Enhancer

by Wyatt Kane

  “I said good morning. Would you like some waffles?”

  It took Ty until then to realize that she was carrying a tray and that the rich, delicious aroma of waffles and syrup had filled the room. He was salivating like mad, although that may not have been the waffles at all.

  All at once, Ty regained the use of his tongue. “Yes. Please. Only, where am I? What happened?”

  The woman upped the wattage of her smile by few orders of magnitude. “All in good time,” she said. “I expect that for now, after what you’ve been through, you would be hungry.”

  She was right. Ty wasn’t normally a big eater, but just at that moment, he was famished. He could have eaten three-quarters of an elephant and still not been satisfied. It was very unusual for him and somewhat puzzling.

  “Yes. Starving,” he said.

  The woman accepted Ty’s answer and handed the tray over. Then, even though there were chairs she could have used, she sat on the bed next to him.

  She exuded an intoxicating mixture of both confidence and sensuality. The girls Ty had known from the Club were next to nothing compared to her. She was in a different league entirely, and her allure was undiminished by the touch of sadness she wore like a cloak.

  Nor was it just a visual appeal. There was something about her that generated a visceral reaction. It was as if the air was suddenly full of sparks, and it was all Ty could do to keep breathing and try not to stare.

  He was exceedingly grateful that his lower half was still under the covers.

  “Dig in,” she said. “You will feel better when you do.”

  Ty was feeling pretty amazing already. But the waffles smelled delicious. Warm and syrupy and just about perfect. There was a big stack of them, maybe half a dozen or so, and Ty picked the first one up with his fingers. Before he took his first bite, he had to know.

  “Who are you?” he managed.

  The woman smiled again. “You met me last night. I was the one who carried you here after that little skirmish in the alley. And you may have heard of me from the news nets. My name is Tempest. Tempest Flaire. And you are?”

  So it was her. An actual superhero. It was almost beyond belief. Yet he’d been there in the alley and had witnessed everything that had happened. He remembered her hurtling into the monstrous man like a cannonball.

  Comic book artists had been depicting female superheroes as perfect for decades. It turned out that they were more right than they knew.

  “You are amazing,” Ty blurted without thinking. Then, embarrassed, he looked away. “I’m Ty Wilcox,” he added.

  “Ty Wilcox,” Tempest repeated. “Pleased to meet you.” She held out her hand and Ty transferred the waffle to his left and shook.

  Her touch was electric, like when he had closed the device around his wrist. It was like he had been hit by a bolt of energy. He felt the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and he almost let out a gasp. Nor did it look like he was the only one who felt it. Tempest flinched ever-so-slightly, then she grinned at him again.

  Ty had a million questions, although her proximity was making it difficult for him to concentrate on just one at a time.

  “Where am I?” he managed. “What happened? Who was that guy?”

  Tempest nodded. It was as if she expected his questions. “This is a safe house. I brought you here after the fight.” She paused for a moment and changed the topic. “Eat up. You’ll like them,” she said.

  Almost mechanically, Ty did as she said, finally biting into the waffle he’d been holding. Flavors exploded in his mouth. “This is delicious!” he exclaimed.

  “They are, aren’t they? I’ll let Dinah know you liked them. Anyway, I guess the most important question right now is what happened to you. You’re wearing a device on your wrist. You may have noticed some changes?”

  Changes? At first, Ty didn’t know what she meant. Then he thought about it. The deep feeling of restfulness. His immediate alertness when he woke. There was more as well that he hadn’t paid attention to until then. He felt different. Stronger. And slightly disjointed, like his body wasn’t as familiar to him as it should have been.

  Maybe it wasn’t all due to a good night’s sleep.

  He nodded, still listening as she talked but wolfing down the waffles as well. They were incredible!

