West Pacific Supers: Rising Tide (42 page)

5:16 p.m., Wednesday, July 31
st
, 2013

WPS Headquarters

West Pacific, CA

Seawolf
had been working through the list a few hours a day for days and she’d run up
against a dead end. She’d thought that being back on active duty would have
helped her make more progress, but instead she’d had even less time due to
training and publicity events, like last weekend’s surfing competition that
she’d officiated. Starfish had given her his notes from his handling of the
investigation, but they were very complicated and hardly legible, so that
hadn’t helped at all. Meanwhile, Camille was so emotional lately that her
coastal patrols were pretty worthless as well.

She yawned and
stretched her feet deeper into the basin of salt water that she kept under her
desk when she was working late. 70 percent of the names on the list checked out
as licensed dealers, small aquariums, zoos, and legitimate research facilities.
Now she was down to the private collectors, each one of whom she had checked
against the team’s database to see if there was any sort of criminal record or
notation associated with the name. So far, nothing.

She stared at the
name of the largest collector on the list, a Peter Wilson, registered owner of
82 electric eels. Who in hell owned that many electric eels? How did he store
them? According to what the curator had told her, you had to keep electric eels
in their own individual aquariums, which had to be at least 100-gallon tanks.
This must be one of the middlemen that the young woman at the Office of
Invasive and Foreign Wildlife was talking about. Thankfully, the registered
address was in West Pacific, which made it simpler for her to check it out.

As it turned out,
Peter Wilson’s address was also the location of a small store called the Age of
Aquarius, located in a nondescript strip mall over on the east side of town. It
was easy enough to pick the back door lock and let herself in that evening
after business hours. The main store carried an odd mixture of New Age-type
products and tropical fish, but the back area was even more interesting. She
saw a variety of locked aquariums and snake habitats, as well as a bunch of
packing crates with Chinese addresses. The lid was loose on one and she peered
inside; her nose wrinkled at the pungent smell of animal parts. Probably
illicit ingredients for Chinese medicine. This was definitely a place to keep
an eye on. At the moment, however, she was focused on the electric eel
investigation and for that she had to find the store’s books.

Thank God for
computers, she thought to herself as she booted this one up. Even most illicit
dealers were too lazy nowadays to keep a separate set of books; they just
created a password-protected subdirectory for their nefarious bookkeeping.
Seawolf wasn’t a computer person by any stretch of the imagination, but Dr.
Sterling had forced her through enough hacking practice sessions that she’d at
least learned to use this nifty little device that could integrate itself into
the hard drive and bypass most security measures. She forgot what it was
called, but it was a godsend and made quick work of the inferior security on
this computer. The trickier part was cross-referencing the shipments and sales
to pinpoint which orders related to electric eels. Peter Wilson was a thorough
bookkeeper, however. Before long she had isolated 29 electric eels all sold to
one person: Ross Keller.

Unfortunately, Mr.
Keller had paid in cash, so that was another dead-end. But there was something
about the name that made her pause…Ross Keller. She knew that name. Oh well,
only one way to find out. She yawned again, typed the name into her HoloBerry
to access the team’s database search engine, and was shocked when almost
instantly a file popped up, complete with photos and pages of background
information. Seawolf sat up so suddenly that she almost fell off her chair.
Ross Keller.
Starfish
.
Oh shit.

According
to the team database, Starfish, a.k.a. Dr. Ross Keller, lived at 3552 Serenity
Street, near the University of California-West Pacific, where he had formerly
been a professor. Seawolf had been a lowly sophomore in Marine Biology 101 back
then, before the accident that had given Dr. Keller his superpowers and current
form, before she had dropped out of school. She had never been to his home
before, although according to the database, he had lived there the entire time
he’d been on the team. That in itself wasn’t too odd; Starfish certainly didn’t
seem like the entertaining type. Still, in retrospect, she couldn’t help
wondering what all that privacy was really concealing.

She drove past the
college, which was bustling even at this time of night, and slowed to read the
building numbers, in the process annoying a young driver who sped around her
after an impatient honk. Seawolf ignored him. She hadn’t used GPS since one had
insisted that the quickest way to a crime scene was through a community pool.
That had been a PR disaster. With all her years of experience, she prided
herself in knowing her way around the city better than any artificial
intelligence did.

3552, at least from
the outside, appeared to be a block of four apartments: 3552 A, B, C, and D.
This was unexpected, and Seawolf parked across the street, pulling out her
HoloBerry to confirm. Yep, 3552 Serenity Street, with no mention of any
letters. It was a rental property from the looks of it. One of the bottom units
didn’t have any curtains and she could see two college students playing a video
game inside. Loud and possibly obscene music was coming from one of the top
units. There were a couple of cars parked in the shared driveway, none of which
matched Starfish’s. This just got more and more interesting, she thought as she
did a poorly executed U-turn, earning more honking and a couple of shouted
comments, and headed back to HQ. She’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Like Keystone had
done, Starfish used one of the team drivers to get him around. According to the
garage security cameras, he usually got to HQ around 10 a.m.; the driver
dropped him off up front, parked the car in the garage, and then headed inside
to the TV room where he and the other drivers hung out, drank coffee, and
waited to be called on. Starfish always used the same car, which made the whole
thing ridiculously easy. All she had to do was wait for Starfish to head to his
office and then double check that the driver was safely ensconced in the TV
room. If anyone was watching her, it would look like she just happened to take
the long way through the garage to reach her own car while heading home early.
The tracking device was magnetic and so small that even the security cameras
probably didn’t see her attach it to Starfish’s car as she passed.

