“Uh, hey. We’re here to meet Hephaestus,” Delroy says, handing the business card to the clerk.
He examines it for far longer than necessary, considering there’s nothing on it but the business name and street address, then gestures for the men to step behind the counter. “End of the hall,” he says, nodding toward a curtain separating the front of the shop from the back.
The hallway beyond is long, narrow, dark. The smell of machinery in action — oil, smoke, the scent unique to hot metal — thickens as they reach the heavy steel door at the end. Delroy raises a hand to knock. A small panel set into the door slides open, and a pair of hard eyes peer out. The man attached to the eyes grunts noncommittally and closes the panel.
The door swings open into what the men of Damage Inc. immediately recognize as a massive machine shop — massive, but thinly staffed for its size. In addition to the man watching the door, who makes Delroy look puny by comparison, they spot no more than a half-dozen men and women at work, laboring over high, sturdy benches covered in nests of wires and esoteric electronic components.
“Hephaestus?” Delroy asks the doorman.
“In the back,” he replies with a nod in that general direction.
As they move through the workshop, a high-ceilinged space that suggests it once served as a small warehouse, the men steal peeks at the various projects underway throughout. One man, an Asian with a pronounced hunch to his shoulders, painstakingly solders wires to a circuit board no larger or thicker than a playing card. Another man slips his arm into a bulky steel gauntlet and flexes his hand experimentally. Servos wheeze and whir.
“I’ll take one of everything, thanks,” Jonas says in a respectful whisper normally reserved for libraries and museums.
The back wall belongs to a single worker, a tall African-American woman with long dreadlocks bound together by a leather thong. She doesn’t acknowledge the men as they approach and keeps her focus on her particular project, which at first glance Delroy mistakes for a weird bathtub or a fancy chaise lounge. The woman pokes around in an open panel near the head of the thing, her features pinched in equal measures of fascination and frustration.
“We’re looking for Hephaestus,” Delroy says.
“Found her,” the woman says.
“Hey, baby,” Van says. “We’re told you could hook us up with the good stuff.”
Hephaestus turns her attention, and a scowl, toward the men. “This is my house, mister,” she says. “You do not walk into my house and greet me with, ‘Hey baby.’ You treat me with respect. You call me baby or honey or sweetheart or anything else I don’t like, you’re going to spin your sorry selves around and walk out before I walk you out. You do not want that.”
“Damn,” Van says.
“Damn right, ‘damn.’ And I’m not hearing an apology.”
“...Sorry. Ma’am.”
“Better.”
“We were sent here,” Delroy says, only now realizing that he cannot remember who sent him. What was his name? A faint, vague image of the man’s face floats through his mind, refusing to coalesce into a solid memory.
“I’m aware,” Hephaestus says. She stands, wiping her hands on a pair of coveralls stained with every grease, oil, and lubricant known to man — and a few known only to herself, the woman who invented them. “We’re going to make this quick. I have a very long to-do list and it’s not going to get any shorter jabbering with you fools.”
Van opens his mouth to retort. Mick waves him silent.
“Over here.” Hephaestus leads the men to a far corner of the workshop, to a series of steel doors lacking visible knobs or handles. She chooses one and tells it to open. The door obeys, popping open and sliding away with a hiss. The room beyond resembles a small locker room. Hephaestus opens the lockers to reveal Damage Inc.’s new equipment and uniforms.
“This is it?” Jonas says.
“This is it. Pay attention, I’m only going over this once,” Hephaestus says, plucking a modified hardhat from one of the lockers. “Helmet, rated against most small arms fire, equipped with baffles to keep telepaths out of your head. Visor,” she says, indicating a smoked half-faceplate of transparent material. “It’ll deflect weaker rounds, but anything with real stopping power comes your way? You’re screwed. Rigged with a voice-activated communication system. You have private channels and can tap into public and police airwaves.”
She tosses the helmet to Delroy, then presents an armored vest — a vest emblazoned with an improved version of the “DI” logo Delroy drew on the team’s original piecemeal uniforms. Military grade body armor, Hephaestus explains, but lighter weight for increased maneuverability.
