“And then Nikki walked right up to him—”

“You walked up, too!”

“Yeah, but only to try and protect you.”

“Like I needed it…”

“And she gets right up in his face and says, ‘If you think you can do better, put on some shorts and come out here and take us on. Otherwise, sit down and shut up’.”

Jared laughed at the girls—partially in the polite way one does when listening to children’s stories, but he genuinely found the two of them, and their endless well of pre-teen energy and penchant for the dramatic, refreshingly entertaining. The brown-haired duo told stories in a frenzied tag-team style that bordered on telepathy.

“You did not,” he teased at Nikki. Nicole blushed uncharacteristically.

“She did!” Nikki Parker’s twin sister, Monique, the chief narrator of this particular tale, insisted. “You should have seen his face. He had to be in junior high at least, and she shut him right up.”

“Yes, I have to back them up on this one,” Sabrina Knight-Parker, the girls’ mother, said from her seat at the table next to Jared, the wearied tone in her voice of a mother who’s heard and seen it all. She absently readjusted her glasses on her nose. “The boy didn’t know what hit him. A soccer heckler at a loss for words. It’s a rare sight.”

“The funny thing,” said Jack Parker, the family patriarch, seated at the head of the oak dining table and smiling proudly, despite himself, “is that I was already out of my seat, about to go give these punk kids a talking to. Then Nikki does this, the kid sits down, Sabrina and I just look at each other, I shrug and sit back down, too.”

“God, I wish I’d been there to see it,” Samantha Parker, seated at the other end of the table, lamented with a smile. While eleven years older than the twins, she had the same brown hair and high cheekbones, and looked almost like the “after” end of a before and after photo of either them.

The group of six sat in the dining room of the Parker house, around a table filled with mostly emptied serving plates and drained drinking glasses. Outside the room’s broad window, the sun had just disappeared, and the leaves of autumn occasionally danced across the freshly trimmed lawn. Shadowed pines and firs stood nearby and trailed off into the distance, where, beyond, Puget Sound and the skyline of Seattle could be seen.

“Well,” Sabrina said, setting her napkin on her plate, “I think a couple of brave soccer girls need to get the table cleared and get on with some homework.”

“But Forte’s on tonight,” Nikki protested, worry in her voice.

“Then you’d better do both things fast then, huh?” her mother asked calmly.

“I’ll help, you guys,” Samantha told the girls as she stood from her chair. Then, to the adults, she added, “Then I have to get to that study group. Sorry to skip out.”

“It’s okay, Sam,” Jack said, taking his own napkin off his lap. “Thanks for hanging out this long.”

“Yeah,” Jared added as Monique politely took his plate away. “It was great of you to make it. Uh, can I help…?”

“No, no,” Sam smiled, handing plates to Nikki. “You came here to be interrogated and tortured, and we don’t want to take you away from that. We’ve got it.”

Jared had been invited to the Parker home because of his also being Seahawk, and part of the new Forte. He and his teammates had made a very good impression on the original Forte by saving the lives of Jack and Samantha—Dr. Jackal and Nightsable—along with Cincoflex and Electro Man their first time out, not to mention the whole city of Seattle. Several members of the former team had set up a meeting with the new foursome—Seahawk, Tinker, Rainier and Max—to properly meet them and give them the Forte blessing on using the team name. It was later decided that it might be prudent to get a little one-on-one time with the new heroes, to get to know them better and build a stronger bond. So each new Forte member had been invited to have dinner with a retired Forte member. In Jared’s case, he was to have an evening with Dr. Jackal and Sabrina—the woman who was once Knightsabre.

“Torture comes after dessert,” Jack assured Jared. His twins walked past him into the kitchen with armfuls of dishes, and he told them, “Forte’s not on until eight. Plenty of time. And what’s the most important thing to remember about that show?”

“That’s not how it happened,” both girls answered in unison, as if it was a familiar mantra. Jack grinned at Jared, who gave a short laugh.

