I returned to work on the knives. A few of them were not balanced correctly while others were too fragile. I set the others aside and started the forge back up again. The heat blew in my face for a moment while I opened up the forge. The metal bubbled up as it liquefied. It only took a few minutes to get to the right temperature.

When I was done I poured the metal out and started to hammer the metal out as it cooled. I needed the knives to be as balanced and aerodynamic as possible so that when they flew thanks to my hand or telekinetically they would fly as best as possible. ARGO watched my hammering process and continued to adjust how I formed the metal. Of all of my crafting techniques, smithing and metallurgy made up the bottom of the list. At least before my integration with ARGO, it was difficult for me to measure the effectiveness of my techniques, and didn’t have anyone to inspect my work. I was making more progress with it in recent weeks, but I knew it would be my weakest skill out of the lot.

I continued to work on the knives for an hour and set them aside when I was done. She would be coming by in the morning to pick them up. I marked Quinn’s knives off of my list of things to make and checked my next thing to do thanks to ARGO. Nate’s shoes needed replacing next and were due to be picked up in three days.

“I could put off the shoes for another day. I could make one a day for him. Then I should have time for my personal project,” I thought to myself.

I returned to my computer and pulled up my instruction files for a personal project I wanted to get finished. Because I had updated many of the tools around the warehouse there were a few new things I could do with the updated tooling, and I wanted to try some of them out.

Ever since I was first attacked I realized that I was truly weak in this world. Even with heroes for friends they couldn’t always be there to protect me, so I needed armor of my own to wear on occasion. My utility belt project was still on hold and unfinished. The original was thoroughly destroyed and burned. I still hadn’t replaced it yet, but today I wanted to work on that armor.

In this case, I had brought my entire wardrobe with me to the warehouse to work on. You can call me paranoid but the one time I got longer-term injuries I was not wearing one of my reinforced pieces of clothing. That would change today. I made a plan to update all of my clothing until I was satisfied with the protection. I had already begun theory-crafting some additional types of clothing that I could make in the future, but I lacked the required material and some of the changes would make the clothing stand out. For now, I wanted it to be unassuming like what I currently had made so far.

I began the process of mutilating all of the fabrics and separating out all of the individual pieces to start with. ARGO began assisting me in how to best tear up the stitching and making notes of what pieces would go where once I returned it to normal.

I had made sure to order extra silk, reinforcement material, and chemical for this project so I was good to go with the entire project. I started with the chemical mixing as I had done once before, and it went by much smoother. Once the first round of fabrics was thoroughly soaked I set them out to dry and prepped the next batch. The chemicals I prepared would treat the fabrics with some measure of fire resistance and overall help with temperature adjustment. I wasn’t sure how well it would fare against a blast of cold but from my experience with the weather, it benefited somewhat. Once I had enough cloth dry I started on the next steps. I eventually had to completely set aside the second batch of clothes to do the next day or else I wouldn’t finish the first grouping of clothes in time.

I had performed a few tests the day before with help of ARGO and some spare fabric so that I knew the best way to reinforce the interior of the clothing. The ARGO then generated a pattern for me to follow which I used in the next steps. Using the ARGO’s analysis it looked at the most common points of injury and places in need of extra padding and marked them for me when I went over the pieces of fabric. I worked on the fabrics for the dress shirts for a bit, but they were too thin, so I had to discard them.

The process of reassembling the clothes took the rest of the day. Slowly the pile of newly assembled clothes grew as I stayed focused on my task had set. I tried each of them on once I was done to make sure it was comfortable still and fit. There was some added weight to the clothes and mass, but I had since gotten used to wearing the modified clothes. When I was done for the day I realized I had got a response message back from Sydney. Her response was positive, and I followed up with a date and time. The dinner was set for two days from now at a diner.

In the interim I returned to my work, prepared the shoes for Nate, and finished the rest of the clothes, Quinn stopped by, and I went over some of the things I planned to say. As the time came near I felt confident with my sales pitch and the topics I wanted to cover during the meeting. During my project, I had torn up my old dress shirts, so I had to go to the store to replace them. I felt bad I had to, but it was my fault I tore them up without a plan for their type of fabric. In the end, I picked out a few dress shirts I liked. At least they wouldn’t see much wear and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be attacked or stabbed by her during the evening's plans, so I felt comfortable slipping out of my protective clothing.

