After an incident involving a large bird of prey where Tempest nearly dropped from a hundred feet in the sky, we managed to arrive at the Guildhall unscathed. He insisted all the way up the stone steps leading towards a building that could have been mistaken for a gothic cathedral that such an occurrence had never happened before, with or without a passenger, and that him losing his grip on me "for half a second" — I counted at least three — reflected less on his Super skills and more on my shoddy luck.
"You're a bad luck charm," he said matter of factly as he held open the thick wood door for me to enter, as though any gentlemanly action could diminish his very ungentlemanly words. "A jinx."
"Am not!" I sniped, still sour over the whole thing, and in great danger of throwing up all over his shoes. It would serve him right for what he'd put me through. I would have more than happily taken a cab to the Guildhall.
"I swear this to you with all the sincerity in my heart," he pressed his palm over his breast, "you have the worst luck of any person I have ever met. Ever will meet, too, probably. You should be wrapped in a thick layer of bubble wrap at all times and forbidden from getting within a hundred feet of heavy machinery."
"How kind of you to ensure I don't walk through life with any misconceptions about my own miserable destiny," I deadpanned, striding past him into a grand circuitous hall. My steps echoed loudly in the nearly empty space, save for two bored looking men in Super regalia near the doors — the security — and a vacant service counter against the left-hand wall. "Where is everybody?"
"Returning from the same press conference we just fled. They'll be along soon," he said. "Want a tour?"
"Uh, obviously," I replied, and took his offered elbow, a mockery of regency gentleman escorting a high-bred lady about town.
I'd been walking by this building my whole life; how could I pass up a chance to see every last speck of dust littering the inside?
"These are the kitchens and the dining hall. The library and the meeting room are on the second floor. The fourth floor is restricted to the Guild Elders, unfortunately." He pointed out a series of doors as we passed them, some open, some closed. "Up those stairs on the third floor are the dormitories, for people on call or who choose to stay here full time."
"Do you live here?" I asked, not caring if I was perhaps being nosey of his private affairs.
He appeared to consider the question, watching me with a critical eye to determine how much damage I could do with the information. Finally, he divulged, "I do, actually. It's a nightmare like you wouldn't believe trying to find a place with reasonable rent in this city. Don't you try to sneak around and discover my identity while I'm sleeping, though. This place is locked up tight at night."
I rolled my eyes. "Like I'd bother."
Drats. Foiled again in my quest for quick tabloid wealth.
Tempest leaned in close to indicate a window over my shoulder, overviewing outside where I could make out a low-cut grassy field, a pool as large as any I'd ever seen, and several straw practice dummies in varying states of annihilation. "That's the practice field, where we, you know, practice."
"You have a way with words, don't you?"
His resulting laughter buoyed my mood from that traumatizing flight over.
"There's another training ground below ground level, as well, to simulate combat in enclosed spaces. It's right next to the filing room, where I suspect you'll probably doing most of your internship stuff. Paperwork stacks up around here like you wouldn't believe."
I internally groaned. Somehow paperwork hadn't been what I expected when I agreed to intern. I knew I wouldn't be interfering with the actual hero stuff... but sorting papers seemed especially bland.
Tempest brought me to a narrow staircase at a far end of the corridor, leading downwards. "Ladies first and all that," he said, indicating the way with an exaggerated flourish of his hand.
"Don't pretend to get all chivalrous on me now," I said, ducking under his arm down the staircase. "It won't make me forget how you dropped me earlier."
The passage was only barely tall enough for me to traverse at my fullest height, and definitely not intended for two-way traffic. The steps themselves only stretched long enough to hold three quarters of a foot for the average sized person, constructed of the same nutmeg-colored stone out front. Less than ten steps down, something crumbled beneath my heel and my stomach did a somersault.
"Woah, there!" Tempest's wind wrapped around me like a warm blanket and slowed my suddenly rapid descent down the stairs until he could wrap his arms underneath each of my shoulders and drag my back to the debatable safety of my feet.
