chapter 2.2

Eddie didn’t think Oriana should be back at work so soon after the battle, but she didn’t want to leave Special Circs unattended for too long, especially in light of some recent cleaning of house she’d had to do. It was just a little full-body collision with a car; it shouldn’t take her more than a day of bedrest to come back from. Then again, he raised a good point when he reminded her that most people wouldn't have come back from that at all. It was natural for him to worry, and the least she could do was promise him she would stay off her feet and in her office as much as she could.

She had a lot of paperwork to process, anyway, and a job applicant to interview.

A knock on her door startled her from her review of Forklifter’s application for a reduction--after much training with her powers, she had finally mastered--well, more like fudged--the ability to undo the damage she did on the battlefield as Bombshell. She couldn’t undo all of it, but she could take enough weight off an inmate to restore most of his range of motion. It wasn’t a comfortable process for the convicts, and it took five hours at the minimum and required a full-body ultrasound, but many were willing to risk the pain when they came up for parole.

“Come in, it’s open,” she called.

“Yes, hello, I’m here to interview for the correctional officer position. I was told to speak to a Ms. Taylor-Moore?” A lanky, dark-haired twentysomething let himself in. He had wide, brown eyes, a round, precocious face, and a distinctively small posture, as if he didn't think himself worthy of standing in her office and thought to compensate for his internally perceived failings by taking up as little space as possible.

“Please, call me Oriana,” she insisted, gesturing towards the chair across the desk.

“Are you the hiring manager?”

“Well, Bombshell gets the final say. But the fact that you’ve made it this far up the hiring process tells me you have a good chance. Go head and have a seat, Mr….Maximillion Wentworth?” she read off the resume on her desk. “What’s that, English?”

He took his seat. “Originally from there, yes. And please, it's just Max.”

“Why’d you leave?”

He squirmed in place.

“Unless it’s too personal?”

“Too many ghosts.”

“I see. Let’s go through your employment history. It says here you worked at Blackwater General as an attendant in the bariatric ward while studying nursing...worked as a nurse after graduation for two months? Then you quit, and now you work for a private security firm?”

As she grilled him, she pretended to be busy with unrelated work on her laptop. Really, what she was doing was hacking his cellphone and going through his mobile browser history.

“Well, they’ve folded now. Superheroes are largely replacing security companies. What I’m saying is, there’s no notice for me to leave. I can start immediately.”

“And yet, you want to work in a jail, instead of going back to being a nurse?”

He sighed. “Blackwater General was hell. In the bariatric ward, they treat their patients with such apathy, such neglect. If they can’t sell someone a surgery, they give up on them as a lost cause. The way they talk about the patients in the break room, with contempt...they make fun of them...it could make you sick. And there’s nothing I could do about it. At least here, I’d be making a difference. At least Bombshell gives a shit about her inmates.”

“You’re an activist. A sympathizer,” Oriana nodded. “And a dues-paying member of the NAAFA. And in your spare time you write erotic fiction under the handle JustIgnoreMe23 on FF.”

He blushed deeply. “How…?”

“Forgive my intrusion. This job lends itself to a specific type of applicant. I know feeders get a bad rap. Trust me, I know. Mostly they’re fine folks, but you do get a few bad eggs. Just last week we had to fire someone for food tampering. So we’ve tightened background checks.”

“Food tampering?” he repeated. “That’s unthinkable!

“Honest relief you agree. Looking through your stuff, this all seems pretty wholesome…” His work had a heavy emphasis on domestic bliss, along with a condemnation of coercive force, and he had an active forum presence which he utilized to advocate for the importance of feedees’ bodily autonomy. In short, he checked out. “I just have one reservation.”

“That being?”

“Many of the inmates here need physical help, day to day. It’s a heavy lifting kind of job.” This guy was maybe a buck ten soaking wet.

“I thought that might come up. For the record, I am a lot stronger than I look,” he offered. “In fact, I believe over here I’m considered an index-8...don’t know why they won’t just use the metric system...Bombshell can tell you what that means, I’m sure--”

“I know what that means,” she cut him off. He had super strength. No wonder he had lasted so long working in the bariatric ward, and survived private security. “Well, Mr. Wentworth, consider yourself hired. Come back tomorrow at 6 AM sharp to fill out your onboarding paperwork. We’ll provide the uniform. What are you, a thirteen in the neck, 24 sleeve, pants, 28 by…” She gave him a quick once-over. “32?”

He gaped. “How…?”

