kill the inertia field.”

Dr. Agony Murder Girl deactivated the inertia field. It purred to sleep, and Asinine suddenly clonked forward onto the table. The chair barfed him up, and he spilled across the floor. Barfing chairs. So many awesome ideas when he didn’t have his Dictaphone around.

Asinine clutched the table edge to help himself up on his numb legs. Crenshaw was leaving, the other generics filtering out with their daughters. And son. “So that’s it? Contract renegotiation’s over just like that?”

“Read the datasheet and get back to us.” Crenshaw waited for the last generic, that guy who’d attended the hypnotist show once but never got cured, to cluck and pigeon-bob away after hearing the trigger word. Crenshaw departed. “Then sign on the line where your name is. If you find your name, that is.”

“Hey, that was one time!” Asinine threw a single finger up to help him count to one. But the l-door had materialized with a quiet harp lilt. Crenshaw and the negotiators who didn’t negotiate were gone. Now only Asinine remained in the deserted room that felt so stock-still it was frozen in time.

Asinine sniffled. The room felt muggy now in its desolation. He dusted off his shirt and decided, no matter what he found on that datasheet, the maid was fired. Okay. Speaking of the datasheet, he found it curled into a roll, its deactivated transparency almost imperceptible in the darkness except for the small activation icon defining its corner. He snatched the datasheet up, the glow of that activation icon like a bomb set off in a county park at six in the morning. He pressed the icon. The datasheet lit, booted up. Asinine steeled himself, expecting such a disastrous catalog of demands that not even his sock drawer was safe from the generics’ gimme-gimmes.

The datasheet’s display swirled in the Letchtech logo, which swept aside to allow data to tumble across the surface that clouded to milky opaqueness. Asinine chuffed at the list...that included one demand. One single demand.

And it kinda sorta hit him a little. Not physically across the face like so many of Schizophrenic’s one single demands. But in the guilts. Deep in the guilts where most people kept dismal secrets. He issued an awkward cough, as if the line were impossible to fulfill. But at least his sock drawer was safe.

Chapter Nineteen: Where Vultures Dare

Legion crack-a-whacked his shoulder against a picnic table and then pavement. Scars were awesome. Chicks dug them. Success Party had ejected him from the mil-tran they had highwayed here under radar. And now a bleeding waffle gash tattooed the shoulder he now shrugged. Whatever, right? Today was Hapturous Day. He’d have cared all over this flaring pain that felt as gentle as a hot plate to skin, but he busily snarfed on another Ring Pop, the last feel-good he’d swiped from the caterers before the Curb Stompers had painted their brains all over each other. Ahh, no feeling like not caring about some go-nowhere’s death. He didn’t even care about Bad Guy leader Lowensland anymore, that hateful murderer, and Lowensland usually boiled his blood. As soon as his empathy booted back up, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. Right now, this amazoid was so positively bejeweled with Ring Pops he felt like one of the glitterati. The one with all them jewels.

He eyebuzzed Stigrathcha, this dusty-smelling moon of anorthosite, iron, and shards of cherry Ring Pop. Above him stood a proud flag and, above that, a glittering dome shimmering like cheap laminate in the moonglow. This was Arthynimede, named after the Virgonese god of wax. Virgo’s people noodled weird ideas about what to attribute to gods. Terrans, the below-zero brain wizards behind the pet rock, at least brainstormed their gods to fire, war, order...The Virgonese? Wax. Tin, paint thinner, and wax. Nice move, second-placers.

Though Poltergeist blocked the sun so night slicked this rock, modest spotlights hung under Arthynimede’s dome. Since Arthynimede was the only domed scene on this moon, Legion guessed whatever business Success Party had would be conducted here. And, yup, across from the Curb Stompers’ mil-tran roared a jail-tran, a Cackling Fire. Cackling Fires were outfitted like a party, but they didn’t enter war. They transported criminals. Toxic crims hissing with malice and gore. No Ring Pops. Just malice and gore.

Success Party kept his mil-tran purring. He had mentioned beating a quick breakout once he had “Doc Spooky.” And, under this dome, Legion felt the mil-tran’s drone—underscored with the snare of sharp drumbeats—vibrate along his bones like a tickle from chewed, serrated fingernails.

The Cackling Fire whinnied when it scored down on a picnic table, scaring up wooden wreckage and panics of coarse dust where its trestles cracked down. It sat, headlights wide and blaring like sleep deprived but caffeinated peeps that wild-eyed through you. Eerie. Success Party blocked the outcry of light with an arm. Legion mimicked, though squinting away would have been easier. He was exactly like Success Party! But jacked up with candy jewels!

Success Party had hopped off the mil-tran, his tight entourage posed in the doorway like a tableau of testosterone. They decked out on board to make sure the Good Guys attempted no escapes, extreme nose picks, headshot wallpaper jobs, or whatever Mabel did when she corpsed around. No one knew. That was why she was feared most.

“On your feet, minor leaguer.” Success Party kicked the unrefined rockage of Stigrathcha’s dancefloor.

“You got it, boss.” Legion clutched the picnic table’s bench, waggled to his knees, and then tottered to his feet, sucking down grape now that his fifteen-carat cherry jewelage was in pieces. Grape tasted better anyway. Too bad he swiped randoms and got stuck with radish. Worse: green apple. In case his hapturous mood ever tataed, he was saving green apple to scrab Success Party’s eyes out for the shoulder gouge and, maybe, for killing all those lag-arounds at Traitmount 83.

Success Party tromped forward and watched the Cackling Fire do its absolutely nada across this rock. Legion slapped Success Party on the back. “So what’s the condish here? What’s the big event? How you plan to rock this rock?”

Success Party shook him off. “Watch the paw, hairless. You gotta rank an eleven to touch these fierce threads.” He tugged the bottom flaps of his jacket to straighten his threads. It ruffled in the mil-tran’s exhaust, which smelled like a chemical fart.

