Chương 29: Van

The day ended on a cheerful note, with eating and bantering over irrelevant things. I accepted this more than I thought, just due to all the excitement that had been happening. After Christian and I finished our food, we moved the items he bought before we encountered the ADU down to my room. I'd figure out putting up posters later. My priority was on setting up the clock. Was getting tired of not knowing the time. When it was finally on, I had gathered it was about eight o'clock at night. Good enough for me.

I needed a long night's rest anyway, and it would still let me sleep in while waking up early. As I made that observation, Chris inquired as to why a portion of my bed frame was embedded in the wall. I just told him to fuck off, to be honest. From there, I took to showering and retired to my bed, watching the fish pass through the glass until slumber overtook me. A dreamless night as always, leading to a morning of approximately six o'clock. Sunrise.

Accounting for cleaning, that was about nine and a half hours of sleep. Most I'd gotten in one stretch in a long time. Another shower preceded going upstairs and to the common area. I was mostly curious as to if there were any leftovers for breakfast; instead what I was greeted with was May, who was reading through a book.

"You're up early," she commented.

"Prefer to be, just hadn't been able to tell the time," I answered as I sat at one of the stools.

"There anything left over from last night?" May shook her head, flipping a page.

"Nope. Anything left went up to the night staff. Thought it was fair because they're literally maintaining our lives for us." I just nodded, crossing my arms and letting them sit on the kitchen island.

"Yeah, that makes sense. So when are we doing the dress rehearsal stuff? I don't think I heard any times from Tancred." Slipping a bookmark out from behind the cover, she slid it in between the pages and closed her book before turning to me to properly speak.

"We're heading out at eleven and it'll probably take until about five, they don't want to keep us there all night. Especially now that we have to do a brief on the ADU." She let that sentence sit for a moment before following up on it.

"It was at the meeting, about ten minutes after you left." I gave another nod, letting my gaze float over towards the far end of the common room.

"Are you gonna walk out on the briefing too?" Looking back towards May, she seemed stone-faced. Not angry, but clearly trying to dig into me.

"No. Just thought we got everything we needed. I'm not even sure what the briefing is going to be about by this point." May crossed her arms.

"It's going to talk about the guys we have the faces of, plus the guys you and Chris caught, plus who knows what else. There's a good amount to go over. I think it should've happened earlier, to be honest." All I could offer was a shrug.

"Let me make it clear I don't want to play Devil's advocate for anything here, but they were probably waiting for me to get used to being here. They didn't realize that not only things were gonna start happening regardless of if I was ready, but that I like to go head first into things." I explained. To my surprise, she nodded.

"That does make sense. But even if the rest of us got some early briefs, we could've all helped brief you later."

"Well, did you know about the ADU and Arboreal Senate before this past week?" I pointed out, accompanied by another shrug. May shook her head.

"No. I didn't. But there had to have been some signs that they would have noticed, don't you think?" Shook my head in return. We were like two bobbleheads.

"Sometimes this kind of stuff just slips by." That put my mind back onto that kid on the street corner with blue lips. The reason I'm here. If anything was actually done to those scumbags before I got to them, would I have still ended up here? Where would I have been? Just homeless? There would've been other criminals, probably. Would've likely been Crunch to them instead. How long would it have taken from there? Months? Would I have just never been caught?

Snap"Earth to Leo," May stated, her finger and thumb crossed in front of me.

"You gotta stop spacing out." I shook my head.

"Sorry, still waking up."

"I can tell. I was asking you if you wanted me to get you some breakfast from the cafeteria, they should be open now." Rubbing my face, I couldn't think of a good answer.

"You can get me something if you want." I said, conceding. With that, she left the common area, leaving me to my thoughts again. There was nothing constructive in them this time. Just flashes, vignettes, images of how things could have been different. By the time she got back with the breakfast, I had practically petrified socially. Just offhanded agreements and concessions, and it looked as though she took the hint clearly. There was silence in the following hours until Christian and Jairo came out.

The three of them idly chattered while I picked away at my breakfast. Sam arrived at some point during this, passing by us to drop her kids off with their babysitter. Finally, the door was opened by Tancred, clapping his hands.

"Dress rehearsal time. Oh and you're gonna get to drive in the Sentinels-mobile." The fucking what? Without further explanation, just cheers from Jairo and Chris, we were led out the front of the building to a bright orange and blue van of immense scale. It seemed more like an armored truck, upon a more lingering gaze. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"This isn't very subtle," I pointed out. Tancred slapped the side of it.

"It's built from the scraps of a decommissioned B-2, this fucker can't pop up on any radar. We also had some low-wage mages slap some magical counter-surveillance runes inside of it as well. You'd need to be a damn good wizard to peek in here." I leveled a finger at the van.

"It's colored like our team. Do you think no one can recognize that?" Tancred glanced at the van proper.

"Oh yeah, that. Billy, hit the stealth!" He yelled. The van's exterior faded into a dull grey. Fascinating.

"Basic optic tech. We'll be getting a label slapped on it too. But this is for our group deployments until we can justify the budget for a helicopter. Get in." Circling around the back, Tancred opened the doors and revealed the interior. It almost looked like a mobile office, with multiple screens, keyboards, and chairs bolted in with straps hanging in them. Enough seats for all of us plus at least three more people. Wasn't the most subtle, it seemed like. Nevertheless, we got in, and off we went.

The screens flicked on, giving us views on every side of the van. Admittedly, I was entranced by this.

"How much did this van cost?" I inquired, at this point finding it amusing to figure out how much was spent on us.

"Don't have that number yet because it's technically not done. It's mobile but before we get the logo and a few other bits-and-bobs thrown on, there's no final invoice." May piped up, "And they're letting you drive it?" Tancred shook his head.

