“Oh, yeah…sorry, but I don’t think we’re at all alike,” Mr. Lazardo said. “What with you being a little princess of, you know, vermin.”
“Mixed feelings about that,” she said. “On the one hand I’m super-glad you’re not one of those bad guys that says ‘We’re not so different, you and I’ while, like, at the same time eating puppies or destroying countries or something. I mean, sure, we’re all human and all have our struggles, but eating puppies is in a totally different category—”
“SILENCE!” yelled Mr. Lazardo.
Squirrel Girl jumped. It was just a startled little jump, but when you have legs with squirrel strength, little jumps are like five feet in the air.
“Yow,” she said to the marketing executive in the leather jumpsuit. “You spooked me with the way you said SILENCE! and pointed and all. It was like you saw something horrible behind me, and either it was named Silence or you were telling me to be quiet so it wouldn’t eat me. But that wouldn’t make sense because you were yelling and if the monster thing ate noisy people it would eat you first—”79
Mr. Lazardo began jogging in place, which was so distracting, Squirrel Girl forgot what she was going to say next.
So she said, “Um…”
Now Mr. Lazardo was windmilling his arms, like they tell you to do in gym class to stretch out.
“We don’t have to fight,” she said. “I said this is my battle suit, but actually I consider it more of an adventure suit. So we don’t need to exactly do battle.”
The man sagged. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up! What? Already?”
“Well, no. I’m not going to let you keep doing your evil plan or whatever. I just hoped we could talk about it and see if there was another way to make you happy besides, you know, whatever crafty and diabolical plans you have for mall opening day, which apparently includes killing lots of people? Not cool, man.” Squirrel Girl checked herself. She was supposed to be Building on Common Ground. “But first let’s start off with kudos for coming up with such a thorough plan, complete with the whole underground lair! I know it’s so hard to stop a project right in the middle, like this one time when I was building a Lego Ferris wheel—”
“Oh, I’m not planning to kill anyone,” he said, taking a step toward her. She could see perspiration on his forehead. His leather one-piece was probably pretty hot, especially with those little exercises he was doing.
“Good,” she said. “We’ve made progress already!”
He took another step closer. “No, see, this is the amazing part! You will be doing all the killing yourselves. I won’t have to lift a finger!”
Ugh. He was close enough that she could smell him now. Really smell him. He already smelled like stinky boy and dusty leather. She could tell that from a distance. But now she could smell his sweat. And not only was it gross, it was wrong. Her throat involuntarily clenched at the odor, and she coughed.
“There it is,” he said. “You’re picking up the first whiff of it, aren’t you? How about a more pointed blast!”
His suit had some kind of bellows built into his underarms. When he flapped his arm, the air that had been inside his suit puffed out of a spout at his wrist and straight at Squirrel Girl. She coughed harder. The smell was so familiar….The rally! And the mall T-shirts her parents had been wearing.
“There we go!” he said. “You can’t cough it out, though. It’s in you now.”
She took a step back, covering her mouth with the back of a hand. “What?” she asked. “What is in me?”
“My musk,” he said.
Gross, she thought, and then the world tilted around her.
Wait, what was gross? She’d just thought that something was gross but already forgot it. And who was she talking to? Oh yeah, Bry. He was standing right in front of her. How had she not noticed him for a second? He was a bad guy. She should probably do something. But her thoughts felt slippery as wet worms. Her heart pounded. Her chest felt tight, her legs wanted to run. They liked to run. She liked to run. And kick. She wanted to do anything but just stand there. Tippy-Toe and Fuzz Fountain Cortez had jumped off her shoulders. Were they fighting each other again? She couldn’t focus enough to look.
Ana Sofía had come out of a nearby room to see what was happening. And Squirrel Girl felt a powerful instinct to kick her.
Kick her, kick her hard, make her go away. Make everything go—
No!
Squirrel Girl looked down at herself, disgusted by these thoughts. Her legs started to tremble beneath her with the effort of staying still.
“Look…” Her breath was coming quicker now, erratic. “Mr. Lazardo. Bryan. Bry. You don’t have to do this, whatever it is you…you’re—”
He crept closer. Part of her knew that he was there, that he was getting closer, but he also kept slipping her mind. She started to back away—not from him but from Ana Sofía. That random kicking idea was way disturbing.
