They all looked disgusted.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Tina snorted and stood up, giving me a you should know look, and stormed out without a word.

  Carol spoke to me for the first time, and she had an icy cold voice that I suspected wasn’t her normal tone of voice at all. In fact, she’d sounded rather shy and sweet when she’d asked Jenna a question during the tour.

  “Don’t speak to me, don’t look at me.”

  Then she stood up and left.

  I raised an eyebrow in question at Alyssa, and I was actually feeling a little annoyed. Sure, I’d expected a little stand-offish behavior in the beginning from the ladies on the team, but not outright disgusted contempt. I hadn’t hit on anyone, and outside of my brain freeze moment with Alyssa yesterday I hadn’t even stared at anyone inappropriately long.

  Alyssa shook her head and looked at me in disbelief, as if trying to figure out who I was, the person she’d met yesterday, or whatever the others had told her. I don’t know, but she didn’t answer me, she just got up and marched out.

  Well, fuck. What was going on?

  There was still about fifteen minutes before the meeting, and I managed to finish about half my coffee when I felt a looming presence behind me. I turned around to see Nate, and he looked pissed off. Although, I’m not sure if he was mad at me, or if that was just his resting face when dealing with a dirty meta-human so to speak.

  It made me wonder why he was even here, unless he felt some twisted honor to keep an eye on the supers. There weren’t many super haters out there, but there were some, and most of them were in the government. I suspected it was because they couldn’t truly control us, not without our help.

  “Come with me, now.”

  I nodded, took one more sip as I stood up, rinsed out the mug, and put it in the large plastic tray for the professional grade dishwasher in the corner. He didn’t look pleased at the delay, but he could hardly yell at me for being tidy about the kitchen. I was pretty sure we weren’t going to get a bus boy and chef.

  I followed him down the stairs without a word, and into one of the offices where Millicent waited with a frown on her face.

  She said coldly, “Sit.”

  I sat, suddenly nervous again.

  She said, “One of the women accused you of sexual harassment, I need to take that seriously, and being it’s your first hour in my employ I’m tempted to just boot you out of here right now. But, it happened yesterday, before you were both under my employ, and there was no physical assault or aspect to it. However, I am not pleased, and I can’t have my hero team at each other’s throats.”

  I shook my head, “I’m confused. I did no such thing.”

  Nate snorted in disbelief.

  She narrowed her eyes, “So, you didn’t…” she trailed off and held up a hand to command silence, as she opened a draw. She pulled out and tossed the lie detector bracelet at me.

  I was pissed by then, angry as hell, but I put it on.

  She asked in cold disbelief, “You didn’t stare at Red Siren’s ass for ten minutes straight yesterday morning, even after people told you to stop and made lewd comments. She told me she had to walk away it was so humiliating.”

  My brain froze in confusion, for about two seconds, and then I barked a nervous laugh of relief as the truth occurred to me.

  She didn’t look happy about that at all, maybe she thought I was laughing at harassment, which would be bad.

  I held up my hands, “No, that’s not what happened. It was a… misunderstanding. I swear to you, with this bracelet on, that I never laid eyes on Red Siren, or any part of her, before her match late last night with the lightning energy wielder.”

  The bracelet obviously agreed with me, and it was Millicent’s turn to look confused.

  I explained what happened, that I’d never been near a thousand hero’s at once before, and my scanning system had me blinded with too much information listed and overlapping on my HUD. I also blushed, I’d remembered thinking that the guy must be a total asshole at the time, little had I known that asshole was me.

  It explained a lot, especially Tina’s contempt, anger, and hatred toward me.

  Nate snorted, “Your own suit made you blind?”

  I nodded, “A failure of imagination perhaps. Regardless, its fixed now, obviously, or I’d have been mostly blind in my fight last night. It takes a lot of focus and concentration to enchant something, I suppose my half-bowed head in concentration was facing the worst possible direction.”

