“Y
ou know we’re never going to find criminals, right?”
Sam rolled his eyes at his friend—and new superhero partner—Lucas Lee. Sam could barely see Lucas in the dark interior of their old-ass Honda Civic 2022, but Sam hoped his friend had noticed his reaction.
“C’mon, Luke, we’re definitely going to find some criminals!” Sam said. He pulled his laptop farther up on his lap and tapped away at the keyboard. “My superpower is all about tech, so this’ll be easy. I’ve hacked into the PAD database. The moment dispatch sends a crime report to the police, we’ll know it as well!”
Lucas gripped the steering wheel tighter, causing a notable bunching in the muscles of his forearms. He had outstanding forearms. “Well, congratulations. We just found a criminal. It’s you, Sam. You’re illegally hacking the PAD database. That might even be a felony.” With sarcastic jazz hands, Lucas added, “Lucky day!”
The car crawled slowly down the dark street, and then Lucas turned the wheel and brought them into a side alley. His headlights were on. The shadows of Old Stockton shifted all around them. With a sigh, Lucas switched the lights off.
“Also, we should stop calling it the ‘PAD database,’” Lucas said. “The last letter in the acronym stands for database. Like you just called it the police assist database database.”
“Whatever,” Sam said, groaning. “Look, we’re both super lucky and got superpowers! There weren’t even supposed to be any of the alien enhancers left. It’s been like ten years, and we happened upon two by pure chance. And we both have first names and last names that begin with the same letter. Destiny herself wants us to fight crime!”
“Your initials are S. S., so I hope it isn’t destiny,” Lucas muttered. “Also, look at you. You’re chubby. Who ever heard of a chubby hero?”
Sam touched his soft gut, a bit stung. He had switched to XL clothing a few weeks prior. “Hey, I’m a tech hero, so it’s okay. We tech heroes can have dad bods. Look at Cyberstation! That guy is straight-up fat, but he fights so much crime. You’re going to be our ass-kicker, Lucas. Look at you. All that karate and judo is going to pay off. For sure.”
Lucas glanced over with a slight frown. Lucas was half-Chinese, half-Irish, and one hundred percent ripped. His short black hair, cropped close to the skull, gave him an intimidating aura. Sam’s medium-length messy brown hair gave him more of a cheeseburger aura, but he didn’t mind. Sam prided himself on his vibrant and intelligent gaze.
Lucas was just out of high school and worked a part-time job at a game store. Most of his non nerd enthusiasm, however, had gone to his MMA training, which he’d spent hours a day on.
For Sam, becoming a hero had felt like a dream come true, even with his acceptance to the MIT computer science program on a fullride scholarship, but for Lucas, it had meant he could never compete, since supers were banned from official athletic competitions.
Lucas was a bit weird in Sam’s opinion—Lucas loved video games and tabletop roleplaying, but he also still loved to fight. Lucas wasn’t even argumentative and was kinda easy to push around socially… but not physically. It was weird when Sam went to things like Lucas’s birthday because Lucas had a whole ‘bro’ crowd he hung out with for his training, even if they were more acquaintances than serious friends.
It wasn’t like that for Sam—all of his friends shared his passions and fit more cleanly into a nice box. Math Club, Academic Decathlon, building little robots to fight other robots, modding, LAN tournaments, amateur astronomy. And, of course, cape chasing, at least the online version.
Lucas turned the headlights on before steering the car out of the alleyway and back onto the main road. Then he tapped the brakes hard, right before swerving around a man standing in the middle of the road. They had driven by too quickly for Sam to get a good look at the dude.
“Weirdo,” Lucas muttered. He sighed and glanced over at Sam. “Do you think that the powers we get are based on our personalities? I mean, I got body enhancements, and you got super hacking, so…”
“Maybe,” Sam said, tapping away at his laptop. “I’m pretty sure my power is more than super hacking. I think it’s like a telepathic machine interface. I’m pretty sure it’ll let me do a lot more once I manage to level up a few times.”
With the tip of his tongue trapped between his lips, Sam concentrated on his laptop and willed the inputs to happen without even tapping the keys. Like he was speaking to it. The laptop just didn’t speak back.
Lucas turned the car onto another road. “We’re never going to level unless you want to go into the military or something. There are only a few villains left out there, way fewer than the number of superheroes. Back when this started, it seemed like there were as many villains as superheroes, but the heroes won, hardcore. Most of the villains are now in Champion City Supermax—or dead.”
“That doesn’t mean crime is dead.”
