by Rachel Caine
I got him as a boss.
I'd heard all the stories—Bad Bob threw a drink in the face of the President of the United States, and it had taken all the resources of the Association to get him sprung from Secret Service custody. Bad Bob had walked into a going-away party for a retiring National Warden in England and swilled down an entire bottle of Cristal champagne, when he didn't even like to drink, just to spite the old boy. He was feared, he was revered, and he was legendary for a reason. It was considered a badge of honor to have a run-in with Bad Bob, something you could dine out on for months.
Weather Wardens sometimes resemble a Keystone Kops comedy more than they do an actual professional organization. That's because no large organization composed of mavericks with superpowers can ever be said to be truly organized. Yet, somehow, we manage to protect human beings from about 80 percent of the crap that Mother Nature throws at us, in our arrogant, mostly chaotic way.
Nobody, however, had been able to stop Hurricane Andrew.
It had swept in from the Hurricane Zone, looking very much like all its wimpy cousins who'd taken no more than a few well-chosen pressure shifts to counter. Nobody in the Florida office was much worried. Bad Bob, Sector Warden back then, hadn't even been informed. He had Staff to handle those kinds of things; his responsibility was looking after the macro events and keeping the whole Sector stable over time.
Andrew got out of hand. First two Staff Wardens worked on it, then five, then more. Before it was over, there were literally hundreds of Wardens focused on it, trying to defuse the ticking bomb of the storm.
Even Wardens have to be careful in dealing with a storm of that magnitude. It killed more than twenty of them, shattered the powers of at least ten more, and by the time Bad Bob physically made it to the scene, it had already hit the coast of Florida and begun its raving march of destruction.
I wasn't there, of course. Too young. But I heard all about it in school.
Bad Bob walked along into the center of the storm and stopped it. All alone.
Oh, damage was done—the worst hurricane to hit the coast in a century. But even in the middle of all that devastation, we knew how much worse it could have been. Andrew was a sentient storm, a storm that had gathered sufficient energy to hold its form and continue to ravage a path of destruction over land for a thousand miles or more. Andrew was angry and hungry in a way few things on this planet can be. And yet Bad Bob had faced it down and made it bow to his will.
After that, even those who thought he was a jerk and an asshole wouldn't turn down a chance to be on Bad Bob's team. It was considered both a nightmare and an honor. A badge of courage second to none.
By the dawn of 2002, I'd been a working Warden for four years, mainly up and down the Atlantic coastline. Technically, I was working for Bad Bob in Florida, but as with CEOs of major corporations, his presence was mostly made manifest by phone calls to those far above me, or with a scrawled signature on memos. I reported to Regional Warden John Foster, a capable, easygoing man with a penchant for tweed jackets and pipes, the kind of guy you half expected to have a plummy Oxford accent instead of the North Carolina drawl that came out of his mouth. We did the usual—more rain here, less there, smoothing out a tropical storm into a squall, diverting storms from heavily populated areas. Nothing really dramatic. Nothing important. I screwed up a couple of times—everybody does—and got bawled out by Bad Bob via telephone. It was nothing personal. Everybody gets reamed by Bad Bob at least twice, if you survive on his team at all.
And then in August, Tropical Storm Samuel came calling. Early for hurricane season, but in my experience the worst came early, or it came late. Samuel had some very unusual patterns in it, patterns that reminded us of Andrew. The decision was made, all the way up at the World Council level, to stop the storm before it came anywhere near to posing a threat. Nobody was complacent about that kind of thing anymore.
I'm still surprised that my name came up for that, but then it was still a small-sized thing, not a major event, and I had a solid rep with warm-weather storms. No doubt John Foster had thought it would be good training for me, since it involved working with a Warden on the other side of the pond— Tamara Motumbo, from Mauritania. I'd done tandem manipulation before, but in classroom and lab settings, nothing like the kind of power-sink that lurked out in that womb of storms called the Bermuda Triangle.
