by S. J. Delos
I looked up. “What?”
“I’ve told you this before, Karen. On our first date, actually. The only you that I care about is the one I met on her first day of being a hero. Right after she took down a large mechanical walker. I was smitten with her from that moment.” He grinned at me through the glass. “I’m still smitten.”
This time, the reddish hue on the skin of my face wasn’t due to the scrubbers. I smiled back at him, clenching my jaw tightly as I ordered myself not to cry. If I did, the tears would probably turn to steam almost immediately.
For a few moments, we just stared at each other, one of us completely in the buff. Then Kurt cleared his throat.
“Oh,” he said. “I wanted to tell you something odd about that guy you took down at the train yards.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Rupert?”
“Yeah. Or King Mammoth, as he kept calling himself. Anyway, he let it slip during his interrogation that he wasn’t just cracking open the cars at random. He was looking for something.”
“What?” I asked. From the way he was behaving, I deduced that much all on my own.
“He didn’t know. Just said he was looking for a large crate with a symbol on it.” Kurt reached into the front pocket of his pants, pulling out a folded piece of paper. He opened it and placed it against the window. “One of the boys sketched that based on Kin… Rupert’s description.”
I stood up and leaned closer to the window, staring at the drawing. It was a logo of some type, comprised of an infinity symbol inside of a circle inside a triangle. It seemed semi-familiar, like something slightly noticed several times. I glanced up at Kurt, arching a brow.
“It’s the Delgado Corporation logo,” he revealed.
“The tech conglomerate?” I asked. Then I remembered where I’d seen the logo before. Some of the recent parts for the new hovercraft were delivered in containers with the symbol stenciled on the side.
He nodded. “One in the same. Rupert claimed he didn’t know what was supposed to be in the crate. We called someone at Delgado, but they insisted, multiple times, that they didn’t have anything valuable shipped by rail.”
“You sound like you don’t believe them,” I said.
“I’m a detective, Karen. I usually can tell when someone’s lying.”
Kurt stayed for a little while longer before a phone call from dispatch called him back to work. After apologizing ten times about having to rush off, he looked at me for a few quiet seconds, his face full of apprehension. His mouth opened, closed, then started to open again.
I panicked, fearing what I thought was about to come out from between his lips.
“Okay, be careful. I’ll see you later.” I quickly turned away from the window.
A few more seconds passed before he spoke. “Uh, okay then,” he said in a slightly hurt voice. “I’ll call you later.” He walked away from the chamber, vanishing through the sliding doors.
My heart hammered in my chest, slamming around like a monkey on meth.
In my head, I could hear him saying one last thing before he walked away. Those three little words that change everything about a relationship. Of course, it would be a lie if I said a big part of me didn’t want to hear them. To know with one-hundred percent certainty how Kurt felt about me.
A small part, however, kept hearing them in a voice that wasn’t Kurt’s. Spoken with a crisp, non-discernible dialect by someone who’s idea of the perfect relationship was about as twisted and convoluted as it could get.
I just knew, without question, that my response to hearing Kurt say those words to me, particularly at that moment, wouldn’t have been the one either of us wanted. Better to let the moment pass, for now.
My moping over what I worried might have been a missed opportunity must have been evident on my face. When Sonya came to check on my progress, she gave me a quizzical look.
“You okay in there?” she asked over the intercom.
“Just peachy,” I said “Just lying here trying to decide which was worse: my cell at the Max or this thing.”
“Did you reach a verdict?” she asked, a smirk detectable in her voice
“This is worse. In prison, the bed was softer, and there was a television. Plus, Thursdays were ice cream day. At least for those of us not contained in a stasis field or tethered to a pocket dimension.”
Sonya laughed. “It’s only Wednesday, Karen. However, I might be persuaded to make an ice cream run. We can turn off the scrubbers long enough for you to eat it. Any particular flavor?”
“Mint chocolate chip, please.”
“Barbarian,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “Anything else?”
“Freedom would be nice. How much longer until I don’t have to worry about people’s hair falling out just being around me?”
She glanced at the panel on her side of the chamber. “Actually, sooner than I originally estimated. It looks like you’ll be d-ray free in about twelve hours or so.”
“Great,” I said with a sigh. “Looks like I’m still having lunch with my mother tomorrow.”
The blonde laughed. “Can’t help you there, girl. I avoid my own mother as much as possible.”
“I stayed away from mine for six years. Now she’s dying. There isn’t a day that passes when I don’t have a moment of regret about it.” I rolled my eyes. “Then after I actually spend some time with her, I realize that we’re always going to disagree. So, through it all, nothing between us has changed.”
“Everything changes, Karen. That’s the way things are. Zip was a petty thief, then you recruited him for good. I was blind until I Activated. Even Darla used to be a pretentious pain in the ass before her Enhancements got mucked with.”
“She’s still a pain in the ass,” I interrupted.
Sonya laughed. “True, but now she’s a little less pretentious. Then, of course, there’s you.”
“Me?” I sat up on the bed, turning toward the window.
