Super Powereds: Year 3

by Drew Hayes

  She simply wanted to spend dinner with the man she loved.

  * * *

  “Mr. Evers?” The large man was covered in muscle and tattoos, yet the slightest quiver of fear entered his voice as he stood in the doorway and interrupted his boss. It wasn’t Nathaniel himself that scared him, though those orange eyes were certainly more than a little disconcerting. It was what he represented, and who he was connected to, that truly put this mountain of a man ill at ease. He’d worked for dangerous people before, jobs where he knew he put his life on the line just by showing up. The people Nathaniel had aligned himself with weren’t like that. They’d never be so kind as to simply kill him.

  “What is it?” Nathaniel didn’t even bother looking up from the laptop he was studying intently, his eerie eyes darting across the screen.

  “It’s just that you wanted us to tell you whenever Nicholas Campbell or one of those kids from the dorms was out in the open. He and the blonde left his apartment a few minutes ago, and the silver-haired guy was seen riding somewhere with the short girl that hangs out there a lot.”

  “Brazen.” Nathaniel spat the word like a curse, barely concealing the snarl that lingered upon his face. “I set the last place he went to have fun on fire, and he decides to go on a date. Even after everything he’s seen, all the clues I’ve left for him, Nicholas Campbell still refuses to take me seriously.”

  “Should I send out some guys to ruin their night?” The thug held his breath, hoping dearly to be told no. He didn’t know a lot about this guy Nathaniel had them watch, but there was word on the street that he was smart, dangerous, and connected in a very bad way.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Nathaniel replied. “If we make a move every time he steps out of the house, he’ll begin to expect it, and that would let him set a trap for us. Better to keep him guessing. Besides, I still need to recruit more assets to the cause, if we’re going to have our big to-do. Tell the men to stand down. Tonight, they get a free pass. I certainly hope Nicholas makes the most of it. Once we have enough troops, he’ll be dead in the ground, and no one in Vegas will be able to tie it back to me. So I’d like to think he’s squeezing the last vestiges of joy from his life, while he can.”

  The thug let out the breath he’d been holding, then hurried back down to where the other workers were waiting. Most of them were like him, local muscle that someone had hired at way above the going rate. Some of the others though, they were scary. They had the dead eyes and careful demeanor that he’d learned long ago signaled a life spent with blood on one’s hands. Even worse, most of that lot seemed to be Supers. No one knew exactly what Nathaniel was planning, or at least, none of the local guys did.

  All they knew was that it was going to be bad, and at this point, they’d rather be on his side than against it.

  223.

  The guest speaker waiting for the HCP juniors as they filed in was unlike any of the ones they’d seen before. He wasn’t wearing a costume, of course, but only Shutterbug had shown up in full gear, as she was the solo active Hero they’d spoken with. However, he didn’t look as though he’d ever worn a cape or mask, let alone an HCP uniform. The man talking with Dean Blaine was short, with a noticeable paunch extending over his belt and a sizable bald spot visible to the students taller than him, which was most of them. Surrounded by the professors, he looked even more out of place than he normally would have, but as he noticed the gray-uniformed youths piling in, he turned his attention toward them and beamed a wide grin. Whatever he was, he certainly wasn’t lacking in confidence.

  “Today, you all have a very special treat,” Dean Blaine said. “While our previous speakers were held in high esteem within their fields, Leonard Nicolo is a man that plenty of Heroes spend large parts of their careers hoping to meet. In fact, Mr. Nicolo is in such high demand that even I had to call in some favors to bring him here today. Leonard Nicolo is an agent for Heroes, and is quite adept at his job. I could go on about his reputation, but I feel it would do him a disservice to try and speak for him. So, Mr. Nicolo, please take it away.”

