"Is this even allowed?" Harry asked as he taped a flyer to the wall.
{Try our new game, Flappy Bird.}
{Easy to pick up, impossible to put down.}
The flyer's design was pretty simple, the iconic Flappy Bird and title. A neat background, and a QR code in the corner.
I shrugged my shoulders. "Mr. Harrington said it's alright." I gestured behind me.
"I think it's a wonderful idea." Mr. Harrington added as he taped a flyer to the door. "I wish you would have told me earlier, it could have been an extra credit project."
"Thanks again for letting us post flyers." Ned thanked.
One of the cons of living in the year 2007, no social media. Aka, no Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube. Which meant that advertising stuff was really difficult, well unless you had a ton of money.
Luckily for us, we go to school for nerds, and flyers are surprisingly easy to make.
"I'm curious, why are we only releasing Flappy Bird? What about Doodle Jump and Cross Road?" Ned asked.
"It's to prevent competition." Harry answered for me. "If we release them all at once, then they'll end up competing with each other." Harry explained as he taped a flyer to the door.
===
Ned gave the class an awkward wave, while Peter did his best to hide himself in his hoodie.
Mr. Harrington's a very supportive teacher, a little too supportive depending on who you ask. Apparently, he kept one of our flyers, and throughout the day he'd been showing it to his classes. While Ned and Peter saw it as embarrassing, I saw it as free advertising.
Most of the class just left when the bell rang, but a few of my more geeky classmates did scan the QR code before they left.
"What was that about?" Gwen asked as she walked up to me.
"What do you mean?" I asked as I packed my bag.
"You, Ned, Peter, and Osborne made a game together."
I raised a brow. "Okay. Why does everybody do that? Why does everybody call Harry by his last name?" It always confused me.
She shrugged in response. "I don't know, everybody else was calling him that when I got here." She explained as we walked out.
"I just find it weird." I shook my head. "By the way, how's your part of the project going?"
"Good." She pulled a set of papers from her binder. "What about you?" she asked back.
"I'm pretty much almost done." I handed her my phone as I scanned through her clock diagrams.
"Whoa." Gwen was amazed as she examined the photo. "You built this?"
"Yep." I tucked the diagram in my bag. "I can build the mechanism and attach it. Can you do the PowerPoint?"
"Oh, um. Sure." She answered as she handed me my phone back. "Are you sure you don't want more help?"
"Nah, I can handle—" I stumbled over my feet.
"You okay?" Gwen asked.
Her hand hovered near me, ready to catch me just in case.
"It's nothing." I lied. "I have to go to the bathroom, talk to you later." Gwen waved me goodbye, a confused expression on her face.
I stepped into the bathroom. Luckily, it was empty. After locking myself in a stall, I let out a long and satisfying breath.
"Status."
[Name: Leo Faith]
[LV 2 (6/500)]
[Quest: None]
[Skills: Sword Technique, Parkour, Freerunning, Climbing, etc.]
[Abilities: Voice Mimicry, BS Protection, Stable Mind, etc.]
[Templates Absorbed: Marcus Holloway, Lara Croft, Yu, etc.]
[Templates in Progress]
[___]
[___]
[___]
[Summons: Om Nom]
It took almost a week, but I've finally finished absorbing all my templates.
Absorbing Marcus and Lara only took about two days, but Yu's took nearly a whole week. Which sucked, because absorbing his template made every muscle in my body ache.
These past couple of days, people had been giving me strange looks, and I didn't blame them. I'd grown—my body had become leaner.
It was the main reason I've been wearing hoodies lately; I'm trying to mask my new physique. Removing my hoodie, I examined my body.
My muscles pressed against the grey tank top I had underneath, a chuckle escaped my mouth. For some reason, it reminded me of a scene straight out of a manga.
Yu was superhuman, or at least close to one. For starters, he had enhanced reflexes, able to react and perceive attacks faster than humanly possible. Part of his training even included dodging cannon fire. Heck, he even outpaced a guy who could react faster than somebody with a gun.
