Fallout (Lois Lane) (8 page)

“We’re just recruiting,” one of them said.

“But we have an opening for our next kill.”

“You look like you’d be a good one, elf.”

“I am not an elf,” I said, standing my ground. “I’m a reporter.”

Maybe it wasn’t the thing to do. Rifles lifted around me. And, yes, I recognized what kinds of guns they were, all of them military grade and designed to kill.

Anavi took a few steps toward the squadron and said, “Don’t. She’s with me.”

But that was the wrong thing to say too, because it signaled the end of nonviolent recruitment mode. Half the Warheads’ guns swung around to point at Anavi, while the rest stayed trained on me. A chorus of low laughter was next. Then someone said, “I don’t think you want to be doing this. Any of it.”

SmallvilleGuy, obviously. He had jumped on top of the downed troll, so he stood higher than the rest of us. I wanted to tell him to get down from there, to ask what he thought he was doing, to tell him they might hurt him . . .

But I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of showing any worry.

“Don’t bother. I’m fine, and so’s Anavi,” I said.

One of the Warheads decided that was the last straw. Or maybe he just had an itchy trigger finger.

As the bullet flew toward Anavi, she said to me, “Hope you got what you needed.” And then she
poof
ed right out of existence.

She’d said she would turn off her holoset if things got too intense. So she had.

I tried to reground myself, find my body, in prep to do the same. But it was taking a moment, especially because I was still focused on SmallvilleGuy, and the fact that half the Warheads were heading toward him.

He smiled at them. “You guys give teamwork a bad name. And I heard you don’t know when to quit, either.”

Before they could shoot, a spray of red and green beams emanated from SmallvilleGuy’s eyes through the glasses his character wore. His head moved in slow motion from side to side, the lasers swiveling as he did, knocking all the weapons to the ground in one pass. Some of them fell into separate pieces, even.

“Lo, get out of here,” SmallvilleGuy said when the beams faded. “I’ll meet you after.”

A Warhead spoke up. “Friendly aliens aren’t supposed to have laser vision.”

But another one said, “Good thing . . .”

And another, “. . . we have lots of extra firepower.”

Before I could figure out what they meant by that, my shoulder exploded in white-hot pain.

CHAPTER 9

The sharp flare of pain knocked me back
into being able to tell the difference between my in-game form and real-world body. I watched as SmallvilleGuy leaped high into the air again, in a probably doomed attempt to avoid a hail of bullets. At the same time, I lifted my actual hand and switched off the holoset.

I put my hand to my shoulder, which smarted with the phantom pain. When that faded, I laid it over my pounding heart and looked around at the quiet safety of my not-yet-familiar room.

Convincing myself it
was
safe took me a little while. How long, I couldn’t have said.

Devin’s cautionary echo of the manufacturer warning rang in my ears, and I was breathing hard. But eventually my racing heartbeat began to return to normal. The bed beneath me felt solid again, the world real again, and in the real world . . .

SmallvilleGuy must be freaking out.
Assuming he made it out okay.

I was at my desk in a few shaky breaths, opening up my laptop and typing in the passwords. The moment I got into the chat screen, I saw his name. He pinged me with a message, and I sank into my chair. With something like relief, but I wouldn’t have called it that.

Not exactly.

SmallvilleGuy:
Are you all right?

I could have run a marathon now that I’d recovered, adrenaline surging through me.

SkepticGirl1:
No. I’m not.

SmallvilleGuy:
Do you feel disoriented? Pulling yourself out of the game like that can be dangerous, especially when you’re hurt. Maybe I should call and wake up your parents.

My fingers were as shaky as my breath. But being hurt wasn’t why. No one was calling anyone and definitely not my parents.

And what if
he
was hurt? I wouldn’t have a clue who to tell or anyone to call.

SkepticGirl1:
Physically, I’m fine. Are you?

SmallvilleGuy:
Fine, like you.

The shakiness in my fingers transformed. They continued to tremble, but the cause shifted. It no longer came from feeling like I’d been shot and then tossed out of an airplane without a parachute.

