Super: Origins

by Palladian

  “So, at what ages were you awarded your belts?” Joan asked.

  “I got my hapkido black belt at eight, my judo brown belt at twelve, and my tae kwon do black belt at sixteen. So, I tested just once for my tae kwon do belt, the hapkido belt nine times, including the initial test, and judo five times,” Lex replied, mentally adding up the years.

  Joan nodded; that seemed to satisfy her. “How good are you about practicing these days?”

  “I usually spend several hours a week practicing my forms and several hours lifting weights or running.”

  Frowning, Joan commented, “That doesn’t sound equivalent to the amount of work you used to do as a kid.”

  Lex shook her head and shrugged. “I didn’t have to make a living as a child.”

  Joan sighed and gave Lex a hard look. “Well, let’s go through some situational questions. What would you do if you were being attacked by an opponent you knew was bigger and stronger than you and probably had more fighting skills?”

  Lex paused as her brain quickly went through countless possible scenarios. “That’s sort of a broad question,” she eventually responded. “It would depend a lot on the situation: indoors or outdoors, if I had anything useful at hand, that sort of thing. Can you narrow it down a bit?”

  Joan looked at her for a moment with an unreadable facial expression. “What would your general strategy be upon facing such an opponent?”

  “So this is someone I’m certain is going to attack me?” Lex asked, to which Joan nodded. “Well,” Lex continued, “I’d do everything I could to try to get the upper hand. If I could find a heavy object to hit them across the head with and knock them out, I would do that first. If that didn’t work—”

  “Wait a minute,” Joan roared, “your first strategy would be to sneak up behind them and hit them on the head? It doesn’t sound like you’re very confident in your skills, to me. What kind of martial artist are you?”

  Lex laughed without mirth. “A living one. The first thing my father taught me about fighting, even before the martial arts training, was that in a real fight, there are no rules. You’ve already told me that the person I’m up against has me in height, weight, and maybe skill, so I’m probably starting at a disadvantage. That being the case, I’d do everything I could to even up the odds and end the fight quickly. I would use my martial arts training if I could get a benefit in using it, but my first choice would be to end the fight as quickly as I could, by whatever means necessary.”

  Joan’s mouth opened and then closed again. Lex could see several emotions warring on her face—outrage, anger, contempt, and humor. She seemed on the verge of saying more, probably angrily, but cleared her expression and said, “No further questions from me, Clara. I’ve made up my mind.”

  Serena then turned to Lex and smiled that toothy smile again. “I guess it’s my turn. Gay, bi, or straight?”

  Lex blinked. “Excuse me?”

  Serena tilted her chin down to give Lex a withering look and spoke more slowly. “Are you gay, bi, or straight?”

  Lex shot a glance at Clara, who suddenly seemed busy typing and staring straight at her laptop, obviously trying hard not to look at Lex. Realizing there would be no help from that direction, she looked at her hands and thought for a quick moment. Do I really want this job enough to answer questions like this from a total stranger? Then, Lex considered her bills, the lack of offers, and the temp work that she hadn’t been able to get much of recently and sighed as she turned back to Serena’s heavy gaze, thinking that she might not ever see these people again after today and would feel stupid losing out on a job at this point just because she didn’t want to answer questions as silly as this. “Straight, mostly,” Lex answered, meeting Serena's eyes with what she hoped was a calm expression.

  Serena’s eyebrow quirked and she smiled a little more deeply. Lex kept her expression neutral, but the gears turning in her head told her that at least some people had refused to answer Serena’s questions entirely. Lex smiled cautiously in return.

  “Single, spoken for, married?” Serena continued.

  “Ah, well, I’m actually engaged to be married,” Lex answered, suddenly feeling the weight of the ring on her left hand.

  “Oh,” Serena said, quickly grabbing Lex’s hand to examine the ring. “The stone is huge. Your boyfriend must be loaded.”

  She shrugged. “Well, uh, his family is pretty wealthy.”

