LORE24 ENTRY #51 – Supers Month #20 – Maria Tempest

 

From the personal journal of Delia Emmerson, Star Reporter of Channel 9 News…

 

Is it possible for a place to be more shady than the Edgewater Institute?  I’m not sure, but I’d wager that the Tempest Grand Academy is a strong contender for it.

And what about Maria Tempest, the owner and administrator of the TGA?  She’s just as beautiful as her sister Jennifer, and has just as forceful a personality, perhaps even more so.  She is not as icy as Jennifer in terms of temperament as I’ve determined, but she can be just as strict and unaccepting of nonsense.  I can absolutely attest to the fact that I get the same sense of awe that I felt with Jennifer during our official interview and tour of the TGA facilities.  That’s the second puff piece I’ve written about the Tempests this year…I’d better be careful, or someone’s going to accuse me of going soft on them.

I suppose I’ll start with Maria herself.  Publicly, she is a reputable businesswoman, well regarded in Sentinel City and beyond, who prefers a quieter and less intense occupation than, say, Jennifer or another of the sisters, Amelia.  She seems more playful than Jennifer, more willing to joke or openly tease, but has a no-nonsense attitude underlying it all.  I get the impression that she can be an absolutely strict disciplinarian when the situation calls for it, and that she’s no stranger to such matters.  She attends many of the same meetings as Jennifer regarding the Edgewater Institute’s business, and is listed as being on its board, though she tends not to be involved overmuch.  There does seem to be some amount of overlap regarding the clients of Edgewater and the TGA, so there is much more to the story that I’ve yet to uncover.  I feel like there may be a deeper bond between these two than the rest of their sisters, I just haven’t been able to confirm the nature of this bond.  Twins, perhaps, though available records aren’t conclusive.

In her personal life, Maria has recently started dating Misha Kyle, the owner and chief designer at Latex Leopard Limited, whom she met during a meeting at Edgewater.  The two seem happy, spending a lot of time together outside of work, though much of it is behind the closed doors and high fences at the administrator’s residence on the grounds of the TGA facility outside of Sentinel City proper.  Prior to her involvement with the Tempest family, Kyle’s record looks clean and innocent enough, though there was one blip a few weeks before she met the Tempest sisters involving a very poorly documented account of an assault, maybe even a kidnapping?  There were no legal records beyond this, and whoever the detectives were who handled the situation completely botched it…or were intentionally hiding something?  Perhaps a lead for another time.

Misha just happens to supply the uniforms for the Edgewater staff as well as some of the more intense restraints for the superpowered patients.  Is there more to this relationship than it seems?  I have no doubts in my mind about it.  Following the contract with Edgewater, 3L’s sales skyrocketed, and they immediately purchased and implemented expanded production facilities.  I would not be surprised if the Tempests were using 3L as a way to launder some of their secret funds; no proof yet, but that’s one of the many angles I’m looking at.  

But what of the TGA?  What exactly goes on there?  Officially, the Tempest Grand Academy is a private education facility catering to the wealthy, like a fancy finishing school from the old days, teaching people how to be proper lords and ladies and the like.  It would seem to be a bit of an anachronism in that regard, but as its public earnings reports indicate, in the five years since the facility opened, its profits have steadily risen.  As I suspected, that simply wasn’t the whole story.  Who would believe that many people would be interested in learning proper social graces these days, after all?

Speaking to known staff members led to little in the way of useful information; they had nothing negative to say about anything that went on there, and seemed well schooled in keeping secrets.  I discovered that the facility’s chief physician had previously came from Edgewater, but little else on that front.  I attempted my own information gathering at the facility, but the nature of the grounds make it very private.  Though it’s in the hills outside of Sentinel City, the woods have been cleared away a good distance from the high walls and even higher foliage inside them, and the whole area has been designated a no-fly zone for drones, so I couldn’t manage to get an aerial view.  I managed to get some long-range photos of some of the students, but couldn’t find anything substantial about them or their relations with the Tempest family.

Compelled to find the truth of the mater, I reached out to Maria Tempest directly.  I was honestly a little surprised that she accepted my request for an interview and a tour of the facility so readily; she even picked me up herself so that we could get to know one another on the drive to the school.  Again, like with Jennifer, Maria’s very presence is incredible to experience.  I could not help but be enthralled by the passion she showed for the school, of her dedication to the students to make them the best they could be.  But what was she making them into?  In spite of what I reported in my official piece, I’m not entirely sure myself.  The whole weekend I spent there went by in a blur, only my interview is really clear in my memory, as was the tour of the main school building.  I know there are other buildings there, dormitories, a riding stable, even kennels for keeping pets, some quite exotic, but the details are vague (though Maria’s cat, Sheba, stands out as most well-behaved and beautiful pet in my mind).  Of the students I encountered there, all seemed to be very well mannered and confident in themselves, each displaying at least the demeanor of a dominant, and in some cases, aggressive, business executive.  

So is the TGA just an elite business school then, training the next generation of elite, corporate executives?  Perhaps…and perhaps not.  It’s frustrating me to no end that I can’t seem to recall a lot of the details during my visit there, but every time I try to think over what happened, I get a sense of fond longing, almost a pleasant, peaceful nostalgia, like a dog curling up by a fireplace at the feet of its master, that kind of cozy feeling.  The more time I spend in the presence of the Tempests the more overwhelmed I seem to be by them.  It’s dangerous business; I should probably just stop trying to dig into their affairs, and yet, I’m compelled by my own need to find the truth, whatever the cost.  Anything for a scoop, after all!