September, 2004
San Francisco, CA
“Medic!”
Commander Sydney Todd-Strange, the head of UNCLE San Francisco, looked
up from the paperwork at her desk at the sound of the shout and the
commotion that followed it. She was on her feet in an instant, running
out from her office and dashing to the main lobby of the HQ, where
a scene of chaos awaited her.
Delta team had just come in—some walking, some assisted, two
on stretchers. Agents were hurrying to help their bloodied comrades.
“What the hell happened?” she shouted to be heard over
the other frenzied voices, hurrying to the first stretcher, where
one of her newest agents, Agent Derek Riley, was unconscious and already
had an oxygen mask over his face, one of the emergency tanks kept
in the standard UNCLE assault van kit. There was blood all over his
torn uniform, mostly from his head wound, but from several other sources
as well. Sydney fought with everything she had to hold it together.
She did NOT do well with blood, and had worked long and hard to deal
with the issue, as it didn’t help her status with her men and
women if she blew her breakfast on the floor every time one of them
got hurt. Fortunately the adrenaline and the jackhammer of worry in
her chest was helping.
“The Toy Boys,” Lt. Ann Meadows told her as she supported
Agent Grice. Agent Willaby, of Echo, took Grice’s weight from
her. Grice was favoring his left leg badly, and had scorch marks on
his body armor. Ann herself had darkening bruises on her face and
a cut on her cheek that was oozing blood.
Sydney took a quick look at all the others, taking stock. “Why
didn’t you call it in?” she demanded.
“They jammed us,” Ann breathed, looking down at Riley,
a mix of guilt and anger in her voice and face. “We were headed
back to base and they came pouring out of El Dorado Savings. All we
could do was engage.”
“Move, move!” Captain Addison Doyle, M.D., shouted as
he sprinted into the lobby with his pair of med techs trailing him.
His white coat flapped behind him, and agents cleared the way for
him. The middle-aged doctor had thick but receding hair, and wore
horn-rimmed glasses. His eyes were on Riley and making assessments
before he even reached him.
He bent over the stretcher and rapidly checked the young man, examining
the head wound first. His tie trailed over Riley’s chest and
came up splotched with red. “Get him to trauma one!” he
shouted, then practically leapt over the agent to get to the second
stretcher, where Agent Cassie Detmer was holding her arm and wincing,
trying to be strong and deny her pain.
“They’re gone,” Ann told Sydney before she could
get the question out. “They’ve stepped up to jet packs.
They took us out and hit the sky before we knew what happened. I got
a shot off and tagged one, but his buddy carried him off.”
“Let’s move!” Dr. Doyle called out with authority.
His med techs were already wheeling the stretchers. “Everyone
hurt, get to triage. I don’t care if you don’t think you’re
badly hurt. That’s my decision, not yours. Agents, help the
wounded.”
Not needing to be told twice, every agent in the now-crowded lobby
moved to assist, and a parade of walking wounded starting moving toward
the med bay. Sydney and Ann followed.
“Gamma,” Sydney shouted to the room as she ran out of
it, “Get out to the scene, now! I want containment, I want statements,
and I want them yesterday!”
Sydney stood at the med bay’s observation window, watching Doyle
and the techs do their work, letting her anger keep her nausea in
check. She rubbed her hand over her chin as she waited, feeding an
unconscious need to do something besides just stand there.
“We blew it,” Ann, suddenly standing next to her, told
her.
“You blew nothing,” Sydney answered her angrily. “Those
are armored tech thieves with level seven threat ratings and you’re
not super-heroes. We’re spread thin, we’re underarmed,
our hands are tied by outdated regs and a city that protests us every
time we fire a shot in self-defense. This goddamned town is under
siege and my people are getting hurt while Command does NOTHING.”
Ann stayed quiet, letting her commander vent, and watched Doyle shout
orders and tend to Riley.
