Other Fishies in the Sea (IC)

[Electra]

Gina woke up late that morning, but that wasn't much of a surprise. She'd been up till dawn chasing down a real honey of a virus halfway across the Northeastern Backbone, and though she'd gone to bed triumphant, she'd only slept four hours. She fried the internal workings of her alarm clock when it rang without even fully waking up, but managed to restrain herself when the second, "this is important" mechanical alarm clock went off. She sat up and stared blearily at the clock, her mighty mind dragging itself out of the fascinating playground of sleep to try and remember why she was waking up. "Science fair, right," she muttered aloud. "Gotta impress the future women of science..."

She staggered to the bathroom to splash water on her face, mentally commanding the coffeemaker downstairs to get a move on. A hit of caffeine and a quick shower got her awake enough to head down to the basement, and moments later, half a mile away, the graceful shape of Miss Americana rose into the air above her lab. Perfectly groomed and put together in the rose and powder blue pantsuit Gina's had the foresight to choose for her the night before, the incomparably lovely superheroine touched down in front of the lobby five minutes before the tour she'd agreed to lead was supposed to arrive. Whew. Several of her colleagues had begged off this duty, but she didn't mind. She liked children, most of the time, and as long as she could give them back.

[Avenger Assembled]

Joan wasn't happy. Well, that wasn't true. She was proud that Lois had won the science fair, certainly; she knew her daughter was smart, and she liked the idea of her competing successfully against a team of other students. But she didn't like all the hours that the work had kept her daughter in front of the computer in this gorgeous spring, especially with the news that Lois had actually managed to get excused from phys. ed to spend all her time in the computer lab! I can understand her computer teacher wanting her to put all that time in but her gym teacher should be putting a little more moxie into it. Of course, said gym teacher was also a notoriously lax coach for the girl's soccer team, so maybe she shouldn't have been too surprised. Still, as they walked into the lobby, instantly sighting Miss Americana, she saw how happy Lois was to be there. As Lois held the zip-drive with her project firmly in her chubby hands, Joan decided not to spoil the day for her little girl.

"Miss Americana!" said Lois excitedly, practically running up to her and peering at the tall, glamorous scientist. Lois Collier was short and round-faced, thick glasses perched on the end of her eleven-year-old nose giving her an owl-eyed look. But she had a cute smile, despite her braces, and she looked very happy to see Miss A. "You see, Mom! I knew she'd be here! It's Miss Americana!"

"You're her favorite hero in the world," said Joan with a smile, opting not to mention herself. She knew...well, she couldn't really expect to be her daughter's favorite when there were so many others around. And Miss A certainly did have a very forceful personality, and was very pretty to boot. Maybe that was to be expected. At least she was smart to go with it. "Hello Miss Americana. Nice to see you again. This is my daughter Lois."

"I read your paper on corralling high-volume datafiles loose on uncontrolled networks," offered Lois. "I didn't understand all of it, but it was really cool. Did you really catch a whole terabyte's worth of virus on your home computer?"

[Electra]

Miss Americana laughed and shook Lois' hand with a firm grip. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lois. And that paper is out of date, I'm afraid. I'm closer to two terabytes now, and would probably have more if I weren't kept so busy by other things. But that massive file was definitely my biggest single catch." She looked right into Lois' face as she talked, careful not to let her attention wander to the other people arriving. It was good to make people feel important, even awkward young girls. Maybe especially awkward young girls. "I looked at the science fair project you did when they sent it over to me. You've done some great work on vectors. Maybe one day you'll be interning here at The Lab." She looked up then and gave Joan a smile that was polite, if not as warm. "Ms. Collier, it's a pleasure to see you again as well. I hope you're both looking forward to the tour."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I actually brought it with me," confided Lois, who practically lit up under all the attention from Miss Americana. "I was wondering if maybe we could run it on one of the Lab computers to see what it looked like in real 3-D." Lois, who'd written in her attached letter all about her ambitions to one day be a game programmer, had come up with a fairly realistic animation of a big Grue monster (well, for a ten year old on a home computer, working with over the counter software) walking down a busy street and getting smacked in the head by Lady Liberty, complete with little birdies around his head at the end.

"Honey," said Joan with a mother's great patience, "I don't think we'll have time for that, Miss Americana and her colleagues are very busy doing their science stuff here at the Lab." Joan was not, as it happened, a great fan of scientists. It brought back some unpleasant memories...not that she wouldn't be happy if her daughter had a perfectly good career in science! "We are looking forward to the tour. Lois has been talking about this for days now, believe me!"

