by James Ponti
It took me about two-thirds of the platform to catch up with them. When I did, I jumped off the platform and crashed right on top of Creep-O the Amazing. A few seconds later, I heard Mom tackle his partner.
We rolled around on the gravel for a moment before we were able to get back on our feet. I squared off against him, and my confidence got a huge boost when I saw how badly I’d dislocated his nose with the punch on the train. It was all twisted and turned to the side.
“Wow,” I said as I tried to get him worked up. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone who can actually smell his own eye.”
“Really?” my mother said as she lined up against his leather-clad assistant. “All those years of Jeet Kune Do and your plan of attack is to taunt him?”
(Is there some rule that says moms can never let you seem cool? Even for a second?)
“Are you going to criticize everything I do?” I asked.
“Nope,” she responded as she flashed a smile at me. “Just the things you do wrong.”
Both of us turned to face our opponents and unleashed a flurry of attack moves. I’ll be honest and admit I was trying to show off a little. I wanted Mom to know I had major skills. But the fight was much harder than I expected. First of all, I’m left-handed, but my left hand was in a cast, so I had to fight the opposite way I normally do. Second, it turns out that the sleight of hand and deception skills magicians use to pull off their tricks also make them difficult to fight.
I kept thinking he was going one way when he was actually going the other. At one point, he even distracted me with that stupid card trick he’d been doing earlier on the train platform. While my attention was momentarily focused on the card as it disappeared and reappeared, he knocked me down with a leg swipe.
I came back at him strong and really thought I had it won when I yanked his arm completely off his body. It was the same thing I’d done to the first zombie I ever fought. Except it turned out that it wasn’t a real arm. It was a fake one he used for one of his tricks. Ugh. (So much for demonstrating my impressive skills.)
As I stared in disbelief at what I was holding, he leveled me with a punch that slammed me against the ground. I looked up and wiped the gravel from my face just in time to see my mother whip the handcuffs around her wrists like a weapon and whack him right in the face. She followed it up with a couple of lightning-quick punches that reminded me of her reputation as the ultimate Zeke, which stands for ZK or “zombie killer.”
“You still keeping track of who’s saving whom?” she said, exaggerating the word.
“I am if you are,” I answered as I leapt up and saved her right back by cutting off the assistant who was just about to jump her from behind. It was surreal to fight a pair of zombies side by side with my mother. I guess this was our version of playing catch in the backyard. But so much more fun.
At least, it was more fun, until the moment where I reared back to throw a punch at the assistant, only to have Creep-O grab my arm from behind. Before I realized what was happening, he’d slapped the other handcuff around my wrist.
Now my mother and I were literally connected to each other like a pair of prisoners. We wound up back to back, trying to fight them with one hand each. And this was when she decided to take another trip down memory lane.
“You remember swing dancing?” she asked.
I couldn’t believe she was choosing this moment to revisit another one of our failures. When I was nine, she signed us up for mother-daughter swing dancing classes. It was something she and my sister Beth had done the previous year. They’d loved it and thought it brought them closer together. She wanted to have the same experience with me, except unlike my sister I have no rhythm. I was terrible at it and quickly grew to despise everything about it. I began coming up with all sorts of lame excuses to miss, and eventually, Mom got the hint. It was a sore subject for a while and not something I wanted to reminisce about in the current situation.
“First the Central Park Zoo and now swing dancing,” I said. “Are we going to go through every mistake I’ve ever made?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I just wanted to know if you remember the Big Finish.”
The Big Finish was what our teacher called the finale of the dance we learned. For the move, we had to stand back to back and lock our arms together. Then Mom leaned forward and flipped me over her head so that I landed face-to-face with her. It was the only thing from swing dancing that I enjoyed.
It was also something we could do even if we were handcuffed together.
“Got it,” I said as I locked my arms into hers. “On three.”
“One . . . two . . . three,” she counted off.
She snapped forward, and I started to flip over her. On the way up, I did a scissors kick and nailed the magician’s assistant right under the chin with my foot. On the way back down, I popped Creep-O with a head shot that laid him out.
It took a moment to realize what had just happened. My mother looked at the two of them in amazement. “Unbelievable! You managed to kill two zombies in a single move.”
I smiled broadly. “I guess that’s why they call it the Big Finish.”
We both laughed and tried an awkward high five. (Awkward because we were handcuffed and because of my whole lack of rhythm thing.)
She unlocked the cuffs with a key she dug out of the magician’s coat pocket, and we snuck back into the subway station to wait for my train. Whatever issues we’d had before were now, at least for the moment, overshadowed by what we’d just been through.
According to the electronic sign on the wall, the next train was four minutes away. That didn’t leave a lot of time for catching up.
“So, is your plan to keep following me around?” I asked.
She nodded. “Pretty much.”
“What if I need to get in contact with you? Is there some sort of phone number I can call or a Bat-signal I can flash?”
“No, but you’re right. . . . We do need a way for you to reach me.” She thought for a moment and smiled. “Your birthday at the Central Park Zoo.”
