I had my clothes, my laptop, my books, and my few belongings packed up in a big canvas knapsack. It was kind of sad that once I pulled everything important and stashed my armor, I could fit all my belongings into a single bag. The apartment was furnished, one of the reasons I rented it, and once you excluded that, the belongings were sadly limited.
I was actually confident enough that I went to the school store and sold my books back. Any useful information that was in them was on the ‘net anyway, but a lot of the tenured types insisted that you blow your hard-earned money on their fantastically overpriced published crap, especially the ones in ‘soft’ sciences, where the book was nothing more than their collected political maunderings and heavily biased opinions.
When I got to the student union, I wandered to the machines, pretending not to notice that Mindy was there and looking at me in shock as I bought myself a bag of pretzels and a fruit juice. After a few moments, I heard the word, “Jacob?” coming from her direction in the almost-empty building, and I turned, dropping my bag and the snacks on the round table she sat at, before turning my chair around and sitting on it with my arms crossed across the back.
“I am surprised you recognized me, Mindy.” I said, carefully tearing the bag of pretzels open. “Want one?”
She looked at the snoopy stencil on the front of my shirt and then back at my face, her delicate blonde hair a little flyaway in the powerful air conditioning of the wood-paneled atrium. “I thought you would be a girl. I haven’t seen you for a while.”
I glanced at her, crunching on one of the sticks. “So did my parents. So, did you just want to meet me to make sure I am not a complete monster, or did you want a demonstration? You see me every day, but we haven’t had classes together for more than a year, since Intro to advanced atomic science.”
She sighed and tapped her teeth. She was wearing a very different costume this time, ‘young professional’ with a finely-made suit-style jacket, a pale blue ruffled ankle-length skirt, and decent strappy sandals. “I just wanted to meet you, but I hoped we could go somewhere for a demo… but the fact that you are male kind of complicates things. If you’d like, I could take you for an assessment?”
I smiled a little, “I was assessed a couple of years ago, but a friend has been training me, and I think I can qualify for class three now. Currently, I have a public ID, but obviously, no one cares about a class two. I do have to warn you, though, I know who you are… domino masks really suck, but per the nasty-gram your publicist sent, I am well aware that it’s protected information.”
“Wait… are you…?”
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I shook my head, “Naww, he has cool elemental controls. I’m just a low-grade widgeteer. A few repairs, some light trauma assistance. I patched the D-man up after he showed up with a few scratches, but as you can tell, he knows more than a few of us. My record is clean, though, so he told me that we could trade favors if you were so inclined.”
“Are you wanting to be a hero?”
“Not even slightly, but I wouldn’t mind playing support. If you go to the big show after school, he mentioned you might need backup, especially if you decide to spearhead a solo career.”
She looked thoughtful. “He… might be right. Is he usually a matchmaker like that?”
I shrugged, “The company he works for is. They have a lot of respect for heroes, and while SSS itself is the showtime division, the parent company handles publicity, logistics, and tries to build winning teams.”
She smirked a little, “So basically they are an agent company, and he hopes to headhunt me after I finish at the academy and get licensed?”
I shook my head, “Naww. They are more like a consultancy firm. They might hope that you hire them as your back end, or put in a good word if you go to work for TFI, Marma, or a state BSA team, but they don’t directly employ heroes.”
“Do you work for them?”
“No, Ma’am, I am trying to get my degree, although working for them is definitely on the table once I get through the educational minefield, if I can’t work directly for one of the biggies.”
Considering the kind of bounties heroes could earn for bringing in bad guys and fighting against waves and Kaiju, more than a few of them supported their own backup team, even if they worked professionally with a larger team. Thus, companies that specialized in helping a super set up their own team and took care of the legal and back-end issues like supplies, insurance, and liability definitely had their place, even though they didn’t get the spotlight very often.
“What’s your major?”
I grinned, “Logistics and supply, Ma’am. That’s why the D-Man suggested I talk to you.”
She nodded slowly, “That makes a lot of sense. It’s also a darned good reason to refer you. Are you hoping to get a scholarship? You seem to know more about this than I do.”
I nodded, “Yep. If I go in as a class 2 or even a class 3 without a referral, I’ll either be stuck with a grant that will require BSA service… or I get a scholarship with a BSA service price tag attached. That means, when I am out, I will most likely get stuck wherever they want me to be, or even a floater.”
“So why me?” she asked curiously.
I smiled, “Because you already made it clear you want to be local, and I don’t want to be shuffled all over the country. Also, it would be returning a favor.”
“Why is that important?”
I raised an eyebrow, “Because I am male?”
“Huh?” she asked.
I sighed and looked at her, “If I asked for a referral from someone else, I would owe them a favor, a big one. Do I really have to explain this?”
She blushed, which, with her light complexion, involved turning an interesting shade of vermillion. She really was a stunner, which, considering she’d already been very attractive before her awakening, was not too unexpected, since it tended to enhance what you already had. “I… see. Maybe we should head to the BSA facility to get you reclassified?”
I nodded, “Good Idea.”
