Super No More

‘General. We’ve located a small energy burst in the north-western region.’

‘Do you want to tell me that one more time?’

‘Sir, we’ve tracked down the burst to the north-western region of the country. It’s an isolated area, edge of the Coastpoint mountains, the nearest town is up by the border zone.’

‘Major, I am grateful for your efforts but why are you telling me about small energy burst out in the wilderness when we need to keep track of an entire country? If a satellite crashed down, there that we are not aware of then a simple retrieval and repossession team should be enough. Anything beyond my remit is not something that I’m prepared to pay the price for. I have enough politics getting what I need on my budgeted list.’

‘General, I’m notifying you of the energy burst because it’s a match for a previous event in the same location. The initial trace signature wasn’t initially considered a priority. It was just flagged up in the records now.’

‘I’d need proof of seismic activity at a minimum. Any changes in local weather patterns?’

‘None that I’ve detected yet Sir.’

‘When exactly did this last energy burst take place?’

‘General, it happened six months ago.’

‘This had better not be a quantum emergence event.’

‘Sir?’

‘Major, do you know what has shaken me up the most?’

‘I do not General.’

‘When a power that is not in line with human civilization emerges and we are unable to put a harness around it for the good of our nation and our way of life.’

‘Yes Sir.’

‘If you want to transfer from your present duty you can do with nothing but my thanks, Major.’

‘With your permission Sir, I’d like to put forward a tracker on this energy burst and bump it up the research schedule.’

‘Fine. Just stick within the allocation budget.’

‘Yes Sir. Permission to ask a mission-related question.’

‘Granted Major.’

‘Sir, if this does turn out to be an emergence event do, we send out recruitment or a team of cleaners?’

‘Hrm. That would depend on the nature of the individual and any powers they would possess. The worst-case scenario would be sending out a team of Emergence-Busters. Not their real name of course. They have their codename for themselves, I’m not classified to know it, and neither are you, Major. It’s strictly needed to know to protect their identities.’

‘Do you think it’ll be another mysterious flying person incident, General?’

‘Major. I sincerely hope not. The idiot who gained the power of flight and limited super strength and then donned a costume and decided to fly around a city trying to apprehend criminals. Do you know the exact details?’

‘No Sir. I was not briefed on that event before my current role. I just heard the rumours.’

‘Well, you may as well take a seat Major. It’s worth getting a good idea of what happens if an emergence event is allowed to spread widely in society with no regulation or military control.’

‘I doubt it’s any good General.’

‘You’re damn right it’s no good. Especially when the situation escalated. The city had to bring in the state government initially, then up to the central government then once they found they had limited control over the situation and casualties began to mount the precursor to our task force was initially formed. It was a complete failure. Not only for civilian casualties but also for the military force that was formed to take charge of the whole mess.’

‘Sir?’

‘It was before both your time and mine. Around thirty years back. Do you know why we call it an Emergence event?’

‘No General.’

‘Because when one of those…things emerge people die. Might not be at first, could be a few weeks or months but eventually, people die. Either through direct or indirect action and the situation, it just snowballs.’

‘General?’

‘The cults are the worst part. We’ve tried our best to eliminate them and provide treatment for those who have been brainwashed or otherwise coerced into joining.’

‘I’ve not heard a trace of any cults Sir. I work with tracking and sourcing potential events.’

‘My mistake Major. It’s the survivors of attacks you see. In the initial emergence event, they believed in the ‘justice’ and ‘mercy’ that was bestowed on them. There seems to be a creation of a steward or priest that the first survivor takes on themselves. All of this appeals to the ego of these…creatures that appear and in turn, they convince others to form a sort of private militia and support unit.’

‘General, you were raising the incident involving a flying person?’

‘You’re right Major. I ramble on sometimes, sorry about that.’

‘No apologies needed Sir.’

‘At least you have a better idea of why we have such a thorough vetting process for entering into this task force. Anyone who’s been linked to one of these events, either as a survivor or been impacted directly is not permitted to join this force.’

‘Is there a specific reason for that Sir?’

