The Drafter

“Howard and I will swing by your apartment tonight to see if Opti is still there,” Silas said as he pushed the button on the SS Enterprise model to make Spock tell him to live long and prosper.

 

Peri’s brow furrowed. She didn’t like him touching her stuff. “Don’t bother. They aren’t going anywhere,” she said as she set her knitting down and joined Silas. “Getting in might be an issue.”

 

Howard hissed in pain, shaking his hand as the smell of solder rose again, and Taf laughed. “Taf and I can help,” he said, glaring at her mirth. “Distract them. Draw them off.”

 

“And have you end up in an Opti cell?” Peri protested. “No. We’ll find another way.”

 

Taf snorted as she used a pencil to hold something for Howard to solder. “We won’t get caught. I know someone in Detroit with a sweet bike. Totally uncatchable.”

 

Howard looked up, blinking. “I’ve never driven a bike before.”

 

“And that’s not going to change,” Taf said. “You sit behind me, dreadlock man. Real men don’t mind their women driving.”

 

Silas frowned. “No,” Peri said, agreeing with him. “No one is going to be a distraction. Opti kills people,” she added. Opti kills people. I kill people.

 

“What the blazes are we here for, then?” Taf complained.

 

“Extraction.” Peri plucked the picture of twelve ten-year-olds in tutus out of Silas’s hand before he picked her out of the group, setting it next to the autographed picture of Putin riding a Photoshopped bear where it belonged. “Three g’s, and an r: Get in, get the info, get out, relocate.” They weren’t her words, but Jack’s. She didn’t remember—she just knew.

 

“Extraction?” Taf sighed. “I can do more than drive. I can shoot, too. All us debutantes learn how to shoot before we get our first push-up bras.”

 

“Extraction is where someone who almost minored in evasive driving belongs,” Howard said, his head low over his work, and Silas snorted.

 

“You’ve got the entire Buffy series on disk?” he said, and Peri flushed, embarrassed to admit she didn’t remember watching them. The feeling that she loved the people on the covers was undeniable, though.

 

“Oh, cool. Let’s watch a few tonight,” Taf said, looking at the dusty Blu-ray player under the obsolete gen-one glass monitor beside the TV. “It works, doesn’t it?”

 

“Sure, right after we sneak into Peri’s apartment, outwit the government-funded bad guys, and save the world,” Silas grumped as he fiddled with the biker’s cap on her Goth American Girl doll. “Maybe we can stop to pick up popcorn on the way.”

 

“You don’t have to be so snide about it,” Peri muttered, suddenly not liking that she’d brought them here. Her comic book apartment had been a refuge from her mother’s demands since she was eighteen, filled with the things she loved and wanted never to forget. It had always felt like a tree clubhouse to her, and Silas was poking about like it was a junk shop.

 

“Sorry,” he said, expression blank as he turned to go into the open kitchen.

 

Brow furrowed, she straightened the commemorative coffee table book of Princess Diana’s royal wedding. The sucking sound of the freezer opening turned her around, and her lips parted when he took out a box of Thin Mints.

 

“God bless it, will you get out of my stuff!” she exclaimed, and Silas spun, eyes wide.

 

Taf made a long “Oooo, you’re in trouble …,” laughing when Howard shushed her.

 

“You’ve got like six boxes in there,” Silas said indignantly, and Howard gave Taf a nudge to be quiet when she opened her mouth again.

 

“Fine, go ahead.” Peri stomped back to the kitchen table. “But put them on a plate so we can all eat them.”

 

“Sure, Peri,” he said reasonably, but she was still peeved. Her unfinished scarf was stretched out over the table, and she studied the irregular bands of red, orange, and gold, trying to figure out what she’d been trying to do so she could finish it off. Knitting was supposed to be relaxing, but not with Silas bumping about in her kitchen.

 

“Ah, why do you have comic books in your wine fridge?” he asked.

 

Jaw tight, she ignored him. “Be careful with those,” she said when he reached for a blue glass plate, and his motions became exaggerated as he shook the frozen Girl Scout cookies onto it and set it down precisely between them. “They’re antique,” she added, not knowing for sure.

 

“You know what? I need another circuit to finish this,” Howard said suddenly as he stood and stretched. “You want to come with me before they close, Taf?”

 

“What, now?” Taf appreciatively eyed Howard’s stretched body. “This is just getting good. What are we making, anyway?”

 

“Bug detector,” he said as he collapsed in on himself. “A-a-a-and … it works,” he added as he picked it up and waved it over Taf and a light on it glowed.

 

“I am not bugged,” the woman said indignantly, but Silas, who had sat down across from Peri at the kitchen table with his paper newspaper, had taken an interest, too.