Help
Oh, for the love of—
Relax, Callie.
Why do you always do this?
You have great friends,
You go to a good school,
There's no reason for you to worry.
Callie squirms in her seat, watching the laptop screen and glancing at the clock every few seconds. "You got all the little guys," she says. "Just the Great Zapfish to go!" This is fine. Agent Three will leave the little zapfish by the shack, and tomorrow she and Marie have the day off and can be ready to help out when—
Three leaves the zapfish in the tank and superjumps back to the boss kettle. The one that must have the Great Zapfish. And, no doubt, the leader of the Octarian forces.
Two of Callie's hearts lodge in her throat. "Three—"
Marie grabs Callie's hand and squeezes it. "Breathe," she says. "We've got ten minutes until the last announcements of the day, then we can go down there and help."
"It'll take too long," Callie whispers. "You know as well as I do that it's a trap." Sure enough, that's just what Gramps yells when he shows up on the screen, albeit far away. "Figures," Callie mumbles into the radio.
"But we don't have a choice!" Marie switches off their end of the radio. "Gramps isn't looking good. Nine minutes, we do the last announcement. Fifteen, we're out of here."
"What if that's too late?"
Marie squeezes her hand again. "It won't be. Look, we know Calamari Inkantation'll give Three a power boost, so we'll be warmed up for it. I'll get on the phone with Sheldon; he already offered to let us use his van, we'll fly in there. What else might we need?"
Callie's finding it hard to breathe.
Marie squeezes her hand "With me. In, two, three..."
Callie copies her. Some of the tightness in her chest goes away. "Um, my roller," she mumbles. "Your charger. The instrumental recording, so we can sing along."
"Keep doing your breathing exercises," Marie says. "Five minutes. I'll call Sheldon; you close your eyes and remember exactly where in the apartment we store our weapons. It's been a while.
Callie's mind races. It's still hard to breathe. Marie doesn't let go of her hand, squeezes it for the inhale, relaxes for the exhale, just like they've done a million times before. Callie breathes with the squeezes, tries to focus on the—oh cod those are big fists, fists twice the size of Three, and missiles it's too much for one inkling no matter how good Three is—breathe. Breathe, and breathe, and breathe.
Marie looks up from her phone call and sets the phone on the table, grabs a lollipop, and puts it up to Callie's mouth. Makes Callie hold it with her spare hand. "Close your eyes," Marie urges.
Callie obeys. She's not sure if this is better. Breathe, and keep breathing; only think about her breathing and the taste of the lollipop, the feeling of the swirls against her tongue, the sweetness, and try to match the tastes to the colors blind.
She's a little calmer when they get up to do the news, though she keeps the lollipop and clasps her hands behind her for the announcements so no one can see it until they pose. Their producer shakes his head but their fans love it, clapping and pointing and laughing.
Callie draws strength from their excitement as she grabs her laptop from the studio and looks in it. Three is... Three is driving DJ Octavio back? Three is driving Octavio back! "After him," she forces out, trying to sound cheerful. Trying to sound optimistic. Like she believes in Agent Three. Like she's sure Agent Three can do this. And she does, and she is, but with her hearts pounding out of sync and not enough air in her lungs it's hard to... They'll be there soon. She'll be able to help soon. But she has to control herself.
She hasn't had an attack since their third audition for the news. She thought she'd finally outgrown them.
Three superjumps forward, and Marie's eyes widen. She grabs the laptop and shuts it, leaves the room talking into her own radio. Callie decides she doesn't want to know what was said.
Her hero roller is under her bed; Marie's charger is on a pair of hooks over her bedroom door. Callie has to get them both. Disguises on, they dash in different directions—or Callie tries to. It's still hard to breathe.
She finds a piece of burger-shaped chocolate in her pocket, left over from splatfest, and pops that in her mouth. She focuses on the flavor as she moves. Marie and Sheldon will meet her in the truck outside of their apartment building.
She needs to have their charger and roller before they get there.
And if she's going to sing, she cannot afford to be panicking.
It's just... it's harder, without Marie here to ground her.