“As to the suit, my team thanks you. I’ll relay to them your appreciation of their efforts. I’ll be sure to remind you about this when budget time rolls around,” said Felicia.
Felix chuckled at that and mentally thought about turning up the volume as she’d suggested.
“Mr. White is a smart man, but he’s more built for outfitting a mass of people. My team and I are better at one-offs. Or stuff like your damned Wardens.
“We downloaded the footage from them, by the way, and will be going over it later for improvements.
“Anyways. Don’t get killed. We’re done here. Tell your princess to stop worrying.” Felicia waved a hand at him over her head and left.
As she went, she stopped next to Ioana.
The big warrior looked down at the Dwarf, then gave her a truly kind smile. Ioana and Felicia shared a quick kiss, then separated, both going their separate ways.
“Ha, good for them. They make a great couple,” Felix said. He’d been trying to keep his voice down, but apparently he’d pushed the volume up way too high.
Every head in the room turned to him, including Ioana and Felicia, at what to them had been a shout.
Ioana gave him a frozen wide-eyed gaze, while Felicia grinned at him.
“What?” Felix said, the helmet turning it into a shout.
Something slammed into his helmet, the servos in the neck whining under the impact.
“Lower the volume stupid,” Miu told him.
Felix mentally tried adjusting the volume again.
“How about now?” he said.
“Better. It’ll do.”
Felix shook his head in annoyance and looked around. It was strange. He knew he wasn’t looking at things, but at a display. Yet everything looked normal. As if he were simply looking through eyeholes.
Reaching up, he waved his fingers in front of the faceplate. Whipping them back and forth quickly, he saw no delay from action to visual relay.
“Huh. She outdid herself. A lot. Remind me to see what she wants as a reward.”
“You give rewards?”
Felix turned his head to find it was Victoria asking him the question.
“Why wouldn’t I? Best way to encourage people is with rewards. Only a fool thinks that the stick is the only way to motivate people. Luckily, I’m the owner of our experiment, so I don’t have to run anything through anyone.”
Turning back to the security hall, he saw the Wardens moving out.
They were lined up two by two, moving at a pace equivalent to an easy jog for a human.
“They’re impressive,” Victoria said softly.
“Yeah, they are. I told Felicia I want one for my own use, but with replaceable power units. She’s working on it.
“I imagine this suit was a prototype that came before the Warden. She probably just built it halfway and then left it.”
“You want a Warden?” asked the swordswoman.
“Of course. I mean, shit, what kid didn’t grow up saying they wanted a mech? Didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
“I mean, what if we made a super lightweight one that was built around using an elongated sword?”
Victoria fell silent at that.
Felix started walking forward, taking up position behind the last team entering the security hall.
“Felix, n-no. Stop. You can’t. You said you’d stay back,” Miu said, her hands clamping around one of his arms. Her voice wasn’t as firm as it normally was.
“And I will stay back, just not back here. Come on, Miu. Between you, Victoria, and this suit, I’ll be fine.” Felix kept walking, the servos and powered limbs not even slowing down despite Miu’s immense strength.
“Damn it, Felix!” Miu cursed. Moving in front of him, the diminutive and deceptively deadly woman kept herself alert. “Fine, you’ll remain in the entryway and not a step beyond.
“Or I will finally join Lily in turning Andrea on you.”
Andrea made a chirping sound behind him. “Turning me on him how?”
That drew Felix up short. “I understand. I will obey,” he said automatically.
The Wardens split off into the lobby up ahead. The individual teams that Lily and Ioana had put together broke off to assist in clearing the room.
After a minute, Ioana held up her hand in the center of the room. “Clear. Move to the exterior and sweep.”
Intricate glowing runes filled the doorway leading to the outside. Flowing script swooped and circled endlessly as Lily called it forth into being.
As his people marched through the door, and the runes, blue glowing shields wrapped around them. The Wardens were too big to exit through the lobby door, so instead they took up defensive positions in the lobby.
Team after team filtered out the door till only Ioana and Lily remained of the assault group.
After a minute, Felix started to worry.
Then Ioana turned her head to one side, her hand pressing to her ear. Nodding her head, she looked to Lily, who held up her hands in an “I don’t know” gesture.
Ioana swiveled her head to Felix. “Nothing out there. There’s signs that the entire street was full of combatants, and the pawn shop across the street is a ruin, but that’s about it.”
Felix let out a breath and relaxed. “Good. This is over, then. Let’s see about purchasing all the buildings on this street and get it all locked down.
“Lily, please let me know how much money we’ll need and I’ll get that together. I’d like to do this quietly and without people realizing we own everything, if possible. Money isn’t an issue there either, so… yeah, just let me know how much we need.”
Felix nodded to Ioana.
“You’re on duty to make sure this area is a fortress. I don’t want this happening again. Our defenses held, but I don’t like it. Work with Felicia and her team to get it set up. Multiple fallback points, security bulkheads, traps, turrets, mines, whatever.
