H.E.R.O. - Rise and Fall (9 page)

"Hmm, you mentioned that you could hover on Sunday, what happened with that?"

"Oh, I can fully fly now.  I know I can hit Mach 1, though I'm not sure if I can get much faster than that.  It kind of depends on how hyped up I am."

"Mach 1?  Really?  You'll have to fly up and see me soon, then.  You can't claim it'll take an entire day to drive to New York now."

I laughed, "I'll try to do that soon.  Did you mean me and the boys, or just me?"

"I'd love to see either or both.  Listen, the guys here are waiting on this beam, I really ought to go."

"Okay, thanks for the info on Dr. Turnquist."

"Sure thing, I'll have that to you in a second.  Bye, dear."

"Bye, mom."  I hung up and smiled at Daphne.  "She ought to be sending me the contact info in a moment, then we can call her and get in."

She answered, "Awesome."  She looked past me at a pair of guys walking past the building and winked.

Wow, you actually
want
to be looked at like that.  I mean, I don't mind it, but dang.

I looked her up and down a moment.  It wasn't like she didn't have quite a package to show off.

A few moments later my phone beeped and a text with an attachment arrived.  Clicking on it allowed me to add the contact and we were set.

I replied to the text with a 'thanks mom!'

Then I called Dr. Turnquist.  A woman answered, "Turnquist's office."

"Hi, this is Psystar - I met with Dr. Turnquist early this week and she made me, Spartan and Black Tiger's costumes.  I'm outside her office building with another new hero who, err, desperately needs a costume.  Is she available, by chance?"

"Let me find out, please hold."  On hold music came on and I looked up in the air and tapped my foot.

Diva said, "On hold?"

"Yup."

She waved at some more guys walking by and smiled at them.  They gawked at her the entire time, going so far as to turn around and walk backward once past us.  I rolled my eyes at it - and at her thoughts.

A bit later the woman's voice came back on and she said, "I'll buzz you in now."

"Thanks."

The door buzzed and I opened it.  I motioned for Diva to go in.  She entered ahead of me and walked up to the receptionist desk.  The woman's eyebrow went up as she looked at Diva.

I said, "Hi, nice to see you again.  This is Diva."

She said, "Head on up, third floor, office 302."  She pointed to the elevator.

"Thanks."  We followed her directions and the office door for 302 buzzed just before we reached for the handle.  We walked in.

Dr. Turnquist - a tall, slim woman with gray eyes and curly blonde hair looked at us.  She smiled and said, "Welcome back, Psystar."  Looking at Diva she continued, "I'm Dr. Turnquist."

Diva waved and said, "Hi."

"You appear to need a costume?"

"I need something...."

"Has Psystar filled you in on my price?  I charge five thousand dollars for a basic costume.  If it has armor or special gear it runs more."

Diva said, "Oh ... no, she didn't."

I said, "She just helped with a major accident on the highway, and today's her first day as a H.E.R.O. agent.  You plan on doing this regularly, right Diva?"

"Right."

"She'll have money coming in then."

Diva looked at me and said, "I will?"

"Yeah, you get paid a commission for every crime, accident or other scene you help with.  Didn't they mention that?"

"Hmm, he might have.  My mind was on getting that stuff over with and getting some news time."

Interesting - she doesn't even realize the heroing is a way to make money, she just wants to use it as a publicity stunt to get modeling gigs.

Dr. Turnquist said, "Well, H.E.R.O. pays quite well for saving people, buildings, and so on.  I can put you on a payment plan so it doesn't hit you fully up front if you'd like, Diva."

"Sure, that would work!"

"Psystar, how is the costume working for you?  Are your pheromones working with it on?"

"All too well, although it didn't work Wednesday during the rain."

"It's possible rain dilutes it.  Have you ever noticed that the smell of the air changes during a rain?"

"Yep."

"That would be my thought - but under normal circumstances the costume doesn't appear to be blocking anything?  Not that we have much further we can go - we'd practically have to bring you down to a bikini to really do a lot more."

"No thanks, I already get stared at a lot by people."

Diva said, "You should get rid of the shorts and either have a leotard, or change the bottom to be a mini-skirt.  That would open it up some more."

