Chapter Sixty: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Chapter Sixty

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

It’s a weird little trait of our mammalian brains, that we spend a lot more time thinking about the stimuli near us, be they people, places, activities, what have you, they we do thinking about the stuff that isn’t.  It’s related in some ways, I think, to object impermanence, which is the idea that things don’t exist for newborn’s if they aren’t in front of their faces.  We only lose that a bit.  Like, when you’re away at college, and you’re all about partying, and a little studying, and you almost never think about your family at home.  When was the last time you thought about that cousin you haven’t seen since you were kids?  When you’re on a tropical vacation, relaxing on some Jamaican beach, sipping rum drinks out of coconuts, you aren’t thinking about your poor old dad, struggling to get by without your help.  It is this property of our brains that leads us to make all sorts of selfish and thoughtless decisions, and erodes our better natures by the repetition of this thoughtlessness.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Faster-Than-Light Assassin Strikes Again!

Chapter Fifty-Nine

The Faster-Than-Light Assassin Strikes Again!

I had just stepped outside the warehouse in Baltimore.  My head spinning from what Nemo had just told me.  The air still had its early morning chill, the early June warmth hadn’t taken over the day yet.  It invigorated me, helped me clear my head.  I was lost in my thoughts, which were moving at superluminal speeds.  My eyes looked over the docks, the boats, the harbor, the Baltimore skyline, and the puffy white clouds that dotted the clear blue vista up above, but my brain was everywhere else, it felt like anyway.

A felt the knife slip just under my heart this time.  It came close.  I felt the pain and knew instantly what had happened.  I caught a glimpse of my assailant this time.  A dark blur.  Focus.  A man dressed in a costume identical to mine, except it was a deep indigo rather than black.  A man just as fast as me, or at least nearly.

I recovered my balance before I hit the ground from the attack.  I was on my feet, badly hurt, but still mobile.

I regarded my attacker.

“Hi, Alex,” he said.  He sounded like Will.

“Will?”

He laughed but didn’t respond.

“What’s up with the new suit?” I asked.

“So many questions, Alex.  I thought you were smarter than this.”

It was definitely Will’s voice.  I was sure of it.

I knew with my wound; I would not be able to take him.  He had every advantage.

“Let me finish you, Alex.  Let it all end here,” he said almost pleading, holding the knife with my blood dripping off.  “So many terrible things are going to happen.  But we can stop them, right now.”

“Will, what has happened?  What’s going to happen?” I begged him.  I was terrified of him.  There was something about him that was deeply disquieting.  Disturbing.

“What the fuck happened to you, man?”

He paused and looked up.  “You have no idea, dude, what’s in store for us.  I have to stop it.  It’s the only way.  I’m sorry.”

I took off.  I ran as hard and as fast as I could.  I ran across the multiverse, traveled through time, and kept running.  When I finally stopped, I had no idea where or when I was.  But then, neither did the F-T-L assassin, or some future fucked up version of Will, or whoever he was.

I was lost, alone, but safe.  I still had no idea WTF was going on, and it was really starting to bother me.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Selling England by the Pound

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Selling England by the Pound

If I had to rank the great prog albums of Genesis, from worst to best, I’d go like this:

First, they’re not really Genesis on that first album, so I don’t count it, also, I don’t count anything after Steve Hackett, their brilliant guitarist leaves, some gems sure, but not proggy enough for our purposes.  I do generally prefer the Peter Gabriel fronted Genesis to the Phil Collins fronted Genesis.

 So:

7. Trespass

6. Wind and Wuthering

5. Nursery Crime

4. Trick of the Tail

3. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

2.Foxtrot

And the best Genesis album is 1. Selling England by the Pound.

Now, most people who have an opinion about such things, prefer Foxtrot or Lamb.  I know what I like, and I like what I like.

Try and remember that, it’s going to be important later.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Happy 420 From Dr. Velocity and the Gang!

I'm sure Dr. Velocity would be mad at me if I didn't wish his avid readers a very Happy 420!  I'm sure our boy, Alex would be kicking back smoking the dank and listening to early Genesis albums, but what you do is up to you.

So, moving forward, looks like I'll be dropping new chapters on Tuesdays and Saturdays (could be late Monday or Friday too), rather then the whenever schedule I've adopted here during the quarantine.  I'm doing this so I can work on another project that's been on the back of my mind for a while. I'll post details of that over on my other blog, themanyworldsofdianahignutt.blogspot.com in the near future.