Sam watched the girls and waited until they were in the kitchen, and then said to Jack and Sabrina, quietly, “Why don’t you take Jared out on the porch so the poor man can have a cigarette?”

“What?” Jared asked, caught off guard.

Sam smiled and tapped the side of her nose. “Super senses. Can’t help myself. A Winston man, smells like.”

“Oh,” Sabrina said. “Actually, that sounds like a good idea. It’s a nice evening out.”

“No, really,” Jared said, a little embarrassed. He shifted in his seat. “It’s not a problem.”

“Aw, come on,” Jack said, standing up. “We’re supposed to be relaxing, getting to know each other. So let’s relax. She’s right. It’s nice out. I’ll grab your jacket.” With the matter decided, Jack headed for the front entry and the coat closet.

“I’ll just grab a sweatshirt,” Sabrina smiled. “Be right back.” She headed for the stairs in the adjoining hallway.

“Sorry,” Sam laughed, seeing him looking uncomfortable. “But it’s probably going to be a long night. You’ll thank me later. And it’s cool. Really.”

“You’re sure?” Jared asked, uncertain.

“Trust me,” she said, faking offense playfully. “You’re not the first smoker on the team. Just be yourself. That’s what they’re looking for.”

He nodded and smiled. “Okay. Then since I won’t see you later, I’ll thank you now.”

“Then you’re welcome,” she smiled back, collecting the last of the plates and glasses. “I’ve got to go help with these and get out of here. It was nice seeing you again…and meeting you.” They both laughed at this. They’d already met, but not sans costumes and code names until tonight.

“Same to you. Samantha.” He said her name like he was trying to commit it to memory and get used to it.

“Have a good night…Jared,” she returned, biting her tongue in a grin, and then headed into the kitchen where the girls were both accusing each other of going too slow.

---

The porch was covered and looked out on the spacious Parker back yard, with its tree house that hadn’t seen use in a couple of years and a swing set that had also seen its salad days pass. In the distance, the silhouette of Mount Rainier buffered night from land. The air was brisk and smelled of forest, school days and coming holidays.

Jared sat on a loveseat on one side of a short wooden table, while Jack and Sabrina sat opposite. Sabrina had just joined them, and placed a glass ashtray in front of Jared, who was again reluctant to light up until he started feeling like it was going to be an insult to his hosts if he didn’t.

“It’s really no problem,” Sabrina said. “We used to…well, Nathaniel…” She got quiet for a moment and Jack slid his arm around his wife. “Twostep was a smoker. We had him over a lot.” She smiled the painful memories away and drew up the good ones. “It used to drive Vanguard crazy when he’d light up in the Silver Bullet on long flights. Vanguard finally upgraded it with a new ventilation system and installed an ashtray.”

“Yeah, he used to bitch when I’d smoke cigars in there, too,” Jack grinned. “Never did with him in it with me, but the thing would stink like a Honduran whorehouse when I brought it back.”

“The things you don’t read about in Paladin Magazine,” Jared laughed, exhaling smoke and feeling, indeed, more relaxed.

“Oh, there’s a million of these stories,” Sabrina said, reaching up and putting her hand in Jack’s. “You’ll get sick of them soon enough.”

“I doubt it,” Jared said. “Kind of ironic to say, considering what I do with my evenings, but I’m not really used to hanging out with super-heroes. My son would be very impressed if he knew I was talking to you two right now.”

“How old is your son?” Sabrina asked.

“Turned seven in August.”

“Does he know? That you’re Seahawk?”

“No,” Jared said. “At least not yet. I don’t want to put that on him this young, and with his mother and I not being together… I don’t want him to have to keep secrets from his mother. She doesn’t know either.”

“I understand. We’d love to meet him sometime. The girls are old pros at the secret identity stuff, so we could have him over without spilling the beans.”

