Keep Up
Maya and the cowboy are waiting awkwardly to resurface in the dingy waiting room of the law offices. “We conduct debriefings up here so it looks like people use the building. Also Matthews’ downstairs office is the smallest goddamn room you’ve ever seen. I’ve been in broom closets bigger, I swear.” Maya’s ramble is uncharacteristic, but the silence of Sundance’s bemused shock is eating her alive. “Look, I know you speak. I also know you knew about this place, second gen. So why, in God’s name, are you staring like this is Area 51? Like, I get Farkle’s probably the prettiest thing you’ve seen that speaks that fast, but can you not keep it in your pants and hold a normal conversation? Or at least make some bad cowboy joke? I can’t do all the talking.”
“Can sure as hell try, can’t ya agent?” Hopalong was muttering now. Perfect. Maya was startled when he spoke again, full volume, “I’m sorry if I’m not much for conversation, ma’am. This just all feels a little surreal to me. I want to write about the seedy underbelly of global politics, not be involved in it. Dad kinda sprung the whole ‘I’m not paying for the rest of college if you don’t take a gap year and join the IDPA. So I’m just a little taken aback. My apologizes.”
“Try harder. The agency has a habit of falling into your lap when you least expect it. It also has a knack for doing that at the exact right time.” She remembers her first days there and smiles. Quietly, mostly to herself, she adds, “Riley thinks it’s magic.” The last floor dings and the elevator slows. She grips his arm, bracing them both, and drags him into the lobby. Her heels make muffled clicks on the shabby carpet as she propels them across lobby to the conference room. As they enter she feels his head snap toward her.
“Wait, what did you say about Farkle?” His eyes are saucer wide. Maya just laughs.
“Not bad Hart, only 5 minutes late.” The bemused voice of Mr. Matthews floats toward the. Maya bows.
“Would’ve been 4 if your lovely daughter wasn’t such a nerd.” She flashes the ring to the older adults, who all smile. “Didn’t Shawn give you one of these?” Cory looks nervously at Topanga, seated at the opposite end of the table, and then to Shawn, who was lounging by the window. They wave in unison, beaming. Cory clears his throat.
“Right, down to business. The Mackinaw case. Serious stuff, saving the world.”
“Cor, they’re just protecting the Mackinaw kid until that party. Don’t put too much pressure on them.”
“But Shawnie, the world hangs in the balance.” Shawn and Topanga exchange exasperated looks.
“Cory, it doesn’t. And if you scare these kids they won’t do well.” Topanga tries to reason with him.
“Fate of the world. Moving on. The Mackinaws are an informant family. They’re pretty high up in an international con ring. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but they’ve cheated some very important politicians out of a lot of cash. And angry politicians demand major attention. ” The whole room except for Lucas shudders at personal memories of dealing with pissy Senators. “In exchange for not going to jail, they’re telling us about even higher up cons. And they have to stay in the circle for us to have relevant information, so they’re playing a little double agents for us. But there’s been some concerning behavior surrounding them lately. Hang ups, creepy messages, dead animal symbolism, the whole shebang. We’re trying to track it, but it’s taking an unfortunate amount of time. The intelligence personnel on it is almost as good as Farkle. Your mission is to keep the oldest daughter, Tess, from getting killed. There’s this benefit coming of age thingy coming up, and there have been hints to something going down there. So you two have to make sure she’s still in one piece at the end. If we happen to catch the threat-maker, all the better.” Cory hands Maya a thick manila folder with the words TOP SECRET across the front. She’s surprised she hasn’t dropped dead from how much of a bad cop show her life is, but she accepts the folder without comment. For now. “You two can go over the details later. You leave in 9 days for Paris. Mr. Friar needs to be trained by then, Maya. You need to be able to work as a team.”
Maya opens her mouth but Topanga shoots her a look. She closes it. 9 days? They expect her to tolerate- more than tolerate, work with- Hopalong in 9 days? And have him trained? What do they think this is, a movie? Maya half expects Eye of the Tiger to start playing in the background while Farkle shows up with a sweat towel for Cowboy. Honestly. Speaking of Farkle, his interactions with Huckleberry were far more interesting than listening to Matthews go over a case she knows in her sleep. She was suddenly itching to get out of there.
“Okay Matthews, 9 days. Is there any other miracles you want me to perform or can I ship Sundance here off to Farkle?” She can almost hear Shawn and Topanga exchange amused looks behind her.
“Maya.” Oh, shit. Matthews is using his ‘dammit Maya I’m serious and inspirational’ voice. “I know the world may not actually be resting on your shoulders right now, but this is still a big deal. I believe you can do this. I do.”
“Yeah, thanks. We’re gonna be going before my teeth rot. I’ll cover the rest of the info with newbie later. Dismissed?” She wishes the plea in her voice wasn’t so obvious.
Matthews nods. “Dismissed. Get outta here.” He closes the door behind them. She’s about to leave and not spy on the grown-ups conversation before she remembers she’s Maya. She grabs Hopalong by his collar and yanks him down to the crack in the door next to her. Why does he have to be so goddam tall? It’s offensive, honestly. She makes a ‘shut up or I’ll kill you’ face at him and leans toward the door. She can hear Topanga.
