After John left and I had looked through the instructions I looked him up online. I saw the name online attached to several small businesses in various industries but could not find a picture of his face anywhere. I kept going through the websites of a few of the businesses and they did not have any images of him or others at the company. Next, I began pulling up other public information about him from government filings. There I found his business listings again along with mine. My warehouse's address was listed as the main business address and was designated as a tier-three manufacturing business with certifications required for superhuman manufacturing. There wasn’t much else I didn’t know in the filing other than John Malone was the sole owner of this business that I worked at. In previous filings, there had been other names listed as owning the company, but this one was owned only by him.
I began pulling up the people listed as owners of the other companies. If I couldn’t find something on him then maybe I could do so with them. The first guy I looked into owned a few small businesses with only a few related to superhuman needs. For example, one of the stores sold near-indestructible furniture so they couldn’t be damaged by whatever might happen. I began marking the businesses he owned in blue while starting to mark John’s businesses in the color red. If they owned one together I colored it purple. Slowly I began to map out the business with most being situated near the school's campus and some in the same block I was in with at least a dozen other warehouses.
The third and final person I found on the public listings was a woman. Her public profiles were non-existent like I had seen with the other two. Her shops I marked yellow on the map I was constructing. I then merged her color with the others as appropriate and if they all showed up together then I marked the location in white. By the time I was done with the almost fifty businesses I had expanded my map to the entire state. Most of the businesses were located in this city.
After some more investigation, I found that many of the secondary locations were out of the city and that the ones within seemed to be the main hubs and the busiest. I was able to pull some income data and was able to compare it all. The city’s shops were the busiest and most profitable while the others were much smaller in size and scale. Like plane flights, all of the business would flow through the shops in the city and connect to the ones in other cities and towns after.
I zoomed my map back in and focused on the city. The businesses were spread out the city with a focus on stores near the school campus and my location, midtown a twenty-five-minute drive from here, and a few stores in the downtown area I had driven through on my first day here. I cataloged the map and saved it because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Sure, it was fishy as hell that they had little public presence, but a lot of people did that with social media and avoided a public persona. From what I could tell to own that many businesses he had to be very wealthy and what better could you be than rich and not famous?
If there was anything legally wrong with what he was doing or something unethical then it wasn’t going to be found by me. Not with a quick internet search. That’s for sure. I mean what could I do really. I was just a regular guy who worked at a single-person factory. Working for a guy I think is creepy isn’t wrong and I have no reason to believe there is wrongdoing. Maybe I have just been paranoid. Who knows how travel through space and dimensions may have affected me. And regardless of what I think. If I wanted to quit this job then I probably could. I would just have to find out how best to give my two-week notice and quit.
I closed down what I was working on and checked the time. Nate would be here in two hours to pick up his shoes. I brought the shoes back over to the table. I began an inspection of the shoes and checked all sides of them. Nate had mentioned that he didn’t think that the shoes were that great and I kind of had to agree because of how I assembled the first pair. I was nervous and worried that the shoes would explode again that I probably didn’t put in my best effort. I was more worried that I would have an intact product at the end than making sure the stuff looked professionally made. I went over this second pair of shoes with a close eye and a regular look at the images from both my files and from the internet with photos of him in costume professionally done.
I went back over the shoes and removed their metal pieces and buffed out the rough edges before recoloring them. My ability to weld had improved somewhat and my ability to clean up mistakes had improved even more. After the metal was done I retouched the paint in a few other places and then checked the stitching of the seams. I removed stitches and redid them until they looked even better. When I was done I made sure that the shoes both looked like their image counterparts as best I could.
I had technically finished the shoes the night before but now I had taken his suggestions into account. They definitely looked better on the outsides than last time, and I had avoided burning everything again, so I counted it as a win. The shoes looked much better, and I was glad I took a step back from my computer for a few minutes. I started to clean stuff up and I put away the shoes and the extra material and tools I had used before sitting back down.
John’s arrival had reminded me that I could have guests at any time and should have the place looking nice whenever I could. I moved the pair of shoes over to my desk and then went over to the suit parts. I picked up the box I had for Rachel’s stuff and moved it back to its spot near the front of storage. Next, I began cleaning up the scraps from on and under the tables. I had spent all of yesterday making the shoes for today and then went directly home leaving the mess for today. I worked on sorting the scraps and moving them into the right junk box pile I had set aside for it in storage. Cleaning up the paint was a bit harder and more time-consuming. I had to take out some industrial-level cleaning supplies and scrubbers to get the paint I had gotten on the table out of it. I reminded myself that I should lay something down on top of the tables in the future as I scrubbed furiously at the marks.
Returning to the computer I did something I should have done a while ago. I pulled up the app controlling the video camera feeds and had it begin searching for John. If he felt inclined to visit me at the dinner and stop by unannounced at the warehouse then he has probably done it a few times before. I scrubbed through the video feed and pulled up the conversation we had minutes before. Using the footage of his face from this instance I had the camera app search for his face in the most recent video.
The computer loaded for a minute before spitting out some results. I pulled up the most recent video from before my appearance. It showed John knocking on the door of the warehouse before opening it up himself with the passcode. Then he stepped in and looked to see that I had not been there. He was saying something about where I had gone, but he wasn’t loud enough for the microphones to pick it up. That video was on Tuesday, two days before I appeared. I paused the video and went back through the other options. I marked the ones that contained me and john. That narrowed it down even further. I clicked play on the most recent video. This one was from Sunday.