The National Weather Service has some nice offices in Coral Gables, Florida—rebuilt after being smashed to scrap metal and splinters by Hurricane Andrew. I arrived that morning feeling loose and relaxed and ready for anything; working in Florida had given me a chance to indulge myself in the quest for the perfect tan and the perfect bikini, and I was feeling confident that I'd finally mastered at least one of them. Six square inches of aqua-blue Lycra priced at about fifteen dollars per square inch. It was in a tiny little shopping bag on Delilah's front seat, my personal reward-in-advance for the job I was about to do. The plan was to finish up ridding the world of Tropical Storm Samuel, change into the bikini, and hit the beach for the rest of the day.
There was nothing unusual about visiting the NWS offices. We—meaning the Staff Wardens and Regional Wardens—did it all the time. Our badges said visitor or researcher, but at least half the building suspected we were something more, although nobody said it out loud and nobody asked any questions. Lots of significant looks, though. And people handing you free Cokes.
That morning, I signed in at the reception area, clipped my tag on my loose white shirt—which was subbing for a cover-up later at the beach—and exchanged chitchat with the receptionist, a gorgeous African-American woman named Monet. We exchanged bikini-shopping stories, and as we did, I happened to glance down at the visitor log. My eyes froze on a name.
Robert Biringanine.
"Bad Bob's here?" I asked Monet.
She glanced up at me, looked around, and leaned over closer. "Meeting with somebody," she confirmed. "I didn't ask who."
"Well, I think I'll just sacrifice a small furry animal to whatever god spared me from that."
"Baby, I'd sacrifice more than that just to make sure I got out of the meeting all right." Monet rolled her eyes. "That man eats his own children, I swear."
"He damn sure eats his Staff's children. And his Staff." I checked my watch, which told me I had five minutes to launch. "Better get in there. Later?"
"Later," she confirmed. "Cuban sandwiches for lunch. There's a great place about six blocks down. Be there."
I waved and was buzzed through the door into a high-tech wilderness of cubicles, glass conference rooms, arrays of computers blinking in machine dreams. Two or three of the analysts and meteorologists looked up and watched me pass, but nobody spoke. I knew where I was going, and so did they.
Situation Room B is, technically, a secondary crisis center, but it's rarely in use; the Wardens use it for an informal office most of the time. I'd been in it five or six times already, so I knew what to expect when I opened the door.
Except that there was someone else already there.
Bad Bob Biringanine stared out at the cloudless blue sky, his feet up, drinking a glass of water with bubbles. I hadn't seen him in the flesh since my nearly disastrous intake meeting, and I felt myself turn small and weak at the sight of him. Especially when those laser-sharp blue eyes considered and then dismissed me.
"Baldwin, right?" he asked. He had a light tenor voice, neutral with indifference.
"Yes, sir."
"Just here to observe," he said. Observe. Like that wasn't worse than any trouble I might have been in already. Having Bad Bob staring over your shoulder was bound to make even the best Warden nervous, and I wasn't quite arrogant enough to consider myself the best. Yet.
I sucked it up and sat down to review the file: maps of pressure systems, satellite photos fresh off the printer of the growing circular mass of Tropical Storm Samuel, still lashing empty ocean beyond Bermuda. My opposite number was waiting in a seaport town in Mauritania named Nouakchott; th
e phone was preprogrammed for speed dial to reach her. Voices don't carry so well in Oversight. Landlines are always a plus for long-distance work.
"You getting on with it while I'm still young?" Bad Bob asked. He hadn't moved from his kicked-back spot, was still staring at the view. Funny how I think of it as a view, even though both of us were looking at a clear blue sky, not even any clouds in sight; we were drawn to the boundless and limitless possibilities. When I swallowed, I felt my throat click. There was a carafe of water on the table, sweating diamond drops, but I didn't feel like showing him that my hands were shaking. I wiped palms against blue jeans.
"Sure," I said. "No problem."
