Chapter 24
The Silver Guardians were all sitting in the room. Jessica took a deep breath as she walked to the stage in front of them all. The 'boo's began as she approached the microphone. They obviously knew it had been her suggestion to shut down the Silver Guardian unit. Jessica didn't let their booing hurt her.
"I know you all think I'm the devil incarnate," she began. "I know you all think I didn't think about you and your families, that I only thought about me and my family. Well, you are wrong. I thought about you and your families. And I also thought about all the other employees of Bio-Lab, and their families, all the employees, from the members of the board to the people who keep our laboratories and offices clean. You, and they, were all important in my considerations. As you know, Albert Collins decided to offer the Silver Guardians as a free service to the town. When he made that decision, we could afford it. But now, we can't. I was forced to choose between you and your families, or all the employees of Bio-Lab (included me and Wesley) and their families.
"If we didn't shut the Silver Guardians down, we would have had to declare ourselves in bankruptcy in less than a year. You wouldn't have been the only ones to lose your jobs, everyone would have, and we wouldn't have even been able to pay you for your services, because we couldn't afford it. You weren't the only ones to lose your jobs with this decision. Several of the projects were shut down; all the scientists involved in them were fired too. But I'm not here to justify my actions, for the simple reason that I don't have to. I don't have to explain to any of you why I did what I did, and why Wesley agreed with me. Truth is you work for us, and we have reasons to resize our company, besides you were all paid as the law demands. I want to state clearly that your strike is not what brings me here today, your so-called strike is no such thing, you were trespassing on private property, and illegally using our resources. You couldn't have a strike, because you no longer work for Bio-Lab. None of you."
"What are you here for, then? To tell us we're all under arrest?" asked a rude man in the back.
Jessica shot him a fierce look. "Perhaps," she answered. There was a general murmur of disagreement, and she could distinctively hear the words 'corporate bitch' several times. "Yes, I am a corporate bitch, you are all right!" she yelled. They all looked at her, surprised. "How stupid and blind do you think I am? Did you honestly think I didn't see this coming? I'm not Albert Collins, who only knew what his managers told him about his business. I like to see things first hand. However I'm not here for personal revenge, or to send you all to jail. I'm here to offer solutions to your problems, now that you are no longer a part of Bio-Lab."
"Why not reopen the unit, now the mutant attacks have begun again?" someone asked.
"We will," she said. The murmurs this time sounded excited. "But we can only afford to have less than a third of the men we used to have," she added. The murmur wasn't silenced, but it sounded like angry bees. "The rest of you, however, won't starve to death, as you all like to claim every time someone asks. You can all find other jobs. What we have chosen to do is to help you find them, and we have divided you according to your performance while in our employ.
"We have reached an agreement with the Silver Hills Police Department, and they are willing to take up to one hundred of you in their ranks. The rest of you have been repositioned in different security and rescue agencies in the city, you will all be informed of this in a press announcement we will release sometime this week. With the help of Eric Myers we have chosen the hundred men who will stay with us, the rest of you have already been repositioned, as I said, in other security agencies. And before you ask, we took special care not to make your new salaries too different from the ones you had here. That's all I have to say, you will see more details in the press release, you can all leave." She began walking off the stage.
Then a man stood on his chair and yelled, "Why should we sit back and be happy with that, when we can take legal action against you?!"
"You can't," Jessica said to the microphone. "Yours weren't unjustified dismissals. We were resizing to avoid bankruptcy. And I have to warn you all that your love and sympathy were never really among my priorities, so you have one hour to leave all of Bio-Lab's properties, or we'll throw you all in jail, is that clear?" she asked, not waiting for an answer. She walked off the stage and out of the room.
She walked out of the Bio-Lab building rapidly and got in her limo, followed by Eric, her perpetual human shadow. "I hope they don't follow that man's advice," she said curtly.
"Would you really send them all to jail?" Eric asked.
Jessica looked at him, her expression a cross between annoyance and amazement. "Of course I would! Without hesitation!" she said, in a tone that made clear it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Would you really do that? I mean most of those people have families!"
