A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 3

A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: Chapter 3

…

Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Arksoul

…

Hawaii was a wonderful place to visit off-season, since all the hotels stayed the same and the grubby masses of humanity that flooded them didn’t. All the wonders of a tropical paradise geared towards selling their culture and land for the masses, but without the masses to inflate prices and make things less paradisiacal.

I had about three hours until I had to report to Kaede Walker and her apparently-messed up headspace, so I decided to do some reconnaissance on area, instead of just jumping in.

Regardless of my obscene set of powers, there was always the chance that I’d stumble face-first into another set of obscene powers if I wasn’t careful. I’ve been ambushed more than three dozen times and intercepted more than eighteen times, even when I prepared. That number would’ve tripled if I didn’t properly investigate my opponents and thoroughly apply myself at every challenge between me and my next paycheck.

I didn’t have a cushy blue-collar job.

Anyone who opposed me would most likely kill me.

Those who opposed me could possibly have bullshit that would get through my defenses.

Therefore, the magical, complex conclusion was to not be an arrogant fuckup and waste my life by not using my brain.

I took a vantage point and took a good long look at what happened to Hawaii after the apocalypse.

A lot of island nations were on the top of my list for doomsday preparation, but the island chain of Hawaii wasn’t one of them. While most of the locals accepted the fact that they were part of the US, expansionism policies in the past tended to translate well into rhetoric for extremist groups, which were invigorated with power by the event that gave too many people superpowers. Those were the words of one of the few college professors I knew who saw what was coming.

I interpreted it as people loved stirring shit up and fighting for stupid reasons when they got the chance, so I avoided Hawaii and… a lot of other island nations. I could count island nations untouched by imperialism and without extremist terrorists on one hand and that was because they were either going to sink in a decade or weren’t worth fighting for.

But even with the fact that Hawaii had flare ups of superhumans with extremist rhetoric popping up, they were inclined towards their current lifestyle and hadn’t wanted to tango with the United States. Fighting was kept over jungle and rarely went towards the island’s local infrastructure. Both sides wanted to keep what they were fighting for in one piece, because the infrastructure and tourism industry was what made it fighting for in the first place.

So, it was a paradise the last time I saw it… and even though Hickham-Pearl Harbor base used the islands… it was surprisingly still a paradise.

There was a deforestation effort going on, but they were there to provide firewood and a lot of new, wooden structures sprawling out of the joint Navy-Airforce base. The base was in very good condition with a lot more of the US Pacific Fleet stationed on it than I thought possible, as well as a few facilities that were new and the work of one or more egotistical maniacs with brains more like calculators than the nearest human being.

One carrier had a full flight of fifth-generation aircraft on its deck and shiny new guns and tech all over it, while another was in dry dock and being refitted. Then, there were at least a dozen and a half destroyers patrolling and in the docks, while a place that looked like a modernized submarine pen was empty, but had people maintaining operating it. The airstrips were also lined with large buildings made of sheet metal, while concrete was being poured for some new airstrips.

A quick popover to Honolulu had me looking at a thriving city with a LOT of American flags all over it, as well as a few Navy ships looming in the bay’s horizon. Superhuman fliers were a common sight over the island too, but the foliage was dense and they were keeping their eyes up and on the horizon, instead of down. People were walking around, radios were playing tracks from yesteryear, and the military men on patrol were being given waves and cheers.

Honestly, if I didn’t know that the new VP was a psychopath with debauched, murderous tendencies towards children, I’d have joined up. If he was just a serial killer or a tyrant, I’d have thrown my lot in with the small nation with nuclear aircraft carriers, cruise missiles, the underwater arm of the nuclear triad, and a large, population center backing it. Unfortunately, he crossed the line into being someone who enjoyed torture and rape, while also aiming it at kids.

The man had to go… and that was going to piss off the remains of the US government or send it tumbling down into infighting.

People like him, after all, were only given power and concessions if necessary. He was some sort of lynchpin for America 2: Manifest Destiny: West-to-East Edition. I’d seen it all over the place in Africa. Warlords hired and tolerated superhumans outside of their communities only to maintain power against their domestic forces or stay safe against international threats. Most of the time, those missions had very complicated and bloody endings, but sometimes it worked out, a warlord managed to remain in power and establish a dictatorship, and everyone lived.

Taking the VP out was probably sending this whole place tumbling headfirst into the apocalypse it somehow managed to avoid.

A lot of people were going to die, super and not, because I was going to take out the cornerstone of an entire government.

Thankfully, I knew just how to deal with the issue afterwards, since I’d done it so many times before.

In no particular order, my methods to keep myself sane were: tire myself out with ludicrous amounts of training, invigorate myself with media, and practice a lot of self-therapy. I had some anti-depressants, if things really fucked me up. If that didn’t work, I just had to go with a lot of repression and denial, while fighting against my self-loathing until I found a decent therapist in the post-apocalypse.

Naturally, I would die if I failed, but it’d worked all the others times I did it… evidence being my continued existence.

So, I took a deep breath and started to plan how to destroy a nascent superpower in the crib.

It was like riding a bicycle.

You don’t forget how to do it after riding it a few years.

Was I talking about dealing with the stress that came with understanding the outcome of destabilizing regimes… or destabilizing regimes?

Both.

…

Ferdinand Davis was fit and clean-shaven. He had the looks of a bright-eyed young man drafted in the army straight from a farm where shirts were optional. When his voice came on the radios, he sounded earnest, polite, and didn’t use any words with more than three syllables. It was a neatly manufactured disguise that he put effort in. He wasn’t the greedy sort. He liked how he was living, so he went out of his way to maintain his lifestyle.

