After work, Ryan picked me up in his taxi and we drove to the Super Seven's headquarters. He drove into the parking complex and we stopped at the booth at the entrance. An elderly man in a security guard uniform stepped up the car.
Ryan put down his window. "Hey, Jim, how are you?" Ryan said.
"Just fine, thanks." Jim looked over at me and then back to Ryan. "Have a visitor with you today?"
Ryan nodded. "Yeah, this is Molly. Molly, Jim. She might be coming here more often."
I waved to Jim. Jim adjusted his hat. "New recruit?"
"Yeah, we'll see."
"Okay." Jim patted the top of the car. "Head in then. I think just the doc's inside."
"Thanks." Ryan rolled up his window and drove into toward the complex.
"Does Jim know you're a superhero?" I asked Ryan after we stepped out of the car.
"Oh yeah, he knows about the Super Seven."
"You have an ordinary man guarding superhero headquarters."
Ryan laughed. "Well, he's a human lie detector, so that's helpful." I followed him into the building. "Besides, if anything bad happens, he sounds the alarm and we show up."
I expected the Super Seven's Headquarters to be more...extravagant? Maybe that's not the right word. But I don't know, fancier. It looked like a regular office building lobby. (I'm going to call the place HQ from now on. Easier to write.)
Jim the ordinary security guard. Inside, Ellen the ordinary secretary. She had dark hair with a few strands of gray. Short and round, but not fat. She looked up and smiled at Ryan. "Nice to see you, Ryan."
"Hi Ellen." We walked up to the desk. Ryan nodded toward me. "This is Molly Waters. Um, she was here a few weeks ago after the Next Gen Energy incident."
Ellen looked at me and nodded. "Oh, right. Are you having complications from the accident, dear?"
"Oh, no, I'm fine. We're here on--"
"We have a lead on 8th Wonder," Ryan finished. "Is Atom busy right now?"
Ellen shook her head. "Just routine monitoring."
Ryan nodded. "Great thanks, Ellen."
We walked to the back of the lobby and went in the elevator. Still ordinary office building. Ryan hit the 4 button.
The elevators doors opened on the fourth floor and everything was gleaming blue. Computer screens covered the walls. There was a large desk in the room at the end of the hallway and a bank of screens beyond it. Doctor Atom was sitting at the desk and looking up at the screens. He jotted down a few notes.
He turned around as we walked down the hall. "Hi, Ryan." Doctor Atom saw me and stopped speaking.
Ryan waved his hand. "It's okay. Molly knows I'm Streak."
"Ah." Doctor Atom stood up as we approached his desk. "It's nice to see you again, Molly. Though I have to say, I'm surprised." He looked at Ryan.
"We've got a lead on 8th Wonder. It seems to be some type of energy force that possesses Molly."
Atom sat down in his chair.
I cleared my throat. "Last night Ryan was keeping watch and he saw 8th Wonder take over me. We flew up near King's Lake and put out a fire."
"You remember it?" Atom asked.
"No, Ryan told me what happened. I sort of black out."
Atom turned and typed on the keyboard. The screens blinked and showed different video footage.
"I asked Link to visit my place this morning," Ryan continued. "He found a psychic connection in Molly's mind. 8th Wonder must have put it there."
Atom nodded. He pointed to the screens. "These are all security footage of incidents where 8th Wonder was involved. But we never get it on screen. He turned to me. "What do you want to do about 8th Wonder, Molly?"
I shrugged. "Link said he could help me access this connection I have to her. I guess that's a good place to start."
"I agree. That's a good starting point. Please keep me updated on what happens."
"Right, will do," Ryan said. He put his hand on my shoulder. "We'll let you get back to your monitoring, Atom."
Atom nodded. "Goodbye."
We left HQ and Ryan drove back to our apartment building. So the visit wasn't so bad.