“I’m not Bryan Lazardo,” he said. “That guy no longer exists.”
He flipped a green leather hood over his head. Two large plastic eyes were glued onto it.
They look like Kermit the Frog eyes, she thought, and in her slippery-thoughted confusion she feared this man had killed Kermit and taken his eyes.
“THERE IS ONLY LIZARD BRAIN!” he declared. And then he began to laugh.
She wanted to laugh, too. She liked laughing. But she couldn’t. She could only scramble backward. She had to get away. Away from…from her friend—what was her name again? Away from this room. Away from everything. She was far, far underground and was suddenly aware of the huge mall above her. She had to get out before it broke through and suffocated her. Who was making her so scared? Who was trying to hurt her? She needed to kick! She needed to claw her way free!
She ran to the nearest wall and tried to climb, her claws scratching the smooth metal surface. She should have been able to climb, but she couldn’t. Something was wrong. Something was wrong with her.
She turned back to the source of the wrongness. The Muppet-killer. But he was gone. Wasn’t he? She couldn’t see him anymore.
Then she forgot what it was she was trying to see.
There was only heat and heart pounding and fear, fear, her breath choking, her limbs shaking and everything angry and afraid.
Claws out.
Tail low.
All fours.
Smell fear.
Smell others.
They will hurt you
unless you hurt them
first.
Hurt. Gnaw. Kick.
Fight.
Flee. Flee. Flee
Squirrel Girl’s thoughts slowly shook themselves awake and began to shiver and stretch and crawl around. The pounding of her heart slowed, and her limbs shook off their shakiness. She tilted her head back and forth, as if to dislodge something stuck to it that was making it hard to think. Hard also to see and smell and hear. And basically just to feel like herself, i.e., the unbeatable Squirrel Girl with amazing squirrel powers. She concentrated on opening her eyes before realizing they were already open. What was the matter with her? For another thing, her nose itched really bad and she couldn’t seem to scratch it. Every time she tried, her wrist hurt. Even with cloudy thoughts, she felt certain that itchy nose should not equal ouchie wrist.
Finally she was alert enough to notice the massive iron bands around her wrists and ankles. She was shackled to a wall.
Well, that explained a whole lot.
“Hey there, sport!” said Lizard Brain, leaning over to talk right in her face. “Aha! I see a twinkle in your eye, like you’ve got some higher brain function going on in there. Your fuzzy pals worked out of it already, but your skinny friend is still curled up and shaking.” He laughed. “Sorry, it’s just so much fun to see how the musk affects different people! She basically collapsed in a heap, while you were ready to tear your way out of here no matter who got in your way. Even her.”
Squirrel Girl gasped and looked Ana Sofía over for s
igns of injury. Had she hurt her? Because that was the most awful of all awfulness that she could possibly imagine. Ana Sofía appeared intact, but as Lizard Brain had said, she was curled up tight as a fist on the floor, her hair over her face, her body visibly shaking.
“Ana Sofía, it’s okay,” Squirrel Girl said without hope of her friend hearing. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll…We’ll save the day…still. Somehow.”
Lizard Brain giggled. “See, now I know the musk has worn off! ‘It’s going to be okay,’ you say!” he snickered. “No, it isn’t! Humans are so good at telling lies to themselves!”
Squirrel Girl pulled on the metal bands, testing their strength.
“Uh-uh,” said Lizard Brain. “Not a tremendous idea, nope. And I’ll tell you why. Shall I tell her why?”
“Yeah, tell her, Lizard Brain!” answered one of the two Hydra agents flanking the reptile-suited PR manager. They were in full armor, now with gas masks fastened over their nose and mouth.
“I’ll bet you can guess why,” said Lizard Brain. “It starts with mmmm and ends with ssskk and you know what’s in the middle? You are!”
“Your musk,” Squirrel Girl said tiredly. “It’s your musk. You’re threatening to musk me again if I try to escape and then there’s a chance I wouldn’t be in control of myself enough to keep from hurting my friend, so you know the threat of that will keep me still even if I could get out of these stupid bands.”
