Squeaking across the smoothness of the mystery material, Seth's forearms found a cold spot. She sucked air in between her front teeth. People thought, being naturally warm, she'd like cold spot, but actually they kind of hurt. It was an odd hurt though. Like hearing a wrong sound that made you grit your teeth, not like a pinch on thin skin. She warmed it up.
She thought about trying to melt the desk. Again.
She sat up straight in the chair, taking her elbows from the desk. A sheeting of ash stuck to her skin. Her mother would've been furious.
The desk was black so nobody would know how many business cards she'd fried over it. Unless they touched it. Which they wouldn't because it was her desk now. Sort of. They were maybe going to have a secretary at some point when the organizational structure was more determined.
She wasn't sure she wanted someone else watching her schedule.
Wasn't a secretary contrary to the goals of the team? The mission. No – the organization... but that made them sound like a crime family. She was still formulating her argument for Mr. Tenor. She had silently nodded when he proposed the area for the secretary, and logged the proposition.
Itchy fingers twitched for the half-empty card holder.
When Decon was here, she'd have somebody to argue it with, and then she'd have the right words to say. She implicitly trusted Decon's ability to argue with her. They'd met once, but she'd done a lot of research. Not really fair, but she had tried to even it out some.
Anyway, it wasn’t her prying, but for a bit of enhanced googling (a poor yield came of that, anyway, since his web presence was nonexistent). Decon’s name had come out of Mr. Tenor’s research. Actually, it had come out of Mr. Tenor’s second assistant’s mouth, as she rifled through the files, dutifully checking them against her list to be sure she was handing Seth the whole package. The second assistant had no idea why she was giving Seth the files – she congratulated her on her internship and said it was a good company to work for and assured her everyone she’d met was nice. This was the shortlist Mr. Tenor had promised her, though the assistant didn’t know it, and Mr. Tenor seemed to suggest it had been narrowed by location, but she wondered. Retrospectively, Decon seemed the obvious choice for a first recruit.
Second, actually – she was the first recruit, if they were ‘recruits’.
Which is exactly what she wanted to find out. When Decon was here, she'd have the beginning of team, and when the team started, the plans really started. It was no longer a game of appearances and advantages between a lone (albeit frightening) teenager and an adult. None of this arguing about furniture and staff. Images and logos. Mission statements. Press releases. Everything but the work.
Mr. Tenor’s idea of the work, though was very different from hers. Maybe not different – limited. His ideas were, comparatively, limited. Which maybe wasn't Mr. Tenor's to know, but she couldn't very well do it on her own. And she very well couldn't do it with someone monitoring her appointments. Shuttling her to credits for her future college application.
She snapped forward, seizing a card, and started it slowly burning.
They were not going to have a secretary, and she would phrase it very nicely.
Around 34th, Decon realized he was mildly allergic to polyester.
He was peering around corners here on ninth, now, convinced somehow there would be a nice low brownstone building hidden somewhere amongst towering glass and steel... buildings, when he knew very well there wasn't, knowing he wasn't really allergic but allergic or not he was an unbelievable fool to have decided to borrow Brother Matteo's blazer trying to look more professional for a meeting about a mysterious group with a... fire-breathing, crimefighter girl who didn't even have a year on him and her billionaire... sponsor.
Not in the least because Brother Matteo had taken his vows in 1975.
Retro was cool now, right? He thought, as he tried to separate the polyester from the skin on the back of his neck for the thousandth time. It was like 85 today. What was he thinking?
Not thinking – trying not to look a fool, which any of the brothers, but especially Brother Alg, would remind him was impossible. Somebody thinks everybody's a fool. Best not to waste time worrying about it.
His neck still itched like crazy, though. But no more than he deserved.
Still four blocks to go, but a few deep breaths out of the fug of the train and he felt ready to laugh about it. It was still hot. Especially under his elbow, where he kept Seth's file furiously pinned to his side so he wouldn't get palm sweat all over it. That did make him smile – of course that was hot.
At first, he'd sworn not to read it, feeling the guilt of having made her feel obligated to send it. Then, either he'd come to his senses or he'd gotten too curious. She'd sent it, after all.
Of course, he'd turned out to be fool. Nothing in Seth's file was secret. Two thirds of it was newspaper clippings, the remaining third awards, honor roll records, and certifications for the sorts of things he had thought you needed to at least attend college for. Maybe she did! He didn't really look at the transcripts, because they didn't matter once he'd seen the rest. Back in Idaho – or, Iowa? Illinois? He'd only read it once because he'd still felt guilty and letters tended to turn around on him – she'd been Junior Miss Kick-Your-Butt since the age of 14.
It shouldn't have been possible. If she'd told him, he wouldn't have believed her. That was exactly the sort of thing dozens of laws had been put in place in order to prevent.
Well, she'd said her mother was a lawyer.
And he was there.
All of these buildings were big, and glass, and intimidating. This one was big, and glass, and... imposing? It had... infrastructure. Well, they all did. Cocking his head, he stepped back out of the walking traffic and took it apart (not literally).
