Catalyst: A Superhero Urban Fantasy Thrillride (Steel City Heroes Book 1)

by CM Raymond

  “Eight months.” Van Pelt removed his glasses and spun them on the table, casually, like he was ordering lunch. He rubbed his eyes. “The board has discussed this, and we decided to give you eight months to turn the company around. We want results, Ms. Alarawn, or Mr. Fong will continue to broker the deal.”

  “Watch me,” Brooke spat as she spun toward the door. Her demeanor displayed the old tenacity the Alarawn’s were known for. One that the board had not seen for years. She could only be glad that none of them saw the tears that broke from the edges of her eyes as she walked through the doorway.

  Lance Van Pelt wanted everything.

  Brooke Alarawn would stop at nothing to keep her legacy out of his hands.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Elijah pushed through the double doors and onto the sidewalk. He had just blustered his way through the first class session of Research Methods. It sucked, and everyone in there knew it, professor included.

  With the money Alarawn Industries promised him, he probably should have just dropped the new classes. But he was knee deep in debt, and he figured teaching a couple lectures a week wouldn’t take much time from his real work. Especially if he half-assed them like the one he just delivered.

  Elijah knew that when you don’t care about truly reaching students, the hourly wage for an adjunct became pretty good—especially once he realized that he could give the same lectures ad nauseum. Grading required little more than skimming the first paragraph, last paragraph, and placing some check marks in the margin. He’d go above and beyond every now and then—underline a sentence and draw an exclamation mark next to it. An arbitrary grade at the end. Not too arbitrary. Grade them too low and he was likely to have a visitor during office hours, and the University never complained about high GPAs.

  There was a time when teaching would fill Elijah with energy, better than any high he ever experienced. But those days were long gone. Now, his best hope for a meaningful career was to get tenure, farm out his teaching duties to grad students, and spend his days in peace and quiet doing research.

  Brooke Alarawn was the exact person to help him achieve this. If his work for her and Project Cold Steel garnered national attention, he could leverage that into a tenure track position. The dream job.

  But to do that, he needed to finish this damn puff piece about Alarawn Industries.

  He pushed up his sleeve and checked his watch. Plenty of time, he thought. Rex Bertoldo, Brooke’s meat locker of an assistant, was scheduled to pick him up in twenty minutes and lead him to one of AI’s old factories. But if he was going to spend his afternoon shuffling through dirt and rust, he needed some caffeine first.

  He pulled out his phone and Googled the nearest coffee place. Kiva Han—the shop with the best reviews—was nearby. He walked south toward Forbes, half watching the sidewalk, half reading emails.

  “Hey, man. You got a cigarette for the King?”

  Elijah glanced up at the homeless man. And then back down at his shoes. His pace quickened. They always made him uncomfortable.

  “It’s cool. A hello will do,” the man said to Elijah’s back as his pace quickened.

  The coffee shop was packed. He met eyes with the nose-ringed, dreadlocked barista and wove through the crowd toward the counter. Two steps from his caffeine fix, he bumped into a woman turning with her own purchase in hand.

  “Crap.” She shook her hand, drops of blazing coffee splashed to the floor.

  “Oh, shit. I’m so sorry.” His eyes moved from her hand up to her face. She had a modest beauty that would go unnoticed in the bar scene, but it was one that he had come to adore among young intellectuals.

  “Yeah. That’s hot,” the woman said.

  “That’s not the only thing.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that you look fit. Zumba?” He smiled. Charm was never his strong suit, and he had no idea why he kept trying that line. But he figured there was little harm in it.

  The woman glanced up. Strange words fell from her mouth:

  “It’s all about sex and territory,

  which are what will finish us off

  in the long run. Some cat owners around here

  should snip a few testicles. If we wise

  hominids were sensible, we’d do that too.”

  She turned and walked away.

  Elijah remained planted, unable to move. Shock and humiliation colored his cheeks.

  “Wow,” he finally uttered to no one in particular.

