Action Figures - Issue One: Secret Origins (22 page)

“Too bad about the power,” I say. Dr. Hamill, with the merest twitch of his eyebrow, asks me why I’m
attempting to engage him in conversation. Apparently, I’m setting a precedent. Or crossing a line.

“You know about that?” he says.

“Missy mentioned it.”

“Mm,” he says. “Have a productive evening.”

“
Arigato, chichi
,” Missy says.

It’s there, for a split-second, as fleeting as a lightning bolt: a slight dip in the corners of Father Hamill’s mouth. Yes, people, he definitely frowned.

Missy remarked a while ago that her parents don’t act like people in love, and that comment comes back to me as the Hamills part ways without a word to or a glance at one another. Each acts like the other isn’t there. I repeat, I wouldn’t wish divorce on Missy, but now I at least understand where she’s coming from.

Once the parental units clear the living room, Missy proclaims with an impish grin, “Dad hates it when I speak Japanese at him.”

“But he’s Japanese,” I say.

“Not by choice.”

The boys show up partway through
A Brief History of the Hamill Family
, a dissertation by Missy Hamill, age fifteen. Missy’s grandparents, Daisuke and Yikiko Mifune of Tokyo, immigrated to America and, wanting their children Seiji and Kenjiro to fit in, pushed them hard to “act American.” Seiji, Missy’s uncle, resisted, but Kenjiro did exactly as told. The Mifunes’ plan worked too well and Kenjiro remade himself as a perfect American, to the point of legally changing his first name to Kenneth and, when he got married, taking Patricia’s last name instead of vice-versa.

“Crime against humanity, you ask me,” Matt says. “Who’d want to ditch a cool last name like
Mifune? You could have been Missy Mifune. You could have told people you were related to Toshiro Mifune.”

“Who?” I say, and Matt looks at me with an increasingly familiar expression, a fine blend of distress, disappointment, and disbelief.

“I’m adding
Seven Samurai
to the long and growing list of movies you’re going to borrow from me.”

The nightly homework jam proceeds as usual, with each of us grumbling about our respective academic roadblocks: we ladies have formed a united front against mathematics (plus, Missy hates Spanish, mostly because it isn’t Japanese, which the school doesn’t offer); Stuart has a grudge against anything under the general umbrella of social studies; and Matt, Matt spreads his apathy in a thin, even layer over every subject (except, I note, science). He doesn’t complain as much as he looks for any excuse to do something more interesting. I’ve noticed that half the time he blows his homework off entirely and punches it out during home room the next morning.

The awkward moment of the night comes when I hit the kitchen for a glass of water and bump into Dr. Hamill, who is waiting for the tea kettle to boil.

“Dr. Hamill,” I say in my most respectful tone.

“Caroline,” he says. “How is the homework coming?”

“It’s coming along. It doesn’t want to but I think we’re slowly but surely beating it into submission.”

He gives me the slightest of nods. Okay, not much for the jokes, this guy.

“Melissa tells me you’re exceptionally intelligent,” he says. The unexpected compliment throws me.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so. I don’t like to brag...”

“You should be proud of your intellect.”

“Oh, I am, don’t get me wrong but, well, you know how it is when you’re the smartest person in the room.”

Dr. Hamill looks at me and his eyebrows arch and his lips purse ever so briefly. I’m not sure, but I think he just agreed with me.

“It’s shameful how our society sees fit to heap scorn on the educated,” he says, flicking the stove off before the kettle can whistle. “People are so quick to praise meaningless feats of physical prowess, reward those willing to play the fool on a television reality show.” He turns to face me full on. “I try to impress this on Melissa. It’s comforting to know at least one of her friends seems to be of a like mind.”

I have no idea how to respond to that. What he said was one part praise, one part expression of hope for his daughter, and one part steaming dump on Matt, Sara, and Stuart.

“Missy has good people in her life,” I say. “They care about her a lot. You should be pleased that she has friends who love her so much. She could do a lot worse.”

“Mm.”

Translation: she could do a lot better. I decide right then that I don’t much care for Dr. Hamill.

“Back to it,” I say, and I leave without ever getting my drink.

TWENTY-ONE

“Mr. Semler?”

Archimedes cannot bring himself to correct the guard. “Yes?”

