Super Jaded 2 - Chapter 4B (Patreon)

Chapter 4B: In Which Fern Dooms Two Thousand People Then Bathes.

“What is this? Where the hell are we, you bitch!?” Jet O’Hare spoke, the first of many to speak up once he saw me enter the room in all of my muscle-bound glory. Man, I thought I already understood the appeal of being an unstoppable goddess, but finally seeing all two-thousand-something billionaires in a single massive room, all huddled together at the bottom like rats in a basement while I floated above them in my brilliance… Well, let’s just say it was a damn fine day to be Fern Chang. Everything was going exactly as planned, Jet had even given me a perfect starter question to break into spiel with.

“You’re underground right now because that’s the only way to avoid your body being cooked by stellar radiation the next time the sun decides to throw a temper tantrum.” I announced, looking to all of the suited men equally with the barest hint of a smile on my face. “You’re welcome to expand out onto the surface as long as you follow the rules.”

“Rules? What rules?” One of the CEOs questioned, his eyes flicking between me and the sole airlock door that posited an exit for this grand room. 

“The rules of you putting your lives where your public image is,” I raised my hands dramatically. “Many of your ilk have claimed that humanity will need to expand into space in order to ensure that your lifestyles could be maintained, and this is your chance to prove it. Around you, you will find a generously apportioned colony space. As long as you follow the rules, it is yours to do with as you please. You all claim to be brilliant inventors, so among the rooms you will find a machine shop, a medbay, and a power management room. All of the facilities here are things that you have designed and blueprinted, made with the help of some very loyal friends. Every choice you made, every corner you cut, it’s all going to be here.”

I couldn’t fight the smile on my face, there was just something satisfying about the chance to monologue. Maybe it was the fact they were already always calling me a supervillain, maybe it was just the heroic rush Nina had talked about back before things were as bad as they’d gotten… 

“There is an oxygen garden for your food and breathing needs, plus an emergency scrubber in the machine room. Power is from solar panels and a hydroelectric loop setup with once-yearly charge of a kinetic flywheel backed up by yours truly, and, of course, all your equipment for cooking and life support are electric. Ditto for your communications, so long as you keep to the rules. Like rule number 1: No rockets can come here. You can get in contact with your companies’ engineers land-side and they can support you, but only with designs for you yourselves to build. You have a 3D printer and other tools, and a little manual labor will let you get basic materials from the area around you. So long as you don’t accidentally hit the vacuum I suppose.” I was giggling now, they looked like they were finally starting to understand their situation.

“It took quite a bit of work to carve all this out, to clean up your cosmic messes around the Earth and then start building all this, but I did want to give you all the best chance possible. Which reminds me of the second rule: No suicide. I can read your minds, I will know if you try and anything you try to use will be taken away before you get the opportunity. You’re here to be explorers, that’s what you always wanted isn’t it? Here’s your perfect Martian colony, I want you all to live as long as you possibly can.”

“You maniac! You’ll kill us all!” one of the billionaires declared amongst the ensuing uproar.

“Oh, what? Now you’re going to tell me that you all owning that much money means that you aren’t the most qualified people for any task?” I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm as I relished in their misery. These assholes would’ve destroyed earth if it kept their shareholders happy—now they can destroy a different planet all to themselves!

“Guys, don’t give up hope! We can show this maniac that we are worth our weight in gold!” a particularly bright-eyed man spoke up. As a younger guy in more casual attire than the rest, I assumed he somehow managed to retain his assets after riding some big tech bubble early and leave everyone beneath him holding the bag as he got away scott free. “S-she gave us everything we need to survive, she just thinks that we’re going to eat each other because we’re rich and we don’t know how to work together or something!”

Now, several heads were turning his way. The panic seemed to quiet down somewhat. “If we just allow our pride to take a hit, I’m sure we could come out of this situation not only surviving, but thriving!”

