Shake Your Foundations
Chapter 12: Can't Be Too Careful Anymore
Despite the Baroness' repeated assertions to the contrary, his brother's charge was neither careless nor stupid. Especially not the stupid bit; anyone who'd watched her pick up new languages or applied skills knew that. Even Destro grudgingly accepted that fact after being persuaded to give an economics lecture to the kids several months back. She excelled in practical applications and knew enough about the theoretical ones to understand how things worked the way they did, but she struggled to translate that working knowledge into decent standardized test scores. They didn't give a rat's ass about written work as long as she could explain what she meant out loud, but most school districts weren't so understanding or lenient.
Careless also sounded wrong when discussing the kid. When you got her to focus and start drawing up plans, or even think up plans on the fly, she put a lot of thought into it. She took special care not to put her teammates in life-threatening situations if another option presented itself, and after a lot of subtle suggestions and scolding from his siblings, was finally starting to treat her own well-being with the same respect. However, her predisposition to some rather spectacular mood-swings and a nasty set of tunnel vison once in them accounted for a lot of the 'careless' assumptions from those who didn't work with her. Once she got herself worked up over something, logic often took a back seat until the pent-up emotional energy physically expelled itself in some form or fashion. There was no denying she'd gotten herself worked into a right state today, but without an adequate physical outlet she'd been left to brood with only a random human girl to distract her. He expected a lot of shouting and breaking things whenever they returned to the base for the evening.
Her eyes widened and mouth opened ever-so-slightly when she saw him blocking the doorway out of the library. Though she squashed the expression quickly, he still understood the implication. He wasn't the person she expected to corner her first, and he could work with that. "Walk with me, kid," he told her. "We need to talk."
"I'm not aware that we do," she answered, her expression frozen somewhere between disinterest and annoyance. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw the resemblance between her and Mystique. They shared the same cheekbone structure, mouth, eye shape, and in this case, facial expressions. He wondered how many of the glares and sneers she pointed in her teammates' direction were echoes of her mother and how many were hers.
"We do if you want to keep what you learned today quiet." And didn't that threat perk her right up. Granted, she was now pissed at him, but it was better than indifference. He could handle angry Andi better than the apathetic version. "This way."
"Not the teacher's lounge?"
"There are no fewer than six different bugs in that room, only half of which are the Joes'. I'm sure you can figure the rest out on your own." She scowled, but kept any further complaints to herself. He saw that as a 'win' and continued leading her through the school corridors and into one of the few un-bugged rooms on the ground floor. Once inside, he shut the door and stared her down. "How do you want to play this, kid?"
"Who says we have to play anything?" She growled. "We're the only ones that know."
"No, we're not. Zarana says the Joes got a hit in their databases from a hair sample they got from you last week, probably while you were zonked on the couch." For all he knew Zarana gave them the damn hair sample, but he didn't care enough about it to ask her. He didn't care how the Joes did anything as long as they did all the hard work for them. "So, to recap: we know, the Joes know, and Mystique officially knows. The only one currently in the dark is the Baroness."
"Can't we just…I don't know, leave her out of the loop?" The question sounded an odd cross between a whine and a growl, a noise he'd never heard from her before. Not sure what to make of it, he sighed and answered her question rather than address the strange behavior.
"That would be ideal, yes, but that leaves us with coming up with a cover story of why you and your 'dad' suddenly can't stand each other." She grimaced but he didn't stop there. "Look, kid, this goes way beyond normal parent-child arguments. You stormed out of a room with him in it. That's big news to anyone who's dealt with you before. A simple 'he grounded me for talking back' bit isn't gonna work here unless you two can play civil 'til the end of the day."
She looked left and down, arms crossed tight across her chest. "Why can't something go right for once," she murmured more to herself than to him.
"Look, I'm not here to make you talk about your feelings. I'm pants at it and it's not the most pressing issue in front of us." Blunt honesty tended to work best with her, especially when it came to dealing with any touchy-feely crap. He wasn't any more willing to pry the truth out of her than she was to address it, so better they drop that issue and focus on something else than agitate her again. "I'm here because the Joes know about the situation but can't do anything unless we give them a reason to. The best way to avoid that is to make a believable cover story. So I'll ask again, how do you want to play this?"
Seconds ticked by before she offered any suggestions, and even then the words came at a halting, slow tempo. "I guess…we should stick close to the truth? Dad's got a new girlfriend—just a casual fling, wouldn't have bothered to mention it if I hadn't walked in on them. Even so many years after his 'split' from her, the thought of him with someone else…"
"It's a good start—easy to remember and easy for your peers to believe." They'd need to flesh out all the details before tomorrow morning, but he'd leave that in Zarana's more capable hands.
