Super: Origins (39 page)

“It was a few weeks after that when it happened. George kept trying to hang around with me from the time I signed on, but I tried to avoid him because for some reason he just seemed…weird. Then, one day, I’d gone into one of the basement storerooms looking for something, and I heard the door click shut behind me. Not good, since it had an automatic door lock. When I looked down the aisle of shelves, I saw George coming in my direction.”

She paused for a moment, putting a hand to her head, and Lex almost held her breath as she waited.

“I figured he was there for some gear, at least until he put his hands on me. He said he wanted to 'punish' me for not ‘being nice’ to him. At the time, he was stronger than me and I didn't have any martial arts experience. I did the best I could, but he beat me into the ground.”

Lex's heart had leapt up into her throat. She wanted to say something but knew she should wait, and so she anxiously clutched the edge of the couch with both hands, her nails skipping over the smooth surface.

“When I woke up, I was laying on the floor. My clothes had been mostly torn off, and I saw my own blood spattered everywhere and in pools underneath me. I couldn't walk since, as I learned later, my right leg was broken in two places, and I had trouble crawling since my left forearm was broken, too. Fortunately, he’d broken the door as well, so I did manage to crawl out into the hall before I passed out again.

“The second time I woke up, I’d been moved to a room in the medical wing of Alpha quarters. I'd been sewn and bandaged and somewhat fixed up, but I could see when I looked at my reflection in the window next to my bed that more than half my face was swollen up and purple. I was having trouble breathing due to broken ribs, and the casts on my arm and leg were bothering me.

“When the doctors came in, they listed my injuries but seemed most concerned about the idea that I'd been having sex. I stared at them with my one good eye for a moment and told them that if I had, I'd been raped and wanted the morning after pill. That caused them all to stop in their tracks and have a little whispered conference in the corner, and I could see they were afraid of George, especially since they hadn’t said one word about
how
I’d gotten hurt.

“Watching them, I could suddenly see a long string of ugly things going out into the future for me if I didn't act. So I did my best to fake a laugh and told them I was only joking, that everything was fine but I was bored, so could they please bring me my laptop and my purse so that I could entertain myself. I'd remembered someone laughing earlier in the week about an e-mail that had been sent to everyone on the team, a recruitment notice asking if anyone wanted to move over and join another local team. So, I called Sauer, since he was the one who'd sent it, and he authorized my transfer. I waited until everyone went to lunch, called a cab, and came here. I've been here ever since.”

Lex let out a deep breath, only now realizing she’d been holding it. “That’s terrible, Casey.”

“Not as bad as it could have been, really. Since I was beaten so badly, I really only remember the first few minutes; after that, I passed out. I’d never been badly hurt before that, and it made me realize that there was a lot I could do to improve myself both for this job and so that I wouldn’t ever be in that sort of situation again. I still feel funny around George, as you know, but now that you took him on…well, I think I won’t feel quite the same about him again. Thanks.” Casey had turned slightly in Lex’s direction as she spoke, and Lex could see her friend’s silhouette stood tall now.

“You’re welcome, but I don’t feel like I did enough. If I’d known…” Lex said darkly, trailing off.

“You did plenty. Forget it, we saved a building full of people today, and we should be either resting or celebrating.”

“Well, I woke up hungry, so I was coming down to find some food. Hungry?” Lex asked, her voice hopeful.

Casey finally turned away from the window to look at Lex. “I am. Let’s get something to eat.”

Partway through their kitchen exploration, Lex and Casey decided they would bring their snacks upstairs so they could watch one of Lex’s movies while they ate. By the time they got upstairs, Lex carried a bag of popcorn, a box of granola bars, and a plate with a cup of hot tea and some toast with raspberry jam. Casey had made a plate with fresh cut fruit and veggies and also carried a box of whole wheat crackers, a jar of peanut butter, and a few bottles of water. They’d just about reached Lex’s door when another door across the hall opened.

“Hey,” Serena said, rubbing her eyes with a grin, dressed only in a long shirt. “Who’s making all that noise out here?”

