West Pacific Supers: Rising Tide (51 page)

9:31 p.m.,
Sunday, November 10th, 2013

Omni San
Diego Hotel

San Diego,
CA

Blue
Star was with Cosmic Kid in San Diego for the West Coast Conference’s annual
awards ceremony. Stacey Noble, the interim PR director, was chaperoning, and
Cosmic Kid had brought his dad, John Minor, as his guest. Since the team had a
table with eight seats for the event they had also allowed Cosmic Kid’s agent
Stephen Murray and his date, an attractive young blonde named Veronica, to sit
with them. The winners at this ceremony would be going to Dallas next month for
the national awards and title ceremony, which would be broadcast primetime
across the nation on NBC. The four regional ceremonies were only being covered
on the Super Channel, though of course fans could also watch streaming video on
the Internet.

Cosmic Kid had been
nominated for Best Rookie of the Year. It was the only award that West Pacific
Supers was in contention for, though Blue Star figured it was one that they were
guaranteed to win. With all the disasters of the Season, West Pacific Supers
was ending up where it had started at #6 in the West Coast Conference, which
definitely was not the stuff that awards were made of. #1 was going to Golden
Gate Heroes and word was Faust had one of his famed condescending acceptance
speeches at the ready to end the night on a low note.

“Some young girl
just hit on me at the bar,” said John as he returned to the table with a Diet
Dr
Pepper. “She thought I was a guy named Hogan Landers.”

“He’s a famous
operations director on the East Coast, with the League of Steel I think,” said
Cosmic Kid.

“You don’t look
anything like him,” laughed Blue Star. “So did you tell her you weren’t Hogan?”

“Yeah,” said John.
“She lost interest real quick when she learned I just run a Cosmic Burger
franchise.”

“Kid, I see where
you get it from,” said Blue Star, shaking his head. “John, you should have
played along with her. If anything like that happens again, just send me a
message by HoloBerry and we’ll all start calling you Hogan.”

“That’s horrible,”
said Stacey. “It’s not nice to lie to some poor girl.”

“If a girl mistakes
you for someone famous then you have the right to take advantage of it,” said
Stephen.

“What? You mean you
aren’t really President
Carlington
!” said Veronica in
mock indignation. Everyone laughed, perhaps a little too enthusiastically as
Nautilus at the nearby San Diego Supers table, coughed loudly and gave them all
a stern look.

“Yeah, but what if
you actually start to like the girl and your whole relationship is based on a
lie?” asked Cosmic Kid.

“If you like a gold
digger like that, your judgment is suspect to begin with,” said Blue Star.

“How do you know
she’s a gold digger and not just a big fan?” asked Stacey.

“A big fan isn’t going
to misidentify the object of their obsession,” said Blue Star.

“True,” agreed
Stephen.

“Anyway,” said
Cosmic Kid, “what’s the prognosis on the criminal charges for our bad guys this
year?”

Blue Star frowned.
“Dr. Brandeis was going to testify against
Roache
and
the Governor, but he escaped from prison. Regardless
Roache
and the Governor are likely to be convicted. Dr. Wraith,
Fortina
Knox, Fade Out, Kill
O’Watts
, and Ian’s psychic are
in
ultimax
and awaiting trial.”

“What about the
minions?” Cosmic Kid asked.

“Most have plea
bargained, claiming they were just hired for security work; they’ll probably
spend a few months in jail and then get released.” Blue Star shrugged.
“California’s prisons are overcrowded and the State budget is broke, so that
works in their favor. Dynamic Solutions is being sued, but its board of
directors is trying to salvage the situation by claiming that
Roache
defrauded the company, which is sort of true.
However, the company lost billions and may be broken up. As for Starfish’s pets,
a lot escaped into the wild.
Seawolf’s
leading the
Coast Guard’s effort to round them up. If we’re lucky, we’ll have a cold winter
to take care of them.” He took a swig of beer; he doubted that they’d be lucky
now when they hadn’t been all Season.

