Mission Report: Day Two

Advocatebackers.com

Welcome to day two everybody. Technically it’s day four for me. It’s all over and now I can reveal exactly what we were trying to do. When last I left you we were all shivering in a treehouse.

In the morning we walked to a gas station and then called for a car that could get us to the docks. The docks were our next stop because Cocoa Solid had arranged our transportation for the mission. All we had to do was find the right slip. Honestly, it was pretty hard to miss. Our boat was a relatively small but sleek craft with a blazing red paint job. Its top was metal and fabric and could be pulled down like a convertible. None of us had any idea if that was common for boats or not.

“This certainly looks like Cocoa’s boat,” I said as I climbed in. The craft wobbled in the water a little. “Come on everybody.” All my animals piled in. Saintly was a tad wary of all the water, but after seeing how easily it wobbled the rest of us were too.

“So you’re driving, right Food?” Telephony asked. “You have experience? Lots of experience?”

“My family had a speedboat and some jet skis,” Food assured him. “I’ve got this handled one hundred and ten percent. Cocoa said the keys would be… in here.” She popped open something like a dashboard. A cardboard box, in loud wrapping paper, fell out. It was topped with a bow which was also tied to the keys. I snatched a card off the top of it. Cocoa Solid doesn’t just provide; they nourish. They overfeed.

The top layer of the box was a special batch of chocolates for us and, don’t worry, I’ll get to those later. Under that was the real surprise. Costumes. Uniforms. Whatever you want to call proper superhero get-ups. We already had masks and dark clothing and things, but these were professional. They must have cost Cocoa thousands of dollars. Each was tailored to our tastes and had actual layers of body armor built in, the kind that’s good enough to make lethal small arms fire less than lethal.

We made sure we were out in open water (did I even say we were heading out into an ocean rather than a lake?) before we tried them on. Mine had a lot of forest green; Cocoa knew I didn’t like anything too bright. The mask was a simple eye and nose covering with hints of a few animalistic contours. It came with two matching armor vests for Vincent Van and Saintly. My squirrel and birds would have to go without as I imagine there were some requests even Cocoa’s designers wouldn’t tolerate. (Plus I hadn’t exactly sent her the measurements for my pocket-sized pets.)

Telephony was in red. I assured him it was an excellent color for him. Three minutes later I got a text from his subconscious asking if I really thought that. I told him yes again. His mask was attached to two big earpieces like fancy headphones. I assumed they were jammed full of electronics that his other self would have an easy time using.

The Fastest Food’s costume was far less dramatic than I expected. Her armor looked an awful lot like jeans and a black leather jacket. She popped the collar and donned a rooster mask with a charcoal-colored comb and wattle. The chicken had very solemn eyes.

“I didn’t think you’d wear leather,” I told her.

“This is the finest fake leather money can buy,” she insisted as she tried to stretch the collar even higher on her neck. Something told me she’d known about the uniforms and that she’d actually given Cocoa Solid a few suggestions beforehand. Either way, we looked the part a lot more than we did before, especially since The Fastest Food’s driving did turn out to be quite skillful.

Okay, let’s get all of you backers briefed. Our mission was taking place on… Justice Isle. I’m imagining confusion right now, maybe a few people freaking out, yelling, and chewing on their mousepad out of stunned madness. It definitely requires some explaining.

First and most importantly: what is Justice Isle? You guys remember the Justice Backers. Everybody does. They changed the face of the planet after all, but they haven’t done much lately. The classic members have all been shunned or pushed into the background now that they’ve been regulated out of existence and have made room for smaller-scale operations like ours.

Impala’s living the anonymous life so well that nobody knows what continent she’s on, her beautiful bulging leg muscles hidden under a dress most of the time (I imagine). We all assume Pawn and Transplant are still living the spore life. Monkey Girl’s been pretty much left alone thanks to the fact that she basically lives in international waters and does pure humanitarian work. Golden Boy shows up on some TV show every week because nothing sticks to him.

