Action Figures - Issue Five: Team-Ups

by Michael C Bailey

  “Bart, this is my second chance,” Sara says. “Please, let me have it.”

  Bart blinks away tears and releases a shuddering sigh.

  “All right,” he says.

  We leave HQ and head to Bart’s office, where I spend the next three hours sitting in the waiting room. I nod off out of sheer boredom, skipping over the last hour in a light doze. I wake up when the office door finally opens. Sara steps out, paler than usual. Compared to Bart, however, she looks positively swarthy. Bart sinks into the chair behind the receptionist’s desk, wheezing like an old man.

  “Sara? Are you okay?” I say.

  She looks at me with a distant, unfocused gaze — a thousand-yard stare, I think it’s called. She reaches out and gently touches me on the arm as if to confirm that, yes, I am real.

  “I can’t feel you in my head anymore,” she says in a dreamlike, almost musical way. “It’s so weird...”

  “Bart? What about you?”

  “I’m okay,” he says. “Need to sit down.”

  “You are sitting down.”

  He checks. “So I am.”

  Here’s a fun fact about psionics: their brains’ bioelectrical activity is much higher than that of a normal human’s, more so when they use their powers. Extended or intensive use of their powers depletes their bodies’ iron content (nearly all psionics are anemic), so their diets are heavy in iron-rich foods and sports drinks to replace their electrolytes. Bart keeps frozen spinach, hamburger patties, boxes of Total, and bottles of Gatorade at Protectorate HQ at all times. Knowing all this, I recognize Bart’s exhaustion for what it is.

  “How about I order some lunch for us?” I say. “The barbecue place down the road delivers.”

  Bart nods and gestures toward his office. “I have takeout menus in the top drawer of my desk.”

  While we wait for the food to arrive, I clear the waiting room’s coffee table of out-of-date magazines, a mix of news and sports magazines for the adults and kid-friendly fare. I often forget that, in his civilian life, Bart is a child psychologist and family therapist. A half hour later, the three of us hunch over the table and tuck into a small buffet of brisket, buttery mashed potatoes and gravy, baby carrots, and enough collard greens to carpet the floor. We’re all pleasantly food drunk by the end of it.

  “You should remember,” Bart says to Sara. He sounds more lucid. “Even though you can’t access your powers, you still have a psionic’s brain, which means you’re still susceptible to rapid iron depletion, so make sure to maintain your diet and supplement intake.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sara mumbles. “I need a nap.”

  “I’ll give you a ride home.” Sara nods and excuses herself to the bathroom. Once she’s out of earshot, Bart turns to me. “I need you to keep a close eye on her. The next forty-eight hours are going to be rough. She’ll sleep through a lot of it, but when she’s awake she’s likely to experience anxiety attacks, severe depression, she might appear disoriented...it’s nothing to worry too much about, but I want you to promise me, if it looks like Sara can’t handle it, call me immediately. I’ll come right over and undo the procedure.”

  There’s a distinct sense of hope in his voice, like he’s actually rooting for Sara to crack and ask him to restore her powers.

  “I’ll call,” I say.

  “Promise?” he presses.

  Lying to a telepath is never a good idea. They’re human polygraphs, and they don’t need to be actively scanning for deception to pick up on it. But I made a promise to Sara first, that no matter how bad things got following the psychic castration, I wouldn’t let Bart reverse it. I plan to honor that vow.

  “I’ll call.”

  4.

  By the time we reach the front door, Sara is practically asleep on her feet. Getting up the stairs takes the last of her energy. She face-plants in her bed with a groan that is at once exhausted and elated.

  “Bed,” she slurs. “Bed good.”

  “I’ll be in my room if you need me,” I say.

  “Carrie.” I pause in the doorway. “Thank you for looking out for me.”

  I can’t stop my mouth from twisting into a guilt-wracked frown.

  “What?”

  “You never asked me how I voted,” I say.

  “I know how you voted. You’d never let anything bad happen to me.”

  “I voted to punish you,” I confess. Sara lifts her head off the pillow and stares at me. My throat constricts. “I’m sorry. Sara, I’m so sorry.”