“In these cases,” Hephaestus says, indicating the waist-high hard cases sitting in three of the lockers, “you’ll find your new weapons. They’re based on your original gear, except these versions don’t suck. There’s an instruction manual for each one in the cases. I reckon you’re smart enough to figure out how to make them work — and if you’re not and you wind up killing yourselves, don’t come crying to me. My job is to make this stuff, not teach you how to use it.”
“Where’s my gear?” Van asks. Hephaestus hands him a smaller case containing a submachine gun. Van turns the weapon over in his hands. “What is it? What does it do?”
“It’s a gun. You shoot people with it,” Hephaestus says. “It’s been modified to minimize the recoil, there’s no serial number to trace, and you’ve got a couple magazines’ worth of armor-piercing rounds in there, but other than that? It’s a straight-up fully automatic nine millimeter machine pistol.”
“Oh. Cool,” Van says without bothering to hide his disappointment.
“You want a fancy toy? Next time get yourself a better gimmick than shooting a gun. Any fool can shoot a gun,” Hephaestus mutters.
“Anything else we need to know?” Delroy asks.
“Yeah. You were never here. This place doesn’t exist. Anyone asks you where you got your stuff, you say you bought it from Amazon or ThinkGeek or whatever — as long as you don’t mention my name or this place. Got it?”
“Not a problem.”
“Better not be. You know the way out.”
Jonas waits until Hephaestus has returned to her project and is well out of earshot. “She’s a charmer.”
“She can act like the biggest bitch in the world for all I care,” Mick says. “Look at this stuff! The woman has set us up.”
“Yes she has. All right, brothers, grab your stuff and let’s go,” Delroy says with an eager grin. “Damage Inc. is back in business.”
NINE
After some discussion, we agree that we shouldn’t wait to make the big reveal. If we wait, we reason, we’d talk ourselves out of it and that would only make it harder for us down the road. Pull the band-aid off quickly, that’s the way to go.
Christina agrees to play host. I can’t help but think it’s to guarantee we go through with it rather than out of sympathy for the other parents. Maybe it’s both, but I can’t shake the feeling she doesn’t trust us to come clean.
That’s fair. I know I haven’t done much lately to warrant her trust.
Matt makes a quick stop at home to grab some stuff he thinks we’ll need. While he sets up his equipment, Stuart and Missy call their parents. Missy has it easy; her dad already knows about us, so when she explains what’s going to happen, he readily agrees to attend and bring Mrs. Hamill with him. Stuart has a tougher time of it, but he eventually convinces his mom and dad to come right over after work.
“What are you going to tell your parents?” I ask Matt.
He finishes rigging up a small webcam on top of Christina’s TV. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what to say to get them over here.”
“There’s no way to ease into it. We’re going to have to just spit it out.”
Matt sighs, thinks for a moment, then takes out his phone to make the call. “Hi, Dad. I need you and Mom to come over to Ms. Hauser’s place after work. I have a big s
ecret to tell you. It’s shocking and scary and I expect you’ll completely lose your minds when you find out but I need to tell you so...yeah. See you tonight. Bye.” He hangs up without giving his dad a second to respond. “That should do it.”
I should know better than to wonder whether Matt can do blunt.
And then the waiting begins.
Ms. Hauser comes home from work early. She sees us gathered around the coffee table, quiet and intense, and gives us a nod before disappearing upstairs. She doesn’t come back down until the first parents show up — Matt’s folks.
“Matt, are you going to tell me what this is all about?” Mr. Steiger says.
“As soon as the others show up,” Matt says.
“Here,” Christina says, offering a very full glass of wine to Mrs. Steiger.
“Thank you, Christina, but I don’t —”
Christina shoves the glass into her hand. “Trust me. You’re going to want it.”