Lizard Brain frowned. “Well, yeah, but it was really my turn to tell you.”
“Sorry, Bry,” she said.
He shrugged like it was no big deal even though clearly it bugged him.
Squirrel Girl glanced at Ana Sofía but looked quickly away, her body shivering with panic just at the thought of what she almost did to her friend. What she still might do, with her dangerous squirrel strength. Curse her dangerous squirrel strength! She shivered harder, unable to look at Ana Sofía again.
“Anyhoo,” Lizard Brain said, “about my musk. Essentially it reminds people of their true selves and makes them return to it. Primal. Instinctual. No lying to yourself when you’re an animal. Groovy, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” said Squirrel Girl, taking a weak stab at the whole build-on-common-ground thing, though mostly she just wanted to punch him in the face.
“Do you know what your true self is?” Lizard Brain asked. “What everyone’s true self is? Selfishness. You run to preserve yourself. You attack anything that is weaker than you. That’s what the mighty musk reveals! Humans are, in their hearts, in their primal brains, selfish beings. It’s civilization that lies to you that you have to care about anything besides yourself. For example—”
He made a flourish with his leather-sleeved arm. One of the Hydra agents jumped to attention and wheeled in a cart with a cage built of thick chicken wire. At first glance, Squirrel Girl thought there must be some sort of terribly sad llama in there, lying down all miserable to be in such a small cage. But a few tails twitched, and there was a bright pink bow. All the squirrels were lying on the bottom of the cage, looking sluggish, tuckered out, spent, and generally exhausted after their musking and the ensuing flight-or-fight mania.
“Tippy!” said Squirrel Girl. “You okay? Chomps, can you move? Is Gnome Chompsky okay? Please be okay. Cortez, can you check on Gnome? And Shamescuttle? Oh, and Spencer the—”
“Yes, all right, yes, so many squirrels, so many names,” said Lizard Brain. “Anyhoo. Fun fact about my musk. Yes, it temporarily clouds higher brain function, turning on the fight-or-flight instinct in creatures, but in order to inflict some real damage, you need to set up ideal conditions. First, an enclosed space.”
He gestured to the squirrel cage like a TV salesperson showing off fine jewelry.
“When there’s nowhere to run, there’s no flight, see? There’s only FIGHT.” He began to giggle again. “And imagine…imagine how much worse the fighting—how positively lethal—if all the creatures in the enclosed space already kinda despise each other?”
“Like in the mall tomorrow,” said Squirrel Girl. “You got Shady Oaks and Listless Pines all mad and hating on each other with that stupid cat versus dog stuff and then when they’re all inside the mall you’ll lock them in and use the ventilation system to gas them with your nasty sweat odors, which will make them need to fight and they’ll kill each other, and the mall security footage will show them doing it to each other as if in a frenzy of shopping mania, so you’ll keep opening more malls or other buildings all over the country where you can get people riled up and enraged and then lock them in together and gas them, spreading hate and fear and destruction and death.”
Lizard Brain stuck out his lower lip. “Again, it was my turn to tell it!”
“Oh!” said Squirrel Girl. “You laced the Team Dog and Team Cat T-shirts with musk, didn’t you? When people wore them, they were more prone to fighting. Also, Dog-Lord and Mistress Meow had musk bombs. But they were used outside, and the musk dissipated in the air too quickly to cause any real harm. That’s why you need the closed environment of the mall—”
“ANYHOO,” he said, “we’ve worked so hard on this plan, Squirrelly Girly. I just need to be one hundred percent super-positive that it will go off without a hitch, so here’s the sitch: tell me everything you’ve told the Avengers about this plan, or I musk your squirrel pallies in that confining little cage and you get to watch them tear each other apart, mm-kay?”
Squirrel Girl blinked. “Avengers? What? Who are the Avengers? Oh, you mean the Super Hero people on the TV? I don’t know the Avengers, ha-ha, why would you think—”
“‘Hey, Avenger pals!’” he read from her phone, which was clearly no longer in her utility belt but in his greasy gloved hand. “‘So my best human and squirrel friends believe it really is real Hydra for real setting up a mall for bad-guy reasons. Can any of you come and, you know, avenger them out of my neighborhood?’”
