“There we are…” He murmured as he ected to the cellur work inam, boung from tower to tower. His orders had beey clear, dig up anything possible on the favored son of Chairman Phan. Most of the records had beey easy to find, permits, pre-hires, building pns, purchase orders, it all poiowards him opening up a new business in his hometown. More iing was the type of people he was hiring, physicists, chemists, teis, engineers, biologists, he was assembling a b.
“Looks like papa wants to spoil the young master,” Amos chuckled and redirected his attention through the work as he made his way to the private residence of Phan Duong. He checked the call records, “This guy has his owwork antenna! Spoiled bastard!” Amos scoffed, fog on that particur portion of the work, “Let’s see… call logs, call logs, only got a couple i twenty-four hours. Most of ‘em from his personal number. Ew…” His nose wrinkled, “Frig gross, man. Nothing here but call girls and takeout.”
He paused, “Oh, there’s another hat has access to the antenna,” He turned his attention to that phone number’s logs, “This is disgustingly easy, I should really work up some protes against this kind of thing for the boss,” He muttered, making a mental note, “If I do it, who else ?” He tinued muttering to himself before finally opening the data packet. He froze, reading the tents of the phonecall, “...well shit.”
He took a deep breath and pulled himself back to reality. His eyes fog on his surroundings. He was in his personal office, a cluttered room filled with prototypes of all sorts of things. A crystal ball y on its side, ected to a small ptform by wires. A pair of monster cores, gemstones about the size of as, y ly on non-ductive cloth. A few guns in various states of pletion y on a table to one side while boxes full of odds and ends filled the remaining space. He hopped to his feet and brushed himself off. “Welp, better go tell Sonya in person,” He said cheerily and reached under his desk for his mini-fridge, pulling out a soda and crag it open.
He took a zy sip as he sauo the door, the security reizing him immediately. It hissed open and revealed a much rger workspace filled with desks where numerous people worked on various projects. All of them wore VR headsets and were huddled in small clustered groups. This had been Amos’ idea, one he was incredibly proud of. Instead of creating a bunch of expensive separate boratories, he designed simuted boratories for them to use. What would have taken decades ramming had taken him only a couple of weeks with the bination of his enhanced intelled teopathy.
Still have to thhly study anything we don’t have data on, though, like monster cores. We still don’t fully uand them, but that’s where experimentation es ihought happily as he walked past the station where Doctor Choi sat. He liked the guy, he’d gotten straight to work after being oriented with the yout of the b. “Yo doc, heading upstairs to talk to Sonya, need anything?”
Da-Som looked up at him with fusion, “Will it take long? You have guests ing soon.”
Amos blinked, “Hah?”
Da-Som frow him, “Mister Carter, did you fet that the interns would be ing today?”
Amos let out a groan, “Oh man, ’t you ha?”
Da-Som raised an eyebrow, “I’ve worked here less than a day, Mister Carter.”
“Alright! Alright! Fair point, I’ll meet with them,” Amos sighed, holding up his hands in surrender, “How are things?”
The docthtened and put his hand on the headset, “Incredible, your work is a tury ahead of its time it seems like. I have a full medical b on my desk, it’s unreal,” He said with delight, “Did you know that the blood of those monsters have extremely unusual properties? And the energy that the cive off, if you apply it the right way it’s… magical. What are we even calling that energy by the way?”
Amos picked at his ear and looked away, “Sonya keeps calling it Mana but that’s really nerdy.”
The dhed, “Holy, it fits in a rather unfortunate way.”
“I knht?” Amos groaned, “I keep wanting to call it something more… you know…”
“Patable for a Nobel ittee?” The doctor said with a wry smile.
Amos grinned back at him, “I think we’re going to get along great!”
A little while after that he found himself in the lobby, eyeing the doors impatiently. He’d sent an encrypted email to Sonya ing the call but she hadn’t gotten ba. She robably busy, Or hitting up some model or something, is she even here? I fot to check, he groused, How does she have mame than I do? I’m like… his thoughts trailed off as the doors opened and a small crowd of young people made their way ihey gaped at the security guards for a moment before quickly following their orders.
Amos shifted on his feet as they were processed through, unsurprisingly a few of them turned out to be light-touched and the detectot quite the excited rea out of them rather than hard feelings. That was a good sign. He gnced back at the man sitting at the front desk and gave him a thumbs up before turning back to the slowly accumuting gaggle of young people. They were from all walks of life and all of them held tablets tightly in their hands, their eyes fixed on him rather than taking ira-modern decor that Sonya had insisted on.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his bcoat and strode towards them, “Wele to ASTA Corporation Labs!” He said aloud and focused oablets, they all fshed and his face appeared on ead every one of them. “Rec devices are prohibited within the premises, don’t worry, I’m not cheg out your search history. Just shutting off your cameras and microphones,” He said, his voiing out of all the tablets. They gasped and a few of them ughed.
This ain’t so bad, I could get used to this.
“I’m Amos Carter,” He tinued as his face disappeared from the tablets, “I’m the head of this b.”
A hand immediately went up from a young man off to the left, “Uh… wasn’t ready for questio but I’ll bite,” he said, pointing at the kid.
“That power detector was amazing, will we learn anything about it while we’re here today?” The young man asked, pushing up his gsses. The others looked at him before looking back at Amos with eager eyes.
Amos grinned, “We’ll talk about monster cores inside,” He said, teasing them a little while gesturing over his shoulder..The word ‘monster core’ murmured through the small crowd. He gave himself a mental pat on the back, Just like Sonya, a little bait to tantalize and hold their attentiohought smugly before turning on his heel and making his way towards the elevator, “Alright! Let’s get this tour started!”
