Operation: OnlyHeroes

The control booth on the— God knows which floor this is— is a sealed tomb— No, an HQ of high-end anxiety and hyperventilation. It smelled of ozone, energy drinks, nervous sweats, cigarettes, stress balls, and the distinct, copper tang of adrenaline. Fifteen of us PR clerks out the whole department, me, Kim and Brandon included, are crammed into the dark, soundproofed room, their faces illuminated by the eerie glow of the massive curved monitor wall.

I’m scrolling through my phone. Articles, short videos, podcasts, tweets, talk show clips, radio show snippets, memes. Polarizing views. Skepticism, betrayal, confusion, unconditional support, praise, etc. Pure parasocialism. Prime example: A Hound News reporter and her crew are filming across the street outside the New Chicago city hall. In the background are people cosplaying Circuitrix in solidarity, holding signs such as “Let Heroes Be Wealthy!”, “Make Capitalism Hot & Heroic!”, “Heroism Can Look Sexy Too!”, “Tech for Women!”. In the news station, there are anchormen reporting the internet discord surrounding the controversy by showing screenshots of celebrity tweets, either critiques from the left and right or defenses from the left and right. Most of the defenses coming from mattresses performers, economy analysts, comedians… Ivy League professors? Damn!

“Outsider point of view?” Kim asks, looking over my shoulder.

“Something like that.”

“Big difference, huh?”

I nodded slightly. Then she says, “Hold on to that, Circuitrix goes live in two minutes.” 

"Two minutes!" the floor director shouted, her voice cracking under the tension. "Audio check on line four! Clear the visual queue!"

Kim bumps her shoulder against mine, her eyes glued to the social media feed streaming across her tablet. "Look at the sentiment ticker, Toby. It's swaying like a drunk on a tightrope. One bad quote from her and the board is going to dump us into crisis-management sub-level four."

"She won't drop the ball," Ms. Bishop said… or Enigma, I don’t know anymore, standing behind us like an obsidian statue. "Williams gave her the script. They wrap the crisis in corporate ethics and social advocacy. People want to believe the heroes are playing five-dimensional chess for the greater good."

"And if they don't, ma’am?" Brandon pipes up from the adjacent terminal, his fingers flying across his keyboard as he monitored live sentiment algorithms. "If Hound News decides to push the shadow-banking angle instead of the empowerment narrative?"

Ms. Bishop looks over to me.

"Then… we… pivot to the Kaiju migration data," I say, leaning over his monitor. "We leak the secondary telemetry. We make the public realize that while they were arguing over who owns what digital asset, Circuitrix was quietly funding the early-warning network that saved the East Coast and the Midwest three months ago."

Kim nodded. "Doesn’t sound convincing, good call.”

“Hey, I don’t have any better ideas myself,” Brandon says.

“Wise,” Ms. Bishop states.

The studio floor below went dead silent. The red 'LIVE' tally light flared to life atop the main camera rig, casting a crimson glow across Naomi’s slick, tailored blazer.

"Thirty seconds," the director whispered into the comms. "God help us."

I shoved my phone into my pocket, leaned both hands on the edge of the master console, and watched our carefully constructed lie go out to fifty million simultaneous streams.

"We're live in three... two..." The floor manager's arm dropped, pointing straight at Naomi like a loaded pistol.

On the massive center screen of our curved wall, Naomi didn't look like a girl who spent her off-hours drinking energy drinks, playing VR combat sims, or secretly owning a controlling stake in an adult film empire. She leaned over the sleek glass stage, her hands clasped lightly in front of her. The matte-black blazer and the jeans gave her a razor-sharp profile, cutting through the studio light with terrifying poise.

The main split-screen lit up with Sarah Stacey from Global Tech Daily, whose face were the hungry smile of an interviewer who smelled blood in the water.

"M.s. Circuitrix, "Stacey began, her voice synthesized and crystal clear through the control booth's surround speakers. "Leaked documents confirm you hold a fifty-one percent stake in Afterdark Productions, alongside significant holdings in unregulated AI ventures and offshore financial institutions. How do the Ascendants reconcile a frontline hero secretly profiting off sex work and shadow banking?"

In the control booth, Kim gripped the edge of her console so hard her knuckles turned white. Brandon stopped breathing altogether.

