Chapter 9: Concern
Joyce Knightly January 10th,20XX
“Eighteen-year-old Destia Jayden, fifteen-year-old Archer Warrick and seventeen-year-old twins Tillo and Kaja Lando. These are the four we’ve identified so far. Warrick has a younger sister we suspect has abilities as well, but seeing as she’s young and mainly stays in the house we haven’t been able to get conclusive evidence”
Four profile pictures were laid out in front of me and a fifth was put down by the detective I’d hired. He looked somewhat uncomfortable with me and his hands shivered as he pointed out areas of the report he’d given to me.
I didn’t really know why he was so nervous but put it down to his lack of experience. Well, there was also the fact that he'd just discovered superpowers were real. It was a big deal for me as well but in a completely different way than it would be for someone that hadn't spent a majority of their life obsessing over it. Sometimes I forgot that not everyone wanted superheroes to exist in real life.
Destia was a pretty young girl that looked about the same age as my younger sister, seventeen to eighteen. She had dark braids and large eyes that peered out from behind her thick glasses. Her clothes were somewhat frumpy in the picture I’d been provided with but weren’t of poor quality.
“Thanks. You can see Annora about the payment.”
And so he scurried off. His steps were wobbly as he walked and struck a pitiful sight. I hoped he would hurry up and get used to superheroes existing. I was sure there was more than just the four we’d located.
I decided to read over Destia’s profile first to decide how I wanted to bring her over to my side. She was eighteen years old in a design course at her school. She lived with her mother and looked like she planned on pursuing higher education instead of going directly into the workforce. She lived with her single mother in a somewhat seedy part of town. While the city we lived in wasn't as bad as others, there were still some shady practises that bred relatively dangerous neighbourhoods on its outskirts. Destina was a loner and didn’t spend much time outside of home and school. There were a few clubs she had joined but otherwise, she spent most of her time alone.
It was her video I had been shown first as proof that there were people with superpowers in the city. The video had shown her ducking into an alley and going invincible to avoid a few unsavoury characters. After confirming that the video hadn’t been doctored I’d gotten a few more eyes on her and had discovered that she had super speed as well, having marked her at two different blocks mere seconds apart.
She was the first I wanted to bring over to my side once the building was completed. But the question was how.
My first idea had been to make an internship or scholarship program and bring the heroes in under the guise of inducting new talents into the company. This plan was shaky at best though and would leave a lot of room for questions when I brought in a fifteen-year-old to live at a dorm as an IT specialist.
While I researched this I came across an old program called 'Future Star'. The program itself had been shut down by the government about eight years ago when it had been exposed for its corruption and child exploitative and abusive practices. While I didn’t approve of the program itself the concept behind it wasn't bad and was one I planned to adopt.
The concept was to bring in talented children that due to financial problems would otherwise not have been able to pursue careers in the entertainment industry. They had been collected from orphanages, low-income families and schools to temporarily live in dorms with assigned teachers and mentoring in their chosen craft.
I'd decided to come up with an adaptation of it to run as a cover for my hero collecting activities.
The next problem to tackle however was the fact that neither Squire, my company or Kingdom, my parent's company were entertainment agencies. We relied heavily on the industry but we didn't count as a part of it.
I'd wondered what reason I could use to launch such a program when Cherry, my younger sister had brought up a new type of 'celebrity' that operated on a video streaming site.
I'd quickly looked into these people that had neither the training, looks or backing of traditional celebrities but somehow managed to net a similar amount of money and clout as them, or even more since the profits weren't split with an agency.
That was when it had hit me.
Squire immediately launched its plans to become a video streaming site as well as a social media and texting platform.
To get it to catch on I contacted as many celebrities and 'influencers' as I could without borrowing Kingdom's name and had them become 'Pages'; Individuals that created content for the site.
Once those videos go up and people grow used to the idea of Squire becoming a video streaming site, I'll then introduce the idea of creating 'Pages' from scratch. This would be the cover I used to bring the heroes into my grasp- the cover I used to help the heroes I meant.
And truly, I did want to help them. While I was a self-professed fanatic of superheroes, that didn't change the fact that this wasn't a comic book or a fluffy online novel. This was real life and there were kids out there that got powers and probably had no idea how to deal with them.
Thinking back to Aaron and his many accounts of falling from high places and only being fine because of his invincibility. What would have happened if he had only gotten flight and not invincibility? and for all of that furniture he had squashed into flat metal sheets, what if those were people?
There was no way of knowing why these powers had suddenly popped into existence, especially at such a frequency, but I didn’t think I would find an answer anytime soon. For now, I needed to help guarantee these children’s safety, as well as the safety of those around them. I was determined to help them by providing a space they could go as wild as possible while still being safe. As for whether they would join me and become superheroes to help the common people... well that was a bridge to cross when I got there.
Another worry of mine was the fact that I didn't know if they would all be children, or how many of them there would be. But again, that was a bridge that I would cross when I got there.
