His father helped him with this but also caused quite a significant incident.
Miss Angie: "Yes, and that was over six months ago. You don't need to stay cooped up in those offices."
Nodding gently, his mother added, "You need to get some sun."
Receiving a double blow, Bill realized they had probably discussed this beforehand. So, trying to get some sort of concession, he replied, "But I've learned a lot at Headquarters. If I can't go there anymore, can I at least go into the city?"
Seeing his mother and nanny exchange glances, Bill decided to seize the moment: "I'm almost nine, and Ricky and Sasha are already able to go into the city. Miss Angie, you probably saw how they laughed at me when I told them I'm not allowed to leave the base."
Looking at the two women with a sincere expression, he heard his mother's response first: "I'll speak to your father, but today you stay on the base."
Knowing a request for his mother to talk to his father was almost a guaranteed win, Bill quickly stood up and said, "Great, thank you, Mom!"
Quickly heading for the door, Bill left the apartment before any clarifications of his request could be made.
For most of the past year, he had spent his time at Headquarters. Although it was still surprising that the official documents of the World Government were in English, it was hard to complain when he benefited so much from it. During this time, he learned a lot about the organizational structure of the World Government, but most importantly, he learned how order is maintained in a world full of superhumans.
Due to his isolation in the hospital, Bill hadn't seen the cultural norms, how ordinary people behaved around the so-called "supers." He hadn't seen how the authorities sometimes showed leniency with some laws and strictly enforced others.
An example for Bill was the incident when his father hurled a giant rear admiral. Firstly, the rear admiral held a higher rank than his father in absolute terms. One was the Commodore of the "Blue Sea," and the other was a rear admiral of the Marines' Headquarters. Secondly, his father had completely overstepped his bounds. There was no justification for this attack.
From a legal perspective, the situation looked like this: a giant frightened the son of an influential man. This influential man reacted instantly and attacked the higher-ranking officer to show his son that there was nothing to fear.
What were the consequences of this attack? None. Moreover, the giant himself apologized to the son.
When Bill asked his mother and nanny about it, they treated it with absolute calm. Recalling the event, Miss Angie said, "No problem, he shouldn't have scared you."
His mother nodded in agreement and added, "Don't worry, son, Lacroix swims well."
Although Bill was relieved that nothing serious came of the situation, it was precisely this indifferent attitude that made him decide that in a world of superhumans, he should become one of them too. This wasn't some grand decision—Bill just thought that in such a world, it would be irresponsible not to gain enough strength to protect himself.
Since he didn't see his father actually using superpowers, Bill decided that it was possible to train to become strong, so he wasted no time and asked his father if he could become just as strong.
And then, to his great shock, Bill heard that his father would never train him under any circumstances, and furthermore, that Bill didn't even need to train because he was too smart to ever join the Marines.
Realizing that this was a dead end, Bill didn't persist, but finally decided to take Oliver's advice and start going to Headquarters instead of staying on the lower levels of the fortress and swimming in the lagoon. Despite not having a complete understanding of the world yet, as most reports were written in the local language which took time to learn, Bill knew that the time spent at Headquarters was not wasted.
Now that he was forced to go outside, Bill knew exactly where he was headed—to the MCT building.
MCT stood for Marine Combat Training—a Marine Combat Training Center. This was one of the special buildings Oliver had shown him almost a year and a half ago. Of course, this was before Bill had learned that superhumans truly existed. Back then, he had shown only a mild interest.
But now everything was different. Although his father had said he would never train Bill, he had never stated that Bill couldn't try to become stronger on his own. Bill knew he was somewhat twisting his father's words, but on the other hand, he was sure his father was wrong about this.
The MCT building was the largest on the second level of the fortress. Using the emergency stairs, Bill managed to get there in less than an hour. Although he had never engaged in serious strength training, he had been swimming and sometimes doing basic exercises since he had been an old man.
These exercises were common for elderly people to maintain grip strength, flexibility, and balance.