The Other Eight (28 page)

“Uh-oh,” said Bottleneck.

The villains scanned the bar, eyeing the
handful of other patrons warily.

“Anyone who thinks it might be a good idea to
call the cops on us had better hope he doesn’t have an allergy to
bee stings,” Pollinatrix warned, her fingers curled and ready to
snap.

“Uh, listen, guys? I think that’s my cue to
get out of here,” Dentata said, gathering up her things and
throwing some money on the table. “Something tells me there are at
least a few people around here who’ve seen us come and go.”

Chicken Scratch started to laugh, low and
sinister.

“This is what we were after, honey. Infamy.
Honest to goodness, nightly news infamy. Those idiot heroes stole
the spotlight after our clash, but this time it’s all ours! You’re
just going to panic and abandon villainy at the first sign of
trouble?”

“I’m not abandoning villainy. I’m just
getting to my, uh,
lair
before the cops get here.”

“I can give you a ride,” Bottleneck said.

“Uh, thanks but no thanks,” she said with a
weak smile. “In fact, could you give me a five-minute head start? I
don’t want to get caught in your traffic jam.”

“Okay,” Bottleneck muttered, dejected.

Pollinatrix patted him on the back as Dentata
rushed out the door. “You’re better off without her, honey. Trust
me. There’s no such thing as getting lucky with that girl.”

Chicken Scratch’s laughter hadn’t stopped,
and now it had evolved to a demented cackle that went quite well
with his poultry motif. He thrust his cane to the ground and popped
it into the air, snatching it expertly again and sweeping across
the room. “No! Call the police! Call them right now, and tell them
that Chicken Scratch’s reign of terror has just begun! You have not
seen the last of us.”

“Yes!” Pollinatrix said, springing to her
feet. “Tell the police that you have seen the face of darkness, and
it is lurking among you! Such is the wrath of… of…”

“The Bird and The Bees!” Chicken Scratch
said.

“Oh, yes! Brilliant! And just to make the
extent of our villainy clear, I leave you with this to remember us
by!”

With wild eyes and deranged flair, she
snapped her fingers.

“Wait! What about bottles? I didn’t make it
into the team name!” objected Bottleneck, but his voice was swiftly
lost in the chaos brought by a dense cloud of bees flooding through
the open windows while Pollinatrix and Chicken Scratch whisked
gleefully through the door.

His mind, evidently not immune to his own
powers, screeched to a halt as he tried to construct an adequate
theme that included bottles, bees, and birds. Perhaps
appropriately, he was blocking the doorway at the time, leading to
many bee stings, much profanity, and the undying hatred of every
last patron of the bar.

#

The hours since the war games had ended were
a blur. Military police had been called in, samples had been taken
of the explosives, and heroes and soldiers alike were asked
questions separately, then together. Medics looked everyone over,
there were debriefings, then interrogations, then a half-dozen
other excuses to ask the same questions over and over with varying
degrees of intensity. Now it was four in the morning, and the eight
heroes had been shepherded into a room that felt like something
between a dentist’s waiting room and a holding cell. There were a
few rows of uncomfortable chairs and two low tables, all of which
were bolted in place. Coffee had been provided, and now there was
nothing to do but sit quietly and wait for what was next.

Non Sequitur looked around the room. It was
clear that the crew had been through quite an ordeal. Phosphor,
Nonsensica, and Chloroplast were all bruised and bandaged from
their battles. There was still a smear of lipstick across The
Number’s forehead from his encounter with Primadonna. Most of the
rest were showing welts and splashes of paint from the close-range
shootout, and everyone was exhausted. It had been forty minutes
since they’d been placed in the room, and the boredom was beginning
to get to them. Overhead, one of the fluorescent lights
illuminating the room sputtered and buzzed.

“They really ought to fix the ballast on that
thing, or they are going to keep burning through bulbs,” Phosphor
commented, adjusting an icepack that he’d been holding to his neck.
“Big organizations like this never think about preventative
maintenance.”

Another few seconds passed. As was frequently
the case, Gracias took it upon himself to fill the void.

