Super Sales on Super Heroes 5 -CH3- (Patreon)

“Hm. Everything really went exactly as planned,” Felix murmured, walking in to his office. Moving to the armor stand he began taking it all off and putting it up. He wasn’t going to need it for a while.

Legate appearing in person needed to be somewhat out of the ordinary. An expectation that he would make an appearance was the wrong thing here. He needed to be as neutral, in the shadows, and not discussed as possible.

“Felix, Edmund is here to see you,” chirped the intercom on his desk. One of the Andrea’s had taken up his personal assistant duties.

The A-Net had been reborn and Andrea wasn’t going to give up her position this time. She’d spoken of it previously and he was now seeing it in truth.

She thought she’d have more time with him in relinquishing her positions to others. When in fact it’d lessened her time with him.

He was always working, after all.

“Great, send him in,” Felix muttered as he continued to get his armor put away. The side-arm he kept in his desk though. Pulling that free he walked over and sat down.

Pushing the pistol into the holster that was secured underneath the desk he felt it sit right. He ran a finger over the five magazines for it and found them all there.

After being surprised in the past Felix really didn’t like going around without a weapon close by anymore.

Thankfully Edmund was someone he trusted.

The young man reminded Felix a lot of himself in mentality, if not his life or situation. Edmund had already gone through a lot worse than Felix could have ever imagined for himself.

Looking to his monitor he tapped the monitor and waited for it to power on. He still wasn’t quite used to having to wait for his computer to start up, even though it only took seconds.

Not to mention a physical keyboard. So very strange.

Felix reached up and stuck his thumb to the Legion hardware add-on that came with all computers. A thumbprint scanner.

Leaving his thumb there for a second he looked to the door as it opened.

Edmund walked in, looked around a bit, and found Felix.

After being fed regularly meals, clothes that fit with some quality to them, and a place to actually sleep, Edmund looked much more like a young adult.

Rather than the scarecrow in rags Felix had seen him as at first.

His pale-green eyes locked to Felix and he grinned at him. Stepping into the room Felix was glad to see the man was wearing office-casual clothes.

Just because Felix preferred to dress in suits when he worked didn’t mean he expected everyone else to. He wanted them to be as comfortable as he was.

Felix noticed that Edmund had once again changed his hairstyle. Today his dark-blond hair was trimmed and swept back with a part in the middle.

He’ll find himself eventually. Just gotta give him more time. It’s not like it won’t hurt him either to really explore.

“Hey boss. You had a meeting set up?” Edmund asked, closing the door behind himself.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I forgot about it. Just finished dealing with the government. They signed the contract I gave them and we built the facility,” Felix explained.

“Ah! Yeah yeah. I saw that on the calendar. I wanted to be there but I don’t have my armor yet so… couldn’t attend,” Edmund said and took the seat directly in front of Felix across the desk.

“Sorry, was trying to save as many points as we could just for the Association building,” Felix apologized with a grin. “We’ll get your armor squared away soon enough.”

“Err… before we really get started… can you explain the contract and everything? I’m a little fuzzy on it all,” asked Edmund. “Sorry, I really did try to follow along and Faith even explained it to me. I just… didn’t catch it all.”

Felix nodded his head as his computer finally got to the desktop screen.

A meeting reminder popped up in the corner, stating that he had a meeting with Edmund to discuss his position in the Association.

Smirking, Felix let out a soft sigh and leaned back in his chair.

“Okay, which parts do you understand?” he asked. He didn’t want to cover it all if he didn’t have to.

“Right, okay, so, yeah… okay. We made a deal with the government. Legion is going to be the Association and handle determining who is a super hero, what their power is, and register them accordingly,” Edmund said.

“More or less, yes,” Felix agreed. That was all accurate.

“But that’s all conditional based on a three month temporary contract. That’s the one you just signed,” Edmund continued. “If that contract goes uh… successfully… then the next one, the ten year one goes into effect.”

“Yes. The three month temporary contract is what we just signed today. It’s a test period to iron out any concerns or problems they have,” confirmed Felix. “We’re trying to make this as painless and neutral as we can for them, while retaining all property, intellectual rights, and ownership over everything we do and use.