“That sounds nice. Thank you. We’ll have to do that sometime. I get him on alternate weekends. I’m sure he’d like to get off my boat for a change and run around in a real yard.”

“A boat, huh?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I moved onto it after my divorce, been living there ever since.”

“What have you got?”

“1987 Oceania Sundeck.”

“Nice.”

“Got it for a song at a police auction a few years ago. I’ve been in love with boats since I was a kid.”

“Yeah, we’ve got a ’96 Bayliner. Twenty-eight footer.”

“Really? That’s a nice piece of boat.”

“Yeah, it’s nice. Mostly stays harbored, we but get out in the summer. I like to take the girls fishing, get them up to Canada.”

“It’s much nicer,” Sabrina added wryly, “than his old houseboat.”

“Yeah,” Jack laughed. “I used to have an ’85 Gibson. We lived on it when we were engaged. Until it got sunk.”

“GOT sunk?” Jared asked.

“Yes,” Sabrina said, “at the same time I got kidnapped and dragged off to South America, eight months pregnant and powerless.”

“Wow,” Jared blinked.

“Oh, yeah. Gave birth to the girls in the middle of the jungle. They were delivered by a super-villain.”

Jared was briefly at a loss for words.

“See?” Jack said. “A million of them.”

“But the silver lining,” Sabrina added, “was that it got us off the houseboat.”

“There is THAT,” Jack agreed, smiling at Sabrina.

There was a shrill electronic wail. Sabrina sighed and pulled a cell phone off her belt. She took a look at the incoming caller’s number before saying, “Sorry.” Jared held up a hand in a forgiving gesture.

“Sabrina Knight-Parker. Hi, Derek. No, it’s fine. Uh-huh. Mmm-hmm. No, that’s the beta sample. The BETA… The one after ALPHA, Derek. No, why would… Wait, do you have the weekly T.M.G.? The seven-fourteen. Yeah. Okay.”

She stood up and walked to the other end of the porch, continuing her conversation.

“Some nights it’s hers, some nights it’s mine,” Jack shrugged. “I wonder what nine-to-five jobs are like?”

“Yeah, I’m on a leash, too,” Jared said. “It happens.”

“How IS your work?” Jack asked, crossing one leg over the other.

“Uh, it’s good,” he said. “It’s mostly on-site. My guys usually handle things fine when I’m not there, so I don’t get many interruptions when I’m doing the Seahawk thing.”

“And what does a head of corporate security do, exactly? I’m just curious. This isn’t a job interview or anything.”

Jared laughed. “I know. No, it’s pretty straightforward. I oversee on-site security for Tether International’s Seattle headquarters. Building and grounds security, computer security, do all the background checks, watch over particularly proprietary projects and the people working them… I arrange all travels for Mr. Tether and hand-pick the teams that go with him, if I don’t end up going myself.”

“Does he need a lot of security?”

“He’s one of the richest men in the world, so yeah, he’s got a big target painted on him. I watch his back. Not just for the paycheck, either. I owe him. For the Seahawk armor, lots of things. He’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, I’ve met him a few times, mostly at functions, doing my newspaper editor thing,” Jack nodded. He’d been the editor-in-chief at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for several years now. “He IS a good guy. Very sharp, very direct. Interesting as hell to talk to.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Jared grinned. “Man’s got a lot of secrets. He’s definitely one-of-a-kind. A man that rich who’s really serious about making the world a better place.”

“Power to him,” Jack said.

Sabrina hung up on her cell and walked back over, shaking her head. “Sorry, boys. Got to abandon you for a while. Mini-crisis going on at Questar. I’ve got to get inside to my office and get a videoconference going.”

“Hey, that happens,” Jared offered politely.

“Yes, but it happens about every other day at Questar,” she sighed. She put her hands on Jack’s shoulders and spoke to him. “Sorry. I’ll try not to take too long.”

“Don’t sweat it, hon,” he said, squeezing one of her hands. “We’ll be fine. We can talk about manly stuff now that you’re leaving. Football, cars, super-villain chicks with big hooters.”

“Well, have fun,” she said, leaning down as kissing him on the cheek. “See you in a while, Jared.”

“Okay, sure,” he smiled.

“One of the problems with working out of the home,” Jack said after she went inside. “She’s always at work. We each have an office in the house, but I do most of my work at my actual office downtown. She took over the study downstairs, and I converted one of the bedrooms upstairs for me.”

“She go into the office a lot?”

“Some, but not too much. Not like when we first met. She was off work for a while after the girls were born, then went back to doing consulting for them. Then the consulting built up into this. Johnny Quest is a close friend of the family, so hooking up this home thing was no sweat. This way one of us can still be around for the girls.”

The back door opened again and Sabrina walked back out. She had something in her hand, and placed them against Jack’s chest.

“You can have ONE,” she told him, leaning down next to his head. “But you don’t get to kiss me until you brush.”

Jack took the pair of cigars and the cigar cutter from her and laughed. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

She kissed his temple, smiled at Jared, and headed back in.

“Arturo Fuente?” Jack offered, holding up the pair of cigars.

“Sure,” Jared said, having already put out his cigarette. “Thanks.”

Jack grinned as he took the cutter and snipped the ends off of each. “I used to smoke them a lot. Well, you know that already.”

“Yeah, from just about every Dr. Jackal magazine cover photo ever done.”

“Exactly. Gave them up when I got married and started getting my life turned around. Promised Sabrina. Now it’s just on special occasions. And with permission.”

“Got to check with the boss,” Jared agreed, taking the cigar from Jack. “I remember those days. Here, after you.”

Jared tossed his Zippo lighter to Jack.

“Thanks,” Jack said, looking at it first and reading the inscription. “S.P.D. A little souvenir from your days on the force?”

“Yep. Kind of a Seattle cop thing. You never let go of the lighter.”

Jack nodded as he held the flame to the end of his cigar and puffed it into life.

Jared looked up at the house while he waited. “You’ve got a real nice family, Jack.”

Jack nodded as he puffed, then spoke when he finished lighting. “Thanks, Jared.” He tossed the lighter back. “Yeah, they’re my whole life, man. My whole reason for everything I do. Don’t know what I did right to deserve them.”

“Saving the world a few dozen times?” Jared offered, lighting his cigar.

“Yeah, I guess that does tend to stack up the karma,” Jack agreed.

They both smoked in silence for a couple of moments, enjoying the night, the sound of the crickets and the wind through the pines.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Jared said. He scratched his head. “Samantha…”

“Ah,” Jack grinned. “Yeah, that’s a little confusing, I know.”

“It’s just that she called you guys Mom and Dad, but when she answered that phone call earlier, she referred to you as Uncle Jack…”

“As far as the legal records go, she’s our niece, Samantha, from Canada.”

“The legal records,” Jared nodded, waiting.

“But she’s actually our daughter.”

“Uh, huh,” Jared said, still confused. “But she’s…how old?”

“Twenty-one. And yes, we’ve only been married for ten years. Only known each other for eleven.”

“But she’s obviously from the both of you, just from her looks. So…”

“She’s from an alternate Earth.”

“Ah,” Jared said. He nodded, trying to look casual. Then he shook his head and exahaled. “God DAMN.”

Jack laughed. “It’s okay. Takes time to get used to this stuff.”

“How do you get used it?” Jared looked like his mind had been righteously blown. “You’re serious? That’s your daughter from another world?”

“You bet. Biggest miracle of my life.”

Jack went on to explain the entire story, about how, on this world, Lucifer D’Arque had kidnapped the third Parker daughter from the womb and raised her in a hellish dimension, eventually taking her and planning to be reborn as a god through their child. But the Omnicron, an extra-dimensional group of sorcerers, kidnapped the D’Arque child before his birth and placed him within Sydney Todd—otherwise known as Forte’s Mist—to be born and protected. During an attempt to resurrect the dead D’Arque, the villainess Hellequin was revealed as the third Parker daughter—though they’d never even known they had a third daughter. Hellequin died during the battle that followed, before she could bring back D’Arque and destroy Mist’s child, Caleb.

