Tales of the Starbuck Avenger!!! (48)
Okay, so.
Nine o'clock rolls around, and lo and behold, Garuda shows up. Business has been, like, humming along pretty good under Ketchup's guidance, sunlight is streaming in through the picture windows, and the day is feeling pretty tight, or something like that.
Here is how it boiled down. (And forgive me if I don't draw a diagram, because this is, y'know, a story, okay, and it is my opinion that graphics are for lazy bastard cheaters who totally aren't up to the task of evoking a scene using, like, words, or something, y'know?)
One. Ketchup's on the hot beverage station and simultaneously handling Point of Sale, which means that she is totally batshit insane. This sort of thing is pret'near unheard of, especially when dealing with a whole lobby-full of crazy Norwegians with easy access to small-caliber firearms, but in case I have not made this, like, abundantly clear or something, Ketchup is not your ordinary barista.
Two. Bubbles is back in Frapland, womanning the finishing station and handling all the frou-frou, and is actually doing a pretty good job of it, too. Sure, she's got moments when she gets all flustered and has to ask whether or not the hot cider takes whipped cream (it does, believe it or not), but, all in all, wow, get her away from Missy and, she's, like, going places in the company and stuff. Who, I ask you, 'da thunk?
Three. Justin, on the other hand, is not going places in the company. In fact, if we are lucky, Justin is not going anywhere at all. He is tucked safely away in his little nook in back, probably still babbling on about aphids or something. Justin Cloud is like a one-man After School Special on the dangers of careless drug usage. All by himself.
Four. And what about me, you ask? Your talented, reasonably psychotic and -- slight, unfortunate paunch aside -- dead-sexy-in-a-Scarlett Johannsen-circa-her-Lost in Translation-phase-sort-of-way narrator? Well, today, class, I am fucking queen of the pastry case. Ketchup put me here because pastry case is always a little more easy-going than coffeeland, and frankly? Smart move. I am still not all that functional.
Awright. Tangent. I say "Ketchup put" me on pastry case, which is more or less correct, but... the funny thing about Ketchup taking over is that it never seems like she's taking over. She'll come out with a sixteen-point strategy plan for the next hour, complete with, like, a fucking slide-show to show us how it's gonna be done, go over the whole business in itsy-witsy detail, then turn to me and say, "This is, of course, pending your approval, Miss Hocking." She does this because I am technically shifting here and am furthermore the seniormost employee on duty, and despite the fact that I'm giggling, rocking back and forth and sometimes looking crosswise at the pastries in front of me thinking I saw them move or something, I'm currently the boss here. She totally just does not want to put even the slightest tear in the hierarchy. Never mind that I'm just barely able to grasp the coarsest points of her game plan. Never mind that I would probably smile and nod approvingly if Ketchup told us to go hunt down some giant lizards and release them upon Tokyo if the Prime Minister of Japan failed to give us eight billion dollars in cash or the equivalent in consumer electronics or something. That's just how Ketchup rolls.
So anyway. Like I said. Around nine, Garuda showed up, looking pretty pissed. He weaved his way through the mass of disturbingly intense biathletes we had filling the common room, avoided the purchase line entirely, and marched straight up to the pastry case, his eyes drilling holes in his wussy little round spectacles.
"Why, hello there, Jeremy Spector," I said, delightedly. "Welcome to the pastry case of the Gorham Street Starbucks! What can I get fer yew taday?"
"Oh, let's see," hissed Garuda, all sotto voce and shit. "Perhaps today I'll try a nice fresh cream-filled WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON."
I blinked at him. "I'm sorry," I said. "Starbucks, Incorporated, speaking through its officially bonded representative, which is to say, yours truly, does not understand your inquiry." I smiled cheerily. "We do have these cute little miniature bundt cakes, though, if you'd like one of those."
"Do not test me, Trish," said Garuda, through his teeth. "Did you or did you not use the information I provided you last night to break into the Polestar Network?"
"Me?" I said, laying fingertips 'pon my breastbone. "You think I broke into some 'network' of yours somewhere?"
He stared at me for a few seconds longer, then relaxed, apparently satisfied. Holy crap, do I love that little maneuver. "All right, all right," he said. "Sorry. It's just that there have been some awfully disturbing things going on of late, and I need to know if--"
"Um, guy," I said. "I don't mean to be all pushy and stuff, but, like, there are some people lined up behind you all eager to have me serve them some delicious baked goods."
