Life of a New Hero

         Kansas City needed a hero of its own. I was ready to give them one. I spent a few more nights in the hotel while I tried to find a place for me to live.
         My new house is a nice place. It's outside of Kansas City, but still in the area.
         Every superhero needs a place to work from. The basement of a former steel mill turned nightclub, a cave under a mansion, a former laboratory, or a tower in the middle of Manhattan. Overload's base is an abandoned train yard. It had been scheduled for demolition until I bought it using some of the money Tony Stark gave me.
         I still needed a cover as to why I would purchase the train yard, of course. After a month or so, my public persona was Colin Black, owner of the new Black Train Depot.
         It's a large facility. It's more than just a train yard, it's also a factory. We make new train cars, and try to make some new versions of existing train cars.
         But below the train yard, is Overload's base. I call it my Workshop. Employees are aware that the workshop exists, though they think that I do something else down there. And they know better than to go down there. That's my number 1 rule.
         At first, only two other people knew about the true nature of the Workshop. The first was Tony Stark. He wanted to know what I was spending his money on.
         The second person to find the workshop was one of my employees, Randal Carver. He didn't intend to find out, but he did anyway. He broke my number 1 rule, but it was for good reason.
         A couple of weeks after the business got up and running, a fire broke out. A novice worker wasn't careful enough with his welder. Randal Carver had been in charge at the time, as I was in the Workshop. Randal wasn't sure what to do in that situation, so, rather than buzzing the intercom to the Workshop, he went down to tell me in person. He was surprised when he saw me with my robot arm. But then we got the fire taken care of, and we talked down in the Workshop after.
         He had been surprised to find out that not only was Overload his boss but that he was an 18-year old. "I thought you would be older," he'd said to me. I offered him a chance to work with Overload. Every superhero had someone backing him up. A friend, a coworker, a butler, an AI system. I gave Randal the chance to be that person the first day he found out. But he turned it down, at first.
         For the next few days after Randal turned down the offer, I started to wonder what I saw in him. Why had I wanted him on my team?
         Then, one day, I got my answer. A small gang attacked Kansas City. They weren't too strong, but I couldn't do it alone.
         As I was in the Workshop, preparing to fight, the elevator opened. Randal walked in and asked, "What do you want me to do?"
         I smiled and said, "I want you to stay here on the computer. You're on Overwatch."
         "Got it." He sat down at the computer. Then he turned to me and asked, "What do you mean by Overwatch?"
         "Just tell me if there are any bad guys on my six."
         Randal nodded, then I drove away on my motorcycle. I emerged from the tunnel in the same parking garage as usual. I made it above ground and rode to where the gang was attacking. I'll be honest, I don't remember much of most of these small fights. They just simply didn't stick in my mind. But I remember that in that fight, Randal had been a big help. The small guys, for lack of a better term, were easy to knock out. But then they brought out the big gun.
         This particular group had an affinity for cybernetics. Their main enforcer had a lot of cybernetic enhancements. He was stronger than me, and he could handle one of the shots from my blaster. He was strong, and he was fast. I couldn't get close enough to him, and when he got close to me, he was so fast that all I could do was dodge. Randal is the only reason I was able to beat him.
         "Overload," he had said over the coms, "I think I have a way for you to win."
         "What is it?"
         "I've analyzed your opponent. He has a weakness. If you hit a certain bit of his cybernetics, he will start to glitch out."
         "Where is the weak spot?"
         "It's on his back. You can't miss it."
         "That's just fine." I dodged one of his punches. "But I can't reach it."
         "I think I've got that figured out too. If you hit his elbow or wrist that arm might lock up for maybe five seconds before rebooting. The same thing will happen to his leg if you hit his knee."
         "Got it." I waited for the opportunity. When he prepared to throw his next punch, I slid past him, hitting his elbow and knee with my shield as I did. I got to my feet behind him. He tried to hit me, but with his right arm and leg locked in place, he couldn't get to me. Before they could unlock, I hit his weak spot with my shield.
         As Randal had predicted, he started glitching out. Sparks shot out from his body. He started moving unpredictably. He punched the few members of his group who were left before he ultimately fell to the ground. With my knife, I sliced through the circuit board on his back. His cybernetics stopped twitching.
         The cops arrived on the scene. I quickly fled the scene. The police weren't that fond of me at this time. I hadn't yet proven myself to be a good guy.
         As I made my way back to the Workshop, Randal said in my ear, "I guess that takes care of Cybern."
         "Cybern?" I asked.
         "He needs a codename, right? Like Iron Man or Overload."
         "Not every bad guy needs a codename, you know."
         "Sure, but if they put up a challenge, you want to be able to call them something later."
         "This guy was not enough of a threat to be called a villain, let alone to get a codename."
         "Okay. But don't be shy to give a codename to the first villain who shows up."

         I wish that I could say that the next big thing that happened was the first villain. That would have made a good segue. But it wasn't.
         Black Train Yard was a surprisingly successful business shortly after it opened. About a month after the company started, the Kansas City Star sent a reporter out to interview me about the company.
         That reporter was Tiffany Wilson. She was the girl I had saved in that alley the first night I was Overload. She had also written stories about me after some of my best victories, such as after I beat Cybern.
         Our interview went very well. By the end, I could tell that she liked me. I was starting to like her too. I'm getting ahead of myself, but a week and a half later, we went on a date.
         But something else happened before that. Overload was starting to draw national attention. People around the country were starting to know that Kansas City had a new protector. And sometimes, the very existence of superheroes invites challenges.
         The day after my interview with Tiffany, the first real villain came to town. Absorbing Man.