The Other Eight (14 page)

“I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

Non Sequitur shook his head slowly and left
the table.

“Totally not twenty-three,” Gracias said.

“I am too!”

“Ambition was a superhero who was active
during most of the eighties and into the early nineties,”
Nonsensica explained. “He was in Chicago, and he was just about the
only hero so far who had any success.”

“What was his power?”

“Oh, it was awesome,” Gracias chimed in. “He
had this gun, right? Except it didn’t fire bullets, or anything
else, really. He used to put in a clip of… What did he call
it?”

“Ambunition,” Chloroplast said.

“Right, right. Ambunition,” Gracias said,
clapping his hands once.

“So good. Great name,” Nonsensica admired
with a knowing nod.

“And when he pulled the trigger, whatever he
needed to do, he had limitless drive to get done. He’d enter this
trance, sort of, and he had one hundred percent focus on whatever
needed doing. He could run faster and longer. He had that
mother-lifting-a-minivan-off-of-her-trapped-child-level strength.
It was great.”

“Shouldn’t he have been called Dedication or
something like that?”

“Then he couldn’t have called it ambunition,”
Nonsensica said flatly. “Besides, the name was perfect, because no
one had more ambition than him. And he inspired others to his
level. He was my idol. He rescued hostages, he solved murders with
the cops, everything.”

“What happened to him?”

“Went out the way all great heroes should. In
battle with a villain as bad as he was good. A guy named Hay Fever.
He had the ability to cause severe sneezing fits in others, as long
as one of these little tokens he made was nearby.”

“That sounds pretty weak as powers go.”

“You should know better than to say something
like that. It all comes down to how you use it. Hay Fever would
sneak one into a bank and cause everybody to sneeze while he just
walked in and walked out with money. They were too busy sneezing to
hit the alarm or try to stop him or anything. Eventually he moved
up to sneaking one into the cockpit of a plane and threatened to
make the whole flight crew sneeze nonstop until the thing crashed.
Ambition managed to track him down, there was an epic battle, but
his clip of ambunition ran dry willing himself not to sneeze, and
finally Hay Fever managed to shoot him. Ambition died, but the
fight stalled Hay Fever long enough for the plane to land and the
police to get close enough to bring him in.”

“Saved all of those lives, got the bad guy,
and went out in a blaze of glory. If I’m gonna go, I want to go
like that,” Gracias said.

“And you don’t find a hero like that by
searching for the best soldier,” Nonsensica said.

“Darn right,” said The Number. “I mean, all
soldiers are heroes. But not all heroes are soldiers. If you want
the best of the best, sometimes you’re going to have to look beyond
the hut-two-three-four stuff.”

“To get
beyond
the hut-two-three-four
stuff, you have to make it
past
the hut-two-three-four
stuff.” The comment came in a commanding, almost robotic four part
harmony courtesy of Omnivox. Despite his seat at the other table,
his voice carried as if it was all around them. “There aren’t three
of you who could cut it as a normal soldier. How do you expect to
cut it as a super-soldier?”

“
You’re
one to talk. I haven’t seen
you put your powers to good use even once,” Nonsensica said. “But
they
are
familiar.”

“He has superior skills,” Primadonna said,
standing up and strutting toward the less successful group. “We
all
are the best at what we do.”

“Listen, missy. If you think you’re a better
dancer, then bring it on,” The Number said, marching up to her.

“Please!” she said, throwing her head back.
“I would not do you the honor of sharing a stage with you. Besides,
you can’t deny that we’re the best. The people running this program
clearly know it.”

“What makes you say that?” Gracias asked.

“They paired all of the
winners
together and all of the
losers
together.”

“Yeah,
we’re
the winners.”

“I’ve got a feeling that’s not what the test
results say,” Third Person said.

“It doesn’t matter how this competition turns
out. You’re all losers,” Chloroplast said.

“You wanna say that to my face!” barked
Hocker, leaping to his feet.

“I just did, you idiot.”

“Hey now, everyone,” FM said, standing. “We
all want the same thing here. Let’s just calm down.”

