Chương 28: Grease

The rest of the hospital stay was spent just talking about nonsense. Nothing of value, just a lot of post-panic repeated summaries of what happened for Sam. Did end up learning about what happened to Chris' car: It was brought back to the base, much to his disappointment. Shouldn't be driving around in it anyway, license plates and car models would be the biggest identity giveaway of anything we could do.

Would only take one break-in to a police station and suddenly you have every ounce of information you could possibly need. Possibly even family members depending on how much your information web connected. He lucked out. Then, he lucked even further out when Agent Lafeuillade reared her head, visibly green under the gills. Took him a minute to get his wounds closed, and he handled it better than I did. At least, that's what I thought when I spoke.

"You're pretty good at handling pain." Chris' reply was quite blithe.

"Oh it didn't actually hurt. Felt kinda weird but not painful." I looked at the agent. She shrugged.

"Repairing fatty tissue and blood vessels is painless." Great. When Tancred had arrived to pick us up, carrying another hat and sunglasses, the other agent interrupted him before he could even get a word out.

"Don't forget what you owe me, Abichail." He scoffed.

"I don't owe you shit, Morgan. The Super Commission does. But yeah, I'll send the material price bill up the chain. Now fuck off and let me get these clowns." She shrugged as she sauntered out. Tancred tossed the face-disguising items to Chris before gesturing for us to follow after him, which the three of us did. Though, I didn't do so quietly.

"I got two questions."

"If they're stupid, I'm not answering."

"At least one isn't. How much did all that cost?" Tancred didn't look at me as he led us along, arms slack at his sides.

"You? Eighty grand. Chris? Ten grand. That's why we don't fly her out often. Your trademarks all combined are cheaper than her. Dr. Way's supposed to be your medic but tissue restoration is a slow process." I looked back towards Sam, who shrugged.

"Sorry that I haven't figured out how to cheat that specific part of thermodynamics. I've been busy with cheating the rest of it." The agent nodded, moving along.

"You said you had two questions." Well, yeah, I did.

"Isn't Abichail a girl's name?" Snorting could be heard behind me. Tancred didn't bother with looking offended.

"Shockingly not a stupid question. Abigail, with a G, is a girl's name. Abichail, which doesn't use that G sound, it's a lot more phlegmy if you pay attention to more than just my accent, is a man's name. Biblical." Christian spoke up.

"Levi's youngest son, right? Head of House Merari." A hum erupted from Tancred.

"Well, yeah. Also Queen Esther's dad, Mordecai's uncle. You paid good attention in your bible studies. Color me impressed." I couldn't see Christian, but I could still hear him.

"I was just good at following along. Are you Christian too?" Tancred waved it off dismissively.

"I'm not religious in the way most people are. Call me a heretic who uses Pascal's Wager for all you care. It's better for us both." I finally turned back to Chris, who I could see putting on something of a pained look.

"I'm not gonna call you a heretic, Agent Tank. I'm certain you have your reasons, even if we don't agree." The auditor made some indescribable noise. The sound, that is, was indescribable. The emotion behind it, some kind of concession, was clearer. The rest of the trek out of the hospital was straightforward, Chris and I were handed papers we had to sign off on using our hero names. Haven't ever had to sign anything like this before. My signature was plain, barely on the page out of fear of snapping my pen.

I glanced over at Chris, who swung his pen off with a flourish. Show-off. With that, we were on the way back to the base in an SUV, with three rows of seating. Chris, Sam, and I sat in the furthest back row, Tancred the row ahead of us. There was someone else driving, some plain-looking guy. I thanked God for the fact someone else was driving, if Tancred were the one handling it I would have probably started screaming. Instead, Tancred took to talking. I preferred that to screaming, admittedly.

"So, you're gonna be writing reports on what happened, but you might as well tell me what you saw now. Gonna need to know in order to prepare for a brief that's gonna have to happen ASAP, probably after dress rehearsal tomorrow." I went over everything, Father Pine, Master Sequoia, the Pachira, keeping everything as clear as could be. To my surprise, Tancred saved his commentary for the end.