‘We can’t take the risk where an individual chooses to interfere during an operation. Once the chain of command is broken then disaster ensues. That will not be allowed in this task force.’

‘Yes Sir.’

‘Now back to the first incident involving the mysterious flying person. You said that you heard rumours, Major?’

‘Yes, General. I heard that a flying man had appeared in one of the smaller northern cities. There was some rough video footage, but it was agreed that it was a prank. I think that one of the minor news networks released a press release about it before it had been shut down. Some people were talking about hearing it from friends of friends. I was a teenager at the time and not many people took it seriously in my area.’

‘You originate from the south don’t you major?

‘Yes Sir.’

‘The authorities at the time were able to shut down minor and major news outlets in the region after the first week. Then misinformation was released to counter the effects. Sadly, it didn’t work entirely as planned otherwise you would never have heard about it. There’s always going to be an element that escapes control.’

‘I believe that’s what the limitation media task force is for General’.

‘Yes, Major. I appreciate their work, but it’s become harder to limit information with current technology. I’m thankful that the only global communications network is in the hands of the military. Imagine if that was let loose to the civilian population. We’d have a lot less control over the spread of rumours then. Still, all research developed by the military eventually ends up in civilian hands. That’s where the idea for cellular phones came from. We invest and build and society benefits. I’m getting off-topic here though Major.’

‘Yes Sir.’

‘Now, back to the incident. First, it started with reports to a local police force, there were sightings of an unidentified flying object at night and a noise. Bear in mind that there was no way that these would be taken seriously, it could have easily been someone flying RC planes.’

‘RC planes General?’

‘Yes Major, I think that my grand kids liked them. You can fly things around with a controller. The army thought about using them for warfare at some point, but the range wasn’t far enough. I couldn’t imagine an army using a fleet of these tiny flying planes for anything other than fun. Back to the point, civilians were noticing something was happening.’

‘They don’t have the necessary training Sir to recognise anything different to the ordinary.’

‘It was the number of reports at night that should have been a sign that something was up. The fact is that these reports were in different areas of the cities at varying times of the night. Unless there was a huge community of RC nerds who chose to fly their little toys at night all across the city within several hours of each other and had pre-arranged it in advance then something else was happening. Due to the heat wave at the time it was simply dismissed as crank reports. It wasn’t as though anyone was hurt or anything serious had happened. The city-wide police force had their usual problems to deal with.’

‘They usually do Sir.’

‘Right. Right. The main issue was that there had been reports of these noises and movements at night. At the time our country’s military had no clear idea of the nature of an Emergence event so this type of event far below the radar. If you went back and looked through the police records, you’d have a clearer idea of what formed our current-day procedures. The real trial by fire came later, much later. ‘

‘Are you referring to the failed military intervention General?’

‘Yes, Major. I am referring to that, but as it came later down the timeline, we can discuss it after we’ve got the initial reports down first.’

‘Do you know how many suicides there are in a city or disappearances?’

‘Not off the top of my head Sir. I could check the records though to give you an approximate number or a percentage with enough time.’

‘No need Major. I appreciate that you have a head for numbers and factors though. The answer is that it depends on the rough size of the population and city. After a point numbers just become statistics no matter how hard you try.’

‘Sir, with the respect that lacks empathy as a normal human being.’

‘I know. Any death should be acknowledged and I’m not trying to break it down into a numbers game. One day an Emergence event will occur and it’s going to go down so badly, that we’ll end up losing an entire city including the population. That will become a numbers day when you need to weigh the number of deaths that one of these things can inflict within a given period. Weapons of mass destruction might come into play. Can you imagine carpet bombing a populated area to try and burn out an infection before it spreads?’

‘Hopefully, that day will never come General.’

‘No. It won’t come, we can either choose to turn our eyes from the light of a god or we can stand tall and break its hold over us. Those things aren’t gods though, they’re pure aberrations. I won’t accept any cult worship or adoration of them.’

‘No General. It’s morally unacceptable.’

‘I’m getting overly side-tracked here Major. Righteous indignation will only take you so far.’

