Super Powereds: Year 3 (92 page)

                Nick pulled open the door, nearly taking a fist to the face from Vince, who’d been responsible for the initial banging. Thankfully, Vince was able to stop his blow and avoid bloodying Nick’s nose, a circumstance that would have put quite a damper on the evening.

                “Good to see you.” Vince wrapped his arms around Nick, pulling his friend in tightly for a hug. Nick was hoping the outpouring of affection would taper off once enough time had passed that everyone was no longer terrified he might up and be gone again.

                “You too, come on in. Drinks are in the fridge, and chips are on the counter.”

                Vince slid past him, followed by Hershel—who thankfully stuck to a handshake as he struggled with the duffel bag on his shoulder—and then Mary, who merely greeted him with a wry smile and a slight nod. Alice was last, and she gave him a side-armed hug; far from the ridiculously strong one Vince had offered, yet still close enough to establish physical contact. Nick took the hint, returning the embrace, then shutting and locking the door behind him.

                “All right, Hershel, tell us what you’ve got tonight,” Nick said.

                The others had already settled in at the table, pulling a variety of mismatched seats together so that everyone had a place to sit. Only Nick knew that the table had come with a very nice, matched set of chairs, which he’d had to throw away to keep the disheveled, ill-organized appearance of a college student.

                “I’ve got all the standard stuff: Risk, Sorry, Trivial Pursuit, things like that. I also brought along some more obscure options. Riding Hellhounds, Save the Day, and Mad Gods are three of my favorites.” Hershel spoke as he pulled box after box from the cramped duffel bag he’d lugged along. It was no surprise that he was the one to propose a game night as a weekly activity; Hershel’s adoration of all things dice-related remained soundly intact.

                “Let’s take Risk off the table; we’ve all got class tomorrow, and I have a feeling Hershel and I would end up in a grudge match that takes days to resolve,” Nick said. It wasn’t just bluster, either. Though he was confident he could take down the smaller Daniels brother, Nick respected Hershel’s experience and battle acumen enough to assume he’d put up a hell of a fight.

                “I don’t really know how to play any of these,” Vince admitted. “My father taught me a few card games growing up, but that was basically it.”

                “On that note, maybe we shouldn’t play Trivial Pursuit either,” Mary said. “Given Vince’s deficient knowledge of pop culture and modern history, I doubt he’d enjoy it very much.”

                “We could try Sorry. That’s pretty straightforward,” Alice proposed.

                “So much so that it’s hardly even worth playing,” Nick replied. “Since Hershel was such a sport about lugging those things across campus, I say we play one of the weird ones he brought along.”

                “It wasn’t hard or anything,” Hershel said. A year ago, it very well might have been a challenge for him to cart the duffel bag off campus, but all those months of training were showing dividends in more than just his slimming waist. “But I’m not going to pass up the chance to play one of those, so thanks.”

                “I still think it sucks that you can’t come to Melbrook,” Vince said.

                “Why? I actually like our arrangement,” Nick replied. “You lot have to do all the commuting, and I don’t cause undue suspicion by showing up at the place I was kicked out of. Besides, the most important part of that dorm is not the place itself.”

                “I know, it’s us, your friends,” Vince said

                “No, it’s the beer I had hidden in my room.” Nick rolled his eyes in an exaggerated motion. “Beer that I’ve since replaced and is sitting in my fridge. Get over yourself, Silver.”

                His friends weren’t particularly fooled by the act anymore, but no one called him on it. They were trying to settle back into some sense of familiarity—as much as they could with Nick outside the program, anyway—and him wise-cracking his emotions away was turf everyone was comfortable on.

                “Okay, so it’s between the three games. Riding Hellhounds is a game where all the players are stuck in the underworld, performing for Hades. We race hellhounds around the track, trying to win and get set free. There’s lots of ways to do sabotage and stuff too, not to mention obstacles in the path,” Hershel explained. “Save the Day is about running a Hero team; you draw members, organize them, then roll to see how you do in various encounters picked from the deck. You win different tokens for each success, and we total them up at the end to see the winner. Mad Gods is sort of weird, though. How familiar is everyone with the Cthulhu mythos?”

                “Let’s do the dog-racing one,” Alice suggested. “It sounds fun, and to be honest, I don’t really want to spend my night away from the HCP pretending to be a Hero. I could use some time off.”

                “I’ll second that,” Mary added. “Let’s start easy and work up to the more complex ones.”

                “No objections here; I love that one,” Hershel said. “Vince, Nick, you guys okay with Riding Hellhounds?”

                “It can’t be harder than learning about LARPing,” Vince said. “So I’m fine.”

                “Count me in, too. Anyone want a beer or soda while Hershel sets up the board?” Nick asked. Alice and Mary both raised their hands, though only Alice accepted the drink with alcohol, and Nick made his way into the kitchen.

                It was probably still a risk, meeting up like this every week, but it was a necessary one. Unusual as those potential future Heroes were, they were still important to Nick. Professor Pendleton had been right: their lives weren’t going to be getting any easier, not if those people made it to Hero status. He had to enjoy his time with them now, while there was still a chance.

                Besides, even Nick had to admit that some of Hershel’s games sounded pretty fun.

171.

               Dean Blaine was finishing up some paperwork—which he would send away, only to have it be replaced with almost magical speed, creating a cycle he personally considered Sisyphean—when his office door was flung wide open. The bald man standing in the frame was as broad and strong as Blaine remembered him, though his midsection had begun to sag as retirement took its toll.

                “Zero! Guess who’s back on campus?”

