Chapter Thirty-Six: The App that Saved the World

Chapter Thirty-Six

The App that Saved the World

It was Jill’s idea, really, but Admiral Nemo perfected it and put it into practice.  Obviously, they never discussed the project together.  I was the bridge between them.  Not that Jill would have necessarily objected to working with a supervillain, I mean, she lived with one after all.  That, and she half considered herself a supervillain, as well, I think, fancying herself a sort of failed trans Magneto without superpowers (if you’re into comic book villains).

The germ of the idea was simple.  That was all Jill.

Nemo wrote the algorithm and did all the coding and such.  He brought it to life.

Anton Minsk got the credit for the whole thing, of course.  He was a billionaire after all. A Russian oligarch always needs good publicity. And, this app got him publicity.  And made him a ton of dough to boot.  I made sure of one thing though, that Jill got a cut of the profits.  But, I think, I’m getting ahead of myself, narratively.

It was beautiful.  Seeing it change the world made me proud.  To be a part of something like that, it was breathtaking.  They said that humans couldn’t change, but the app proved them wrong.  Capitalism had become the tool of its own destruction.  A better world was possible.  It brought hope to a lot of people.

Not that any of it mattered, of course.  But, there, for a little while, it seemed like it would.  Maybe, it still could. Who knows?  The future is a funny thing, sometimes.  After all, there is only one thing that must happen.  And you can be damned sure, even more so than with death, taxes, or Thanos, it will.  It’s the only thing that is truly inevitable.  Because if that one thing doesn’t happen, nothing else will ever have happened.  Fucking bootstrap paradoxes and shit.  Nothing terrifies me more, and I hate the very though of it.

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Thirty-Five: An Autumn Morning in the Park

Chapter Thirty-Five

An Autumn Morning in the Park

It was early.  Seven AMish.   There was a Pokemon raid taking place in the gym at the fountain in the center of the garden in Washington Park, Albany, NY.  The morning chill was significant.  A slight smell of moldy leaves hung in the frosty, October morning air.  Jackie and Jill hurried across Madison Avenue into the park, trying to make the raid before the Pokemon fled.  Jackie remembered later that it was a Haunter.

There was nothing particularly special about that day.  No sign that anything different or unusual was about to transpire.  The flowers in the formal garden were starting to look tired.  End of the season tired.

Jackie and Jill had just made it into to formal garden proper when the thunder began.  It was instantly deafening.  And then the flashing lightning.  They were terrified.  What had begun as a quick Pokewalk in the park had turned into something else.

Obviously, they could not see the two speedsters battling.  But they did notice that at one moment they were standing under the giant tree and next they were over by the fountain; the tree having come crashing down right where they were.

Jill watched as I staggered away from them and fell down unconscious at the base of the Moses statue.

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Thirty-Four: (Chapter Title Redacted for Copyright Reasons)

Chapter Thirty Four

(Chapter Title Redacted for Copyright Reasons)

I haven’t talked about Zorro much, and there’s a couple of reasons for that, honestly.  One is copyright issues.  Even though the literary character of Zorro is now technically in the public domain, the owner of the character has somehow successfully sued anyone who would use the character in any form whatsoever.  So, the fact that our Zorro was a vigilante based on some pulp fiction character with tricky copyright issues, has made me, a noted supervillain hesitant to mention him.  Heck, I heard a story once from the Golden Speedster when he had me locked up in his little private prison in Dwarf Star Labs, that the copyright holders of the literary Zorro actually tried to sue the vigilante of the same name, because he had “Substantially copied the image and likeness of beloved literary character.”  The lawsuit went nowhere, of course, because no one knew who the real Zorro was.  But, the dude’s an integral part of the story, so I’ll just take my chances, but will note for the lawyers that this Zorro is a wholly new character who shares only a name, and certain wardrobe choices (that I will not elaborate on to try and keep everybody happy) with the aforementioned beloved literary character, who should by all rights be firmly in the public domain.  There, with all that bullshit out to the way, here we go.

Some early life tragedy must have turned a young man into the obsessed vigilante known as Zorro.  That much seems obvious.  Clearly the guy is rich and obsessed.  He has spent the better part of a decade battling crime in Chicago.  And he does it all without superpowers, which is impressive.  Unless you want to consider his money and willpower superpowers.

Anyway, about halfway through his run as a crimefighter, Prankster killed Zorro’s sidekick, Wonder Boy, and the dude took a dark turn.  You’ll see.

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Thirty-Three: Thick as a Brick

Chapter Thirty Three

Thick as a Brick

In 1972 the English progressive rock band Jethro Tull released their album, Thick as a Brick, a satirical jab at concept albums, consisting of one single song, broken into two album side length parts.  It was unironically considered a progressive rock masterpiece.

I had the song playing on my suit’s inboard sound system, thanks to a whispered command to Clarity.

“What to do you think of Tull?” I asked the Prankster.

“Tull?”

“Jethro Tull.  The British rock band.”

The bug-eyed mask just stared at me, expressing nothing, and unnerving me.

“You know, Aqualung, Bungle in the Jungle, Locomotive Breath….”

He turned away for a moment, “Locomotive Breath is my jam,” he said.  “And God, he’s stole the handle, there’s no way to slow down.,” he sung in that terrifying, breathy whisper, all while playing air guitar. “Though, right down, if you asked me, I would have to say that my favorite Tull song, the one I’m really feeling is Bouree’ which is just a delightful instrumental jam on aclassical piece, what is that Bach, I think?  Johann Sebastian, of course.”

The guy was always full of surprises.

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m listening to Thick as a Brick right now.”

“Cool.  That’s a good one.”

We fell silent for a while.  I took out a joint.

It was a cold night in New Bedford, Mass. as we waited for the arrival of a shipment of smuggled tech aboard a commercial clamming boat.

