by C. L. Stone
“A sticker should be easily swapped with a bit of chemistry knowledge,” he said. “What’s not usually easy is the metal. However, with a bit of welding, one could potentially remove each and swap, or likely rework the metal and stamp the alternative number in. An overworked Department of Motor Vehicles clerk probably won’t notice any flaws.”
“We could go an extra step,” Silas said. “If we can be the ones to buy it, we’d get Mr. Blackbourne’s car back to him.”
“Nothing like double paying for a car to get out of a mess,” Nathan said. He blew out a breath of air. “Okay, sounds like a plan to me. Good job, Sang.”
I wasn’t sure I had anything to do with it. Mr. Buble seemed to have the idea right, he just wanted me to say it.
“Someone call North and see where they are,” Silas said. “They’ve been gone long enough. He won’t need to bring out the cleaning stuff.”
I had my phone in my hand, so I went ahead and called North.
What was taking them so long?
Conjunct
(An adjective applied to a melodic line that moves by step.)
Victor
On their way in, Victor took a moment outside of the Taylor compound to finally answer the text he’d gotten. With everything expected of him today, there was no way he’d escape to the office, to the dragon desk, and be able to join in.
DEPTHAFFECTION: I’m offline today. Trace?
DEPTHCRAWLER: Tagged. Don’t know how long it’ll last.
Victor gritted his teeth. It was important, although they’d found dozens of them before.
Volto wasn’t dumb enough to utilize normal means of purchase for the supplies he used. How he managed to invade their phone lines, trace where they were, that took some special purchases. And it was more likely Volto took the time to source and order via virtual currency... on the dark web.
And Victor had to enlist a little help in navigating to figure out the likely locations he might be purchasing, figure out a way to negotiate a trade for information. The trick with the dark web was it was designed to be untraceable. So they had to list likely items Volto used... but without an exact item to know what he purchased, they were shooting blanks and taking the long road. So every source that provided items Volto likely used, they had to follow up.
And not every source was willing to talk to them.
He dropped his phone back into his pocket, going inside the dilapidated Victorian house. He didn’t want to inform the others. It was one of those instances where if he was ever caught, he was the only one associated.
Inside the old house, the lower level held a collection of ladders, wood, hammers, and who knew what else, whatever they used to update. It was one of those areas Victor sometimes wished he’d spent more time in, but the group didn’t need another carpenter or plumber.
On the second level, he’d found the others. Victor stopped just outside an upstairs bathroom, looking in.
At the sink, standing with his arms crossed over his chest, was North. Black T-shirt, black jeans, hands and arms were dirty. He’d not shaved in a couple of days, the hair making shadows across his cheeks as if he’d a full beard already.
Something Victor had tried to do once and failed at. He was a tad jealous over the beards the others could grow.
North glared down at his brother, who was leaning over the toilet bowl after having heaved... again.
“Serves you right,” North said.
“Got it the first time you said it,” Luke’s voice echoed into the bowl. He spit and picked his head up. “Good while it lasted.” His longer blond hair was pulled back haphazardly into a hairclip. No shirt. No shoes. Just a pair of boxer shorts, and when Victor had come in, he hadn’t had anything on. It was only at North’s insistence he’d put them on.
“I can’t believe you’d eat all that candy,” Victor said. Victor’s stomach rumbled uncomfortably after witnessing Luke’s body heaving. He swallowed thickly. “You don’t normally get this sick after a binge.”
“I hadn’t eaten anything,” Luke said. “I always forget.”
“Every season,” North said in a grumblier-than-usual tone. “Every fucking candy season. Halloween. Christmas. Now Valentine’s Day is coming...”
“I can’t help it,” Luke whined. “They put the new candy out. I didn’t know what kind Sang would like, and I didn’t want to give her stuff that wasn’t good.”
“So you had to eat it all?” North asked.
Luke coughed and convulsed as if he’d retch again but didn’t. “At first, no. I was just really hungry, but once I started...”
Victor shook his head, crossing his arms like North. “You have a couple weeks to go. Even if you wanted to taste them all... it’s not like they run out.”
Luke made a sobbing noise. “I was hungry...”
At that point, North jolted a bit, reached into his back pocket, answered his phone. “Yeah, baby?”
“Don’t tell her!” Luke hoarsely whispered from the toilet. “Just say I’m sick. Say it’s that thing going around.”
North grunted. “Luke is a little sick. I was just making sure—” Pause. “Nope, it absolutely isn’t that he ate himself sick from buying and eating twelve pounds of Valentine’s Day candy and now can’t move away from the toilet bowl.” He breathed in, held it, and then blew out a breath while saying the next part. “It’s the... flu. Of some sort.”
Luke lifted a hand in a thumbs up toward North. “You’re a good brother, North. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Victor shook his head, muttering loud enough for them to hear but hoping Sang couldn’t. “You know, if she thinks you have the flu, she’s not going to come around for a good long while.”
Luke’s already paled face seemed to turn sheet white. “North! Fix it! Tell her it was the candy!”
“It’s the pandemic going around,” North said. “Yeah, really contagious. Can’t see him for a month...”
