Part Four

At the next Monday's weekly briefing the main topic was the current dearth of known hero supers available in most of the US. The explanations were valid, if annoying.

"The earthquake in Morocco is occupying supers who operate internationally, and storms in North America are keeping most of the teams who focus on the US busy," said Special Agent in Charge Drake. "We can make requests of Bureau headquarters for help, but the fact is that unless we have a major emergency, we're on our own."

"So, no change from the usual," said Cal Pavolin, sourly.

"Pretty much," said Drake.

* * *

Afterwards, Drake again asked Vic to stay when the others left. Again, it was for a relatively minor matter.

"There have been a few complaints from upper brass at the Bureau that you work too much overtime."

"I wholeheartedly agree," said Vic, with feeling. "What do they suggest to correct that? I hope they're planning to send another super to do some of the work."

"Not funny," said Drake, seriously. "You have been able to cut back some, lately, in part due to the work of Lady Green. That should stop the criticisms."

"Yeah," said Vic, reluctantly. "She has been more help than I thought she'd be."

"I'm glad you think that," said Drake, as usual his expression difficult to read. "I'm talking with the Mayor and the Chief of Police on ways for you two to work more together. You proved with the operation on that band that you can successfully team up."

"Joy..." said Vic, with a sigh.

* * *

Of course, communication between boss and employees should not be one-way. That afternoon Vic was in Drake's office in regard to a matter involving a member of the local Marshal's Service office.

"I was trying to explain to Deputy Marshal Purdey about Gerald Jenkins, but I'm not sure he understood me," said Vic, obviously irritated.

"Purdey is very articulate, and has an impressive vocabulary," said Drake. "However, he not good at actual communication, in or out. Whether written or - especially - spoken."

"Yeah. He tends to change the subject to something he's interested in, rather than what's being discussed. When he started talking about the Eagles, I needed a while to realize he meant the football team rather than the band."

"Well, you're more musically oriented than sports oriented," said Drake, philosophically. "I'll speak with his boss about Jenkins. I was planning to, anyway."

* * *

A hopefully quiet evening in the Peltior apartment was not going to plan. Michelle could tell that her spouse was pensive. Even one of her favorite sitcoms wasn't lightening Vic's mood.

"You all right, hon?" Michelle finally asked, as the end credits rolled.

Given recent events related to work, she figured that the problem was that FBI SWAT team. To her surprise, the cause of her wife's unease was about something - someone - else.

"I'm having more trouble with Gerald Jenkins."

"Who the Hell is Gerald Jenkins?" said Michelle, officially confused.

"He's this self-important jerk in Human Resources who keeps 'correcting' my gender to male in the official records," said Vic, sourly. "Actually, my mistake, he's the Inspector General for several of the local federal offices. He just meddles with Human Resources. Due to the post-war budget cuts, the smaller local federal offices were lumped together for him to 'inspect.' He says I can't be female, because I'm listed as male on my birth certificate and several other official documents, from early in my life. No amount of current evidence from doctors or geneticists or power specialists will change his mind. Neither will notarized documents. Neither will actually meeting or speaking with me. The real problem is that he's very clever at causing trouble. So official objections to his activities haven't had much luck. I think he has it in for me, just because I don't fit neatly into one of his mental cubbyholes."

"Now that you mention it, the name does sound familiar. Still can't place him, though."

"Jenkins caused trouble for another federal employee in our building, a little over a year ago," said Vic, sourly. "Claimed a woman in the FBI office who had surgery to remove an ectopic pregnancy had an abortion. Even 'corrected' her medical records. When called on it he claimed the doctor was using 'euphemisms.'"

"That's disgusting."

"Which pretty much sums up the guy."

* * *

Hiram Fosworth was sitting at his huge desk in his huge office when he sensed the power approaching. He looked out the expensive floor-to-ceiling window which made up the southern wall of the expansive room and grimaced. His sister was approaching, and she was, as usual when coming to him, angry.