  “Mostly?” Millicent asked.

  I nodded, “Sure, there’s a big difference between a thousand, and the fifty that were left when the fights started. Look, I know male heroes have that reputation, but I’ve never been less than respectful to women. An outrageously defensive statement perhaps that would normally throw up flags, but I feel safe enough saying it with this lie detector on. I got my power at twenty-three, I’ve never had a self-destructive or full of myself phase.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but then she nodded in agreement, “Very well. Nate, go get the ladies and I’ll try to straighten this out,” she looked back at me, “You go with him, and wait for us all in the conference room, as soon as we get back we’ll start our meeting. Which is now late.”

  That wasn’t my fault, but the formidable no-nonsense woman still managed to make me feel guilty. It was more than apparent she didn’t like her schedule messed with. Much less with this kind of drama that could lead to a black eye in the press, and possibly litigation.

  I was also still a little pissed, but at the same time I got it. That didn’t make it right, but I got it. Thank god for the truth bracelet, or she’d have just had to take Red Siren’s word against mine, especially with corroborating accounts available. There was no doubt there was sexual harassment at least in appearance, if not in truth, and perception mattered more than reality.

  In short, I was lucky I still had a job.

  I slipped off the truth bracelet, and handed it back to her, and then I followed Nate to the large command center back on the second floor.

  They all glared at me on the way out, including Carina, and I sincerely hoped that was the last time they would.

  Somehow, I didn’t think I was that lucky. It wouldn’t be easy to fix that first impression, even if she believed that it was all a mistake, a misunderstanding, I doubted that Tina would suddenly become my best friend. At best, Alyssa and Carina would go back to neutral, and the other two would just avoid me whenever possible.

  Yay team.

  It wasn’t all bad of course, I was confident things would shift, eventually. But it would take time, longer than I’d hoped perhaps, but it would happen. Plus, damnit, I was a hero, and I wouldn’t have to quit hero work. That fact alone was worth all the drama to me, even if I wasn’t in the greatest mood myself in that moment.

  Chapter Six

  As I suspected, Tina and Carol completely ignored me when they came back in the room. Carina and Alyssa on the other hand, both threw me an apologetic look, the former with a saucy wink, and the latter with a blush and helpless shrug. It was the moment I realized beneath the awesome power of White Witch, strongest Meta on the planet or not, she was still just an eighteen-year-old woman with the normal attending self-doubts, need to prove herself, and other foibles. I returned her tentative smile, which made her relax slightly, and I also gave Carina a return nod.

  Nate… looked pissed, it just had to be his resting face.

  Our boss, Millicent, looked no-nonsense and as if she was at the end of her patience.

  She said, “Very well, now that we’re all here, and things have been cleared up we can get started. Expectations are as follows. The four of you on our hero team will be patrolling the city five times a week in teams of two, with no set hours. You will also be on-call twenty-four seven, in case the other pair needs assistance, or if the TAC team you’re assigned to work with gets in trouble. Of course, if it really hits the fan, we’ll deploy everyone in support.

  “The press. Don’t speak to them at all about the new job, or what we do here. Not until you meet with the press liaison, Dane Andrews, who should be here in a couple of days. He’ll give you the guidelines, and he may ask you to do an interview. The only other staff you haven’t met is Doctor Angelina Dare, who will take care of the TAC team injuries, she’ll also be here in a couple of days, or sooner if there’s a medical emergency.

  “The building is ours to maintain to a certain extent. You’ll be expected to keep your apartments relatively clean, and also to clean up after yourself in the kitchen. I hope, that I won’t have to reiterate that in the future, you’re all adults. We will have a cleaning crew in once a week, to dust, vacuum, sweep, and buff the hard floor on the first, and all that good stuff. Take care of the apartment, and your kitchen messes, and we won’t speak of it again. Enough said about that.”

