Time and again, p.3
Time & Again, page 3
Lisa Yamamoto had been a surprise to him--almost as big a surprise as learning the group had ceased calling itself "Justice or Something" late last year. He had no record of Lisa and no idea as to what her power set entailed. But her teammates obviously respected her, which was enough to satisfy him for the moment.
He'd get to updating his spreadsheet after he talked them into signing on to the mission.
Kara shook her head.
So did Friday. "That doesn't so much work with supervillains. Everybody could be everybody's enemy. Doesn't make any one of them into somebody I want to work with."
"She's not a--" Jaccob started to protest, but the conversation was moving on without him, so he stopped short.
"I still do not like the idea of helping her," Cassidy stated.
"Weren't you the one who rescued her from that alien abduction a few years back?" Jaccob asked. He was pretty sure he had that right. In fact, he was almost certain that was how he'd first heard of Cassidy's super alter-ego Gray Dawn.
Cassidy shook her head. "Well," she answered, her voice thick with hesitation, "technically ... yes. But there were extenuating circumstances, okay? And anyway," she added, glowering squarely at Jaccob, "you saved Lyle Prather on live TV. Are you trying to tell me you don't think he's evil?"
Jaccob's face screwed itself into a frown. He had no idea what to say to that.
"Yumi," Lisa said as the silence between Jaccob and Cassidy started to feel awkward, turning to the red-eyed young woman sitting beside her, "you're being uncharacteristically quiet. What's up?"
Yumi Kujikawa was a diminutive girl who wore her jet-black hair streaked with a red that matched the unusual color of her irises. Jaccob knew her primarily as a swordswoman, although he was sure his information on her was as incomplete as the rest of his Justice or Something spreadsheet tab. She'd been looking down at her phone and absently swiveling her chair back and forth for the last few minutes.
At the sound of her name, Yumi stopped moving and sat up straight, gathering her feet into the chair lotus-style. She looked at Lisa before shrugging, leaning forward, and flattening her elbows on the tabletop.
"I think I'm going to have to go with Stardust on this one," Yumi said. "I'm not sure she's evil."
"Yumi," Friday addressed her sternly, "when I tell you she's friends with Loki, you know how I know that ... right?"
Jaccob, who absolutely did not know that, stood up a little straighter.
"Yeah, I do," Yumi replied. "And I get wanting to judge people by the company they keep. But I'm on the fencing team with Allory Greene, actual Nazi. And like Cassidy just said: Stardust himself saved Lyle Prather's worthless life a couple of years ago. So maybe there's more to Ruby Killingsworth than your source knows. I've been looking her up." Yumi reached into her lap for her phone. "And, like, I'm sure she has a whole ass PR team to scrub her image online and all, but it really seems like she's not a bad boss, at least. She pays people well. And since she took over, Goblin Entertainment employee retention is actual best in the business--and that includes in all the businesses they keep acquiring. We're not talking about trying to be her friends, we're talking about maybe taking a job. And from what I've been able to find, nobody who works for her hates her. In fact, most of them like her a lot."
"And that includes my son," Jaccob asserted, "which is the whole reason I agreed to take this on."
"Yeah, okay. You have a point. And I don't know how I feel about judging someone's whole character when we don't really know her." Lisa leaned back in her chair and nodded. "Sometimes the impression you get from afar isn't really the right impression."
"Sometimes, maybe," Cassidy said. "But I will remind you that my impression is not from afar. I actually do know her. I've known her for over twenty years. I assure you that not everyone who works for her thinks she's swell, or even completely human. She's the absolute poster witch for everything that is wrong with late-stage capitalism. And it remains my position that she's evil."
"You worked with her twenty years ago," Jaccob said. "I can assure you I know her better than you do."
"Yeah, I bet you do," Yumi mumbled under her breath, eliciting giggles from both Friday and Lisa.
Jaccob pretended not to notice and continued speaking. "She's a friend of mine, and she's asked for my help. And I'm asking for your help."
