The Other Eight (25 page)

“Let’s go, let’s go!” he hissed desperately
to the rest of his team, knowing full well that the chaos that had
distracted the watch thus far wouldn’t last much longer.

Nonsensica, Phosphor, and Bomb Sniffer filed
inside and pinned themselves to the wall. They were in the narrow
alleyway that ran around three sides of the fort. A call went out
from the top of the wall, and a burst of paintballs whipped by,
barely missing Phosphor. He returned fire by tugging a bundle of
bulbs from his bag and hurling them in a single volley. A second
cluster of shots shattered a few of the bulbs in midair, while the
rest smashed against the wall and the side of the facility. The
broken bulbs left a veritable smokescreen of phosphorescent powder
hanging in the air. He gave the other side the same treatment and
heaved a few more bulbs every few seconds while Non Sequitur fought
with the door.

“They must have padlocked it or something. I
can’t get through,” he said, tugging at the handle and feverishly
trying to activate his ability.

“Fine, plan B,” Nonsensica announced. “Two
bulbs, Phosphor.”

He pressed the makeshift weapons into her
hand. She peeked into the window, whipping them inside and then
diving quickly after them. Two soldiers positioned inside scattered
to avoid the projectiles.

“Mushroom badger! Bagel warn!” she called
out, causing a twitch from each soldier as they tried to raise
their weapons. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to give her time
to squeeze off two shots of her own, forcing the technically
defeated soldiers to reluctantly lower themselves to the ground.
The other heroes climbed through the window.

The inside of the fort was as simple as the
outside—more plain gray cinder-block walls, speckled with the
multicolored dots of prior mock shootouts. They ran down the narrow
corridor directly ahead of them and pinned themselves, two each, to
either wall when they got to another hallway running perpendicular.
Nonsensica leaned out to find that the hallway led into the center
of the facility, which was a sort of indoor obstacle course. The
center of the building was mostly filled with crates and chest-high
walls, laid out similar to an office setting with the crates taking
the place of desks inside cubicles. The pounding of approaching
boots convinced them to roll into the midst of the pretend cubicle
farm and crouch behind a wall.

“Take a whiff, BS. You smell anything?”
Phosphor asked.

Bomb Sniffer breathed deep. “It is so big…”
she said shakily. “It is below us. This place must have a
basement.”

“If this place has a basement, then that’s
where the service rooms would be anyway, and that’s where we’ve got
to get,” he said.

“I see the stairs,” Nonsensica said, peering
over the wall. “The stairwell is on the north wall.” Her eyes
widened, and she ducked down suddenly, paintballs whizzing
overhead. “But we’ve got company. I’ll lay down covering fire, you
guys move. Ready!”

She sprang from behind the cover and fired a
continuous spray of shots toward the soldiers who flooded in. Bomb
Sniffer, not the most athletic member of the team, did her best to
stay low and move fast while Non Sequitur fired a few shots of his
own on the move, and Phosphor continued to hurl bulbs to increase
confusion and decrease visibility. The good news was that, since
the official target was supposed to be the flagpole on the roof,
the basement of the fort shouldn’t have any troops assigned to it.
All they had to do was get into the stairwell. Bomb Sniffer was
first, half falling down the steps as the patter of paintballs
dotted the wall ahead of her. Phosphor and Non Sequitur took up
positions on either side of the stairwell and painted the doorways,
giving Nonsensica a chance to make her own move. She made excellent
use of her light frame, jumping and vaulting over walls and boxes
until she was able to roll through the doorway to the stairwell.
Once she was inside, the team retreated down the stairs and
regrouped, Phosphor keeping his weapon trained on the stairs and
firing a few bursts to make sure any soldier interested in
following would have to think twice.

“Look for the utility room. It is going to be
a door with a real lock on it, not one of these mock doorways,” he
called out.

The others glanced around. The basement was
much less a training ground and much more an actual utility area.
Rather than the half walls and crates, there were poorly lit
hallways lined with pipes and an electrical conduit. Looking up and
down the hall at the base of the stairs revealed no doors at all,
just a long hall with a right-angle turn at both ends.