I got out of my car and walked towards the entrance of the restaurant. My car automatically closed its doors and drove itself towards the nearby parking lot. Stepping inside I looked around and saw that it was already full of people seated, eating, and chatting away. The restaurant had some instrumental music playing on speakers around the restaurant adding to the atmosphere inside. Inside the restaurant was Sydney who had already arrived. I walked over to where she waited for me.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Have you been here long?” I asked.

“No. Not at all. I already met with the host, so we already have seats at a booth.”

“That's great. Then if you would lead the way.”

I followed behind her as we passed a few tables to a smaller booth in the corner. The napkins and utensils were already set out, so we waited for the server while looking at a menu.

“So, how is your week been so far?” I asked trying to start a conversation going.

“Busy but manageable. I’ve got a good team this year for the Teen Hero program. This week I’ve been doing a lot of teamwork drills and scenario training. They make sure you know your stuff and can put up a fight. That is something you’ve seen. Once we get through the first year or so of the program, you don’t go down easy. and it is nice I can be treated to dinner thanks to you.”

“Of course. I was hoping you could tell me about your superhero work. I’m afraid I’m not very familiar with the teen hero circuit.”

“It’s been enjoyable now that I have a small team to work with that knows what they are doing. The first year was a mess because I was both trying to improve my abilities while learning teamwork with a bunch of kids at different skill levels. Nowadays I’m basically a full hero just under the supervision of a mentor.”

“At least for a little while longer.”

“Yes. I will miss it a bit but tell me about what happened to you and don’t leave out stuff. I watched parts of the trial. It was exciting to watch but tragic for them.”

“I don’t know. Having to sit through the hours in the trial as a witness for a day was exhausting especially when you can’t fast forward through it. I guess I do have a few more things I can say about my experience that didn’t come up in the trial. Now where to start?”

I went into the story of what happened to me and Wesley. I started with his spy activities and how I had found them. As I continue my story time was cut short by the waiter arriving.

“I hope you both are having a wonderful evening,” said the waiter, “I’ll have to apologize for us being so busy tonight. A waiter couldn’t show tonight so things might take a bit longer than usual. Is there anything I can get you to drink and are you ready to order?”

I had already eyed the menu before starting my story, so I knew what I wanted to get. I set my menu down and handed it to the waiter.

“Water is fine for the drinks,” said Sydney, “I’ll have the fried fish with a side of the house salad.”

“Good choice madam. How about for you sir?”

“I’ll have the lobster sandwich and the house salad as well.”

“I’ll have those out for you as soon as I can.”

I returned to telling my story and ended up finished it quickly when the water arrived.

“… and that’s how I got brand-new equipment and a complete rebuild of my warehouse and shop. Something that you could take advantage of if you sign on with me as your armorer.”

“Smooth. Real smooth. I almost forgot that you were here to make a sales pitch while you told that story.”

“Then I’m doing my job right and that wasn’t very embellished. It all happened pretty much as I told you. Including how great my shop is nowadays. There is some extra space for me to take up another client and I would be delighted if they were you.”

“You should know that I am not making a decision today or even this week and I won’t only be talking to you throughout this process.”

“I would expect nothing less. Then why don’t I tell you why I am better than the competition. We can start with the big two. There is Hero Wear which is usually a good choice, reputable, and high quality but not so much as of late. If they don’t even realize that one of their family is funneling money and resources elsewhere then how can you expect them to be reliable to you in getting what you need quickly? As for Titan Tech. They are a solid group, and I wouldn’t judge you for choosing them, but they have been recently overwhelmed due to the Rodriquez’s controversy in their own way. They have to expand over the next year to accommodate the influx of orders. This leaves you waiting in line for what you need and jumping the line would cost a premium. Now for the other private shops.”

“Like yourself.”