“Good eye for dimension.”

That, and she’d spent her fair share of time looking at men’s before-and-after pictures with stats listed on the internet.

“Anyway, I thought Bomb--”

“Look, I don’t share this info with a lot of my people, but from one to another, I think there’s something you ought to know.” She took one of her calling cards embossed with her logo and hotline out of a drawer and slid it across the desk towards him. His eyes looked like they could have fallen out of his skull.

“Yes...tomorrow at six...it’ll be an honor working for you, ma’am!”

“Hey! You work with me. And it’s just Oriana!”

Perhaps if she'd been paying less attention to the subject matter of Max's FeedFrenzy.com account and more attention to the minor details, she'd have noticed that all of his postings' timestamps indicated they had gone live within minutes of each other--novels' worth of erotic fiction allegedly written in a day. What's more, his stories used 'color' instead of 'colour,' and all his characters' weights and measurements were listed in pounds and inches.

***

Her latest new hire was barely two steps out the door when the FatPhone rang in her handbag and the past came rearing its head.

Oriana dug through her things until she found the secondary phone that served as her emergency hotline. She was so sorely tempted to jump back into the field...but she’d promised Eddie she would take it easy until she was certain she’d made a full recovery. "This is Bombshell; I'm currently out on medical leave, but I'd be happy to redirect your call to another local hero if you’ll just state your location and the nature of your emergency.” She wasn’t especially social among the hero scene: her best friend was Scarlet Flame, and they weren’t even on a first name basis. But if Bombshell called her up, or Evergreen or someone, and explained to them that a life was at stake, they’d no doubt arrive on the scene.

"Relax, Queen B. This is a business call."

The female voice on the other end of the line dripped with an all-too-hauntingly-familiar honey sweetness.

"I know your batteries must still be fried."

Oriana cringed. Batteries! Honestly. Just because she and Big Tech were an item didn't mean she appreciated being talked to like she was some sort of extension of him. And yet, she couldn't bring herself to retaliate.

"Anyway, this is Martika Mitchell. I'd love to have you and Big Tech on the show."

Martika Mitchell: for one semester at Bellvue, she and Oriana had been inseparable. In the eyes of the student body, they'd been sister-rivals locked in a neverending tournament of conquest and lust. But of course, any rivalry between them was nothing more than a playfight. They were balancing forces to one another: Martika, the sly dominatrix, and Oriana, the bright-eyed ingenue.

And then it was over.

Now, the memories came fluttering back like bubbles to the surface of a glass of champagne, long-buried under years of separation but bursting in the moment with color and sound and emotion.

But as much as Oriana longed to see her best friend again, albeit, as Bombshell, not Oriana, Bombshell and Big Tech were enough of a media freakshow as it was. She would have thought the haters would have gotten bored by now, but in the last year she had learned there truly was one born every minute.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Mitchell, but I already have so much scandalous media attention as it is--"

"Oh, I don't want to push the scandal angle," said Martika. "Here's what I'm thinking: Big Tech comes to Bombshell's heroic rescue. It's the Westpark Hotel all over again. It's true love! What isn't admirable about true love?"

"Wow," said Oriana. "That actually sounds wonderful. Of course, I would have to talk to him about it."

"Oh, definitely. But just know that whatever Fredo Flores can offer you for the exclusive, I can triple it."

Beep.

***

Eddie’s car was already in the driveway when Oriana pulled up at home. What’s more, it was joined by a second SUV.

Her cornflower-blue CO uniform button-down was open, exposing her white tank top and untucked from her navy slacks, sleeves half-rolled. Catching her reflection in a window, she thought to herself that she looked comfortably windswept...kind of sexy...it would have been a good look for coming home to her man, but things changed if they had guests. Standing on the doorstep, she buttoned the shirt and straightened the collar.

She keyed the lock of the front door, only to have it opened by a woman whose burgeoning frame took up nearly the entire doorway. Her diminutive brunette girlfriend soon came wheeling up after her in her chair, all smiles. “Welcome home, Oriana!”

“Mickey? Marion? What are you doing here?”

“We saw the news and wanted to make sure you were okay,” said Mickey.

“And relieve you of cooking duty!” added Marion.

“You really didn’t have to do that. I can stand at a stove. And...did product testing not go okay?”

“Oh, no, it went wonderful!” said Marion, eyes wide and wistful. “But your house is accommodating enough. Honestly, it’s exhausting being on one’s feet all day! I don’t know how you people do it.”