Naomi didn't blink. She didn't look down at her teleprompter. She didn't offer a defensive half-smile or a practiced corporate clearing of the throat. She simply let three seconds of dead air hang over fifty million live streams—just long enough to make Vance's smug expression waver.

Then, Naomi leaned in.

"I'm glad you asked that, Sarah," Naomi said, her tone dropping into a cool, almost hypnotic cadence. "Because when I acquired Afterdark two years ago, it wasn't an investment in entertainment. It was an intervention."

Behind her, the massive video wall seamlessly transitioned to our pre-approved data graphics.

"The adult entertainment industry has historically been plagued by non-consensual deepfakes, algorithmic exploitation, and systemic wage theft," Naomi continued smoothly, delivering the exact phrasing I'd polished in the briefing room. "Under my holding umbrella, Afterdark became the tech world's first fully decentralized, consent-verified platform. We implemented proprietary AI-detection algorithms that whipped illegal deepfakes off the site entirely, while redirecting thirty-five percent of all net revenues straight into federal anti-trafficking task forces."

She tilted her head, locking eyes directly with the main camera lens.

"So to answer your question: I didn't profit off exploitation, Sarah. I hijacked the infrastructure to eliminate it. Next question."

"Holy shit," Kim breathed out, staring at the live sentiment ticker.

The color scheme on Brandon's screen flipped instantly. The deep crimson bars representing public outrage shattered into a rising wave of neon green. The chatter feed was moving so fast the text became a blur:

@CyberSamurai: SHE LITERALLY CLEANED UP THE DARK WEB WITH PORN MONEY?! ICON.

@VentureCap_Dave: Brilliant ESG play. Diversification with a moral imperative. Buying Ascendants stock immediately.

@Prof_K_Ethics: A fascinating case study in harm reduction vs systemic reform. She turned a predatory framework into a shield.

"Shift to the financial press!" I ordered into my headset, my initial panic dissolving into pure, icy focus. "Get the anchor from Bloomberg-Global online two. Let him hit her on the shadow-banking angle while we've got the momentum."

"Routing line two now," Brandon barked, his fingers dancing across his board.

The feed shifted to a gray-haired anchor in a crisp suit. "M.s. Circuitrix, while the social reform narrative is compelling, what about Hermoney? A private bank operating outside traditional SEC oversight?"

Naomi gave a smooth, practiced nod. "Hermoney exists for a single reason, Marcus: to provide non-dilutive capital and low-interest micro-grants to female tech founders and marginalized coders who are systematically turned away by legacy institutions. In fact, Vesta's incubator program directly founded the early-warning telemetry network currently deployed along the Eastern Seaboard—the same network that gave civilians an eight-minute head start during last month's Kaiju breach."

She folded her hands over the stage, offering a faint, dangerous smile.

"If the media considers funding women in tech and building early-warning monster detectors to be 'shadow banking,' then I please entirely guilty."

The control room erupted into a chaos of muted cheers and furious typing.

"Hound News just flipped their chyron!" Kim yelled, holding up her tablet. "It no longer says "SUPERHERO SMUT SCANDAL." It says "CIRCUITRIX: THE TECH FIXER SAVING LIVES AND LIVES OF WOMEN.""

"The Ivy League threads are going crazy," Brandon added, cackling virtually. "We've got gender studies departments and crypto-bros agreeing on something for the first time in human history."

I stood back from the console, taking a slow, deep breath. Through the glass, I could see Naomi stepping away from the stage as the floor manager signaled the end of the broadcast. She looked up at the control booth, caught my eye, and gave a tiny, two-finger salute.

High above us, on the observation gantry, the shadows shifted. Bishop was standing there, her silhouette long and imposing against the studio lights. She gave me a single, slow nod of approval before turning and vanishing into the corridor.

This was it. We did it. We had tasks a catastrophic leak, wrapped it in corporate morality, and fed it to a hungry public that devoured it down to the bone.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting a group chat notification or a ping from Kim.

Instead, it’s a notification from my banking app which reads:

STANBANK: Payment +$9 000.00 into SAVINGS ACCOUNT; Ref TAKASASHI-MURPHY Hermoney.

Followed by another notification which reads:

Let’s be honest. This shit was way above your pay grade. 

Seriously?

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