Action Figures - Issue One: Secret Origins (25 page)

Now, as for the two uniformed men cradling automatic weapons...

“Identification,” one of them says. Nemo flashes a laminated ID card, to the guard’s satisfaction. “Sorry, Mr. Nemo, I didn’t—”

“Didn’t recognize me, yes, I know,” Nemo says with a whiff of annoyance. He steps up to a pair of sliding doors, stands there for a moment. The doors part. “This will be your new office.”

Office
, Archimedes decides, is not the right word for the room beyond, but he has no better label. The men and women sitting at a bank of a half-dozen computer terminals pause in their labors as Nemo and Archimedes enter. The terminals form a wide semi-circle
around a large, well-padded chair that faces a wall of monitors, each screen as large as a high-end hi-def television.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” Nemo says, “this is Archimedes, our new search engine.”

“Search engine?”

“Not the most impressive of job titles, I admit, but accurate. These people,” Nemo says with a sweep of his hand, “will process the data you collect—scrub it, categorize it, forward it to the most appropriate division of our little operation...”

“Little?” Archimedes laughs. “This is not a
little
operation, Mr. Nemo. I don’t need to be jacked into the ‘net to know this room alone cost someone a small fortune.”

“True enough. But it’s not part of your job to worry about how big we are or how we spend our money or even why we do anything we do. We say jump? You jump, as high as we tell you, in the direction we tell you.”

“I’ve decided,” Archimedes says, “that I don’t like you very much.”

“If you dislike me,” Nemo says, “you’ll hate your boss.”

“I’m impressed,” says the man introduced to Archimedes as Dr. Cane, currently the sole occupant of a medical bay that puts the best emergency rooms in the country to shame. “It’s crude, of course, but to cobble together a functional neural interface like this,” he says, turning over in his hand the piece of improvised technology.

“I’m even more impressed you didn’t paralyze
yourself inserting it,” Nemo says.

“You can show your appreciation by giving it back to me,” Archimedes says.

“Oh, no no. We can do much better than this,” Cane says, patting a heavy case on the counter. He pops the latches and presents to Archimedes a metal appliance shaped like an inverted T. He wiggles it to display its flexibility, flips it over to show Archimedes a cable jack. “This interface sits on the back of your head and neck. The inner surface is covered with a superconductive neuroskin—no need to stab at your spinal column with a sharpened wire. We’ll of course have to shave your head to get the best connection.”

“Once it’s attached and synched to your brain,” Nemo says, “you’ll be able to access any wirelessenabled computer or device within range, although you’ll be hardwired into our network for your work with us. Better data transfer rates, you understand.”

“I understand it better than you,” Archimedes says.

“And that’s one of the few things you do understand better than him.”

“Good afternoon, sir,” Nemo and Cane say in unison to the man in black. His uniform is vaguely military, the helmet that covers his head suggests a cutting edge gas mask.

“Any problems getting him out?” the man says. Two eyes of smoked black glass scan Archimedes head to toe.

“None,” Nemo says. “No one gave the paperwork a second glance.”

“Good.”

“My mysterious employer,” Archimedes says.

“Your boss,” the man clarifies. “If you need to call me anything, I’m the Foreman. Or
sir
. I’m in charge of this specific facility. I get my orders from my boss, you get yours from me.”

“And your boss would be...?”

“None of your business.”

“If I’m going to work for you,” Archimedes says, “I want to know exactly who is in charge.”

The Foreman’s fingers dig into the soft flesh on either side of Archimede’s windpipe.

“There’s no
if
here, friend. You already signed on the dotted line, and that means one thing: you belong to me, now and forever,” the Foreman says, ignoring the desperate gasps for breath, the string of saliva oozing onto his glove. “You’re my solider, just like Mr. Nemo and the good doctor here and every soul in this building, and that means you follow my orders, to the letter, without question. If you ever cross me? I will personally kill you, feed your body into a blast furnace, and flush your ashes down the toilet. Are we clear?”

Archimedes manages a nod, which wins him back his ability to breathe.