Lucas let go of the steering wheel with his left hand and flexed it. “We aren’t going to find enough villains to fight to ever make a level, so I suggest you do what most of the supers do, and use your power to get a cushy job. You could easily pull down a quarter of a million a year right out of MIT, what with your power, and probably rise to millions after a few years. You’re set for life. What am I going to do? I’m super strong, but not stronger than a backhoe.”
“Hey, I want to do some good for my community,” Sam said. “I want to give back. Old Stockton really needs someone, and I think it could be us.”
“Old Stockton needs a hell of a lot more than us. And since it’s become the poor neighborhood for Champion City, there’re plenty of nearby heroes who are way cooler than us to help out.”
“Your super name should be Gloomy Gus. C’mon, we’ll make this hero thing work.”
“Sam, how many times have you seen a crime in progress in your entire life? Schoolyard fights, drug sales, and your dad whaling on your mom don’t count.”
“Geez, way to not pull punches,” Sam said as he tapped his stubble-covered chin. “Umm… a few times. That police chase when we were at that McDonald’s together I’ve seen gangs beat up a guy a couple times. I’ve seen some guys trying to boost cars. I don’t know, maybe a couple of times a year.”
“In all your eighteen years, you’ve seen a couple of crimes a year. While living in the neighborhood rated ‘worst for crime’ in pretty much the entire US. Is that right?”
“Well, I can’t remember the first couple years of my life, so maybe in like fifteen years. But we have access to the PAD now!” Sam tapped his laptop again. “Plus, the internet is full of rumors that we’re not the only ones to suddenly find more enhancers, so I’ll bet stuff gets crazy again. Some people just can’t handle suddenly getting a lot of power. Especially in Old Stockton.”
“You live in Old Stockton,” Lucas said, then he gave a slight chuckle. “Although I guess that helps your point since you can’t seem to rationally handle being a super now, either.”
Lucas turned again, this time onto Wilson Way, past a parked black SUV. Wilson Way was the main artery of the worst of Old Stockton, where they’d be most likely to find crime. Ten years ago, it had been a failing area of old blue-collar shops from the middle of the twentieth century—automotive repair, HVAC places, things like that. Sam could still remember it from when he’d been young. It had been a hub of prostitution, drugs, and violence.
Since Champion City had formed, however, Old Stockton had become a dumping location for the not-rich who had been displaced by the new development. A lot of heroes, as well as those working for hero-tech companies, had come here, as this was the epicenter of the hero devices. A very large number had appeared nearby. The land had been rezoned, then bought by developers, and now a huge number of multistory apartment buildings and a few multistory
shopping centers dominated the area—but the crime had never disappeared. Much of this area was considered ‘Section Eight,’ which meant it was for people who couldn’t afford their own housing.
A lot of gangs and ex-cons had moved in, even more than before, to fight over the drug trade that the rich had come here for. Old Stockton was almost like a reverse gated community—all the new rich, wealthy off Champion Tech, lived around it and only visited it to get illegal recreation. Or semilegal. It had been a scandal, but a group of people claiming a very tenuous connection to local Yokuts tribes had actually managed to get just enough land near the delta declared Yokuts tribal land that they’d built a huge casino complex, serving all of Champion City. That was a few miles from Wilson Way, though, in its own part of Old Stockton.
So Old Stockton was now a super-dense hub of prostitutes, drugs, and violence, and Sam and Lucas were headed right down its main artery. Sam was optimistic about their chances of encountering some crime in progress.
They passed another black SUV, this one next to a large beige building with a nearly square structure and bars on the doors. It was across from a new mental health facility designed to help house and treat Old Stockton’s huge population of the mentally ill.
Sam commented, “I feel like everyone knows about the sudden alien tech findings, actually. I’ve seen way too many of those SUVs and people in black suits and headpieces around here, and the—”
There was a loud bang, and pressure washed over Sam, knocking him briefly unconscious. His last image for a few seconds was glass exploding through a car.
A few seconds later, his senses returned. He heard faint screams and gunshots, sounding somehow muffled. The car was now on its side, and Sam was half hanging from his seat with the belt holding him in place. Wetness ran down his face, and when Sam reached his hand up, the warm, sticky texture told him it was blood. His blood.
He didn’t see Lucas anywhere.
Sam struggled for a few moments to unbuckle his belt. Once he did, he fell to the ground on the driver’s side. The front windshield
had shattered, and Sam crawled out of the car, still a bit disoriented.
A blast of fire washed down the road, and before Sam could even gather his thoughts, he dove behind the ruined car to avoid getting cooked. What had happened? He played it over in his mind. The fire had come from someone! The palms of their hands! Sam had seen it for half a second.
Is this an actual villain attack? It has to be!
Sam paused. But I’m just a newbie hero… and I have no idea where Lucas is.