"Those brats aren't my peers." He blinked at the amount of pure venom she put into those five words. "My peers aren't so focused on getting a date and a dress for the stupid homecoming dance that they've overlooked the blatantly obvious signs that they're in danger. Siegie kids are spoiled little assholes, but they ain't that stupid."
No, they weren't. Most Siegie kids in and around the Terrordrome would have identified every meddling agent in the school in about two days; four if the Joes had done a better job of covering their tracks. "Normal teenagers wouldn't make it in our line of work, kid. You know that."
"If those idiots are what 'normal' looks like, I'll stick to being a messed-up freak, thanks." She sneered, the expression sending cool, intangible spider legs skittering down the back of his neck. Even when dealing with her on a regular basis, it was easy to forget just how ruthless and apathetic she could be when she put her mind to it. This seemed to be one of those times. "None of them are prepared for what's coming. Not the mundanes, not the Brotherhood, and sure as fuck not the X-kids. If Magneto decides to play hardball and Cobra Commander makes this work, they'll be slaughtered."
"You aren't exactly at the peak of performance either, kid." He shot her a look. She was better than the other mutants her age at this school, but she was still a ways away from being ready to face something like Magneto or Sabretooth. The fight a couple weeks ago proved it. "You aren't ready to face him yet and you know it."
"No, but I can take out his pawns." She met his stare, her dark, cold eyes daring him to contradict her. "I'd rather not have to, but I can incapacitate all of them given enough prep time."
She would, broken arm or no broken arm, and wasn't that all kinds of disturbing? "I know you can, but this isn't your op, kid. Baroness wants Mindbender to handle it himself."
"Mindbender never handles extractions himself." This time it was an 'are you stupid?' glare sent his direction. "So, who's he bringing in? Vipers? Siegie infiltrators?"
"We don't know for sure yet, but I'd bet on Vipers unless someone else interferes. He'd trust Medi-Vipers, at least, not to screw anything up."
"Why would someone interfere with this op?" She frowned. Oh, he knew she wanted to, but she wouldn't. And he agreed with her reasons for wanting to do it. This whole operation seemed like a waste of time; Mindbender wouldn't actually want to deal with any of the mutants once he got a hold of them, so why not just take the DNA and clone them? It was much easier to acquire and saved everyone else a giant headache. "Destro and the Twins have nothing to gain from it, we're already here, Cobra Commander ordered it in the first place, and Bludd flat-out doesn't care what happens as long as he gets paid."
"Who said it was High Command interfering?" He asked. "Dark Shadow's been up to some sketchy things lately; if anyone's butting in, it'd be him."
Her expression darkened. The Dreadnoks did their best to keep themselves and the kids away from Cobra Commander's new pet ninja, but they hadn't been able to stop him from seeing them every once in a while. He gave her the creeps due to his habit of staring at the team whenever he came upon them. Rumor had it he had his eyes set on trying to acquire Eventide as a possible apprentice; they aimed to keep that from happening. The girl was deadly enough without extra training; they didn't want something that was more effective at killing them in their sleep just yet. "But what would he want with the mutants here? There's two, maybe three, that could fit as apprentices, but it'd be a hell of a lot of work to do it. Besides, I don't think even he's capable of taking Wolverine out long enough for a snatch and grab."
True. Nothing he could do would keep that man down long enough for Dark Shadow to do it on his own. Help ran the risk of getting distracted and caught before they reached their goal. "But it's not like Xavier's security would slow them up much either. He's too damn soft to make the necessary precautions." Like poison gas, or trip-activated dart guns, or moving the damn school… "Just be on your guard. Something's about to go down and we need to be sure it isn't one of our people."
Meanwhile, at the G.I. Joe main base affectionately known as the Pit, another meeting was taking place.
"And you're sure this information is correct?" General Hawk asked while absently tapping his fingers against the top of his desk. Lifeline, Psyche-Out, Duke, and Storm Shadow stared at him from the other side of the wood and metal structure. It was the fifth or sixth such meeting between the men in the last few months but the first on a topic other than the Pit's newest permanent resident.
"Doc and I ran the tests twice to be sure," Lifeline's voice as level and calm as if he were discussing a more benign topic than Cobra's latest weapon. Well, potential weapon. Just how dangerous she was remained unclear. "It's a confirmed match."
"Just great," Duke grumbled. "We didn't need any more complications on this mission, and this one could cost us."
"I concur. Any word on her activities since arriving in Bayville?" Hawk looked at his First Shirt. Duke sighed.
"Nothing of note aside from her injuries. She hasn't been well enough to attend a full day of classes yet, but Mainframe seems to think she won't be a threat unless provoked."
