That evening, we met at the coffee shop with some guy named Wilson, a little on the short side, but with perfect hair and teeth and a suit that probably cost him nearly as much as my entire new wardrobe. I instantly hated him. He oozed folksy young executive charm like a cross between a day trader and an advertising pitch man. He clearly hadn’t heard of me, as he immediately stuck out his hand for a shake. Technomancer and Blackhawk had chosen not to show up at a place where costumes would stick out like a sore thumb, and this guy, Wilson, was full of smiles as I analyzed him.

Wilson Michael Ludlow

Human 100%, class G

Aspects: body

Power: 50

Conditions: Game Face, forced cheerfulness, Amoral

Projected lifespan: 36 years barring mishap. Current age: 26

healthy, lack of sleep, ambition, unhappy at being expected to directly interact with musclehead hero wannabes, honest crook (stays bought)

Caffeine addiction

Yep, I hated him. It probably wasn’t particularly fair, but back in junior high, he was probably exactly the sort that made my life a living hell. Popular, hooked up with the innocent pretty girls and twisted them until they resembled the top mean girls, subtle bullies that never gave the opportunity for a fair fight, usually wealthy and manipulative.

Then again, he probably thought I was the kind of high school jock he had to compete with for girls and popularity, the kind he was friendly with, but never quite measured up to. You know that snarky little guy that’s always hanging with the sports heroes. The nastiest bully that never gets directly physical with the targets but always comes up with the worst suggestions for tormenting the designated victim? Yeah, the reality is that while Ferris Bueller was a great movie, real-world examples of his type would profit mightily from stepping into the ring with someone like me.

“Hey there!” He said with a huge, ingratiating grin on his face. “I understand there was a little setback in Chicago, so part of the Defenders was moving up here immediately rather than splitting in a few months? My name is Wilson Ludlow, and I cannot tell you how excited I am to be out in the field actually working with the new hero teams rather than be stuck back in the office working on boring department legal policy.”

I nodded, I understood perfectly well why he couldn’t tell us how excited he was, because he wasn’t. I shook his hand again and then released it as I answered, “Hello, Mister Ludlow. My name’s Louis, and I am just here helping set things up initially. I am sure we will work well together, although the team is still getting assembled.”

Grace nodded and was heading back to our table with several coffees. One sniff informed me that this was another one of those places that thought roasting beans meant turning them into charcoal, so I had foregone the coffee and just asked for a bottled water. This place was the definition of high profit, they didn’t even have a good filter on the water and I could smell just a hint of the treatment chemicals from the local water supply that turned my stomach.

“Hello Wilson, It’s nice to see you again.” Miss Petty responded. “Your team contact right now will be me for the next two days, and after that, assuming his needs are met, you should be working with Blackhawk himself as the provisional team leader until he can train a local team leader. Right now you are not authorized to know their base location, but I have all the contact information you will need to run interference with the local police department and media interfaces.”

He nodded and looked at us, seeming to skip right by me and settle on the two current readheads with us. “And who are these two breathtaking ladies?”

Aquantis chose to introduce herself. “I am Aquantis, I am the team’s aquatic support for great lakes missions.” She looked pointedly at his extended hand, and said “My apologies. I am not much for physical contact.”

I knew that to be entirely untrue, but she was perceptive enough that she was able to tell a scumbag nearly as easily as I could. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to touch him, and risk flirtations.

Alison, however, was entirely willing to shake his hand. “Hi, I am Alison. There is an 88% chance that she knows, and is, at this very moment, on her knees in front of her producer getting even. Odds are near parity that she has already complained that you are a selfish lover, and plans on faking an orgasm.” She looked at Wilson’s staggered expression and added, “You might want to dissolve your contacts with the Lupo Cartel and enter witness protection, one of the secret identities you sold them was a false trail, and odds approach certainty that they have already dispatched a specialist to tie you up as a loose end.” She beamed at him through her glasses.

