Chapter 26
"Man, I've never used a hot-forming hydraulic press before—" Robert Robertson III circled the machine with the reverent fascination of a cat discovering a stupid puppy that careless owners had brought home. "You guys have serious equipment here. I used to fabricate parts practically by hand—"
The dispatcher for Team Z settled into the nearest chair, leaning back against an avalanche of blueprints, papers, and assorted surplus components that populated any self-respecting engineer's workspace, experiencing the complicated emotion of someone simultaneously thrilled that this equipment would now fix his armor and quietly devastated that he hadn't had access to it sooner.
"Not bad, right?" The large, broad-shouldered man with the dark complexion winked at Mecha Man and made a few notes on his tablet, then stood beside the machine with his muscular arms crossed, smiling good-naturedly while he waited for the cycle to finish, showing off his new acquisition. "This little lady cost the SDS a hundred and seventy-five thousand—"
The watch on Robert's wrist produced an unpleasant beep.
"Three minutes."
"Let's see what we've got." A few button presses, the machine stopped, a cloud of steam dispersed with a hiss. The platform descended to waist height.
"Holy—" The engineer grabbed his metallurgical tongs and lifted the result, transferring it to the plate Robert was already holding out. The aroma hit both of them immediately, overriding three square meters of grease, oil, and metal smell. "What a gorgeous panini. My mother would have approved."
"God, Royd, this is incredible." Robert was mid-bite and already making sounds suggesting complete approval of life's direction. "If I'd known I'd be eating like this, I'd have wrecked the suit years ago—"
"Heh-heh, you're being too kind." The engineer ruffled his curly hair, a faint blush appearing, pushing it back over his shoulder. "You haven't tried my abuela's Loco Moco and Lau-Lau yet. Now that is actual food of the gods."
For a few pleasant minutes, the workshop of the self-described engineering nerd fell into comfortable silence, both men absorbed in the panini—
Until Royd asked the question that had clearly been waiting.
"Hey, so — are you actually dating Blond Blazer?"
Robert's mind briefly replayed an evening a few days prior. A remarkable woman whose expressive mouth had contrasted beautifully with their meal — unremarkable Chinese takeout — and expensive wine drunk from plastic cups, and conversation until nearly morning about nothing and everything. Blond Blazer had shown him a different side of herself, the real one, the face behind the mask — which in superhero circles constituted an extremely personal gesture, for which the dispatcher was genuinely grateful, feeling something solidify in his chest with each passing day.
Then the present reasserted itself.
"Kff—" He choked, thumped himself hard in the chest, eyes going wide with the brief understanding that this was significantly closer to death than anything in his actual career. It took a startled friend and several awkward iterations of the Heimlich before Mecha Man was functional again. "What? Where did that come from? What the hell, Royd?"
"Easy, man, I was just checking on some rumors going around the office—"
"What rumors?" Behind the indignation, Robert was internally reviewing how any of this could have surfaced. He wasn't embarrassed, exactly, but the superhero had clearly indicated a preference for keeping whatever was developing between them quiet for now. "Who — was it Waterboy?"
"The loud chosen one of Kanaloa?" The engineer pressed his enormous knuckle briefly to his chest.
"The what?"
"The water kid. Throws water, gets thrown by water, skates on water. As my grandmother would say — 'The ocean god Kanaloa has marked him.' That's actually what she said." He added this with his signature good-person smile, as though it clarified everything. "He's also very loud—"
"I'm aware. I've had the neighboring stall experience." Robert massaged his eyelids, suppressing a heavy sigh, redirected back to the actual topic. "So was it him?"
"Hm? No." Already finished with his portion and drifting toward other projects, Royd seemed to have partially forgotten his own question. "Sandy told me, she heard it from Tim, who overheard it from Galen telling Mister Whiskey — basically someone heard you invite Blazer out and she said yes without breaking anything on you, and put two and two together."
"Breaking something? Blond Blazer? A superhero? A modern icon?" Robert genuinely needed a moment. Though what actually floored him was the timeline — barely two days had passed since the invitation, and if Royd the reclusive workshop hermit already knew, then the mice and cockroaches in the building were certainly fully briefed. "Why would she break anything? And who is Mister Whiskey?"
"Well, I don't fully buy into it, but — I also heard she uses these situations to manage Team Z—"
The engineer leaned forward, covering one side of his mouth with his palm, as though sharing sacred knowledge.
"They apparently messed something up recently, and—"
"That's nonsense. I'm Team Z's dispatcher and nothing like that is happening."
