While Amy went off to dream about her new fantasy beanbag, Tiff decided to call it a night. But before she went to sleep to prepare for the rest of the week, there was something she needed to do first: check all her overdue System messages. She sat down at her computer and logged into the TAS.
[New Potential Nemesis]
[Action Report Available for Vizier]
[Approvals from the DMA]
[Warning: Incoming Rift]
Immediately, Tiff lost all other trains of thought and clicked on [New Potential Nemesis]. The main menu fizzled away, replaced by a 3D render of…a man she’d seen earlier today. Somebody shockingly familiar, for all the worst reasons.
Jack Williams.
Age 20.
Affiliation: Hero.
Codename…[Sentinel].
???
???
???
The slowly revolving figure looked exactly like Sentinel did whenever he posed for the cameras. Standing tall and proud, with his chest puffed out and his fists on his hips, his sleek silver costume glinting from some unseen light and his cape fluttering heroically behind him.
Tiff watched it spin in circles, horrified and too afraid to move. There seemed to be more information available on Sentinel, but it was locked. Tiff had no idea how to unlock it and she wasn’t sure she wanted to even if she did. Clicking on the question marks did nothing, and clicking on either his secret identity name or public moniker exited the profile and brought Tiff to the map. There, just at the edge of her territory boundary, was a tiny blue dot. She zoomed in until she was at street level and watched Sentinel get into an unmarked black van. It started up, pulled into the street, and wormed its way toward a freeway. Eventually it picked up speed, and soon enough, it was out of range. The dot vanished; poof, gone. Tiff sat there in her chair for an unknown amount of time, simply staring at the screen.
Her eyes wandered around until they landed on the northernmost Rift. Tiff backed out to the menu and selected the notification about an incoming Rift. Nothing. No new image of a giant swirling vortex of death, no new trackable marker on her map. It did, however, add one extra line of text.
Preparing Rift. Coalescing in 32:27:16.33. Breaching in 104:27:16:33.
Tiff blinked owlishly as a countdown spiraled down like a ticking bomb. She clicked frantically on the numbers hoping to make them stop, but they didn’t even slow down. Tiff watched them for several minutes before realizing that whatever “coalescing” meant wasn’t going to happen for another two days on Friday morning. Seeing as there was a second countdown identical to the first with an additional 72 hours tacked on, Tiff assumed they had at least 5 more days until they needed to worry about a Rift.
The Approvals were more emails. Tiff watched in real time as one went from unread to read and finally vanished. She supposed whoever was supposed to take care of that one was working late. Not wanting to grind an assumed industrial machine to a halt, Tiff left them all alone.
Looking at the notification for the Vizier’s Action Reports…confused Tiff. Honestly, she didn’t think “action reports” were a real thing and that they were made up for dramatic TV shows. The TAS brought up a spreadsheet with a whole bunch of random names and numbers. Well, the longer she stared at it, the more she could make an educated guess. Like the fact that there was a single sheet for the 24-Heaven, as well as listed goods and services…on top of goods and services of the distinctly less legal variety. If she was reading this right, Tiff had about $3850 and some change waiting for pickup. Taking protection money didn’t sit very well with Tiff, even if they did sort of protect the place once. She noticed a little downward-pointing arrow and clicked on it. The System prompted her to insert a memory stick…so Tiff did. It quickly downloaded a pdf and Tiff stared at the stick in her hand, exasperated at how the System always seemed to surprise her with such…mundanity. She put it next to her backpack to take with her to school and show Candice.
Eventually, Tiff let out a low groan. She’d had her Class long enough to know she didn’t need to immediately freak out, so at least there was progress on that front. But it would have been so much nicer to be able to see all of these notifications right when they hit instead of having to log into the TAS to read them hours later. She also knew that, while this Class was her burden, she didn’t need to go it alone. She could, should, and would consult her friends and family about this.
At the very least, right now as she was getting ready for bed, Tiff could categorize these notices in order of importance. She wouldn’t be able to do anything about them, but she felt like she was being proactive for once, which gave her a tiny bit of peace of mind.
