"Be prepared."
–Old Cub Scout motto
--------------------------------------------
On our way back to the mansion I had gotten a text from Weya:
Must be about the attack...
We came in and pizzas of several flavors were there and ready to be eaten. Doug was chowing down and looked a little scuffed up. Something wasn't good...
"AllFall," Wehya said, "were you attacked today?"
"No sir."
"Sarah," Thread Walker asked, "was there anyone strange at school today?"
"Umm, noo, but Fluffy was acting kinda funny."
"There's no way that they're not being watched." Doug said.
"Can I please have a recap?" I asked.
"Everyone was attacked by sloppy Dragoon aspirants." Doug answered.
"I was attacked by a rubber elastic man knock-off and a cloner." Weyha said.
"Jeepers Creepers knock-off." Baron added.
"A low-tier electric specialist that teleported through conductors." Thread Walker noted.
"Obsidian?" Alien asked darkly, she looked up at him, "Is there a reason why you are so quiet?"
"I don't want to talk about it." And she set her face for resistance.
The question flew from my mouth,
"Did you orchestrate these attacks?"
The table went silent and she bore her dark eyes into me,
"You think. That I. Would. Do. This?"
Her eyes burrowed deeper,
"What has Alien told you?!"
Alien smiled, "I didn't tell her anything." (His goon did...)
"Were you attacked?" The Baron boomed.
"I would never-"
"Were. You. Attacked!?"
She turned and met my gaze, and with a scary smile,
"Was AllFall attacked?"
The room went silent a moment...
I was the one who jumped to the conclusion after all...
"Let me see your phones." Alien said.
"Um," Obsidian said, "NO."
"This isn't about my trustworthiness Obsidian. It's about YOURS..."
A moment passed,
"I'll let Salamay see it-"
"No, I'm checking her computer next-"
that sparked alarm in me...
If they find out that she hacked into the Angelic mainframe and see what she was looking at I will be discovered...
"-Now. Give. Me. The. Phone-" He discreetly glanced at me and added an 's' for plurality.
"I got nothing to hide," I said confidently and handed my phone to the person next to me and they passed it down.
"Obsidian?" The Baron said darkly.
She looked at him with tears welling in her eyes and took out her phone. She began shoving her phone to him but stopped halfway,
"I was attacked today. I had went to see my ex-boyfriend. He was my attacker-" she looked up at Alien, "and I didn't want to talk about it!"
Then she got up abruptly and fled the room. With the door slamming the Baron leaned toward Alien,
"Have a drone monitor her movement."
"As you thought about it..."
Alien plugged power-bank-like machines into our phones that hacked into the phones and God knows what else...
He skimmed through messages pictures, photos, and notes...
"Some personal stuff on Obsidian's..." he shifted his penetrating gaze to me and held up my phone with the list that I took with my talk with Sarah, "what. Is. This?"
My eyes widened and my breath caught,
"I can explain-"
"Yes!" Alien said with anger burning in his eyes, "Tell us why and how you are writing little files about us. Tell ME how you deduced that I HAD a sister?"
"Alien," I said carefully, "look at the time of the note. I took that not even an hour ago."
"You EDITED it an hour ago."
"Look," I put my hands up defensively, "I had a good thing going with my family. Who do you talk to about her?"
"NOT. YOU."
"I simply asked Sarah about your soft spots," I tried a disarming laugh, "it would really suck to learn all seven, eight, or nine, or whatever our group's size soft spots individually."
Then old pain rose up in me,
"Family is a sore spot for me now anyway."
The answer seemed to satisfy them and after thoughtful silence,
"It's good that you spoke up when you did." Alien said, "If you started to act like Obsidian I would have shot you on the spot."
"Delicate? Huh?" I asked in a knowing tone.
He glanced up at me and smirked.
"Sarah," the Baron said, "that was sensitive in-group information-"
"But she is part of the group right?!"
Their thoughtful silence seemed to answer her until,
"You told her that I actually don't like talking about throwing knives?"
Sarah didn't answer as she started pouting.
"Saralinn," the Baron warned.
"I want to tell her Boo, she's part of the group."