SkepticGirl1:
I am not fine.

SkepticGirl1:
I am too angry to be fine. If the Warheads think they’re getting away with whatever they’re up to, they have another thing coming.

SmallvilleGuy:
Lois . . . Don’t do anything rash.

I almost typed back
Rash is my middle name
, but that would only worry him. Tonight’s reminder that if he
had
needed my help in the game or outside it, I would have been powerless to do anything about it was not welcome. It wasn’t like I could travel to Smallville and go around to all the farms trying to see which cute little calf answered to Nellie Bly. I wanted to be the kind of friend who was always there when needed, who always had the other person’s back—and if I was being honest, I especially wanted to always have his.

I balled my fingers into frustrated fists, and then unclenched them. Tradition was tradition. I would end tonight the same way as usual, before I said something that would embarrass me later.

SkepticGirl1:
You going to tell me who you are?

I waited.

The chat window told me that he was typing, then typing some more. I sighed.

SkepticGirl1:
It’s okay. Chat with you tomorrow.

I closed the laptop before I could see his next message.

“Good thing it wasn’t a first date,” I said quietly.

Because, if it had been, it would have been a complete and epic disaster.

He protected you. You wanted to protect him. Don’t be too mad.

But I was. Just not at him.

I thought I would have trouble sleeping, but once the adrenaline faded, it came easily. For a few hours, anyway.

I woke up in the middle of the night from a bad dream featuring a circle of black-clad commandos who were pointing weapons at me as I lay prone on the ground.

But it wasn’t the dream threat that worried me. I turned over, clutching a pillow against my stomach, obsessing over the abrupt way I’d left the chat with SmallvilleGuy. I shouldn’t have shut the conversation down like that on him, angry and frustrated or not.

But I understood something suddenly. It hit me like a lightning strike, and I sat up in bed. I realized
why
I should have stuck it out, talked about what was bothering me with him. Why I was so sure that he would know exactly what I meant about never wanting to let someone else down.

The two of us were alike. We wouldn’t stand by and watch, not when we could act instead.

*

But I was still angry the next morning, stalking through the halls on the way to second period. I wouldn’t feel better until I got back at the jerky Warheads and figured out what they were up to and why they could do the odd things they could outside the game.

And until I helped Anavi like I’d promised. That was priority one.

Devin was waiting when I got to class, and had saved me a seat again. “How did it go last night?” he asked.

After considering several responses, I finally went with, “Doesn’t his highness get a full report from the
Daily Dragon Planet
or something when the cock croweth in the Kingdom of Devin?”

“It’s the Realm of Ye Old Troy,” he said, studying the keyboard in front of him. “You should’ve let me go in with you.”

“You do have a very nice castle. But we made it out without too much trouble.”

Anavi walked into the classroom, and I immediately regretted what I had said. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles. She came directly to us, taking the seat beside me.

“I’m sorry I just left you there.” Her hands were balled in her lap. “I shouldn’t have.”

“You did exactly what you said you would. I was hoping you got out without any pain or problems. What’s wrong?”

Anavi was subdued. “It’s not the game.” She gave her head a little shake, like there was water in her ears.

Or bad guys in her head.
They clearly weren’t giving up. “They’re bothering you again here?” I asked.

Anavi nodded absently and turned, her eyes locking on the door seconds before the Warheads came through it.

“It’s getting worse,” she said.

She turned back around and stared down at her hands, twisting them together on the tabletop. I wished I had her grenade belt or SmallvilleGuy’s laser eyebeams to direct at the smirking Warheads.

They arrayed themselves at workstations along the other side of the table from me and Devin and Anavi, sitting down at the same time, like they were one person. Then they started their taunts, putting some sing-song into them.

“Hope no one’s got . . .”

“. . . heartburn.”

“Or was it the shoulder?”

“We figured out . . .”

“. . . that Anavi’s only got one friend.”

“Besides us.”