“That really got stuck in a few of their craws but there was no way I was going to back up on that. It’s a must on our part, not a nice to have.”

“Got it. That’s why you’ve been fiddling with all those things lately,” Edmund pushed.

“Yes. That’s right. I’m developing technology through my power-set so that others can use them to identify supers, the power level, and what it is,” Felix said with a chuckle. “I didn’t finish any of them because I wouldn’t have owned them. Now that I’ll own anything I finish and the intellectual rights for it, I’ll get them finalized and moved to the Association.”

“Yeah, okay, yeah. Right. Got it. Won’t… they steal our stuff though? They’re not idiots.”

“They’ll most certainly try. I can easily lock-out anyone from our systems that I don’t want snooping around. So it isn’t really an issue of making sure they can’t get in if I don’t want them to,” murmured Felix with a shake of his head. “But we don’t want them paranoid of us.

“We’re going to run a normal database in conjunction with our actual one. One that’ll be encrypted, hidden, and made to be secure. If they really wanted to push and dig around that’s what they’d find.

“They’ll never find the Encampment database. I’ve… modified that program to the point that it might as well be from centuries in the future. It honestly runs on a type of code that isn’t known to anyone but me.”

It was the truth, too.

The Encampment OS had been upgraded to the point that it had a Virtual Intelligence that ran alongside and within the original program. It actively monitored all users on the system and data going in and out.

A Virtual Intelligence that served the Legate and had been dubbed Tribune.

Felix had plans to make more Tribunes for all the various tasks he needed a virtual pair of hands for. This world would live and die by programming and it’s ever increasing hold over the world.

“They’re welcome to poke around as much as they want. Even to steal a laptop or other hardware. Won’t matter,” Felix continued with a nod of his head. “All the machines and hardware we use for Legion is owned by Legion as well.

“They can be disabled instantly. Even without knowing where it is, who took it, or why. Though… if they did manage to steal a laptop, I’d rather let them load it up and start looking around. It’d tell us a lot about what they know and what they don’t know.”

Edmund nodded his head slowly at that.

“Did you know you have a Super Power?” Felix asked, deciding this was a good time to shift gears. It sounded like Edmund already had a good idea of what was going on, he’d just wanted to confirm it.

Freezing, Edmund didn’t move. Then slowly he looked up at Felix. He looked disbelieving and suspicious. Like Felix was trying to sell him a bridge.

“You do, really. I’ve looked at it several times,” Felix affirmed. “I can even tell you the name of it but… honestly… I have no idea what it means. I can usually guess at a power by it’s name, but yours is rather vague.”

“What… is it?” asked Edmund quietly.

“Polymorphic,” answered Felix. “I have no idea what that means. I’ve done a number of searches and read through a number of dictionaries, but it doesn’t really help. Sometimes it relates to a computer virus, sometimes biology. Then there’s the possibility that whatever the hell it is, isn’t described accurately by my power.”

“Polymorphic,” repeated Edmund, looking even more confused now. “Not a word I’ve ever heard before.”

“Mm. I’m sure it’ll make more sense when your power activates. By the way, before you ask, no, I can’t activate it early. I’ve already tried,” Felix said with a chuckle, not telling Edmund the whole story.

The point cost to push Edmund’s power into an active state early was incredible. Astronomical, in fact.

It was so high that it was expressed in scientific notation. Right up there with turning the planet into cheese if he happened to own it.

Though, those kind of thoughts was why Felix was now investing into the ability to get into space. He wanted to start collecting space debris.

He was already putting together a contract to clear all the space debris from orbit. So long as he was granted ownership over it, that was.

Except in your case Edmund this isn’t an issue of converting something of great worth, or value. It’s a power.

Which means someone has a great worth or value assigned to your power.

There’s only one person I can think of that would put me on a path that was likely to run into you, who would value your power that highly.

Grinning, Felix felt quite pleased with himself. He was almost certain he’d already found the reason he was sent here specifically.

“Now, with that out of the way, I wanted to talk to you about your future in Legion. Where you see yourself, what you want for yourself, and honestly when you want to see that.”

“I… what?” asked Edmund, his face still a sheer mask of surprise.

Damn. The super power was the wrong way to open this up. He’s too flustered to get his mind working.

