Chapter 11 #2
“Janet is a little… are we allowed to say insane? Be warned, your butt will be touched.”
“What?” The disbelief on his face as the elevator dinged and the doors opened would be hysterical if my anxiety weren’t pumping. “She can’t be that bad.”
“Worse. Wyatt has a quirky sense of humor. Don’t mind him. Then there’s Orion. Maybe you shouldn’t look him straight in the eye. If he mentions lizard people—”
“Lizard people?”
“Or the mole men in the subway. Definitely don’t ask him about the Illuminati. In fact, just smile and nod.”
“Why do I feel like you’re about to introduce me to your parents?”
I froze. He wasn’t wrong. I spent months trying to bond with my co-workers.
But they weren’t just co-workers anymore.
I wanted to fit in at the office, even when we went out on missions, but they had become an extended family.
I wanted their approval not because of any insecurity, but because it mattered.
It wasn’t so different from what I wanted from Booker.
“It’ll be alright,” he said. “I’ve dealt with off-the-wall co-workers before. Though there isn’t much butt-pinching. The government frowns on that.”
Levity.
We exited the elevator as my powers worked to keep my cheeks from turning red.
I knew the moment we crossed into the office, it’d be insanity.
I’m sure they were ready for Booker, but I don’t think he had any idea what he had gotten himself into.
We stood at the glass door, my hand resting on the handle.
“You sure?”
He ran his hands over his shirt, the same one he had worn yesterday. With a quick run of his fingers through his beard, he nodded. His nervousness made my powers work even harder.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I pushed the door open, ready for a drone to come speeding out or find Janet on the floor with Arthur in a headlock. It wasn’t the first time we saw Connor butt naked as he experimented with public nudity. Eyes clenched tight, expecting an explosion to erupt from one of the interior offices.
Waiting.
Waiting.
“Welcome to Secret Identities Incorporated. How may I be of assistance?”
It sounded like her. Never in the history of knowing our overwhelming administrative assistant had she offered assistance.
I cracked an eye open, expecting her to be held at gunpoint.
The trolls still littered the receptionist's desk, but she remained seated, eyelashes fluttering as she waited for an answer.
“Is that music?” I muttered. Janet’s usual death metal had been replaced with mild jazz. “The Illuminati…” Orion’s conspiracy was right. They had found a way to mind-control the entire city, starting with the one woman who could shatter their empire.
“Janet?” I moved across the office as Booker followed. She clacked away at the keyboard despite the screen not being on. “Is everything okay?”
“Mr. Carter, I went through your mail.” She handed me a stack of envelopes that had been all but shredded as she “screened” my messages. “You also have a voicemail from VTV about a potential interview.”
“Janet, you’re freaking me out.”
“This must be Booker.” She stood, leaning over the desk with her hand out. If she didn’t lunge at him and pinch his butt, I’d claim she had been possessed. “It’s lovely to meet you.”
They shook hands. “Drew’s told me all about you.”
“Ignore him.” She chuckled. Not a diabolic laugh that suggested chaos was in the air, but a genuine laugh. “He likes to exaggerate. Connor’s expecting you.”
There it was. Connor had alerted them. In mixed company, she had put on the guise of an actual administrative assistant. I took the envelope and walked past Arthur’s office. He was on the phone, but gave a slight wave.
“Not as embarrassing as you assumed?”
We entered the hallway, and I was scared to pass the windows, peeking into Orion and Wyatt’s offices.
The normalcy… in Secret Identities bordered on unnatural.
They wanted to maintain a level of discretion so nobody discovered we were superheroes hiding within the company.
I had come to expect a certain amount of disaster in our day-to-day operations. This, however, made my skin crawl.
“Janet acting normal is even more terrifying.”
I leaned forward, peeking into Wyatt’s office.
I stifled a laugh. “This is more what I expect.” Booker joined me, watching Wyatt as he carefully unwrapped a fudgy bar.
“He’s about to make sweet love to his sweet.
” Once he had the wrapper pulled back, he took the tiniest of nibbles, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“It’s sweet,” Booker said. “Your friends are trying to impress.”
Really? Why?
We moved past Orion’s office to see him talking to a projection of Hudson.
The only abnormal thing was him in a suit jacket, hiding his anarchy t-shirt.
