by Brian Cody
Director Grant chuckled, his grin widening as he glanced to Erik. “Those shows can only tell you so much since most of it is classified”, he began as he turned to Bryen, “let’s just say that I helped catch him. You could even say that some of your friends were there helping too”, he continued as he turned to Erik and Turrisi. “So how are you two enjoying your time off?” he asked as he placed his hands on his hips.
“Well”, Erik replied, “it’s been well; it allowed me to focus more on my classes_”
“Yeah, classes, definitely”, Turrisi stammered as he nodded at Erik.
“With Junior year going into full gear, it was definitely needed”, Erik furthered as he thrust his hands into his pockets.
“Yeah, definitely—it was definitely needed”, Turrisi stammered before clearing his throat and crossing his arms.
“That’s good to hear”, Director Grant replied as he looked around. “With all that you’ve done to keep the American people safe, I can say that you two earned this break. And now you’ve gone and done your Handler’s work in helping bring this team to fruition. No matter how abrupt the timing was, I can say that it has proven a success thus far, and, after today, I must admit that, despite the bumps—and, trust me, we’ve had dozens—this is turning out to be one of the federal government’s better plans; in short: all’s well that ends well. You all did an excellent job, and I look forward to directing you in the future.”
“Ha!” David called as he lowered his empty bottle of water, “director…directing”, he explained as he found solemn faces, rolling eyes, and Shawn finishing his coke.
“Oh…I think I get it”, Bryen muttered.
“Well, anyhow”, Director Grant began, “I’m heading to Quantico first thing in the morning to push this program into overdrive. Misters Garcia and Lamback, I’ll need you there next weekend for witness and briefing purposes.”
“Understood, sir; we’ll be there by sunrise on Saturday”, Lamback replied.
Sunrise, Dave? Really?!—Erik groaned under his breath, but grinned as he looked at Director Grant.
“Have you shown them the equipment, yet?” Director Grant inquired.
“Oh, no, sir”, Lamback replied as he looked to the wall lining the master bedroom, walked to the white, electronic thermostat, and pulled the outer covering away to reveal a white interior, and a set of dozens of small, dull-orange buttons glowing. Lamback pressed a combination of seventeen buttons, retracted the thermostat, and switched the working setting to ‘fan’. The two pantry doors sitting between Lamback and the master bedroom unlocked and pushed outward. Lamback stepped back and opened the closest door, revealing an ovular platform and a spiraled, aluminum staircase that descended past the floor and ascended beyond the ceiling.
“Uh, what?” Turrisi began as Director Grant stepped past him and stood in front of the staircase. “I thought that was washer-dryer storage or even, since it was locked, where you kept your servers.”
“Both wrong”, Lamback replied. “The United States government owns this apartment, the one above it, and the one below it. They converted all three spaces into a three-story dwelling-slash-storage area for operatives that needed to come through this region for temporary or long-term work. When it was definitive that all of you would be attending Igneous, this base was put under my authority.”
“If you’ll follow us now”, Director Grant began as he stepped into the stairway and descended past the floor. The group started after him, with Lamback in the lead, followed by Erik and Turrisi, then Shawn, Nate, Bryen, and David. They stepped into the stairway one at a time, funneling in with a near silence as they took to those creaking, metal steps and ambled down the semi-circular formation, beside dusty drywall, and insulation-plugged gapes.
“Once your team is official”, Director Grant began as he stepped onto the first floor, came to a pantry doorway, and opened it, “you’ll probably receive something like this in design, as far as bases are concerned. However, we’re still working out what is both cost-effective and serves the many needs you’ll have as state-backed operatives.” He stepped out to a space near-identical in dimension and basic structure to the second-story apartment. The first floor held no furniture within the living room, the kitchen, or the dining room. Like the second floor apartment, the master bedroom was locked, and, like the second floor apartment, the white thermostat blended along the adjoining wall. Lamback stepped up to that thermostat, and, as he had done before, tugged its cover aside and then looked to another set of buttons. He then entered a code, one entirely dissimilar as an onlooking Nate perceived, and, as David stepped out of the stairwell and closed the doors, Lamback closed that thermostat, switched its setting to ‘heat’, and turned towards the wall on the far side of the living room, which lined the second bedroom.