"So if they have access to wood, they can control it in weird ways. They can also just pop up anywhere vines can come out of. That throne thing is worrying me. Tells me they're trying to install a figurehead of some kind." Decided to follow up on that.

"Do you think it's the Arboreal Senate's leader or the ADU's?" Tancred waved that off.

"Those could be one and the same, sport. Usually when you have two criminal groups cooperating on something like this, it's the product of one to two big manipulators working both sides. One figurehead and one coordinator. Sometimes both roles go to the same guy. There's a bigger issue at play." I cocked my head.

"What would that be?"

"The fact a random asshole can just whip out that kind of thing like the log being conjured from a staff tells me they're all holding on to strong magical bullcrap or some other phenomenon. This is super bullshit. They're going to have superhumans on their side." He spread his hand out for a little jazz-hand.

"And normally I'd go 'Oh no, a superhero with wood powers, Billy get the fucking flamethrower' but..." Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Then he rolled the hand. At that moment, it seemed apparent he would've been a great puppeteer.

"You and May proved that fire requires a secondary factor to work on these guys due to thick fireproof bark. So the key resource we need is brute force. We have that with you and Jairo. May has an auxiliary capacity for it. But Chris here's power is explicitly not brute force, it's the opposite." I glanced towards Christian, whose features sunk a bit at that.

"That doesn't mean he's off the team or something, it just means his role is going to be with dealing with the human-sized threats. Those, frankly, are the bigger ones anyway because if they decide to take their stupid parkas off, they could walk in anywhere." Haven't been fond of the fact Tancred's been more right than wrong.

"So what does that mean for us?" I asked. The agent supplied an answer quickly.

"Means now we need a bifurcated investigation. We always need a brute available for lumberjack duty while another group handles figuring out what's going on. We'll work on rotation, but it does mean you guys are on buddy cop duty." I let out a slow exhale. Wasn't looking for buddy cop duty. Especially not with Christian. Too high spirited. Too at risk with his skillset. If it were Jairo and I in there, or May and I, there wouldn't have been any risk to either of us. Chris and I in tandem didn't line up right.

We only got shit done in spite of the fact we handle things completely differently. Too high of a risk. ADU duty would be more in my wheelhouse, though. As easy as it would be to just fight the tree men, what I'm used to fighting is humans. I knew how to hurt and scare people. Scaring trees is something I've never had to do. Superhumans was something to consider. What kind would they even have? People like Redwood where they're just... made of wood? Something more nature-oriented?

Really, they could have had anything. They just needed to be useful to the cause, even if their powers involved deforestation or something else. These thoughts were then interrupted by the gravelly voice of my least favorite tax drain.

"Leo, kid, you listening? You've spaced out for like five minutes there."

"Huh?" I asked.

"There you are. I was asking if you wanted anything. We're grabbing some fast food. It's on me. Well, it's on the taxpayer's dollar, but that dollar went into my pocket first so it became mine." My head tilted again. Tancred pointed.

"Don't you fucking space out on me again, you little snot." Just shook my head at that.

"No I was just wondering why you'd be getting us fast food." His hands both went up in befuddlement, with a clear sign of squinting behind his sunglasses.

"Earth to dumbass, you just got your first successful apprehension of five fucking terrorists. God only knows what those freaks would've done if you two didn't bumble your way in. Going against my orders pisses me off, but I'm gonna reward results if they outweigh the offense." Huh. That was new.

"I... don't really have any preference in mind. Just surprise me." He nodded, turning back towards the driver.

"Alright, pal, we're getting burgers. There's a greasy joint about ten minutes away, beanpole needs to put on some pounds and that's where he's gonna get the protein. You ain't vegetarian, right Chris?" Christian shook his head.

"No, I just never was able to put on weight. My metabolism's too good." The auditor scoffed.

"Give it ten years and that shit'll leave you like my dad did when he said he was off to get milk." Morbid.

"... Get those fucking looks off your faces, he came back. Six years later, but he did come back."

"Why did it take him six years?" Sam asked, reminding me she was still present.

"Third DUI." Tancred answered. What a thrilling part of The New Sentinels. We ended up accosting some local burger place. The driver and Tancred left the car to us in some silence. A question bubbled up in me.