  “Don’t worry about her, man. She can’t take a joke.”

  Elijah spun, looking a tall black guy in the chest. His eyes wandered up. The man looked like Cornel West and Morpheus had a baby.

  “I’ve been trying to talk to her for years. Nothing like that move you just pulled, but she’s immune to even my far more graceful charms.”

  Elijah nervously ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah, I’m out of practice. Mostly just talk to librarians these days.”

  The man laughed. “Well, that one, she’s literature or poetry or some shit. But, she’d rather spend the night with her cats than a Longfellow, if you know what I mean.” The man patted Elijah on the arm. “Stay out of trouble, okay?”

  Elijah grinned and scratched his beard. “I’ll try.”

  With his black coffee in hand, Elijah moved toward the door. He considered sitting and skimming through the latest issue of The Atlantic to burn some time, but the place was packed.

  “You want to join me?” the Morpheus look-alike called from a table on the edge of the room.

  Making friends had never been easy. He’d only been in Pittsburgh for a few days, but already he felt a familiar loneliness. Elijah pulled out the chair and sat. “Thanks. Nice to talk to another human. I just got into town this week.”

  “Well, welcome to Shitsburgh.”

  “That bad, huh?” Elijah asked.

  The man laughed. “Only in the winter...which starts in August and lasts until May.”

  A composition pad was opened in front of him. Elijah caught a glimpse of chemical symbols and formulas. Seeing him look, the man flipped the book closed and asked, “Which department?”

  Elijah’s eyes moved from the book to the man’s face. “What?”

  “What discipline do you teach in?”

  “Oh, right. History. Twentieth-century.”

  The man grinned and leaned back. “With that beard, those glasses, and your prowess with the fairer sex, I would’ve guessed philosophy.”

  Elijah couldn’t help laughing. “I get that all the time. History’s much more lucrative.”

  His new friend nodded in appreciation. “So, history man, you tenure-track?”

  “Is anybody tenure-track anymore? That is, anybody under fifty?”

  It was the other man’s turn to laugh. He pushed his hand across the table open in front of Elijah. “I’m Percy. Percy Scott. But people call me Chem.”

  “Elijah.” The historian’s hand got swallowed in his Chem’s giant palm.

  “How about you?” Elijah asked.

  “Research. Chemistry—thus the name. Us scientists aren’t the most creative bunch. I taught a class or two during my tour at Vanderbilt. Found out pretty fast the classroom wasn’t the place for me.”

  “That’s why you decided to do research?” Elijah asked.

  “Nope. That’s why I decided to go to medical school.”

  “Med school? You went all the way through med school to do research?”

  The man slid his palm around the side of his neck and then up over his head. He hesitated. “I got to clinicals. Then realized that wasn’t for me either. Or maybe I should say, they realized it.” The man grinned. “I’ll be paying those loans off for a long time.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Tell me about it,” Chem said. “So you moved here just to adjunct a history class or two?”

  Elijah stiffened. “Actually, I probably shouldn’t even be teaching. It drives me crazy. But I thought I wa
s going to need the money. I took a research job for a local company—you know, telling their story and all that shit.”

  “Everybody’s got a story,” Chem said. “So what’s theirs?”

  Elijah wrung his hands. “Well, uh, I’ve got a nondisclosure agreement.”

  “Say no more. Hell, in chemistry, you can’t take a dump without signing an NDA.”

  Elijah stood. “Chem, nice to meet you. Time for me to hit the archives. I hope we run into each other.”

  “Not like you ran into her, I hope. And if you do, don’t ask me about Zumba.”

  Elijah smiled and hovered for a moment.

  The man pulled a card out of his pocket and offered it to Elijah. “I’ve been to new cities enough to realize it’s good to have somebody to call.”

  Elijah gave him a nod. “Yeah. I’ve done this too many times.”