“Your attorney’s here,” the guard says, his voice thin and tinny through the speaker. “I’m going to take you to the conference room so you can speak to him in private.”

My attorney,
Archimedes thinks bitterly. That fool Fresch, a man who claims to be an ally, a friend. No such thing, not for him. He rises from his cot and a rueful laugh slips out. All he wanted was to be part of the real world. Now he finds himself more alone, more isolated, than he ever was as an elaborate piece of software “living” in a virtual reality.

The cell door pops open with a soft hiss and slides into a recess in the wall. “What’s funny?” the guard asks.

“Nothing,” Archimedes says. “Nothing at all.”

The officer is gentle, respectful as he guides Archimedes out of the cell and down a sterile white corridor. Byrne Penitentiary and Detention Center, he quickly discovered, is not dissimilar to the Protect
orate’s detention area in terms of aesthetics, but is immeasurably more secure. The guards are armed and armored, every inch of space is monitored by cameras and complex sensor arrays, and every door is sealed tight by foolproof electronic locks that scan handprints and retinal patterns and require a voice ID confirmation—and these are only the security measures he can see. Who knows what might be hiding in the ceiling, the walls, the floors to stop an escapee dead in his tracks, perhaps literally.

The guard deposits Archimedes in a small room with two chairs and a table, all of which are secured to the floor. The man who greets him is not Fresch but he has the air of a lawyer, complete with that characteristic smugness, and yet—and yet, he is so unremarkable that, were anyone to press Archimedes for a description, he would be unable to say anything more useful than
He was a middle-aged white man with dark hair.

The man waits until the guard leaves. “Hello, Archimedes,” he says. “Mr. Fresch has been removed from your case. I’m representing you now. You and a few other new arrivals, actually, but for the present I’m interested in you and you alone. Sit, please.”

“I’ll stand.”

“Please sit.” The man takes a seat and folds his hands on the tabletop, bringing to Archimedes’ attention the fact he has no briefcase with him. “I don’t want a confrontation. We tried that approach with you already and, well, we all know how that turned out, don’t we? Yes we do.”

Archimedes stiffens, his fists clenching involuntarily.

The man holds up a finger. He takes a cell phone
from his pocket, plays with the touch-screen, and lays the device on the table. “There,” he says. “Now we can speak openly. Should anyone ever review the security system’s records, they’ll discover that there was some sort of mysterious glitch in the audio.”

“Who are you?” Archimedes demands. “Who sent you?”

The man pats the air.
Calm down
, the gesture says. “My employer is very upset with you. It’s bad enough you stole one very expensive battlesuit and let it fall into the Protectorate’s hands, but
five
?” The man shakes his head. “Now, we do appreciate that you didn’t kill the pilots, that was noble of you, but your thievery, I’m afraid, cannot go unaddressed.”

Archimedes rubs the bare back of his neck, his fingers running over a small bump of scar tissue. He feels naked, defenseless.

“Unaddressed,” he says. He swallows hard in preparation for his next question. “Are you here to kill me?”

“If my employer wanted you dead, Manticore would have taken care of that right off the bat—and then we wouldn’t find ourselves in this mess, would we? No we wouldn’t. But, to the point: my employer is very impressed with your,
ah
, unique skills. By all rights you should have never
found
our network, much less hacked it, and yet...” He leaves the thought unfinished. “We could use a man like you. Our organization, that is.”

“You’re offering me a job,” Archimedes says with a nervous titter.

“I’m offering you an opportunity to willingly cooperate with us,” the man says, deadpan. “I want to
be clear on one point: if we can’t tap your potential, it’s in our best interests to ensure that no one else turns you against us. We have people everywhere—well,
almost
everywhere—and if you say the word, I’ll make one phone call and those people will see to it you walk out of here by the weekend. Or you can spend the rest of your life as a prisoner of this facility. Our people can also make sure that happens.”

“...The Protectorate will look for me,” Archimedes says.

The man smiles. “They’ll look,” he says. “They won’t find you. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the minute you leave this building, you will cease to exist.”

At this, Archimedes’ mood takes a bounding step away from terrified and toward cautiously intrigued. “And what do I have to do for you?”