“Your future. I want to talk about it. There’s a lot to discuss about it. With Legion just starting out, it makes it almost more imperative as well since I’ll be opening so many different departments as well,” Felix tried again. “What would you see yourself doing? What do you want to do?”

“Uh,” Edmund provided elegantly and with clear thought. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. I just… I just wanted a chance to escape. Get away. To… to kinda… live, ya know?

“I have no idea what to do with myself or even what I could do. Does… that make sense?”

Taking in another breath Felix let it out shortly. It was more or less what he expected.

With someone like Edmund his entire life had been aimed at just getting the foot in the door. To get that opportunity to do something.

Felix had swooped in and simply stuck him on that path without any warning. Everything after that point was a massive question mark to Edmund.

This was something he’d actually planned for.

“How about we just… pick randomly to start and work from there,” offered Felix, pushing ahead. “I’ll assign you to a department, you try it out, see how it goes. After that, we’ll move you around to another.

“Obviously I’ll be your boss regardless of the department since… well… there are no departments yet. Kind of why I wanted to talk to you, in fact. We’ll be going through interviews for the Association.

“We’ll hire them on there, then move them to Legion if we find that they’re capable and we like them. Most everyone there will be working for the Legion without ever knowing it. Our list of personnel to work directly for us will be somewhat… short.”

Felix grabbed the cup of pens he’d deliberately put on his desk a day ago when he came up with this plan. Emptying it’s contents onto the desk he then opened a drawer next to himself.

Pulling out the piece of paper he’d put there this morning he set it down in front of himself. It was a list of departments as well as a bunch of fake scribbled notes he’d written down.

He wanted this whole thing to feel more random than it was because he’d be pushing at something he likely shouldn’t. Disturbing someone he really was better off not bothering.

Ripping off the department names he dropped them all into the cup then shook it around. Looking to Edmund he grinned.

“Any department you’d rather not be in?” he asked with some amusement.

“I don’t think I’m evil enough to be in management,” Edmund muttered.

“Good thing management isn’t a department. Though that’s not where the evil goes typically, you know. That’s HR and Finance. That’s where evil goes,” he said with a laugh.

Shaking the cup he then pushed on his power.

He wanted to know how many points it would cost for him to pull out the exact department he needed to, for Edmund to be perfectly suited to Ryker’s long term plan.

For Edmund to be ready for the day of awakening.

Everything slowed down suddenly.

There was an almost imperceptible whining noise noise that Felix could but couldn’t hear. A sound that felt a lot like someone breathing out next to his ear.

There was a flicker and the world became black and white.

“You know, I’m getting real sick of you, Felix,” said a voice from nowhere. Run he recognized immediately.

“Uncle, good to hear from you,” Felix replied happily. He was quite glad to know he’d been right with his assumptions. He had to be careful going forward though.

“I hate you. I’m going to make sure Andrea and Goldie go into heat for several years,” hissed Ryker.

Now that he knew he was right, he had to be more conservative. Others could be watching and paying attention.

“Sorry, I just really wanted to know which direction to take Legion in. You know, to make sure things work,” Felix murmured.

Come on Ryker, you’re a smart man. We both know you’re not angry at me. You’re terrified I’m going to say something stupid.

Don’t worry about that, just help me out to pick the right department to put this kid in.

Because I’m aware of what he is, it makes it almost impossible to guess at what I should be doing.

So we’re fucking pushing this whole fiasco at you.

There was an audible sigh from Ryker. Whether out of relief or frustration Felix wasn’t sure. Time began to quietly tick by before he heard Ryker clear his voice.

“Project management should probably be your focus for a bit. You’re going to have way too many things to work on all at the same time. That’ll be the department that requires the most focus from you,” grumbled Ryker.

A moment later and the world returned to color and he got a popup screen.

Smirking to himself, Felix accepted the cost, stuck his hand into the cup, and pulled out the slip of paper he touched first. He had no doubt in his mind it would be exactly what he needed it to be.

“Well, would you like at that. Project Management Office, business division,” Felix said, looking to the paper he held in his hand.

“Huh. Alright. I guess… that’s where I’ll start then,” Edmund mumbled. “What… do we do first?”

