West Pacific Supers: Rising Tide (40 page)

“Have you ever been
able to do that?”

Blue Star laughed.
“I’ve never had a marriage last a decade; you’re the one who should be giving
me advice. If he’s been with you this long, he’s just looking for a reason to
stay with you now. And look at yourself, Camille! You’re gorgeous, intelligent,
got a good sense of humor – and the two of you have a kid together. He’d be an
idiot to leave you. Show him that you need him, show a little vulnerability for
a change. Anyway, I’ve got to get out there and entertain small people. Are you
going to be okay?”

“Yes, I think I am,”
she told him. “Thank you. That was actually really helpful.”

He grimaced. “Well,
those who can, stay married. Those who can’t, tell other people how to.”

7:00 p.m., Tuesday, July 16
th
, 2013

100 Lighthouse Road

West Pacific, CA

When
Seawolf’s
doorbell rang at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday night, she
groaned. It was either tourists who had blithely ignored all of the “Private
Property” signs posted on the causeway, or another representative of that damn
historical preservation society trying to convince her to allow public tours of
the island. Like she was ever going to let them turn her house into a museum
while she was still living in it! If they were so set on the property having
public access, they should have bought the damn place themselves and spent
millions of dollars and over a decade laboring to restore it.

Muttering to herself
angrily, she flung the door open - and saw Paul. She stared blankly at him for
a moment.

“Hi!” he said. He
was holding a long tube, the type used to carry maps, and he smelled sweaty.
Perhaps he had just gotten off duty.

“Hello.” She didn’t
move from the door.

“Oh. Well, I thought
I could stop by and you know, show you how the search has been going.”

Seawolf regarded him
warily. It seemed an unlikely reason for him to be here, but no one else was
talking to her and she was desperate to find out how the investigation was
proceeding in her absence. She nodded and stepped aside to let him in.

Paul walked in,
looking around with interest. “This is amazing! I’ve never been out here. How
old is this place?”

“It varies,” she
said, locking the door and following him. “The original lighthouse was
completed about 1856, but it was pretty much destroyed in 1973 when the Vanghel
leveled the city. There was a New Tomorrow Program grant to rebuild the
lighthouse, but construction was never actually finished due to an
architectural dispute. I’ve been restoring it over the last decade. I got my
PATON permit back in 2005.”

“So this part here
dates from the mid-1800s? Wow. It must have survived the 1964 tsunami then?”

Seawolf nodded.
“Apparently they had quite a view of the tidal wave hitting the city.”

Paul peered through
the doorway to the tower. “Would you mind taking me up?”

“Okay,” she said
after a moment’s hesitation. She hated the idea of strangers traipsing through
her house, but Paul wasn’t quite a stranger and seemed to have a genuine
appreciation for the lighthouse, which was, after all, her great passion. She
led the way.

“You know there aren’t
a lot of these original structures left anymore,” he commented as he followed
her up the stairs that led to the light. “So many of them were torn down or
abandoned when they put up modern navigational buoys. This reminds me of Point
Reyes down near San Francisco, though you have the keeper’s dwelling attached
to the tower. It gives you a nice bit of living space.”

“It does,” she said,
pleased that he actually knew something about the topic. “Actually, the architect
modeled the light tower here on Point Reyes, though this one is higher. The
city wanted a more modern, post-Invasion design to fit the look of the new
rebuilding plan, but the architect believed it was important to maintain
historical continuity. He got the keeper’s quarters rebuilt and the tower
mostly finished before the grant ran out. I had it finished to the original
plans.”

“Really impressive.
I can’t even imagine how much work you’ve put into it.”

“Thanks,” she said
with a note of pride. “It has been a lot of work, but it’s worth it though.
Look.” They had reached the top and saw the Pacific Ocean stretching out before
them on one side and on the other, the lights of West Pacific, bright against
the darkening sky. This was her favorite part of living here.

“What a view!” Paul
exclaimed. “It’s stunning! You get quite a storm spray out here, don’t you?”