  “None of that ‘Mr. Nicolo’ stuff, if you please. Never seen much point in putting on airs. Just call me Lenny.” Dean Blaine stepped back as Lenny moved to the forefront, his lively eyes darting about, assessing each student before him with the strange, ever-pondering mind that fed his instincts. “Your dean was right in that I’m damn good though. I’d like to say the best, but that’s a title that belongs to whoever’s clients are on top at the moment, and in the Hero landscape, that is a shifting status. I’m among the best, that much is safe to say, and it’s because I make my living by ensuring the lives of my clients run smooth.”

  Lenny finished taking a scan of the students, reaching Roy near the end of his sweep. The two men locked eyes and gave cordial nods to one another. It had been a long time since Lenny had seen Roy, but there was no mistaking the son of Titan. As for Roy, he remembered quite well how the sharp-tongued man had come to their home and dealt with his father. Lenny had also been around for a bit after the scandal, making sure they had enough to live on while residuals were tied up in the divorce. There was no animosity in Roy toward this man; he’d just been another person screwed over by Titan’s mistakes.

  “That, in a nutshell, is all agents do. We handle the daily stuff that you Heroes will be too busy for, allowing you to focus on saving lives instead of filing press releases, booking appearances, or negotiating percentages from your t-shirt line. Now we hit the part where most of you are thinking, ‘That doesn’t seem so bad. Why do I even need an agent?’ And you’re right; most of you won’t need an agent at all.”

  Some of the students were surprised by this admission, though many of them had seen enough of these speakers to sense there was a twist coming in the conversation that would explain Lenny’s words. The agent made note of the ones who caught on to that; he might need a Hero with a decent head on their shoulders in a year or so.

  “You won’t need one, because no one will be calling you and asking for an appearance, you’ll be beating down the door to get them to talk to you, which is another service I handle, incidentally. Here’s the dirty little secret about being a Hero, kids, and it isn’t much of a secret to begin with: the pay is shit. You can get by on it, don’t get me wrong, but you’re paid like what you are, which is a civil servant.” Lenny paused, well-aware of the suppressed sneers that were building under many of these idealistic faces.

  “And now we’re at the part where most of you are, or should be, thinking about how you don’t care about something like that, because you’re becoming a Hero to help people. You know what? I agree with you. This is not the line of work you get into because you want to make a buck, and I salute you for going into this with the right mindset. That said, you’re all around twenty-one right now. It’s a lot easier to have that cavalier attitude before you’ve got rent, bills, and, God willing, a family that is looking to you for support. As I tell most of my clients when they start going the marital direction: diapers aren’t free. Not even for Heroes. And once you get further along in life, once you have people depending on you, all of sudden ‘getting by’ doesn’t seem quite as noble as it did when you were listening to that short agent talk about why merchandising mattered.”

  Lenny could see some of them biting, being drawn in by the scary idea of a future. That was the problem with HCP kids, they forgot about what would happen to them if they didn’t end up dying. That life had a set of challenges all its own.

  “Even taking money out of the equation, agents are also key for image management. You all clearly want to make a difference—no one without the guts and heart makes it to year three in this nuthouse—and I assume that means you also want to inspire the masses out there to goodness. Well, we live in a culture of destroyers, kids. People love to tear down their idols, whether they be celebrities or Heroes alike.”

  “If we make mistakes, don’t we deserve to be held accountable for them?” Thomas asked.

 
“You sure do, however, that’s an important ‘if’ right there. A good agent can’t, and won’t, protect you from serious or illegal fuck-ups, but we can sort out some of the mistakes that everyone is going to make from time to time in life. Lots of times, you may not have even done anything wrong. Maybe you accidentally knock over a kid when stopping a building from hitting him, but with the right angle on a picture, it looks like you smacked him. Maybe the company spitting out bobble-heads of you was using toxic plastic, not that you had any way of knowing that. Maybe you brought in some tabloid reporter’s brother, and now they’re out to slander you six ways to Sunday. Point is, when things get rough, an agent is there to smooth things over.”

