Just Cause Universe 2: The Archmage (9 page)

“Did you sleep with her?”

“No!”

“But you did before, right?”

“What has that got to do with anything? I didn’t
this
time!”

A new voice interrupted them. “Sally, Jason… what the
hell
is going on?” They turned to see Juice filling the doorway, with a thunderous expression darkening his face.

“Nothing,” growled Sally through clenched teeth. “I was just leaving.” She tried to push past the team leader, but he wouldn’t let her.

“Not so fast. I could hear the two of you all the way down in the cafeteria. I won’t have this kind of behavior on this team.” Juice folded his arms.

Sally caught a glimpse of someone in the hallway behind him, who looked in with interest and a sardonic smile on her face.
Shannon
.

White-hot rage exploded through Sally as she slipped into fast-perceptions. Before Juice or anyone could move, she ducked past him and into the hall. Her fingers closed around Shannon’s blouse and she shoved the taller girl up against the wall. “You… you fucking gutter slut!”

Shannon melted away into mist and drifted back through the wall out of Sally’s reach.

A hand the size of an Easter ham closed around Sally’s arm. Juice spun her around to face him. “You. Are. Out. Of. Control.” He spoke in his courtroom voice. “You are confined to quarters.” He looked around at Jack and Shannon. “I don’t have time to deal with this right now, but I want all three of you in my office tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock. If you’re not there, you’re off the team. Period.”

Sally stalked down the hall and into her room. She threw herself onto the bed and screamed into her pillow long and hard until her throat was ragged.

She must have dozed off then, because a tentative knock on the door woke her up. “Sally? It’s Sondra. Can I come in?”

Sally unlocked her door and swung it open. The winged woman stepped in and looked around, a paper bag clutched in one hand. “Doesn’t even look like your room,” commented Sondra. “Maybe we could, you know, throw some clothes around or something… make it look a little more homey.” Sondra’s attempt at a joke didn’t improve Sally’s disposition in the least. For the past few months Sally had hardly been
in
her room, and it was unusually clean for her.

Sally flopped down on her couch, folded her legs up underneath her, and clasped her arms around her stomach as if it hurt. She made a noncommittal grunt.

“You know, Juice is pretty angry with you. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Maybe?”

“
Well, maybe you’d rather talk to Ben and Jerry too?
” Sondra pulled a pint of Super Fudge Chunk ice cream and two spoons out of her bag. “They’re excellent listeners. And very sweet about it.”

“Okay,” Sally said. “Crack that open and pass it over.”

For a few minutes the two women passed the pint back and forth in silence until the ice cream was gone.

Sally sighed as she dug out the last bite. “You don’t have another one hiding in that bag, do you?”

Sondra chuckled. “Babe, we don’t
all
have eighteen-year-old metabolisms. I’d still like to be able to squeeze into my costume.”

“But you’re gorgeous, Sondra. I don’t know what you could possibly have to worry about.” She looked with admiration at the Native American woman’s flawless skin and shining black hair.

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Sally rolled her eyes. “I’ve been hearing that my whole life.”

“Me too.” Sondra’s laugh was musical, as if a songbird sang alto. “So what’s going on? Juice said you were screaming at Jason and then jumped Shannon. That hardly sounds like you.”

“I walked in on them.”

“
You didn’t!
”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Were they fooling around?”

“No,” said Sally. “They were just kissing.”

“That conniving little bitch,” said Sondra. “No wonder you came unglued.”

Sally shrugged. “It was just as much Jason’s fault as hers. He said he pushed her away, but at some point he let her get as far as she did.” She looked at the empty ice cream carton in her hand, sighed, and threw it in the general direction of her kitchenette. It bounced along the floor to roll in a tight circle several feet away from the trash can. That was fine, it wasn’t going anywhere, and nobody was coming over to give her cause to clean up. She’d put it into the trash later.

“Now
that’s
the Sally I know.” Sondra chuckled and put a friendly arm around Sally’s shoulders. Her wings rose above them both like a feathery canopy. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” replied Sally. “I guess we’re broken up now.”

