CHAPTER 3
“You were scheduled for a three-hour IQ test,” Alexander said diffidently.
Alexander Thompson turned out to be a six-foot-four or so slender black man in his twenties in dress slacks, neatly cropped hair, and a Super Corps polo shirt. While his actual position wasn’t clear, he obviously wasn’t a super. Mentally labeling him “lackey” felt unkind, so Michael decided to go with “aspiring suit.”
Michael could tell right away that the guy was unsure where Compton was much less had ever been there. This guy was straight out of Long Island. He decided to take it easy on the guy—at least at first.
“You been waiting this whole time?” Michael asked. “My bad.”
“It’s alright,” Alexander said, holding up his phone to indicate how he’d passed the time. “The problem being if you start now it would run into lunch. I’m fine with that but I was told you have . . . food insecurity issues?”
“Being starved nearly to death does that,” Michael said, shrugging. “But I also have skipped more lunches than I’ve had. Also, it won’t take three hours, so let’s go. Where?” he added, gesturing around the office lobby.
The lobby of the Super Corps New York offices was a little nicer than most such government buildings. Two stories in height, it was about four thousand square feet with decorative marble pillars, a marble floor with the Super Corps emblem on it, wood-paneled walls, and potted plants in selective corners. Directly opposite the entrance was the “Flyer exit,” a sliding glass door that led to a small runway for Flyers to take off on their patrols.
Pretty much the entire sixteenth and seventeenth floors of the Javits Building were devoted to the Corps despite the fact that there were only about a hundred total supers who worked there, and most were out on patrols.
“This way,” Alexander said, gesturing down one of the side corridors.
“Thing about IQ tests is the more time you take, the lower your IQ gets graded,” Michael said. “IQ is about speed of thought as much as anything. So, the faster you answer the questions, the higher your IQ is scored as long as you get the answers right. You’re graded on speed, yes, but get a double-down on wrong answers. So, skip any that you’re unsure. Better to skip than get one wrong.”
“I wasn’t aware of that,” Alexander said. “I usually go back and check and recheck on a test if I have time.”
“Thing is, not only is it weighted to score higher the younger the person is, depending on how it’s structured you can get various answers,” Michael said. “This a computer test where you hit the correct circle on multiple choice?”
“I think so,” Alexander said, puzzled. “It’s on a computer.”
“So, a person who hasn’t used a computer to take tests very much is going to be slower,” Michael said, shrugging. “That’s one reason that blacks tend to score lower—less experience with computers and computerized tests growing up. Even today. Also, how’s your hand-eye coordination? How’s your eyesight? So, unintentionally, it’s also testing what’s called kinesthetics.”
“Well,” Alexander said, gesturing at a door marked Briefing Four, “we’re about to find out how you do. You’ve taken a couple, obviously.”
The door had a card-and-code lock on it and Alexander inserted his Common Access Card then entered a code.
Michael pretended not to notice the code and considered the sixteen ways he’d already come up with to swipe a CAC.
“Once managed to score an IQ of four on one,” Michael said, entering the room.
The briefing room was, again, well fitted out for a government office. The walls looked as if they’d been painted yesterday in the same blue-white color as the corridors while a massive, high-end, plasma screen practically filled the far wall. There was a laptop set up on the fine-grained wood conference table and, incongruously, there was a mound of backpacks piled under the plasma screen. Each was marked with the Super Corps logo, and they were the only thing that was dusty.
“Four?” Alexander said, opening up the computer. Michael had been hoping for a chuckle, but Alexander was standing strong. It was only a matter of time. Michael would break him.
“That’s about the IQ of a planaria worm,” Michael said, walking over to the bags. “If a human was actually a four, they’d have to be on a ventilator that you might as well unplug.”
The bags weren’t flat and empty, like they were giveaways or something. They were full. He opened one up, curious, and, yep, it was full of “bug-out” stuff: water bottles, survival rations, medical materials, bandages. Everything in the bags was about six months before expiration.
