Hero/Villain

Hero

My birth name is no longer important. Who I was then is no longer important. I’m Atlas now. The world needs me to be Atlas. I’m the only known true superhuman.

I used to work at the Hedron Collider in Bern, Switzerland, as a low-level tech, night shift. There was an accident. The kind that anti-collider luddites said could open a black hole on Earth. It didn’t. Or if it did, it’s inside or around me. Because in a manner of seconds I found myself able to do interesting things with mass and density. I’m immeasurably strong. I can fly. I can make myself so dense I’m bulletproof, effectively invulnerable from har, but then I’m too dense to move. I’m so fast I suspect I can move through time but the idea scares me. I can probably do more.

I gave up all semblance of a normal life. There’s too much I can do to help. I lifted a crippled ship out of the Panama Canal. Lifted it. I regularly unbeach whales. They don’t even cover it in the media anymore when I do that, they just call me. I have a call service and an assistant to get calls to me and help prioritize. The President has a hotline for me. This is now a job.

And I do get paid in a way. I won’t take any money, but I don’t need anything. I have a place to live, food, all paid for by the UN through a joint agreement. They said I do so much for the world they should pay me back, so if I need something I just take it and someone files a claim. But I don’t need much. New uniforms now and then, but those are donated. I get gifts all the time. I don’t have time to enjoy them. I stay busy.

Normal crime goes on and I do my part. Accidents, fires, disasters happen all the time. But I’m also on the lookout. My one real enemy I suppose.

I named him by mistake, the first time he broke out of prison. He made a bomb out of a condom, a paper clip, and a candy bar – whatever he had around, or could find. It made me think of “Gilligan’s Island” – the Professor could build anything out of coconuts. The police heard what I said and the media ran with it. He hates that name I’m told, so they use it even more, taunting him.

I kind of respect him in a way. I was a scientist. I suppose I still am. He believes he’s helping humanity, but his methods are extreme. He could kill us all by accident, and he wouldn’t mind if he killed a few on purpose in his pursuit of knowledge.

He is brilliant, and resourceful. I respect that. But also cold-hearted and insane. He gets to me. I shouldn’t let him, but he does. I could end him any time. Throw him to the Moon. Swat his head off his neck. Tear him in half. Hold him and run or fly so fast he can’t breathe and he smothers to death, All those things would be satisfying. So satisfying. But I don’t. It sickens me to think about it and it sickens me that I don’t.

So I watch for him and when he shows I grab him and take him to prison again. Each time the cell is tougher to escape and each time he gets out. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer. Sometimes he never even makes it to jail. But I know he’ll be out, because they can’t hold him. He’s too good.

There, on the NORAD satellite feed. An area of Brazilian rainforest just disappeared. It can only be him.

So like a dog fetching a ball, I go to bring him back again.

Villain

I made one mistake. Went too far one time and I never stop paying. Branded for life as a problem, prevented from pursuing any kind of meaningful career or living any kind of life. It’s absurdity, not justice. A lifetime of persecution as a result of one prosecution.

It’s really a pity it’s come to this. I have so much to offer. I have degrees in Astronomy, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry. I taught Philosophy at two universities while finishing my first PhD. My thesis on string theory was regarded as brilliant. My research on the nature of sound was called groundbreaking. I’ve shared a stage with Tyson and had discussions with Hawking, Crick, Feynman, and Nash.

The world hold me back, my peers hold me back, because they’re afraid of what I might do. And what I might do is make them obsolete. They’ll appear to be kindergarteners in a high school physics class, digging in their noses and looking confused while the teacher tries to talk at level they can understand.

It would be insulting enough to be held back by those I would call my colleagues, by the Science establishment. Those who falsely think they are my peers. But what truly sickens me is that I have to fight for my freedom and fear for my safety from the public’s self-appointed watchdog, Atlas. The man with the world on his shoulders.

What a marvel. The world’s only true superhuman. And his greatest power is being the greatest ass-kisser in history. Honored and celebrated by governors and mayors across the country. On call by the President. And God knows he’d just as soon kiss an ass as save a bridge or a baby to get those awards. “Oh what can I do, Mr. Mayor?” Mindless putz.

The insults are endless, really. I lost my tenure at Columbia because I mocked the departmental police in exchange for them mocking my own theories and for calling me unhinged. Anti-matter can be a source of clean energy for the world. If I can create and harness it in my lab at Columbia, it would make the university a financial powerhouse, and effectively bring world peace. But my “colleagues” said I’d rather bring the world to its knees, bowing before me as I doled out my fuel or made a weapon. I could, yes. I might. It does not mean I would. And again, the goal would be world peace. Imbeciles.

Then I lost my post entirely and was unable to even scramble for a position at a tiny city college. No one wanted me. But my research was key, so I took what I needed from my lab at Columbia, only to be prosecuted like a burglar. A thug. Bastards.

The first time I escaped from jail wasn’t even an effort. As any veteran of the penal system will tell you, there’s a monumental difference between jail and prison. I was out of jail before midnight the first night, eating a late meal in a diner while others were snuggling up to their cellmates.

Atlas helped the police find me after that, and it was off to prison. Still not a challenge for me. John Dillinger once broke our of prison using a gun he made from a bar of soap. I made an explosive device from toothpaste, a condom, part of a muffin, and a penny I had in my ass. I was free for two months afterward.

I could go anywhere, be anyone. Assume an identity. But I live for science. It is my duty, all I have, ever loved, and they try to keep it from me. Even here, in the Amazon rainforest, I know I have limited time.

Was that a sonic boom?