"I would, Eric," she repeated. "I have a family too, and I have parents who would be ashamed and worried about me as well," she added, even if it wasn't all true. Her mother would be ashamed, but not worried, not really. "I would send them all to jail, and I would call all the news stations and papers so they would cover it."
"Why?!" Eric asked angrily. He couldn't believe this was the same woman who had been crying about her sister in his SUV.
"Because I have to protect what's mine! Wesley is too soft to do this kind of thing, Eric, but I was cured of softness a long time ago. Bio-Lab is my legacy, is what my father left me, Bio-Lab and Wesley are all I have right now, and I won't lose either of them. I'll do what I have to," she assured him.
"I can't believe you! You're as cruel as all the mutants who are attacking the city, you just care about the money, about the business--" he began, but she interrupted him.
"OF COURSE I DO!! I care about money and the company because the future of my children depends on them! My employees are part of that, but as their families are the most important thing for them, my family is the most important thing for me, and I won't jeopardize the future of my children, my husband and my home for them, because they are secondary to my own family!"
Eric let out an exasperated sight, but couldn't find anything to fight that back. She had a point; he knew he would take the same position if Bio-Lab was in his hands, and if he had a family.
They sat silently for a few seconds, then Jessica opened the mini-fridge and took out a bottle of water. She poured some in a glass. "You thirsty?" she asked him. He shook his head. She put the bottle away and took some sips of her water. "Wesley suggested to me yesterday to let go of all the resentments I have," she began, not really knowing what to say.
"So?" he asked indifferently.
"You and I had a bumpy start. I want to change that, because now you have to protect me, and it's not that I don't trust you, because I do, I just want us to be more." she paused, looking for the right word. "Friendly," she said at last.
He chuckled sarcastically. "Friends? You and me? I don't think so!" he spat.
"Why not?" she asked. "Look, I know I represent everything you hate, Eric, but you are my husband's best friend, and I want to be your friend too."
"Not going to happen, Mrs. Collins," he assured her, stressing her title rather cruelly.
"Can I at least know why is it we can't be friends? Eric, you are a valuable person, almost a member of the Collins family, and I am a member of that family too," she said in a soft voice, so unlike the one she had used on the stage with the Silver Guardians.
Eric looked at her. Should he tell her? Would it make everything better or worse between them if she knew the reason they couldn't be friends? He discovered he didn't care, he would hate her for the rest of his life anyway. She would forever represent everything he couldn't have.
"If Wes was married to another woman," he began, "and you only loved him from afar, what would you feel about that woman? Would you be her friend?"
"I don't understa--" Her voice trailed off. She hadn't understood the question at first, but now she suddenly did. "Eric, do you love Wesley?" she asked, amazed.
"Yes," he admitted shortly, being careful to avoid her stare. "But I never got lucky enough for him to share my tendencies or my feelings," he explained. "He was always a ladies' man in high school, and then when I saw him again, he had fallen for Jen, and when I thought he was over her, he met you. I wasn't sure I was, you know, gay until I met him. I couldn't get him out of my head, or out of my heart. Rumors about us began to run up and down the school and I had to leave, I had to leave because I didn't want to harm his reputation. I hid my true feelings behind a mask of indifference and hatred, I pretended to despise him for everything he was and everything he had, just so I could think about him without the shame," he confessed.
He didn't know why he was telling this to Jessica Collins of all people in the world. He assumed it was because, besides himself and Wes (who would never find out), she was the only other person in the world who deserved to know about it. "That's the reason we can't be friends, Mrs. Collins. You have everything I want and can't have. Wesley Collins, the man of my dreams, is your husband," he said softly and looked out of the window.
Jessica said nothing for a couple of minutes. She needed time for all the information to sink in. Her personal guard, and the man she had always seen as her husband's best friend, was in love with him. With Wesley. With HER Wesley.
They pulled up at the manor, and Eric looked at her, his face slightly alarmed. "Mrs. Collins, please--"
"I won't tell anyone, Eric. Especially not him," she promised and he presented her with a small smile that was rare in him.
