West Pacific Supers: Rising Tide (24 page)

“So, is he in a
mood?” Dr. Sterling asked her.

“Dr. Hodges? Oh,
well, I suppose you could say that,” Camille said awkwardly. “He got kind of
reflective and… ”

“You shouldn’t be
talking about the past with him,” Dr. Sterling said sternly.

“He’s the one who
started bringing things up!”

“So? He’s old. Old
people do that. It’s the responsibility of young people to keep them in the
present.” She went to the kitchen door and yelled out, “Dr. H! We need you in
here.”

Dr. Hodges walked in
slowly. “You don’t need me,” he said, though he looked pleased to have been
called. “So, what have you been up to, Annie? I got a message from Blue Star
that I could barely make sense of. Something to do with Mr. Darwin and a threat
on team members’ families?”

Dr. Sterling waved
her hand dismissively. “Just the latest ravings of the local Infinite Circle
goon. Nothing for you to worry about – we’ve got everything under control. In
fact, this week we should move up to #5 after the debacle in San Diego and the
Aloha Team has a tenuous hold on #4. We have a chance to be competitive this
year; we just need a few crises to get noticed.”

Dr. Hodges ran his
fingers through his thin grey hair. “Haven’t we had enough crises for the year
already? Are you and Blue Star getting along alright? He was very upset about
that first training exercise and now these threats on family members. It’s
important that the team leader and the operations director are on the same page.”

“We’re so much on
the same page that he’s reading over my shoulder,” she replied. “Now stop
micromanaging and answer the door.”

It was
Matteo
and his twins, who were already in bathing suits and
raced through the kitchen out to the pool. “Dr. Hodges, thank you for inviting
us, it’s great to see you again Dr. Sterling,” breathed Angela in hot pursuit.
Matteo
strolled in shortly thereafter with Matthew and made
the formal apologies. “Sorry for all the commotion,” he said. “The kids have
been dying to go swimming; they were up at six this morning. We couldn’t hold ‘
em
off any longer.”

“Of course, great
enthusiasm,” said Dr. Hodges. “Camille, where did you put the water toys…” he
trailed off as a wet twin dashed back through the kitchen, holding an inner
tube.

“Hey, no running in
the house!” called
Matteo
, ineffectually as far as
Camille could tell. He smiled affably at his children. “They’re like fish,
really. Amazing. Not that they have any special powers or anything,” he quickly
added. “Figurative fish, that’s all.”

“How old are they?”
Camille asked.

“Nine,” said
Matteo
. “You have a little girl, right? Is she coming?”

“Yes, Meghan’s six.
My husband is bringing her.” Camille wondered whether she should call Jules to
make sure he was on his way, but decided against it. Things were tense enough
between them at the moment as it was; he would think she was nagging.

“It’s strange,” Dr.
Hodges was saying. “I remember when a diagnosis of
mutancy
in a child was a cause for panic and nowadays it seems like parents are
disappointed if their children are - what do people call it now?
Unevolved
? Mundane?”

“It’s a compliment
to the work of the Institute,” Dr. Sterling said. “The treatments and therapies
you pioneered over the last 20 years have revolutionized life for mutants.
Look, there’s someone else here. Come on, Dr. H., go get the door.”

Dr. Hodges smiled
and headed out as
Matteo
joined his family by the
poolside. Camille looked at Annie. “Do you always take care of him like this?”

“Who, Dr. H? I don’t
take care of him, just help out now and again. He’s a brilliant mind, but a bit
scattered, like all the best scientists.”

Camille shook her
head. It wasn’t that simple. Dr. Hodges was obviously slipping into the past
and Annie had taken it upon herself to prop him up. Camille wondered if Annie
would expect her to contribute in some way. She felt dread at the idea and then
a surge of guilt. People got old. She shouldn’t hold that against Dr. Hodges.
He didn’t have any living family that she knew of; his whole life had been
spent for WPL, the Institute, the Academy, and the team. If they didn’t take
care of him, who would?

