This place is... pretty empty. I got to the address Steve sent me, and it just looks like a warehouse. I've been in front of this place at least twenty times before. No matter, let's go. I enter and am greeted with a somewhat plain-looking reception area. This place doesn't get much foot traffic, does it?

Walking up to the only thing that isn't bare carpet (where are the chairs?), the desk, I see that Steve is the one manning it.

"Hello. What is this place?"

"Hm? Oh, it's you, Richard. What'd you say?"

"I said, what is this place? I always thought it was abandoned."

"This is the main base of operations for Duplica. Don't call it bad in front of the others, please. They worked very hard to try and make this empty shell of a place into a workable building. Come with me now, let's begin the tour."

He takes me through a door on the left and shows me a whole bunch of workstations with computers and loads of paper.

"On your left is the bureaucratic area. This is where the paperwork, mostly reports for the authorities and orders for various supplies is done. It's also where excitement goes to die. Frankly, I don't like staying in this section, so let's go right instead."

He took me to a garage door on the far side of the right wall.

"You'll be spending a lot of time in this next section, so pay attention. We'll have to figure out exactly what you, or more importantly your clones, can do."

Past the door is a huge gym-like installation. It's got benches, weight racks, dumbbells by the ton, even hula hoops and a whole entire ring, for sparring. Half the place is taken up by what I think is three people and a whole bunch of copies.

"Oh, wow. That's a lot to take in."

"Yes it was. You have no idea how long it took to get this much stuff. The local sporting goods store is on speed dial here. Now, this concludes the tour. There's like three areas and the third is living space. You're not allowed in there, you might see Beatrice in a compromising situation."

"Okay, so a huge gym, a soul-sucking office, a big empty room that calls itself reception and a bunch of bedrooms. Got it."

An arabic man with an unusually large torso came in from the left and butted in on the conversation. With a thick middle-eastern accent, he said:

"That is not flattering. You talk shit, we see if you can take shit. Come, I will test your body."

"Follow Khalil, he knows his stuff. As rough as he may be, he's the one in charge of the heavy lifting so he's the most qualified here to judge your physical ability. I've got mind-numbing bureaucratic junk to take care of now, so I'll leave you to it."

And so Steve left, visibly unwilling to do so.

"He is a tragic man. He wanted to be a hero, but his clone is manual. He has to move many bodies himself, too much multitasking. Do not ask him about it, he gets sad. No matter, this is big brawn time. Have you used a bench press before?"

With that question, the gates of hell open. He takes me through a ridiculous battery of unusual exercise methods I've never heard of. I mean, what's a side dip? How does that work? Also, what is with this guy?! Every time I look at him, it's like there's more muscle than before! Not just on his upper body, but his entire being, even his brain I bet, is covered in a thick layer of macho.

"How.. Ah... How do you get so buff?"

"I use clone. You don't? Should at least give you familiar with the movement, if not reduced gain for no extra spending. Yes?"

"Uh, yes...?"

"You take clone out, we see if effort affect main body."

Then he takes me to Hell 2.0, which is basically the same thing he was doing but twice. The clone struggles so much, it takes too much damage and disappears. This guy actually worked me to death! I can see what he meant by familiarizing myself with the movement, though. I have two brains, I get to think twice as much. That's good for memorization.

"Stah... I can't..."

"You all worn away? Ha ha, you are weak. I will fix you, you hate it but will be thanking later."

I really am weak. This hurts, my whole body is on fire, I didn't even know I could do this much... I have a much better grasp of what I can do now at least. Which is not much.

"Here, when you catch breath, you drink this. Protein shake, chocolate flavored. You come back every day now, okay? Is start of school vacation, you free to do anything. For you, anything is now workout. If you join, of course. You not in yet."

I still intend to join but this is gonna be painful. Oh well, better this than nothing. I can already feel a lot of soreness, tomorrow is gonna suck.

"One more tip to you, take your clones everywhere. Put as many as possible out and make them work. All the time, every day and night, everywhere. You feel difference, you tell me. We can work with clone training. See how many you can make. Go see Steve now, if you want to join you tell him. He take care of you real good."

I go next door to where Steve said he would be working. Peeking in, I see him looking busy at a computer. I go up to him.

"Uh, hi again. Do we need to fill out forms or something? We do, right?"

With an intense look of someone who just got ripped away from dissociating, he answered:

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. I got them here, this is government business. Note how you don't have to put in your name, so no one can figure out your real identity. Costumes and all that, y'know?"

I get to the forms. There's very little in the way of information needing filled out, instead it's mostly just a bunch of opinions and morality quizzes condensed into an official document. Makes sense, if you're gonna be a hero you need the personality for it. An edgy anti-hero going around killing villains isn't a good idea, because it could get fans, the kind of fan that imitates the object of their obsession. That's how you start a new wave of murderous psychopaths.

There's a question on there that stumps me, though. "What is the purpose of a pair of handcuffs?" It's a multiple choice question. Answer 1 is "to control and symbolize obedience and submission". How horrifyingly totalitarian. Answer 2 is "to restrain the hands of evil and stop it from enacting its plans". This seems more reasonable, if a bit pompous. The third and final choice is "to make the villain a civilian". What does that even mean? Without complete freedom over where your wrists are, you become useless? I guess I'll pick answer 2, even if it's not much my style.

The only other thing that bothers me is, where's the alias section? How do you get your heroic identity out there? I'll need to look that up somewhere.

Almost a full hour later, I hand the forms back to Steve.

"Alright, I'm done. What now?"

"Now, we fax this over to the government officials in charge of the whole recruitment process. We should get answers within the next four to six business days. If they approve of you, then you'll officially be a superhero. Or rather, you'll start off as an Apprentice, which is not allowed to stop crime on its own. Then, after passing a few -actual- tests, you will be granted a Heroics License which allows you to be a full-time hero, walking around in shiny spandex and smiling for the cameras."

"Thanks for the info. What about the team though?"

"There's no such thing as an application here. Superhero teams are either sponsored by big companies or private investors, like the team of physics-based heroes sponsored by NASA or the Freedom Crew, the biggest team in the world, sponsored by nine different business giants. We are self-funded, thanks to our civilian element which is run entirely by Beatrice, who I told you about earlier.

She's got a whole bunch of clones with a whole bunch of jobs around town, meaning she's got a lot of income and a lot of access to the whole place, eyes and ears. Her real body resides somewhere else, but she's always got three or four in her section of this building, something about needs and such. I don't quite get it, maybe they all have the same bladder?"

"You're divaguing."

"Yes I am. The point is, those other teams have forms and the like, they have entry tests. We don't do that because everyone's powers require their real identities to be kept utterly secret and paper trails are a thing. There's so many of us running around that if our identities are compromised, we'd be facing an immediate manhunt. Whenever a cloner's identity is revealed, people jump on that and harass them day in, day out. People out there aren't dumb, they know exactly how useful our powers can be, often more than we ourselves do. This means they'll do anything to either make that power theirs or destroy it."

I don't like the sound of that one bit. Have I made a mistake? Come to think of it, how did Steve know I had a cloning-type power? This is dangerous. That won't change anything though, I've already gone past the point of no return. I have to commit.

"I think I would've been better off not knowing that. Speaking of knowing things, you know I'm broke, right? This place is kinda far from home and I'd waste a lot of time walking back and forth. D'you think you could lend me some money for a bicycle?"

"Why not just run then? You'll be training a lot from now on. Warm up by jogging here. Besides, you'll run faster than bikes can go soon enough."

Alright, I guess I'll walk. Well, I guess it starts from here. My life changes radically from now on!