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Would she be there? Leo sighed. "I sure hope so. Her posts are usually all made around now." The dashboard clock said it was pretty late. "And she sometimes complains about the night security guard." Okay. It was a little embarrassing how much Leo payed attention when her username popped.

"Apparently the guard is a bit racist and wants to talk about less government and yay guns and stuff. I wonder if she told him that she went to the pussyhat march. He woulda had a coronary."

Actually, did Leo know Alex's stance on gun control? The Race issue was probably pretty settled for their generation. LGBTQ, too, in Leo's mind was a done deal.

"What about you? Isn't there somebody you want to go see somewhere?" Leo would happily sit in the car and wait. He couldn't do much to make things easier in the day-to-day and Leo was already working the socio-political progressive angle online for the long game. But now? Right now in this moment? He couldn't do much else but offer up his time for his friend.

Leo was on his feet now. Actually, they all were. He may have felt a bit weak in the knees and made a grand imitation of Evard Munch's The Scream when the laptop got booted down with a forceful boot, but he was still ambulatory.

Did he need something explained to him? "No, sir."

"I'll have no trouble from you."

"No trouble." Leo confirmed with his hands up in the universal motion of placating someone who was bat sh*t crazy.

A man with a very clunky looking phone (or small tablet?) nudged the man who'd murdered their laptop. He was showing something on the screen. Leo wasn't close enough to hear --InvasionOfTheBS was the closest-- but he did see a dossier. A dossier on Alex. And he did see their eyebrows pull down. And he did see a large pocket holster part of the men's belts that they both worked to unbutton.

He didn't stop to think. Leo just put himself between the policemen and his friends, hands still up and empty.

No trouble. But if for some reason it did come down to a fight, Leo had long ago decided that he wasn't the one who would be the hero. He would just make sure the people who mattered had their chance.

Alex looked tired again. He always looked tired these days, probably because he worked so freaking hard. He was wasting his youth and spending his years before they came due! It was Leo's self-sworn duty to make sure his friends did not dig themselves an early grave, and in Alex's case, that was especially difficult since the one most responsible or his condition was himself.

Step 1. Get Alex to call in sick and play hooky. After a week or so of nagging, Leo found this was not going to happen so he adjusted step 1 to step 1b. Get Alex's teachers a distraction.

A little digging had proved that Mr. Wong was... nobody. If Mr. Wong was a real person, he was the most boring and unplugged individual Leo'd ever cyberstalked. So Leo put out some feelers and came at it from a little bit different angle. He dangled a little bait for Mr. Wong. Something a proud martial artist who was fond of taking on students might respond to. And he maybe tipped the police that Mr. Wong was quite possibly a Decepticon. So, whether he was answering questions from the Popo or investigating a potential student who did not exist, either way, hopefully Mr. Wong would cancel lessons. Even if it was just for one day.

That day soon came and, lucky for Leo, the stars aligned that Sam was also preoccupied.

Step 2 involved the remarkable transformation of the history classroom.

Leo'd stuffed all the chairs and tables and learning junk in the back and then he'd gotten help to drag in some overstuffed chairs from the living room. From there they tied sheets above the projector screen and found clever places to tuck and pin until the classroom was gone and only a cocoon of soft, pillowy cotton remained.

It was like the outside world wasn't even a thing.

They hooked up an ancient N64 projected onto the big screen and proceeded to hunt each other down in Goldeneye, laughing at the low-poly count. Once Goldeneye got stale, they moved through a few options until the king of games was up on the big screen.

Mario Kart.

Step 3 was now well on its way: distract and amuse.

Leo, of course, chose Luigi who was the best for his hidden stats. And he knew where like 75% of the shortcuts were since even his sisters had deigned to play Mario Kart with him. Even so, the competition was closer than Leo had suspected.

"Okay. You only won that last one because Bowser got me with the blue shell. You're going down, boiii! The ice level is my hands-down favorite!"

"Heck of a way to start your flying career." Not that Alex'd had a choice in the matter. The guy had sorta been conscripted since he was possibly the most useful out of all of them, mutation-wise. Leo hoisted his backpack up and lead the charge toward freedom.

