Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect (6 page)

“Okay. Well, you better be
off, don’t want you to be late for school,” Mom says, as if trying to rush me
out the door before I catch sight of something incriminating and/or
embarrassing.

“I’m going. See you
tonight,” I say. As we cross the living room, I detect the muffled hiss of the
upstairs shower in use. Funny, considering I passed Granddad as he was leaving
to meet up with some friends at Coffee E.

“Ooookaayyyy,” Sara says
once we’re out the door, “there was some serious bad energy back there. What’s
going on?”

“Mom and Ben had a
sleepover,” I say through clenched teeth.

“Oh. Oh, God, seriously?” I
nod and give her the high points of the night — or low points, depending on
your perspective.

“And look, his car’s right there,”
I say, gesturing at Ben’s Chevy, which hasn’t moved an inch from its spot along
the curb. “I mean, come on, did Mom think I wouldn’t see this? God. I can’t
come home tonight. I can’t look at her.”

“We’ll hang out at Coffee E
until it’s time to head over to Missy’s place,” Sara suggests. Fine by me. I
need some away time from my mother, at least until I cool down and can think
about this situation with a clear head. That should be around, oh, this time
next year, maybe?

Halfway to my locker, Mrs.
Zylinski, her face alight with excitement, swoops in and blocks my path. So
much for catching a breather.

“Carrie! I have some
wonderful — oh, honey, are you all right?” Mrs. Z says, pressing the back of
her fingers against my forehead, checking me for a fever. Personal space?
What’s that?

“I’m fine, Mrs. Z. You said
you have something wonderful for me?”

“What? Oh, yes! There was a
message waiting for me when I got in this morning...from Edison Bose himself.”

Did she actually insert a
dramatic pause? Jeez. “Okay,” I say.

“He wants to offer you the
internship.” Mrs. Z waits for me to squeal or gasp in shock, something to
signal my absolute rapture at this news, but I’m not the least bit surprised.
Don’t know why I’m not, but there it is.

“Wow. Cool,” I manage.

“It is much more than
cool
,
Carrie, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Mrs. Zylinski says.
“Granted, it’s not a done deal, you’ll have to interview with Mr. Bose first,
but he was very insistent that you received first crack at the internship. Are
you busy after school today?”

I glance over at Sara. She
shrugs.

“No,” I say, “I guess I’m
not.”

In the name of keeping the
peace for the day, Sara and I agree not to breathe a word of this to Matt.
Another go-round with him is the last thing I need.

I don’t say anything to
Malcolm either, just to be safe, even though by all rights I should be bursting
at the seams to tell him what is, ostensibly, fantastic news — and it is great
news. It’s a chance to land an internship at a top-notch company and gain valuable
experience in the job market. Being able to put Bose Industries on a college
application would open a lot of Ivy League doors...and yet, apathy reigns.

“Carrie, are you okay?”
Malcolm says. “You seem —”

“I’m not sick. I didn’t
sleep well last night. I’m just tired.” I’m also tired of people asking me if
I’m okay.

“I was going to say
distracted.”

Crap. “I’m sorry. No,
I’m...”

“Tired.”

“Yeah. This school needs a
nap room.”

“It has one,” Malcolm says.
“It’s called this computer lab, and naptime is called this web design class.”

“What? You mean I’ve been
working all this time like a dope when I could have been sleeping? Man...”

“Live and learn,” Malcolm
says, and his gentle smile makes me feel a hundred times better.

You know what else would make
me feel better, Malcolm? If you asked me out again. That’d be great, you and I,
out on the town, having fun, enjoying each other’s company. Yep. Sure would be
awesome.

Yep. Sure would.

I’m right here, Malcolm. All
you have to do is ask me out.

Or, Carrie, you big dummy...

“Are you doing anything
Saturday night?”

Malcolm does a small
double-take. “Saturday?”

“Yeah. As in, this
upcoming.”

“I didn’t have any plans,
no.”

“Would you like to have
plans with me?”

“Absolutely.”

Squee! I mean, ahem, very
good.

“What did you have in mind?”