–
Sonya smiled warmly to herself as she got out of the limousine. She’d taken a moment to peek a bit at how Amos was handling the grad students she’d io check out the b. It had been difficult to pick whies would e, not because there were a lot of promising applits, there were of course maalented people, but more because she wao hide her real is among the bunbsp;
Several of them were names she reized from her previous life, people who would grow up to bee heroes and aplished stists in their ht. If it hadn’t been for how well her mind processed memory now, she wouldn’t have even known their names but now even a single news clipping from her past life was as easy to call up as a text message. She had to get her cws into them before anyone else realized just what they were capable of.
Only the best for ASTA.
“Miss ovna?” Marta murmured, grabbitention and nodding towards the man standing patiently in front of her. He was middle aged and rather refined look about him. He was standing oeps of what had once been a high school that had beeired and maintained as gover property.
Sonya blinked and cleared her throat, “Apologies, my mind was elsewhere,” She said tactfully aended a hand. “Mister Rupert Sohmer, right?”
The man nodded and held out his hand for her to shake, Analyze.
Oho! A utility power!
“I’m gd you could make it, Miss ovna,” He said, “The Chairman sends his polite regards.”
Sonya gave him a winning smile, “I’m sure he does. Say hello to him for me when you speak .”
Rupert nodded aured to the building behind him, “We’re w hard oing the building ready for the first round.”
“I heard the Pandora ittee decided on bi-annual lising rather than year round,” Sonya said as she walked up the steps with him, “Probably for the best.”
A little different from my past life, they did it quarterly.
“Yes, we were sidering quarterly gatherings of light-touched but we figured bi-annual would put a bit more pressure on those looking for lisure as well as increasing the overall quality of the results. Not everyone will pass the tests that are pnned,” He expined as they approached the doors, opening them for her.
She swept past him with a smile, “You’ve e up with tests already?” She asked, feigning ignorance.
“You’d be surprised how quickly a bureaucracy form when given enough iive,” He said with a knowing smile, ining his head to Marta as she passed him.
Sonya took in the se ahead of her, the lockers had been pletely gutted from the interior and it was already in the midst of being repaihere were stacks of fortable looking benches leaning up against one wall and a desk bei up not far from there. A heavy looking door was being installed where the front office of the school had once been and the windows that were inteo observe students ing and going were being repced with crete bricks and reinforced steel ptes.
“The old main office will be the initial testing room to check the veracity of the cim of possessing abilities,” Rupert began, “That power-check device is fasating, it evehe overall quality of an ability based on the color feedback. How did yours e up?”
Marta cut in, saving Sonya from the direct question, “Miss ovna’s came up white, an unon-tier as we’ve e to refer to it, she's asked me to keep my own tier secret until the official lisi.”
The man pursed his lips and nodded, “I see, you must be very capable, Miss Daphne.”
“She’s punched her way through rebar reinforced crete before,” Sonya said, shooting Marta a grin.
Rupert swallowed, “I… see.”
“At any rate,” Sonya said, ging the topic, “It’s really ing along. Where are they going to uake the physical test?” She asked.
“The gymnasium, follow me and I’ll show you,” He said and began walking ahead.
Marta fell into step with Sonya and gnced her way, “I got a text from Amos for you to check your email,” She said in a low voice.
“I noticed it e in, give me a moment,” She said and Marta took her arm. She still wasn’t used to walking and usieopathy at the same time without stumbling about, her hud often got in the way. She opehe message from Amos ahrough the details, her expression shifting a few times before she reached the end. “Well now, how iing.”
“What is it?” Marta asked, releasing Sonya’s arm.
Sonya crossed her arms behind her bad kept a straight face as she followed Rupert from a distance, “It looks like Chairman Phan wahe research for his son, he was fully prepared to set up a b within months of getting his hands on our intellectual property. Phan Duong, why does that name ring a bell…?” She said thoughtfully, tapping her elbow.
“I see,” Marta said, frowning. “What’s the pn, then?”
“A minefield of a person,” Sonya said, I 't deal with him as Ishtar, that would raise unnecessary suspis. “More importantly, he ordered a hit on me.”
“He what?” Marta gasped, turning to look at her. Rupert gnced bad Sonya gave him an i wave befring at Marta. Marta looked away sheepishly, “Should we be out and about?”
“Oh they won’t be here for at least another day or two, we have time,” Sonya said with a shrug, “I’m very ied in the group they e from, the Night Society, sounds spooky,” She ughed.
“I’ll increase your security,” Marta said.
“And scare them off?” Sonya asked incredulously, “Heavens no, we’re business as usual. Amos and I will keep a and see if we ’t spot this ‘Razentleman. I want to know more about this group of his and it’ll be an easy way to deal with his employer ter.”
Marta frowned and looked away, her eyes intense. Sonya smiled at her gently and reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. “Marta,” She said soothingly, “This isn’t another Florehis time we’ll be ready, and more importantly, I’ve been waiting for a ce to try out this body of mine.”
Marta let out a sigh, “Fine,” She said unfortably.
Sonya looked at her friend a a momentary pang of guilt, she hadn’t paid enough attention to Marta retly and the woman had been w hard. Perhaps it was time for a reward, more than one in fact, “You know what, I have a better idea, how about we make a deal after the tour, mm?”
Marta returned her gaze and her expression rexed, “A deal sounds lovely.”
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