Destia was the first one I planned to bring over to my side. The reason it was her wasn’t just because she was the first I’d discovered, it was because she seemed to be the most familiar with her powers. While the others seemed aware that they had these powers, I didn't see the range of control that Destia exhibited with hers, and wanted to have her work with me on finishing the building.
There was also the fact that Archer’s situation was a bit delicate and the twins, Tillo and Kaja were almost impossible to track down.
I didn’t know why they had suddenly run away from home but not only did they seem incredibly used to running away from their houses, they were also shapeshifters. Even if the detective had run across them he wouldn’t be able to tell.
Haa.
I suddenly got tired and looked away from the four windows of planning documents I had open on my computer. There was a lot to do even if I forgot about the heroes for a second.
The company was still relatively new since it had only been four years since it had been established. We had immensely benefited from the sudden boom of social media use and were doing much better than other companies established earlier, but it was still tough.
Relations built on borrowing Kingdom's name grew terse as they realized they couldn't get to Kingdom through Squire. I knew they would soon try to toughen the clauses in our partnerships so I was trying to find others to cooperate with namely, newer companies on about the same level as we were.
Out of all of these, the biggest fish was Volui. Ordinarily, there was no way they would ever look at Squire as a business partner, but seeing as they went through a large purge and restructuring, they were as vulnerable as they would ever be.
Some companies were staying away from the potential poisonous spore that was Volui in case they went through another scandal, others stayed away to see how it would run under a teenager that only inherited because he was emancipated.
If I could get to them now and form a strong relationship with them, then once they got back to normal operating status Squire would benefit the most. I also needed the celebrities under Volui, who were famed for being the best looking out of all of the companies, to participate in my new venture. I was sure that the new chairman would seize the chance to both promote his celebrities and form a good relationship with Squire, but it was a matter of actually getting into contact with him.
So far he was still going through the legalities of inheritance so it would be a while before Volui was back to operating, but I hoped to get into contact with him before he realized he might have better options with other social media sites.
Squire had the best user ratings and was one of four extremely popular sites, but we weren't the first, and we weren't the biggest.
Work had intensified more than my vice CEO had the clearance to deal with so I had to pull a lot of extra hours to deal with it all.
Haa
At least the building was going smoothly. I’d managed to get the scientists and doctors I'd scouted to sign the silence contracts and they all seemed enthusiastic to work with the information I’d given them thus far.
I got the feeling that they all thought I was crazy since I hadn’t actually shown them the heroes yet but it didn’t really matter what they thought of me as long as they did their jobs properly. Until I’d gotten the heroes to willingly come with me and be willing to work with me, I didn’t want to expose their identities. I wanted to be a help in their hour of need, not a crazy abductor that read like the villain of the week in the fifth season.
Yet another problem was the age factor.
Aaron would be the eldest hero with the second eldest being Destia. That was a problem because aside from the powers they would have, they would also have different and potentially clashing personalities.
Especially with the majority of them being hormonal teenagers. I needed a way to calm things down if someone with super strength and flame-throwing powers decided to go at it but I wasn't super enthusiastic about the thought of using tranquillizer guns on minors.
Haa.
There was just so much to think about, so much to plan and yet so little was getting done.
I put off all the hypotheticals for now and buzzed Annora in to run over the plan.
Back to my plan to make squire into a video streaming platform, I was planning to make a presentation at a few schools, specifically, those of the students I had located. I would advertise the plan to bring in a few students with 'star potential' and would set them up as in house 'Pages'. I would also go through with my initial internship program and bring in a few students on a merit basis since it was a good way to bring in some good press to my company.
I wished I could just have stuck with the internship program but Destia was a design student, and a rather subpar one, Archer had just graduated from middle school and was in general education and Tillo and Kaja were in the eleventh grade as musicians. I didn’t want the heroes to have to fake abilities they didn’t have and more than that, I didn't want to be accused of unfairness when people realized how unqualified they were for merit-based scholarships. The only medium I had to legally take them in was the one I'd chosen. Social media.
By making them all 'pages' and having Aaron at the forefront, I could both gain profit for Squire from the ad revenue and human interest that they would bring to the site, as well as have a reason to provide housing and care to a bunch of unrelated minors.
There was still a lot to plan out, such as the format of the program and how I would publicize it, but that would all come in time.
Yet another concern was the fact that it was risky to make their faces so popular. I didn’t want them to have their powers exposed and be taken by the government as lab rats but I was taking a bet that their popularity would become their best protection.
Taking Aaron’s rescue last time in mind. The kid he had saved had revealed the name Aaron had given him, which was Cyrus. Although it was his last name, and the comparison had been made, I'd simply had him post a picture of the two of us and say he’d spent the day with me. While he hadn’t directly addressed the comments it had been easy to create an alibi.
It was easier to manage information on a public figure that people felt like they knew than to deal with the perception of an unknown person.
Haa
I exhaled heavily once more and got back to work, there was, as always, a lot to do.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone