Free Undead and Underwater by MaryJanice Davidson Page A

not just physically but psychologically! We have nothing to do but fester and—”
    “Go insane?” Linus guessed.
    “Well, yes. Like mushrooms,” he admitted. “Evil mushrooms who can run a network from anywhere on the planet.”
    “Oh, please. You guys get off on being different. You take pride in it. We don’t cut you off; you guys do it all on your own. You isolate yourselves; it’s your nature. And don’t get me started on your idiotic Help Desk Muppets!”
    Edward gasped so hard Linus wondered if the man was having a heart attack. He shook a trembling finger in Hailey’s direction. “Judas!”
    “Actually, Judas means praised and admired . So, yeah. Hailey’s definitely a Judas.”
    Hailey was rubbing her forehead. “Please stop sticking up for me now. Edward, you and any other hacktivists you’ve hidden back there will cease and desist looking for bad situations and making them worse so I, or the National Guard, eventually have to intervene. Then—”
    “What’s a hacktivist?” Linus asked.
    “A trendy term for cowardly sneaky trespasser.”
    Edward was rubbing his forehead in a gesture identical to Hailey’s. “Yes, that’s . . . that’s one I can’t defend. There can be no denying it’s sneaky of us,” he admitted.
    “Edward, here’s how it is. I’m going to continue living my life, and if I’m running around doing the job of a cop or a firefighter or just working on annual reviews, it’s my own business and none of yours. And you? You’re going to jail.
    “I don’t know what you did to the school bus, and how many other ‘accidents’ you’ve been responsible for to encourage me to step up, but you can be sure you won’t be doing anything like that ever again . You will turn yourself in. You will confess. You will not take a plea bargain. You will go to jail for quite some time. You will behave; you will forget you ever dreamed the dreams of super villains.”
    “Why?” he asked, and Linus was afraid: it was a reasonable question. There was no proof. There were only Hailey’s hunches. Edward didn’t have to admit anything to anyone. He needn’t have confessed what he did to Hailey and Linus. He’d wanted to, which wasn’t the same thing. Linus doubted Edward would just stop. Why would he, when it was getting him what he wanted?
    Even worse, would this lead to a smackdown between the superhero and the villain, an ultimate battle the likes of which the world had never seen and, also, wouldn’t have much interest in? Did he want such a tired cliché to happen right in the middle of Ramouette’s IT department?
    What would the consequences be, especially with the company picnic coming up in less than two weeks? Would factions be further splintered? Would Hailey get fired for employing a super villain? Would the super villain bring a wrongful termination suit against Ramouette? Would the state of Minnesota’s department of dislocated workers get involved, guaranteeing hundreds of lost man hours? He foresaw entire square miles of paperwork ahead, and was afraid.
    “Why?” Edward asked again. “Why stop now when you’re so close to accepting what you are? When you’re almost ready to understand that—”
    “Don’t,” Linus warned.
    “—with great—”
    “If you say with great power comes great responsibility , I will do something terrible,” Hailey warned. “More terrible than I already had in mind, I mean. And if you don’t turn yourself in now, today, you will never recover from what I’ll do to you.”
    “Why?” Edward asked, sounding curious.
    “Because I’ll do things to you I won’t be able to take back. For starters, I’ll dissemble and eat your entire server, right now. The whole thing. Every bite. I’ll get it all down, Edward. You won’t be able to stop me; I could break your arm with one hand while smashing up the hard drive with the other. I’ve never actually eaten a fan before, and the server’s got a good one. You need them to keep