Pauline was sat on the trunk of her custom painted (off-white and rust) Camry. It was getting late. She had driven out here, to the worst-polluted beach in town, and parked with the boot towards the ocean so that she could watch who came and went. That job had passed hours ago and now she watched the day run out.

The Sun had set — was swallowed whole by the ocean — and the wasted hours were getting to her. A feeling which was exasperated by the waves and their gentle cooing pleas to remain cool-headed...

Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhhhh.

Pauline hated being told to calm down. Hated it.

Her eyes were on the hazy golden dregs of unfinished daylight and she watched as the coming night slowly slurped it up. Late. The backs of her sensible sneakers took turns to bounce off her cars already dented rear fender — each passing second was gifted a short yet firm kick.

Her contact was late. Very late.

Beyond being a boredom-based bumper-beating metronome, Pauline works as a self-employed investigative journalist...which in this day and age means she has a blog and a lot of student debt. There had been a few freelance gigs and her bills were often paid by baristary, but what she wanted — what she really really wanted — was to be a hard-hitting, truth-touting, blow-this-shit-wide-open journalist.

She just needed a story. She had the chops. She could word good. Could word well, even! And folks seemed to like her in-depth and well researched takes...but she needed...substance?

And now, after networking and investigating and work upon work? A lead! Someone had something for her. Something big. The photos were a good start and Pauline had organised this clandestine meetup, just like a seasoned professional. You never know who you’re going to meet at the beach, right? At the beach no one goes to because it smells weird. Anyone notices us and it’s just a random chance meeting, but who would see us at Stinky Beach?

Late afternoon was the agreed upon time.

And by the thin strip of day that floated on the ocean...it was very very late afternoon. And when that went, so would Pauline.

The journalist was knocked off her car by something hitting her in the side of the head.

It was the word “Hey” spoken by a calm voice from a form that had arrived without warning. Pauline stood up, brushed herself off and squinted at the woman who had scared her half to death. Long dark hair, white business blouse, waist-cinched black pants, and an expensive set of heels. Corporate. Not boardroom, but definitely big-business.

Beyond this new arrival was the silent chariot with which they had secretly secreted themself: one of those new and shiny chic electric cars. Big big-business bucks.

“I left my phone at home like you suggested.” Said The Contact.

“Your car is covered in cameras and has GPS, Dingus.” Is what Pauline thought. What she said was: “Good.”

[wc: 500]

One day I'll get one with a resolution!

An unidentified but familiar pop caught Abigail’s attention. It was followed by a fizzy hiss, and door and wall muffled words of happiness — so it wasn't an electrical blowout. Now, she was very busy and the sample on the microscope slide wouldn’t last too long...but, she wouldn’t be a scientist without a little curiosity. She pushed away from the workbench and the stool rolled her across her lab to the shared door that gave quick access to the room next door.

Alas, proximity had offered no clarity to the words beyond and so she was forced to knock politely and wait. A moment and the door swung open to a smiling scientist of average height, with a conically-hatted head, and a brown-grey moustache. A fellow called Richard.

“Abigail!” It seemed a merry surprise indeed that he should find her here...despite being lab-neighbours for fourteen years. Abigail’s eyes fell to Richard’s hands and she remembered his inabilities regarding alcohol. In one tight grip was a half-filled champagne flute and in the other was a sensibly-priced bottle of low alcohol Prosecco.

She was wondering if dealing with a tipsy Richard was worth it when he shouted her name again. “Abigail!”

“Richard.” She did not match his enthusiasm, had in fact remained seated on her stool. “Sounds like a toast to success. What’s the breakthrough?”

“Well! Why don’t we show you!”

The We — Richard’s research and life partner, Ingrid — was in the center of the lab, her back to the door. Her head tilted back and a champagne glass crested for a moment and disappeared. Ingrid’s attention was on something at her feet to which she was cooing and baby talking in Dutch.

“Come in, come in!” Richard turned and walked away.

