West Pacific Supers: Rising Tide (50 page)

2:04 p.m., Wednesday, September 18th,
2013

California Correctional Center

Susanville, CA

“Yeah,
they locked me up because I created a new island,” said Dr. Brandeis to Danny
as they sat in the courtyard during their outside exercise period. Danny was a
good-looking man in his forties who had embezzled millions out of a children’s
cancer research fund and got sentenced to 20 years. Dr. Brandeis felt that was
excessive, especially since most of the disease research funds were the biggest
scams out there. He and Pam had never given money to those causes. Then again
Pam had a new boyfriend now and maybe they were giving money to cure sick kids
or something.

“That’s the problem
with our society, it discourages creative thinking,” said Danny.

“Exactly,” said Dr.
Brandeis.

“So how much time
for island building?” asked Danny.

“They wanted the
death penalty.” Dr. Brandeis shivered thinking back to his first meeting with
the WPPD and State’s attorney. Hundreds of counts of murder, billions in
property damage, and the long, long list of crimes they’d committed to execute
the Plan. He had just been the scientific consultant but they wanted to stick
everything on him, even the deaths that had been caused by the superheroes’
assault on
Avalon One
.
It was ridiculous when you considered it; what was considered murder if done by
one person was heroics if done by another.

“The death penalty?
For creating a new island!”

“Well, you have to
break some eggs to make an omelet,” said Dr. Brandeis.

“So how did you get
out of the death penalty?” asked Danny who Dr. Brandeis could tell was
impressed.

“I made a deal; I
turned State’s evidence against my financier and Governor Fields and in 20
years I have a shot at parole.” Dr. Brandeis still was a little uncertain how
it happened. Big time lawyers from Cruller & Wynn came to represent him;
they said a ‘friend’ was financing his defense. They got him sent to this medium
security prison for life with a chance of parole. He never even went to trial,
though he was going to have to testify in Ian and the Governor’s trials in a
few months. He wasn’t looking forward to that.

“Wait! I know you!”
said Danny excitedly. “You’re the guy who used an alien laser to create that
tidal wave that hit the coast! Holy hell, you’re like a real fucking
supervillain!”

“I prefer visionary
scientist,” said Dr. Brandeis who had to admit he was enjoying his notoriety.

“So is the island
still out there?”

“Yes, it’s smaller
than we would have liked, but it did break the surface. I tried to get it named
Brandeis Island, but the media keeps calling it
Roache
Island after my financier and the State of California is trying to officially
name it after a dead superhero, but it’s a legal mess - you know how that
goes.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I need to talk to
Dr. Brandeis alone,” said a heavyset man who walked up to the two of them and
stared at Danny intently. Danny nodded and quickly cleared out. Dr. Brandeis
looked at the new guy in front of him, but didn’t recognize him.

“Yes, what can I do
for you?” asked Dr. Brandeis a little nervously. This guy looked like a real
criminal.

“I have an offer,”
said the man.

Dr. Brandeis paled, worried
this guy wanted to make him his girlfriend or something, which you always heard
about in prison but which thankfully hadn’t happened to him yet. “Okay…ah, what
sort of offer?”

“I represent The
Edge,” said the man knowingly.

“Ah, good for you,
top notch outfit,” said Dr. Brandeis, who had no clue who The Edge was. In
fact, it was a stupid name, what were they The Edge of?

“We want to hire you
as a scientific consultant,” said the man. Dr. Brandeis had finally figured it
out: this guy was part of a gang in the prison that wanted to add Dr. Brandeis’
notoriety to their letterhead so to speak.

“Well, I might be
interested, but I have some demands,” said Dr. Brandeis. “I want someone to
bring me my food in the cafeteria so I don’t have to get in line and if you can
arrange it so I get to watch
Sarah’s
Serenade
in the common room on Wednesday nights instead of
Behind the Mask
then I
think we might be able to work something out.”

The man looked a little
confused but nodded. “That can be arranged. We need someone with expertise in
biochemistry and at least some grounding in astrophysics.”

“Sure, I’m a
multidisciplinary scientist,” said Dr. Brandeis who wondered what this guy was
talking about, but figured it was best to play along. He knew a little
astrophysics; it had taken him two years in college to decide between astronomy
and geology for his bachelors’ degree, but he didn’t have a clue about
biochemistry. Then again what biochemistry did you need to know in prison - how
to identify the molds in the bathroom?

“Excellent, then
welcome to The Edge,” said the man as he extended his hand. Dr. Brandeis shook
his hand and at that the man pulled Dr. Brandeis close to him. It was an
uncomfortable moment, made more uncomfortable when the man flew into the sky
carrying him out of the prison.

