Marcus was the kind of man who could kill a person with a damp napkin. He was cold. He was fast. He moved like a shadow in a dark alley. He worked for a group called the Firm. They gave him a name, and he made that name go away. Marcus did not have friends. He did not have a dog. He lived on protein shakes and the quiet hum of his high-tech rifle. He was a professional.
Then he opened the yellow folder for his next job.
His heart stopped. It felt like his chest had turned into a block of ice. The photo inside showed a tiny woman with hair the color of a wet sidewalk. She was wearing a sweater with a knitted kitten on it. This was Gigi. She was his grandmother. She was the woman who used to put butter on his toast and tell him he was a “good little sprout.”
The Firm wanted her dead. They said she was a threat to national security. Marcus knew the truth: Gigi was just a lady who believed the moon was made of cheese and that the mailman was a lizard in a human suit. She was a conspiracy nut, not a spy.
The stakes were simple. If Marcus did not kill her, the Firm would send someone else. They would send the Erasers. The Erasers did not just kill you: they made sure nobody ever found your bones. Marcus felt a cold sweat break out on his neck. He had to get to her house before the black SUVs arrived.
He drove to the edge of town. Gigi lived in a house that looked like a gingerbread cabin. It was surrounded by a tall fence topped with jagged glass. Marcus climbed the gate. He hit the ground and felt a thin wire touch his ankle.
Click.
Marcus froze. He recognized that sound. It was the sound of a pressure plate. He looked down and saw a bucket of heavy bolts swinging toward his head. He ducked. The bucket smashed into the porch railing. It shattered the wood like it was a dry cracker.
“Who’s out there?” a voice cracked. It was Gigi. “I have a pressurized sprayer full of hot sauce and I am not afraid to use it!”
“Gigi, it’s me! It’s Marcus!” he shouted. He stayed low. He knew her traps. When he was ten, she rigged the cookie jar with a loud siren to catch him stealing snacks. Now, the traps looked much more lethal.
The front door creaked open. Gigi stood there. She was holding a crossbow made of PVC pipe and thick rubber bands. She looked at him through thick glasses that made her eyes look like giant marbles.
“Marcus? You’ve grown,” she said. She lowered the crossbow. “Are you a clone? Give me the password.”
“There is no password, Gigi. You used to call me your Little Sprout.”
She sniffed the air. “You smell like gunpowder and expensive soap. You’ve been working for the Lizard People, haven’t you?”
“Something like that,” Marcus said. He grabbed her arm. “We have to go. People are coming. Very bad people.”
Just then, three black SUVs roared up the dirt road. They stopped at the gate. Men in tactical gear jumped out. They had red laser dots dancing on their chests. These were the Erasers. Marcus felt his stomach drop. He had seen these men work. They were like sharks in suits.
“Into the kitchen!” Marcus yelled.
He pushed Gigi toward the back of the house. A bullet shattered a ceramic gnome on the porch. The little gnome exploded into a cloud of red dust. Marcus pulled out his own pistol. He felt a sudden, sharp fear. It wasn’t for himself. He was used to being hunted. He was scared for the woman who still had a picture of him in a bathtub on her mantel.
“They want my recipes!” Gigi screamed. She dove behind a heavy oak table. “I knew the brownies were too powerful!”
“Get down!” Marcus hissed.
The front door blew off its hinges. An Eraser stepped inside. He was huge. He looked like a mountain with a buzz cut. Marcus aimed, but Gigi was faster. She pulled a string near the floor.
A heavy kitchen cabinet swung open. A rain of cast-iron skillets flew out on springs. The lead Eraser got hit in the face with a twelve-inch pan. It made a loud *clong* sound. He folded like a card table and hit the floor.
“I call that the Iron Chef,” Gigi cackled.
But there were more coming. Marcus saw the red laser dots crawling across the kitchen wallpaper. He felt the cold breath of death in the room. He grabbed a lukewarm chalupa from the counter and shoved it in his mouth. He needed the salt. He needed to think.
“Gigi, do you still have the cellar?” he asked.
“The bunker? Of course. It’s lead-lined. Keeps the mind-control rays out.”
“Go! Now!”
Marcus stood up and started shooting. He moved with a brutal grace. He took out two men in the hallway. He felt a bullet graze his shoulder. It burned like a hot needle. He didn’t stop. He pushed Gigi toward the rug in the center of the room. She flipped a switch hidden inside a toaster. The floor opened up.
They slid down a metal chute. They landed in a room filled with canned peaches and enough ammo to start a small war. Above them, they heard the heavy boots of the Erasers stomping on the floor.
“They’re going to find the hatch,” Marcus said. He was shaking. His hands were never supposed to shake. “I can’t keep them all off, Gigi. There are too many.”
Gigi looked at him. She reached out and patted his cheek. Her hand was soft and smelled like cinnamon. “Don’t you worry, Little Sprout. I’ve been waiting for the Big War since 1984.”
She walked over to a big red button on the wall. It had a label that said: DO NOT TOUCH UNLESS THE SKY TURNS PURPLE.
“Is the sky purple?” Marcus asked.
“Close enough,” she said.
She pressed it.
Suddenly, the whole house started to shake. Marcus heard a loud, high-pitched hum. From the monitors on the wall, he watched the Erasers upstairs. They looked confused. Then, the floorboards of the house began to spin. The entire kitchen was a giant centrifuge. The Erasers were tossed against the walls. They looked like laundry in a washing machine.
Then, the “Glitter Bomb” went off.
It wasn’t just glitter. It was industrial-grade adhesive mixed with pink sparkles. The men were stuck to the walls. They looked like giant, sparkly butterflies.
“Now for the finish,” Gigi said.
She pulled a lever. A hidden pipe in the ceiling opened. Gallons of expired maple syrup poured down on the men.
Marcus stared at the screen. The most feared killers in the world were now pink, sparkly, and stuck in syrup. They couldn’t even reach their guns. They looked like they were trapped in a giant, terrifying pancake.
“They’ll be there for hours,” Gigi said. She sat down in a rocking chair and picked up her knitting. “Plenty of time for us to bake some cookies and call the local news about the ‘Alien Invasion’ in my kitchen.”
Marcus felt a laugh bubble up in his chest. It was a weird, jagged sound. He hadn’t laughed in ten years. He looked at his grandmother. She was crazy. She was dangerous. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
The fear in his chest finally melted away. He wasn’t a shadow anymore. He wasn’t a hitman. He was just a grandson sitting in a bunker.
“Gigi?” Marcus asked.
“Yes, sprout?”
“Can we put extra chocolate chips in the cookies?”
Gigi smiled. Her teeth were a little crooked, but her eyes were bright. “Only if you promise to help me build the laser fence tomorrow. The mailman is looking extra lizard-like lately.”
Marcus leaned back against a crate of peaches. He felt triumphant. He had beaten the Firm. He had saved the only person who mattered. And for the first time in his life, he didn’t care about the mission. He just wanted a cookie.