“Kid’s twenty-four,” Ann said. She was, herself,
a couple of years older than Sydney, and could have had a command
of her own…had not certain disciplinary problems gotten her
sent off to UNCLE San Francisco, the one-time dumping ground for problem
agents. Sydney, assigned here years ago to try and whip the branch
into shape, had seen the potential in her and made use of her strengths.
While there were certain unworkable agents Sydney had managed to weed
out during her tenure, Ann had become an indispensable part of her
team and a trusted resource. And a friend.
“He’ll be fine,” Sydney said with reflexive wishful
thinking. But she felt a stabbing guilt. She’d handpicked him,
working the system, as she’d learned to, to occasionally get
the candidates she wanted (a complicated game of requesting ones she
knew they’d never give her, making her actual goal look like
a compensation). He was a ninety-fifth percentile graduate, a college
football star, and patriotic to the core. But more, he showed leadership
potential, and she felt he was someone she could groom. Now, thanks
to her coveting him and dragging him to this God-forsaken region,
his blood was all over the lobby floor. And she went through this
every time one of her agents went down. Which was becoming more and
more of them every month.
She turned to Ann. “Why aren’t you in there?”
Ann didn’t look at her, but kept watching through the glass,
dealing with her own guilt. “I’m fine, Commander.”
“That’s Doyle’s call, Ann,” she said quietly,
calming down and realizing that Meadows was feeling even more of what
she herself was wrestling with. “I want you checked out. As
soon as he can get to you. Okay?”
The lieutenant nodded, still not looking at her.
“Something has to change,” she said, not necessarily to
her superior.
Yes. Something did.
Doyle stepped into the hall, where Sydney was now sitting, back from
checking in with Gamma team and hastily throwing together and uploading
a report on the Toy Boys for the other branches. He looked tired,
and he did not look happy.
She looked up at him expectantly.
“Riley needs surgery,” he said. “I’ve stabilized
him and we’re transporting him to St. Francis. I’ve already
conferenced with Dr. Tsu, and they’re ready for him.”
“Is he going to be okay?” she asked, sounding as tired
as him, but her fatigue strictly emotional.
“He should mend,” he said, his voice taking a reluctant
professional tone. “After surgery there will be recovery time,
and rehab, but I think permanent damage is a slim chance. He got lucky.
They all did.”
“Yes, they did,” she agreed, distractedly, bitterly pondering
this interesting interpretation of ‘luck’.
“If I wanted to work in a trauma center,” he said, his
professional tone evaporating, “and put young people back together
on a daily basis, I could go back to Kosovo.” He had been there,
and other hotspots around the world, before joining up with UNCLE.
His experience with catastrophic trauma was one box on the list of
reasons that she’d fought to bring him into her region. He spoke
with barely restrained anger, always a man who wore his emotions on
his sleeve.
“I know, Addison,” she said, well used to his bluntness
by now. “I’m doing what I can.”
“It’s not enough, Commander,” he bit back. “The
human body is not built to withstand superhuman punishment. These
agents are not the Justice Squadron or the Paragons. They’re
flesh and blood. And they’re law enforcement officers, not soldiers.
They deserve better than this, and they deserve superiors that give
a damn what happens to them.”
She went on the assumption that he was talking about the agency, and
not her in particular. Unable to disagree with him, she found she
could only keep silent.
He put his hands on his hips and put his head down, getting his frustration
in check. He noticed his stained tie, shook his head at it, and harshly
yanked it off.
“The rest of the injuries are relatively minor. I’m putting
Agents Detmer and Grice on medical leave. I’d like to do the
same for Agents Karthikeyan and Travers if you think you can spare
them.”
She looked at him with a sort of helpless resolution.
He shook his head and smiled bitterly. “Fine,” he said.
“And why not? They’ll have another shot at it soon enough,
I’m sure.”
“Addison…”
“I have to make my report,” he said. “And make sure
Riley is handled. Will that be all, Commander?”
“Yes,” she said, quietly. “Thank you, doctor.”