She climbed out of the limo and into the house. Wes was sitting in the living room along with the others, talking about their adventures when they had first been here, apparently.
". And then Jen, if you'd believe it, sneaked out of the clock tower in the middle of the night, and tried to capture both Ransik and Fat Catfish at once, on her own!" Her blond, beloved man was telling the others.
"You did?!" Alex asked Jen in disbelief. "You could have gotten killed!" he chided.
Jessica stood in the living room doorway and gestured Wes to come to her. She had forgotten to tell him the previous night something very important. Well, her mind had been distracted with all the kissing and caressing.
"Hey, baby," he greeted her. "How did it go?" he asked.
She pressed her lips against his, feeling now more lucky and blessed to have his love than ever. "It went fine," she said simply. "I was thinking I forgot to tell you something important last night," she said, putting both hands on his chest as he circled her with his arms.
"I can't blame you," he said sweetly as he kissed her forehead. She put her head on his shoulder and hid her face in his neck, breathing his scent. "What was it?"
She lifted her head and looked at him, drowning in his blue eyes, as she smiled brightly. "We've been blessed," she began. "With the biggest blessing we could have been given."
He looked at her, frowning. "What are you saying?" he asked.
"We conceived," she said, not really aware of what she was saying. "That night after the attack at the hospital, we conceived."
"C-conceived?" he repeated cautiously. She nodded; her face happy at his slow reaction. "You mean like a baby?"
"Yes!" she said, laughing softly at his amazed face. "I'm about a month," she announced.
He just stood there frozen for a second before taking her tighter in his arms and, in one smooth motion, he picked her up from the floor and twirled her around. "I'm going to be a father!!" he yelled happily. "We're having a baby!!" He put his wife down and ran to the living room. "We're having a baby!" he announced. The Rangers faked their surprise but not their happiness for the couple. Wes ran up and down the house giving the news to their housemaids and their butler, and also the Simmonses. Even the guard dogs got their share.
Eric smiled politely and wondered out loud if Wes and Jessica could handle a child, but Jessica could tell he was genuinely happy; after all, Wes was happy.
To be continued.
The Silver Guardians were all sitting in the room. Jessica took a deep breath as she walked to the stage in front of them all. The 'boo's began as she approached the microphone. They obviously knew it had been her suggestion to shut down the Silver Guardian unit. Jessica didn't let their booing hurt her.
"I know you all think I'm the devil incarnate," she began. "I know you all think I didn't think about you and your families, that I only thought about me and my family. Well, you are wrong. I thought about you and your families. And I also thought about all the other employees of Bio-Lab, and their families, all the employees, from the members of the board to the people who keep our laboratories and offices clean. You, and they, were all important in my considerations. As you know, Albert Collins decided to offer the Silver Guardians as a free service to the town. When he made that decision, we could afford it. But now, we can't. I was forced to choose between you and your families, or all the employees of Bio-Lab (included me and Wesley) and their families.
"If we didn't shut the Silver Guardians down, we would have had to declare ourselves in bankruptcy in less than a year. You wouldn't have been the only ones to lose your jobs, everyone would have, and we wouldn't have even been able to pay you for your services, because we couldn't afford it. You weren't the only ones to lose your jobs with this decision. Several of the projects were shut down; all the scientists involved in them were fired too. But I'm not here to justify my actions, for the simple reason that I don't have to. I don't have to explain to any of you why I did what I did, and why Wesley agreed with me. Truth is you work for us, and we have reasons to resize our company, besides you were all paid as the law demands. I want to state clearly that your strike is not what brings me here today, your so-called strike is no such thing, you were trespassing on private property, and illegally using our resources. You couldn't have a strike, because you no longer work for Bio-Lab. None of you."
"What are you here for, then? To tell us we're all under arrest?" asked a rude man in the back.
Jessica shot him a fierce look. "Perhaps," she answered. There was a general murmur of disagreement, and she could distinctively hear the words 'corporate bitch' several times. "Yes, I am a corporate bitch, you are all right!" she yelled. They all looked at her, surprised. "How stupid and blind do you think I am? Did you honestly think I didn't see this coming? I'm not Albert Collins, who only knew what his managers told him about his business. I like to see things first hand. However I'm not here for personal revenge, or to send you all to jail. I'm here to offer solutions to your problems, now that you are no longer a part of Bio-Lab."
