One More Day

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “That’s good for today,” he said hoarsely.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “Nope.” He started walking toward the door.

  “What? So that’s it?”

  “I have stuff I need to do and I think you got it.”

  “You were just saying that I’m not fast enough!”

  I watched as he let his head fall back and looked up at the ceiling like he was trying to gather his patience or something.

  “You did all right,” he finally said.

  “I did not,” I said irritably.

  “You did,” he insisted, turning around to look at me. “If you want to keep working, maybe we should work on your punches for a while.”

  “Why? That’s pointless.”

  “Did this help? Did it make you feel less restless and on edge? Less full?” I watched him. I remembered telling him, when we first started as partners, about how the fact that it felt like I had all this energy built up with nowhere to put it was almost as bad as being weaker since the fight against Maddoc.

  “No,” I said quietly.

  “Okay. So this is good in that it gives you another tool, another type of attack. They probably won’t expect that from you, which is good.”

  “So why are you going on about punching then? I’m useless. My speed is fucked, my coordination is non-existent.”

  He didn’t answer for a minute. “You said it yourself: the weird energy, that full feeling, like what you felt when you first got powers and didn’t know what to do with them… it’s back, right? And this isn’t helping it.”

  I nodded.

  “And it’s not a good feeling, right? Makes it hard to concentrate. Hard to keep your head straight.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I have this theory, and Dr. Ali shares it, that our powers or abilities or whatever you want to call them want to be used. You can’t use your power the way you did originally.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for mentioning that again,” I said, crossing my arms.

  He gave me an impatient look. “You’re missing the point. Let’s just try it. Maybe you just need to bust through, maybe if you try to use it enough, your power will find a way to compensate for what you lost. Give you extra speed for make up for it, or something.” I just watched him. “It’s worth a try, right?”

  “We should just go back to wrestling,” I said.

  He looked away. “I’ve had enough of that for today. But if you want to do some punching, I’m here.”

  I threw my hands up in defeat. “Fine. Let’s do punching.”

  Ryan put punching pads on both of his hands, held them up, and gestured for me to start. I started punching, jabbing at the pads. It was embarrassing. It felt like trying to punch through water, except that the water is rushing at you, weighing you down, slowing you down, and while you eventually make it through, just getting there wears you out completely. After a few minutes, I stopped and snarled in disgust.

  “This is useless,” I said.

  “Keep hitting,” he said, glaring at me over the punching pads as he held them up.

  “We’re done.”

  “I had no idea you were such a quitter, Faraday,” Ryan taunted. “What, you only bother showing a little effort when you’re trying to rob people?”

  I flipped him the bird, and he kept going.

  “Or maybe you’re just too scared to keep going. It’s hard not measuring up, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, fuck off,” I muttered. I turned like I was going to walk away.

  “Takes you back, huh? Like you never left the trailer park at all. Like you’re every single thing the people who were jerks to you ever said you were.”

  “Shut up,” I muttered.

  “Make me, Faraday,” he said, jutting his chin at me. I turned again and started walking.

  “So that’s it? Throw in the towel? Let Dr. Death and his assholes win? Because without you, this team doesn’t have a chance in hell of catching him, and you know it.”

  “Why is that my fucking problem?” I yelled.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Because he’s the one that set his fucking rabid dog on you so you’d stop making trouble for him. But you’re right. Walk away. Let it be someone else’s problem. You never asked to be a hero. Maybe you’re not.”

  I snarled and launched toward him, pulling my hand back to punch. Before I even had a chance to try to start moving my fist forward, he flew back into the wall, like a strong gust of wind or something had swept him away.

  I stared, and he picked himself up and readjusted the punching pads.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked him.

  “Pretty sure that was your power finding a way to work around what Maddoc did to you. Now are you going to work with it, or are you going to run away?”

  “I’m not running,” I said, circling him.

  He held his hands up, the punching pads out toward me. “Show me.”

  I did. It was hit or miss, literally, for a while, but every once in a while, I’d make it happen again, and he’d go flying across the mats.

  “It seems like I have to make sure I’m focusing pretty hard to make it happen,” I said, out of breath once Ryan finally called a break. He nodded, and I passed the bottle of water I’d been sipping from over to him. He gulped some down, then handed it back.

  “I bet it’ll get easier the more you do it. From what I felt, you’re gonna do some damage with that.” We were sitting side by side on the bench near the area where we’d been sparring. I bumped my shoulder into his arm, and he bumped me back.

  “Thanks for sticking with me even after I went all crab ass on you.”

  “I’m just glad it actually seems to be something that’ll work.” After a few minutes, we got up and headed toward the elevator.

  “Are you on tonight?” he asked me, and I shook my head.

  “No, but we’re doing this girls’ night out thing,” I said with a grimace.

  Ryan laughed. “Oh, right. You sound pretty excited about it.”

  “I like hanging out with them and all that. I just don’t like the going out part.” I glanced up at him. “How much do you know about Killjoy?” I asked him quietly. I didn’t even know why, other than the fact that he’d been the one person on the team who hadn’t outright hated him.