I said, "No, but thanks."

"Excellent then - and thanks for bringing Diva here, I appreciate the reference.  Diva, do you have something in mind for your costume already?"

Diva replied, "I know exactly what I want to go with, I want to recreate the mini-dress that just burned up and my thigh-high boots if possible."

While I saw Diva in her costume, she had a far more detailed image of the pieces in her mind's eye.  She appeared to pay very close attention to clothing.

I said, "I can give you the exact picture, Doctor, once you've got her scanned in your machine."

Dr. Turnquist said, "Oh, excellent.  Diva, if you'd just strip down to your underwear and step onto the foot shapes in my scanning machine over here."

Diva peeled off the remnants of her costume and boots until she wore her panties, dropped them in a trash can off to the side, and walked over to the machine.  She caught me staring at her, grinned and winked at me.

Dr. Turnquist walked in front of her and positioned her to stand straight and with her arms in a set position.  Since Diva appeared to enjoy being watched I spent the time examining her.  While I had seen Ms. Casey in a bikini before, I'd never felt comfortable looking closely at her.  Diva was a strange mix of bodybuilder definition and shapely woman - somehow she had retained a large chest with all that definition.  It just reinforced my belief that something in our self-perception affected how we changed when we became supers.

The machine had three pillars that ran from the floor to the ceiling.  All had bright laser lights that started at the floor, and moved up her body performing some kind of scan.  Once complete she ran it a second time.

The Doctor turned to a large display on the wall, and a 3D display of Diva appeared.  She looked at me, "You said you could describe the costume?"

I replied, "Better.  Diva, think of your dress and boots again, please - in as much detail as possible."  When she did, I grabbed her mindview, pulled the image from it and moved it over onto Dr. Turnquist's mindview.  The Doctor gasped.

She said, "Wow, that's pretty amazing.  I've never had a telepath use their power to show me the costume design they wanted."

I grinned.

She moved through menu options to get the closest base design possible, and after about fifteen minutes had something that looked extremely close to what Diva had worn before.

Diva gasped when it was complete, "That's awesome.  How did you get it so close?"

"Thank Psystar.  Now for the next question, which of these fabrics would you like it to feel like?"  She moved over to a table that had a large sampling of cloth, leather, plastic, rubber and other material types on it.

Diva went through and picked out the materials, and then asked about the color.  The image on the screen had been white, although the doctor had selected a blue color for reference.

Dr. Turnquist said, "Have you considered a gradient color?  With the dark blue to violet range of colors in your hair, it might look pretty to match that idea in the dress and each boot."

"You can do that?"

"Yes.  It's a little harder for me to do, but using your hair as a reference will help me.  At the worst I can just change the color to a solid if you don't like it."

"Awesome, I'll give it a try."

"I just want to make sure - you wanted the costume to be that short, so it barely covers your backside?"

Diva grinned and pointed her thumbs at herself, "Hell yeah.  All eyes on Diva."

I giggled,
Yes, yes you will.

Dr. Turnquist brought out the base dress design, and then moved to her hi-tech equipment to alter it to match her design.  After that she used her powers to change the feel of the fabric, color it, and give it that self-repairing ability that mine had.  She did the same with the boots and held them out for Diva to try on.

She said, "I gave it a slightly tacky feel from the abdomen on up.  I didn't on the bottom or it wouldn't retain the movement of a dress, it would end up clinging to you.

Diva replied, "Awesome.  Thank you.  This fits unbelievably well - I'm shocked that you can do it so fast."

"Super powers.  I chose a craft that works well with my powers.  So long as you don't get a chunk ripped off the costume, it will repair cuts, tears and other damage to it.  So you're set if you don't have any changes....  By the way, I made the inner thigh on your left boot here a pocket to slide your H.E.R.O. phone and ID into."

"Great!  Thank you!"  I felt the happiness Dr. Turnquist had from being able to please someone with a costume, and Daphne's as well from having her beautiful and sexy dress back.

She signed the bill and we left the office.  Daphne grinned as we left; she hugged me once we were outside.  It wasn’t a pre-planned thought, and I didn't have time to dodge away from her.  She was gentle, however, and the crushing sensation I expected never came about.