Mechanical ticks, intermingling and dissimilar, sounded from that wall—a click, a sudden churning, and then an extended, vacuous moan—before seven feet of drywall crawled into the ceiling to reveal another bedroom lined by Fiberglas crates and filled with six suits. Lamback stepped, and an overhead fluorescent light shined upon those items. The suits stood on headless mannequins nailed into the bare, wooden floor, and their long-sleeved forms bore the almost form-fitting designs expected of a full-body wetsuit while appearing molded to six dissimilar and unique body types.
The suits’ fabric bore the visual texture of rubber tires, with square plates dotting them and being separated by miniscule ridges. They all bore a black undercoat, but, atop that, all but one of the suits were marked with two straight, wide lines on the undersides of the arms and travelling down the outsides of the legs. One suit was striped green, another yellow, a third blue, a fourth red, a fifth white, and the sixth unstriped. Sitting below those suits were laced, mid-calf boots, all colored black, and appearing to be covered in several inches of leather, while, hanging from the backs of those suits were ovular helmets resembling the headgear of motorcycle racers, all striped with matching colors and bearing tinted visors.
“You can step forward”, Lamback called with a short wave. “They won’t bite; I promise.” Erik, Nate, Turrisi, Shawn, David, and Bryen inched towards the suits, their hands squeezing as they glanced to one another for reassurance that the items being presented to them were their own. Director Grant watched them stop at each item, feeling the arms, kicking at the boots, and lifting the helmets. Grinning, he then glanced to Lamback who raised his eyebrows before walking after them.
“So then, these are ours? Like, for free?” Shawn asked.
“Well, ‘free’ as far as us being drafted into this program without any say”, David remarked.
“All paid for by the taxpayers and an occasionally oversized Defense budget”, Director Grant explained as he clapped his hands. “They’re prototypes—the latest as far as body armor is concerned”, he began as the group turned to him. “They have one outer and one inner layer of interwoven, carbon-nanotube fibers, and then one layer between them which is filled with a nanomachine-infused, semi-solid gel that can detect a bullet’s impact and redistribute its force within milliseconds. The outer layer is enough to stop a continuous barrage of fifty-caliber ammunition, while the added gel and then the inner layer allows for a normal human being to walk away from a fall as high as one hundred feet. The suits deflect enough radiation for you to last in the vacuum of space for several minutes (before you die from lack of oxygen or depressurization), and can take directed energy blasts of military grade for up to thirty seconds—more than enough time to reach adequate cover.”
Director Grant stepped towards the nearest suit, the green-striped item, which, bearing the greatest height among those six, was presumed to have been David’s, and lifted the helmet. “These helmets are sturdy enough to be dropped from five thousand feet and remain intact. There are built-in radios and voice-distorters for greater anonymity as well.” Director Grant returned the helmet and knelt, while the six teammates glanced to one another and then to their helmets. “These boots
are water-proof up to one hundred feet in depth (if tied properly), bullet-proof, and will not begin to melt until one thousand degrees Fahrenheit.” Director Grant looked to the group, his own grin diminishing as he noticed their blank and uneven stares. “You could walk through one side of a war zone, exit out the other side, and live if you were to wear these things; what’s wrong?”
“The helmets”, David began, “so when exactly are we going to have to use them?”
“Always”, Director Grant replied, “it keeps your enemies—and, trust me, if all goes well, you will have at least one enemy—from discovering your identity and, by proxy, the identities of your friends and loved ones.”
“I don’t know about wearing the helmets”, Nate added.
“I don’t do helmets”, Bryen continued as he crossed his arms.
“If you think about it, I already have a facemask”, Shawn began as he looked around.
“Yeah, Shawn has a facemask; we’re good”, Nate finished.