By the time he walked to the front desk, he knew all about it, but he still wanted a brochure. Luckily, they had one – a sort of hefty one, with staples, that implied they didn't get that question a lot. And he got directions from a really nice secretary. He forgot them as soon as he punched the floor button, but he got to keep the smile.
The elevator dinged.
Looking up from his brochure to the widening vista of the floor, he realized the secretary's direction shouldn't have been that hard to remember. They had the whole floor.
Or, Seth did. Or, at least she had a desk. At which she was sitting, hands clasped before her as she stared at the elevator. Fight or flight tried to kick in.
“You going to set me on fire?”
There was a pause – just a second.
“I thought they'd call first,” Seth said.
“Your phone has no plug.”
“Your door is going to close.”
Decon stepped forward. Seth seemed about to stand up, then didn't.
“Nice digs,” Decon said, taking in an eyeful as he tried to fold the brochure – maybe it was too thick – so it would fit in his pocket without letting the file out from under his elbow. It wasn't working. It just kept crunching and flinging itself half out of his hands as if it, like a bird, were meant to fly. He gave up, hoping the dimness was somehow keeping him from looking as flustered as he felt; it was suddenly 85 inside, too.
“Nice jacket,” Seth said, once he stopped. She said it perfectly sincerely, and decided he looked chagrined because he probably didn't get a lot of compliments. “I'd ask you to sit down but... uh... I don't have any other chairs.”
Again, that moment where it would seem like she'd stand, or maybe move her hands at all, and then didn't. Decon let out a breath and realized she was wearing this building, this formality, like he was wearing Brother Matteo's groovy jacket. He walked over to hand her the file with a sympathetic smile.
“Let me show you the floor first,” Seth said, unmoving until she turned to look pointedly at the frosted glass doors to her left.
Nodding, Decon put the file back under his arm – relentlessly creased from his elbow, why didn't he think of that? – and walked to the doors. No handle, and they didn't slide open when he got close, so he turned to look for the card reader or whatever it took and caught a flurry of black out of the corner of his eye.
He turned in time to see Seth looking down and patting at her clothes in furious silence. She stood in a cloud of fluttering ash. Seeing he had noticed, despite his trying to avert his gaze, she sighed and slipped her jacket on, before brushing clean her hands. Looking remarkably like a normal girl, she bent to pick up a messenger bag slung over the chair's arm, lips tightening into a little grimace, and walked to his side.
“Nervous habit.”
“What – uh, do you... sweat ash?”
Deftly, she slipped the folder out from under his arm as she put her hand on door in a place that looked exactly like the rest of the door. It pushed open without a sound. He was expecting a beep or some kind of un-bolting sound; this must be very good tech.
“Burning paper.”
He stepped forward, caught a hardy 'fwoosh' sound behind him, and turned in time to see the folder finish sputtering orange flame, utterly blacken, and fall to pieces in her hand. She looked up sharply, as if surprised he noticed.
“Oh,” she said, completely misreading the look of shock on his face, “it was just copies – we've got others.”
“Oh…kay,” he said, as if that were a perfectly normal thing to do with extra copies of things. Annihilate them in flame. “Do we have... a maid service?”
For a moment, she actually looked surprised. She looked down, then back at the desk, then down at her feet again, at the noticeable pile of ash.
“Probably,” she said weakly.
“Yeah,” he said, “or... you know, the building's got janitors, or something.”
“Yeah,” she said. Then, “Yes.”
Without another look, she started walking down a long, fuzzy-walled hallway. Shoving his hands in (Brother Matteo's) pockets, he followed (There was a movie ticket in there they had found when he tried it on. It was just a stump, but Matteo thought it had to be for Coffy, which, he assured Decon without explanation, had been a ticket worth keeping). He was slightly disappointed the walls didn't match the fine black granite in the rest of the building. “What kind of lock is that? Does it scan your palm?”
“Security isn't installed yet.”
In fact, he was pretty sure that was painter's tape he'd just seen on the floor. In fact... he reached out and touched the wall and knew – it was a temporary divider panel with that felted outside, like they had in the community center to separate the various Substance Anonymous groups. Between how dark it was and the fact that they were black instead of a disturbing beige-gray he hadn't noticed at first.
None of this floor but that lobby were finished. Didn't really take three years of shop to determine that.
“Yeah,” Seth said, pressing her lips together and looking up towards the almost-invisible roof. “We're a bit... early.”
Decon let out a laugh, turning in place to reevaluate his surroundings. “Early? To what?”
She straightened, the average girl in the unfinished hallway disappeared, and he once again felt as if he would at any minute be escorted out by security like a hobo in a bank. “Our mission.”
The fuzzy walls just ended – they were just partitions to make the floor look presentable in case anyone accidentally pushed the wrong button in the elevator. The rest of the floor was blank but for support pillars – no carpet, no partitions – nothing but bare floor marked with painters' tape and scrawls in bright chalk. It was surprisingly and intimidatingly large. The windows that marked the edge of the floor seemed so far away they could play a decent game of football, but the light stretched through the black glass like there was nothing there. The emptiness rattled, charged, like walking through the scent-laden air of an industrial space, only healthier. Here was nothing but potential.
