Super: Origins

by Palladian

  Lex returned it a little wearily and breathed in the bracing scent of morning coffee as she poured herself a cup of tea. While she had breakfast, she looked across the table at her fiancé. “Do you think I made the right choice?”

  “Of course,” he replied with another smile. “It sounds like it’ll be a great job for you.”

  “You’re not upset about me having to be away?”

  “Well I’d prefer it if you could be here, but I know you’ve been looking for a job for a while, and this seems like a really good one.”

  “Thanks for supporting me in this,” Lex said, smiling in earnest now, mostly because she thought Kurt sounded like someone trying to talk up a job to her in an interview. She shook her head at the strange idea that Kurt would try to sell the idea of employment to her as she finished savoring her bagel, happy that there’d been some blueberry ones left.

  When she and Kurt walked to the metro together a while later, Lex kept trying to think of a way to talk to him about something real, something that would sustain her for the next two weeks, but she found she didn’t know what to say. Instead, she smiled as he talked about work and tried to keep the sadness out of her face. As they got just past the turnstile, Kurt handed Lex her travel bag so they could go to opposite sides of the station. Kurt’s way led downtown and Lex was headed into the worse neighborhoods in the opposite direction. She kissed his cheek, her voice now stuck in her throat, and watched his backwards wave as he went down the escalator.

  As she made her way to her own platform, Lex heard the distinctive braking noise that meant Kurt’s train had arrived. She watched as he hurried down the escalator until the train blocked her view of him. Once she stood on her own platform, Lex looked over to see Kurt’s train pull out. The station seemed suddenly empty, despite the commuter crowd all around. Lex sighed and opened her backpack, pulling out a favorite detective novel that she’d read many times. She buried herself in it again, feeling her shoulders relax a little as the familiar passages and words appeared in front of her eyes. Lex barely noticed the train ride to the M Agency stop, and felt a little sorry that she had to stop reading when they arrived.

  When she arrived at “headquarters” (as Lex reminded herself with a mental smile), she noticed that the huge puddle of paint on the sidewalk had dried completely, probably due to the heat. She pressed the front door buzzer a bit nervously as she glanced briefly upwards in memory of when she'd been there before, but she only spotted a fairly cloudless blue sky that already looked a bit faded, seeming to foreshadow the heat of the day to come.

  The door slid open more quickly this time and Casey stood there smiling, dressed simply in blue bike shorts and a yellow t-shirt, her gold hair pulled into a ponytail. “Welcome back, Lex. I told you I knew you’d get the offer.”

  For some reason, Lex felt a little lump in her throat at what Casey had said. She smiled a little sheepishly in return. “I know, I just didn’t believe you. Thanks for being here to let me in.”

  “No problem. When anyone first gets here, they’re paired up with a buddy. So I volunteered to be yours,” the blonde added.

  Lex smiled, feeling truly happy as she walked inside. “Thanks, I’m glad to hear it.”

  The other woman just grinned in return as she slid the door shut.

  “Where should I put my stuff?” Lex asked, gesturing with her travel bag.

  “That’s probably where we should start,” Casey replied. “There are a couple of empty rooms you could pick from. I asked about them, and found you can take any one you like. Let’s go upstairs and I’ll show you what’s available.”

  They took the set of stairs to the right. Once up to the second level, Casey gestured down the hall to the left. “Most of the rooms are full back there; you saw the conference room, and there’s a situation room right next to it. Riss lives across the hall from that, next to the computer room, and past that are Lily’s and Joan’s rooms. Straight ahead here is my room, and there are empty ones to the right and left of it. There’s also a room available on the other side of the hall, but I can’t say I’d recommend it.”

  Lex glanced up at her with a look of puzzlement. “Is there something wrong with it?”

  Casey sighed. “I don’t think so, but the placement probably isn’t good. You’d be right next to Serena.” She paused and scratched the back of her head, looking embarrassed. “She can be…loud sometimes at night.”

  Lex made a thoughtful noise, trying not to crack a grin and thinking that she’d take Casey's word for it. “Could I look at the open rooms?”

  “Sure, they’re not locked.”

  Lex went into the one to the left of Casey’s room. It was clean but had a slight stale smell as if it had been closed up too long. The room currently had no furniture in it, which showed off the wall of windows along the back that reached from floor to ceiling. The room also contained a small bathroom with a sizeable closet opposite it. When Lex peeked into the bathroom she noted a standing shower stall, commode, and sink. She came back into the hall outside and peeked into the room to the right. It looked much the same as the other room but had a slightly nicer view over the water to the buildings beyond. Lex smiled and called out to Casey.

  “I think I’ll take this one,” she said, putting her bags in the closet and closing the closet door. “How can I get some furniture in here?”

  Casey handed Lex a piece of paper. “Write down what you want. If we can get this list to the shoppers before lunch, they should be able to get everything by the end of the day.”

  Lex took the paper and began thinking, her gaze mapping out the space in the room. “Can we include electronics on the list?”

  “Whatever you want. All of us have all different stuff in our rooms; I've never heard that there are any restrictions”

  “Does this come out of our pay?”