I swallowed past the dryness in my throat. "Thanks. But I'm sure I would have been fine with or without your help."
"These steps are, like, a hundred years old," he said incredulously when we reached solid ground — though he took care to keep a firm grasp on one of my arms the rest of the way down as a precaution.
"Sounds like it's at least fifty years overdue for some breakage," I said, already shaking off the unpleasant matter. It was hardly the most startling thing to happen in recent weeks.
"It's not supposed to break at all." Tempest, likely not paying attention, maintained a strong grip on my arm down a long corridor. "Everything here has been reinforced to withstand us," he waved his free hand down his own lean, gray and yellow clad form, and I inferred that by 'us' he was actually referring to his fellow Supers, "fire, ice, wind, super strength. That sort of thing. Normal means shouldn't have any effect."
"Obviously whoever reinforced everything didn't think people would be flinging fireballs through the stairwells," I reasoned. "The area probably slipped their mind."
"Yeah. Maybe." His lips pulled up into a grin when he caught me looking at him, but I could tell his thoughts laid elsewhere. And there was something familiar about that smile... "Ah. Here we are."
The Archive was worse than anything my feeble imagination could conjure. Paper formed stacks taller than Tempest against the walls, and a thin layer of documents coated the ground like carpet. Wall to wall browning parchment, and the infrequent gleam of silver denoting the buried filing cabinets beneath.
"I quit." I shielded my eyes from the wretched sight. "Who still does paper filing anyway? Are you living in the Stone Age?"
"It's not so bad," Tempest replied, though even that weak assurance sounded doubtful. "You should be done by-"
"The time I turn thirty?"
Rolling his eyes, he ushered me out and let his wind close the door behind us. "I was going to say forty-five."
"Thanks, I feel so much better."
Mischief entered the fringes of his voice as we again approached the stairwell. "Am I going to have to carry you up the stairs to ward against further disaster? We can't have my bad luck charm breaking her neck."
"I'll take my chances," I snapped, and, just to prove a point, took to the steps with extra reckless abandon, catapulting myself up into the main atrium, where, to my surprise, I found the once vacant space completely full of people.
I spotted the Constable amidst the throng. Surrounded as he was by those catching his thoughts on this matter or that, he took no notice of me.
"C'mon." Tempest guided me towards the service desk we passed earlier, now inhabited by the two hijabi women I'd seen standing behind Constable at the conference. "Windless and Empathy will get you checked in."
"Windless?" I questioned in low tones, so as to not carry around the echo chamber of a room. "Is she your arch-nemesis or something?"
He snorted. "Not all Super names are straightforward like mine. Some actually require you to use that thing in your head."
"So you're not going to tell me," I stated flatly.
"Nope."
Something drew one pair of their eyes to us, almost mechanically. The woman on the left looked up suddenly, scanning around the room until she landed on us. Then, she scowled.
"Would have been nice of you to tell us you planned to kidnap our new intern, hotshot," she called at us before we could reach them.
"That's Empathy," he explained in low tones, and I could have sworn I saw a tinge of pink dotting his cheeks below his mask. "They're sisters — twins, actually — but she's the one you want to watch out for."
"No response?" Empathy taunted, hands fisted on her hips. "Is our celebrity hero too important to greet the rest of us peasants?"
"I'm never too busy for you, Empathy," Tempest replied, dialing up the charm and leaning forward with his arms folded atop the counter.
"And don't you dare forget it," she warned.
"How could he?" the other woman, Windless, muttered low enough as to almost be lost beneath the other sounds ricocheting through the atrium. She didn't look up from her typing. "You never give him the chance."