“You got it, my megastar. P.S., I hate you.” Legion slurped on his grape Ring Pop. “But I dig this candy. The caterers found a way to make this tasty piece flavor me up as if it just came out of Alaphus’s...Alaphu—I have no gist on what makes a Ring Pop. It came out of Alaphus’s Ring Pop machine.” He exhaled. “Okay, my sugar rush needs to crash soon, or I’m likely to regret some decisions. I’m so happy right now I’ll adopt a dog if I’m not careful.” Another slurp. “Precisely the right smackdown of grape.”

Finally, someone emerged from the Cackling Fire. He grooved in a prison guard’s gear that identified him as from back home in Stratus Cloud. Weird they had burned it all the way here for...for what? Legion still couldn’t understand everyone’s piece in all this. Success Party had high-fived and celebrated something about hyperabilities, but Legion had no clue what the festives were about. He also didn’t care because grape Ring Pops tasted remarkably like the advertised flavor.

Jerking out a pistol to prep for the meet, Success Party smiled, an act that reached his lips but didn’t touch his face. It looked like a magazine cutout pasted over his mouth. With blunt wind howling through the dome’s air filters and around the lampposts and water fountains, hearing was difficult. But Legion caught Success Party yell, “Marshal Flugg!” Then, in a whisper barely caught over the mil-tran’s chorus, “You scab wound.”

“About time, Sigwell.” The new down-and-outer began a slow walk toward them, swanking in strides as if counting paces to the X that marked the spot on a treasure map. The necklace of ears he wore danced knots in itself. “I waited half an hour down the ways.” He nodded backward, behind himself, at the Cackling Fire, and at the rock field outside the dome.

Success Party tensed an arm. Legion recognized the move: he held back a smack meant for Flugg. “How long you waited is your biznitch. I had to take care of some crybabies over at Traitmount, fake a training thing. As if this leading man needs a lick of training. So...” He stiffened his posture. “...you got her?”

Flugg untangled his ear necklace. “In the tran. But I want to see the money up front.” He jacked out a thumbprint reader, lights shindigging on it. Legion sat on the table bench and slarped up some grape. Never mind this. He switched to salted caramel on his left hand. This was a good show. He hoped to live until the second episode.

Success Party didn’t break eye contact. He yanked the thumbprint reader from Flugg’s hand and, as if asserting a point, plugged his thumb on its sensor. The reader hyped on and issued a cha-ching. Legion guessed the transaction was finito, because Success Party underhanded the reader to Flugg. “Now, bring me my little star child.” He winked at the knuckle dragger, who turned in the direction of the Cackling Fire. “And Flugg? You try anything on me, my boys in the car are gonna try a lot of things on you.”

Flugg muttered something.

Legion unplugged his mouth. “What was that?” No, that Ring Pop flavored him too much. He plugged it back in for another slurp and said around it, “I didn’t snag that line over the drone of your ride. Sounded as if you wished he were bread? Haven’t we eaten enough catering already?”

Flugg eyejacked Legion with disgust. “Why’d you bring this guy?”

“Nice necklace. Got one of my own.” Legion stood and indicated his Alaphan necklace with the bullet hole marring the son of Alaphus’s cross. He extended a hand bedecked with sugar. He retracted, slurped his tongue on the caramel ring, and redecked. “What’s spanking? I’m Matross Legion, head winner of the Good Guys and lover of canpakes. I’m hoping to make it to see my next sunrise.” Flugg didn’t shake.

Success Party tapped his weapon against his belt. “He’s leverage in case I got tailed.”

“Why does he look like you both shop at the same thrift store?” Flugg turned away and yelled, “Jail-tran, acknowledge. Unlock.”

Cackling Fires, which gargantuaned at twelve feet tall, were famous for overstretching, top-hinged doors. No different, this Cackling Fire yawned open to reveal an abyss, like a swimming pool of empty. Legion blinked to figure out what hid inside. Maybe salted caramel would help. He licked. Nope. Well, it did, just not to see.

“Come out now, Xiu,” Flugg said. “The hypers are here. You can explore. Or whatever the crock.” He said to Success Party, “She’s got the expression of a carrot, you know.”

A shuffle of footsteps escaped the inky shadows of the jail-tran. Even against the wind, they were next door to Legion’s ears. “Oh, good,” droned a voice as monotone as a heart monitor sensing no get-up-and-go. “I like exploring hyperpeople.”

Xiu. Legion knew that name. And then he put a face on that name, which unlocked more than simple recognition. The shadow cracked when a petite Terran emerged and stepped down the ramp, her gait unswaying as if she shunted around on tank treads. Her face was sharp with cheek bones and weird angles.

She creaked toward them, across the terrain and whining wind, around the tables and trash ionizers. When she reached them, she blinked up at Success Party. She stood no taller than four-and-a-half feet, a namby-pamby waif who’d turn invisible if she rotated her side to you. “Do you have hyperpeople?” Creepy.

“Yeah, I do, freak show. I got a bunch.”

“This is pleasing. I like exploring hyperpeople. I have explored fifty-eight hyperpeople. The South Gusgus Penitentiary has become useless since I exhausted my supply: I explored all of the hyperpeople in there. I also like exploring applesauce.”

“As of today, so do I!” Legion threw his hands up in celebration. “Hapturous Day makes me say strange things.”

“Juicy.” Success Party regarded Xiu with a pasty grin. “I’m counting on you exploring. I’m told you might figure out how to amputate hyperabilities.”

“Wait, is that what this is all about?” Flugg spat. “You’re sicker than my old sarge, and he licked battery nodes.”

Success Party’s pistol clacked up in Flugg’s direction. “Your business here is finished. Close shop and go home.”

“He’s right, though.” Legion shouted over the reverberating mil-tran’s engine kept awake in this acoustic focal joint. Another slurp of salted caramel. It was down to the nub on the plastic disc. Legion stroked a finger along it. “I’ll miss you, my salted caramel. Anyway, he’s all on that. You can’t slice out a hyperability. The body sucks out dead if you crack that. Like chucking both kidneys. You drift that gig?”