"She is not your friend," Kara countered.
"That woman is nobody's friend," Cassidy said flatly.
Kara nodded in agreement and then turned back to Jaccob.
"Um," Friday interjected, "she's Loki's friend. That's the whole problem I'm having."
"She's someone from your past," Kara said, paying no mind to Friday's comment about Ruby's friendship with the Norse god of mischief. "I'm guessing she's someone you have a lot of guilt over. You feel bad about how things ended, or maybe you feel bad the whole thing happened at all. And I think I speak for all of us here when I say I don't care. I just do not care about that. I'm not sure I could possibly care less that you had an affair with this woman, or that you broke her heart, or that she broke your heart, or whatever pitiful end the whole sad episode came to. But I do care, and maybe I'm the only one besides you who does, that there's someone in town who might have developed a time machine and could be using it for nefarious purposes--blackmailing your rock star son or whatever."
The overall reaction in the room suggested some level of agreement. "So," Kara began again, "can we maybe all agree to take this on? Not to help Ruby Killingsworth, who everyone except Stardust agrees might be evil, but because a bad guy with a time machine could do all sorts of damage that none of us wants to see?"
"I hate to be the one to say this," Cassidy said, seeming to somehow shrink in her chair. "But I think Kara has a point. The possibility of a time machine is absolutely worth looking into. But if I can, I'd prefer to work from a distance. I'm a little close to the evil in question, and I'm just not ready to out myself and my powers to my former employer."
"Oh, hey, that's fair," Friday said.
"Anybody else concerned about their secret identity?" Jaccob asked, finally taking a seat in the chair he'd been standing in front of for the past twenty minutes. "Because I'll admit that's a thing I forget about."
"Not really," Friday replied.
"Don't have one," Kara said wryly.
"I mean ... a little--?" Yumi said. "But, like, you all know already, so mostly it's just whether Miss Killingsworth, who--for the record--I also don't think is evil--"
"I said 'might'," Kara said back to her.
"Okay, fair," Yumi replied. "Might. Meaning also might not. And I'm in the 'might not' camp. And since I don't think she's evil, and I do think she probably keeps bigger secrets than mine all the time, I'm not going to let myself sweat the fact she might find out."
"I don't have a secret identity, either," Lisa added. "So ... as long as they don't care--"
"So can we agree then?" Jaccob asked the group. He looked down at his phone, at an hours-old message he hadn't let himself dismiss. "Just as a preliminary, can we agree? Ruby wants a meeting tomorrow morning at ten. She'll tell us what she knows and what she's already done to rule things out. You'll get the whole story, you can ask whatever questions you need to. And after that, if you want to walk away, I won't hold it against you. Can we all, with the exception of Cassidy, just agree to show up tomorrow morning and hear her out? And Cassidy, will you agree to listen to one of these ladies if they decide it's worth it to go forward?"
"I'll be there," Kara said.
"Yeah, me too," Yumi added quickly.
"If you're going, I'm going." Lisa reached over to take Yumi's hand. "Maybe I can help somehow."
"Of course you can, babe."
"Yeah, I'll go, too," Friday said then, "if for no other reason than to keep you two from getting too excited and jumping into something without thinking it through."
"I think I can work with that," Cassidy agreed after a moment. "If you all think this is worth pursuing, then I'm happy to help out, as long as she doesn't find out I'm helping."
"Good," Jaccob said, once again standing from the chair he'd only just sat in. "Good. I'll see you tomorrow, then. Ten a.m. in the Goblin C-suite conference room. Civilian clothes."
There was a chorus of nods as Jaccob pushed his chair back from the table. He was disappointed it had taken Kara's level head to convince the others they should go after whoever was behind this thing, but he was satisfied enough to have them on board. He saw his guests out of the conference room and into the elevator back to the plaza side lobby before taking the stairs down to the lab.
He'd spend some time wrapping his head around how little sway he had with Gen Z heroes later.