  I wasn’t all that worried about that, or at least, only the kitchen part. I had enchantments to clean the apartment, keep my laundry clean, and all that stuff. About the only thing I had to do manually was put stuff away, the enchantments wouldn’t pick up clothes off the floor for instance. I had a lot of those type things, little things to make life convenient, even a normal pitcher that was enchanted to purify tap water, and a lamp that responded to voice commands, among other things.

  She continued, “Work out, spar, and train at your own discretion, I won’t be keeping track of attendance, but keep in mind there’s a lot of out of work heroes out there. If you lose your edge, and our efficiency drops, we won’t have a use for you. I don’t want to start off on an oppressive tone, but I also want to keep everyone in here as our team, better everyone understands the reality of it. No one is irreplaceable, least of all me.

  “Okay, on to the good stuff. The four of you are a team, and will need to practice fighting together, but for patrols you’ll be split into smaller teams that should be able to take out most threats. Alyssa, you’ll be partners with Daniel, and you’re to support Nate and his TAC team, you’re his primary backup if they get in trouble.”

  Oh great, I was as equally thrilled about partnering with Alyssa as I was disappointed that I got stuck with Nate. Still, it was the job, and a lot of people didn’t like their boss, I just wished mine wasn’t prejudiced against supers.

  She continued, “Tina, you and Carol will also be partners, and backup for Carina’s TAC team. Those assignments are soft, and they may change in the future. The support for TAC teams also isn’t written in stone, if Tina and Carol are patrolling, and Nate’s team gets in trouble, you’re already out there. The assignments are mostly for training purposes and so the work is split as evenly as possible.

  “Most training is optional, but since none of you have worked with a TAC team before, there will be some mandatory sessions with your TAC team leaders over the next couple of weeks, so you won’t get in each other’s way. I also split the teams this way because both Tina and Alyssa are from here and very familiar with Silver City, while it will take time for Carol and Daniel to get accustomed to navigating a new city.”

  She looked around, “Any questions?”

  She nodded, as there weren’t any. I might have some once we settled in, if I noticed a lack or was confused about something, but in that moment, I didn’t know enough to know what I didn’t know.

  She said, “Great, last but not least, the team name. We’re going with Silver Seraphs, a good name for the protectors of Silver City.”

  Some marketing genius had probably come up with that, but I had to admit it wasn’t bad for a team name. I’d heard of worse.

  She stood up, “Your TAC leaders have more for you, after that you can do what you want, train, work out, go on a patrol. As long as you log five patrols a week, to give our citizens that warm and fuzzy feeling of being safe, I’ll be happy.”

  We all nodded, and Alyssa and I turned to Nate, who still looked pissed. Really, had to be his resting face, maybe he wasn’t even mad?

  Nate grunted, “Get up, follow me.”

  Come, stay, sit, beg. Damn, he was really going to annoy the shit out of me. I took a deep breath, and I exchanged a tentative smile with Alyssa as we got up and followed Nate to our doom. Or you know, elsewhere in the building.

  Alyssa smelled like cinnamon, and apples. It was a pleasant scent, and she was an attractive woman. I’d never had a super partner before, nor had I been in a team. I started to worry about if I was walking too close, or too far, and how hard it would be to ride the line between friendly professionalism and crossing the line into harassment territory. I wanted to be her friend, but at the same time she was a professional colleague, and I had no idea where to draw the lines there.

  That bothered me about halfway down the hallway, and then I just pushed it all away, and decided to just be myself. Fuck it, the last thing I wanted to do was worry about all that bullshit, I wasn’t an asshole, and I wasn’t pushy. That should be good enough.

  Alyssa asked, “Daniel? What’s your hero name? I figure we should stick to those when in uniform, and first names when out of uniform, that work for you?”

  Her voice was pleasant, and just short of confident with just a tinge of worry in it. Not as alluring as Red Siren’s, but definitely dulcetly pleasing to the ear. It also told me she had all the same worries I’d just gone through and rejected in my head, she’d been a solo heroine until that moment too, and she was six years younger than I was.