[Electra]

"We've got a little time to play with, I'll see what I can do. I'd like to see it on the big screen as well," Miss A told Lois with a quick wink before going to meet the three other girls who would be on the tour and their parents. She wasn't altogether sure why, but something about Joan's attitude just rubbed her the wrong way. She'd never been the reporter's greatest fan, certainly. Too nosy by half, and a little too ready to impose her morals on everyone around her, but Miss A knew plenty of people like that. She certainly wouldn't be friends with Gabriel if that put her off too badly. Maybe it was just that Joan seemed so unenthusiastic about being here. Freedom City was a competitive city for the sciences, and Lois' project really had been good for a child her age. What was the mama's problem here?

No time to think about it now, she decided, and finished her cordial introductions, then went to the front of the group. "It's such a pleasure to have you all here today. As you probably know, the Lab was founded predominantly by women scientists, so we take the cause of women in science very seriously. I want to congratulate you all on the excellent work you did to get here, and I hope you enjoy the tour. If you come with me, we'll get started at the top, and work our way down."

[Avenger Assembled]

For her part, Joan was being the good reporter and the good mom, keeping an eye on the situation while she followed the kids around on the tour. She didn't get along well with most of the parents at Lois' school, but she knew Richard, the father of Veronica, fairly well; he was a good guy, and not shy about making sure his kids worked hard too. The Lab here certainly was very impressive, she had to admit as they went through, and Miss A was a great tour guide. You know, she reflected, I can see what Lois admires in her. After all, Miss Americana was tall, beautiful, and athletic, obviously as strong as Joan herself with how casually she handled big pieces of equipment as they walked around. She was very personable as well, definitely something to attract a little girl, and she was, of course, a super-genius! Joan had been around enough super-scientists not to feel insecure as they walked around equipment she really didn't understand, just letting the talk wash over her, glad that the kids were enjoying the show so much. Miss A obviously knows how to take care of herself and do her job; to balance being a woman, a hero, and a scientist. That's not a bad role model.

"Is it hard being a hero and being a scientist?" Lois was asking Miss A, having stuck to the beautiful paragon like glue through the whole tour. "I mean, what if something really bad happens when you're in the middle of a really important experiment?"

[Electra]

"It is hard sometimes," Miss A acknowledged with perfect gravity, giving Lois her attention even as she dialed up a program in the simulation room. "You can't always schedule things the way you might like, and things can get interrupted. That's why it's great to have the Lab in Freedom City like this. If I'm called out to do hero work in the middle of an experiment, I trust my colleagues and my research team to take care of things while I'm away. And if it's absolutely vital that I don't leave the experiment, I can almost always ask another hero to step in and help out. My job would be impossible without all the people I work with, superpowered and otherwise."

[Avenger Assembled]

Though she'd gone into this with the best of intentions, it was getting harder and harder for Joan to keep her mouth shut. All these scientific resources, and how much were they actually accomplishing? She knew heroes like Miss Americana did charity work on the side, but with all these high technology, why couldn't they cure more diseases, fix more cancers? Why didn't everyone with a missing limb have an artificial leg already? "So what does your Lab actually do here?" Joan asked as they finished the simulation. "Beyond the hard science, I mean; what do they do for the community?"

[Electra]

"Beyond the science?" Miss A asked, quirking a perfect eyebrow at the question. "Everything we do here at the lab is science and engineering, applied for the good of the entire human race. You're a journalist, I'm sure you believe, just as I do, that knowledge is power and learning is its own reward." She turned a beatific smile upon the entire group, all of whom besides Joan seemed to be in utter agreement. "Our applied projects here range from artificial limbs and organs to improved impact resistant armor for peace officers, to new understandings of the way energy is generated and can be used to power cities. We all have our pet projects here, so The Lab is full of diverse types of science. I have several assistants," she added, looking to Lois, "who work solely in the computer design lab, modeling and programming our equipment to cut the molds for my prosthetic devices. It takes a high degree of design proficiency and a great deal of training, but it's worth the hours put in to see someone try on a new arm for the first time."

[Avenger Assembled]

Joan hrmed, obviously judging the answer, but said nothing more as they went about their tour again. She was torn. Lois obviously adored Miss Americana, certainly much more than she did her own mother, and who wouldn't? And Joan couldn't quibble with the results of the Lab, either. Well, you'd think that so many geniuses working together would be able to accomplish more, really, but she wasn't the type to just offer a criticism like that without a solution. She was still thinking about that when they all took a short break, and Lois made a beeline for her side. Whispering, the little girl said, "Mom, please don't cause trouble!"

"What?" Joan gave Lois a look, glad to see her daughter was standing up for herself even if she obviously wasn't pointed in the right direction. "What do you mean cause trouble?"

"You know...like you do!" She bit her lip and said, "I really really like it here, and things are really great. I don't want anything to mess it up!"

