Super Science
Ch 16: New Hire
"Okay, people and animals. I'm sure you all know why I've called you here today.", Egon stated while slapping a table in a meeting room that everyone was sitting around.
"It's your birthday?", Izuku guessed.
"No.", Egon replied.
"It's Christmas?", Otto guessed.
"No.", Egon replied more firmly.
"It's the anniversary of your vasectomy.", Cluck asked in a teasing tone.
"Are you serious?", Egon irritatedly asked.
"You called us here to tone down the crazy things we're making and doing to get the desired results?", Izuku guessed while fiddling with his fingers, making everyone tense up.
"No, but that is a good point. So long as you guys aren't doing anything illegal, or immoral, it won't turn into an end-of-the-world scenario. I don't see any harm in letting you guys do what you want to do.", He told them, making everyone sigh before he slapped the table again and exclaimed, "No, why I called you here is about our team or rather…lack of it. We need to hire more people ASAP!"
"We also need an organizer, receptionist, and secretary just for you. I'm sure you're just chopping at the bit to do some of what we're doing.", Cluckcountersr off on her feathers in a tempting tone.
Egon sighed while rubbing his sore neck and saying, "Can't argue with that, but we do need more heads. We have many avenues to cover and only three minds to work with. And I can safely say after a lot of the things that we've made so far, and were able to sell, we are far more financially stable enough to have more employees."
Otto clapped his tentacles and proclaimed, "Wonderful! Then let's set up some lectures at different universities and see who becomes interested. After all, what we do here would seem completely bogus to the unwise. So it's perfect to weed out the weak!"
"I'm in complete agreement with you Professor, but I'll need you and the doctor to step out of this one.", Egon tells the two animals who look at him incredulously. Izuku and I will take the lead on that.", He stated firmly
"What? Why?", Cluck argues back.
"The world isn't going to magically be okay with talking animals overnight. It might cause an uproar or something worse.", Izuku tells them in a fake musical tone, while wiggling his fingers.
"What about that Nezu fella? He's a talking animal that's known to the public.", Otto argues with a raised eyebrow ridge.
"Principal Nezu is a whole different can of worms.", Izuku tells him.
"And one we don't have the time to get into.", Egon adds firmly. Seeing their unpleasant expressions at them, Egon sighs and offers, "Look, we'll be the ones going to just about every university in Japan while you two will stay here and look up any potential employees and set up interviews."
The two animals think about this for a while until Otto finally relents and says in agreement, "Well that is better than trekking around in the hot sun all day."
Cluck just shrugs with her coworker, also not wanting to walk all over the country.
Egon nods in approval while saying in an exhausted tone, "Good to hear, now let's set everything up and get to it. I seriously need a break!"
Many Failed University Lectures Later
Egon stomps his way out of the emergency exit of a university auditorium. His face was red with a mix of anger and embarrassment as he practically foamed at the mouth. Running behind him was Izuku with a huge stack of things in his arms. All things are used as demonstrations and charts and graphs for lectures.
"That was the 20th auditorium we were laughed out of! Is it me? Is it you? Is what we're doing really that unbelievable?", Egon lamented.
"From a third-person perspective.…it kinda does, but at least this one apologized and gave us our money back for wasting our time.", Izuku admitted while taking all the objects down and counting a stack of cash he pulled from his pocket.
"We've been to every University and college in Japan and not one promising person or a smig of interest from all those two dollars, half-brained, money-wasting, idiotic leches! This! Is! Hopeless!", Egon yelled while dropping to his knees and yelling into the sky.
Izuku rubbed his cheek and offered, "Maybe we should have brought the Professor or Doctor with us. Nothing tells the truth like hyper-intelligent talking animals."
"Maybe.", Egon admitted while his face was flat on the ground.
"Also we still have one more college. Maybe this one will be a winner!", Izuku tried to assure him in a chipper tone.
Egon sighs deeply then laments while giving in, "Then let's get it over with so I can go cry into a tub of ice cream and fried chicken."
Later
Egon stood before a now-empty auditorium with an expression that could only be referred to as, contained anguish. Besides him was Izuku who felt like a clown for suggesting one more. After calming down a bit his eye twitched and he broke his pointing stick in frustration.