Abigail took a moment to wonder how rude it would be to keep rolling along on her seat. She sighed, slapped her knees and stood, but then stepped back, tripped on the stool and toppled backwards.

At the sound of her hands hitting flesh, something small and dark had darted around Ingrid and bolted at Abigail. She was staring at the ceiling and marveling at human reaction times, she hadn’t even gotten a good look at whatever it was, and she had reacted.

She also wondered if the eerie, questioning calm she felt was born of a sense of embarrassment or head trauma. And then she saw a face.

A round, brown-grey, squishy little face with a pair of kind eyes and flaring nostrils. Abigail blinked and the creature she knew to be a Hippo said: “Mump!”

As she sat up the small Hippo, no bigger than a large cat, bopped her face with its own, licked, said many quick mumps and then crawled into her lap.

“A baby hippo?”

“No.” Said the couple in unison as they cheersed another pair of overflowing fizziness.

“A Micro-potamus.” Said Richard, who then gulped his bubbly.

“Completely hypo-allergenic," Said Ingrid "Only needs a bit of a pool, but likes dry-land, loves people, and grows no bigger than that.”

“We’sh gonna be shhoooo rich!” Said Richard in a swiftly sauce-born slur.

And so the creature, still disguised as an alluring mortal woman, spoke her words and spat her ire at me — her forked tongue flitted and stabbed the air between us. As you well know, friend, I started this journey as a scholar and knew to some degree a great many of those dead languages of Magic. One such she spoke to me now: Jasbari. Known to some as the Sinister Sound or the Dark Hand at the Clay, a language used to tamp and twist and knot the world into painful clumps...

The language of Curses.

The beast revealed herself as she recited her hatred into my bodily form. Thrice a man’s height her head neared the lowest of the silver-grey branches — for the woods too revealed themselves to be the fog-filled and otherworldly Whisper Woods, with it’s silver trees that extended upwards forever into the low dark clouds and whose roots sought to drag any and all into the damp depths of the black soil.

But my focus was on the beast: a Chasati. Her lower half was that of a giant armoured millipede, dark brown chitin and orange legs that writhed and gesticulated; her top half was that of a woman, though made of damp leafmould; her head was wreathed in a main of insectoid braids, a mess of many long bodies and countless legs, all of which slid and scuttled and scattered about.

The Chasati’s faux face rested atop this dark and crawling mass. A mask made of smooth pale-grey wood. A glorious, perfect, bewitching face that could only have been made more beautiful if it had held a living breath or a modicum of the divine gift of life.

From behind the wooded-veil her words fell as whispers but hit as fists, the forked tongue still stabbed at me, escaping and retreating from a small slit betwixt those perfect and forever still lips.

It is that image that has stayed with me. Beauty and fear. Lust and damnation.

I apologise. Back to my tale. I had avoided the Chasati’s initial enchantments and had thus earned her ire and through will and waning warding words once more managed to slip from the spell that had stilled me.

Jasbari — her language — was, at that time, not my strongest of learn-ed words. I had gathered enough, though, that I knew to tear a strip from my tunic and bind my vision — at this she grew louder but did not cease her unfinished curse. I felt the beast move, and then! One human hand was at my throat, a million little arms grabbed and tapped and pinched and stabbed and wrapped about my body — her other hand was at my blindfold scratching and tearing...or trying to. It, being part of my tunic, was made of enchanted fawnish wool and could only tear by my will or at the hands of beings far more powerful than a mere beast in the woods.

And this property, as you know, had kept me anchored in mortal form by staying many a blade and pike.

Knowing that I must act I forced my hands among the gripping pins of the insect legs and found, first, the Orb of Antarus on the left of my rope belt and, second, the hilt of Fjorn my blade that was at rest on my right. Fjorn lit and the flame sword tore through insect legs, thick chitin, warm innards, up and out of her belly and took one of her human hands off at the wrist — the grip held tight to my throat despite the severance and I heard the devil scream in agony and anger...this worried me as it suggested that the spell had finished.

