Chapter 9
FIFTEENTH FLOOR.
Thad knew he was running late for his usual lunchtime meeting with Franklin, but he also knew Franklin tended to set his own schedule. Thad figured all of the people working in the Augmentation Technology Department had the same leeway, since their work regularly required them to hop between the three main floors of the department, and occasionally go down the the basement lab. How could a supervisor possibly keep track of people on the move all day?
Thad didn't officially have the same latitude with the mail room, but Agnes trusted him more than the others there to call his own shots. There had never been a day he didn't get all his work done, something she noted on his evaluation report every few months.
I hope you went back for a second pudding today, Franklin.
Thad usually locked his mail cart in one of the secure locker closets throughout the building—mostly used to keep purses and gym bags, but equipped with a large lockable cage which the mail cart fit into nicely. Today, since the mail had gotten jumbled in the child care facility, he took the cart with him to the fifteenth floor.
Rather than take it through the line to get a sandwich, he passed the food court and walked through the sea of mostly occupied tables and chairs, looking for Franklin. Ten seconds later, he spotted his friend by one of the windows on the back side of the building, overlooking the retractable metal ceiling to the subterranean aircraft hangar—containing three VTOL jets. The large square of Super Steel wasn't much to look at, but landscaping surrounded it on three sides, with several fountains and a winding walking path running through the greenery. Franklin occasionally mentioned how much he enjoyed seeing the natural landscape after spending hours inside the windowless tech lab in the basement.
Must've been a basement day, Thad thought as he pushed the mail cart through the lunchtime-catch-up conversations and after-work-plans phone calls to get to his friend's table.
Franklin noticed him and waved, then said hello when Thad got to the table and sat down.
Franklin had already finished his second chocolate pudding, as well as some sort of sandwich. A few crumbs, the tinsel-flagged toothpick that had been stabbed into the bread, and a half-eaten pickle were on his plate. "You going to eat something?"
"Yeah," Thad said, catching a whiff of barbecue from the food court and making a mental note see if they have pulled pork and slaw. "I'll get something in a minute."
Franklin nodded toward the mail cart. "What's all this?"
Thad shook his head a little. "A ridiculous morning, that's what. It's a mess. I need to sort it, so I can finish the rest of the deliveries before they close the building down tonight." He knew the Supers Inc building never completely closed, but he figured Franklin got his point.
"I'll help, but only if you tell me what happened." Franklin peered into the pile of envelopes.
"Thanks. Yeah, help would be good, but I'd rather tell you what happened on twenty-eight. Well, after my heart attack, anyway."
"Heart attack? What? Are you okay? You're kidding right?"
"I'm fine."
Franklin nodded toward Thad's stained shirt and grinned. "You look like the tractor just dragged you through the field."
"Yes, I do." Thad didn't care about that any more.
"Okay, tell me what happened. Did you just robbed a candy store with a twelve gauge?"
"Better."
Franklin's eyebrows lifted. "Really?" He settled against his chair back an crossed his arms. "Wait a minute. Hold the phone. You said twenty-eight?"
Thad grinned smugly and nodded, gleeful that he was about to reveal the inaccuracy of his friend's prediction that he would never get a date with any super, let alone with Allison.
"You didn't?"
"I did."
"She didn't."
Thad looked to an imaginary fleck of something on his shirt and dusted his sleeve with the back of his hand. "Why sir, she most certainly did."
Franklin shook his head. "Well, look who put on the fancy pants."
Thad cocked one eyebrow up slightly. "I don't think that's a saying."
"Sure it is. Before your time."
"I remind you you're only a few years older than me."
Franklin shook his head. "I can't believe it."
"You were born in-"
"No. I mean that you finally got a date with her."
"Oh, yeah. Right. Yes. Yes, I did."
"When?"
"Tomorrow. Lunch. We're meeting on fifty."
"The supers-only cafeteria? You can't. No normals."
"She said it was fine."
