Chapter Eleven
Sitting across from Aviva, the Mavericks tower is empty except for us. She has a project projected off the center table and I am just taking some notes on some of her ideas and once again I am reminded of just how intelligent she is. She speaks so articulately and with such conviction, I can't even pretend to not be impressed.
"I have to admit I am surprised you took the job," she says after a long pause of me typing.
"Me too," I say, and she laughs.
"Cathleen is starting to get her memories back, but she is still very confused," she comments, and I nod in understanding.
"I can imagine why," I mumble as I take her three-dimensional schematics and start labeling and ripping them apart. Tossing parts aside, I spin it around and start thinking about the logistics of the idea and Aviva just watches me work before typing on her computer. Glancing at my new work laptop I read through my notes and continue to work
"Can I ask you something?" She asks me after a long silence, and I glance up.
"Personally, or work-related?" I ask.
"A little bit of both," she says, and I debate it.
"Fine, but I'm asking you a personal question in response," I say and Aviva grins. I can tell she doesn't mind our exchange.
"Can I please give you and Click new phones, earpieces, and smartwatches?" She pleads, startling me, looking down at my cracked watch and my flip phone on the couch I cringe, I was going to replace everything once my bank account stabilized a bit.
"I'm planning on replacing them soon," and I push my glasses up my face
"I want you on the Mavericks network Beta," she says which startles me.
"You don't even know my real name, and you are going to have me join your very private digital network?" I ask her surprised.
"Lyle would not have let you move into Caspian if he didn't trust you. He adores Faith," Aviva says, and I let off a small sigh. Tugging at my scarf, the material is soft but too thick, I should have grabbed a lighter scarf this morning.
"The Mavericks have done enough for Click and I, I will replace everything once my bank account evens out," I say seriously, and Aviva doesn't back down.
"Who said I was doing it just for you? I want to be able to get a hold of you and Click at a moment's notice," Aviva says seriously, and I am impressed with her forward behavior. I didn't think she had this kind of tenacity in her.
"Someone is feeling forward," I mumble as I continue to work.
"I'm also having suits made and I know you saw the boots in your wardrobe," she pushes, and I just think of what to say. The boots are very clunky, and I plan on ripping them apart and rebuilding them once I have a moment too.
"I hope you realize I am not a superhero Arlington, and I don't plan on being one. I am an engineer and clearly, the universe didn't want me to be a hero, so I listened and left," I fire back, and she doesn't even flinch.
"Everyone else seems to think otherwise, Lyle especially. He said you were the strongest of everyone, you were supposed to be the team leader," Arlington continues to push, and I know she is getting under my skin on purpose. She's pushing to get somewhere in this conversation, and I don't know where yet.
"Things change, I am not the same person I was ten years ago," I say coldly, and she looks at me.
"No one is spilling what happened, what this incident was. All I know is that you have severe burns on your face which caused some facial paralysis and that those black dots in your eye are something, they aren't burns," she says, and I realize where she is pivoting the conversation to a little too late; she's good.
"It's not my place to say," I mumble as I scrap the one digital model and start another one
"Not your place? It's your face!" She exclaims baffled.
"That would be correct, but I want them to be the ones to tell you what they did. We were all younger and stupider, but I want them to have to look you in the eye and own up to their mistakes, and I want them to have to beg you for forgiveness for lying to you for years," I hiss as I continue to build.
"You're angry on my behalf?" She asks surprised and I can't back down from what I said.
"Of course, I am. I am their biggest mistake, everyone's biggest blunder. It stings that they thought they could just not talk about it and sweep it all away and as much as I wanted to hate you for being one of them, for marrying one of them for Pete's sake! I couldn't Aviva, you are a victim of circumstance and how protective this family is," I say seriously, and she leans back on the couch.
"Done," I say, and I spin the model for her, and her jaw hits the floor at the drastically revised model. Now I can build one and see what happens.
"How did you do that so quickly?" She asks shocked.
"This program is insanely cool," I say with a grin. She told me that this a program that an old friend of hers is developing, I think her name was Camila, and Aviva is trying to get people in the company to test it. I wasn't about to say no to something so revolutionary.
"I am glad you like it," she mumbles as she spins the model and looks everything over, I can see the approval in her eyes from a mile away.
"Well I can confidently say that telling Alexander I wanted you as my beta tester was one of my better choices within the last two years," Aviva says as she saves everything and pushes it up to Voyagers servers. Before I can even reply the alarm goes off. Aviva runs to the computer and checks it out.