  “Adamantine, means unbreakable.”

  Nate snorted out in front of us, and Alyssa grinned and rolled her eyes, which made me feel a bit better at the asshole’s mocking. It wasn’t like I’d named myself or was as arrogant as the name implied. I was named by the press, like most heroes.

  I added, “And that sounds perfect, Alyssa. I was thinking that same thing earlier, even with our cover blown it makes sense to keep our names and hero-names separate, by street clothes or super suit.”

  She said, “Sorry about earlier.”

  I shook my head, “Don’t mention it, she didn’t lie after all. At least, it appeared that way to her, I can understand that, even if I was blind in the moment and couldn’t see a damned thing.”

  She nodded, “Forgotten, and thank you.”

  We shared a friendly and somewhat awkward smile. It wasn’t a lack of confidence, not really, I think we just didn’t want to step on each other’s toes. First job on the first day with our first partner jitters. Plus, Nate’s looming and forbidding presence, and the fact we had to follow his orders, a man who obviously hated supers. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that?

  Turned out he took us to the armory.

  Nate asked, “Priorities in a fight?”

  I replied, “Bystander safety, my partner’s safety, minimal property damage, and take down the villain is last even if the primary goal. I suppose if we were supporting you and the TAC team, that would be second, along with our partner.”

  Nate grunted in reluctant approval.

  Alyssa said, “I agree, but I also think if the TAC team is involved, you should move to a defensive tactic that keeps any bystanders safe.”

  Nate looked disgusted by the idea, but at the same time he nodded in agreement. That’s why we were even there, to take on the supervillains they couldn’t. He just obviously hated the idea of needing us at all. Hopefully, he was professional enough to put his teams lives before that bigotry, or he might wait too long to call us in.

  He waved, and then picked up a rifle.

  “These MFWs can fire both plasma and kinetic rounds. Our armor can take some abuse, but not nearly as much as a super with partial invulnerability. We also have the cuffs, and other useful devices. The biggest challenge the TAC team faces is speed. Some supers move so fast we can barely track them, much less have time to aim and fire. My point?”

  I considered that, “If we can pin a supervillain down, you guys can take him down fast. I just hope you’re all good shots.”

  He chuckled a bit evilly, then said, “Only the best shots are recruited, so you could say that.”

  Yeah, that was almost comforting, while being terrifying at the same time. The idea of holding someone still, while ten men shot plasma at them, just sounded like a bad idea to me. Maybe I’d be able to work up a stasis enchantment of some kind. It was too power intensive of a thing, to hold a super who wasn’t drained of energy for very long, but a powerful yet short spell might work. Have them freeze in place for five seconds or something, so the TAC team can open up.

  I’d look into it.

  Alyssa stole my idea, not that it wasn’t an obvious one.

  “I can come up with a spell to hold a super, even if they’re at full power, for a short time. Maybe five or ten seconds? That sounds a lot safer to me, than him using a supervillain as a shield.”

  He barked a laugh, “That would work well.”

  He shrugged, “Normally it won’t be an issue, unless we run into a villain that hasn’t been put in the system yet, we should know if we can take the target or not when the call comes in. There’s been a lot of work done that way, since the pilot program started last year in Lonestar.”

  He probably wasn’t wrong, a super powerful enough to take down a whole TAC team wouldn’t be that common, and that was the whole point of the new system. Outside of our five patrols a week, on call or not it shouldn’t be all that busy.

  Well, the whole public point they’d fed the press, the true point was to put supers under government control, we were their employees and under their orders, or we were bystanders, or we were lawbreakers, no independent heroes allowed.

  He said, “Do what you want for the rest of the day, although it wouldn’t hurt to do a patrol. I’ll work up some training for tomorrow with my team, which will mostly be about not getting in each other’s way.”

  We nodded, and then we narrowly escaped… I mean, we left the room.