Sasha turned to look at her. “Zhanna.” She said unemotionally. They had never really gotten along, even before the woman ruined her parents’ marriage forever.
Zhanna stared right through her, not even deeming her worthy of a reply.
Which was pretty much par for the course in their relationship.
The woman craned her neck, obviously looking for something in the lobby behind Sasha.
“Thraex is out.” Sasha reminded her, answering her unspoken question. “My brother and I were supposed to meet him an hour ago, but I got hung-up.”
She’d spent the morning going over more reports about the explosion at the warehouse and then the car bomb which had killed Beaumont Doucet. She wasn’t sure if the two incidents were related, but it was pretty hard to come up with another explanation. Unfortunately, the two men seemed to have no connection, aside from both residing in Reichelt Park.
Whatever the reason was why someone would want them dead, Sasha had yet to discover.
Zhanna’s face darkened, either because her beloved son was somewhere alone or because he’d left her alone with the Westgates. Probably both.
She was a beautiful woman though, Sasha had to give her that. She understood what Richard Westgate had seen in her. She had Thraex’s exotic features and coloring, and she always held herself with a great degree of pride.
Not that Sasha was willing to forgive either of them for the affair merely because Zhanna was pretty, just that she understood the idea of a forbidden attraction you couldn’t escape.
Zhanna arched an eyebrow and started to majestically stalk back up the stairs towards her room. “Seduce any minors today?” She spat out in a cutting way.
“Not yet.” Sasha shot back, in no mood to put up with lessons on morality from her father’s mistress. “You seduce any married men away from their wives and family today?”
Zhanna spun around to glare at her, eyes darkening with the reddish hue of rage that she recognized from Thraex’s occasional angry moments.
Sasha shrugged, unimpressed by her fury. “Well, the day is young, so we both still have plenty of time, right?” Then she started towards the front door. “Keep me updated.”
Zhanna started muttering the oaths and curses of her people, while Sasha continued to track down the missing Westgates so they could go find Thraex and get to work. As it was, he was already going to be furious with them for being late.
In her opinion though, solving two murders was more important than doing menial science jobs around town for supervillains.
Before she managed to locate her missing family, someone rang the front bell. Sasha jumped in surprise, not used to the sound. Her family had always kept the revolving doors unlocked, so that the city recognized that the Westgates were available anytime help was needed.
“The doors of knowledge are closed to no one,” her father had always said.
Thraex had installed locks on the doors though. Big ones. Because that was the kind of man he was. He liked to hide the world from the Westgates, so that they knew they were being imprisoned. And why.
She made her way towards the door, past the small reception desk in the lobby. It had once been staffed by one of Kurtz’s robots, but as a Halloween prank when he was 16, he had programmed it to believe that it was a vampire and it had tried to suck the blood of some visitors to the building.
Since then the desk sat empty.
It took a moment of fumbling with the serious-looking deadbolts to get them unlocked, but then the old door revolved with a creak, and Jaxx Brixton appeared.
She blinked at him in shock for a moment, not expecting to see him here. Since the incident at the Horizons Academy, he’d avoided the building.
She’d seen him on the news over the years though, and he’d changed up his look and attitude. He’d stopped bragging to school children about his sexual conquests, and was now one of those people… Well…
All of his pics on social media were selfies.
He seemed to treat all of his posts and interviews as merely an opportunity for him to showcase how concerned he was about that month’s trending issues, about which he tweeted 40 times a day but did absolutely nothing beyond that to help solve.
All of the memes he posted were inspirational quotes about the importance of taking care of yourself and being more independent. …But there was literally no possible way he could ever think about himself more. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day.
In short, he’d gone from being an asshole to being a vapid asshole.
And he still made her feel vaguely uncomfortable, no matter how socially aware he acted now. She got the sense he was still the same man, below the surface, he’d just learned to hide it better.
“It’s just me, your boy Jaxx.” The man told her, smiling like he thought he would be welcomed anywhere.
“If my son is out, we should not have callers!” Zhanna shouted from the second floor landing. “Send that man away at once.”
Sasha ignored her. “Oh… hello, Mr. Brixton.” She stammered, still shocked to see him. They’d never been close, especially after Thraex had almost killed him. He’d broken Jaxx’s shoulder to such an extent that he’d been forced to retire from active Caping and focus more on his science career. Honestly, it wasn’t a big loss for the city. Just for the other scientists who now had to work with Jaxx every day. “How can I help you?”
The man shouldered his way past her into the lobby without being invited, then paused to look around. “From the looks of it, it’s I who can help you.” He let out a long whistle as he surveyed their lobby. “Jesus, your family always did have a terminal addiction to kitsch, didn’t it. This place is positively gloomy. Haven’t you folks ever thought about redecorating?”
“It’s on our list.” Sasha deadpanned.
Jaxx made a face as he looked over the lobby’s little gift shop area, picking up one of the remaining Westgate Foundation mugs and squinting at it like it was some bizarre relic of a lost civilization. He started carrying it with him as he strolled through their lobby, gaping at everything. “It’s like your whole building has been trapped in amber or something…” He mumbled to himself, sounding amazed and horrified.
