by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings. Additional warning for this chapter: triggers ahead. Seriously. The thought experiment, here, was to find out if some people can be redeemed or if there are sins so heinous that no priest (or therapist, nowadays) would absolve them. Initially. And then I couldn't go on, and merely asked "what if"? What if things aren't what they look like? What would you do, in their shoes? What's your degree of empathy towards your fellow human?
The TherapiesChapter summary: Kaiser gets therapy. Rune, too… sort of. And then the story forks.
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The ScarecrowMy name is Kaiser. And I'm not a Nazi.
I know that you won't believe me without proof. Hell, I know you won't believe me, even with proof. Still, for my peace of mind, I commit these thoughts in writing so that future generations could see how difficult this time period is. For everyone… including me.
When I was young, I didn't understand how my father could fly into rages when I asked a simple question: "Why?"
Why would he complain about black people, all the time?
In school, we were taught that black people were the best, and that we had to be shameful to be white. I asked "why?" to the teacher, too, which made my dad smile… just before he was blindsinded by an inquiry from the school district (and another from the State) on his methods of "raising me with hate". Fucking social hypocrites – why won't they investigate the parents of the little boy who always shouted "whiteys mus' dah", too? (and, before you shout at the wolf that isn't there, he was paler than I was).
When I inherited my father's empire, I still hadn't understood all his hate, but I also had had a trigger event that pushed me to be wary of black people too: walking home, a girl ran past me with tears in her eyes and her clothes, and several thugs who happened to have a healthy dose of melanin emerged from the alleyway. I was in the way, and they had knives. I was stabbed and left for dead with one knife in the lung and another in the liver. I let them there in order not to bleed out, and left. Somehow, they expanded and prevented me from dying from blood loss. And I lived.
Note that I don't hate them, as such. I'm just wary, now. Which is understandable: I have never been stabbed by a stampede of white people. Or Asians. Or Latinos. And I'm perfectly able to create friendship links with black individuals, too.
I wasn't blind either, and saw that there were white people with the same lack of restraint, able to unleash violence at the least provocation. Stupidity is humanity's curse, regardless of skin pigmentation.
As a man of order, my current goal is to lower the overall violence in my city. As such, I made sure to reel in all the violent skin-heads, so that they would obey my orders instead of rampaging in the street. That was my way to limit chaos: I'm not giving them free rein on mayhem, even culling those going on unauthorized rampage.
On the civilian side, I'm Max Anders, CEO of Medhall. Which, like the Empire 88, I inherited from my father.
If you look at the surface, you'll see a successful enterprise. If you look only a little beyond, you'll see that the top management is mostly white people (and mostly male, too). And you'll inevitably come to the conclusion that we're unbelievably racist sexist chauvinist pigs, right? And that, thus, everything I say has to be taken with a 3-ton grain of salt (preferably to my face). Right?
It's only if you look deeper than skin-depth (as so few of you are wont to do) that you realize why: our model is based on merit. And most of those actually wanting to commit hours and days of their time in search for a stable economy (and not shooting each other in anger at the slightest provocation) are Asian, first, then White, then Latino, then Black – official statistics, you see.
Since it's Brockton Bay, here, the clever Asians are snapped up by their gang. They are the racist ones, not wanting any non-Asian to join. But since we're white, that tag falls on us. Sigh.
There are brown and black people working here. I even have three of them in the higher council of Medhall (a Black man, a Latino woman, and an Indian man). I think that's the only reason we aren't swamped in legal demands about quotas – we still receive them, of course.
Why? Perhaps because, as it happens, everyone working here starts on the bottom in regards with their diploma and entrance interview. Those with ugly results or behaviours are obviously out, and those are the ones more vocal about being outed because of something not-their-fault. Fucking snowflakes.
Nevertheless, starting points can vary, but only consistent work ethics and results (again) allow people to rise. Once again, those clever enough to hide their behaviour at the interview are found out when they complain about not getting raises. Just because they came to work? Come on…
I, and Medhall by extension, don't bow to pressure from outside forces, be they hypothetical ideals or plain guerrilla mercenaries under the name of "social justice" – hint: they are here to sow chaos, not to bring justice, and even less to help people. Those never fight fairly anyways: give them an inch, they'll take the foot, and complain that they can't have the whole yard, while suing for the mile. And not in a court of law, where they would be (and have been) laughed out because of pesky things like "due process" and "presumption of innocence".
