Super Sales on Super Heroes

Chapter 23 - Reactionary -

Felix had set himself up in the appraisal room for customers and clients.

There weren’t any, since everyone was going to the competing pawn shop, but he still wanted to keep to his schedule.

To keep himself busy, he was going over the available upgrades and point purchases he could make.

“Dense materials. All exterior surfaces and materials are upgraded. Prevents listening equipment and superpowers from hearing anything inside the building. One-hundred twenty-five thousand.”

“That sounds nice,” Andrea said. She was seated at the end of his appraisal table, working on her tablet.

“Mm. Definitely seems like something worth taking. Add it to the list.”

Andrea made a musical noise in the affirmative.

Felix kept reading through the listed improvements. There were a number of them didn’t seem to be worth the cost.

Stain-resistant floors. Upgraded insulation. Energy-efficient lights.

Felix shook his head and closed the window. They’d already gone through and picked out the ones that would be useful.

“Can you read the list back to me?”

“Mm-hmm.” Andrea tapped at her tablet and then cleared her throat. She opened her mouth, and then stopped.

After a second, she dropped the tablet and turned her chair around to face him.

“Actually, I want to ask you a favor.”

Felix waited patiently. Andrea being serious was something out of the ordinary.

“I’m listening.”

“You… made me smarter.”

“I did.”

“Twice.”

Felix had to think about that for a moment, but he nodded his head. He had indeed moved her intelligence up previously as well.

“I… understand things I didn’t before. Things that seem obvious to me now.”

“Okay. I’m not sure if you’re complaining, or…”

Andrea gave him a small smile. “Maybe I am. Well, I’d like to ask if you can upgrade my powers.”

Felix nodded his head. The request wasn’t surprising. Not really. Not when he thought about it.

“Okay. And what do you want me to upgrade exactly?”

“When I… when I take in my Others. I take in all of their memories. And if they’re dead, I take in their memories of their death.

“After a while, it… it can be overwhelming. All those memories of death. The pain. The suffering that comes right before. The emptiness and loneliness.”

I can only imagine.

“After a while, I have to create a Death Other. I give them all my memories of death, the pain, the horrible things that happen. Then I send them out. They normally head to places that could use a vigilante.

“Where they can put our skills to use while trying to live with the burden we’ve given them.”

“I see.”

“I want you to upgrade me so that I can choose the memories I take back. That I can leave out the ones I don’t want.”

Andrea looked at him with wide eyes, her hands clasped in her lap, gripping each other.

It explained her partitioned mind power, as well as why she seemed disturbed and happy at the same time.

“I’ll see what I can pull up. Why don’t you call Lily in while I do that?” Felix turned back to the table. Focusing on her power, he tried to encapsulate everything she’d told him as part of an upgrade to her existing powers.

That and so that it didn’t take as much out of her with each clone.

Power Upgrade: Multiple Self Projections

Required Primary Power: 40 (Unmet)

Upgrade?(5,000)

Power Upgrade: Partitioned Mind

Required Secondary Power:50 (Met)

Upgrade?(5,000)

Expensive when you count in the cost of getting her up to Primary Power forty. Something like forty-five thousand points.

“You rang, dar-ling?”

Felix glanced up from his power screen. Lily was perched on her elbows on his table, her face resting in her palms.

“Yeah. Andrea wants an upgrade to her power set. Total cost is around forty-five thousand points. I think it’s worth the cost. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing on the point calendar today, either.”

“There isn’t. And no, I don’t disagree with you on the upgrade for her.” Lily’s eyes flicked to the wolf girl, then back to him. “Though you’ll need to upgrade Ioana, Miu, and Felicia after this as well. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”

Felix sighed, pressing a hand to his temple.

She was right, of course. Doing so much for Kit, Lily, and Andrea put him in a strange spot for the other three.

“Yeah. You’re right.”

“I know I am. Your point calendar is empty tomorrow as well, we were just going to have you make gold. Our finances are doing well enough in our other investments that we can spare the points.”

Lily stood up, rearranged herself, then moved to sit next to him on his left.

Felix accepted the upgrade for Andrea as he turned to Miu in the corner. “Come on over, Miu. We’ll do yours next.”

Lily’s head snapped around to where Felix had spoken to.

“I want nothing,” Miu said from the shadows.

“You sure? Could give you the ability to blend in with shadows. Actually become one.”

Miu was silent. The spot that he thought was her shifted. Barely.

“I will consider it. For now, nothing.”

“As you will.”

Felix sighed and looked to Andrea. “So? Was that what you wanted?”

Andrea gave herself a visible shake, her eyes turning to him. “Yes. Yes, it is. I’m… I’m going to go. I need to call my Death Others and bring them home. Those who are alive, at least.”

Getting to her feet, Andrea moved to leave, her tail swishing back and forth behind her energetically.

Stopping at the door, she turned to him. She gave him a bright, warm smile. “Thank you, Felix. I’ll repay you.”

