Superhuman: This Is Why I'm Hot!

My name is Jeremy Saint Pierre. A six-foot-three, kind of chubby but still handsome, short-haired black man with dark brown skin and pale brown eyes. At first glance, I seem like any minority youth in the big city. Strolling down the street in my black leather jacket, red T-shirt, blue jeans and Texan-style black boots. I'm thrice a minority, folks. And not just because I'm Haitian-American. I'm Black, male and post-human. You see, I am a genetic post-human. We do exist. Get used to it. I attend the University of Massachusetts, Boston campus. I major in Criminal Justice. I'm a member of the Men's Varsity Rugby Club. I'm really into football but unfortunately, my school doesn't have a team anymore. Whatever. Rugby's the next best thing so that's why I'm into it.

I'm just your average guy trying to live his life, you know? I live in an apartment located near campus with a friend of mine, Matthew Marquis. He's a big and tall Jewish guy from the town of Stoughton. He goes to Northeastern University and majors in business administration. We've known each other for a long time. We agree on most things. Like me, he's a Patriots fan. He used to live in New York and for some reason still prefers the New York Knicks to the Boston Celtics but at least he doesn't care for the Yankees. If he did, I might have to kick his ass. I don't like Yankee fans. I'm a Red Sox Nation man. Thank you very much. Yeah, Matthew and I only got one major disagreement. He's Jewish and I'm an atheist. His faith demands that its men be altered physically according to the tenets of their religion. Yeah. I'm not sure that's okay with me. I'm all natural from head to toe. Unmodified. As was my father before me. Still, I didn't fault Matthew for having his beliefs as long as he didn't force them on me. We just agreed to disagree.

This year, I went around the college campus trying to recruit people for the Men's Rugby Club. One of the most promising recruits was a tall, black-haired and bronze-skinned, good-looking Latino guy named Joel Rodriguez. He was a really cool guy. Like me, he came from the city of Brockton. While I attended the infamous Brockton Community High School, he went to Cardinal Spellman, the local Catholic school. We had a lot in common. We were both former high school football players who didn't quite make the leap to college football. Joel's older brother Ramon played football for Boston College. Lucky bastard.

I don't know why I got along with Joel so well. Later, I found out why. Like me, Joel was a post-human. I discovered his secret quite by accident. We were just walking out of a movie theater one Friday night when a car came at us. Actually, it was a truck. The kind of really huge truck you just don't want to drive near when you see them in the big city. The truck was about to crush us. That's when Joel simply grabbed me and flew away with me. I couldn't believe it! My buddy could fly!

No one saw Joel and I as we took off into the air. He flew me back to campus, and there we had the most amazing talk. Joel was the first post-human I had seen in months. Most of us would do anything to stay hidden. That's why we hid our powers. My power isn't exactly hard to hide. Yet I'm more careful than most. I'm invulnerable. I simply cannot be hurt. I've been shot, thrown off a building and even exposed to a flamethrower going at full power. I still don't have a scratch to show for it. Like the heroic Achilles of Greek lore, I simply couldn't be hurt. A lot of people think being invulnerable would be pretty cool. I am almost paranoid about hiding what I can do. People get hurt all the time. Someone who doesn't tends to stand out. So I am really careful.

Joel was surprised to discover that I was a fellow post-human. He wasn't the only one in his family with gifts. His older brother Ramon, the most dominant player on the Northeastern University football team, was a post-human as well. I found this out while we were hanging out a few nights later. Ramon could move at amazing speeds. He'd already broken NCAA records for the most passes in one season. And unbeknownst to his coaches and teammates, he wasn't even using his top speed. With him leading them, the Northeastern University football team was at the top of its conference for the first time in decades. I was impressed. Ramon was a cool guy. And he was living my dream. Playing NCAA Division One football at a top notch private college. If I could, I would have traded my invulnerability for the ability to move at supersonic speeds. Ramon laughed when I told him that. He thought my power was pretty cool. What football player wouldn't want to be invincible? I hate it when people say they think I'm invincible. I'm no stronger or faster than any man my size would be. I can't get hurt but I don't think I'm indestructible. I recalled how I got my ass kicked many times during my stint on the wrestling team back in high school.

Hanging out with Joel and Ramon was pretty cool. I didn't have any post-human friends. Hell, I didn't have many human friends either. I simply didn't know who to trust. My parents kicked me out of the house when they found out I was a post-human. It saddened me, to be betrayed by my own family, but I left. A few months later, I found out they died in a car accident. I attended their funeral. It was back in the Summer of 2007. I haven't been back there since. There is a lot of anti-post-human sentiment in the world these days. You see, in 2009, it's not okay to discriminate based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, body type, health status or creed. However, there is nothing in the law books to protect post-humans like myself. That's why most of us hide what we are from the world.

The world first found out about post-humans in 2007. There was a firefight between the Boston Police Department and a band of outlaws who robbed a bank in the South End. Three police officers were killed. One police officer managed to take on the entire gang and take them down. Her name was Rachel Stalwart. Such a fitting name. This tall, slim and rather average-looking black woman got shot seventeen times and healed right on the spot. You see, she could regenerate. A power that made her almost impossible to kill. And she also possessed superhuman strength. The six-foot-one, 150-pound black policewoman could lift twenty times her weight and proved it by lifting a squad car and hurling it at a trio of robbers, killing them instantly. Did I mention the whole incident was recorded on camera and shown on The Ten O'clock News? Yeah, it was.

Boston Policewoman Rachel Stalwart became the most famous person in the world. The media couldn't get enough of her. And the world wondered what she was, and if there were others like her out there. That's the day the world discovered the existence of post-humans. We were an extremely rare breed. Men and women born with extraordinary super powers. There were only a few hundred thousand of us living on the planet Earth. For thousands of years, we had hidden among humanity. Now, the world knew our existence. And the President of the United States ordered the creation of a special task force to apprehend all individuals with extraordinary abilities. Men and women were selected from the U.S. Army, the FBI, the CIA and the U.S. Marshals to hunt down all post-humans. They were called the Trackers. It was the beginning of the end for us. As for Rachel Stalwart, she was never seen again. I shudder to think what the government did with her.

The governments of the world seem to think that all post-humans are madmen and madwomen hell-bent on taking over the planet. I don't know where they get their ideas. There is no cabal of post-humans trying to take over the world. I'd know if there were. We're just people trying to live. The Trackers show up in just about every major city. Wherever post-humans gather, they seem to come. And they're very well-informed. They want us all either dead or imprisoned. That's not going to fly even if they put wings on it. I've committed no crime. I've never hurt anybody. I was born the way I am and I cannot change. Couldn't change even if I wanted to. And I don't think there's something wrong with being a post-human. If the humans come after me or my newfound brethren, they're in for one hell of a fight. Peace.