“And if we need something that we can’t provide, I’ll use points to get it done.”
Shaking his head, Felix turned back to the security hall and went back into his complex.
He needed to get out of his armor and get to the medical wing. There were injured and wounded people who would need to see him.
First, those Death Others and our guests.
“Andrea, I want to meet your Death Others. Let’s get me out of this suit and head there.
“Miu, go take care of your teams. I’ll be fine from here on out.”
“I understand. Victoria, you’re now on detached duty to Felix for the day. Felix will not give you orders to the contrary, or my earlier threat will be carried out.”
Fine, she can come. So grumpy.
“Understood,” Victoria said loudly.
It took him thirty minutes to figure out how to get out of his new powered armor.
He didn’t deny it was exactly what he needed to stay safe, but he still didn’t like being closed up in it.
It was pretty fricking cool, though, by his own estimation. The armor made him actually feel like a superhero instead of a manager.
The elevator doors pinged open into the sausage room.
Hard-faced Andreas looked up from around the room.
They all wore different clothing in different styles and tastes. Every single one of them bore Andrea’s face, but not all of them were Andrea. They weren’t even an Other.
They were all battle scarred. A number of them looked like they’d been burned, shot, broken, or worse.
Before Felix could do or say anything, Andrea stepped out in front of him and immediately crossed the space between the two groups.
“Hello! Thank you all for coming. Thank you for helping out. It wasn’t my goal originally, but things happened.” Andrea wrung her hands in front of herself, her tail hanging low between her legs.
“I… I want to start by saying sorry. You all volunteered for your burden, and I allowed you to take it. That doesn’t make it right,
or any better.”
The Death Others had taken a few steps back from Andrea when she’d entered. He finally came up with a reasonable assumption that made sense as to why.
They weren’t afraid of her, they were afraid for her. Absorbing them would bring back everything they had taken on themselves to begin with. Their sacrifice would be nullified.
“I…” Andrea trailed off, her head dipping down.
Felix cleared his throat and stepped up beside Andrea. Setting his hand on her shoulder, he gave it a light squeeze.
“I’m Felix, Felix Campbell. Andrea is my slave. She has been my trusted lieutenant as both Myriad and herself. She’s also my friend.
“I have the power to modify the abilities of any person I own at a cost. Andrea asked me for only one thing. To be able to selectively choose what memories come back to her when she absorbs an Other.
“I granted that wish.”
Felix gave the Death Others his best smile, trying to meet the eyes of each one.
“To that end, one of the first thing Andrea did after getting that power was to call all of you. I believe she wants to ask if you’d be willing to return to her and rejoin the Andrea collective. She’d probably weed out any and all memories neither of you want, and you’d simply return to being an Other.
“Please keep in mind that Andrea is still a slave. And if you were to rejoin her, you would become a slave as well.”
Felix released Andrea and stepped back into the elevator.
Putting his foot in front of the doors so it wouldn’t close, he continued.
“I’ll have a conference room set up in ten minutes for you to discuss this situation at length. I’ll also have food and drink sent up.
“As well as Andrea’s mini traveling kitchen, if you suddenly decide you want pancakes.”
A number of Death Others smiled at that. At least a little.
Pulling his foot out of the door, the elevator dinged and closed.
Felix sighed and hit the button for his office. He’d need to go book a room and move some things around for them to get what he had promised.
“You can modify powers? I mean, we’ve heard about it, but… hearing it from you directly…” Victoria said slowly, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to say anything at all.
“You’re alive, aren’t you? You got turned into a goddamn lightbulb. You should be dead.”
“I… I was dying, wasn’t I? I was. My heart… it hurt so bad.”
Felix moved his head a fraction to catch Victoria out of the side of his eyes. She looked pale.
“Yeah, you were dying. Fixed you all up, though. Good as new, no damage at all.”
Victoria shook her head, and then smiled. “You saved me.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
Chapter 26 - Smith -
Looking up from his office terminal, he saw Andrea standing in the doorframe.
“How’d it go?” Felix turned his eyes back to the spreadsheet. Lily had sent him over the finances involved with purchasing out the entire street.
Only the two stores on each side of his own refused to even discuss the matter. Nor did they owe anything, giving them no leverage at all over them.
They really did open them up just to get us. Next we’ll need to find out if they had any involvement with this attack. If they did, I’ll send a herd of Andreas over there.
“They’re all with me again. I am… we are… thankful.”
“Hah. Good. I kinda figured they would rejoin you. I can’t imagine a reason why they’d stay.
“You all cleaned up, then? No death memories?”
“None. We kept all of our memories outside of the deaths. They… are not all pretty, but they are us.”
“I’ve heard that before. Or something to that effect. Uh… ‘the sum of what we are, our experience, is what we draw upon to make choices. It’s what we use to defend ourselves from doubt. We compare them to things we’ve done previously and judge it based on what the outcome had been then.’ Or so I remember it as.”