“We’d be much better friends, Anavi.”

“We can keep
her
from bothering
you
.”

I didn’t speak right away. Mostly, in truth, because I didn’t want to feel that mental shove again. I didn’t want the distraction of it. I knew that they could do things outside the game, too. The problem was, I wasn’t sure what the limits were. I didn’t know anything about the how, or how much. Not even why they were able to.

Project Hydra must be the key.

“Stop.” The word slipped out from Anavi.

“You know . . .”

“. . . how to make it stop . . .”

“. . . it would be easy . . .”

“. . . just as easy as it is for us to never stop.”

I didn’t have a way to go on the attack at this particular second, but I had a story. A story it was almost time to tell.

“Save the threats for someone who’s scared of you,” I said.

I put a hand on Anavi’s arm and nodded at her, and she tried to nod back. But it was weak.

Definitely almost time to tell the story.

I stood, hoping Anavi would do the same.

“What are we doing?” Anavi asked, but she didn’t fight, climbing to her feet when I tugged on her arm.

“Getting you out of here for now,” I said.

Devin was frowning at the Warheads. “Go. I’ll handle the teacher,” he said.

“You’re a prince, King,” I told him under my breath.

I was relieved, and even more worried, when Anavi let me lead her out of the classroom doors without a single big-ticket vocabulary word of protest about risking her scholarship. Her eyes were nearly shut.

I steered her carefully, but quickly, up the hall. Once we were several classrooms away, Anavi’s state changed, but it wasn’t so much an improvement. She . . . wilted. Like a delicate flower in burning hot desert sun.

With those dark circles around her eyes, she looked exhausted. “I don’t want my consciousness to be erased. But they said it would be easy to take it. Lois, it
feels
easy.”

I had been guiding us in the direction of the cafeteria, gambling that it would be empty. I was right.

The Warheads’ usual table was the closest to the door. She wouldn’t want to sit there even with it vacant, so I kept going until we reached the next one. I eased Anavi into a chair, and then sat down beside her.

“In the game last night,” I started, trying to decide on the most important answers I needed, “were they able to get in your head?”

Anavi hesitated. “It wasn’t like it is out here. But . . . something is changing. It was different. Here, I can feel them pushing and pulling, I can almost hear their voices in my mind. They’re getting clearer, pulling me closer, overtaking my own voice.”

She paused, embarrassed, like she couldn’t believe she’d said that out loud.

“I believe you. You can trust me.”

“There were whispers last night. When I was in combat with the bridge troll, I was too busy to notice, but once that concluded . . . You know that sense of disconnection there is when you’re inside the game? As if you’ve been split in two, cleaved, but the mind is the part that matters now and it has its own sense and sensation?”

I wouldn’t have put it exactly that way, but then I didn’t have Anavi’s way with language.

“It feels more real inside than outside while you’re there,” I said.

“The only way I can explain it is, last night, you heard and saw them in the game, but I also heard them outside it. Whispers in my ears outside too, after I departed, like a . . . a strange hummed tune, almost.” Anavi waited, but so did I. I didn’t quite understand yet. She continued, “They are bringing together their talents within and without. They are strengthening, making me one of them. It would be easy to submit. To be assimilated. In there and out here. I do not know if I can resist.”

Light spilled in through the long windows at the far end of the cafeteria, and from the kitchen there were the sounds of that day’s sad lunch being made.

“You’re stronger than you think,” I said.

“Maybe,” Anavi said, and I could see she was only half convinced. Which was better than zero convinced, but not ideal.

I opened my mouth intending to reassure her, but before I said a word the PA speaker beside the cafeteria door crackled to life. Ronda’s crisp voice came over it, saying, “Lois Lane, report to Principal Butler’s office. Lois Lane, to Principal Butler’s office, immediately.”

CHAPTER 10

When the announcement ended,
Anavi was shaking her head. “You don’t have to put yourself in further jeopardy on my behalf.”