And don't get me started on the reason why so many coloured people could be seen with "shit" jobs in my enterprise. Such as cleaning, or security…
First of all, I don't consider any job to be "shit". I did some of them, even, and it builds character. Still, many people won't want them, preferring, obviously, well-paying desk job, like top management. Those are the jobs people complain there are mostly males, not front-line soldiers, bricklayers, or garbage collectors. Go figure.
Second, this isn't my decision: those jobs are outsourced to another company, and if that one wants to only employ immigrating people of any colour, it's their choice. Of course, when it is clear that they are illegal ones, I challenge the contract, because we pay extra to have a ISO-something contractor, meaning that they have to respect the law.
Apparently, law-breaking isn't limited to individuals. When I do so (challenging subcontractors on their employees' qualifications), I have angry people complaining about losing the means to feed their family. Once again, snowflake mentality: if they lack those funds, it's only because they wanted to exploit both the client (me) and the employees (those immigrants) by charging more and paying less.
I happen to have some of them in Medhall itself. Immigrants, I mean. Of every colour, some whiter than me (such as those from Russia or Poland). If they're legal, no problem. If they're not, bye-bye. Or, if they proved to be willing to continue working hard for the company, we could help with the papers to make them legal.
And it's not immigrants only: people who fake any kind of credentials (or whiny ones who ask for more than what they deserve, arguing for external reasons) are let go without compensation. Those who become less effective when promoted are demoted instead, keeping only a bit of their earlier increased salary to note that they had reached their potential. Everyone was placed where they could bring the best out of themselves for the company… and the best of the company for themselves.
Nowadays, most people wouldn't understand that. They would want half of my board of directors as women, and a quota of coloured people way out of proportion with the country's demographics. And Brockton Bay's, especially. Fuck them. We aren't subservient to any overseer bound to those baying hounds. My family has made that company based on a good work ethics and, personal ideologies asides, I won't piss on their grave by submitting to the current follies – which change day after day, anyways: apparently, the preferred minority category du jour is… Transsexual. It will change soon.
But, of course, everybody and their dog think they are better than Kaiser. Because being tarred with that Nazi brush makes everything bad, and evil, and dumb, and you can't defend against that accusation.
It's like a scarecrow: once it is installed in a conversation, crows flee. Crows like Huginn and Muginn, Odin's birds, you know? They represent "thought" and "memory", respectively. Once the mannequin is there, logic and reason flee.
Once you're dubbed with that name, it dehumanize you. You shall be lower than earth, then, everyone thinking that you dislike others just because they're not white. Not only that: for some people, it gives them a licence to ignore our constitutional rights… and kill us. Why do you think I have the armour I have?
They justify this because in their mind, everyone called a Nazi is a Nazi, as those froth-mouthed caricatures from WW2 – ready to rape babies while they kill their mother (or is it the other way around? I always forget, with those spurious propaganda claims)… and, of course, a number of Jewish people approximately equal to exactly six millions.
You can thank them for that: spear-headed by those who had fled the bloodshed in advance, their post-war propaganda has been unequalled in efficiency and ferocity. They even bought a country, with an unparalleled willingness to inflict harm on its neighbours. Free of criticism, of course, because, you know…
Nowadays, no city can be complete without its memorial, even if the war was on another continent. Some would ask how the population ascribed as victim, there, was able to control the narrative enough to never leave that designation. Ever.
Even my last wife thinks she's better than me. She thought that, as an empowered woman, she could have a dalliance with someone while staying married with me. I threw her out even before I learned that it was with a strapping minority member.
Kayden had never loved me, apparently, more in love with some idea of power – in fact, our marriage came straight out of what was often called "office romance". Of course, she didn't want to work with me anymore, afterwards.
I forge ahead, like always.
Consider this: I'm not even calling the cops on her or the lawyers to get our daughter back. I would, because she's unstable enough that I actually fear for Aster's health.
But as "luck" would have it, a girl with enough reason discovered the infant's living conditions, followed the breadcrumbs, and brought me my daughter back.
She only asked if I could help her escape Coil's coils. And was desperate enough to imply that she could uncover my secret identity, too.
She even discovered an identity I thought nobody remembered: the one I called Vulcan. Everybody seemed to know Kaiser and Max Anders (without linking the two, thankfully). But nobody knows that I have powers beyond extending metal: I can also change its properties, including heat. I could even drown (and burn) people with liquid steel, if I wanted – and note that steel only starts to melt at 2500 degrees Celsius.
I hired her immediately. High-powered Thinkers able to discern people's hidden identities were not that numerous. And this one was cute, to boot. She helped in return by remotely purging Coil's databases. And bank accounts (which she kept for herself, I'm not greedy). Coil's mercenaries turned on him when he found himself destitute, and Accord killed him when he successfully fled back to him to beg – I heard that it was because he was dishevelled and interrupted another meeting.
The girl, Lisa, had powers that made it hard to consider an office romance, but I had nothing against that, given what had happened with Kayden.
Instead, she met my other children. Before Kayden, I had been married several times. Most of my previous wives were attracted by the power inherent to my position, but not by me. They thought to secure their own position by "granting" me heirs, something that allowed them to demand more than their share when we inevitably split. As the CEO of a successful venture, I was well counselled and had avoided that trap from the get go. They had enough to live for a few years, and that was all. Most splurged and found themselves destitute, leaving me to collect the children earlier than intended.
Before she gave me Aster, Kayden used to babysit Theo, a son I had who was a teenager at that time. And before him, I had another girl named Tammi, whose mother was the exception to the rule: she was a heroic cape. She could think things through, though, and I always regretted her death against Behemoth. I also regretted the school's decision to have all their pupils in front of the television, displaying the on-going fight – the slaughter, you mean. Against my wishes to the contrary, as the daughter of one of the heroes, Tammi was brought forwards enough that she could read the running words below the image, taken right from Dragon's morbid commentary… and obituary.
Apparently, second-generation capes had easier trigger events, because that made her Trigger (it's not to say that hadn't been traumatic, just that the previous generation had to feel more than mental anguish to become a cape).
Tammi's event was linked to the flow of symbols running on the television screen (listing her mother's cape name as deceased), and she became a cape with a power linked to symbols: Rune. Since I'm a hands-off man, in terms of education, I let her choose how to lead her own life. Sue me if she ended up in the Empire (I'm not even sure that she knows I'm Kaiser).
Rune's power is to telekinetically move anything on which she had drawn her special runes. Lisa helped her by providing us with several copies of a very specific etching tool. It was metallic, first, something that I could manipulate from anywhere. Its end had the same runes as a raised pattern, allowing us to quickly mark anything for Rune to use. And it also had the same runes etched into it, allowing her to move it by her will alone. That way, she would never be out of ammunition. Or jumping platforms.
The same symbols were etched on my belt, as well as each of my subordinates in the Empire. Thanks to her, that would make all of us able to fly.
Even Fenja and Menja… my first-born twin daughters. They had inherited my blond hair and clear blue eyes with perfect vision – although, in my everyday life, I used coloured prescription contact lenses and glasses, so as to avoid people making the link should "Kaiser" ever be apprehended.
Upon reaching adulthood, the twins had asked for a special gift, which I granted in the form of two Cauldron vials with the exact same formula. Being twins, they wanted the same power. And they got it.
Now, when you look at the Empire capes, you also have Hookwolf, a known murderer. I keep him only as cannon fodder – something he likes very much, in fact. I know that, if let free, he would spread carnage through several towns before he could even be stopped, killing capes as well as civilians.
You also have Victor and Othala, husband and submissive wife, both coming from the same Aryan family that had started to marry cousins – because, yes, they were cousins. You also have Krieg, a charismatic Brute who completely believed the racist dogma. I know that Krieg and Victor, if I relinquished my control, would start a Purge in the town, targeting coloured people. Just because of their skin pigmentation, and not without any other reason.
You have Stormtiger and Cricket, who were more intolerant against the Muslims than the darker skin colour, because of their own trigger event: a plane hijacked by religious terrorists. If I let slip the leash, they would tour the country to kill all Arabs.
