The Day North America Woke Up Leo the Pirate Vampire King The New Porfiriato Emperor Ted Vojvodina vs. the World Superhuman World Superhuman World 2009
Me in the Superhuman World:
Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Tekno-Otelo .

Superhuman World 2009 is a work of fiction. The characters herein and the commentary about them should not be considered "real".

SUPERHUMAN WORLD 2009

The Return of Tekno-Otelo

April 2009

Introduction

This may explain some things about the Galaxy.

(signed) Wyatt Ferguson.

New! Talk Back!
April

Tekno-Otelo 2009. Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

Memorial
In this world, I'm the last survivor of that battle.

It starts one day in Nashville, Tennessee, where I now live. (22 Apr)

  • My lady Judy would like some fresh vegetables, and she's working all day, so I ride my bike to the Farmers' Market north of the Tennessee Statehouse. God alone knows where they get fresh veggies in April, but they are fresh.
  • I then swing by the Tennessee Bicentennial Park monument to the Battle of King's Mountain, of which I am the last survivor. (It's one of those time-travel things.) The monument mentions the British commander, because we Americans had several commanders and just picked one for the day.
  • From the monument, I have to ride past the Statehouse to get home. There's a west loop and an east loop from there. Westbound, I find a nine-story Galactus-shaped robot. That makes him about ninety feet tall. And he's shooting flame from head-mounted smokestacks. My first urge is to see how I can get away the other direction.
  • Eastbound, I see a sixty-foot woman dressed in wrestling clothes... Hey, isn't that Karla Melhor? In her famous "Lady Wrestler on the Moon" attire? Admittedly she has sensible trunks now, but she's still spectacular at six-story height.
  • As I back off a bit to the north to consider, Giant-Size Karla tackles the giant robot. Then they float away!
  • I then recognize two other superhumans: Wendie Robinson and Julie Wolcott, both of the Combine alongside Karla. They're both telekinetics! And they're concentrating awfully hard right now. Hmm, they must be trying to get the robot away. I happen to know Julie's power only works upon flesh, so that must be where Giant-Size Karla comes in.
  • They don't get the robot very far - only back to the same park I just left. Then it all collapses.
  • Karla thrashes with the robot. She gets on top - then she disappears! But then I see a human-size body floating away. It's Karla!
  • Then a bolt comes down from the sky. Then a giant burst. The robot disappears.
  • Karla is still floating in air, but she's writhing in pain. She's covered with burns! That steaming robot may have been hot.
  • My bicycle helmet then overcomes me. I know this feeling. It's the Method Man! Hey, I've heard he possesses black hats now - and my bike helmet is a black hat! (15 Apr)
  • With the Method Man's power, I ride to Karla and lay on hands. She stops writhing, and her burns go away.
  • And Judy's here... Hey, she's the one who sent me here for shopping!

Judy works with The Combine. It's one of the leading superhuman collectives. The Combine is almost all here today.

  • Ellipsis and the Mighty Tim must have been in on this battle.
  • Ingrid Bodil was commanding. Which would explain the attempt to move the robot away from the Statehouse. Ingrid is sensible that way.
  • Ted Clark is there in his Emperor Ted armor. This armor looks a lot like the giant robot in miniature, only not spouting flames. He was working crowd control.

I, being in the middle of things, get invited along for debriefing. They've got a conference room in a state compound in North Nashville. Which kind of surprises me.

  • The U.S. Gov was trying to build its own superhuman team, but it didn't work out.
    • The Gov tried to make the latest "Thor", Dom-Ra the Solarian, Little Bill, and a newcomer with an alphanumeric code name into the new superhuman initiative. The general nickname for this project was "Useless", though. Those certainly aren't the four I'd have chosen. I've heard some good things about the newcomer (the guy who throws the capture cards), but he's still a bit new. (15 Mar)
    • They also have a clone project. Currently there's a super-soldier-owl clone. He should at least be predatory and not need night-vision goggles. But he's not here now, because they don't trust him out in public. Apparently someone sabotaged his support system, so he mostly just sits on a crossbar and screeches now. (22 Apr)
    • U.S. super-soldier projects date back before the official dawn of superhumans in 1990, but do not have the best history. The most famous super-soldier was FOAD, who's become a gangbanger in the Bahamas. Clone projects are more recent, but have drawn some opposition, especially from Leo the Pirate Vampire King.
  • The alien members of the Combine are gone. "Reticent" the Alien Beast wanted to save Wendie Robinson from Emperor Ted mind control, and left Earth when he couldn't do that to his satisfaction. (16 Mar)
  • As for Dom-Ra the Solarian, he's gone to Kansas to watch over some alien-Earthling hybrid cities. The Caladrians are colonizing, and some of those depressed Midwestern cities are eager for guests. In fact, they're making plans to open Earth-style drug stores on alien planets. (31 Mar, 17 Apr)
  • But Hudson Ramo shows up. He was at the Nashville airport, coordinating with air traffic control.
  • Karen Bodil dials in from Boston. She's back at one of the Combine home offices, doing public relations. Hey, why wasn't she on the "wrestler" job?
  • It turns out, giant wrestlers need some advantage. The Combine swiped the "giant" tech from one Colossal Girl I met in 2006. But colossal humans are barely strong enough to lift their own mass. Only with Panlucida strength was Karla even functional - and even then it was like double gravity for her.
  • They couldn't just teleport the robot straight out from where it was, because it had defenses against teleportation. They had to break the robot first. That was Ellipsis's job.
  • For the public safety, they had to move the robot before attacking. Telekinesis was the best way. Karla's role was to give Julie something organic to lift with her telekinesis. Julie was the major force there; Wendie has never lifted that many tons before. And Julie has some advantages in concentrating, due to a mental link with her husband Ellipsis. They'd wanted to get the robot out of town, but they settled for across the street into a park.
  • I gather Karen wanted the "wrestler" job. But Karla was better qualified to be a giant woman wrestler, due to more Panulcida strength. Karen must secretly not want to rely upon the collective power of women (or anyone else) for her strength. And she must have hated that.