  He shrugged and I thought he wouldn’t answer. “I don’t know anything. Less than you, for sure, I’m guessing. All I really know is that Alpha can’t stand him, and Alpha’s a prick. So I guess it’s a whole ‘enemy of my enemy’ thing. I liked watching him make Alpha and Nightbane look like idiots.” He watched me. “Alpha’s not exactly my favorite person, so it was all I needed to know,” he finally said. “Why?”

  I shrugged.

  “Is that getting serious? You and him?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you want it to?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. What I really wanted to ask him was what he thought of the original Raider, because I’d come across photos of a fight between him and Raider from about eight years ago, not long after the first Confluence, when powers first started popping up. Ryan had already been on StrikeForce at the time, though I knew that how he came to be on StrikeForce was a little murky. Like me, he hadn’t ended up on the team entirely by choice.

  We ended up not saying anything else, and, after a moment, the doors opened on my floor and I gave him a small nod as I left the elevator. Now I had to clean up and get myself ready for a fun night of not working.

  I seriously was sure that I didn’t even know how.

  At a little after nine, once Portia and Dani had finished their shift and everyone had had a chance to clean up and change, a group of us loaded up into cars in the parking garage. Jenson, Monica, and I ended up riding with Amy in one car, while Portia, Chance, Toxxin, and Marie rode in the other.

  The weirdest thing was seeing them all dressed up and with make up on and their hair done. Usually, if we weren’t walking around in our unif
orms, we were in sweats or pajamas. Except for Jenson. Jenson always dressed like she was ready for a job interview or something.

  We ended up deciding on Mexican, and we ended up at one of the big restaurants in the Mexicantown neighborhood of Detroit. Once we were seated and had drinks, the table got pretty quiet as we all sat around, kind of looking at everyone else in the restaurant and not knowing what to say if we weren’t talking about work.

  “We are an utter bunch of dorks,” Amy finally said, and the rest of us laughed. “Okay, here’s something. Slowly but surely, I’m noticing that people are starting to call other team members by their actual name. I notice Jenson and Jolene calling Beta ‘David.’ And you all have known our names,” she said, indicating herself, Monica, and Dani, “ from the start. And Jolene’s of course,” she added. “I think we all realize we’re here as much because we need to get better at working together as because we needed a night out. So, I don’t know. Maybe that’s something we can start with.”

  “Only if you want to, though,” I said. “Because to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have given anyone my actual name if I’d ever had a choice in the matter.”

  “Good point,” Amy said.

  “Well. I’m fine with that,” Toxxin said. “I’m Ariana. I’m twenty-nine. I joined up when I was nineteen. At first, because I wanted to be there, and later, I was there because I had to be.” Toxxin… Ariana, had been the other one, besides Caine on the original team, who Alpha had kept collared. The reasons why were apparently things only a few people knew, and they weren’t talking about them. Not yet, anyway. “I spent nine years under his thumb,” she said quietly. “While some of the people at this table, who could have tried to do something at the time, sat around with their heads up their asses.” I noticed Portia, especially, looking uncomfortable, but Jenson wasn’t looking all that confident just then, either. “I’m here because I want to be part of something good, and I think we can be that. But don’t expect me to feel all chummy with everyone. Not just yet. I need a little time.”

  I was watching Ariana as she spoke, and she glanced up and met my eyes. “Of course, if Jolene ever has to walk through the nine levels of hell, I’ll volunteer for the trip,” she said with a grin, and I smiled back.

  Portia cleared her throat. “And I’m sorry about that. All of it,” she said to Ariana, who just gave a small nod in response. “My name actually is Portia. I liked the fact that it matched up so well with what I do,” she said with a shrug. “And I don’t have anyone I need to protect, so there was no reason to change it. Portia Jones,” she said. “I’m thirty-four. Joined up when I was twenty-four, and stayed because I love doing what I do. I just wish I’d been a little stronger along the way,” she said, glancing at Ariana.

  Chance was sitting next to Portia. She looked around. “I’m going to stay with the option of keeping my name to myself,” she said quietly.

  Monica was about to say something to argue with her, and I shook my head. She clamped her mouth shut. I wasn’t going to push Chance. And I also knew there wasn’t a chance in hell Jenson would be telling us anything. And sure enough, when our little group started looking at Jenson expectantly, she sat there sipping her drink as if she had no idea what they expected from her. After the silence went on for a while, she gave us an exasperated look. “I’m keeping it to myself. Obviously.”

  “So everyone except you two shared their names. What makes you so special?” Monica asked.

  “And Caine. Nobody knows Caine’s real name,” Jenson said, and I tried to keep my expression from giving away my surprise. “I mean, Portia, you were his partner for over five years, right? Did he tell you?” Jenson pressed.

  Portia shook his head. “I have a feeling that’s one of those things that’s going to stay a mystery.” She glanced at me. “He hasn’t told you, has he, Jolene?”

  I shook my head.

