Maya Polymorpheous: All that over an Oingo Boingo t-shirt

For six months, the trio that sparked and fanned the flame of the “Maya Polymorphous” mythos, basked in both the finally waning limelight of their first completed foray into their anti-bullying firm, and the moderate financial prosperity that would stem from those exact exploits. The now infamous: “Aha, you just got knocked out by Maya Polymorphous, bitch!” video would go viral—netting the three teens almost ten thousand dollars apiece. That, along with Lila’s developing social-media presence and hacking skills would spearhead the teams growing status as they siphoned money from corporate crooks, and reallocated it into the hands of “less complicated assholes”—as Lila puts it; all this in the name of the “Maya Polymorphous Anti-Bullying Firm”.

The days of Amaya and Milo’s pill-pushing would be replaced by a more “Robin Hood-like” enterprise that would see the two teens develop a taste for championing the not-strong-enough-to-fight, while their third and newest member Lila, gave her two not-as-well-to-do, teammates their first real tastes of living with money; with less of a moral toll than the Xanax they’d been dealing left them feeling. For her, the notion of sticking it to anybody that she thought was getting too big for their skinny jeans was all the motivation she needed to use whatever resource available to bust bubbles and level playing fields.

In the months following Amaya’s initial understanding of her device, she’d come to learn that by mentally posing properly-worded, function-related questions to the IDI; the device could be coaxed into revealing an occasional useful detail that improved Amaya’s interfacing with it. Long talks with various versions of herself would develop strong relationships with Anaya Zigshaw of the “You just got knocked out” fame, Anna Zeller—a grandmother of four, and Arya Zigarya, a young heiress that Maya found to be an interesting study; as the two were close in age and therefor easily relatable. But it would be Anna that would best capture the adolescent’s attention—offering sage, grandmotherly advice that always made Amaya feel like she was truly being heard, albeit in the form of talking with a version of herself.

For several months, the centerpiece of a new era would hold these intense hours-long discussions through the IDI—never speaking outwardly, but holding full-on telepathic conversations with various doppelgangers, on an almost nightly basis. Both Milo and Lila found her trance-state to be somewhat off-putting, but in time they would all settle into a routine of conferencing about Amaya’s conferences, and exploring ways to not squander the almost super-hero status of the Maya Polymorphous anti-bullying firm. The two would become caretakers of their friend’s vulnerable trance-state, and keepers of a most unusual secrete.

Meanwhile, Amaya; who was the least academically bright of the three, would find herself developing a feeling of obligation as it related to her two comrades and all of the work that they were putting in for the cause with her name. She and Milo went back almost three years to their days in elementary school, while Lila was quickly becoming a favorite of the two—especially after a tirade about “lazy-ass teachers” in her first week of the eighth grade. The three were rapidly fusing into a tour de force, with each member finding a role and a niche in a three-headed dynamo. It was almost two weeks into their first year of high school when a mysterious message would show up in Milo’s inbox—a message that both unnerved and stimulated the three into their first serious-business discussions, as answers needed to be found for the cryptic nature of a troubling insinuation.

“I know who you are and what you do”— could have meant many things, but it coming from an unknown sender made things uneasy, as the three were unaware of anyone having any idea about Maya’s secret or their organization. But it was the second part of the message that would coax the trio into a more formal investigation: “I need your help with something that only you can solve, help me or there will be problems”. They each were quietly nervous about whatever it meant, and a bit suspect of each other’s ability to hold their beans, but Milo’s cool head and Lila’s resourceful thinking would lead the triad to a perfectly sound and eventually commonplace answer:

-Why not ask the IDI, l mean use it to ask one of your doppelgangers for help. You said there’s like an infinite number of yourselves at your disposal; one of them has to be a policewoman or some sort of scientist that can figure it out for us, right?

 -Well, I guess so, but what exact kind of person would we need; you know the IDI won’t give me an answer without a properly worded question.

-I don’t know, but a detective sounds about right.

Milo chimes in after listening quietly

-But hold up, let's think carefully here, you know how tired she is after an exchange, and we don’t want to waste time waiting for her to nap.         

The teen boy references the sleepiness that Amaya experiences after exchanging bodies with an alternate self; no doubt a relation to the dream state that the called upon is in when summoned.

- You’re right, but who should I look for then if not a detective?

-Well I was just thinking, remember that story you were telling us about Lila—that one time your dad was telling your mom about how confused he was because the D.A’s case fell apart against that kid that they thought had something to do with that house that got robbed when he didn’t; what was the person he talked about called?

-Oh yeah, the forensic investigator.

