"I need a job," you blurt out.
"What?" Whatever she expected out of you, it looks like it wasn't that.
"A job!" you repeat, like that'll clear anything up. You scramble to your feet and reflexively dust yourself off. You must look ridiculous. "The place I used to work just got blown up and I've been thinking about what I'm gonna do if they don't hire me back while it's getting fixed up and I heard you talking to Masoud about doing 'cleanup'!"
Talking fast to try and get to the point quick is a winning strategy, she's just sort of staring at you like a rat speaking English and that's just the in you need.
"We get the same amount of anomalies and aftershocks as the city centre, right? But in the back of my mind I was always wondering why things aren't even worse than they are, because cops aren't enough and heroes don't usually come here, and the answer's been you all along! You or- your people? Do you have a team, a headquarters somewhere-"
"Okay, hold the fucking phone." Katarina shoves her palm in your face. You flinch, jaw snapping shut like a steel trap - you've seen what those hands can do. Leaving her jacket draped over her shoulder she digs around in her pocket for a lighter and finally lights up her first cigarette of the pack. The tip burns away to a good chunk of burning ash as she takes a recklessly deep pull. She huffs the smoke back out her nose like a dragon getting ready to breathe fire, her eyes never once leaving yours. "First off- okay no, I don't even know where to begin with this shit. What are you, fifteen?"
"Twenty-five," you snap, the insane lowball enough to briefly crack the armour of intimidation.
"Then your dad's real late teaching you that you don't go asking people for jobs on the street, which is a whole lot of Not My Fuckin' Problem." She flashes you a sarcastic smile with a pump of her eyebrows and sucks in another cloud of smoke. "Tell Masoud today cost him the pack and we're square. Later."
"Hey-!"
You choke off your next words in an irritated snarl as she starts walking away. You go to knead your brow, only for your hand to smack into the faceplate you're still forgetting is there. This time the nanoforge helpfully gets rid of it, the whole helmet crumbling away like wet sand as the nanites reclaim it for materials. You run your gloved hands through your hair a few times - honestly it kind of feels somewhere between wearing a bodysuit and nothing at all but 'gloves' works better for your brain right now - before you remember you've left a few things behind. You retrieve your hoodie from the damp ground, throw it back on, and hurry back into the store.
Masoud is waiting pretty much exactly where you left him, standing shotgun in hand like a stunned rabbit, staring at you. There's a pregnant pause as you struggle to come up with something adequate to say.
"... can I still have that sandwich?" you ask. It's stupid but it seems to break the spell over him. Maybe it reminds him that you're still you, even after that display.
"Of course my friend, of course." He chuckles, a nervous edge to it, understandably so. "Running off to defend my shop like that is worth a few measly dollars I think, haha. You, ah..." he gestures vaguely at pretty much all of you "... this was the story you would tell?"
"More or less, yeah."
"Strange times, strange times. And an even stranger blessing for you to receive, brother, but it seems you already have ideas about how to use it?"
You blink. "Sorry?"
Masoud gestures out the window as if you just asked what colour the sky is. "You think she is an easy nut to be cracked? You think what is important is also easy?" He suddenly remembers he's still holding a shotgun and sets it down on the counter beside your nearly-forgotten things, pressing them into your hands before you can protest. "The screaming hero who nearly broke my hip should not back down so soon. Go, be among your people!"
"(Wait, what d'you mean-)" you try to say.
"Go!" he exclaims again, almost laughing, as he stabs his finger in Katarina's direction. You shift your weight back and forth on the balls of your feet a few times, uncertainty spiking in the pit of your stomach. But then you remember the indescribable rush of emotions you felt when you went out there to fight and suddenly the choice doesn't seem hard at all. You tear out another great big chunk of the sandwich and hurry out into the street, double-timing it to catch up with Katarina. Thankfully she isn't moving very fast, just a steady stroll through down with illegal contraband slung over her shoulders.
Then she hears you coming, sees you out of the corner of her eye, and grunts in disgust.
"Oh fuck me, what now."