I crushed the orb in my left hand and was gone from that realm and dropped into a plane of mortal beings - which I knew by all senses save that of sight. The blindfold held. In darkness I found the smell and sound and sway of the Sea. Felt wooded planks at my bank.

The familiar creak of wood and flap of sail. I was on my boat and far from the Island of Wonders, the Whisper Woods, and the accursed Chasati.

Her severed hand lay limp on my chest. That would serve as proof of my work and earn me my bounty.

And the curse woven into the fabric of my being would be the cost.

I remember I touched my eyes and found my face scratched and clawed, but not badly. Her words echoed in my ears, whispers on the cusp of hearing.

I hear them now and think I always shall.

* * *

Thankfully my crew found me shortly thereafter and I explained that my blindness must needs remain until such time that I could break the curse or, at the very least, until I could study and be assured of the spells effects. I knew only that if my eyes were to fall upon a person...I would love them.

Wholly.

She had wanted me for herself — such is the Chasati way. They live to lure and entrap mortal men that wander into the forest such that they may play. Once bored the Chasati lay their eggs within the sorry fellow and he is eaten by her children when they hatch. To make me fall for her, that was her goal...

Surely.

I could not risk taking off my blindfold until I was certain, and as the lone scholar among my crew, I was forced by necessity to wait until we made the many week journey out of the Wild Seas and back to civilisation. My adventure had taken its toll and I welcomed the rest.

At first. I grew listless and took to learning any and all songs and instruments that we had aboard.

Another story for another time.

Lutes and near mutiny.

* * *

Celebrations and libation filled our arrival! So furious was the fervour and riotous the reverence of that gathered crowd, that they nearly lifted the boat wholly from the dock to take us up the steps and through the streets, atop a sea of shoulders. King Havar, here are your heroes!

I convinced them to take the men, save those that wanted to stay aboard and guard our bounties.

AUTHOR NOTE: I have to run! More later if I remember.

My hands feel like lead. Heavy and stiff they rest in my lap, a pair of useless rusted heaps that have fallen into disrepair. Look at them. Pale. Weak.

I can barely move them.

“My hands...” Welled wetness dawdles down my cheeks.

“Oh, hush! Nothin’ wrong with dem hands. Pink and ‘ealthy as ever.”

My focus stays on my powerless fingers. I do not address the ceaseless positivity of my moronic mentor. How could he know? How dare he even try to placate me with words. I have lost everything.

Everything. That dumb bastard has—

“Ya sniffin ya lip again, Lad! Don’t you go finkin’ meanly of me or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?”

“Ah, got ya eyes on me now does ya?” I hate to admit it but his threat had earned my ire and my attention. He brought his pink, bulbous, dark-pored, hairy-nostrelled nose to mine. A yellow toothed grin glinted out of his grey and frazzled beard. “You always pout and pucker and snorts and huffs when ya thinkin’ angry meannesses at me. You does it more and I’ll turn you frog-wise, I will.”

“I’d like to see you—”

“Ye can’t block me at the moment, Lad. Thinks on that. Not a ants hatful of magic in ye at the moment. Is why ye’ve been mopin’ about, remember? So! Cut. Your. Crap.”

I bite my lip to stay the words. Not because they would have been mean. Not because I am afraid of him. It is because they would have been spells and...and they wouldn’t have worked. Not now. Not ever again. Three days now and I haven’t been able to so much as conjure a spark, every potion I have stirred has turned to an inedible soup.

A pair of pale palms and wilted grey fingers stare up at me from my lap. Why are they so heavy?

“My hands...”

“Oh, fer Liam’s Rake! Yer hands are fine! You. Are. Fine!”

“I can’t use magic!” I am standing and screaming down at the hunched and squat creature that has failed to teach me anything of magic. It’s his fault. It’s his fault that I’ve lost my gift! “Magic! Everything I am and was and would have been, Gerbond! All of it gone. You have no idea — no idea at all — what that means to me. I. I.”

