"What are you doing here?"
"I decided to check out that note you gave me on my own. This is Demon." I gestured to Stella next to me.
"Maybe we’ll have to rename you Demoness. You look nothing like the pictures we had been given." Kim frowned.
I didn’t want there to be any problems.
"Did those pictures depict a dried-up husk with two black horns? Because that’s how I found her."
Kim nodded, still holding onto a frown, but she waved for both of us to follow her as she went to the back of the tent where a little room was sectioned off.
A graying, yet fit man sat there in military uniform.
I had a feeling the icons on his uniform depicted some sort of high rank, although what that was, I had no idea.
He had a pair of spectacles barely hanging onto his nose as he read off of a laptop that looked like it could survive a nuclear warhead.
A woman in a white lab coat was poring over a laptop as well.
She didn’t even notice our entrance.
"This is General Patton, and this is one of our lead scientists helping with the bactimen situation," Kim introduced the two of them before introducing us.
"This is Demon, and Zayn from the marketing agency."
General Patton gave a gruff hello while the scientist finally looked up and squinted at both of us.
I could tell instantly that she was an eccentric and brilliant woman.
And she had some sort of superpower that helped her with her job, and possibly made her a bit mad.
I could see the ki swirling all around her brain.
There was often a thin line between brilliance and madness.
Those that danced it were often called mad scientists regardless of which side they normally stood on.
"Take a seat, you two. We’ll need to go through a few questions." Kim smiled politely at both of us.
"The only thing I want to know is how effective she is at taking out bactimen." The general laid his glasses down on his laptop, as if taking them off would help him read us better.
"Actually, she fought some last night at ’The Underground’. You may have gotten a report? She was there and dealt with them herself," I championed her.
If nothing else, I wanted to make sure they knew she was effective.
That way, they’d take her off my hands.
"Really?" The scientist looked up.
"Can you describe what functionality you possess to disable the bactimen?" she asked Stella.
"Uh. I just touch them, and they fall apart," Stella stated, a little unsure of herself.
The scientist seemed disappointed.
Putting my hand on her shoulder, I stepped in.
"Her power seems to drain energy, or life force, from its victims. Dynama was ineffective. Her punches just made them take longer to reform. When Demon touched them, they just became inert puddles."
"Yes, I saw the samples from that attack." The scientist nodded.
"All samples showed one hundred percent degradation of the super bacteria that made up the bactimen."
"One hundred percent?" The general perked up.
"Even some of the pyros we have running around only have gotten ninety-nine percent."
"Ninety-nine point eight," the scientist clarified.
General Patton made a gruff noise at being corrected.
"Either way, this is what we need, isn’t it?"
Kim cleared her throat, and both the general and the scientist snapped their mouths shut.
I was impressed.
She held more pull than I had thought.
"She has to pass a psych eval before I’ll put her in the field. Then there is the situation of management."
Patton groaned.
"Get that figured out and get her out there. The city needs her, and the mayor is all over my ass to get this squashed so that we can lift the lockdown. I don’t care if she’s cracked in the head. We need to get rid of the infection below the city today, or else—" He cut off suddenly, looking at me.
"Get it done."
The general pushed off the table, standing to go do something.
He seemed like a man of action.
"Roberts, would you like to run any tests?" Kim asked the scientist.
"I’d just like a video from the event at ’The Underground’ last night to confirm she was the one who killed those bactimen."
"You got it." Kim tapped away at her phone.
"One of my girls will get it and send it to you shortly." Kim focused back on Stella.
"You come with me."
"Thank you. I’ll be on my way." I stood, having not been addressed.
"Hold up," Kim said, and I paused, my heart clenching.
I had hoped that I could just slip away.
Kim studied me before turning to Stella.
"Demon, you said your power changed recently, and I assume Zayn here was responsible?"
I cursed.
This was not an okay line of questioning.
If Stella even hinted at my ability, I’d destroy the whole park if necessary to keep it quiet.
For now, I settled with silently warning Stella with a glance.
Either she understood my words, or she had already had other plans.
"My superpower connected to him. When he’s around, it is far more controlled."
Stella touched her horns, and a goofy smile rose on her lips.
"I kind of look like a succubus, don’t I? It is like Zayn is a warlock and I bound myself to him, stabilizing my abilities." She smiled and looked over at me.
I smiled back, thankful she had kept my secret, not even running through what she’d said until a moment later, when I cursed.
Sure enough, Kim turned and stated simply, "Then you are coming with us, Zayn."
It wasn’t that she was doing this out of any malice.
Stella was just terrified that I’d leave her and she’d go back to the way she was.
She was adrift at sea, and I just happened to be a piece of flotsam that she could cling to.
There was no way she was going to let go until she had a more stable support system.
I couldn’t blame her for being scared like that.
Even if she was somewhat restricting me.
Maybe Stella was a bit more intelligent than I’d given her credit for.
I looked over, and the guilty smile on her face told me she knew exactly what she had done.
"Stop stalling." Kim, despite being a head shorter than me, wrapped her arms around my shoulder.
"I know you. We already do background checks on your agency, so we can skip some of the protocol, and you already get to see behind the curtain of what the BSH does."
Good thing I had a mad scientist create me a fake identity years ago.
It even stood up to the muster of the BSH.
It had better for what I paid for it.
"What about my job? We need to make those commercials for you," I tried to find an excuse.
"I’ll talk to Candice and put you on loan to the BSH for a week or two." Kim pulled me along while Stella followed with a bright smile on her face.
Kim led us out of the tent over to another.
This one didn’t have military uniforms marching around.
Instead, heroes talked with men and women in office wardrobes.
"—here in the tunnels you have three routes to clear."
I watched a woman lay out a game plan for a group of three heroes, circling the map and going over the plan multiple times with different contingencies.
"Every hero and hero team has a manager. That’s why the BSH was founded," Kim stated as she led us through the tent.
I nodded in understanding.
It was another leash to put around superheroes to keep them serving the government’s interests.
After all, supers were just too important to the infrastructure of a city now.
"The manager’s role is to help their heroes train, prepare, and execute a mission. They take care of all the logistics and admin work so that our heroes can focus on what they do best," Kim continued to explain.
It felt a little like a sales pitch.
"Is Zayn going to be my manager?" Stella asked excitedly.