Gigaheroes

Chapter One

Introduction

So I was inspired to make a superhero story. What may surprise you is I don’t really like superheroes, or at least, I don’t like modern superheroes. I find them hopelessly out of touch even when they aren’t deconstructionist subversions of the genre. This project then is what I’ll call a reconstructionist narrative. It starts in a world where superheroes have all been deconstructed and then tries to build virtue and goodness despite the awful conditions.

This began as a proof of concept and quickly evolved into my second major project for this Substack. Gigaheroes is an ongoing story spanning three different perspectives. It is set in a post-apocalyptic America now reformed into a new nation called the Democratic Union. The emergence of super powers threatened the already collapsing world order, and in a panic, politicians ordered “abnormals” to be hunted down ruthlessly.

What exists now is a totalitarian state that is desperately doing whatever it can to hold onto power. Superheroes are both loved and reviled, and different factions are warring for power in the ruins of desiccated cities. Meanwhile, regular people scrap together whatever living they can in the ruins of the old world.

I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1: Daniel Peterson

Falling is the only thing that makes me feel alive anymore. There’s a rush when your insides are catching up with your outsides. The whole world yawns before you, and in that moment, you feel you could go anywhere. I wish I could fly. I hate those bastards who were lucky enough to have that power. 

Me? I can only fall. 

I fell past a sea of glass windows. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of the cubicles and offices and people, but I didn’t like to look in that direction. I didn’t like to look in any direction. This concrete and glass city wasn’t exactly something worth seeing. I held my eyes shut and just imagined I was anywhere else. I often imagined the ocean. I always liked the ocean. 

You might ask how I could sense the ground coming. I don’t know. Something in me feels nauseous, and then I know time’s up. I open my eyes, and I’m on the street safe and sound. Teleportation sounds like a nice superpower to have, and it is. I just wish I could fly. 

I’m surrounded by the usual police cars. They don’t have to send anyone serious. They know I have nowhere to go. 

“That’s the third time this month,” Jayne said, sipping his coffee. “You know you aren’t allowed.”

“I swear I saw someone about to jump off.” I make the same excuse I have a thousand times. 

Jayne sighs. “You can’t keep doing this. It’s a bad public image. Come on, let’s get you in the tank. Sooner you get in, sooner you get out.”

I nod my head. A police officer comes forward with handcuffs. Jayne sips his coffee. I’m placed in the back of the armored truck. They know they don’t need the armored truck, but I appreciate the gesture. Thirty minutes later, I’m submerged in the sensory deprivation tank. 

Sensory deprivation. It cancels out most super powers. Don’t ask me the mechanics of it. I don’t know how. 

But a type of scuba mask is placed over your head and then you’re lowered into fifteen feet of lukewarm water. Can’t see. Can’t hear. Can’t think. The mask generates some sort of signal that scrambles your head. Makes you can’t tell up from down. Can’t teleport out. Don’t know where I’d be going. 

It’s actually a rather clever prison. Super strength? There’s nowhere to push off of. Super speed? I suppose you could try to tread water, but they’ve special equipment that keeps you in the center of the vat. 

Everyone hates the tank. I suppose I do too. It’s not like falling. There’s no sound of the wind racing past your ears. There’s no bite of the cold. There’s just… nothing. Nothing for three hours. They say that’s the worst part, the utter absence of anything. I guess I’m thankful it’s only for a short period. Some people spend the remainder of their lives in the tank. 

There’s a tug on the oxygen cord. I’m being pulled up. I come splashing out of the water. Technicians unlatch the mask, and I crawl up onto the wire mesh walkway. Jayne offers me a hand and a sandwich. Everroast chicken and bacon. My favorite. 

“Come on.” He pats me on the back. “Time to get to work.”

…

Being a superhero is not all it’s cracked up to be. No, that sounds way too cliche. Being a civil servant is not all it’s cracked up to be. And that’s what superheroes are in the 22nd century: civil servants. 

I work in a skyscraper not unlike the one I jumped out of. I wish we had a cool lair, but it’s a tacky conference room with some weird futuristic decorations. All eyes turned on me when I entered the room. I was late and everyone knew why. 

I sat in an amorphous white chair which was terrible for posture. My back ached just sitting in it for ten minutes. The glass table was trying to be cool. It had all these patterns and different layers. Like you could pull parts of it to whatever height you wanted it to be. I played with that while the meeting dragged on. 

