Blaze of Glory

by C. J. Strange

  “Let you do all the talking,” he recites monotonously. He knows the drill.

  “Atta boy. I’ve got the paperwork Gav sent over, the booking and release forms and all that. They should get us out of any trouble with coppers at checkpoints. Remember, you’re my entourage. We’re sweet, innocent, law-abiding, Sovereign arse-kissing young elites up here in the big capitol city from Plymouth to play a show. We’re only here for a week, they’re providing the gear, and we’re out of our minds excited to get within breathing distance of the boys from Yvngblood. As soul-crushing as that is going to be to have to act out.”

  Alfie frowns. “So, we’re all gay?”

  I flinch. That word sounds alien coming out of the savage lunatic’s mouth. It’s not one I like to imagine him saying, one I’ll ignore if he does. His thoughts on that matter may hit a little too hard and a little too close to home for me.

  “Sure. Why not.” Penny’s voice is deadpan. “That’s why you wanted this job so bad, Deez. You couldn’t wait to photograph them. You’re proper gay for, for…”

  She waves a hand up around her head. Her hair is down, relaxed against the nape of her neck where she normally French-braids it upward and out of the way. The sight of her hair against her skin makes me weak at the knees, there’s no escaping it.

  “The one with the pompadour thing going on. Darcy.”

  “Derby,” I correct her.

  “I know,” she says, and it’s not quite a whine, not quite a whimper. “I kno-o-ow. But I can’t handle the fact that I know their names now. This has been the worst three days of my life so far.”

  “Hey,” Alfie says with both spite and sympathy. “The worst three days of our lives so far.”

  Penny hangs her head, but then pats her shoulder and throws up what I suppose it one of their weird bromance gang-sign gestures that they share? The two of them are a pair of complete chavs when they get going. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started wearing matching Properdry-branded tracksuits and hanging out drinking and smoking dope on street corners. I swear, it’s utterly ridiculous.

  … not that I’m jealous, or anything. Not that I would be looking for any similar sort of a bromance myself.

  “Good grief. All right.” Penny readjusts herself in her seat, settling down. “Realigning this freight train full of fun. Rhys, you’re my agent. That doesn’t mean you get to talk over me or treat me like I’m subservient to you—you’re a hands-off kind of agent. Not a helicopter agent.”

  “Helicopter agent?” Alfie exhales smoke in the general direction of the window. It irks me, but I say nothing, nursing a mug of tea I’ve already finished drinking.”Is that even a thing?”

  “It is now,” she says. “Think, sort of—like when those kids’ parents are their managers, you know the type.”

  “I do?”

  “She means you’re not supposed to be her daddy, or anything,” I chime in, and I immediately wish I hadn’t. Alfie bursts out laughing, coughing and choking on the lungful of smoke he’d inhaled just a half-second before. The regret is palpable. The shame is real.

  Rhys is ogling the back of Penny’s head, which earns him a guard-dog glare from Duncan. “I could be.”

  “Rhys—agent. Not my daddy.” Penny’s voice is stern, but there’s no legitimate aggression to it. I like to call it her Captain Voice, and I find it rather sexy. Especially when she happens to be saying things like that.

  And when she says my name right after, which makes me jump in my seat.

  “OP’s rigged a BitID up to the bottom of a Rolex band,” she goes on, “so you’ll be paying for everything. Alfie, you’ve got one too. The accounts are fake, but heavily encrypted to look as damn real as possible. If we’re going to have an identity problem, I don’t think it’ll be with the Bits.

  “OP, you’re my socials guy,” she continues without pausing to take a breath. She’s in full-on captain mode now, and it’s not just sexy. It’s damn sexy. “Media, PR, promo, you’re on top of it.”

  “Her FaceFolio presence is unbelievable, I might add,” says Rhys, in a way that lifts my heart into my mouth. He’s beaming at me, and if this is what it feels like to have that charm of his turned on you, I have no idea how Penny’s not jumped his bones yet. “Authentic as balls. Very well done, young sir.”