‘I can believe that Sir. True service to humanity is earned one footstep at a time.’

‘I agree. Now, I need to draw your attention back to the fact that there were several missing people reports and suicides occurring. These happen in a city but given that the relatively small number of cases involved people jumping off buildings made a rapid rise caused a minor suspicion for one minor police detective. She decided to investigate the number of corpses that ended up as suicides, the one thing that all had in common is that they all held violent criminal records.’

‘Did she check the autopsies? Establishing a clear cause of death would have led her closer.’

‘A good question Major. An element with the local police department welcomes the death of regional criminals, they were able to dissuade the detective from further investigating the situation.’

‘Civilians can’t be blamed for lacking specific training.’

‘I’m quite sure that the police would have said the same things about those reporting the suicide cases. Hindsight always provides a clearer picture if it comes too late.’

‘Yes Sir, we have the protocols we now follow for that reason.’

‘Next came the random sightings during the daytime. These were picked up on much faster. You can’t dismiss a person who can fly through the sky when you’ve seen in personally. This was around the time that local news networks started recording footage and it made itself into the local media of the city. The video was brief at best, and it showed a person-shaped blurry object, this then kicked off more rumours and discussion. People thought it was a stunt at first, an illusion performed by some stage magicians who were looking for an audience. Smoke and wires style effects.’

‘That would be a realistic option general, technology has moved forward a great deal.’

The whole thing eventually snowballed when this mysterious person appeared in the downtown area of the city near the main shopping districts.’

‘Were there riots General?’

‘No. Not yet. The beginning of a great deal of confusion but no one had taken sides at that point yet. Once the sightings of this flying menace were made clear to the public and news of it spread to the general population all sorts of theories started appearing in the city. Mainly, people just became curious about why this person could fly. It was a novelty for people.’

‘I can imagine the reaction of people who see that happening, Sir.’

‘Do you know what superheroes are, Major?’

‘No Sir, I do not.’

‘People have always made stories about those of us who have special gifts or magic powers that make them more than human. Or it could even be a creature that isn’t human but fights and gets into conflicts with those of the same type.’

‘I’m not a religious person General but I do consider myself a humanist.’

‘Imagine an actual humanoid with the power to fly. In broad daylight in front of so many people so you know that you’re not suffering a mental breakdown. This is a real event, witnessed by hundreds.’

‘May I be honest General?

‘Granted Major.’

‘I do not like the idea of a person who has the freedom to go wherever they want. Not if they plan to deliberately provoke a reaction out of people for personal gain.’

‘A creative type, an artist we think according to surviving records. He took one of the first photographs of the flying man. He had a strong reaction to it, not the same as a religious experience but rather an inspiration. This person saw the flying humanoid as a sort of muse.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘This thought came to him. This person was a superior human, a superhuman and he began to do one of the worst things that could have happened at the time.’

‘Did he begin a cult, Sir?’

The General scratched his throat. He had been talking for long enough that he had gained a decent thirst.

‘I need to take a break first. Water or would you prefer a fizzy drink? Just be aware that our entire conversation up until this point is being recorded and classified as Epsilon Dranoc Clearance. In other words, if you or I discuss this with anyone outside of my immediate chain of command then the chances of us both being shot by one of those muted guards standing right outside that door are high. Are you sure you want me to continue?’

Inside the room was a well-stocked fridge with both emergency supplies and personal refreshments as necessary. He took out two bottles of water before handing one over and cracking open the cap, drank the contents in one smooth gulp before he considered how much he could tell the Major.

There had been those under his command whose minds had simply failed to register the true danger of it and laughed it off as a joke until they had to meet a superhuman in the flesh as it was.

He’d already lost more men and woman under his command then he cared to consider but the woman in front of him wasn’t overly inquisitive. In his eyes she wanted to prepare herself.

Making his decision within the gap of several seconds when he saw that the Major shook her head at the offered drink he placed it back within the fridge, closing it before carrying on with his story.

Perhaps she could learn from history, perhaps she could even do better than him eventually.

He hoped so.