  Lenny stopped and checked the feel of the room. He seemed to have brought most of them on board with reminding them of the importance of image, even without cash on the line. Some were still staring stonily at him, which meant they were likely lost causes. So be it. Lenny had learned long ago that not every Hero wanted to play the game, and he didn’t want those types as clients anyway.

  The ones too stubborn to realize how the world really worked often didn’t survive the pressure society laid upon those muscular shoulders. Lenny had no need for future burn-outs. He was only concerned with clients that had a future.

  224.

  “Since you were all so patient to listen to my spiel, I think it’s time I took some of your questions. Bear in mind that I won’t talk about my clients, for the exact reason you’d want me to stay silent if you were one. Discretion is the agent’s native tongue.”

  Lenny glanced around the room once, then pointed to a girl with pink streaks in her hair.

  “I wanted to know how you chose your clients,” Sasha said, lowering the hand she’d raised. “Since you’re apparently so good and all, what stands out to a top agent as someone they’ll work with?”

  “We’ve all got our little things we look for,” Lenny replied. “I’d say the majority of really good agents trust their guts more than anything else. Our number one goal is to pick someone who can make it for the long haul. We don’t want the ones who will burn out, or quit, or, heaven forbid, pass on, before they’ve had enough time to build a proper reputation. Me, I can usually tell if I think someone has what it takes after a five minute conversation and a good handshake. Others have their own methods, but one thing I’ll tell you upfront: we all like Heroes who sign on early. There’s going to be a session in your senior year where a bunch of agents come schmooze with you—in fact, that’s part of what I’m here to do, I just came a day early to talk. Anyway, signing on then shows that you see the value they offer, and lets you build a relationship early.”

  This time, Lenny pointed to a young man, one with a goatee that needed professional trimming before Lenny would ever let him in front of a camera.

  “What do you charge?” Rich asked.

  “Fifteen percent is the agent standard, and I stick to it,” Lenny replied. “Some feel that, because they’ve been in the game a while or have a big reputation, they deserve more, and I think that’s pure bullshit. A great agent makes his money by getting you so big that fifteen percent is plenty. Oh, and that’s only off extraneous income. The base pay from the government is all yours; no reputable agent will ever try to touch that. Let’s see, next question from you, the tall gal.”

  “You mentioned booking appearances earlier. How much of a Hero’s time is dedicated to that sort of thing? It feels like it would take away from time we should spend helping people,” Alice asked.

  “That’s a fair concern, but a misplaced one. Heroes are, by their definition, a reactionary force. When shit goes down, you spring into action. Shit isn’t always going down, though. Sometimes, people don’t try dumb shit, and you find yourself with nothing to do. That’s when Heroes will often find themselves filling the time by doing things like interviews or booking appearances. As to the idea that you should spend the time helping people, giving talks to students still finding their way in life or visiting Hero-loving kids in the hospital can make a big difference to them. It’s not as glamorous, but it’s an important part of what Heroes do.”

  Lenny looked around, noticing that the selection of hands was getting slimmer to choose from. Rather than flop about waiting for them to think of more things, he decided to cut it off while there was still demand. “Sorry to say, but this will be the last question I’m able to answer. Your dean wasn’t lying about how busy I am.” Lenny pointed to a short young lady with pale blonde hair.

  “I was just wondering what the biggest piece of advice you give your clients is?” Camille asked. “Like, if there was one thing that you wished every Hero would do to make life easier for you and them.”

  “Truthfully, it’s the oldest gem in the book,” Lenny replied. “Be yourself. I can work with just about anything. Anti-social can be spun as lovably shy, fearful can be prudently cautious, cursing and drunk can be burdened by the demands of the job. The one thing I can’t do is help when someone tries to be something they’re not, something they think the public wants, and the shell finally cracks. Nobody can fake it forever; sooner or later, the truth comes out. Something to keep in mind when you craft your Hero persona: base it on a part of you, a part that connects to the core of your being.”

