“Simple mission,” explained Vicki Vee, a.k.a. Velcro Vixen. “Seek and retrieve. You find the item, and you bring it back. If you choose to accept this commission, you’ll all receive a good-faith payment up front, with the remainder of your fee to follow, once the job is done. Any equipment that you don’t have now, that you’ll need to complete this task, you submit those requests to me as soon as possible, and appropriate arrangements will be made, albeit without any guarantees, since Santa might have to make some substitutions on your shopping lists. The scope of your search has been reduced to Seattle and its surrounding environs, so it’s a local run. Barring any dropouts, you’re looking at the rest of your teammates. Questions, comments, concerns?”
“For starters, is there some reason why you’ve deliberately declined to tell us what the item in question actually is?” inquired Letitia Gahagan, a.k.a. the Idiom.
“Need-to-know basis,” Vicki shook her head. “And none of you need to know, until you’ve already agreed to be on board.”
“And exactly how much money would we each be getting for this gig, again?” demanded Viktor Deredondo, a.k.a. Killer Shrike.
“$500,000 per participant,” Vicki ticked off on her fingers. “The first $100,000 on the spot, once you’ve signed on to do the deal, and the other $400,000 after the item has been obtained and delivered.”
“Can you do secure wire transfers to anonymous online accounts, for those of us who prefer not to handle cash?” wondered Zack Zelnitz, a.k.a. Hacker Nine.
“Of course,” Vicki nodded.
“Okay, so let me just say this out loud, just to make sure it makes sense to everyone else in the room,” challenged Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove, a.k.a. CrazySugarFreakBoy! “In return for valiantly volunteering to fly blind into the face of who-the-fuck knows what, we could expect to be rewarded with the princely sum of … what, fully half of one of Dr. Evil’s ransom demands, yeah?”
“Tough talk, for a white hat who’s slumming with the outlaw crowd,” Vicki smirked.
“Oh, you want to be a smartass about it?” Dream countered. “Fine. If this bullshit errand is going to be an Evening at the Improv, our salaries are taking a serious hike. Standard rate for hunting down your average plot-convenient object ‘whose mystery is exceeded only by its power’ is at least $750,000, and you know that, but because you decided to dick us over, by offering us insultingly lowball bids for our services, our asking price just went up to an even $1 million, each.”
“This is not a negotiation,” Vicki scowled.
“No, this is what happens when you want to play games, and try to treat a crew of professionals like a pack of amateurs,” Dream clarified. “Talk to your handler –”
“There is no ‘handler,’” Vicki contradicted. “I’m running this show. You talk to me.”
Dream sighed. “Like I said, talk to your handler –”
“There is no ‘handler!’” Vicki shouted.
“Cut the crap!” Dream shot back. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? I know you. You know I know you, and not just in the gynecological sense. You’re, like, the Evil-Lyn of supervillains. I mean, not to take anything away from your marginally respectable resume as a second-in-command, but as far as filling out the Skeletor role is concerned, you are not ready for prime time, which means that there is indeed a handler. So, you can talk to that person, and you can come back to us with a yes-or-no answer to our terms, or we can take a walk.”
As Dream and Vicki stared silently at one another for a taut moment, Zack crouched forward curiously in his chair and glanced at them both with guarded anxiousness, while Viktor hunched over to glare at Dream from across the table with unconcealed hostility, and Letitia leaned back casually in her seat to survey the whole scene with a barely stifled expression of amusement on her face.
“You might as well blink, because I won’t,” Dream grinned, still gazing steadily ahead.
Vicki finally averted her eyes. “You’ll excuse me for a minute,” she muttered through gritted teeth, as she exited the room.
“What the hell kind of stunt are you pulling here, cowboy?” Viktor growled, as soon as Vicki had left. “I don’t need any bleeding hearts to speak up on behalf of what they believe are my ‘best interests,’ least of all some snot-nosed punk kid who’s acting like he’s a big-league badass, just because he’s read a bunch of comic books about how to be a glow-in-the-dark gangster.”
“No, I’m acting like I’m a big-league badass because I’ve built up close to a decade’s worth of experience at playing Chaotic Evil Fighter-Thieves in Dungeons & Dragons,” Dream beamed, folding his arms across his chest. “And I’m doing you a favor, you dumb son-of-a-bitch, so you can either say thanks or shut the fuck up.”
Viktor nearly turned over the table as he leapt to his feet. “How about I just slice you and dice you like an Oriental entrée instead?” he spat, raising his formidable gauntlets to flash their razor-sharp blades.
Dream responded by grabbing the edge of the table and completely upending it as he stood, baring his tightly clenched teeth in a frighteningly ferocious, gleefully manic mimicry of a grin. “Come on, bitch!” he bellowed, the sudden aggressiveness of his exclamations and his sweeping arm gestures catching everyone by surprise. “Let’s go! Ain’t nothin’ between you and me but air and opportunity, so if you’re feelin’ froggy, you just go on ahead and jump!”
