The Unnatural Disasters

4. The second worst way to pay rent: Omega

The first thing I find myself doing, as I wake up in the morning, is screaming.

I crash onto my bed as Luda yells into an oversized microphone. I glare at Goop, still sleepily wrapped up across my body. As per usual, it'd decided to wrap me up in it and stick me onto the ceiling in the night. Why?

It just likes watching me suffer, I'm pretty sure.

"Are you sure you don't want to swap beds?" Copycat says, looking down wearily from his top row bunk. Lazuli- in the bed underneath him- nods along.

"I'm good, you don't have to move your plants," I reply, rubbing my now slightly bruised head. The moment we got the dorm rooms back, I'd ran to the single bed; Goop likes neither heights nor being underneath things.

"Okay?" Copycat's face is half-obscured by a plant whose name I cannot pronounce. I remember him showing up a fortnight or so ago- primark bag under one arm and an army's worth of potted plants and seed packets in the other. Why?

I have no clue. That boy is an enigma.

I think there's a full second in which we collectively register Luda- today a tall, slim woman with short-cropped blond hair-who's watching this whole exchange standing in the door frame with a megaphone.

"Luda-" Lazuli says- "What are you doing here?"

"Finally! I was waiting until someone noticed. Well: we have a mission!"

Lazuli groans; Copycat sighs; I fall back onto my bed.

"Really?" She crosses her arms.

"We've been training all week. Can we get one day where we don't have to fight an angry rug or something?" I sigh.

Day in, day out, the past week we've been doing the Luda equivalent of practice: meaning we run around the steel cube we were first introduced to Smoke in, fighting these weird robots Charley designed. It's been me, Copycat, and Lazuli, who's only here because his parents are on a work trip.

It's pretty awkward without the others; and by others, I mean Newton mainly.

"Look." Luda steps further into the room. Great! A lecture. "It's nothing, really. Likelihood is you don't get hurt once."

No life lesson? Well, colour me surprised.

"Alright, alright." Lazuli stands up. "Just let me have some tea before learning about what the hell we're doing next."

We traipse into the living room; Decibelle and Newton wave at us from the sofa.

"Had a good sleep?" Newton asks me.

"When did you two get here?"

"I emailed them," Luda says, sounding like she sent them a message via carrier pigeon.

"I've been here since six AM," Decibelle sighs. "Do you know how hard it is to convince your parents that you have an all day flute practice session standing at the foot of their bed at 5:30?"

Copycat looks round, frowning. "Wait: where's-"

"Sorry I'm late!" Pixel yells, running into the room. "Funnily enough, messages sent at three in the bloody morning via archaic technology don't get read instantly in my household."

"I can't stand this anymore, not without a hot beverage-" Lazuli says, walking towards the cupboards- "anybody want tea?"

"If you don't mind," Luda replies. "Okay, everyone! Copycat, Omega, please stop lurking and sit down, you're annoying me."

I do as told.

"Great! Now, I'm guessing you want to know why I brought you here today." Well, I live here. She continues: "the truth is: you've been hired! Yay!"

We look around at one another, all waiting for someone to ask.

"I am still listening, I promise!" Lazuli yells over the sound of the kettle boiling in the corner.

"Hired?" Copycat finally says. "Someone's hiring us? Us? Has the news stopped running their smear campaign? Do we get paid for this?"

"Yes and no. Mostly no. Okay, just no. I'm all assuming you've seen the candyman factory?" I have: huge concrete factory near the youth centre painted luminous pink, dedicated to churning out sweets for the masses. "Well, Darren Levy- the guy who runs the place- he owns all the land round here. I mean, he owns pretty much half of Kalshem. So, therefore, he's the guy we pay rent to. Nice guy, actually; doesn't ask questions. And, he's holding a launch party for his newest sweet line. He knows what goes down far too often at rich people parties, and with the whole Motherboard thing he's understandably scared. He wants us to- well- guard the party. For rent."

"So- it's just a party," I say, skeptical.

"Yup! Just a party."

"Nobody trying to kill us?"

"Not that I know of."

"So- it's a party. What's the worst that could happen?"

We laugh; it's better than wondering what could go wrong.