First Day on the Job

7:15.  Icarus was up and on his way to work.  It was his first day, and that meant meetings with IT directors and police chiefs, and so on.  Icarus had found it easy enough to fake a degree from Indy State, but interviews with policemen?  That was going to be quite a lie.  Still, Icarus thought it was worth it.  Having a job in a police department was an excellent opportunity to get in close, and see crime as it happened.  He would be so ready to face it, if he knew it at the same time that the police knew.  The flight thrusters were still not quite at operational status; but that was just a detail he was sure he would work out eventually. So what if hadn't been able to fly since that fateful night six months ago.  Something had burnt out... but that didn't really matter.  

By 7:45 Icarus was all done his meetings.  Actually they had gone really smoothly - nothing compared to the interview process.  The background tests they had for that were extraneous, to say the least.  All they did here was tell him his responsibilities, meet the police chief, meet the head of the IT, and then start.  Icarus' job was to monitor and manage a chunk of the IT department's safety net, to make sure hackers weren't about to just waltz in and take over.  Hackers in the the Police Department's network would not be all that good.  Still, all Icarus had to do was sit there and check up on the computers from time to time.  It was easy for him, really.  Computers had their own language, and Icarus could speak it fluently, wirelessly, and effortlessly - well, as long as well as he was within range of the of the office servers.  Luckily his office computer had direct access to the PD's Network.  It made it easy to monitor it, and gave him plenty of time to search for other things.  Like why his thrusters had burnt out.  The first night he had the suit, it had flown him at 400 miles an hour, all the way to Philadelphia... but then it never flew again.  Part of the problem was that the ion output had melted the thrust burners... but Icarus had fixed that.  Right now all the suit could handle was a 50 foot jump.  And those jumps kept getting shorter and shorter.  For an hour Icarus mulled over the problem in his head, 10011010101001010100100010111101000101010101111010101 and so on.  Those numbers were the suit's dataplan.  Unfortunately it was incomplete, and there were parts of it that Icarus could not quite understand.  HIs father was a much better technopath then he was, able to build as well as understand the complex graphene byways and and electron transfers, Ion burst outlets and so on.  He had the tool and the master plan, all in his head.  Icarus had to make do with a half done plan, and some computer data.  And he had only a fraction of the tools.

And he had only a fraction of the tools.  It was time consuming work, but "A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his power."  He had that posted in a frame in his office.  It was one of Icarus' favorite quotes.

          "Anything you need to report, Mr Ronó?" Asked a very female voice.  It was his coworker, Phoebe - something.  She was a little older then Icarus was, with dark red hair and a fair, round face.  Her business dress had the same colors as Icarus'  suit, blue and black and white.

          Icarus smiled.  "No.  Just entering in my passwords and such.  Call me Icarus.  Mr. Ronó sounds a little old."  

She smiled back.  "Fine by me. Hey, you didn't take a lunch break.  Don't feel you have to prove yourself all in one day."  

"I honestly wasn't hungry." Said Icarus.  He hadn't eaten like he used to.  Not since his father had died.  

"Well, great first day.  Management left already, and I'm heading out now, so they said to tell you that."  

Icarus wirelessly checked the time.  It surprised him; it was already 5:10 PM.  It was time to go home.  

"Thanks," he said.  "You need a ride home?"  

Phoebe shook her head.  "Maybe another time hotshot.  I take the train."  With that she waved a little, smiled, and walked away.  

She called me hotshot, thought Icarus, leaning back, hands behind his back.  Maybe his day job wouldn't be so tedious after all.  


(756 Words)