Action Figures - Issue Six: Power Play

by Michael Bailey

  In each of the lunch periods, Mrs. McGann makes an in-person announcement confirming rumors that Mr. Dent is gone. She says he abruptly resigned, citing “personal reasons” in a brief e-mail to the school committee, and that’s all anyone knows.

  I can’t help but notice that some of the teachers seem less broken up about it than others. Are they keeping their feelings to themselves in the name of presenting a professional face to their students? Are they too busy mentally updating their résumés in the hope of replacing him? Are they merely indifferent? Or are they taking care not to blow their own covers by letting on that they know the story behind the story?

  That’s the aspect of this mess that scares the crap out of me: the very distinct possibility that Mr. Dent wasn’t the only set of eyes on us — in Kingsport High or in general. Mr. Dent — the Foreman thought we were important enough to warrant direct observation; it makes sense he’d have other people in place to keep us under surveillance when he wasn’t around, people we trust, or at least might easily overlook. Could Jill the Coffee Experience barista be in on it? The elderly Chinese woman who greets people at Junk Food? For all we know, any one of our newfound friends could be in on it — Bo, Ty, Ashlyn, Zina, Peggy. It is weird that we went from being a happy little clique of five to suddenly having all kinds of friends outside the team.

  On one level I realize I am way overthinking this, but as the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you. Anyone around me could be an enemy in disguise, and there’s no way I’d know until it was too late.

  No. That’s not true; there is a way I could know, but I don’t feel right doing it.

  After the final bell, I meet up with Stuart and Missy at my locker to pitch my idea. I can’t make a decision like this alone.

  “I need your opinion on something,” I say.

  “We have opinions,” Stuart says.

  “I’ve been on edge all day. I’ve convinced myself half the teachers in this place are spying on us.”

  “Yeah, I’m with you. Gerry hit me up at lunch asking how Matt was doing and I was like, what’s with this? Why he is so interested in us all of a sudden?”

  “I thought I caught Mr. Dawkins the janitor staring at me,” Missy says, “but then I remembered he stares at other girls too, then I was like, what if he stares at other girls so I don’t get suspicious when he stares at me? And then I got freaked out and ran away.”

  “I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

  “Me either,” I say, “but I could find out.”

  They catch my meaning right away. “You want to go into people’s minds,” Stuart says, and I could swear he turns two shades paler when he says that.

  “I wouldn’t have to deep-scan anyone. A surface scan would do the job, especially if they were telepathically shielded like Mr. Dent — that’s a dead giveaway — but still...”

  “Still,” Stuart says, his expression grim.

  Since my powers manifested, Bart has taught me how to rein my powers in so I can function in daily life, how to use them in a variety of ways, and instilled in me what you might call a code of telepathic ethics. Bart’s big on the responsible use of one’s telepathy, and having recently-ish gone through a brief period during which I was deeply irresponsible with my powers, I understand better than ever why I need to establish and respect personal boundaries, both my own and others’.

  Stuart knows how bad it can get when I violate those boundaries. At the tail end of my King of Pain-induced breakdown, I dredged up every memory Stuart had of his brother Jeffrey’s death and threw them back in his face. If anyone’s going to have strong feelings about my proposal, it’s him — and right now I need him to keep me in check if this is in fact a spectacularly terrible idea.

  “Surface scan only, right?” he says.

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “And what’re you going to do if you get a hit on someone?”

  “Let you guys know, right away, and then we’ll decide together how to handle it.”

  Stuart looks to Missy. She makes a face; she doesn’t love the idea, but she doesn’t completely hate it either. That makes it unanimous.

  “Yeah,” Stuart says. “Okay.”

  ***

  We head into town, stopping at Coffee E for a quick snack and some caffeine. While we’re waiting at the counter for our drinks, I reluctantly make Jill my test case. I relax a little when I realize I can simply sense her presence and completely unclench when I take a telepathic pass over her — the equivalent of giving someone a quick visual once-over — and fail to detect a whiff of deception or ill intent. One down, the entire world to go.