“Okay, what’s your favorite mythical
creature,” he asked. “Anyone? Anyone? Okay, I’ll start. I like the
griffin, because it is one and a half creatures.”

“How do you figure?” asked The Number.

“You ever see a picture of one? It is like a
whole eagle, plus half a lion.”

A few heads in the room tipped to the side,
followed by a few appreciative nods.

“I always liked the chupacabra,” Nonsensica
chimed in.

“Sasquatch,” said Phosphor.

“Bandicoot,” said The Number.

“I think that’s a real thing,” Non Sequitur
said.

“No, really?”

“Yeah. It’s like a mouse in Australia or
something,” Nonsensica agreed.

“Well, what’s the rabbit with the
antlers?”

“That’s a jackalope,” Non Sequitur said.

“Right. That one.”

“Yeti,” said Chloroplast.

“I don’t know, dragon?” said Bomb
Sniffer.

“Tooth fairy,” Non Sequitur said.

“Okay, if you could only do one—” Gracias
began.

“Slenderman,” said Afterthought.

“Right, sorry, okay, so if you could only do
one—”

There was a knock at the door, then the knob
turned and Private Summers entered, the obligatory steaming carafe
in her hand and a paper bag under one arm.

“Coffee lady!” Gracias said.

“That’s Private First Class Coffee Lady,
thank you very much,” Summers said with false irritation as she
closed the door. She set the coffee pot down, and the heroes
freshened their cups. “So, how are you folks holding up?”

“We’d be doing a good deal better if we knew
what it is we’re waiting for, miss,” Phosphor said politely.

“I know,” she said, sympathy in her
expression. She took a seat. “I’m sorry, but in the army there are
strict procedures that must be followed. We have to deal with
everything exactly the same way we did last time, and, well, this
is a unique situation. That means we’ve never dealt with it before.
It tends to cause a lot of confusion. On the plus side, now that
you’ve been debriefed, I got permission to return some of your
personal effects to you. Cell phones, mostly. I figure you probably
want to make some calls and let people know you’re all right. By
now you know what you can and can’t say.”

She handed the bag around, and each
communication-starved member of the team fished out his or her
phone.

“Hey, they’re charged and everything,”
Gracias remarked.

“We aim to please,” Summers said.

“Well, what’s been going on?” Nonsensica
asked.

“Major St. John has been remanded to custody.
Now that his record is under scrutiny they are uncovering some
pretty well-hidden stuff he’s been doing. Embezzling research
funds. Accessing classified files. Deep breaches, and not just in
the army. He was slick, slick enough to hide stuff from the DoD,
but once you get the eye of the security teams, nothing holds up
for long. I can’t go into specifics, mostly because they don’t
usually
tell
me specifics. Hocker is being reevaluated by
Dr. Aiken. That’s gonna be a big ‘I told you so’ for him. He was
down on Hocker from the start, ever since the guy almost parted his
hair with a sunflower seed in the opening interviews. Barring a
miraculous breakthrough, I don’t think that guy has a future in the
military.”

“What about the rest of us? What’s the future
of the Guardian Project?” Nonsensica asked.

“That’s far above my pay grade. I’m as
interested as you, because if they pull the plug, it’s back to the
typing pool for me until they assign me to a new project, and after
this one it is bound to be a let down.”

“Well, what were the scores? If there
was
a team, who would be on it?” Gracias asked.

“Sorry again. General Siegel made it pretty
clear that telling you your ‘scores’ is against the rules, and
until I’m told otherwise, the rules still apply. I can say that
your upset win in the war game certainly shuffled the list a bit,”
she said.

“Our win? We won?” Nonsensica said.

“I raised the flag while you guys were
heading out to get the MPs,” Afterthought said.

“Man. You’re the MVP of the night,” Non
Sequitur acknowledged.

“Uh… not according to the press,” Private
Summers said apologetically.

“What do you mean?” Nonsensica said.

“You guys aren’t doing a cover-up, are you?”
Bomb Sniffer accused.