"Oh boy," she says, and I watch in shock as her suit slowly builds onto her.
"Alexander is babysitting Cathleen and Macie is out of town, shit," Aviva says worried and she looks at me processing. Guilt eats at me; she needs help and I seem to be the only available person.
"Give me a suit," I say while rolling my eyes. So much for not being a hero, I guess I can play pretend for today.
A suit builds over my clothes and I grab my mask out of my new work bag and she hands me a phone and earpiece. Dropping my glasses onto the couch, I grab my board from my watch and we both take off quickly. Within minutes we are right over the chaos.
"I will take care of the shooter," she says, and her voice is loud in the com. Turning the sound down, I rush and start helping injured people out of the line of fire. Running around like crazy I hear her talking to the shooter, trying to coax him out of whatever delirious state he is in. Carefully approaching the situation, I watch him and without thinking I hurl my board in the way and three bullets hit it rather than Aviva. When I blink, she's gone, and I call the board back and protect myself from the fire. There is a loud crack and when I peer up, the man is out cold on the ground and Aviva drops something wooden.
"That wasn't very superhero-like," I muse, and she just grunts, and we continue to help people into ambulances and check for survivors. I bend down to pick up a little girl and she grips onto my neck as I try to help her find her parent or parents.
"Are you a new member of the Mavericks?" She asks me excitedly and my heart melts at the excitement in her eyes. Wow, she's a cute little thing, I soften at her sweet smile.
"I'm an old friend of the team," I say, and she spots her mom.
"Mommy!!" She screams and a woman turns around and the panic on her face calms at the sight of her daughter. She rushes over to me and I hand the four-year-old over to her.
"Thank you so much! Oh my gosh, my little girl! I'm so sorry," the woman cries, and I stand there awkwardly as she hugs her daughter tightly.
"What's your name?" The little girl asks me excitedly and I chuckle.
"My name is Influx," I say, and it feels right to commit to that name.
"Why?" She asks and the mom calms down and puts her daughter back on her feet.
"Sweetie you shouldn't ask so many questions," she says quickly, and I laugh.
"No, no, always ask questions. Try to learn as much as you can about the world and the people around you. My name is Influx because I can control electricity," I say, and I make a black ball of energy in my hand and the little girl squeaks excitedly.
"That's so cool!" She squeals happily and I grin behind my mask.
"Stay close to your mom, okay?" I ask and she nods, and I get up to go help the next person. My heart feels strangely warm from the interaction and I am annoyed at much saving the day makes me happy. I walked away from this life; I shouldn't find such joy in it after all this time.
When everything has calmed down and the police have taken away the shooter, Aviva walks over to me and I wait for her to say something. I can tell she is still processing what just happened and I feel a gaze on my back. Turning slowly, I see Cathleen and Alexander standing off to the side watching the chaos calm down.
"Thank you, Influx, you didn't need to help but I am incredibly thankful that you did," she says, and I sigh and push the earpiece further into my ear.
"The phone needs a life proof case with a rubber lining, the watch does as well. I will add the board mount to both watches, it's an easy attachment. The earpiece will need to be custom wrapped in rubber so I don't short circuit it every five seconds, I can make a case for it in my lab in under half an hour," I tell her, and her eyes light up.
"This isn't a permanent thing, I'm only helping until Cathleen is back to normal," I tell her seriously and there is a twinkle in her eye. She pulls out her phone and we snap a photo for their online accounts or something like that.
"Of course," she says, and I expand my board again and hook my one boot onto it and turn it on. Clicking the second one into place, I take off into the sky.
The next morning when I walk into Voyager for the first time, I am surprised by how normal the building seems. Thinking of the lobby Caspian has, this seems plain in a way. Scanning my badge in the elevator, I press the button for the eighth floor and the elevator flies upwards. Stepping off, I follow the instructions I was emailed this morning and easily find the lab. Swiping in, I am blown away by it.
Touching the panel on the glass, it switches to the frosted mode so that people can't see in. Walking over to the box on the lab table, I marvel at the massive array of instruments and tools that all look brand new. Pausing for a moment, I see the same circular table that is in the Mavericks tower with Camila's software, in the corner. A thrum of excitement goes through me at the idea of how much more efficient my work is going to become.