Her musing was
interrupted by the arrival of Cosmic Kid, who seemed to have perfected the
sheepishly handsome look. “Hi Camille, where should I put this?” He held out a
platter with a bowl of chili surrounded by a heaping pile of corn chips. “It’s
my world-famous Cosmic Chili Blast.”

Camille laughed. “So
that’s what they’re always talking about! And here I thought that the Cosmic Blast
was a mutant power.”

“It is if you eat
enough,” Cosmic Kid said with a smile that faded as Dr. Sterling walked up and
reached her hand out for the bowl.

Cosmic Kid handed
the food over reluctantly. “You’re not planning on poisoning it, are you?” he asked
her.

Dr. Sterling gave a
thin smile. “Even I know the difference between a pool party and a training
exercise,” she said as she took the platter out to the patio.

The twins ran back
through the kitchen, pursued by their father. “Wow – kids,” said Cosmic Kid.

“Yeah, those are
mine,” said
Matteo
proudly. “
Heh
there, stop dripping all over the floor!” he called and continued after them.

“Don’t let training
get to you,” Camille told Cosmic Kid. “You can’t take Annie personally.”

“I’m not the one
making it personal!” he exclaimed. “The thing is that…”

He was interrupted
by a running blur as Meghan dashed into the kitchen and flung herself at
Camille’s knees. “Mommy!”

Dr. Hodges entered
with Jules, who was giving his condolences about the attack on the team. Dr.
Hodges had started to look sad and withdrawn again and Camille knew what Annie
would want her to do: divert.

“Cosmic Kid, I don’t
think I’ve introduced you to my husband, Jules Franklyn. Jules, this is Cosmic
Kid.”

“Call me Patrick,”
said Cosmic Kid, shaking hands first with Jules and then with Meghan, who
regarded him seriously from beside Camille’s leg.

“So are you
Canadian?” asked Cosmic Kid.

“No,” said Jules.
“I’m American; Camille and I actually met here in West Pacific.”

“Jules is a
musician,” offered Dr. Hodges.

“Really, that’s
great - what kind of music?” Cosmic Kid sounded enthusiastic.

“Folk,” said Jules
shortly.

“Wow, that’s like
banjos and fiddles, right?”

Jules looked at
Cosmic Kid for a long moment before responding. “Folk is surprisingly adaptive,”
he finally said dryly. “The progressive folk movement is hardly limited to
banjos and fiddles. You would be surprised by how many popular musicians have
their roots in folk music.”

“Fantastic,” said
Cosmic Kid, clearly struggling to connect. Camille sighed; Jules was always so
uncomfortable, even defensive, around anyone connected to the team. It was no
wonder that Matthew hadn’t thought their relationship would last.

“It must be good to
be back in West Pacific then,” said Cosmic Kid, gamely pushing on.

“I suppose,” said
Jules. “It’s our third move in as many years, so we’re getting good at it.”

“Why don’t you take
Meghan to change?” Camille suggested. “The bathroom’s over there.” Jules
shrugged and took his daughter’s hand. Camille wondered whether anyone else had
noticed that he hadn’t kissed her hello.

“Intense guy,”
commented Cosmic Kid to no one in particular. He started out to the patio and
then stopped, looking thunderstruck. “I didn’t know that Emily was coming!” he
said dumbly, staring out the window as Blue Star walked up accompanied by his
granddaughter.

“Yes, she is,” said
Dr. Hodges. “Have you already met her?”

“Emily? Yeah, we’ve
talked a few times,” said Cosmic Kid, reddening slightly. “You know what - I’m
going to the pool now.”

Dr. Hodges gave
Camille a puzzled look and returned to the door. She followed along this time,
curious to meet Emily herself; apparently, this was the girl whose disregard of
Annie’s memo had led to the big fuss after the first team training exercise.
From what Camille had gathered, Blue Star and Cosmic Kid had both been very
upset over that and it appeared that the girl had made quite an impression on
Cosmic Kid.

