Westmore snorted. "I’m insulted you’d even suggest I’d talk to that dumbass."
"I wish you’d been there with me. I’d like to have gotten your impression as well."
"Wanna insist on some kinda follow-up?"
Michael sighed. "No. Now that I’ve put the idea in your head, you might see things that aren’t there. Anyway, since you weren’t with me, you might as well fill me in on what you learned."
Westmore glanced out the window at the retreating property. "Company covers a large area. A guard told me that the most sensitive buildings are on the west side. I can maybe cover that much with a force field, but it’d be pretty weak. And there’s no way I could protect the whole ground. If McLane makes a conventional air strike, there won’t be much we can do about it."
"Luckily, we don’t believe he could have access to those kinds of resources. We suspect all his cash goes into his rogue gallery."
Westmore groaned at the corny phrase. "Boo, hiss."
"Thank you, thank you. Want an encore?"
"Want a shockwave up your ass?"
Michael smiled.
PCA
Ace of Clubs ... Four of Diamonds ...
"Hey ... back again, I see!"
It took Michael just a moment to absorb the fact that the female voice was directed at him. He glanced up into the waitress’ — Christine’s — smiling face.
"Oh ... hello."
"Wow," she marveled with a smirk, "you really get into your card-playing, huh?"
He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. Yeah, I sort of use it as a test."
" ‘Test?’ "
He waved it away. "Long story. Are you taking over for my waiter now?"
"Nah, but I just hauled my butt all the way down here to find that Noreen changed the schedule again without telling me." She pouted, "Now it’s too late to make other plans, and I’m not even going to make any money in the meantime."
Michael thought about it for all of two seconds before asking, "Would you like to join me?"
Christine’s smile lit up the little diner far more than the hanging incandescents. "I’d love to." Then she slipped on a mask of mock-severity. "But I’m afraid you haven’t even told me your name, sir."
Michael grinned broadly. "A thousand pardons, milady." He offered his hand, "Allow me to introduce myself: I am Ensign Michael Akira Takayasu of the Paranormal Control Agency."
She took his hand in delicate, feminine fashion — basically just slipping her fingertips into his grasp. "And I am Christine Lynne White of Mae’s Café."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance. Now sit down before ‘Noreen’ decides to put you to work after all."
Christine giggled and slipped into the booth across from him...
PCA
"... so what do you think this guy is up to?"
Michael shrugged. "I can’t be sure. But, I know," he stabbed the tabletop with his finger for emphasis, "I know that he was hiding something when we spoke. It wasn’t just nerves. All I came there for was to get a better idea of the kind of opposition Shockwave and I might run into. Hell, the guy has five family members dead, and his brother is missing and presumed dead — you think he’d want to help out."
Christine nodded. "Totally."
"Except I could tell that my mere presence was freaking him out. Shockwave might be right — he might be planning to go after McLane himself. I can’t figure out what else he could possibly have to hide from me."
Christine mused for a moment, then ventured, "Maybe he’s involved with something illegal, something he’s afraid the cops’ll find out about."
Michael considered it, "I guess that’s possible ..." but ultimately shook his head. "I don’t think so. The guy has no history of drug use or theft or—"
"Maybe he just hasn’t gotten caught yet?"
"I don’t think so, Christine." It was nice to be sharing his thoughts with someone like this. Mark was okay, but ... well, he wasn’t an attractive woman. He reached across and gently touched her hand. "I appreciate the suggestion, though," he told her, and he meant it.
She smiled again, this time with less peppy energy and more warmth. She touched his hand in turn ... then looked down at its scarred flesh. "Michael ... how did you get burned?" He stiffened and almost pulled his hand away before he stopped himself. "You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to."
He took a deep breath before responding. "No, it’s ... it’s all right. I haven’t talked about it for a while now. And I don’t want to start up any bad habits now, right?"
She nodded, but said nothing.
He hadn’t even started yet, and already his heart was pounding. He took another deep breath, this time holding it for several seconds before exhaling.
"It happened my first year at school. Not the Academy — this was before that. This was at college, when I was still going to be an engineer. A long-time friend and I had gotten together at the Student Union for lunch. Jason was an English major, see, so we didn’t have any classes together but History. It was just our ritual, our way of staying in touch ... Anyway, there we were, just eating and talking. And ... as near as we can tell, the girl at the table behind us went paranormal. Right there, on the spot."
"Wow."
Michael continued without a pause. "See, the thing you have to understand is, almost all paranormals transform with the instincts to control their new abilities. This girl ... it seems she was one of those unlucky few who didn’t. She screamed, or moaned ... I don’t know, it’s hard to describe, but it wasn’t pleasant. She started to stand. Her chair bumped into Jason’s, who was already turning around to see what was going on ..."
His throat suddenly dry, he took a moment to swallow some water. Christine made no comments, made no movements. She simply waited for him to carry on at his own pace, and for that, he felt himself fall just a little bit in love with her.
