Whirlwind

Michael and Anna entered the building and went to the eighth floor. There, the girl whisked into her apartment, leaving Michael alone with his thoughts.

"Thank you," he whispered, looking at the door she hid behind. The gentle Anna was the best person to set him straight and remind him that he was loved. His days of solitude were over.

"How was it?" dad asked when Michael stepped inside.

"Not as great as I'd hoped. Much better than I expected."

Vladimir grinned, "Just fine, then?"

"Just fine, dad."

"Good. I'll settle your mother. You deal with the fallout." He placed a hand on his son's shoulder and gave him a deep nod.

'I wish you didn't grow up so fast,' he thought.

In his room, Michael turned on the computer. A few hours have passed, and the video was at the beginning stages of going viral.

The first thing he checked was if the governments had reacted to the video. There were no official statements from the presidents of the most developed countries. No breaking news, no conspiracy theories.

Was it going to stay this peaceful, or was it a calm before the storm?

Then, Michael made sure that none of the channels he used to distribute the video were at risk. The app stores still sold the games and the North Gaming official site worked fine. What surprised him were the YouTube channels.

All three of them had an explosive rise in popularity. Michael couldn't access the view count on his site and in-game without Dimitri's help, but on YouTube, the number of views had already hit over three million.

He scrolled down to see the comments.

The top one read, "To those of you discrediting the video, shame on you. You have no idea what I've gone through for the past few days. I've lost almost a foot in height. You can't imagine the horror of realizing your clothes are getting too big, your chair becoming too high, not recognizing the way your own hands look… I thought I was dying. I was afraid to fall asleep because I didn't know how different I would be in the morning. After hearing Michael's explanations, I realized that I was subconsciously using my Qi. In the last three hours, I gained back an inch and a half. Words can't express my gratitude, Mr. North. You probably saved my life."

Michael hurriedly checked his glory points. He had gained almost 700,000 since he posted the video! In just a few hours, he earned enough to get rid of all his disorders and purchase many more levels of Tai Chi!

"Glory, notifications!" he exclaimed.

When he read the string of lines, his eyes were like saucers.

"400 glory points earned for uniting a family."

"1000 glory points earned for preventing a suicide."

"100 glory points earned for easing fears."

"1500 glory points earned for indirectly saving a life."

"200 glory points earned for reconciling loved ones."

"30 glory points earned for helping regain confidence."

Michael was speechless.

He had turned off notifications before in the Customization menu. He expected a large wave of glory points, but the reality of it shook Michael to his core.

The moral code came at the right time. Hadn't Michael agreed to formulate a maxim for himself, these points would've been cut in half.

Helping people was rather profitable!

He kept reading comments, and a smile formed on his lips.

"Thank you so much! God bless!"

"Ha-ha, guys, I'm gonna be a superhero!"

"I tried it just now, and nothing happened. Fake!"

"Bro, not everyone can be like us. I won't say too much, but Michael's words are the truth."

"Ahaha, previous poster is an Alter, confirmed!"

"What bullshit is this? Are you all children playing a game? My phone refused to let me play Angry Birds until I watched this stupid video! Goddamn scam!"

"Graphic designer here. The video is doctored, you can all disperse."

"I disagree. This young man lifted a bed above his head, which means there were no wires. He jumped on the ceiling, too. How do you doctor that? As much as it pains me to admit, I'm starting to believe this is real."

"Michael is the best!"

"Alters, unite!"

"This dude is Spider-man, LOL."

"Whoever believes this is insane."

"Whoever doesn't is stupid!"

The commenters were getting more and more active. Whenever Michael refreshed the page, a dozen new ones appeared.

Not all of them were positive. There were nay-sayers and stubborn deniers. But there were also thankful comments from people who used to be scared or suffered from unknowingly activating their powers.

As the video got more popular, the comments got louder too. Some began swearing and flaming, others wrote in capital letters to draw attention. Michael sighed, satisfied with the outcome. When the governments admitted the truth, all the trolls would hide away.

In his past world, Michael studied marketing. He was used to evaluating his decisions in terms of profit. That was how he came up with referencing the Chaos comet in the first Angry Birds game and timed the Android version's release with his interview on The Breakfast Show.

This time, if he missed the opportunity to enter the public's eye, he would kick himself for years.

The computer chirped. Dimitri was asking to drop by and talk in person.

"Grab Alex on your way here, we'll have a company meeting," Michael replied.

…

Meanwhile, in Great Britain, a shell-shocked young girl just finished watching the video.

"He's like me. There are others like me."

The walls in her room were covered with posters of rockstars. Textbooks, plush toys and dried-out bottles of nail polish were strewn across the floor. She sat on the messy bed, gaping at the revelations in the video.

She had high, aristocratic cheekbones and shoulder-length raven hair. Comfortable, baggy clothes hid a curvy figure sculpted by many generations' worth of perfect genes.

The girl bit her lip and squinted, focusing on Michael's face. "Gee, this guy, I really can't read him!"

Suddenly, she laughed in delight as her fingers danced on the keyboard.

…

In an ordinary office building in Moscow, a thin grim-faced man sat at the head of a long banquet table. To his left and right, two dozen men and women were waiting for his decision.

Behind him, the projector showed a teenager with a wooden-framed bed above his head.

"So, you're telling me he's lying?" the man sighed.

This Michael North turned out to be a malignant star, possibly setting Project Indigo back months. They had previously identified him as a healing-type Alter, but he outed himself as a strength-type now.

"Yes, sir. We believe there is a 78% chance Healer has falsified the extent of his abilities. We recommend an interview."

"Easy for you to say!" their superior laughed. "Snatching him from under Graves's nose, do you think I'm an idiot? There is no one in the world capable of that."

At this table, an interview meant an intensive interrogation on Russian soil.

Another analyst exclaimed, "We must know about his powers! If we've been looking at things from the wrong perspective, then our months of research are for nothing!"

The thin man shut the loud analyst up with a glare.

A woman spoke up, "Sir, he's right. The phenomenon of two superpowers coexisting in the same body, it's unheard of! Right now, Healer is tremendously valuable to our scientists. If he is indeed dual-powered, we could potentially replicate that genetic trait. And we all know what that means."

The analysts around the table concurred.

"The chance of him being in possession of such a trait is 63%," added the math lover.

The thin head analyst sighed, "I have no authority to act in this situation. This has to go through the president."

Under the fervent looks of his subordinates, he got up and walked out of the office, already dialing president Myshkin's schedule planner.