“Not anymore, second banana. If anybody can figure out that crock, my twisted Xiu here can.” Success Party cupped a hand around Xiu’s chin and rubbed her cheek with a thumb. “See, she’s tried fifty-eight times, and she’s so close to getting it right. Her latest hyperperson lasted four days after the exploration. And I got three practice runs waiting in the tran. Would have had four, but one of them read my mind.” He shuddered. “Wasn’t about to have that nerd creepy-crawl all over my idea noggin. You think you’re up for this, Doc Xiu?”

“I have explored fifty-eight hyperpeople. I have explored hyperpeople more than any other person. Ergo, I conclude I am the greatest chance of success.” The emotional dud spoke so stiffly she could have read that from a robot instruction manual. Or been a robot instruction manual.

“Good. Then we skedaddle. If I’m guessing right, Courtney’ll wake up and glaze on in here in a few.” Success Party twirled a finger in the whistling air. “We’re ghosts in five.”

“In five what?” Shang asked. “You have specified no unit of measurement.”

“You’re a special case.” Legion was high on hapture, and even he needed to ask, “Hey, Dr. Nasty Eyes, are you a haunt control wrapped in a robot with a pocket calc for a heart?” He blinked. “You move like a wind-up toy.”

Across the dome, Flugg’s Cackling Fire got down on it: it took new life, lights speckling its hood. It buzzed unsteadily from the turtle-shell ground.

Success Party grabbed Legion by the arm, fingers squashing into a muscle. Ouch. He wrenched Legion at the mil-tran. “We’re leaving. Get on board.”

“I download that, captain.” Legion worked hard not to spill onto the ground and ruin his crew of candy. It was all he had left of the dearly departed catering crew. Whoa. These Ring Pops were keepsakes! He just blew his own mind. He saw taste. And it was the color purple. “Let’s move this mega-party.” Purple was alive and inside him.

Suddenly a long, drawn-out honk partied into the dome, as if this were “not a test of the emergency broadcast system.” An overhead speaker crackled on and then ca-cawed with feedback.

“Gord, what the crock are you doing?” Plastique? Plastique had arrived. And maybe she’d brought more canpakes. You go, girl! “Other guy in the Cackling Fire, land your transport or I will open fire. Fascinating neckwear.”

The Cackling Fire still jived into the air. Weapons spanked up along its hood. Was it prepping to blast the dome open? In counterpoint, a shifting cannon lit, bulleting along a track fitted to the underside of the dome’s ceiling. It found a good trajectory—opened attackage with two beams that wrenched through the Cackling Fire—ho, ho!—carved that Cackling Fire’s belly into halves. It disemboweled the jail-tran, disgorging machinery. A flame blossomed into a rage, swallowed the hull, and turned into a hand that clonked the transport. The resulting fireball corrugated the metal and splattered the jail-tran’s innards all over the rocky floor, picnic area, and adjoining splash pad/minibar. Flugg’s overcooked carcass, black and spoiled, careened overtop the slaughter. Pee-yoo.

“Aw, crock. We’re too late.” Success Party searched the dome’s roof as if Plastique clung to it. “She’s here to scotch my vibe. I knew I broke up with her for a reason.” He licked his lips, gandered the dome. “Courtney, I don’t wanna hurt you—I don’t even know where you’re operating that top-damage gun from—but this has gotta happen. You don’t have to stick around, freshness. You can peace out.”

Legion licked his lips. Just like Success Party. “Also, Plastique, did you snag us canpakes? I repeat: did—you—snag—us—can—pakes? I’m jonesing on some of the pake. Also, I have a confession: I you-go-girled you earlier. In my head. I’m ashamed. I will seek counsel. I repeat: I—will—”

“Gord, you know I can’t let you escape,” Plastique said. The cannon slid along its track and threatened down on Success Party. “You can’t allow that person down there into the general population. She is an extremely wanted sociorobotic.”

“And a bad dresser. So what?” Success Party talked to the cannon like it was Plastique. Shang Xiu surmised her wardrobe. Prison-issue jumpsuits weren’t exactly knocking any top-ten lists, but zipper pockets were in, so half a score.

Legion winced at his next Ring Pop: dill pickle wasn’t a good savorage, and it made his tongue itch. Whoa. Someone grabbed him, arm around neck, pistol to temple. Success Party wrapped his arm tighter around Legion’s windpipe. Legion would have hyped at it under normal circumstances, but the past few hours were anything but normal. Instead he kept lapping at dill. But the green apple one was poised for a good eye scrabbing. Eh, who was he kidding? Once he finished dill, he’d be throating down green apple.

“Leave, Courtney, or your chief go-nowhere gets half his head blown off.” Success Party waved his pistol around. He cracked a shot at the cannon but missed, sticking a light-bullet into Arthynimede’s dome. Another shot growled out. He stuck the gun back on Legion’s thought cage.

“Which half?” Legion licked more dill. “I’m down depending on the answer. I’m a left-brained thinker, for the record. That’s the half where I keep the recalls of all my most humiliating sneezes. Like that time when milk slicked out and gudged my commanding officer on the cheek.” He couldn’t help chuckling. “You always remember the first time you had to drop and give a hundred.” He renogginned. “Course, that half of my brain was also the half that told me to you-go-girl.”

The loudspeaker’s enthusiastic feedback ripped through the dome again. “Gord, what do you hope to accomplish? This isn’t necessary. Hyperabilities aren’t something you can excise. You’ll be responsible for murder. And, Lt. Col. Legion, you need to lay off the processed foods. It’s not good for your system.”

Legion plucked off the Ring Pops one by one, starting with the empty discs. Next came dill, orange pekoe, rhubarb, cheesecake, vanilla custard—that one hurt—and...whoa, hold the phone. “Courtney, is it chill if I keep my greeny in case I need to stab a fool? It’s blunt, but my choices ain’t big down here.”