-Yeah, yeah that’s it. You remember how your dad was all amazed at how she had figured it all out with just a few simple clues; well maybe that’ll work for us if one of Maya’s others has a similar job.   

The reoccurring aspect of Maya’s challenges with following what was going on when the dialogue developed multiple layers had begun to clarify for her, making it easier for Maya to know when best to chime in or take action. So with growing experience and input from her two colleagues, she pulled out the IDI, flipped it open, and posed a carefully worded inquiry:

-What three versions of myself best fit the role of a forensic investigator?

The fifteen-year-old poses the question aloud without needing to; this before going through a series of twitches and rapid eye movements. Her trustees watch the almost scary display—Lila recalling some movie about a zombie apocalypse, Milo wondering about the repercussions of someone overdosing on pills. As usual, it took only seconds before Maya settled into her trance, and the now-familiar waiting game for her to come back with a response ensued. Milo, accustomed to the boredom of caretaking his comatose friend, produced a bag of flaming hot corn chips, a pack of chewing gum, and a soda from a brown paper bag. He tossed Lila the chips and soda and hit an entranced Amaya square in the head with the balled-up bag. Lila chuckled as she popped open the chips and tilted the bag towards her counter-sentinel, and placed Maya’s cola next to her chair.

The two had been through the waiting game a number of times at this point and had learned to entertain themselves by making fun of Maya’s statuesque state, but there was serious business at hand, and Milo’s initial attitude of playtime quickly turned serious.

-So have you told anybody?

-Nobody, you?

-I haven’t, but I kind of think that Jackie is getting curious about why we’re always hanging out without her. She asked me the other day why we were always cliqued up.

-And what did you tell her?

-I told her that we just knew that her and KC were always trying to hook up, so we just didn’t want to interrupt, she kind of left it alone after that, but still, I get the feeling that she thinks we’re up to something.

-Well that made sense, I mean what you told her; but do you think we should let her know about the IDI? I mean she is kind of part of the crew. 

-I know, but you know how Maya’s is about letting it get too big, especially knowing how much Jackie talks; if she knew what was going on, it would only be a matter of time before the whole school was in on it. Plus, the way her and KC are going, she probably isn’t really that concerned anyway, just nosey as usual.

-Yeah, you’re probably right— but who do you think sent you that message though, I mean that shits a little scary you know?

-It is, and I don’t know who the hell sent it, but if they know about the device then this whole thing might be about to blow up.

The device that Milo refers to, which is at the center of the “Maya Polymorphous” phenomena, is the Inter-dimensional interface (IDI) that Maya inherited from her now deceased uncle—and that she, along with Milo and Lila somewhat figured out how to activate after the dead military archeologist had spent years driving himself almost insane trying to understand. The only things that Maya has been able to ascertain about it so far, are that it was constructed by an ancient godlike being from another dimension and that it allows her alone (for an as yet not understood reason) to communicate with alternate versions of her self existing in various dimensions. She can also exchange her physical presence with those various selves—Maya enters a dream state while the doppelganger occupies the life force in Maya’s base reality. The alternate versions experience the interactions as a mere dream in their own reality, maintaining full awareness of their usual self while active in Maya’s universe.

-Well I don’t like it Milo, I mean it’s not like any of the criminals we’ve stolen from could really do anything without risking getting exposed, but I don’t know that the law…

-You mean your dad…

Well not really, but yeah…My dad, my uncle, the law—would not see us as innocent if what we’ve been doing came out.    

-So I guess that means…

-A trap!

Maya comes out of her trance state excited about her findings, almost to the point of shouting.

-So Alisa Ziegler is a crime scene investigator, and she came up with the idea that it sounds like a trap, and the only way we could find out for sure was to set up our own sort of “counter-subterfuge” she called it. 

Milo and Lila were both startled by the sudden and dramatic outburst from the moment-ago unresponsive member, so much so that Lila trembled her bag of chips and Milo heard the second sentence with his mouth wide open.

 -Damn girl!

- Lisa said that we should reply with instructions to meet, but send one of my doubles as a ruse to intergragrate… integrate…   

-Interrogate? 

-Yes that! And so that way we can find out who they really are without having to actually be seen.

-But wait, they already know who Milo is, or at least I’d guess they do, so wouldn’t that be sort of a waste of effort?

-That’s what I said, but she pointed out that the message wasn’t necessarily made out to “Maya Polymorphous”, it was just sent to Milo. We’ve assumed that it was speaking to the firm, but that might not be the case at all. It could just be somebody from school, maybe even somebody in the crew trying to be funny.

