Super Sales on Super Heroes

by William D. Arand

  Anything, really. The scope was incredible.

  The problem was that the more he modified an object, the more it would take from his power pool.

  And his power pool barely had enough juice in it to fix a crack in a toilet.

  Felix had always thought of it like batteries.

  Most heroes and villains had a pretty decent-sized battery. There were those who had smaller ones, and those who had larger ones.

  If he had to compare himself in relative terms to others, Felix was a triple A battery that had been left outside in a puddle. The lowest measured superhero or villain before Felix would be akin to a golf cart battery.

  Up to this point, the best use of his superpower had been repair jobs. Mostly maintenance, to tell the truth. He couldn’t modify or change big objects, but he could limit wear and tear for sure.

  He’d tried minor transmutations with success. Leading to this moment here and now with the hope to change bismuth into gold.

  In using his power, the change would simply occur over a few seconds.

  The precursor to that, though, when he used his power, was a virtual window that appeared in front of him. It had the look of a checklist sheet with sliders on one other side.

  It was all very strange, really.

  Focusing on his unexpected guest, Felix struggled to activate his power.

  To ultimately no result.

  Scratching at his cheek, Felix thought on the problem. She was his possession. Legally.

  Up to this point, that’d been all he had to do.

  Taking a different approach, he tried using a character sheet. Generic, and yet taking root from hundreds upon hundreds of role-playing games he’d played.

  Why not?

  He saw it in his mind’s eye first. A piece of white paper. At the top, there was basic information and vital stats. Things that anyone would have regardless of being a super or not.

  Below that, all of the powers, abilities, and functions that made them unique.

  These sheets would contain everything from blindness, being sick, or even having a genetic disposition to heart attacks.

  Then he opened his eyes and saw the exact same form he’d been visualizing floating in front of him.

  Only he could see it. When he’d tried to explain it to his family, they’d thought he’d gone crazy at first. Only after showing them an example of what he could do, where he took a faded and dirty penny and made it new, did they believe him.

  At first, he’d thought perhaps he was indeed crazy. What kind of superpower presented itself like this? This wasn’t a normal power. In fact, it’d been classified as unique. Nothing even similar.

  Felix had become contemplative after that information had been given to him by the guild.

  To him, that meant that he either was the one doing the visualizing of his power, or another entity had set it up for him.

  Both answers disturbed him.

  The reason why Felix had never gone any further with his talent was his lack of power.

  At the bottom right of the sheet floating in front of him was where the cost would be to make the modifications he wanted. They were always more than what he had available for anything useful.

  After much experimentation, he knew he had roughly one hundred and fifty points he could spend on things before he ran out. He could always tell if he ran out because the confirm button would simply go away.

  That was a pretty small number when compared to the things he could change. Like turning a table into solid gold.

  With a sudden thought, he tried to flip to the “second page” that his power normally offered up.

  The real meat and potatoes of his power.

  The upgrade page.

  The viewing window changed.

  It now looked like something out of a role-playing game character creation page.

  He could modify anything about her, providing he paid the power cost. Strength, intelligence, reflexes, weapon skills, languages, skills, height, weight, senses, anything and everything that you could think of.

  The list was extensive and a touch overwhelming. The possibilities for a living person were infinitely more complex than a simple item.

  Felix shook his head to clear it. He’d have to worry about that later after he’d fixed all the problems.

  Maybe try to limit what came up to what he wanted to change.

  Focusing back on the here and now, Felix started to read through the list of debuffs this person was suffering from. It looked endless at first.

  He began to feel sick at the problems listed. Some of them were rather horrible. She’d apparently been cut open and had a number of her organs removed. He couldn’t even begin to think of a reason for that.

  “Waaaaaah…” he groaned. “That’s just sick perversion, isn’t it? Who the hell did this?”

  This wasn’t going to be a quick fix; it’d take months to spend enough power to make her human again, let alone whole. That wasn’t even mentioning how long it’d take to get her back into a condition to be useful.

  It’d take months to make enough money to buy a shipment of bismuth again anyways.

  Besides, not like I’m doing anything else with this power. I could clean up some coins. Scrub the shower. Ooooooh, impressive.

  Fine, let’s Frankenstein’s monster this shit.

  Felix grunted and looked to the sheet again.

  The cheapest thing to change, and which would refund some points he could work with, was putting her in a coma.

  A single thought later and “Coma” appeared in the debuff list. One hundred points with a negative sign popped up in the bottom right corner.

  Flicking through multiple options, he found that replacing her teeth would be relatively simple and cheap. Her lips came at a discounted price since it was all in the same area and some of the reconstruction could bleed into the other.

  Then he was spent. That was all he had.

  For a start, it was great. He’d take another crack at it when midnight rolled around and his points reset.

  Before he clicked the confirm changes button at the bottom, he stopped. Below the confirmation button was a slider. One he hadn’t imagined or put there.

  No time like the present to figure it out.