  It may sound lame, but I’m ecstatic to even be mentioned. Especially aloud. I spent what felt like thousands of pain-staking hours photo-editing Penny’s likeness into artwork and banners. I even devised a way of tricking the Sovereignty’s face-recognition software using a specifically-shaped and -positioned marks in face paint, which we then worked into her costume design and stage persona.

  I want to say something to thank him, preferably not something dorky. But I’m so hung up on not sounding like an idiot that I wind up not saying anything at all. Instead, I just blush and smile.

  Because that doesn’t make you look like an idiot, I scold myself.

  “I agree. It looks grand.” Penny takes a swig from a reusable water bottle between her seat and Duncan’s. “Dee, you’re my muscle. My rich wanker of a dad sent you along with me to keep me safe from all these dangerous Anomalies we hear so much about on KING.”

  Duncan sets his jaw. “Fekkin’ Botch-Job bastarts,” he snarls. It’s convincing enough to cause the hairs on my arms to stand up on end, and I have to shake it off.

  Penny winces audibly. “That accent though, mate. Don’t speak unless they ask you to, then just get your Englishman on. It scares me how good you are at it.” She laughs, which is about when the wafting cloud of smoke reaches her. “Ugh, Alfie! Could you seriously not, mate?”

  “What?”

  “You know I’ve been dying for one all week. I’m really regretting quitting right now, and I need to not regret quitting. So stop rubbing it in my bloody face that I regret quitting!”

  Alfie scowls, but Penny snaps her fingers without turning around.

  “I said out the window!”

  “It’s going out the window!”

  “I’m gonnae throw him oot the window,” grumbles Duncan, though he doesn’t make any sign he’s actually going to make good on that threat. He wouldn’t, not without Penny’s strict authorization.

  He does turn, however, and haul himself out of the chair.

  “I’m gunnae make us one last brew before we get ta the checkpoint.”

  “How close are we?” asks Rhys. Perhaps there’s something in his tone I don’t pick up on, because the look Duncan throws him is piercing.

  “Eh, I’d say maybe half an hour from shite yer pants o’clock, give or take a few minutes.” He pops the kettle open and fills it from a four-gallon water jug. “Why? Not losing yer nerve, are ya, laddie boy?”

  “Not at all,” is Rhys’ defensive response. The way he’s chewing the skin around his nails says otherwise, though. I recognize that one as a bonafide master.

  “And what’s your job, Pen’?”

  Penny doesn’t turn in her seat to glare at Alfie, but thankfully Duncan thinks to do it on her behalf. Alfie returns it, then twists his head to smirk sideways at me.

  “What?” Penny demands.

  “What’s your story?” Alfie is beaming the biggest, most volatile grin I’ve ever seen around his cigarette. It’s the sort of grin he only wears when he’s been feeling like a bit of a Beta Male all day, and a situation arises where he can claw his way up to Alpha rank. If only for a joke or two.

  “Come on, you said what we’re all doing.” Alfie exhales, deliberately doing so in a way that blows the smoke away from me. Call me a nerd, but it’s the sexiest thing he’s ever done for me, and I only hope it doesn’t show on my face. “What’s your big part to play in this whole fuckin’ production?”

  Penny falls dead silent. I don’t blame her.

  It can’t be easy. It’s got to be agonizing for her, of all people, to play this part. While we could argue for hours upon hours over whose hatred of the Sovereignty runs the deepest and why, in this instance, she
’s the driving force behind the entire plan. She’s the one who’s got to be the most convincing. She’s the one who’s got to pretend to be the most stoked on all of this.

  “Pen’?” Alfie pushes, stubbing his cigarette out on the palm of his hand. It doesn’t even singe the skin. The sight of it is something else, and I quickly avert my gaze before he realizes I’m staring at him with my jaw in my lap.

  Penny’s teeth are clenched. Her shoulders are taut. And as she talks, loud enough to be heard over the slow boil of the kettle, every ounce of anguish running through her veins is crystal clear.

  “I’m the most edgy, funky, fit, and spunky teenage pop idol you didn’t know you had a need for on your feed, boy.”

  We may know she’ll pull it off when the time comes, when we have actual need to lie our way into the capital county with the papers our old contact organized for us. But for now, we’re all just enjoying the grating monotone, which could either be for our pleasure or her own therapeutic release.

