Undead and Underwater (8 page)

TEN

“Thank God.” Hailey sighed when Linus opened his eyes.

“That was awesome,” he said weakly. He moved his head enough to realize it was pillowed on her lap, that they were still in her office (thank goodness for doors that closed, and employees who, unlike Hailey, went to meetings in other parts of the building), then started to sit up. “And I didn’t faint.”

“No, no.”

“I blacked out.”

“Of course.”

“Because I was a little shocked.”

“Yes.”

“And also extremely turned on. That was awesome! I never knew a woman could look so damn hot
while chomping down staples. So all the blood left my head and rushed . . . uh . . . somewhere else . . . and . . .” She was laughing so hard she almost dropped him. “Okay, but we agree I didn’t faint like a girlie girl, right?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely. Your rep as a stellar stud who never faints when confronted by a freak who—”

“Don’t say that.”
Surprised, she drew back a little. “Sorry. But don’t, Hailey. You’re not a freak. You’re terrific. You are the polar opposite of a freak, okay? Run yourself down like that again and I’ll kiss the shit out of you.”

“That will certainly teach me, all right.”

“And you suck at keeping your secret identity a secret.”

“What secret identity? Do I have a costume? Do I rush around the country shoring up falling buildings or catching planes before they crash only to dash off and go back to my job as a mild-mannered HR director, always on the alert for evil and help desk seminars? No. If I’m in a situation where I can help, I do. I’m no different from an off-duty EMT. They’ll help if they can, even if they’re on their own time. That’s just how things are for them. And me, too, I guess.”

“Then why not tell the world?”

She snorted, which on any other woman would have been unlovely, but on her, was hot. “To what end? To draw tons of attention to myself? To hold press conferences, maybe write a blog? And I couldn’t just say it, could I? I’d have to prove it. Over and over, and eventually on live TV, and again, to what end?”

“Doesn’t it bug you, knowing people are arguing that you either exist or you don’t? Sometimes right where you can hear them?”

“Well, I’d rather they didn’t compare me to Bigfoot, but beyond that . . .” She shrugged. “It’s no more inane than most workplace chitchat.”

“But why’d you tell me?”

“Nobody ever asked me before.”

“You’re kidding. Nobody? Come on. Nobody? Ever?
Really
?”

“Really.”

“Hailey, come on. I’ve been here a
week
and I figured it out. Other people know, I promise.”

She shrugged again. “If they do, they’ve never said. And what am I going to do, run around asking people if they think I’m It Girl? Linus, I promise you: the world is full of people who are mildly interested but, in the end, don’t give much of a shit either way. Their own lives and their own problems are much, much more interesting than ‘It Girl vs. Sasquatch: Live on pay-per-view!’ Trust me.”

“Jeez.”

“I know.”

“This is one of those times you sound a lot older than me.”

“Sorry.”

“It sounds so bleak and horrible when you put it like that.”

“No.” She shook her head. “It just sounds true.”

“Does this—” He broke off and thought about it a little more while Hailey prowled the room, putting her office to rights. “Hailey, does this—these things you can do—do they have anything to do with your mom having trouble getting pregnant?”

“My God.” She was staring at him and he realized (when had
that
happened? While he’d been passed out on her lap?) her hair had dramatically lightened in less than five minutes. “You are
quick
, Linus. To put it together so—I mean, I had to think about it for years. So apparently I’m older, but you’re smarter. And, yes. I think so. My mom needed the clinic to get her pregnant. She donated eggs and they had to do things to the eggs, and once I was born, she got the hell out of Savage and never came back. She died a couple of years ago . . .”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you . . . and I kind of drifted back here on my own. One of these days I’ll get really brave and go see those doctors.” She shoved her (now blond) hair back from her face. “But not today. Today I must fight evil, and make out with an accountant some more. My kingdom for a ponytail holder.”

“Is that because you ate the stapler?” he asked excitedly, jabbing his finger at her hair. “And it’ll fade as you, um, digest the stapler? And the staples? And the box?”

“Yes.”