“Agreed”, David continued, “Shawn having a facemask accounts for the rest of us, so we don’t need helmets.”
“I’m sorry? Guys, not only are they added safety, but we’re protecting all of your connections as well”, Director Grant continued. “What good reason would keep you from wanting them?”
“Visibility—I can’t see as well”, Bryen interjected, with his response garnering several nods.
“I have a hoodie; I think that’s enough”, Nate remarked.
“Yeah, a hoodie’s enough”, David repeated, “and Shawn has a facemask!”
“I have goggles, and Turrisi has sunglasses and a baseball hat”, Erik added.
“Are the helmets necessary?” Shawn asked.
“They’re seriously necessary”, Lamback interrupted. “Consider not wearing them when ordered to do so as tantamount to high treason against the United States of America.”
“I have a sneaky suspicion you can’t do that”, Bryen replied.
“Want to find out? It’s been a while since anyone’s been charged with high treason. I’m sure the Attorney General’ll jump at the chance”, Lamback remarked. None responded, and, for the next few moments, they shared glances and looked towards the helmets.
“You’ll get used to them”, Director Grant said as he backed from the suits. “There are still other things to be worked out as well: when you’ll act, how you’ll communicate, where your jurisdiction will be located, as well as some type of ranking system, but that’ll all be for the future. For the time being, return to your classes, and, this time, with all seriousness, no vigilantism. I might be able to cover you now by convincing the Attorney General that this was a pre-planned, real-world test of your abilities, but the next time it happens, that won’t work as an excuse; am I understood?” The group of six college students, then ordained as soon-to-be protectors and enforcers of the law, replied in a garbled response of nods and murmurs. “That’ll work; you all are dismissed.”
With Erik and Turrisi in the lead, that group ambled towards the opposite side of the room, where Erik opened the doors leading to the stairwell and ascended it.
“If these are the first working prototypes”, Lamback began as he entered the thermostat’s combination to lower the false wall, “what was Sterling wearing?” he asked as he turned to Director Grant.
“That’s exactly it”, Director Grant sighed as he watched that wall descend to the floor, “if he had one of the suits, chances are much higher that he would’ve survived the bridge.”
Bridge!?
“Wait”, David blasted as he, third in line for the stairwell, stepped back. “The bridge?” he began as he glanced between Lamback and Director Grant, “as in the George Wade Bridge? As in the one that I saw collapse? The one that you guys recorded me at, or whatever? He was there? Sterling as in Sterling Blue was_” David paused while recalling the elderly man with the gape in his torso who bore enough wounds, injuries, and broken bones to slaughter several men David’s age, but through which that elderly man was able to persevere, if only for a few moments longer. “That was_?” David spun, his eyes widened and his arms shaking. “You’re telling me that the old man_?”
“I thought”, Director Grant began, “I assumed Mr. Lamback would’ve told you…”
“I wasn’t sure it had been declassified, sir_”—Lambach silenced as Director Grant waved him down and stepped to David.
“We weren’t one hundred percent sure, but we surmised that you had come into contact with him because chances were low of him being placed where he was with all of his injuries”, Director Grant explained.
“What—what happened to him?” David asked, his face pale. “That was Sterling Blue? He was the superhero; did it have something to do with all of the fires in Harrisburg?” Behind him, Turrisi and Erik descended the steps.
“David, we don’t know what happened”, Director Grant began. “All we know is, he’s part of the reason the bridge collapsed. He hit that bridge at well-past Mach two. The reason the FBI was able to get NASA to publish the cause as a meteor shower was because of how fast he was moving when he impacted.”
“But even if he was Sterling Blue, hitting the bridge that fast shouldn’t have caused that much damage”, Nate remarked, “unless he were deliberately trying_”
“This is Sterling Blue we’re talking about”, Shawn interjected. “He wouldn’t do something like that. He couldn’t do something like that—cause something so catastrophic.”
