Chapter 02

As I stopped at the address that Unknown gave me, I was certain I had it wrong.

“Mr. Chippy Chop’s chopstick delights Chinese Food and Dry Cleaning? Well that’s a mouthful.”

After taking another look at the address on my phone and checking this was the right place, I walked through the front door, and as it opened there was a slight chime from the bell above the door.

“Welcome to ‘Mr. Chippy Chop’s, where we wash your clothes while you enjoy our General Tso’s. Here for clothes or for food.” A very bored looking teen spouted like a recording.

“Well that’s a lot to take in.” I really didn’t know what to say to that.

“Dude, can you just choose?”

“That’ll be enough Justin.” Said the vaguely familiar voice of the man coming down the stairs.

“Yeah whatever dude.” Was the only response.

“We have a room in the back Mr. Stevenson. Follow me” The man said.

“Later Justin.” I said giving my farewell to the bored kid.

“Whatever.”

“Man, I love kids.”

“If you’re done Mr. Stevenson.”

“Right, lead on Mr. Unknown.”

“It’s Edison. Mr. Edison.”

“Do we have to be so formal? Just call me Ray.” As I finished saying we stepped into the back room, taking a second to look around. This was just weird to my left there were a bunch of clothes hanging from a belt zipping around, and to my right there was this older Asian gentleman.

“Mr. Chippy Chop.” I said giving him a tip of my invisible hat.

He didn’t even acknowledge me as we moved on through another door at the back of the kitchen-laundry room?

We emerged into a very shady setting, the loading dock. I guess where the food and cleaning deliveries were made. Hopefully not by the same company. That’s just not sanitary.

After a couple of seconds of forcing my thoughts onto something else, I noticed there were other people here besides me and the oh so friendly Mr. Edison. Wait a second, I knew them.

“David, Richard? What are you guys doing here?”

David was the hero formally known as Orbital Force, and Richard was The Author.

“Ray! It’s been to long man.” David said standing and reaching out his hand to shake.

“Probably since we got pushed out as trainers.” I replied shaking his hand.

“Raymond.” Richard cut in extending his own hand.

“I have told you too many times Ray is not short for Raymond.” I took his hand as well.

“I thought you made it big as an author. What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Well, turns out if you have a good book that people like then they’ll buy it.”

“Ok so… what happened?” I had to make him get straight to the point or else this story would take ages.

“I developed writer’s block, became a high school English teacher. Turns out teens don’t like me, and I don’t like them very much either.” Richard summed up his story rather quickly.

Not knowing what to say the three realized Mr. Edison was no longer there.

“Where did he go?” David asked the group.

“Better question,” I started,” How the hell did he know who I was?”

“We could sit and ponder this all day, or we could leave.” Richard suggested.

“I mean we could, but I lost my job yesterday and need to find a job soon.”

“Same here.” David agreed.

“So, do we just wait?” I said voicing the question on everyone’s mind.

“You won’t have to wait long.” Mr. Edison’s voice came back into the room from an office door on the overhead balcony.

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“When did he get up there?” David questioned.

The only response he received was shrugs from us.

Mr. Edison was followed by a tall man with slicked back black hair, who seemed familiar, but I just couldn’t place him. He was wearing a nice suit though. His whole appearance begged the question and I had to ask.

“If you are dressed to the nines like that why are we here, behind a restuamat?” I said trying to make up the perfect word to encapsulate this place.

“If you must know Celerity, I do not have the funds to afford a building that suits my purposes at the moment.”

Before he could get the sentence out, the former heroes were all in a fighting stance, as they immediately recognized the voice.

“Mastermind.” I growled.

“Yes, I am Mastermind, rather I used to be. That aside, my job offer still stands. I trust you all read the proposals I sent.” He finished as he approached the previously unoccupied chair.

“Come on, gentlemen let’s sit.”

As I was about to take my seat a sudden realization hit me.

I charged Mr. Edison, before anyone could react, I had already thrown a punch.

BAM!

My fist connected with his jaw.

“What are you doing Ray!?” Richard said his voice barely heard over the rage in my ears.

“If he’s mastermind, this is Prometheus. This Bastard put Lucky in a wheelchair!”

“He is not wrong,” Mastermind started to explain,” however we have reconciled with Lucky Break, he will be working with us in exchange for salary plus we reimbursed him for all medical bills.”

Not sure if he was telling the truth or not, I reluctantly sat in my seat.

“I will be confirming that story before I accept any offer you have.”