I speed-dialed. Tamara Motumbo picked up on the second ring, and we exchanged some nervous pleasantries, through which Bad Bob drummed fingernails against the table. I hurried along to Step One, which was confirmation of the scope of our work. It's always good to go into a powerful situation with a clear expectation of what you're supposed to walk out with.
We decided we wanted to disrupt Samuel enough to make it just another squall; no point in trying to wipe out the storm altogether, since it would only move the energy someplace else that might spawn something just as bad. I made notes as I went, and my writing was shaky. Nothing like knowing every move you make is on the record.
"Ready?" I asked Tamara. She said she was, though I'd lay money that neither of us was really sure.
I sucked in a deep breath, let go, and floated out of my body and into Oversight. The room turned gray and misty, but Bad Bob was like a brilliant neon sign, lit up with so much power, it was hard to look at him directly. Red tinged. I wondered if he was sick, but I wasn't about to ask after his health, not now. I turned away from him, oriented myself with the vast voiding power of the sea, and let the waves of its energy carry me up and out, far up, flying without sound or pressure through the liquid we call air. No clouds in Oversight, either, but there was a low red band of energy over the ocean and a corresponding white one coming down from the mesosphere—clouds later, then, and rain in a day at most. Warming and cooling ocean air is the unimaginably powerful engine that drives the machine of life. Connecting to it like this, right on the coast, was a sensuous, dangerous experience.
I soared. In Oversight, crossing huge distances takes a fraction of real time, but it still felt like a long trip by the time I saw the swirling entity we were calling Samuel. He was a big, growing boy, already well into rebellious adolescence and halfway to becoming a dangerous hooligan. Facing that kind of storm makes you feel small. No, not just small: nonexistent. The forces that formed him and drove him dwarfed anything I could summon out of myself.
I shifted just enough of my consciousness back to my body to ask Tamara on the phone if she had a Djinn.
"Yes," she said. "You don't?"
"Getting mine in about six months."
"So you want me to source."
"Yeah, please."
"No problem."
Technically, I should have been sourcing the power out of a Djinn to do what we were supposed to do…. The Warden nearest the storm usually had the responsibility. Using a Djinn for a source was sort of like having a superconductor in the circuit— it augmented and amplified your power, and assisted in channeling it accurately. The fact that I'd been assigned to this storm without a Djinn to source me was, I realized, not an accident. It was a test.
And Bad Bob was my proctor. Wow. No pressure.
I fought off a cold shiver and got down to business. After about thirty seconds of real time, I saw a shape approaching in Oversight—Tamara. Tall, bright, unusually vivid in her aura colors, with a clear white line of energy linking her back to her home in Mauritania. As I watched, power surged along that link. Her Djinn was delivering the goods.
I reached out to her, and our aetheric bodies touched. Energy jumped the barrier and shot into me, and I had trouble holding on to it; I was not used to Djinn-sourced power at such levels. It felt like being drunk and being dizzy and being in love, and connected to that kind of power I could feel every molecule in the swirling air, every slight variation of temperature between them. It was like…… like playing God.
Somewhere, Bad Bob was watching. That thought shook me out of any sense of divinity and got me to work. There was, predictably, a ridge of high pressure riding in front of Samuel. Seen from Oversight, the whole thing looked remarkably like a freeze-framed explosion, with a pressure null in the center and force traveling out in all directions. You don't stop a thing like that.
You just weaken the forces that drive it your direction.
Tamara and I worked quickly and—if I may say so—efficiently to smooth out the temperature variations at surface level to cut off the flow of energy up into the monster, and raise the temperature at the top end to create a shorter pressure wave. Small changes, followed by detailed analysis of the effects. One step at a time, always going back to the source… the ocean… for the next tiny change.
The weatherworking took no more than thirty minutes, real time, and Tropical Storm Samuel was reduced to nothing more than a stern southeast wind with some fluffy, rain-heavy clouds. I let go of Tamara— reluctantly—and felt all that power drain away.