“Sorry, Serena,” Lex said apologetically. “Did we wake you?”

Serena stood a little straighter, then stretched. “No, I was hungry.”

“Well, we’ve got plenty of food. Do you want to join us? We’re going to watch one of my martial arts films, too.”

“Are there any hot boys or girls in the movie?”

“They’re usually all hot,” Lex replied as she closed the door behind the three of them.

Around three o’clock, Lex woke up on the floor with couch pillows propped up all around her, Serena, and Casey. Like most modern TVs, hers had politely turned itself off sometime after the movie had ended. The other two women continued to snooze peacefully, so Lex did her best to quietly clean up the leftovers and get out blankets to put over them before tucking herself in for more sleep on her futon.

Chapter 16: Closer

Lex looked at the ceiling for a moment as she woke up, waiting for the alarm clock. When it didn't come, she looked over at it and then realized it read after ten. She sat up with a jerk before she remembered what had happened the previous day and relaxed a bit. Still, though, she silently slid her slippers on and headed for the door.

Grabbing her schedule and Casey's as well, she made her way to the bathroom and shut the door before turning the light on. She breathed a sigh as she noticed that their activities for the day began after noon. When she came back out a few moments later, she noticed that Casey had begun to stir. She waved at the other woman, put her finger over her lips as she glanced down at Serena, and handed Casey's schedule to her.

Casey looked at it in the dim light and smiled in relief. When Lex gestured to ask if she could put Serena into her bed, Casey nodded again and moved the other woman as Lex pulled back the covers. Lex tucked her friend in and then walked with Casey to the door.

“Meet downstairs for breakfast in a half-hour?” Casey questioned in a whisper.

Lex nodded as she silently opened the door, and then smiled as she shut it behind her friend.

Much later, after she’d cleaned herself up and had a delicious breakfast of buckwheat pancakes and blueberry syrup with Casey, Lex reluctantly wound her way downstairs to the martial arts studio. She sighed as she opened the door, but forced herself to smile as she saw Mr. Chen there, standing barefoot on the wooden floor, waiting, and nervously cleared her throat.

“Mr. Chen, did you hear what happened yesterday?” she asked, trying not to cringe but uncertain of what he might have been told.

“I understand your team was called to help evacuate an apartment building that had caught fire,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I also hear that you had a lot to do with getting the people out safely.”

Lex ducked her head, feeling her stomach flop and realizing that he probably hadn't been told about what happened with George.

“Well I guess, but I had a fight, too.”

He looked at her in surprise, an eyebrow raised. After a moment, he gracefully sat down on the floor, his legs crossed underneath him, and gestured to the floor in front of him.

“Sit down, Lex. Let's talk about it.”

Nervously, she sat down and then launched into the story of what had happened after she saw George shaking and cursing at Casey, and how she'd reacted. Once Lex had finished, she looked at the floor and her own hands, her fingers threading together and clutching each other. After a few moments of silence, Lex chanced a glance back up and saw Mr. Chen looking calmly at her.

“I see,” he said. “What did you do afterwards?”

“I wasn't sure
what
to do after I saw that Casey was OK, so we talked to Clara about it, and I apologized and helped George get free.”

“I see,” Mr. Chen repeated, nodding this time. “Well done, Lex.”

She looked at him in disbelief. “But I shouldn't have kicked him over! And, I don't know, I just feel like I went too far overboard in–”

Lex stopped as she saw Mr. Chen raise a hand in the air. “One of the worst things you can do to dampen good intuition is to needlessly doubt your actions after a confrontation. From what I know of the man you faced, I think the course of action you took was one of the few that would have resolved the conflict in as peaceful a manner as possible. Of course you were upset and may have overreacted. That is to be expected when people one cares about are being threatened. However, what you did seems fairly mild and you did your best to put things right afterwards. How could I find anything to criticize in what you did?”

“But I probably should have…I don't know, figured out a way to do it without fighting.” Lex could feel her shoulders slump as she responded.

