Chapter 16
"I'm so glad so many of you decided to take part in our program." Unable to contain herself — the emotions were clearly too much for a single chair — Blond Blazer stood and began moving around the room, stopping to meet the eyes of each attentive criminal in turn. "From this day forward, you are all members of the same team. Team Z!"
She beamed. For just a moment I could have sworn the sunlight through the window got a fraction brighter, as if greeting its favorite daughter. Against our particular backdrop, Blond Blazer looked like a genuine, proper superhero, and honestly I didn't even mind admitting it.
Because the assembled company she was trying to inspire was something else entirely.
Let me give you the rundown — if I understood correctly, these were the people I'd be working alongside for the next several months, or more likely years. Yes. These bloodstained, extensively criminal individuals.
"Let me go over the key points now." While our radiant blonde circled the group like a very attentive hen, I took a closer look at Team Z.
To my left, Sonar had already reclined and was sleeping with his mouth threatening to fall open. Beside him, Malevola was examining the nails of her left hand.
Across from me, at the far end of the table, sat Colm. The compact little bruiser was exactly as I remembered from our last encounter, except for a pair of new leather suspenders replacing the old ones, and a mustache that had grown thicker and considerably more maintained.
Next to him sat a dark-skinned girl in a form-fitting costume with wings folded behind her. Her name was Coupé, and I couldn't entirely work out her powers, though flying seemed to be part of the package. Black latex with silver accents that might have been structural or purely decorative — it was hard to say, but it looked impressive. A fan of daggers extended from behind her back, and a simple eye mask sat across her face. Short hair swept back, and the kind of eyes that said she'd ended people's careers — and possibly their lives — before the age of twenty-five. The moment our gazes crossed, I got a look that made me decide not to look at her again unnecessarily.
Taking up three seats simultaneously, sitting directly on the floor, was the animated pile of mud and debris they called Golem. Nearly three meters tall, wide-shouldered, with a head the approximate size of my chest cavity. He appeared to be made primarily of clay and some variety of similar material, though various objects were visibly embedded in his body — structural components of some kind. He sat quietly and placidly, barely speaking, and attracted less attention than his size would have suggested. He was currently wearing headphones.
Across from Golem was a contrasting pair. First, a white guy with an open collar exposing a generously hairy chest and light stubble. His name was Flambé, and despite working fairly hard at the dangerous-bad-boy aesthetic, he had a surprisingly melodic voice. Orange-and-black superhero costume, arms behind his head, practically spitting at the ceiling — but he was clearly paying attention, because he spoke up whenever questions arose. Interestingly, he asked Blond Blazer's permission before speaking.
To his left was an impressive dark-skinned girl with eye-searing hair. Prizm — apparently some kind of local celebrity, or possibly a content creator. She was on her phone, and a vape sat on the table in front of her, which she consulted periodically. Black latex covering everything below the neck. Bold proportions, full lips, and I was entirely confident the rest of the picture was consistent. She was almost aggressively stereotypical in her aesthetic, as if someone with a very specific mental framework had assembled her image from a checklist.
The Invisible B — I mean, the invisible girl — was sitting closest to the leadership, which was faintly ironic given how the elderly Black aide kept glancing her way. Feet on the table, rocking on her chair, chewing the stick from a lollipop. She'd positioned herself beside Golem, practically leaning against his arm, which was roughly her body's height. She hadn't changed much — the same sharp look, the nose ring, the short dark hair, the clothes designed to show off a flat stomach.
Honestly, the team wasn't terrible on paper. My new friends were raising more questions, if anything — a demoness and a werebat were not the most conventional additions even for this world.
But back to the room.
Everyone was tense. Arms and jaws tight, gazes calculating, the occasional nervous glance at someone else to read their reaction. Everyone except our trio.
That situation was its own kind of disaster, and I don't mean myself.
Sonar had reclined fully and was asleep with his eyes open — which was deeply unsettling. I'd woken up once in the middle of the night in our cell to use the toilet and walked directly into that blank, fixed stare. I can only say that the acoustics in our block were excellent, and my subsequent noise was audible outside the building.
But Sonar was half the problem. Malevola had crossed one spectacular leg over the other and was using her tail to gently push the werebat's chair sideways, millimeter by millimeter. She was making progress.