"Why not reopen the unit, now the mutant attacks have begun again?" someone asked.
"We will," she said. The murmurs this time sounded excited. "But we can only afford to have less than a third of the men we used to have," she added. The murmur wasn't silenced, but it sounded like angry bees. "The rest of you, however, won't starve to death, as you all like to claim every time someone asks. You can all find other jobs. What we have chosen to do is to help you find them, and we have divided you according to your performance while in our employ.
"We have reached an agreement with the Silver Hills Police Department, and they are willing to take up to one hundred of you in their ranks. The rest of you have been repositioned in different security and rescue agencies in the city, you will all be informed of this in a press announcement we will release sometime this week. With the help of Eric Myers we have chosen the hundred men who will stay with us, the rest of you have already been repositioned, as I said, in other security agencies. And before you ask, we took special care not to make your new salaries too different from the ones you had here. That's all I have to say, you will see more details in the press release, you can all leave." She began walking off the stage.
Then a man stood on his chair and yelled, "Why should we sit back and be happy with that, when we can take legal action against you?!"
"You can't," Jessica said to the microphone. "Yours weren't unjustified dismissals. We were resizing to avoid bankruptcy. And I have to warn you all that your love and sympathy were never really among my priorities, so you have one hour to leave all of Bio-Lab's properties, or we'll throw you all in jail, is that clear?" she asked, not waiting for an answer. She walked off the stage and out of the room.
She walked out of the Bio-Lab building rapidly and got in her limo, followed by Eric, her perpetual human shadow. "I hope they don't follow that man's advice," she said curtly.
"Would you really send them all to jail?" Eric asked.
Jessica looked at him, her expression a cross between annoyance and amazement. "Of course I would! Without hesitation!" she said, in a tone that made clear it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Would you really do that? I mean most of those people have families!"
"I would, Eric," she repeated. "I have a family too, and I have parents who would be ashamed and worried about me as well," she added, even if it wasn't all true. Her mother would be ashamed, but not worried, not really. "I would send them all to jail, and I would call all the news stations and papers so they would cover it."
"Why?!" Eric asked angrily. He couldn't believe this was the same woman who had been crying about her sister in his SUV.
"Because I have to protect what's mine! Wesley is too soft to do this kind of thing, Eric, but I was cured of softness a long time ago. Bio-Lab is my legacy, is what my father left me, Bio-Lab and Wesley are all I have right now, and I won't lose either of them. I'll do what I have to," she assured him.
"I can't believe you! You're as cruel as all the mutants who are attacking the city, you just care about the money, about the business--" he began, but she interrupted him.
"OF COURSE I DO!! I care about money and the company because the future of my children depends on them! My employees are part of that, but as their families are the most important thing for them, my family is the most important thing for me, and I won't jeopardize the future of my children, my husband and my home for them, because they are secondary to my own family!"
Eric let out an exasperated sight, but couldn't find anything to fight that back. She had a point; he knew he would take the same position if Bio-Lab was in his hands, and if he had a family.
They sat silently for a few seconds, then Jessica opened the mini-fridge and took out a bottle of water. She poured some in a glass. "You thirsty?" she asked him. He shook his head. She put the bottle away and took some sips of her water. "Wesley suggested to me yesterday to let go of all the resentments I have," she began, not really knowing what to say.
"So?" he asked indifferently.
"You and I had a bumpy start. I want to change that, because now you have to protect me, and it's not that I don't trust you, because I do, I just want us to be more." she paused, looking for the right word. "Friendly," she said at last.
He chuckled sarcastically. "Friends? You and me? I don't think so!" he spat.
"Why not?" she asked. "Look, I know I represent everything you hate, Eric, but you are my husband's best friend, and I want to be your friend too."
"Not going to happen, Mrs. Collins," he assured her, stressing her title rather cruelly.
