SSV3 Chapter 2 (Patreon)

We were peppered with suggestive catcalls Melody and I received on the way out of the women’s locker room.

But Melody seemed to enjoy that type of attention, so I let it go.

Now that harems were more common, even when a man was with a woman, he was considered fair game. I’d adjusted to the constant flirtations.

“Hi Deputy Director.” An office girl winked at me with a flirty wave.

I gave her a non-flirty nod, walking a little closer to Melody.

“She’s cute.” Melody said after we’d passed by.

“Not as cute as my purple elf.” I bumped her hip. “Come on, there are a hundred cute office girls in the building. But there’s only one lovely, unique purple elf.”

“Stop it.” She playfully smacked me. “You are laying it on too thick.”

I shrugged. While I most certainly was laying it on thick, it was bringing a smile to her face. And there was truth behind my words. If it helped boost her up, I could do it all day. I needed Melody; she’d become an important part of my life and my harem.

Knocking before entering, I ushered Melody into an office labeled ‘The Tailor’.

The old lady was sitting in a chair like usual. She had strands of material covering everything and feeding into her fingers, where she used her superpower to sew suits for the heroes of the Bureau.

The tailor put aside what looked like a training uniform and smiled widely. “I do love a challenge. Come here, let me get a better look at your lovely purple skin.”

“Miles, put you up to this?” Melody asked skeptically.

But as the tailor’s face clouded with confusion, Melody rushed to correct herself.

“Sorry.” Melody blushed.

“I don’t know what you are sorry for.” The tailor took Melody’s hand and held it under the bright light at her station. “Lovely color. I’d almost call it royal purple in the right light. Let’s see. We can do metallics? Gold and silver go well with purple.”

Melody was quick to answer. “Gold. I’ve never been much of a silver jewelry kind of girl.” She quickly explained herself.

“Me neither.” The tailor leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper. “Always hated the flashy silver suits I had to make. We’ll let your skin do a lot of the contrast. We’ll do a more muted purple for the rest. Now, onto design.”

The Tailor put down the strings and picked up a pencil that she twirled expertly in her fingers before she sketched out a new suit. “I have heard about the changes to your power. We’ll keep the star theme.”

I watched for a moment longer until I was sure that Melody would be okay. The idea of getting her a new suit seemed to really buoy her spirit. I hoped it would help her feel like she was getting a fresh start.

I realized she may do better with a new hero name as well.

“Send for me if you need anything.” I emphasized the last word.

Melody just waved a hand over her shoulder. “Shoo, I’m busy.”

The tailor laughed. “Heroes, they love getting their suits.”

Satisfied with the change in Melody’s mood, I headed out. The door closed behind me as Melody started excitedly talking about the sketch and how much skin she wanted to show.

Back in the hall, the Bureau of Superheroes was busy, but that was normal.

It felt great not to have alarms blaring for once, or some giant emergency.

But we did have newer issues to solve. General Pratt was gathering supers to send them out into the wild, and Governor Hendricks wanted a win by bringing Void into the BSH.

I laughed, drawing a few stares.

The Void issue I had completely in my control, given I was Void. They just didn’t need to know that. With my heroes busy exercising, I went visit my analyst team and check in.

Badging into The Spine, I stepped into the familiar room. I was growing used to the blue-tinted light from all the screens along the walls.

Beatrix turned slightly at my entrance and then sharply looked away with a small huff. A pang of guilt hit me. I’d tried to keep her from growing too attached, but apparently flirting with her when I’d needed to throw her off my secret had gone one step too far.

I found myself wishing I hadn’t hurt that relationship, which made me pause for a moment.

If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be bothered by hurting somebody’s feelings, I would have laughed in their face. But now, with the others in my life, I found that my empathy was increasing. Stella’s bouncy, bubbly happiness had brought color back into my life.

Slipping past Beatrix, I headed down to the area where my analysts worked.

A little sensor was now mounted on the cubicle wall as I approached.

“Hello Boss.” Ben spun around in his chair. The muscle-head was the team’s best programmer. Rachel, Katie and Mary had worked for me previously. They were a bit more diligent in their work, but not quite as skilled as Ben.

“Morning Ben. Hard at work, I see.” His screen was a bunch of code. “What happened to using bots to do all of your work?”

He grinned. “Still working on building them and teaching the girls so that we can respond quicker to the emergencies around the city.” The lug turned back to his station and kept working.

