“Excuse me,” Nicole said as she ran into the house, where she found her mother sitting at her vanity, putting more and more powder on her face. The vanity held a collection of hair relaxers, skin brighteners, oils, and flattening irons. Hanging from a department store rack was a sleek, sparkly dress in a doll’s size.
“There’s my baby now,” her mother said to the mirror. She frowned. “Oh, you look so rough, sugar. Have you been using your grease?”
“Mom, my plane crashed on this island and we had no food and people died and —”
“Don’t you worry, baby. We’ll get you fixed up in no time.” Her mother reached over and patted a collage taped to the wall. The glossy pictures had all been torn from magazines, a collection of pale, blond, hipless women with aquiline noses, bony legs, blank eyes, and thin, wan smiles. The body parts had been taped together like a series of lines, more Bauhaus building than woman. Sighing, Nicole’s mom ran a hand over the thickness of her thighs, the roundness of her bottom, and it was as if Nicole could feel the shame in her own body. “It won’t do, baby. It won’t do at all.”
“What should we do?” Nicole asked.
Nicole’s mother turned to her. It was hard to see her features under so much cover. Only her eyes shone out, wide and afraid. “The giant’s coming,” she whispered. “We don’t have much time to get you ready, Ne-Ne.”
“Ready for what?”
Her mother clapped and the sidekicks danced into the room. One did the moonwalk. They struck their poses, h*ps cocked, lips pursed, palms out in a talk-to-the-hand motion.
“I know you,” Nicole said to them. “You did pageants before you went to Hollywood. Now you’re on TV.”
“That’s right. We’re the sassy black sidekicks.”
“You know, the best friend of the main character.”
“The comic relief.”
“The ones who can put you down and tell you off.”
“I’ve been working on my head swivel. Wanna see my head swivel?”
“What happened to you?” Nicole said, going down the line. “You used to play Bach on the viola and work at a nonprofit after school. You wanted to go to London and start that cool underground theater and you never, ever moonwalked. And you … you were Episcopalian.”
Number 3 swiveled her head perfectly. “Not no more, sugar.”
“Why are you talking like that? What’s with the double negatives?”
“I’m about to double negative your head in a minute!” She snapped twice, and the laugh track erupted again. In it, Nicole heard barks and screams.
The ground shook. Nicole’s mother gasped and the girls went into their head-swiveling, finger-snapping minstrel show at a frenzied pace.
“What’s happening?”
Number 1 offered Nicole’s mother a large pair of garden shears. Her mother looked balefully to the collage. “It’s the only way, baby.”
Nicole understood and she felt frightened. She didn’t want to cut herself down. The jungle shook with a giant’s footsteps.
“Quick!” Nicole’s mother lunged at her with the scissors and Nicole ran out of the house and into the menacing shelter of the jungle. Behind her, footsteps thundered. Trees cracked and fell. The jungle was losing color, becoming a silhouette. The white space nipped at Nicole’s heels, tugged at her hair. She could not outrun it, and then she was lost inside, a feathery black cutout in the background, her hand still reaching for safety.
CLASSIFIED
ISLAND
09:00 HOURS
Inside the volcano, the elevator’s thick steel doors whisked open. Agent Jones entered the control room. Glowing green maps flickered on wall-size screens. The constant hum of work filled the cavernous space — the clicking of fingers on keyboards. This base had existed for some time, privately financed by interested parties. Unregulated by the government, it had operated without rules or oversight, almost as its own country, and it had done as it pleased. But now, the island’s resources were nearly tapped out. Something new was needed. That’s why there was Operation Peacock.
The agent poured himself a cup of free trade coffee from the wheezing pot, took a sip, and frowned. French Roast. Was it so hard for these guys to get Hazelnut like he’d asked? Every month, he filled out coffee requisition forms in triplicate. To date, they’d received Arabica, French Vanilla, House Blend, Viennese, even Kona. But no Hazelnut. The agent sighed in irritation.
“Yo, Agent Jones, my main man!” An Ivy Leaguer in a Lakers T-shirt popped his head above the cubicle partition. Harris Buffington Ewell Davis III, aka the Dweeb, was the son of The Corporation’s former CEO. The kid had never held a job in his life and was spending his summer break from the Ivy League here, ostensibly to get training. Mostly he played covert games of Pong and annoyed the hell out of Agent Jones. “What’s going on?” Harris raised his hand for a slap.
Agent Jones left the kid’s hand kissing air. “Hello, Harris. How’s production going?”
“Okay. No love for the hand. Production’s good. See?” The Dweeb flipped a switch and the factory floor came up on the monitor in grainy black and white. Agents in black shirts stood guard while scientists in lab coats busied themselves over a stainless steel table filled with jars. “Who knew hair remover could also make a cool explosive?”
“Miracles never cease.”
“Oh, hey, wanna see something megacool? I rigged the compound’s override system to respond only to PowerPoint.” Harris cackled.
Agent Jones was stone-faced. “So, in the event of a self-destruct initiation, the only way to stop the sequencing is by making and uploading a full PowerPoint presentation?
“Yeah. Isn’t that awesome?”
“No. Not awesome. Change it back.”
Harris glowered. “Well, I think it’s awesome. I took Advanced PowerPoint last semester. You guys are always misunderestimating me. I’m totally ready to handle the big stuff.”
“The word is underestimate. And when you’ve got a few more years under your belt, then we’ll talk big stuff, Harris.” Agent Jones forced a smile that he hoped passed for benevolent. His performance reviews all praised his skills but said he lacked warmth. He was not someone anyone wanted to have a beer with.
Harris made a face. “Did you just cut one? ’Cause you’re making a face like you did.”
Agent Jones stopped trying to smile. “Briefing in the conference room in five.”
The fortresslike conference room was an interior room with concrete walls, fluorescent lighting, and ergonomically correct leather chairs that cost five thousand a pop. Agent Jones resented the chairs as much as the lack of Hazelnut coffee. Back before the agency had been bought by The Corporation and privatized, they’d had adequate seating but great benefits. Now, they were lucky to get dental.
The room filled with the private security detail — the black shirts, as they were called. The Dweeb took a seat and put his sneakered feet on the Brazilian cherry oblong table.
Agent Jones took a sip of his disappointing coffee. “Kill the lights.”
A black shirt took out his gun.
“Not literally, Agent. I meant turn them off.”
The room dimmed to a hazy gray. Agent Jones pulled down a white screen and plugged in his twenty-five-year-old slide projector. Despite the high-techery available, he preferred the old wheezing machine. He clicked the remote. The fan whirred. On the projection screen was the faded-color image of a short man in a militarized black jumpsuit and huge, blue suede platforms. The man sported oversize sunglasses and a long, fat mustache. He wore an obvious wig, which bore a resemblance to Elvis Presley’s famous pompadour.
“MoMo B. ChaCha, aka The Peacock. Dictator of the Republic of ChaCha and a very creative dresser. Thief. Murderer. Racked up more human rights violations than Genghis Khan20.”
“Who?” the Dweeb asked.
“I thought you went to Yale.”
“I study business, not Chinese.” Harris snorted.
Agent Jones exhaled loudly and clicked to a new slide. “The Republic of ChaCha, or the ROC, is one of the richest countries in the world. Incredible natural resources. But we can’t get to those resources because a) our government has levied sanctions against the ROC, so all Corporation interests would be in violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act and b) MoMo B. ChaCha is certifiably insane. This is a man who is so paranoid, his most trusted advisor is a taxidermied former pet named General Good Times.”
The carousel clicked to a new slide. MoMo B. ChaCha in full military colors inspected his army from a Jeep. Beside him was a stuffed lemur in sunglasses and a general’s hat.
“But didn’t we put MoMo in power in the first place when the ROC elected a socialist president?” one of the black shirts asked.
Agent Jones glared at the man until he began to play with his pencil. “In a few weeks, MoMo B. ChaCha will travel to this very island to make an arms deal with The Corporation. As you know, MoMo is not a fan of our country.”
Agent Jones switched to the big screen and a grainy video of MoMo sitting at his enormous desk, a swivel-hipped Elvis clock ticking behind his bewigged head. “Death to the capitalist pigs! Death to your cinnamon bun–smelling malls! Death to your power walking and automatic car windows and I’m With Stupid T-shirts! The Republic of ChaCha will never bend to your side-of-fries-drive-through-please-oh-would-you-like-ketchup-with-that corruption! MoMo B. ChaCha defies you and all you stand for, and one day, you will crumble into the sea and we will pick up the pieces and make them into sand art.”
“So why is he doing a deal with us if he hates us so much?” someone asked.
“MoMo’s been trying to tamp down an insurgency in the ROC. Needs some firepower. We sell him arms; he lets The Corporation set up shop in his country. Covertly, of course.”
“How’re you going to get those weapons into the country?”