“-really think they can pull this off?” She sounds concerned.
“No. Not on their own. But with the other two, there hasn’t been a group like that since, well, us.” That’s Cory, she can tell by the over-exaggerated tone. She has to assume they’re talking about them, and this mission. But what other two?
“We were the best. God, we were something. Magic.” And there’s Shawn, Mr. Good ol’ Days.
“You really should’ve told them before they got so worked up about-” Topanga is cut off by the men breaking into their glory days reminiscence. Maya can hear her mutter ‘my whole life’ under her breath and knows the show’s over. She releases Sundance’s collar and straightens up. She has no idea what the fuck any of that meant, but it put her on edge. What other two? What shady shit is Matthews’ trying to pull now? She heads back toward the elevator, Sundance trailing like a puppy. A very large, very confused puppy. He was like, a golden retriever. She pictured his head on a golden retriever and laughed. She might have to draw that sometime. She loved her surrealism.
“Hey, what did the director mean when he said we could be a group like them?”
“The director? Oh, Matthews. Nobody calls him the director, Hopalong. He meant him, Shawn, and Topanga. The stories they tell are ridiculous. All that ‘best of friends saving the world and having interpersonal relationships’ crap. You’ll have to ask Riley about them.”
“Sounds like an afterschool special.” Maya laughs.
“I think it might actually have been. Wasn’t your dad around in those days? Haven’t you heard any stories Sundance?” She sees Lucas tense and immediately regrets her question. She knows that face, she can see a daddy issues wince from a mile away. But Huckleberry? Daddy issues? She was gonna have to re-evaluate her conclusions on him when she had a spare minute.
“Sir and I don’t talk much.” Yikes. Maya shouldn’t say anything, she shouldn’t get involved, she wasn’t gonna do this, right?
“What kind? Manly Man Didn’t Get Enough Love?” Wrong. “Cuz mine, mine was just plain Not Ready Yet.” Her laugh is nervous and deflective. This was a terrible idea. They walk in silence to the elevator, but she can see him relax. Crisis averted. “So, um, ya ready for your training montage?” She jokes.
“What?” Confusion. Good. The dynamics are back in place. She sighs a little in relief.
“We’ve got 9 days to teach you how to be an agent. You’re in for it Hopalong. We’re starting with Farkle, and his weapons. Be careful, he might kill you.” She wants to add something about his looks, but she figures second gen has taken enough of a beating. She could see it though, the way he was blushing around Farkle earlier. They both seem like they could use something to help them unwind. Maya bets Riley would know what to do, she’ll have to ask her later. She’s wondering if Riley is free tonight when she realizes Ranger Rick has been talking. Shit.
“- his deal anyway? You keep saying cryptic stuff about him like he’s some elusive movie love interest and we’re not supposed to talk about him.”
“Farkle? You think Farkle is an elusive movie love interest? First of all, who says elusive, Ranger Rick? Second, Farkle isn’t mysterious. What do you wanna know about him?” The elevator dings.
“Know about who?” Maya might be in heaven. Or dreaming. Because there, right in front of the good Huckleberry’s face, is the one and only Farkle Minkus. Sundance immediately turns bright red.
“No-o one. Just somebody I ran into earlier on the tour. No big deal.” Maya’s never seen a more perfect example of flustered.
“Aaaaaanyway, cowboy’s read for his big guns now, Fark my man. Think I can pass him off to your capable hands?”
“I don’t know Maya. He doesn’t seem to focus very well. You should probably come with us so that we don’t get hurt.” As much as Maya wanted to go see Riley or yell at Zay, she could see Farkle was right. Huckleberry and Dr. Farklestein are having a half-hearted talk about weapons while awkwardly running into each other every 5 seconds and apologizing. They were hopeless and Maya had to go with them. She sighed and glance at Farkle’s fancy digital watch. 9:49. She swore it had been longer than that, but apparently even Father Time was against her today. She resigned herself to zoning out and organizing facts mentally while Farkle discussed gun types and bomb ranges. She’d get enough of this at the safety debriefing in nine days, mandatory before every mission.
She sizes up Hopalong in her head. Daddy issues, aggressively wants to follow authority, model face. From the time she’s spent with him she can tell pretty boy has layers. She needs to be less rash about writing him off. Even with the father trouble, he seems to add up, but there’s one thing that bothers her. Where’s the anger? If she was gonna get rid of him she was gonna have to know his weak spots, and anger was the thing most new recruits had that he was missing. And a kid like that has to have something under the hood. He didn’t get the way he did by southern charming his way through life, not with Mr. Friar for a ‘sir’. And the look in his eye when she mentioned his father was almost chilling. He was a Huckleberry, but there had to be more than calm and confusion. He had a mask on and she was gonna get under. She just had to piss him off. That’s what she’ll do. She’ll piss off Sundance. She straightens her clothes and hurries to catch up to the boys, a wicked smile on her face. Finally, a plan.