Our Devils, page 27
Reyes chuckled and took a slow, practiced drag. Marcus burst out laughing. “Not your first time?”
“Nope,” she said with a French inhale.
Aaron took a long look at the trailers around him. He realized he hadn’t even walked to the far side of the park, but there were easily twenty trailers set up there with room for more. “So why a trailer park?”
Hugh chuckled. “We didn’t want you to feel like you were living on a government base. This property had a bunch of permitting problems that prevented them from renting the units out, so it’s been empty for years. Jess helped negotiate a short term lease so the owners could recoup a bit, since the agency gets to ignore some of that red tape, and here we are.”
Aaron nodded in understanding. “Well, thanks for it.”
Hugh giggled. “Small price to pay to keep you… young adults happy.”. Aaron thought he was hamming it up—no way did the high hit him that fast.
Aaron leaned back. “No, I mean all of it. The trailers. The food… actually listening to us, even when we’re kind of being shitheads.”
Pulsar nudged his ribs. “When you’re kind of being a shithead.”
Marcus grinned and piled on. “When you’re being a shithead.”
Aster nodded along enthusiastically. “Shithead,” he chirped.
Jess just smiled. She didn’t have to say a word.
“When I’m being a shithead,” admitted Aaron. “I guess I just expected the director to be a… big scary FBI type. And I’m really glad you’re not.”
“I try not to be,” smiled Hugh. “I believe in taking care of my people. Even when they’re being shitheads.” Then he leaned in closer and got a little quieter. “Do you want some real classified information?”
Aaron leaned in too. “Hit me, boss.”
Hugh smiled softly and traded a glance with Agent Reyes—there was an inside joke in there, somewhere. “Did you know the director of Agency D basically has the power to blacksite anyone who steps on our property unauthorized?”
Aaron’s heart leapt up into his throat. “You mean you can just disappear them?”
“Citizens. Non-citizens. Clergy. Elected officials, you name it. We have access to multiple black sites run by multiple agencies, so no one is safe. My old boss used that threat more than once. I know for a fact that he black sited at least three people while he was there, and threatened a sitting congressman to his face.”
Aaron chuckled nervously. “Remind me not to get on your bad side again.”
Hugh leaned back again. “You know how many people I’ve disappeared?”
“No?” asked Aaron. He was a little worried to find out.
“None. Not a one.”
Aaron exhaled with relief. “I respect that. A lot.”
“Same,” added Marcus. Reyes smiled, happy that Scar Gang could finally see the boss that she knew.
Hugh’s eyelids were beginning to droop. “I’m no damn fascist. I’m too cool for that.” The joint came to him and he hit it twice.
Marcus chuckled at the sight. “How did you get to be so cool, boss?” Hugh shrugged. He thought for a moment in earnest. Then she shrugged again.
The high was hitting Reyes, too. She couldn’t stop giggling. “Give them the line about the teachers.”
Hugh laughed. He waggled his eyebrows playfully. “Oh is that what made me cool?”
They traded a funny look with a story behind it. Hugh clasped his hands together and leaned in, meeting Marcus eye-to eye. “A wise friend once told me this: Learn from many teachers to master yourself.”
Marcus scoffed and broke into a genuine smile. “I can fuck with that.”
Chapter 62
Just because Reyes and Hugh left didn’t mean the party was over. It was Marcus and Pulsar’s turn to order food, and they competed to find the biggest burrito within range. Aaron was still full from lunch, but he rolled his eyes and jumped on the app, quickly finding the winner. He celebrated by ordering a dessert burrito, which was just a regular burrito you ate for dessert. Aster ordered two.
Aaron packed a fresh bowl for his bong. “So how was training?”
Pulsar cracked his knuckles. “Savage.”
Marcus cracked his neck. “Nasty.”
Aaron beamed and handed the green hit off. “Sweet.”
Aster took the hit, with a little help from Marcus. He could hold the bong fairly well at that point, but his hands couldn’t quite work the lighter yet. His tongue hands probably could, but inhaling at the same time was another story. After a big hit and a few coughs, his eyelids dropped like anchors. “Aaron taught me new tricks today.”