  She gives me a weary smile. “Don’t you dare be sorry.”

  Sara is still smiling at me when she falls asleep.

  TWO – CAPTAIN TRENCHCOAT AND NINA NITRO

  ROAD TRIP

  1.

  “Morning, Matt,” Dad says as I enter the kitchen. “What’ve you got going today?”

  “Nothing planned,” I say, sliding past him to get to the coffee maker. Pour my coffee, grab the Frosted Flakes, head back to my room until Dad leaves for work, that’s my plan.

  But he’s not going to make it easy for me. “Enjoying your last week of freedom before school starts back up, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  “You have work today?”

  “No.”

  This is what passes for conversation between us nowadays, and some days I can’t even bring myself to grunt at him. It’s been like this for, I don’t know, five months? Ever since I literally walked in on Dad making out with his receptionist. Mom’s forgiven him. I haven’t. He keeps at me anyway, like one day I’ll up and forget what he did to us.

  Today is not that day. Tomorrow ain’t lookin’ so good neither, old man.

  “Oh, we need to RSVP this week for your Cousin Terry’s wedding,” Dad says, invoking the name of another family member I’d rather avoid. “Are you bringing a date?”

  “Hadn’t planned to,” I say. I don’t want to go to the stupid thing myself. Why would I subject anyone else to it?

  “Why don’t you ask Sara if she’d like to go?”

  I give him a look. “You do remember she’s a lesbian, right?”

  “Oh, right. Maybe you could go as friends?”

  “Or maybe we could not,” I say, and with that, I mark a new record for Most Words Spoken to My Father since He Screwed Around on Mom. Go me.

  “You know what you should do?” Dad says, giving me a friendly backhand on the shoulder. “Ask Carrie to be your date.”

  “Carrie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Carrie Hauser?”

  “Yes, Carrie Hauser.”

  “Yeah, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  Because we’d kill each other is why. Sure, we’re friends, but we also get on each other’s nerves a lot. I’m pretty sure a date, even a “friendly” one, would end with us hurling food at each other. Although that would make for a lively reception...

  “I don’t think of her that way,” I say. “Besides, I haven’t even said I’m going.”

  “You are going. He’s your cousin.”

  “He’s a douchebag.”

  “Matt.”

  “He is. He’s never been nice to me,” I say, and that’s the absolute truth, although no one else in my family wants to admit it. Mom and Dad make excuses for Terry Jr. and insist that he considers me the little brother he never had — and hey, brothers fight and bust each other’s chops.

  No. Not the case here. The guy flat-out hates me.

  If there is any sort of brotherly aspect to our relationship, it’s thanks to the fact his father — my uncle, Terry Senior — treated me like a second son. Uncle Terry and I were close, maybe closer than he ever was to his own kid — which, I suspect, may be the reason why Terry Jr. hates my guts. Things only got worse between us after Uncle Terry died a few years ago. He left his most prized possession to me instead of Terry Jr., which all but guaranteed we would never be on friendly terms. Fine by me.

  “Terry is family, and you’re going to be there for him,�
� Dad says, putting his foot down. He shakes his head, sighs, and finishes off his coffee. “You and your grudges. You really need to learn how to get over the past, Matt.”

  “We still talking about Terry, or we talking about you now?”

  “Oh for God’s sake, Matt...”

  My phone goes off, giving me a perfect excuse to ignore whatever Dad planned to say. The ringtone is that old song “Season of the Witch” — Astrid’s ringtone. Maybe she’s calling about a mission. That’d be great timing because I’m in the mood to hit someone.

  “Yo.”

  “Are you busy?” Astrid says, skipping over any pleasantries. She’s direct. I like that.

  “Not really.”

  “I’m down at HQ with Natalie. She needs to blow off steam in a big way.”

  “Oh. Is she okay?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “Right. Okay, give me, like, a half hour to grab some breakfast and get dressed.” Before I finish saying that, someone knocks at the front door. Dad makes a curious noise then goes to see who it is. “That’s you, isn’t it? Jeez, Astrid. Some of us have a secret identity to maintain, you know.”