From this distance, I could better see their sibling differences. Though they wore the same traditional Guild gray shade, and their secondary color was an identical sheet white trim bordering the edges, Empathy's attire contained yards more fabric than her sister's, wrapping and overlapping over her short stature. Windless, contrarily, had a costume expertly fitted to her body without a speck of unnecessary fabric hanging loose or capable of being caught on the various cups full of coffee, pencils, pens, and notecards littering her computer desk. Although it was naturally difficult to deduce any Super's age with the mask on, I wagered they were in their late thirties based on Tempest's obvious deference and a few fine lines visible around their golden-brown eyes.
"I take it Tempest showed you where you'll be working?" Empathy asked.
It took a moment to connect that the question was directed at me. I scrambled to respond, "Oh! Yes. Yes, he did."
"We'll need to get someone down to repair a broken step in the basement stairs," Tempest cut in. "It could be a hazard, given the limited lighting and all."
"A step broke?" Her tone conveyed obvious dubiousness, mimicked in the skeptical tilt of her brow. "That's certainly new. I'll go check it out later and see what needs to be done."
"I'll leave it to you," he said, nodding sharply, and began turning away.
"Hey." Alarmed, I tugged on his sleeve before he could escape too far. I didn't consider myself shy, per se, but I was definitely more comfortable with him than these superpowered strangers. "Where are you going?"
He flashed me a carefree smile over his shoulder, quipping, "To go compare prices for industrial rolls of bubble wrap, of course," and he gently pulled away, losing himself amidst the coming and going Guild staff.
When his implication clicked, I fumed. That step crumbling had nothing to do with me. And him almost dropping me flying us over? That was all his fault. I was merely a poor, innocent scapegoat.
Empathy's bubbling laughter cut through my reverie, like a warm knife through butter.
I narrowed my eyes. "What's so funny?"
"Emotions are always so much more potent in you young people," she said vaguely, though the corners of her eyes still crinkled with repressed humor, a clear knowing. "It's like shooting a flare up in a dark room while everyone around you only has flickering candles for light. It's very hard to ignore."
Empathy. Emotions.
Ah. I was an idiot.
"You can read people's feelings," I realized, as the dots started coming together. The spark of understanding got me surprisingly excited. "So that's why you always accompany Constable to press conferences and parades. It's to read the reporters and the crowds to make sure things don't get ugly."
"While it's not exactly a secret, do keep that information to yourself. Many don't appreciate my gift. They feel that it invades their privacy, not that I can help what I pick up. It would be like getting mad at you for daring to smell the air around you. Utter foolishness."
From under the counter, she pulled out a storm cloud gray lanyard bedecked with the Guild logo and my name in a plastic slip at the end.
Placing it around my neck, over the tracker Ren gave me the day prior, I thanked her.
"That will let people know you aren't trespassing, so don't forget it when you come in," she warned, glancing up from rifling through a stack of papers on a clipboard. "Technically, I can make you another one without too much trouble, but I don't want to." Finding what she was looking for, she slid over one of the papers containing boxes and highlighted words that I struggled to read upside down. "This will be your schedule for the foreseeable future. I'll be giving you this," she dropped a deceptively heavy manila envelope in front of me, "for you to peruse at home and bring back after you've signed everything."
Dread pooled in my stomach. "That's... a lot."
"Yeah, well," she eyed it with matching distaste, "it's mostly safety waver nonsense and non-disclosure agreements. Nothing exciting."
"So..." I shifted on my feet, "is that all for today? I can just — go home?"
She nodded, and tapped one of the highlighted squares on the paper she gave me with a dusty-pink manicured nail. "See you tomorrow."
Windless temporarily tore herself away from her computer to say in her soft voice, "Goodbye, Lily."
"Bye." I waved as I backed away, and headed towards the door.
Back out beneath the sun, I whipped out my phone, which had been buzzing almost unceasingly since the conference, nearly dropping the thing in the process. Spying the caller ID, my heart leapt and I immediately answered, bringing it up to my ear.
"What the hell, Lily!" the voice at the other end of the receiver shouted.
Wincing at the sudden onslaught of noise, I withdrew the phone slightly from my ear. "I could say the same thing to you, Leigh."