“Crap,” she said.
“I’ve read the texts,” said Lizard Brain. “What I don’t know is what else you might have told them in phone calls or in person. I assume you heroes all pal around together.”
“Totally,” said Squirrel Girl with the best straight face she could muster.
“Fine, then talk. TALK! Or the squirrels get the musk.”
He pointed his wrist spout at the cage.
“TheAvengersdon’tknow,” said Squirrel Girl superfast. “They don’t know anything, seriously! Leave the squirrels alone, they didn’t do anything to you. Well, except attack all your agent friends and gnaw through half your base, but they didn’t do anything to you personally!”
“The Avengers don’t know where we are or what we plan?” he asked.
“I haven’t talked to them,” said Squirrel Girl. “Just the texting, I swear.”
“I believe her, boss,” an agent said through his gas mask. “She seems like a terrible liar.”
“True,” said Lizard Brain. “Hmm. Good enough, eh, folks? Let’s get this Hate Initiative going. What fun! And speaking of fun…”
He pointed a wrist spout at the cage and worked his armpit bellows, sending a cloud of visible brownish musk at the squirrels.
“NO!” said Squirrel Girl, pulling on her shackles. She winced, afraid to see the horror that would come next.
The exhausted squirrels began to twitch, again breathing in the musk. But instead of tearing and clawing and biting, they nestled closer, wrapped tails around necks, nuzzled and hid and chittered.
They were afraid. And yet they nested together. Even Tippy-Toe and Fuzz Fountain Cortez, who had attacked each other when first exposed to the gas, seemed to handle it better now, perhaps because they knew what to expect. They lay side by side, their tails entwined.
“Encaged but not enraged,” said Squirrel Girl. She looked at Ana Sofía again and felt certain that there was no way, no chance, nohow that anyone, least of all Lizard Brain, could make her hurt her BHFF.
Lizard Brain squirted another puff at the cage. He turned t
o an agent. “They were fighting, right, Harry? The squirrels? I swear they were fighting each other before.”
Ana Sofía had uncurled and sat partway up, the musk seeming to loosen its hold on her at last. She met Squirrel Girl’s eyes and finger-spelled words one-handed, down by her side to avoid notice. She was pretty quick and the lighting was dim, but Squirrel Girl thought Ana Sofía was asking if she was strong enough to get loose.
“Maybe,” Squirrel Girl finger-spelled back. She turned her head to see if she could reach her wrist with her teeth. She could. Typical non-squirrel-powered villain mistake: they always overlook the teeth. But if she did get free and Lizard Brain musked her again, what if she hurt Ana Sofía? How could she risk it?
“Can…Can I say something?” Ana Sofía’s voice warbled when she spoke. Either the musk was still thick in her, or else she was just super-afraid.
Yes, say something, Ana Sofía! thought Squirrel Girl. You are the smartest and the bestest and I know whatever you say will help us win the day and make everything better!
Lizard Brain looked at her pointedly, clearly still irritated at the lack of violence in the squirrel cage. When she didn’t talk, he sighed and said, as if to an imaginary camera, “This is Bryan Lazardo reporting to you live from the Chester Yard Mall basement lair, where some girl apparently has something super-important to say from her crouched position on the floor, urgent enough to demand the attention of the mighty Lizard Brain! Go ahead and tell us, trembling girl. The audience at home is waiting!”
Ana Sofía cleared her throat. She said, “Hydra rocks.”
Huh. That was not what Squirrel Girl was expecting. It wasn’t even close.80
“Um, yes. That’s true,” said Lizard Brain. “Anyhoo—”
“Hydra rocks,” Ana Sofía said louder. “Hydra rocks!”
Squirrel Girl was no clearer on what her BHFF was doing. And she felt that she should know. Ana Sofía couldn’t possibly be sincere in her complimentary exclamation about the evilest organization on the planet. Was this a secret clue Ana Sofía was giving her? Was Squirrel Girl failing a test? And did this mean that they weren’t suited for best-friendship after all?81