CHAPTER 16

But Hank Pym could see the reality of the situation as well as anyone else, so an hour later Luis, Dave, and Kurt were arranged around the blueprints in the living room as Hope set mugs of coffee in front of them. “Thank you for the coffee, ma’am,” Luis said. A thought occurred to him. “It’s not too often that you rob a place, and then get welcomed back. Because we just robbed you!” He had a big grin on his face.

“You know that he was arrested for stealing a smoothie machine, right?” Hope asked Scott.

“Two smoothie machines,” Luis corrected her.

This did not change her opinion. “Are you sure they can handle this?”

“Oh, we can handle it. We’re professionals,” Luis said.

“You’ll forgive us if we’re not instilled with confidence,” Pym said. He was standing a little apart from them, watching and appraising.

“Wait, everybody, just kick back and relax a little bit, man,” Dave said. “We know our business. We broke into this spooky house, didn’t we?”

“I let you,” Pym pointed out.

“Well, one could say that I let you let me,” Dave said, trying to save face.

“Look, it’s okay,” Scott said. He knew these guys. They were good. “They can handle this.”

“Yeah, we can handle it.”

“You got their credentials?” Scott asked Hope.

“He’s in the system,” she said, meaning she’d added him to Pym Tech’s employee database. Luis was going to be their security guard.

“I’m in the system?” Luis looked thrilled.

Dave pointed a you-da-man finger at him. “The system!”

“The system!” Luis said again.

“Yeah,” Hank Pym sighed. “We’re doomed.”

“All right,” Scott said, getting down to business. “There’s something you guys need to see.” He turned and walked out of the room.

Hank was briefing them about the layout when Scott came back wearing the Ant-Man suit. “When you get to this corner,” he was saying, “there’s gonna be three offices on your left side…”

“That’s so cool, bro!” Luis said when he saw Scott in the suit.

“Now, look,” Scott said. “This is gonna get weird, all right? It’s pretty freaky, but it’s safe. There’s no reason to be scared.”

“Aw, no, Daddy don’t get scared,” Luis said.

“Really?” This was going to be good, Scott thought. “Good.”

He flipped the mask down and shrank.

All three of the thieves shouted. Kurt, looking around the room, said, “This is the work of the gypsies.”

“That’s—that’s—that’s witchcraft,” Dave echoed.

“Oh, that’s amazing,” Luis said. “That’s like some David Copperfield stuff. That’s some kind of wizardry.”

“Sorcery!” Kurt cried out.

Luis was still looking around the room, like he was just about to figure out the trick. “How’d you do that, bro?”

“Don’t freak out,” Scott said. “Look at your shoulder.”

Luis did. When he saw miniature Scott, he started screaming and ran out of the room. “I thought Daddy didn’t get scared!” Scott said, enjoying every second.

An hour later, the three thieves were snoring in chairs. “I gave them each half a Xanax and Hank explained the science of the suit to them,” she explained. Scott had been working on the suit. “Fell right asleep.”

She walked Scott to his bedroom—hopefully not still full of bullet ants—and he stopped by the door to get something off his chest. “Hey, look. I want to thank you for—”

“No,” she said. “Please don’t. We’re all doing this for reasons much bigger than any one of us. I’m just glad that you might have a slight chance of maybe pulling this off.”

“Hey. Thank you, you know, for that pep talk,” he said.

She smiled despite herself. “You know, the honest truth is I actually went from despising you to almost liking you.”

“You really should write poetry,” he marveled.

“Get some sleep, Scott,” she said, and walked away down the hall.

Scott couldn’t sleep thinking about the job to come and the dangers of it… and the real possibility that he would never see Cassie again. After lying in bed staring at the ceiling for a while, he made a decision.

Cassie was sleeping when he came into her room and returned to full-size. He wanted more than anything to let her know he was there, to let her know that he loved her more than anyone else in the world, that he was doing this so he could get clear of his old life and be with her again. But he couldn’t. All he could do was lean in and kiss her gently on the forehead, and then shrink again and disappear, hoping that wasn’t the last time he ever saw her.

He was back at Pym’s house in an hour, and after that he slept like a baby.