Then there’s the head hound, the man who started it all with the first hero-funding campaign: Alpha Dog. If anybody was going to find a new way to make money off of the idea of justice, it was him. That’s what Justice Isle is. In his advancing middle age he’s managed to rebrand himself as the rational man caught up in an irrational situation even though the whole thing was his idea. Enough people valued his opposition to the Lichen and its spores that he became an internet folk hero. The kind of guy people on their porches would carve little wooden likenesses of one hundred and fifty years ago.

He finagled his way to wealth and comfort and even managed to acquire the likeness rights of most of his former teammates. I don’t think they resent him for it; that’s just the kind of guy he’s always been. (That’s the way Archive’s and Wallflower’s book paints him anyway.) Enter his newest and grandest venture: a theme park celebrating the golden years of the Justice Backers and all their adventures. Justice Isle is nearing the end of its construction and will open to the public in a matter of weeks.

Why were we trying to break into a capitalist shrine to our own heroes? Simple. Someone else was trying at the same time. We had information that the Livefeed Thieves, notorious criminals who broadcast their crimes across the internet, were planning to steal a powerful Justice Backer artifact from its display before the park opened.

The artifact (can I call something less than twenty years old an artifact?) is the flame sling. If you’re a Justice Backer buff you might remember it. Near the end of the Backers, when they were mostly trying to repair their image with community service projects, there was another sort of weirdo making headlines. He was Presto.com, and he called himself a digital performance artist. At first he was just the kind of pretentious artsy guy who would display his paintings on hanging monitors instead of canvases. Then he got it into his head that he was a revolutionary inventor.

To be fair, nobody else had managed to build what he did before. The flame sling is a computer, given its intimidating appearance only to enhance its image of artistic achievement. The device can identify any person before it and swiftly obliterate their entire presence on the internet. Photos, articles, tiny snippets of data about them carried by exotic hidden malware… nothing could survive its figurative heat. Presto made it as a statement about digital crimes being like real crimes. He had the sling produce hologram flames whenever it was in use, to show the damage that could be done to people without ever touching them.

There was a question about the legality of the device, and how it could be misused. Since Presto only used it on volunteers interested in his art, the authorities didn’t quite have the reach to make him give it up. Maybe they would have succeeded if he was less of a public figure, but the guy made his last name .com so… You get the idea. The Justice Backers had some evidence that it had been used on an underage person who couldn’t really consent to that sort of thing; they used that as a pretext to confiscate it from the performance artist.

There was a bit of a scuffle, with Presto.com trying to use it on the Backers. All they had to do was back up and have Alpha Dog’s robotic hounds grab it for them. It’s been under lock and key, until recently that is. We needed to steal it to prevent it from being stolen. You might argue we could’ve just warned Alpha Dog, but we do have designs of our own just as they did. We think the flame sling should be destroyed, for its power is too great. Once we have it we’ll make sure it can’t be used against anyone ever again.

It was the weekend; most of the construction guys working on Justice Isle had been shipped back to shore for a couple of days off. The park still had some automatic security, but both sets of thieves (yes, one is us) seemed confident they could handle that. How the Livefeed Thieves planned to do it we had no idea, but Telephony was our secret weapon. Thanks to his ability to open secure communication channels, our chatter couldn’t be detected by anything. My pets covered the rest, as they could scout ahead and find all security cameras.

Cocoa Solid had secured us some schematics for the park’s layout, which Telephony and I reviewed while The Fastest Food kept us heading towards the isle. We planned out the best route, trying to ignore the spray created by our speeding vessel. The schematics were laminated, because of course they were, because Cocoa Solid thinks of everything.

The island had two main points of entry: the guest docks and the loading docks. The loading docks, on the back of the island, connected to a partially submerged cave attraction called Sportfish Bay. They had a ride there where you could get into whale-shaped submersibles and ride around for a while; it’s the same technology Alpha Dog used to build his hounds. It’s dark, it’s discreet, and it was where we were going to park our boat.

After taking a path through the bay entrance, marked by the Woman’s Touch Tank, and into the main body of the park, we would pass through the food court, Wing King’s high-flying coaster, Electric Eel’s Shocking Drop, and then into the museum where the flame sling, and about a million other cool things, was stored.