“Please,” I said. “They shot me in the shoulder. Now I’d do it just because.”
Also, just because there’s more going on here
. “Stay here and wait out comp sci. Avoid the jerk squad until I can find you.”

I’d intended to approach Principal Butler again today, so in some ways, this was convenient. Despite how weirdly dismissive he’d been before, I believed confronting him now would box him in, make him take action against the Warheads and protect Anavi.

Which would mean my first story for the
Scoop
would be slightly less awesome, as the school administration wouldn’t be completely inept in it. But it would also mean the plan—my plan for Metropolis—wasn’t completely scrapped, either.

Being good did not come easy for me.

But I couldn’t regret anything I was doing. This
was
a story, an important one, with a girl’s mind in the balance, and I would tell it.

Still. Rash might be my middle name, but I’d promised my dad—and myself—that I’d
try
to be different here. No need to get into trouble Dad would hear about, something that might make him change his mind about the
Scoop
. No need to engage in
Worlds War Three
against General Lane. Not yet.

“Besides,” I said, “I need to see Brown-nose Butler to get his official statement for my story.” I got up, ready to go do just that.

“You might want to refrain from using that particular name with him.”

Anavi had tried to make a joke, despite her wan face and dark-circled eyes. She gnawed at her bottom lip.

Something was still bugging her, even though she was safe here in cafeteria-land for the moment.

I hesitated. “What is it?”

“You’re not planning to mention me by name in the article, correct?” Anavi asked, with a hint of discomfort.

I inhaled sharply. The question stung.

After what we’d been through together in the last twenty-four hours . . . I wanted to be trusted. I
was
trustworthy. But you had to know people to trust them, and I hardly ever got to know anyone because of how often we moved. It wasn’t like I thought Anavi and I were close already, but I’d believed her when no one else would. I not only wanted to help her, but I liked and even admired her, not just for the mystifying gift she had at spelling, but the way she’d felled that troll. The way she was fighting to hold on to herself.

But she didn’t trust me.

SmallvilleGuy trusts you.

Yeah, and he probably also thinks I’m ticked off at him because of the way I signed off last night.

I sighed. “Look, I made you a promise. I’m helping you. Worry about staying away from the Warheads, but don’t worry about my end of the deal. This will all be over soon enough.”

The PA crackled and I was summoned again. Time to face the principal’s obnoxiousness.

“Lois, that’s not what I intended,” Anavi stopped me. “I . . . I
want
you to use my name. It will lend more credence to the story. And I thank you.”

I nodded, not quite able to speak. I’d misunderstood. She
was
trusting me.

As I left, I let the cafeteria door bang shut behind me, once again on a mission. There was no one in the empty hallway to notice the noise. I could not under any circumstances—whether it was attack by brain-stealing jerks or troll-pocalypse—fail Anavi.

I didn’t meet a soul until I arrived outside the office. When I was a few steps away from the door, it opened and who should come out but the one and only James the Third.

James the Third just happened to be in the principal’s office when I was called to it? Uh-huh
.

What if he’d ratted out the way we hacked into the school system to take a look at the Warheads’ schedules? I didn’t like silver spoon guy, but would he
do
something that vile? Betray his fellow staffers, even Devin who’d told me to cut him some slack? And, if he had told, could he prove it?

His expression was
almost
unreadable, but not quite. What I saw there was a hint of apology.

“What did you do, the Third?” I asked as I passed him.

He held the door, always with the polite manners. He said, “Nothing, but be careful with—”

But his suggestion was cut short by the appearance of Principal Butler. An oily smile oozed across his face. “Ms. Lane, it’s about time you showed up. Ronda, when did you call for her, again?”

“Ten minutes ago, sir,” she answered. Her voice squeaked on the final word.

Sometimes a first impression was wrong. Most of the time, it wasn’t. I remembered just how much I had disliked Butler the other morning. By now, if anything, that amount had doubled. He might pretend to be nice, but you could always tell what kind of boss someone was by how their assistant acted around them. He had poor Ronda walking on eggshells, which must have been uncomfortable in high heels.