Once the fire stopped, he glanced around the side of the car. Men in black uniforms were firing automatic weapons at the building in front of him. Other people—and corpses—littered the ground. More of the black SUVs pulled up, and more men with guns piled out.
As Sam watched, a rocket hit one of the cars in front of the beige building. The car exploded, tipping over backward while parts of it flew across the street. Someone just destroyed that car without giving any warning!
I have no idea what I’m doing, but I have to do something! I read that it’s a military maxim that doing something, even a wrong something, is better than nothing.
Sam took another look at his surroundings. The men pouring out of the SUVs had a bizarre logo on their body armor—the Vitruvian Man with a circular genetic code around the outside.
“Freeze!” one man shouted. “This is the SED! Throw down your weapons!”
Gunshots answered in rapid succession, filling the night with the cacophony of a war zone.
The SED—the Superhuman Enforcement Division. Sam had known he would see them eventually. They were a government agency in charge of enforcing laws on superheroes. They were good guys. Just… bureaucratic good guys.
Sam glanced around the other side of the wrecked car.
Thugs in red spandex with fire symbols on their chests were running around the alleyways and inside buildings. A few had flamethrower tanks, but most were just shooting at the SED.
A couple of the idiots were actually shooting with their guns held sideways, like this was some sort of parody rap video.
Sam spotted a metal door on the side of a nearby building. It was the thick kind—electronically locked—and the fire thugs weren’t around it. Sam wasn’t sure what the building was, but it was multistoried and large enough to wrap around a portion of the block.
The leader of the fire guys—the one shooting fire from the palms of his hands—stood in front of the building with the metal door, out on the street with all the action. The man threw more flame around than a circus juggler, and he laughed the entire time, his chuckling somehow louder than some of the gunshots. He was in good shape and quite tall, but his features were otherwise completely obscured by his red flame-accented spandex costume.
That’s got to be a supervillain, and those fire guys are his henchmen. They look like they’re surrounding that building. The MacGuffin they want must be inside!
Sam crouched down and waited, the gunfire and whoosh of flames still roaring down the road. As soon as he was certain everyone was preoccupied, he jumped from behind the car and charged the metal door as fast as his chubby body would allow.
Ice spread throughout Sam’s body—adrenaline dumping into his system—as a thug, his bald head shining in the light of a streetlamp, pointed a gun in his direction. The thug held the gun sideways and shot at Sam from about fifty feet away.
Sam was pretty sure he felt a bullet whip past his hair, but he wasn’t positive. Regardless, he wasn’t hit as he ran past the corner of the building and slammed against the wall next to the metal door. With a shaky hand, he reached for the number pad next to the door, but his legs gave out.
Sam nearly crumpled to the ground.
He steadied himself and reached for the number pad again. This time, he got it. His mind felt the lock, saw the correct combination, and entered it in a fraction of a second. The door cracked open. Sam grabbed it, slipped inside, and pulled it closed again, allowing the electronic lock to reset.
Safe, for a moment at least.
Sam glanced around. He was in a large room, with numerous boxes, blankets and sheets stacked around, metal bed frames, a few stained mattresses, older medical devices, and a lot of dirty pictures in frames… all in a large concrete room with a small loading area that was completely covered in dust. He also saw a huge number of adult diaper packages of all sizes, near a door at the far side, that didn’t look as dusty as the rest of it.
It took Sam a moment, but then it hit him. We’re in an old folks’ home, and I’m in their storage. Great. Can I get a do-over on my origin story?
Why are people fighting here?! What’s going on?
Sam crept to the door, listening into the hall. He heard yelling and crying, but not much, and then cautiously went deeper into the building.
It was a hallway, smelling faintly of disinfectant, with multiple doors and open exits. There was a lot of Ansel Adams–style photography on the walls, and a lot of stains and scuffs on the floors. Yelling and gunfire came from elsewhere in the building, but this hallway seemed like some bizarre Alice-in-Wonderland-in-reverse oasis of normalcy.
It was empty but for a single old lady, quite heavy-looking under multiple quilts on her lap and chest, her face sagging under its own weight. She was in a wheelchair, reading through very thick glasses some science-fiction novel with two people back-to-back with guns in a space station on the cover.
When Sam came into the hall, she looked at him over her glasses.
“You with the douches or the idiots?” she asked, calm and collected.
What the…? Sam gave her words thought. The douches must be the bad guys, so I’m with…
“The idiots, ma’am.”
“Well, that’s a relief, sort of,” she said acerbically. “Aren’t you kinda fat to be a hero?”
“Sorry.” Sam offered a nervous chuckle. “I’ve got powers, though, I swear.” What’s with this lady?