"That is no easy task." Storm Shadow frowned behind his mask. Little of the information gleaned from Shadowatch's files instilled him with confidence in their ability to play nice with others, but their squad leader's formal apprenticeship with Zartan bothered him most. In the decades he'd known the mercenary, the only people Zartan voluntarily trained were members of his own family. He'd had offers over the years—Storm Shadow remembered several young Cobras hoping to train under the man during his tenure there—but turned them all down without a second thought. To choose this one after so many years of refusing to work with outsiders…there had to be some kind of endgame he wasn't seeing. "We know nothing about her; nothing about what will and will not ignite her temper." Nothing about how well trained she was, or how much damage she could cause while injured. The new files were leaps and bounds more accurate than their predecessors but still woefully short on pertinent information.
"A temper known to be explosive when active, from what I can tell," Psyche-Out piped up, Atlantis' file in his hands and his eyebrows pulled into a frown. "She needs to be handled carefully; she's murdered at least once before."
"I know. I was there." Duke shot the psychologist an exasperated look. In the two years since the Chronotech shooting, they'd been over the kids' involvement more times than he'd have liked. "Though I still don't think she was ever intended to take that shot…"
"Doesn't matter; she has an official kill count," Storm Shadow argued. Granted, the count was only confirmed at one person...
"A count that could be much higher once she came within striking distance of several of us during the invasion at the Hawaii base," Duke countered. "She was close enough to do more than throw us into the scenery that time and chose not to."
"It means she had an eye out for a better exit strategy, nothing more." The ninja frowned.
"If she'd had her eye on that she'd have shot Beach Head instead of it going the other way around," Duke scoffed. "Next time, she probably will shoot him just to even the score." He wouldn't blame her if she did; Beach Head had been way out of line on that call.
"Which would add another mark to her ledger." A mostly empty ledger, from what Storm Shadow knew as absolutes about the girl, but a ledger all the same.
"You seem to forget we're talking about a child here, and a potentially damaged one at that. She needs to be handled carefully," Psyche Out stated. "Besides, it's not like we haven't kept tabs on her little group. We know at least some of the Dreadnoks are on that reality show out of Chicago, even if we don't have enough evidence to get a search warrant. We could try to press charges, but due to her age, it's likely their lawyers will plead coercion and get her off without any jail time."
"According to Falcon, she hasn't caused any trouble thus far," Duke said. "All she's done for the most part is sleep or read. Gyrich's trying to get her kicked out of the school for some reason, but she hasn't really been coherent long enough to do anything worth expulsion."
"I thought she was only auditing her classes?" Lifeline frowned.
"She is," Hawk answered. Four heads swiveled his direction, so wrapped up in debating each other they'd forgotten his presence. "He doesn't like the look of her and wants her out of the school, even if he has to invent charges to do it. Man should never have been picked to infiltrate a school."
"He's probably the best Trask had to offer." Psyche Out smirked. "Good news for us, though."
"Look, all this arguing isn't going to get us anywhere unless more information comes our way," Duke said. "Truth is we don't know enough about what she's like off camera to make a call here, do we?"
Storm Shadow sighed. "Unfortunately not. She's the unknown."
"Then we wait another couple of days to see how she reacts to Bayville's public school system." Psyche Out shrugged. "Even if Manframe's the only one of our guys who has a class with her, teachers gossip. If she's a problematic student, someone other than the Baroness is going to complain about it."
Hawk sighed. He wasn't a fan of the 'wait and see' approach, but at the moment he had no clear alternatives. "Very well. We'll keep a close eye on her and see how this plays out. Hassling her won't win us any favors right now." And while he didn't want any favors, per se, he didn't want her to go on the offensive either. Not until they got some better intel on her, at least.
By the time dinner rolled around, the Baroness ran off on yet another date with Gyrich, and Zanya decided to crash at their base for the night, neither woman knowing the drama that unfolded earlier in the afternoon.
That said, it didn't take Zanya long to notice that Creed and her dad weren't talking to each other. And not the 'sitting in companionable silence' variety; nope, this was the Silent Treatment, which was weird on so many levels because usually when Creed was pissed about something it was damn hard to get her to shut up about it. Or, if you did manage to shut her up, some piece of scenery ended up broken or thrown in the vicinity of your head. Sometimes both, along with a stray knife or two.
Normally, she didn't care why Dad and the hired help were fighting about something, but this was downright surreal and wrong and she'd much rather have Creed throwing a lamp at Dad's head than giving him that icy glare of hers. Zanya didn't much care for that glare; it wigged her out on levels she hadn't been aware non-telepaths could reach. Maybe once this spat was resolved, she could get the other girl to teach her? Glares like that could come in handy, if they could be taught. Not all could, but she'd try her best anyway.