After getting that out of his system he stated, "Well…I guess that's it. What a piss-up!"
"It could've been worse?", Izuku tried to offer.
Egon groaned and told him, "Thank you for the optimism, Izuku. But it's not appreciated at the moment.", after wiping his hands across his face and making a painful sound he began to pack his belongings while saying, "Let's go back so I can put myself into a food-based hangover."
"What happens if you infuse the two polarities together? Also, what would happen if you turned the frequency into a baseline instead of positive or negative? Would sound waves have any effect on this?", asked a voice that sounded close to Egon.
Thinking it was the boy, Egon repressed the urge to growl and told him, "Izuku I'd love nothing more than to trade theories with you but right now Im-."
"That wasn't me.", Izuku cut him off swiftly.
Egon shit up after hearing this and looked into the empty auditorium one last time. He looked closely, narrowing his eyes and putting a hand over them to see better. After scanning the area he finally came up on one single person left sitting in the now-empty hall.
"Professor Egon? Did you hear me?", the person asked aloud.
Going over to his assistant, Egon mouthed to him, "I think we found a winner."
After this, Egon and Izuku invited the only person left to an impromptu interview outside the college's building. There they sat on benches looking across from one another on a stone table. The person left was a man in his late 30s wearing typical college attire. He was evenly tanned with blue eyes and a mild build with a height of just under 5'3". His face was angular and his eyes were tired. On his head was not hair but five tube-like attachments that seemed to move on their own accord. Four of the five were very snake-like but had no features apart from a mouth in which the teeth were made into the lips as opposed to being covered by them. The fifth one was like a tail.
Thanks to Izuku, they were able to get a huge chunk of his background for this interview. Thanks to this, Izuku was given the chance to do the interview.
After looking it over briefly, Izuku asked him, "So Mr….Hankyō Suru, am I saying that correctly?", the man nodded. "Well Mr. Hankyō, I do like what I see so far, though I have a few questions for you, if that's alright.", once again he nods. After flipping a page, Izuku inquired, "I can't help but notice two things; first off you are well into your late 30s and attending college, not that there's anything wrong with that. Education should never be based on age, only those willing to learn. And also it says here that you have over a dozen years in the music industry as a singer and performer. What compelled you to take such a drastic shift in career choices?"
Hankyō blows out the air in a stressed manner before explaining, "Where do I start? Well, I'm sure you have no idea who I am, but back when I was a singer I used to go by the name of Five Chord Gus."
"Oh, I think I've heard of you. You're from Europe if I'm not mistaken. I know because I heard your rendition of "O mio babbino caro by Puccini" if I'm not mistaken.", Egon cuts in with recognition.
"That's me. I used to sing a lot of songs back in my day.", Hankyō confirmed as he continued, "As for why I choose to pursue a different career choice, especially at this stage of my life…well I'm sure you know but I'll tell you everything anyway I want to be completely transparent with you since you're considering hiring me."
The two of them look at one another, nod and Izuku prompts him to continue. After a bit of internal conflict, Hankyō admits, "Ever since I was young, my quirk-Five Living Chords-gave me full control, range, and frequency of my vocals. I was a natural prodigy at singing. And my parents…my parents used this. From the time it manifested to the point my career ended, my parents used my talent to make bank! Every day was always about how I can improve and how I can get even bigger.", he said in an irritated and disgusted tone. After breathing to calm himself he continues saying, "Anyway, as you can guess, that was a lot of undue stress on a developing child and my mind was hanging on by a thread for my whole life until I finally snapped. I am not proud of it but I killed a lot of people on my very last performance day. Several people in the crowd, a few security guards, my manager, and my parents."
He stops with a shaky breath and wipes away a stray tear. After calming down enough to speak correctly, he tells them "None of those people deserved to die. Except for my parents and my manager! I'll never deny my feelings on that!", he proclaimed boldly, making the two men across from him sweat drop. Hankyō coughs and continues with an apology, "Sorry. Anyhow, I don't remember a lot of what happened after that, but I managed to get out of any legal trouble by settling outside of court. When my head cleared a bit, I had a recollection of what I did and checked myself into a mental ward. I got out in a year and had to spend the next few figuring out myself. My entire life my world revolved around my talent for singing and nothing else. I had to do what most kids have their whole lives to do! That's when I realized I had a knack for discovery and knowledge but didn't like going outside. So I decided to become a researcher and enrolled in this university."