“Well, the assholes kicked me out of my room to use it for ‘defensive positions,’” she said, putting her book down and holding her pudgy spotted fingers up, making air quotes. “They’re all in the rooms, firing outside, except for two.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“The big boss asshole who was telling everyone what to do locked himself in the monitoring station. He’s down the hall and to the right. His ‘number two’”—air quotes again—“is outside, guarding him.”
Shit. I doubt I can take one reasonably fit combatant.
“Do you have any guns?” Sam asked.
The lady stared at him over her glasses, one eyebrow raised, a look that clearly conveyed he was, in fact, with the idiots.
“Wait, is this a facility that also has old people that, like, have dementia and stuff?” Sam asked, inspiration striking.
“Yeah, a lot of them do,” the lady said. “Even some who think they don’t, like old Florence, always going on about her cats and some dungeon…”
“Right, right, but they have to have sedative somewhere, right?”
“Of course, in the medical station.” She pointed to a different door “They even have an injector gun.”
“Any douches in there?”
“Not that I know of,” the lady said. “Not the worst plan, even if you’re still an idiot for running in here unarmed. Not bad for a kid, though.”
My first fan!
Sam chuckled to himself as he headed for the door, pulling it open. Inside, there were a few medical beds, none currently occupied, despite the ongoing violence. Sam saw the injector gun and the needles in a locked glass cabinet.
He wrapped his hand in a pillow and smashed it into the case, but he merely jarred his elbow when he failed to break the glass. I am taking way too long…
Sam took a bed knob off the bedpost with minimal effort and smashed the case with that, glass flying everywhere. He cringed at the noise it made, despite the continuous gunfire and yelling almost certainly covering it up.
His mom was a nurse at the local emergency room, and he knew some of the basics from fun first aid sessions with her. He quickly loaded the injector gun and set out down the hall, nodding to the elderly lady in the wheelchair as he passed.
Sam crouched and peeked around the corner she’d indicated. A man, holding a gun, stood at the end of a short hallway with more doors along the sides. A tattoo of a metal skull was inked across the man’s face. The man’s head was turned to the side, and thankfully, he didn’t see Sam before Sam pulled back around the corner.
How am I going to sneak up on Skullface?
A hand fell on Sam’s shoulder. He let out one shrill scream and whirled to drive the injector in whoever had grabbed him.
Lucas, crouching behind Sam, his arm covered in blood, grabbed Sam’s wrist, instantly stopping him from driving the needle forward. He held a metal pry bar in his other hand.
“Hey, what’s…?”
Sam cut him off. “Guard coming around the corner!”
Standing, Lucas stepped forward and whirled. His back kick caught the guard as he came around the corner, knocking him out instantly.
So much for the medical injector. Sam stared at it skeptically. Lucas grabbed it and injected the man. “Knockouts from a punch or kick usually only last a few seconds.”
Sam stood and grabbed Lucas. “The big bad is in the far room at the end of the hall,” he said before his friend could talk any more. “He locked himself in, but no one knows why. I think he’s got to have some kind of MacGuffin, probably a doomsday device or something. Maybe it’s powered by elderly people. I have no idea.”
“What’s a MacGuffin?”
“It’s, uh, a person or item that triggers the beginning of a story Think the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”
“Right…” Lucas rubbed at the back of his neck, like he couldn’t believe some of the stuff that came out of Sam’s mouth.
Sam ignored his friend’s ignorance. “If I open the door, do you think you could take out the bad guy inside?”
“Probably.”
“Good. Let’s do this!”
They rushed toward the door at the end of the hall. As they got close, Sam heard snippets of conversation. He peeked into the room and saw a man who appeared to be either covered in some kind of tech-skin or perhaps wearing a sweet metal powersuit, like tech armor. The man had an iPhone 27 in his hand, and he was facing away from the door with the phone held to his head. He was a good six and a half feet tall, and his suit was a dark grey metallic color, but it was moving like a second skin. He also looked very fit. So. Many. Muscles.
Why am I the only not-fit guy involved in this?
The room contained half a dozen camera screens, black-and-white still somehow, and on the ground… A metallic golden ball with a screen on one side, about a foot in diameter. Was it a machine? It had rivets on it.
Something about the metallic ball called to Sam, but his attention was dragged away by the conversation.
“Yeah, I have it, just like Seer foretold, but she also said it wouldn’t be fucking guarded!” the man yelled in a voice that sounded like a bad electronic scrambling job to disguise voices.
A brief pause.
“Yeah, I know, she can’t see the future, she just sees chances and sh—”
Another pause.
“No, no way I can get out with it. The fuckers have rockets! You’ll have to send—”
Another pause.