“Good. And the next time you feel compelled to challenge me, I suggest you remind yourself that you wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t hacked our network and stolen our property.”

“On that note, sir,” Nemo says.

“I haven’t forgotten. Cane, how soon can you get him up and running?”

“Let’s see, total prep time and preliminary attachment should take no more than an hour,” Cane says, thinking aloud, “another hour or two for the graft to take, another hour to calibrate the interface, and if
we run the diagnostics and conduct test runs immediately, we could have him ready for field action before midnight, conservatively speaking.”

“I’m feeling charitable,” the Foreman says. “Take care of all the prep now and we’ll give our new asset time for a decent night’s sleep.”

“How very generous of you,” Archimedes says.

“It’s not compassion, it’s practicality. I need you well-rested for your preliminary trials and at peak operating capacity by the weekend for your first job with us.”

“And that would be?” Archimedes asks against his better judgment.

“You’re going to help us get our stuff back.”

TWENTY-FOUR

When you’re a teenager, opportunities for fun on Halloween become annoyingly limited. As a kid you dress up and go trick-or-treating. As an adult you dress up and have a house party. Teenagers? Too old for begging for candy, too young to have a party (that doesn’t come with a high risk of getting busted by someone’s parents or the police), and opportunities to dress up are few, far between, and often discouraged.

For example: our grand plan to Simpson-ize ourselves for the day? As it turns out, last year the school passed a new rule banning costumes because they “distracted other students and interfered with the learning environment.” I have the funniest suspicion that Matt had something to do with that rule.

Determined to compensate for a mirthless day, we head to Matt’s place after school for an evening of scary movies.

“Plenty to choose from. I own all the greats,” Matt boasts. “What’s our theme tonight? Slasher flicks? Classic Universal monsters? Ghost stories?”

“Godzilla movies!” Missy says. “Because they’re fun and full of monsters but not scary monsters because
I don’t like scary movies.”

“That works. Right, in honor of Missy’s heritage, tonight shall feature an evening of Japan’s greatest contribution to modern cinema. What do we want to throw in first? I have them all.”

Quelle surprise
.

“Ooh! The one with Matthew Broderick!”

Matt winces like someone kneed him in the groin. “Really?”

“No, I’m messing with you,” Missy chirps. “That one sucks. Put in
King Kong vs. Godzilla
! I want to see Godzilla fight a monkey!”

We cram together on the couch and begin the rubbery monster slug-festival. We make it through
King Kong vs. Godzilla
,
Mothra vs. Godzilla
,
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster
, (yes, that is a real movie), and halfway through the outrageously named
Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
before we start to lose steam and decide to call it a night.

It’s 10:29 PM when I get home, thirty-one minutes ahead of my Friday/weekend night curfew, and Mom is still up, reading on the couch. There’s nothing unusual about this, honestly, but in light of her recent hyper-over-protectiveness it rubs me every wrong way possible.

We trade pleasantries, the exchange forced and perfunctory: she asks me what we did tonight, I tell her, she asks if we had fun, I say yes and announce I’m off to bed, she says good-night and I love you, I say goodnight and I love you. She fakes interest, I fake civility, and we pretend there’s no lingering tension between us.

So much for going to bed in a good mood.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow getting off on a happy note.

Archimedes automatically reaches for the clock on his nightstand, slaps it, but the screeching alarm does not stop. Right. No snooze bar. No controls at all, not that he can access. The alarm won’t turn off until his feet touch the floor.

He swings his legs out of bed and stands. The alarm falls silent. The lights in his modest apartment pop on with the suddenness of a flashbulb. Archimedes turns on the television and flips channels aimlessly. He has no real interest in any particular program, but he takes satisfaction in the fact that the control is all his—one of the precious few things over which he does have control. In six steps he crosses his quarters, passing out of the bedroom area, through the living room area, and into the kitchen area. Two steps to the right and he’d be in the bathroom, the only fully segregated section of his apartment.

An artificial voice fills the room. “Archimedes. Report to your office at oh-eight-hundred hours.”

His office. His cell away from his cell, they mean.

