by Drew Hayes
“Is Mr. Transport back?” Hershel asked as he took the last step and landed on the ground floor. He’d taken the news of his mother’s romantic entanglement surprisingly well, thankful that she wasn’t quite as alone anymore. Roy had been a bit of a harder sell, but after a surprisingly creative and well-articulated string of threats toward Mr. Transport, he’d eventually accepted the fact that his mother was still a woman and might enjoy companionship.
“No, though he’s going to be joining us for Christmas dinner. Actually, Hank was in the neighborhood and decided to drop by.”
From the hallway stepped Hank Rhodes, every bit as imposing as he was in Hershel’s memories from the summer. Immediately, Hershel’s spine stiffened as he stood up straighter and his heels all but clicked together. Vince watched the transformation with curiosity; he’d never seen Hershel show such fear and deference to someone. Then again, Hershel hadn’t been the one to train under Coach George, so perhaps this was how he reacted to all male authority figures.
“Pleasure to see you again,” Hershel said, his voice nearly as stiff as his anatomy.
Hank let out a low chuckle and walked the rest of the way into the living room. “Relax, Hershel, you’re not getting trained today. I’m just stopping by to see how you two have been doing.” He ran his eyes up and down Hershel’s steadily changing form. Since summer, Hershel’s weight loss had slowed down somewhat, but he was also turning a fair amount of his former chub into muscle. The boy hadn’t been slacking off in his training, that much was certain.
“It’s very nice to meet you, sir. My name is Vince Reynolds; I’m a guest of Hershel’s.” Vince offered up his hand, which Hank seized and shook. The older man’s cocoa-dark skin was a contrast to Vince’s naturally pale tones, and both gave a squeeze that was firm enough to indicate respect, without falling into an outright challenge.
“You’re the energy absorber boy, right?”
Vince balked slightly, the candid discussion of his powers from a stranger something he was clearly not expecting. His hand fell away from the shake as confusion grew more evident on his face.
“Sorry, that was crass of me to spring on you,” Hank apologized. “I’m not technically affiliated with Heroes or the HCP, but I’ve done enough work for them that they’ll sometimes call me in for special jobs. That means I’m connected enough to hear about things in the Hero grapevine, like the son of Globe being in Lander and under watch by the DVA.”
“I guess I should try and get used to that,” Vince said. “My secrets aren’t really going to be very secret anymore.”
“Don’t fret too much; I’m under all the standard DVA agreements for non-disclosure, that’s why people were allowed to tell me about you. Outside the circle of Heroes, though, you should at least get a little privacy. Actually, I’ve wanted to shake your hand for a while. Heard you were able to absorb another Super’s crafted energy. Very impressive.”
“You think so?”
“Let’s just put it this way: I’m glad my son is an HCP senior this year, or he’d probably have a tough time against you in the Intramurals.”
“The what?” Hershel asked.
Sally Daniels coughed loudly into her hand, purposely catching Hank’s eye.
“What? They’re juniors, right?”
“Not every HCP does things the same way, Hank. Lander prefers to keep that a concern just for seniors.”
“Well fuck me with a bull’s horn. Sorry boys, forget I said anything.” Hank gave a slight shrug of apology, then changed the subject with exactly zero attempt at grace or obfuscation. Sadly, his first swing went well wide of the target. “How about those Chicago Speed-Demons this year? The SAA might see its first undefeated football team, if they don’t lose it in the play-offs.”
“Hang on; did you say you have a son in the HCP?” Vince asked.
“That’s Brett. He goes to West,” Hershel said. “Roy and I worked with him in Hank’s rodeo over the summer. He’s top of his class there. We sparred once or twice, but he was way too powerful for us to get anything out of it. I was glad he wasn’t in competition with us, though now, Hank has me wondering how right that thought was.” He threw a suspicious glance at his teacher, who did his best to look confounded at what they could be talking about.
Sally shot Hank a more savage look than her first warning glance, and he decided it was time to pull this conversation up short, before too much information slipped out. Luckily, this time, he chose the one topic that every HCP student is always eager to talk about.
Hank clapped his hands together once, and Hershel snapped back to attention. “All right, that’s enough conjecture and grilling me. I came to check in on how your training is going, so bring me up to speed. Tell me about your end of semester exam, and don’t spare a single detail. You too, Vince. I’m curious to see what the kids at Lander are capable of.”
“In all fairness, I should probably let Roy tell you. He’s been all but bursting with pride over what he pulled off,” Hershel said.
“I’ll want him to tell me about it too. Let’s hear your take first, which I suspect will be more analytical, and then I’ll listen to Roy’s, which will no doubt be full of color commentary. I want to see how both your minds are strategizing.”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Mrs. Daniels said. “You three go in the living room, and I’ll put together a light lunch for everyone. Everyone can have a nice long chat, about appropriate topics for HCP juniors. Right, Hank?”
Hank Rhodes was not a Hero; he’d had the power and the skill, but not the desire to do the kinds of things those people had to do. Nonetheless, throughout the years, he’d been called in for training, side-jobs, and a few emergency situations that necessitated a man with his skillset. He’d looked death in the eyes more than once and refused to flinch.
