Certified Superhero (Misfits #2)

1: working-class superhero

I really wished my super suit counted as proper office attire. That way I wouldn't be thinking about the consequences of completing hurling Henry's desk in a pantsuit. If I were in my super suit there would be no thinking I would just jump his desk and make it to my meeting on time.

Yet, here I was, in a pantsuit and not a super suit, running around his desk in the most professional way I could and getting yelled at by Henry from resource management for disrupting his work.

"Sorry," I called over my shoulder as I rounded the corner to the public relations department. "It won't happen again."

That was a lie. Everyone knew it. I might have only been a junior employee of the Conspiracy for four months, but I had already made a reputation for myself. And that reputation was being perpetually late, which is what I was going to be if I didn't make it to my next meeting in three minutes.

I checked my super watch. Unlike the watch I had worn during my time at unsanctioned superhero school, this watch was just as super as my super suit thanks to my techie roommate/best friend Diana. Scratch the three-minute deadline. I had two and counting.

I ran through public relations, took a shortcut through an unused meeting room, and turned into my hallway. Out of thin air, a person appeared around the corner too close to avoid.

An intern and I plowed into each other. The impact knocked me momentarily off balance and there went the three coffees the intern had been balancing. My Gift had quicker reflexes than I did, and three pillars of ice grew from the carpeted ground to catch the drinks. I hoped iced coffee was okay.

Without another sorry to slow me down, I opened the conference room door, panting. Everyone else was already there. Of course they were, the meeting was starting.

At the front of the room, Graham gestured for me to find a seat. "Nice of you to join us, Anna." If one of my old professors at Paramount Lake Academy for Troubled Youth had said those words, they would have been condescending. Graham just looked genuinely relieved that I had arrived.

He was an unimposing but tall man and sat somewhere in his late twenties but I couldn't be sure. His words bore the hard vowels and clipped tone of a Nova City accent, but he wore it uncomfortably. Like the accent was a new jacket that was still too stiff. But his most important trait was that he didn't mind my being late.

I pulled out an end chair at the long conference table next to my old superhero school professor and current co-worker/occasional vigilante mentor, Rory Freyson.

"Did I miss anything important?" I whispered as I pulled out a pen and pad of paper.

She took my hint and whispered back as Graham opened the meeting. "A few more field agents went missing this week. We're brainstorming ways to keep our heroes safe."

Under the table, I slipped off my heels. Really they were too short to be classified as proper heels--the wedge was only an inch high--but they made my newly discovered calf muscles look amazing so I put up with wearing them around the office. "What about a less strict office dress code?"

She laughed not-so-subtly, which drew a resigned look from Graham Turner, the head of our committee and technically our boss. Even though it was Rory who was laughing, I was also at the receiving end of the look. A little rude considering it wasn't my interruption. I wonder if that's how my friends felt back at Paramount Lake.

But Graham was quick to forgive and forget when another member of our committee launched into some elaborate plan to boost public opinion of superheroes.

Georgia Knight was one of those old vigilantes who started getting press coverage just as average humans with Gifts started acting like comic book superheroes. Her age really showed during her pitch. "If we have an event where the public can meet their local heroes then they would feel like they could trust us more. Eventually, we could establish different branches of superheroes that are as common as fire departments and police stations."