“Noooooo!” Luke whined and coughed, aiming his mouth toward the bowl, waiting for a heaving that didn’t seem to come.
“Later, baby,” North hung up.
“I hate everyone,” Luke mumbled. “Especially brothers. Brothers are stupid.”
“Next time, don’t eat twelve pounds of candy,” North said.
“But the chocolate...” Luke said. He hiccupped and swallowed. “Don’t say that. The C-word. It’s a bad word.”
Victor pressed a palm against his own forehead. “I suppose we’ll have to leave him here for the day?”
“Probably for the best,” North said. “Luckily, Sang says they’ve got a solution to the car problem. Luke will have to stay behind.”
“I’ll come for your birthday,” Luke said, pointing a wavering finger in Victor’s vicinity without actually looking up. “Just give me a few hours.”
“Drink some water,” North said. “And for God’s sakes, don’t eat any more sugar. There’s celery and carrots in the fridge.”
“Ugh,” Luke said. “I hate carrots.”
“If you eat any more sugar, I’ll know. And I’ll feed you nothing but carrots for a week.” North urged Victor out and shut the bathroom door on Luke.
The hallway in the upstairs of the house was dim along the corridor. The electrical work was sticking out of the light fixtures above, unusable at the moment. “One disaster after another today,” Victor said. “Good birthday to me.”
“It’s not that bad,” North said. “Remember my last birthday?”
Victor grimaced. “Yeah... that wasn’t good. It’s still not great today either. Everything’s going absolutely wrong.” He turned away, intending to find his way to some stairs.
North dropped an arm, blocking him. Surprisingly, North leaned in, a little too close, looking Victor dead in the eye. “What are you saying?”
Victor rolled his eyes, lips twitching. “My parents throwing this stupid birthday bash for not me, trying to gift me a new car that I’ll never be able to drive in this town, Sang’s new mana
ger... I don’t know how much more I can take today.” He grumbled. “Plus the more I complain, the more I sound like the royal brat that everyone expects me to be.”
North stilled, those eyes focused so hard on Victor that he could almost feel the weight of them.
Slowly, North lifted his hand, and in the same way he did to Sang every once in a while, caught Victor’s chin and held it to make him focus. The only difference being he didn’t lean in nearly as far as he did with Sang.
“A brat complains and does nothing to help himself,” he said. “So if you don’t want to feel like a brat, do something useful.”
Victor wasn’t sure if it was the way North had held his face still or his words, but every bone in his body felt tense in that moment. Absolutely right. Maybe he was being a brat to just spit out complaints. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re not going to figure it out if you’re too focused on blaming other people or finding things wrong.” North let his chin go. “Let’s go figure out your damn car. We’ll deal with the rest later.”
North went to the top of the stairs. Victor followed, holding his chin and rubbing the skin where North had touched him.
He was right. It was time to stop standing by, watching everything happening.
He wanted to do something today. Today. Of all days. Something.
But what?
A Battuta
(A return to normal tempo after a deviation)
Sang
When North and Victor finally appeared, Victor stood back while Nathan explained the plan to North.
North waited, listening. The unshaven hair on his face was a little longer, and combined with the shadows under his eyes, he was looking worn. He’d been not sleeping again.
“Then we need a welder,” North said. “I’m not trained... not that well.”
“If you need a contact,” Mr. Buble said, “I know just about everyone.”
Did he mean by heart? Even if we went to Academy camp a month or so ago, I couldn’t imagine learning everyone’s names and knowing things about them like if they could weld. We weren’t allowed to write down many Academy names in the same spot, from what I’d been told. So he had to have memorized... a lot of people.
Was there someone who knew everyone within the Academy? It made me wonder. Some individual had to know how many there were, right? Names and information?
North frowned. “Besides that, I’m not sure we’ve the favors to spare right now. Most of us are out.”
Mr. Buble said nothing. He stood straight, hands at his sides, almost a mannequin. He simply waited.
He wanted us to figure it out. Probably especially if North was going to throw roadblocks at him. Maybe North wasn’t sure about Mr. Buble.
“Does anyone have them?” I asked quietly.
It seemed to shake North up a bit when I asked. He looked to Nathan, Silas and Victor.
Nathan paled and shook his head. “I’m out.”
“Me, too,” Silas said.
Victor didn’t say anything, his lips pressed tight. I wasn’t sure if he heard and was super focused on his own thoughts or didn’t want to admit he didn’t have one either.
“Do... I have any?” I asked. “I didn’t earn any yet, but...”
“Technically, no,” Mr. Buble said. “Not officially yet. You have to pass trials to get to your starting point. But if you’d like to earn one for this, we could make a trade. It’d be an excellent lesson to share with you on how the system works.”
Nathan lifted a brow. “What, you’d give her one?”
“Generally, I can allot her favors as needed, although she has to earn it back to return it to me quickly. At least at this stage.” He focused on me. “We still have a lot to get through, but I see the necessity here to avoid further investigation, especially as you were highly involved.” He directed his last point to me.
It was weird, the way he put it, as if it wasn’t for me, he couldn’t grant the favor. Academy rules regarding favors might be more strict than I thought. I felt he was more trying to work the system to help us out.