I hope you have as much fun reading these chapters as I am having writing them.  Thanks so much for reading.

Happy 420!

Chapter Fifty-Seven: I Meet Admiral Nemo (again?)

Chapter Fifty-Seven

I Meet Admiral Nemo (again?)

I went to the address on the letter.  It was a busy warehouse by the docks in Port of Baltimore.  Workers were coming and going.  The letter said to ask for Peter Mammers.  I asked a harried looking woman with a clipboard.  She signed and pointed to the office sign.

I went in the office.  There was a secretary at the reception desk.

“Hi, I have an appointment with Peter Mammers,” I said with a smile.

“Sure, I’ll take you in to see him.”

And in a moment, we went through some more doors and there, in a very large tank of water, was Admiral Nemo.  I got a flash of recognition at the sight of the dolphin.

I heard the words, “Welcome, Alex.   It’s good to see you, again,” inside my head.  It was weird.

“Hey,” I said aloud.

“It’s been a few months.  We’ve been worried about you.  Word is you and the Golden Speedster took each other out.  I’m glad that’s only half true.  Why haven’t you reached out to us?”

“Amnesia and loss of powers,” I replied.  “I just got my speed back, and I’m only starting to get flashes of memories back.  A lot of stuff I’m not clear on.”

“I see.  That explains the situation.  When do you think you’ll be able to get back to work for the Society?”

I hadn’t even thought about that.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty-Six: Phase 2

Chapter Fifty-Six

Phase 2

The only thing a clock could measure would be an anticipatory vibration of the second hand, more potential even than movement, and then it would be the appointed time for Phase 2.  Only two beings even had an inkling about Phase 2, and they were playing it close to the vest.  Not even Nemo, the world’s smartest mammal, knew about its existence, let alone Phase 3.  A secret conspiracy hidden in a plot to takeover the world, and no one suspected but a mysterious speedster known only as the Faster-Than-Light Assassin.  The only one who knew for sure, though, didn’t even exist at the time, except in the most transcendental sense, or perhaps in the penumbra.  As usual, I was completely in the dark.

Phase 2 was set to begin at 07:16:07:34 on October 19, 2022.  Set your alarms.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty-Five: Memory as Time Travel

Chapter Fifty-Five

Memory as Time Travel

Jill told me this one day: “I’ve taught myself to time travel, you know.”

I looked at her calmly, but with some disbelief.

“Not like you, of course, Alex,” she continued.  “Mental Time Travel, I guess you would call it.”

“So,” I replied smugly, “You imagine that you time travel.”

“No. Well, maybe.  It’s like using memory to put yourself back in the past.  You know, like that Ashton Kutcher movie.”

“The Butterfly Effect?”

“Yeah, that one,” she said, filling the bowl of the bong with some Cherry Pie strain and handing it to me.  “I remember a moment and I try to access all the sensory perceptions I had.  I try and remember what I felt.  Funny thing is those moments tend to correspond to weird times in my life when I was disassociating.  I remember feeling strangely sad afterwards.  I’m thinking that my time traveling mind leaked a little bitterness and regret into my past brain.”

“So, not real time travel.”

“Fuck you, Alex.”

I flicked the lighter and took my hit off the bong.  Cherry Pie.

Exhaling, I said, “So, you’re saying that you’ve developed the ability to time travel mentally by sending your consciousness back into the past, but you can only observe, not actually do anything to change anything?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s called memory.”

She scowled.  “Maybe one day I’ll be able to change something.  Do something different.  Then does it count as time travel?”

“Sure,” I agreed.  “Hey, remind me, and I’ll run you and Jackie into the past for some real time travel in the meantime.  When are you off work next?”

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty-Four: Monologuing

Chapter Fifty-Four

Monologuing

You’ve seen movies.  You’ve read comic books.  You know the alleged deal.  Supervillains cannot help themselves…they are obliged to reveal the details of their plans to someone, usually the superhero.  This is a gross exaggeration.

Personally, I am not, generally, one who monologues.  Not that I haven’t used the technique to feed disinformation to the Golden Speedster once or twice.  Stupid fucker fell for it every time.  They always do.