Marcus grinned. “I saw your bounce. Pretty cool.”
Aster beamed in thanks. “He says I should get a banda-what’s it called?”
“Bandolier,” said Aaron. “Or some sort of pouch he can keep explosives in. He can throw really far with that tongue, dude.”
Marcus’s eyes went wide. “Shit.” And then his smile grew. “Oh shit. That’s good. You just thought of that?”
Aaron tried not to look too proud. “Earlier, yeah. I was trying to figure out what he could have done differently with the dragonflies.”
“Shit,” swore Marcus. “Not wrong. Those golf balls helped, for sure.”
The bong quickly ran dry and Aaron swapped in a fresh bowl. Meanwhile, Marcus stared off into the distance. “Man, I miss the quarry.”
“Fuckin’ ditto,” said Aaron.
“Same,” said Pulsar.
“Me too,” said Aster.
“I miss when we were just farting around,” said Aaron. “Buying snacks from the corner store. Doing that energy drink thing we never got to finish.”
“We should watch a movie tonight,” said Pulsar.
“If you—” Aaron started.
“Not Twilight,” said Pulsar. “You and me always pick the movies. We should let them pick for once.”
Marcus and Aster looked at them, and then at each other. Marcus petted his devil and said, “Why don’t you pick?”
“Me?” asked Aster.
“Yeah,” laughed Marcus. “Why not?”
Marcus put his phone down in front of Aster so he could start browsing. Aster technically had his own phone, but carrying it around was another story. The devil cruised through their options, muttering “No no no” as the thumbnails flew by. That one looked too scary, and that one looked sad, and that one looked dumb. Marcus and Aaron traded a funny smile, curious to see where he’d land.
Suddenly, Aster gasped and his eyes went wide. On screen was a little green frog wearing a top hat. The devil’s voice was barely a whisper. “He’s like me.”
“A little early for a Christmas movie,” laughed Marcus. “But fuck it.” Aaron shrugged—since their devils probably wouldn’t be around for Christmas, maybe Christmas in June wasn’t the worst idea. Or July. They weren’t exactly keeping track of the days.
Pulsar just cocked his head, trying to figure out what was so funny. Marcus looked around and muttered, “Man, I wish we could watch stuff out here.” Aaron thought for a moment before pulling out his phone. He typed out a quick message and stuffed it away again. Marcus chuckled. “What was that?” Aaron just shrugged and smiled. Maybe it would be nothing, or maybe it would be something.
Their food arrived just after Aaron finished repacking for a third time. Sure enough, they were the biggest burritos around by a mile: three tortillas each and wrapped into a two-foot log. They called them “Burrito Kongs.” Aaron was shocked to see he could only finish half of his dessert burrito—but it would make for great leftovers.
Minutes later, they watched as a white panel van arrived. Two guys they hadn’t seen before stepped out, wearing plain work shirts and hats without logos. They opened the trunk and pulled out a projector screen, projector, stand, and a pair of speakers. Then they started setting them up.
Aaron looked a little embarrassed. “Woah, I said no rush.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said the shorter man. “Easiest OT I’ve had all week.”
“I can set it up, if you want,” offered Aaron.
The taller one smirked. “No, I think we better handle that.”
And so they did. They took their time, double checking each connection. The whole setup was ready to go in twenty minutes. When they turned it on, Marcus leaned back and basked in the glow.
“Yall partake?” Aaron held up an unlit joint.
The shorter one hesitated. “Not on the clock,” he said.
So Aaron held it out instead. “Takeout?” The two men glanced at each other and the shorter one took it. Then Aaron gave one to the taller man, too. They tipped their hats in thanks and left.
Then it was time. Aster had no idea what he just picked—he just wanted to see the frog. But first he had to watch a bunch of puppets sing about some old curmudgeon. Aaron sang over it, adding lines like “There goes mister shitbag, there goes crusty fuck.” Marcus tried to shoosh him so they could hear the real lyrics, but Aster thought it was a riot.
As soon as they got to the little felt frog, Aster’s face lit up. He was just a nervous little guy with a funny little voice—Aster took a liking to him immediately.
“They’re singing again,” grumbled Pulsar, despite tapping his foot to the beat.
“Do all animals sing?” asked Aster.
“No,” chuckled Marcus. “Only the cool ones.”
Once again, the humans were endlessly entertained by just how bizarre the movie must have looked to an outsider. Without the context of Victorian England, ghost stories, morality tales, or the Muppets, it was a wild place to start. But Aster tried his best to sing along with the Marleys, wiggling his little tongue buds for added flair. Aaron thought idly that Aster would make a great ghost of Christmas past, and he cracked himself up at the thought.
But while the movie handled many things well, it quickly became clear just how well it sold the story. The devils were soon enraptured, falling for every fake out and plot twist. Marcus hoped it would be half as fun to show to his own kids, some day. The thought made his eyes a little misty. It wasn’t until the reprise of “The Love we Found” that he realized this copy must have been the TV version, since it cut out “The Love is Gone” and the woman’s giant, flaring nostrils. Marcus tried to find the scene online, but was immediately reminded that their phones were locked down. So Aaron jumped on the request chat to see what he could do about that.
Ten minutes later, the internet was unlocked in read-only mode. Their agency phones weren’t logged into any accounts, so they were spared from a barrage of messages and notifications. But they weren’t spared from the news.
“Thirty More Dead in Trinity City.” Grainy footage of wild devils lurking at a playground. “Aliens vs. Aliens?“ A photo taken of Aaron from inside a gated store in Westfaire Mall. “President Radnor Declines to Declare Emergency.” Footage of Pulsar slipping at the Devil Sauce launch. “Experiments On The Loose.” A picture of a dead dragonfly devil. “Shameless Viral Marketing: A Devil Fever Case Study.” Every single page, on every single network, had something to say about the devils. And not just the devils, but all of Scar Gang. Their names were published everywhere. There were candid and grainy photos from so many angles. High school yearbooks. Interviews with old coworkers. People they had met in passing, and screencaps from their own social media. Phone numbers, addresses, and gamer tags. Each one of them had been completely and utterly doxxed.
When Aaron found his old mugshot from college, the color drained from his face. He put his phone away and mumbled, “I see why they locked us down.”
“Yeah, this is a little fucked,” said Marcus, holding up his phone. On it, a woman was giving an interview. She introduced herself as Marcus’s mother, even though she ran out on the family when he was still in single digits. Marcus didn’t even want to hear what she had to say. He quickly stuffed his phone away, too.
Pulsar, meanwhile, was living for it. It didn’t take him long to find a thirst thread that focused on a somewhat flattering angle of his backside—including several posts that edited it to comic proportions. The devil grinned from ear to ear and showed his phone around, proud of his new posterior. There was an endless supply of videos calling him “Fierce,” and “Adorable,” but the ones that just said “Would” fed his ego the most. Several more posts asked “When can I get a devil?!” or “Sign me up.” Then he found someone making bootleg plushies of him and Aster. Then he found one of Cirra, and it hit him directly in the gut. He put his phone away, too.
Aster looked around and chirped “Good movie.”
“Yeah,” agreed Marcus. “Good movie.”
“Classic,” said Aaron, packing another bowl.
They stuck to lighter videos for the rest of the night, watching sketch comedy, novelty musicians, bizarre cooking channels, fail videos, and everything the lighter end of the internet had to offer. Marcus put on some Too Many Zoos and RDCWorld. Aaron put on some Lindsay Ellis and Howtobasic. They scrolled past a thumbnail with fan art of Pulsar and a bunch of floating hearts. Pulsar thought about checking that one out on his own, some other time.
The night wound down until only Pulsar and Aster were left awake, so Pulsar returned to the video about himself. On screen, some guy wearing cat ears showed off a long series of Pulsar fan art, with an emphasis on thirstier pictures. He also had plenty of fan art to show of Aster, which portrayed him as a cherubic uglycute type. It was intercut with quick recordings from other people, including a perky girl who claimed “I would DIE for Aster.” The frog beamed from ear to ear—or at least to his ear holes.
