Chapter 28: Ch 27 – Pass Us By

The movie was unexpected.

 

 

 

 

They went to see Top Gun, a movie that was out in theaters in Jack's old world as well. He expected to see a movie with female pilots, but they were all male. Apparently in this world, when it comes to the military, women usually wind up in special units where the men wind up in vehicles and support positions. You don't need superpowers to fly a plane, drive a tank, or man an artillery battery. You just need a strong back, good eyesight, and fast reflexes. Thus many men in the military wind up in the air force, or in some sort of mechanized unit.

 

Top Gun was apparently a documentary about the real life pilot known as The Maverick.

 

This sparked a discussion about the differences between their worlds, specifically about entertainment. Apparently there were a lot of movies that Jack would consider a dramatized biography about a real world person here. One would suppose when you live in a world where amazing actions that seem right out of a Hollywood blockbuster are a common daily occurrence, movies wouldn't focus on 'fantastical fiction' very much.

 

Romance and comedy were very common, but science fiction was replaced almost entirely by fantasy. Even then, it wasn't that popular. When Jack got around to explaining the movie franchise 'Alien' to Ivy, things took an odd turn.

 

"Wait wait wait... you have an entire franchise called 'Aliens' where all the aliens are horrible monsters bent on wiping out humanity?" Ivy looked shocked.

 

Jack held up his hands defensively, "Whoa! We don't HAVE aliens in my universe, remember? Nor space ships, or anti gravity, or..." He paused, "Huh." He peered around as they stepped out of the metroplex, "Why don't you have flying cars?"

 

Ivy stopped, "Huh?"

 

Jack looked at her, "Flying cars. You have super science, by my standards. You have space ships, aliens visiting from other worlds." He gestured around, "However, the technology here is actually, well..." He thought back to the rotary dial phone in his motel room, "To be blunt, at times, archaic, even by my world's standards."

 

Ivy paused, then gestured, "You want to walk or ride? I know a cool place to eat and it's about a fifteen minute walk. Normally I'd expect a man to want to take a cab, but..."

 

Jack snorted, "Humph. They grown'ed TUFF on my planet!" He beat his chest like a monkey, grunted, then gestured into the distance, "Lead on, woman. Me man. Me quest for fire-roasted quesadillas."

 

With a laugh, and without asking, Ivy took up Jack's arm and started to lead him along. Jack peered at her grasp and pondered this. Adam chimed in, ~You're thinking what I'm thinking, aren't you? How these subtle power moves are all about keeping one's date off balance so one can mess with the date's head? So how's it feel to be treated the way you used to deal with ... ahem... 'babes', as you might say?~

 

Jack ignored the voice in his head and considered asking for a moment or two alone so he could yell at Adam for a bit. He wasn't paying attention to the conversation because of Adam's comments. So when Ivy finally gave her answer, it took him off guard.

 

"I don't know if I should tell you."

 

Jack squinted at Ivy, "Huh?"

 

Ivy sighed and pulled him in a bit tighter, "Ignorance is bliss." As she put an arm around his back to rub his shoulder, "You sure you want to hear this?"

 

Jack glanced at the hand on his shoulder, but did nothing about it and looked back at her, "I've seen some shit. Lay it on me."

 

She nodded, "Well, the reason is because of how often we have to rebuild everything."

 

Jack blinked, "Huh?"

 

Ivy nodded, "You'd be surprised how much damage gets done to the city on a regular basis. Hell, any city. It just takes one kid growing up to have an awakening that goes poorly and next thing you know, a high school detonates. Or worse..." Her voice took on a softer and more hollow quality, "A kid develops mental powers and mind controls everyone around her into being her personal slaves." She shuddered as her eyes unfocused and stared off into the distance, as if she was seeing far into the past, "Even if you are her friend, that just means you get to stand there and watch."

 

Jack frowned as this was taking a rather dark turn.

 

"Much of the governments of the world's GDP goes into dealing with catastrophes." Ivy shook her head as she returned to the here and now, "Then for a while there was a huge backlash against supers. It looked like there was going to be a second holocaust, then the anti-christ showed up and showed the world we NEED capes."

 

Jack nodded, "I read about that."

 

Ivy softly let out a bitter laugh as she slowly shook her head, "You read the propaganda. The world basically has most of its citizens on lockdown. Most of what we do is monitored to makes sure we aren't going to blow up a city or five. However, the tighter the grip, the more people resist. I wouldn't call half the crooks that capes go after real criminals, as most are just people with their back against the wall."

 

Ivy gestured to a store as they passed by, "Yes, there are really high end luxury goods, but few people can afford them. So when a rebuilding takes place, people usually use cheaper alternatives because there's a good chance it'll all just get smashed again."

 

Jack had a dawning look of realization on his face and it wasn't a good one.

 

"Eventually the insurance companies took over. Capes are just a natural product of the system trying to minimize costs. The golden age of the Periodic Platoon is long gone. The silver age in the nineteen fifties lasted until the Un-American Activities Committee got in full swing and revealed the massive infiltration of the government by villainous societies. The purges of the sixties were necessary, but got out of control. The eighties were a nightmare for people who were exceptional. Mom and dad went into hiding" She sighed, "My father lost my mother in twenty ten. It was why I grew up on a farm in the middle if nowhere... and why dad opposes me following in her footsteps."

