Wake-up Call – Chapter 38 – Armed and Mastered – Part 3

"What the Hell?" Vista asks.

"Language," I automatically reply.

And, in the middle of a corridor in the Rig the diminutive parahuman shouldn't be in—ah, right. I retook command of the Wards.

They all should be here.

Darnation.

"Did you just seriously—" she starts to protest.

"I'll get you extra hours in the firing range if you don't tell any of your horribly gossipy partners what you just saw," I interrupt, hopefully derailing her spite before it has time to gather steam—much like I frequently interrupt Trainwreck, for precisely the very same reasons.

She tilts her head in a way that clearly implies the frown behind the green visor and then cradles her chin in a stereotypical pondering gesture.

"I want a confoam grenade launcher," she finally says.

"You don't. It's far easier for you to just drop them on the target than to aim."

"But the grenade launcher is cooler!"

Don't say anything about twenty percent, Colin. It's not worth it.

"We're already pushing it with the taser; we don't want the Image Department to decide you're looking too militarized and take… corrective measures."

Vista shudders at my tone, my words, and my meaning. How efficient.

"Can I at least—" she begins.

"Extra hours. Take it or leave it," I, again, cut her off.

I hope this doesn't result in another HR memo…

"Fiiiine," she answers in a typical prepubescent whine that sets my inner alarm off. For no blonde-related reasons. And then her petulant expression splits into a wide grin that, I admit to myself, has me on edge precisely because of blonde-related reasons. "Have fun on your daaaate," she singsongs.

"… Not a date," I grumble as she prances away.

Really, I'm just wearing my leather jacket, a nicely ironed white shirt, and some not too tight jeans—oh, and a pair of suede moccasins, because Dragon's advice, as usual, seemed sensible enough (yet I'm slightly unclear on what 'nice shoes' actually means). I don't know why Missy's hormone-addled brain immediately jumped to dating—

… I just answered my own question. Oh, and gave myself some mild trauma.

How efficient.

"You're going on a date?!" a gruff voice asks from behind me while I warily contemplate Vista's retreating form.

…

"Why? Why is this the first thing that jumps to your mind after seeing me in civvies—" I start to answer as I turn around and find—

The stout form of Director Tagg. Staring at me with a twitching eyebrow.

And carrying a staggering pile of dossiers.

"You… Do you even know how much work you've piled on me, Colin? I've had to fire and-or jail so [many] grunts I don't even know if there's somebody left who can bring me a desperately needed cup of coffee!"

"I am… pretty sure Jasmine still works here?"

"That's not the point!" he bursts out with what I think is an aborted attempt to throw his arms in the air that's only stopped by the teetering pile of documents he's holding.

And then one of them falls down with an echoing thud.

Slowly, maintaining eye contact with the raging director, I bend down and get the single, fallen dossier before standing back up and gently laying it on top of the pile.

"… Thank you," he gruffly answers.

"Don't mention it," I automatically reply, almost falling back on my resting-inside-my-armor stance.

Tagg's eyes narrow at me until he finally deflates.

"I haven't been on a date in [years]," he finally says, leaning against the white, metallic wall behind him.

"I'm… sorry? I haven't been too active myself."

"I'm certain my wife is having an affair."

"Ah… that sounds… awful?"

"I don't blame her. Hell, she at least keeps it discreet, and I don't think the cucking bastard will have the gall to follow her here."

"That seems like a reasonable assumption. Sir."

Tagg's eyes narrow back again.

…

I [need] to build that social prompter.

"So, my workforce has been decimated because too many of them were either spies or saboteurs, my workload has about quadrupled since my former post, and my personal life is a living Hell of empty courtesies and 'how was work today, honey?' I'm a man with nothing to live for except the vanishingly small hope that tomorrow will bring about an apocalypse I've been preparing for since I first saw someone vaporize a poodle with freaking eyebeams—"

"Did you mean… a puddle, sir?"

"No. No, I didn't," the clearly unstable man answers me before taking a very visible, very deep breath. "What I mean to say, Armsmaster, it's that I'm wondering how come you get to enjoy a nice evening out while I'm trapped in what, as far as I can tell, is a Hell I woke up in after dying of a heart attack right before my transfer."

I look down at Director Tagg's blue eyes, and, for a brief moment, I wish this was a punching problem. I'm good at solving those.

