Mac finally understood something right away, thanks to Eureka’s gratuitous use of red string, thumbtacks, snippets of implicating articles, and incriminating photographs on her virtual bulletin board, projected on the wall of Tar’s garage beside her titanic ten-display workstation. The “double suns” in CG&E’s logo and the true meaning of CG&E as an acronym, the assassination of every Breakfast Council member besides Yoked Abe Lincoln, that Rajiv was working with them: it all made sense now! He shifted in Hannah’s lap, as if his butt instead of his brain was the key structural support in his coping mechanisms.

  California Griddle & Eggs? Not California Gas & Electric? Rajiv is laundering the dirty money? Dr. Prudence Stern is the secret head of the Brunch Illuminati?

  Hannah tightened her grip on his waist as she shifted in turn, their shared white plastic lawn chair creaking, a relic from 90s backyard barbecues past.

  “It took us all Friday afternoon to figure et owt… And we onleh realized thet because we were all watching The Sprawl Trilogy: The Abridged Series. CG&E, Rajiv, the Brunch Illuminati? They’re working togethah but they cannawt achieve their goals on their own. Wintahmute. Dr. Prudence Stern, the Secretary of the Unified Grid(dle) needed deniable assets, useful idiots, ta bring et ovah the loine. Neurahmancer. We needa stop them from merging!” Eureka briefed, thwacking her willow switch she was using as a pointer on the corkboard.

  Yoked Abe Lincoln stood tall behind Tar, slack-jawed, hand shaking as he took off his vibe-detecting monocle. “Oh my God.”

  “When they planted the bomb at the stadium and ran, me and Suzie Red tracked them down to a marina in San Jose. They were launching Zodiacs, but it didn’t look like they were carrying much. They gotta have a hideout nearby,” Gordon piggybacked, leaning forward and bouncing his heel on the floor in a plastic foldable chair from IKEA before clasping his hands together between his legs. Creak!

  At this, Mac shivered. “But how? The Bay is the most surveilled and fortified body of water on Earth, especially after terrorists dirty-bombed the Old Bay Bridge back in ‘36. There’s nowhere to hide. Unless…”

  “Unless they found a way to avoid detection. Good thinking, Babyboy,” Hannah smiled a warm line from behind, craning down to kiss his cheek.

  Wait. She’s been finishing my sentences for a week straight and I didn’t notice until now. Aww, Cheryl… You really like me that much? Love you too. No. Gotta focus. This is important!

  Tar swiveled around in her office chair, banging her gavel down on the sound block before turning back to her screens. “Ahem! Eureka was just getting to that part. Please continue, dear.”

  “Thanks Mum.” She side-eyed Mac and Hannah with a smirk, mumbling “Coworkers…” under her breath before carrying on.

  “Eeeeeenyways, as I wos saying. They have a hideout somewheahr in the middle of the Bay. Shadow Poach Island. Don’t ask how we know thet.”

  Tar giggled, making a scissors gesture with her mouse hand without looking back. Mac shivered again.

  Eureka continued. “Those ‘terrorists’ were actually the remnants of the Brussels coalition getting one last dig at America’s ‘betrayal.’ Remembah? This wos about a yeahr aftah CG&E created me ta lie ta millions of people about the energy croisis…” She sniffled, fighting back the sparkling bits starting to form at the corners of her eyes. “Et wos also cover fer one Dr. Prudence Stern and her Brunch Illuminati goons ta swoop in and nick a military prototype active cloaking rig stashed in an old Navy warehouse on Treasure Island. The same stuff Boston Dynamics uses on their riot doggies, but fer a floating platform about the soize of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s campus.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Eureka…” Hannah replied, a rare hint of sadness in her voice.

  “Do I sense feelings from THE Hannah Sinclair? The roughest and toughest razorgirl in the West? Hmm?” Mac teased, turning around to face her, scratching his stubble.

