The mid-to-late 1930s were a period of deceptive calm in America, a fragile peace that settled over a nation still reeling from the Depression. But across the Atlantic, the drumbeats of war grew louder with each passing month. In Germany, a resurgent military, backed by a nationalist ideology, began its inexorable march. In the Far East, Japan's expansionism signaled an end to the era of global stability. While world leaders engaged in a desperate, last-ditch attempt at appeasement, Damon Hemsworth saw only one truth: the world was a powder keg, and the fuse had already been lit.
In the polished silence of the Hemsworth corporate office, the conversations were not about diplomacy or politics, but about logistics and capital. The global economic recovery, for many, was a time to breathe a sigh of relief. For Damon, it was a crucial window of opportunity. He was a general preparing his army for the next great war, a war not of men, but of materiel.
The Hemsworth Bank had already begun its crucial, two-sided strategy. On the surface, Arthur Hemsworth, a man now in his sixties, was seen as a pillar of American industrial patriotism, quietly providing immense loans to the governments of Great Britain and France, ensuring their ability to rearm. But Damon, through a series of shell companies and a network of neutral Swiss financiers, was also making strategic investments in key German industries—steel manufacturers, chemical companies, and heavy machinery firms. The purpose was not to aid the Nazi war effort, but to ensure that no matter who emerged victorious from the coming conflict, the Hemsworth family would be on both sides of the balance sheet.
Damon's private meetings with the heads of his industrial pillars were terse and to the point. He saw no need for long explanations.
"William," he told William Thorne in a private telegraph. "Begin immediate retooling. I want our entire Thorne Motors' production capacity shifted from passenger cars to heavy military transport vehicles. I want prototypes for a new class of armored truck that can be mass-produced. There will be no more civilian models for the foreseeable future. The order is immediate and non-negotiable."
Thorne, now a man accustomed to the boy's uncanny foresight, began the conversion without question. Within a year, the Thorne factories, still humming with the efficiency of the assembly line, were producing not passenger cars but hulking, six-wheel military trucks and half-tracks, a crucial piece of the logistical puzzle for the war to come.
At Apex Fuels, Damon's orders were equally direct. "Dr. Elias, secure every barrel of oil from our Middle Eastern concessions. I want our refineries working at maximum capacity. We will not be caught with a single barrel of crude that is not refined and ready for sale." Damon's foresight, a curse and a blessing, told him that a war that spanned the globe would be a war for fuel, and he would be the one to provide it. The oil from Apex would power the planes, the ships, and the tanks of a new kind of war.
The two newest pillars of the empire, Hemsworth Airways and Hemsworth Labs, were Damon's most important long-term strategic assets. He was not just preparing them for the war; he was using the war to accelerate their development into a new class of technology.
For Hemsworth Airways, Damon's plan was simple and ruthless. He had been quietly lobbying the government for years, making the case for a new class of military aircraft—not just fighters and bombers, but large, transport planes. When the war finally broke out, he was the only one with a plan and a prototype. The Hemsworth Condor, the first pressurized-cabin passenger plane in the world, was immediately repurposed into a heavy military transport. The company secured a massive government contract to ferry troops, supplies, and diplomats across the Atlantic. For Damon, the contract was not about profit; it was about operational experience. The pilots and mechanics of Hemsworth Airways would gain invaluable experience in long-range, transatlantic flight, and by the end of the war, his company would be the only one with the expertise to run a global passenger airline. The Airlines pillar would be a monopoly, built on the back of military necessity.
The most critical asset of all was the one that no one knew existed. Hemsworth Labs, still a secretive research facility in New Jersey, was the single most valuable piece of Damon's empire. When the war broke out, Damon's agents were already in place. The military, desperate for any advantage, was convinced to fund a massive, new research program for advanced electronics and secure communications. Damon's team, led by Dr. Elias, was already decades ahead of the curve. They had not just developed a better vacuum tube; they had the intellectual property for a rudimentary solid-state transistor. Damon knew that the future of information was not in large, bulky tubes, but in small, efficient, and powerful chips. He used the war to get the government to pay for his most ambitious research. While the world was at war, Hemsworth Labs was building the first, private foundation for the computer age.
The news from Europe grew grimmer with each passing day. The invasion of Poland, the fall of France, the Battle of Britain—each headline was a gut punch to Arthur Hemsworth. He saw the suffering, the destruction, the waste of human life, and he felt the weight of his own family's immense, blood-soaked wealth.
"My God, Damon," Arthur said one evening, looking out over the New York skyline, a city that was a beacon of peace in a world at war. "The world is on fire, and we are profiting from every moment of it. The loans we have made… they are a tax on suffering. The planes we are building… they are ferrying men to their deaths. I cannot bear it."
Damon looked at his father, his face showing a flicker of cold, hard sympathy. "Father, the world has always been on fire. We are simply the ones who sell the water. The alternative is to be burned to the ground with the rest of them. Our job is to be the rock in the storm. Our legacy is not in the profits we make, but in the empire we build. We are the ones who will rebuild the world after this is over."
The final moment of truth came on December 7, 1941. The news came in a panicked phone call from a friend in Washington. Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The Japanese had struck. America was now in the war. The rest of the nation was filled with shock and rage. For Damon, it was the final, critical piece of the puzzle. The United States was now in the war, and the full, unfettered power of the Hemsworth Conglomerate could be brought to bear.
Damon walked to his father's desk, and placed his hand on his shoulder. "It has begun, Father. We are no longer bystanders. We are now the primary engine of the Allied war effort. Our factories, our banks, our logistics network—they will be the tools that win this war. We have spent two decades preparing for this. The world has given us the ultimate test. And we will pass with flying colors."
Arthur looked at his son, seeing not a boy but a cold, calculating man who had seen the future and had bent the world to his will. "At what cost, Damon? At what cost to our souls?"
Damon's face hardened, his eyes as cold as stone. "The cost of building a dynasty, Father. A dynasty that will live forever. The war is not a tragedy. It is a crucible. And we are the only ones who are strong enough to forge a new world from its ashes."