Chapter Three – The Worker

Clark had been working for the Heroic Response Force for twelve years now, and he still wasn’t used to how quickly things could just suddenly get out of hand.

He was in his mid-thirties now. Still young, he hoped, but sometimes he didn’t feel it. His thinning hairline and the constant heartburn he felt certainly didn’t leave him feeling as young as when he’d started.

Back then, he was a fresh-faced kid right out of college, and joining the HRF was seen as a fantastic first step in any career. It was the kind of work that would have him be within hand-shake range of actual heroes, working on PR, on disaster relief, and on the kind of continent-wide logistical issues that would have him chatting with all sorts of business heads.

That was when he was just a wide-eyed intern.

Now, twelve years and four promotions in, he was aware that the vast majority of his work wouldn’t look good on a promotional poster. It was gritty, day-by-day decision making stuff that had him working unpaid overtime and drinking enough caffeine that his doctor was genuinely worried for his health.

He had risen in the ranks until he sat in that awkward position between upper management and lower. His title was something like Manager of Heroic Interventions for the HRF North East. He was the one reporting to several regional directors that ran their own city-based operations, while also being an intermediary with the national directors.

When a problem arose anywhere in the region he covered, he had to be on it. There were few people as plugged into the actual happenings as him, and it was his job to point people in the right direction and make the big choices, choices that his superiors would inevitably sign off on and reap the benefits of.

His job wasn’t all bad. He’d have quit a few years ago if it was, taken the leap to the private sector where his resume would get him a job with twice the pay but half the benefits.

The HRF was federal work, after all. Of a sort. The organization was built to work across North Merica, and so it was sometimes in a legal grey zone in all three of its major jurisdictions. That could mean that, on a bad day, they wouldn’t just have to deal with supervillains robbing banks and causing trouble, but with three-letter agencies that wanted to meddle.

On a good day, he was aware that the work he did was saving lives.

Today was not a good day.

“I need the preliminary reports on my desk twenty minutes ago,” he said to one intern before turning to another. “Put on a big pot of coffee, we’re going to be here all night, then call the catering company… yeah, the one with their menu on the board at the back. Tell them it’s on my behalf, and we need the disaster special, they’ll know what to do.”

Clark’s desk wasn’t in its own little office, but rather at the head of a sea of cubicles. That was actually for the best. The bosses could hide in their offices all they wanted. Right now, he needed room to sprawl out.

His desk was covered in papers and reports that he just didn’t have time to read. More importantly, it was the centre of the storm. Managers from different divisions were coming over to ask him what to do directly. It was faster to go to him than someone above him who’d just kick them down to him anyway.

“Roosevelt, contact Hannah from Quick Response and tell her that reinforcements are coming in the next six to nine,” he said before turning to someone in a nicer suit, one of the directors of an important faction within the HRF. “Don’t make a liar out of me, Cortez, how quickly can we mobilize?”

“Not very,” the man said. “I tried to get a budget increase for exactly this.”

“I know, and someone above me refused it,” Clark said. It was a terribly formatted request. Cortez was also bad at making friends in the HRF. “But I’ll do what I can to help. Give me ten minutes and I’ll have West from Transportation and Logistics calling you. We can spare some vans and trucks. Probably some drivers too.”

“Alright,” Cortez said. “Are we going to have the manpower to handle all of this?”

“In terms of heroes? Probably. In terms of troopers? I have no idea, but I’ll do what I can,” Clark said. He picked up pen and paper and made a quick note to call West in the next ten minutes or so. He had another call to make. He tucked his phone between shoulder and ear while it rang and gestured some instructions to a wide-eyed manager from another division.

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The line picked up and he grunted.

“Montoya? Yeah, it’s Clark… uh-huh, no, look, we need boots on the ground. We’re using Mount Eal as a starting ground. Yeah, I know it’s an hour from Saint Arie, and I don’t care, it’s central. Good. Send everyone you can spare. We’ll make sure they get overtime later. Yes, and risk pay. Look, pull people from every division across the damned country if you need to, I need troopers. Our cordon right now looks like swiss cheese.”

He nodded a few times, almost dropping his phone, then pulled it off his ear and hung up.

Where was he?

Clark looked around and discovered that he didn’t have anyone staring at him like school children that needed attention. That wouldn’t last, but he’d take the moment’s respite while he had it.

Sitting back down, he sighed as his feet were finally off the ground. The HRF had terrible office chairs, but he’d splurged and bought a good one some six years ago. It was worth it.

When he took this job, he expected to work side-by-side with heroes, but in reality, the closest he came to that was covering up their mess-ups on paper. He shook his head and grabbed at the heap of reports on his desk.

The Saint Arie situation was dire, and it was only going to get worse. He’d have to cancel some things, put off a lot of PR things, and their logistics would be strained for the next six months, even if everything ended in the most ideal way tomorrow morning.

It wasn’t going to end in an ideal way tomorrow morning.

People were displaced from an entire city. That meant thousands of people that needed to be housed and fed, at least until the Endgame ended. And then there would be cleanup.

That was someone else’s department. He’d help as he could, but right now, his specific focus was ensuring that the HRF’s response to the Endgame itself was on the ball.

Sighing, Clark looked over some recent reports, then blinked. These were from his ‘In’ pile, and all of them pre-dated the Endgame. Permissions for a PR event at a hospital? He’d allow it, but ask for a reschedule. They’d need all of their healers at the front lines. A scandal was brewing with a hero caught sleeping with a celebrity who wasn’t his wife? Usually they’d get PR on that, but at the moment the news cycle wouldn’t give a single crap.

There were bigger things to worry about than the usual gossip.

He signed a few things, sent a quick two-paragraph email that would probably sit unread for a while, then jumped onto the next problem. Usually this kind of thing took hours of his day, mostly because on quiet days he could afford to be a little lazy, but now he was trying to rush through a week’s work in an hour.

Troops requesting more equipment? That wasn’t his department. He made a note on the front with a post-it and placed it for an intern to see and get to the right place. A local independent hero was actually a villain? That was…

Clark blinked and stared at the rather innocuous report.

This was, ostensibly, something he would see, but it would usually fall to others to take care of it. Others who were very busy at the moment.

He flipped through the report, but it was bare bones. Anonymous sources, plus one HRF-affiliate had confirmed it. So did a villain that this independent had captured.

Nothing too special.

But this villain…

He typed her name in. The Boss. A rather small-time heroine, according to what they had on her in their files, only… she was the leader of a group of other small-time heroes. Children, all of them.

Not unheard of, but children with powers were less common than teenagers. The median age for developing powers on Power Day was twenty-two.

Four children? Maybe more? That was bizarre.

And they were close to the Endgame.

He worked his jaw. This could be bad.

Or it could be good. They did have a manpower shortage at the moment, didn’t they?

***

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