A lifestyle of doing terrible, sick things to kids and teenagers.

I verified Alexis’s information myself by popping into his house’s basement after making the block’s generator go out with a downed powerline. His estate’s guards were quick to go on alert and start up the backup generator. When they found the generator’s belching black smoke thanks to a bit of ash that went inside, they were quick to start looking for the spare in the shed.

The guards were rotated to account for the brief gap in the perimeter, so those inside were shuffled outside while the cameras were on the fritz.

I took the opportunity to peek into his compound’s underground, displacing soil elsewhere for a bit, until I guessed correctly and appeared in his murder/rape/torture/all-of-the-above basement. Looking at it made me sick, but verifying my employer’s information and not being fed lies was part of my standard operating procedure.

I popped back out after that and waited from my vantage point.

The response was quick, the secondary generator slotted in, and the place was secured by the in-house guards and the nearest outpost.

And, within expectations, Ferdinand Davis arrived with a smile to assist the block.

With superhuman help, the downed powerline was replaced in minutes instead of hours. A few locals in the area wouldn’t have even noticed the outage, since everything was within expectations. Their plans went smoothly and soon enough they were toting away the broken electrical post to investigate it for sabotage.

They’ll find it brittle and easy to break, having collapsed under its own weight, and start looking for a matter manipulator… which I technically was, but I could count on one hand the ones who could manage to the same as me.

Three were dead and the last two vanished… and didn’t know I existed.

I planned to keep it that way.

But back to my plan.

It relied a lot on the absurdities of superhumans, but the fact that they were still human. While I only had a basic, rough understanding of human psychology, I spent a lot of time doing my best to figure out which tricks worked on humans and which didn’t. Since I liked keeping my cards close to my chest, I relied on subterfuge, obfuscation, and being a rotten, underhanded bastard to keep the full extent of my abilities to myself.

My most basic technique worked sixty percent of the time, was low risk, and could be reattempted, therefore it was a perfect opening gambit. It was simple: present an unknown threat, create a large distraction that emphasized the threat, and take advantage of the ensuing chaos.

With the unknown threat portion handled, I went ahead with the next step of the plan.

The distraction.

If I were in Africa, or had more time to prepare, I’d have an arsenal at my disposal. Military-grade explosives were made to be idiot-proof, given the average intelligence of the average human being. I read through handling and using certain types, but plastic explosives were my favorite, since they were tough, durable, and exploded only when you wanted them to explode. IED’s and homemade bombs were something I considered, but I didn’t want to take the risk. An explosive that exploded when I wanted it to was ideal.

I had to make do without, since I liquidated most of my explosives before going to retirement. My armory had a few specialized weapons that I kept in reserve, in case of big emergencies, but they were one-offs that I needed to take care of rather than waste on a mission like this.

So, I put a brick on the accelerator of the car I was speeding towards my target and popped out to my vantage point as it sped towards Ferdinand, his two vans of guards, and his superhuman auxiliaries.

It had all the gas can and jars of gunpower I could find popping all over the world from ruins as well as a single grenade as a pseudo-blasting cap nestled between it all.

I waited until they saw it… and pulled the pin and my hand out of the center of the speeding vehicle.

Shots were placed into its engine while the superhumans took flight… but it did what I wanted and exploded with immense force, heat, and power. The makeshift carbomb wasn’t that effective, since I was in a hurry. If I had the time and tools, I could’ve had the entire car frame turn into shrapnel and had the engine block turn into a speeding ball of death. Hell, with some petroleum jelly, I could’ve made the gasoline do more than just burn and splash.

It got the job done, though.

The shockwave caught the superhumans in uniform off-guard. The first one was sent flying into the sky in a tumble, while he used his power to stay alive. The second and third weren’t that high up, so they were sent flying closer to the ground. One collided with a tree and the other into another electrical post, both of which crumbled and broke against the superhuman bodies sent into them. The fourth didn’t react in time… so he was plucked out of the way by Ferdinand.

The more mundane forces that fired upon the vehicle took cover at the explosion and stayed safe behind their armored vehicles. A few got singed and some got hit by shrapnel, but they kept their vitals behind solid cover, therefore most of the wounds were superficial… and just hurt a lot.

I got what I wanted as they started yelling over the din of the explosion, as birds flew out of the forest, and as alarms started to ring over the island.

Orders were barked, positions were taken, and the wounded were being brough to safety.

At that moment, I appeared just behind Ferdinand Davis and reached out for him.

“Call for reinforcements!”

I had to give the guy some credit.

He managed to somehow react to me the moment I placed a finger on his body.

But at that touch, I met the requirement to use my power, and sent the both of us into the Middle East while his fist surged towards my face. However, his hit only “passed through” me as I displaced the attack reflexively.

The fact that he could hit hard and fast didn’t matter, if he couldn’t hit me in the first place.

From experience, I knew that this was a good opportunity to get to know my target. Once I’ve relocated a target away from their supporters and shown they can’t hurt me, I did my best to leverage and explain the situation to them for greater profits.

But in the case of Ferdinand Davis… putting him in an abandoned mine in the Middle East without food, water, or a source of light with tribes of superhumans waging war against one another above was going to be the end of my interaction with him.

I didn’t let him get another hit him, spout a one-liner, or offer him a deal.

I simple, definitively left him somewhere the odds were very stacked against him.