  I’m talking to dead air; she’s already hung up on me.

  “Matt?” Dad calls out from the living room.

  Astrid stands on the porch in tight black jeans and a tank top that shows off her...well, among other things, it shows off tribal-style tattoos that follow the line of her clavicles. Her fire engine-red hair is fresh-out-of-bed messy, and her eyes hide behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses. She couldn’t radiate a Bad Girl vibe any harder even if she’d ridden into the living room on a Harley and thrown a bottle of Jack Daniels at my head. Dad looks at her, then at me, then back to her, wondering how in the world his son could possibly know a woman like her. I ask myself that all the time.

  “Get dressed, bud, we’ve got places to go and things to do,” she says.

  “Matt,” Dad says, “are you going to introduce your...uh...friend?”

  I was hoping to avoid it, frankly. “Dad, Astrid; Astrid, my father, who needs to get going so he isn’t late for work.”

  “It’s my business. I can be late if I want to.”

  “What do you do?” Astrid says.

  “I’m a certified public accountant,” Dad says with pride.

  “That sounds really boring.”

  Whoof. Want some ice for that burn, Dad?

  “See you at dinner,” Dad says, slinking back to the kitchen.

  “He seems nice,” Astrid says. “Come on, get changed.”

  I run upstairs to change into clothes suitable for sparring — a sweatshirt and the black military pants I wear as Captain Trenchcoat — grab my magic gloves, and head back down.

  “Ready?” Astrid asks.

  “I will be as soon as I get something to eat. Come on. I’ll drive.”

  “You have a car?”

  “I do,” I say as I lead Astrid to the garage, “though I haven’t had much of a chance to take it out...”

  I hit the button on my keychain fob. The garage door rolls open for a nice dramatic reveal on my pride and joy.

  “That’s your car?” Astrid says.

  My car is a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner, black with a wide white racing stripe on the hood. This was my Uncle Terry’s baby. He bought it used a few years after I was born and set about restoring it to its full four-forty six-barrel glory. Even when it was mostly primer and the engine couldn’t run without belching out thick clouds of black smoke, I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Uncle Terry was happy to have me as his assistant, and I helped him rebuild the engine almost from scratch. By the time I was ten, I knew how to perform every major maintenance procedure, even if I wasn’t physically capable of doing the work myself. I rode shotgun when Uncle Terry took the fully restored Road Runner on its maiden voyage — one of the best moments of his life, and of mine. To this day, I can recall with perfect clarity the sensation of being pushed into my seat when he gunned the engine and peeled out of his driveway, much to Aunt Jess’s dismay.

  We never got a chance to name her.

  When Uncle Terry died, I was terrified Aunt Jess would sell the car or, worse, Terry Jr. would get his greasy mitts on it. I cried a lot when Uncle Terry died. I cried a lot more when Dad told me Uncle Terry had left the car to me.

  It sat in the garage for more than two years, waiting for me to get my license, and I made sure to keep it in top condition until then. I tinker with it a couple times a week, tweaking this and that to get the most out of the engine, though I have yet to really open her up.

  “Get in,” I say. As she moves toward the passenger’s side door, Astrid runs her fingers across the hood, caressing its mirror finish. We climb in and belt up. The engine fires up effortlessly, coming to life with a low, throaty rumble.

  “Ooohhhh, that’s nice,” Astrid purrs.

  Hot girl? Check. Hot rod? Check. Almost undeniable urge to roar out of the garage at top speed? Double check. I gently ease the car out onto the driveway then out onto the road after coming to a full stop and checking traffic in both directions.

  I said an almost undeniable urge. I’m not going to do something stupid and risk losing my license so soon after getting it.

  “You going to tell me what this is all about?” I say.

  Astrid doesn’t answer right away. “Natalie got into another fight with her boyfriend,” she says. “She’s upset and needs to vent. That’s all I’m going to say. You want to know the full story, you can ask Natalie about it.”

  Astrid peers at me over the top of her shades. There are dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. She looks like she spent last night drinking a lot or not sleeping at all. Knowing her, probably both.