"Fine with her, maybe. But what about the other supers."
"What do they care?"
"I don't know. But you better not annoy any of them."
Thad chuckled. "They're super heroes. Remember? They only use their powers for good."
"Remember when Midnight blacked out half the building over an argument with Voltbolt?"
"That didn't happen. It was a power outage in the basement," Thad said.
"Not what I heard. What about the time Multiplicity caught Lord Suave in the supers' break room with two women, and then followed him into the elevator and proceeded to make so many copies of herself that the elevator crashed?"
"First off," Thad said. "The elevator got jammed. It didn't crash. Secondly, it was Lord Suave's birthday. There were probably ten other people in the break room. And his name is Mr. Suave."
"And Multiplicity?"
"Everybody knows Multiplicity has a few screws loose."
Franklin kept a straight face for a few seconds, then burst into laughter. "Right. She does. It's funny though, when you think about. I wish I could've seen Lord Suave's face when half a dozen Multiplicities were chewing him out in the elevator."
Thad laughed. "Yeah, me too."
"See," Franklin said, turning serious again. "That's my point, Thad." He leaned forward. "You're my friend, right?"
"Best friend."
"Yes. And...I just don't want you to get your hopes up only to get..." He looked away, evidently trying to come up with the right words.
"Stuck in an elevator with six Allisons yelling at me?"
Franklin chuckled. "You know what I mean. Supers and supers don't even work out that well. They deal with stuff you and I don't ever have to face. I'm sure it's hard on them, but I think it makes it hard for them to relate to people. Supers and normals has to be worse."
"Since when did you get a PhD in psychology?" Thad sounded annoyed, and he was. He realized his friend meant well, but the last thing he wanted to listen to in response to him telling Franklin his great news was that it wasn't going to work out.
"Hey, easy." Franklin put his hands in front of him in a calm down gesture. "I hope it works out. I really do. But I just don't think a super would go for a normal."
"Allison could."
Franklin shrugged.
"Besides," Thad said. "You know I'm not going to be in the mail room forever. I'll get a super suit one day." He looked at the mail cart. "Hopefully sooner rather than later."
"Hey, I take it back. I'm happy for you. If anyone deserves a shot with Allison it's you. I hope it works out. Honestly. I'm probably wrong. What do I know? I spend all my time hanging out with fellow engineers and lab junkies.
Thad turned to his friend. "Thanks. So, how's it going with all that, anyway? Any new cool gadgets you can tell me about?"
Thad could see the gears shifting in Franklin's head. "Tell me."
Franklin glanced to his left and right, then leaned over the table a little. "Okay. So, I'm not really supposed to talk about it, but our team just developed something totally amazing."
"Yeah?"
"Well, I came up with the idea...and worked out the technical aspects..."
"No surprise. You're a freakin' genius. What's it do?"
Franklin held up three fingers.
"It makes fingers?"
"Of course not." He grabbed the tip of his extended fore
finger. "It shoots a special solution which changes from liquid to a...sort of web-like state when exposed to air. It's really strong. And it spreads out like a giant net. And it sticks to almost everything. Buildings. Lampost metal. Cars."
"Cool. Good for...lots of situations, I guess. But, don't you think people would get really annoyed with a giant web blocking traffic?"
Franklin shrugged. "Not if it saved a bunch of people, like stopping a runaway train or something."
"Seriously? It's that strong?"
"Probably. We're still running tests."
Thad nodded toward Franklin's hand. "What about the other two fingers?"
Franklin clasped the end of his middle finger. "Same stuff, but you flip a switch on the gun first."
"So, it's a gun?"
"Yeah." He gestured with both hands to indicate the size. "A little bulky, but a one-hander."
"Okay. Nice."
"So, you flip a switch on the side and it goes from making the netting sort of thing."
"Web. Just call it a web. They're sticky."
"Right. It changes from the webs to dense balls of the stuff. Like those bean bags the swat riot police use."