“Yes, you. Let’s face it, you were on the short list of the world’s most feared super-villains. Now you’re a hero who’s practically worshiped by the public.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to be worshiped, Sonya. I’m fine with simple appreciation.”
“You know what I mean. The same people who used to piss themselves when Crushette was in the area are now out buying Kayo posters, asking you for autographs.” She tapped on the glass, giving me a look. “You might not have planned on becoming a celebrity, but you did. Change happens. Sometimes you can’t anticipate it or even prepare for it. The best you can do is accept it and deal. The relationship between you and your mom isn’t the same as it was before. Maybe it only seems that way because you’re afraid of losing her.”
“Maybe,” I said after a moment. “I just don’t know.”
“Try to look at it from that angle. You might be surprised. I’ll be by later with that ice cream.”
“Okay. Thanks, Sonya. For listening.”
“That’s what teammates are for, Karen. We don’t just have each other’s asses in the heat of battle, we also have to be there for support off the field, too.”
CHAPTER 8:
UNWANTED EXPOSURE
The next morning, Sonya declared me clean of all radioactivity and released me from my prison. I was just stepping back into my own room when Greg’s voice came through the speaker beside my door.
“Karen, can you come to the Briefing Room please?”
I sighed, glancing down at the robe Alexis brought me to wear until I could get cleaned up. I reached out to stab the button with my finger, nearly cracking the omni-plex surface.
“Now?” I asked. “I seriously just got out of the decon chamber. I mean, I’m not even dressed.”
“I see,” came the response. “Well, I would like to request that you put something on before you come down here. Please.”
“Fine,” I said in my huffiest voice. “Be there in five.”
I threw on a pair of sweatpants, a tank top, and one
of my newer hoodies. Two months ago, Alexis’ badgering convinced me to finally retire the three fraying ones that I had brought with me when I joined. Then dragged me to the Galleria to buy five new ones. In assorted colors which were happier than my usual dark gray.
The one I slipped on to answer Mister Manpower’s summons was a bright sky blue. Wearing it made me feel like I was a cheerful imposter.
I entered the Briefing Room to find Greg and Richard sitting at the table. The lack of any of my other teammates made me wonder if anyone else was invited to this sudden meeting. Richard gave me a little nod then set about looking busily at his hands, the tabletop, the far wall. Everywhere but at me.
Good.
Greg gestured to a chair on the opposite side from where they sat. “Come in, please. Have a seat.”
I froze for a second. Was this a “getting called to the Principal’s office” scenario? Both of them looked rather stern, though I wondered what I could have done to deserve a reprimand. I mean, I did just stop a lunatic from blowing up a portion of the city, getting a time-out in isolation as a reward.
When the hell would I have engaged in any shenanigans?
I forced my feet to carry me to the offered seat and lowered my behind in it. “Those are some long faces there, guys. I’m going to guess this isn’t a congratulatory talk. No ‘great job’ on stopping a section of downtown from being the next Seattle?”
Greg cleared his throat. “We wanted to talk to you about your position on this team. The structure and dynamics have changed recently, particularly in regards to public perception. We thought it best to discuss with you our concerns.”
I blinked, looking between them.
“Wait,” I said. “Are you … am I … getting fired?”
Could you get fired from a superhero team? I mean, people quit to join new teams all the time. Particularly in places like New York, or Los Angeles, where there were at least four or five different hero groups. Not to mention all the ones who decided that the team environment thing didn’t work for them so they went solo.
Of course, that’s how it was with heroes. Villains often lacked any real loyalty to the people they worked for. Or with. Most times, it was just a mutual desire to steal something or create a little chaos. When those joint ventures ended, everyone went their separate ways.
Martin made sure his organization ran a little differently. I was the only person I knew of who’d ever quit. At least, the only one to not end up dead or worse.
“No, Karen,” Greg said with a shake of his head. “You’re not getting fired.”
“It’s your recent media coverage that has us concerned,” Richard added.
“I don’t follow,” I said, looking between them. “I mean, I’m not blind. I’ve noticed that coverage lately seems to have focused on me. But, didn’t we kind of expect that?” I turned to look at Captain Awesome. “Richard, at the interview you gave after we took down Colossal, you were the one who played up my role in the incident. Right? You know, the whole ‘bad girl goes good’ angle?”
“In the beginning, I thought it might be good for the team. But now…”
I held up my hands. “Okay, so this little meeting is to berate me for the press being more interested in me?”
“It’s not that simple,” Greg said. He picked up the remote to the screen on the wall and pressed a button. The image that appeared was from the front page of the Charlotte Journal. The headline read, “Kayo Saves Thousands”. The picture beneath the banner was obviously snapped with someone’s phone. It was taken right at the moment I headed skyward with the bomb tucked under my arm.
It was actually a pretty flattering shot, to be honest.
“Okay,” I said as I looked back at them. I wasn’t sure what they were annoyed about. How could that type of media coverage be bad for the team or its image? “I don’t see what the problem—”
Greg pressed a button, changing the image on the screen. The second photo was the front page of another paper—a tabloid piece of trash called The Hero Report. The picture was from the day before the miraculous downtown save. It was from the tractor trailer wreck on I-85. However, the high-resolution image didn’t show me holding up the trailer so the firemen could rescue the trapped drivers.
