Action Figures - Issue Five: Team-Ups

by Michael C Bailey

  “Me, or the alien who gave me my powers. I refuse to believe this thing showing up here is coincidence.”

  “No, it does seem —” Sara abruptly cocks her head. “Your mom’s up. Might want to put a lid on the shop talk.”

  I cinch up my robe and pull my hair forward to hide my earpiece. Who knew bed-head would ever come in handy?

  Mom stops halfway down the stairs and leans over the railing to squint at us with eyes that aren’t ready to be fully open yet. “Thought I heard the TV,” she says. “What are you two doing up so early?”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” I say.

  “Me either,” Sara says.

  Mom shuffles into the living room, yawning the whole way. “What movie is this?”

  Sara and I trade glances. There’s no point in trying to cover this up. Mom will find out eventually.

  “It’s not a movie,” I say. “It’s the news.”

  Mom looks at the TV, looks at us, smirks — a Yeah, right expression — then looks at the TV again. Then back at us, then back at the TV, then back at us, and she’s not smirking anymore.

  “Oh my God,” she says.

  2.

  Mom puts on a pot of coffee then joins us on the couch to watch the spectacle unfold. As dawn creeps in, the camera crew on the scene switches off the night vision and lets the rising sun give the world its first good look at the monster on our doorstep. Our local news anchorwoman calls it “our first confirmed contact with extraterrestrial life.” That’s jumping the gun a bit, considering that no one inside the ship (if there is in fact anyone inside) has made any attempt to communicate with us Earthlings, but who expects restraint out of the modern media?

  A few minutes after six, my phone rings. I’m somehow not surprised to see that it’s Dad calling.

  “Are you watching the news?” he says. Déjà vu.

  “Good morning to you too, Daddy,” I say. “Yeah, I’ve been watching for a while.”

  “What’s going on? What’s this about?” he demands.

  “You know as much as I do.”

  “Carrie...”

  “Hold on.” I excuse myself to the kitchen so I can speak more freely. “Daddy, I swear, I don’t know much more than what they’re reporting on the news. Concorde and Doc Quantum are out there, checking things out, but they haven’t determined what it is or where it came from...”

  “Why aren’t you with them?” he asks, but what he really wants to know is whether I’m going to be flying into the danger zone anytime soon.

  “I’m on-call,” I say. Not what he wants to hear, but I long ago moved past lying to him — or sugarcoating what I do in my other life.

  “I don’t want you going up.”

  “Daddy...”

  “Carrie, it’s bad enough you get mixed up with human psychopaths, but this...my God, Carrie, there’s an alien warship sitting on the edge of town.”

  “You don’t know it’s a warship,” I shoot back. “We don’t know anything about it. It hasn’t made any aggressive moves. All it’s doing is scanning the town, and that could be for any number of reasons.”

  “It’s scanning the town?” Dad says, the panic in his voice spiking. “Carrie, you need to get your mother and Sara and leave Kingsport, now. Come down to the Cape. Stay here, at least until this passes.”

  It’s a generous offer, and I’m tempted to take it just to get Mom and Sara out of (theoretical) harm’s way, but if I’m right and the ship is looking for me...

  “I’ll see if I can convince Mom to go, but I have to stay.” Dad starts to protest, but I cut him off. “I’m staying. I’m sorry, Daddy, but this is part of my job.”

  “Dammit, Carrie...”

  “I am not having this conversation again,” I say. “I’m staying, and you can beg me and harass me and guilt-trip me all morning, but it is not going to change my mind. I have responsibilities that are more important than what you want.”

  I happen to turn as Mom enters. She looks a question at me. I make a face and roll my eyes and gesture at the phone like, Can you believe this? Mom nods and proceeds to pour coffee for the three of us.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s how it is,” I say, and I do something I’ve never done before: I hang up on him. Sorry, Daddy, but I’m not going to spend my morning in a Mobius strip of an argument you’re never going to win.

  “What was that all about?” Mom asks.