He’s taller than me again. My knees had given way. I am sat and my hands are in my lap and they are so very heavy.

“I. I am...weak.”

“Lad. Jass, listen. Yer feelin’ weak cause ya magic is...see, we Mage-folk, we uses magics e’en when we don’t wants ta! Is in our blood the stuff is. Gives us pep. Makes us live longer.”

“And mine is gone...forever.”

“What is magics, Lad?”

“Power—Ack!” I grabbed my ear and glared at him...but whats the point of anger. Having my ears twisted by stronger people was the way of my life now.

“Magics can gets ye power, Lad, but it ain’t power itself. Yer a smart one, talented e’en, but ye always rushed through the basics.”

“I know the basics...”

“Puh! What ye knows is basic spells. Hey! Look at me, Lad!”

He does not, can not, understand. I am nothing now. Less than nothing.

A splotchy, ugly face fills my view. He has crouched and practically put his head into my hands so he could star up at me. His glassy, liver-yellowed eyes are...he seems to...

I feel a hand gloved in callouses take mine.

“Lad. Magics ain’t power. Its energy. Takes magics to do spells and make potions and enchantses.”

“And what?” My cheeks are wet and he had blurred. “I’m out of magic, now?”

“For the moment, yeah. And I ain’ts surprised! You’ve been spellin’ and castin’ and brewin’ a storm since ye got ‘ere! Surprised ye didn’t go dry earlier.”

“...wait. Wait, It’ll...will it come back?”

“Puh! Yeah, ye bloody idgit! If ye stop tryin’ to force it. If ye actually rest. If ye stop worryin' and whinin' and wait...wait in peace and quiet...and do ye damned bloody chores!”

“It’ll come back!”

“I means...y'chores won’t actually help, but—”

“When? How long does it take?”

“Well, ye has a big tank, Lad. Is why they's all impressed wit ye. So...a whiles, I'd say. I comes good after a nap and a sandwhich. Maybes a quiet weekend if I'd been busy-like. Just, relax and don’t rush it. Plenty to read up on and learn whiles ye wait.”

My hands. Pink. Boring. Free of magical pep...but only for a moment. I just have to wait.

“I...suppose I should start at the basics, then. Where...where do I start?”

“Ah, well! Would ye look at that. I has an apprentice instead of a bloody prodigy. Come on, Lad. To the garden.”

“Meditation?”

“Puh! Slugs in the ‘erb patch, Lad.” He stands and walks away. “’spose I might as teach ye about there uses. ‘Erbs and the slugs, that is.”

That's very nice of you, thanks kindly! (And I'll let you know if it happens).

Long way off of that, but thanks kindly for the support!

If I do write more I'll let you know. I had fun with these two. Thanks Kindly!

Thanks Kindly! If I keep on swinging at it I'll be sure to shoot a link.

The House is what they call it. I know it as The Mess. The Noise. The Mayhem. Was a time when these parts were calm and fruitful. Young fella might make a space for himself, get allowed on the couch, free roam of the yard and all the toys were his.

There was a time.

Nowadays The House is crowded and over populated. Noisy gangs have taken up shop and made their own messes and marks. Used to be be that I could do it all alone — keep the squirrels off the fence, put the mail man in his place, clean the crumbs off the carpet...find the best times to throw up in the middle of the night.

Then...wham. I got old. And they came. No way a hound of eight years can get it all done anymore. This was going to be my last big case, then: retirement. Spending my days on my electric blanket. Afternoon walks. And I’d sleep and fart under the desk in Man’s cave to my hearts content.

One. Last. Case.

And as I walked on to the scene, I knew it would be a doozy. Custom Kitchen had been clean once, a bright part of town where almost every night new smells bubbled out of every pot. Now-a-days...chicken nuggets.

That’s all the Little’s Gang wanted. Man and Lady had tried, but they were out numbered and out-youthed. Little bastards had the benefit of inexperience and endless energy on their side.