Almost a minute passed before he finally said, "The girl burst into flames, and she took her table, both chairs ... and Jason with her. Everyone panicked and started running. Jason fell onto the floor — I think he was trying to, you know, ‘stop, drop, and roll.’ But the area was crammed with chairs, tables, backpacks ... all kinds of crap, so he couldn’t really move once he hit the floor. Not that it would have mattered, anyway.
"I grabbed my jacket and shoved our table aside. Kneeling over him, ignoring his screams, I attempted to smother the flames. But that was the problem — they weren’t just flames. The girl, she hadn’t simply set him on fire, it was sort of like napalm. It burned through my jacket in seconds, and after that, I tried to beat it out with my bare hands. It didn’t work. Jason died right there in front of me."
Another long silence passed without either speaking. This time, Michael was almost hoping she would jump in, but she didn’t.
Finally, he pushed through the end of it. "By now, the stuff was sticking to my hands and forearms. When it finally sank through my thick skull that he was gone, I realized that I might be right behind him if I didn’t do something about it. I shoved my arms into the display fountain. The stuff reignited every time I tried to pull them back out, so I was pretty much stuck until the fire department and the PCA arrived. They had to scrape the stuff off of me — it took a lot of my skin with it. I had to endure several skin grafts and a lot of physical therapy — it was almost a year before I got any real use of them." He forced a smile. "Made writing reports at the Academy a real bitch."
When she barely smiled in kind, he allowed his to become a little more genuine. "So that’s it. That’s why I joined the PCA. It took me forever and a day to convince the admittance board that I wasn’t doing it as a vendetta, which I wasn’t. I don’t blame the girl — I know it was an accident. But there are plenty of rogues out there who inflict harm intentionally, and they are the ones I will not tolerate."
"What happened to the girl?" she whispered, her voice a touch hoarse.
Michael shook his head sadly. "I’m afraid she died, too. The plasma didn’t hurt her,
of course — very rarely can paranormals harm themselves with their new abilities, at least not directly. But, like I said, she was one of the few unfortunates who could not control herself. She couldn’t get any oxygen past the conflagration. She suffocated."
"That’s— I mean ..."
"You can say it: ‘That’s terrible.’ Remember, I don’t blame her for Jason’s death. They were both victims."
She touched his hand again. "You’re a very forgiving man, Michael."
"Just a realist."
"Don’t sell yourself short," she scolded. "There’s a reason it took you ‘forever and a day’ to convince the PCA you weren’t out to kill every paranormal in the world. That would have been an understandable reaction."
"I still have anger about it," he admitted, "but I’m only going to expend that where it’s warranted."
Christine stared deeply into his eyes as she asked, "Do you have a girlfriend, Michael?"
He swallowed, his throat again dry, but for slightly different reasons. "No."
Her warm smile slowly returned. "Want one?"
POWERHOUSE
The envelope came two weeks later.
Lincoln was returning home from work late for the third day in a row. Moving quietly so as not to awaken the kids if they had, with any luck, somehow fallen asleep, he was also moving slowly — otherwise, he might have walked right over it and not noticed it until later. As it was, he spotted it instantly.
Plain envelope, slipped under the door. On the front, was hand-written: Lincoln ‘Strong-Man’ Roberts.
Very funny, he grumbled inwardly as he bent and snatched it up just as his siblings emerged from the kitchen, boasting of how they’d made a late dinner for him ...
Forty-five minutes and three peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches later, Lincoln excused himself to the bathroom and opened the surreptitious delivery. Sitting carefully on the closed toilet, he drew a deep breath and viewed its contents.
Inside were ten $100 bills and a letter. He pulled out the money first, gently running his fingers over the bills as though he somehow expected them to crumble away like dried leaves.
If ever there was dirty money, this is it, he thought. He pocketed the grand.
With even more dread — but also a sense of resolution — he read the accompanying letter:
Dearest Lincoln,
You haven’t forgotten your Uncle Richard, have you? Of course not, how silly of me to even ask. I hope that this letter, and its accompanying advance, finds you and your young charges doing well. If you would be so kind, please see to it that you are present at the address below no later than 11pm tonight. I have already taken the liberty of informing your illustrious employers that you will be absent until further notice, so you need not tell them, or anyone else, your new schedule. Fear not: I promise that you shall be home in time to share breakfast with the little ones ... a breakfast that will, no doubt, consist of finer foods from here on out. See you tonight!
Lincoln swallowed bitterly against the lingering taste of peanut butter as he found the address — but no signature — at the bottom of the page, as promised. It seemed to Lincoln that they were taking a bit of a risk, just giving him the address like this — what if he were a PCA plant or something? Or just went to the police for help? But no, Richard McLane had looked into his eyes, and what he had seen had been a cornered, beaten man.
Somehow, for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate even to himself, he was certain that McLane had not bothered to personally write this letter, but the sarcastic tone would be right up that redheaded smartass’ alley. It wasn’t exactly comforting that these people had been in touch with the construction company, either.