  “So, there we go. A few of us have elected, for whatever reasons, to keep our names to ourselves. It doesn’t mean I like you all any less, though,” Jenson said. Things seemed to have gotten tense again, where we seemed to have been making some headway before. Finally, our food came, and we managed some halting conversation while we ate. Most of it was along the lines of “hey, this is really good!” but I guess it was a start.

  We were on to dessert when Portia asked, “so what are we doing next?”

  “Going home?” I asked hopefully, and Jenson gave me an exasperated look.

  “No,” she said, and I smiled sweetly.

  “We could go to a movie. I know you all were talking about gambling, but I don’t have any money to gamble with,” Monica said.

  “I don’t want to go to the casino either,” I said.

  “Movies?” Portia asked, and we all gave kind of noncommittal shrugs.

  Jenson took a last bite of her flan and looked around. “I know what we should do.”

  “What?” I asked, just kind of knowing I would hate it.

  “Ice skating. I’ve never skated at Campus Martius. We should go!”

  I was about to protest, but Portia, Ariana, and Amy all started excitedly chattering about going, and even Monica and Chance looked interested. Marie and I were the only ones less than thrilled with the idea, but in the end we both decided to go with it. It would be better than the casino, anyway.

  We drove through downtown to Campus Martius, rented some skates and then we all got out onto the ice. Mostly, it ended up that Marie, Monica, Amy, and I ended up hugging the railing for dear life and inching around the rink while Jenson and the rest of them glided past us. I fell on my ass a handful of times, but by the time we decided to call it a night, all of us were laughing and a lot less awkward together. As we drove back, I was relieved that it was over, but even I had to admit that we’d needed it. Anything that made us less of a mess was a good thing

  When we pulled back into the garage at Command, we all streamed toward the elevators, Monica and Dani with their arms around each other’s waists, murmuring quietly together, the rest of us tired but probably more relaxed than we’d been since I’d been on the team.

  We were on the elevator heading up to our suites for the night, and everyone was in a good mood, tired but chatty, and Jenson and I exchanged a look.

  “Good idea, Jenson,” I admitted, and she grinned. Just then, my comm crackled.

  “Hey, you’re back,” David said in my ear. “I found some stuff. Do you want to come down here? Or wait til tomorrow?”

  I touched my comm. “I’ll be there. I’ll bring Jenson.”

  The elevator stopped on our floor, and everyone but me and Jenson got off. I hit the button to go back down, and Jenson gave me a questioning look.

  “David said he found something, I’m guessing in those files you were having him working on. I said we’d go down and take a look.”

  She nodded, and we got off the elevator and headed into David’s lab.

  Chapter Seven

  Jenson and I walked through the double doors into David’s work space. He was hunched over his keyboard, looking at the monitor. Reading something, I supposed. Ryan was standing nearby, leaning back against one of the work tables that David always had a bunch of parts and papers piled up on. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a stony expression on his face. I met his eyes for a moment, and his expression didn’t change.

  “Let’s take a look at what you found,” Jenson said, and David raised his head and watched us walk the rest of the way toward them. He stood up and motioned to his chair, and I took it while Jenson dragged one over from another part of the lab. I sat down, nodding my thanks, and he tapped the display a few times, opening a variety of documents.

  “Okay. This first one is the first time we see any mention of what it is they’re planning to do with the samples,” he said, and I leaned forward and started reading.

  “An injection?” I asked after a couple of minutes of reading.

  “Yeah.”

  I read some more. “So… they were usi
ng the samples to try to… what? Create something that would give ordinary people powers?”

  “Seems like it. And it fits with what we knew Dr. Death was already working on, with that mess Mayhem created in Midtown.”

  I nodded. Dr. Death and Mayhem had built a machine that released a gas that was supposed to turn anyone who breathed it in into a powered person. Something had gone horribly wrong, and we’d ended up with almost three dozen corpses. It was the reason Alpha had finally had no choice but to let me out after Mayhem.

  “Why, though?” I said, still scanning through the document.

  “From this next document,” David said, clicking over to another one, “it looks like the ultimate goal is to create a super powered army under the control of what they’re calling ‘The Conclave.’”

  I leaned forward and read. “They’re fucking crazy,” I murmured as my stomach twisted. “I mean… creation of a super powered army, wresting control of international governments, creating a world-wide force under their command. This is super whack-job world domination shit right here.”

  “I know,” David said. “Uh. From this other one, I guess Alpha must have asked his contact the same question. Mostly, he wanted to know what was in it for him, because, you know: Alpha,” he said.

  “Of course,” I agreed.

  “But besides that, he asked what the endgame is. And this was his contact’s response.” He pulled up another document and I started reading.

  “So Alpha is promised more money than he could ever imagine, along with exclusive contracts to keep providing ‘The Conclave’ with more varied samples and a position of importance in their new little super villain club.” I read some more. “‘To bring a lasting peace to the world.’ Is he serious with this bullshit?”

  “Villains always say crap like that,” Jenson muttered. “What it means, of course, is ultimate control and the ability to do whatever they want, however they want it, without having to sneak around or have someone like StrikeForce or any of the other cities’ forces on their backs.”