Turning my attention to the box, I start pulling everything out and I'm shocked. On top is my work phone and a pair of completely wireless headphones before grabbing the tablet from the bottom. Quickly setting everything up, I establish my login's and sync everything. Finding a note at the bottom it reads, 'I will give you the other things after work, Avi.'
Grabbing the files that are neatly stacked on the table, I start flipping through everything and pulling files for my first few projects. Recording deadlines on all my calendars, I grab the first file and pull up the digital schematics Arlington made last week. As much as her work is genius, damn is it clunky sometimes. I spend the whole day digitally ripping apart the project and restructuring it. When I reach something, I am happy with, I auto load the materials needed into the database and email it to Aviva for approval. One of my phones starts ringing and I search for both of them under the stack of papers. Opening my flip phone, I pop out a headphone to answer the call.
"This is Beta," I say confused and there is a cough.
"Hi Beta, this is Nathan," a familiar voice says, and my blood pressure spikes. Squatting down, I search for the old broken generator and put my hand on it, it whirls to life for a few seconds as I unload a lot of electricity before I explode. I'm thankful Aviva managed to find this hunk of junk.
"To what do I owe this call?" I ask harshly and he clears his throat.
"I'm afraid we missed a few forms when we were releasing you from your contract," he says, and I want to punch him in the face.
"Can they just be mailed to me? I finally found a new place to live," I snap annoyed.
"I'm afraid this paperwork can't wait, could you drop by in an hour?" He asks me and I put my hand on the generator again. Taking a seat on the floor, I just sit there and let off energy.
"You do realize that I have a new job correct, that I can't just come and go as I please. I work in an office now," I snap, and I can hear him shrinking back.
"I understand, but you are currently dual employed," he says, and I let off another surge of energy.
"I will stop by at half-past five," I growl before hanging up the phone.
The rest of the day steam's past and at five o'clock, I lock the files away and grab my things and head out. Checking my cracked watch, I see that I have twenty minutes to get across Manhattan, fantastic. I don't even care when I strut in late and Nathan waves me through. Not even acknowledging him, I breeze into the elevator and go to press the button. He presses the button for the floor his office is on instead of HR and I raise an eyebrow at him. He just gives me a sheepish smile. Stalking behind him, I follow him to his office and drop into the seat. He hands me the paperwork and I start reading through it.
"What is this crap?" I snap at him, offended at what he just handed me.
"It's a new contract, with a twenty percent pay raise and time and a half for overtime," he says simply, and I resist the urge to light the whole office on fire and burn the entire building down.
"I'm not interested," I snip at I toss the file back at him; he doesn't catch it and it hits the floor and papers go everywhere. Standing up, I rebutton my coat.
"Wait, there was actual paperwork I need you to do," he says quickly, and I put my hand out and stare him down. He hands me five sheets of paper and I realize one is a confidentiality release, I wasn't surprised we missed one. But reading through the other three sheets, I see that the company is trying to demand that I pay compensation for loss of revenue due to questionable circumstances of my termination.
"What is this?" I ask appalled.
"If you had agreed to sign the contract, we could have swept that under the rug," Nathan tries to say confidently, but the glare I send him has him lean back quickly in his chair.
"You're kidding me, right? You have no grounds to demand compensation, I lost my home to a fire!" I pop off at him and he swallows hard, I can practically smell his fear, and in a very twisted way, it's satisfying.
"Nobody is kidding about this matter, we're now over a month behind because of everything," he says, and I slam the papers down on his desk and lean over. He squeaks in shock as I give him the most heinous look I can muster.
"If you try to go through with this, I will have no problem hiring Cathleen Winters and Macie Bansal as my personal lawyers and taking this entire company to court over the matter," I hiss, and he turns white. Macie Bansal is Cathleen's friend from Harvard, and she just made the list as one of New York's best attorneys.
"I thought you hated Cathleen Winters," he chokes out and I stand back up to my full frame.
"Rage is relative Nathan, and you just made the top of my list," I say, and I didn't think he could look any worse, but he almost turns green.
"I don't think court will be necessary, as long as you pay the appropriate damages-" he starts but I cut him off.
"I'm not paying anything," I say before signing the one release and storming out of the office.
Rage is relative, and you just made the top of my list.... one of the most badass things I've ever written 😂😂. What do you think of Beta working for Voyager? Would you work for people you 'hate' if it meant providing a better life for someone you care dearly about? Thoughts on Beta? Thoughts on Nathan? 😂😂
Don't forget to vote and comment!!
XX Cc