15 Waffle House Warriors #2
Gemma, though, is another story. She doesn’t bother with code names or covert identities.
Gemma is her real name. She is the other half of the two-person team making up the visible leadership of the Whistlemen.
She’s competent and scarily efficient. If only she didn’t have standards.
I tried to ask her out once, and she popped out the most accurate and brutally honest list of my faults I’ve ever heard, and she doesn’t even know the half of it.
She had enough valid points that I never attempted that again, and I keep her as close as I keep anyone who knows that much about me.
Keep your enemies close, your friends closer.
But I trust Gemma in a friend-adjacent way.
She has kept my name out of the information I pass to the Whistlemen.
Anything I give her or Wolff comes not from “Reggie” but instead from a “confidential source.” Maybe it’s overkill, but you can’t be too careful.
Wolff isn’t happy about it, but he respects Gemma.
And what would that kind of organization be without a shadowy and secretive boss?
I don’t know who the head honcho of the Whistlemen is.
As far as I know, they only communicate with Gemma and Wolff.
I’m not even sure either of them has met their boss.
My money is on the boss being very high profile or covert.
Possibly both: undercover somewhere in the government or the agency itself.
I don’t want to trust someone I don’t know with this most important of rescue missions, but I have limited choices.
Agency 51 isn’t exactly an easy place to get into.
Even harder to get out of. If anyone can get Eldi out, it’s going to be the Whistlemen and the spies I know they have inside the agency.
At the very least, their information might be the key.
If I have to break into the agency headquarters myself, I need every bit of information and help I can squeeze out of Gemma and Wolff.
It’s my selfish attempt to get Eldi out of Agency 51 without having to go myself.
My last-ditch effort without sacrificing everything I’ve fought for.
And a safety net to try to rescue her should I fail.
Calvin has heard mentions of Wolff, Gemma, and the Whistlemen, but he has never taken them to be more than an informal group of conspiracy theorists.
Wolff aside, they’re much more than that.
Their mission is basically opposition of the agency.
Instead of weaponize, destroy, and cover up, they want to protect the creatures, magic, and supernatural of this world by way of full disclosure.
You can’t protect what you don’t admit exists.
Hence the name; whistleblowers to their core.
My philosophy doesn’t entirely align with theirs—I think it’s best to keep quiet—but they’re better than the agency.
The problem is too many powerful people and governments don’t want that reality.
Sometimes I wonder why the agency lets them get away with it rather than crushing them completely.
Maybe it’s simply that people don’t find the Whistlemen credible, so why bother?
The Whistlemen’s organization is universally scorned.
It doesn’t help them that they’ve chosen to run their organization out of Waffle Houses and other pancake restaurants across the US.
It makes sense; they have operations everywhere and a front to work under.
Plus, who doesn’t love waffles? But it doesn’t sound professional.
The Whistlemen must be in chaos with the government admitting that extraterrestrial life exists and is even on the way here. I can’t imagine the upheaval Wolff and Gemma are fielding. I wonder what it means for the organization’s future. Maybe they’ll be less of a joke now.
I take a long time to fall asleep. I leave Calvin in my bed alone, choosing instead to sit outside in the cool air of the summer night, running my hands over Goat’s grimy fur like a worry stone.
My stomach turns over with the flash of headlights in the distance.
But, of course, it’s only someone out for a late-night drive, UFO chasers probably.
Zara won’t be returning. She already has what she came here for.
My mind turns to that weapon. I don’t know if it would even work on Eldi.
If they try it on her, if it works against her and they use it—I won’t simply run away this time, I’ll burn it to the ground and take all of them with me.
I can’t stop seeing Calvin’s look of horror when I explained what it does.
The disgust and shock in his eyes. It makes me think of another conversation years ago.
What is that thing?
Protection. A weapon.
It’s wrong. It’s bad.
No. It’s freedom. It’s power. It will save us.
I don’t have more nightmares, but the thoughts are enough to haunt me when I do finally fall asleep.
Sleeping in, a luxury I’ve missed for years, now only fills me with a sickly guilt when I, for once, awaken well after the sun.
Calvin is already up. He sets a coffee mug in front of me when I emerge from the bedroom and sit down to the breakfast he’s also cooked.
I mutter my thanks, and my eyes fall on the cactus, back on the table, hovering somehow over a cup of water, suspended in a delicate web of plastic wrap and rubber bands.
The little pot sits nearby, neatly glued back together. Calvin sees me looking.
“It will grow new roots. You can plant it again in a couple weeks,” he says with a sheepish shrug. “I looked it up.”
I try to thank him, but all that comes out is a strange sort of squeak. For the second time in as many days, I’m trying not to cry in front of Calvin over a cactus.