—Roberto Tapir - Grizzly Bear—

Roberto shook the worry off his shoulders, laced his fingers at the back of his head, and looked around. This was going to be easy. Anachronica was overreacting.

"And here you can see my very favorite latte machine." Mary beamed, stretching a paper-white arm towards a small reflective black box. She touched the icon of a coffee cup in the center of the surface, and a short drip tray and a white coffee nozzle hummed out. "Beautiful, innit?"

Roberto opened his lips. Closed. Narrowed his eyes, arms akimbo. "Well, it's... something."

After leaving Iara's office and recovering Rob's meager belongings, the group had followed through the labyrinthine corridors back to the HQ's common areas. Mary, Roberto's self-appointed guide, first took him to what she called the most important place in the HQ. Roberto expected to see weapons, radars, and red leather armchairs with oppressive, villainesque backrests. Instead, she took him to the breakroom.

Mary rested a hand on the machine and beamed. "As the largest coffee specialist on both Continents, Invidia produces premium quality coffee beans all year round. Along with health and dental care and a clear career plan, this symbolizes everything that makes Invidia such an amazing place to work."

Satina scoffed, raising an incredulous pair of eyes.

"Tap this button," Mary said. A lanky finger tapped the round green icon on the screen. "And the most delicious hot drink will be poured for you." She paused for effect, palms up to show the machine. It hummed as it ground the beans, then poured a dense black liquid into a cup. "From The New Continent Farms, directly to your coffee mug." She took the cup and offered it to Roberto, winking. "Here, taste it."

Rob took the white cup, then glanced at Léon in a silent question.

"She's re-enacting Invidia's TV ad." Léon smiled and crossed his arms. "She starred in it and is very proud. Aren't you, Mary?"

"I had to end the competition to take the part." Mary winked.

That was a joke. Right? After a heartbeat, Rob barked a laugh. "Right! Invidia ads on the telly. Blimey, yes! I watched 'em. Gotta say, lady, you're quite the actress."

"Oh. Thanks, Mr. Bear. I also saw you on TV." Mary narrowed her eyes, tilting her head to one side. "And I gotta say, you're quite the Hero."

Rob's eyebrows twitched. Was Mary trying to say something?

Satina grunted in disgust, massaging her forehead. "Let's please just move on."

The villain breakroom was exaggeratedly bright and citron-fresh. White bubble chairs hung from the rustic cement ceiling by thick chains, and white double sofas divided the room into smaller ambients peppered by flower pots of white caladium. It was like being inside the high-tech office of a successful startup.

It felt good to be there, but Rob knew there was much more to the place than the comfortable atmosphere showed.

When Satina walked towards the door, he followed. "Hey. Please call me Rob. All of you." He took a sip of his coffee and raised his eyebrows. It was nothing like the smelly sewage in The Heroic League. "Oi, out of interest, who are The Twins? And what exactly do you do in a villain HQ?"

"Besides drinking coffee, you mean?" Mary asked.

Satina clicked her tongue. "All right. I guess it's time we take you on a real tour, big boy. Let's see if you can handle a couple of truths. Starting with that." She pointed an index finger towards something at Roberto's back. "Léon, do you mind?"

Rob turned around. Between the refrigerator and the food rehydrator, a paper-thin holoscreen occupied part of the wall. The words on it formed a list of names and numbers entitled Rank of Villainy.

Before Roberto could ask, Léon answered, "This is the first thing you need to know about Invidia. The numbers here? Creds. The money we're making per month and how much we contribute to the company, directly or indirectly. Not only with money, but with influence, market value, anything, really, all based on an algorithm Iara developed. Screens like this are spread everywhere... she doesn't want us to forget." He swiped up, making the names on the list roll down. "Your name will show up here tomorrow morning when the system updates the data. After that, you'll have thirty days to help your team—namely us—reach a minimum quota. If we succeed, we receive a cut. If we don't, well. We'll receive nothing but our ridiculous base salary.

"See the symbols here, before each name?" Léon turned to face Roberto. "They represent each team. We all work in duos or trios, but we're all evaluated separately. Look." At the bottom of the list, Satina and Léon's names appeared in red. He pointed to the 4-digit number beside his name and said, "This is how much money we're bringing to Invidia."

"Not bad at all," Roberto said, taking a sip of his coffee.

Léon scoffed. "It's the bare minimum, which means we don't receive any bonus. Yet. Check this." He swiped down, making the list roll slowly back to the top.

"Shite," Rob whispered. How many zeros were there? Seven, eight... no, wait. He forgot one there. "How...? And what can I... I mean."

Satina took a step forward. "Do you watch the news, Roberto?" With a smile, she accepted the styrofoam cup Mary offered.