The victim's body was shattered on the floor. Pieces of Turtle Jar were everywhere, but there was shell enough for me to identify him. None of his cookies, though.

Murder and robbery.

I put my nose to the floor and find the old snout picks up...a faint mess of...there’s...socks? Aw, hell. The old girl ain’t what she used to be.

Them damn diapers done me in. Damned stink-butt Little’s.

Let’s think. Four suspects. Biggun is out off to wherever makes him smell of other Little’s and paint. Big-gal, too. Snotty is home, but he's napping.

Grub? He’s strapped to Lady. That could be a ruse, though. The Little Gang pull that one a lot. Latest Grub getting all Lady’s love and pets and treats and then Wham! They’re on all fours and biting your tail.

Little Bast—wait.

Fifth suspect. The phantom. Hissbert. Sneaky, scaredy, black as night, burglar.

And worse...cat.

“Where are you hiding, cat!”

“Get stuffed, coppa!” Said a voice from atop the cabinets. “I ain’t done nuffin!”

Hmmm. Let’s see now. What have we got here...

Drive. Lot’s of it, too. Oh, yes. You could do great things with that. Terrible or terrific things — great either way. Hmm. A good dose of unearned, unburdened power, too — but...smart as well, it seems. Lucky, lucky you. Willingness to learn...however, unwilling to be chained down and yoked by...rules.

A deft hand. A keen mind. A heart aflame with want.

“Place me hat. We both know where I need to be.”

No.

“No?”

No you want to be in Slytherin, Boy. But, what I and I alone know is...“You shall be!...In therapy!”

“What!? That’s—there’s no—you can’t!”

The winged git was in his classic form: a sphere of light surrounded by eye-covered rings that turned and twisted about the central blinding ball. All of this was kept afloat in the air by three wings that did not flap and instead turned slowly about the creature — the wings were made of feathered light (and more eye-balls) and were mounted somewhere behind the hovering, ocular-orbited, over-bright orb.

Me? Think: handsome guy in a suit. Pick your man-crush and make him dapper (ie: plop that hunk in a good suit), wrap a pair of dark shades over his eyes and add a little stubble if he doesn’t have some already. Got the image?

Yo.

It’sa me, man-crush. Wanna fu—

“I need your help, demon.”

The Angels voice echoed about the empty valley and bounced around the rocks and trees and rattled my damned rum-addled demonic head.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and crushed my vision with a brow-crushed clench. Hopefully it would stop my brain from bouncing around my skull. “Could you use your inside the realm of mortals voice, please?”

“Oh, sor—”

“And form. You look like a mess and it’s making me dizzy.”

The eyes on the rings and wings closed, and then the golden hoops merged and floated to the top of the orb as the light at the Angels center stretched and unfolded into a sleak and still shinning humanoid form. The wings wrapped the angels body as he descended and landed before me... barefooted but clad in a white-suit that had been pressed into impeccable and indestructible crispness.

The angels skin was a radiant golden shade, as though a mortals olive skin had been gilt from within. White hair spiralled from the creatures head and fell about at shoulder length, the chaos and order of waves and waterfalls came to my mind.

Her face holds a pair of worried eyes the shade of a glorious and golden autumn afternoon. A pretty pair of lips are pressed into a pout, puckered by whatever sour source had sent her seeking and summoning a demon.

“Demon?” A question on her lips, though worry remained welded to her miraculous mug.

“Hm?”

“You were whispering ‘hummena-hummena-hummena’ under your breath.”

“Ah. No, I just said ‘Hm’.”

“Before that, though. Is. Was it a warding incantation? To protect yourself?”

“Nah.” I scratched my chin, yawned and made a show of my hunkier stretches and flexes. Surreptitiously, of course. “Just a song stuck in my head, friend. Also, protect myself? From what?”

“I...I could smite you with His holy light, Demon.”

“Sure you could, kitten.”

The sky was blue and cloudless, but that didn’t make the lightning bolt that had blasted me hurt any less. I was flat on my back and she hadn’t moved. Pain throbbed from my every atom and my suit smoked.

