The trip out to Ruidoso normally takes around 10 hours or so by car from the Dallas area. Even starting out at after midnight, at an average speed of 300 MPH
I'd be there well before dawn. I was initially busy with learning more about how to maneuver at high speed. But I learned quickly and got to the point
where I could push most of the actual mechanics of it to my subconscious so I didn't have to actually spend any time thinking about it. So once I reached
that point, I was left with time inside my head for other things as I ran.
Things like the implications and possibilities of the "Event". I reviewed my own situation and what little I knew of what had happened overall and I
started to wonder how many others had been affected. (I never once considered the possibility that I was the only one. I don't know why, but even without
direct evidence just after my transformation I was certain there would be many others. It was somewhere between a hunch and a look at the numerical odds.) Many
of them would be heroes. Some of them would try to stay out of sight and deal with their situations and powers as quietly as possible. Some of those people
would be villains. Some of them would be "heroes" who decided that consequences didn't matter anymore.
I mentally cringed at the thought of some Hulk-clone or Dead Pool poseur doing a classic bank robbery.
Or worse. How many "gothic Vampires" would be out there? Oh dear god... it had been late at night and Pocket D had been in full swing... I'd want
to check the news and the net as soon as possible. I needed information, and fast!
Then I thought of something else. Mom would question how I showed up at her place in the morning. How had I gotten out there? No keys, no wallet, no CAR? And
no way could I afford airfare. She wouldn't have heard any news yet. But once she did...
I slowed and came to a stop about 40 miles west of Abilene as I considered whether I should even continue. I had to admit to myself that I hadn't thought
this through and I should.
My friends (those unaffected by this event, at least) would almost all be able to handle it if I told them. Nearly every one of my friends and acquaintances
was a science fiction/anime fan. I like to think most of them wouldn't freak out on me. Or at least, they'd do a quick freak out (like me) and then do
their own version of "that is totally cool!"
Of course the others changed like myself would need no explanation.
But my parents? I needed to consider that more carefully.
Neither of my parents are stupid. They were both in their 70s now and their physical health might be in question to one degree or another, but I considered
myself supremely fortunate that neither of them had lost anything in the grey matter department. They were sharp as tacks, both of them. And they knew about
the game. I'd talked about it enough. Not a lot, because it wasn't what they'd be interested in, but enough that they knew it was a pastime of
mine. There was a good chance they'd figure out something was up even if I didn't tell them anything.
Of course I could lie and say nothing happened to me. That I hadn't been online. But... somehow that left a very bad taste in my mouth.
I turned it over and over in my head. Thought of different ways to approach it. Different ways of showing the proof and breaking it to them as gently yet as
convincingly as I could. Should I spare them the shock now and wait until they'd heard something on the news?
No, they deserved to know. And they deserved to hear it and be able to take it in before they found out from any other source. Right now that decision was mine
to make and I had more options in how to do it.
As time went by my choices would be narrower. I decided I wanted to do this on my own terms. It was my responsibility.
So, having confirmed my destination and with a much better idea of what I was going to do about it once I got there, I set off again.
--------------------
I was careful on my way in. I had to slow down once I got off the flats and into the Southeastern New Mexico mountain range. Even with night vision and a
generous full moon, a gently curving road up the hills was nothing to be run at full speed. Ironically, I found my old in-game speed of slightly more than 90
miles per hour to be the best compromise.
Once I had gotten within a few miles of Ruidoso, I got off-road and leaped up the hills. Aside from a couple of shaky landings here and there, I found this to
be almost as exhilarating as speed running. I'd been slightly wrong before. There -was- a slight bit of
directional control to leaping. Not nearly as much as in-game. I had as much control as a sky-diver, really. But even that was enough, combined with superior
reaction speed, to turn a collision with an unexpected obstacle into a side-step, hop-and-skid landing.
I used my mobility to get above the town along the hills. Once I got close enough to the main drag, I picked out a deserted looking corner store with a loading
area in the back that didn't have direct line of sight to the street. I landed next to the store's dumpster, looked around and confirmed no one could
see me, and *morphed* back to my human guise.
It was nice and cool in the mountain air. I wandered out onto the main road leading through town. It was very quiet. Peaceful. The taillights of a single car
were receding down the east-bound lanes away from me. The illusion of the quiet mountain town was complete. But I knew it was slightly a falsehood. Ruidoso was
a resort town. And this was the tourist season. I'd arrived most likely about 30 minutes before the first of the natives got up to man the breakfast bars
and donut shops. Even so, it was still a more relaxed place than Dallas by far.
I strolled down the streets, savoring the night air. Listening to the sounds of the town starting to wake up.
