Sunday Pilots 5 - Disagreeable [1/3] – A dystopian hero civil war story

There are two kinds of superhero stories that I always found the most interesting. One is the brooding, Batman-style superheroes, who do most stuff in laid-out plans and power through the most hostile situations through sheer force of will. The other, and much more recent invention to the best of my knowledge, is the capitalized superhero society the kind of Tiger and Bunny and, much more famous, My Hero Academia.

Now this story falls more in the late category. I messed with one central parameter of the worldbuilding though: What if the formation of the superhero society doesn’t happen in a liberal capitalistic, but an authoritarian society? 

Nykoh Fronhari was a Rank 13 hero of the special operatives of the extraction forces, thirteenth division of the thirteenth military district. As State and society dictated for people of his ilk, he had a cleanshaven head, kept his brown eyes steady on the goals and spoke very little when unnecessary. Sometimes he wished to rebel against all of that, but that’s just how the State operated. Rebelling would have meant skipping on promotion and everyone know that promotion inside the State was the only thing truly valuable.

If there was one thing where he allowed himself to differ from his colleagues, mostly because it was silent, it was superstition. Which was why he didn’t want to be part of this mission. Who sent the thirteenth division of the thirteenth district out on a Friday the thirteenth? That was just asking for trouble. Which was exactly what he found himself in right now.

He had the hostage in a perfect hold where nobody dared to move. The razor-sharp knife on her throat was close enough to slash her open and kill her on the spot. The other hand was keeping her mouth shut. The brunette was crying, teardrops dropping of her chin and staining her satin azure dress, but she remained frozen like a good hostage.

The thing was just that he was the one supposed to save this person, the wife of an upper official, not keep her at knifepoint. That was his second highest priority on this engagement, the order coming from the upper echelons of Logistics. To make the matter worse, all of his comrades were pointing their guns or abilities at him, whatever was more likely to hit what was inside him.

Their equipment was pristine, not cleaning or repairing it was a punishable offense, as such they looked like the perfect military force to keep order over this mansion. The crème coloured building was the dream of every person, with enough rooms to give the maids a wing to live in. The windows were framed by highly decorated gold and the white skirting must have cost more money than anyone made in a year.

‘We just keep running into each other,’ a voice inside him, more exactly in his lungs, said. It was a woman’s voice, soft, a bit raspy, a voice he would have loved to hear him read books as he fell asleep. If it weren’t for the fact that it had that bit of excited shakiness and underlaying giggling of someone who didn’t have all their marbles together. ‘Nyyykoooooh~.’

He would have sighed, this was indeed the…twenty-sixth time they met in the last 169 days. Which was double and 13 times 13 respectively. The coincidences just piled up to a degree that felt like his superstition became more truth by the second. He really should have stayed at home today. But that would have been refusal of service, and that was a dishonour to him and his whole district and a reason to be skipped on promotion.

She was called Linua and part of a resistance group that called itself the Alliance of Chaos. Nykoh found that to be a weird name, but as he was serving the State of Order, he had no room to complain about that. Actually, he did have room to complain, it was called the State Bureau for Complaints, but disrespecting the State was a no-go. Going there also tended to lead to a delay on promotion.

‘Why are you ignoring me?!’ the question came with a painful expansion of her inside his lungs. It was one of the abilities she had, turning herself into a dark cloud that could take control of whatever lifeform she managed to squeeze herself in. She liked to try and get into Nykoh, today she had actually managed to do it. ‘That’s so very rude of you!’

‘You are inside my lungs, how am I supposed to answer?’ he thought to himself sarcastically, ignoring the pain. Sarcasm was a thing he was only allowed in thoughts. It was refreshing to even do that much. If he thought it, it tended to slip out. A reason why he had been skipped on promotion once already. 

He wondered whether this mist was her was Inherited or Random power. The latter tended to be stronger and this was a fairly strong ability to have.

Something inside his lungs tore, the pain was something he was used to and when Linua deflated it quickly subsided, went from a pain, to an ache, to a pulsation and finally everything was back to normal. 