“Thar she blows!” The Fastest Food declared. “Aroo-ah-oo!” she crowed like her mask. “Sellout Fortress everybody.” Her opinion on Justice Isle is abundantly clear, I’m sure. Even she couldn’t deny it was an impressive sight. The island was small, but the park’s tallest structures stuck up from its trees like gigantic soft mushrooms. All the architecture was friendly and rounded like a baby-proofed apartment. The loops of several roller coasters, in garish neon colors, came into view. They even had a replica of the Justice Juniper at the front entrance, but that was not our entrance.

Food took us around and into the shade of a carefully engineered shelf of stone. We pulled right up into the bay, alongside a row of the robotic whales. I imagined they would act quite lifelike when they were powered up, but for now they just sat there like some kind of mass-beaching. After Ernest, Bridget, Saintly, and Tracy did an initial survey for cameras, we disembarked our blazing red boat and stepped foot on Justice Isle. Everything was dim on account of the lights being off; it highlighted our boat all the more like it was some kind of fresh arrow wound in the side of the park. I immediately felt like a trespasser, which, you know, I was, but I half-expected to look down and find a can of spray paint in my hand. I tried to remind myself we were actually there for something important.

“I’m opening our channel,” Telephony whispered as he fiddled with his headset. “Make sure your earpieces are in.” I checked mine and waited. There was a quiet wave of static, and then I heard Telephony’s voice again. “Is it working?” I was looking at him when he said that, and his mouth wasn’t moving.

“Your subconscious just asked if it was working,” I told him. His cheeks immediately went red; I guess he assumed it said some other things as well. It did have an audience at the moment who couldn’t really turn their phones off. “I guess that means it’s working,” I joked. I forced out a chuckle and patted him on the shoulder to calm him down.

“If you’re trying to calm us down you shouldn’t touch us,” his subconscious said in my ear.

“Oh sorry,” I apologized. Telephony looked at me with a worried glance.

“What did I say now?” the flesh and blood part of him asked.

“It’s nothing,” I told him. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s move out.” I had Vincent Van lead the way, his nose to the wet floor. I don’t know if there were any helpful scents for him to pick up, but I didn’t see how it could hurt. There came a moment halfway up the stairs that led to the light of day where The Fastest Food and I were walking far enough behind Telephony that I could whisper something to her without him hearing.

“Hey, did you hear what his subconscious said to me?” She just looked at me. I couldn’t read anything through those rubber chicken eyes. She kept walking and staring without saying anything. “What!?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I was trying to figure out if saying I did could benefit me in any way, but I kind of ran out of time. I didn’t hear whatever it was.”

“You’re such a help,” I moaned. I got the distinct sense that she hadn’t even started caring about anything we’d said that day. “Don’t tell Telephony that I asked her… uhm… you know… okay?” I asked my earpiece as quietly as possible.

“I won’t,” his subconscious said back after a moment. “He’s already more nervous than he’s ever been. Let’s get the flame sling and get out of here.” The more open half of him had a good point. Lingering didn’t benefit us in any way, but it was difficult to avoid given our surroundings.

The stairs led us up to the Woman’s Touch tank, which was in the middle of a weirdly big gift shop. The tank itself didn’t have any water, starfish, or hermit crabs in it yet, so we could smell the factory-fresh sand poured in the bottom. Two giant plastic hands, modeled after the robotic ones the villain Woman’s Touch used, rose from its sandy depths. Their palms faced the ceiling and had stacks of Justice Backers stuffed animals on them. They were mostly plush versions of Alpha Dog’s hounds. My imagination got away from me; I couldn’t help but picture my own pets as toy symbols of hope for kids around the world. They’ve been through so much; they deserve it.

“You guys want to tear some of this stuff up?” The Fastest Food asked as she examined cheap necklaces with dangling hero insignias.

“We told you before: no property damage aside from the sling,” I warned.

“Property damage is my whole thing,” she whined. “People won’t know I was here unless some of this corporate garbage winds up shredded.” She picked up one of the plush dogs and twisted its head around on its stuffed neck. Vincent Van whined.

“Can you not do that in front of them?” I asked her.

“Sorry. Tell me this doesn’t gall you a little though. These guys used to stand for something. They used to put their lives on the line to stand up for people who couldn’t.”

