Chapter 2

Like everyone else, I'd played what if games with friends, discussing powers and superhero careers. Before mapping even a tentative future, I decided to branch out and start reading up on the so-called "soft" sciences. This was also a good time to take care of general education, covering up college requirements for English and History, at a minimum. Acquiring the shiny patina of scholarly erudition might be useful, and it did shortcut the school requirements.

For the next couple of days, that is exactly what I did. Taking a break from science, I continued to read and tried to decide what and who I was going to be, or rather, what I wanted to be. It didn't take very long for me to see the manipulation behind the hero-villain dichotomy, and decide that I wanted no part of that game. When I put myself on the chessboard, it would not be as a pawn. Then I started looking at the world, beginning with the CIA world factbook, and I was horrified.

It is one thing to hear your mother telling you to finish up your food, because children were starving in Africa. The logical connection was tenuous, to be polite. It was very much another thing to see how true the second part was - the Western world was growing fat, while children were starving, in Africa and Asia and the Middle East, and quite probably Eastern Europe and Russia, South America and probably even the US and Western Europe. The one dollar a day earning power of an adult, in an all too astounding number of countries, made that shatteringly clear.

Twenty minutes of plotting later, I had to concede that solving the problem was beyond my power and ingenuity, at least short term-wise. I'd not only have to conquer the world, I'd have to administer it well. The solution was clear - I'd have to try it small scale first. I had the not entirely shiny examples of Karedonia and Lord Paramount, but I didn't have to rule openly. The lack of telepathic powers would make things a bit more difficult, but quietly conquering one of the backwards African countries no one really wanted or cared about shouldn't be that difficult, with a few years' preparation. Settling on Madagascar was a no brainer - an island would make things even better. Larger than France, with less than a third the population, taking a third world country past first world and straight into the space age was a worthwhile undertaking. It was something I could willingly spend my life on, I decided after a moment of reflection.

Having a purpose in life makes an incredible difference. My friends at school remarked on it, almost immediately. My posture, apparently, was much more confident and no longer slouched. My eyes seemed to burn, every move and gesture more incisive. I was paying more attention to my surroundings, sacrificing half my reading speed to keep an eye above my head, and couldn't help but noticing the political and courting plays in school, but they just couldn't hold my attention. Still, I was learning of more new things. The actual purpose of the personal oversight was security. Couldn't have anyone shooting the future savior of the world in the back, right?

It was a full day before I got my balance back and climbed off my high horse. Of course, it was Emily who punctured my new superiority, innocuously asking why I was looking at her hair instead of her eyes when I asked her to come to the table. She got worried when I didn't stop laughing for five minutes, pestering me for an explanation until I made one up, and started telling her jokes from a book of jokes I had open in a bookshop far far away, practicing inflection and hand-waving until I managed to work up from pathetic to barely adequate jokester. Audience feedback is useful when you can read it, and Emily wasn't subtle about her reactions to my feeble attempts at humor. Super mental acuity doesn't grant you talents you do not otherwise have.

Getting back to science study was a relief, and I added languages. French and Malagasy were the common languages in Madagascar, and I had a devil of a time finding anything about the Malagasy language. I added Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, German and Japanese to the waiting language list, reading the dictionary and a couple of guides, before scanning a few books in those languages and watching recorded TV shows and newscasts at (very) fast forward to absorb the pronunciation, elocution and intonation. Then I practiced mangling the languages for a while, as my tongue and throat just weren't designed for some of the vocals. It was all too obvious that I was missing the physical exemplar adaptability, but might just have the mental package. I wouldn't trade them for the world.