  “Dad’s worried about me. He’s scared things are going to go all War of the Worlds and wants us to come down to the Cape until things blow over.”

  “That...actually might not be a bad idea,” Mom says. “The news just announced Massachusetts was officially in a state of emergency...”

  “Which often means that residents are expected to stay off the roads and refrain from any unnecessary travel,” I say automatically. That’s not the kind of information a sixteen year old can rattle off so casually, so I add, “Isn’t that how it went during the big snowstorm last year?”

  “Mm, true, but that was because the roads were so awful.”

  “Sure, but if everyone freaks out and hits the road at the same time, that’d cause a big traffic jam, and then no one goes anywhere. Maybe we should wait to see if there’s going to be some sort of organized evacuation.”

  She grumbles doubtfully but accepts my suggestion. Then she pulls a conversational swerve on me. “Carrie, are you and your father having problems?”

  “No, we’re good.”

  “Are you sure? You haven’t been down to see him since the summer, and it seems like anytime you talk to him lately, you get snippy.”

  Well, Mom, Daddy learned a few months ago I’m a super-hero, and he has some deep-seated reservations about it. You know how he gets about these things.

  “I think he’s having trouble accepting that I’m not his little girl anymore,” I say. “I’m growing up, becoming my own person, he feels like we’re growing apart and is desperately trying to freeze time...you know how it goes. You must have gone through the same thing with Granddad, right?”

  Sometimes the difference between a lie and the truth is the selective omission of critical details. Mom buys my story without question.

  “Go easy on him. He means well,” she says before returning to the living room to listen for any evacuation notices.

  “Is there going to be an evacuation?” I say to Concorde.

  “It’s under consideration, and I’m personally in favor of it, but for now the official word is for everyone to stay home and stay away from the beach,” Concorde says, adding with a note of annoyance, “a lot of people have chosen to ignore that last piece of advice.”

  Of course they have. There’s a UFO hovering offshore. Every resident with a shred of curiosity and a total lack of regard for their own safety is going to be heading down there to get a look.

  “What do you have for ground support?”

  “Local police, staties, the National Guard rolled in a little while ago — the rest of the Protectorate, obviously. We have things well in hand for now.”

  “For now.”

  “My order stands, Lightstorm. You do not deploy until I call for you.”

  “I’d have a lot more freedom to deploy if I wasn’t stuck at home with my mother,” I argue. He doesn’t have a solid comeback.

  I love it when I outsmart him.

  I return to the living room and pull a lie out of my butt I hope will outsmart Mom. If I overplay my hand, there’s no way she’ll let us walk out of this house, but my only other option is telling her the truth — and I somehow suspect, “Mom, I’m a super-hero and I have to go in case I need to defend the Earth against alien invaders” isn’t going to sell her.

  “Hey, Mom? Matt texted me,” I say. “He’s geeking out over the spaceship like you wouldn’t believe and wants us to come over for, as he called it, an ‘alien invasion viewing party.’ You mind if we go?”

  Sara slips me a tiny smile.

  “Mm. I don’t know. I think maybe you should stay home
.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s safer here.”

  “It is? You know this for a fact?”

  “Carrie...”

  “Mom, the thing isn’t doing anything threatening,” I say, gesturing at the TV. The ship sits there, hovering peacefully above the ocean. “And for all we know, it’s full of cute little E.T.s who just want to stock up on Reese’s Pieces and phone home.”

  Mom frowns. In her head she’s fighting that classic parental internal battle. I’m growing up, and she recognizes I’m becoming an independent adult, which means she has to learn to let go, but her momma bear instincts are fighting her.

  I risk a gentle push. “Mom, Matt’s house is only a couple of miles away. He can drive us home in two minutes if there’s an emergency. Come on. We’ll be fine.”

  She sighs. “You keep your phone on. Got it?”

  I shoot Matt a text telling him to pick us up at the high school. If Mom decides to verify my story, I am royally screwed — but this is most definitely a “one problem at a time” situation, and the problem of a giant spaceship looming over Kingsport trumps any and all other concerns.