“Umm… what?” he asked. “I never did anything. What the hell are you talking about?” His award-winning smile had disappeared, replaced by an aggravated, suspicious look.

Grace abruptly got a cold expression on her face. “Mister Wilson, with all due respect, you are welcome to inform the DMA that we have chosen not to accept you as our local interface. I trust Alison, and if you are selling identities to criminal interests, you very shortly will not be the concern of anyone but the medical examiner. I would take her words very, very seriously.”

Without a word, Ludlow hurried out of the cafe. I watched him leave, and then started tugging chairs out for the ladies to sit. “Why do I feel like Alison just single handedly derailed a train?”

Alison shrugged, “I just told him the truth. Most people don’t really appreciate it when people lay out the facts for him. The worst part is that I estimate he probably won’t turn evidence, and will attempt to flee. I wish him the best, but we cannot protect him, and if he does flee he very likely won’t survive a week until whoever the cartel sent makes an example out of him.”

I chuckled and pushed in the chairs as the girls sat with their coffees. I took a chair myself, and told Alison, “I smelled scumbag the moment I walked in. If I weren’t dating Aquantis I’d offer to take you to the most expensive place in town for sending him packing.”

Aquantis giggled, “I am tempted to tell you to do it anyway. I have met guys like him before. They always make it look like they are vital, and are really good at pretending to be the leader, but then they pretend like they are romancing the awkward girl on the team and watch everyone else do all the work, and then take all the credit for being the idea guy and blow the people who actually do the work out of the water.”

Wow, that was pretty specific. I wonder if Aquantis used to be awkward? She wasn’t really now, although she was sometimes confused and occasionally lacked confidence, especially after about eight hours when she starts wondering why you are still interested.

Alison shook her head quickly, “No thank you.”

Both Aquantis and I looked at each other, “Okay, you beat us to the punch. I was about to offer to take you to the nicest place in town. Looks like we have an evening to kill.”

Alison smiled, “This is Detroit, not Los Angeles. I am not a huge fan of barbecue, and I estimate that you could produce a far better, more nutritious, and more pleasing meal than even the most expensive restaurant in town. When it comes to South American or sea food, Aquantis can produce even higher food quality in metahuman quantities than you can. If you would like to reward me, I would much prefer sampling what the two of you can produce, especially if Grace chooses to add one of her family’s special dessert recipes.”

I didn’t know if she was yanking our legs or being serious, but it was weird getting complimented about your cooking before you even displayed it. “Actually now you have me fascinated as well. I really want to find out what kind of South American food Aquantis can make. I also want to see what she looks like in an eat-the-cook apron, so we might have to convince her.”

Aquantis looked confused for a second, “I thought it was kiss… oh.” She said, and started turning pink as she noticed my waggling eyebrows.

We went shopping at local food stores and picked up, not only the ingredients that Aquantis deemed necessary, but also cooking implements and stuff for Grace to make dessert. I was intensely interested in what her ‘family’s special recipes’ were, and after pestering her for a few minutes she finally relented.

Of course, it would only be courteous to invite Blackhawk and Technomancer to eat, and Baldwin had ghosted us the whole time we were in the cafe. If I didn’t know he was human, I would almost suspect him of being a stealth meta.

Aquantis was absolutely as talented as Alison had suggested, producing tray after tray of melt-in-your-mouth whitefish Paella as well as more usual South American Enchiladas, and Miss Petty’s apple turnovers were to kill for. Technomancer and Baldwin dug in happily, and Baldwin even offered to help clean up afterwards. Blackhawk, of course, respectfully declined to eat, and I wondered if he had supplies in his suit, but taking off his helmet to eat with us would mean a quick end to his secret identity, so we understood.

We had also picked up a lot of temporary bedding, sleeping bags and air mattresses, although I was a little too big to use either. No one wanted to sleep in the ancient bedrooms full of stale smells and bad recirculating systems, so we camped out in the library. I put some blankets on the floor, and in a few minutes after we turned in, Aquantis happily joined me. She wasn’t up for anything, but was oddly excited by the idea of helping me relieve my stress with her hands and mouth, very quietly so as not to disturb the others trying to sleep. That was a very new experience, and she even let me come in her mouth, simply licking her lips lasciviously which made me hard again almost instantly.