Then she opened the door and stepped out.

“My, my. I think she even gave me butterflies with that,” Lily whispered in Felix’s ear.

Flinching away from her, Felix tried to ignore her completely. “With that many points spent, I’d rather keep the rest just in case. Besides, we really could use the money.”

“Not a bad thought. Just make sure you get back to Felicia and Ioana soon. And Miu, too, if she figures out what she wants.”

Felix could only agree. Now the rest of the day sat ahead of him. There were no appointments scheduled, which meant it’d be time to catch up on paperwork.

“So. What ever shall we talk about?” Lily asked, smiling. “How about the fact that those boxers you had on the other day looked like they were ten years old?”

Felix was making the rounds today. Visiting each department, asking about the few people he knew by name, trying to learn the names of a few more.

Everywhere he went, he found people working hard in their various jobs and tasks.

He also got a chance to really explore the layout on foot, as blueprints and maps only did so much for him.

In his head, he now divided each “section” by three floors. For each section, there was one communal dining hall, a number of training rooms, classes, supply depots, section stores, armories, restrooms, kitchen, morgue, conference rooms, meeting hall, a number of break rooms, and a good number of recreation areas.

Felicia had truly aimed at producing in each section everything someone could ask for in their lives.

People worked shifts, were given an allowance, and could socialize freely. Nothing was restricted to them, except speaking of the organization.

Outside internet connections weren’t available on personal PCs. It was accessible at public computers, through a VPN and firewall that scrubbed everything going out and in.

Somewhere along the line, they’d picked up a rather proficient IT team.

Then there was the other side of the “underground world,” as some had taken to calling it.

The departments. With the main elevator bays acting as a central hub, half of the section was divided into the departments. The work areas.

Residential and commercial zones did not overlap.

Thumbing the biometric lock to get into the R&D lab, Felix waited for the door.

Mr. White had hired a team of people to work for him. All with the approval of HR and magically enforced Indentured contracts.

Every time he visited, which wasn’t as often as he’d have liked, but probably more than he needed to, there was something new.

Felicia’s team shared the workspace with him. Mundane engineers and supers working side by side to create the best tech for Legion.

The big security door moved aside, the three-inch-thick steel ominously silent.

Walking in, he found Mr. White and one of his team members fiddling with what looked for all the world like a soda can.

If soda cans glowed and had circuity that seemed to guide that glow.

Felix said nothing, as he didn’t want to interrupt their conversation, but instead took a seat and merely watched.

The team member took the can and inserted it into a slot at the bottom of a box-like contraption.

With a flick of a switch, the box started to glow and gently hum.

“Good, take it to Felicia.” Mr. White shooed the assistant off and turned to face Felix.

“Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. White.”

“You just witnessed the first time we had a successful energy cell power up something other than itself.”

“The soda can?”

“Exactly. That soda can could power everything in this building for a few hours.

“And with that successful test, we’ve now solved the problem we had with our energy weapons. There was no way to supply a sufficient amount of energy, to create reliable weapons.

“Sure, it’d fire once or twice by conventional means, but that was it.”

Felix had to admit that sounded like a pretty terrible problem. Why take a weapon that can fire twice, when you could take a firearm that could put hundreds of rounds downrange easily and still fire more.

“We should have a working prototype in a week. Felicia built a machine that creates those soda cans.

“Works off a similar principle to how Lily charges things, I guess.”

“Makes sense. And yeah, that sounds like Felicia. Anything she can think up, she can probably build. Provided she can think it up.”

Felix held out one hand towards Mr. White.

“How goes the progress with th—”

A deep rumbling brought Felix up short. He could even feel it on his body.

This particular lab was rather far below surface level, which meant whatever had just happened was huge.

Then the emergency lights started flashing, and a low buzzing could be heard.

“We’re under attack,” Mr. White said, looking up at one of the flashing lights.

“Take your position, then.” Felix moved over to the security door and thumbed it open.

He’d be needed in central control. Being able to repair anyone, or anything, from anywhere in the building, made him invaluable.

But he had to see what was going on.

Another deep rumble overtook him. It was louder this time.

Did they fucking nuke us?

Setting off at a run, Felix felt like he couldn’t get there quick enough.

Eight soldiers, as they couldn’t have been anything else in the gear they were wearing, in front of the vault door for central command and security saw him coming. They were armed in what looked as if a modern-day soldier had gone through a science fiction novel.

Each was armed with a machine gun that was mounted to an exo-frame that was issued to the elite forces in Legion.

The weapons were belt fed from a backpack that hung off the back of the exo-frame.

Their tactical gear had the feel of blast gear that didn’t seem to encumber them at all.

Their helmets were the stuff out of comic books. Much like the rest of their armor, it was dark, sleek, metallic. An eyepiece over one side of the dark black visor added to the strange look of it.

He’d seen these soldiers training with Andrea and Ioana. He knew they were superior in many ways. Quick, strong, determined, intelligent.