Doyle walked back to his med bay, pausing at a trashcan in the hall
to throw his tie into it. Sydney watched him go, sat silently for
a moment after he was gone, and leaned forward with her elbows on
her knees, feeling suddenly much heavier.
“That’s three more agents down,” she shouted into
the phone, not even trying to reign in her righteous anger. “and
you people are giving me NOTHING.”
She sat behind her desk, listening with growing disgust to the detached,
condescending voice of the Western Regional Commander. God, why did
Gary have to retire before they could offer him the job?
“I don’t care,” she answered after she let him spout
out what was starting to sound to her like a pre-recorded speech as
she’d heard it so many times. “And this city is coming
apart. I’m losing control. We’ve got some kind of villain
mercenary network running through here, we’ve got magic tongs
running the streets of Chinatown and spilling out to other areas,
death cults and covens springing up, gang activity has tripled—and
they’re getting better armed and more cocky—I’ve
got Mandate making inroads, I’ve got a dozen new tech companies
just itching to get robbed by God knows who, the closest powered hero
is in Sacramento, and you’re hamstringing us!
“No. No… I don’t… Don’t TALK to me about
budgets cuts! I need more people. I need better armament. And I need
D.R.A.G.O.N.F.L.Y. rigs. Yes…. That’s… I don’t
care what the Senator… I had flying thieves today and no way
too… So what are we supposed to…?”
She pressed her teeth tightly together and squeezed her eyes shut
as he spoke.
“We’re…losing…the war,” she said through
her teeth. “I’m losing my city. And you people are just
letting it burn.”
She listened again, and almost laughed aloud at him.
“Well, hey, if you’ve got a meeting, I’m sure that’s
more important than…”
Her face contorted in rage at the disconnection. She grabbed for the
phone base with her free hand and slung it and the handset at the
wall. They shattered into bits of plastic and rained down onto her
office floor.
March, 2005
San Francisco, CA
Sydney looked up from the pile of trash she was flat on her back in—up
at the old, deteriorating buildings that flanked the alley, and at
the stars between them, hanging in the frigid late night sky.
The only word that her mind could seem to form was “ouch”.
Secundus, the former martial master of the mid-90s Forte, came running
back into the alley. His costume had one good-sized tear in it across
the chest.
He crouched next to her. “Are you all right?”
Wearing the costume of The Mist—the one she wore as a founding
member of the Forte team, and one she hadn’t worn in some time
until recently—Sydney started to sit up, but decided that, garbage
notwithstanding, staying on her back for the moment sounded like the
better idea.
“Yes,” she said, and let out a breath as she took a mental
inventory of each part of her body that was hurting. “I think
so.”
“You’re sure?” the Khanistani man named Kyle Von
asked, concerned. “That was quite a fall.”
“Yeah, well, luckily,” she grunted, “the disgusting
pile of trash softened the blow.” She’d bounced off the
building, and the impact had disoriented her enough to keep her from
fully using her flight to keep her up. But she’d used enough
of it at the last second to keep her from breaking anything. At least,
she was pretty sure she hadn’t broken anything. Sitting up might
give her a different opinion on that, she thought. If she’d
been much less disoriented, she might have even gotten around to turning
desolid, which would have saved her both the pain and the smell.
“I assume they got away?” she asked.
“They did. I can only guess they fled because we terrified them
so.”
“Ha, ha,” she grimaced. The sea-themed Japanese villain
team calling themselves ‘The Go Fish’ weren’t cosmic-level
by any stretch, but there were five of them, and only two of San Francisco’s
lone costumed heroes. She and Secundus had given them a good run,
but sometimes the odds did make a difference. She would have been
okay with them getting away—as she and Secundus had stopped
their theft—if she’d at least been able to nab their ridiculous,
annoying leader, Holy Mackerel. Instead, he and his bitchy girlfriend
Grouper (who turned into four duplicates, making the odds even more
laughable) had managed to send her flying into a building.
With some resolve, she forced herself to slowly sit up, and Secundus
took her shoulder and assisted. At the sound of her tired groan of
pain, he reached for one of the pouches in his costume.