Friday morning when
she came to work, she booted up her computer with some excitement and called up
the tracking device’s GPS. Last night Starfish had been dropped off at 8643
Coastline Drive, over on the south side of the city, and he’d been picked up
from the same address this morning. She considered this information for a
while. Cosmic Kid would say that her “Cicada sense” was tingling, or some such
nonsense. But the truth was, she had a bad feeling. By team policy and
commonsense, she should let someone else know her suspicions, but then again,
this was Starfish she was talking about. He was a team member, someone she’d
known for years, and he was very proud. If he was innocent and he found out
that she suspected him of doing something so nefarious, he would never forgive
her.

She could try to get
advice from Dr. Sterling or Blue Star, but they would probably blow everything
out of proportion. Just because Starfish had 29
microchipped
electric eels and hadn’t given the team his correct address, didn’t mean that
he had created the mutants that had attacked those boats. Then again, since
Starfish had taken over the investigation, it had stalled. At the latest team
meeting, he’d even said that the mutants she’d encountered had probably been
isolated incidents. If he were involved in illegal experimentations, it would
be to his advantage to stonewall the investigation. She wondered how to find
out whether he was taking the investigation seriously. Paul would be able to
give her more information, of course, but she hadn’t talked to Paul since he’d surprised
her at the lighthouse and she’d shot him down yet again.

Seawolf closed her
eyes and tried to think about Paul. She had so many conflicting emotions. On
the one hand, she had to admit that he genuinely seemed to like her. On the
other hand, it was ridiculous for him to like her. Then again, maybe it wasn’t
any more ridiculous than her going to the Mutant Dating Service. She was the
one casting about for strangers when she had someone already interested in her,
someone who she was actually sort of fond of. So what was her problem? She was
screwed up, that was her problem.

She walked to the
window and looked out over the city. Paul had been right about her refusing to
date him because he wasn’t a mutant. He’d never done anything to deserve that.
Then again, if she did agree to go out with him, he’d have to put up with far
worse. There would be all the other people who weren’t as open-minded as he
appeared to be. And on top of that, she had no doubt that consciously or
subconsciously she would fight the relationship every step of the way. She was
truly her own worst enemy sometimes. Realizing that, however, didn’t solve
anything.

Seawolf squinted to
make out the beacon from her lighthouse. She wished she were back up there with
Paul. This time she would say the right thing - or maybe just say nothing at
all. But she wasn’t there; she was here and she had decisions to make. It was a
crossroads: what to do about Paul, what to do about Starfish. Perhaps she could
take care of both problems at the same time and get Paul’s help with the
Starfish situation. Then again, after everything she had said, perhaps Paul was
done helping her. Perhaps she’d finally convinced him that she was more trouble
than she was worth.

Mr. Awesome used to
say,
if you can’t make
things better, at least make a change
. Trembling, she lifted the
phone and dialed Paul’s number.

“Seawolf?” He
sounded surprised, but not displeased.

“Yes. I’m at the
office. I - well, I could use your help with something.”

“Sure, I’ll come
right over. Give me 20, maybe 30 minutes.”

“Great. Ah, thanks,”
she said awkwardly.

“Sure thing. I’m on
my way,” he said and hung up.

He had
agreed to come. He hadn’t asked questions; he hadn’t even hesitated. She sat in
her office waiting for him to arrive, hugging her knees to her chest.
I said I needed his help and he said
he was on his way.

Paul
listened attentively as she went over all of her evidence, from the electric
eel records to tracking Starfish’s car. “So, I thought you could fill me in on
your thoughts about the investigation,” she concluded. “Maybe I’m just
overreacting.”

“It’s hard to tell.
You’re right that the investigation stalled once Starfish took it over. We
haven’t encountered any more of the creatures. Of course, that could be because
there aren’t any more out there. But he’s been the one planning all of the
search patterns; in fact, he’s been pretty controlling about everything. I
asked a couple weeks ago about getting a second opinion on the body you
recovered and he rejected the idea out of hand. I don’t know though. What about
talking to someone else on the team?”

“I don’t have any
solid evidence and this is an awfully big accusation to make. Starfish takes
things very personally. If I’m wrong and he finds out, he and I will never be
able to work together again. I was thinking that I might just go down to his
new address and have a talk with him. Nothing confrontational - just ask about
the investigation.”

“How are you going
to explain how you got his address?”

She shrugged. “I
don’t know.”

They were silent for
a few minutes, weighing options.

“I don’t like the
idea of you going down there alone,” Paul finally said. “If you go, I’m going
with you.”

This was the whole
reason she had called him; she had been planning to ask if he would come
with her and now he had freely said that he would do just that. She should tell
him how much she appreciated it, but the words wouldn’t come. He was looking at
her expectantly. She had to say something. “Okay.”

“I can drive,” he
offered.

“Sure.”

They walked to the elevator
in silence.

When they got
inside, Paul turned to her. “Listen, Seawolf, about the other week when I came
over to your house… ”

“Forget about it,”
she said quickly. “I mean, please forget it.” She took a deep breath. “I would
really appreciate it if you would just forget about that whole - everything I
said.” She looked up nervously. He was smiling at her in a way that sent her
heart racing.

“Good,” he said
simply.

Coastline
Drive was on the coastal edge of what had been billed as West Pacific’s new
high tech corridor, but which had faltered due to the economic downturn. The
area was centered on a strange combination of industrial, commercial, and even
a few residential properties.