Part Five

The Bureau had been nice enough to arrange for Vic to stay in a good-quality hotel in the city where paleogeneticist Dr. Oliver Gumprich had his office. Which caused a few problems when Vic registered. She had a bit of trouble convincing the desk clerk she was actually old enough to be in a room without an adult. Fortunately, Vic had enough forms of ID - including a Bureau credit card - to reassure the woman. Though Vic figured some phone calls were made after she headed upstairs.

The next morning Vic was up early. She took advantage of the hotel's breakfast buffet, then headed for her appointment. The office building was on a local university campus, part of their anthropology complex. The route was fairly direct and there was plenty of guest parking.

The receptionist Vic spoke with in the main building seemed to think she was a student. Which was fine with her. Supplied with directions, she quickly found the right office. Dr. Gumprich was middle-aged and balding but what hair he had left was long. He was also a bit plump and obviously not used to much physical activity.

"I wish to state up front that my work is, of course, understandably controversial," said Dr. Gumprich, once they were both seated. Vic noted that he liked to talk with his hands in motion, even when he wasn't actually indicating anything concrete with his gestures. "Most attempts to duplicate my methods to extract DNA and RNA from fossils have failed. Even my own attempts succeed only about one time in twelve. I've just been very diligent about finding suitable fossils. More diligent than my critics!"

"I was briefed on that," said Vic, nodding. Not mentioning that many of the evaluations of Dr. Gumprich's work - and the doctor, himself - had been at least politely critical. Some had openly called him a fraud.

"According to my studies, there are traces of super genes going back hundreds of millions of years," said Dr. Gumprich, his voice oddly monotone for someone making such a statement. "No idea where they came from in the first place - perhaps panspermia - but they have caused the rise of multiple, technological cultures on Earth!"

"That's... quite a claim," said Vic. She had read about his work before coming here, of course, but he was telling her more than what she had been able to glean from the online digests. "Wait... could this have any connection to that old spacecraft on the Moon which created the Moon Scouts?"

"It's possible, but I haven't been able to get any hard numbers on when it arrived there," said Dr. Gumprich. He scowled. "It's gone, now, so I can't ask it."

She remembered that on his record there were repeated requests to various authorities - most of them directly to the Lunies, instead of to any US government agency or the UN - to go to the Moon and speak with the ancient computer on the ship. As well as that he blamed the Lunies for "letting it get away without proper examination."

"Getting back to my discoveries," he continued, "My examinations of the mineral beds which were the source of the fossils I used revealed interesting and worrying short-term changes in the Earth's atmosphere in the periods when what was preserved was laid down. Most worrying is that the evidence seems to indicate that the industries of the Ordovics raised the carbon-dioxide levels of the atmosphere and caused a significant deoxygenation event, ending their era with mass extinctions. Then the Silurians basically did the same thing millions of years later."

He glared at Vic.

"Now, we humans are doing the same thing. We're doomed!"

"Uh, sir, people are already aware of the problems with the rising level of CO2 in the atmosphere," said Vic, hesitantly. "We're already working to reduce it."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Haven't you heard about all this fuss over global warming?"

"I'm talking about something far worse," said Doctor Gumprich, agitated. "Deoxygenation!"

"If our efforts to reduce CO2 to head off global warming work," said Vic, patiently, "then there won't be a deoxygenation event."

"I knew this was hopeless!" he cried, jumping to his feet and storming around the room. "I had to try though. Get out! Get out of my office and stay away from my laboratory!"

Vic was glad to go.

* * *

Vic's appointment with the Assembly was not until the next morning. This meant Vic now had time on her hands. She thought about heading south to visit with her three friends in Tricorne. However, driving there and back would have taken most of the available daylight time, with little left to actually visit. She also had the impression that Tricorne - now working full time with their combined obligations of superhero team and instructors of other supers - was very busy. She thought about checking out of her hotel room early and driving to a hotel or motel closer to the Assembly base. However, that would not give her much of a head start on the next day and would also still leave her with a lot of free time today. She also couldn't think of anything between here and there which she wanted to visit to use up the time. Vic therefore settled for a combination of playing tourist, eating several good meals and taking advantage of the hotel's workout facilities. She especially liked the pool; Vic hadn't been swimming for fun in years. Her one-piece had been packed on a whim, and now she was glad she had it.

She had a bit of trouble with some of the other guests using those facilities - nearly all of them male - hitting on her. Until she started her weight training. Then they mysteriously went silent. Most apparently cutting their own workouts short to leave quickly.