Felix closed the spreadsheet, pulled open Lily’s email, and gave her a quick reply. Sending it off, he locked his terminal and turned his attention on Andrea.
“They had many questions. Mostly about you.”
“Oh? That’s surprising. I thought they’d want to know more about what memories you’d strip from them.”
“No, we share memories, for we are but one person. It’s… complicated.”
“I suppose it is at that.”
Andrea came in from the doorway, walking his way slowly. She’d changed out of her normal corporate attire and was in a tight pair of jeans and a tank top.
It was very much not in her normal style.
Andrea had that girl next door thing down to a science. This was more like—
Lily.
“Well, is there anything else you need? Actually, before you answer that, I had a question. If an Other is wearing clothes, where do they go? And gear? Say, if they had a knife?”
Andrea came up to stand directly in front of his desk. Placing her hands on the wood, she leaned forward over it.
Felix kept his eyes fastened on her face, her different-colored eyes.
“Any fabric goes… somewhere. Everything else ends up on the ground. We can recall the fabric from wherever it goes so our Others are dressed.”
“Oh, how odd,” Felix said, leaning back in his chair, away from Andrea.
He was well aware of the women around him. Aware of their appeal. He wasn’t stupid to think that they wanted anything from him like an actual relationship, though. They all had their own moments where they teased or flirted, but that was where it would end and he knew it.
“We should build an Andrea armory. Where you can store all your Others’ gear. That way they can arm up and move quickly.”
Andrea tilted her head to one side, her hair cascading down to one side. Her ears twitched on the top of her head, swiveling backwards and then forwards towards him. Then her nose twitched as she made an audible sniffing noise.
“How many Others do you have, exactly?” Felix reached over and thumbed his terminal to life. He opened up an email to Felicia and started writing a quick letter about creating an armory for Andrea and her Others.
“Three hundred or so now.”
Felix entered that it’d need to hold three hundred sets of full tactical gear and sent the email.
Andrea sat down in his lap, her tail moving up to press to the side of his shoulder and neck.
“You’re not paying attention to me,” she growled under her breath.
Felix’s head snapped to her, his eyes catching yellow flickering irises.
Never seen that one before.
“With the return of our Death Others, we’ve realized a few things when we went over our memories. You keep me at a distance. You smell of desire and longing, yet do not touch. You watch me, roll your eyes over me.
“You even watch me at night sometimes.”
Felix’s eyebrows went up slowly, till it felt like they were in his damn hairline.
She wasn’t wrong, of course. He was only human, and he hadn’t gotten laid since before this whole thing had started.
Saying he had blue balls would have been an understatement.
Honesty would do the best for him here.
“What can I say? You’re right. It would be wrong, as you’re a slave and I’m your master.”
Andrea chortled and her eyes flashed again. Reaching up, she poked him in the forehead. “I’m not as smart as the others, but I know this. I will mate as I will mate, when I mate. No one will tell me otherwise.
“You are the alpha. I can accept sharing you with others, but I cannot accept you saying no.”
Andrea patted him on the chest and then got up off his lap. “I’m going to call all my Others in tonight. I’ll let Miu and Ioana know about the gap.”
Leaving his office by going into his attached bedroom, she disappeared without another word.
“Okay then… I’ll just… finish up here and go to bed. I guess.” Felix scratched at his cheek. There was a certain amount of excitement in his head. And his other head.
He was only human, after all.
At that moment, his phone went off.
Clicking his teeth shut, he looked at the display.
The fact that the name came up at all on the display was simple pride on their part.
“Agent Smith,” Felix muttered.
Hitting the accept button, Felix pulled the phone up to his ear.
“Agent Smith,” Felix said again, now for the benefit of his caller.
“Mr. Campbell, I’m so glad to have gotten a hold of you.”
“I don’t remember giving you this number.”
“You didn’t, but that’s okay. I heard you had some guests earlier today.”
Felix felt the hairs on his neck stand up on end. Was Smith involved in this?
“We did. They were escorted off the premises.”
“Glad to hear it, glad to hear it. Unrelated, there was a real problem with the emergency circuits today. Apparently, a huge number of emergency calls and emails didn’t get through today.”
“Uh-huh, I imagine. A real shame. I hope no one had a problem with the lack of emergency services.”
“No, no. The problem was a very small area, apparently. About a street long.”
“I see. So, other than local news, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Oh, nothing really. Just wondering if you’d thought on my offer.”
“Not really. I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t thought of you since you left.”
“For shame. Well, I’ll be by next week to see how things are going. Check on your slaves. Collect. You know, government job and all.”
“Goodie.”
“With that settled, I’ll see you then. Good evening.”
The click of the agent hanging up was all Felix heard.
Setting his phone down, Felix contemplated the situation.
Then his door opened, and Others began marching by.
They were all dressed in street clothes, most of them wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with very little diversity.
Super Sales on Super Heroes Page 29
