Chapter 5
“Hey. Hey. What does that mean?”
Tiff shimmied up to Victoria, who was leaning casually against the counter, and tugged on her shirt. Tiff could very easily go with the flow of most situations, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like to be informed if she was being volunteered for something.
“It’s for my work,” Victoria explained simply, and while it mostly satisfied Tiff’s worries, she was still skeptical. It was entirely possible Victoria was lugging Tiff around with her for some chores on a whim, but Victoria was a planner, and most things she did had a purpose.
“Very well!” The receptionist gave them a brilliant smile and Tiff blinked. The woman was a receptionist, but was she an actual [Receptionist]? Classes came in all shapes and sizes, and while there were hundreds of common ones, there were also variants and unique sub-classes that made the total number and possibilities for any particular class practically infinite. It was entirely reasonable that there was a [Receptionist] class (Tiff knew one of her mom’s friends was a [Secretary]), and Tiff assumed that it would have skills or something to help with charisma. Tiff snorted at the thought of Skill: Winning Smile and what that might actually do.
“Member Tori VanDyne, in order to issue a new commission or contract, please present your Guild ID.”
The receptionist sounded strangely formal to Tiff, but her sister wasn’t bothered by it and produced a wallet from her back pocket without hesitation. She handed over a card and the woman behind the desk started typing away furiously. Yet another skill? Tiff mused, watching her hands fly at far greater than 60 words per minute.
“Will this be System Integrated?”
“At this time, no.”
“What capacity will this contract entail?”
“Bodyguard services.”
“Expected duration?”
“One week.”
“Will you be open to taking on concurrent clients?”
“No.”
“Will there be any need for additional clauses, restrictions, or requests not accounted for on the base form?”
“No.”
“Thank you very much.”
A few more keystrokes and the receptionist took a deep breath.
“Member Tori VanDyne,” the receptionist smiled while reading from her screen, “Is hereby entering into a non-binding, independent venture as a [Bodyguard]. For Guild and Associated purposes, this contract will be considered private and conclusive, starting at but not limited to one week in duration, wherein re-negotiation may begin. No other cases will be recommended to or required of Member Tori until this contract is completed. As pursuant to all definitions laid down in Guild bylaws, section 17, article C, preliminary conditions, expectations, and preparations are considered ‘normal’ and ‘mundane’.”
Victoria smirked.
“I understand and consent.”
Tiff narrowed her eyes. She typed all of that in less than 30 seconds? She has to be some sort of [Receptionist].
She was about to open her mouth and ask what was going on when the lady continued.
“Will you need a private meeting room to meet or discuss with your client?”
“No.”
“Very well. Do you have a request or authorization from your client?”
“Tiff?”
Tiff looked up, slightly startled to hear her name. She blinked twice at her sister before her eyes narrowed. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on. For reasons that she couldn’t begin to comprehend, her sister wanted to abuse her position as a [Bodyguard] to…what? Tiff realized she didn’t actually know what a [Bodyguard] did! The obviously sounding name meant she could make some pretty obvious guesses, but that could also be Hollywood movies talking. She didn’t want her big sister jumping in front of random bullets!
…she didn’t want any bullets, for that matter, anywhere near either of them.
“Trust me on this,” Victoria pleaded in a low voice. “I can explain when we get back in the car.”
Tiff swallowed her complaint and nodded. She would play along for now.
“Yes?” she asked more than declared. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. Apparently, that was enough.
“Understood. And what will you be listing for payment? Should I assume you will not be using the standard accompaniment fee and will be taking this case pro bono?”
Tiff grimaced. She didn’t know the literal definition of that term, but she knew it meant lawyers sometimes worked for free, so she assumed it meant the same thing here. Essentially, she was being treated as a charity case. For some reason, that really irked her.
“Yes,” Victoria confirmed. She must have noticed Tiff’s rising ire as she looked down to explain. “We have to mark something, Tiff. The guild requires all work to be done at fair, reasonable compensation. So it’s either that or free, there’s no middle ground.”
“That rule has been in effect since the very beginning,” the lady chimed in. “It’s there to protect our members in case of fraud or default.”
Tiff really didn’t like thinking of herself as “charity,” but it wasn’t like she had anything to pay her sister with. She wasn’t up to date on market rates for [Bodyguards] or Mercenaries in general. Yet another thing she needed to talk to Victoria about. She didn’t think she could handle many more of those.
