A super hero fights evil by wiping memories of both the villian and everyone who knew of them so that they can be reintroduced into society safely. Today, as you were combing through old newspapers, you discover that you were once the world’s most powerful supervillain.
The day began like any other. Coffee. Teeth brushing. Pushing my cat off the kitchen counter. Everything in a vague sort of grey because my life seemed a vague sort of dull.
I sat down on my couch with my screen and scrolled through the combination social media and news site that everyone used these days and sipped my coffee, trying to wake up my sleepy brain. My attention span was short, like everyone else’s, and I barely noticed half of the content I was seeing in favor of the rabbit holes my thoughts chased each other down. I wondered briefly what it would have been like, a hundred years ago, before everyone had computers and social media and were connected all the time.
It took a few tries. I opened a new tab to see if anyone did print news any more, or if there were dedicated news channels that didn’t deal in sensationalism. To be fair, my thoughts weren’t this coherent. The tab ended up showing me a cooking video or five before I dragged myself back to the thought.
I managed to find a news site based on one of the old tv networks - the ones they had before everyone just went with internet streaming services. I had no idea these were still around.
The first few articles were about celebrities and gossip; the sort of crap that grabbed readers in this day and age and gave them something to be mad about with other strangers online, and I got lost in one or two of those also before again dragging myself back to the earlier thought.
The archives took another half hour to get to, partly because I kept getting sidetracked, and partly because the site must have been designed in the early 2000s. It was tacky and badly designed, but I found the archives in the end.
I just needed to figure out how far I should go back. It seemed they’d managed to scan old papers that had been honest to god, dropped on people’s porches. I was stunned at the archaic-ness of it all.
I was also quickly bored.
Before I closed the tabs down though, in favor of social media and gossip once again my attention was grabbed by an article. I still don’t know why; there was nothing particularly intriguing in the title other than it made me remember those old articles about super heroes from the 2050s.
Super heroes were a thing of the past as far as I knew - a flash in the pan of humanity. Thankfully, super villains were as well. Somewhere in the last thirty years they disappeared as quickly as they came, which was good for the rest of us. All you needed was one city leveled because someone with crazy powers had delusions of grandeur and everyone got over it pretty fast.
Anyway, I didn’t really pay attention. Super heroes were not my thing.
That article though… my hand navigated to it of its own volition it seemed. And for the first time in a long time, I felt able to focus without getting distracted.
“Dark Mantle Razes Building with Molten Rock.”
The article had a picture, of some freak in a costume with a black cape, and the destruction they had wrought. I skimmed the article but it ended with the villain apparently getting away.
There were links to other articles about this ‘Dark Mantle’ character. She robbed banks, murdered people; really the list went on.
Before I knew it, I’d devoured every article on this person. Early in her reign of terror, apparently she’d been latched onto by some self-styled hero or other who claimed to be her arch nemesis. How cheesy is that? I mean, this “hero” didn’t have anything to do with being the opposite to a magma-summoning badass. What even was this “Captain Phoenix’s” power?
I did some more digging. My coffee was cold and forgotten, and my cat had long since wandered off, having not gotten the affection she was trying for, but I had to know everything about this hero and villain.
Just when my searching was becoming a frenzy, my power went out with a sound like a transformer blowing. I jerked and dropped my screen and looked around the dark room, eyes temporarily blinded in the change from bright screen to curtain-shrouded room.
My eyes adjusted and my heart rate returned slowly to normal, but I jerked in surprise at a knock on the door.
Curious, I unlocked and opened it.
Four people stood outside, one with some kind of scanner pointed at me.
“Ms. Manning, how are you today?” Asked the woman not holding the scanner.
“Uh, fine? What happened? The power just went out.”
The woman with the scanner said to the woman that had spoken, “her readings are up ma’am. Inconclusive though.”
“Inconclusive? Readings?” I frowned. “Who are you and what are you doing here?
“Calm down Ms. Manning. We’re just here to check on you and make sure you’re okay.”
It was then that I saw the other two people behind the two women clearly. One was a man holding a case of what looked like delegate equipment, but the other had a newly familiar face. He was trying to stay out of my sight, but I recognized him immediately: Captain Phoenix.
Memory flooded through my mind in a jumble of flashes and I fell to my knees. Captain Phoenix staring at me, chasing me down a street, catching me at the site of a destroyed building with magma setting things aflame.
I couldn’t breathe. The air was hot and the woman without the scanner was shouting orders and Captain Phoenix rushed towards me, gathering me up in his arms and whispering calming nonsense words, keeping me from hitting my head on the floor.
“Damn, she’s getting it back. Wilson, get the apparatus ready!”
“No!” Captain Phoenix shouted, glaring at her and the man named Wilson. “We’re doing this my way this time, Kathryn.”
They backed off, slightly.
Memory flooded through again, causing me to convulse in his arms. More visions of destruction wrought by this Dark Mantle person, but I was looking out through her eyes. I tried to push away from Captain Phoenix but he held me tight.
“You can’t do it again; it didn’t work the first time!” Said the woman - Kathryn.
“I can and I will. Back off.” His voice was steel and the woman faltered.
And this boring, grey reality looked even more fake with the vibrancy of the memories flooding my mind, coming faster and faster, and then the memories changed.
I saw this man before me trying to calm my temper and talk instead of throwing trucks at me. I escaped him, but the next time we exchanged a few words. It came clear that he was letting me go, talking me down until I didn’t feel quite so much like destroying things any more.
And then I saw other people. Trapping me, drugging me, and causing me pain. Captain Phoenix told them, he could stop me without killing me, without hurting me any more. He could erase me and let me become a good person.
He’d done it before, after all. There were several villains just like me he had memory wiped. He’d erased them and their misdeeds from the collective human consciousness. It hadn’t been hard; people were easy to fool these days. All it took was a new story with loads of drama and people with unpopular opinions shouting and his power had to work very little.
But he didn’t care about them. It had been easy to erase them.
It had been hard to erase me.
My final memory before this boring, lifeless existence was of the sadness and regret on his face before he erased me from everyone - including myself - save him.
I reached up a hand, my vision clearing from the onslaught of memory, and touched his face. How could I have forgotten that face?
“My love…” I rasped, wonder at having feelings again making my voice husky.
Whatever he saw in my eyes made his go wide and tear up. He blinked and steeled his expression, deciding something.
He set me against the door jamb gently and stood to face the other three. They now had weapons trained on me.
“Did you do it? What did she say?” Asked Kathryn.
The mousy man with the case added, “has she forgotten again? Is it safe?”
Part of me noticed so much in the following moments. How the air had cooled but I still felt like myself. How he had genuine regret in his tone when he apologized to the three. How they didn’t realize what he was about to do in time to stop him.
He took all three of them in with his gaze and pushed his hands at them. Power I could almost taste flooded into them and they collapsed, drooling and dazed to the floor.
He sighed deeply and turned to me. He looked exhausted, but the hand he reached down to me was strong and steady as I pulled myself to my feet.
“Its you? It’s really you..?” He asked, searching my face.
My memories were settling down, but I remembered all the destruction I had wrought, and also the person who had given me a reason not to, long before he’d wiped my memory. I smiled. “Its me.”
He hugged me tightly. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”
“Wait. I can’t.”
His face froze and then he began to doubt he’d done the right thing. I dashed back into the house proper and picked up my cat, Midnight, and headed back to the front door cuddling her furry bulk and presenting her to him for ear scratches.
“Okay. Now we can go.”
He grinned and lead the way, into our future.
———-
@whiskeyandwashitape @artofstevetownsley
via Tumblr http://ift.tt/2rhtFLU
No comments:
Post a Comment