Plus, with his strength and boxing technique, his punches were practically lethal weapons. With a single punch, he was able to tear a hole in a sandbag. While not as strong as Spider-Man or Luke Cage, it was more than enough power to turn somebody's jaw into pudding.
At this rate, it'd only be a matter of time until I was physically unstable. Well, for normal humans. That was still a ways off though. For now, I needed to focus on becoming legally invincible.
===
After school ended, I went straight home, fed Om Nom, and got straight to work.
I wasn't expecting Flappy Bird to make a lot of money, and I didn't plan on it. There's better ways to make money than mobile games, like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. Unfortunately, all of them required the one thing I lacked: processing power.
If I wanted them up and running as soon as possible, I needed a server farm or something. Something I couldn't get without decent funding, funding I'm about to obtain.
Now that I'd fully absorbed Marcus Holloway, it was time to put his skills to use. Which, like always, was harder to do than say.
The level of technology was weird at the moment. It was somehow both ahead of and behind its time. Mainly because of companies like Oscorp, Hammer Tech, and Stark Industries competing with each other.
While Stark and Hammer mainly focused on weapon manufacturing, they still made and sold stuff like CPUs, microchips, GPUs, etc. So despite it being 2007, our computers and phones were more akin to the year 2017.
Most would assume that was pretty cool, if you ignored the fact that nothing else had caught up. We had 2017 technology, but 2000s media. Stuff like DC, Disney, and Warner Bros. still existed, but they were a little behind.
Facebook existed, but YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter were non-existent. As for video games… let's just say they were pathetic and leave it at that.
Om Nom peered over my shoulder, giving me a judgmental look as he saw my computer screen.
"I can explain. I'm not a sick fuck, I swear."
On my computer was an image of a very young girl I found online, and right now I was using it as bait. Using chat forums and Facebook, I'm hunting for pedophiles.
"Found one."
A bit of bile rose in my stomach, but it'd all be worth it.
With a quick click, I sent what they believed to be a picture of 'Bethany' picking out a new swimsuit. In reality, it was a newly developed virus. With how far behind this universe was in public cybersecurity, and how advanced Marcus was. My virus was basically the Chuck Norris of viruses, capable of anything and unstoppable.
Once the creep opens the file, it'll spread through their Wi-Fi and any other device connected to it until it finds any form of banking information. After I send myself a decent but non-noticeable amount of money, it'll brick their entire system and report them to local law enforcement.
I let out a satisfied breath, nothing beats the feeling of ruining the life of somebody who deserved it.
===
Wednesday (Two Days Later)
A yawn left my mouth as I walked through the front door of the school, a mix of pride and disgust flowing through my veins.
These past two nights, I've done and said horrific stuff, all in the pursuit of money and justice. On the plus side, Flappy Bird has been pretty popular in school. Not so much outside of it, though. If I wanted it to become a worldwide thing like it was back in my universe, I needed Instagram as soon as possible.
As I walked into class, I noticed a group surrounding Ned. "What's so interesting?" I asked.
"Ned, play the video back." Peter requested. Ned nodded and rewound what looked like a news broadcast.
"J. Jonah Jameson here!!! With breaking news that they don't want you to know!" There he was, in all his glory and unfortunate mustache style.
The Owner of The Daily Bugle.
"Last night, the LAPD arrested over two dozen alleged criminals. I use the word alleged loosely, 'cause to me, it's pretty obvious they're guilty, those sick creeps."
JJ grabbed his reading glasses. "Last night, 26 men were arrested for possession of CP, communicating with a minor, and half a dozen other acts that make me sick just thinking about it!!!" He slammed his glasses onto the desk, smashing them in the process.
He continued to rant for another minute, mainly about how disgusting these men were and how he hoped they received the harshest punishment possible.
"You may be wondering, how were these disgusting creeps discovered? By good old-fashioned police work? New and modern investigation techniques? NO!!!" He slammed his hand against the desk.