Those exo-frames weren’t a joke either, and could power them along as fast as an Olympic sprinter for as long as they had power. They could lift things far beyond their capacity as a normal human.

Those frames put them on a level with low-powered supers.

Each of the fifty exo-frames they possessed had been created by Felicia’s team by hand. They weren’t able to be mass produced yet, as the energy source required hadn’t been available.

That and it was inefficient as hell.

They ate up power. They were only good for three hours before needing to get recharged.

Until a few minutes ago, that is. Mr. White solved that problem.

The gigantic vault door began to unlock itself and hiss as Felix got closer.

By the time he was close enough to enter, it was already closing itself again.

Felix slipped inside as it clanged shut behind him, the massive locks engaging and closing them in.

Andrea Prime, Kit, and Miu were present in the room, as well as the command center crew.

“What the hell is going on?” Felix asked, moving to his “captain’s chair” in the room. It was center stage in the middle of the massive wall display of cameras, feeds, and information.

“They bombed the building,” Andrea said, coming up beside him. “Twice. No deaths, but a lot of wounded. Felicia’s machines are patching them up so they’ll live, but… you’ll need to spend points to get them back to full capacity.”

Felix grunted at that. “Of course. It’s part of my duty to them. Did we engage our Telemedics?”

Kit came up to stand on his left. “We did. They worked splendidly. We had a full triage and medical evacuation within twenty seconds of the blast. They’re the reason we have no casualties.”

“Perfect.”

The Telemedics had been a late-night thought of his own.

He had kept giving superpowers to those who already had them. He’d never stopped to think about giving powers to those who had none.

Putting out a call to those who, one, wanted to be on the medical staff, and two, wanted to receive a superpower to do that job, they’d gotten a large number of volunteers.

Each volunteer had been granted the power of teleportation for themselves and whoever they were touching. Then he’d given them a miscellaneous power, as he’d called it. They were all given the gift of a full education in medicine in the span of an hour.

As much of an education as you could get going through medical school, that is.

It was a strange superpower to give out, the knowledge of medicine and health.

Pretty much like a damn skill book out of a video game. A superpower granted by virtue of what was contained between the covers.

No one complained about suddenly being the equivalent of a medical doctor from it.

Finally, each was given a power cell from Lily and told to activate it when they were in danger. It would activate a shield for about thirty seconds that would keep them from harm.

They weren’t issued weapons, though, as their primary function was to get in and get out.

And thus the Telemedic team was born. A group of twenty men and women given superpowers specifically to operate in a single function.

They’d practiced extensively but had had no actual experience until today.

“What else do I need to know?” Felix asked. Several of the cameras at the entrance and the front lobby were down.

“They’ve taken up position and are sieging us. There’s been nothing on any police, fireman, or government frequencies. Lily is pretty sure a blackout has been purchased, as she can’t even reach her contacts.” Kit closed up her tablet and tucked it under her arm.

“I see. Who’s leading the defense?”

“Ioana and Lily. They’re working on shoring up defenses as well as probing at the attackers.

“Some of the Telemedics are taking it on themselves to snag wounded enemy combatants. They’re being dropped off with… with Andrea’s guests.”

“Guests?” Felix asked, turning his head to Andrea.

“My Death Others. They all came in today. We’re going to reabsorb them back into ourselves. Welcome them home. They’ve been gone a long while. Some died, but most lived.”

“Death Others,” Kit said, not really understanding.

“I had to fill an Other up with all of our deaths. And then send them out into the world. So many deaths piled up hurt us. We had to do it more frequently when we worked.”

“Right. I take it your Death Others greet these wounded enemies with smiles and cookies?” Felix asked.

“They’re… questioning them. Ask them to sign an Indentured contract. Then feed them into the sausage machine if they decline. Alive.”

“Oh. They sound like they’d be great to have a game of Risk with. Let’s go have a chat with them when this is over.”

“When this is over?” Kit inquired.

“It’s not like we didn’t plan for this.” Felix tapped the communication button on his display next to his chair. Then he hit the dropdown list and selected the R&D lab. “Mr. White, Felicia. I need the Wardens.”

“Sending them up as soon as we’re able. We put them through a series of trials earlier and they’re still charging,” came back the response. He wasn’t sure who it was, but it didn’t matter.

Felix held in a sigh. He didn’t need the Wardens right now, but he wanted to use them.

“Wardens?” Miu asked from directly behind him.

“Wardens. I’d… tell you what they are, but why spoil the surprise?

“You were welcome to come with me when I was doing the department goal setting and those damned individual development plans the other week. This all came up then.”

“I had enough of those tasks when we went through my own department.” Miu had been nonplussed with the corporate mandates he kept laying out.

“Andrea?”

“Mmm?” asked the Beastkin, turning her head to him.

“I could really go for some pancakes. Did you get that tiny kitchen set up in here?”

“Pancakes!” shouted the Beastkin, who scampered off to a corner.

“You spoil her,” Kit muttered.

“That I do.”