The almost oppressively-loud roar of ten motorcycle engines filled the air as the bright, neon-colored racing bikes went tearing through a very long, yet narrow alley that was barely wide enough for them. They hit a puddle partway through, sending up a spray of water each time their tires ripped through it. Each of the bikes carried a single rider, wearing dark leather and black helmets with heavily-tinted visors. They were wearing backpacks that were heavily-laden with the stuff they had just snatched and grabbed from an antique bookstore. The police car that had been right behind them came to a screeching halt at the entrance to the alley, unable to fit through. These guys had planned their escape route well.
Unfortunately for them, there was one thing they hadn’t counted on. Me. Even as the cop car came to a halt, I went sailing past it after using blue paint to launch myself off the nearby traffic light. Corkscrewing through the air, I waited until I had just started to lose momentum, then extended my hand to shoot a bit of red at a spot on one of the walls as far down the alley as I could. It hauled me that way, leaving me barely out of reach of the spray of water as the last of the bikes hit that puddle. Inverting in the air just before I would have collided with that spot on the wall, I disabled the red and used a bit of blue on my shoes. As my feet hit the brick, I was sent rebounding off that, having already oriented myself toward that nearest bike. I hit the rider with a shot of orange while activating the same on myself. When we collided, the man was knocked clean off the bike and sent crashing into the opposite wall. That probably would’ve been enough to kill him if it wasn’t for the orange paint. As it was, he would be stunned for a few moments. Hopefully long enough for the cops, who were just getting out of the car, to deal with him.
In the meantime, I wasn’t exactly letting myself hit the wall too. I had almost gone right over the bike after slamming into the driver, but a quick shot of red against the distant handlebar yanked me back that way. It was a bit awkward, but I managed to land on the bike and keep it going. My hand twisted the throttle to make it keep up with the rest of the bikes, whose riders hadn’t quite noticed what happened to their friend yet.
Hopping up to plant my feet on the wobbly seat while bending forward to maintain my grip on the throttle, I aimed with my other hand and sent out several quick shots of paint. The first was orange, hitting the back of the man directly in front of me. That was followed by a shot of green in the same spot, and I mixed them together. In the next instant, I released the throttle of the bike I was on and leapt forward while pointing my hands out in opposite directions. The first sent a shot of red at the front of the bike I had just been on, while the other sent an identical shot at the back of the bike in front of me. The paint activated, ripping the motorcycle out from under that second man while the bikes were sent slamming into one another. Just as that rider screamed and went pitching straight toward the ground, I activated the green-orange paint, giving him as much protection in that instant as possible. He hit the ground and lay there, probably more in shock than pain.
Meanwhile, my momentum sent me sailing over his prone form, where I could see the third man in line starting to turn to look over his shoulder. Apparently he had heard the scream and the collision of those two bikes. Which gave him a nice view of my extended hand as I hit him in the visor with a shot of white paint, followed instantly by green. The combined effect created a blinding flash inside the visor before he could start to raise the pistol he had reached for. He jerked in response, losing control of the bike and tipping it over. I managed to hit him with a quick shot of orange so he wouldn’t end up killing himself in the process, as he went sliding through the alley on the side of the bike. It sent up sparks, the metal screaming in protest.
I had already started to lose my own momentum by that point, but as I came down right over the sliding bike, I hit the side of the thing with a blue-green puddle, activating it just before bringing my feet down on that spot. Instantly, I was rocketed up and forward. In that moment, the fourth man, who had realized what was going on and aimed back over his shoulder with a pistol of his own, opened fire. But the orange paint I had activated on myself right before crashing into that first man was still active. Between that and the protection Wren had built into my helmet, it just felt like someone bouncing a couple pebbles off my visor.
Still, that didn’t erase the fact that he had been trying to shoot me in the head. So I might’ve been just a little too satisfied as I hit his rear tire with a shot of pink paint and activated it, immediately flattening the whole thing and making it collapse in on itself in a way that sent the man flailing backward off the whole bike. And yes, I did protect him with a bit of orange. But maybe not as much as I would have used if he hadn’t just tried to kill me.
He’d survive, but not without some bruises.
By that point, I’d managed to land against the brick wall, skates out so I wouldn’t lose any momentum as my gravity-boots kept me in that sideways position. I went rocketing along that wall. On the way, my hand snapped out to red-paint a gray trash can lid up into my grasp. The fifth guy was shifted in his seat with a sawn-off shotgun held tightly in one hand as he brought the barrel to bear. Just as he pulled the trigger, I painted the metal lid pink and immediately canceled it. When the spread of shotgun pellets hit the now very-bouncy lid, they immediately rebounded off it. My supernatural aiming ability allowed me to position the lid just right so that the pellets tore through the wheels of the man's bike, completely demolishing them. The bike lost control and went crashing into the wall, sending the man tumbling head over heels. Like with the other guys, I gave him just enough paint that he wouldn't break his neck in the process.
