SUPERHUMAN WORLD 2008

Reversal

The Return of Wyatt Ferguson

Announcement

For reasons which will shortly be obvious, the management of the Superhuman World web site has changed again. At least for now, I'll be doing both manager and commentator duty. Dear Reader, I invite you to sit back and enjoy the story, as much as I enjoyed writing it.

(signed) Wyatt Ferguson.

May

What's The Hurrier Been Doing? Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

To me, this is important news. The Hurrier is supposed to be keeping a log of this stuff, but he hasn't been paying a lot of attention to it recently.

Lately he takes the field only when there's profit involved - for example, when paid to make an appearance. One week he presented at a fitness convention, went to an aviation fly-in, and appeared at the Museum of Dan Quayle. (31 Mar - 4 Apr) Since then, he's thrown out the ball at a baseball game (19 Apr), supported the theatre (3 May), and acted as nutritional advisor to several Midwestern states (11 May).
Otherwise, he zips around and talks with specialists. He's obsessed with all the threats to the current world order, from Secret Masters of Evil right up to alternate universes. Good luck with that worldview. As far as I can tell, Secret Masters are the current world order, and everything else is part of their plan to cull the herd.
The Hurrier hardly ever stays home. He's already admitted, he has marital issues. God help us, I'm being hunted by a man who can't get it at home.
Seems to me, he's having a nervous breakdown. He's claimed to be an agent of the Holy Spirit (specifically of the Haste at Bethlehem), but it looks like his Higher Powers are deserting him.

May

Death Watch. Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

My blood isn't for everyone. Gillette Harris got a big transfusion of it - and as of when I found out, he had two weeks to live!

One thing about my blood is, it makes people shit out everything which is not natural to share its body. That's how I survived being infused with an alien killing machine once. But Gillette's shitting out his whole body, because my blood isn't putting up with it. So, he's got the most severe case of colono-rectal cancer the doctors have ever seen.
His boss flew his family out to Oregon for death watch. His main concern has been making his mom give him privacy in the bathroom. (6 May)
The problem is in his blood, which never touches his brain. So to keep him occupied (and productive), his brain is plugged into game programs. (12 May)
After two days, Gillette's now the computer running a live-action missile launch game. Colin and Dee from his workplace are trying it out. Thanks to virtual reality software, Colin is tall and Dee can teleport, but they still have to dismantle nose cones with their feet. (14 May)
Now the end is near. His hillbilly relatives are coming to visit; his grandma's even in a rocking chair in the pickup truck. Across town, the Anglican church is having another protest march, and people are wondering if Jesus Himself might show up. (19 May)
But just one day later, his mom's carrying in groceries and some big leaves, but Gillette turns into a sort of Hercules and barricades himself in the bathroom to trim his beard. (20 May)

... What happened?

Apparently when Gillette was back in the Dreamtime, he bested Hercules in combat! Stuff like that can happen in dreams.
Hercules is on a quest to restore his good name - by shrinking to microscopic size, wrestling the rogue blood cells inside of Gillette, and making them submit!
This tactic actually has some precedent, but only with Ellipsis-level technology. This time, the gods helped out - with a bit of prompting from the Method Man.

May

Rise of the Method Man. Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

The mystic powers have appointed a supernatural hunter of fools - and that hunter is me!

An Anglican church has declared a holy war, with angels leading the procession! (1 May)
- Whatever happened to the Embassies of Heaven, anyway? They were founded in 2001. The one in the City of Mary-Arkansas got evacuated, shortly before the city turned back into Little Rock after reality shifts in 2005. But the one in Windsor-England could well still be inhabited by angels.
- Aside from angels in residence, the Church of Canterbury has the same connections as the Roman church does, and sometimes a bit more sensibility too.
- Anglicans have heard I'm indwelt by a demon. Which is not exactly new for me, so I'm probably on someone's short list of threats from hell already. And now I'm making myself notorious in Canada for haunting the dreams of judges and militarists (who have some influence over a court case of mine).
- But also of concern to them is one "Eye of Satan", a German mage who actually claims control over one of Lucifer's body parts. And the Panlucida Incident (which drew upon the Holy Mother's mystic power) really got their attention.
- Their attention is an honor, I suppose - especially because they sat out the establishment of the Church of the Super-Savior and the alien infestation that wiped out the City of Mary. If I get more attention than those, I shall have to be worthy.
For my first trick, I turn into the Method Man in a convenience store. Vengeance upon shoplifters! That's how the Method Man became famous. (2 May)
Meanwhile, mean-spirited reports come out, John Wesley once secretly did a crypt ritual with comatose women, and was worried he might be discovered when he fathered their children.

