The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 324

Chapter 324: 324 | The Thing About Materiality Thresholds

"You just stared at your phone for thirty seconds without breathing."

"I was reading."

"You were analyzing." Felicity’s freckles caught the light as she tilted her head, her blonde ponytail shifting across her shoulder. "There’s a difference, and you know there’s a difference, and you know I know there’s a difference."

Across the table, Theo leaned back in his chair and crossed his massive arms. "Meridian Technologies. Aren’t they connected to like half the Hero agencies in California?"

"More than half." Percy’s pen had resumed its motion, which meant his brain had finished the initial processing burst and moved into documentation mode. "Meridian provides equipment, analytics software, or research consultation to approximately sixty-eight percent of licensed Hero agencies operating in the greater Verano metropolitan area. They also hold the exclusive manufacturing contract for Halloran Academy’s training facility equipment, including the combat simulation robots used in entrance examinations."

The table fell silent again. This time the silence had a different quality, heavier around the edges, the kind that forms when people realize the distance between their lunch conversation and the real world has just collapsed to zero.

"So when something goes wrong at Meridian," Caden said, his voice stripped of humor for the second time in five minutes, "it potentially affects everyone who depends on their tech working correctly."

"Including us." Finn’s normally relaxed expression had sharpened. His fingers had stopped threading filaments, which was the equivalent of anyone else standing at attention. "Including every piece of equipment we’ve been training with since we got here."

I watched the news feed update one more time. The camera showed emergency vehicles parked in a semicircle around the building’s main entrance. A woman in a dark suit stood at the perimeter giving instructions to someone I couldn’t identify. The evacuation continued with that same rehearsed efficiency.

Then the feed cut to a desk anchor who announced that preliminary reports suggested the incident was contained and that no injuries had been reported.

Contained. No injuries. Minor incident.

The words were right but the timing was wrong. It had been less than fifteen minutes since the first alert, and the corporate communication machine was already framing the narrative. That kind of response speed meant either Meridian’s PR department deserved an award, or they’d had the statement ready before the incident occurred.

My phone buzzed one final time. A text from Diane.

Seeing the Meridian news. Don’t worry about it. Richards has been having containment issues in Applied Sciences for months. This is the third one this quarter. PR will handle it.

Stay focused on your classes. I’ll update you tonight if anything develops.

Love you.

I stared at Diane’s message for five seconds longer than necessary.

Third one this quarter.

Containment issues.

Those were not the words someone used for random lab accidents. Those were the words someone used for a known problem that kept recurring because the underlying cause hadn’t been addressed. And Diane, who ran one of California’s top Hero PR agencies and maintained relationships with every major corporate player in the Verano ecosystem, knew about it. Knew about it well enough to tell me not to worry, which in Diane’s vocabulary meant she was already worrying enough for both of us and didn’t need me adding to the pile.

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