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“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Diego breathes out a sharp, silent exhale, his lips pursed and feet still on the perch he’s placed himself on. The pipe he’s balancing upon threatens to shift and creak beneath him, and his muscles quiver from the silent, light stance he maintains. Beneath him, the laboratory floor is filled with a dozen robbers holding tactical suitcases and duffle bags, their hands stilled from shoving scientific equipment into their parcels by the abrupt arrival of a twelve-year-old boy strolling through the entrance. Luther waves a hand once, his cheery smile not quite reaching his eyes behind his domino mask.
“Hi there,” Luther says, placing his hands on his hips. “Is this where the Boy Scouts meeting is? We’re supposed to be earning our microbiology badge.”
Diego scoffs.
Several of the men drop their bags and train their guns on him, but by then Diego has already turned and made eye contact with Five, who is similarly poised on top of an air duct. Has already nodded, turned, and thrown his first knife.
It sinks into the back of a man’s skull just as Five disappears and reappears on top of another man’s shoulders, throwing himself forward and flipping the man’s body to collide with another’s. Luther rushes forward, dodging a downward blow from the barrel of a gun, spinning around and disarming the man in one fluid motion. Diego throws another knife. And another. Five grabs one of his knives from the eye of one body and thrusts it into the abdomen of his next adversary, pulling it out and disappearing before they can retaliate.
Klaus and Allison appear from behind a counter, running low beneath the lines of microscopes and centrifuges. Klaus slides low, kicking out a woman’s knees before somersaulting into a kneeling position; Allison launches herself off of Klaus’s shoulders, his hands ready in position to assist, and kicks a man in the face. She lands next to the man’s head, leaning down to whisper in his ear. She accepts Klaus’s help back to cover as the man she kicked stands, blinking, before turning and shooting two of his allies in the legs.
Luther kicks a man away from him with great force, shooting him in the chest as he flies backward. He crashes into the last woman, who stumbles backward just as Diego jumps from the pipe, his boots meeting her shoulders. The gun flies from her hand and her head meets the linoleum floor with a sharp crack.
Diego lets out another breath. The lab is silent for a moment as the siblings all look at each other, before one of the men on the ground begins to moan.
“Oh, shut it,” Five says, stepping on the man’s back. He kneels down and fastens his wrists behind him with a zip tie. Klaus scampers from body to body doing the same, even to the ones that are obviously dead.
Allison turns to Luther, sneering playfully. “’Is this where the Boy Scouts meeting is?’”
Luther frowns. “Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad.”
“’We’re earning our microbiology badge,’” Five mocks him, stepping over another body and pulling out equipment from one of the discarded duffle bags.
“Hey, you try being the distraction next time! I’d like to see you come up with a good one-liner.”
“Maybe I will.”
Diego laughs under his breath, bending down to retrieve his knives. He tries once, twice to get out a funny retort to add to the conversation, but nothing comes out, and they’re talking too quickly. He shuts his mouth and doesn’t say anything.
“It doesn’t matter,” Allison is saying. “It worked. Dad’s going to be so proud of us!”
“Maybe his reward can be him not coming home for another few days,” Klaus muses. “I’d love some sleeping in time.”
Diego finds his voice. “Maybe if you went to bed on time, you wuh-wouldn’t have to sleep in.”
“You know, Diego, maybe it’s just for the joy of it. Have you ever thought about that?”
“Dad’s coming home in two days,” Luther brings them back to reality. “And we have to have a full report for him by then. Kill count?”
Klaus stands from where he had been unnecessarily zip-tying the last dead body. “Eight out of twelve. Everyone else is unconscious.”
Five smirks at Diego. “I bet I got five of them.”
“No way,” Diego counters. “I got at least four.”
“Well I got two,” Allison boasts. “And Luther shot one of them.”
“Do the rumors even count?”
Allison’s face twists into an angry pout. “Of course, the rumors count!”
“Well, four of them were stabbed,” Klaus points out. Diego beams. “So, Five only got one.”
“That’s not fair!” Five complains. “I stabbed one of them in the gut.”
“That’s theft.”
“I’d like to call it resourcefulness.”
“Fine,” Luther says. “Two it is.”
“I got a pretty good kick in there, if I do say so myself,” Klaus mutters sardonically. No one answers him. “Not that anyone cares.”
The side doors to the lab open wide suddenly, and they all tense up and look. Five’s fingers relax around the grip of one of the guns as they realize it’s Ben, who’s rushing in with a large complicated looking piece of equipment bundled awkwardly in his arms. It looks kind of like a coffee maker mixed with a centrifuge with a bunch of extra pipes and wires. It’s the size of three microwaves stacked on top of each other, and is obviously heavy, as Ben’s hands are sliding over its smooth surface and he nearly waddles trying to move forward with it.
“Hi,” Ben says, breathless. Sweat is beaded around his domino mask, dripping from his forehead. “Did we win?”
“Yep, while you were playing golden retriever, some of us got the real job done.” Five pats Ben on the shoulder, which makes him stagger even more under the weight of his burden.
“Luther put me in charge of getting the machine.”
“You only got two, Five,” Allison rolls her eyes.
Luther steps forward and takes the machine from his hands, lifting it effortlessly. He takes it over to one of the counters, kicking one of the men’s limp arms out of the way, and sets it down. Allison points out an outlet when he doesn’t find one right away.
“I always thought fancy evil science machines wouldn’t need to be plugged in,” Klaus says, tilting his head. “Like, they should run on batteries, or devilish intent, or something.”
“Why are we plugging it in here?” Diego asks. “Shouldn’t we take it home?”
“Dad wants us to make sure it works before we bring it home,” Luther explains. “He said that if it was damaged too badly, we would need to hand it over to the authorities.”
“So if he can’t use it for his evil schemes,” Klaus sums up, wavering his voice and wiggling his fingers.
“Right, the cops,” Allison perks up. It’s her job to call in the reinforcements. “I’ll tell them that we’re done.”
She takes the communicator out of the belt on her hip and speaks into it softly, telling the police that the situation is taken care of. Everyone gathers closer to Luther, peering at the machine.
“What does it even do?” Ben asks. “There were no instructions, or anything.”
“Why would there be instructions on how to work an emerging piece of technology that could be used for evil?” Five sneers. “Press here to explode the earth. Press here for poison cookies.”
“Ugh,” Klaus moans. “I hope Mom makes cookies.”
“Cops are coming to take them away,” Allison announces. “And Pogo’s waiting downstairs.”
“Good work, team,” Luther says. “I’m just going to plug it in to see if it turns on, and if it does then we’ll bring it home for Dad to inspect.”
“Show us the wonders of science, oh Number One,” Klaus says. Luther takes the cord in his hand and leans forward, carefully inserting the prongs into the outlet. The machine stays still and silent. For a moment, nothing happens.
“Huh,” Klaus hums. “Well, that was a bum –”
The space where the cord meets the outlet sparks violently, and then all at once the lights surge and then turn dark as the machine pulses out a burst of energy, sending all six of them flying backwards, tumbling over bodies and against the walls.
Everything is dark and still as the machine putters out into nothing. Everyone remains where they are, breathing heavily, until the backup generator kicks on and the fluorescent overhead lights flood the room again, making the blood on the floor look even more stark against the white tile.
Luther immediately stands, followed by Diego and Five. Allison and Ben pull themselves off away from the wall, and Klaus stares into the space around him like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.
“Okay,” Diego says, softly at first before he can find his edge. “Wuh-what the fuck was that?”
“A power surge,” Five looks at Luther. “Because apparently someone didn’t read the wattage correctly.”
“I read everything just fine,” Luther spits back. “The breaker must have just overloaded. We’ll have to bring it back now, put it in the report. Is everyone okay?”
“Peachy,” Five mutters. Allison stands, walking over to help Luther package up the machine for transport. Ben pats at himself, feeling disquieted and detached in a way he couldn’t quite describe. Usually, when something unexpected like this happens, the creature in his chest makes its discomfort known; now, he doesn’t feel anything at all. When he looks to Klaus, his brother is still staring into the space around them, like he’s in shock.