"You're a superhero!" you say quickly, falling in line beside her. "Street-level I mean, protecting people from monster attacks! Masoud just said as much."
"Yeah? Well maybe you should head back and tell him we don't need him sending us interns."
"What I don't get is why I've never heard of you." You charge on like she didn't speak, it's probably the only way to make any headway. "I mean minor powers fly under the radar all the time but I saw you out there and that was not minor. Not just your strength, that's enough on its own, but you didn't even flinch when it hit you with that pole. Is there even a bruise? A headache?"
"Besides the one you're giving me?" she retorts, shooting you a glare.
"I know you have a team too! You have a headquarters and you were bringing soy sauce back, I heard you!"
Katarina stops dead in her tracks. "(fuck I forgot the fucking soy)" she hisses under her breath. The silent moment stretches on and she doesn't keep walking. Instead, after what feels like an eternity deep in thought, she turns to you.
"Fine, hero-boy." (Bite it back, no helmet in the way this time but you're good at looking neutral.) "You wanna serve the community so bad? Run back and get me my soy."
Another moment of silence. You're like 98% sure she's fucking with you, but that's a chance you can't really afford to take right now. So you turn on the balls of your feet before you have time to second-guess yourself and take off at a dead run - which turns out to be a hell of a lot faster than you were expecting. You've always considered yourself a natural sprinter, and sure you don't exercise much to compare, but even you can tell you get back to Masoud's way too fast. You stagger a little as you come to a stop, the inside of the nanosuit prickling strangely against the skin.
"She forgot her soy," Masoud says.
"She forgot her soy," you agree.
"Two braincells this woman has, and both lose track when a fight begins." Masoud hands you to the bottle with a grin. "And she says she needs no help."
You bid him farewell for real this time and hoof it back to where you left Katarina. She double-takes when you return, peering down at the soy sauce bottle like some foreign object. You try to play it cool, which mostly involves eating your sandwich and standing your ground. She drops the android hulk on the floor like a stack of kindling, and you may not know how much those things weigh but the loud CLANK of it hitting the street gives you a pretty good guess. She shrugs her jacket back on, sticks the offered bottle into the inside pocket, and scoops up the dead robot again. Now she's carrying it like a duffle, dangling easy at the end of her arm by her grip on its ribcage alone.
"You really wanna make this difficult, don't you?" she asks.
"I want in," you reply."
"Why?"
"I want a job."
"Get a job, I hear we got plenty of construction work in the near future." She starts walking again.
"You told me not to do it for free, you saying you're breaking your own rule?" You start following again.
"I don't do it for free. What're you expecting here, a paycheck?" She grabs the robot's severed arm with her free hand and waves it at you. "This is what we get paid. Bounties, scrap, and shitty little knick-knacks. Working with our hands on our own terms, ain't that the American Dream or some shit?"
"Bullshit that's all you get paid, what I saw out there could get you hired for a starter gig over the river on the spot."
"Yeah? Well maybe some of us don't want the spotlight." Her voice is changing. She sounded a little like the nanoforge at first, that generalised American Accent that doesn't stand out anywhere but doesn't belong to anywhere either. Now she's irritable and it's sanding the learned edges off it, letting the real thing come out. Sounds Eastern European - is she Russian or something? She chuckles mirthlessly, and a fresh coat of varnish brings the American back. "If your idea of getting hired is telling us we're working for scraps for no reason, your approach needs some work."
"Look, I'm not trying to insult you, I'm trying to figure out what's going on so-"
"So you can use us as a footstool to break into the real work, yeah yeah, I hear enough of this mealy-mouthed fakey horseshit from Florence." She quickens her pace, just enough to show you that she's in even less of a mood for this conversation than when you started. "You sound like you have this all figured out so what're you still bothering me for? Go fish for your ticket to the walk of fame somewhere else, Mr. New Hero In Town."