But, yes, there are some villains, who just can not help themselves.  Admiral Nemo does it a little bit, sure, but he speaks telepathically, and sometimes, you get a stream of consciousness version of his plan impinged on your mind.  Fucking Anton Mirsk, though.  That guy spills it all.  He’s got such an exaggerated sense of self-importance that he is always telling Platinum Man his entire plan just as soon as he forms it.  I was got a cc of an email he sent to the big alien detailing some crazy scheme to outlaw space aliens through a patchwork of municipal codes and state laws, which he sent at 4 am.  He has been known to drunk dial his invulnerable nemesis on multiple occasions.  Nemo had to stop telling him key details of our plans, and sometimes, he would feed the Russian billionaire disinformation, knowing that the xenophobe could not help but taunt his adversary with it.

As bad as Anton Mirsk was, there was one villain worse.  Riddle Man.  He was one of Zorro’s rogue’s gallery. You’ve probably seen his picture on the news.  The question mark suit guy.  You know the one.  He had worked once or twice with the Prankster, so he has his number.  We needed to get a piece of information to the Hero’s Guild, but we wanted to seem as inconspicuous as possible.

Riddle Man had a thing where he had to leave clues to his plans for Zorro.  He claimed that it showed his intellectual superiority over the dark vigilante.  Or, he was just conflicted about his life of crime, and actively wanted Zorro to catch him.  Either way, Zorro aided by the villain’s clues, caught him each and every time. Prankster called him and asked him to assist him in one of his capers.  Two weeks later, the information Nemo wanted to slip out, was delivered in monologue form to Zorro, courtesy of Riddle Man.  The trap was set.

And that’s how we used supervillain monologuing as a key in our plan to destroy the Hero’s Guild.

(c0 copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty Three: Infinite Bottles of Beer on the Wall...

Chapter Fifty Three 

Infinite Bottles of Beer on the Wall…

We were in a white transit van on I-90 just outside Chicago.  We all had our outfits on; it was all rather surreal.  It was Halloween, so no one cared.  Psychonaut drove.  I had shotgun. The Prankster was sitting on toolbox in the back, singing in that really disturbing voice of his, “Infinite bottle of beer on the wall, infinite bottles of beer.  If one of those bottles happens to fall, infinite bottles of beer on the wall. Infinite bottles of beer on the wall, infinite bottles of beer.  If one of those bottles happens to fall, infinite bottles of beer on the wall…”

"Clarity," I said subaudibly.  "I'm gonna need some Crimson."

(c) copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty-Two: Three of a Perfect Pair

Chapter Fifty Two

Three of a Perfect Pair

In 1980, eclectic prog virtuoso guitarist Robert Fripp reformed King Crimson, once again with a new line-up, including Adrian Belew on vocals and guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, and Tony Levin on bass.  In 1984 this line-up released their final album, Three of a Perfect Pair.  I was listening to this album, in fact, the title track to be exact, through Clarity’s in-suit stereo system, when Zorro hit the scene outside the biotech firm, Corycom’s laboratory building on the outskirts of Chicago.

The freaky, slippery guitar riff twisted and moved around the notes with bizarre technical precision.  Belew’s Talking Heads-esque vocals, both grounded the music and elevated it to a vaguely ethereal plane.  The stick bass working with Bruford’s intricate percussion set a driving beat.

Perfect music to get our asses kicked by a fucking weirdo with a black cape.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty-One: The Seedling

Chapter Fifty One

The Seedling

The seedling has been up to a lot of stuff before it breaks through the ground and becomes obvious.  If you didn’t plant the seed, you don’t even know it’s there.  It’s secret.  Hidden.  If you look at the ground, you can’t see it.  You have no way of knowing that it has commenced gemination, that roots have slipped out and are growing, or that a tender green shoot is reaching for the light, just about to break the ground and announce itself upon the world.  This corresponds to the Penumbra of the Ouroboros.   If you think on this, many things will become clearer.

The seedling lies at the deepest heart of the matter.  None of us knew the seed was there, except Nemo, of course.  No one else was smart enough to even imagine such a thing.  But Nemo knew.  The seed was at the heart of his plan.  The Plan.