Stephen leaned
across the table. “Cosmic Kid, you have an acceptance speech prepared in case,
right?”

“Ah, isn’t it poor
form to admit that?” asked Cosmic Kid.

“No, it’s poor form
to babble at the podium,” said Stephen.

“Everyone writes up
an acceptance speech when they’re nominated for an award, Kid,” said Blue Star.

“Well, okay I might
have jotted down some thoughts.”

“Stephen is just
making sure you mentioned him in the speech,” said John.

“Quiet everyone
they’re doing Best PR Director!” hissed Stacey, who was focused on the stage.
They were running a clip with all the PR directors of the West Coast Conference
making inane statements about their teams. The last clip was of Gabrielle at a
press conference reaming a reporter who asked her whether Keystone’s departure
would scuttle the team. It was truly classic Gabrielle and at the end of the
clip the screen went black with the words Gabrielle Fox (White Knight)
1985-2013. There was applause from across the room; it was an awkward moment
with everyone’s attention on their table. It passed quickly enough, though,
because like all superhero awards ceremonies a lot of teams had suffered losses
and there was a timetable to stick to.

“I picked that
clip,” said Stacey.

“I wish I had gotten
to know Gabrielle better,” said Cosmic Kid.

“You couldn’t have,”
said Blue Star. “Secret identities are fine for keeping your privacy, but to
your teammates they’re a slap in the face. She didn’t trust you or the team
with the truth and that creates a wall.”

“I guess,” said Cosmic
Kid. “At the funeral, I met her parents – they didn’t even know nor did any of
her friends or family. Her father told me that he didn’t even know who his own
daughter was.”

“It’s never easy
when someone dies,” Stacey sighed.

“Everyone dies,”
said John. “Not everyone who dies though is remembered or honored as they
should be.”

“Gabrielle knew the
risks and she went down fighting,” said Blue Star, who hadn’t attended the
funeral. In fact, he’d really tried hard not to think about Gabrielle or her
death for the last few months. “That’s how I want to go, fighting the good
fight, not fading away in some nursing home for old supers.”

“I’d rather not go
out at all,” said Cosmic Kid.

“That’s youth
speaking,” said Blue Star. “In our line of work, death is our constant
companion. You’ll spend your life dodging and scorning her until you realize
that it’s death that makes life so sweet. Spend time with someone who’s
immortal and you’ll see that living forever isn’t a blessing but a curse.

“Wow, once the
Season’s over you get real philosophical, don’t you?” said Cosmic Kid.

“Will you all please
be quiet!” hissed Nautilus. The Best Team Leader award was next and Nautilus
had been nominated for his leadership of San Diego.

“Focus on your own
table,” snapped Stacey, though she did give Blue Star and Cosmic Kid an
ineffectual glare. Nautilus didn’t win Best Team Leader, which went to the
retiring Captain Seattle. The next award was Best Rookie.

“The camera will be
on us, so no nose picking or anything,” whispered Stephen.

“Good luck, Kid,”
said Blue Star as John proudly patted his son on the back.

The four candidates
were Cosmic Kid, Gale of the Cool Kids, Paradigm Shift of the High Rollers, and
Shield of Salt Lake Heroes. Blue Star didn’t think it was even close, though he
hadn’t really paid much attention to the other candidates when he’d submitted
his vote. Once you won an award in the Super League, you became a lifetime
voting member for conference and national awards.

Robin Traverse of
Supers Weekly
, formerly
Skyfire
, leader of the Infinity Team, who Blue Star had
briefly dated decades ago, came out to announce the winner. She ripped open the
envelope and gave the audience a smile. “The winner of the Best Rookie of the
Year for the West Coast Conference is…Paradigm Shift of the High Rollers!”

