West Pacific Supers: Rising Tide (12 page)

Loren nodded and
headed towards the dark building. As he neared the door, a sudden unexpected
movement nearby caused him to jump a foot in the air and sent his heart rate
soaring. “What do you seek?” whispered the shadowy figure that seemed to have
formed out of the darkness itself.

“Jesus, Whisperer,”
breathed Loren, mentally kicking himself because the Whisperer loved sneaking
up on people and he should have expected this.

“What do you seek?”
repeated the faint husky voice.

“Truth, justice, and
peace for all law-abiding citizens of West Pacific,” said Loren, composing
himself enough to remember the latest password. Thank God, Midnight had come up
with this one; Cupid’s last month had been ‘
Romance,
true love, and passion-filled nights’
, which definitely seemed to
set the wrong tone for a meeting. “You may enter,” breathed the Whisperer,
stepping back into the deeper shadows and allowing Loren to open the door.

Inside the old
bumper car building, a naked light bulb provided the only illumination. There
were six old folding chairs set up in two rows facing a bumper car, in which
was sitting Midnight, a shapely woman in a head to toe black body suit. Loren
had spent many a sleepless night wondering what Midnight looked like under that
suit, but her face mask covered everything other than her black eyes and
attractive mouth. She couldn’t be that old; maybe mid-20s he figured, judging
by her voice and the little skin he could see. Unfortunately for him, she
wasn’t interested in small talk and even Cupid had given up on trying to weasel
personal information out of her. Goalie on the other hand was quite a bit
friendlier and gave him a wave from her seat in the middle of the second row.

“How’s it going?” he
asked as he took the empty seat next to her.

“Can’t complain too
much,” she answered cheerfully, her voice somewhat distorted from behind her
hockey helmet face cage. “We got into a scuffle the other night with some punk
dealers down in the harbor district, but we showed ‘
em
the long stick of the law, if you know what I mean.”

He chuckled along
with her. He had seen Goalie in action, and between her inline skates and her
reinforced goal stick, she was a force to be reckoned with, even without backup
in the form of Samurai’s
shinai
and Cupid’s arrows.
Sometimes he envied the West Pacific Trio’s camaraderie on and off the streets.
But he had picked up enough of Cupid’s hints to know that their relationship
was also kind of complicated. He suspected that they were some sort of love
triangle or maybe even a ménage à
trois
. Frightening
to think about, really.

Midnight made an
impatient sound and left her bumper car to check the door.

“She’s in a rare
mood,” warned Goalie in a low voice.

“Do you know what
the meeting’s about?” Loren asked.

“Not really; she’s
being more tight-lipped than usual. We’re guessing it has to do with the West
Pacific Supers explosion. The city’s been flooded lately with wannabe
supercriminals; probably whoever was behind the explosion is trying to finish
the job.”

“Really? Wow,” said
Loren. “That’s big stuff.”

A few minutes later,
Samurai entered, dressed in full traditional kendo protective armor. He seemed
to intentionally ignore Goalie when he nodded hello at Loren before taking a
seat in the front row. Cupid came in and sat down on the other side of Goalie,
mouthing at Loren behind her back “lover’s quarrel”. Loren pretended not to
understand.

 Midnight
stalked back into the room and looked around with annoyance.

“If you’re waiting
on
Nightprowler
,” Goalie called out, “you might as
well forget it. She’s never on time.”

Midnight waved her
hand as if
Nightprowler
were the least of her
concerns. “No, I would hardly allow her to hold things up. Though I fail to see
how she can be consistently late to a meeting that begins at midnight.”

“Maybe she works the
late shift,” Cupid suggested.

Goalie snorted. “Oh,
she definitely works the late shift. I think she works the South side of Moreau
Street, if you know what I mean.”

Cupid laughed and
Samurai gave a disapproving look back over his shoulder. It took a minute for
Loren to get what Goalie was insinuating and when he did, he couldn’t help
reddening. It was no secret that none of the other female vigilantes liked
Nightprowler
.