The next morning Vic had another good breakfast, checked out and headed for the mountain base of the Assembly. It was definitely a good day for a drive. Especially one where much of the distance to be traveled was on good but winding roads through mountain forests.

* * *

She made good time, largely because the route to the Assembly's reception building was clearly marked. Getting into the actual base was a different matter; all public records still said it was in the mountain which the Shilmek had hit during the war. Even though the mountain itself was largely gone. They knew she was coming, of course. Vic parked in the lot beside the small, dignified building - part office, part museum - which was the team's public face, and headed for the front entrance.

"Excuse me?" said a voice. This turned out to belong to one of the institution's security guards, who was hurrying around the corner of the building to intercept her. His name tag read Phillips and the photo on that matched his face. "Mrs. Peltior? You can come in this way, and skip the tourist attraction."

He guided her in through a side door and then down a staircase into the basement. From there they boarded a little subway car which took them into the basement level of the Assembly base. Vic's heightened senses were good enough to let her know that there were subtle - though very mundane - illusions at work to reduce the likelihood of someone figuring out which of the three surviving peaks housed the actual base. The car was brightly lit and completely enclosed; she couldn't even see the tunnel they passed through. There were pads on the bench seats and the walls for comfort. She and her escort arrived in short order at the security checkpoint in the lowest level of the Assembly base.

"Here we are," he said, smiling as he exited and held the door for her. "Welcome to the Assembly headquarters!"

The reception center, subway and basement security station down here - like the visitor center - were all new construction, expansions of the old Guild Hall/Border Patrol base. The basics had been started before the Shilmek war, with the new facilities then completed afterwards. As one of the few recognized super bases in this part of the world to survive intact, the Assembly had been heavily burdened with taking up the slack while other teams reorganized or formed from scratch. Of course, the Assembly had also benefitted from increased funding because of this.

Vic noted that there was no easy way to tell which direction the little car had traveled between the reception center and the actual base, or even the speed. The Assembly owned several hundred acres in this wild area, with at least three peaks included besides the one damaged in the war.

"You folks have sure expanded since the early days," said Vic, as she was thoroughly scanned. "More land, bigger facilities, bigger staff, bigger responsibilities."

"You got that right," said Phillips.

Vic noted that he was also scanned. These people took security seriously and were very thorough. She certainly didn't blame them for any of that. Besides needing to be on guard against the more traditional enemies of masked crime fighters, efforts by various governments at various levels to reign them in or control them were on the rise. Being employed by a federal agency which handled super matters, Vic was intimately familiar with some of these attempts. Naturally, when complaints were made, the governments responsible denied they were happening.

A long elevator ride upwards was next. Once out of the surprisingly roomy elevator her escort's last chore was to bring Vic to the Assembly's main meeting room. Several members of the team were already there, and the rest arrived very quickly. Formal introductions were then made. Greetings - many of them made with open emotion - were exchanged between Vic and the others. While some of these people had never met Vic some had, and they had all heard of her. Some had fought beside her. They were also all in the same, dangerous profession. Soon the supers were seated as a group at the central table, Vic looking around in open curiosity.

"I've never been in your base before," said Vic. "This part, though, is familiar, from the 3V conferences when I was with Tricorne. Though since the view never moved I never saw most of what's here."

Champion was the most impressive - in several ways - person in the room, and the leader of field operations. However, the current chair was Dr. Gorgeous.

"From what Brade told us this is more of a social visit than anything else," said the team's brain.

"Mostly. She has the idea - and is probably right - that a personal visit helps promote cooperation. The main thing is to help super teams and Bureau personnel to get to know each other, and understand the differences in how the different groups work. Brade wants as many of these interactions to be personal and friendly as possible, rather than purely bureaucratic."

"That might just be useful," said Dr. Gorgeous, nodding. "The mask community is small enough for that. Such an effort is especially beneficial when it involves those federal agents who have worked with super teams, as you have."

"Exactly," said Vic, nodding. "Think of this as an extended business lunch, where I get to know the members of your team and you get to know me and through me the Bureau."

* * *

Vic was given a thorough but very casual tour of the base, even being shown some of the private quarters. She spoke with all the team members and many in the support staff. The garage was especially impressive. It held a bizarre mix of vehicles from several eras, some of them actually confiscated from villains in the early days of the base. Though the uneven lighting and odd echoes in the large volume were a bit disturbing. Vic was told that these persisted in spite of several upgrades, most likely due to the space having been modified several times with no unified plan.

