The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

“We thank you for attending today, Dr. Ouilette.”

“Congressionals,” she replied calmly, even as an arc of lightning danced over her shoulders, setting her briefcase on the floor beside her and taking her seat. The murmurings around her died down as the peanut gallery and photographers behind her waited for the fun to begin.

“Dr. Ouilette,” the slender, affable-looking Senator at the center of the table began, “do you know why you’ve been called here today?”

Sparks flashed again, perhaps at his confident, patronizing tone. “I know why I have come today. Why you think I’m here may well differ, Senator Blake. Why don’t you inform everyone of why you called me here, and then we’ll all know?” Laughter followed the even reply as if on cue.

“I’m detecting more than a note of hostility in your voice, Doctor. Are we keeping you from something?” he rejoined, and frowned when more sparks flashed.

“I’m detecting more than a note of dishonesty in your voice, Senator. Am I keeping you from speaking honestly?” she replied calmly, her eyes sparking, and he flushed. “Yes, I can tell when people are lying to me, as I’m sure you recall from our prior chats. In all honesty, I suggest you give up the microphone to Representative Adams, because she at least is sincere, and won’t insult me with every phrase she speaks. Lying to me when I know you are lying is extremely impolite, Senator.”

“I, uh, have no idea what you are talking about, Doctor.” Sparks flashed over her shoulders again, her eyes not moving, and the crowd chuckled as they realized what was going on. He reddened as he realized it, too. “Now, see here, Doctor, you do not have a monopoly on the truth!”

The sparks danced wildly, making him flush at her unperturbed expression. “The truth has a monopoly on itself, Senator. Alluding that I seek to claim one is quite disingenuous of you.”

“Senator Blake’s question was fairly straightforward, Dr. Ouilette. Do you know why you are here?” the afore-mentioned Representative Adams leaned forward quickly to take over as Senator Blake found himself without words.

“Yes, I know why I am here. I repeat, I am not sure why YOU think I am here. I am not a mind-reader and do not know your motivations,” she repeated politely.

“There is a bill being proposed to regulate beings with super-powers, brought up after the events in Stamford. We thought it would be best to get input from someone with those super-powers, who does not hide their identity from the world. You are a known public contact for both the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, as well as running two of the most prominent technological businesses in the United States, the Baxter Foundation and Ferrus Enterprises, and so we settled on you.” There was only a slight crackle, and the older woman winced.

“Very diplomatic of you, Representative Adams,” DiDi noted. “I am here to inform you that the bill you are passing is a load of horse-shit drawn up by Crux agents and sympathizers, including your Senator Blake here. You are letting the agencies responsible for the disaster write up your own response to it, a case of classic political insanity, akin to allowing a judge to preside over his own trial for murder.”

“Now, see-”

“Senator Blake has been a member of the Sons of Liberty since he was fourteen, recruited in by his father and uncle both,” DiDi smoothly interrupted and overrode the experienced politician effortlessly, they literally could not hear his voice as she went on. “The Sons of Liberty are a feeder organization to the Crux, and have been for the last one hundred and twelve years, ever since it was set up soon after the Golden Hag drove the new settlers back across the Mississippi. They have given over seventy million dollars to the terrorist organization that CEO Walter Declun of Damage Control belongs to, the very man who paid off Nitro to detonate himself in a civilian area for maximum publicity and some extra business.

“I am very sure the Senator did not want me here, as we’ve clashed before in his role as the mouthpiece for Max Midas. His reputation as a bought and fair-weather politician is well-known among my compatriots and associates.”

The ashen senator swallowed as her green eyes stayed on him for a long moment, before moving to the Representative. “Your bill, like the Human Registration Act, is an artwork of bias and prejudice that fundamentally contradicts your very own Constitution’s rights and laws under any and every current understanding of your nation’s foundational law.”

DiDi reached down into the briefcase at her side and withdrew an entire stack of paperwork, twelve inches high, which could not possibly have fit within it, nor could she have possibly held it all. She simply laid her hand on top of it, pulling it up, and setting the untied stack heavily down atop the table she was speaking from.

“With me I have brought the legal opinions of the top twenty existing constitutional lawyers in this country as to the validity of the proposed Superhuman Registration Act. If anyone cares to peruse them, they are welcome. Although the nuances of their arguments are long and the references quite wordy, their opinion is unanimous, and that is that the bill is malarky and cannot stand up under Constitutional Review. It will be challenged and defeated within hours of it being passed.”

“You are claiming you have control of the Supreme Court of the United States?” another congressman broke in. Lightning crackled over her shoulders, and he flushed. “Stop doing that, Doctor!”

“Stop lying, Representative Phillips,” she shot back coolly, reaching down into her briefcase and pulling out seven more folders, which she fanned out on the table in front of her. “In front of me are the extremely brief legal opinions and summations of seven of the nine currently serving Justices of the Supreme Court in regards to the Superhuman Registration Act. In light of the potentially dangerous circumstances that might alight from passing the Bill, and the extreme expenditures involved in enforcing it, the Justices agreed to a preliminary vetting of the language of the Bill, and having done so, will fast-track it if it is passed for immediate deliberation in formal chambers.”

