Error: Parameter Mismatch.
He sat cross-legged just over the edge of the couch, floating a few inches above the cushions proper; fire-red hair free to trail down his spine like the tail of a comet. Three separate tablets rested on his thighs, glares of crimson and amber thrown back at him and reflecting in the rings that circled the red of his eyes.
Each file that passed in front of his eyes served to only further confirm the same mess he and Rudy already knew well, more of the same discussion they’d had over the last few days. A shitshow, man. An honest scattered shitshow of transdimensional wave mechanics and cross-spatial distortion models that only made him more confused. Even the extra data scraped from the GDA’s own servers said the same, Brick trawling their secondary databases before any automated scripts could flag his altered user tokens.
No matter what he did, each calculation ended in the same redline. Error: Parameter Mismatch.
The GDA containment grid continued its hum directly into Brick’s ears in a constant sixty-cycle thrum, something he doubted normal humans could even perceive. The doubt only existed because it was the GDA engineers who swore the reactor was soundproofed a hundred times over and if he trusted anything they said, he wouldn’t be doing all this math.
Still, to them, it might have been silent but to him, it was just… there.
A permanent dull reminder they were living their lives in a reinforced cage miles and miles below the dirt, even if the bars came with unlimited snacks.
Error: Parameter Mismatch.
One red-ringed eye twitched again as he glanced down at the rows of numbers and fluctuating frequency lines mapping out the new monitoring stations the GDA had scrambled to set up around that stupid Illinois cornfield. The dimensional scar left behind by Omnipotus just outside Chicago was, unfortunately, not a full win in his book.
It was as pyrrhic as pyrrhic could be, honestly, when Brick took into account what it took to finally beat the oversized idiot. The American public might have been out there throwing a parade for Team Trinity, people cheering on stand-ins Cecil had gotten to take their place for a couple hours to give an audience something to root for, but looking at news of their ‘victory’ only made the skin behind his ears itch.
The Flaxan-derived hardware he’d spent literal months on — the actual physical prototype of his dimensional key he’d been piecing together between missions — was completely gone, lost in the copper void the moment it activated.
Now there was nothing left but his notes, scribbles on a GDA tablet compared to what had been the start of an actual way back to Townsville.
And now even those were pretty much useless.
Brick grit his teeth, biting down his frustration as much as he could. How does dimensional math change up in one week? The answer to that was obvious and also largely his own fault, given what he’d had to do.
Apparently, brute-forcing open a possibly-permanent rift in your dimension also had the side effect of scrambling its signature.
All his work. Gone.
Worse than gone — outright tossed into the grinder of a superpowered smackdown just to shove a giant purple skeleton out of their zip code.
“Silver lining….” His head hung low, three fingers rubbing the space above his eyes. “Bet Lex Luthor never changed the laws of physics before.”
“Bricky-bro, you seriously still looking at the nerd graphs?” Butch barked over what little silence he had, the green Rowdyruff standing at the door to his room with a towel slung over his shoulders. “It’s been like… hours.”“Three hours and thirty-seven minutes! I counted!” His blue brother chose that moment to chime in, Boomer hovering fully upside-down near the ceiling vents. Those cobalt blue eyes, ringed in that same dense dark black, were wide and bright as he kicked his legs through the air as if he was swimming. "Brick barely even blinks. It’s reaaaaalllyyyy weird.”
"Boomerang Mojo." Those red eyes finally did blink — once — as he spoke his brother’s full name with enough chill in it to freeze the blonde boy mid-backstroke in the air. "Shut up while I am trying to work."
“Working on what?” Butch snorted loud. “Bad guy’s done.”Brick snapped his eyes over to him. “Trying to make sure that portal stays stable, for one.”
“Stable as a table, Brick.” All three boys snapped up to the open doorframe to their sector, an old man standing there with his arms crossed. “Cecil…” Brick nodded back at him. “When you say stable as a table…”
“I mean, stable as a table, yes.” A rare smile pulled tight against the scar on the GDA director’s face, the same face Brick would bet hadn't seen real sleep since the nineties. "Despite the looks of the thing, Rosenthal says the edges are calcifying. All my experts are giving me the same read. It ain't opening back up, and nothing's coming through."
Brick kept his eyes on the bronze-edged void to everywhere, jaw locked tight. "You mean they’re guessing."
"I mean they're the best minds on the planet, and they say the plug holds." Cecil leaned forward with his steps, hands dropping to his back as his feet carried him further into their white-walled room. "World's calling you boys their saviors; same as the month before and the one before that. Just take the win, son."“Not a win if the board is still broken.” He held up one of the tablets in front of him, swiping the apps across it until he found the one he wanted. “Like, look at this.” Another tab tapped and the biggest screen on the wall flickered on, flashing to a brightly lit studio, neon lights and expensive microphones.A silver-gold logo looped across the screen for all of a second — The Hero Hype Hour — before returning to a translucent bumper at the bottom of the screen. Two familiar faces sat back in gaming chairs; both still in the same costumes from the fight with Omnipotus, but one wearing a backwards hat and a silver cutoff shirt over it, while the other had on a designer hoodie in a bright and garish gold.