Thad didn't hide the fact that he was slightly less impressed with the second mode. "That's not really a new thing, then. Huh?"
"Okay, sure. But they come out of a one-hander."
"Fair point. I retract. Once again impressed. Continue, please. The last finger?"
Franklin tried to fold his other fingers and leave his ring finger extended by itself, but his hand wouldn't let him. He gave up and grabbed his ring finger instead. "Ready for it?"
Thad rolled his eyes.
Franklin squinted and leaned across a little more, then said, "Grappling hook. But no hook. Just the sticky."
Thad leaned against the back of his chair. "Wow. Nice."
"Right. Actually, I can't believe no one came up with it before."
"All three in one device is genius."
"Supers extra or for the Public Defense line?"
Franklin shook his head. "Not sure. It may not see the light of day at all for a long time. That's up to legal and marketing. Unless the supers see it in action and push to use it."
"Yeah. That's the way it goes, I guess. But hey, at least you get to play with it in the lab."
Franklin grinned. "Yeah. It's really cool. You should come down sometime and check it out. When nobody's around, I mean."
"Thanks. I will."
"So," Franklin said. "Tomorrow. Date with Allison. Nice going, buddy."
Thad smiled. "Thanks. I...I don't want to jinx it, but I think there's something there."
"First super and normal couple. It'd be the talk of the water cooler."
Thad didn't care about the water cooler talk, but the thought of Allison and him being an ongoing thing warmed him to his core.
Franklin pulled the mail cart a little closer to the table. "Why don't you go grab a sandwich, and I'll get started on this."
"Okay. Thanks." Thad stood. "Be back in a few."
"Pick me up another pudding, would you?"
"No problem." Thad headed for the food court to get his sandwich and Franklin's pudding, but tomorrow's date with Allison was the only thing on his mind.
Chapter 10
THIRTY-FIFTH FLOOR.
Thad felt both excited and nervous as he rode the elevator up to the thirty-fifth floor. He'd worked extra fast all morning, finishing his mail deliveries entirely before his lunch hour, something he'd never done before. But he didn't want to feel any pressure to excuse himself from Allison's company, should their lunch run long. In fact, he allowed himself a little hope the two of them might wind up spending the entire afternoon together, getting to know each other better.
He nodded to his reflection in the elevator doors. "Looking better today, Thad."
Talking to himself, at least aloud, wasn't a habit, but nothing about the rest of the day would be his normal routine. So, he went with the urge to give himself a little verbal boost. He noted that his shirt didn't have stains all over it like the one he wore yesterday when he talked with Allison. "Not too shabby." He glanced at his shoes. Shoes today. He decided wearing replica hero boots, as much as he liked them, might come across as a little silly in the eyes of an actual superhero.
"You're ready for this."
You've been ready for this for a long time.
The elevator settled and he heard the ding, indicating he'd arrived at his destination. He glanced at the display above the buttons, just to make sure, especially after what happened yesterday.
Thirty-five. Good.
He checked his hair in the reflection in front of him just before the doors slid open, revealing the thirty-fifth floor to him for the first time. He stepped out of the elevator.
The room looked like a lobby straight out of a fancy hotel. A sitting area took up the center of the room. Two overstuffed, long couches sat opposite one another. The other sides of the square space was framed by mirrored sets of chairs with a small table between each pair. All of the furniture rested on an expensive-looking area rug, which extended a few feet past the backs of the couches and chairs.
The dark green marbled floor was exposed over the rest of the expansive room. More chairs and a couple of high-legged decorative tables lined the side walls. Elegant, soft lighting in the form of clouded, semi-opaque bowls suspended from the high inlayed ceiling by thin copper rods provided comfortable, relaxing illumination.
