Sliced Bread 2: The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

Thunderhead kept trying to ask me stupid questions while I was thinking. "So, you know these guys?"

"Yeah."

"You know what they're doing here?"

"No."

"What's the story on the soda cans?"

"Could you give me a minute, here?" Only one way to deal with this. I took out my penphone. Who's best to call? None of them ever really impressed me with their smarts. I dialed Icecap up.

It rang a couple of times. "Yo," he said.

"Dennis," I said. "I don't think you can speak freely. Say 'yeah' if Fountain is there with you."

"Yeah."

"Okay. I need to talk to you about why you're here. I'm gonna park behind the donut shop on the corner. Come see me when you can. Don't bring Fountain."

"Whatever," Icecap said, and hung up.

"What's this?" Thunderhead said.

I shrugged. "I guess we'll see." I helped myself to a candy bar and drove us down to the donut shop.

Icecap showed up a couple of hours later. He slipped into the back seat and said, "Dennis, what the hell's going on? Are you following us around?"

"No. This is Thunderhead. Perhaps you've heard of him."

"No," Icecap said.

"Ah. Thunderhead, this is Icecap. Perhaps you've heard of him."

"No."

"Okay. We're here to--"

"Never mind what we're here for," Thunderhead growled.

"Fine. We're here for a mostly unrelated reason, and we saw you, and were wondering what you were up to. Does it have anything to do with that girl?"

"Yeah," Icecap said. "We heard she had super powers, and we want to get her to join the Posse. You got a problem with that?"

"You believe this shit?" Thunderhead said.

"Actually I do. How'd you find out about her?"

"I don't know. Fountain has ways he hears about stuff like this."

"That was going to be my next question," I said. "What the hell are you doing hanging around with Fountain?"

"I didn't know you knew him. He's the guy who organized the group. If I knew you knew him I would have just told you last time you asked."

"He organized your group? From the beginning? Jesus, Icecap, the guy's a supervillain! He works for a giant crime thing in the city!"

"Bullshit he is," Icecap said, uncertainly. "He's trying to, I don't know, fulfill his vision of the future for people with superpowers, or something."

"He's really not," I said. "Look, do what you want, but be careful about what you let him get you into, okay? He's dangerous. Oh, and for Christ's sake don't tell him we're here."

"Yeah, yeah," Icecap said, and left.

I turned to Thunderhead. "I say we get out of here."

He shook his head. "Not until we've completed the mission."

"There is no mission! We didn't find your magic thingy. We found a teenage girl with super-powers. And believe me, she can take care of herself."

"How do you know?"

"I talked to her, while you were spying on the Professionals."

"What'd she say?"

"That she has powers, that she doesn't know anything about how to turn off everybody else's powers."

"She's wrong, or she's lying," Thunderhead said confidently. "She's the key to all this, and we have to get to her before Soda Can Man or the Professionals do. Good thing you just let her walk away."

He sounded really sure of himself. Maybe he knows something I don't. Maybe this isn't over yet.