“They couldn’t anymore,” Telephony said as he examined the necklaces himself. I think they were the kind where they put random names on them in the hope they stumble across yours and you’ll feel like it’s the stupidest little thing fate has ever done for you. I don’t think he found his there; is that worse? “Everybody was after them. It was either stop, hide, or…”

“Sell out,” Food finished. “They should’ve kept fighting regardless. They needed to fucking stay counter-culture. There always has to be a strong, sharp, jagged vein of counter-culture to keep regular culture from bloating as fast as it wants to. It’s the goddamn splinter poking in the side of the balloon.”

“Well we’re stealing from the counter-culture that inspired us,” I argued, “so does that make us counter-counter-culture?”

“I wish,” the Fastest Food said as she checked the drawer of the cash register. She even angled her chicken beak down inside it so she could see the back. “If we could get about five counters on our label that would probably make us the best people in all of fucking existence.”

“Let’s get to the museum before you can’t control yourself anymore,” I suggested. I whistled to Ernest and Bridget, who had already made themselves comfortable in the pile of stuffed animals. They didn’t seem too happy to be moving out again. I’d never had any of them away from home this long and only Saintly was handling it well.

We came to the food court, but had to skirt around it thanks to a few security cameras. The backs of all those kiosk restaurants sure are depressing without the colorful signs and toy displays around. There were boxes everywhere and the occasional abandoned trolley.

After that came the museum, which was swarmed with cameras. It was easy to see from the little red lights that they were all on too. Alpha Dog was not the kind of guy to skimp on the technology, so we were certain the cameras were hooked up to an A.I. rather than the drowsy eyes of a single guard somewhere. If they identified us they would immediately activate alarms.

There was a simple way around it for us though; we had a squirrel. Squirrels irritate people. They distract them, but they don’t make anybody suspicious. We found the clearest pathway, which was only guarded by a single camera, and waited crouched in some decorative bushes while Tracy scurried over. He scaled the gutters of the museum and crawled out onto the camera, laying his furry stomach across it until the lens was completely blocked. Nothing but a curious squirrel resting where he shouldn’t. While the camera was covered we quickly ran by its cone of vision and under the museum’s awning.

When Tracy returned we were already examining the next obstacle: a padlocked chain around the doors. It had little lights of its own, indicating some electronic component and possibly an alarm. I was fresh out of ideas, but The Fastest Food was not fresh out of ketchup. She pulled out one of her red grenades and carefully opened a tiny valve on it. The pressure forced out a stream of ketchup, which sank into the cracks of the padlock. After a few moments its lights fizzled out and it popped open. We left it lying there on the ground, bleeding ketchup from the two holes on top.

If it was hard not to geek out in the gift shop, it was a hundred times harder in the museum. They knew to decorate it like a movie theater, with red curtains tied up all around the walls. Nothing says ‘superhero’ like the theater. Rows and rows of mannequins marked the first paths, each one wearing a Justice Backer or villain costume. Some were reproductions and some were the real thing. They had the jackets Metal X and Metal Y wore with completely rusted-over buttons. They had the black troll-masked disguises worn by Secret Shuffle dealers and traders. Costumes covered in plastic leaves worn by wannabe spores. The wedding dress of the bride of Wing King. I think I was salivating.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

We pressed on, trying to keep our eyes on the prize. Once we were through the costume hall we hit more traditional-looking exhibits in glass cases. That was it; the flame sling was bound to be in there somewhere. The three of us split up in search of it. I snooped around the spot with Speedball’s pitching arm exoskeleton. The Fastest Food had Game Master’s props. None of us found what we were looking for, but Telephony was on to something we all wanted to see.

“Guys, check this out,” he whispered through our earpieces. I’d lost him in the field of super relics, but I just followed my birds back to him. When I got there the Fastest Food was already admiring it too: Tin Soldier.

I’m sure most of you know, but for those who don’t: Tin Soldier was a Justice Backer. He came in around the time the original team split in two. Alpha Dog bought him to help swell his diminished ranks. He was able to buy a hero because Tin Soldier is a robot. So far he’s the only one of his kind known: an android built in the seventies to be a soldier in what his mad creator thought was an upcoming race war.

