It's like Bridget Jones' Diary, but with a super-powered vigilante.

June 17, 2005

Margo Report

I’m in the parking garage, sitting in the Saab eating a sub sandwich from Gino’s, this great little mom and pop sandwich joint on Atlantic not far from the office. If you’re ever in Evergreen City, check it out. Anyway, I’m sitting in my car eating and listening to Science Friday on NPR. They have an interesting program today about the origins of that evil death rock zombie-making meteor that the Storm Riders destroyed last November. Remember, when a fragment of the death rock landed up in the Yukon and turned everything Bad? Anyway, the theory is –

There’s a loud knock on the passenger window that scares the hell out of me.

Margo leans down and waves through the glass. I unlock the door and she slips in. Man, good thing I’m anal about keeping my car clean.

“This where you eat your lunch, Mackenzie?”

“Not a lot. I was just in the mood for some privacy today.”

“You want me to go?” she asks, putting her hand on the door handle.

“No!” I say too quickly. “No, no you’re cool. It’s all right.”

Today Margo is wearing a crisp white fitted blouse and a long black and white poplin skirt in a floral print, and cute little black bangle earrings. Trust me, she looks good. She smells good, too. That uniquely Margo scent fills the car, overwhelming the smell of raw onions in my sub.

“Hey, have you heard from our, um, mutual friend?” She means the Velvet Marauder.

“No.”

“God damn it, I knew this was going to happen,” she says ruefully.

“What?”

“I risk my ass and my job getting him this information, and then he just cuts me out of the loop. Typical male bullshit.”

“He’s probably just concerned about your safety,” I say, which is true.

“I’m not asking to fight supervillains and stuff, I just want to know what’s going on. It’s not fair; I mean, I brought the whole thing to his attention in the first place, I’m the whistle blower here.”

“Exactly,” I say. “This is why you should have as little to do with what comes next as possible.”

Her eyes narrow suspiciously. “What comes next? What’s coming next, Mackenzie?”

“Nothing good, presumably. Violence, destruction.”

“You sound like you know what’s going on,” she says. “Have you talked to him? To Velvet Marauder?”

“No…” I say lamely. Even I don’t believe me.

“Oh come ON, Mackenzie!” She punches my shoulder. Hard. “What’s going on? You’re hiding something! You talked to him, didn’t you?”

“Really, Margo –“

“Liar! What’s going on? Why is he talking to you and not me? Is it because I’m a girl?”

“No! Come on, I don’t know anything.” I’m whining now.

“You are like, the worst liar ever,” she says.

“Fine. Fine! I’ll tell you what: I’ll have him call you tonight. He can explain everything.”

“What do you know? Give me a hint at least.”

I take a deep breath. “Well, I think he’s going to take some sort of action this weekend, when the building is empty.”

“What sort of action?” she says, eagerly.

“I don’t know, man.”

“Mackenzie…” she groans, frustrated.

“Really. Really. I’ll have him call you tonight, okay?”

“Okay.” She’s calming down a little. “Okay.”

“Great.”

Margo looks over at my sandwich. “That looks good. Can I have a bite of that?”

I almost tell her to get her own damn sandwich, but I end up giving her half of it. I'm a sucker.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

she KNOWS, man, she KNOWS! Try not to be all nice and snarky on the phone with her-- she's smart, she'll hear the similar syntax or snark patterns between Connor and VM and she'll totally consciously realize what she probably already subconsciously knows. Or something. Or other. She KNOWS. Be really mean and crude as VM or she'll blow your cover with the supervillains! She can't help it- she's your Lois Lane, she WILL get in the way of the big awesome showdown.

razorsmile said...

I almost tell her to get her own damn sandwich, but I end up giving her half of it. I'm a sucker.

Pussy.

In other news, lie dammit. You can bet your ass she'll show up at exactly the wrong time during your tesseract raid. Probably get herself sucked into a parallel dimension.

Anonymous said...

I've been looking back through the archives and I can't a single example of you catching someone falling from a skyscraper.

You'd better get some practice in before the big raid. We all know Margo's going to pull a Lois and, if she doesn't end up in a parallel dimension, she'll be flinging herself out a ninth-story window.

The trick, I understand, is all in the knees.

Zoot

Anonymous said...

I have concerns, y'all. Is it on or is it about to be on? Or maybe it WAS on and VM got sucked into the ninth floor parallel dimension.