The other billionaires began to murmur amongst themselves. With my enhanced hearing, I could tell that the majority seemed to think he had a point. Oh well, leave it to these prideful fuckers to unite just to spite someone of many backgrounds like me. Now it was time to dash any sort of optimism these idiots could’ve had.

“Does anyone know why no one lives in Antarctica?” I asked, amplifying my voice and commanding all of the attention in the room back towards myself. “Anyone? Anyone at all?”

As expected, the room fell deathly silent.

“People don’t really think about it that much, right? Despite having a completely breathable atmosphere and plenty of fresh water, I don’t see anyone scrambling to live in Antarctica. It’s been well documented that scientists who work at Antarctic bases suffer from depression, irritability, aggressive behavior, and long periods of fugue states. It even has a name, they call it the ‘Antarctic Stare.’ Hell, they’re only staying there for a few months! Imagine actually wanting to live there and start a whole colony. And if they want a fine cold gulp of fresh air, they can at least leave the camp. There’s a damn good reason they want to stay drunk all the time!”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Anyways, I’m gonna go kiss my girlfriend! I’ll see you in a few months.”

I zipped off up into an exhaust pipe, making extra careful not to break anything as I exited into the inhospitable surface of the red planet. A toothy grin breached my lips as I heard the billionaires break into chaos once more, devolving into petty squabbles about what they would do for entertainment and who would take leadership. That plucky little billionaire’s rousing speech might as well have been ancient history to them—and they weren’t exactly the type of people to learn anything from history anyways.

The flight back to earth was short but… unproductive. When in the vacuum of space, all you really have is your thoughts to distract you. My thoughts should’ve been happy, after all, this “dump all the billionaires on Mars” bit was a personal project of mine that had spanned several years in the making.

…So why was I still thinking about what my mother had said to me yesterday?

This was supposed to be my moment. I could understand her not approving of me killing others, no matter how justified it was, but she should’ve been more appreciative of me finally getting revenge on Jet O’Hare! That bastard! I should’ve set aside a special place in the core of the planet for his pathetic ass.

I had everything I could ever want from life except for one measly thing, why was I allowing it to trip me up so badly?

I practically tackled Nina once I made it back to earth. My clothes had burned up on reentry—a fact that had only made my loving girlfriend more excited to see me. We had recently renovated the mountain that once belonged to the massive heads of some ancient dead guys. I had insisted that we rename it from “Rushmore” back to the original name of Tunkasila Sakpe Paha, but Nina’s suggestion of “Tanka Wíŋyaŋ” (grand women) was also rather enticing… even if I was fairly certain that the translation wasn’t perfect. I guess it really just came down to what the native population were feeling.

“Heehee! Clingy today, are we Ferny?” she remarked. My loving embrace diminished slightly.

“C-clingy? I’m not clingy. Am I clingy?” I replied, my words shaky with wavering confidence.

Nina immediately noticed something was wrong with me. Now it was her turn to be the comforting girlfriend I needed. She pulled me from my slump—with a little assistance from my body—dragging me into a passionate kiss.

When even that failed to alleviate the ick I felt deep within, I saw Nina shake her head like a disapproving parent—albeit lovingly.

“Oh Fern, is lil’ ol’ Neensy going to have to become the bearer of massages now?” she spoke in a sing-songy voice, giggling like a schoolgirl.

“I dunno, Neens, I’m not sure I’m in the mood for a—”

“Totally rad bath in a waterfall river complete with a massage from your favorite, naked lover?” she cut me off, a twinkle lighting her verdant, sultry eyes.

That got my attention. I stopped in mid-sentence, blinking in surprise. Had she just said naked? Was I in the mood for this sort of thing right now? We already spent so much time naked around each other now that puritanical laws of its ilk no longer applied to us. But a bath together in the waterfall I knew both of us were thinking of… we only reserved moments like that for special occasions, I wasn’t about to say no to my beautiful girlfriend.

She smiled as she saw the wheels turning in my head, circling around me to give my tense shoulders a sensual squeeze.