The next day we received three new teammates, although we were careful to analyze them before they were permitted entry into the base. Antonia still hadn’t made a reappearance, and when I asked Baldwin, all he said was that she was ‘taking care of things’ and might not be back for a while.

Blacklight, or Candace Williams, was a lovely-dark skinned girl that wore a light violet outfit. She could produce balls of darkness that were useable as energy weapons as well as being able to create shields that seemed to absorb almost anything, including light. Her boyfriend, Daddyvamp, was a pure human who was ex-special forces, much darker complected, and dressed in some of the nicest, and heaviest, custom Polyprovantus I had ever seen. They both were masked, which sounded like a smart idea if they were from Detroit, and Daddyvamp had so many armaments, from wrist firearms to crossbows, knives, and batons, his enhanced physique was no surprise. Polyprovantus was lightweight for armor, but the weapons alone probably offered enough of a workout to keep him in top form, even slightly more developed than I was.

The last new member was a power I had heard about but never seen before, and I was honestly curious about how it worked. Mister Big was scrawny and kind of whiny, with skin so dark that it almost seemed to reflect blue highlights, but he could stretch himself enormously as if he were made of elastic. Just the idea of how he could manipulate his own form with a flexible skeletal structure made my head hurt, but I imagined it was probably some kind of kinetic ability that my talent just identified as ‘elastokinetic’. The guy was tough, though, as two days later he proved in the Gym while I was working out. Sure, I was very strong, but when a guy uses his own limbs to wrap you up like a spider’s prey, the inability to resist was a foregone conclusion. This was especially true when you noticed that he was pretty much immune to physical damage, ignoring punches that simply made him flex when they struck. He could even ignore bullets with relative impunity, although he claimed that very sharp objects such as Daddyvamp’s crossbow bolts were still a danger.

Mister Big was already as powerful as he would ever get, as a class E, but considering how truly versatile and useful his powers were, there was not much I could do to help him except offer some workout tips. I felt more than a little useless during that time, but by the third evening I helped haul the contents of a large, beat-up shipping crate a decrepit loading truck dropped off in the parking lot into the base.

The crate was filled to the brim with junk, but it was all junk that was designed to make the base more liveable. Most of it except for the mattresses and linens were second-hand, and I had a sneaking suspicion that the DMA had cheaped out, but it was serviceable.

Technomancer was fine with making the base his living quarters. He apparently found the claustrophobic workshop atmosphere appealing. Me, I was eager to finish and get out of here. I had spent more than enough time cooped up.

We had slipped the entire shipping container into the garage and I was carrying a large box of bed frames into the elevator when Aquantis cycled the airlock and stepped into the library. She was in her natural form, and I set the box down and whistled appreciatively.

She giggled a little and posed in her swimsuit, which she was wearing because her patrols were during the daytimes as often as they were at night. Smugglers may prefer to load and unload in the darkness, but their shipping generally happened during daylight hours, and away from the ports they often were a little lax in their security. The police maritime units were not capable of patrolling it’s depths. Lake Michigan was well known to be one of the most dangerous lakes in the world, with riptides and strange water formations, aside from storms, claiming dozens if not hundreds of lives every year. Aquantis was a lot less of a crime chaser and a lot more of a lifeguard, every day pulling someone from a riptide or helping to save a boater, and she was thrilled with it.

“I umm… wanted to ask you something.” I mentioned to her, balancing the heavy metal and wooden collapsed frame against my shoulder as I admired the view. The swimsuit really was delightfully sheer, and her hips, exposed below her ribs, wonderfully curved. Even with her slimmer natural form, I could catch the hint of her breasts peeking around the outer edge of her suit, just enough of the outside and underside visible to be tantalizing. I knew that they were just as perky without any clothing on, and were capped with dark green nipples with ruby undertone just like her lovely lips, but the imagination was still nowhere near as good as the reality. It had been three days.

