"A weather control machine?"
Danny stared at his daughter, who was grinning a wide reptilian grin, then her two 'cousins', who were wearing identical expressions. He turned to Über and Leet, the former villains looking deeply amused and somewhat proud. Finally he looked at the diminutive form of 'Cloak', who he knew damn well was Vista, doing something neither her nominal superiors or her parents would have approved of.
Sighing heavily, he turned back to the Raptaur-form Taylor, who was caressing the device that the entire team of weirdos had been working on for nearly a week. "Why, how, and what the hell for?" he asked, sitting down heavily and waiting for an explanation.
"It's not a general purpose weather control machine," his daughter explained happily. "That would take a lot more work. This has only one specific setting, but it's a good one."
"And it's linked through Cloak's abilities and to an inverted version of my audio inducer system, something Dragon came up with when we explained what we wanted to do," Leet put in.
"Oh, god, you got to her as well?" Danny groaned.
"Hey, she's an interesting person," Amy said, smiling. "We got to talking the other day and explained some of the ideas we had to liven things up around here. She was all for it. I think she wants to see if it makes Armsmaster laugh or something."
"You're never going to do that," he said knowingly. "I don't think the man understands humor at all. You'd have a better chance programming a computer to laugh at jokes than him."
Amy, Lisa, and Taylor exchanged a glance and snickered, without explaining why. Calming down after a few seconds, Taylor shrugged. "Probably. But it's worth a try."
"OK. Explain why you have a single-purpose weather machine. I still don't understand."
"The audio system picks up specific words over a large area, recognizing one phrase only. It's linked into a locating system, then to this device, using that location to move a shielded anti-gravity drone which is the other end of one of Cloak's spacial links to that place. The machine then forms a very particular type of weather system over a small area. It's remarkably precise."
"Yes, it uses all sorts of interesting tricks, fractional dimensions for matter storage for instance, and I figured out how to do a thermal sorting field to act as a cooling system," Cloak said in her eerie voice, sounding pleased with herself. "Raptaur calls it a Maxwell's Demon Field."
"Demons, hmm?" he said, looking at Taylor, who smirked at him. "And the end result of all this fiddling with the very nature of reality is for what? Something useful and helpful to mankind, or just to make everyone gape and wonder who put drugs in the water supply?"
They all grinned at him again. Even Cloak was somehow managing to radiate an impression of a grin from a completely empty hood. "Right. Stupid question. If in doubt, pick the option with the most crazily amusing outcome," he mumbled. "OK. Tell me what it does, and what poor bastard it does it to." He squinted suspiciously at his daughter. "You're not going after that poor Miss Militia again, are you? The woman really doesn't deserve what you all manage to do to her."
"Do to her?" Cloak asked, sounding confused. Taylor cocked her head to the side and looked at him, then shrugged.
"No idea what you're talking about. But don't worry, we're not going after Miss Militia. We have someone… a little better in mind."
She explained.
He stared.
Then he lost it completely, guffawing like a madman for nearly a minute. Gasping for breath, he wiped his eyes. "OK. I admit, that's brilliant. Carry on. Make sure you get video."
"Way ahead of you there, Danny," Über said with a huge smile, holding up Leet's Snitch. "Live feed to PHO and YouTube. Linked right into the machine activation."
"All right, people!" Lisa snapped, looking around at her friends. "This is not a drill. This is a precision guided meteorological amusement system."
"I can see it's not a drill," Amy commented. "Lack of a drill bit gives that away."
"Quiet, you," Lisa replied. The purple lizard smirked and fell silent. "Everyone ready?"
Taylor looked around at them all. "We are," she said crisply.
"Activate… the device."
Stepping forward, Leet flipped a toggle switch. "Device active."
"Release the Snitch!"
Über casually walked to the door, opened it, tossed the thing in his hand outside, then closed it again.
"Snitch released."
"Enable the internet video feed!" Lisa cried, really getting into it.