  The historian pocketed the card and exited the coffee shop. Alarawn’s history, and his future, called to him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Elijah leaned against the cold brick wall in front of the Hillman Library. He faded into a line up of other bundled-up, anonymous souls and watched as pedestrians scrambled down the concrete pathway, desperate to escape the cruelty of the Western Pennsylvanian winter. He eyed up each one, cataloging them into some kind of imaginary social taxonomy and wondering about their stories. Perhaps studying history made him more attentive to his surroundings, or maybe he was just a curious person by nature. He couldn’t be sure which came first.

  Nevertheless, in times like these, he took in everything. He hadn’t been in Pittsburgh long, but people had already started to look familiar. Not unlike bars or restaurants, sidewalks and street corners had their regulars. Among the hipsters, nerds, and hippies, Elijah spotted the woman from the coffee shop. His first reaction was to hide behind the wind guard of the bus stop. But before he could, she spotted him. Her eyes narrowed—or at least they did in his imagination.

  He bolstered his courage and gave it another shot. He didn’t like where he had left things.

  “You again?” he said with a grin.

  “Me again?” she asked, raising her brow.

  “I just wanted to apologize. Sorry about what I said earlier. At the coffee shop.”

  Her face lost all expression. “Coffee shop?” She cocked her head to the side. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  Elijah considered jumping in front of the oncoming 61A. Academic hubris makes faculty see themselves as utterly unforgettable. “Oh, right. Earlier? Kiva Han. I made an ass of myself.”

  The woman’s expression broke; something between a giggle and laugh emerged. “I’m sorry. That was cruel. Of course, I remember. I know it’s probably surprising, but it’s not every day that I run into a talking ass in tweed.”

  “And she has a sense of humor too,” Elijah said, as her laughter subsided. “And come on, the university is full of asses in tweed.”

  “Point taken.”

  “Let’s try this again,” he said. “I’m Elijah. Elijah Branton.”

  “Much better. And I’m Willa Weil. Postmodern poetry and contemporary women’s fiction.”

  Elijah cocked his head to the side.

  “We’re supposed to share our CVs whenever possible, right?” she answered.

  He laughed. “Sorry. Next time I’ll lead with my LinkedIn profile. I’m—”

  She put her hand up. “Wait. Let me guess. You are…Economics.” She looked him up and down. “No. You’re far too practical to be an Economics prof. Business Administration, with a concentration in ‘Leadership.’” She made air quotes. “Whatever that means.”

  “Ouch. And she twists the knife.” They both laughed.

  “So?”

  “History,” he said. “Late-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century, with a concentration in industrialization in the Rust Belt, particularly during the—”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” She cut him off. “Slow it down, tiger. You didn’t even buy me dinner yet. Don’t give your whole resume in the first conversation. Were you going to list your recent publications next?” Her eyes smiled. “There are rules, you know.”

  She crossed her arms over her dark peacoat.

  “I can only assume that you’re tenured, maybe tenure-track,” Elijah said.

  “Nope. Proud adjunct, going on half a decade. And I don’t mean to change that either. I’d rather spend my time in the classroom than on committees.”

  “A true believer?” he asked. “I am surprised.”

  “Well, someone around here has to care about the hearts and minds of the next generation. Otherwise, this world will fall apart. And if you’ve got the passion for it…”

  Elijah searched her face for a joke, but it was sincere. Suddenly he felt guilty about the crap lecture he’d just given.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Good for you. Seems the fire burned out for me a few years ago. I mean, they’re more interested in their phones than anything I have to tell them.”

  Her mouth turned up in a half smile. “Come on… Don’t you remember being twenty? I mean, sure it’s when I truly fell in love with verse, but the gen eds were—”

  “—terrible.” Elijah grinned as he finished her thought. “I know, I know. But—”

  “But history is different, right?” She patted his arm as if consoling a child. “We all think that, Dr. Braxton.”

  “It’s Branton.”

  Willa winked. “I know.”

  Elijah’s heart sank a little as he watched Rex pulled up in a tinted Lincoln Town Car. He rarely got along so well with colleagues.

  “That’s me,” he said, nodding at the car.