  “I’m Alexa Exeter, motherfluffers. And this weekend, I’m gonna set the thames ablaze.”

  11 Penny's Old Friend

  It’s been about a year and a half since I last saw Gav. At six-foot-two and with soft, wheat-blond hair and broad shoulders, he’s the spit of how you’d imagine a strong, young, Anglo-Saxon lad to look.

  “How’s your sister?” Alfie asks, buzzing with a warm, eager energy. I’m not surprised those are the first words out of his mouth once we’re all done greeting our old friend. Little sisters was the initial topic these two bonded over.

  Gav chuckles and shakes his head. “Last night she played cards for an hour with me mum’s toaster oven. I tell you what, mate, she’ll be the death of me one of these days. But she’s great, she’s great, she’s normal. What about you lot, though, how’s the fam? Bloody hell, PS,” he continues in the same run-off sentence, rotating on one heel to address me personally. “Getting yourself enough bad press these days, are ya? Cor blimey, love. The size of the stones you must have, showing your face ‘round this way. Especially after all that nonsense.”

  “I like to live dangerously,” I reply, flatly but with a smile. The dank, musty smell of the old bunker has been bothering me since we broke open the security hatch for the first time in a year, and it’s taking the majority of my willpower not to constantly comment on it. “I thought you knew that about me by now?”

  “I do,” says Gav, returning my grin with one of his own. Like everything else about him, it’s adorable. And just ever so slightly off-kilter. “But every now and then, you still surprise me.”

  “She does that ta the rest of us too,” Duncan pipes in as he enters the underground bunker with a tote filled with Oliver’s equipment. Poor bastards will be spending the rest of the evening setting up a temporary headquarters down here, establishing an encrypted link to the Net, and securing the entire premises. Internally, externally, and—most importantly in this day and age— electronically.

  “OP,” Gav greets our youngest member for the first time. He towers over him as he moves in for a hug, so much so that the two barely seem to be of the same species.

  That being said, there are many ways one could argue that they aren’t.

  “Good to see you, son, it’s been, what? A year?”

  Oliver nods, and I notice he’s trying not to appear overeager to escape the bigger man’s arms. “Longer, I’d say. You wanted nothing to do with us when we were here last Hallowe’en.”

  “Not going to hold that against me now, are you?” Gav asks sheepishly, rubbing at the nape of his neck with one hand.

  “No,” Oliver says, his demeanor relaxed. I’m always acutely aware of his demeanor, his mood, especially around anyone but the immediate brigade.

  He’s shy, and I’m overprotective. It’s a terrible combination.

  “As a matter of fact, it was when you said you thought something smelled funny and you wanted nothing to do with the mission that I started to worry.”

  Gav chuckles lightly. “Well, maybe that’s a bonus, mate! It’s good for you to learn a thing or two about the real world, in case you’re ever stuck out here alone. Fella’s gotta know how to get by on his own, you know?”

  While it’s obvious from Gav’s pleasant and genial tone that he meant no harm, it’s just as stark that it hit Oliver the wrong way.

  “Oh—hey, look, I didn’t mean anything by it,” our friend starts to apologize, but Oliver cuts him off with a nervous laugh.

  “No, no, no, it’s all right,” he agrees, avoiding all eye-contact with the tall, strapping blond. “Gav’s right, I could do with a lesson or two.”

  I can’t imagine what it must like to be a bloke in Gav’s presence. Beneath a weathered, grey V-neck, the man’s enormous biceps could give Duncan’s a run for their money. He cuts an impassive impression, even without any Anomaly abilities. No wonder Oliver seems so quick to back down.

  “You got all the papers? They went through all right?” asks Gav, turning back to me. I spread my arms with a smirk.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, and I still can’t hardly believe it,” Gav says grimly, shaking his head. He sounds less cool and casual, and a lot more concerned. “Without a word of a lie, I thought you’d all gone up with the Switchboard. We all did. Didn’t dare believe it when I saw you on KING. I blamed it on the drink for at least a fortnight, convinced myself I was imagining it.”