  Lenny avoided meeting Roy’s gaze as he spoke. There was no point to it. They were both keenly aware of the object lesson they’d lived through that proved the point so well.

  “Lies have a cost, and it’s cumulative every time you pay it, until one day, you wake up and realize that, even if you want to pony up again, you’re fresh out of the willpower to do it with.”

  * * *

  “How bad?” Globe was calm, which honestly scared Joan more than if he’d been fuming or stomping about. Those were appropriate emotions for the situation. The way he radiated calm, though . . . it made her wonder just how deep the fury he had to be feeling ran.

  “Bad. This Evers kid has reached out to the Sons of Progress, and they’ve been itching for a demonstration of force since the last time one of their rallies got broken up. I don’t know how many he’s managed to get together yet, but from the buzz I’ve been hearing . . .” Joan let the words fall away. She couldn’t think of how to possibly end that sort of statement, so she just decided not to.

  “I had to deal with more than a few of their members back when I was active,” Globe said. “I know they hate Heroes, they see us as a tool used to repress other Supers, but they were also scattered and unorganized.”

  “A lot has changed since you were a Hero,” Joan replied. “Now, they’re responsible for bombings, Hero ambushes, they’ve even sunk so low as to attack HCP kids, when they can find out their identity. The Heroes keep bringing them in, but there always seem to be more.”

  “And now a horde of them are amassing in close proximity to Lander.” He was still calm, though Joan noticed his left hand tighten just a touch. She’d never seen what lurked under the leather glove and cloak sleeve; Joan had merely caught on that it was the more expressive of his two hands.

  “That’s the thing though, they’re not gathering. Not yet. There’s definitely a job, but no one has been given a date. They just get told to wait until the call comes, and then they show up ready to rock. The only reason I know it’s connected to Lander at all is because I was able to trace the offers back to Nathaniel Evers.”

  “I see.” Globe stood from the old recliner where he’d been resting, then offered his hand to help Joan up as well. “Thank you for your diligence in this. I know you must be frustrated to have been unable to flush out exactly what is being planned, but you’ve given us so much more warning than I could have ever hoped for.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “The only thing we can, unfortunately. Keep watch, hope for the best, and continue trying to cut this miscreant’s legs out from under him before things escalate.”

  * * *

  “Let’s all thank Mr. Nicolo once more for taking the time to come and
speak to us,” Dean Blaine said, beginning the round of polite clapping as Lenny retreated from the front of the room. “I’m sure most of you are now expecting to go into a shortened gym class, but there is something I must bring to your attention first: as you’ve all known for some time, your final exams are just around the corner. Most of you have also noticed that they are scheduled earlier than either of your previous year’s tests, and that is with good reason.”

  Dean Blaine paused for a moment, enjoying the looks of wild speculation in some eyes and weary acceptance in others. Everyone loved the event as freshmen, but by the time their junior year rolled around, they often cursed the tradition for being established.

  “The need for your early exams is due to two facts: for one thing, each class’s tests are very time consuming for your professors, and therefore, cannot be held simultaneously. As for why the junior class gets the earliest spot, well, that is because you will need the extra time after their completion to set up our yearly Freshman Carnival.”

  To their credit, the students didn’t let out a series of groans. At least, not with their mouths. If eyes could be heard, though, then Dean Blaine would have been drowning in a sea of moans so great it would have sounded like a zombie invasion.

  “Yes, the bulk of the work falls upon you lot to handle. We’ll be offering a bit more guidance than usual, since your class was excused from working on the carnival last year, but rest assured that this is a project you are responsible for, and it is just as important as any other HCP task you’re given. I urge you to remember what it was like being in those freshmen’s shoes, scared and uncertain of what lay ahead. Remember how much the carnival lifted your spirits and made Lander feel like a home. You incurred a debt that day, and the time has come to pay up. Now, please report to your professors, so they can assign tasks and committees for all the work that needs to be done.”