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Thirty-Two: I Don't Think Like You

Chapter Thirty Two

I Don’t Think Like You

I don’t think like you.  No speedster does.  We can’t afford to.  When the world is going by like a superluminal blur you can’t be all “hum de hum dum.”  No offense.  But that’s what we think of what you all call thinking.  Which is to say, not much.  Our brains must process information at fantastically impossible speeds.  It is hard for us to think as slowly as you do.

Now, add memory.  Yeah, spoiler alert, I do evidentially get it back, and I remember everything.  Every goddamn thing.  But, anyway, memory.

Memories.  We don’t remember things chronologically.  I don’t.  You don’t.  We just experience memories about disparate events at different in our lives.  That Fourth of July picnic in your teens.  Christmas morning when you were ten.  When your college girlfriend dumps you.  That time at work.  Whatever.  Whenever.

So, my thoughts are going infinitely fast, littered with memories dancing here and there.  Ripping me apart at a thousand times the speed of light.  It’s all very disjointed and quantum. The way I’m telling you my story is indicative of the way I think and remember.

So, there’s that.

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Thirty-One: High the Memory - Des Vu Revisited

Chapter Thirty-One

High the Memory - Des Vu Revisited

Once you are sufficiently cynical and broken, having undergone over the long course of life significant transformation from that hopeful and optimistic youngster to a tired and weary realist, wracked by regret, guilt, and shame; only then, can you experience memory as the painful psychic attack it truly is.

I’ve already talked about Des Vu, those poignant and powerful moments when the looking forward of the younger person seems for a moment to meet with the looking back of their elder self.

In its most extreme form, the elder finds themselves in the point of view of their younger selves, fully immersed in that moment, while the younger version finds themselves inhabiting the life of the future.  This produces an extreme longing and existential regret in the consciousness, and simultaneously, a deep feeling of disappointment over failure to reach one’s dreams, and a taste of the call towards oblivion.  It eats you up.  And the more bad shit you’ve done, the more it hurts.  And, if you’re a fucking supervillain, you’ve probably done a lot of bad shit.  God knows I have.

And in every nanosecond you are your young, recently married self, relaxing with your new wife without a care in the world smoking pot and watching Saturday morning cartoons, and then you’re in the time where you left her twenty years later because you couldn’t handle how crazy she was getting, and she killed herself.  You feel that despair, confusion, loss, denial, guilt, over and over, as you’ve reconnected with the strong bond you had just long enough to bring out fresh regrets and pain.

Looking back, you find that you let everyone you every loved down, time and time again.  And it fucking stabs at you.  Over and over again.

It fucks you up. 

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Thirty: The Algorithm

Chapter Thirty

The Algorithm

Admiral Nemo was a dolphin.  He was also, largely considered by those who could reasonably judge such matters, and who knew of his existence, as the smartest being on the planet.

Imagine if Stephen Hawking was born a dolphin, but instead of physics, he had a pretty thorough understanding of everything.

Nemo was born in a research laboratory, more on that later.  His intelligence was genetically augmented.  He had telekinesis and telepathy.  His makers named him Nemo after the Pixar fish movie, but he came to prefer Verne’s anti-social anti-hero as an inspiration.

The biggest part of his plan involved and algorithm that he had created.  Or, at least, that’s what he told us, and we believed him.

The Algorithm was based on machine learning, across multiple objectives, with the neat benefit of being able to manipulate human psychology and behavior on a macro level.  So much of that was a lie, of course.  It always had a single objective.  But, how could we have known that?

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt

Chapter Twenty-Nine: My Second Encounter with the Golden Speedster (His First)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

My Second Encounter with the Golden Speedster (His First)

Will was on patrol, dashing down the streets of Philly at hyperkinetic speeds, in the early twilight of s winter’s evening.  I knew he would be there.  It was time we met.  That is to say, it was time for him to learn of my existence.  I figured we’d start him out easy, with just a mysterious appearance in his city.

Making the right sort of entrance is important is a case like this, where one was meeting their arch-rival for the first time.

At this point in the story, Will is not aware that other speedsters exist yet.  So, I was going to be a big surprise for him.  Heck, he had only been operating as the Golden Speedster for a few months.

I ran up the side of the PFSF Building and watched the lightning trail behind Will as he completed a grid pattern through the city.  It looked like he was looking for someone or something.

“Clarity?  Do we have idea of what Golden boy is up to?”

 “Based on historical data, it seems the Golden Speedster is searching for any sign of Lieutenant Chill, his first actual supervillain rival,” came the pleasant voice that always answered my questions.

“Do we have any idea where this Chill fellow is?” I asked.

“Actually, he is at this moment, at the Irish pub on South Street.”

“Cool.”

So, I dashed over to South Street, grabbed Lieutenant Chill is his street clothes from the bar, and dropped him right in front of Will.  Chill had fainted.

Will stopped immediately, hesitant and confused.

“Who?”

“Hey, bud,” I responded.  “I heard you were looking for this guy, so I thought I would do you a solid on our first meeting.”

“Why are you dressed just like me, except in black?”

“Honestly, I can’t really pull off gold, bud.”

“Are you a speedster too?”

This guy was so naïve.  He had so much to learn.

“My friend, I am the fastest speedster.  Anyway, I gotta dash.  It’s nice to meet you, Will.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Your name.  Shit, I know everything about you.  I know your address.  Where you work.  I know about your friends at Red Dwarf Labs.  I know where your girlfriend lives.  I know your social security number, bud.”

“Who are you?”

“You’ll see.”

Then I took off like a bat out of hell.  Will tried to follow me, but in two tenths of a second, I had lost him.  He was so slow this early in his career.  It was kind of sad.

(c) Copyright 2020 by Diana Hignutt