Mary was the actual leader of the group and kept her man working. “Things are going well. We have the status reports you requested. Want them sent over or just tell you highlights?”

“Highlights will do for now. Send me the full report so I can reference it later.” I sat down on the edge of Rachel’s desk.

The fox-eared woman’s eyes flickered up at me before she tried to stay professional.

Kate, on the other hand, had no issue staying on task. I was wondering if she’d joined Ben and Mary, or if she had a man outside of work. She twirled her pink hair and focused on Mary.

“The amount of monster fruit circulating in the city has dropped a little over sixty percent in the three days since the prison break.” Mary reported as Kate pulled her monitor closer and pulled up a graph on her screen. “It might just be that people understand the risks better, but either way, we can breathe a little easier with its decline in popularity.”

I nodded, along with her explanation. Even if the drug was still just as available, the prison breaks may have tainted the reputation of it. The event had been highly publicized, and nobody wanted to turn into those cancerous giants.

“What about crime levels?” I asked.

Kate flipped to another slide.

“Lower income areas of the city are dropping in crime quickly as girls flock to the wild expedition.” Rachel jumped in. Apparently, this was her part. “Moderate and high-income areas have only seen a small drop. Not enough to even say there’s a pattern.”

I leaned back, thinking about how to interpret those data points. “Pratt’s initiative is clearing out women who want to use their powers and might be desperate enough to become villains. It’s working, but I still don’t like the ‘Expedition’.” I air quoted the term.

In my opinion, it was a suicide mission.

The benefits were fantastic, but they were only given to those who ventured out and came back alive.

I’d been out in the wild on multiple occasions, and the monsters, mutated from the wildlife, were no joke. Beyond the city, Darwinian law prevailed. Only the strong survived to mutate into yet stronger monsters.

The cycle of over a hundred years had transformed the wildlife into absolute killing machines. The variety of mutations with each generation spurred evolution on at breakneck speeds.

Sending out girls in mass was going to put a dent in them, but it also meant more girls would be lost than returned home.

I understood the desire to expand the city and bring in new resources, but I still wasn’t sure I agreed with the cost. Then again, that was half the point, to lose women and ease the current gender disparity in the lower age groups.

“Well, it seems that the military’s efforts are having the desired effects.” Rachel shrugged it off. “The internet chatter that we track shows some level of skepticism, but comments are overwhelmingly positive. There are a lot of pent up girls out there that would rather go crush monsters than keep trying to circle the dating pool.”

We already knew that sexual frustration was part of the rising crime rates. It only made sense.

“Any new reports on Daeve’s city?” I made sure not to call it ‘New Haven’. Void was the one who had gotten that information from her, not me.

It was getting harder to keep the secret amid my multiple uses of the persona.

“We still haven’t gotten a good way to actually see the street level view; there’s only so much we can gauge from aerial satellite images.” Kate shook her head, scattering her pink hair. “So nothing really of substance.”

I had a few thoughts about that.

Sooner or later, we were going to have to send someone over to New Haven to check it out.

Given the high risk, if one of my girls did, I would also go to make sure they stayed safe.

“What about our resident mad scientists? Anything interesting coming from them?” I pushed onto the next issue.

Mary shrugged. “It’s been radio silent from them since the big delivery of data from the military. If I had to guess, they’ve been engrossed in going through it all.”

I sighed. The mad scientists tended to get lost in their work. I’d have to play rock-paper-scissors with Kim to see which of us would go down to the lab below the BSH to check on them.

The place gave me the creeps. It was like you were only one step away from being interesting enough to be strapped down to a table and taken apart for study.

“Thank you for the update, team. We’ll do our regular patrol, but I’m adding Amelia and Ivanna as planned to the team.” I reminded them.

“Are you planning on splitting the team soon? It’s getting large.” Mary asked.

I shook my head immediately. “Never. I like my ladies too much to split them up. But maybe we can start giving some of them days off or something.”

“They’d love that, but I’m sure they’d want to drag you away for that day off.” Kate smirked. “Go on. We have some prep to do for patrol today, especially with the new trainees joining.”

I waited only a moment to make sure that they needed nothing else from me before leaving.

I smiled. The team of analysts were doing well adjusting to working for the bureau. And my women were as well. Things were good.

I managed to skirt Beatrix on my way out and passed the tailor’s office, sensing that Melody was still in there working.

Pushing past the room and leaving them to it, I went into the offices amid the hungry women that leered at me over their cubicle walls.