It was during the last of D’Arque’s attempts to escape Hell and return to the living world—this time with a scheme involving linking to all the other versions of himself throughout the multiverse—that Jack found out that his third daughter, a child of immeasurable potential, was so special that she only existed on two Earths in all creation. The one on this Earth was dead, but there was another. The original members of Forte reunited in a race across dimensions to find her before D’Arque did. They found her on a world where time burns just slightly faster than Forte’s own Earth, so that it was eleven years in the future. The third daughter—named Samantha on this future world—was never thought to have any powers, unlike her sisters, who were members of a legacy hero team called FourStar with other children of Forte. But the then-nineteen year-old had great powers of dimensional teleportation that had not yet surfaced. The numerous D’Arques captured her and forced her powers to full bloom for use in the ceremony that would draw them all together and make them all gods, but Forte thwarted their plans, and all D’Arques in all dimensions were destroyed at once.

On that world, Dr. Jackal had died some time before, sacrificing himself to stop a nuclear disaster. Samantha was reunited with the father she’d lost, and Dr. Jackal had a second chance with the daughter he’d never known. She decided to travel back to Forte’s Earth and stay there for a while. A while had turned into two years now, and she had enrolled in college, and, much to Jack’s chagrin, had started being a super-hero.

“So I had a friend in Canadian intelligence whip her up some I.D. so there wouldn’t be any questions,” Jack explained. “And there you go. My daughter becomes my niece, and my niece has the right paperwork to get into college, get a credit card, whatever.”

Jared relit his cigar, as he’d let it die out while he was listening to the story. Thinking through all his many questions, he chose, “So she lives here now. On our world. She ever go home?”

“Oh, sure,” Jack said. “All the time. See, her powers were brought out fully in the ceremony, then regressed to their basic form when we stopped it, but over the past couple of years, they’ve been growing and growing. She can teleport dimension to dimension now. It used to be a big thing for her to go home, but now she can pop over whenever she likes. She has lunch with her mother over there pretty regular.”

“That would confuse the hell out of me, dealing with two mothers. I’d be forgetting which one I forgot to call on her birthday.”

“She manages fine.”

“So does she plan on going back? I mean, permanently? Or is this home now?”

Jack shrugged. “Really couldn’t tell you. That’s a choice for her to make. She’ll probably start thinking about that after she finishes college here. She’ll always be able to jump back and forth, of course. But I’d sure rather have her stick around here. Gotten very used to having her around.

“And you know,” he went on, “between you and me, I think she kind of prefers it here. I think she was always in the shadow of her sisters. They had powers, she didn’t, they became famous super-heroes… I think she’s able to really stand out on her own here. I think she likes that.”

Jared looked in the house. “I’m just trying to process that you’re talking about the same little girls I just met in there.”

Jack laughed. “Yeah, now I’m left to wonder if they’re going to sprout powers just like they did on Sam’s world and go on to be supers, too. God, I hope not. It was hard enough for me when Sam decided to do the Nightsable thing. After losing her once, I find her again, and she goes right off and starts putting herself in harm’s way. But that’s my problem to deal with. She’s got to make her own choices. This is something she wanted to do, at least part-time. I’m scared, but I’m proud of her. You got to know when to trust them and let them go. I guess it’ll be the same way if it happens with the twins.”

As their cigars shrank, marking time in smoldering tobacco, the conversation shifted from family to sports to law enforcement. The two men laughed easily, finding much common ground in the shared experience their similar ages produced. They eventually left their seats and ended up leaning on the water-sealed wood railing as they talked of landscaping and the trials of homeownership.

