Super Sales on Super Heroes

Chapter 28 - Mostly Dead -

A medical attendant pulled open the door. Felix waited as the man grabbed the slab and drew it towards them. On that slab were the remains of one Jordan Taylor.

He wasn’t a super, or someone remarkable. He was average, really. Talented enough to make the cut for the internal security team, but that was it.

He was also agnostic, and had no living family. Thus, he became a perfect test subject.

“You’re welcome to remain, but I order you not to speak of anything that occurs in this room with anyone else in any way, shape, or form. Not until I tell people myself.

“Do you understand?”

The masked medical attendant hesitated, then left the morgue quickly.

Turning back to the dead man, he felt his skin prickle. Half of his face was gone, including a sizable portion of his skull.

You wanted a test, Felix. This is it.

First, he focused on putting Jordan’s body back together. Exactly as it had been before his death. A week in the morgue had probably slowed down the decay of everything.

Hadn’t stopped it, though.

Status Correction: Expand for List (Over 5,000 items) -> Healed

Correct Status? (35,000 points)

Felix accepted the change. It was costly, but if it was a successful test, then that’d be worth it.

Jordan’s body rapidly regenerated all the missing bits and pieces. His body reformed itself as if he’d never been touched.

Though he drew no breath, and his chest remained still.

Pushing his awareness into the man’s character sheet, Felix looked to see if there was anything that could give him a clue on how to proceed.

Name:

Jordan Taylor

Power: --

Alias:

Secondary Power: --

Physical Status:

Decaying

Mental Status:

Dead

Positive Statuses:

None

Negative Statuses:

Dead

Strength:

53

Upgrade?(530)

Dexterity:

57

Upgrade?(570)

Agility:

48

Upgrade?(480)

Stamina:

67

Upgrade?(670)

Wisdom:

41

Upgrade?(410)

Intelligence:

52

Upgrade?(520)

Luck:

36

Upgrade?(360)

Primary Power:

--

Upgrade?(--)

Secondary Power:

--

Upgrade?(--)

It’s not that simple. Is it?

Redirecting his focus, Felix hammered at his mind on the simple idea of Jordan coming back to life.

He’d put his mind and body back together to the point right before he died. If he could get him to breathe and get his heart beating, then he’d be alive, right?

That or we make a zombie.

Status Correction: Dead -> Living

Correct Status? (50,000 points)

Reaching up with one hand, Felix rubbed at the back of his neck.

Maybe I should ask someone to come stand with me… just in case.

Moving to the entry door, he popped it open.

Looking around, he found Lily working with some of her team. She’d accompanied him down here at his request, but had remained outside, also by his request.

“Lily, I need a hand.”

She nodded absently, still talking to one of her people. A full minute later and Lily was done, coming in to join him in the morgue.

“Okay. What’s with all the cloak-and-dagger mischief?” asked the woman as the door closed behind her.

“And why are you playing with corpses?”

Felix didn’t answer at first, moving over to stand next to Jordan. “Raising the dead.”

“I… see.”

Lily came over to stand next to him. “And what am I doing here?”

“Checking to see if he has a soul. Or blow him up if he becomes a zombie. Maybe both?”

Not giving her a chance to answer or argue, Felix spent the points.

Jordan Taylor, dead for a week, with a good part of his brain being blown out, took a deep, gasping breath. His eyes flew wide open and his body spasmed.

Coughing, the man’s hands shot up to his head, his eyes wide.

Looking around himself, Jordan continued to cough.

“Easy there, Jordan. Easy. You’re okay,” Felix said soothingly. Stealing a look to Lily, he asked under his breath, “He is okay, isn’t he?”

Lily was shocked, her eyes wide, skin pale, her mouth hanging open. After a second, she lifted a hand towards the man and then nodded her head.

“He’s… fine. His soul is his and it’s there,” Lily said in a whisper.