“Definitely. The
island used to be only accessible at low tide, but I had the causeway raised.
Even so, if the weather is bad enough, the road is impassable. You should have
seen it after the tsunami,” she added with a frown. “I had to have it partially
rebuilt because so much of the fill washed away.”

“It’s gorgeous
though. Once you have a place like this, you’d never want to leave.”

“No, I never do,”
Seawolf said. It was wonderful to have someone to enjoy the view with, but she
also was starting to feel confined, as if her private sanctuary were being
invaded. She glanced over at Paul and saw he was smiling at her. She had a
sudden ridiculous thought that he was about to kiss her. “We should go back,”
she said abruptly, starting down the stairs. Her heart was still pounding when
they reached the bottom.

“You wanted to show
me something?” she asked.

“Ah, right. Do you
have someplace I can lay these out?”

She led him into the
dining room where he unrolled several maritime charts and pointed out where
they had been running patrols. “There haven’t been any more confirmed attacks,
though we recovered another boat down here and Starfish is looking into that.
What I’ve marked in yellow are the areas Starfish has given us to cover. He has
Camille doing flybys of these areas.” He pointed to some coastal stretches.

“Has Camille been in
the meetings?” she asked quickly.

He shook his head.
“We haven’t had meetings. Starfish just lets us know where he wants us to go.”

That was good. For
some reason she didn’t like the idea of Paul and Camille being in the same room
together. Paul seemed to be rambling now and she could smell that he had
started to sweat again, which was usually a sign of nervousness. She was
curious about what he was up to so she humored him. Eventually, as they were
both leaning over a chart, he asked, “How would you like to go out for dinner
Thursday night?” He sounded like someone trying very hard to sound casual.

“What?” They had
been through this already.

“Dinner – Thursday.
You can pick the place. Or I could do Saturday if that’s easier.”

“I don’t…” she
paused, weighing her words.

“Eat?” he suggested
with a nervous laugh. “Sure you do. I saw you buying fish down at the Harbor
market once. Unless it was for your cat, but you don’t seem to have a cat
thankfully.”

“…date,” she said,
finally finishing her original thought. She needed to cut this off for once and
for all.

He straightened up,
took off his hat, and ran his fingers through his hair. “Right, I remember you
said that before. But it’s not true, is it? I mean when I ran into you the
other day, at DSA - that office you were coming out of was a dating program. I
went in and picked up a brochure.”

She scowled. “That’s
different.” This was unexpected. Who did he think he was to try to insinuate
himself into her personal life?

“Why’s it
different?” he asked. “Because I’m not a mutant? Come on, Seawolf, I didn’t
think you were like that.”

The fur on the back
of her neck stood up. She didn’t like him making accusations; she was the
injured party here. “What were you doing checking up on me?” she demanded.

Paul shifted
uncomfortably. “I guess I was curious. You seemed - well, different - when we
met. You know - your clothing?”

She glared at him,
all of her fur standing on end now. “And then what? You did some Internet
research and thought that I must be pretty desperate to be going to the Mutant
Dating Service, maybe even desperate enough to go out with you?”

“No! Nothing like
that at all.” He looked hurt and upset. “Listen, if you don’t want to go out
with me, that’s fine, but you don’t have to get nasty about it.”

She narrowed her
eyes. “You’re the one who keeps pushing the point. Why can’t you just drop it
already?”

“Because I don’t
think you know what you really want.”

“Oh, and you do?”

Paul starting
rolling up maps. “I just think that you’re saying no for all the wrong reasons.
On the one hand, you say you don’t date and on the other, you’re checking out
Federal dating programs. So which is it?”

“It’s none of your
damn business!” she yelled.

Paul angrily shoved
the charts into the tubes he had brought. “You know what your problem is, Seawolf?
You’re stuck in the past, in some time where everyone’s out to get you because
you’re a mutant. That story you told me about West Pacific Memorial – to you
it’s like that happened yesterday. The world has changed!”

“Not enough,” she
muttered bitterly.