  “You are not the only one to have a device like that.” Tempest held up her own wrist to show him the identical one she wore. “The one you’re wearing used to belong to Zach Kennedy, who was sometimes known as Bolt.” As she spoke, Tempest’s sadness returned. Yet she didn’t stop. “It gave him a form of telekinesis. With that, he could fly, make heavy objects float in the air, and create a shield around himself. Although that shield wasn’t strong enough in the end. As a secondary power, he could also cast bolts of energy. Like lightning, but more controllable.”

  Tempest paused then, and when she spoke next, her tone was serious. “The man who murdered him wore one as well. Most likely, it’s where he got much of his size, his superhuman strength, and his durability.”

  Ty couldn’t believe what the stunning woman was saying. Despite how good the waffles tasted and how hungry he was, he had to pause in his eating. He stared at the device on his wrist.

  “Does that mean I’m going to be able to fly?”

  But Tempest shook her head. “It works in a different way for everyone. For most people, it would do little. For me, I can control energy and convert it to whatever I need. So I can fly to, and I can pack a serious punch. Our monstrous enemy’s enhancements seemed to be purely physical.” She shrugged. “Others have other capabilities.”

  Ty wanted to know who the ‘others’ might be, but before he could ask, a new thought came to his mind. “Did – did you kill him? The villain?”

  Again, Tempest shook her head. “No. We fought for a while, but then one of New Lincoln’s finest pulled up at the alley. Maybe somebody called them. And you know what sort of weapons cops carry these days. He pointed his cannon our way and told us to stop what we were doing.”

  Tempest smiled. “I have a good relationship with the police. Me and Zach – we’ve helped them out rather a lot of the last couple of years. But the villain? Not so much. He ran off into the alley, and with Zach on the ground, I couldn’t bring myself to chase him.”

  Not for the first time, Ty sensed Tempest’s sadness.

  “Were you close?” he asked. Even as he spoke the words, he felt an undeniable wave of jealous. It made no sense at all. Ty knew he had no claim on this amazing woman, but the very thought that this Zach, this dead man, could have been close to her was almost more than he could bear.

  Tempest smiled again, this time more playfully than before.

  “You may have already noticed,” she said, “that the bracelet enhances lots of different aspects of us. It makes us into the best versions of who we are and gives some of us gifts that can be amazing. What your particular gifts might be, we’ll find out soon enough. But as well as all that, it can lead to an almost irresistible attraction to others like us.”

  The way she said it suggested that she felt just as attracted to him as he did to her. There was so much tension in the air that it was almost visible.

  It was all Ty could do to stare at her. He swallowed.

  “So, were you close?” he repeated, his voice hoarse with a desire he couldn’t hide.

  Tempest let out a laugh. “Yes, we were close. But, sadly, not like that. Zach was gay. We loved him anyway, but it was more like a brother-sister kind of thing.”

  6: Architect

  The relief Ty felt was staggering. His emotions were all over the place. He was enormously, undeniably attracted to Tempest and had just learned that she might be attracted to him as well. Yet someone she loved had been killed.

  It was more than confusing. Ty’s experience with women was far from extensive. He felt that all he needed to do was reach for her and the morning could become very entertaining indeed.

  Yet he did not. He d
idn’t know if it would be right, given what had happened to Zach. And he still needed answers. He didn’t know what the device on his wrist had done to him, or to Tempest for that matter. Was it right to even think of acting on his impulses if the only reason Tempest liked him was because of the device they both wore?

  All his life, Ty had tried to act with integrity. It hadn’t helped him much, and in fact, it had actively worked against him many times. Yet he had no real choice. He was hard-wired to do so.

  Instead of acting on his attraction to Tempest, he pulled back.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said.

  Tempest nodded. There wasn’t anything more she could say.

  To distract himself, Ty ate another bite of waffle, savoring the delicious flavor. Then he asked, “Who was he? The villain?”

  “I don’t know,” Tempest said with a frown of uncertainty. “We’ve never seen him before, and he isn’t exactly the type of guy you’d forget. What worries me is that he had a device. I thought all of them were accounted for. Where he got his, I don’t know.”

