V is for Villain by Peter Moore

Author:Peter Moore
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2014-04-02T20:34:30.437000+00:00

C H A P T E R 2 7

Who We Are

Half an hour later, we were all sitting on the couch and

chairs, gathered around the low table loaded with snacks

and drinks, continuing the Vital team meeting.

“I wonder what Mutagion looks like,” Boots said. “There

are no clear pictures of him. Not that I ever saw, anyway.

And I can’t believe he can use computers. They say he has

claws instead of hands.”

I shook my head. “There’s no evidence that he actually

has claws.”

“There’s no evidence that he doesn’t!” Peanut said.

Layla said, “What the guy really looks like and what

exactly his handicaps or whatever are is a whole other dis-

cussion. But we didn’t come up with an answer: what’s the

goal of connecting with him?”

“Well, precisely that. A connection,” Javier said.

“What do we want from an arrangement with—I can’t

believe I’m saying this—Mutagion?” Boots asked.

Javier didn’t say anything. Nobody did.

I fi gured maybe I could get the conversation actually

moving forward. “Okay, I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way,

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but—forgetting about Mutagion for a minute—what exactly

is it we want to do? I mean in the grand scheme of things?”

“What do you mean?” Peanut asked.

“I mean, like, do we have an actual manifesto or some-

thing? Anything that in any way documents what we stand

for? What we’re about?”

Peanut made a snorting sound. “Dude, we’re not about

writing books or pamphlets or whatever. If I want to write,

I’ll do it in English class.”

“It’s not about writing. It’s about getting ideas together

so you actually know what you believe, what you’re trying to

accomplish. Even anarchists have guiding principles.”

Javier said, “We’re not being philosophers. We are not

talkers. We are doers.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Doers? Sorry, but I don’t see

too much getting done at all. Javier, you’re probably the one

who does the most around here—at least you build your little

devices—but then nobody does anything with them. Planning

and scheming may make us feel all badass and everything,

and we don’t like the heroes and we talk about changing

things, but in the end, really: what are we actually doing?”

To tell the truth, I still don’t know where all this came

from. I was on my feet and even a little out of breath. I real-

ized then that I had raised my voice, and weirdest of all: I

had gotten kind of impassioned. Yes, I had some antihero

feelings, and yes, I didn’t much like the priorities or values a

lot of people had—all that was true. But I never, ever would

have viewed myself as political. And yet, there I was, in our

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secret lair, standing in front of these guys, these would-be

villains, delivering this call to action, and they were all look-

ing to me as if I had answers. Answers to questions I didn’t

even know.

Like a radio tuned to fi ve different channels at the same

time, I could hear thoughts from all of them, all at once.

Who does this guy think he is?

Hey, he’s not bad. He’s pretty smart.

Who died and put him in charge?

This kid has better ideas than Javier does. And he’s

smarter, too.

I knew there was more to him than it looked like.

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