Heroes for Hire

Chapter One: Party Meeting

Somewhere above the agitated city streets, there's a dimly lit office with a large oval, timber table. A wall of windows shows the city like the God's view from Olympus. No other building reaches as high, and the people beneath become nearly invisible from the distance. All that remains are the lights and the motion - the living, breathing world of a city.

In the office are a group of barely identifiable individuals. The lighting is deliberate to obscure their features, to retain of sense of anonymity. All that is left is a sense of wealth from glimpses of silk suits, golden watches, diamond rings, and the bare splendour of the room. With no decorations, it is a far cry from a palace room, yet it carries the same intangible sense of affluence and power.

One of the men speak in a voice hardened by decades of smoking, "As for the issue of Heroes for Hire-,"

A younger man, with a voice shrill and temperamental, interrupts the speaker. "Any kind of reaction will only validate the actions of these children. It is nothing but a novice website run by brats. Like any child throwing a tantrum, giving them attention will merely encourage them."

A third man speaks, a more level voice that could blend into any group, but for the air of authority laced in every syllable. "We cannot continue to simply ignore them. Any issue left alone to fester will only grow."

The second man speaks again. "You'll see. They'll fade out like every other so called 'rebellion'."

The meeting continues, and the topic changes as it is wont to do in a meeting, but the issue of the website Heroes for Hire remains unsolved, as it has in all the meetings it has been brought up previously.

__________

There were parties where children wore pyjamas and gossiped in the living room, and there were parties where people got so off their faces they dropped dead or killed each other. Like the vast majority of parties, this one fell somewhere between those two. It was a bunch of adults just old enough to have graduated from college, standing around the house of a well-off politician. They sipped champagne with strawberries, wine, imported beers, and a few held the thin stems of cocktail glasses, filled with daiquiris. They gossiped about work, speculated about world affairs, and attempted to prove their superior educations and wit by quoting books they had no emotional understanding of, but could churn out a detailed essay in a matter of minutes.

That was the party that Naomi had dragged her unwitting housemate to.

He was currently hanging close to her, and considering his excuses to leave. He had yet to find one that she was willing to buy. Before coming here, he'd even tried the classic school-kid lie of not feeling well, but she had simply thrown a box of paracetamol at him and told him they were leaving in an hour. So here he was - surrounded by the kinds of people he avoided on the street, and who avoided him in turn. Under Naomi's care he almost looked like one of them, in a shirt and pants he'd bought for job interviews, weddings, and funerals. The tie was borrowed from one of Naomi's co-workers in the government, and was such a dark green it was almost black. It was one of those trendy skinny ties with a flat bottom that Liam had always found pretentious.

"Don't be so mopey," Naomi scolded him.

Liam sighed and forced a smile.

"Come on, I'll introduce you to Nathaniel. You remember me telling you about him, right? Don't worry, I swear you'll like him. Everyone does. He's not another Josh, I promise."

Liam endured his friend's ramblings with all the grace of someone who knew her too well to be frustrated by the bubbly act. He allowed her to drag him to a small group of strangers, who were all engaged in a quiet conversation. The fell silent as Naomi approached them.