February nods, then pulls out of the parking lot and aims them back toward the interstate. As they hurtle toward Colson’s edges, it’s difficult to say who sees it first.
Wait!
You don’t think— says February.
But she thinks it, apparently, because she passes the highway on-ramp and continues toward the sprawling brick building, the crisp blue block letters a beacon across the factory’s face: EDGE BIONICS.
They circle the building twice, stash the car on a side street, get out, and round the plant by foot once more in a wide arc. But there is no one—no overnight workers, no sign of her students. One big eighties surveillance camera above the front door and another hanging over the loading dock, but they look so archaic she is willing to bet they’re Goodyear holdovers. Out ahead of them by the front gates, a motion sensor flicks on a light at the movement of a tabby cat. February and Wanda cross the street to avoid triggering it again.
They stay huddled in the shadows of a shuttered travel agency, blowing into their hands for warmth. February is nervous and nearly jumps out of her skin when a police cruiser appears, but he doesn’t even bother to slow as he passes, and she tries her best to lower the frantic beat of blood in her temples.
Finally, when the last of the blues have folded back into the horizon, and she and Wanda are about to abandon their post, she sees them. They’re a block north and have black bandannas tied over their faces, but she knows it’s them: Charlie in her Army surplus jacket hugging something shiny and cylindrical to her chest, flanked by a trio of boys. February’s stomach knots—who is the fourth?
She wants to catch them before they trip the floodlight, so she jogs until she’s near enough to cross the street and cut them off. She steps directly into their path, though as she’s in motion it occurs to her that her own broad silhouette is a formidable one, and it may not be a good idea to startle this crew.
Too late. Charlie lurches backward into Austin, who February can see is carrying a matching cylinder, which, upon closer inspection, looks a bit like Mel’s Instant Pot. Eliot stands frozen, his arms around a container of his own, while the unknown boy turns to run, encountering a fresh fright when he finds Wanda in his path. February motions to the vacant lot across the street, and the group crosses, buttressed by her and Wanda.
What the hell are these? February gestures to their cargo.
You know them, oh thank god, says the third boy, his voice unfamiliar and without a trace of deaf accent, at which February breathes her own sigh of relief. Don’t tell them anything! he says, looking to Charlie, but it’s dark and his face is covered, and no one has heard him but February.
You stay put, she says to him.
She tries to inject an adult sternness into her voice, but she’s unpracticed at authoritarian English. She sees not fear but challenge in his eyes. She turns to her students. Austin steps in front of Charlie as if to shield her from February’s wrath, hoisting his pot onto his hip to free up one arm.
What is going on?
True biz? he says.
* * *
—
When Austin has finished, February doesn’t know what to say. She glances at Wanda, who looks more impressed than angry. Finally, she settles on pragmatism.
They have an Amber Alert out on you, she says. They’ll catch you so fast your head will spin round. Where the hell did you get an idea like this?
The boys don’t say anything, but they are both looking sidelong at Charlie, who’s in turn looking straight back at February. And February realizes, she is the thread that has bound them together. She had hoped they might influence one another. She designed it this way.
Deaf people need direct action, like you said, says Charlie.
But this is— What if you hurt someone? You’ll go to jail!
They don’t seem as perturbed by the idea as she’d like them to be. But reason is for people who still have something to fear. The hearing boy shrugs.
It’s purely a profit-busting mission, he says. There’s no one in there at night.
Where the fuck did you come from? February mutters.
She doesn’t really want an answer, and he doesn’t try to give her one. She looks at her children, their scars glowing beneath the street’s single lamp, the knotted blue flesh on Charlie’s head; the slick, shiny rivulets of Eliot’s cheek disappearing beneath his bandanna. And Austin, unmarred, and emitting perhaps the most rage of all.
February motions to Austin’s device, and he hands it over. Then she looks to Wanda.
Take them to the car?
Carefully, Eliot and Charlie leave their pots on the sidewalk at February’s feet and follow Wanda, heads low. The hearing boy hesitates, staring at the explosives and jiggling his leg. She knows he is about to make a break for it, that he is trying to calculate how much he can carry.
Wait, she feels herself say.
To her surprise the boy actually looks up, his eyes even with hers. He is tall; now that he’s not hunching, she can see that he’s probably older than her students, though not by much. He, too, has a wound that gleams, a slice that bisects his forehead. The boy reaches for the pot in February’s arms and she hands it to him. She looks down at the others and he shakes his head to ward off further inquiry. Behind him, movement catches her eye—someone lanky with a mask pulled up over their nose and mouth is crouching in the shadows.
Not today, she says.
The boy nods, and February crosses the street to return to the car. She does not look back on the boy and his friend, doesn’t see them gathering the pressure cookers beneath their arms like parents collecting their children. She doesn’t know in which direction they recede back into the night.
Gloves and masks, she says with a hand outstretched to the backseat.
The children surrender their bandannas and February stuffs them in her purse.
Where—
I trashed everything, February says.
Is that safe…to throw away? says Wanda.
It’s all disconnected. Scrap metal now.
February looks in the rearview mirror when she says this, but whatever they’re thinking, her students’ faces do not betray them. Neither does hers.
Let’s go home, she says.
eight days later, Austin rises for cafeteria duty a little after dawn and sees the news as he scrolls through his phone: there’s been an explosion in East Colson, with extensive damage to the Edge Bionics plant. He nudges Eliot awake and they stagger bleary-eyed over to Austin’s desk and pull up the Channel 10 site. A helicopter is at the scene, but not much is visible through whorls of ash as the city block smolders. The captain of Company 14 tells reporters that the fire has been neutralized with no casualties, and thanks colleagues at Companies 3 and 5 for their assistance. The smoke will linger for a while, depending on the weather. The cause of the fire, he says, is under active investigation.
Austin and Eliot know it’s a risk to write anything down, but it’s a difficult thing to keep to themselves, and after some discussion they decide on the right text to send to Charlie. They want something that is both a mark of their achievement and a warning, so they choose the same words that are scrawled as graffiti across each face of the campus—in bathroom stalls and locker rooms, etched into desks and cafeteria benches. It gives them plausible deniability, a toothless, campuswide joke. Austin types it out and pauses for a final nod from Eliot before he presses send: