BOOSTING THE BOOSTER
Mission Improbable
In which the Booster Vigilantes sort of succeed
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“We don’t break anything unless we have to.” I fixed my eyes on Bill to make sure he was listening. Old Bill gets excited too easily.
“We find the Booster, we put the Doc’s story in, and then we’re out. No exploring!” I glared again at Bill. Honestly, sometimes heading up a septuagenarian vigilante group is like babysitting sugar-crazed kindergarten kids. We have completed a lot of missions together, righted a lot of wrongs, but we have also had some major messes to clean up.
And most of those screwups were Bill’s fault. I didn’t want a repeat this time. I’m getting too old for drama and flying bullets. Especially bullets.
“Bill, did you take your sedative?”
He mumbled, “Yes.”
But he didn’t look at me. I asked again. “Bill?”
“You know it makes me sleepy!” That’s Bill, always trying to skip his pill. I raised my eyebrows, and he sheepishly pulled out his pill box, took out the little white pill, and popped it in his mouth. Good!
I cast my eyes over the rest of the gang. Everyone had put on their tactical gear and, for a bunch of aging Medium writers, they looked pretty sharp. I cleared my throat.
“Our mission tonight is to right a wrong.”
The gang snapped to attention, hanging on every word I spoke. They knew what was at stake here. Just in case, I reminded them.
“This is about Justice, men. Justice for the Doc. You’ve all read his latest post. You know why we are here tonight,”
To a man, they all nodded. Sam was the first to speak.
“It made me cry, boss.” There was murmured agreement from everyone.
Then Bill shouted, “It made me angry!”
I knew the pill hadn’t calmed him down yet, but I think we all knew what he meant. Doc’s story hadn’t made him angry, it was that three hours had passed and the post had not been Boosted.
Effing Medium! It was this kind of sloppiness, this kind of callous disregard, this kind of outrageous neglect that had been why we formed the Booster…
