Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect (16 page)

“While we appreciate your
entrepreneurial spirit,” Mindforce says, “you had to know you were playing with
a stacked deck, attacking a supermax prison transport detail.”

“No guts, no glory. Besides,
we didn’t know you guys were going to be riding shotgun.” Leonard smiles. “Live
and learn. Am I right?”

FOURTEEN

Sara called it: Matt never
showed up to school.

He wasn’t in homeroom, but I
held out hope he’d put on a brave face and soldier through the day. I gave up
on that when we were a member short at lunchtime.

As has become our tradition,
Malcolm and I meet in the main hallway to walk together to our web design
class. Malcolm senses I’m in a mood and asks me what’s wrong. I ask to defer
that conversation until the end of the day. He’s cool with that. Public
displays of affection, as a rule, are frowned upon in school, but he manages to
sneak in a brief reassuring hand squeeze. He’s a good boyfriend.

Did I just call him my
boyfriend? I can’t call him the B-word yet, we’ve only been on two official
dates. Okay, more like one and two-thirds (thank you Soulblack), but that means
I have even less reason to call him my boyfriend. God, if I’d said that aloud,
I’d have sent Malcolm screaming out of the building.

No, no, stop, no. Slow down,
Carrie, take a breath. No need to add pointless romantic anxiety to your
already very full stress load.

The final bell rings, and
once we’re in the hall and the other students have dispersed, I infodump.
Obviously, I omit entirely the mess with Concorde, and out of respect for
Matt’s privacy I’m vague about his woes, but Malcolm gets the full color,
widescreen, 3-D, digital surround sound story of Ben’s epic transgression.

When I finish, Malcolm takes
me in his arms and holds me. The tension melts away.

“I want to preface this by
assuring you that I’m completely on your side and Ben was out of line,” Malcolm
says, “but it sounds to me like he was looking out for your well-being.”

I pull away to give Malcolm
some mild stink-eye.

“I repeat: He was out of
line, but I don’t think he was
trying
to be a jerk,” Malcolm says.
“Besides, your grandfather saved the day, so it’s all good, right?”

“Except for the part where
Mom is still dating the guy,” I gripe, “and that he expects me to apologize to
Ben. Like that’s going to happen.”

“It’ll happen.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because you’re a good person
who knows it’s always better to take the high road.”

Well-played, Mr. Forth.

“Now, did I hear you say you
have a birthday coming up?”

“You did. Tuesday. The big
one-six.”

“And you didn’t think to share
this information with me earlier?” Malcolm says, playfully scolding me. “That
is the sort of thing I should be made aware of, you know, in case I wanted to
do something with you to celebrate the big day.”

“In case.”

“In case. Not saying I
do
want to do something, like take you out to a nice dinner, but in case I did...”

“Well then, in case you
wanted to do something for my birthday, I already have plans for Saturday and
Tuesday, but all other days are wide open.”

“I’ll try to remember that.
In case I want to do something with you on, hypothetically speaking, Friday
night?”

“You two are so adorable
it’s disgusting,” Sara says as she and Missy stroll up to us.

“Disgusting in a good way,”
Missy says, “like a huge hot fudge sundae that’s totally covered in jimmies and
M&Ms and Oreo bits and is
soooooo goooood
but makes you kind of sick
after, like, three bites. Like that. Hi, Malcolm!”

“Hi, Missy. Sorry, didn’t
mean to hog Carrie to myself.”

“You should be sorry,” Sara
says. “She was ours first.”

She’s joking, but Sara’s
remark makes me realize I’ve unwittingly segregated Malcolm from my friends,
and for no good reason. I can’t even claim I’ve done it to ensure that no Hero
Squad stuff accidentally comes up in front of Malcolm (although that is a legit
concern).

Let’s rectify that.
“Malcolm, you want to hang out with us at the Coffee Experience?” I say. “We
don’t do anything special, just sit and caffeinate and complain about school.”

“Yeah, come with us,” Sara
the ever-supportive says. Missy nods emphatically, making it unanimous.

Malcolm smiles. “Sure. I’ll
drive.”

Stuart continues the trend
in good friendship practices. He’s not only totally cool with Malcolm joining
us for after-school coffee and socialization, he spends the car ride into town
chatting up my boyfr— uh, chatting up Malcolm like he’s an old buddy. There’s
none of that getting-to-know-you awkwardness, no standoffishness from either
side of two very different cliques as they interact for the first time; Malcolm
slides into group dynamic effortlessly. I’m a little ashamed I didn’t bridge
this gap earlier.

We file into Coffee E, and
right away Jill catches my eye and nods at the far corner of the shop, a grave
look on her face. I turn to see Matt stuffed into a seat, eyes narrowed and jaw
set, like he’s getting ready to belt someone.

“Guys,” I say, drawing their
attention to our wayward fifth member.

Matt glances up as we
approach. “What’s he doing here?” he says, glowering at Malcolm.

“He came with us to hang
out. Have you been here all day?”

Matt’s scowl intensifies.
“I’m not going to say anything in front of him.”

“What? Come on, Matt,
Malcolm isn’t —”

“Maybe I should give you
guys some privacy,” Malcolm says. I start to protest but he holds up a hand, cutting
me off. “No, look, he needs to talk and he obviously won’t in front of me. It’s
okay. Your friend needs you.”

It slips out. “You’re a good
boyfriend.”

“You’re a good girlfriend. I
have to keep up, don’t I?”

Malcolm kisses me before he
leaves. Jill slips me an approving smile and a thumbs-up.

Cherish the warm fuzzies,
girl, because it’s not going to last.