Having a Nemesis sounded bad. In Tiff’s mind, it went past standard rivalry where two people simply wanted to outperform each other and wandered into active malevolence. All she could picture was being hounded by a shadowy figure relentlessly, unwaveringly, until she was cornered, caught, or killed. An image of her broken, bloodied body lying in an alley sent shivers up her spine. Why had the System done this? She hadn’t actively antagonized the man. She never wanted to be his friend, but couldn’t they at least live peacefully apart from each other, blissfully ignorant of each other’s existence? After today, especially after meeting Wavelength, Tiff supposed not.
Her response to the approval messages was the same as last time. She really needed to find somebody to explain them to her, because as it stood, she had no idea what she was looking at. But…so long as it continued to give her the option to keep things going as they had been, it wasn’t a dumpster fire.
Including Candice in Tiff’s TAS made her skin crawl. Tiff was doing her best to ignore how she was slowly hijacking her family and friend into her System-twisted schemes. But what was done was done, and Tiff didn’t think the System would let them back out so easily. It wasn’t something worrying could fix.
That just left the matter of an impending Rift, which was a lot to unpack. As soon as she saw it, Tiff panicked. A Rift that was about to open was no joke…even if it was several days out. But that brought up another question. What could she actually do with this information? So far, she had nothing. Not what type of Rift it would be, what might spill out or lie hidden in wait, or most importantly, where it was going to form. Her immediate thought was frustration that she couldn’t have somehow checked this message when she was at the DMA…but would that have actually been a good thing? Would an entire building of professional adults, who went to college, got degrees, and spent their entire lives monitoring Rifts…believe a 16-year-old girl who claimed a Rift was going to open on Monday? They’d start asking questions…questions Tiff didn’t want to answer. She couldn’t lie, but she didn’t know if she’d be able to dodge, either. Fortunately, any authorities she approached to warn would just as soon laugh her off as crazy as imprison her for interrogation.
Tiff pulled up the map on her TAS one more time and zoomed out as far as she could. Sentinel’s little blue dot had vanished, meaning he was no longer in Tiff’s territory. The current stable Rifts were exactly where she last saw them…including the one in Anaheim. As far as Tiff could tell, it was all quiet on the dungeon front. She shut down her computer, pulled on some pajamas, and brushed her teeth. Lying in bed, Tiff let out a defeated puff of hot air. Honestly, knowing Sentinel’s real name and being able to track his whereabouts made her feel worse. It wasn’t the peace of mind she thought it might be, especially once he went out of range. Was this something she was going to have to keep tabs on daily? Like doing the morning Wordle or logging onto her favorite mobile app to claim the free rewards? She hoped not. Either way, she was tired, and it was only Wednesday. She had two whole days until the weekend, and then it would be Amy’s birthday party.
Thursday morning saw Tiff looking like a panda. Her skin was clammy and damp from sweat, and she had massive black bags under her eyes. She didn’t sleep well. Amy tried teasing her at first, but when Tiff glared at her, looking like the spitting image of a freshly animated corpse with pale skin and sunken cheeks, she relented. Melissa almost made her stay home from school, but Tiff felt fine. Just tired. Really tired. She spent a good portion of the night tossing and turning, slipping in and out of dreams and nightmares featuring various heroic figures who were chasing her. Strangely, when they caught her, they didn’t actually want Tiff, but her strawberry banana smoothie.
Tiff didn’t have a strawberry banana smoothie, and now she really wanted one.
Melissa fussed over Tiff for nearly half an hour, trying to make her look less like a budget zombie before Rick called out that it was getting late. Since she was taking work off until the next week so she could run Amy’s party, Melissa tossed the kids into her truck and drove them to school. On the way, Tiff asked what was on her mind.
“What would you do if you knew a Rift was about to open?”
Melissa’s hands gripped the steering wheel tighter than they probably should, making the rubberized plastic groan.
“A Rift is forming? Where? When?”
“Not yet!” Tiff backpedaled. “And I don’t know!”
“Ah,” Melissa let out a relieved breath. “That’s good. Sorry, it’s just…we just had a Rift, you know? There shouldn’t be one again so soon. So…are we talking hypotheticals then?”
“Not really?” Tiff winced. “I got a message on my TAS last night saying one is popping up on Monday.”
“Really?” Melissa asked, looking over. “The System tells you when Rifts are about to form? I mean, I guess I jumped the shark a little bit with that one. I heard Rift and reacted. How much do you trust your info?”
“Sadly, 100%,” Tiff sighed. “It was a notification that came through my TAS, and those haven’t been wrong yet. I think, since it’s in my territory, the System feels obliged to let me know.”