Other team members had noticed what the demoness was doing, and were tracking it with the quiet anticipation of people who would have described themselves as bad guys. Bad guys who were bored and hoping for chaos.
"—which is why I hope you'll all make the effort." Blond Blazer clapped her hands together and recaptured the room's attention over the muffled grumbling of her older aide. Her smile had tightened slightly, but our energetic manager hadn't lost her optimism. "The SDS will do everything it can to support you, but without your personal investment — well, you understand."
A ragged chorus of agreement answered her, which was precisely the moment Malevola finally succeeded. Sonar slid off his chair with the graceful inevitability of a melting ice sculpture —
"AAAA—!"
— and screamed at full ultrasonic volume on the way down.
Whatever tentative cooperation had been building in the room evaporated. Everyone was busy with their ears. Blond Blazer stood with the expression of a woman recalibrating her expectations. I got a wink from Malevola.
"Are you — are you all right, Sonar?" The blonde approached, genuinely concerned. And I noticed only now, at close range, how much force lived in that frame. Not Malevola's scale exactly, but in the same conversation. Something about the combination of that and her perfume was making the room feel warmer, and my throat drier, and the first drops of moisture were appearing on my back. I was working through this quietly when I registered that Victor had already talked his way out of trouble and the superhero's attention had turned to me. "Waterboy — you look a little off."
"No, I'm — not at all—" I waved both hands in front of my face and compressed my entire lower body into something that could have bent steel, trying not to inhale as she leaned slightly closer. "Just a little nervous—"
"Don't worry, we're all a bit on edge right now." She smiled with genuine warmth and squeezed my shoulder. Gently, by her standards — which still felt like being held in place by reinforced concrete. The words seemed primarily directed at herself. "I'm sure we'll all be fine."
The smile hit me in the face. I was managing. Then Malevola's head appeared over Blond Blazer's shoulder.
The demoness had rolled her chair back slightly. She aimed a pointed look at the superhero's backside, gave an approving nod, and turned to me with two raised eyebrows.
There is no experience in my life that I associate more reliably with cold water than being Herman Herby. I recognized every accompanying sensation immediately.
I don't know where half-demons are taught subtlety. Remedial schools in Hell? Online courses? I can clearly picture a class of fellow stealth masters hiding behind mops in a game of hide-and-seek.
The point being: every other person in the room had also seen Malevola's performance, and was now directing varying quantities of amusement and anticipated mockery in my direction. Even Golem — the enormous pile of construction waste and miscellaneous debris — was wearing an expression that could generously be described as a grin.
The Invisible Girl's smile was of the crocodile variety and made me want to check whether my wallet was still on me. Though that might partially have been the old phobia speaking — a room full of attractive women watching me was its own kind of pressure. Especially one of them in particular.
"That's everything for today — well, from me, heh." Blond Blazer smiled one last slightly awkward smile and waved, already most of the way through the door, then remembered to address her assistants. "I'll leave them with you, Chase, Mitchell."
The moment our lovely manager was gone, one of my future colleagues spoke.
"Waterboy, seriously?" Flambé propped his elbows on the table and tried to press me with a stare. After months of nightly staring contests with an enormous werebat in a prison cell, this registered as mild background noise. He got nothing, gave up, crossed his arms, and delivered his actual question. "Did you walk into the wrong building? Shouldn't you be in some kind of intro class?"
"Go to hell."
"What was that?" The fire arrived instantly — hands, spreading toward the shoulders — and I had to genuinely work to suppress a laugh. The other team members watched with expressions ranging from cautious to entertained. Sonar yawned contagiously and tried to get comfortable again. "I'll burn you down to—"
"Sit DOWN and SHUT UP, the pair of you!" The Black Einstein's fist hit the table. He took the room in with a furious gaze. "I don't give a damn what you do to each other, you idiots. Because I know — sooner or later, you'll mess up, and the prison currently weeping over your pathetic backsides will take you right back. Are we clear?"
Inspiring stuff. He vibrated his dreadlocks and thick mustache at us and licked his dry lips.
