Episode Two

Shock and Awe

              I am on my journey now.

              I am the Recorder, and I exist to chronicle the oral history of those that lived through the dawn of the Superhuman. The world in which we live in now is in many ways a paradise - a perfect utopia - yet was only achieved through profound and complex struggles that have left their marks on the globe.

              Factual records of that time do still exist: the broken fragments that are all that persists of the once-global internet are now entombed within Legion’s Spires. But my Record is to be distinct from those facts, and is instead a record of the oral history of those who lived through this tumultuous period and in many cases witnessed these events first-hand.

             To this end, I have already conducted many interviews, speaking to humans scattered across the four corners of the globe. I have met those who were there when the very first supers came into being, and those who made their existence public. I have spoken to those who profited from their existence, and those who felt resentful of them.

              I have spoken to surviving supers about their experiences, and the varied experiences they have had whilst the world changed around them. And one sentiment has struck me, time and again. In all the histories I have recorded, in all the experiences I am learning of second-hand, there is a sense of nobility infused throughout the narrative my interviewees are giving me. There is above all, a sense of hope.

              Amidst the fear and uncertainty – and in some cases, continuing hostility – that humans seem to feel about the world as it is, there is an unmistakeable sense of familiarity in the way those sentiments echo the sentiments of the time, over two decades ago, when superhumans first walked amongst mankind. And, like before, I find myself seeing the same cautious hope and optimism. The world back then seemed to realise that it was on the brink of a great future: today, with the ceaseless work of the Gardener, the Maker, and the others like them, the world is not only healing from its wounds, it is slowly maturing.

              As such, I look forward to the next stage of my Record: in many ways, the steps I have taken so far have only been the briefest introduction into what I have been tasked to record and preserve.

              The concept of a superhuman seems to be one that has been muddied by its contact with reality. Instead of noble ideals, people with superpowers seemed to be just as fallible as mundanes. This is to be expected I suppose, but it makes it even more astonishing that in the end one person did come to exemplify true superhuman prowess.

              One person who seemed without fallibility, without weakness, without equal. One person who wanted to make the world a better place.

              His name was David.