Laurie phased through the glass and floated - barefoot, hair moving around her pointed ears as if she were under water - in front of his desk.

She was wearing a plain, sheer gown of some sort, something very impractical but extraordinarily fine. As well as distractingly translucent. Hiram was well past feeling embarrassment over being a bit aroused by his sister. Especially after she was the one who persuaded him to take female form for the first time, for one of her pranks on the locals around that marsh she valued so highly.

"The sparkles are a nice touch," said Hiram, casually. "Thank you for sparing the window."

"Fuck your window," she snapped. "I'm here about the Buttram place!"

"I owned it. I could sell it."

"They're going to drain the swamp! Which will dry out the marsh! Don't you care about the environment?!"

"Of course I do. However, there are plenty of swamps. Besides, the new owners chose to do that after I sold it. I didn't even know of their plans until well after the papers were signed. I have no further say in the manner."

As usual, "discussions" between the siblings quickly turned into a screaming match. In this case Laurie did all of the screaming.

"The swamp is the home of a very old and powerful spirit! Taking the water away will rouse it's ire!"

"I suppose you've spoken with this spirit?"

"No, I read about it."

"Where?" said Hiram.

"Tobin's Spirit Guide," she said.

"That's a fictional book."

"That's what they want you to think!"

"Well, if this old and powerful spirit is real, and if its ire is roused by the draining of the swamp, that's all on the new owners."

Frustrated by his calm rebuttal of every accusation, Laurie made vague promises to do something drastic, and left. This time she didn't spare the window. In fact, she raised her hand and blasted it to fragments before flying away.

"So petty," sighed Hiram, shaking his head. He got on the intercom and told his secretary that he was fine, and to call the glaziers.

* * *

It was business as usual in the Detroit offices for the Bureau of Special resources a few days later. That is, boring routine punctuated by brief outbursts of chaos. Or just brief outbursts. The first Monday morning in November, just as everyone was getting settled in at their desks, Drake walked into the shared office. He was holding a printed inventory list.

"I just got a call from Mr. Claud Sanders, our liaison with the Mayor's office. That is, he just left the security station of the building, on his way up here. He's over an hour early for his appointment, and sounded impatient. Since he wanted to ask Vic something..."

"Me?!"

"...I told him to come straight here."

On cue, a large, fussy man with a bad case of male pattern baldness banged into the room.

"I was here on time for my appointment but your office wasn't even open yet! The security guard at the entrance wasn't even at his post. So it's your fault I'm late!"

"Let me guess," said Cal Pavolin, who apparently had a history with the man, "you set all your clocks ahead instead of back when Daylight Savings ended yesterday. Again."

"That's what you're supposed to do!"

"No, you should have set them back," said Cal, tiredly. "Not ahead."

"They change it every time!"

"Harold, you do this twice a year," snapped Cal. "How hard is it to remember 'Spring ahead, Fall back'?"

"You're saying two different things!"

"No, you loose an hour in the Spring and gain an hour in the Fall," said Drake, reasonably.

"Then you're right back where you started from!"

"Which is the idea," said Cal.

"You're just stalling, because you don't want me asking questions about how you do your business."

"Mr. Sanders, the security post you just complained to me about having to wait to get through is for the entire building," said Drake, tiredly. "Our office only occupies a small portion of one floor of said building. We don't set the business hours. Now, what is it you want to talk to us about?"

"Two weeks ago, one of the three men who robbed a jewelry store downtown was found to be wearing a ballistic vest issued to your office! To one Victoria Peltior!"

"That doesn't make any sense," said Vic, startled.

"The perp was wearing a ballistic vest registered to you!" snapped the bureaucrat. "That is a fact!"

"No, I mean... I wear a suit of armor when I'm on the job," said Vic, confused. "Why would I have a ballistic vest?"

"Actually, you were issued a vest," said Drake. "I don't think you ever wore it."

"So where is it?"

"I just told you! The perp was wearing it!"

"It should be in storage, in the basement. I'll check."

"What about your issued gun?!" said the man. "Did you put that in storage, too?"

