Mr. Cas sat looking out the window of the tallest building the world had ever seen. He had it built in just a matter of months. It was easy, using all the powers of the people below and sometimes above him. Super strength, flight, intelligence just to name a few. Things came together quickly. Cas thought about his fortune. How just two years ago he was dirt poor, tinkering in his garage (a shack really) hooked onto his single wide trailer. Then everything changed.
A pharmaceutical corporation was hacked three weeks earlier. Probably by some teenager but we blamed China anyways. Soon, who did what didn't matter.
Of course all of this information was encrypted. People were mildly interested in the data they couldn't see until the first document was cracked. A man in Kansas who had lost his wife, his house and nearly his job buying video card setups in the bit-coin rush of 2012 decided to turn all that processing power towards a single random document. Three weeks later, the world knew of the cure for arthritis. That was all it took. Millions of computers all over the world connected over specially designed software and began breaking encryptions almost faster than they could be published.
As the volumes of testing, data and illegal experimentation poured onto the web people could care less who let it out. Cures for cancer, the cure for AIDS, treatments for everything from Alzheimer's to diabetes with 100% success rates.... Financial reports stating that it was financially prudent to continue treating these diseases than it was to cure them. Any of them.
Within a month every file was opened. Every file but one. Even with computers worldwide working on this one single file the encryption was far stronger than the rest. At 2:28am (MST) the world changed. The final document had been opened. China gladly took credit this time. Inside was the most horrible human experimentation a person could imagine. The details were sickening to even the most jaded of us. They stretched all the way back to WW2. These experiments were conveniently left out of history books. These experiments had never stopped.
What was revealed was that all humans have a "superpower" of some sort. Some are indeed super. Some are pretty lackluster. Crushing buildings (possibly cities) with your thoughts to blowing out a candle across the room with your will and everything in between. After 70 years of torturing convicts, orphans and the homeless it was finally discovered that an absolute perfect level of vitamins and minerals triggered the gene responsible. This, it turns out, is much easier said than done.
Too much vitamin C. No dice. Too little vitamin D. Try again tomorrow.
Clinics were setup to dial people in just right and they worked well. For a short time. The levels had to remain constant. It wasn't just a one and done deal. As soon as something dropped too low or went to high, you were back to normal. A few people were crushed under cars showing off their super strength, others fell out of the sky while soaring in the clouds. Some even merged with walls while walking through them. It was a disaster. Then in came Mr. Cas.
As soon as the news broke Cas went to a clinic and had his levels adjusted just right. Anxiously he tried out his new superpower in the safety of the clinic. Focus.... Focus... FOCUS.... And then it happened, a pen slowly rolled across the desk and landed on the floor. Dumbfounded he looked at the doctor "Sorry Mr. Cas, about 0.03% of powers are very weak... They cant all be winners. Good luck, the nurse will see you out."
Head hung low Cas began the long walk back to the trailer park. Passing one of the million vitamin shops along the way he was struck with inspiration. The inspiration that would make him the most powerful man in the world even if he could only roll pencils around in his free time.
Walking into his small shack/workshop with a bag of vitamins that was going to this months rent he got to work. In two days he had a very crude prototype. The device would measure your levels and inject more vitamins if needed or a synthetic "barrier" if too much was detected. Superpowers had now been stabilized.
Two years into the future, Mr. Cas is in his tower. The device had of course been miniaturized, now only an implant that needed changed every few months. Against his board of directors he demanded that every person on the planet get them if they wished, if they could pay the price or not. And almost everybody did. What went unseen even by the super geniuses out there was every implant had a small tracker. Cas could see where every person on the planet was, what their name was, their power and time until recharge.
Watching out his window, some hot shot was flying around. 3000 feet up and he has to buzz my window non-stop he thought. Rolling a pencil back and forth on the table he brought up a computer screen. After a few key strokes the hot shot was targeted. With another the B-12 (the humor wasn't lost on him) barrier drug as they have taken to calling it rushed into fly boys system and just like that, he dropped like a rock.
A few more keystrokes and the entire world was on his screen represented by small green dots. The entire world was at his mercy.