If I Ruled The Universe

Sometimes, the stupidity of some people simply astounds me. I think there's a limit to everything, from the bottom of the sea to human imagination. Unfortunately, human stupidity seems to be the exception to that rule. How else would you explain the things I see happening around me everyday? Madness everywhere I look, folks. No other word to describe it.

My name is Lucy Lopez. Your superhero for the day. A five-foot-eleven, short-haired, curvaceous gal with dark brown skin and almond-shaped green eyes. Born with superhuman strength and an accelerated healing factor. I am biracial, the daughter of a black mother and a Puerto Rican father. District Court Judge Janet Leanne Brown and Massachusetts State Trooper Jericho Lopez. I was born and raised in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts. Me and my family belong to a top-secret society known as the Evolved. Like our name implies, we're a group of humans who are genetically ahead of the common type of human known as Homo Sapiens.

Who are the Evolved? We're people from all over the globe. Blacks. Whites. Asians. Latinos. Middle-Easterners. Eurasians. And so on. We're soldiers, cops, doctors, lawyers, scientists and politicians. Every group in society. Every category. There are around a million of us living on the planet Earth. We didn't come from the stars. We're not aliens. We're not monsters from another dimension. We're ordinary people born with extraordinary powers. We're not a new race. We're a very old one. We were around in the time of the cavemen and woolly mammoths. Humans have never known we were here....until now.

Like most of my kind, I try to lead as normal a life as possible. These days, I work as a security guard at Copley Mall and attend the University of Revere. The school has three campuses, in Plymouth, Boston and Allston. I chose to attend the Boston campus because it was closer to home. I'm glad I did. I got the chance to meet some cool people. And a lot of stupid folks. I suppose you run into those everywhere. They're as common as grains of sand. Unfortunately, it's not up to me play judge, jury and executioner. I'm only a rescuer. I can save folks from danger, but I can't save idiots from themselves.

Take my older sister Lara for example. She was given the best of everything in life. Starting with being six feet tall, lean and sexy. With the kind of pretty face, big tits and a big booty that makes all the girls in the neighbourhood jealous. Oh, and she has special abilities too. She can run faster than any human being on the planet. Up to three hundred miles per hour. Superhuman speed and stamina are her talents. She's always excelled at every sport from basketball to softball and track & field. She won an athletic scholarship to Eastern New England College as part of their women's softball team.

My big sister had it made. Mom and dad loved her more than me or our brother Enrique. Somehow, Lara Lopez managed to throw it all away. She met this hustler guy named Damon and next thing you know, she was skipping class and smoking weed. She got busted by a N. A. R. C. in her dorm and was expelled from the softball team. Oh, and she got pregnant by Damon. The guy already has two brats by a white chick and an Asian broad. Isn't that some shit? My big sister fucked up her life.

I know it's not a very nice thing to say but I'm glad she threw her life down the toilet. My whole life this bitch has made me feel inferior. She always had it easy. Our parents thought she was made out of gold. Dad thought his oldest daughter's shit didn't stink. She was spoiled rotten. He got her a brand-new red convertible when she graduated from Brockton Community High School in 2002. What did I get when I graduated in 2005? Some cake and a Pepsi. Not even a real party. Oh, and as for my brother Enrique, our parents don't talk about him much because they consider him an embarrassing memory. Just because he's different.

Enrique has always been dear to me. We're very close. Even though he's one of them naturally pretty people like our sister Lara, he's actually a nice person. Always kind and friendly. He used to get into fights with other guys and even gals in high school because they called me porky. I stand five feet eleven inches tall and weigh two hundred and forty pounds. I'm not tiny by anyone's standards. If you got a problem with that, screw you. I'm not kidding. Life is too short to worry about the haters.

I've always been a very active and competitive person. I was a varsity wrestler and a basketball player in high school. So I could handle myself in difficult situations. Still, Enrique felt the need to defend me. I think it's because of his Empathic abilities. He can see right through the true nature of people, and even glimpse their thoughts if they're not careful. It's hard to keep anything from him. He knew how these jerks and bitches harsh words hurt me and wouldn't stand by and let them go on bugging me. I do so love my brother. He's such a good soul.

When Enrique won a football scholarship to Boston Tech, I was happy for him. He deserved it. We've always confided in each other. So when he broke up with his long-time girlfriend Meredith and moved in with a sexy gay hunk named Hector Guillermo, I was very supportive. To be honest, I always suspected my brother was gay or at least bisexual. It's hard to say. It's not like he acted girly or anything. Oh, no. This six-foot-two, black-haired and green-eyed biracial stud was quite a presence on the high school football team and he went to play college football, he had lots of female fans.

That's how he met Meredith, I guess. I never cared for the tall, blonde-haired airhead. However, she was skinny, with big boobs and a big ass so guys always liked having her around. Personally, I thought my brother could do better. When he told me he had fallen in love with a guy, I was actually happy for him. Meredith was a dumb-ass and a control freak. Good riddance! One afternoon, Enrique invited me to dinner and introduced me to his boyfriend Hector. The meeting went swell.

I was quite pleased to meet Hector. He was around five-foot-ten, stocky and muscular, with spiky black hair, dark bronze skin and pale brown eyes. He was really good-looking too, but in a rugged way. Unlike my brother, who looked more like a pretty-faced male model than a rugged and manly college football player. No offence, Enrique, but you do seem almost delicate at times. No matter how tough you are.