‘Whoopsie, sorry, I just get agitated when I am inside boys I like,’ the crazy girl kept going. ‘Good thing you are a regenerator, right? Most boys I like have that Acquired Power,…’ Did she have to repeat that over and over again? ‘…because I just love to bite them, sorry, you all just smell so good that I want to taste you.’ At least she was an honest crazy. Nykoh had girlfriends in the past that looked completely normal on the surface but had to control him down to the shoes he was wearing. 

Actually, that were all his girlfriends so far. Maybe he should just go with what everyone else did and have the State arrange a marriage for him. He was quickly falling outside the average marriage age inside his district. Not being average was bad, it made you stand-out and people who stood out were passed over for promotion.

‘I really thought your heartbeat would be all fast’n’stuff while you are on a mission,’ Linua continued, ‘but you are super calm. Even I am excited, how can you be this calm? Ah, sorry, I am always excited, especially when I am inside boys I like…is that getting annoying by now? Nod once if it is.’

He felt control over his neck returning to him and with it everything from up there. “Status report: Situation unchanged, perpetrator still inside me.”

‘Awww, you were supposed to nod!’ Linua complained but left him with control, for now.

“Situation acknowledged,” The person at the back of the firing line, the one in charge on the ground for this operation, answered. “Any further information?”

“Perpetrator is requesting me to signal that she should stop saying something annoying through a gesture,” Nykoh said. “Request permission to make that gesture.”

“Permission denied, that could be a signal to one of her allies,” his superior let Nykoh know. “Emotions are prohibited in the first place, annoyance is not a factor.”

“Understood, sir,” the stalemate continued, him just standing there and them keeping their weapons and power aimed at him and the hostage. That was, until they reached the five-minute mark. There was a subtle change in everyone, the difference between aiming the gun and pulling the trigger in the next few moments.

Nykoh knew what came next. This was a field mission of lower-middle level urgency. In case of hostage stalemate during an on-going operation of this kind, it shall be resolved within five minutes. If there was no ongoing negotiation at that time, rapid action was to be taken. This meant rating everybody by a point system and removing the one with the least amount of points from the situation by whatever means necessary.

As a valuable asset of the hero military, Nykoh had quite a high amount of points.

As a hostage and replaceable wife that had already bore children, thus already passing on her Inherited Ability to the next generation, the hostage had a moderate amount of points.

As the cause of this situation, Linua had 0 points.

As Linua was without a body to shoot at and none of the powers people here had the ability to hurt her while she was stuck inside Nykoh, the one with the highest points, the logical decision was therefore to kill the hostage. They would then take Nykoh captive until they had found someone with an ability that could pull Linua out of him. Without a doubt, there was someone within the State’s database.

This would fulfil Nykoh’s first priority - at the cost of an innocent life.

‘Are they serious? Wow, seriously, wow, I am crazy and I wouldn’t do that. Rationality is scary,’ Linua palavered inside his thoughts, seeing everyone’s aim change at the chest of the woman. 

Nykoh was a regenerator, a few bullets inside his body wouldn’t immediately kill him. There was someone with healing powers just outside. The calculation whether or not he should survive until arriving there must have been made and come out with a high success rate, a telepath thus had given the superior the allowance to go forward with the execution. 

All superpowers were noted, categorized and archived. It was all according to the books on engagements, all people with their powers were assembled in the usual formulas. Yet, when the trigger fingers pulled backwards, his beat louder in his chest for the first time since he was on this mission. He couldn’t help but agree with Linua: Rationality was scary.

Rationality didn’t mean anything in the face of a torrent of water crashing down the hallway of the mansion though. Immediately ruining everyone’s aim and opening a giant window of opportunity.

‘That’s our signal, big boy,’ Linua told him and his feet turned around against his will. Discarding the hostage by throwing her to the side, ironically saving her life from a stray bullet that was loosely fired in the last moments before the operative group was washed away, he ran. He didn’t have a whole lot of decisions on the matter.

Not for the first time, he activated his own Random ability. White lines appeared everywhere. ‘Where would I need to go to secure this mission?’ he asked the world, a kind of thought that felt like he was running a marathon with his brain. In response all but one of the lines vanished, one that Linua was carrying his body along anyway.

As such, he just went along without even putting the attempt of struggling up. They were running down the line of fate regardless.