Sunday night, Adrian did nothing.
No patrol.
No rifts.
No livestream analytics.
He slept.
Real sleep.
No organ rearranging.
No red vision.
No whispering voices.
When Monday came, his mind was sharp again.
And that alone felt dangerous.
The campus atmosphere felt… different.
Not colder.
Not darker.
Just heavier.
He walked into class and immediately clocked the room.
Cassian was already there, relaxed, talking to David.
Leah flipping through slides on her tablet.
Samantha quietly types something far too complex for an undergraduate project.
Three of the five members of this group were no longer normal.
And only two didn’t know it.
Or thought they didn’t.
Adrian took his seat.
Project title displayed on screen:
“Design a Post-Rift Adaptive Corporate Response Model for National Infrastructure Disruption.”
He almost smiled.
If only the professor knew.
They gathered around a circular table near the business building café.
David started first.
“Okay, so big picture—after a rift event hits infrastructure, corporations need liquidity, supply chain rerouting, and crisis PR management. We can model this like COVID response frameworks.”
Safe.
Textbook.
Normal.
Leah nodded. “Yeah, and government partnership is key. Especially if it’s something like energy grids or banking systems. Public confidence is everything.”
Cassian leaned back slightly, listening more than speaking.
Samantha was scribbling equations.
Adrian watched them all.
Abilities amplify what you inherently are.
Cassian — humility.
Stabilizer. Anchor. Energy efficiency.
Samantha — obsession. Pattern consumption.
Himself — pride. Strategy. Positioning.
Leah and David?
Smart.
But conventional.
That theory still held.
Adrian cleared his throat slightly.
“We’re thinking too reactive.”
They all looked at him.
“If a rift opens and disrupts infrastructure, waiting for government coordination is already failure. Corporations with national exposure should pre-position autonomous response units.”
David frowned. “Like private security?”
“Not security,” Adrian corrected calmly. “Adaptive cells. Data, energy rerouting, emergency logistics, predictive modeling. If you treat rifts as black swan events, you’re dead. If you treat them as cyclical volatility, you hedge.”
Cassian’s eyes flicked up slightly at that.
He knew that tone.
Leah tilted her head. “You’re saying… companies build internal rift-response divisions?”
“Yes,” Adrian replied smoothly. “And they don’t publicize full capabilities. Just enough to reassure shareholders.”
Samantha finally spoke.
“If we model rift emergence probability as stochastic spatial fractures tied to urban density and energy concentration… then high GDP districts have elevated incident likelihood.”
Everyone blinked.
She kept going.
“So corporations headquartered near financial hubs should pre-allocate capital into localized redundancy nodes. Like shadow grids.”
David stared. “Shadow grids?”
Cassian smiled faintly.
“Backup infrastructure,” he translated. “Off-record systems that activate when main ones fail.”
Samantha nodded quickly.
Adrian noticed it.
Cassian didn’t use his eyes casually.
But he understood.
Too easily.
Leah leaned forward now, more engaged.
“Okay, but ethically… if corporations prepare more than governments, doesn’t that create imbalance? Like privatized crisis power?”
Adrian answered instantly.
“Of course it does.”
Silence.
He softened his tone.
“But imbalance already exists. Corporations move faster. Governments legitimize after.”
David hesitated. “But if companies have, say… enhanced individuals—”
He stopped himself.
The word hung in the air.
Enhanced.
All three powered members felt it.
Adrian spoke carefully.
“If companies had specialized consultants with anomaly experience,” he said neutrally, “they’d have qualitative insight government agencies lack.”
Cassian finally joined in.
“But you can’t expose those individuals publicly,” he added evenly. “Public panic, exploitation risk, political weaponization.”
Leah nodded slowly.
“That’s true…”
Samantha added quietly:
“Also, information asymmetry increases strategic value. If anomaly patterns are partially predictable, revealing full data reduces defensive advantage.”
Adrian almost laughed internally.
Souleater Demon discussing information asymmetry.
Beautiful.
David rubbed his temples.
“Okay, so our framework looks like this:”
He began listing:
- Pre-rift capital hedging
- Autonomous rapid-response cells
- Shadow infrastructure redundancy
- Controlled public transparency
- Strategic anomaly consultancy
He paused.
“That last one… how do we justify that academically?”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Simple. Frame it as ‘Specialized Environmental Risk Analysts.’”
Cassian nodded once.
Leah smiled. “That sounds way less illegal.”
There it was.
The silent consensus.
Give practical insight.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Hide the supernatural core.
Leah and David would think they were being innovative.
The three others knew they were discussing real battlefields.
Adrian studied Cassian briefly.
Their eyes didn’t glow.
But there was awareness there.
A subtle one.
Not hostility.
Not alliance.
Just… recognition.
Different goals.
Same arena.
As the meeting wrapped up, Samantha quietly messaged the Vigilante group chat.
Samantha:
Do you think Cassian suspects?
Adrian replied without looking up.
Adrian:
Of course he does.
Three seconds.
Samantha:
Should we—
Adrian:
No.
He looked up at Cassian across the table.
Cassian was laughing at something David said.
Normal.
Approachable.
S-Class Rank 20.
Spark.
Adrian turned his attention back to the project document.
For now, business school.
Models.
Frameworks.
Presentation slides.
