“Oh, wow. I am so, so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She gulped. This was getting way too reveal-y for her personal comfort, and she smiled like it was nothing. “I’m just weird about some things, I guess.”
“No, that’s not a weird thing, that makes total sense.”
Ana Sofía’s smile felt more real. It wasn’t nothing. It was a big deal to her. What a relief that her friend took it seriously.
“And anyway…” Doreen held up her flattened hand. “Hello! I’m weird about so many things!”
Ana Sofía lifted her hand and allowed a high five, even though the concept of high fives was one of those things she was weird about. “From now on we talk, okay? Me too. Even though conversations like this are strangely super-hard for me. Even if our thoughts are embarrassing.”
“Especially if they’re embarrassing!” Doreen laughed. “Oh, sorry, I’m not laughing at you.”
“I know,” said Ana Sofía. “There’s a huge difference.”
Suddenly Ana Sofía felt so tired. Sometimes it happened like that, snap, and she’d hit the bottom of her ability to keep trying. Reading lips, examining expressions, working so much harder than a hearing person to try to communicate and understand. The miraculous thing was, Doreen seemed to notice immediately.
She took out her phone.
DOREEN
I’ll walk you home k?
Ana Sofía nodded, and they texted each other as they walked.
ANA SOFÍA
So that flyer. I think the victory party is supposed to be celebrating the success of whatever hydra is planning to do in shady oaks
DOREEN
Their victory party plan is a little premature imho
ANA SOFÍA
Right. But I think d-day is mall opening day. And that’s the day after tomorrow
DOREEN
I’m really hoping d stands for donuts. Or dinosaurs. Oh man why don’t I get to regularly fight dinosaurs? Or ride them at least? Moon Girl gets all the fun
ANA SOFÍA
All the PR pushing to get people there opening day I think hydra has something big planned
DOREEN
And bad. I’m guessing it’s bad
ANA SOFÍA
Since it’s hydra that would be a logical assumption
Also I found a thread on a baddit forum of supposed mall employees and one literally said “saturday is d-day and it’s gonna be bad”
DOREEN
Don’t worry I’ll tell the avengers
So we promised to share embarrassing thoughts. You got any?
Escorted through the dark neighborhood by a squad of furry rodents, they shared embarrassing thoughts all the way to Ana Sofía’s house.58
SQUIRREL GIRL
Hey Avenger pals! So my best human and squirrel friends believe it really is real Hydra for real setting up a mall for bad guy reasons. Can some of you come and, you know, avenger them out of my neighborhood?
IRON MAN
Sorry can’t help now. I’m in space fighting Thanos.
BLACK WIDOW
I’d love to help. But I’m also in space. Fighting Thanos.
CAPTAIN MARVEL
Literally in space rn fighting Thanos
SPIDER-MAN
So am I! I’m totally in outer space! Like the actual real outer space that’s not on earth but in the sky with the stars not even kidding!
Also fighting Thanos too. Not just sightseeing. Contributing like a team member
Making real legit contributions so probably officially an Avenger now or something
ROCKET
You know how you sound, right? Like, you can hear yourself after you hit send and are capable of feeling shame?
SPIDER-MAN
…
yes
ROCKET
Also I’m in space fighting Thanos
GROOT
I AM GROOT.
ROCKET
Yeah, Groot, she knows you’re in space fighting Thanos too, where else would you be?
GROOT
I AM GROOT.
ROCKET
Solid point, I stand corrected.
WINTER SOLDIER
I’m actually pretty free this week if anyone needs help clearing out a Hydra cell. Or you know traveling to space to fight Thanos.
SQUIRREL GIRL
Oh dang winter soldier i didn’t mean to bother you with this group text never mind pretend you never saw this ha ha
THOR
Were I not at this moment in the black nether battling the foul monster Thanos I would fly to thy side!
SPIDER-MAN
I just don’t want you to think I’m only tagging along or anything. Because I’m actually physically fighting Thanos. Like right now. Or any second now.