Five down, five left. Halfway done. The sixth guy, barely ahead of the one who had just eaten shit when his own shotgun blast destroyed his tires, sent a couple wild pistol shots over his shoulder in my direction. But I had already blue-bounced off the wall and sent myself flying over to the opposite side. He tried to track me with his gun without really looking, and I made him pay for the distraction by flinging that trash can lid at his wrist like a frisbee. It smacked the gun right out of his hand, even as I immediately rebounded back off that opposite wall and flipped backwards through the air. While he yelped and shook his wrist, I literally landed right in front of his motorcycle, facing backwards so we were face to face. Or helmet to helmet. I was holding onto his handlebars while the wheels of my skates ensured that I continued to roll very quickly. The man froze like that, even as I used one finger to hit his chest with an orange blotch. At the same time, a winking smiley face appeared on my visor. With that, I used a mixture of blue paint on the ground to give myself a boost up, and purple paint on my legs both to maintain enough arm strength to spin myself around in midair, and for that extra oomph as my feet collided with the man’s chest, skates out. The impact knocked him backwards off his ride, while I dropped into the same spot he had just been.
With a thought, green paint appeared over the bike, and I triggered it. Suddenly it was going much faster. Fast enough to basically instantly catch up with the seventh guy, who had been sending wild, unaimed shots backwards over his shoulder. Just before the bikes could collide with one another, I dumped this one on its side while lunging off it. The thing’s speed sent it right up under the next bike’s rear tires, throwing the rider forward. Before he could hit the ground, I used a shot of red to send myself over him, snagging the back of his collar with one hand. I used that physical contact to give him just enough orange paint that he wouldn’t turn into a smear as I released his collar and let his new momentum send him right into the wall.
Releasing the red paint, I twisted sideways and let my skates hit the wall while a whoop of exhilaration escaped me. The eighth guy actually managed to aim enough over his shoulder to bounce a bullet off my shoulder. Sure, I still had orange paint going so it just stung, but still. It was the principle of the thing.
I didn’t let him get another shot off. One hand sent a spray of red while the other sent blue. Rather than targeting the man or his bike, however, the colors struck the ground just ahead of him and immediately mixed. When his tires hit that patch, it was as slippery as a thick bit of ice. He lost control, the bike immediately swerving as the man screamed.
Just before he would have crashed, my leap took me directly over him as I sent a new shot of red down onto his back. He was yanked upward into my red-painted glove, before I used my still-boosted strength to give the man a hard shove back the way we’d come. As he went flailing toward the ground, I used one more quick shot of red to send him flying into the wall. He would be stuck there for ten seconds. Hopefully long enough to stop him from easily escaping before this was over.
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All of that came while I was still flying forward through the air after rebounding off that opposite wall. Now I hit the first one again, my skates click-clacking loudly along the bricks.
It had only been a few seconds since this whole thing started, and we were already near the end of the long alley. They’d come into the alley with ten riders, and now two were left upright on their bikes. Both of whom were very aware of me by that point. Still, they were more interested in escaping than in fighting back, probably seeing it as a lost cause. They gunned their engines and took off just as they hit the opening at the end of the alley. Or rather, tried to. Because at that very instant, as I was skating along the side of the wall, I managed to hit both of them with a wide spray of yellow paint. Instantly the bikes were going about half their usual speed. But, of course, I hadn’t hit the men themselves with the paint. So they were sent flying forward off their rides and out onto the sidewalk beyond the alley. At the last second, just before they would have hit the concrete at that speed, I sent another wide spray of paint. This one was pink, turning the ground into a softer, play-doh-like substance. Both men collided into it and were half-buried in the stuff.
Flipping off the side of the wall, I skated in a quick circle around the men before coming to a halt. Immediately, I thrust both hands in the air and gave a wild shout. “Whoooooo! Did you see that?! That was freaking awesome! I mean holy shit! That was so goddamn cool! The alley was like this narrow and you were all zipping through it like neeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr vroooooooooom vrooooooooom while I was like boing boing whoosh! That was so freaking dope! We--”
Only then did I realize who I was talking to, and that there was an audience starting to gather. Immediately, as my face blushed under the mask and helmet, I cleared my throat and tried to find something better to say.
“I dunno, guys,” I found myself blurting while shaking my head in put-on disbelief, “I’m pretty sure motocross is supposed to be offroad, so this entire training course might’ve been pointless. Let’s try it again, but this time we’ll go somewhere with a lot of rocks and tree branches to smack you with. I know just the place. There’s this awesome jump over a ravine at the end to land back on the freeway, you’ll love it. Round two when you get out of jail?”
For some reason, these guys didn’t seem all that interested in the idea, though the civilians sure were. What the thieves were interested in was extricating themselves from the putty substance that the concrete had been turned into. Unfortunately, with their arms and legs buried as deep as they were, they couldn’t pull free before the pink paint wore off and the cement solidified around them. Now they were really stuck. And that just made the two start cursing even more creatively and loudly than before.
Soon, the cops had caught up. I handed over the rest of the bags that these guys had dropped, then helped get them out of the concrete with a little more paint. Once they were all nice and secure in the back of a few police cars, I waved to the assembled crowd, gave them a few quick autographs, and took off. Sure, I would need to do all that paperwork and deposition stuff with the judge at some point, but right now it was nice to just be able to leave. I was too distracted to focus on all that mundane stuff.
