Just Cause: Revised & Expanded Edition Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the Just Cause Second Team, which had its headquarters in Virginia, but a few, like Mastiff and Forcestar, had been selected onto the main team. Sally hoped for that to be her eventual assignment.
    “Yeah, right.” He escorted her from his office down a hallway and up a flight of stairs to the dormitory. “The whole team’s on this floor. Promotes unity or something. All I know is that it’s a lot like my college dorm, only louder and with more muscle tone.” He chuckled. “Everybody gets a suite. Bedroom, closet, living area, full bath, and kitchenette. Most of ‘em eat in the cafeteria, probably because they’re too busy being superheroes to cook a decent meal.” Listening to Harris was like being assaulted by a verbal machine gun, thought Sally. “You get regular laundry service and cleaning, just like in a hotel. Here we are, then.”
    He stopped at a door that had Mustang Sally stenciled on it. He motioned to her to use her badge. She pulled it out and slid it through the reader. The door unlocked and she swung it open. The suite seemed cavernous to her after her shared dorm room at the Academy. It was like an entire apartment. Her luggage sat in the middle of the living area, waiting to be unpacked. The room had decent carpet, a soft couch, a stocked entertainment center, and a computer desk. Off to one side she could see the kitchenette with a small refrigerator, microwave, coffee pot, and hot plate. A small table with two chairs was tucked against the wall. On the other side, she discovered the bedroom with a queen-size bed, a walk-in closet, and a nice bathroom. The entire suite had a faint mulberry scent, as if the housekeepers had sprayed the carpeting with it.
    “Whaddya think?” Harris asked her after she’d had a few moments to check out the place.
    “It’s nice,” she said. “It’s huge. All this just for me?”
    “Yeah. Just you. You need anything, hit star-eleven on the phone. I’m out. I got a thing to do.” He headed down the hall, punching keys on his phone.
    Sally left her luggage for the moment and kicked her shoes off. She scrunched her toes through the deep pile of the carpet, which felt comfortable and soft enough to sleep upon. She moved into the bedroom and lifted the shade so she could look out across the grounds.
    The Just Cause compound consisted of four main buildings. Besides the dormitory, there was the training center, the Command Center, and the hangar/motor pool. The countryside around the facility was mostly dry grassland with an occasional stunted tree. Although she couldn’t see it from this side of the building, she knew the Hero Academy was less than a mile away.
    It all seemed very alien to her. Even though she’d spent the past three years at the Academy, and become very familiar with the surrounding area, she felt like it might as well have been in a different state; or on a different planet. She sat on the edge of the couch, and wondered what to do next. What was an intern even supposed to do?
    A knock sounded at the door.
    Sally went to the door, opened it, and looked up… up… up into his face and all of a sudden she was fifteen again and crushing on Jason Tibbets. He was as tall as Juice with a muscular, athletic build. His straight, straw-colored hair fell from the top of his head to float around his jaw line and cover his ears. Blond stubble dotted his chin and his blue eyes sparkled with amusement. His t-shirt read Property of Just Cause—XXXL and his sweatpants were so cavernous that Sally could have fit her entire body into one leg. 
    “Hi, you must be Salena. I’m Jason. Juice asked me to give you the tour since I’m off-duty today.” He had a mild Southern drawl that Sally could tell would put just about anybody at ease. No wonder Juice had detailed him to the task of orienting her. Surely it wasn’t just because he was gorgeous.
    She realized she was still staring open-mouthed up at him. “Ulp.” Sally’s tongue had stuck to the roof