Accommodating it was. Shortly after it became clear they were in it for the long-haul, Eddie and Oriana had sprung for a suburban house on the east side of town. Oriana had never imagined herself as an eastsider, but where else in town could you find houses with wide doorways, spacious kitchens, and a bidet in the master bathroom?

Looking back, she should have moved here years ago. With her interest in larger men, her old apartment had hardly been appropriate, with its uncomfortably small shower and flimsy third-floor balcony. But when she signed the lease, practicality hadn’t been an issue. She had envisioned for herself a long future alone, fighting crime and retreating into isolation, loved by no one, all for the public good. Who, after all, could handle the danger that came with her lifestyle?

A year ago, held fast in Chimera’s grip, she had lamented that she’d never spend another Valentine’s Day watching School of Rap and drinking a whole bottle of champagne by herself.

Now, she never would, but not for the reason she’d feared in that fateful moment.

“Ori! You’re early!” Eddie came out of the home office to meet her in the foyer. Forgetting Mickey and Marion for a moment, Oriana practically jumped into his arms, hugging him as far around as she could reach. “Whoa, don’t overexert yourself.”

She rolled her eyes as he gripped her shoulders to ground her. “I'm fine. Really, I’m fine.”

“How was work?”

“Uneventful. I did fill that CO position. You’d like the new guy, we three oughta grab drinks sometime,” she said with a nod to Marion. “Anyway, lemme help you get dinner on the table, what’d you make?”

“Chicken cannelloni! And sit down, don’t worry!”

“Marion, c’mon now. I been sitting on my ass all day.”

“Me too. You aren’t winning,” said Marion with a sarcastic smile.

Nevertheless, she let Oriana accompany her into the kitchen and plate dinner.

As they set the table, Eddie and Mickey fell into a conversation about work stuff. Oriana, meanwhile, picked at her plate, impressed as she was by the evening’s fare. It always surprised her that Marion actually knew how to season things. But she was distracted, watching Eddie relish his meal.

“Do you think they do it intentionally, or is it on the subconscious level?” said Marion, rolling up on Oriana’s side of the table with a sly smile.

“What?”

“They always make it into a contest when we’re all here together.”

She was right: both Eddie and Mickey ate like it was a race to see who could force their lover to fetch them seconds first. It was simultaneously endearing and one of the hottest things Oriana had ever witnessed.

“So what else happened at work today?” asked Marion. “Anything interesting?”

“I’m sure something did, but I didn’t leave my office to see it,” Oriana replied. “Oh, and the new CO, turns out he has an FF account.”

“Guess he got his dream job,” Marion remarked.

“Oh!” Oriana turned to Eddie. “Martika Mitchell called the hotline!”

Eddie paused over his plate. “Who?”

“She’s a talk show host,” explained Marion. “She interviews all these downtrodden, underdog superheroes on the radio. How is it that I know more about hero culture than you?”

“What did she want?” asked Eddie.

“The exclusive from both of us, on the biomanipulator fight."

"If she's anything like the rest of the media--"

"She's not," assured Oriana. "She's actually really woke. We were...friends, back in school."

"Right. Hero school. Sometimes I forget there are so many of you."

"She used to spend her summers networking with other Deviants, building alliances to combat hate crimes against our kind. Nowadays, she runs this whole show about uplifting marginalized voices in the community. And she wants us as her positivity piece."

"Positivity piece?"

"She's done Water Woman breaking contract, Scarlet Flame's gag order, Fireball forced into a life of alcoholism by his handlers because it turns his powers on, Kilowatt being forcibly frozen...all really depressing stuff. Sounds like she just wants me to go on the show and gush about how good you are to me while you tell the people about how you stopped Ted Greene from turning me into brain stew."

“Wait a minute,” said Mickey. “Remember the last time a celebrity took interest in you, Eddie? And you thought he had all these revolutionary ideas? And he offered you cash incentives? And he was so quirky and charismatic! And he turned out to be an evil cyborg?”

“There’s no way Martika’s a supervillain. And if she was a cyborg, I’d have been known.”

“If Oriana trusts her,” Eddie conceded.

“Oriana has an open-door villain forgiveness policy. Case in point!” Mickey reminded them with a sweeping gesture toward the pair of them.

“It’s one interview. What could happen?” insisted Oriana.

“I guess the odds of this woman having any insidious intentions--well, more than anybody else in media, anyway--aren’t that high," said Eddie. "And there is one thing I've been wanting to say to the public…"