"It's been brought to my attention, sir, that I haven't spent a single lunch period out of my workshop since I transferred unless it was due to an ongoing emergency. I've eaten more nutribars than cooked meals since I discovered the proper nutrient balance, haven't dated a woman since I finished college—oh, and I also have been preparing for the ongoing apocalypse that started years ago, contributing more to the collective survival of mankind than many countries. I do believe it's a matter of public interest that I get enough rest and recreation not to snap and become the next Mannequin. Sir."

Tagg stares at me, maybe trying to stare me [down].

I've looked Leviathan in the eye. Have weathered Behemoth's killing aura. Have withstood the Simurgh's song.

It's… not something I usually think about. But in these moments? When somebody tries to take me back to the me of before? When they look at me as if I should bow down like the nerdy boy who thought too much rather than the man who sees patterns? It… comes to mind.

And then Tagg surprises me by doing the last thing I expected from him.

He smiles.

"Well, congrats! I was thinking about ordering you to leave that damn lab of yours—"

"Please don't."

"Tell you what! You enjoy a nice night out, and I may not slash your budget in half."

"Your every word is a terrible wound upon my soul."

"That's what my wife always says!"

… I think I preferred him when he didn't smile.

"Ah, come on, just go out and have fun. Really, I promise when you come back, I'll have a terrible bureaucratic nightmare waiting for you."

"I'm not sure you understand how reassurances work, sir."

"Oh, I do. It's just I no longer believe in them—I checked her phone messages, you know?"

"I am… pretty sure that's illegal?"

"Not when you have reason to suspect she's passing information to an unaffiliated parahuman!"

"… Was she?"

"No, but the paperwork clearly indicates there was a high likelihood of that. You never know when pool boys may trigger."

"I am suddenly terrified to inquire about your wife's proclivities in the bedroom, much less the pool."

"I knew you were the smart guy around here."

I blink at the still grinning, slightly shorter man, and then slowly close my eyes and once again dearly wish for a massage routine optimally programmed to ward off incoming migraines.

"I'm… Sir, just how much of what you've just told me is the actual truth and not something made up to test just how uncomfortable you can make me?"

"Oh, everything. Really, why would I just blurt out everything about my marital life just like that? That's oversharing to a ludicrous degree," Tagg answers dismissively.

"I… see."

"Still, if you could code a discreet, little spyware app for phone and email—"

"I'm late."

"Don't be silly, we've just talked for—"

"What feels like decades. I'm tempted to report to Master-Stranger confinement. Also, to have you sacked for hiding a parahuman ability."

"Ah, yes. Your habit of having directors sacked," he answers, all sudden joviality now absent from his tone.

So I open my eyes.

I don't like what I see.

He's still holding the pile of dossiers, but he no longer looks harried nor peacefully slumping against the wall. No, Tagg looks ready to move.

And it should be absurd because, even if I wasn't wearing any of my equipment (and why wouldn't I?), I'm taller, stronger, and better trained. There are no certainties in fights, but a straight-out brawl between the two of us is as close as it can come to one.

"Just one director. So far," I tell him, my eyes on his blue, narrow ones.

"Some may say a parahuman ousting one PRT director is already one too many."

I try not to lean my head forward, not to tuck my chin in to avoid a hook to it ending the fight prematurely.

"Some may say a PRT director allowing the villains of this city to entrench and gather power and resources for decades would be reason enough to act, even if they didn't… cover a reckless parahuman's crimes."

"How… lacking in solidarity," he comments.

His weight is on the balls of his feet, more on the left one than the right, so any movement forward will mean coming at me at an angle that—

"Shadow Stalker was a homicidal, out-of-control villain in the making. She had no place here, and the damage she caused the Wards—[my] Wards will take too long to heal. It's inexcusable to have kept her here knowingly."

He cocks his head curiously, the movement accompanied by a half step that takes him away from the wall behind him. Now he can also move back if he needs to create some distance, though it's likely he will rush toward the sides, circling around—

"You're too stressed, Colin," he tells me. And I blink.

Then he shifts the left shoulder forward, and he's right-handed, so that means—

"Combat focused," he says. "As soon as the conversation turned confrontational, you started reacting to a possible assault. From me. A man a few decades your senior, in far worse shape, and with his arms occupied."