Garuda stopped short, then glanced behind him. A guy who had kind of been waiting in line before the talented Mister Spector had cut in gave him one of those tiny little smiles people use to try and convince you that they're not extremely pissed off at you right now, and he was failing pretty bad. "I'm sorry," Garuda said, after a second. "You're right, of course. But we need, badly, to talk, and soon. What time do you get off?"
It was the psychosis talking, not me. "Why, Jeremy," I said, batting my lashes. "That's an awfully personal thing to ask a girl."
"Work," he said, impatiently. "Off work."
"Three," I said. "But I'm totally busy tonight." I kind of sensed that it would not do to tell him in exactly what way I was going to be busy, and he didn't ask.
"Lunch, then."
"'Leven. You paying?"
Garuda waved his hand all absent-like. "Sure. Sure."
"This time we go to a crappier restaurant, though."
"Whatever," said Garuda. "I'll be returning. Wait for me."
And he left the line, the guy behind him kind of staring after him as he went. The look was clear: Buddy, if I were wearing a pair of cross-country skis right now and had my twenty-two on me, you'd be goin' down.
Then he ordered a scone.
The day continued.
* * *
And then it was lunch, and it found two mild-mannered alter egos seated in the surprisingly opulent cafeteria located directly beneath the rotunda of the Capitol. Huge support pillars (decked out in white marble paneling and fitted with these old brass fixtures) surrounded us in neat and orderly circles, as though placed there by anal-retentive druids with Bachelor's degrees in interior design. A fresco painted on the claustrophobically low ceiling boasted of all Wisconsin's bounties, including fish, grain, game and frvit, whatever the hell "frvit" is. The place was mildly spotted with pockets of bored, underpaid civil servants, and the Capitol's current Backpackman was seated off to one side, over by the recycling bins.* It was a government cafeteria, and despite the shiny marble, it was much like any other. Y'know. The sort of place where you can get a pre-wrapped chicken pattie sandwich with unidentifiable mysterious yellow cheese served to you by a blind guy in an apron giving it his darndest in a state employment program. Sauce, optional, is available in foil packets in bins to one side, and comes in three colors: red, yellow or off-white. The apex of getting crazy with your food is to mix two of them together. Milk is served in little paper cartons and for dessert you plunk some coins into a giant old block-like vending freezer and get your little generic-brand Eskimo Pies served to you out of a tiny little door on the front. My kind of place.
"All right, first off," said Garuda, sitting uncomfortably up against one of the pillars and clutching his skim milk as though it were, like, a talisman to ward off bad cholesterol or something. "I'd like to apologize for blowing up at you in your coffee shop this morning. It was wrong of me to accuse you of malfeasance right straight out of the blue like that."
"Aw, shucks," I said, waving my hand, pretty sure that I could figure out what "malfeasance" meant by using, like, context cues or something. "Think nothing of it."
"No, really," he said, earnestly. "It was totally uncalled for. And I'm sorry."
"Well, okay, then," I said, chewing on a hunk of chicken pattie. "You're forgiven." Swig of milk to wash it down. "You mind, um, telling me exactly what you were talking about, though?"
Garuda thought about this for a second. "I suppose I owe you an explanation of sorts," he said. "As I implied in our previous conversation, the clandestine heroes of this world contact each other and communicate via an information-sharing service. That service is called the Polestar Network. It is something like the mundane Internet, but rather more complicated in a number of important aspects."
"Uh huh," I said, trying to look interested and as though I was hearing all this shit for the first time, neither of which was technically the case. "So, um... somebody, like, broke into it or something last night?"
"Yes," he said. "...More or less. According to the administrator on duty, my account was accessed a bit after nine o'clock last night. Our quantum logs indicate that this took place at a computer terminal which, give or take a few dozen yards for spatial uncertainty, was located right in the middle of the Gorham Street Starbucks."
"Huh," I said, innocently.
"Plus," he said, "casual checking with some of the other members of the Network who were active that evening indicate that this mysterious individual used the moniker 'Starbuck Avenger', leaving little doubt that our quantum location efforts were in fact spot-on."
"Wow," I said. "So, um, what did this evil person, like, do, while they were monkeying around with your Internet thing?"
Garuda shrugged. "Nothing much, yet," he said. "Mostly just participated in innocuous chatter. Which makes me suspect that my unseen adversary is either a raw novice at the Evil game or is trying to bait me, somehow." He shrugged and sat back in his chair. "Additionally," he said, "whoever it was apparently changed my password."
I tried hard to keep my face totally blank. Dorian, I thought, you total bastard.
"Turned it into something of a subtle jab, too," he muttered. "Whoever it is is playing with me."
"You, um, got any ideas who it might be?"