  Casey took a moment to respond as she turned from looking out at the view. “Oh, we each have a weekly limit before what we request comes out of our pay. I think it’s a thousand a week in general, but it’s different the first couple of weeks you get here. I think that limit is ten thousand so that you can get set up.”

  Lex’s jaw dropped open. “Are you serious?”

  Casey nodded. “When I asked about it, I was told that it’s because we have to be here pretty much all the time. I don’t think it bugs Sauer at all, though; he seems to be really loaded.”

  Lex rocked backwards on her heels and then started to write. Her list included a double futon mattress and frame, bed pillows, a couple of bed sheet sets, comforters, a clock radio, a few small tables and lamps, a desk and office chair, laptop with basic software loaded, drapes, a TV and DVD player, a loveseat and some chairs, and a collection of towels, everything in greens and blues. Lex thought a moment to see if she’d forgotten anything, but realized if she had, she could just ask for it the following day. She handed the page to Casey, who laughed.

  “Well, that didn’t take long!” The blonde read the list and grinned. “It’s going to look really nice in here when you get everything set up. So, are you all ready to finish your paperwork?”

  Lex almost nodded, but then had a different thought. “Is there any way I could get some tea first?”

  “Let’s go to the kitchen,” Casey replied with a nod. “That’s probably good, anyway, because I can explain the rules while we’re there.”

  When the two arrived back in the big kitchen on the first floor, Casey turned on the tea kettle while Lex looked at a large selection of interesting and eclectic teas. “Pretty much everything here is fair game,” Casey said, continuing their conversation. “With that said, we all realize that there are some things that unspokenly ‘belong’ to someone…“

  Casey had broken off to open the huge freezer and pull something out. She turned to face Lex with a container of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream in her hand. “For example, I wouldn’t recommend you eat much of this if you value your life, or at least your ears. This is Serena’s favorite, an
d if she’s in a bad mood and it’s gone, we’re all likely to hear about it.”

  She replaced the carton and continued. “Anyway, other than that, feel free to eat what you see. If anyone orders something special that they need for a recipe or something, they can put their name on it with one of these sticky notes,” Casey said, tapping a note holder on the refrigerator door that also had a pen in it. “Cleanup is on your own. We have a big dishwasher, so usually all you need to do is rinse stuff and put it in there. If it’s full, please run it; the soap is under the sink. If it’s clean, please empty it.”

  Lex, meanwhile, had picked out a nice-smelling English breakfast tea and poured near-boiling water over it into a large mug. The bracing scent coming from the cup made her smile. “Is that it?” Lex asked after a moment, surprised that Casey had stopped.

  “Pretty much. We all keep fairly separate schedules here, so we usually make our own meals. Oh, one more thing,” Casey said, pointing to a pad of paper near the door. “The list for the shoppers is here. Just make a section with your name and list your items if you want any food that’s not already here.”

  “OK, thanks,” Lex replied, putting a spoonful of sugar into her tea. “I’ll have to look at that later, I guess.”

  Casey shrugged. “Don’t worry about it now. If you like, you can join me for dinner tonight so you don’t have to think about it.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Good. All right, let me take you downstairs. Clara should be waiting,” Casey said with a smirk.

  Lex looked at her curiously for a moment but decided not to ask. Whatever problem exists between Clara and Casey is between them, she thought. She followed the blonde straight out of the kitchen, past the staircases, up to the far wall of the building and went through a door to follow a staircase down. They descended two flights of stairs and then came out onto a hallway with a number of doors on either side, the setup reminding her of being back in school, since she could see classroom-style setups through the windows in the top of the doors that she passed. Lex followed Casey two doors down to the left and peered inside as the blonde opened the door.

  “I think this is where she said she’d be,” Casey continued.

  They saw Clara inside, sitting on the edge of a large desk at the front of the room. The rest of the room had been set up like a classroom, with rows of smaller desks facing the large one in front. Clara seemed to have been watching the door and glared at Casey with some irritation.

  “I thought that I told you that Lex was to be brought straight down here as soon as she arrived,” Clara barked, continuing to stare at Casey.

  “Come on, Clara,” Casey replied with a shrug, “Lex at least needed to put her stuff down and get herself situated here. How do you think you’d feel if you arrived at your new place and weren’t even allowed a few minutes to make yourself feel comfortable?”

  Clara continued to glare at Casey for another few seconds before breaking it off to look at Lex. “Welcome back. Why don’t you take a seat over there? The packet you were reading yesterday is in the envelope.”

  Clara had gestured to one of the desks in the front row, so Lex sat there. She pulled out the papers and found the five stacks she’d been reviewing the previous day, and felt pretty confident that they were the same papers when she noticed a stray pen mark she remembered having accidentally made on one of the sheets.

  “Hey,” Casey’s voice sounded out again. Lex lifted her head to look at the woman, and Clara did, too, with a bit of a scowl. “If you’re still here by lunchtime, do you want me to bring you a sandwich or something?” Casey asked.

  Lex smiled. “That would be great.”