“Well yeah, we want the same thing. But only
one of these tables is gonna get it,” Retcon said.

“And there’s no taking that fact back,” Undo
added.

“You know, because he’s Undo,” Gracias
whispered to Chloroplast.

“Yeah. I got that,” Chloroplast said.

“We all have as much chance to win this thing
as you do. There’s plenty of time left,” Phosphor said.

“You’re fooling yourself, old man,” Omnivox
said. “Open your eyes. There is no way—”

“Wait… say that again,” Nonsensica said.

“No,” he replied, suddenly with a hunted
expression on his face.

“No,
no,
no,
no
, no,
no,
no!” she declared, musically. “That’s where I know you from. You
were on
America’s Got Talent
. You sang “Bohemian Rhapsody”
by yourself. You lost to some ventriloquist, I think.”

“No way, really? Do the ‘thunderbolt and
lightning’ part!” Gracias said.

“He wasn’t Omnivox, though. He was
Barbershop.”

Omnivox looked uncomfortably around as his
fellow heroic jocks began to subtly distance themselves from
him.

“That was three years ago. I hired a
publicist. I reinvented myself. Intensive training. Barbershop is
dead. I am Omnivox.”

“Doesn’t really ma-tter to me-e-e-e-e!”
Nonsensica taunted.

“None of that makes a difference,” said
Hocker. “This whole contest is over. It is pretty clear none of you
have
real
powers. You’re just a bunch of wannabes with
stupid costumes.”

Nonsensica sprang onto the table. “It’s a
uniform
!”

The tables cleared and the two sets of heroic
hopefuls met in the center of the mess hall, voices raised and
tempers flaring.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Private Summers cried,
rushing into the center of the mess hall and positioning herself
between the groups of heroes. Considering the two heroes closest to
coming to blows were Nonsensica and Hocker, Summers found herself
in the bizarre position of trying to hold apart a man more than
twice her size and a woman even smaller than she was. “Dr. Aiken,
can you lend a hand here?”

“Everyone, please!” he said, standing and
attempting to join his assistant in the center of the group.

Unfortunately, despite Summers’s
intervention, the situation was quickly escalating. A physical
clash seemed inevitable, until one voice rang out clear above the
others.

“Attention!” declared Sergeant Roberts. The
command in his voice, combined with the surprise at his sudden
appearance, was sufficient to quiet the other voices. “You are
training to be soldiers in the United States Army. This behavior
will not be tolerated. You will take your seats, complete your
meals, and retire to your quarters without further incident, or you
will be summarily dismissed from this program. Is that understood?”
There was a murmur of compliance. “I said,
is that
understood
?!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” came the unanimous
reply.

He nodded once, standing firm in the doorway
until the heroes returned to their seats, then departed.

“I’m telling you. Ninja,” Gracias
muttered.

“Nonsensica, Hocker. See me afterward,” Dr.
Aiken said.

“
Ooo.
You got in
trouble
,” Bomb
Sniffer said.

Dr. Aiken,
per his request during the planning phase of the project, had been
given an office on the training grounds. In retrospect he should
have been more specific in his requirements. He’d asked for it to
be “a comfortable space with the feeling of a home, where
discussions can be had privately and trust can be formed.” What he
got was a modular building that had more in common with a shipping
container than a home. It was, however, air-conditioned and had
four cushioned chairs arranged in the center. Private Summers had
taken it upon herself to make some additions that went a long way
to instilling the desired atmosphere of relaxation and ease. These
included (almost inevitably) a single-serving coffee maker, as well
as an assortment of fruits, candies, and cookies. The built-in
lighting was fluorescent, but Summers had managed to requisition a
few incandescent lamps for a less clinical feel.

Following the near-riot that had occurred in
the mess hall, he’d arranged to meet a few of the more troublesome
members of the group here to discuss matters. The first was
Nonsensica. She sat, still in costume, in the seat across from
Aiken, while Summers stood toward the back of the room, steaming
mug in hand. The hero’s arms were crossed, and her head was turned
to the side, lips tight and expression stern.

“Nonsensica,” Dr. Aiken said.

“Yeah,” she said without turning to him.