  From there we hike to the hospital to visit Matt. Halfway there I think to call ahead to make sure he’s awake, but he’s not picking up his hospital phone or his cell. Figuring we’re already committed, we keep going.

  “You’ve seen him drugged up. How was he?” Stuart asks. “Was he, uh, whatchacallit? Lucid?”

  “Surprisingly so,” I say. “A little sluggish but he was as sharp as ever.”

  “Mm. Too bad.”

  “Too bad?”

  “Come on. Messing with Matt when he’s hopped up on the goofballs? Have to admit, that’d be epically hilarious.”

  Yeah, it kind of would be.

  We step off the elevator at Matt’s floor, where Zina almost plows headlong into us. Her face is blotchy, and her eyes are shot through with pink, like she’s been crying. That’s totally understandable. I’d be a mess too if I saw Meg lying in a hospital bed looking like she got sucked through a wood chipper.

  “Hey, Zina, you okay?” I reach out on instinct to comfort her, but she jerks away. She tries to say something, but the words catch in her throat and come out as a dry sob.

  “I can’t,” she manages before running off, fresh tears streaming down her face.

  “That ain’t good,” Stuart says.

  We peek into Matt’s room. He’s sitting in bed and staring at his feet, his face hard.

  “Matt?” I say. His eyes flick in my general direction. “We passed Zina on the way in. What happened?”

  Matt swallows and says, barely above a whisper, “She broke up with me.”

  “She what?” Missy says. “Why?”

  “This,” Matt says with a gesture of presentation. He swallows again, fighting to keep the tears at bay. “She said she didn’t realize how dangerous my life was. She said she couldn’t handle worrying about me constantly.”

  My hands ball up into fists. I understand where Zina’s coming from, and I realize there’s no perfect time to end a relationship, but dumping Matt so soon after what he went through? She might as well have literally rubbed handfuls of salt into his wounds. It would’ve hurt a million times less.

  “Dude, that blows,” Stuart says.

  “I’m sorry,” Missy says.

  Matt shrugs. “What’re you going to do?”

  “Do you want us to leave?” I say.

  “No. I don’t want you to go.” He draws a shuddering breath. “Just do me a favor and pretend everything’s okay, will you?”

  “Whatever you need.”

  Shop talk has always been the best way to keep Matt occupied, so I tell him about my plan to smoke out any other spies. Matt approves but expresses the same reservations the rest of us have. He also agrees, reluctantly, with Edison’s call to keep Mr. Dent’s real identity to ourselves. We have more immediate problems to sort out, he says.

  “Like you getting better, as soon as possible,” I say. “These two have volunteered me for leader duty and I don’t want to hold onto that job any longer than strictly necessary.”

  “I feel your pain. You know, metaphorically. I don’t feel much of anything right now,” Matt says. I’m going to assume that’s because of the painkillers and not the emotional dead zone in the center of his chest. “Any other news from Edison?”

  “Haven’t you talked to him?” I say.

  “No. Haven’t talked
to him, he hasn’t stopped by...I thought he’d want to debrief me as soon as I was awake.” Depression creeps back into his features. “Why hasn’t he visited? Or called?”

  “Let’s find out.” I take out my phone and call Edison. He picks up, and I let him get a “Hello” out before I lay into him. “Why haven’t you come by the hospital to check in on Matt?”

  Edison sighs. “I tried. I tried to visit yesterday. I was informed at the front desk I was not welcome.”

  “Called it,” I say to Matt. “Your parents barred him from visiting you.”

  Matt drops a loud F-bomb. Then he drops several more. Then he falls back into his pillow, exhausted by his outburst.

  “You could have called him instead, you know,” I say to Edison.

  “His parents don’t want me anywhere near him,” Edison says. “I want to respect that.”

  “And Matt would like to see you. He wants to talk to you. He still wants to do his job. How about you respect that?”

  He sighs again. “Let me handle this.”