During the debriefing, I get a phone call from my boss, Symmetria San Giacomo. Munich, Germany has one of these same robots! Our customer Katerina Katzman from HurrierTech has gotten a challenge to remove it! So I tell the boss, it's time for industrial alliance. And I ask the others for help.

We use the same strategy as before. But it doesn't work as well this time.

  • For starters, this robot has a force field so as not to be grappled. Ellipsis can't get past that without massive collateral damage, and the others are stuck. So Ingrid asks me to walk around it and get in with Karla!
  • But the robot is expecting us - with energy bolts! That's all I remember.
  • After that, with me and Karla down, the superhumans let loose their powers. They moved their robot, but they caused quite some damage.

Other places have attracted similar action.

  • Indianapolis, Indiana has the Total Conversion superhuman team - but the team takes contracts in India. When a robot showed up in Bangalore, Total Conversion mobilized. They smashed some evacuated office buildings while moving their robot, but they moved it.
  • Manchester, England has an occupying robot. Great Britain's squad of superhuman operatives has avoided damaging things around it, but it's still there. They have a teleporter, but not so powerful as to even try to shift this robot.
  • Bratsk, Siberia has Russia's superhuman squad. Novosibirsk, Siberia has a robot. Russia has thus far refrained from trying to blow it up, which is about their only option to get rid of it. Their own superhumans are great at carrying large objects to outer space, but the robot knows not to let them lift it.
  • It seems these robots are great at counteracting things that their superhuman opponents have tried before. The main reason the Tennessee action worked so well for humanity is, the robots weren't expecting a giant-size wrestler.

This is not quite an international incident on the level of Lunar wars of 2007. Russia is still something of a rogue nation after that incident, so they're keeping their strategy to themselves. But Britain, Germany, and the European Union are consulting with the U.S.

The U.S. effort is being led by Vice-President "Crusher Joe" Corrigan, but he's mostly deferring to the Combine. Being on good terms with them for once, I get invited to follow-up meetings. I am after all one of Earth's three leading citizens with Galactic experience; this dates back to the Tekno-Otelo Incident. The other Galactic humans are Ellipsis and Wendie Robinson, who are here too.

At the meetings I learn:

  • The U.S. Gov is involved in a peg game with an alien intelligence that's configured its body into a giant dragon-shaped board. Gov contractors are so secure in those jobs, they respond to credit checks "The Gov says so". I know this game to be Tekno-Otelo. (24 Apr)
    • The Tennessee Gov is handing out new ID badges. They've got some of this Tekno-Otelo action, which explains the presence of the Combine plus some of my own programmer friends in Nashville. (24 Apr)
    • Tennessee billionaire Malcolm Dunevoy was instrumental in getting this piece of the action to Nashville. He's been tracking the aliens since before the Saucer War. He's also the guy who invented Tennessee Battle Chess, so he's famous for strategy. And he's got great contacts; I recognize him as one of the Secret Masters! He's sort of the home team in this game, and not averse to some help from us his rival factions - especially since he's in charge.
  • The opposing intelligence is apparently the ruler of the Galactic races. Which explains why those races seem like tools, in my opinion. They're all pegs. The giant robots are just more pegs to it.
  • Some of the Gov's experts say, peg-based games can generate their own intelligence - like the pegs were neurons! The "Game of Life" can theoretically do this - and it's got simple rules any Earthling can understand. This game doesn't.
  • There's no grand solution yet. We've removed three alien pegs from Earth today, but two remain - in countries that haven't been invited to play this game. "The" Alien apparently considers the United States to be the home of world government - because we three Earthlings who've intervened in Galactic affairs all come from there. I love reminding Ellipsis of this, because he's not terribly proud to be an American. I think he's gotten himself Bahamas citizenship again.
  • But of course, the entire world got the challenge. Britain and Russia are reluctant to contract to have their robots moved, after what happened in Germany. So we're three for five at the moment. But in a real game of strategy, that's no assurance until the game's over. And nobody's even sure what the rules are.
  • Ellipsis is a mutant supergenius, so he thinks he can figure the game out. But I love to remind him how some of his earlier efforts blew up. The time-travel fallout of that one was how I became the last survivor of the first battle of Tennesseans.