  “Oh, one of those,” Serena said, putting Lex’s hand back into her lap. “There are a lot of trust fund babies in this area.”

  Lex wriggled uncomfortably in her seat. The topic of Kurt’s money always made her nervous. She couldn’t quite figure out how the flow of money between him and his family worked, but her skin crawled at the idea of being dependent on parents for support. Lex had worked very hard to take care of herself ever since fleeing her family’s house, so she didn’t like to think too much about how Kurt was able to afford his expensive condo and car with the tiny salary of a senator’s aide. When she’d tried to broach the topic, he’d just laughed it off as being unimportant, so she hadn’t tried to bring it up again.

  “So,” Serena continued, “when are you two getting married?”

  “We haven’t really set a date yet, since we just decided the whole thing recently,” Lex replied. Since asking her to get married a few weeks ago, Kurt had said he wanted to talk it over with his parents before deciding on a date or determining where they would get married. The whole thing made Lex want to throw up through sheer nerves. His parents were always outwardly nice but somehow ended up making Lex feel like they thought they were talking to the trash they’d rather take out, so having to consult with them on wedding details set her teeth on edge. And then, the questions would almost certainly come about her own parents…

  “Hmm,” said Serena, cutting into Lex’s thoughts and sounding bored of the topic, “so how many men have you slept with? Including this guy?”

  Lex gulped while taking in a breath and then gave Serena a hard look. Serena looked back at her, smirking. Lex shook her head as if to clear it, glanced beseechingly at Clara (who was still avoiding her gaze), and finally answered in a small, strangled voice, “Five.”

  Serena’s eyes widened. “Only five?” she said, much louder than Lex had. “You’re just about as pure as any girl I’ve met. Have you slept with any women?”

  Lex shook her head. “No.”

  “Too bad. So what’s your favorite sexual position?”

  Lex looked over at Clara again and noted that the other woman still had her eyes firmly fixed on her laptop. “Clara,” Lex began, unable to hold her tongue any longer, even if it meant jeopardizing her shot at the job, “I don’t meant to complain, but is this line of questioning really necessary?”

  Clara still gazed at her laptop but cleared her throat and responded. “Serena does have the right to ask any questions she wants, but the number of questions is limited if they aren’t directly related to what you’ll be doing. So, Serena, can we agree that this is your last question?”

  Serena pouted for a few seconds. “Yes,” she agreed reluctantly, “unless there’s something I need to ask to clarify Lex’s answer to this one. OK?”

  Clara finally looked at Lex. “That’s fine by me. Lex?”

  Lex nodded.

  “OK, so what is it?” Serena prompted, grinning.

  After thinking for a little while, Lex answered, “Well, I don’t think I’ve tried them all, but I can’t say I have a favorite. I like pretty much all the ones I’ve tried for different reasons.”

  Serena’s eyebrows nearly shot through the roof. “Really? What reasons?”

  Lex sighed again, her eyes turned to the floor. She could feel the heat of a blush on her cheeks, but resolved to answer the question anyway since it should be the last one.

  “Well, ah, each one I’ve tried is…stimulating in different ways…” she said in a slightly strangled voice, trailing off at the end, still staring at the floor.


  Clara’s voice cut in at this point. “All right, Serena, I think Lex has been a good sport in answering your questions. Do you agree?”

  Lex somehow managed to look at Serena as she spoke again. “Yes, she has,” Serena said with a laugh. “All right, I’m finished.”

  Lex took in a couple of good breaths, not sure whether she was trying not to laugh or blush. She saw Serena gazing at her with that predatory look again, but she couldn’t tell if their exchange had made it lessen or grow. Lex struggled for a pleasant, neutral expression and waited for the next onslaught.

  “Riss, did you have any questions for Lex?” Clara asked, turning her attention to the speakers overhead.

  “Yes,” the electronic voice responded. Computer keys could be heard tapping in the background. “What sort of work did you do as a contractor?”