I’m going to miss
the corndogs tonight for dinner
, thought Dr. Brandeis, a moment before he
realized that his lack of actual biochemistry knowledge could be a problem, perhaps
a lethal one. Thank goodness for the Internet.

7:03 p.m.,
Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

100
Lighthouse Road

West
Pacific, CA

Seawolf
answered her door on a rainy Tuesday night to find Paul standing there, holding
a canvas bag in one hand and a flat parcel wrapped in newspaper in the other,
his left leg in a walking cast. “For you,” he said, holding out the parcel.

“What is it?” she
asked, though she could already smell the contents. She was so happy to see him
that she could barely keep her voice steady.

“Fresh snapper
fillets,” he told her. “Can I come in? This is heavy and my leg hurts when I
stand for too long. Plus it’s raining.”

She took the package
and moved aside so he could enter. “How have you been? You’re walking, so
that’s a good sign.”

“Yeah, the physical
therapy is going pretty well. At least it’s good to be out of the cast. How
about you? No sling now, I see.”

“I’m doing much
better,” she said as she locked the door. After what had happened between them
at the hospital, it felt strange to be talking like acquaintances again, but
she didn’t know what else to say. When he hadn’t called for so long, she’d
started to wonder if it really had been the medicine that made him kiss her and
perhaps he’d regretted it ever since.

Paul walked heavily
to the kitchen; she followed him, wondering what on earth he was up to. He
heaved the canvas bag onto the counter and started unpacking the contents.
Olive oil, bread crumbs, a plastic box holding two eggs, a quart of milk, a
bottle of wine…

“Did your kitchen
break?” she asked dryly.

“Well,” he said,
turning away from her to open several cabinets until he found a mixing bowl,
“you wouldn’t have dinner out with me. So I figured we could have dinner in.”

“You invited yourself
to dinner at my house?”

“You’d never have
agreed to come to mine, right? And it’s not really inviting myself to dinner if
I do the cooking.” He pulled up one of her barstools and sat down, obviously
relieved to get his weight off his leg. “Can you hand me a cup measure?”

She walked over to a
drawer and found one. He took it and started measuring bread crumbs.

“I could have been
out,” she observed.

“True, that would
have been unfortunate,” he agreed. “But it wasn’t likely. It’s not the Season,
you don’t do a lot of publicity events, and Tuesday nights are low crime.
Anyway, I’ve had a lot of time to think over what you said the last couple of
times that I asked you out and… ”

“What did I say?”
she interrupted to ask.

“‘No’,” he answered,
cracking an egg into the mixing bowl. “And I figured that maybe you just don’t
like to eat out in public, so…”

“Did you ever
consider that maybe I just don’t like you?”

“Nope, never crossed
my mind,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Hand me the fish, will you? Thanks. I
was also thinking maybe you don’t like to eat out because you eat your fish raw
or something. So should I bread one for you too or not? I brought enough
ingredients either way.” He looked up for the first time, one
uncracked
egg held expectantly in his hand.

This was surreal.
“Wouldn’t it bother you if I ate the fish raw?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Why?
It’s not like you’re making me do it. So that’s a no on the breading then?”

“No breading,” she
confirmed. “I’ll braise mine though.” She picked up one of the fish and started
to clean it at the sink, trying to clear her thoughts. “Look, I still haven’t
said it’s okay for you to be here,” she finally said.

“Yeah, I know, but I
didn’t ask for permission this time,” he responded. “It’s a new technique I’m
trying out for avoiding rejection. How do you think it’s working so far? No,
don’t answer that. Pass the oil, will you?”

They cooked side by
side as if they’d been doing it for years, though he needed some help finding
things. A couple of times they bumped into each other when they reached for the
same utensil at the same time; she shivered to feel him touch her. She set the
table, he poured the wine, and they sat down to eat.

“So do you do this a
lot?” she asked. “Stop by women’s houses and cook them dinner?”

“Not as much as
you’d think. Back when I was married, I hardly did any cooking, but after being
a bachelor for, oh, 12 years now, I’ve come to really enjoy it.”

She got a strange
sensation in her stomach when he mentioned being married. “Any kids?” she asked,
trying to keep her voice level.

“No, we weren’t
married long. I got stationed on the West Coast and she didn’t like it out
here. She went back to her folks for the holidays and hooked up with the guy
she’d dated before we started going out. I actually ran into them at my high
school reunion a few years ago. They stayed together, have a couple kids now.
How about you? Ever married or have kids?”

“No,” she said
quickly. She hated the thought of this woman who had been married to Paul;
hated the fact that she’d left him, hated the fact that she’d married him in
the first place. She had never felt so intensely jealous in her life. Paul was
smiling at her and she flushed. “So are you back at work then?”