"He's always so loud." I picked at my ear, it was more of a habit than an actual annoyance.
"Instead, these creeps were caught by a hacker! That's right, some busybody with a computer and too much free time decided to play hero."
"A hacker?" I feigned confusion.
I was 100% the hacker, but nobody else needed to know that at the moment.
"While I can't support this individual's actions, I'll allow it as long as those creeps are locked up and kept away from our children. But if they truly want to make a difference, then they should put their skills to use for our brave men in blue."
Ned lowered the volume as JJ continued to ramble on, inventing new, harsh—but news-safe—curse words for the men arrested last night.
"While I prefer a softer-toned news anchor, I agree that those guys should get the worst punishment possible. Death by firing squad." Despite how serious I actually was, everybody just assumed I was exaggerating.
"Alright, everybody, settle down." Like always, Mr. Harrington walked into the classroom and began the lesson.
"Everybody has second lunch today, right?" The group gave me a mix of yeses and nods. "Meet me at our usual table, we have lots to talk about today." They gave me confused looks, but agreed anyway.
—
"Alright, men, I think it's time we talked about the future of Omni Works." I folded my hands together.
Harry raised a hand. "Can't we afford a better meeting room?"
The group was seated at a round table located near the bottom-left middle of Midtown's overcrowded cafeteria. A fourth of the school roamed the floor, carrying trays of food and having random conversations.
Ned and Peter even stopped in line first and got sloppy joes before our meeting.
I grabbed my chin in thought. "…No, this is the best we've got. Now back to the main point."
I pulled out a large poster board, defining the outline for our next project.
The Hell Project: Instagram
Harry began to read it over. "You want us to make a social media platform."
Ned reached out for the poster, but I smacked his hand back before he grabbed it. "Your hand is covered in sloppy joe. Clean it first."
Peter read over the poster. "Won't this just be another Facebook copy?" He ducked as I tried to slap him.
I gave him an offended look. "First, how dare you. Second, this would be so much better than Facebook." Peter gave me an ashamed look. "And this is so much more than Facebook. Facebook is a senile old man trying to show people pictures of his grandkids. While Instagram, Instagram is going to be the cool new girl that every boy wants and every girl is jealous of. Also, it's going to be an app instead of a web browser like Facebook."
Harry raised a brow. "We get it, but what's with the title?"
"Because of this." I pulled out a diagram of an oddly shaped machine.
The machine was small, about the size of a volleyball. It looked like dozens of computer wires, CPUs, GPUs, and a bunch of mismatched computer parts forced into the shape of a Christmas star.
Ned stared at it in confusion. "Uhh, what am I looking at?" While his coding skill was unmatched, his engineering knowledge was a little behind.
Peter snatched the diagram from Ned. "Whoa, is that a high-processing miniature server?" Peter immediately understood what it was.
Harry leaned on Peter's shoulder. "The wiring is a mess, inefficient and prone to overheating. That could be fixed, though, if we-" Harry grabbed a pen from his shirt pocket and began making alterations.
"Yeah, but we can't afford that. Unless we repurpose a compressor from some old fridges. We'd be able to fix the overheating and even enhance the processing speed." Peter added as he grabbed the marker from Harry and added his own details.
"This is exactly what I needed from you two." I interrupted. "While I'm a decent engineer, I'm nowhere near Harry's level. The issue is that we don't have much of a budget, which is where Peter comes in. I've seen your old computer, if you could build that out of scrap, imagine what you could build out of slightly better scraps."
"What exactly is your plan?" Harry asked.
"While you and Peter make Omni Work's' custom server network," I placed a hand on Ned's shoulder, "me and Ned will be designing the next big app."
"While I like the idea," Harry analyzed the situation, "something's off. There has to be a reason you called this project hell."
"Oh, it's because we have like a month to make it." I answered.
The group froze as they did the math in their heads, how much coding a project like this would take, and how many hours they'd need to put in. After a quick tally, they let out a long, and pained groan.