“Fine, sir. But if I catch you eating it, I’ll ground you from operating heavy machinery for a week.”

“Forget that. I’ll whittle it down to a point with my tongue. You copy that noise?”

“No. You’ve had enough sweets for one day.”

“Ohhhh. No fair. That’s, like, everything on Station One.”

Castolingo ejected herself from the Curb Stompers’ mil-tran so quickly her legs almost missed the message. She tumbled down the ramp and, only by sheer luck, kept from slapsticking into a table. “Boss, I got this one. Let’s score us a win.” She stormed over and clicked a gun to the base of Legion’s skull. She crunched a boot into the backs of Legion’s legs, sprawling him to his knees. “Let’s start by showing your ex-girly-girl who’s taking charge here.”

“Stay out of this, you armed gofer!” Plastique’s voice ricocheted around like a bladed boomerang.

Success Party spat a wet chortle. “You want me all to yourself, my sweet porterhouse?” Conversational volume: “No, that one ain’t right. My sweet escargot? No, no, no. My sweet strawberry pie? Yeah, let’s go with that.” He grunted to yelling capacity. “You want me all to yourself, my sweet strawberry pie?” So smooth.

“That’s a victory name, my party man.” Castolingo high-fived her own pistol since Success Party was out of reach.

“Strawberry pie isn’t sweet. It’s tart, you jag,” Plastique yelled back.

“Crock it.” Success Party kicked a rock. “That one took hard work.” He still hunted the sky for Plastique, as if the place her words echoed from was where she hid. “We got your big man by the tenders. You catch? If you ain’t vamoosing, then get down here, or his hairless green forehead splashes all over these rocks. And then all your friends on board my lift, starting with that hunchback nose miner. You taste my tang?”

“Is your tang salted caramel?” Legion asked. Castolingo pressed her weapon against Legion’s head, forcing Legion to hunch like a flooze. Legion still licked his Ring Pop: dill-iciou—No. Even today, his tolerance for punnage had limits.

Plastique clicked her tongue. “Lieutenant Colonel, what did I say? You are grounded, young man.”

“Drop down here, Courtney, or I swear I’ll kapow his eye out his bald skull!”

Legion swallowed the Ring Pop juices grooving on his taste buds. “If that’s in your playbook, I’m grinding that idea.”

“Sir, you’re not helping matters. Gord, don’t touch him. I’ll be out in a moment. And if you harm a single hair on his hea—You know what I mean.”

Chapter Twenty: Retrospective Introspection

Asinine slipped toward the l-door to Lieutenant IQ 23’s recovery room. The lieutenant was still out, his throat slathered in healing putty scented so much like vinegar he wanted to dip French fries into it. Gross. He’d go with ketchup this one time.

The lieutenant wasn’t scheduled to wake up and squelch Asinine’s unhinged fun today. He’d been out for a little while yet—for some reason, these sliced-throat nuisances took that long to heal—and Asinine suddenly realized how much he missed hearing the guy say “sir” with each heartbeat or advise him against drinking straight from the salt shaker. Missed having his slippers fetched even though one had no toes. Or sole. Or bunny ears. Or the rest of its front. Or literally any reason you could still call it a slipper.

Holding the datasheet with the generics’ one demand on it, he entered the room just to hear the rhythm of IQ 23’s breathing. His boots knocked hollowly. The lieutenant was here because of him. The neck laceration was Asinine’s fault. Asinine shuffled to IQ 23’s bedside, waved away the balloons with “Happy Birthday” printed on them because Bernie had enough of them and “Get Well Soon” wasn’t in the station’s gift shop.

“Lieut...” Wait. What could he say? Not that IQ 23 could hear him, but he should say something. Apologize? It was a start. “Lieutenant, some people and their daughters laid something out for me.” His mouth tilted. “And I have to say, they’re right.” He twiddled his fingertips together. “I landed you in this room. I’m sorry I almost got you killed. I...uh...should have listened to you when you told me not to take the aswang home.” He sniffled back liquid sentiment. “I promise I’ll be more careful next time. Every time. I have to be. You’re too good to me, Lieutenant. And I’d hate to lose you because I’m chasing down some stupid idea or eating something bigger than my head.”

He felt the weight of the activated datasheet in his hand, his eyes falling on the generics’ solitary demand: “Union commands management to stop putting everyone in danger. Idiot.”

“I pinkie-swear, Lieutenant.” Asinine chuffed humorlessly. “Heal up and come back to us.” His finger found a small button on a console beside the bed. “Oh, and enjoy a little more dream morphine. On me.”

Mental gear-shift time. “Also, I didn’t know this, but Bring Your Daughter to Work Day? Apparently, work isn’t a verb in this case. Cleared that up when I made a four-year-old shovel coal down in the pits.”

Chapter Twenty-One: The Doctor Is In

Plastique slammed a palm into the control board of the weapons system in the dome’s quaint security kiosk/gift shop. Outside, the cannon gyrated and complained. It was only a fear tactic now: she couldn’t get the thing to so much as fart in Gord’s direction anymore since she’d run out of try-before-you-buy shots and couldn’t get out of sample mode. She didn’t know the access codes to unlock hog-wild mode, and she wasn’t about to bypass the codes by purchasing one hundred moolahs or more of merchandise, as per the request of the shop’s haunt control. “Snatch up our upcoming National Tartan Day deal: buy five bandoliers of eight-caliber light-bullets, and get the sixth one free. Show your family it doesn’t matter that you never attended law school.” Eight-caliber light-bullets were for sissies and benchwarmers.

Plastique and Sixth Sense had headquartered themselves in here. Hidden among cozy rows of holiday trinkets and riot gear—which were eerily interchangeable—they monitored the situation in Arthynimede, connected to this area via a canopied air tunnel crawling with fragrant ivy. No staff occupied the small shelter. Everyone was off at this late hour, gone home for the evening. Apparently a security kiosk’s operating hours stopped at ten and resumed at eight the next morning, nine thirty on weekends.