“Think you’ll get back together?”

“I hope so, but he’s going to beg first. Not me.”

“I’m really sorry, kiddo,” sighed Sondra. “If Jack actually got
involved
with any of his starlets, I’d be furious too.”

Part of Jack’s job as the team’s public relation’s officer was to escort various Hollywood starlets to parties and functions.

“But you’ve never had any doubts?”

Sondra sat on the couch and spread her wings slightly to avoid sitting on them. “I did once. I thought that just
maybe
Jack might have had designs on this one singer.”

Sally’s eyes widened. “You’re
kidding!
What did you do?”

“I told him I’d cut off his nuts and feed them to a dog if he was screwing around.” Sondra’s eyes sparkled with humor.

“
But he’s invulnerable to everything,” protested Sally.

“He took me seriously. And I’d have figured out a way if I had to. Fortunately I didn’t have to. She traded down for some no-name actor.”

“I still think you guys ought to just get married.” One of Sondra’s feathers had fallen to the carpet. Sally picked it up and smoothed out the soft brown barbs.

“We talked about it just last week. I don’t know, though. Maybe neither one of us is the marrying kind. Whatever
that
means.”

“I’d like to get married someday.” Sally realized what she’d said and her eyes teared up a little. A romantic concept like
marriage
was pretty painful in light of recent events.

 “Well… you’re still pretty young. You’ve got plenty of time before you even need to start worrying about such a thing.”

“I guess you’re right. I’ll be right back.” Sally walked into the bathroom to wash her face and put her hair up. As she twisted her long tresses back, her eyes fell on the horseshoes she’d left by the sink. She scooped them up and went back out to Sondra.

“Hey, take a look at these and tell me if you think they’re identical.”

Sondra examined them closely with her yellow-irised eyes. Like her namesake, she had exceptional vision. “I don’t know, Sally. They look very similar, but I can’t say for sure they’re identical.”

“Yeah, but if you look past the obvious signs of aging, they’re the same right down to the chips out of the edges. You haven’t spent as much time with them as I have. They
feel
the same.”

“So what are you saying?”

“That body I found last week…” Sally swallowed a nervous lump in her throat. “What if it’s
me?
”

“How could it be you?” Sondra fixed an intense gaze on Sally.

“I don’t know. What if I… go back in
time
or something?”

“Sally, have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor?”

“No. What’s that?”

“In essence, it says that given any number of possible causes for an event, the simplest is the most likely.” Sondra preened one of her wings by using her fingers to groom each feather.

“Huh?” Sally looked blank.

“It’s the
KISS
principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid. What’s more likely? That at some point in your future you will mysteriously travel back in time, which is impossible as far as anybody knows, and be killed in the mid-1800s or that this is just a coincidence?”

Sally shrugged, unconvinced. “It sounds a lot more stupid when you say it like that.”

“Sally,” said Sondra as she smoothed down her wing and started on the other. “I know you’re a science fiction buff, and that means there are
always
alternative explanations for events. But in this case, I think it’s pretty unlikely.”

Sally sighed. “You realize that you’re probably jinxing me just by saying that, and I’ll get sucked into a wormhole or something tomorrow.”

The two women looked at each other in silence for a moment. Then Sondra started to giggle; so did Sally.

Sondra wiped tears of amusement from her eyes. “Okay, I do need to get going. Is there anything you need?”

Sally shook her head. “I’m stuck here. Maybe I’ll just wander around the Internet or something.”

Sondra grimaced. “Sounds horrid. I’ll find you some entertaining links and you can surf to your heart’s content.”

“Sure, that’d be great.” Sally hugged Sondra. “Thanks for coming by. If I ever needed a best friend, it’s now.”

“I’m here for you. whenever you need me.”

The winged woman left and Sally decided she was too tired to do anything else and opted to lie back on her couch, put her feet up, and close her eyes.