"You're jealous 'cause it matches your eyes so pretty." Leo sniped at Jiri after he tugged again on the scarf. "And, yeah, it's nice now, but I'm gonna sit out there all night if that's what it takes to get noticed."

It was a valiant effort, but the charge that went from enthusiastic to bedraggled in less than 10km. (Or 6.2 freedom units.) The french fries weighed them down a bit.

It wasn't that Google had lied to them about the freedom units. (Google did not lie.) It was that three boys and one chaperone could not fly as the crow did. Only one boy's mutation could do that. Also anyone flying toward a nationally important building was likely to be shot down. Getting shot was definitely not the aim of this mission.

> “So. Ah. Set up the signs next to the Free Guided Tours?”

"Camera first." Leo was so relieved to have made it that he thought his legs might go out from sheer joy. "Then majestic peaceable protest, phase 1." Also, yeah. There was a nice spot of shade by the line of tourists. Leo spilled himself down the steps and prepared for the best reception ever.

Majestically his poster unfurled to the public.



He had a backup sign that said WWOPD (What would Optimus Prime do?). You know. Just in case this one got lost.

"I know that if you ever steal Cafabulous' body," Leo mimed his own hair flip, "you're gonna deal with her." The dreaded her.

Where Leo didn't understand or care for the Amazonian Ms. Taylor, Jiri had a hate-on for Cafas' side chick. "—But was it totally out of the question to borrow him for a little while?" Too far, maybe?

It might have been useful, though... if they'd had Cafas' body along for the ride. It might lend that last bit of legitimacy that a Kiperling clone lacked.

Heck, after he'd contacted Amnesty International, they'd launched a letter writing campaign. Seriously. What was wrong with adults these days?

Leo embellished his own letter writing campaign by making the letters on his poster thicker. Supposedly that made them read better on camera. He didn't expect his ma to see this so he didn't expect to get anything worse than detention afterward. That was a fine price to pay for starting an international human rights audit.

And, since he expected his internet privileges to be revoked, he'd asked a few of the other mods to step in pre-emptively. It wouldn't do to let the rowdy Bird Watching crowd go unmoderated when there was about to be an international incident.

>“What do you think about this one?”

Leo squinted at the screen from the jet floor.

"Why don't you upgrade to a full on camera and tripod? Or maybe there's some mutant shielding equipment that isn't bunk. You're not thinking big enough, Jiri. There's soooo much more to life than just HD."

> “Get ready for some peaceful protest, kids!”

Leo lay his poster and art materials aside, climbed into one of the seats, and buckled in for decent. He was ready. After the first hour of We Are the World playing on repeat, anyone would be ready.

"Didn't you bring anything else to listen to, Headmaster?"

It was a dapper kind of day. Especially since novelty button hole cameras had been two for the price of one on the 'Zon.

Leo had a suit from last Easter that he'd worn to his Mansion admittance interview. It still kinda fit if he didn't move his arms too far out. Alas, the same could not be said for his button up so Leo'd had to borrow one. He'd also had to borrow a tie because it'd been mortifying to see that Jiri had the same budget box-store tie he'd had. One simply did not match his comrade while secretly spying on fan mail. The suits were suspicious enough.

Leo parked himself firmly in front of box B. That was what he'd wanted most out of all this anyway. To help. While Jiri's video would get the laughs and probably the most upvotes, box B was what Leo would use to leverage his contacts to do some real good when the Mansion fell short.

"So, like, we dig in now?" Leo smiled at Alex. He didn't want his friend to see any of the hateful stuff. The guy had enough on his mind. So he grabbed up a nice bulgy looking envelope addressed to IceMan Sam c/o The Mansion. The paper envelope barely contained something that was hot pink.

Unless Leo's cumulative experience as a young adolescent male deceived him, that... was a pair of women's underwear.

"Happy fan mail day!" Leo tossed Jiri another fatty novelty-looking envelope and then took a rather ratty plain one for himself.

Blech. Hate mail. He'd thought the burn marks would indicate distress and hadn't dreamed they were to accompany a specific threat to "burn this mother -uh [beep]er to the ground." He read the direct threat line and then tossed the paper into box A. Maybe this wasn't going to be all funshine and rainbows.