“Yeah, I can hold five minutes… Yeah, for sure. I won’t fuck this up. I’ll let Sirocco know. Exosuit out.”
The guy’s name is Exosuit? Never heard of him.
The guy, still facing away from the door, raised his hands and grabbed his head, letting out a long “Fuuucckkk.” It still sounded like an electronically scrambled voice and came across more like a robot pretending to be upset than actual stress. Sam would have found it funny if this wasn’t such a tense situation.
Still crouching, Sam put his hand on the electronic lock, then raised an eyebrow at Lucas.
Lucas, clutching his pry bar so tight, the metal was starting to indent, nodded, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
Sam felt the programming on the door, its easy binary logic, and opened the lock.
Lucas pushed open the door and rushed the man.
Exosuit turned to face him, startled. Then Lucas brought the pry bar down on the man’s head so hard that it bent, and the man’s helm dented in slightly as well. Exosuit staggered but recovered extremely quickly. He shrugged off one or two more blows from Lucas and then grabbed Lucas by the throat. Exosuit lifted Lucas off the ground, a display of sheer superstrength. Lucas planted kicks against Exosuit’s midriff—to little effect. The kicks seemed to do more damage to Lucas, who apparently had more power than stamina, as blood spurted from his leg and covered the wall.
Lucas screamed hoarsely, “Get the MacGuffin!”
With a shaky nod, Sam ran in, grabbed the metallic golden ball, and then turned back for the door Instantly, his mind felt it. The mechanical orb was a device of dizzying complexity and a hideous amount of power, the equivalent energy of thousands of nuclear bombs inside it. Its technology was insane, the computer interface alone working on a massive miniaturized quantum qubit system, but it was also somehow stabilized, with almost no errors, operating at room temperature.
Sam was almost overwhelmed, but he thought he could understand the outermost layer, which was in stasis, and was requesting a human mind to interface with. He was pretty sure that was what it wanted and was also pretty sure it would have taken anyone without his powers months to figure that out.
Lucas was slammed into the wall a half a second after Sam’s mind was nearly overwhelmed with the information from the MacGuffin. Lucas fell to the ground with a groan.
“Exosuit isn’t as strong as you, but he’s way tougher,” Sam yelled while his mind grappled with the MacGuffin. “Use leverage like he did!”
Lucas coughed and nodded. When he got to his feet, wincing, he darted in low, heel-kicking Exosuit and pushing. Exosuit hit the ground with a crash that broke the tiles.
Sam reached his mind into the device, powering it on.
Exosuit kicked, and Lucas managed to catch the blow on his arm with a wince, but the shift in angle allowed Exosuit to see the MacGuffin as the screen lit up.
“You fucker,” came Exosuit’s staticky, electro-disguised voice. “If you use that, he’ll kill us all!”
“He,” not “it.” Sam realized many things at once. This isn’t a bomb, it really is a villain MacGuffin, and I should use it up since we likely have bare minutes left!
Sam mentally found the switch and set the device to do what it needed to do.
The screen read, “Prepared to ascend. Enter mind now.”
Enter mind? Ascend?
Exosuit’s flailing caught Lucas in the face, and he was knocked off Exosuit, spitting blood from his mouth. Exosuit leapt up and then rushed at Sam.
Exosuit punched Sam in the stomach, and mind-shattering pain and disorientation overcame the fledgling hero. A notice flashed across his eyes.
Critical Strike from Exosuit. 25 damage inflicted. Catastrophic system failure. Say ‘Expand’ for a complete listing of destroyed or impaired organs and functionality. Damage is incapacitating. Damage is fatal in 6 seconds.
My first Hero System Notification, Sam thought, then he collapsed facedown on the MacGuffin. Wonder if I could read the expanded list before I die?
The MacGuffin’s screen popped up with ‘Mind Accepted,’ and that was the last thing Sam saw before he did, in fact, die.
Sam
Two
Backstory as Told by a Hot Chick
Sam woke but couldn’t feel anything, see anything, or move any of his limbs. He just sensed blackness. Am I alive?
He tried to call into the darkness. Hello? A screen popped up.
Welcome to your new existence, Villain Core designation Sam. I’m your Initial Assistant.
Lair cannot be established, location is moving relative to the surface of the terrestrial body at one hundred and forty miles per hour and is below acceptable space requirements.
The fuck? I’m a ‘Villain Core’ and need to make a ‘lair’? Wait. Am I a dungeon core?!