"Until that happens, your useless backsides belong to us." He took a breath, apparently energized by his own speech, and shoved the office clerk Blond Blazer had introduced as Mitchell toward us. "More specifically, to me and him. Understood? So sit down and keep your mouths shut before I personally insert a broom handle into each of your rear exits."
Something told me the words *ass* and *garbage* were going to be the dominant vocabulary in whatever group chat we ended up with.
"And you — hollow-eyed little smart-ass, wipe that look off your face, it doesn't suit you." He pointed at me specifically, then continued without waiting for a reaction, apparently having decided the way to manage this group was sustained moral suppression from above, despite having no obvious source of authority whatsoever. "And you — pile of ash — one more stunt like that and you're out on your backside, and trust me, you'll move faster than you ever did on your own power."
He hit the table again and swept the room with a look that had not improved in quality.
"Now. Since you've finally managed to stop making noise."
He had been the one making noise for the past two minutes without interruption. But I kept that observation to myself, given that it was unclear how much actual power this ghetto Einstein held over our futures.
"Allow me to introduce Mitchell." The clerk got another shove, nearly into the table. "He will be your dispatcher, and you will follow his instructions."
The poor man. Standing under the combined gaze of this many criminals and former villains, Mitchell began sweating visibly and appeared to be searching for a place in the floor to disappear into. I did not envy him the assignment.
---
The moment we left the conference room, everyone was issued the most basic possible earpieces, mandatory for all active shifts. The angry old man personally described to each team member what would happen regarding lost equipment, and a few people pushed back — with limited success so far.
Team Z was still a collection of individuals, not a group, and everyone was clearly anxious about not getting thrown out on the first day. So they swallowed what Chase handed them, and the energetic old man seemed very willing to continue delivering it.
We'd see how the relationships developed. For now, it was worth describing what working for the SDS actually looked like.
In principle it was straightforward, except that Mitchell — not knowing our abilities in any detail — kept sending people to situations where they couldn't meaningfully contribute. And the fact that most of us were difficult people who fundamentally didn't want to do much, especially once they'd lost all faith in their dispatcher, turned the first day of practical work into a genuine disaster.
"Hey, what-the-hell-spatcher." The Invisible Girl's voice cut through the shared channel. Clearly unhappy — though given she'd been assigned to assist a rhetoric and public speaking class, I wasn't surprised. "Why did you send me here? I don't know anything about this—"
"Oh GOD it HURTS — it REALLY HURTS—" Sonar was broadcasting in anguish from a dog training school that used ultrasonic whistles, where he'd been sent to assist with an event. My friend had apparently been deeply moved by the experience, and I was frightened to imagine what the facility looked like. "Lord, I never believed in you, but right now—"
"I don't think I'm the strongest candidate for personal security work." Colm had simply gotten lost in a crowd and been unable to locate his assigned client.
From Golem there was nothing — no messages, no contact — until the following day, when we discovered he'd been chasing a group of parkour practitioners across rooftops and had run face-first into a water storage tank and gotten stuck inside it.
I was sent to protect an antique bookshop from racketeers. The moment the owner heard about my abilities, the poor man clutched his chest, overcame what appeared to be the early stages of a cardiac event through sheer force of will, and shoved me out the door before I could accidentally spray the work of his family's generations.
And those were only the beginner mistakes. The larger problem was the team itself, which had very limited interest in doing anything, particularly once they'd comprehensively lost confidence in Mitchell.
Prizm and Malevola disappeared together mid-afternoon, claiming a complex and demanding assignment, while the client had reported the job completed two hours earlier. By evening a video compilation was circulating online of the two of them in a karaoke bar.
Flambé abandoned his assignments twice when things didn't go smoothly, and on each occasion set fire to whatever nearby structure, park, or commercial establishment had the misfortune of being visible. We spent more time dealing with the resulting fires than with actual client requests.
Coupé simply stopped responding during the second half of the shift and read a book. Not until Colm physically went to find her did she rejoin the shared channel, with apologies that convinced no one.
The day ended with a full confrontation between Team Z and Mitchell and Chase together. Chase, to his credit, held his ground. Mitchell was buried under insults and threats of bodily harm.
After which he resigned on the spot, declining to hear either his senior colleague's input or Blond Blazer's, who apparently tried to intervene.
So. In summary: the first day was a triumph by any measure.
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