And I hold all of this in a hand of steel – pun intended. If you ever get rid of me, they would be free to use their powers in any way they see fit. And bring with them the whites who felt dispossessed of their identity by their own countries' policies – after all, you can't vent safely on those topics without being charged with hate crimes, so is it any wonder that they become enraged and hell-bent on violence?
My name is Kaiser, and I'm not a Nazi despite heading the "gang" known as the Empire. Ironically enough, I'm the last wall between you and a neo-Nazi apocalypse.
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Carrying a TuneRune was a villain. A teen-aged girl whose mind had been poisoned by some extremist views. Still, she wasn't stupid like the rank-and-file of her organization, and didn't want to kill people based on their skin colour. She didn't even see those different as "bad". Just different. After all, you'd be blind not to see that someone with a darker skin… had a darker skin.
You'd be equally blind not to see the data from sporting events, in which people with certain genetic markers outperformed others. Much like people bred better and better cattle, people having kids reinforced their traits in the kids. Tammi didn't have any problem with darker-coloured people winning athletic events – same as she didn't have problems with boys outperforming girls in sports involving strength, from teen years onwards. But just knowing this, and speaking about this, wasn't politically correct, and led her right into the arms of the Nazi gang in town.
And, as a cape, the girl was a soldier with specific duties: air support and transportation – her powers allowed her to draw runes on items to make them fly. Called Rune, she went into battle with her head held high, because that was what she had been taught. But as time went forwards, she noticed the violence inherent to the city, and realized that even a gang as organized as the Empire, as long as they were labelled "villains", could hold any meaningful territory for long.
After a while, she lost the will to fight. She didn't want to crush enemies under slabs of concrete, anymore. Or carry soldiers around so that they'd have free shot on people in the street.
Instead of a rock, she preferred to carry… a tune. She wanted to sing. So she did. In fact, she demanded a private apartment as a (small) price for her efforts. And given that Kaiser was still her father, he complied easily. That way, her coworkers wouldn't know of her preferences.
As it happened, she participated in a break-out that happened after Hookwolf had been apprehended with Cricket and Stormtiger. With three heavy hitters, the Empire easily stopped the penitentiary convoy, freeing their prisoners… and someone else.
"I say we kill her." Hookwolf growled. "They said she's a Master."
Rune was looking at the frightened blonde woman, not much older than herself. "I'll take her with me."
"What? I just-"
"Are you sure?" asked Kaiser, interrupting his wolf of a follower.
Rune had also noticed the woman's gaze at her, mixing fear and hope. She might be a Master, but she was mainly a shaken person right now. A beautiful one, even, she thought.
And, yes, quite a singer – that's why she had asked to be the one to take care of her. After removing all the restraints, she brought her home, and prepared a shower and a meal. She realized that she didn't have much, in terms of cooking skills. Or in beds, in fact.
"You can take my bed." she said when the other woman came after the shower. "I'll take the… er… couch?"
"You don't have one." came the melodious answer. "And the bed is large enough for the two of us. Thank you, by the way."
"You're welcome. I'm Tammi."
"I'm Paige. Canary, when on scene. Or as a villain identity, I guess."
Things led to other things. In this universe where people seem to end up in same-sex relation more often than not, Tammi and Paige ended up together as well.
That was another point of contention with parts of the Empire. The rank and file wasn't informed, and Canary didn't appear on their raids and other movements. She also didn't go to school with Tammi. But still, the rumour had it (from Hookwolf) that they "wasted their good genes" with each other.
And she fled. Besides, Canary had been bound for the Birdcage, and she risked discovery every day. Kaiser wasn't happy, but she explained her limited choices to him.
"Are you happy?" he asked simply.
"Yes." she replied equally simply.
"Good. I won't rescind your bank access, nor your smartphone subscription. But call your old man from time to time, alright?"
She swallowed the lump caused by her sudden gratitude. "I will. Thank you, dad."
With Canary, she learned to sing. And she did quite well, too. Following some links sent by Kaiser, she also completed her high school education through "home-schooling" with the singer.
One day, as they were tuning their guitars, Tammi kept the tuning fork close to her ear for the longest time. And the sound didn't abate.
They determined that her powers had changed, because of changed circumstances. Wanting to be exerted, the ability to influence gravitational waves expanded to include another kind of waves: sound. By inscribing her rune on other items, she could still make them float as before. But she could also make use of sonic waves too.