Insert good ending here. Yours will probably be better than any I can think of. Especially because I notice, the alien Caladrians are fleeing Kansas! Dom-Ra the Solarian took his five colony-cities into space. Hmm, this can't be good. (5 May)

New! Talk Back!
May

Scavenger Hunt. Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

It's one of those races for power objects. Indications are, the seven Engines of Reality will soon enough be re-emerging in the present day! It's a bit early for DuoPolarity IV, but with the galactic alien intelligence involved, we Earthlings are getting pre-emptive. And it's largely new players on the field.

  • My 10-year-old nephew Calvin sneaks past his enemies in a junior stormtrooper uniform.
    • According to Hedasys the Dragon, Calvin is the heir to Alexander the Great! Hedasys knew Alexander, so he should know about his heirs; he says Alexander kept Hedasys and a sea monster as messengers. (26 May) I wonder if this has anything to do with the legend of *dragon's blood* in my family's heritage?
    • The treasure is a map to where three of the Reality Engines have appeared before! One of the locations is Afghanistan. You don't think Alexander the Great conquered Afghanistan just for *fun*, do you? The other locations are Croatia and Tunisia. Alexander had access to Croatia, and he always wanted to attack toward Tunisia.
    • The Powernaut's helping Calvin - just because Calvin once signed up for the Power Patrol's e-mail list! The Powernaut buries Calvin's treasure for him.
    • The opposition is the Patriotic Homeland Corps! They're always interested in objects of power, and they have the national security connections to pursue them.
    • When I find out about this, I'm eating at a barely-functional diner. I'm late to the affair; I only hear about it when my brother Calvin asks for help. My nephew's gone to camp, but not come back! I do have some tracking powers, so I'm a natural person to call for help. (2 May)
  • A storm is coming and we have to keep the barn from flooding. One farmhand asks for shelter or else he'll defect to our enemies. (3 May)
    • The barn is where I found Calvin. The farmhand was a Power Patrol contact, and was letting Calvin hide there. With the Patriotic Homeland Corps closing in, though, he was having second thoughts.
    • Okay. I get Calvin and the farmhand both out of there. Then I take Calvin somewhere different, alone. I'm a dimension-walker and am effectively untraceable.
  • My relatives start coming out after that, even my dad. Dad says he served in Asia as point man for Shaquille O'Neil on an extreme hiking tour. Hey, maybe he did. Aside from me, most men of my clan are natural-born commandos. (10 May)
  • Our car drives through a fireball. The Corps is pretty damn energetic. (15 May)

There's been some other action to find maps.

  • There's a saber-tooth wolverine with four sets of retractable supermetal claws. Uh oh, whatever happened to the Dire Wolves? They've been known to seek power objects. (6 May)
  • The Rainbow Kids are in a race, and they won't say what for. They're the ones who say God gives them dominion over objects of every color, but only one color per Rainbow Kid. (7 May)
    • The Engines of Reality are prismatic-colored; I wonder how they'll deal with that? They'll need all their powers to control even one of them, and there are seven.
    • According to their press releases, the Rainbow Kids usually fight Satan. They actually fight his self-proclaimed viceroy Auge von Shaitan, I'd guess. Unless Lucifer himself occasionally unites his stray body parts and comes slumming here.
  • Ribbentrop was alive in the 1970s and got a retrial. Hitler's back, and he may be recruiting his old friends. (17 May)
  • I'm running a game where someone's trying to cast a spell on Baffin Island. Should I enforce form? (20 May)

There's been some notable lack of action too.

Talk Back!
June

The Schizophrenic Worldmind. Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

A few entries from my diary.

  • I should make a Soviet-style press release about all the people I've defeated today. (22 Jun)
  • I'm defending my belt and giving commands on a bus, thanks to the Worldmind. (23 Jun)

... Huh? I'm not sure what conclusions to draw, but here's what I've got so far:

  • People think Gaea the Earth Goddess is loving and nurturing. But she's pretty damned destructive on occasion. Or at least other Higher Powers that claim the Earth are.
  • I channel Higher Powers on occasion. (Most recently, the Method Man.) I usually do this more reliably than other superhumans do, because I have less agenda of my own. It seems I've got some power again.
  • But so does a Toon! Certain demons take on the aspect of cartoon characters. Or is it a real duck, cybernetically enhanced to be some guy's personal assistant, originally named "Sycophant"? Or is it... both?
  • It seems our world's Higher Powers are indecisive. Aliens find this strange, because they have exactly one Higher Power among them all. It's engaging the Earth now. From their point of view, our Worldmind is not only autistic, it has schizophrenia.


Me in the Superhuman World:
Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Tekno-Otelo .

All characters in this fiction and the phrase "Superhuman World 2009" are copyright © 2009 by Eiler Technical Enterprises. The map of the Superhuman World is based on one from Henry Bottomley's map software which is well worth a visit.