The room broke out
in applause, but everyone at the West Pacific Supers table just stared blankly
at the stage. “Who the hell is Paradigm Shift?” asked Blue Star a little too
loudly. Next to them at the San Diego table, he could hear Nautilus snickering.

“This is crap,”
muttered Stephen who pulled out his HoloBerry. “We need to focus on winning the
People’s Choice Awards since we didn’t win a real award. Paradigm Shift? Who
the hell are they kidding?”

“Guys, come on, be
good sports,” said Cosmic Kid with a laugh. “It’s not like this really matters
that much and Paradigm Shift had a good Season.”

“You are such a
great guy,” said Stacey with a wistful look.

“Yes, very classy,
Patrick,” said Veronica.

“We should go get
drunk and pick up some girls,” said Blue Star. “That’s the way to get over a
loss like this. John can pretend to be Hogan Landers and all of us can get
lucky tonight.”

“No, no, no!” said
Stacey quickly. “I’m under strict orders from Dr. Sterling. No public
drunkenness and no women.” She tried to fix them with a steely gaze, but failed
miserably.

“Don’t worry,
Stacey,” said Cosmic Kid with a laugh. “We’re going to have a Classic Cosmic
Kid Party: Pictionary, pizza, and my soda sponsor - A-Cola!”

“A-Cola?” asked Blue
Star skeptically.

“Absolutely, the
sickeningly sweet, carbonated, concentrated agave nectar of the future!” said
Cosmic Kid. “Supposedly, one can gives you the sugar high of six cans of a
normal soda. Two cans can kill a diabetic.”

“Great,” said Blue
Star grumpily. “Another evening fraught with peril.”

2:07 a.m., Saturday, December 21
st
, 2013

Palais
du Louvre

Paris, France

A
voice…no, two voices
,
thought Nike, the Goddess of Victory. She tried to focus and found that she was
more aware than usual. She could sense two people nearby talking and doing
something to her prison, which was bringing her awareness back to reality. How
long had she been imprisoned? She didn’t know, but it had to have been
centuries at least. Most of it was a blur of dreams and nightmares created by
her mind to deal with her confinement. She was probably quite mad, though she
figured that if she feared she was mad then she probably wasn’t.

“Is it working?”
said one of them, a male.

“Yes, I think so,”
said another male, who Nike believed was performing some sort of spell.
Magic
. It was magic that
had gotten her into this. She remembered Circe who had betrayed her and trapped
her in this prison. She would go to Hades itself to find Circe to inflict her
vengeance.

“It’s missing its
head and arms? What are we going to do with a headless, armless goddess?” asked
the first one. The humans were clearly intellectually limited and didn’t
understand that gods chose their forms. She was tempted upon release from her prison
to assume a headless, armless form, but it would undermine the moment.

She was being freed.
This moment had to be something special. While the humans were probably as
limited as all humans, they had no doubt braved great dangers to rescue her. It
was how things were supposed to be done. She would have to be gracious; if she
was ever imprisoned again how she handled this release would affect future
attempts at liberating her. She would give them each a boon: a wish, yes, a
wish. Humans loved wishes, which were usually incredibly short-sighted and
disgustingly easy to arrange, but it tantalized their limited imaginations.

“It’s starting to
glow!” said the second human.

The prison was
breaking. She wondered how human society had changed after a few hundred years.
They were probably still struggling with wind and animal power, which would
make it easier to earn their worship. Though with her luck they were an
interstellar power and while her abilities would dwarf them individually they
really wouldn’t be impressed. That was why her kin preferred more primitive
civilizations: they were easier to impress. Modern societies were so cynical.
Then again, at least one of the humans was using magic. That was good; magic
was usually one of the first things to go, that and war – which took away half
the fun of playing with lesser species.

There was a flash of
light.

She dropped to the
ground in a human form. She decided to leave out the wings that she used to
have, because they were more annoying than anything else. She also decided to
go with the naked arrival – it always stunned human males. She went for pale
skin, long dark hair, dark eyes, and as appealing of a body as possible, though
she tried not to overdo it.