“But right now you’re super strong and fast and everything?”

She was smiling again. “Yes.”

“You’re thinking about how you rushed across the room in half a blink and handily caught me as I swooned, aren’t you?”

“Noooooo.”

“Liar.”

Her beautiful smile lit up her face. “Yes.”

“What?” He was dazzled; it was hard to look away from her. Good thing he didn’t want to. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s just . . . it’s so nice, Linus. Telling you these things and you not treating me like a fr—like I’m different.” She paused and her wistful expression actually hurt his heart like a cramp. “I didn’t know it could be nice.”

“Nice is an understatement. And different is awesome.” He went to her and smoothed the light strands back from her eyes. “Different kicks ass. Different is the sexiest thing ever.”

Then he kissed her for a lovely long time, and breathed in her sweet smoky scent, and felt her small, warm, strong hands on him, and forgot about It Girl and lost himself in Hailey.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Too, too soon Hailey had to call a halt. “Not that I don’t think we need to go somewhere private and finish this,” she said, letting go of him so quickly he staggered. “Oh! Sorry! There, let the blood rush back into your head. The bigger one,” she added with a wicked smile. He groaned but kept his hands off her. “But if you’re not leaving nasty little notes for me, someone is.”

“And they wanted me to have your cell phone number.”

“Oh, sure they did.”
What else to eat? vzyl What else? Need to be on the safe side. Who knows what depth of evil they’ve gotten up to in their nasty little dungeon?
“They probably waited to start this until there was a new hire. You’re their red herring, Linus.”

“Oh. Very nice.” He sounded pissed on her behalf as well as his own, which she could not help but adore him for. “You sound like you know who it is.”

“It’s not much of a mystery. Just like me being able to do the things I do isn’t much of one.”

“What? Come on, Hailey! You’re the
only
one who can . . .” He trailed off and she knew why. He was thinking about all the odd things on YouTube, the videos that had been proven fakes and the ones that hadn’t. The Web, curling and coiling around the planet with strands of information reaching everywhere, always. As technology made the planet smaller, it also demonstrated to people just how little they really knew about the places they lived and the people they knew. “You don’t think you’re the only one, do you?”

“No, Linus, I am not unique in my freakery.” She said it without a trace of self-scorn so he wouldn’t get upset on her behalf again. “There’s just no way.” She almost told him her number-one suspicion, but held back. She knew about Linus and he knew about her, and not just what they could do to each other. They knew the other would be in their life for . . . well . . . ever. Time enough to explain that her mother donated over two dozen eggs to the clinic. Time enough to point out the strong likelihood of super-powered half siblings running around. “But Savage
is
. Especially once you consider the stupid horse. But aside from that, there are all sorts of military bases around, and private companies with military contracts. Camp Savage, for instance, was a military intelligence school. Cargill made ships for the U.S. Navy. The Pine Bend Refinery—one of the largest oil refineries in the country—is just a few miles from here. A couple of decades ago there was a military gunpowder plant not twenty miles from here. I’m telling you, this whole sleepy midwestern town thing, it’s true on the surface, sure. But scratch a little and there are all kinds of secrets. The newsies have been asking, ‘How can there be superheroes here?’ Ye gods, Linus, how are there not
more
?”

He shook his head. “This is a lot to take in. And I’m still really horny. But . . . the notes?”

“It’s not just the notes. It’s the stuff they preceded. Before you came—this is another reason you’re the red herring, by the way—before you came it was actually pretty quiet around here, and had been for a long time.”

It was strange, and she could never explain it. Some weeks she was constantly leaping the two stories from her office window to rush into town and foil crime, and also pick up a Subway foot-long (roasted chicken breast, Dijon, tomatoes, cukes, black olives, green peppers, salt and pepper, vinegar and oil). Some weeks her “bitch sense” never so much as twitched. It was the heat. Except, because it was Minnesota, it wasn’t. It was society. Okay, but society was everywhere. It was a social protest. Except it wasn’t. It was a day that ended with a
y
.

Well. Yes. That was as good an explanation as any. Except all the days ended with
y
.