  “Creating, deploying, and maintaining computer systems,” Lex replied. “More on the business side, though, usually doing initial analysis, requirements, customer interfacing tasks, that sort of thing.”

  Lex heard an indeterminate sound over the speakers then, as if Riss was considering something. “Did you ever do any work like setting up computer security?”

  Lex thought for a moment and then answered, “No, not much. That wasn’t really the main business of the company I worked for. The most I ever did along those lines was to identify security standards our system would be required to interface with or meet.”

  Another sound issued from the speakers, sort of non-committal this time, before Riss continued. “Lex, if you were convicted of a crime and you either didn’t do it or didn’t think it should be a crime, what would you do? Would you serve your time or would you run?”

  Lex paused before she answered. Sometime during Serena’s questioning, Lex had decided to just go with the truth. Since she’d signed a non-disclosure agreement, she couldn’t really talk about the interview anyway. She also figured everyone present had signed something like that as well, so they couldn’t spread her answers around the world. Not that anyone would probably really care, but having some kind of protection from the revelation of her responses felt freeing. So, after considering her answer for a little while, Lex replied, “Well, I guess it depends. If they wanted to jail me for a few weeks, or maybe even a couple of months, I would probably go through with it.”

  Riss responded, “Let’s say it would be for a number of years. Maybe decades.”

  Lex snorted. “I’d do everything in my power to remain free to live my life.” Her eyes widened as she finished speaking because the response had come out automatically; she hadn’t intended to be quite that honest.

  Clara stared at her for a moment, Joan frowned, Serena smiled and glanced at Joan, and Casey just had the ghost of a smile on her face, still leaning back on the couch.

  Lex shrugged. “Let me explain. I understand how our justice system works, innocent before proven guilty and that we try to establish guilt with trials. It’s a fine idea, but I also understand that it doesn’t always work, and that you end up with individuals going to jail for crimes they didn’t commit. Now, our justice system is forced to take the stand that, well, we’re not perfect, but things work most of the time, so if you’re convicted, you’re a criminal. To add icing to the top of that cake, it seems justice in this country has become almost completely weighted in favor of people with money; if you can hire the cleverest (and usually most expensive) lawyer, you’ll probably win regardless of whether you’re guilty or innocent.

  “I can’t fault the wealthy for buying the best defense they can, but that leaves us with a justice system in which, if you’re poor, you’re likely to lose your case. I’ve been poor in my life, and I remember being quite aware at the time that if someone just decided they didn’t like me and somehow set me up and said I committed a crime, there would be very little I could do to defend myself. With all of that in mind, I certainly couldn’t fault anyone who decided to do what they could to escape and live their life if they had been falsely accused of a crime, including me.”

  After concluding, Lex looked around at the audience that she could see. Clara had gone back to typing on her laptop and Serena smiled more broadly now, still looking at Joan. Joan didn’t notice, a considering look on her face, and Casey was chuckling to herself.

  Clara spoke up at this point, since everyone had been silent for a while. “Riss, did you have anything else for Lex?”

  “No, I’ve made up my mind,” Riss replied.

  “All right, ladies,” Clara said, looking at each of them in turn and sort of automatically at the speaker in the ceiling, “in the interest of fairness, so that our candidate can know what you’re thinking about her, are you ready for a vote?”

  “Yes,” all of them responded, more or less in unison.

  Clara looked down at the laptop again, tapping on the keys. “OK. Joan?”

  “I vote to accept Lex,” Joan said.

  Serena lifted a shapely eyebrow, and Casey chuckled to herself again.

  “Casey?” Clara asked.

  “I vote to accept, as well.”

  “Riss?”

  “I vote to accept her,” the electronic voice from the speakers crisply rang out.

  “Serena?”

  “Who could spoil a party like this? My vote’s the same, though; I want to accept Lex, too,” Serena said, with another smirk in Lex’s direction.