“Let me get some healing herbs,” he said.
“No, thank you.”
“No?”
“Not for where I’m hurting.” She rubbed her backside
with both hands and inhaled through her teeth.
“Ah,” he said, and put the pouch away.
“You know,” she said, wiping brown lettuce and some kind
of meat off her costume’s sleeve, “for a duo, we’re
not that dynamic.”
“We’ve done all right,” he offered. “All things
considered. We’re doing what you said. We’re a presence.
The gangs and the villains know that we’re out here. They know
they don’t get free reign anymore. That there are heroes in
town.”
“I know,” she sighed. Kyle had been living in the city
since leaving Forte, and had become a regular on the streets when
things started going bad. After the Toy Boys incident, she’d
realized that only having heroes around was going to make a difference,
and she’d started appearing as Mist again, and teaming with
Kyle, who had been a friend to her and her husband for several years
now. In the past few months, Mist and Secundus had tried their best
to take some of the pressure off of UNCLE, take out some villains,
and let the bad guys know that San Francisco was not their playground
anymore. But it seemed for every success of theirs, trouble would
just come back twofold. Villain activity had taken a slight dip at
first, but now was getting worse again. They were both seasoned Forte
veterans, but the numbers still favored the bad guys.
“We took out Crimsone,” He mentioned.
“Yes, but she’s French.”
“We caught two of the Rebels.”
“Yes, but they’re morons.”
“We busted up a whole Mandate operation ourselves.”
“And yet,” she said, “we just got our asses handed
to us by FISH.”
“You’re in a very glass-half-empty kind of place right
now, aren’t you?” he asked.
“I am,” she said, managing a smile. “And I’m
sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said, smiling back (not that she
could tell with his mask in the way). He stood up in front of her
and offered his hand. “Your mood will improve when you’re
no longer sitting in refuse.”
She took it, and carefully got to her feet, happy, at least, that
nothing did, after all, seem broken.
“I think this is a good point to call it a night, don’t
you?” she asked, rubbing her neck.
“No argument.”
She studied him, looking thoughtful. “Thank you, Kyle. For all
this, for doing this with me. I haven’t said that in a while.”
“You never have to,” he said, humbly. “I’m
always here for you. This city is my home, too.”
“How’s your dad? God, I haven’t even asked.”
“He’s well, thank you. He speaks fondly of you. And of
Stephen.”
“We’ll have to have you two over for dinner, soon. It’s
been too long.”
“I’m sure he’d enjoy that very much. As would I.”
“I’ll talk to Stephen, we’ll set something up.”
“Wonderful. And, as for setting things up…same time tomorrow
night?”
She closed her eyes and dreaded the thought, but knew the answer.
They used to get together and do this on occasion, or when a particular
investigation arose. Recently, though, their little duo had been hitting
the streets and rooftops almost every night. And it still wasn’t
enough.
“Yeah,” she said, finally. “I want to check out
that lead on the Four Seas triad.”
“Nice to not have to have a warrant for a change, isn’t
it?” he grinned.
“It is indeed,” she agreed, grateful for his glass-half-full
nature tonight. She leaned over and gave him a hug, though she hurt
her shoulders doing so. “Thanks, Kyle.”
“Get some rest,” he counseled. “We’ll have
another chance at our ‘fish’ before long, I’m sure.”
That was the problem with San Francisco these days.
There were always more fish.
She stood in the plush bathroom of her two-story home, costume off
and down to her underwear, looking herself over in the mirror. She
examined and occasionally prodded at the purple bruises that were
all over her body. She hurt. She felt tired. She felt suddenly very
old.
She was so morbidly focused on her bruises that she hadn’t noticed
the movement behind her. Now she looked in the mirror, and her husband,
Dr. Stephen Strange—prominent San Francisco physician and Sorcerer
Supreme—stood in the doorway watching her, having gotten out
of bed.
She turned her head and smiled weakly at him over her shoulder. “Is
there a doctor in the house?”