  “Wow. The adjunct life has been good to you? If I didn’t know better, I’d guess you’re upper-level administration.”

  “I struck it big in Internet marketing before going to grad school. You know—dot-com shit.”

  She finally laughed with him, not at him.

  As he opened the door, he looked back over his shoulder. “See you around the battlefield. And sorry again about the coffee.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “A little burn never hurt anybody.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Making friends, are we?” Rex asked without turning his head. He stared out the window at Willa.

  “Even a man of history knows that networking is the way of the future,” Elijah said. “I can’t live entirely in the past.”

  When he first met Mr. Bertoldo, Elijah was far too focused on Brooke to really make much of him. Riding beside him gave the historian another opportunity to size him up, and there was a lot of him to size. Rex was tall and shockingly broad. Even in the luxury vehicle, he seemed to barely fit. While his designer suit hid the monster’s true build, judging solely by the thickness of his neck, Elijah could see he was no weakling. Brooke had called him her assistant, but Elijah assumed he was her muscle.

  I doubt he’d even fit in my Subaru.

  Sitting next to him prompted Elijah to consider his own physique. In high school, he had been painfully thin—a source of great embarrassment. School was designed for people built like Rex, not 130-pound pushovers. Subconsciously, Elijah still saw himself that way, although a decade of bad habits and sedentary living had increased his weight by at least fifty pounds. Those fifty certainly weren’t solid, and Elijah remained intimidated by those who looked like his driver.

  They drove mostly in silence, the local sports talk station filling the car. Elijah barely understood the rapid descriptions of games, players, and statistics. Sports weren’t really his thing. A call-in segment started, which only increased his confusion. Ninety percent of the calls were lamenting the Steelers getting knocked out of the playoffs—nearly three weeks prior.

  A mix of Monday morning quarterbacking and Pittsburgh therapy session, the show almost amused him. Elijah always thought the Boston accent couldn’t be beaten, until an enthusiastic caller yelled into the phone. “Yinz guys know the deal. In a play like that, you gotta throw
dahntahn. What was that jag off thinkin’? Eh, at least we got the Buccos, am I right?”

  They drove south, putting distance between themselves and the universities of Oakland. Crossing the Monongahela River, they entered Homestead. Once a thriving industrial area, the town survived as a shadow of its former glory. Rows of houses, previously supported by the steel empires of the twentieth century, now lay empty.

  Pittsburgh was a city of ruins.

  For a historian, the tangible presence of a distant past proved irresistible. Elijah loved books—they provided a window into another world. Books and industrial ruins provided a doorway.

  Rex cursed at the radio, interrupting Elijah’s reverie.

  The bald man gripped the wheel tighter, his jaw clenched. “What do they expect? A ring every season? Damn babies running to mama every time a call don’t go their way.”

  “That’s why I don’t really get into sports,” Elijah said with as much disdain as he could manage. “It breeds childishness.”

  Elijah looked at his driver, hoping he’d understood his joke. Rex returned the stare with eyes of ice, lips curled into a sneer. Elijah swallowed hard and quickly turned away. The man snickered and turned up the radio.

  Moving out of a residential district, Rex piloted them into an open, almost rural space. As steel moved out, trees and wildlife had pushed back in. The twentieth century was undeniably man’s century, but in the twenty-first—at least on this plot of dirt—nature was making a comeback. The verdant land could almost be described as lovely if it weren’t for the rusted heap of blight that rose up in the middle of it.

  They pulled onto a gravel road leading to the plant. The Alarawn mill was a behemoth—a long brick warehouse coupled with huge metal towers sticking out of one end. With its strange industrial fixtures, it looked like an alien ship had crashed nose first into the side of the building. The plant stood imposing, as it had for over a century.

  Elijah tried to imagine flames shooting out of the building’s flare stack, the dark billowing smoke that covered the city for miles around in a thin layer of soot and ash. This plant alone would have employed several thousand people, working 24/7 to belch out tons of steel annually.