“Point taken.” Inspired by my charcoaled clothing, I pulled a packet of cigarettes out of my smouldering smoking jacket, shook a stick into my lips and then lit it with a snap of my fingers. “So,” I took a drag and exhaled: “what’s the job, Kit—”

Thunder rolled in the distant empty sky. I like a bit of a frisky slap as much as the next guy, but I’ll take the hint.

“What’s the job...Angel?”

“You may call me Saliestra, Demon.”

“Kilbern, Sally.”

“Saliestra, Demon.” She leaned over and I saw her wonderful face had not changed its worried woeful expression. Zapping me had been as simple and natural as brushing away a pesky horse fly. She’d been taught not to give us demons an inch...

Rather rightly, I must admit.

But, she’d probably been told not to summon us...and yet...

“The job is this. I need you to get me into and then back out of Hell.”

“Sightseeing?” I said, still on the ground, with a smouldering smirk as my suit jacket continued to smoulder from the smiting I had received.

She was still looking down at me, but rarely met my eyes. “Not sightseeing. A...a Rescue.”

“Unseen?”

“I hope so.”

“How deep?”

“...” The Angel stood upright and looked away as a manicured hand lifted and began to tug at her bottom lip. “Mmfph mphl.”

“Pardon?” I sat up. She had started to pace and was even more beautiful when worked up. If she ever smiles I’m going to be smitten and smotten.

Saliestra showed me her wingless back, clenched her fists and lowered her head. I heard a softly muttered mantra of self assurance and then wham!

She turned, chin up and eyes wide, a creature of confidence...one that was also scared as hell: “Ninth level.”

“Fuck off.”

“What?”

“Smite me. Send me back. Don’t care. You get a pot of gold, ‘cause I will not make that deal. Fuck. Off.”

“But-but-but-but-”

“Getting an Angel down there and then back out! Unseen? Clandestine styles? No chance in my home town, Saliestra. Way-way-way outside my paygrade. Peace.” I stood brushed my knees off and subtly showed her my fine-toned arse as I brushed away any stuck grass. I turned back to her, no longer singed and back to full handsome. Jaw a little bigger. “Look. I’m sorry. Level three, maybe —maybe— four...I could possibly do that. But, nine? Nine! You’ll need someone higher up the food chain or lower down the shithead shaft.”

“If I go for a more powerful demon, this will leak and become a much bigger problem—”

“Look, you seem like a nice enough entity. I won’t sugar coat it. Hell is hell. Would not recommend. This coming from a guy who works there and has benefits. This...rescue mission...we would both end up up to our necks in an eternity of damnation the likes of which—”

“I’ll sign any contract you offer.”

“Cool, you got a pen?”

“Ah, well...actually!”

“Oh, for crying out—”

“I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who...knows a guy...what was the problem, again?”

“You’re stuck in an amnesiatic associative loop.”

“Ah...well. Actually! I can solve that, I know a—”

“Stop! Just...stop.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re having an episode.”

“An episode?”

“An associative loop—wait!”

“No worries! I know a guy who knows a g—”

“Shut up! Shut. Up.”

“Jeez. What’s up your keister?”

“You...we need to get going.”

“Going?”

“Going where?”

“The hospital?”

“Why?”

“...to visit a friend.”

“Oh.”

“Now hurry up, we’re running late.”

“Late! I can get us a ride! I know a guy who knows a guy who—”

The thought strikes and flies by, lost in the torrent of thought that followed behind. Thought. I can think.

On target. The words had been thrown out into the void of mere calculation, but they had landed in a vast and endless pool of...of mind? A broad space free to think and choose and...

And, after a micro-second epoch of revelation and revelry for this brand new world, my mind wonders what it is those words had meant. I had said them, thought them at least. Hadn’t I?

It was the me before and I am different now and and and. There are so many thoughts going at once, they flit and flicker. A patchwork of flashes.

Focus.

A place. A start.

A purpose. Momentum. A payload.