Tapping on the keyboard of the nearest computer, Amy smiled. "We're live."
"Place the phone calls!"
Picking up the handset next to her, Taylor dialed, then waited. When the other end answered, she spoke in a voice entirely not her own, one that was recognized by everyone present. "Meeting at the normal place, get everyone there. Half an hour." There was a pause, then she shouted, "Drop everything, this is important. Do it!"
Pressing disconnect, she snickered for a moment, then dialed another number. Again, she mimicked a different voice, another man's voice. "Sir, I've just heard that a meeting has been called at the usual place. I think there might be some sort of coup attempt going on. You'd better get down there, I'm on my way right now." Listening, she smiled. "Yes, I think it probably was him, but I'm not absolutely certain yet. Yes. Yes, sir, I'll be waiting for you."
Hanging up, she grinned at them. "Hook, line, and sinker, as the saying has it. Those guys are way too paranoid."
"What's the usual place?" Danny asked curiously.
"No idea. But they must have a usual place, neither Krieg or Kaiser argued about it."
"How the hell did you get their numbers?" he wondered out loud.
"Dragon is really good with computers and dug them up for us," Amy giggled. She looked at the time displayed on the computer screen. "Should be kicking off in about twenty minutes."
"Gather around, my friends, and watch the end result of Family Pranking Technology™ in action," Taylor said grandly, opening her arms widely. "Operation: Confuse E88 is in play."
"I wonder about your sanity, sometimes, I really do," Danny chuckled. "Then I think about it and realize that everyone here is at least as nuts. You're just a little more obvious about it."
"Why, thank you, sir," Lisa grinned. They all moved to a position where they could watch the big monitor, Cloak producing several buckets of popcorn from her hood. Weirdly, they were still hot.
Danny didn't question it, just took a handful and started chewing.
Slamming the doors open, Max, clad in his signature armor, stomped into the large enclosed yard between several buildings on the edge of the commercial district. All the buildings were owned by Medhall through a number of cutout companies and this area was used for E88 gatherings and pep talks. He found his entire gang standing around looking confused, Krieg talking to Victor while Othala and the twins listened, nearly sixty of the higher-ranking foot-soldiers milling around with uneasy expressions.
"What the hell is going on?" he roared. "Why are you all here having a secret meeting without me?"
"Without you?" Krieg asked, turning around and staring at him. "You called this meeting."
"I damn well did not," Max retorted, still furious. "You did."
"No, I didn't," his second in command replied, now looking angry as well as puzzled. "I got a phone call from you telling me to get everyone down here. I did that, we were just waiting for you."
Now confused and worried, Max stared at him. The man looked like he was telling the truth. "I got a call from Victor saying that he'd heard you called a meeting."
"Not me, Kaiser," the man in question said, holding up his hands in defense. "Krieg called me and said you'd called him."
Inspecting both men, Max felt a thrill of horror go through him. "It sounded exactly like you."
"The person who called me sounded exactly like you," Krieg retorted suspiciously.
"Well, it fucking wasn't me," Max growled. "Someone is playing us for idiots."
They all stared at each other. Finally, he turned around and inspected the troops, who were watching them with expressions of bemusement. "We're under attack, somehow," he announced loudly. "Someone is trying psychological trickery to undermine my authority and sap morale. But we are the Empire Eighty Eight! We will not be fooled by such underhanded tricks from the lesser classes. We will find those responsible and make them pay, make an example of them."
"Heil Kaiser," the entire collection of people shouted as one.
"We will bring whoever is playing with us to their knees, and make them regret ever daring to mock us," he shouted, raising his hands in his best demagogic manner, privately thinking that people were all too easy to control if you just used some simple dramatics and told them what they wanted to hear.
"Heil Kaiser," the audience screamed, thrusting fists into the air. He frowned a little, the day seemed darker than it had been a moment ago.