She awakened from a terrible nightmare and jerked to her feet before she reached full consciousness. She practically vibrated with tension as she stared around in unfamiliar darkness. The slightest noise would have sent her running in panic. As her blood thundered in her head, she recognized the familiarity of her own suite.

She sank back onto the couch, fuzzy-headed and logy. Her hands still shook. “No more ice cream before bed,” she said aloud to the silent darkness. The clock beside her monitor showed
4:24 AM
in glowing green numerals. She’d been asleep for almost twelve hours.

Her stomach growled.

She didn’t bother to open her refrigerator. She didn’t keep much in it except beverages; if it couldn’t be heated in a microwave, Sally couldn’t cook it. Admitting defeat and going to the cafeteria regularly was much safer than setting off her room’s smoke detector or sprinklers by burning water on her little stove. She wondered if she was permitted to leave her quarters to eat. After more hunger pangs, she decided her house arrest probably didn’t mean no meals. She’d slip into the cafeteria and grab a quick breakfast and be back in her quarters before anyone noticed. Her lack of cooking skills had yet to screw up cereal.
Pour into bowl, add milk
was about her speed when it came to the arts culinary.

She stepped into some sweats and her soft fur-lined moccasins and left her room. Headquarters was still on night-time lighting, which meant only every fourth overhead light was on. Long shadows filled the hallways as Sally padded to the cafeteria. The tantalizing scent of fresh coffee teased her as she entered the cafeteria. One corner was well-lit and some of the overnight crew members were taking a break there. The long buffet bar sat empty with clean stainless steel bins neatly stacked to one side.

At least the coffee bar was well-stocked. Coffee was the lifeblood that kept the team operating most days. Jack had paraphrased Sun Tzu when he told Sally that an army marched on its stomach, and so did Just Cause function on its coffee. She poured herself a cup and doctored it with lots of cream, sugar, and hazelnut syrup. She added two boxes of Raisin Bran and a small carton of milk, sat at the nearest table, and stared into her bowl without really seeing it.

“Is this seat taken?” asked a deep voice.

Sally looked up to see Juice, a stack of papers under one arm and a large coffee mug in his other hand. She looked back down at her tray again. “Go ahead.”

He spread his papers out and sipped at his coffee. “Don’t usually see you this time of morning, Sally. In fact, I don’t recall
ever
seeing you up this early.”

She made a noncommittal grunt.

“You know, I don’t envy you, being
the
first third-generation hero. You’ve been in the spotlight your whole life, trained to be a superhero your whole life. You’ve never really had a chance to do anything else, to be a
normal
person.”

Sally didn’t reply, although Juice’s words expressed some of the exact things she felt.

“I feel a certain responsibility for you,” said Juice. “I’ve known your mother since before you were born, and your father was a good friend of mine. His death was very hard on all of us who knew him. I promised on his grave I’d do my best to look out for you. What I’m trying to say is that if you need anything, come to me and I’ll do what I can to help. I see within you almost limitless potential in the Just Cause organization. I know we’re asking you to grow up awfully fast, but I’ve never questioned your place here on the team.”

She nodded, unsure of what she should say. His smile gleamed white in his dark face before he busied himself his paperwork.

Sally finished her cereal and returned to her room. She spent the next few hours surfing around the internet with no pattern or plan.

Eventually the time came and she went to Juice’s office. Sally couldn’t look at Jason or Shannon.

In his office, Juice waved them to come inside. “Sit down,” he ordered. “Listen carefully, because I’m only going to say this once and I don’t like repeating myself. I don’t ever want to see or hear a repeat of what happened yesterday. Whatever is going on in your personal lives needs to
stay
there. Do
not
let it affect this team.”

Shannon opened her mouth to say something and Juice held up a hand.

“I will not tolerate teammates screaming at each other in anger or attacking each other. There is
absolutely
no excuse for that type of behavior. I’m writing up all three of you for conduct unbecoming to an official representative of the U.S. Government. This will go into your permanent personnel file.”

Juice glared sternly at the three young heroes.

“And I’ll guarantee that pissing me off is the fastest way off this team.
Any
of you can be replaced at
any
time.”