I wondered if there was going to be a new rumor about Melody and I now to spur new chatter and interest.

I sighed, avoiding any of their glances as I made my way to Kim’s office.

Seeing her inside, I walked in without knocking.

The director of the BSH was busy as usual. “Stop having sex in the bathroom.” She paused in her typing to glare at me over her monitors.

“How has the rumor already reached you?” I was honestly a little surprised.

She squinted at me playfully. “There’s nothing that happens in here that I don’t know.”

I sighed and took a seat across from her desk as she put her tablet down. “Melody is having issues with her changes.”

Kim wrinkled her nose. “What issues? Is she struggling with the change to her power?”

“No. She’s got that relatively under control. It’s her confidence that’s shattered. Apparently, she lost her last modeling role, and she’s convinced everyone is staring at her differently.” I put my feet up on Kim’s desk as I leaned back.

She narrowed her eyes at my feet, but she didn’t tell me to take them down.

“It happens to many people when they first get their power. They change. Didn’t you feel different after Dr. Wells boosted you and you became officially a super?” Kim raised an eyebrow.

“Not really.” I replied honestly. But I also hadn’t gone through much of a transformation. I’d just outed one of my powers to the BSH.

“Well, when I first got my power and injured myself, everyone looked at me like a freak of nature. It took some adjusting.” Kim shared, and I took my feet down, leaning forward as she made herself a little more vulnerable.

I gave her a look of sympathy. Her powers really made it hard to blend in. The image of a teenage girl suddenly coming back from injuries couldn’t have left a wonderful impression on her peers. Not to mention people riling her up just to see her hair catch fire when she got angry.

“She just needs a good view of her new look. I was thinking about getting her some good publicity this afternoon.” I added.

Kim winced. “Sorry, but she’s benched for hero work. I meant to catch you before you started your patrols.” She flipped her tablet around so I could read the displayed email.

It was a message from General Pratt.

My eyes scanned over it three times before I looked back up at Kim. “You can’t be serious?”

“Afraid he’s deathly serious. Her power is top of the line now, and she’s unknown after her mutation. She’s the perfect option for the mission. Even I can’t fault Pratt’s logic.” Kim took the tablet back and opened the bottom desk drawer to pull out some whiskey and two glasses with a question in her eyes.

I rubbed at my forehead. “Just a little.”

I processed what I’d read. “General Pratt is ordering Melody to be a fake villain. I don’t like it.”

“I know. But it’s a solid plan. Get her a villain reputation, and then see if we can’t get her into Daeve’s city. You know as well as I do that the two supers we sent to investigate were both killed. And we need eyes in that city.” Kim did a heavy pour into my tumbler and slid it over her desk.

That was not ‘a little’.

“Like fuck she’s going alone. I’m going with her.” I declared, already thinking through the logistics. But it would take a little while to build up her super villain reputation, so I had time.

“I knew you’d want to, but Pratt thinks you are too valuable to risk. Besides, you are well known as the deputy director. Word has spread about you.” There was a smile tugging at her lips as she pulled up a website and showed it to me.

I groaned as I looked at the fan site with random pictures of me going about my day. Most of the comment section was a mix of heart emojis and eggplants.

“Why the hell did you show me that?” I took a sip of the whiskey. “I know those exist. Stella found them.”

Kim pulled the tablet back and turned it off. “You are too well known. If you go, it will risk Melody even more.”

I knew I could go as Void, but I couldn’t tell Kim that. And doing both would be impossible.

“You’d need Gov Hendrick on your side to overrule Pratt. And we both know what she wants to see happen.” Kim commented, taking a long sip.

I met her eyes; Kim had a plan.

“Void.” I filled in what we were both thinking. “If I get an agreement with Void, maybe I can get Hendrick to sign off on me going with Melody.”

I had been planning to make it happen at some point anyway, but now I had to figure out how to not make it seem too easy.

“We have no way to contact him. He’s only shown up to make sure we don’t go after him for something he’s done recently. How do we even secure that?” I asked Kim.

“What if I told you I had an idea?” Kim grinned a little too wide before taking another sip of her whiskey.

“Then I’d be all ears. What do you have in mind?” I leaned forward, knowing I could make whatever plan she came up with work. I just hoped it wouldn’t be too messy playing both parts.

But Kim shook her head. “I need to keep it under wraps until I’m ready to deploy it.” She took another sip of her drink, enjoying teasing me with the plan.