“We have to figure out exactly what happened,” Luther says. “Or else Dad won’t be happy.”
“Dad’s never happy,” Diego mutters.
“He’ll be even less happy,” Allison asserts, and then looks to Luther, who’s struggling with the machine. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Luther fastens the machine into a bag and then hoists it up, wobbling a bit. “I guess the blast just shook me up. Let’s get home.”
Five balls his hands into fists and then lets out a frustrated sigh. “I’m out of juice. Stairs it is.”
“Oh no, just like the rest of us,” Allison teases.
“Hey, Klaus!” Luther barks at their brother, who’s still on the floor. “What are you doing? Get up.”
Klaus blinks at them before shaking his head and rising from the floor, using the wall as support. He catches Ben’s eye but doesn’t hold it, instead walking past him toward the door as the rest of them move out. In the distance, they can hear the authorities ascending the stairs up to the lab. Ben follows them, blinking his eyes rapidly to clear the sense of vertigo he feels as he turns his head. He mutters under his breath that he’ll have Mom check him out for a concussion – as they exit the room, he can swear he can see shifting shadows and silhouettes on the wall behind him.
“Okay, let’s all agree right now,” Five says conspiratorially. “This was only our second mission without Dad. Before we figure out what the hell happened with that machine, we do not tell Pogo or Mom.”
They all vocalize their agreement. Ahead of them, Luther grunts, just barely sweating under the weight of the machine as he descends the stairs.
“Five’s right,” He says. “But we tell Pogo when I say so, and we tell Dad as soon as he comes back. Dad put me in charge.”
Diego rolls his eyes, and Klaus scoffs. “Right, because you’re the oldest.”
They meet the cops on the stairs, who rush past them to detain eight dead bodies and four unconscious criminals. At the bottom of the stairs, Pogo is waiting for them; they pile into the car, the machine secured in the back. Allison moans when they go over a pothole, leaning back with exhaustion, but otherwise none of them say a thing until they get back to the Academy.
.
They act as naturally as possible – which is to say, no one says anything except for Luther, Allison, and Five as they give an abbreviated rundown of the mission to Pogo while everyone else stands in line and stares at the wall. Vanya comes down to listen, lingering halfway up the stairs, but the whole thing is pretty anticlimactic when they omit the whole part about the power surge and being blasted into the wall and all that. Pogo tells them they can document their kill count when Sir Reginald returns (they have them tallied up by name and number on a whiteboard down in their training room), and, since they ate dinner before the mission, he sets them free for the remaining hour before bed.
Klaus tries to make a break for his room before the rest of them grab him, and they instead go to one of the many empty rooms in the Academy near the kitchen. It may have once been used as a dining room, but now remains mostly unfurnished save for a rug and a few armchairs. There’s a door on the far end that doesn’t open on a wall lined with mirrors, and Allison explains that there’s a soundproofed room behind there, with a one-way mirror. She says that Dad brings her in here, sometimes, to practice her rumors.
“Better gigs than my training,” Diego mutters, and Klaus grunts.
They all spread out on the rug in a badly formed circle, Klaus rebelling against not being able to change by taking off his shoes and wrapping his tie around his head like a headband, propping his legs up on an armchair with his body laying upside down on the floor. Ben sits in another one of the armchairs, perched at the very edge of his seat, staring at his shoes and wringing his hands together.
“Guys?” He says, timidly. “I’m starting to think that something happened, I think something’s wrong.”
Luther closes the door and checks for cameras (Allison says they’re not on – she knows how to check), a mixture of guilt and fear spread across his face.
“Yeah, something is wrong,” Luther says. “We messed up the mission, and pretty much lied to Pogo, and I’m not as strong as I was before. I feel like I ran a marathon.”
“With a car on your back?” Klaus asks from his position on the floor. Luther gives him a look but doesn’t fire back. He’s done it before.
“I’m serious, guys,” Ben says, his voice shaking. “Something is seriously wrong.”
Five pauses in his tracks from where he’s been pacing across the rug, looking at Allison who’s tucked into the third armchair. She’s pushed all the way into the back, both of her arms folded across her stomach.
“What’s wrong with you?” Five asks, jerking his chin in her direction. “You get your period?”
Allison screws up her face in disgust. “What do you know about periods, Five?”
“I read.”
“Klaus,” Diego says, directing everyone’s attention to him. Klaus’s eyes drift toward Diego, his face light. He’s nearly got a damn smile on his face – not a smirk, or a sneer, but a genuine grin. He hasn’t seen Klaus look like that since Reginald caught him smoking weed out on the fire escape a month ago. Diego still has no idea where he got it from, just that there’s none of it left in the house after the ransacking of his room that took place. “Pay attention.”
“What?” Klaus asks. “I was paying attention. Allison has a tummy ache.”
“What are you looking at?” Luther interrogates him, coming forward to look at Klaus’s face.
Klaus laughs, abrupt and loud, and continues. The sound borders on slightly hysterical before he stops, wiping at his eyes. “Nothing. I’m looking at nothing, Luther.”
“Is this one of your sick jokes?” Five snarls. “A ghost thing? We’re trying to figure this out, here.”
“That’s just it, Five,” Klaus says. “It’s all figured out. It’s wonderful. The ghosts are gone!”
Ben’s head snaps up from where he’d been staring intently at the floor. He’s shaking, and now that he’s risen his head his eyes snap around the room. He opens his mouth to say something, and then closes it. Tries again and fails.
“What do you mean, the ghosts are gone?” Luther asks, confused. “Like, they went to heaven?”
“No, none of them do that.” Klaus shrugs. “Just ever since you set that thingy off, poof! Gone! I think you’ve cured me!”
Diego groans. “Getting ruh-rid of your powers isn’t healing you, Kl –”
“Is that what I’m seeing?” Ben cuts him off, his wide eyes locked on Klaus. “Ghosts?”
Everyone stares at Ben, voices quieted. Klaus stares at him, blinks, and then stares some more, his eyes widening with fear. Ben stares back at him with terror and understanding, sweat beading on his forehead, hands twitching.
“Oh, shit,” Klaus says, scrambling into an upright sitting position. “Ben. Oh, shit.”
Luther brings his hands to his head. “What do you mean, you’re seeing ghosts?”
“Their powers must have been switched during the energy blast,” Five mutters, beginning his pacing again. “I knew we should have checked the wattage.”
“Don’t talk to them, Ben. Whatever you do, do not talk to them. Don’t even look. I dunno, uh, close your eyes.”
“Switched?” Allison asks, her voice strained.
Diego squats down, his brain moving a mile a minute. “How is that possible?”
“It shouldn’t be.” Five pauses, pulling his hands into fists again. He trembles, then shakes, then releases with a curse. “It could be all of us. I can’t blink.”
“You can’t blink?”
Luther’s face is red with panic. “What do you mean –”
Ben makes eye contact with Klaus again. He’s on the verge of tears, his eyes flickering between Klaus and a ghost that is dragging itself toward him, its leg torn off and head barely hanging on by a tendon. It’s trying to talk to him, and Ben can’t speak. He looks to Klaus, needing to draw attention to it, needing to tell people what he’s seeing, but Klaus stares back at him with wide, intense eyes. He looks just to the right of where the ghost is on the couch, dragging itself close to Five’s shoe, and turns back, slowly and emphatically shaking his head.
Diego abruptly stands, unsheathing one of his knives and throwing it at one of the walls. He’s aiming for the taxidermized polar bear head, between the eyes. He hits the plaque, the knife bouncing off and scattering to the floor.
Everyone erupts at once, yelling over one another. Klaus rises to his knees and tries to crawl toward Ben, who just hugs his arms around himself and argues along with everyone else, his eyes shut tight. Diego makes frustrated noises in the back of his throat in between his outbursts, trying again and again to throw the knives at the wall with the deadly pinpoint accuracy he’s known for. Luther tries to get everyone to shut up to no avail, and then he and Five get into a shouting match that drowns everything else out.
Suddenly, there’s a faint knock at the door that stuns them all once again into silence. Five and Luther make eye contact, and Luther nods. Five goes to open the door, wrapping his hand around the handle, and rips it clean off of its hinges.
Vanya yelps from where she is standing on the other side, eyes wide and hands clutched to her chest. Five blinks at her, and then at the door still in his hand, and then back to her.
“Mom says it’s bedtime,” She mutters meekly. “She couldn’t find Luther, so…”
Diego curses under his breath. Buried in the armchair, Allison moans deeply, folding forward over her stomach. Ben’s eyes shift from staring at nothing in space to his sister, his face morphing from fear into pure horror.
“You have my power?” Luther talk-shouts at Five, obviously trying to keep his voice quiet. “Why do you have my power?”
“I didn’t steal it, idiot,” Five growls. “I just got it. Luck of the draw.”
“Allison, stay very still,” Ben says, crawling toward her. He flinches, ducking down and hiding his head with his arms, and then crawls forward some more. “You need to breathe.”
Luther balks at Five. “Well. Well, give it back!”
Vanya gives them all a strained smile. “Can I come in?”
“I’d love to, Number One, let me just do that right now for you! Who has my power?”
“Whose power do I have?” Luther asks.
“Maybe we shouldn’t start flinging rumors everywhere,” Klaus says, gesturing toward Allison. “Remember when she made us all do that talent show?”
“Everyone needs to cuh-calm the hell down,” Diego interjects.
“Allison, breathe,” Ben puts a hand on her knee. “You need to think about something else. Anything else. It’ll go away.”
“Do you want me to get Pogo?” Vanya asks. No one answers her.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Klaus spreads his arms, turning around in a large circle. Everyone turns to him, gritting their teeth. “I think that maybe this party could benefit from a nice, soothing group meditation, yeah? Just calm us all down. We’re all gonna take a nice deep breath together. Ready? Breathe in… and breathe out.”
Klaus exhales loudly and slowly, shaking his arms and bringing them down as he sighs. He smiles and holds his hands out in gesture.
“There, isn’t that better?” Klaus grins at all of them. Then he is swallowed whole by a sharp burst of blue and disappears from thin air.
Vanya’s mouth drops open, and Five drops his head into his hand. “Fuck.”
Allison releases a large breath shakily. “The breath thing helped, though. I don’t feel as much like I’m going to puke.”
“The puking stage is the worst,” Ben smiles at her sympathetically. “Well, not as bad as the last stage, but hopefully you won’t get there.”
Allison frowns. “I hope not. Does thinking about cute things help?”
“Sometimes,” Ben says, but he tugs at his ear like he always does when he’s lying. “Puppies and kittens.”
“So Klaus has my power, which is…terrifying.” Five rubs at his forehead. “That leaves Two and Three.”
“Don’t rumor anyone,” Allison glares at them. “You don’t know how to do it.”
“I think we could figure it out,” Diego mumbles. Allison sticks her tongue out at him.
“Well?” Five looks at Luther. “Throw something.”
Luther looks around the room for a small object, not finding anything. “Diego, give me a knife.”
“No.”
“Come on, Two, give me a knife!”
“Not a chance.”
“I have a pen, if you want?” Vanya holds out a pen. Five stalks over and grabs it from her, and then juts it out in Luther’s direction. Luther takes it and turns it over in his hands, looking from Five to Diego to Allison, and then throws it at the wall. It lodges itself directly in the taxidermized polar bear’s tongue.
Five huffs out a breath through his nose.
“Were you…aiming for that?” Ben asks.
“Yeah,” Luther says. “Yeah, I was.”
“Seriously?”
“What, so Diego gets the rumors?” Luther asks incredulously. “Diego? The one person who can’t even talk –”
“Luther,” Allison scolds.
“Don’t you even start –”
“Guys, we, uh, we need to go to bed,” Vanya says. “It’s bedtime.”
“We need to keep up appearances,” Five mutters. “We need to go to bed. We have a whole other day tomorrow; we can figure out what’s going on and fix it.”
“Do you want me to ruh-rumor your nuts to be the size of pennies?”
“I’m exhausted,” Allison moans.
Ben swallows some extra spit. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep.”
“I’d like to see you try –”
Five waves them off. “Okay, everyone shut up. Here’s our game plan. We go to bed, tomorrow Luther and I will look at the machine, try to fix what the power surge did. Everyone else, keep a low profile. If I can figure out how the machine works, I should be able to reverse it.”
“We all go to bed now,” Luther says, looking at each of them. “We’ll fix this tomorrow, and then we can tell Dad what happened when he gets back. Don’t make any trouble.”
“Are you hearing things twice? I’m hearing things twice.” Diego looks at Allison and Ben, a smile on his face, but they both don’t pay mind to him, their faces twisted in misery.
They gather themselves and walk out toward their rooms, climbing the stairs as quietly as they can. Ben walks with his arms around Allison, who keeps her arms folded over her midsection, but it looks like he’s clinging to her as much as he is supporting her. It doesn’t help that he’s a few inches shorter – when they reach the top of the stairs, Luther takes over, and Ben clutches his hands together like he doesn’t know what to do with them. Diego pats him on the back, and he flinches.
“Remember, everyone,” Five says, his hand around the corner of the wall. “Act normal.”
Five releases the wall and pales when he looks at four finger-sized indents that remain. They turn the corner into the dormitory hallway, and all stop in their tracks when they see Pogo standing there, waiting for them.
“Children,” Pogo says, his hands wrapped around his cane. “Would one of you like to tell me why Master Klaus is stuck on top of the observatory?”
.
“Luther,” Five hisses, leaning forward in his seat at the breakfast table. He tries to kick out at him, but his legs don’t reach. “Luther, look at me.”
Luther sets his silverware down, taking a break from eating a stack of pancakes approximately twenty flapjacks tall. He’s only made it through half of it, and he feels like he’s going to be sick. Five’s plate is clean. “What?”
“You know what, asshole,” Five hisses. “You’ve got to go to Dad’s lab today, tinker with the machine, and come tell me what you think. Pogo’s going to have me scrubbing the blackboards in the library until my fingers fall off.”
Luther’s face contorts in confliction. “I’m not going to skip training.”
“Are you serious?” Somehow, Five manages to lean even further on the table. It creaks underneath his hands. “Don’t you think this predicament is a little more urgent than standard training?”
“Why can’t Five do it again?” Klaus asks around a bite, blueberry staining his teeth. “He’s mister science guy.”
“I’m mister science guy too,” Luther mutters resentfully, looking angrily down at his pancakes.
“We had to get Pogo off of our tail,” Allison explains in a hushed whisper. “We told him that last night Five blinked you on top of the observatory as a prank.”
“That makes sense,” Klaus nods. “There were so many birds up there this time. One of them pecked my hand!”
Allison looks at Five, eyebrows raised in question.
“What?” Five’s eyebrows furrow. “I’ve done it before.”
Ben leans over to whisper in Diego’s ear. “We need to figure this out. They need to look at the machine.”
Diego gives his brother the side-eye before clearing his throat. “I can help with the machine.”
“No thanks, Diego, we’re not looking to stab it to death,” Luther grumbles, forcing down another pancake.
“Luh-lay off, Luther,” Diego snarls.
“I say we just wait until Dad gets home, and he can figure it out. He’ll know what to do.”
“Absolutely not,” Five shakes his head. “That can’t happen.”
“I don’t know if I’ll make it that long,” Ben whispers.
Luther moans. “Fine. Fine, I’ll skip weights to look at the machine. If I need Five’s help, I’ll tell him, but until then the rest of you need to stay out of my way.”
“Do you ever get tired of the whole stick up the butt thing?” Klaus asks, staring at his plate. “Or do you prefer it that way?”
“Shut up, Klaus,” Luther snaps back. “It’s not my fault you’re even more useless now than you were before.”
“Luther!” Allison scolds.
“I think everyone seems stressed,” Vanya says from her spot at the end of the table.
“I’m gonna beat your ass,” Diego threatens, pushing back from the table.