"I… I'm sorry, sir, you caught me off guard with your… [everything]," I tell him.

And he smirks.

"Of course I did; that was the point. You're an intelligent man, Colin. An extraordinarily devoted hero. Your service is exemplary, and your service sheet would make lesser men weep."

"But?" I've talked too much with Lisa not to ask this.

"But you aren't a leader. Not yet. You lack vision, rapport. You focus too much on what's in front of you and not on what may be implied or hidden. You have been trained to react to threats when you should've learned to [act]."

I look at him.

And he's right.

I've coded a combat heuristics program based on the best examples of what humanity has to offer. There's a kinesics database of world-class gymnasts, martial artists, and marksmen in my armor.

And that's not enough.

Because, when it comes down to it, what one learns first in any combat discipline is to not cede the initiative. To have a goal and push toward it. Nobody became a champion by waiting for their opponent to act.

And that's what I've been doing for years, until Lisa and Ms. Hebert pushed me to shift my priorities.

"If there are any leadership courses—" I start to answer.

And Tagg laughs.

And then he shifts the no longer teetering pile of dossiers to his left hand and slaps his meaty right hand on my shoulder hard enough it echoes.

"You're a good man, Colin," he says. "Please don't get me fired."

And he gives me a last smile, far less threatening than the previous one, and starts going down the corridor in the same direction Vista just disappeared to.

"Also, if you could code me that spyware thing—"

And that's the last I hear from him.

"Hey, I am talking to you—"

Yes. Tagg disappears down the Rig's corridor, leaving behind only sagely advice and no marital-issues-related trauma as I start walking in the opposite direction.

"Colin Wallis, don't make me order you to—"

We may get along, after all.

"For fuck's sake—"

***

"You're going on a date?!" Assault starts to ask.

And then the elevator's doors shut right in his face through mere coincidental timing and not at all because I keep a remote in my pocket just to avoid awkward, elevator-related conversations.

… I take offense to the stereotype that Tinkers are antisocial. I also take offense at the idea that somebody will not go to any lengths possible to avoid having to talk with Assault.

So I wait for the next elevator to come, check my—I actually don't know what to check. It's not like I'm wearing a tie to fiddle with the knot or something like that.

And if I take out my phone, that will take far longer than I've got time for.

So I hold back a sigh as I finally go through doors that open perfectly silently (as they should) and wait for a very short while that still has me reach for said phone before I stop myself.

Really, having a CAD program at the tip of my fingers is as useful for my occasional Tinker fugues as it is a constant siren's call. One that I should completely avoid throughout the whole dinner if I don't want to offend Hannah—which I don't. She's always been a wonderful friend, and she's going out of her way to accommodate my sudden whims, and, no matter what Dragon thinks is actually going on, I should treat her with all the respect she… deserves…

…

"Colin? You look… nice," Hannah tells me with a soft smile that flashes me her perfect, white, glinting teeth as she stands in the middle of the corridor leading to her office.

It's almost enough to distract me from… everything else.

Because she's wearing a little black dress that, while offering no cleavage, still drapes over her chest in a way that makes the shimmering fabric look like pooling water, and her hips are perfectly highlighted by the very quality of the fabric to cling to her skin with folds that hide just enough it's like looking at a nymph emerging from the depths, and—

"Hi?" she asks, waving the fingers of her right hand in a gesture far more feminine than I remember seeing from her and cocking her hip.

And that makes me focus on her [legs].

Toned. Tanned. The muscles visibly shift with each change in her stance, not bulging out but just… [defined]. And she isn't wearing any stockings, but the way her skin shines under what should be the thoroughly unflattering light of the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling is enough to make me imagine nylon clinging to her exposed thighs, maybe ripping as—

"Colin!"

"Huh?"

"I take it I look… [nice]?" she asks me with what's clearly meant to be an impish grin yet is almost spoiled (read: enhanced) by her visible embarrassment.

Oh. Oh, dear.

I'm going on a date.

…

I [need] to build that social prompter.

==================

This work is a repost of my most popular fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/wake-up-call-worm.15638/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 85 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).

Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Power's intrusions into Lisa's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance

Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Xalgeon, and aj0413. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and helping me keep writing snarky, useless lesbians, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!