There were two human
males standing before her. She was perched on a platform with staircases about.
The lights were dim, but clearly electrical – which bespoke sophisticated
technology. It was an odd place, but her prison apparently had been given a
position of prominence in the facility. She peered at the two human males. Both
were dressed all in black. One carried a pistol in a holster, a weapon of some
sort, though gunpowder-based. The other was the wizard. He was carrying an old
book and an odd collection of bones and crystals. Nike hated magic. It was overly
complicated, but she knew enough to know that this was the human who had broken
the enchantment holding her. Both of the males had dropped their jaws; the one
with the gun was actually drooling. Nike quickly checked to make sure she had
all the right body parts, the last thing she wanted was to start a religion
which depicted her with three breasts or something. It happened more often than
not. Her form would become fixed, more or less, by the minds of those around
her. It was a weakness, but adulation always had a price.

She focused on the
words she had heard and used her mind to attune herself to this language. It
was a new one; a great amount of time must have passed. “I am Nike. I am the
Goddess of Victory. I thank you for freeing me from my prison. For this I will
grant you each a wish, but first tell me your names.”

She hoped they
didn’t ask for sex. It was such a messy human activity, but then again it was
fairly easy to handle – it would be over in an hour. However, it could produce
offspring; she wasn’t sure how that happened and she suspected it was a joke by
one of the Old Ones during the journey to Earth when most of them slumbered.
Then again by this stage of development, humans probably had developed birth
control, though with her luck she would have some spoiled demigod pop out of
her skull or something.

The wizard spoke
first. “Ah, I dreamed that you would be freed…I…I want to be the greatest
wizard on Earth…oh, my name is Brennan.”

Magic, why did it
have to be magic
,
thought Nike. She was also curious about the dreams, which probably meant that
someone used Brennan to free her. That was interesting, but best to pretend to
be as omniscient as possible for now. “Yes, it is possible Brennan, the path of
greatness hangs upon you like garlands and there are seven steps to becoming
the greatest magician in the world. First we must find the Golden Fleece.” That
was just a delaying tactic. The Golden Fleece was a gimmick of the gods like
the Golden Apples, useful to keep humans running around in circles. Hopefully,
he didn’t actually have the Golden Fleece, but judging by his expression Nike
figured she was safe and had bought herself some time. She was also glad that
she had decided to go for seven steps instead of 12 as she suspected Brennan
would have cried if she had said 12. He looked like he expected her to make him
a great wizard with the wave of her hand; this was clearly a lazy era of
development for humans.

She turned to the
other male whose eyes were stuck on her breasts and lower, which she took as
both a compliment and also a sign that this human was on the low-end of the
evolutionary scale for the species. She sensed something odd about him. If she
didn’t know better she would think he was a demigod, a human with divine blood.
She decided to wait for him to speak, the less she said, the more mysterious
she would appear.

“I’m Cavendish,
Marcus Cavendish. I want to rule the world,” he said confidently.

Better that than sex
, she thought, but
he was definitely not world-conquering material. She figured she should counter
offer. “If you reach for the world you will lose everything, but I can help you
conquer a single country for your own. It will not be easy, but it is
possible.”

“Okay, I want to
rule the United States of America,” said Marcus.

Nike considered him.
Clearly, the United States of America was a major power, but it was United
States… maybe a democracy. That would actually be pretty easy; you didn’t need
to be competent to take over a democracy, just charismatic. “Yes, that can be done,
but it will not be easy and you must be patient and do everything I command.
First, we must acquire for you the Tongue of the Muses.” Marcus snickered at
that.

Nike ignored him and
looked about the room. It was a beautiful location for her prison, which she
suspected had been a statue. Circe had probably used some sort of petrification
and essence-binding spell on her. Not bad at all for a demigod.