“Of course, Mr. Stevenson. Now can we get to why you are here?”

Not saying a word but motioning him to continue. Prometheus shut off the lights and for a split second I could’ve sworn I saw the familiar fire in his eyes, before it blinked out.

Mastermind stood.

“Before we begin, it would be good manners for me to tell you my name. I am William Anderson, the former villain Mastermind.” He paused so we could take in his words.

“This is Neil Edison, formerly Prometheus.”

A small nod in acknowledgement was all we got from him.

“And since we were pushed aside by these Bridger heroes and villains, we have been in hiding basically, unable to gain new levels, unable to be who we are. Now I say we step out of the shadows, not to try to compete with these people, but to offer them a service.”

“Sounds good, but where do we fit in?” asked David.

A holographic power point appeared on the table in front of us.

“If you look at this starting slide, you will see the normal costs that go into a shipping business.” Mastermind continued.

The slide indeed detailed the cost of trucks, trailers, drivers, warehouses, forklifts, and many more things that was, for lack of a better word, boring.

“What does this have to do with us?” I asked as I read the slide for the three-hundredth time.

“This, absolutely nothing.” he said as he clicked to the next slide,” This however does.”

Click

This second slide showed his projected costs of a super shipping business. Which was double the cost of a regular one. The projected profits however were seriously higher than the regular.

The odd thing about the costs was there was a huge budget for trucks.

“Why is this going to cost more than a normal non-powered shipping business?” I asked.

“We will get to that in a bit.” Mastermind answered.

“What would our roles be in this plan?” Richard chimed in.

Mastermind clicked to the next slide. It had a picture of Orbital Force in full costume lifting huge amounts of rubble from a previous rescue operation we had run.

“Orbital Force will oversee loading and unloading. With his powers he can move mass amounts of cargo with very little effort.”

Click

The next slide appeared, and it had a picture of The Author writing in his magical book.

“Author, you will oversee the writing of contracts for both employees and shipping deals, enforcing them with your power.”

“How did you know I could do that?” Richard asked.

“Did you think I hadn’t learned all about your powers in all the years we fought?”

“Fair enough.”

Click

This slide showed a picture of me in full gear, with an exact duplicate of myself. If I run fast enough, I can appear to be in two places at once, and I process information just as fast to act separately and be in two places at once.

“Celerity, you will be in charge of delivery.”

“Woah, hold on, I can do that,” motioning to the duplicates, “over short range and it is a huge drain on my energy.”

“That is not what I am referring to, I am talking about the speed at which your brain processes things. It is on par with my own cognitive ability.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“Indeed. Now regarding your earlier question. The truck budget is so high because I have spent all the remaining funds I had, to produce two trucks of my own design.” Aa William finished that sentence, he motioned to the bay doors behind us. In unison they both opened, and two trucks were revealed.

The trucks were very similar on the sides of the truck it said “Super Delivery” in bright white letters against a dark red paint. As much as the cabs were similar the trailers were different. One of the trailers pictured the entirety of the Honor Guard silhouetted by a sunset. With big letters reading “The Honor Guard” above our heads. Just below the team name read “The Honor Guard will guard your delivery with honor.” The other featured just me, in full gear from the waist up in a running stance. With “Celerity” above my image. Just underneath my name read “For the fastest delivery use Super Shipping.”

“Could those lines be any cheesier?” I had to ask.

“Anyway, our ability to process information means that we can pilot multiple of these remote trucks at the same time. Then when they arrive near their destinations, you race out and deliver them yourself.”

“Ok and why are we advertising us?” David asked. “Shouldn’t we try and keep a low profile?”

“These newcomers may not know you, but those of us from this world all know The Honor Guard. Most of the people don’t know what happened to you. They all believe you died.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that too.” I reluctantly agreed.

“On that note, we have a job already, if you’re interested?”

Before any of us could answer I sped up faster than a normal human can process, putting my hand on each of my former teammate’s shoulders, causing them to speed up too.

“So?” I asked.

“If he is going to pay us for this job, I see no reason why we shouldn’t take it.” Was David’s response.

“Yeah, if we decide we don’t like it then we can always decline after the job.” Richard put in.

“So, we do it?”

Nods from both was all I needed.

“Before we get back, we should all say something like “we’re in” at the same time.” I prompted.

I put everyone back where the needed to be and slowed us down.

All at the same time,

“We’re in.” I said

“We’ll do it.” Said Richard.

“We’ll take it.” David said.

“Come on guys we talked about this.” I groaned.