  This always gets her…

  Hannah rubbed her nose into Mac’s collarbone like a lucky stray chancing upon the last buffalo wing in the dumpster behind an Applebee’s. “Yeah. This is just so sad. I guess I’ve just been too abstracted from the consequences for too long. Thanks for saving me, Mac.”

  It was now Mac’s turn to fluster. “Hannah… I’m just some guy… Matter of fact, I’m the lucky one…”

  Gordon and Yoked Abe Lincoln shared a conversation with a single look and turned around to snap them out of it this time.

  “You speak for us, Gordon,” Abe mumbled.

  “Can you DORKS PRETTY PLEASE plan your wedding later? Eureka’s still briefing us!” Gordon yelled, his paternal exasperation stealing the show as he threw his hands up in frustration.

  Mac and Hannah both finally hung their heads in shame. “Ah! Sorry.”

  Tar’s glasses glinted, her trollface blooming in full force, a Mount Diablo sunflower on a perfect 75° F early May day with not a cloud in the endless blue dome above. Eureka snickered, hot micing through Tar’s Klipsch speakers. A mental fist pump: they had finally won a concession from the prank war.

  “Now, where wos I? Roight. Wot’s even scarier about their little island iz thet the Sunriser, a former Navy nuclear submarine, iz docked roight undah the platform. Mum and I have reason ta believe the Brunch Illuminati possess weapons of mass destruction. Three nukes, presumably pointed at San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose… A dead man’s switch if some wiseasses get smahrt.”

  Abe found an empty, dusty server rack to lean against, melting down into Tar’s epoxied garage floor and burying his face in his hands. “These vapid lunatics. What use is brunch if they kill all the good vibes?”

  Hannah spoke up. “So what are we gonna do about it?”

  Hey! That’s my line.

  Mac looked over his shoulder, scanning Hannah’s face for any tells with a raised eyebrow.

  Hannah smirked. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Mac replied, flashing a chuckled smile at her.

  “Thanks for the breakdown, Eureka. Now it’s my turn to speak,” Tar broke in, shutting down Mac and Hannah’s flirting with a face only a wise, tired Japanese auntie could make. “We obviously can’t let them hold a kill switch over everybody in the Bay. So here’s a rough plan. First, we’re gonna need a map of the island. When Eureka and I were questioning that henchman that Eureka, Gordon, and I captured and locked in my soundproofed garden shed over the weekend, he disclosed to us that our enemies split the map into three pieces for security reasons. One held by CG&E, one held by Rajiv, and one held by the Brunch Illuminati. We’re gonna need to hunt them down.” She paused, knowing Hannah preferred to write things down with pen and paper. Mac chuckled knowingly.

  Hannah let go of Mac and scrounged her pockets for her handy dandy memo pad and trusty Bic Round Stic pen. She jotted down some notes. “Okay…”

  Mac nodded along, still hanging onto Hannah.

  “Then there’s the question of transport to the island. We can’t just get on the jet ferry. What I’m thinking is that we steal a Zodiac doing a milk run and fake some smoke coming out of the engines. Once we radio it in, they’ll tell us to come back. We sneak the crew in using the maintenance bays on the south side of the island. I know you always carry a Roman candle and a lighter in your sock, girl. This’ll be a piece of cake.”

  Hannah wrote some more. “You know it.”

  Satisfied, Tar continued. “Next, we’ll need some sort of protection from their maple syrup cannons and butter bombs. Kevlar hazmat suits, boots, a flak apron, and chefs’ helmets should greatly reduce our exposure. But the problem is, that if we buy a bunch of these from White Cap or somewhere similar, they’ll flag our purchase right away. I suggest we find a way to steal some or find a bunch of people to straw purchase them for us.”

  More notes. Hannah stared at Tar with stillness, the color of her eyes changing to white.

  Oh, she’s locking in. I need to do the same… But she always lets me cheat off her homework… Bad, Mac! You need to step up!

  “And finally, we gotta sink the Sunriser and…” Tar hesitated, making anxious eye contact with everybody in her garage.

  “And what?” Hannah asked.

  “Hopefully get away from the island in one piece. That part I’m still working on.”