Some federal contractor had been paid to fill up Super Corps logo bags with bug-out supplies. They had to be regularly replaced, at least every five years, to keep in expiration dates. And if there ever was a bug-out, five got you ten that nobody would even remember they were here. They’d been ordered because somebody said “we need bug-out bags” and tossed in a corner and forgotten. Hell, they’d probably been ordered because some other department was ordering some for their people and Super Corps wasn’t about to lose a Budget Snuffling Contest like that one!
The federal government didn’t just waste money, it burned it like the RAF had burned Dresden.
“All set up,” Alexander said as Michael walked back with a water bottle. “I don’t think you should . . . I can get you a water.”
“I am sure that taking this bottle out of an unused bug-out bag will ensure that some member of the Super Corps or their mortal minions will definitely die of thirst in the event of a bug-out,” Michael said, sitting down at the computer. “By taking this bottle of water, Alexander, I am literally condemning some poor soul, possibly you, to a long, lingering death by dehydration.” Michael took a sip of the water and set the bottle down.
“It is my entire intent, Alexander. I am death by proxy to all around me.”
“I see,” Alexander replied, shaking his head.
“On the other hand, this water will expire in six months and everyone knows that if you drink expired water, it is a literal death sentence. Water becomes exceedingly and exotically toxic after five years, known fact. So, by taking this bottle of water, I am instead saving some poor soul a nasty death by old water in the event they find it in the aftermath of whatever apocalypse finally and thankfully consumes this fetid hellhole called New York.”
“So . . . are you trying to kill someone or trying to save someone?” Alexander asked, puzzled.
“Win some, lose some, it all evens out in the end, Alexander,” Michael said, examining the test program. “Alexander, I grew up a poor foster child in the ghetto. If there is free shit sitting around, I don’t just let it go to waste, okay? The fact that a pile of bags full of video-game loot is simply sitting there with dust on them boggles my fucking mind. Where I’m from, drug fiends dig into concrete to dig out the rebar to sell for scrap to buy drugs. Got any idea how little money you get for rebar scrap? Just sitting there. Dusty. Fucking unreal, my man.”
Alexander glanced at the computer, then his watch, and shrugged before politely returning his attention to Michael.
“Then there’s the fact that someone is going to throw all that stuff away in six months. In six months, some hourly wage employee of a federal contractor is going to pour out a perfectly good bottle of water that is made of really expensive plastic that doesn’t even leave a bad taste to it. Checked. The likelihood that there will be an apocalypse requiring everyone be issued one of those bug-out bags so they can make for the hills of Vermont in the next six months is extremely low. Very close to zero statistically.
“So, you can waste your time going and getting me an absolutely fresh bottle of water supplied by the General Services Administration from probably the exact same approved, probably ‘minority,’ contractor and I can drink that one or the one that’s almost certainly going to be discarded in six months. Which one makes more sense when you think it through, Alexander? Which one will cost the federal taxpayers—of which I assume you are one—the least?”
“The bottle of water from the bug-out bag?” Alexander asked.
Michael simply put his finger on his nose then took another sip.
“Watch the Storm hit as I’m taking this test and you grab the one I stole the water from,” Michael said. “Two weeks later you’re lying by the side of the road as part of a stream of terrified refugees, croaking out your last words as you die of thirst:
“‘Curse Michael Edwards! Curse that murdering fuck! If only he hadn’t taken that bottle of water, I surely would have made it to the refuge! So close! So close! I only needed one more bottle of water! Curse him, Lord! I curse thee with my last breath, Michael Edwards! Maledicta, maledicta, maledicta! Cuuuurse theeeee . . .’ Gack.”
“Are you always like this?” Alexander asked, still expressionless but checking his watch again.
“Pretty much,” Michael said. The navigation would let you go to the end of the test, which was nice. He hated the ones that forced you to go one question at a time from the beginning.
“I don’t have an inside voice. But when we meet in Hell, remind me to tell you of the horror of death by . . . expired water!”
He looked at Alexander, who, for a moment, just looked back.
“I don’t actually get to see your psych test,” Alexander said after a moment. “And I’m wondering if I want to . . .”
“You don’t,” Michael said firmly. “The eldritch horror of the Stygian depths of my mind would shatter your very soul.”