Jordan had sat up by this point, his hands covering his naked body as his head jerked back and forth between Lily and Felix.

“What… what happened? We were fighting in the lobby… the man in front of me had a shotgun,” Jordan said in a quivering voice.

“You died. That man shot you in the head with the shotgun.”

“I died?”

“Yeah. You died. You’ve been in the morgue for a while. About a week.”

Felix fell quiet. Jordan seemed to be taking it pretty well. No need to overburden the man if he didn’t have to.

“I don’t understand. I died, but I’m not dead?”

“Yeah, you’re not dead. I brought you back.”

“Back.”

“Yeah, from the dead.”

“Oh. I’m a zombie, then… or something?”

“No, not at all. Lily is here, and she already confirmed for me that you are exactly as you were before you died. It’s as if you never died at all.”

“But… why?” Jordan seemed calm still, so Felix saw no reason to end the experiment.

“Why bring you back? Why not? It said in your file you were agnostic, so there was no religious reason not to put your s—put yourself back together. No family, either.”

“Yeah… no. Neither. So… I just go back to work?”

“Take a few days off. We didn’t report your death, so no worries on that end. You can just… pick up where you left off.”

“Yeah. A few days off. Okay, I can… I can do that. Nothing’s different?”

“No, nothing’s different. You might have to get a new room assigned, and get some new clothes and things, but nothing HR can’t fix up, I’m sure.

“I’ll have an Other come in and get you squared away, alright?” Felix asked Jordan, patting him on the back.

“Yeah, okay. Did… did we win?”

“Decisively so. Look forward to seeing you around, Jordan.”

Felix turned on his heel and left the morgue, stopping only to give Andrea instructions.

“Felix, how many points did that cost?” Lily asked, her gait slowing down as she caught up with him.

Victoria and Andrea trailed behind.

“Fifty to bring him back to life. Thirty-five to get his body put back together.”

“You do know what this means, right?”

“That I should probably go buy the corpses of some of the strongest supers in the past and bring them back?” Felix responded, hitting the elevator button.

“Er. You could do that, yes. But I think first and foremost you should have HR get everyone to sign a ‘life after death’ policy. Not everyone may want to come back,” Lily said. She entered the elevator when the doors slid open. Andrea and Victoria entered as well, though they were still silent.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

“Yeah, I kinda figured. It’s why I picked Jordan. Agnostic, no family.” Felix hit the button for the floor to his office. “Next thing on the to-do list: buying the street.”

“Ah, we’ve had some success with that. It’ll take some time to buy everything, but considering our assets are still frozen, that’s fine.

“We need to meet with an inspector tomorrow to go over all the buildings and make sure they’re up to code for a purchase. I already sent you the invite, and you accepted, but I don’t think you actually read the invite.

“Not that we care about the inspection anyways, since we can just send in our teams and fix anything, but those are the regulations.” Lily leaned up against the back wall of the elevator as the doors slid shut.

“Great. Why is my entire life meetings? And meetings to prepare for meetings. Maybe this is why owners hire a CEO and then wander off.” Felix shook his head, his mouth twisting up in a grimace.

“No CEO would ever care as much as the owner does. That’s just the reality of the situation. You’re doing fine,” Lily said in response.

Felix huffed as the doors opened in front of him. Setting out for his office, he couldn’t find fault in her words. No one would care as much as he did.

“Yeah. I’ll get with Kit and have HR run up a new policy and get everyone to indicate their preference. I’ll also have them discuss the fact that Jordan is indeed alive, and no longer dead.

“I imagine I’ll get a number of people trying to get me to raise dead family members.”

Felix thought on that for a moment as he opened the door to his office.

“I suppose that’s doable… but we’d have to have them as a different contract. I don’t think a single year under the Indentured contract would cover the points.”

“Ah, good news, then. We’ve been experimenting with HR on the contracts. We can build a contract that lasts five years now. It took some doing with verbiage and how much magical power to put into the seal, but it works.