The Method Man senses involvement from the Church of the Super Savior, which once published mean-spirited prophecies of John Wesley. It's as though they have a grudge against Methodists.
But the method of the Method Man is not to distinguish either Methodists or the supposed Super Savior with his attention. That must be the same thing the angels were thinking. (5 May)

The Method Man turns his attention to other churches. So he turns back into me, long enough for me to give Lansing Baptists a Sunday school lesson on comparative religion.
- As I describe how I didn't choose Episcopaleans this time, the Episcopal Bishop of Michigan walks in. Many agnostics from work come in too.
- Anglicans seem have special insight into me, such that they can track me. The angels must be helping. (7 May)
The Archbishop of Canterbury is visiting my Episcopal church back in Illinois - so as to exorcise my presence! The church has some workload and traffic ticket concerns because I'm not there to help. But the Method Man stops in to teach the unofficial lyrics to a famous bagpipe song - the one that goes, "Bring me a sheep, I am so lonely tonight". (8 May)
Continuing the religious rounds... At weekend Congregationalist Bible camp back in Massachusetts, there's a lake and some boats, but one goes under because my own former youth group pranked it. The Method Man makes them dive to retrieve people's stuff. (15 May)
Back in the non-religious world, due to irate religous press releases and that one sensational vigilante incident, the Method Man is well known by now. When homebrewed beer keeps fermenting and overflows its serving keg, people try to find someone to be target for the vengeance of the Method Man. But then he shows up and exercises a subtle method: he brings mops. (18 May)
Our next target is at a baseball game. At the ballpark I buy two lite beers instead of the good stuff, but then Rocket Man (a Reagan-era superhuman, renamed from "MX") starts drinking and complaining about earthquakes in China. He's supposed to offer himself for disaster recovery there, but China says they don't need rocket help... The Method Man knew to make this guy drink light beer. (19 May)
Meanwhile, Anglicans are still protesting. Some say they even saw Jesus in a protest march. What, not Mary? Actually, I'd guess not; Mary has better things to do. (19 May)

It's probably pretty obvious, the Method Man gets his power and scariness from something other than me. But you probably have some other questions by now...

Why is the Method Man so smart? My demon partner and I don't get the credit. A demigoddess is helping us out. She calls herself "Info Goddess", but I suspect she's really the Wisdom of Solomon personified.
What can the Method Man do? Basically, anything that Death, Dreams and Darkness want.
- Plus, he can tweak the Omniversal Engines which control all superhuman power. Well, actually, that's my contribution; I've been able to do that since all that DuoPolarity stuff in 1988/1996, though I didn't realize their importance until 2003.
- So, the Method Man is easily the world's most powerful superhuman. And I'm part of the Method Man.

... Ho hum, I'm on top again. Just like the Powernaut and I were in 2005. The Powernaut and I eventually went our separate ways. I expect the Method Man and I will too. But for now, it's fun to be more powerful than Ellipsis.

May

Combine. Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

Superhumans of the world are having another reunion. After that Hypernaut affair in the Dreamtime, the following superhumans found themselves unceremoniously dumped near Hong Kong:

Ellipsis, Julie Wolcott, and the Mighty Tim: the original Balance (more or less).
Senhora Valkyrie, the Warrior Ashanti, and the Bride of the Ultimate Darknesss: the replacement Balance.
Ted Clark, Hudson Ramo, Ingrid and Karen Bodil, Theodore Ketzel, and tagalong Bill Jones: DuoPolarity of Boston.
"White mages" Lucianus Autonomus and Vara Hosea.