He looked at the computer and cracked his knuckles.
“Okay, let’s get this party started. I’ll be a little less than an hour by the look of this thing. What are you gonna do?”
“I’ll be right . . . here . . .” Alexander said, pointing to one of the chairs. He held up his phone again. “I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.”
“Who did you piss off?” Michael asked as he started the test.
After a bit of fiddling on his phone Alexander looked around then, sheepishly, went to the pile of bags, and pulled out a bottle of water as surreptitiously as possible.
Michael successfully suppressed the chuckle and pretended not to notice.
One more soul for your pit, Lord Satan!
“Done,” Michael said forty-six minutes later. He’d briefly considered taking an extra minute trying to reach Gondola, at least to send a message since he was getting really itchy to contact them. Ultimately, he’d decided against doing so on a government computer, even though he knew several good workarounds. The risk didn’t exceed the benefit, especially since the Society might have eyes everywhere in the super building. He could be patient a little longer.
“Already?” Alexander said, startled.
“Some of the third-order polynomials were a bit tricky,” Michael admitted. “Hate having to use Newtonian calculus. It’s so cumbersome. Done.”
“Okay,” Alexander said, looking at his phone. “It’s a little early for lunch . . .”
“It is never too early for lunch,” Michael said. “I eat to live, not live to eat, but I’m also a growing teenage male and I’m pretty sure the super-metabolism is doing something in that regard . . .”
“We could break for lunch,” Alexander said and then brightened up. “Or I could see if The Designer is available?” He was clearly excited by the prospect and the Capital Letters were clear. It was the most emotion Michael had seen yet from him.
“The costume designer?” Michael asked.
“Yes!”
Alexander was clearly really into the costumes. Which meant . . .
“You have a comic book collection, don’t you?” Michael said carefully. He was holding his ground. He refused to back away. He would not back down.
“A small one,” Alexander said with a defensive shrug. “I mean, I’m not obsessive or anything. It’s a hobby.”
Hold your ground, Michael. He’s probably harmless and you have superpowers.
“You don’t own Red Horse Surfer Girl seventeen, do you?” Michael asked cautiously.
Alexander looked shocked and shook his head.
“No, no,” he said, making a disgusted face. “I don’t get into that sort of stuff. And that one was just disgusting! They never should have shown Calif—Surfer Girl like that!”
“Not even under your mattress?” Michael asked archly.
“That’s crossing a line, Michael,” Alexander said, blushing enough it was noticeable with dark skin.
“You know it actually happened, right?” Michael said. “Almost assuredly.”
“It didn’t happen,” Alexander said definitively.
“You understand the physics of going supersonic, right?” Michael said.
“Does it matter?” Alexander asked.
“When an object moves through air, it sets up harmonic disturbances we perceive as sound,” Michael said. “When a Flyer is moving really fast down the street there’s probably this sort of ‘booga-booga-booga’ sound as they go by, right? Ever heard something like that?”
“Yes,” Alexander said, looking interested.
“It’s like moon-roof effect,” Michael said, trying to figure out how to explain in not-physicist terms. “It’s what’s called the Bernoulli effect and it’s why flags flap in the wind instead of just flying straight, okay?”
“Okay,” Alexander said, nodding. “That kind of makes sense.”
“What gets me is why that little cheerleader skirt on California Girl didn’t tear apart when she was flying fast,” Michael said musingly. “It really should have. The real reason for ‘no capes!’ But with Surfer Girl, she wore hot pants and a tight midriff top and went barefoot—’cause ‘Surfer Girl,’ right?”
“Yes,” Alexander said. “I do have a couple of Surfer Girl comics, I’ll admit.”
He has the complete set. Even seventeen, which is hard as hell to acquire these days. Most of them are listed as “slightly dog-eared, pages stuck together tightly.”
“The booga-booga is caused by intermittent areas of high pressure and low pressure, which is what sound is, by the way.”
“Okay?” Alexander said, frowning.
Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! You’re losing him!
“Hang in there,” Michael said, holding up his hands. “It’s about to get tricky. When you pass the sound barrier, you pass through the intermittent pressure waves because they can’t move as fast as you move. They are, literally, sound. And you have passed the speed of sound.”