"Really? Didn't realize you had them. Thought they'd give you someone more senior—" Royd shrugged, studying the workshop ceiling for a moment before continuing. "Well, either way. So she's not punishing them?"
"No."
"And the fire situation at the docks didn't happen?"
"It did—"
"And Blazer chasing one of the Team Z members through the building also didn't happen?"
"That also happened—"
"And said member sitting in the cafeteria afterward, pale as a sheet, hands shaking, drinking coffee and whiskey at his desk in the middle of the working day—"
"That too—"
With each answer, Robert's expression became progressively flatter and more vacant, listening to how everything sounded from outside.
"Look, Mecha Man — I'm not a superhero and I'm no great detective, but even I can see that—"
"It wasn't what it sounds like, just trust me." Robert set down his half-finished panini and returned to the blueprints. Ruined appetite and ruined mood were best treated with the one method that had worked consistently for years. "Let's get back to work. The suit isn't going to fix itself—"
The next few minutes passed in silence, until Robert remembered one outstanding detail.
"And who is Mister Whiskey? You still haven't told me."
"Hm? Oh! He's the mascot. A guy in a ginger cat costume." Royd bent a strip of metal bare-handed, checking its temper. "He's mute, so people tell him everything."
"Brilliant."
---
After the incident with Miss Blazer, some of my old charming difficulties returned for a couple of days — as Mal affectionately called them.
I'll be honest: sitting on the cafeteria couch with the demoness holding me, running a hand through my hair while her tail was wrapped around my torso and shoulder — I briefly considered going back to our battle-ready supervisor's office again. Possibly even engineering a situation requiring it.
Reason prevailed. As did the simple realization that a small joke that had nearly ended in my actual cardiac arrest had been too shocking for Blond Blazer, and she was now behaving in a way that was strange and slightly terrifying — like I was one of those perpetually trembling sick little dogs, and the superhero was a socialite who found them irresistible.
She had personally delivered a bag of medication and an entire fruit basket to my home. The fruit was all melons. Various varieties, but — still.
In short, Miss Blazer had activated full concerned-mother mode, and now instead of Invidiva, I was on the receiving end of her complete attention and care. I couldn't bring myself to be rude about it — and not because a single punch from her could deposit me on the far shore of the Styx. More because the genuine respect and something approaching awe that still ignited in my chest every time I saw the superhero made rudeness simply impossible.
Well. It was a little bit funny, probably.
Back to what actually matters. The week following those events had been remarkably quiet, which in this world was simply the accumulation period before something went badly wrong.
"I still think it's something to do with either his brain or his equipment," Prizm said, crossing one leg over the other and adjusting her shifting-spectrum glasses. "Like, either a photographic memory or a flexible—"
"Why specifically those two organs?" Mal was demolishing macadamia nuts at an industrial pace across from her. Her strong fingers cracked them cleanly, leaving the contents intact.
She caught me staring at her hands — I flinched every time she cracked one with that precise, controlled force — and smiled, then picked up a couple of nuts and rolled them between her fingers in a way that was doing no one any favors, and held them out toward me.
Not knowing how to respond, I extended my palm, into which a moment later — accompanied by a terrible crack and a procession of goosebumps up my spine — two nuts fell, releasing an extraordinary aroma of vanilla and butter.
"Poser," Prizm sniffed, exchanging a glance with Mal. A few seconds of the girls' particular silent communication, and the dark-haired hero flopped back against the cushion, rolling her eyes. "Because those two things are fundamentally linked in men. If one works, the other one doesn't—"
"Oh." Mal's response had the practiced quality of mild surprise, watching with satisfaction as I accepted another handful of nuts — or possibly that impression was mine. "I hope it's the second. Robert seemed clear-headed."
"Much good it'll do if the clear-headedness is small—"
"Maybe he uses it well. Some people manage it." Mal shifted one leg over the other with a casual ease that would have made Charlize Theron re-examine her choices, and spread her arms along the back of the couch.
"Doesn't work like that, trust me." Prizm went further and put her boots on the armrest, stretching latex-wrapped legs across the furniture. "Experience speaks—"
"Quick question — are we still talking about what powers our dispatcher might have, or are we talking about something else?" Invidiva inserted herself, carefully not catching my eye. After our confrontation, she'd been avoiding me with dedicated effort — at least it wasn't affecting the work, though Robert had stopped scheduling us together. "If it's the second thing, I have a comment."
"We were discussing clear-headedness," one said.
"We're talking about equipment," said the other.
Not hard to guess which was which.