“Candidate resumes and scheduling interviews. These will mostly be by phone since a lot of them won’t all be in the area,” Felix answered. “I’ll have the appropriate files sent over to you. Read them over and start sorting them out.

“You can use your friends we hired. Consider them your first quasi-reports. They’re just spinning their wheels as far as I know since we moved away from getting more involved in the underworld.”

“Reports?” asked Edmund.

“Those who report to you. Now… thank you Edmund, but I need to make a quick call. Let me know as soon as you’re done with that. Consider it a priority task since we only have a few months to get the Association really up and running.

“While I can do most of it myself, I’d really rather have people the government can look into and see how normal it all is. To really peek into those we’ve hired and see they’re all quite normal citizens.”

“Course, not a problem boss,” Edmund said and hopped out of his seat. He made a hand wave at Felix and exited quickly.

Felix waited until the door shut before he pulled out his phone.

Opening it he switched it to Legionnaire’s Call then tapped it over to the message tab. He selected Goldie’s icon and name.

There wasn’t a new message from her but he needed to get in touch with her. If he didn’t have to rely on the somewhat emotional based readings from Carlotta and Alma, he wouldn’t.

Goldie was a much more accurate gauge on other people.

“My Golden One, will you be returning to me soon? I could use your help. That and I do miss you and that rather fetching smile of yours. Dragon or not.”

Frowning, Felix then flipped over to Miu’s message window. There hadn’t been anything from her in a week. The last message was from him to her.

It’d been read, but she’d never actually responded.

Deciding to put some caution to the wind, Felix hit the call button.

It wasn’t as secure as text since someone could record the audio if they were close enough, but he needed to try getting a hold of her again. The Dryads were good but he wanted Miu around as much as he did Goldie.

That and he genuinely missed both of them.

Ringing quietly through the phone, Felix waited, hoping she’d pick up.

On the third such ring, it clicked.

“Yes?” asked Miu on the other end. She sounded stern to the point of being angry. It reminded him a great deal of when he’d first met her.

“Hey Miu. I’m sorry I just… well… I missed you. Ugh. This was a mistake, I shouldn’t be bothering you,” Felix groaned and leaned his head back, looking at the ceiling. “I know you’re working on what I asked you to and I should just leave it at that. It’s just hard. I was thinking of you today dur— and it led to this. Well… I’m sorry.”

There was a shuffling noise on the other end, followed by Miu clearing her throat.

“It’s… its alright. I understand. I miss you, too,” she said in a much warmer voice. It sounded strained, but far more like her normal self. He imagined she was having a tough time of it.

“If you can’t make it work, just go find yourself and come back to me. And if your… self… doesn’t want anything to do with it, just make sure she’s alright then head on home. Make sure you leave a way for her to contact us, too. She might not be you, but she’s still you in a way. I’d want to take care of her,” Felix ordered with a shallow nod of his head. “I’m starting to really feel like it isn’t worth sending you out on stuff like this. We’ll need to find others for it.”

“I’m… I… yeah,” mumbled Miu, finally completely reverting to how she normally was when he talked to her like this. Embarrassed and sounding very flustered. “Okay. I’ll do that. It isn’t a problem.”

“Alright. Then… I’ll let you go,” Felix said, feeling rather stupid for calling her like this.

“Tell me?” she asked in a quiet voice.

He knew exactly what she wanted. She’d never asked for it so directly, however.

“I love you, Miu. Come home when you can,” stated Felix with a chuckle.

“Yes. I’m coming home. Soon,” she answered quickly, then hung up.

Felix stuck his phone in his pocket and considered what to do next.

Alright. Interviews are coming soon. Departments to open and a lot of people to hire. We’ll need to really push everything out and start the process.

Thankfully… part of that temporary contract was that Legion and the Legate wouldn’t pay income tax. Just sales and services.

That means I don’t have to worry about disguising where all the cash came from. We can just deposit that into the bank and declare it outright.

Time to push that commercial with Alma and Carlotta out into the world and start showing it everywhere. Especially on the internet and sponsor some podcasts and programs.

Hm. Not too terrible, all in all.

Now we just have to dodge the government while they likely try to spy on me, without it looking like we’re dodging them.

Okay!