And now the details:
A few years ago, the mighty Robert Exeter got organized about his superheroing, not only setting up a headquarters (nothing Batcavey—just an office building in Chicago) but hiring a support staff. This includes engineers to help him figure out doomsday devices, call center workers to sort through requests for help, and so more. Bob pays everybody’s salary out of his own pocket, But that’s not to say that he doesn’t get any financial assistance. The city gives him a discount on property taxes; Oracle/Sun, Microsoft, and other tech companies donate equipment; Verizon subsidizes the phone bill; et cetera. You are Bob’s number one guy in this operation, running mundane stuff so Bob can focus on catching asteroids. Nonetheless, he retains ultimate authority.
Two weeks ago, Bob came back to the office both tired (he’d spent the day dealing with a tsunami, averting a nuclear meltdown, and fighting the kaiju that caused both) and butt naked (at one point the kaiju swallowed him alive, and its fiery gullet incinerated his clothes). He was also in pain, having broken his left fist busting out of the kaiju’s mouth. He wanted nothing more than to sleep for the three or four hours it would take his broken bones to knit, then see his kid. But before he could even finish dressing, one of the tech heads, Karen (who looks rather like this, which will also be important), came into the locker room and said:
“Excuse me, Bob, Have you read the email I sent you this morning?”
“I just got finished punching my way out of Godzilla’s mouth,” Bob said. “Take a guess. Look, give me a minute to put some pants on, okay?”
“This can’t wait. It’s about that serial killer down in Texas, the one who strikes on religious holidays. It’s Christmas Eve. You need to go on stakeout before”
“That’s something the FBI can handle. Their Behavioral Analysis Unit is on the case. They’ll yell if they need me.”
“But Bob, this freak massacres entire families. He’s struck in Houston and Dallas and Austin and Wichita Falls. You need to track him down. Your super-senses—”
“Are useless for something like this. I have no idea who to look for or what city he’s in. I don’t do forensics or profiling or whatever it is the BAU does. So I’m gonna go take a nap.”
“You could learn the detective stuff. You memorized the schematics of that nuclear reactor in fifteen minutes.”
“That’s different—”
“Right,” Karen said angrily. “The sicko in Texas has only hits white families, so you don’t care. You’ll bust your hump to fight monsters in Africa or Asia, but not lift a finger to help your own country. I think you just don’t like white people.”
“And I think you’re fired,” Bob said. “Talk to DoperName about your severance. Have an unmerry Christmas, bitch.”
But that was not the end of it. The serial killer did strike that night. He was a low-level super — a vampire about as powerful as Angelus on Buffy—doing his killing without the usual revenant signatures so as to stay off Bob’s radar. The FBI had a lead on him but, thinking him a norm, brought no stakes or holy water and thus got creamed. The feds yelled for Bob, who flew down and settled the vamp in about half a second — but that still left four dead civilians and six dead agents, none of whom, sadly, was Jason Gideon.
Nor is that all. Unknown to Bob, Karen had recorded their conversation. Within days she had posted a heavily edited version of it on YouTube, one that made Bob sound like a lazy, racist, sexually harassing jerkwad. This caused a huge public outcry. Now, a week into the new year, there’s a crowd of demonstrators outside the building and a social media campaign against him. Both are getting bigger every day. People are demanding an end to Bob’s subsidies; his corporate sponsors are talking about suspending their support; his staff are getting death threats.
How do you advise Bob to handle this PR nightmare?