  “As long as you handle it. You’re not doing Matt any favors by shutting him out.”

  I hang up and turn back to Matt. Before I can say anything, he murmurs, “I think you should go after all.”

  “You sure, dude?” Stuart says.

  Matt nods. “M’tired.”

  We say our goodbyes and leave Matt can get some rest.

  That’s what he’s going to do. That’s all. He’s not going to have a complete emotional breakdown. He’s just going to rest.

  THIRTY

  It all revolves around the Foreman.

  Matt picks up his magic marker to the best of his ability, pinching its fat body between his thumb and ring finger — the two fingers on his right hand that aren’t broken — and scrawls a crude F in the center of a sheet of paper, the first mark on a roadmap he hopes will bring some clarity to the increasingly convoluted scenario unfolding before him. Normally, he wouldn’t need such a visual aid, but the cocktail of painkillers and antibiotics flowing into his veins makes purely mental visualization all but impossible.

  Matt writes a series of letters around the edge of the paper, each denoting a foe the Squad has faced: A for Archimedes; B for the Bestiary; BB for Black Betty; BKJ for Buzzkill Joy; DI for Damage Inc.; KP for the King of Pain; M for Manticore; T for the Thrashers. On the left side of the sheet, he scribbles down a large question mark, and then he starts drawing a series of arrows to illustrate known connections, starting with the Foreman. He controls the Thrashers — that much he’s known since the Hero Squad’s first mission — he hired Manticore to hunt down Archimedes, and he provided Damage Inc. with their gear. A dashed line marks a possible connection to Buzzkill Joy. That one always bothered Matt. How could she have known Dr. Hamill was the man behind her genetically engineered abilities? He was part of a government-sponsored black op. There’s no way Joy could have stumbled onto that info by accident — or dug it up intentionally, for that matter, even if she knew what to look for. Joy was street smart but by no means possessed the intelligence necessary to hack a military system.

  More lines follow: solid for solid connections, dashed for possible connections, dotted for highly tentative connections. He adds players to the field as he thinks of them. DS for Doctor Skyfall, one of the superhumans who slipped out of Byrne Penitentiary during the King of Pain-orchestrated breakout, later murdered by Manticore. D&S for Deadeye and Spasm, two more Byrne escapees he and Nina bagged a few months ago.

  “What’re you working on?”

  Matt jumps. “What?”

  “Sorry, buddy, didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Natalie says. “What’ve you got there?”

  Matt beholds his flowchart, an incoherent jumble of letters and lines and arrows. So much for that experiment.

  “Nothing,” he says. “Come on in.”

  Natalie enters and sets her laptop bag down on a chair. “Here’s your movie marathon suggestion. See if you can guess the theme,” she says with a smirk. “Fight Club, Rocky, Million Dollar Baby...”

  “Oh, you’re funny.”

  “I know.” She examines Matt’s map. “What’s this?”

  “I was trying to make sense of something.”

  “I’d say you failed.”

  “Yeah.” Natalie taps an inquiring finger on the question mark, which remains unconnected to any letter. “That is the big unanswered question: who’s really behind all this?”

  “We know who’s behind it.”

  “The Foreman? No. I don’t buy that. The CEO doesn’t fire the guys in the mail room personally. If the Foreman really was the head honcho, he wouldn’t put himself, and by extension his entire operation, at risk to take care of drudge work one of his goons could handle.”

  “If you want something done right,” Natalie counters.

  “No. No.” Matt shakes his head. “Something smells off. He said some things that — I really need to talk to Edison about this.”

  “You can talk to me about it. I’m his duly-appointed representative for the duration of your hospital stay.”

  Matt frowns. “What about after?”

  “Let’s deal with that later. Like the good Dr. Connors always says —”

  “One problem at a time,” they say in unison.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m in pain. I’m drugged up. I’m getting really sick of people asking me how I am.”

  “Matt. This is me.” Natalie lays a hand on his, taking care to avoid his fingers. “How are you?”

