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“Hey…Lady Paladin?”

“Come on in 99” she said, taking an odd metal plate with a sphere floating above it, covered in colored flashing lights. “Don't want to mess up your nervous system”

“I don't think I have one, but that's not why I'm here. Have you read The Phantasm's book 'The Care and Feeding of a Superteam?”

“Nope.”

“I figured anyone holding up a group called 'The Crypt Keepers' together has some clue. And…can I get through this without interruption? I don't want to insult anyone, but this could get semi-personal”

“Shoot.”

“You're clearly the leader of this gang, even though we're not really orders- oriented as others. I've seen guards getting a bit of an attitude like what I'm seeing…and…I'm not worried, per se, but if you burn of the way out, and head off to Nome, or just don't dodge Boulder we're going to need a seamless transition. We're apparently the flavor of the month, and TimeWeek wants to get a picture of us in 'goose formation, which is a V, I guess. Before I came out here, I stopped by some teams to see what was up, because of my 'small fish, big pond' feelings. I mean, The Enormity crushed a get away car on the*George Washington Bridge*without hurting anyone in the car. And then there's Paradigm, and her Veritas power. She always tells the truth, whether it was true before she said it or not.

Chicago has a family team: Widget, Widgette, Digit, Gidget and the Twidgets, so I don't belong there, and finally Fortress America…I visited a week before The Maximum killed Dan Diamond. Cut Lifeline in half, but she's an instant healer for herself, and an empathic healer for others. I assume you saw the surveilance video since it's gone Septic”

“Viral”

“Sorry, Viral” he made a series of notes on a clipboard. The Maximum made it out out of that old fort and made it outside…then Speed Demon caught him. 22 seconds. 120 punches, then dropped to his back, and 40-50 kicks. Every one straight in the balls. Max got away by Skyhook, and when Speed Demon saw the harness Max was wearing and he started laughing his ass off. Broke every bone in his hands, arms, shoulders and collarbones, and laughing. Moli–sorry, Lifeline stabilized him enough for travel. Ooh! And they didn't use an ambulance to take him to K.C. trauma in an armored car in case Max came back. That'd be neat to have. They put Neuron in charge, but picking a guy with an IQ of 280 isn't exactly a hard choice.

I also talked to some solos, looking if they were looking for a partner. Oh, and if you wind up in the swamps in Florida, Gator isn't exactly a classic hero. He claims 20 Villains caught, but has no arrests. The only one I really liked was The Last Ranger in Texas, but he's already got a partner…did you know his name is 'Toronto'? He's an Inuit from Nunavut who moved south.

The thing that I realized is that I'm dangerously ignorant of the Modern World. I'm kind of figuring out the Super parts, but I don't know where it comes from. I mean…magic…I don't know how soeone in L.A. Turned a 20 foot dragon, Puff, into The Reign of Fire, living up on Devil's Tower. I talked to A.E.I., but they're mostly just a research think tank in Seattle, Los Alamos, INEL, and the Electric Boat Works in Conneticut. They've got 2 or 3 heroes, but they seem to only trying to figure out how Airlift has gravitational mass, but not inertial, whatever that means. Their theory is that we're passing through a cloud of 'Dark Energy' and heroes are absorbing spintrinos for power. Pure gibberish to me. All I've done right is ride trains.

Anyway, the team. Hex is the obvious 2nd, but with the big armor, putting him on the front we face Phantasm's “Jose and the Pussycats Syndrome”. I did some research, but they're not a superteam, now or historically. No way I could be #2…Portland isn't that happy with a hero with a shotgun. Then there's my Death Knell; I've been kind of not using it…I mean, Dr. Choke or The Maximum, sure. But a biker gang? Someone's going to get a picture of someone paralyzed by fear, crying and shaking. Quantum could work, but I'm worried about the diner gaggle. And then Shimmer–according to Olivia, he's got a Q rating double that of anyone else here. Oh, and did you see the half-page picture in TimeWeek? Great shot…he's got all his weight on the back foot, left foot pointed to his target, and a slingshot. So, he's non-lethal, good looking and popular. And Hero—he was covering *me* from axe and arrow fire. But he's what…12? 15?

So, that's what I came up with, but I know I don't know anything. This was all pencil on paper, Not those things everone else uses.

What do you think? I wanted to ask someone with experience“

“You didn't take Phantasm's book seriously, did you?” Sarah says with some amusement.

“What an ass!” she adds. “I mean him, not you. The only reason his groups stayed together was because he had a legal fund going and lots of connections. That was before the Hero Rights movement and the Samaritan rulings came down. Back then it was a tough go if you weren't deputized or super-rich. And Phantasm was both.”

“And he was also an arrogant prick. I met him a couple times, and knew a couple of his team members pretty well. Everyone hated him, but they had to play along if they wanted to hero in his town.”

“At any rate, I've been around long enough to know, the leader doesn't matter as long as the commitment is there. If the five members of this team are true to their heroic ideals, we could put Rowan and Martin in charge and we would still come out Ok.”

“Not Rowan and Martin? . . . um . . . maybe Amos and Andy? . . . . Punch and Judy?”

“The Five asked us a lot of questions when they chose us, but there is only one that really matters: Are you willing to risk your ass for your teammates? If the answer for everyone on this team is what I think it is, then public opinion doesn't matter, Daniel Dunlap doesn't matter, none of that matters. The team will be fine.”

“By the way, if you're worried about what people think of you, there's a gun show in Hillsboro this weekend. You might be surprised how big your fan club really is . . . ”