As she walked over to the blue teen lounging on the living room sofa, she was hit by just how much the girl had changed in the weeks and months since they last met in person. Creed had always been taller, but while Zanya hadn't gained any height since turning thirteen, Andi shot up another half a foot in the last eight months. Girl still looked like a bean pole, but filled out way better than she remembered. Better in a way that the half of the school interested in admiring attractive females would have noticed if she'd worn something other than Bryan's old t-shirts to class. How old was Creed now? Fifteen? Sixteen? She knew the girl had a birthday right around when fall term started but couldn't recall if they'd already passed it up or not. Too long in Bayville and not enough time at home, she decided. Hopefully that'd change in the next few weeks.
"Did you need something or did you wanna just keep starin' like all the fanboys do?" Creed grunted, jolting Zanya out of her musings. Had her voice gotten deeper too? Damn, if blue-girl changed this much, what did the rest of the team look like?
She pushed that disconcerting thought aside and soldiered on with her reason for seeking the other girl out. "You and Dad aren't talking."
"What wonderful observational skills you have." Creed rolled her eyes. "What's your point?"
"You never give him the cold shoulder; it's freaky. What the hell did you two fight about?" And was it going to affect the mission? That she worried about.
Creed scowled. "It's none of your business."
"It is if this job gets botched because of you two!"
"Then let the job be botched; it was a waste of time from the get-go."
"And deal with the Baroness bitching to us about it on the ride home? You've lost it." She shook her head. "Now, what did he do to make you not scream at him?" Because fights between Dad and Creed usually ended either in a screaming match or an impromptu sparring match accompanied by loud non-verbal sounds of her displeasure. She'd never known her to act like this.
"You'll have to do better than that."
"You know what, you're right. Why am I bothering with you when I could just ask Aunt Z or Uncle Zandar about it?" One of them was bound to know, probably Uncle Zandar. He overheard all the best gossip….
And she'd clearly been spending way too much time as a sophomore airhead because since when did she even care about gossip that wasn't good for blackmail and money? Uhg. She hated this job.
Creed's dark eyes widened. Odd...did one of them actually know something? "It's none of your damn business!"
"The hell it isn't!" She shot back. "You slip up now and everything they've been working for here is FUBAR."
"I can handle a little play-acting, Zanya. They wouldn't have risked bringing me here if I couldn't." There was that sneer again, along with the ice-glare of doom. Crap. If she played this wrong, Creed would shut her out for the rest of the damned week and she so did not want that on top of everything else going on. She liked having someone around to talk shop with who wasn't a decade or two older.
"That was then, this is now. Circumstances changed. What happened?"
"Nothing worth the production you're making over it, certainly." Both of them jumped at her dad's voice. Crap. She hadn't heard him come in, and judging by that scowl, neither had Creed. Kudos to Dad for not reacting to the death glare, though. She wasn't sure she could have managed that level of casual indifference if they traded places. "It is personal and nothing you need worry over."
Which was dad-speak for 'drop it and back away'. She sighed. "Can't I get a hint?"
"No." His changed focus and stared back at Creed. "Can I count on you to act the part tomorrow, or should I keep you home to avoid a catastrophe?"
Zanya'd heard lots of angry animal noises before. Most of it came from alligators unwillingly pulled into service as melee weapons in the Dreadnoks' brawls, but she'd come across a fair few dogs and cats too. Not a one of them quite matched the low growl she heard from Creed. "I can manage."
Usually Dad didn't let that kind of tone slide—she remembered more than one argument degenerating into a lopsided brawl back in the early days with Shadowatch, when everybody was still figuring each other out. And if he'd caught her growling at him, she'd be grounded and stripped of all her weapons in about two minutes flat. This time, though, he just stared back instead of reacting. "Not if you can't watch that tone, you won't. Your performance has to be as close to perfect as you can manage."
"Then it's a good thing good acting runs in the family, isn't it?" Creed sneered. Zanya wasn't sure what the hell that comment was supposed to mean (Sabretooth was known for a variety of things, but not acting), but if the exasperated look on Dad's face was anything to go by, he did.
"Skills mean nothing if you don't use them." Dad managed not to give in and sigh at the other girl's behavior, but she knew it was a near thing. Though with him acting this damn guilty, whatever started the disagreement was probably his fault somehow. She filed that bit of information away for later use as Dad turned to leave. "You'd better be on your best behavior tomorrow, or I promise you won't like the alternative."
From the look on Creed's face, the promise of alternatives might not be enough to stop her from doing something stupid. Zanya resigned herself to babysitting the taller girl tomorrow; better head this off now than to wait and have it blow up in their faces later.