Two dozen red opaque holographic screens lit up with information, lines of code, documentation, words and numbers each representing its own set of information, each telling the reader the information he desired, flying by at a speed incomprehensible to a normal human being, but Percival Graves was not a normal human, not in this sense. He’d been trained to process information differently, faster, more efficiently since childhood, he never went to school, he never had friends, his family had always brought the best and brightest teachers to him to avoid attachments, to avoid distractions, even after he hit twenty he refused to engage in frivolous social activity. For him there was always another milestone to hit, another invention to green light, another equipment test to watch, another product to sell, another footnote in history to achieve. Percival was only thirty-four, and he was already being taught in schools around the globe.
About six years earlier, Percival and his company, Karrion Industries had become the leading member in the weapons business, he was making more money than anyone in his field by simply showing up to a press conference, he was arming the military of Athens with a lucrative contract that people would only dream of having, but that was not enough, Percival had other hopes, he had other plans. Only a few months ago he’d made a handshake deal with Asclepius Industries, the leading company in medicine, Hephaestus Corporation, the leader in machinery, as no money was changing hands, no buyouts were happening, it was all perfectly legal, it was an alliance of necessity, even if some news outlets would paint it as a cycle that could only harm the public, as one outspoken journalist described it as, “They sell us their weapons, their vehicles of war, our brothers and sisters get hurt, and then they sell us the medicine to patch them up so we can do it again.” Percival had no intention of starting proxy wars, he had no intention of spreading violence, he only wanted to control and regulate the weaponry, it was true his main client was the Athenian military, but he also sold weapons to the people of Hades, the common folk, as he did not want one side to get too far ahead of the other. But that did not change the fact that on the side, he dabbled in information collection, he loved the profession, a year or so earlier, one of his regular spies had helped him set up an information network so Percival could better regulate and predict business fluctuations, but somehow it evolved into collecting information on absolutely everything one could think of. Information from everyone from the leaders of each individual nation right down to normal citizens looking for the best deal on a used blender, information that, if he wanted to, he could anonymously leak and start multiple wars. But he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, not out of fear or guilt, but because it wouldn’t be fun, there’d be no challenge to it, for Percival it’d be a half dozen button presses and boom, total chaos. But he had no worry about that, Percival had kept busy trying as best he could to find a way to aide the uneasy alliance between Orion and Athens ever since the disaster at Bloody Bay five years prior, Orion citizens had begun migrating from the North ice continent to Athens, but the people had no money, they’d never had to deal with money, their society was a cashless one, they’d always operated on an ideal of progress. So Percival had the idea to hire them, to buy the ideas to their equipment for a small fortune, but the people of Orion now had steady income, and Percival than made a deal with the government of Athens to “outsource” said workers to them to improve their equipment on behalf of Karrion Industries in their little labs, on the agreement that any and all advancements are also given to Percival for “approval”. It was a modest endeavor, if not a fruitful one for all three parties, as it had lead to the extreme advancements to weaponry, and armor.
Five years earlier, the military was relying on metal bullets, and frequently jamming, and kevlar body armor, but now the armor was a poly plastic, and their weapons fired low grade lasers that could cut through a person, but left buildings and roads relatively intact. And now, the Athenian government was seeking a larger, more lucrative contract with Percival and his company, they wanted bigger weapons, faster, more scientists, more freedom to experiment with the creation of weaponry…
This bothered Percival a bit, it was peacetime, there was no underlying threat, at least nothing warranting Percival’s attention, nothing he felt the Athenian military would be worried about. Percival always dodged the question, not out of fear, or their demands being too much, or compensation itself being too low, but Percival himself always tried to sneak in a caveat for the deal, he wanted a chunk of land in Hades, only five hundred miles or eight hundred and four kilometers, as Percival had a dream to build the first supercity in Hades, he’d designed the blue prints himself, drawn up plans, he had the money to finance the construction, the electricity, the water, he was willing to even pay for the security of the city itself, he just wanted the land, but he was always denied, and was always given the same hollow excuse from the Deacon Robert Grace.
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“I have no legal jurisdiction to sell you a plot of land in a country, on a continent I have no control over.”
Now this, this made Percival livid, as there was no one to talk to on Hades to discuss the acquisition, Hades had no infrastructure after the Spartan Conflicts and the disaster at Bloody Bay, the continent had no leadership, at least no formal singular voice, it was all a series of City-States run by morons who only wanted to look out for themselves and their small tribes of people. This was an annoyance that Graves felt Grace needed to correct, he’d always pushed for Grace to take action, take charge, make the people of Hades get together and choose a leader. From a business sense, there was just so much land opportunity to use in Hades that was going to waste, something someone as smart as Percival could not take advantage of because of this trivial legal garbage.
Percival let his thoughts on the petty squabbles of the governments ease to the back of his mind as the door behind him opened, and out of the shadows a person decked in a black leather trench coat, and underneath in a suit made out of a special “fluid glass”, a temperament commissioned by Graves himself after he found Fade in Ihwn, a small City-State in Hades with horrific injuries, designed to keep the elements off their damaged body. They also had, a katana in sheath on their hip standing before Percival, their blank black “eye” looking at him emotionless.
Percival sighed, “What is it, Fade?”
Whenever Fade decided to appear before Graves, the man they were supposed to be guarding, it was either “I have killed yet another who wanted to take your life” or it was bad news. Graves truthfully hoped it was the latter, as it was generally easier to clean up.
“I’ve arrived with reports from Hades, the southern City-States.” Fade replied, their voice a robot recreation after their vocal cords were discovered to have suffered chemical burns.
“Out with it, Fade,” Graves not even turning to address Fade, pouring himself a glass of whiskey.
“My spies tell me of a group harassing locals, they call themselves The Acolytes of Albatross..”
“And I care because, why? A group of teenagers beating up the elderly does not warrant my attention, nor concern.”
Fade simply stared, the blank armor not letting any emotion, and the black void making it impossible to read what Fade might have been thinking, how they were reacting.
Fade simply said, “They are hunting Abnormals. Kidnapping those they deem strong, and culling those they deem weak.”
“
Graves' ears perked, “And where are they being taken?”
“That alludes me.”
Graves frowned, “And you’re certain they’re abducting Abnormals? How can they be sure the people they’re taking are what they are?”
“Burn their blood, is my first thought, Mr. Graves.”
Graves pondered for a moment, “No…no… it unless they were carrying a thousand petri dishes ready to burn each individual pool of blood to see if it burned gold, no they must have another method of identification.” Graves again lost in thought, “But now we need to think of what to do with this information.”
“Shall we mobilize a security team to neutralize the threat?”
“We’d need legal permission, Fade.”
Fade titled his head at Graves, “When has that ever stopped you before?”
“The threat of facing the military I helped prop up is a proverbial bear I do not wish to poke.”
“Then why not sell the information to Athens, some of their leadership is looking for any excuse to install more military in the continent.”
Graves considered that for a moment, “Alright. But tell your spies to get video, photographic, or audio proof of this happening before we plant the seeds.”
“As you wish, sir.” Fade said, giving a bow before heading out.
Graves returned to his monitors, the stocks on his company hitting green again for the one hundred and sixtieth week straight. A sly smile graced Graves lips as he took another drink of alcohol, and he began to imagine once again, his dream supercity under construction, with him overlooking yet another horizon.