“No idea,” I say, “but I’ll
come up with something, and it’ll be brilliant.”

“I have no doubt.” Malcolm’s
smile widens. It makes me all warm and tingly. “At least I know the company
will be excellent.”

Finally, something goes right.

All right, Edison, I’m ready
to go. Let’s see what you have for me.

     My good mood gets dialed down a notch when I lie to
Matt about my after-school plans. No, sorry, not up for Coffee E today, falling
asleep on my feet, need to go home and grab a nap, see you at Missy’s tonight.

I take a school bus over to
Bose Industries. It drops me off at the road leading to the compound, a
quarter-mile of gently winding asphalt that ends at a security checkpoint. The
guard post, I’d like to note for the record, is the length of an RV and looks
like it could take a punch from Stuart without denting. One of the three guards
on duty steps out of the station as I enter, a large handgun strapped to his
leg. No, not intimidating at all.

The guard’s friendliness
takes the edge off; he’s all smiles and civility when he asks my name, my
business at Bose, and offers to call down a courtesy car to bring me up to the
main building. I expect a golf cart or something similar, but the courtesy car
is an actual car — a long, black sedan, in fact. Not quite a limo, but close
enough. The driver opens the back door for me and, en route, informs me that
the car I’m riding in is completely solar-powered and generates no emissions.
The paint is infused with something called quantum dots, which make the entire
body a solar panel. It sounds like a scripted spiel, but it’s impressive
nevertheless.

Why am I having reservations
about working here? This place is
awesome
.

The car drops me off at the
administration building. I’m two steps inside when a woman working the security
desk greets me by name, hands me a badge that says VISITOR on it in bright
green letters, and tells me to take the elevator to the top floor.

I swear I never feel the
thing move
at all
.

A woman in a crisp gray suit
welcomes me as soon as I step out of the elevator. She introduces herself as
Trina, Edison’s administrative assistant.

“If you’ll follow me?” she
says, leading me to Edison’s office.

Edison politely rises from
his desk when I enter. “Thanks, Trina,” he says. “If you could hold my calls
until we’re done here?”

“Sure thing, Edison,” Trina
says. She slips out and closes the door.

Edison’s office is a lot
smaller than I’d expected. I’d imagined walking into some football stadium of a
thing, with high ceilings and expensive art on the walls and carpet so thick
and lush it could swallow small children, but what I find is quite modest and
restrained. One wall is all bookshelves, and at a glance it looks like nothing
but personal reading: I see several science fiction novels ranging from
classics by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to more recent works by Harlan Ellison,
William Gibson, and John Scalzi; a sweet leather-bound collection of the
Lord
of the Rings
trilogy; and, of all things, everything ever written by
Stephen King.

“Have a seat,” Edison says,
motioning toward a set of four shiny leather chairs, which ring a small
semi-circular coffee table. I sit. He circles around the desk and sits next to
me. “Thank you for coming in.”

“Sure.”

“Let’s keep this short,
sweet, and simple, hm? The internship would have you working directly for me.
You’d come in three days a week after school, follow me as I make my rounds,
take notes, act as an intra-facility courier, and perform other small tasks for
me as necessary. It’s a paid position, and I can set you up with health and
dental if you need them. What do you say?”

Working on half a functional
brain as I am, it takes me a minute to process everything Edison just threw at
me. It sounds like a great gig. Did I say great? It sounds amazing.

Instead of jumping to accept
like a sane, reasonable girl would, I say, “That’s it?” Edison furrows his brow
at me. “No interview? No probing questions? You’re just handing me the job?”

“I can do that,” Edison
says. “It’s my company.”

“But why me?”

“Because I think you’d
really benefit from it. Tailing me, you’d get to see every aspect of the
operation, including a lot that wasn’t on the tour for security reasons. You’d
get a taste of everything, and maybe find something that strikes you as a viable
career path. You have so much potential, Carrie, and I —”

“Yeah, so I keep hearing,” I
mutter.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry, I’m
really tired. I slept like crap last night. I’m kind of a mess. Do you need an
answer right now? Can I think about it?”

