Looking at the memorial, made from the bent and scorched remains of the towers that once stood in its place brought a somber mood with it. The incident had happened before I had been born, even before my mother’s birth, but some of its consequences echoed into our presence. It reminded me that dedication was the important quality, not the presence of Powers. A small group of mundanes, armed with nothing but simple weapons and the will to lay down their lives had taken hundreds of lives, the resulting political motions altering the course of the world forever.
No words were spoken at the memorial, neither by us nor by our guides and soon, after a few minutes of quiet contemplation, we departed again.
“Coming here always reminds me of our mission.” Technica quietly said once we were back in the car. “Hate, strong enough to cause such a tragedy, can only be ended by education. By giving people opportunity, but also by teaching them that we all are Human. That no matter what differences there are between individuals, we all are one race.”
“Sadly, to some people, those differences are enough to reject our shared humanity. To them, those who don’t match them on some arbitrary matter are nothing but enemies. Calling them sinners, oppressors, infidels or some other name makes it easy to rally your people behind you. But such political forces always need their enemies, or they will pick another arbitrary point to fight about, splitting into factions and fighting amongst themselves.” Brightstar agreed, sounding a little tired.
“It might just be that humans need to struggle to have a purpose. Long ago, that struggle was to provide food for the tribe, or the village, but with the advancement of civilization, the struggle for simple survival ceased to be a priority and humans found something new to fight for. Or to fight about.” Galatea spoke up, using my voice after getting my permission. I did not really mind and agreed in many ways. In addition, I thought that her perspective was an interesting one, formed by the original core I had written and shaped by the education and experience I had provided her with. In many ways, our opinions and perspectives mirrored one another but not in all things, making an exploration of the differences an interesting pursuit.
The look on Brightstar’s face was an interesting one, too. When in costume, my voice had a deliberately artificial quality, which, along with Glatea’s words, seemed to discomfort her.
“Maybe there needs to be a new enemy threatening Humanity’s survival, something to unite everyone on the planet. The Scourge obviously was not enough of a threat.” I mused, now speaking myself.
“Think about it, the Scourge is a shifting local problem, in a bad year they might kill ten-thousand people, globally. Most years, the number is but a fraction of that. What's more, our lack of understanding about them makes vilifying them difficult. To many, it would be easier to be angry at a thunderstorm or a flood, those are things they have at least experienced themselves.. If you want to rally people, it is far easier to take a problem that is wide-spread but small-scale, give it a human face and spread it around everywhere.” Technica explained, sounding similarly tired to Brightstar.
“So there would have to be a wide-spread problem, persistently killing a low number of people and it would need a human face to be easily personified and hated? Some force with obvious personal agency, maybe some easily understood motivation for people to unite against?” I suggested, slightly amused at that point, especially when Galatea presented me with a simplified schematic for one of our bots, only with a human face printed on and a rifle attachment.
“Maybe the Guild should form such a small department that creates such a threat, while the main part of the Guild, along with the various national Heroes’ Associations get to fight that threat, giving them good publicity. Maybe add some flashy explosions, without a lot of collateral damage, that look impressive on the evening news and you could have something to unite against. You could call that departement Hydra and each time a head gets retired, two new heads appear.” Galatea suggested, almost entirely joking.
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“Don’t even joke about it, not even in the privacy of your own mind.” Brightstar scolded, while Bidzill just laughed and I think even Technica let out a snort of amusement.
“Let me guess, you would volunteer to be the first head of Hydra? Your costume certainly screams Super-Villain, and didn’t you try to make a Lightsaber?” Mordred asked, chuckling himself. We had talked about that particular project and its explosive failure. So far, I had not been able to make a stable version of such a weapon, had not even found a theoretical model that would make a truly stable version possible.
“Certainly not, you would be much better suited to that role, even your name makes for a good villain.” I joked back, even as a small part of me wanted to bristle at the insinuation. “But if you would like, I am certain I could make some suitable paraphernalia for you, to cosplay the evil sorcerer to your heart’s content. After all, you even believe in magic.” I added, poking fun at his insistence that his Powers were magical in nature, something outside of the realm of scientific understanding. While I agreed that they were outside of our current understanding, I rejected his premise that they could not be understood. At some point, Powers, even the so-called magical powers, would be unravelled and understood, it merely required more research.
“Children…” Technica sighed, causing the rest of tension that had lingered after our visit to the memorial to dissipate. “There will be no secret cabals to unite humanity against, we will keep trying to educate individuals in the hope that at some point, people will start to get along.” She paused for a second, before continuing, “Or that they at least have the ability to direct their passion and struggle into a productive direction.”
The way she spoke made it obvious that she was voicing a dream, not something she thought could be achieved. It made me wonder, if there was a way for her dream to come true, maybe by opening up a new frontier for humans to push against and explore. But it needed to be one that could be pushed against, something where feasible and visible gains could be made.
“We are here.” Brightstar spoke up, as the vehicle came to a stop. “We have allowed a little more press into the event, compared to before. There currently is a push to make the Superheroes of America more publicly visible and improve our reputation. What makes matters worse is that it’s an election-year, so both candidates try their hardest to score points, with open season on every topic they can think of. The legislation we operate under is obviously one such topic.” Brightstar warned us, sounding a little resigned.
“When you say, more press, just how many people do you mean?” I asked, not happy that such a change had been sprung on us at the last second. It also made me take a close look at the relaxed looking figure of Bidzill, making me wonder what, if anything, he had known about it.
“There will be two crews here, one for each of the major party networks.” Brightstar explained, leaning forward to open the door after getting a signal over her ear-piece. “But don’t worry, they’ll be more interested in the domestic side, compared to the international side.” she assured me, before floating out of the vehicle.
“We will talk about that later.” Technica promised Bidzill, her voice tightly controlled.
“Certainly, but we both know how local politics are played. They’ll make a lot of noise until the election and then things will die down again, until they need a new smoke-screen to distract from some domestic problem.” he replied, before pushing himself out of his seat and squeezing out of the car door.
“Ladies first.” Mordred suggested, gesturing to Technica and myself.
“Let’s do this.” Technica softly said, following after her colleague, with me moving after her. Outside, there were only two teams of reporters, focusing on Brightstar while only giving us a short look and panning the camera over to us for a moment. It was obvious that we weren’t the one they were interested in.
With Mordred bringing up the rear, and leaving Brightstar to talk to the reporters on her own, we headed into the conference-center. At the same time, I gathered a number of drones above the center, giving me a high degree of security-coverage. Hopefully, we would not be surprised by anyone during the conference.