They decided, it was conference time. And Hong Kong is a decent place for a conference, at least when you have access to teleporters and the world's most powerful spacecraft. So they invite:

Hudson's allies Wendie Robinson, Judy Kraaco, the Alien Beast, and Dom-Ra the Solarian: Wendie's Wanderers.
Bill's allies Stonewater and various others including the Crusher Island contingent: Total Conversion. Former allies of Ellipsis.
Everyone's pal the Powernaut and his business manager Karl Scribner, representing the Power Patrol. Ron Cannon from the Patrol is invited too, but he has political rallies to go to instead. For that matter, the Powernaut is busy too; the big guy's always been highly focused on actually doing stuff instead of talking about stuff.
The Dancer of NYC, representing New York City's vigilantes.

The order of business is as usual: Now what?

Our Heroes still have superhuman powers. But they no longer have superduperhuman powers. For instance, the Bride of the Ultimate Darkness and her two Best Men can still do tricks with the dark, but she can't teleport a city any more.
Mystic beings seem to have appointed the Method Man as an enforcer of these limits. He can neutralize most superhuman powers. There is some discussion on how to override this. But Lucianus points out, it usually doesn't pay to fight the gods - especially when the gods just won.
Another issue: U.S. leadership.
- In the old Superhuman World before reality shifts, President Rodham was a trusted ally of world leadership and the superhumans. Here she's still Hillary Clinton.
- She's leading in her primary elections, thanks to the Panlucida women's groups. But there's some question about how pure she is. Here, she didn't divorce her cheating husband - who happens to have been the U.S. President.
The stakes seem as high as ever. Time travellers know this, and they're watching closely. Given the recent activities of magicians and space aliens, we've got some other eras interested in us. Have we destroyed these eras, or created them?
- Stonewater reports a visit from the future: the son of the heroic Megaphone has come to see how decisive 2008 is. He's got all his father's equipment and more, and he's staying on with Total Conversion. (27 Feb) He's worked out better than hiring Private Danger the World War 2 hero did; Private Danger is just plain lazy. (23 Mar)
- Wendie Robinson reports some patrolling in the past. She inadvertently time-travelled to New Orleans where Victor Hugo was a nationalist. Somehow in this past, Mr. Hugo wound up here instead of the Channel Islands 1851 - 1870. And the Time Patrol was highly interested. (29 Feb)

The whole contingent comes under attack... but from what? (26 May)

Now that everyone's back, they're sorting out who gets what. It seems the Morningstar stone, recently wielded by Julie Wolcott ("Mrs. Ellipsis"), needs to go back to Laura James! Laura's suffering from something like Alzheimer's disease without it. Julie's not heartless, so she accepts.
But the sorceror Auge von Shaitan wants the stone too, for his master Satan. In his view, Lucifer deserves the stone for nomenclature's sake, if not for the massive dream energy the stone is now loaded with.
Auge's chosen tool is... Ellipsis! Ellipsis is the world's most powerful telepath and energy-wielder, but it takes more than mental fortitude to resist a spiritual assault. And Ellipsis is low on spirit right now. But he's still smart enough to zap the "white mages" first, on behalf of his new master.
Our Aliens find themselves powerless to intervene in an Earthling spiritual fight, because their Higher Powers don't recognize our Lucifer. I guess it really does suck that God threw the Devil down to Earth once. (Not to Hell as is commonly supposed. Auge von Shaitan loves to point that out.)
But "Little Bill" Jones is high on spirit. He's just met his beloved Aunt Judy!
- Bill is the little brother of Judy Kraaco's three nieces (whom I've met). While Judy raised the nieces, Total Conversion got the nephew, because he'd shown superpowers by them. So Bill was raised by (of all creatures) Mr. and Mrs. Ellipsis and the Doom Koala of Speed.
Bill is a force manipulator, and therefore survives the first counterattack from Ellipsis. That's just enough time for Senhora Valkyrie to join in. She's a good Catholic so she has spirit too, and her Thunder Chain protects her and Little Bill from the next counterstrike.
After that, others recover and join the fight. Being outnumbered roughly twenty to two, Auge von Shaitan chooses the better part of valor and departs.