She could make anything vibrate with a sound, to make either the sound audible or the vibration shake the thing, eventually destroying it. Even the tuning fork became a weapon, the tines propagating visible waves to damage nearby structures… and people's eardrums. As any sound attack, it wouldn't be usable in space, of course, but since space exploration had greatly diminished since the Simurgh appeared, it wasn't a great concern. On the opposite side of the scale, her powers had a greater range underwater, and could act as sonar.
Eventually, she'd be able to detect and attack Leviathan from much farther away than anyone.
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And a ForkSpeaking of aquatic environments…
Fred was a dork, who had been quite the drunkard in his high school years, and the same continued in college. He was the kind of man to stab his own cheek with a fork, just to win a stupid bet – and some started to call him "Fork", because of this and because it nicely shortened everyone's expectation of "Fred being a dork".
Some girls were amused by his antics, but all of them ended up leaving him in the end, leaving him to drink, drink, and drink again. Diagnosed with terminal cirrhosis before he even reached the age of thirty, he was offered a vial by a woman, and ended up living, but different.
Very different. So much so that he couldn't drown his sorrow in alcohol anymore… because he now breathed water. His body mixed with a fish, he was the latest Case 53 (the other name for those "failed parahuman vials") in a long line – not that he knew anything about that. In fact, like many Case 53s, he was made to forget everything up to (and including) his time with the vial.
He was somewhat happy that only his lower body had been impacted by the transformation. To his dissatisfaction, still, it was his whole lower body.
He had a trident, too. Initially a fork, his power had modified it for an easier hunting of aquatic prey. Why would he need to hunt for food? Because he suddenly wasn't in prison anymore.
Despite the fact that his cell was adapted to his needs, he wanted out, like much of the others. His powers allowed him to, even, but he needed the right time. Or the right alignment of dimensions, like having his current world next to another where his current place was underwater.
Because his power allowed him to travel between dimensions. Restricted as he was by his peculiar biology, he needed to be in water to do so. So he did when, he finally had a water-filled world hovering "nearby". And when that world neared destruction from a disrupted comet path, he switched again… and found himself near the bay of Brockton Bay, on Earth Bet.
And he ended up right between three prongs of attack: Leviathan, coming from the sea; the waves of Tammi's tuning fork, heading towards the monster; and the diffuse impression to be in two places at once – that last power coming from someone in the nearby town.
Not knowing what the Endbringer was, Fred tried to use his trident in his usual way: sending it and then calling it back. Except that the weapon travelled unusually well on the wake of Tammi's sonic wave, and slammed right into the Endbringer's skin.
When he called the weapon back, he found it changed. It had happened before: each time he changed world, the thing changed slightly. Apparently, being in two dimensions at the same time brought twice its power to bear. And more, too, as he felt others like himself in parallel universes, all getting in the same position.
Apparently, his dimensional power was even stronger if there were some of his duplicates nearby. From slightly elevated Brute level when he was alone, he had reached Alexandria's level from two instances and the propulsion offered by Tammi.
And then, with more and more others coming to roost, the power he could slam the aquatic Endbringer with increased again. And Leviathan could only use his physical abilities against him: contrarily to the land-dwelling creatures, Fred being an aquatic creature made him quite resistant to the Endbringer's water echoes.
Leviathan was quite agile and fast, for its size, and it dodged some of Fred's subsequent blows. But Tammi's ray intensified, pinning it in place long enough for the multidimensional merman to place his attack.
With Canary helping her girlfriend, and the numerous others with a trident helping from other dimensions, said attack was even stronger, going through the beast's torso, and getting out from the other side.
Still, the beast wasn't dead. And it fled. Before its waves had even touched the shore, it fled into the depths of the ocean to rest and recover.
And the people of the Bay heaved a sigh when they found themselves without their enemy. It led to questions, of course, because pushing everyone into shelters for no visible reason was deemed as a lack of manners. Trials were held, too, deeming the PRT guilty of mismanagement.
Stupid fools.
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To be continued… neverAuthor's Notes: I don't know where that last bit came from. Seriously. Sometimes, I explore my notes and find things I don't remember writing. Ghost of the past? Of the future?