Stephen stepped slowly into the bathroom and stood behind her. He
carefully curled his arms around her waist, avoiding the visibly sore
parts of her, and held her gingerly, touching her like a brush to
canvas.
“Have I ever told you,” he asked quietly, kissing her
right shoulder, “that you look ravishing when you’re bruised?”
She laughed quietly, more grateful than he could possibly know to
not be getting another of his lectures. Lectures about spreading herself
too thin, about spending her days at UNCLE and her nights in costume,
pulling down maybe three or four hours sleep a night trying to hold
it all together, getting herself pummeled by garishly costumed thugs
that always seemed to travel in packs these days. She didn’t
need another. She just needed to be held.
“I’m going to draw you a bath,” he said, and at
the word, an involuntary sound of greedy pleasure came from her throat,
“and then I’m going to get the herbs. And then I’m
making you some tea. And by morning, you’ll only feel about
half of this.”
“You know, you’re the second man to offer me herbs tonight,”
she grinned.
“Tell Kyle to keep his herbs off my wife,” he grinned
back, which made her laugh again.
The reflection of her face turned suddenly sad. “How was the
opera?”
“Wonderful,” he said. “Caleb enjoyed himself immensely.”
“I’m so sorry—” she began, voicing her guilt.
“Shhh,” he whispered in her ear, and then kissed it. “It’s
all right. We would loved to have had you with us, but there are times
when father/son time is important, too. There will be others.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against his chest, the
weight of the day—and the week, and the month—finally
catching up with her. “I’m so tired,” she whispered,
suddenly close to tears.
“I know,” he whispered back. “And as your physician,
I’d have to recommend a day off tomorrow.”
“Stephen, I can’t—”
“I know that too. But as your physician, I had to try.”
“Something has to change.”
He ran his fingers lightly over her navel. “Then I hope something
will. And soon.”
May, 2005
San Francisco, CA
Stephen had finished his meditation and was heading to the kitchen
for some fruit before delving into a stack of recent medical journals.
He found his wife there, sitting at the small table in the corner,
writing in a notebook. Several pens of differing colors were on the
table near her elbow. He knew, from experience, that she had a system
for organizing her thoughts that way, using different shades of ink
in her notes, a habit he had the good sense to not tell her that he
found amusing and endearing. Judging from the rainbow of them, she
must have had a lot on her mind.
She looked up from her energetic writing, and for the first time in
a while, she looked excited about something.
“I have an idea,” she said, sounding pleasantly exhilarated.
“Okay,” he nodded, happy to see her mood being anything
besides gloomy, curious as to what had made this possible.
“I don’t want to talk about it yet,” she said, mysteriously.
“All right,” he said, not wanting to protest and ruin
a good thing.
She went back to her feverish writing, and he went to wash a peach.
He walked past her office the following evening. They had converted
two rooms in their home into work rooms for each of them, and hers
was filled with paperwork, “most wanted” printouts, law
books, large city maps, and binders filled with federal codes and
regulations. There was also an enlarged, framed Newsweek cover from
1988 showing her (as Mist), Dr. Jackal, Phantasm and Phantashia. But
thanks to a glamour that Stephen had put on it, it appeared to anyone
who was not in the Forte circle to be print of the Beatles’
‘Abbey Road’ album cover.
Sydney sat at her desk, in front of her computer, staring intently
at the screen, imprisoned in thought. The notebook she’d been
writing in sat next to her keyboard.
He stopped at the door and looked in. Her mood, unlike last night
(they’d been married long enough for him not to require any
mystic means to decipher her moods), seemed pensive and heavy.
“Sydney?” he spoke.
“I don’t want to talk about it yet,” she said back,
not looking at him. Her voice sounded distant, doubtful.
He watched her for a moment more, then walked on, giving her her space,
which she seemed to need.
“Stephen?”
“Stephen?”