Force and Solar. Twin brothers and leaders of both the teams in a desperate battle to break the never-ending tie for the spot of fourth-favorite superhero team in the country — Fight Force and Disaster Force.
“Bro, listen, bro, I’m just saying…” Force leaned into the mic, finger pointed offscreen. “Look at the footage. We were out in the trenches, same as anyone. We were setting up the ultimate combo to kick that thing back to where it came from. It’s these… these kindergarten-class industry plants that just keep stealing the clip. Auctioneers could tell you the same from last year. They’ve been at it forever.”“Reality is, Jackson…” Solar pused up his blocky red sunglasses as he shook his head. “Forget about the footage. Look at the numbers, man. Look at the platform. You build a brand, a trust with the public for years, even. Then these kids get a push out of nowhere. That’s some manufactured BS and people can see that.”
“Exactly, bro!” Force slapped the desk, an angry Jackson Powers gritting his teeth as he looked at his twin. “A rollout is what it is. Been a rigged game since last year!”Brick tapped his tablet to mute the telebision, a red-eyed stare turned to Cecil. The room was quiet for all of a second, only for that to be broken as Boomer drifted from the ceiling panels upside down. “Criiiiiiinge. They're just buttmad because their whole TikTok is, like, entirely botted. They buy followers, Brick. Likes too, I swear it!"“Who even cares?” Butch threw his legs over one of the chairs in the common room, a GDA-custom-made Capri-Sun the size of a cinderblock in his grip; oversized yellow straw already poking through the waste of plastic. The sound of over-agressive suction filled the room, Butch not even looking at the screen as he gulped down a sip worthy of a few mouthfuls. “Let ‘em cry on their little podcast.”
Brick’s frown deepened as Cecil nodded at that, the old man looking his way. “Your brother’s got a point, Brick.”
“See!”Brick closed his eyes for all of a heartbeat, doing his best to push down the instinct to melt the juice pouch in Butch’s hands. Instead of choosing violence, he simply did as he always did and ignored his brother’s noise.
"You don't get it, old man.”
The director allowed himself a sigh, one hand rubbing at his jaw. “And what is it I don’t get?”"It's not about the public.” Brick forced the word out through grit teeth. “It’s about the others we have to expect to do their jobs. If they think we're credit-stealers, they’re not gonna work with us."
He tapped the console again, their usual deployment grid replacing the muted podcast on the big screen. "Next time a hive-mind hits, or a Kaiju crawls out of the Marianas, some idiot who watches this podcast might go out of their way to make themselves look better. And that is going to make my job harder."
"Your job?" Butch stopped his slurp to add all the two cents he had.Another hiss slid through Brick’s teeth. “Our job.”Toxic green eyes narrowed Brick’s way for a second, before Butch simply shrugged and went back to draining his oversized juice box.
Red eyes narrowed back at him. "You just wanted to say something, didn't you?"
"...maybe." Butch shrugged again, floating off the floor to join Boomer in spinning around in a lazy circle that ignored gravity. "Not like it matters anyway. If those whiners want more credit for what they do, they gotta do more. Stop getting swatted around and get stronger."
"Everyone can't just get stronger like us, Butcher.”Green eyes rolled back his way as his brother slurped down another mouthful. “Maybe they should do like you said and get in the fucking trenches and try, Brickford.”
“I understand your points, Brick.” Cecil’s voice cut through the rising temperature of the room as best it could, the old man stepping forward with his hands still behind his back. “It’s a very mature operational concern. But Force? Solar?” The director shook his head. “They’re jokes on their best days. Noise.”Red eyes flicked over to a bouncing blonde head inching across the ceiling. “Noise can be a lot.”Cecil nodded towards the still-giggling Boomer. “It can. But in most cases, it drowns itself out without a microphone. Besides, the real hitters know who keeps this planet spinning.”“What I’m talking ‘bout right there.” Butch snorted loud, tossing an empty packet of juice in the trash. “Least somebody does.”Brick grunted. “I guess.”"Which is exactly why you're not thinking about it for the next twenty-four hours." Cecil pivoted so smoothly it had Brick blinking. "All three of you have a mission scheduled?”“Mission?” Butch burped.
“Scheduled?” Brick blinked.“We do?” Boomer beamed.“Debbie wants you over for lunch today.” Cecil beamed as two out of three faces fell. “Don’t keep the nice lady waiting.”