“The System,” Melissa asked in disbelief, “Is obliged to you?”
“Well, it made me the supreme overlord of the greater LA and Orange Counties,” Tiff grumped. “The least it can do is tell me when Rifts invade. Actually, Mom,” Tiff said hesitantly, “I got a lot of alerts yesterday that I couldn’t check until I got home. Do you think you might have time to help me look over some of them today after school?”
“Ooooh, let me! Let me!!” Amy cried. Tiff rolled her eyes.
“Maybe. You might be too busy playing with your new beanbag.”
“Oh heck yeah! That should be arriving today, right? Soon? Oh, but wait…what if they need your signature again?”
“Ahh,” Tiff wilted. She didn’t think of that. “Maybe they won't this time? Or maybe there’s an option for co-sign?”
“I better get my beanbag,” Amy pouted, crossing her arms to stare out the window. While not ideal…she was sufficiently distracted.
“Sure thing, hun,” Melissa smiled. “Maybe grab your dad, too, huh? We’ll do what we can.”
Amy did her best to cheer Tiff up once they spilled out of the truck, but she quickly spotted one of her friends and dashed away to go hang out. That left Tiff free to brood on her way to Homeroom. Nobody seemed to care that she looked like a horror film reject and Tiff had to wonder if her new Skill had anything to do with it. She was technically in her plain clothes right now (even if she found the description “plain” to be slightly insulting), so she shouldn’t be projecting her ominous, villainous aura.
Until she sat down in class.
Maybe it was because these kids knew her better than the rest of school, but she noticed plenty of people giving her wary glances from across the room. She glared at Mario, the class clown, until he gulped and turned away. Candice rolled in wearing a sunshine yellow hoodie that might have visited a surplus lot when it was assigned its Xs and Ls, since it looked like Candice could fit 5 of her inside it and it fell all the way past her knees. She froze as her eyes fell on Tiff. She blew a large bubble of bright pink gum, let it pop, and chomped it loudly. Candice slowly lifted the pair of aviator shades she was wearing and stared seriously at Tiff.
“Is today the day?”
“The day for what?” Tiff asked tiredly. She wasn’t really in the mood for games.
“The day, you know, you summon an army of darkness and plunge the school into shadow?”
“Guh,” Tiff spluttered and sat up. Her eyes were wide as she stared at Candice’s grinning mug. “Why would I do that?”
“I’m not hearing a no.”
“No!”
“Eyy!” Candice called behind her to the rest of class. “It’s not today!!”
The class let out a collective sigh of relief and a few cheers. Tiff lowered her head into her arms, crossed over her desk, but what she really wanted was to bury her head in the sand. What sort of person did her classmates think she was?
“You know, it might help if you try wearing something new for a change,” Candice said smugly, taking her seat. Tiff peeked up and gave her a baleful stare.
“Like your hoodie? Candice, it’s already too big for you. It would eat me.”
“Ahhh yiss,” Candice crooned gleefully, grabbing handfuls of the bright yellow fabric and bunching it up around her. “That’s what makes it so comfy! But really. You should totes try a new look. Hmm,” Candice put her hand on her chin thoughtfully as she narrowed her eyes. “What if you tried shorts. Have you considered jorts?”
Tiff tried to imagine herself wearing jean shorts, but as soon as she did, she was assaulted by images of 5-year-olds playing on playgrounds at the park. Definitely not.
“I have other clothes,” Tiff rolled her eyes. “The System gave me a dress.”
“The System gave you a dress?” Candice repeated, dumbfounded. Tiff thought back to the monstrosity in her closet and saw the gears turning in Candice’s mind.
“On second thought, I don’t want to tell you about my dress.”
“Oh, you’re telling me about that dress,” Candice grinned cheerily. “One way or another.”
Candice pestered Tiff playfully all through Homeroom, but Tiff wasn’t intimidated. Eventually they went their separate ways until lunch, where once again, the perky cheerleader marched confidently up to Tiff’s table and sat down. At this point, Tiff would be very sad and a little disappointed if Candice stopped showing up.
“So,” Candice said in a slightly more serious tone, “I got caught up on all the recent gossip. I’m guessing this is gonna be a no, but do you actually want to hear?”