Emily turned out to
be a big Industry fan. “It is SUCH an honor to meet you,” she gushed, shaking Dr.
Hodges’ hand almost reverently. “Blue Star and I were just talking about how
much you and the Institute have done for mutants. You were the focus for like a
quarter of my mutant studies class last semester! I wrote my final paper on how
the Institute revolutionized how young mutants are detected and treated in
society.” She paused a moment and then looked at him hopefully. “I’ve just got
to ask – what was Supersonic Cat like?”

Camille could see
Matthew was taken aback. “Supersonic Cat was the archetypal West Coast hero,”
she said quickly. What the hell did that even mean? She tried to imagine what
Sarah would have said if she’d heard herself described as an “archetype” and
shuddered at the thought. Dr. Hodges gave her a surprised look but Emily was
eating it up.

“She was such a
powerful super,” Emily said. “Supersonic speed, superior senses, incredible
regenerative abilities. I’ve watched the tapes - amazing.”

“That she was,” said
Camille, who felt like there was no way out but forward. “She was gifted with a
powerful set of abilities and the drive to really master them. What a lot of
people didn’t know until after her death was that she was also a gifted
scientist in her own right. She was quite brilliant, but very private.”

“I wish I could have
met her,” sighed Emily. “It was such a huge loss when she died.”

“Yes, it was,”
Matthew said slowly.

“Come on now,” said
Blue Star brusquely to his granddaughter. “I’m sure Matthew doesn’t want to
stand around here revisiting the past. This is supposed to be a party,
remember? Go entertain yourself or something.” He gestured at the pool and
shook his head as she headed off with a stammered apology.

“Sorry about that,”
Blue Star said when she had left. “Kids don’t think sometimes. How are you
holding up, Matthew?”

Camille realized
that Blue Star thought Matthew’s gloom related to the latest team deaths, not
Sarah’s so many years ago, though she had a feeling that to Matthew it was all
the same pain.

“It’s hard,” Matthew
said wearily. “It’s always hard mustering the strength to rebuild again. I
don’t know how many more times I can do this.”

Blue Star nodded.
“You have to be a little bit of a masochist to stay in the Industry,” he said.
“We’ll get the bastards who did this; we’re hot on their tails. It won’t be
long now.”

“Is the team coming
together, though?” Matthew sounded worried. “With all of these new
personalities and Keystone still sitting out and Starfish only now recovering –
it’s not a good start to the Season.”

“We’ve got a good
team,” Blue Star reassured him, “though it’s going to take a real crisis to
unify them, or at least expose the worst of the cracks.”

Camille frowned.
“Didn’t we just have a real crisis?”

Blue Star scoffed.
“That was a crisis for the hotel, not for the team. We need something big
enough to actually challenge us but not big enough to put us all on Injured
Reserve.”

“Or kill everyone,”
Dr. Hodges observed. Blue Star looked startled and Camille threw him a look
that said
, welcome to my
world
.

“You need a drink,” said
Blue Star, putting his arm around Dr. Hodges and steering him towards the
kitchen. “So, is the whole team coming to this party?”

Camille opened the
fridge and handed two beers to Blue Star, who popped the tops off in a
practiced fluid motion. “Not all,” Dr. Hodges said with a frown as he took the
bottle. “Keystone won’t come until his contract is signed and White Knight -
well, there’s not much point in a power armor unit coming to a pool party, is
there?” he asked rhetorically. “Everyone else should be coming, including all
of the major staff - public relations, general counsel, operations… ”

“Speaking of
operations…” began Blue Star in a menacing tone.

Dr. Hodges cut him
off. “As I told you before, I’m not going to interfere with Annie’s methods.
She’s been with the team almost since the beginning and she has good reasons
for everything she does. I’m sorry if she comes across as unfeeling sometimes,
but she knows what the team has to be prepared to handle and how short a time
she has to get everyone up to that level. And if she thinks that secrecy is
necessary, even from you, that’s her call to make. The hotel raid was a success
and it might not have been if she hadn’t kept it so close to the vest.” It was
a passionate delivery; Matthew wasn’t out of the game quite yet.

Blue Star made a
face as if he’d swallowed glass, but he didn’t press the point. “What about
Gabrielle?” he said. “Don’t you think she has a little too much on her plate?”