The following night, at just past 1:30 AM, Stephen awoke from a deep
sleep at the sound of Sydney’s voice. He rubbed his eyes and
rolled over, and found his wife kneeling on the bed, sitting on her
legs, looking at him. She was in her Mist costume, obviously having
just gotten back home. He cleared his throat and pushed himself up
with his hands, putting his back against the mahogany headboard.
“What is it?” he asked, shaking off sleep and trying to
read her expression. She was calm, resolved about something, but strangely
elated.
“I want to talk about it now,” she said.
“They’d HAVE to agree. I mean, I think they would. It’s
a lot, but… I think they’d do it.”
Two nights later, Sydney was still talking through her grand idea,
mainly using Stephen as a sounding board. He was at the kitchen counter
chopping vegetables to put into the wok. She was pacing around behind
him, voicing her thoughts aloud.
“I might have some trouble with… No, why wouldn’t
he? It’s a perfect time, he doesn’t have anything major…
I don’t know, do you think he would?”
“You’ll have to give me more than a pronoun,” he
smiled, focused on his cooking preparations, “if I’m going
to give an informed response.”
“He would,” she said, nodding to herself, as if he hadn’t
spoken. “But, then, of course, there’s the logistical
problem of…”
“Stephen?”
Thinking he had just drifted off to sleep, one night later, Stephen
heard his wife in bed next to him, so he realized he must have been
out for a while. She was back home, out of costume, and under the covers
with him.
He rolled over and slipped his arm, instinctively, under her pillow,
and she slid close and laid her head on his shoulder. She put an arm
around his chest and one of her legs between both of his.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said.
“Why not?” he asked, groggily, already knowing what she
was talking about because she seemed unable to talk of anything else
lately.
“I just don’t know if I’m the one to do it.”
“Sydney,” he sighed. “We’ve talked about this.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have selfish reservations
about the whole idea, but there’s no one I can think of who
would be more suited to do it. Of course you can.”
“I’m just not sure now.”
He leaned down and kissed her softly.
“I’M sure. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll
understand, and even be relieved. But I don’t think it’s
a matter of choice anymore. I think in your heart, you’ve decided,
and I think you’ve made the right decision. You can do this.
We both know it.”
She didn’t respond, but simply traced circles on his chest with
her finger as she drifted in thought and doubt.
“Sleep,” he said, encircling her in his arms. “You’ve
had a long night. Tomorrow, things will look different. Speak to me
then of doubts. Not tonight.”
Soon, he was back to his dreams. Sydney didn’t find hers until
much later.
“Stephen?”
His face buried in his pillow, two nights later, Stephen groaned into
wakefulness. He blinked at the unexpected light in the room, cast
by the nightstand lamp that Sydney had turned on. She was sitting
up in bed, writing in her notebook again.
“Stephen, I think I can talk Nick Fury into chipping in on the
transportation. See, SHIELD has a lot of surplus—”
“Hounds of Hektesh, woman!” he barked hoarsely. “I
have a conference in…six hours, by all the gods!” He grumpily
turned over, beat on his pillow, then yanked it away, threw his head
down, and pulled it over his head instead.
Undaunted, she went back to writing. “Nick’ll do it,”
she whispered to herself, nodding. “Yeah. Nick likes me.”
June, 2005
San Francisco, California
“Wow,” Jack Parker—Dr. Jackal—said.
Something of a Forte family reunion was taking place at the Strange
home. Sydney had invited a number of her old teammates and friends
to dinner, along with their children. She’d enigmatically told
them she had something to discuss with them, but wouldn’t tell
them what it was until after dinner. In that time, they had avoided
the subject, catching up on what was happening in their lives, laughing
and talking, and the kids had been having a great time at this opportunity
to all hang out together again. Currently, the kids—Caleb, Jack
and Sabrina’s daughters Monique and Nicole, John and Jeanette’s
kids Andy and Trixie, Miranda and Bruce’s son Morgan Tomas,
and Jared’s son Gabriel, were all upstairs. The grownups were
all in the Strange dining room, sitting around the spacious Louis
XVI walnut table.