“Okay, Two, come on. Try,” Luther retorts. “What are you gonna do? Rumor me?”
“Luther, stop,” Allison orders, her arms wrapped around her stomach again. “Seriously.”
Diego sets his jaw, and everyone looks at him. He breathes once, twice, his heartrate escalating.
“I heard a ruh… I ruh…rumor you pissed your pants,” Diego forces out. Everyone blinks. Nothing happens.
Luther smiles, a golden boy smile. “Thought so.”
Luther stands from the table, pushing past Klaus, and walks out toward their father’s lab. Diego sits back down, jerking away from Ben’s hand as he tries to reach out to comfort him.
“Five?” Vanya peeps up. “If you’re going to be in the library, can I come? I was going to read a new novel for my book report today.”
“Sounds boring,” Klaus moans.
“Sure, Van,” Five says, trying to gather his dishes. A spoon bends in his hand, and then bends the other way when he tries to fix it, so he lets it drop onto the table with a flat expression. “Knock yourself out.”
.
Diego, Allison, Klaus, and Ben are running in the courtyard before sparring practice for their morning training. Well, Diego’s running. Allison is lying in the grass, her fingers basically plunged into the earth as she grips the ground in her white-knuckled fingers. Ben’s beside her sitting with his legs crossed, leaning forward with his head so close to his book that his nose is nearly brushing the pages. Klaus hasn’t even shown up.
“Guys, get up,” Diego says as he passes them. “Pogo’s gonna come out and see you.”
“He’s not going to come,” Ben says, not looking up from his book. “He’s going to be running an experiment until dinner.”
“How do you know that?” Allison asks, her eyes closed. Ben shrugs.
Diego slows to a walk, determined to finish the last lap at least before he joins them in the center of the courtyard. Allison rolls over into a fetal position facing Ben, both of her hands tucked under her head.
“Is this what it’s always like?” She asks. “What it’s been like, this whole time?”
Ben peeks at her from over the edge of his book. “No,” he admits. “I’ve gotten used to it a bit. It’s like that during fights, though.”
Allison hums. They all know more or less what their powers entail, at least of what they’ve shared with each other – they know that the Horror, when it doesn’t show, is more or less ‘the world’s grossest stomachache’, as Klaus calls it. Feeling it is something else entirely.
“It didn’t like it when Diego and Luther fought,” Allison says.
Ben nods, his nose back in the book. “Yeah. It doesn’t like that at all.”
Diego trudges over to them, dragging his feet for the last stretch. He sits down on the other side of Allison, staring at the ground and tugging grass out with his fingers. They sit in silence for a long time, the only noises being the gentle wind, the sound of Ben turning the pages of his book, and Allison’s deliberate breathing.
“I haven’t heard you be this quiet in forever,” Diego says, trying to conjure up a smile. Allison hums, but doesn’t answer. Ben keeps his head buried.
Diego takes a breath, looking anxiously over at the doorway to make sure that Pogo or Mom isn’t going to burst in on them. He looks up through the windows, trying to peer into where he knows the library is, but he can’t see any sign of Five. He pulls out another tuft of grass, then grabs a leaf in his hands and takes it apart slowly, section by section. “How do the rumors work?”
Ben peeks at him from over the edge of the book. “Huh?”
Allison slowly opens her eyes, regarding him. “What do you mean?”
Diego hums lowly, frustrated. He closes his eyes. “How do they work? I thought you just had to say the wuh-words.”
Allison pulls her lips to the side. “Not really. I wouldn’t have to train if it was that easy.”
“So how do you do it?”
Allison pulls herself up onto her elbows, and then into a seated position, the three of them forming a triangle on the grass. “You can’t just say the words. You have to believe in what you’re saying. It’s like, I can’t just rumor someone into stopping. They could stop moving, or stop breathing, or just like, die. You have to be specific on what they’re stopping, and how, and you have to see it happening. Dad says it’s not enough to want something to happen, you have to will it to happen.”
Ben nods, making brief eye contact with the both of them. Diego frowns.
“I don’t get it,” He admits. “I mean, I get it, but how do you make it…make it… it happen?”
Allison inspects her nails. “Be careful about the words you pick. And then envision them becoming real before you say them.”
Just picture the word in your mind, Diego hears Mom’s voice in his head.
Well, shit. He can do that.
.
Five misses his powers.
He plunges the sponge back in the bucket of soapy water and takes it up to the dust-covered portable blackboard in the middle of the library. Five glances over at the first blackboard he tried to clean, shattered into pieces and hidden behind one of the bookshelves (which is also broken). If he had his powers, he would simply blink it quickly a few blocks away to a dumpster and blink back again before anyone noticed. If he had his powers, he wouldn’t have broken it in the first place. He would have set up all the blackboards in a circle and blinked between them, getting this stupid chore done in fifteen minutes.
Instead, he has a broken blackboard and one wet sock. Plus, he has had to relinquish responsibility on fixing their powers to one of his siblings, and none of them are even remotely as good at physics as him. Luther can work his around a piece of machinery better than the rest of his siblings, but he’s not going to get anything done when Five is stuck doing absolutely nothing.
Vanya is sitting at one of the tables with a book in her hands, her legs tucked up with her knees to her chest. She looks from the pile of broken blackboard pieces peeking out from behind the bookshelves to Five.
She clears her throat softly. “Do you want me to get the superglue?”
Five puts his head in his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. Water drips from the sponge down the length of his forearm, dampening his shirt. “No.”
A loud crack emanates throughout the room (Five has to check to make sure he hasn’t broken another board), making Vanya yelp. Five blinks his eyes to see Klaus standing in the middle of the library, looking at the not so well-hidden pile of pieces on the floor.
“You somehow manage to make even my power louder and more annoying,” Five complains, dropping the sponge back in its bucket. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, you should be proud of me,” Klaus snaps back playfully. “I’ve finally gotten the hang of this little magic trick. Only took me two tries to get here.”
“Good job, Klaus,” Vanya says.
“Only two?” Five raises an eyebrow.
Klaus scoffs, falling into one of the chairs and tearing at the wrapper of a – stolen, no doubt – chocolate bar. It must be from the kitchen, as it’s a large flat baking bar of extremely dark chocolate. He offers a square to Vanya without looking at her, and she shakes her head meekly.
“Not sweet enough?” Klaus asks, and Vanya nods. He mirrors her. “I like it both ways. Bitter and sweet.”
He makes eye contact with Five, and Five steps forward to accept a square of chocolate.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at training with the others?” Five asks, turning back to pick up the sponge again.
“Oh, yeah, that. No thanks. Dad’s not even here to spank my little behind for misbehaving, why would I actively choose to run in circles?”
Five could say something like to be better at running away from bad guys, or to have any sense of self-discipline at all, but he doesn’t say that. He just keeps scrubbing.
Klaus gets up restlessly and walks to the windows, humming, and then balks at what he sees. “Those losers aren’t even running! No fair, it’s no fun when I’m not the only one slacking off.”
“It isn’t?”
“No! Jesus, it’s like Dad’s missing and this whole institution just falls apart. Diego! Hey, Diego! Get up, run in a circle for my entertainment!”
Something slides, clunks, clicks in Five’s brain, and he pushes the wet blackboard away from him. It rolls on its wheels until it crashes into the wall, but Five has already turned and grabbed a piece of chalk from the table, running over to a dirty blackboard and scribbling equations out on it.
“What is it, Five?” Vanya asks. Klaus turns around and moans.
“Hey, no, none of that,” Klaus says, stomping back over. “I came here for relaxation and fun at the expense of you being punished, not more math.”
“Shut up,” Five replies, writing out more theories. He erases a line with the end of his jacket, and then writes over it. “I think the machine we retrieved is supposed to use quantum energy to alter reality, or maybe open a portal to other realities, or something.”
“Cool,” Klaus drawls. “And what does that matter?”
“It matters because all of our powers operate on the same energy, a level at which normal organisms don’t operate at,” Five explains. “All of our powers, they’re about manipulating and altering reality in some way. If the machine seeks to do something similar, it wouldn’t have normally done anything to us. But if something about it was damaged, or something was missing, it could have malfunctioned, altering whatever energy it could draw around it without a source, backfiring and scrambling our powers.”
