The Fleece Job (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Chapter 19: Jailbreak

Zephyr

"Oh shit, that's one of my scary siblings," Hugh's phone plays the 'Imperial March'. I slink away from him almost immediately, like his clammy touch still isn't infecting my skin. I roll over onto the roof of the car, breathing and being surprised this happened. He isn't freaking out either. Like he's done this before. I have not done—something like this. Before. Today. And now I have done. Something. Like this. Something I don't know if I'm capable of thinking about it. But he's fine. Perfectly calm like this might happen again for him who knows, he's over there answering his phone and communicating. I swallow our shared saliva from my mouth and try to breath.

"Hi, Isa," Hugh answers, wincing.

"Is there a GOOD reason your phone's tracking is showing you as being across the street from a police station where my Precious Special Needs CHILD is being deprived of her basic human rights?"

"Yes, there is there's a great reason but I don't think you'll want to hear it--," Hugh says.

"If she's not out of there in five minutes the entire building is going to collapse and I don't care who else is inside is that clear?"

"As crystal, bye, bye, getting said kid, bye," Hugh says.

"How are you going to get her --you aren't her parent?" I ask, as he hangs up. I have actual paperwork that shows I'm responsible for that lot (the old man is a great one for making official paperwork). Well, I don't for the twins, but he is their actual dad.

"I have this," he tugs on his shirt.

Together, we walk in the police station.

"Hi! I am a counselor and I was escorting a boat load of mental patients when they escaped. All of them are clinically insane and should be wearing the remnants of this t-shirt. Please line them up here and I will remove them for you."

I don't think that is going to work. But it does.

The police are surprisingly eager to get rid of his crew of red-shirted hooligans. I meanwhile produce paperwork showing myself as being in charge of my five.

"You can't manage your anger by using me as a human buffer against racists and homophobes," Bronte scowls, stalking out of the room she locked herself in. Angelica runs out to and right into my arms.

"Um, yes I clearly can," I say, picking Angelica up. She immediately buries her face into my neck. This is a cuddly baby. Her dad doesn't spend much time with her and she likes running places (my house) and eating snacks (from my house) and then being carried home. She gets shy around new people and doesn't like talking to them, but she talks away if she's comfortable with you. I live a few blocks down from her moms and she will run over often to knock on my door then hide and giggle. People don't usually like me and she randomly does, so it's charming.

"Well stop. It's annoying," Bronte says, folding her arms, "Now I'll be in trouble for fucking with civilians."

"Right and I won't. Beautiful system," I say, cheekily because she knows I like her. Interesting thing, I have a good relationship with all the kids that can fly because guess who gets sent after kids who can fly? Yeah, me. We sit on telephone poles or roofs and eat Oreos and play Uno while people motion for me to get said kids down. I never claimed to have a life.

"Jerk," she punches my arm. It's a good time to point out that Bronte is five nothing and I have a solid eleven inches on her.

"Right, where's the other one?" I ask, as we come back to the front desk. The twins already got to go since Hugh is actually their dad and they identified him as such (we were all shocked). "Zag Rhea-Lopez, he's twelve."

"I'm gonna need to see your papers," the cop at the desk says.

"I gave you my driver's license," I say, confused. I also gave the fake field trip forms for the kids. I mean they were fake but they looked real, as I said the old man is great one for official looking paperwork.

"What about your green card?"

So here's the thing. Most people think I look middle eastern. My father was an actual space alien, my mother was born here in the US but I think she was of Egyptian or possibly Saudi Arabian descent. She died when I was Zag's age and you don't retain that sort of information at that age, and also she didn't have much family and she was born in this country. But the long and short of it is, people do tend to assume simply because of the fact that I am not white,  various things. Which is racial harassment and profiling. But they do it because the world isn't perfect. It's tragically funny in that my father being an actual world-destroying space-alien is a much, much bigger deal to me than where my mother's ancestors were from. But. Here we are.

"These aren't your kids." It's not a question. For the record, Angelica is black, with a much much darker skin tone than mine, and it's impossible to tell what Bronte is under the eyeliner and witch make up she has going, though generally she looks mixed race and could pass for being related to me if necessary (this has been necessary see previous note about flying children and Uno on roof tops).

"Right. I have field trip forms," I'm so tired of this. Not right now.

"Right. We're gonna have to have you wait here while we call these kids parents."

"You didn't stop him—," for the record Hugh is white with blonde hair and blue eyes. His father looks Italian or something and so do most of the other siblings, but he looks very American®. Forget it. I'm not doing this right now. 

"Nice," Bronte says, as all the cops slump to the ground. I stop them from falling and hurting themselves, of course.

"They're fine just---didn't get enough oxygen to their  brains there," I tell Hugh who looked mildly concerned. He's checking out and counting his kids while they insist there are more of them.

"And they'll stay that way till we're gone," Bronte says, getting a vial from her pocket and opening it, whispering into the glass.

"Lovely, come on, let's go outside."