“What you do best,” the man says, spreading his hands expansively. “Explore the virtual world. Seek out knowledge. Acquire information. You wouldn’t have free rein, you understand, you’d go where you were told, but believe me when I say, we plan to send you to some very exciting places.”

“I see. Will you give me some time to think about it?”

“Sorry, no, this is a very limited-time offer—as in, I need an answer now. I hate to rush you, but there have been some recent developments that have forced us to push up a few of our timetables, and we need you on board immediately. So,” the man says. “What do you say?”

Archimedes inhales, tasting flat, re-circulated air that is maintained at an unwavering temperature that is
neither too cool nor too warm. Perfect. Controlled. Artificial.

It tastes like captivity.

“Where do I sign up?” Archimedes says.

My dad’s birthday is today.

Brian Franklin Hauser was born a mere thirty-three years ago today to Henry and Amelia Hauser, formerly of Kingsport, Massachusetts, now of whichever town in Florida old people go to retire (I think it’s called “the entire state of Florida”). Among his greatest achievements: establishing a successful civil engineering firm, memorizing every line of dialog in every James Bond movie ever made and, if I may be so immodest, siring me.

This is his first birthday alone.

A little over one month ago (has it really been only a month?) my mother and I packed the last of our belongings into a moving truck and left the only life I ever knew, which included my dad. As long as I live, the image of him standing on the porch, waving goodbye to me, his face fixed in an I-am-not-going-to-cry-if-it-kills-me grimace will remain forever burned into my mind. Not a day passes when I don’t think about him, and time has not dulled the pain of his absence.

(If I were the kind of girl who dabbled in angsty emo poetry, that would be a solid opening stanza.)

Anyway, like I said, this is his first birthday alone, by which I mean without me. Maybe it’s more accurate to say this is the first time I can’t be with Dad to celebrate his birthday. No ceremonial bequeathing of gifts, no birthday cake that I made with my own two hands, none of that. This year, he gets to open a pack
age mailed to him on my behalf by the good people at
Amazon.com
and an evening phone call.

Paaaaarrr-
tay
.

Hope my game face is up to the task. I don’t want to ruin the mood by getting all weepy, but today has tipped off a major emotional domino effect; remembering Dad’s birthday made me realize Halloween is right around the corner, and after that it’s Thanksgiving, and then it’s on to Christmas, and every one of those holidays is jam-packed with Dad-centric memories...memories I won’t be adding to this year.

Crap, I’m tearing up already. Get it out now, girl.

When Sara shows up to walk with me to school, it takes her all of three seconds to ask what’s wrong. She doesn’t say anything or offer lame advice like most people do; she simply lets me vent, which is what I need. Added bonus: by the time we meet up with the others at school, I can fake a good mood well enough that no one suspects otherwise, which means there’s no repeat performance of my tale of woe. Share your problems once, it’s unburdening. Share them twice or more, it’s whining.

Morning classes keep my mind occupied and prevent a relapse, and I’m feeling remarkably chipper by lunch. In fact, I seem to be the only person not sweating about our after-school obligation.

“Are they going to do anything like hook us up to a lie detector?” Missy says. “I mean, they know we wouldn’t lie to them, don’t they?”

“I doubt they’ll use a lie detector,” I say.

“Nah,” Stuart says. “I bet Mindforce’ll just go in, take a look in our heads, get what he needs and boom
—out.”

“That doesn’t sound much better,” Missy says. “How do I know he won’t accidentally see anything...you know.” She drops into a low whisper. “Naughty.”

“You don’t think naughty thoughts,” Stuart says. “Doesn’t happen.”

“All they’re going to do is interview us, ask us some questions,” I say. “It’s not an interrogation.”

I know this isn’t an interrogation, but man, it sure feels like it.

The interview room is an inoffensive shade of beige, yet it manages to feel oppressive and dark. The only furniture is a table and two chairs, one for me, one for Mindforce. He’s the good cop. Concorde is the bad cop. He stands, arms folded, and I know he’s glowering at me under that helmet.

Mindforce fiddles with a tablet computer. “All right, we’re recording,” he says. He lays the tablet on the table and smiles at me. “Take your time with this, Carrie. We’re interested in getting all the little details, so even if something seems utterly irrelevant...”