“Like myself. But I know the private shop's members of the dynasty have used over the years. And I can say mine is the best. It is why I have built up the connections with them. I know what to expect and what you will need. That combined with my availability. I will be the best at creating stuff for your skill set and I will have it made in the timeframes required. I know that your father has favored smaller shops so I would hope that you would consider mine first. I’m not sure what other shops have approached you but. How about this. I work on.”

I paused when I saw the waiter come around this time with our food on a set of plates.

“Here is the food for the two of you. And your waters. I’ll be back around if you need anything else in a bit. If you will excuse me I have a few other customers to attend to.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

The waiter nodded and left us to eat our meals. I brought out the utensils and began eating.

“Jason,” said Sydney looking me in the eyes.

“Yes,” I said pausing and putting my fork down.

“I do enjoy the work your shop has done. I’ve seen what you’ve made for Rachel, and she has always been appreciative and speaks highly of your work. As I have said I can’t make a decision on a longer-term contract quite yet, but I would be interested in a test run. There is some equipment I need, and I could pay for your manufacturing skills. I will then test it out and see how I like it. How does that sound?”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea. What did you have in mind?” I asked. Happy that I had made progress and was closer to my goal. Now I just had to make something that would wow her. Something that I was confident in doing.

“Due to the nature of production and the influx of requests to Titan Tech which currently holds the contract rights for the Teen Hero leagues throughout North America at least things can become shoddy. Other than some basic tweaks and color changes to suits based on power set needs they don’t do much between each teen hero’s suit. It just becomes too expensive too quickly if they were to do that. What I would need from you is a new set of gauntlets. Ones that I can bring over to my Frost Cloak suit like my father’s.”

“What kind of requirements do you need me to fit into it? I’m not very familiar with the Frost Cloak costume. Does it…”

“Calm down.”

I paused realizing that I had started going off on what I would need to make the gauntlets work and the style required. My brain had gone on autopilot thinking about every detail when it wasn’t necessary at the moment. I returned my focus to the matters of conversation.

“Sorry.”

“It is fine. I’ll send you some high-quality images of his current gauntlets and some pictures of my suit that you can use to make a design out of. As for the requirements they need to withstand extremely cold temperatures of course because of my powers and contain a condenser from which I can pull water from for more power-intensive moves. There are a few other things I might need but I’ll send you the list. If you need more details then you can ask them, but this is also a project that you can do a lot with. Make it your own while fitting the requirements and general design style. I look forward to seeing what you make for the assignment. As for the cost and time, I’ll send you half the money now and the rest later when I pick it up in four days.”

“That’s pretty quick. I’m not sure if I have all of the materials required to make it but knowing my boss he probably gathered what I need to make it already. Do you have any design files or schematics you want me to start with?”

“It will be from scratch. Titan Tech doesn’t share many of its designs or production documents until they are well out of date when they can’t make money from them anymore. You’ll have to figure out how to make it on your own and I’m not going to ask my dad to help you. You won’t be able to look at his suit pieces in person or look at his suit schematics. The is also part of the do your own thing within the bounds of the assignment.”

“That is a tall order, but I won’t be discouraged at least not yet. I just hope that you don’t go easy on the other armorers that try to rope you in.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Any pieces I order from other manufacturers will be chosen at my discretion and may include super-suit pieces that are a bit harder or easier than what I have asked of you. Each one I receive will be evaluated, tested, and seen by myself and likely in part by my father to decide on the best one. He will be looking at your gauntlets and whatever other pieces of equipment I bring him anonymously. I hope this can assure you at least a little bit that you will be given a fair shot.”

“I guess that is the best I can hope for and thank you for giving me this chance. I will do my best to not let you down.”

“I hope so as well.”

We both returned to our meals and ate in silence for a while. Some of the busy crowd for the night had left after eating earlier. The restaurant played soft music over the speakers nearby creating a nice ambiance for the evening.

We were almost done eating when that ambiance ended, and the restaurant was in an uproar. The first notice that something was wrong was the screams. I heard it and so did everyone else inside. I turned to look for the source of the noise and so did everyone else. I couldn’t get a good look but a woman who looked to be in her sixties or seventies with graying hair was panicking and covered in blood. Blood that belonged to her husband. Across from her was her husband holding a steak knife as he repeatedly stabbed himself until he could no longer continue.