Year 2 – Shift 21 – Quattro is Spelled Wrong – Chadwick
“Quattro Cheese.” Chadwick shuffled the papers on his new Honored-brand clipboard. He dragged one finger down the page until he stopped cold. “Oh. Okay. Are the girls ready yet? Who do we have?”
“Honeytrio needs a few days.” Lacuna checked her clipboard as the rest of the group gathered on the patio. “This is it. The bindings are done, ready, and sealed away. Glandalf and Shardi are completely confident they’ll never break.”
“That’s putting us really close.” Chadwick tugged at his goatee. “But being ahead on the seal frees up workers to finish the boundaries, and it leaves me with you lot.”
“What’s on the board?” Cody called from beside Mark.
“Well…” Chadwick looked over the clipboard. “We still have a lot to do. With Sara staying with Big Dick Dave, we have some breathing room to move on the mirror party.”
“We can’t just leave Sara—” Raven called from Mark’s other side.
Chadwick didn’t miss a beat.
“We can’t just leave you, either.”
Raven paused as if struck in the chest. “But—”
“He’s got this.” Mark put a hand on her shoulder. “Sara trusts him. So do I.”
Raven looked up at Chadwick, one of her oldest friends after Hazbruhharassin. A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Okay. Thank you, Chadwick, bro.”
Chadwick nodded and went back to work.
“Are we just missing assignments, Lacuna? The Kuzu ambassador is arriving soon.”
Lacuna scratched her head as she stared at her list. “Just one quick announcement. We are…officially…rebuilt.”
For half a second, no one moved.
Then the patio erupted into cheers and whistles. People hugged, whooped, and cried. Chadwick looked out over Etokuso while they celebrated.
The rebuilt row houses stretched beneath the connected rooftop paths, gardens, patios, and bridges linking one end of town to the other. Shops had reopened beneath hand-painted signs. People carried meals between homes while children chased each other across rooftops as if the whole tangled city had always belonged to them. The new southern expansion was already pushing outward, carrying pieces of every community Etokuso had welcomed into its walls.
The celebration carried on for a few moments before Lacuna lifted her clipboard again.
“Now, you can all see the massive expansion we’re adding on the south end.” She paused. “The Kuzu. Are there any objections or concerns about integrating them?”
The group went quiet and looked between one another.
“I think we approach it like we always do with integrations,” Simone said. “Educate, educate, educate. We already have Kuzuan ambassadors. We’ll appoint integration officers to support them.”
“Solid plan.” Lacuna scribbled it down. “Chadwick.”
“Okay.” Chadwick looked toward Mark. “You and Cody are with the forward crew. You’ll oversee deployment and greet whatever’s out there head-on.”
“I’m going too!” Raven argued.
“No.” Chadwick was firm. “You’re with Simone. Your one job is to isolate Mark’s double.”
Raven glared but said nothing.
“That level of purely weaponized learned helplessness can spread quickly,” Chadwick continued. “Keep the double away from everyone until things are settled one way or another.”
Raven took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You got it.”
“The island has now grown to the size of the Forest of Queer Joy,” Chadwick said. “We still believe they haven’t found the artifact. The artifact is first priority. Extract it, and we can deal with whatever else is there afterward.”
“We got this, Chadwick.” Mark stepped over and patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you for your commitment to this town.”
“And thank you, Mark.” Chadwick nodded. “For teaching your Creative Thinking classes and becoming a professor of Mancymancy. You’ve become a genuine asset and friend.”
“Okay.” Lacuna glanced down at her clipboard. “That just about covers it, right?”
“That’s it.” Chadwick lowered his clipboard.
“Execute Quattro Cheese Protocol.”