Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Thirty-Four

Several indecipherable emotions crossed Camille's face in rapid succession, and she opened her mouth a few times as if to say something. Finally, the detective spoke.

"So, what was the, um ...." She seemed unable to finish the words.

"What was the butcher's bill?" he replied.

"Yeah."

"God only knows. You'd never think it now, but the area around Foley Square was like a war zone. Upwards of 40 buildings were razed to the ground. I don't know how many were injured or killed in the City. The final death toll, worldwide, was just over 80 thousand, but the UN redacted that number soon after they published it. I think it was much greater. The funny thing is that not a single significant government building in DC was attacked. Here in New York, the court buildings and government offices in the square mostly were untouched. The goal of the Soviets seemed to have been to attack civilian populations, either in their homes or at their offices. It was monstrous."

"So, they just wanted to goad us into a war?" Camille offered.

"It's very likely. Either way, it wasn't the end of it. None of the urban commando teams escaped, but it took US and NATO forces months to round up the last of the Soviet support teams and other members of the conspiracy. To their credit, officials of the new Russian government helped vigorously. The Gifted weren't a terribly popular stratum of the Soviet system, it appears. I'd be surprised if any of those involved escaped punishment."

Suddenly, Tommy rose from his chair and began cleaning up, taking away empties and wiping down the table. "Do you want another?" His words were cheerful. It felt like a storm suddenly had passed.

"No, thanks. I guess I just don't understand. How did the government cover all this up? I mean ... I grew up not believing ...."

"Oh, pretty easy, actually," he said as he stacked some bottles in a box in the kitchen. He came back and returned to his seat. "You have to remember, there are awfully few of us. Even in the relatively tolerant years following the Second World War, most of us kept a low profile—out of habit, I suppose. Discounting war vets, few people have ever seen one of my kind in action. And since most people never really believed, and since the federal government never officially confirmed or denied our existence, it was just as easy for the average person to believe in space aliens ... or terrorist masterminds. All Uncle Sam needed to do was just plant a little disinformation and allow people's imaginations to do the rest."

"Besides," he continued, "the Russians were our new best friends. No one in Washington or in corporate America wanted to queer such a profitable deal. After a few hearings and blue-ribbon panels, they officially settled blame on some up till then unknown bunch of international anarchists. I think that's the story now. Or maybe it's the Wahhabis ...?"

"It couldn't be that easy," she replied in disbelief. "There are thousands of videos of people online doing amazing things. Some of them have to be real ... don't they?"

"I have a friend who has suspicions about online media sites," he replied. "It would take very little effort for even a marginally gifted technician—working for the government, say—to alter an authentic digital video to make it look fake, and then to repost that altered video in thousands of places online. Wouldn't it just be human nature for anyone closely examining that altered video to assume all versions of the same video are fakes? And, anyway, it isn't just the government."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you said it yourself. None of your professors say the same thing. Look, have you ever heard the name 'Fair Hope'?"

She shook her head.

"At one time, she was an important figure in the study of the Peninsular Campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. She was this enormously tall, incredibly strong and beautiful woman who followed Arthur Wellesley's army in Spain and Portugal. A lot of sources at that time attributed British success to the aid she gave. Men were drawn to her, and wherever she went, British and allied troops rallied and won fights they never should have. Hope carried a shillelagh into battle, and she was supposed to have been able to use it to knock a man the length of 10 cricket pitches with ...."

"Wait, wait, wait ... how come I've never heard of her?" Camille seemed on the verge of anger.

"Because college professors live in a rational and reasonable world," he answered. "Hope was the first Gifted person to be fully documented in world history ... and probably will be the last. There are literally hundreds of firsthand documents still in existence that discuss her and what she did—letters, dispatches, personal journals, including Wellesley's own—and in the first century after the Napoleonic Wars, there were scores of academic books and monographs written on her and the role she played in the campaigns."

He gave her one of his friendly smiles. "And, then, mention of her in academic works began to fade. Nowadays, she seldom even appears in histories of the period, and if she does come up, it's in some obscure footnote referring to the 'power of myth' or the 'magic of military storytelling' or the 'maternal archetype' ... or some other such bullshit. Modern scholars now simply read over references to her in original sources, and they treat early secondary sources about her like ... well, nothing more than pulp fiction."

She gave him a long, confounded look.

He continued. "But I digress. In the end, it doesn't matter, at least not for people like me. After '91, the writing was on the wall. That period of tolerance after World War II officially was over. We all realized that keeping our heads down was the only safe thing to do. Far too many people who actually knew what'd happened in '91 had begun to wonder if the Gifted in this country didn't pose that same threat." He stopped again, considering what to say next. "In '91, none of us ever really thought the government would start secretly rounding us up ... though I suppose we should have."

His words were sad, but there was something chipper about his mood. Apparently, Camille couldn't fight the sudden infection and began beaming too.

"Camille," Tommy said after a moment, "what're you doing the next month?"

She smiled like a kid, unable to control her own grin. "I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"Because," he said, "would you like to go on an adventure?"