Summus Proelium

“Okay, so I’m confused.” That was Peyton, holding up one hand with a half-eaten sub sandwich clutched in it as we sat around a table in the park. We, at this point, amounted to her, Murphy, Roald, and me. The others were still back at the shop working on the machine so we could actually deal with the Pittman problem. It had been about an hour since I called Paige, and I had spent most of the intervening time explaining the situation to these three while we ate a picnic lunch.

“Yeah, me too,” Murphy agreed. “There’s that list that Maki person has, sure. And we definitely need to find out why your name is on it. But why exactly would that mysterious thief group we completely made up break into their house in the first place? Are they supposed to know Maki’s family has a connection to the Ministry somehow?”

Peyton used her sandwich to point that way, head nodding quickly. “That, yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I’m cool with getting answers about that list. But it just seems weird that we’d pick that particular house when we have no idea what the actual connection to the Ministry is. I mean from what you said, the only thing we know about them is that that Jackson dude showed up when Maki was having a fit and calmed things down.”

“He gave them a phone and let them listen to whoever was on the other end,” I murmured. “Probably one of my parents, to be honest. Part of me really wants to know what they said to get Maki to stop arguing and get in the car, and part of me really doesn’t. The ‘really doesn’t’ part is winning right now. And you’re both right, we don’t have a good reason for our thief group to break into that house specifically.” Waiting a beat just for effect, I smiled at them slowly. “That’s why we’re gonna screw up.”

Yeah, that made all three of them stare at me in confusion. Roald was the first to find his voice, though he couldn’t really say much. “I’m sorry? How--what do you mean?” He exchanged a quick look with the other two, getting helpless shrugs back in return.

Giving them an exaggerated shrug just because it was fun, I repeated, “We’re gonna screw up. Or at least, we’re gonna make the Ministry think we did. First of all, we know there’s some sort of connection between Kent and Maki’s family. And we know they keep meeting up with Kent. I don’t know if that’s every night, but once we’re ready, we’ll watch until another meeting happens. When it does, a couple of us will sneak into Maki’s family’s car. Either in the trunk, or attached to the underside using something like the boots Wren gave me, whatever. The point is, we’ll hitch a ride. Once they take us all the way back to their home, we’ll hop out, then have a big argument about being in the wrong place in front of their security cameras. I’ve seen them in the garage every time they pull out of that place, and I don’t think these people are the type to cheap out on having audio. According to Paige and Sierra, they can disable the cameras from sending new images so they won’t know we’re there in the moment, but allow it to keep recording and make it look like they just screwed that up. Anyone watching later once it’s all over will think we didn’t realize the cameras were still recording everything we said and did. We argue about how we stowed away in the wrong vehicle, as if it was Kent we were trying to follow. Paige said his name comes up a couple times in those files we stole, so we can make it seem like we were snooping on him and trying to stow away in his vehicle. They look pretty similar.

“While that’s going on and two of us are putting on a show for the cameras, the others hop the fence from outside and deal with the guards as quietly as possible. There’s only a couple of them out there at night, as far as I can tell. They deal with those security guys, then those of us inside the garage let them in the side door. We all argue some more about being in the wrong place and how it’s Kent we need to get at to find out how he’s involved in all this. After a bit of arguing, we’ll settle on going into that house anyway because whoever those people are, there must be something valuable in there. We’ll say that since we don’t know who they are or what connection they have, we just have to grab anything we can and sort it out later.”

“And that’s when we go in the house and start robbing them blind?” Peyton gave a low whistle. “I guess that would explain why you might go into Maki’s room and grab things like their notebooks and computer or whatever. As far as they know at that point, we have no idea what’s valuable and what isn’t. We’re just grabbing random things and trying not to come out of it completely empty-handed. But what about, you know, the people who actually live there, Maki and their family?”

“Paige says she can get hold of some gas that we can use to knock them out,” I replied. “Pump it into the house from the garage, wait for it to do the trick, then go in with gas masks. We’ll ransack the place while they’re asleep, let the cameras see us just grabbing everything we can, then take off.”

Peyton stared at me for a moment, clearly noticing the way my voice faltered a bit despite my attempt to sound casual about it. “You don’t like the idea of robbing them, do you?”