"Billy's driving it. I'm not a chauffeur."

"Not very reassuring." Sam commented. Tancred shrugged.

"He's fine. Just don't talk about uh... them." I was content to not poke that bear. The drive was interesting, if solely because instead of watching everything pass by on a window, it was on a screen. Internally, I could comprehend that there was going to be a time delay between what a camera could see and what would show up. Maybe it was fractions of a second, but those could make a difference. At some point or another, Jairo spoke.

"So what's the demo really going to be?"

"You'll each get a minute to just show off a feat of your powers. May'll have a light show, Chris is going to do some sort of dexterous bullshit, I can't remember what, and flip a guy. Yours I remember, because I came up with it. People will be tossing up bowling balls on either side of the stage and you're gonna be punching them out of the air while dodging auto-pitchers." That prompted a cocking of my head.

"Wouldn't the debris hit people?" The agent waved it off dismissively.

"We're putting up a bulletproof window between you guys and the audience for security's sakes. As a side benefit, it means Jairo's trick is zero-collateral." I nodded, but that brought another question to me.

"What's my trick then?" Tancred shrugged.

"It was a bit spontaneous, but we're just gonna be making you rip up some metal stuff. We grabbed a few bank safes, a couple anvils, and a few salvaged cars. You just get to go to town on those." Those were plural.

"Wait, how am I gonna do all of that in a minute?" I asked. Tancred shook his head.

"We're not putting all that shit back together every rehearsal. We've got one of each for the two rehearsals and then one for the real demo. The most expensive of the bunch were the anvils, if you'd believe me. Oil prices are up and that drives up steel prices." Nodding along, that seemed to answer everyone's questions enough for a silent ride. All the remaining five minutes of it, at least.

We arrived at a brick building, though half of it was replaced with a vast array of glass hallways that let bystanders peer inside.

"Behold, the theater that's letting us test stage timing. We'll be outside in a different area for the demo, but this will be good for just practicing the motions." Tancred explained as he was already shooing us out of the van.

"Your costumes are inside already." I looked at him. I clearly remembered leaving my costume in my room. He looked back at me.

"Yeah?"

"How did our costumes get here?"

"Oh yeah, no, these are stunt costumes. Purely for looks and testing things like visibility. You'll have your real costume at the demo but these are just so you know what it looks like through your masks, how it looks in certain lighting, all that. They aren't durable, so please don't fuck with 'em." Everyone seemed to understand that, and upon entering the theater, we were led down a hallway to one of the auditoriums, stage and all. Multiple people were already there, setting up various devices.

A car sat on the stage, next to an anvil and a safe. My props, I guessed. Everyone else started milling around with the large amount of other props and accessories for our demonstrations until Tancred started yelling to corral us towards him and, to my surprise, Perry.

"Alright, alright, enough gawking, let's start talking. Perry?" Perry spoke, clapping his hands together.

"Sup kids! We're gonna be going with this light, heavy, light, heavy pattern. So first we'll do Flowstate, the leader, then Teiú who's one of our heavies, then Spectroma who's literally light, and finally Hercules with his big break-everything show since that's gonna leave a mess we don't want in the way of others." I thanked God that I went last.

"We did update the format a little bit because we realized the pitching machines honestly work for pretty much everyone. For example, Flowstate and Teiú will focus on dodging them, Spectroma's gonna do a batter up sequence with her light, and Hercules is gonna be no-selling bocce balls being shot out of it."

"Bocce balls?" I asked.

"Heavy metal balls wrapped in leather," he explained.

"If you can take a punch, the bocce balls should be fine." Didn't like the sound of that, but I didn't have a say.

"We'll be using foam balls with some resin in them so they move at relatively accurate speeds without any injury risks before the show," he added on. Chris then followed up with a question.

"So what actually are our routines? Agent Tank told us Le- Hercules'." Perry gave another clap, excited.

"I'm so glad you asked! So in your cases, we've got some dulled axes you'll be tossed that you can juggle then toss at some targets. You'll be dodging baseballs the whole time. Then John Gabriel, one of your theater coaches, is gonna rush in disguised as a thug, go for a drop kick, and you're gonna just toss him off the stage. His disguise is padded so he'll be fine." Christian seemed excited about that, nodding.

"Awesome!" The PR agent then pointed to May.

"Yours is a bit less physically intense, we're going to send a bunch of balloons fly free. You're going to then shine out as many lights as you can to light them up, and pop all the ones that aren't orange and blue. After that, we'll have a pitching machine fire out a baseball at you, you use your hard lights to bat it away." May gave a clap.

"Can do!" His pointing then moved on to Jairo.

"The pitching machines'll be running for you constantly. Your goal is simple, on either side people will be tossing up bowling balls with little EMF emitters in the finger-holes so you can see them. The baseballs will have them too. You have to go from either end of the stage for about thirty seconds, rushing up to the bowling balls and punching 'em so hard they break." Jairo raised an eyebrow.

"That's gonna be a lot of bowling balls, isn't it?" He nodded.

"We cut a deal with a bowling alley getting rid of old ones." Jairo then fist-pumped.

"Hell yeah, I'm down then!" Perry then leveled his finger at me.

"Apparently Tancred gave you the basic idea. Break a safe, an anvil, and a car. Do whatever you want to show off your strength between the breakings. Just now, there's gonna be a pitching machine slugging bocce balls at you. You should be able to just walk all of that off. Did you wanna also fight a guy?" I cocked my head.

"Not worried I'd cripple them?" The PR agent shook his head.

"No, no, not a real fight. We'd just have John run back on stage, break a bat off your head, and you just grab him by the collar and throw him off again. Lightly." Well, that sounded reasonable. I gave him a nod and he threw up two thumbs up.

"Alright kids, it's rehearsal time!"