“No,” Tiff found spilling out of her mouth before she could really think about it, so she supposed her mind was already made up.
“Thought as much,” Candice grinned. “So then we’ll move on to you. Why do you look like a panda?”
She waved her fork at Tiff’s face before taking a bite of mac n cheese.
“Didn’t get much sleep,” Tiff admitted. “Was working through some System alerts.”
“You seem to get a lot of those,” Candice frowned. “I was jealous at first, but now I’m not so sure. What gives?”
“It’s because of my territory,” Tiff sighed. “Though I gotta admit; I feel more like a land lord than a dark lord. It’s all about checking in with invoices and emails. Occasionally I have to repair something.”
Candice gave Tiff a pitying smile, but it was clear she didn’t understand what Tiff’s Class was all about.
“Oh,” Tiff nodded, having just remembered. “When we’re done here, I have something to give you. Come with me to the library.”
Candice’s eyes went wide…and quickly dulled.
“You had me at gift…but you ruined it with library. Girl, work on your delivery.”
Fortunately, the girls had plenty of time to eat lunch and loaf around before the next period, which is exactly what they’d normally do. Some kids might roam around the halls or hang out behind the gym, but Tiff and Candice made a beeline for the library. The [Librarian] glared at them and double-checked that they weren’t bringing any illicit food into the library, but Tiff just asked for access to one of the school computers. They made their way to a quiet nook in the back and crowded around one of the old machines. It made a sound like a dying lawnmower as it whirred to life, but it worked. Tiff situated herself in front of the machine while Candice flipped a chair around and sprawled next to her.
“So I don’t know about you,” Tiff began, “But I get a lot of notifications. Like, a lot. Most of them I can look at whenever the System hands them to me, but sometimes I need to use my TAS.”
“That’s your Territory Administration Suite, right?” Candice asked, popping her lips on a lollipop.
“Yeah, you- Candice. What are you doing?”
“This?” Candice asked innocently, swishing the pop from one cheek to another. “It’s sugar-free.”
“That doesn’t stop it from being food, Candice.”
“Eh,” Candice shrugged. “No big.”
“Don’t blame me when you get us kicked out,” Tiff sighed, shaking her head. “Anyway. Yeah. My TAS. I already told you about my Class, but I haven’t really shown you the TAS yet. It’s pretty neat, I guess. It lets me know pretty much everything that’s going on in a 40-mile circle.”
“Tiff,” Candice said slowly, taking the loli out of her mouth. “That’s…a little more than pretty neat.”
“Well,” Tiff plowed on, “It’s there to help me run my territory, and since you became part of my team, it included you, too.”
Tiff paused.
“Did you get any System notifications yesterday?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I can give you this, then,” Tiff grinned, putting the memory stick into the slot. The computer whirred angrily and Tiff feared it might overheat…or start trimming weeds. She navigated to the folder she created and brought up Candice’s action report.
Candice’s eyes went wide and she absentmindedly started chomping the rest of her lollipop, scanning the spreadsheet eagerly. She continued leaning closer and closer until her chair almost tipped over, nearly squishing Tiff to the side as she edged her out. Tiff scooted over and Candice quickly took her place.
“24…Heaven…,” Candice mumbled, “Product…delivery…commision cut…margin…overhead…Tiff.”
Candice spent the better part of 5 minutes reading each and every column, no matter how dry or nonsensical. Eventually, she looked back up, and Tiff swore she was wearing her calculating face. The same one that knew exactly how to deal with backstabbing football players and cheerleading shrews.
“Tiff, do you know what this is?”
“I’ve got a hunch, but no, not really.”
“Well, what’s your best guess?”
“I think it’s a ledger.”
“You mean for a business, right?” Candice pressed. “For that 24-Heaven convenience store?”
“Yeah.”
“Except…,” Candice began leadingly, prompting Tiff to continue.
“Except it’s not the same one they report to the IRS.”
“Right?!” Candice nearly shouted, quickly ducking her head before she could get called out. “Tiff,” she hissed, “You’re a villain!”
“A Supervillain,” Tiff corrected, rolling her eyes. “We’ve been over this.”
“Yeah, but that was before I knew you had a whole-ass operation!”
“I don’t have a whole-ass operation,” Tiff hissed back. Candice scoffed.
“It certainly isn’t half-assed,” she grinned. “Half-asses don’t include invoices for their dirty money.”