Viktor instinctively took a step back, unsure of how to approach an opponent who, by all current appearances, seemed not to possess enough common sense to be scared. “Look, I’m warning you …” he faltered.
“You’re warning me?” Dream advanced, his wild eyes widening as the volume of his voice edged even higher. “All I’ve got is a goddamn orange-and-green yo-yo! You’re the one with the massive phallic-shaped machetes strapped to your wrists, Mister Penis Size Overcompensation!”
Before anyone could react further, Dream blurred into a super-speed ball of blindingly bright colors that surrounded Viktor. Less than five seconds later, Viktor’s arms were pinned inescapably across his own chest, with his razor-sharp gauntlet blades pressed hazardously against his own throat, by Dream’s yo-yo string.
“You’re gonna tell ME?!” Dream practically screamed at Viktor, tugging savagely on his yo-yo string for emphasis. “You’re gonna tell ME how to be a bad guy?! You mutt motherfucker!! I just whipped your weak ass with a YO-YO, you stupid bitch!!”
“Ahem,” Vicki interjected condescendingly. “If you two cocks have had your fill of crowing over who’s the head rooster in the henhouse? Your terms have been agreed to. The fee has been raised to $1 million, half of which will be paid up front, as soon as you accept the commission. I trust this revised arrangement will be satisfactory.”
“That rate applies to everyone here, yeah?” Dream ensured.
“That was my understanding, yes,” Vicki confirmed curtly.
“I just made you $500,000 richer, assclown,” Dream hissed viciously in Viktor’s ear as he released him, before tapping Zack on the shoulder to whisper mischievously, “Performance art at its finest.”
__________
“So, what would have happened?” Letitia checked. “If Killer Shrike had lived up to his namesake and called your bluff, forcing you into a kill-or-be-killed situation, I mean?”
“What makes you think it was a bluff?” Dream chuckled, even as he trembled slightly with the release of pent-up tension from his muscles.
“You’re not the only one here who can read people’s character archetypes, Bugs Bunny,” Letitia confided, with arched eyebrows and a Mona Lisa smile. “Even if E hadn’t shared any of his stories about working with you with me, you’d be pretty easy to peg. You’re a whimsical trickster, a compulsive and fantastically imaginative liar with an all-too-honest heart, and for all your lack of self-restraint, there are some things you’re just not ruthless enough to do. It’s no wonder E can’t stand you … it’s like you’re his additive inverse.”
“Okay, so if you’re so goddamn smart, why weren’t you the one who called bullshit on Velcro Vixen for trying to screw us on our pay scales?” Dream pointed out, in a tone that was less accusatory than genuinely inquisitive. “I mean, you must know the going rates for just about any class of costumed criminal commission, probably a lot better than anyone else in our lineup.”
“I don’t need to be a part of any operation whose members aren’t collectively competent enough that it wouldn’t occur to at least one other person in the group to ask precisely those same questions for me,” Letitia shrugged matter-of-factly. “I’m not in this business to nursemaid mediocre middleweights. Besides, if I’m going to stand out from the crowd, I don’t want to do it by making a name for myself as the loud, mouthy asshole who argues with the boss.”
Dream burst into laughter. “Oh, so you decided to let me do that part for you, then?”
“You really are the best there is at what you do,” Letitia giggled briefly, in spite of herself, before attempting to affect a more stern façade. “You know, E wasn’t entirely wrong to be worried about you. You’re extremely dangerous, and you stand an excellent chance of getting us all killed.”
Dream scratched his head as he ran his fingers through his hair. “If that’s actually how you see things, then why would you even agree to join our fun bunch in the first place?”
“Why are you and Hacker Nine partnered up with each other, when in many ways, it’d be much more convenient for the both of you to be operating on your own?” Letitia volleyed back. “You see some of yourself in him, the awkward adolescent you used to be, and he sees some of himself in you, the cool dude he hopes he can become. It’s kind of cute, like Sal Mineo’s puppy-dog crush on James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.”
“Except, of course, that Zack’s not gay,” Dream nit-picked. “He sure as hell wasn’t faking what he felt for Lindy …”
“And you know for a fact that he’s not bi?” Letitia suggested slyly, before shutting her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. “We’re getting well off track, though. The point I was trying to make is, when you meet someone who reminds you so much of yourself, it’s hard not to be drawn to them … and oddly enough, considering my chosen career field, I’ve never had much of a chance to hang out with anyone who was so much like me, so this represents something of a novel opportunity for me.”
Dream cocked his head sideways, in momentary surprise. “There’s more like us than you know,” he eventually reassured her. “When this is all done – not just this job, but this whole Days of Future Past deal that we’re mired in the middle of right now – I’ll introduce you to a few of our fellow anarchist nerds, we’ll haul out some campaign manuals and some 20-sided dice, and we’ll tear some shit up in the Forgotten Realms. You, me, Zack, April, and the rest of my Amazing Super-Friends. Sound like a plan?”
“From one live-action role-playing adventure game to another, huh?” Letitia teased. “I think I’d like that. It’s a date.”