“So,” Jack said, leaning backward on his elbows after a lull in the conversation stream. “How’s your team?”

“How do you mean?” Jared asked.

“I mean, how’s it going? You four kind of fell together in the middle of some pretty serious shit. You didn’t have time to think about it. Things are calmer now. You’ve had a few months with no invasions. How are you meshing?”

Jared scratched his ear. “Pretty good, I think. I wasn’t expecting any of this, you know. I was doing fine just busting up muggers and pissing off the mob. I never really thought about working with anyone else. Being on a team.”

“Leading a team?” Jack asked. “Are you in that role?”

“I don’t know about THAT. I’m the oldest, I guess. Max had been a hero about as long as me when we all hooked up, but he’s barely out of high school, still figuring himself out. Tinker and Rainier are barely integrating the idea that they ARE heroes. Neither of them set out to be. I guess they do kind of look to me that way. Probably because I was a cop so long. But we really don’t have any kind of system yet.”

“Yeah, we didn’t either, at first. I was the high-profile hero, so the press kind of crowned me the leader. Phantasm was the brains, but he didn’t cozy to the idea of taking the wheel. He was a real cowboy. He always preferred watching his own back. He was like you, used to flying solo. But we made it work. We got together like you guys, by accident. It all just worked itself out over time. Will with you guys, too.”

Jared nodded. He looked up at the stars that shined defiantly through gaps in the clouds. “It’s a lot to deal with,” he said, finally. “I mean, thank God nothing like the Karrigon invasion’s happened again, but there’s always that chance that it will. We could have done any of a thousand things wrong when that happened. We were just making it up as we went along. We got lucky. That’s the truth of it.”

“Hey, don’t knock luck. We saved the world more than a few times that way. When she smiles on you, you buy that lady roses, my friend.”

Jared smiled mildly at this, still lost in thought.

“Hey,” Jack said, tapping the other man on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “You’re doing fine, Jared. I’m serious. All of you. We’re all very impressed.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re taking care of business. You’re keeping the people of Seattle safe. And you’re giving them hope. Sometimes that’s more important than stopping bad guys. Just being there, reminding them that their guardians are always around. We stand for something when we put on those costumes. An ideal. And you guys are holding that ideal up fine. You’re carrying on the name. We trust you with it.”

Jared thought about it, and nodded. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Jack smiled. He started to turn away, and then paused and looked back. “But you did screw the pooch on that whole Manaconda thing.”

Jared’s face sank a little. He sized up Jack’s expression, then nodded.

“We did, didn’t we?”

“I’m just saying,” Jack said, holding up his hands. “The robbery downtown in broad daylight? Blatant diversion? Oldest trick in the book, man.”

Jared kept nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I understand that now.”

“Good,” Jack said, satisfied, and then smiled again. “Man, I hated letting my guy write the editorial on THAT one.”

He tried to keep a straight face, but then crumbled into a laugh. A little embarrassed, but grinning himself, Jared accepted the heat.

“I tried to keep that picture out, I swear” Jack snickered, still trying to fight it off. “With Tinker covered in all the sewage? But damn, that was too funny to pass up.”

He gave up and started laughing aloud. Bending over and leaning his arms on the railing, Jared joined him.

“Daddy! Forte’s on!”

Coughing, Jack turned to the back door, where Monique was standing, looking anxious.

“Okay, Sweetie,” he said, collecting himself. “We’ll be right in, okay?”

“Hurry!” she pleaded, then spun around and disappeared into the house.

“Want to take break and see how the REAL heroes do it?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, why not,” Jared said. “I’m sure I can learn a lot from Melrose Place rejects with special effects backing them up.”

“Hey, watch it,” Jacked warned as they crossed the porch. “Play your cards right, you might be a character on there in a few seasons yourself.”

The two men stepped inside, closing the door behind them. Outside, off in the distance, her twinkling lights shimmering mutely through the fir branches, Seattle slept soundly and peacefully.

End.

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