Area of Effect

 

Ever since I could remember, the stories of the metas had been captivating.  It really put some meaning into the cliche, "destined to do great things."  What can be more destined than having your superhuman abilities tied to a place?  Destiny tied to a destination is what that is.  

And it turns out that sometimes you can't really leave the destination, either.  There are a few A-level metas out there, truly super beings whose entire beat is pretty much the known universe.  There's B+ types who watch over the galaxy, to N-level who watch over an entire state, et cetera.  You get the picture.

So driving home from college two years ago I felt this tingle like you would not believe, like having a, um, very viscerally good reaction to oh let's just say a really fantastic dinner while taking a side trip, just getting off the interstate for a few miles, and boom.  Ohmigod.  Ohmigod.  Ohmigod.  Like that.  And knowing what everybody else knows, I thought there's, like, a really short list of things that could cause that, so I decided to check it out.  I had to get tested.

“Z? Zed? The last thing before the alphabet starts over?” On the A-to-Z scale of metahuman rating, A is essentially a god and Z is something you can imagine an Olympic-level athlete achieving, plus maybe a couple of esoteric powers. One can bend reality, the other can bend steel bars.

Maybe just aluminum bars.

“Yup. Sorry, lady.”

Ugh. Okay. I could work with this. The testing agency wasn’t to blame, it’s just the nature of the beast. He packed up his testing gear and laid out some of the ramifications.

“So what it means is that your powers are geographically isolated. Stay on your turf and you’re a meta. Go off your turf and you’re a normie.”

“How powerful a meta?”

“That varies from one instance to the next, and sometimes it varies from one encounter to the next, sometimes it’s contextual. I tested a lady last month, she’s almost a normie even on her territory except when facing drunk men or barking dogs. Then she’s pretty terrifying.” He zipped up his pack. “Your scores don’t seem to have much internal conflict, so on your territory you look like a pretty straightforward strongman – er, strongwoman - definitely in the super levels, looks like some night vision, and a bit of electrical manipulation. Nothing earth shattering but nothing to sneeze at either. You can’t pick up a car, but you could pick up a motorcycle. Pretty big one, if these scores are right. You’ve got potential. It’s modest, but potential.”

“And my territory is a street?”

“Yup. This street.”

“Morrigan Avenue.”

“Morrigan Avenue.” He shouldered his pack. “I’ve emailed you a list of exercises and practices so you can get a better idea of what your abilities are and, more importantly, your limits. Don’t try to be a hero until you’ve actually done everything on the list.  Really, seriously: don't try.  Heroism has an area of effect, and once you wander out of the area you're destined for, you lose your effect."

"So stay close to home?"

"So stay close to home.  Or choose not to be a hero."

Man.  I'm a superhero, a meta, but a Z.  You've heard of the D-list?  Just imagine the list had twenty-two more pages, and I'm on the last one.  It's cool, but cool like when you win a lottery prize and it's five bucks.

Like I said, that was a couple of years ago.  Some things have happened since then.  I've graduated college, found a house - just down the street, as it happens - and I've become involved in my local community.

I had read the email and gone right down the list. It did lay out many useful tips. It also recommended I seek out other metas and talk to them, pick up any practical advice they may have. They had quite a bit. Two other Z’s like me had the disheartening suggestion that I not go picking encounters with more than two people at a time.

What’s the use of being a superhero when you’re not that super?

But then when I got my house I noticed that my effects had become a bit more powerful.  Nothing huge, but noticeable to me.  A statistically significant bump.  And the only thing that had changed was that my association with my area had changed, had become more intimate.   It was more personal to me, its health and wellbeing more immediate in my worldview.

It's nothing major when you look at it.  It's a small town to begin with, and this isn't the main street either.  No, no - that's where most of the businesses are.  No, here we have some houses at this end including my own, the convenience store, two churches, the bookstore, a lawyer’s office, then the library and the park, and finally, after about two blocks of park, the city office, fire station, police station and the end of town.  All the stuff that doesn't make much money or draw much traffic, but you still need it.  This isn't the main street - it's one block over.  About three-fourths of a mile in all, fifty feet wide, houses and businesses on either side. That's plenty for a low-rent superhero to haunt.

Except there was the town council meeting. And a movement, and a vote by electronic poll, and now my little low rent superhero territory is going to be widened into a boulevard. It turns out that electrical manipulation, once you’ve done some of the practices, can be pretty handy.  Those voting machines are pretty neat inside once you know what you're feeling and smelling.

It's not really feeling and smelling but I can't really describe it to a normie so there you are.  I can feel how the voting systems work, smell how their programming is baked together.  And a few touches here and there, a quizzically raised brow at the logic trees and you can make the electrons dance to whatever tune you like.

I have no idea whether these changes would work if you took the machines out of town.  Area of effect, and all that. Might have to test that.

Long story slightly less long, my quaint little Morrigan Street is going to be renamed Morrigan Boulevard, and we're changing the name of the park to Morrigan Park.  The street will be wider and it'll actually connect to the highway now.  About one-third of the work is done and we've had two new businesses open up already.

So I went back into my email inbox and found that list of exercises and self-tests the agency guy gave me to do, and I did them again.  And would you look at that, my numbers are up across the board.  It appears that, to a degree at least, you are indeed the master of your own destiny.

And as good as being a low-rent superhero has felt all this time, stopping petty crimes and whatnot, the power bump feels even better.  I could do more, become more.  I just have to increase my territory.  I wonder if I could get the town council to length Morrigan Avenue beyond the park.  Why not?

Y, indeed.