  Matt gives her a smile devoid of cheer. “You subbing in for Bart too?”

  “I’m the one you should be talking to.”

  That is true; if anyone could empathize with him, it would be Natalie. Her very first outing as a super-hero — an attempt to thwart a liquor store hold-up — ended with her lying in a hospital bed. She suffered a broken nose, some cracked ribs, two broken fingers, and countless cuts and bruises. She still has faint scars around her right eye and under her nose, a pale line that travels from her left nostril down to her chin. She was sixteen when it happened. If anyone could empathize with him...

  “I am...so angry,” Matt rasps, his throat tightening, his eyes burning. “I’m angry at the bastards who did this to me. I’m angry at myself for letting them. I wasn’t good enough. I thought I was, but...”

  Matt’s hand trembles beneath Natalie’s, shaking with impotent rage.

  “You need to hold onto that anger,” she says. “The next time you get into a scrap, your brain’s going to go haywire. Your fight-or-flight instinct’s going to tell you to run instead of to hold your ground. You’re going to panic. When that happens, you find that anger and you use it. All the rage and frustration you’re feeling right now? You unleash it on the poor sorry son of a bitch who has the misfortune of facing you next. Got it?”

  Matt nods.

  “Okay. But for now, we’re going to keep you busy.” Natalie opens her bag and presents Matt with a laptop, a sturdy thing with a thick plastic casing. “Edison wanted me to give you this. It’s a secure remote terminal that connects directly to the Protectorate’s system. Everything’s encrypted so you can use the hospital Wi-Fi safely. First order of business is to write up a full report on what happened to you.”

  “That might take a while,” Matt says, displaying his collection of splinted fingers.

  “It has voice recognition software. Edison thought ahead.” Natalie pauses. “He also wants to know if you have any brilliant ideas for tracking down the Foreman, because if you don’t...”

  “What?”

  “He’s going to go to Archimedes, and Edison’s ready to give him whatever he wants to convince him to flip on the Foreman, even if it’s an immunity deal.”

  Matt sits bolt upright. “He can’t,” he grunts, ignoring the persistent ache in his lower belly. “He cannot cut Archimedes loose.”

  “Not arguing, just saying. Unless someone comes up with something better, Archimedes is our Hail Mary.”r />
  “The Foreman’s mask. It probably has an integral communications system, like my mask does. Edison could send a test signal through it, trace where it goes.”

  “First thing he tried. He said the signal got bounced around the entire country, made it impossible to trace. A scattered something-or-other.”

  “Scattershot network communications system. An encrypted signal gets blasted all over public and private telecommunications systems in a random pattern. Only the intended recipient picks it up as it passes through.”

  “That’s it. And when the ping came back around, it fried the headset — some kind of failsafe to keep anyone from trying a trick like that twice, Edison guessed. The data’s on the laptop if you’d care to take a look at it, see if Edison missed anything.”

  “Doubt it.”

  “But there’s no harm in trying, right?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll let you get to it, then. Make me proud, boy genius,” Natalie says, extending a fist.

  “Seriously? That’s cold. Oh, hey, Dad.”

  “Matt,” Wil Steiger says, leveling a curious gaze at his son’s guest. “Who’s this?”

  “My friend Natalie. Stopped by to say hi, see how I was doing.”

  Natalie tosses Wil a friendly if mildly flippant salute.

  “Uh-huh,” Wil says, his lips bending into a scowl. “And you know — Natalie, is it? You know her from where?”

  “Around.”

  “Around. Right. You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  “Them? Them who?” Natalie says with mock ignorance. “Classic Irish rock band Them featuring Van Morrison? Giant atomic mutant ant movie Them?”

  “The 1954 sci-fi classic starring James Arness,” Matt says.

  “Who also starred as the titular Thing from another World.”

  “Oh, that’d make an awesome fifties sci-fi double feature.”

  “Ooooh, yeah, it would.”

  “Excuse me!” Wil barks. “I thought I made it clear I didn’t want you people near my son anymore.”