The guy thought of this war as a white revolution against the ‘forces’ of equality. Yeah, he was a fruitcake. Regardless, he styled the robot’s uniform after an American revolutionary uniform and he has worn a variation of it ever since. Here it was on glorious display, fitted onto a replica that looked way way better than the simple mannequins wearing the earlier costumes. We could see every detail on his harmonica-like mouth and his floodlight eyes.

For those of you wondering if the robot himself is racist, he was. He was programmed that way after all. Eventually he befriended the black Backer Electric Eel and kind of got over it. I say kind of because he went overboard with the subject. Back when he was active people remembered him always going on and on about his millions of black friends online.

The model of him here was in a superb action pose. They had his torso swung out to one side, with an arm swinging the bayonet of his iconic rifle. Just under the blade stood a headless henchman robot the Backers ran into a lot; I think they were called Hostages. He had another part of one crushed in his other hand. It was so dramatic; everything else was a bit drab in comparison.

“Why did they spend so much time on this one?” the Fastest Food asked. She crouched down and tapped the buttons on his jacket. We heard it hit his metal chest underneath.

“Hey, you guys don’t think this is the real Tin Soldier, do you?” Telephony asked. “And if we just turned his clock key he would start up again?” (That is actually how he worked by the way; turning the key on his back loaded his main spring with kinetic energy that lasted a set amount of time for each turn.)

“I don’t think they would leave one of their friends frozen in sleep, alone on an island, for however long that’s been here,” I said.

“I’d believe that,” Food said flatly. “They’ve compressed and stored and slapped a price tag on everything else around them. Why not friends too? I bet they fetch a pretty penny. Of course, I know this isn’t the real Tin Soldier. Look here.” She pointed to the bolts around his neck holding his shoulders together. “On the real one these are gold instead of silver. The tassels are different too. More floofy.”

“Maybe it’s an animatronic then,” Telephony guessed, approaching it from behind. “That way visitors can wind him up and he’ll move a little like the real thing, but he’ll just flex his arms and play some recording about the legacy of the Justice Backers… or something.” He reached out and touched the clock key at the back.

“Well don’t…” I started to say, but it was too late. He turned the key about half an inch. The bayonet finished its swing and nearly took Food’s head off. She rolled backward expertly and by the time she was back in a normal crouch she had her frozen nugget launcher primed and aimed straight at the robot. Telephony’s dismount from the raised step of the exhibit wasn’t as graceful, but he got out of there. The crushed henchbot part fell out of the soldier’s hand and he rose to his perfect metallic posture.

"Greetings!” his voice blasted out. “I, Tin Soldier, welcome you to the Gallery of Glory! It is here where we store…” he stopped and examined us. So… he was real. We were face to face with an actual Backer; the craziest part was that they actually did have him memorize some spiel about the park. “I thought we would have a larger crowd for the opening ceremonies.”

“Shitty shitakes… you’re real!” Food blurted. “They changed your looks a little.”

“Alpha Dog thought a slightly more regal look was appropriate,” the robot said, self-consciously examining the tassels on his sleeve.

“I screwed up, I screwed up, I screwed up, I screwed up,” Telephony’s subconscious repeated into our ears. His actual lips were sealed and his face was ridiculously red.

“It’s fine,” I whispered to him. The robot noticed. His unblinking eyes expressed nothing, but the slight tilt of his head held volumes.

“Where are all the other guests?” he asked. “You must have the all-access passes Alpha Dog spoke of.”

“Yes,” The Fastest Food said. It was easy for her to keep a straight face wearing a rubber chicken beak. “All access. Shelled out a pretty penny for them too so we could get in here before everybody else and their scooter-riding grannies. We were hoping you could tell us where the flame sling display is. We’re most excited to see that.” Slick.

“I’d be delighted to show you,” Tin Soldier said. He slung his rifle over his shoulder where it connected to a magnetic rack on his back. Then he marched off the platform and further into the building. “This way. I enjoy your costumes by the way; I don’t remember those particular rogues from our gallery, but I was not active in the last years of our work. The chicken-headed villain must have been particularly fearsome.”