The group included Jack and Sabrina (Knightsabre) Parker, John (Phantasm)
and Jeanette (Bluejay) Clayton, Bruce (Batman) and Miranda (Cincoflex)
Wayne, Jared (Seahawk) Banks, Samantha (Nightsable) Parker, Lucy (Tinker)
Toy, and Kyle. Sydney was standing next to the windowsill, where Stephen
leaned as she had finished pitching her idea to all those gathered.
“I think it’s fantastic,” Jeanette said with a bright
smile. “Sydney, that’s wonderful.”
“I love it,” Sabrina added. “It’s perfect.”
“And it’s long overdue,” Jared said.
“You have no idea,” Kyle murmured.
“I can’t think of anyone better to do it,” John
said, smiling up at his old friend. “I can’t believe you
didn’t do this years ago.”
She blushed a little at that, and Stephen nudged her almost imperceptibly
in an I-told-you-so kind of way.
“It was just important to me to get input on this from all of
you,” she said. “I really value your opinions and…this
is a big step.”
“It’s an historic step,” Bruce said in his deep,
gruff voice. “Things like this always are. The world changes
when we make decisions like this.”
“Well, no pressure, Bruce,” Sydney said with a grin. “Thanks
for THAT ulcer.”
“Yeah, lighten up, rich boy,” John commented down the
table at him with a smirk.
“Don’ leesen to heem,” Miranda said, smiling, putting
her arm through her husband’s even as she joined in mocking
him, speaking in the Brazilian accent that time and naturalization
could not tame. “I theenk ees wonderful.”
“I meant it in a good way,” Bruce muttered.
“I think what Bruce is trying to say," Jack said, "is
you don’t just sort of have one of these things around. You’re
starting something huge here. The world is going to take notice. This
is a chance to make a huge difference, locally and globally. I’m
with John. I think it’s brilliant, and I think you are definitely
the one for the job. I think it’s going to kick big monkey ass.”
“Dad,” Samantha laughed.
“Sorry,” he said. “I promised I’d stop talking
about monkeys’ asses,” he explained to the room.
“So you haven’t talked to any of the others?” Sabrina
asked Sydney.
“No, I wanted to bounce it off you guys first, and I have a
ton of questions for you. I want to meet with each of them individually,
explain things, get their take.”
“Too bad Robert couldn’t make it tonight,” Jack
said, speaking of their old teammate Vanguard. “I’m sure
he’d have had lots of input.”
“Yeah,” she said, awkwardly. “I’m actually…kind
of glad he couldn’t make it.”
“Why?” Jack asked.
John turned his head to him. “You’re kidding, right?”
Thinking for a moment, Jack said, “Oh. Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Sydney said. “I definitely want to talk
to him about it, but…I want to do it at the right time in the
right way. You know?”
“We know,” Sabrina laughed.
“So I’m on a plane to Ohio tomorrow. And the meetings
begin. And we’ll see what they say, and we’ll see what
happens.”
“I’m starting a pool after coffee,” John said. “If
anyone wants to get in on it.”
“Um…” Lucy said, a little sheepishly from the other
end of the table. She even raised her hand.
“Yes, Lucy?” Sydney said to her.
“I just…I want to say I think it’s great, too, and
I think it’s going to be amazing. But I was just…wondering…”
“You’re wondering why you’re here?”
Lucy laughed. “Kind of, yeah. I mean, it just kind of seemed
like this was a gathering for people with kids…and since I don’t
have any…”
“Two reasons. One, I needed you and Jared and Sam here to discuss
something that pertains specifically to the current Forte. I actually
kind of left one of the ‘others’ off the list, because
I wanted to run it by you three first. I was getting to that. But
also, I’ve got special request to make of you, personally, one
that’s going to make a big, big difference in this whole thing.”
"Really?," Lucy said, perking up and sitting forward in
her chair. She glanced briefly at Jared, then at Samantha, and finally
focused her attention on Sydney, intrigued. "What do you have
in mind?"
TO BE CONTINUED