At last, they woke their humans up and dragged them off to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a new kind of day and they needed plenty of sleep.
Chapter 63
Marcus’s eyes went wide as their SUV drove past the facility’s turn off. “Where are we going?”
“FBI property,” said Reyes. “Temporary setup. The director still doesn’t want FBI on base, and I guess the FBI doesn’t want us at their base, either.”
“Bet,” said Marcus. They drove another ten minutes down the highway and turned onto a dirt road. They pulled up to the entrance of a dusty and derelict industrial property, possibly another quarry or refinery, built around a central warehouse in disrepair. A stone-faced man at the gate unlocked it and stood aside.
Marcus traded a weary look with his devil as the car parked. Aster opened the door himself and plopped out onto the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. Inside the hangar they found about thirty people, already deep in training. They wore tight black gym clothes filled with raw muscle and were running through some absurdly intense aerobic routine on their padded mats. Some of them went wide-eyed as Marcus and Aster approached, though they finished their exercises before stopping to gawk.
Reyes stepped up to introduce them. “Marcus DuFresne. Aster. This is Commander Zapata.”
Commander Zapata was a shorter woman with broad shoulders, possibly in her 40s or 50s. She looked exactly like the kind of person who liked to punish people for underestimating her—Marcus would not make that mistake. She looked happy to meet the two, but her severe expression hid it well.
“Good to meet you, ma’am.” Marcus stuck out a hand and the agent shook it with a hard, firm grip. Aster stood up to shake hers next—the commander hesitated for a moment before taking it. Chief Machado stepped up to greet them both. It appeared he had brought a few of their agents with them to help.
Reyes clapped her hands. “So where do we start?”
Zapata stepped up. “Thank you for joining us, Mr. DuFresne. I think we would all love a little demonstration of what your devil can do.”
“What do you have in mind?” he asked, adding, “It’s Marcus, by the way.”
Zapata glowered a bit, but it passed quickly. He gathered that she was the formal type. Another man stepped up behind her. His gruff voice came from behind his square jaw and his grand mutton chops. “How about some sparring?” he asked.
“Sure,” said Marcus. “We spar a bit differently, if that’s alright with you.”
“Differently?” The man crossed his arms and cocked his head.
And so, Marcus filled them in on how they had been sparring. The man nodded in approval and squared off with the devil. Aster was barely back to the point where he could stand on two feet for a few moments, so he bowed to the man and flopped back down. The other agents snickered at the sight. Zapata silenced them with a harsh scowl.
The big man charged first. His movements were quick, blocky and brutal—Marcus thought the style looked like Krav Maga. He even recognized a few of the man’s moves from Jess’s fighting style, which Marcus filed away for his own sparring matches. But the man’s large stature worked against him. Aster easily slipped under a couple of strikes and cartwheeled away from the third with his tongue. This earned a few chuckles from the crowd, either because of Aster’s tactic or because their large teammate was already struggling against a frog. The man rushed in for a grapple, but the devil slipped out of his grasp without much trouble. Aster fell backwards, pivoted his face downward, and rocketed his tongue off the ground. This sent his full weight into the man’s solar plexus, leaving him seated, dazed, and frustrated.
“One, devils,” beamed Marcus. A few jeers kicked up in response. Again, Zapata shushed them. This time the man was ready. He jumped back onto his feet, making a show of it. He crouched lower, keeping his center of mass forward. Aster pogoed straight up into the air and the agent followed him. The devil shot out his tongue for a jab and the man grabbed it, throwing him. Aster easily landed on his front hands, slipping his tongue away and rebounding for another body slam. The man caught him, trying to reposition so he could drop him for a butt down. But the frog used his tongue to pick the man’s arms off him. Once the first was free, he swung around onto the man’s back, wrapping the tongue around his neck to choke him. The man’s eyes bulged and Marcus shouted “Aster!”