  “OK, I’ll check on you around noon time, then.” Casey waved over her shoulder as she went out the door.

  Clara shook her head at the retreating figure before turning back to Lex. “All right, let’s go over your questions.” Lex found herself shooting Clara a surreptitious glance before beginning, due to the woman’s almost nervous tone. Along with reading on the train ride over, Lex had thought over this question and answer session, and realized that if she was going to be asking these questions to Clara that she’d probably have to pay close attention to the woman’s reactions, since she seemed professional enough to mask most of what she didn’t want to show.

  “I do have a few of them,” Lex said as she brought out her notes from the previous day and tried to decide where to start first. “OK, I noticed that in the Probationary Period and Reassessment sections, I read language about being found ‘lacking’ during those times, but with no real explanation of what that meant. Could you elaborate?”

  Clara looked surprised for an instant, as if she’d bitten into a hot pepper, before the professional look she usually kept slid over her face like a mask. “Well, you probably know that we’re searching for certain types of people for this team. We do extensive testing and training during the probationary period, as well as throughout your time on the team. If your abilities are not as expected, it may be grounds to drop you, which is what we’re getting at here.”

  “Abilities? Such as?”

  “Well, for instance, you probably remember from your interview with Mr. Sauer that he took great interest in your martial arts skills. If we found out that our expectations of you outpaced what you could actually offer, it could be grounds to drop you from the team.”

  “But I already mentioned that I’m not going to be as practiced as I was when I was younger, or as much as someone who has hours every day to work on it. Does that mean you plan to drop me later on? If so, we should probably just keep it short and get it over with now.” Lex found herself watching Clara closely as she asked each question, looking for the slightest change in expression as a clue to what the woman actually meant but would never say.

  Clara appeared annoyed and a little confused. “No, we understand all of that. In your case, we know that it may take some time for you to get back to where you were before, and I understand that we’re planning to teach you some new things, as well. As long as we have a clear idea of the situation we’re going into, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “So, does this have something to do with potential as well as what I can already do?” Lex asked, still not sure exactly what would be expected of her.

  “Exactly,” said Clara, nodding. “That has a lot to do with it. We realize that we may have to do a lot of training and practicing to get people to the level we eventually want them to be at, but as long as you keep up with the regimen we agree on, that’s usually all that’s needed to stay on the team.”

  “Well, what is it you’re expecting me to become?”

  Clara looked at her with a puzzled expression. “A better martial artist, of course. But, when we do more testing, we’ll be able to get a full look at your potential, so maybe we can start growing you in other areas.”

  “So what would that mean as far as the team’s duties? I saw some examples, but I can’t think how I would be able to do anything to help with law enforcement or national security. I don’t have any training like that currently, so I’m hard pressed to understand how I might be able to help.”

  “Those were really just examples of things the team might be called to do. Since our abilities as a team are logged into databases that law enforcement agencies across the country can access, when they have a need for people who can do something extraordinary, they call us. We have been able to help out in a number of instances.”

  “Extraordinary? In what way?” Lex asked, her eyes narrowing. She felt a little beat of excitement as she asked. Maybe I’m onto something, now.

  In contrast, Clara suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Well, in the different abilities we can offer. As a team, we can offer a number of special things that regular law enforcement doesn’t necessarily.”

  Lex sighed. “That doesn’t really tell me anything. What could we offer that normal police couldn’t? Why would we be special?”

  Clara stared at her, seemingly annoye
d. “You’ll find out more as you become a full member of the team. You’ll discover that your team members can do things that ordinary people can’t. We think you can, as well.”

  “What do you mean? Anyone can learn martial arts.”

  Now it was Clara’s turn to narrow her eyes as if calculating Lex’s response. “Yes, but they can’t always learn them as fast as you did. And you burnt up the tournament circuit while you were in it.”

  Some of Lex’s young life flashed before her eyes and she saw herself fighting opponents at matches, terrified to lose because of the beatings she’d get once she got home. She made a sound of distress and confusion in the back of her throat in response, thrown off balance by Clara’s reference and not understanding how the woman would even know what she’d done as a child. It took her another few moments to regroup, so she looked at her notes as she did, finally finding a new thread to follow.

  “I guess that pretty much answers my questions about that. I also wanted to ask about the fact that my responsibilities will be determined over the first six months. Would this include anything I really didn’t want to or couldn’t do? Is this something that we can negotiate until we all agree on the details?”

  Clara nodded, obviously relieved to be away from their previous topic. “Yes. Sometime near the end of the probation period we’ll go over with you in detail the things we expect you to work on for the team, and we can work the expectations over until we are all in agreement.”

  Scanning her list to find her next question, Lex continued. “I also noticed a transfer clause in the paperwork that kicks in after your first three years with the team. Do people get transferred from this team often? Why would it happen?”

  Clara shrugged. “Well, I don’t think anyone has been transferred off of this team for the past five years I’ve been working here. I’d have to look at past records to see if anyone ever transferred to somewhere else. At any rate, I don’t think it’s a strong possibility; we screen our candidates here very thoroughly, and the people we choose generally fit into the team well enough that to remove them would be disruptive.