The Other Eight (23 page)

“I am a very busy man,” Siegel explained
slowly. “I have a rigid schedule, and I keep closely to it. That is
how the army works. I am in bed by 2300. I am awake by 0500. I
spend the hours between 0700 and 1700 in meetings, reviewing
troops, and making decisions that decide not just the future of
this project, but ensure the safety of this nation. The clock on
the wall says 0200. Two hours ago I received a phone call informing
me that eight of the recruits under my supervision had left the
base without permission. They had broken into army property, stolen
classified information, and brought it to a Waffle House in
Dumfries, Virginia. They then proceeded to leave those classified
files on the table in said Waffle House while they crossed four
lanes of traffic to engage publicly in armed combat with a group of
criminals. In doing so, they nearly implicated themselves as
accessories to what is evidently a string of robberies involving
illegible notes written by a man in a chicken mask. Crimes that
have triggered FBI interest due to the initial theft of ammonium
nitrate.” He leaned heavily on the table. “In thirty years in the
armed forces I have never witnessed so flagrant and massive a
dismissal of the regulations that hold this fighting force
together. If I had my way, you would all be ejected from the test
immediately and barred from ever joining anything resembling a
government-sanctioned team.” He stood and turned his back to them.
“
However
. I am told that your little stunt has ‘gone viral,’
and we live in a world where an action that shows the same
qualities as a disease is a desirable thing.”

Siegel pulled a printed page from his back
pocket and threw it on the table. It came from a news website and
showed Johnny On the Spot standing heroically on the edge of the
highway. The headline read:
On the Spot: Hero Hopeful and His
Partners Foil Heist.
The seven heroes collectively growled at
the fact that Johnny seemed to be getting all of the glory.

“Why isn’t Johnny in here getting the third
degree?” Chloroplast asked.

“Because Mr. Gladstone made it clear that you
were the masterminds of this act of insubordination. Now, the major
in charge of planning this blight on the face of the military has
informed me that it would be bad ‘PR’ to take corrective action
against you in the public eye. So I won’t. I’ve come to terms with
the fact that this project lost anything resembling military
validity the instant the word of it was leaked. But I will do
everything in my power, short of shooting each of you myself, to
make sure that when this war game is over, the
correct
eight
soldiers are on the winning side, and the other eight have publicly
illustrated that they are not military material.” He turned back to
them. “You are all dismissed.”

The morning
after their scolding, it was made official. At reveille, the
sixteen hopeful heroes came to attention outside of their cabins.
In an announcement made by Sergeant Roberts, the final round of
their training and testing was laid out.

“Tomorrow night, you will engage in a war
game,” he explained. “By now you are all accustomed to being
filmed, but you should be made aware of the fact that the war game
will be broadcast live on multiple channels as well as on the
Internet. You are all expected to comport yourselves accordingly.
You will be divided into two teams, the Red Team and the Blue Team,
and you will run through a modified invasion drill.

“The Blue Team will be the invading force. It
will be inserted into the perimeter of the field of operations at a
point of your choosing. It will be charged with infiltrating a
simulated military base at the center of the conflict area. The
victory condition will be the successful entry of the base and the
safe raising of a blue flag on the flagpole situated on the roof of
the complex by at least one survivor. The team will be provided
with basic information regarding the layout, fortifications, and
armaments of the target facility corresponding to the data derived
from reasonable recon.

“The Red Team will be the defending team. It
will be posted within the facility. Supplementing the Red Team will
be an undisclosed number of basic infantry under the Red Team’s
command. Victory for the Red Team will be defined as the successful
prevention of the raising of the blue flag for a duration of one
full hour from the commencement of hostilities, and/or the complete
elimination of the Blue Team. Both teams will be armed with
simulated weaponry in the form of paintball rifles. Any direct
impact with the paintball gun shall be considered an
incapacitation, and anyone incapacitated shall remain seated on the
ground until relocated by friend or foe, or until the completion of
the exercise.

