xxxiv. WHOLE FOODS BRAWL 

Whole Foods is a place to find $6 asparagus water, avocados who think they're better than you, and White moms named Sandra who just finished yoga class.

By all standards, it was no place for an attempted murder on a baby. I follow Skye's lead as we approach the men in the coats. One of the men had his hand stuffed fully in his pocket, presumably getting ready to fire. The wheels of the shopping cart squeak against the tiles of the grocery store under the weight of all the fruit.

As Skye opens her dagger, I look around the store for a weapon. My eyes land on the watermelon. Out of all the fruits, that's probably the best weapon, right?

Besides, it would be hilarious to take out a man with a watermelon.

Skye stops before the two men in the baby aisle. We pretend to look at baby supplies in order to protect the baby from the men. Ace glances over at us. His jaw tightens slightly once he notices the five men now closing in on both ends of the aisle. I tap my finger on my leg.

One. Two. Three.

Skye, Ace, and I all look between each other. We leap into action.

Swiftly, Skye digs her dagger into the arm of a man. He quickly reacts, kicking her shin down to the floor, but Skye jumps back up. She pushes the shopping cart into his stomach. He pushes back. Skye jumps over the cart and throws his head into the diapers so roughly that he falls unconscious.

Other patons start to scream and run out of the store.

Ace holds the baby closer to him with one hand. Immediately, he slams a tub of formula onto another man, causing white powder to fly through the air. Ace then twists the hand of a man who's pointing a gun at us. He lets out a yelp, and Ace then demilitarized the assailant.

"Don't touch my baby," he seethes.

I take a watermelon from the cart and chuck it at another aggressor's head. Watermelon pieces splatter on the baby supplies. Ace looks on in horror at the ruined supplies.

In the distraction, the first gunshot rings into the aisle. My head whips around to see the source: Chase.

"Goddamnit can't a man just buy hot pockets in peace?" Chase grimaces.

Xavier comes around the other side and punches a man until he falters. "Why do you guys attract violence everywhere? Evite me so I can RSVP next time."

Xavier goes on to smack a man in the face with milk. Our attackers all fall in the baby aisle. "Clean up on aisle four," I grin.

"Who were those people?" Skye pants.

"I don't know. We need to get out of here though," Ace insists. "There could be more people coming for this baby."

Before we leave, Skye shoplifts two tubs of formula. To be fair, no one was here to charge us anyway.

~

How many criminals does it take to feed a baby?

The answer is four criminals, one agent, an hour of intense googling, and an entire roll of paper towels.

Chase had managed to spill the formula not once but twice. After Skye sent him away for being too clumsy, it took the rest of us another thirty minutes to clean up the gigantic mess Chase made. The kitchen ended up looking like a drug bust with white formula powder covering all surfaces.

"How many parts what?" Xavier asks.

"Goddamnit Xavier! One scoop powder two fluid ounces of water!" Ace states. "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

"Don't anger Mama Bird," I smirk.

Ace turns to me, his face dead serious. "Don't test me Cupcake. I will lock you in your room. This baby formula needs to be precise, otherwise this baby will die."

Skye takes the bottles Xavier makes and shakes them furiously. Ace was like our captain—our annoying, arrogant, and egotistical captain.

I leave the three desperately trying to feed the baby for my room. While they're distracted, I pull out the USB stolen from the CIA. The small, archaic, and seemingly insignificant thing was light in my palm. Though its physical appearance belied the true power contained in whatever information it would reveal.

I breathe deeply to steady myself. Even if I was betraying the agency, cracking the code was something I had to do to uncover the truth. They would have to understand after everything was sorted out.

My laptop screen turns black after I plug the USB in. White letters saying "Transaction 293 from Agent 009" pop up. Whoever this agent is, they must have written the code. After hacking the firewalls, a string of binary code then pops onto the screen; the language of zeros and ones are easily translated a short combination of letters.

CE.CCIG HC.BCFG

A hint of disappointment entered me. Stealing the USB was supposed to suffice all the answers. My whiny inner monologue wanted it to give me the upper hand. Not only that, but this simple code could simply mean anything. Most likely it was some sort of password to reveal the information inside.

I bury my head in my hands in lazy frustration. The letters could mean anything. A probable solution was that they were an anagram of words just scrambled together.

I take the USB out of my computer and hide it in my desk. Swiftly, I set up a program to analyze word possibilities with those letters in the English alphabet.

Nothing of substance came out. I then broadened my search into other languages, including romance and Germanic languages. When no eurocentric languages worked out, I even tried Mandarin pinyin. Another problem was the periods and spaces; this code could have meant anything.

After my program tested over fifty languages, nothing came up. I then changed the parameters for any patterns between letters.

A soft knocking on my door interrupted my thoughts. Needing a break, I shut off my laptop and open the door to see Ace with baby puke all over his shirt. I burst out laughing in amusement.

"Are you done finding joy in my despair?" Ace says grimly.

"I'll never get over this," I say while wiping away a tear.

"You've been in your room for the last four hours...what are you doing?"

I glance at my clock. He was right; with the blink of an eye, darkness had engulfed the city. "I didn't even notice. I've been... taking a nap."

"Dreaming about me I suppose?"

I gag, then pretend to die by flopping down on my bed. Ace is not amused. 

He looks me up and down in suspicion. I press my nails into my palms in order to remain calm. Finally, he lets it go. "Come see the baby," Ace suggests. "He keeps calling me dada."

I find my teammates in the living room excitedly teaching the baby letters. They were absolutely fascinated, as if the baby was a puppy. The baby had chubby legs, prominent dimples, and a body like the Pillsbury doughboy.

Alright, I guess he was kinda cute. Ace held the baby in his hands. He periodically pointed at Skye, who was holding a chart with the alphabet.

"A, apple," Ace iterates to the baby. The baby just coos in response.

"Still as illiterate as south Florida," Skye rolls her eyes. 

A warm feeling came over me seeing Ace interact with the baby. In all honesty, children are just germophiles in my opinion, and I was surprised the baby had imprinted on Ace of all people. Like jeez baby, it hurts to not have even been considered.

I'm just as cute as Ace; I'm just as smart as Ace, and when did it become okay for one person to hog the baby? That's not what teamwork is all about. We should totally just stab Ace. 

"Skye, can you hand me the chart?" I ask. The baby was finally growing on me.

"Which one do you want?" She responds. She holds up two charts. One was the alphabet and the other was one with numbers printed on it.

Seeing the two charts next to one another sparked something in me. Wait. Wait.

Was it possible the code wasn't letters at all? Now that I thought about it, the letters had only been the first ten letters in the alphabet.

"Both charts, I—I want both charts."

I bite my lip to prevent a large grin from coming over my face. At the same time, a giant weight was lifted off my chest at my mother's safety. There was a reason no common language in the world had worked had worked with the letters.

The code wasn't a string of letters at all... it could have been a string of numbers. 

Octavia: "Every vote will be a dollar for the teach-south-Florida-to-read foundation."

Ace: "Christ Cupcake, you can't say that—we'll offend some of our audience."

Octavia: "Fine... Since you like babies so much, each vote will be one Pillsbury dough baby throwing up on Ace."

Ace: "Wait hold on just a second—"

Author: "—Early update because thanks for #1 in action, humor, and chicklit!"

Usual update days are Monday or Friday, at least once a week!