"Well, frankly, Trish, you were my first suspect," said Garuda. "Failing you, I am forced to conclude that this is perhaps the work of the unknown individual who has been trying to strip the area of Sulawesi coffee in order to rob me of my evil-fighting powers."
"Yeah," I said. "That sounds like it could be, like, something to look into."
Garuda grunted some kind of low-grade agreement. A blind guy walked past, pushing a cart full of packaged snacks. All the food-service guys in the Capitol are blind. Some kind of equal opportunity thing in the civil service. It's kind of cool, actually. In the pause that followed, I finished my milk and did a sitting jump shot to a trash barrel seven-odd feet away. Swish. Two points.
Meanwhile, Garuda had been looking at me. Sizing me up, and shit. As I slouched back down after my game-winning basket, he asked, all pointed-like, "If you forgive me saying so, Trish, you're not looking so well today. Is there anything I should know about?"
"Mm?" I said. And then I kind of looked down at myself and took in the total picture, saw for the first time the crumples and sweatmarks in my uniform shirt, the handful of burst stitches in my pants, and, FUCK, I'd been the whole day with my fly down. I squeezed my legs together to try and make it so nobody would notice, hoping that Garuda already hadn't, and started looking for opportunities to fix it real casual-like under the table while continuing my little conversation, totally failing to find any. At the same time, I kind of patted at my frizzy-as-hell-by-now hair, a move which accomplished absolutely nothing. "Oh," I said. "Yeah, um. Long night."
Garuda nodded. "Coming out from under the Coverup can be a life-changing experience," he said. "I imagine you've had a lot on your mind. Questions."
"Yah," I said. "Which reminds me," I, like, added. "Last time we talked you said you were, I dunno, going to be talking to some people about some shit? About what the hell is going on with me? And you were, like, going to tell me some more?"
Garuda shook his head. "Not yet, Trish. We're still looking at it."
"Well," I said. "Hunky freaking dory, then."
"Please," said Garuda, all earnest again and crap. "Please, a speck of patience, Trish. What we're dealing with here could be nothing more than some low-grade psychic manifestations as a backlash of rapid Uncovering, or..." He swallowed. "Something rather more unusual. Something that we've been waiting on for a long time."
"Well," I said. "That certainly clears things up."
Garuda sighed. I did feel a little bad for him. From how he was talking, it sounded like he himself was probably at the mercy of some Super Administrator Person who wasn't telling him jack shit either. Maybe he was in danger of getting fired or something if he said anything more. Hell, I didn't know how this shit worked for superheroes. Still don't, really.
"And so here I sit," said Garuda, then. "Neither of us any further than we were when we began the conversation. For her part, the girl is becoming frustrated; as well she might be, given her circumstances. That she'd be to blame for the unauthorized access to my Polestar account would have been a logical conclusion; like Apricot, she obviously hungers to know more. But had I hoped that the girl was to blame? Well... yes... and no. On the one hand, if the mysterious 'Starbuck Avenger' had in fact been Trish Hocking, the matter could have been settled quickly and with little consequence. But on the other hand--"
"Dude," I said, shaking my head, "what are you talking about? And why are you talking about me like I'm not even here? And who the hell is 'Apricot'?"
Garuda startled, then narrowed his eyes at me. "Stop doing that," he said. "You're really starting to unnerve me."
"Stop doing what?" I said. "Asking you questions?"
"No," said Garuda. "Reading my mind."
Pause.
"...Sorry?"
"How on Earth," said Garuda, "do you know about Apricot?"
"Um," I said. "You just mentioned her?"
Garuda just shook his head. "This whole business is getting stranger by the minute," he said. "Trish, I understand that you are impatient. As well you might be, given your circumstances."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said. "You gave me all this shit already, back in the third-person part of this conversation."
He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "All right, all right," he said. "We'll get to the bottom of this." Then he looked at me again. "I take it from your presence at the coffee shop this morning that you have decided not to heed my warnings about staying put for the duration of our research, and I suppose that I can understand that. But would you at least re-consider the cell phone question?"
"Oh, yeah," I said. "Actually, I do have a cell phone now." It was still clipped to my trousers, in fact, from the previous night I had spent heroically plugging parking meters with Corpseflower, but this is the sort of thing you do not tell the guy who's already freaking out about you even going to work and into whose computer account you just broke the night previous.
"Good," he said. "Some reason, at last. Please, I know we sort of ended yesterday on the wrong foot, but would you at least consider accepting my number?"