And a kitchen table. With some milk crates acting as both chairs and shelves, a few cardboard boxes and a laptop.
Seth chucked her bag on this table, kicked some milk crates into position, and sat down. Decon went about it little more gingerly, taking a moment to feel the table top and edges and peek under. It was one of those old-style Formica tables with the ridged metal edge in a beautiful, mottled blue-gray.
“I like this table.”
“I do too!” Seth said, and if she couldn't set fire to things with her mind, Decon would have thought 'said chirpily.'
She started pulling files from her bag. Two she stacked together, off to the side. “Now, there are a lot of prospects here, but don't worry – they're pre-sorted and ranked by both myself and Mr. Tenor, so you can use either system to guide you – or, I can give you my short list, if you're feeling trusting.”
“I'm feeling...” Decon glanced over to where she set their files, one on top of another, off the side on the table.
When he looked back, she was staring up at him, right in the eyes. “Uncertain?”
He didn't nod. She set her hands on the table like she'd had them on the desk, fingers twined together – the considerate gesture of a person trying not to influence another with body language, or the way wrestlers sent opponents to the mat before turning to climb the ropes and raise their fists. Usually then somebody hidden in the wings ran up and hit them in the back with a folding chair. Brother Matteo loved to watched wrestling.
“Does anything about this situation look certain to you?”
Decon took a breath. He resettled on his milk crates. He flattened his hand and gestured at the table. “You have a lot of files.”
“So help me sort them,” Seth said, done with his nonsense. “You haven’t signed anything. You can walk away having just given me some advice.”
“These are personal records–”
“Of people you can choose never to meet,” she replied, still sorting.
“Well, if I do stay–”
“Nothing in here you can't google.”
“But mine...”
She didn't interrupt. He didn't have anything else to say.
“You should look at it if you ever decide to get over your crippling self-doubt.” She had a new file in her hand, not his. She didn't quite hold it out to him, but neither did she withhold it. “Yes, Decon, there was stuff in there you probably don't go shouting off the rooftops, but it's public records, not therapy notes. Like you said, reading the file doesn't mean we've met.”
“We have now,” he said. He leaned back from the table, hands on his knees.
“Yes,” Seth replied.
“So,” Decon tipped his chin. “What's that?”
She drew the file back, but not without a curious turn of her head. “This is the non-negotiable.”
“Non-negotiable?”
She nodded. “Mr. Tenor wants to vet everybody of course – it's his insurance premium, after all – but this one we have to take. This one is non-negotiable. This one we have to take.”
She reissued the file. He gave her a rueful smile. “Probably best you just tell me. Can you google reading test results?”
“If you google a little extra hard,” she said, but withdrew the file. “All you'd need is the name, anyway. And I'll bet if you're going to bolt on me, you're going to do it now.”
Decon shrugged, chuckling. “Nah, probably not. Look at that file – it's tiny. Anyway, I feel like I read your file – I'm in too deep. Besides, this could be good, you know? And what other job offers am I going to get?”
“You would be a great mechanic,” Seth said. “They make good money.”
“Yeah, and if people wanted a mechanic whose specialty is breaking things quicker than he can put them back together, I'd consider it. Nah, Seth. Go ahead. I grew up in the system. I'm here for the rough cases.”
“Firmament.”
“What?”
She waggled the file. “That's him.”
“That's who?”
“Firmament.”
“What?” He stopped her before she replied. “Wait, am I being more-than-usually dense here? That's– his name?”
“Code-name.”
“What's his real name? Wait – why does he have a code-name? You didn't have a code-name in Iowa–”
“Illinois.”
“–right?”
“Right, code-names now practically count as intent, but even back then that's the only name anyone called him. He's got a name-name, but it might as well be John Smith, and anyway he doesn't answer to it. Or anything, really, these days.”
He stared. She put the file down – not like it was heavy, it probably only had two sheets of paper in it, if that. He drew it towards him, opened it – the first page just said ‘Facsimile’ in an ancient type-writer font which took him four tries to read, and ‘cont.’ which took only slightly less. It was enough to make him look back up at her in hopes he wouldn’t need to turn the page.
“What do you mean 'back then’?” Decon shook his head before she could answer, silently asking for a moment. “Wait – code-names haven't been legit since, like... 1989.”
“'Seventy-nine.”
“Seventy-nine.” He stared again, then turned the page. “I thought you said this was for young Islanders.”
She bit her lip, rolling her eyes slowly away from him, one finger tapping gently on the manila of the folder. When she felt she'd given him the proper time, she looked back at him. If so much hadn't been on the line, it would have been comical – his jaw down, brows knit, torn between disbelief and disgust...
“Firmament,” she said. “Non-negotiable.”
“The Hell you say,” he said.