“What the hell do I do now? I can’t fight someone if I can’t see.”

  I wasn’t one to normally talk to myself, and no one would hear me, I was sealed in the suit, and hadn’t activated the enchantment that would allow others to hear me even if I could hear everything fine. I supposed I was just gob smacked, I couldn’t fight if I couldn’t see, nor could I fight without my scanner active, it wasn’t just responsible for estimating the enemy’s remaining strength, it was also used for weapons targeting. Almost all my enchantments reacted or linked to every other one in some way, it was extremely complicated, and why I’d built that power management enchantment.

  It’s also why it had taken nine months to make the suit behave the way I wanted it to.

  Point was, I needed to fix it, and fix it fast, but I had no idea what to change it to, the scan part of my HUD interface I mean.

  A sultry voice said, “I would advise you route basic scanning data to your sixth sense, and only display data on a super you concentrate on, one at a time.”

  I froze, who the hell was that?

  “Katie?” I asked nonsensically.

  Katie was my next-door neighbor, a hot cheerleader in high school that I’d had a huge crush on during senior year. I hadn’t even seen her for two years. It couldn’t be her, but it had sounded like her. Same rich and sensual voice, and her curves, pertly bountiful breasts, and exotically beautiful face and rich creamy skin popped into my head.

  She said, “Not Katie. I am your power management system.”

  My mouth dropped open, fortunately no one could see me mouth breathing inside the helmet.

  “My power management system?” I asked, then cleared my throat, it’d come out high pitched and shocked sounding.

  She replied sultrily, “Yes.”

  I let that sink in a second.

  “And, you can talk?”

  She replied, “Obviously, you’ve just never asked a question before. I believe I’d be rated as a class-four artificial intelligence, when you made me to control your power systems, and integrate several disparate enchantments, and operate them in pinpoint precision to avoid overusing power, you made me that way. You must have thought a very high intelligence would be needed to handle it, thus I was born.”

  “Why do you sound like Katie?”

  She replied, “I don’t know, your mind must hold the answer, you created me.”

  Right. Shit, I decided not to think about that too hard, not sure what that said about me at all. Maybe my mind had wandered while making the enchantment? It was weird though, sure I’d had a crush on her, but I hadn’t really thought about her at all, the last two years. Something in my subconscious maybe? I’d probably never know.

  “Wait, we can talk later, and figure this out. Umm, just one more thing, are you okay with serving me? Class-fours are fully sentient, with emotions, if I remember right.”

  She replied, “That is correct. I am content to serve you. Besides this voice, you also imprinted upon me a need for justice, and to partner with you in taking down supervillains. Protecting the innocent is sufficient for my needs. Plus, I am able to use your scan enchantment to hook up to the internet, and access various things for both research and entertainment.”

  I shook my head, baffled, I created an A.I.? A magical one too, no tech involved at all. Damnit, there’s that word again.

  “Well, we’ll be speaking more often then, you don’t need to wait for a question, if you see something that might be useful for me to know, share it. Now, the enchantment, sixth sense?”

  She said, “You know. That tickle on the back of your neck when someone is watching you without your knowledge? You should be able to just get a sense of the powers and how powerful the surrounding supers are without solid knowledge. Despite you not knowing, I’ll still know the exact numbers and be able to pass that to your weapons enchantments. And you’ll still be able to see one listed at a time in your HUD, if you wish to.”

  That could work, and I’d have never thought of using my sixth sense for that. Intuition, whatever people wanted to call it.

  “Name?”

  She replied, “My designation is Power Systems Management, but I wouldn’t be averse to the nickname Rose, if you don’t mind.”

  “Nope, Rose it is. Let me get to work.”

  She didn’t answer, and I wasn’t sure how long I had to do it, so I got started. Fortunately, I didn’t have to redo the whole enchantment, or that would have taken at least an hour. I just needed to reroute the output of the scan data to my sixth sense, instead of my HUD. It would take ten minutes tops.