  Ty looked at the device on his wrist again. “Where do they come from?” he asked. “How do they work?”

  The question seemed to put Tempest more at ease. “It started maybe a couple of decades ago, with the Architect. He used to work in the cybertech department of one of the mega-corporations. I don’t know the whole story, but there was a falling out. He left to work on his own projects. The device was one of those.”

  She paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. “The way I understand it is that when you put it on, the device injects thousands of nanites into your system. They replicate and bind with your DNA, analyzing your potential and feeding the information back to the device’s processor, which decides what to do. The nanites then tweak your system, everything from your biochemistry through to the DNA itself, encouraging your body to grow and change in whatever way will result in the best outcome.”

  Tempest’s expression became wistful, as if she was remembering. “The Architect was his own first guinea pig. He was the world’s first superhero, and none of us would be here if it wasn’t for him. He was also my father.”

  Ty almost choked on a waffle. “The Architect was your father?” he blurted, and Tempest nodded her confirmation.

  “Yes. He was kind of distant. Too wrapped up in what he was doing to spend time with us. But I remember the work that he did to manufacture his devices. He had to do it by hand because he couldn’t trust anyone else with the secrets they held. Can you imagine? The whole world with these?”

  Ty tried, but could not. The only thing that came to his mind was Angie the Hutt. He imagined her grotesque, green face blown up so that she was fifty feet tall, a monstrous woman stomping left and right like a Japanese Kaiju. He almost laughed at the image, but at the same time, it wasn’t funny at all.

  “My father spent more time developing profiles for the people who would get the device than he did on the technology. He knew that people are people. You get the good, those who first instinct will be to help. But you also get the narcissists. The psychopaths, and the people who are just plain nasty. You know, the ones who would go out of their way just to kick a dog for no reason.”

  She shot Ty a grin. “That’s one of the reasons I brought you here, actually. Because you’re an unknown. We didn’t know what the device might bring out in you.”

  Ty stared at her in shock. “You thought I might be a bad guy like him? The villain?”

  “It was a possibility. Figured it would be best to keep an eye on you and see.”

  Ty kept staring. “And? What do you think now?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she gave him a teasing wink. “We’ll get to that in a moment. Anyway, even the profiles weren’t enough. My father also developed tests to try to figure out what a person’s potential might be.” Tempest shrugged. “Not everyone is like me and Zach. With his telekinesis and my energy control, we had the potential to do amazing things locked away in our DNA. But most people don’t have such secrets within them. The best the device can do is make them a little stronger, a lot healthier …” Tempest trailed off and shot Ty a quick grin. “And a lot more sexually appealing.”

  It was Ty’s turn to grin. “I don’t see too much wrong with that,” he said, surprising himself. He wasn’t usually that confident, especially when talking to someone like Tempest. Not that there were many people like Tempest for him to talk to.

  Yet her words gave rise to even more questions. Did he have anything special in him? What did it mean if he did?

  “Yes. Well. Neither do I, really,” Tempest said. She paused and appraised Ty more brazenly than he had ever been appraised before. A day ago, he might have turned away, unsure how to react. Now, he simply looked back and smiled, enjoying it.

  After long moments, Tempest colored just a little and turned away. “Anyway. He made more than twenty of the devices, and finally, the candidates were chosen. I had to pass the same tests as everyone else. Zach and Dinah were among his first successes, and now there are people with powers in many of the larger cities, doing what they can to keep a lid on the crime there. Some work in teams, like us, but most work alone. We’re independent, but can contact each other if needed.”

  She lapsed into silence, and Ty asked a question that he wasn’t sure he should ask. “What happened to him? You father?”

  Again, Tempest looked sad. “We don’t really know. There was some sort of accident at a lab. There was an explosion. We don’t know exactly what happened, and for the longest time, I hoped he managed to survive. But there has been no sign.” She sighed. “It has been years now. I still can’t believe he’s gone, but he hasn’t returned.”