Better than 5 years or a whole lifetime, though, I had almost started flirting with Grace, and that would have meant I was truly desperate, and there was no Antonia around to tease anymore. Too bad the request I had in mind had nothing to do with that.

“Of course, to be honest, last night I might have enjoyed it even if they had heard it, but I think that Windfall is into you, and I know that Grace is. I am many things, but I am polite. We cannot go as long, because tomorrow is the regatta and you know the drunk idiots will be falling out of their boats by midmorning.”

I grumbled, “So basically I am undesireable now because I go for too long and pay too much attention?”

She shook her head, “No, that makes you intensely desirable, desirable enough that I just want to constantly stroke my hands over your chest and grab your butt and say to hell with it forever. The problem is that You have a teen-aged lust in a great big grown up body.” She laughed a little, “A very great big grown up body.”

I nodded, “I guess, I mean, I wanted to keep… well anyway, that wasn’t what I was asking about. I am not going to assume that I can take you for granted, although if you go back to your own room tonight after we have the furniture set I might have to throw you over my shoulder, hogtie you, and drag you back to my bedroom until your throat gets hoarse.”

She gulped a little and her nipples under the suit stiffened. Right, she actually liked the idea of being manhandled a little. Not roughly, of course, she wasn’t a masochist, but I think she liked getting pushed and moved around during sex in a way she couldn’t resist. I knew why she wore the suit too, all it took was a slight loosening and she could ditch it for high speed travel rather than letting it balloon with water pressure due to her aquatic friction. I still liked the fact that it showed when she was turned on, as much as the pheromones she sent into the air or the messages I could get from analyzing her skin.

On the down side, those pheromones made me horny constantly. As a little experiment, I breathed some bottled purified oxygen mixture yesterday, and discovered that after a few minutes, I stopped thinking about girls constantly.

Apparently, being around Meta girls constantly assaulted me with reminders that they were ready, willing, and available, even if I was not that interested. It also explained why I was strung like a Harp around both Calli and Antonia. It wasn’t love or anything like that, although I very much liked and respected them, but it was kind of hard to define love when you were super-powered. I was willing to sacrifice for them, of course, but throwing yourself in front of a bullet for someone would have little meaning if you could bounce bullets.

Of course I would sacrifice for them. Sacrificing was a part of my life now. Did that mean I loved everyone? Probably not. Would I get horribly injured and risk death to save Mariah’s life? Without the slightest hesitation. I would do the same to save Baldwin, or Jim, or Antonia. I couldn’t be in love with them all, although Jim would have a field day teasing me if he heard me admit that even after 3 years. Heck, I would do that to save Grace or Alison too, and I was definitely not in love with Grace, although Alison was growing on me. As far as throwing myself into absolutely certain death, I had no idea, and wouldn’t know until it actually happened. As far as inconveniencing myself for their comfort, hell, I could probably talk Mariah into retiring to a beach someplace with me for the next 50 years and make billions of dollars with potions to make it comfortable. Everything else was already an inconvenience.

The worst part was, I didn’t have any idea who I could ask about it. Baldwin as much as admitted that he had no idea what love really was, but I wonder if it involved children?

“You have been standing there for like a minute, just thinking. I thought you had a question you wanted to ask me? If it’s a repeat of the talk you mentioned, let’s just shortcut it and skip straight to the oral sex instead.”

I shook my head, “No, I actually wanted your help with an experiment. But what had me thinking so hard was the concept of love. How do you know if you are in love? All of the methods I have heard of seem kind of irrelevant for metas. What are the relationship rules? I mean, we have had one date and one night of amazing sex and I very much like you and don’t want you to go away, but does that mean we are going steady or loyal or something? If I tell you I wish I could fuck Antonia, does that make me a cheater? The rules are really weird.”

