Mod Superhero

SUMMARY - Initialize - Book 1, Origin

***SPOILERS***SPOILERS***SPOILERS***SPOILERS***SPOILERS***

If you want to read Book 1, you can find it here: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCF7BCWF 

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Mod Superhero opens at the end of February. Winter is thawing, and Emmett Laraway is working through his senior year as an engineering student at Belport University. He's a solid student, if a bit of a daydreamer. He spends his spare time reading everything he can on supers and at his internship, working with the aloof and eccentric Dr. Venture, his shut-in daughter Clara, and their AI assistant, TINA. Most of their recent work has been on various aspects of fusion reactors and heat sink design.

Over the last several months, Emmett and Clara have grown close—Emmett trying to conceal the fact that he's romantically interested in Clara. He's hesitant in admitting his true feelings so as not to risk their friendship or his internship with the Doctor's cutting-edge laboratory.

Though Emmett lives in a university apartment with his roommate Lachlan "Lock" Harris, neither of them has been home very much. Lock is every bit as involved in his studies and with his own internship with the Gnosis corporation...

Or so Emmett believes.

Riding the bus home one evening, Emmett is caught in the middle of a battle between multiple supers and villains. The bus is hit by an attack on Champion street, and Emmett is thrown from the wreckage. His last moments are of lying on the street, bleeding out, and unable to move.

Instead of dying, Emmett wakes up in another section of the lab. Dr. Venture and Clara explain that they've managed to save his life, though it was no small feat. Emmett now has a cybernetic right arm and his body is suffused with Mutagen-A, a low-level general enhancement serum manufactured by Gnosis. Neither Venture nor Clara explain much at the time, except that Dr. Venture is a retired cape and that Gnosis doesn't only make beauty products—they make various levels of super soldier serums and are major arms dealers on a world stage.

Venture and Clara drive Emmett back to his apartment, where they briefly cross paths with Emmett's roommate, Lock, in the halls. Venture's glasses alert him that Lock has traces of Mutagen-X in his system—one of Gnosis' most potent super soldier serums. Venture quickly deduces that Lock is a test subject for their program. Venture and Clara say nothing at the time.

Lock also gained information in their brief hallway passing. He is able to see in UV, and sees the readouts of Venture's glasses. Lock deduces that Venture scanned him and that the Doctor has his own motives and resources to save his roommate's life... Considering that Lock saw Emmett's bus get cut in half during the superhero battle on Champion street.

Lock was there that fateful night.

In Emmett's following visits to the lab, he is given a choice: Continue living a normal life as a civilian, or embrace his newfound cybernetics and enhancements and work as an unregistered mask with Dr. Venture.

In the subsequent week, Emmett comes to a decision—but not before running into a fellow mask on the rooftops of Belport. Athena briefly mistakes him for a jumper before realizing he's a new super. She escorts him back home across the rooftops while he tests his new abilities.

After Lock has a rough night bouncing at the bar, both he and Emmett realize that their friendship has grown strained in recent months since they've both been busy with work and their internships.

In the following weeks, Emmett is slowly brought into the fold—learning more about Venture, Clara, and the lab that he's worked in these last few months. In addition to fusion research, there is also a mechanical wing, biomedical wing, an armory, and a training wing. The latter of which is fondly referred to as The Gray Room. It is there that Emmett spends most of his time training with his new abilities.