He showers, he has a cup of coffee and half an English muffin, he wastes fifteen minutes flipping channels for the sake of it, and at two minutes after eight, he arrives at his so-called office. The Foreman is waiting for him.

“You’re late,” he says.

“What are you going to do?” Archimedes says. “Fire me?”

“You’re rather dense for someone who prides
himself on his intelligence. Trust is a privilege, not a right, and you haven’t earned any yet. Showing up late will not improve your station.”

“Something tells me no amount of good will would be enough to allow me to leave this complex.”

“You’re a valuable asset,” the Foreman says by way of a confirmation.

“I’m a human being.”

“Debatable.”

“My origins aside, I do have the same wants and needs as you do. And the same distaste for captivity. I was told I would have my freedom.”

“Freedom is a relative concept.” The Foreman checks his watch. “We are now four minutes behind schedule. If we make it to five, I’ll see to it your television gets nothing but C-SPAN, the Home Shopping Network, and Telemundo.

“...No need to be cruel.”

Archimedes’ support staff offers polite greetings as they prep their living search engine, plugging into his headset, now a permanent part of him, a cable as thick as a drinking straw, capable of transmitting an unheard of one hundred fifty terabits of data per second. He eases back into his seat and the wall of monitors comes to life, each screen displaying a test pattern.

“And what exotic locale are we visiting today?” Archimedes says.

“You’ll love it,” the Foreman says. “Today, we reclaim what is rightfully ours.”

“The Thrashers.”

“Exactly.”

“I thought your people had already attempted remote access.”

“Attempted and failed, which means the suits’ communications suites have been disabled, which means we’re moving on to plan B.”

“And plan B is...?”

“We have a team of pilots standing by. You’re going to hack the Protectorate’s systems to ensure that our transport has a clear path to their headquarters, at which point our escort will take care of any obstacles—meaning any members of the Protectorate unfortunate enough to be working the weekend shift.”

“Escort?”

A shadow falls over Archimedes. He cranes his head to view the source and suppresses a gasp.

“That would be me,” Manticore says.

My plan to indulge in the time-honored tradition among teenagers of sleeping until noontime on a Saturday is foiled by my cell phone going off at eight in the morning (also known as too frickin’ early for a Saturday). It’s coming up as UNKNOWN CALLER, and I don’t recognize the number.

“If this is a wrong number, I swear I’m going to find a way to punch you over the phone.”

“Carrie?”

“What?”

“This is Concorde.”

I would have preferred a wrong number.“Hello,” I say coolly.

“I want to see you and the others at HQ today.”

“What? But it’s Saturday!”

“Which means you don’t have school,” he says unsympathetically, “which means there’s no reason we can’t finish debriefing you. Be at the office at ten sharp
Miss Hannaford is off today so Nina Nitro will let you in.”

He hangs up without waiting for my response, which I’d planned to deliver in the form of a carefully worded F-bomb. I’m tempted to say screw it, I’m not going, I have a life (unlike him, evidently), but then I remember I’m trying to run damage control on my reputation.

Sigh. To Protectorate HQ it is, then.

While getting dressed I make a round of calls to the others, who are A) equally asleep and B) equally unhappy about wasting a perfectly good Saturday sitting in a room while Mindforce asks questions and Concorde showers us with contempt.

Mom isn’t up yet so I get to slip out of the house without needing to file a flight plan. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Once Sara shows up, we hike into town and make a quick detour to the Coffee Experience for a much-needed pick-me-up.

“I’m sorry about this,” I say.

“It’s not your fault you-know-who is acting like such a jerk,” Sara says. You-know-who? Oh, right, we’re in public now. Fortunately, as women, speaking in code is second nature.

“It kind of is. If I hadn’t blown up at him...”

“You had every right to. Man’s a control freak. Only reason he grounded you is because he could.”

“I’m not arguing that, I’m just saying it’s my fault we have to waste the day sitting in a room being interrogated-slash-patronized by his royal majesty Lord Helmet-Head the First.”

The woman ahead of us in line turns and peers
at us through a pair of sunglasses. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” she says, “but are you Carrie and Sara?”