He nodded. “I’m on
light duties until I get this thing off, which should be in another couple
weeks. How about you?”

“I’m mostly healed,
though I’m not back to my normal swim schedule yet. Dr.
Gavriel
says I’ll be in physical therapy until the end of the month.”

“We should go out
and celebrate when we’re both healthy again. No, not dinner or anything – I’ve
learned that lesson – but we can go out on my boat. You’d like that,” he said
confidently. “You like being out on the water; I saw that when we were out on
the MLB. I’ve got a 19’
Bayliner
called
Fresh Start
. I’m not much
of a sailor but I love to fish. There’s some great spots around here. Usually
it’s just me and the dogs, so I’ll have to clean her up a bit before you come
on board. I’ve been looking forward to taking you out.” He took a drink and
smiled at Seawolf and she couldn’t help smiling back. The thought of being back
out on the water with him was heavenly.

“What kind of dogs
do you have?”

“Black labs, great
animals. They’ll love you, don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“You should be! I
mean, sure I’m crazy about you, but dogs are more discerning judges of
character.”

She didn’t know how
to respond and then she realized that he was teasing her and her face got hot.

“Seriously,” he said,
“the dogs are my closest family geographically speaking. Everyone else is still
back in Michigan - my mom and my sister and her family. I usually go out there
for Thanksgiving, but otherwise it’s just me and the dogs. What about you? Any
family?”

The question was
unexpected and Seawolf was engulfed by a tidal wave of painful memories. Her
father had died back when she was in college. Her mother hadn’t shown up in the
obituaries yet, and as far as she knew, the same was true for her sister and
two younger brothers. But to call them family…

“I don’t have any
family,” she snapped. “Only relatives.” She stood up abruptly, her chair
scraping angrily across the stone floor.

Paul looked
stricken. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“I have to go check
something.” Seawolf stalked out to the kitchen, where she stood at the counter
fighting back tears. Why did she have to take everything so personally? Dinner
had been going really well and now she’d ruined it. She took ragged breaths,
holding her arms tight around herself. She had worked so hard to package her
entire life - all of her memories and emotions - into little boxes with locked
lids. And then Paul waltzed in and wanted to poke around in the contents. What
would happen if things got mixed up?

She heard Paul struggle
to get up from the table, and then walk slowly into the kitchen. “There you
are,” he said, sounding worried. “I don’t even know what I said… well, I can
guess, but…”

She flung herself at
him, almost knocking him over, her mouth searching hungrily for his, her hands
running up his body. She felt feral and fierce and desperately hormonal, she
wanted to pick him up and take him right there on the kitchen counter - and
then just as quickly as the impulse had hit her it was over and she was pushing
him away. Paul looked bewildered.

“Seawolf, I have no
idea what’s going on,” he said. His shirt was disheveled from where she had
pulled it up and his face was red and sweaty. “One moment things are going well
and then they’re not and then… ” He shook his head.

“I know.” It was all
too much.

He waited
expectantly for her to say something more, but she was too emotionally spent to
figure out what else to say. “I’m really trying here,” he finally told her.
“But if you don’t help me out a little, I’m just going to keep stumbling along
setting off landmines.”

“I know.” Maybe she
was just too old to be trying to start up a real relationship.

“So, should we
finish dinner then?” Paul asked.

She nodded.

Everything felt
awkward now. Paul tried to keep up light conversation, something about the
weather or tides, but he was clearly nervous and she wasn’t really following.
More than once she realized she had glazed over and had no idea what he had
just said. Eventually he gave up and there was silence.

After they finished
eating, Paul washed dishes while Seawolf dried and put everything back where it
belonged. She needed to say something, to explain why this was so difficult,
how unlikely it was to ever work out, and yet also how much she wanted to keep
trying. But how could she tell him that she was damaged goods yet she wanted
him to love her anyway? Almost before she knew it, everything was put away and
they were standing at the door, caught in another awkward silence.

“So, Seawolf, see
you next week then?” he finally asked. It sounded off-handed, but he was
clearly anxious waiting for her response. She had to say something more than
just ‘yes’, she had to tell him how she felt; her heart was racing. She
muttered something and he shook his head. “I couldn’t hear that - what did you
say?”

“Rachel,” she
repeated, gesturing at herself.

His eyes went wide
for a moment and then his face relaxed. “Rachel,” he said, leaning forward to
kiss her on the cheek. “Next week then, Rachel.” He smiled and let himself out.

She locked the door
behind him and sank back down into the couch, inhaling what remained of his
scent in the room. It was slightly salty and sweet, like onions, she thought.
As soon as she could stand again, she would go take a long swim. To hell with
Dr.
Gavriel
. She’d never felt better in her life.