Roberto shook his head no. "I mean, I used to be in most headlines, so I didn't have the time. Nor the vanity." His smile broadened.

Satina rolled her eyes. "Well, you should start watching if you want to have the slightest idea of what kind of job you signed up for." She took a sip of her coffee and a lollipop from a bomboniére. "This will be your homework. Watch the news and come up with ideas to make us some money. We'll meet at Léon's tomorrow morning, and you'll present your ideas to us."

Rob focused his eyes on Satina as she unwrapped her candy. She must be no older than twenty, he thought. She looked too young and too innocent. Still, there was something about her—about the three of them—that gave him chills. The bad kind.

"Why would I need to do it? Don't you come up with the plans yourself? Isn't that what leaders are for?" Rob raised an eyebrow.

"So your leaders in the League didn't make you think for yourself?" She scoffed and shook her head. "I'm not saying I'll accept your idea, dumbass. Leaders work alongside their teams. And I'll have no freeloaders in mine." Satina mouthed her lollipop. "I want to know what kind of shit you come up with and if you're willing to be the bad guy."

Roberto frowned and lowered his eyes. He didn't come here to be the bad guy, but he had to keep up appearances. "Right. Well, I'm sure Mary is great and all, but I'm positive I can do whatever she does. I mean," he pointed at the bald woman, "she's definitely no menace."

Mary finished her second cup of coffee, playing with the hemline of her dress. When their eyes met, she smiled, showing Roberto a perfectly aligned wall of round-edged teeth.

Léon snickered and whispered, "Don't let her fool you." He pointed at the screen. Mary's name was the third in the Rank of Villainy. Rob's eyebrows shot upwards. He turned his gaze to Mary. She winked.

With a snicker, Satina gave a hard slap on Rob's arm. "Come, dickhead. Let's continue our tour."

He took a deep breath and nodded. Everything's fine; it's just a tour. See things, know things. He'd be okay if he stuck to his plan. As despicable as things turned out to be in his life, at least his morals and his training were a strong foundation he could rest on.

Besides, he was still alive. He stared at the inside of his styrofoam cup, and the cream foam slid down. A movement caught his attention. Léon.

Rob would be lying if he said he hadn't missed him. If he knew Léon was alive and well, maybe... maybe he wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.

Maybe Léon wouldn't be here either.

But he was. They both were.

Rob sighed, staring at Léon's brown eye. It seemed always attentive, while the dead white eye, the one cut by the scar on his face, gave him an otherworldly air. Something wild or feral; something dangerous. Their gazes met. Intertwined. Crystallized—but the connection was broken by Léon, who preferred to check his fingernails instead.

"I'll grab some coffee," Léon said, walking away.

"Wait! Let me prepare your favorite!" Mary beamed, skipping behind him.

Don't get near him, Rob told himself.

Grizzly Bear—not merely 'Roberto'—sighed. It was too much to hope he still remembered. But Rob didn't have the time to dwell on the past. He had a mission to accomplish.

Yeah, that's it. He raised his gaze and focused on the Invidia logo on the screen. Grizzly Bear, the Hero, would follow the plan, as much as Roberto Tapir, the man, wanted much more than that. He would get the answers he wanted, use those villains in whatever way he saw fit, and then he would get out.

And never come back.

"Nice and easy," he whispered.

But if things went south, well... Roberto was a superhero; he had to remember that. This was bigger than him, than Léon, than anyone—any sacrifice would be worth it.

"Wake up, Hero-boy," Satina said, snapping her fingers. She plucked her lollipop from her mouth and pointed it at Roberto. "He's nice to look at, I get it, but don't get too close. I'm warning you. Shit can blow real fast in this business, and I don't need you as some liability shit."

Roberto frowned and let out a confused hum.

"I see how you look at him." Satina stopped and put the lollipop in her mouth again. "Léon is family, and I won't let you put him in danger, all right? Keep your distance."

If only she knew the whole story.

He glanced at Satina and looked back at Léon, who chatted with Mary a good distance away from them. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe it was good to have her thinking he was only after a dalliance, not an old... well... Rob licked his lips and interrupted the chain of thoughts to say, "All right. I hear you."

Satina nodded, playing with the lollipop stick between her lips. "Good."

"But it won't be my fault if he can't resist my charm, yeah?" He smirked.

With a scowl, Satina walked away.

***

"Okay. On the underground level is our HQ. You're free to walk around dressed the way you want, with or without your uniform." Satina rested her hands on her waist. "It's kind of a big deal for most villains to make an impression, so you'll probably see a lot of imbeciles in their working clothes, but without their ID concealers—like Red Menace and his ridiculous outfit." Satina passed through the first airlock. "Sharing our true identities, though, is not as advised outside of your own team. For you, it'll be even more dangerous." The metallic doors closed behind them. "You're lucky you're in rags today. When people start to recognize you, there'll be real trouble."