Sasha cleared her throat, feeling oddly offended by his critique of the building, even if it was something she herself had thought. Innumerable times.
In a way, this building was a part of her family. As much as her brothers, Colby, Nash, and…
So she didn’t like hearing him insult it. She was allowed to insult it, but Jaxx Brixton hadn’t earned that right.
“And how is it that you can help us?” She pressed, feeling oddly nervous about the fact that he was holding the mug.
He ignored her, reaching out his hand towards the “Doomsday Button” that the city had entrusted to her grandfather, which was covered by a protective glass case on the wall like a fire alarm. In case of world-ending science emergency, you hit that and it put the Westgates in complete control of the city.
“Please don’t touch that.” She snapped, sounding more annoyed with him than she’d intended.
He roughly set the mug down onto the head of one of the giant robots which controlled the dystopian future, and Sasha winced, strangely hoping he hadn’t cracked it. She didn’t know why she even cared about some stupid mug, it wasn’t like they’d ever be selling those tacky things again, but all the same, she didn’t like the idea of some vague acquaintance shattering it.
They didn’t have many left. At one point, an entire shelf of the shop had been filled with them, but now there were less than half a dozen of them remaining.
They were ugly and you couldn’t use them in the microwave… but they belonged to the Westgates.
“Do you have somewhere we can talk, Sasha?” He smiled at her, flashing his perfect teeth in a charming way which must have made countless women swoon over the years.
He was a handsome man, she had to give him that. Muscular but still slim, he always seemed open and
friendly. The perfect blend of obvious strength and promised intelligence. Well… until you actually talked to him, anyway.
In the years since his injury, he’d redesigned his look and attitude, now dressing… well… she would describe it as “hipster lumberjack,” complete with a very expensive looking flannel shirt, hiking boots which would never see so much as a mud puddle, skinny jeans tight enough to look painted on, and a man bun on top of his head.
Sasha had never really liked him though.
Honestly, she’d never really gotten along with the Cape set in the city. She’d always preferred to stay in Reichelt Park, and let the superheroes deal with their own drama in other areas of town.
Generally speaking, Capes were all trouble.
She gestured over her shoulder. “Sure, we can speak in the family room, if you’d like.”
She led him up the stairs, but the route took them past Zhanna, who glared at them both like she was casting some kind of dark curse. “There should be no gentlemen in this house while my son is absent.” She growled, obviously anticipating Sasha having some kind of orgy in the family room. “He will hear of this.” She vowed.
“I think it’ll be fine.” Sasha made a shooing motion with her hand. “There are still some married men in New York, why don’t you go talk to them, and leave me alone.”
Zhanna spat out more obscenities in Cajun and her own tongue, then stormed from the room.
Sasha ignored the woman’s theatrics, and continued on towards the family room. She’d tried being nice to the woman, but it had done no good. This way was easier anyway.
“How have you been, Mr. Brixton?” She asked conversationally, not really caring but taught to be polite to guests. “We haven’t spoken since your injury.”
“Well, your boy Jaxx has taken some time off from Caping to really focus on my brand.” He explained, rubbing his chin, which was covered in a carefully manicured hipster beard. “I need to be true to me right now, and follow where my muse leads me.” He nodded in satisfaction, obviously happy to be discussing himself. “I tried my hand at acting, of course. You might have seen me in ‘When Knights Were Bold!’ at the Bijou Theater.” He paused, obviously waiting for her fawning praise.
“I did not, no.” She admitted.
His smile faded, and she could tell that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“…But I’ve been away for a while.” She quickly added, trying to sooth potentially hurt feelings.
“Well, it was very well received.” He assured her
“I’m sure it was.”
“The reviewer said that my performance made her appreciate the rest of the cast so much more.”
“That’s… nice.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“But that’s just part of my brand. I’m looking to expand into other media now, obviously. My cosmetics palette is dropping this spring, and the first exhibit of my stunning outdoor art photography is opening at…” Jaxx stopped dead in his tracks, frowning towards the ceiling. “What’s… what’s that sound?”
Sasha paused for a moment to listen to the faint “meow”-ing sound which could be heard over the jazz music, then continued on her way. “My great-uncle André was testing out his transporter in 1958 and there was an accident involving his cat.” She gestured around with her hand, indicating the floor. “Now it’s trapped in an ethereal realm between dimensions, haunting this floor like a ghost of his failure.”
Jaxx looked both uncomfortable and astonished by that, continuing to stand frozen in place, eyes wide.
“You get used to it.” She assured him nonchalantly, raising her voice to be heard over the ghostly feline sounds. “The family room is right this way.”
She all but shoved him into the room, which served as a semi-private meeting area for the family.
The space had originally been designed by her grandparents in 1957 as their prediction of what the “typical American household” would be in the then far-off year of 1986. They had spared no expense on the project.
