Power classifications are not so much a measure of raw might as they are of threat potential. A meta that could affect a single microorganism might be a class E, but if she could create a single virus that ignored all immunization and immune systems, spread quickly with a delayed activation via all possible vectors, reproduced rapidly, and was 100% fatal to humans or even just to Jewish people, she would be considered a global threat class A or even potentially a class S threat.

Intelligence, planning, skill, and power all work together to present a complete picture of what a power classification rank is, and that’s why it is often difficult to accurately identify marginal abilities. A single bullet into the throat of Archduke Franz Ferdinand started one of the bloodiest and most horrific wars in all human history, and that was just a black powder weapon wielded by a very human Serbian extremist.

One hopes, very much, that some intelligent Class D supervillain doesn’t come up with some method of instantly acting like a class A or even an S meta. The Idea is terrifying that such a minor application of power could have such an overwhelming effect.

Commander Freedom, addressing the UN security council prior to the establishment of the superhuman registration treaty

So much for my evening. I didn’t even get a good picture of either of the girls, so I spent the majority of my evening messing around with the stuff I got from GNC.

Most of it was, unfortunately, less than useful. I didn’t know if it was because the herbs were not powerful enough, or because they were processed already. I was able to put together a couple of items, but one of them intrigued me, and one of them frankly terrified the shit out of me. I didn’t create them until I started using materials from my medical kit, including a few substances that only my EMT certification allowed me to possess while staying out of jail, such as pure adrenaline, morphine, and methadone.

The intriguing one was a pill. It looked like anything that classified itself as a dust was a short-term, temporary effect that caused more or less aesthetic effects, like the Halo Dust, and could be loaded several different ways. Potions, drafts, and the like were strictly drinkable, and generally boosted one of your attributes or caused a healing effect. Salves, creams, and the like were not safe to consume but tended to have much stronger short-term effects. Pills, on the other hand, appeared to only affect me, or they affected anyone with a lot of energy. They applied permanent effects, but apparently just having the effects on me would continuously lock away part of my energy. If I used them on someone else, I had no idea if it would lock my energy or theirs.

Freedom Pill

This pill contains transformative and emotional components

Value: 0

Aspects: Body, emotion, freedom

Power: 100

This freedom pill will clarify your body and mind to permit absolute freedom of behavior. You will gain enormous strength, speed, and clarity, removing any barriers, mental, physical, and emotional, to instant action. This pill can be psychologically addicting and may cause antisocial behavior as it removes artificial barriers save those imposed purely through your willpower.

This pill may only be used once and has a singular effect, it cannot be improved.

Due to its strength, it requires twice as much power to maintain as a normal pill.

You must choose a physical or emotional catalyst to activate this ability. Some examples of catalysts include sugar, rage, a feeling of being imprisoned, a special chemical formula or potion, a smell, or any other major state or sensation. If you receive the catalyst, you may fight to prevent its activation, but the longer and more powerfully you receive the catalyst, the more difficult the fight becomes.

Once the catalyst is removed, this state may be removed, either through natural sleep or attempting to regain control. The stronger the catalyst remains, the more difficult the fight is.

This does not impose an alternate personality, it simply removes restrictions on your personality including your willpower and ignores things like maximum possible strength or speed.

Caution: If this pill’s power is stronger than the recipient’s power, you could die due to power shock.

That was a little bit worrying, but the idea of having a get out of jail free card was incredibly appealing. My brother was coming tomorrow, and the idea of suddenly being able to casually ignore his pleas was worth pursuing. Like the regeneration pill, it was better to have it in reserve and not use it than to worry about it when the time comes. There were also some hints that, if I could figure out how to stop its maintenance, I could remove its effects, so I went ahead and took the pill. I had to think of what catalyst I wanted, and I finally came up with something perfect. A state that would match losing control, and allow me to regain control instantly, but would be difficult to simulate or accidentally attain, but easily usable if I needed it. Jekyll, meet Hyde.

The second was absolutely terrifying. Not for what it could do, but for what it would mean, personally, if someone knew I could make something like this. The vial I finally placed it into glowed a faintly sickly greenish hue, and the goop itself was translucent with little glowing multicolored bubbles running through it.

Elixir

This gelatinous syrup contains the pure essence of meta power.

Value: 0

Aspects: Body, power

Power 100

This syrup glows faintly and must be either consumed or injected. Consuming it weakens the initial power level, but causes a far less violent awakening. Injecting it makes its full strength much more effective, but can cause violent or even deadly awakenings.