We join Matt at the table,
which is littered with empty coffee cups and paper plates that, judging by the
crumbs, once held a variety of cookies and pastries. Great, so he’s supremely
cheesed off
and
hopped up on massive amounts of sugar and caffeine.

“Mom kicked Dad out of the
house,” Matt says. This news is not surprising, but I’d describe the resulting
silence as stunned nevertheless.

“Where did he go?” I say.
Conventional wisdom may insist there is no such thing as a dumb question, but
in situations like this, all questions feel dumb.

“Don’t know. Don’t care,”
Matt says, bristling. “Bastard’s been cheating on Mom for
three months
.
He started screwing his receptionist at his office Christmas party. Two days
before friggin’ Christmas. All those times he said he was working late, all
those weekends he went in because it was tax time and he was soooooo busy? It
was all crap. He was going to see
her
.”

Matt says
her
in a
low hiss, like it was a swear word so terrible it’d cause old ladies to faint
and paint to peel off the walls if he said it too loudly.

Sara slides a hand over
Matt’s clenched fist. The rage that had been building throughout his story, threatening
to erupt in a display of violence or screaming profanity, it all drains out of
him. His body seems to deflate, and he collapses in on himself.

“I don’t know what to do,”
he whispers.

I know this specific flavor
of despair. I know what it’s like to see your family disintegrate before your
eyes, to wish with all your heart and soul that you could do something,
anything to stop it, yet know you’re powerless to do so. I know how that
helplessness crushes you and tears you to pieces and makes you want to curl
into a ball and die just so you don’t have to feel anything anymore.

I’m so sorry, Matt. There is
nothing you can do.

Natalie, her head light from
skipping lunch, enters the common room and swoons from the smell of fresh
pizza, zesty and spicy. “You suck, Edison,” she says. “You ordered pizza and
you didn’t get one for me?”

“There’s a Hawaiian sitting
in the oven keeping warm,” Edison says. “You’re welcome.”

“Very good. All is
forgiven.” Natalie retrieves her pizza, grabs a soda from the refrigerator,
then joins her teammates at the table. “All right, fill me in. How’d it go?”

“I’m undecided,” Bart says.

“Okay...”

“The Bestiary was very
cooperative. They didn’t inveigle or obfuscate in the slightest...”

“I love it when you use big
words. It’s hot.”

“...but they also didn’t
give up anything.”

“Meaning whoever hired
them?”

“That’s the weird part. They
swore no one hired them,” Edison says. “They all claimed breaking out
Archimedes was their idea.”

Natalie laughs through a
mouthful of pizza. “Please. Those idiots have never had an original thought in
their lives.”

“I don’t disagree, and their
story stinks to high heaven. Their testimonies were virtually identical, down
to the last detail, which tells me —”

“It’s a cover story they
worked out in advance,” Natalie concludes, “which means they’re protecting
themselves and/or their boss.”

“There’s one problem with
that theory,” Bart says. “None of them were lying. I didn’t catch a single
whiff of deception from any of them.”

“I don’t buy that for a
second. Every instinct tells me they’re covering for whoever’s really behind
their little stunt,” Edison says.

“There is a little too much
coincidence for it to be coincidence, isn’t there?” Natalie says.

“Exactly. Unfortunately, a hunch
isn’t going to convince any judge in the state to issue a search warrant so
Bart can perform a deep telepathic reading.”

“So we’re stuck, is what
you’re saying.”

“Maybe not. We have one more
avenue to try: Archimedes,” Bart says.

“We tried to talk to him,
but all he said to us was ‘I would like to exercise my rights under the Fifth
Amendment, please go to hell,’” Edison says. “But if the Bestiary somehow made
contact with him in advance, tipped him off about the breakout...”

“They are dumb enough to tip
their hand like that,” Natalie says.

“Let’s hope they hold true
to form. Byrne records every visitation, so if they did send someone in to give
Archimedes a head’s up, we’d have evidence enough to get that search warrant.”

“Sounds like a good Plan B.
Got a Plan C if that doesn’t pan out?”

“If Plan B flops, we’re back
to spinning our wheels,” Bart says. “There’s a very remote chance that the
Morana girl heard something, but we can’t count on that.”

Natalie grunts. “Not that
that matters since no one can find her. Girl’s dropped off the radar, big
time.”

“She’s a psychotic teenage
girl with serious impulse control issues and no family or friends to turn to,”
Edison says. “Don’t worry, she’ll turn up.”

Lester Baron glances at his
watch and blows a long, hissing breath through his nose: almost seven o’clock.
What should have been a half-hour ride on the T between Roxbury and Cambridge
turned into two hours thanks to, according to the prerecorded voice that
informs passengers of such things, “mechanical difficulties.” He tells himself
it’s still better than driving to and from the office, if for no other reason
than it eliminates the chances of his BMW getting stolen while at work, but it
does little to console him.

A light but steady rain
causes Baron to quicken his pace, but middle-aged bulk does not allow him to
maintain it for long. He arrives home soaked through, and in a fouler mood than
before.

His mood darkens further
upon entering his brownstone; the smell of dinner on the stove is absent.
Again. Carla is a lovely woman, but almost certainly the worst housekeeper he’s
ever had when it comes to preparing his evening meal in a timely manner.

Baron throws the kitchen
door open, expecting to find Carla once again sitting at the table reading one
of those trashy romance novels she adores. He’s correct on two out of three
counts.

“Heya, doc,” Joy says with a
cold smile. She waves a dog-eared paperback at him. “Tell me this stupid thing
is yours.”