The members of bravo team were laughing and slapping each other on the back as they entered the firehouse but fell silent when they saw the other team. Alpha team was sitting around a table bandaging wounds and loading their various firearms. The Robot was wrapping fresh ammo belts around its body next a large steel weapons locker. The Gangster and Driver were smoking like chimneys and neither the Doctor nor the Sorcerer looked terribly happy.
“Speak, man of science.” Said the Brick.
The Doctor sighed and said,
“What would you have me say?”
“You are the planner, the leader, than man that has brought us all together in this fashion to fight the Reich. Your plans and ploys have served this group well, and now there are two of you, what is our next move?”
The Doctor pushed away from the table, his chair scraping violently against the floor, and said, “There is no plan. All the work we put into supplying the lab has been wasted, every sensor or bug we’ve placed to keep track of the Germans in Chicago is now compromised. Everything we’ve been working at for the past eight months is useless. All the blood shed for the cause has been rendered worthless!”
“We yet have breath in our lungs, blood in our bodies, we live and we may fight. That is the soldier’s way. Cry into your beakers and notepads if you must, but I am a warrior and will not cease to fight until my country cuts the heart from my chest!”
The Immortal and the Telekinetic added cries of support to the Brick’s sentence.
“What would you have me do? We have nothing but the clothes on our backs and the Chevy.”
The Driver coughed and spoke while gesturing at he and the Gangster with a lit cigarette, “Chevy’s smoking worse than the two of us.”
“Fight!” cried the Brick, “Start again. Raid and pillage the Germans and the North. Every gun we take from them is one more in our hands and one less in there’s.”
“Not to denigrate and step upon the honor of a soldier, but what happens in this Chicago city is irrelevant to the fate of the larger world,” said the Sorcerer.
The Brick looked at him like he was an idiot and ignored him.
The Doctor did not.
“He is right, Chicago and America are meaningless if the misinformed students of the supernatural employed by the Germans have their way.”
“Ah, yes, demons.” The Brick raised his hands and made air quotes when he said demons.
“You doubt the truth of my statements?” asked the Sorcerer.
“I doubt nothing. Once I was a man, little magician, a man of strength and honor and now I can rip the pistons out of an armored truck’s engine. This world is not a bland and unimaginative place. What I doubt is our ability to hinder the ploys of crazed cultists on another continent.”
The Robot spoke up, “He is correct. Our options are limited by geography. The events our newest team member speaks of are more relevant to the world at large, thus they are the more important goal. Unfortunately our ability to have any impact upon them is limited by geography.”
“We allow the world to burn around us merely because we have a distant goal?” asked the Immortal.
“Even if I can get the Chevy running, it ain’t got flippers to do any swimming.” Said the Driver.
“I thought you Americans were imaginative, full of shiny ideas and whimsical ploys that outsmart the crude and plodding Germans at every turn.”
The Driver snorted and said, “An I thought all you Krauts were racist sons of bitches that thought they owned every inch of the damn world.”
Knuckles popped like thunder as the Brick clenched his fists.
“Little American, I will beat you to death with your little American car if you are not careful with the insults your little mouth spews forth.”
Little was the word the Brick used to show his contempt for other.
The Gangster’s lighter popped and interrupted the hard stares of the Driver and Brick. He inhaled on the freshly lit cigarette and shifted in his seat, casually bringing the barrel of the piano in line with the Brick’s face.
“While your goin an getting the car,” he said, “do me a favor an grab any smokes the Unies had on ‘em.”
The Brick took a step forward, his massive fists raised.
Something ratcheted in the Robots throat and his voice was suddenly a static laden blast of thunder when he spoke, “THIS IS IRRELEVANT. MY FILES INDICATE YOU ARE ENGAGING IN WHAT IS COLLOQUIALLY REFERRED TO AS MEASURING YOUR GENITALS AND COMPARING AND CONTRASTING THE SIZES. THIS SERVES NO PURPOSE, YOUR GENITALS AND THEIR VARIOUS SIZES HAVE NO BEARING ON OUR PLANS AND WHETHER OR NOT WE CAN DEFEAT AN ALIEN HORDE OF CREATURES FROM ANOTHER WORLD.”
The Robot dialed it back from eleven and continued, “We must fight as one unit if we are to do anything. When we first agreed to work together in our exodus from the Fatherland we found our elements were too prone to discord to bring together and divided into teams with members that possessed strengths complimentary to one another. If we are to join together in battle once more, we must cease these petty arguments and frivolous biological comparisons.”
The Doctor took his seat once more and put his head in his hands while the Sorcerer leaned towards the Gangster, whispering.
“Comparing genital size?”
“Means they’re arguing ‘cause each thinks he’s bigger, better, an smarter than the other.”
“Your world is strange.”
The Gangster laughed, “Ain’t that Dog’s honest truth.”
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