ROCKET
Please stop. You’re making me laugh so much it’s getting hard to fight Thanos
SPIDER-MAN
Is it possible to delete texts once they’re sent
GROOT
I AM GROOT.
ROCKET
Yeah, time travel is your only option, and time travel ALWAYS works out great for everyone, so good luck with that
IRON MAN
Wow, Squirrel Girl, here you are again asking for my help! I guess we must really be “advice buddies” as you said. Maybe even “pards”!
SQUIRREL GIRL
For sure! I want to be there for you iron man whenever you need a friend. Sometimes I feel so sad when I think about you and how hard it must be to be just the guy in a robot suit when like captain marvel is around and just soooo powerful?
CAPTAIN MARVEL
Dying
IRON MAN
I appreciate the friendship offer, Squirrel Girl, but I think I’ve been unclear. I see our relationship as the wise and powerful battle-scarred soldier mentoring the novice fighter
SQUIRREL GIRL
You are the sweetest! I have seen a few battles tbh but I don’t think you need to call yourself a novice. Black widow says you really are a real hero and I believe in you too!
CAPTAIN MARVEL
This is my favorite conversation ever
BLACK WIDOW
Agreed. Rethinking my anti-group text policy
SPIDER-MAN
Dude Tony I so know how you feel right now
IRON MAN
I believe you, and yet I find little comfort in that
CAPTAIN AMERICA
Everyone off this delightful group text. Time to focus on fighting Thanos in space
SPIDER-MAN
Aye aye Cap
SQUIRREL GIRL
K luck in space fighting Thanos! No prob I’ll take care of hydra!
WINTER SOLDIER
So I remain available
SQUIRREL GIRL
Um yeah?
WINTER SOLDIER
I stand ready, willing, able, and actually quite eager to permanently dispose of any Hydra agents in your vicinity and anyone else that might get in the way of my awesome metal arm of justice
SQUIRREL GIRL
It’s probably not hydra after all thanks k bye!
The Grand High Sub-Lieutenant of Hydra operations in Greater Shady Oaks and Lesser Union County first heard the phrase “lizard brain” from his oma.
He had come home early from kindergarten one day because everyone in his class, including the teacher, had gotten “sick.” Everyone except him.
“Vhat kind of sick vas it, boy?” his oma had asked. She had an accent where she pronounced w like v. He liked it.
“The kind when everybody stabs each other with crayons and screams. That kind,” he said.
“Ah,” she said, as if she had seen it before. “Ze lizard brain.”
At first he had thought “lizard brain” was the name of a sickness, like mad cow disease or bird flu—something rare and terrible and animal-adjacent. But after a riot in his play group, repeated lunch tray fights in the cafeteria at school, and countless days when the kids with desks near his curled up and shi
vered, he realized “lizard brain” was something everyone had: a core part of themselves that needed to either fight or run away. And occasionally, just being near him brought that out of people.
“You are special,” his oma told him the day he returned home after being expelled from middle school. His lab partner had nearly burned down the building, and he had also been blamed as a co-conspirator, though all he’d done was watch and laugh. Life and the unfairness of it!59
“Because of the lizard brain stuff?” he said. He had not been fully convinced of his special-ness. It was entertaining to watch people try to hurt each other, but he was only ever a spectator, strangely invisible to the people during their brief primal bouts in his presence.
“I haf made you some-zing,” his grandmother said, handing him a bundle.
He unfolded a leather jumpsuit, stitched together from the hides of reptilian animals.
“It is a BEAST suit. A BATTLE suit,” she said.
“For me?”
“For ze Lizard Brain,” she said. “For ze man you vill become.”
Many years later, the Grand High Sub-Lieutenant of Hydra operations in Greater Shady Oaks and Lesser Union County wiped away the condensation building up on the inside of his shower stall. He had finally become that man his oma had seen. The Lizard Brain. And he demanded all who served him recognize that fact.
