“Hey, I think I found that pipe she was looking for! Can you bring that paper with the measurements on it?” As she called out that request, Murphy rose from one of several dozen junk piles scattered through what had once been an old racetrack, waving her hand for attention.
I wasn't using the term junk in a derogatory way. This whole place was a junkyard. It was also paradise for someone like Wren. It was an entire rundown arena-worth of random pieces of machinery and other stuff that had been thrown away. Either it was taken out of the regular dump and dropped off here, or brought here initially. Either way, Tech-Touched used the place, and others like it, to buy parts much more cheaply and easily than trying to buy them from the manufacturer.
It was called Junk’s Junk. Junk, of course, being the name of the owner. Or at least, what he went by. It wasn't exactly in the heart of the city. Or anywhere near the city. In fact, the place was actually about a hundred miles north from Detroit. It was also one of about three different places like it, in the general area, that our team had split up to search. Murphy, Roald, and I had been driven up here by Rubi.
Meanwhile, Paige, Sierra, and Qwerty were visiting a place two hundred miles to the west, even as Wren herself, Fred, and Peyton searched a place equally far away to the south. Between all three places, we were pretty sure we could find everything on the wishlist that Wren had made up for what she needed to do some very cool things.
Yeah, this wasn't any sort of emergency. We were spreading out to search three different special junk yards that were hundreds of miles apart, looking for equipment and tools that would simply be nice to have. And why shouldn't we? We really needed to take advantage of any sort of break we had. And by ‘take advantage,’ I meant ‘use that time to get ready for the next emergency.’ If Wren thought she could make useful things out of this stuff on her list, we were damn sure going to find all of it.
We also weren't going to worry about updating each other on what we found, because it wasn't like having extras would be a bad thing. We were going to stock up on all this shit while we had the chance.
Sliding down off the long metal piece of scrap that I had been examining, I reached into the pocket of my coveralls and walked that way while taking out the paper with Wren’s specifications. We were all in costume for this, given it seemed like a bad idea to show up as our civilian selves and buy a bunch of stuff that was clearly for a Tech-Touched, even if we were a hundred miles away from home.
Dressing in coveralls, a mask, and helmet might have seemed pretty dumb, and even dangerous, when it was nearly July. And the costumes the other two wore weren't exactly shorts and tee-shirts. Fortunately, Wren had already taken care of that. Dealing with the heat had been right at the top of her list. All of us had what looked like short plastic tubes, about two inches long, with a series of circuits on the inside, sewn onto the interior of our costumes. I didn't have the slightest clue how they worked, but they sucked all the excess heat out of the costume, and the surrounding couple inches of air around us. As a result, it felt like we were standing in a perfectly air-conditioned room all the time. Those simple little tubes cooled us off just right.
All of which meant we weren't dying in the heat. Which was impressive, considering the temperature had crossed a hundred degrees today.
Walking over to where the girl was, I handed her the paper before taking a look at the tube she found. It certainly looked right, about two feet long and eight inches wide, with an intricate bit of copper and silver latticework running through the inside. If we could find another few just like it, that would be another set of things we could cross off the list. We already had a hand cart nearby with a dozen or so things stacked up on it, and Roald had left a minute earlier to take one that was full out to the Ten Towers van that Rubi had borrowed for the day. The woman herself was staying out there to keep an eye on everything we brought out. And because we had insisted we would do this ourselves. Getting her to drive us out here on her day off was one thing, but I wasn't going to ask her to dig through piles of junk and carry it everywhere. She had already done more than enough to help us out.
Murphy and I measured the pipe, then pulled out a couple more that she had found before loading them on the cart. As we did so, I glanced at her and smiled just a little behind my helmet. “So, did you ever think you'd be doing something like this, dressed like that?”
She looked down at herself, then up again and offered a weak shrug. “You know what? I think I can safely say that I never thought I'd be dressed like this, walking around a super-tech junkyard with someone dressed like you, getting a bunch of equipment for someone dressed like Trevithick. That was definitely not something I wrote down in my elementary school, ‘where I see myself in eight years’ essay. I mean, I almost put it in there, but Roald convinced me it was too far-fetched.”
That, naturally, was the moment that the boy himself came back around the corner, dragging the second cart behind him. I was pretty sure Murphy had heard him coming. “Hey, what am I being blamed for this time?”
Murphy and I looked at each other, then snickered and waved him off before carrying another piece of equipment that we found over to our cart. It was full enough to take back, so I started doing that, leaving those two to keep looking for more things on the list. I could hear them talking as I left, with Murphy asking Roald the same thing I'd asked her, if he had ever seen himself doing anything like this.
Rubi, in costume, was sitting in the front of the van, listening to music while playing some sort of game on her phone. As soon as she saw me approach with the cart, she stepped out and opened the back doors. “I keep trying to tell you guys, we could do this faster if you just let me help.”
With that, there was a sudden blindingly quick blur of motion. Everything on the cart was abruptly in the back of the van with the other stuff that had already been loaded. I had no idea how many repetitions of movement it took from Rubi’s point of view, but from the outside, it just looked like a single rush of color and motion that took about two seconds. Then it was over, and the cart was empty.