“Again with the zoo story?” I couldn’t believe it.
“Relax,” she said. “Remember when you got lost, where did I find you?”
“Watching the big clock with the dancing animals.”
“Right,” she said. “And if you need me, that’s where I’ll find you again.”
“You want me to stand there and wait under the clock?”
“No, just leave a coded message there,” she said. “I’ll check it every day.”
“It’s not exactly e-mail,” I said. “But I like it.”
We stood there, unsure what to say, our conversation frozen by awkwardness. Finally, I spoke up. “They told me you were the greatest Zeke of all time, and now I can see why. You were amazing.”
“Me? You killed two zombies with one move. You’re the star, Molly. I have no doubt that you’ll be the best Omega ever.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I said.
I explained about our team getting suspended and the review hearing scheduled for the next week. She thought about this for a moment.
“If you think they’re going to rule against you,” she said, “tell them that you have to be reinstated to work on the Baker’s Dozen.”
“What’s the Baker’s Dozen?” I asked.
“It’s a long-running top secret assignment,” she replied. “It supersedes the review panel and the Prime Omega. They have to reinstate you if you get asked to join it by one of the teams that are already part of it.”
“What if they figure out that no one really asked us?”
She smiled. “But I just did.”
Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. “Are you still part of an Omega team?”
“Maybe,” she said with a sly smile.
Then we heard the train approaching the station, and she quickly explained exactly what I needed to say during the review hearing. The train came to a stop, and it was time for me to get
on. She gave me a hug, and I melted. I couldn’t stay mad at her.
I stepped on and turned back to tell her one last thing.
“I’ll figure out a way for you to see Beth. I promise.”
The doors closed, and she mouthed the words thank you and pressed her hand against her heart.
Triskaidekaphobia
The massive steps in front of the Museum of Natural History were overrun with different groups ready to go inside. The loudest was the mob of elementary students piling off a row of school buses from the Bronx, and the most colorful was the cluster of kids, parents, and grandparents wearing bright pink sweatshirts marked BERGER FAMILY REUNION. But the smallest, and by far the most anxious, was the collection of four people standing at the base of the giant statue of Teddy Roosevelt astride his horse.
It was my Omega team.
Unlike the other groups, we hadn’t come to explore the dinosaur exhibits or stare in amazement at the giant blue whale hanging from the ceiling of the Hall of Ocean Life. We’d come for our review hearing, and Natalie wanted to give us some last-minute coaching before we headed inside.
“According to Dr. H, a review panel has never overturned a ruling of the Prime Omega,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean there can’t be a first time. We just need to admit our mistakes, assure them that they won’t happen again, and convince everybody that we’re worthy of a second chance.”
Alex and Grayson both nodded in agreement.
“Actually,” I said, “I’ve got another idea.”
Natalie wasn’t exactly looking for opposing viewpoints, so she was a bit perturbed as she asked, “What’s that?”
I wanted to tell them about the Baker’s Dozen. My mom had assured me that it would save our team. But I didn’t know how to do it without telling them everything, and I wasn’t ready for that. Still, there was no escaping the fact that I had created this problem. That meant I should to be the one to fix it. I’d been mulling it over for days and had come up with only one solution.
“Why don’t we tell them the truth?” I suggested. “Tell them that everything was my fault and that you were just trying to protect me. Then they can kick me out of Omega, and you guys can find someone to replace me on the team. That was Dr. H’s original verdict, so they can accept it without overruling him.”
Alex reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. “You just don’t get it, Molly. We’re not interested in being a team without you.”
“That’s right,” Grayson added. “We’re a package deal. Either they want us all, or they don’t want any of us. Got it?”
I looked at Natalie to make sure she agreed. Then I nodded and said, “Got it.”
“Good,” she replied. “Now, let’s go do this.”
We went inside and took the elevator to the fourth floor. According to our instructions, we were supposed to wait by the skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus rex. Someone was going to meet us there and take us to the hearing.
Even though I was nervous about everything, just being in the dinosaur hall made me smile. It was one of my favorite places on earth.
“This is where it all started,” I said, looking up at the dinosaur’s massive jaw.
“What do you mean?” asked Grayson.
“I was five years old, and my dad put me up on his shoulders so I could get a closer look at T. rex here.” I closed my eyes as I pictured the memory in my head. “It was love at first sight.”
Grayson laughed. “You fell in love with a massive theropod with tiny arms whose name means ‘tyrant lizard king’?”
“Head over heels,” I said as I looked around the room at all the other dinosaurs. “I fell in love with all of them. That was the day I fell in love with science.”
“Well,” said Alex, “let’s hope our Omega team doesn’t join your boyfriend on the extinction list.”
“Yes, let’s hope,” said a voice from behind us.
We turned and saw that it was Dr. Hidalgo. Dr. H was my mom’s best friend and colleague at the coroner’s office. They’d been a part of the same Omega team when they were in school and he’d become the Prime Omega—or Prime-O—in charge of all the Omega teams. He’d had to step down from that position because we’d been forced to uncover his identity.