 

Jack nodded as they paused at a crosswalk and waited for the light to change, "But then the Anti-Christ showed up."

 

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Ivy nodded, "Yup. After that, the world had to change. Superhero teams became more common. The government started pushing propaganda HARD to normalize supers. At the same time the population crash was happening, so they had to fix things. Men..." She paused and looked Jack in the eye, "You sure you want to hear this? I'm going to tell you the truth, not the propaganda."

 

Jack paused to look at her sideways, a look of both apprehension and resolution on his face, "I've come this far."

 

Ivy nodded gravely, "Populations were crashing world wide. There had been too much environmental damage, and too many disasters. We had the means to fix it, but not the manpower. Every moron who had enough advanced super science was setting up a moon base. Proxy wars were springing up everywhere." She gestured up at the quarter moon on the horizon, visible as the sun slipped below, "If you had a telescope, you could see the surface of the moon is pockmarked with a dozen different domes burrowed into the regolith."

 

"Society was on the edge. People were just giving up. Nihilism was the word of the day. Humanity had seen her day and it was just time to give up." She paused to look up at a billboard that was displaying a picture of All-Star endorsing a private security firm, Morrison Shield, "That's when the caretakers took charge. They were everywhere. They pulled together every cape they could into the Caretakers and got shit done. Countries that were in complete anarchy, they came in, took over, stabilized the region, then... funny enough... left."

 

The light changed and the resumed walking, "So they didn't become dictators?"

 

Ivy nodded, "Yup. When Wonder Man joined up he became the face of the Caretakers. Then the US government got its act together and formed WASP of the US of A. They started pumping out the SePU units." She paused to look at Jack, "Those are Semi Programable Units. Giant Robots, basically." She returned her focus to where they were walking, "So America stabilized, then North America, Then Europe. The Soviet Union got its act together, so did most of Asia. So things were calmed down, but there was the problem of not enough people so..."

 

She winced a bit, "They started subsidizing births. Children became a top priority. Women needed to be on the front lines, so they needed to pop out those babies, but someone needed to stay home and raise those kids. So they basically made it really difficult for men to get jobs. In some countries, they just full on started locking them up in their homes. That was mostly in the middle east."

 

Jack blinked, "Excuse me?"

 

Ivy nodded, "So no more abortions. No more birth control. Condoms were outlawed. There was a full on push to husband up as many men as possible. They-" Jack cut off Ivy by pulling away and holding up his hands in a T-sign.

 

"Whoa. Time out." Jack dropped his hands, "I don't get this. Shouldn't WOMEN, who have the feed bags-" He pointed at Ivy's breasts, "Stay at home with the kids? I mean, One man can get a bunch of women pregnant. Why would you need to... I mean... any of that?"

 

Ivy looked confused, "Huh? I mean, yeah, but past the first month, breast feeding is pointless. Most of the antibodies are transferred by then. Pedolyte is way more healthy and also has all the metabolics you need to properly promote monad expansion. Plus, women are more effective on the front lines, or doing heavy manual labor, or any one of a hundred different things." She shrugged, "Besides, it only takes nine weeks to have a kid."

 

Jack corrected her, "You mean months."

 

"No. I mean-" Ivy stopped walking, "How long is gestation in your world?" Jack suddenly realized something was very different here.

 

"Nine... months."

 

Ivy looked surprised, "Wow. or... actually... that makes sense. I remember reading it used to take months back in the old days before they developed Invitrogrow." She looked glum, "Not that I can take it. Not compatible with my system."

 

Jack just stared.

 

"You... okay?"

 

Jack shook his head.

 

"Sorry. I didn't mean to-"

 

Jack held up a hand flat to her face. Ivy stopped talking. Jack took a deep breath, then let it out slow, "You warned me." He resumed walking in silence.

 

Ivy returned to her place next to him, but only lightly held his arm for now, "This is a big deal to you, huh?"

 

Jack nodded, "Yeah. I mean... fuck. If women can jump pop out kids like it's nothing, what's the point of being a man? I mean, part of the deal is that a woman is incapacitated for like... two years when she gets knocked up. I mean, you CAN do things, but really you shouldn't. It takes a while to recover from having the baby. A man is supposed to protect his woman." He ran his hand through his hair as he wrangled these new foreign concepts.

 

She squinted with both eyes, "Huh. Never really thought about it." She looked apologetic, "I mean, they don't recommend having more than two kids a year, but you could theoretically have... four?"

 

Jack's jaw hung open. He turned away and looked straight ahead for a while. Eventually he asked, "What... is the death rate in this world if women have to pump out four babies a year?"

 

Ivy was quiet. The only sounds to be heard were from the city and the light foot traffic around them. She finally took a deep breath and said, "Too high. Far... too high." She looked curious as a question popped into her head, "What's the average age when people die in your world?"

 

He shrugged, "I dunno... seventy eight, I think."

 

It was Ivy's turn to look astonished, "Holy cow. You're serious? I mean... yeah. Of course you are serious." Jack was about to ask when she volunteered the answer.

 

 

 

 

"Forty eight."

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