"Darling," Joan whispered back patiently, "I'm not causing trouble. And we'll talk about having specific criticisms when you have a problem later. I know you like Miss Americana, and she's very fine. But you need to have a life outside your work just like your father and I do. You can't just..." She waved her hand. "sit inside all day working on a computer, not at your age." Having usually stressed physical prowess and the joys of struggle to make that point, Joan tried a new tactic with the gorgeous Miss Americana nearby. "You're growing up into a beautiful young woman," and that, glasses and snub nose and pot belly her daughter had and all, she believed with absolute fervor, "You don't want to spend all your teen years working in a place like this, do you?"

[Electra]

Before Lois could answer, Miss A looked over with a beautifully neutral smile. "Lois, I think this would be a perfect time to try out that program of yours. We have a few minutes before the next leg of the tour starts. If you'd like to come up to my lab with me, the others can look around the exhibits in the lobby." She didn't give any overt sign of having overheard the conversation, but then, she was obviously not the type to give much away. Definitely not the sort of woman you'd want to play poker with.

[Avenger Assembled]

Lois practically jumped for joy at the idea, not bothering to so much as ask her mother for permission as she headed off after Miss Americana. Joan followed; maybe Miss Americana rubbed her the wrong way, but she wasn't going to deprive her daughter of something she so obviously wanted. She'd just make sure to follow along and make sure nothing went down she'd have to deal with later, like Lois deciding she wanted to be like the girl with pretty superpowers and sit inside all day rather than going out and making something of herself.

[Electra]

Miss A made no comment as Joan joined them, perhaps she had taken it as a given. She and Lois discussed the finer points of the design in language Joan couldn't really follow, but that both were quite enthusiastic about. The elevator took them high up into the building, into the security-controlled floors where the tour hadn't gone. "This is my main laboratory," Miss A told them as they stepped through an airlock door and into a big white and silver room full of extremely high-tech equipment. "And this is Mavis." She smiled and pointed to a boxy little robot, not much taller than Lois, who was ferrying trays of samples between one table and another. It waved a robotic arm at the mention of its name. "Let's go get this set to run in the mainframe."

[Avenger Assembled]

"You have a working voice recognition program that good?" asked Joan skeptically, frowning down at the little robot. Joan actually did know something about speech recognition, given that it was an important tool of her job. She couldn't help but think how much better use that robot's programming might be somewhere more important, like inside cars or home computers. Sure, super-tech was famously hard to replicate for civilian use, but this was just a little robot thing. It couldn't be that tough. She watched as they got the program up, mostly watching Lois for her reaction. To her chagrin, Lois was obviously having a great time, sticking close to her new best buddy like her mom wasn't even there. "So if Lois did work here in high school, what exactly would she do?"

[Electra]

"Mavis recognizes my voice quite reliably," Miss A told Joan, her voice dry. "As do most voice recognition programs for the people who program and debug them. "For other people, it's more or less reliable, depending on how clearly they speak."

In response to the other question, she said, "It depends on her grades and on the internship program she's in. With the programs we're designing for high school internships, juniors and seniors who have absolutely top-notch grades and who have exhibited talent and understanding of the work we do here will actually be hired on for the summer and act as lab assistants in the field of their specialty, working under myself or one of the other founding members. There'll be a lot of the boring scientific scutwork that every scientist has to do, but they'll also be part of experiments and expected to contribute observations and ideas to the team. Promising interns can expect scholarship consideration as well."

[Avenger Assembled]

As Lois's program played on the big mainframe monitor, Joan found herself fuming over the thought of her daughter wasting her time slaving away in this place all through high school so some scientists could sit around and get rich off their patents. Not that I don't want her to be a scientist, she thought as the imaginary Grue on the screen lumbered along, she can be anything she wants. But she's a child and she deserves to have a real childhood, not stuck in here as somebody's gofer. A science scholarship was a nice idea and all, but her daughter wasn't going to waste her life in places like this. There was sports and activity, a whole world out there she'd be shutting herself away from in this dismal place. Still, she made sure to loyally say, "That's a very nice program, dear."

"Can we do it again in slow-mo?" Lois asked Miss A, not paying attention to her mom. "I really wanted to see if it held up even at a slower frame rate."

[Electra]

"Of course!" Miss A said with a smile. "With a display this size, we'll want to tweak the compression ratio a little bit to make it run smoothly at a lower frame rate. Do you know how to do that?" Lois nodded eagerly, and the two of them bent their heads together over the computer while Lois painstakingly made the necessary adjustments with just a nudge or two from the scientist. A very nice little girl, Miss A thought, and smart for her age as well! She definitely understood the program she'd built, rather than just putting it together from a kit. And it was nice to have someone around who was still so shiny-new excited about computers! She wondered what was going on with Joan Collier, and what she seemed so sour about. Maybe she was just bored. "All right, let's run it again!"