“The Red Team roster is as follows: Undo,
Retcon, FM, Omnivox, Johnny On the Spot, Hocker, Third Person, and
Primadonna. The Blue Team Roster is as follows: Non Sequitur,
Nonsensica, Gracias, Chloroplast, The Number, Bomb Sniffer,
Phosphor, and Afterthought. You have the remainder of the day to
strategize. Tomorrow morning the Red Team will be brought to the
facility to prepare. At 2200, The Blue Team will be inserted into
the area of engagement and the exercise will begin. In order to
facilitate the planning phase, the following change to cabin
assignment has been made. Afterthought, you will now switch places
with Primadonna. Temporary group spaces have been set up for both
teams in order to aid in collaboration. The Red Team will work in
the tent to the north of the cabins, the Blue Team will work in the
tent to the south. Once each team has had time to make an initial
plan, any special equipment requests will be presented to me for
consideration. Are there any questions?”

“Yeah,” Nonsensica said, raising her hand.
“Did I hear incorrectly, or did you flat out say that you would be
adding additional soldiers to the Red Team?”

“That is correct. It is a standard
infiltration drill.”

“So we have eight heroes, they have eight
heroes, an army, and a fortress.”

“A standard infiltration drill,” he
reiterated.

“In what world is that a fair test?”

“Thoroughness is our primary focus for these
tests. War cannot be trusted to be fair.”

“Then why do they call it warfare?” Gracias
asked.

“Are there any more legitimate
questions?”

“How is it that you remembered to reassign
me?” Afterthought asked.

“We have had to create an automated reminder
system. Your abilities do not seem to affect electronics. Anything
else?” Sergeant Roberts asked. There was no reply. “Dismissed.”

While Afterthought set off to grab his
things, the others gathered at the far side of the cabins.

“Well, that confirms it then. It’s official.
They are stacking the odds against us. We’re out,” The Number
said.

“This whole thing was bogus. I guess it
doesn’t matter, though. They wouldn’t have let me in anyway,” Bomb
Sniffer said.

“Don’t say that. You aren’t
that
fat,”
Gracias said.

“Not because I’m fat. And I’m
not
fat,” she snapped.

“O-o-oh, so you’re talking about your lousy
fighting skills.”

“No!”

“Bad work ethic?”

“My work ethic is fine!”

“Short fuse? Or maybe because you—”

“It’s because I’m seventeen!” she said.

“Oh. Oh! I knew you weren’t twenty-three!”
Gracias said.

“I lied on the application. I figured they’d
find out eventually, but I’ll be eighteen in a month, so I’d be
legal by the time contracts had to be signed. Now that I know what
kind of people are running this, it’s pretty clear they would have
used it as an excuse to boot me.”

“How did you get parental consent?” The
Number asked.

“I didn’t.”

“Then why didn’t your folks come looking for
you?”

“I’m a pyromaniac with the supernatural
ability to sniff out explosives. Would
you
go out of your
way to bring that kind of person back into your house?”

“We should just leave,” said Chloroplast.
“Why should we engage in this public humiliation? I say we just
walk out and stick them with an hour of prime time TV with nothing
to show.”

There was a murmur of agreement from several
of the heroes. Phosphor was not among them. He had been quiet since
the general reprimanded the group, but he couldn’t stay silent any
longer.

“Shame. Shame on you,” Phosphor said. “We all
knew on day one the odds were against us. Thousands of people
wanted in on this team. The chances of them picking any one of us
were practically zero. But we tried out anyway, and look what
happened. We got this far. And once we showed up here at the camp,
we saw that there were members of the group with powers and skills
that were a damn sight more useful than ours. We could have quit
then, but we stuck with it. Why? Because we wanted to be heroes?
No. You can be a hero without a government paycheck at the end of
the day. We did it because we wanted to see if we could. We wanted
to prove to ourselves and to the world that we were good enough to
stand among the best of the best. All you prove by walking away is
that you’re a quitter. And if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a
quitter.”