“If it can draw the energy, could it turn it off?” Klaus asks. “Like, remove our powers, maybe?”
“Maybe, but probably not,” Five dismisses it. “We don’t just use the energy, we emit the energy, wield it and manipulate it.”
“I don’t know why you’re all so rushed to switch us back,” Klaus mutters. “I’m enjoying my vacation. Dad can figure out what to do with us.”
“You want to keep my powers forever?” Five asks, breaking from writing his equations to look at him. “Learn physics and quantum mechanics to control the blinks? Dad and I train a lot. Do you want that responsibility?”
Klaus’s face scrunches up like he ate a lemon. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other before sighing. “Ugh. I guess not.”
“I thought so,” Five turns back to the board. “If we can fix it, which I might be able to if I could find out what’s missing from the machine, then we can switch back before Dad gets home and before our next mission. Having this power on a mission would be disastrous.”
“What, you don’t wanna be the golden boy?” Klaus asks, teasing. “Spaceboy 2.0! Still indestructible, just shorter this time!”
“I don’t see myself being on a poster for NASA,” Five mutters. He could see himself being on posters for other things, like Nobel Prize and Fields Medal acceptance posters, but that’s different.
“Aw, come on,” Klaus waves him off. “We all deserve to be on posters. We’re gorgeous!”
Five rolls his eyes and turns back to the blackboard just as Mom walks by the doorway to the library. She stops and steps inside, smiling at all of them.
“Hi, lovelies,” Mom says.
“Hi, Mom,” Vanya replies.
Mom turns and smiles at Vanya. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Anything we can do for you, Mom?” Five asks, his gaze still focused on his chalk scratches.
“Just stopping in to say hello!” Mom holds her hands at her chest, fingers intertwined. “Lunch will be French dip sandwiches. Dinner tonight is arugula and farro salad with minestrone soup. You all have afternoon training at 1pm; Five, darling, you should be finished with your chore by then. Your father will be home this evening, so he’ll be expecting the house to be in tip top shape!”
The three of them freeze.
“Tonight?” Klaus coughs out. “Tonight…tonight? Not tomorrow morning? He’s not supposed to be back until tomorrow morning.”
“Good news!” Mom says cheerfully. “Your father’s meeting ended early, and so he’ll be back with a new estimated arrival time of 20:02. I’m sure he’s looking forward to hearing about your mission!”
“Thanks, Mom,” Five says, his hand clenching around the piece of chalk in his hand tight enough that it cracks into three pieces. Mom gives them all another dazzling smile and then exits through the door, humming as she goes. Immediately, Five whips around to Klaus’s and Vanya’s pale faces.
“This is bad,” Klaus says. “This is very bad.”
“Shut it,” Five snaps, without any heat. “God. I need to think.”
“I’m not ready to learn physics,” Klaus despairs. “I’m not even up to algebra yet! Five, hey, Five, how far have you blinked before in one go? Do you think I could make it to Turkey? Or, or…Spain, how about Spain?”
“You can’t go anywhere,” Five emphasizes. “We have to fix this, and we all have to be here. Forget lunch. We have to get everyone here now.”
“To the courtyard!” Klaus exclaims, and then takes a big breath, clenching his fists together. He disappears in a burst of blue but reappears again in a millisecond a few feet to the left, falling into the pile of broken blackboards.
“Maybe take the stairs,” Five sighs. “I’ll get Luther.”
“I can grab sandwiches, if you want,” Vanya says, but Five and Klaus are already running out the door.
.
Five grabs Luther from the lab without alerting Pogo in the next room, gritting his teeth when he sees the machine strewn into a few pieces.
“What did you do, take a hammer to it?” Five hisses in a whisper.
“No,” Luther snaps back. “I was taking it apart to see what was wrong with it. Something’s missing.”
“I know,” Five says, gathering pieces into his hands. “I think it’s supposed to try to alter reality using quantum energy and ended up scrambling ours instead.”
Luther considers this, scratching the back of his head before bending down and picking up the bulk of the machine to carry to the library. He struggles under its weight, frowning, and after a moment of staring at one another they each put down their loads and switch.
“I think it’s the power supply module,” Luther muses. “Or maybe there’s an alternator? I didn’t see one.”
“Whatever it is, it’s the reason it surged in the lab,” Five says. They exit out of the lab quietly, Five holding the door open with his foot, and run toward the stairs to ascend to the library. “And it’s probably still there, wherever Ben got it.”
Luther frowns. “How are we supposed to go back to the lab? Dad would have to know or Pogo would have to drive us.”
“It wasn’t that far,” Five argues. “I’d go, but I’m grounded. Literally. We have to figure it out soon, though.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Ben asks, loitering near the door as the two of them enter the library. Allison is sitting on the edge one of the tables, looking at them expectantly. Diego reaches out and grabs a sandwich from the platter Vanya grabbed from the kitchen. Vanya looks down at her shoes, smiling a little to herself.
“Dad’s coming home early,” Five announces without fanfare. Luther puts down the pieces of the machine onto a table, redness spreading up his neck toward his ears. Allison slaps one hand over her stomach, the other over her mouth.
“Oh, God,” She moans. “What are we going to do?”
“Working on it,” Five says, putting down the machine. “Where’s Klaus?”
“No clue,” Diego shrugs, the words muffled by the sandwich in his mouth. Five wrinkles his nose, turning to Ben instead.
“He came to the courtyard, told us to come up here,” Ben explains. “But then I don’t know where he went.”
“Great, he could be anywhere.” Five tries to shake the image of Klaus teleporting away to Griddy’s to hide when Reginald got home. Or worse, to the ocean. “Look, Ben, I need you and Diego to go back to the lab. We think there’s a piece missing from the machine and that’s why it malfunctioned. Do you remember anything lying around where you got it?”
“Sorta,” Ben shrugs. “There were lots of weird pieces of machinery around, and pipettes, and stuff. I just grabbed the machine because that’s what it looked like in the picture Dad showed us in the briefing.”
“When is Dad coming home, exactly?” Allison asks, stepping forward anxiously.
“8pm,” Five tells her.
“Okay,” Diego swallows his bite. “Okay, we have eight hours to grab this piece, bring it home, and fix everything. We can do that.”
“What does the piece look like?” Ben asks.
Luther and Five make eye contact, and Luther coughs. “We don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“God, I’m going to be this way forever.”
“Listen,” Five hisses. “We can do this. Diego, Ben, go find Klaus and bring him with you. We can’t have him wandering around and risk Mom or Pogo asking him questions. Allison, Luther, and I will figure out where the missing piece goes and try to figure out how to fix this. We meet back here before dinner.”
Allison and Ben look to Luther, who nods. “It’s as good a plan as any. Diego – don’t stab anyone. This isn’t a sanctioned mission.”
“Whatever.”
Five turns to Ben. “Do you remember where everything is?”
Ben’s eyes flicker from his siblings to the spaces between them to Five. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
“Great,” Diego throws the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth. He grabs another and walks over to Ben, forcing it into his hands. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t want this,” Ben says, looking queasy. Diego rolls his eyes.
“Fine,” He reaches out and takes it back, biting into it. “Let’s go.”
.
They find Klaus on their way out toward the atrium, rifling through Mom’s medicine cabinets in the infirmary. Diego snaps at him to stop and come with them, and Klaus drops off of the stool he was standing on, gesturing a blah, blah, blah motion with one hand as he slides a bottle of cough syrup into an inside pocket of his blazer.
“Come on, Klaus,” Ben says. “What do you need that for?”
“Planning for the future is a fortuitous virtue, Number Six,” Klaus mimics Reginald’s voice. It’s too high and ridiculously off pitch. “Never know when you’ll need it in a pinch.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Diego says. “We’re leaving. Stop stealing stuff from Mom.”
“Not like it’s actually Mom’s.”
“Are you sick?” Ben asks, trailing after Diego as he leads the way out of the Academy.