“Our social media engagement is down ten percent from last month.” Walter put on a powerpoint presentation of our social media account. “Outreach programs don’t get attention. We’re going to attach Yellow Bolt and Nighthawk to a SWAT raid happening later today. Press is going to be there to take pictures. You’ll receive a briefing on the target at the precinct, but I want you to keep in mind your poses. Nighthawk, you especially. You want to stay on the team? Let journalists take pictures.”

“Doesn’t it add to my mystique, though?” I logged into my social media on my phone. “I’m the Nighthawk. I should be the mysterious one.”

I don’t actually run my social account. Those privileges were taken away when I tweeted about teleporting the homeless into the Hudson. I scrolled down to see what fake me was talking about. Something something latest movie out in theatres. I wish we got movies, but those are mostly for A-Rank heroes and above. Nobody cares about C-Rank. We only operate out of the city. 

“Fuck the mystique.” I noticed Walter always spoke with an air of condescending scorn, but most of it always seemed directed at me. “Get the poses. Bag the bad guys. And if you pull any more stunts, you’re going back into general population. You got that?”

General population was the open air prisons scattered throughout the country. People with superpowers are dangerous to national security. So, if your powers were too mind-bogglingly awful for the Democratic Union to make use of, you got stuck in Gen Pop. They put a tracker on your ankle and throw you to the wolves. 

That’s the way things worked. You stay on the Registry or you get the tank for life. And that’s if you’re lucky. I don’t know what they do in the blacksites, and I was sure I didn’t want to know. 

Maybe there were worse things than being a celebrity. 

…

A few hours later, I was again riding in the back of an armored truck. Me and Yellow Bolt were in full costume. He wore a green and yellow suit with a lightning bolt emblazoned on the chest. His mask was jagged, like lightning as well. It was tacky, but at least it fit his powers. I was just given the costume from the old Nighthawk. There was a campaign where I was inheriting the mantle or whatever. 

“You have to play nice, man,” Yellow Bolt said. “Walter’s serious. You should hear what he’s saying while you’re in the tank. He’s this close to knocking you off the team.”

I shrugged. “I’ll try,” I said half-heartedly. 

In all honesty, I didn’t have it in me to care. When Walter’s gloves came off, at least it was honest. All the smiling for the public, all the pretenses, all the chippy attitude, it was killing me inside. Eventually, it probably would, one way or another. 

“You know we care about you. Me and Sarah and the rest. Just go along. Do you want to go back to Gen Pop?”

“Why not? It’s the happiest place on Earth, isn’t it?” I asked. 

Rob groaned. “You got lucky. Luckier than most. You don’t have to worry about your next meal or a place to live. You have everything provided to you. You have the good life. Don’t throw that away.”

He was right. I did have the good life. I was lucky enough to be born with powers that were of use to the Democratic Union. More than that, I was luckier still to be chosen as a C-Rank hero. I wasn’t thrown as a soldier into a forever war or sent to work on construction projects too dangerous for normals. Instead, I was chosen for the spotlight. I was held up as an example, a bulwark to the great society of the Democratic Union. 

I had everything people wanted, but it didn’t change the fact that I was miserable inside. 

“So, who are we going up against?” I asked. 

“You didn’t pay attention to the briefing?” Rob asked. 

“You know I didn’t.”

“We’re raiding an apartment complex. They’ve been running a black market operation.”

“We going serious against them or no?” I knew I was treading a line with that question. I immediately regretted it and glanced down at my watch. 

There were many unspoken truths in the Democratic Union. The most important one was who could get away with crimes and who could not. A Chinese funded bio-lab operating with zero regulation? That was okay as long as the execs got their cut. A race riot burning down parts of the city? Depends on which priority group was doing the burning. A black market operation likely smuggling food and water? Unless they were paying customers to the Democratic Union, they represented a critical threat to the stability of the country. After all, they were dangerous propaganda. No one was starving in the Democratic Union. 

Yellow Bolt’s expression told me all I needed to know. I sighed, knowing I’m going to have to kill a few people. I have heard critics say that these superhero battles are nothing more than televised gladiator matches. They were wrong. At least in gladiator matches, the other guy had a chance. 

The armored truck rolled to a stop, and there was a knock on the door. It was time. 

I put on my mask and reminded myself not to look at the faces. I was exceptionally good at remembering faces. It was one of many powers I wish I didn’t have. 

Link to Chapter Two