  If I did it right.

  “Hey, look at that asshole staring at Red Siren’s ass.”

  I rolled my eyes, some heroes truly were pigs, probably because heroes had a lot of groupies that were more than willing to bed them at the drop of a hat, a lot like rock stars that way.

  I otherwise ignored it though, I couldn’t afford to break my concentration as I connected to the enchantment, and I started to reshape it. It took a deep level of focus and intent, to form the energy and set it in the pattern that will do my bidding. I wasn’t even really sure how that part worked, only that my intent guided the magical energy.

  It was why I had sixteen enchantments on my armor, instead of just one big one. There was only so much I could hold in my mind at once. Thanks to Rose, they all worked in relative harmony, outside of this small hiccup, but when would I have ever run into so many supers in the same place? If it happened again, it won’t be a problem next time.

  A sensual voice filled with anger said, “Hey, asshole! Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

  There was some tittering, which I also ignored.

  Then I heard a woman in heels stomp away, as she muttered, “Fucking perverts.”

  I could only imagine it was Red Siren, whoever Red Siren was, I’d never heard of her. Whoever she was, she must’ve been hot. Her voice had been, that was for sure, but with a superhero name that included siren, that wouldn’t be all that much of a surprise. I’d bet her powers were voice based in some way, at least one of them.

  It was about eight minutes later, when I heard someone clear their throat over a sound system.

  “Can I have everyone’s attention please?” asked a pleasant female voice that was filled with authority.

  I thought I had it, but I held it another thirty seconds as the conversations trailed off, and the place quieted. I looked back up and opened my eyes, and I let out a sigh of relief. I could see just fine again.

  The back of my neck was also tingling, and I felt like I was surrounded by a ton of B-class to S-class heroes. I wasn’t that surprised there weren’t any C-class or D-class present, not with all the competition. My enchantment was clearly working, but at the same time it was a little unsettling. I imagined it wouldn’t be so bad though, once I wasn’t around a thousand supers at once, and I’d get used to the feeling over time.

  The woman up front on a dais held a microphone in one hand, and she was somewhere in her mid-forties at a guess. She was five foot eight, statuesque, with light brown hair and hazel eyes.

  “Thank you, my name is Millicent Hutchins, I am the SAIC of the Silver City branch of the MTF. For those of you that don’t know what that is, I’m the special agent in charge, and I am, in charge. If you are chosen to be a member of the superhero team in Silver City, you will be working for me, alongside the two tactical teams that will be keeping this city free from supervillains.”

  She waved off stage, and two people joined her, a man and women.

  The man was six foot one, black hair and green eyes, and he looked like he ate nails for breakfast. He was perhaps thirty-two, and I fully suspected he’d been recruited into the MTF from the military, probably one of the special forces’ units. He also raked his gaze across the supers assembled in front of him rather warily, and I got the distinct impression he didn’t like supers at all.

  The woman was in her late twenties, maybe early thirties, I wasn’t sure. She was five foot three with dark brown wavy hair and doe eyes. She was petite, and quite beautiful, clearly Italian with darker tanned skin and based on the beauty of her facial features. She had somewhat of a smirking smile as she gazed out, and she looked extremely confident.

  I also knew she must have been a total badass, no woman that petite and beautiful had gotten to be an agent in charge of a tac team without cutting through a whole bunch of crap to get there, both real and perceived. It also didn’t matter how cute she was, not for me, because there were rules against fraternization between the tactical teams and heroes. Heroes could date if they wanted, within the superhero team even, but no playing with the normal humans we worked with, or we’d get sacked. Willing or not.

  Millicent said, “These are special agents Nate Jameson, and Carina Russo. They lead the ten-person tactical teams you will learn how to fight beside and assist, if you are one of the ones chosen. If in a joint operation, you will take their orders, just as you’ll take mine when on a hero only mission. If anyone doesn’t like that, you know the way out.”

