“Am… am I in trouble for something?” I asked tentatively on the long, long ride down to the parking garage. It was two floors to where we were going, but it was an agonizing two floors.

“No,” Buzzcut said decisively.

“But you could be, if you don’t cooperate,” Baldy added just as the elevator made it to our destination and slid open.

“Sure, I’ll just… cooperate then…” I tried tentatively.

“Good,” Buzzcut replied, before putting a hand on my back and applying enough pressure that I had to power walk forward to avoid falling over on my face.

I was intellectually aware that I could possibly take two Bricks in a fight. If strength worked the same as vitality, then it stood to reason that dumping all of my remaining points there would provide for a qualitative change in my strength, such that two no name bricks wouldn’t be able to stand against me, especially with my newfound martial arts capabilities.

There were just a couple of things stopping me from doing that however.

For one, even if I assumed I could take these guys in a fight, they had already demonstrated a level of strength that would probably result in the elevator breaking as a result of said fight. Given that strength and vitality were separate statistics, I could only assume that being strong enough to hurt a meta didn’t make me durable enough to survive falling three stories.

Probably anyway. Durability wasn’t exactly something I was keen to test in the best of circumstances. I’d really rather just not get hurt in the first place.

Which takes me to two;

I’d had powers for less than twenty four hours. I was not, no matter how much kung fu got downloaded into my brain, a trained or competent fighter. I just didn’t have the mindset for it. I was a citizen of one of the most peaceful first world countries on the planet - there just wasn’t a lot of occasion for a cashier to master that kind of mindset.

Now what that all boils down to, is I was afraid. I was deathly afraid, and maybe that fear influenced me more than it should have, but in the end I opted to just…. wait.

If things came to a head and I had to fight, then that would be what I would do. I’m not just going to let someone kill me, as evidenced by my ill thought out battle with Adrenaline.

But I really, really hoped it didn’t come to that.

“Get in.” Baldy spoke, jarring me from my introspection. I was so spooked I almost summoned a stone soldier between us just for the sake of it. I managed to restrain myself, but only just barely as I registered the vehicle I was standing in front of.

Now, when you imagine being forced into a shady vehicle by two shady guys in suits, you think of a limo right? One of those fancy stretch limo designs with a cooler and mini lounge thing set up in the back, so the bad guy can look you in the face while sipping champagne and threatening your life.

This? This was not that.

Because what I was standing in front of, was a police cruiser.

“Am I under arrest?” I asked in confusion, blurting out my thoughts before my self preservation instinct could stifle them in my throat.

“No, now get in,” Baldy repeated, pulling open the passenger door and gesturing me inside. I obliged, partially just relieved that I was apparently getting into a police car rather than a panel van.

If asked, I’d probably be forced to concede that my odds of something bad happening were roughly equivalent in either case, but as a law abiding citizen (torrenting movies doesn’t count) I was somewhat conditioned to trust law enforcement.

That trust was rewarded when I abruptly found a gun in my face the second I sat down.

“Jesus fucking christ!” I screeched as the barrel was abruptly pressed against my temple by the driver of the vehicle. I hadn’t looked too closely at him before this, but even if I had, he was about as non descript as it got. Caucasian, short brown hair, police uniform.

If you looked up ‘cop’ on the internet, the first dozen pictures would all look like this guy.

The only difference was the oversized pistol pointed at my head, and the white mask covering the top half of his face.

“Were you working with Adrenaline?” The man asked me calmly, even as I flinched away from the cold metal and found myself stymied in my panicked escape attempt by the door of the car.

“No!? What the fuck?!” I half complained and half demanded.

“Were you working with Breakdown?” He continued, like he was going down a list in his head rather than threatening to fucking shoot me in the head. And it wasn’t with a standard issue gun either.

See, a few years ago the police force had experienced what I could only describe as catastrophic losses to some no name generic Brick. A lot of political noise had been made over it, with some people saying that the police should leave fighting metas to other metas, and most of the rest of us reasonably preferring our cops to be doing something besides waiting for someone with Power Derangement Syndrome to rip our heads off.

The middle ground had apparently been the monstrosity now pointed at me.

The Crank.