He was silent and intertwined his hands on his stomach as the silence ensued before she spoke,
"When he was alive my father owned a circus. It was really gaining ground in Europe but then the Depression hit and the only people that could go were the relatively successful..." she paused, "Europe never really had success since the first Depression. We were lucky to get to the states before the rise of the Dragoons." She looked at me, "I was coming up to be the best trapeze artist of all time in a time too taxed from the meat heads in politics for anyone to realize my greatness. Or, that's how my father felt. Whenever I tried to run away he tied me to the throwing knife board. Those spinning ones? Then he'd practice. Bad thing was he taught me before I tried running away. The world's best knife thrower taught the best trapeze artist and in the end I hung him with the walking rope and plugged him full of knives."
"He hired a mob to get her..." Alien added.
"After we helped her escape..." Baron said.
"It was fun..." Waya said with a smile.
Everyone gave him a glance and Thread Walker added,
"And that's not even telling what the other envious trapezeists called me on a regular occasion while we were on the move darling."
She smiled,
"Since your part of the group we can go to the mall tomorrow and maybe we can gossip there."
Alien rolled his eyes with a knowing smirk,
"Women..."
"AllFall," the Baron directed, "if you're going to be a member of this group, then we need to talk." He said generally, "The rest of you are dismissed."
Everyone left, Thread Walker gave me a friendly smirk as she left and before Sarah left,
"Godfather? Is AllFall going to be picking me up from school tomorrow?"
He smiled,
"I thought you were going to the mall with them tomorrow? She is going to be your caretaker after all..."
She covered her mouth in joy and left the room.
After they left I put my phone in a nearby glass of water with a plunk. The Baron gave me an inquisitive look...
"Alien can be a sneaky and nosy cur sometimes."
He smirked,
"You've been becoming more like us since you first came a month and a half ago. I'm sure Alien wouldn't take it personally that you don't trust him but to be honest; I don't trust anyone here." He took a sip of water and added a satisfied sigh before plunking his phone as well, "Don't listen to Alien, Salamay, or even my own wife. They all have a tendency to manipulate people." He met my eyes, "And new villains with a bomb planted in their heads are quite particular in that aspect." Him mentioning the bomb in my head made my blood run cold. "Alien thinks that I am incapable," he said rising and crossing his hands behind his turned back, "but he's arrogant and proud of his intelligence and it helps his much needed ego to think he can outsmart me. To think he can pull the rug out from under me from time to time. He knows what he knows about me because I let him know."
"AllFall," he said, "do you think that I can trust you?"
I looked up in thought and said,
"No." With an evil smirk.
He turned on me and asked, fake curiosity in his eyes,
"Why not?"
"You villains," I rolled my eyes playfully, "you have subplots inside almost everything. You're testing me, aren't you? If I groveled at your feet per se then I would be untrustworthy, a suck up. But if I were honest with you, 'no duh; I 'm a villain' then I would be trustworthy AFTER I earn your trust. Is that it?"
He smiled at me beautifully and I almost swooned,
"AllFall? Not even my wife had figured me out like you just have. I MUST ground you from playing Mafia." He said with surprise.
I surprised myself... how awkward would it have been if I got it wrong?
"You're catching onto this world better than the others. You can't trust anyone because if you do it could mean your destruction. And to underestimate someone is as dangerous as overestimation." He gestured toward the others who were gone,
"I picked all of them, and even you off the street. How am I supposed to know how much they can take before they do something stupid?"
"Which reminds me," he said, sitting with his hands intertwined, "how long can they handle the city turning in on them? Doug was attacked by gangsters all the way from Africa so what about the world turning in on them? If they came, is the 144k going to do a foreign operation op to get us back? How are we going to top the world?" He wasn't looking at me when he spoke but was thinking aloud for my sake.
"You are dismissed AllFall."
I sat there looking at him, he rose a brow,
"Aren't you eager to get some rest?"
"Knowing what little I know about you: you probably have something to say to me as I am JUST about to go..."
He gave me another surprised look,
"Your right!" He smiled mischievously, "Riddle me this AllFall. How are we able to implant bombs into people's brains directly when even the Dragoons can't?"
"So wait," I asked, "the nanites weren't in the brain?"
"They were more pacifically in the blood AllFall."
"If I didn't know better, I'd say that because Alien's a genius," I observed him, "but, hoping I do, you're implying that you never had the ability to implant a bomb into my head." He smiled but I continued, "But you're telling me this so I'd know if our nosy techs were bluffing me and try to get me to trust you." I smiled playfully, "It's not working."
"You ma'am," he said, "are scary-"
"Are you acting impressed?" I asked knowingly.
He stopped mid-sentence and simply said, "Go to bed AllFall. Now."
With a smirk I went out from the room and left the Baron behind me shaking his head with a smile on his face...