She shoved them off to one side, near the stack of legal opinions. “There is concurrence among those seven with the nation’s finest legal scholars.”

Her fingers clasped before her as she stared at the members of the Congressional Board before her, who were appropriately shocked. “That... is why I am here, Congressionals. Also, I am going to walk these legal opinions over to the Supreme Court afterwards as reference materials to the Court if the Bill ever comes to pass, and I already have Regivald Zanotti on retainer to challenge it.” He was the number one lawyer for arguing cases before the Court, for numerous reasons beyond his keen legal mind. The very fact DiDi could retain him meant the Bill was likely doomed, as Zanotti didn’t like to argue a losing position.

“If I may ask, without rancor, what is your opinion of the Bill, Dr. Ouilette?” Representative Adams asked hesitantly, adjusting her glasses after seeing her associates too awed to speak. That level of contact and influence among the elite legal community was no joke. She had literally reached right into the Supreme Court and gotten their opinions before the Bill had even been passed. It was unprecedented.

“It is utter insanity. The definitions of superhuman abilities is so loose that being born double-jointed, with a high IQ – like four members of your own board! – or simply natural athletic talent, a strong immune system, or natural immunity to a specific disease could be construed as ‘superhuman’. It is utter discrimination against a branch of humanity that your own Constitution forbids you from pursuing, instantly creating ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, which are the joys and darlings of the totalitarian societies your own ancestors fled from.

“Furthermore, superhuman abilities are created nearly as often as they are born, and that is only increasing as our genetic knowledge increases. Any person in this room could be turned into a superhuman with the time and money, even if they may not like what kind of superhuman they end up as. The Bill formalizes discrimination and ‘special treatment’ against anyone. If you don’t like them, mutate them into someone with red skin that protects them from being sunburned, requiring a simple injection, and now you can treat them as dangerous weapons under the law!

“It is insanity, but given the terrorists it was drafted by, understandable. Eugenic supremacy is part and parcel of the heritage of the Crux.”

There were many murmurs behind her at those words, many of them not friendly at the implications.

“What would your alternative be?” Rep. Blake inquired, and there was faint crackling around DiDi’s shoulders that made the Representative wince.

“I do not speak for my compatriots, who all hold their own opinions on this matter, although most of them agree that the Bill is worded by a half-ass racist with an agenda,” DiDi replied to his leading question. “The simple fact is that a super-power is no more dangerous to a common person than a gun is, and the vast majority of natural Powered do not have gifts that are all that useful in combat. The majority of ‘super-powered’ out there will go down to a bullet in the skull as easily as any other person will.

“Discriminate against those people brave enough to use their abilities to fight against those people who have no compunctions about using theirs, and soon enough you will have a town of gunfighters who won’t pick up a gun to save you, because they’ll be hounded and ostracized for it.

“The whole ‘super-hero’ world operates under a good Samaritan principle. The whole super-villain world already operates under your ‘Superhuman Registration Act’, as they are identified and outed as soon as they commit crimes. Exactly how much has that fact done to stop superhuman crime?”

She let that weigh on them for a moment, watching them frown. It hadn’t done jack shit, of course.

“Your whole problem with secret identities comes down to trust factors. Central American police are shot and killed at home, often with their families, when their identities are discovered. If you think some of the villains out there are less psychotic, you have not encountered enough of them.

“And thusly many police go to work in masks in those nations. Yet still, people are bribed, identities are leaked, and effective police who do their jobs are murdered by those they catch and put behind bars. Soon enough, corruption runs rampant.

“I could give you no less than twenty examples off the top of my head of street-level and higher Powered capes whose identities were discovered by their enemies or those they’d brought to justice, and their families and friends paid the price, usually in blood.

“If you want to control the potential threat of the Powered to those with none, then regulate and train them. Heroic individuals willing to throw themselves into violent situations are rare, and gifted ones moreso.

“Start training them in law-enforcement heroic and mundane, give them official responsibilities and authority to go with it, and you should probably pay them extremely well.

“In short, you are grappling with a model solved long ago in the Tribes, Russia, and Wakanda, who have minimal lethal superhuman crime, far more Powered per capita than you, and none of this racist drivel-on-paper terrorists are convincing you to make into a law, which will not last minutes under inspection.

“If you don’t want vigilantes, that’s fine. But if you don’t give those unregulated heroes an alternative, all you are doing is getting rid of the heroes, while the villains continue doing their thing and laughing at you.

“That’s not lawmaking, that’s idiocy, and it only benefits those who ignore the law or think themselves above it.

“Switch the focus of your Bill to unauthorized vigilante operations, require training, and set up the required schools, academies, and facilities necessary to do so, staffed by professional military and emergency services personnel so that those who want to operate in this world have at least the fundamentals down of what they need to do. We already do those things for those mutants, mutates, Powered, and Talents in the Future Foundation.

“Every other advanced nation on the planet with a formal Powered presence does that, Congressionals. Why the United States does not has long mystified them, but they chalked it up to the influence of villains and wealthy arch-conservatives who didn’t want more adept and well-paid and equipped heroes around, and simply worked around it.”

“And this whole secret identity matter?” Senator Blake puffed up weakly, trying to regain some face. “How would you handle that?”