He takes another shaky breath, hugging himself to calm down before babbling, "But I'll be honest, my only two regrets in life were killing all those people during my breakdown and never helping my two older siblings. They were always shunned by my parents and I was favored up until the oldest turned 18 and moved out with the middle, and I never saw them again. I hope they are happier now than when they were with my parents. God I miss them so much, I wish I could apologize to them.", Hankyō realized what he was saying and doing, he retracts while apologetically stating, "I'm sorry, I'm rambling."
Izuku waves it off and tells him, "No no no. You needed to get that off your chest. Though if I may. Why come to Japan?", Izuku inquired.
Hankyō shrugs and tells him, "Just needed to get away from….everything. A fresh start, ya know?"
Izuku nods, looks to Egon, then back to Hankyō while asking "Uh, could you give us the room?"
Hankyō nods and walks off to a different spot, allowing the two men to speak in semi-privacy. From there, Izuku stands and asks his superior, "Professor, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Yes!", he exclaimed.
"So you think we should give this guy a chance and hire him.", he asked to make sure.
But Egon disappointed him as he admitted, "I was thinking we should stop by my favorite American restaurant and get some of their new cheese fries, but let's do your thing first.", Izuku gives him a half-lidded stare while Egon shoots back, "What?! I'm hungry!"
Izuku shakes his head and walks back over to the man who was now making a flower crown.
"Mr. Hankyō?", Izuku started, making the man stand up. The teen then stuck out his hand and said with a smile, "Welcome aboard! Once you've graduated, you have a job waiting for you in the Neo Icon Phoenix Research facility!"
Hankyō's face lit up like a Christmas tree and he exclaimed in an excited voice while shaking his hand hard and fast, "Oh thank you! Thank you so much! I'll do my best to make you both proud! You won't regret this!", making the boy and his head tendrils shake like crazy.
Seeing that Izuku was stuck, Egon broke it up by saying, "Don't thank us yet, you'll also be having the pleasure of running your division."
Hankyō stopped shaking and clutching a nearby tree he asked back, looking ready to pass out, "My….my division!?"
"It can be anything you want.", Egon tells him.
"Well then….", Hankyō thinks for a minute before offering, "How about the Sound Division?!"
The two men look at one another, shrug, and Egon says, "If that's what you want."
After many thanks and handshakes goodbye. Izuku and Egon begin to walk away from the college, and once they're seemingly far enough away, Egon turns to Izuku and asks, "Should we be worried that the guy who has music-based PTSD wants to make an entire research division solely to the study of sound?"
"Let's put a pin in it for now.", Izuku tells him with equal concern. To which Izuku asks, "Should we have told him about his other co-workers?"
Egon thinks about it, mentally rejects it, and replies, "Let's cross that bridge when we get to it. Speaking of which, I wonder how they did on their manhunt."
Later at Neo Icon Phoenix Research Lab
"You found and set up how many?!", Egon exclaimed in shock as he looked over his two animal employees.
"Six in total. That includes your assistant, secretary, and organizer.", Professor Cephalopod answered while adding sugar to his coffee in the coffee cart.
As Egon stands in shock, Izuku does quick math and corrects him, "Your math is off. It would be eight, not six."
"You'll see what I mean at the interviews.", Professor Cephalopod says vaguely with a knowing look, making Izuku more concerned than curious.
"So how did your search go?", doctor Orpington asked while pecking at a loaf of bread.
"Like shit.", Egon groaned while rolling his eyes.
"We did find one.", Izuku corrects him
"Wow.", professor Cephalopod resists the urge to chuckle, while Doctor Orpington holds no bars back and clucks out loud in laughter.
"Hey! Don't laugh! We were kicked, laughed at, and chased out by so many of those uptight universities! We were lucky to get just one!", Egonnsanps at the two creatures. After sighing in frustration he states, "Anyhow, let's just hope that these six people meet our criteria during the interviews. Headhunting is harder than it looks."
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