Chapter 2: The Interview

Today was interesting. A lot happened--some of it much better than I expected, and some of it, admittedly, not so good. Although if I’m completely sincere, I think I actually prefer the bad parts. The bad parts make my objective harder, and apparently there is something wrong with my brain because the harder something becomes, the more determined I am to get it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. There is a lot to explain, so I should probably start at the beginning.

What does it actually mean to be a superhero?

Most people would probably answer something heroic: saving civilians, fighting villains, stopping disasters, protecting the innocent. That is the version people see on television. The reality is considerably less exciting. Most of the time, being a superhero means marketing and publicity.

Yes, obviously Whitegirl--or any other member of the Top 10--occasionally does something genuinely heroic. A superpowered criminal loses his mind, somebody threatens a city, some lunatic builds a weapon that could kill thousands of people, and suddenly one of the most powerful human beings on the planet has to intervene. But that sort of thing happens maybe twice a year. A couple of times a year, somebody causes enough trouble that AEGIS decides Whitegirl or one of the others is actually necessary.

And I am specifically talking about the Top 10 here. There are hundreds of lower-ranked superheroes doing real work all the time. In fact, statistically speaking, the lower your ranking, the harder your actual job tends to be, because the more often you are expected to go out there and do something. It is basically the military. The supreme commander does not personally crawl through the mud carrying a rifle. The soldiers do that.

AEGIS--the Agency for Enhanced Global Intervention & Security--works in much the same way. The Top 10 are strategic assets. We are only deployed when somebody decides the situation is important enough to justify us.

Superheroes are normally organized into teams based on their abilities, and the standard team consists of four basic roles. First, you have the offensive super. That is the obvious one: the strongest, the fastest, the one designed to hit something until it stops being a problem. Whitegirl is the perfect example. Then you have the defensive super, whose job is normally to protect civilians or control the battlefield. Then there are healers, which is fairly self-explanatory.

And finally, there are strategists.

Strategists are superheroes who are not necessarily strong enough to dominate a fight, defensive enough to protect everyone, or capable of healing anybody. We normally stay farther away from the fighting, coordinate information, perform reconnaissance, or use abilities that become extremely valuable when applied intelligently.

That is what I am.

My greatest advantage is that I can be somewhere I should not be, listen to things nobody wants me to hear, and do it without anybody realizing I am there. An invisible superhero would probably be considered a strategist. Someone capable of creating teleportation portals could be one too. And so can a girl who can turn herself into mist.

Normally, therefore, a superhero team has four members. There are exceptions, obviously. Specialized teams exist for practically everything. After natural disasters, for example, AEGIS sometimes deploys teams consisting primarily of healers and rescue specialists. Some combat units have multiple offensive supers. Reconnaissance teams might have several strategists. But the basic rule is four. You belong to a team, and every now and then AEGIS temporarily moves you somewhere else because a particular mission requires your abilities.

Why does any of this matter?

Because I need to get into Whitegirl’s team.

Or, perhaps even better, into a team that operates close to hers.

If I want to seduce her, I need access. I need to be around her. I need opportunities to talk to her, understand her, annoy her, surprise her, make her think about me when I am not there.

But I cannot be around her too much either. If she sees me constantly, she will eventually get tired of me. And, more importantly, I might get tired of her.

Which brings me to my third rule.

Third Rule of Seduction: Never let your target grow tired of seeing you or being around you. Once that happens, attraction begins to disappear.

That rule has put me in a slightly complicated position today, because the first question is whether I can get into Whitegirl’s team. The second--and perhaps more important--question is whether I actually want to.

At the moment, I genuinely do not know.

That is something I will have to decide depending on how my relationship with her develops. Assuming, of course, that the whole thing does not collapse spectacularly before then and I suddenly stop being able to see her at all.

Anyway.

One thing at a time.

It has been a week since the first time I met Whitegirl.

As I explained in my previous entry, the last time we met we were put together for a promotional photoshoot. During that photoshoot, I asked Whitegirl whether she had seen the fake pictures online of me going down on her.

For the record, I have absolutely no idea whether those pictures actually exist. Probably. There are forums where people create edits of superheroes doing all kinds of things with each other. I do not really visit them. Ironically, I am far more interested in seduction than sex itself. The chase fascinates me more than the finish line.

So when I mentioned those pictures, I was mostly inventing the whole thing. I simply needed to say something obscene enough to get her attention.

And it worked.

Then I told her something else: that she could not hurt me. That around me, she could relax.

I was referring to physical damage, obviously. That distinction is important considering some of the things she said to me today. Things that, I admit, affected me considerably.

But I will get to that.

This morning, my team prepared a special version of my costume for the interview. Before leaving, I spent what felt like half my life talking to my publicist, my PR representative, and several other people whose jobs I still do not entirely understand. Every member of the Top 10 has a dedicated team following them around. Publicists, lawyers, image consultants, security specialists, media coordinators. I even have a personal attorney.

At twenty years old.

Which is ridiculous when you think about it.

Eventually I put on my superhero suit. Mine is black and relatively simple. I do not wear a cape. The suit is divided into separate upper and lower sections and is designed more for practicality than spectacle.

Whitegirl’s costume, meanwhile, is practically pornographic.

There is no delicate way to put it.

It is a skin-tight white one-piece with gold detailing and a long white cape. Combined with the name Whitegirl, the whole image is so absurdly white that it almost looks racist. Although, amusingly enough, there is also a Blackgirl somewhere in the Top 20, so apparently somebody at AEGIS decided consistency was more important than subtlety.

Anyway. I got dressed, and at the last possible moment somebody informed me that Whitegirl and I would be traveling to the studio together.

In the same car.

Apparently, people liked our photographs. Most famous superheroes are men of various ages or older women, which means Whitegirl and I make a fairly marketable pair. She is blonde, I am brunette. She is number one, I am number ten. She looks like somebody designed the perfect traditional American heroine in a laboratory. I look considerably less traditional.

My publicist spent almost two hours explaining audience metrics to me, most of which entered one ear and escaped through the other. Eventually I interrupted him and asked whether those numbers were the reason I had suddenly been added to Whitegirl’s interview.