Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 A Prequel Sinking A Sequel .
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Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 A Prequel Sinking A Sequel . Superhuman World 2010 is a work of fiction. The characters herein and the commentary about them should not be considered "real".SUPERHUMAN WORLD 2010The SinkingSeptember - October 2010 |
IntroductionIt started with a massive crop failure. It continued with the Devil come back to Earth for a visit. Next stop after this is probably Earth 2011. None of this is good news. (signed) Wyatt Ferguson.
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Return of The Waitress From Beyond - As A Rescuer! | |||
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I came to this world as an immigrant. (See Related Story) I'm still learning. But I've got sponsors. One of those wrestling tournaments I was in, turned into a reality show with superpowers. I got salmon powers from that. It helped me win an uphill swimming contest. But the producers made me promise not to tell how. Really, I don't understand how either. After I got salmon powers, I got invited to Alaska for a salmon festival. Alaska's really proud of how they have enough food for everyone now, even when the rest of the US is running out because of a bad harvest. Alaska's started shipping more salmon to the Lower 48, and some caribou too. The festival was in Ketchikan, way southeast. It's closer to Seattle than Anchorage. But all the cruise ships and freighters go past there, down the Alaska Inside Passage. The festival was going to start on Friday, October 1. I got in town on Wednesday, so I could meet with people on Thursday. They couldn't find me a room at the best hotel in town. But I said the dorm-style hotel was fine, as long as they paid me the difference. :) On Thursday in the meeting, we got interrupted. There was a ship sinking in the strait! Everyone else went to phone people. I asked, "Um, shouldn't someone go help?" They said, well, yeah, that's why they were all going to phones. So I went to help. Hey, I can swim like a salmon. Salmon don't care how cold the water is, and they don't need to put on life preservers. So I don't need that stuff either. By the time I got to the strait, there was only one lifeboat out, and sailors were jumping. Hey, shouldn't there be more lifeboats? I jumped in and started towing people toward the lifeboat. It wasn't near full. But when I got my second guy there, the first one was already fighting with two other guys on board! One of the others had a pistol! I wondered how to reach him. But before I knew it, I jumped out of the water across the raft, and knocked the guy in the water with me! He still had a pistol and I didn't. But that's just like being a waitress always is, when some crazy comes in your diner. I just got away from him. It was easy, because I swam like a salmon. But then some other woman swam up, just like I was! I heard her even under water. She was saying, "What the hell are you?" "Me? What about you?" "You're not supposed to be here!" "You want to stop me?" I rammed her, like I did the other guy. But I bounced off! "You don't get it. I bounce fish like you off me!" She grappled me and squeezed hard. I should have been able to dodge, but she was grabbing where she wasn't big enough to reach. It hurt! But like a salmon, I squirmed out. This woman was bigger than she looked. Maybe she was even big enough to ram that ship and sink it. There wasn't much I could do about that. But I remembered, I wasn't out there to win a fight. So I swam away, and started towing sailors toward shore. I looked behind me to see if she was chasing me. Salmon can do that, with just a little twist of the head! I don't know how I did it too, since my eyes hadn't been moved, but I did. I don't know if she was still by the boat, but I couldn't see her anywhere near me. As I arrived at the shore and turned back, I saw lots of sailors being pushed in! I couldn't see what was pushing them. Something invisible the size of a whale must be out there rescuing people. Hey, I'd just bounced off something invisible. So, after all the sailors were safe, I caught up with the invisible whale-sized shape. I said, "Can we talk?" So we talked. Yeah, it was one of those Fight And Then Team Up things. My friend Jimmy Flamer tells me about those all the time. I guess it's my turn. She didn't give me her name, but she's kind of a whale woman. She has whale powers, like I have salmon powers. She got her powers a lot like I did, with the same kind of sponsor. She's a lot stronger than I am, but she can't jump so well. She was watching this lifeboat, but whale powers couldn't get to just one person on it. Only salmon powers could.