As usual, Dr. H was sharply dressed in a perfectly pressed dress shirt and pants and wore a stylish bow tie. He also wore a friendly smile, which was a big departure from the last time we’d seen him. (That would be the day he suspended our team for breaking countless rules and procedures.)
Smile or not, I wasn’t sure how he was feeling toward us, and me in particular. I offered a rather faint “Hello, Dr. Hidalgo” and tried to avoid eye contact.
He wasn’t having any of that. He placed a firm finger under my chin and lifted it until I was looking him right in the eye. “Molly Bigelow, how long have I known you?”
“My whole life,” I said weakly.
“Then act like it.”
He held his arms out, and I gave him a hug.
“No matter what happened before and no matter what the panel decides today, nothing changes what you mean to me.” He gave me one last squeeze and then turned to the others. “Now follow me.”
Dr. Hidalgo had been a family friend for as long as I could remember. One of the things that I had been dreading most about this day was the thought that we were opposing each other. Talking to him now made me feel a whole lot better about everything.
He led us beyond the exhibits, down a maze of hallways, and past a couple of security checkpoints. At each one, he just flashed a badge and the guards waved us through with no questions asked. Finally, we stepped into a giant freight elevator.
“It’s big,” Grayson said, referring to the size.
“Big enough to hold a dinosaur,” Dr. H pointed out as he pressed the button for the basement.
“If we’re going to the basement, why did you have us meet you on the fourth floor?” asked Grayson.
He looked back at me over his shoulder and then turned to face the others. “Because it’s Molly’s favorite place, and I thought it might help calm her nerves.”
Natalie gave me a sideways glance and a smile. This was the Dr. H we both knew.
As we rode in the elevator, he gave us a rundown of what to expect.
“It’s pretty straightforward,” he explained. “I’ll go first and tell them why I suspended you. Then you’ll make a statement and answer any questions from the review panel.”
From the elevator, we went down another hallway until we reached a large lecture hall. The room was built like an auditorium, with steep banks of seating that looked down on the stage.
“This is a sacred room,” Dr. H told us. “More than a century ago, this is where the museum’s paleontologists presented their initial findings about dinosaurs and prehistoric life. Ever since, this is where some of the true legends of scientific thought have shared their discoveries.”
“And this is where our hearing is taking place?” Natalie asked.
“Yes.”
“How did we get such an important room?” asked Grayson.
Dr. H smiled. “Let’s just say that some of the legends of scientific thought also happen to be Omegas, too.”
“Cool,” Grayson said, echoing what we were all thinking. “Very cool.”
In the middle of the stage were four wooden chairs. Dr. H motioned for us to sit in them, and we each took our place. The lighting was so bright that we couldn’t really see what was happening out in the auditorium. If I squinted, I could make out some shapes and shadows but no faces. The identities of the past Omegas had to be kept secret, even from us.
It all happened just like Dr. Hidalgo told us it would in the elevator. He went first and talked about the team and our past accomplishments. He also pointed out that I was the daughter of Rosemary Collins, whom he called “my dearest friend and a legendary Omega.” Then he gave a detailed report of all the mistakes we’d made. This included my unauthorized visit to Dead City, when I
crashed the flatline party and had to escape underwater in the Old Croton Aqueduct, as well as our team’s trip underground to see Marek Blackwell.
Next, Natalie spoke on behalf of the team, and she was amazing. She talked about successful assignments they’d completed before I was part of the team and how they went about selecting me to join them. She sang all of our praises and went into detail about how I had kept the Book of Secrets from falling into the hands of the undead. By the time she was done, I knew they were going to reverse the suspension.
I was wrong.
The questions were relentless. “Why did you go into Dead City when you knew it was against the rules?” The fact that we couldn’t see the people asking the questions was disorienting. “Why didn’t you alert the Prime-O the moment you found the photographs of the Unlucky 13 along with the Book of Secrets?” Voices came from every direction. “What exactly happened with you, Miss Bigelow, and Marek atop the George Washington Bridge?”
After about fifteen minutes, it was obvious things were not going well. My teammates looked defeated, and I had to do something. I leaned toward them.
“I can save us, but you can’t ask me how I know,” I whispered.
Natalie had a confused look on her face. “What?”
“I know a way to save us,” I said a bit louder. “But if I do it, you can’t ask me how I know. You just have to accept it.”
She shook her head. “If we’re a team, we have to trust one another.”
“I do trust you,” I replied. “But you have to trust me that if I say I can’t tell, it’s for a good reason.”
She thought for a second and nodded. “Just do it.”
I looked at the others, and they nodded too.
“Excuse me,” an annoyed voice called down to us. “I hate to interrupt your conversation, but we need you to answer our questions.”
I looked at the others one more time to make sure, and then I turned toward the unseen woman.
“I apologize,” I said. “Can you please repeat your last question?”