Was he really going to do this? Just ... sell out like this? He had no idea what McLane would ask of him, but he also harbored no delusions as to what the nature of the assignment would be — "illegal" might prove to be an understatement.
How ... how can I just ...?
From the living room, Lincoln heard the echo of his sister’s coughing, still left over from her lingering chest cold — a cold she would have gotten over already if only he’d been able to get her some antibiotics ...
Flushing the empty toilet, Lincoln stuffed the letter and envelope into his pocket with the $1,000 and began scripting the lie he would tell Sarah and Tommy to explain his upcoming absence.
PCA
"Oh-ho, myyy god!" the redhead stammered before bursting into laughter. Clutching his sides, he pointed and gasped, "Get a load of that!"
All eyes turned toward the redhead, then over to Lincoln. McLane and the acne-scarred man were both there, as were two new men and one woman — the woman’s eyes, Lincoln noted, were fully encompassed by an unsettling shade of silver. All but McLane gaped, then broke into grins of various sizes as they chuckled along with ol’ red. The big man himself merely stared, neither smiling or frowning.
Not knowing what else to say, Lincoln spoke softly, "Reporting as ordered ... sir."
That made the redhead laugh even harder, and the silver-eyed woman joined in.
Lincoln was grateful that none of them could see that he was blushing — none of them could see his face at all because of the blue ski mask he’d dug out of the back of his closet. He wasn’t sure whether or not it "went well" with his black-and-purple jogging suit, but all he’d wanted were the most nondescript clothes he owned ... and something, anything, to hide his face.
"Well, well," McLane said at last, "Lincoln Roberts, I presume."
Lincoln cleared his throat, dreading the reaction that he knew was coming. "If it’s all the same to you, Mister McLane, when I’m ... working, I’d rather you call me ... ‘Powerhouse.’ "
As predicted, the redhead almost died over that one, howling so out-of-control that a wave of electricity briefly crackled between his upper and lower teeth. The woman was laughing almost as loudly, and the acne-scarred man had to cover his face with his hands. Even McLane found a hollow smile. "A sobriquet is hardly necessary, Lincoln. As I’m sure is quite obvious, this is not the PCA."
"I know that, sir," Lincoln responded as firmly as he could manage. "But ... well, if it’s all the same to you—"
"Fine, fine," McLane retorted, now clearly irritated at the ongoing uproar. "No need to repeat yourself. ‘Powerhouse’ it is." He turned to the electrical man. "Graham, shut up."
The redhead — Graham — reeled in his titter, but with obvious difficulty. Everyone else followed suit.
The letter had led Lincoln to a medium-sized, single-storied business complex. This was no secret, super-villain lair — it was smack between a photo-developer and a shoe-and-boot repair shop. All the other places were long closed at this hour, and Lincoln had been surprised to find the front door unlocked. If someone off the street had walked in here, they would have had no reason to suspect that it was anything other than what its sign claimed it to be — an independent recording studio. In the end, Lincoln supposed that was the point.
Only one person had been in the outer room to greet Lincoln — a bored-looking, overweight, middle-aged security guard. If he were paranormal, he, too, was inconspicuous. He’d glanced up from his Playboy magazine just long enough to wave Lincoln through — if he thought anything of Lincoln’s ski mask, one way or the other, he gave no reaction. Thinking very poorly of the man’s security skills, Lincoln had moved on, continuing until he entered this sound-proof recording room — presumably another advantage to this facade — and found this very unwelcoming committee.
"Well then, ‘Powerhouse,’ please come sit down next to Ms. Waid." McLane gestured to the empty seat, then turned back to his discussion with the acne-scarred man. Lincoln avoided looking into the woman’s disconcerting eyes as he complied. He half-expected some sort of group introduction, but McLane simply ignored him for the moment.
Of course, Lincoln. He knows when his man is bought.
Shut up.
"That’s not going to help you much, kiddo."
Lincoln started wh
en "Ms. Waid" spoke. He glanced over at her, then looked away from those creepy eyes. "Excuse me?" he mumbled.
"That ski mask," she clarified. Her voice was very rich, and a little deep for a woman. Lincoln slowly became aware that, aside from her eyes, she was quite attractive. She brushed a strand of dark hair out of her face as she continued, "It’s not going to help you much if the cops or the PCA come after you. That’s why you’re wearing it, right? You’re only doing this for the money, not the power or the glory, so you want to protect your ‘secret identity,’ like in the comics. That would explain the hokey name, too — ‘Powerhouse.’ Am I right or what?"
Lincoln shrugged.
Taking his response as an affirmative, Waid smirked. "Well, this isn’t the comics, kiddo. If we see any action, any real action, how long do you think that mask’ll stay in one piece? Even if it does, they’ll know your approximate height, weight, skin color, eye color ... and do you think they skip dusting for fingerprints just because you’re paranormal?"
Paranormals (Book 1) Page 14