The seed kept growing under the ground.  It was just about to break through the soil and change everything.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Fifty: Super-Intelligence

Chapter Fifty

Super-Intelligence

Human beings have what is called General-Intelligence.  Super-Intelligence is an intellect that is exponentially smarter than that.  A lot of people are afraid of Artificial Intelligence becoming Super-Intelligent.  The idea encompasses lots of aspects.  Computers can think many times faster than people, and they can learn quicker too.  But they also have more processing power, which is more than just intellectual quickness…it has to do with memory and complexity of neural networks.  So, they are better thinkers too.

A lot of really smart people are worried about a runaway Artificial Super-Intelligence getting out into the real world and taking over.  It would be unstoppable is the fear.  Trying to outsmart it would be like an ant trying to outsmart you.  Imagine trying to battle an opponent who had a complete understanding of how the universe worked, how human psychology works, how everything works, who was, to all intents and purposes, infinitely smarter than you.  It could manipulate everybody.  It could predict the outcomes of all its plans and interventions with perfect success.  Imagine it.  There are people spending millions of dollars on trying to figure out how we are going to stop a Super-Intelligent computer, right now.

But no one thought to figure out what to do about a Super-Intelligent dolphin, and the thing that lurked its shadow, that no one expected.  If those really smart people had thought about it much at all, they might have figured it out.  But they didn’t.  And here we are.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Forty-Nine: In Which I Impersonate the Golden Speedster and Attend a Hero's Guild Meeting

Chapter Forty-Nine

In Which I Impersonate the Golden Speedster and Attend a Hero’s Guild Meeting

Clarity pulled some sort of trick and changed the color of my suit from deep black to golden, just like Will’s suit.  The only thing I didn’t know for sure, was if the Hero’s Guild members kept their masks on or not in their meetings.

This was, of course, at the height of the Guild.  Platinum Man was still alive.  Zorro still sane, more or less.  Will still a member.

I had sent Will on a wild goose chase in another universe, Earth 217, if I recall correctly.  Psychonaut was impersonating me to lead him away, while I impersonated Will.  The Secret Society of Supervillains needed some intel that could only be acquired from the inside.  This information was crucial to The Plan.

I was uneasy walking into Guild Hall, in Washington, D.C., but I tried not to look it.  I walked with a confident gait, held my head straight.  I tried to walk like Will would walk.  Then I threw in a burst of speed, just to be as convincing as possible.  Everyone else was already seated in the conference room.

“You’re late,” complained Eco-Man.

“As usual,” added Platinum Man.

Good.  They were wearing their masks.

“Sorry,” I said.

It was weird.  I don’t know how but Clarity did something to my voice.  I sounded just like Will.

“Sit down,” commanded Zorro impatiently.  “Let’s get started.  I need to get back to Chicago.  The Prankster’s planning something big.

“Have some faith in your sidekick,” suggested Platinum Man.  “I’m sure Wonder Boy can handle whatever the Prankster is up to.”

I thought the dark vigilante was going to go over and smack the alien in the face.

I sat down.

Oh shit, I just remembered something else important that I must tell you about.  I’ll come back to this scene; I promise.

(c) Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Forty-Eight: Adrift V Swimming

Chapter Forty-Eight 

Adrift V Swimming

There are times in your life that you are swimming towards goals and dreams, and there are times when you are caught in the riptide of life and you flounder adrift and go whither or thither at the universe’s whim.  Consider Edmond Dantes, the titular here of The Count of Monte Cristo.  Edmond makes his plans: a captaincy, a wedding, a happy family life.  The riptide comes along, and Edmond is swept away to prison though innocent, held in some tide pool for a decade or more, until he dares swim again.  This time, however, his dreams are darker, and his goal is revenge.

Both Jill and I, ended up in Albany, at the universe’s whim.  She, after her dreams of New Themyscira came crashing down, as sandcastles in the waves.  She didn’t decide to move to Albany, it’s just that there wasn’t anywhere else to go.  No one else would take her in, except Jackie.  She took the first job that would take her, so she ended up at the auto parts store.  She waited on the governor a couple of times, which was neat, I guess.  All that was the work of the tide.  Just like me.  I got my ass kicked by the Golden Speedster at Washington Park, and was taken in by Jill and Jackie.  The tide.  Sometimes, though, the tide isn’t as random as it seems.  Sometimes the tide has plans of its own.  Life is a battle between you and tide.  Sometimes, you swim.  Sometimes, you’re adrift.

Jill had decided it was about time to start swimming again.  I was coming around that that idea as well.  But what did the tide think of our plans?

(c)Copyright 2020 Diana Hignutt