Plastique spun away from the control board. Sixth Sense sat in an l-chair a few feet away, head down. He focused intently to weasel out Gord’s plans but avoid transforming into a self-aggrandizing egomaniac. A necessary risk. If he weren’t influenced by potent brainwaves, he wouldn’t have been banned from the horse track last winter. “Field Agent—”

Sixth Sense bolted out of his seat on unhinged legs. He blinked awake, as if a fog lifted. “I know. You’re being ordered out, or he’ll execute Legion and the others.”

Plastique checked her sidearm, a Borgnada 16mm, not a toy this time. Barely a charge, barely any shells to hold the charge. She didn’t expect to need it when she left the house today. Served her right. She always needed a sidearm. “You reading that from my thoughts or his?” Its crosshatch grip offered snug comfort.

“Is ‘I don’t want to breathe the same oxygen as that dog urine’ a good clue?”

Plastique stood by the l-door, a half step out of its preprogrammed vanishing range. “Stay put. He’s unaware you’re alive, so let’s use that to our advantage. Crack that security code.” She banged the console. “Buy a bagpipe if you have to. We’ll expense it.”

Sixth Sense rushed to the console as Plastique burst through the l-door. “Come back later this month for more amazing Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Day sales. A hui hou!” the kiosk’s haunt control said.

Plastique stormed down the tunnel fragrant with vines. It led her to the main dome of Arthynimede. Every move echoed. A full two minutes later, she reached the end of the tunnel and emerged through the latent barrier that kept the air quality warmer in the dome, more suitable for the open-concept environment and hosting spring-break beach volleyball tournaments.

She stopped. Gord stood across the field, distant yet only three hundred feet off, a little shorter than the length of a football field. Gord still held his pistol, a Stanfletch .92in, to Legion’s toque, wrinkling the black weave. He spotted Plastique. And smirked like a child testing the limits of his parents’ patience seconds before he defied them.

Plastique steeled her chest, stiffened her chin, and wrenched across the field. Every step drew her closer to Gord, fed detail to his brazen smirk. “I knew you’d come,” Gord said. That smirk, so chiseled onto his face, barely shifted when he spoke.

“I didn’t come to see you.” Plastique’s finger played with her trigger. Such soothing power. She heaved silent breaths. “I came to stop you. And to benefit from the limitless deals at the gift shop, claims a really presumptuous haunt control.” Her eyes ticked at Castolingo and then back to Gord. “Tell your backup dancer to get lost.”

Gord laughed. Only once. “Hey, Casto, three’s a crowd. You drift me, rock star?”

“I drift you.” Castolingo had her pistol drawn, but she slid it into its holster, a leather Charkman Pocket for quick action. She stepped backward onto the starship’s embarking ramp and slithered into the darkness of the mil-tran. Her eyes disappeared last.

Wind whispered about. It lifted Plastique’s hair like fingers combing through it. Plastique glanced at a short Terran who had an automatic personality filled with as much soul as a mannequin. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, things are spicing up now.” Legion stood. He brushed his legs off and straightened his toque. “This is Shang Xiu. She’s a sociorobotic murderess.” He yanked himself to a picnic bench, took a seat. “It’s all good.”

“What deranged scheme have you hidden up your sleeve?” Plastique asked Gord. Her finger still investigated the trigger.

“I explore hyperpeople.” Shang Xiu exhibited the same restrained diplomacy as an ambassador. “I have explored fifty-eight hyperpeople.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Gord brushed her away to dismiss her. “We loud-and-clear the number already. And you, mayor of Loserville, kneel your crock back down.”

“Catching your gist.” Legion stuck out an enthusiastic thumbs-up. He sprang away from the bench and dropped his knees back on the rock. He shuffled backward until his skull scuffed against the muzzle of Gord’s .92in again. “This good, or should I arch my spine into it?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Gord chewed his mischievously shaped lip. “Xiu here...she’s a sociorobotic. Never showed much emotion. But she’s gaga over one thing: hyperpeople. She cuts them open and fusses around inside to find out what makes them tick. So she’s gonna help me with a science project I’m calling a hyperability amputation. And I’ve got plenty of test cases in the mil-tran.” He gestured with his .92in.

“You’ll kill them. Nobody can amputate a hyperability. The body can’t cope. With a hypergland removed, the body still secretes hormones. It finds a way, but the body can’t handle the secretion and dies. Sort of like my respect for you.”

“Says you. This witch doctor here tried it forty—”

“I have explored fifty-eight hy—”

“Fifty-eight crocking times. She’s the closest we’ve got to a winner. If anybody can do it, she can.”

Crock, this was worse drivel than when Plastique’s sergeant thought she couldn’t do seven hundred chin-ups. So she did seven hundred one. “You plan to excise all hyperabilities? You intend for hyperpeople to go extinct? One by crocking one? What kind of idiotic plan is that?”

“Hyperabilities are crocking disgusting!” Gord slammed his boot into Legion. Legion careened into the rocky bed of the moon. Gord probably figured his crew in the mil-tran covered him, so he didn’t need his .92in at Legion anymore. He lunged forward at Plastique, gripped with anger, emotions sizzling like magma. “If this is what it takes, I will rip it out of every one of you less-than-zeroes until I’m finito. But that ain’t the scenario here.”

Plastique shoved Gord back. She wanted to blow his brains out so much—so frigging much right now—she almost gored her gun barrel into his nose: just point and click. “You’re so self-deluded, you really think you’ll do that?”

“He used a foreign word, so he means it,” Legion said.

“I haveta do it!”

“You only think you have to. You always were that self-deluded, that prejudiced. You’re only doing this because you’re phobic. As I keep saying: you never loved anybody more than yourself. How many hyperpeople can you kill until I shoot you dead?”

Gord reeled back and slapped Plastique. “I only gotta do one: me!”

“Oh, snap,” Legion said. And then he snapped.