Immediately, I painted a smiley face on my helmet with a raised eyebrow. “If we let you help? I'm pretty sure you're doing more than enough just like that. I mean, you drove us out here, you're watching our stuff, and you're loading it like that? Not to mention… you know, everything else.”
She stared at me for a moment, before reaching out to give my shoulder a squeeze. “Anything I can do, you know that. Speaking of which, I'm doing a little digging to find out who the Ministry has working for them in the Towers group.”
My eyes widened a little at that, as I gave a quick, “Be careful with that. If you ask the wrong question, say the wrong thing, even get caught looking at the wrong piece of paper at the wrong time--”
She stopped me with a raised hand. “Breathe, Paintball, I know. Believe me, I know. I'm being careful. I know how to be subtle. Besides, there's things I can look at with my power without them even realizing. I never do it in areas with motion detectors, or anything like that. Mostly, I wait until someone's holding something I want to see, then I just freeze everything and go look at it. I never have to touch them, and with a single repetition, there's not enough for them to notice that I even moved.”
My mouth opened and shut before I forced myself to breathe a couple times. If we were going to get anywhere, find out anything more about the Ministry and what we could do about it, we had to take some risks here and there. And from the sound of it, Rubi had negated those risks as much as possible. But still… “Just be careful, okay?” I urged. “We can't lose you. Murphy and Roald can't lose you.”
She promised she wouldn't be dumb about it, and I asked if she had found out anything useful. Yes, I was worried about how dangerous it was to do anything like that, but I wasn't about to throw away good information. Unfortunately, the best she could tell me right then was that she had narrowed the potential Ministry spies on the team down to a few options. She didn't want to say which three, until she had more to work with. I was pretty sure she didn't want me to go looking into it myself, or maybe she just didn't want me to act any differently around them before she could find out more.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Either way, she promised to let me know as soon as she felt more confident about who we should focus on, if we decided to make any sort of move against the Ten Towers Ministry spy. Even if we didn't, at least for the moment, it was still a good idea to know who was reporting back to my parents, just in case.
Yeah, just in case I ever actually managed to figure out what exactly I was going to do about all this. I still thought my family was wrong to have this much control. And they were definitely wrong in how they used a lot of it. Innocent people had been hurt because they let it happen. No matter how they justified it, that was wrong. Yes, they did some good stuff. Yes, things would probably be worse in many ways without them. But they weren't saints. They stopped some bad things from happening, but they also allowed other bad things to happen. They could do more good than they did, and they profited off of all of it. Just because the whole thing wasn't as black-and-white as I had thought it was when the whole thing started didn't mean there wasn't an awful lot of black involved.
For the moment, however, all I could do was shake off that thought as I started back the other way with the empty cart. Today wasn't the day to figure out exactly what to do about the Ministry. Thankfully, I wasn't on that sort of time crunch. Today was the day to get this equipment for Wren, so she could build a bunch of nifty shit for the next time an emergency happened.
After another hour or so of going through everything in that yard, we had as much as we could find. I went around to the front of the yard with some cash and started to hand it over to Junk himself. He was an old man with thin gray hair and a very thin body. When he saw me approaching with the cash, he quickly shook his head and waved me off. “Oh no, not this time. Your money's no good here today, Paintball. Not after what you did. You got rid of Pencil, and you stopped whatever that Casura devil was up to at those games. I don't know how many lives you've saved, kid, but I'd say you've earned this much of a reward. Go on, you get out of here. Take the stuff you got and get that Tech girl of yours to build you more stuff you can use to save people, you hear me? I can't afford to give you the sort of reward you deserve, but I can sure as hell afford to let you walk out of here with a van full of scrap.”
I wanted to argue with him, but realized it wouldn't do any good. Besides, he'd probably be insulted. He wanted to do something nice to show his appreciation. Besides, if it came down to it, I could find another way to make sure he got paid for this stuff. Speaking of which… I turned and looked around the office of his shop, then leaned out to look at the exterior. “Okay, sir, no cash today. But I think I can help you another way.
“How would you feel about a really cool mural on your wall out here?”
********
It turned out to be some of my best work, even if I did have to say so myself. I gave the man exactly what he asked for, a whole long mural along the outside and inside of the office building. It depicted soldiers and other sorts of fighters from every conceivable genre, from medieval knights, to World War One troops, to Roman gladiators, to sci-fi warriors, to ninjas or samurai, and more. All of them were wielding various weapons from all sorts of other genres, fighting monsters and tanks and dragons, everything we could think of. It was a massive free-for-all battle between every possible genre. And in the bottom corner of the inside, I put my own image, and signature.
It was awesome, and Junk assured me that it was even better than cash. He said everyone was going to want to come visit his shop just to see it.
Hoping that would translate into actual new customers for him, I joined the others at the van, and we headed out, to start the long drive back. Granted, it wouldn't have been nearly as long if they let me drive, but every last one of them had vetoed that idea. It was like they didn't trust me behind the wheel or something.