"I have to qualify with that, so I keep it in a lockbox in my desk."

"You actually think keeping it in your desk is secure?!"

"Yes. The desk is locked, the box is locked and this whole building is a secure facility. You were just complaining about having to wait for the security guard to get in."

"This isn't about me!" the man said, loudly enough to get the attention of everyone in the small office and those in at least one office on each side, as Vic unlocked her desk. "It's about you selling your equipment to criminals!"

"Well, I've never done that," said Vic, firmly, as she opened a drawer and pulled out the small, armored box. She opened the box and showed him the gun. "See? Here it is."

"How do I know that's your issued piece?!"

"I can see the serial number from here," said Drake. He held up the printout he had carried in with him. "See? That's the number of the gun which is in our records as being issued to Vic."

The man squinted and looked back and forth between the printout and the weapon, but he didn't seem too certain. However, he was mollified when Drake declared he would check into the matter of the ballistic vest. Once Sanders was gone Drake returned to his office with a sigh with relief, thinking he was finished with the odd stuff for the day. He was wrong. Cal Pavolin walked in soon after with a complaint.

"Jenkins keeps leaving documents in the fax machine," said Cal. "I'm not making a big fuss about this, since that means we can keep better track of what he's doing. However, I felt you should know."

"We have a fax machine?" said Drake, startled.

"Yeah. It's shared by all the federal offices on our floor. Some agencies require that we - not just us, but all federal offices which send documents to them - fax certain forms to them instead of attaching the form to an email. This particular type of fax is considered secure, and e-mail isn't."

"That I did know," said Drake. "About not sending certain things as e-mail attachments, I mean."

"Anyway, Jenkins leaves stuff in the fax machine. Sometimes several pages, and it's sometimes confidential stuff. He is also definitely using it for personal communications, as well as stuff he could e-mail. When I mentioned to him that he was leaving secure materials in the machine, he just looked at me in confusion. When I showed him the pages he'd left, he insisted the machine must be malfunctioning, 'cause he had sent the pages to wherever."

"So he's faxing documents, thinking they're somehow teleporting to the recipient?" said Drake, not sure he believed it.

"Yeah. He later told me I had to be wrong about him leaving documents in the machine, 'cause 'they' got the documents he faxed. He was smirking the whole time. Worse, he's printing out things he got by e-mail, filling them out or whatever, then manually forwarding the printout by fax. When he could just direct-send the attached e-mail file to the fax machine and skip the print step entirely. It's on the internal network."

"Well, you can consider it part of your job to check the fax machine after Jenkins uses it," said Drake, straightfaced. "Anything he leaves in it, bring to me. So I can officially document it."

"Roger," said Cal, smiling and throwing a semi-salute.

* * *

The huge chamber was filled with a muted hum of power. Though it was pressurized, both the visitor and his guide kept their environment suits on. Partly because all that powerful equipment created a number of unpleasant scents, including unhealthy levels of ozone. However, mostly they stayed suited because the "air" was largely argon, to cool the equipment without danger of corrosion.

"Nice place," said Corvik, as he and the technician who was acting as his guide made their nearly-weightless way along the catwalk.

"This part of the asteroid contains our power generation plant," the tech explained. "The adjacent chamber is the hyperspatial tight-beam transmitter."

"The equipment in both chambers is old technology," said Corvik, sounding uncertain. "Centuries ago, it was used to power special attack ships, until the 9ne#jkt(HUK)pbr learned how to disrupt the beam."

"Yes, but the humans lack the technology to even detect this," said the tech, enthusiastically. "Also, our big breakthrough is making the reception of all this power organic. We repurposed this abandoned beamed power station for the project. Officially, this place doesn't even exist!"

"If it works, excellent." Corvik's eyes went unfocused, as he imagined the results. "Yes... If it works, we can conquer Earth, a world Empress Tolnar herself could not bring into the Empire, and which then defeated her usurpers. With that done, we can depose her as a weakling, distracted by sentiment over that world. Yes..."