“That bomb is
definitely
down here. I
think the opposite end of the building,” Bomb Sniffer said after a
deep whiff.

“Okay, we look for that second. First we need
to find the utility room so Phosphor can get us started on phase
2,” Nonsensica said.

“Follow the conduit. It must be leading to a
circuit breaker,” Non Sequitur reasoned.

“Good thinking! Move,” Phosphor decreed.

“Stop!” yelled a soldier at the end of the
hall. The heroes turned and fired, but not before he managed to
squeeze off a shot that struck Bomb Sniffer in the abdomen.

“Damn it!” she cried.

“Go down, BS, we’ll find it,” Nonsensica
said.

Bomb Sniffer nodded. “Remember, far side of
the floor. And make sure you get it. I don’t want to be blown up
for playing dead.”

The trio whisked off down the hall, followed
shortly afterward by soldiers. In what was not the best showing of
sportsmanship, Bomb Sniffer tripped one of them as he went past.
The others reached the corner, and Non Sequitur’s theory proved
accurate. The conduit disappeared into a wall beside a door marked
Main Utility Closet. Nonsensica rattled the knob.

“Locked,” she said. “Do the honors.”

Non Sequitur turned the knob, pulled the door
open, and flicked the lock to the open position.

“We should have called you Locksmith,” she
said.

The stutter of paintball fire echoed through
the hall, prompting the four heroes to pile into the claustrophobic
closet and shut and lock the door. Inside, there was just enough
room for two people, making it horribly cramped for the three of
them. A single lightbulb with a metal cage around it dangled
overhead, and a circuit breaker and a socket panel with a number of
audio and video jacks in it hung on one wall. On another wall was a
bank of switches labeled for gate controls and various security
measures.

“Shame this isn’t one of those control rooms
from the movies with all of the monitors and whatnot. We could have
just flipped thorough the footage and found the bomb that way,” Non
Sequitur said.

“You have the soundtrack and the adapters?”
Phosphor asked.

“Check and check,” Nonsensica said, pulling a
gadget and a cluster of wires from a pouch.

“Okay then, lights out!” He flipped the main
breaker, cutting power to the entire facility and plunging them
instantly into blackness. A moment later the dull yellow glow of a
fluorescent tube lit the little room. “Hold this,” he said, handing
off the lit bulb. “I’ll get phase 2 going.”

“I’d hurry up if I were you,” Non Sequitur
suggested, throwing himself against the door as the soldiers
outside began to thump at it in attempts to break it open.

“Won’t take a moment, so get the safety
equipment on,” he recommended.

#

In the rest of the fort, the opposing team
clamored to deal with the sudden darkness. Flashlights clicked on
and FM, Retcon, Hocker, and Undo were trying to work out a plan of
action from their position on the roof.

“How many are we dealing with?” FM asked.
“How many are inside?”

“At least three, not more than four,” Retcon
said. “Definitely Phosphor and Nonsensica. If they managed to get
in a locked utility room they must have Non… Non Sek… The other non
guy, too. I knew he’d be trouble.”

“Does anyone have the keys to that room?”
Undo asked.

“No, it wasn’t supposed to be part of the
area of engagement,” Retcon replied.

“Okay, well, it is now. Hocker, get down
there and spit a hole through that knob,” Undo said.

“That might hurt somebody,” FM warned.

“Hey, if they are going to throw around
broken glass and bust into off-limits areas, we can play rough,
too. Get on it, Hocker,” Undo decided.

“With pleasure,” said Hocker with a measure
more demented glee than was really appropriate for a training
exercise. He sprinted off, sliding down the ladder for the wall and
disappearing into the facility.

“We’ve got to assume this is a cover for a
second attack somewheres,” Retcon said. He turned to the roof,
where Primadonna and six of the remaining soldiers were standing
guard. “Keep your eyes open, missy! They’ll be making a run for the
flag with at least four of their team!”

“I’ll be ready for them,” she said
primly.

With a whump, the power switched back on.
Lights flicked on one by one, slowly gaining brightness. More
curious was the sound. Public address loudspeakers crackled for a
moment, then broadcast static and the clicking pop of a bad audio
connection.