Unfortunate name aside, a combination of three separate Smiths - those Meta’s who could inexplicably turn the junk in your garage into a laser rifle - had come together on the taxpayers dollar to make them, and only ten of them had ever been issued. At least, as far as my city was concerned. It’s name came from the awkward manner in which it had to be loaded, being something of a cross between a crossbow… and a railgun.

Don’t ask me how that works, because I couldn’t explain it if I tried - no one could explain Smithwork, except sometimes other Smiths. Not that they really tried all that hard in the first place.

The Crank was most notable for its namesake crank. A lever on the side of the otherwise overly large slab of metal that had to be spun counter clockwise in order to prepare the gun to fire. It still shot normal bullets - somehow - but some combination of the powers involved allowed that simple cranking mechanism to impart many times the force used on it to the bullet fired. This was typically enough to pulp your average fresh metahuman.

The police weren’t given carte blanche to take out any meta they wanted or anything, but now armed with the ability to do something about the ones they could, well.

Those ten guns saw probably more use than anyone really liked to talk about.

So no, I wasn’t especially confident that my meager health pool could handle a shot from the thing. I was practically its target demographic.

“No!” I insisted, desperately trying to parse what was going on. I actually could create a stone soldier between us, or even directly on top of him, but… he was a cop. If I did that, wouldn’t it make me a villain? I’d been pretty blase about my identity up until this point so giving people a reason to attack me felt… poorly thought out.

I locked eyes with the man who was currently pointing a gun at me, and we stared at each other for a solid ten seconds, before he abruptly smiled and pulled the weapon away from me.

“Great! I’m Detective White, do you have a moniker I can use or is Nick okay?” He said pleasantly, carefully putting his firearm back into its holster at his waist - an awkward affair given its size and his seated position.

“N- What?” I asked in confusion.

“Sorry about the show, if it makes you feel any better I hadn’t cranked the thing at all.” the Detective explained, and the back doors of the car opened up to allow Baldy and Buzzcut into the vehicle, which he promptly started.

It didn’t, actually, but I got the impression he wouldn’t care if it had so I wisely kept my mouth shut. Actually, I had a wisdom stat now, did that mean I was statistically wiser than the average person? Was that something I could leverage? Maybe a life coach?

No, wait, more important things to deal with.

Like being kidnapped and threatened by the cops for no reason.

The car pulled out of the garage in utter silence after that. I didn’t have it in me to say what I wanted to say - which was mostly just a bunch of cursing and demands to know what was going on - and the Detective seemed perfectly content to hum showtunes and ignore me while he drove.

Eventually the silence started to get to me, and I couldn’t help but speak out.

“Is this… legal?” I asked eventually, trying not to look straight at the weapon that could absolutely end me if it’s owner so wanted. Although if it wasn’t pre cranked… no, it wasn’t worth it. He could have been lying, and even if he wasn’t, I’d already been over all the reason it was a terrible idea to pick a fight with the police.

There would still be nine more of those things out there even if I took this one somehow. The gamer goblin who lives within me insisted it would be nice to have but well, so was my life - and I knew which one I was going to prioritize.

“Depends on your definition of legal. You gonna report me?” Detective White asked pointedly, and I gulped at the implied threat.

“...No?” I tried tentatively.

“Great! So, you got any other questions? I gotta admit you're pretty timid for a meta. Usually you guys have kind of a god complex going on.” The Detective asked me curiously.

“I… admit it’d be nice to know why you nearly killed me. I… didn’t know the police had Meta’s on staff.” I ventured, glancing back at the two men in the back seat.

It was actually illegal for the police to keep meta’s on staff, but I wasn’t going to say anything on the topic while I was still sort of at their mercy.

“Meta’s? Nah, they’re too good for that. Just more Smithwork. We have a budget for it. As to why we’ve got you here, well. What do you figure the average life cycle of a fresh metahuman is?” the Detective asked rhetorically, then continued without actually waiting for me to reply.

“Cus typically, it goes one of two ways. A decent number of folks, they’ve been bombarded with enough of the propaganda to know what's good for ‘em. They head straight to the league to sign up, get training, do their civic duty and all that. The rest, the rest tend to think of themselves as smarter than they actually are. Figure they can buck the system. It’s not usually long until me or one of my buds has to show up and handle them.” Detective White explained, before turning to eye me suspiciously.

“So, which one are you?” He asked me pointedly.