“Damn it! The alarms
have gone off!” said Cavendish. “Your invisibility spell must have ended!
Guards are coming!”

Brennan looked
panicked. “When the spell on the statue broke, it probably dispelled my
enchantments! We need to get out of here!”

“Calmly,” said Nike.
She looked up and saw the skylight. That was the obvious exit for them, which meant
she would have to fly them out of here.

“They’re about to
turn the corner. There are two of them,” said Cavendish, looking down a
stairwell and pulling out his gun. Nike was impressed. His senses were superior
to hers. He could see through walls and likely hear that which she could not
hear. He was a demigod. Hercules was an idiot too, so there was precedence.

“Use your gun when
they turn the corner,” said Nike calmly.

Cavendish swallowed
and pointed his gun. The two guards turned the corner and he fired twice. Each
shot hit one of their legs and dropped them. His jaw dropped.

“You have victory on
your side,” said Nike. She could have helped him kill them, but wounded enemies
were always best; it demoralized the enemy and drained their resources to have
to carry them. She would rather have a hundred enemies crippled than five
hundred killed.

She pointed at the
skylight and lightning arced from her hand and blew apart the glass. She closed
her eyes and then wings appeared on her back; she grabbed Brennan and Cavendish
and flew through the opening. She soared away from the Louvre and soon saw
Paris alit at night. “This is a beautiful city,” she commented quietly. There
were some advantages of dealing with more modern societies.

“It’s Paris, we’re
in France, but we’re from America,” said Brennan whose eyes were wide in fear,
looking down from their dizzying height.

Nike was
disappointed that they hadn’t wanted to conquer France, but she hoped that this
United States of America was equally as impressive. “Am I as adored as I was in
centuries past?” she asked.

“Well, not really,”
said Brennan. “None of the Greek Gods are worshipped anymore, well, maybe by
some Wiccans I guess.”

“So I have been
forgotten?” She already knew the answer. There were no prayers on the winds for
her blessing, but hopefully that would change.

“There’s a really
big shoe company named after you,” said Cavendish. “But could we get down now?
We parked over there.”

Nike landed next to
a small van. She was disappointed that a shoe company was her legacy; she had
hoped for a major weapons manufacturer or something interesting. However, she
suspected they probably produced shoes for athletes and that wasn’t bad. It was
a start at least.

“Do either of you
know of a sorceress named Circe?” asked Nike.

“Like from Homer’s
Odyssey
?” asked Brennan
whose eyes were drifting down from her face. She realized she needed clothes.
Fortunately, Cavendish was actually pulling out some clothes from the van for
her.

“Yes, is she still
alive?” She doubted it. Circe was only a demigod, but it was still a
possibility. She started putting on the clothes, which probably belonged to one
of them as they were too big. She could create an illusion of clothing, but
figured it was best to keep as many of her powers as secret as possible for
now.

“I don’t think so,
but there was a sorceress named Circe who used to be with West Pacific Supers,”
said Brennan. “She retired a few years ago, but I doubt she’s the same one.”

Nike instantly knew
the truth: that Circe and her Circe were indeed one and the same. That changed
everything. “I’ll need real clothes and the best.”

“I guess that’s
Champs-Élysées, but we’re short on cash,” said Brennan.

“That’s not a
problem. I assume there are games of chance still around?” asked Nike.

“Yes, there are,”
said Cavendish excitedly. “You can’t lose, right?”

“I always win, but
sometimes a win is a loss,” said Nike ruefully. She savored the thought that
her fight with Circe wasn’t over yet and she still might keep her winning
streak alive.

“So where’s the
Golden Fleece?” asked Brennan.

Nike appreciated his
focus, but decided it was time to start moving things in a direction more under
her control. “It’s in West Pacific actually, which is fortuitous for all of
us.”

“So we’re going to
West Pacific?” asked Cavendish.

“Yes, after some
games and shopping,” said Nike. “Victory has returned.”

THE
END