“Lex, life is a journey where we all learn things in every step we take,” Mr. Chen replied, his tone gentle. “We can all only do our best based on what we know at any given step. I could look back in my life and think about how I would have done things differently if I had the knowledge I have now, as an old man, but the fact is that I could only do my best with all of the tools I had when I was young. You did your best to prevent your friend from being hurt without even injuring the person who threatened her. What more could you have done with the knowledge and expertise you have now? I think you did very well.”

Glancing at him from under her eyebrows, Lex gave him a slightly skeptical look, not quite ready to accept that she wouldn’t be punished. “Really?”

He gave her a mildly reproving stare in return. “I wouldn't say so if I didn't think so.”

She nodded, again looking at her hands. “Thanks, Mr. Chen.”

Lex glanced back up again as Mr. Chen rose to his feet in a single, smooth movement. “All right, let's get to work. We missed enough time yesterday and this morning. Are you ready?”

Lex nodded and smiled, jumping to her feet and readying herself to follow along with Mr. Chen's movements.

And so her days slipped back into their regular schedules and events, with the new addition of Lex asking Riss at least once a week if she'd like to eat with her and Casey. The first new thing happened about a week and a half after the building fire. When Lex came up for lunch that day, she stopped by her room and noticed a package in front of her door. Upon opening it, she found a pair of heavy gloves very similar to the ones included in the uniform she'd worn to the building fire, but they had Velcro at the wrists to fit them and had been connected to one another by heavy-duty strapping, like what would be used for a seatbelt. The box also contained a pair of boots that looked like the uniform boots Lex had worn that day.

With a puzzled frown she took the items out of the box and put on the gloves, finding a strap attached to both sides of each glove that she wound around her arms, crossing once at the elbow, then again near her shoulder in order to lie flat across her back. Spotting some papers in the bottom of the box, Lex reached for them, only to find them stuck to her hand. She waved them around in the air wildly, trying to get the sheets off her, but they still stayed. Finally, taking off one glove, she managed to pull the papers free without ripping them by using a downward and back motion.

At the top of the sheet, Lex noticed a handwritten note.

Dear Lex, just wanted to send along a little thank-you gift for including us the other day. We got so used to sitting around waiting that it was really fun to be involved with the evacuation the way we expected when we decided to get into this game. Hope you enjoy these; Victor got an idea when you mentioned that you'd like to be able to climb walls, so you can be his guinea pig for this invention. Let us know what you think, or just write because we both liked working with you and would like to hear from you some more. – Kate & Victor

Lex read their email addresses as she swallowed once, blinking and smiling to herself, and quickly read the instructions for the equipment. She couldn’t see the microscopic hooks that the instructions said were there to adhere the gloves and boots to surfaces, although she did feel a bumpy roughness as she stroked down the opposite direction the hooks faced. With a grin, she went into her room to put everything on and then headed back out to the hallway. After crawling up the wall nearly to the ceiling and almost falling once or twice on her way down, Lex thought she had gotten the hang of them, so she ran back into her room to put them in her closet by her jumpsuit, a huge grin spreading across her face.

Later that evening, she emailed Kate and Victor both a thank-you note and explained how she’d probably get some Velcro to put on the straps and on the back of her uniform, since one of her mishaps came when the straps across her back slipped. After that, she got a note back from Victor thanking her for troubleshooting his design and assuring her that her suggestion would be included in future versions. Lex laughed to herself as she read that, and then dug into Kate’s reply: a longer letter talking a lot about daily life with the Alpha team (including funny bits that she thought Lex would like) and asking questions about Lex and how things were with her.

From then forward, Lex usually found an email in her inbox from Kate every few days, and quickly got in the habit of corresponding with her. Lex found herself telling the other woman about her past and her thoughts about everything going on currently, and ended up finding out a lot about Kate, as well.

Two weeks after the first letter she’d gotten from Kate, Lex replied to Kate’s latest email.

Victory today! Riss finally agreed to eat dinner with me and Casey once a week if I stopped asking her about it. We ate together for the first time today. It went kind of quietly, but I think we all had a good time. I feel like I can stop worrying about her so much now.