“...this is the second time in the last twenty four hours my life has been in danger, and if I’m being honest sir, I think I’d like to stick to my day job.” I said aloud, only belatedly realizing how true it was.

It wasn’t that I had no interest in being a hero, becoming famous and rich and… all that other stuff.

But it just wasn’t worth the stress. Even just having this conversation was so far outside of my comfort zone that I wanted nothing more than to get to work to do my shitty job like I would on any other normal day.

“Hah! Yeah, I hope you manage it. You’d probably be the first. You just remember what I said when the urge to start breaking stuff for fun kicks in alright?” He said conversationally, despite the obvious threat.

A chill rolled down my spine at that. I’d largely been thinking of PDS as something that happened to other people. After all, it only happened to people with powers - so why would it affect me? And even after getting powers, I hadn’t really felt all that different. I mean, I’d felt healthier, but that was about it.

But… could I wake up one day and just… go completely crazy?

And why was one of arguably the ten most dangerous people in the city randomly warning me about it?

“Do you… just warn all new meta’s about this or..?” I asked as we - quite predictably I guess - pulled into the parking lot at work. I was twenty minutes early because of the ride instead of taking the bus, and most of the damage from the day before was already gone. I’d considered a job with the rapid repair guys once upon a time, but it honestly seemed like more effort than it was worth.

“Nope. I’m just doing a favor for a friend. Scoping you out. Don’t read too much into it.” The Detective replied flippantly, allowing his car to roll to a stop.

“Can I ask-“ I started but was cut off.

“Nope, and do your best not to see me again. I try not to be seen as too friendly. Sends the wrong message.” He answered me immediately.

“Now git. I’ve got things to do.” He said, leaning past me to push the door open for me.

It was only after I’d spent five minutes staring at the corner the car had zipped around that it occurred to me that the entire time I’d been speaking to the guy, Detective White had been affecting an extremely fake sounding texan accent.

Like a cowboy.

“I… should be worried about that right?” I muttered to myself, feeling a sudden rush of tiredness flood over me as the adrenaline that had been keeping me semi coherent during that brief encounter finally faded from my system.

It was more an emotional tiredness than a physical one, and if anything told me I wasn’t cut out for the hero life, this was it. I could barely handle the pretense of danger, let alone run towards it.

It wasn’t even time for me to clock in and I already wanted to go home.

As though purely in response to my own thoughts, that was when a new window popped up in front of me. The same bright blue as all the rest.

Quest: Hero For Hire I

Description: Defeat Six people in combat while at work

Reward: 250 Experience

Accept / Decline

I stared at it for just as long as it took me to read it - then snorted, closing the window and choosing to ignore it.

I’d perfectly happy if I never had to get into ‘combat’ ever again, thank you very much. If I’d taken nothing else away from having a super weapon pointed at my head, it was that.

Quest: Villain For Hire I

Description: Successfully steal a thousand dollars of product from your place of work

Reward: 800 Experience

Accept / Decline

‘This is even worse!’ I complained to myself as I made my way across the parking lot to the front entrance of the building. I mean sure, it’d be laughably easy to steal a thousand dollars of stuff, and yeah that was nearly an entire levels worth of experience but that in and of itself was highly suspicious. Why was the reward for being an asshole so much higher than the reward for being helpful? And it was easier too.

Annoyed, I closed that window too, only to be nearly knocked over by Mario as he hustled out of the break room and right up to me.

“There you are! Clock in, it’s busy and we have a ton of sick calls. I need you over in building materials until we get coverage there.” He insisted, swiftly maneuvering around me and attempting to shove me forward. I noted - with some pleasant amusement - that he had a bruise on his forehead where I’d elbowed him the other day, not that he seemed to remember that.

“I don’t start for another ten minutes,” I pointed out to him, moving forward despite the trivial ease with which I could now resist the shorter mans pushing.

“Just clock in, I’ll handle the timecard. Can you stay late tonight?” He pressed urgently, completely ignoring the point I was actually trying to make.

I considered that for a moment. I didn’t need money, and I definitely wasn’t interested in either of those two quests so-

Quest: Minimum Wage Metahuman I

Description: Work for sixty or more hours this week.

Reward: ???

Accept / Decline

-maybe I could give it a shot.

“Sure. I’m free all week.” I responded dryly.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have tempted fate like that.