The way he was looking at me, refusing him woulda been kind of like kicking a puppy and then telling it the truth about Santa Claus. Plus, I was still feeling kinda guilty about the whole breaking into his computer thing. I sighed. "Awright," I said. "But don't expect that I'm suddenly gonna become your regular phone-pal."
Garuda nodded, relieved and shit, and scribbled down a number on the back of an ATM receipt. I took it, noting while doing so that HOLY FUCK LOOK AT THAT STANDING ACCOUNT BALANCE.
"Cripes, Jeremy," I said, squinting at the balance it as though I was trying bring some sanity back to the situation by moving the decimal point over a few places using only the power of my mind. "What do you do?"
"I'm a consultant," he said. "SuperGiant Contracts Amalgamated. Our motto: 'Helping People Do Things... Better.' Don't be alarmed; it's a little higher than usual right now. My condo fees still haven't cleared."
"Shit," I said, wondering what the fuck anyone needed that much money for.
"Oh, don't start that," said Garuda. "Deep down, I'm just a normal guy like everyone else. Except sometimes I dress up in a bird helmet and go about crushing the wicked beneath the puissant fist of righteousness."
"Yeah, um, about that," I said, glancing down again at my messed-up open-fly pants and hoping his conversational cue would prevent him from getting suspicious of me again for asking. "About your, whatever, bird helmet. You, like, have a full costume that you use to fight evil in?"
"Well, yes," said Garuda. "It just wouldn't be the same in street clothes."
"Is that... inconvenient or something? I mean... how do you carry that around? And where the hell do you get a superhero costume from, anyway? Wal-Mart?"
He chuckled. "Actually, both your questions have the same answer." He unbuttoned the cuff of his fucking expensive dress shirt and rolled up his sleeve a little, exposing an awesomely ornate little brass bracelet with a ruby or garnet stud or something on it. "My hero suit is composed entirely of universe-hopping erratic molecules," he said, "and this is its resting projection into our dimension. It's a terribly complicated little thing and actually literally comes from another planet. Erratic-molecular costumes were one of the final gifts that Polaris gave all of the Justicars before we all... went our separate ways." Jeremy quirked his lip, and I could just tell that there was, like, a History here, but sure enough, though, he didn't share any of it. "It's quite handy," he continued. "Just bop and hold the little stud there, and presto, you're suited up. The whole thing just spins up out of nowhere. Not literally nowhere, mind, but to explore the topic any more fully requires a solid grounding in String Theory, and with your permission, I'll just leave it at 'spins up out of nowhere'."
"Lucky bastard," I muttered.
"Yes, we all counted ourselves quite fortunate," he said, blithely, rolling his sleeve back down. "Pole-tech gifts are a rare and precious commodity, doubly so now that their originator has apparently vanished from the face of the earth." He went all distant and shit again. "Such a shame, that," he said.
"And, um," I said, "it can, like, be anything you want it to be?"
"Certainly," said Garuda. "The suits this thing creates are fully customizable using an open-source interface that can run on any modern computer system. It's so robust that some wiseacre on the Polestar Network actually leaked it out to a computer gaming company for them to incorporate into some sort of on-line dalliance. Fits in seamlessly."
"So..."
"So," said Garuda. "If, say, tomorrow, I stopped being happy with the whole 'Garuda' business and decided to try my hand at being someone else, I could plug my little interface into anything with a standard USB port and, in a matter of minutes, I could be fighting evil under a whole new name. It'd take longer to come up with the appropriate catch-phrases, of course."
"So, say, you, um, wanted to focus your attention on the fact that you have, like, coffee-related superpowers instead of the whole Asian mythology shit? Like, let's say that you decided you wanted to call yourself 'The Starbuck Avenger'. You could just whip up a new costume, just like that?"
"Well... yes," said Garuda. "But, frankly, even if I were trying to play up the 'coffee' aspects, I'd steer away from a name like 'The Starbuck Avenger'. I mean, honestly, what a hitch of a name. Where would you even start to develop a theme like that?"
"Yeah," I said, a little darkly.
"And that's another reason I suspect my adversary is rather new to the Evil business," he said. "Seriously. 'Starbuck Avenger'?"
"Yeah, um," I said. "Maybe somebody picked it for them on the spur of the moment and didn't leave them, like any choice in the matter."
"Possibly," said Garuda, throwing back the last of his milk and crumpling the carton up all neat and shit just like they tell you to do on the little side-flap. "If so, I feel a bit sorry for them. Piss-poor choice all around, really." He shrugged. "At any rate, Trish, I have to be back to Monona Terrace in about ten minutes to attend a steering committee meeting, so I have to cut this a little short. As before, I urge caution and prudence in the days to come. Please do not hesitate to phone me if you need anything, and if I don't speak to you sooner, I will see you again in a couple of days. Hopefully by then I will have some more answers for you."
