He backed up and I let the door slam behind us.
“Shit!” He raked his hand through dark, messy hair. “Shit.”
“It was one of the first they called,” she said. I couldn’t tell if that was meant to comfort or turn the screws a little tighter. Probably the latter. June started walking down the sidewalk brightly and I followed; Greg skittered after us.
He was quiet for a long, sour moment, sulking. Then, “I was on the phone with The Scarlet Hood,” he said. “He’s worse than my fucking mother.”
“Oh?” I called over my shoulder. Greg jogged a couple of paces to catch up.
“He called me yesterday because he forgot how to eject a CD from a drive. This morning? I shit you not, he’d forgotten to charge his laptop and couldn’t get it to turn on.”
June laughed. Her finding work after a drought combined with Greg’s misery had put her in a great mood.
I elbowed him and he yelped. “Come with us, we’re getting breakfast.”
“Ugh. Sure.” He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his down coat and hunched his shoulders. “Like, I appreciate he keeps me on retainer. But it’s costing me better work now.”
I nodded. “He should just hire you. Make you a hench.”
Greg’s head jerked up. “Fuck that. He already calls me at three A.M. If I was his hench my life would officially be hell.”
Greg’s phone rang the moment we reached the doors of the diner. He mouthed a curse and fumbled in his pocket, while June and I escaped the cold and let the yawning server lead us to a booth. The comforting vinyl seats were tacky and creaked as I sat down. I ordered Greg a tea and greedily accepted the coffee that was placed in front of me.
“Tech support for supervillains.” June watched him, eyes narrowed, through the window as he paced outside in the cold. “Can you fucking imagine?”
“It’s not like data entry is any more glamorous.” Through the glass, I heard Greg ask, “Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again?” He winced and pulled the phone away from his ear at the response.
“Data entry’s less risky,” June said, scanning the laminated menu.
“Maybe I wouldn’t mind a bit of risk.”
She flicked her eyes up at me. I was as surprised as she was. “That’s new. Growing a spine?”
“No, just getting bored.”
She made a noncommittal sound. I looked back outside at Greg’s impatient, pleading face. He caught my eye and mimed shooting himself in the head, his first two fingers pointed to his temple.
“You like being bored, though,” June said. “I think it would stress you the fuck out.”
“Probably.” But I felt a little deflated.
She raised a pointed finger. “But, if you want some on-site work, I’ll refer you.”
“Oh.”
“Think about it.”
“Okay.”
“Want to make fun of dudes on Tinder until Greg comes back?”
I grinned. “Yeah.”
I sidled closer to June and she unlocked her phone.
“He looks like he was just arrested for shitting himself at a Denny’s.”
“He looks like a bear in a kids’ show who is also a cop.”
“He looks like a Muppet who is here to teach me about sharing.”
We were cackling by the time The Hood mercifully let Greg off the phone and he bumbled in, stomping his feet in the doorway to warm up.
“His ferret chewed through the fucking cable, I swear to Christ,” Greg snarled, swinging himself into the booth. I inhaled some of my coffee and June had to pound me on the back to keep me from choking.
HOURS LATER, WEARING stained track pants and nested into an afghan, I logged in to the Electrophorous Industries website and started working.
I fell into the easy rhythm of updating the spreadsheets in front of me, sorting and tidying the data. There could be something satisfying, almost trancelike, about ordering the columns and rows. I wasn’t able to hit that meditative place, though; I tried to focus, but my mind kept wandering back to my surprising assertion I was bored, and June’s offer to help me make the move to on-site work. I tried to pick apart if I had meant what I said, and it was like a dull, annoying buzz in my brain over the hum of the data.
I got up and stretched, carrying my laptop and afghan over to my desk, hoping the change of view would help me focus.
I rarely knew what I was working on when I got the assignments, but sometimes I could infer or piece together something from the data. What was in front of me was easier to parse than most: a huge cache of news stories, clips, photos, social media posts, and video and audio files, all selected because they contained some specific detail about a hero’s description. They included mentions of injuries, pictures of scars, grainy surveillance videos with glimpses of birthmarks, interviews that mentioned tattoos peeking out from under a costume. I sorted them by superhero and added the information to a spreadsheet tracking the details, building the basis of what was obviously an identification database.
As soon as the data became a puzzle to solve, I couldn’t tear myself away. In a few days, I had rebuilt the spreadsheets to be more efficient and comprehensive, and taken a few stabs at guessing the odd civilian identity. I burned through my hours and asked for more; the Temp Agency relayed that my request was approved. It was a good sign.
It was foolish to think I had found a holding pattern I could work with. A satisfying steady state. It lasted three weeks. When I got the news that the villain who held my contract wanted to interview me for a long-term position, I called June, stress eczema already breaking out on my hands.
“Tell me about your gig right now.” I tried to sound casual. Sitting on my kitchen counter, waiting for the toaster oven to preheat, I couldn’t stop my leg from bouncing.
On the other end of the phone, June took a bite out of something crunchy. “Electrophorous? It’s okay.”
“But what is it like.”
“Normal. Boring. An office. The lighting is terrible.”
“But is it. You know.”
“What.”
“Weird.” I hesitated. “Or evil.”
She laughed around a mouthful of . . . popcorn? “No. The vibe is much more shitty start-up than lair.”
“Oh.”
“Did you think there was a fucking lava moat?”
“Shut up.”
“You did.”
“Shut up.”
When June stopped laughing, she said, “Why do you ask.”
I shifted the phone to my other ear. “Electrophorous wants to pick up my contract for an extension, but it would have to be on-site.”
“Oh shit! That’s great.”
“Thanks!”
“Here comes that sweet referral bonus.”
“I’m so happy for you.”
“It’s win-win.”
“So I should take the job?”
“Okay. Listen. There are some things you need to know.”
I felt my chest squeeze. “Yeah?” I hopped off the counter and stood awkwardly in my tiny galley kitchen, between the fridge and sink.
“It’s mostly about the boss. Electric Eel.”
“Is he scary?”