It had been three days since I had dinner at the Jacksons. Three days since I had seen that list fall out of Maki’s pocket, and I still didn't know what that was about. Why did they have a bunch of names of people including me? Why did my name have a question mark next to it? It wasn't the only one, at least. But that didn't exactly calm my nerves. Some of the names were crossed out while others had those question marks. And I had absolutely no idea what that meant. I had no idea whether it was a good or bad thing to be on the list. I was going to go with bad in general, because in my case it meant someone was paying attention to me. I really didn't want anyone to pay attention to me. Especially someone with some sort of connection to the Ministry.
Sure, I still didn't know what sort of connection that was, exactly. But just the fact that there was a connection at all was enough to make me even more anxious. I’d secretly watched their house late these past few nights, trying to figure out the right move. So far, the only thing I’d been able to find out was that Maki’s parents left the house each night and drove off. I followed them a couple times and found them meeting with Kent Jackson at a different restaurant on both occasions. They just had coffee or dessert and talked for an hour, passing papers back and forth. Nothing I could grab or get close enough to see, though it did seem to be a regular thing.
I had been taking a run through the city to clear my head after spending hours helping out at the shop with putting the ‘grab Pittman and get answers out of him’ machine together. Then I saw the cops chasing those motorcycles and managed to tune the scanner in my helmet enough to pick up the gist of what was going on. That was another useful thing Wren had installed.
At the very least, that chase was enough to distract me from obsessing over the list thing, and the situation with my parents. The situation with everyone who was affected by Sleeptalk. But now it was over, and I was back to obsessing. As I bounced clear over one roof to land on another, using my skates to slide right across it before coming to a stop with my hand against an air conditioning unit, all those thoughts kept rebounding back-and-forth through my head.
Should I just find a way to talk to Maki directly about it, either as myself or as Paintball? I really had considered simply handing over the paper, telling them I found it on the seat, and asking what it was about. If nothing else, that seemed like what a completely innocent person would do. What if there was some very simple explanation for it? Maybe all they were doing was trying to choose a new tutor or a lab partner or something? Yeah, that didn't make much sense, because who would want me for a tutor? Or anything else for that matter. And they didn't even go to our school, so that kind of ruled out the lab partner thing anyway.
I had looked up the other names on the list as well, the ones I didn't recognize. Some of them I found social media pages for, and others I didn't. Of what I could find, not even all of them were high school aged. There were some who were older. None out of their twenties as far as I could tell, but still. And then there were a few who were even younger, those in junior high. Only a couple that young, yet that also threw off the whole tutor thing. And it wasn't a rich person list either, going by some of those names. They all seemed completely random. So why was my name on there? Why was I on a list that someone working for or with the Ministry was keeping? This would have been confusing enough without that added bit. With it, I couldn’t help but feel my anxiety try to tear its way through my chest.
At least it wasn’t a worst-case scenario, probably. It couldn't be someone trying to find out who Paintball was. Especially not as any official act with the Ministry. First, if those people had even the slightest idea that I might be Paintball, my life would have been over already. And second, there were too many people on that list that didn't fit the physical description in the least. They were far too tall, far too old, and some far too voluptuous. There was no way anyone would look at the people on that list and think all of them had the slightest chance of being Paintball.
Yes, that was a bit of a relief on one hand. Okay, it was a massive relief. But it still left me confused. I really had absolutely no idea what it could possibly be a list of.
I had talked to Paige about it. I’d needed someone to bounce my thoughts off of, even if it still felt too much like sharing information that wasn't mine to share. She, in turn, wanted to get the answers out of Maki no matter what it took. I reminded her that we couldn't do anything too direct or risk drawing Ministry attention.
Besides, I absolutely did not want to hurt Maki. She had agreed immediately about the hurting thing, and flatly informed me that she had been talking about breaking into their house to snoop around. I still wasn't sure that was a good idea with the extra security the Ministry probably had around. And the fact that Maki had had the list on a piece of paper meant they were probably being careful about using computers, so it wouldn't be as simple as just letting Paige or Sierra hack into their computer to find the truth. We would have to physically look through everything we could find in that place. That would take a while, and we had no idea what the situation inside the house was like. Yeah, I was pretty sure it was the same sort of layout as the Jacksons, but that didn't mean much. Actually, it meant there was a lot of space to search. And who knew how many people were inside at any given point? I wasn’t sure if they had household staff, or relatives. Even with Maki’s parents going out every night, there was no way of knowing if the house was empty. Hell, Maki themself was taught by tutors, so it wasn’t like I knew their schedule for certain either.
No, it was obvious that if we wanted to search that place, we were going to have to be a bit more careful and sneaky about it. And that, of course, was when a possible answer struck me. Tilting my head thoughtfully, I ran it through my mind before using the voice control in the helmet to call Paige. She answered after a couple rings, asking if there was anything wrong. Standing up to look out over the street below, I replied, “No, actually, I think I've got an idea about how to look into that whole Maki situation without exposing ourselves too much.
“I think it’s time for the group who broke into the Ministry base at the mall to make another appearance.”