West Pacific Supers: Rising Tide (14 page)

“I’m not quite done
yet,” said Blue Star with annoyance.

“Which is why we
want you to head up West Pacific Supers,” said Dr. Hodges with a disapproving
look at Dr. Sterling. “We want West Pacific Supers to be the cap on your
distinguished career.”

“I’m in,” said Blue
Star. “I’ll mentor the kid, but I need to know any secret identities and other
team secrets – every team has them and I don’t want to be blindsided.”

“The only secret
identity is White Knight and he has agreed that you can be informed of that,”
said Dr. Hodges. “We’ll also try to get you up to speed on West Pacific Supers,
its history and all that, though we don’t have many secrets.”

“We also do intend
to hit the ground running against those who attacked the team so be prepared,”
said Dr. Sterling as she stood up. Clearly, the meeting was at an end.

Blue Star nodded and
shook their hands again. He dropped in his chair as they left. West Pacific
wasn’t the Infinity Team or the Paragons, but it could be. There were some
heroics left in him, he could feel it. At the least, he would bring those who
killed Mr. Awesome to justice. It would be what he would want if he died, hmm,
probably something he should put in his will, which he always updated at the
beginning of a new contract. He would need to add some memento for Susan, who
he would need to break up with tonight. West Pacific was close enough for a
long-distance relationship, but what he wanted was a completely fresh start.
That was always best.

9:32
a.m., Thursday, April 4th, 2013

Supersonic
Cat Conference Room, WPS HQ

West
Pacific, CA

$500 was
Cosmic Kid’s only consolation for surviving the last agonizing thirty minutes.
Stephen had calculated his salary out to $1,000 every hour, 24 hours a day, all
year long. The figure understated various tax obligations but it was accurate
enough to put things in perspective. The question though was whether $500 was
sufficient compensation for what he had just experienced. The loss in brain
cells alone was probably worth many times that amount, but this was simply the
price to pay for being a professional superhero.

“When confronting a
paranormal phenomenon, our basic plan is ACT: assess, contain, and terminate,”
droned Major Dagan of the West Pacific Police Department as he continued to
read each slide of his PowerPoint presentation. Cosmic Kid was pretty certain
that PowerPoint presentations violated the Geneva Conventions or something. He
had also committed the cardinal sin of PowerPoint presentations: he had read
the background material beforehand.

Major Dagan was
briefing West Pacific Supers on the procedures and operations of the WPPD, from
their afterschool basketball conference to how they would handle a weapon of
mass destruction. Interesting stuff, especially if one had read the 71 pages of
supplemental materials provided by Major Dagan that morning. However,
PowerPoint presentations weren’t interesting - they were all about the
distillation of real knowledge into bullet points deprived of context and
substance. Major Dagan was a master of PowerPoint; it was almost Zen-like how
he distilled 71 pages into meaningless bits of information that belonged on
fortune cookies.

Cosmic Kid checked
his HoloBerry while Major Dagan launched into the city’s weapons of mass
destruction response plan, which began with a slide of a multicolored flowchart
that summarized the theoretical response of the city’s first responders and
emergency services to various Armageddon scenarios. No messages from Danny
since the Super Draft. She had ended up being picked by the Savannah Seven
after West Pacific traded for a higher Draft pick and took him instead of her.
He had been too busy to make amends; more accurately, he was annoyed that she
was mad at him when he hadn’t done anything wrong. In the Super Industry things
changed all the time and it wasn’t like he had a choice in the matter.

A message from
Epiphany said simply:
In
orientation - sexual harassment and leaving food in the team refrigerator are
both felonies in Baltimore.
He smiled and sent back a message:
In team briefing, supposedly nuclear
attacks are bad though scientific community is divided on the issue.
His ‘date’ with Epiphany had been perhaps the most mentally exhausting
experience of his life, but he guessed they were now friends. He wasn’t even
sure if they were dating or not, but they did have some sort of relationship,
though he had no idea what it was. Dealing with Epiphany over text messages was
actually pleasant.

“Cosmic Kid, you
should be paying attention,” whispered Blue Star who was sitting next to him in
a stylish dark blue suit. Seawolf was the only one in the meeting in costume.

