Zoom, Academy for Superheroes: Part 1

Life in the Fast Lane

"He was a hard-headed man, he was brutally handsome, and she was terminally pretty. She held him up, and he held her for ransom, in the heart of the cold, cold city. He had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude, they said he was ruthless, they said he was crude. Life in the fast lane, surely make you lose your mind."
-The Eagles

*****

The days after New Years went by quickly, and the team soon found themselves back at Area 52. They had all quickly fallen back into the groove of things. The children had their educational classes in the mornings, then training with Miss Holloway, followed by combat training with Mr Shepherd.
They loved learning how to handle situations, use all of their skills, and experiment with different techniques. All four children were becoming extremely powerful, their powers and skills developed more and more with every passing day thanks to their natural ability, and Jack and Marsha's training.
Jack, Grant and Marsha were the unstoppable trio of adults in the team. Always thinking and always ready for anything. All three were vital to the success of the team; Jack was needed for primary training, he was their leader, after all. Marsha was necessary for the psychological and emotional aspects of what they do, and Grant was always coming up with new tools, outfits, or weapons for the team to use and improve their abilities.
Laraby hadn't changed, still as loud, dramatic, and angry as ever. But by now, the team knew how to work around him.

The year wasn't off to a particularly good start; things just kept going wrong. Small things, silly mistakes that could have been avoided with a smidgen of better luck. It was as if everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong.
Jack was walking down the hallway that afternoon, with Marsha's small handbag in hand. She had accidentally left it in the lounge, and Jack was simply going to return it to her. But, now really wasn't a good time.
Inside, her room, Marsha was quickly rushing around, shoving pins in her hair in an attempt to get it to stay in the loose bun at the back of her neck, and frantically searching for some papers she'd lost at the same time.
Jack could recognize the stressful pacing from outside in the hallway and winced. He decided that the safest option for him would be to wait a few minutes for things to calm down, then make his appearance.
Just then, Laraby came by, followed by his usual entourage of scientists scribbling on clipboards. He saw Jack and began demanding that he got all of the progress reports perfected and delivered to him by the end of the day.
Suddenly, everything began to happen quickly, and all at once. Laraby yelling down the hallway, scientists talking stressfully amongst themselves, Grant nagging in Jack's ear about the progress reports, and he could still hear Marsha inside her room, pacing furiously and slamming drawers.

Meanwhile, the children were in in the lounge, exempt from any knowledge of the stress going on around them. They were currently playing with some paper airplanes that they'd made using scrap pieces of paper they'd acquired here and there.
As they absentmindedly sent their paper planes into the air, no one realized how dangerously close their pretend aircraft were getting to the emergency sprinklers on the ceiling. The problem with this, is that if anything simply comes in contact with any of these sprinklers, it would be set off, along with all the sprinklers in that sector of Area 52, which was from the lounge, down past the hallway where Jack and Marsha's rooms were found.
They'd realized what happened a split-second too late, after one of their paper planes accidentally brushed a sprinkler. Suddenly, they heard the sound of water rushing through pipes, an alarm sounding, followed by a shower of cold water streaming down on them from every which way.

Only a few minutes before the sprinklers were set off, back in the hallways, Marsha had emerged from her room, a small stack of papers in her hands. When he saw hints of a smile on her face, Jack knew that she'd found whatever it was she was so frantically looking for, and it was now safe to approach her.
She thanked him for returning her purse, and quickly shoved it into her room before the two of them began to walk down the hallway, making casual small talk. But, you know them, one thing led to another and a small but sharp argument began. I believe they were arguing about the progress reports, but it really could have been anything.
But, their little argument was interrupted abruptly when they were suddenly and inexplicably soaked by an inescapable shower of water.
They both looked at each other in surprise, and glanced around themselves before realizing that the sprinkler system had been set off. Jack almost laughed for a minute, he'd seen a lot of mishaps at Area 52, but this was a new one. He never got the change to laugh, because Marsha began to panic as all her papers became drenched and the ink began to run.
Jack rolled his eyes at her dramatic despair, and gave a bit more thought as to why the sprinklers had suddenly been set off. There was no alarm, so he knew there wasn't any kind of fire, but he knew the sprinklers were sensitive here, and in the back of his mind, he was certain that the kids had something to do with this in one way or another.
Jack and Marsha simply trying to find dry land was somewhat of a struggle. Marsha kept slipping because of the deadly mixture of water, hardwood floor, and high heels, and she kept trying to collect her unsalvageable papers.
Jack was just trying to get out of there as quickly as possible, hoping that the kids wouldn't be in too much trouble. He knew that there could be potential damages to very expensive electronic devices and any filing that had been done on paper, if any of these things were found in this sector of the facility. Marsha must have realized this, too, because she had given up on her papers and began to walk faster.
The sprinklers had finally been shut off, but the draining system wasn't very efficient, there was still about 4 inches of water on the ground, as they trudged towards a dry area near Laraby's office where a bunch of people had gathered.
When they arrived, someone handed Jack a small towel that he used to wipe his face with a towel, and was wringing out the edges of her soaked skirt. The children arrived sheepishly, escorted by cross looking guards. Jack sent them a look of warning while Marsha cringed and bit her lip, giving them a sympathetic glance.
Luckily, they'd soon learned that nothing too important had been damaged, and the children were pleasantly surprised to be let off the hook with only a warning.