But beneath the academic language—
They were drafting the future architecture of a world at war.
And only three of them truly knew it.
The coffee shop was half full.
Low jazz.
Milk steaming.
Keyboard tapping.
Adrian chose the table by the window and plugged in his laptop.
The sun was setting.
Orange light spilled across the glass buildings downtown, reflecting like molten gold. Even now — with rifts tearing into the sky every few weeks somewhere in the world — the sun remained indifferent.
Beautiful.
Unbothered.
He rested his chin on his knuckles and watched.
Peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Around him, people laughed.
Two students debated internship offers.
A couple argued softly about vacation plans.
A man in a suit reviewed slides on his tablet.
Normal concerns.
Most people lived inside the present.
Or worse — inside insurance.
Hero Corp Insurance.
As if premiums were divine contracts.
Adrian exhaled slowly.
Heroes were like police.
They arrived after the tragedy.
And sometimes they lost.
He remembered the rift in his hometown.
It had been stabilized.
Eventually.
After.
After the street collapsed.
After the evacuation failed.
After his house was swallowed.
After his family—
He stopped the thought.
The heroes had succeeded.
Technically.
Statistically.
Too late for him.
He stared at the sunset again.
The world was already destabilizing by the time he became an adult.
Wrong generation.
Wrong timing.
Sometimes he wished he could go back.
To when the biggest fear was homework.
To when sunsets were just sunsets.
To when people in coffee shops didn’t look like potential collateral.
He watched a girl laugh loudly near the counter.
She wasn’t worried about tomorrow.
She believed tomorrow would arrive.
Guaranteed.
For a second, he envied her.
Then he remembered why he chose Business Finance.
Paranoia.
Structured paranoia.
Forecasting disaster.
Pricing uncertainty.
Hedging volatility.
It paid well.
That mattered.
Security mattered.
Control mattered.
He used to draw sunsets like this.
Back when he had time.
Back when optimization wasn’t survival.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small notebook.
And a pencil.
Carved into the wood:
Invest for the future.
A gift from the firm he interned for.
He almost laughed.
He began sketching the skyline.
Rough outlines first.
Angles.
Light blocks.
He still captured proportions correctly.
But something was off.
His hand wasn’t fluid anymore.
Years of spreadsheets had stiffened it.
Lines that used to curve naturally now felt forced.
He remembered being better.
Much better.
He stared at the half-finished drawing.
A sunset, boxed into structure.
He closed the notebook.
Enough.
He wasn’t here to reminisce.
He opened his laptop again.
Project document.
Scrolling.
He paused at Item 5:
Strategic Anomaly Consultancy
His fingers hovered over the trackpad.
Cisco.
Cisco Moretti.
Warden of Greed.
That wasn’t theory anymore.
The energy density alone confirmed it.
Cisco operated openly as a consultant.
But beneath that?
Information brokering.
Power positioning.
Silent leverage.
If corporations hired anomaly consultants…
What stopped those anomalies from lying?
From manipulating data?
From redirecting infrastructure intentionally?
From becoming internal saboteurs?
Trust was non-existent in that ecosystem.
Adrian leaned back.
What would the rule set look like?
He began typing privately.
Preliminary Governance Conditions for Anomaly Consultancy Model
- Dual Verification System
- Each anomaly paired with counter-anomaly oversight.
- No single source dominance.
- Energy Signature Monitoring
- Baseline frequency mapping.
- Deviation triggers automatic suspension.
- Performance-Based Compensation
- Delayed payout structures.
- Incentive alignment with corporate survival metrics.
- Information Compartmentalization
- Anomalies receive partial datasets only.
- Prevents systemic override.
- Psychological Profiling
- Core trait amplification mapping.
- Predict behavior based on inherent personality.
He paused on that last one.
Core trait amplification.
His own theory again.
Abilities don’t create.
They amplify.
Humility → energy efficiency and stabilization.
Obsession → consumption and pattern absorption.
Pride → dominance and strategic aggression.
Greed → accumulation and leverage.
If corporations ever institutionalized anomaly roles, they wouldn’t just hire power.
They would hire personality.
And personality was predictable.
To a degree.
He frowned slightly.
What would stop anomalies from faking personality tests?
He thought about himself.
If he applied.
Would he describe himself honestly?
No.
He would craft the optimal profile.
He would say what maximized leverage.
Exactly.
That was the flaw.
Anomaly consultancy could never rely on declared identity.
Only observed behavior.
Long-term.
Data-driven.
Just like markets.
He glanced at the window again.
The sun had dipped lower.
Shadows lengthened.
Evening approaching.
The world looked calm.
But calm was often just low volatility before expansion.
He closed the project tab and opened a blank document.
Title:
Post-Rift Financial Instrument Development
If heroes arrived after tragedy—
Markets could arrive before it.
Rift Bonds.
Catastrophe Derivatives.
Localized Risk Futures.
He stared at the cursor blinking.
Was this innovation?
Or exploitation?
He didn’t know anymore.
He only knew one thing:
He would never again be the person waiting for heroes to stabilize what had already been taken.
If the system couldn’t prevent loss—
He would build one that profited from anticipating it.
The thought disturbed him slightly.
But it also felt right.
Outside, laughter continued.
Inside, Adrian Vale quietly designed a world where disaster had yielded.