Back on topic, folks. I liked Hector and I loved the effect he had on my brother. They smiled at each other constantly. Enrique seldom smiled when he was with Meredith. The prissy bitch always had something wicked to say. Sometimes I felt like smacking her just to get her to shut up. Hector on the other hand was fun, easygoing and friendly. He attended Anderson College down in Boston, majoring in Criminal Justice. He wanted to be a state trooper someday.

When I reached for my coffee on the table and found it cold, Hector told me he knew how to fix it. With a simple touch, he turned my coffee from nearly ice-cold to burning hot. I was stunned. He had powers too? Hector laughed, as did Enrique. Apparently, everyone was in on the joke but me. Apparently, Hector had Pyrokinetic abilities. He could induce extreme heat in just about any form of matter, living or inanimate, and cause it to burst into flames. He was a Evolved too. I laughed heartily and he squeezed my hand gently. Apparently, we were all super-powered freaks. How cool was that?

He told me a bit more about himself. He was the captain of the men's rugby team at Anderson College. Hector was also out to his friends and family. He was very understanding of Enrique's situation. My brother played college football at Boston Tech. He couldn't come out of the closet. It would ruin his life. Also, I knew our parents wouldn't be cool with it. They're not very tolerant of alternative lifestyles and were vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage being legalized in Massachusetts. They would flip if they found out about Enrique and Hector living together. Seriously.

Personally, I don't know what the big deal is. My parents have always been proud of being different. After all, they're both genetically Evolved. My mother Janet Leanne Brown can read people's minds. She's a Telepath. Her abilities have proved invaluable to her in her career as a prosecutor and later, as a District Court Judge. It's really easy to tell who's guilty and who's innocent. For some reason, she can read everyone's minds except for us. Her three brats. Isn't that a hoot? I guess that's why Hector was able to shield his secret desires from her for so long. Me? I saw through all that. No one knows my brother like I do.

As for my father, Jericho Lopez, his natural abilities have made him one of the top men among the Massachusetts State Troopers. What kind of cop would you be if you had superhuman strength and bullets bounced off you? Dad is invulnerable and has super strength. No, he can't fly. I don't know anyone who can. However, there are a few people with super powers out there. Not just my family. I can't tell you how many because I really don't know. We've always been around. Hiding in plain sight.

We don't let ordinary humans know about our abilities because they would hunt us down like animals and put us in cages to do experiments. Either that or kill us. The only rule all genetically enhanced humans follow is that ordinary humans cannot and should not know about us. Ever. Hector told us that he was the only one in his family with powers.

I gently touched his hand. The poor guy must have been so lonely. Enrique and I were fortunate to be the offspring of Evolved humans. Many of our kind aren't so lucky. Evolved humans who are the offspring of ordinary humans tend to be isolated. Also, no offence but human society is barbaric. Evolved men and Evolved women have formed a society of our own, within human society. We have rules, and customs.

We're a very family-oriented bunch. It's not uncommon for Evolved families to have lots of brats. Also, we're very naturalistic. We're not big on surgeries, or following most human customs whether religious or otherwise anymore than we have to. Most Evolved humans are atheists. In the past, we faced persecution at the hands of religious fanatics who thought our powers came from the Devil. They killed many of us. We tend to shun all religions, and the rites and practices associated with them. Catholicism. Judaism. Mormonism. Baptism. Episcopalians. Adventism. New Age beliefs.Protestantism. It's all hogwash to us.

We embrace logic, and the natural way of life. You won't catch any Evolved parents allowing their sons to be genitally mutilated in the name of God. And you won't find them initiating their daughters to the ways of the Goddess, like Pagans say. Religion and all rites, practices and customs associated with it is a load of bull.

It's not out of religious fervour that my parents reject my brother Enrique for being bisexual. They reject him because they loathe the idea of him not breeding. Healthy males and females among our kind are encouraged to breed as often as possible, preferably with our own kind. Relationships with ordinary humans are strictly forbidden. I'm not sure how I feel about that one but I understand its necessity. If humans found out about us, they would kill us all. They might open death camps for the genetically different, like the Nazis did to the Jews in the twentieth century. However, I'd like to think that some humans would be okay with us being who and what we are.

Oh, man. I've drifted in thought again. Sorry about that. We're done having dinner and it's time to leave. My brother Enrique and his boyfriend Hector briefly kiss as we get up to leave. I smile at them, and also notice the shocked looks on the faces of a black couple and their friends who are sitting a few tables away.

The men raised their eyebrows and the women smirked and shook their heads. I stare at them coldly. Enrique senses my hood and lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. He tells me their opinions don't matter, and we leave the Food Court.

As we walk through the Mall, I find myself deep in thought once more. The reaction of these folks to my brother kissing his boyfriend in public was shocking to me. I mean, this is Massachusetts. The first state in the union to legalize same-sex marriage. You'd think folks would be more tolerant here. I don't know what bothers me more, the fact that these bigots gave us dirty looks or that they were black. I am always surprised when I see a person belonging to a group that gets discriminated against turn around and discriminate against yet another person or group. I've met blacks who hate whites and Jews who hate minorities. I've met Latinos who hate blacks and whites.

Yeah, the world is filled with prejudiced people. Maybe the leaders of the superhuman community aren't wrong in forbidding intimate relationships with ordinary humans. They're a barbaric lot and they don't have a great tract record for dealing peacefully with those who are different. I could see them hunting us down. All I know is, if there's ever a species war, my loyalties are with my own kind. I'll see every last human dead if they come after me and mine. You got my word on that one. They got the numbers but we got the powers. Peace.