A Set Outcome
by Rob Morris
Bob Parr put on the interactive glasses yet again. After 93 times, he no longer felt the twitch that warned against his mind and will being suddenly overridden.
He just felt every other kind of twitch.
"Run simulation Buddy-L again. Include adjustments made for errors in prior sims."
It began with the same hopeful words.
*Being my partner means obeying me until you are ready-and I will judge that-alone. Understood?*
The would-be suicide was handled with a bit more finesse, or at least enough that somehow the idiot couldn't argue about how his life was saved. Bomb Voyage was tied down with his own primer cords, so that escape meant a self-sacrifice the robber was not prepared to make.
"Good. Let's keep it going..."
Both Buddy and his mother were invited to the wedding. The first sim had gone tragically wrong when he failed to do that. Buddy had felt 'the city still needed protecting'. His death at the hands of one of the so-called 'Lesser HenchBots' not only unleashed the lawsuits, but a crusade against Supers endangering children. The shutdown included public unmaskings in many cases, followed by families of Supers becoming targets.
"Buddy's Mom is kept informed of progress-by Helen, so there's no misunderstandings. Buddy is given a talk on misogyny, so he accepts training from Helen. Make sure Helen feels appreciated...always a good idea. Still not able to get him to join Junior Achievement - needs to make friends his own age."
Yet still the sim-Buddy was on friendlier terms with JA than the first 43 times, seven of which had ended with him putting them through a sim of his own - a no-win hell that left them all badly traumatized and Buddy once again well on his way to becoming Syndrome.
"Why is it that Jim Marshall's kid doesn't develop powers, he turns out fine, but I have to work these sims to maximum allowed input to keep Buddy from resenting everyone around him?"
But this time, things were going fine. Buddy was not injured, his tantrums were able to be managed, and the idea of a non-super Super was making him a bit of a star.
"And everything will stay just fine so long as...not again. Computer? I said specifically that none of these simulations was to include Oh-Shrap Nellie! in them ever again. Didn't we fully neutralize her shortly after the wedding?"
The computer's amazing but limited voder gave what it could.
**NO RELIABLE METHOD SAVE DIRECT EXECUTION IN MORTAL FORM WAS EVER ESTABLISHED FOR FULLY NEUTRALIZING ANELLE OLLSON, AKA OH-SHRAP NELLIE!. SHE WAS NOTED FOR ADAPTING AROUND ANY METHODS USED OR ATTEMPTED. DIRECT EXECUTION IN MORTAL FORM WAS NOT UTILIZED. AT SOME POINT IN A RANDOMLY GENERATED SIMULATION, SHE MUST ESCAPE.**
Bob recalled Rick Dicker calling the sociopath one of his great regrets. Her final containment, in an island facility off Kamakura, Japan, was the last straw and when she was drained down to human form by her constant need to attack, a sniper was forced to deliver a 50-caliber shell straight to the back of her skull.
"Damn it-continue sim. Maybe with all the lessons we managed to impart to Buddy, plus his new stability and greater experience-no."
Oh-Shrap Nellie! spread her damage far and wide, and with improvements in her delivery, managed to hurt even Bob and Helen, though not even close to fatally. Buddy kept swearing he could stop her, if he just got in close enough. His method worked, and Lucius was able to hit her with an ice pick-again at the back of her skull. Frozone retired forever after this. It was not merely being forced to kill in such a direct and brutal manner that drove him to such a choice - it was also the grisly sight of Buddy's parts, scattered all over the battlefield.
"Finish simulation, present-day equivalence."
*You remember my son, don't you Mister Incredible? After all, he was your Number One Fan.*
Bob didn't bother this time asking how Buddy's Mom was able to suddenly use all his gadgets and create more of her own. He at last turned the damned thing off as the cape a mother insisted on wearing in her boy's memory led her to similar end. A voice from behind him confirmed how long he had been at this.
"I was just about to pull the plug on you. You've got everybody really worried-again."
He didn't care that he was obvious as he deflected her concerns.
"How'd the Congressional testimony go?"
She didn't bother with reminding that he would know if he had watched. Then again, while being there, Helen would not have wanted to watch either.
"Fine. Had a bit of a dust-up with Senator Cavill from Kansas - dude's got a weird moustache-and someone planted a bomb I grabbed and sent into the Potomac. They were happy to see the revised actuarial tables. Most everyone was."
She got up in front of him, turning his chair to face her.
"Except you. You'd think that Winston realizing how Evelyn cooked the insurance books to make you look like a wrecking machine would cheer you up, but you are hard to cheer up."
Bob shook his head.
"She didn't cook them that much. You forget, I know insurance. I may never have liked it, but I know it well enough to shut down the city's bilge-water over the Underminer incident. There, they ignored how much damage and life loss his emergence alone would have - and almost did - cost. In Evelyn's case, she played it smart, I'll give her that. Everyone else, every other Super, got their damage calculation toned down by recovery efforts they participated in and specific points of damage that could not be placed on their ledger-in other words what the bad guy was pulling that no one could help. Me?"