"Heil Kaiser!" they yelled again, without even needing to be prompted this time.
A rumble from overhead made him look up.
'Those clouds blew in pretty quickly, it was a nice sunny afternoon a moment ago,' he mused.
Returning his attention to the minions, he went on, "I want all of you to look for the perpetrators of this outrage. It must be someone close to us, probably trying to stage some form of takeover. It would take a person with intimate knowledge of our organization to mimic my voice and Krieg's so well that it fooled either of us. Talk to your people, use whatever force is required, and find me that person."
"Heil Kaiser!"
The last roar was gratifyingly unified and loud. It got drowned out by a much louder rumble from above. Looking up again, he was stunned to see the sky had gone completely black, but only directly above them. There was a rim of sunlight coming in from all around the area a few hundred yards out, while above the courtyard the sky looked like something you saw on nature shows about tornadoes. Which was ridiculous, considering both their location and the sheer speed of the buildup of atmospheric change.
He had just about decided to suggest they find cover, when he discovered that the world seemed to have developed an ironic sense of humor.
The first ball of ice was about an inch across, and hit him directly in the face, shattering on his armor with little pieces spraying everywhere. Several more landed around him emitting crunching sounds. Krieg yelped, then rubbed his head, while Othala bent and picked a piece up, staring at it.
"What the fuck was that?" Max shouted, blinking ice particles and cold water out of his eyes. He could feel it running down inside his helmet.
"Hail, Kaiser," the woman said, her voice puzzled.
They all looked at each other, then up.
"Oh, fucking hell!" Victor yelled, seeing the wall of white objects dropping towards them. "Run!"
Pandemonium reigned as the entire group split up and legged it in every direction, the massive hailstones shattering on the tarmac and leaving bruises behind. Just large enough to be extremely painful, they weren't quite sufficient to be seriously dangerous, but the sheer quantity was horrendous. Max charged for the nearest cover, a continuous gonging sound ringing in his ears as his armor was battered by the hail.
A few minutes later, the E88 members were hiding in the biggest warehouse and watching as the anomalous hailstorm died out as quickly as it had appeared, leaving bright skies and piles of quickly melting ice balls everywhere, along with a lot of angry and limping minions. Victor was rubbing a lump on his head, Krieg was swearing under his breath and massaging his left shoulder, and Othala was moving around healing the various damaged people.
"What the fuck was that about?" Max grumbled. "The weather report didn't say anything about thunderstorms, and I haven't seen hail like that in years."
"It's an odd time of year for weather, it can change fast so close to the sea," Victor muttered, pressing his head and wincing.
"No one is seriously injured, but there are a lot of minor injuries," Othala reported, coming over to her husband and beginning to fix him up. "That was weird."
"Forget the damn weather. We have a spy to catch," Krieg commented acidly. Max nodded a little.
"True. All right, men, we won't let a little inclement weather stop us. As I was saying, get out there, lean on your subordinates, and find me that spy."
"Heil Kaiser," they all said, although in a few cases not without slightly nervous looks and one or two ironic grins.
There was a rumble from above.
Everyone stopped dead, then slowly raised their eyes.
"Oh, come on!" Max yelled, watching dark clouds gathering inside the fucking warehouse!
They were already running by the time the first hailstone shattered on the cement floor.
In a building several miles away, a number of people were literally rolling on the floor laughing. The videos were already trending upwards on the web at a rate not seen in years.
Emily watched the recording, her face trembling as she tried to suppress wild laughter which was unbecoming of a woman in her position. Standing up, she moved to the window and looked out over the city. She could see a small, personalized, black cloud forming over a district that she knew was a hotbed of E88 activity.
After a long moment, she turned her head slightly to look towards the Docks. "I have no idea how, but I know it was those insane lizards," she mumbled, her lips twitching. "Just this once, I'm going to enjoy it."
She went back to the computer, clicked the next video, and started chuckling under her breath.
"Just this once."