It awakens meta abilities in someone with meta potential or strengthens existing potential. Neither method of application affects the individual’s potential class, simply the starting power.

Consumed, the elixir increases the user’s class by 1 rank

Injected, the elixir increases the user’s class by 2 ranks.

Please note that if this exceeds the user’s potential, the user will die, usually in a spectacular, dangerous, and messy fashion.

Yes, that was cool. I could immediately crank someone’s class up by 2 ranks. That meant that if he had the potential, this elixir could crank commander freedom up to… what was that theory again? SS rank. Able to put out suns.

It would not work on me, I was a parahuman, not a metahuman. I had absolutely zero meta potential, so no cheating my way into realizing my potential.

But what would happen to me if someone found out I could awaken potential metas? Heck, even knowing that I had a way to figure out if someone had meta potential or not could result in me being stuck in a windowless room with endless parades of people marching past me for the rest of my life.

No one knew what created a meta other than stress. No one knew who could become a meta. What would a class C supervillain, capable of terrorizing an entire city do if he knew that I had the means to make him into a class A, terrorizing the entire world? Hell, what would he do if he knew I was even capable of figuring out what his maximum potential was?

Proteus was not immune to evil or greed. Proteus supported Rainbow Warrior, and that rat bastard was as evil as it gets, albeit casually and thoughtlessly evil, which was possibly worse. What would Proteus do about this? Proteus regularly disappeared Metas that were considered too dangerous to even be imprisoned. I was pretty sure this knowledge would make me join that category post haste.

I thought I was going to be sick. The Elixir joined the rest of my concoctions in the safe below the stairs, I didn’t even want to think about what it would mean if the wrong person… or hell, even the right person, found out about it. I simply wrote ‘Elixir’ on the test tube and stashed it, maybe permanently, out of sight and mind. I didn’t even know how to safely dispose of the stuff… if I flushed it down the sink or toilet, would a horde of superpowered rats come boiling out of the sewers in a week or year?

Nope, if I could help it, neither elixir nor the knowledge that I could create it would ever again see the light of day, both for me and for the world. I was not suicidal, but it did make me wonder if maybe the safest thing to do would be to end my own existence. Only the fact that there was no one, and nothing, that could truly pluck the thoughts out of my head kept me safe, even if I had to use my personal Mister Hyde to protect it.

I had gotten little sleep the night before, but for some stupid reason, I was not bleary or slow the next day. I was looking as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as usual, and couldn’t even feel the abuse I had taken yesterday at the hands of both Callie and Sif.

Callie had actually jumped up to protect me from Sif. It was incredibly cute, and kind of a turn-on. If I got a chance, I was adding a ‘homemade meal’ to my date plans for her. Before medicine, it had been Chef Ramsey, and I still was a decent cook with a strong knowledge of techniques and a good nose for ingredients and flavors, it was just getting those good ingredients that had been the true challenge.

I wondered if anyone would pay for potions? There was no way I could work at a hospital, as the energy expenditure would be insane and there was no way anyone would trust a flunked medical student with anything, but there was a black market for Meta tech, why not a black market for healing potions?

Well, one reason is that Proteus watched that crap pretty closely. Sure, a syndicate that could protect itself, a supervillain that was too dangerous to touch unless he tried to take over a city, or a powerful corporation with ties into the Meta underground could sell things like that, but me? If I even tried I’d probably be in seven locks by the end of the week. It wouldn’t matter if it worked and was totally benign, Proteus kept close tabs on all metatech, and selling something without being registered was as much of a felony as going out and catching crooks without their oversight. It sucked, but that was how the world worked. The golden rule… whoever had the gold made the rule, and Proteus had all the gold.

The day was spent, as usual, putting the fear of me into a couple of employees. No contact from Callie, of course, but I hadn’t really expected it. Carefully fending off advances from Brandi would have been a lot easier if I looked like I had been spending the night thrashing and trying to avoid thoughts about the future, but I looked like I had spent the night sleeping the sleep of the just.

I hadn’t wanted to look so angst-riddled and withdrawn since high school when depression was considered the mark of the cool and sophisticated. I did manage to look weary and sweaty, though, as I wasn’t dressed like a manager today and we had gotten a big load of wood from the warehouse. Brad had an opening, so I worked out my frustrations on the truck, clearing the delivery in record time and leaving the rest of the stockers and floor people to handle their own jobs for a while.

