Technicality Man: Chapter Two
Posted by childofthehive | Filed under Original fiction, Technicality Man
The Adventures of Technicality Man: The Rise of COMPSCI
Chapter Two: Concerning Pedantry
There was no such thing as neutral territory when it came to meetings between superheroes and villains. If such a place existed, it wouldn’t stay neutral for long once arguments started over who had whose parents fed to mutant gerbils or who had whom arrested for acute megalomania. A large number of the super-powered community were gathered in Alchemisto’s lair, arguing like the average neighbours’ meeting over the superheroic equivalent of whose job it was to trim the hedge.
The arguments weren’t restricted to the humanoid members. A fair few of the cats had come along to lend a paw. While the cats, as guardians of the stories, theoretically existed above the standard conflicts, most allied themselves with either good or evil. Prudish Manx and Sexual Attraction Lynx were snarling at each other while The Cheater had a disagreement with Correct Punctuation Lion.
It was probably a good thing that quite a few of the cats weren’t there. Technicality Man wasn’t sure where most of the absentees were, except for Tangent Tiger, who was still imprisoned in Chester Zoo following his last conflict with Continuity Leopard. As it was, Alchemistress was complaining about the cat hair on the carpet. Those complaints faded to insignificance when it turned out Necromanto had brought his zombies.
“I’m not having dead bodies dropping limbs on my furniture!”
Fortunately, Necromanto’s sillier brother, Necropanto, was too busy making he’s-behind-you jokes to have brought some of his bizarre creations.
Strangely, the most swearing came from two who weren’t involved in the arguments. Good For Nothing Boy and Bemused Girl were ignoring the crisis and were using the supercomputer to play Mario Kart.
Some of those gathered were using the opportunity to do some recruiting. Colonel Stereotype was trying to convince Refractor, whose allegiance was currently split, that he should fully join the forces of evil.
“A recent study showed that 78% of villains have more fun than heroes of equivalent status. The same study showed that bad guys had up to 93% less angst and brooding. Give me your business card and I’ll send you an application form.”
When Refractor continued to hesitate, Stereotype went on, “The entrance exam for evil is a lot easier than the one for good, plus, if you’re not happy with the result, you just kill your examiner and that counts as an automatic pass.”
Geologist Man let loose a burst of his Awesome Powers of Rock (TM) to get everyone’s attention. The sudden silence was broken by the electronic music of Mario Kart and the two sidekicks swearing at each other.
“We need to solve this crisis,” Geologist Man called things to order.
There came a flurry of speech as half the room made suggestions or comments.
“Silence!” yelled Colonel Stereotype. A couple of people were slow in obeying and found themselves doing press-ups while the meeting continued.
Alchemisto took suggestions for solutions, writing them up on a whiteboard, amid murmurs of doubt as ideas got steadily more absurd.
“We can’t filter the oceans.”
“How does chopping down the rainforest help?”
“No one can build a centrifuge that big.”
“We wouldn’t be able to organise that many robot penguins.”
The bickering level rose again as people tore apart each others’ potential plans. The meeting looked set to dissolve into chaos again.
“It’s obvious what needs to be done,” said Good For Nothing Boy. The attention of everyone in the room turned to him but he failed to elaborate. Instead, he just let out a stream of obscenities as his kart was knocked off a bridge by a shell. As he provided absolutely no explanations for his remark, several people looked set to strangle him. It was only Alchemistress threatening to confiscate his Wii that made him pause his game and actually explain.
“There’s a hero here whose abilities are super-powered pedantry. It’s physically impossible to turn water into blood. Technicality Man just has to focus on the water and, because it can’t have changed, it won’t have changed.”
Suddenly, all eyes were on Technicality Man. The fate of the world was in his hands. This was what he’d dreamt of when he’d been just a mild-manner computer programmer. Somehow, it was more terrifying and less exciting than he’d imagined. He’d never saved anything larger than a small town and even that had been a while ago. He hadn’t done any serious saving since he’d managed to get his nemesis, Ultimate Licence, arrested for speeding when he went faster than the speed of light.
“Um, I can try,” he said.
Technicality Man channelled his power. His abilities, useful only for finding errors in things, now found the errors in the universe. He stood there, eyes closed, trying to undo Alchemisto’s damage. He was about to open his eyes and declare he had no idea what he was doing, when he heard someone exclaim:
“He did it!”
Technicality Man looked as everyone gathered around the supercomputer. The controls had be wrested from Good For Nothing Boy and the screens were now showing satellite images of seas and oceans returned to normal.
“Isn’t that a bit of an anti-climax?” someone asked.
“It’s only chapter two,” came the response. “You don’t want a real climax yet.”
It had worked. Technicality Man couldn’t quite believe it as so many people wanted to shake his hand or slap him on the back. He’d just saved the world.
“That was a bright idea, Good For Nothing Boy,” Alchemisto told his sidekick.
“Awesome. Does this mean I can change my name?”
“No.”
Tags: Original fiction, sci-fi, science fiction, superheroes, Technicality Man, writing
December 10th, 2011 11:52 pm
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