This was no ordinary shower. It was the Hydra SloughCatcher 2000, designed to collect what was special about him, the very thing that made people lose their minds—his musk. Tubes snaked away from the drain of the shower and carried the nectar of his musk into giant titanium storage tanks.60 And from those tanks his minions synthesized the gas that would allow him to share his Very Special Aroma with a larger audience. And it would all begin with the upcoming mall massacre.
Hydra had made it possible, of course. Sweet, sweet Hydra. They had been the ones to identify the special pheromone he exuded that short-circuited people’s brains. They had taken him in as a teenager, trained him to control when and how much musk he secreted.
When people breathed in his musk, their higher brain functions shut down. Their threat response amplified. People became primal. Raw. Reduced to the basic survival instincts that lizards possess in their tiny ancient brains. When under his power, people would either run away screaming or tear each other apart. His odor was power. His sweat was like gold. That is, if gold was a thing that made people go bonkers and try to kill each other.
Which, he supposed, it was.
He chuckled at his own thoughts. He was a funny guy, and he enjoyed a good laugh.
Someone tapped on the glass.
He wiped away the fog from the shower again. Regular Shallow Sub-Lieutenant Barry peered back. Barry wasn’t his real name. These names were all assigned at the beginning of field duty. Barry glanced down at Lizard Brain’s only article of clothing—black swim briefs—and then quickly away. Lizard Brain had had them modeled after Namor the Sub-Mariner’s tighty shorts. He felt certain they looked quite fetching.
“What’s up, Barry, my man?”
“The scientists say the rate of musk retrieval is nearing zero, Grand High Sub-Lieutenant, sir.”
Lizard Brain smiled patiently. “Try that again, Barry.”
Barry took a deep breath. “The mad scientists say you’ve showered long enough, er, Lizard Brain, sir.”
Yes. That was who he was. Who he had become. The honor bestowed upon him by his grandmother so many years ago. The mantle he had finally taken up.
Also, for practical purposes, “Lizard Brain” was much simpler than, say, “Grand High Sub-Lieutenant of Hydra operations in Lesser Union County.”
“Oh, you know how the mad scientists are,” said Lizard Brain, pushing open the stall door. He liked buddying up to the lesser agents, complaining about management and such. He was certain it made them more devoted to him.
“Mad, sir?” Barry asked. He held out a plush green robe—a little too quickly for Lizard Brain’s liking. Almost as if he wanted to cover up the sight of his fetching Namor shorts.
“Yes!” Lizard Brain said, slapping Barry on the back. “Mad!”
“Er…they also say it will take longer to distill the gas if the musk-to-water ratio goes beyond one to one thousand.”
“I’m sure they do,” Lizard Brain said. He had no idea what that meant. He was not the mad scientist of the organization. He was the power. The architect. The brain. The Lizard Brain.
Lizard Brain quizzed Barry about different aspects of the Hate Initiative as they descended from the shower spire. When Barry got something wrong, Lizard Brain bopped him on the nose. It was funny! He wasn’t uptight and stuffy, like some in this organization. He was a fun boss. Weirdly, Barry didn’t laugh. No sense of humor, probably. A sense of humor was genetic, Lizard Brain was certain.
In the bunker’s command center/dressing room, Lizard Brain shed the robe. He glanced longingly at the patchwork leather suit that hung on a nearby peg. Oma’s battle suit. He reached for his dress uniform instead.
Soon it would be time for the battle suit. Soon.
Not until he was fully dressed did Lizard Brain realize he’d forgotten to take off his wet Namor shorts. Barry glanced down at the wetness already seeping through the seat of his pants.
“Warm in here, isn’t it, Barry?” said Lizard Brain. Maybe he wanted wet pants. Maybe he liked how they felt. Maybe they were an efficient cooling system.