  Sara and I take a seat on the bench outside the front entrance and wait for the others to arrive. We’re not waiting for long. Matt’s Road Runner races up to the sidewalk at top speed and skids to a stop, tires squealing. Matt lays into the horn then leans across Stuart to roll down the passenger’s side window.

  “Hurry it up! I want to go have a close encounter of the third kind!” he shouts.

  “God, calm down,” I say. “I don’t think the spaceship’s going anywhere.”

  “He’s like a little kid at Christmas,” Sara says. “It’s cute, in its way.”

  “Says you.” I pause. “I’d feel better if you went back home.”

  “I know you would.”

  “You don’t have powers anymore.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed. I don’t need my powers to help with getting civilians out of danger — and that’s why we’re going, isn’t it?”

  “Sara...”

  “You don’t like it when Concorde tries to sideline you for your safety, and I don’t like it when you do it to me,” she says. Her expression softens. “I only want to help. I can still do that.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Okay. But if that ship starts spitting death rays —”

  “Oh, I plan to run like hell, don’t worry.”

  We climb into the back seat with Missy, who’s wearing her uniform under a heavy winter coat. Matt’s in his outfit, too, his mask sitting on the seat next to Stuart. Stuart’s new mask, a heavy leather job that obscures his face, rests in his lap. Sara’s cloak is in her backpack, and my costume is underneath my street clothes. For the first time in a long time, the Hero Squad is ready for action.

  “All right, kids,” Matt says with an eager grin, “let’s go see the spaceship.”

  3.

  We pull up to a police barricade blocking Kingsport Heights Beach Road, the main road leading into the hot zone. We slip our masks on before introducing ourselves to one of the staties on duty — who, naturally, doesn’t believe for a second that we’re legit. He directs us to the side of the road and tells us to stay put while he calls us in to whoever is running the show.

  A minute or two later, he moves the barricade out of our way and waves us through.

  We round a corner that leads to the Kingsport Heights proper, so-named because a mile-long stretch of the coast is on a high cliff that affords residents here a spectacular view of the ocean. The road leans upwards, to the edge of the Heights and its neighborhood of big, old, well-kept (and presumably very expensive) homes. As we reach the crest of the incline, we roll to a stop. Matt pulls to the side of the road. We climb out and stand at the guardrail separating the road from a sharp drop of several hundred feet and proceed to gawk in mute awe.

  “Um,” Matt says. Yeah, that’s about right. There are no words for what we’re seeing.

  It’s five miles out, but I can feel in my bones the vibration of whatever immense engine powers the ship. It’s like I’m standing in the presence of the world’s most powerful subwoofer. The ocean below roars and seethes, churned up by the ship’s plasma jets. Several small shapes circle it like buzzing gnats. I can make out a pair of jets, I assume from Stafford, and the gleaming form of the Quantums’ Raptor. The smallest of the dots has to be Concorde — and that’s all he is against the backdrop of the cold gray monolith of the ship: a tiny silvery dot.

  I don’t know which of us breaks the spell first, but eventually we pile back into the car and drive down to the beach, which has been turned into a sprawling command base. Massive RVs bearing insignia of various law enforcement and military organizations occupy the beach’s parking lot. A few dozen local and state police cruisers, along with several dark sedans bearing government license plates, choke the street. It appears the gawkers have been cleared out, and the only people I can readily identify as civilians are the reporters and camerapeople, who have been sequestered to the nearby baseball field. News vans sit scattered across the field, and most of the camera crews are perched on top of them to get a clear shot over the wall of mobile HQs...not that they have a snowball’s chance of blocking anyone’s view of the dreadnought.

  Crap. I think I just named the thing.

  As we ease through the maze of vehicles, Stuart catches sight of Nina Nitro and Mindforce hanging out near one of the RVs. We find a place to park and head on over.