Fortunately for Tiff, they were done. The receptionist thumped a huge stamp down onto some printouts and handed them over the counter.
“Great! We’re all done here. I’ll update your records to reflect your new assignment, and you won’t receive any referrals for the next week. Please visit the guild for any updates or revisions.”
The moment the papers were in Victoria’s hands, she froze like a deer caught in headlights. The receptionist reeled back as if surprised, so Tiff instantly knew this wasn’t normal, and she really wanted to get out of there so she could start asking questions. But no matter how much she tugged on her sister’s clothes, Victoria didn’t budge. Victoria simply stood rooted to the spot, her eyes unfocused as she stared into nowhere.
“Oh,” Victoria eventually said after a moment. She seemed to come to a realization, and with it came a grim determination. “It seems my worries were on the mark. I completed a Quest and I gained a level.”
Both Tiff and the receptionist blinked in confusion, but the receptionist recovered first.
“Congratulations!” she said demurely, but Tiff could see the genuine excitement and joy in her eyes. She was clearly excited for her colleague, but maybe she didn’t want to draw attention to it in the middle of a busy workspace. Or maybe there were unspoken rules or etiquette for people who leveled? Tiff didn’t know. She was still brand new to this, having been Awakened for barely more than a day. Several awkward seconds passed as the receptionist seemed to wait for Victoria to offer more information, which she was too distracted to do, all the while Tiff fidgeted like the third wheel on a date. Eventually, Tiff tugged on Victoria again and found her more movable, so they muttered a distracted “thank you” and led Victoria back to the car.
Once safely inside the admittedly less-than-private confines of the car, Tiff exploded.
“What was that?” she demanded. “What do you mean by making yourself my bodyguard? That’s not what you said we were going to do today! And did you really have to lock yourself into a contract? Without taking any other clients or getting paid? That’s what it sounded like! I don’t have much money saved up, but I can pay for some of it! What were you thinking?”
Victoria smiled softly and let Tiff wear herself out. Once she stopped huffing and started actually panting, Victoria held up a hand.
“Take a breath, Tiff, seriously.”
She waited and, thankfully, her sister obeyed.
“Good. Now…number one. Of course it’s not what I said we were going to do, because I didn’t say we were going to do anything. I just asked if you wanted to come with me to the guild and get out of the house. Yes, I planned on doing it anyway, but if I told you, would you have said yes?”
Tiff’s silence was answer enough.
“As far as money goes, don’t worry about it. No, you can’t pay, and you couldn’t afford it anyway. Not to brag, but I’m a pretty big deal.”
Victoria puffed out her chest and Tiff rolled her eyes.
“But seriously, Tiff, look at me.”
Her little sister did so, only to see the grim determination on Victoria’s face. “I’m worried about you. I really hope you don’t need it, but if I need to step in to protect you, it’s so much better, not to mention easier and less of a hassle legally, if I’m doing it not as your big sister, but a licensed [Bodyguard].”
Tiff was clearly unnerved.
“Why do I need a bodyguard?”
“Because the real reason we’re going out today: we’re going to go get you Assessed.”
Tiff perked up…and then frowned.
“That’s not dangerous at all…we could go to the DMA and the most dangerous thing there is the hard plastic seats and the long lines where we might die of boredom or old age.”
“The Department of Metahuman Affairs?” Victoria asked knowingly, watching Tiff wilt. “Where the recruitment office for Young Heroes is? The biggest congregation of bored and idle Heroes just itching to get into a fight? No. We’re not going there, and you know exactly why.”
Tiff did, but she wasn’t going to tell anyone else. She glared suspiciously at Victoria, wondering how much she guessed.
“So then, where are we going?”
“To the Adventurer’s Union.”
“Why are we going there instead?”
Victoria gave Tiff a long, hard look. It was the saddest, most pained expression Tiff had ever seen on her big sister, like somebody just told her a family member had cancer or a cherished childhood pet was dying.
“We both know you don’t want to go anywhere near Heroes right now,” Victoria winced, as if saying the words aloud physically hurt her. “Even though, as a government agency, the DMA is supposed to be neutral, I’m worried how…busybodies…might react to somebody on the darker side of the Greyscale. Many powers grant people enhanced senses, and hearing is fairly common. I don’t know if examination rooms are soundproofed or if we’re supposed to simply trust ‘doctor-patient’ confidentiality.”