"As the team acquired newer vehicles the older ones were mothballed and pushed back into those smaller chambers, to be held in reserve," said Joseph, who was in charge down here. "Many of them are museum pieces, now. We really should find some place to donate them to, but the place just wouldn't seem the same without them."

"You have a Rampaging Turk," said Vic, impressed. "I've seen photos of the Scarabmobile but never thought I'd see it in person. There it is, though."

She particularly liked Champion's little rally car, and definitely noted the honored place it had in the current ground vehicle section. She remembered, of course, that this Champion was the third, as well as that there were rumors this one had previously been male. Champion seemed familiar with Vic's history, as well.

"You and I should compare notes," said Champion, with a slight smile, as they completed the tour of the garage. "I saw what you drove here in, and have heard stories about its performance. The similarities between us go well beyond our taste in vehicles."

"Well, I am supposed to get to know you folks, and let you get to know me," said Vic, a bit uneasily.

Champion laughed.

"There's no hurry. Or pressure. For now, though, how'd you like to go for a ride in my little roadster?"

"Really?" said Vic, suddenly much more eager.

"Yeah. I'm supposed to show you the way into the garage from the road, so you don't have to go through the reception center for future visits. The easiest way to do that is for me to drive you to your car, then let you follow me back here."

"Let's go!"

* * *

As planned, Vic spent several hours at the Assembly base. She especially enjoyed lunch in the large cafeteria. One of the last parts of the facility she was shown was the aircraft hangar, which was modeled after some of the Swiss military aviation bases which were actually built inside mountains. The team and the support crew were especially proud of their new apergy flyer.

Despite the thorough tour, most of Vic's time at the Assembly base was, indeed, spent socializing. Vic actually enjoyed herself. She was a bit worried the team would get an emergency call which would cut her visit short. However, this didn't happen.

Surprisingly, Vic found herself especially resonating with Thunderer. The sonic-powered super had freelanced as a solo mask more than any of the other current members before joining the Assembly, and had many tales about heroing in several parts of the country. Though most of those seemed to involve making jokes about how the business was different in different places. One of her favorite riffs was how difficult New York was to get around in for a mask.

"The joke in the Big Apple is that they put extra fare machines on the roofs of the busses," said Thunderer, smirking.

"Because the stereotype is that costumed supers there who can't fly jump onto the roof of a bus to get somewhere," said Vic, with a grin, nodding.

"Or ride the subway. Which I've not only see but done, myself! The more mundane passengers just take it all in stride."

Vic actually found herself reluctant when the time came to leave. As she got back into Monstro, she was assured by the garage staff that the automatic security systems had already been told to recognize the Corolla wagon as friendly. The concealed entrance would automatically open for her, in either direction of travel.

"So I can't ever sell this car," said Vic, tongue-in-cheek, "or the system won't let me in."

That brought a bit of laughter. Waves were exchanged as she started down the tunnel towards the concealed exit.

* * *

The greeting Vic got from Michelle upon finally getting home that evening was far more intimate than the farewell at the Assembly's base. Afterwards the two of them lay together in their bed and simply cuddled for a long time.

"So, now that we can talk, how was it?" Michelle finally asked.

"Fantastic, I especially liked what you did..."

"I meant the trip, idiot," said Michelle, laughing.

"I'm very glad to be home," said Vic, giving her a kiss and a hug. "The Assembly are nice people, though a huge contrast to Tricorne, or even the FX. I had been told that every team and every base is different, and I'm definitely seeing that. On the other hand, Doctor Gumprich is... worrying. He may be right about some things, but even if he is, his personality is so grating and his presentation of his data so egotistical no-one will take him seriously. Well, in person. He might have a different response in scientific journals."

"Poor man," said Michelle.

* * *

At the Devon household things were not so copacetic. The parents - better known as Colossa and Template - might both be masked superheroes, but their kids were still kids.

"What are you doing in there so much?" said Roy, as his little sister finally came out of the bathroom which had been assigned to the kids.

"One of my friends made me eat some prunes, and they gave me the runs," said Sarah, scowling.

"Oh, that's bad," said Roy, wide-eyed. "You sure they're a friend?"

"What's bad about it?" said Sarah, suspiciously.

"Prunes will clean you out. Eat too many of them and you diarear everything in your body into the toilet, until there's nothin' left but a sack of skin, sitting there!"

The five-year-old's eyes got real big and she began to back away. Right on time there was an ominous gurgle from her gut. Sarah gave a little gasp, then turned and ran.

"Mooooooooommmm!!!"