“I like Maki,” I admitted with a wince. “I don’t… it seems dirty and wrong to violate their space like that. But we need to know why they have a list with my name on it, what they’re doing with it, and… and all that. But…” Trailing off again, I put my head down against my arms as they rested on the wooden table. “You’re right, it’s my plan and I still don’t like it. Breaking into their house, knocking them out with gas, stealing their stuff? What the hell is wrong with me? Why would I even think that all that would be okay?”

“Because you’re freaked out about your name being on that list,” Roald pointed out gently. “You’ve been obsessing over it for days now. Between that and the… the whole situation with your parents, this is something you can maybe deal with and get answers from. That might’ve made you go through some thoughts that were kind of extreme.”

“But do we actually do that?” I lamented, clasping my hands together. “I was so focused on coming up with the best plan to ransack their house without the Ministry getting curious about how we know about them that I didn’t stop to consider the fact that I was coming up with a plan to ransack their house. It was one thing to break into that secret lab, but breaking into someone’s home, knocking them out with gas, and going through their things would be a very different thing. I don’t want to be that kind of person. But we need to find out what the deal with that list is.”

We were all silent for a few long seconds before Peyton spoke up tentatively. “What if we go with a modified version of your plan? One that doesn’t involve gassing the whole family or ransacking their entire house, but still lets us search Maki’s room quietly and without them knowing anyone was in there? And still uses our secret thief team.”

Squinting that way, I slowly replied, “Well, that would require a very good plan.”

So, Peyton told us her idea. Once she was finished, I ran it through in my head, shifting back and forth on the bench. Finally, I gave a slow smile. “You know what?

“That is a very good plan.”

*******

Of course, we couldn’t focus on that right now. We’d have to put that plan in our back pockets and do something with it when a chance presented itself. After all, as anxious as I may have been to find out what the deal with that list was, we had more pressing matters. I didn’t want to distract everyone from finishing the work on the transportation machine so we could finally deal with Pittman. Maybe once everyone affected by Sleeptalk were back on their feet and conscious, there would be time to deal with all the other stuff piling up on the to-do list. Right now, that had to have priority.

So, we spent some time basically running errands. Wren needed more stuff from about a dozen different niche repair shops across the city. Well, technically we didn’t have to spread it out that much, but there was a better chance of the people in any of those shops remembering us and paying attention if we bought too much in one place. So we divvied up the list and bought just one or two things from each store.

It turned out that to make the plan work with Pittman’s teleportation machine, Wren needed to build a whole new device to essentially boost and control it. And something about needing to switch it from sending to receiving. I didn’t follow her whole very-complicated explanation, but the gist seemed to be that she needed this other device to change how that one worked. So, we played gofers for all that stuff.

Of course, beyond that, we also needed to have a way to lock onto him. We knew the general location of the island thanks to tracking that phone call, but it was a big place, and he wasn't the only one there. We had to make sure we got the right guy and nobody else. Which was where Paige being such a perfect biological replica of his actual daughter came in handy. He made her Biolem body out of that same DNA, so Wren could build a thing to lock onto that DNA when we targeted that area. Unfortunately, that was another thing that was contributing to how long this was taking. Every passing hour made me even more anxious, but there was nothing else to be done about it. Everyone was doing the best they could. Besides, I wasn't the only one who wanted to get this done. I could tell Paige was getting stressed out about Irelyn. We just had to suck it up and be patient, as hard as that was. At least we were actively doing something. I couldn't even imagine how bad it felt for everyone else who had loved ones affected by that stuff and didn't have the slightest idea of what to do about it. What if I was stuck being as completely clueless as people thought I was?

It was a thought that made me shudder inwardly even as I was dropping off my latest haul back at the shop. Sierra came downstairs to take the heavy bag from me. She had a backwards baseball cap on and grease smears over her face. A face that looked so much like mine beneath the superficial disguise. With the cap covering her hair so we couldn’t see that it was currently blonde, it was a lot like looking at myself with different-colored eyes, thanks to her contacts. Which I still wasn’t exactly used to, even after all this time.