"Yeah, yeah," I said. "Promises, promises."
He smiled, all gentle-like and shit, rising from his chair. "Keep heart, Trish Hocking," he said. "We will meet again soon." And then he strode out of the cafeteria, tossing his carton into the trash as he went.
I sat there, for a bit, just sorta staring at the table. Then I got up and went to a nearby bathroom, walking all stiff-legged so as to keep my fly together. Once safely inside, I closed my zipper and then stood at the counter for a while, leaning my hands on the edges of the sink and staring into the mirror. Just... y'know. Looking at myself for a while.
Then, I fished around in my pocket and pulled out the sliced-up headband that I'd been using as a mask. I looked at it for a while. The edges where I had attacked it with a scissors to make some eyeholes in it were already starting to fray out, and as I mentioned earlier, I hadn't even really gotten them straight in the first place. It looked like (a) just about as far away from a fancy magical super-suit as anything you could possibly imagine and (b) total crap.
"Fucking erratic-molecule costumes," I said. "Fucking erratic-molecule costume-wearing bastards." I chucked the headband into the waste-paper bin, and was halfway to walking out before I had an attack of sentiment and went back to fish it out. Then I sighed, put the damn thing on, and stood there for a while longer, sizing myself up in the mirror only with the mask on this time.
So there I was, wearing my stupid half-assed superhero mask, when a guy walks in. Y'know, an actual guy. Of the male persuasion. In the wrong restroom. Young, well-dressed, probably a page or something. He crosses right behind me as I'm standing there at the sink counter, looking around for those little things they put in guy restrooms so you can pee without pulling your pants all the way down or something. Naturally, he doesn't find any, so he goes over to one of the stalls and does his business in there. Then he comes out, walks up right next to me, washes his hands, dries them off on a paper towel, and leaves the room. On his way out, he notices the name on the door. He gets a little red for a second, then looks over his shoulder, as though to make sure no one was there to see his little faux pas. Then he peeks out, makes certain there's nobody outside to see this either, and slips casually out of the restroom.
The guy spent three minutes in the wrong restroom with me, standing as little as two feet away at times. And he didn't acknowledge me once.
"Shit," I said, all quiet-like. Then I pulled off the headband and stared at it again, my disgustedness rapidly becoming, like, fascination or something.
The door swung open again. Woman in a formal business get-up. Governor's staff, probably. She nodded at me brightly as she passed, then went into one of the stalls. Feeling a little giddy again, I put the headband back on over my eyes and waited for her to come out, standing directly between the stalls and the sink area so I'd be right in her way. Sure enough, the second she came out, she noticed the beginnings of a run in her nylons or something, with which she busied herself, head down, as she walked straight past me to the sinks. Then she washed up, squared her jacket in the mirror and left the bathroom.
I just shook my head. God damn it, it may be a fucking headband with eyeholes cut in it, but it counts. And boy, howdy, did that improve my mood. Sure, there was nothing wrong with updating the look a little, maybe. Garuda's little speech about changing your superhero identity had me thinking of ways I could mix it up a little, y'know, become my own sort of superhero instead of the dumb-ass 'Starbuck Avenger' thing Dorian had saddled me with. In fact, I thought to myself, when I go meet Mebby tonight, I'mo really do it up right. But at the same time, I was all, like, y'all and your fancy-ass magic superhero costumes can go fuck yourselves. Because dammit, Ima Super Hero. And this -- be it, like, ever so humble -- is my Super Hero Suit. And that made me feel all fuzzy inside. Or maybe it was just the near-critical exhaustion. Didn't know. Didn't care. I was fucking walking on clouds all the way back to work.
Long story short. I finished the day with flying colors and with many congrats from Stu, who apparently hadn't yet heard from the angry guy I had pissed off that morning; or else, had, but was choosing to ignore it on the basis of our exemplary overall handling of the Biathlon situation. Stu promoed us a bunch of celebratory drinks, and I walked home feeling all warm from my tummy on out. I got inside my apartment, fed my imaginary cat, and collapsed into bed for the best fucking five hours of sleep I have ever had in my life, either before or since.
Ima Super Hero, I thought, as I drifted off to bye-bye land.
And I'm happy.
* In winter, every government building in Madison has its own Backpackman. It is a homeless guy with a large backpack. For some reason, by rule of some obscure and totally internal homeless guy law, they limit themselves to one per building, except the Public Library, which I guess handles the overflow. It's really kind of freaky.