Plastique’s hand was at her cheek, but the shock that burned didn’t come from the slap. “You? You’re a—”

“I’m a disgusting hyperperson. And that chick”—he gashed the air with his .92in barrel aimed at Xiu—“is my best shot at a normal bod. Yeah, I got the taint in me. It boils, pollutes my sweat—”

“Makes you smell like body oil,” Legion added.

Shang Xiu bowed. “The hypergland is an endocrine gland, which secretes not into sweat but into the bloodstream—”

“Save it, Dr. Slash.” Gord was weeping now. Plastique had never witnessed him shed a tear, even when he was rejected membership to the Chainsaw Club. “Yeah. Me. It’s crocking in me.” His hands jittered around his body in mock gesture but real revulsion. “I gotta get it out. Ever heard of a backfire hyperability? It’s when one of them bad boys has a negative effect. I got one. My hyperability kills. I spew beta particles outta my pores. How it doesn’t hurt me, I dunno. Probably it’s because I’m an amazing superstar. But it sure killed my baby sister. I watched her die while I held her. Right in my crocking radioactive hands.” The tears flowed freely now. Gord made no effort to staunch them. His words swam in wet, ratcheting sobs.

“My baby sister, ain’t no more than a few months old. I was thirteen. She was my total. Every single thing about her was perfect and unspoiled.” He snorted, sounding like an apple being bitten. “I never loved anybody more than myself? I loved her!” So angry was Gord that he launched his .92in at a lamppost as if hurling a stone. It bounced and clattered a couple feet away from him. “And I killed her!”

Plastique dropped her 16mm. She barely noticed it slip from her fingers and clatter on the stones.

“We gleaned on the details too late. My parents ain’t never forgave me. They disowned me.” Gord collapsed, right to his knees, pulled off his toque and wrung it in his hands, left over right, right inside left. “You know how much Hyperthesia I dosed over the years so I don’t kill someone else’s baby sister? Why love some dude more than myself when everyone I love melts or abandons me? And this mad scientist here, this deranged feel-nothing-for-nobody is my best shot. Xiu, into the mil-tran. Start by slicing open that double-Z-list actor.”

Plastique grabbed up her Borgnada and swung it at Xiu. “Oh, no, you don’t. He’s the only double-Z-lister we’ve got.”

Gord fumed. “Oh, I’m gonna. I mean she’s gonna. We both gonna. This is a total dual gonna sitch going on. Xiu, get in there and explore the mammajamma out of that cheese monkey.” Gord kicked Legion in the tailbone, a silent snarl at Plastique. Legion remained on his knees, in the position of the contrite martyr. Except that he wasn’t so much contrite as he was thirstily slurping down his third or fourth or fourteenth Ring Pop. “Or I’ll explore this cheese monkey’s head all over the rock. Ooh. Geode.”

Plastique stiffened her calloused thumb on her trigger, almost unaware she risked a misfire. “Mr. Shiny Object, focus.”

“Hey, you know I’m a geode collector. I sweet on them mineral cups. Now, lose the weapon.”

Plastique twitched her thumb tighter on the grooved trigger. It was her comfort zone.

“Lose it or he loses it.” Gord signified Legion with his eyes. He retrieved his Stanfletch and pressed this into Legion.

Plastique released her Borgnada. It hung limply by the trigger guard on her index finger. Finally it dropped. On her foot. She sucked air. She was not a graceful woman.

“Good girl.” Gord targeted his voice at the mil-tran and gorilla-grunted a loud command, “Now, Xiu, bring our career suicide hotline out here, cut him up on that picnic table over there. I want to see what a hyperability does to someone on the inside.” His eyes lit like stars gaining life.

Castolingo was the heavy who wrangled Catastrophe to the mil-tran’s door. Catastrophe no longer wore a uniform. He was shirtless, dotted lines plotting a surgical map on his orange-tanned skin. Try holding a press junket now.

The mil-tran’s door was elevated a few feet off the ground, accessed via the embarking ramp. Castolingo made a point of shoving Catastrophe sideways so he missed the ramp. Arms shackled behind him, Catastrophe plummeted the six feet to the rocky earth with nothing but his stud earring to brace his fall. The ground attacked his right cheek and hip.

Xiu was still on the ground. She paced to Catastrophe with steps so painstaking she might as well have floated. Castolingo tossed her a white container with a red cross on its side. A kit the shape of a briefcase. A medical kit.

“Exploration gear.” Xiu took the kit and squirmed her thumbs over two latch buttons. The buttons clacked open the kit. Xiu looked neither impressed nor surprised with what she found inside, but when she wielded a glinting scalpel, the expression on her brow twitched from apathy to mild interest. She rolled Catastrophe onto his back. Catastrophe winced, blood contouring a gash on his cheek, which joined the blemish on his nose. He drooled, unaware.

Plastique tumbled into a run at Xiu. “Don’t you touch hi—”

“Courtney, stay put!” Gord’s weapon demanded itself at Legion’s head by pressing down with his Stanfletch, forcing Legion into a ball that still sucked down Ring Pop juice and oozed soaked moans of rapture. He said something about apple tasting better than expected. Of course! Apple always delivered! “Look, either Xiu the Explorer spelunks all over that lower-than-dirt’s guts, or your boss man doesn’t live to see his next Ring Pop. I own this ’cause I’m a super immense deal.”

Agitation gripped Plastique’s temples. Her spine squirmed when Xiu placed unnerving fingers on Catastrophe’s breastbone and tiptoed them along the dotted path to his throat: a surgeon measuring for an incision point. Her other hand wielded the scalpel listlessly, ready to plunge.

Time to act. Several conduct and combat manuals dictated maneuver timing, such as the Intergalactic Protection Crock You Gotta Move manual, section fourteen, subsection two, paragraph nine, point three, where it detailed the passage she’d committed to memory, “Of paramount importance is—” Okay, blah-blah time was over. Get to the action.