Brad came out when I was about three-quarters done and probably hauling 500 lbs of 8 foot 4x4 maple stanchions, and watched me heave the stuff directly into the yard instead of stacking it onto the pallet truck and driving it over.

“What’s going on?” Brad asked me curiously.

“Not much,” I replied.

He waited for another delivery and then said, “You are working like you are trying not to beat the whole yard to death. What’s wrong?”

I sighed and unloaded the load into the bin, straightening up and pressing my fist against my lower back. Not that my back hurt from such a light load compared to the crap I regularly pulled at the Gym, but it was a habit. I had been thinking about the answer to this exact question the moment I had seen Brad and had an answer ready that should get him to leave me alone.

“I met a girl at the Gym.”

Brad nodded and caught me by surprise. “Is she pregnant?” Man, the places his mind went.

I shook my head. “No. She’s gorgeous. Kinda funny, not really my type, but worth it. Hard-working, great body, good talker, smart, knows her stuff, jumps to defend people, a real hero type.”

Brad chuckled, “Like you?”

I laughed a little, “No, not like me. She’s smart.”

Brad shook his head, “But not a redhead.”

I laughed again. My type was very well known. “No, not a redhead. But she makes up for it, almost. I kind of like her, but I am having… connection issues.”

“Is she gay?” Brad asked, in typical Brad style.

“Not at all, I kinda know she’s interested in me too, it’s just that, well, you know how busy I am. She’s busy too. And stuff just keeps coming up. I want to ask her out, but she’s really in the unattainable category. If she was a redhead, she’d be a perfect 10, and I guess to blonde fans she still is.” I started moving 4X4s again, still carrying them instead of using the truck, but not hauling 15 at a time like before.

Brad nodded, “Is she with another guy?”

I shrugged a little, using the motion to drop the boards in the stack. “I don’t think so, she doesn’t act like she’s in a relationship. She kinda jokes about how she’s getting harassed by some guy at work that likes to stuff his jock and pretend he’s a ladies' man. But I am just having timing issues.”

“You have asked her out?” he asked curiously.

I nodded, “Sort of, almost. I sorta joked about it and she smiled, but then I sort of got busy getting my ass kicked by a better fighter, you know? But the thing was, she wasn’t looking like she was turned off by it.”

Brad slowly nodded, “So what’s the problem?”

I shrugged, “Well, I got her phone number, but her, I guess her best friend, you know, the cockblocking kind, warned me off. You know how it is.”

Brad nodded, “Yeah if the BFF hates you, you don’t have a chance. Is the BFF a dog?”

I shook my head, “No, not really, she’s kind of Gillie’s type but straight. Terrifying hot, and muscled like Chyna. She was sort of flirting with me too.”

Brad went pale. “Oh dude, you are so fucked. That’s the worst kind of love triangle. I mean, hell, I wish I had that sort of problem, trapped between two super hot girls that both want you but the dominant one isn’t your type. I don’t even have any advice. Normally I’d say Tap ‘em both, but if they are BFFs and one of them could break you, that’s awful advice.”

I nodded, “I know.”

Brad went silent for a few minutes and finally went back inside, almost looking angry. I could hear him muttering under his breath about how some guys had all the best problems, and I just kept working until the trailer was clear. Normally it took most of the floor to help unload, which was why we had extra shifts today, but I got the driver out of there almost four hours early. That improved his bonus, saved our store money, and helped avoid thinking of the fact that my brother would be there soon.

I had to take off early because I had to get to the bank before it closed, and Brad nodded understandingly. I never, ever took off early, and he still had extra help, so he should be fine.

I noticed that my upstairs neighbor, my landlord, had moved the washer and dryer closer to the door to get to the circuit breaker panel. It happened pretty frequently, and he didn’t bother anything else, so I just nudged them back into place. He sometimes blew a circuit when he was working in his shop and had the computers in his house turned on. If he was using the table saw and the air conditioner kicked on, he had to come back down and reset the circuit breaker.

The next three hours involved 5000 dollars in 50s sitting wrapped in paper tabs in the middle of my table while I abused the living crap out of my free weights and gravity bars. I finally heard the sound I had dreaded, knocking on my door.