We spend a solid half hour deflecting the Steigers’ nonstop questions. The Lumleys show up next with Stuart’s big brother Gordon in tow, and they’re barely through the door before they start interrogating us. The anxiety in the room spikes, and I have to retreat to the kitchen to regroup. Every emotion in the room is smacking me around as badly as Natalie smacks Matt around.
I heard that, Matt says.
Crap. Sorry, I say.
You don’t need to be here for this, you know.
Yes I do. We’re a team. We do this together or not at all.
I think “not at all” isn’t an option anymore. The Hamills just showed up.
I guess it’s showtime, then. You ready?
Matt laughs. God, no, but I’m going to do it anyway.
I return to the living room in time to hear Mr. Steiger ask, “What were you laughing at?”
“I said something funny to Sara,” Matt says.
Mr. Steiger glances at me, an eyebrow arched. He doesn’t get it. Don’t worry, Mr. Steiger, you’ll understand soon enough.
“Hey,” Matt says, calling everyone’s attention to the front of the living room. “Uh, hi. So. Um. Guess you’re wondering why we asked you here.”
Matt releases a shuddering breath. I take his hand and give it a squeeze. Missy takes his other hand and cuddles up next to him. Stuart nods: go for it.
“We have something we need to tell you all,” Matt says, his voice low but steady. “We’ve been keeping a secret from you. A couple of you already know but most of you don’t, and we don’t want to hide anymore. And we know this might upset you, which is why we’ve kept it to ourselves for so long, but we’re tired of lying to you. You deserve to know the truth about us.”
“Hold on,” Mr. Lumley says. He looks at each of us in turn, his brow knit in confusion. “You’re...all gay?”
“What? No,” Matt says.
“I am,” I say.
“Well, yeah, you are...”
“I’m gay-friendly,” Stuart says.
“You’re not helping,” Matt says, flustered. “No, Mr. Lumley, we’re not coming out — not like that, I mean. We’re trying to tell you we’re super-heroes.”
And there it is. The big secret has been laid bare.
Except no one believes us. Matt’s announcement is met with groans and a great deal of eye-rolling.
“Seriously?” Gordon says.
“Oh, Matt, come on,” Mr. Steiger says. “Tell us why we’re here already.”
“I am telling you. I did tell you. We’re super-heroes,” Matt says. “We’re the Hero Squad.”
“Matt, enough. Stop joking around and tell us what —”
“He’s not joking, Wil,” Christina says.
The room falls silent, even on a psychic level; there’s a brief wave of mild shock and then nothing. Dead air.
“You’re what?” Mrs. Steiger says at last.
“This is —” Mrs. Hamill laughs nervously. “This is nonsense. This is a bad joke.”
“It’s not a joke, Mom,” Missy says.
“Missy, stop it. Stop lying to me.”
“She’s not lying,” Dr. Hamill says.
His wife swings her slack-jawed expression his way. “Ken?”
“She’s not lying. Missy has superhuman abilities.” He takes a breath, steeling himself for his confession. “I know because I gave them to her.”
“You what?”
“Back when I worked for the government, we genetically engineered embryos slated for use in infertility treatments. Thirty women received the altered embryos and gave birth to superhuman children. Missy is one of those children.”
“I’m part cat,” Missy says. “I was also possessed by a demon once, but just the one time, and it was only for a few minutes, but that’s a whole other story and I probably shouldn’t have brought it up until you were done dealing with the whole super-hero thing. Sorry. Got ahead of myself.”
A pale, pop-eyed Mrs. Hamill glares at her husband. “Our daughter is one of your experiments?” she says. “You did that to her? To me? And you never told me?!”
“Patty, I’m so sorry,” Dr. Hamill says, but he says it to Mrs. Hamill’s back. She storms across the room and throws the door open. Dr. Hamill calls out her name and chases her as far as the doorway before admitting to himself it’s a lost cause.