Unexpectedly I experienced a moment of melancholy. This would be the last night of the normal world. I was standing on the dividing line between the past, and
the world as it would be when it experienced a meta-human "invasion". It would be an exciting time to be alive, to be sure. But there was that old
admonition - the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." Well the times were about to get very interesting indeed.
Perhaps savoring a normal stroll through the nighttime of a sleepy mountain village and visiting my mom before the real insanity started was the best possible
thing I could have done?
--------------------
I waited until the sun was well up above the mountains and my internal time said it was 9:00 AM. Then I walked up to the front door and knocked. After a
minute, the door opened and my mom looked at me in surprise.
"Will?! Well hello! Why didn't you call if you were going to come on up? Come in!"
I gave her a quick hug, saying, "Hey I wanted it to be a surprise."
She asked, "Is your father with you?"
"Nope. I'm on my own."
"Oh? Well come on in! I'm just getting breakfast, are you hungry?"
"No mom, I'm good. But if you've got some orange juice I wouldn't mind some." I said as we walked through the house to the kitchen.
She poured some orange juice for me as she said, "I'm glad you came out, Will, but you should've called. And you must have been driving all
night!"
"Well I haven't slept all night, that's true." Also not really answering the implied question
either, I thought to myself. But she'll know soon enough how I got here.
I let her talk a bit about how things were going with her. Let her set the pace. Did I remember the upcoming anniversary of the moon landings? Oh yes. We both
talked about that for a bit. From there things ranged to politics briefly. It was good to be able to talk about that sort of thing with someone who shared my
beliefs. I was closer to my dad in a lot of ways, but politics was one subject we always wound up disagreeing on.
During a pause, mom looked me up and down and said, "You've lost a lot of weight, it seems. I'm so glad, I was really getting worried. And when
did you start wearing contacts again? You look 10 years younger!"
I reached up to confirm I had no glasses on. Oops. How the hell did I miss THAT?
Oh well, nothing for it. This was the reason I was here, in part, after all.
"Well, mom. I don't need contacts or lenses anymore. At all."
She looked at me in confusion. "Now Will, I know you were between jobs, how could you afford laser surgery?"
I shook my head, "Ah... no mom. No surgery. But there have been some... er... changes. This is going to require some explanation. And, well, I didn't
drive here either." I paused, realizing I was jumping ahead, a bit flustered.
"No. Wait, let me back up..." She looked at me, waiting for me to explain, sensing that I was trying to tell her something serious. "I thought I
knew what to say, but maybe I'd better start at the beginning. You know that game I play? City of Heroes? Well something happened last night..."
I'd be there well before dawn. I was initially busy with learning more about how to maneuver at high speed. But I learned quickly and got to the point
where I could push most of the actual mechanics of it to my subconscious so I didn't have to actually spend any time thinking about it. So once I reached
that point, I was left with time inside my head for other things as I ran.
Things like the implications and possibilities of the "Event". I reviewed my own situation and what little I knew of what had happened overall and I
started to wonder how many others had been affected. (I never once considered the possibility that I was the only one. I don't know why, but even without
direct evidence just after my transformation I was certain there would be many others. It was somewhere between a hunch and a look at the numerical odds.) Many
of them would be heroes. Some of them would try to stay out of sight and deal with their situations and powers as quietly as possible. Some of those people
would be villains. Some of them would be "heroes" who decided that consequences didn't matter anymore.
I mentally cringed at the thought of some Hulk-clone or Dead Pool poseur doing a classic bank robbery.
Or worse. How many "gothic Vampires" would be out there? Oh dear god... it had been late at night and Pocket D had been in full swing... I'd want
to check the news and the net as soon as possible. I needed information, and fast!
Then I thought of something else. Mom would question how I showed up at her place in the morning. How had I gotten out there? No keys, no wallet, no CAR? And
no way could I afford airfare. She wouldn't have heard any news yet. But once she did...
I slowed and came to a stop about 40 miles west of Abilene as I considered whether I should even continue. I had to admit to myself that I hadn't thought
this through and I should.
My friends (those unaffected by this event, at least) would almost all be able to handle it if I told them. Nearly every one of my friends and acquaintances
was a science fiction/anime fan. I like to think most of them wouldn't freak out on me. Or at least, they'd do a quick freak out (like me) and then do
their own version of "that is totally cool!"
Of course the others changed like myself would need no explanation.
But my parents? I needed to consider that more carefully.
Neither of my parents are stupid. They were both in their 70s now and their physical health might be in question to one degree or another, but I considered
myself supremely fortunate that neither of them had lost anything in the grey matter department. They were sharp as tacks, both of them. And they knew about
the game. I'd talked about it enough. Not a lot, because it wasn't what they'd be interested in, but enough that they knew it was a pastime of
mine. There was a good chance they'd figure out something was up even if I didn't tell them anything.