The next second lasted as long as one of Catastrophe’s practice award speeches. Slow motion stretched time into a long expanse, like hands kneading taffy. First, with the 16mm still planted painfully on her shrieking toes, she hopped, her tender foot dancing the weapon up. Second, she dropped, preparing her elbow to eat rock. Third, her hand intercepted her Borgnada in the middle of her drop. Fourth, maybe she would take advantage of the gift shop’s limitless deals. Fifth, she slid a finger into the trigger guard. Sixth, she cracked a shot she almost perceived billowing out of the barrel. Seventh, the shot connected with Xiu’s scalpel, cracking it in two sparkling pieces. Eighth, she twisted around. Ninth, she connected with the ground, breaking her fall among the rocks. Tenth, she—oh, crock, that hurt. She lost count. Right under the shoulder blade in the meaty comingling of nerves. Holy crock, whatever was eleventh could piss itself.

“Don’t move!” Plastique gripped the Borgnada at Gord. Her back felt as though someone had shoved bags of marbles into her vertebral joints. “You owe me some chiropractic expenses, you hideously disturbed pissant.” She cried agony. “And a beer.”

She winced to her feet, her eyes never straying from Gord, who stood shocked with Stanfletch still drawn at Legion’s head. Her back ignited in an angry hub of signals communicating electricity straight into her right leg. Her body would take several days to forgive her. The thick tug of near vomit worked her gag reflex like a pulley system. “Gord, release him. And Dr. Robotnik, leave that acting has-been alone.”

Xiu blinked at Plastique. Her countenance revealed nothing because, Plastique assumed, there was nothing to reveal. She simply breathed by automation. Her castrated knife raced up—“I wish to explore”—and then that vacuous appearance with its rectilinear mouth was marred, a bullet hole taking center stage on her forehead.

Xiu blew back and collided with the mil-tran behind her. Even the dull smack that resulted came with blank character.

Plastique swung her arm back at Gord. “Lt. Col. Legion, over to me. Now.”

Legion complied with a why-the-crock-not shrug. This must have lit Gord’s inner ego on fire like a match to combustibles. He spread his hands. “Hey, babycakes—”

“Gord, don’t you dare ruin another food for me.” With her free hand, Plastique tapped her gabber. It spat out an earpiece and mouthpiece. “Gabber, acknowledge. Issue command to entity Sixth Sense: cover the mil-tran, and make sure all Curb Stompers are accounted for. End command.” And then, in a shout, “Fld. Agt. Scapegoat and Fld. Agt. Withered Old Battle-Axe, disembark calmly, in accordance with IP combat manual, section fourteen, subsection A.”

Mabel croaked from the mil-tran’s darkness: “Whaaaaat wombat manual?” Crock, that relic’s creaking antiquity was as old as an archaeological find.

Legion slurped up his salmon-and-lemon Ring Pop. “Well, that seals that deal. Bam, like a deck of wins.” He congratulated Plastique with a hearty slap on the back and slurped again.

“Sir, you need to start checking expiry dates on meats.”

“That ain’t my slice of life anymore, senorita. Hapturous Day is my new top-shelf day of the year. Straight after taco day, fajita day, All Saints Day, Thursday—”

“Lieutenant Colonel, you’re as rational as a mental patient. Listen to what you’re saying. I’ve saved you from yourself at least a dozen times tonight, you’re making idiotic decisions, you’re mimicking Gord, you’re addicted to sugar, and you’ve been air-guitaring since I started this sentence.”

At that moment, Plastique watched understanding melt into Legion. It began in his face, budging bones like tectonic plates shifting. “Oh, no. Plastique, I’m clueless. I dress like an idiot. I make irrational decisions. I’ve”—gasp—“become Lowensland!” A small, almost imperceptible piece of his soul cracked, and fingers crawled up to his lip, hooked themselves there. “And you’re my lieutenant.” Those fingers fell, and he shot forth, tumbling into Plastique as if spilling off a cliff edge and her collar were his last handhold. “Fix me.”

Gord groaned. “For piss’s sake, you wash-ups—”

“Gord, not another word—none—or I’ll puncture your scrotum. I swear on my mother’s grave, there’s nothing I’d love to shoot more than your manhood.” Plastique trained her Borgnada at him.

By now, Sixth Sense had reached them. He swatted Gord’s Stanfletch away with his telekinesis and fitted him with handcuffs. “Ain’t you dead?” Gord asked. “You geektards can’t even die all the way.”

Catastrophe had regained awareness, stumbling but mobile. He sidled up behind Plastique and Legion with an ample grin. His hand clapped Plastique’s shoulder in an amiable pat. “How about that? Beta team wins the training competition and stops this monster from enacting his creepy plan. Now, time to wallpaper this place with a little bit of me.” He twiddled his fingers, hungry ambition notched on his face.

Plastique swung around at Catastrophe. Her Borgnada fallen, she poised a fist and collared Catastrophe with her other hand. Her fist opened to a slap across his cheek. “Field Agent, your reckless conduct during this outing—in fact, during your entire term of service—could have gotten us killed. Your hijinks once landed us in the middle of a furry convention where we hit a guy dressed as a dog, and he ended up at the vet’s instead of the hospital. You are nothing short of—”

“Dill-pickle-Ring-Poppian,” Legion threw in.

“I prefer understandable words instead of scat, but how about this: ‘one big joke.’ You were worthless today, Field Agent. Utterly worthless. Shift your priorities around. Immediately. Because if you even consider mixing military service with your tractionless movie career, I’ll run you out on your crock in the time it takes you to say ‘box-office bomb.’ Copy that?”

Catastrophe was too shocked to speak. His chin worked like the malfunctioning animatronic Scotsman in the gift shop announcing the great holiday special on curtain-walled haunted castles. Finally, he stammered out, “B-box-office bomb? But I need my movie career. My movie career rides on it.” The bravado in his posture slithered back deep inside him. “Adver—”

“Copy that, soldier?”

