With Theo starting junior high school along with Peter and Milly this year, his day started a little different after breakfast. While Jacob and the other parents going to the shop would walk with them for a block or so. The new school was not in the same direction as the shop, so Theo, Milly and Peter would split off from the others and head to school alone each day.
Along the way they would meet up MJ and Jean who lived closer to the school. As for the school itself it was pretty standard for public schooling with the exception of their science department. The science department was a pilot program for Midtown High School and the top students in the program earned a place at the high school.
As the first week of the new school year set in, Theo turned his attention to a few other programs he was working on. With Tony's cell phones being almost everywhere in the United States at this point, Theo started actively searching for bad actors. He already used Vibe to help find people, but with access to the information he collected from cell phones. Well it made his job even easier.
Theo's first targets were anyone who abused kids, since that could lead to the kids doing the same thing when they become older. It wasn't just sexual abuse he targeted, but physical and mental abuse as well. Depending on what the person was doing to kids would end up determining how Theo handled them.
For child predators, Theo would confirm with a mind technique that made a person tell the truth. It was a technique that wasn't new, but never really used because most ninjas could resist it. But normal people and for that matter normal humans couldn't. So Theo used it on anyone they captured to find out the truth. Sure he could use Inoichi and his clan members to scan people's memories, but he didn't want them to have to deal with the aftermath of seeing stuff like that.
Once guilt was confirmed, they found out who the victims were to get them help and counseling before they disposed of the perpetrator. Theo did make sure to check if the perpetrators were originally victims themselves. While it was found out that some of them were abused when they were kids, they were still put down. And if the person who assaulted them was still alive, they would be found and also put down after it was confirmed and any other possible victims were found.
At first it wasn't a big deal as a handful of random people started disappearing from the United States and other parts of the world. Even when people who might be missed because of their jobs disappeared, like a police officer or important doctor at a hospital, it would only get a local news story at most. But then important people started to disappear like priests of large churches, company owners, CEO's, movie stars, sports stars, government officials and even singers.
It was about a month into the program and the news was going crazy about the issue. The conspiracies that people came up with about the missing people ranged from aliens to some crazy meta humans running wild with their powers. All that stopped when a website appeared that Theo named "Confessions of Guilt."
He made sure that it wasn't tied to Vibe, Revival or anything else he was doing. Since he knew the site was going to cause issues and he was proved right within minutes of it going live. The site hosted edited confessions from all of the people who disappeared along with a sentence of judgment. Since the judgements were always death, the mainstream news media called the site heinous and called for it to be taken down or blocked by the government. They also demanded the people behind the site be found and brought to justice.
Within a few days of the site being live it spread like wildfire and while the mainstream media still denounced the people behind it. The general populace seemed happy about it and even supported it. Sure there were outliers who copied the media's view point and even others who stated the people should have been given a fair trial. But Theo ignored all of that and just kept working with his teams.
As for the other people who mentally or physically abused kids, they were also collected and the severe cases were also executed. For the lesser cases they were still recorded and dropped off at local police stations with evidence. As for the victims, statements were recorded for the evidence and provided to the police. The victims themselves were given mental therapy by Inoichi or a clan member along with medical treatment if needed.
That wasn't to say Theo and his team let the abusers off to be handled by the police and criminal justice system. No, his team still took their pound of flesh. Someone broke a kid's arm? Leg? Beat them till they couldn't go to school for a few days?
Those people would get the same treatment back, then be quickly healed before it happened a couple more times to make sure the person had a good idea what it felt like. Sure they probably went a little far on a couple of people and turned them into gibbering messes. But it was a price Theo gladly paid to make sure those people learned a proper lesson.
That wasn't the only program Theo started during that time. He also started taking over the for profit prisons in America. Sure he had to use genjutsu on the owners or board members of the companies to take them over. And sure he didn't really give them proper compensation for the companies either. But Theo didn't think any of them deserved it for the way they handled the prisons in the first place.
His prison reform system wasn't something that would work quickly unfortunately, and would take years to fix. But when it was done, he planned to have prison no longer act as a revolving door for prisoners. Once someone left the prison system he wanted them to enter back into society and find a proper place there.