It snowballs from there. The Steigers and the Lumleys finally shake off their initial shock and start shouting at Matt and Stuart, at Dr. Hamill (“Did you do something to our son too?”), at Christina (“Did you know about this? Why didn’t you tell us?”). The air in the room sizzles and burns with raw emotional energy, fear and anger feeding on each other, building to critical mass. I don’t even realize I’ve curled into a ball until I feel Matt’s hands on me, hear his voice in my ear telling me to focus. Block it out, he says. I can do it. Just focus.
Missy kneels in front of me and takes my hands, giving me her strength. Stuart kneels at my side and wraps an arm around me. The pressure in my head eases. It feels like molten lead is pouring out of the reservoir of my skull. My breathing slows from a rapid pant to a slow and steady rhythm.
This is why we’re friends. This is why we’re a team. Anything we can’t handle alone, we tackle together.
Stop it, I say, projecting the thought out so the whole room catches it. They catch it, all right; everyone stops in mid-shout and looks around, wondering what the hell that was.
“Are you done yelling at each other?” Matt says. “Sorry, let me rephrase that: you’re done yelling at each other. You need to vent? Go right ahead, but you aim it this way.”
And oh, do they vent. It mostly takes the form of questions phrased in the angriest, most confrontational ways possible. We keep our heads and calmly answer every one, though nothing we say eases their minds. Stuart comes close when his parents ask why he’s doing something so stupid and dangerous, and he tells them he’s doing it for Jeffrey. No one stepped up to defend his little brother when he was getting bullied in school, he says, and he never wants to be the guy who doesn’t step up when someone else needs help. He’s doing this to atone for letting Jeff down, for not being there when he most needed his big brother. The confession floors the Lumleys. They don’t ask any more questions after that.
The Steigers, however, press on, lobbing at us questions with no real answers. Are you kids out of your minds? How could you keep this from us? What were you thinking?
They never touch the big question — maybe because they don’t know to ask it — but Matt answers it anyway.
“We’re not going to quit,” he says.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Steiger says. “Young man, you are ending this nonsense right now, you hear me? Right. Frigging. Now.”
“No, Dad, I’m not.” He says it casually, almost indifferently — not as a challenge or in defiance but as a simple statement of fact. “Kingsport needs us more than ever. Two-thirds of the police are injured or dead and we need to —”
“And is that how you want to wind up? Injured or dead? You�
�re sixteen, Matt! You’re still a child — a child who’s going to get himself killed because you have no idea what you’re doing!”
We don’t know what we’re doing. We’re just a bunch of naïve kids. We’re completely oblivious to the danger and the possible consequences. We anticipated that line of reasoning — and that anything we said in response would fall on deaf ears. That’s why we lined up an ace in the hole.
Matt pulls out his phone and makes the call. “Hey. Sorry to keep you waiting. Hold on, I’ll bring you in.” He turns on the TV and then pokes at his phone. The webcam he mounted on the TV turns on, allowing our special guest to see who’s about to chew him out from halfway across town. “You’re on, boss.”
“Hello again, Ms. Hauser. Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Steiger, Mr. and Mrs. Lumley, Dr. Hamill. I’m Concorde,” he says. “Let’s talk about your kids.”
TEN
I’d like to say that from that point on, everything went smoothly. I’d like to say that...
The sight of Concorde fired the Steigers and the Lumleys right back up, and they tore into him twice as viciously as they tore into us. They wanted to know how he could in good conscience let a bunch of children play super-hero. They took cheap shots at his sense of basic human decency and, on more than one occasion, lobbed threats of a lawsuit his way. To his credit, Concorde handled it as well as he could have. He answered their questions and repeatedly impressed upon them that we were totally capable and competent and that he’d made it his personal mission to make sure we had all the training and resources we needed to do our jobs effectively and safely.
At one point Mr. Steiger turned on poor Christina, demanding that she break her silence and join in on the Concorde roast. Christina responded, very coolly, “Concorde and I have already had a lengthy discussion about all of this.”
Translation: she screamed Concorde stupid for half the night.
The Steigers and the Lumleys left around ten, with Matt giving Dr. Hamill a ride home because his wife took the car, stranding him.
Action Figures - Issue Six: Power Play Page 7