Tiff’s face drained of color as the truth sank in. Victoria knew. Somehow, she knew…!
“Please,” Victoria scoffed. “You’re wondering how I guessed your affinity.”
Tiff, despite herself, nodded.
“It wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t difficult. Let me first say that even if my guess is right, it doesn’t change a thing. You’re still my little sister, and I love you and I’m not gonna let anybody hurt you. I said it, I meant it, and I became your bodyguard to prove it. Tiff…do you trust me?”
Tiff looked up, nearly on the verge of tears, and saw how deeply her sister cared. She saw the pain and anguish and the desire to make everything bad in the world go away, and Tiff was moved.
“Yes.”
Victoria simply smiled.
“Second, I want to say that you need to be careful with who you tell about your Status. I’m glad you told me, and I don’t think you did anything wrong by it, and I don’t think Mom or Dad or Amy would think anything bad about it if you told them either. They’d love you just as much now as they did before.”
“But I didn’t give anything away?” Tiff fidgeted, trying to remember exactly what she shared with her sister. Nowhere on there had it said her Class, her Affinity, or otherwise revealed that she was a Supervillain. Victoria shook her head.
“And I don’t think most normal people would have made the connection either, Tiff. Your teachers, other kids at school, most random people you meet up and down the street…people who started off as a Citizen. Even if they’ve upgraded their Class, unless they’ve gone up high enough for the Greyscale to matter in their daily lives, nobody would ever know.”
“Your Skills, Tiff,” Victoria explained. “Level 1 Citizens don’t get skills, so that means you have a Class. Okay, so Mom and Dad would have known that, and it’s something you would have learned in IPSS. But only the basics, like how every once in a while the System will give you a quest, or how leveling up doesn’t actually do much for you in the grand scheme of things.
“Most people wouldn’t take it any further. But…you told me about your Quirk, and that’s the thing. Heroes don’t get Quirks, Tiff. They get Weaknesses. The people who get Quirks? They don’t get Weaknesses. So who does get Quirks? Only Villains.”
Tiff’s stomach felt like lead. So that was it. That’s how Victoria knew. It didn’t explain how she knew what she knew, only that she did. And the more Tiff thought about it, the more connections she made.
Her sister was Neutral on the Greyscale, putting her in closer contact with people on both sides. No wonder she reacted so strongly when she found out Tiff’s Quirk!
“So I think you can understand why we don’t want to go to the DMA right now, can’t you?”
“But we can’t go anywhere else either, can we?” Tiff nearly wailed. “The Adventurers' Union will find out too!”
“Yes, but there’s a difference in what they’ll do with that information,” Victoria sighed. “I know this might not be pleasant to hear, but did you know bad guys need healthcare too?”
“…what?” Tiff asked, momentarily shocked out of her mounting panic. Victoria chuckled and shook her head.
“You don’t think anyone with a slightly tarnished record has to go to underground workshops to get patched up, do you? I’m sure for the real bad ones, the mass murderers and psychopaths, yeah, they probably can’t show their face at their local Kaiser Permanente emergency room. It’s one of the muddier sides of society that people don’t like talking about. What happens when bad guys aren’t being bad? Some of them are normal people, hiding in plain sight.”
“…like me,” Tiff said, slumping in her seat.
“Cut that out,” Victoria swiftly rebuked her sister. “You haven’t done anything wrong, and nobody can arrest you simply because you have an affinity.”
Victoria paused to shake her head.
“Why do you think so many well-known criminals are always getting caught? Because they get released after they serve their time,” she chuckled. Then she tilted her head and shrugged. “Unless they get busted out of prison.”
Tiff nodded along…until a brilliant idea hit her.
“Soooo, wait…we don’t have to go get me assessed at all, do we?” She asked as her gears began to churn. “If I never use my class and never level up and and and…never do anything illegal, then I’ll basically be a normal, average Citizen! Like nothing’s changed!”
Victoria smiled ruefully and shook her head.
“I wish it were that simple. Again, this is another thing you’ll learn about in IPPS, and really, you shouldn’t need to be worrying about it this young anyway. But registration is mandatory by law.”
“How can that be if you told me I never had to show anybody my status screen?” Tiff grumped.
“You don’t. It might sound confusing, but I promise it isn’t once you’ve seen it in action. An assessment only reads your power levels and records them. If you want, you can take tests to see your upper limits, but strictly speaking, it’s just your Might, Mind, and Magic stats that get bundled into your record.”