“See you at the office, old chum,” I said to James, “and we’ll catch up on tricks.”

I said it so I wasn’t hopping to Butler’s command,
and
so he’d know that James and I worked together. If he didn’t already.

James would also get the message that I wouldn’t let it go if he’d played the part of rat. Bonus.

Gratifyingly, the principal’s disapproval—as evidenced by the disappearance of his fake smile—meant I scored a direct hit by not hurrying. I sauntered toward him, taking my sweet, sweet time.

“Funny, it doesn’t take ten minutes to get here from anywhere in the building,” he said as I neared. “Of course, since you decided to cut class this morning, maybe you weren’t
in
the building.”

So much for this place being different
. I’d forgotten about the plan again, in the moment.

But I hadn’t even done anything wrong. My story hadn’t run yet.

The story. That’s why you’re here. Anavi needs your help.

I followed him up the hallway and into his over-decorated office. Taking a seat opposite the desk, I removed my notepad from my messenger bag, put it on my lap and clicked my pen. I looked up at Butler, who sat behind a big oak desk.

“You’re not here to take dictation,” he said.

“Good,” I countered, “because I don’t do that. I did want to ask you a few questions, though.”

He didn’t respond, and so I made a closer study of his décor to see what I could see.

Predictable. Everything reflected a false sort of opulence. He must spend a lot of money on those pricey suits. There were scrollwork appliqués on the wood paneling, and his desk was varnished to a high gloss. The shelves behind it were filled with leather books, spines perfect and uncracked, meaning they might or might not have been empty inside and only for show. The paintings were grim hunting scenes with lean hounds and fleeing foxes and gentlemen in puffy pants carrying long rifles. In other words, more like some estate in England than the city around us.

“You hunt foxes?” I asked, skeptical.

His way-too-high-backed chair creaked as he leaned back in it. “That’s what you wanted to ask me?”

He was turning on the charm again.

“No, actually.” I might as well go all in, shake his confidence by being blunt, if I wanted to get a reaction. “I wanted to talk to you about bullying.”

Two well-groomed silver eyebrows shot up at that. “You’re not still fixated on those claims you heard the other morning, are you? They’re baseless.”

“You
are
familiar with a group of students known as the Warheads, aren’t you? You said as much to Anavi the other day.”

He steepled his fingers. He probably got weekly manicures.

“I make it my business to know what our students are up to. Especially our brightest, which the Warheads are among. I know that you took pains to be transferred into their computer class, despite not having any of the prerequisites. Something Ronda should not have allowed. I also know that despite this great desire to be in the class, you skipped out this morning and took another of our best and brightest with you. Anavi Singh has never cut class in her life.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” I scribbled some nonsense in my notebook, so it would look like I was writing that down. When I finished, the amusement on his face was like grit in my shoe. “But you
would
agree that bullying isn’t something the school tolerates?”

I was giving him an out, even though I didn’t want to anymore.

I waited, as if poised to take down the answer. All he had to say was that of course the school frowned on it, of course he’d intervene.

“The world is a harsh place,” Principal Butler said instead. “Our job is to prepare you to take part in it. We don’t baby our students here. Real bullying is much rarer than these news reports make it out to be. Handling uncomfortable situations is a good life skill. Anavi is perfectly capable.”

So much for him taking the out I’d offered.

“You’re really saying that bullying builds character? What would you say if it was the Warheads being targeted, instead of Anavi?”

“I’d say the same thing: handle it on your own.” Principal Butler’s fingers made a dome on top of the leatherbound notebook dead center on his desk. “Lois, we got off on the wrong foot. Your dad is a decorated war hero. And Perry White . . . saw something in you, after all. He’s an important person in this city. I want to make sure you settle in here successfully. I’ll be transferring you
out
of computer science, and into phys ed. To be frank, I believe you need an outlet for all that excess energy.”

Anything
but the horrors of P.E. Volleyball, locker rooms, polyester gym shorts. Oh, he was low.