All the same, he was not quite so courageous a man as to piss off Sally Daniels when her face got serious. Death was a one-shot deal—it happened, and then you were free. Sally was an old-school southern woman, and Hank knew first-hand that they weren’t nearly as kind as death when they got cross.
“Of course, Sally. Wouldn’t dream of anything else.”
153.
Charles Adair found his daughter in one of the smaller libraries, tucked away in a plush chair, reading a large tome that centered on physics, specifically as applied to gravity, which he found odd. Not the choice of reading—that made perfect sense given the development of her abilities. No, what was strange was that it was Christmas Day, and she had made no effort to seek him out. Normally, she made at least cursory attempts to pull him from his office, if for nothing else than lunch. Today, as she had this entire break, Alice left him alone; so much so that Charles had worked himself into a fine state of hunger without even realizing it.
Charles was not a foolish man. He understood that keeping Alice at an emotional arm’s length might one day cause her to pull away. Still, he’d expected that to come in her teens—the most difficult of years—or when she’d first gone off to college and tasted independence. Instead, it seemed to have come at the end of her sophomore year, and she was showing no signs of changing course. He’d known it was inevitable, necessary really, yet all the same, he felt a strange pang in his stomach as he watched his daughter curled in a chair, eyes darting methodically across the pages.
She really did look so much like her mother.
“I seem to have worked through lunch.”
Alice looked up from the book, no signs of surprise on her face. Either she’d known he was there, or such reactions had been trained out of her by the Lander staff. “You did. I had one of the cooks run to your office to let you know everything was ready, but the door was shut, and you didn’t answer.”
Of course, had she been the one to come get him, she’d have opened it without a second thought. That had been their dance for years now, her barging into his life while he tried to keep her at bay. Charles was beginning to wonder if perhaps he had drawn more from that strang
e arrangement than he realized.
“Ah well, I must have been caught up in something important. I assume they’ve kept everything warm?”
“As always.” Alice’s tone carried no venom; such an addition would have been superfluous. The word choice alone drove her meaning with the force of a stake through the heart.
“Alice, you know I don’t enjoy all this work, don’t you? I don’t take pleasure in working through the holidays, or in so rarely getting to see my own daughter. What I do is necessary. I may not be an active Hero anymore, but my company and abilities still help safeguard this country; even if it’s the economy, instead of individual citizens.”
“My Subtlety professor once taught us an interesting theory: ‘a person will lie with their words, face, and even actions. What they can’t lie through is their habits. No one keeps doing things they hate, not long-term. Human, Super, Powered, everyone eventually weasels out of things they dislike. You want to know what matters most to someone? Look at their habits.’”
“Interesting thought,” Charles said. “A bastardization of Machiavelli?”
“So far as I know, it’s a Pendleton original.”
Charles Adair winced at that name, only for a moment, but Alice’s efforts in Subtlety had not been wasted. Charles could tell she saw the twitch, his unintentional reaction to the word “Pendleton.” True, she had no idea what it meant, but she’d seen it all the same. Alice was growing more dangerous with every passing day.
“I suppose I can’t entirely dispute that. I do love knowing I am helping our country, making a safe world for my child to grow up in. Even if you can’t always see it, Alice, so much of what I do has been for you.”
“Maybe it has been. I know so little about what you do; it’s hard for me to judge.”
“Be fair, much of the work I do is incredibly classified. It’s not like I keep you in the dark out of joy.”
“So, that’s to protect me too.” Alice shut her book and set it down, leaning forward in the large chair. She locked eyes with her father, and for the first time, Charles saw Alice Adair as more than his Powered daughter who’d cried for hours every time she fell from the ceiling. Staring into her fierce green eyes, he realized his child had grown up into a powerful woman, capable of commanding respect and fear, and with the strength to back it up if she didn’t receive them. Simultaneously, Charles’s heart was broken and filled with joy. He never wanted this life for Alice, but it reassured him to know she’d manage to survive when he was gone.
“Yes, dear. To protect you, and the country, and the billions of citizens who depend on what we do. You don’t have to like it; I don’t even ask that you respect it. Just try to understand that sometimes personal sacrifice is required to serve the greater good. As an aspiring Hero, I suspect that’s something even your Professor Pendleton would agree with me on.”
“I think, as long as you were disagreeing with me, he’d be on your side,” Alice said.
Charles would have loved to explain to her how Sean Pendleton would sooner swear off scotch and sarcasm than ever find himself on the same side as Charles Adair, but such explanations would require opening old wounds and stories, ones best left undisturbed for now. She was already glaring at him with too much suspicion; clearly, she either knew something or thought she did. Best to offer her as little to go on as possible.
“Then perhaps that education isn’t entirely inadequate, after all,” Charles said. “I’m going to have a late lunch. Would you care to join me?”
“No, thank you. I was planning to go visit Mom.” Her eyes never wavered, never flicked away. She was watching him, watching for any sign of a reaction to that statement.