Sam loved dungeon core novels. He could remember his first exposure, a book in The Hapless Dungeon Fairy series by Jonathan Brooks, long ago. He was pretty sure the first book was just called The Dungeon Fairy, but he would always remember it as The Hapless Dungeon Fairy. It was about a dungeon assistant who was always unlucky but then got to be the actual dungeon. What Sam remembered was less about the story itself and more about the cool base building and the dwarves living outside the dungeon having this great relationship with the dungeon that used to be a fairy assistant. The dungeon tried to help them as well, so they could all build something great together. I wonder if I could do that for my neighborhood now that I can’t protect them directly?
Of course, traveling a hundred and forty miles per hour in a small space means I’m either on a hydrofoil or in a really good race car or on a helicopter. The hydrofoil is deeply unlikely, given Old Stockton’s
location… even if it does technically have a ‘deep water port.’ And Old Stockton doesn’t have any racetracks, not since the Stockton Speedway was sold to make room for further development… Sam figured he should probably stop geeking out and try to figure his situation out instead.
But how? He tried to focus on his surroundings differently, like he imagined his dungeon core heroes might have. By imagining his eyes fuzzing out in multiple directions till they hurt, he managed to sense the area around him.
Sound, sight, and a general kinesthetic sensation returned to him, although Sam couldn’t smell a thing. He saw himself in a small cargo hold, steel, with an open hatch leading into a front cockpit. A helicopter. Looking out, Sam saw that the villain Exosuit was on the passenger side, but his angle prevented him from seeing the person flying the ’copter.
In the back, leaning against the far side and bleeding from a couple of bullet wounds, was the guy in a red spandex suit. Sam recognized his outfit. He was the madman who had been throwing fire and fighting the SED! Given what he’d heard Exosuit say, Sam assumed the man’s supervillain name was Sirocco.
Although, if he doesn’t get medical attention soon, his name will probably be changed to ‘Corpse Man.’
As if on cue, Sirocco weakly called, “I’m not doing so good, guys. I need help.”
The electronically disguised voice of Exosuit responded, “Why the fuck did you stand out in front of the bullets, then, dipshit?”
Hearing Exosuit using his strange voice to speak thug never gets old. Sam giggled to himself.
I wonder why I’m not more upset about being killed? Some sort of suppressant in the program to keep me sane? I should probably be more upset…
“Hey, man, I’m not high-level like you,” Sirocco snapped. “But I still have superhuman resistance, asshole.”
“Normal people can get cut by cardboard, dumbass,” Exosuit said. “‘Superhuman resistance’ doesn’t mean jack shit unless it’s your main type, or you get your Toughness above twenty. But now we’ve
got the core, so we’ll all be able to train until we’re crazy high-level. Then you can be tough for real. Or maybe get so hot, your body burns bullets or some shit, I don’t know.”
I wonder if they know I’m in here?
A beam of light carved through the helicopter, barely missing Sirocco, who gave a hoarse scream. Lights flashed and alarms blared, and the helicopter spun and lurched. Exosuit cursed, but the helicopter quickly righted itself. Wind whipped through the two-foot hole left behind.
That’s gotta be Nova! These guys are in trouble now!
Nova was the number-one hero in the world. Back when the Alien Enhancement Devices had first appeared, he’d been one of the first to get one—and he had beaten many of the early round of villains, as well as, allegedly, worked a lot of missions for the US government to keep foreign powers from getting a hold of alien tech. Nova was rumored to have a level of almost twenty, which was basically the highest level anyone had achieved ever.
And while some people got lame powers from the alien devices, Nova had been ridiculously lucky He had the powers of a star— gravity control to protect himself, give him flight, and allow him to hit hard. But his main offensive weapon was his plasma beams, which could destroy tanks.
Sam loved watching footage of Nova. No other superhero compared!
Sirocco screamed, “It’s Nova! We’re fucking doomed!” He then rushed to the side of the helicopter, grabbed a parachute, and took several deep breaths. He was still looking pale, his blood coming out faster now.
A voice Sam didn’t recognize, masculine but heavy and forceful, shouted, “I can take Nova if we must, but we can’t lose the Villain Core. It’s not yet secured. Don’t you dare open that door!”
The pilot? Was the pilot yelling at them?
Sirocco screamed back, “Screw you! I’m getting out before I die. This mission has been fucked since the beginning.”
Another beam sliced through the helicopter. Somehow, the vehicle maintained its altitude.
Sirocco yanked the helicopter door open. The wind was incredible, and Sam was pulled from the back of the helicopter. He was yanked out the door past Sirocco, and Sam watched as the villain leapt out after him.
But then… the helicopter banked as they fell through the air, the blades turning Sirocco into a fine red mist.
Holy shit, that pilot guy means business!