She explained this to Linus, who listened carefully and then shrugged. “I don’t think someone orchestrated that. Sometimes people wanna do bad, a lot. And sometimes, not so much.”

“Overly simplistic,” she scoffed.

“And big-time realistic,” he countered, softening the words with a small smile. “Hon, if you try to find the logic, you’ll give yourself a migraine.”

“‘Hon’?”

“Yes. As in,
Attila the
.”

“Oooh, later for you, you liar.” She ignored the shredder and went for the potted plant in the corner, a sad little geranium she frequently forgot to water. “Sorry, little buddy.” She wolfed it down, grimaced at the dirt, and ate that, too.

“Whoa,” Linus said, even more big-eyed than usual. “That’s awesome.”

“Nuh-
uh
,” she said, lightly spraying him with dirt. “I can eat anything and convert it to energy. That’s it. Doesn’t mean I like it. Any of it. Dirt tastes like dirt. Dead flowers taste like dead flowers. Staplers taste—”

“Right. Got it.”

“Plus I’m a stress eater.”

He didn’t want to laugh, she could see, but couldn’t help it. She frowned at him, broke the pot, then started eating the shards. “I see the funny side of it. Occasionally. So that’s all right.”

He was grinning, and reached out with his thumb to brush dirt off the corner of her mouth. “We’re gonna have a good time, aren’t we?”

“Oh, yes,” she promised, and gulped down the last chunk of the broken flowerpot. “Starting right now.”

CHAPTER

TWELVE

“When you agreed we’d have fun,” Linus was saying as he hurried down the hall to keep pace with her, “I sort of thought you meant we’d both call in sick for the rest of the day and spend the afternoon naked.”

“Well, that, too. But I’ve had enough of the notes, and I do not like,
at all
, that they had no problem manipulating me into doubting your motives.”

“Okay, when you said
at all
like that, it made me incredibly nervous. So, just for the record, I’m going to try hard to not do anything that would make you talk about me like that. Ever, ever, ever.”

“‘Get to it already.’” They were through HR, past reception.

“What?”

“‘What are you waiting for?’” She was nearly stomping down the hall. Past R & D. Past Marketing.

“Hailey?”

“The notes. ‘Get to it already, what are you waiting for? If you don’t act, we will. Did you think this was a joke? Why aren’t you doing more?’”

Linus was gaping at her, appalled. “That’s what they wrote you?”

“Yes, it’s just nag-nag-nag with those people.”

“Those people?”

“At first, I assumed it was about work. I have, as you’ve noticed, a terrible attendance record. But why be sneaky about it? This is the easiest company to work for in the history of business. No one needs to be sneaky about anything, and we all know it. And then you showed up. And then accidents started happening that required immediate action.
My
immediate action.”

“The school bus,” Linus remembered.

“Children. They endangered
children
. Because they didn’t think I was performing up to par.”

“Who?”

“Oh, who else? Who would be passive as well as aggressive? Who would hide behind documents, behind words, while challenging people to act, even as they
don’t
act? Come on, Linus. It’s obvious.”

“No way.”

“Yes.” Past the break rooms, the conference rooms.

“Even for them . . . I mean, I know they’re awful, every company in the world knows they’re awful, that they’re a necessary evil, but this is
evil
evil.”

“Yes!” She stopped. They were there. “The ones whose job it is to spy on their colleagues and then inform on them. The Brownshirts of every company in the world. Who have most of the power while we pretend they don’t, and they pretend they’re not dangerous.” She glared up at the sign. “The IT department.”

Linus looked up. “Abandon All Hope and Get Pwned” was over the bloodred double doors in dark cursive font a foot high. “If I hadn’t abandoned hope already, I would now.”

“Maybe you should—”

“No way.”

“As you like.” Hailey kicked the sinister red doors open and marched into the Information Technology department, their dire motto directly over her head for a second.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

The room, kept cool and gloomy, seemed to swallow them. But when Hailey came through the doors, she brought enough light in to scatter at least three IT drones, who scurried out of sight, squeaking and squealing.