I wondered if anybody knew they had gone from committed boyfriends to future husbands?
Next time Hudson stopped by, I wanted all the juicy details of their engagement.
The last office had been a storage room that we converted into Connor’s office.
Between him and Orion, the app never had a flaw.
It meant that Connor had plenty of time to work as dispatch for superheroes across Vanguard.
He’d claim it was for protecting the city, but our friendly AI-turned-human might have a voyeuristic streak we’d eventually need to address.
Booker’s statement made my eyes widen. What if Connor knew about last night? It would explain why the entire office had a different vibe. They weren’t looking at Booker as a co-worker or even as a human they had to be careful around. The question was, how much did Connor know?
I opened his door to find him sitting at his desk.
It had a monitor and keyboard, neither hooked up.
Most often, we’d come in for a ream of printer paper, and he’d sit there, unmoving as his mind was literally elsewhere.
He might have a physical body, but he still retained plenty of skills from when he had been a computer program.
“Connor, this is Booker.”
His eyes opened. “I know.” He stood as we had taught him, holding out his hand. Unlike with Janet, Booker didn’t seem as amused. It wasn’t much different than the scowl he gave Ms. Keyes. Not hostile, but still suspicious.
“Connor has some hobbies that are less than legal.” Both of us, it seemed.
“Laws don’t apply to me.” Technically true. There were no laws governing an AI inhabiting a genetically created body. Vanguard could barely keep up with laws for supers; this probably wasn’t on their radar.
“Drew said you might—”
“Already done.” He didn’t move as screens filled the room. We were getting dangerously close to Connor outing our secret. Thankfully, Booker seemed more impressed with the technology than the person using it. His finger poked through one of the blue holograms hovering in the middle of the room.
“It wasn’t the cameras.”
“Nothing is simple with this,” I said.
“For you,” Connor said. From anybody else, it’d be arrogance. Or maybe it was arrogance. I couldn’t tell as his humanity expanded. “I found code I thought we destroyed.”
My eyes widened. “No.”
“Apex?”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“99.9%, yes.”
“What am I missing?” asked Booker.
Connor and I turned to him. How did I explain that Connor’s ex-boyfriend had been a sentient artificial intelligence that had almost destroyed Vanguard? If not for Connor, Janet, and Orion, we’d all be enslaved under his programming.
“Jealous ex,” Connor said. “I am… surprised.”
Understatement of the century, not just at the return of Apex, but also at Connor admitting shock.
How the hell did we dance around the subject without giving away our identities? “Is he back in Vanguard?” Hopefully, Connor erred on the side of discretion.
“No,” he said. “But somebody has access to his programming.”
“Who has clearance for that?” I asked.
Connor’s face shifted slightly, brow furrowing ever so slightly. “Nobody. We destroyed it. This is… older. While in development, somebody must have stolen fragments of his programming.” Connor sat, his hands neatly folded on his desk. “I’ve texted you every person with access.”
I let Booker assume Connor’s ex had made the program and not that he was the program. Though if somebody had gone through the trouble to use any version of him, we had bigger problems to deal with. “This isn’t about espionage.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not about stealing secrets or making a buck,” I said.
The screens vanished as Connor stared into space. “At best, somebody at Synergy wants to rule the world.”
“At worst?”
Connor’s eyes softened. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he appeared worried. “They want to destroy it.”
The threat of global domination didn’t seem to concern Booker.
If anything, he appeared… relaxed? I knew he liked the chase, but did this somehow scratch an office-worker-turned-hero itch?
I wasn’t thrilled that Connor’s ex had come into the equation.
It meant the stakes had been raised. This wasn’t about saving a company a few bucks; it was about saving Vanguard, and I couldn’t waltz in and punch my way to victory.
“What now?” I asked.
“We go to work.” All our heads turned to the doorway to see Janet with a grin stretching from ear to ear. This was the real Janet. “Didn’t think we’d let you and your lover have all the fun, did you?”
Lover?
They knew. My powers couldn’t keep up with the heat in my cheeks. The moment he left the room, they’d want all the details. If he left, I did too. I’d rather face a supervillain than Janet asking me about my sex life.
Booker’s smirk eased the anxiety, but didn’t erase it.
He bumped his shoulder against mine. “I guess we’ve got some investigating to do.”