A huge area of this floor of the Westgate Foundation building was renovated to resemble an outdoor space, with fake plants and a rear illuminated plastic sky overhead. A model home was built on a “lot” in the middle of that space, consisting of four raised plastic “pods,” cantilevered off a central hub which was accessed by a staircase, so the house appeared to be suspended in air. The entire thing had been decorated in furnishings and designs inspired by Charles and Ray Eames, so it now had an overly Retro-Modern look, which hadn’t changed in the years since its construction.
Inside the mock-up house, millions of visitors had had their introduction to wondrous things like microwaves, dishwashers, “phono-vision” videoconferencing, and big screen color TVs.
It had been created to show people how fantastic the future would be, and how easy their lives would become. It was optimistic and joyful and everything from the flooring to the furniture was made of plastics and synthetic materials.
It had cost the Westgates so much to construct in ’57 that it had almost bankrupted them. They’d done a good job with it though, and the plastic walls were so effective and durable that they’d been impossible to remove after the exhibition was over. Workmen found that their sledgehammers, hacksaws, and torches just bounced off. Aside from dynamite, there seemed to be nothing which would make a dent in it. So… the little home of tomorrow remained.
A relic of a future that never was.
The Westgate children had used it as a playhouse growing up, and now they found it so comfortable that it served as their common room. Since their labs and living quarters were so spread out in the building, the little fake house had become their sort of “home.”
Sasha walked across the wide Astroturf “lawn,” and climbed the exterior aluminum stairs of the model house, entering one of the four equal wings of the space. To her surprise though, she found Colby already inside, seated in the living room area. The artificial light filtered in through the “thermo-pane” windows, showcasing what the family’s pamphlets had called the “golden glow” of the house’s white plastic walled interior.
The girl was in front of the large 1960s flatscreen TV, which even after spending several hundred thousand dollars on the project in 1957 money, was still slightly domed. Any TV at Mega-Mart today would be flatter, have much better resolution, and would undoubtedly be larger than the Westgate’s “futuristic” TV, but they’d never replaced it.
It wasn’t due to nostalgia or posterity, it was just that none of them had ever gotten around to it. They were always too busy, and then there didn’t seem to be much point. As the years went on, they stopped even noticing that there was a problem or that they needed to change.
Now? Sasha liked the TV. It had genuine character and she wouldn’t get rid of it for anything.
None of the Westgates were overly concerned with their physical environment or with interior design, so once something was done to the building, it tended to stay that way forever. If someone needed to put something somewhere, they simply chose another room which wasn’t already filled.
“Colby, dear, would you like me to turn that on for you?” Sasha asked, making her way through the room. The TV didn’t have a remote—the 1957 Westgate’s forward-thinking vision of the future went only so far and the idea of the remote control was beyond even them—so she was assuming that Colby was just too tired to turn the old TV on.
“No thank you, Aunt Sasha.” The young woman shook her head, sounding distracted. “If I turned it on, I’d have to watch what the TV stations wanted.” She gestured at the blank screen. “This way, Zoe and I can watch whatever we want.”
Zoe the giraffe appeared to want to watch a seemingly random point on the wall, which she observed in her typical confused apprehension.
Jaxx stared at the TV, as if trying to find a picture in the blank screen. “What are you watching now?” He asked, puzzled.
“Rerun.” Colby made a face.
Jaxx let out a long brea
th which seemed to adequately communicate the “Whelp… Colby’s crazy” realization that most people seemed to have once they’d spent a few moments with the girl and her giraffe. Then he cleared his throat and refocused on Sasha. “First off, I need to apologize for my behavior the last time we saw each other.”
She shifted on her feet. “It was…”
“I think about it now, and I cry.” He interrupted. “I was crying about it last night, in fact. And then again this morning in my Jacuzzi, which really confused the poor women I was with.” He held up his phone which showcased a photo of him in the spa with four bikini-clad models.
He was indeed looking sad, almost comically so, but the sincerity of that was undercut by the fact he was also the one taking the shot using a selfie stick.
“It’s gotten over 4,000 ‘likes’ already and 184 retweets.” He nodded, obviously impressed with his own online presence. “In any case, I’ve had to do a lot of soul-searching and speaking with other social media influencers, and I’m now confronting the darkness at the heart of my own inherent overwhelming masculinity.” He shook his head and let out a low, sad whistle. “And your boy Jaxx has got a lot of masculinity, obviously, am I right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “So I decided that I needed to let the city take care of itself for a while and really focus on my brand.”
“Uh-huh.” The fact that he would consider the safety of others as being less important than “his brand,” severely weakened his claims of having become a caring individual. “So you’ve said. Repeatedly.”
“I needed to be part of the solution,” he continued, “not the problematic toxicity that I used to embrace because I didn’t know any better and was raised in a system which encouraged that kind of thing.”
She wasn’t sure what to even say to that. “Uh-huh.”
“Which brings me to the matter at hand…” Jaxx sat down in the bright orange plastic chair across from Sasha, making a face because he wasn’t used to its uncomfortable contours. “I feel like I can talk to you because you’re such a fierce, unapologetic woman...”
She frowned at him in confusion. “I’m sorry?” She’d lost the conversation in meaningless buzzwords.
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