“I’m multitasking,”
whispered back Cosmic Kid as he went red in the face from embarrassment and
anger. Camille wasn’t taking notes but doodling a menagerie of poorly
drawn animals in capes. Hell, White Knight and Keystone weren’t even here and
Starfish, who was joining them via teleconference from his hospital bed,
appeared to have fallen asleep. It wasn’t fair – he was the only one who had
done the reading, but because he was the ‘kid’ he was being reprimanded.

“It is always better
to do one thing well than two things poorly,” whispered Blue Star
disapprovingly.

“That was the
standard in the 70s; nowadays it’s better to do three things well rather than
five things poorly – inflation you know,” whispered back Cosmic Kid who was not
in the mood to be chided like he was a super teen, even by a living legend like
Blue Star.

“This is important
material,” said Blue Star a little louder.

Cosmic Kid looked up
at the current slide that contained bullet points with pointless facts about
how many mutants and bomb-sniffing dogs were employed by the WPPD. “No, it’s
not.”

“We need to be on
the same page as the WPPD during a crisis,” whispered Blue Star irritably.

“I read the report,”
retorted Cosmic Kid. “We aren’t going to thwart some supervillain or extremist
group with PowerPoint slides, unless we print them up on sheets of titanium and
make little throwing stars out of them.”

“You’re not
respecting our guest,” hissed Blue Star. “You need to at least pretend to be
listening like I am!”

“Boys, is there a
problem?” asked Dr. Sterling with a stern look as silence swept the room. “Both
of you should be paying attention. This is important material.”

“What? I’m paying
attention,” said Blue Star defensively.

“I’m not,” said
Cosmic Kid. Everyone turned and looked at him with a host of disapproving looks
mingled with surprise. Starfish distinctly could be heard chuckling over
the video feed; apparently he hadn’t been asleep after all. He was very mutant
in appearance: shaped like a normal human, but with bright orange, rubbery
skin.

“If I may ask,
Cosmic Kid, why aren’t you paying attention?” asked Dr. Sterling icily.

“Because… I was
distracting him with some questions about how the Ultimate League dealt with
paranormal crises,” said Blue Star with a warning look at Cosmic Kid.

“Nope, I’m not
paying attention because this is a waste of time,” said Cosmic Kid, who was
touched by Blue Star’s attempt to give him cover. He probably should have taken
it; his plan had been to slide under the radar his first day, but since he was
an ‘arrogant ass’ according to spotthespandex.com he might as well embrace it.

Dr. Sterling smiled
dangerously. “Please explain why this is a waste of our time?”

“Because we’re all
literate adults. The WPPD has spent hundreds of hours compiling the various
reports filled with useful information that we were given this morning.
Unfortunately, because Major Dagan knows none of us are going to read the whole
report, he has spent a few more hours preparing this presentation to distill
all that useful information into a PowerPoint presentation that effectively
means nothing.”

“It’s important to
distill information,” said Dr. Sterling.

“Sure, but come on,”
said Cosmic Kid. “It’s like ‘ACT’ to deal with paranormal crises. You analyze,
contain, and terminate the paranormal event causing the crisis, but that’s like
moronically obvious. To actually do it you need to have internalized the
underlying information to execute those bullet points. I mean, if the Pharaoh
just needed to know ‘ACT’ then Moses wouldn’t have led his people out of Egypt,
right? Good thing you can’t have acronyms with hieroglyphics or history might
have turned out quite a bit differently. Seriously, if we have a real
paranormal crisis like a zombie plague, frogs falling from the sky, or who
knows what, I don’t think the city will take solace in the fact that West
Pacific Supers watched a PowerPoint presentation instead of actually reading
and learning the underlying source material. Major Dagan has more important
things to do than helping some supers cram for a crisis.”

Seawolf smirked
approvingly. “I completely agree. In fact, I’d be curious to know who actually
read the report besides Cosmic Kid and myself.” She gave Camille a knowing
smile and Camille scowled back at her.

Starfish chuckled
again. “Oh, I read the report but I truly enjoy PowerPoint presentations. There
is an art and majesty to them that defies explanation. It just makes me all
warm inside to read bullet points.”

“It’s never a waste
of time to coordinate between law enforcement institutions,” said Blue Star,
who looked tired; no doubt this was not how he had envisioned the first team
meeting.

“Yes, but it is a
waste of time for someone to spoon feed us information we should be able to
process ourselves,” said Cosmic Kid. “I’m sure there are more important things
we could be doing with this time.”

“Such as?” asked Dr.
Sterling.

