window. An east wind ruffled his hairâstorm on the way.
âJesus, Jo, heâs not the only one,â he said, and walked back into his castle.
Â
I drove out of Albany not knowing exactly how to feel. I loved Paul. Iâd always loved him. Paul had written my introduction letter to the program at Princeton. It was because of him that I had the degree and the training to become a real Warden.
It was because of him I wasnât a drooling shell screaming out my lungs in an asylum, because I knew that despite Marionâs gentle touch, I couldnât have gone on without my powers. I would have cracked. Paul prevented that.
All the good things in my life had happened because of Paul.
All the bad things had happened because of Bad Bob.
The Wardens have a big fancy home office where they hang plaques of outstanding performers, and Bad Bobâs name was covering the walls. One of the most talented Wardens ever to join the team, he was also one of the most controversial.
He had been a brilliant, temperamental teenager;heâd grown into a brilliant, tantrum-throwing, bad-attitude adult. People feared Bad Bob. Nobody in their right mind wanted to be under him. Even at his own level, or above it, people hated to see him coming.
I got him as a boss.
Iâd heard all the storiesâBad Bob threw a drink in the face of the President of the United States, and it had taken all the resources of the Association to get him sprung from Secret Service custody. Bad Bob had walked into a going-away party for a retiring National Warden in England and swilled down an entire bottle of Cristal champagne, when he didnât even like to drink, just to spite the old boy. He was feared, he was revered, and he was legendary for a reason. It was considered a badge of honor to have a run-in with Bad Bob, something you could dine out on for months.
Weather Wardens sometimes resemble a Keystone Kops comedy more than they do an actual professional organization. Thatâs because no large organization composed of mavericks with superpowers can ever be said to be truly organized . Yet, somehow, we manage to protect human beings from about 80 percent of the crap that Mother Nature throws at us, in our arrogant, mostly chaotic way.
Nobody, however, had been able to stop Hurricane Andrew.
It had swept in from the Hurricane Zone, looking very much like all its wimpy cousins whoâd taken no more than a few well-chosen pressure shifts to counter. Nobody in the Florida office was much worried. Bad Bob, Sector Warden back then, hadnât evenbeen informed. He had Staff to handle those kinds of things; his responsibility was looking after the macro events and keeping the whole Sector stable over time.
Andrew got out of hand. First two Staff Wardens worked on it, then five, then more. Before it was over, there were literally hundreds of Wardens focused on it, trying to defuse the ticking bomb of the storm.
Even Wardens have to be careful in dealing with a storm of that magnitude. It killed more than twenty of them, shattered the powers of at least ten more, and by the time Bad Bob physically made it to the scene, it had already hit the coast of Florida and begun its raving march of destruction.
I wasnât there, of course. Too young. But I heard all about it in school.
Bad Bob walked along into the center of the storm and stopped it. All alone.
Oh, damage was doneâthe worst hurricane to hit the coast in a century. But even in the middle of all that devastation, we knew how much worse it could have been. Andrew was a sentient storm, a storm that had gathered sufficient energy to hold its form and continue to ravage a path of destruction over land for a thousand miles or more. Andrew was angry and hungry in a way few things on this planet can be. And yet Bad Bob had faced it down and made it bow to his will.
After that, even those who thought he was a jerk and an asshole wouldnât turn down a chance to be on
âJesus, Jo, heâs not the only one,â he said, and walked back into his castle.
Â
I drove out of Albany not knowing exactly how to feel. I loved Paul. Iâd always loved him. Paul had written my introduction letter to the program at Princeton. It was because of him that I had the degree and the training to become a real Warden.
It was because of him I wasnât a drooling shell screaming out my lungs in an asylum, because I knew that despite Marionâs gentle touch, I couldnât have gone on without my powers. I would have cracked. Paul prevented that.
All the good things in my life had happened because of Paul.
All the bad things had happened because of Bad Bob.
The Wardens have a big fancy home office where they hang plaques of outstanding performers, and Bad Bobâs name was covering the walls. One of the most talented Wardens ever to join the team, he was also one of the most controversial.
He had been a brilliant, temperamental teenager;heâd grown into a brilliant, tantrum-throwing, bad-attitude adult. People feared Bad Bob. Nobody in their right mind wanted to be under him. Even at his own level, or above it, people hated to see him coming.
I got him as a boss.
Iâd heard all the storiesâBad Bob threw a drink in the face of the President of the United States, and it had taken all the resources of the Association to get him sprung from Secret Service custody. Bad Bob had walked into a going-away party for a retiring National Warden in England and swilled down an entire bottle of Cristal champagne, when he didnât even like to drink, just to spite the old boy. He was feared, he was revered, and he was legendary for a reason. It was considered a badge of honor to have a run-in with Bad Bob, something you could dine out on for months.
Weather Wardens sometimes resemble a Keystone Kops comedy more than they do an actual professional organization. Thatâs because no large organization composed of mavericks with superpowers can ever be said to be truly organized . Yet, somehow, we manage to protect human beings from about 80 percent of the crap that Mother Nature throws at us, in our arrogant, mostly chaotic way.
Nobody, however, had been able to stop Hurricane Andrew.
It had swept in from the Hurricane Zone, looking very much like all its wimpy cousins whoâd taken no more than a few well-chosen pressure shifts to counter. Nobody in the Florida office was much worried. Bad Bob, Sector Warden back then, hadnât evenbeen informed. He had Staff to handle those kinds of things; his responsibility was looking after the macro events and keeping the whole Sector stable over time.
Andrew got out of hand. First two Staff Wardens worked on it, then five, then more. Before it was over, there were literally hundreds of Wardens focused on it, trying to defuse the ticking bomb of the storm.
Even Wardens have to be careful in dealing with a storm of that magnitude. It killed more than twenty of them, shattered the powers of at least ten more, and by the time Bad Bob physically made it to the scene, it had already hit the coast of Florida and begun its raving march of destruction.
I wasnât there, of course. Too young. But I heard all about it in school.
Bad Bob walked along into the center of the storm and stopped it. All alone.
Oh, damage was doneâthe worst hurricane to hit the coast in a century. But even in the middle of all that devastation, we knew how much worse it could have been. Andrew was a sentient storm, a storm that had gathered sufficient energy to hold its form and continue to ravage a path of destruction over land for a thousand miles or more. Andrew was angry and hungry in a way few things on this planet can be. And yet Bad Bob had faced it down and made it bow to his will.
After that, even those who thought he was a jerk and an asshole wouldnât turn down a chance to be on
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