Then she smelled my fragrance and held me in place while she ran her nose through my hair and along my neck.  I was getting used to normal people doing this - and being able to just gently push them away before things went anywhere.  Daphne was probably fifty or more times stronger than I was.  I was at her mercy.

She pushed me back and smiled.  "Oh ... my ... god!  I
love
that smell.  If I were into girls I'd be all over you.  Tell me how I can get some for myself!"

Well, that's interesting, not many people pull back on their own.  Whew.
  I said, "I don't know of a way to bottle it.  It's just my, well, smell."

"I'm jealous.  If I could make a perfume like that I'd call it something like 'Man-Catcher' or some such.  Rawr."

I giggled.  "Okay.  Well, thanks I guess."

She asked, "So what's on the plan for tonight?  Thank you so much for helping me figure out the flying part."

"To be honest, you probably could have figured it out just by going to a really tall building and jumping off."

"Hmmm.  I suppose.  It was nice having someone with a clue about it with me, though.  But you didn't answer what you are doing tonight."

"Tonight?  I've got a party with some friends."  I sighed.  "They want me to drink and see how alcohol affects me now."

"What do you mean?  Why would you have to do that?"

"Because I changed into a super.  My metabolism is completely different now.  Morphine doesn't affect me at all.  Alcohol might not either - not that I'd know the difference from before the change."

"You never drank before this?"

"No, I'm only 20, I'm not legal."

"You're joking, right?  You
never
had a drink before you turned 20?  Never?"

"No.  My friends and I are big into working out, alcohol has a ton of calories, it kind of defeats all the time spent in the gym."

"Oh, I never thought about that.  I was always pretty thin, so I didn't have to think about calories.  Not that I ate a ton anyway, I've always been kind of a healthy eater, barring the wine perhaps."

"You are 21?"

"I'm 22.  So what kind of party is this?"

"Just some friends getting together - mostly guys.  I have a feeling they want to see how silly I'll get."

"Can I come with?"

"I dunno, these are brainy types - they are all in the genetics bachelors degree program at the University."

"That's cool.  If it's boring, I can head to The Rave or Score! afterward and do some dancing.  Hell, if it's boring I'll demand that you go with me and help you escape.  Think they can stop me?  I have these big muscles now."  She flexed her biceps as a joke.  Even though she wasn't serious about it, I saw how corded her muscles were.

"Well ... err ... okay.  Hold on, let me call the guys and ask if it's okay by them."

"Cool!"  She was so excited about it mentally that I wasn't sure I could turn her away even if the guys didn't want her there.

I called Kell, one of my friends in our study group.  He picked up after a few rings, "Hello?"

"Heya, Kell - this is Steph.  So, we gave up on getting together tonight, right?"

"Huh?  Like hell we did.  You promised to test this out."

"Fine, fine.  Question - can I bring someone with me?"

He sighed.  "Yeah, I suppose you can bring your buddies.  I thought you said the big guy bounced at night though."

"No, I mean Diva.  She's a new super as well, and it sounds like she wants to test her tolerance as well."

"Err, what type of super is she?  She won't set the house on fire, will she?"

"Well, she's a brick."

"Uhh.  Well, a female brick.  I ... guess ... we can."

"No, she's a dead hot brick.  She looks like a stripper with muscles."  Diva grinned when she heard that line.

"Really?  Hellz yeah, bring her along.  You're going to be here by 8 p.m.?"

"Yeah, that'll work.  It'll give me time to go home and change.  I'd like to have a night without my costume."

"Yeah!  Nakie buns Steph!"

"Umm, no.  Normal clothes Steph."

"Oh.  That sounds more boring."

I laughed, "Poor baby.  We'll see you at eight."

"Rock on.  I'll call Megan to remind her."

"Okay, bye."  I hung up, and then looked at Diva.  "Shall we practice flying until about quarter to seven, then I need to fly home, clean up and change."

"Good idea."  She grinned and we launched into the air.  We continued flying around the town for another hour or so to get Diva used to how it worked.  We practiced some slow in-flight dodging around trees during that time to try to simulate flying through town with telephone poles, flagpoles and other obstacles streets might have.