“I still don’t see why those should matter if I never use my Class.”
“Putting aside the fact that some people hardly use their Classes, nobody ever actually never uses them. It’s very, very rare for somebody to go their entire life without once or twice using a skill or an ability if they have one. The System gives us things that align with our personalities…which, I know how that might sound, considering the circumstances, but hear me out. The point is, everybody uses their Class at some point in their life. Sometimes it’s always on, like your Passive, or sometimes it’s by accident.”
Victoria took a deep breath and shut her eyes.
“That’s why the DMA developed Power Sensors. Nobody, not even the most genius [Technomancer], can tell when every skill ever bestowed on us by the system is used. But they can sense Powers. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them in airports or government buildings, but you know those screening lines with the huge scanning booths where you have to raise your hands above your head and stuff? You don’t think those are only fancy metal detectors, do you?”
Tiff really did think they were, so she stayed quiet.
“Those machines pick up anything classified as B or higher in the System grade. It then flags the person being screened as a potential Meta and prompts the workers to run their registration. If you’re not registered…it’s a big deal. Maybe it’s just the world we live in, but most governments decided long ago that public safety as a whole is more important than an individual’s privacy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Please, Tiff. You’re aware that [Telepaths] are registered. Anybody with a high Mind stat gets checked for the possibility of influencing outside parties.”
“But how could they know that?” Tiff frowned. “I’ve got an S in Mind, but I can’t read your thoughts!”
“Or make me do something against my will,” Victoria placated her little sister. “And most people with high Mind stats can’t. But, like, Dad has an A in Mind, and that’s noted on his records. You might not know it because it hardly slows us down at checkpoints, because all somebody at one of those screening lines has to do is scan their ID, and their assessment tells them they’re not a threat. So, yeah, getting assessed is kind of important.”
Tiff fidgeted silently in her chair, her frustration slowly building.
“I hate this,” she eventually seethed. “I don’t ever want to use this stupid class and I don’t want to have anything to do with it. It can sit and rot for all I care!”
Victoria smiled sadly down at Tiff as the girl herself closed her eyes.
“Is it really so bad?” She asked. “I know some really shitty people and they’re barely a step or two into the Villain side. Compared to them, you’re a saint!”
“It’s terrible,” Tiff spat. “Look, we’re already neck deep in this, so why don’t I show you? It’s the same motions as before, right?”
“Exactly the same,” Victoria encouraged gently. “Except you don’t pinch off the parts you want to hide.”
“Status!” Tiff declared loudly, uncaring that they were sitting in a crappy old Camry in a parking lot. Some Supervillain she was, if this was her first hideout. Fortunately, the parking lot was deserted, and nobody was around to hear her mortification bleed through the less-than-soundproof doors.
Tiff made the motions she practiced the other day to reveal her System to others. Without a word, she pushed it toward Victoria and kept her eyes firmly shut. She didn’t want to see how her sister would react.
Tiff wasn’t stupid. She knew her secret would eventually get out. She wasn’t good enough at keeping secrets to hide it away forever, even if she had decided she never wanted to look at her System again and didn’t want to touch her class for the rest of her life.
From what Victoria was saying, somebody would find out. They always found out. And it made sense to her. Maybe it might be her mom or one of her sisters; it could be someone she’d never met. Some [Journalist]? With a nose for a scoop? Maybe some words would slip and a random comment would lead to a whole rabbit trail of clues and tidbits, and suddenly a group of Heroes would be knocking on her door?
She felt a hand fall softly on her shoulder, and in any other life, she would have flinched. But now she was Indomitable. Unshakable and unflappable. She didn’t do common things like flinching anymore. But she opened her eyes, followed the hand slowly back up the wrist, and the arm, past the shoulder…eventually meeting Victoria in the eyes, unwavering.
Victoria’s normally fearless face was twisted with sorrow, and her eyes were warping as they began to moisten. But she wore a smile.
It was a small, sad smile. But a genuine smile. And she made a point of making sure Tiff’s eyes were locked on hers as she used her free hand to waft away the status screen, as if it was meaningless to her.
The small motion meant worlds to Tiff, who felt her breath hitch as a rush of affection for her sister melted through the ice, locking her fearlessly in place. She began to tremble, and Tori drew her into a tight, inescapable hug.
“I gotta say, that’s pretty freakin’ bad.”