Paul did not look good. I met him at the door shirtless in cammie shorts and sneakers, covered with sweat, towering over his slim and sickly form and sponging myself off with the shirt I had discarded. “Paul,” I said softly as he stood at my door in a pair of dirty jeans and a flannel shirt over a stained ACDC Tee-shirt.

Paul looked up at me and said, “Jesus Christ”

I shook my head, “Nope, I am still Louis. Jesus Christ is that other guy, and he can still kick both of our asses.”

Paul shook his head, “What the hell happened to you?”

I shrugged, stepping out of the doorway. “Well, let’s see. You robbed mom and left with my college fund, Mom and Bobby got murdered in front of me by a Meta, you stole the house I was living in and used it to buy drugs, I lost my scholarship and eventually flunked medical school and now I have an eighty thousand dollar debt to pay off, working at a big box store, and now that I am starting to try to get back on my feet and deal with mom dying in my arms, you are here to rip off my life savings because your fucking drug dealer is going to rip your throat out if you don’t pay him off for the shit you probably stole from him.”

Paul was shaking his head. “That’s wrong, all of it. Mom left a will.”

I shook my head and sighed. “Don’t even try, or as God is my witness, I will break your arm. If you keep talking, I will break both of your legs, and then leave you out here to rot until the cops pick you up. There’s my money. If you open your mouth, you can find out how well you survive in prison. You asked I gave, and I won’t be accused of killing my last living relative. If I ever see you again, I will kill you myself, because I won’t give you any more money, and I am more merciful than the people after you will be.”

He started to open his mouth and I went “shh shh shh shh shh.” Pointing him towards the table. He glanced around, probably realizing that my stuff wasn’t worth even stealing, and grabbed the money off the table, his eyes wide as he hurried back towards the door. After he exited, he turned and started to say “Louis…”

I sliced my hand in the air in front of his face so fast that he could feel the wind off of my palm. “Shh,” I said quietly. “See that washing machine right here?” I asked, pointing at the beat-up old whirlpool next to the door. “I will put your arm right over the edge, and then do an elbow drop. Your arm will snap in half in just a moment. I will have to drag you over to the weight bench to break your legs, and the only real question in my mind right now is whether to start with the Femur, or the fibula and tibia. Or I could move right in and break them backward at your patella, or knee bones, and those don’t heal, ever. You would need tens of thousands of dollars in surgery JUST to hobble slowly, with an old man’s walker, for the rest of your life. And I will smile when the cops take me to jail and tell them it was an accident. Trust me, I was almost a doctor.”

He nodded, clutching an armload of fifties, and hurried away. Good riddance. Possibly the best five thousand dollars I had ever spent. I locked up the door behind him and took a full eight hours of sleep for once, waking up happy and well-rested. I hadn’t had any dreams at all that I could remember.

I called Brad at home and asked him if I could have the day off.

“Are you sick?” He asked curiously. “You are never sick. You don’t sound sick.”

I sighed. “No. I am not sick. I just think I need to take a day off. I just had some stuff happen, and I would just like a day. If you need me to come in at 8 and help close out, I will, I just need some time to myself while I mull stuff over.”

Brad coughed. “As long as this isn’t a habit, fine. I will use one of the vacation days that you swore you were going to cash in after Christmas. We will call it a mental health day. I don’t need you to come in after 8, though. That new guy, Ramone, is a decently hard worker. Not like you, but he feels like a real worker, and he mentioned he could use the overtime, so I will have him stay a bit later. See you tomorrow.”

I nodded even though he wouldn’t see it. “Yep. Bright and early tomorrow. I have a hell of a story to tell you once I work out the details.”

“Right. I am off,” and with that, he hung up with me. I wonder if he was still angry with me for some unfathomable reason? Maybe he thought I was going to tell him an ‘I couldn’t believe it happened to me.’ story about two hot girls.

I decided to run this morning. I didn’t run that often, because with my endurance bonus it took a lot of speed and serious time to start feeling a burn, but I ran into downtown Fairfax, nearly ten miles, in only a little over 45 minutes. Feeling proud of myself, I grabbed a bag of bagels and some cream cheese from the Giant foods and ran back to my house in a little less than an hour.

Wait, where the hell was my car?

Crap. My car was gone. Why would someone steal my car? It was a piece of crap, but it was my piece of crap, a well-maintained piece of crap. Why would anyone steal it? I went inside to grab my phone. I never wear my phone when I am running, and just keep the key to my house and my bank card in my pockets. UDT shorts, which I prefer to run in, are pretty sheer and a big load of keys or a cell phone are uncomfortable as hell slapping against your thighs.