“Oh get over
yourself!” he snapped. “I’m not asking you to marry me; I just wanted to go out
for dinner!”

“It’s complicated.”

“No, it really
isn’t! You just make it complicated.” Paul grabbed the charts and stormed out
of the room. She heard the door open and slam shut, and then the sound of tires
on the gravel drive. Solitude had returned, but she couldn’t get rid of the
bitter taste in her mouth.

The next
few days were very rough. Seawolf hadn’t felt this at loose ends since she
dropped out of college after her second year. Then, she had traveled for nearly
a year and a half, making ends meet through odd jobs, until a letter from Dr.
Hodges found its way to where she was working marine salvage down in the
Florida Keys. “Come home to West Pacific,” he’d told her and the knowledge that
someone wanted her somewhere was irresistible. She’d quit her job the next day
and flown back. On her return, he’d arranged for her to become a research
assistant at West Pacific Laboratories for his brilliant young protégé, Sarah
Minoli
. Before a year was up, she learned that Sarah
Minoli
was the secret identity of Supersonic Cat and she
was invited on the team. Her whole life had changed because of that letter.

She thought now of
calling up Dr. Hodges and seeing what advice he had for her, but there was a
distance between them now that hadn’t been there 15 years ago. She usually
blamed Camille for coming between them, but really Dr. Hodges never was the
same after Sarah died. Mr. Awesome had taken up the role of father-figure to
the team, but now he was gone too. She felt so horribly alone. Of course, if
either of them had been willing to give her advice now, they would both tell
her the same thing, she thought wryly. When all else fails, get back to work.

Seawolf considered her
situation. She wasn’t allowed to do heroics at the moment, but that didn’t mean
she couldn’t work. The only lead they had was related to electric eels. She dug
out her college marine biology textbooks and started doing research. She was
interested to see that electric eels were not native to the area and in fact
came from Amazonian fresh water floodplains. That seemed to belay any ideas
that she might have had about people coming into contact with mutated eels out
in California waters. More and more it looked like the creatures she had
encountered must have been intentional genetic experimentation. She imagined
that anyone doing such experiments would need live electric eels as a source of
genetic material. According to her books, electric eels were difficult to
capture and even more difficult to keep alive in captivity. Seawolf started
tracking down where to acquire one in the local area.

West
Pacific City had two major aquariums: the Undersea Treasure Palace Aquarium and
Marine Show, and the City Aquarium. The former was an overpriced tourist trap
with a mid-day dolphin show and a massive gift shop. The latter was an
underfunded relic of a distant mayor who had been obsessed with civic projects,
and was most notable for its “After the Invasion” exhibit, which featured
indigenous sea life swimming through part of a wrecked Vanghel ship from the
‘73 invasion. Both had electric eels; neither would admit to selling one,
however.

The acquisitions
specialist at the Undersea Treasure Palace was tight-lipped about how the
aquarium got its
sealife
, other than repeated
assurances that it was all legal and they only used reputable dealers. He also
kept attempting to pass her off to the public relations office, who apparently
would be thrilled to give her front-row seats at the next Marine Life
Extravaganza. She declined and suggested that they contact the team directly if
they were looking to get a super at one of their events.

The curator of the
City Aquarium was much more forthcoming and waxed poetic over the finer points
of eel physiology. “What you encountered couldn’t have been an electric eel,”
he told her. “Not only are the waters too cold around here, they’re also salt
water, which has a
protonic
effect on the eel’s
electric charge. An electric eel in salt water that attempted to discharge
would just short-circuit. Now possibly you could have encountered a moray eel,
though they like warmer waters as well. But they don’t have electric
discharges. Morays are fascinating creatures though - they can get big too, twice
the size of an electric eel: three to four meters long and over 35 kilos in the
case of giant morays. They’ve got a whole second set of toothed jaws deep
inside their throat - fascinating creatures. Did you know…”

“Indeed,” said
Seawolf, trying to redirect him back to the point at hand. “And yet the eel I
encountered very clearly had electrocution abilities.”