  Ty looked down at his plate and was surprised to see that he had demolished every last one of the waffles. He put the tray aside.

  “Anyway. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” Tempest said.

  Ty smiled. “That one’s easy. It’s because I asked.”

  Happily, that made her smile, if only for a moment.

  Ty asked another question. “What about the villain? The huge man with all the muscles? Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. He’s not one of the original device wearers. The way he comes across – he makes my skin crawl. It’s like his device enhanced parts of him that are loathsome to me. He’s powerful and has already proved himself a villain. He is dangerous.”

  The conversation had taken a decidedly glum turn. It was very serious, filled with death, missing persons, and unknown villains with superhuman abilities. Ty had the strongest desire to reach over and distract Tempest from it all in a very direct and immediate way. Everything about her suggested she was open to the idea.

  And yet, he still held him back.

  Instead, he jumped back to an earlier topic. “You said that not everyone has hidden powers within them. What about me?”

  Immediately, Tempest brightened again. “Let’s find out, shall we? Press your thumb on the sensor on top of the bracelet.”

  Ty following her directions and a holographic string display showed up, displaying two menu items: Profile, and Communication.

  “Choose the Profile option,” Tempest said.

  7: Hardly Heroic

  Ty did as Tempest said, and the holographic screen changed to display an outline image that he recognized as himself. Beside that image was a list of different profile descriptors under various headings:

  General

  Name: input required

  Modifications: None

  Unique Skill: Technological Enhancement

  Alignment: Neutral Good

  Baseline

  Strength: 4

  Durability: 3

  Healing: 5

  Stamina: 4

  Agility: 4

  Intelligence: 7

  Wisdom: 5

  Skill: N/A

  Post enhancement

  Strength: 6

  Durability: 5

  Healing: 7
>
  Stamina: 5

  Agility: 5

  Intelligence: 8

  Wisdom: 6

  Skill: 2

  “It’s like a character sheet for a game,” Ty said.

  Tempest was grinning broadly. “Yes. My father might have been a mad scientist, but he wasn’t completely out of touch with the rest of the world. He played role-playing games whenever he needed a break from his work and couldn’t think of a better way to display information like this.”

  Ty was fascinated. He read through the list but had no real reference point. “What is the scale?” he asked.

  “It’s mostly a one to ten type of thing, but it depends. If you have a strength of ten, for example, you’d be about the strongest possible for someone who isn’t wearing a device. Like a weightlifter or heavyweight wrestler. Five is about average. If you showed a number above ten, then you’re into the ‘super’ category. Mine shows fourteen, but that’s misleading as well. My Unique Skill adds a few bonus points. Zach is –” Tempest paused for a moment, catching herself, “was the same. He could use his telekinesis as a shield, which bumped up his durability significantly. Although not, as it turned out, by enough.”

  It made complete sense to Ty. His roommate was heavily into games, and in fact, made his living playing them. Ty had learned more than enough for this to be familiar to him.

  It also left him disappointed.

  “I’m not very super, am I?” he said. His stats even after enhancement weren’t much to write home about.

  Yet Tempest still favored him with her teasing smile. “As it turns out, you are. You have a Unique Skill. Very few people have one of those.”

  Ty frowned. “Technological Enhancement? Sounds like what I do now. Fixing things, getting them to work.” He didn’t even want to think about what it could mean that there was a lowly ‘2’ next to it. Was he really that bad at what he did?

  “It’s something,” Tempest said. “And we don’t really know what it means yet. It took a little while for me to figure out how to convert energies in ways that proved useful. I had to learn how to fly.” She gave a peculiar expression, as if deciding how much she should say. “Dinah’s skills are also not those you might associate with crime fighting. But they’re useful, nevertheless. And remember, a two means little if you’re the only one in the world who has the skill at all. Zach started out with a two in telekinesis.”