"Can I at least know why is it we can't be friends? Eric, you are a valuable person, almost a member of the Collins family, and I am a member of that family too," she said in a soft voice, so unlike the one she had used on the stage with the Silver Guardians.
Eric looked at her. Should he tell her? Would it make everything better or worse between them if she knew the reason they couldn't be friends? He discovered he didn't care, he would hate her for the rest of his life anyway. She would forever represent everything he couldn't have.
"If Wes was married to another woman," he began, "and you only loved him from afar, what would you feel about that woman? Would you be her friend?"
"I don't understa--" Her voice trailed off. She hadn't understood the question at first, but now she suddenly did. "Eric, do you love Wesley?" she asked, amazed.
"Yes," he admitted shortly, being careful to avoid her stare. "But I never got lucky enough for him to share my tendencies or my feelings," he explained. "He was always a ladies' man in high school, and then when I saw him again, he had fallen for Jen, and when I thought he was over her, he met you. I wasn't sure I was, you know, gay until I met him. I couldn't get him out of my head, or out of my heart. Rumors about us began to run up and down the school and I had to leave, I had to leave because I didn't want to harm his reputation. I hid my true feelings behind a mask of indifference and hatred, I pretended to despise him for everything he was and everything he had, just so I could think about him without the shame," he confessed.
He didn't know why he was telling this to Jessica Collins of all people in the world. He assumed it was because, besides himself and Wes (who would never find out), she was the only other person in the world who deserved to know about it. "That's the reason we can't be friends, Mrs. Collins. You have everything I want and can't have. Wesley Collins, the man of my dreams, is your husband," he said softly and looked out of the window.
Jessica said nothing for a couple of minutes. She needed time for all the information to sink in. Her personal guard, and the man she had always seen as her husband's best friend, was in love with him. With Wesley. With HER Wesley.
They pulled up at the manor, and Eric looked at her, his face slightly alarmed. "Mrs. Collins, please--"
"I won't tell anyone, Eric. Especially not him," she promised and he presented her with a small smile that was rare in him.
She climbed out of the limo and into the house. Wes was sitting in the living room along with the others, talking about their adventures when they had first been here, apparently.
". And then Jen, if you'd believe it, sneaked out of the clock tower in the middle of the night, and tried to capture both Ransik and Fat Catfish at once, on her own!" Her blond, beloved man was telling the others.
"You did?!" Alex asked Jen in disbelief. "You could have gotten killed!" he chided.
Jessica stood in the living room doorway and gestured Wes to come to her. She had forgotten to tell him the previous night something very important. Well, her mind had been distracted with all the kissing and caressing.
"Hey, baby," he greeted her. "How did it go?" he asked.
She pressed her lips against his, feeling now more lucky and blessed to have his love than ever. "It went fine," she said simply. "I was thinking I forgot to tell you something important last night," she said, putting both hands on his chest as he circled her with his arms.
"I can't blame you," he said sweetly as he kissed her forehead. She put her head on his shoulder and hid her face in his neck, breathing his scent. "What was it?"
She lifted her head and looked at him, drowning in his blue eyes, as she smiled brightly. "We've been blessed," she began. "With the biggest blessing we could have been given."
He looked at her, frowning. "What are you saying?" he asked.
"We conceived," she said, not really aware of what she was saying. "That night after the attack at the hospital, we conceived."
"C-conceived?" he repeated cautiously. She nodded; her face happy at his slow reaction. "You mean like a baby?"
"Yes!" she said, laughing softly at his amazed face. "I'm about a month," she announced.
He just stood there frozen for a second before taking her tighter in his arms and, in one smooth motion, he picked her up from the floor and twirled her around. "I'm going to be a father!!" he yelled happily. "We're having a baby!!" He put his wife down and ran to the living room. "We're having a baby!" he announced. The Rangers faked their surprise but not their happiness for the couple. Wes ran up and down the house giving the news to their housemaids and their butler, and also the Simmonses. Even the guard dogs got their share.
Eric smiled politely and wondered out loud if Wes and Jessica could handle a child, but Jessica could tell he was genuinely happy; after all, Wes was happy.
To be continued.