“It was on live television. The cat is out of
the bag, as far as cover-ups go.” She reached behind her and pulled
out a well-folded newspaper. It still smelled strongly of wet ink.
“These are the morning editions. We got one hot off the presses,
but as we speak they are being delivered to stands and stores all
over the DC area.”

Nonsensica took the newspaper and looked over
the front page. “Of course that would happen. Of
course
that
would happen.
Again
!”

“What? What is it?” asked Phosphor.

Nonsensica turned around and unfurled the
front page. Evidently, once the MPs had arrived to release the
restrained members of the Red Team and apprehend the rogue major,
they led them out past the press cameras. At some point the still
groggy Johnny On the Spot had stumbled forward and steadied himself
on the shoulder of the handcuffed Major St. John. As fate would
have it, it was at that precise moment that the photographer had
snapped his front page image, and in that frozen instant it looked
remarkably like Johnny was escorting the handcuffed officer
forward.

“The caption says, ‘Pictured above: Johnny On
the Spot, leader of the band of heroes responsible for uncovering
the plot.’
Leader?
He was on the other team! And he tried to
stop
us! Whatever happened to fact-checking?!” Nonsensica
griped.

“While they may not help a team fight crime,
you’ve got to admire how effective his powers are,” Phosphor said
with a raised eyebrow.

The doorknob turned and in stepped a
perpetually irate man in full uniform, with a tidy mustache and a
chewed up cigar accessorizing his face. Private Summers shot to her
feet, and most of the more astute heroes did the same.

“General Siegel. I was just briefing the
team,” Summers said with a crisp salute.

“I know, I know. At ease, all of you,” said
the general. “You sorry lot have been raising my blood pressure
ever since I first read your names. I genuinely hoped we would
never have to meet face-to-face again. To be perfectly frank, with
the possible exception of Mr. Logan here, I never would have
allowed any of you anywhere near a military force under my command,
super or otherwise. I overheard you asking about your ‘scores’ just
now. Well, in my army we don’t hand out report cards, but if you
were after a skills assessment, here it is. None of you are what I
would call ideal soldiers. There are severe deportment problems
almost across the board. Most of you are seemingly unwilling to
follow
military
orders, but are more than willing to fall in
line for an idiotic plan of your own devising. For most of the
testing period I had serious doubts about your dedication and
motivation. Some of you are too old, some too young. Some of you
fail pitifully at meeting our minimum physical requirements.”

As he counted off the faults, the general
mood in the room plummeted.

“That said, and to my great surprise, you
function phenomenally as a unit. I saw inventive use of limited
resources. I saw ingenious application of strategic thinking. I saw
tremendous initiative. And when the real heat was on, I saw
unquestionable dedication to the task at hand. Your performance in
the war game spoke for itself. Beyond that you did a service to
your country by uncovering what Major St. John was up to, and a
tremendous service to me personally by giving me a valid reason to
put him behind bars for the rest of his life and thus get him out
of my hair.

“Unfortunately, though his methods were
deplorable and his motivation insane, in a way he nonetheless
succeeded at his goal. He’s illustrated that there are super
villains out there. And while a power might be called laughably
weak by some, in the hands of the wrong people that same power
could be called subtle and insidious. His point was valid. We
do
need
real
superheroes. I don’t know what sort of
demented plan he had in mind for creating his own, but in my mind
you create a super-soldier in the same way that you create a
standard one: by starting with good men and women and giving them
the skills they need to be great.

“And I see some good men and women here. It
is the reluctant decision of myself and the rest of the command
structure that Project Guardian shall be maintained and expanded.
With the temporary exception of those of you who will have to take
a hiatus until you reach the legal age of enlistment, there is a
place for each of you if you wish to remain with the project.
Welcome to the Department of Defense.”

The room erupted into cheers. General Siegel
handed a thick envelope to Summers and excused himself from the
room as handshakes and hugs were shared between the private and
various members of the team.

“Up here! Up here, buddy! Come on!” Gracias
proclaimed, hands high for the endlessly sought high five from his
partner in green.

“Fine,” Chloroplast said, slapping hands. “Go
Team Green.”