“But—”

“But you’re welcome. The other thing you’re going to do is leave the Warheads alone. They are good students, promising minds, which we support. They need room to blossom.”

“Like mushroom clouds, maybe,” I muttered.

Being kicked out of that class wasn’t a big deal, since I hadn’t wanted to stay in it anyway. And P.E. would rue the day Lois Lane was invited into its sweaty nightmare.

“I do have one more question,” I said. “Well, two. The first is what was James the Third doing here?”

“Not that it’s any of your business.” Butler shifted in his throne. “But his father was a friend. I like to check in, make sure the kid’s doing all right these days.”

Figured they’d be besties, what with the power and the criminal proclivities of ex-Mayor James Jr.

“And there’s one more.” I gripped my pen harder and stared at him. I didn’t want to miss any part of his reaction.

“Shoot,” he said, pleased with our little chat. He probably assumed he’d set me straight.

“About Project Hydra . . . What’s that? Why does it preempt the Warheads’ afternoon class work? I hear they leave every day after lunch. Is that why you’re protecting them despite clear allegations of bullying? I’ve witnessed it, by the way. In the game they play
and
in the halls of
your
school.”

He was silent for a long moment, and then he pushed back from the desk.

“That’s no business of yours. Nothing to do with the Warheads is, as I’ve made clear.”

When I got up, assuming he was dismissing me, he said, “Just a second,” and left.

Left me right there in his office. All alone, with no one around.

And he didn’t return right away.

I got up, peeked out the door. He wasn’t in the hall, but I could hear him talking to someone out front—presumably poor Ronda—in barking-orders mode. I’d flustered him enough that he’d dropped his cheap-satin-disguised-as-smooth-silk veneer.

I scurried over to his desk and poked around the contents. Beside his giant dinosaur of a computer was a small faux leather stand holding post-its. Because he wouldn’t want anyone to think his post-its weren’t classy.

They didn’t seem to be used, at a glance. But I picked up the pad and flicked through, confirmed they were blank.

I eyed the leather notebook, in its place of pride. Picked it up and flipped through it, as well. Also empty, except . . . I stopped when I reached the final sheet. The only page with writing.

A series of scratched out words ran down it in columns. All at least six characters. All with at least one number and one capital letter.

The last word wasn’t crossed out.

I looked over my shoulder, confirming he wasn’t back yet, and took the top sticky to copy down the last in the list. Which I’d bet a ransom was his password.

You never knew. It might come in handy.

I closed the notebook, scooting it back to the position where I’d found it, and then headed back to my chair. Dropping into it, I reached down to tuck the post-it into my messenger bag, finishing as he returned.

He was still rattled, and he did a double take when he came back in. Like he’d forgotten I was there.

“You’re still here,” he said.

“There’s only one way out of the office, so if you didn’t see me leave . . . ” I smiled innocently. “I wasn’t dismissed. I figured I should wait.”

“You are now. I think we’ve settled the matter of these claims. Baseless. Enjoy gym class.”

He waited by the door, and so I picked up my bag, placing my notebook inside. The yellow of the post-it within winked at me.

“This has been very educational,” I told him, and he motioned for me to head out.

I made it almost to the end of the beige hall, right before it met Ronda’s guard desk area, before I ran smack into a cluster of four Warheads, coming in where I was going out. So my mention of Hydra had gotten them summoned. Interesting.

Not that I could tell if the four of them minded. I stopped, and they glided past me with that same coordinated movement, like they were part of a single-celled organism. The same smirks, the same overlapping whispers, as they headed to Butler’s lair.

“Uh-oh . . .”

“. . . called to the principal’s office . . .”

“She can’t stay out . . .”

“. . . of trouble, can she?”

I flattened myself against the wall to let them pass. Peeking past into the outer office, I saw that the poor assistant Ronda was at her post, but she had her head buried in her arms, not paying attention to anything around her. No doubt Butler had reamed her out for something, or at least been rude about asking for his favorite sociopaths to be brought to him.