"His is—"
Having secured everyone's attention, Invidiva was about to deliver what would certainly be another piece of gossip destined to circulate the entire SDS building — when Robert's voice cut into the earpiece.
"Waterboy, Golem, you're up—" He read out an address while the two of us collected ourselves and moved toward the exit. "Busy today, but flag anything and I'll send support. And Malevola — there's a Cult of Alfacha situation at the port—"
"Alfacha. Right. Old friends—"
"You're on that one." I missed the rest — I'd switched to the channel with my temporary partner.
The weather outside was extraordinary today, which combined with good mood, satisfaction from the general direction of life, and the naturally compelling view of a red tail ahead of me — all of it pointed toward heroism.
"Your target is Torrance Beach. Main-office heroes just drove a kaiju away from the city and are in pursuit. People on the coast are trapped and uncovered." Robert's typing was at full tempo. "Lower floors are flooded, a lot of people stuck. You've both handled situations like this before, so you know what you're doing."
"Copy—" Golem's response was deep and unhurried. He helped me onto his back and then broke into a run directly down the highway, overtaking unhurried elderly drivers in aged sedans.
"We'll be there soon, Robert."
---
Eight hours.
Eight bloody hours we spent clearing that beach, working through the aftermath of a hero-kaiju engagement, getting people out, and restraining the urge to flatten every helpful bystander who came to explain how the debris should be moved.
Even Golem — who was, at the end of the day, a heap of dirt and salvage — let out a tired exhalation when we got back to SDS and dropped through the entrance. I didn't describe how I got back. I simply fell face-first into the nearest couch, landed on something soft that swore at me—
"Huh." My hands moved upward to assess the pillow situation. Soft, firm, wrapped in denim. "Is that you, Diva?"
"Yeah—" She dropped her invisibility and materialized — specifically, the relevant portion of her, as I was currently lying across her lap with my arms around her from below. "Are you going to let go? Can I get up?"
"I'm fine like this."
"I'm not." Interestingly, despite the strict voice and the performed irritation, she made no actual effort to move, and didn't try to dislodge me. I removed my hands from where they were and turned onto my side, still using her legs as a pillow. "Better."
"Sure."
"Listen—" She bit her lip, looking anywhere in the room except at me. Her eyes moved constantly, and the lollipop in her mouth was making an alarming crunching sound under the pressure of her teeth. "I wanted to talk—"
"Hm?" I was genuinely trying to be attentive, but I was so tired I was already halfway asleep, which meant my end of the conversation lacked a certain spark.
"About that thing that happened." The muscles in her thighs tightened under me, betraying what the voice was hiding. "When I—"
For the second time that day, a conversation was interrupted. Robert Roberson came into the shared channel with a shout — loud enough that for a moment I thought he'd physically entered the room.
"Everyone on base, listen up. Malevola's been ambushed and I've lost her signal." My body was already moving. I was on my feet and halfway to the exit by the time I finished processing what he'd said. "Waterboy, Golem, Invidiva — move out. Flambé will meet you there in about thirty minutes when he's wrapped up. Don't rush in without thinking—"
Maintaining a cold calm that surprised even me, I let water coat my body in a thin layer and fired streams in front of me, skating forward and building speed — faster than I'd have managed a few months ago. Considerably faster.
In that moment, moving at full speed toward the coordinates, I didn't stop to register how readily the power was responding, how cleanly it was accepting commands.
"Robert, what's the situation? Any update?"
"Port, ongoing shooting, but — almost all the cameras — hell, all the electronics are down." His breathing was labored; he'd clearly left his desk at speed. "I'm trying to get into a satellite feed from Blazer's computer. Don't do anything stupid until I'm back with you and—"
"Just watch while they kill our friend?" Invidiva's voice came in sharp. I glanced back and caught Golem's silhouette on the road behind me, Invidiva's purple outline on his back. "We help her first, apologize later. It's like anal, Robert—"
"Better to ask forgiveness than permission?" He was already at the keyboard again, keys audible through the earpiece. Behind him, a brief clear sound of Miss Blazer's voice, immediately quiet again — apparently stepping back to let him work.
"You get it. Has someone ever forgiven you for something?"
"Yeah, a few times—"
"Could you two please have your phone sex AFTER—" The irritation broke into my voice before I could stop it. Not my usual approach to managing stress, but not the right moment for anyone's aggressive flirting. "Do whatever you want to each other, but not right now."
A surprised silence answered me.
"Alright, sorry." Robert was first to come back, and he meant it — the apology was genuine. "I'm almost on the satellite. Give me thirty seconds and we'll know what's happening."
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