The Whale Woman says she didn't sink the ship. She came from the future to watch other people sink it! She was trying to prevent it, but she was looking around the starboard hull for dynamite. Instead a small boat slammed from port... It must suck to be from the future if you want to keep track of the past. We can't even do that here. Doesn't everyone argue about what the past was? The ship was sabotaged, even before the boat impact. That one guy with the pistol was defending the only floating lifeboat. He must have been in on it. The Whale Woman thinks this is the Sign Of The Apocalypse or something. Aw, come on. Lots of people say that, but mankind's still here. After the Whale Woman and I talked, she went to wherever. Women with whale powers can go anywhere, away from people who want to talk to them. I stayed in Ketchikan. I did interviews. The sinking was a national incident. But we saved everyone. Us doing that made the world news. Some locals sank the ship. They crashed the local ferry boat into it. They wanted Alaska not to ship food out. Oh, waah. Doesn't Alaska usually import food? The government's asked me to stay in Ketchikan until a trial. While I'm here, I drink with the locals. They don't want to sink ships. Alaska is all about ships. But lots of Alaskans came from "below". They say they'd blow up skyscrapers if they could. I hope they're just venting. | |||
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Afterword by Wyatt Ferguson. I pride myself on going everywhere. I've been to Alaska twice - but it was the Aleutian Islands both times. (1988 2004) The rest of Alaska is a big place, and I can't swear to native knowledge therein. As a Federal agent, I collect testimony from whom I can. I've met Nell the Waitress, and I trust her witness. I do have to say, Nell's come to the Pacific Northwest and gotten animal powers. I know someone who did that before her. Indian tribes would be the most obvious source. Perhaps they're selling these powers. It makes as much sense as selling space on The Res for a toxic waste dump - which has already happened. Before Nell, there was a young woman named Kristi. She made me swear never to call her the Whale Girl. I myself brought her back from the future. Her future was the end of the world by a plague of cold. I have to say, Kristi's future's is on track. I've fallen out of contact with Kristi, but I think Nell may have made contact. As Nell mentions... On 30 September 2010, one of the ferry ships of Ketchican, Alaska collided with a freighter which was towing some barges. The collision was apparently on purpose by Alaskan protesters who'd commandeered the ferry. The protesters said, during the current food crisis Alaska should not send food away from Alaskans. Alaska usually imports food to supplement what its own hunters get. But the U.S. Gov has started slaughtering the caribou herds as a food source for part of the rest of the nation. This is in addition to the usual salmon shipments. So extra food is for once being shipped out of Alaska. And people object to that... ... Shit. Our Vice-President once said that about the situation. One commentator out on the Internet responded, Shit Indeed. Now people often say, Shit. Shit Indeed. And so a crisis is reduced to a slogan. Of course, there is protest. There's some organized support too. Militiamen splintered after a gathering they had last month, but each segment is even more active now. Evil Mayor Anvernacht was involved in the militia gathering. He now has Satanic powers. He disappeared then. National Science Advisor Stephen Wolcott has left his post to track Anvernacht. Wolcott is better known as the superhuman Ellipsis. He and Anvernacht are old enemies, apparently even more so than Anvernacht and I are. I call him Evil Mayor Anvernacht because he abducted me once. Since our Earth's orbit changed, much of U.S. national security has depended on a calm population. This was initially delivered by the "Emperor Ted" with alien armor. But the effects of this armor have been wearing off since February of this year. Ellipsis is known to be a telepath. He's suspected to have mind control powers, though he's never admitted this. Still, there's been increasing discontent but no incidents - until now. I suspect Ellipsis was secretly intervening. If Ellipsis really was propping up the national security, it must have been reluctantly. He used to sponsor independence movements in Greenland, Keewatin, the Aleutian Islands, and everywhere else he could get away with. In Patagonia this backfired. With Ellipsis off his national science-but-secretly-security post, the crazies have surfaced. Stonewater Smith from the militia convention in Montana has emerged in South Carolina as the patriotic front man of the Nehemiah Covenant group. The Nehemiah Covenant is dedicated to keep holy people occupying America as once they did in Israel. Stonewater Smith preaches how he was spared from Hell to lead people to sweet water from the stone as Moses did, if only they should believe... I'd usually say, "Whatever", but I'm scared. Simple-minded faith may be contagious now. We don't know yet if President Obama will send troops to put down unrest among American citizens. Not even Vice-President Corrigan can predict that. Obama came to power as an independent, and had to make deals left and right. Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State, and John McCain for Homeland Security. McCain's ready to send the National Guard to domestic terror sites, but there's some popular outcry, and Obama's being noncommittal. One day after the Alaska sinking, a bomb went off at a construction site in Colorado Springs. An e-mailed statement said they weren't bombing finished buildings, because only terrorists do that, but there should be no construction other than survival. "Terror" and "Resistance" are both wrong words. But we've now seen the new stupidity in the face of extinction. If this goes on, we all will sink. ... Shit. Shit indeed. |
This story is technically September 2010 #1.
I expect this story to be part of a fiction-writing challenge, as usual. But it's also part of a freight train now, and the track's likely to stop before the train does.
Various characters in this fiction may have been created by various people - especially "Crusher Joe Corrigan" who once came from Joe Fucile. But absent claims from these people, all characters in this fiction and the phrase "Superhuman World 2010" are copyright © 2010 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.
(signed) Scott Eiler, 1 October 2010.
