A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Interlude: Maelstrom

A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Interlude: Maelstrom

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Arksoul

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I still recalled the day we I first met Egress.

It was in Cairo.

Eighteen superhumans clashing against one another broad daylight. Five different gangs supporting three sides supporting their respective icons. They fought for territory, ideology, fame, and fortune. Super-science bombs and small arms raked through civilian housing and killed people by the dozens. Power-armored gangsters broke through buildings with ease and crashed through them.

Five days.

It took five days to reduce the metropolis that stood for most of history, where one of the most ancient civilizations on the planet was born, into a hellscape without food, running water, and tens of thousands dead rotting in the streets.

We arrived on the eighth day.

A coalition of international heroes given temporary license to establish humanitarian corridors and refugee camps.

We did our job, we helped people get safe, but we weren’t allowed to end the fighting.

The government of Egypt had been decapitated, rumors abounded about one of the factions being backed by a foreign nation, and that nation being part of the Security Council. It could’ve been any one of them. Even with the proliferation of super-science-based energy generators, most of the world still relied on fossil fuels.

A future of plenty visited the first-world nations and the superpowers, but they did so by taking the best and brightest superhumans from the rest of the world into their societies. That left the other poorer nations to flounder. Many oil companies failed, output dropped, and tankers and pipelines were abandoned. So, supply fell drastically, and a surplus never came, and all the nations that had power in abundance still looked to influence those who did not.

So, we were forced to watch from our pristine, perfect camps and automated corridors, while people died and a country was torn apart.

I wanted to go forth.

I wanted to end the fighting.

I could have.

Nothing on the field could’ve harmed me that day, just like the first day, when I could’ve been there within an hour and saved so many lives.

But with power came a grave responsibility, if I did not wish to be a tyrant.

A responsibility to follow the laws.

A responsibility to listen to others.

A responsibility to help others, instead of doing simply as I wished.

All those responsibilities, I prided myself in following, but as Egypt burned, as flashes of lighting and plasma arced and surged through whole city blocks, those responsibilities felt like chains.

Then, as I contended with my guilt and responsibility, Egress simply arrived.

“Hey, you. Have you seen this girl?” He addressed me on my perch overlooking the humanitarian corridor. The gangsters often tried to steal people to force into being pilots for their exoskeletons. They grafted people into the armor and used their brains as processors for the weapon systems. “Her dad paid me to find her.”

I barely recalled the girl, but I could recall him with ease.

He was dressed in military surplus fatigues from the conflict against Iraq. He’d modified it and added on more modern protections. Kneepads, a reinforced vest, and a camouflage shawl that blew with the desert wind. I’d have thought him a PMC member, one hired by one of the gangs, if not for his helmet. It was a sleek and black construct that hid his features even from my most potent gaze, and it was linked to a high-tech pack that filtered particulates and toxins with a spare air supply.

With the surplus military rifle he carried on a strap, he looked like a particularly well-prepared mercenary.

But my senses hadn’t lied to me.

The dust between the rooftop’s entrance and where he stood had been undisturbed.

He had appeared behind me, in my blindspot, and asked me a question without my noticing.

I had thought it impossible.

So much so that I forgot how to respond to him.

“Hello? Maelstrom? Did you hear me?” He addressed me without concern, without fear turning his heart into a motor, and without the micro-expressions that denoted absolute terror coursing through him. Ever since I gained my powers, I had been feared. But Egress was calm in my presence and without a hint of concern. “Hello?”

“I heard you. No, I have not seen her. She is not any of the other camps too.” I replied without thought, which made me display the enhanced intellect that I did my utmost to hide. I did not want to be ostracized from everyone else any more than I already was, so I had the speed of my thoughts and reflexes to the best of my ability. “There are three contested areas with known groups sheltering in place—

“Checked there first, since she could die, if she was there. Looked there before taking the contract, so I wouldn’t just fail instantly, y’know?” Egress shrugged, before pointing over in the direction of the latest battle. “So, I haggled a bit, until I found myself looking at a bigger paycheck than I thought. I checked all the camps, then put two and two together.”

I realized the conclusion he came to the moment he finished speaking.

“Your target to extract is most likely one of the belligerents.”

“Yeah, and I haven’t been paying much attention to the news. So, if you don’t mind putting that vision of yours to work, can you put two and two together for me in exchange for a favor?”

Tired of my ineffectual existence for such a prolonged period, I shook my head.

“If you can lessen this madness, even a fraction, you can consider payment rendered in full.”

I expected the strange mercenary to accept my terms, but he didn’t.

“Nuh-uh. No can do. I don’t like owing anyone anything. This is a transaction. You give me something, and I give you something. No rep, no altruism, and nothing between us if we meet again. Business, pure and simple.” Egress insisted, before speaking again. “How about I take out their workshops? You seem pretty hung up on this shitshow going on and being forced to sit on your hands. Without their workshops, they can’t take civilians to reinforce their armies. That sound good?”

His offer made me react in an instant.

“You know where those fiendish places are and haven’t done a thing!?” I’d rushed towards him, intending to stop the moment we were facing one another, but he suddenly vanished. My heart sank as my senses couldn’t find him anywhere, even as I focused on my hearing to sense beyond the horizon for his hearing… only for his particular heartbeat to reappear next to me. I turned towards him and he had his hands up. Some fear was mixed in his form now, but also understanding. He knew why I was angry. “If you had an ounce of goodwill, you would have destroyed them already.”