"Why the secrecy?" Rob asked. "I understand my case. Some of the people here might hold a grudge against me... but what about you? In the Heroic League, we know each other's identities. The closest ones, at least."

Léon dipped his words in venom to say, "Would you be willing to do that again? Cause I thought that was precisely what almost ruined your and your sister's lives."

Roberto stared at him. The trio passed through the second airlock, but Rob stayed behind, frozen in place.

His sister had disappeared two years ago. When the police ignored his civilian wailing, dismissing it as a minor domestic problem, Rob turned to the League as Grizzly Bear, asking for help. He showed them a photo of her without her ID concealer. It leaked. In two days, the whole city knew Grizzly Bear's sister's face—and thus began the hunt for "Sister Bear," as the media called it. Whoever discovered her identity would also discover his secret identity... and would have his head on a plate.

The Heroic League tried to contain the situation, of course. Without success. People came too close to the truth, so The Mayor called an old acquaintance.

After a week, the photo and every single digital copy of it had mysteriously vanished, doing a massive ton of damage to the League's safes.

And while Rob still didn't know who had made the photo disappear, he had a good guess: Iara Iamí-Xarãma, the only woman in town versed enough in technology to fix something like this. Which meant she was—probably—not involved while also being his safest bet of a temporary ally.

Because of that, he had to agree with Léon. If no one in the League knew who Rafaela was to him, that would never have happened.

Rob swallowed hard, stepping through the second airlock. "Do you know what happened? Did you find anything about her?"

Léon crossed his arms. "Why don't you just go ahead and accuse us of kidnapping her? Isn't this why you're here?" Instead of mockery, Léon offered him a worried crease between his eyebrows.

Rob mumbled a thing or two, and Léon shook his head. "It was on the holotelly, Roberto. For weeks. We know as much as you do."

Shite.

"Yeah, whatever," Satina said. "Just don't go around with that my-name-is-Roberto crap, and you'll be fine, okay? You already know our identity, which should be sufficient shit for me to deal with. Don't let any other team know anything about us."

"Sometimes villains punch each other on the face to steal their missions and rank up. You don't want that," Mary said.

"Mary, Roberto." Satina jerked a thumb towards the elevator doors. "We're wasting time."

"Wait, where are we going? I might draw some unwanted attention in this." Rob opened his arms to show the blood-stained, tattered shirt he was wearing. On his chest, a 2030's band logo was cut in half, showing a good part of his well-defined muscles.

Satina clicked her tongue. "Yeah. Well, Léon will take care of that."

The basement was a luxurious hall that connected part of Invidia's storage room and the HQ entry. In the center, there was a victorian loveseat and a small center table. Behind those, a second elevator, surrounded by two white wooden doors, led to the main building of Invidia's Industries.

"We're going to the right," Léon said. He slapped the door to the locker room open. He opened one of the lockers with practiced movements, pushed a massive stack of books and music magazines aside, and took a perfectly folded stack of clothes. Léon offered them to Rob. "My gym clothes. You can change back there."

"I thought Anachronica told you to check me thoroughly." Rob took the clothes. It was a plain black hoodie and a jogger. "I don't want anyone here thinking I'm not sincere, so... go ahead." He opened his arms.

Léon scoffed and crossed his arms. "Just change your clothes, Roberto."

Rob opened a lopsided smile. As an answer, he took his shirt off and threatened to do the same with his pants.

The wall on the far side of the room seemed a lot more interesting to Léon at that moment. He cleared his throat and pivoted to the door. "I-I'm waiting outside."

***

"To the Farm!" Satina tapped a perfectly manicured index finger on the F1 button.

The elevator doors closed, and Rob was propelled backward, then to his right. A projector printed a map on the metallic walls, showing their position in a long line; all around them, charming images of smiley people holding crops appeared. Green-covered lands, massive apple trees, and baskets filled with bananas and coffee grains showed up, one after the other.

"So we're going to the coast? In an elevator?" Rob quirked an eyebrow. As far as he knew, most of the farms were precious, protected strips of healthy land that were worth more than their weight in gold—which meant they were watched and protected like the Mona Lisa in the Old Continentian Museum.

The elevator came to a sudden halt, throwing Rob against the doors. It chirped a metallic sound.

"This is the only way to get to the Farms. Welcome to the true Invidia, Roberto." Satina smirked.

"Why, what's so terrible about—" He hesitated as the metallic doors opened and revealed the nightmare outside. Rob's eyes widened, and his posture stiffened. "Shite."