But it wasn't like they didn't have a point. He did have trouble thinking clearly where Ruby Killingsworth was concerned--he always had. He probably always would. But he refused to believe she was evil. Not really. Not completely.
The lab was dark when he arrived--shut down for the night--but the lights and HVAC sprung to life when the building's AI registered Jaccob's presence in the space. He knew better than to think he'd be getting any real sleep tonight. He had a hard time not thinking about Ruby in the middle of the night when he didn't have plans to meet with her first thing in the morning.
If he could spend a few hours head-down on the Starband project, he could probably tire himself out thoroughly enough to catch a few winks before time to head across the street. And if that didn't happen, at least he'd be getting work done.
CHAPTER THREE
The meeting was scheduled for ten o'clock, and as best Jaccob could tell from the morning's text exchanges, none of the young heroes he'd tapped for this assignment had decided to back out. That was good. But he had a piece of business to handle before their meeting, which meant showing up half an hour earlier than everyone else.
He spent his morning shower doing his best to calm his nerves, and to convince himself those nerves were solely attributable to Mike's situation. Breaking the news to his son that someone possibly meant him harm--and that someone could very well have access to time travel--would have been stressful enough no matter whose company he'd be in when doing so.
But Jaccob had just enough self-awareness to know that wasn't entirely it.
And it wasn't the fact he'd been up until the wee hours tinkering in his lab, either. This wasn't what sleep deprivation usually did to him, and he hadn't had nearly enough coffee for that to account for his jitters.
Jaccob couldn't help but feel a little foolish as he stared blankly into his closet. There was something in him that had to look just so to see Ruby this morning. For whatever reason--one he had no interest at all in interrogating--he needed to prove he could put on a fresh suit, throw his shoulders back, and stride into her office just as cool, calm, and unaffected as she'd strode into his. He didn't know why he needed this--needed to somehow show her just how completely he could have his act together around her--but he really, really did.
It was windy out, threatening rain, and as soon as he was out his door, Jaccob felt silly for having spent so much time on his tie and his hair. There was no denying he'd be a mess by the time he made it across the street. He supposed that was his comeuppance for suddenly deciding to care so much about his appearance. At least his cologne wouldn't be affected by the weather.
The morning's fixation on his appearance had cost him time. As he dashed across the narrow lane between his building and Ruby's, his StarWatch alarm was already buzzing to tell him he was late. The problem, he realized as he stepped onto the curb on Ruby's side of the street, was that she'd told him exactly when she expected him in her office but had left him on his own to figure out how to get there.
The Ruby Tower had a total of eleven doors on the ground floor--Jaccob knew the location and design of all of them, owing to his having overseen the installation of the doors themselves and their attendant security measures during the Tower's construction.
Not every door led to someplace with access to elevators that served the Goblin Entertainment offices on the forty-seventh floor. This morning, Jaccob couldn't seem to remember which were which. He didn't like the idea of having to use the door he had gotten used to when he and Ruby had been a couple, but that was the one he knew for sure would get him where he was going.
Worst case scenario, the doorman would be rude. But one way or another, he'd probably get directions.
He approached the brass and glass door beneath the small green awning on the Starcom side of the building and did what he thought was a passable job at containing his surprise when the doorman let him in without comment. Jaccob nodded his thanks and tried his best to appear calm and collected while passing through the brief lobby and into one of the two elevators.
There were only two possible explanations for that reception. Either Ruby had expected him to come this way and had gone to the trouble to inform the doorman, or she'd never rescinded her directive from two years ago that he be allowed anywhere in the building at any time. He wondered which it was as he waited for the elevator doors to close.
He'd chosen the executive guest elevator instead of Ruby's personal car. It had appeared he had a choice, but there was something about boarding the lift that would give him possible access to Ruby's inner office and the private floors of her residence that felt like overstepping. From here, he could only reach the corporate suite, the outer lobby of Ruby's fiftieth-floor penthouse, or the helipad on the building's roof. Those were the only floors a casual guest of Ruby Killingsworth needed access to without an escort.