Hah, ‘all this time.’ It really hadn’t been that long. Hell, it had only been a few months since all this started for me. March ninth was when I first Touched. Today was June fourth. I’d been doing all this for almost three months. God, it felt like years at this point. How had everything that happened so far only taken three months? Was there some sort of monster Abyssal using a time dilation power or something? And what was my life going to be like in another three months? I had no idea, but the thought of how much could change was thoroughly intimidating. I could be anywhere in three months, in any situation. Would my parents be alive and awake? Would they know anything about… about me? Would we be talking to each other, or would…

With some effort, I put that out of my head. Now wasn’t the time to obsess over it. Sierra was giving me what I was pretty sure was a concerned look, but I waved her off and told her to go ahead and give me the next list of stuff they needed.

“We’re good, actually,” she informed me. “Just need the supplies the others are grabbing, then we should be set to put this thing together.” She held up a hand to stop me. “Which will take some time if we’re gonna do it right. Yeah, I know, it sucks. Trust me, we all wish we could just think at this thing and magic it together immediately. But we have to do it right, or there’s no point. If it was possible to wish hard enough and make Pittman show up right in front of us just like that, I would’ve made it happen already.” Her head shook. “Maybe you should just take a break and hang out.”

Oh no, not being alone with my own thoughts and nothing to do. Anything but that.

“I can help,” I blurted, realizing how absurd that sounded even as I said it. My face flushed a bit. “I mean, I can hold things, fetch things, get snacks, help out with any of--”

“Dude,” she interrupted, “you really need to learn how to sit down and chill. I know my own face, you know?” She waved her hand in a circle around said face, then did the same in my direction. “And I know that this face is worn out. Go see a movie or something, play a game, do something to take your mind off everything else. You sent the kid to the arcade the other day so she’d relax for a few hours, right? So you do understand the general concept. You’re not a machine. Trust me, I’d know.” With that, she gave me another look. “There’s gonna be plenty to do as soon as this thing is ready, so you should take a break while you can. I mean, it’s probably a good idea for you to be as fresh as possible once we’re ready to grab Daddy Dearest and put the screws to him. Which I mean in both the metaphorical ‘letting the kid’s device get the information out of his head’ way and the literal ‘I have long metal screws and I don’t mind pushing them into his brain until he talks’ way. Whichever ends up working.”

I started to say I was fine, even though I knew she wouldn’t believe me. But in the end, I gave a heavy sigh and nodded. “Right, fine, I’ll take a break.” When she gave me a disbelieving look, I made a gesture over my chest. “Cross my heart. A real break, I swear. I’ll try not to obsess over everything and just go… find something fun to do. Or at least something entertaining enough to take my mind off everything.”

*******

I went skating at the park. Yeah, maybe that was predictable, but I really did like it. Besides, this way I could do something I liked that would help me take my mind off things (getting too distracted while going through those ramps and all that was a good way to wipe out) while also getting some very useful practice in. After all, how many times had my skating obsession already saved my life? Clearly I was doing something right on that front.

So, with earbuds in so I could use loud music in an attempt to drown out my own thoughts and worries, I lost myself for awhile. The feeling of my board’s wheels gliding over the concrete, of briefly flying through the air at the top of each jump, of nailing the landings (usually) and getting that rush of triumph, it all helped keep me from curling into a ball somewhere dark just to scream until my throat was hoarse.

To be fair though, screaming like that probably would’ve helped a little bit too.

Of course, keeping my mind off everything would’ve worked better if I hadn’t caught a glimpse of Maki watching me from across the park. Yeah, while I was doing one of my airborne tricks in the half-pipe, I happened to see them standing by the restrooms. They weren’t doing anything else, just standing there watching me with this contemplative, maybe slightly worried expression.

Yeah, that freaked me out a bit. I was just trying to ask myself if I should let them know I’d seen them by walking over there just to see what they would say, when my civilian phone buzzed in my pocket. By the time I rolled off to the side and got the phone out before looking up again, Maki was gone. Maybe they went in the restroom? I couldn’t see them anywhere else, unless they had some sort of invisibility or teleportation power in addition to sex-shifting. And at this point, who the hell knew what was possible.

The call was from the others back at the shop. Squinting a bit as I looked around for Maki, I answered somewhat distractedly. “Uhhh, yeah, what’s up?” What did Maki want? Why were they were? Did they know something, and how much?

“You might want to get back here,” Fred informed me solemnly, interrupting my racing thoughts.

“What? Why?” My mind was going even more wild. “Did something happen? Is everyone--”

He interrupted. “No, nothing’s wrong. They said it’s done. The machines are ready.

“It’s time to grab that son of a bitch and make him fix this shit.”