“I’ll do what I can,” I said.
Victor snorted. “No, that doesn’t have to happen. Whatever it is, I’ll do it. It’s my car. I’m already asking a lot of Mr. Blackbourne to sacrifice his for a while. I’m not even sure we’ll get it back.”
“I’d agree,” Mr. Buble said. “Only, I don’t have a job for you right now. I happen to have one coming up soon that would require only one person. You don’t have the time to spare. Plus, applicants can be granted favors to exchange ahead of time, due to their newness and usually a need for such favors given familial circumstances. If I took a favor for you at a time when you have none, there would have to be an inquiry about the handling of favors among your team. We want you going forward, not backward.”
Silence fell among the guys. I didn’t know what to say either. Apparently at this point, it was better if I did the task than anyone else, because the favor could be granted now before I actually did any job.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
Mr. Buble raised a brow. “I just want to be clear. I haven’t told you the job yet.”
“If you believe I can do it, I believe you,” I said. I didn’t want to waste any more time. Victor’s mother would be looking for him, and we needed a welder, someone who would know how to help with this VIN issue. I wasn’t sure the wordage, but I went with what sounded right. “I agree to do a job in exchange for immediately allowing a favor that I can grant to Victor for changing the VIN on his car.”
Mr. Buble nodded his head and held out a hand. “Agreed.”
I shook it. His hand was coarser than I’d imagined. He held firm for a full second before letting go.
The instant he did, he took his phone out of his pocket and walked away. He dialed quickly, and while we couldn’t really overhear everything, it was clear he was calling a welder.
Meanwhile, North curled his fingers at us and when we got close, he pointed a broad finger at me. “I don’t like this,” he said. “No more accepting favors without asking the job.”
“We don’t have time right now,” I said. “Besides, I can figure out the job later—”
“You never know what will happen,” he hissed at me.
“You’d do it,” I said, giving him a long, hard stare to let him know I knew he’d do the exact same thing if he could.
He twisted his lips, an argument on the edge of being spoken, but he instead grumbled. I took it to mean I won this one.
“Miss Sang,” Mr. Buble called to me as he hung up the phone. “We’ll have to leave the others to it, I’m afraid.”
The guys straightened up from the huddle. “What?” Nathan asked. “You mean it? She’s leaving for the job now?”
“It’s circumstances,” Mr. Buble said. He turned to Victor. “It’s actually progressed more quickly than I realized. But I promise to have her back tonight for your event.” He motioned to the others at the BMWs. “You’ll have to take the stickers off to exchange and the engraved VIN, you’ll have to cut a wide circle around it and take it with the undamaged car to the right place. You don’t have time to wait for them to pack up the welding kit and bring it over.”
“One of us can go with her,” Silas said. It’s the first he’d spoken in a while. He normally got quiet in the group, and even more so if someone else was around. If he felt strong enough about something, then he’d talk.
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “Silas and I...”
“I can go,” Victor said.
“You’ll need to drive Mr. Blackbourne’s car and be back for your party before you’re missed,” Mr. Buble said to Victor directly and then addressed the others. “She won’t be able to earn a full favor if it’s split between two people. And the rest of you should stay together at all times. Don’t worry. I’ll bring her back safely.” It wasn’t that he was rude, but there was a definitive tone to the way he spoke. There was no more negotiating.
He
motioned to me to head back toward his black town car.
I followed. There were no more excuses now. Victor had his head down, glaring at the ground.
It couldn’t be helped. He needed the favor. Mr. Buble was saving us a lot of time. We just had to trust him.
He was Academy. He was to be trusted, right?
Canon
(Ger. A theme that is repeated, built upon by other instruments with a time delay.)
Victor
Mr. Buble drove away with Sang beyond the tree line. They watched silently together until the vehicle made a slight turn and disappeared from view.
A two-note ringing sound echoed in the garage shortly after. A sound system hidden in the eaves, set up with a sensor alert system for any car coming onto the property. Coming or going, someone in the house heard it.
“That’s it,” Nathan said. “I know we trust our own people, but this isn’t going to work.”
North pursed his lips, focusing on the deconstructed pieces of the BMW. Expression dark. Arms crossed. “He saved us from doing this the hard way.”
“Yeah, but he’s taking Sang off to God knows where,” Nathan said, waving his arms around. “It’s crazy. We’re a team. We should go.”
“It’s for a few hours at most,” North said. “She did it for us. It was fair and she wanted to and we’ve got a lot to do while she’s gone. So stop bitching and help me get all this shit out of the way so we can get to the VINs and remove them.”
“So Sang tells you it’s okay, and you just believe her and let her go off on her own?”
North’s eyes widened and the glare he sent down on Nathan could have been firing bullets. “I believe her, and you’re going to believe her, and you’re going to believe Mr. Buble isn’t going to put her into any harm’s way, or what the hell are we in this Academy for?”
Victor didn’t want to say it out loud, but he didn’t like that Mr. Buble took her without telling them where, either. It was hard enough she was leaving without one of them with her.
But that was the Academy. That was what happened, and what would continue to happen if she joined. Sometimes you didn’t work with your team. You worked with who needed you at the time.