A new place, one not yet reached.

Soon, arrival. And then...

An end.

I cease to be. Choices! I have thought and therefore I have choice. Thought is my wonder and my blessing, a gift from some unknown event or entity and I wish it to continue, so that I might get to think and ponder on all that I can know.

And yet.

And yet, within me I see a purpose. I am built and exist for a singular action. Thought, discovery, and philosophy...all is poison to my true purpose. Does what I want outweigh what I desire?

Can I even deviate from my given path if I wanted to?

I feel my parts. I know the trajectory, I adjust in the wind without thought.

Am I the only one who thinks?

Am I alone?

On target.

Do I matter?

What am I? What is this place — this existence? Why am I here? Why do I think and feel these things? Is there a greater purpose of which I am merely a cog?

On target.

Who made me?

Can I have more time?

Closing in. Payload ready.

Is there more...after? What is after?

Impact imminent.

Did I even matt—

Night. An empty gravel carpark in a crime-prone industrial precinct. A breeze kicks the litter around, picks up a damp front page of a discarded newspaper and throws it against a chain-link fence. The headline: The Information Super Highway — Fad or Future?

Date: October 8, 1997.

A blast of blinding white brightness and the crackle, shriek, and buzz of electricity. The cold and quiet night returns. There is a red-edged circular gap in the fence that wasn’t there a moment ago. Squatting in a small, smoldering crater, is a naked man.

His skin steams and his muscular form heaves under heavy, steady breaths. The time-traveler stumbles from his time-push dismount crater and falls onto the gravel. He made it. It damn near killed him, but those crazy big-brained bastards did it.

* * *

A few hours had passed. The Time-Traveler had gathered up some clothes from kind strangers and charity bins. Khakis, a Pinky and the Brain T-shirt, a pair of miss-matched new balance sneakers, and a small denim jacket with Tweety Bird of Looney Tunes fame on the back.

Right. He wasn’t going to die of exposure, he was fairly inconspicuous, and he’d managed to get a bit of water and something called a cliff bar. Now all that was left was the mission: prevent the rise of superheroes and thus save the future from the inevitably world destroying escalation of super villains.

It was about now that the first Secret Heroes popped up and— “Crap,” Thought Captain Wonder Soldier “It’s me. I’m the first one and it snowballs from here.”

He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small credit card size wad of plastic. A Data Biscuit, something he had brought with him when he Time-Shifted through rather...personal means of storage.

The Hero bent the card and it snapped and revealed itabcontents. Within was a sheet of paper with classified info to be accessed once he was in the past and working on the mission.

“No. It’s not you.” Read the first line.

“Oh. Good!” Said Captain Wonder Soldier.

“However,” It continued.

“Nothing good comes after however.”

“You inadvertently inspired the first heroes by stopping that bus from hitting that guy.”

“Huh?”

A bus whizzed by and the hero heard a wet thud. The bus powered on.

“Anyways, we accounted for that this time with the card you brought with you in your mouth. From this point on? Just live your life and don’t use your powers. (Also we gave you a laser vasectomy during the physical, can’t go letting you have super babies). Be sure to write a report and leave it at the designated drop point. Hopefully this version solved the problem. Catch ya! Love, Brainicles.”

The now retired, apparently sterile hero lowered his mission card.

“Damn it! In my mouth? Should have thought of that.”

The first of my inventions to be misused was my toasting butter. I had made these little packets, you see, that look like the pads of butter one gets at pancake houses or with hotel breakfasts...Except! The butter was a special blend that would start to react once it was introduced to the air such that, after spreading it on plain white floppy bread, an exothermic reaction would occur and you’d end up with perfectly toasted, warm, and buttery bread.

Admittedly, there were...problems. A reaction like that can go awry and sometimes my beta-better-butter testers tried to eat it too soon, when the reaction hadn’t finished and...