It shouldn't bother you. It doesn't bother you. It's never bothered you before and it will never bother you no matter how many times you hear it but this one time this one place that one tone is like needles in the base of your neck and it's like a circuit breaker goes off in your head. You take three long strides, whirl around and body-block Katarina in her tracks.
You swear those amber-hazel eyes look red for the blink of an eye.
"I live here too," you snap. "You're right, okay? I don't know what the fuck's going on or what I'm doing or where I'm going. This-" you stab a finger into your chest, armoured in sheets of woven nanites like muscle fibre "-happened today. So if you, your people, whoever you are; if you all have powers too, and you use them to keep people safe around here? Yeah. I- I want in."
The wind lets out a low moan as it whistles through the cold, empty street. Just you and her, and the chance of a lifetime. Her gaze seems to bore into you, as forceful as the rest of her, and the weight is so terrible you'd ask the nanoforge to bring your helmet back if you could get away with it. And then, like a breath of fresh air after almost drowning, she averts her gaze and shrugs irritably.
"Fine. Fine. Whatever. I'll take you to Jae-yoon and it can be his problem now. You happy?"
"Y-yeah."
"Well don't be, happy people piss me off."
You step out of her way and Katarina keeps stomping along at her unhurried, inexorable pace. You take the opportunity to demolish the rest of your sandwich as you follow in her wake. The drink follows shortly after - you worked up a pretty big thirst fighting for your life there. Katarina hasn't taken any turns yet so it looks like you're headed right to the beachfront. Is that really where they're headquartered? Sure it'd probably be cheap down there these days, but from the sounds of it this team isn't exactly the property-owning kind.
A prickling sensation at your cheeks and throat heralds the return of the nanites. The nanoforge reconstructs your helmet, safely sealing you in a bubble of black glass and silvery metal. A 'mic off' symbol appears in the bottom left corner of your heads-up display. The nanoforge's avatar appears in the top right.
"We are now able to converse without being overheard," the nanoforge explains. "Subvocalisations will also suffice, but this should prove the more natural environment."
"Uh... thanks," you say, a little dubiously. But no matter how carefully you watch Katarina's back, she gives no indication that she hears you talking to yourself. "What is it?"
"Why are you pursuing this path of employment?" it asks. "Despite Katarina's clear hostility you remained vehement in your desires to join her 'superhero team', knowing nothing more about it than its existence and the theoretical possibility of indirect payment for services rendered. Indeed, you may simply have said what you thought she wanted to hear."
"Are you implying something?"
"No. I am providing context. She was correct - if financial security were your primary goal, there are a multitude of alternative routes that you have not even considered, much less explored."
"Well- what d'you want me to say!?" you give an exasperated shrug.
"I am not seeking any one answer. You may give any reply you wish, including none at all. I am not here to stop you. I am here to advise you, and modify my treatment plans to suit your needs. That is all."
You go to rub the back of your head. There's still a helmet in the way. You scowl and try to scratch the back of your neck which goes better, probably because the suit's like a milimetre thick or something and your glove has claws on it. "I... alright. We're clear."
It has a point, no matter how much constantly scouring your own brain to try and come up with answers for the stupid thing is wearing you thin. You need to think about this some more, now that you're not getting heated with a stranger riding the adrenaline high of fistfighting an extradimensional scout-drone thing. What's the goal here, now that it's just you and your little AI doctor to hear it?
[ ] You're no social butterfly, but you hit rock botom here and the people you've met didn't judge you while you picked yourself back up. If you can help people like Masoud this way, then this is what you want.
[ ] She was almost right on the money and that's what stung the most. You do want the walk of fame. You want to save people with a smile where everyone can see it and have millions of people value you for what you do. You want, more than anything in the world, to go from screwup to superhero.
[ ] This town's been crying out for heroes for a long time, and Paragon was the first one to give it the time of day in years the night he saved you. Maybe if you follow in his footsteps, protect Freeside with this power he gave you when he saved your life, maybe he'll come to you in the end. Maybe that'll get you answers.
[ ] Say nothing. The more you try to put it into words the more you feel this weight in your skull, crushing out everything else.