“Oh, yeah,” Klaus says, fake coughing into his elbow. “Sick of this shit, I’ll tell you. Actually, I do have a tickle in my throat, come to think of it. I think Five’s powers don’t agree with me. I might be allergic to protons, or something.”
Ben wrinkles up his nose. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”
“Well, the first power didn’t stick very well either,” Klaus shrugs. “Quantum mechanics picked the wrong guy. Are you sure you don’t want any? Could help.”
Ben grimaces, trying to make eye contact with Klaus and failing. He’s desperate to talk about the ghosts that line the walls of the Academy, the way they want to talk to him, how they’re confused he’s not Klaus but say his name anyway. They know his name. He wants to tell Klaus he’s sorry for making fun of his nightmares along everyone else when they were six, and he wants to say how he understands now, maybe, what the words mean on Klaus’s wall where he’s started to scribble in the corners, and why Reginald soundproofed his room and not anyone else’s. He wants to say all of that, but every time he opens his mouth, Klaus isn’t looking at him, and one of the ghosts is.
Klaus won’t make eye contact with him, but he’s got plenty to say – as the three of them power walk down the street toward the research laboratory, Klaus does all the talking. It’s often this way when Numbers Two, Four, and Six are together (“The even number dream team!” Klaus sings), since Diego prefers not to speak much on the best of days and Ben has trouble sometimes chiming in when other people are speaking, not for lack of wanting. Klaus doesn’t seem to be intimidated by anyone else’s voice, talking louder than, faster than, and over everyone else until people are forced to listen to him or just walk away.
“So now I’m realizing, right, that if Five can teleport anywhere he wants to go, and it’s not like he freezes or anything during it – it feels kind of like jumping over a river of lava while someone’s squeezing your head like a melon, right? – so why is it that he always is so boring? I mean, sure, a couple times he’s done something funny when he blinks in front of a bad guy or whatever, but we’re really starting to understand the lack of pizzazz when there’s so much potential. If it just wasn’t physically possible, sure, but Five is nearly as dramatic as I am sometimes, so it just doesn’t make sense why he’s not filling this niche.”
Diego breathes out through his nose. “Shut up, Klaus.”
“Maybe it’s just not practical,” Ben offers.
“Practical,” Klaus moans. “Ugh. I think Dad invented that word. Why can’t anything just be fun?”
When they’re walking, and he’s looking down at his feet, Ben can pretend that the ghosts are just other pedestrians loitering about the sidewalk. It helps him clear his mind a little bit, and he forces a grin.
“I’m not familiar with the concept.”
Klaus snickers, pushing his shoulder into Ben’s, and their height difference makes Ben stagger slightly despite Klaus’s thin frame. “Don’t worry, Benny, I’ll teach you one day when you’re older.”
They reach the laboratory building relatively quickly, although Ben and Klaus are panting slightly with the speed Diego was making them move at. Klaus plasters his face against the glass, peering into the atrium, and Diego pulls him back by his shirt collar.
“What are you doing?” Diego snaps. “What kind of luh-luh-lookout are you?”
“A handsome one,” Klaus says. “There’s no one inside. Still crime scene central.”
Next to the set of revolving doors is a normal glass door with what looks like a regular lock on it. Ben looks for an alarm before giving it a tiny pull. Diego brushes him aside, signaling for them to watch out for anyone looking before he crowds against the door, acting like he’s looking inside while he slides his lockpicking kit out of his pocket and gets to work. He may not have his accuracy powers anymore, but he still knows how to pick a goddamn lock.
No alarm sounds when he unlatches the lock, presumably because the different floors all have their own security. Diego jerks his head and they all slip inside the building, scampering immediately to the stairwell.
“Why’d it have to be on the seventh floor?” Klaus groans as they ascend the stairs.
“Stop whining,” Diego says. “Ben, do you remember where it was?”
“I think so,” Ben replies. “Just off of the room where the group was, there’s a small hallway with another lab at the end. It was just on one of the counters.”
“And it took you that long?”
Ben frowns. He prefers the missions where he’s sent on recon or retrieving duty more than combat. The Horror has never been easy to control, but ever since the Umbrella Academy went public and Ben was sanctioned to let it loose on groups of criminals, it was even harder. He has the highest kill count (with Diego coming in after him, although after a wide margin), but his siblings don’t understand why it doesn’t matter to him, why he doesn’t like the accolade. He doesn’t like letting it out – not in training, not in missions, not ever.
“There were a lot of things in there. I had to make sure I was getting the right one.”
“Just saying, could have used your help in there,” Klaus says. “We gotta do all we can to keep Five’s ego down. He was boasting over getting two.”
They reach the seventh floor and approach the door. There’s no window to look inside, nothing to indicate whether pulling it will set off an alarm or not.
“Luther didn’t mention an alarm,” Klaus points out.
“They could have disabled it,” Diego says. He glances down at his watch, and then grits his teeth. “We’re running out of time. We gotta go, in and-and-and out.”
Diego closes his eyes, taking a breath, and then pulls the door open. It opens easily, with no sound other than a slight creak in the hinges. He makes eye contact with Klaus, who shrugs.
“Maybe it’s still disabled from yesterday,” Klaus offers, and they take it, walking into the lab.
Crime scene tape covers the room, little numbered placards next to broken pieces of glass, dented counters, and splatters of blood. Tape outlines where the dead bodies laid, cast in a menacing glow by the emergency light on in the back of the room, the rest of the area dark and gloomy without any windows. Diego surveys the scene and then looks to the other door leading out into the hallway. He walks over to it, bunching his hand up into his shirt to wrap around the handle because he didn’t touch it initially when they were there. He goes to pull open the door but pauses, turning around when he realizes that Ben isn’t following them.
“Hey, Benji,” Klaus steps back, looking at their brother, who’s gone pale and is subconsciously wringing his hands like he does before a particularly combative mission. Ben is looking around the room, mouth slightly open. He’s blinking his eyes repeatedly in a way that makes it seem like he can’t believe what he’s seeing but is actually blinking back tears. “You doing okay there, buddy?”
“How many?” Ben swallows, still not looking at them. “How many did you say that you killed?”
“Eight,” Diego replies, his hand still on the handle. “Why?”
Klaus is scanning the ground before Ben even answers, counting the number of taped outlines on the ground. He pushes at Diego’s body, voice jumping over Ben’s quiet, panicked stammering.
“Go find the pieces,” Klaus says, and Diego blinks at the order in Klaus’s voice. “Grab whatever, put it in a bag, and let’s get out of here.”
Diego furrows his eyebrows. “I need Ben –”
“No, you don’t,” Klaus asserts. “You’re smart, you know things, go.”
Diego looks again at Ben, who’s folding in over himself, breathing quickly and bending at the knees. “Is this something to do with your power?”
Klaus groans, pushing at him. “Yes, fine, it’s something to do with my power, we’re going to hold you up, we’re running late already as it is, now go.”
Diego gives him a look but opens the door anyway, turning into the hallway and following it down to the second lab. Klaus immediately turns back to Ben, coming into his space but not touching him.
“Don’t listen to anything they’re saying,” Klaus tells him. “Don’t even look them in the eye. Ghosts are just like people on the sidewalk trying to give you a pamphlet, okay? We don’t engage.”
“Nine,” Ben says. “There’s nine of them, god, they’re confused, and angry, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do anything.”
“Nine?” Klaus muses, counting the outlines again. “Dang, we don’t even know who gets the point. Does he know? Wait, no, don’t ask, no engaging.”
“I didn’t do it,” Ben repeats. “I didn’t even let it out this time, Diego killed them, not me.”
“I know,” Klaus finds himself saying, reaching out and grabbing Ben’s shoulders. “I know, but they don’t seem to care. You just need to distance yourself from them, okay? They’re not good at communicating, you just need to tune them out.”
“Why won’t they go? Is death always like this – why won’t they move on?”
Klaus sighs, resisting to urge to pick anxiously at Ben’s blazer. “I don’t know. It’s not always, I don’t think – I don’t see any humanitarians or animal rights activists loitering around. Mostly it’s just bad people who died violently and don’t understand why.”