The door closed with
a sudden gust of wind that made them all jump. A patch of shadows to one side
of the room grew darker as the Whisperer took his place. Midnight nodded. “Very
well, if you could all please settle down, we can get started. We have a very
special guest tonight and I want all of you to give him your full attention.”

Loren and Goalie
exchanged curious looks at this unusual introduction. Stepping out of the
shadows where Loren thought only the Whisperer was standing was a smooth
grey-white, man-sized, power armor suit: White Knight.

Loren gasped in
surprise. White Knight had stopped attending vigilante meetings more than a
year ago when he’d moved up to the big leagues and became a professional super
hero with WPS. Having him back here was a special treat - though apparently not
everyone felt the same way.

“Sellout!” yelled
Goalie. “What’s he doing here?”

“Yeah,” said Cupid.
“This is a vigilante meeting and he’s not a vigilante.”

Samurai’s back
stiffened and Loren felt embarrassed. The relationship between professional
supers and vigilantes wasn’t always the best, but this was uncalled for.

“Behave yourself!”
Midnight snapped. “Anyone who doesn’t show our guest respect will be asked to
leave the room!” She pointedly glared at Goalie, who promptly stuck her tongue
out, though Loren was pretty sure no one up front could see it due to the
hockey mask. Still, he sank down in his seat a bit, wishing he was sitting up
next to Samurai who acted much more like an adult than his compatriots did.

“My apologies,” said
Midnight to White Knight with obviously forced calm. “And let me extend the
condolences of the entire vigilante community to your team on its recent
losses. There will of course be vigilante representation at the funerals on
Sunday. I cannot go myself, but the Whisperer will be attending and others may
as well.”

At the reminder of
the superhero deaths even Goalie looked chagrined. Loren felt awful. He had
never met Mr. Awesome or Meltdown personally, but they had good reputations.
Mr. Awesome was a legend and had been a vigilante himself before joining WPS in
the early 2000s. Meltdown was known as a sweet kid; he was even younger than
Loren. It was horrible to think that they were both now dead. He wouldn’t mind
going to the funerals himself, but he had an open house on Sunday; maybe he
could get another agent to cover.

“I am coming to you
in a time of crisis,” said White Knight in the robotic voice that always made
Loren wonder if maybe he really was just an alien robot and there wasn’t a
human inside the suit after all. “West Pacific Supers has suffered the loss of
two outstanding super heroes, one of whom was our longtime team leader. We need
your help.”

Loren sat up; this
was more like it. Cupid whistled appreciatively.

“Less than a week
before the attack,” White Knight continued, “Mr. Awesome was here on Industrial
Island investigating a lead from the PGZ break-in at West Pacific Labs last
month. There was a subsequent raid by the WPPD that resulted in various
evidence gathered and suspects identified. We…”

“What’s PGZ?” asked
Goalie.

“Do you think the
investigation was related to the explosion?” asked Cupid.

“Be quiet you two!”
Midnight yelled. “You will give our guest your full attention while he is
speaking! There will be time set aside for questions later, but if you have to
ask one now, raise your hand and don’t speak until you’ve been recognized!”

Goalie’s hand shot
up. Midnight glared at her. “Yes, Goalie?” she said through clenched teeth.

“What I said before.
Plus I thought Cupid’s question was a good one.”

“PGZ is a highly
dangerous explosive that was being developed at West Pacific Laboratories,”
said White Knight, his robotic voice betraying no emotion. “We do not believe
that Mr.
Awesome’s
investigation was related to the
attack on the team, which our sources indicate was carried out by the Infinite
Circle. WPS will be handling that investigation. We want you, however, to
continue looking into what Mr. Awesome was doing. We have concerns that there
may be…”

They all jumped as
the door creaked open and
Nightprowler
entered. She
was hot, hotter than Midnight even, with her low-cut skin-tight black suit and
sexy little eye mask. She slinked through the door and flashed a smile. “Hey,
y’all. Sorry I’m late. What’d I miss?”