I fell back into my body with a rushing suddenness that scared me and told me just how tired I really was. Normally I have more control than that. I'd had no idea how addictive that kind of power could feel, and how ridiculously pathetic I'd feel once it was gone.
Tamara was saying nice things about working with me, in the real world, on the real phone. I remembered how to move my lips and thanked her.
Bad Bob reached across to punch the button to hang up the line.
"Joanne Baldwin," he said. "Funny. I voted against you that day, you know. At your intake session."
Like I'd ever forget.
I was too tired to be scared of what he was about to say. I'd just have to eat whatever crap he dished out and try not to yearn for that feeling of being God, because it would be so nice to smack a nice lightning bolt down on his ass. To feel powerful, just once, in his presence.
He put a heavy hand on my shoulder, squeezed, and then patted twice.
"Well, maybe I was wrong," he said. "You're not half bad, Baldwin. Got a lot of raw power, that's for damn sure. More than I've ever seen, to be absolutely truthful. I figure with power like that, you might be able to do a lot of damage."
I wasn't entirely sure I'd heard that right. I blinked and tried to get my tired brain to follow what he was saying. "Damage? I didn't…?"
"Oh, no, just the opposite. You really brought home the bacon today." Now he had both hands on my shoulders. I wondered, for a creeped-out, crazed moment, if he was trying to cop a quick feel. Sexual harassment wasn't limited to just the normal outside world, after all. If anything, men who held the power to destroy whole countries might have a greater tendency to it. I wondered exactly what to say to get myself out of it.
And then I realized he wasn't rubbing my shoulders in any suggestive kind of way. It was more like he was holding me down in the chair.
"Okay," I said slowly. "Well, I really ought to get—"
"Damage is what you'll do when you go out of control, Baldwin," he interrupted. "I've seen hundreds of kids like you. Jumped up, arrogant little boys and girls who have no idea what the real price of power is. And no respect for it, either."
"Sir, I'm all about the respect. Promise."
"No, you're not," he said. "Not yet. But you will be." He didn't let me go. "You've got no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
I didn't want to admit it. He didn't care, anyway.
"God, the strength in you," he said, staring down at me with those merciless eyes. "All that strength, going to waste. You don't need a Djinn. You don't need a damn thing. I remember what it was like, being young and stupid. You know what happens, little girl? It goes away. Sooner or later, you get old, you get slow, you lose the edge. And when that happens, people screw you."
I was too scared to s
ay anything. He wasn't talking to me, not really; there was something bad going on here, something underneath. His fingers dug into my shoulders like iron spikes.
"You going to screw me, little girl?" He showed his teeth. "I mean in the figurative sense."
"No, sir," I whispered. "I wouldn't."
"Damn right you wouldn't."
I could almost feel something in the room with us, something huge and dark and malevolent. Something violent.
It wants something. Something I have.
Bad Bob seemed to realize it, too. He blinked, shook himself, and took his hands away from my shoulders. I felt the sting of blood rushing back and knew I'd have bruises there later.
"Go on," he said. "Get out of my sight."
I suppose I must have walked out, past the meteorologists, through the security door, signed out, handed Monet my badge, probably even said something. But I don't remember a thing from the getting up part to the part where I was sitting inside my car, gasping for breath and on the verge of tears.
I couldn't possibly have known how close I came that day to dying, but I sensed it. On some level, I knew.
I headed for the comfort of a beachside bar. On reflection, not the best answer to coping with crisis, but you go with your instincts.
Mine were just… bad.
TWO
Scattered thunderstorms, possibly heavy and severe, in the afternoon hours. A Weather Advisory is in effect for the area beginning at 11 a.m. EASTERN TIME.
Paul had given me five hours to make it out of his Sector; it wasn't a generous head start, but he knew the Mustang could make it. I had to slow down around Philadelphia, wary of speed traps, but I was still making pretty good time. By my calculations, I'd be out of his territory with about a half hour to spare. I knew he'd set his Djinn to monitor me, so it was no surprise when one appeared— poof—in my passenger seat.