“Take some flowers from the garden,” Charles said. “Planting one was her idea, you know. When we were young and poor, she would often talk about the lavish garden she’d like to one day have. Though she was gone by the time I built this house, I still tried to give her one.”
“You never told me that.” All of Alice’s suspicions were gone, momentarily purged in the sudden onset of emotion at hearing a hidden detail from her mother’s past. Alice was strong, but not so hardened that her emotions couldn’t still be played against her.
“I didn’t? Perhaps you’re right. When we lost her, I found even talking about Shelby too difficult to bear. After all these years, silence has become my habit, but that isn’t fair. Not to you, or to her memory. I tell you what, after lunch, we’ll go into the garden together to pick flowers and visit her. I can tell you which were her favorites.”
“I . . . I’d love that.” Alice rose from the chair and walked over, all thoughts of interrogation abandoned.
“Then that is what we will do.” Charles put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head, just like when she’d been that crying child so many years before.
Someday, he would tell her everything that had happened. Someday, when she was strong enough. Someday . . . but certainly not on Christmas.
154.
The soft knock was followed almost immediately by the door opening. Ralph Chapman didn’t bother to look up from his desk at first. Given that today was Christmas, and he was sitting in his Washington office, there were really only two possibilities for who’d be barging in. It was either Derrick, or it was some crazed Super who’d tracked him down to kill him, in which case, his murderer could damned well finish this paperwork while Ralph traipsed off to the afterlife. When he finally looked up, it was Derrick standing before him. Pity, the idea of passing off his work was quite appealing.
“Merry Christmas,” Derrick Conner said, setting a small gift on Ralph’s desk. “It’s your year with the stapler.”
Derrick and Ralph had been re-gifting the same ancient stapler to one another every Christmas for nearly thirty years. It had begun as a small prank when they were both starting out, working a campaign for some now long-forgotten, minor politician. Though much had changed since those early years, at least this tradition had persisted.
“Did you stuff it with anchovies again?” Ralph set his pen down and motioned for Derrick to sit.
“Gummy bears that I soaked in old salmon juice,” Derrick said as he slid into the wooden chair. “Jen and I would love to have you over for dinner tonight. Place isn’t the same with the last one off to college.”
“I forgot that Pepper left this year. What college did she end up choosing?”
“Sizemore University, over in Chicago.”
Ralph felt his hand clench involuntarily, a response he tried desperately to hide from his only friend. There was no reason to react that way; Pepper was a Super, true, but her ability didn’t lend itself to being in the Hero Certification Program. Though Ralph worked to keep his feelings concealed, Derrick still easily saw through them.
“Relax, she picked it because the girls’ volleyball team is nationally ranked, and they offered her a scholarship. Thankfully, her power doesn’t have any athletic applications, so she doesn’t have to go through the SAA. Changing the way food tastes might be a great dieting aid, but it wouldn’t get her into the HCP.”
“I know. I’m still sorry for my reaction. Even if she were enrolled, you’ve raised a fine young woman. She’s not the sort I’d be worried about. Forgive me; this recent job just has me a bit frazzled. I keep hitting walls at every turn.”
Ralph reached into his desk drawer and pulled out two sodas, offering one to Derrick, who declined. He put the other in his desk, and then poured himself one. Ralph didn’t drink, hadn’t for so very many years. Carbonated beverages were his only real vice now. There was no time to be muddled, to have his thoughts broken. He had too much work to do.
“Try not to let it get the best of you,” Derrick advised. “If they’re hiding something, they’ll make a mistake, sooner or later. Everyone does.”
“All too true. So, how are things over at the Treasury Department?”
“Oh no, not going to work. You still haven’t responded to my dinner invitation,” De
rrick said, leaning forward ever so slightly in his chair. “Jen’s even making the tiramisu cake you liked so much last time you were over.”
“I appreciate the invitation, I do, but I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. I have to find some sort of new avenue for attack before school resumes. If I don’t think of something, then they’ll keep boxing me out.”
Derrick gave his friend a long, measured look. When he spoke again, his voice was much softer. “Ralph . . . look, you know I understand, right? Even if no one else does, you know I get it. I was there when you got the news; I was there when you first decided to apply for the transfer. I’m always on your side, but you can’t go at this so hard that you forget to live in between. That’s not what they would have wanted.”
Ralph stared at the slowly popping bubbles bursting up from his soda. “I know, Derrick, and I thank you for all the support you’ve given me over the years. Maybe you’re right; maybe they would have wanted a different, happier life for me. Sadly, this is the only one I can manage. When I’m doing my job, when I’m hunting down Heroes who think they can skirt the system, that’s the only time I feel any sense of peace. Otherwise, whenever I shut my eyes, I just see them. Them, and that damned bridge.”
“My brother was the one driving the car. I won’t say I know how you feel—much as I loved him, I can’t imagine our pains are the same—but I at least have an idea.” Derrick rubbed his hand across a chin that had once been masculine and pronounced, though age and weight gain had taken much of its grandeur. “Sometimes, when I’m in the area, I’ll go look at where the San Witmer Bridge used to be. I’ll check out the new one, read the plaque they have at its base, and reflect on what happened. You know what I feel when I do that?”