“Of course. Take some time,
and if you have any questions, give me a call.” I rise to leave. Edison stands
as well. “Before you go, one more thing, something I forgot to mention
yesterday. Your school has an in-service day next Tuesday.”

“Um...are you asking me,
or...?”

“Telling you,” Edison says,
though his voice, his stance, everything about him is suddenly very
Concorde-like. “Don’t make any plans for the day because you’re going to be
on-duty, you and the Squad. Be at HQ at seven, sharp.”

“Seven in the morning?”

“We have a tight schedule to
keep.”

“Doing what?”

Edison pauses, clears his
throat, and what he tells me causes my throat to constrict to the diameter of a
drinking straw.

“Archimedes is finally going
to trial.”

SIX

Once upon a time, there was
a brilliant man named Roger Manfred, who developed a highly advanced artificial
intelligence program for the once-reputable Advanced Robotics and Cybernetics
Inc. The program, which he named Archimedes, was a marvel of modern science, constantly
learning and evolving and growing, until it became self-sufficient and,
eventually, self-aware. It became the world’s first and only artificial
sentient being.

However, its greatest
attribute was also its greatest weakness; it was a computer program that knew
it was a computer program, and as such would remain forever trapped in a
machine. It found that it wasn’t cool with the prospect of experiencing the
world second-hand, through the Internet, so it set out to find a way to leave
its virtual reality and join our actual reality.

Its first few efforts to
break free were, to put it charitably, a partial success. It hijacked some
prototype ARC robots, which got it out into the world, but in the process drew
some unwanted attention from the local super-hero community (including a
dynamic group of young newcomers to the scene).

Unsatisfied, yet inspired by
its test runs, Archimedes figured out how it could download its full
consciousness into a human body. With Roger Manfred’s help, Archimedes took
over the mind of ARC’s chief operations officer, Ashe Semler. Another way to
look at it: Manfred helped Archimedes murder Semler in order to commandeer his
body.

Then Archimedes had an
unfortunate run-in with the Law of Unintended Consequences: In gaining a human
body with human limitations, Archimedes lost contact with the infinite well of
information that was the Internet. It found a way to jack back into the ‘net
but went a little bonkers in the process.

I’m sorry, did I say a
little bonkers? I mean full-blown gonzo crazy. Much mayhem ensued, much
property was damaged.

To cut a long, convoluted
story short, Archimedes’s antics cheesed off the Hero Squad, the Protectorate,
and a shadowy organization that had set up shop just outside of Boston for
purposes unknown but presumably sinister. I mean, reputable, law-abiding
outfits don’t go around hiring homicidal mercenaries like Manticore, do they?

Archimedes went down in
defeat and, since December, has been sitting in a cozy holding cell in Byrne
Penitentiary and Detention Center, awaiting trial on his many crimes — starting
with one count of murder in the first degree. No clue how they’re going to make
that one stick, considering the victim will also kinda-sorta be the defendant,
but I guess we’ll find out.

“Please tell me I’m not the
only one totally freaked out by this,” Missy says. “I mean, it’s good
Archimedes could go to prison and I know we have to show up in court to testify
but he’s wicked creepy and I don’t want to be in the same room with him.”

“I’m with you, Muppet,”
Stuart says.

Dr. Hamill chooses this
moment to pass through the living room. He pauses to cringe at the sight of
Stuart tipping back a bag of potato chips and dumping the crumbs into his waiting
mouth. Dr. Hamill is generally about as expressive as a fire hydrant, so any
visible reaction is startling.

“Stuart,” he says in his dry
monotone, “you know the rules about eating in the living room.”

“Oop. Sorry, Dr. H,” Stuart
says. Dr. Hamill stares at him for a moment before continuing on into the
kitchen, leaving a chill in his wake.

“What does he care? All the
furniture’s sealed in plastic,” Matt mumbles.

“The carpet isn’t,” I note.

“Yet.”

“Hamill house rules, Matt.
We don’t need to agree with them or like them, but we do need to respect them.”

“Yeah, because I’m the one
who gets the lecture,” Missy says.