My door was open. I peeked inside and noticed that my keys were missing from where I had left them on the table. So was my phone. That explained why my car was gone.

I ran inside, ready to fight it out if anyone was left inside, but there was no one there. The door under the stairs was open.

Oh shit. Oh shit. The safe was open and empty. I had several bags of red-gold halo dust in there that I had been using to figure out how much I could charge them. They capped at 5. I also had the vial of Elixir in there.

Dear God, please, let whoever robbed the place take the elixir, and don’t let him have Omega potential. It would be messy, but if an Omega took it, I was as good as dead.

I checked around and realized that whoever had done it, had come from upstairs. I stuck my head out of the door and there was no one upstairs, I even yelled Rob’s name a few times, and then looked around upstairs without touching anything.

No body, good. A broken window in the door, though, and Rob’s truck was gone. It was a Thursday, hunting season, and Rob had been retired for 5 years. He probably went on a hunting trip, confirmed when I realized Pablo, his retriever, was gone also.

I hurried back downstairs. Crap crap crap. This was not good. Exactly the problem I had been worried about. I would call Callie for advice, but her number was on my phone and I was absolutely terrible at memorizing numbers, that’s why I never did well in math in school.

There was no helping it. The closest place I could get help was at work. I could go to the gym, but it would only be about an hour run to work, and an hour and a half to the Gym. Without a cellphone, I couldn’t use uber. The only thing I could think of was that Paul had come back and ripped me off. I had scared him too much and he felt like he had to get revenge. Paul was an addict, a baggie marked ‘halo dust’ filled with golden powder would be like a playmate trying to get his pants off.

He might be sane enough to not try the elixir yet, but he could do a lot of damage with that stuff. I wasn’t too worried about the healing potions and regeneration potions, but the fire ointment was supposed to make you immune to heat damage and contained some fairly poisonous ingredients… If he tried to consume it he would probably be dead before he finished the can. Not necessarily a bad result, but then they would be out there with no trace and people would start wondering where they came from.

But Paul was a Junky, and I knew I had scared him into almost pissing himself. There was no way this could have been him, especially the safe. If he had done it, it would have been more rushed. I didn't usually run in the mornings and would have been getting ready for work when it happened. Could whoever did this have been looking for me? Whoever did it apparently knew what they were looking for, and had done it all in the time I took my run.

I was actually panting as I came up to the Home workshop, I had been running and panicking non-stop for hours. Brad looked up as I ran into the office and panted, “I need to use the phone.” He looked very nervous and pointed at the phone. I picked up the handset and realized it was dead. I looked at him, “Dude, what is wrong with the phone?”

He pointed over my shoulder and I heard a metallic click that I had heard in movies dozens of times before. Ramone was standing there, a 12 gauge shotgun in his hands, pointed directly at my head.

“I am sorry, Louis, but they found me. I have no choice. Turn around and walk out of the back door. Now. Or I will shoot you.”

I lifted my hands a little, but Ramone was a professional, or at least he had been at one point. He was standing far enough away from me that if I tried to break away or jump him, he could fire both barrels into my head and shoulders immediately. He was holding it high and against his shoulder, not low at the waist like in the movies. He knew how to shoot a shotgun, and by his gritted teeth I could tell he planned to do it.

I nodded, sliding out of the door and turning to the right to face the back door. There was a slim possibility that while I was going through the door, I could make a break for it. I had fast healing and regeneration, I might be able to survive getting hit by stray pellets.

I pressed the bar, wishing we had one of those door alarms that went off when you didn’t use the proper key code to exit them and prepared to jump off the loading dock or dive behind a pallet the moment I was…

Ahh, the best-laid plans of mice and men, go oft astray. Three other men were standing there, two of them with guns pointed at my head, and the third looked like he had been dipped like the girl from Goldfinger, only in copper instead of gold, and then dressed up in a pair of black slacks and a black silk shirt set off by a white tie. He gestured towards a large white sedan that was parked by the loading dock, and I saw Paul sitting inside cradling his face with blood dripping from the side of his hand.

“Que Paso. I am Cabeza Copre, which means Copper Head in Spanish, like the snake. It is ironic that in English it sounds much more like Cobra, but it is worth a chuckle. Would you care to join us? I will not take no for an answer.”