“Sure, but I’m not partnered up with the world’s eminent superpower. I’m just an independent guy doing business. Fighting against an organization out to conquer a nation isn’t exactly conducive to staying alive.” Egress reasoned with me, laid out his thoughts, and didn’t utter a single lie. He was forcing himself to be honest, but he did not lie to me, like so many others did. He held out his hands, palms out in a placating manner. “So, unless I’m not going out of my way to do it, unless I’m feeling grateful enough to somebody for helping me out.”

I searched him for a hint of shame, but found none.

He believed in his words and had complete confidence in his utterly selfish logic.

A thought occurred to me then: when was the last time someone argued with me like another human being instead of a tyrant to be feared and placated when opposed?

I couldn’t recall, so once again, I was silent until I found my voice.

“Relay to me the coordinates, those workshops can be dealt with by coalition forces. You will not need to risk yourself, and you may consider the favor repaid.”

“Well, I guess it’ll just be an old-fashioned information exchange for what we both want. Good, good.” Egress gave me a single nod, before walking towards me. There was something about his gait that was different from others. I realized that he didn’t walk very often. Just how long could he keep using his power, if it was easier to use than walking? That thought stayed with me, until he extended his hand. It had a business card. “The name’s Egress. If you want help with all of this through some independent contractors, give me a call. If you have the cash, I’m willing to move all these idiots to places where they can get locked up real quick.”

That was it.

A meeting where we exchanged information.

Nothing that should’ve been noteworthy for a human being.

Instead, I found myself comparing that conversation to all others that I had thereafter and even before.

I found fear, apprehension, and absolute submission in the face of even the slightest rise in my temperament. Whatever I wished, I gained, because no one could think of opposing me. The laws that I followed, when I questioned them, were bent instants after I merely spoke at being restrained.

It wasn’t until I next met him, until all my meetings with Egress thereafter, that I felt like a person speaking to another person.

I began to crave it.

I wished to speak to more people on equal grounds.

And, in my pursuit of that dream after he fulfilled his own, I brought the world to ruin.

I had begun to investigate, search, and locate people with power similar to my own. Individuals who did not fear me, and who I could stand beside, and work with. As time passed, we gathered together and spoke to one another. Many others felt the same isolation that I did, and we met with each other to find companionship that we could not gain from those who feared us.

I thought of it as a circle of companions.

The others thought differently.

I thought that they were like Egress or like myself.

But, in truth, he and I were on opposite sides of a spectrum. He valued his personal freedoms and took great joy in his solitude from the rest of the world. Meanwhile, I yearned for a world that accepted me and did not fear me. His goal was to create a place he could call his own, a roost where no one could disturb him and where he would want for nothing. He aimed for the possible, while I aimed for the impossible, and blinded myself in my pursuit of it.

Those I called upon worked with another more and more.

They formed a group unmatched in the rest of the world.

When their countries called upon them to break ties and return.

Some refused, others accepted, and it all began to fall apart.

Our foes came at us after banding together in fear of us, those who we thought mere rivals stabbed our back, and we retaliated. Chaos erupted within the span of days, either due to the power we displayed or the absence of the power of those we lost, and the world’s fragile balance broke apart into nothingness.

Doomsday fell upon the world.

Nukes launched and the skies turned red.

Whole countries burned while titans from legend shed blood for reason they forgot.

Armies marched, barely knowing what to do, and either died or became foreign warlord across the world.

It was all because of me.

I reached too far, sought to make the world fit for me, and plunged it into utter chaos.

So, I drifted.

I sped up my thinking until everything was a crawl, until nothing mattered, and I let myself fall into a half-slumber while running from it all. I brought myself home, to the place where I was raised, and protected it. All who threatened me fell by my hand, and all those who tried to take me away were rebuffed. I abandoned the entire world, and hunkered within my mind and my body, while the planet burned and was unmade all around me.

Time passed, the seasons changed, and I let my body function on its own. Around me grew a community, some aspiring superhumans aiming to do good began to remake the state, and from destruction came new life. A new society that included superhumans from the start, and the world slowly started to change for the better.

But, even as it did, I kept myself afar from everything and everyone, even as they used me as a pillar and a cornerstone for their new lives.

I did not want to do it again.

I did not want to reach out and bring ruin to the world

I did not want to cause another end to the entire world, because I wanted to find new companions.

Until, one day, Egress’s dog died and he went out of his bunker to search for another.

Then, suddenly, the person who I met and never had to pursue was there again.

Asking me for what I had, in exchange for what he had, because that’s simply how he viewed the world.

Despite everything, he treated me the same as he always did, and I began to function once again.

Tentatively, slowly, and carefully, I took the role of leader in truth, brought order to things, and looked past my home to the outside. I found many things that stemmed from my actions, but people remained. New lives were being born, the past was being used to fuel the present, and the whole world was being reforged into something new.

Humanity survived, it was evolving, and after opening my eyes… I realized that those who I protected in my trance looked at me without fear.

They saw me as a protector and a leader, but one that they could speak to, ask for help, and see as another person.

I found myself able to breathe and let loose for the first time in decades when I came to that realization.

I am to blame for the end of the previous world for gathering so many powerful people together.

I should never have allowed so much power to gather because of my own selfish whims.

However, I could not run away from it forever.

My mistake was obvious, and I would have to do my best to make something better or repair all that I could, and so I devoted myself to that singular goal.

Once more, I promised myself, I would try to be a hero.

Just once more.

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