Helen nodded. She appreciated the explanation, despite her own intelligence. When first informed of this re-working of their histories, she was plainly livid, both for the man she loved and for another level of Evelyn's scheming. It had left her with specific questions Bob's job experience enabled him to pick up a little easier. Though she had wondered even then why he was neither elated nor furious.
"You, she just included all damage even remotely associated with you - including large team-ups you may have shown up to late in the game. We were both so anxious to have the ban lifted, I guess we didn't question why your damage was a small graph mountain compared to everyone else's."
Bob held up an opened palm.
"My damage ratio was still the largest. Maybe it was more of a small hill higher than a mountain once you took out her tweaks, but I still helped set up the time of the lawsuits, and the ban."
Helen slapped her hand on the computer desk.
"NO, we all set that up. Bob, Rick showed me some of the things his agency had to cover, back before the ban. One and all, we looked at threats ended, jokes made and jobs well done. We were all prone to go 'oops' when it came to the wrecked houses and businesses we left behind. We were used to saving the big world, and we got kind of sloppy about saving all the small ones out there. I will not let you take responsibility for all that. Bob Parr, you lied to me, you ran around with your old girlfriend-"
She smiled and held up his domino mask.
"-and you ultimately got this family in a lot of danger by way of the first two. But while I forgave that, what I cannot forgive is you trying to lift the whole world on those broad shoulders. As a wise man once said, you're not strong enough. Now why have you been running Winston's simulation program so blasted often?-and don't think you can lie to me about this."
Bob shrugged.
"Mountain or really large molehill, seeing those damage actuarials - things I really can understand - made me rethink some of my approach to things. If you were successful, and we got back out there, I was gonna have to not break as much as I used to. So I've been running these sims. A lot of good ideas - mainly ways of looking at your surroundings - came out of it. Then, I made my mistake."
Helen actually hated when Bob was too introspective. He tended to go all-out on that just as much as any physical effort, only the damage was harder to clean up after.
"Which was?"
Bob looked at the shut-down computer.
"I wondered if I could handle a future Buddy better so that they don't become the next Syndrome. So I gave the computer all the info it needed and tried to guide past-me in mentoring Buddy. Ninety-three times."
Helen felt a dread in the pit of her stomach.
"How-many successes?"
Bob sliced his hand in front of himself horizontally through the air.
"Not a one. Sometimes, I mishandled his temperament and he became Syndrome anyway. Sometimes, he was maimed or injured on missions, which either meant he wanted vengeance or didn't want to be forcibly retired. A lot of times, he was killed. In some of those, his mother became Syndrome - don't ask. And for some reason, this computer just kept sending Oh-Shrap Nellie! out. Not the biggest evil genius, or the worst psychopath, or vengeful loser. Just someone who was both driven crazy by her power and enjoyed using it too much."
Helen closed her eyes.
"I am so happy none of our kids or this younger generation will ever have to face her. Raw carnage. Even the other bad folks never liked her. But Bob, she was hard to contain-impossible, really. So the computer had to include her in."
She blocked him from turning it back on.
"Just the same way you, Mister Incredible, have to realize that you made the right choice, even down to the harsh tones you used. Buddy wasn't listening. He would have got himself or others killed. Remember, these simulations are still likely a hundred times more ideal and predictable than reality. He would have died or lost body parts, Bob, and given his nature, just who would he have blamed for his losses? I'd frankly rather have Mirage over for weekly grilled cheese and tomato soup than watch you chastise yourself for not taking an untrainable 12-year-old narcissist into combat."
Bob finally got out of his chair and in doing so, left part of his past behind.
"Well, since I'm pretty sure the government has her doing some kind of dirty work, why don't we skip Mirage and just go soup and sandwich on our own? I've gotten pretty good at grilled cheese recently."
Helen couldn't resist the opening.
"At the cost of three innocent skillets, if my sources can be trusted."
Bob smiled and kissed her.
"Sacrifices must be made for the greater good. Lucky thing Jack-Jack has that alternate dimension at the ready."
While he cooked, indeed having immensely improved his art, Helen sat and sorted their mail. At one letter, her eyes went wide.
"Bob-I think we got a letter meant for the prior owner."
Bob pressed the sandwiches down with the spatula.
"Guess we forward those to Winston. Wait-are you playing with me? Lemme guess-does it say B. Wayne on the header?"
Flipping the grilled cheese onto their plates, Bob set to heating the soup in the speed-warmer. Helen did not respond with a joke about Batman.
"No-not B. Wayne-"
She placed the letter down and he saw. Soup and sandwiches would now both go cold. Bob felt his eye twitch. It felt like the simulation had turned itself back on.
"B. Pine."