“Perhaps we could
have a briefing on the investigation into the attacks against the team,” said Cosmic
Kid. “I’ve gotten all my information from the news and think a proper briefing
for the new members on what happened and how the investigation is proceeding
would be very useful.”

“I agree,” said
Starfish. “Major Dagan, who tried to kill me?”

“That investigation
is proceeding, but I’m not at liberty to discuss it with the team at this
time,” said Major Dagan.

“Why?” asked Cosmic
Kid.

Starfish laughed,
revealing two rows of perfectly even white teeth. “Because the WPPD probably
suspects someone with ties to the team was involved with the attack. Isn’t that
right, Major Dagan?”

“I think it’s best
if we just continue with the PowerPoint presentation,” said Blue Star
hurriedly.

“Wait!” Camille said
angrily. “You’re saying that the police suspect someone working for the team
killed Awesome and Meltdown? I thought it was the Infinite Circle or some
supervillain - Cosmic Kid’s right, we should be talking about that and planning
reprisals.”

“We don’t suspect
any of you or the senior staff were involved with the attack, but it is
possible that whoever perpetrated the attack had help from someone who works
for the team,” said Major Dagan. “However, the main reason I’m not sharing our
information with you is that I don’t want anyone on the team going vigilante looking
for revenge or… reprisals.”

“The WPPD was
handling security for the Costume Launch,” snapped Gabrielle Fox, the team’s PR
director. “Maybe we’ll have to go vigilante if your people are corrupt and
can’t handle their job.”

The room went silent
and Cosmic Kid felt a little guilty for how poorly the meeting was going. Major
Dagan though seemed impassive, or probably was trying really hard to be
impassive while he collected his thoughts for a response.

“I love the honesty
in this meeting,” interjected Starfish. “Can I be honest too? Camille, you look
good for a woman your age and really should go back to the mini-skirt.”

“What?” said
Camille, blushing. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, Starfish.”

“We are
investigating ourselves as well as the team,” Major Dagan finally said. “The
WPPD is taking this investigation very seriously and is focused on doing the
best job possible in the situation.”

“Everyone is
investigating everyone else and themselves,” said Dr. Sterling. “Lots and lots
of investigating going on, but Major Dagan I’m afraid we should wrap up your
presentation for the day. Thank you very much for coming to see us.”

“It was a pleasure,”
said Major Dagan as he turned off the ill-fated PowerPoint and packed up his
things.

Dr. Sterling looked
around the room coolly. “I have a few things to discuss with the good Major,
but I’ll be back shortly so none of you had better go anywhere.” With that she
escorted Major Dagan out of the room.

“Cosmic Kid, you
might end up traded by the end of the day,” Starfish laughed.

“I… I just didn’t
think this was the best use of our time,” said Cosmic Kid.

Seawolf nodded. “I
agree. These meetings are always a waste of time.”

“Perhaps,” said Blue
Star, “but it was a chance for Major Dagan, our liaison with the WPPD, to
interact with the team. It was the first time he met with a lot of us. I think
we made a poor impression.”

“We weren’t
interacting with Major Dagan; we were sitting around while he read a bedtime story
to us,” said Cosmic Kid. “If we want to get to know him then we should have
lunch with him or something.”

“I like that,”
Starfish smiled broadly. “We could have a team picnic and invite Dagan.”

Camille forced a
smile. “We used to do team parties.”

“Yes, and those were
such a success,” said Seawolf dryly.

“Great, we should
hold one at your leaky lighthouse!” exclaimed Starfish. “I’ve heard such
fascinating stories about the last party, though that was before my time. I’m
dying to see the place.”

Seawolf looked hurt,
though Starfish didn’t appear to notice.

“No, like a real
team party,” said Camille. “Remember, Matthew used to hold them at his house?”

“Matthew, is it?”
said Starfish with a tone of mock surprise. “Well, look who’s on a first-name
basis with the big man himself!”

“I was just saying…
” began Camille defensively as Dr. Sterling reentered the room.

“That did not go
well,” she said. “Cosmic Kid, we’re paying you enough that you can sit through
a damn PowerPoint presentation without acting like a petulant teenager.”

“Ouch!” said
Starfish. “This is why I just sit and be quiet.”

“I think Cosmic Kid
has a point,” said Seawolf. “Everyone should have read the report beforehand
and we could have had a more productive meeting.”