12: The Making of Choices
Previously on We’re Not in Edison City Anymore, Sam Superlative Jr. is settling into domestic life on another world in another dimension! Even as he marries and has a child, he finds himself missing his home planet! Meanwhile, back on Earth, Captain Happily Married and the Malevolent Med-Student joined forces to defeat John Cute! Across town, Mr. Superlative has just reunited with Samuel Superlative III, but their reunion was marred by the tragic news of Sam Jr’s demise because of the dimensional time difference! What will Mr. Superlative do now? We’ll find out, but first the obligatory commercial:
Being an adult often means learning certain fundamental truths about life. For instance, sometimes bad things happen even when one has done nothing wrong whatsoever. No matter how much one might wish that things were different, they aren’t. Reality is what it is, and one must press on regardless.
Living in Edison City you can lose sight of this, especially if you are a cape. If you can lift a building without breaking a sweat, or violate basic laws of physics on a daily basis, or move through time as easily as through an open door, you begin to believe you can do the impossible. After all, more often than not you really can.
Mr. Superlative could, and had. He’d flown to Mars and back within a single day. He’d bench-pressed a mountain for a charity fundraiser. Captain Happily Married said he was nigh invulnerable; Mr. Superlative was flat out invulnerable, forget the nigh. Sure, he hadn’t been able to stop that one supervillain from murdering his wife, but she hadn’t been a cape, she’d been a civilian, and he didn’t talk about that. Everyone understood about that, and anyway Sam wasn’t a civilian, he’d inherited the full power set, hadn’t he? Laser eyes, flight, strength, the works. So saying something had happened to Sam didn’t make sense. But if what Samuel Superlative the Third had said was true, something had indeed happened to Sam Jr. He hadn’t gotten around to explaining what yet, mostly because Mr. Superlative had stormed out of the ECPD station and flown off into the sky before giving him the opportunity.
But what could he have said, anyway, Mr. Superlative thought, swooping past a passenger plane. Usually he did a wave and a flourish of the cape for anyone watching, but his heart wasn’t in it today. What could that stuffy whoever-he-was have said? What, had Sam Jr. been eaten by an alien? Blown up? Not possible. Sam wasn’t a civilian, he was a Superlative, he was invulnerable, that just couldn’t happen:
Mr. Superlative’s fists clenched. It couldn’t. So, he decided, it wouldn’t.
A little bell emitted a sad half-jingle as the door opened. “Be there in a moment,” a voice called from the back. After a deal of rustling, a muffled thud, and an equally muffled “ow!”, the proprietor of the little flower shop emerged. “Right, welcome to Flem’s Flowers, I’m Eugene Flem, now what can I do for-”
He froze when he saw who it was. “Oh, Mr. Superlative, sir,” he said, shaking, “Please, I don’t want any trouble, honest, you can check with the prison, you can check with the embassy, my record’s been clean I swear-”
“I’m not here about what you did,” Mr. Superlative growled at the little man who had once called himself Vencentus the Mighty. “I want to know what you can do now.”
“What?” Flem said in some confusion.
“Time,” Mr. Superlative said bluntly. “Wanna change it. Can you?”
“Well, I’m not really sure,” Flem said, coughing. “I’d have to recheck the positions of the ley lines, review any notes I may have taken on the subject, I’ve been out of practice for some time, you know, it’s been over two decades-”
Mr. Superlative’s eyes turned a burning red. The leaves on the flowers in the shop began to singe at the edges, all of them, all at once. Threads of smoke filled the air.
“I’ll get right to it,” said Vencentus the Mighty, hurrying to his front door and turning the sign from “Open” to “Closed.”
“I’ll wait,” rumbled Mr. Superlative.
As the wizard scuttled into his back room to gather his materials he thought for a moment about making a break out the rear exit. Then he remembered that Mr. Superlative was reported to have X-ray vision. He couldn’t recall the details, whether it was just being able to glimpse someone’s internal skeletal structure or whether he could see through walls as well, but either way the very thought sent cold shivers down his spine.
The trouble was, he’d lied his head off back there. He had been interested in Power, not Time, when last he had studied magic. He couldn’t even set his clock correctly, let alone turn back its hands, or reset its buttons, or whatever one called it in the digital age. Vencentus could maybe get a read on the ley lines again, but if he used them to channel mystical power into an attempt to change time he really had no idea what would happen. Maybe nothing. Maybe the shattering of the universe. How could he know? He fumbled through a dusty book of old maps, wondering if he dared try anyway.
“Any progress back there?” he heard Mr. Superlative call. Even at a mild volume, the voice had enough threatening bass notes to send trembling quivers through the floor. The wizard shrugged, closed the book, stood.
“Coming,” he called, with a small ironic smile. Time had, it seemed, run out.
Note: Vencentus the Mighty, a.k.a. Eugene Flem, previously appeared in Magical.
As emotionally stunted as he is, I can’t help but feel sad for Mr. Superlative. 😢
Ooh boy, this is Not A Good Development.