Jaccob was being sent up unescorted.
But he was probably under surveillance. And he was definitely behind schedule.
He pushed the button for the forty-seventh floor.
The elevator opened again to reveal Ruby's outer office, where her second assistant was standing on the wrong side of his desk, fiddling with some papers. The assistant looked up at the open elevator and greeted Jaccob with a cheerful, "Good morning, Mr. Stevens!"
"Good ... um ... morning, Ethan," he replied, trying not to trip over his tongue too badly as he struggled to recall the young man's name.
"Jaccob, good, you're here." Ruby's voice startled him. Somehow between his curiosity as to the doorman situation and his desire to not be rude to a twenty-year-old office assistant, he hadn't yet managed to notice the door to her inner office was standing open.
Ruby blew into the room then--a force of nature in an ivory dress suit and nude pumps. He'd known her to prefer a more vintage fashion sensibility, even in the office. But today was something entirely different. She looked sleek, modern, dangerous.
"I ... um ... I hope I'm not late," he said, as she walked past. She hadn't so much as looked up at him; her attention was fixed on the tablet in her hand. Jaccob had no idea what to do. Was she being rude, or was she just busy?
"You're not too late," she replied, still not looking up. "Mike should be just about to get started. I warned the producers I'd be coming in. They'll be waiting on us."
She hadn't stopped walking; by the time she finished her sentence, the heavy double doors from her suite into the hallway were swinging open.
Jaccob didn't remember those doors being wired to open automatically. Either that was an upgrade he hadn't been told about--possibly installed after the demon occupation had smashed the place up--or she was using magic. He wasn't sure which thought made him more uncomfortable. He'd probably be looking up the work orders when he got back to the office.
The double doors had come open just enough for Ruby to pass through them without breaking her stride. She was several paces down the hall by the time it occurred to Jaccob he was probably expected to follow. He scrambled after her then, barely making it through the doors before they began to close again.
She was halfway down the hall by the time he caught up.
"I'll get the staff out of the room," she said, as he fell into step beside her right shoulder. She still wasn't looking up from the tablet she'd brought with her from her inner office.
It was driving him a little mad.
"Okay," he said, hoping that maybe a two-way conversation would get her to look at him.
"Once the room is clear," she continued, as though he hadn't said anything at all, "and it's just us and Mike, I'll play him the track from my email and explain what's going on."
"Okay," Jaccob said again.
"Then you can get us both up to speed on your plan and on these capes you found, who I'm about to pay two grand a week to handle this bullshit."
"Yeah, okay." Jaccob felt a little flustered. He was sure he had more to say, he just couldn't think of what or how.
"Then," she went on, still without pause, "once we've got Mike squared away and feeling all right, you'll come with me to the conference room where we'll get your little minions under contract and on task."
Jaccob stopped himself from saying "okay" again. He just nodded and continued following her as she turned a corner and then paused in front of a door with a red light above it. Ruby glanced over at Jaccob, frowning.
"Capiche?" she asked. "Any questions?"
"No, um ... we're good."
The door swung open then, and Jaccob was once again left to wonder whether automation or magic was behind it.
The room beyond was painted dark red, filled to brimming with machines Jaccob didn't recognize, and so dimly lit he couldn't quite fathom how anyone got any work done in here. A young Black woman sat before a large console; she wore silver headphones over her purple braids and appeared to be paying rapt attention to the knobs and sliders in front of her. Just on the other side of the console, an older Latino man with a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard was fiddling with a handful of cables. And at the far end of the room, in a glassed-in booth, wearing headphones and adjusting a microphone on its stand, was Mike.
Jaccob felt entirely out of place. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in a room full of machinery and had no idea what any of it was for. He realized in that moment just how little he knew about how Ruby's--and Mike's--business worked. Maybe he could use this opportunity to learn a few things.