  Lex looked around a little suspiciously at the women she could see. The only thing she had ever been voted for in her life was “Most Unusual” in her high school graduating class. Lex suspected that had been due to the fact that after she’d left her parents’ house she could dress how she wanted and had ended up looking pretty freaky, since her only real way to change her wardrobe was working with her friends to decorate the clothing she had with magic markers or paint them with bleach, then later repair them with duct tape and safety pins. Pushing back that memory, Lex waited to see what would happen next.

  Clara finished typing and looked up. “All right, Lex. Since a majority of the team voted to accept you, you’ve passed that hurdle. I’ll still need to meet with Mr. Sauer to bring all of your information together in order to get a final answer as to whether or not you'll be offered the spot.”

  Casey groaned at this point and sat up, looking annoyed. Serena looked at Clara in a peeved manner as well, and Joan shook her head.

  “You didn’t even know yet?” Joan asked Clara, sounding put out.

  Clara sighed and turned to Lex. “Usually, when we have candidates interview with the team, they’ve already passed all of the previous interviewing, but since we had you over here today, Mr. Sauer thought it would be best if we could cover all the bases at once. Especially since you already had your trial—impromptu as it turned out to be,” she finished, glancing at Casey.

  Lex just nodded, figuring she probably wouldn’t get this job, either. Oh, well, she thought, at least I had an interesting afternoon, if a bit like a jarring roller coaster ride. Tomorrow, it would probably amount to just another rejection notice in her e-mail inbox.

  Clara continued, “We’ll either call or send our courier over tomorrow morning around ten to deliver our answer. If we decide to offer you the position, you have until 5PM tomorrow to give us your decision; just follow the instructions on the paperwork the courier brings. I take it the address on your résumé is current?”

  “Yes, that’s where you can find me,” Lex replied, thinking about the likely 'thanks but no thanks' call she'd receive the following day.

  “OK, everyone,” said Clara, “thanks for agreeing to meet at such short notice. I’ll let you know what the outcome of this is.”

  “Nice to meet you all,” said Lex, as the others began filing out of the room, then quickly added, “and, uh, thanks.”

  Serena turned to flash a smile full of sharp white teeth at Lex before swaggering out of the room. Casey had stayed, however, and as Clara looked up at her asked, “Is Lex all set to go?”

  Clara though
t a moment. “Yes, I don’t think there’s anything else we need to cover.”

  “Then I’m going to walk her to the metro stop,” Casey replied, then turned to address Lex. “I’m assuming that’s how you got here?”

  Lex nodded, suddenly reminded of the not-so-nice neighborhood she had come through to arrive there.

  Clara shrugged. “All right. Don’t be long, though.”

  Lex and Casey fell into step as they passed out of the large room. Casey turned left to go up the set of stairs and said, “I’m going to get my bag. Could you wait for me in the kitchen?”

  “Sure,” Lex replied, heading in that direction.

  “If you want something, you can take whatever’s in the fridge,” Lex heard Casey’s voice, floating down the stairway.

  Lex opened the refrigerator and lost herself for a while, getting dazed at the size of the unit and the extent of its contents. The amount of food in it could probably feed several large families at once, she thought.

  “Are you ready to go?” Lex craned her head around the refrigerator door to see the person calling her. Casey had reappeared wearing a long-sleeved button-down shirt over a t-shirt along with jeans and boots. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the time to change.”

  “No problem,” Lex replied, grabbing a bottle of water. “Let’s go.”

  When they got outside, Lex wrinkled her nose at the smell she guessed was coming off the water behind the building and noted that the light was starting to fade a bit as the sun passed behind some of the taller buildings in the distance. She frowned and looked at her watch, which read almost seven. How could it have possibly gotten so late, Lex wondered, frowning slightly. She mentally shrugged it off, though, thinking she would have something to eat and then hit the gym after Kurt headed to bed, since he was an early sleeper.

  As they started the walk to the metro, Lex noted as she stepped over the paint that it seemed mostly dry. That made her wonder what had started the incident in the first place. “So, what were you two arguing about up on the roof?” she asked Casey.