Hyper-Man and the Battle Blimp

     I am in the vast, bright central control room of a giant floating airship, floating fifteen feet in the air above the floor. I have to avoid looking out the window at the stunning violent storm, or the minuscule city below. Out in the storm is my partner in world-saving, Hank Johnson, adorned by an electric exoskeleton and carrying a rocket-hammer that makes him roughly my equal, though it seems to me that the difference between making a weapon that lets you pick up a tank and punch through a wall and just being an alien freak is pretty significant.

While I float, Steve Sterling sits calmly in his chair across the room, almost daring me to try and attack him. I know the gesture would be futile; he’s probably protected by a force field or something. Sterling is, well, I guess you could call him a super-villain, if you’re the kind of person who calls me a super-hero.

Like Sally Selwyn, I suppose. Dumb girl reporter sees everything in terms of heroes and villains, like the world is some kind of cartoon. She totally buys my Hyper-Man act. It never occurred to her that I’m really Jim White, nobody actor from Laramie, Wyoming. I am a good actor, though. I’ve gotta be. Anyone watching one of my plays would be able to look at me and think “Well, there’s Hyper-Man. Time to sell his secret identity to the highest bidder.” Being the most famous being on Earth will do that to you.

I remember there was one time when an alien named Brone figured out that I was really Jim White. His plan involved telling Sally Selwyn the truth and that was it. She’s never had any contact with me as Jim aside from seeing a few of my plays. She arranged an interview to confirm my identity and decided I wasn’t Hyper-Man five minutes in when I still clearly wasn’t him after taking off my glasses to polish them. Dumb girl reporter thought I just used that as my disguise.

Sterling is a renegade scientist who comes along once in a while to threaten world security. He’ll usually help out during an alien invasion; he was great help during the Ghachuath-ras war. Ghachuath-ras was a planet eating alien god. He would send his herald to planets beforehand that they’d been selected for dinner. When the herald showed up on Earth, the UN called me up and asked me if I could punch Ghachuath-ras’ lights out. I thought they were joking. I had a hard enough time with the Herald. I really can’t take out a Cthulhu type god.