She looked very thoughtful and put her hand on my arm. “Welcome to the human race, even if we are not particularly human. I can see now why you had that talk. Let me guess, you are wondering when is the right time to talk about stuff like love, but you don’t even really understand what it means, so you have no idea when or if it is the right time, right?”

I nodded, “That’s kind of exactly it. I know that there are people I don’t want to be parted from, and I know that sex is tied up in some of it, but just because I want to have sex with you, doesn’t mean I...want you as my property. Yeah, I am possessive, if I caught someone hurting you Hyde...well, let’s just say that the last thing that went through their mind would be their feet. I have no idea what that means, though.”

She smiled, “Let’s just have fun for right now. I very much like having you around as well. I already know that you want to have sex with Antonia, I mean, you are a healthy man and she’s gorgeous. I figure there are others too, but you haven’t, and now you are making it clear that it’s out of respect for me and worry about my feelings. So let’s make a deal, okay?”

I nodded, “But I won’t bet. I am terrible at odds.”

She snickered a little, “Well, here’s the deal. If you like someone, and want to be with them, talk to me. We can talk to them. I can decide how I feel about it then, does that sound fair?”

I chuckled, “Right mommy, if I want the candy, we will talk about it and decide if I can handle the sugar and if you are okay with dealing with me hyperactive for a while.”

She smiled, “I have enough trouble dealing with you when you are normal, I don’t even want to know what you would be like if you were hyperactive.”

I whispered, “Remind me to tell you about the smell thing.”

She raised an eyebrow and I smiled. “I will tell you what I was going to ask about later, but I am still banging it into shape, and it has to do with your power and my potions.”

“Then tell me about the smell thing?”

I nodded and picked up the box. “Sure, but I have a lot of work to do until I get the room set up and I can put my face where it will do the most good for a few….dozen hours.”

I explained about the fact that I seemed to be triggered by the smell of meta females. Despite Grace being a beautiful woman, and lots of beautiful women before that, I just didn’t or couldn’t get interested. She nodded and pointed out that if I awakened right around the time my family died, which I had, that would explain why I wasn’t interested in girls through my college time and in prison. I simply hadn’t been around any metas. I refrained from mentioning that I was strongly attracted to Sif as well, although she wasn’t anything remotely approaching my type.

I put together three bedrooms while she walked with me and we talked, and discovered Technomancer and Daddyvamp had put together the other two. It took a few more hours, but the base was really starting to look like a place people lived, rather than an old abandoned bomb shelter. We even had couches in the library in addition to the unpredictable egg chairs.

“So that would explain why you reacted so strongly to Callie so quickly, and why you dreamed of her. But you didn’t really get all horny around Tino and Kjootoo, right?”

I nodded, “Yes, but I did get anxious around Caelo, and she wasn’t even awakened yet. Not to mention she’s way too young, only 17.”

She shook her head, “17 is not too young.”

I nodded, “Yes it is. 17 will get you 20.”

She laughed, “I am not trying to encourage you to bang an underaged girl, but my first real boyfriend was when I was 15, and I was more than ready to be an adult. This Caelo went through a tragedy at a young age that kicked her out of her childhood. She sounds mature, and if you really wanted to you could easily pass as 19. Heck, if I am out of costume, I get carded every time I try to pick up a bottle of Kahlua.”

I pointed out to her as I flopped down on one of the couches in the library, “You aren’t 21 yet. I kind of feel guilty about that, I am 27. I am like ancient compared to you.”

She shook her head. “Still, you have a lot to learn about the world. In places like Haiti a 16 year old girl will happily marry a 40 year old man, and people will just think it’s a good match because he is mature and financially stable, and she’s the perfect age to start giving him children. Mostly at that age men are a lot calmer and less violent as well, so she might think it’s a dream match. Yes, women are motivated by beautiful bodies as well, but we can see a lot of other beauties as well, and a 40 year old that keeps himself in shape is a hundred times as attractive as most high school football players.”