Our Heroes survive, and keep the stone. So now what?

Laura James gets the Morningstar stone back. But after it does its work, she gives it back to Julie Wolcott! Mrs. James is a family woman and is perfectly happy without that superhero stuff.
The Balance and DuoPolarity of Boston are merging! They're practically family by now, and they all have mutual enemies who are Secret Masters of Evil. With Ellipsis on board, DuoPolarity might acquire the FERG - if Secret Masters don't do it first. People are already calling this new conglomeration The Combine.
Mages will do whatever they like, Total Conversion will still recruit the profit-motivated superhumans, and the Power Patrol will take the altruistic ones. But they'll coordinate with the Combine.
The Combine will start seriously exploring the alternate worlds. The hyper-realms are pretty much closed off, but the Catalog of Earths is still open. (2 Jun)

June

Reversal, or The Return of Wyatt Ferguson. Hey, that's me! Commentator: Wyatt Ferguson.

As I anticipated, my work conditions have changed. I've split off from the Method Man, now that he's helped me out with a few final things. (9 Jun)

U.S. courts have already remanded me to the custody of the Countess San Giacomo. The Countess is looking forward to a long and fruitful business partnership. Oh, why not. She's been a loyal ally so far, and no more evil than the rest of the Superhuman World. Women love her for her part in the Panlucida Affair.
Canada is dropping its extradition case against me. In fact, they're worried I'm going to sue them in the World Court. The Method Man has been kind enough to obtain some documents of the Secret Wings program and leave them in the office of the Toronto Daily Mail.
The Hurrier (Erik Katzman) is the star witness against me, but he has his own problems. His wife Katerina has had him committed! She tells tales of neglect and cruelty. Even the Hurrier admits he could not relate well to his wife, since she got superpowers after the Panlucida Affair.
The entire U.S. Democratic party has a grudge against the Hurrier, since he published conspiracy theories about both their Presidential campaigns. So, there are powerful forces which want him neutralized.
Women's groups have a grudge against the Hurrier too, because he opposes the Panlucida Movement. So they've been eager to help his wife out.
As part of the women's effort, my favorite Countess has assigned me to maintain the Superhuman World web site. Which makes sense, because it was my site in the first place. The Hurrier nationalized it from me. But now that his wife controls the site, nationality is not an issue.
Mrs. Katzman reviews my writing. No objections from her so far, because it has never been my wish to argue with her husband. And she still operates the full web site Hurriertech.com (German: Eilertech.com) with a full spectrum of other public input. That satisfies the German "anti-propaganda organ" rules which Mr. Katzman was so eager to enforce.
Last Friday the Hurrier broke out of asylum, because they couldn't sedate him fast enough. Go figure. But he's on the run now, and I'm running his web site. There are so many things I could say right now, but the Method Man would say it best: Justice is served. (13 Jun)

Announcement (Continued):

The whole story leads back to this very web page, Dear Reader.

Hello, I'm Wyatt Ferguson. I'm back. I suspected I would be. In the past, not even reality shifts and the world's mightiest superhumans could keep me and my story apart. And the whole Superhuman World's story is my story too.

I see The Hurrier made some format changes while I was away. I plan to keep the good changes, while providing a bit more editorial control than Mr. Katzman managed. While I respect all our recent corresponents, I think some of them could use some help with the language, from someone who grew up with that same language.

I'm going to add in some hyperlinks Mr. Katzman didn't dare put in - because they would have publicized my own web pages. They may be subversive, but they're also relevant to the story. I think the world may want to follow the backstory.

I also plan to avoid rampant paranoia, which (in my opinion) prevented story quality. Let's face it, reading and writing should both be fun. So let the fun resume.

(signed) Your new and returning editor, Wyatt Ferguson.

Me in the Superhuman World:
Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 .
This Year: Jan Feb Mar Apr A Prequel May Reversal Jun A Sequel Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec .

All characters in this fiction and the phrase "Superhuman World 2008" are copyright © 2008 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.