  “I do not recommend asking Natalie about it,” she says.

  2.

  After a quick stop at the Coffee Experience for some breakfast on the go, we head to Protectorate HQ. We go in and head right to the training room, a big high school gymnasium-looking space. Lately, I’ve been down here a lot with Natalie, working on my hand-to-hand skills. I’ve learned a lot from her, including how endure a lot of pain.

  A lot of pain.

  We walk in on Natalie laying into a heavy bag like it’s her worst enemy. She moves like Bruce Lee and Gina Carano’s love child. Sweat flies off her body as she throws punches, kicks, elbows, and knees into the bag with machine gun speed.

  That bag will be me in a few minutes. Natalie is hardcore when it comes to sparring. Full contact, no holds barred, nothing is off-limits except, thank God, shots to the junk. And the throat, but honestly, I’m more grateful that my groin is a safe zone.

  As I approach, I notice Natalie’s sporting a fresh black eye. It’s not swollen, but the bruising hasn’t yet begun to fade.

  “Took you long enough,” she pants.

  I show her my coffee cup. “Needed caffeine.”

  “Finish your caffeine and pad up.”

  I suck down the last of my coffee and start slipping into my gear while she lays out some sparring mats made of thin, dense foam. They’re marginally better than landing on the hardwood floor. Our sparring ensemble includes pads on the hands, feet, elbows, knees, and head. They dull the pain but don’t do jack to blunt the impact, and Natalie is all about the impact. Her entire body is covered in lean muscle, and she knows how to use it.

  It’s also covered in scars from where she’s been shot, stabbed, and beaten. She doesn’t hide them. She’s proud of them. Every scar on me is a man who got to go home to his family or a woman who didn’t have to spend the next year in intensive therapy or a cop who gets to end his career with something better than a hero’s funeral, she once told me. We take the hit so no one else has to.

  Astrid settles in on the sidelines with her extra-large coffee with a double shot of espresso and her jumbo blueberry muffin. “Entertain me,” she says, like a Roman empress ordering her gladiators into battle. And a happy “I am Spartacus” to you too.

  Natali
e and I square off, assuming bladed stances — bodies oriented sideways to minimize target areas. We both lead with our lefts. Natalie keeps her left hand out, a more defensive position, while I keep mine tucked in so I can throw quick but effective jabs. We both keep our right hands back, cocked and ready to throw heavier, potentially incapacitating blows.

  Despite her tendency to run hard, Natalie is more cautious when it comes to making first contact during our sparring matches; she usually waits for me to make the first move. This morning, I’m in my ready stance for maybe a full second before she charges in. I think she’s going for a back crossover kick to my ribs, a favorite move of hers, but at the last possible moment, she turns it into a leaping kick at my head. She misses, which is lucky for me. If she’d connected, this would have been a very short match.

  I weave out of her way, adjust, and nail her when she lands, driving my fist into the side of her head. That knocks her back, putting her at the perfect distance to take a back crossover kick to the gut. She flies back and falls to the mat.

  “Are you not entertained?” I roar to my audience of one. “Are you not entertained?!”

  “No! And I hate Russell Crowe!” Astrid jeers, throwing her wadded-up muffin wrapper at me.

  Normally I wouldn’t showboat like this, but normally, Natalie wouldn’t be so sloppy. I’m curious to see what she does now.

  What she does is make me pay for hesitating. Natalie spins around like an extra from Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, windmilling her legs. That takes my legs out from underneath me and puts me on the mat. I’m easy pickings if I stay down, so I don’t. I get up, fast, but Natalie is ready for me. We trade shots, neither of us landing a solid hit until I hook a fist into her ribs — but that brings me in too close. She interlocks her fingers across the back of my neck and bends me over, a Muay Thai hold, and throws a knee strike into my ribs. That sends a hot blast of pain up into my chest. I grasp her leg as it comes up for a second hit, wrapping my arm under the joint so she can’t pull free. The other leg comes up. I snag that one too. I pivot to build up a little extra momentum and then slam her to the mat.