I sighed, “Yeah but…”

She shut me up, “Yeah but nothing. You did her a huge disservice treating her like a child when she was acting, and thinking, like an adult. Count yourself lucky if she doesn’t hate you forever for it. I might have. If you wanted to turn her down, you should have turned her down, instead of talking about her being a year from what the law demanded. And also, remember that you don’t know her birthday. She might be 18 already, so you had better decide if you plan to turn her down or not. You mentioned you owed her a favor, right?”

I shrugged, “Not a favor, a negotiation.”

She nodded, “Right. Well, you are definitely worth negotiating with from a power point of view, and you are candy as well. If she’s not hooked up with someone, and doesn’t hate you, she’s going to make the offer. Heck, even if she is hooked up and does hate you she might still make the offer. Lust and hate can get mixed up. You might want to decide what you are planning before it comes to that.”

I nodded slowly. “I guess I had better get my hormones under control then, right?” I said, leering at her a little.

She laughed and took my hand. “If you are offering, I am more than willing to help with that problem.”

We didn’t even get out of the elevator before I had her suit pulled halfway down and my hands were holding her breasts while I nibbled the side of her neck. Fortunately, there was no on waiting on the residence level or they might have been in for a shock.

I picked her up, one arm under her back and one under her knees, and carried her, enjoying her glorious lips the whole way, to the room I called my own. Yes, she had had fun time with me while she was recovering, but now I was wanting to be inside of her completely. Exercising and her help had helped damp the need a little, not eliminate it completely for then last few days.

I reduced my attention from analyzing her down to simply her status, Like I had done for Caelo. And a few moments after tossing her on the bed, I was tying her hands to the headboard.

She squeaked, her raised arms proudly displaying her breasts to my gaze. “What are you doing?”

“Exactly what I want.” I growled, and then grinned, “And what you want too.”

I quickly shed my clothes and finished stripping off her suit, and was inside her tight warmth in seconds, without any hesitation. She had been turned on for quite some time, and almost instantly started gasping as I stroked deeply inside of her, pressing her knees up against her chest and nibbling at her mouth.

We went on like that for some time. I knew she had to be up in the morning early, but I was very hungry. I didn’t make her lose consciousness this time, but by the end she was wriggling and panting and quite work out. I had lost myself inside of her nearly half a dozen times, and based on her smell and her status, she had at least tripled that. Was I am asshole for using unfair information to give us both amazing sex? Probably, but as Jim had remarked dozens of times, sometimes people had a thing for assholes.

The problem was, as she started dozing off to sleep, I remembered her offer of the mermaid. Was it weird that it was all I could think of as I snuggled up to her lovely bottom, tucked myself into a nicely soft nook from behind, and finally started trying to sleep despite a raging hard-on tucked between her legs? Again, the answer was a big probably.

Fucking pheromones. Literally.

I woke up after less than an hour with her curled up and her head resting on my shoulder, with a solid conviction that I was getting more in my mind’s eye than just what I was gathering from touching Mariah. What was that?

She waited until you were done enjoying yourself, and misjudged the timing, mistaking your arousal for continuing consummation. She cannot detect who you are with.

After a moment, the thought cleared, to be replaced by another, to my shock.

She felt you thinking of her in a sexual fashion and she approves of your understanding that she is not a child, and she had her birthday while she was unconscious, not that it feels any different.

That was a little surprising. I had no idea how I felt about her. My ‘favorites’ were becoming unraveled, however, and I think my appreciation of redhead beauty came as much from my appreciation of their vaunted willfulness and a desire to conquer it. I had found that that same appreciation came into play among similarly spirited meta girls.

She needs to communicate with you and will do so in a dream, but you are strong willed, and she cannot dream with you unless you relax and let her in.

I had no idea how to do that, but I could try. I remembered my wet dream when she was standing beside me and others while we messed around. Was that an attempt to contact me?

She believes this is an emergency, and she does not know any other way of contacting you, and would consider this negotiation number 3.

That tore it. How the hell was Caelo even communicating with me?