“Why don’t you ever say anything?” Ben says, looking up at him. “That this is what it’s like?”
Klaus scoffs, shrugging one shoulder, but Ben latches onto his forearms, his fingers twisting in the fabric of his blazer. Klaus sighs. “Because – ugh, I don’t know, what are any of you gonna do about it? They can’t help, either, it’s just…I haven’t figured out what they want yet. Other than revenge, obviously, but that’s just a given.”
“How do you make it stop?” Ben asks. “It must stop sometimes, right?”
Klaus looks at Ben, his throat suddenly barren and dry. He swallows, and then paints on a goofy grin. “Don’t you worry, Benno, Five’s gonna zap us back to normal and you won’t have to worry about any of this anymore, okay? I’m used to it by now, just like how you’re used to the little wiggly guys, well, more than Allison, I imagine, and all will be right in the world.”
Klaus thinks about the way things are now and knows they have to change – but he thinks about what it will be like tomorrow morning if they switch things back. They’ll eat their stupid oatmeal, and run their stupid laps, and Reginald will find out that he failed to be practically useful on a mission, again, and the ghosts will be back.
“Look, Ben, listen to me,” Klaus shakes Ben’s shoulders a little until they make eye contact. “When things are switched back to normal, you can’t tell anyone about the ghosts, okay?”
Ben frowns at him in confusion. Klaus thinks about what life would look like if Reginald found out what the ghosts actually look like, how many there actually are, how useful they would be if Klaus could just control them, and he shudders. “Why?”
“Just promise me,” Klaus stresses. “It’s for the best. Our little secret. To the grave, okay Ben?”
Ben stares at him for a moment longer before nodding, and Klaus smiles at him.
Diego comes through the door again, a bag slung over his shoulder full of lumpy metal bits and misshapen parts. The whole thing looks like it weighs fifty pounds.
Klaus balks at him. “What, did you take the whole store with you? Talk about a shopping spree.”
“I didn’t know what was what, so I just, so I just grabbed it!” Diego snaps. “Now that I’m done doing all the wuh-work, let’s go already.”
“Sorry, Diego,” Ben says sadly. Diego just grunts in response, and Klaus opens the door back out into the stairwell.
Halfway down the seven flights Diego suddenly pauses, holding a hand out to stop them from continuing. Below them, they can hear the muffled sounds of feet climbing the stairs becoming sharper and louder. The three of them make panicked eye contact. There must have been a silent alarm. Damn high-tech facilities.
“What do we do?” Klaus hisses.
“There’s no other way down,” Ben says. Diego goes to suggest something, but the words get stuck in his throat and he blocks. Frustrated, he heaves the bag up higher onto his back and continues down the stairs. Ben and Klaus share a bewildered look and follow him. The steps grow louder and louder until they turn the corner and come face to face with two cops in security uniforms.
“Stop right there!” One of the cops orders. “Put your hands up!”
Diego drops the bag on the half-flight landing, slow enough so that he doesn’t break anything inside. Klaus and Ben raise their hands up behind him.
“What the hell are you kids doing in here?” The other cop demands.
Ben curses under his breath when he realizes that none of them are wearing their domino masks. “The captain sent us,” He says, trying to sound confident. “We were here yesterday, we’re just helping to clear out the crime scene.”
“Yeah, right,” Cop #1 scoffs. “You’re just kids. What are you doing stealing from a top-notch research facility?”
“Not stealing,” Klaus points out unhelpfully. “Borrowing. Acquiring, maybe, actually.”
“Wait a second,” Cop #2 narrows his eyes at them. “You kids aren’t those Umbrella Academy freaks, are you? Look at their uniforms.”
“Where are the rest of you?” Cop #1 asks. “And your dad, that weird millionaire guy? Where are your masks that you wear?”
“Oh, you know,” Klaus swallows, shrugging. “Laundry day.”
“Diego,” Ben says. “Do something.”
“Do what?” Diego whispers back.
“Rumor them,” Klaus hisses, turning his head. “Kill them, knock out their knees, I don’t know, do something!”
“Why don’t you give us that bag there,” Cop #2 says.
“I heard,” Diego forces out, but then blocks, choking on the rest of the sound. Klaus groans behind him. “I heard a ruh…I heard a rumor –”
“We’re going to have to call your dad,” Cop #1 says, and somehow that does it.
Diego squeezes his eyes shut, pictures himself in front of his mirror in his room. Pictures time slowing, the sound of the alarms fading, Mom’s hand on his shoulder. “I heard a rumor you thought we were policemen!”
For a moment, nothing happens, and the three of them are frozen in fear – but then a film of milky white slides over the cops’ eyes like transient cataracts, and the two policemen look at each other before turning back to them.
“As you were then,” Cop #1 says. “Sorry to interrupt. The alarms have been faulty lately in this building – probably how the thieves got in yesterday, anyhow.”
“You take that stuff to evidence, figure it all out,” Cop #2 chimes in. “Just security officers here, we’ll let you do the heavy work.”
Ben, Klaus, and Diego all look at each other for a long moment before Diego squats down and hoists the bag up again, quickly running down the stairs past the cops. Ben and Klaus follow him a bit more slowly, Klaus pausing to nod and mutter “aye-aye, Captain” to each of them before passing.
They pick up the pace once they’re past them, jumping down the stairs two steps at a time down the remaining flights.
Behind them, the cops stay where they are, their voices calm and amicable. “The Police Academy sure does churn them out younger and younger every year, huh?”
Diego is already outside by the time Ben and Klaus bust through the door and turns on his heel to immediately start walking back toward the mansion.
“Hold on,” Ben has to run a bit to catch up. Klaus’s legs are long and Diego’s just fast. “Can we take a second to acknowledge how cool that was?”
“Could have been cooler,” Klaus muses. “Pretending to be a cop doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t have the bone structure.”
“You did it though, Diego,” Ben says. “You made the rumor work.”
Diego presses on, determined not to falter under the weight of the bag of parts. He wants as much distance between them and the lab as physically possible, but he allows himself to think about it for just a moment – how the words came out clear, and confident, and how they had worked.
“Yeah,” He says. “I guess I did.”
.
“Wow, Mom,” Luther says, smiling up her. “The soup is really delicious, thank you.”
“Minestrone is my specialty!” Mom smiles, bringing her hands together. “I’m so glad you like it. Growing boys and girls need to eat healthy to grow strong!”
Allison stares down at her soup, its contents red and chunky, and swallows dry spit. Suddenly, all the dinners that Ben didn’t finish his meal, all the nights of steak au poivre and meatloaf made sense in a deep, visceral way. Luther reaches out with his foot under the table, gently scuffing her shoe with his; next to her, Klaus lowly holds out his hand, and Allison drops her hand to interlock her pinky with his.
Down at the end of the table, Vanya is politely eating her soup while Ben stares into his bowl. Five looks like he’s about to bang his head against the table repeatedly, his eye nearly twitching.
“Mom?” Five says, moving to gently push his dishes away from him – instead having to catch them as they rocket forward, soup spilling onto the tablecloth. His tone is polite but strained, and his gaze is panicked when he looks up. “May I be excused?”
“You haven’t eaten nearly any of your dinner,” Mom says, frowning. “Growing boys like you need to eat healthy to grow strong.”
“I know, Mom, it’s just,” Five grips his chair underneath the table. “I was working on a project before, to show Dad, and it’s not finished. And I’m not that hungry.”
“I’d also like to be excused, please,” Allison pipes up. “To help Five. With his project.”
“Well,” Mom tilts her head to the side. “I suppose that would be okay, since it’s for your father. Everyone else must stay here though and finish their dinner!”
Ben groans under his breath. Klaus reaches out while Mom’s back is turned and dumps half of Ben’s soup into his own bowl – so uncharacteristic of him that Ben blinks owlishly at the half-empty bowl for a few seconds. Klaus raises his shoulders to his ears and waggles his fingers in a gesture of ooh, spooky, and Ben nods, turning back to his soup and trying to stuff the rest of it down.