  The slider simply read “Draw” and read from zero percent to one hundred percent. It was set at zero right now.

  Moving it to one hundred percent, he checked to see if anything had changed.

  Nothing.

  Back to zero, no change.

  Back to one hundred, still no change.

  Leaving it at one hundred, Felix shrugged his shoulders. Maybe he could figure it out tomorrow. For now, he’d leave it a hundred to see if anything changed.

  Mentally popping the confirm button, he looked up to the body in the crate.

  Instantly, teeth began to straighten themselves, growing anew. Where teeth were missing, new teeth broke through the gum line. In ten seconds, she had a healthy set of lovely teeth.

  Then her lips started to warp and fan out as they regrew themselves next, until finally she had a pair of full lips hiding those resplendent teeth.

  Felix sighed and looked around the garage. He had an hour or so to wait till midnight.

  Going inside the house didn’t appeal to him. It was empty. Dark.

  Devoid of life.

  Here in the garage, with what was essentially a corpse, at least he wasn’t alone.

  When midnight finally rolled around, Felix felt like his skin caught fire for an instant.

  It wasn’t painful, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable. Normally when his power reset, it only felt like he’d caught a mild sunburn. This time felt like he’d been in a furnace.

  Felix popped open the window and then hesitated. He might as well get it out of the way now. He’d been thinking while waiting for midnight. If he couldn’t fix some of the truly awful things, what was the point?

  He selected the box for blindness: left eye, and looked to the corner.
Six hundred points.

  Despair welled up in him.

  Eyeballs aren’t simple things like teeth or lips. They’re intricate organs and—

  The confirm button was lit up.

  Chapter 2 - Spend Money to Make Money -

  Felix adjusted his necktie as he shifted in the seat of his rundown coupe. Glancing up in the rearview mirror, he found it almost looked right.

  Almost. There was still a hint of a pleat in the middle.

  The horn coming to life behind him made him jump in his seat. Felix gunned the gas and then jumped forward. Only to slam on the brake when he realized the light was still red.

  Ha ha, ass hat.

  Doing his best to not make eye contact with anyone, Felix slunk into his seat. He remained in “stealth” mode all the way until he pulled into the parking lot of work.

  Felix looked up to the rotating hamburger above the squat red brick building. The windows were decorated with saccharine-sweet mascots and kids who looked like they’d been fed a steady stream of cola.

  Pressing his lips together in mute disappointment, Felix clipped his name badge into place.

  “Felix - Manager” read the top line. Underneath that was his “time served,” as employees called it.

  “Eight years serving you,” he muttered aloud.

  Eight years of serving up burgers, fries, and every other assortment of fast food under the sun. Eight years of watching young people roll in and roll back out when they realized fast food wasn’t easy and didn’t pay well.

  It certainly wasn’t rocket science, but it had its own challenges. Namely the customers, really.

  Whoever had coined the phrase, ‘the customer is always right,’ had clearly never worked in retail or customer service.

  And if they had, well, then they’d need to be hauled out into the street and beaten to death with plastic spoons.

  His phone began to chime gently, signaling his need to go clock in for his shift.

  Felix huffed and then exited his car. Silencing the alarm, it took him all but a minute to drop his card past the electronic reader.

  The day went by in a blur. Not to mention he had a hard time concentrating. His mind kept wandering back to the woman in her makeshift coffin in his garage.

  He’d shut the lid and latched it back closed. Then he’d left her there, as he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do. Most of the night he’d spent tossing and turning, thinking about the fact that he now had a total of nine hundred points to spend.

  It’d taken a bit of tinkering with options to figure that out, but he’d done it.

  And he still had all those points to spend at the end. After cycling through all the options available, he’d ended up not being sure what to do.

  In the end, he’d reverted the changes he’d made to her, since he didn’t plan on breaking the coma from her yet, and then gone to bed.

  “Felix. Cover the window for me, I’m going to take a break,” demanded the imperious voice of Janessa.

  Before he could even object to the lovely young woman’s demand, she pulled out her phone and wandered off.

  The last one she’d thrown at a customer and he’d had to play go-between to appease the customer and get Janessa in the back room.

  She was the most recent pet project that had been pushed his way by the regional manager. One that really wasn’t working out in any way, shape, or form.

  So much so that had it been anyone else, Felix would have let her go already.

  Felix didn’t doubt for a minute that Joe had ulterior motives, and wasn’t quite prepared to go up against him right now. Not over a woman who would end up quitting in the end. It wasn’t the right time or place to call the regional manager out on it.

  Can’t trust anyone named Joe.

  As the store manager, he had to deal with whatever the regional made him do as long as it was within company policy. Though he was slowly preparing all the right paperwork to walk the woman out despite that.

  Beautiful, built for the eyes, and whatever else she may be, but an annoying, lazy, monster that could only be a shrew to whoever she was dating.

  In his shame, he couldn’t deny he’d been infatuated with her for a short period. Days, maybe. That was how long it had taken before she’d revealed her dumpster fire of a personality.