“Guy was evil as fuck,” Food went on. She was the first one behind him. The robot hadn’t spotted my pets yet, so with a casual-sounding whistle I ordered them to hide. If pets weren’t going to be allowed in there it might’ve made him suspicious. “They called him Booster Rooster.” Maybe her actual superpower is lying.

“The flame sling is a nefarious device that burns down the internet presence of anyone in its path,” Tin Soldier explained. “There are no actual flames or paths of course; I’m utilizing my mastery of figurative language.” He stopped in front of a display case that was covered with a purple cloth; that was why we hadn’t spotted the sling ourselves. He whipped it away. There were plenty of gadgets on display, but the sling was the centerpiece.

It was a little bigger than I expected, about the size of a kid’s two-handed water gun. Its body was shining chrome with two sharp licks of plastic red fire across the sides. Honestly it was a little tacky. Still, it had a clear front end and a clear trigger. The Fastest Food spread her gloved hands over the top of the case; her fingers squealed against the glass.

“All-access baby. Aaaaaalllll-access.” I think her beak was filling with drool.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how am I doing so far?” Tin Soldier asked Telephony.

“Uhh… with what?”

“How well is this tour going?” the robot clarified. He leaned closer to the poor boy, who already couldn’t lean back further. “If you had to categorize your level of entertainment and engagement on a scale of one to five, would it be a four or a five?”

“It’ll totally be a five if you can open this up and let us hold it,” Food suggested.

“I’m sorry miss; Alpha Dog was very clear. None of the cases are ever to be opened in the presence of guests. Many of these objects are highly dangerous.” Tin Soldier examined the ceiling. It was really dim in there, with only the emergency blue floor lights active. I guess the lackluster atmosphere threatened his theoretical five-score, so he did something about it. He put a metal finger to something on the side of his head that looked like a modern earpiece. All the lights overhead came on in a blinding flash. Music with lots of French horns blared. I suppose it was the Justice Isle theme tune. Not bad. John Williams-esque. “That’s much better,” the robot declared.

“The reverence for these things; it borders on the Catholic,” Food muttered. “How’d you do that by the way?”

“With this,” the robot said and pointed to his earpiece. “Alpha Dog was kind enough to build a device that could integrate my uniquely antiquated CPU with a modern system. I can now access the internet without a separate terminal as well as control the systems of Justice Isle.”

“Neat,” both halves of Telephony whispered.

“May I see your all-access passes?” Tin Soldier asked. He held out his palm. We froze. “I haven’t seen them yet; I need to be able to identify our V.I.P guests.” His palm inched closer to us. With its metallic sheen it was like a mugger stabbing in our direction. Telephony’s subconscious screamed his fear into our earpieces and we all winced. “Please show me your passes,” he repeated and took a step towards us. We backed up. “Please show me your passes.”

He lowered his hand. I think the excitement of being a tour guide was wearing off and he started to notice some things, like the lights being off when we were there and the absence of other guests. The jig was up. The robot’s arm shot over his shoulder and he pulled his rifle in front of him.

“You are trespassing,” he stated with some measure of disappointment. “The park is not open to visitors yet.”

“Took you long enough,” Food spat as she pulled her nugget launcher and aimed it at his head. I whistled. My animals came out from the woodwork and built a perimeter around the machine. None of them stood a chance against him with their teeth, talons, or claws, so they would be playing the distraction. Saintly was already atop the glass case with raised fur and an angry hiss. Vincent Van growled and barked.

“Everybody just hang on,” I said, holding my arms out in an attempt to restrain Food more than the soldier. “While we are technically trespassing Mr. Tin Soldier, we have good reason to.”

“What reason is that?” he asked.

“We’re Justice Backers, just like you,” Telephony explained.

“Actually we’re better than you because we haven’t so…”

“That’s right,” I said, cutting off Food. “We’re crowdfunded heroes. Retrieving the flame sling is our first official mission. We’re trying to follow in your footsteps.” The robot’s head spun completely around; he took a millisecond to check the flame sling was still in place before his head spun back.

“I do not understand. If you are Justice Backers, where is the threat you are here to stop? I offer you this advice: your approach has an unpleasant air of thievery to it. It will not be good for your public image.”