Five and Allison shove away from their seats and, after gently putting their chairs back against the table, turn and walk quickly out of the dining room. Five turns and walks backward, jabbing his finger toward the backside of his wrist, and then shuts the door behind him. They can hear their footsteps become faster and heavier as they run up toward the library.
Diego shoves salad in his mouth, trying to chew so quickly he ends up coughing. Luther slaps a heavy hand on his back, and Diego kicks him under the table.
“I’m done!” Klaus stands up, splaying his arms toward the empty dishes in front of him. Diego furrows his eyebrows. Klaus never eats that fast. He nearly has the compulsion to check under the table to see if he dumped any of his food anywhere before he notices that Klaus looks genuinely like he’s about to be sick. “Can I go?”
“Good job, Klaus!” Mom praises him. “Make sure you all are dressed and ready for when your father comes home. Don’t tell me you all have a project for him?”
“What can I say?” Klaus bangs a fist against his chest, burping lowly. “We just love, uh, you know, working as a team.”
“Too much,” Ben mutters.
Luther polishes off his soup, excusing himself from the table, and then Diego and Ben finish quickly afterwards. As Ben stands, he notices that Vanya still has a few bites of salad left. She looks up at him imploringly as Diego gives Mom a kiss on the cheek and runs for the door.
“Wait for me?” Vanya asks. “I’m almost done.”
Ben tears his gaze from Vanya to the door and back again. He tucks in his chair and starts retreating backwards. “Sorry, Van, I gotta…see you soon, okay?”
He sees Vanya’s face fall for a split second before he turns and books it for the door, leaving Mom standing there smiling down at Number Seven, waiting for her to finish her meal. Ben skids as he stumbles into the atrium, leaping up the stairs two at a time and ignoring the shapes and shadows that litter around him. He makes it to the library to see Five and Luther pawing through the loose pieces of machinery they grabbed from the lab spread out on one of the tables.
“Jesus, Diego,” Five mutters. “Just had to grab your own whole science fair project, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” Diego snarls. “If you had given us a picture…”
“Guys,” Allison frets, her hands tugging at her hair. “We only have twenty minutes. Twenty minutes, Dad’s on his way home right now!”
“Why did we break for dinner?” Klaus asks, leaning up against a bookshelf and leaning over to belch again, holding his stomach. “At least Five could have skipped.”
“She would have told Pogo, and Dad,” Five asserts. “We can do this, we just need to find…here!”
Five grabs a short, cylindrical piece of metal and steps over to the machine, lifting it up with one hand to try to fit the piece in.
“Luther, I need help,” Five grunts. “I don’t want to break anything – I’ll hold it, you put it back in. Allison, shine a flashlight.”
Allison grabs a flashlight from the table and shines it over the back of the machine as Luther steps froward, trying to place the parts back where they belong as Five supports its weight. Luther makes a triumphant noise in the back of his throat and steps back.
“I got it!” Luther exclaims. “Turn it on, turn it on.”
Five places the machine back down and plugs it into an outlet in the wall, taking out one of the lamps to replace it. The machine powers on, but it has no screen, no instructions, and too many buttons.
“I’m still seeing ghosts!” Ben complains, his voice rough and climbing through octaves.
“Calm down,” Five says. “We just have to figure out how to work it.”
“We don’t have that kind of time,” Diego stresses.
To prove his point, Vanya peeks her head through the door. “Hey, guys,” She says. “Dad’s home.”
They all freeze, sharing panicked eye contact. Behind Vanya, they hear Mom’s voice call out throughout the atrium. “Children! Your father’s here!”
Five rubs his hands down his face, fingertips dragging along his skin. “He’s fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have cut this down to fifteen minutes,” Diego growls.
“What do we do?” Allison clamors. “We – we need to do something!”
“Allison,” Ben says, stepping forward when he sees her face. “Deep breaths.”
“It’s too late,” Luther mutters, looking at the machine. “We have to go greet him. Guys, we have to call it. We have to tell him what happened.”
Klaus suddenly appears directly in front of the machine, blue light practically spitting him out of thin air. “No way, Jose. Plan D. Number Four time. Time for something kooky crazy – crazy enough it just might work.”
Klaus kneels down and heaves the machine up into his arms – his knees bent and a vein in his forehead protruding, heaving out “my back” – ignoring everyone else yelling at him to stop.
“Klaus, put it down.”
“Seriously, Klaus, you don’t know what you’re doing –”
Klaus makes eye contact with Five. “Come get me when it’s done.”
Klaus disappears from thin air with a small pop and a burst of blue. Diego groans, long and loud, and Luther kicks one of the chairs over in anger. Five gathers his hair in his hands, his thoughts going a million miles an hour. They’re going to have to go downstairs. Mom’s already calling for them again – Vanya’s looking back down the hall with anxious eyes. They’re going to have to admit their failure, admit they don’t know how to fix it, and – God, Five had never let himself consider this before now, but what if they couldn’t fix it? What if they were stuck like this forever?
Suddenly, the five of them freeze and buckle slightly as an inexplicable wave of energy courses through them, threatening to send them down to the floor. Five catches himself on the edge of the table, holding still until the feeling of static courses through his arms and leaves though his fingers.
He looks up and makes eye contact with Luther. Immediately, they all check in on each other, and then meaningfully look to Ben.
Ben has one hand on the side of the bookshelf, the other thrown over his midsection. He looks around the room, blinking.
“It’s gone,” Allison says softly. “Oh, God, it’s gone.”
“It’s back,” Ben moans.
“The ghosts?” Luther asks, fear thick in his voice.
Ben just nods in response, wiping a hand over the sweat on his forehead.
“That crazy bastard,” Diego mutters. “He did it.”
Five dares to look down at his hands, turning them over, before he gathers them into fists and focuses his energy. It responds to him, and he blinks to the other side of the room where the massive windows spread up the walls.
They hear Mom call for them again, and Vanya has disappeared from the doorway. Five ignores her to peer out the window, searching the darkening summer sky for any sign of Klaus.
He barks out a sharp laugh, inciting everyone to look at him. Five is horribly angry, confused, but mostly just relieved.
“He dropped it,” Five announces, looking at the shattered pieces of the machine splayed across the courtyard. “He must have broken the piece responsible for the quantum energy distribution. He dropped it from the observatory.”
Diego lets out a laugh of disbelief behind him. “What an idiot.”
The door to the library opens and Sir Reginald comes through, Vanya lurking behind him with wide eyes. They all freeze and stand at attention, regarding him.
“What are you all doing up here?” Reginald barks. “What is the meaning of all this mess?”
“We were just doing an experiment,” Five lies easily, stepping forward a bit. “To go along with Luther and my classes on electrodynamics. Everyone wanted to see.”
Reginald looks at him, and then to the machine parts littered around the table – this time, without a full machine to make sense of with. Five counts his blessings that from his angle, it seems like Reginald can’t see the pile of broken blackboards behind the bookshelves.
“You know that all experiments are to be performed in the lab and with the explicit approval of Pogo and myself,” Reginald snaps. “Everyone clean up this mess at once, and then prepare for bed. Number One, come with me for your mission report.”
“Yes, sir,” Luther replies, following Reginald out of the room. As soon as they’re gone everyone sags a little. Allison sits down at one of the tables and lets her head fall onto her forearms.
“Talk about cutting it close,” Ben says, walking over and beginning to slowly put the pieces back into the bag. Diego steps forward and helps him.
“Everyone just be thankful that whatever Klaus did worked,” Five says. “Now all we have to do is ignore this ever happened, and we’ll be fine.”
“We just have to hope Number One doesn’t say anything,” Diego mutters.
“He won’t,” Allison says. “He knows how to bend the truth a little – even around Dad, sometimes.”
“We have to clean up the courtyard,” Ben points out. “Before he sees.”
They all hum in response, thinking. Allison sits up straighter at the table. “Five?”
“Hm?”
“Are you going to go get Klaus?”
Five looks at her, and then out the window, smirking. “Maybe in a little bit.”
.