  “Hello? I’m ready to place my order,” said a voice in the headset at the window. She’d simply set it down and walked off without another word.

  Vibrating his pocket, his phone demanded his attention at the same time.

  Pulling out his phone, he glanced at the caller ID.

  Restricted, unknown caller.

  The regional manager liked to call him at all hours on different phones to test him.

  Another worker slipped into his line of sight at that moment, and Felix thanked whatever luck he’d been granted at that moment.

  “Steve, get the window, please? I’d really appreciate it,” Felix said to the young man with a smile. He flipped open his phone at the same time, which he hoped would end any argument before it could happen.

  “Sure thing, boss,” said the young man.

  Felix assumed part of that was the fact that Janessa would have to talk to him when she came back.

  Holding the phone up to his ear, Felix said, “This is Felix.”

  “Afternoon, Felix,” came the cool response.

  He recognized that voice. He couldn’t quite place it.

  “I happen to have two more items that fit your request for merchandise.”

  Marcus!

  “Ah! Marcus. Yes, yes. That’s great news,” Felix said, and he meant it. Where one super might give him a significant point boost, what would several more do?

  He was pretty sure it all hinged on that slider at the bottom. The “Draw” slider. Nothing else had changed otherwise.

  Looking around, he realized this wasn’t the best spot to have this conversation. Walking into the back office where he normally did performance reviews or paperwork Felix shut the door.

  “Marcus? Ah. Nah. Today I’m Caldwell,” said the previous Marcus, now Caldwell.

  “Alright. Caldwell. What’s the fee?”

  “Five. This’ll be a delivery to boot. We were going to dispose of these two Dudleys, but I figured… why not make green on the side?” Caldwell chuckled at that.

  “Definitely. Definitely. Do you need that fee today?” Felix opened his work computer and flipped to the Excel spreadsheet he kept his finances on.

  Negative three hundred and sixty-two dollars and fourteen cents.

  “Yep. I’ll have a courier pick it up out of your mailbox tonight after everyone’s out in that sleepy little neighborhood of yours. That is, if we have a deal?”

  Felix chewed on that mentally. He didn’t have the money, and wouldn’t have the money. But… how often did you get a chance to power up your abilities?

  I can go get a loan. My car isn’t in that bad of shape. I can sell it if I really need to clear the loan later. I don’t have any debt, either.

  Get six thousand. Buy the two, set up a room that they can convalesce in. Use all my vacation and sick time. Get those three up and running to a point that they can care for themselves.

  Then use that to upgrade things and make money.

  Felix blinked.

  It was a lot like those games he used to play when he was a kid. Spend money to buy upgrades. Use those upgrades to make more money, to buy new things that would help you make more money. Which in turn would let you buy upgrades for those items.

  His power was literally that game, he realized. He might as well call himself Upgrade Man.

  “Done.”

  “Great, I’ll have it delivered to your place in an hour. They’ll pop the garage and leave it there. No need to meet us or even disarm your security. Don’t forget to use the box. You’ll need to do that for their loyalty and your safety to finalize.

  “See ya later, Felix.”

  The line disconnected suddenly.


  Felix pulled his phone from his ear and looked at the screen.

  From being essentially a nobody, to owning slaves.

  He knew that the owner’s box he’d been given could hold up to ten thousand slaves without a problem. It used magic to bind them to their master’s will. That they couldn’t harm or work against their master.

  Couldn’t use it on someone against their will, though.

  It did leave open the ugly loophole of giving someone no choice but to allow it, but that wasn’t his problem today.

  Looking to his phone, he dialed in the regional manager’s number and mashed the voicemail button the moment it started to ring.

  “Hey, Joe. This is Felix over at number forty-two. I’m going to be heading home sick for the rest of the day. I’ll be out tomorrow as well. Sorry about the short notice. Just not feeling well. Everything here should be covered.”

  Felix ended the phone call and then opened the browser on his smartphone.

  He was generations behind the newest wrist phones, but he liked his old phone. It had a big screen and… well, it was one of the few things he’d been able to successfully modify.

  It had taken him peeling it apart and upgrading individual components, but it had worked.

  Tapping in a request for directions to the closest branch of his bank, Felix laid out plans to get the loan, buy supplies, and head back home. He’d have to build an impromptu ward and start treating his cash cows.

  Having them die on him would be gut-wrenching now that he’d figured out how to increase his power.

  Now that he could be somebody.

  Before all that, though, he’d need to head over to the law offices. Today was his monthly visit with them.

  Felix wasn’t looking forward to it. He never was, really. It only made him realize that those he cared for were gone.

  Bank, supplies, home, meeting, home.

  With a nod of his head, Felix started what he believed would be the changing point in his life.

  Pulling in front of the office building, Felix shook himself and then ran his fingers through his hair. He hated doing this, but it was something he had to do to make sure his family dues were taken care of. Both in this life, and wherever they ended up.