“The front gate!” came a cry.

The single fully lit searchlight was swiveled
to the front of the courtyard to reveal that the gate controls had
been activated, and the chain link was rattling open.

“Get that dang gate closed!” Retcon
ordered.

The speakers chose that moment to get
themselves sorted out, filling the facility with a thumping drum
machine beat and a repetitive synthesizer chord.

“Earplugs! earpl…” came the hasty order from
Retcon, but it was too late.

Through the opening gate and into the
spotlight stepped The Number. To either side were Chloroplast and
Gracias, each wearing a sound-canceling headset with a
walkie-talkie earphone wire poking up beneath it. The audio began
to swell, now recognizably “Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO. In a wave
centering on The Number, the soldiers in the facility began to
shuffle in time to the music, turning and dancing in place as he
marched to the center of the courtyard. Even the soldiers who had
been struck by paintballs and were thus required to remove
themselves from the war game stood and joined in the dance. Without
the will to dodge or fire back, Gracias and Chloroplast efficiently
fired at least one paintball at each dancer, ensuring that when the
music ended they would be out of the game.

“Does compelling a group of soldiers to dance
against their will count as some sort of a war crime?” Gracias
asked over his radio.

“I genuinely hope so,” Chloroplast said.
“Just keep your eyes peeled for anyone who got in their earplugs in
time. We need to clear this place out.”

“Child’s play for a couple of pros like Team
Green,” Gracias said, shielding his eyes against the glare of the
floodlights.

#

The pounding on the door of the utility room
tapered off as the music playing on the PA system forced the rival
soldiers to shuffle up the stairs and into the dance routine
happening in the courtyard. Cautiously, Phosphor opened the door.
He and the others had donned a similar
noise-canceling/radio-headset combo, allowing them to communicate
without succumbing to musical friendly fire.

“Okay, we’ve got four minutes and twenty-two
seconds from when we hit play,” Phosphor said, hustling down the
now deserted hallway.

“We shouldn’t need it, right? We’ve got it
narrowed down to half of the building, there’s no one standing in
our way, and we’ve got a guy who can automatically unlock doors,”
Nonsensica said. “Should be a cinch.”

They wove their way through a series of
hallways. Room after room was entirely empty, which at least didn’t
require a thorough search, and most didn’t have a proper locking
door. Finally just one door remained.

“Ah. Well, that will complicate things…” Non
Sequitur said, looking down.

“What? There’s only a little over two minutes
left, no time to mess around,” Nonsensica said.

“Look,” he replied, indicating the latch for
the door. Rather than the simple knob lock that had been on what
few doors they’d encountered, this one had a combination lock.

“Great! This must be the right door, then.
Why else would they lock it in a way that
you
couldn’t
unlock,” Nonsensica said.

“Stand back, I’ll try to bust it open,”
Phosphor announced, reeling back and beginning to bash the lock
with the butt of his rifle.

#

In the courtyard, after dancing in place long
enough to get all of the downed soldiers on their feet and all of
the ones inside the building out, The Number began working them
through a sequence of steps and turns, following the beat until
they had arranged themselves into a few orderly lines. He then
began to walk them out.

“How are things going up there?” came
Nonsensica’s voice over their radios.

“According to plan. The evacuation is going
well. I think we’ll have everybody out before the music stops.”

“Good, we need you and Chloroplast down here.
There’s a combo lock, and we could use a hand getting through.”

“We’re on it,” Chloroplast said.

“Wait,” said Gracias. “Something’s
happening.”

Pair by pair, soldiers dancing to The
Number’s beat began to peel off from the main group, two-stepping
their way back toward the facility. The pair searched desperately
for the cause.

“Oh man… this is going to be epic. Look!”
Gracias said, pointing to the edge of the roof.

Primadonna was there, dancing in a distinctly
different manner, but still perfectly, to the music. The troops on
the roof beside her danced to her routine, not The Number’s, and
those peeling off were joining her. She danced her way down the
exterior steps and into the courtyard, her dancers in a tight
formation around her.