Of course I could lie and say nothing happened to me. That I hadn't been online. But... somehow that left a very bad taste in my mouth.
I turned it over and over in my head. Thought of different ways to approach it. Different ways of showing the proof and breaking it to them as gently yet as
convincingly as I could. Should I spare them the shock now and wait until they'd heard something on the news?
No, they deserved to know. And they deserved to hear it and be able to take it in before they found out from any other source. Right now that decision was mine
to make and I had more options in how to do it.
As time went by my choices would be narrower. I decided I wanted to do this on my own terms. It was my responsibility.
So, having confirmed my destination and with a much better idea of what I was going to do about it once I got there, I set off again.
--------------------
I was careful on my way in. I had to slow down once I got off the flats and into the Southeastern New Mexico mountain range. Even with night vision and a
generous full moon, a gently curving road up the hills was nothing to be run at full speed. Ironically, I found my old in-game speed of slightly more than 90
miles per hour to be the best compromise.
Once I had gotten within a few miles of Ruidoso, I got off-road and leaped up the hills. Aside from a couple of shaky landings here and there, I found this to
be almost as exhilarating as speed running. I'd been slightly wrong before. There -was- a slight bit of
directional control to leaping. Not nearly as much as in-game. I had as much control as a sky-diver, really. But even that was enough, combined with superior
reaction speed, to turn a collision with an unexpected obstacle into a side-step, hop-and-skid landing.
I used my mobility to get above the town along the hills. Once I got close enough to the main drag, I picked out a deserted looking corner store with a loading
area in the back that didn't have direct line of sight to the street. I landed next to the store's dumpster, looked around and confirmed no one could
see me, and *morphed* back to my human guise.
It was nice and cool in the mountain air. I wandered out onto the main road leading through town. It was very quiet. Peaceful. The taillights of a single car
were receding down the east-bound lanes away from me. The illusion of the quiet mountain town was complete. But I knew it was slightly a falsehood. Ruidoso was
a resort town. And this was the tourist season. I'd arrived most likely about 30 minutes before the first of the natives got up to man the breakfast bars
and donut shops. Even so, it was still a more relaxed place than Dallas by far.
I strolled down the streets, savoring the night air. Listening to the sounds of the town starting to wake up.
Unexpectedly I experienced a moment of melancholy. This would be the last night of the normal world. I was standing on the dividing line between the past, and
the world as it would be when it experienced a meta-human "invasion". It would be an exciting time to be alive, to be sure. But there was that old
admonition - the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." Well the times were about to get very interesting indeed.
Perhaps savoring a normal stroll through the nighttime of a sleepy mountain village and visiting my mom before the real insanity started was the best possible
thing I could have done?
--------------------
I waited until the sun was well up above the mountains and my internal time said it was 9:00 AM. Then I walked up to the front door and knocked. After a
minute, the door opened and my mom looked at me in surprise.
"Will?! Well hello! Why didn't you call if you were going to come on up? Come in!"
I gave her a quick hug, saying, "Hey I wanted it to be a surprise."
She asked, "Is your father with you?"
"Nope. I'm on my own."
"Oh? Well come on in! I'm just getting breakfast, are you hungry?"
"No mom, I'm good. But if you've got some orange juice I wouldn't mind some." I said as we walked through the house to the kitchen.
She poured some orange juice for me as she said, "I'm glad you came out, Will, but you should've called. And you must have been driving all
night!"
"Well I haven't slept all night, that's true." Also not really answering the implied question
either, I thought to myself. But she'll know soon enough how I got here.
I let her talk a bit about how things were going with her. Let her set the pace. Did I remember the upcoming anniversary of the moon landings? Oh yes. We both
talked about that for a bit. From there things ranged to politics briefly. It was good to be able to talk about that sort of thing with someone who shared my
beliefs. I was closer to my dad in a lot of ways, but politics was one subject we always wound up disagreeing on.
During a pause, mom looked me up and down and said, "You've lost a lot of weight, it seems. I'm so glad, I was really getting worried. And when
did you start wearing contacts again? You look 10 years younger!"
I reached up to confirm I had no glasses on. Oops. How the hell did I miss THAT?
Oh well, nothing for it. This was the reason I was here, in part, after all.
"Well, mom. I don't need contacts or lenses anymore. At all."
She looked at me in confusion. "Now Will, I know you were between jobs, how could you afford laser surgery?"
I shook my head, "Ah... no mom. No surgery. But there have been some... er... changes. This is going to require some explanation. And, well, I didn't
drive here either." I paused, realizing I was jumping ahead, a bit flustered.
"No. Wait, let me back up..." She looked at me, waiting for me to explain, sensing that I was trying to tell her something serious. "I thought I
knew what to say, but maybe I'd better start at the beginning. You know that game I play? City of Heroes? Well something happened last night..."