Other objects tumbled from the helicopter Weapons, parachutes, and some tools. All of it fell with Sam toward the ground. He saw everything around him in all directions at the same time. He took in the couple of flying heroes around the helicopter above him, and the city of Old Stockton below him, with the newer, much larger airport sprawling to the north. Most notably, he took in Nova, in his white spandex suit with a gold sunburst on his chest, as he held his hand out and another beam of dazzling plasma shot through the helicopter. Sam’s attention was taken from Nova as Sam fell through the sky toward Airport Way, the imaginatively named main northsouth road near the airport.
On his current trajectory, Sam would land a bit south of the airport and west of the road, in or near a large warehouse. It was where the old coal power plant had been, before it had been demolished to turn into a green biofuel refinery. Funding had never materialized, and Sam assumed that was why there was a warehouse complex here now.
He smashed through the roof of the facility and plowed into the concrete of the warehouse floor, leaving a huge impact crater. His view screen was cracked in places, and he was dented, but he was also apparently made of extremely resistant material.
A notification popped up.
Kinetic impact damage sustained. After damage resistance of 20, 5 damage taken. Onboard assistant damaged.
Mostly resistant material. Starting to hate these notifications… They never have any good news.
Sam looked around, taking in his surroundings. There was a ton of furniture stacked near the warehouse walls, most of it higher-end items like cherrywood dressers, chandeliers, and even a collection of crystal statues. The floor was mildly dusty, but not seriously so, and the walls were sheet metal.
Not exactly luxurious, this warehouse. Surprised it’s holding higher-end items.
Sam’s notification screen popped up again, showing him a message superimposed over his sight of the warehouse.
Location adequate to begin base construction. Initiate construction, Y/N?
I’m going to really tick off whoever owns this warehouse.
Sam mentally selected yes.
A hatch opened on the side of the metal ball he inhabited, and a black cloud, looking not unlike a thick swarm of gnats, flew out and hovered. It was a swarm of tiny machines… Next, a small vehicle, similar to a rover, only a foot long, came out of the same hatch. Damn, that thing had to occupy like half of me.
A screen popped up, loading messages, one after another, over a few minutes. The swarm of nanomachines hovered in place, and nothing else moved while the messages scrolled, the contrast from the chaos of his last few hours palpable as Sam just waited.
Automatic assistant configuring…
Automatic assistant is damaged…
Attempting repairs…
Repairs 97% successful… Repairs sufficient to continue.
Based on implanted mind’s association, requesting hero assistant AI… Acquired.
Configuring hero assistant for personality of implanted mind…
Automatic assistant program complete. Physical adaptation initiated.
The swarm descended on the rover, covering it completely. As the swarm did its work, Sam received a notification.
Swarm in construction mode. Additional power draw of 1 per minute. Reserve diminishing.
The swarm seemed to slowly diffuse, and Sam got flashes of a robot being worked on inside of the swarm. After a few minutes, the swarm flew away, and a humanoid robot stood in the place of the rover. It was very feminine, appearing like a late-twentieth-centurymovie fembot, steel and chrome but with slightly exaggerated female proportions, five feet, ten inches tall.
Part of Sam was speechless; the part of him that still remembered being male was excited—She was cute! But part was ruefully embarrassed. This is the best assistant for my personality? I should probably see a shrink about that.
Also, how did a one-foot-long rover turn into a nearly six-foot-tall robot? It must’ve been crazy dense.
The robot opened its eyes, and its skin shifted so it appeared to be a human female with blue eyes and black hair, in skintight pink shorts and shirt, with the words ‘I can kick your boyfriend’s ass’ printed on the front in a prominent location.
The robot swished back her long black hair and smiled. “Hello. I’m your mobile education, labor, improvement, and strike specialized assistant.”
Sam heard the voice internally, as if through a speaker system, and somehow knew how to respond the same way.
“M.E.L.I.S.S.A.?” That has to be intentional.
“Yes, Melissa.” The robot tapped the tip of her nose. “So, are you ready to build your lair and become the greatest Villain Core you can be?”
“Look, based on what I heard, I think I understand what’s going on here, Melissa.”
She quirked an eyebrow, as if to ask, Oh, really?
“I’m gonna be a dungeon, aren’t I?”
Melissa nodded. She walked over to Sam and knelt next to his spherical metal body. “That’s correct, in a sense.”
“I’d really like to get a full grip on all of this before we go any further,” Sam said, trying hard not to go full-blown giddy.
“That’s what she said?” Melissa asked, switching her raised eyebrows.
Sam laughed. Fit for my personality, indeed. What more could a nineteen-year-old man—or most men, I suspect—want than a hot chick who’s basically into his hobbies and humor?
“Noice!” Sam said. “But seriously, please give me a rundown.”
“Well, you know the alien tech that was appearing, right?”