The reasoning was sound, even if Maya’s enunciations were lacking. The three had been presuming that the message was alluding to their underground hero clique; forgetting that Amaya, Milo, and even Lila to a lesser degree were not long ago in a wholly different enterprise and lifestyle. None of the three had ever considered themselves drug dealers or users, but in hindsight not one could exclude themselves from the accusation if it ever made.     

-So what do we do?

Maya’s gaze ping-ponged between her two more thought-oriented classmates, and the two looked at each other, hoping for a pass on having to come up with a plan, before Milo recognized the most sensible course to start from.

-Well I’ll respond to the message, and tell them that we’ll have one of our associates meet them at the Midtown Bowling Alley, and to bring a hundred dollar deposit for our services, and then…

-Wait…wait… wait… Hundred-dollar deposit? Milo, what the hell is that?

-Well I’ve been thinking, and it seems like most companies that provide essential services always have a deposit involved, so…

-Dude, we do not provide an essential service, and we are not that kind of company. Can we just stick to the basics for now—we don’t need to start requiring credit card information and co-signers. And plus, like we just established, we don’t even know that this is about the firm, we’re trying to figure that out remember?

Maya gets a chuckle out of the banter of her cohorts, recalling Milo’s tendency for over-strategizing back when they played Pokémon in grade school.

--Ok...ok, we’ll get to that later, let's just say we send in the mother (Maya’s other) and have them ask a few questions about who they are and what they want, and we can go from there.

-Well yeah, but do we even need to call in a mother just yet, I mean it’s likely that whoever this is, we know them as much as they know us. So all we really have to do is just see them, and we should be able to get an idea of what’s going on.

-That makes sense, but what if it is somebody that has somehow figured something out, do we really want to take the chance of them putting any two of us together when they might only be aware of you?

-Well if they’re aware of me then they’re likely aware of how tight me and Amaya are, so…

-So we’re back to using a mother so we can get a look at who they are, yes?

-Well not necessarily, like you said, they already know who I am, so maybe I’ll just set up a meeting, show up, and do whatever uncovering I can without you two showing your faces. And if it turns out that they’re on to us, we’ll have Zigshaw come in and put the beat down until they promise to stay quiet.

The obvious joke evokes a frown from Amaya and a head-shaking smirk from Lila; the two then silently agree with head nods that that was as good a plan as any. But the rarest of things occurs when Amaya offers a most rational thought to the plan, surprising even herself.

-But maybe we should send in a mother, not to meet, but to have your back in case something isn’t right.

Milo and Lila look at each other and shrug shoulders in agreement as Maya sits back in her chair, proud of her two cents. The three wrap up their meeting at Amaya’s place and Milo goes home to reply to the message from the unknown sender. He gives the bowling ally as the place, and around five thirty as the time; but is surprised when he gets an immediate response with another curious and unnerving element:

“Wtf dude, what are y’all running a cartel now? You must really not want your secret getting out. See you there.”

Milo forwards the message to Maya and Lila, and all three spend the rest of the evening a little more nervous about the coming engagement. Milo reassured himself by remembering Maya’s advice to have a mother close by, but still felt pangs of uneasiness as the night progressed. Over a two-hour period, the three correspond via messenger, trying to figure out what it was all about, before coming to the conclusion that it had to be somebody that Milo used to sell Maya’s Xanax to. It was what made the most sense to the three of them, but that still did not answer the question about what it was that the person wanted, and why they were communicating from an unnamed account.

The following day the three held their last conference before the meeting, and Maya informed the two that she had found a version of herself that was a professional Taekwondo instructor, as well as a dog trainer in her own universe.

-So she’s Korean?

-Yep.

-And a dog, trainer

-Uh-huh

Both Milo and Lila restrained themselves from the litany of questions and observations that were swirling; deciding that time was too short for Maya to search for other options. Instead, they prompted Maya to make the exchange, and they filled Ae-Cha Zeng in on her mission of chaperoning when she arrived. The teenage black dude and white girl, along with the middle-aged Korean woman, took the bus together to the “Mid-Town Bowling Ally”, where they surveyed the environment, and Lila found the most inconspicuous place to blend in and watch from. Milo went to loiter around the old-school video game machines, and Ae-Cha stood watch nearby.

When the contact came, both Milo and Lila were shocked by there being not one, but two people that they knew walking over to the arcade area. Milo approached Jackie and KC, surprised to see either, and asked what they were doing there.

-Dude, Jackie told me you had the hook-up on embroidery, and I wanted to get my mom a shirt made for her birthday. Ever heard of the rap group “Oingo Boingo”?  

-Oingo Boingo? No, what the hell is that, no wait, what’s with the no-name text?

-Sorry bro, burner phones.

Milo slaps his head and laughs hysterically.