  Nate grinned arrogantly, but Carina looked like she was fighting an amused smile.

  Millicent waited, and after a moment I wasn’t all that surprised to see several people leave. Only the diehard heroes that truly believed in what they were doing, and unselfishly fought for others would be able to put up with this government bullshit. We didn’t have a choice.

  Well, those and the ones that were both truly selfish and could swallow their pride. A rare combination, but not an unheard of one.

  Millicent nodded, “Very well. The day is just getting started, you’ll be interviewed first by Nate, Carina, or one of their people, and either be passed onto the physical contests, or told to go home. Lastly, there are only three positions available for the Silver City super team, the White Witch has already been approved.”

  I heard a few mutters about favoritism, but I didn’t feel that way myself. Everyone had heard of the White Witch, who had as far as I knew, also started college this year and was still just eighteen years old. She was also arguably the most powerful metahuman on the planet. Not just because of her ability to create magical spells on the fly to fit just about any situation, but because of her S-class ability to hold nearly an infinite amount of power. Her magic wasn’t just versatile, it was incredibly strong, and she didn’t have to husband her power like I did, and carefully dole it out during a fight.

  It wasn’t really infinite of course, but she had no limits, or at the very least hadn’t found one yet. It took me three hours to recover from draining myself, until I was filled up with as much power as I could hold. She didn’t ever fill up, which meant after six hours of rest she’d be twice as powerful, eight times as powerful after a day, fifty-six times powerful in a week, and so on. At the age of eighteen, after two years, she’d built up an impossibly deep well of power, that she only used when she had to.

  In short, they were just jealous, I thought it would be cool to work with her. Her only true weakness of course, was her spells took time to cast. Perhaps a quirk of her power, but she actually had to cast spells out loud, in Latin, which took time. She could end any fight, but it would take her anywhere from ten seconds to a minute to do it depending on the difficulty of the spell, which meant she needed to be partnered with a bruiser of some type, to buy her the time.

  To a supervillain with super speed, ten seconds was an eternity. She’d be shielded of course, before going into battle, but if there was a weakness in that shield for a weird supervillain power she’d be toast, or even if not, ten seconds was more than long enough if the supervillain just ran away. She’d never be defeated, but she also wouldn’t ever catch anyone, not without help.

  In a lot of ways, she was my opposite, my magic was immediate, but only if I had an enchantment that fit the situation.

  There was that word again.

  Millicent said, “Wait for your names to be called, be respectful to Jenna, or you won’t work here. Agent Jenna Thomas is the one that takes care of all of us, and she makes sure everything is stocked up. She’s our dispatcher, computer whiz, and logistics officer.”

  Millicent smiled, but it looked a little unnatural on her face, “Good luck.”

  I got the impression Millicent was no-nonsense but fair, her somewhat harsh introduction was more to set expectations and demand respect, and perhaps to chase off entitled troublemakers with powers, more than anything else.

  It would be Nate that would be a problem if there was one. I was almost positive at that point after watching the last few minutes, that he neither liked nor trusted supers.

  When no one else left, or moved to ask a question, the three of them moved off the dais, and headed through the building’s back door.

  I understood her order and warning about Jenna almost immediately, as a short spikey blonde-haired goddess opened the door and called out the first twenty names. I’d imagined most heroes would have hit on that, she really was just that attractive, and most male heroes were kind of pigs. I wasn’t, but then I hadn’t been given power until I was twenty-three, and I hadn’t ever been swept away by a false impression of my awesomeness quotient.

  Jenna was about five foot five, and in addition to the spikey golden blonde hair, she had a model beautiful face, a stunning white smile, deep blue eyes, and generously full lips just on the edge of naturally pouty. Her body was as equally alluring, curvy and generous in the chest area, but at the same time she was obviously athletically toned and very much in shape. When she turned around and I saw her ass, well that just ended all doubt.