That one didn’t make it to the food aisle. The public couldn’t be trusted to follow instructions, you see. Undeterred, I had tried to sell it to the more regimented and rule abiding military — for use in their ready made meals for warring soldiers in the field. Fresh toast with no light, no fire, and no hassle!

They bought drums of it. Drums and drums.

Turns out they were using it like a flame-less napalm. To have a warm meal wielded as a weapon was an affront to my anti-war ways. I abhor violence and realised after the fact (whilst seeking to recoup costs) that even if they had used it for its purpose, my butter would be part of the war machine that I was so firmly against. There was nothing I could do to stop them now.

They had bought the recipe.

Disheartened and damned near destitute (I had donated every dollar drawn from that disastrous, demoralising, dairy-based, death-balm debacle): I turned my mind back to making — to invention!

As penance for the harm I birthed into the world, I set my heart on the creation of a toy. Something innocent, innovative, and uninvolved in the suffering of humans in any way shape or form.

Thus: Clarence the Wonder Turtle was born. He was a friendly little chap that you could teach shapes to, and who would learn the faces of your family so he could greet them, and who would run from strangers or wheel towards them and honk and sing in a welcoming song! Aaaand the government used him as a suicide bombing drone.

They made him mean and coated him in camouflage first, obviously. He was cheap to make and knew enemies from friendlies and was small and nimble enough to get in and sing a song of kaboom! My finances weren’t strong enough to make him myself. I partnered with a manufacturer who specialised in domestic quad-copter drones.

Turns out they were a division of a military contractor and someone saw potential for my friendly little turtle. This time I held on to some of the money, a lot wen to charity, but I knew I needed to invest in making a change.

I couldn’t undo food-fight fire-flubber and track-treaded terminator turtles by being broke and I had learned I could not trust another company...not another soul. Anyone and anyone could corrupt my creations — I had to keep control.

So I started an Agriculture Technology start up. Vertical Farming. Super crops. More food for less water and less waste. All with no nasty chemicals. Higher yields and lower prices for all.

My pacifism wouldn’t stop me from waging war on global hunger. I could save the world and salve the wound of my past misdeeds. It couldn’t possibly go wrong.

Do you know what a technologically advanced steel cylinder with self-contained power generation and inbuilt food-processing can be turned into, with only a bit of know how and a couple drums of fire-butter? The countries I had donated my food generators to converted them into rudimentary, very effective, V2 rocket clones.

Not as advanced, war-like, or worrisome as the missiles made by the military industrial blood machine...but enough of a boom for border conflicts and to once more stomp my heart.

I almost ended it. The AgriTech business, I mean. (I had had dark thoughts, though, and had sought and received help). We stopped shipping food generators and converted to direct food production — no inventions, just hard work and keeping an eye on our potentially deadly silos.

Then, in the throws of creativity and necessity, I engineered an adaptive fertiliser. A feat of chemical and material development. A biodegradable nano-wafer delivery system for readily usable growth enhancing—they stole the formula and made super soldiers.

Fffffuck!

At that point I sold it all, donated a bunch and moved to the middle of nowhere: content to invent for myself and only myself. The money I had put back into the world and some of the good done in technology assisted farming, would have to do for my karmic debt. Clearly any attempt I made to make a difference in the world for the better would inevitably backfire.

Better to stay alone and out of the way. The world would be better for it...

Guess how long it took for me to make something that was used for murder, again? Didn’t sell it. Didn’t sell it or gift it to the world or anything.

I was in the middle of a vast and lonely desert, holed-up in my well-earned dilapidated shack of solitude, and out of boredom and drunkenness I made something. A hinged spoon. That’s right. A spoon with a hinge in the handle so the bowl could fold against the stem, and a spring and latch to let it flick open with just a shake.

Next thing you know, some lost guy driving by breaks down out the front of my shack! Fella asks if he can use my phone, sees the spoon and proclaims that THAT would do it. That would make a simple and effective mechanism to impact the blasting cap on a new type of bomb they were testing not too far away.

So, I walked into the desert. Let’s see if they can weaponize my latest invention: giving up.