[Avenger Assembled]

Joan sighed. "You really don't have to spend all your time on this," she told Miss Americana, putting her hand on her daughter's shoulder to steer her out of there. "This is very nice, and I'm very proud of all the work you did," she said to Lois, and to Miss A she said, "This is not how Lois is going to be spending her childhood. She's ten years old, she deserves to be a child and a young woman before she locks herself in a computer lab all day. There's a whole world out there," she told her daughter, "and you're not going to find it shackled to a computer."

[Electra]

Miss Americana's eyes narrowed slightly as she studied Joan. "Your daughter is very talented, Ms. Collier," she stated plainly. "I've just told you that she could potentially get a college scholarship doing work that she obviously enjoys. What exactly is a more productive and worthwhile way to spend her time, in your opinion?" She knew Lois was watching them both intently, and took care to keep her voice mild enough that only someone who thrived on confrontation would hear the challenge in it.

[Avenger Assembled]

It was harder than Joan would have thought to face down that regard, but she stuck to her guns, folding her arms and looking Miss Americana straight in the eye. "Sports," she answered, "so she's not trapped inside in front of a computer all day, and so she can have good health and confidence in herself as a person. Boys, or girls!" she added a moment later, "so she can help grow and develop as a person and not just as a...scientist. She's a girl growing into a young woman, she deserves to have a real childhood first. Not everyone has super-good looks and physique as a superpower," she added a little archly.

[Electra]

A small, humorless smile played around the edges of Miss Americana's mouth. "Not everyone is an Olympic hopeful who just barely misses the cut, either." She turned to Lois, who was already looking nervous. "Lois, would you mind running down the hall to room C-151 and bringing me a sixteen gigabyte flash drive? I think they're on one of the shelves in a box."

Miss A waited until Lois had left the room to speak again. "Tell me something, Joan, seeing as we're all friends here. You've spent the whole tour critiquing my work as being insufficiently worthwhile, too complex, too theoretical, insufficiently egalitarian. What exactly counts as good enough for you, in your world? Is a real childhood supposed to consist of Lois doing things she doesn't enjoy in order to please you, while the things she enjoys and excels at are pushed aside and dismissed? Will that build her confidence? Will that make her strong? If she does everything you ask of her and makes it to the Olympics one day, will you finally be proud of her, or will you still be sure that you would have done better if it were you there instead of her?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Joan's mouth almost dropped as Miss Americana went on, but she kept her composure until the unspeakably gorgeous heroine finished her dressing-down. "Why, you high-handed busybody!" She fired back, drawing herself up to her full height as she glared down at Miss Americana. No easy feat, since in those damned heeled boots Miss A was almost as tall as she was. "How dare you think you can judge my daughter and I after just one conversation! Lois is ten years old, she doesn't know what she wants out of life yet! It's my job to make sure she doesn't trap herself in bad choices and never be able to...to be the person she'll realize she wants to be!"

[Electra]

Miss Americana laughed, a genuine and really quite beautiful peal of laughter at Joan's words. "Who am I to judge you? You, who make a living judging other people on no evidence and then defending yourself by saying you're only acting in defense of 'the children?' Consider this a spoonful of your own medicine, if that makes it easier to take. You're acting as though she wants to start taking max and touring with a thrash-metal band, when all she wants to do is exercise her mind more than her body. When all she wants to do," she said again, "is not be like you." Miss A's voice gentled, became softer and more poignant. "Do you really resent her so much for ending your career, that you would kill her dreams too?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"My career," said Joan, fighting the palpable urge to reach out from under her floor-length skirt and throttle this obnoxious, bossy little...Instead, her voice dripped angry ice as she said, "My career is about taking down people who hide corruption behind their pretty faces. I have no regrets about being a journalist, and I stand by everything I have written," she said, jabbing her finger at Miss Americana. "And as for my Olympic career, I was representing our country while you were learning new and better ways to get your hair done!" she seethed. "You can't make me feel bad for being one of the finest athletes in the world. I've had a good life," she insisted. "And my daughter's going to have a good life too. And until she can make decisions for herself, I'm going to make them for her and I..." Joan stopped, her stricken feelings writ large across her face, as her words settled into her own ears.

[Electra]

While Joan processed her personal revelation, Miss A sat on the edge of an empty lab table, folding those long, perfect legs and giving her a minute. "I won't deny you're right about some of that," she said mildly, "especially the part about my hair, but it's beside the point. You want what's best for Lois, but that doesn't mean the same thing for her that it would have for you. As an engineer, as a scientist, I'm telling you now that your daughter is gifted with computers and mathematics. She's going to get enough people telling her as she grows up that those are unladylike, or that she can't keep up with the boys, or that she should just give up. She's going to need someone she can trust to be in her corner, not someone who's going to agree with the crowd."