“A blue light”, David began, his hands opened and raised. “I barely recalled seeing it at first, but each time I’ve had nightmares of it, I keep coming across that detail—a moment before the bridge exploded, or whatever levelled it, there was this blue light. It might’ve been something—something detonating, but it wasn’t like any explosion I’d ever heard of.”
“Yes, David, you might have had the best reaction to view something like that, but you weren’t the only person to glimpse it. We have the same description from almost half a dozen other witnesses, but that added detail, whether real or some play with the explosion’s flash, simply brings up more questions. What happened then or up to those events is still inconclusive. The government doesn’t know what to do with such sudden devastation, and—this stays here—Sterling Blue, despite being in his eighties, was one of the DOJ’s best resources. If anything, your team, more than ever, will fill our nation’s void with Sterling Blue’s passing. There are people out there, some powerful, some intelligent, others a mixture of both, and they will work night and day to undermine or destroy this country; most of them which you and the majority of the three-hundred-plus million Americans never hear of, due in part to the likes of Sterling Blue, Erik, and Dave Turrisi—that needs to continue. As cliché as it sounds, your country needs you.” Director Grant breathed and then pulled the sleeve to his sweater to view a platinum-colored watch. “If y’all are onboard, we can keep this country’s citizens safe from harm, but, for now, head to your classes, sit tight, and wait for our next meeting.”
The group ascended to the second floor in a noiseless procession. After receiving proper direction from Lamback on flying below radar, they exited his apartment and walked towards the nearest patch of trees to disguise their exit. There persisted no extended conversation as flight responsibilities were decided, and, as they returned to their dorm, they found their minds and bodies worn from both their corporate effort of law enforcement and greater understanding of the necessity of their roles. If only for that that night, the normalcy of college classes, of dormitory living, and of their primary lives, was enticing.
Chapter Ten: 19–20, February
“Okay!” Erik barked as he flung his hands, leapt from his chair, and stood beside his desk. “That’s it”, he began with a quick shake of his head, his nonchalant expression bearing a more alert quality. “I’ve had it”, he began as he stomped to the door and slammed it. That booming rumble caused Bryen to shake and to remove his headphones as he sat at his desk; across from him, on
the green and yellow beanbag, Shawn looked over, shrugging with Brian, while Erik turned to David’s desk, and to David, who glared at his screen with a slouching posture, headphones in his ears, and eyes dimmed.
With a twitch in his left leg, Erik stomped over to the window, glanced between the central blinds to look out to the late evening, and, with a hurried pull, closed the curtain. “Piekarsky!” he yelped, his leg tapping, and his arms crossing. “Dave! Dave, I know you can hear me!” Erik looked to Bryen, who shrugged, and then to Shawn, who did the same. Erik then yanked out David’s headphones and slammed them onto his desk.
“Whoa”, David moaned as he turned. “What’s up?” he asked, his tone dragging.
“Piekarsky, it’s been a week-and-a-half. I thought maybe you were swamped with classes, or maybe you’re upset that football season is over, but I can’t take it anymore”, Erik began as he lifted his hands. “Dude, you turned down basketball! You never do that! You’ve never done it unless you were seriously sick or your knee was acting up, and now I’m worried.”
“Sorry, dude”, David replied with a smirk. “I’ve had a lot of homework lately.”
“You’re on Facebook!” Erik wailed as he pointed at David’s homepage.
“I’ll get to it after!” David groaned as he lifted his headphones.
“No, Dave, you look at me, and you tell me everything is alright!” Erik growled as he caught David’s headphones.
“Everything’s freakin-alright!” David grunted. “The sun is shining, the trees are prematurely budding, and we’re drafted into the government for the rest of our lives! I’m A-Okay!” he proclaimed as he slammed his fist onto his desk.
“Is that what this is about?” Erik asked as he stepped back.
“No, I could care less about being drafted!” David retorted as he slammed his fist.
“Then why have you been all weird and zoning out for the last ten days!? We got to beat up bad guys, no one died because of us, and no one knows our identities! That’s literally the best-case scenario we could have had. You should be happy!”