That ment he needed to set up programs to help educate and train inmates so they could get jobs once they were out. He also needed to get each prisoner their own personal room and have them treated more as people instead of animals trapped in cells. Better living arrangements, more freedom, better meals and personal space would all help. Along with therapy and basic education for most of them.
Theo also used the opportunity to find out if people were truly guilty or not. By using the truth technique they slowly went through inmates and for people who were truly innocent, Theo quickly figured out how to get them released and even compensated them for the false imprisonment. For the handful of people who spent decades, Theo even cloned them into younger bodies.
As for the people serving life sentences or on death row… Well if they were truly guilty, they ended up having accidents pretty quickly. The same thing happened to rapists and child abusers who also had horrible accidents within months of Theo taking over the prisons. At least the news apparently didn't find any of the prison issues noteworthy since it wasn't reported on at all even after a couple of months passed. Then again people were still distracted by the website he created and the people he kept adding to it.
While Theo tried to keep everything disconnected from himself with those two projects. One person figured it out pretty quickly and called him about it within weeks of the website launching. Theo picked up the phone and used his Ezekiel voice as he asked, "What's going on Tony?"
"What the hell are you doing?"
Theo glanced at the weight bench he was sitting on as he asked, "In the middle of a workout… Why?"
"I didn't mean right now, I am talking about the new website you created. I'm not against it, but do you have any idea what kinda shit show is going on right now within certain three letter government agencies?"
Theo smirked to himself as he said, "Of course I do. I'm monitoring all of them in case they try to do something stupid."
It sounded like Tony breathed out a sigh of relief before he asked in concern, "Wait… You hacked into all of their servers?"
Theo chuckled before he said, "I did that years ago… But even if I didn't, all of them have one of your cell phones with my software on it. I am monitoring everyone with a cell phone in real time."
Tony's breathing became slightly irregular before he asked, "You aren't just using cell phones for data collection, are you?"
"If by data collection, you mean that I pick up everything that is said within a certain distance of each phone. Or that any time a camera isn't blocked it streams videos to a server so it can be scanned for information. Then yes, it's only used for data collection."
"That is a massive invasion of privacy! Are you insane?!? If someone found out what you're doing, it wouldn't just affect you… I would also be blamed and thrown under the bus for your actions." Tony said with a hint of anger in his voice.
"How do you think I found so many people being human trash?"
Tony paused for a few moments as he thought of Ezekiel's words before he said, "That won't help us if someone finds out."
"The way I've encrypted everything and set it up, no one should ever find out. That being said, I've also set precautions in place if something happens."
"I hope not, I really don't wanna deal with that kinda backlash." Tony said with an annoyed tone.
"Anyways, did you need something or were you just calling about the website?"
"Me and Pepper wanna go out, could you come do that thing again?" Tony asked immediately.
Theo shook his head before he said, "Give me half an hour and I will be there."
"Great!" Tony said before the phone disconnected and Theo shook his head before he went back to finish his workout.
By the time Christmas break rolled around, the world already settled into a slightly new norm. The media attention on the website died out and while people still voiced negative opinions about murdering people without due process. No one could do anything to prevent it and so the only thing that happened was if someone famous appeared on the site, there would be new articles about it.
As for the government's that wanted the site taken down, they gave up because they weren't able to do anything. Sure it made people suspicious because the site was as impervious to attack as Vibe and Revival. But Theo didn't care, since there was no proof the sites were all made by him or connected in any way.
Another thing that finished around that time was Fisk's first building. It was completed ahead of schedule by a month and also under the expected budget. As for finding residents, they came in droves once the apartments were listed on the market. Fisk took Ezekiel's advice on the expected tenants and only picked newer families with young children. Since all of the apartments were bigger than normal, it worked out perfectly for all of them.
With the first project completed to Ezekiel's standards, he decided to give Fisk another test. This time it wasn't a remodel of an existing building, it was to create an entirely new building from the ground up. The land itself was already empty and pretty massive in size, taking an entire city block. Ezekiel gave the land over to the man along with a bonus for completing the first job.
For the second job he planned to let Fisk design the whole thing, come up with the budget and then present it to him. Afterwards if Ezekiel agreed, he would give Fisk the money for the budget along with all the permits needed to do the job correctly. As he waited for Fisk to come up with the design, Christmas eve arrived and Ezekiel went to do his normal routine with a helper this time.