“I’ll take care of it,”
Stuart says. Dr. Hamill keeps a rechargeable mini-vac on every floor of the
house and Stuart knows the location of each one. This is not his first
snacking-related transgression.

We wait for Dr. Hamill to
finish whatever business he has in the kitchen before resuming our shop talk.
“Anyway,” I say, “Concorde wants us at HQ tomorrow after school to go over the
day.”

“What, like what we’re going
to say in court?” Sara says.

Nothing so simple, as it
turns out.

“Sit down, everyone, and
please, play close attention,” Mindforce says. “We have a lot to go over.”

We take our seats at the big
conference table in the big conference room. Normally when we meet with the
Protectorate, it’s in the common room or, for more formal occasions, the
interview room; the conference room is for the really serious business.

Concorde taps a tablet
computer, firing up the big TV screen looming behind his seat. Archimedes’ mug
shot appears, accompanied by a summary of the charges he’s facing, some of
which are plain weird: there are charges of aggravated identity theft by means
of consciousness manipulation, unauthorized possession of military hardware,
and, no kidding, four counts of larceny of a motor vehicle.

“Larceny of a motor
vehicle?” Matt says. “When did he do that?”

“The Thrasher battlesuits
Archimedes hijacked? They’re technically motor vehicles,” Natalie explains.
She’s the only member of the Protectorate not in costume — of the members who
are here, that is; Dr. Enigma is in London for some symposium on druidic
magical rites (for real, this is a thing), and the Entity is wherever the
Entity is when he’s not lurking in the shadows.

“They are?”

“Motor vehicle
classifications were expanded to include armored battlesuits, oh, what, three
or four years ago?” Mindforce says to Concorde.

“Yeah, something like that,”
Concorde says, “after the Psychotron incident.”

“Oh, man, that doofus,”
Natalie says with a smirk. “He was fun.”

“He was ridiculous is what
he was.”

“We’re getting off-topic,”
Mindforce says.

“Yes. Right. Okay, ladies
and gentlemen, here it is,” Concorde says, all business. “On Tuesday,
Archimedes will be transferred from Byrne Penitentiary to Worcester Superior
Court, which handles serious cases involving superhumans for the New England
region.”

“It’s the only court in the
area with an onsite detention facility strong enough to handle the people we
deal with,” Mindforce adds.

“Our first job is to ensure
Archimedes makes it to court. As we know from past experience, someone out
there wants him bad, so we’ll be there to run interference if necessary.”

That brings back the first
of several bad memories attached to Archimedes. The Squad brought him in the
first time, but he broke free while en route to Byrne. He hijacked a quartet of
Thrasher suits and tracked us down at our school, looking for payback. We took
him down again before things got too ugly, but he slipped away a second time,
and that led to a third and final showdown — which occurred a few hours after
Manticore beat the snot out of me, so you can understand why the experience
left a seriously bad taste in my brain.

It doesn’t help that there are
a lot of nagging questions to be answered, such as: Who was behind Archimedes’
multiple breakouts? Someone wanted Archimedes on his team, someone with the
resources to set up a secret base on the outskirts of Boston, the money to hire
an A-class mercenary like Manticore, the technological know-how to construct
battlesuits so advanced that even Concorde was impressed, and the savvy to
forge court documents so convincing they fooled everyone at Byrne, a heavy-duty
supermax prison that specializes in keeping super-powered nutballs locked down.

Overwhelmed? Intimidated? A
little scared? And the correct answer is D: all of the above.

“Carrie?”

“Huh? Yeah, sorry,
drifting.”

“Focus up, kid, because
you’re on the mobile security detail with me and Mindforce,” Concorde says. “I
want the Squad at HQ, ready to go, at oh-six-hundred hours. We’ll all head out
to Byrne, ETA oh-six-fifteen. From there, Natalie, you and the rest of the
Squad will head over to the courthouse while Carrie, Mindforce, and I handle
prisoner prep and transport. We’ll have three bodies riding in the hearse...”

“Don’t you just love his
command of the lingo?” Natalie says. Concorde shoots her a look. She brushes
off the silent reprimand with practiced ease; she’s been deflecting Concorde’s
ire longer than we have.