Sam tried to nod, but when it didn’t work, just said, “Of course, everyone knows about that! The alien devices appeared ten years ago, and anyone who touched them gained superpowers. It was all over the news, internet, and radio. You’d have to be living the life of a hermit to have missed it all.”
“Those devices were made by the same alien race that constructed me,” Melissa said, placing a hand on her chest. “Congratulations!”
“Uh, thanks? Can you tell me more about them?”
“Technically, they’re at war with an enemy species. In simple terms —because we don’t have enough time to go over the entire history— their species values unity, sacrifice, self-improvement, kindness, charity, and redemption. The enemy species values strength, dominance, and victory. They’ve fought a war for many decades, to impose their order on the whole of the galaxy. Worlds were destroyed, resources wasted, promising species rendered extinct. Eventually, to make a really long story short, they agreed on the ‘Concord of Challenge,’ establishing spheres of influence and setting the rules for expansion… and the adoption of new species.”
“So, two alien races are fighting proxy wars over planets? Dang!” Sam wanted to get up and move around, but then he remembered he was an inanimate sphere. Lying in a crater. With a robot woman kneeling over him.
Where was Lucas when he needed him? Lucas would love to hear about the aliens.
Melissa held up a finger. “Sentient species who are discovered are sent hundreds of packages from each of the alien factions. These
packages contain devices that grant superpowers—but these superpowers must be increased mostly through combat. That’s how the war is fought.”
Sam soaked everything in, reveling in the details.
A secret alien war. Superheroes and supervillains, duking it out…
“Wait,” Sam said. “I got one of those alien devices… And I was never told what faction I belonged to. It just gave me powers. What’s up with that?”
“The device seeks out individuals who have traits that match the values of the society that sent it and then gives them powers. The Unity Faction only grants powers to people who share similar values, and the Power Faction only grants power to, well, individuals consumed by autocratic tendencies. Both devices seek talent, willpower, and a great origin story, but in general, the values are the most important. The devices won’t work on people who don’t fit into the faction.”
Sam wanted to nod, but again, he couldn’t. Instead, he chuckled and said, “So, the devices Lucas and I got actually sought us out? Sweet. The aliens knew I was destined for greatness.”
Melissa held a hand over her mouth and giggled. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“And I’ve already read a ton of dungeon core books, so I’m extra talented. You won’t even need to teach me.”
With a slight tilt of her head, Melissa frowned. “But I’m not even done with the introduction speech. I’ve a lot more information to give you.”
There were so many things to do and so little time! Sam wanted to tell everyone about the aliens—the Unity Faction and the Power Faction. And then he wanted to build an amazing dungeon. And then he wanted to win whatever secret war this was and go to an alien council or something and receive an award.
Sam could see it all in his mind’s eye.
Melissa stood and stretched. Then she rotated a bit at the hips. “I think you need additional information first. The second stage of the competition is upon us. The next wave of Alien Enhancement Devices is landing across your planet even as we speak. They’ll
spread over a much wider geographical area, and there will be almost four times as many people gaining superpowers. More relevant to you, however, will be the advent of the Villain Cores. Each of those, which will be far lower in number, will be distributed randomly. Each must absorb a mind after being turned on. Just learning how to turn them on usually takes six months to a year. The core can then increase its power by providing training grounds for the enhanced from both the Unity Faction and the Power Faction.”
“You mean… the heroes and villains?”
Melissa nodded. “Exactly.”
“So… my dungeon will be… a training center?!”
“You got it.”
“That’s amazing.”
Melissa did a couple of deep knee bends, and Sam wondered if she was doing that to test out her new body or if she was doing it for Sam’s benefit. He was just a sphere now, no longer a man, but he still appreciated the limberness. Perhaps Melissa was just nice?
“You’re also pretty special on a lot of other levels,” Melissa said. “First, you got started early Really early And second, you were a hero before, so you’ll retain extra benefits from having been one. Also, since you are clearly Unity Faction–aligned, the system assigned an assistant that was hero-aligned—me.” Melissa crossed her arms and held her head high. “If you had been a villain— someone part of the Power Faction—you would’ve gotten a darker AI assistant assigned to you.”
“So, basically, we’re playing a game, and if the heroes win, the world joins the Unity Faction?”
Melissa nodded.
“And why is the Unity Faction better than the Power Faction?”
“Good question.” Melissa tapped a finger against her cheek. “Let me put it simply… The Unity Faction wishes to embrace peace and self-governance. All planets who are integrated into the Unity Faction retain control of themselves. Whereas the planets who join the Power Faction are controlled by a strict hierarchy, with the aliens on top, and the superpowered humans controlling the lives of nonsuperpowered humans below them.”