“Binding that contract with a return from the dead is more than enough oomph to seal the deal sufficiently.”

“Huh. So the nature of the deal helps enforce the contract?” Felix spun his chair around and sat down heavily in it, calling up his personal terminal.

Victoria took up her position at the door, and Andrea lay down on the couch. Neither spoke.

Their silence was becoming eerie. He imagined they’d have to consider the choice and its implications.

He was blessedly unable to resurrect himself, so his choice would never come.

“Magic can be finicky when it comes to people signing things with their souls. This would work.

“The hard part is getting a family member who owns the dead. I mean, who really owns a corpse? I imagine it might come down to if they left a will, and if they left an estate to someone. That’d probably qualify.”

Felix nodded his head, the conversation falling off as he started to get lost in the day-to-day minutiae of running a company.

Andrea was on high alert.

Her Others swarmed the streets, roaming up and down them. They covered the corners, stared people down when they got close to Felix, and generally made asses of themselves. To the point that people would cross the street to avoid the mess.

He’d even caught sight of a few Others clearing and utilizing the rooftops.

Victoria was at his side, of course. He’d finally heard from Ioana that she was happy Victoria was at his side. Apparently she was a master swordswoman and could even fight Ioana to a standstill.

Felicia and the inspector had disappeared inside a building ten minutes ago and were going through the entire thing with a team, as well as the owners.

Andrea turned her head to one side as someone probably relayed something to her.

After a second, she turned her eyes back to the building they were standing in front of.

“It looks like vomit. It’s vomit yellow. I want to paint it. Can we paint it?” she asked.

“I don’t care? Pretty sure Felicia and her team are only interested in the guts of the building. You’ll have to link up with design,” Felix said offhandedly.

Andrea hadn’t said anything about why she’d gone silent yesterday after he had pulled Jordan back from the grave.

By and large, Legion as a whole was rather impressed with the news that death was not the end for them.

At least, if they opted for that in their HR policy.

Much as he’d predicted, the yes and no responses were divided by religion.

Makes sense. Maybe she’s religious? I mean… why not ask?

“Andrea,” Felix started, his voice unsure. “Why were you so upset yesterday after you found out I could raise the dead?”

“Huh?” she asked, her eyes not meeting his own. “I don’t understand. By the way, after this I want to—”

“Andrea, if you don’t want to talk about it, just tell me that. I’ll leave it alone. And I ask because I care.”

The Beastkin winced, her tail drooping.

“It was just surprising… really. I think I’ve got you figured out, and you do something I never even though about.

“I mean, I’m not smart, right? I’m scared that maybe you’re sleeping with me for a reason I’m too stupid to figure out.”

Oddly reasonable… though a bit late to worry about that sort of thing, isn’t it?

“Well. I can tell you I’m sleeping with you because you’re beautiful, and I care about you. I’m not sure where we’ll end up, but I can tell you that it’s not just sex.

“Is that fair?” Felix tried to get it all out as straightforwardly as possible. Andrea was a simple and straightforward girl, after all.

The Beastkin’s mismatched eyes were glowing faintly, staring into him. Her tail was lifted and swishing back and forth slowly, her entire body angled toward him. All around him, the Others had shifted as well. Many were watching him, their eyes glowing and intent.

“Really?”

“Yep. Look alive, your Others are watching,” Felix said with a grin and a vague gesture around them.

As one, Andrea and the Others returned to their normal pose. It was strange and unnerving.

“Lily was right,” Andrea whispered, the ears on her head swiveling around.

Before Felix could question her, Victoria pulled her sword from its sheath. Her eyes were fixed on a man heading their way.

The rather large individual, who had shouldered his way through several Others to get past them, stopped dead.

Victoria had taken several steps out in front of Felix and was in the process of leveling her blade out in front of her, pointing the tip towards the man.