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I looked to be busy at work on Rachel’s mask. Things seemed to flow much more smoothly and there were no papers around or instructions on the monitor. My previous self had probably memorized what was needed a hundred times over. They had been working on adding the padding to the sideburn pieces when John unlocked the door and stepped in. I looked up from my work.
“What do you want? I am busy with this mask.”
“You have been returning my calls less and less. The end of your contract might be nearing but that doesn’t mean you can slack off. I have a business need to be met and as my employee, you must fulfill your obligations until it is done.”
John wore his standard gray suit. His eyes still had that menace even through the computer monitor. I was wearing one of my hoodies and other casual wear.
“Yeah I was rather naive back in the day to accept your offer, but I will fulfill my obligations. I know you’ve been wanting me to make some personal stuff off the books. I will consider it after I finish my personal projects.”
“I expect that you will answer my calls in the future. You know how I am when I’m disappointed. I admit that the way I brought you into the contract was a bit heavy-handed but everything I said then is true. Isn’t it? You are now quite wealthy and interact with even wealthier clients. You may not be a household name like the Rodriquez’s, but you are just as important to the people who matter. It is everything you wanted as a smart young kid.”
“While true now the times have changed, and I have realized I want other things as well and don’t need others. There is only so much wealth I can accumulate before I don’t know what to spend it on. And now I don’t think I want to work in this shop alone. When my contract is over I am selling this shop and moving on to another business. One where I can live the same lifestyle and not have to interact with you.”
“I would ask you to reconsider but I’m not sure that you will change your mind. So let me offer this. You build for me a few things until the end of your contract and then we will renegotiate your contract. I will step away from monitoring your business as actively and won’t request any further items under the table. I can even see about hiring an assistant for you so that you will have more time to focus on school and free time. How does that sound?”
“Leave now, please. I need to finish this mask today. I will reconsider your offer after a week and when you have more concrete terms.”
“That is all I ask. I will call you later.”
John left the warehouse and the video ended.
‘That makes a lot more sense,’ I thought. ‘So, he has been having me make things for him in the past, but it has usually been official orders I suspect I can find logged in the computer. That comment about the assistant a few days ago also makes more sense now. His comments mentioned my contract. I suspect that it will end in the summer, assuming that he hired me right out of high school as I thought. I wonder what my previous self found more interesting than working in this shop. Maybe I will also grow bored of it as well. But if I wasn’t going to work here then what was I going to do? Maybe it has something to do with Wesley? It seemed that I had visited the Hero Wear factory or business recently. Maybe I had spoken with him about moving my work there? Maybe if I was to work under them then I would have left John’s control? I wish I had more information. I can only look through the cameras in the warehouse and the gated community to find out what happened. Was I about to close a deal on working for the Rodriguez’s or was something else happening between us? I need to find a way to get more information on my relationship with Wesley. Maybe I will go visit his labs in the future?’
I didn’t have much longer to dwell on the topic because I checked the time and saw that I only had a few minutes until Nate would arrive. He messaged me as he arrived. He came through the door after I opened it up for him and I greeted him. He was wearing his full blue outfit complete with the new shoes I had brought him two days ago.
“Hello. How is the robot cleanup going?” I asked
“It has been a complete mess. It has been my fifth all-day workday there. I see you have my other shoes ready. May I see them?”
“Of course.”
I brought them over to him and he looked at them and inspected them. As Nate finished he popped off his other shoes and tried the new ones on. He ran around in a blur for a few seconds before returning to the desk.
“These are much better. Keep up this quality of work in the future and I will be happy.”
“I am glad my work pleases you. Now I had some questions and maybe a favor to ask?”
“That is already a question but what do you need?” asked Nate.
“This robot stuff happened in midtown right?”
“Yeah, it did.”
“I was wondering where exactly and if I could go see it? You are headed there now,” I said. The majority of John’s businesses were located in or near midtown. If I was going to find out more about him then maybe I should go check out the businesses he had in the area.
“The robot stuff spread from 13th street and the lake road. From there it spread down the street and destroyed some stores and businesses. The place they have sprung from wasn’t registered and we are still trying to find where they came from. If you want to go I guess you can go, and I can take you. It is not very interesting.”
“I still want to go. I want to see what you do for work and what the place looks like. Also, I haven’t been away from this place for a while now besides the mantle fight of course. But other than that, I rarely go outside. I promise I won’t bring you trouble,” I said. 13th street sounded familiar, and I recognized it as one of the main roads that had shops owned by John and his associates. Even if the robots came from some unknown building they were made somewhere and sent out by someone. Even if it ultimately led to nowhere it was more interesting to investigate than doing so with the help of the internet. And right now, I didn’t have very many avenues to find out my previous self’s past. Looking into my boss’s other businesses in midtown sounded as good a choice as anything else.
“I need to run these home and then I can run you over there with me.”
Nate held the extra pair of shoes in his hands and zipped away faster than I could see. A minute later he ran back into the warehouse no longer holding the extra pair of shoes.
“Grab your stuff and we will get going.”
“What do I need to bring?” I asked.
“Get some goggles because of the dust that might get in your eyes and grab a coat. The wind is going to be crazy for a few seconds.”
I did as he requested and gathered the items. For the goggles, I stuck with the heat and infrared display goggles I had been using. For a coat, I just put on my heavily insulated and modified Hero Wear jacket. It was usually cold while working in the concrete warehouse, so I often had it with me while I worked. I slid them both on and turned to Nate.
“I’m ready to go.”
“Then hold on while relaxing your head and neck and the rest of your body pretty much.”
Nate picked me up under the arms and then braced my head. After the count of three, he started speeding up until we were hitting three hundred miles an hour on the street.