“Phosphor is right!” Nonsensica proclaimed, a
gleam of defiance in her eyes. “So what if we don’t get on the
team. Are we just going to roll over? Hell no! That’s what they
want
us to do! They’re hoping that we’ll go out there
already defeated, or not go out there at all, and show everyone
that they were right to stack the deck in favor of their handpicked
favorites. Meanwhile, this might be the last chance any of us have
to strut our stuff and have the whole country see it. I don’t care
how much they bend the rules to try to stomp us down, I intend to
get out there and show them who the best heroes really are. If you
really want to stick it to the guys in charge, what do you think is
the best way to do it? Go home with our tails between our legs? Or
kick the butts of that pile of teacher’s pets on live TV while the
whole world is watching?”

The other heroes processed the spirited words
for a moment.

“I
do
have a score to settle with
Primadonna,” The Number commented.

“Yeah, and I didn’t get to show off my powers
when we foiled that robbery,” Gracias added. “America deserves to
see some grassy asses, courtesy of Gracias.”

“I guess since we’re the only ones who did
any actual crime fighting, we ought to give them a lesson in how
it’s done,” Chloroplast conceded.

“Well, if you guys are in, I’m in,” Bomb
Sniffer said. “If we pull it off, it’ll be fun to see how they
react to being beaten by a minor.”

All eyes turned to Non Sequitur. When he
realized he’d become the center of attention he opened his mouth,
his clear intention to object. Then he saw the look on Nonsensica’s
face. Her expression was rigid with determination, but her eyes
simultaneously pleaded with him to join and threatened him with
terrible vengeance if he didn’t.

He shrugged. “I stuck with it this far. May
as well see it through to the end.”

Slaps on the back, high fives, and hearty
handshakes were exchanged as the revitalized group resolved to make
this final test count. With purpose in their eyes, they marched off
to their war tent to devise the best plan they could manage. A few
minutes later, Afterthought stepped out of his new cabin.

“Okay, my things are moved. Are we going
to…?” he began. He looked around and found that the others had
gone. “Of course.”

Planning
their assault took most of the day. Three times the heroes
submitted equipment requests to Sergeant Roberts only to have them
immediately rejected. The first had been rejected because the plan
called for “sleeping gas,” which Roberts informed them did not
exist in the modern military arsenal. The second required breaching
charges, which Roberts said were not permitted for use in the
borrowed facility. The third required an aerial drone, which
Roberts insisted was beyond the scope of the exercise. Finally they
were forced to settle for a full complement of sound-deadening
hearing protection, what Phosphor called “jackhammer earmuffs,” and
a set of earpieces for their radios. Assured that their equipment
would be supplied the following morning, the Blue Team retired to
their cabins shortly before midnight.

“Man,” remarked Nonsensica as she kicked off
her boots and unleashed her hair from its pigtail. “Brainstorming
is almost as exhausting as training.”

“It doesn’t help that the task ahead is
pretty well custom designed for us to fail,” Non Sequitur grumbled,
hauling himself up onto his bed.

“Eh, the heroes are always outnumbered and
fighting an uphill struggle. As far as I’m concerned, we’re the
only ones getting a real superhero test,” she said with as much
confidence as she could muster, but her cocky smile quickly turned
brittle. After keeping it solidly on her face through the full day
of planning, and the rest of training for that matter, she just
didn’t have the energy to keep it up. With Non Sequitur staring
resolutely at the ceiling, she allowed the carefully maintained
image to falter a bit. Through the cracks, her concern and doubt
began to show. She flopped down on her own bed. “Listen. I know you
never wanted anything to do with this, but you’ve got to admit, it
was kind of a blast.”

“There are parts I don’t regret,” he
agreed.

“Can I trust you to give it your best? Even
though it’s a long shot? Your role is kind of important, what with
you having one of the only top-rung powers.”

“When other people are involved, I always do
my best not to let them down.”

“Spoken like a true hero,” she said, a more
earnest smile taking its place on her face. “Even if we win,
though, they’ll probably find some reason to pick the other guys.
Tomorrow night, this whole adventure will probably be over.”