  “It’s not exactly your fault,” I say soberly, folding my arms across my chest. The bunker’s familiar old smell is still a hair too strong, and a headache I’m desperate to deny is starting to develop between my eyebrows. “The media burned it. Buried it. They didn’t want word of it spreading. I think they preferred the narrative that we all went up in flames in Manchester.”

  Gav quirks one golden eyebrow at me. “Well, at least you finally gave me a bell once you needed something, eh? Rung me, sent me a message, let me know you were all still in one piece?”

  “It’s nothing personal, Gav,” Alfie calls over his shoulder. He’s appeared with another tote of electronics, and has proceeded to help Oliver unpack the first one. “It was just on, like, this sort of need-to-know basis, and all that.”

  “Well, I guess I didn’t really need to know,” Gav says awkwardly. I hope for a moment he doesn’t feel he pushed too far. Gav’s always been straight down the line with us, and I wouldn’t want him to think he can never ask us an outright question and expect a just and dignified answer.

  “You lot heard the latest about Pyronamix?” he asks the room, tucking his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans.

  Oliver is the first to pipe up. I remain unfazed. When it comes to social media, Oliver’s always heard the latest.

  “The otherworldly guest and sponsorship announcements or the ridiculously overpriced tickets that went on sale this morning?” Oliver expertly unravels several cables and plugs them into the back of a small hard drive. “Or has there been more idiocy since the last time I checked?”

  “Oh, tickets already sold out,” says Gav, and Oliver snaps his head up to stare at him.

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Or at least, they say they’re sold out.” Gav shrugs his broad shoulders. “Could be another rouse to do what you guys was talking about—the whole making it seem right proper exclusive angle?”

  I heave an exasperated breath. I personally detest social media, which means I have even less respect for those who harness it for evil.

  “The King angle is the one that concerns me,” I confess aloud, absent-mindedly writing the brigade’s name on a dusty tabletop with the tip of one finger. “Specially, the younger of the two.”

  Alfie snorts in derision. “Mason,” he drawls, and one could easily grasp there’s no love lost between our lovely lunatic and the KING News empire from the way he elongates each syllable. “Didn’t he fuck off to America years ago?”

  “Eight years ago,” says Oliver, precisely. “Post-Brexit, but before the Fl
are. After spending up all his celebrity points in Britain advocating for us to abandon the European Union on a slew of false promises and even falser information, then helping to paint William Wentworth as the savior of our collective sovereignty, he took a leave of absence to focus on the KING brand in the States.”

  “Huh,” muses Gav. “You forget there’s apparently still a whole bloody world out there.”

  “Which is why the angle confuses me,” I say, “and worries me. KING and the Sovereignty invest billions of Sterling every year in ensuring the general public forget the existence of the rest of the globe. So why draw attention to it by inviting Britain’s most celebrated globerover?”

  “The ‘rovers.” Gav shakes his head. “Mental, all of ‘em, I’m telling you. Who knows what sort of state the world’s in right now. For all we know, they’re all nuking each other nonstop over whose god is Best God!”

  I smile sweetly at him, doing my best to curb my sarcasm. “I love you, Gav. But you really do buy into their shit way too much at times.”

  He stares at me, embarrassed and a tad defensive. “Well, that ain’t really fair, now. I’m just saying, who knows. Maybe that’s why he’s speaking at Pyronamix, to let everybody know how shambolic it all is!”

  I glance over at my lads, who are still unloading our electronics and setting them all up to build our new, temporary workspace. Alfie shrugs. Duncan grunts, returning his eyes to the twist-tie he’s fighting with. Oliver’s the only one who offers a verbal opinion.

  “If you’ve ever seen videos of Mason King talking,” he says, “you’ll know he has a silver tongue and he’s not afraid to use it. He’s all the worst parts of a used car salesman and all the worst parts of the Sovereignty’s fascist belief system, but he’s gorgeous. He should have been a model or a movie star, but he enjoys the business end of things far too much to dedicate himself to the arts. But he’s still gorgeous, so everybody just eats it up. I imagine he does well for himself in America.”