“Y-yeah.” Catastrophe lowered his gaze to the ground. “Copy it.”

“Good.” Plastique thundered off. She passed Gord and shoved him over with a boot. “Lie down.”

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Punchline

July 18, 9084. 1:56 p.m. (Galactic Standard Time). Twenty-six years ago, math students.

Roche swept through the l-door to his sooty apartment, a dwelling that had shrunk and choked more with every week. Big, laborious sigh. He checked his gabber, held down its cracked earbud, but it reported no new messages. For some reason, his agent wasn’t returning his calls. Must be out of town.

Roche’s feet squished the carpet that sounded like a sponge. He flopped his feathered duffel bag on the plaid couch, that dusty old mangle of threads that was good for swallowing change, creaking, and conjuring up demons if he believed his landlady.

“Hey, Stel.” He swallowed down the smog that had stayed with him from outside. Coughed on it. “Audition went okay. The casting director said he’d call me when pigs fly. Hey, I thought pigs couldn’t fly. Also, when did Hell freeze o—”

First thing he noticed was Stel standing there, a suitcase floating at her hip. And its capacity gauge was orange: almost full. Next thing he noticed was the casting director’s sarcasm. Crock. Pigs could fly only in Andromeda. He wasn’t getting that callback, was he?

“Stel, what’s this?”

Stel stood there, caught red handed in something. But she composed herself quickly. “Eugene—”

A hand shot up. “It’s Rock. Rock de la—”

“No, it used to be Rock. Now it’s Eugene again. And ya know what? This ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Stel was working on a stick of gum, which she thrashed around her teeth. Cherry or cola or something. Always one of those two. Stel loved her gum.

“What do you mean this ain’t going nowhere?”

“Us. Us ain’t goin’ nowh—We ain’t goin’ nowhere. Eugene, you’re a wreck. Your career’s been dead since when Jack Fistbomb fizzled out. And, honestly, I can’t see me stickin’ with you anywhats.” Stel pushed toward the l-door, suitcase in tow, but Roche blocked her.

“Why?” Roche put his hands on Stel’s shoulders, but she shook them off.

“’Cause you’re a has-been, that’s why!” Stel spat her gum out on the moldy carpet. Definitely cola. “You ain’t been nobody since when Jack got the can, and you ain’t gonna be nobody since whenever again!” She calmed a bit and studied the floor. “Aaaand I’m kinda seein’ someone else.”

What? Roche tipped back on his heels in a stagger-step. “Som—Who? Who is this guy?”

“Ya don’t know him.”

“What’s his name?”

Stel suddenly found the wall interesting. “Ward. I’m seein’ Ward Hipscombe.”

“My Jack costar? You’re seeing him?”

Stel revolved on the balls of her feet. “Look, I’m the kinda girl what needs the glitz an’ the entourage an’ the party life. And you ain’t it no more. Ward is. I mean, he got that role on Detective Cow, and that show looks like it’s gonna be fierce.”

“Fierce? It’s a show about a cow. Who’s a detective.”

“And he’s at the top of his game. You ain’t, Eugene. ’Kay?” Stel tromped around him, but he didn’t bother stopping her. Good riddance then. “I need the limelight. You ain’t puttin’ me in it. And you wanna know why your agent ain’t called you? ’Cause you’re nothin’ now. Your career’s gone. You’re a joke, Eugene. One big joke. Worthless.” She didn’t bother turning around as she blurted down the hall to the bank of airfoils, suitcase trailing her like man’s best friend. Her voice kept echoing at Roche.

“You’re a catastrophe.”

THE END

NEXT BOOK:

A marching band visits the Bad Guys and shows Multipurpose the meaning of love.

About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once

Liam Gibbs knew he was destined to write at age four, when he authored a breathtaking account of a cow who ate grass. The bovine saga failed to catch the public’s eye but earned the budding author parental acclaim. Since those early times, he’s gone on to write the novella Not So Superpowered and humorous articles for various magazines.

A twenty-year veteran of the brutal world of hand-to-hand comic book fandom, Gibbs cut his teenage teeth on titles such as Spider-Man, X-Men, New Warriors, and other Marvel comics.

Gibbs graduated college with a degree in professional writing, which included classes on fiction writing and story structure. He lives on the balmy shores of Ottawa, Canada, where he relaxes by watching staggeringly awful horror and science fiction movies. A health and fitness nut, he shoots lasers from his eyes, uses the word exclusive incorrectly, and once wrestled an exclusive brontosaurus. True story.

That one time I was deep in thought and—Hey, is that ketchup on the ceiling?

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Communicate via homing pigeon at chirp-twiddle-twoo or whatever pigeons say.

Table of Contents

The Story So Far...

Available on the Author’s Super-Awesome Site

Other Stuff the Author Spewed Out

Your Favorite Table of Contents

Book 19: Disease of Behavior

Appendices

Chapter One: In Transit

Chapter Two: We’ve Got to Stop Meeting like This

Chapter Three: Attention, Ladies, Gentlemen, and That Palm Tree over There

Chapter Four: Insanity’s Wish List

Chapter Five: Weapons Hot

Chapter Six: The Peasants Are Revolting

Chapter Seven: And Ten Different Mustards

Chapter Eight: Pet Shopping

Chapter Nine: You Can’t Barricade the Revolution

Chapter Ten: No Method, All Madness

Chapter Eleven: The Shang in the Ointment

Chapter Twelve: The Emotional Baggage Claim

Chapter Thirteen: Precise Mathematics of Irrationality Divided by the Silver Ratio

Chapter Fourteen: ...And Then This Blithering Nonsense

Chapter Fifteen: One-Track Mob Mentality

Chapter Sixteen: Whack Job

Chapter Seventeen: Clean-Up Crew

Chapter Eighteen: Contractual Obfuscations

Chapter Nineteen: Where Vultures Dare

Chapter Twenty: Retrospective Introspection

Chapter Twenty-One: The Doctor Is In

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Punchline

About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once