Muttering under my breath about how the Cuddles and Wren totally would have voted for me, I settled in for the ride. If all went well, the others would be finishing up their own trips soon enough, and we would all meet back at the shop in the evening to compare what we found.
About half an hour into the drive, Murphy said something about being hungry, which reminded me that I hadn't eaten in a while either. Soon, we realized all of us were famished. So, we pulled off at a truckstop. Before going in, we changed back to our civilian clothes. No reason to cause a big scene, after all.
Once we looked like any other normal group out for a ride, the four of us headed into the diner and found a booth in the back. While we were waiting for food, Roald spotted a pool table next to an ancient pinball machine. He and Murphy both challenged me to a game, and I just stared at them. “You guys do remember what sort of trick shots I can do, right?” I pointed out in a whisper. There was no one else anywhere nearby, but still, I didn't need to go shouting across the room about it.
Murphy, in turn, grinned at me. “Oh, we remember. That's why we're gonna make it interesting. See, you're not competing against us. You're competing with us.”
That made me blink a couple times, my head tilting. “Sorry, come again? What do you mean, I’m competing with you? If this is about challenging someone else in here, I'm not sure if that's a good idea either. Or at least not a fair one.”
They both shook their heads, and explained what they wanted to do. And boy, was it not what I had expected. But also, it definitely sounded intriguing. It could even be a fun way to test the extent of my power. So, I agreed to give it a shot.
We put the quarters into the table to get the balls, and Murphy set them up at one end of the table. Meanwhile, Roald grabbed a stick and simply stood at the other end expectedly.
That was my cue. Hah, my cue…. stick. Walking over there, I stood behind the boy, and carefully turned him to face the table. I put my hands on his arms and had him lift the stick to set it in a shooting position near the cue ball. He stayed as passive as possible, letting me arrange his arms and fingers just right. I carefully moved the stick in position, checked where it was aimed, adjusted his grip a little more, lifted his elbow, then stood back and gave a nod of satisfaction. “Okay, go for it.”
He took the shot, hitting the ball just right to scatter all the others as it crashed into them. As we watched, two of the striped balls ended up in the pockets.
“Whoo!” Murphy gave a quiet cheer. “Hey, it worked. Or it was just a fluke. We should probably keep testing. Remember the rule, we switch every time, even if the balls go in.”
This was the game that those two had come up with. I wouldn't be technically shooting pool myself. Instead, I would adjust their aim in every way, and get them to take the shots once I was satisfied that they were in the perfect position for it. It definitely wasn't the same as doing it myself, and Murphy was right, those balls going in could've been a fluke. We needed to test this some more.
So, we did. And the ball didn't always go in, though none of us were sure how much of that was a failure on my part, or them simply not hitting the ball exactly the way I had intended. But, if nothing else, it was definitely an improvement over the two of them shooting pool themselves. They assured me that they wouldn't have done anywhere near as well if they were doing it on their own.
Of course, I didn't take that for a fact. After I helped with the first game, I told them to do one by themselves. Sure enough, they definitely did worse that time.
By then, our food was at the table, so we all gorged ourselves on chicken fried steak and potatoes. It was greasy and delicious. And somehow, it was another reminder to me that we actually didn't have any dramatic emergencies to deal with right then. I wasn't sure exactly why it hit me like that while we were sitting at that table eating dinner, but it did. I watched the other three chewing their food, heard the jukebox playing in the background, and felt a sort of peace and relief that hadn't been there in some time.
Yes, there was still a lot we had to deal with. There were other situations, other problems, but they could wait. Right now, right here, I was just enjoying a little time with a few friends. Or, as they might put it, a couple of my minions, and their sister. Just because they knew they could get a rise out of me with that.
Once we had thoroughly stuffed ourselves, even finishing out the meal with milkshakes, I looked at the pool table again. “Right, let's try this again. I think I've got the hang of it now. I bet we can beat our old score.”
The other two looked at Rubi, who offered a shrug. “Go for it, I'm not in a rush to get back. The only thing I've got waiting for me tonight is extra paperwork, and that can definitely wait.”
“Okay,” Murphy agreed, “but why don't we make it a little more interesting this time? You're not allowed to actually touch us to put us in position this time. You have to sit right here in this booth and just tell us how to move for each shot.”
I blinked at that, then groaned softly. “You sure want to make this as difficult as possible, don't you?”
She just gave a wolfish grin back at me. “What, are you trying to say that you can't do it?”
I scoffed at her transparent attempt to goad me. Yeah, a transparent attempt that definitely worked. I was only human, after all. “Oh, you asked for it. Grab the sticks, I'm about to… uh… huh. You know, it occurs to me that you two have managed to come up with a game where the only way I can win is by making you both look as awesome as possible.”
The two of them exchanged looks, then turned back to me with completely unconvincing innocent smiles. “Oh wow, boy, is that how it worked out?” Roald asked.
“We didn't even notice.”
Joke Tags: If You Think Getting One Van Full Of Junk Was Impressive? Cass? Wait Until You See The Financial Reward You End Up Getting For All That