“There was a threat made by some villains called the Livefeed Thieves. They said they intended to steal the flame sling. Obviously it can’t be allowed to get into their hands, so we came to take it first.”

“Why would you not simply warn Alpha Dog?” the robot asked. “I make an effective guard when the situation calls for it. I protected the Backer Bay on many occasions while my teammates slept.”

“Okay, yeah, but here’s the thing…” I could tell I was losing him. I might’ve been losing myself a little too. “We are of the opinion that the flame sling is too dangerous to be possessed by anyone. We would like to destroy it.”

“The flame sling is the property of Justice Isle. That would be a crime more serious than trespass.”

“Oh come off it,” the Fastest Food shouted. “You guys destroyed public and private property all the time!”

“I do not deny that,” the robot said, “but always in instances where the greater good required it.”

“But the Livefeed Thieves…”

“I can find no record of such a threat,” Tin Soldier interrupted. He touched a finger to his earpiece again. “There is no mention online of this threat.”

“It’s darknet stuff,” Food said. “We’ve got a reliable source with connections. We know it happened.”

“This device was a collaboration between Alpha Dog and the Unfridgable Girl,” the soldier countered. “It accesses the underbelly of the underbelly. Figurative language again. If what you said was true, I would be able to find it.” Telephony and I glared at Food. She didn’t say anything in response. I not only had questions swirling in my head, I had the ones swirling in Telephony’s head in my ear. We were thinking a lot of the same things. Had the Fastest Food lied to us? Had Cocoa Solid? Had both of them? I can tell you right away that I threw out the accusations against Cocoa. They were all about openness with the people they gave chocolates to. They practically saved my life. I had some of their stuff giving me extra pluck at that very moment.

“We’re taking the sling,” Food declared without acknowledging her team.

“You are children, not superheroes,” the robot declared. “Your parents need to be spoken with. I will hold you here until I can contact them.”

“We can take him,” Food assured.

“What are you talking about!?” Telephony panicked. “He has a gun!”

“They didn’t leave him in here without so much as a velvet rope and give him any ammunition,” Food surmised. “It’s empty. Look at his bayonet too. Alpha Dog knew he might do something silly like take a swing at somebody when he started up, so he replaced it! It’s foam rubber or something!”

“It is true,” Tin Soldier admitted. He raised a hand and brought it down on the base of the bayonet. The piece broke off and bounced harmlessly across the floor. “I will still restrain you.” He held the rifle in front of him with one hand. He moved the hand to the middle of the stock and started to spin his arm. In seconds it was spinning faster than a ceiling fan and he was marching towards us. We were in a fight with a Justice Backer. I am aware of what that suggests so I don’t need to hear it in the comments.

Pthok! It was a very strange sound, and I heard it twice more as the Fastest Food fired off three frozen nuggets at the robot. The first two exploded against the spinning rifle, but the third snuck in between its rotations and smacked Tin Soldier just below one of his lighthouse eyes. The robot snatched the nugget in his free hand as it bounced away and examined it.

“Chicken nuggets?” he questioned.

“Because they’re poison!” the Fastest Food shouted. She activated a ketchup grenade and tossed it. A moment later Tin Soldier’s revolutionary war inspired uniform had become a redcoat. He was not happy about that. The rifle stopped abruptly and he leapt forward with disturbing speed. His fingers wrapped around the front of Food’s shirt and he lifted her off the ground. She cursed and writhed like a dying hornet, but she couldn’t do anything against his strength.

Tracy was already halfway up his coattails at that point. I gave him specific whistle-orders that he followed to a tee. In his scurrying he coated his paws with ketchup, and once he was at the robot’s neck he rubbed his little fingers all over Tin Soldier’s eyes and blocked his vision. Simultaneously I had Ernest mimic my voice as he flew behind the robot, making it sound like I was trying to jump him from behind. He took the bait, dropping Food and whirling around as he cleared his eyes.

During my distraction Telephony’s subconscious had informed me he would go for the sling. I didn’t think he’d have the nerve to break the glass, but he picked up the robot part Tin Soldier had been dramatically crushing in diorama mode and swung it like a brick. The display case shattered and he reached in to claim our prize.