*****

After about a week, they all got back on their feet again. Electronics were repaired, files were either salvaged or redone, and any damage to the building was fixed by professionals.
But Laraby had been especially bitter these past few days. Word in the scientists' lounge was that he was either stressing out over a big meeting he would be attending in Russia next week, but others say that the government was forcing him to fire over thirty percent of the staff.
Something that Jack had learned about Area 52 over the years, is that gossip and rumours spread like wildfire.
"People really shouldn't spread rumours like that." Marsha said to him one day, as they walked down the hallway and overheard more speculation about Laraby's sour attitude. Jack raised his eyebrows and gave Marsha a questioning look. She might not realize it, she might even just do it subconsciously, but she was one of the worst gossipers here. Jack found it funny that she gave everyone else shit about spreading rumours because it was "impolite", while she was constantly guilty of doing just that.
As the week drew on, Laraby's temper only got worse, and Area 52 became extremely tense. Nobody ever knew what to say to him, trying to avoid any conflict, hoping and praying that he wouldn't blow up on them. Jack rolled his eyes, he believed that everyone here was just a coward, afraid to stand up to Laraby no matter what he did, just because he was responsible for their pay checks.
The kids had mainly just tried to stay out of the way, going about their business as usual, just a bit more quietly.
Marsha, on the other hand, wasn't so cool and confident about it. The way she tiptoed around the facility was as if Laraby could hear her on the other side of the facility. She tried to avoid him in general, but when circumstances required her to speak to him, she kept her words soft and quiet, cautiously thinking over everything she said so that there was no way he could turn it around and lose his temper.
This began to piss off Jack, and he scoffed at her. She was just like everyone else here. But he wasn't buying any of Laraby's bullshit. He needed Jack here and everyone knew it, without Jack, they didn't have a team.

Meanwhile, life went on as per usual for the four, young teammates. That day, Summer was absolutely giddy; Dylan had just given her a promise ring. With it, came a promise to love, protect, understand and care for her, forever and always.
Jack rolled his eyes and she gushed about it. He had never been one for any of that romantic crap, he had no soft spot for romance or chivalry of any kind. He told this to the team, as they all sat in the lounge. Dylan just raised an eyebrow and scoffed.
"Yeah, that reminds me, how's your girlfriend doing?" They laughed as Dylan teased Jack about his nonexistent relationship status.
Marsha, on the other hand, thought the promise was simply adorable. She had a big soft spot for romantic gestures like that.
"Maybe you would have a girlfriend if you tried out some of that "romantic crap." She teased him, and the team laughed once more before turning back to examine Summer's beautiful. ring.

*****

It was official, nobody was getting fired, things became less tense and began to return to normal. Laraby really did fly out to Russia that weekend for a meeting, that must have been the reason he had been so on edge.
Life went on around Area 52, everyone was doing their own thing. Summer and Dylan couldn't keep their eyes or minds off each other, which wasn't unusual. They were constantly together, and always connected in some way, be it by their hands, arms or minds.
Jack immediately began to think that their love was dangerous. He knew that you can only be in that blissful stage for so long, he was constantly waiting for tragedy to hit their love affair.
What Jack didn't realize, was that maybe he was wrong. Maybe Summer and Dylan would make it work, avoid tragedy, avoid hurt, avoid pain. But Jack didn't think like that, he didn't know any different.