Instead, the picture from when I was stretching to get the kink out of my back. The combination of camera angle, position of my body, and the completely soaked nature of my t-shirt left almost nothing to the imagination.
Yep, Kayo’s braless … not to mention a bit chilly, as well.
Plus, when you factored in the look on my face—euphoric, due to having just realigned several aching vertebrae—with the slack-jawed stare of Steve the firefighter, the headline seemed to have concrete support.
LUST AMONG THE WRECKAGE: HERO TOO BUSY FLIRTING TO SAVE CITIZENS?
“Oh… shit.” I turned to look at the two of them, pointing at the screen. “Okay, that is totally not what happened. That picture is taken completely out of context.”
“I see,” Greg said. “Care to explain, then?”
My jaw tightened. I leaned back in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Since you asked so nicely. I wasn’t trying to show off my damned boobs to Fireman Sam. No matter how cute he was.” I jabbed my finger at the dent in the side of the trailer behind the erotically posed image of me. “See that? That’s where I used my entire body to pick that damned thing off the two squashed cars beside it. Oh, by the way, I was also flying while doing it. After the rescuers got all, all, of the victims to safety, I put the truck down to stretch because doing all that kinked the hell out of my back.”
I shook my head, then stabbed my finger at the image again. “I guess that’s when that pile of shit photographer decided to do his Peter Parker thing.”
“Okay,” Greg said, managing to sound both incredulous and convinced at the same time, not an easy thing to do. “I thought we discussed before about how it wasn’t a good idea for you to patrol in civilian clothes. Considering how they have a tendency to leave you less than appropriately dressed. Something that is not needed, given the attention you draw.”
“The attention I draw,” I asked.
Richard held up his hand. “What I think Greg is trying to say is that you are the member of the team the media has become the most interested in. As such, you should think about trying to be more discreet in your choice of attire.”
I slammed my fist down on the table, rattling the durasteel.
“I wasn’t on patrol, Greg,” I insisted. “I was just flying around, trying to cool down after you dropped that damned Heroes’ Ball bomb on me. When I saw the wreck, I wanted to help. Like the hero I’m trying to be.” I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have to put on my damned uniform just to fly down to the corner store.”
“No. You shouldn’t,” Richard said. “But a bra at least might be suggested.”
I shot him a narrow-eyed glare. “Really? Did you really just go there, Richard? Because I recall you being very insistent that Daniel design my first uniform with a big cleavage window. So don’t you dare try to turn this back around on me.”
He gave me a look of sincere honesty. “Actually, I only suggested the cleavage window. It was the sailor schoolgirl uniform that I was insistent about.”
“Regardless,” Greg broke in. “You need to start paying attention to the media. Because they are certainly paying attention to you. You’re popular now, Karen. Everything you do in public is going to be scrutinized. Dissected.” He sighed, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Of course, the larger more mainstream news outlets are going to keep pushing the positive. None of them want to risk being excluded from press releases or exclusives. However, the less … savory one, like The Hero Report, only exist to stir up crap. They’re going to go for the jugular. Don’t help them out, okay?”
I turned my gaze in his direction, the tension in my jaw powerful enough to snap a diamond.
“So,” I said through gritted teeth. “J
ust to make sure we’re all on the same page here. I’m now not only supposed to stop the bad guys while making sure any nearby InBees are safe. I also need to remember to preen for the cameras while I worry about how big my ass looks in my uniform?”
Greg shook his head. “No, that’s not what we are saying, Karen. Trash like The Hero Report are going to find something negative to say because that’s what they do. All Richard and I are recommending is that you be cognizant of that fact and not wear things that are racy or inappropriate. That’s all.”
“Well, if that’s all, I guess I’ll go back to my room. There’s a whole wardrobe of ‘inappropriate’ attire I need to throw out.”
I stood up hard, sliding my chair back with enough force to send it across the floor into a wall. I glared at both of them, then walked toward the door. Pausing before exiting, I looked back.
“You know, it’s funny how they never seem to focus on the times guy heroes get their shirts ripped off. Or get mob-kissed by female groupies after saving the day.”
Richard’s face turned a bright shade of red, but Greg, at least, gave a slight nod.
“Yes,” he said. “I agree it is completely unfair.”
By the time I got to the door of my quarters, I was practically fuming. If only it was Richard attempting to shame me over the unfortunate photo, I would have blown it off. But for Greg to chastise me for not being appropriately attired when helping someone in need just chapped my ass all the wrong ways.
I stabbed the button beside the door hard enough to put a crack in the heavy-duty plastic.
“Well, isn’t that just the icing on the damned cake?” I sneered to myself.
“Having a bad day?” Darla said from behind me. She was standing outside her own quarters, regarding me with an expression that was a mixture of interest and amusement.
“Well, as if finding out my boobs were splashed all over the front page of a stupid tabloid wasn’t enough, I just got lectured by our fearless leaders about catering to the press and doing my best not to embarrass you all.”