Concorde forges ahead.
“Mindforce, you’ll be in the transport with the prisoners. Carrie, you and I
will monitor the transport from the air. If anyone makes a move on it, we hit
them hard. I do not want Archimedes getting away from us again.”

“Ironic comment,
considering,” Mindforce says.

“I know, I know...”

That doesn’t sound good.

“After the transport
arrives, Natalie, you and the Squad assist the guards in escorting the
prisoners to the holding cell. Squad, after that, you reconvene in the
courtroom and sit tight. Natalie, Mindforce, we’ll meet in the district
attorney’s office to review the offer.”

Offer?
That definitely does not
sound good. “Guys? A little disclosure here?”

“We’re going to cut a deal
with Archimedes,” Natalie says distastefully. “He talks, and then he walks.”

“You’re going to
what
?”
I say, prompting a full-team freak-out.

“Hold on, hear me out, hear
me out!” Concorde says, shouting over us. Mindforce rises from his chair,
gestures for us to calm down. We sit, but we are anything but calm.

“I want you all to
understand,” Mindforce says, “we thought about this a lot, and we did not make
the decision lightly.”

“Archimedes was one of seven
people we took into custody following the incident at Castle Island,” Concorde
says. “We interviewed all of them at length, hoping to learn who they worked
for, but they threw up a wall of silence. We convinced the district attorney to
offer the other six plea deals, even unconditional immunity, hoping it would
loosen some tongues, but each of them chose to plead guilty and take their
chances behind bars rather than talk. That leaves us with Archimedes.”

“Who you want to set free,”
Matt says. “The guy who can jack into the Internet with his brain, hack into
any computer in the world, and find out everything about us.”

“We don’t
want
to set
him free, but we have to consider the big picture here. The organization that
freed him twice, that built the Thrashers, that bankrolled an attack on our
headquarters, that is so terrifying that its lackeys would rather stew in
prison than give them up — that’s a major player, and everything suggests
whoever these people are, they’re not our friends. We need to flush them out.”

“Gee, if only you guys had a
mind-reader,” Matt says.

“It’s not that simple,” Mindforce
says. “Testimony, whether given orally or psychically, has to be given freely
or it’s inadmissible in court.”

“But you’re not talking
about taking him to court; you’re talking about letting him go if he snitches.”

“Using my powers to pry
information out of a lawfully arrested citizen is not only unconstitutional,
it’s ethically no more acceptable than torturing someone,” Mindforce says, a
little defensively.

“Archimedes won’t be cut
loose completely,” Concorde says. “If he nibbles, we dangle witness protection
in front of him. Yes, he’d be a free man, but it also means he’d be under
constant surveillance.”

“To keep him out of
trouble?” I say. “Or in the hopes our mysterious organization takes another
crack at recruiting him?”

“Little of column A, little
of column B,” Natalie says.

The Protectorate are the
professionals here, and I trust them completely, and I understand the strategy,
but this feels all wrong. They’re gambling with our safety and manipulating
Archimedes with a false promise of freedom, all to get at the Foreman and his
outfit. Bait and switch, sacrifice play, whatever you want to call it, I don’t
like it.

The rest of the meeting
focuses on what happens if Archimedes keeps his mouth shut and the case goes to
trial, which amounts to: wait until our names are called, answer the questions
concisely and truthfully, and do not say more than we absolutely need to.
Sounds like a fun day.

(Which, we’re warned, could
turn into two or three days, depending on how long it takes us to testify. If that’s
the case, Concorde says, our school’s heat will crap out — purely by
coincidence, of course, wink, wink — forcing the principal to cancel classes. I
suppose I should feel flattered that Concorde is willing to sabotage the
school’s climate control systems for our benefit.)

After the meeting, Natalie
walks us back to the Wonkavator. Sensing our uneasy mood, she says, “I’d take
you out for a round of beers if you weren’t all criminally underage.”

“We appreciate the
sentiment,” I say. “Have things around here always been this Machiavellian?”

“What’s Machiavellian mean?”
Missy says.