“It’s not dirty,” Tiff complained. “It’s laundered.”
“Tiff,” Candice said carefully. “You do know what that means, right?”
“Yes,” Tiff huffed. “Which is also why the amount is so small. I got a crash course in mobenomics by a dude named Don. Actually, this place is just one of several I’ve inherited.”
“You inherited a mob?”
“No, I took out a gang,” Tiff denied. “And actually, it was Tori who did it. I just stood there and told her to.”
“Well, you’re the boss, I guess,” Candice grinned. “Isn’t that what you said when you hired me?”
“I didn’t hire you,” Tiff shook her head. “The System gave you a Class.”
“Yeah, to be your bean counter,” Candice said. “And you better hire me now, Tiff. Look at this. This is work.”
“I know,” Tiff sighed.
“No,” Candice said again. “Like work work. Real work. Actual, got to college, get a degree, 9 to 5, 401K work.”
“Do you even know what those are?”
“No, but my dad won’t shut up about his,” Candice groaned.
“I get it,” Tiff said nervously. “And…I do plan on paying you….”
“Are you serious?” Candice whipped her head up so fast Tiff feared she might get whiplash.
“Of course!” Tiff said. She was a fair Supervillain! Only the best hourly rates for her minions! And salary for the middle management! With benefits! And 401ks!
…as soon as she figured out what they actually were.
“But…why?” Candice asked. She looked confused…and Tiff was confused why Candice was confused.
“Because we’re in this together?” Tiff replied. “Because if the System is going to force this junk on me, and force a Class on you, I want to do this right.”
“Okay,” Candice nodded, but she didn’t look convinced. “But we’re in school. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a work permit. How are you gonna pay me? How do we get a job?”
“Candice,” Tiff sighed. For as smart as the girl was most of the time, she was being a little clueless here. “This is the job.”
“What?” Candice smirked. “Running a protection racket?”
Tiff said nothing, and the longer Candice stared at her stony face, the further her smile fell.
“You’re…serious?”
“We already started,” Tiff shrugged. “The business is already mine. I paid for repairs and upgraded their soft serve machine. They already know me and expect me to come back.”
Tiff pointed to the screen.
“And the System seems to think it’s your job as my Vizier to keep track of these records, I guess.”
“I…think I can do that,” Candice said, sounding much less confident than she usually did.
“Don’t worry,” Tiff tried to console her. “I’m trying to work out a way to get the TAS mobile. My dad says he might have a solution to put it on an app. We might be able to get the System to send you updates regularly.”
“And…what do I do with them?” Candice asked dubiously.
“Check the numbers?” Tiff shrugged. “Make sure nobody’s cooking the books?”
“You’ve been holding onto that one, haven’t you?” Candice accused with a laugh.
“Guilty,” Tiff grinned. “But seriously. With your brain for names and numbers, do you think you can help keep track of things? What goes where, when goes what, where goes why? That sort of thing?”
“So long as you aren’t navigating with instructions like that, I’m willing to try.”
“Good,” Tiff said with a heavy sigh. She deflated in her seat, like a giant weight was lifted off her back. “I need all the help I can get. Really, Candice, I can’t thank you enough.”
“Yeah, well, now you’re making it awkward,” Candice smiled with a blush. Nobody was ever that sincere with her.
“So let’s talk about your pay,” Tiff said, sitting back up.
“Wait, you’re serious about that too?”
“Of course! I can’t lie to you, Candice. Right now, we only have one customer,” Tiff explained, and she watched Candice mull over the word “customer” while applying it to a protection racket. “So I can’t offer you much, but I promise we’ll grow. We’ll figure things out. It’ll start as a small percentage of the weekly pickup-”
“Wait, you get paid weekly?!”
“Yes,” Tiff said, pointing at the screen. “That’s part of your job, Candice. When we get more customers, you’ll need to contact the store, set up an appointment, and book a visitation. Then Tori and I will go collect.”
Candice didn’t look like she agreed to the exact wording Tiff used, but that’s semantics. Instead, her eyes narrowed down on the bold, final number.
“Tiff, I don’t care what the exact number is…but a weekly percentage of $3850? I’m in.”
“Oh, it’s better than that,” Tiff smiled. “The weekly limit at 24-Heaven is 5 grand.”
1
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