A screen on the opposite wall flickered to life, resolving into the face of his immediate supervisor. Barry, in the process of retrieving the bathrobe, dove to the floor to get out of camera range. He was frightened of the Grand High Sub-Supervisor for Special Projects. Lizard Brain didn’t understand it. The supervisor was a lovely gal, a real go-getter.
“REPORT!” the Grand High Sub-Supervisor bellowed from the screen.
Lizard Brain smiled. “All is going according to plan, Madam Supervisor.” He always said those exact words to superior officers, no matter the context. It was one of the first things they taught in the academy—a civility, like saying “Fine, thanks” after someone asks you how you are, even if you’re ecstatic or miserable or currently being bitten all over by rabid red ants.61
“You have stored sufficient musk to blanket the entire mall?”
“Yes, Madam Supervisor,” he said. “Everything we are collecting now is extra. Gravy, you might say.”62
She raised an eyebrow. “It will be enough to saturate the entire premises?”
“Yes indeedy! We experimented with other delivery systems first. The mad scientists managed to create a stable version of the musk that could be coated onto objects, like our mall T-shirts. But the effects are minimized, merely irritating those who wear them and making them slightly more violent than normal. To get the whole effect, people need to be saturated with the musk in a closed environment.”
“We shall see,” she said. “And the resistance?”
“Resistance, madam?”
“The squirrel creature,” she said. “As I understand it, her presence was one of the reasons you requested this post.”
“Oh yes, the Squirrel Girl,” he said. “You know, I studied genetic hybridization in the academy before moving to management. Humanimals are something of a hobby. Dog-Lord and Mistress Meow were a fun find in the old A.I.M. storage facility, not necessary to the plan per se, but definitely adding some pizzazz!”
Since the hybrids he’d been able to get were a cat and dog, he’d chosen those two animals for the mall mascot race. How serendipitous, he realized after, the symmetry of the two beasts, a symbol of constant battle. If he was successful, Shady Oaks and Listless Pines would indeed be fighting like cats and dogs.
“But the squirrel hero defeated them,” she said.
“Pfff. She did exactly what I wanted her to do—engage them in a destructive, public battle that would make a lot of people angry and stir up fear and hate.”
“Toward dogs and cats?”
“Well,
yes, and by extension, toward their supporters. These two neighborhoods already disliked each other. It’s not difficult to tip that over the line into hatred.”
“And does the Squirrel Girl herself present a threat?”
Lizard Brain stifled a laugh. “No, madam. I’m pretty much an expert in animal hybridization; I can say the only combination less threatening than a ‘squirrel girl’ would be something like a ‘mouse baby.’”63
“Very well, then,” she said. “In two days’ time I will be expecting the national news to be using words like ‘catastrophe,’ ‘tragedy,’ and ‘horror’ to describe the opening of your mall.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered,” Lizard Brain said.
The Grand High Sub-Supervisor nodded curtly and ended the transmission. Lizard Brain reached to turn off the screen when he noticed a small text message in the lower corner, blinking red.
MMV20
you are so screwed
Lizard Brain narrowed his eyes. Someone named “MMV20” had been hacking texts to his computer from the moment of his transfer to Shady Oaks. At first he’d worried that S.H.I.E.L.D. or some other silly hero initiative had infiltrated the network, but tech support confirmed all traffic was internal to Hydra. “MMV20” was likely some bored kid at the academy trolling for fun. Or Barry. Probably Barry.
LIZARDBRAIN
No you are the one who is screwed
MMV20
oh man thats the best you got almost feel sorry for you
LIZARDBRAIN
You haven’t even seen my best it is amazing
MMV20
listen i want to see you toasted but for the sake of the organization you need to stop
LIZARDBRAIN
Haters going to hate
MMV20
go dark. pull out. open up shop anywhere else just NOT SHADY OAKS
LIZARDBRAIN
Payers going to pay
And by payer I mean me. I am a payer that is going to pay the piper!