“Oh,” Alexander said, furrowing his brow. “But the air is still there.”
“Yes,” Michael said. “But it suddenly reshapes into a cone ahead of the Flyer and a trailing edge where the intermittent pressure zone, the sound waves, reshape. Got it?”
“Yes. Sort of.”
“When you pass through the intermittent pressure zones, they get high. Really high. Very high pressure in one area, very low pressure in the next, and extremely close together. High-pressure zone, low-pressure zone, bunch of them close together. Still with me?”
“Yes. That I get.”
“So, what does that do to fabric?” Michael said, taking a pinch of Alexander’s shirt and pulling on it slightly. “You push air under the fabric with high pressure. You then pull it out with low pressure, very low, nearly vacuum. Repeat those five hundred times or so in less than a second. What happens?”
“Oh . . .” Alexander said, nodding. “But they didn’t have to make it a thing, you know? I mean, everybody knows it’s about . . . the Madame Secretary.”
“You know comic book nerds,” Michael said. “There was one part of the writers going ‘So this is totally going to happen, did happen, so we should really show the effects of sonic boom on clothing. It’s science.’ And there was the other side of them going ‘It’s going to be drawing a fourteen-year-old smoking hot chick totally stark naked as she flies around Los Angeles, trying desperately to stay unnoticed in broad daylight!’ And ‘This is going to sell like hotcakes! I’m keeping my personal copy under my mattress!’ It’s misogynistic, it’s wrong, but it’s also very human,” Michael ended with a shrug.
“Very human like racism and white supremacy,” Alexander said.
“As long as we are human, we will never be entirely rid of them,” Michael said, trying not to flinch. He had hot buttons related to those two terms. Serious ones. “Tribalism, attraction by males to younger women, and aspects of what we call misogyny were survival traits for too long in our evolution. I could get into a long discussion of why we’re wired that way. It’s very innate.
“The gene is selfish; it just wants to propagate. It’s the reason for almost everything that human beings do, good and bad. The gene is selfish is the reason for altruism and greed, for vanity and shame, for heroism and villainy. It is what drives us to greatness and to horror, to courage and genocide, Alexander. We are sinners and we are saved. It’s quantum.”
Explains the Society pretty damn well: People crafting a world where they’re unfettered while making themselves appear altruistic.
“You’re not actually from this planet, are you?” Alexander said carefully.
“You’ve divined my secret, mortal!” Michael said dramatically. “I must wreak my doom upon you!”
“This is a great discussion,” Alexander said. “But I should probably get ahold of The Designer.”
“Does The Designer have a name or simply a title with capital letters?” Michael asked.
“Kevin,” Alexander said. “Kevin Winchard.”
“So, let us go see”—Michael paused dramatically—“The Designer!”
“I’ll text him and see if he’s available,” Alex said, tapping at his phone.
“So . . . we meet him here?” Michael asked.
“I’m checking . . .”
“I’ll just sit here and wait, then,” Michael said, eyeing the computer. “Do I get to keep this?”
A kid could hope.
“Uh, no?” Alex said, still examining his phone.
“Would anyone notice if, you know, it got lost in inventory or if someone—not me—were to Strategically Transfer Equipment to an Alternate Location?”
“Since it’s my work computer, probably yeah, someone would notice,” Alexander said, giving him the Spock Eyebrow. “And Strategically . . . what?”
“Strategically Transfer Equipment to an Alternate Location,” Michael repeated.
Alexander’s lips moved for a moment, and he looked at the ceiling muttering, then frowned.
“Don’t S.T.E.A.L. my computer,” Alexander said, returning to his characteristic deadpan.
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Michael said, pushing the laptop over. “It’s not nearly powerful enough to compute the variables of water compression in various stellar configurations.”
Alexander started to open his mouth, shook his head, and went back to fiddling with his phone.
Michael put in a pair of earbuds, chose a heavy metal soundtrack on his phone, then leaned back and steepled his fingers, eyes closed.
The chicken-and-egg problem wasn’t going to sort itself out.