“Care to address what just happened?”

“You were there. You saw what happened. Let
me tell you, Doc, you let some real jerks slip through the
filter.”

“Part of being a hero is having a strong
will. There were bound to be clashes.”

“Well, then why drag me in here?”

“I’ll be speaking with several of you over
the next few days about this, but I think you’ll agree that you
were one of the key figures in today’s confrontation. Why did you
feel it was necessary to bring up Omnivox’s past, or to nearly come
to blows with Hocker?”

“Because both of them are pretending to be
something they’re not,” she growled, finally turning to him.
“Omnivox acts like he is this mega-warrior, but he’s just a singer
who couldn’t make good with his power on his first try. And Hocker
pretends he’s something more than an über-violent Neanderthal, and
doing a rotten job of it.”

“You all are wearing masks of one kind or
another. Being a superhero requires an element of masquerade.”

“Yeah,
real
masks. Not phony-baloney
metaphorical masks.”

“Mmm. Is it possible you are projecting?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it possible that you took a stand today
because you are insecure about your own ability to live up to the
mask you’ve chosen, and when you saw others faltering, you lashed
out at them out of fear of your own faults?”

“Listen, Doc. This mask is
who I
am
.
Get it? My
name
is Nonsensica. My
job
is fighting crime. I don’t apologize for it, I don’t play a role.
Not anymore. That know-nothing, do-nothing little girl who I
wandered through life as until a few weeks ago was the one wearing
the costume.
This
is me. Now write that in your little book,
because that’s all you’re getting out of me.” She folded her arms
again with a squeak and turned her head.

Dr. Aiken pursed his lips and jotted
something down. At the scratch of the pen, Nonsensica tried to spy
on the page, but the goggles robbed her of any peripheral vision.
She turned her head more and more, then finally gave up and looked
to him.

“Look, you’re not taking points off for all
of this, are you?”

“Points?”

“In the rankings. Because if anyone should be
getting dinged it is Primadonna. She is the
opposite
of a
team player.”

“I don’t think you understand. There are no
points.”

“Bull. There are always points. It wouldn’t
be a competition without points.”

“I assure you, there are no—”

“Dr. Aiken doesn’t get to assign any points,”
commented Summers from the back of the room.

“Ha!” Nonsensica said.

“What?” said the doctor simultaneously.

“There are points, Dr. Aiken,” Summers said.
“Sergeant Roberts has been tallying them since day one, but the
psychological aspect doesn’t have a point value.” She turned to
Nonsensica. “Dr. Aiken is a civilian contractor. They wouldn’t give
him any direct control on military procedures. He’s an adviser and
an observer, not a judge.”

“I knew it!” Nonsensica crowed. “So who’s
winning?”

Summers pulled a fresh cup of coffee from the
machine and blew across the top. “I’m just a private. That’s above
my pay grade.”

“We’ll discuss this later, Private Summers,”
Dr. Aiken said. “And Nonsensica, I hope you’ll treat me more like a
confidant and less like an enemy from this point forward.”

The hero huffed a breath. “Yeah, I guess
you’re all right, Doc.”

“Would you mind answering a few more
questions for me? Primarily about your opinion of some of the other
candidates.”

Nonsensica leaned forward and inspected the
table between them, which was covered with assorted treats. “That
depends. Are those Thin Mints?”

“I believe they are,” said Aiken.

“And have they just been sitting on the table
there all day?”

“Of course not,” Summers said. “They go in
the freezer until the interviews start. Anything less would be
uncivilized.”

Nonsensica grabbed a few of the cookies and
took a bite of one. “Proceed,” she said with her mouth full.

“What are your feelings on Gracias?”

“He’s good. Really dedicated. Excellent
sidekick potential.”

“You don’t find it odd that he’s aspiring to
a secondary role?”

“The world needs good sidekicks. I’m not sold
on the idea that
I
need one, and his theme doesn’t really go
with mine, but if I
was
after a sidekick, I’d much rather
pair up with someone who was excited about it rather than depressed
that he couldn’t make it solo. I think Chloroplast is a fool not to
team up.”