Looking at it closely, Felix realized it wasn’t the same sword she’d had previously. It shone in the light. A cold, deadly shimmer.

Upgrade from Felicia?

That large man looked at Victoria for another second before he doubled back the way he came and took the crosswalk to the other side of the street.

Victoria gave her blade a flourish and sheathed it. Sniffing disdainfully, she wandered back to Felix’s side.

Felicia and the inspector chose that moment to pop out.

“Nothing terrible with that one. Elevator needs an update to the electrical, but that’s it,” Felicia said grumpily. She marched up to Felix and glared up at him.

She was viewing the entire exercise as a waste of time. He couldn’t disagree with her, but it still needed to be done.

“Okay. Get it written down. Where to next?” Felix did his best not to sigh.

“Nowhere. Mr. Inspector Man needs a break. He and his team are going to break for thirty. Union and all. I say we hit the cafe,” she said, pointing across the way.

The cafe in question had already agreed to the purchase. The staff, after being informed of the purchase, seemed happy that nothing was changing.

Doubly so when the volume of customers skyrocketed after it was made known Legion was buying into the place, and would be subsidizing the costs for employees starting immediately.

“Come on, money bags, you can expense it.” Felicia walked out into the street and started crossing without a thought towards the cars.

In a creepy scene out of a thriller movie, Others flooded the street and began blocking traffic in both directions.

Felix couldn’t help it now and sighed, stepping out into the street and following along.

“What are you doing about Agent Shithead?” Felicia nearly yelled over her shoulder at him.

“Who, Smith? I have an appointment with his boss after this. Going to see if we can get our assets unfrozen. Lily prepped me with a lovely document showing how we can file a lawsuit and claim damages if they don’t.”

“Ah, the princess. You porkin’ her yet? You’re already porkin’ the wolf.”

Andrea left his side and skipped ahead to be next to Felicia. “He sure is! Me, that is, not Lily. Not yet. We’re trying to get him to settle for both of us, and only us. Lily says she can share with me because I have as much guile as a knife. I don’t mind sharing with her because she’s honest with me.”

“Oh? Good on you two, then. May your porkin’ be rough and messy.” Felicia slapped Andrea on the ass, getting a squeal out of the Beastkin. Then Felicia stepped past her and into the cafe, shoving the door aside.

Victoria gave him a strange look as she passed by him entering the cafe.

Felix could only wonder at what the hell Lily and Andrea were up to.

A soft chirping came from his phone. Felix waited till he sat down next to Andrea before he checked to see what the notification was.

It was an email from Lily. Opening it, he felt his temperature rise and his teeth clicked together.

His meeting with Smith’s boss had been canceled without a reason. Their assets were still frozen and now he had no recourse.

He wouldn’t bow to Smith and whore out one of his people. He knew he didn’t have a moral compass that pointed north, but even he wouldn’t sink that low.

No, no, he had other alternatives that he could employ that would be worse, but not as bad for his own people.

He tapped in a response for Lily. He wanted her to get a hold of Wraith for a meeting.

No sooner was his message away than did another message come in for him. This time from Kit.

“Ugh.” Felix turned off the display and picked up the menu. All three women had turned their heads to him at his noise of displeasure.

Before they could ask, he opened his mouth again. “None of the shops are buying gold anymore. Someone figured out what we were doing, I’m betting.

“Which means we need to figure out where to make our money next.”

“Cars,” Felicia said, slapping her menu closed. “They can’t stop us from selling cars to the public. Get all our cash together and buy as many junkers as we can. My team will repair everything we can, and list out the parts we’re missing.

“Then your stupid ass comes through and magics up whatever we’re missing with your points. The end.”

Felicia held up her hand towards the waitress and gestured at her angrily. The Dwarf didn’t wait for anyone or anything.

Cars, huh? That’s not a bad idea. We can hit the scrapyards and buy as many junkers as we can and push them all through private auctions or the used car lots.