Bob Moore: No Hero

Chapter 6

Two weeks later I was pretty much at my wit's end. It seemed that the doctor's fears were unfounded. He'd given out nearly four dozen trackers (I had to have Ted make some more) to his patients. I'd been hemorrhaging money paying for the additional trackers, the personnel to follow all the patients, and all the other incidentals. Even though my expenses over the last two weeks were more than my last six months combined, with what the doctor had been paying me, I don't think I'd fully eaten through the first day's pay yet. That meant that I had two stops to make that day. The first was to my banker, the second to the doctor to tell him I was off the case. He might be willing to pay through the nose for his paranoia, but twenty-four hour surveillance was taxing and, frankly, I didn't want to work for the bastard for one more day.

I'd personally followed the doctor as much as I could, mostly from a distance. A few times he insisted that I sit in on some of his sessions with people who didn't mind to get a sense of the types of patients he saw. He had an upbeat if slightly abrasive bedside manner, something that hadn't changed since back when I was still married. It consistently surprised me how little his manner bothered others. With the supers he was mostly okay. Sure, he focused more on the ailment than the patient, but no one really minded. With the tippys, it was different. It was like they weren't there. On more than one occasion, I watched a tippy spouse ask a question just to have the doctor give the answer to the super. While some seemed a bit put out, most tolerated his eccentric nature. When he was curing a debilitating disease, people could overlook a lot of idiosyncrasies.

I had to admit that Medico obviously was at the top of his field as I watched him diagnose and cure ailments that I hadn't even heard of in the time it took others to change the oil in their car. The fact was that supers had special requirements: they were born different and more often than not they had ailments that didn't affect the general populace at all.

Everywhere that the doctor went, so did Assistant. I was constantly surprised by how easily supers accepted the bio-mechanical robot. If the doctor were to wheel that thing into a store or mall, panic would ensue. But supers were so inured to such strangeness that they didn't seem to notice. As alien and strange as the construct was, they didn't even bat an eye. If there was ever evidence of the difference between tippys and supers, that was it.

For my first stop of the day, I had to visit my banker because of the large influx of cash from the doctor. I had my money split up into a number of different accounts on and offshore. That way, if something happened to one bank, I'd still have a nest egg. Before this job, I had enough to retire on. Now I had enough to retire and live well. At only thirty-four, I wasn't exactly ready to retire though I couldn't tell you why. I liked my work, which was a bonus, but it was dangerous. It always felt like I was just one wrong move away from pissing off the wrong super. I did have contingency plans in place, but if any of those had to be used, I'd have to be in pretty dire straits.

The drive to the TOP office was a short one. TOP, or Tippy Outreach Program, was a small, community based organization that provided counseling and support for people who were affected by supers. They were located in a small office in the center of downtown, which was basically within walking distance of my place. Well, walking distance if I wanted to get a bit of exercise. I didn't.

Liz Novac, who runs TOP, is one of my oldest friends. We go back just as far as any two can - I think I was the first one she ever played house with. Our families have always been friends though we each went our own way as adults. She became a high dollar financial attorney for a multinational corporation while I seemed doomed to the life of a perpetual student. While she always seemed to know what she wanted, I never could quite figure it out. I probably hold some sort of record for most undergraduate degrees almost completed. While I was racking up student loans, she was pulling down six figures and living the high life.