                It was the same way he introduced himself every year, yet time after time, Blaine had to fight down the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose when the booming voice roared through his office. Instead, he looked up from his paperwork with a placid smile and motioned for his guest to sit.

                “Victor, always a pleasure to see you, but we’ve talked about this many, 
many 
times before. Zero is gone; I’m just Dean Blaine these days.”

                “Uh huh. Tell you what? I’ll believe that just as soon as you start to.” Victor stomped through the office, not out of intent, but merely because he was a heavy man who knew no other way to walk, and all but fell into the chair Dean Blaine had pointed out. “Damn good to see you again, though. Seems like these talks are the only times we get to hang out anymore.”

                “Time is a commodity that seems to only grow more precious with every year. My students require a good deal of looking after, and I doubt your players are much different. With superhuman abilities come superhuman egos and issues, after all.”

                “You don’t have to tell me, I remember the crazy bullshit from these halls all too well. On that note, got any good prospects for me before I give them the talk?” Victor’s smile was still wide and affable, his body language sincere, but Blaine would have had to be far greener to miss the hungry glint that gleamed in his eyes.

                “Must we do this every year? I’m not telling you where my students stand in terms of advancement, especially given that it could radically change depending on how they perform in their final assessments,” Dean Blaine said.

                “Come on, you can’t throw a few bones to an old friend? Once the failures are announced, there’s a damn bum-rush to snap up the best ones. Sure would be nice to have a few leads on where to focus my energy.” Victor leaned back in the chair and rested his feet on the corner on Blaine’s desk.

                That level of gall would have earned almost anyone else an ejection from Dean Blaine’s office, but even he admitted that he held a soft spot for Victor. It was hard not to. Aside from standing on the same stage at graduation, they’d been friends for most of their time at Lander. Victor had even been in the weekly poker game. Blaine knew that his friend didn’t mean to come off as manner-less and brusque; Victor simply lacked delicacy in nearly every form imaginable.

                “Feet off my desk, Victor,” Dean Blaine sighed. They’d had this dance many times before, and after so many years, he’d allowed himself to begin skipping the middle parts and arriving at the destination they both knew they would reach. “I won’t discuss who is likely to pass or fail, but I could alert you to who would certainly be worth obtaining, should they need a new future path. This assumes, of course, that you will not be using this information to sign them for less than they deserve.”

                “Hey now, you show me one Lander kid, just one, that I’ve given a bad deal to, and I’ll show up to the next live game in a bright-pink ballerina’s outfit.” Victor did, to his credit, put his feet down as he spoke.

                “True, you are always fair to our students, though I’ve heard of some less than stellar deals offered to the Supers formerly of Korman University.” Dean Blaine’s mouth twitched at the edges as he fought down a smirk. “Any reason why that school’s alumni don’t deserve the same treatment?”

                Victor glowered at Blaine from across the table. “You just love bringing that up, don’t you?”

                “It 
was
 the first time someone lost an Intramural match by being ejected from the hemisphere.”

                “It also took them three days to find me and teleport me back,” Victor grumbled. “I didn’t even get to watch the other fights, which were apparently fucking amazing.”

                “That was your fault for tearing off as soon as you realized where you were. If you’d stayed put, they’d have brought you back in mere hours.” Dean Blaine reached into his top desk drawer and pulled out the stack of papers he’d prepared in advance of Victor’s visit. Ever since the former-Hero became the default Super Athletics Association representative at Lander, they’d been having some variation of this meeting once a year. “Here are the dossiers on this year’s class. As a still-certified Hero and freelance consultant, you’re held under all the usual gag orders in terms of passing it on.”

                “Read and burn, I know the deal. They gave us a whole course on it when I got my consultant license.” Victor accepted the papers and began to flip through them. “Any you’d recommend starting with?”

                “So far as the usual physical abilities go: Sasha Foster is a super-speeder with mid-range peak acceleration capabilities, but higher than normal levels of endurance. Alex Griffen is an advanced mind with exceptional high levels of control, albeit some personality quirks to go with it. Mary Smith is another advanced mind; she lacks Alex’s level of control, but has more telekinetic force than Heroes that have been on the job for years. Also in the physical group is Roy Daniels, who was a low to mid-range strongman until last year. If you check his latest assessments, I think you’ll find it interesting.”

                Victor’s eyes widened as he flipped to Roy’s page. “That’s a hell of a growth spike. He’s not at the high-end yet, but damned if he isn’t running toward it full-tilt. Damn, with that kind of power, he’ll probably make it through. Too bad, I can always use a good strongman, though the advanced minds come in pretty handy as well. Now, forgive me, but I do have to point out that it seems you ignored someone pretty important.”

                “You interrupted me before I was finished,” Dean Blaine replied.

                “Please, if you were going to mention Chad, you’d have told me about him first. He is top of the class, after all; been there since the very first assessment.”

                It was easy to forget that beneath Victor’s dense appearance and dull features was a mind much quicker than he liked to let on. Even knowing him as long as Blaine had, he still found himself underestimating the former Hero from time to time.

                “Seems you did a little research of your own before our meeting,” Dean Blaine said.

                “Half the reason I even got licensed to consult for the HCP was so I could be let in on all these little progress reports,” Victor replied, no sense of shame in his still shining grin. “Wouldn’t be very smart of me to go to all that trouble and then not use the perks.”

                “Perks, indeed.” Dean Blaine resisted the urge to rub his temples, but only barely. “Chad was left out because there was no point in talking to you about him. You always want to know about the best people to make offers to, should they become available. Chad Taylor does not fall in that category.”