Midnight looked like
she was going to hit someone. “We have a special guest tonight - White Knight -
who has taken time out of his very busy schedule to debrief us on the situation
currently facing West Pacific Supers. He has just explained that the team needs
our help in continuing an investigation into a PGZ theft.”

“Cool. So what’s in
it for us?” asked
Nightprowler
as she leaned
provocatively against a pole.

“What?” Midnight’s
mouth gaped. “We are being asked by the professional superheroes of West
Pacific to assist them! We… ”

Nightprowler
didn’t let her
finish. “Yeah, well, like you say, they’re the professionals. If they’re too
busy to handle their workload and need to pawn it off on us, I want to know
what we’re getting in exchange.”

Midnight looked like
she might explode. Loren instinctively moved his hands to his lap and slid
lower down in his seat. This could get nasty.

“God knows I don’t
usually agree with
Nightprowler
,” said Goalie, “but
she has a point. We’re the unpaid, unwashed masses you know. Come on, White
Knight, you know how it is - you used to be one of us, remember? Asking us to
take on your investigation means less time and resources to patrol the
rotted-out neighborhoods we get stuck with because they’re beneath your professional
notice. Throw us a bone here!”

White Knight nodded.
“Very well. Perhaps we could make available some surplus equipment.”

“Surplus equipment!”
parroted
Nightprowler
. “Please. We’re not taking your
hand-me-downs, WK. We want the real stuff: ultimesh. There’s no way in hell we
can afford it, but we’re the ones who are on the front line of crime getting
shot at every night.”

“You are hardly the
only ones who suffer losses in the field of battle,” said White Knight, his
robotic voice eerily on edge.

“Yeah, yeah, you
lost a couple people, I’ll give you that,” said
Nightprowler
breezily. “Doesn’t mean that we can afford to do charity work.”

Loren blanched. Even
Goalie looked like she was regretting the way the conversation was going.

Cupid broke the
tension. “Let’s not fight among ourselves. We’re all one big happy family,
right?”

“If by that you mean
we’re the poor cousins from the sticks, sure,” muttered
Nightprowler
.

Cupid ignored her.
“The Trio’s happy to do whatever we can to help out, White Knight. But you’re
in a position to show us some love, you know?”

“Ultimesh love?”
White Knight asked. It was hard to tell, but he sounded like he was being
sarcastic.

“Ultimesh would be
great,” agreed Cupid enthusiastically. “But there are some other things too - like
for instance, maybe you could talk to Major Dagan and smooth out a
misunderstanding that WPPD seems to be having concerning myself and the Trio.”

Midnight glared at
him. “Cupid, if you go around shooting arrows at people, you can’t expect the
police to sing your praises!”

“I’m not asking them
to sing my praises - I just want them to rescind the warrant for my arrest! I
mean, come on - the bad guys have guns and I have a bow - it’s hardly a fair
fight.”

“It is when you
start using steel-tipped arrows,” said Midnight disapprovingly. “It’s lucky you
didn’t kill that guy rather than just castrating him.”

The men in the room
all winced, but Cupid didn’t look remorseful. “He was a serial rapist - he
deserved the full power of my vengeance! But, I know, I know, that was bad, and
I’m back to blunt wood now. Come on, you’ve got to talk to Dagan and get the
police off my back.”

“Fine,” said White
Knight. “I can arrange for a limited number of ultimesh vests and I will speak
on your behalf to Major Dagan. In return, we need your help in tracking down a
list of missing persons who are all believed to have been involved with the PGZ
factory. I’ve given their names and what information we have to Midnight.
Additionally, there are a few smaller investigations that Meltdown was pursuing
that we would like you to take over. There is a matter involving car break-ins
at the Pacifica Mall and… ”