Not about to be outclassed by three teenage hoodlums, the veteran Backer recovered his vision, sprinted over to Telephony, and snatched the flame sling right out of his hands before we could react. He looked like he was about to put one arm behind his back to protect the sling and fight us singlehandedly, but he stopped. His static eyes moved back and forth between us. I think he reached some sort of impasse. Then, just like that, he turned and ran through a big set of curtains.

Confusing as it was, none of us suffered under the delusion that we’d won. Something else had happened that we missed. Once the Fastest Food was on her feet she shouted that we should give chase, so we did. The ketchup had soaked into his clothes sufficiently that he wasn’t leaving an easy trail for us. In fact, there was no sign at all of the direction he’d gone. We split up, and I had my animals fan out as well.

“He probably already called for help with that earpiece,” Food huffed into our communication channel.

“No he didn’t,” Telephony’s subconscious said. He was undoubtedly huffing and puffing as well, but the deep part of his brain didn’t suffer from exertion in the slightest. “We blocked his communication.”

“I didn’t know you could do that,” I told him.

“Well we can’t exactly. We do have access to his channels though. We flooded them with noise so he couldn’t send a coherent message. If he sends an audio message the recipient will hear nothing but us shouting arugula over and over again.”

“Why arugula?” I asked.

“It was the only word we could think of. We had to shout something. Similarly, if he sends a text file it will just be filled with the random punctuation marks we thought into it. We’ve drowned him out essentially.”

“Good work Telephony.”

“A compliment from you is as thrilling as I imagine our first kiss would be. By our I simply mean both of us within Telephony. Not Telephony and you. Not that we’re not open to that. We’re actually extremely open to it.”

“Okay stop now.”

“I don’t really stop. I kind of just go on forever; it’s really tiring.”

“Just… just keep the channel clear. We’re still working. We’ve got to get our hands on the sling.”

That managed to quiet him long enough for us to work, and work we did. We searched high and low for that robot past funnel cake stands, restrooms that would never be that clean again, an empty river meant for drifting inner tubes, and some unfinished ride called Monkey Girl’s Swinging Tree. I spared a moment to think about that one being kind of offensive.

“I’ve got him,” Food said through the radio. After a few more minutes of running we converged on her location. It was off the beaten path, behind a shed meant for the park’s eventual security guards. Tin Soldier was stood, frozen and inactive, before something like a junction box. It was open. His hand was on something inside it. To our dismay, he didn’t have the flame sling on him.

“He must’ve realized he was running out of power when we were fighting,” Food theorized. “Phony you only moved his key like an inch right?”

“Yeah.”

“So he didn’t have much to start. With the time he had left he hid the sling somewhere so we couldn’t find it. Our bigger problem is that.” She pointed to the robot’s outstretched fingers and the switch they had flipped. “How much do you want to bet that’s a distress signal, something direct that Phony couldn’t block?”

“The chances seem high,” I admitted. Ernest and Bridget landed on my shoulder. They looked tired. My poor little friends had never done so much. I was beginning to question if they were cut out for hero work. “Maybe it’s time to abort mission.”

“I’m not aborting our first baby,” Food insisted.

“We might still have time,” Telephony said… the real Telephony. “It will probably take hours for somebody to get here. It is a weekend. Maybe whoever would receive that is out of the office?”

“Okay,” I acquiesced. If Telephony was brave enough to go on I wasn’t going to quit. We had an immediate problem though: the sun was going down. We were rapidly running out of light to search for the flame sling. Plus, my eyes were feeling heavier than the rest of me. I said as much, and the others agreed. I was surprised Food didn’t argue for at least twenty-four hours of straight heroics, but I guess her health consciousness extends to a good night’s sleep.

We returned to our boat for the night, that way if anyone did show up while we were resting we could just gun it out of there. Obviously we kept a watch; Food went first. I admit I fell asleep during mine, but Saintly had his eye on everything. I’m sure all of you need a rest too after a post this action-packed. So come back tomorrow for the finale of our mission report. Until then, sleep well and dream of being the most heroic you.