  “Agent Scully, Agent Mulder,” Matt says to them.

  “Is this awesome or what?” Nina says.

  “Oh, yes. A massive alien spacecraft looming ominously over our home. Awesome indeed,” Mindforce says. “Come on inside.”

  We follow him into the RV under the command of the US National Guard, which happens to be the main mobile HQ for the operation. One wall of the vehicle is a series of monitors and workstations, each of which is manned by a guardsman (guardsperson?). They’re all talking at once; I can’t tell what any of them are actually saying. Astrid hovers behind one of the guardspersons and stares at his screen, which appears to be a feed from one of the circling jets. She looks bored — or so out of her element she has no idea what to do with herself.

  “This is insane,” Matt says.

  “That it is,” Mindforce says, “but all we have to worry about is keeping an eye on the civilian news crews and getting them out of here if something goes down. The police finished a mandatory evacuation of the residents in the hot zone maybe an hour ago, so the media are the only ones left we have to worry about.”

  “Except for everyone else in Kingsport,” I say. “If the dreadnought is packing heat, I suspect it can do a lot of damage to a lot of real estate from right where it is.”

  Mindforce cocks an eyebrow. “The dreadnought?”

  “Aw, no,” Nina says. “Did you name it?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “It was bound to happen eventually,” Mindforce sighs.

  It only takes a few minutes to bring us up to speed. Additional fighter jets were scrambled to establish secondary and tertiary perimeters at, respectively, ten and twenty miles out. All jets are running with weapons hot, just in case, but are under the strictest orders to hold fire until given the go-ahead, which will not be given until the dreadnought exhibits a clear sign of hostility — and thank God, Concorde is one of the people who will determine whether an action is hostile. The Coast Guard is running perimeter guard support to keep away any overly curious civilian boaters, and two Navy destroyers out of Naval Station Norfolk are en route, but they won’t be here for several hours.

  A town-wide evacuation is in the planning stages. That’s good and bad: good for everyone in Kingsport; bad for us because if that evacuation goes ahead, it’s going to be short five teenagers who will no doubt be missed by their families.

  There’s no lie in the world that can cover our butts this time.

  We’re only in the way in the snug confines of t
he mobile HQ, so we head outside and make our way to the edge of a cement retaining wall that keeps the beach beyond from creeping onto the street in high winds — such as the one coming in today. It’s not as bad as one might expect for an oceanside wind in early December, but it pushes the chill right through my suit.

  “I should’ve worn thermals under my costume,” Missy says through chattering teeth.

  “Yeah, I hear that,” I say. “Want to see a neat trick?”

  “Sure.” Missy watches me intently. “Any time now.”

  “What? You don’t feel warmer?”

  She pauses. “Hey, yeah, I do.”

  “Are you doing that?” Matt says.

  “I am,” I say. “You’re welcome.”

  “But you’re not glowing,” Sara observes.

  “No, I am not.”

  “But you’re powered up?”

  “I am. Dr. Quentin helped me figure out how to regulate my light output when I’m active, so I can use my powers without glowing.”

  “Not bad, Hauser, not bad at all,” Matt says, but his words get lost in a sudden explosion of chatter on the military band.

  “Shh! Something’s happening!” I say, and the others tune their comm systems to listen in. Concorde’s voice cuts through the chaos.

  “A hatch is opening on the top of the ship!” he says, and I can almost hear every single person on the channel hold his or her breath. “My God...”

  “Concorde, report,” Colonel Coffin says. “What is it?”

  “...It’s really freaking ugly is what it is. Holy —! Incoming! Ground crews, you have incoming! It’s airborne!”

  From our position, all we can see is a flash of light that could easily be mistaken for the sun glaring off the top of the craft. Then the light rises into the air and comes toward us — fast. Concorde shadows it at a respectful distance, not quite ready to intercept. In an instant, we’re surrounded by armed guardspersons, their weapons up. Safeties click off so quickly it sounds like they’re tapping out a message in Morse code.