The Other Eight (29 page)

“Damn right!” Gracias said.

“And what about you?” Nonsensica asked,
pulling Non Sequitur aside. “You still think you want to do this?
Ready to take the plunge and don the white hat?”

Non Sequitur looked up from his phone into
her goggle-clad eyes. There was vulnerability in them now, and no
attempt to hide it. Her pride would never allow her to even whisper
the word “stay,” but her eyes screamed it. He looked back to his
phone. The little red 1 next to the saved messages icon stared
back. He smiled, opening the mailbox and tapping delete.

“You don’t break up a winning team.”

“It’s about time you figured that out,” she
said, throwing her arms around him and kissing him firmly on the
cheek. When she was through, and his face was comically smudged
with black lipstick, she threw an arm around his neck and walked
him toward the rest of the group, “Now all we need to do is find
you a uniform. I’m thinking red and white. Something with a clock
motif…”

“Okay, okay, listen up everyone,” Summers
announced, calling the room to order as she held the contents of
the envelope before her. “You’ll have three weeks off while an
‘appropriately appointed’ training ground can be constructed to
fully explore your powers and capabilities. Following the
successful completion of your training, you will be put into active
duty and begin receiving assignments according to your
capabilities. And it says here that you get to choose your own unit
name.”

“Oh, oh! Let’s be the Super Commandos!”
Gracias said.

“I vote Special Executives,” said
Nonsensica.

“I don’t know,” Phosphor said. “The way I
figure it, it doesn’t matter what we call ourselves. To the rest of
the world we’ll be what we’ve always been.”

“Oh yeah? Then who are we?” Nonsensica
asked.

“The Other Eight.”

###

Thank
you for reading my first ever National Novel Writing Month success!
The Other Eight
started life as a silly little game my
friends and family would play, in which we would attempt to imagine
the most useless powers possible. Once I decided to do a NaNoWriMo
project, I thought fleshing out the character that each of these
heroes might be was a good focus. I hope you liked the result. If
you enjoyed the story, or if you felt it could use some work,
please feel free to contact me through any of the methods listed in
the next section. I’m always happy to get feedback, and I do my
best to answer any messages I get from my readers. Thanks for
reading!

Discover other titles by Joseph R. Lallo:

The Book of Deacon Trilogy:

Book 1: The Book of Deacon

Book 2: The Great Convergence

Book 3: The Battle of Verril

Other stories in the Book of Deacon setting:

Jade

The Rise of the Red Shadow

Science Fiction Titles:

Bypass Gemini

Unstable Prototypes

Website:
http://www.bookofdeacon.com

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@jrlallo

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