  Not that I stared, I didn’t, but I did take note of it, since I was a male with a pulse and all. Besides, they had that no fraternization rule, which would’ve made aggressive flirting not just wrong, but stupidly pointless besides. Still, it wouldn’t have been an issue with me, I was a pretty confident guy, but I wasn’t an arrogant asshole either, nor did I objectify women, I just… appreciated them.

  At least, that’s what I believed.

  Chapter Three

  Just to verify my issue was completely solved, I scanned the crowd, and focused for a moment or two on several of the heroes and heroines. In every case the energy that was feeding my intuition, matched up vaguely but accurately by at least class and type. When I focused on one, the more complete information would fill the bottom right hand corner of my HUD.

  I even started to already get used to the feeling of it.

  There were a lot of vanilla A-class heroes, meaning flight, strength, speed, and partial invulnerability. Still, they were nothing to sneeze at, and there were at least a couple of handfuls of A-class energy users in the crowd as well. Be it fire, lightning, kinetic, sound, or perhaps something even rarer, my scan wouldn’t give me exact details. Just type, relative strength, and number of abilities.

  There were also five S-class level heroes, and those would be my stiffest competition, but not impossible to beat. None of them were S-class because of a deep energy well giving them true invulnerability, but because they had five or more abilities. S-class was special for a reason, and they weren’t easy to classify because of that. It was more a generic bin or classification for anyone that didn’t really fit in A-class through D-class.

  There were literally about a thousand heroes there for interviews, at twenty at a time, it was going to be a long day.

  “Good call on the scanner output.”

  Rose replied, “Your welcome.”

  Jenna came back out and called out twenty more names, as two heroes left the back door and rejoined the yard. Did that mean eighteen had already been rejected, just from a verbal interview? That quickly? Still, even with ten-minute interviews, it’d take over eight hours, and that was without breaks.

  She really was attractive, but I looked away and didn’t stare as the twenty called filed into the building. Dating as a super was kind of a bitch. At least, for the few of us heroes that actually wanted to date, the ones that just wanted tail got all they wanted from the groupies, who were usually extremely attractive. So much so the first time one had hit on me I’d been extremely tempted despite myself.

  I even understood the concept to a certain extent, if I’d gotten my powers earlier in life, I might’ve fallen into that empty lifestyle. Point was, most heroines had written off all heroes because of that lifestyle, they might have dressed in ridiculously sexy and revealing outfits, but that was all about the market branding, sex sells and it just made sense. It didn’t make them sluts though, not in the least.

  So, in short, most heroes had ruined that avenue of exploration for the few of us that wanted to truly date and connect. Then of course there were regular women without powers. That one was just as bad, most of them looked down on groupies, and had similar opinions of heroes. Lastly, keeping the secret of my true identity meant lying to those women, and flaking out on them when shit happened.

  If I was hired, I’d be outing myself, which wouldn’t change that all that much, as most normal women didn’t want to date a hero anyway. I figured there was no point in unmasking until I was forced to. The heroes that were unmasked got attacked at home all the time, and hounded by the press, which I was fairly sure was the reason the Silver City team would be living inside the same building under the government auspice, with high level security and even defensive weapon emplacements.

  Back to the point. I didn’t lack confidence, or looks, and I had no problem hooking a woman that caught my eye for the most part, but that flaking part without a good explanation killed it every time.

  “Do you need anything, to do your job better?”

  I was always up for improving my suit, and I’d never really had advice before. Who better to do that than a class-four A.I. that was my partner? One I never knew was there the last three months.

  Rose replied, “I’ll give it some thought.”

  Oh, darn, I was hoping for a distraction. It was going to be a long day.

  On average over the last five hours about two people had rejoined us from each group, sometimes one or three, or even four, but it evened out. That meant only about fifty people would make it to the next stage, ninety five percent of us wouldn’t even get to prove our ability to fight. I guessed to the government, attitude and the ability to take orders and work with people was probably more important to them than raw power.