“God, your muscles are hard,” she said, a touch of huskiness entering her voice. A tingle of pleasure washed over me at the thought I was turning my gorgeous lover on without even doing anything. I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation of her fingers on my skin, even though her massage was more symbolic than actually effective. She was just a regular supergirl, and her fingers couldn’t dent my overpowered muscles. “All that terraforming has really given you a workout, huh?”

“Haha, not really…” I replied, underselling my own strength. Truth be told, it really wasn’t much of a workout at all. A bit tedious with many repetitive tasks, but nothing that strained my muscles. Stress was the real culprit. My body was invincible, my mind was still vulnerable.

In an instant we were at the waterfall, a hidden local that I was fairly certain even the people obsessed with our every movement weren’t aware of. I leapt into the frothing water, allowing the cool mountainous water to soothe my body. I nearly felt slumber overtake me. God, why was I so tired all of the sudden? Perhaps the relief of completing my Mars mission was weighing on me.

Then came hot breath warming the skin on the nape of my neck, goosebumps rising to the occasion as Nina remained inches away from it. Her beautiful lips pressed to the downward-sloping curve between my neck and shoulder in a soft, languid caress. My eyes, unfocused as they stared at the flicker of a soothing candle, slowly closed, my long eyelashes brushing my upper cheeks. 

Nina’s slim fingers snaked over my sculpted upper abdomen, tracing the contours of my muscled core before changing direction, traveling upward. They rose the swells of my breasts, their spreading touch like the slow and sensual flow of tendrils, causing me to gasp a shuddering breath as they reached my tightening nipples.

“G-god, Nina...” I breathed, her touch, as always, building a tsunami of desire within me. I was being spoiled by Nina, there was simply no other way to put it.

“There is no god here, only us supergirls, silly!” she responded, tracing circles over the crowns of my breasts with her scalding finger. My chest heaved irregularly as I basked in the pleasure of it all, electric ripples of stimulation surging through my softest flesh.

Her body writhed like a sexual cobra until it was atop me, smothering my lips with reckless abandon. Her fingers took to my pulsating snatch like a desperate, starved animal, clawing at my insides with all the power it could muster. While my approach to fingering was much more reserved and calculated, I couldn’t lie—I fucking needed to be handled rough right now. I wanted my conflicting thoughts to be drowned out in a cacophony of mindless pleasure. And Nina knew how to leave me howling better than anybody.

Our mouths wide, tongues locked in a moist, writhing dance, I felt my climax near. My abs clenched. My toes curled. I broke our kiss and screamed.

My hips thrust from the water, my back arching. Nina’s fingertips continued to deliver shockingly powerful ripples of unspeakable pleasure into my womb as my body began to convulse. Fuck… that might just’ve been one of the best orgasms of my life. Definitely strong enough to rival the time right after Nina and I first declared ourselves the definitive victors against the US government.

It was all almost enough for me to forget about… Well, I guess it wasn’t enough, then. After the thunderous highs of the orgasm, my face fell back into a stasis of general malaise, which my girlfriend noticed after she peeled herself off of me.

“Still thinking about your mom, huh?” Nina asked, hitting the nail right on the head.

“It’s just… the serum being poison to my mind…could that really be true? Is this really some sort of curse I’ve put onto myself?”

“No. Hey, no, no, no! Ferny, this is no curse! This is whatever god you believe in telling us that we are destined for greatness! This is reality designating us as the main characters of the setting! We have a great responsibility to make sure we don’t fuck this up, yes, but you’ve got a good head on your shoulders—a head I’d love nothing more than to eat me out later tonight.”

I giggled as I properly returned Nina’s smooch from earlier. Maybe my girlfriend was right. And… maybe my mom was wrong. I deserved these powers. Every action I took with them was the right one, a necessary evil that would improve society in the long run. History would surely vindicate us. The billionaires were only the first step of a long line of decisions made by me that would fix this deeply, deeply fucked up world.

This serum wasn’t poison. This was the cure.