"Did you know about his-""No, to be honest this is the most normal conversation either of us have gotten out of him," Sam interjected. Christian added on, "I kind of preferred when he was a lot shorter with us. But I think I understand some of his... stress now." I shrugged.

"I don't think he would've been any nicer if the dad thing didn't happen. I don't even know if he's telling the truth, he might've been just trying to... shock us, I guess. Hard to shock me with a no-parents joke, though." Sam shrugged.

"My parents are normal, so it definitely surprised me." Christian nodded.

"Mine too." All I could reply with was a roll of my eyes.

"Well then I guess it makes one of us." They stared at me like they accidentally stepped on my pet rabbit. I let the pregnant pause build up before belting out a laugh. Their uneasy looks softened, though it never fully went away. Must have been because neither of them have really seen it from me before.

"Sorry. I'm getting used to the situation. I've never had a chance to do something funny. The last time I laughed was because I got into a fight with trees that kept trying to kill people. Before that I can't remember when. Had to do something funny." In the reflection of the car mirror, I spotted two familiar figures: Tancred and the driver, carrying sets of large brown bags. Tancred's voice could then be heard.

"Open the fuckin' doors! I've got seventy bucks' worth of burgers!" Sam called out, "Did you get drinks!?"

"Are you nuts!? We've got water on tap back home!"

"You're already using tax dollars that aren't yours!"

"Those tax dollars had already gone into my bank account, egghead, now open the fucking doors!" Christian and I had already gotten to opening the car doors while the two of them debated, the bags being unceremoniously shoved into the middle row of the SUV before Tancred clambered in after them. I leaned over, counting the bags. Four in total. Seventy dollars. That did raise a question.

"How many Goddamn burgers did you get?" Was what I asked, failing to contain my confusion.

"Twelve. Three per bag because they're hefty quarter-pounders. And a bunch of fries. Didn't include that in pricing, totals out to a hundred bucks." Sam sniped out a "But what, nine dollars on four large sodas is too much?" Tancred groaned.

"We'll grab a couple bottles on the way, fountain sodas are over-fucking-priced and you know it!" He pointed an accusatory finger at her. Sam and him exchanged stares for a solid minute. The tension was so thick even a knife couldn't cut it.

"Fine," she conceded, sitting back in her seat.

"Thank you. Alright Billy, hit a corner store." So that name wasn't made up earlier.

"Is Billy also an auditor?" Tancred shook his head.

"What? No. He's my personal assistant. He does own a flamethrower, though."

"Why?"

"The Mole Men." There was a silence that lasted for about ten seconds, the only noise being the mechanisms of the car.

"... No further elaboration?" Asked Sam.

"Shit that happened in 2005. It's irrelevant now. There's no more Mole Men." Chris followed up.

"Like, no more Mole Men who are a threat or-" The driver spoke up, his voice shaky and worn.

"There's. No more. Mole Men." We took the hint. The rest of the ride was very awkward, with little room for conversation with the elephant of The Mole Men taking up all that space. Tancred deigned to give us the privilege of walking through the front door instead of the garbage chute slide, citing that activity would hit a more likely lull with arrests. Hauling everything down to the common area, which Billy was not permitted to enter, we were met with a welcome party of Jairo, May, and Sam's kids.

Samantha's daughter, Samara, immediately ran up to her with a piece of lined paper.

"Mommy, look what I drew!" Leaning over, I could see it was an amalgam of orange and blue humanoids.

"That one's you, with the big hair, and that one's Chris, and that one's May, and that one's Haiyo, and that one's Leeyo." The one she alleged to be me was the lankier of the bunch, with an orange face. I did see a bright yellow line sticking out of the one that was...

"Haiyo." Jairo, I suppose. Jairo, meanwhile yanked me and Chris into a surprisingly firm hug. That strength must not be fully kept back even when untransformed.

"You guys got our first arrests! That's so awesome!" Tangling myself out from his grasp, I nodded.

"Yeah, I think we did something right," came out of me without any sort of thought behind it. I looked over and saw May and Tancred yanking open the various brown bags, laying out wrapped up hamburgers across the counter. That's when it kind of struck me. This was the first hot meal I'd be sharing with people. I barely even fucking knew them!