Jazz music filled the air, but at a low volume, evidently coming from recessed speakers in the ceiling throughout the room. A man and two women, dressed in civilian clothes but presumably supers, sat in the middle of the room, the blond woman on the couch with the dark-haired man. The red-head sat in a chair just to his left. Thad thought he recognized the red-head as Tatiana, formerly with the Bolshoi Ballet, now working for Supers Inc as one of the company's most savage and skilled hand-to-hand fighters. He couldn't match the man or the blond to supers he knew. He figured they might be from out of town, part of one of the new overseas branch offices. All three in the lounge area had wine glasses in hand—something white. Thad's wine knowledge couldn't take the details of it any further than that.
They laughed, but not at him. They hadn't given any indication that they noticed him yet. Thad probably could've made out what they were saying, but he didn't want them to catch him eavesdropping, so he walked to one side of the room, pretending to care about the art on the walls. He knew he was ten minutes early, but that was the plan. The last thing he wanted to do was keep Allison waiting. He'd been waiting for this day, for this moment, long enough for the both of them.
The restaurant at the back of the room had a large decorative sign over the entrance, which was a wide arched opening. On one side of it, a young woman stood in attendance at a greeter's stand, no doubt there to match people to open tables. On the left side of the opening was the end of the long bar, which extended into the restaurant. Through the middle of the opening, Thad could see some of the restaurant. White table cloths covered the tables. Unlit candles and place settings were on each, though only a few tables were occupied. Then he noticed a waiter, with a white cloth draped over one arm. He was holding a bottle of wine up for a woman seated at one of the tables to see.
I am seriously underdressed. I had no idea. Great.
"Thaddeus!"
He turned toward the sound of Allison's voice, and momentarily lost his ability to speak when he saw what she was wearing.
She walked over to him from the elevator, moving sensuously—at least that's how Thad saw it. She'd changed into a new super outfit, a red bodysuit with a narrow v-shaped neckline that opened down to her waist, where it came together just above a thin, shiny, black belt. Her boots were black too, also shiny, and with a dangerously pointed heel. Her hair was up, held elegantly in place by a couple of chopsticks that had been skewered in. When she stepped up to Thad she performed a slow three-hundred-sixty-degree turn, revealing an openin
g in the back of the outfit to match the one in the front.
"You like it?"
Thad realized his mouth was already open. He forced his brain to quickly learn how to make words again, and said, "Yes. It's...wow."
Allison chuckled. "Thanks. I like it too." She leaned closer to him and whispered, "It may be a bit over the top, but I really like it. Makes me feel sexy for a change."
For a change? Huh?
"You look beautiful," Thad said, making a point of doing a better job outwardly than the voice in his head was doing.
"Aw, thanks. You're sweet." She glanced at him. "You..."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know this place was fancy."
"No. It's fine. I was just going to say you cleaned up nicely."
She's kind. I'll give her that.
"Hey, Allison," the man on the couch said, without getting up.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Carrington. Ladies."
After Allison turned back to Thad he heard one of the women on the couch quietly say, "Is he a normal?"
"Ignore them," Allison said. "I try to." She smiled and put her arm between Thad's and his chest. "Shall we?"
He did his best to heed her advice to pay no attention to the common from the blond super on the couch. With her at his side, he didn't have much trouble doing so. "Absolutely."
He tried to restrain his grin as the two of them walked toward the hostess, but he noticed out of the corner of his eye that she was staring at his face a grinning too. He turned to her. "Sorry. I've just..."
"Been thinking about this for a long time?"
He stopped and so she did too. "Yes, actually. How-"
She giggled. "You're horrible at keeping a secret. Don't you know I've noticed how you been looking at me for the past..."
"Eleven months."
She smiled. "Is that how long you've been with the company?"
"No, but I didn't see you until I'd been a month on the job."
She stared at him a moment, and he took the opportunity to admire her eyes, then she said, "Can we just end the suspense right now? I know it supposed to be later, but..."
"What do you m-"
Allison raised up onto the balls of her feet and kissed Thad on his lips, instantly making him abandon any desire to continue talking. She put her arms around him and he raised a hand to cradle the side of her head gently as they carried on for several more seconds.
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